Easter Activities

The boys are not in school this Thursday and Friday so today was the day for Easter activities. My Mom, Dad, and sister (April) run a daycare in Jay so they come in real handy on days like today when both schools need volunteers. As much as I love my Hyrum, it's not so easy volunteering with a 2 year old! Thanks Little American's Day Care! First I spent the morning outside with all the Kindergartners. Each teacher had their own activity set up outside in different areas. I helped Mrs. Goff with the hula hoops. Here is the Easter bunny being malled by a bunch of Kindergartners! A little story about this girl in the middle. I don't know this little girls name. All I know is that she is in Mrs. Wilder's class. Earlier in the school year I volunteered in her class while they were doing their dibbles testing. I have only helped in my children's classes in the past so this was new to me. I instantly loved this little girl in Mrs. Wilder's class. Since then, I swear I run in to her everywhere...Wal-Mart, being picked up from school or dropped off, playgrounds, you name it! I had Brigham come over to take a picture of him with the Easter bunny and I said, "Ok, smile so I can take a picture!" Low and behold, my little girl turns around out of nowhere and smiles.
Here is Levi and yes that is a whole Peep in his mouth!
It is so fun to go into the class rooms and see the look of "proud" on your child's face as you enter the room. That was my favorite part of the day.

Daffodils

I guess I am a typical girl in that I really love getting flowers. I love the surprise of David bringing home a dozen roses; especially when he has picked out some that smell so fragrant. I love it when my boys bring in a flowering weed for me to put in a glass of water.Yesterday I was instructed not to look as they were collecting these daffodils from our neighbors yard. She passed away in October of last year so I don't think she minded. If she could see my boys outside getting so excited at how many flowers there were to pick for their mamma, I think she would have smiled. Thank you Wilma.

A "mini" reunion

Tonight I met some of the girls that I graduated from High School with at the Rib Crib.

Left to right: Martie, me, Marlana, Charlote, Val, Pounce, and NatashaOk, I just had to put this picture on also....because of Valerie's mouth! And don't ask about the purse....we'll just leave it at a "Granny's purse"...trust me; you don't want to know!
Anyways, I've been home for about 2 hours now. I've already had a nice long hot shower and I still hurt! Those girls had me laughing just a little bit to hard!
I couldn't get over how some of us looked exactly as we did in high school while some of us have just gotten prettier with age. Either way it is a compliment because they either looked young or pretty (or both!). Whereas for me, yeah...I've pretty much just gotten fat! Oh well, I definitely worked off some of that belly fat tonight...so thanks girls!

District Pinewood Derby

Today was Levi's district pinewood derby. In February was his first derby he had ever been a part of. It was a day full of all the scouts racing each other in the dens/packs of Grove. If you read that post, you will see that it didn't go very well for Levi so you can imagine our wonderful surprise when he won second place this time playing against neighboring towns. We learned from our experience last time and he and Daddy made a derby car who's tires didn't fall off! Here is a picture of him winning his first round! Here he is showing off his trophy and yes that is blood in his eye...I guess you could say. Last week, he and his cousins were playing around and he got hurt. It looks much worse than what it actually is. Just a few days ago he had a black eye to go with it. A funny story his teacher told me: He came to school and a lot of people noticed his black eye but didn't say much after that. At the end of the day, I guess is when the "blood" starting showing on the whites of his eye. I guess the class was working quietly at their desks when a kid next to him yells out, "Levi! Your eye is bleeding!" It caused quite a stir, I guess.
Anyways, we had a real good time today. I worked the concession stand so I didn't get to see most of the action of the day but I watched as my Grandparents and Parents helped David take care of the kids while enjoying the races. Once again, I sure am grateful for family around. I unfortunately know of friends who have parents and grandparents who live really close to them and they never see them. I can say happily that there is at least one family member (outside of our little family) at every function.

Silly, silly girls

My dear friend, Marie Brown, was in Oklahoma visiting her family this week. She lives in New Mexico with her husband and adorable daughter so her coming to visit was something I had been really looking forward to. Marie goes in the same category as April does....can make me laugh at just about anything. April has made me laugh for as long as I can remember....well, except for those childhood days when I'm sure we annoyed each other. I went to church with Marie, growing up but we actually were never close until college. Funny how things work sometimes. She was actually closer in age to my other sisters and I was closer to her sister, Amy. I remember going to church functions with Amy; not Marie. And being in Amy's wedding. Then Marie's other sister, Spring, moved in with her family my senior year in high school. I think I only had one class with Spring but still, even after knowing Marie from church for all those years, I probably knew Spring better by the time I graduated high school than I did Marie. But college came along and in my last year at Ricks, Marie was coming out for her first year. We became roommates and I soon learned just how much fun this girl was. It kinda makes me sad that I didn't really know Marie all those years before. Marie was my pranking buddy in college, my sanity when I moved home after college (when she was home for summer break) and my constant companion in Hawaii for a summer. I love you so much, Marie.Here is Marie, me, Amanda, Spring, Allie, and April taking our normal crazy pictures!
It's a wonder our husbands want us to be anywhere near each other!

