Pants Down! Time for Flu Shots!

Can you tell which kid knows what's coming?


This picture may capture my children's personalities more than anything. Gretchen started crying an hour and a half before the flu shot, and then 10 minutes after. Thatcher cried about 10 seconds total.

Chicken Taco Soup

So I thought I'd share a recipe I kinda made up last week. I wanted a taco soup but with chicken, so I combined a few reicpes. It was pretty tasty!

Combine the following in a stockpot:
1 Tbl onion pwder
1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can whole kernel corn, drained and rinsed
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
2 cans diced tomatoes with green chilies, undrained (I used 2 cans diced tomatoes and ½ can diced green chilies)
1 (1.25 ounce) package taco seasoning
1 skinless, boneless chicken breast, diced

Top with shredded cheddar cheese, dollop of sour cream or cream cheese, and crushed tortilla chips.

This was also great leftover. You could also do it in a crockpot, but I often don't plan that far ahead! Have a good day -

BONUS!

So I'm at work the other night, it's like 4 a.m. and I'm trying to stay awake. I reach into my bag to pull out a breath mint - and BONUS!!! A two-for-one! (ok a one and a half for one) It made my night!

Loving older sister

So last week we were going through the car wash - which Thatcher HATES and usually screams - so Gretchen used this really nice voice to him and offered to hold his hand! Ah, so sweet!

Weird hair growth?

I was just sitting here one night and these oddly hair covered creatures appeared!
"Hello, I am Una Brow!"



So the story is that my nephew, Spencer, needed a haircut and afterwards we had the funny idea to put it on their faces! Between tape and a fair amount of honey, we laughed our heads off!

More new work changes.

So, many of you are probably not interested, but I am continuing to be amazed at the differences between my new work and the old one. Mostly I am missing the old one!! I love you folks! And I love knowing my way around. So:
- The nurses work really well as a team. I am thinking this is because of being staffed so well - in addition to the 'team leader' (which is what they call the charge nurse) there is a 'float nurse' that goes around to help other nurses in need, like with deliveries or whatever else.
- The 'team leaders' do not get a pay differential (which many are not happy about).
- No one seems to be in charge of the new hires (namely, me). They kinda pretend that someone is, but basically I am on my own to work out my schedule and paperwork, and such.
- EVERYONE gets stirrups. Yeah, you can imagine how excited I am about this. They even push with them in stirrups! Geez, come on.
- The epidural rate is close to 90%. It's really annoying. I think that the nurses are maybe not very good at helping the unmedicated patients, but also they don't have any midwives. Not a single one. Maybe I should go back to school and be one! There is good staff communication, but not very fab communication between the patient and the staff. But also they don't use PCA epidural pumps, so the patients are typically super numb (which may contribute to the over - stirrup use!).
- The few doc's I have observed so far are really good about being 'hands off' of the perineum, and waiting for the patient to push it out - pass that on to some of my fav. Cottonwood docs! Yeah, you know who they are!
- The anesthesiologists merely show up to the patient room, and the nurses get them their cart, all of their meds, prime their pumps, and position the patient (oh and the consent). The nurses also get all of the anesth. meds for C sections, and give the IV and PO ones as well! Hmmm. This seems like enabling helplessness.

There is of course much good and bad about the new job. Mostly I miss my old friends and co workers in Utah, and knowing my way around the job! I feel like such a useless retard.

Cooler weather . . . and snotty kids

So, I actually wore pants the other day! Exciting news, huh! It's in the 70s, and cooling down at night. But fun enough, my kids are nasty sick! Lots of boogers and snot and coughs. Ah, I love illness. Not only do I get snot from their mouth, but from their nose, too!

Does anyone else waver from not wanting children one minute, to loving them indefinitely the next? These kids are driving me up the wall. There is so much SASS from the older one, and so much screaming and "NO!" from the younger one. Ah. I need a break. But they are pretty cute.





Gretchen's first elementary school pictures!















Still warm and playing in the sand! We are finally meeting more neighbors, as folks venture outdoors in the nicer weather.













