When will it end?

I am sick of everyone being sick! Yes, Clara has the chicken pox. I can deal with that. She doesn't even care. Then Josh gets sick on Tuesday I think. I just assumed he was being lazy. He never said he was actually sick. He really was though because he so graciously gave it to me. AT THE WORST POSSIBLE TIME!
I'm a cake decorating instructor and I have a meeting every year. They motivate, inspire, inform and just give me a TON of free stuff. I love them!!! It was on Friday. The night before I stayed up late getting everything ready. I packed it all up in the car. The next morning I woke up to go and I was soooooo sick. I'll spare you the gruesome details but I was out of comission for the day. I laid on the couch while the kids watched movie after movie. Four in a row. They were so good. We hardly ever watch TV so they just soaked it up. The only saving grace of the day.
I was completely better on Saturday. Like nothing ever touched me. But Nolan. He now has a fever. Poor little baby. Its so sad. He's extra cute though. His lips are extra red, his skin extra white and his cheeks especially pink. And he's so cuddly. But he just lays there. He's the most active baby ever and he just lays there.
Worst Possible Scenario: He has the fever for a couple more days, gives it to Clara and then gets the chicken pox.
I think that's as bad as it can get. I hope it doesn't go that far though. Best scenario: He gets rid of the fever today and Clara's chicken pox clear up by Wednesday. That would be lovely. In the mean time I'm just going to try to enjoy my baby's cuddliness and have fun with Clara at home.

Randomness

I really need to post more. This is going to be really random.

Clara has the chicken pox. Again. She got them when she was 11 months old, right before she was supposed to receive the vaccine. The doctor said that having them was the same as getting the vaccine so she didn't get it. Lo and behold, she has them again. I found them on Sunday. Wanna know why? We had a family party. EVERYONE was there. There haven't been that many people since Christmas. Clara was running around playing with my younger cousins, not paying much attention to whether or not she needed to pee. So she finally realized it, ran to the bathroom and managed to make it NEARLY to the toilet. She peed all over the floor, her dress, her shoes, everything. The part was at my mom's house so I ran her home really quick and threw her in the shower. That's when a noticed a big red spot on her bum. I looked closer and realized there were alot of little red spots. Fabulous. At a family party. So we went back to the party since she'd already infected everyone to have my mom check them out. Yup. That's what they are. So hopefully no one gets them but if they do, I'M SO SORRY!!!

I guess you're contagious about a week before you break out. The day before I noticed anything we went to another party. It was the salt lake city mommies 3rd anniversary and there were TONS of kids there. I entered the cake decorating contest and, for the second year, didn't win. Its all good. I really hope they do it again next year but there weren't a lot of entries. Just three. I still didn't win. Still, all good. I forgot to take a picture of it too, of course. I think someone posted it on the SLCM site though, so maybe I'll try to get it from there. Anyway, lots of kids to infect there. Josh went. It was the first mom's activity that he's been too and all the ladies thought he was hot. I guess I got to raise my game!

Okay, you can't really see it all that well, but mine is the one with the sun on the top and the balloons on the side. The winner is the tray of mini cakes. They're cute. And in case you were trying to figure out what that first one was, its a pregnancy test.

Here's where the randomness comes in. I took a bunch of pictures because I was feeling like a bum, always forgetting so I have a lot that don't have any relevance to eachother. Just fun pictures.

Nolan was sick earlier this week. He had a yucky nose and red eyes. Sad but cute.

BUT he started feeling much better. Today he attacked this bunch of hanging bananas. Ripped them to shreds. No mercy.

Clara got this sweet doctor kit a few weeks ago but I wouldn't let her play with it because I didn't want her to lose the pieces. Anyway, I finally gave in.

This is a pic of my weedy mess of a garden. I took it with the intention of taking an after pic. Hasn't happened yet but hopefully this weekend.

And finally, the only pictures of my two weekend cakes that I remembered to take. Now you see why I'm so good.

Clara was tagged!

Man this is hard! 11 things about Clara.
1. She's got gorgeously tan skin. Jealous!
2. She's a fashionista. She loves clothes, she just has a hard time putting the right stuff together sometimes.
3. She must be accecssorized! Shoes, glasses, bags, jewelry, you name it.
4. She gets destructive when she's mad. She got in trouble at the library once and then came home and ripped up one of the library books while she was in time out. $30!
5. She's one of the nicest little kids.
6. She won't fight back. Big, little, painful or not, she's a wuss. Its good though, I guess.
7. If its not pink, its not for her. She's a girl through and through.
8. She loves to be outside!! Hence her fabulous tan.
9. She LOVES her friends. She has to do something with them everyday or she drives me nuts asking about them.
10. She loves flowers. Even evil weed ones. She's always picking me dandelions and morning glories.
11. She loves baby Nolan. She loves to be eaten, slobbered on, hugged, attacked, the whole nine yards.
Clara tags Gavin, Matthias and Anna.

