Merry Christmas, everyone!

We hope your Christmas is full of joy!

Nate's 2-year-old well-visit

So much for my "well-child"! (At least that's what they call it when you take them in to the pediatrician to check up on them and make sure they are healthy).

Four vaccination/flu shots and many elephant tears later... (shouldn't this be designated as child cruelty?) Even the Spiderman and Daffy Duck "stickers" (i.e. band-aids) didn't help. And the poor nurse botched the first shot and bled him up because he kicked harder than either of us expected him to. (He got two bloody Loony Tunes bandaids for that one.)

To make matters worse, I have this awful habit of "goosing" my kids on the thighs when I think they're are just the cutest thing ever...and for poor Nate, that happens a lot. They're all quite immune to my torture by this age, but unfortunately I kept forgetting about his injuries. I've really got to stop...but he's just so CUTE, I can't help but pinch him! Maybe by the time he's about 13 he won't be so darn cute, (and then maybe I'll quit!)

You know you've had too much candy when...

......your kids start asking for carrot sticks instead of pixie sticks and you get the gitters and headaches in the morning until you get your chocolate-fix. Thank goodness Halloween and the aftermath is over...anyone want to help me out by getting the rest of the candy out of my house?
And my kids won't stop wearing their halloween costumes...and Peter found a costume of his own when he tried sniffing a permanent marker yesterday...(is that Charlie Chaplain or Hitler?)

One out of two ain't bad!

Since my newly-turned 2-year-old has decided to become a parrot, I thought it was a good idea to give up some of my favorite cuss words, i.e. crap, damn it, etc...

But this weekend provided us with some comical relief. Clay was reading the newspaper and Nate jumped on his back to announce who was on the front page...we had to make sure we were hearing what he was saying...

Later, I was trying to chill him out by showing him a random book from my neighbor's house. I thought the Star Trek book would at least show some pictures that might make him stop crying
He was totally stoked with the picture of "Jesus the Klingon".

We're doing our best trying to teach him stuff, even if it turns out it isn't QUITE right sometimes.

IBEX revisited

Clay decided he needed to get out of town. So, to the west desert we went...

We went to one of his favorite places to climb, Ibex. (Its about a half-hour outside of Delta.) The kids were stoked to be let free to roam and climb all the rocks and play with their trucks and just be...while Clay bouldered around and I read Harry Potter #2 (I know, I am such a looser to finally be reading them NOW!) Clay made sure to pack the kid's climbing shoes and summit the "Cow" boulder...maybe Nate will join them next year.Lucy went up the hard way! After a couple hours of that, we went over to a huge sand dune to spend some quality time getting sand in every orifice possible...Pete was the crazy boy who did lap after lap... I'm just glad the kids didn't follow Clay up this boulder.
What we like to call "sand surfing"!

Then it was on to Crystal Peak, which was this huge white mountain in the middle of all the brown ones. Clay says that the mountain sometimes shimmers if the light is just right. We then went to collect "fossils" at a secret quarry. Pretty cool. Thanks, Dad, for another great adventure! You're the best ever!

The snowball effect

When you go to buy a boat, someone needs to explain to you EXACTLY what you're in for. I mean, I expected to buy some cool gear for the boat, (i.e. awesome tubes, killer slalom ski, etc.). I expected the insurance, title, a little work on the trailer, and the gas (oh, the gas!!!!). No one told me I would have to spend way too much time and money on installing a concrete pad on the side of my house so we could store the dang thing.

But, Clay recruited his climbing friend (a TRUE friend to work that hard for that little, I might add) to help us prep and lay the concrete. He even let Clay take a turn behind the wheel...what a big kid!Poor Adam was there until way after dark doing his thing and making the concrete look so pretty...He even installed a fancy FRENCH drain...(I think it would be along the lines of french fries or french dressing, or french toast...anyone for the movie "Better Off Dead"?) And who doesn't like a cold beer (of the root variety) after a hard day's work. By the way, the beer-de-root was meant to be, seeing as how we probably pulled out a truck-load of roots that day!