Sleepover

Last night, Shaylee and Elton stayed the night with us. It is spring break here and I just thought that it sounded like such a fun idea to have a bunch of little kids around...and I was right! It was a beautiful day so we started off the evening with some outside play. After that we came in to have dinner. I think the real fun happened once the blow up mattress was out, though. A blow up mattress just screams, "JUMP ON ME!" to a child. I didn't think they were ever going to get enough of that until Hyrum convinced Shaylee to read a book. It is neat to me how a book can calm any child down. After that we got ready for bed and they were all snuggled up in the bed with a movie when we brought out the donuts! After the movie and the kids were put to bed, you could hear many giggles.....except they were coming from David and I! We heard conversations like this:

Elton- "Did you fart?"

Levi- "No!"

Elton- "Are you sure? I think you farted."

Levi- "I'm telling you, I didn't fart!"

The stories of a Census worker

Yesterday was my last day of going door to door to drop off Census questionnaires. I will start up again, in a few weeks, with the follow up program of contacting those who didn't fill out the questionnaires. I have really enjoyed this job. I can only hope that the next stage will be as entertaining. I thought I would share some of my favorite "entertaining" moments of the last few weeks.

-Not until this job did I ever realize just how many dogs have to exist on this planet. I have seen huge, small, loud, quiet...every dog imaginable. Some have scared me into keeping mace very close to me at all times while others have hurt my heart. I've seen dogs missing eyes and limbs...talk about breaking your heart. My favorite would have to be the pet goat that I met not to long ago that thought he was a dog. That goat was almost as tall as I was and the biggest one I had ever seen (he was very well fed!). He came up to me with the other dogs...I think expecting me to pet him. I'm sure he was the nicest thing in the world but I couldn't seem to break eye contact with his horns! But my favorite animal story would have to involve a bunch of hungry cows. Usually we go out by ourselves but on this particular day we were sent out in twos to very remote places. I think they were a little worried about our safety because of some other experiences some of us encountered in places farther away from most civilization. But as life often does, this area (the outskirts of Nowata, Oklahoma) proved to be just the opposite: one of the most friendliest areas I had been to. Anyways, Megan and I were trying to get out to a house that was surrounded by cows and fences. We obviously could not get in so we decided to put a questionnaire in a bag and tie it on the gate. I get out of her truck to try to hurry up and get this bag attached to this gate with a rubber band when I realize that these cows, from a distance, are eyeing me. Before I know it these cows are running towards me! I can hear Megan laughing from the truck as I'm yelling at myself, "Alisa, hurry up!" I hurry up to the truck to find a laughing Megan and cows mooing at me (very loudly, by the way) at the gate because I hadn't fed them! They were ticked!

-I got to see sides of men that well.....

I would knock on doors and get replies like, "Hold on! I'm putting on my pants!" or my favorite, a hairy man opening up the door and trying to hide behind it with only his underwear on! After asking him a few questions he replies, "Maybe I should get on some pants." You think! But a teenager I ran across that didn't know his address probably topped it all. He went inside to ask "Sherri". He opens the door, yells at her, and then turns around to spit his nasty remains of his saliva from chewing. Ok, so that is gross in its own but I was standing right behind him at the bottom of the stairs. No joke, that nasty stuff shot past me maybe a foot from my face! He didn't even apologize!

-I have ran across some of the most uninhabitable places that you could think of....just to find out that they are not uninhabited at all! Trailers stuck side by side with makeshift connections that were falling apart, tents (yes, tents), roads that I had to put the truck into 4 wheel drive because there was no way I could get down and up these crazy very rocky roads other wise, and people who live in those campers that you see that are put on the bed of a truck. I can't tell you how many times I wished that I had my camera on me.

I actually loved coming home and telling my crazy stories and am sad that it ended so soon. There are some very interesting people around these here parts! But seriously, I met some of the sweetest old men. Some had me in tears as they told me of the wives that they lost or strokes that they had had and how they were dealing with the frustration of not remembering things like their address. Many times, in these last weeks, I have felt that I was very blessed. I am so grateful that my spouse is alive. I am so grateful that I don't have MS and forced to be in a wheel chair. I am so grateful that my house, which may be tiny, is not falling apart. I'm really grateful for this job.

Happy Birthday to me

Grandma asked me how old I was today and I said something like, "33, I think." Someone corrected me and told me I was 32 and mom started laughing at me. I knew what she was thinking right away. I have come to that age where it doesn't matter anymore. For as long as I can remember when someone asked mom how old she was she would say something like, "I don't know....Alisa, how old am I?" I never could understand why she didn't know how old she was. I think I started this same thing right before I turned 30. I'd always get it mixed up how old I was. I just teased that it was because I didn't want to turn 30, I guess. Well, I'm past 30 now and I'm making myself older than I actually am so I guess that is not is. I guess it really is that we don't care so much about our age and birthdays after a while.

