Zions

Amy and I took the kids for a full day of playing and hiking in Zions....

Im sure we got some funny looks, 2 pregnant women and 6 kids!

I was overjoyed that the only pregnant lady throwing up was not me!!! Sorry Amy!

We only did a short hike and let the kids go at their own pace, which was very SLOW, because we had to pick up every rock to look at, switch hiking sticks (with the exception of Kyler who lugged around this metal pole as a hiking stick the whole time!!)

We saw some people who were paddling down the river, so we waved at them. We also threw dirt into the river (why not), drove through the tunnel with the windows down, honking and yelling out the windows...you know all the important stuff :-)

Later we went to the Springdale park and let the kids play. We stayed their for a few hours. Someone had left a bunch of sand toys in the volleyball court, so the kids spent hours building sand castles and having fun. Amy I spent those same hours lounging out in the nice comfy chairs that were also left behind!

On our way home we stopped in Hurricane and ate at Durangos, we were a sight for sore eyes. I must say its a little funny walking into a restraunt when everyone is so filthy dirty.

Whoo Hoo

Im so glad my friend Emily got me to put the pregnancy widget back up on my blog. Because now I know that today I have less then 100 days to go!

Okay that may still sound like a lot, but being in the single digits is something to celebrate for me!

....as for prego updates. Most know that I tested postive for gestational diabetes a couple weeks ago, however I was so sick, that the blood results could have been affected. So On Tuesday I retake my blood work to see where I stand.

As for Iron levels this pregnancy, I have been crazy about my Iron. Seriously, obsessive, and its paying off. Even though I was low, it was my highest Iron blood level test I have EVER had while pregnant it was a 10.4 and anything under 11 is considered low. But holy moly that's so close to an 11 I was seriously jumping for joy!

Happy Spring!

Funny things

Kyler is the kind of kid that says things that just throw you off. He always keeps me on my toes for sure! The other day out of the blue this conversation happened

Kyler: Mom, did you know crackers are good for you?

Me: Are they?

Kyler: Yeah, do you remember when you were in Heaven and Jesus said "Hey, crackers are good for you"

Me: laughing too hard to respond.


Seriously I never know what is going to come out of that kids mouth.

Lately the word he has been mis-using is BUSY. I wonder exactly how many definintions he has for this word! He says things like this

me: Kyler did you have an accident in your pull-up last night?

Kyler: Yeah, Im just so busy at night it makes me have accidents

me: totally confused!

Usually busy is just a way of saying who cares, or I dont want to, or why should I. I it never seems to make sense or fit in the sentence. it's pretty funny though.

Other things Kyler says ALL THE TIME is

"Oh my gosh" but he says gosh with his funny little way, the other day I heard Parlee running around saying "gosh, gosh, gosh"

Kyler also says "what the heck" for everything....if he is eating cereal he will say "what the heck, I love this cereal"




This made me think of a couple cute things Taran used to say that still live on in our house....When he was younger he used to say "what the Lamanite" it used to make us laugh so hard that we all say "what the Lamanite" all the time.

Another time when Taran was really young, we were driving and he had a little fart, he quickly exclaimed that he had "A poopy burp" Ok that one still makes me laugh even as Im typing it. I love that a 'poopy burp"

A lost tooth

Okay so as a kid I NEVER LOST TEETH! Seriously I lost my first tooth in 2nd grade and the next that I lost on my own was in middle school....all the others were removed from the dentist, Taran may be following in my foot steps. About a month ago he lost his first tooth...he is in second grade!

Here's his first lost tooth

Look who is eleven!

Eleven years ago we were blessed with a sweet little girl. Joel and I often talk about how clueless we were as first time parents, yet how fun it was to be a new mom and dad!

In 11 years, Joely has grown A LOT! Her actual birthday was pretty low key, she got to choose where we went to dinner, she chose The Brick Oven since we had only been there twice, then on Saturday we had a party for her...

We played some fun games, and made washer necklaces, hairbows and snack 'carrots' filed with candy. It turned out to be a great day! (and tiring for us parents,entertaining is a lot of work!) I always think that we wont have enough activities to fill up the time, and then I find that I have way to many and no time to take pictures!

allergic?

Can a person be allergic to being pregnant?

I think I am!

Seriously I know I've said this with every pregnancy, but I really dont think my body responds to pregnancy well! Im getting these awful mouth sores, besides how bad they hurt they are swelling up and distorting my face! Today one of my neighbors came over and right when I opened the door she looked at me and said "oh my gosh Kristin did you know your face is all swollen?" and she's not the only one. Last night two other people mentioned my grossly distorted face. Someone commented that it looked like I got braces, someone else said it looks like a really bad lip enlargement. I agree! The other crappy thing is that I cant hardly eat or drink and brushing my teeth is like murder (yes I still do that though) everything I do makes my mouth bleed.

