Mice :(

We live right behind a great big park. And there's a lot of new houses going up in our neighborhood. Big park plus construction equals displaced animals. Translate: We have mice. Not to sound like too much of a hippy, but I just can't stand killing things. So one day, I trapped one in a corner and caught it in a cup. I took it outside to set it free (yes, I realize that it probably just ran back in my house - but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.) By the time I got back inside the house, Ellie had gone outside and...well, the picture speaks for itself.

This girl never ceases to amaze me. How in the world did she even see it? Let alone catch it? Will her hands ever be the same after the scrubbing they got when she returned to the house?

Anyway, I (foolishly) thought that I had taken care of the problem. Well, a couple weeks ago I threw a baby shower for my friend and right in the middle of the party one of these little beasties darted along the living room wall and into the fireplace. I'm SO not feeling like a hippy anymore, I just want the nasty things gone. I've caught 4 in traps, but having caught so many I'm thinking I need to hire this problem out. But I'm really scared to do it because I can't really do rat poison with 4 curious little ones...well, mostly just the 1 curious, but 2 other little. Anyone have any experience with this? Any tips? I'm a little out of my league here.

Telephone.

I don't really like talking on the phone - in fact it's kind of a phobia of mine. I feel totally awkward and I never know how to gracefully say goodbye and hang up. So when at all possible I avoid calling people at all. This goes double for leaving messages. I HATE leaving messages. I don't like the way my voice sounds recorded (although people tell me that's just what it sounds like...ew.), I will inevitably stammer or mess something up that will be forever recorded and un-erasable. So if you have ever gotten a voice message from me, feel loved because I totally hate leaving them and I probably spent the next 20 minutes mentally kicking myself for what I should have said and how stupid I sounded. Texting was heaven-sent just for me.

If my phone is ringing, there's a 75 percent chance that it's my dad. I talk to my dad on average 4 times a day. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but always at least once every day. It's kind of silly, but if there's ever a point in my day when I'm bored or just want some adult conversation I know I can call my dad and just chat for a few minutes. And for the most part when those times come, my phone is usually already ringing with him on the other end. Sometimes it's annoying (like at 6:30 AM), sometimes I think "Really, Dad? I'm doing the same thing I was doing 10 minutes ago when we hung up." But mostly it's nice. I know that someday when my dad is gone I will look longingly at my phone that doesn't ring very often knowing that he would call me if he could.

I know this is such a random post, I just felt like writing about this.

Busy week:)

This week we:

1. Drove to and from San Fransisco for my grampa's funeral. It was fun to see everyone and enjoy being together.

2. Celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary. This picture is a few years old, but we didn't take any:( I'm getting terrible at not taking pictures of things that I really should. We had a great day - we went to the temple, ate at Blue Lemon, then went to a craft show (Junior's a good sport).

3. Celebrated Trey's 3rd birthday. We went to the Dinosaur "Magism" (museum, but he doesn't say it right and I actually like how he says it better.) He got a Buzz Lightyear toy that he's wanted for months and was thrilled.

4. Celebrated Mother's Day

I was so excited for Ellie's Mother's Day program at her preschool. If you'll remember, last year I captured many a great picture of her being...well, her. Well, this year she brought out some new material for 2010. The "I'm a little nervous to sing in front of everyone so I'm going to pretend that I'm too cold to sing". What a bust. She sat in her chair and pretended to shiver and look sad the WHOLE TIME. I felt so sorry for her teacher who has worked with the kids on these songs all semester only to have her not perform any of it. She had also made each of the mothers a really cute necklace with some of our kids' art work shrunk down on the pendant.

Mother's Day was awesome though! On Saturday Junior took me out for sushi - I'm just beginning to understand the craze. It was yummy. Then Sunday, he and the kids made me breakfast (scrambled eggs and Eggo waffles). Junior had bought me a beautiful lei to wear to church. Evie gave me a cute card that she had made at school. Junior took the kids at church so I could actually listen and enjoy the meeting. I got to talk to my hilarious little brother Steven who is currently serving a mission in the Dominican Republic. He has some great stories and his Monday e-mails never disappoint.All in all a wonderful day! And once again no pictures of it:(

Evie is such a great big sister. She's so helpful and eager to please. After school she finds Emmie and takes her upstairs and will entertain her for like an hour! I'm very lucky that she was born 1st.

