Pregnant Belly Dancing: A New Pregnancy Trend

Apparently, there is a new trend for pregnant women--pregnant belly dancing. Yep, women in their third trimester baring their bellies and getting down.

First of all, WHAT? Secondly, The movements that they were making looked kind of painful for a pregnant women. At least they did to me, and I can still run part of the time during my morning workout.

More importantly, my belly should not be seen in public--ever. I don't think any amount of gyrating would make my stretch marks look any prettier. As a matter of fact, I'm quite positive that it would have the opposite effect. I'll go try it out in front of the mirror and let you know.

Mmm yep. Not a pretty sight.

Well, I guess I'll have to sit this pregnancy trend out.

Memorial Day

I guess we didn't want to waste any of our holiday or something because our memorial day started at 6:30 am! Actually it started earlier for me. 6:30am is when we left for the Hot air balloon festival in Anthony NM. We actually got there in time to see more action this year. The last two years we have gotten there too late and just saw the tail end of it.

Here we are all crammed in the front of the van to get a better look. These are our two favorites. The purple one is a monster and it is so cute! I wish we could have gotten a better picture but it was next to impossible.

In the afternoon the kids got to play with Hailey's "wet n' wild" toy that she got for her birthday. That lasted all of 10 minutes. You can tell that you have acclimated to El Paso when your kids are freezing in 90 degree weather. ha ha.

After that Hailey got to use her gift certificate to Chuck E. Cheese's that Aunt Mandi gave her for her birthday. The kids had a blast but I have to say, Jackson and Alexia are serious saftey hazards in that place. They were climbing all of the rides. Particularly when there were other people on them. People that we don't know. I'm sure they were quite annoyed. Probably not as annoyed as the guy who was playing Skee Ball. Jackson kept trying to run off with the balls. Hailey and Garrison were good sports though. Jackson kept stealing the balls and chucking them up the lane. More than once he grabbed the ball and started running up the lane. Conal had to actually climb up on the the game and chase him up to the top. It was so funny. I wish I had a picture but unfortunately it all happened too fast.

Jackson and Alexia did get to go on a few rides that were age appropriate. They loved this "Wheels on the bus" ride. This little bus sings "The Wheels on the Bus" song and they both would sing a long. Well, Jackson just says "round and round" over and over but close enough.

A rude awakening

Imagine this: It's in the middle of the night. The house is quiet. You are sleeping peacefully. And then.......the person next to you.......jumps out of bed.........screaming.

Unfortunately for Conal, this has happed too many times in the last couple of weeks. I'm lucky he is a patient man and doesn't freak out too easily. The problem is that I keep getting "charlie horses". This was also a problem when I was pregnant with Garrison and in the 3rd trimester. Man, those things hurt! They are so bad that the only thing that will get rid of them is to quickly stand on the leg with the problem. Believe me, you have never seen a pregnant woman jump out bed this fast. Don't ask me why I can't jump up that fast when I have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, but that is another post.

I really do try to be quiet about it, but I end up making somewhat of a commotion everytime. One time Conal said, "Man, I thought you were being attacked or something!" Poor guy! Sorry Con!

Are your kids sugar deprived or something?

I'm sure everyone at Conal's cousin's wedding reception thinks my kids are sugar deprived or something. First, Garrison was drinking some Horchata and he said "Mom, this is GOOD. It has SUGAR in it!" Then a few minutes later, Alexia and Jackson downed two huge pieces of cake between the two of them. Jackson kept saying "more, more" and Alexia kept trying to box him out with her elbow to get the next bite. They were seriously acting like they were starving to death or something. The funny thing is that we had just eaten dinner right before the reception, and the kids had gone to a birthday party earlier in the day and had been eating candy, and other treats all day.

I've decided that kids and wedding receptions aren't the best mix. It was a backyard reception (very pretty) and we couldn't keep Jackson and Alexia out of the their dog house. Then Jackson wouldn't leave Aunt Carol's walker alone. He was pushing it everywhere until Uncle Mac gave him a ride on it. Then he really wouldn't leave it alone. ha ha.

All things considered, our kids weren't the worst that they've been at a wedding reception. At least no one had a meltdown or anything. Plus they got to play with their cousin Lane who came with his Mom and Dad to visit and to go to the reception.

3 year old + baby powder = disaster area!

It was sort of funny when it first happened, not so funny when I was cleaning it up for 3 hours, and now I can finally laugh again.

I think that the "Keep out of reach of children" warning on the bottle of baby powder is less from the danger that the powder itself poses and more for the danger that a child may find him/herself in once their parent sees the mess they have made with said bottle of baby powder.

Holy cow! One bottle of baby powder can make such a mess. You can sort of see the mess that the baby powder made on the floor but this picture just does not do it justice.

It was ALL over the main floor. It was on every hard surface. I had powder handprints on everything. It was so hard to clean up. I dusted 3 times, vaccumed with my floor mate 7 times and mopped 4 times. We are still finding baby powder in the strangest places. I got out the crockpot this morning and it had a film of baby powder on it. I have no idea how that happened---it was in closed cupboard when the "incident" occured.

