Tidbits

We have been very busy the past week or so, and I thought I'd share some tidbits that I haven't managed to blog about.

It has been SUPER windy here lately. So when Andrew went outside on Sunday morning, he told Emma to only come outside if Mom helped her with the door. Do kids ever listen? Apparently not. She opened the back door only to have the wind catch it and have the door fling her about 10-15 feet into the backyard. Andrew was standing right outside, but couldn't reach her in time. LOTS AND LOTS of blood and tears. This was way worse than the scratched knee at the park. In fact, she was so beat up that we missed church on Sunday. Oddly enough, the only visible injury she actually sustained from this incident was the scratched and swollen nose and lip. The banged and bruised forehead was from falling after trying to "fly" on the swingset on Saturday evening. Dad was outside with her that time, too. Hmm, do we see a pattern here?

I think Frank is going through a growth spurt. He sleeps for hours and hours, and it's like waking the dead to get him up to go anywhere. I'll put him down at noon and have to wake him up at 4:30-5:00 so that he'll go back to sleep at night. This was the scene when Andrew entered his room at 10:30 am the other day. Just so you know, my kids go to bed at 8:00 pm, so he'd been sleeping (or doing who knows what) for over 14 hours!

Apparently Andrew and I are Emma's real-life Prince Charming/Cinderella story. She's been on a real marrying kick lately, and laments every day that she can't marry Daddy because he already found his Princess. It's adorable to see how sad she gets!

And this morning we got a favorable vote for our displays of affection when she told me that our little goodbye peck was "SOOO beautiful and pretty." Well, glad she knows that we love each other at least!

What, a Temple? Where you Say?

I'm still a little bit in shock! Who would think that there would actually be a temple of God in the little old Gila Valley. I know about the prophecies when Pima was first founded. "Place the town on the north side of the river and you'll get a temple. South, and no dice." Well, that may be a little paraphrased. Anyway, the town of Pima is south of the river, and you guessed it, no temple. No one was really surprised when the last temple went to Snowflake instead of the Gila Valley. I honestly thought that the prophecy was still in effect. I guess the Lord has different plans, though. A temple in my hometown. Who woulda thunk?

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When I told Emma, her first response was "Wow, does that mean that I can get married in Safford in the temple now?"

My daughter is going to be able to be MARRIED in my hometown someday if she chooses. Like I said, I'm still in shock, and anyone that's been to the Gila Valley knows why. Lots of members, lots of cotton farms and prisons, but not much else. Honestly, their big claim to fame is the Wal-Mart Supercenter and the teeny little Home Depot that was just built last year.

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Something that didn't even register until last night was that I'll be able to take my kids into the temple during the open house and show them everything! Emma will probably be around 6 by then, so she'll get to learn so much. I am so EXCITED for that! Also, we'll go the one in Gilbert, too. But, I'm going to do everything I can to get her to the groundbreaking and other occasions when the prophet will be there. This is going to be amazing.

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Just one more thought. ANDREW AND I CAN GO TO THE TEMPLE WHENEVER WE WANT BECAUSE WE WILL ALWAYS HAVE A BABYSITTER! Just think, drive an hour or so, drop off the kids at one of the grandparents and cruise on over to the temple for a session. Does it get any easier than that? Yea!

Culinary Success!

I am not a great cook. In fact, I'm actually rather bad at the culinary arts. I usually manage to pacify the tummy-beasts, but don't hardly ever succeed in wowing anyone except Emma, who thinks that pretty much any meal I make is "the best thing she's ever eaten."

Whenever I do try anything out of the ordinary, I usually am met with failure and a deepened sense of what a loser I am in the kitchen. My poor husband (who is an outstanding chef, by the way) tries to encourage me, and even says that a couple of things I make almost rival his mother's cooking. And let me tell you, that's something. However, I know deep down that he's mostly just trying to boost my self-esteem to keep me from quitting my duties of family slop-slinger forever.

Tonight, however, I am proud to say that I took a giant leap forward in the journey toward becoming a reasonably talented cook.

