50 dollars later and the gap is gone...now I have a lithsp! (The cute orthodontist told me to spell it like that)

Not my mouth but this is what is looks like only just on two of my teeth.

I feel so weird! This is the very first vain alteration to my body I think I have ever done! I feel like I had plastic surgery or something! Now I had a little metal (yucky) retainer keeping those two front teeth together. The orthodontist literally took his fingers and smooshed my two front teeth together while they got the permanent retainer on and got the glue to dry. It sort of hurt and I thought my teeth might break off but apparently we have ligaments in out teeth.


It all seemed fine until I spoke and now I have a lisp! Can you believe that? The tech assured me it would go away in a few days and when I told the orthodontist I have a lisp, he said, "what? I can't hear you". Hilarious. (said with sarcasm)


Actually, I really love this orthodontist and his office so if you need a good orthodontist let me know! They mail me jamba juices for referrals!

Hee hee, hoo hoo, Hee Hee, hoo hoo

That is the breathing exercises I was doing in the back seat of the car during my first "parent ride along" with Kassidy and her driver's ed teacher. It was a little crazy to be sitting in the back seat with my kid driving! All in all, she did excellent but, I was a little terrified one or two times. Mostly when the teacher had her speed up and do 70 on the free way! Then, did you know when you are going to get off the ramp you should continue to do that speed until you are all the way onto the ramp! That gave me a mini heart failure because she was getting off the ramp and not slowing down. All in all she did great and it is really exciting to have a daughter maturing into a woman. I know that is cheesy, but it is true and neat. She is an awesome, responsible, sometimes grumpy kid! Love her!

Have you all checked out this crazy pig at bear world? We have about three pictures of him over the years just like this.

He looks like he is no longer with us, but I assure you he is.


Here is a "WHAT THE CHICKEN?" moment for you:

Don't you find it nutty that there are actually people on the road who find it funny to swerve at the kids whose cars have driving students marked on them? Does that just seem like a very foolish thing to do or what! The teacher had to actually get signs that go on the side of her car instead of the cheese wedge on top because it was less of a sign saying, "student driver, harass me". As we were driving along an older guy was right next to us. We all look over because he was lingering so close to us and he was laughing and smiling and even pointing at us. What the chicken? I don't get it. He wasn't even a teenager or anything. He was a adult man. Laughing and pointing at us. Weird!

Also for those of you who must debate me, I re-asked the teacher, and when you are swerving and we have all been told to "turn into it", that is actually false according to the training the drivers ed teacher received in her driver's ed instructor training at ISU. You do not turn into it. You turn your wheels to the target of where you were trying to go. Makes sense to me!

My newest ailment! I seem to have a lot of them lately as I get older (grimace) and I am not liking it! I am not going down without a fight!

I'm as horrified as the rest of you to learn that, indeed, I am getting a gap in between my two front teeth. At first I could tell my teeth had changed a tiny bit because my bite seemed little different and then I start noticing that i could floss a little too well in between my top two front teeth! It has put me in a bit of a "what the chicken" mode! I have always had great teeth! Sorry but it is true. I never even needed braces. When I had my teeth cleaned the other day the dental technician even said how frustrating it was when you had braces and then only to end up with a gap. She thought I had had braces! I have always had good teeth. They say nursed babies will likely have straight teeth. I was not nursed so I don't know what's up with that.

God knew I could never handle metal in my mouth. I have an odd sensitivity to metal. I can literally taste it. Corey never believes me so we often have "the taste test" where he will try to trick me by rubbing my fork on tinfoil (eeeewwww, sorry for that) and then try to make me decide which one has touched the tin foil. I always pass the test. Any ways, I could never ever have stood braces. All that metal in your mouth, yuck!

My mother has a tiny little gap. But she has always had it and it is a part of her. I have never thought it looked bad. Apparently my newly widening gap is genetic (thanks for that). But it is not endearing when it has never been a part of me. Now that gap is only currently about 1 mm apart. The technician stuck her little tool in between to examine the gap. I found that an invasion of my privacy! I just thought that was rude! So I guess I am making an appointment with the orthodontist to see about a permanent retainer. Although I have about 2o million other tings I'd rather spend the money on I feel like I better fix it while they can easily. I'll let you all know how that goes.

