Cleod is 5!!

My biggest boy is five! It seems really strange to have a school-aged child, even though he's not in Kindergarten yet.

Friday was Cleod's birthday and we had good day. For lunch we went to my friend Savannah's house. Her little girl has the same birthday as Cleod and so we had a combined party and had Chette and her girls over. We worked with Savannah in the good old days at Papa Murphy's where Chette and I worked during college.

We had pizza and cupcakes and presents before heading to Funtime Inflatables, a new bouncy house place here in town.

The kids, well most of the kids, really enjoyed playing on the bouncy houses and slides. Cleod was scared the first time down the big slide but got over that really fast. Chette's two year old was ALL over the place...she loved it!

Ryan didn't jump at all. I told him that he owes me $5 now. He just wandered around and pretended to play the arcade games. Grant wandered around too and walked up to stranges. He wanted everyone but Mom, which is funny for a minute but made it a little stressful because he would have let someone take him home and not put up much of a fuss for a while. It's great that he's friendly, but I am already paranoid about my kids getting kidnapped.

We saw our friend Jill who's in town from Vegas because she's having her baby here. She's due next week and we are all getting anxious for her little girl to arrive.

Friday night, Silas and I took Cleod out to eat, just the three of us. It was so quiet and relaxing. The waiters sang to him which was really fun and he had a good time being alone with Mom and Dad. My mom came up from Vegas for the weekend so she watched Ryan and Grant. Question: Why are my kids always better for other people? Really, I'm grateful...but what is that about?

Last night we had Cleod's birtday dinner. In my house growing up we got to pick the meal for the Sunday before or after our birthday and we decided to start that too. Cleod picked spaghetti and I didn't argue! After dinner we had CAKE and not just an ordinary cake...an awesome Phineas cake made by his Aunt Joy! The Disney show, Phineas and Ferb is a family favorite and Cleod LOVED the cake. It was great.

We had a super busy weekend. On top of all the birthday festivities, Cleod had a practice Saturday morning for his Primary Program. Every year the children from 3-12 years old present to the congregation the things they learned at church through the year. Sunday was the actual program and it was great. Cleod got a little spacey for a while but he was brave and said his part and sang most of the songs great.

Saturday afternoon was our Relief Society Super Saturday, an activity where a bunch of woman do a bunch of crafts for a bunch of hours. It was awesome. I have a nice husband who stayed home with the kids. My mom and I painted like mad and I helped a few ladies make washer necklaces. I got the idea from my sister-in-law Kizzie and got the letter stamps when I was visiting another sister-in-law, Selissa, over Labor Day Weekend.

Overall, it was a crazy, stressful, fun weekend. I am so grateful to be a mom and I am really grateful to have such a wonderful family.

72-hour kit...Clothing

So I last Wednesday, I blogged about Step 1 from Utah's Plan 9 program which helps families to be prepared for public health emergencies and disasters.

Today I skipped Step 2, which is the food part of the 72-hour kit. I need to go to the store and get just a few things for that.

Step 3 is clothing. I had some things already but some were too small and it wasn't complete. SO today I got one of each of these items for all five of us: Jeans, shirt, sweater, socks, shoes, underwear (extra diapers and wipes for Grant). For the boys, the clothes are all the next size up. I save everything so for Grant and Ryan they have holey jeans that I save for camping. For Cleod, his clothes are stuff I have gotten on sale or at DI for future use. It only took about 30 minutes and I got to check another step off my list. Two down, seven to go!

BE PREPARED!

So today I felt like doing some Emergency Preparedness. First, I needed to restock the car with spare clothing for the boys. I got some holey jeans, cheap flag shirts, underwear for the big boys and a bunch of diapers and wipes for Grant, and some sweaters. Yes, they all match but that wasn't really on purpose. They just never wear these sweaters that I got cheap at Old Navy so I figured it would be good to throw them in the car. Also in the car we have a good first aid kit, jumper cables, a pack of water bottles, a blanket, toilet paper, extra utensils (which I thought was silly but I have actually used them), an emergency radio/hand-crank flashlight, and some cash.

The other day I was at the health department and there were some PLAN 9 pamphlets that I looked through. I have looked at A LOT of emergency preparedness information and this was very clean and clear. The first step is having one gallon of water person in your emergency kit. I have lots of water in my storage room, but not with the 72-hour kits stuff, so today (wish help from Cleod) I put 40, 1/2 Liter water bottles in a small suitcase with wheels. (That way it will be easier to transport if needed.) One gallon is like 3.78 Liters so we need 8 water bottles each.

I also organized my coat closet which is really our 72-hour kit closet which happens to store our coats. It's kind of hard to see, but there is a big black suitcase on the right which has clothing, toiletries, candles, propane, rope and more. (I am going to reorganize that soon.) On the left is the water suitcase and the light blue bag in front of that on the floor is the food part of the 72-hr kit which is incomplete at the moment. I took a bunch of stuff from it when we went to Colorado in September. On the shelf there are two backpacks with flashlights, batteries, an emergency radio, ponchos, crayons & paper, card games, wool socks and hand warmers.

