Easter Happenings

This Easter we went to three egg hunts between the parks in Long Beach, Upland, and Hemet. My boys got more candy than they could possibly eat, which meant mom and dad had to step in and help. We had a fabulous Easter feast and spent time with family. I especially enjoyed seeing June in her little Easter dress trying to figure out how to put the egg in her basket.

But most of all I enjoyed going to church. The meeting on Easter Sunday was mostly music which for some reason sounded especially beautiful this year and helped remind me and my family of the true Easter Miracle. We talked frequently with our boys about the sacrifice of our Savior Jesus Christ and his triumph over death. My testimony was strengthened. It was a great weekend!

You want to touch WHAT?

We have lived in Long Beach for a full week and a half now and today was our 4th beach trip. So far we have been going to the main part of Long Beach to ride bikes on the path and play in the water (the first time happened to be totally on a whim, fully clothed, rain boots and all). My boys are being educated in beach bike riding etiquette (a.k.a stay in your own lane), how to properly use a beach bathroom without touching anything, the fine art of changing out of sandy clothes in the back of the car, and the importance of feeding the meters. Today we went to the highly recommended Mother's Beach. This beach has absolutely no waves since it is in the marina and the water is shallow so it is great for kids. It also has an awesome park and grass areas.

While at Mother's Beach Jaxon and Daniel found clams, huge sea slugs, fish, and snails. I have quickly discovered that they never seem to fight while we are at the beach because there is so much else to do, hence why we are going so often besides the obvious, or course. Today Jaxon came up to me and said "I want to touch the kaboobies!" to which I replied "what?." After a while going back and forth in the same way and realizing he was not adamantly asking to touch any of the scantly clad ladies I told him to show me. He walked over to a shallow bouie and said again "I want to touch the kaboobies!". After I stopped laughing like a mad woman I let him touch all the "kaboobies" he could reach!

Corn Trial update

So Jaxon seems to be doing well with corn with the exception of a few minor incidents I would like some feedback on from my EE people and all other mothers out there!

1. He had blood in his stool one time, one day this week. He didn't complain of anything hurting or being uncomfortable. It has not happened again since then. Fluke?

2. Last Saturday I attended an Emotional Health conference with my mom and my dad graciously watched Jaxon and Wesley (along with baby June) while Johnny took Daniel with him to move our trailer from Chino out to Long Beach. While we were at the conference Jaxon asked my dad for hot dogs. My dad fed him two of the brand I had approved in advanced. The problem was Jaxon kept asking and my dad kept giving. 4 hot dogs later Jaxon puked, but only once. What do you think? Was it the amount of hot dogs or the kind of hot dogs? Only the first two were allergy friendly.

3. Frankly Jaxon is lucky he is so darn cute and has his Daddy's amazing eyes or he just might have been dropped at a fire station this past week! The whining, crying, hitting, kicking, naughty words, tantrums, sneaky behavior, etc. etc. etc. may or may not be the side effect of a corn reaction. I recently read an article about how corn can cause moodiness and irritability, OR this may just be that he is three and wants to see his mother have an aneurysm.

4. Jaxon is a sneaky kid. Actually he has become one over the past few months and it is killing me. He sneaks string cheese off Wesley's tray, gum from under the stage at church, cheese whiz from a discarded cheese and cracker container in the sand at the park, and Daniel's peanut butter crackers every chance he gets. I even pulled a half eaten rubber bouncy ball from his clenched jaw this afternoon. How on earth do I know what he is reacting to, if anything? Maybe everything?

Any suggestions before I lose my mind would be appreciated! Do I keep giving him corn until his next endoscopy or do I retreat and come back to it later? Of course then I would have to tell him he can no longer have his most beloved corn puffs for breakfast and deal with the aftermath!

Corn Trial

Jaxon tried corn for the first time on the 12th. He has asked for corn every day since. I am keeping my fingers crossed. He has had other corn products such as citric acid and modified food/corn starch with no reaction and clean scopes, but never the real deal.

It took a while for him to figure out the corn on the cob, but in the end he loved it and has not had any vomiting or other symptoms since then. Yeah for corn! Yeah for Jaxon!

3 Minutes of Heaven - No More

After a heavenly 3 minute shower I came out to find this.

My peaceful showers are over. He was ohhh so proud of himself! Wesley can now make it up on top of both bunk beds by himself. I now spend my days putting the ladders on and off for the other two boys in hopes of keeping Wesley securely grounded.

On the road again...oops I mean STILL!

