One week until our trip!

It's only one week until we take off on our trip. I am so excited! I'm starting to pack and looked back at pictures from last year to reacquaint myself with Amsterdam. I quickly remembered the Number One Rule in Amsterdam, "Stay out of the BIKE LANES!" I can not begin to tell you how many bikes there are in Amsterdam. That's how the majority of people get around there. There are bikes everywhere, the picture below is a triple decker bike parking lot. Click on the picture to make it a little bigger it will blow your mind. Ladies in high heals and skirts, talking on cell phones, business men in suit hanging on to brief cases, parents with their babies attached some how to the bikes, bicycles everywhere. There where some yummy looking chocolate shops. I don't know why I didn't buy a single candy from one of them. I intend to rectify that situation next week!

There are so many old buildings and such history, all around Holland. It is truly a beautiful place.
They are famous for "Delft" there that is the blue and white china on this sign. Erin loves mosaics. So I took this picture for her. I thought it was a great use for broken dishes.

They are also famous for pancakes in Holland, but this is something a little different. It's a tiny pancake. I forget what they are called. They serve them with butter and powdered sugar. I did eat that.
This was just such a pretty little town. I tried to imagine what it would be like to live in such a pretty little place. One thing I did notice walking around these little towns, is that the people aren't very private. In the smaller towns some of the roads are so narrow that if a car is driving down them there is no room for people to walk. So as we where walking, we would glance over and be looking straight into peoples living rooms and kitchens. They would just have the curtains pulled open and didn't care that people where 2 feet away looking in.

Then those door caught my attention. I thought the little mail slots were crazy. they must not get junk mail there, because it would never fit into the little slot. Plus there are 3 peoples slots there. You would never forget to grab your mail, because it would be in your face every time you came or went.

So now I have to get busy. I need to stock up on groceries for all of the people who will be at my house whilst I am gone. Try to find a cuter jacket than the one I took last year. Get all of my church calling stuff dumped off to some other helpful soul. Get a hair cut. Pick out a book to read while I'm there. The list goes on and on, but I am still excited.

As Ana said to me a couple of months ago, when I thought we wouldn't be staying in the same hotel in the middle of town. I was feeling sorry for myself that I wouldn't be centrally located this year. Last year our hotel was more in the middle of the city. I could go out walk around and explore for hours, then get back to the hotel very easily and rest. But we were going to stay out closer to the convention center this year, which would have been a pain to get into the middle of the city. Then Ana said "I am not going to feel sorry for you, because you are still going to be there and having a great time." Point taken and I quit feeling sorry for myself!:-) BTW Mike had a hook up and we will be staying down town again.

Sheer Heaven with the Ultimate Princess!

So the Princess and her mother came over Saturday. We had gone to a baby shower for one of Erin's closest friends, and then they came over to chill with us after. I bought Issy some hair stuff, so when she is at my house I can priss her up. Well when she saw the stuff she wanted it ALL in her hair. So I gladly obliged her highness! Then grandpa tried to steal her kisses, she allowed him to kiss her on the cheek.
But she gave Grandma kisses without me having to beg. Usually she kisses grandpa easier.
Erin gave in and realized that she had a very prissy daughter. This thrilled me, because I didn't have a "very prissy" daughter and then I had 3 boys. Thank Heavens they weren't prissy!:-)

So we took the Princess shopping for a fun dress today. She shopped for a few other things while she was there.
She loved the puppy. Out of all of the other plush toys she loved the dalmatian dogs.
So we took her into the changing room to try a few dresses on and she hated it! So we just grabbed the Cinderella dress and went home.

When we got home she was very tired, she had an appointment with the plastic surgeon at 8:00AM so she had gotten up very early and hadn't had a nap. We were excited to show grandpa how cute she was so we put the dress on her and she just fell over and cried. It was so cute.

So we sent Uncle Nate off to get a mirror. Knowing that she is so prissy if she could just see herself, she would understand!

It worked! She was hilarious, she was crying until she caught sight of herself in the mirror. Then she stopped crying and just looked.

She played a little shy when we made a big deal over her. But she ran around the house all afternoon, very pleased with herself. And looking so darling in the process.



Then she sat down to take in a few more episodes of the muppets. She loves the singing, she really gets into it and starts dancing.

