Ha Ha, I joked you

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**I wrote this on April Fool’s day, but couldn’t post it until now, I’ve got some great pictures to post with it once I get this issue fixed**

Anyone who knows my brother Bryan, knows that April Fools Day may be the most  4.1.09 Bryan on April Fool's day important day of the year—at least to him.  He loves not only to play jokes, but to have them played on him.  He eagerly awaited my bedtime last night so that he could get started.  Even now as I write, he’s feverishly trying for just one more prank.

Last night’s preparations yielded missing wheels on my computer chair, a missing remote which once found was missing it’s batteries, my shoe laces tied together and hidden DVDs.  I tried a few quick pranks by switching out the bags on some of the cereals and covering the shower nozzle in saran wrap before we left the house for his orthodontist appointment.  He got braces today which presented me with a prime opportunity to prank.  I made up a list of food that he wouldn’t be allowed to eat with his new braces, the list included as many of his favorite foods as I could think of.  I gave it to the lady at the front desk who read it to him before we left.  The best part was probably the look on the faces of the other patients, mostly children as they overheard this list of forbidden foods.  He played his own jokes on them by smearing peanut butter on his teeth before the appointment and putting pink hair gel in his hair.

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Tennessee Grandma, part 1 (mostly about outside her house)

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We usually visited my Grandparents in TN twice a year, at Christmas time and once in the summer. They lived on Yarnell road just off of Campbell Station road. I remember Campbell StationFullscreen capture 252009 84549 PM-1 as a treacherous windy road with a cliff to one side and a forested hill on the other. The road was slightly slanted which made it particularly dangerous in the rain or when it was icy or snowy. There would often be a flowered cross at some point along the windy stretch of the road to signify the spot of a fatal accident. where multi accidents happens at a same time in such a case you can also consult attorneys for multi-vehicle accident charges as they can help you legally. One time we were visiting TN at the same time as our cousins from Texas (the Paynes) and they had a car accident on Campbell Station road on the way home from church. My cousin Jenni and both of her parents had to spend time in the hospital with serious injuries. Ironically there was a picture in the paper after the accident of my dad holding my little sister (Krista, I think). That accident was a particularly memorable experience for me because on the way to church my parents had let me ride with our cousins to church and they wouldn’t let us ride back to grandma’s house in their car after church. With the help of the lawyers from https://halelaw.com/sarasota-personal-injury-attorney/motorcycle-accidents site, my family was able to recover soon and was back in no time. You can also read by this link how to claim compensation with the help of injuries for the injuries sustained.

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Posted in Kathleen's Personal History

A snapshot of Charlotte

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The other day I walked into her room to check on her3.23.09 rock-a-bye Charlotte and found her playing lullabies on her baby tad and gently rocking each of her stuffed animals to sleep.  Later, I found her combing her toy Lion’s hair.  She’d gently comb his hair then run into the bathroom for another kind of brush or comb and comb his hair some more.  I spent some time sitting with her and talking to her and she soon became silly and started jumping while combing her own hair. 

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Out in the Countryside

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talent show with TaraLiving out in the country meant that there were few kids our age around, so when we were young our only playmates were our siblings and the great outdoors.  I remember playing with my younger brother, Lee when we were little. I can remember building block structures and playing with little action figures. There was a closet in the backroom downstairs filled with stuff and we used to pretend it was a hide-out of sorts. Our little figures would tunnel in or set up camp in the variety of cracks and crevices that we could find. We had a little toy van that we drove around for awhile with an odd assortment of action figures.

*  The Tall girl in the picture is Tara Runion whose family rented the bottom half of our house.  I don’t have pictures of the things I wrote about so you’ll have to settle for pics of us as kids.

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Posted in Kathleen's Personal History

What if. . .

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Yesterday Isaac was in one of his creative moods.  3.17.09 Isaac (6)This means he gets an idea and wants to talk about it. . .continuously.  He’s gone on for hours at a time, following me around the house as I do chores.  Here are the lines that I wrote down from today’s brainstorming session.  "What if all the air was drained out of the world?  Would we ask Heavenly Father to put more air in the world?. . . I know, the fan in the bathroom!!  The fan in the bathroom could blow air into the world.  Then we would fix the problem?  That air was all stinky–that’s why we had to blow it all out. . . would Heavenly Father make a fan that didn’t need electricity and leave it at that Temple that we go-ed to so that we could get it?"

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Stable fish

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Well, it looks like we might have some survivors.  We’re on version 2 for Polar Express, and Cheese has been replaced by Curious George.  We also have a little otocinclus to keep things clean; Isaac named him Cleaning Up Loader.  Which I guess works.  So, pictures: Polar Express is blue, and Curious George is orange.

