Knock on Wood

There have been times when I think, "why me, why is everyone always sick, when am I going to get a break?"  I think I had that break.  I really haven't posted any major sicknesses, except mine, in a long time, so I guess that means for the most part we've been well. (emphasize most part).  Not to say we haven't gotten sick, we've had our fair share of snot/yakking/fevers, but we haven't had a major catastrophe where it seems endless (insert the wood knocking now please).  This week, though, we had a small bought of sickies.  Micah came down with what I thought was allergies last week, but when they didn't go away with meds and the rain washing the pollen out of the air, I had to start thinking cold.  Right after I realized "cold" Malia came down with it too.  So I ended up staying home with them on Sunday from church cuz they really looked like a train wreck and I thought other parents would appreciate not contracting this cold in their children.  Then Mon. morning McKenzie wakes with a fever and sore throat, and I think, oh here we go.  She stayed home Mon. and Tues. and is fine now, but Micah and Malia still were snotting all over the place.  Yesterday Malia woke up from her nap with another fever, oh goody.  So I called the nurse and she said she needed for them to come in.  Longer story short. . . Malia has another raging ear infection (one side ready to burst, and the other really bad) and Micah is either getting one or on the mend from one.  We think it's the mending one since he complained for the last 2 days his ear hurt and now he's not.  I know what you are thinking, "why didn't you take them in when he complained?"  Well because every time I take a kid in that is complaining about their ear hurting, it's never an ear infection, it's always pressure from the cold.  So think what you will, I'm a bad mom. . . blah blah blah.  We do have a script for Micah just in case he complains about it in the next couple of days, but Malia is on her Omnicef once again this year.  She just had one in Jan. and I know there was another one not that long before that.  It seems every time she gets a cold, it's automatically an ear infection too.  I'm crossing my fingers that we are done for a while, NO MORE SICKIES PLEASE!

Look what I can do!

Yes, I did. You heard it here. KT can make bread. . . and eat it without vomitting. I don't know what my problem was. I was given numerous bread recipes over the years, but I tell ya, no matter what I did, I could not make them turn out nice, or they'd turn out really pretty and taste horrible. I was telling my "bread-issues" to a girl in my ward and she gave me her Whole Wheat Bread recipe. I was nervous about the whole wheat, cuz I've used it before and failed. So I tried using just regular unbleached white flour, just to practice with it, and holy cow, it worked. Some of you may think, "wow KT . . .bread," but I don't care cuz this is a huge milestone for me.

I think I might just be ready to start using my wheat grinder and making wheat bread (or maybe I'll make a few loaves of white first just to make sure it wasn't a fluke).

Whole Wheat Bread
Makes 2 loaves
1 3/4 cup water
1TB Yeast
1tsp. Sugar and
2 ½ C. Whole Wheat Flour
Mix till smooth, then add:
1/3 C. Whole Wheat Flour
3 TB + 1½ tsp. Oil
3 TB + 1½ tsp. Honey
Mix then add :
2 tsp. Salt
Mix till smooth.
Add 2 more cups of whole wheat flour slowly while mixing. Add additional flour as needed until dough becomes smooth and elastic. Sit 10 min in greased bowl. Take dough out and fold it into a round rectangle and cut in half and put each roll into a greased bread pan. Cover and let sit 45-60 min or until doubled in size. Bake 25 min at 350 degrees F.

The Best News EVER!!!

So, for the last 9 years I have been wiping poopy butts, throwing out poopy diapers, putting probably more than $3000 into these poopy diapers and now I am here to say that we are now a DIAPER-FREE home. It's hard to imagine that this day has come. I usually potty train during conference, but with all of the car trouble we've been dealing with, we had one car-less weekend and so we decided to run with it. Malia caught on by the end of Saturday and it took less than a week for her to decide that diapers were not for her at all and was night trained just as fast. Since then I swear she has grown about a foot and matured about 10 years. She is really growing up too fast, not that I mind not having to change diapers anymore, but it just occurred to me that I'm done with the baby stuff. No more baby barf, tiny baby clothes, high chairs, baby swings, diaper pails, car seats, all that baby gear that you can't live without, I can really get rid of all of that now. What a surreal feeling. I'll miss it, but I'm excited for what's to come. So CONGRATS EEEEEEAH, YOU ARE SUCH A BIG GIRL.

