Yep, Fern Won

Yep, that picture from my last post was of the main rotor hub on a helicopter. Fern (and Russ) won so I made them bread. It's my new favorite recipe, I made it again last night. Super easy, but amazingly good!

Sam took the boys to the Life Flight hangar on Friday. I have to say, I absolutely love all the Life Flight employees. They are always so good to my boys, including Sam! They stop what they are working on and give a 1st class tour every single time Sam shows up.

They sit in the airplanes and helicopters and patiently explain the answer to every question that gets fired at them.


In this picture, the pilot taught Parker how to move and adjust the spot light located below the helicopter. That's what Carson is intently staring at.


I guess at one point the pilot started the engine on the helicopter while Parker was sitting in it. Parker didn't cry, but Sam said it totally freaked him out! He couldn't get Parker to sit in the helicopter after that. Let's hope Parker never needs the helicopter for a medical rescue or he may not let them save him!


On Saturday Sam took the boys sledding. This picture takes me back to my childhood:


We always had saucers to sled with and I always ended up going down the hill backwards!

The sledding didn't last long. Parker was happier sitting on his bum, going at the speed of a sloth, down the hill.


And Carson, decided to bury himself in the snow, instead of sledding backwards on it.


Oh well, to each his own.

This week we are going to focus on getting everyone healthy. Cameron is still trying to recover from Croup, Parker randomly started puking yesterday, and Carson has a cough that rattles the whole house. Sheesh!

Oh, and guess what? For my Christmas present, my parents hired a maid for a one-time deal and she came and cleaned my house on Saturday. It was so nice to come home to a gleaming house, and I wasn't the one who had to do it! She even cleaned my blinds! SCORE!

Well, winter has struck once again, time to go shovel the driveway...maybe...

What Is It?

What is this a picture of?


The first person to guess it right, and if you live close to me, I'll make you some of this:



For Christmas, my brother and his wife gave me a really good Bread Cookbook. This bread comes from that book. I'll admit my geekiness....I hated to cut into it because it was so pretty! However, I'm happy to say, it tasted as good as it looked!

Guess what the mailman delivered today? It came from England and it made Sam super happy and giddy.


Yes, calendars and homemade bread make us happy. Like I've said before...we are low maintenance! ha ha ha!

Cameron's croup is getting better, thank goodness. I gave him his second dose of steroids today....which he promptly SPIT out half of it! Talk about frustrating... I called the doctor and they think he'll be okay without it. He's not barking anymore, just regular coughing and a runny nose. I wish babies had the ability to blow their nose. He can blow raspberries at me, why can't he use those skills on his nose? Just a thought.

Happy 2009!

I've already had lots of practice writing "2009" today while I was at the doctor's office so the year has already "broken" me in. How lucky am I?

Let me back up.

Last night was New Year's Eve. I figured it was going to be a quiet one just because we have all been super busy and everyone was coming down with a cold. My work can get pretty insane at year end so I was working in the office, which meant getting kids up WAY before dawn to get them to a sitter so Sam and I could be at work by around 7:30.

Yesterday when we came home from picking the kids up, I heard Cameron *bark*. Instantly I was brought back to when he was 2 months old and I heard the same sound. Blast. I think Cameron has the Croup.

So the kids all went to bed by 8:00pm. Happy New Year to me!

I was wiped out so I was in bed by 11:00pm. I almost made it...

Sam had other plans. I guess he didn't want to feel like an old fogie. So, he watched all his TIVO'd football games that he had recorded on Sunday. Then about 11:30pm he got his suit on and headed to the Stake Center to chaperone a regional youth dance. He left there around 12:30am. Then just as he pulled into the driveway a really good Cure song started playing on the stereo. So he decided to drive around the neighborhood to listen to the song. As he passed some friends' house, he noticed a lot of cars in their driveway and he happened to know the owners of those cars. So....because he's Sam, and random, he raced home for the toilet paper. He drove back, and wrapped toilet paper around our friends cars. That's just one of the reasons I love Sam.

