Our Christmas Card

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Turtles Best Friend

Just some pictures of James feeding the turtles....he REALLY likes to feed them...and they get really excited when they see him now. He over feeds them, which is yucky for Calvin cuz he's the one who has to clean the filter.



See how he can contort himself into a little ball, hoping I can't see him putting everything in sight into the turtle tank



Yes, that IS lettuce floating around the tank. Happy turtles.

Isn't Plastic Covered Wood Still Wood?

Anyone who has been to my house recently has noticed that my carpets have reached their life expectancy. We were debating getting them cleaned, but I was doing the math and realized that if I was smart about it I could replace the flooring for the same price as cleaning it. I am a carpet lover, and I've never cared for the feel of wood flooring, but as a mother of 5, I am if nothing else, practical. I decided to put laminate flooring into my girls room, boys room, and living room. My room isn't as bad, so it can wait another year. I shopped around for a few weeks, and found a guy on Craigs List selling some used laminate flooring for roughly .35 cents a sq ft, which is AWESOME. It's just enough to do both my kids rooms and closets with about 50 sq ft to mess up with. I found some at Ikea for .65 cents a sq ft for my living room. I found some GORGEOUS Brazilian Cherry for my bedroom at Home Depot online for .99 cents, but decided to wait :(
I was waiting for a certain weekend to start and I was going to do the living room first, cuz the carpet is grossest in there, but then my kids got sick. Then I got sick. Right in the middle of Tom trying to graduate from the academy. I was sick when Jack got sick, so Calvin was nice enough to help with the cleanup. Jack doesn't make it to the toilet ever. He wanders, and pukes in random places. Including several spots on his bedroom floor this time. Calvin put towels on top of the messes, left for a while, came back, scraped up the chunkies, and then sprayed the carpet with Lysol. By the time I was well enough to assess the situation, it was too late. We decided to do the boys floor first instead of the living room. Tom was originally against doing the floors. He thought the carpet was fine. His last argument was that "it's not like they are unsanitary or anything". Naturally I didn't listen and got the wood anyway, and good thing too cuz the floor was DEFINITELY unsanitary now. Fortunately we only had to wait a week or two to do the floors. I've never installed laminate, but my BFF has and she and her husband volunteered to help us out for a weekend. We had the elders over for dinner too, and used them harshly for cheap labor. They thanked us after, and gave us a nice spiritual thought. Here are the before pics. For your viewing pleasure, I have decided to only include the pics of the wood under flooring and the finished product. Nobody needs to see pics of the carpet post puke..........

After we pulled the carpet up...................

 The closet carpet, and the wood before we installed it......

 After the installation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

We have a goal to get the other two rooms done by Thanksgiving. I will post parts 2 and 3 as we finish them :)

Workin' Out

First posting here I come :) I have lots of before and after pictures this time. I can do this because I haven't posted anything in almost a year. The first pictures will be a series of visual commentaries on how much weight/body fat that Tom and I have lost since the beginning of the year.
When Tom started the police academy, he started running and 'working out' almost every day. I joined a gym around the same time, not trying to be a copycat, but cuz I found a place with a really good New Years Resolution deal.
Here are the before shots.......

         Calvin took this picture, sometime in the spring........

Calvin took this one in the early summertime....

Are you ready for the after pics?

Granted, the bullet proof vest adds a little extra bulk, but he's a lot slimmer :)     Calvin took this right before graduation halfway through September.........They had him eating 6 small meals a day, and eating smaller portions. He plateaued a while back, so he's probably not going to be any skinnier than this, although he could probably lower his body fat percent more if he were willing to put the time into it.

Tom took this one of me on our trip at the end of August.....

The exercising wasn't helping me lose weight, I had to change my diet. Evidently I'm not getting enough protein, so now I'm eating lots more meat and eggs. It's really hard though. I definitely lean more towards vegetarianism. My weight has been slowly but surely declining since the dietary changes, and I am shooting for a total loss of 30 pounds and as much body fat as possible :)

Feel free to post your positive, uplifting, and congratulatory comments here!

Guess Who's Back.....(Hint: It's not Shady...)

I'm Back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ok, so, I got all my pics back, and now I'm ready to blog everything thats happened this summer.....except that I have to get ready to go to the gym right now, so, everyone will have to wait a few hours longer :)

RIP

Our laptop died about 2 months ago.It suffered from an overheating problem. Now all my pix are trapped until I can get them off the hard drive. There will be no further updates to the blog until I have photograph evidence to support my gibberish. Thank you for your patience.