Easter/Spring Break 2010

A lady in my ward named Peggy, (go figure), called me one day and asked if she could make me Easter dresses for my girls. She said that she really wanted to make my girls matching dresses, just cuz. She is such a sweet lady. I'm just in awe that she thought of us and was wanting to do something for my family. I need to find a way to repay her. Oh and on top of that she wanted Micah to match too so she bought him a shirt and tie. Thanx again Peggy, you are awesome. Ignore the shoes, we totally forgot to bring Sunday shoes with us to Grandma's.

Easter was a lot of fun. We went up to G&G's house on Saturday in time to watch General Conference. (is it just me or did they talk a lot about parents/mothers teaching their kids?) Anyway, it was a really good conference, and I'm glad I actually got to hear Sat. sessions. Anyway, the girls got to decorate an Gingerbread Easter house.

And the little kids got to decorate eggs.

Easter morning, the kids woke up to filled Easter baskets and candy-filled eggs hidden throughout the house. Micah got his first (of many I'm sure) Lego kit. It can be made into 3 cars that he makes me and Randy help him make and remake over and over again. He's pretty funny.

Kenz with her goodies.

Eeeah with her basket bigger than her.

Micah, so excited he doesn't even have time to look at me.

The kids waiting to look for all of the hidden eggs.

We then a wonderful breakfast and got ready to watch the rest of Conference. The kids sat and watched pretty good. G&G's neighbors invited a few neighborhood kids to their backyard for another egg hunt. This was the crew.

Morgan looking for as many eggs as possible.

All in all, it was a very fun Easter/Conference weekend. I can't remember the last time that Conference happened on Easter, probably when I was a kid or something, it definitely brought on new challenges, but hey we didn't have to get ready, which was nice.

The kids and I hung out for a few more days at G&G's while Randy went home and back to work. I figured since it was Spring Break, it would be nice to break it up a little stay so I wouldn't lose my sanity. The kids had fun playing all day and night with cousins. We also went to the Children's Tree house Museum in Ogden one afternoon. It was a lot of fun. A little similar to the Children's Museum in Portland, only bigger and in the shape of a tree house. The kids had fun in all the different areas of the tree house. This was a puppet/storytelling/castle area that I found the girls in.

Here's Micah on a big Firetruck.

And Malia wanting to drive the truck.

We also were able to get season passes to Lagoon again this year from G&G Tucker for birthday presents. So we decided to get as much use out of them and went today. It was a beautiful day, the kids had fun and we found out Malia is big enough to go on rides like the scrambler and those spinning (make you sick) coasters, which she absolutely loved. She is going to be our little daredevil. Micah is still a little too short for the bigger coasters, we're hoping by the end of the summer we can get him on there, 1 more inch bud. Oh, and apparently it was also sunny enough to burn Randy's head and my chest. Gotta love not being prepared for that, hu. The kids are sad Spring Break will be over after tomorrow and that they have to get back to school, the break is nice, but I need my schedule back.

Pre Easter Craziness

Before Spring break, we had a pretty crazy week at school. So I'm just gonna do one post for it all.

I was in charge of Micah's Easter party. Very low key cuz that's I how I roll. They made baskets before Friday. Here's Micah's table eating snacks after their hunt. This is at the hunt. Micah finding his last egg.

McKenzie had a reader's theater. I was able to go and kind of listen, I mean as well as you can with a 2 year old crawling around everything. I couldn't video her, it was just too hard with the ruckus going on under my feet. I was lucky to get this shot.

Morgan also had a reader's theater on a different day about Lady Liberty. I Did get to video her, but it's long and very shaky because of the fore mention ruckus.

Morgan also had her 1st Rad Kids graduation. We were really proud of her and what she learned. It's fun having them come home after one of their classes, striking up conversations of what they've learned, reminding me to do things to be prepared. This is Morgan's teacher Mrs. Whitaker. I love this woman, she is amazing.

Morgan giving Hi-5's to all the instructors and her perpetrator.

With her gear on right after her simulation which you will see after this pic. Gotta love the helmet.

Here is her simulation with "Lobster Man". He is Big and Tall and can be kind of scary in these simulations, but a great asset to this program and is just a big teddy bear. I hope he never leaves. He's got a few daughters and uses experiences with them to help teach parents. There are a lot of scary people out there and the more knowledge and power we can give these kids, the better. Thanx Rad Kids.