Then Sam came home, finished a few more moments of football, cleaned junk off our hard drive, and took down the Christmas decorations in our family room. He came to bed around 3:30am. Happy new year to Sam!

At 5:30am I woke up to more barking. DANG! I was hoping it would just go away.
So I was up pretty much the rest of the early morning hours holding my croupy baby.

We took Cameron in to the KidsCare this morning and my suspicions were confirmed. Croup....steroid medicine for two days....he's contagious.....good thing we didn't party it up on New Years. When he was two months old and had the steroid medicine it was horrible. He was super cranky for 2 days. I'm hoping now that he's older he won't be so crazy. Yeah right....

We did have good news today. We cleaned up all our Christmas decorations and as I removed the tree skirt from under the tree, a present flew out! Seriously! I couldn't believe it! Here it is:


I opened it....a very generous gift card from my brother and sister-in-law, Mike and Kim! So funny! So I got to call Mike and thank him twice for their gifts! ha ha ha!


Happy new year to me!

Tonight we were out running a few errands. As we were leaving one store the cashier gave Carson and Parker each a helium balloon. Now, I have to preface this with some background info. My kids are famous for having bad luck with helium balloons. Just to name a few instances: One time Carson had a helium balloon for about 5 minutes, he walked by a pine tree in our driveway, the balloon hit it, and popped.
Another time, a car dealership gave Carson a balloon. We walked outside the dealership, Carson lost his grip, and the balloon flew away. Those are just a few examples....I could go on for another hour on this subject!

So, the cashier hands them balloons, thinking she's all noble and awesome. I smiled, instantly bent down to my kids' eye level and said "Now listen to me, if those balloons pop or are let go, I better not see ANY tears!".

We go to a grocery store next. Carson leaves his balloon in the van because he's nervous. Parker brings his into the store.

After Sam rammed Parker's ankle with the shopping cart, Parker cried. Sam picked him up to console him. He put him back down, the balloon pops off Paker's wrist and flies up to the ceiling. Wow, Albertson's has high ceilings! Now Parker is crying because his ankle hurts AND he lost his balloon. So much for my "no tears" threat. The only thing that would make Parker stop wailing in Albertson's is when I quoted a line from "Horton hears a who", which I have never seen, but it goes something like "In my world everyone is a pony and they eat rainbows and poop butterflies". Out of pure desperation I remembered that line because Carson says it 100 times a day. It worked. Parker couldn't help it, and the corners of his mouth went up. I guess there is a place for potty talk after all. Hmmmm.

So, we go back out to the van, Sam opens the back to put the groceries in, and Carson's balloon flies up to the stars. For the love. Then Carson starts crying. Honestly, did no one hear my "you better not cry" comment? The only one not crying was Cameron and he had every right to cry, he has the croup for crying out loud. Truth be told, Sam and I were laughing our guts out. Yes, we're not very compassionate, but you should already know that about us.

So change of subject.

I remember when I married Sam and one day, early in my married life of belonging to the Sweet fam, I watched in horror, as Fern bought Christmas M&M's on sale, after Christmas. Then she proceeded to separate the green M&M's from the red ones. When I asked her what the *&!# she was doing, she said "Now the red M&M's are for Valentines Day and the Green ones are for St. Patrick's day".

Honestly, I thought she was wack-a-doo. Who would take the time to do such a thing? Was it really that important to have perfectly coordinated M&M's for those two upcoming holidays? Seriously, wack-a-doo.

As we were dealing with balloon crisis at Albertson's, I saw a huge bag of Christmas M&M's out of the corner of my eye...50% off....I couldn't just walk past that deal could I? Suddenly, I had the frugal desire to buy it, separate the colors and save them for the next two holidays. OH NO! I went from wack-a-doo to WACK-A-DID!!! I bought the bag and separated the colors. 10 years of belonging to the Sweet family and Fern's tradition has finally rubbed off on me! I'm proud and a bit ashamed at the same time...in a good way.

So now that I've admitted my....uh.....acceptance of the M&M trick, I have some interesting facts for you.

Here I am at the start of the process:


Now, knowing that there are 3 colors of these M&M's: light green, dark green, and red, do you think there are going to be twice as many green M&M's as red?