I have been working on this for a long time and it is always on my mind. I feel relieved to have the first step from the Plan 9 pamphlet done. It was especially fun today because Cleod helped me the whole time. He's such a champ!

Ryan's late birthday present

I forgot about this and want to share it, mostly for Silas's mom. She sent something for Ryan along with Grant's birthday present and he had the best reaction!!

Thanks, Grandma Aitchison!!

Happy Halloween!

I hope everyone had a great Halloween. Can you believe it's November??

We had a really fun day! We spent some of the afternoon with our bestest friends, Brett and Deruchette and went to their ward's Trunk or Treat. The kids got TONS of candy and Cleod liked seeing all the other kids' costumes.

Deruchette is almost 8 months prego and dressed up her belly! SO cute!

Here are the two crazies...Ryan (Monkey) and Leksi (Raja the Tiger). I have a theory about second children, but that's another story.

Cleod and Kianna. Our cute big kids dressed up like Bumblebee from Transformers and Jasmine.

We went over the Brett's mom and dad's house because they are basically our adopted family. Brett's mom always gets things for our boys when see buys toys or whatever for her grandkids. They all got glow sticks from "Nana" this year. She's the best.

After that we went and picked up my neice Brooklyn and went trick or treating with her and my cousin Christine and her kids. It was fun to walk door to door in a nice neighborhood but got COLD. Then we headed over to my uncle and aunt's house to watch movies! It was so fun to spend time with family. I'm so glad we have relatives and good friends so close!

Grant's ONE!!

My baby is one. Crazy, I know. It's been a weird weekend. We had a party planned for Saturday but Ryan got sick on Thursday so we cancelled it, just to be safe. I haven't been feeling very well today but we had a mini-party with Joy, Brooklyn and Brett, Deruchette and the girls.

Grant wasn't really into the present thing but he got excited about the present he got from Grandma and Grandpa Aitchison and Keenan.

Here he is with Brett and Cleod.

He loves his toy...and his tongue.

Cake aftermath...

Joy and Brooklyn got him a cool leap frog puppy that says his name. It's cute but he hasn't played with it yet. It got kidnapped and I think it's in the basement. He got some Lego duplos from Grandma and Grandpa Rowley which the kids all played with for a while, but I didn't get a photo. Grant loves them.

This was a few weeks ago, but I had to share it. Silas and I think our boys are pretty awesome.

A day in the life...

5:45am- I don't normally wake up this early, but today I did because I was headed for the 1 day Meat Sale at Lin's, a local grocery store. I get 40 lbs of chicken and 40 lbs of ground beef. I LOVE stocking up on food.

6:30-7:20am- Wrap beef in freezer half pound portions in freezer paper and put chicken in bags to freeze. Two years ago my mom and dad got my a deep freeze and it is FULL today. Love that feeling. I think I am going to can the chicken, but not right away. It is nice to have some quite time, just me and the raw meat.

7:30am- Wake up Silas and the boys and go to the SkyFest. Every year a dozen or so hot air balloons take off. We get some donuts and OJ and sit in our camp chairs watching people unroll and fill the balloons. The boys love it. We also get to see Brett and Chette and the girls which we always like.

8:30am- I nurse Grant for the first of only two times today. His birthday is a little over a month away and so I'm starting to ween him. He is SO attached to me and he loves to nurse, so I'm doing it slowly. He's getting so big. He took 4 steps by himself today and I think he'll be running around before his birthday.

I start a load of laundry. I have been trying to do a load a day instead of cramming it into one day. It's nice except for when I forget about it. (It's still in the dryer.)

10am or so- Cleod and I go out back to pick tomatoes from our garden. That is all that grows and they are everywhere. We've made homemade spaghetti sauce with the tomatoes in the past which was great. It's really fun to have Cleod help out with the garden.

10:30- We call Tunex to come and pick up Gordon (that's the name of Silas's '71 VW Beetle. We bought a new battery yesterday but it still wouldn't start. Silas is making some extra money helping my brother Darin with a website so we are finally going to get Gordon fixed. We've been down to one chair again for about a month and so I am ready for it to be fixed too.

11ish- I cut hair. Lost of hair. Not mine...the boys'. It's been a really long time but they are all good and it doesn't take too long. I get all three of them in the bath. I can't believe how dirty boys get. Grant loves to take baths with his brothers but he also starts to drink the water. Then Ryan and Cleod start making a watery mess so we ubruptly end bath time. The boys get to stay in their room for a while. Meanwhile, Silas is doing homework and I get to shower.

