cadens dream...

caden just came downstairs from his nap. i give him a hug and kiss and ask him how his nap went. he said-
CADEN- "good. but i dont want to go in the shark jar."
ME- "did you have a dream about a shark jar?"
CADEN- "yeah, but i went and got an ice cube. i put the ice cube in the shark jar, so i wouldnt go in."

i tried to get some more details about the shark jar, and why he needed to get an ice cube to feed the sharks in the shark jar. he didnt make much sense (as most dreams dont!), and all i got was that it was a giant shark in the jar, and something about a snow day. how funny that my four year olds dreams are as random as mine!

rylan- shooting guns

tonight, Chris was showing rylan some iphone videos of him and the guys at their shooting escapade this afternoon. Rylan watched them over and over and then said,
RYLAN- "dad, i want to go shoot some guns! firemen dont shoot guns, they just hold other guys' hoses!"

Made chris laugh. He made sure to send that message to our good friend pat berry, who is a firefighter in CO.

a few oldies, and a couple goodies...

i also write some of these little funnies down on my notes on my phone, just to make sure i dont forget them... i found a couple on my phone that i realized i never posted on here!

(this was back in april maybe?)
CADEN- "i want my cousin tommy! he wants to come over to my house today, cause i miss him!:
Me- "tommy cant come over today- he lives too far away!"
CADEN-" where does he live?"
Me- "in yorba linda."
CADEN- " in ME-ba, linda???"

a few months ago...
CADEN- " I love you mommy. i need you good take of care for me."
say what???? i think he was asking me to take good care of him! or that maybe i do take good care of him? totally creative phrasing, but it was so sweet either way!

just a few weeks ago...
CADEN- "daddy, we can talk about arms, and legs, and feet, and eyes. But we can't talk about wieners, butts, poop and pee. But I pooped really big and it splashed my butt. I can talk about that."

seriously? is it just innate in all boys to be like this????

and on a more serious, spiritual note...

SWEET LITTLE RYLAN...(april 2011)
Rylan, on a potty break from sacrament on Easter sunday. Was walking down the hall, saw a large painting of Jesus Christ, and said...
RYLAN- "When i was a baby, He held me."
rylan has said this on a few occasions, without ANY prompting whatsoever. even before we started telling him who Jesus was. There are two instances which come to mind. Rylan and caden were preemies, and spent over two weeks at the hospital before they could come home. i was not able to be there 24 hours a day.
my second thought- when rylan was a month old (and barely over 4 pounds), he caught a virus that made him extremely sick. so sick, that he stopped eating, got very dehydrated, and actually stopped breathing a couple of times. he was lifeflighted to childrens hospital. i was not able to be with him,and hold him, until a few hours later.

How beautiful would it be if Christ was able to be there, to hold and love him when their mommy couldnt. it warms my heart to know that at such a young age, my tender hearted rylan knows who Jesus is, and feels that he is loved by him, and has been held by him (physically or otherwise!)

ethan love...

Every night, i tuck my sweetest little Ethan in, before i go to bed. I kiss his little cheek, and say
"i love you baby"

and every once in a while, in his sleep, he whispers it right back to me.

" I yub yoo, mommy"

most rewarding moment of my life.

#sigh...

Caden: "we are
Going camping in Utah. That is where Jesus lives."

Daddy- "oh really. Who told you that?"

Caden: "my mouth did."

Love it!

Yesterday morning when I was gone on my shoots, apparently Ethan called ami 'mommy'. Caden turned to Ethan and said, - "that's not mommy! Mommy LEFT us!" very matter of factly. Luckily it wasn't said in a sad way, or I would have cried. :(

Last night- after my
Crazy hellish day, I was laying in bed with the boys for a few minutes, trying to decompress, and just love on my little boys for a bit,
When caden looks at me and says-
"mom, don't shoot yourself for at least a couple years."
I asked him to repeat himself and he said- " cause mom, if you shoot yourself with a gun, you will be dead for-EVER!" it was so sweet and cute. I'm glad he still loves me...

worlds worst day...

I know this blog is primarily to record all the cute, and not so cute things that my kiddos do on a day to day basis... but today i thought id take a bit (or an hour) and type out the craziness of my life the last two days. it got so bad that i posted on facebook, "i have such a crazy life!", to which my good friend jen said- "duh, youre just realizing this now?". i then replied, "i realize that my everyday life would easily be considered crazy by most peoples standards, but today is crazy by MY standards- which is saying a LOT!" needless to say, i wanted to shoot myself last night. maybe not with a real gun, but a tranquilizer. a big one. So here goes...