Other fun that we were able to have was more work on the van, yet again. The check engine light came on Wed night, so I took it in the next morning thinking all they had to do was reset it, only to find out there was about $1000 worth of work that needed to be done on it. Arg! We are still waiting for a part to get in to finish the rest. Oh, and then Randy almost blew a tire out on his car and found out we needed to really replace all 4 tires and then, wait for it, while getting the van's studded tires off, they found that the front 2 tires (that were getting put back on) were good but cracking in the tread and so Schwab gave us a discount to get new tires since the tread was still good. So all in all we've spent give or take about 2 grand on cars in the last 2 weeks. Bring it on world, what else you got?

Lots of old pics

As I was going through my MIL's photos, I saw a lot of old pics of when Randy and I were dating/engaged/1st married. It was really funny to see how much we've changed. This is almost 1 year after we got married in Honolulu. We went with his parents for fun. See he use to have hair, & I use to be skinny(er). Our first Christmas together.

Opening wedding gifts. Seriously we got so many of those Pyrex dishes, it was crazy.

Our reception.

The open house in Pville.

Ya we were cake smashers. It fit our personalities more.

My bridal shower.

Playing Chutes and Ladders, cuz you know it's the best game in the world.

I went to the Tucker reunion while we were dating, actually I think this was right after we got engaged. Man I had an awesome tan back then. It helped I was a lifeguard and swim instructor at an outdoor pool.

Baby Morgan, what a doll.

I moved to WI first with Mac and looked for a place to stay. Randy stayed back for a few weeks and finished school and then drove out with his dad and bro with the big moving truck. This was right after he pulled in at my grandpa's place in Mequon.

Mac ran so fast to him.

This was right before we moved from Corvallis. Mac saying bye to everyone.

Kenz playing on G&G Tucker's swing, something she did a lot of.

A right-side up shot of hers.

OSU had a Luau to celebrate the Polynesian community. At the time my MIL was watching the cutest little Polynesian girls and was really good friends with their mom. So she invited us to attend.

Easter 2003. Mac was 2 and really enjoying finding the eggs this year.

Randy's bday, not sure which year. We all pitched in and got him a leather jacket. We first gave him the scarf and acted like that was it and you could tell he was a little disappointed, it was pretty funny.

Randy and Rob playing at Otter Beach, the pool I worked at, during a family reunion.

Mac having lots of fun jumping in.

McKenzie gearing up for the slide.

Waiting for Uncle Rob to get off his plane from his missions to Indiana.

McKenzie was a master of getting into things at grandma's place. She liked the kitchen cupboard especially.

As you can see.

Great Grandpa Tucker with McKenzie and Randy's cousin's baby Maddie who is 9 days older than Kenz.

Halloween 2001. The Scarecrows.

Mac's 1st bday. We had a quick party for her between conference session and Priesthood session.

We made her a ladybug cake to crawl through and everyone else had cupcakes.

So happy and doesn't even know why.

Randy still outweighing me, Mac and Tyler, lol. (not really, but it sure looks funny)

Here is the infamous red wagon that the kids all love. I remember my MIL getting some pretty cute shots of Mac in here.

Easter 2001. This was shortly after Randy started shaving his hair.

Spring 2001, our first family picture.

Mac's first Easter. So exciting I tell ya.

Mac and grandpa wearing hats.

Mac was in the water at about 5 months, thanx to me who was still teaching. I would bring her to waterbabies and use her as an example. She loved the water.

Grandma and the 1st 3 grandkids.

Mac about 6-8 months.

That bunny sang and danced and was very loud, McKenzie loved it, we did not.

Kenz and Gramps.

Kenz chillin on the couch with a bear.

Yes I get tired too.

Randy's birthday

This is Randy's cousin Stephanie with her baby Maddie. We were pregnant at the same time and due about the same time. She had her's 9 day's before Mac came. This was at McKenzie's blessing.

Teaching her to pray, lol. She was a really strong baby though.

Christmas 2000.

Gotta love having a Santa as big as you right?

The Tucker girls and our mathcing vests. Remember when vests were soooo cool? Or am I that old.

Grandma's ginormous bear and itty bitty McKenzie.

Me and Mac, staring at the light.

There's my bald baby.

Oh and our ferret Minnie. We had her for about 2 years before we moved to WI. She was fun, smelly but fun.

Us at Maddie's blessing.

Mac's first stroller ride, pathetic I know, but ya got to document these things, right?

Randy after a strenuous 7 1/2 hours of labor.

About a week before McKenzie came. Randy trying to very hard to have a belly.

Proud daddy.

Thanx mom for being so organize and letting me steal this pics. It was fun to look at the past.