Mom Brain

I've got it bad. Real bad. Its a curious thing, mom brain. The anti nausea portion of the brain seems to deplete the common sense sector. I have been puked on peed on, pooped on and slobbered on, all without blinking. I wipe the offending fluid off and continue on with life. Second nature.

BUT I can't think anymore. Its a big problem considering I have three kids. As of yet, I haven't forgotten any of them. Not when it mattered anyway. I did once leave the baby in the car, but my sweet husband was there to gently remind me "ARE YOU CRAZY? THE BABY COULD DIE OUT THERE! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?" Case in point. I wasn't thinking. I just can't, its too hard.

Example 1: I walk in to the house with the baby, the diaper bag and a bowl of egg salad. I hang the diaper bag up, take the baby upstairs and put the highly perishable egg salad away. Everything looks good. Until the next day when I go to the cupboard to grab my kids a healthy fruit leather snack. A cupboard in which lies my highly perishable egg salad. All nice and perished.

Example 2: Cash. Josh went to the bank and took out some money for me to go shopping on Black Friday so I wouldn't spend too much. I tend not to keep track (mostly because I know if I do, it just won't be as much fun). So I have that stash of cash. I also babysit my niece, she paid me in cash also. I remember putting the babysitting money on the kitchen counter downstairs. So its not the best place to put money, but I knew where I put it, which is one step ahead of the norm. The BF money I recall placing on the microwave. Vividly. I get ready to go shopping and I think I know where all this cash is. I go to the microwave, nothing. I go downstairs to the kitchen counter, nothing. I ransack the house, dig through hampers, shuffle through junk drawers and non junk drawers, look under, in and over the couch, double check everything, stick my hand in my pocket and pull out the babysitting money. Celebrate quietly, grab my purse to ensure its safety, put my hand in and pull out the BF money. Celebrate much more quietly as to not tip off my husband of my insanity and unify the money in one big safe wad.

Such is my life. Always.

Which brings me to my latest excuse for the large expanse of time between blog posts. I forgot I had a blog. Can't post in a blog you don't have now can you? Okay, I jest, I'm not that crazy yet. Just a little slower than usual.

Pictures!

Pics by Tina, Oliver at three months. Adorable.

Oliver passed out on the boppy. Those things DO look comfy.Cozy baby.Nolan and his little bro. Look at that color difference!All my sweeties.Happy boy!The boys.Ollie at the computer, his favorite spot.Nolan's black eye. It got so much worse, sad I didn't get a picture. I searched high and low for a picture of Clara without messy hair. This was the closest I came. I really do do her hair every morning. Super cute. She just destroys it in a matter of minutes. She's cute anyway.

I have a new kid!

His name is Oliver James. He was born on August 5th (during the day sometime). He was three weeks early, 6lbs even, 19 3/4 inches long. Such a pretty little baby! Although he's one month now and not quite as little as before. He's getting so chubby. I love it when they're chubby.

We've been adjusting to the new change pretty well. He sleeps on my lap all day while I do my data entry. Besides the fact that he's a little human heater and I sweat like a pig the whole time, it works pretty well. I just keep telling myself the cooler weather is coming. The weatherman says otherwise, but I dare to dream. It can't be that far off.

Clara has started kindergarten. I was sad at first, but I really like only having two kids at home for a couple hours a day. It reminds me of the good old days. We all get up and ready to walk her to school in the morning. Its the only excercise I've been getting lately, and its really nice in the morning. Best part of the day.

Other than that, things have kind of been business as usual. Oh, besides the introduction of cake balls into my life. They're fabulous. My most recent experiment was mint brownie cake balls. Um, delicious. I want to try making a caramel apple kind and key lime pie, and maybe even a cheesecake. I'm making myself hungry. AND the best part is that they're gluten free and still delightful. Josh can actually eat them. And when he's happy, I'm happy. Sometimes. Anyway, they're good, trust me.

Tina Miera took these beautiful pictures of Oliver when he was 9 days old.

Oliver's first bath at home. He was so chill!Clara's first day of school. She was so excited! So was Nolan. I had to drag him out of the classroom when we dropped her off. He was pretty miffed.Soccer cake in buttercream. Do you have any idea how hard it is to frost a circle smooth? Pretty hard.And this is Nolan showing off his knowledge of sounds

Found it!

I know, its been a while again, but my camera is in working order now, so I'm a photo snapping fool at the moment. I'm sure my new found appreciation for my camera will spark my blogging urges for at least a week or so. Its been a crazy ride getting here though.

