lovely little letters.

Dear 3-year-old,
You're growing up too fast. Please stop.

Dear Elders,
Sorry if I scared you, I wasn't trying to poison you,
...you just looked thirsty.

Dear cute aqua mug that broke today because of 3 year old,
I can't fix you. I'm sorry. You were my favorite.

Dear Husband,
Someday I'll be a better housekeeper. I promise.

Dear Dirty Dishes,
(aka every dish we own)
Wash yourselves.

Dear beloved Salvation Army,
Please don't leave. Pllllleeeassseeee...

Dear Bran Muffins,
You were not part of my diet, but I ate you anyway,
...all 17 of you...

Dear father.in.law,
Happy Birthday. We love you + miss you.(bunches!)

If you could be any animal....what would you be?

I saw this question last night online, so I turned to my three year old and said "Three year old, if you were an animal-which one would you be?" He thought about it for a minute and said:

Him: "I'd be a giraffe, I'd be really tall and eat giraffe food."

Me: "and which animal would daddy be?"

Him: "A monkey, he could climb trees..."

Me: "what about the baby?"

Him: "A zebra."

Me: "and what animal would mommy be?"
(halfway expecting him to say a swan, cause you're so pretty momma...or maybe a camel, cause you have nice lady humps...)

This took him a very long time, I could tell he was really mulling it over.

Him: "an elephant."

Me: "Good choice." Thank you son.

I'm sure it's because of my superb memory....

12 times in 5 years.

Yep. Its true. Moving is a hobby of ours.

(insert: incredibly long detail of all the places we've lived incase you didn't believe me.)

1. Cedar City to Virginia
(Married for one week...and moved across the country.)

2. Virginia to Delaneys in Cedar City
(smelled like dog pee, lived there long enough to put all our stuff away)

3. Delaneys to Southgate (newer old apartments)
(Loved it there. We didn't have cable and I can remember watching "Longest Yard" about a bazillion times while Mr. Oliver was a school)

4. Southgate to Northfield
(2 bedroom apartments (say what??) in Cedar City)

5. Northfield to crappy ghetto ones I can't remember the name of...
(We were offered a managing position over said crappy apartments)

6. ghetto back to northfield
(it was awful, the owners were wack so we left...)

7. northfield to my parents house
(I'm sure it had something to do with being poor.)

8. My parents to Honeysuckle Lane, the desert, NV
(I had no friends + a 3 month old = I was crazy, crazy enough that Mr. Oliver gave the man $1000 to break our lease.)

9. Honeysuckle Lane to grandma alices garage.
(Yes we were "mexican garage dwellers" but don't use that term with Mr. Oliver he gets pretty offended...and don't ask me why the garage was a step up?, perhaps its because I was near a Target store again.)

10. The Garage to Hidden valley
(Grady had some fascination with grammies beloved crochet hooks, so that + other is why we left. Miss you grammie.)

11. Hidden Valley to Skyhawk
(Oh, beloved little mexico, I certainly didn't miss you, but we were paying $300 plus in gas for wyatt to drive his death commute everday so I just didn't make sense not to live here. The Lord didn't think so either apparently, we were praying about whether to build a house in the fields or move down here. I really really wanted to build in the fields so I asked him if that was the right thing to do??? I opened my scriptures to search for answer and the first thing I saw in my desert industries-previously-highlighted book of mormon: ALMA 11:29. No, no, don't get up...I'll just tell you what it said "And he answered NO." So here we are.)

12. Skyhawk to the little house next to the Canadian cactus lovers.
(We absolutely love it here!!!)


And I told you that story to tell you this story.....

If we do the math that is 2.4 moves a year. Consequently my brain is wired to start packing things up every 6 months or so....Its the strangest thing. Obviously we're not moving again, (we're stuck with the old people for at least a few years.) but I've decided to get my moving fix I'm going to switch all my bedrooms around (this took alot of begging + many tears to get Mr. Oliver to agree to this.) and it does sound rather crazy but I'll let ya'll know how it goes. :)

old photo lovin.

Word is,chubbers looks exactly like I did when I was little. (granted he doesn't have that crazed look on his face + I don't think he has as many fat rolls as I did.) He was, however, blessed with my cheeks (and that was the only way we could identify him after he was switched in the nursery at the hospital.) and my lack of hair. (Mom says I was bald until I was two.) Thank heavens he has his daddys eyebrows. (Grady wasn't so lucky. sorry sweetie.) Lets just hope he looks alittle more like dad in the next couple years...There was a time in my life when I looked like Jack Blacks love child.

sweet little braylee.

Oh how lucky your parents are, to have such a darling little girl.

