With friends like this... who needs a husband

My friend Ali in Oregon sent me the most amazing gift of time.

How did she do this?

By sending things that would keep my kids busy and happy for hours... priceless


slinkys, a jump rope, little pet shop animals, the game Sorry...


the Flushed Away DVD and a Strawberyy shortcake DVD.

My kids have stopped complaining that Dad's gone for so long. They are too busy playing with all the goodies they have been receiving.



Thank you so much Miss Ali!!!!!

A Healthy dinner

My kids have mentioned to me several times that I am not the greatest Mom.

According to my girls the greatest Mom is their Aunt Tiffany (my sister) because one morning 2 years ago she let all the kids eat chocolate cake and ice cream for breakfast. Seriously she really did this.

Tonight I told the girls that we were having chocolate shakes for dinner. They were thrilled. We had eaten a late lunch so I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to claim that coveted title of "Greatest Mom of all time". They were so happy and singing my praises as they downed their large shakes.

A little while later they asked for real food because they were hungry. "How can you be hungry after such a great dinner?" I asked. I was informed that Aunt Tiffany let them eat cake AND ice cream, I JUST gave them a shake and that was not enough. Oh... really.

Holy cow-another green wave of good mail hit our house.



Alison sent lipstick and make up for Lucy and Ruby- What were you thinking?
Just kidding they LOVE lipstick and were in heaven. Haley also loved the book you sent. Her favorite books are about horses and dogs so she was thrilled. Thank you for the great note cards, they will be put to good use!



Kristi sent a big bag of Peeps, little purses.flower straws, ribbon necklaces and pencils for the girls, they were so excited. She also sent the most yummy smelling shimmer lotion from Bath and Body Works. I did not even know this stuff existed and I am hooked, I love it. Thank you!



In addition to all the treats, Kristi filled the box with incredibly wonderful ribbons. Thank you!


Haley was so confused. She asked me why people were sending us green wave presents. I explained that these were from wonderful friends that we met while down in New Orleans at Tulane and that Tulane is referred to as the green wave. She still looked confused. "But why are they sending us all this cool stuff?" I explained that it was because Dad was gone and they know how hard that can be. Her eyes opened up wide, "Oh, that's so cool" she said. I couldn't agree more. Thank you again!

FYI

More earthquakes last night a 3.3 followed by a 2.3 a half hour later.

Good mail

My friend Jenny is spoiling me. She had her husband pick this up for me in AZ since they don't have In-N-Out in Texas. Thanks Jenny and Doug!


I received this very creative and thoughtful letter from Mindy. This just happens to me my favorite candy bar! Thank you!


I received a thank you from my sister Tiffany which came with a check- that's always good mail. Love your cute stickers Tiff!


A little self induced good mail. I have been watching these on Ebay for a few weeks and I found one that was make an offer- I did and got it.


I also received a summons for jury duty. I would actually love to serve on a jury, but there is no way I could find someone to watch Lucy so I am going to request to be excused. This is the 4th summons I have received since we moved here.

Extreme quilters

Four of my friends that quilt are also married to Medical Residents, and three of those four are moving out of state at the end of June. So we decided to make a Redlands/Loma Linda quilt. All 5 of us made 10 blocks (5 of one style and 5 of the other) that way each of us received all 10 of the different blocks. I should add that most of us finished these blocks in 30 days, we were obsessed.


Jackie's blocks
Jackie pieced a scrub top (out of scrubs) with the Loma Linda Hospital logo on the pocket. She also did a great block for In-N-out burger since we all love that place.



Kira's blocks
Kira is probably the newest quilter out of all of us and she always blows us away. She made a Caduceus to represent the time our husbands have spent studying and practicing medicine. She also made a block with palm trees and a red hot sun. There are tons of streets here lined with palm trees.





Suzanne's blocks
We are all too familiar with what a resident's schedule is like so Suzanne made a call schedule showing a resident Q4- on call every 4 days. Her second block was for Market night. Redlands has a great market night downtown every Thursday night. These are so great.



Kaycee's blocks
There are tons of orange groves all over this area so Kaycee pieced this amazing orange tree block. She also made an RMA (Resident Medical Auxiliary) block since we have made so many friends through this organization.




My blocks
Suzanne who is not LDS, requested a block of the temple because all her friends here are LDS. I love the temple here and was thrilled to make this block. Jackie suggested using a tie tack for the Moroni and it worked perfectly. I also made a block of the mountain range in Redlands with the R on it and orange groves in the front. Ruby thinks the R on the mountain is for her.



