Arizona Spring

A Barrel Cactus next to a blooming Hedgehog Cactus in the Usery Mountains of Mesa, AZ

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My friend Jenny posted pictures of a hike they took recently in Southern California that was beautiful and green that really made me miss spring in Orange County. Saturday we were watching the General Conference for our church on TV and seeing the tulips and the daffodils on the grounds made me sad for spring in Utah. But, recently our family went on a hike in the foothills of the Usery Mountains northeast of Mesa, and I discovered even in this barren, wasteland there is beauty (if only for one month out of the whole year -- sunrises not withstanding). Here's a few pictures I took along the way:

An Ocotillo blooms in front of a Saguaro Cactus

Close-up of flowers on a Hedgehog Cactus

The fuzzy plants are called Cholla, that long branched prickly thing is an Ocotillo.

Ren and the kids have hiked here on several occasions and they always came back happy and with reports of how much fun they had, especially Eli who ran with Curty the whole way. The hike started out well, as these pictures testify.


Here's Cody and Eli at the beginning of the hike (when it was still fun).

Curtis and Eli in front of the "Elephant Saguaro" (can you tell which one they named that?)

Waaay at the top of that hill is Ren and a few kids (along with some strangers...there were TONS of people out hiking).

Zach and Hannah with Eli on Hannah's back. Still smiling...

...but things quickly deteriorated. And, unfortunately for me, this hike was destined to be a test of my stamina while hiking with a three year-old in my arms, as well as of my patience in dealing with the whining of aforementioned three year-old as I attempted to get him to walk. I think he just woke up too early because he had a rough time of it. He did start out running, but as the ground got rockier he tripped and skinned his knees. Then Hannah and Zach took turns with him, convinced him to get down and walk again only to see him sprawled in the dirt again a few minutes later. He managed to trip yet a third time after another few minutes, and I think that's why he gave up and begged to be carried (by Me). Half-way up to the "Wind Cave" I'd had it with dealing with him so I turned back along with Zach (with Gid on his back in a pack) and Cody. Ren, Hannah, Jonah and Curtis pressed on to the top while we moped back down the slope. I did enjoy the desert in bloom and tried to capture it with my camera. Eli wasn't keen on the idea of being put down while I went off the path for a photo op, so he kept following me in full, screaming tantrum mode and ended up with prickly detritus encrusting his socks and scratching his legs. We eventually made it down and took the "littles" over to a nearby playground until the others got down. So much for our "family" hike, we'll try again next year when the one month window-of-opportunity returns.

When the Oral and Anal Phases Collide

Sure he's cute, but...

I'd like to share with you a conversation my dh Ren had with Eli (age 3) two days ago (as told to me by Ren): warning, it is a little gross, but humorous nonetheless.

Ren looked over at Eli, who had stripped naked AGAIN (a subject for another post), and saw that he was pulling a raisin out of his bum!

"Did you just pull that raisin out of your bum?!!!...We don't put raisins in our bums!....Wha..?! Stop! Don't put that in your mouth!!!! We don't put things in our bums and then eat them!"

"But I want the raisin!"

"You can have a raisin, but not one that you put in your bum!"

Two seconds later, he sees him with a crust of bread...you guessed it...pulling it out of his bum. (Please don't ask why the child was still naked, we are going to pretend that fact is irrelevent.

"Eli! I told you, we don't put things in our bums and then eat them!"

"But I want the raisin!" (back on that topic)

"Eli, you can have a raisin, just not the BUM RAISIN!"

Maybe my next post will be a list of great new names for things that come out of our bums, like bum raisin. Or NOT!

