Happy Birthday Ian! (a little late!)

Ian turned SIX yesterday! I cannot believe it! He was born May 9th, 2003, was 8lbs. 11oz. and was 20.75 inches long. Which was pretty amazing considering he was three weeks early. Oh, he was beautiful, and at six even though he doesn't want to hear it I'm sure, he still is.

His personality was very apparent even as an infant. Pretty easy-going most of the time, but the red-haired temper could come out when pushed. He loved play, didn't mind being dirty, and REFUSED to sleep until he was completely overcome with exhaustion. He was a sweet baby who liked to be cuddled and loved Mommy more than anything. I still think I am the luckiest mom on the planet.

Now, at six years old, he is bright and intelligent with tons of imagination. He loves Daddy more than anything now but still comes to mom for the scraped knees and bruised elbows. He is affectionate and sweet, and most of the time has pretty good manners. He can still be a little shy, but is starting to get over that a bit.

P.S. I found a way to decorate the Bundt cake. Ian wanted a "monster" theme to his party, so I made a Loch Ness monster. Unfortunately the icing wasn't as thick as I wanted and it all flowed down to the bottom of the dish. Tasted good though!

R.I.P. Bob

Yesterday was a sad day. Bob died. Bob was Ian's goldfish and a first rate dragon deflector. When Ian was about 2 1/2 years old he suddenly became very frightened of dragons. In my desperation I told Ian that dragons were afraid of fish because fish live in water and water puts out fire. Ian was sneaking into our bed every night or would wake up crying for me and I was getting no sleep, so I decided to get him a goldfish. That night was the first night Ian slept through the night. It was wonderful. Ian has since added Farmer Pickles to the tank and we had to go get a new fish so now we also have America.

For all the dragons you kept at bay, we will miss you Bob!

Tonsils Update

Tomorrow at 9 a.m. I go in to get my tonsils out. I'm frightened! How come when things like this happen everyone comes out of the woodwork with horror stories of what happened to their aunt's cousin's neighbor twice removed? ARRRGGG!
(Feeling better now.)

Cake - Very Yummy!

I made a cake! Woo-Hoo! Okay, but I did not get into decorating it because it is a bundt cake. It is called "Tunnel of Fudge Cake" and it is VERY yummy! Ian decided he wants it for his birthday, so I may have to do some decorating then, but this is the result.

You can kind of see the dark fudgy "tunnel" in this photo. Believe me, it is the best, and richest, chocolate cake I have ever had.

Am I Stupid?

A couple of months ago I went to visit the doctor for a check up when she told me she was fairly certain I have sleep apnea. Three tests and a CPAP machine later it turns out she's right. I HATE that machine. I am certain it is some sort of medieval torture device. It's either in my way for rolling over or its beeping because it is not on my face correctly. On the upside I've never slept better. But my doc wanted me to go see an ENT anyway.

You see I was sick a while back and the doc at the walk-in clinic mentioned my "very prominent" tonsils. (His words, not mine.) So when I went to check back with MY doc for the final results of my sleep study I mentioned this to her. She took a look and agreed that the were "rather large". (Again, her words.) So I went to the ENT to see if the tonsils were a contributing factor to my sleep apnea. He said that I did not have prominent tonsils, but rather "gigantically large tonsils that almost meet in the middle and are certainly contributing in a large part to the sleep apnea." ( His words, I swear)

So at the end of this month I am going to go have my tonsils out. This does NOT sound like fun to me. And the question I have is, am I stupid to have my tonsils out just so I, hopefully, won't have to sleep with a machine any more? It's not a sure thing, but I REALLY hope it works.

War & Peace

Guess what? I had most of a day to myself today! It was great! The house is relatively clean, the laundry is mostly done and Ian went to school and the was home from 11:30 'till 1:00, but then went to a friend's house for a couple of hours of playtime. So I decided to make a cake. I really owed one to Heather since she made my mom an apron and refused to take any money for it. So I decided to make a book. But since the "book" was so huge I had to make it a big book. I suppose I could have made it "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire", but that was way more words than I was willing to write. As you can see, I still need lots of practice with me writing. But it was a lot of fun to make.



This part is my pages. I tried to make it look like books where the pages are all different sizes. I think my coloring is a little too dark, but it doesn't look too bad.

So, Heather, I hope it at least tasted good!

(Edit 3/17/09: So last night I was laying in bed and just before I fell asleep I realized that if you opened this "book" it would have been backwards! I've GOT to pay more attention!)

