Mother's Day

I love Mother's Day.  Especially since it is pretty close to my birthday. And most of the time I need a little pick me up after the depression of my birthday. I'm still not over being called middle aged. ha!

Chloe made the most awesome Mother's Day present at school. It was a jar of sugar scrub.  And then she gave me this coupon book for a day at the spa...courtesy of Chloe and Macie.  So Sunday morning I wake up, and they have turned their room into a spa.  They gave me a foot rub, a back rub, a glass of water, and some strawberries and cream cheese dip.  They also made me some pictures and cards.  Then I had stuffed crepes, a la Don, and then we went to church. We just went to the first hour and then headed down to St. David to spend the afternoon with Don's parents and Curtis.  It was a perfect day.  Actually a perfect weekend.  Friday, I went with Don up to Show Low for the day to go check out a hotel he is selling.  Macie and Oscar came, but Chloe had to go to school. We had a great day trip.  It was fun to experience some chilly weather.  Macie met a little friend, the hotel owner's daughter, and she was excited to take a small tour of the hotel, especially the indoor pool.  We also got to visit every bathroom at each location we stopped, which is always my favorite part of traveling with children.  We ate at "Persnicketys," a cute local cafe, and then came back home.  I actually really like car trips now. Don and I can just sit and talk.  Oscar did amazingly well with both trips.  He didn't cry at all.  He is pretty much a perfect baby,

Saturday Don took me out to dinner to Pita Jungle for Mother's Day and then took me shopping for clothes.  Although I didn't end up getting anything because news flash, everything in the stores is hideous.  I honestly can't believe just how ugly everything is.  I lived through the 90's and I have no intention of dressing like that ever again.  All the clothes available do nothing to flatter real women.  They accentuate the negative and hide the positive.  Baggy and frumpy yet revealing in all the wrong places.  It seems that if I want anything cute, I must be willing to fork out an arm and a leg, because the clothes that are massed produced are plain crap.  Even Target has let me down! Can't they make just ONE knee length skirt?  I am waiting for fashion to come back around to another decade besides the 80's or 90's.  Just bag that whole era, there is nothing worth repeating.  I can't wait for knee length clothes to be back in mainstream style so there are actually clothes I can wear in the stores, instead of having to look online.  In conclusion, 2015 style...super ugly.  The End.

Okay back to things that actually matter.

This is the letter Chloe wrote me:

"Dear Mom. Happy Mothers day! I hope you like the gift I made you! You are the best mom! I love you so much.  I know that you want your feet to be soft. I made you sugar sugar scub. Sugar scub make your skin soft. This sugar scub smells like pepermint. I made it! It is pretty easy to make sugar scub. To make you add 1 cup of sugar and put two drops of food coloring and mix.  I hope you like it! Love, Chloe"

The sugar "scub" was pretty great.  Kudos to chloe's teacher for helping them make it because I am pretty sure it was not just food coloring and sugar.

 Chloe also made me this picture illustrating my spa day.  There she is giving me my foot rub while my eyes are freshened by cucumbers.   (I did not actually get cucumbers for my eyes and I feel a little miffed about that).

 This was the card from Macie.  She put eye lashes on the hearts, which was my favorite part.

 My coupon book...Chloe even gave me freckles.

 In other news, Chloe brought home this stellar essay on the merits of McDonalds.  She had to pick her favorite restaurant, and she picked McDonalds.
"Have you ever been to a restraunt that is not crowed, has a good price, and has tasty food? I think McDonalds is a fantastic restraunt.  First is has a good price.  Specifically my dad bought 2 Egg Mic Mufens and 1 hashbrown and it cose $5.00.  Next Mc Donalds is not crowded.  In fact when I went there there were only a few peple.  Lastly the food is tasty.  For example when I am about to bite in to my hambuger my mouth starts to water.  In conclusion Mc Donald's food is tasty, is not crowed, and has a great price."

 I am so glad Chloe has not realized yet that it is not cool to admit to liking McDonalds.  You know what I think? I think people secretly like McDonalds they just know it is not socially acceptable to admit.  I'll admit it. I like McDonalds.

 This is Macie with her cherished new friend "Mittens."  Grandma's house had a brand new batch of kittens and the cuteness meter was off the charts.  I really wanted to keep this kitten.  But then it would turn into a cat. And I don't want a cat. I don't want pets in general.  I can't take care of another living thing that I do not love as much as my children.  And I don't want to clean up any more poop than I have to or spend more money on food that we don't get to eat.  But when I look at Macie and this kitten, I am really torn.  But then I remember their poor fish.  Their pink fish "Pinkie" died a couple months ago.  And then a couple weeks ago, "Sunshine" took a swim to that big lake in the sky.  I felt terrible about it.  Sunshine hung on for a couple of days and I watched it floating at the top of the tank, barely breathing, wondering if I was supposed to put it out of it's misery,  But then I thought, maybe it will snap out of it! I can't kill it!  Poor thing.  I hated cleaning the tank. It was probably my fault.  And then I opened the freezer and said, "Fish for dinner?"

