The Frustrated Mommy

Well how could I let this one pass up?
I just HAD to blog it. :)
So yesterday, Sunday, I'm going about
my typical tantrum day, complaining
that no one but me ever cleans up
after themself, does the dishes,
etc., etc. You know, WHINING. There,
I said it. I'm a whiner.
Sorry, Mom.
I did it all muttering under
my breath, though, so I thought
that no one heard.
How wrong I was!
A little later my son, Tommy,
comes to me and presents this
picture he's made of me.
"Here you go, Mommy. I drew
a picture of you being
frustrated."
Can we say that a picture
says a thousand words?
My Michelangelo can.
Look at the picture and tell
me what you see? Yep, me too.
I guess I need to check myself
better and not vocalize my
thoughts! :)
Enjoy!!!

O Christmas Tree

Well, we FINALLY got our tree tonight!
I guess it pays off to wait, we got such a deal for it! :)
I even had a very kind man pull over
and help me put it on the roof of my van!
while his daughter waited inside his truck,
watching and smiling at her hero Daddy for
helping this crazy lady with 3 kids in tow!)
We had fun bringing it home; Ryan beat us
home just by a few minutes.
He helped me take it off the roof,
trimmed it, and even put it in the tree stand
and put it in the corner!
Talk about going the extra mile,
that man of mine.
So we're decorating the tree
and we hear a knock on the door
and 2 mens voices caroling.
I opened the door and there were
2 brothers from our ward singing while holding
a plate of cookies, no,
actually two plates of cookies.
How sweet of them.
We had fun visiting with them and then they left
to go and bring joy to someone else.
And our tree looks beautiful! And like 3 adorable
kids put it together. :) which they did!
Merry, merry Christmas everyone.

Emma's wedding plans

Emma is planning her wedding.
I know, it's early still,
but a girl has to plan these things when she's little,
so she can be prepared! :)
Let me explain.
I am working on scanning family pictures and
am now scanning our wedding pictures. Emma
saw one of Ryan and I outside the temple in our
wedding clothes and she looked at me, shock and
disbelief in her face and said, "Uh! (think
a grunt of disgust) I thought I was going to
marry him! Why did you do that, mommy?"
I thought I was going to fall over!
Five minutes later she informed me that it's
okay I married her daddy,
she
will
marry...
Tommy
Her 5 year old brother.
And we don't live in the south!

yet another cute pic of this author as a child

Hey, I've got to milk it while I can...I ain't gettin'
any younger, you know! Just call it my mid-life crisis,
since I'll be 40 in March and, let's face it, I am not
going to wait for a mid-life crisis for 50!
Come on, people!!! Who wants to live to be 100 anyway? :)
So you're probably wondering why I'm posting
this particular picture.
Well, because it's my favorite of myself as a toddler.
I love that dress, wish Emma had one just like it.
I could make one just like it, but those feathers
would be a mess!!!

So it's of me and my Dad's dad, Grandpa Tommy.
He was my buddy. We would have dates from their
Queen Anne home in Seattle, take the bus to the
Seattle Center. Once there we'd go to Orange Julius
and get an orange julius and a hot dog.
Then we'd dance with the dancers.
Sometimes they were ballroom,
they were folk. Always it was F-U-N!!!.
But then we'd go home.
Grandma wasn't thrilled we were so late and
missed dinner hour and so the food got cold/tough,
whatever.
But we knew we had the best thing of all: memories made.
Chicken does NOT trump memories, ever!
especially hers, sorry Grandma.)

