Happy Birthday #4, Jack!

Happy Birthday Jack!  Holy cow you are 4 years old.

I can't believe it has been 4 years since you so abruptly interrupted my last week of school and decided to be born a week or so early.  Just like that day, you still know what you want and you get it done fast.  You are always running and hurrying things up.  You will probably be waiting for your sister your whole life and for the most part, you do it very patiently.

Jack, your most favorite thing to do in the whole world is just be outside.  You love to play with dirt, trucks, cars, balls, swings, sand, and anything that can keep you occupied outside. You love large pieces of machinery and hope to drive one someday when you marry your friend Camryn and have 100 kids and 100 cats.  You decided you wanted your training wheels off your bike, and figured out how to ride it in your first try.  You were tired of no one pushing you on the swing, so you figured out how to hop up and get your feet pumping yourself.

Jack, when you get too tired, you turn in to a mad beast that is sometimes not containable.  You fight and throw things and lose all your good reasoning skills.  You still like (and need) to take a nap and when you don't, we're in for it.  You hate going to sleep at night and fight then, too, even when you are so tired.  Mom or dad still has to lay down with you to get you to chill, but it's ok.  You won't want us to do that forever.

Jack you are a sweetheart.  You love to share with people and are very friendly.  You like to play with everyone and will be friends with anyone.  You try to solve problems for your sister and often will give in to fix the situation she may be throwing a fit about.  You still like to give mom hugs and will lay on my shoulder if I pick you up.  You are a jabber box and love to tell stories.

You are a big story teller, though, and for a little kid you try to lie your way out of everything, which isn't good, but lucky for me, you're a really bad liar and can't keep a straight face.

For your birthday, you were most excited to go shopping with Grandma Judy!  You've been asking about since Molly's birthday and could hardly contain yourself.

Jack, I love you very much and I'm so glad you are a part of our family.  I hope you always stay so funny and energetic and my good boy.

Happy Birthday Molly!

Good Golly Miss Molly!  You are 6!  Holy Cow!

What can I say about you?  You are a smart and beautiful little blonde-haired girl.  You are way more girly than your mom will ever be, but you also like to get in the dirt with your brother every once in a while.  You picked out sparkly sandals for your birthday, but you carried a worm in a jar around in your backpack for 2 days.  You are starting to get the hang of reading and like to tell me the letters to different words if you can't read them yourself.  You are an excellent student and love kindergarten.  I hope you always love school.

You love to draw and do anything with arts and crafts.  You are always building projects out of random supplies you find and you love to write people notes and give them pictures.  You like to listen to music, play games, and watch movies.

You are extremely honest and cannot even tell a white lie when I ask you to like "don't tell Jack, he'll feel bad."  You tell me everything and I am very glad. You tell me when you make a bad choice and you tell me when someone else does, too.  I can always trust you 100%.  You even told me about the day you had to move your clip down (like getting your name on the board) at school because you hit a kid.  It took a while to get it out of you and you were pretty stressed about it, but once you got it off your chest, it was fine.  We recounted the story to dad at dinner.  You were standing in line and a kid in your class pushed you.  You didn't like it so you pushed him back.  When I told dad that part, you jumped in "No, I didn't push him, I punched him in the face."  No one was hurt and we had a good discussion about how to better handle these types of situations.  However, part of me was also proud of you that you had some gusto.  At home and with mom, you sometimes just melt into a pile of goo if we breath on you wrong.

You can scream louder than anything I've ever heard, but you can also put a blanket on me and tell me you'll take care of me if I fall asleep on the couch.  You drive me crazy at church, but you hug your primary teacher every Sunday after class and tell her thank you.  You boss your little brother around, but you also take great care of him.

You love princesses, ponies, and Shopkins.  You love animals of all kind and probably want a small farm one day (even though your parents won't let you).  You have made many habitats for worms and potato bugs and will have to be satisfied with that for a while.

Some days I don't know what to do with you Molly-wog, but every day I don't know what I'd do without you!

I love you so much and I'm excited to watch you keep growing and learning!

Happy Birthday!

Graduation

Finally!  James did it.  He has his Master's Degree.

He officially has a Master's of Science in Nursing with an emphasis in Care Management.

We took the kids to the general commencement on Thursday night and then the Binggeli's - Mary, LaRon, Amber, Joesy, Jason, AlDon, Janet, and Joyce - plus my mom and I attended the nursing school convocation on Friday.  After that I ran back to school to get the kids and we all met up at the Olive Garden for an early dinner.  It was a nice day!  James has worked hard (so has his editor) and it was good for him to get some accolades.

He wore two cords.  One was for being a veteran and the other was for being inducted into Sigma Theta Tau, nursing honor society.

His degree did not require a "thesis," but did require a "synthesis," which I think is just a slightly shorter version.  He wrote his about the role of a Care Manager in the field of opioid addiction and recovery.  It was interesting.  I read it several times.

