New hair growth hormone found in formula...

The weekend

David was gone this past weekend (yet, again!) and for some reason I feel as if EVERY project I have on my "to do" list HAS to get done THAT weekend. I don't know why, but it seems to work that way. The closet HAS to be cleaned while he is gone, the garage HAS to be organized while he is gone, EVERY quilt I have started HAS to be finished before he gets back. Needless to say, it never happens. In fact most of the time I don't even get to the "to do" list that I already have written b/c I also feel the need to add at least 10 things to the list that are MUCH more important to get done.

Hence this weekend....

He left Friday afternoon, and so I knew I would have 2 1/2 days to finish all my tasks. Here are some of the things I had planned...

1. Paint Kylie and Kaden's room
2. Paint Eli and Eddies room
3. Make curtains for both rooms
4. Decorate both rooms
5. Clean the coat closet
6. Go through ALL the clothes tubs, de-junk, and put away summer clothes, then organize in different closet. (Which by the way would mean cleaning that different closet)
7. Sew on the borders of 2 quilts I have started, and pin to backs. (and if time, start tying and/or quilting)
8. Do projects with kids
9. Clean all the rooms in the house so when David gets home, it will be spotless!

Now what I got done...

1. painted both rooms (well, almost, I ran out of the blue paint in Eli's room, so I will still have to finish that)
2. Made curtains for one room (I don't like the material I bought for the other room anymore)
3. Put up SOME of the decorations in one of the rooms
4. Boiled all the fish in my kids fish tank (Ooops, that cord that was unplugged behind the dresser was unplugged for a reason!)
5. Made 3 pumpkin decorations with Stacey. (Yes, I know, that was not on my list, but like I said, I tend to add on to that list)
6. Let my house get messier than it has in a long time

Well, there you have it. I barely made a dent in my "to do" list. And unfortunately most of those that I did accomplish were only added on to my list...Friday. (The kids' rooms were a last minute add-on). I am not sure what makes me think that I will be able to accomplish so much when David is gone. I can hardly get things done when he is here. Why on earth would I be able to do more when I am home alone with 5 kids? Oh well, there is always this weekend..... :)


I added the pictures of the pumpkins Stacey and I made. We used 2 different patterns. What set do you like best? (I am not telling you who made which set)

And I thought I had a bad headache...

This morning I had to run to Costco. And yes, I took all the kids. And yes, I was asked 50 times if they were all mine, if any were twins, and how old they are (every time I go to Costco with the kids, I am bombarded with questions from just about everybody I pass-it gets old.)

Anyway, after 1 1/2 hours of roaming the store, pulling one cart, and pushing another-we ate some lunch and hurried home to get Kaden off to school. When we got home, I went to open Eli's door, and realized a little to late that he was trying to open it from the inside.

He fell out of the car and landed FLAT on his face. No joke-FLAT on his face. His nose was bleeding and I could tell that he was going to have a big goose egg in the middle of his forehead. The poor kid. He was not very happy. And he really didn't like it when I put the frozen bag of peas and carrots on his head. (That bag has been living in my freezer for a LONG time. We don't actually use it for anything else except as an ice pack). I took a picture of him right after it happened.

It looked worse after his nap, but I didn't get a picture. I wonder what it will look like in the morning...

What happens when you send 3 kids upstairs to get dressed by themselves...

So, I may have left a little out....

Okay, David wants me to add to my last blog. He doesn't like what I said about our anniversary. So I will add to it-just for him!

It is true that the evening of our anniversary we went to Taco Time and Target, but I left out that that afternoon I had gotten Ashley to come over and watch my kids so that I could surprise David with a lunch at Olive Garden. He LOVES to go to Olive Garden for lunch and get the soup, salad, and bread sticks. I think it is b/c he is cheap. :)

I had the idea to go to Taco Time for dinner. My parents were eating it when we dropped the kids off at their house. And I really wasn't that hungry. And the thought of spending a bunch of money for a "nice dinner" when I wasn't hungry didn't really sound fun to me. (Okay, so I am cheap too!) AND the idea to go to Target after eating was my idea as well. There aren't really any movies out that I want to see. And the flies in my house were driving me NUTS. So it isn't Davids fault. He was kind enough to watch me look at clothes at Target. Which I know he did NOT enjoy. And I appreciate that.

