Disaster Around Every Corner

Oh what a day was last Thursday. Oh. What. A. Day. It started off so well. We had another great sewing club get together. Afterwards, my good friend Mindi stuck around with her daughter, Jane. Mindi is an exceptionally talented artist and is doing two murals in my house. I am very excited about both of them. More on those later...

While Mindi and I worked upstairs (she will laugh when she reads that, she did absolutely all the work while I sat on my duff and kept her company) the girls played outside. I started to hear the water running, so I went to investigate. I found this.




And I found this.

They had been playing in the dirt, which included filling one of Scarlet's many purses with dirt, then decided to come inside to clean up. There was hand soap everywhere, including a lot in Jane's hair.

The girls were reprimanded, they then cleaned up their mess and were sent back outside. Mindi and I returned to our work. We could hear them from my room but after a few minutes, we realized we couldn't hear them jabbering anymore. I went back downstairs to investigate.

They weren't in Scarlet room.... they weren't anywhere in the downstairs........ they weren't in the backyard........ I flung the front door open and was just about to go dashing down the walk when my neighbors walked up with a two year old on each hand.

Scarlet, Jane, and their 'baby' in the stroller had decided to go for a little walk, Scarlet informed me. They were about four houses down the street when my neighbors spotted them.

More reprimanding, which included big frantic lectures on the danger of going on walks without mom and both girls were sent to individual rooms to think about their behavior.

Mindi and I then headed downstairs to get a glass of water before returning back to work. We chatted for a minute with Cynthia, who had stopped by. Then Mindi remembered she hadn't put her paint away and headed upstairs before it dried out. Very shortly after I hear a very ominous, 'Kacey, you'd better get up here....' Then I heard Scarlet start to bawl.

She also painted on her face like lipstick. When I reached my room, she was hysterically in tears. The two year old realization that she was in serious trouble.

I had no words, no idea as to what to say that hadn't already been said twice in the past hour. So, I just gave her a big hug while her body shook and enormous tears slid down her cheeks. Once she calmed down a bit, she was sent back into her room while I tried to figure out what to do.

Once I calmed a bit and reminded myself many times that she was two and, even though she knows better, she also really doesn't. How can you be too mad at a girl who tries to clean up when she gets dirty? Or pretends she is just like mom and takes her baby on a walk in the stroller just like mom does? Or sees mom and Mindi painting and thinks, I can make this wall pretty too? Don't get me wrong, I was still mad. Just not too mad.

Her final punishment was this. I came into her room with garbage bags and she helped me load them with her toys until her room was clear. When dad got home, they had a serious chat and Scarlet paid dad back for all the extra work he would have to do to fix the wall with all her Halloween candy. She didn't watch any shows this weekend, instead she earned quarters to help her pay back Mindi for the work she ruined.

She has done really well. Whenever she asked to watch a show or get her toys, I reminded her why I had them and she was ok with it and didn't ask again. I am really proud of how well she has handled herself and her punishments since.

Now onto much happier notes.

Rhode is cracking me up. He has finally found something to entertain himself with that does not involve hanging out in my general vicinity. He plays fetch... with himself.

The wind up..

The pitch..


The fetch..

Ta da!

Get him a ball and an empty space and he plays for a very long time, laughing and crawling as fast as he can.

To continue on the good news streak, some friends and I got together to de-crap our homes and had a garage sale. I made $120 and I have room in both storage areas of my house. Now that is satisfying.

Halloween 2009

I intentionally did not eat dinner last night. I knew, whether I ate anything or not, I would be eating my weight in candy later that evening. Why add to the calories? Plus, then instead of feeling like my stomach was going to explode from the amount of candy intake, maybe I would just feel pleasantly, sugarly full.



And it worked!



I am an admitted candy-holic. I have never outgrown my love for sugar in its purest, most refined form. Halloween is a happy, happy time for a girl like me who deprives herself of such luxuries most of the year.



Enough about me, more about the kids. What would October be without a trip to the pumpkin patch! Of course, this is Vegas. Instead of an actual patch of pumpkins, lets try some hay bales and pumpkins thrown in with some carnival style rides all conveniently situated in a casino parking lot. Love this city. Heck, at least they try...





Almost looks like small town USA.

I have almost conceded to the fact that my children will not photograph well together.

These two, on the other hand, are more than camera ready.

Scarlet saves her best smiles for her two friends, Blaze and Bennett. Both boys were out of commission all week with fevers and the like. Scarlet about went crazy with boredom.

