Treasure Box

Mae and Spike have been awful this past week.  Mae is two and Spike has a cold.  It has been a really rough time.  Mae is in that lovely little girl stage where she likes to practice screaming for no reason other then to practice for future use.  My trip to the compound cannot come fast enough.  On the bright side Max has been great.  Hooray for Preschool.  (I try not to imagine how awesome life would be if he were in Kindergarten.)  At his Preschool Halloween party on Tuesday he had the opportunity to pick an item out of the treasure box.  Instead of a toy or candy he picked out a little notebook with flowers on it and told his teacher that his mom would like it.  HEART MELT.  His siblings can thank him for this later in their memoirs.  "It was on that early Halloween day that my big brother Max prevented my mother from driving the car into a ditch."

Max Had the Camera in the Car

 I love that this is Max's forward view.  I took the head off Spikes seat so they could bond.

He also had another 10 or so 360 degree shots of Batman and about 20 or so shots so out of focus I have no idea what they were of.

I Swear

Yup I do.  I wouldn't say that I have the language of a drunken dock worker, but neither do I have a mouth I would kiss my mother with.  I am not sure why exactly but it seems to be getting worse.  So Jeff and I have instituted a new policy; every time I swear, I lose all input into the evening's programming and will have to watch some weird Anime with Jeff.  Not a good anime like a Hiazaki film, but a weird Ghost in the Shell thing.  We are watching one right now.  If this doesn't stop my potty mouth I am not sure what will.

I have added a recent picture of my sister, Krista, cause it is her birthday, (HAPPY BIRTHDAY,) and cause she is the one who taught me to swear in the first place.

You Can't Always Get What You Want

I live in a wonderful community where I have many stay at home mom friends.  The benefit being that I can often rely on others to help me out with the kids at short notice.  It has been surprisingly easy to find people to watch the older two kids while I am away at the Compound in a few weeks.  The easiest was finding care for Max.  As always, everyone loves Max.  He is an agreeable guy who plays well with others and listens to the adult in charge.  He is also fairly good for me.  He is old enough to not get into EVERYTHING and old enough  to stay away from my dumbbells when I am working out.  When I need some alone time and the other two are asleep, I can set him in front of the PlayStation and go do something.  Mae is the problem  She gets into everything and is always interested in what I am doing and how she can disrupt it.  Here's the rub, people are always offering to watch Max for me.  It is super nice, but not really needed.  What I need is time away from her.  No one really wants an extra two year old no matter how much of a cutie pie bubble she is.  Oh well.  I suppose that if nothing else, atleast Max is getting some good playdate time.

Rise and Shout!

I'll be honest, I am not a sports fan.  I do enjoy college sports, but not enough to really care.  For some unknown reason I cannot stand professional sports.  Something about the amateur sports makes me care a little more, like I could know these people and therefore root for them.  I may not be a big sports fan but I do love my Alma mater.  I love BYU.  Those were some of the best years of my little life.  The campus is like my home.  I remember going to the campus when I was younger then Max and my dad was finishing up his degree, (with the old school cougar eat that had all the flags.)  My mom would often take us to the bookstore.  Then when we moved back to Provo when I was in high school, I would have to cut across campus walking home from school, (around the giant hole that was Library under construction.)  Krista and I would meet up after her classes sometimes.  (I love any memory of when Krista would hang with me.)  Going to BYU was an amazing experience.  I learned so much and met Jeff of course.  I even got to work at the Bookstore for so many years.  I had my favorite buildings; The WILK, the JSB, and buildings I hated; I actually had a class in the SFLC before it was torn down.  I had a class all the way up at the Harmon building, and surprisingly had many classes in the Clyde engineering building. I never lived on campus, but I lived so close that I was closer to campus then most on campus housing.  So I may not be a big Cougar fan, but I have school spirit.

(And like I tell those annoying students who call me up once a month asking for money I will donate when I don't have two mortgages!  I have learned to avoid any call from 801-422.)  If I ever win the big powerball, you know the 300+ million dollar one, I want to donate enough to build a building and I would have them call it the Jeanne Cox Tobler building after my mom who got her Bachelor of Fine Arts there.  Cause my mom is awesome, instilled in me the importance of getting an education, and cause there aren't enough buildings named after women on the campus.

Thanks to my wonderful sister in law Sarah for sending us the spirit wear.  Mae has a shirt also, but we can't seem to get all three in a shot together.

Soccer Mom Barbie

I hate soccer.  Max is playing soccer again this year because I thought it would be more organized then last year.  This year Max was old enough to be on a team and actually play "games."  Kinda- they play three on three and don't have goalies.  I am fine with that, but I object to the fact that they only had two practices before they started playing games and only play games now.  Max had NO time to learn any fundamentals.  I think he would be more inclined to join in if he knew what to do.  The team is therefore dominated by the kids who have older siblings to teach and play with them.  So yeah, I could teach him myself, even though I don't know how to play soccer, I suppose I could you-tube it.  The problem lies in when.  When am I going to fit this in.  I am already stressed trying take care of the other two, clean house, cook dinner, pay bills, teach Max to read, reclaim my yard from the weeds.  I just can't fit in soccer practice.  You would think that would be what his SOCCER team is for.

