Holy "Macro"

I was trying out the "macro" setting on my camera yesterday afternoon and decided to take pictures of the physical things on B-Man that make him unique ... Thumb nail that repeatedly grows and falls off:His third nipple, or "nubbin" located under his right regular one:Hair color, in winter is a very light caramel. With any amount of sun exposure, it becomes white-blond. So white infact, I have heard Ms. R tell people that is the color of her brothers hair:His eye color, may not be unique ... but his eyes are trouble ;):My eye ... since I seemed to be having so much funny taking pictures of him:

Heh

I was just looking that the picture I took of the spider in my last entry ... that is life size. I didn't blow that up at all, just zoomed in on it, cause I didn't want to get that close to it. Pretty amazing how clear my camera's pictures are, and how big that sucker was.

Must be Spring

WARNING: Jenie, I want you to move here - so DO NOT READ/LOOK AT/CONSIDER this post...
As I was writing the last blog entry I saw a little scurrying out of the corner of my eye, this is what I saw:
This, dear friends, is a "Rabidosa rabida": Rabid Wolf Spider. The one I caught on camera and then promptly sucked up into my vacuum (which is why I never put my vacuum away) was approximately the size of my thumb nail - the body, not including the legs. The average male "spiderling" grows to be about 1 INCH in length.
The spring after we moved into this house Cobol was out in the back yard nosing around one night when he all of the sudden he started jumping around something barking his fool head off. I went out to investigate with a flashlight and found a MAMA of this species. Babies crawling ALL over it.
As any other level headed person would do, I ran inside, got a Tupperware container and went out to trap it. Want to guess how big the mama spider’s body was? As big as the palm of my hand. I probably should have called some kind of pest control unit or something. Instead I watched in fascination the next couple weeks as they all started dying off.
I think I just realized I am a SICK SICK person.

*Groan*

My sunglasses too? I haven't really driven anywhere that require I put on my sunglasses since Tuesday, however this afternoon I had to take a bit of a road trip to pick up my in laws who are sleeping over night and flying out of DFW tomorrow morning. I reached into the little compartment that usually contains my sunglasses and *gasp* the little hoodlums took those TOO! I get it, they looked like Chanel sunglasses - they were a good knock off; but COME ON! So to date, the only things of worth he/she left in my truck are: Michael Kors purse and a Bluetooth Supertooth speaker. That is all. End of story. I will reiterate: BAH HUMBUG!

Almost Finished

Posting pictures of the house. I only have two more rooms to take pictures of - Jerry's office and garage I won't even attempt to take pictures of. I don't want ya'll to see what I live with. No one needs to be subjected to that.
View down the main hall from front entrance:If you look to your right after entering the house. All the "stuff" that is spilling out of Jerry's office, neatly stacked by yours truly so it's not spewing all over the front room as it usually is:View of front room sitting area from main hall way. I have no idea what to do with this room or the furniture. My in laws had the brown pieces for 30 years before they gave it to us, so I'd feel ungrateful if I got rid of it. B-Man bringing his toys to where ever mom may be at the time ... And this picture is just for Becka - my scripture bag:

More Missing ...

I guess I was so excited about finding my purse still in the back of my truck yesterday that I failed to notice the punks also took both my emergency road side kit
and my emergancy first aid kit
I kept in the back of my truck. BAH HUMBUG! I loved having those kits back there. They made me feel safer driving far distances alone with the kids and I have used the emergency firstaid kit a few times at the park.

Up Yours?