James took a new job the first part of April with Select Health as a Care Manager I.  He spent quite a few weeks in training and is just starting to get into the routine of what his day-to-day responsibilities are, but it seems like a good fit and he likes it.  He follows up with patients (mostly behavioral health patients) on whether they are attending to their plan of care or not and approves insurance claims.

Congratulations!  We are very proud of you!

Spring Break!

It was Spring Break last week and this is what we did!

Friday & Saturday

It was the end of the term and our last day of school.  Morriah was getting baptized in Idaho Falls on Saturday so we decided to make a mini vacation out of it and went for the night.  We left our house Friday afternoon and after a couple of quick stops were on our way.  The kids were really good in the car.  Our whole goal was to get to the hotel and let them chill and swim there.  We ate at the Burger King drive-up in Malad to help accomplish that mission and otherwise didn't have to stop the whole time.

The kids swam and were both pretty brave.  They stayed up late watching movies in the hotel room and we had a great time.  Saturday morning was a little rough with a super slow breakfast at the hotel and then Molly being challenging, but we made it to the baptism and then visited with the Binggelis for a while before heading back home.

Despite some stinky setbacks, mostly with Jack stepping in a mysterious liquid-filled bucket in the backyard, it was a good little trip.




Sunday

Easter!  New clothes.  Peeps.  Dinner at my mom's.

I also had the kids make a list of everything they wanted to do during Spring Break.  We ended up accomplishing most of what they wanted to do.






Monday

It snowed.  We had already decided to go on an adventure to the Zoo with the Howdens since it was our only day off in common.  The snow made a question a bit whether we really wanted to go or not, but in the end, we decided to take on the adventure.  The Zoo was fun.  The kids were mostly good (Jack melted a bit at the end, but then revitalized at lunch).  We went to Litza's afterwards and Grandma met us there for lunch.  Delicious!



Tuesday

There was still snow on the ground at our house, but the next thing the kids wanted to do from their list was go to the new Lodestone Park by our house.  We bundled up and put snow pants on and ended up having the entire park to ourselves!  Aside from the wind and the wet and the cold, we had a lot of fun.  We definitely need to go back!

After the park, we dried off and unlayered, then headed to the library for some new books and movies.





 Tuesday afternoon I got miserably ill.  I don't know what happened, but I ended up selling the Buick from both ends.  Molly tried to take care of me for a while, but I ended up texting my mom who was able to come home from work early and took my kids.  That was a huge relief.  I moved from the couch to my bed and pretty much tried not to die for the next 6-8 hours until whatever came over me finally left.  It was bad.

Wednesday

I don't really remember what we did.  I think I was still weak and brain dead from the day before, but was doing better.  Willie ended up coming over in the afternoon and watched Inside Out.  I ironed a bunch of shirts.

Thursday

This was errand-running day.  I loaded the kiddos in the car with their DVD players still installed from our mini vacation.  They watched movies and we hit Lowes, Home Depot, Contempo Tile, Sherwin Williams, Target, back to Sherwin Williams, and my mom's office for a quick Hello.  The kids were really good in the car and we were pretty productive on the returns and purchases end of things.

Friday

The trusty dusty Trooper died and we had to pick up my brother from dropping it off (and finding out it truly was dead) at Bob's Advanced Automotive.  We hung out at my mom's house with Willie for a little bit.  Jack biffed it on the treadmill at "Super Speed" and tore up his upper lip pretty good.  We decided to go bowling for our last vacation day and we took Willie with us.  We used the lane bumpers.  We ate french fries.  It was a good time.

Friday night Amber and Joesy (and later Colton) came to hang out with us.  They were nice enough to let us borrow Colton's truck for basement door pickup on Saturday.  The kids (my kids) were super wild, but had fun playing with Joesy.  It was a fun evening.

That's it.  9 more weeks until summer vacation!!

Wax Political

**Disclaimer: The post you are about to read is political and a bit of a rant. You are welcome to disagree with me, but it is my blog and this is where I get to write stuff.

I did not caucus tonight.  Most of the people in the state of Utah did.  I had an indoor soccer game to go to, dinner, homework of my own, and a leaking washing machine to top it all off. I am officially neither Republican or Democrat, but was strongly considering going to the Democratic caucus meeting.  

I have been trying to educate my students on why the caucus this year is kind of a big deal.  I have been encouraging my seniors to register to vote and become educated in the election process.  Despite the ethical reasons for not sharing political views with students, I may have also let it slip a few times that I think Donald Trump is crazy and not a good candidate for President.  Oh well.  

I also did my civic duty today by helping 3 lost adult souls during Murray High's lunch realize that they couldn't "vote" for president today and that they needed to come back at 6:30 for the caucus.  They didn't believe me, so I walked them to the office for a second opinion.  They were very disappointed and even pulled out the postcard they'd received in the mail to show me that it said they could vote today from 7 to 7.  Sorry.  The postcard gave information about the caucus.  

