Ain't It True?!

I found this while doing some blog stalking and found it to be quite hilarious.


Thinking of Having Kids?
Do this 15 step program first!

Lesson 1
1. Go to the grocery store.
2. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office.
3. Go home.
4. Pick up the paper.
5. Read it for the last time.

Lesson 2
Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who already are parents and berate them about their...
1. Methods of discipline.
2. Lack of patience.
3. Appallingly low tolerance levels.
4. Allowing their children to run wild.
5. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child'sbreast-feeding, sleep habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall behavior. Enjoy it because it will be the last time in your life you will have all the answers.

Lesson 3
A really good way to discover how the nights might feel...
1. Get home from work and immediately begin walking around the living room from 5PM to 10PM carrying a wet bag weighing approximately8-12 pounds, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly. (Eat cold food with one hand for dinner)
2. At 10PM, put the bag gently down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep.
3. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag, until 1AM.
4. Set the alarm for 3AM.
5. As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2AM and make a drink and watch an infomercial.
6. Go to bed at 2:45AM.
7. Get up at 3AM when the alarm goes off.
8. Sing songs quietly in the dark until 4AM.
9. Get up. Make breakfast. Get ready for work and go to work(work hard and be productive)

Repeat steps 1-9 each night. Keep this up for 3-5 years. Look cheerful and together.

Lesson 4
Can you stand the mess children make? To find out...
1. Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains.
2. Hide a piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.
3. Stick your fingers in the flower bed.
4. Then rub them on the clean walls.
5. Take your favorite book, photo album, etc. Wreck it.
6. Spill milk on your new pillows. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?

Lesson 5
Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems.
1. Buy an octopus and a small bag made out of loose mesh.
2. Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hang out. Time allowed for this - all morning.

Lesson 6
1. Take an egg carton. Using a pair of scissors and a jar of paint, turn it into an alligator.
2. Now take the tube from a roll of toilet paper. Using only Scotch tape and a piece of aluminum foil, turn it into an attractive Christmas candle .
3. Last, take a milk carton, a ping-pong ball, and an empty packet of Cocoa Puffs. Make an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower .

Lesson 7
Forget the BMW and buy a mini-van. And don't think that you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don't look like that.
1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there.
2. Get a dime. Stick it in the CD player.
3. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Sprinkle cheerios all over the floor, then smash them with your foot.
4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.

Lesson 8
1. Get ready to go out.
2. Sit on the floor of your bathroom reading picture books for half an hour.
3. Go out the front door.
4. Come in again. Go out.
5. Come back in.
6. Go out again.
7. Walk down the front path.
8. Walk back up it.
9. Walk down it again.
10. Walk very slowly down the sidewalk for five minutes.
11. Stop, inspect minutely, and ask at least 6 questions about every cigarette butt, piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue, and dead insect along the way.
12. Retrace your steps.
13. Scream that you have had as much as you can stand until the neighbors come out and stare at you.
14. Give up and go back into the house.
You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.

Lesson 9
Repeat everything you have learned at l east (if not more than) five times.

Lesson 10
Go to the local grocery store. Take with you the closest thing you can find to a preschool child. (A full-grown goat is an excellent choice). If you intend to have more than one child, then definitely take more than one goat. Buy your week's groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys. Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

Lesson 11
1. Hollow out a melon.
2. Make a small hole in the side.
3. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side.
4. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane.
5. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone.
6. Tip half into your lap. The other half, just throw up in the air. You are now ready to feed a nine- month-old baby.

Lesson 12
Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street , Barney, Disney, the Teletubbies, and Pokemon. Watch nothing else on TV but PBS, the Disney channel or Noggin for at least five years. (I know,you're thinking What's 'Noggin'?) Exactly the point.

Lesson 13
Move to the tropics. Find or make a compost pile. Dig down about halfway and stick your nose in it. Do this 3-5 times a day for at least two years.

