We can only try to contain him

It was a sad day here at the Whetten household when Jackson learned how to climb out of his crib. He of course thought it was hilarious and so did the older 3 kids---that is until he started to torture them as they were trying to go to sleep. He wouldn't stop jumping on Hailey's bed (and Hailey for that matter) until he found out that it was more fun to climb the bunk bed ladder and jump on Garrison's bed. We had to take the ladder off of the bed so he couldn't climb up anymore. Needless to say, a 22 month old jumping on a bunk bed = accident waiting to happen. The last straw was that he wouldn't stay in bed for more than 30 seconds. Both of us kept imagining him playing in the garage at 3:00am (he learned how to unlock that door too). So, we ended up putting a lock on the outside of his door at midnight the first night. The next day we ordered this:

I never thought I'd be a fan of the crib tent but it has been a life saver! However, it hasn't come without its excitement too. About a week later we heard a crashing sound and Conal went running into Jackson's room. Alexia thought it would be a good idea to climb on the outside of the tent and well, lets just say when we got in there it was completely inverted. Alexia said "Look Dad, I made my own tent!"

We thought it was pretty much destroyed as there were a couple of tears in it but we put it back up and it seemed to be ok. However, Houdini boy--I mean Jackson learned how to stick his hand out one of the tears and unzip the thing from the outside. After several hours and a lot of sloppy mending, I was able to sew the thing back together and it works as good as new. Conal swears that it is better than new, but I think he is just being nice.

11 years

September 19, 1997 Um...yeah that's the only wedding picture I have on my computer.....and no I can't get it any bigger. Pretty pathetic, I know.

I have this habit. On special days like my kids' birthdays or my anniversary, throughout the day I think of what I was doing that day at that particular time of day. For instance, yesterday at 7:40 am I thought "11 years ago right now is when the ceremony started". Yes, I got married at 7:40 am. 50 couples got married in the Salt Lake Temple that day--we were lucky to get a spot! Conal does the same thing. Yesterday at about 5:00pm he said "11 years ago right now we were getting ready for our reception. As a matter of fact, we were probably in the church bathrooms with the photographer taking pictures of us getting ready." Then we both burst out laughing because at the time (ok, and now as well) we both thought that was so weird that the photographer was taking pictures of us getting ready in the church bathroom.

11 years ago, I would have never believed you if you would have told me:
-that I would have 5 kids
-that I would have 5 kids in 6 1/2 years
-that I would have 5 c-sections. (I am WAY too wimpy for that. Seriously, I still can't believe I've done it that many times!)
-that I would live in El Paso.
-that I would like living in El Paso.
-that I would be moving to Chicago. (Wait! Who am I kidding. I am still in denial about that one. Yet a "For Sale" sign mysteriously remains in my front yard.........)

I would have believed you if you told me:
-that Conal would look pretty much the same.
-that Conal would still be as nice as the day we met.
-that Conal would be an awesome dad.
-that Conal would still be my best friend.

I guess ya never know what life is gonna throw atcha!

Happy Anniversary Conal! You rock the free world!

Vindicated!

Vindicate: verb; To exact revenge for;avenge.

Picture it: October 9,1993. Pasadena California. The Rose Bowl. BYU vs. UCLA. Our 6 buses pulled up to the Rose Bowl right into the middle of the tailgate party. Many UCLA fans (very drunk fans might I add) rushed our buses to dangle their bottles of beer near the bus windows as if they were dangling a huge piece of chocolate cake in front of some starving person who hasn't eaten in 4 days. I don't know if they expected us to run off of the buses and snatch their beer or what but that is beside the point.

Then there was the game. Final score UCLA 68. BYU 14. Enough said. It wasn't pretty. It really wasn't pretty. I never thought there would be vindication for that slaughter. But I was wrong. I just had to wait 15 years.

Last year when we beat UCLA Conal said "So, do you finally feel vindicated for the 1993 loss?" I said "No way. The score was too close. It would have to be a slaughter." However, a 59-0 victory does it for me.

Ahhhhhh. Sweet vindication!

Where's the flood?

Every Saturday night I lay the kids' clothes out for Sunday morning so that they can dressed for church when they wake up. This morning as I was getting ready for church, Garrison came in and said "Um, Mom....are these Jackson's pants???" So I turned around to see this:
Garrison wearing Jackson's pants. How my almost 7 year old got on 18 month pants is beyond me. What's worse is that this isn't the first time that this happened. Last time was about a year ago and he had on Jackson's pants that were 6-9 months. Both times he nicely let me know that he was irritated that his pants were too tight.

