My Tomato Garden

Last year, I had the biggest, baddest, tomato plants in the neighborhood. They totally took over the bed, uprooted their cages and killed a patch of grass adjacent to the bed. They were some awesome tomato plants. I credit Enright Gardens, the best flower and vegetable nursery around. They were my husband's neighbors when he was a kid.(Sadly, this shameless plug will go to waste. No one in Kansas reads my blog.)

This year, we are a whole month late getting the tomatoes in the ground. Unlike last year, I have given the plants wide birth. Three tomato plants share their bed with just my husband's small, lone strawberry plant. Because I was late in planting them, I picked varieties that take less time to mature. I have an Early Girl, an Early Goliath, and a Grape Tomato plant. I usually always plant Roma tomatoes, but decided to go with the other plants because the Roma plants were not nearly as big as they were last year. I'm excited to try the new varieties. Besides having a shorter maturity time, these Early varieties are already over a foot tall and have fruit on them.

I am the Tooth Fairy

I am Mother, Daughter, Wife, College Student, Child of God, Housekeeper, laundry matron, toilet scrubber, friend, sister, cousin, niece, aunt, neighbor, jazzerciser, bum cleaner, personal cook, and story reader. Now I can add one more title: Tooth Fairy.

My husband pulled out my five year old's tooth last night, with dental floss. I absolutely will not play Santa Clause for my kids. I hate Santa. I wrote a paper about it for my Composition class. SO why don't I have a problem with the tooth fairy? I can't answer that. I snuck into my daughter's room about midnight to switch the tooth with the moneys(as she would say). I had one of those moments where you are like "I can't believe I have a kid old enough to do
that." Why the heck did it take ME forever to grow up and every time I turn around, my daughter is another year older? I suppose that is the theory of relativity.
My daughter came and stood over me at 3:30 am. Normally, I would be totally pissed off by being startled awake, so as I almost scream while I bolt into an upright position. But she said "Mommy! I've got 2 moneys!" My little heart melted because she was so excited and she wanted to tell ME, right away. Sometimes, being the Mommy is awesome.

Stephenie Meyer

On Thursday May 8, 2008, I took two of my friends(Steph and Mel) with me to a book signing for Stephenie Meyer's new book, The Host. I have since read this book and I give it a big thumbs up. Stephenie appeared at the Unity Temple on the Plaza in Kansas City Mo. it was a little, sold out event for a 1000 people put on by Rainy Day Books.



Stephenie came out on stage and the room erupted in screams and camera flashes. Actually it was pretty hilarious. The girls were so funny. A lot of them had made t-shirts. My favorite said "I drive like a Cullen". Awesome. So Stephenie spoke for about 30 min. She read a few pages from her new book and answered questions. What I liked the best about it, I could see that Stephenie Meyer is just a normal person, just like me. She could come hang out at relief society or the park with us and she would fit right in. Then the book signing began. They called everyone up in groups based on the number on your ticket. I had the 256the green ticket. Unfortunately their was a group of 500 pink tickets that was ahead of me. It took over three hours to get my books signed.
So while we were waiting, we left and went to Uno's Pizzeria. We enjoyed buffalo wings and cheesecake. Mostly we just talked to each other and anyone else who would talk to us. We didn't get home till almost midnight, which is super late for a bunch of Mormon Mommies. It was fun, a little silly, but totally worth-it. I had a great time.

This Seriously Works.

While in Utah, my sister in law, Emili, told me how to fix scratched DVDs. She said to put the furniture polish Pledge on them and wipe them with a soft cloth. It totally worked too. I'm telling everyone.

My Trip

As you already know, I just got back from my trip to Idaho and Utah. Very nice trip. Yes. Except for the whole earwax stuff, and the suicide across the street, but we already talked about that.

I packed the kids up in suitcases and we flew to Boise, Idaho.
First Order of business: TAYLOR'S WEDDING!!
It was a two day affair that started with my brother Dallon's luggage getting stolen out of their car in Las Vegas. Taylor married Tara Miller on Friday May 16, 2008 in the Boise LDS Temple. I was there. It was very nice. I can't believe my little brotha, Tay-luh got married! That's soooo cute!!! They had a reception at the church that night. I got to see three of my four Aunts. Very fun. The next night they had another reception in Twin Falls, Idaho. This is my whole family except 2 of my nephews.