Posted in Kids, Pets

Elementary School, Part 2

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I had Mrs. Moyer for third grade and then again for third/fourth split.    She was my group shot-1favorite teacher and I think I may have been her favorite student. At one point I got a C on my report card and I think she didn’t want me to feel bad about it because she gave me a Bernstein Bears Calendar for having ‘the highest C average.’ Ironically, I don’t think she gave out gifts to the students who got all As and Bs. One day she told me that she was impressed with how I had overcome my learning disability. She said something like “If I hadn’t looked in your records, I wouldn’t have known you had a learning disability.” Mrs. Moyer was unique in many ways. After lunch she would have one student read at her desk while she walked around giving us back and shoulder massages. in front of the house-1She also had a big jar of peanuts on her desk that she’d give out as rewards. I remember my favorite part of the peanut was the salted peanut shell. Later in life when I had salted peanut shells, I was surprised to find that they weren’t nearly as good as I had remembered them. One time, Mrs. Moyer brought in a wheat grinder and we ground our own wheat and made fresh bread in class. I also remember her giving the class the deodorant lecture in our reading circles. I don’t remember how she said it, but I do remember her saying that some of us were starting to stink and that it was time for deodorant. For some reason, I picture a sweaty tall boy named Cory at the table and thinking that he was the one who needed deodorant.

In fifth grade I had Mrs. Thom (at least I think that’s how you spell her name). She had short blondish hair and she was an older lady. I honestly don’t remember much about her or my seventh grade teacher, Mr. Zirger. All I can remember about him is that he was male and had a mustashe. He may have had reddish brown hair.

Read Part One

Posted in Kathleen's Personal History

Fish

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Today we got the kids their first fish.  They went with dad to pick the fish out.  Isaac named his fish ‘Polar Express’ and Charlotte named her fish ‘Cheese.’

P1050925-1Isaac:  The fish swims around the fish tank and the ‘Cheese’ fish stays down.  ‘Polar Express’ is the fish that swims and ‘Cheese’ isn’t.  That’s the whole story about them.  They can play with the stuff in the tank.  They can hide behind the rock and whenever they need fish food, I could give them fish sticks or dad could.

Posted in Kids

Cookies that make your hair grow

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Here are pictures of us making these magical cookies.  As you can see, we made quite a mess.  The kids picked out all the shapes so we ended up with an interesting collection which included circles, hearts, dogs, cats, a sock (Christmas stocking), the letters H, P, and D, bunnies, gingerbread men, the number 1, flags, fish, a bear, flowers, stars, a duck, a dinosaur, and possibly more that I can’t think of at the moment.P1050896
As Isaac ate his first cookie, he asked “is my hair growing?” 

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Glue it back on!!

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Isaac has been due for another haircut for a little while, but I’ve been reluctant to take him because I didn’t want to pay for another haircut (my mom cut all of our hair until we went to college, and to be honest during college too, so it seems a waste to pay). 

Anyway, I had the idea that I could see what he’d look like if I shaved his head 3.4.09 Isaac gets a buzz (1)and this would probably be my last chance to try it before he started kindergarten.  It may not have been the best choice.  I gave him some candy and had him stand on the stool in front of our bathroom mirror.  When I shaved the hair off of the top of his head he started to panic and cry.  Charlotte must have heard him because before I knew it she was at the doorway with a look of horror on her face.  She ran down the hall where I could hear her 3.4.09 Isaac gets a buzz (2)crying too.  At that moment I felt horrible.  What could I do?  It was too late to do anything except shave the whole thing and both of my kids were traumatized.  Isaac started yelling “Glue it back on, I don’t want all my hair off.”  All I could do was finish the haircut and then convince the sobbing boy to get in the bath and wash all the little hairs off of himself.  He cried and cried and said he wouldn’t come out of the bath until his hair grew back.   

After at least a half an hour of sobbing, I was able to convince him to come out of the bath and get dressed.  3.4.09 Isaac gets a buzz (4)He only stopped crying when we discussed what we could do to help his hair start to grow back.  He suggested that I buy something at the store that helps hair grow.  We finally decided to make some cookies that would help hair grow.  His initial suggestion for the cookies was to make them with chicken, sausage, and beef.  Luckily he was fine with more traditional sugar cookies.  It wasn’t until he started making the cookies that he finally calmed down and started to accept his new bald head.  Now I think he actually likes it, at dinner he commented on how he couldn’t mess it up.

Posted in Kids

Tiger Pants

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Isaac has a fear of tigers that has become a regular topic of conversation.  He’s afraid P1050825-1 to go out at night for fear that tigers will get him.  Around Christmas time, my mother made all three kids a pair of tiger pajama pants to wear.  Isaac refused to wear the pants because he was afraid of them.  One day I convinced him to try them on.  He put them on ran around the house growling like a tiger and then took them off saying that they were too scary.  I regularly try to convince him to try them on again and each time he refuses.  Last night Charlotte and Nicole were wearing their tiger pajamas and I convinced Isaac that if he put his on, then the tigers would say “he’s not a boy, he’s a tiger—we don’t want to eat him.”  As soon as he had the pants on, he immediately covered them up with a blanket so that he wouldn’t be scared by them.  When he woke up this morning he changed out of them before coming to breakfast and yelled from the hallway that he was too afraid to come into the kitchen because he was scared of Charlotte in her tiger pants.  The picture is from last night when he was covering up his pants.