Here are my teeth pre gap:


pretty good, eh?

Post gap: (I know, fuzzy picture, but you can see a little shadow starting to form.)

What's up? See the little hint of a gap beginning? It will eventually look like this:

Just kidding. This is my poor kid's mouth. See any braces in his future? And whitening strips?

My little Egg Mcmuffin mommy

My mom is an Egg McMuffin mommy! She HEART'S McDonald's. They know her by name there. When I was growing up we ate Egg McMuffins all the time! Every free Saturday we would go there and then to shop at K-mart. Good memories. I was in early morning seminary and she use to walk the church building. After she dropped me from seminary to school she went to McDonald's for her Egg McMuffin (and diet Pepsi of course). She just really loves Egg McMuffins. That's all there is to it!


I grew up and had my own family. When she had her foot surgery and my dad was out of town she was concerned who would take care of her McMuffin fix. I was to be her Egg McMuffin deliverer. One day I had to go to two McDonald's to provide, but I would not fail my Egg McMuffin mommy. Not after all she has done for me. One day I bought her two so she could save one for lunch. That made her happy.

My son goes to speech every Thursday and I go donate plasma right after. Because we are out the door early, we too, must stop at McDonald's. I too, have become an Egg McMuffin mommy only I like the sausage instead. I am a Sausage McMuffin with Egg mommy (they are cheaper). My two little ones know what to expect every Thursday. My baby (to much chagrin, I am one of those people who call the baby, "the baby", no matter how old they are.) can eat a whole one to herself, and faster than her brother. She is a chubba-rama! She has eaten one to many Sausage McMuffin!



My mom is also a Humanitarian of the World mommy. She has sewn, knitted, colored and crochet items for the Humanitarian center, which for those who don't know, is a center in Utah where LDS church members from all over the world, send items they've made, bought, etc... so the center can distributes them all over the world to places in need. Some examples are, after hurricanes we have sent hygiene kits (zip lock bags with tooth brushes, soap, washcloths etc...). There are women taking home babies after birth in newspaper (Break my heart into a million pieces) so we send new born kits (blankets, diapers, socks, pajamas etc... ). There are children in orphanages staring at blank walls so we have sent in sewn mural type things. Often times the things from the Humanitarian center are the first to arrive disasters because they are prepared in advance for when things happen. It is an ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE PROGRAM. IT DEEPLY TOUCHES MY HEART. It is an enormous aid to the world and I am proud to be part of it even though it may be through a very small way, here and there. My mom has made booties, hats, scarfs, school bags, quilts, stuffed animals, canvas blocks, colored pictures, file folder games, "leper" bandages. Over 1,000 items! She delivers them to our local Deseret Industries and then they deliver them to Humanitarian Center in Utah. Awesome!

This is my Egg McMuffin Humanitarian of the World mommy:

These are the quilts I have had in my closet for TRULY three years. Our "ward" (that is what our church calls the groups of people and families designated to attend church at a certain time, in a certain building, in certain locations all over the world. We worship and do activities with the people from our "ward") decided to make quilts for the Humanitarian Center. We sent out hundreds if I remember correctly. I had noble plans to teach each of my children to sew and tie a quilt. I had a toddler at the time and added another baby to the family a little while later. Thus the quilts sat in my closet for three years! Sad but reality with 6 children. Many a great idea goes undone. I began to feel guilty over the people who could be using them and I finally pawned the off on my humanitarian mother. She had them done within the week and off to comfort people of the world. (She is also my personal seamstress in case you care to know. She mends all the sewing mends of my life and it is a great asset to have in the life of a mom of 6. I wish you could all have a personal seamstress in your life, too.)

Anyway, I just wanted to declare to the world (or the nine followers of my blog) how much I love my Egg McMuffin Humanitarian of the World Seamstress to family of eight Mommy. She has forever been a great mom and support to my life. And she is super fun, too. And relaxed. And a good dejunker. And non judgemental. And And And... She is all of it!

