Did YOU know?

When it rains it pours. I got sick again. This time with a kidney infection. That's really not the point of this post though. I have a hard time getting the to point sometimes don't I??

Anyway, after I went to the doctor on Monday, Conal bought me some Diet Sunkist because my beverage of choice (water) was making my upset stomach worse. It's important to have plenty of liquids when you have a kidney infection. So, I was drinking Diet Sunkist all day, since it is one of the few things that I could stomach.

That evening we were having Family Home Evening in my bedroom so I could stay in bed and right in the middle of it, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw the word caffeine on the Sunkist bottle. I wasn't reading the label or even looking at the bottle but I saw it out of the corner of my eye. Weird. Anyway, I grabbed the bottle and read the ingredients and SUNKIST HAS CAFFEINE IN IT! What? It doesn't in Utah I swear! Did YOU know that Sunkist had caffeine in it?

I was so surprised that I shouted "This has caffeine in it!!!!" right in the middle of FHE. Conal didn't believe me so he had to come over and check it out for himself. Sure enough, I wasn't hallucinating, it has caffeine in it.

As I'm sure you can guess from my reaction, we don't drink caffeine. If you do, that's your business, I'm not judging you. I'm just saying that we don't.

I wish I had a camera for the reaction on Garrison and Hailey's face. It was classic. I laugh about it every time I think about it. I'm laughing right now! I'm not sure they would have looked more horrified if they would have busted me snorting cocaine. I'm not sure if they thought I was going to die or get arrested for accidentally drinking caffeine. This created one of those "teaching moments" where Conal explained to them that I didn't do it on purpose and now that we know we won't drink that anymore.

Garrison had the best one-liner of the night. "Mom, you REALLY need to read labels before you buy things!" Thank you, Oh-wise-one........and by the way your DAD bought it not me. ha ha!

The worst part is that when the doctor was giving me instructions she said "don't drink any alcohol or caffeine as it can make matters worse." I said "Oh, that's not a problem. I NEVER drink alcohol or caffeine." Did I mention that by the time I found out that it had caffeine in it, the 2 liter was nearly gone?

Also, I had some weird reaction that night and now we aren't sure if it is from the caffeine (I've had a similar reaction to caffeine) or to the antibiotic so I had to switch antibiotics.

If you didn't know, now you do. I'm going to take Garrison's advice and read more labels!

A Night Out with Dad

Garrison and Hailey got free tickets to a baseball game as a reward for their reading club at school. Conal loves any excuse to go to a game so he was happy to take them.

Jackson went along and he loved it as well.

or not. ha ha.

Garrison and Hailey's thought it was pretty cool that they let them run the bases at the end of the game.

Alexia was happy to have Mommy almost all to herself.

Thanks for taking them Conal!

It's my life: April 15, 2009

We've been taking turns on my Mormon Mommy website documenting a typical day for each of us. I decided to copy it here just in case I ever forget what it is like to have 5 young children. Ha ha.

Warning: This is extremely boring. Nevertheless, this is my life.

6 am. Get up and go on my daily run. I like to run on the path that goes around the pond by our house. This is what it looks like:

This is the most peaceful time of day for me. It's the only hour of the whole day that I have uninterrupted thinking time. It's just me, the birds, the rabbits, an occasional otter, and the sunrise.

7:15am Get showered and ready for the day and get all of the kids ready to take the older 2 to school.

8:30 am Walk to school (It was warm enough =))


and then take the younger 3 kids on a short walk around the pond to check out the ducks, geese, rabbits, blue heron, otters, seagulls and an occasional hawk. Here is a picture of a blue heron. Sorry it isn't that great of a picture. I really had to zoom in.

Jackson and Alexia ride like this (Jackson isn't happy because he wanted to go to school with G and H):
and Macy rides on my back like this:

9:15 Feed the younger 3 breakfast and do "learning time".

This is where we read, do letters, numbers, adding, writing, etc. This is another favorite of mine except when Jackson is being uncooperative like the other day and just kept repeating "It's not ocho" over and over.

After this I cleaned up breakfast, got some laundry started, checked out facebook and my email and then played with the kids until it was time to go get Hailey from school.

11:00am. It's time to get everyone in the stroller to go get Hailey. That sounds easier than it was. I picked up Jackson to put him in the stroller and noticed that he needed a diaper change so I took care of that. Then I noticed he had taken his socks off so I put them back on and then put his coat on. I picked up Macy and she needed a diaper change too so I took care of that. Then I looked over at Jackson and he had taken off his coat and socks again. So I put those back on. Then we were all ready to get in the stroller and go. Wrong-o bucko! Alexia had to go to the bathroom before we could leave, and then we had to put her coat back on. We eventually did make it out the door.