 Macie carried the kitten around all day.  We went to see the 3 day old baby goat and watched Grandpa and Curtis milk the goat and then feed the baby goat through a bottle, and Macie brought the kitten along.

 She asked me if we could "borrow" the kitten, and I actually would have considered it, but the kitten is still nursing.  The next morning at home, I saw Macie on the couch looking at a picture of Mittens, and her chin quivered a little a small tear ran down her cheek, and she said to me, "Mom, I miss Mittens." Heartbreaking.  She begged me to print a picture of her and Mittens so she could carry it around all day.  And then she would show me the little scratches on her hand and say, "Mom, you know how I got those scratches? Mittens." And then she would smile with pride and love for that little dear kitty.  Oh my gosh, I can't even handle the cuteness.

They will be visiting their grandparents in 3 weeks, and Macie can love on that little kitty to her heart's content.  and I might have no other choice than to adopt a cat into the Mortensen family!

Macie really wants a pet.  But she doesn't want one that poops.  If she sees a new animal on tv, she will ask me "Do they poop?" And I will say, "Yes...all animals poop." And she replies, "what am I going to do?! I am never going to find one!" Meaning...she is never going to find a pet, because they all poop.
Macie also told me in the car the other day what happened to dinosaurs.  She said Jesus took them off the earth so that people could go camping in the jungle.  It's probably a good a guess as any....
Macie touch my thigh the other day and said, "what's so fluffy?"

In Oscar news...
He is 10 months old and as mentioned previously, the best baby in the world. He's a busy bee and into pulling everything off the shelves, but he is the most lovable and cuddly little guy.
The other Sunday, he crawled under the bench and when the lady in front of us picked him up, he laid his head on her shoulder and cuddled.  She was a complete stranger to all of us.  He loves to cuddle and be cuddled.  He especially loves when his sisters play with him, they take very good care of him.

10 Years

You know what is sad? when you have your 10 year anniversary, and your plans to celebrate are foiled because of a babysitting snaffoo and all you do is get some pizza.  Albeit, the pizza was delicious, we went to Spinato's our favorite pizza place, but probably not the best place for an anniversary dinner.  We were seated so close to other patrons that it was awkward to even talk because anything you said, could be heard by your neighbors.  We would know, we heard the entirety of their conversation.  Anyway. We decided to have a do over.  It is like our 10 year anniversary Year.  At any rate, I am glad I married Don. He is pretty spectacular.  He is an attentive husband and father and after 10 years, he just keeps getting better.

LPM Recital

 Yesterday was Paloma's birthday party.  Oscar looked pretty cute in his party hat.

 Earlier that day Chloe had her Let's Play Musci piano recital.

April Happenings

 We had the most wonderful Easter weekend. It was all the way at the beginning of the month, so it might be hard for me to even remember what we did.  I do remember it was wonderful though, as previously mentioned.  We were lucky enough to have house guests.  The girls played and played and played and played with their cousins from Utah, Lyla and Troy.
Friday night, Chloe had a swim meet, and she had quite the audience. Rey and Mary, Greg's family, Curtis, and Rey and Paloma, all came out to see Chloe swim.  She swam her fastest times yet and we had so much fun watching her race.  After that we went to Manuels for some Mexican food. The kids all sat at a table all by themselves and actually behaved  better than normal.  I think they felt like they were being treated like grown ups, and acted as such.

After dinner we came back to my house and the girls danced for all of us in my living room. Macie was a little upset at first that she didn't get to dance solo to "let It Go" but eventually she "let it go" and joined in the fun.

 We all hated Don in the morning when we woke up at 5 AM to go hiking (it was his idea, he even hired a babysitter for us).  We were glad we did it though. It was a nice brisk morning and we actually ended up enjoying ourselves.  Don and I are hiking the Grand Canyon in about a month, rim to rim, so we are in the process of training for it.  I am not sure why we are doing it.  Our friends invited us, and I think we were too prideful to admit that we were too out of shape to go.  we are trying to change that.

 After our hike, we came back and had breakfast and then watched conference, which took up most of the day.  Then the Mortensen men all met up at our church for Priesthood session and after, we had a chinese buffet over at my house.  Kirsten and I stayed up way too late preparing for the Easter bunny to come.  But it was worth it in the morning.  The kids were so excited to see their Easter baskets and see that the Easter bunny had left them an Egg hunt in our front yard.

 Later that afternoon, we went over to Julie's house for the family Easter dinner.