So I usually have to wake Thatcher up from his nap to pick up Gretchen from school. He has a hard time adjusting to the sunshine, and was crying, "no eyes! No eyes!" So I offered him my shades.









He's getting funny about what he wants to wear. He was fixated on wearing this bib, and of course who doesn't need a helmet indoors?













We went to the grand opening of the new library close to our house, and Thatcher starting dragging me across the parking lot, and I couldn't figure out why. That is until I noticed the fire truck! He is such a boy!

Thatcher's favorite sayings

Thatcher's vocabulary is expanding. It's so fun to watch him learn and grow! He will ask questions, "Daddy?" or "nummy?" (which is his binky, or candy) and then I say, "Daddy's at work" or "no we're not having candy right now" and he says, "Oh." It's hilarious. Everything is "Oh."

He currently has a runny nose and he will tell me, "Ewww." That means he wants his nose wiped!

He, like most 2 year olds, wants to do everything himself. So he tells us, many times a day, "No me" and points to his chest.

He was calling every man at the store or where ever else we were "daddy" or "papa" depending on their hair color/age/mustache. It was somewhat embarassing because I worried that people who think he didn't know who his father was! Because of this I said, "no that's just a guy", and now every time someone walks past he says, quite loudly, "Guy?" I can't wait until the embarassing comments become more elaborate.

He's working on peoples names, daddy, mama, papa, mamapapa(grandma), of course guy, but Gretchen remains, "Ehh." He also says ice, shoes/juice (these sounds pretty much the same), I have heard "please" once or twice, "go" (which refers to cars and his bus and also his Cars jammies), gco-gco (which rotates between a helicopter and a motorcycle), and a large amounts of grunts and points and screams. He is a very strong willed and opinionated child. It's hard to believe that a 2 year old can know for sure, and that specifically, what they want!

Happy Halloween!! And Walk-A-Thon

On the night before Halloween our ward held a party in a members yard and it was really great. There were hot dogs and chili and a bunch of little booths - it reminded me of a school carnival, only it was free! Awesome for a cheapskate like myself! It was really fun, and there were some great costumes. One dad was a "tooth fairy" in a sparkly white tutu, and two different couples were Napoleon Dynamite and his girlfriend, and one of them did the awesomest rendition of Napoleon's dance I've ever seen! It was hilarious! The kids got to wear their costumes and win candy (Thatcher would just walk up and take it without waiting in line or playing the game) and got their faces painted.

I am having such a hard time feeling the season cause of the warm weather. What? It's fall? No, it's summer! I did, however, let Gretchen decorate the pumpkins (probably only cause Grandma Holmes bought the pumpkins while she was here!) She obviously can't wield a knife, so we let her paint them. She loves it - especially 'cause I'm a lame mom that doesn't let her paint any other time!

So Gretchen particpated in the school walk-a-thon Friday morning. She was pretty unsure of it at first and didn't want to do it. But by the end of the hour she was having fun! Slow to warm up that one is. It was a pretty fun little deal - they had a DJ and decorations and otter pops to eat after.


They did a great little warm up in the middle of the field.
You can see her in the pink capris and black shirt (which she got for acquiring pledges - Thanks grandparents!) and her overly excited expression.


This was held on Halloween, but they didn't wear costumes to school, although they did have a little party. Something about a pagan holiday? More politically correct blah blah. Oh boy.

We did some trick or treating, well actually a friend in the neighborhood invited us over for soup and talked the men into taking the kids trick or treating so the wives could chit chat! What a FABULOUS idea! The kids had a great time, as did we. Here are some pics of batGIRL and robin!



Gretchen is a bit of a tomboy and insisted on being Batman - but allowed batGIRL (although I am not sure this character really exists. Don't tell her, she is convinced of it and constantly asked me about details!)
I am so grateful for amazon.com and their costume selection! Luckily I needed only a minor adjustment to create batgirl, which was FAB, seeing as I don't sew!
They both had a blast wearing the costumes and had a hard time taking them off at the end of the night!
You can see how much he LOVED the mask! He says, "NO eyes! No eyes!"