Wishes

I've been wishing for a lot of things lately. That's not to say I'm unhappy with my life at all, there are just a lot of little things that keep entering the, "wouldn't it be nice if.." category. Here are a few of the things I've been hung up on.

Warm weather, everyday

A swing set for my kids

Big, straight, white teeth

Some really cute yet COMFY clothes (how do all my friends have these? Where are they finding them? You know - those, "I wasn't even trying today - yet somehow I look awesome," clothes)

A new jogging stroller

A new morning dress (remember, that's a robe)

The other day I was reminded just how easy it is to get these things. Maddie was outside playing with a neighbor, and he handed her a fuzzy dandelion. They then proceeded to make wishes together. He wished that his toy car would crash. He dropped the dandelion, grabbed the car and chucked it. (Wish granted). Maddie then grabbed her dandelion, and said, "I wish, I wish with all my heart (Thank you Dragon Tales) for a great big heart."

I tried really hard not to laugh out loud. I mean, a great big heart? Only Madelyn. She wasn't even asking for the "caring" type of heart, either. She just wanted a big heart of some sort. I'm assuming a stuffed animal? I was chuckling to myself about this when I noticed her with a confused look on her face. She turned to me and said, "So, uh, now what? Does it just fall from the sky?"

Can somebody please contact me if they see any falling swing sets, teeth, clothes, strollers or robes? Thanks.

Jealousy

This is the haircut that Nick Arrojo gave my little sister, Sarah.

I am GREEN with envy. Having Nick cut my hair has been a dream of mine for years. I'll bet his scissors are made of platinum.

I don't like being woken up. I know most people feel the same way, but if I'm woken up by someone rather than waking up naturally, I'm in a foul mood until about 9am. Most mornings Jude wakes me up about 6:55 asking if it's morning yet. Thirty minutes later he returns saying, "Mom...I need you to get out of bed to make me a waffle cuz I'm STARVING. Go get on your morning sunglasses (glasses) and your morning dress (robe) and make me a waffle. CUZ I'M STARVING!"

This morning was different. I woke up to this:

Maddie (yelling from somewhere): MOM!!

Me: (inaudible)

Maddie: Hey Mom!

Me: What, Maddie?

Maddie: Mom, can you hear me?

Me: Yes, Maddie, what is it?!

Maddie: MOM...MOM, MOOOOOOOOOM!

Me: WHAT IS IT MADDIE?!

Maddie: Can I flush the toilet now or will that wake you up?

Weekend

We spent our Saturday
swinging
sliding
flying high in the sky
picnicking
laughing
dancing

dancing more

hitting Jude while dancing
crying
recovering
reaching new heights
learning to ride a 2 wheeler

and cleaning out the dryer vent. Thanks, birds. {Their "nest" came halfway up the dryer vent.} Did you do anything fun?

A Sad Goodbye

This week I have to say goodbye to my Stefanie. She's moving to Florida, and I couldn't be happier for her and more depressed for me at the same time. I am going to miss her LIKE CRAZY. Oh great, here come the tears. She has been the friend that I call for everything. The one who I can say anything to. And even though we don't see each other nearly as often as we'd prefer, when we do get together for birthdays and woman dates, we laugh until we are blue.

We've been friends for eleven years, and we have been through everything together. She's the one that had the idea to set me up with her boyfriend's roommate, who coincidentally ended up being my soulmate. We've been roommates, travel-mates, shopping-mates, Thursday-lunch-mates, I-just-took-a-positive-pregnancy-test-mates, and summer-of-fun-mates. She's the one I call with embarrassing questions, and the one who will go anywhere with me.

Words cannot express how much her friendship has meant to me. She has been a huge influence on the person I am today, and I will always be grateful for her example. I really am excited for you, Stef. I know you'll love Florida. I also know that you'll beat me in our goal of growing old and wearing gold-velour jumpsuits with gaudy jewelry. I'm fairly sure they start that at about 35 in Florida. You really are headed for the good life, my dear.

