Flash Back Friday

My sister put up a post on her blog of a funny video that got me in the mood for Les Miserables also known as Les Miz.

A little some thing about me and my family you may not have known...

We LOVE Les Miz! My Mom is some what obsessed, but not in a freaky way, I swear. But who can blame her it has awesome music in it!

It has been a while since I've listened to the Music of Les Miz and so I of course "Youtubed" it. I was listening to the music having fun flashbacks to my childhood/teenage years of my family singing Les Miz (we are not great singers by the way) as my hubby walks in and asks "What are you listening to?" my response "WHAT! You don't know Les Miz?!" How can my hubby not know I love Les Miz? Has it been that long since I've listened to it? How is that my hubby of almost six years knows little about the fact that the Weathers Family loves Les Miz?!

Continuing with my childhood flashback.....
I have never seen the production of Les Miz but I will before I die, I swear to you I will and I will probably be going with my mom since my hubby doesn't really care much about musicals :) But since I was a young girl we have had the music of Les Miz shouted through out the walls of our home, literally shouted. My Mom would walk around the house singing....

"RED! The blood of angry men. Black! The dark of ages past...."

and

"Do you hear the people sing singing the songs of angry men, it is the music of the people who will not be slaves again...."

and

"I dreamed a dream in time gone by..when hope was high and life worth living...."

And many more! My Mom loved and still loves the music of Les Miz.

I remember several Saturdays as we were all whining about the chores we had to do Mom would put on Les Miz and blast it on our stereo and we'd all go about the house singing it while working. We did not go on any road trip with out Mom's full set of Les Miz cassette tapes, yes I said cassette tapes, although she now has the full CD set and next she will have them on her MP3 player when she finally catches up to the rest of the world. (she has always been a little behind on technology) As we drove across the country we would sing as a family the music of Les Miz. Some times we'd all sigh and say "Not Les Miz again Mom!" But I think deep down we all really liked it.

Well my Mom's brain washing worked on most of the family, as we all love Les Miz. Some of us siblings more than others but we all have fond memories connected with Les Miz and my Mom.

So as I sit here listening to Les Miz, longing for the day I will be able to see a live production, I fondly think of my childhood of shouting Les Miz with my family not caring how bad we sounded just that we loved it, we loved each other and most of all we loved our Mother.

I love Les Miz for more than just the music but for the memories it brings back to me.

No clever title here....

I haven't really been in the mood to blog. I'm sure we've done stuff lately, probably nothing terribly exciting because I am now a single Mom and so that makes life more crazy but left with nothing to blog about, or maybe there is too much to blog about and I just don't know where to stat. (Sigh) I can't wait to have my hubby back!

I will update you on C and his boards. He took them Monday and what a relief! He's done for now. I asked him how they went and this is what he said "I would be really mad and surprised if I did not pass so I'm remaining optimistic, for now." I guess that is a good response?! I know he did fine! All he has to do is pass, keep your fingers crossed. He worked hard, I know he did great and will be blessed for his hard work but we have to wait four weeks before we find out his results. I hate waiting.

When Daddy got home Monday afternoon from taking boards we decided to take some family time and go to a park. We love this park, too bad it is no where near our house or we would go there often. It has a really fun play ground and on top of that it has a wooded area with walking/bike trails that are actually really fun. They have easy bike trails (ones I can do) and they have harder more challenging ones for Daddy who loves a good challenge when it comes to mountain biking.

So we packed up our bikes and bike-trailer and headed out there to enjoy a family bike ride. Then me and the kids played on the park while Daddy got his "biking fix" all by himself. He deserves a little "C time" after studying so hard. It was fun to spend time with Daddy, the kids loved it! They sure do miss him when he is not around as much. I guess we've been pretty lucky so far during his schooling here that he was able to be home lots. So these last few weeks are new to all of us, not having Daddy around as much and it's been tough but we are surviving.

This is the new thing to have at play grounds, these web climbing things. J calls them "Spider man webs" The kids love them! They spent the majority of their time playing on this one.