And now, onto Halloween. I had a pretty fun idea for the family. I already had a pretty good idea for an 80's girl costume for Scarlet and a 50's costume for Rhode was pulling itself together. So, what better way to create a theme then to have Jon and I take up the two decades in the middle?

"Nope," was the response I received from a certain member of my family. Ok... so then I thought, let's join our children. I will dress 50's with Rhode and Jon would dress 80's with Scarlet. I was really mostly kidding when I suggested Jon shave some lines on the sides of his hair. Note to self, when talking Jon into Halloween costumes, do not joke about mullets.

So, instead of an adorable family theme, I had two adorably dressed children, no theme, no rhyme or reason to their costumes, but adorable nonetheless.

And, without further ado, my 80's girl -

While I was shaping her bangs, she looked in the mirror and said, "Wow, mom, you made my hair a rainbow!" She was very impressed with my skills.

Then after applying several coats of blue eyeshadow, pink blush and hot pink lipstick, she took one last look in the mirror and said, "Mom, I look like you!"

And my 50's greaser -

Rhode spent the entire evening in the stroller with a tootsie roll pop in one hand and his Halloween candy bag in his lap. He was so intent on that sucker he got it clean down to the tootsie roll before he tried to stick it in his sister's hair.

Speaking of hair, I intentionally have not let Jon cut Rhode's hair so I could grease it back for Halloween. It stayed for about an hour, then the rest of the evening it looked like an exceptionally bad comb over.

We hit up the ward trunk or treat then came back to our house to hand out candy to neighbor kids. Of course, when only eight kids show up, it means I have a good 2/3rds of a bucket of candy waiting by my front door. That is the last thing my hips needed. My Sunday school class might be a little sugar overloaded over the next month...

Oh, and heads up for anyone else who might have spaced that today is Daylight Savings. Rhode woke up at 7:30 a.m. and I was excited for the extra half hour of sleep... until I noticed the computer had already updated the time. Remember when you were a kid and daylight savings meant an extra hour of sleep every October? Those were the good old days.

For Lack of a Better Name...

You know how everyone is all of a sudden crafty? It seems like I can't blog stalk for one minute without being bombarded by how uncreative I am compared to every other mom on the block. Well, a friend of mine and I spent months aww-ing over adorable patterns and templates. And we grumbled about the dang kids who are both the reason we want to make things and the reason we don’t have time to make them.

Then, we reached our limit and came up with a plan. We would just have to ignore all other responsibilities and get some projects started. We really wracked our brains and came up with our very creative title of sewing club. The name really does not capture the essence that is sewing club. Sewing club is equal parts insanity and creativity, quality girl time and chaos. One day a week, a group of us, including all babies and kids of various ages, meet at my house for about four hours and try to complete a project. We get amazingly little done. What should have been a half hour project will likely take the entire four hours while the more intense designs take a few meetings to complete.

Why does it take so long? Well, let’s take last week for an example. We had 7 moms in attendance and 15 kids. Between sharing ideas, trying to figure out how to actually follow a pattern, unjamming the sewing machine again, feeding starving children, herding them back outside, breaking up fights, fixing owies and chatting about every topic under the sun, there is little time left.

Oh, and of course wrestling our supplies away from the crawlers.

We had an interesting incident a few weeks ago after one of the children insisted on pulling his mother outside to look at a spider. I was thinking how grateful I was it wasn’t my child when the mom is suddenly pulling me out the door with her and telling me to bring my camera. Here’s what we found.

Crazy huh? It was on the most intricate, enormous web in the corner of my backyard. I am not one for insect life but for a creepy crawly, it is pretty cool looking. Sadly, the spider met an untimely death shortly after. He will be missed… yeah not really but more than I have ever missed any other spider in my life.

Though we don’t get much done, we do get something done. Which is way more than I could say about my craftiness pre-sewing club. This has been going on for a few months now so it might actually look like we have accomplished a lot!

Since most of the products were made for her, Scarlet will serve as my model
One of our first projects was hooded towels.

Then there was hair bow week. We came up with these fun little creations.

We then found a pattern to turn a men’s shirt into a toddler dress.


I am so sad I didn't take a picture of the shirt before I cut it up. It turned out pretty fun though.

If you can see, the buttons down the back of the dress are the buttons from the front of the shirt.


Scarlet is also sporting her mom’s other project, fabric flowers.


And, most recently, we have my latest crochet project.

I was hoping to get a group picture last week but it was cancelled due to kid sickness.