Oh man I had a whole paragraph here about how all the mom's on the team are soccer mom barbies.  The ladies with designer sunglasses, perfectly coifed pony tails and 2 percent body fat, but it would seem that Mae has managed to delete the whole thing and I am waaaay to tired to go into it again.  Let me just say that I have a feeling that I am the standard that they all hold themselves above.  Thinking things such as, "Man, if i ever come to my kids soccer game without my mascara on or in flip flops I will have failed as a mother. "  I would be fine if there was just one other mom on the team who wasn't styled to within an inch of her life.

Above are the treats I made for them team tonight.  I got the idea from pinterest.  (The most evil and addicting site on the internet.)

Le Chic

Loving putting Spike in old Max outfits.  I imagine that the payoff is even greater considering what a pain it was to store the clothes for five years.  Today with all the rainy weather I decided to break out a cooler outfit of Max's.  I have no idea where it was purchased, I think it might have been a hand me down from Lu, (although I have a hard time imagining Liesl wearing it.)  I love this outfit cause it looks so snooty.  Something about the mock turtleneck and the french, (I think it is french,) makes it look like the baby wearing it is looking down on everyone else in a pseudo-intellectual way.  All morning long I have been narrating Spike actions and responses in a really bad french accent.  Such as, "I am enjoying this bottle but am going to spit it up on you inferior fat American."   (Do you see what I mean when I post that I have been too lonely lately.  Someone needs to call or stop by so that I stop narrating my kids.)  The outfit also looks a little bit like the outfit that Marlon Brando wore in the Superman movies.  The funny thing is that despite the fairly negative connections, the outfit is still a winner cause it is a super snuggly and soft material.  So when my little Frenchman starts getting all worked up I just squeeze him a little more til he surrenders, (very French of him.)

Cause I didn't want to go to the store...

I went to my friend Meg's house.  Meg has chickens.  All I was missing from this evenings dinner was eggs.  I much prefer dragging my three whiny kids to go play on Meg's swing set, then dragging them into Walmart.  If only she had cows too.  Above is the result.  Who doesn't love Chocolate Chip Pancakes.  Yup, we eat healthy here.

Reflux Redux

Poor Spike.  The guy is following in the steps of his big brother with a bad case of acid reflux.  I am not exactly sure when Max's reflux began, but I vaguely remember it starting soon after he was born.  Coming this far with few problem from Spike we thought we were in the clear, but it has become obvious that he has it too.  He has spent the past few weeks with a constantly wet collar.  He does seem to be better tempered about it then Max, so I imagine that his is not as bad a case as Max's.  I must change his outfit at least six times a day, I should probably just give up and have him wear a bib 24/7 like Max did.  I just hate bibs, they are like my glasses, you get all dressed up and satisfied with the way you look then you have to add the bib/glasses and ruin everything. Luckily with Max it lessened with age.  It got better at 4 months when he started solids, 6 months when he was sitting up, and was all but gone by 12 months.  We are down by three months already with Spike.  I guess I can do a month of bibs.

Pumpkin Patch 2011

I love that we have gone to the same pumpkin patch for four years now.  Four Years!  Adulthood has been so consistent and stable; I love having traditions.  That being said, this wasn't our best year.  Despite going after her nap, Mae wasn't all to cheery.  I think next year she will be better and we will have some real fun.

Cry Me a River

I am not sure why but I have felt quite lonely lately.  Fairly sure that it is not post par tum depression, but instead a combination of losing a few friends and it seems like everyone in my life is really busy right now.  Or at least busier then me.  Or too busy for me.
     I feel as thought I have been dumped by a friend of mine whom I haves spent a lot of time with this past year.  I was warned by a mutual friend that this other friend was one of those flavor of the month friends, you know the type, they get all excited when the first find you but then after awhile they lose interest.  Well I am not longer interesting.  We had an incident this week.  When I got pregnant with Spike she gave me all her maternity clothes, (Not you Katie,) because she could no longer have children, or so she thought.  Much to her and her husbands surprise, she got pregnant this last summer.  I told her I would get her the clothes back, I had no problem with this.  She face booked me and told me she was too busy to see me so I should have Jeff take the clothes to her husband who works with Jeff.  Ummmm....It is not like I was obligated to give her the clothes, so the least she could have done is arranged a face to face.  I don't think she is mad at me, I think I am just not interesting enough for her anymore.
   One thing that I find impossible to do is play hard to get.  Impatient and blunt, I find it difficult to hide my feelings, (Yes, big surprise to all of you.)  Lately I have felt a bit neglected with my phone relationships.  I try not to call, to hold out until someone wants to talk to me, but I never last for too long.  Oh man this is a really sad and depressing post.  No worries I am not going to start crying or do anything rash.  Just throwing a few feelings out there.  I am sure that very soon I will say something stupid that will cause quite the stir and get me riled into quite the self righteous fit and all this weepyness will be forgotten in a seething rage.

p.s. do you cry in movies?  I find it so difficult to let others see me cry in movies.  I have no problem with others crying in movies, but cannot allow myself to do it.  I feel all the emotion but do everything in my physical power to not cry so as to avoid any possible embarrassment or shame.  Man I can be such a poser.  This also makes me HATE movies that manipulate people into crying.  I hate Titanic because it was like James Cameron was personally testing my resolve not to cry.  "What you're not gonna cry over the dying children well let me throw some old couple in each others arms at you.  Still not crying let me show you the band.  Emily Jeanne if you don't cry at the preacher giving last rights then YOU HAVE NO SOUL!!!"  Seriously though James and I are deadlocked in a battle of wills.