So starting tomorrow I am going on an alkaline diet to see if that helps. I guess you could say I tried the choclolate cake diet today, since thats all I ate today ;-)

Excursion adventures

Is it just me?
Sometimes I swear I feel like i have the best luck....HA!

It started innocently enough with me getting a new car battery for my excursion less then a week ago, because my car was having a hard time starting up.

Then Monday I went back to have both my batteries tested again, because the problem was still there, I found out I needed a new starter.

Okay so Tuesday I went into get my new starter for my car. That problem was solved. All is well in the car world again.

Enter Wednesday:

I picked the kids up from school and decided to quickly run into town before i had SEP's at the school. Joely and I noticed a random funny sound in my car, but it only happened sporatically. Then when we hit about the baseball fields, there was the loudest cracking popping sound.

You know the kind of sound where you know that it cant be anything good happening. So I pulled into the baseball fields. I checked under the car, and saw a lot of antifreeze and smoke....POOPY!

So I called Joels dad to come out and save me.

Needless to say the verdict was far worse then either Reynold or I imagined. I blew the water pump, but when it blew it completely dislodged, shooting into the fan. The fan broke, and one of the blades went flying into the radiator! So, the damage looks like a new water pump, new fan and a whole new radiator....of course once we get further into the car we may find that other blades from the fan did further damage (seriously hoping not).

What a crazy day in excursion land!

How you know your kids care....

So how do you know your kids care? How can you tell if you are raising sensitive individuals....beats me! Because this is my life....

Today I have been sick, not pregnancy sick, but actually sick-sick. Today I had all the kids play outside for a while, and I was resting on the couch. I must have fallen asleep...when I did wake up and stood up from the couch, and bunch a rocks, not pebbles, but rocks came rolling out of my shirt. I guess when I fell asleep one or all of my children thought it would be funny to stick rocks down my shirt (and of course I had NO CLUE). I will admit I thought it was rather funny too, but I think we failed at the caring type :-)

Yesterday during sacrament, Kyler was being, well Kyler. So I took him out in the hall for a few minutes. He was so mad at me, because I threw away his little water cup from the sacrament. So he was trying to scratch me and professing the he hated me, when finally he decided on what you could tell he thought the worst insult ever would be, and he yelled out " I will even hate you at Christmas!"....I must be getting the crappy mom award if my son has declared that even on the most perfect of all days, even that very special Christmas day, he would still hate me....yes, I did find that funny too, but I wont let him know that quite yet.

Baptism fireside

Last night was the stake baptism fireside. Taran was asked to give the opening prayer in front of a full chapel. He did a great job! The funny thing is that the next two talks the speakers mentioned Taran, he was So embarassed, he kept asking Joel "When are they going to stop talking about me." I think people mentioning him was much harder then giving the actual prayer for him!

Odd story

Okay so this story was way to odd not to share....

Joel left for Vernal early this morning. I talked to him at about 8am and he mentioned how slow the traffic was going because of the icy roads. We hug up and about a minute later he sent my phone a quick snapshot of the icy, snowy roads.....

The at about 9am he called again. I asked how the roads were now. He said he had a crazy story; this is what he told me:

He said right after hanging up the phone with me, he rounded a bend in the freeway and noticed an SUV had just rolled off the road and the driver was trying to get out of his seatbelt (he was upside down). So Joel quickly pulled over and assisted at getting him out of his vehicle, then they went over to Joels truck to wait the 10-20 minutes until the highway patrol came along.

During this time they obviously started talked, he found out that he had rolled because a semi had changed into his lane a little to close to his car, sending snow all over his windshield, making it so he couldn't see anything but white, and the next thing he knew he was rolling off the freeway...As the conversation progressed Joel finally asked him his name and where he was going. The guy told him (and mentioned he was on his way to SLC, he was moving in with a friend) and Joel offered his name. The guy asked if he was related to the Stouts in St. George. The guy then mentioned that his friend was Dustin Stout. Joel then laughed and said, "yeah that's my cousin and you are moving into my sister's basement!" What a small world huh???


PS. We checked the weather for Vernal for this week, Wednesday has a high of 8 and a low of -15. Ouch that's cold. In fact the coldest it's been in three years, and that would be the time that Joel has to work!

Misplaced

I am always putting things in places and forgetting where I've placed them...