I am so excited to have these blocks!

I am going to make two more blocks, one for Disneyland and one with a swimming pool...eventually. For now these are going to sit and look pretty next to my other unfinished projects.

Good mail, Quilting & The Police station

The girls and I sent a box of full of goodies to Eric in DC. The mail man left a note saying that he tried to deliver the package(on Sat) but no one was home. We thought the package was left on the porch and stolen. Huge Bummer.

Today Eric walked to the Post office to see if they really did leave it in the porch. The Postal guy said "They may leave packages on doorsteps in Mayberry, but this aint Mayberry it's DC, you need to come pick it up. I was so happy that he got the package and all the letters and pictures from his girls.

Also...someone that lives in DC was kind enough to pick my Husband up for church, invite him to Sunday dinner at her house and send him home with 4 big bags full of all his favorite foods. What a blessing to have friends like this.

Back here on the ranch I received a care package full of goodies from Jenny. I really need to get better at taking photos before the food is all devoured. Thank you Jenny!


We took the bag of candy to my friend Jackie's house that night for the kids to snack on while I selfishly kept them awake late while I was using her huge, wonderful quilting table. I had never used one of these before- what rush! I quilted my whole Halloween quilt that night. Jackie is the only person I know that can actually crank out a beautiful quilt and have it completely done in 2 days. Granted she has machines that cost more then my car, but it's mostly because she is super talented and fast.
Can you even imagine owning one of these?

Also, Today I had to go down to the Police station to pick up a copy of the officers report from Eric's car accident. I hope I never have to do that again. When I said "I'm here to pick up a copy of my husband's police report" Everyone in the room looked at me and I could just hear them thinking " Sounds like you picked a winner".

The miracle Diamond

This is all true.
Every bit.
Not pretty,or flattering in any way but true.

2 years ago Haley was showing her off her hamster Diamond to her Uncle David. When David left, Haley put Diamond back in her cage and went downstairs to watch TV. About 10 min later Lucy and Ruby came down the stairs and Ruby said "Mom, Lucy keeps dunking and dunking her". I looked at Ruby's hands and there was a soaking wet, drowned hamster with her eyes bulging out of her head. Ruby said they were just trying to give her a bath in the sink.

I lost it. My mind was racing. How could my child have Killed an animal? They did this to get back at Haley for showing off her pet! They know better! I started screaming ERIC!!!!!!! I needed him keep me from hurting someone. I handed him the hamster and tried to get control of myself to talk to the girls. Haley was crying, I was furious and sick to my stomach and Eric just disappeared. After a while of calming Haley down and trying to figure out exactly what happened. I went into the kitchen and found Eric bent over the sink blowing air in the hamsters nose. "What are you doing?!!! Eric said "trying to save my daughter from having this on her conscience for the rest of her life". The thing was dead and had been for at least 2 min.

Eric kept blowing on it and I figured he was trying to show the girls that life is valuable and you try to save it. After a few more minutes you could actually see the heart beating. After a few more minutes you could see the lungs moving. After a while longer it started to move. He dried it, I cleaned out the cage and put some fresh fruit in it. Eric said she would probably would not make it through the night, but at least the girls saw her moving.

The next day she was still alive. I expected to see her running into the wall or trying to put food into her ear with brain damage, but she was eating fine and acting fine. All our family/friends were giving Eric a hard time about giving a rodent mouth to mouth and calling him Dr. Doolittle. I Just couldn't believe that Diamond was alive and all was well.
****EDIT**** I should clarify- Eric never touched the mouth, he just blew air in it's nose.

Jump forward about 9 months. One of the girls asked me to get Diamond out of her cage. When I tried to get her, she bit me SOO hard I whipped my finger out of her cage as fast as I could. Unfortunately she still had her little teeth stuck in my finger so she came flying out of the cage and smacked the wall behind me and slid down. "Oh, no...I just killed Diamond" I thought. But no, she started walking around after she hit the ground. I seriously thought "This animal is indestructible".

Move forward to today. Lucy was holding Diamond playing as she often does...

(Photo from last week)

...when she says to me "look Mom, Diamond is sleeping in my hand". I quickly realized that she was dead. "Oh no... what happened?" I asked her. Lucy said "she just fell asleep". "Let's put her in her cage to sleep" I said. Later in the day when Haley came home from school I took her to Diamond's cage(without Diamond) to tell her what happened. Lucy came in and said "Diamond's dead, she was biting me so I squished her". I thought to myself "You have got to be kidding me, you killed this poor animal twice?"