This is one very content little girl. Embracing her prissyness with grandma by her side to guide her!
This picture turned out fuzzy and weird, but it was when she first saw herself so I tried to fix it, I like the look on her face.

I was rather handy this week.....

So this will make any Arizona people laugh. But my air conditioner went out this week. My house got hot. Do you see that in the middle of August without an air conditioner my house was a sweltering 82.3 degrees:-) Actually it did heat up to 84 by the end of the day. But in AZ I was lucky if my house was as cool as 82 with the air on! Of course here I have become used to a much cooler temperature. So the fix it guy came out, and told me it was the thermostat. It was already going to cost me $84 for him to get here and find out what the problem was. Then it was going to be another $170 for him to put a new thermostat on for me. I was so frustrated I laid it on thick. I told him how we had this big trip coming up, and I'm not spending any money because I'm saving money for the trip. That $254 was to much money for me to spend. Then he told me how my husband could fix it himself for a lot cheaper. But I told him my husband was gone for a few days, so I would be hot for a few more days. So he told me that I could do it myself. He told me just what to do. He told me I would save a bunch of money. So..... Off I went to Home Depot. I found a middle of the line thermostat. It was normally $44 but it was on sale for $30. I brought it home hooked all the wires up, and waited. It didn't work, and it was getting hotter in the house. I remembered I have an awesome neighbor who is an electrician. I called him to see if he could look at it and tell me if I did something wrong. He came down and worked for at least 30 minutes maybe more. He got it going for me. I don't know what the problem was, but he told me that I had it all hooked up correctly. So I had done everything right, but it just needed my kind electrician neighbor to get it going. I now am going to have to make that sweet guy a yummy dinner to say thank you! So with help from the neighbor, I saved us $140. And my house is cool again!
Then our ward has a little recipe group. the theme for the food this month was Zucchini recipes. It was yummy we had 2 different chocolate cakes, and a layered sesame vegetable dish, a pizza, and zucchini sliced up and cooked like pasta. We didn't have many ladies show up, I guess it was a crazy week. But we had a really nice time. I made the zucchini pasta, and I liked it. It was a lot of work slicing it. I just put on a good TV show and stood in the kitchen and sliced my zucchini from MY GARDEN into thin pasta strips.

I really liked it but they said you could slice it easier with a mandolin, maybe I will ask for one for Christmas. and next year we can have zucchini pasta out the wazoo!

I was supposed to have company this week and next. My cousins were just going to spend the night with me this week while they went to Education Week at BYU, but things fell through and they didn't make it. I was bummed. then next week my parents and Brother and Sis-in-law were coming to spend the week with us from Texas. but things came up and they had to cancel their trip to. So I will have a quiet few weeks before my trip.
We went to a good friends wedding back in Sept 01' in Magdalena Mexico. We went to breakfast and I decided to order Huevoes Rancheros. I had heard that my entire life but had never had it. they came out similar to this picture. There were fried corn tortillas, topped with fried eggs, and a salsa type mixture sprinkles with cheese. I was addicted. It was so delicious to me that I made it all of the time. Mine isn't as pretty as the picture above.
Then with all the company I was going to have, I was getting ready to make it for everybody. Then they all cancelled on me, so I made them for myself this morning. I still love them. And if any of you want to come and visit us I will make them for you too.

My baby went to school today.....

So my charming son headed off to school today. I made him let me take some pictures. He kept making faces so I took the pics anyway. Then after I would take the picture he would laugh. Twerp! But notice how the green gum matches the green on his shoes. So this is the Princesses hospital room. They have a little bed for the parent to squish on. And cute little hospital PJ's.

Then her nurse was undoing her cords. The princess did not like it when anybody from the hospital touched her.

Then they had baby room service. When your baby needed something to eat, you just called and ordered from a menu. The chicken nuggets came all chopped up, and the fries came with fry sauce!

She loved this old warn flannel blanket. As soon as she saw it on the bed she was attached. So on her way home they told her she could have it. I told Erin I figured everything else was sterile and colorless, so the blanket made her happy. But she is home and is doing great. Mom and dad on the other hand where wiped out, they will get over it:-)

ONE CRAZY DAY!!!!!