I've also decided to publish the following blog post that I wrote a few days ago.

Watch this video link, then watch the one with Obama below.  

Video 1: Orrin Hatch on the Supreme Court Nomination

Video 2: Obama Speaking about the Nomination

It is March and President Obama has 8 months left on the job.  He has shown that he has no intentions of being a lame duck president.  He has a lot more gray hairs than he did 8 years ago, and honestly, if I could, I think I'd probably vote for him for a 3rd term.  

I simply don't understand this current fight over a Supreme Court Nominee. This whole Supreme Court thing is such a bunch of little kids whining over who gets to pick first at recess. It's clearly Obama's turn to pick, yet the GOPers are finding every excuse they can come up with to try to take the turn away from him. It just makes me all uptight. Has there been anything Obama hasn't had to fight Congress over in the last 7 years and 4 months? 

Obama specifically picks a guy who's fairly moderate and who the Senate has previously said they even liked, but then the Senate still has to play this stupid game based on their "ideals." I don't think Obama could compromise any more unless he appointed Orrin himself to the Court.

Hatch says it's not about the person. Well Orrin, if the right person is in front of you, why not go for it? All this is, is a crazy power struggle based on party loyalty and has nothing to do with what's good for America.

I would just fall flat on my face if, for once, the Republicans in Congress showed enough maturity to actually sit and meet as adults to solve a problem that is best for everyone.

Hatch says we can't do this (confirm a new justice) because the current presidential election is so "toxic." So . . . you're saying that you'd rather someone who you call toxic, pick the next nominee than someone who's actually in the position to do so now and is willing to nominate someone you'd like? There is zero logic in this argument. 

I would be so impressed with Orrin Hatch if he, for once, said "Hey fellow R's, let's actually take the high road this time and see if we can come to a resolution about the Supreme Court Nominee. It would go such a long way for us with the people of this country to actually solve a problem rather to create new ones. We could show some solidarity and decency during this time of mostly toxicity in politics."

But . . . it's not going to happen. Do you know how I know it is not going to happen? Donald Trump! Trump is not a decent person. Everything about him is shady. He's arrogant beyond arrogant and makes the most self-centered person you know personally, seem humble like a saint. I've heard people argue that they like him because he tells it like it is. Well, you know, sometimes we should find our filter and speak kindly of other people. That will always go a lot further than hatred. This man actually becoming the leader of the free world really scares me. It's not a gimmick job. Can you imagine him discussing diplomatic relations with heads of state? Can you imagine him trying to calm an angry protest about a police officer shooting an innocent person? Can you imagine him calming our country and offering resolve after a potential terrorist threat? Can you imagine him saying anything kind or heartwarming to the victims of the next mass shooting or natural disaster?

Give me a break!?! Back to the paragraph above . . . 

We could show some solidarity and decency during this time of mostly toxicity in politics. But . . . it's not going to happen. Do you know how I know it is not going to happen? Donald Trump! 

The only people who can stop a man like Donald Trump from getting closer and closer to the White House is . . . the Republicans. And they won't! Candidate after candidate is dropping out of the race and throwing their support his way without even batting an eye. How can they do this?!? They are too caught up with Grand Old Party and winning that they have totally lost focus on what's good for our country. I am waiting for a candidate or a big wig GOP leader to stand up and say, "Hey, I'm a Republican, but as a person of integrity, Trump does not represent me and I am not going to support him. You shouldn't either!" But they won't! It's all about the party. It's all about winning. The American people will be the only ones who lose.  

I get it. You can argue that a few won't support him . . . Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney . . . but that's not many. I'd be willing to bet $100 that if Donald wins the nomination, Ted Cruz would throw in his support.

And speaking of Ted Cruz . . . he's not much better. Remember him? He single-handedly stopped the government from functioning for days and filibustered for 21 hours because he doesn't think that all Americans should have health care? And he's the better option? He's the problem solver? Sheesh.  For those of you still reading and for those of you who think I must be a Hilary Clinton supporter, hold on (that's a post for another day). She has her flaws, too, and I definitely am not in favor of any kind of presidential dynasty (Clintons, Bushes, Harrisons, Roosevelts, Adams, etc.) But . . . Just know that if it comes down to a Trump v. Clinton election, the hard-working and smart woman, the mother, the frumpy old lady who can't say Beyonce's name right gets my vote hands down.

I am honestly not registered a republican or a democratic because of my own "ideals." I definitely lean to the liberal side, but have nothing against voting for a Republican if I feel they are the best person for the job. I am honestly so sick of Republican leadership lately. As a whole, they tell everyone they are taking the high road, they tug on your religious heartstrings, your patriotic zeal, and say they are saving your 1st and 2nd Amendments rights. People buy into this, but don't look into what the candidates are actually doing and saying. They are all just still a bunch of politicians!