Carson loves doing experiments so I told Carson after I separated them all out, we would weigh them on my kitchen scale.

I couldn't believe the results:



So, even with two colors of green and only one red color, they weigh the same! I don't know why, but that intrigued me. Carson loved it, I wish I would have taken a picture of his face. He was positive there were going to be more greens. Maybe we can turn this into a science project one year....

Well, Happy New Year once again! Let's all say a little prayer that Cameron doesn't start barking tonight because if he does, I have to go out into the freezing cold night air with him to open up his airways. Oh who am I kidding...I'd probably make Sam do it!

Holiday Fun

Christmas is over, but the fun hasn't stopped!

We had the Sweet family Christmas party the day after Christmas, which was a good time had by all! Sam and I are in charge next year so if anybody has any brilliant ideas on how to entertain 50 people....let me know! :)

Whatever we do, I think our centerpieces should be this:


Sam says they are snowman potties. heh heh heh!

Sweet kids gift exchange. Always fun, always pure mahem.


That's where our camera battery died. But the pinata was fun and the company was stellar!

On another note, good thing it's hat season....


Because Cameron's helmet gives him a terrible heat rash. I'm feeling pretty ready to be done with the whole helmet phase of Cameron's infancy!


It doesn't bother him though. He's a trooper.


We've had tons of snow over the past week. Our backyard has an excellent drift in it. Sam tried teaching Parker the art of snow angels. For some reason Parker didn't think he could open his eyes, ever.


We may have to teach him the art of keeping his hat on. Hmmmm, should I be surprised that Parker had a slight fever tonight?


On Saturday, Sam's niece, Tera, got married. That sentence has too many comma's in it...is it grammatically correct?

Anyway, Tera married Ben and so once again we got to chill with the Sweet clan. Tera asked Sam to take lots of pictures so Sam did!

He got this awesome shot. Not just any novice can capture ear wax with such flair!


Or this classic shot of Hunter, after he had just eaten something good!


My personal favorite: Owen with a chocolate covered candy cane. His face says it all!


Even when we're cleaning up we do it in style!


Today my niece, Mel, picked Carson and Parker up and took them sledding. Isn't she great? She took some sweet shots of the action:




Here is James. He is Sam's bro. He doesn't look like he was working too hard! ha ha ha!


Anywho, that is just a sampling of the last few days. Busy, but what else is new?

Bedtime is......NOW!

Christmas 2008

I can't believe it's over! Christmas has come and gone....again.
I don't have any sadness or feelings or let down at all. This has been a great Christmas season and the past few days have been really nice!

Yesterday the kids were insanely crazy-hyper. Carson and Parker were pretty much running through the house and being super loud and giggly from about noon to 9pm. Wow, it was insanity.

Sam found a way to keep Cameron contained, too bad this wouldn't work for the older two!


I hosted Christmas Eve at my house. My parents and Fern and Russ' family joined us. We did our traditional homemade pizza and crepes, which is a lot of work but so worth it! I can't believe I didn't take any pictures of the pizza, but lemme tell ya, they were good! I snuck a leftover piece today and my taste buds thanked me.

Here is Mel making a tasty Christmas beverage for us. Do you like her sweater? She's bringing sexy back, I mean, the 80's. Who am I to judge? I still have sweatshirts from the 80's that I wear all the time!


Oh hey, there is that infamous sweatshirt now! See the green sweatshirt? Yep, I think I got it in 1988 or 1989. Classic! Let me put it this way, I'm LOW maintenance okay?


By early evening the boys were starting to settle down a tiny bit. This picture doesn't even do it justice, but Parker's cheeks were hot pink, all day, from playing so hard. I couldn't believe it! I'm so thankful for Carson and Parker, who are not only brothers, but best friends. They play and pretend all day and rarely fight. Let's hope it lasts....


This picture shows the rosy cheeks a little better. Their cousin Aaron tied their sleeves together. Whoever said children provide endless entertainment is telling the absolute truth!


