"I HATE You Mom!!!!"

This morning we took the girls to get a Flu Shot and H1N1 vaccine. Normally we don't get flu shots but since this is suppose to be the "worse flu season ever" Elliott and I felt we wanted to do our part in protecting them as much as possible and felt the flu vaccine would be a good idea.

We went to a CVS Pharmacy and signed in. Ryann had no idea why we were there. It took about 45 minutes for our turn. Still Ryann had no idea. Then it was our turn and the door opened and we walked into the little room at the clinic in CVS. Ryann took one look at the nurse in the lab coat and IMMEDIATELY turned around to try and run away crying she didn't want any shots. I guess people in whites coat are the shot givers. This is why we didn't tell her from the beginning because she would freak and why I was glad to have Elliott there to help. We had Kylee go first then Addy. Addy didn't know what to think about the mist up her nose and did a little short cry with the shot...no drama. All while "Cryin' Ryann" was making a scene. I was holding her the whole time. One so she couldn't run out of the room and two I guess I was her comfort item. Then it was her turn.....I sat down and she started hitting and kicking while I was trying to get her arm out of her shirt. I wrapped my legs around hers and held her arms down. They she started yelling "I HATE You Mom!!" over and over....nice. Within 5 seconds of it being over she stopped crying and got 2 stickers and two treats from the store. I guess my job as a mom to protect my kids means sometimes they are going to hate me.

Tomorrow morning I am taking Alyssa since she had her Lil Pastry Chef class this morning. I will also get my shot tomorrow. I have never received a flu shot...I REALLY hate needles and am even nervous thinking about the idea...maybe Alyssa will go first...I better get a sticker too.

Crossing my Fingers!

We got a phone call Sunday morning from the computer guys and it looks like they are going to be able to get our files back. They are going to put them all on an external hard drive and send them back to us for only the small fee of $400. Pictures are priceless. Granted I do wish I would have taken a little time to back up my files so I wouldn't have to pay $400 but 3 years worth of pictures it will be worth it. Until I get the hard drive back and see them again I will be crossing my fingers it will all work out.

Hide 'n' Seek

The girls love to play hide 'n' seek! Ryann and Addy will even play while the big girls are away. It is so cute to see Addy mimic the girls by going in the pantry, closing the door, and count. "Uh one, Uh one, Uh one, Uh one (then open the door) BEEEEE!" She then runs off to go find Ryann.

Sunny Saturday

One thing that I love about living here is that it is October and the weather is beautiful!! This past Saturday was in the low 90s and we took advantage by swimming and having dinner by the pool followed by more swimming...in October!!! For those that live in places with nice weather may be thinking so what is the big deal? All I have to say is go live in Wyoming or Utah and you can then appreciate how awesome it is.

Addy just loves the water!! She has this floaty that she loves and found that she can jump in the pool with it.

Budget Flooring in Las Vegas on Craig Road has the WORSE Customer Service...EVER!

Occasionally you come across a company that you wonder how they are still in business because they have no clue how a business should run. Well I recently came across a business like this, Budget Flooring in North Las Vegas on Craig Road. I was looking for a good deal on some wood flooring for our office and was very excited when I found this store. Then the red flags began. While walking into the store I saw the employee coming back in from the parking lot from smoking. I didn't realize she was the employee because she literally looked like she rolled out of bed and showed up. But sure enough she was the one to help me. I really should have just left. Later I learned that she is the one that runs the office....red flag because if someone can't even put themselves together they are only going to struggle to put together anything else. That very day the owner came to my house with samples and gave me my estimate. He was the nicest guy. All I cared about was how soon...told twice 2-3 weeks. That was longer than I wanted but factored in I was saving money and decided to be a little patient....Patience is a funny thing.

4 weeks went by and I was a little concerned because I had not even received a phone call at this point. I called on Monday and Jennifer (disorganized office girl who is the owner's daughter) gave me the run around for two weeks....lie after lie and promise after promise (all she broke). I finally go fed up now being 6 weeks after the fact and told her forget it! The guy that was suppose to do my floor that I yelled at when he called to to tell me he would be another 2 hours late (at this point he was already 3 hours late after the job had been put back a day) and I told him not to bother called me back to let me know I am not the only customer treated like this and that in fact 95% of customers are mad and unhappy with the company. He offered to do it as a side job and I took him up on it and headed to Lowes for my flooring. He called me when he said he was going too, he showed up when he said he was going too, and more importantly he put in my wood flooring like he said the very next day and cleaned up his mess when he finished! He was such a hard worker. After the fact I went online to try and post any comment I could about this AWFUL store and came across another comment that had the same story. The best part was when this other person asked to speak to the owner she was told he was out of town...I was told he was out of the country. The guy that did my flooring told me all about lies and problems that she causes. Sometimes it pays a little extra to know the job will actually get done because the stress is not worth it!

The end result:

Back 'em Up!