A couple years ago I noticed a disgusting stench coming from Ms. R's nose. It was like something was rotting up there. I took a peek, but her nostrils were so small it was hard to tell if there was something up there or if it was just flesh. So I took her to our pediatrician at the time and he gave her an antibiotic, saying it was just a virus. I'm not a doctor and have much faith in those who are, so I took his advice, gave Ms. R the antibiotics. Still STUNK. Took her back and he suggested maybe she just had halitosis. That was absolutely RIDICULOUS, even with her mouth closed you could smell her 10 feet away (no word of a lie). We went to a new pediatrician who immediately asked me what Ms. R has stuck up her nose. I hadn't a clue. So she sent us to an ear/nose/throat specialist who extracted a COTTON BALL from her right nostril. I was worried that maybe it was packing left over from when she was operated on when she was 8 months old - but it was in the wrong sinus. The only answer is that she snuck it from one of her grandma's make up bags when they'd visited us a few weeks before she had started stinking.
This visit actually resulted in Ms. R getting her check bone realigned (the specialists had hoped that since she was so young when her cheek bone was crushed it'd grow back together naturally. It didn't.) and having her enlarged adenoids removed. Over all, a blessing since having her cheek bone realigned when she is older would be more traumatic - for her. I've had all the trauma I can handle where Ms. R is involved.
However, since this incident I have been insane about checking my kids’ noses daily. A bit of an over kill, maybe - but you didn't smell Ms. R in the weeks the cotton ball was in her nose. My vigilance paid off the other day when I was doing my daily check and found a popcorn kernel nestled up B-Man's left nostril. I immediately whisked him off to the bathroom, lay him prone on the counter, and extracted the thing with my tweezers. Scared the crap out of B-Man. GOOD! I hope he never sticks anything up there again.

Dawn

My sister and I were never close as we were growing up; she is 5 years older than me and thought she was way too cool to hang out with her younger sister. I don't blame her; hanging out with a 10 year old when you are 15 would have been mighty uncool. I always accepted her roll as the older, "in charge", "do it my way" sister. Maybe it was my easy going, non-confrontational, "please don't be angry with me" nature but I just went with the flow and never resisted or resented what she wanted me to do. We never hated eachother, just never knew eachother. If someone would have hurt either of us, the other would have been there in a second to beat down the offender; we were never friends though.
I can remember the point that our relationship started to change. Dawn had gone down to Provo, Utah to go to school and there was a long weekend break the same weekend as my birthday - and she choose to come home to spend it with me (well, the family - but it was particularly for me). I was absolutely thrilled. We were finally able to start seeing eachother as equals and friends, not as that distant sister we happened to share a house with.
When she came home from school we shared a room for a few months and I remember talking to her for HOURS at night as we were lying in bed. I would literally talk her to sleep, and I was okay with talking to her while she slept. I was crazy about the idea of finally having a sister who was my friend.
I still am. I love being friends with my sister. I love having her just a phone call away, knowing she is there to listen, to talk, to laugh, to cry to.
Dawn is kind of like the central hub in our family. If anyone is doing something, going somewhere, having trouble, she knows. I love that she cares enough to be in the middle of it all. I personally don't have the patience.

Love Women

This evening was one of those "mini-Enrichment's" for our ward R.S. This evening we played games. HOW MUCH FUN! I don't have to tell you how much I LOVE playing games. I am with Jenie, I would rather plays games then watch a movie ... or pretty much any other indoor activity. It was a riot playing with the women that came. Altogether only 8 women came out, but for the games we were playing, it was a perfect number. First we played Mexican Train (a dominoes game)
then after the older biddies (I love older ladies, but they sure can be bossy and a drag) left, the 6 younger sisters settled in for a game of "Cranium".
After a few of our turns we were all crying and gasping for air we were laughing so hard. There was this one card that came up "Water bed" and we had to act it out. I figured laying down on the ground and making my body sloush around like it does when you're on a water bed would be a good hint. My partner is in medicine, her guesses were, "You're having a seizure", "Epileptic" ... Maybe I am a bad actor-outer. In the end I got up off the flour, motioned "two words", mimicked drinking pointed to the pitcher of water, then did the universal "nap" sign with my head on my steepled hands. She got it. Guess it would have been easier to do that in the beginning, but a whole lot less fun.