I made rolls.

And not just any rolls, but twice-risen, light, fluffy and moist rolls that you can eat plain because they are SO GOOD! They taste like Thanksgiving.

I am very proud of myself, and spent the better part of 20 minutes on the phone telling Andrew what he was missing at dinner tonight. He tried to be positive and encouraging, but I could tell that he didn't really believe that I could actually do this. I've tried to make rolls before and every single time they've come out AWFUL! I can't wait for him to come home and eat about 8 of them.

I made good rolls!!!!!

Family Night at the Fair

For FHE this week Andrew took the night off from work and we took the kids back to the fair. It was nice to be able to take 2 nights to see all the sights and ride rides, instead of trying to fit it all into a mad dash on 1 single night. We bought 30 pre-paid ride tickets from Fry's, so we were able to save A TON compared to the regular ticket prices. Basically, each ride was $1. Do you have any idea how long it takes to ride $30 worth of rides?

Because both my kids are midgets, Mom had to go on some of the rides with them, so I thought that we'd be using up the tickets faster. However, the big-city fair is different from the small-town Safford fair. Here, they don't bother charging the parents when you have to ride. Also, their little electronic scanners kept jamming so they'd just let us on for free! To top it all off, some very nice, well-meaning family that was leaving the carnival handed us 2 ride cards with what they thought was 1 ride each on them. No such luck. Turns out we got 6 more rides! Now, I'm not complaining, everyone that knows me knows that I LOVE the fair. However, when your little boy has a bloody lip from tripping on the asphalt, you have 10 more rides to use, and it's already 10:00 pm, you'd do just about anything to be done and go home!
I was really excited this year because Frank got to ride all the rides this year. And, Emma was big enough to qualify as his "big person", so Mom didn't have to ride hardly at all with them.

It's amazing how different my kids are. Anyone within 1/2 mile of Emma knows when she's having a good time. She has this blood-curdling, ear-piercing shriek that lets everyone know she's happy. On the other hand, Frank was so amazed and entranced with everything that he would just sit there and stare around like he was on Benadryl or something. I asked him constantly, "Are you having fun?" He would just reply "Fun, yeah." So much for great salutations of great joy, huh? That's my little guy. Sober and somber. But the next day he kept saying "Cars fly, Mommy. Cars fly." Apparently the flying Jeep ride was his favorite.

In case you were wondering, Mom is thinking "Oh, my. What have I gotten myself into?" This ride SUCKED! Emma was so small that she kept slipping, and my chest was being smashed FLAT by the weird plate that was in a rather inconvenient spot. A man definitely designed this ride.

These were AWESOME little bumper boats. It was weird that they didn't have seat belts or anything, and the height restrictions were very tight. Only kids from 36-42 inches could ride. So there were tons of little tiny kids cruising around the pool. Luckily there were 2 very nice carnies (is that an oxymoron?) that towed them around and kept them from getting stuck spinning in circles. This was definitely my favorite ride to watch Emma do.

The only ride that Dad rode was the biggest Ferris wheel I've ever seen. Ironically, my husband is deathly afraid of heights. His hands were sweaty and he was nauseous while we were just standing in line! You should see his reaction if the gondola sways a little or 1 of the kids leans toward the edge. Honestly, I thought he was going to throw up! Frank was ENTRANCED by seeing the sights from way up in the air. He wouldn't even respond to me when I tried to talk to him. This was definitely a winner for him.

I'm very blessed to have such a great family, especially a husband that would rather be with his family than do just about anything. We had a great time, and Emma has already started asking when the fair will be here again. I haven't dared tell her that it hasn't even left yet!

Until next year......

Yee Haw!

Well cowboys and cowgirls, it's that time of year again. Time to break out our tube tops and wife-beaters and hit the county fair! This year was better than ever because we went on County Redneck Day and watched the tractor pulls, as well as the Destruction Derby. (They call it that to make it sound more city-fied, but all us rednecks know that it's really our national past time-- the DEMOLITION DERBY!!!)

