Born in the USA!

I'm having a baby!! It looks like our little girl will be born on July 7th. That is the first time that the hospital had available. I guess there will be a lot of patriotic babies in Utah! I think it will be fun for her to have a birthday around the 4th of July.

Conal keeps teasing me (well, I'm taking it as teasing anyway) that he wants to have at least one baby in Mexico. He was born in Mexico, his dad was born in Mexico and so was his grandfather. He wants to turn this into some sort of family tradition or something. ha ha.

I'm sure you can guess my answer to that. NO WAY am I having a c-section in Mexico. Forget it. Not even a discussion.

The other day Garrison said "I know a funny joke Dad. Tell Mom that you are taking her to Utah but really go to Mexico so she can have the baby there. That would be a funny joke." Um, NO that is not a funny joke Garrison. And Conal, You are a bad influence. =).

You know you live in El Paso when........

El Paso is a unique place. We sure will miss its charm when we leave here.

- Your daughter (Alexia) is laughing hysterically because there is water on the car windows. Apparently rain is a funny thing when you don't see it very often.

- On a cloudy day your son (Garrison) asks "What is wrong with the sky today? There are CLOUDS in it!". I suppose clouds are a little unusual here as well.

- Your kids act like they have won the lottery because they have a chance to use the umbrellas.

-For a trip to the temple, you have to be sure to have not only your temple recommend, but your passport, and cash to cross back over the bridge.

-Even though you park WAY back in the parking lot, you will still be stalked for your parking spot and the car stalking you won't mind blocking traffic to wait for you to unload all of your groceries and kids in the car.

-Walmart is always as crowded as it is around Christmas time.

- There is a long line for everything.

- 70% of your son's elementary school orientation is done in Spanish.

-Every paper sent home from school is in English on one side and Spanish on the other.

-The minute you get to any party your kids start asking where the pinata is. After all, its not a party without a pinata!

-Hours after a dust storm, and a couple of toothbrushings (yes, I am aware that I just made up a word) later, you can STILL taste dirt in your mouth.

-It's 95 degrees outside and your kids want to turn on the gas fire place and get their blankets because they are cold.

-101 or 102 degrees just isn't THAT bad.

- In the summer, you can turn the water all the way to cold and still have a pleasant shower.

-People think it is funny to yell "Scorpion!" just to freak you out. OK, maybe its just my kids who do that.

I know this list isn't that funny if you haven't "been there, done that" but hey, it's been entertaining me!

Cool and not cool

This is is our week in a nutshell. Some if it was cool. Some of it was not.

Not Cool: literally not cool-- triple digit weather all week and no end in sight! At least it is cool inside the house!

Cool: finished baby projects! Yay! Although my mom won't care for the pink and brown blanket, (she's not a fan of brown) I still like it.

and the carseat blanket:

Not Cool: Hailey cracking her head open at the ward party.

Cool: Hanging out with good friends........not cool.....saying goodbye to them because they are moving this week.

Cool: The pregnant ladies club.........not cool.....that patterned shirt makes me look twice the size I am. OR I could just be in denial which is probably the case. In that case, don't feel like you need to set me straight. Denial can be a really nice place to be. ha ha!

Not cool: getting up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom for the 3rd time and as your eyes adjust you realize there is a huge scorpion right by the toilet. Even more not cool.....getting woken up from a dead sleep by your wife who is freaking out about said scorpion and having to get up to kill and properly dispose of it.

Cool: Our first full week with Garrison home. It's so fun to have him around all day and he is such a good helper. I can't believe how much he has grown up this past year. His first day home he got all of the kiddos breakfast for me, without me asking, while I was taking care of something.

Not Cool: Wet toilet paper. For some reason my girls think it is a great idea to play with toilet paper in the sink. I guess I should count my lucky stars that they are playing with it in the sink and not the toilet. However, it sure makes a mess. My dad said "wait until they figure out that when you wet down toilet paper and throw it at the ceiling it sticks there." You better not tell them that Dad!