I'm not Sure

... if I want to throw up, cry or go kick someone in the knee caps. This afternoon I went out to my truck on my way to pick up Ms. R and noticed the interior of my truck was askew. First I was annoyed because I thought Jerry had gone through it looking for something, then I noticed that my portable duel DVD player screens were gone. So I stormed into the house and asked Jerry if he'd borrowed it for some reason. He looked at me very confused then, "No." I rushed back out to my truck to do inventory. Glove compartment with insurance info still intact, good. Center console missing: clicker for garage, keys to Jerry's car and Pat's house. Central truck area missing: DVD player.Haha! Suckers! The gold mine was really in the back of the truck - my Michael Kors purse,
which is worth more than the DVD player (possibly my truck ...) was still there.
I'll admit, this whole incident could have been avoided if I had the habit of locking my truck when parked in my driveway. I've always thought, "It's right in my drive way, for heaven sake! Besides, what at they going to take? The DVD player?" Riiiight, exactly what they did. Skeeves me out. Unfortunately my truck is all manual and I was just too lazy to physically lock and unlock all the doors everytime we got in and out of our truck at the house. Another way it could have been avoided was Jerry making room in the garage for my truck. Either way, it's been pillaged and I no longer have the safe feeling of my neighborhood, or the stuff in my truck.
Jerry immediately reset the code for the garage so the clicker doesn't work anymore and called his brother for new locking mechanisms for his car. It still creeps me out, knowing that someone was 20 feet away from my front door raping my truck.

Too prepared?

Is there such a thing as being too prepared? Like my daughter, I have started thinking about packing to go to Canada. Now that there is less than a month before we go, I don't think it would be TOO obnoxious to start packing. Would it? My biggest dilemma for packing is: What do you pack for southern Alberta in April? Winter stuff? Shorts? I know here in Texas we'll be in the 20's, but I doubt it will be that warm in Alberta.

A quick poll ...

How many of you enjoy the pictures I post with the blog? Is it becoming silly, having pictures with almost every entry? Would you prefer just words, with the occasional picture?
As you may have guessed, I LOVE pictures, infact, I have read blogs of people I don't know simply because they have fun pictures.
I am copying this into a journal for myself, so I can add the pictures then if the pictures are too much for ya'll.
Opinions please!

More house

... for my faithful readers (you know who you are)
Interesting fact(s) about Kitchen: When I did the initial walk through of our house 6 years ago, I fell in love with the open lay out, white cupboards, and blue tiled island. I now detest the tile on top of my island, as the grout sucks up any spills and I have to take out my scrubber and attack it at least once a week. I am also hating the white cupboards because they show EVERYTHING and I have to wipe them all down once a day.
Pic 1 - View from the entrance to my bedroom: 2 - View from the hallway leading to the back of the house: My Bedroom is really larger than it appears, however I have a California king size bed (6x7 ft) and two chunky dressers that take up A LOT of space. Interesting facts: Every single piece of our furniture is "hand me down" except out bedroom furniture, which I bought shortly after I married. At the time, I loved the whole "celestial" theme with stars and moons and whatnot. Now, I am sooo over it. However, there hasn't been a single person sleep on out bed who hasn't asked where they could get a mattress like mine. Pillow top, delicious!
View 1 - From door way: View 2 - From Windows:Master bath, interesting facts ... Jerry has been working on the tiles of our bathroom floor for as long as we have lived in our house - 6 years. Doing and redoing them three times thus far because the lines weren't "perfect". Even now, he has the center design plastered down and the rest of them are just, floating, if you will. He says that once the kids and I go up to Canada for the month he'll finish it off. For real. Haha, I've heard that before, we'll see.
Looking into the bathroom straight on. Shower, tub and toilet "room" to the left, walk in closet straight ahead and sinks on the right.

"Duh"

That's Ms. R's newest word. It wouldn't be so obnoxious if she didn't use it in the right context. Fortunately she's refrained from using that particular word anywhere but in her play with her dolls. I'm not sure I'd be able to stop myself from smacking her little bottom if she were to say that particular word to me. I've never been a fan of it. She's started saying, "Rock 'n' Roll" too, also in the right manner, "That's soooo rock 'n roll"
She is generally such a good little girl. Sure, she's excessively bossy when it comes to her brother. Half the time when he is misbehaving I don't have to say something because she jumps right in, "B-Man! You get off the counter, RIGHT NOW! You will hurt yourself if you jump." But she's also helpful, sweet, silly, sensitive. Just to name a few of her stellar qualities.
Oh, and a special thanks to Becka, after reading your list I went through my blog and spell checked all of my entries. Yep, I'm a dork too. Since my blog started going in analog form I have had a hard time wanting to spend much time on this side of the development. You, however, are right. Reading blogs with typos isn't nearly as pleasant as a clean one.

