Hoppy Easter

This last Sunday we had a really good Easter.  Jarom and I both gave talks on the Savior, and they seemed to go well.  After church we had a treasure hunt for their Easter baskets, which was a lot of fun as they ran around, trying to figure out the clues.

I was hoping  that it would cover the whole "Easter egg hunt" thing, since we had not participated in one anywhere else, but it was not to be.  So after letting my mom-guilt get the better of me, I dug out the food coloring, and we had a great time.  I even hid the eggs around the house, but since we had only colored a dozen eggs, it was the quickest Easter egg hunt ever.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of the kids with their baskets, or coloring eggs, or finding them!  I'm really kind of ticked at myself, because I have a hard time remembering things that aren't captured in a visual medium of some kind.  'Cause they were having a lot of fun and looking cute while doing it!

However, it wasn't a total wash, because I did at least have the presence of mind to grab the camera while the kids were blowing bubbles that they had gotten in Primary.  And we'll just pretend that you don't notice that Jarom's shirt is completely unbuttoned, or that Taran was wearing dress-ups for her clothes all day. 

Please don't judge me.

:o)

Pictures Just for Emily

My cousin Emily asked for some pictures of us, and I love her like a sister, so I would do whatever she asked, even if it was something actually hard.  Oh, and all the rest of you can look too.  :o)

How cute is this kid?

Feeding the ducks at Shelley Lake   (The experimental bread sure came in handy!)

The daredevil of the playground

Having our picnic

Tired out at the Zoo

Enjoying the alligators!

Stomach Flu, Part II

Just to update ya'll (not that I think you're hanging on every word, in need of an update, but mostly to keep myself accountable to. . .myself) when I weighed in after the sickness saga, I was 148.5, so I had gone up, but not as much as I was afraid of.  And I was still in the 140's so I was thrilled.

I have been very busy the last couple of weeks, and feel totally behind in the making bread/doing laundry/cleaning bathrooms kind of way, but the reason I feel behind is a good one, or so I keep telling myself.  My kids have been tracked out since April 1st, and since I was such a sluggard about doing things in January, I was determined not to let this opportunity pass by.

So far we have gone to the children's museum (they have a really great one in Raleigh), got tons of books at the Library, fed the ducks and had a picnic at the park, and Jarom went to his first Cub scouts Camporee.  Then Jeff took the day off work and we spent all day at the Zoo (which is a 6 mile walking trail--whose idea was that!?), and yesterday we went to Monkey Joe's, an inflatable jumping place that I got a great "Groupon" for a couple of months ago.

Taran and Ben have colds, so today I wussed out and let Kelcey stay home from preschool so that I could make bread and catch up on the aforementioned laundry.  Yet another check mark in my best-mother-ever-scorecard. 

My sister Sue and Dave are coming next week to stay with us on their way up to Illinois (yay!) and we're planning a cook-out, plus a trip to the Dinosaur museum, and a movie night, while they're here. 

Maybe I'll get real motivated and put some pictures up so you can see all the fun, but I doubt it.  Although if my mom actually reads my blog and asks, I probably would.  :o)   In the meantime, you'll just have to take my word for it--just LOTS of fun!

"I'm just one good stomach flu away from my ideal weight!"

Well, this last week I had the most wonderful and fantastic experience of food poisoning, brought on by my REALLY stupid (so, so, stupid!!) OCD need to not waste anything.  I am fairly embarrassed by the whole thing, but my desire to be scrupulously honest requires me to tell you that I ate a quesadilla that had been sitting, forgotten, in the microwave overnight, but I figured that if I nuked it long enough, all the bacteria would be killed off, and I would be fine.  That was SO not the case. 

This was the sickest that I have been in years, and let me tell you, it was miserable.  I was nauseous (Websters backs me up, Sue!) when I went to bed, and I started throwing up at 1:45 am (interestingly, after dreaming about throwing up because I felt so gross it was almost {almost!} a relief), again at 3:00 am, and was praying to throw up the rest of the night.  And in the morning it was horror at both ends.  I won't go into any more detail than that, but I'm sure it's already TMI.

Poor Jeff had to stay home from work to take care of the two little ones, because I was completely and utterly useless.  Aside from the aforementioned running to the bathroom to take care of particular needs, I stayed in bed almost all day, in various states of consciousness. 

I finally got up around 12:30 pm and made the heroic effort of eating 3 saltine crackers, followed by the equally daring decision to take a shower.   However, that was apparently too much for my system, because that 45 minutes of mobility exhausted me so much that I when I got out of the shower I couldn't even get dressed, and just crawled beneath the sheets to sleep for another 2 1/2 hours.  Pathetic.

It really was a 24 hour bug, because I still felt sick for the rest of the day, even when I went to sleep, but in the morning I had slept all night, and felt so much better by comparison (albeit a little weak), that it was like resurrection morning.

So, here's the thing: Friday is my weigh-in day for Weight Watchers, and this time I was 147.5.  But I don't know how to feel about it.  Sure, I'm back in the 140's, which is fantastic, but it's not real since my body got rid of basically everything that I ate on Wednesday, and Thursday I just had saltines.  So, we'll see what happens next Friday.  I am determined not to freak out if I go up again, but maybe, just maybe, I might stay the same? 

Oh, and for those of you who were wondering, the post title is a quote from "The Devil Wears Prada," where the shallow assistant chick is bemoaning her lack of fitting into size zero clothes, or something like that.

Oh, well, whatever.  But the real moral of the story?  You're probably all much too smart, and much too careful, and, frankly, much too clean, to ever do what I did, but I'll say it anyway: If something has been out all night, no matter what it is, no matter if you feel guilty, THROW IT AWAY!!!! 

It's just not worth it.