Sunrise Over our Lake

I just thought I'd share the photo I framed and auctioned off for our fundraiser (see "A Lazy Weekend"). I took this picture of the sunrise over the lake near our house a couple of days after my mom went into the hospital. The few weeks she was here before she got sick, she mentioned several times that wanted to see one of our famous, spectacular sunsets, but we never got to see one. Well, I woke up with one of the "littles" on this Sunday morning and noticed that the clouds outside were really cool and would probably make an amazing sunrise, so I headed out with my camera. I took about 50 pictures and I just couldn't believe it could be so spectacular. When my mom woke up from her coma, I printed out the picture and brought it up to the hospital to put on my mom's wall where she could easily see it. Looking at it reminds me that God blesses us with phenomenal beauty which will take our minds off the troubles of the day, if we open our eyes to appreciate the gifts he gives.

A Lazy Weekend

I guess I'm going through a "sarcastic titles" phase of blogging right now. "A Lazy Weekend" follows on the heels of "Just Another Boring Day" and is inspired by the email I just got from Ren who is on a camp-out with our twin 11 year-olds. They left at 4:30 p.m. yesterday, just as I was leaving to go help set-up the church gym for a fundraiser dinner and auction put on by the Young Men and Young Women of our ward. Then I ran home to check my chili, cut-up my cornbread, frame my sunrise photograph for the auction, dress the 3 year-old who had just peed on the porch and stripped off his Buzz Lightyear undies, and gather the 5 children not on the camp-out so we could drive back to the church for the dinner. Lucky for me, Gid is in his climbing-on-the-table stage of life, so when we got to the church he had a great time climbing on the table, stirring the water cups with crayons, crumbling corn bread between his fingers and knocking people's bowls of chili on the floor. It was chaos and prompted me to calculate the number of years until we can go to a church dinner, calmly sit down and chat with other adults without fear of where the "littles" are or what they are doing.

So, here's the email I just got from Ren which adds his side of the story (so far).

"Pretty rough night. Not cold, but hard to get comfortable with those pads. Jonah forgot a pillow so I let him use mine for the last few hours of the morning. Back is killing me - painful even just to stand. Argggghhh.

Jonah and Cody got their arachnid and snake fill. There's a little fair thing here at the preserve that we wandered through and a couple of the tents had snakes and spiders and scorpions. Jonah got to touch a big old Desert hairy scorpion and Cody held a couple of snakes. Also saw some tortoises. It was pretty cool, now we're doing knot tying.

Me"

I responded with my own pathetic story...

"I'm so sorry about your back, sweetie -- I'll give you a back rub tonight (after we get back from the general YW broadcast). I had a stupid night too... Eli kept leaving his bed when I first put him down and waking up Gid (who would scream until he fell asleep again), so I put him to sleep on my floor. Then Curty didn't want to sleep alone so he joined Eli, then Hannah didn't want to be left out so she slept on the leopard couch in our room. We invited Zach, but he declined joining the sleepover. Sometime in the wee hours, Eli climbed in bed with me and kept trying to cuddle (smother) me until I'd shove him over. Then he woke up crying for milk, which I got, he took one swig and then fell asleep with it in the crook of his arm. When I tried to take it out and put it on the night stand he woke up and freaked, so there's a dried up milk puddle on your side of the bed. Gid was up bright and early, but happy at least. We cleaned up all morning so that 7 giggly, loud teenage girls could invade the house for Hannah's birthday party. They're playing Balderdash right now and I'm escaping. Someday, our life will be boring (and we'll be glad!)

I guess I'll see you at 3:00 p.m. this afternoon for church cleaning.

Love you,
Me"

All I can say is that I can't wait for Sunday so we'll have a "Day of Rest" (ha, ha, ha, ha, ha -- sorry, being sarcastic again.)

A "Little" Haircut

It was bound to happen, but you'll have to cut me a little slack for not expecting it, since Curtis was a perfect child and never used scissors for harm. Last night though, all my memories of why you NEVER leave toddlers alone playing together for too long came flooding back.