After we left Fresno we went to Hemet to stay with my parent's for a few nights then to Riverside where we stayed two weeks. From Riverside we went to Chino, which is surprisingly very nice. Last night after Johnny came home from a 14 hour day he told me he is being moved to Long Beach starting Monday. When we signed up for this training program and moved from Mesa I never imagined we would move quite this often. We were told it could be a week or up to a year in each area, but of course I didn't actually think we would ever be in one area for such a short amount of time much less multiple areas for only a few weeks each! The last few weeks I have been super emotional mostly due to being pregnant and sick of moving. Hopefully we will be in Long Beach for an extended period of time so that I can find a doctor and hospital (and spend some much needed time at the beach before the baby comes).

Johnny of course is loving it at work right now. The days on this crew are long but he has worked in the energized primary lines (meaning 12K volts) every day. He is excited about everything he is learning. Apparently there was a small fire on Tuesday when one of the 12K volt lines was blown into a secondary 4K volt line, but it was put out quickly and without injury to anyone. He said he has never climbed down a power pole so fast in his life. I also have a friend whose husband is on a crew installing new power lines by helicopter. The next time they are working close by we are going to go watch the guys in action. I think it would be very exciting for my boys.

My Mother

This is for those of you who know my mother. Here she is with an MP5 shooting terrorists in Vegas last weekend. Not what you think of when you hear the word Grandma, right? Maybe that is why my boys call her Mumzie.

Wright Baby Sports Stocking

Now that my sister's baby shower is over I can show you my latest completed project. I had to do it before my baby comes or it would not get done before Christmas.

She has not picked a name for the baby yet, so I will have to add that later. Now to work on the one for our next addition.

New Words

Daniel ran into get me from Relief Society after church this afternoon and quite loudly stated "Hey Mom, a-hole means dog." My jaw dropped and I started trying to quickly make my way to him and out of the room before he could say it again. Of course as soon as we were out in the hallway he started chanting "a-hole, a-hole" over and over again, Jaxon mimicking him every step of the way. After a rapid escape to the car we had a little discussion about what that really means and that whoever told him it was a dog lied to him. He was embarrassed more than anything and afraid of being in trouble. When tears welled up in his eyes all I could do was wipe them away and let him know that not everyone tells the truth, sometimes people tell you lies to try to get you in trouble.

To my amazement the little girl who taught him this new word was in the 4 year old class. Now if I was as naive now as I was before having children I would assume she heard it from her parents, but I know kids pick things up from many influential sources. I just hope all the women in Relief Society today don't think that Daniel learned to say that word from either of us.

Where am I?

I woke up this morning wondering "Where am I? Do I even remember?" I had to open the door to remember we had moved to a little trailer park in Lake Elsinore the day before. The Lake looked nice, but dirty and no body contact allowed. The boys LOVED all the dead fish along the edge of the water; I didn't! We made sure to enjoy it from a distance.

Johnny was called out this morning and guess where he was sent? We have come full circle! He was sent back to work for Henkels & McCoy in Ontario, CA. We moved out closer to there today and hope to actually move back to the same park we were in the entire part of last year once they have an opening. It will be nice to move to a place where I know my way around and have some friends. It will be nice to go to church and see familiar faces. I realized last week how much I missed that and I know moving back to Ontario is an answer to my prayers.

Personal Space

Thursday I made an overnight trip to my parent's house to take Jaxon to the dentist for the 2nd time this week. He broke the top of one of his front bottom teeth off, then managed to break the filling off the same day I spent two hours at the dentist with him (and the other two boys) having it fixed. Besides the fun time at the dentist I had to drop off 6 days worth of what I like to call "poo samples" from Wesley to the lab. He is now undergoing a slew of allergy testing due to months of irregular bowel movements. Boy was I ever glad to get that out of my refrigerator/freezer.

I am sure you can imagine that after the car ride added to our fun times together that day I was excited to get home and tag Johnny to take over with the kids. This is the fist thing I noticed when I pulled up.

Of course my first thought was "what the heck are they thinking?" I immediately felt like my personal space was completely invaded. They are extremely close to our trailer. I am talking not even a foot from our electrical connection! With the immense amount of open grassy area here and the large size of each space there is no reason for it. To ease my frustration we closed all the blinds and went on a walk to the park, all the way thinking of reasons these new campers felt compelled to place their tent just so.

1. They are hoping to catch a glimps of me in the buff through our bent aluminum mini blinds?OR NOT. I don't have any vain misconceptions about my 30 week prego body.

2. Maybe they like being inches from our sewage drain?

3. Maybe they relish the shade from our trailer?

4. Maybe they enjoy listening to Jaxon's blasting cry every time he doesn't get his way?

5. Maybe they like seeing my precious Wesley bounce on the couch in front of the window every night after his bath?

6. Maybe they wanted to be close enough Daniel could spray them with his fire hose this morning when he was in his firefighter costume (hehe...I mean oops).

Whatever it is I was frustrated at first but now that I think about it, it could only have been poor planning at its finest. Poor tent campers sleeping next to our sewer and having to listen to my kids banging and screaming. I bet they'll rethink their tent placement on their next outing.