Jack Speaks

The way that kids pronounce new words (or when they make up new words) can really crack you up. Sometimes they are funny.......and sometimes they can sound down right obscene.

One of my favorites was my brother's word for airplane: applemanna. Don't ask me where he got that from. I'm not sure he knows.

Conal still occasionally cracks up over the memory of his nephew pointing to flies and saying "bouchie". Later they figured out that he meant birdy.

Alexia and her twin cousin Jace mispronounce the PBS TV show, "Fetch" by replacing the f with a b. I really hope she never yells that in public as I'm sure people would wonder what kind of language we use at home.

Alexia also calls Sleeping Beauty "Sleeping Udy", and sometimes it sounds like "sleeping nudy". Both make me laugh as our cousins are the Udys and well....I'm sure you can see why I think the other one is funny.

A couple of days ago, Jackson and I were talking about his cousins. Jamison, Jace and Johnny were understandable (well at least by his mommy) but Brigham came out "gum-bum" and Rissi came out "hussy" (which is not in anyway an indication of the kind of girl that my niece is. She's only 4!).

My personal favorite is Jackson's word for popcorn---"cop porn". I wonder if they sing Jackson favorite song in nursery. You guessed it, "Popcorn Popping".

What in the.....?????

What is the last thing that a person who is a freak about fire wants to hear? Their smoke alarms going off.

Sunday afternoon Conal was asleep and I was laying down with Macy (half asleep) when all of our smoke alarms started going off. I have to say---they were SO LOUD. Well, of course Conal and I JUMP off the bed and start running around the house to figure out were the fire is and get the kids out of the house. Conal hollered down the stairs for the older 3 to go out into the backyard as I picked up Macy in one arm and ripped a sleeping Jackson from his bed in the other arm and ran down the stairs and into the backyard. After a thourough inspection of the house (including the roof) we all came back inside a little on edge. The alarms were still going off and we could NOT figure out how to get them to stop. Conal was trying to figure out if there was a button or something on them and as he was feeling around one of the smoke detectors, they stopped just as suddenly as they started. We still can't figure out what that was all about. It even happened again yesterday evening. I hope this doesn't happen again, especially in the middle of the night. I don't do well with fire issues........especially in the middle of the night. Apparently I have "fire issues" and this incident made me reflect on the past and why this is the case.

First, there was the Yellowstone Park incident. We went to Yellowstone the year of the bad fire. We already had plans to go and we were going to be up that way so we decided to go anyway. The fact that the park rangers were always talking about the wind shifting and being prepared to leave certain areas quickly apparently made quite the impression on all of us. Particularly my mom.

I was already having a terrible night sleep. I was convinced that bears were outside of the tent trailer. Really it was the majority of my family snoring due to all of the smoke. I finally had fallen asleep when my mom woke up, flipping the covers off of my dad, yelling something about how the fires were closing in on us and we had to get out of there.

Then of course "the incident" as Mandi and I call it was the most traumatic of all. That was where we were camping over Memorial Day weekend in 2001 and my grandparents motor home caught fire. The only semi-humorous part of this one is the thought of grandpa diving out of the motorhome like Superman..........and that is only funny after the fact.

My favorite fire story (simply because this one is has no danger involved, only serious over reaction on my part) happened less than a year after "the incident" and involved the same people sans grandma and grandpa. We took a short family get-a-way to Las Vegas. Our cousins had come as well but their hotel rooms were a couple of floors up from ours. About 5 or 10 minutes after we had all started to fall asleep, wouldn't you know it but the fire alarms went off. So of course, we all jump out of bed, Conal grabs our suitcases, I grab Garrison (who was a brand new baby) and we go running out into the hall. Other guests were in the hall wondering if they should leave the building or not. Mandi and I were freaking everyone out. I can't remember what we were saying but I don't think that "run for you lives!!!" would have been that much worse. So we (and the others that we could convince to get out) ran down several flights of stairs, with our luggage, in our pajamas, and stood outside a hoppin' Vegas casino waiting for the fire trucks to show up.........and they never did. Why? Because there was no fire. And when we finally dared to go inside the casino to see what was happening, it was business as usual in there. So, there we were----in the casino----in our pajamas----with our luggage. Nice. Our cousins never even vacated the building.