Im gonna try not to make this sounds like a rant against my husband, because its not meant to be. Just when he said,

"This weekend is the PERFECT weekend to go visit my papa! im not carpooling, ill just spend the night at his house and go straight to work the next morning! why dont you come with me? ill find a babysitter for the kids... dont worry, ill take care of EVERYTHING... it will be fun!..."

and i bet you can see how the rest of this will turn out. Granted, he did ask his family to watch the boys, and they said yes, so yes, to him, everything was all taken care of.

What he didnt take care of was the when, the how, and the how long parts. friday morning comes along, i get woken up at 5am (after going to bed after midnight) by three very rambunctious boys. i turn on the tv, and try to snooze as long as i can. i finally get up up, and have to rush out of the house for a presidency meeting at 1030. i wanted to get as much in the car as i could, so i loaded 3 pillows,3 blankets, 3 sleeping stuffed animals, 3 sets of clothes, 3 sets of jammies, and 5 extra pairs of underwear (for a still crappily potty trained ethan). i have my presidency meeting. on my way back home, i call chris, and asks him what we should do with the dogs. he says, "ill call you right back- after i talk to hyrum to see if he can let in the dogs at night and let them back out in the morning." He never calls back. i make it home, leave the kids in the car to watch a movie while i finish collecting an entire semi truck full of stuff (it feels like, anyway). i need to pack props for a newborn shoot (that i planned at the last minute, since i was going down to oceanside anyway), including lights and backdrops, pack all my camera equipment, pack props (including a vintage childrens sofa) for my vintage summer themed playgroup minishoot the following morning, pack clothes for myself, my husband, overnight toiletries. get the dog beds in the backyard, and tons of food and water, incase no one comes by to let the dogs in that night. run out the door, and head to oceanside.

while on my way, i get a call from a client who wants to confirm our photoshoot for the following morning. she is not on my calendar (which means we never confirmed ahead of time), and now i have to tell her that we have to reschedule. shes bummed. i tell her i can do it on sunday (without looking at my calendar, since im driving), because i *never* schedule shoots on sundays, and i feel bad. she says ok. we hang up. i already have something scheduled on sunday. so i call her back. so we set it for the following day at 7pm. i already have one at 7. so i call her back. now its at 530. done. three phone calls later.
we arrive at my parents house. even though my inlaws are watching the boys friday night and sat morning, i have that newborn shoot scheduled, so i asked to put the boys down while stacie watches them. right before i leave for my shoot, i realize that she gave me her address over facebook IM, and i didnt write it down before closing the window. i dont have her phone number, AND i dont know where to go. i send her a message on facebook, hoping she realizes that when i dont shot up, shell check her FB for a message for me.

while im waiting for her to call me, i get a message from my brother Ben (on a student trip to germany), that he has no money and he is stranded on the other side of the world. i help my frantic mom work out a wire transfer to a location about a block away from his hostel. crisis averted.

once i am 30 minutes late, my photoshoot client calls me, gives me her address. im about to leave, when Paul (my brother in law) calls, and says he left work early to pick up the boys. HUH? sweet thought, but WHY?. apparently my husband had it arranged that i was supposed to be in rancho bernardo by 4. say WHAaaaT? so i postpone the boys nap, until their uncle can come, transfer 3 carseats and all their crap into his car, and take them to my in-laws house.

i make it to my shoot. it goes great. i leave (much later than planned, of course), to go to rancho bernardo. meanwhile, my cell phone is dying, i have no charger, and without it, i am completely lost. i charge it for a few minutes here at my parents house, and that gets me enough to get to rancho bernardo. we get to papas house, have a nice time at dinner, play some games, and i conk out at 930 (SUPER early for me!). before bed, i ask my husband to get my camera battery charger out of the car, so my battery can charge before my NINE shoots the following day. He gets it, plugs it in, charges HIS phone in the car JUST enough to last for his morning alarm clock. because we only have ONE car charger for the two of us, we decide that my phone is more important, and ill take the charger the following day. he will be unreachable, as he will turn his phone off all day so he has just enough battery to call me and tell me that he BETTER be leaving on time, since i have two photoshoots in the afternoon in temecula. HA- so much for planning, right?

I wake up at 630, so i can leave with enough time to get to oceanside, pick up a dozen balloons for my themed vintage field playgroup photoshoot. i get there, plug in my camera battery and...


