DISNEYLAND!!

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WHAT?? We went to Disneyland about 5 months ago .. wha? I know. I’m ridiculous. There seems to always be stuff going on around here these days (and by “these days” I mean, since we moved to CA). This week we have the Ward Talent Show, in which I am singing in 3 acts, Daniel is singing with me in one act and I am entertaining all the kids during the … wait for it … THREE intermissions, by singing “wiggle songs”. Also this week, is scouts, practices, I’m teaching the activity day girls how to sing, our AC died, ants are invading … yeah. That’s this week. And I haven’t blogged about Liam’s 6th birthday .. blah blah blah … we went to DISNEYLAND in January :)

Liz came into town and made this all possible. She’s the bomb.

We did two days. Day one – Disneyland, Day two – California Adventure. We stayed at a Marriott next to the parks. The parks are right across from one another and both are spectacular, as only Disney can do. Ya know, as I was experiencing Disneyland and all of its grandeur, I thought, if there is anything that is “overdone” it’s Disneyland. I have been teased for doing things a little overdone myself and have actually been quoted saying, “the art of overdoing things is a lost art!” Sooo, this was right up my alley. It makes me think I would looooove to do this as my job – to be on the creative team at Disneyland. I could come up with all sorts of craziness. It would be great. Anyway, back to January.

We left Ray with Christina because he naps and wouldn’t fully appreciate the experience at 18 months, so we were free to hang out until all hours playing at Disneyland. We went on a Mon and Tues … or a Tues and Wed?? Can’t remember, but it was the middle of the week in January at Disneyland and you’d think it would be totally dead … but it is like NYC, Disneyland is the amusement park that never sleeps.

We went in with a plan though. I had been prepped and trained by Christina and Aria, who are SoCal, Disneyland Annual Pass Holding vets. Christina and Aria planned out which rides were most worth it and which my boys would be most interested in, then Christina sat me down and trained me … for days. seriously. We watched youtube videos of certain rides, I memorized the map, we had teir 1, 2 and 3 rides and alternates. We had a plan from the moment we walked inside the gates. I had to know where to go and when for Fast Passes and make sure we hit the busiest rides first before they got crazy long lines. And I’m happy to report – it was a success! And all of the planning was worth it!!!

We rode everything we wanted to and some favorite rides twice! I think the boys’ favorite place was Tomorrowland in Disneyland because that’s where Jedi Training was, Space Mountain was Noah’s favorite ride and Liam begged to go on the little rocketship ride there all day and loved it. Gammie bought them awesome weaponry there too. Noah got to build his own light saber and he made Mace Windu’s purple one and Liam got Zurg’s gun. The coolest ball, popping rotating gun ever.

My favorite ride was Space Mountain too. Alright, here’s the story in pictures:


The boys walking together while we stood at the gate to get in.


The picture with Daniel is showing how many people were waiting for the park to let us in to Tomorrowland. This is Disneyland on a Monday in January, mind you. The picture of me is when I went to save a spot at the front of Jedi Training while Gammie, Daniel and the boys rode some rides.

And then there was Jedi Training …. I think I was more excited for this than the boys. Liam was flat out too nervous to do it, so it was just Noah who went up. But I just wanted this experience for him so badly! They LOOOOOOOOOOOVE star wars. This was like a fantasy coming true, and I was all pumped up for them.


Gammie getting love as we walked out of Tomorrowland.


On Tom Sawyer’s Island. I have to be honest, I thought this would not be too exciting or cool. But then we went and I was wrong – the boys loved this too! It had a myriad of caves and hiding spots and places to climb and it was all contained on this one island. You’d think you couldn’t get lost … but Liam proved you can. Liam got lost on one side of the island. We got pretty nervous when we didn’t see him after a few minutes and started looking around for him, calmly at first. We sent Daniel into the caves, but he couldn’t find him, then Liz and I split up to find him and in doing so, we left our backpack on a bench. We found Liam, who was crying, and turned back to the backpack and Disneyland workers were standing next to it radioing to others that there might be a bomb threat. We assured them it wasn’t and we were just in a panic because Liam was lost. It all worked out. Scary moments though.


Glad to be together and on the way back from the island.


This was from lunch … but what I didn’t get a picture of was dinner ….. somewhere in the New Orleans area of Disneyland, there is this place, a café where you can get these garlic fries with magical sauce that is laced with crack cocaine (just kidding), but really!!!! I couldn’t get enough of them. The tragic ending to this fry story is that I had Daniel hold the to go box of fries while I took Liam on one more ride at the end of the day and Daniel put them down on a bench and forgot about them. We walked out and I asked where they were …. my mouth died a little inside. It was so sad. Saddest part of the two days – no question.

