A "Monster" Problem

When we moved back to Idaho Falls, Ryker started to complain about monsters and being scared. I read different opinions on how to react to the "monster problem". The best one for us was to tell the child that Mom or Dad don't let monsters in their house and if he sees one then he needs to "kick it out". It took only a few days for him to take control of "kicking the monsters out of the house" and it became a fun little game for us.
Well, about a week or so ago Ryker has started up again with being scared and saying there are monsters. Although now the monsters are outside and not inside, but it still has the same affect on him. He is usually really good throughout the day but when we start getting ready for bed he doesn't want to go anywhere without me. He can't go in the bathroom or kitchen or anywhere on his own, and he's coming in my bedroom in the middle of the night complaining of being scared.
We have a little bed in our room set up for times we let Tracen cry himself back to sleep but now Ryker is using it every night. I have tried letting him sleep with a bat (toy one of course), a flashlight, or anything else he might use to "fight" off the monsters.
Nothing is working. Today I finally asked him if he would like to move his bed to a different place in the room...maybe closer to the door. And he got really excited and said, "then the monsters won't see me!!" I'm really hoping this works because I am out of ideas and energy.

Sickness to the extreme!!!

Last week we went to a family reunion, which was really fun and I will try to post pictures soon. On Wednesday Ryker started to have diarrhea but I thought it was caused from all the candy and junk food he had been eating. It continued through the reunion and got worse once we got home on Friday.
I woke up at 11:30 p.m. to Ryker and Tracen crying. Ryker had thrown up all over his bed, which had woken up Tracen. I spent the rest of the night going back and forth between the boys getting them to sleep and catching Ryker's throw up in a bowl (Sorry to those with weak stomachs reading this).
Ryker couldn't hold anything down all day and Tracen started having diarrhea! Our house was a disaster (actually it still kind of is) and I'll just let you image how many candles I had burning to try to get rid of the smell.
Luckily, Ryker started holding food down on Sunday but he still hasn't gotten his energy back. Tracen's diapers are the worst! I changed 8 or 9 diapers (poopy) in a two hour period on Sunday night. It's like he is just leaking continually! I am happy that he didn't throw up though. I almost started crying last night when his diaper started to leak everywhere as I tried to change him and of course it missed the changing pad I had laid down and got on the carpet.
No change in his disgusting diapers today but I'm still hopeful. (I decided not to add any pictures to this post. Your welcome :-) )

Too Long

When I've gone a long time without posting anything I feel overwhelmed that I have to write everything that has happened in the last few months... Well, I'm taking a deep breath and I've decided not to do that :-) I'm starting fresh with things now and not stressing out about everything that happened months ago...like taking Tracen to get xrays cause I thought he swallowed a quarter (he didn't) or being so mad at Ryan I just started walking (I got about two miles before he picked me up) or seeing the penis of a boy that mows the grounds at the apartment complex (I felt totally violated but he didn't know I was there and I guess he had to pee REALLY bad)...
Anyways, I'll try to be better!

Fascination with the Drain

Ryker has put many things down the bathroom drain; rocks, toothbrushes, seashells, coins, screwdriver, ... Today we ran into a problem with this fascination though.

I was changing Tracen's diaper and Ryker was in the bathroom. Now, I should have learned my lesson to check on him regularly after the one time he wrote all over the wall with permanent marker, but I was busy with Tracen and trusted Ryker to just go potty. Wrong!

Ryker came out a little while later and said, "Daddy's lid's stuck in the sink."

I wasn't fully aware of the problem I had on my hands until I went in the bathroom and looked into the sink. This picture is what I saw.




This cologne lid fits perfectly into our sink drain. Try as I might (with a flat-head screwdriver and a knife), I could not move the lid in the slightest.

Luckily, we have a super nice manager for our apartments. I mean, this guy is so nice, he didn't even make fun of me when I managed to lock myself out of the apartment TWICE in one day. Maybe he was just happy that I wasn't calling for him to unlock the door, but he came over to save the day.

Unlucky for him, the job was a little harder than usual. In the process of removing the pipes, he broke one. Here's the picture.

So, he ran to the store and got a new pipe. He was able to remove the lid...here's a picture of the stupid lid!

And the new pipe.