So, last night Gid and Eli were happily playing somewhere in the house. This doesn't happen often (though I'm starting to see light at the end of the baby-hood tunnel) so I was lulled into a happy but ignorant state of enjoying the quiet until Eli walked into the room and Hannah cried, "Mom! Eli is pulling his hair out!" What?! I looked over and Eli was pulling hair out of his head and he had many hairs in his bangs that were an inch longer than the rest. I still didn't suspect scissors were involved (I guess my short-term memory loss has extended to some other parts of my long-term memory), but when I walked over for a closer look it was obvious... Eli had given himself a haircut. The funny thing is, I couldn't really tell where at first. I started pulling my fingers through his hair and more and more hair came out; but his hair is long overdue for a haircut and currently resembles a shiny-blonde bowl that falls past his eyebrows. The missing hair came from smack-dab on top of his head where he'd sheared his hair to the scalp in a 1 inch square, but it's not readily noticeable from the front. Then I looked over at Gid and noticed he had hairs hanging in his face too. Uh-oh. He also had a nice short patch right at the top that was actually layered rather nicely down into his bangs. Gid is still sporting baby curls and long hair on top, but he now has layered bangs too.

It could have been much worse, I know, including the fact that Eli could have poked an eye out when he was giving Gid his haircut. We had to laugh though that no one even noticed this process because Eli apparently got the scissors from the guest room and then walked through the house leaving blobs of hair in a path through the family room and out to the back patio. What good is it to have 7 people older than the "Littles" when none of us even notice that there's a "Little" hair cutting going on? We're gonna have to work on our powers of observation before they really become two crazy toddlers looking for a dangerous weapon to play with!

(This post begs a picture, but I just can't capture the look, it's so subtle. Sorry.)

Just another boring day...

I just have to laugh sometimes at the comedy of errors life becomes when you have kids. Nothing uber-exciting happened today, but the combined events make me laugh and then sigh, so I thought I'd share them with you.

I've been fighting a cold the last few days, so when I woke up the pounding headache didn't surprise me, but my lost voice did. I rolled out of bed to shower at 7:00 a.m. because I knew I had to be at the kids' school by 9:30 a.m. for Jonah and Cody's Colonial America Musical. Ren's been off work for a few weeks, so normally, he'd be helping with life, but today he had several doctor's appointments, so he was running around getting ready too. Getting the kids ready was comedic because I had no voice to direct everyone with and then they all started whispering back to me. Hannah said, "I'm not trying to mock you, Mom, it's just that your whispering makes everything you say seem so conspiratorial, I have to whisper back." = )

I actually managed to get everyone out the door, get myself dressed and get the boys dressed in time to take them with me for the musical. Just when I walked out the door, though, I smelled poo. It was too late for diaper changing, so I brought a diaper with me hoping there were wipes in the car. I was skeptical about how much of the musical I'd get to see before Eli and Gid decided they didn't want to sit in the double stroller (a.k.a. the Limousine) anymore. So I resorted to one of my age old crazy-parenting-techniques-to-keep-you-sane, feeding them stuff. I had meant to bring leftover Christmas candy canes, but I forgot in the wake of the poopy boy revelation, so all I had was a full box of tic-tacs and a pack of gum. Eli was entertained with the gum (I just realized I don't know where it finally ended up) and Gid happily ate every tic-tac in the box over the space of half an hour. About half-way through the box, I realized Gid has no molars, so he couldn't possibly be chewing the tic-tacs; which led me to envision minty tic-tac poo poo in my future. When he finished the box of tic-tacs, I gave him the box to play with and he promptly stuck his finger in the hole and got it stuck. I unstuck it, and...he did it again. Good thing the musical was over by now, and I had actually managed to get some pictures of Jonah and Cody and hear their parts (miraculous, if you ask me.)

I decided to head over to a nearby park and let the boys play while I looked over my YW lesson for Sunday (which I might be teaching in whispers). I got another whiff of Gid's stinky poo, looked for wipes and found none, but then was reassured by the fact that for weeks he's been pooping little hard balls (bunny poop) that don't leave much mess. He ran over to the playground as soon as I got him out of the car, so I left the diaper on for longer while they played and I read my lesson. Finally, I figured I'd better change the poop... until I discovered that he picked today to fill his diaper with squishy mush that was everywhere! Time to go home!