They had a class for the garden-size as well as the full-size tractors. This kid was too cute!

You Know You're a Redneck When... (Merriman edition)

1. Your KIDS would rather look at all the animals than buy Dora the Explorer or Spiderman inflatable hammers.

2. Your son actually squeezes through a hole in the fence to get closer to the tractors DURING the tractor pull.

3. Your son and husband spend 1 WHOLE HOUR looking at little engines that run and run but don't actually do anything. (And they wanted to stay longer!)

4. You show up early to the Demolition Derby to get the best seats in the house, and are ticked off when the big tall guy with the cowboy hat sits in front of you anyway.

5. You can spend 4 hours at the fair and never buy a treat. Instead, you sneak in Wal-Mart fruit snacks and gas station peanut packs for the kids to munch on. Afterward, you actually use a buy-one-get-one-free coupon for a hamburger at Carl's Jr.

6. You plop down in a garden swing display for 20 minutes. When the salesman asks you what you're interested in, you say "Nothing, I just needed to rest my feet for a few minutes."

7. Your daughter walks right past every booth with blinking hats and foam lizards-on-a-stick, but begs for 5 minutes to be able to use the Make-Your-Own-Rope machine.

Frank LOVED the goats. That is, until 1 of them started eating his shirt. You should've seen how fast he got out of that pen!

Well, these were just a few true-life experiences from last night. But don't worry- we're going back tomorrow (on the cheap ride night, ya'll) to ride rides and eat all of the carnival crap we can fit in our bellies. I'm sure we'll have lots more tales from redneck-ville then.

Poor Frank got sunscreen in his eyes and couldn't even hardly see.

See? In redneck land, EVERYTHING is backwards!

Not just a walk in the park

I know that a trip to the park is not very blog-worthy. However, I just had to share a couple of things that happened when we had Family Home Evening (minus Daddy) at the park tonight.

I promised Emma that we could go to the park all the way last Friday. Since then, we have had 35-40 mph winds every day, and today it hit 95 degrees. Not exactly ideal park weather. But, Emma has been a trooper and been very patient until the weather was nice enough to finally go this evening. We just packed a little picnic and let the good times roll.

When I was growing up, my great-grandmother Grace used to sing us crazy songs while swinging, jumping on the trampoline, and playing on other stuff at my grandma's house. Her song for the teeter-totter went like this:

"Teeter Totter

Bread and Water

Wash your Face

In Dirty Water."

I never thought about it when I was younger, but this makes absolutely NO SENSE. But, I automatically sing it to my kids as they play outside, and apparently they've already picked it up. Frank was playing by himself on the teeter-totter and I heard this:

"Teeter Totter, Wash your Face. Teeter Totter, Wash your Face"

over and over and over. It was adorable, and Grandma Grace would've been so proud!

Our playtime at the park came to a screeching halt when Emma broke her leg. Ok, she didn't break her leg, but by the way she was screaming, you would've thought she had a compound fracture or something. By the time I got to her, she was writhing on the bike path and begging me to carry her "all the way home." I let it go on for a few minutes, but I finally just had to snap this picture. I told her it was so that Daddy could see how bad her owie was, but she actually asked me to put it on the blog "so your friends can see how bad I'm hurt." My daughter isn't a drama queen, is she?

(As you can tell, she'll most likely have to have reconstructive surgery to repair this horrific injury.)

Startin' Them Young

I know some parents that do absolutely everything for their kids. They wipe their noses, get them any food or snack they want, clean up every mess the kid makes, and so on. I, however, am from the old school. I believe that if you want the kid to be able to take care of themself someday, you have to give them the opportunity to learn how to do things on their own. Hey, you're not breaking any child labor laws by teaching your kid to clean up after himself!

I also believe in starting them VERY young.

This was illustrated very well last night when Frank and Emma were fighting over a bowl of popcorn that, of course, ended up all over my carpet. So, they got to learn how to use the Dustbuster! The great thing about this age is that they still cleaning is fun!