So we had one very crazy day yesterday. But I am going to start with the least important thing, my garden. I got 2 cucumbers, 1 zucchini, and my first red ripe tomato it is laying on a nickle, that's my luck:-) Then we had our nephew spend the night with us, his semester of school was over and he was flying home the next day. The princess was still here when he got here and her obsession with him was still in full force. She would sit by him when he sat on the floor and try to climb on him when he was on the couch. I took him to the airport the next day and sent him back to Texas.
Then the crazy part happened. Issy has had this red spot on her face for 3 weeks. It has been the same size and shape for 2 weeks. She has been on 2 different antibiotics to try to help, while the medicine got rid of her high fever and all of the other spots she got. That big red bump had not changed.

So Erin made an appointment with the doctor for Friday afternoon. The Doctor called Erin and tried to get her to change her appointment to next week. She almost said OK, but she decided to stand up to him and let him know she was really worried and Issy needed to be seen. He was over booked all day, so I guess he was trying to clear some stuff out himself. Erin told him she was willing for Issy to see a different doctor. So he made her an appointment in about an hour.
Erin threw her clothes on, fed Issy something at 10:00 threw a few diapers into the diaper bag and went to the doctor. The doctor told her it was a lesion and it needed to be drained. He told her it would be to painful to do in the office and he decided to send her to the ER at the Children's Hospital so they could sedate her. So many things happened. Erin went and got Jon and he had to finish up stuff at work to leave. Issy wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything. So Erin could not eat or drink, because she didn't want to do it in front of the baby. So she was ubber sick, not being able to eat, with her morning sickness. Then Erin was so sad because Issy found an old dried up french fry in her car seat and she started to eat it on the way over to the hospital. She was so hungry and Erin had to take it away from her, even taking it out of her mouth. Issy was so very sad when her mom took it away, that broke her mothers heart.

They got to the ER around 2:00ish, I decided after dropping my nephew off to go to the ER and be with them. There were 2 grandpas, and 4 grandma's there with their kids. So I felt good I was one of the grandparents there for moral support. I got there around 3:00. They didn't take her back until 5:00. They didn't do anything to Issy for another hour after that.
They put her arms in a pillow case and then wrapped her in a blanket like a burrito. She was supposedly sedated but she was screaming her head off during this entire thing. She like her mother has a natural tolerance for medications. So it didn't work so well. The good thing is that medication makes them for get the 40 minutes or so that the medicine lasts. So she is not supposed to remember it.
They said said because it was on her face they wanted to be very careful about how they drained it because they didn't want to leave a scar on her sweet little face. GROSS ALERT- They deadened it and then they put a needle in it and tried to drain it. They drained it some, but they couldn't get everything. they said if everything wasn't cleaned out it would not heal. So we waited for a Plastic surgeon to get out of surgery and come and see her.

I was not supposed to be in the room with them. There were only supposed to be 2 adults at a time. But Erin said they could see she was on the edge and they didn't make me leave. I was so glad I could be in with my Princess and love on her while we waited. And waited........ Thank goodness for the I-phone because she could watch her favorite Elmo clips and that made her happier.

We still waited but they said she could have something to drink. She drank 2 boxes of Gatorade, and it made her even happier. SUPER GROSS ALERT! Around 8:30 the plastic surgeon came. He said they had to get the stuff out and he was going to have to go ahead and make an incision on the lump to clear it out. They sedated her with a much stronger medication. The first one made a person feel like they were drunk, this new one made her feel like she was stoned. It worked pretty quickly, all of the sudden her head flopped back and her eyes wondered off to space. She was still awake but just out of it. That medication was supposed to make her mind and body separate so she wouldn't remember again. The surgeon just did it in the room in front of us. Erin couldn't watch she just sat and cried. Issy was crying the entire time, but not screaming her lungs out. I comforted Erin and Jon stood by the baby. The surgeon cut a T shape into the lesion and drained the infection out. When it was all drained there was a pouch left. He said that the infection encapsulated and had created a tuff casing like and orange rind around it. He said all of those antibiotics would have never broken through it to clear it up. He was afraid it was staff. They ordered some heavy antibiotics. And they are culturing the stuff to try to figure out what it was. It was pretty late by the time it was done, and they wanted to observe her and load her with antibiotics. So she had to stay over night.