When we got home, we walked through the garage where Gid happily picked up the boys' fishing tackle box and carried it inside. "Cute," I thought until twenty minutes later, I was eating lunch with my mom, marveling at how happy the boys were. I glanced over at Gid and realized he was surrounded by fake salmon eggs. When I got closer I found fishhooks on the floor and an empty jar of glow-in-the-dark night crawlers rolling across the tile. Thanks to Eli, the tackle box was open and the contents were strewn from the back patio through the family room. I think we got all the fishhooks out of the carpet, but I guess we'll know for sure in a few days.

Hanging out with my Mom has been funny today too as I can't talk and she can't hear. I feel like the girl in a bubble, yelling in a whisper and no one is noticing! At least nap time finally came and I got to put Gid down and anesthetize Eli with Little Einsteins. Then, I headed over to Doris' house (a friend of a friend) who has a wheelchair I'm borrowing for my mom. Doris was this cute , not-young-anymore lady who was a piano teacher (like me), who had spinal meningitis a while back (like my mom), who was seeing a homeopathic physician (like my family growing up), who wanted to talk and talk and take me on as her new piano student so she could teach me jazz chords to arrange hymns and read a fake book. Whew! I may take her up on it too.

Got home from Doris' and the kids got home (half-day today) and Eli went down for a nap and Gid woke up and now I need a nap. That's all I have energy for, my day has made me tired twice now (kind of like the movie "Groundhog Day"). So, I will say goodbye as I go in search of Ibuprofen, Sudafed, and a throat lozenge.

One Week Later...

I was just thinking this morning that perhaps you all might want to know how my mom is doing. Some of you were even reading my mind, because I've been getting emails asking about her today. So, here's the scoop...

Mom came home from the hospital a week ago Friday. She'd been in there for 2 weeks and they were going to transfer her to a skilled nursing facility to gain back her strength. After trying to find a bed for her for two days, they found one, but the insurance reviewed the days notes on her and decided that she was doing too well, and they would no longer pay for a nursing facility or for home care. So at 5:00 p.m. last Friday all of the sudden I needed to go out and buy a walker and prepare my house for her to come and be nursed back to health. We decided it was a blessing and divinely orchestrated that she came home to my house instead of being sent to a nursing facility. Here she has been up and moving every day -- whereas in the nursing facility, she might have been laying in an uncomfortable bed in a hospital-y room for much of the day. I have been feeding her like crazy (lots of healthy foods, extra protein shakes, and ingeniously created things that don't have wheat -- which she's allergic to -- but taste yummy!) But at the hospital, and probably in a nursing facility, they just couldn't get the food right for her. We're hoping to help her gain back some of the 15 pounds that she lost in the hospital on her "adult baby food". She started out using a walker (a bright red one that we named the rockin' walker) but in the last few days, she hasn't been using it much. She'll forget to take it to the family room, or she'll take it in there when she goes, but then she decides she needs something from the bedroom and makes several trips back and forth without it. She's gaining strength back by leaps and bounds, but she was so weak to begin with, it still means resting a lot and taking it much easier than she would like. I think it's a great indicator to see her dressed in her cute jeans and a blouse, with a little bit of makeup on when she comes out from resting in her room.

She is still battling ears that are aching and plugged and have been, I think, since a week before she went in the hospital. She said they're a little better today than yesterday. I think the hardest thing she's dealing with is that she's still experiencing double vision unless she looks down. So she can read, but she can't watch TV or venture out much. Her eyes are burning and it makes her head ache to try to look up -- symptoms she's experienced before, after she was hit by an SUV while walking across a street 2 years ago. I think if anyone has any prayers left, we should pray that her eyes will heal and return to normal, so she can paint and drive and do other things that bring her enjoyment.

So, we're well on the road to recovery and so grateful that she is here with us. Thank heavens for miracles and happy endings.