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.

Here's Tracen!

Tracen is my little angel baby. He has brought so much joy into my life. Here's some pics.

I was HUGE!!! You can't deny it when you see this picture :-)

I love a sleeping baby!

I wanted to remember the difference in size. Also, I love it when a baby grabs your finger.

Tracen had really bad jaundice and had to be in this bed for three days.

We called him our "little glow worm".

He's so sweet and he loves the camera.

I thought this picture was cute because he looks like a fireman in suspenders.

I think he is going to break a lot of hearts when he is older :-)

*I took these pictures off my parent's computer so they aren't the most recent. I'll try to update them soon.

Here's Ryker

I had a hard time picking pictures because there are so many that I love! Here are just a few that I really love of Ryker.

(He looks so cute in this!)

(I just love this picture!)

(Since Ryker has regressed back into wearing pull-ups, his underwear has different uses)

(Ryker as Elmo for Halloween)

(Ryker with his teddy bear "boo-boo")

(Ryker playing in the leaves. His favorite part was dumping a hand-full on Tracen.)

Changes!

Okay, well I am overweight! This is not going to be a "feel sorry for me" post. I just feel like if I write it down then maybe I can get some helpful tips on how to make changes and stick with them.

First off, I have a petite frame which is aching with all my extra weight. I'm not nursing anymore so I don't have the excuse of needing 500 more calories a day. Also, I know weight is not the main thing that needs to change because different people are healthy at different weights and it can differ at different times in your life. There is a lady in my ward who weighs a little more than me and she just finished running half a marathon and is planning to run two more in the summer.

I have a number in my head of where I want my weight to be and the reason I think of this number is because it is how much I weighed when I felt good. I could run two miles and then do eight stadium stairs without stopping and almost without thinking about it. It felt so good! Well, I haven't weighed that much since high school and here's how much I have on top of that number...

Take my starting number "0"
Add 20 pounds gained in college
Add 10 pounds before I got married
Add 10 pounds before I got pregnant
Add 50 pounds during pregnancy
Minus 40 after pregnancy
Add 15 before next pregnancy
Add 30 during pregnancy
Minus 20 after pregnancy...
And there you have my weight :-)

So, if you've figured it out, I need to lose 75 pounds. I'm honestly not going to focus on the numbers, I just need help in changing my life style. I eat crap, I never exercise (more than the normal mommy run around), and I LOVE chocolate.

We don't have money for a gym membership but I am checking into the YMCA. They are suppose to have a cheap rate for the poor and they watch your kids for 1 1/2 hours for free while you work out!

My husband hates almost all healthy food so we buy a lot of junk food. Being home all day and looking at it...well, it doesn't last long.

I'm just overwhelmed and don't know where to begin! Any advice?!?