Love you, Stef.

Maddie can't just say "cheese," with her face. It's an entire body thing.

Our TV has a mind of it's own lately. Out of nowhere it will start throwing out captions...all over the television: top, middle, sideways, you get the picture. For a while we were learning Spanish, and a little bit of French, but lately it has started speaking to us in a whole new language.

On an unrelated note, I keep finding Maddie whispering secrets to the blank television screen. What's that about?

Globe Trotters

We've been world travelers lately. And by world, I mean travelers of two western U.S. states. We had so much fun (which made everyone getting sick as soon as we got home seem even worse). First stop: Park City for a Kopp family ski trip. My dad flew all of my family out to Utah, and provided sitters, so all the adults to spend the trip skiing. Even Maddie and Jude were able to hit the slopes. On her second day of ski school Maddie was good enough to ride the chair lift up to the top of the mountain and ski down with some help from Greg and Rob. I was SUCH a proud mama that day! We had to "exaggerate" Jude's age a bit and say he was four, rather than a kid that had JUST turned three, because ski-school was for kids four and up. His instructor eventually (five minutes into class when Maddie revealed the truth) found out that he was only three, but they let him stay anyway. They even said he was a fantastic three year old skier. I'm missing a lot of pictures because I didn't want to risk taking my camera on the slopes. Instead, I opted to buy a disposable camera to capture those awesome moments. (I quickly realized it was a dumb idea because, well, disposable cameras are stupid.) Maybe I'll scan some of those pictures eventually...

We also enjoyed an afternoon of tubing and a sleigh-ride-dinner.

Just as nice as the snow and fresh air was spending time lounging around the condo trying to polish off the RIDICULOUS amount of groceries that Jessica and I thought would be "appropriate," for the trip. Apparently fifteen people don't need $500 worth of snacks and breakfasts for five days. (Sorry, Dad!) :)


Thanks again, Dad, for this AMAZING week. It was so good to spend time with all of the family.

I'd like to formally apologize to all the BYU students dining at Tucano's last night. If Madelyn had made the announcement two minutes earlier that she was going to "choke," we probably would have made it to the bathroom in time. Instead we rushed away from our table, got stuck behind a server, only to have her throw up all over the floor next to your table. To the lady that had her back to us, who literally had to hold her husband's head forward so he wouldn't see the mess, then duplicate the problem, I'm sorry about the throw up on your chair, and your purse.

I'm also sorry for the birthday celebration that was ruined by round two of vomit. We really were on our way to the bathroom, but your birthday-drum-song distracted Maddie, and caused her to go your direction, rather than to the bathroom.

And last, but not least, I'd like to apologize for the hundred-plus expensive dinners that were ruined by four, on the way to the bathroom, vomits. I cannot even imagine the stories that are being told today...or the amount of cleanup that it took to sanitize that floor. I'm sorry I walked away, but I had no other choice, there was much more puke potential. Don't worry, I got mine too - when Ella started the whole process again at home.

Yuck.

Checking In

I know, I know...I REALLY left you hanging. But I've been having a fabulous couple of weeks. I'll post all about them in the next few days, but after receiving a call from my sister-in-law who was still worried about Ella, I realized I really left off on a bad note. Just know that our darling Ella no longer looks like a leopard.

I also found this video of Maddie. I don't even know where to begin. I mean, where did she learn to dance like that?!


Check back soon for adventures in Park City and Vegas!

When your little girl looks like this one day:
And this the next day, there's cause for concern.
But when she wakes up with a fever, starts throwing up, and has progressively swelled into this:
there's cause for a 4am ER visit.

After a epinephrine shot, and steroid, she's looking much, much better. No more penicillin for our little Ella.

(That is unless we take the advice of the original on-call nurse who said we could probably keep giving her the penicillin as long as we had some benadryl to cancel out the allergy.) Probably not.