So it should be no surprise that the memo I sent to Heavenly Father that said I am busy and over-whelmed lately must have been misplaced too, because somehow I just was put into the Relief Society presidency. So Im kind of guessing that memo must have gotten shuffled around and lost :-)

Actually I really am excited about the new calling, but I do have a lot of anxiety about it too! I have always been a horrible visiting teacher, I lack in the compassionate department, I'm used to working with kids. And then there's the other concerns, I'm pregnant, Joel's out of town all the time, I'm still girls camp director, I just got put on the PTO Evening of the Arts committee...but Somehow I guess it will all work out. Right?

Wish me luck as I venture into REALLY unfamiliar territory!

New school

The kids have now started Red Mountain Elementary.

On the first day of school, I decided to walk them to class, when we parked our car, some of Tarans old friends recognized our vehicle and came running up to great him (yeah!) So Taran quickly went off with them and started playing football. I then walked Joely to class, who was feeling a little bit more timid.

After school, the reports were great, they both had tons of old friends in their classes and were taken right in! Taran reported to me :Mom, this is such a fun school"

By the end of day 2 (Friday) I somehow was lured into being a co-chair of the "Evening of the Arts" night....I guess it's like we (me included) never left! Ha!

Both kids are super happy to be back at the old school, Joely adjusted mush faster then I thought she would, and I think that all is well!

worker

Today we have some city workers, working on the road out front.

Kyler came running into me after seeing them and said

"Mom, I need to hurry and get my work clothes on and ride my bike over to them to help work with them"

Classic 4 year old!

Changes

Yesterday Joel and went into Red Mountain Elementary to talk to the principal Mrs. Barnum....The reason: We just havent got the comfortable feeling with Vista that we have been wanting. So we decided to go and talk to our 'old school' about some concerns we have, if switching kids mid-year is a bad idea...etc etc etc.

Needless to say by the end of the visit, we had transfer sheets in hand and we were filling out the necessary paper work to put them back into Red Mountain.

So after school, I told the kids about the change. Taran was WAY excited. Joely shed some tears (which is VERY UNUSUAL for her). I think Joely is going to have a hard time with the switch but is also fine with it....she is just going to miss her teacher Mrs. Fife...and so will we! She is such a wonderful teacher, and the main reason we were planning on not transferring her until next year. But, we felt the switch was a good idea, and Im excited to see how they do and Red Mountain tomorrow!

Lori on the today show

This was Lori on the Today show with another REALLY annoying person!
Tonight she will be on Entertainment Tonight 6 pm
and Joy Beher 6:30pm
and Inside Edition 12:30am

not-in-the-know

I think its safe to say that I am not always in the know! For example about a week ago I saw this commercial (shown above)....As I watched it, I seriously started laughing because Joel has two sisters Tawni and Lori who both sleep with blow dryers. I laughed that this show was going to show someone with the same strange addiction. I also thought it was funny that the person looked so much like Lori. I actualy was going to call Joel and tell him about it, but didnt.

Then a few days ago, Joel was on the phone with his dad. When he got off the phone I asked what they were talking about, he said that Lori was getting flown out to New York on Wednesday to be on the Today show....What? Why was she going to New York? Joel told me it was because of the show she did for TLC.....me still clueless. Joel thought for sure I knew that Lori had done a show called "My Strange Addiction". I had no clue, but started laughing as I told him I had already seen the commercial and Lori!

So, this Wednesday, Lori will be on the Today show, and taping several other shows (that I dont know about right now)

And Next Wednesday she can be seen on the debut episode of "My Strange Addiction" PS. if you click the link it will bring you directly to a short spot on Lori.

Love,

Wheres Tarans head

So I have had that header at the top of my page for probably a year, and just today I noticed Tarans head..... (or lack of it)..... how funny, he is a headless boy. Not to perceptive here huh?

So here's a picture of Taran to make up for his headless one on top.

boys are great

Only with a boy can this happen....

I walked into bathroom and saw Kyler wiping the top of the toilet and wall with toilet paper

Me: Kyler what are you doing
Kyler: cleaning off some pee, I missed the toilet.

umm, thats quite a miss!

I love to read

One of my friends posted this, and though it isnt really all the type of books I read, i thought it would be interesting to write down the ones I read...I'll show the BBC ;-)

The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here. Instructions: Bold those books you've read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read an excerpt.


1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D'urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch-22 - Joseph Heller

14 The Complete Works of Shakespeare...yeah for Shakespeare class!

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

18 Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger

19 The Time-Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Graeme

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34 Emma - Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown...okay this one is iffy...I didnt finish this because I had already seen the movie, but I read all of the book that is before this one, so I counted it.

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgommery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel


52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Inferno - Dante

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine St. Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo


Not too bad, some though i admit I've never heard of and at least 1 I think Im going to look up to read, how about you?