Saturday, December 5, 2009

NOT YOUR TYPICAL SECRET SANTA STORY!

This is a funny story I want to type up so my family will always remember it. Do you ever have those moments where you wished you were being video taped?! Well, today I did because it was dang funny. As you read the story...make a mental picture in your head...

So my family and some other families got together and wanted to leave an "anonymous" Christmas donation for someone who could use a little help this year. We got together and pulled some cash and put it in a little box that said, "Merry Christmas, Love Santa Claus" and Jared and I said we would deliver it since we would be in that neighborhood.

We loaded up the kids, headed out, and noticed that their car was parked out front, so we knew they were home. Jared dropped me off at the house and then drove around the corner and I placed the package ever so carefully on the mat and rang the doorbell 3 times in the friendly doorbell ring which would say: "someone is here and surprising you, come and open me up". I ran off as fast as I could, ran past the old man neighbor who was outside smoking a cigarette staring at me and smiling and I looked at him and smiled and put my finger over my mouth and shouted, "SHHHHHH!".

We waited about 4 to 5 minutes thinking the coast was clear and that they should have picked it up by then. We rounded the corner ever so slowly and drove past only to discover our package lay their untouched. What a let down.

"Ok, we will try again...perhaps they were in the bathroom or something" we were thinking. Jared dropped me off again and proceeded to round the corner while I rang the doorbell 3 quick times again and ran so fast I was huffing and puffing and hopped in the car. We waited again and thought, "surely it will be gone this time!".

Just to be sure we didn't get caught, Jared stayed behind the corner so they wouldn't recognize our car and I snuck up to the house only to be completely bummed out discovering that once again, the package lay there undisturbed. Now this is where the story gets a bit comical...I started to walk away unsure what to do; "should I try to open their car and stick it in there?", "Should I pick it back up and take it home?", "what should I do?".

As I am walking away I hear, "Carol?! What are you doing here?" I look up and discover they have opened the 2nd story window and see me. My reply in complete shock that I have been discovered and don't know what to do, "Uh, nothing!".
"Carol, have you been ringing our doorbell?".
"NO!" Now picture me turning around and just running away (can I also just say that this house is 30 minutes away so there is no excuse for me to be over there at all). In a panic I start running back to the car and Jared can tell on my face something is up so he throws the car in reverse and starts backing up thinking perhaps they are coming. I shout threw the window...."they see me, I don't know what to do, they haven't seen the package yet though, should I grab it?" He says, "I don't know!" So I grab the phone and call my friend who is in on the whole thing, "They saw me, they haven't seen the package what should I do? Hurry tell me!" My friend says, "I don't know, go grab the package, hurry!" So I hauled butt back to the door, grabbed the package and as I am turning and starting to run away the door opens....bum bum bum(intense scary music noise from the movies) they open the door start to say something, I keep running and their dog gets out and now their dog is chasing me!(ok so its not really these type of dogs it was just a little one but still!). I am still on the phone with my friend and I am panting and saying, I am running, they've seen me grab the package and now their dog is chasing me!" I look at Jared and say, "hurry go get the dog, they are running up and down the street trying to catch it and now they are getting mad cause they don't know what we are doing and their dog is out!" He just looks at me and keeps sitting there. I told my friend on the phone, "ok you tell them what we are doing, I don't know what to say and now I need to go chase their dog before they get more angry at me".

I throw them my phone and told them to talk to my friend and they would explain and I will go chase the dog. I chase the dog in one direction and then he turns and starts heading towards our car so I yell at Jared to get out and start helping...he keeps sitting in there watching me so I turn and say, "Get your @$$ out of the car and start helping me!" He takes his foot off the break, angrily starts to get out, the car starts moving forward cause its not in park, he hops back in and says, "what am I supposed to do leave the car in the road?" in the mean time my friend is peeing her pants laughing on the other end while she hears all of this going on.

To end the longest story ever ... Jared caught the dog, put him inside, we got our phone back, told the people Merry Christmas and that we have a "surprise" present to give from a group of people, and we got in the car and drive off before they could open it and try to give it back. How does Santa go to everybody's house each year undetected?! Jared and I are NOT as stealthy as we think. Mission failed.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

THANKSGIVING!

Well it was supposed to be the best holiday with the Fa'anunus coming to visit us but it didn't turn out to be the perfect week like I had planned. We still had some amazing parts to the week but our big day together was supposed to be Friday but then Jennifer had to go and get the flu on us and ended up sick in her room the rest of the trip and they left early because of it to (oh well, at least we got Tom to promise another trip to make it up to us!) Some of our favorite parts in no particular order...Radio Disney, the kiddos watching movies together every night while the guys played with the new Droid phonethe traditional Thanksgiving Christmas present exchangeMaking smoresGoing to see New Moon with Jennifer, now we did put on tatoos of Jacob and Edward but I promise you it was a joke to make fun of all the twihards or whatever it is they call themselvesThanksgiving morning Caryn was kind enough to come out and watch the kids so I could go run the Turkey Trot with my friends and Jared could go play in a Turkey Bowl with his brothers. My time was 55:10 - next year, new goal, beat that time and start the race on time, we literally started 10 minutes after everyone else because we were waiting in line to pee.This was my worst Black Friday shopping day ever!!! Next year I have a new game plan which I wont share because I dont want any of you stealing my fantastic ideas :)It is always sad to see our favorite Fa'anunus leave and then I am stuck with a daughter in tears which makes me cry, sigh. To cheer us up we spent the weekend working on a new list for Santa and even went down to Macy's to write our letter to Santa!

