What an eyesore!

If you know Jeremy you know that he is very frugal and a do-it-yourself-er. We don't get wonderful HDTV reception right now and we often have to maneuver our current antenna many different ways to be able to watch a show without pauses and skipping and stuff. So Jeremy is surfing around the internet and finds this great idea of how to make your own HDTV antenna!
So he tells me that this is what we're going to do last night after the kids go to bed. So we go to Wal-mart to get our supplies: 6 wire hangers, a piece of wood, 8 screws and washers, and a transformer and regular cable wire. I think to myself that there is no way this thing is going to work but then Jeremy shows me the youtube video and the success that the guy has so I agree to help him by cutting and straitening the hangers. After about an hour we (and by we I mean mostly Jeremy) have the "antenna" all assembled and ready for trial. We get it all hooked up as shown in the youtube video and ...... (I'm building suspense).... it works! Kind of, anyways. It actually works worse than our current antenna. What a let down. I just had to laugh because why would something like this actually work? At least it was a fun project for the night and I didn't really have to have this eyesore up in my house.

My favorite home remedy

Through the years I have found many uses for Vaseline. It started when I was young and my family was going to take a trip to play in the snow. (In Phoenix you have to drive a few hours to see snow.) I watched as my father took out a jar of this stuff and lathered it over his boots to protect them from the snow. It must have worked because his feet stayed dry after tromping around all day in the snow. The next time I encountered this product was years later while walking past the bathroom. I noticed my brother over the sink with a bloody nose. He figured out that if you swab a Q-tip in Vaseline and coat the bleed with it then it stops bleeding, or at least puts a protective seal over the area to keep the blood from leaking from the wound. Wow, I thought. Later I found some uses for it myself. While in college at BYU I experienced some cold winters and along with it some extremely dry skin. I knew that vaseline helped heal cracked feet (a remedy I'm sure many girls have learned) so I decided to try it on the cry cracks of my hand. It worked! It is greasy but it works better than lotion because it is not water soluble and therefore locks the moisture into the skin and doesn't allow it to dry out. While working as a nurse in the hospital I found yet another use. A more seasoned and experienced nurse showed me that we can put it on our patients' dry lips because the hospital does not stock chapstick. (Disclaimer: it should not be used simultaneously with oxygen.) As a mother of a fair-skinned, sensitive skinned child I discovered another use. My son started developing the tell-tale red, scaly patches of eczema on his skin. The doctor gave me a prescription for hydrocortisone cream which I used as directed. I then researched eczema online and learned that eczema is dry and itchy skin that is a form of an allergic response in the body. So, of course the hydrocortisone cream made sense; but at the same time it is a steroid and a product that one should use sparingly. Due to the frequency of which Matthew gets eczema I decided to try Vaseline on the scaly skin and voila! The next day the scaly patches were no longer red and a day or two later the scaly patches were gone! An added bonus--Vaseline is much cheaper than any lotion you can find in the store. I love Vaseline!

Licking beaters, on the lighter side...

Matthew experienced a first of epic proportions--at least he thought so. I let him lick a beater covered in cream cheese frosting and he thought it was wonderful. I was nostalgic just watching him; it brought back memories of begging my mother to lick a beater after she made frosting, cookies, or anything sweet. Afterwards I heard a resounding, "more! more!"

Every time we give the kids a bath we get a kick out of their different skin tones. Matthew obviously takes after my fair skin and Corinne has Jeremy's coloring. They almost don't look like brother and sister but I assure you that they are!

Out of the frying pan and into the fire

It's been awhile since my last entry due to some extenuating circumstances--a.k.a. sick kids. It started off a couple of weeks ago when Matthew came down with a stomach flu just as Jeremy was leaving to go out to sea for a week--lucky me. All Matthew did was throw up and lay around on the couch watching movies or Curious George. After a couple of days it turned into crying and whimpering and just unable to sit still. At least by this time he was keeping food and fluids down if he would even take anything. He was pretty miserable. After about 5 days things were looking up and he got off the couch and started playing with toys. This lasted a day before the runny nose started and he came down with a cold. For some reason this cold has been worse than previous ones either because he was recently so sick and spoiled along with being sick or because it's just a nasty cold. But he comes up to me with barely any snot trickling down his nose and says, "nose! nose!" and expects me to wipe it for him. He knows how to wipe it himself either with a rag or with his shirt sleeve but he needs me to do it. Ever since the stomach flu he has turned from my little angel into a little demon. It seems as though the "terrible twos" have come all at once and with a vengeance. If he wants something and doesn't get it a huge tantrum erupts that takes forever to control. He has chosen to take some of his fury out on his little sister and she gets hit or kicked if she gets too close to him or plays with his toys. Things sure are fun at the Medford house! I want my little angel boy back!

A crawl like no other

I had to catch Corinne's crawl on video since it's too hard to describe. She's been doing this since she was 6 months old and hasn't progressed to getting on her knees. I don't think she ever will. She has already started pulling herself up to things. And if you look closely you'll notice that she uses the back of her right hand to help pull herself along instead of her palm. It makes her look even more retarded!

Corinne's hair

I think that most people would love to have a baby girl with lots of hair. I used to be one of them until I had a little girl born with tons of hair. I was sure that my baby girl was going to be born bald and I would just have to paste a bow to her head until the hair grew in--not so. Sure it's fun to put clips in her hair and put ponytails in and pigtails, but I'd like to do all that stuff once a day instead of multiple times. You see Corinne spent the first 5 or so months of her life sleeping and would only be awake for an hour at a time before she'd get cranky and I'd put her down for another nap. So that equals 5 or so bedheads that I'd have to fix if I felt so inclined. Many days she would just have bedhead all day--but that was before it was this long.
Unfortunately, her hair fell out on the sides early on but remained long on top so I have only a limited selection of hair to work with which ends up usually in a samurai ponytail on top or the 2 antennae ponytails--again, on top.
Here's a picture of the ponytails before naptime. Afterwards they usually end up flattened or falling to one side, or just not looking right. Maybe I'm lazy you say--could be. But although she does look adorable with her hair up (I am partial) it's a lot of work for a 10 month old who doesn't quite know the meaning of "hold still" and just thinks it's a daily torture ritual of pulling hair. To all of you with bald little girls, count your blessings!