We went to the zoo the week of the 4th for the free military day thing. Josh loves the zoo. You might categorize it as a bit obsessive even. Its really not for the kids that he goes. Part of his obsession is taking pictures of EVERYTHING there. That's a problem when you're camera's not functioning. We were missing our battery charger. We looked everywhere a million times each and nothin. Finally the day we went to the zoo, we really tore the house apart and found the charger. Don't remember where we found it, but it was recovered. Only to realize the battery wasn't in the camera.

Looked everywhere for that too. Now, I have two kids. They like to relocate things. Clara puts everything in her purses, Nolan puts things in the toybox (except toys) and the garbage. I've found my phone in the garbage can and the recycling bin. Luckily it rings, unlike a battery. So we couldn't find it and we ended up going without a camera. We decided to go again the next day with Papa, Jessica and Laura. We looked everywhere again and we couldn't find it. It was a good zoo day, but there's no proof. It will be forgotten in a year or two and there's nothing I can do about it. I guess I'm writing about it now, but its not photographic proof. I could be lying.

Anyway, I assume its been trashed and its sitting in a pile of things kids throw away that they shouldn't at the dump. I break down and decide to just buy a new one. We go to the store, locate the battery for our camera, turn around and walk right back out without the battery. It was 50something bucks. I don't think so. I'm finding that battery or buying a crappy new camera. So we go home and look again. At this point I've found all the lids to my lipgloss that have mysteriously disappeared, my gymbucks (hadn't expired yet!), every insurance card I've misplaced, my wedding ring, Nolan's missing pajamas, and an old apple. Helpful, but not what I was looking for.

So since the store was ridiculous, I go to ebay. We got a phone battery on there a while back for $1. I find our battery for ten, including shipping. Halleluia. I can handle ten. I buy it, we get it in the mail and I'm free to take any old picture I want. A couple days later, what should show up but our battery. In the drawer Josh swore he put it in, but couldn't find it in. It was there. The whole time. So now we have two batteries, should one elude us again.

And now for pictures.

I would have awesome zoo pictures, had my dreams been realized. Since they weren't these are pretty random.

Instead, this is Clara with awesome braids in her hair. I did them yesterday, she played, went to bed, took a bath and they look the same. I love them very much and will make her keep them in until her hair starts looking crusty.

Here's Nolan getting his camera time. Just being cheesy and bald as always.

Here's a little addition to that, he's being cheesy bald and princessy here.Again, when I take a picture of one, I must take a similarly themed picture of the other.And I can finally take pictures of my cakes. I don't even know how many I've missed out on. Luckily I can't remember or the regret might keep me up at night.

I would post a picture of myself at 36ish weeks along, but quite frankly, its not a pretty picture, this is my third child and I really don't want to remember being massively bloated and swollen in 100 degree weather. And there are none. I'm going to keep it that way. The proof will be in the child, who's name we haven't agreed upon yet.

Oh, and anyone who has tried to look up my website and has been depressed for the two months its been down, I'm here to ease your pain. I put up a little blog with my cake pics on it until I get my new website up and running. Its justeatitcakes.blogspot.com. You're welcome!

Wassup!?

Yeh, we're still alive.

I'd apologize, but then I'd just sound redundant, so I'll skip that part.

Many goins' on have been goin on in our household and I've been too busy/lazy/crazy to post about them. But here, I'll try to sum up the last few months in a somewhat normal sized nutshell.

Where did I end off? Like March or something. So there've been a lot of new people in my kid's lives. Well, really only brand new in Nolan's life, but like new in Clara's. My sister and brother both returned from their missions. Laura, the sis, came back from California, Sacramento, ASL speaking, and Daniel from Madrid, Spain, Finnish speaking. Ha, just kidding, Spanish speaking. They've both jumped right back into real life rather quickly and the kids hit it off with them both like they'd never been gone. Only Clara likes Laura now. See, she used to hate her. Now Nolan hates her. At least she has the affection of one of em.

And the birth of my cousin's son adds to the new people. His name is Ethan and he lives in my basement (with his mom, she didn't just leave him down there to fend for himself). Nolan finally touched him willingly for the first time yesterday. We've tried to get him to pat him softly many times before. Want him to be well practiced for his new brother, and why not work through the bumps with a kid that's not mine? He would just ball up his fist and pull his hand away so we'd end up forcing him to rub his head with the back of his unusually large 17 month old hands. But yesterday he was rubbing his head (with is palm) and then possessively grabbing him away from Clara. That's when we had to take a little break to talk about being soft.

We're in for it with this one, I tell you. He's so incredibly sweet and conniving that he gets away with just about everything. He has the prettiest eyes and he opens them up so wide and sincerely and hugs so tight and pats my cheeks that I forget why I was mad at all. Its not a good thing. Especially with this new one coming. He's going to be J-E-A-L-O-U-S. Guess he'll just have to get used to it.