Look out! There goes Spiderman!

Spiderman, Spiderman,
Does whatever a spider can.
Spins a web, any size.
Catches thieves- just like flies.
Look out! Here comes the Spiderman.

Is he strong? Listen, bud.
He's got radioactive blood.
Can he swing, from a thread?
Take a look overhead.
Hey, there! There goes the Spiderman!

In the chill of night, at the scene of a crime,
like a streak of light,
he arrives, just in time!

Spiderman, Spiderman,
friendly neighborhood Spiderman.
Wealth and fame? He's ignored.
Action is his reward.
Look out! There goes the Spiderman!

To him,
life is a great big bang-up.
Wherever there's a hang-up,
you'll find the Spiderman!

So, the best thing about having kids is you never have to really grow up. I don't think I ever had my face painted as a kid. Not from any real reason other than the opportunity never presented itself. But look! I get to live vicariously through my son. (I tried convincing the lady Ian REALLY wanted butterflies, you can see how well that went.) The make-up itself did not last long as Ian doesn't like calling attention to himself. Actually, sounds like most superheroes. Also he was afraid he scared Miss Becci! Ah, but now I have the "superhero evidence" forever! Isn't he adorable?

Declawed

So if you ever get a cat, especially a full grown one, and think "hmm, I wonder if I should get him declawed?" listen to Auntie Tara and DON'T!

Simon is a very sweet kitty who weighs about 10 lbs. Denali, our dog weighs close to 80 lbs. Guess which animal is scared of the other? You got it, Denali is scared spitless of a tiny little cat. However, poor Denali has many scratches on his nose, paws and sides to prove why he should be frightened. So on Friday Simon attacked Denali and had him backed into a corner, Thompson, our other kitty decided that the fight was too lopsided for his taste and attacked Simon. The water bottle was nowhere to be found, so we couldn't break up the fight. The end result was Denali, Simon and Thompson were all bleeding and very angry at each other.

So I called the vet to get The Instigator declawed. I am not the kind of person who thinks cats should be declawed. I'm pretty good at getting cats to realize the scratching post is a really good alternative to my couch. But my couch wasn't what whas being beaten all to heck, it was my poor sweet dog who doesn't seem to realize he could probably eat Simon in about three bites.

Simon came home the other day. Poor baby! He can hardly walk and when he goes more than 10 feet, he stops and picks up his front paws and sits like a bunny on his haunches while he gives his toes a rest. He's also a little whacked out on the pain meds, so he sleeps a lot. I feel so sorry for the little baby, but I'm not sure we really had another option. There's no way we could give him up, he and Ian are like glue. They just stick together.

On the up side, Denali is happier!

Whoo-Hoo! I'm feeling better!

Brian and I cooked a pork butt last night. If you have never experienced Brian's pulled pork you may not know it is award winning. I have the award up in the cupboard. It's good stuff. We had a couple of friends over last night for dinner and shared our pork. Dinner is defiantly more fun with friends than without.

Then with a little leftover pork I made funeral potatoes. If you do not live in Utah you may not know what funeral potatoes are. I didn't 'til I moved here. They are creamy and cheesey and baked and apparently someone always brings them to funeral potlucks. Mine are a little different with a "smoke pit" twist. Anyway, I took my potatoes over to T and Becky this morning since they like my recipe so much. They own a restaurant called "Q4U". Big-time BBQers. I am so ready for some competitions. I'm sad Brian and I were not able to get the pit he wanted but it is on schedule for next year. It's fun to see how we do in the competitions but the camaraderie is really the best.

Brain is over with T right now smoking some chicken. He wants to get T's opinion on his sauce for the chicken. I think it is wonderful and everyone we ask about it says it's great, but we did not do so well in competition with it. I'm wondering weather we're being told one thing and people think another or if there was just a bad batch of chicken that went out last time. T will tell us the truth, we can trust his opinion.

Anyhow, things are better around here and we're all feeling better too.

I'm Sick

I'm sick and I don't feel good and my throat is so sore I can't swallow. My head is pounding I'm coughing and choking and you don't even want to know about the phlegm. I'm SICK! So where is my sick day? Why can't I just curl up with some NyQuil and sleep all day and all night! Why is there no sick days for mommies? I want someone to bring me COLD Kool-aid for my sore throat and MAKE me take the icky cough syrup that tastes like (insert bad word here)so I'll feel better later. And I want way more sleep than I am getting. Enough complaining. Sorry. I'll talk happy later!