Then – California Adventure – Day Two!


Yes, I was there!! There are only a few pictures of me and here are two of them :) I actually have more pictures that Liz and Daniel sent me of the two days, but I don’t know where I downloaded them …. anyhow, here’s me! On the left, Liam and I are waiting to do “Turtle Talk”, awesome. And then we were on the carousel in the right hand picture, obviously.


Taking a breather in Radiator Springs.


Daniel and I ran off by ourselves to do the scary ride … forget what it’s called (Hotel something)


And World of Color. I wish I had more time to write more, but Ray is standing at my side crying. Disneyland – it’s all it’s cracked up to be! Thank you Gammie!!!!

Camping at Joshua Tree National Park

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This past weekend we went camping. Daniel has been referring to it as “glamping” (glamorous camping) … because he’s a punk. For some reason, it is the Forsyth way to not call it a vacation unless you are hurting yourself in some way. Daniel only calls it camping if you are suffering. Evidently, we were not suffering sufficiently enough to call it camping. Moving on …

Joshua Tree is a pretty cool landscape. We took lots of pictures (is it “glamping” because YOU brought the tripod and nice camera, Daniel?? hmm?). I’ll stop harping and let the pictures tell the good story:

Uncle Jeff told stories to the boys and then we put everyone to bed and the parents had fun around the fire, talking, taking pictures of the night sky and then playing with the camera. We used Walter’s phone for a tiny light and then kept the shutter open on our camera and drew all sorts of fun things …

Then we slept … not for very long. But we slept. Daniel slept like a log! I did not. I can now officially deem myself a “light sleeper”. I used to sleep like a log too, when I didn’t have kids, but ever since Noah, I hear everything. I heard the kids moving in their sleeping bags next to me, I heard coughing and sneezing and I heard Ray moaning in his sleep (he does this a lot). I woke up about 7 or 8 times over the span of 5 hours. I kept moving Ray under his sleeping bag covers and moving Liam off the tent floor and onto his mat and pillow … I was exhausted when I woke up the next morning, but that didn’t stop me from making awesome camping pancakes!!

I think it’s my mom’s fault that all of us girls do this. We love breakfast. Whenever we went camping as a family when I was younger, my mom would make an incredibly delicious breakfast of eggs, bacon and pancakes cooked in the bacon grease, so they were like fritters! I didn’t do the whole sha-bam, I just did Blueberry Cornmeal Pancakes. They are Daniel’s new favorite breakfast. It was so much more fun to make all this side by side with my sisters. They appreciate it.

But even before the morning scene got cooking, Daniel and Walter went hiking around the boulders in our campground and Daniel took pictures of the camp site.

Then Emily woke up …

And now I have to make mention of something genius I saw on Pinterest … a hand washing station. It was so useful and since a picture is worth a thousand words here it is. The only difference between this one and mine, was that I didn’t bungee cord the paper towels tot he container. I hung paper towels from a bungee cord hanging from the easy up.

After we packed up camp, we went on a short hike to see an arch.

The boys asked if they could climb on top of the arch and I said no because it was too dangerous, then we looked around for where Daniel had gotten to … and he was on top of the arch.

motherhood

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So, it’s Mother’s Day on Sunday and today is Wednesday and I am just sitting here, eating my egg whites and drinking water and thinking about how people should be more afraid of moms.

I just started (again) on the 17 Day Diet today. I’m supposed to eat mostly veggies and protein, some fruit, tons of water and no sugar or bread … for 17 days. I’m only about 3 hours in and I’m angry. Also, I have spent the morning cleaning. I became intimately aware of my half bath’s floor this morning and I figured something out. I’ve been annoyed for some time because I can’t seem to figure out why all of my bathrooms (I have 2.5) smell like urine. I thought I was cleaning them well and yet, they always smelled like pee. Well, this morning I realized why – because they have urine on the floor and around the under side of the toilets. Fun tidbit of information to pick up. Also, I am not feeling well. Just a cough and headache, but it’s enough to bug you. Also, Ray is sick … he’s kind of taking it like a baby too. Yelling, squawking and whining about everything, doing diarrhea in his pants every 15 minutes (not really, but man it feels like a lot of poop lately) and the snot strings are flowing down his face all day.