And Clara, we've finally enrolled her in kindergarten and its killing me. I'm so scared for her. She's so innocent and genuinely good that I think it'll all be ruined or she'll get bullied for it. I hope for neither and that all the kindergarten kids believe that Santa is real, no matter what their parents tell them, and that cops are there just to find you when you're lost, and Jesus is watching you from Heaven. Oh, and that Dora is the most awesome television show ever. AAAAAAAHHHH!!!

Anyway, like I said, I've been a little busy, hence the blog neglect. I finally got a job from home that I THOUGHT would make my life a little less hectic, but nay. I'm probly busier than ever. And I still need to find time to excercise and do extracurricular activties for the cultivating of my children's social skills (and mine). No such luck yet. Although I do start off everyday with the putting off of an early morning shower reflecting my intention to work out. That's how I show my committment. Unfortunately, the only thing it results in is not getting decent until about 1 oclock. Anyone who comes to the door before then gets an eyeful of my bathrobe, bed head and smudged mascarra. Nah, I'm not a frumpy mom. Not a chance.

Yup, that's my exciting life in a nutshell. Hopefully pics will come soon, when I find the time and energy to find the time and energy to find my camera's battery charger.

Holy Cake!

I asked for it. I knew what was coming. I saw it happening, and yet, I still agreed to it.

I was on the committee planning the stake women's conference. That's all. It was going so well. Then they found out I did cakes. I had to miss a couple of meetings to teach my cake decorating classes. They wanted wedding cakes for decoration. It all fit together so perfectly. They asked me to make 4 wedding cake centerpieces (styrofoam decorated like a cake) a few weeks before the event. If I was an organized person, it would have been (pardon the pun) cake. Since they're styrofoam, I could have started the next day. I could have spread out the work.

Could have, didn't. I had a REAL wedding cake order for the day before too. So in short, I decorated 5 wedding cakes within one week. I worked 20 hours, ran to the store about a hundred times for supplies I ran out of or forgot, I taught a cake decorating class, took my daughter to the dentist, cleaned the kitchen 5 times a day (didn't do any good) and babysat my niece. It was insane.

They turned out nicely though. Look! I'm happy they asked me to do it, really. I had so much fun. If only I had 5 paying wedding cakes a week. I could quit my job and actually have time to do them. I needed some more cakes for my wedding portfolio. Most of the cakes I do are birthday or other special occasions. Not usually wedding cakes. People just don't get married as much as they get birthdays. Shame. So anyway, here they are. They're pretty boring colorwise. They wanted them to all be white, and I agreed. They're nice though.

The first one is the "real" wedding cake and the rest are the displays.

This is a Godzilla birthday cake I made last month for a baby's first birthday. I guess his nickname was Godzilla.The nastiness that is my son. Every time we eat. Every time. No joke. He takes whatever he has and wipes it all over his head. In this case, oatmeal. Terrible photo though. But you can still see the nastiness through the blurriness.This is him all cleaned up. A heartbreaker, I tell you.My darling daughter, getting her share of camera time.And this last bunch is from sledding on President's day. Every year, we have a little family reunion in Logan. We go to the cheese factory and fill up on the cheese and ice cream. Then we illogically go picnicking in 20 degree weather. We chatter and freeze and then go sledding. Clara, Nolan and I slept all the way home. Poor Josh had to suffer awake to keep us all alive. I think it was worth it.

We didn't even start sledding until an hour after Nolan's naptime. He was sooooo tired! We would send him down the hill and he would just sit there. Exactly like that. Not moving a muscle. It was so funny.

Clara had the best time of all. She even carried the sled up by herself a couple of times.

Strawberry Kiwi Lobster

That's right. Strawberry kiwi lobster. Problem? Yeah, its gross. Let me tell you how it happened.

We didn't have anything planned for Valentine's Day. I had to work, Josh had to work (liar), it was just going to be another day. We already talked about gifts and such. We weren't going to get each other anything, we were going to go to Hale Centre Theatre in March when the Phantom of the Opera is playing. That would be our Valentine Date.

Apparently I was the only one who got the message. I went out to my car to go to work and the whole thing was turned into a giant Valentine. There were window stickers all over, balloons, chocolates, flowers, a big gaudy card. It was really sweet. I told him I almost cried and that the one thing that would have put me over the edge would have been if he had actually written in the card. Guys.