E is really good at climbing up them and heads straight for the top and sits there and enjoys the view.
J boy on the other hand has a hard time with them, he's just not tall enough for some parts. But with a little help from Daddy....
He got better and braver and got higher up. He was loving it!

After the park we were all hungry and decided to go to Red Robbin to finish our celebration of Daddy taking boards. The best part of the day was when I told the server E had just celebrated a birthday last week (I was hoping for a free meal but didn't have a coupon for it) so instead, she came out with a free sundae for her. I had no idea they were going to sing (otherwise I would have said nothing, I hate it when they sing at restaurants to people with birthdays) I would have been more embarrassed but I was too busy laughing at E's reaction and the face she was making while they were clapping and singing a birthday song she did not know. Her reaction was so hilarious. She looked totally ticked off! But she sure did enjoy her free sundae. Oh I wish I would have taken a picture of her face she was making, classic!

It was a good day!

We love you Daddy!

So our beloved Daddy takes his boards today! We pray his hard work pays off. We have missed him these last few weeks as he has been working so hard to prepare for today and has had little time for Family stuff. I'm glad he will be done and over with these but this week is not going to be any easier. Such is life of being in Dental School. We can't wait to have Daddy around more, but it might be a while before that happens.

Any way I just wanted to say to C....
I'm so proud of you! You have worked so hard and I know you will be blessed for your hard work and faith. I look up to you and only hope that I can be willing to work hard for this family at home as you are so willing to work hard for our family while at school. (does that make sense?) I know everything you do is for us and our family, and I am grateful to have you in my life.

Birthday party fun!

E wanted a Hello Kitty party this year. At first I thought that would be easy, but then after going around to several stores I found that not many of them have Hello Kitty party stuff. So I made due with printing stuff off the internet and finding anything pink for the party and I think it turned out great!

My Friend made this cake for me....She is awesome, it turned out SO CUTE! I loved it and so did E. Marty you're the greatest! Thank you a million times over.

I am not one to go all out when it comes to my kids' Birthday parties. I don't love throwing parties but I do want to do it for my kids. So I just grin and bare it and they usually turn out ok, nothing fantastic but the kids don't know any different anyway.
Well this party was no different and ya know what, the kids had a great time! Simple is always better I say!

When the guests got there they all got to pick out their own set of Hello Kitty ears to wear through out the party, that alone could have occupied them all day.
Next we played pin the bow on Hello Kitty. I just had C draw Hello Kitty on our chalk wall last night (which he did an awesome job at drawing her, it looked really good) and then I made bows with their names on them out of construction paper. Easy! And they all love it.
I didn't know what other games to play and usually all the kids want is cake, ice cream, and watch the birthday girl open presents. So I decided to print off Hello Kitty coloring pages and have them sit down and color their pictures. I thought about judging them and giving the winner a prize but didn't want to hurt any ones feelings. They all had fun coloring, like I said before simple is always better.After the two activities they were ready for cake and ice cream.....

(E not sure of what to make of Marty's rendition of Happy Birthday)

E being a goofball trying to make her friends laugh, she's such a "class clown" always wants to be the one making people laugh.

Then of course, the birthday girl could not wait to open presents. I love how the kids can't sit still while watching her open them, they all have to be right there up in her face. It was too funny to watch.

(this picture cracks me up. Click on it to make it bigger and look at E's face. Ha ha! It makes me laugh. She could not wait any longer.)

Yay for a birthday party success! I forgot to take a picture of their cute goody bags. I made them myself on they turned out cute. Any way they all had a blast and my sweet E came up after the party and said "thank you mommy!" Just the reaction I was hoping for! Sweet success!

And good night! I'm tired!

The last week or so in a nutshell

What a crazy week it has been!

This week was C's spring break but he has been studying his brains out this whole time so he can take boards early (rather than wait until summer) giving us the opportunity to take a fun Family summer vacation.