Apparently I need to heed the "keep out of reach of children" warning. ha ha.

Your weapons are useless against them!!!

Anyone remember that line from Tommy Boy? It's where they are driving drunk and in order to avoid being busted by the police they drive recklessly into a field and jump out of the car pretending that they are being stung by a swarm of bees. The police officers finally leave once they yell "Your weapons are useless against them!" Classic.

Anyway, a couple of days ago this scenario kept running through my head as the bee body count kept rising in my master bathroom tub. The first time I was in there, there were 5 bees buzzing around. I went in a half hour later and the count was up to 15. By the end of the day I counted 22 bees that I either cleaned up or had to kill. Yikes! WHAT is going on?

Apparently, bees built a hive in a little space in our roof and they were getting into my bathroom through the vent. I don't even want to know how many bees were in there. EW! Luckily, we have a really good pest control guy who knows how bad this kind of thing bugs me (no pun intended) and although he laughs at me for it all the time, he came over to check it out. They had to come back the next day in their bee suits (feel sorry for them, it was close to 100 degrees outside) to take care of the problem. So far so good. I hope the problem is fixed! If not, I guess bees aren't SO bad. I'd take all 22 bees over ONE scorpion, and I'd take that one scorpion AND the 22 bees over one itty bitty little mouse. My family may not believe me on that though. They saw me run all over a park with my plate of food in my hand to avoid bees. Personally, I think running around while eating is a good way to work off the calories as you are putting them on ;).

Is this your first?

I have heard this question so many times the last couple of weeks. It is becoming a great source of entertainment for me simply because of the response that I get back when I say "Nope, its my 5th!". It is seriously SO funny.

A couple of weeks ago the lady who was taking my blood for my glucose test was just making conversation and asked if this was my first baby. When I told her it was my 5th she sat there with her mouth wide open for like 15 seconds until I started chuckling. Then she said "Oh sorry, I just thought that you look WAY too young to have 5 kids". While, I will accept the compliment about looking too young, I think that the wide open mouth was more because she was thinking "Do people even have 5 kids anymore?"

My friend Cynthia (who is also expecting her 5th I might add) said that people seem to think 4 is a lot but when you go to 5 you have crossed some sort of imaginary line and now you have a TON of kids. You must be right Cynthia!

The wide open mouth response has not been uncommon. Usually after the shock has worn off the person will say something to the effect of "Well, good for you!" or "Well, congratulations!". However, the obvious initial shock still makes me giggle everytime!

Take THAT!

Conal taught a self-defense class for women on Thursday with the help of his lovely (or not so lovely) assistant: Me. I can't decide if I am glad or sad that there aren't any pictures documenting this 30 minutes of our lives. On one hand it might be nice to have some pictures of me chucking Conal onto his back while I'm 7 months pregnant. On the other hand, it may not be such a pretty picture to see me chucking Conal onto his back while I am 7 months pregnant. Maybe I don't want to see the view that the sisters of our ward got during that "technique". Maybe that is best left to one's imagination. Option #2 is probably closer to the truth. Maybe it wasn't too bad since some of the brethren told Conal at Fathers and Sons that their wives are making them practice all of the self-defense techniques with them at home. Maybe I looked kind of like Wonder Women or something............um........probably not!

Um, it won't fit Jacky, we promise!

Sometimes kids are so determined.......and for reasons that are unknown to us. Saturday the kids were playing out in the backyard and

Jackson was having a ball playing in the little police car. That is until for some reason he decided that he HAD to get the toy lawn mower in the car with him. He tried 17 different ways (that was a MMMMW quote for you Con) to get that thing in the car with him.

He even tried to fit it in there when Alexia was in there with him. As if there was any extra room. ha ha!

So Conal tried to help him and as you can see he didn't care for that option either. Oh well, we tried. What can you do?

What in Whettenwild world was up with this week and the weather?

Murphy's Law. Enough said right? It's been 90 degrees here for the past couple of weeks. It hadn't rained in El Paso for over 100 days..........that was until Friday. For one day, the temperature dipped down into the 60's and it rained all day. That is great right? We need the rain. It should be nice to cool off before it hits 100 degrees this week. Of course the big dip had to happen on the same day as the annual Fathers and Sons outing.

Conal was excited to have the outing in Cloudcroft NM up in the mountains. It would be a nice break for everyone from the heat. They just didn't expect for it to dip down to 27 degrees. YIKES! That's cold for El Pasoans. Especially since we dug out the shorts and flip flops back in March. Fortunately, everyone was prepared for what El Pasoans consider "extreme weather" and they all still had a great time.

I'm not sure which Conal would prefer; Cold, wet, weather, or what he has come to refer to as the annual wind festival (only a true El Pasoan knows how funny that really is!). The last two years were so windy they were picking sand out of their teeth for days. I cleaned the grill for them two years ago and it was caked with grease and sand. I'm sure those hotdogs were tasty! Oh well, it makes for great male bonding and some good stories to tell for years.