Yesterday I worked until around 5:30 p.m. As I was coming home, David had just pulled up into the drive. I knew he had gotten a babysitter for the boys but that was all I knew. I went inside to put all my work stuff away and saw a VERY clean house. That was my first present! It only got better as I got in the truck and he had a Miley Cyrus c.d. waiting for me. Yes, I'm a middle schooler at heart! We took off for Joplin, MO but stopped along the way to help a couple who was stopped on the side of the road. They had run out of gas. This is what I love about my husband. He never passes up someone who is stranded on the side of the road. He asked first, but I could never tell him no. The guy ended up staying with his vehicle while we drove her, Brittany, to the gas station. She must have been on some kind of drug because she was the most jittered person I'd ever seen. But as always, you can't treat people poorly by what they do in their lives because she was so nice and we actually really liked her. She had David laughing quite a bit! Anyways, after we got her back and them off on the road, we headed back off for Joplin. We got there and David let me in on the surprise. He had rented a hotel room for us (he snuck in our luggage into the back of the truck when I was inside the house) and was going to take me to Red Lobster. I love sea food! It was wonderful and so yummy and the hotel room was nice and comfy. He wanted to take me to a movie or what ever I wanted but since it was my pick I just wanted to go back to the hotel room. I'm weird like that. Having alone time with David is such a rarity (though we have it much more now that we live by family) that I am perfectly happy with just hanging out in a hotel room. Give me a deck of cards or nothing at all and there is always all kinds of things to talk about that you just never really get to with little ones all around you. But not only do I really like just hanging out in a hotel room, I had been feeling pretty sick. I think we ended up going to bed not to long after 9:00 p.m. The night before I was running a 101.8 temperature and had diarrhea. The worst was the chills. I had our heating blanket cranked up as high as it would go and I was still shaking so badly that once the fever broke, my muscles were sore! Anyways, Friday night I didn't have the fever but my body still felt a little yucky. But I woke up this morning, my actual birthday, and felt a little better. We had room service brought up and just lounged around....probably my favorite part! Anyone with children knows that sleeping in is not an option. We finally left the hotel around 11:00 a.m. and this is what I found waiting for me when I got home!
For someone who can't remember how old she is, I think I'll remember this birthday for a while.
David said to me right before we pulled up into the drive way to our house, "I was thinking, I bet you felt abandoned when you were going through all that you went through last year with your depression. I hope you feel that you have friends now." I surely felt that today. Not just with being surrounded by family and friends today. But also looking back at last year and all those who tried their very hardest to stand by me as I tried to get it together. All those who didn't give up on their friendship with me even when I didn't want to be near anyone. Once again, I feel very blessed.

Just a little update

I stopped working just before Levi was born, over 7 years ago, and have stayed home with my children up until last year. I helped out at a flower/gift shop (Annie's Garden Gate) here in Grove off and on for the past year during busy holidays and when ever Robin needed my help. You wouldn't believe how nervous I was that first week I helped before Mother's Day last year. But working off and on during this past year got me ready for a longer lasting job that I actually wasn't nervous about! I work for the US Census Bureau. I love my job! I love getting out and talking to people all day long. I love that I'm getting out of the house. I love that it is making me fix my hair and put on makeup. I love that I have more energy. I love that I feel good about myself working. I love that I know Hyrum will be just fine without Mommy home all the time and most importantly I love that I don't feel guilty about not being home with him all the time like I was able to do with the other boys. Probably not much to most people but for me -someone who tends to feel guilty about not only big things but silly, remote things as well- this is important to me. I feel so very strongly about my staying home with my children when I did. I needed it, they needed it, and I think David even needed it. It was right. But I feel that at this moment in time, it is very good for me to be working.

Here is Hyrum and I on my first day out. He got a little emotional as I was leaving so I decided to have him come out and take a picture with me. It is so rewarding to me to come home and have him so excited to see me. He sticks to my side and tries to get me to sit down with him for the rest of the evening.
Here is David and I just before heading off to the temple this Friday. I was so hyper, for some reason, as we were leaving so here is us trying to stage a picture of him being annoyed with me. It didn't work.....he just looks cute! Since the temple is 3 hours away when we go we stay the night up there and try to get in 2 days worth of temple time. Anyways, we had the best time. I was wondering if I would really enjoy my time in Oklahoma City. I have been away from home a lot for the past month, with helping at the flower shop for Valentine's week and training for my Enumerator job, and I was afraid that this weekend might do it in for me. But I was ok with the boys being with my family and I just enjoyed my husband and the temple.