Baby Angel

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Three years ago today I stood in the delivery room with my sister, and held her hand while she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl that she named McKenzie Kelly. Her little angel lived for a brief 3 1/2 weeks and then went back to her father in heaven. We miss her dearly. Happy Birthday Kenzie!

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Seth Godin Rap Up

Wow, yesterday was a big day! I think I’m still trying to process it all. My husband was true to his word, and is now bald. He said it was the highlight of his life having Seth shave his head. I told him he needs to get out more. All kidding aside, I haven’t seen him this excited and happy in a long time it really was a great day.

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The company Head Blade has already contacted him and asked if he would like free products, and if he would link his You Tube video to them. Wow the word travels fast!

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After a month and a half planning I can’t believe it is really over. Seth was great, it was everything we expected. I’ve seen a lot of his video’s but nothing beats meeting him in person. Now I just have to figure out who to give 9 copies of his book to ;0)

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Good Mommy, Bad Mommy

Today is one of those days that was really draining. I tried to balance being a good mom, with doing what had to be done, so here is a list of things that made me a good mommy, and a bad mommy today.

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I’m a bad mom because I didn’t even know that my son’s tooth had a cavity until he came to me last night and showed me that it had abscesst.

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I’m a good mommy because I spent 2 hours trying to find a dentist at the last second, and went with him first thing this morning and held his hand while they pulled the tooth and drained the abscess.

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I’m a bad mommy because I was late to my four year old’s preschool graduation, and he was the only one there who’s mom wasn’t there supporting him.

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I’m a good mom because I did finally show up (after the before mentioned dentist appointment) and took lots of pictures and told him how proud I was.

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I’m a bad mom because I then had to rush both kids to a babysitter and drop them off with my older son’s mouth still bleeding.

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I’m a good mom because I called twice to check on him and make sure he was OK.

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And all of this so I could make it to Salt Lake on time to be a good wife and support my hubby with his Seth Godin conference he was helping to put on today. (more about that later)

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Most of all I’m a bad mom because I completely forgot to find a sub for carpool, and my daughter was sitting at the school waiting for someone to come and get her and I was in Salt Lake, not answering my phone.

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I guess all we can do is the best we can do, and try harder the next day. Over all I feel successful today, because it all got done.

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Related:

A Glorious Day at the Zoo

This morning I woke up and decided to sluff work, and hang out with my youngest at the zoo. I guess I feel a little guilty for working on the days that he doesn’t have school instead of spending time with him. He’s 4 now, and growing so quickly I know I won’t have many more carefree days at the zoo with him.

I have always stayed home with my kids, but my youngest doesn’t get as much quality time with me as my older two did. When I do find time to spend with him I feel a little distracted. Not today, we packed lunches, and headed for Salt Lake. We walked around for a while, and then ate lunch next to the zebra’s, and got ice cream afterwards. We rode the train and then headed for home. It was a great day!

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Pushing the Globe

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He LOVES trains!

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Waiting patiently for a turn.

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WOW they smell!

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Riding a rino

Ranting and Raving

I’m not a really political person, but I’m a little irritated and need to vent, so if you are offended easily by others opinions this post is not for you.

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I feel that if you haven’t been to Iraq/Afghanistan, or don’t have a close family member who has been or is currently there then you do not get to have an opinion about the war. Don’t get me wrong I understand that this is America, and everyone has the right to have an opinion, I just don’t think you should have the right to share it.

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I am sick and tired of hearing people spouting off opinions about what we should do in Iraq, and thinking they are an expert just because they heard some politician running there mouth on CNN. Politicians know the very least about what is truly going on in Iraq. If you want to know the truth ask a soldier.

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My husbands youngest brother has been living in the middle east and fighting for our country for the better part of 5 years. It is an insult to him and all the other brave men and women that are fighting to say that we are waisting our time there. Any way you want to spin it you can’t say that you support our troops, and say that you don’t support the war at the same time.

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I don’t think that we should be in Iraq forever, and I would love to see our troops come home, but not until the job is done, and our troops feel that they have been successful. I (unlike other loud mouths) will admit that I don’t have all the answers, no one does.

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This has always been “The land of the free, and home of the BRAVE” now is not the time to put our tail between our legs, and run. We as a nation have been to war with other countries, and continue to have a military presence in those countries and I don’t see activists out in the streets complaining about “occupying” those countries. We are not an occupying country we are a liberating country. Think of what would happen to all the innocent people in Iraq if they were left alone to defend themselves against those who are standing in line to truly occupy the country. It is morally wrong to tear apart a country through war and walk away without a stable government in place. Imagine what would have happened in Germany if we walked away and let them figure it out for themselves, we would still be dealing with the next tyrant who wanted to take advantage of a desperate people.

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Okay I’m done talking about this and will now get off my soap box.

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I don’t mean to brag…

but I have the best kids.

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It seems sometimes that there are very few rewards for stay at home mothers. I mean we devote every waking moment to our kids, and pray that someday it will pay off and our kids will finally listen to the wisdom we try to impart to them. Don’t get me wrong I wouldn’t want to do anything else with my life than this, but there are very few “thank yous” for my efforts.

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Then all of a sudden the stars aline, and your kids show you what they are made of and it blows your mind. My oldest son (who is 9) brought home a certificate that says he scored in the top 10%Â in the NATION on his testing. I couldn’t believe it (his dad and I never did that well) I’m beaming with pride.

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My youngest (he’s 4) brings me a card he made in school that has his picture on it and says “I love my mom because she tucks me in at night and makes me brownies” and it all seems worth it. I’ll never miss tucking him in again.

