3 in 1

During our morning routine of getting ready for the day Ky was taking a shower. I helped her wash the shampoo out of her hair and continued getting ready myself while she finished her shower. As I was finishing my makeup I looked over at the shower and noticed Kylie with suds in her hair again. I have to admit I was not happy about more soap in her hair and got a little testy with her.

"Kylie! Why did you put more soap in your hair?!"

She said defensively, "MOM! I AM ON THE LAST ONE!"

"Ky, you already washed your hair, now you are just waisting time."

"But Mom, I am on the LAST ONE!"

"Kylie, you should be done by now."

She looked at me like I obviously did not know what I was talking about and picks up the shampoo bottle. Pointing to it she says, "Mom, it says 3 in 1. I am on the LAST one!"

... wow.

Oh the joys of life

As I was doing Ky's hair the other day I noticed the shirt she was wearing was inching up her arms. I just bought that shirt in August with a cute little skirt and now it is too small. So I mention to her.. "Gee, this shirt is getting too small already?"

She turns to me and says, "It's not getting smaller mommy, I am getting bigger"

Yes, my beautiful girl, you are. :D

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Ky's homework yesterday was to practice writing her address. I decided it would be best to make her do it 3 times instead of once so she could improve her writing. This tedious task took her over 30 minutes to complete and she groaned the whole time, "I hate homework Mommy", "This is taking forever Mommy", "Can I just do it once Mommy?".. so needless to say, when she was done she was not in the mood for more learning.

As she finished, I asked her to tell me what her address was with out looking at the paper. She recites the whole thing perfectly until she got to the zip code. I look at her and say "8".. "4"..

She repeats "84..."

I give her the look of "keep going"

And she says "apple?"

"Really Ky? Apple? You think there is an apple in your address?"

Proud as a Peacock

Kylie's Kindergarten teacher has come up with some creative ways to explain certain actions or feelings. For example: busy as a bee, quiet as a mouse and proud as a peacock. I am so glad she did.

Kylie was practicing her letters the other day and had done a great job at some of them. She was telling me that certain letters looked really good and asked if I agreed, which of course I did and stated that to her.

After her homework was done she sat back just staring at her work and looked up at me beaming, and said "Mom, I am Proud as a Peacock!" There was an unmistakable glow to her face.

It was at this point that I realized that before hearing about the expression "proud as a peacock" she had no outlet to describe this type of pride in herself.

Since this day we often use the term "proud as a peacock" to assure she can express that aspect of her feelings.

Thank you to Mrs Robinson for sharing this term with us. :D

My Strawberry

This year is the first year we've attempted to plant and care for a garden, so far so good. Early this spring Kylie, Grandma Payne and I went to nursery to buy some herbs and vegetables to plant in the garden. I told Kylie she could pick something that she could take care of in the garden. After telling her such phrases as "no, that's too hot, you won't eat it" to "what is that?" Kylie decided that a strawberry plant would be hers to nurture and watch grow. Returning home we planted the plants with such care paying special attention to the placement of the strawberry plant.

My days after work consisted of racing Kylie out the back door, to our little haven to see what has happened in the past day. On one of these occasions into the garden, Kylie spotted one little green berry growing on her plant, she couldn't contain her excitement "Dad, I have a STRAWBERRY!!!!", so then the cycle started.

Every day she would caress that strawberry, speak soft, sweet words of encouragement to her little green berry. Eventually, that strawberry grew bigger and bigger till it was about the size of her thumb, except one dramatic change excited her even more "Dad, its PINK!!!” I can now see her mouth starting to water just imagining the sweet flavor of a strawberry.

Finally, her little green berry matured into a red, plump juicy strawberry, I told Kylie one more day and that berry is hers, she wasn't too happy but understood none the less.

The very next day, it was strawberry eating time, I came home from work with Kylie in tow, let the dogs out while Kylie was getting the shears out of the drawer so she could snip her treasure off the vine. We both stepped outside, and all of a sudden I heard the little angry voice yell "Sid, get out of the garden". As I look up, I see Kylie running toward the garden as fast as she can, but I also see that Sid is chewing furiously on something, my heart sinks, I know EXACTLY what has happened. Before I could say anything, Kylie in the most disappointed voices says "SID! That was MY straaawwbeeerrrry"

Imagination

A Child's imagination is a wonderful thing!

Kylie recently "found" 500 new kids games (her words) on her Nintendo DS, she is so excited about them.

She was sitting on the couch next to me watching TV and apparently got bored so she grabbed her DS and started to play a game which builds hamburgers. As she played the game she would talk to it "I would like a cheese burger with no pickles, onions or mustard, I will move the bun over here, add the burger, put the cheese over here and oh, I need ketchup. There, it is done. Yay, I get extra points cause I did it so fast." All the while she is pointing and tapping on her device.