And I’ve been contemplating all of this while eating my tasteless egg whites and I thought that I might not be the only mom in the world doing the stuff I’m doing. There are probably thousands of hungry, angry women out there on the edge of screaming and since they can’t scream at their children because it’s not their fault they are 2 and sick … these women must be looking for outlets to scream and punish people around them. People should definitely be more afraid of mommies. If I were a thief or hoodlum of any sort, I would steer clear of moms. I’d be afraid they would not only have the nearest police station on speed dial (which I happen to have), but they are dieting and angry, they probably have pee or poop on them or at least under their nails and are ready the hurl something at the nearest person who looks at them wrong.

On a separate but related topic. I’ve often thought that the worst kind of torture would be to put a two year old in the same room as the person you are trying to torture and the two year old would take care of the torture. An especially effective torture would be to put a sick two year old in the room. There would be no “good cop, bad cop” it would be total chaos – yelling, screaming, crying, scratching your eyes out, crawling on top of them and pooping and throwing up on them kind of torture.

The day before yesterday I had a poop incident, while we’re on the subject, which we usually are on this blog. As I have been mentioning Ray is sick. He couldn’t wait for dinner, so I had fed him in his highchair, while I finished up with dinner. When he was done, he screeched at me until I picked him up to wash off his hands in the sink. As I was washing hi hands, I felt something fall on my toes. I thought, “oh great, the juicy tomatoes he was eating must have been in his lap and now it’s all over my feet!” … it was much worse than that. I looked down to see diarrhea on my feet, all down the front of my clothes and coming out of Ray’s shorts. I froze. This is the moment I am most familiar with as a mommy; the one where you are at a loss for what to do in this situation because you are not prepared for this kind of predicament. I did an awesome yoga move and stretched my feet, one at a time up to the sink where Ray was and rinsed my feet and Ray a little, then I scooped him up and we walked up the stairs to the bathroom where everyone disrobed and washing and bathing ensued. It was gross.

Anyway, these are the thoughts swimming around my head this morning.

lavender gain detergent

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Last night something very strange and uncomfortable happened. A girl knocked on our door at 7:50 pm. I recognized her as someone I had seen coming and going from the house across the street. The house across the street had several young, single people living there as roommates and she seemed to be one, as of late. She introduced herself and her 3 year old son she had with her, whose name was Cloud. She asked me what our plans were for Easter. I was a little surprised and said we planned on spending it with family in the area and asked why? She invited me to her church’s Easter Egg Hunt. I said thank you and that was thoughtful to ask, but we had plans. Then … it got reeeeeeally weird. She leaned in and said, “I wanted to ask you something else … my gas bill is due and I don’t have the money and I was wondering if you could loan me $80?”

yeah. super weird, right? Who the heck does that?

So then Daniel walked up to the door and I explained what was happening, to which he responded ” …. huh.” Then the girl went on to talk about herself and her son and the area and blah, blah, blah. Finally I said I had somewhere to be (because I actually DID need to be somewhere, thankfully) and I left her and Daniel at the door. Her son wandered into our house and started playing with the boys and by the time I was leaving, Daniel was trying to put the boys to bed, she was in our front room, her son was having a fit about leaving, Daniel was on the phone and as I tried to squeeze by her on my way out the door she says, “so, about that $80. Do you think you could give that to me?”

I was floored. This girl did not look like a homeless person, yet she was acting as brashly and rudely as one. I told her we didn’t carry cash and don’t keep it in the house (in case she or her roommates got any ideas …) and I couldn’t give it to her. I asked how she expected me to give it to her. She told me I could go to an ATM and get it out. I told her no. She said I could write her a check. I told her my husband is in charge of our finances and he would have to answer her and I told Daniel and walked away.

I came home and asked Daniel how he got her away from our house and it turns out … he gave her the $80. I couldn’t believe it.

This morning, I called my Dad. He had some insight on how to handle people who ask for handouts and it was great advice. He said to make sure and not take their problems on as your own. You don’t have to come up with answers for them, because it’s not your problem. You don’t even have to defend yourself as to why you wouldn’t help them because it’s their problem and they should plan for it and help themselves. He DID say that you can point them in the right direction and let them know which authorities can help them. The county has programs for struggling members of the community and you can go into any police station and they will direct you to these programs. Also, she had mentioned she was a member of the Seventh Day Adventist church. He said, she should probably go to the members of her church, or family before me.