Even when we get nothing accomplished, the kids destroy the backyard and front room, and my husband complains because he has once again sat on a errant pin, I still absolutely love sewing club. It is one of the happiest times of my week. So to all my sewing club ladies, thank you for all the memories made and all the ones to come.

Next on the sewing agenda, little boys church ties. Stay tuned!

A blur...

For the life of me I do not know where this last month has gone. Time is rushing by me faster than I can manage to grasp. All of a sudden I have a one year old child and my little newborn baby is gone. My first little baby has turned into a talking, singing, intelligently silly girl. And “the holidays” are absolutely around the corner. Where did September go people?!

But first things first. Before any more time passes and the kid turns two, here is a little insight on my not-so-fabulous first birthday party for Rhode.

I really try to care about my kids’ first birthdays but I just really don’t. I need a little more recognition from the receiver as motivation for extra effort. But, even in its pathetic-ness, it was still a nice little get together.

Some of Rhode’s closest friends came over. Well, some of my closest friends came over and brought their babies of various ages that Rhode loves to whack and take toys from. Same thing, right?

We had some good food, good conversation, and good play time for the kids until I realized the guest of honor had not actually joined the party from his afternoon nap. So I peeked in to see how the little guy was doing. This is what I found.




Rhode was a little dazed when I brought his more sturdily wrapped behind downstairs. I thought a little cake would wake him up. Oh, the cake. I was so embarrassed by it I almost didn’t let Jon take a picture. Let me explain. I wasn’t planning much on the cake front but I did want Rhode to have a cake just for him. So I made him a little two layer number that would be perfect for grabbing a whole handful.

While people were walking in the door I was scrambling to make some frosting. I don’t know what I did wrong but it was REALLY thin. I tried to add some food coloring for a little bit of creativity. I’m still not sure how I created the teal sea monster green shade.

So with no further ado, my son’s one year old birthday cake.

Anyone else feel like they are at a Mad Hatter tea party that went really wrong?

Rhode was obviously traumatized by the green monstrosity in front of him. He wouldn’t touch it for a million dollars. That is until some of the other kids braved the blob and showed Rhode how it was done.

He caught on quickly.


I let him tear at his presents, which he thoroughly enjoyed doing.


And now the reaction. What would he think of his new set of cars from the Stouts?


Success! Dang maybe we should have started with mom and dad’s gift…



Relief, he likes ours too.

I have so enjoyed this little boy. He is a bundle of chubs and smiles and I just want to kiss him all day long. He is going through a major mommy loving phase and I constantly find him on my lap or being carried on my hip before I realize I have actually picked him up yet again!
He has a few words. Mostly mama and dada but we get the occasional byebye, baba, and all done (ah da!). He just popped down a top tooth to raise the molar meter to three. No solid walking yet but he let go of the couch just last week and took about four steps to get to me. We’ll take it!

Now onto the rest of our month. Our good friends, the Stouts, got themselves a big old family car. We like to call it the fancy beast. First, their diesel excursion was just called the beast for obvious reasons. Any car that sounds like the school bus pulling up in front of your house deserves the nickname. But inside, it is one luxury looking car with dvd player and everything. Thus, fancy beast.

The best part about the fancy beast is we can now carpool. How many babies in car seats can you fit in the fancy beast?


Yeah that would be six. Three of Ashley’s, one extra she babysits, and my two. We looked like we were unloading the clown car when we got to the park. People passing by wondered if the train of babies coming from one car would ever end.

But we found this great city park. A good set of swings, slides for little kids, and a water park right in the middle of it.

Child heaven!

I tried to get Scarlet to stand in this spot where water would spray up around her in a circle without spraying her. She lasted just until the water started rising, then panicked and got some serious water in the face as she escaped from the circle of impending doom.
Bennett obliged as my new model.

I love this picture of the kids getting completely dumped on.


And finally, a little more fun in the Nielsen backyard. I know if I leave the kids with dad too long in the backyard, I am going to want to pull out the camera. Or save them from immanent death/injury.

This time, he found a solution to the age old problem. What do you do with two kids and one swing?

Pull some cirque du soliel style tricks!


And when that is not enough to keep daddy amused, make the baby stand.




I am speaking in Sacrament meeting in about two hours and teach Sunday School an hour after that. I think I should maybe start working on that…

Scarletism #2

It was a chilly 78 degrees yesterday so we finally got to break out the fall clothes. The whole family got to wear their new jeans. Actually, by whole family I mean the kids. My jeans have holes I am hoping are too visible if I keep moving at all times. Anyway..

Scarlet was very excited to be wearing her new jeans but she had trouble keeping them around her waist. For a chick with some booty, she sure struggles to keep her pants up. So she took them off all day long.