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My oldest (who is 12) and my only girl is the kindest most friendly person I know. I beam with pride every time I see her extend a hand of friendship to someone others don’t want to play with. She makes me proud to be her mother.

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With Mother’s Day only a day away, I’m grateful for my kids, and the wonderful husband who gave them to me. Â

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Oh how I love the Internet

I’m not a TV watcher, I go out with friends and they are all talking about what happened on American Idol last night, and I have no clue what they are talking about because I don’t watch much TV anymore. I’ll admit I’m a recovering TV-aholic, I used to have the TV going all the time for “back ground noise” while I am home during the day. When we moved into our new house I put the only TV we own downstairs ( I know, who only ownes one TV? That’s a subject for a whole other blogpost.) so I wouldn’t watch it as much.

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I only have one or two shows a week that I watch on a regular basis, and even these I miss because I forget what day they are on. Last night one of my favorite shows Grey’s Anatomy was on and while I was watching it, I also had a passed episode that I had missed playing on my laptop between commercials. I love that ABC has old episodes online that you can watch whenever you have time to catch up on your favorite shows. I know this is what tivo is for, but we don’t even have cable, so we can’t get TV. (I know who doesn’t have cable? We don’t that’s who, and its to help with the recovering TV-aholic thing. If I had it I would watch it all the time, without it I don’t miss it.)

The worlds worst vacation ever…

Now let me start off by saying I am an eternal optimist, and my husband is a pessimist or a realist I’m not sure which one fits better. His opinion is “why try and plan a vacation, It’s just going to get ruined anyway”. I wish that the universe would stop proving him right all the time. We have not had a good vacation in forever. Our last major trip to Seattle for my sisters wedding was not a pleasant experience, but this last trip topped them all.

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We left for California to go visit my mother-in-law who was just diagnosed with breast cancer (now this should have been my first clue that this vacation was going to suck). We arrived on Saturday afternoon, and on Sunday morning on our way home from church I get a phone call from my mom that my bio-dad died. This came as quit a shock because I didn’t even know he was sick. Needless to say this totally ruined any idea of a vacation. I spent the next few days trying to salvage a few days of our trip for my kids sake, before my hubby drove me to Las Vegas to catch a flight to a funeral.

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The few days we did have in California the weather turned cold and the wind blew hard, so we were stuck with not much to do. The highlight of our trip was while in Vegas we took the kids to see Lance Burton the magician who was amazing.

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I got on a flight to Spokane WA and had the misfortune of sitting next to a guy that would not shut up. Even with my ipod on, and my laptop open watching a movie he didn’t catch a clue and leave me alone. Instead he felt it necessary to tell me his whole life story. In the process of telling me his life story he mentions that he is on his way to a funeral, and all I can think about is “Oh please don’t let it be the same one”. Lucky for me it wasn’t.

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At the funeral I walked into a room full of people who I didn’t know, but who obviously new exactly who I was. Every time I tried to introduce myself they would say to me “I know who you are”. It was a very surreal feeling. I found out from other family members that not only had my bio-dad died at the young age of 51, but his dad died in his 50’s, and his mother died at 43. So if history repeats itself I got about 15-20 good years left. I don’t really believe anything will truly happen, not just because I’m a total optimist, but because my life style is completely different from how they lived.

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On the radio today the DJ was talking about a 24 year old that was told he had 6 months to live, so he sold his house and cashed everything in and lived it up for 6 months. Now it is 2 years later, he is still alive and broke. This made me think, what would I do if I knew I only had 6 months to live. I think I would have to travel the world, and spend as much time with my kids and hubby as a can. Of course none of us knows how long we will live so we should take the time now to live big. Like the song says live like you were dieing.

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So my question is What would you do if you knew you only had 6 months to live?

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Seth Godin has taken over my car…

If it wasn’t bad enough that my husband is going to have his head shaved at the end of the month for Seth Godin, now my car is plastered with Seth’s name and info on the conference.

I came home from BYU Women’s Conference, which by the way was amazing, but that’s something for another post, and found that my husband had covered the back windows of my mini van in Seth Godin advertising (without warning me of course). So now I’m driving all over town as a rolling billboard and getting countless questions about who Seth is and Why I have his info on my mini van. I must confess that I’m getting pretty excited myself to meet him in a couple weeks, but I’m still not happy about my car.

On the bright side at least it will all be over in a couple weeks, and I can focus on worrying about my husbands hair growing back in time for the July wedding show in Hawaii.

May Day

Happy May Day. Nobody celebrates May Day anymore. I wonder why that is.

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My kids and I made cute May Day baskets, and went and hung them on peoples door. My daughter could not believe that I told her to pick some flowers from a neighbors yard for our baskets. She was sure that it was stealing, but that’s what I remember doing as a kid.

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We gave one of the baskets to a lady in our neighborhood who just had a baby, and one to a mother of 3 who’s husband has been in Iraq for 2 years and has 6 months still to go.

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My husband is from Hawaii, and in Hawaii they call it lei day, and make lei’s and hang them on peoples door. That sounds like a lot of fun. Maybe one year we will try that.

My new favorite blog

I was looking through some of the blogs that my friends read and came across my new favorite blog. Her blog is called “i gotta b.” and she is hilarrious.

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I read her blog on colostomys and was laughing so hard I was crying. I can relate to her pain with that one. My first child at 6 weeks old had to go in and have a good portion of her colon removed, and ended up with a colostomy for the better part of a year. It is one of those things in life that is hard to find humor in, or to feel greatful for the lessons learned, but she managed to do both wonderfully. You can find this blog post under her march archives.

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A few of my other favorite posts of hers are:

he Gets out of Prison When?

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Fast and Tellastory and preach repentence unto me when it’s completely inappropriate for me to stand up and call you on your crap meeting