Couldn't Resist

I couldn't help but post these two pictures of my darling friend Terri Lyn. You can see for yourself how well she's doing - radiant, right? Okay, she's bald, but other than that you'd hardly know the battle she's fighting right now against the breast cancer which has spread to her bones and liver. You go, my rock star friend.

She was so gracious this evening and watched my kids (all three of them!) while Troy and I enjoyed an evening up at Ruth's diner with a gang of his high school friends. I skipped out early to make sure Bundle wasn't making life too difficult for TL, and came home to find everyone happy if a little hyper and messy. Hey, that's just normal life, right? I'm so excited that I got to go out for just a little bit. Freedom is sweet, even in small doses.

In other news, cute Bitty got a new 'do this week - she hasn't had a hair cut in ages, and it's really gotten quite long. It was fun to put her hair in braids and ponies and buns...well, I take that back. It was fun to look at after it was done, but the brushing and combing was becoming quite an ordeal. Many tears. Finally Bitty decided that she'd rather have a saucy new bob and let go of both the owie brushing as well as the wide variety of hairstyles she likes. I think she looks adorable.

Return to the Zoo

When Stomper was a little chubby blond toddler and he and I had nothing better to do all day than find stuff to do we practically lived at the zoo. One payment once a year and we had all day long to stroll, toddle, point at animals and get scared of the tigers, gorillas, and strangely, the goats. Stomper hated the goats. Then more kids came along and schedules seemed to fill up with preschool and multiple nap times and homework and suddenly I realized that a zoo pass just wasn't worth it. It's been a few years. Now my cute sister-in-law Sheri is in the spot where I once was - she's got these two little girls and she spent her life at the zoo while she was living in Salt Lake. So when she came up for a visit last week we thought it would be fun to go together along with Oma. It was funny - years ago I was the one who knew all the ins and outs of the zoo; where everything was, how the animals were doing, what the zoo was planning for future. Now it's Sheri. I looked at my sweet little Bundle who was just enthralled with the whole thing and decided that maybe we're ready for a zoo pass again. Poor little Bitty - she didn't get much mommy-all-to-myself time. Sigh. Well, the zoo was really fun and I'm excited to go again.

Too Much Animal Planet

When Stomper began this sentence, it certainly went a different direction than I was expecting.

"Mom, want to know something funny about damsel flies when they're mating?"

Long pause.

"Sure, son."

"Their tails make a heart shape!"

I still don't know if he actually knows what mating is - the question certainly has not come up yet about human...mating...issues.... Not even when our baby Bundle was on her way. But I think we'd better cover the subject at some point. I don't know. Maybe it's better to leave it like it is for now!

And in other "alarming comment" news, Bitty drew a picture of herself complete with three little dots on her torso. She pointed them out thus; "This is my belly button and these are my nibblets. But they're too small to bite." Oh my. Just so you know, we've (meaning I) have been having problems with Bundle and her newly developed biting habits. The kids have been hearing me do some yelling. Ouch! Bundle thinks it's funny. She responds by making a similar 'ouch' sound and then doing it again.

Miracles

To quote Maria Von Trapp, I must have done something good. You know you're getting extra help when, on the day you're supposed to leave on a quick overnight vacation with your kids, you're considering donating them to the Salvation Army, and suddenly, the moment we get in the car to leave, everyone is happy and getting along. I kind of can't believe it. We went to a Park City Resort with some friends overnight. The kids were nice. The kids didn't fight. Everyone slept. We had a great time. Miracle. And THEN get this. I came home to an immaculate house. I'll just say that the house was not in that state when I left it. I feel very sorry for all of you folks out there who don't have Troy Preslar as a husband. To top it off we got an emergency phone call at 5:00 from a fellow in our church who was looking for a last minute place to send the missionaries for dinner. Well, blessings abound; I had just had a Costco run on Tuesday so we had good food to throw together in less than one hour, plus the clean house to serve it in. Besides being completely exhausted, I'm completely happy. Many thanks are being sent out this evening!

Easter: Skipping the Thousand Words

Ah, Easter. The picture says it all. What you are looking at there is a shot of the sidewalk outside of my parent's front door, the starting place for our candy hunt on Sunday afternoon. Those little dark spots are where Bitty's tears were landing, in two perfect little puddles, as she was liberally shedding them, overcome as she was by....I don't even remember what. It was one of those days where by about 10 a.m. she was bursting into tears about every 15 minutes. I think I'm doing holidays incorrectly. They just seem to make my kids cry.