Around 1pm- I vacuum the basement before letting the boys watch some TV. The Disney Channel has a cute show called Phineas and Ferb that even Silas and I will sit and watch. After that was over Cleod came and found me and said that there was a big kid show on. I said they could pick a movie and they picked the birthday video my siblings and I made for my Dad's 60th birthday last month. Cleod and Ryan think it's great.

Help Silas with some math but I'm not very helpful. I love math, but the class he's in is Discrete Math which is weird logic stuff. Bleh.

I call my mom. I like to let her know when I fill the freezer. Plus I haven't talked to her as much this week as I normally do. I am excited to go to Vegas for a few days in October.

2:30pm- The boys and I dropped Silas off at the school to meet a classmate. They needed to work on a take-home quiz. We used the time to first go to Deseret Book. We needed a few gifts and I wanted a picture of the First Presidency. Going to small stores with three boys is always crazy but I made it through.

3pm- We get to Wal-Mart. The main purpose was toilet paper. The I remembered that Grant needed baby food, and baby snacks because he is spoiled and doesn't always eat the baby food. So then I decide to get milk and margarine, bread, tortillas, grape juice (Silas's new favorite thing) and sour cream. Cleod reminds me that we were going to look at costumes, so we make our way to the other side of the store. Cleod wants to be Bumblebee, from Transformers, and we see that there is only one left in his size and two total of the style so we get it. He's actually "earning" money for it but I told him that he can pay me back instead. I'm not sure how well he understands that but that's fine. Needless to say, the toilet paper run turned into $42 of groceries. At least I remembered the toilet paper.

4pm- We pick up Silas from SUU and run by Tunex. They hadn't really been able to work on the Beetle but we're ok with that. Hopefully they will figure it out early Monday and it won't be too much. When we get home, Ryan falls asleep, Grant is happy and Cleod runs around the house in his new costume. It's pretty cute for $12.

5-6pm-Silas helps me make dinner. He remembered a few days ago about a meal that his family used to eat a lot. It's basically beans with brown sugar, honey and mustard. We made a decent version but hope to improve on it next time. At least I'm getting him to eat beans though. It's harder for me to get Silas to eat healthy than it is for me to get the boys to eat healthy. Not that Silas eats junk, but he doesn't prefer beans or wheat. We're getting there though...one loaf of bread at a time.

While dinner was simmering, Cleod helped me straighten the living room and dining room. I do not like to wake up to a dirty house, especially on Sunday morning.

6:30pm- Take Ryan with me to a reception of a friend. She's actually the daughter of my old employer so it was fun to see some of the old gang from the days at Papa Murphy's. Those were good times...I met Chette there, at Papa Murphy's in 2002. Actually I met Chette at the reception too. We usually combine forces on gifts to mutual friends and we like to go together too. She had her girls and Ryan ran around the gym being crazy, as usual.

7:30pm- Grant hugs me for 5 minutes straight when I get home. He's such a doll. After a minute, Silas leaves for work. This is not a normal Saturday thing, but it does happen. He had something he needed to finish by Monday so he needed a few hours tonight to work on that. That man is amazing. He works 40 hours a week and goes to school full-time and then spends time doing homework on top of trying to spend time with me and the boys. I can't WAIT for May.

8:30pm- I put the boys to bed by myself but I don't follow the routine and they are all crying. I start blogging but have to stop. Cleod and Ryan say they're starving, which is kinda true because they have been having a really hard time finishing their dinners lately. I give in and give Ryan some cereal, Cleod wants toast and Grant gets a few crackers. I REALLY want some Cap'n Crunch...I know it's silly, but I LOVE cereal. I resist the temptation and drink some water with organic apple cider vinegar and organic honey instead. GROSS, you say? Yes. It is pretty gross. Brett's mom told me about this. She is reading a book about the benefits of these foods and there is a specific example of someone with arthritis feeling relief from pain through the vinegar/honey drink. Silas's arthritis has been pretty bad lately and I need a good energy boast, so we are doing it together. The honey is even from a guy in town would has bees. Cool.

While the boys finish eating I do dishes. I am constantly doing dishes. I despise a sink full of dishes so I try to keep them as empty as possible but this means rising and washing several times a day. I keep telling Silas that I am going to start paying myself for every load of dishes I do, but I haven't figured out how to do that yet.

9pm- Put the kids back to bed and start blogging again. I know this is long and most of you won't care, but I need this. It's like a kind of therapy.

It's 9:45pm and I am resisting the urge to watch Thursday's episode of The Office. I missed it because I had an Enrichment Board meeting where we planned out Super Saturday. It's ok, because NBC puts the episode on their site the next day so I didn't mind, but I didn't think it would talk me this long to watch it. I am resisting because I really need to get off the computer and study for my lesson. I am teaching Relief Society tomorrow. That's the woman's group at church. I LOVE teaching but I always feel anxious about giving the information that my ladies need.

So off I go to study my lesson. Then I will try to retire before midnight because as you can see, I am had a LONG day.