This time, no yelling, no real reaction even. I'm just sad.

No more hamsters for us, ever.

Bad dreams

Ever since Eric left I have found myself having a very hard time falling asleep. When I do finally get to sleep I have horrible dreams. One night I had a dream that we lived in a canyon and there was a huge fire coming near our house and I was trying to figure out how to get my girls out of the house and canyon alive. There were no fire-trucks or firefighters in the dream, I was alone.

Next night when I went to bed there were Wizard of OZ dolls on my bed and a program from Wicked. My girls had been watching the Wizard of Oz and acting it out with there dolls. I cleaned up the doll, read through the program and went to bed. That night I dreamed that there was a huge toronto coming toward our house and I was trying to figure out how to use Eric's tools to anchor our house the the foundation.



Obviously I an having anxiety about taking care of our girls and house alone.

Last night at 4:40 am we had an earthquake, a REAL one not a dream. It was only a 2.5 but it was enough to jolt my bed and get me wide awake. I spent the rest of the night thinging about and planning what I would need to do if there was a big earthquake while Eric is away. I am seriously considering taking drugs to help me sleep tonight.

Do you like butter?

Someone at my house obviously does!

Little Bonnie

A few weeks back when we were in Palm Springs we told each of the girls that they could get a special souvenir . Ruby looked and looked and kept saying that she couldn't find what she was looking for. I finally asked exactly what she was looking for and she said "a kit that has cool jewelry, lots of make up, fake eye lashes and a fancy scarf". I told her that sounded like a Grandma Bonnie (my Mom) kit and I had never seen one of those at the store, but I could buy her a make up kit and a bag of M&M's for her purse. She seemed bummed out and ended up selecting a little black backpack instead.

Yesterday Ruby used her allowance to buy a pair of fake eyelases with glitter at Target. Next she will be asking for a different color Vera Bradley bag to go with every outfit. I have a little wanna-be Grandma Bonnie in my house!

Bad timing

I realize that there is never a good time for a car accident, but this one really stinks.

Eric has been getting ready to leave for Washington DC (for a 6 week class) so took took each one of our girls on a special date with him this week. Unfortunately when he left with Haley to go roller skating a car turned left in front of him a block away from our house. He called me and I walked down, took some photos and brought Haley home. No one was seriously hurt, just sore. They still ended up going roller skating in my car. He leaves tomorrow, but he had to spend a lot of time dealing with the car today. I'm am going to have to try to get it all resolved while he is gone.

My Bling

Oh ya, it's true

I'm sporting a pair of pink glitter princess dice. These dice were given to me by my girls for Christmas in 2005. They were hidden... oh I mean they got lost. A few days ago Eric was cleaning out the garage and was so lucky as to find my beautiful car bling. My girls are thrilled to have them hanging back up so they can watch them dance when I "drive crazy".

Lucky me!

Good mail

My kids are now back in school after a 3 week spring break (modified traditional schedule), so I am trying to catch up on everything. Here is some good mail that I was so happy to receive.

A thank you card from Ms. Shawna for some treats I sent her:



I got the cutest birth announcement ever from my friend Amanda. Not to mention what a cute baby!





I received a thank you card from Melanie for a little package I sent her.



Such a great Easter card from my friend Kristi- a fat free bunny. If only all candy could be fat free, sugar free and look as good as her bunny.



I received a very nice thank you card from Tasha.



I received one of Michelle's cute Doodle bugs cards- so cute.



This is a horrible photo of a very cute Easter card from Natasha in NOLA.

Easter Day

Tons of candy!

This is just one stash of peeps breathing to achieve the perfect level of staleness before consumption.

Tons of eggs!

We had a Easter egg hunt at our church on Saturday morning and a big hunt behind our house on Easter. All this in addition to Peeps and chocolate eggs dispensed every 10 min.

Haley gave a great talk in Primary Sunday morning. Notice she is still wearing her Wicked shirt.



Tons of cousins!

My Sister and her family came into town for Easter and to go see Wicked.

Tons of bodies in a small house!

Tons of fun!

I had cut out felt egg place mats and had the kids each decorate their own egg. Needing to busy children I had them collect lemons for the center of the table. Not Martha worthy, but it was bright and the kids liked it.