Cool: My favorite time of day. When Conal comes home from work. The minute the kids hear his key in the door they all 4 run to the door and yell "DADDY!!!!!" and give him a great big hug.

Happy Fathers Day!

I'm lucky enough to have the best dad and the best husband ever! No "dead beat" dads around here for sure. I hope you both have an awesome fathers' day. Love you guys!

Check out the slideshow that Mandi was kind enough to make for Conal on my behalf. As Hailey says "Aunt Mandi is tricky!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjNmAS0ri04

The Redneck Olympics

Its not the Winter Games, the Summer Games, or even the Special Olympics. Welcome to the Redneck Olympics.

In order to hold official Redneck Olympics, there are a few requirements. 1. There must be at least one child running around in nothing but a diaper (underwear is acceptable as well).

2. There must be at least one child wearing a sleeveless "wife beater" muscle shirt (I swear he had another shirt on ALL day and he had just taken it off to show us his muscles........ok that doesn't help my case much as that is kinda redneck too.)

3. There have got to be a couple of "rag-a-muffin" hairdos. 4. Every event must include an empty milk jug (yes, the flying white thing is an empty milk jug). The events include:

empty milk jug catch

Empty milk jug soccer.

And last but not least, empty milk jug dodge ball.

Conal, is there anything that you can't turn into a game???

An Easy Sale

I WISH I were talking about our house (even though we are SO sad to leave it). That would be so nice to have that done with, but seeing as that it isn't even up for sale yet..........

I'm actually referring to my eldest son. The last few Saturdays Conal and I have been in "emergency get things done" mode. We have been trying get ready for baby, and at the same time do as much as we can to prepare for our move. While that was a nice side note, the point of my saying it is that while we have been rushing around Saturday mornings, Garrison has been entertaining himself with a couple of infomercials. Those things sure can convince a 6 year old (ok, I admit it. I find myself wanting the products as well).

A couple of weeks ago Jackson had a little baby pimple and Garrison said "Hey Mom, you need to buy Pro-active to get rid of that red spot on Jackson's face. Then he proceeds to give us all of the facts from the Pro-active commercial. It was quite entertaining.

Two days ago, we were all sitting around the dinner table and out of nowhere Garrison said " Can we buy P9EX? It will make me strong in just 90 days!"

I have to admit that sometimes those infomercials can be entertaining. My brother Brannon and I have laughed and laughed over the Magic Bullet commercial. That acting is SO bad that it is hilarious. My favorite feature of the Magic Bullet is that it has these glasses with different colored rings so that if you set your glass down at a party, you won't forget which glass is yours. The funny thing is that it only comes with 4 glasses. Wow! What a wild party I would be having with FOUR people! ha ha. That's not even enough for my immediate family.

However, I think my all time favorite is Nads. If you've never seen it, Nads is a wax hair removal kit. First of all, couldn't they pick a better name? Do they not know that nads is a slang term for........well if you don't know ask me later (and if you don't know, WHERE have you been?? JUST KIDDING). Secondly, they claim that it is a painless way to remove hair. Um, have they ever tried it? Unless it has some some sort of skin numbing agent in it (which I doubt as it is also touted as "organic" and edible (what kind of person eats leg wax?)) than it is going to hurt like you know what to pull that wax off your leg (or other more painful areas). Proof of my assertion is found in the infomercial itself. They ask some"random" guy with some seriously hairy legs to demonstrate the painless procedure for them. They rip a strip of hair off this poor guy's leg and then ask the question we all want to know. "Did it hurt?" The camera moves to the man's face and as he is saying how it wasn't painful...... there are tears in his eyes. SO FUNNY! Once I had Conal watch that part because I think it is so funny and when they pulled off the strip Conal actually flinched. I think any guy will tell you that getting hair pulled out of your leg is painful.

Also, I think I need to go to "Parentheses users anonymous" (PUA). I even used a set of parentheses inside another set.