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The strange and funny things that little mouths say

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2.22.09 "The new Grandma sings!" Charlotte upon hearing her grandma Bunny sing to Nicole2.20.09 Isaac and Charlotte (8)

2.28.09  If Nicole spits up ever again, you should hold her over the toilet so the spit up will go into the toilet. Then Nicole would ask "where is my spit up?"  Isaac

After reading Richard Scary’s Busy, Busy Town, Charlotte wants to be a cat with clothes on that talks and she wants to build a house for walking babies, like Paul, and Isaac wants to grow his own wheat so that he can harvest it, grind it into flour and then make bread with it.

3.1.09 Isaac was helping me build a dresser when I discovered a few pieces were missing.  I said I was going to sweep the floor to see if I could find the missing pieces.  He said in essence, you don’t need to look I’ll just go pray for Heavenly Father to help us find it.  He ran into the living room, knelt said "Thank thee that we can find the missing pieces." then ran back in and said "They’re on their way!"

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Making Doughnuts

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I wrote this post and then the computer wouldn’t let me post it because Live Writer was not on speaking terms with our web hosting something or other, but it appears that they’ve settled their differences, so here it is.

The kids decided that they wanted to make doughnuts instead of going on an outing after they filled up their outing chart.  We took pictures of most of the steps, so read and view our adventure by clicking on the ‘Read More’ link below:

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I need more mom time!

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I am grateful that I got to see my mom last weekend, even if it was a very short visit. 1.23.09 Making cookies with Grandma Bunny (21) She is seriously one of my very favorite people and no matter how much time I get with her, I always want more.

She flew in on Saturday and spent Monday night at Krista’s before flying home on Tuesday morning.  We had just enough time to swim at my Uncle Toby’s house in Lindon, make cookies, play two hands of cards, stay up late talking twice, drink a 2.22.09 Story with Grandma Bunny (11)cup of hot cocoa, read stories to the children, play games with Isaac and Charlotte, hold Nicole, and make some soup.

After my grandmother’s death last year, we realized how few pictures we had of us as children with our grandmother so although we prefer to look at adorable pictures of the children by themselves, we have decided that it’s important to take pictures of the kids with their grandma and made sure to take more pictures this time.

***Grandma Cochran beware, I intend to take more pictures of you with my kids as well****

Posted in General, Kids

Mouth Pain

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I had a little spot on my tongue where once I had bitten it.  After the first bite, it grew a little lump.  This made it more prone to biting.  As time went on, the vicious cycle continued.  A couple of weeks ago, I gave it a really good chomp.  Well, it got big enough that I figured it was time to have it out.

So I went in for the slicing.  It seemed to go pretty well, but after I got back to the office it started to swell and hurt a bit more than I expected.  Then the pain pill made me loopy.  Then I realized how whiney this post is getting.

Anyway, it hurt a bit more than I expected, and I’m hungry from not eating, and I’m grumpy from all the meetings where I was talking with a funny mushy diction.

Being a true stoic, the children got their stories.  One long one was vetoed.

Posted in General

Isaac Quotes

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“I would like my own pet ant and I could open up it’s cage and put it in the bath and it would swim.” Isaac
“Mom, is Orem attached to Provo with screws?” Isaac

Posted in Kids

Bryan’s First Week

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My youngest brother moved in on February 11th and will be living with us for an unspecified amount of time (we’re still building his room–sorry Bryan). Anyway, I thought his first week was worth writing about, so here goes:

He arrived on Wednesday night just in time for dinner. Little Nicole stared at him all through dinner with an expressionless face that made us laugh. Every time I would look at her she was staring at Bryan.

Charlotte welcomed him in by showing him his chair at the table and telling him that he sleeps downstairs.

The cats showed their displeasure by leaving a ‘surprise’ by my washer. I responded to their ‘surprise’ by locking them downstairs with Bryan. Jack was so unhappy that he camped out at the top of the stairs. The next morning when Bryan attempted to come upstairs Jack hissed and threatened to scratch him. Bryan was scared of Jack so he went back downstairs and climbed out the window, but discovered the doors were all locked and he was without a key so he went back inside and found that Jack had abandoned his post and it was once again safe to go upstairs.

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Uncle Bryan

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Coming soon: Bryan’s first week in review, but first I wanted to share a few little notes that Isaac wrote to his grandparents about his uncle.

First he had Zach write the following:
Grandma Bunny,
Don’t be sad. Uncle Bryan is here to help us.
Love, Isaac

Then I had him tell me what to write in a note to Grandpa Bird and here is what he said:

Grandpa Bird-
Uncle Bryan is being helping us, like helping us very well. Not, not helping us because he is good. Because he doesn’t do bad things and doesn’t forget. And he doesn’t forget about everything because everything is what he has to do for us and he has to be helping us more or our house will be bad.

Isaac
21209-isaac-and-bryan

Posted in Kids

What Isaac has to say

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While doing chores this evening, Isaac asked “Mom, am I saving the planet by doing my chores?” Later he asked “Is the planet saved yet?” meaning ‘have I completed this chore to your satisfaction.’

A little later he asked “Mommy, what time will you be big enough to have two babies in you?” I wasn’t quite sure what he meant by that, but I thought it was funny anyway.
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Posted in Kids
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