Then onto the next game, a fruit game where you choose your favorite fruits and put them in the bowl. She looks at me and says, "Mom, which fruit should I choose?" I tell her "Blueberries sound good, and perhaps Strawberries also." She says "OK, so I need to choose the 'berry bucket' and I will get all the berries. Mom, is watermelon a berry cause I want watermelon too." I say, "No, watermelon is a melon not a berry." She says "OK I'd better get the 'melon bucket' too, there is the melon bucket.. got it." This is a great bowl of fruit and I get an extra cupcake for doing it so fast." Again, this is done by pointing and tapping all over the screen.

Next she plays a numbers game, but this time she wants me to play. "Mom, there are 14 numbers, which one do you want to choose?" I say "14", she says, "Mom, that is not one of the choices, you have to choose from these numbers." And she shows me her DS so I can see which to choose from.

I look over at the screen and it is black, the power is off. She is not playing a game. Well not a game that can be seen by anyone else.

I think it is about time to invest in another DS game.. or 500 of them.

Please let me be wrong about this.

Let me preface by saying that I moved into my home because of its proximity to the LDS temple. I am simply thrilled to have such a beautiful structure near my home. I am so excited to be able to sit out on my front porch and view the magnificence of the building. I also understood the increased traffic to the temple for those doing temple work and I am good with all that. Just so you all understand that.


The Oquirrh Mountain Temple begins its open house soon and I attended a meeting to discuss the whole process to come. I went to the meeting to learn of the plan and honestly had perfect trust of what they had in mind. . . that feeling did not last long.

There are 2 inlets for the neighborhood and 80% of the parking will have to enter through those 2 areas. The parking is going to be in 10 vacant combined lots (in the neighborhood) in 2 different spots along the ridge, which, combined are estimated to hold around 900 cars at a time. The hours of the open house will be from 8am to 855pm every day except Sunday (and Monday will close at 430pm). This goes from June through the end of August.

They expect 9,000 people to attend daily, I would guess that is about 6,000 vehicles- 80% of that is 4800, half those cars will have to drive through my 'side' of the neighborhood to park- so 2400 per day. With 13 operating hours in a day, that is 185 cars per HOUR which is 3 cars per minute (one car every 20 seconds). And that is assuming that everyone in attendance is perfectly spaced, however we know that there will be times during the day which are more popular than others. AND they will be checking tickets upon entrance to the parking lots. ("Um, I swear it's here in my purse somewhere, just a second, Johnny, grab my purse there is a ticket in there, it is yellow and says 'ticket' on it... No, its in the other pocket, ugh, hand me my purse. Oh, I thought I had it, I must have left it at home." - To which they will deny entry. "Sorry ma'am, you will have to leave now.") But that will then INCREASE the traffic cause now they have to leave and come BACK. Can you say TRAFFIC JAM?!?!?

Now, if I lived on a 4 lane road, perhaps all that would be acceptable. But I live on a road so narrow that when a car is parked at the curb, 2 cars going in opposite directions can not fit on the road without one of them pulling to the side behind the parked car. Designed on purpose that way to control speed along the roads but is a nightmare in this situation. And how in the world will I get out of my driveway with so much traffic on such small roads?

And did I mention I have a 5 year old who will be walking to and from school, and playing and riding her bike RIGHT smack in the middle of all this? (Ok, not in the middle of the road, but you get my point.)

The plan is to block of one side of the road and leave the other side for resident parking only. However who is truly going to enforce that? The meeting revealed that So. Jordan City will be issuing citations, however how will they know if that is my car or someone visiting the open house? No answer, not their problem, contact So Jordan City. OK fine, I get that the burden of upholding laws/rules is not left up to the church. So comes the question and a solution to it all, "Why don't you just bus people in from churches , then you could enter in off 40th south (which is not residential and is 3 lanes)?" Here is the kicker, COST. Are you KIDDING ME? COST? REALLY?

They have not spared a dime in cost thus far; they will have 6 tents with wooden floors, air conditioning, theaters and seating for 150. They have spent at least 1/2 million on landscaping and I don't even want to guess what the building and furnishings cost, yet they are worried about the cost of buses taking people to the temple from churches near by.

To be fair, I have no idea what the cost would be to hire out buses for 13 hours a day for 75 days but I simply can't believe that they are willing to flood up our neighborhood, put our children in danger, cause constant traffic problems and disrupt our lives to save on cost.


Cost, really. Cost.