I cannot pay tribute to this project without a big shout-out to the coolest neighborhood kids who spent the better portion of their day off on Monday devoted to the removal of a mountain of dirt. I mean, its a lot of dirt when you have to pay eight large teenagers for four HARD hours of digging. Ya'll rock! (No pun intended)

I can't wait to bring the boat back home to sleep for the long, cold winter. Anyone up for a trip to Lake Mead?

Happy Birthday, BOYS!

Some of you may be grateful that Clay and I found something ELSE to do this past February besides procreate. All three of my boys' birthdays are a week apart and it was Peter's turn for a party this year. Four BIG years old! We went down to the rec. center and had some good times in the "Splash Zone"...complete with lots of friends and a big Costco cake.
This Sunday we went to grandma's house and enjoyed another birthday bash for all the boys, complete with cousins, more presents, and more cake...
I have to explain the "big"cupcake for Nate. I forgot to give him the traditional birthday cake mess for his first birthday, so improvised for his second birthday. He would have nothing to do with the mess, but slowly dug into the cake and was irate every time dad (or mom or grandma) would steal a piece of it.

I was so proud of my creapy skull cupcakes! I'm trying my best to follow in Peggy's footsteps. She would always make elaborate cakes for Clay when he was growing up, including a large-breasted woman cake during the teen-years. (I've really got to find a picture of that one!)

So, happy birthday to the boys in my life...I would have WAY too much time on my hands and not enough love without you!

Who needs a dog...

...when you have a baby brother. (Note the Millie-stick, Jess)Nate will play fetch, lick food off the floor, growl at you, snuggle on your lap, pee on the floor, track mud in the house, and even bite if you give him the chance. He doesn't have fleas, but will bring home the occasional parasite.Sometimes I wouldn't mind sticking him in a cage...(oh, wait...there's always the crib). Who wouldn't love this mutt, anyway?

Army-ready

If you didn't know, we have a little devil living with us (with flames out of his head and everything). Some of you may be wondering why I would shave off all the beautiful red and brown hair of my boys...Well, Peter and Will wanted to cut up a box (just like Jason)...so I gave them some of those kid scissors...you know, the kind without the sharp edges that can hardly cut paper they are so blunt...
Peter figured out they cut HAIR just fine.

Will: "But Peter DID it."

Mom: "Why did you LET him?"

Will: "I dunno."

I wanted to scream, cry, and pull out my own hair.
But, I didn't. Instead I took out the camera and then my new Costco clippers. I'm trying to learn from my friends that I need to laugh more and anger less. It was a good day, in spite of it all. I am just so grateful Lucy was at school during the hair cutting massacre. And of course, school pictures are NEXT week.

Spiders!

Tuesday night Clay went up to my sister's house in Centerville to work on the boat trailer brakes with my bro-in-law Martin. I heard Clay walk in the door so I went down stairs to see houw it went when I saw sitting on my counter in a glass bottle a HUGE tarantula. They live on the hillside and I guess they come out in droves at night this time of year. I seriously thought I would crap in my pants. Earlier in the day I had killed a black widow spider my boys were playing with so needless to say I was a little out of sorts when it comes to creapy spiders that would kill my kids. The next morning my kids were so excited and Clay thought Lucy could take it to school. I reluctantly called her teacher, and to my surprise she said she could. (Anything to get it out of the house!) Lucy was the "cool" kid for the day. I was so proud she didn't break the glass jar!

Sweet Lucy tried to make "Spooky" comfortable and so she stuffed a bunch of leaves and grass through the hole in the top of the jar to make it a bed. Too bad the spider didn't want to have anything to do with the greenery so the poor thing was stuck on the side of the jar all night. It kept slipping down into the forest below and then inching its way back up out of the mess. My neighbor totally gave me a guilt trip about not letting it die. She's an animal lover and used to have a tarantula for a pet. I didn't know they lived on crickets and I wasn't about to go out and BUY some crickets so it could live on my counter. As noisy as the crickets have been lately at night here I almost wanted to let it loose in my backyard, if only it wouldn't kill Nathan if given the chance! (I did find a praying mantis on my window today and I guess they eat crickets too, yea!)

I made Clay take it back into the wilderness to live another day. I guess it's time to call the exterminator.

