My Little Monsters

I recently had the chance to visit a friends of mine house just for a second. Yes, she did know I was coming but when I got there I was floored! Her house was spotless. As I walked back into my own house after a very quick visit I was very dismayed to remember what my house looked like when I left. I swear that I clean all day! When I say that I mean literally all day. I know that all mothers do this and I am no different than the rest of them. But then after visiting my friends house I began to wonder why is it that some peoples houses can actually get to the point where you could call them clean. Mine.... not-so-much, I never can say "my house is clean" mostly this is all credited to my youngest who is the girl version of the Tasmanian devil. Right now as I sit here she just found a bowl of popcorn that someone left in the family room and dumped it all over the floor. Earlier my oldest who is usually more helpful, dropped an entire orange juice container on the floor and watched as it spilled out. My son has been asking me most of the morning, "how many days are we going to be cleaning mommy!" I feel so torn I would love to spend x number of hours cleaning my house to get it to that unobtainable "CLEAN" state but then I feel guilty for ignoring my children long enough to do this. I was in the process of cleaning all morning when my little Avery pulled back the covers and patted the spot next to her on the bed where she was sitting. I was so surprised by this that I actually put down the laundry and went and sat on the bed next to her. She was so pleased with herself that she had accomplished what she was hoping for. A second or two of mom's undivided attention that she couldn't stop smiling. So props to all the mothers who somehow manage to get that "Clean" house. And props to those of us who don't ...I guess sometimes a little undivided attention can make up for a sticky orange juice covered floor.

Merry Christmas to All

My cute sister emailed me this and wanted me to pass it on. I thought the easiest way to do this would be to put it on the blog. Just some mindless fun so enjoy. Anyone who wants to add or answer your own questions have fun! Just let me know so I can check out your answers too.

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper with giant bows on it!! Presents are so much more fun to open when they are wrapped up all Pretty!

2. Real tree or artificial? Real Tree, I do like them better but I have a husband that has a slight preference on this (( insert laughing here)) He is from Washington state and misses all of the pine trees. "Slight" may not be the best description.

3. When do you put up the tree? Usually the first week in December, I would do it sooner but since we have the real tree it usually ends up dead too soon. ( I have a nack for killing anything that doesn't actually cry when I don't feed it. )

4. When do you take the tree down? Usually Jan. 2, I am afraid the whole house will go up in smoke if I leave it inside any longer.

5. Do you like eggnog? Ewwwww..... not really but a nog-nog shake. That's where it's at!!!! Ice cream can make anything taste better.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? My bike I got for Christmas. My grandpa was putting it together. I had no idea. I just woke up in the morning with very sparse amounts of presents left from Santa. My sisters on the other hand had tons. I tried so hard not to look sad or upset but I think I actually started crying when it finally got there later that day with whatever explanation that accompanied it.

7. Do you have a nativity scene? I have so many nativity scenes I could loose count. I LOVE them. They are the kids favorite Christmas decorations. I have two just for them to play with. Non breakable and put down low.

8. Hardest person to buy for? Michael, he is so "well taken care of" as he would say or "spoiled" he has everything.

9. Easiest person to buy for? The kids... it's totally the best part about Christmas. Seeing there faces light up is my ultimate favorite.

10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Ummmm..... I usually get really good presents, but one year someone gave me some jeans that were way too small. I had just had a baby and that is not fun.

11. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail for sure! I have mine almost all done. Just a few more address to find.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? All the old Christmas cartoons, and the Christmas Story.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? The day after Thanksgiving, bring on the sales baby!

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? No way... that's lame.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Candy and cookies

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? White

17. Favorite Christmas song? I don't think I could pick just one.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Stay home.. have you ever tried to travel with 3 kids and all of the things they need at Christmas... We did last year and NEVER again it was way too hard!

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? Donner, Dancer, Vixen, Cupid, Blitzen, Dasher, Prancer, Comet and of course Rudolph...

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Neither... Antique Santa Clause. I know I am lame, it is not at all because he symbolizes what Christmas is about I just haven't found the perfect star or angel yet.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Christmas morning. We do open on present on Christmas Eve... the classic Christmas PJ's. Everyone should sleep in new PJ's on Christmas Eve.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? Feeling like you have to do it all for everyone. There is so many people who need so many things, it is really hard to pick one charity, family etc. and stick to it. I wish I could do it all sometimes.

