Stuck

Well. We are stuck in Laramie, Wyoming overnight (well, since like 9 am.). Hoping I-80 will open in the morning so Ender won't spend his whole birthday on the road or stuck in Wyoming. It is crazy here! Just and FYI. I am going to bed now!

Solace and her awesome hair

One day for school we decided to fix Solace's hair in a funky, different, cute way. Here is what it looked like (at the end of the day):

A few nights later we decided to try bubbles (as we call them) all over her head to see how curly her hair would be for church the next day. Here are a few pics of the bubble-head. (I forgot to take pics of the curls at church the next day, so you will just have to take my word for it-it was curly!)

Isn't she lovely?

Thoughts on Twilight movie

OK, So I promised I would post my thoughts on the Twilight movie for those that might care. I would like to say that overall, I try to just enjoy movies and not critique them too harshly. It is hard. I am very critical of acting and directing especially, so it is hard for me to just enjoy any movies (or tv shows, or plays...). I have learned to expect nothing so I will not be disappointed. It is also hard to enjoy movies with Wes watching with you. Not one mistake will go by without comment or making fun of. Luckily with this movie, I expected less than nothing as most of my friends panned it. Because my expectation to like this was so very very nonexistent, I found that I did think it was alright. I MIGHT even go so far as to say I liked it a bit.

I actually enjoyed the book. Thought it was an interesting take on the whole vampire thing, and a very different story. It didn't make sense, but I was happy to suspend my disbelief and just enjoy the sappy, silly love story. The writing was poor. Very poor. But she had a good idea that intrigued me and I wanted to read more-to read the whole series (and I did). Bella was far too whiny in the book. Edward was far too willing to ignore her faults in spite of his century+ experience with people. And lets be honest, what the heck was she even doing with Edward when Jacob was the one that treated her so well. Edward is like the bad dangerous boy that she cannot resist and Jacob is like the nice guy that treats her well. Weird...anyway...

I bring all this up because it brings me to my first point about the movie...the acting. Given the material, I wondered how the actors could even do it. I saw the girl playing Bella in the movie Speak, and she is a GREAT actress. I hoped this role would not ruin her. I have to say that given the character and material, she did remarkably well. Bella was much more manageable to me than she was in the book. However, the main important thing to get that movie right was to have some MAJOR chemistry between Bella and Edward, and there was none. Can I also throw in here that the entire Cullen/vampire clan with the exception of Esme and maybe Alice was miscast. Rosalie was a character I actually liked int he book-this was SO the wrong actress for her. All the Cullens were way wrong...

One more very annoying thing for me...what the heck was the sparkling thing in the sun. It sucked. Where were their awesome special effects? That was like-hey lets throw some minimal glitter on our actor and call it good. What the heck?! Was this a studet production on a shoe string budget or a Hollywood movie? SO BAD!!

And the final fight-come on. It was just so minimal. Again, was this a budget issue or were we really making the choice to show so little of the fight and to do it in the background while we focus on Edward on Bella only. Duh.

Best characters/actors: Jacob & Esme (also must mention here that the evil vampires were great as well-especially the evil chick-she rocked!!!)
Worst characters/actors: Rosalie tops the list with the rest of the Cullins (Edward & Dr Cullen included, Alice excluded) in second place.
Worst scenes/effects: glittering vampire, and fight scene.
My favorite scene: the very last 10 second of the movie. Please oh please give evil Miss vampire much more screen time in the next movie!

I give the movie a 2.5 of 5 stars. I did not HATE it, but I didn't like it a whole lot either. It was middle of the road at best.

We are the Johnson parents and we are handy!! (Part 2: Wes the plumber)

Saturday night March 14, Wes and I hear a funny noise in our house. We think it is weird, but it only happens once, so we don't think much of it. Fast forward to Sunday March 15th, in the early evening, after church. Wes goes outside in the backyard to play with the kids. There is water leaking all along back of the house, between the siding and the house. Wes thinks, "Hmmm, this looks like a burst pipe, or maybe it is run-off from the warming we had that day." So, to test his theories, he turns off the water in the house to see if the leaking stops. It does. Darn, it must be a burst pipe-Wes is sure of it now, and it explains the strange noise as well. Double Dang-that sounds like a very expensive repair for us, and remember it is a Sunday night at that point.

Being the responsible adults that we are, we decide to look up our insurance to see if this is covered, and to see what our deductible is. This is the first time we have needed our homeowners insurance. The weekend lady tells us that she isn't sure and the week day lady will have to let us know later in the week. So for now we just need to get it repaired. Oh as a side note, we have no way to just shut off water to that faucet/pipe, so until it is repaired, we are stuck with no water on in the house at all.

We do not know who to call or who we can trust to be our new plumber. So we start calling people in the ward to get recommendations. One guy in the ward does that stuff, and could help but not for a week, so he recommends calling someone that is non-union. People we talk to do not give us specific recommendations, but we do get some DO NOT CALLs... So, we keep looking and start calling plumbers listed in the phone book. I am starting to think this will be VERY expensive and I am getting more frustrated. I am also learning how much I love and rely on my running water. I cannot get anything done that was on my list-no laundry, no dishes, not relaxing bath at the end of a horrible 3 hours of fighting kids at church...we cannot even flush the toilet (ew). It sucks.

