Jacki just woke up and is saying "mom".

Yesterday the first thing that she asked is where Beauty and the beast is in the scriptures. She found the drawing with Abraham and said, "there it is."

She just told me that she wanted to say goodbye to dad. We got advent calendars, and she is looking at me with her eyes smiling and asking how about if we eat a chocolate treat today. Last night I melted some chocolate that we had on pretzels and almonds. She was so mad at me for melting the chips. She wanted to eat them as chocolate chips. She got over it when she tasted how yummy they were....chocolate almonds are soooooo good.

Wes is getting Mischievous (I had to spell check it in word to spell that word. However, it isn't giving me the red "you are spelling this wrong" underline that I'm getting in this program) and kept climbing on Grandma's glass table that he knew he wasn't supposed to do.

Tyson has been spending a lot of time on our light problem. He didn't buy enough for the outside of the house, so half of the garage didn't have it. The lights got bought up by a landscaping company. In fact, it's pretty hard to find Christmas decorations. He said Lowes is already down to one small isle.....I guess since fm 100 started playing Christmas music the beginning of November, everything is a month behind, so it's like Christmas is over before the season has even started. He has checked on line, gone to the Riverdale, Logan, and Ogden Lowes, and he even went to wally world (in desperation.) Well, I was at wally world yesterday and saw the led lights that he needed. They are a different brand that the others ones we have, and there is orange instead of purples, but hey not bad.. I'm really glad we can stop the search for more led lights. We are trying to slow down the season and enjoy it. We took around advent calendars to neighbors yesterday and had fun looking at the lights. The Kuhns had music that went with the lights, which was awesome.

Brushing your teeth toddler style

We've been trying to brush our teeth daily, and the kids are learning to brush too. The other night, I was helping the kids brush their teeth. Jacki has a light up toothbrush that blinks as she brushes, so she knows how long to brush. We're still working on brushing every tooth. I brushed Wesley's teeth, which didn't take long since there are only 9.  Jacki's brush stopped blinking, so she was done too. I gave Wes his toothbrush (to practice) and pretend like he was brushing, and I went to my bathroom and brushed my teeth. I was gone for two to three minutes. When I came back, Jacki was gone. Wes had her toothbrush and his toothbrush and was dipping them into the toilet.

Thanks to our wonderful dental hygienist who told me that you can sanitize toothbrushes by washing them in the dishwasher. It's been a couple of days since this incident, and Wes hasn't died, so he must not have taken in too much toilet water.

Alphabet Soup

I was making chili in the crock pot, and Jacki told me that she was making soup. She took all of the alphabet magnets off the fridge and put them in the small crock pot (the kind that is used for dips). She told me it was ready, and I said okay and went down to fold clothes while I watched Oprah. Then, she told me that she touched the hot soup, and I still didn't catch on. I thought she must have touched my crock pot, but Ty came home and said that the little crock pot was on and hot with all of the alphabet magnets in it. I will never think of Alphabet soup the same way. It turned out to be funny (since the house didn't burn down.)

Talking to the yogurt

Thursday was story time. Jacki got a bunch of books and a couple of movies. She went to get them out of the car. She told me not to let Wes eat her yogurt over and over. I told her I heard her the first several times. Then she said, “I wasn’t talking to you mom- I was talking to my yogurt.”

Truck with Fluffy stuff

Yesterday we had insulation put in our attic. It's free for us with the current rebates available. I told Jacki that there was a big truck coming that would pump fluffy stuff called insulation into the ceiling that would help keep the house warm. She was so excited and would not leave the front window, but they were late, so after an hour, I made her go down for a nap. They ended up coming 3 hours late, which worked out fine.  Jacki and Wes had just woken up from their naps. I told Jacki that she hadn't missed the truck. It was still coming. She asked, "Did they have a nap too." She liked watching the insulation pump through. I asked her if she remembered the big word I taught her, and she said, fluffilation. Ty and I think it should be renamed that.