It has been so nice outside this whole week and I know how hard it must be for him to sit inside an empty school by himself and study, and study and study some more. I'm so proud of him and I know he will be blessed for his efforts and do great on his boards, which he takes Monday. Please pray for him, and me to make it through this next week! It's going to be rough! He's got boards Monday, a couple of quizzes, some lab stuff due and his big Monthly test on Friday. Poor guy is going to be so burnt out after this crazy week. He works so hard and I'm so proud of him!


The kids fought off croup from the last week only to seem to get worse with something else this week. So off to the Doctor I went yesterday morning. I found out why J has been trowing major tantrums the last few days, apparently he has a massive ear infection in his right ear and has been put on Antibiotics for it. That explains a lot with that kid, not eating as good, not sleeping, whinny-ness, crying over everything the list goes on! Now I know why, poor kid. E has had a nagging cough for almost three weeks now and I knew some thing wasn't right. She wasn't sleeping well at night and just looked so sick. Well she has a respiratory infection and is also on Antibiotics.

One dose of these Meds and the kids slept the whole night through last night, something that hasn't been done in this house for weeks! Thank heavens for wonderful modern medicine!

I have felt some what like a single Mom the last couple weeks as my hubby is studying hard staying later than usual at school studying and the kids have seemed to notice it too. J wouldn't let Daddy leave the house the other morning. He kept hanging on his legs, calling his name, and saying "watch this Daddy" usually doing nothing but hoping to get him to stay home. We miss our Daddy around here that is for sure but we're glad he's getting this big test over with. It's just taking a toll on the kids, which in-turn takes a toll on me but I'm hanging in there.

Today we tilled our Relief Society garden. Oh yeah, did I tell you about that? I am in charge of planning and organizing a Relief Society garden for our Ward. It's been really fun, I love it! But it is kind of stressful. We did one last year and it was last minute and turned out to be good, but we learned some things and I was hoping to do it bigger and better this year and so of course they put me in charge. But I was happy to do it. So I have been stressing about when to till, how we were going to till it, when to plant, what to plant, how to plant it etc. etc. but it is all coming together nicely. Today was a perfect day to till our garden and we had a great turn out too. After it went so smoothly today it was like a heavy burden lifted off my shoulders, it felt good to know this one thing went right. Lets hope the rest goes well too and we have a great garden this year.

We got the garden done in just three hours just in time for me to rush home to do E's birthday party. Yes she had a party today too, on top of our fun garden day. I had a busy day to day to say the least.

The party turned out great. The kids had a blast but I am exhausted! I couldn't have done it with out my awesome friend who took C's place and helped me out through the whole party. She also did the cake for me which turned out AMAZING...pictures to come I promise.

I feel like I have been running around all day, only sitting when I was driving. I'm ready for this next week to end so we can all have some down time, we all deserve it.

So here ya have it my week in a nut shell......

Studying husband, single Mom, two sick kids, stress for all of us= one happy? Family
one more week of this, think we can survive? I hope so.

Happy Birthday to my Baby Girl!

It was five years ago that my world as I knew it was changed forever.....
It was five years ago I was a freaked out, emotional first time Momma.....
Yes, it was five years ago I held in my arms my first child, my Princess E!


FIVE..... FIVE years ago!

I can't believe it she is growing up so fast. She is such a sweet girl and our Family would not be the same with our her in it.

So here is a shout out to my Baby (I mean, BIG) Girl....

We love you E and HAPPY BIRTHDAY!


Even though the kids were still a little sick and still coughing we took advantage of the GORGEOUS weather out side (73 degrees, it was almost hot) and went to a really fun park and had a picnic lunch with some friends to celebrate E's birthday and just to get out of the house.
This is such a fun park, the kids love it especially this "Spider man" web they can climb on, it was a hit!

Here they are, the girls piled inside the web

....and the boys on their own side of the web, who needs girls any way?

C said he thought J looked so preppy in this picture. Like he could be in a Baby Gap add or some thing, I think it's because of the polo shirt and khakis. I think he's adorable!

Anyway Today was just a fun filled day.