Maybe Monday

But really Sunday, since I haven't been to bed yet. That's how I make it work in my head.
I went all crazy and broke the sabbath. We were pathetically low on food and Jerry finally broke down and agreed to grocery shopping today, so I wasn't going to let the opportunity pass. I knew of a Albertson's down the road that is going out of business with 20-90% off on everything, so we packed up the kids and headed on over there. On $250 of food, we spent just over $90. Jerry was pretty impressed by my bargain find. Alright, so he didn't SAY that he was; I could tell by his stalwart face that he was jumping for joy inside though.
No one besides my mom ever takes pictures of me and the kids, unless I am paying them. So before we headed out to church this morning, I gathered up Ms. R and we did the ol' "arms reach" pictures...
I wasn't even going to post this picture because I look too serious, but Ms. R's face looks too funny to pass it up.

Today ...

More

A Day for lists ... After reading Tina's and realizing I have no where to go tonight (no, that's nothing new, I just hope everyday that something exciting will pop up and I'll have something to do that night...) I figure I'll write another "about me" list - I like 'em.

109. I was wildly unpopular in high school. I heard first hand from one of my "haters" it was because many parents in our ward were comparing them to me, "Why can't you just be more like Krista Jones" (huge groan) Not helpful.
110. Sometimes I will take my kids places simply because I want them to have a memory/picture of it. Not because I really want to do it.
111. The first guy I dated - I only dated because his brother, who I really liked, was on a mission.
112. I dated a guy once simply because he had a motorcycle. Haha, bad Krista.
113. I am pretty open about my "wayward" ways. I am not proud of them, but I am also not ashamed of who that time has made me.
114. I love watching Hannah Montana. I'll even watch it when Ms. R isn't around if I haven't seen the episode.
115. I have much grey hair. I die it as often as possible. For some reason no matter what color I choose, I always end up with red high lights.
116. I love scented candles.
117. I prefer to sleep without Jerry in the room - he's a REALLY loud breather. So living parallel lives works out really well.
118. I've never had a cavity
119. After accidentally throwing away my retainer at a restaurant, my mom and I had to go back and dig through their garbage to find it. And then she made me wear it (after it'd been boiled in hot water and brushed 1000 times).
120. I love going out without my kids and feeling like an adult.
121. I rarely watch a movie twice, I don't have the patience to watch something again. I know how it's going to end already.
122. I HATE it when guys wear baggy pants. I am not asking for skin tight either - just not showing your undies, please.
123. I'd love to go to a therapist. Maybe I just need someone around here to talk to ... haha
124. I'd consider a tummy tuck - but I scar badly and think the results would look worse than what I already have.

125. I have a myspace account that I have had a lot of fun finding unsigned/unknown musicians through. Also a few old school mates. Coolio.
126. I use proactiv solution. Not that I had a TERRIBLE complexion, I just had break outs from time to time that as a 28 year old thought were just stupid.
127. I have deep dark secrets of my own and others that I will never tell and have lied about to cover.
128. I think filet mignon is the only cut of meat you should order.

129. I read faithfully to my kids each night in hopes that they will pick up my love of books.
130. I love lingerie, it's a dirty little pleasure of mine.
131. I haven't found a Chinese restaurant that can do wonton soup properly here in Texas.

132. I used to be a compulsive liar. I'd even catch myself after I had lied and wondered why I hadn't just told the truth. Fortunately I am not as interested in making people happy as I am about being happy about who I am now.
133. I love putting the color pink and brown together, I don't care how trendy it is. I love it.
134. I love being able to talk out my problems with my mom. By the time we have exhausted topics, I feel like we have accomplished something.