It hasnt been charged. at ALL. apparently it wasnt plugged in or something all night long. i have 2 bars of battery left on one battery, and only 1 bar left on the other. OH SHOOT. i have SEVEN photoshoots in a row, that will last over 3 hours.

and so the stress begins. between 7 back to back mini photoshoots, i am turning off my camera every 5 minutes, trying to conserve as much battery power as i can, while juggling a bunch of fairly cooperative adorable toddlers, balloons that keep flying away (because alberstons didnt put on a heavy enough weight!), in the hot summer sun, thinking in my head... "what do i do if my batteries are all dead and im not DONE??? swear word, swear word, swear word.... (said all in my head, of course). im getting a headache. BARELY finished the last shoot before my battery died. and i mean BARELY.


i finish at 11ish, and head to my inlaws to pick up the kiddos. crazy day done, right? WRONG. i get a text from my sister in law (during my photoshoots), saying that it looks like ethan is allergic to something and has a crazy rash. my father in law (who used to be a firefighter paramedic) comes home, and says it looks like a tick bite that has swollen and gotten infected (he had a silver dollar sized red hot target on his chest), and that i need to take him to urgent care. thinking that i can get an emergency appointment in oceanside, while my inlaws can still watch him, i call the SD appointment center. after being on the phone with on call nurses and everything for 20 minutes, they say that the urgent care will call me back within 3 hours to make an appointment. it is now 1130. i dont have three hours. so i pack up all the kids in the car (since my phone is dying once again, and i can only charge my phone while the car is running), and head back to temecula. then i call the riverside appointment line, go through the whole process once again. they said theyd call me back asap. i get an appointment in wildomar at urgent care for 215. now i have to find a babysitter, since the twins will be taking a nap. call a friend, left a message. call another friend, she's working. call a young woman from the ward- YAY! got a babysitter.


check my voicemail. call back a sweet friend who just lost her baby at 24 weeks, she had to go through labor to deliver a dead baby. try to console. im now crying on the freeway. make it home at 12:30. let the boys in, make them lunch, start unloading all my memory cards to make room for my next 2 photoshoots, get my camera battery on the charger. hopefully it will charge fast enough to last. check on the dogs. somehow during the night, they got into the tall cabinet that holds our TP and paper towel stockade. they manage to rip through the plastic wrap, rip out a bunch of TP rolls and towel rolls, and tear them to SHREDS. and then pee on them. awesome. so i clean that up. try to straighten the house so the babysitters dont think we are complete slobs. 145 comes along, the babysitters get here, and i run out the door to take ethan to urgent care, hoping that i dont have another immediate hospital stay (like the LAST time i had to take ethan in for a freak health thing *remember the swollen head, the bulging ear from the mastoiditis a couple months ago? with the 4 day hospital stay, and month long IV PICC line antibiotics?*). so now ethan might have LYME disease? great.



we get to the urgent care appt. Dr doesnt know what it is, but it takes 2 to 3 weeks to be able to test positive for lyme disease. its rare in so cal, but not as rare in AZ and NV where he got bit by the 'bug' on our camping trip last week. if its not gone in one to two weeks, then come back to get tested. get a prescription for antibiotics. go to the pharmacy. need to wait 40 minutes. go outside to kill time. while ethan is playing in the bushes, i get a phone call from chris. to tell me he was NOT leaving on time. turns out, he was in a CAR ACCIDENT. in his PATROL CAR. has lots of REPORTS to do. will be home LATE.

AND i love my life. i get off the phone, and turn to see ethan dropping trousers on the ground and trying to poop in the bushes in the parking lot. lovely. scoop him up, and run inside to the bathroom. while pulling his pants down, he pees on me. fabulous. while in the bathroom, ethan pooping (at least it was on the toilet this time!), im frantically calling friends to see who can emergency babysit AGAIN, for my two photoshoots in about an hour and a half. (short interject here- my friends are the BEST! willing to change plans, or take my kids with them on their plans, just so they can help me out. thank heaven for great friends!). find a friend more than willing to help. YAY! pick up the prescription covered in pee. head home.

did i mention that i still have that headache???

next stop, home. i have an hour and a half before i need to be at my next photoshoot. try and get ethan to take a nap. he wont. he pees on the floor. put him back in bed. go back downstairs. ethan sneaks out of bed, squeezes bright red strawberry toothpaste all over the carpet in the bathroom.

im trying to get 7 sneak peeks up on the blog. all the kids are up. ethan never even went down. while cleaning up the toothpaste mess upstairs, ethan gets into the kitchen fridge downstairs. i come into the kitchen to find a dozen and a half eggs. smashed and broken. on the kitchen floor. clean that up. headache is officially a migraine.