E's actual party will be this Saturday where she will have her games, cake and presents.
More pictures of the Birthday girl to come...

Potty time

My cute boy came to me Thursday morning after having a bath and running around naked for the last 10 minutes, and said "mommy I a big boy! I go potty on the potty chair?!" Then he grabbed himself in a panicky way. I raced him into the potty and sat him down and he went pee pee right away!

I thought that it was great that he did that but thought that it was just a fluke thing so I said "let's put a diaper on you now ok?" he then refused me "No, I a big boy, I wear underwear, I go potty now ok."

I asked him if he really wanted to learn to use the potty today and he said yes he did. OK, so we're potty training today, I thought. Nice.

Lucky for me I had bought two packages of big boy underwear already and had some bribery on hand (chocolate, that kid will do anything for it) and had plenty of juice to help get him watered up and ready to "practice" going potty on the potty chair.

I was a little nervous to tell you the truth, this was so sudden I hadn't prepared myself mentally for it. But he was insistent and I wasn't going to say "no" if he really wanted to do this.

He pee peed 4 times in the potty before his first accident and pooped once in his underwear before his first one in the potty. Not too bad, I thought.

Here are his stats for that day:
More than a dozen times he peed on the potty that day (I fed him lots of juice :)
Only three pee pee accidents
Two poo poo accidents (those are the worst!)
And one and a half times he pooed on the potty. (yes a half time he pooed, he farted and some poo came out, but not a whole lot and I don't think he meant for it to so it just counts as half a time)

He did really good and I was so proud of him!

Well Thursday was the night he woke up and could not breath and we went to the ER. We found out he had croup and then next day we were all so tired, I was not going to continue with they potty training. Bad timing, Bud!

He was fine with giving it a rest for that day, I think because he was so tired and still very sick.
Saturday and Sunday he didn't seem to mind that he was no longer a "big boy" and I didn't want to worry about it either. So Thursday was just good practice, I guess, for the day we do decide to do it and stick with it.

Well today he once again wanted to go potty and be a big boy. I think I am just not ready for him to do this yet. So I felt bad, but I refused for him to give it a try until next week. We will see if he even still wants to do it by then.

He was so cute running around in his big boy underwear all day I had to snap some pictures.

Saying "I'm a big booooyyy!"

No he is not grabbing himself (though he did do that lots) he was pointing to spider man, those are his favorite underwear to wear.

I think two year old's have the cutest bums I've ever seen especially when they are in underwear.

For some reason that day, the kids wanted to have sock puppets and so here they are showing them off to me.

Why is it that the kids will spend HOURS playing with the cheapest toys, like sock puppets, and the ones I pay lots of money for they play with very little? Why spend money on toys at all?

They were so cute talking in high pitched voices and moving their hands around as if that voice was the puppets voice. It mad me laugh many times. They are so imaginative and it's fun to watch them use it.

Any way I'll let you know if we even decide to potty train next week and let you know how it goes. Wish me luck!

Birthday's Birthday's

Yesterday was my birthday and as my friend put it, I celebrated my 8th anniversary of my 20th birthday, she's so clever ;) Tuesday is E's birthday and I have yet to plan anything for it, I'm working on it. And the day after that is my Sister's birthday which reminds me I need to get that card in the mail. So March is busy with lots of Birthday's. I think we will be officially celebrating E's next Saturday if all goes well and no one else gets sick.

It was a good day besides the fact that I was sleep deprived from the past few nights of sick kids waking me up because they can't stop coughing, my poor kiddos! I was also little upset at first because I thought we were not going to be able to go out for my birthday (that is all I really wanted for my birthday, was a date with my hubby) since we had sick kids and didn't want to send them over to some ones house just to get their kids sick. In February I was the one down and out and we did not get our date for V-Day and January was so busy we didn't take time for us either, it has been since before December that my hubby and I had an official date together, hence my reasoning for wanting this so badly for my birthday and getting upset when I thought it wasn't going to happen. But in the end it all worked out, thanks to some great friends!