We also happened upon Ramone and Mater from the Pixar movie Cars in Twin Falls. Perfect picture opportunity.

That blue dress is my attempt to be fashionable. And those platform sandals I walked around in for two days gave me the worst shin-splints ever.
The next day we went to Shoshone falls. It was pretty cool. I like to kiss my husband.
From there we drove down to Utah. I was nominated to ride in the car with my parents. Which was fine until my Dad decided he was too tired to drive so he pulled off the road and took a nap for over 30 minutes. I'm not kidding. Just stopped and took a nap. Never mind I was in the back just sitting there. I was pissed. Finally a copper pulled up to see if we were okay. Then my parents switched drivers and we were off again. Insert Earwax story HERE.
On Wednesday, after all the earwax drama, Iwent to dinner with my friend Emily. We went to the Asian Star and it was fabulous. I love pot stickers and Mushu Pork. Emili got lettuce chicken wraps and General Tso's Chicken and Chicken fried rice. We spent $50 for just the two of us but it was WORTH IT. Emily is always good for fun conversation. We can talk about anything and everything. A big thank you to her husband Jared for watching the kids on such short notice. Amy, one of these times, I'm gonna get to see you! And I don't know why I didn't take a picture of Emily and I. What was wrong with me? Then, that same night, my Brother Trent took me to see the midnight release of the new Indiana Jones movie. I had fun playing with my nephew at the theater. We took a ton of pictures.
This is Gatlin with Wall-E.

The next day, Thursday, my bff Val took me to dinner for my birthday. We went to Johnny Carinos. It was excellent. After, we went over to South Town Mall and tried on all the shoes on the clearance rack at Dillards. I still wish I had bought those teal, vinyl, stilettos with all the heart cutouts. But, Val did buy me a really cute pair of brown shoes with a big bow on each shoe. I will call them my Valerie shoes. Our time together was over too soon, (as it always is) and she was off to a movie and I was off to a wedding reception for Connor Egan. IT was fun to walk in there and see every ones reaction when they saw me. I think I was one of the last people they expected to see. My little Talmage is now sixteen. I remember when he was three and he wanted to walk to the "tore" to buy some candy. He was my baby! Now he is grownup and a singer too.

On Friday, May 23, 2008, my brother Trenton married Jen Turnbow in Jen's living room. It was pretty nice. They had the reception that night too. I got to see some of my cousins that I haven't seen in years. I had fun. Jen has three kids of her own. With my brother's three kids, they have a Mormon Brady bunch thing goin. I wish my brother and his new family all the luck in the world as they blend their families together. They will probably need it.
Saturday, we held our traditional family dutch oven breakfast. We figured we would leave at 2:30 pm and go to a park to get it all started. Around 4pm, we headed for the park. Unfortunately, their was no bbq pits to do a fire in, so we moved to a different park. Like five parks later, we finally found the perfect park to do this stuff. this is my brother in law Matt. He is the dutch oven master.
We had apricot chicken and potatoes casserole. While it was cooking, the kids played and roasted marshmallows. We even had a little bit of excitement when some punks showed up and started smoking from their bong behind some bushes. They were only a little obvious.
On Sunday, I flew back home. The kids were really good and I only wanted to punch out one lady who sat in front of us on the plane. (She told me my three year old was being annoying!)The airline lost half of my daughters booster seat, but they found it and returned it to my house last night. So a big A+ to Southwest Airlines. Thank you to my sister Lisa, who always puts up with a hundred people using her house as a trash can. And also a thank you to my Mom and dad who not only paid for my medical bills but also for the whole trip. I am glad to be home. I love Kansas.

To Everyone Who Lives in Utah

David Cook won American Idol.

GET. OVER. IT.

Geese.