5:15 My wonderful friend jillian comes over to watch the boys for me. i head out to do my last two back to back photoshoots. the last word from chris is that he should be home around 630, so jillian doesnt bring her baby, cause she just fed him. he should be good until almost 8. my first photoshoot went well. get a call from chris, saying now he has no idea when he will be home, because there was a big incident he was in charge of (sad story of two pitbulls attacking and eating an elderly lady in her backyard. dont think she'll make it). chris needs to make the arrests tonight, since its such a big PR case. tell jillian it will be longer before im home. run to the bank and to fill my empty gas tank in between shoots. second photoshoot goes well. make it home at 740. LOVE and THANK my friend jillian for saving the day (and shout out to tiffany and jen and jake, who were all willing to sacrifice their nights as well!!! thank you!).

migraine is throbbing. upload pics, turn on the tv for the boys.

8pm. bedtime. too tired for stories, just a quick prayer and song, hug and kiss, and i say sorry for having ignored them almost all day. turn off lights, shut their doors. go downstairs and sink into the couch. i never want to get up. Chris calls and is finally on his way home. i tell him all that i want is a bean and cheese burrito from rubios. i havent eaten all day.

920pm. Chris gets home. rubios was closed. no awesomely cheesy burrito for me.

And i officially hate my life. well, my weekend, at least. too tired to do any work. take a shower. fell asleep. oh yeah, and i still have that headache.


Well, that was my weekend from hell! i cant believe i survived. people tell me that one day, im going to miss when my boys were small and my life was busy. do you think there is any chance that im going to miss THIS crazy weekend?




i think not.

Just overheard. Said by caden- "oh my crap!"
Maybe a mix of 'oh crap' and oh my gosh'? Either way, chris and I just looked at each other and laughed. So funny.

bees....

CADEN- (very matter of factly) " mommy- you dont mess with bees. they will sting you. THATS my problem..."

the twins have been saying this recently "thats my problem". i just realized its cause whenever someone starts crying, and im not in the room, i always march in with a very firm, "allright guys- whats the problem?" its nice now that caden has picked up on that, and now announces his 'problem' whenever he has one! :)

wieners...

im sure this will not be the last post that i will write in some form or another of 'wieners'. we were taking the puppies for a walk, on our way to the park, when we came across another woman walking her dog as well. the boys, of course, wanted to pet the dog, so she stopped and we said hello. caden turns to her and says...
CADEN- "HI! my name is caden and i have a wiener!" straight face. no joke. i started laughing- and she just smiled. he then goes on to say..
CADEN- " Are you a girl? then you DONT have a wiener!"

and he continued on his little walk to the park and didnt even say bye. how rude. ;)

Last night, we were over at the Andrews' house, and all the kids were playing sticks (or samurai swords, as they imagined), when little Rachel (the twins age), comes in and says that Caden hit her with the stick.
I told her thanks for telling me, and that I would take care of it.
Caden, who has snuck inside and heard me talking, with a worried little face, brown furrowed in concern,

CADEN- "don't take 'care' of me mommy!"

It was super cute. :)

"when i was a mosquito..."

we had an insect infestation the other night. as in huuuge bugs and moths and crazy winged insects all over. there was this massive mosquito hawk flying around. and ellie- like the crazy puppy she is, kept trying to eat it. but as soon as it got into her mouth, she spit it out because it was still alive. ANYway, she finally killed it, and its gross dead body stayed at the top of the stairs for a little while before i cleaned it up. we kept telling the boys that it wasnt a mosquito, it was a mosquito HAWK- and that it ate mosquitos. thye boys thought that was hilarious.

Rylan, talking to himself, or at least someone other than me, said...

RYLAN- "when i was a mosquito- a mosquito hawk ATE me!".

it was hilarious. :)

beeps...

So ethan loves 'beeps'. they are absolutely his favorite. crunchy, salty, who knows why. in case you hadnt figured it out, 'beeps', are ethans way of saying chips. he woke up first from naps today, and as a special 'mommy and me' time, we had a few chips (WAY out of the ordinary). i head back to the playroom, where ethan asks for more 'beeps'. i tell him that if he cleans up candyland (cards and mess everywhere!), he can have more 'beeps'. He does a great job, cleans them up, gets his 'beeps' and is happy. then he figures something else out. he goes over to the Memory game, shakes the box until all the cards fall out. He then proceeds to pick them up, one by one, until they are back in the box. He then brings the box to me.

ETHAN- "MOM! all deen!" (all clean)
"MOM! more beeps! more beeps!"

apparently, all you need to do to get 'beeps', is make a mess, then clean it back up again. go mom. good thinkin there. :)


and just for fun. i added a cute pic of him over christmas.