Something very sad happened the other day...our hard drive died on our computer. What makes this sad is that despite the fact my computer had two hard drives we never backed up our files...mainly or the most important being pictures. The only thing I treasure in life beyond my family and friends is pictures...everything else can be replaced. My way to have a second copy has been to never erase the pictures on the SD card. This wouldn't be a big deal except a year ago I left our camera on top of our car and forgot....and it is long gone. So from June 2005 shortly after Ryann was born until Sept of 2008 our pictures for the most part are gone. This is Ryann's first two years of life and Addy's first year. And of course all other holidays in between...ahh and their birthday parties.....ugh. I never got around to printing them off. At least I have all the pictures in the slide show on this blog that has a few pictures of Addy and Ryann as babies. Since 2008 when we got our new camera (that I have recently dropped on the tile..I know...nice one) I have all the pictures that were ever taken on that camera. This is another good reason to blog... too bad I didn't do it sooner. Thankfully, Elliott had the hard drive sent out to some CSI guys to try and retrieve the picture files...like I said pictures are priceless and ohh it is going to cost me. (I am thinking the FBI can retrieve all sorts of stuff from bad perverted peoples' computers why is it not possible to get files from our computer) So I am crossing my fingers that they can find them. I have learned my lesson and I hope you learn from mine. BACK'EM UP!!!!!!

ooohhhh yaaaaaa

Elliott and I were shopping and came across this couple and we came to the same conclusion....if we ever get to a point in our lives that we look like this....please put us out of our misery! I wonder when he left his house if he looked in the mirror and if so what was his thoughts.....hmmm......(sock and sandals have always been a favorite)

Weekend Away..Kinda

Elliott and I had our first "Stay-cation" this past weekend. Elliott's parents came in for the weekend to watch the girls so we could get away...without them. Don't get me wrong I love my kids but I REALLY love breaks away from them. Being a stay-at-home-mom this rarely happens especially since Elliott had been living out of state forever. We decided to get away and thought why waste time and money going somewhere when Vegas is really new to us. So we stayed in Vegas but got a hotel room so it was a "stay-cation". We went to two shows, a movie, shopping, had some amazing food, laughed so hard I cried, and enjoyed being "husband and wife" not "mom and dad". I think we get so caught up in our roles as mom and dad that it is nice to get out and be a couple where 100% of our attention is on each other and we can hold a conversation WITHOUT interruption. I tell you what "The Strip" is a different world. I now know where I will take Kylee and Alyssa to show them why they should not drink alcohol. Between the vomit being cleaned up outside the hotel or the girl that had her forehead on the ground as her friends tried picking her up to get her to leave....are just a few to mention of good examples. It is not our scene and is in some ways a little depressing to see people act the way they do down there. Oh and the people everywhere on the street trying to hand you pornographic cards is a whole other story...SO Who wants to come to Vegas and visit?

Warning Scary Music!

Today I received a text from my sister-in-law telling me that while she was reading my blog the scary music came on and scared my 3 year-old nephew enough that he peed his pants (I know it really was Paul and she was being the good wife not to embarrass him). SO BEWARE the music may be a little scary...I would hate for anyone else to have any accidents.

First Day of School

I know it is October and my girls have been in school since August but I wanted to post the first day of school pictures. This was a tradition of my life growing up. My mom would take a picture of us on the first day of school so I am carrying on the tradition. We were still living in a hotel the first week of school for Kylee and Alyssa.

Kylee the big 5th grader-next year its Middle School


Alyssa the 3rd grader that wishes she was still in 2nd grade
In the background is where we had breakfast every morning for almost a month. Cooked to order breakfast made by someone else...uuhhh I do miss that.

Ryann's first day of Preschool....ooh I love preschool...if only it was longer...and everyday.

Addy is still home with me until she gets over her attachment issues (still working on nursery) but wanted to be in the picture too.

Still Unpacking..ugh

I have now been living in our new home for 1 month and am still not unpacked. So much for meeting my goal of being unpacked within 1 month. It really is awful everyday to wake up and know their is still lots to do on top of maintaining everything you have already done. This is no easy task with small children! Today I finally accomplished the laundry room...ahhh. Elliott has finally finished training...yeah!!! and has come home...well at least to his new home. Now I am finally able to get things done with his help. We are now down to just the small random stuff that I didn't know what to do with packing and now I am wondering what to do with it unpacking. We have already donated 5 boxes of stuff to the DI since being here. It always feels so good to get rid of stuff. We are still waiting for our wood flooring to be installed in our office...then we can unpack those boxes too. We have come up with a "TO-DO" list....and it is quite long but feels good when we can check something off. This house is a lot bigger than our last and is nice to unpack my kitchen with empty cabinets (and in my laundry room) or shelves to spare. Their have been boxes that I unpacked that I hadn't touched since they were packed from our home in Casper (2 years ago) because our last house had a tiny kitchen.

While unpacking my kitchen I started pulling spice after spice out of a box. So I like spices and usually cook with fresh when I can. I don't know what is worse that I have just about every spice (81) out there or that I put them in alphabetical order in my cupboard? This picture does not do them justice and some are missing.

Happy Birthday Kylee!

Am I really old enough to have an 11 year old? Time flies too fast! We just celebrated Kylee's 11th birthday on September 26th. Normally for every birthday I throw each girl a huge birthday party. For some sick reason I LOVE over planning birthday parties for my girls down to the very last detail. Yes I go all out. This year for Kylee's birthday I took a different approach for several reasons:

1). She just barely made friends at school...it just seems weird to celebrate your birthday with people you barely know.

2.) Elliott still gone so that means no extra help.

3.) We just moved in and the house was still not put together.

Instead I had her pick one friend from Utah and bought her a plane ticket to come and spend the weekend with Kylee for her birthday. It worked out great because her friend didn't have school on that Friday so she flew in on Thursday and I let Kylee play hookie from school on Friday.

The friend she chose was Lauren, her first friend in Salt Lake that lived up our street. They had a blast playing and swimming together! On her birthday we did what Kylee wanted to do.

Lauren and Kylee

For breakfast we had Oatmeal-Cookie-Pancakes (very yummy)

We went to McDonalds for lunch.

Went shopping at Target. Considering there is a Target on every corner (no joke) this was easy. (Well kinda if you consider going shopping with five kids)

Went swimming in our backyard.

Went to dinner at Outback, one of Kylee's favorite places. She loves steak. Lauren had never been or had never had steak. After dinner we went to a few more stores then headed home and played games.

It was a great weekend! Happy Birthday Kylee!