I do not blame the church as an entity, nor do I find fault with any of the leadership in the church. I love and respect the people who attend and am pleased there was a committee taking care of all of the details to make sure it will be a pleasant experience (which I am sure it will be for each of the visitors). But I simply can't believe they are willing to tread so heavily on an entire community just to save a few bucks.

What's in a name?

Last night we attended a family party, as the adults were inside chatting the children were outside running around. Quite a while into the evening Kylie and her two cousins come in to inform us they have found a new friend. With this statement a little boy walked into the room. Kylie then began stating everything she knew about him.

He is 8 years old
He is short because he does not eat his vegetables
He only likes tomatoes and watermelon
He lives across the street
He has ghosts in his house

I then ask, "What is his name?" All three kids look at the little boy and in unison ask "What is your name?"

"My name is A.J." At this time you can see the turmoil in all three kids faces wondering how they were going to handle this dilemma. See, my nephew (who is standing there probably wondering who is going to win out in this situation) has the same name. All eyes are on him.

Softly, my nephew says "That's my name too"

At this point, the kids all ran outside only to return 5 minutes later with another story about their new found friend. "A.J. 2"

In KID world, everyone is happy.

Life in Laurie Land

Complexities for me usually come in the form of an Excel Format or Macro to drum up reporting information in a spreadsheet. I love those types of complexities. Such a form of gratification comes for me when something works the way it is supposed to. I suppose I expect that level of order in my life as well.

Lately, order has been too much to ask for, and the worst part is that the lack of order has not even come from choices that I have made.. or has it?

People who let craziness in will let it run their life. They are the only ones who can decide when enough is enough. And so it is I who gets to decide how much of their craziness is allowed into my life.

Perhaps there is some type of Excel Formula that will help me figure that out.

Why is racism okay now that we have an African American President?

Since Obama won the presidential nomination, I have seen an influx of emails and text messages with racial undertones, overtones, and flat out pure racism. Either I have turned a blind eye for the last 30 years, or this type of thing just didn't happen before the elections. Why is it that it is okay to be racist if you don't agree with someones political agenda?

There is a particular email that I have received from several people now. To some people's defense, I know it was not recognized as a particularly racist email and they simply agreed with the main message and simply forwarded it on. It reads as follows:



I work, they pay me. I pay my taxes, and the government distributes my taxes as it sees fit. In order to earn that pay check, I work on a rig site for Fort McMurray construction project.. At any time I am required to pass a random urine test, with which I have no problem. HOWEVER, what I do have a problem with is the distribution of my taxes to people who don't have to pass a urine test. Shouldn't one have to pass a urine test to get a welfare check because I have to pass one to earn it for them? Understand - I have no problem with helping people get back on their feet. I do on the other hand have a problem with helping someone sit on their arse, drinking and smoking dope. Could you imagine how much money this country would save if people had to pass a urine test to get a public assistance check? If you agree, please pass this along, or simply delete if you don't. Hope you will pass it along though, because something has to change in this country!



(President Obama should implement this, huh? Let's see how many blacks would support him, then.)



Did you catch that?



To all those I love, we often have different political thoughts and probably always will. I am okay with that and find security knowing that people are allowed to have differences in their political beliefs. Forward me all your political thoughts and those of others, as I love to have my thoughts sparked (or get a good laugh). Do me a favor though and keep your racist propaganda to yourselves. Racism is not a political stance.

Throughout my life I have actually chosen to delete people from my life who have displayed hatred for someone based simply on race. After what I have witnessed over the last few months, I find it odd that I missed so many.

Thank goodness for the little girl in the tennis shoes.

Today was pajama day at Ky's school. She gets so excited about pajama day.. I guess I would too, after all, you get to wear your PJ's all day. Well, Ky got some new slippers about a week ago. They are pink with the words "Girls Rock" on them, very cute and she loves them. Well, she was so excited to wear her new slippers to school today and had them on all morning. I made her change out of them into tennis shoes so that she didn't get the slippers dirty outside. I told her she could put them back on at school.

Well, we got all the way to school (about 5 miles from home) when Kylie realized she had left her slippers sitting on the chair at home. She immediately burst into tears. I was already late for work and could not return home to get the slippers. I tried to explain this to her but she still cried all the way into school. As we walked down the hall everyone noticed her little red, teary eyed face. I felt like the worst mom in history.

Walking into the class room all the little girls had their fluffy princess slippers, their Hanna Montana slippers and even their cheetah looking slippers.. except for one other little girl. Holly happened to be wearing the EXACT same tennis shoes that Kylie was wearing. As I hugged Kylie and told her I loved her and goodbye, I asked her if she was going to be okay today. She said that she would be fine if she could just stand by Holly today, to which her teacher approved.

As I drove to work I thanked whatever powers were watching over me today for the little girl wearing the tennis shoes.