Everything I Need to Know, I learned from Saved By the Bell

I'm one of those people that is always making-up/resolving situations in my head. They are generally ridiculous things that will really never happen (ie: what questions I can answer on a game show, what to do if the police show up at my door while I'm in the shower, what to say to the person who stole my car) you get the picture. So it was no surprise when I found myself wondering what I would do if my neighbor's bird died while we were in charge of feeding it. That's when I realized this: I've already seen this happen, so I'm totally prepared.

In one of the early seasons of Saved by the Bell, Zack is in charge of watching Slater's chameleon, Artie, while Slater is out of town. While he's away, Artie dies, and Zack tries to replace him with another chameleon. Slater realizes the switch, and is hurt that his friends tried to be dishonest. THANK GOODNESS FOR THIS EPISODE. Now I know that if Karen's bird dies while in my care - I'll just have to tell her the truth, and maybe offer to have said bird stuffed and mounted.

Here are some other important lessons I learned from Zack, Kelly and the rest of the gang:

If your friend's college of choice isn't interested in her, all you need to do is put on a mustache, make a sign that says, "HARVARD," and show interest in her. The other college reps will be impressed that harvard likes your friend, and will want her in their college.

Don't accuse a homeless man of stealing a sport coat from the department store. Your friend probably has it on hold as a gift for the homeless man.

Don't trust your principal's younger, cooler, Michael-Bolton-look-alike, brother when he offers to take your class on a rafting trip. He's not going to show up.

Having a life sized cutout of your girlfriend, in her volleyball uniform, in your bedroom is NOT creepy.

The only thing that sets the "nerds" apart from the "cool kids" are pocket protectors and black curly hair.

Casey Kasem WILL come to your school, if you just ask.

Kids in California actually have six years of high school, and five proms.

Never dump your All-American boyfriend for a college guy named Jeff, who still works at the high-school hotspot. He's just out to break your heart.

Geometry-stressed-caffeine-pill-addicts don't get to sing for the talent scout.

When in doubt, where a turtleneck. It's always a good statement.

I look at all of the times I was faced with these serious dilemmas in my life, and am so glad that I had such good, older friends to set these examples for me. With Bayside's Best showing me the way, I feel like I'll always be prepared. I'll be sure to order this series for my kids in a few years.

Maddie came home from preschool the other day with lots of fun facts about George Washington. She said he was nice to people, and that he was the first President of the United States. He was so honest that he even told his dad the truth when he cut down a cherry tree. Then she handed me this:

All I'm sayin' is that if this is what Georgie was wearing the day of the cherry tree incident, he had a lot more to confess to his dad.

Forgotten

Dear Mac,

I love everything about you. I love your huge screen, your dainty keyboard, and your sleek and classy style. I love that when I walk into your original home, I will always be greeted by sales-people wearing thick-rimmed glasses for cool reasons. I love your commercials and your abilities, but mostly I love your timing. Thank you for loving us enough to break down one month before our warranty expired. If three more weeks had passed before you let on that your hard drive was kaput, I would have been very, very mad at you. But, no, once again - you have proven yourself to this family. You even gave us sweet and thoughtful, "you may want to back up your files," gestures before sacrificing yourself. We welcome the new and improved you back into our home with open arms. Getting reacquainted with you has taken me back to a few favorite photos that never made the blog-cut. I promise I won't put off posting family photos any more. Thanks for helping me realize one of the greatest loves of my life.....the internet.

Much love and appreciation,
Mom

Shame

I have been a horrible, HORRIBLE Mexico blogger. I have promised so many people pictures, but the truth is...I can't beat my sister-in-law, Mandy on this one. She really has the best pictures, and has done a great job posting on our trip. Here are a few last pictures before I send you to the ultimate Mexico blog:

Click  HERE to see the rest of our trip.  Thanks, Mandy (or Greg?)  for all the pictures you took.  I am SO ready to go back.  I do have one more video, but my computer is freaking out.  I'll get to that one soon.  

P.S.  Coconut milk is GROSS.  Just gross.  Even if it does look cute with a straw coming out, believe me...not worth it!