swine flu.

I don't feel good today. My head is pounding, my body aches, my throat is sore, I'm tired, and my nose and ears are all stuffed up.

I've been hearing alot about the swine flu on the radio, and I figured I better leanr more about it since we're down here living so close to Mexico. So I got on the news this morning to read about it. Here's what I found:

How can you tell if you might have swine flu and should see a doctor? Here's a checklist of symptoms linked to the disease, which is suspected of killing more than 150 people in Mexico and sickening hundreds more around the globe:

Fever

Cough

Sore throat

Body aches

Headache

Chills

Fatigue

Ah crap.

How many fingers am I holding up?

I'm not really sure why I'm writing tonight, except for the fact that I'm bored and I have a bad sore throat, which I'd rather not think about. Moms aren't allowed to get sick. It's one of the rules. They don't tell you until later, though.

My sons are teaching me alot about injuries. Hannah hasn't gotten hurt that much. She's always very cautious and attentive. She reminds me alot of myself as a kid. For some reason I was always aware of the injury possibilities with every given activity and would therefore assess the risk vs. reward of participating. Yeah, I was a bit of a ninny. Hannah, is just quietly careful. She still does somersaults off the couch onto the air mattress with Carter, and jumps down from the 5th stair onto the floor. I like to cheer my kids on when they do this stuff, even though I know as their mother I should discourage it, because it's good to let your kids be better at stuff than you are.

Carter and Ethan, though. Oh, they each give me a heart attack at least 6 times a day. Hannah likes to freak out right along with me when her brothers do something reckless like hang off the monkey bars at the park or walk too closely to the edge of the pool. She does this little anxiety dance where she prances around on her toes, fluttering around them and saying, "oh, you're making me so nervous!" It's quite funny, actually.

Today, oh today.

We were stir crazy. And when Carter gets stir crazy he starts getting into the food. That kid, I tell you. He will eat until there is literally NOTHING left to eat in the house. The other day, Hannah looks up at me and goes, "Carter NEVER stops eating!" I know honey, I buy the groceries. It doesn't matter what I do or say, what brilliant activity I come up with, what amazing hiding space for the cookies. He will inevitably find his way back to the kitchen, and begin shoving whatever he can get his sneaky little fingers on right into his hoover mouth. The problem with this, besides my rapidly increasing grocery budget, is that climbing up on counters can often be a bit, hazardous. Today, while trying to get down, he slipped off and kind of smacked his face on the floor. Okay, not kind of. Full on.

I was across the room. Eyesight. Saw it all. Way too far to stop it from happening.

So I ran over and scooped him up into my arms. It was a bad one. When Carter gets hurt he usually cries for about 10 seconds and then gets up and starts being a terror again. Today was different, he probably cried for 10 minutes, and kept grabbing at his head, and his little cheek was all red and bruisy looking. I snuggled him and he buried his face in my chest. It was kind of a little heaven, well it would have been if I hadn't been wondering if I should take him to the ER. Whenever he cries for more than a minute I start to wonder that. But none of my kids have ever been and I'd like to keep it that way. Knock on wood.

So I sat on the couch soothing my three year old and asking him questions to try and see if he had a concussion. I would run out pretty quick and then ask him all the same ones again. How many fingers am I holding up? Two. Now how many? three. What's your favorite thing to do? Play. What your favorite food to eat? Bread. What's your favorite animal? horses. Who's your favorite person (running out of good questions)? Horses.

Hm.

How many fingers am I holding up?

2T

A few weeks ago when my family was visiting we went shopping at Kohls. I wanted to get Hannah some skimmers. I think they look so cute and mini on little girls. We were unsure of the size, so we made her strip her shorts and do a little try-on in the toddler section. We started with 4T. Huge. 3T, still too big. She ended up in 2T. It fit like a glove. 2T. The poor kid's turning 5 in 2 1/2 months. Kindergarten's going to be rough...

PS. I wore size 6x until I was about 13, my daughter is living my legacy.

missing in action.

have you seen this girl?

i haven't heard from my sister for almost a week.

and even that was just a few texts.

this is bizarre unnatural behavior.

i can only conclude one of two things:

1.she was abducted by aliens.