11:30 We make it over to the school to pick up Hailey. On the way I call Mandi and bore her to tears, I'm sure. We wait in line for Hailey. They have a VERY particular process in which you pick up your kindergartners. They issue you a sign with your child's name and the teachers name on it which you MUST have in order to pick up your child. Believe me. I found out the hard way that you must have that sign. When we first moved here I kept telling Mandi that I was afraid of doing it wrong and that they were going to yell at me like in movie "Mr. Mom" ("SOUTH to drop off moron!!").

This is the line that you wait in if you are in your car.

When you pull up they radio into the school and tell your child to go stand by a certain color of cone and then you pull up to the cone and they hop in.

On the way home Hailey claimed that she was too tired to walk the rest of the way so she hopped into the stroller with Jackson and Alexia and sat on the bar.

Alexia is hiding behind Hailey's backpack. You can see her arm sticking out to the side. I figure that I was pushing about 120-130 pounds and carrying another 20 on my back. Shouldn't that count for a workout? I could feel the burn!

I wonder what the neighbors thought of my pushing 3 kids in the stroller and carrying one on my back. According to my neighbor a bunch of the neighbors were talking one day and were trying to figure out if all of these kids are mine or if I am a nanny.

Noon. Help Hailey with her homework and get the kids lunch. Put Mandi to sleep with some more of my endless chattering on the phone. Do some more laundry and fold it while I am listening to a couple of sections in the Doctrine and Covenants and Elder Scott's talk from conference. Play with the kids.

3:00pm. Get ready to go pick up Garrison from school. Sit in line (according to procedure)

and wait for every single kid to get into their parents car before they let anyone go. At least I got to read over my young women lesson while I waited. The kids listened to primary songs and climbed all over the van.

3:40 pm. Help Garrison with his homework, take a short reading break (A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain) and then start dinner.

The rest of the evening went by pretty fast......and I didn't take any pictures. Basically I just fed everyone, went to the library, got everyone in bed, swept and mopped the floors and watched "Lost" with Conal.

10:00pm: fell asleep before my head hit the pillow.

I know, I know. That was really exciting. At least I left out most of the diaper changes.

Simply put, I spent my day being a mom.

Happy Easter

It's always a challenge to get all of my kids in one place for a picture, but here they all are Easter morning.

Happy Easter!

Looking for Lincoln

It was an exciting weekend for the history nerds of the family. We started off our weekend with a trip to El Paso.

El Paso Illinois that is. Betcha didn't know there was an El Paso, Illinois did you? Neither did we. I have to say the name seemed really out of place here with the surrounding cities named Rockport, Lincoln, Bloomington, etc. There weren't any cacti either. Oh well, it didn't stop us from going into town to try to find a Taco Cabana or a Carlos and Mickeys. Just kidding.

On to the real adventure. We took a little trip down to Springfield Illinois to check out all of the Abraham Lincoln cites. I have always been fascinated with Abraham Lincoln so this was very exciting for me. I did some research on the Internet before we left and found several things that I want to see. I think we are going to have to go back. By the way, if anyone is doing church history anytime soon and you go to Nauvoo, Springfield is less than 3 hours away and would be completely worth the drive.

Since I have never been to Springfield, I had no idea what to expect. Since we have been living near a huge city, I expected Springfield to be similar since it is the capitol of the state. Not so. It's population is only 100,000. It is very slow paced and a very nice city. We really liked it.

First we went over to the only home that Lincoln owned. He lived in it for 17 years and it is one of the only homes that was photographed in this time period. Apparently, his political party took a picture of it during the election to show everyone that he wasn't a redneck (sorry couldn't think of a better term) living in a cabin out in the middle of nowhere.
The tour was very interesting. The guide said that people lived in this house until 1950. Can you imagine living in Abraham Lincoln's house???? Unfortunately, Garrison and I missed the last of the tour since Garrison very nearly passed out. He is slowly recovering from bronchitis and the flu and doesn't quite have his energy back yet. After that I had him ride in the stroller so he wouldn't get so tired and he was NOT happy with that but eventually agreed.

Next we went to the Lincoln depot. This is where Lincoln left Springfield for Washington DC when he became president. He gave an impromptu speech there that later became famous and I have to admit it brings a little tear to my eye.

We went to the Old Capitol building. This is a very interesting building. I love seeing how things were in the early years of our great country.

This is where Lincoln practiced law before he became president.

I've always wanted to go to a presidential library. The museum is right next to it but we will go back to Springfield for that. We need more time for that than we had this time around.

Lincoln's tomb was our next stop. This was really neat. Pictures just don't do it justice.





At the cemetery where Lincoln's tomb is we saw a bunch of these trees.

Look how huge their blossoms are. Does anyone know what kind of tree this is?

Lastly we went over to the Illinois state museum. The kids thought this was great. They got to make recycled paper:


and look at some neat animal exhibits and historical things pertaining to the state of Illinois. My favorite quote of the day is by Garrison. We were looking at some broken tools and pottery from a dig and Garrison said "Look Mom! A bunch of ancient broken things!" ha ha.