Lesson 14
Make a recording of Fran Drescher saying 'mommy' repeatedly.(Important: no more than a four second delay between each 'mommy'; occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet is required). Play this tape in your car everywhere you go for the next four years. You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.

Lesson 15
Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else continually tug on your skirt hem, shirt- sleeve, or elbow while playing the 'mommy' tape made from Lesson 14 above. You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

This is all very tongue in cheek; anyone who is parent will say 'it'sall worth it!' Share it with your friends, both those who do and don'thave kids. I guarantee they'll l get a chuckle out of it. Remember, a sense of humor is one of the most important things you'll need when you become a parent!

PAY IT FORWARD

Pay It Forward Exchange is based on the concept of the movie "Pay it forward". I will send a hand made gift to the first three people who leave a comment to this post on my blog requesting to join the PIF exchange. All the gifts will be made and posted out 'sometime within the next year'. How exciting to not know when your surprise package will arrive! What you need to do in return, is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog. This Exchange is only open to those with active websites or blogs. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS PROMISE TO POST THIS SAME 'PAY IT FORWARD' MESSAGE ONTO YOUR BLOG, WHICH MUST BE ACTIVE IN ORDER TO PLAY. YOU WILL PAY IT FORWARD TO THREE PEOPLE WHO COMMENT ON YOUR BLOG. I'd love for you to join me! Will you? Other comments are welcome, but only the first three will be my Pay It Forward recipients. Come and join me who doesn't love a gift or giving gifts???

'Tis the season for GERMS

Nothing exciting, I just need to complain a little and get some sympathy from everyone in blogland. I hate being sick! But more important, I hate that moms get sick from taking care of sick kids! Rhett started with the sore throat, fever, and hacking up a lung. Then I got it, then Austin, and then Bekah. Rhett is feeling better but I still feel like crud because I waste all my energy taking care of the others. Luckily, Neldon was home for the past couple of days and that has helped a lot. He did all of the laundry this weekend and several loads of dishes. He pulled the night shift with the sick kids so that I could get some sleep and let me take naps each day. What a guy! I hate to think what I would feel like if he hadn't been around.

Anyway, we hope the nasty germs stay far from your house!

Holiday Happenings

This is a little late. Everyone else in blogland has already posted about Christmas and New Year's and all of the excitement of the holidays. So, mine is old news but oh well. We had a great holiday season-it was busy and involved A LOT of family.

It started out with some of Neldon's family coming to town for the Las Vegas Bowl. We were hoping for a victory to finish off the season but that didn't happen :( Here is the group shot. Somehow we managed to still put smiles on our faces. Unfortunately, we didn't get to spend much time with most of them because it seemed like they were all gone as quickly as they got here. At least we have football to get us all together!

Luckily, Aunt Brooksany got to stay an extra day or two and the kids had fun with her when it was time to decorate some yummy sugar cookies. Can you guess which ones Neldon decorated?

As soon as the Barrowes all left, it was time for the Sessions to show up. Poor Tim had gotten stranded in Chicago on his way home to SLC from visiting friends in NYC. It was quicker for him to come to LV instead of SLC, just having to get back into a car to drive down here the next day. The rest of the crew (minus Jeff''s family-we missed you guys) came on Christmas Eve afternoon. The people and the presents started showing up! It was beginning to look like Christmas had arrived. I had not put any presents out yet knowing that the kids would tear into them before they were supposed to. Aunt Lori read a story about a grumpy Santa as the kids decorated Santa's cookies. Our Christmas Eve traditions include yummy hogey sandwiches with the works, reading the Christmas story while Bekah does a puppet show with the "stuffed animal" nativity set we have, and opening new jammies before bedtime. Poor Neldon had to work and he missed out on all of the Christmas Eve fun. We missed him tons and are glad that Christmas will now fall on his days off for the next couple of years. Christmas morning came with tons of excitement. Santa brought our family a Wii and and several games and we are getting lots of practice. Anyone up for a tournament?!