2.or she just doesn't like me.

i'm pretty sure it's #1.

my sister loves me alot.

meghan, where are you?

children's books

When you have several children(like me), and when your children like books (like mine do) you start to really appreciate children's books that are unique and darling. We have several books that I think I enjoy reading even more than my children. There are also some (like Barbie Fairytopia) that I deplore reading and avoid at all costs. When my kids pull such books off the book case I usually say something like, "Oh, how about we read this one instead?" The boys are usually fine with it, Hannah's on to my game. What's even more darling to me, is when the book reminds me of one of my children. My mother got Ethan a book for Easter called "I Love You, Through and Through." Totally precious. The best part, however, is that it reminds me immensely of my third child. The pictures look like him with his squishy cheeks and droopy ears, right down to his mussy hair. And all the delicious little moods it talks about, remind me of Ethan too. In fact, that's why my mom bought the book. Anyways, if you have a squishy cheeked, droopy eared, mussy haired baby boy, you might enjoy this book just as much as I do. But I doubt it, there's only one Ethan, and there's a good chance he inspired this book.

the beast.

I was kind of a beast all of last week, and this weekend as well. Seriously, I'm not proud of myself. Do you ever have moments when you are listening to yourself freak out, and you're thinking, "Shut up Cori, you're being terrible." And yet you don't stop. You just keep freaking out at your husband/kids/anyone driving in your vicinity. Yeah, that was me last week. It was like I was suspended in air above myself watching myself act like a ridiculous immature idiot. I think I hit my stress limit and just popped. That's not really an excuse though.

Then on Sunday morning, my husband turned on one of the sessions from last October's conference while we dressed for church. This talk came on. There is usually one talk that really stays with me from every session of conference. This one has stayed with me for months. It's one of those things I have trouble with. Just laughing at the moment, enjoying life in it's imperfections.

The good news is, this week is going much better. I'm behaving myself, and it's amazing what a difference that alone makes.

"The first thing we can do is learn to laugh. Have you ever seen an angry driver who, when someone else makes a mistake, reacts as though that person has insulted his honor, his family, his dog, and his ancestors all the way back to Adam? Or have you had an encounter with an overhanging cupboard door left open at the wrong place and the wrong time which has been cursed, condemned, and avenged by a sore-headed victim?

There is an antidote for times such as these: learn to laugh."

Joseph B. Wirthlin

ps. Carter is standing in timeout right now practicing his ability to mimic a vuloso raptor (no idea if I spelled that right), or some kind of wild bore. Either that or he is possessed. I'm thinking it's the raptor thing.

i'm becoming my mother...

I used to get sick alot as a kid. And I mean alot. I missed every single holiday party of kindergarten EXCEPT for Valentine's day, and they ended up having to call my mom half way through it because I was terribly ill. It was strep throat. Ug.

Probably the worst thing about being sick was having to ride around in the car with my mom during the day as she listened to talk radio. Rush Limbaugh, Dr. Laura, you name it. If it was conservative talk radio, my mom was all over it. I still get a car sick stomach ache every time I hear the little jingle for the Rush Limbaugh show and the announcer saying something about the EIB network.

Now, I love my mom. Really I do, but the fact that she listened to talk radio used irritate the heck out of me. I could not understand it! Boring. Really really boring. (side note: I was growing up during the height of the Clinton scandal so that gave Rush a whole lotta ammo- oh he was jubilant during those years)

But back to my point. I Hated (with a capital H) talk radio...

So for a while now I've been casually listening to Sean, Rush, and Dr. Laura during brief jaunts around town, while the kiddos nap in the back of the car. Honestly, when you do baby talk at toddlers all day, it's nice to hear a little bit of intelligent discussion, even if it means putting up with the psychological car sickness.

Lately, however, I've been doing alot more driving. When you're house hunting it's inevitable, and so I've spent endless hours in the car driving around and looking at neighborhoods. Normally, I would find this activity unbearable. I hate driving. I mean it was fun for about 3 months after I got my license until I realized that I had become my mom's new taxi. Since then, it's been a chore. But lately, I find myself hoping, you got that, hoping that I need to go somewhere during the day. The reason? Two words: DR. LAURA. That woman is a genius. I mean seriously, a genius. If I have to run an errand, I make sure it's during the time when her show is on so I can listen to her hash out people's problems while I make my way over to Target, or Walmart, or wherever else I'm going. And do you know what I end up doing? Sitting in the parking lot for an extra ten minutes with the car running so I can listen to whatever other brilliant thing she's about to say.

I'm serious about the Brilliant thing too. Listen to that woman and you'll understand.