So I go to work, planning to stop somewhere on my way home and grab him something. I'd already got him a card, but it was looking pretty cheap comparatively. I was scheduled to get off at 9, but they made me stay later. So late that Josh was calling me, telling me to come home. I didn't get out of work until 11, and I THOUGHT Josh had to go to work at 2:30, so I decided he'd rather spend a little time with me on Valentine's Day than have me go searching for something befitting such a wonderful husband.

I drive home, hoping to get a few precious moments with my family. When I get there, he surprises me by announcing that he has the day off. I was happy, but feeling bad that I didn't get him anything, so I go in the kitchen and grab a piece of jerky, left over from Clara's snack the other day, and a reese's. That was my gift to him. Economically savvy, I like to call it.

We still didn't do much of anything the whole day, just kind of cleaned and hung out. Oh yeah. The nap. We took a family nap. It was the greatest gift anyone has ever given me. Nolan went to bed, CLARA went to bed (never happens), Josh slept on the couch and I had a peaceful siesta in my own bed. 2 hours. Nice. Then we went to my Grandma's house for her birthday. She gave us her delicious caramel apple cake. I don't know why she feels the need to make her own birthday cake, but I'm glad she did. It was delicious.

Then more sugar at my mom's house where she had a bunch of gluten free sugar cookies for us to eat and the kids to decorate. They were good and reminded me of the old days when I used to decorate Valentine cookies for my friends.

We toyed around with the idea of going out to eat as a family, but decided it was too risky with sick kids and the potentially massive lines. Home cooked meal it was. We went to Harmons to get some ingredients, but I forgot my recipes at home. I'd wanted shrimp scampi, but Josh wanted lobster and we've never made lobster before so I said we could just use that in place of the shrimp. $28! That stuff is expensive and it was on SALE! It would have normally been $40.

It was fun figuring out how to cook it. We ended up steaming it and then shredding it up for the spaghetti. The only bad part was the (I assume) lobster poop. That stuff was nasty. I got it all out though, I think. Then I made the sauce. It was a moment of complete moronism. The recipe called for white wine. When something calls for white wine, I usually just put in apple juice (for a sweeter recipe) or chicken broth ( for something more savory). Don't ask me why I didn't have chicken broth pop into my head. Lobster spaghetti isn't exactly a sweet dish. But for some reason, I was stuck on subbing in apple juice. Only I didn't have any. All I had was orange juice and kiwi strawberry juice. The first ingredient in kiwi strawberry juice is apple juice. So I figured it would be okay. So I dumped it in. 3 minutes later, the lobster was bright pink and all fruity smelling. Not so good with butter, garlic and lemon. No. Not so good.

Josh was sweet and choked it down, I gobbled mine right up and am eating the leftovers as I type. Its still gross. Clara would only eat the noodles and Nolan wasn't having any of it. Ah well. Now I know that strawberry kiwi lobster spaghetti is not something I want to make again. The salad was good though. New ingredients there too. It had fennel, which smells fabulously like black licorice, and pancetta (Italian bacon). It all worked together really well, so I'm glad something turned out.

After the whole dinner mess, we decided to dip strawberries in chocolate as a family. Clara had a ton of fun and they were to die for. I ate almost a whole pan myself. So good! And then we watched our DVR'd episodes of Monk and Psych. Funny stuff. We put Clara to bed, Josh flipped to the travel channel, and I spent the rest of the night decorating a Wall-E cake. It was a good day.

And now for some random pictures. These are pictures of Clara by Tina. She decided to redo Clara's pics after we had our family pictures taken. They turned out cute!

Cakes I made this weekend. The first one is R2D2, made out of fondant and the second is a Wall-E cake, also molded out of fondant. They were fun!

And finally, my first scrapbook page in literally at least a year and a half. This is the debut of Nolan into my scrapbook. First page with him ever. Not my favorite page, it has my ugly handwriting on it and its too florally, but I'm glad I finally did one. Hopefully I can keep it up.

Bitter Sweet Symphony

1. Put your music library on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG TITLE DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!
4. Tag 10 friends who might enjoy doing this. Post a comment on their blog that says "You've been tagged! See my blog for details."
1) IF SOMEONE SAYS, "IS THIS OKAY," YOU SAY?
When Sould Meets Body
2) WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
Bite My Tongue
3) WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
Moondance
4)HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
Sugar We're Goin Down
5) WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
Another One Bites The Dust
6) WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
American Woman
7) WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR PARENTS?
Tight Wad Hill
8) WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Have You Ever
9) WHAT IS 2+2?
High Voltage
10) WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Thriller
11) WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Independent Woman
12) WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?
13) WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Earth to Bella
14) WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Livin' On a Prayer
15) WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
Under Pressure
16) WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
Wish You Were Here.
17) WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
Frosty The Snowman
18) WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Exploder
19) WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
The Last Song
20) WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
If
21) WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
Bitter Sweet Symphony

I tag Ashlee.