And the little turd who gave me a reason to update this blog :-) Surprisingly, I still love him and he will always brighten up my days.

(He has a huge bruise on his head from falling down in Old Navy and Mac and Cheese all over his mouth from lunch but I thought it was a cute pic.) :-)

Fire in the Kitchen

I am one of those women who can make anything in the kitchen...as long as I have a detailed recipe. I'm not really sure how people do it without recipes. Well, I decided to go crazy a couple of nights ago and make something new.

Now this is going to blow your mind; I cooked chicken, poured salsa on it, made rice, cut up lettuce and cheese; then put it all in a burrito....ta da :-)

The problem came when I was doing the rice. I wish I could say my rice turns out perfect everytime but it really doesn't. This time though, I ran into a problem that has never happened to me before.

I put the rice on, ran to the bathroom to wipe my son's poopy bum (sorry, TMI?), washed my hands, went back into the kitchen where the rice was overflowing and the whole pot was surrounded by FIRE!!!

Okay, actually it was only on one side of the pot but it was about three inches taller than the pot and flaming hot (of course Rachelle, it's fire! Duh!)

I froze for about two seconds, then I ran over, grabbed the pot, and placed it away from the flaming burner of death! To my surprise, the fire kept on going! I was sure by removing the source of the fire (my stupid overflowing rice), the fire would just stop.

So, I again froze for two seconds, grabbed a measuring cup from the counter, put water in it, and dumped it on the fire...finally, the flames were gone. I had to open the back door to let the smoke out and pray that Ryan would not know what happened when he got home in ten minutes. (I ended up telling him anyway because for some reason I feel the need to tell people about my stupid moments. Also, I figured even if he didn't smell the smoke, he would eventually notice the blackened pot.)

All this time, my baby, Tracen, was sitting in his high chair just watching. I think he liked the excitement.

Days Off

So Ryan has the next few days off of work. He was originally going to go to the Mountain West Conference (it's a basketball tournament for those who don't have sports fanatics as husbands), but we decided to save money and he stayed home.
I love having the extra help but sometimes by the end of his days off, I understand why spouses need to be separated from each other during the day. I love him but we need the time he is at work and I'm at home to remind ourselves of our love. Does anyone else feel this way?
Also, having him around watching what I do all day...I kind of get nervous. Like he's going to see that I let the kids run around a little more wild than he does, or I don't enforce the rules all the time, or I don't always feed the kids the healthiest thing but more the quickest thing I came grab and warm up...
But in the end, I know he loves me and I love him but he really needs to get back to work :-)

Movie Night

For Valentine's Day, Ryan and I went out to dinner and a movie. Thanks to my wonderful parents for watching Ryker and Tracen, bathing them, and getting them to bed!

I haven't eaten at T.G.I. Friday's for a really long time. I guess when I thought of going out to eat, it wasn't on my top five list. Well, it will be now! We went there at 6:30 and had no wait time (this is on the Saturday night before Valentine's Day). I ordered the Bruschetta Chicken Pasta. It had such a good flavor that I'm actually craving it right now just thinking about it. The only thing I would complain about (but probably wouldn't even change because I loved it) was that it had slivers of garlic in it. I love garlic but every few bites I think I would get too many garlic slivers and it would be a little overpowering. Also, it is a little more than I usually spend on a meal...it was around $12.50 (I know, I'm cheap :p) but I will definitely order it again! Oh, and Ryan ordered the Southwest Burger and enjoyed it also.

After dinner (and a well needed breath mint) we headed to the theaters. We saw "Just Go With It" which is the new Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston movie. We were thirty minutes early so we got really good, front row seats. I introduced Ryan to my "brick breaker revolution" game on my phone, so he stayed busy right up until the previews started. The movie was great. I don't usually like to tell people to much about movies before they see them because they get an idea in their head of how good it's going to be and there always seems to be a let down. So I'm just saying that this movie must have been mine and Ryan's type of movie because we found it HILARIOUS! Ryan was laughing so hard he was actually wiping tears from his eyes. I would have laughed harder but the last hour of the movie I had to go to the bathroom but I didn't want to miss anything so I just suffered :-) And for me to put watching a movie over going to the bathroom...that is saying A LOT!
It was a great night and I hope to do it again soon.