Nolan Was Tagged!

I need to write 11 things about my strappingly handsome boy!
1. He loves sugar! The kid will eat anything sweet and spits out anything that hits below "potentially diabetic" on his sugar scale.
2. He's got huge hands and feet! They're enormous. Paws really. His feet just don't stop growing. Right now he's wearing 12-24 month socks and they're not big at all.
3. Happy, happy boy! He's always so good spirited EXCEPT
4. He loves to be held and when he's not being held when he wants to be, he's a force to be reckoned with.
5. He loves his big sister. He loves to hug her, eat her, slobber on her, rip out her hair, jump on her, spit up on her and countless other adjectives.
6. He doesn't like to sleep at all! He doesn't like missing out on all the action so his naps hardly ever last more than 20 minutes. Give me a break!
7. He is the whitest little kid ever.
8. He's always on the move, when I'm not holding him. Most of the time he goes backwards but he never stays in one place.
9.He's grabby. If anything approaches his grab zone, it ain't comin' back.
10. He's an angelic sleeper, but aren't they all?
11. He loves water! Bathing in it, playing in it, drinking it, you name it!
Nolan tags Morgan and that's about it!

Oh the fun!

So, we had a busy little weekend. Saturday was spent doing the four s's. Yes, you guessed it. Singing, shopping, smacking (I'll elaborate) and sitting.
Marilyn Dymond. A sweet, more mature lady in our ward with a bit of an attitude. She's fun. She entered this Mormon Battalion song writing competition. She wrote a really cute song and needed someone to sing it so she could submit a tape. Of course she asked me, Treasa and Jamie to sing it. We're fine with going to the studio and recording. It was kind of fun. Then she has to go and make the finals. So we're forced to perform at Gardner Village. We had to dress up in pioneer garb. Just kidding. We wore jeans and black shirts. Didn't want to stick out too much. It worked too. One of the other competitors came up and asked if we were the stage hands. Jerk.
Anyway we were all nervous. We didn't want to ruin it for her, you know? I'm sorry, but even if yours is the most amazing song of all time, if William Hung sings it, its never the same. We didn't want to do that to her. It actually went really well. Unfortunately for her, everyone else's went better. We didn't win a thing. 'cept maybe a sunburn. That's okay though because it brings me to my second s.
Shopping! Josh did come watch us sing but he works day shift so he took off shortly after we were done. I had the two kids still and wanted to look around. Emily came with and we browsed the little shops for hours. We even got the kid's pictures done in the old clothes and everything. I'll probably never get around to scanning them so trust me when I say they're cute. I got a pair of super cute shoes for half off too. Hard to beat that! It was scorching hot though so we decided to call it quits and run home for a bit before the third s....
Smacking. The tennis ball around. I, with kids in tow, met up with Emily at the Hunter tennis courts. Nolan fell asleep after a while and Clara had a fun time running around with her own little racket. What a cute photo op! Too bad I didn't take any pictures, eh? By that time I was completely drained of anything even resembling energy, so we spent the rest of the evening...
Sitting. In front of the television watching Indiana Jones. Got to review before seeing the new movie! Fun day!
Father's day was okay too. Again, Josh had to work but he was home long enough to open his presents and write his talk. Thank goodness, for once, for 1 o'clock church.
Last week, the first or second councelor, came up to Josh and asked if we were going to be at church on Sunday. Josh said yes and of course they asked us to speak. I really had neither the time or motivation to write my talk during the week so it fell into place Sunday morning. I kept timing myself and it was like five minutes. I guess I just want to be a youth speaker forever. I finally got it to 13 minutes if I was really slow and rambly. Making it go that long AT church was a different story. I got it to 10 minutes. Josh was very thankful for the primary. They came up and sang a few songs in the middle of the meeting so he was only left with about 15 minutes. Its always a nerve-wracking experience. I though it went rather well though. I didn't die of a heart attack so it was good.
So that was the weekend.
I'm so horrible! Clara had a swim party today with a bunch of friends and I didn't even take pictures. SHAME on me! I'm now tying my camera to my ankle so I don't miss anything else.

Haute Couture

My girl! Sometimes she amazes me with her eye for style and other times I just don't know what I've done to make her so blind to color. This lovely ensemble was picked out exclusively by her. I told her to get dressed. It was kind of cold so when she came out in shorts and a tank I told her it would be a little chilly so she needed to dress warmer. Soooo....she put on purple socks up to her knees, a purple jacket to match and a vest for who knows what. Have you seen Juno? When she was wearing just her shorts, tank, socks and head band, she really reminded me of that kid. I guess it will be a little while longer before I set her completely free to wear what she wants.