Trying to get it within the parameters of the white space

Hello all. Well I'm going to TRY to make it easier to read this
post and use my return key more often. Okay, so I just dated
myself. It's the "enter" key on the computer keyboard, it was
the "return" key on the IBM electric typewriter. Arugh! Can
you believe I remember that? ;)
I came across a funny picture of an adorable little girl and
am wondering if anyone can identify her for me? Hint, it's
the same person who's typing this posting! Okay, so I'm
not that funny. Oh well, so sue me.
The other night Will asked me and Ryan (at bedtime, kneeling
down for prayer with the other two younger siblings, I might
add) where babies come from. I about choked. I didn't
think Will was old enough for "the talk" yet. I still am
in denial about it. Will said, "Mama, I think I know where
babies come from." I looked sideways at him, holding my
breath, (just in case he's heard/seen something he
shouldn't have!) and asked him what he thought. He announced,
"They come from guacamole!" He was serious. I was laughing
hysterically. I seriously couldn't breath I was laughing
so hard. Yes, Carrot, I was having an "episode" of
laughing and coughing. Something I do daily. Ever since the
oink flu, when I start laughing, I begin coughing.
Uncontollably.
It's embarrassing and annoying. To quote Dr. Doofensmirtz
on Phineas and Ferb, "so I thank you and I curse you." The
flu, that is. The cough.
Anyhoo, we did finally gain composure and still haven't
answered poor Will. I just don't know how to begin "the talk"
with my 8-year old sweetie innocent.
Well, I'll bet you're dying to see the adorable little toddler.
Here she is:



What do you think? I know, Adorable. Awww, shucks. {blush}

On oinking and not blogging

Okay, so I've had a few, um, hints that I haven't been blogging for awhile now. SO SORRY! ;) I do have a life, you know! Let's see...since I blogged last time I have had the swine flu with pneumonia, Emma had another seizure, I volunteer at the boys' school in their rooms, as an art docent for each teacher, and as a library mom on Wednesdays. Oh, and I'm on the Enrichment committee and a family history consultant. And a mom and wife who must at least pretend to clean the house! Whew! That's a lot on my plate. So hopefully I'm forgiven?
Poor Tommy had a disappointing birthday this year. I had the flu on his birthday so no birthday cake was made. We finally celebrated his birthday at the end of the month by going to the Aquatic Center in Federal Way (really cool pool, it's actually where the Goodwill Games had their swimming events in the 80s) and a late lunch at Fat Burger. Tommy's friends all were no-shows, so it was just our immediate family. We still had fun, but I know Tommy would've rather had his friend from school and our neighbor kids there as well. Later he told me that it was the worst birthday EVER. Doesn't really make me feel like I succeeded on his birthday. Oh well, the sooner he gets used to disappointments in life the more successful he'll be, right?
I feel like there's so much I need to catch up on, but don't know where to begin. I'll go through my pictures on my camera and upload some pics and then comment on them. Maybe that'll be easiest.
Okay, so I'm rambling now. But isn't that what you want? You want me to fill in the void of internet space and type something for you blog stalkers to read. So here you go! You know who you are. I can almost hear you thinking, "It's about time she posted something!!!!" Well please see above for my valid excuses.
Now if only I could stop my sneezing! Ryan tells me that if I don't stop it, my nose is going to fall off my face! I say, it's a darned good thing I don't know karate, or else I'd karate chop someone to death every time I sneeze, they're so powerful.
Well I've killed enough time. I must sign off now and actually do some housework. My mom comes tomorrow and she will spend all her time cleaning inside my house instead of what we're planning on attacking, the dreaded garage. So I'll write more later. I promise.
Meanwhile, here's something fun for you to look at.

Will is Student of the Month for October!!!!!

I would be remiss if I didn't post about Will's newest achievement. It really is something! I got an email from his teacher the other day and she told me that Will has been selected as Student of the Month for his classroom in, are you sitting down?, self-discipline!!! I was shocked! Mrs. Berry even went further and told me that he's modeling the good behavior in class and is an example to those around him! What a new thing for me, being able to be the Mom of Student of the Month! And Will, when he read that email from his teacher was so happy. You think Emma has the million watt smile? That had nothing on his smile!! After all the struggling, to get Will to this point is so gratifying, dare I say, proud? (Sorry President Benson, sometimes you just have to use the word.)
More later, like the pictures from the assembly where he gets recognized. Oh, and did I mention he gets to have lunch with the principal, Mr.Weibel? Pizza delivered from the restaurant,no less! Lucky kid.