23. What I love most about Christmas? Everything.... The smells... the feeling of Christmas, the happiness, and sharing all of these great things with all my friends and family. Especially the kids experiencing it for the first time.

WISHING YOU ALL A WONDERFUL & JOYOUS CHRISTMAS!!!!

Haley's Thanksgiving Program

I know this is kinda of out of order. But I forgot to post about Haley's Thanksgiving Program. It was a cute little school thing. She was so excited about it she MADE Michael take work off to be there. We got there early and got good seats, but then Haley ended up on the other side of the gym. I had to squeeze in between some people to get some pics. The lady next to me watched Haley cheese for the pictures and said " She sure isn't camera shy is she?" To this I replied "she isn't anything shy!"

She was the "I" in thanksgiving. She had been practicing her line all week. All the other kids rattled off there lines to. But when the microphone got to my little cutie. She smiled cocked her head and says "Hello, my name is Haley Cozart" and then said her line. I was laughing so hard. Of course my child would find a way to make the 1 line part in the program all about her!!!! She even got to fill in a part for someone else who didn't make it. This totally made her day! She did a great job. I still can't believe my baby is this big already! I won't make you listen to it all but here is a little taste of how fun it was to be there. ( WARNING.... this may only be interesting to grandparents, Aunts and Uncles, and parents)

Notice the cute little "pilgrim" boy next to Haley. He would not sit still and I had a crappy angle, so sorry that you can't see Haley very well.

Dylan's Birthday/ Thanksgiving/ Black Friday

Well, this year Dylan's birthday fell on Thanksgiving. This however is NO fun for a 4 year old little boy. Nothing is open, he hates turkey and mashed potatoes, it is totally not about him. One thing we do for sure around here is make sure birthday's are totally about the kids! I mean with all 3 of them having holiday birthday's (GREAT planning on my part by the way!!!) I am totally insistent that their birthday's are all about THEM. So we decided to do Dylan's party the day before this year... (usually a total NO NO) I want the actually day they were born to be celebrated....I know I am totally mental about all this, but what can I say.... but this year was unavoidable. So we had the party at Jungle Jim's Playland. My sister Lori came down from Logan and brought her kids. We rode rides and played games at pizza and had a huge party! Spiderman themed of course!

Avery wanted to ride the rides like the "big" kids. Normally 1 year olds don't like to, apparently they haven't met Avery.... she wanted to so bad that we had to get her a pass.

We played and rode rides until we dropped. Dylan loved the whole thing. It took a while to get the hang of the bumper cars, Mommy had a hard time fitting in the cars so we had to coach from the sidelines!

We came back to the house and had pizza and cake. Having fun cousins there made it even better.

Dylan picked out the cake himself!

We we woke up the next day. We made our contributions for Thanksgiving dinner and rushed up to Ogden. Dinner was at noon this year ( Why you ask????? Who knows but I am just along for the ride at this point so off we went. ) Everything was great. Food, there were no family fights this year ( SHOCKER!!!) The kids all went out to play with Grandpa outside. His house has horses and four-wheelers and the kids love it. They rode until they dropped. My step sister almost got bucked off one of the new colts that decided to take off running. She held on! I was impressed I would have be lying face down in horse poop! My dad tried to get me to ride them too. I just looked at him and said, " No thank you... I don't do horses! " They have no brakes and are totally not reliable like a 4-wheeler. Now those I will do! Well after a full day we headed home and put the kids to bed. Now mommy's fun begins!



My sisters and I (they slept over so we could get an early start the next day! ) spread out all the ads and planned our attack. Where are we going, who has the best sales and so forth. After a short Grey's Anatomy break, we were ready. We head to bed! 4:45 comes early. We do it every year, but this year the lines at Khols were especially bad. We saved a lot of money but I didn't love the waiting. Then we are off to Park City! We go to all the stores we can think of until we can't shop anymore. Then it's off to lunch. By this point we are so exhausted that we can't even barely talk. Then home again home again.



I got home and found out all my cute little kids have been sick all day. They are have raging fevers. They were in need of some mommy TLC. Daddies are great but mommies know just what they need to feel better. Just dinking around on the Internet Michael and I run across a good deal on a truck. Next thing I know he is digging out the title to his car and cleaning out his trunk. You all know what this means don't you. He says he is going to "LOOK" at the truck. I know he is going to "BUY" the truck. I am seriously so tired at this point I didn't care. He came home with a new car last night and I told him it was pretty and went to bed. Wheeewwww what a day.

Stupid Dishes from China!

