rambling shenanigans

It feels like once every couple of days I send a text message to my mom and dad with my kids latest rambles. I'm so glad I do, because if I didn't immediately document this, people would think I'm making this up. I wish I could make this up. I'd write novels.
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Ruby praying: "Bless Grama Deb she can feel better, and bless gramps Trace he can... ... ... ... deal with grama Deb. And bless Hunter he will go on a mission already..."

Ruby: "Mom, I struggling. Cause my feet are so smelly that I can't even think about things. And I need to think about things to make me strong. But the smell gets in the way."
she is not kidding about that, they smell so terrible. 

Ruby: " I'm not feeling very beautiful today. That's why I'm having a hard time."

Ruby: after an all out brawl with Kevin, she was sent to bed early in a full blown tantrum. After Stella had gone to bed, Ruby snuck up to our room...
"Mom, Dad... I need to opologize. I sorry that I was mean and crying."
as Kevin tucked her into bed and said prayers with her... "ahhhhh, my bed feels so much better after I opologize."

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Lately my dad's favorite thing to do is stop by our house about 8pm. Just as the kids are winding down for bed, ya know quiet time. And when Grampa Trace comes over all hell breaks loose and I can't win. So it's not worth trying. This week, Grama Deb took a rest on the floor and Gus stomped on her head. Then Ruby wasn't paying attention and toppled right over her. There were cookies being thrown across the room and boxes of girls scout cookies inhaled. Gus was testing everyone's hand eye coordination by throwing balls out of your peripheral vision. Stella mostly snuggled, holding her own with sweetness. So basically everyday chaos, and then some.
But it did end in Ruby telling Grampa about her new favorite song. As we were anticipating a Katy Perry tune or Taylor Swift, we got a primary song. He sent his Son. I'm counting it as family home evening. (and it was really sweet listening to her sing it.)
As we were waiving goodbye on the front step, Ruby was examining this week's race car when she just got in the back seat with Grampa. Ya know for a spontaneous middle of the week sleep over. Casually.
Stella was a little sad that she didn't get to have a sleep over with Grampa, but was logical in that she had school the next morning. And I let her watch an extra show on TV. At about 10:30 I got a call from my mom. Ruby was coming home, sleepover's weren't her thing tonight.
The next morning I was taking Stella to school (Because my alarm clocks overslept due to there late night sneagians, we missed the bus.) This conversation happened in the backseat...

Stella: Ruby, why didn't you sleep at Grama's?
Ruby: I just missed you Stella...
Stella: But you also missed out on breakfast at Gramas, think about all the kinds of cereal you could have had... head shaking...
Ruby: Oh I didn't think about breakfast...

Seriously. It's hard not to spend your day laughing at these two.

love love

toe pick

We've had a fierce Olympic spirit at this household. Like it's streaming on all our iPad's, on our phones and I'm stocking the alerts on my phone. And of course the little girly girls in this household want to only watch figure skating. Obviously. We watch it a day later because primetime is way past little girls bedtimes.
After a few days of listening to them play "ice skater" down stairs, sliding across the tile floor with socks on, and spinning round and round; I decided it was time for real deal ice skating.
We headed to the olympic arena in Provo along with 4 million other people. You know how I feel about crowds. Not my thing. As Kevin, Hunter and I stared at the rink, the line for skates and the line for tickets we broke the news to two sad faced little girls. We weren't skating tonight. No freakin way.
So this morning we woke up still feeling inspired to ice skate. I called the school and Stella magically had an appointment in Provo, and we spent the morning ice skating.  With a total of 7 other people on the rink we spun around and worked out our toe picks. It was pretty fantastic.

I'm sure your surprised at Stella's choice of figure skater ensemble...

Stella could have skated for the entire day, Ruby liked the idea of skating all day, and Gus wanted nothing but to be on that ice rink. But seriously, he was so mad that he wasn't big enough to do it, and that we weren't willing enough to slide him around bent over the entire time. Kevin and I's backs are still aching.  If your thinking of ice skating, I highly recommend "small and tall" open skate. It's like toddler hour at the rink. For the win!

It was a great morning pretending to be graceful athletes, Stella has asked a hundred times what sports she can do to get into the olympics. I love the idea of her dreaming and being able to support those dreams as her mom. It's pretty awesome. 

love love

lovers you

Valentines day is pretty awesome. Not because I am spoiled, (i am.) Or because I've got a lotta love in my life (i do.) Mostly because it's a day of candy and baking. And I pretty much live off of candy and making a large mess in my kitchen.

So on Valentines Day it's a perfect excuse to make donuts. I do love donuts, and these were freakin real good.

We* crafted valentines for school friends and donuts for Uncle Hunter. We* frosted cookies and colored more pictures. It was a pretty great day to be a stay at home mom.  **(we meaning, I crafted the valentines and they wrote their names on the back, and I baked the cookies and let them frost a few. I'm not that patient of a mother...)