Regardless of the horror of the situation, we are able to determine that we will save SIGNIFICANT amounts of money if we wait until Monday (the next morning) to have a plumber come out, and we determined one that our real estate agent recommended (he has the greatest connections ever, and is like the most helpful guy to know in Omaha). So we have to live through at least one day with no water. OK

After all that, we get a call from our bishop who we had not gotten a hold of, but had left a message asking if he knew a good, reliable, reasonably-priced plumber. He calls back to say that, no he knows none. In fact he was so frustrated by plumbing bills and problems, that he watched the plumber at his house a couple times doing stuff, figured out how to do it himself, and bought the necessary tools. Since then, he has been doing his own plumbing, oh and hey he offers to bring over his tools and help Wes fix it late Monday night (after family night and his kids are in bed). We gratefully accept his offer.

Monday I needed to get the house, mainly the laundry room as it is the interior access point to the pipe, clean so the bishop can come and do this. I also need to go get the supplies. Wes said he would get them on the way home from work, but it seemed stupid to have him do that when I was going to be home all day. I was freaking out about everything as Wes went to work (just in my head-not aloud for Wes to hear). However, my husband is acutely aware of the things that totally throw me off, so he goes to work, and as soon as he gets there decides he cannot leave me with all the kids (all because Solace had no school that day) trying to get everything ready. So, he walked in to work, explained the situation and said he needed to take a vacation day.

We worked together and got all the supplies, cleaned the house, and when the bishop came, he and Wes worked and got the pipe fixed by about midnight. It was amazing! And guess what-it worked (still works). They even added an off switch so if this happens again, we can just shut off the water to that faucet, and not the whole house! YEAH!!! AND-now Wes knows how to fix it next time on his own!!

Thanks Bishop!

Thanks Wes!!!

Ever Wonder what a burst pipe looks like? Here's Ender modeling it:

New and improved:

We are the Johnson parents and we are handy!! (Part 1:Beckee the mechanic)

If you are a long-time active reader of this blog, you might remember that I mentioned once that I missed the Utah bowl game because I backed into my mother-in-law's new car right at the beginning of the game. Yeah. Dang.

Anyway, we reported to the insurance to get her car fixed, but I figured I could fix the damage to my car by myself. This is what it looked like:
I am not an experienced mechanic, I have never fixed my car myself, frankly, I don't even change my own oil (thanks dad and Wes for doing all that for me always). BUT, I do know HOW to do those things, or I think I do, or I could figure them out anyway...So I decided that.

It took me a long while to find the right part and at the right price, but in the end I got it. A few weeks ago, I pulled apart the light and figured out how to replace the break light bulb as it went out (not when I hit the car, but just randomly burned out). So, when my part arrived in the mail, I felt like an experienced light getter-offer and onner. I went out to the front drive during nap time one day last week, and I just did it. It is beautiful! Look at the final product (and ignore the messy, winter van)...

Isn't it lovely?!

Lost me marbles...

So, Solace's class did a "shape gallery" in the main hall of the school. Solace displayed a sphere, and she chose a marble. It was stolen or lost from the table. She asked her teacher if she could write some posters to get it back. The teacher said yes and she made and hung up posters. A few days later, the 3rd graders found a marble out on the playground that they could tell from the drawing was not the right one, but they cleaned it up and gave it to her anyway as no one claimed it. On Tuesday we were up at the school for Solace's Discovery Fair, and we saw her note. It was so funny I had to take a picture and post it:

It says "If you stole a big marble polees breeng it bak? To Mrs Andersons class room."

MARCH MADNESS IS UPON US!!!!

If you have a facebook account, Look on the left side bar, click on where it says "click here" to joint the bracket pool...Pick your bracket for this year's NCAA tournament. If you don't have facebook, I will still accept your bracket to put in with our annual family pool. Last year I believe Armour won...no prizes, just major bragging rights!

Come on, it'll be fun...and I promise you need no skill or any knowledge of college basketball to play-just do it!!! YEAH!!! I love March Madness!!!!

(But not as much as I love running water...but that story is coming in another blog!!)

Discovery Fair

Well, Tuesday was the Discovery Fair at Solace's school. It is like a science fair, but no winners and losers, and nobody is required to do it. Nonetheless, lots of kids do. Solace's project was project #88. I think there were over 100. She wanted to know if you could x-ray things other than bodies. She and Wes picked out some things around the house to try and x-ray. When they were done, they looked at them and Solace asked Wes why some parts were so white. She learned that the more dense and object is, the brighter it looks on an x-ray. Here is her project and some of the x-rays. See if you can guess what she x-rayed. Leave your guesses as a comment!

X-ray 1

X-ray 2

X-ray 3

X-ray 4

X-ray 5

X-ray 6 (there are actually 7 things X-rayed on this one, but you cannot see all 4 things on the bottom left part. Just guess as many as you can)

X-ray 7

X-ray 8

X-ray 9

How many can you guess?