Conference Sour Cream saga

For the family get together in between conference, we were assigned to bring funeral potatoes. The recipe is simple. It needs 4 ingredients: potatoes, sour cream, cream of chicken soup, and cheese. Ty started making the recipe and told me we had no sour cream. I told him that it was on the grocery list, and he said it wasn't. (I was right, but that's not the point here.) When he looked at the list, he said, "Oh there were two sides to the list." He said he would have to go to the store. I knew that it wasn't a big deal. All I could think of is how good it was of him to do the grocery shopping, cooking, and cleaning so I could rest. Since being pregnant, I feel like I'm going to faint when I stand up, feel exhausted when I wake up, and have a bad taste in my mouth- not bad for pregnancy, but I feel pretty lazy compared to my normal routine. Back to the sour cream, I was determined to find a solution. I remembered that we didn't have sour cream in Spain and used plain yogurt. I remembered that we had a cup of plain yogurt and was sure it would still be there. Who would eat plain yogurt? I looked in the fridge. It was gone. Ty said, "I ate it. I like plain yogurt." Well, I was running out of ideas. I found another recipe for sour cream substitute, but Ty said he had one in his mom's ward cookbook that we love.  Moral of the story.....don't let a little sour cream or other unimportant detail in life ruin or make your day sour. Laugh about the hiccups that happen to our smooth lives.) I laughed hard about all of this.

The prophet told the story of a little girl that cleaned her toy closet for service to him for his birthday. Ty told Jacki, "that's a big hint for you." She replied, "What did you say," He said, "you're cute." She replied, "I'm very cute."

Blogging for Beginners

Well, my family caught a couple of bugs this week.  One of these was an intestinal infection that Wes started getting last Friday, and I gave him the cure all for babies (Tylenol for infants.) Jacki got it a few days later, and I got a 1 am wake up call, "Mom, I need a bath. I'm sick."
 
The other bug that I've caught is the blogging bug, but I'm really glad that there are templates since I have no idea how to get started. There's got to be a blogging for dummies book out there, but so far, I'm learning blogging the "hard way". You can tell that blue is my favorite color.  I talked to my younger sister today, and she said she loves reading about Jackisms in my emails. My mom said that I was always writing something for the fridge. Then, I tried my hand at poetry, but my rhyming poem about guinea pigs didn't make the top seller lists, but I love reading about my family and friends lives. If you have any cravings for the Cravens, ya know where to come. I'm staying up way past my bedtime, but I've got High school musical 3 playing in the background, and it just hit a loud part where Troy is trying to figure out what he's going to do after high school, and I had a late night snack.

This week I've had a taste of being a single parent. Ty's been at the Newfork scout camp. I talked to him on the way there, but once they got there, he had no cell phone service. Yep, there are still are places away from technology. The highlight of my week was Monday morning. Ty hiked 2 miles in the rain in order to get one bar to be able to call me. That "hey cutie" meant so much to me that I'm tearing up thinking about it.

 I can't end my first post without sharing Craven kiddisms. Speaking of technolgoy, Wesley (Wessie, Wesler, Wild Wes) is fascinated by it. He loves the light switch. He can reach it from the changing table. I turn the light on, and he turns it off, but this goes on for as long as I will do it. He could spend all day switching the light on and off. He laughs and laughs about it, and his eyes light up. The other thing he loves is running water. I rinsed his hands off after he stuck them in baby food and before he wiped them on me.  He loved playing in the water. Speaking of water, he loves it. The other night he was sick and threw up all over his bed and sat in the bath as happy as could be. Then, he thought life couldn't get any better when he got to have his second bath of the day.

 Jacki on the other hand loves water as long as she doesn't get any in her eyes. In the bathtub, whenever she gets water in her eyes, she has to have a towel to wipe them dry. I thought that swimming would help her get over that, but it hasn't. If someone splashes her, she says, "he splashed me. I need my towel." I tell her that she is going to get wet, but she actually gets out of the pool to wipe her eyes. Other than that, she's a fish and swims all over with her pirate life jacket. Her Uncle Jordie picked that up for her.  I asked him to find a good one last year when he was working at Wally World, and the only one that they had with the straps between the legs was this pirate one (and it's not Disney cute pirate), but she loves it, and she always has to wear it. I don't think she'll give it up. But, maybe if I found Dora or Sponge-bob she would. I got her Dora toothpaste the other day, and she said, "Thank you mommy for buying me new toothpaste." She is a big fan of Disney movies. She has watched Mulan over and over this past two weeks. Jacki makes up some of the word, but I know who she gets that from. (I have a hard time hearing words in music.) My favorite song that she sings comes from Pocahontas. She came up singing, "sandwiches, sandwiches." Obviously the theme of that movie is a little old for her. She's been my roommate this week. Unfortunately, she also gets her sleeping habits from me. I woke up to her feet in my face this morning. Sorry to my sister Rachie who had to share the bed with me growing up.