We aren't huge Birthday people around here but my sweet hubby sure made me feel loved.
I got to go shopping all day by myself while he stayed home with the sick kids. I must say it was so nice to take my time and shop at my own pace.

Funny thing is, after hours of shopping I did not buy one thing for myself. That is just me for ya, when I go out shopping first on my mind is "What do the kids need?" next is "What does the house need?" after that then I think of my hubby and anyone else I need to buy for.

So I bought some clothes for the kids, E's b-day gifts, groceries and house stuff, a little something for my hubby and stuff for school, I think I'm going to do 'pre-school' at home with J this year. After spending all that money I didn't feel like shelling out any more for something for me, but I came away feeling happy and less stressed.

When I got home we fed the kids early dinner, put them to bed early and had a friend listen for them while they slept and C and I went out to a late dinner. It was so yummy and really nice to just sit with my husband and talk, no interruptions, no whinny kids, no force feeding any one, and best of all no clean up! It was just what I wanted for my birthday.

My hubby bought me a jewelry box and a nice necklace for my birthday, I'm not a big jewelry wearer but have been slowly adding to my small collection and needed some thing to put all of it in. He also got me some yoga pants I wanted and almost bought for myself but didn't. What a thoughtful man he is!

It was such a good birthday, low key but just how I liked it. Thanks for all the Birthday wishes from friends and family!

Oh what a day it was!

Oh what a day it was yesterday! I could type a huge long thing about why it was a crazy day but I think I will just tell you the high light of it.

I got home around 11pm from a girls night out at Applebee's and didn't get into bed until close to Midnight. Just as I was about to fall asleep I hear the most horrible cough I've ever heard! I sounded more like a bark.

I thought it was E since she has been coughing for several days now and I actually took her to the Doc that day to get her checked out. I also thought it was her because J seemed to be perfectly healthy at bed time.

Then I hear more "barks" and gasps for air. I get up to go get E, but find that it is coming from my J boy. I grab him and take him down stairs where he continues to gasp for air, cough, gag and gasp for air some more.

I'm starting to freak out by this point because he just can't breath. I yell for C to come down stairs. We start up the nebulizer hoping this will help him breath. It calmed him down a little so he could kind of catch his breath but he can't stop coughing and his breathing is still difficult. I start to freak out even more.

There was nothing I could do to help him breath. I wanted to just make him breath, but I sat there helplessly watching my baby gasp for air, I could do nothing to help him.

I hate the feeling of helplessness, and there is nothing worse than feeling that feeling when it comes to your kids. It was awful!

I ask C to give him a blessing and then decide we will go to the ER.

After he finished the blessing, we woke up E and all piled in the car and headed to the ER at almost 1am.

When I woke up E she was all excited. For some reason she thinks it is so fun to wake up in the night and go some where. It is exciting but not the good kind of exciting.

Any way...
To make this long story shorter....We get to the ER and I kid you not our visit there was LESS than 15 minutes! I'm totally not exaggerating! It was the quickest ER visit in the history of ER visits, ever!

I knew he had Croup, I just knew it. But didn't know what they did for it. All I knew was that my boy couldn't stop coughing this nasty bark cough and he couldn't catch his breath.

So when we get to the Hospital and it takes less than two minutes to get him checked in and see the nurse. Then we get ushered to our room. So far we're under four minutes. Literally two more minutes later the Doctor comes in and says "I heard his cough from the waiting room and he has croup..." she says all this while checking his breathing etc. etc. and then she continues to tell us what croup is, gives him a steroid to help him stop coughing and prescribes us the drug, all this took less than four minutes and then they kick us out. It was AMAZING! I wish all ER visits were that fast.

We got to the ER at 10 after 1am and we were in the car on the way back home from the ER at 1:25am! Amazing! I think the longest part of the visit was the kids picking out which stickers they wanted.

We didn't get to bed until after 2am and my dear kids decided to wake up at 7:30am. Nice.

I'm exhausted.

We are ALL taking naps today.