At 7:41 am

So I have this nerdy thing that I do each year on my kids birthday. I take a picture of them at the exact time they were born, which for Hailey is 7:41am. Lucky for me none of my kids were born in the middle of the night. ha ha. Here is Hailey's picture for this year. My second nerdy tradition is that on their birthday I start thinking about what I was doing on the day of their birth at that time. This turned out to be an unwise thing to do yesterday. Unfortunately, my memory was too clear and I started remembering too many details about c-sections, and realization hit that I have to do that again in 7 weeks or less and that I DON'T WANT TO and that I have no way to get out of it. So today my goal is to get myself back into some form of denial. It's the best way to be I tell ya!

Whoa there, back to Hailey and her birthday. Since she already did the cake/cupcake thing she decided that she wanted doughnuts for dessert. Fine by me. YUM! I don't remember the last time I had a doughnut. She also wanted pepperoni pizza for dinner. Again, fine by me, I get a break from making dinner. My favorite part is Alexia trying to blow out the candle.

Hailey was excited to say the least about her present from Aunt Mandi and the J's. Yeah! Thanks!

She also got a water toy which I think is very appropriate for this family, and is also very appropriately mentioned on this blog due to the nature and description of this toy. It was kind of hard to get a picture of the writing since it was small and the plastic was shiny, but it mentions something about Whettenwild, I mean wet n' wild action. Wahoo!

Happy Birthday Hailey!

The promised party pics

As I was saying earlier, and I'm sure that you will agree, every detail of this party is so cute. From the invitation :
(The little guy actually moves down the path and it is a picture of the birthday boy sitting on his pinata)


To the cake and cupcakes:
To the ginormous pinata:
(Here is the real life version of the pinata.......except with Jackson on it this time=))

To the table setting.

I added this one just because I like it.

You are so creative Jessica!

Jackson's first birthday party

WHAT??? Wasn't Jackson's birthday in October? Yes! but this the was the first friend birthday party that he went to. Boo hoo, my little guy is growing up. Today he is getting invited to a friend's birthday party, the next thing you know he will be driving. Ok, enough of that. Seriously, this was the cutest little party. From the invitation down to every detail. I think my friend Jessica should be a party planner. She is SO creative. Conal didn't have our camera with him but I will see if I can get some pics to post from my friend. Here is Jackson wearing some of his party souveniers.

LOVE the hat and LOVE the safari scarf (or whatever its called, I'm not up on my safari lingo).

I even love sticky Jackson from his treats in his treat bag.

Even the treat bags were just as cute as can be. Some people are just so creative.

Peter Piper picked a pack of pickled peppers.......say that 5 times really fast!

Ok, Ok, so I took the easy way out. Hailey had been planning her birthday party for this year since her birthday party last year. She had so many things that she wanted to do that it would've taken a week to get through it all. However, I started getting overwhelmed with all of the things that we have going on right now so I threw in the towel and opted to take Hailey and a few of her little girl friends to Peter Piper Pizza.

It turned out to be just as great. It was hardly any work at all and the girls (and Garrison) had so much fun. Mandi made the cutest invitations (thanks aunt Mandi!) and I made some butterfly cupcakes. They didn't turn out nearly as cute as they were on the website but I couldn't find the exact things that they used. Even if I had I'm sure I would've messed it up anyway.

We picked up all of the girls and they all thought that riding in the van with all of their friends was the coolest thing ever. Some kids are so easy to please. The best part of all is that they we all SO good and had a great time.

I know a name, a glorious name, dearer than any other.....

listen I'll whisper the name to you, it is the name of mother.

Typically I am not one for sappy Mothers' Day stuff (although I do like the primary songs for Mothers' day). I'm not one of those mothers that hate mothers day or anything, I just really prefer humor over sappy. Anyway, Garrison pulled one over on my non-sappy self this Mothers' Day. He brought home from school this darling dishtowel with his name, the year, and his hand print on it. Of course I loved it. Then he said "Mom, will you keep this towel up in your room so it will remind you of me when I am on my mission?". Conal immediately started chuckling because he knew that my non-sappy self became, well.....sappy. ha ha.

Happy Mothers' Day Mom! You are the best!
Happy Mothers' Day Mandi! Thanks for the book and for being such a great mom to my little nephews!
So much for not being sappy. ha ha!

So Long, Farewell.......and whatever the next line of that song is

Grandma and Grandpa Whetten came to visit the grandkids this weekend. They have been in Mexico for the past few weeks and will be leaving in the next month for the MTC and then to Panama City, Panama to serve in the new temple there. Grandpa Whetten has been called to the temple presidency.

We took them to Old Mesilla

and coincidentally they were having a big fiesta in honor of Cinco de Mayo. There was a ton of yummy mexican food, many booths with fun things to buy

and a group of dancers from the local university.It was so festive. I will miss this kind of thing when we move from El Paso.

I also found out something interesting about Old Mesilla. I knew that it was older than Las Cruces (which is a very old city that existed before the U.S. existed), and that Billy the Kid was tried and sentenced to hang there. However, I didn't know that the Gadsden purchase was signed there. This is the treaty that made Southern New Mexico U.S. territory. Conal and I both love history and thought that was really cool.

Hasta la vista y buena suerte Grandma and Grandpa Whetten!