Ode to the ski boat

Since I don't actually have a picture of my boat, I thought I would post Lucy's rendition of it. Notice the storm trooper skiing off the back...that's supposed to be me. I wonder what that's supposed to mean!

Westwater HO!

Last weekend Clay and I met some friends down at Westwater for a nice day-trip down the Colorado river. It was so fun! Pictured below Cory, Bryce, Curtis, Mike, and Clay chillin' at lunchtime. Here I am with Curtis trying to maneuver through a rapid. It's amazing we all survived going through rapids named "Skull" and "Sock-it-to-me". I was proud of myself for going all the way in the "duckie" (inflatable kayak). Its a lot more intimidating being so low in the rapids for sure. I can see the draw for white water rafting although I am completely spoiled because the first trip I took was in the Grand Canyon with the coolest rapids ever! This was pretty close because I was in an 8 foot Duckie instead of a 38 foot J-Rig! Cataract canyon was fun,but doing it 5 months pregnant wasn't so much fun.
Clay borrowed his friend's boats so he could row a few rapids. We were right behind him and watched as he flailed in a hole in Little Dolores. He was stuck and surfing for a minute but I could see the big grin on Clay's face and knew it was okay. Still, it didn't do my heart good to see Clay of all people stuck knowing that I had to go through that same rapid in a moment! It was with Andrew's boat and it took a while for Andrew to talk to Clay again. I don't think he'll let Clay take the helm of his boat 'ever again'.
Seriously so fun! It was a lot of work to get it all pulled together, but all and all it was a blast. Thanks to Mike for getting the permits and Clay was great to be master river-guide.
Picture of the canyon going back into Moab from the take-out. I forget how much I like it down in Moab. Hopefully it won't be another year before we make it down again. Anyone for another rivertrip? We'd totally do it again in a heartbeat.

Who wants to be my new best friend?

So, a couple weeks ago when Clay and I took the kids to the Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho for a little "vacation", we were stuck on the side of this awesome, clear lake where we watched boats fly past with their skiiers/wakeboarders cutting some awesome lines in the water. I was so frustrated. I was talking to Clay and was expressing my desire (again) to get a boat. He said (out of exasperation and exhaustion) "Well, just GET one THEN!". I looked at him, knowing that he didn't really mean it, and said "OKAY!".

We got home from the trip and I went directly to KSL Classifieds and called my bro-in-law, Martin (pictured below). He said he would take care of it if I bought it, which is a HUGE deal for me! My folks had a Nautique about 10 years ago and he took very good care of it for them. I figure if I had a mechanic on hand that I could tolerate the cash dump a little easier.

After searching on the web for a couple weeks, we found a '97 Ski Brendella for a good price and low-balled them for even less. It had been in storage for five years and they were ready to dump it. We finally took it out last Wednesday after quite a bit of work done on it (Thanks, Martin and Clay). We left the kids at Grandmas and took the older nieces and nephews out for a chilly evening at Pineview reservoir. Anyone have cute sisters/cousins/friends for cool California surfer guys/gal? The Stange's rock!

Lauren just got her braces off (finally!)...good thing after getting jostled around on the "Lift Off".

Clay took the wheel and Riley and I got on the "Lift Off". Now we know why it is called the "Lift Off". It was a great ride until we caught, I swear, 20 feet of air and poor 10-year-old Riley got the wind knocked out of her on the return trip to earth. She vowed never to get on it again. I hope she will change her mind. Clay felt horrible about it! While we were on the thing, Riley muttered to me "You married the most horrible man!" It was funny, but I hope she doesn't hold it against Clay for too long and will give it another try.

I actually had a chance to waterski for the first time in 10 years. It was awesome, although the water was choppy and cold. It took five tries, but I did it and it was glorious!

Andrew even gave the kneeboard a try.

Good times! I've heard a few different things since I bought the boat. Clay's favorite is "The two best days of owning a boat are the day you buy it and the day you sell it." I hope that isn't true. Another is "A boat is a hole that you throw money into." Well, I think that is already true. Another is "You know what's better than owning a boat? Having a friend who owns a boat." I hope that's true and that ya'll will come and have fun with us! I think I've got a good bribe for ya'll to hang out with our crazy family! (And I promise not to let Clay drive if you don't want him to!)