Disaster Strikes at the Grocery Store

So this evening I decided I had put off grocery shopping too long and I had to get stuff for our Sunday dinner. I loaded up three already grumpy children and headed off to the closest grocery store. Walmart is where we normally go, but it was too far away for my mood and my extremely angry one year old, so I opted for the closer, but more expensive, Reams. Three children is always hard when shopping even when they're not angry bears. But today seemed to be even more dreadful. Fighting in the race car cart, kicking, shoving, biting, the works. Sweet precious baby David screaming at me for who knows what reason. I'm already close to tears and feeling so overwhelmed. So I quickly finished the shopping, practically running up the aisles. Get out to the car and load groceries then quickly strap kids in. As I was pulling out of my spot, I thought the wheel felt really hard to turn and there was a loud grating noise. So I stopped, pulled back into my space and got out to investigate. My tire had completely exploded and I was driving on the rim. I mean shredded, blown out tire. I have no idea how it happened. I am not completely unobservant and dimwitted, but I have no idea when or how it happened. We got to the store fine enough. We cancelled our AAA and I have not changed a tire since I was required to in Driver's Ed when I was 16. I didn't even know where the jack or the spare donut tire was, or if they even existed at all. I have one ward member and neighbor's phone number programmed into my cell. Nobody answered. So I called Greg at work and asked him to (illegally) look in the pharmacy's database and find some phone numbers of neighbors that I can call. I tried 5 and no one was home on a Friday night. Figures. So I sat and tried very hard not to cry. I had bought some marshmallows, so I opened them and fed them to the kids. David was hysterically crying and clawing at his car seat straps to get out and my ice cream melted all over the sack and the floor. I finally got a hold of one of the people who hadn't answered the first time I called and the husband said he'd be right out. He came and brought his father in law and the two of them located all the necessary things that I failed to find. They put the spare donut on and lowered the car down from the jack, only to tell me that the donut was flat. They told me to drive it anyway and slowly follow them to their house where they had an air compressor and could fill the tire up for me. Which they did. I finally got home, put groceries away and got the kids in bed. I need some chocolate in the worst way. Or else a major sleeping pill. Spare donut tire is already flat again in the garage. But that's a problem for another day.

Grandma Carol

Greg's sweet Grandma Carol passed away last week and we attended her funeral this weekend in Sugar City. Greg and I have been married for 7 years and I only got to know her for that short amount of time, but I count myself blessed to have been part of her life. She had the purest heart and kindest nature about her. And she adored my boys. It's been an interesting experience talking about death with my children, especially about someone close to us who they knew and can clearly remember. I hope they always can remember her. The first questions that Andrew, my oldest, started having about death was when we watched President Hinckley's funeral on TV. We talked a lot about how the body waits here on earth, while the spirit goes on to heaven and someday they'll be reunited again. So when we told him that Grandma Carol had passed away, he asked me if she took an airplane to get to heaven and how soon would she be back.
It seems like whenever someone dies I'm always so much more aware and grateful for the Plan of Salvation. I'm so grateful for the knowledge and testimony that I have that we will be with our loved ones again. And yes, it's always a sad thing to say good bye for now, but how much worse would it be if we didn't have the eternal promise of forever families?
The funeral service was beautiful and I was so glad that we were able to be there. We had gone to see her and said good bye to her while she was still with us. She passed away the same day we left to go home and we were so grateful to have that last chance to tell her we loved her.

My Three Sons

Ok, I've never actually seen that show and don't know what it's about, but I DO have three sons. And lately it seems like they are just constantly AT each other. Well, David not so much, but the older 2 definitely. I think it might be because Andrew is out of school now and they just have more time together. They have more time to annoy each other and consequently we are having a much higher number of fights and tantrums and arguments. I need to come up with some activities to help with this or we're going to have a very long summer together. Do any of you moms out there who might be experiencing this same dillema have any super ideas? I think it's best if we're out of the house as much as possible. We Utahns (sp?) having been having rain for the last several weeks and it makes it hard to get out of the house, though. David does have his own little quirks to add to all this. He consistently poops in the middle of the night. I usually go and check on all the kids in their beds before I go to sleep and almost every night I open David's bedroom door and get blasted with his stench. So I have to wake him up to change his diaper and then try to get him to go back to sleep. Why can't he do his business during the day? He's just a night pooper, I guess.

Ok, I'm still figuring out this blogging thing. My pictures are all weird and not where I want them, but oh well.

The Happiest Place on Earth!

We recently returned from our family vacation to California. My two fears were that it would be super hot and that it would be too crowded at Disneyland. Neither one happened. We spent a day at Huntington Beach, but left the camera in the car. So no pics there. After that we checked into the Disneyland Hotel (a first for us) and had 2 wonderful days at Disneyland. We got rained on the first day, but really I didn't care. Much better than being hot. And it wasn't too crowded. I think the longest we had to wait in a line was 35 minutes for Tower of Terror. I had talked to my friend Danielle and she told me she had taken her 2 boys on that ride, so I thought Andrew could handle it. I didn't tell him much about the ride other than it would make his tummy feel funny. He HATED it. He cried real sobbing tears the whole time and screamed like a banshee. But then so did just about everyone on the ride. I bribed him to stay in line with me by saying I'd buy him a Captain Jack sword. The poor guy will never trust me again. After that ride all he would do were the rides he could see all of, such as teacups or dumbo. After leaving Disneyland we caught a Dodger's game in LA. All in all it was a wonderful trip. I got to have a quick chat with my 2 good friends Amber and Danielle and see how their cute families are growing. Good to see you, gals!

Today was Andrew's first T-ball game. Look at that smile. Hmmm..... It was actually pretty great. He was so enthusiastic and couldn't wait to get there. There is nothing funnier than watching 25 5yr olds trying to play T-ball together when really not one of them understands the rules of baseball. We had 4-5 kids clumped up on one base together, forgetting that they should advance on to the next base. We had kids running the opposite way around bases. The coaches did their best and the parents on the sidelines tried to hide our snickers and chuckles.

Welcome to Day One!

I have been nudged by friends and family for some time now to start a blog. And my response had always been "I just don't have that much interesting stuff going on in my life. Who'd want to read my blog?" Maybe that's true, but I've decided to give it a shot. I can brag about my kids and post cute pictures just as well as the next person. I have funny anecdotes. So here we go!