Also FYI if you have an interest in contributing to the Humanitarian center you don't have to be a member or the LDS church of course! The things they are asking for are easy to buy or make and they have a detailed list of what they need. Just let me know...

What is going on with those little silver candy balls we all love so much?

Is anyone else feeling my pain? Don't you just miss those little silver balls? Can I just say how seriously mad I am about it! Seriously mad! Where have all the "Dragees" (dumb name) gone? It has bothered me for YEARS! Every time I go into a new store, I try to find them. Gone! Can't find them! The other day I see in a magazine that they are on a cake. I get so excited until I see a little astrix by the picture which informs me that they are not for human consumption. What the Chicken? Since when? They were a Christmas staple at my house growing up! I also learned they actually have a real name. A stupid name "Dragees". Blah. Don't like it. Anyway, I decided to do some Internet research, (you know because that is an effective use of my time) and I learn they contain "minute quantities of heavy metal" in them so now they are only for decoration! That is stupid. Who wants to decorate your Christmas cookies with things you can't even eat! I guess other countries still eat them and consider them non toxic but I'm not sure that makes me feel better. How do we send a man on the moon, talk to people on the phone bazillions of mile away, do heat transplant, etc., but we can't make those favorite little candies "minute metal free"?????! Forget doctors, lawyers, and crocodile hunters (oh yeah!). I am hoping someday I will be the mother to the child who reinvents edible "Dragees"! And when he or she does, we are changing the name as well.

And that's how I feel about the subject!

5 things I learned from volunteering at my son's developmental preschool today!

Number 1.Nope!... Still don't like 'em. (kids, that is)

Every so often I go in to volunteer at the preschool to see if that has changed, but alas, it has not. Saying I don't like them is a little too strong so let's just say I don't enjoy them. Up close anyways. They are fun from a far. Meaning when I don't have to care take them.

Something happened to me when I gave birth to my oldest daughter. My love for her was JUST so enormous that it squished all the extra space out of my heart for other people's children. I just don't enjoy other children but my own. It is sad and slightly disturbing, I know. I actually use to LOVE children! I baby sat all the time, I wanted to adopt, I wanted to work with children. But somehow in the process of bearing my own I have shut down interest, patience, and enjoyability for other children. I desperately hope it will come back because I think it is sort of a dysfunctional trait. What mother of six doesn't like children! I think maybe as my own kids get older it will come back. I have a group of close friends and relatives whom I love their children because I love them, but in general...nope, nothing, Nada! I tried. Still don't enjoy them. ...Okay ...there was one cute little girl who I played in the sandbox with but I only liked her because she reminded me of my lovely friend Viki's daughter, Sadie. Cute little sprinkle of freckles across her nose. She was okay.


Number 2.Yea! My son is NOT- The Book Thief!(good book, read it sometime). Last week he came home from preschool with two super nice, hard bound books in his back pack. Really nice books. I was sure he had snuck them into his back pack so I forced him to take them back. Come to find out each child was given one and they were his. Phew! A note might have been a good idea, ya think!

Number 3.There are a lot of cry babies at preschool...and one of them was me! I have this emotional crappy problem where I cannot deal with certain situation without crying! It is super dooper annoying. I don't feel like crying, or at least not that much, on the inside but I cry on the out side causing others to try to comfort me when I don't really need it! An example of me crying was when my fourth child was called into the principal's office and I had to attend to listen to his transgression. I knew this wasn't going to go well. The principal asked if he would like to stay in for recess 2, 3, or 5 days. Rhett, with his ginormous fat lip sticking out (he was blessed with pouty lips anyways) chose FIVE days of missed recess. Now I had already been crying (Charlie Brown UGGGHHH!) but this sent me over the top into mental patient, freakazoid, scar my child into thinking he has done something REALLY naughty (instead of his constant low grade medium naughty that he aspires to) crying. It was ridiculous. I also couldn't stop crying when we sold our fooze ball table! I started getting all emotional about all the fun times we could have had with it if it won't taking up space in our garage and I start to cry in front of the people loading it up. DUMB!