I did actually bring our nice camera to our family Easter dinner, but didn't end up even taking it out of the bag. I was too busy juggling Bundle, chatting with both Troy's and my parents, getting food ready, keeping the other kids happy, etc. Luckily Troy had his iphone on hand when Bitty started fountaining tears, a sure sign that Easter was wrapping up. Too much sugar, too much excitement, too many people... too much! I can't believe our treat basket on top of the fridge. It easily has as much candy in it as it does after Halloween. Ah yes, another super spiritual Easter Sunday for the Preslar family. Good thing we've got next year to try again.

And now, Spring break is in full force. So far, so good, despite the snowstorm we got last night. I'll let you know how it ends up.

April's Fool

I have a vision of myself as being a really fun, hip and on-the-ball mom. We all know the truth, though don't we. Sigh. I can barely keep my family fed and dressed! And let's just leave the house cleaning out of this. Well, on Wednesday I was taking a moment to catch of glimpse of "Good Things Utah," a local television program geared basically for the stay home mom. They had a segment on April Fools jokes to play on your kids at meal times and I was totally entranced. Making dessert look like the main course (fish sticks made of cookies/peanut butter/cracker crumbs) and the other way around (ice cream sundaes made of mashed potatoes), making mini desserts (frost cheerios like donuts), fake-out cakes (frost a roll of toilet paper), and the list went on. I figured that I could muster enough energy to pull together a couple of April Fools jokes for the kids.

For Stomper I packed his real lunch in a paper bag at the bottom of his lunch box and placed on top of it baggies of plastic food. I left him a note assuring him that actual food could be found below. Of course, the joke ended up being on me when his water bottle malfunctioned and he ended up with a dripping lunch bag instead, but he assured me that he and his classmates were rather tickled by the joke. For dinner Bitty and I joined forces to create dessert for dinner - we concocted cupcakes out of their favorite meatloaf topped with mashed potatoes. Bitty was especially thrilled that we even topped them with real sprinkles. She couldn't wait to invite Stomper in to dinner, though he was doubtful that his mean-ole-mom actually made a dessert for supper. They did get a kick out it, though. More importantly they ate it. Worth the effort!

Bundle at 10 Months - The Season of Dumping

She's not officially 10 months old for 2 more days, but since I happen to be sitting at the computer with no one bugging me at this very moment, I'm going to go ahead and post Bundle's official "she's 10-months old!" blog entry. If you have ever had a child, you know what stage she's in. She in the dumping stage. You know the one. She's on the move at every moment. The only time she's still is when she's stationed at a drawer or shelf or something containing anything that isn't bolted down and she's systematically pulling those things off/out and scattering them evenly across the floor. She's pretty good at it and is developing a decent arm in the meantime. And I let her do it because it's easier to get something done then clean up her mess instead of just spending the entire day trying to stop her from making messes in the first place. The trick is to just make sure that she makes smaller and smaller messes all day so by bedtime I'm not totally up to my ears in the contents of every drawer in my house. Some days work out, others, not so much.


You know, Bundle is amazing me lately. I don't think I've ever had a baby who is quite so attached to people before. I mean, I think all of my kids, the girls especially, have been pretty social, but Bundle is so glued to people it's just amazing. She watches our family during prayers and she folds her arms too. She tries to copy my hand gestures. She tries to mimic words. I don't think she's really had a first word yet but if I say "cracker" she says, "gock." If I say, "chase," she says, "tayse." Really. She does. But I don't think she knows what she's saying, she's just copying me. It's really fun, though.

And here she is, modeling a sweater I just finished for her. It was probably kind of dumb for me to make her a sweater in March, with Spring (hopefully) not far off, but seeing as how we're having blustery weather around here, I'm glad she has it!


Okay, just one more picture. We ate spinach last night and she loved it. A lot. Glad to finally get some roughage in this gal! She insists on feeding herself, but before she'll put anything in her mouth she has to give it the 'texture test' first. She grabs the food and palpitates it to determine its firmness. Too mushy or squishy? She chucks it on the floor. Acceptable? She makes an attempt to get it in her mouth, sometimes making it, sometimes not. Every evening, bathtime follows dinner almost immediately.