Happy Birthday Theodor Seuss Geisel!

If you have young children in school, you are likely already aware that last week, on March 2 was Dr Seuss's birthday. As with many other schools, Solace's school celebrated that all last week. Each day had a theme. Monday they all brought in their favorite Dr Seuss book, Wednesday Was Cat in the Hat day, Friday was Fox is Socks crazy socks day. This is what Solace looked like last Wednesday when she came home from Cat in the Hat day:

Armour ran out in the slush to see this Solace-cat...he crashed.

Ender ran out too...

Here is the damage...just a wet bum. So, this week, yesterday in fact, the library had the Cat in the Hat come to story time. Unfortunately, they have 2 story times, and he only came to the first (which they neglected to mention would happen). So we went to the second one and there was no cat. Ender had made a card for the Cat and he went and asked the librarian where the Cat was to give it to. She said he left to take a nap, but that she would give the card to him. Ender was pleased with that, but the librarian asked if she could hang it up and display it for a week or so before she gave it to the Cat. This pleased Ender even more! So, here is his picture/note for the Cat in the Hat on display in the library:

Sketch

Aren't we cute?

Allergies suck!

So, I cannot believe I haven't even posted about this yet! So, on Valentines day, Wes and I took the kids with us to lunch for a secret shop. I brought Gerber baby peaches to feed Kindle. I was feeding them to her and she broke out in hives and got all swollen. So, we stopped feeding her peaches got some benedryl ASAP, and she was fine, but seemingly allergic to peaches. Here are pictures taken of her at the restaurant. It is hard to tell the hives and swelling, but trust me, they are there:

So, Monday the 16th Kindle had a well baby check up, at which we decided she needed to see an allergist to verify said allergy. Especially since kids will be staying with my parents and Wes's parents while we are in Canada on our anniversary. So, we go to the allergist later that week. I thought they were going to do the skin testing (ew), but instead, given her age and allergy type, he thought a blood draw test would be better to verify this allergy and to rule out other common kid allergies. He told me if the peach test was negative, we would then do the peach skin test to verify allergy as it can sometimes have a negative blood test, but still be an allergy that is caught with the skin test. Also, she is now needing to have an epi-pen with her at all times in case she has an allergy that causes such swelling that she cannot breath. So, I tote Kindle off to the Children's hospital lab where the blood draw needs to happen, after which I will go to the pharmacy to get said epi-pen (actually it is a "twin-ject" but same thing as an epi-pen essentially).

So, we get to the hospital where there is no wait at the lab, but by the time they process us in the check-in, there is quite a wait there. So, we wait and wait, pass the time I told my wonderful relief society sister who is watching the boys that I would be home, then they call us back. They
look at her arms-poor Kindle as it turns out has crappy veins like her mommy, and they have trouble finding one in her right arm. so they don't try and start to look in her left arm. Bingo-they find one they think will work...WRONG! They dig around in her arm for a good 5 minutes, get the vein, get about 1 ml of blood (they need 6), and the vein collapses. So they toss the blood they got, and start over on the other arm. (mom is losing it by now and about to faint and cry and run out of the room screaming, but trying to remain calm for baby girl).

On to arm right (again) they again dig and dig for another 5 minutes or so. They get a vein, It seems to be working, they cannot get any more than 3 ml from it. They NEED 6. At this point, both her arm are unusable-they are bruised and sore and veins have collapsed. The phlebotomists do not know what to do and ask if I can sit and wait for another hour for her to calm down and recover so they can try again. I ask if there is another option, they say they will ask the Pathologist if they can draw the rest of the blood another way while I wait.

I call my friend at home to make sure we are OK still. She says she can stay until she needs to go pick up her kids from school (great still another 2 hours!). I wait another 20 minutes or so. They call us back again and say that they can try to get the rest of the blood through a finger poke. They poke her finger and spend 15 minutes squeezing blood out of her finger. They get 2 ml. At this point we are up to 5 ml (6 had they not thrown out the first one), and they need 6...they ask the pathologist if that is enough. He says he has to wait for it to coagulate to see and asks me to wait another 20 minutes to see if it is enough. It was!!!

So, like hours later and who know how much money later, we head home.

The results came back last week-negative to all tested foods. Their next step is to test her by A)a skin test, then B) giving her a peach and watching to see what happens. Wes is a doctor, and he already did test B-what happens is that she swells up and breaks into hives. So, allergy doctor and Wes are both fairly certain that in spite of test result, she is allergic to peaches. We are opting not to subject her to further testing at this point, and are calling it a peach allergy.

Poor baby-a life without peaches-so sad! In case you were unaware, if you are breastfeeding a baby and they have an allergy, you cannot eat that food either. My month without peaches has been torture, and I feel so sad for her!

Skating

About a month ago, I took the boys and Kindle to Skatedaze to try to roller skate. It was crazy, and not too successful. Ender got pissed trying on the actual rink cause it "made him fall." He would only do it on the carpet. Armour tried and was actually fairly good, adn did not give up. Here are a few pics:

Armyfall
"I dood it!"

On the carpet