Big Changes

So, I'll just skip the parts where we were sick, and all the antibiotics it took to make us better. James finished his third round of antibiotics in time for us to take our annual trip to Utah to visit friends. This trip was more of a work trip than a chill trip, but I didn't mind. I was spoiled in between chores ;) Some of the highlights include eating at my favorite sushi restaurant with my BFF from when I was 10, which, of course I didn't get pix of, watching James be freaked out by the sneaky cats, watching/listening to him play the piano, and having a British comedy marathon every night. James had a good time I think. He spent the first 2 days calling for Rayzel, then learned how to say 'baby nurse'. He REALLY likes babies.

He finally got over his fear of cats and began chasing them around the house trying to carry them like babies. Good thing they are bred to be nice, and only one of them has front claws.

Here he is following them under the coffee table.

  

The end of my trip was spent in preparation for my friends surgery. There was a 24 hour period after the surgery where I was juggling 2 babies who both wanted to nurse at the same time. I'm glad that James was good about sharing though. As soon as my friend could feed her son again, I decided I was done breastfeeding for good. James hasn't nursed in 3 1/2 weeks, and I am thrilled. I'm also losing weight now. Yay! James, however, is not so thrilled. Chocolate milk just isn't the same. He has been skipping naps and keeping me up all night ever since I stopped nursing him. He's got his hand up/down my shirt 24/7, and he has very sharp nails. I'm not happy about this. He learned how to climb out of the playpen a few months ago, and we were worried he would hurt himself attempting it, so we moved him into his toddler bed. 

10 Minutes after he got used to his bed, he figured out how to open the closet door, so now he can pretty much come and go as he pleases. For those of you who don't know, he sleeps in our closet. He has significantly more space than Harry Potter though, so, don't worry. Anyhow, he kept getting in bed with us and harassing me, and I got tired of it, and had Tom switch the bathroom door handle with the closet door handle except the lock is on the outside so we can lock him in at night. We slept with earplugs the first week or so, but now he doesn't wake up anymore. I can now get anywhere from 6 to 10 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Yay!

More From The Peanut Gallery

In other news, Tom and I were doing the math, and figured out that we had spent just over $1,000.00 on stuff for the academy in the last 10 weeks. I wish they would give us a list so we could plan ahead. As it stands right now, he'll come home and tell me he needs something by tomorrow, and I have no time to shop around, or compare brands. Half our savings is gone already, not including money put aside for the beach, and the garden. Eeeek. I am babysitting now on tuesdays, but it's not enough to cover a potential hundred dollars a week. On the plus side, Tom is doing well, and I will be very surprised if he doesn't graduate. 
We celebrated his birthday by bbqing, and having people over, our favorite pastime. I got him a new grill for his birthday to replace the one he left out in the rain for three years. It was kind of a selfish gift, because I was more worried about him catching the deck on fire with the rusty rickety old grill then I was about him liking what I got him. I did get him a little something that he would like but I can't say what it is...I know, very mysterious....but certain brothers will find out soon.....


My life is taken up by the gym. Not that I don't enjoy going, but between the gym and the baby I don't get much done. James is finally sleeping through the night, but is skipping the daytime nap now :( Sad........he had a double ear infection last weekend, and I think it's lingering. We were a little late catching it, cuz he just had one like a month ago. I hope it's over now and we don't have anymore. 
The spring cleaning bug has bit me, and I have been cleaning, clearing out, washing, dusting, and vaccuming. The getting rid of baby/kid stuff, along with my gym obsession, getting my teeth whitened, birthday makeover, a discussion about sports cars, and goodness only knows what else, has prompted Tom to observe that I am having a midlife crisis. Am I? I don't know, I never had one. But I feel good, so, whatever.

The kids are enjoying the warm weather and play outside every chance they get. They even take James outside sometimes. He LOVES it out there, and now he tries to escape if we leave the door open. He figured out how to climb out of the playpen, so we had to buy him a crib mattress and set up his toddler bed. Fortunately he has adjusted well, and has added opening doors to his skill set, as well as folding his arms during the prayer and saying amen, singing the sunbeam song, and saying 'nurse', which actually sounds more like 'nus'. He is getting better at being dropped off at gym daycare now, but going to nursery is still drama.
Calvin still refuses to do homework, Nana and Rayzel are doing fine, and we had an enlightening conversation with Jack recently about money. He was telling us we needed to hook the printer up and put green paper in it and make S's with lines through them, and heads, and seventeens, so we could have more money. We explained that you can't make your own money, that's illegal, only the government can print money which led to a conversation about how we should get more money from the government, so then we had to explain how you have to do work for money and get paid by your employer not the government. It was pretty funny. He walked around for days telling me we should get more money from the government. I think he finally got it though. I hope he didn't say anything to anybody at school about it, cuz that could be potentially awkward.....