It was fun to have everyone here but I was exhausted. Normally I am sad to put Christmas away but this year I couldn't get my house back to normal fast enough. It still took a whole week to get it done but all is well now. New Year's was uneventful-at least for me and the kids. Neldon got to work down on the Strip in all of the crazy excitement. I think I stayed up until 10-I know I watched the ball drop in Time Square-good enough for me. The next day was a beautiful day so we took the kids to the park. I don't mind not having snow-I love my my sunshine! School has now started back up and all is back to the normal level of chaos.

Anyway, we hope you all have a great 2009!

SNOW !!!!

It's not often that we get to talk about the latest snowstorm in Las Vegas so when it dropped 8 inches this afternoon at our house, we got out there and lived it up. This picture represents the third time that we have had snow on our house/lawn in the ten years we have lived here.

As soon as he got a chance, Rhett was out making snow angels, throwing snowballs and working on a snowman.

Austin thought the snow looked cool, but after a few falls on the slippery ground, and cold hands, he'd had enough. We were lucky to get him to pose for this photo before hustling back inside.

It took me almost an hour and a half to drive into work tonight, making me wonder why the good folks of Las Vegas have no driving skills. Fortunately, the snow should melt and the weather be OK for the LV Bowl this Saturday, our fourth one in a row we'll attend. It will be cold, but I can handle that. Cold and super windy or cold and wet is another story...... Here is one last picture of our street and Rhett enjoying the snow.

My Rant

I guess this is just one more example of global warming at its best. When it is warmer than usual, blame global warming. If it is colder than usual, it is once again, the result of global warming. I guess I should have become a climatologist instead of a deck guard at the jail. I could have been a straight A student since it appears that every multiple choice question seems to have the same answer: Global warming. Don't get me wrong, we can always become more responsible with pollution and the impact we have on our environment. I just dislike the fear tactics and fanaticism associated with global warming. and it turns me off. The US can improve a lot, but China and other countries are far worse. Maybe we should spend some time shaming them in the world spotlight, then get back to imposing stringent standards on ours own country, far more than what our competitors have to meet. Quit scaring us, quit treating global warming like a religion in which we should simply accept the phenomenon as the fault of people, disregarding any evidence to the contrary. Lets get rational and talk about improving our world. No more scare tactics, stop strong arming companies, or hijacking the Supreme Court-- passing laws that environmentalists can't get past Congress, because they lack the numbers to pass them. Lets get intelligent conversation and debate on the subject (isn't that what the academic comminity is built around?), instead of simply demoninzing detractors and shunning them in the academic circles..... Maybe then we can make some progress in this arena. (deep breath).

If anyone is actually still reading, I feel better.

Rhett turns 4!

Rhett was so excited to open his card from Pops and get 4 of his very own dollars.


He has been asking for the Screaming Banchee from Cars for months.

Happy Birthday to my little Rhett-boy. He is so much fun and so excited about everything-especially Disney CARS! He would wake up every day and try to convince me it was time for his birthday. We invited some friends over for pizza and just let the kids run wild and play while we chit-chatted. Then came presents and cake. What a night!

I will never do another cake like this again. It turned out ok but it took me 2 hours and lots of frustration. No matter how much my kids want a cool cake-they are only going to get cupcakes from now on!

These are 2 of Rhett's best buddies, Samuel and Jared.

Done Traveling...

Hello all blog stalkers! We are done traveling and had a great time. If I never see my orange suitcase again, it will be too soon. 4 weeks of living out of a suitcase, just coming home to do laundry and repack everything can wear a girl down. We visited lots of family and friends-thanks for letting us mooch off you guys! We just have to get through the BYU vs. Utah game tomorrow and we can breathe again. Here are some pics for your enjoyment.

Hogle Zoo - Salt Lake City

Trick Or Treating - Superior, CO

BYU vs. CSU - Ft. Collins, CO

Visiting the Allen Family - Pueblo, CO

BYU vs. Air Force - Colorado Springs, CO