I was surprised when I walked around the corner and saw a picture of something familiar.

I don't know why it surprised me to find a picture and information about the Nauvoo temple. It is an important part (in my mind) of the history of the state of Illinois. Still, it was exciting to see it in the museum. Also, in the museum it said that Joseph Smith told all of the saints to scratch the name of Abraham Lincoln off of their voting ballots. I'm not sure if this is true or not so I am going to research that one. However, it also said that regardless of this, Lincoln was a true supporter and kind to the Latter Day Saints.

Also, there was a map of the slave underground railroad. I was surprised to see that it went right through Plainfield, Illinois. It's unreal for me to see all of these things and know that so many historical things have happened right were I am. When we are studying church history in Sunday school I remember that some of the things we are discussing happened just a few of hours away from here. I imagine Abraham Lincoln living just a few hours away, sitting in this living room that I just saw and hearing the news that the state of South Carolina just left the union.
Amazing!

Yes, I know. I'm a nerd.......and congratulations to anyone who suffered through this incredibly long, boring to anyone but me post.

So much fun, too little time.

We had a house full of people this last week. 8 kids 7 and under. Cats and dogs living together......mass hysteria. Just kidding. Well there were a couple of times in the restaurants, but I don't think anyone even asked me the usual question. "Are ALL 5 of those kids yours?" It actually was quite pleasant and the cousins had a blast together.

Friday night we hit it over to Buffalo Wild Wings. MMMM! Although someone please explain to me why the girls' hats say "BUFFALO princess" and the boys get to wear a hat that says "Back Off! I'm Blazin'!" I'll take one of the boys hats please. I'd rather be blazin' hot than a buffalo, although this little buffalo princess doesn't seem to mind.

The next morning we took the kids to an Easter Egg hunt. We had just enough time to rush the kids out of the vans before they said "ready, set, go". I have to add that whoever filled the candy eggs has really good taste. It was all Reese's candy. Grandma and Grandpa were sure good sports about this:

The kids all sure had a blast though.

Of course we had to go out to the outlet mall. We found a bunch of awesome deals on clothes for the kids and even got ourselves some new sunglasses:

and shoes (thanks for the pic Mandi).

Never said I could actually walk in them.

The kids dyed eggs. Grandpa was SUCH a good sport about this one. It isn't easy to dye eggs when you have 7 little pairs of hands trying to "help" you.

The kids frosted cookies (gotta keep that favorite aunt status somehow!) Of course we had to check out the downtown area again. As far as big cities go, I think I like Chicago the best.Grandpa wanted to take a short detour to Lincoln Park zoo. He sure is fasinated with those Lions. He couldn't get them all upset this time though so there wasn't any roaring. You can't go to Chicago without eating at Portillos. This is Grandpa's Portillo fav:

At Portillos but not pictured; 5 kids stuck in the round about door while other customers are trying to get out of the restaurant.

Thanks for coming guys! We miss you guys already! We have sad, sad kids here. Not only are their cousins gone but now we are all sick.

April Foolin'

The kids really wanted to play a joke on Conal. We thought about it for a week. I finally came up with the idea that we would put a glob of toothpaste in the middle of Conal's pancake. I really didn't think that we would be able to pull it off because the kids can't keep the secret. Hailey was so funny. She kept saying "Dad, we made a big yummy pancake for you!". Then she ran into the kitchen and whispered "Mom, I almost accidentally told him!". We got him though. We made him a pancake, just like he likes it . Except for the giant glob of toothpaste in the middle.

When he got to the middle he said "Did you put a lifesaver in my pancake?" Of course we all started cracking up and told him where it was. I think he might have actually liked it.

Maybe not.

Then I was off to my YW activity. The YW really wanted to pull one over on the boys. Now being the mature leaders that we are we said that it probably wasn't a good idea. Ok, the truth is that it was our idea to trick the YM. We made some yummy cupcakes. Some with cottonballs in the middle and some without. We color coded the wrappers on the cupcakes so we knew which ones were safe to eat. The girls kept trying to come up with an idea to get the boys to eat the cupcakes and I said "Come on girls, its food and they are boys! All we need to do is just start eating them and they will come in to steal our refreshments like they always do. Just play it cool." Besides the cupcakes looked completely normal and harmless.

Well, we got a couple of the boys, and unfortunately a couple of unsuspecting parents.

Unfortunately I couldn't get very many pictures without being completely obvious, plus I had to keep leaving the room because I couldn't stop laughing. It was a good one!

After I got home from YW and my April Fools Day was coming to a close, Conal got me good. Twice. First with the vaseline on the toilet seat, then with the short-sheeted bed. You got me Con! Good thing those are harmless since I still haven't forgiven you for hiding Kumen in the back of your car while we were on a date before we were married.

Of course my favorite part of the day was getting a mysterious phone call from the boy down the street, asking me if I need a ride to the pharmacy. It's the same phone call I have received every April 1st for 12 years.