She slept while we waited for her room, then we got her in her room around 11:00 and she was awake and was allowed to eat. So the nurse brought her a banana and some bread and applesauce. She was so happy to get to eat again.
And she loved the pink blanket they had in the crib for her. Her father and I left around midnight. I had to take him to his car. Then he went back to the hospital. I got home around 1 and could get to sleep until some time after 2:00AM. They said it would take a full year to see how bad her scar will be. I hope it is small, but it is right by her mouth. My poor little princess, I hope the release her today!

A few more days with the girls......

Well we started the week out by going "back to school" shopping. It cost a fortune and it's just one kid. And after all of the other kids I learned something. Nathan wasn't very thrilled to go back to school, but now that he has new clothes, shoes, socks, underwear, and school supplies he's more excited to go. So all of those years I bought the kids all new back to school stuff I was helping them mentally gear up for school. I have no pictures of him, it was like pulling hens teeth just to get him to try the clothes on at the store. There was no way I could get him in them at home and take a picture. He did want 1 really nice shirt, it is a long sleeved black button down. So I let him get one. I'm sure I will get a picture of him in that, then I will post it on the blog. Also because he doesn't read this I can tell you about Sunday. They ask him to give the opening prayer in Sacrament Meeting (Our ward is very small). So Nate popped up and thanked, and then blessed, but he forgot about actual Sacrament Meeting, so in closing he added "and in Sacrament meeting, please bless that we will learn some stuff." People got a kick out of it, they were impressed that a 15 year old was even giving the opening prayer, but I had a lot of people look at me and give me a smile after his prayer. He's a good kid, I've really enjoyed him. So the girls were back over for a few days. I took my little princess out to water my garden. She is so funny because she will get a drop of water on her finger and then walk over to me or her mom and give it to us. You have to hold out your hand like she is giving something and she hands you the drop of water. This is a picture of her getting the water.
Then I let her hold the camera and showed her how to push the button, and we got this picture. so it's kind of a self portrait, she's so talented:-)
Then she found a badge of her grandpa and was having fun looking at his picture. She loves her grandpa and he feels the same about her. I rented the Muppet's season 3 and watched it with the kids. It's from the 70's so it brings back some crazy memories. But my little princess has a new song she likes to dance to, and I hope I can get it on this post I've never done it before.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyreul5Cvsw&NR=1

We play this for her a few times a day and she just can't help herself she just starts dancing and spinning and is way to cute. Nathan is shocked that a man can make his voice go that high.

last week......

Last week the princess and her very "morning sick" mother stayed with us, while her dad was out of town on business. We had fun, we got her her first happy meal. Which she proceeded to spit out her bite of hamburger on the floor. When her mother called Bea to come and eat it, she squilled "no" reached down and grabbed the bite and took off running. This was how they interacted all week. They were so funny, they were very jealous of each other. We also had a girls night out. We took her to see Wall-E and out to dinner after. She just makes us smile when she is around. Some where around the birth of my 2Nd child I found this awesome book at the library. I had to go order it way back then because I wanted us to be those grandparents when we had grandchildren. I didn't remember it having words, because the pictures say it all! But I found it the other day and wanted to share a little.

Grandpa crawls under the table for a little tea party.
And grandma helps him get out from under it:-)

Grandma let's her play dress up with her special stuff. My grandma had a huge drawer of jewelry, crazy stuff from the 1940's, 50's, and 60's. I would just open that drawer and look at it all. I couldn't put it on. It was amazing for a little girl.

Then they were playing hospital. I love how patient the grandparents are.

Then of course they fall asleep. I love this book.

Now on to the sad stuff. this is my biggest tomato I have been watching it grow for weeks. Excited for the day that I could take it off the vine and devour my own delicious sunshine filled tomato.

But tonight as I went out to water my garden this is what I saw, Nothing! See the stem in the middle of this picture, that is where my tomato used to be. I have no idea what happened to it. I don't know if a critter took it or a little neighbor kid. I had another tomato on the ground the other day, but it was small like a cherry tomato, so I wasn't to sad.
At least my zucchinni is starting to grow a sqash!