Finally the missionaries were coming for dinner, and this conversation ensued:

Me: Scarlet, this is my last warning, you need to go put on your jeans now before the missionaries come over.

Scarlet: No mom, no jeans.

Me: Yes, I mean it. Go grab them from the stairs and I will help you put them on.

Scarlet: But mom... (pauses to get her words in order)...... my jeans are heavy on my yegs!




I think we might have turned her into a Vegas lifer. She happily came downstairs with a pair of denim shorts she found in her drawer.

An Adventure to Say the Least

When Jon first suggested taking the kids down to visit his family for their annual Lake Powell trip, I wasn't thrilled with the idea. The thought of my two children on water with the likeliness of a decent nap at a minimum was not a pleasant one. But we hadn't seen Jon's family since Thanksgiving and we were all way overdue for some quality Nielsen time. So go we did.

Since most of the Nielsen clan travels to Powell by way of Utah, California and Colorado, they usually launch at Bullfrog. For those not well versed in Lake Powell lingo that means really-really-seriously-crazy-completely-out-of-the-way-middle-of-nowhere far away from the Lake Powell Nevadans usually cruise.

We don't have GPS and we didn't even think to Mapquest our trip before we left. Jon and I had gone to Powell one time before, when he introduced me to his parents. So, with our trusty Atlas and our less than accurate account of the first time we made the trip, we set off.

If you look on a map, the trip involves heading straight North about two hours past the lake then cutting East and heading back South to finally reach our destination. Most of the way is two lane highway. I just couldn't help but notice the little red line that beelined straight from the 15 to our destination. Now, according to Jon's map, red lines were highways, grey lines were paved roads and dotted grey lines were not paved roads. There was a lot of red on the path I was considering and a bit of grey but no dotted grey. We were feeling adventurous for whatever reason and decided to take the path less traveled. That is when things started to go downhill... literally.

It started out so well. The drive through Bryce Canyon was smooth and absolutely beautiful. The kids were being so good in the car. A few twists and turns but overall a beautiful road.

It got a little darker then and the road got a little more rural. There was no longer a line separating the two lanes and it was a little more curvy but there were reflectors on the side of the road and it was still relatively smooth sailing.

The sun was gone by then and we were on the lookout for our next turn off. We probably should have taken it as a bad sign that our turnoff was marked by a hand painted sign on a 2x4.

Then we drove by this sign - Not this exact sign, it was dark, but you get the idea.

And then, just as the sign promised, the pavement ended and we continued turning through the mountains on dirt and gravel. If you have ever driven on a dirt road, you know how they tend to get large grooves in them that make your car vibrate? Yeah, we shook for a good 30 minutes. Not only that but any reflectors or lights from anything from our front headlights were non existent. Then we hit another sign.

It seemed innocent enough. Caution Downgrade ahead. We slowed down a lot, thank goodness, just in time to see the hairpin turn in front of us. As our headlights swung around the turn, we finally saw what was in front of us. A complete drop off, a stretch of blackness, then a sheer cliff wall as high as the eye could see.

What The Heck

I grabbed onto my door and my heart, and tried not to scream (both kids were fast asleep) as we hairpin turned our way twelve times down the side of a mountain. When we made it to the bottom, I said a very heartfelt prayer of thanks and cursed the moment I was ever allowed to view the altas. The road became paved again shortly after and we twisted and turned our way to our destination 7 1/2 hours after we started.

Now onto the less harrowing part of our trip. It was actually so much better than I had anticipated. The Nielsens let us stay in the one room on their house boat so my kids got their naps in every day. Not only that, Jon's uncle also brought his house boat so there were lots of room, air conditioning, and even cartoons when needed.

Not only were the accommodations great, but the kids had an amazing time. Scarlet was in heaven.

Rhode was also a big fan of sand time, the cleaning off in the lake afterward? Not so much.

Jon took both the kids out kayaking several times. (This is Rhode and our niece Olivia)

There was even some fishing to be had. My adorable nephew Hawkins and his singular boat obsession was to catch a fish. I kept having to warn him to keep fishing hooks away from humans as there was one dangling in front of my face more than once. He was a man on a mission. Here is the success.

I know it is a good trip when I have time to do this.

Scarlet was great about keeping her life jacket on while we were on the boat. Rhode struggled a little more. The biggest problem was, well, he is pretty chubby. The life jacket came up right under his chin and with the extra meat he's storing under there he just couldn't get his head to turn. He looked like he was being strangled every time we wrestled him in it. So he was eagle eye watched and only forced into his neck brace when we went for a boat ride.

