My hero

For those of you who don't know I have a complete phobia of snakes. Bugs, spiders...I can handle those, but you put a snake in the picture and I kind of freak out. This morning I was out back watering my flowers, and Kes was with me when suddenly she screamed "Nake! Nake!" I turned around and sure enough, our cat had brought us a little "present" in a dead snake! (The cat has been doing this lately...bringing me little "gifts" and leaving them at the base of the stairs outside--I don't know what her thought process is...Hmmm, Riki seems a little down, I am sure this half eaten bird will cheer her right up!) Anyways...gross! And of course the snake was the kicker--dead or not, it still struck fear into my heart, and I scooped Kes up and ran into the house. Unfortunately, Levi is in Texas for the week, and I was NOT going to leave that thing decorating my patio for a week. So I was forced to...make Bridger take care of it. (For those of you think this was cowardly of me--which it was--Bridger likes snakes and had no problem compiling to my demands) I walked all the way around the house (to avoid going by it) and got him a shovel out of the shed. He didn't want my shovel, however, and picked the nasty slimy thing up with his BARE HANDS--that's right, his BARE HANDS! Lets go take that to the garbage (thank heavens Monday is garbage pick up day!) Wew! Disaster adverted--I can go outside this week! On my way back around to put the shovel away, I noticed our cat playing with something in my tall flowers--I leaned over to see yet another snake slithering around. I responded by dropping the shovel, screaming, and running for the house at a full on run (good thing no kids where in my path because they would have gotten leveled!) When I got inside Bridger informed me in a matter of fact voice that he would take care of it after Mouse (the cat) killed it! Sure enough two minutes later, Mouse deposited it at her shrine and Bridger went and threw yet another snake in the trash! As Bailey and Kes are as deeply afraid of snakes as I am, we all hailed the cat and Bridger as Heroes! Later, when I asked Bridger (who was making a snake patrol outside) to come in and clean his room, Bailey quickly spoke up on his behalf--"But mom, he is a Hero which means he can do whatever he wants! And I don't think he wants to clean his room. Sorry." The day progressed and I forgot about my traumatic snake morning. Some friends came over and we had a little play group-and we where having a great time chatting and the kids where playing-when I looked over to see Mouse pounce on something...that's right another snake! In his eagerness to be the "hero" again--Bridger picked it up and threw it away (mind you the garbage truck had already been to my house that day) before it was dead. I felt that I remained very calm on the exterior, but I was envisioning throwing something away only to have a snake slither out at me. So what does this mean? My garbage is going to overflow till the garbage truck comes again.

how we came to have a degu...

Yesterday was the Relay for Life Rummage Sale (and you know me, I can't pass up a good yard sale). However, this one was a little unusual because they where selling a degu there (for those of you who don't know what that is, it looks like a hamster but with a tail--I actually think it is most closely related to the prairie dog). Of course my children fixated on that. After asking like ten times if they could have it and me saying no, I finally said (just to get them out of there) lets ask dad what he thinks. I don't know about you,but I get sick of being the "bad guy" so I like to spread it around a little bit. After we came home, I got busy getting ready for an Relief Society meeting and forgot about it...of course Bridger did not. He asked his dad and told him how much he wanted it. Might I remind you from previous blog that Bridger recently had his tonsils out and so he has been working that angle :) Anyways, Levi apparently didn't want to be the bad guy either because before I knew it he had loaded all the kids up and taken them down to see it...and ten dollars later, they where unloading it in the drive way. "What! Why didn't you say no!" was my response--to which he replied, "why didn't you?" Dang. He had me there. So the lesson I learned is, better just to be a bad guy or you might end up with another pet. The kids named him Max and he seems to be pretty tame. The cat wants to eat him, so that should be interesting!

tonsils...no more!

Bridger had his tonsils and adenoids out on Monday. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here are a few!This is the before picture...he had just been given a sediative that made him feel like a "drunken boy" he was giggling a lot!
The second picture is after surgery--he is trying to eat a popsicle. He didn't come out of anesthesia very well...but I guess that is pretty common.
The third is a picture of his tonsils the doctor took. (We opted for the picture rather than keeping them!) The Doctor said they were "big and bad" but you can judge for yourselves!

vacation Bible School

The kids got invited to Vacation Bible School again and I thought, "heck yeah! A vacation for four days from bored and fighting kids (and we have only been out of school for a week!) So I signed up Bailey and Bridger. It has been an interesting experience. Bridger came home after the first day and said, "mom, I don't think we should go anymore because it isn't The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints!" I assured him that we would still retain our membership in our church and this was just to learn some Bible stories. That seemed to pacify him (after all they do play games, eat snacks and make crafts--all things Bridger loves). The next night he came home and told me that they learned about John 6:29--and he asked to look it up and read it. We read it together and he was again confused because it sounded different than the one they read--so I explained that we used the King James Version and they probably have a different version of the Bible. Bridger has been reading his Book of Mormon nightly--the irony is that it took going to a Lutheran Bible school to interest him in that particular pursuit, but hey I will take it! For scripture study in the morning, the kids told us stories they had learned at school. Then Bailey was at a baseball game and she was talking to her friend and telling her, "ummm, our church is the true church! Sorry your church isn't true." So we had to have a discussion about how that isn't a nice thing to say to other people. But I guess her testimony was not shaken during VBS. :)

batterd' up!

Last winter when Bridger asked me if he could do wrestling, I grimaced (envisioning me having to watch him twisted into a pretzel) and told him--sorry, it is just to violent--why don't you try baseball in the spring. However, Wednesday night's game gave me second thoughts about the "saftey" of baseball! First, when Bridger was batting, he got pelted on the finger. Now, for those of you who know Bridger know that he has the pain tolerance of a flea--but to his credit, he did not cry just took his base. Two minutes later, when the next kid actually hit the ball, Bridger was on his way to second...unfortunately, he got about two steps when the first base player accidentally tripped him. Also, unfortunately, Bridger was wearing shorts so he got his knees all bloodied up. The umpire deemed him "safe" on second even though he had been tagged out because he was tripped by the first baseman. Finally, to add insult to injury--Bridger got tagged out on his way to home plate. The evening went on fairly uneventfully after that until about ten minutes till the end of the game. Bridger and some of his friends where goofing off in the dug out when Bridger got sand thrown in his eyes. He of course did begin crying at that point because he couldn't see. As I loaded up Bridger into the van I looked at him. His knees where bloody, his finger bruised and swollen, his eyes blood-shot and full of tears--I thought...yep...much safer than wrestling...I think...

my reader's digest blog

So I haven't written in my blog for about a month. Here is my reader's digest list of the happenings in our lives.
1. painted my upstairs living room and hallway.
2. Bridger started baseball
3. Bailey finished preschool and I made her a new blankie since her old one is so worn it is see through. (She now has two blankies as she won't give up her old one still)
4. Kes is potty trained! (I'm throwing a party to celebrate!) We started about half way through May and this is how it went. Day 1--ten accidents. No toilet use. Stopped when I ran out of clean underwear. Day 2--eight accidents. One toilet use! And so it went...I actually put her in underwear on Sunday but then chickened out and changed her to a pull up.
5. My mom and dad came to visit! I wish I had a picture to post here, but my camera battery was dead the entire weekend. We had a fabulous time! Thanks for making the trip mom and dad.
6. Put new flooring in my dinning room-will finish the hallway and living room and stairs in coming weekends. (will have camera up and working by then so I can take pictures of it.)

So there you have it. Just another day in paradise! I am making a new resolution to blog at least once a week from now on.