He also wants me to let everyone know that he DID surprise me with a 3 hour appt. at the day spa last Friday. He came home and watched the kids while I went and had a 1 hour Swedish massage, a 1 hour facial and a 1 hour pedicure. Which I enjoyed immensely. (Well, not so much the pedicure. The lady giving me my pedicure liked to TALK. And we didn't exactly agree on most topics.....or any actually. It wasn't exactly relaxing.) But I did enjoy myself. So thank you David. But you better be careful, b/c I could DEFINITELY become addicted to spending my days like that. And that would be a very expensive addiction.......

Where has time gone??

Wow, it is already the middle of September? I can't believe it. What happened to the summer?

Time kind of flew by in the last month or two. So I will give a quick recap of everything....

1. The weekend after we got home from the Ostler Reunion David took Kaden backpacking. Kaden's first trip. David's first trip in a LONG time. He used to go all the time. (He graduated from the outdoor rec program at EWU after all). But married life, and kids made it hard for him to go. His brother and sister were going with their kids, so he decided it was time to get back in the game. Kaden was SO excited. The night before, we were up until 2 am packing. Kaden kept sneaking downstairs to watch. FINALLY we got him to go to bed, and then at 6 am, on the dot, Kaden was by David's side, ready to go. He had a BLAST. I think David did too, but he was VERY tired by the time he made it home.They had hiked 9 miles in, spent a couple of nights and then hiked the miles 9 out.

2. Most of you know, but my Grandma Ostler passed away. She went into the hospital the weekend that David was backpacking. NOT a fun time for me. I miss my grandma. It is still hard to go to my parents house and not see her. (We were there just last night, and I ALMOST got up to go downstairs to find her.) I am VERY thankful that we were all able to go to the family reunion the week before. Almost everyone was there. And THANK YOU Chelsea for suggesting we do pictures. Divine inspiration. The saddest part of losing her, is that my kids won't know the amazing women that she was. They will miss out on her lectures, and great wisdom. She will truly be missed.

3. The kids had swim lessons again. Unfortunately they started the week that grandma passed. So the kids didn't enjoy the first week. There was too much stress and sleep deprivation for them to do that. But by the end of the second week (the end of the lessons) they were having a blast. They can't wait for next summer to do it again. (and Eli can't wait to join them!)

4. Stacey talked me into reading the Twilight series. I like them. Okay, that is an understatement. I REALLY enjoyed reading them. I read all 4 books in about 5 days (would have been less, but those darn kids got in the way!)

5. Kaden started school. NOT FUN! I was a MESS. I was NOT ready for it. In fact, I kept putting off buying his school supplies b/c I didn't want it to happen. So it ended up that I had to get up early on the first day and run to Wal-mart before David had to go to work. Smart one. He is in afternoon Kindergarten (which I do not like). He wanted to ride the bus, so I ended up following the bus to the school to make sure that he could find his class. Wow, that was a hard day....

6. Kylie turned 4. And being the girly girl that she is, she wanted ONLY girls for the "first part" of her party. And then later the boys and adults could come. What a mess. I NEVER want to do that again. It wouldn't have been so bad if she would have invited girls that were all the same age. But we had 3 year olds all the way up to 10 year olds that I needed to find a way to entertain. THANK YOU STACEY AND ALLISON!!! I appreciate that you stayed and helped. I would have gone bazerk! It was really cute though, b/c Kylie (once again being VERY girly) wanted all of her friends to come "dressed up". She, of course, got WAY too many things. And she loved EVERY minute of all the attention being on her.

7. Kylie started preschool. Okay, Okay, who the heck said my kids could get SO big?!?! This is really unfair. Kaden in kindergarten and Kylie in preschool. Wow. She was very excited to go to "Kaden's old school, now her school". She didn't want me to drive her though. She wanted her "daddy" to take her. Of course. She has him wrapped around her little finger...It, again, was not an easy day for me. my kids are getting too big!

8. Kaden started soccer. David took him to his first practice last Thursday. And he had his first game last Saturday. And of course, being the horrible mother that I am, I forgot the stupid camera. So ya'll will have to wait till the next game to see how cute he is. He really enjoys it.