Ear Wax Update

So, I totally know everyone has been checking my blog like every two seconds to see how the how the earwax saga is progressing. I know! How dare I keep these important things from my readers! All three of you!Oh, all right. I have five readers. But, anyway, So the first installment of the earwax saga was on Monday and on Wednesday I was still hurting extremely bad. My Mom talked me into going to the doctor again. So we went. We went through the same routine as on Monday, irrigation, colace, irrigation, colace. Ever time they sprayed water in my ears, it hurt more and more. It made me dizzy and I was shaking all over. Finally the doctor had the nurse put numbing drops in my ear and Doctor Middleton went to town on my ear with the irrigation bottle. It hurt like a bitch. Dr. Middleton stopped because you know? It's just not supposed to hurt like that. He looked in my ear and said, "Oh! It's starting to move." I told him he could do it again but I was going to cry a lot. He said it was okay to cry, but I couldn't scream. Then he turned around and shut the door. I guess he didn't want me to scare all the little old ladies that were waiting for their turn to see the doctor. He sprayed the water in my ear and it hurt so bad, I cried and whined and then he said, "There it is!" Then I was crying because I was so happy! I was still shaking pretty bad but the pain was gone immediately! I was all " Thank you! Thank you!" All crying and stuff. I'll spare you the details on what the huge chunk that fell out of my ear looked like, but I will say it wasn't pretty. My Mom then said, "That was like giving birth!" and you know it was! All that pain and then the immediate joy that followed. I was even shaking like I just had a baby. Then my Mom started playing with that huge chunk wax. Gross Mom. The doctor then looked in my ear and informed me that I still had a tube in my eardrum that has been there since I was 12. Hello! That's not normal. Why am I not deaf with these stupid jacked up ears? But it was amazing that the pain just disappeared, just like that. So yeah. that is my story. It only cost my parents $300. Actually, I feel pretty bad about that. But my sister pointed out that maybe these things happen out here because I have someone here who can pay for me to get medical treatment, that heavenly father might have a hand in it. Maybe. Can't say that it hasn't crossed my mind before.

Also, today while we were hanging out at home, Three police cars and two or three ambulances pulled up to the house across the street from my sister's house. The woman in the home rushed out and hysterically started yelling at them to hurry. we waited and waited and many minutes later, they rolled a young girl out on a the stretcher. we couldn't see her face but we could see that they had a Machine on her giving her chest compressions and that her feet were purple. It became apparent to us adults that she was already dead. She had hung herself. I feel so bad for that Mother who had to find her daughter like that. You know, I don't even know her name, which is pretty said considering I lived here for over a year. I have a strong desire to help, but I don't know her, and don't know what I can do. I think the only thing I can do is to pray for this Mother. It's so unfair that she is left to deal with this. I am so, so sorry for what has happened to her.

Stool Softener in My Ear

I have a long history of getting sick about every time I visit my parents. I have had massive ear infections, kidney stones, Urinary track infections, and morning sickness. So anyway, we were swimming in the hotel swimming pool in Twin Falls, Idaho, on Saturday, when my husband got a fun idea to to put a swimming noodle up to the water vent to make a hose of sorts. The kids were spraying everyone and having a blast. We'll, my little boy shot water right down into my left ear canal. It started hurting less than twenty minutes later. (it's important to note that my ear's are extremely jacked up and are very sensitive to things like this.)We did various things to get the water out including putting apple cider vinegar in my ear. (recommended by my brother the P.A. Apparently acidic acid is the main ingredient in prescription swimmers ear drops.) It didn't help with the pain but it did seem to pull out a lot of ear wax. My Mom decided to take me to the doctor this morning. The doctor told me my ear was full of ear wax and he sent someone in to irrigate my ear. This is where Fred enters the picture. Fred works at the IHC instacare at 94th and 7th east in Sandy Utah. He came in to irrigate my ear. I asked him if it would hurt and he said "Oh yes! it's going to hurt so incredibly bad, it will shoot strait through your eardrum. It's going to be the worst pain you have ever felt!" Presumably he was kidding but seriously, what a jerk. Then he said he just got off work at McDonald's and he was on work release from the Utah Valley Hospital. Again HA, HA, Fred. Then he said he was going to look in my ear to see if he could see through to the other side. This is when I asked him, "You do realize I am 28 and not 12, right?" My Mom and Fred thought that was pretty funny, but he did knock it off after that. He irrigated my ear and a gigantic piece of wax came out of my ear. Fred looked again and saw another big hunk saddled up to my ear drum. More irrigation. No luck. "Okay, we are going to have to soak it out," said Fred. Fred leaves and comes back with a bottle of liquid. "Now, what is that?" I asked as I layed down. Fred said "Colace." Not sure if he was kidding, I gave him a funny look. He said it really was stool softener and it works for this kind of stuff. So Fred puts it in my ear and leaves for 15 min. He comes back to irrigate AGAIN, by now it was starting to really hurt. Again, no luck. Fred leaves to get the Doctor and Doctor Elwood Longnecker (Yes! That's really his name!HE must have had some good nicknames when he was a kid.)tells me that our next option is antibiotic ear drops and that we can't dig it out because it is next to my eardrum. Great, so here I am in Utah, and I seriously can only hear the air conditioner. We went to wal-mart and I could hear the beeping of the cash registers in the back of the store. Too bad I couldn't hear my Mom who was standing next to me, yelling. So now you know about my gross earwax problem. I guess this was a long time coming.