The kids are grumpy.

I don't know how much longer I will last before these two drive me totally crazy today.

My house is a mess, it looks like a bomb went off it in and I don't really care!

I need sleep.

Thanks for listening to me ramble.
Signing off.

Day Light Savings, no more!

I have decided I don't like Daylight Savings!

This year, for some reason, it has effected (or is it affected? I never remember which one to use when) us here in the Harker home more than any other year.

Why do we even need Day Light Savings? Ok so I looked it up, and really we don't need it.
It seems like their are pros and cons on either way we go here, so wouldn't it just be easier to not worry about having it?

Well who ever decided to keep it around apparently doesn't have children. It has totally messed up bed times/nap times around here and I feel like us losing an hour has got me and C all mixed up too!

I love it when my kids are in bed by or before 8pm. Well since Daylight Savings the kids' bed time is no earlier than 9pm and it's driving me crazy.

Well just in case any one cared, I vote NO for Daylight Savings.

A Day at the Zoo

So with such good weather on Saturday I decided we needed to get out and do something as a family. I went to my wallet and checked our Zoo pass to see when it expired. Well I'm glad I checked because it expires on the 12th of this month! So that was that, we were going to the zoo one last time (don't know if I'll renew it, the fees went up this year!).


Last year I bought the pass called "Family plus 2" so that when I had family come into town I could take them on our pass. It was so worth it! But this year I'm not sure how much we'll go.
We promised some friends of ours we'd take them to the zoo on our pass some time, since they have been here as long as us and have yet to go (no kiddos for them to take, so they didn't bother getting a pass). Well we kept forgetting to give them a call to go with us and so we finally called them up to go with us on Saturday and I think Scott (our friend) was more excited to go than my kids :)
I'm so glad we went, and with friends is always more fun! The kids always seem to have more fun when other people are with us besides boring old Mom and Dad, why is that?

We saw every thing there was to see at the zoo, and we had to pull Scott away from each place after the kids had listened and came after calling them just once or twice. I'm teasing, but some times he was the last one to come. He had lots of fun, to say the least, and I'm glad we could take them with us on our last day at the zoo.

This is my favorite picture of the day...

J boy picking his nose after I told him to smile for the camera.

These are a type of small shark and you can touch them, they obviously don't bite! Though they do have lots of sharp teeth, I've seen them.

E and J are usually too scared to touch them, but they both decided to touch them this time and it was fun to watch them giggle after.

These Walruses were so HUGE and they were so playful, we stayed there quite a while just playing with them. They kept coming right up to the glass and just smashing their face or body up against it. It was fun to watch the kids and Scott enjoy it so much.

What a fun time we had! It seemed like all the animals were in a really playful mood probably because they were enjoying the weather as much as we were. It was a perfect Saturday which poor C had to end his day with studying, such is life!

I bet you're jealous

Yesterdays High was 65 degrees!

Today's High 72 degrees!

I bet you're jealous, well unless you live in Florida, Cali, AZ or Texas, but every one else I'm sure is so jealous.

I love this weather, but it isn't going to last long. We are soaking it up while it is here though.

Off to enjoy sunshine!

"Hey did you see that on my blog?"

The other day E was doing a puppet show off in a corner by herself. She had two puppets, one on each hand, talking to each other. I happened to go over in her direction and hear a little of what she was making them say and this is what I heard...

Puppet 1 talking to puppet 2 "Hey did you see that on my blog?"
Puppet 2 "No I didn't"
Puppet 1 "well it's on my blog you can see it on there."

I started laughing and didn't listen to the rest. I have no idea what "it" was on her blog, but it was so funny to me that she would even say that.

Apparently I blog too much!

She must over hear me say to my Mom "Did you read my blog? There is such and such on it right now..."

I guess I need to be careful of what I say in her presence,not that talking about blogging is bad but I may say things I wouldn't want her to hear and since she seems to be so observant listening to my every word, she may some day repeat things I don't want her to.

I should know this by now but I guess I just forget some times.