9. David and I celebrated 7 years of marriage Monday. I was told by my dad and Stacey that I needed to blog about my FUN and EXCITING night out. So here goes...we took our kids over too my dad's after they ate some dinner. And then David got caught up with some news thing my dad was watching when we got there. When I finally got him to leave....the night began.....Okay, so not really. We went to Taco Time, and then we went to Target to buy a fly swatter. I know, sad and pathetic, but what do you expect from us!?!?! (To make it even worse...Target was out of fly swatters!!)

There you have it. That is what has been happening at the Bruns' home. I will try and not take so long to blog next time......

Ostler Reunion 08: Day 5, Swimming and the drive HOME!

Sunday we woke up with the intent to take it easy. Check-out was not until 1 pm, so that would give us plenty of time to pack up and leave. We had decided that it would be a good time to take all of the kids swimming, since time had just not allowed for it any earlier. So we got up, got some breakfast, changed into our swim suits and blew up more arm floaties, rings and boats then you can imagine.

The kids almost ran to the pool they were so excited. There was a group of kids already there playing at one end of the pool. David got in with Kaden, Kylie and Eddie (Eli only pretended like he was going to go in-big surprise there!) and I sat on a bench with Johnny.

After we had been there about 10 minutes a couple of the little girls (They were like 5 or 6 years old, they weren't THAT little) from the other end of the pool came over and started jumping in on the side we were on. And I decided it was time for Eli to go in. But in order for that to happen I would have to grab him and take him in with me. Right as I was stepping down the steps, I looked at the water and there was something floating in it.POOP!!! YUCK!!!!!!!! One of those girls had pooped in the pool!!!

David tried grabbing one of the hotel towels to fish it out with (can you say GROSS!?!?!) but then noticed it was more then just a little bit of it. There was a big ol' log down on the bottom on the other end of the pool. We QUICKLY exited the pool and jumped into the shower-floaties, life vests, swim suits and all!

It was time to leave. I packed all of our stuff up and headed to the car. I didn't clean it out the night before, so I had to do it before I packed for the drive home. By the time all of this happened, I was pretty cranky. And I do believe that crankiness wore off on my kids. The drive home was AWFUL!

They have NEVER behaved like they did on the drive home. We thought they were bad on they way down there-this didn't even compare! If any of the boys even LOOKED at Kylie should would start whining and making these HORRIBLE noises. And it didn't take long for Eli to start acting the same way. Even Kaden was cranky and whiny. (Which really doesn't happen that often.) When we stopped for lunch I switched the car seats around so that Kylie was in the middle row with Johnny and the other 3 boys were in the back. Then NONE of her brothers could bother her. It didn't help. If I asked one of the boys to do something Kylie would then say..."EEEEELLLLIIIIII MMMMOOOMMMM SSSSAAAIIIDD TOOOOOOOOO........" In a very AWFUL sounding whine/moan/cry/scream. I really just don't even know how to describe it.

And since Eddie was sitting next to Kaden now, he wouldn't leave him alone! I would hear Kaden cry out and look back and Eddie had his head pinned in his lap hitting him and pulling his hair! What the heck?!?!

At one point I seriously thought David might beat my children. He was SO angry. When Eli wouldn't stop hitting Kaden, David SLAMMED on the brakes and went to the side of the road (you could smell the tires-yuck) He then got out and threw his arms in the air a little and opened the back door yelled at the kids enough to scare the crap out of them and then continued on. After that they behaved a little better. They weren't perfect by any means, but they did act more like they normally act on road trips.

David accidentally passed all of the towns that had places that we would feel safe enough going into to eat at dinner time. And it was 8:30 by the time we got to Baker city, and most places were closing at 9. And I was NOT going to eat from a drive-thru. We ended up finding this little restaurant that had little trains going all through it along the ceiling. The kids loved it. (I think they just liked getting out of the car for a minute).

After eating we changed kids into PJ's and set them up with blankets and babies in their seats and we headed home in almost absolute quiet. It was GREAT. We got home around midnight. It only took up 13 hours to make it home! And we thought the 12 hour trip on the way down was bad!

It was a lot of fun getting to see all my aunts and uncles and cousins. I wish we would have had a little more time to visit and such. It was worth all the stress and frustration. (and believe me there was a LOT of stress and frustration) It is sad, but I am happy to say that I don't have to worry about making another trip like this for a family reunion for 2 more years.

David with his 100 oz of Mt. Dew