The hardest thing though, is coming to the realization that I am becoming like my mother. And just so you know, Mom, that would be a WONDERFUL thing, in every way but this. Mostly because it always seemed so lame to drive around getting fired up about everything Rush said, and getting a kick out of Dr. Laura's brilliant advice. And yet, here I am looking at my clock and trying to time out my day so I'm driving around at the exact moment when Dr. Laura hits the air waves. Pathetic? Maybe. But I enjoy it, immensely, so I don't think I care.

Maybe it's not such a bad thing to be like my mother.

sick and tired.

i'm so sick of house hunting i can't even blog about it. pooh.

slave driver

My children have entered a new stage. This one I'm doing cartwheels about. Chores. They've seriously been asking me when they get to do their chores. Oh, heaven for me. Don't even tell me that this stage doesn't last. I don't want to know. Right now I have three, well two at least, little munchkins who want to wipe down the mirrors that they smudged up, vaccum the crumbs they spilled off the floor, and help me fold and put away their clothes. Kids and no clean up. Can life get better? I submit that it cannot.

Have a look at my mini sweat-shop.

I'm such a slave driver.

random Sunday musings.

General conference was awesome this weekend. It was strange to be watching it from far away, I've gotten used to the idea that it's happening only 40 minutes away. Anyways. This week has been really fantastic. Every week has been so different and interesting since we've been here. But I've enjoyed them all, so much. I really feel so at home here. I don't know exactly why either. Maybe it's because it's so sunny and warm here. I seriously cannot be in a bad mood with so much delicious sunlight showering down on me all the time. I run in the mornings and it's so warm and there are little bunnies hopping around and birds chirping. It's like magic. I'm sure I will miss the rain a bit at some point, but I just left the frigid Utah winter... clear blue skies and 80 degree weather suits me just fine right now.

We are all so happy here. Craig is loving his job, and to add sugar on top, we heard this week that the company he just left laid off a lot of people, and I guess there is more to come. We feel so grateful that the Lord blessed us so abundantly with a better job, in an area that we already love.

Poor Ethan has a double goose egg on his head right now. Have you ever thought about exactly HOW hard tile is. Seriously! That poor baby's forehead has had a couple too many run-ins with the tile that runs throughout the house we are living in. Just when I thought his latest one was about to disappear completely, he tripped in the entry this afternoon and has a new blackish-blue growth coming off the side of his head. Note to self: tile floor + baby's head= disaster.

Last night while Craig went to the priesthood session, the kids and I made a little Easter decoration. It took a bit of creativity given my lack of resources and the fact that most of my goods are still in storage, but I have my craft box and we were able to come up with a pretty little Easter egg concoction consisting of paper plates, material, ribbon, buttons, and some glue. I hung it up on the back door, it made it feel a little more like Easter.

I've discovered something about my husband since we moved here. He is a fantastic barbecuer (is that a word?) Seriously, that man can grill meat over an open flame like nothing else. We've been BBQing just about everyday, and it's always fantastic. How can we have been married for almost 6 years and I didn't know this about him?

Hannah has become obsessed with taking pictures, and I think she's a pretty good little photographer. Slightly abstract but artistic still.

We're still waiting to figure out where we are going to live, and given my obsessive nature it's a major struggle everyday NOT to want to flip out at the idea that we still don't know where we will be hanging our hat in the next few months. The market is insane down here. The prices are fantastic, but of course that means that you have to wait alot more... short sales and foreclosures take ALOT more time than a typical home sale. It's been hard to find ones that AREN'T one of the two. We've probably seen 20 houses since we got down here, and I think maybe 2 of them were just a normal sale. Every time I walk into one of those houses, I feel so sad for the people who lost their home. I wonder what their story was (and sometimes why they were unable to live a LITTLE bit cleaner) and I feel so grateful that we are here with a good job looking for a new home, instead of trying to figure out how we are going to live. Right now we have an offer on an amazing house. It's a short sale so we're playing the waiting game. I'll let you know if anything comes of it.

I'm not really sure what I'll be doing tomorrow. It's kind of bizarre to know that if I see another adult (besides Craig) there's pretty much a guarantee that I won't know them. It's weird to not know anybody. It makes me excited to get settled in a new home and meet people. I am excited to go out and explore a little bit more about my new home. There are so many cool places down here. Have I mentioned that we went to a Ghost town last weekend? Very cool. It makes me wonder what I'll discover this week. We'll see, everyday is a new opportunity.

Enjoy your week, everyone.

lucky me.

i love my family.

four?

april fools.