(Gus was there, but he still is blowing snot bubbles. And I don't like taking his picture when he is covered in snot.)

Then when I had scrubbed the walls of all the flour, Kevin came home early with flowers and fixed dinner. He never fixes like a real dinner, he's pretty good at pizza and scrambled eggs. But this was like real deal fancy dinner. He should cook dinner more often. dee-lish.

Kevin helped the girls make me the largest card they could think of. The inside was covered in their handprints. Which is pretty fantastic. 

It took us 3 days to come down from the sugar high of Friday, but it was well worth it. Thanks Tall Friend for making it such a great day. He put thought into the day, took effort with the girls and made me feel loved. Well done Brimhall, well done!

love love

blah blah blah

He's sick. agaiiiiin. Kevin's genes have clearly made for a sick kid. Cause I feel like he is kinda always battling some silly cough, or running nose or wheezy breath. I guess I can't complain to much cause he is always happy, regardless of the snot smeared all over his face. Ok, I can complain a little bit, I have to be quarantined with him while he blows snot all over me. And I hate being quarantined. I go all stir crazy and end up thinking I need to do some new project of mass silly proportions and that's never the case. Or I online shop. And amazon boxes just start piling up on my front door. It's a problem and I'm blaming the quarantine. 

Last night we were telling Ruby to pick up her toys and in classic parent voice, the words "how many times do I have to ask you to pick up your toys!?" slips out. (You know you've said it before, just like your parents did.) Ruby calmly responded "Two times. You have to ask two times." 

Her comedic timing is infuriating, exhausting and hilarious all at the same time. 

Then there is June, who I have a hard time writing about because she is so sweet and good by nature that I can't even poke fun at it. On Friday I went to "mom's and muffins" with her. She read me a "little critter" book from start to finish as we dined on muffins and apple juice in her little kindergarten chairs. She's a pretty great kid.

So there you have it, thats what a week full of quarantine is starting to look like. Ruby's shenanigans, Henry's snot and Stella's angelic nature. Sometimes I still can't believe I'm a mother of these three hood rats.

love love

a little of this and that...

Welcome back to the Wednesday Ramble folks! Ok, if we're being honest about it, I'm writing this on a Tuesday. Because all the children are sleeping, or at least pretending to be, and I'm all caught up on my shows. And I thought about sewing some stuff, or knitting, or baking, but decided that my domestic side needs to calm down and the geek in me needed to come out. So I'm writing a blog about nothing. Completely productive use of time. Completely.

-- Now that Kevin is out of the house at the crack of dawn, I'm back to getting the kids out of bed and ready for the day and such. The girls are easy peasy. But Gus. Oh Gus. It turns out that the cute little routine of wrestling during the morning diaper changing only works with Dad. This kid is strong, and wiley. Like he wrestled out of the proper diaper changing position, off the dresser and I caught him by his ankle, inches from the floor. All while trying to clean to poop off of everything. Let's just say Gus is having a hard time adjusting to Dad being gone all day long.

--Yesterday, after months of bad hair. Like mooooonnnnths of bad hair. I walked out of the bathroom and thought, "hey, it doesn't look so bad". And then I didn't leave the house for the day, cause well, I had already done my morning errands and you should never wake sleeping children for nothing. So I sent a selfie to Kevin and wandered the house with decent hair.

--I finally finished this giant pouf project that I've been mapping out. And you'd think for all that time I had been waiting for my yarn to arrive I would have done a little more research. I'm already staring at it trying to figure out ways to make it better. Mostly plotting way to successfully unravel it and start over without Kevin chastising my perfectionist side.

--Ruby is very into Frozen. Like running around singing, "let it go! Let it go! Can't hold it back anymore!" And then when she yells "The cold never bothered me anyway." She cops the fiercest attitude that I'm afraid for her teenage years. It's also really hilarious.

--The best part about the girls playing "Frozen" is Stella can't convince Ruby to let her be their favorite, Elsa. It's the one thing that Ruby has put her foot down and said no; she is Elsa and that's that. Usually Stella can convince her to be the puppy, or Dash, or what ever the secondary character is. But not with this, there is no budging Ruby on this one and Stella is struggling a little with her sisters new found dominance. I kinda like it.

--Last week I went cross country skiing. For the first time ever. Luckily my mom took me out, so nobody could really laugh at my attempts. I mean I'm sure she laughed, but she's my mom, she's obligated not make fun of me during the ordeal. Let's just say, it is quite possibly the most unnatural feeling ever. There's no edge! It's all wobbly and the poles are long!
But! But it was really fun after I situated myself in the track and stopped thinking about it all so much. Way better than running, thats for sure.
And now to a few random photos that haven't already graced this blog...