Cute Lil Fig!

I've been having some minor complications with my pregnancy so I've been really anxious to see if everything was going smoothly. I had my first doctor's appointment today. Normally I would go earlier but nobody's schedules matched up so 11 weeks it is.

So we woke the kids up, got them all ready and took them to my mom's (thank heaven for her) and then took off to the doc's. I'm so glad Josh comes with me to my appointments. I've had so many of them in my pregnancy history and personally, I'm sick of them, so I can't imagine what he's going through. But he's my health advocate. If he didn't come, I wouldn't know or remember what questions to ask. I probably wouldn't even know my due date. So thankfully, he's willing to suffer through them. Actually, he generally sleeps through them until the important parts. But that's good enough for me.

We got there a little late, because everytime I have any sort of appointment at the U, it snows. Literally every time. Its gotta stop soon. Traffic was horrible, the roads were slick, but we made it within ten minutes of the appointment and went right in to the ultrasound room. That's when I saw the cute little wiggly fig. It was moving all around, bouncing, floating, rolling. Aww. The tech made sure to point out the little healthy heartbeat and measurements. They were right on at 11 weeks, 3 days. They did diagnose me with a bicornuate uterus. Finally.

I've been told that they think I might have one by every single person that's ever had the high honor of looking upon my uterus. Finally they saw enough evidence in this ultrasound to diagnose it. The doctor's have told me that they can't figure out why I have miscarriages. No reason, just fate. Well, bicornuate fate. Here's a little anatomy lesson. My uterus looks like a sweet little heart. There are two sides. One is a little bigger than the other. If the baby is implanted into the smaller half, miscarriage will likely ensue, because it doesn't expand as well as a "normal" uterus. Luckily, this time, and apparently with my other two children, I managed to squeeze them into the larger half. And there you have it. Mystery solved.

I'm just relieved to know that the baby's doing well and everything's right on track for my horrible summer pregnancy. I will never stop complaining about that. Yes, I know, its my fault, but still. I'm going to die.

So on the way home, Josh and I witnessed a car accident. We stopped and Josh went over and made a statement to the police. We were in the far left lane, there was a dump truck in the center lane, just ahead of us and a silver SUV pulled out of the 7-11, onto the street and went to far. She clipped the dump truck and her light went flying off. It was kind of funny because she called the police and reported a hit and run. The dump truck had pulled off just a little further down and had his hazards on and everything. I don't know how she didn't see him. She was probably just trying to get her insurance to think it wasn't her fault. But as soon as she realized he had stayed, she decided not to file a report. The dump truck guy did though. Haha.

Family Pictures

Dang. Its been another month. Well at least it hasn't been a year. Yet. So we've had a crazy month.

It was my birthday and then Clara's birthday (I'll post pics later), then we got family pictures taken and Nolan had surgery. We're poor. S'all good though, cuz we have luv. Right?

I'm going to be a little random, my kids won't play with eachother. Its really annoying. Okay, that's probably not true, CLARA won't play with Nolan and he's terrible to entertain without her. She's been going to her room like a hermit and shutting the door. Insisting on playing ALONE. She will not let her pesty little brother in. She won't come out and play with him. I just yelled "Clara, open your door! I didn't have two kids so that they could play alone."

So I'm kind of forcing her to play with him. She'll end up resenting me for it. Until she has kids of her own. Or maybe I'm just mean and she'll let her kids play by themselves.

But I gotta post, and how am I supposed to do that when I have a bored little 13 month old grabbing at the keyboard? Exactly.

So, back to the family pictures. Tina took them. She's amazing. I'm really happy with how they turned out and I can't wait till I get my taxes back so I can fix up my family room and hang them all "cute-like".

We made her take them in her studio because we just HAD to get them done in January when its frigid out. Um, because I'm PREGGO and I wanted to get family pictures with Nolan, AND before I got all fat. er.

I'm about 9ish weeks along, I think. I have my first appointment on the 9th, so we'll find out for sure then. So this shall be an August/September baby. Generally I would be appalled at that, seeing as I'll be most pregnant in the wretched summer days. Blah summer. BUT as long as its not a December/January baby, I AM HAPPY! I already can't do up my pants. I'm walking around with my pants unbuttoned because I refuse to wear maternity clothes this early. I haven't gained any weight either, so I know its not just because I'm eating too much. Which I am, but I'm pregnant and breastfeeding, give me a break! I'm like a bottomless pit. Anywho, enjoy our pictures. I did! Oh, and HERE's a slideshow of our pics too.