Monday, November 23, 2009

3rd TIMES A CHARM!


Elias is finally potty trained - woo hoo!! 3rd time is definitely a charm for this kiddo. Our 3rd round of trying to potty train him and he finally did it. Our 3rd day he was finally able to pee when he put him on the potty and after that first time he never had an accident. The 3rd day of pooping his pants and finally getting it in the potty and he hasn't had an accident since. He is doing awesome. 3 trips to the store for prizes but it was all worth it! That day he finally figured it out Aunt Randi, Uncle Mike and Aunt Richelle happen to stop by for a visit and did an extra excited potty dance for him and really liked that. Yay for not having 3 boys in diapers anymore!! Woo Hoo!! (We have not attempted to try the night time thing yet and I honestly don't even care at this point so I am considering him done!)

Elias funny potty training sayings:
* While going to the bathroom he will put one hand over his ear to listen for it and then he will shout with a big smile on his face, "it's working!"
* After going #2 for the first time he says, "it's big! it's so beautiful!" and then as its being flushed away he says, "bye bye, see you later."
* After getting some candy for a successful trip to the potty he says in the cutest way ever, "mmmm, its wa-wishes!" (delicious)

Monday, November 16, 2009

I FREAKIN' DID IT!!

I ran my 2nd Half Marathon this year and did a personal best! (If you run 2 half marathons in the same year does that count as a full marathon?!) The day started off with my alarm going off at 5:30am and finding this noteand then heading out to meet a group of great runner girls at Denise's house at 5:45am to carpool together to the race. Stephanie, Amber, Jenny, Denise, Me, Jenesey and RachelStephanie, Denise and I had this great game plan of running the first 7 miles together and then splitting up after that and haulin' butt to the finish. Well, it was a great plan for the first 2 miles but then after that we all turned on our ipods and were in our own zone.It was nice to have 13 miles to myself and my thoughts. I became grateful for so many dumb things. I was grateful for the fact that everyone running by me was wearing headphones so no one could hear how loud I was breathing, I was grateful for the rain that fell on us until it made the sweat run into my eyes, I was grateful for the port-a-potty at mile 8 so I could stop and pee for a second, I was grateful for Denise running back and handing me a magical jelly belly, I was grateful for the people handing out waters, powerade and vitamin waters at the water station and I was especially grateful for the band Muse and their song Uprising to get me through the last mile when I wanted to stop and walk. I have to say I really enjoyed running this race. The paved roads and sidewalks were a welcomed surprise from the tractor tracks of Queen Creek, my fancy watch the Pro Spirit 999 was fantastic (aka: the Target Pro Spirit $9.99 - not the really cool Garmin watches that all my friends have) at helping me keep on pace and just the fact that I met all the goals I made for myself; I wanted to run the whole thing, done, and I wanted to keep at a 10 minute pace and I maintained a 9:29 pace, woo hoo! I was able to shave 23 minutes and 46 seconds off of my last race, finishing up at 2 hours 4 minutes and 11 seconds. I ended up being faster than I thought so between that and the traffic to get into the stadium, Jared didn't even make it to see me finish. I didn't get mad though because I knew he tried and already had a busy morning getting up the 4 kiddos and getting them ready to take them to my parents house to be babysit and all my friends made up for him not being there by waiting for me at the finish line and cheering me on.Denise was so nice to be a good friend and grab me a bottle of water right when it was over and try to help me even though I was about to truly puke my guts up. If I could have found a trash can I would have. It was a great race and I look forward to running again and beating my time again. Jared surprised me that night by getting his mom to come over and babysit while he took me out to a victory celebration dinner!

Monday, November 9, 2009

NOSTRIL OR NOZZLE?


Emma: "Dad, I can only breathe out of one of my nozzles. The other one is all stuffy"
Parents: (laughing so hard but trying to hide it) "Em, you mean nostril not nozzle!"
Emma: "Oh right, nostril."

Their new favorite thing of the week. Climb up on the train table and stare pathetically out the window. Dang I love these boys! (PS - yes, after I noticed how nasty my windows were I cleaned them)

Monday, November 2, 2009

TRICK-OR-TREAT 2009!

I will let the pictures do most of the talking this year! 4 kiddos trick-or-treating - it was awesome!
This is what Tyson and Tyler were originally going to be (minus the hangers poking out of their heads)...But then we decided to go trick-or-treating with the Parrys so we had to change the boys costumes to match their girlfriends, so they became little Spanish Dancers (Chiara, Tyson, Tyler and Payton)Eli started out as Buzz Lightyear but ended up being Eli the Pirate but before trick-or-treating was over he finished off the night being Eli the kid with Pirate pants on and a t-shirtMy little girl is not so little anymore. Every year since she was 2 she has picked out her costumes all revolving around Disney Princesses. This year, well, she went in the complete opposite direction and wanted to be a vampire!Her and Maddy had a great time being vampires together and sucking blood together and giggling and running from house to house togetherAfter the first house, Tyler was completely satisfied and just wanted to eat his lootThe 8 of them gettin' the goods (I do have to say that poor little Tyson was usually the last one to the door and he never waited around long enough to get candy, silly kid)Tyler: Don't mind if I do, thank you!Eli did great this year. He could actually say, "trick or treat" perfectly and he would use "thank you" on occasion and he would also help himself to the candy he was being offered and sometimes even help himself inside their home. When we were done he even said, "more trick-or-treat."After walking around to a few houses the twins were quite content eating suckers and being pushed around, they are no dummies!