Birthday Cake

I asked my BFF to help me make Tom's birthday cake this year, cuz she makes really cool cakes, and I wanted to do something special for him this year. Here are the results:

 

Happy Birthday To Me!

 

My friends took me out for my birthday. We went to The Melting Pot for dinner and then they took me to the Sephora store for a makeover.... Smoky Eyes.

Tom hated it. It was a pretty bold look, I must admit, and definitely not for everyday wear, but I thought it made my eyes look gorgeous!

Blah Blah Blah

Boy have I been busy! Too busy to blog. But I might as well start filling you all in. I joined a gym a month or so ago with my BFF Veronika. We have been working out almost every day. We are very proud of ourselves. I love going. I love the classes, I love the childcare. Anytime I need a break from the kids, I can just go work out. As of this week, I have lost a total of 6.75 inches off various parts of my body. Yes, I did have that much to lose and more! Still no change in weight or body fat percentage, but I have gained 1/2 inch on my arms from weight training, and I'm starting to see some scary definition there. Weights burn the most fat, but seriously, I don't need my arms to be any bigger thank you. 


On the home front....we have discovered that James, like me and Jack, is allergic to penicillin based antibiotics. It must be the mix of Kelley genes, cuz none of my other kids are allergic. 
Nana's Arabic class is over, so now she can go to Band instead. She hasn't been going to practices because of the conflict, and because of that she couldn't perform in the concerts. Now she can go to practices, concerts, and she is also eligible to go on the Six Flags trip. 
We got our second paycheck today. Man, is it nice to be able to pay for my own stuff again! That reminds me, I need shampoo, conditioner and deodorant. Speaking of the joys of having a good paying job....Tom needs another pair of $110 shiny dress shoes. Why? Because they keep making him do PT in them and then they get all torn up, and pretty soon they'll yell at him for having torn up shoes and they'll make him do more PT in them which will ruin them even further. Does this make sense? No.
Calvin's psychiatrist asked the school to do testing on him 3 months ago. They have been stalling, claiming a need to discuss the reasons for testing, and to determine a need first. Everyone who works with him knows he needs this. An IEP meeting was finally scheduled. Due to Snowmageddon 2010, Calvin's IEP meeting was canceled. I would be sad, except that they decided to skip all the discussion and just go ahead and test him. This was partially because one/some? of his teachers filed a referral requesting testing. They get what they want a lot faster than I do. Thanks guys! Now we wait to see what they find out. 
Rayzel is involved in an after school Math help program. She has really been struggling, but this seems to help. Tom tries to help too, but since they both do it different ways and Rayzel's answers are usually wrong, they always end up arguing about the answer. It's really funny to watch.
Jack has HW every Wed now. He has to draw a picture and write about it, and we have to translate his handwriting. It's pretty exciting. He always gets free pizza coupons for reading books. I think that's his favorite part of school.
Plans for our garden are underway. More tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, and squash. No lettuce, carrots or spinach this year. We need more totes, dirt and rocks. Oh, and we also need the snow to melt. Even though we have money now, we haven't forgotten our roots, and we all still keep our eyes peeled for cans to collect for recycling ;) The kids are looking forward to our walks again when the weather gets a little warmer.
I am finally getting around to hemming all my tablecloths, getting rid of junk, and finding homes for all the baby boy stuff James outgrows! Still working on Tom's and Jack's blankets....while watching the Olympics of course ;) And maybe they will be done by the 2014 Olympics haha!

The Last Christmas Post I Swear....

I left the girls at my Mom's after Christmas to visit a little longer. We hadn't had a chance to visit the temple yet this year, so the boys and I met up with Tom, who was already there getting off work. 

 

Classic Jack :)

 
 

Calvin with a Chinese B of M....he thought that was just so cool!

My favorite part of the temple visit every year is looking at the Nativities from around the world. Here are my favorites......

 

  

  

  

  

  

As usual, the pics I took of the temple are gorgeous!

 

Now I can start thinking about my New Years post :)