Emma was being crazy again today!

Thought you'd like to see the picture of Emma being crazy today. I went to a friend's house today and her daughter had these headbands that just aren't strong enough for her extremely thick hair. So Emma got them! Bonus for Emma, good for Colleen's house to not have them laying around unused anymore. :)
Emma promptly put the whole lot of them on her head and modeled for me. Here is the result.
Enjoy!!!

Will's classroom party

So I went into Will's classroom today with Tommy and Emma and an armful of cupcakes. I was suddently the most popular person in the room! I can't imagine why. :)
Per Will's request it was a yellow cake and chocolate frosting. Well, I was out of boxed cake mixes so that left me with Ms. Martha Stewart's website for a cake recipe. I must say I HIGHLY recommend her classic yellow cake recipe. Yummo! We were out of frosting, so I went to the Wilton website and used their chocolate buttercream frosting. Yum! It was a hit, as I knew it would be. Here is the picture of the cupcakes and some pictures of the classroom. All of the kids had fun. After school was "officially" over, Will took one to Mrs. Moore, his teacher last year, Tommy took one to his kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Seeley, and we gave one to the librarian, the principal, and Ms. Erica, Tommy's preschool teacher last year. So we had fun delivering baked goods to our favorite people in the building. Don't you wish you were one of them? Ha Ha Ha

Tommy's teacher

So Mrs. Seeley called the other night, with a glowing report about how he's been doing in school so far. She said what a polite boy he is, and to keep up whatever we've been doing, cuz it's working!
Also, now I'm making some "mystery bags" for her, for some of their math manipulates. So we discussed sizes, and decided on a 6x8 size. I just finished the prototype and will post the pics after I take them.

Back to school, back to school.....

Well today I finally did it!!!!! Both boys on the same bus at the same time! Yea!!! Poor Emma, though. She was so forlorn that the boys left her. She wanted to leap onto that bus when they got on. But then we got into the house and I told her that now we get to have this special time just for us, and she made a full recovery. We went to Fred Meyer, her favorite store (mine too!) and picked up my contacts I had ordered a few weeks ago and then came home. So she had her little outing with her Mama, the first of many. :)
Tommy was so cute. He got up at 7:30 and started asking how much longer until he got to go to school. So sweet. He's really excited to start the new year,and who could blame him? His teacher is A W E S O M E!!!! We had our 45 minute meeting yesterday with Mrs. Seeley, his teacher, and all parents assigned to that time slot with their kids. Can't say it was too much fun, but a necessary evil. Tough keeping the kiddos happy though. Kind of boring for us adults, too, you know.
Will started yesterday and is in 2nd grade. He has Mrs. Berry. With a name like berry, how can we go wrong? I like berries of all kinds, and I'm sure that'll be no different with this teacher. So far she seems pretty wonderful. There is a classroom science experiment in the back of the room with a butterfly grow kit,the kind you can buy on TV, they start out as caterpillars in a jar and then they form the chryssalis, and then presto! butterflies! So they measure daily and watch. Will told me after he came home yesterday that he loved the day and the only bad part of the day is when he had to go home! Such a cutie.
Well, so much for me hangin' with my girl! I'd better go.
More later.

Shuler 2nd Annual Family Picnic

Oh what fun we had at the Flaming Geyser State Park last Saturday. Thanks to April, Ryan's cousin (and by the way, one of my most favorite people ever in this planet), we had such a fun time. She planned most everything from her hosptial bed when she had the health scare of hepatitis, which thankfully she's recovering from :) and she was able to make it to the picnic.
April organized tons of goody bags, a pinata shaped like an ice cream cone, which Will broke!, and even a bean-bag toss for the kiddos to play. We had such a great time.
The men sounded like drunks in an alley as the kids made a "hole in one" saying "hey!" in unison. So funny. When Aunt Louise decided she wanted to have a turn also, they continued the "heys" and she grinned.
Well I think dinner is burning so I'd better go for now. More late.