So my hubby and I were watching the news last night and I was almost asleep when Michael said "don't we have those same dishes?" Sure enough.... the exact dishes that are now sitting in my cupboard were shown on the tv before they could even say where you purchased them and the brand, I easily filled in the details! The deal is they contain LEAD. Of course they do I am now a firm believer the are very few things in my house these days that don't contain lead. It is just a matter of time until I figure out which ones they are! Since we have had these particular plates for quite a while they are more likely to be leaching lead every time we eat on them! GREAT.... so now I need to get the kids tested to see if they have high levels of lead in their system. The only upside to thins whole situation is that I get new dishes (( I have my mother - in - law to thank for my new found dish obsession. )) Thanks a lot Jan. I still have a problem however... I have no idea if my new dishes will have lead in them as well. I did contact Gephart and tell him I wanted my dishes tested for lead. They had some sort of link on his site due to the story yesterday.

Anyway... they you have it. The weirdest things happen to me. I have a friend who says that she is going to write a biography on my life. She says no one would believe it wasn't fiction, "because there is no way you could make this stuff up if you tried" So here you go Cristy. Another item for you book :

Here's some disgusting yet cute photos of the little one. Not eating on the toxic lead plates : )

My first tag

Okay.... being new to the whole blogging community this would be my first tag. Thanks a lot Christina!!!! ( Just kidding) so she says I have to tell the rules and then list 8 unknown random things about my self! This out to be interesting but you asked for it... so here it goes!

1. On my first date with my husband he tried to feed me to the animal that we thought was going to eat us! Long story!!! (Not his best moment... he is so lucky I really liked him!)
2. I grew up in the Ghetto of Ogden. Totally not kidding. I could flash you the gang signs myself!
3. My sister and I get mistaken for twins all the time.
4. Haley (my 5 year old) is almost as tall as me and only 2 shoe sizes away!
5. I love candy!!!! I eat more than is humanly possible but have to sneak it because I would never let my kids eat that much!
6. I am a totally tomboy! I love to get dirty and not be girly it has only been in the last few years that my husband has been able to convince me it is okay to act like a girl.
7. I once sprained my wrist while mud wrestling! ( It was at a church sponsored event... who knows why. But the challenge was issued so IT WAS ON!
8. I am 5 feet tall exactly! Which is only 2 inches away from being a midget legally! Thank goodness for tall shoes!

So there you have it 8 totally random, unknown things about myself. I bet you wish you had the last couple of minutes of you life back. Like I said you asked for it! : )

What a slacker I am!

I am sorry to everyone. I have been so busy lately that my blog has been all but forgotten! I've had family staying with me for the past week and a half and that took up a lot of time. We had weddings to get to and fun outings to go on while grandma was here! Not to mention I started the twilight series books and read the whole series in a weekend! Holly cow talk about addicted to the books. I felt really bad reading while I had company, if I had known how addicted I would become I would have waited so I wasn't such a horrible host!!!! On the flip side of that, it was probably good that grandma was here so my kids didn't have to eat crumbled crackers they found under the couch for dinner! You may think I am kidding (( sadly I am not!)) Now Michael is reading the books..... he likes them too but is not even one tenth as obsessed as I was. I guess he just isn't as much as a hopeless romantic as I am! Anyway enough about my obsessive behavior with books. This is what happened since I have written last.


We had Halloween of course and all of the fun things that go with it. Haley had a Halloween parade at school and she was so excited as you can see!

Then that night we went trick-or-treating and the kids loved it! We left the littlest purple dragon at home with the grandparents and headed out with the die hards! We only had to go once around the block before Haley's bucket was totally filled! Dylan's was only half filled so I am not quite sure what happened there. I think Haley was telling people that she needed candy for her brother and then putting it in her bucket too! So we came home and dumped out all the loot and Avery went NUTS! She thought that was the best thing ever she was so cute digging through her 1st Halloween bucket ever! ( How did she get so big)

We carved pumpkins before we left, and the kids would NOT touch the inside of the pumpkins they complained the whole time that it stunk! It was yucky! and so on..... luckily we had grandpa Vern there to help clean Dylan's and Grandma Jan to clean out Haley's so the little stinkers didn't have to touch it! Ewwwww! You can tell by there faces what was being said the whole time. They did turn out cute in the end though!

Well... so there you go. Now that it's almost Thanksgiving I finally got around to telling you about Halloween. I never said I would be good at this. But it's the effort that counts!! Right?