After stuffing ourselves, we played a few games, including the "left right" story. We've been doing this at Christmas Eve parties since I was in Jr. High. We write a story about all those in attendance and include as many "lefts" and "rights" in the story as we can. Then we all pass around presents, left and right, throughout the story, until it's over, and then we open the present we are left with (hurry, pass it left!).

Fern and Russ got Pez dispensers, aren't they precious?


Melissa, who is still trying to bring sexy back, received this really scary cat towel. It had huge pictures of cats all over it. The funny thing, is that Carson was seriously bummed that he didn't get it! He lamented about it for about 30 minutes after the game was over!

Here Melissa is imitating the cat's face. The mad cat imitation is my favorite. I may try to find a nice kitty frame, maybe with cat paw prints in plaster of paris, and frame this picture. I think that would make a sweet birthday present on her 21st birthday. I can picture it now...



Meanwhile, tweedle dee and tweedle dum got their second wind. Dag-Nabit!


Cameron, however, was a doll. He just loved the attention he was getting in his new Christmas jammies. Plus this is his first Christmas so I think he was trying to be extra cute and engaging. Aaron's Aunt-in-law (is that a real relationship?) knitted him this sweet neck warmer. We put it on Cameron's head, because his head gets so little circulation we thought we'd choke out the air all together. Cameron loved his photo shoot.




By this time, my parents and Fern and Russ left. So Sam and I (along with Melissa and Aaron) put the three boys to bed.


Then Aaron said "well, I need to go to the store to get stuff for Danielle's stocking. I was laughing because it was 10:30pm on Christmas Eve. Nobody is going to be open! But then I remember that awesome story about my Aunt Barb and Uncle Keith from several Christmases past..... They had spent the Christmas season getting everything ready for Christmas, no detail was left undone....until late at night on Christmas Eve they remembered something: Hmmmm, we didn't get our 4 children any presents! CRAP! So off they ran to 7-11, who were the only crazies open on Christmas Eve, and purchased their children's Christmas gifts. If I remember right, the kids cried on Christmas morning. Somebody back me up, am I right?

Anyway, there is a "Sev" as Sam calls it, right down the street from me. So off they went, and returned, with a huge flannel stocking and tons of gifts from the 7-11. Ahhhh, a Christmas miracle. Hey Aaron, next year you should plan the stocking thing a day earlier and then you can hit the exotic stores, like Walmart!!!



Thanks for hanging with us you guys! Best brother/sister picture ever!


Christmas morning:

We woke up to a raging blizzard. I think West Jordan got hit the hardest. My parents didn't have any power at their house but we did. They came over to watch our kids open gifts.

Again, Cameron was pleasantly surprised by all this "Christmas" stuff.


Parker was a little tired and hung-over from the previous day's run-around-like-crazy-until-your-mom-almost-has-a-meltdown fest.


And Carson was just happy to show his little brothers how things worked on Christmas morning!


Santa was amazing and brought #1 and #2 exactly what they wanted! Wall*E robots. I think Parker is sleeping with Wall*E right now actually.



To feed Parker's obsession with Ben 10, my parents gave him a new omnitrix. Check out his face, priceless!


Anywho, the opening of presents was great! Thanks to my parents and my brother Mike and his family for being so generous! The kids have not stopped playing for one minute today. It has been wonderful. At different times today both Carson and Parker exclaimed "this is the best Christmas ever!"

Right when we finished opening gifts, our power went out. Sweet timing. We eventually made our way back to my parents house, once everyone's power was restored. Talk about a treacherous trip! 3 miles in a blizzard are like 30 miles! This picture doesn't do the snow justice...but this is on my parents front door porch. It's actually protected from the elements but this much snow still made its way in! I loved having a white Christmas!


After we watched my parents open their presents, we had an awesome brunch. Again, Carson and Parker never stopped playing. I love how intense Carson's face is right here. Gotta love that kid!



The rest of the day was spent hanging out, shoveling snow, visiting Fern and fam, and finally, cleaning up this mess:


Around 7:30 tonight, another blast of a snow storm started to hit. It's still snowing like crazy out there. I am loving this White Christmas! Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good night!