From a Three Year Old's Perspective

My three year old got a hold of my camera. he took over 40 pictures, mostly of the Winnie the Pooh movie that was playing. Here a few of them. I thought these were especially interesting because of the angle. The world looks completely different from a three year old's perspective. And I had no idea I looked like that from behind. I guess it's not that bad....

My Mother's Day Gift

This is what my little kindergartner made for me for Mother's Day at school. I thought it was great. I giggled and jumped up and down, just like she would. I do like to go to school.

My Fabulous Mother

This is my Mom when she was a sexy co-ed at BYU. She was so hot, she totally stole my Dad away from my Aunt, without even trying.

This is where I could find my Mother when I was a teenager. She had the prettiest yard in the neighborhood, and looking back, that neighborhood was half-way swanky.If you look closely, you will see my Mom is displaying her "I don't really want to smile, but I'll do it anyway" smile.

My Mom is a cool Mom because:

She totally let my Dad get a gun, just so I could have a cat. Whoa! I would never make that deal. So sorry Daughter. No Guns allowed.

She would let me drive the car to places like Skyline High School all the way from Sandy, before I had my driver's licence. Her only stipulation: DON'T TELL DAD!

When I was nineteen and I wanted to paint my room purple, my Mom totally went to bat for me and convinced my Dad and oldest brother that purple would be "okay" and that they shouldn't get their panties in a twist.

When I married my husband-not in the temple, she never let me see her cry. She new it would just kill me. She let me make my own decisions without ruining this exciting time for me.

When I was about to have my first baby, Mom came to visit and slept on our yucky couch in our yucky apartment, and she never complained. (Okay, just a little. But she saved it all for my husband.)Then when I was in active labor, she held one of my legs up for me because I was too exhausted after two hours of pushing to do it myself. Then she cooked and cleaned everything for over a week. That was awesome. Then she did it all again when I had my second kid.


My Mother is an awesome Grandma. Here she is with my nephew,(who is now like 11 or 12 or something crazy like that) swimming in the back yard. She is always taking her grand kids to fun places to play, and buying them things she would have never bought her children.

Not only is she an expert face-maker, my Mom is a total Scriptorian and expert genealogist. Yes, very talented lady. She has many talents.

Happy(late) Mother's Day, Mom. I love you.

Catch Up

So I really have quite a few things to blog about. But, you know what? I am too dang tired. I finally completed my first semester of school. I know I should be excited but I feel like curling up in a ball and crying, all the stress has drained me. It has been a long day....I'll feel better after a good night sleep.

Coming Soon:
A night with Stephenie Meyer
My Fabulous Mother
My famous friend the author
Idaho and Utah, here we come!

Birthday Wishes!

This was in an email from my Mommy:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LESLIE.
The day you were born was a great day for us. I remember it well. It was the day I upchucked frozen banana and left over pork chop. Only a mother would tell you something like that. Dad had just bought the red Ford Fairlane the night before. I called him at work and he came and got me in the Red Ford and we went to Cottonwood hospital. It was the sunniest warm spring day. Perfect for having a baby. It didn't take too long until we had you. We were so happy you were a beautiful healthy little girl. Of course, you know I wanted to name you Lacey, but dad wouldn't go for it. So I offered the name Leslie, the name of my favorite soap character, and he agreed. Lisa called you Lellie for a long time, Grandpa Dudley called you, Peanut. You were a charmer until time to fix supper and then you wailed the whole time I was fixing it. You would be in the swing and Dallon would sing to you "No one likes a frowny face, change it to a smile etc. Unfortunately, you cried all the harder.