Christensen Family Reunion

WOW! We had such a grand ol' time at the first annual (I hope) Christensen Family Reunion, held in Indianola, WA at my Uncle Paul and Aunt Colleen's house. First of all, I have to say that I absolutely LOVE their house. It is so pretty and is decorated with a flair of someone who's lived outside the USA for some time and in South or Central America. So, since I have lived in South America (Chile, for those of you who don't know), I felt right at home with the bold colors my aunt uses for painting her walls. I say, "you go girl!" (as if she needed or wanted my approval...:) )
We had a really great time getting acquainted with my Utah cousins that we didn't grow up with. Scott, Eric, Amy, and Katie, all came with their significant others, if there was one (sorry Amy) and kids also. Uncle John and Aunt Nancy came as well. I hadn't seen them since Grandma Helen's funeral when Tommy was just barely born. So it was good seeing them as well. I hope that when we see each other next time it will be even "easier" with them. The whole greeting thing was kind of awkward for me. I didn't know if I should just say hi from afar, shake hands, hug, etc. This whole side of the family have always been strangers to me, the proverbial "cousins who live in Utah and we live in Washington and never the twain shall meet" situation, so it was weird for the first 30 seconds. Then it was like we'd never been apart. Funny how with family it just doesn't matter. I like that.
My kids had a ball. Their house sits on 2 1/2 acres of land, most of it woods. So it was very peaceful, all except the guy down the street wood chipping. Darn him! :) Really, though, we didn't really mind. It kind of lent itself to the whole woodsy vibe anyway.
Then their son, Jared, who came up with his wife, Shawna and their 3 adorable kids, grilled the yummy chicken and we had about 5 or 6 different salds to sample. Gotta love my aunt. She and my mom are cut from the same mold. Growing up, Mom would have me make jello, fruit salad, and a toss green salad for every dinner. It just wasn't complete without it. Oh, and don't forget the cooked vegetable dish and the main dish. Of course though, if it was taco night, we'd just have the fruit and jello salads. We had our veggies in our tacos, of which we piled high with mostly lettuce, tomatoes, olives, green chilis, etc. I'm really not hungry, just pointing out the insanity of my mom and her salads. (I love you, Mom. Am I still your favorite now?)
Well here's the picture of us at the reunion. Uncle Paul had fun trying to get all of us in the picture, so we decided to put a tier of benches to stand/sit on to get levels of people. It seemed to work better. I do have to brag here that I had the idea with Shawna, and then it just happened.
We took the ferry from Edmonds to Kingston and drove. I'll post those ferry pics later. It was Emma's first ferry ride and she loved it! (except for the time we were outside on the front, or aft side, and her hair kept blowing into her eyes. Think of the movie "Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou" and the line George Clooney kept saying, "My hair." That was Emma!!!)
More later. I'm tired and am going to bed.

"Put it in your pants, Will!"

Thought you'd like to see what Emma was egging Will on to do! It sure gave the neighbors pause, I'm sure!

I'm trying to do it as a step-by-step thing, so we'll see if it pans out that way.
Here goes nothing! This is my first attempt to do something like this. If you know of a better way to do this, will someone please educate me? I'm a willing learner!

