Holy Tarantula Batman!

I knew sooner or later I was going to see one of these since its been raining a lot. I've only seen them during monsoon season. I just didn't expect to see one this BIG.
The first one we saw was during the infamous storms of 2006. Conal and the kids found it on the front porch. Conal decided to return that one to its home in the desert so he let it crawl on the end of the broom and WALKED IT THROUGH THE HOUSE out to the backyard and put it over the rock wall. It was dark outside and he wanted to be able to see if it crawled up the broom. I was at Walmart at the time and the kids busted him the minute I walked through the door. Conal said that while he was walking through the house with it he kept thinking "if this thing falls off my wife is going to be SO mad." Um yeah. I would've been mad. It was still raining so it ended up crawling back over the rock wall.

When I got home from Walmart, Conal said that I better go look at the rock wall in the back. It was dark and it was in the middle of a huge lightening storm. So as in a horror movie, lightening flashed and there it was.....and I screamed.......just like in a horror movie. ha ha!

Luckily, it was daytime this time. However, when my camera flashed the thing twitched. It was all I could do not to scream.

Hopefully this year we will skip the yearly Vinagroon sighting. We can always hope!

This isn't going to be a repeat of August 2006 is it??????

Oh boy! This better not be a repeat of 2006! We still have another month left of monsoon season.

Hurricane Dolly (well what is left of her anyway) came to visit El Paso. Lets just say we got A LOT of rain. Those of you who remember 2006......all I have to say is the river is back.

The reason that the pictures are so fuzzy is because it was raining so hard.

The kids had to take this opportunity to get out their rarely used umbrellas (this is the desert after all) and coats. I'm not quite sure why they needed them when the deck is covered but hey......why ask questions.

Then later when the rain stopped they had to go splash around in our mud pit....I mean sand box. For some reason they thought it was so funny to dip their hair in muddy water. Kids these days. ha ha.

They also had a lot fun throwing water at the neighbors dog. I of course did not get mad at this because ---1. that dog IS annoying. 2. grandpa taught them that trick.

Uh Oh, here we go again. I hear the pitter patter of rain...............

A Hidden Treasure

Conal loves old books. I do too.....but apparently not as much as Conal as he was willing to go through a bunch of books at my Grandma's house to see if there were any that he wanted. I on the otherhand, was getting antsy to get to the hospital (this was back when Macy was in the NICU). I'm so glad that Conal went up to look through these books so this one didn't get sent to the DI or something.

I know that the writing doesn't show up very well in these pictures, but this is a book that my great grandmother, Otilla Sheilds Green was given on her mission in Chicago, Illinois. However, the coolest part is that it has a personal message for her and is signed by HEBER J GRANT. He even marked his favorite poems in the book.

It says, Miss Otilla Sheilds, with best wishes. Your friend and brother, Heber, J. Grant.

On this page, Pres. Grant has explained that the poem on this page is found on the grave of Joseph F. Smith. He chose this poem as it is the kind of man that he would like to be.

It's sad to say this book may have fallen through the cracks and we would have never known.

Tooth Fairy Sighting

Yes, I do realize that this is a nice shot up Garrison's nose. Sorry about that.

We've lost a tooth! Well Garrison has anyway. He was so excited for the tooth fairy to come last night. He has been cracking us up with all of his questions this week.

He has tried to trick us several different times. First he asked if fairies were real so we said no. So he said "Oh, so the TOOTH fairy isn't real?"

Then he wanted to know what the tooth fairy does with all of the teeth and where she gets the money from.

He also wanted to know if I personally know the tooth fairy.

He wants to know what she (I guess it is a she?) looks like.

This morning he wanted to know how the tooth fairy got in last night so I told him that Conal let him in. So he asked Conal and he said " I don't know I've never seen the tooth fairy". So Garrison said " YOU don't know the tooth fairy??? Mom, would you PLEASE introduce the tooth fairy to Dad?"

Of course he also wanted to know if it would hurt to lose a tooth. We've also got a couple of 5 year olds who are wondering the same thing. ATTENTION HAILEY AND JAMISON: Garrison says it does NOT hurt to lose a tooth.

Macy and Me

I sluffed church today! No matter the reason I miss church, I always feel like I am sluffing if I'm not there. I stayed home with Macy since she shouldn't be out in public yet. Her immune system as been through a lot in less than two weeks! That and I'm not really in the best kind of shape to be chasing Jackson around at church. Conal, being the great guy he is took the older 4 kids to church (poor guy!) and I stayed home with Macy.