Rant!

I'm in a bad mood, hold on to your hats, folks.
Things I HATE:
1. Doing something nice for someone and having them say, "Oh, you didn't have to do that..." Dude, if I HAD to, I probably wouldn't have. Just say, "Thank you"!
2. Doing big "to do" dinners with my in laws. We always split up all the food to be made, everyone has a list of what they are to bring ... It never fails that every single thing I have been delegated to make - my mother in law will also make extra of that. This would be understandable if I was a terrible cook - but I'm not!
3. Asking Jerry if he's coming home for supper and having his respond, "I don't know, what are you making?" IT DOESN'T MATTER! I am making supper, are you IN or OUT?!?!
4. Having allergies since moving to Texas.
5. People who don't signal, or signal just as they turn.
6. Not having monetary control of my life. It REALLY sucks to have to ask Jerry every time I need money for something.
7. Seeing picture of my nieces and nephews and knowing they are growing up without me and my kids knowing them personally.
8. Having a truck that needs so many repairs, with a husband who is convinced that he can tinker with it and fix it. (not so)
9. My house. I think it's just because all the money Jerry makes he puts back into his businesses and none into our house. So it's a sad, neglected, place that I just hate looking at. So many things could be made pretty ... but Jerry just doesn't care. Lately, being at home all day has just made me hate the house even more.
10. That my kids cannot talk like other kids their age. Not that I hate THEM for it ... but I hate that my daughter is almost 5 and I still only understand her 60% of the time. My son is 3 1/2 and he is still only spouting a word or two together, unless he is mimicking Jerry or me. He has started doing this screaming cry every time he wants something, or gets mad, or frustrated ... Makes me want to tear out my hair.
11. Not having any close friends my age that live close to me. My closest friend here is older than my mom. We're at entirely different points in our life and it's sometimes hard to have her understand I can't just ditch my kids and go off to do whatever.
12. Still having baby weight. I think that there is something in my genetics that is refusing to let go of that last 15 lbs. Yeah, forget about the fact that Vanilla Bean ice cream is my best friend...
13. Worrying about what the world is going to be like when my kids are adults.
14. Not having people to play board games with. I've tried to find couples that both Jerry and I like ... but I seem to be married to Cpt. Anit-Social and not many men are interested in hanging out with their wife and her friend.
15. Being afraid of dogs. I used to love them, it's really irritated.
16. Having lost control of certain bodily functions (clears throat) with the birth of my kids. Jumping on the trampoline just isn't as fun when you don't have that particular ... thing.
17. Having breasts so large they interfere with things. They are just impossible.
18. Being afraid of needles. I shouldn't be the one flinching and wanting to cry when my kids go in for their shots.
19. Hating to be the "bad guy" with my kids. I'd love to be able to pass the buck. But no, it all comes down to me.
20. People arguing with me when I KNOW I am right and they are just being stupid.
21. Jerry complaining about things that the kids do ie: leaving their toys all over the back yard, because then he has to pick them up before he mows. Suck it up buddy, I clean up after the kids every day. You can do it once every few months.
That's all for now. I'm done complaining. Well, at least for now ...

Yoga and CORE

These are two classes I am taking at my gym right now. Let me tell you, my stomach is KILLING me. Which of course means it's working - but geesh! I am in pain when I sneeze for heaven sake. I really need to build up an endurance for this.

Ready to Go!

Ms. R and B-Man both got a set of miniature suit case set for Christmas in anticipation of going to Canada... whenever. Since the day I got my green card in the mail and was dancing around, crying, screaming and laughing with my mom over the good news of us being able to travel internationally again Ms. R has talked daily about our impending trip to Canada. Along with talking about it, she has found little treasures along the way that she just can't imagine going to Canada without, or not being able to share with her cousins. When she finds these little treasures she immediately will go to her set of suitcases that she keeps in her room and places them in it. The original plan with the suit cases was to put entertainment stuff for the plane ride up there ... guess we'll just be using B-Man's set for that now.