Fun in the sun

Hi! Well we just finished our impromptu water fight in the yard. I had asked Will and Tommy to go out in the front and water my new plants, the "lantana" that I bought at Home Depot to trail all over the foundation on the side of the house. That side gets so neglected and ugly, that I thought I'd try this shrub that they say is hard to kill. But I can kill anything green! I guess I should remember to actually WATER my plants once in a while, especially when it's H-O-T outside like it has been lately. Oh well, so they were a little withered and thirsty. I hope they come back.
So anyway, it spiralled to a full-blown "I'm gonna get ya!" contest. Tommy came squealing inside before I made it out, as usual, crying fowl. "Will's spraying me and I didn't want to get sprayed!" to which I retort, "um, it is 90 degrees outside, Tommy. Didn't it feel kind of good?" "NnnnOooo! He just made me angry!"
There's just no pleasin' that boy sometimes. Then Emma woke up from her nap and joined in with us. So of course I had to drag my camera out to appease the Nana karma and then they all hammed it up. Tommy wanted to "pose" for me, so you'll see some of that. Then Will started putting the hose down the front of his pants. Emma shreiked with laughter and kept yelling, "Put it down your pants, Will!" I wonder what the neighbors thought we were doing over here! :) So, if we get a CPS call, I'm counting on all of you out there to stick up for me and explain the hilarity to the situation. Anyhoo, enjoy the vicarious play date!

almost done, I promise!

yet another for your viewing pleasure...

more pictures Angela took last month

It's about time!!!!

Well, I guess you could say that I took a 6-month leave of absence. Life just has a way of getting so busy. So anyway, school is out now for the summer, so it goes without saying that now the kids are driving me absolutely INSANE!!! As I type, Tommy is angry about something Will has supposedly done and is kicking his bedroom door. This causes me to stop typing and commense the beatings! :) Just kidding, no beatings, just death threats, er, promises that if he stops his tantrum that he'll get a smoothie soon. Okay, so my kids are bought pretty cheap.
Speaking of kids, we recently had a photo shoot with a very talented friend in our ward. She is so wonderful! I wish she'd been around for my senior pics, but, alas, she wasn't born yet!
So enjoy the photos. If you want more details about what the kids are thinking in this, then you'll have to wait until my next post, or email or call me on the phone and we'll chuckle about the brattitudes of children. ;)

better late than never, right Mom? :)

In honor of Mom and her "blog stalking" tendencies, I'll finally update my blog. It's been a little while since last I blogged, mostly 'cuz I'm so sore from the accident. I'm okay, just stiff and sore, but getting better every day, so they say.
Today was stake conference, and to say that our stake president was long-winded would be an understatement! Bless President Miles' heart, he was really instructing us on an important topic, and under different circumstances, I would have absolutely LOVED to have him talk so long. But with my kids and their undesirable behavior, and Ryan ushering (he was helping someone with their wheelchair or else he would've taken Will and Tommy), and my headache from my whiplash, I was ready to march up to his microphone and say "Amen" for him! :) What stopped me? Basically the protocol that it just wouldn't be socially acceptable to do that, plus the fact that it would've been just plain embarrassing. I do care more than I like to admit to others, what people think about me.
Anyhow, it was really a wonderful conference, the theme being temple work. We had Brother Dewey of the temple presidency and his wife speak, it was very wonderful. She spoke about some experiences with instructing the new endowment sisters prior to the endowment session, and how that is so emotional for some.
Brother Dewey spoke about how sad it is that people prize their season tickets for the Mariners or the Seahawks more than their temple recommend. Then he related a story about a sister in his stake (Tacoma) when he was the stake president there. A sister was dying and her bishop called him. The bishop explained that this sister, while nearly comatose, had as her last request to have her temple recommend renewed, which had recently expired, and would he please go to her home and conduct the interview? So he readily went to her home, signed recommend in hand from her bishop, and walked into the living room where her hospital bed was placed. She was aware enough to know that he was there, but not cognizant enough to conduct an interview with him. He simply looked into her eyes, touched her hand, and told her that he knew she was too ill to speak, so a proper temple recommend interview would be impossible, but that the Spirit had told him she was worthy to enter the temple. He signed the recommend, placed it in her hand, and then left. Two days later this sweet sister passed away. When she was buried, instead of the traditional white handkerchief in her hands, she had her temple recommend. Her family told him that she hadn't let go of it since he had placed it in her hand. It was quite evident to him where her priorities were. With Heavenly Father and His temples.
Quite a story. The kids actually let me listen to this, how nice of them! :)
So I guess the moral of this story is, when was the last time you attended the temple? Just go! He encouraged everyone to go, and to not only go as a couple, but to fill your car with others who otherwise wouldn't go because maybe they don't drive.