I told him I felt taken advantage of. Robbed. I hated her for putting me and my husband in this terribly awkward situation and I wanted our $80 back, but I was afraid it was just gone. As soon as the check was written, it was gone. Daddy told me something that really helped me understand this better. In essence this is what he told me:

Christ helped everyone. You will never hear in the Bible any sermons that Jesus Christ gave on self-reliance. And more than that, he gave to everyone. It didn’t matter if they were homeless, whores, mean, bad, evil, whatever, he helped everyone. Now this doesn’t mean you should give and give and give until you are figuratively hanging on a cross, but it does mean, that every once in a while, when you do share what you have (begrudgingly or not) you are helping someone else. You are giving as Christ did. And maybe instead of throwing your money away on buying some nice Sunday heels for Easter, you gave money to someone who needed it for something else.

I told him, I just didn’t feel safe. We recently got something stolen out of our garage. Daniel’s classic BMX bike. It feels strange, having something and then without reason or understanding, it’s just gone. It’s an unsettling feeling. And then to have $80 just gone because someone put you in a terrible position and you’re too nice to say, “Get out of here! Are you crazy?!” And I told Dad it felt awful. He said, “yeah, I know. That’s the trouble with material things”.

He’s right. material things are just that. Material things. And they come and go, sometimes without reason and unfairly, but they’re just material things.

It got me thinking about material things …. Daniel and I have enough to pay the rent and pay our bills and buy food and put our boys in soccer for a season. That’s pretty awesome. But it makes me angry to think that what little we have saved up or set aside for our boys, or Sunday heels or for birthdays are going to the darn weird-o across the street! So I started thinking, “what would I do if I had a lot of money, a lot of excess?” And I’ll tell you what – I would buy Lavender Gain detergent. all. the. time. Yep. That is such a luxury.

I usually buy the cheapest, Kirkland brand detergent at Costco. But one day about two months ago I wanted to buy some really awesome smelling detergent, to wash my sheets in, so that when my parents came to stay at my house, they would sleep in really awesome smelling lavender sheets. I have been rationing this lavender Gain detergent ever since. I save it for the sheets, or towels, sometimes my underwear (never for the boys though … that would be a waste. No matter what I do, they will, for some reason, always smell like dirt, spit and grass, sometimes even like dirty bum). So, that’s what I’d do with extra money. Lavender Gain detergent. It’s awesome.

never exempt

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There is always a “re-entry” period after a vacation. It’s the worst. Ray was evidently very angry that I left him, so he made me pay … for days.

We got home Sunday night, so Monday morning was a bear. Getting everyone up and off to school and then there was Ray, awww yes, little Ray. That kid was a hot mess. He spent the entire day just following me around the house crying. All. Day. The only time he was not crying, was when I was cradling him in my arms. Sometimes throughout the day, I would find myself giving up on trying to accomplish anything and I would just sit on the floor cross legged and hold Ray in my lap. I would see all the suitcases lying around the front room and think about the calls I needed to make and projects I needed to finish for people that were waiting on me for … and I would just be sitting in the middle of the floor, holding Ray. It made me a little crazy. A few times I just picked up his crying little self and gave him his favorite blanket and put him in his crib and closed the door to his room because I HAD to do something! Then there was the sickness.

Ray had been sick and I knew I would get it and I did. Monday morning. It hit like a sack of marbles in my face – particularly in my head. I had a major congestion headache all day and then that night, I got a migraine. I was sniffling, coughing, sneezing … what else does the Nyquil commercial say? … yeah, I had all of that and on top of that, I had a crying baby following me around. Then Liam and Noah came home from school and Liam broke down into tears when I asked him to do his chores and homework. Then after dinner, Noah cried because we were having Family Home Evening and he didn’t have a chance to play his Lego Game. There was lots of crying on Monday.

There is a misconception that I have had for years about having a cold. I thought that the only real upside to not being able to breathe or taste your food was not having to smell stinky diapers. This is a misconception. Not true. No matter how clogged your nasal passages are – they may be completely blocked, yet somehow, you will be able to smell the poopy diapers. It’s amazing really. And Ray had some doosies on Monday because he was getting over being sick, so we had some pretty serious diarrhea that smelled heinous, truly heinous. It was the kind of smell that was so bad and pungent that it smelled kind of spicy. Gross, wet, spicy poop and even though I couldn’t for the life of me smell or taste the lovely homemade chicken soup I made for myself and family – I was getting the full force of Ray’s diapers. Thank you, totally useless clogged nose. How does that happen??! I guess it’s a motherhood thing – to never be exempt from smelling poopy diapers.