Scarlet would beg every second of the day to go on another boat ride so we went out as often as we could.

But when she pretended not to be interested in tubing we figured she was just being shy. This kid loves the boat and the water. What wouldn't she like about tubing?

Yes, that is the top of her head barely visible as she hid in the hole and cried.

She peeked out just enough for us to know that she was still absolutely terrified so we stopped and pulled her in.

Rhode, on the other hand, had an amazing time on his first tube ride.

I couldn't tell if he was liking the ride. His neck brace kept him from turning his head to see me. So I flipped him around to see how he was doing and he was grinning, waving his arms and squealing with delight.

Coincidentally, this was also my first tube ride since high school. Sadly, it was not my last.

Jon convinced me to take a ride with him. I have decided tubing is kind of like child birth. We somehow only remember all the good moments and forget all the painful ones.

There were a lot of good moments...

Followed by the painful moments...

That is my head and that is Jon's tube rope caught on in. How fun would it be to barrel roll over my wife's tube? .

This fun...

By the way, it looks like he is still not on his tube.. but he is.

I totally love that it was captured on film. That always extends the life of 'things that you can hold over your husband's head'. Remember when you almost decapitated me? Oh you don't! Here let's pull out the photo album.

Jon was so upset by his actions he immediately made sure the kids and I were well away from any boat danger. Spending the afternoon skiing with his dad was punishment really!

We had a quick celebration for Rhode on his birthday while we were there but saved a more official celebration for later. (Post to come soon)

We took off Tuesday afternoon still debating on which road we would take home. Jon really wanted to take our 'road less traveled' again to see it in daylight. Thankfully, for our sanity, marriage, and our lives, the road was closed because of rain. We took the longer route and got home almost exactly 7 1/2 hours later. I think I will count that as my adventure of the year. May all other trips be calm, relaxing, and maybe even uneventful.

Do You Want the Bad News or the Good News?

Let's start with the bad news. I drive an Acura RL. I love my car. It is my favorite color red and I have never once had any trouble with my engine, transmission, or any of those other big car words that make your car stop moving.

The problem is my car hates Las Vegas. It is slowly melting. Almost all of the trim on the inside and outside, especially the rubber around the doors, has come off. The battery goes completely bad on me every year or so, and the absolute worst part, the sun somehow murders my windows.

My back two windows died about 2 years ago. They rolled down one day and never came back. It took $500 a piece to replace them. I had almost recovered from the tragedy when I heard the familiar jamming sound on my window as I rolled it down at the ATM on Friday. And down the window went, deep into the cavernous door, never to see the light of day again.

What is worse than your driver side window permanently in the down position? Having it happen on the Friday of Labor Day weekend. I get to drive it all over anyway and just pray my quarters and car seats (and the car) are still there when I get out. I went to lock it at the store yesterday and realized that was just about as pointless as they come.

So then Friday evening I was sitting at my computer when the wind started to pick up. Then the clouds rolled in and before I knew it, the rains came down. It was a classic LV monsoon but this one came with a kick. It was hitting our roof so hard I would have sworn it was hail coming down. Nope, just the most enormous water droplets ever created.




Don't you love how cameras do nothing to capture a torrential downpour? Here is my backyard that was pretty parched looking 3 minutes previous.



It was a whole lotta water. Now since you are the ones reading the story, I bet you have put the two events together. I had yet to do so. I was actually on the phone talking about how amazing the storm really was when it finally hit me, my car was now filling with water through my gaping window hole.

I ran outside, armed with a towel and was instantly drenched. I threw the towel over the window and ran inside to think of a better idea than the now dripping in my car towel. Thank goodness for friends who think quick on their feet... and leave crap at my house. Ashley remembered she had left a vinyl tablecloth at my house months ago. I located it, tore it open, made the mad dash back outside and saved my seat.

Now I just have to bite the bullet, spend a few hours at the dealer, shell out a small fortune, and get the dang thing fixed.

On to the good news... Rhode's first haircut!



It is amazing how hard it really is to cut off those little baby locks. As many of you noticed in my previous post, his hair was getting a bit long. (By the way, that was the wind, I did not porcupine spike my child's hair for church). It was so bad I found myself frequently tucking hair behind his ear. So before church, we trimmed him up a bit.

I spiked it up so the trimmers would catch it better but you can see how long it was.




A few moments of screaming, wiggling, and wailing and, before I knew it, my baby became my little boy.

I really do think he is exceptionally good looking. Both of them actually.