Currently she's grounded to her room until she cleans it. Its my fault really. I've been slacking off on her chore regimen the past week or two and I'm trying to get back into it. Today I'm pulling out all the stops and she's doing them, so help me. She's been in there for 2 hours and its slowly getting messier and messier. No worries. Her cousin is coming over and when she realizes that she doesn't get to play with her until her room is clean, she'll get her butt moving. I hope. Aaaah! Kids!

A Gazillion Pictures

I just uploaded all the pics from the last two weeks and it looks like I'll be here a while! First things first, we went to the Church History Museum the other day. Josh and I were planning on going to the temple for the first time since the baby. He's finally able to stand not eating for a few hours. So we were all excited. I remember getting a temple interview recently so I'm not worried about the expiration date at all. I am very paranoid though, so I checked just to make sure I had it and it had expired the month before. It turns out that when I had the interview to switch over to the barcode system, they didn't change the expiration date. Our plans were foiled!

We decided the second best thing would be to spend time with the fam so we went downtown to temple square and the church buildings. We had a lot of fun! Josh works downtown so he knows all the vagrants. I got to meet one of his favorite. Her name is ....um I can't remember her name but it starts with an E. Anyway, she didn't recognize him without his suit so she asked if he had any change to spare. Then she realized who it was and started chatting. Josh says she's a nice person, just a fake and a liar. She seemed nice.

Clara loved the children's section of the church history museum. Josh knows the place well so he made a great tour guide. This is a picture of the most valuable collection in the museum. Its mints for making money. He said its worth millions.

I've also had a very busy cake week. I forgot to take a pic of my sister's graduation cake, but the other two are here. One is a wedding cake and the other is a birthday cake for a friend. They turned out pretty cute, I think!

Wowza!

What a weekend! We've had all sorts of crazy things going on. Friday was spent moving Treasa and Devan out of our basement. They got an apartment in Taylorsville. I'm sure they won't miss the hobo spiders! We also moved Ashlee up into Nolan's soon to be bedroom. Oh what a mess! I'll try to explain.
Sooo....Treasa got married to Devan last April. Poor, courageous, selfless Devan was called to serve a tour of duty in Iraq for a year. Poor, courageous, selfless Treasa was left all alone. My cousin Ashlee decided she wanted a bit of a change and asked if she could move in with Treasa while Devan was gone. Perfect! So Devan comes back. They've been apart for a year and Ashlee really doesn't want to be around for that, so she's floating around for a few days before Treasa and Devan move out.
Normally Ashlee would just go back downstairs after they move out, but it just so happens that my uncle is homeless for a month. He just sold his house and bought one in Centerville but the closing dates are a month apart. Perfect timing. So my Uncle Ray and his family move into our basement with the hobos. Meanwhile Ashlee moved up to Nolan's room for the month. Nolan is still sleeping in my room.
So, as I said Friday was spent moving Treasa and Devan out and Ashlee up and Saturday was spent digging a clog out of the irrigation ditch and moving Raymond in. I guess we have about a month's break until we have to move them back out and Ashlee back down. All the while coordinating showers and laundry and dishes so as to please everyone.
OH, and our dryer broke. We have 9 people living in this house right now and our dryer's broken. Fabulous. Josh has been looking for an excuse to buy a new one anyway. He wants it to match our washer. Whatever. I would have preferred it to continue working.
And my little girl is difficult. Today she had a talk in church. I admit, I completely spaced it until this morning. But since church starts at one, we had plenty of time to prepare. It was on temples. So I helped her write a talk on temples. She had the whole thing memorized. I just had to say the first word of each phrase. So we practice before church. Perfect. We practice during sacrament meeting, before primary. Perfect. Then we go to primary. She runs in and tries to go right to the pulpit, she's so excited. Cute, right? They tell her, "no Clara, not yet honey. You need to wait until its your turn." Okay. She sits down. Then they say her name and she walks up to the microphone, I stand by her. I give her the cue, "this". Nothing. I prompt her a little more. "This is a picture...". Nothing. I look at her and she's just standing there with a decided expression on her face. Not embarassment or fear or anything of that nature. Just a look that says she's not going to say anything. We were up there so long that the primary president came up and said, "Okay Clara, you just hold the picture and your mommy will do the talk for you." So I gave her talk.
I was very irritated. She did the whole thing on purpose. After church I asked her why she wouldn't say her talk. Papa is her teacher in primary. "Papa said I was scared." "Were you?" "No, I think he forgot." "Well then, why didn't you say anything" "I didn't want to." AAAAH! Come on! Its not like she's never done it before. She was really good last time. She just didn't feel like it today. Anyway, she wasn't allowed to have her cookie ice cream. I can't wait to see what happens next time!