Then when it was time to go to bed the wailing would begin again. That is when we started watching Mash and Magnum PI. What blessings you brought into our life. Even when you stopped all the crying we still stayed up and watched those shows.

You had that smile that would light up our life. What a sweetheart you were. We are so glad heavenly Father sent you to our family. It wasn't an easy row for you to hoe with a jealous older sister. I hope you can forgive her. We have loved you always and are proud of you. You a real ray of sunshine in our family and the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. You are so smart. You are a great mother and a good wife to Jason. Boy, did he luck out when you fell for him.

The big 28. I felt so old when I turned 28. Now looking back it was so young. It depends on your perspective, doesn't it.

I LOVED IT.

Then I checked my sister Lisa's blog. And found this:

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

It's only a little embarrassing.

Thank you Mom and Lisa. I love you guys.

Utah

Everyone in Kansas knows I love Utah.(Don't forget to turn off my tasty tunes before you start the video.)


Okay, this was totally on someone else's blog, but I thought it was pretty funny. I was especially excited to see the cement tree and they mentioned Tabiona. Does it get any better than that?

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Oh how I wish my birthday was the Cinco de Mayo. It would be a huge party every year just for me.



It was stormy on Thursday evening. I took a picture.

It was raining sheets. I always say, "It's like a freakin monsoon out there!" Unfortunately, this picture doesn't capture the true color of the sky. It was yellow. This is what it looks like when conditions are right for a tornado. Does it remind you of anything? What about the beginning of The Wizard of Oz when the sky was all greenish-yellow? The moment I took this picture, the tornado sirens went off. There was a wall cloud(tornado cloud) with confirmed rotation heading directly for my house without a basement. Luckily, the cloud blew over our little town without touching down. Whew! Missed us again. (And just a side note, those are tubes in the truck bed. That's what they use to hold those big huge rolls of sod you might see rollin down the highway on a huge truck. I don't know if I have ever mentioned it on here, but my husband is a sod man.)


On the agenda this week:

Monday: Babysit for Bobbi this morning at Jazzercise.(Just found out 2 min ago.)


Tuesday: Stephenie Meyer's new book, The Host, is being released. I'm excited to see if she can write without using sexy Vampires. Early birthday lunch with Gail at Mi Ranchito. Yum. Tamales.


Wednesday: I don't know, I guess I should clean something. Maybe.


Thursday: Happy Birthday to me! Meeting with pre-school teacher at 11:30 am. Wait for phone calls that aren't going to come. Ignore my husband. Go see Stephenie Meyer speak about her new book with my two fabulous friends, Steph and Mel. I'm going to have my copy of Twilight signed by the author. Are you Jealous? I knew you would be.


Friday: Big final in my Intro to Algebra class. I am going to kick that final's ass. Holla!


Saturday: Probably need to finish my last big paper to turn in on Sunday because I probably waited and waited till the last minute. Grrrr.

Milestones

Both of my kids reach a milestone of sorts today. I woke my daughter up for school this morning and she said,
"I think I have a loose tooth!"
Me: "Let me see that! Wow! You do have a loose tooth!"
Her: "I've always wanted a loose tooth!"
Me: "Yeah! Go show Daddy."
Her: "Okay, look how big I am!"

I can't believe my baby girl has a loose tooth! She is getting to be a big kid.

Also, in the chaos that my mornings are, I let my son roam around for a little while in his birthday suit today. It really wasn't a big deal till I went to get him dressed and realized that he has poop all over his hands and butt. This is what I said, "Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!" I ran to the bathroom for wipes and realized he had pooped in the potty. He just didn't tell me so I could clean him up.
Me: "Did you poop in the potty?"
Him: "Yes!"
Me (cleaning poop): "Ahhhhhhh!! Good job pooping in the potty, but you need to tell me so I can clean your bum. Ahhhhhh!"
Him: "No!"
Me: "Ahhhhhhh!!!"

So then that poopie butt got the Dinoco helicopter for his "big accomplishment". Way to go, stinky-Pete. I really didn't want to give him the toy because of the mess I had to clean up, but bottom line, he did it, and a deal is a deal. I guess.