What can I even say about my little Ellie. This particular disaster was an attempt to use food coloring as pixie dust. She realized something was very wrong when it started running down her head toward her face, so she wiped it across the top of her head down toward her ear. Her head and hands were purple for about 5 days.

Trey Man! My little super hero:) Trey has been experimenting with saying naughty words lately. But usually it's as in, "Hey mom, we don't say poopy-face, huh?" and "It's not nice to say stupid-head, right mom?" ...etc.

This isn't the greatest video of Emmie walking, but it's what I've got. So here it is.

Random pictures and explanations.

Boy do my kids love fruit. So much in fact that they needed to try one bite out of EVERY SINGLE APPLE >:/

Old man Mahe found the baby powder and gave himself a little shower with it.

Ellie had been told I'd say 7 or 8 times - "DO NOT TOUCH THE PIE. It's for dinner tonight and I don't want you to eat it yet." As in, there was NO QUESTION whether she could have any or not. Well, I left the room for 5 minutes and came back in to find her sitting on the floor... eating the pie!! *steam coming out of my ears* So, we took that pie and put it in her face just like on the cartoons. The pie may have been ruined, but it was horribly satisfying. Who wants to nominate me for mother of the year?

Ute Fan

So for the next 4 years, I'm a Ute fan. I know - shocking, possibly friendship ending for some of you. But my baby bro will be playing tight end for Utah for the next 4 years, so I will be there wearing red and cheering for him. Max Hall hates me too. Haha, just kidding.

While we were at the scrimmage on Saturday, Evie, who was wearing a skirt, kept telling Ellie, who was wearing sweatpants, that she didn't look pretty. So Ellie poked her in the eye. Who looks ugly now? Haha! I don't encourage this, my mom actually snapped the picture and that's me trying to console Evie...don't judge me it was funny.

Here's a few more pictures from the weekend while my mom was here.

We LOVE garage sale season. I think every stitch of clothing on my kids in these pictures are someone else's castaways. Yes, I am one of the crazy people that's up every Saturday morning at the crack of dawn looking for treasures. Ellie is my garage sale partner. She just loves poking through other people's stuff. I give her a buck to spend and you would be suprized at how long she will hold onto it...and at what she ends up spending it on.

I'm out of time - mommy duties are calling. I'm trying to be better about blogging though, so stay tuned:)

Listen to the Spirit.

This is my big advice for the day. This post is highly overdue and honestly I just don't enjoy blogging that much, but this particular thought has been bouncing around in my head for months and I felt like I should share it. I have always admired a certain mother and dear friend of mine. In college as a newlywed, before children were even an idea, I used to love just going over to her house to watch her mother her children. Her patience seemed endless to me - once she showed a home video of her daughter in the bathtub fully clothed! She had jumped in while her mother was filling the tub and had left for only a moment. How I looked up to this woman! Instead of being angry and frustrated, she had laughed and captured this adorable event on camera!
Which brings me to the title of this post. Well over a year ago I felt prompted to write this woman a letter or an e-mail telling her these things and what an example she was to me. She is someone that I think I have always felt closer to than maybe she felt to me, but SO many times it has been her that I have thought of when I've chosen to laugh instead of yell and snap a picture instead of spank a bum! (I'm still working on this, by the way, but when I've been able to do it successfully my children have her to thank.)
About 6 months ago, something unspeakably terrible happened to this friend. I read her blog and wish there were something I could do to ease the pain. But the thing is, I never wrote that letter. I didn't listen to that prompting and now it's too late. Hearing the words from me NOW would sound so trite and contrived as if I were only saying them because of the pain that she's enduring now when those words would have meant so much more before. That's the worst part is the knowing I should have said the words earlier, but I didn't.
Just listen to the Spirit folks. It's a horrible helpless feeling when you know you didn't do something you should have.