on how we ended up in the ER on our way home from church today

Well, to say we had an adventure today would be understating things just a bit. :)
We began our journey home a little after 1:00 when Ryan finished his PPI at church. We were almost home, and turning left off of the Kent-Black Diamond Road, and onto the feeder street for our street, and had to wait for on-coming traffic, so being normal, law-abiding citizens, Ryan signaled left and stopped, waiting his turn to go left. Suddenly we felt an impact and slid a few feet forward on the wet road. Our kids started screaming and crying, as we assessed what had just happened.
As Ryan opened his car door, he said, "Somebody's going to die!" and then walked to the back of the van to see who had hit us. He immediately changed his tune when he saw a hysterical teenage girl behind the wheel with her and the passenger's airbags deployed from impact, and a white van behind her and his airbag deployed, yet another teenager. Ryan, who is really an old softy in disguise, immediately felt fatherly toward her and started crying out for someone to call 911 to get her some help.
I got Emma out of her car seat to comfort her, and people started pulling over to assist us. We had one woman put a blanket around Emma, and another family came over bringing snacks for the kids when they realized our situation of just getting home for lunch from church. Truly, people are mostly good in this world. I think the media has done a huge disfavor of mankind, painting us mostly bad. What an injustice to human nature, which really is more godly than ungodly.
Anyhow, we had the fire department there soon, and then a few minutes later a Sheriff deputy drove upon the scene, not dispatched to us, but just clocking out and going home. He joked later that he just didn't feel right about driving by our scene and waving as he left. :) Always one jokester on accident scenes, I guess, right?
The teenage boy who caused all this chaos never even got out of his van to check on any of us. Either arrogant, or scared out of his mind to face Ryan and the girl's dad. I sure would've been! That being said, I sure wanted to ring his little chicken neck once we got to the hospital! Ryan told me to give the kid a break, that everyone makes mistakes, and all I wanted was blood! Once again it goes to show you that it really helps to have both parents, because when one of them wants blood, the other is calmer and more reasonable and able to talk some sense into the other one.
Tommy was the only injury, and that wasn't too bad. When the impact happened, he flew a little out of his seat, even though he was belted in, and hit Ryan in the head. So you could say he gave his dad a head butt at impact of over 40 mph. As a precaution AMR took him to Auburn hospital to check him out for possible concussion. He's fine. Ryan has the headache we though Tommy should've had. How's that for irony.
Emma and Will are fine, as am I. We are all just really stiff and sore and know more of that to come tomorrow and the next day.
Damage to the van? The back bumper is seriously damaged, so much so that we cannot open the hatchback of the van. Also both the front seats are broken, in that they won't sit upright anymore. Makes it pretty uncomfortable to travel! :)
We'll be fine though, and now we must begin gathering new car seats for the kids. And now we wait to know if our van, with it's Blue Book value of between $800-$1,000 only, will it be totalled out? Who knows?
It's paid for, too! Darn! We'll have to find a way to afford a new vehicle if this is totalled. Life stinks sometimes, you know? But we are really blessed. It could've been far worse. Our own calvary showed up at the hospital, our Elder's quorum president, Jeremy Christensen, as well as our two home teachers. Tonight, about half an hour ago, one of our home teachers stopped by and brought a plate of cookies and asked if we needed anything else from him or them. What wonderful home teachers! I told him that President Kimball would've been really proud of him for going the extra mile.
Enough of my Sunday trial. Tomorrow is a better day, right? I hope so at least! How appropo that our Sacrament meeting topic was HOPE today! :)