 The Easter bunny brought these pretty pastel Easter dresses, and I could not convince the girls to wear other shoes besides their red sandals.  Oh well.  They still looked adorable.
After the family party, we came back home and crashed.  Greg and Kirsten left the next day, and we were all sad to see them go.

 Luckily "Disney on Ice" was the day after their cousins left, so they still had something to look forward to.  The girls liked the show, although they kept asking when Elsa and Anna were going to come out. They never did.  I guess the "Frozen" show isn't until next year. The girls were highly disappointed. Awesome when you spend a ton of money on something for the kids, and they leave disappointed.

 This is a stupid picture that illustrates how much taller the Phoenix Suns are than us.

 Don and I are enjoying our preparations for the Grand Canyon, surprisingly.  We went on a fun hike a few weeks ago.  It is torture getting up so early, but once we are out hiking, we like being outside and having some time to talk.  This is the hike that I almost got hit on the head by a large falling rock.  Some rude lady who saw the whole thing happen, made sure to make me feel like an idiot that I didn't dodge fast enough from the falling rock. I have a problem. You know that whole fight or flight response? it never works for me. I just freeze. People will be yelling at me to do something, and I just stand there like a dummy.  I don't know why this happens to me.  But Don said he is going to start practicing with me by just yelling at me randomly to "move!!" or "duck!" or "save the drowning baby!"

 Later that day we attended the wedding of Don's cousin, Melissa Mortensen. Not me. The other one. Now I am the only Melissa Mortensen in the family.

 The girls loved dancing at the reception.

 This month was also the school talent show. This year Chloe and her friend Olivia, sang "Do,Re, Mi."  They were adorable. They picked the song and worked all the details out themselves.  I played the piano for them and they sang and did actions to the song.  Chloe was very particular in what she wore, of course, because that is my Chloe.  Her dress had to be pink.  Her teacher came and gave the girls flowers, which was so sweet.  After the talent show we tried to go out to dinner, which is a whole story in and of itself.

As we were walking back to our car, Macie fell and skinned her knee.  It was a bad one.  She immediately started screaming like her leg had been chopped off with a machete.
She continued screaming (and when I see screaming, that is no exaggeration.  It was like a mix between wailing and screaming. It was blood curdling.) while Don, my Dad, and I tried to think of a place to go get dinner.
We decided our best bet was to go to the IHOP by my Dad's house.  He said he would run home to get a bandaid for Macie and we were to meet him at IHOP.
We made the 15 minute drive to the IHOP parking lot.  During the drive, not only did I get to enjoy the melodious sounds of Macie's wailing, but Oscar decided to join in with sympathy crying, and Chloe took it upon herself to be Kid Mom and spent the whole drive yelling at Macie to stop yelling.  It was so pleasant.  I tried unsuccessfully to quiet Macie down, but she just kept yelling "I can't stop crying!! It hurts!!"
We make it to the IHOP parking lot and I don't see my Dad, and I figure it will take him more minutes than I was willing to wait, for him to get there.  But I saw a Dollar store in the same parking lot, so I drive over to the other side of the parking lot, thinking I will just go in and buy some bandaids.  I try to motion to Don to follow me as he is in another car, but he was on his phone and not paying attention.
So I drove over to the Dollar store anyway, hoping Don would figure out what I was doing and follow me over there.
I ran into the store and bought some bandaids and some neosporin.  In the meantime, I left the screaming kids in the car.  I deemed it an emergency, and I was not about to unpack 3 wailing children and take them into the dollar store.  Especially when their Father was somewhere in the parking lot.
I am thinking that now that I have the bandaids and the neosporin, that Macie is going to finally stop with the hysterics, but after I placed the ointment on her knee, her misery only intensified.  And the bandaids I had bought were of course too small so I didn't even bother putting it on.
I call my Dad and ask him how close he is to IHOP with that prized bandaid.
"Oh I am just trying to round up Chelsey."
I knew that meant I could still be waiting for another 20 minutes.
I tell my Dad, "Nevermind. we are just going to go home."
He says, "No, no. Just wait. I am bringing the bandaid."
So we wait.
He finally shows up.
He pulls out the bandaid.
It is too small.
But my Dad refused to admit that it was too small.
He told me, "Well if you hadn't put the neosporin on it, it would have been just the right size."
He put the bandaid on anyway.
By this time Macie had quit crying hysterically and had now switched to whimpering "I want to go home."
Don and I decided the most logical solution was for him to take Oscar and Macie home and I would take Chloe out because she still wanted to celebrate after her talent show.
As we were switching cars my Dad asked what we were doing.
We informed him of our plan to which he responded..."Well, you can't do that..." Meaning, it was a mean thing to leave out Macie.
So we pretended to all just go home.
But we didn't. We just switched cars at Dunkin Donuts.  And Chloe and I went to Panda Express.
It was the most ridiculous night ever.  Basically it took over and hour to find a bandaid.
The end.