Back to the preschool, Bo got into a fight with a kid and had to sit in the hall way for time out. As I am explaining to him that the kid didn't steal his yellow chair (there were five others) I start to cry! I am screaming inside of myself...don't you do it, don't you do it! It is ridiculous. Amazingly, I gained composure!

Number 4.For being such a skinny little kid, Bo has super human strength. The kids must know it also because I saw one kid give him a little push and then quickly get out of dodge. A kid who was really annoying (not just because I don't like kids annoying) but really annoying, did something to Bo which I didn't see but Bo was livid! Crying and shaking and lunged at the kid knocking him on the ground backward over his chair that he was sitting in. Great. I feel the tears coming.


I inserted the picture here to remind myself how cute he is.


Yep, still love him. Super human VIOLENT strength and all.

Then when he thought another kid stole his chair, out of the five yellow chairs available, he just mowed him over and right off his chair! Having older brothers has made this kid MEAN...And STRONG. Sad, huh?

Number 5. My son's impulse control (nice way of saying he can't behave)is so wretched he has his own aid all to himself!

After having six children you think I would GET that children always behave better with someone else. Apparently I don't. Everything was going fine. Bo and I were playing together. I was eating play food and I sense this person hovering a little too close to our space. A few seconds later they introduce her to me and inform me that they have had to hire her to specifically take care of Bo the whole preschool time. (Glad I could contribute to the low employment issue in the country)So it felt a little awkward with both of us following him around and he was being naughty for me so I just distance myself and worked with some other kids. She swooped in (grr) (doing her job) and he behaved fine for her! Broke my heart. Almost sent me into a crying fit! Seriously. I had to talk myself out of it. Honestly, she seemed to be good with him and I hope he has someone there who can like him and help him. Unlike the way I would be with someone else's child. She did defend him too when a kid was blaming him for spilled milk, so I liked that.


Anyways, thus is the saga of a preschool volunteers life! One who may not seem emotionally stable. I am though. I promise. sniff, hic... You know, what you do after your done crying (that one is for you, Linda!).

Hope you all had a SPOOKTACULER halloween!

Halloween is my very favorite! I love it when people take the time to make it scarily fun! We live in a GREAT little neighborhood where the kids just run and do old fashioned trick-or-treating. You see teenagers like crazy going as well. At first Corey and I tried to tell our kids they couldn't go after age 12 but all the neighbor teens are still going and they are having clean fun so what the heck! Some great houses included a friends basement tricked out into a spook alley for younger kids, including coffins, mad scientist with different touchable guts, floating ghosts with a fan to make them float, etc...It was AWESOME (Tiffany)! It went all through their basement. Other neighbors had creepy people in the yard to scare you as you approached the house, spiders dropping on your head etc... LOVED it (Myrna). One year a neighbor gave hot chocolate to all the kids...YUM (Tanya). We just live in a cool little place. We live in a place where if you have to go somewhere you can leave a bowl of candy on the front porch for the kids and when you come home no one has dumped the whole thing in their bag. It is awesome here.

We decorated our own house fairly cute this year. After my kids ditched me, I was taking Bo around alone, and when he came to our house he was like "Ohhh" then I asked him whose house that was and it dawned on him it was his own! It did look awesome with all our pumpkins lit (have I mentioned I have a minor obsession with pumpkins and squashes and gourds, I HEART them) and our strobe going and our spider web lit in purple and our light up pumpkin and our scary signs! Did I mention Halloween was my favorite?

Here are pictures of my little spooks!

ARRG! If you want to trick or treat you MUST dress up. You want to play you must pay!

Rabbit 4-H judge!

Anything that involves sword is cool, right?

I have waited about six years for someone to wear this Santa costume! It was hilarious! Nothing has been this great since Nathan dressed as Raggedy Andy, including a yarn wig.

"Bones" Thank you, Deseret Industries!

And, because I just wouldn't be a proper mother if I didn't, I must leak the ever so hilarious and adorable picture of my son dressed up as Raggedy Andy 10 years ago! He may hate us someday for it but there was no way we could resist!