I guess I should have taken this as a great opportunity to catch a little shut-eye, but.....you know how that goes. I decided to take some pictures of the baby since I am so busy all of the time I forget to take pictures. Here are some of my favorites:

2 Homecomings in 2 days

She survived the NICU, but we can't promise that she will survive her older siblings. Lets just say they have A LOT of love to give and they sure do love their baby sister! The older two are great and Alexia is getting a lot better but Jackson...........lets just say although he really is trying to be soft, those 20 month old hands just don't have the ability.

This was her "home" for the first 8 days of her life. This new medical center is huge and very nice!

She's all ready to go "home".

We had our second homecoming in 2 days when we arrived in El Paso the next day at about 5:30 pm.

Now if I could just get this 5 kid thing down.............

So much to say...........so little time

Where do I start? I suppose I start with the before pictures. Here I am right before I left for the hospital.

This was in the labor and delivery area and we thought it was really cool.

Macy Whetten 6 lbs 12 oz. 19 1/2 inches long.


Then it all gets crazy. While in recovery, it is decided that the baby wasn't getting enough oxygen so they took her to the nursery for some oxygen. Conal kept checking on her through out the day and we hoped that she would soon be back in the room with us. The kids came to see their new sister through the nursery window and my dad took pictures of her for me so that I could see that she was alright.

The a couple of hours later, she ends up in the NICU which is where she still is at this point. Here are some pictures of her there.

I have to say that we feel really blessed to have been at this hospital where Macy can receive the best care. It is a brand new hospital and was really nice. The nurses were awesome. The rooms were really large and this was the view out my window:In the meantime, Conal took the kids over to Murray park to give grandma and grandpa a break. Looks like they had a lot of fun to me.




I had other visitors and a yummy fruit bouquet from Mandi. Isn't that cute????

I left the hospital today. I don't have any pictures of that because I didn't feel like taking pictures of me leaving the hospital without Macy. GET WELL SOON MACY!

advice for mulitple c-section moms

Seeing as that I don't personally know anyone who has had as many c-sections as I have, I figure I am somewhat of an expert. Ok really I am a huge wimp so here is some advise for anyone who is as wimpy as me but has to have a c-section.

-Schedule the earliest available time. Not an early riser? Well don't worry, you won't be able to sleep in anyway. Plus, there is less chance that the OR will be too busy. You can't eat before either and you don't want to be sitting around all day starving to death.

-DRUGS. I'm talking the legal kind (don't go opening a drug investigation on me or something Conal). Don't try to be cool, brave or granola. Take whatever they will give you. Otherwise, you'll be sorry. Take my word for it.

-Don't listen to people who think they know what they are talking about but have never had a c-section before. My personal favorite was the nurse who told my sister-in-law that it wouldn't hurt if women who had a c-section would just stand up straight. Those of us who have actually had a c-section before know how laughable that really is.

-Do your best to keep coughing to a minimum. Enough said.

-Most importantly......Don't look into the light! This is in reference to some advice that Renee gave me. No, we aren't talking about death here, just the OR room light. If it is positioned correctly you can see your reflection in the light. You probably don't want to see that..........unless you are one brave woman. I took this advice very seriously when I had Hailey, and had a monster neck ache for the rest of the day. ha ha!

Enough for now..........this is freaking me out!

Some things I miss about Utah

As much as we love El Paso, there are a lot of things that I miss about Utah. Snow is NOT one of them. ha ha. I miss grass though. I lived in Utah for 30 years and I have only lived in El Paso for 3, but it still shocks me when I see all of the grass in front yards. I don't think I have ever seen a park in El Paso with this much green grass!

I also miss seeing all of the church buildings, especially temples. Last night we were driving home from Copperton and we could see 4 temples from where we were. We could see the Salt Lake Temple, Jordan River (as opposed to the West Jordan temple----and the temple is in South Jordan anyway), the Draper temple and the Oquirrh Mountain temple. Here is what the Oquirrh Mountain temple looks like right now:

It is a couple of miles away from my parents house and I have been walking out there every morning to check out the progress.

I also miss all of the kids. When I go to the store in El Paso, I am always the only one with more than 2 kids. The other day I went to Wal-mart here in Utah, and I totally fit in with the crowd. There were so many kids!

Most of all I miss family and friends. Thanks for going to get a pedicure with me the other day Renee. Send me some of the pictures =).

What happens when mom is gone?

You know the saying "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas"? Well apparently that is also the case when Mom is out of the house and Dad is watching the kids. I was just looking at my pictures and found this :

I'm guessing Alexia got into my makeup while I was gone. I still haven't asked Conal about it. Well that explains what happened to my makeup. I am so surprised that one of the kids didn't tell me about this! Usually it would be the first thing they said as I walk in the door.

A Random Holy Cow!

I just took a look at the baby ticker............it says 3 days!!! Reality check!