Thank you HCG

I was on the HCG diet for 28 days and let me tell you, it was HARD...but the results were UH.MAZ.ING! I have lost 30 pounds, and I weigh less than what I weighed when I was married! I ate bland chicken twice a day, and I never want to see a zucchini ever again, but it was totally worth it. After Mr. Oliver and I were engaged I ate everything in sight, I had to take my wedding dress back 4 times and the friendly Chinese lady told me "you getting too fat." And for the past 5 years I felt like I was just doomed to fatness. Now believe me I am far from where I want to be, I still have ALOT more to lose. But now, I feel like its do-able. Thank you Richard Simmons and HCG.

one down. five million and ten more to go.

The other night I was in hurry to meet my girlfriends at a movie, and apparently I might or might not have murdered my neighbors cactus. The next morning as we came out and looked at the 2 foot victim laying in the rocks, Mr. Oliver said
"How do you not realize you hit a cactus????"
and the conversation got really mature when I shot back with something about his ugly yellow beast being to big for the driveway.
We dug a hole and placed the ugly little guy back in it, covered up any incriminating evidence and dashed back into our house hoping nobody would notice.
However, because our neighbor is old, and has nothing else to do- he sat by his window waiting for us to emerge, he cornered my husband and commented
"looks like something happened to our cactus"
and mr. oliver, being the honest man he is, first threw me under the bus then handed the man our checkbook and offered to drive him to the local nursery.

a down pour in the desert.

At the beginning of this month we had a down pour down here in the desert. and I was quite upset to learn that I didn't have rain gutters on my house.
So I promptly called my contractor father and threatened to sue the builder for washing away my petunias.

"but it never rains down there." he replied.

"humph.well its raining now!" I retorted.

He assured me that once in every ten years isn't reason enough to have rain gutters. I hung up on him and sat in the monsoon holding an umbrella over my purple pansies.

Grady on the other hand was loving the river flowing off our roof and decided he needed a bucket to catch the water in.

So he ran inside and dumped a ridiculously oversized jug of cheese balls all over the kitchen floor and donned on his favorite and only miners hat.

and I know this will surprise you to see that he has no pants on. I wish I could still blame it on potty training but he's totally potty trained now, he just hates pants. I couldn't get him to come back inside and we all know that I can't just sit- I have to be doing something constructive, so I took my scissors and wire cutters and trimmed our yellow flowerly bush down to nothing.

It was a good day.

new superhero in town.

Take one look at this picture and it will be easy to see why I am a slightly odd.



I never really had a chance.

This is my dad.

He was declaring to be some sort of new superhero.

Which would be fine say if he was locked up in a a high security mental institution. But this picture was taken at Pirate Pizza surrounded by many concerned onlookers. The manager came over and asked us to leave on account that we were scaring the children (and some of their parents). So we left the waitress a $20, and rushed him out the door.

I knew one day he would snap.

my little man is growing up.

Life has been busy. Not to mention I had a nervous breakdown upon the realization that my little Mr. Mckay is already 3, and I am no longer his best friend.

Here are some of his favorite things:

Food: Cheese + Strawberries (usually not together)

Color: Pink or Orange

Movie: The Christmas movie (SEE it IS hereditary!)

Best Friend: (I was expecting him to say me...) Cydney.

I also asked him if he was going to be a Doctor or a Dentist? He didn't believe me that those were the only two options and stated he wanted to be a Cowboy. He loves nursery a lot more than he loves his parents. but not more than he loves his little brother. He is quite the parent and scolds Chubbers everytime he places a toy in his mouth. Happy Birthday my little man. I love you to the moon and back.

Snow family reunion.

The Snow family is the reason why I am related to half the town of Saint George.
My great great great great grandfather Jeter Snow, settled Pine Valley and his...dad? or grandpa maybe? was William Snow who was Lorenzo Snows Brother. So pretty much that makes me uber righteous and cool.

Now I haven't been in years, but they were spotlighting Grandma Alice this year and I was asked to tell the infamous 'crooked mouth family' story and our trip to Bryce was cancelled so we thought we'd go. Besides every so often its nice to find out what new relatives I have- Like the smiley walmart greeter from the washington walmart. We were already best friends from my going there so often...but now we're related too!

We arrived on time which meant we were extremely early, and so we waited and baked in the sun for things to get going. (and me, being the fantastic mom that I am, forgot to put sunblock on my kiddos and they were getting slightly toasted.)

We sat and talked to Grandma Alice for awhile, its kinda fun introducing the baby to her over and over again. We have the same rehearsed conversation over and over and when I tell her his name she gets all excited because its her maiden name, over and over again. ...of course, just now I thought ...maybe this whole time I think I'm fooling her and really shes just being a good grandma and thinking to herself "my poor granddaughter can't even remember that we've had this conversation a dozen times"...mmmmmm. She'll be 95 in October, and my boys are her two GREAT GREAT grandkids. She's amazing and pretty much a celebrity. (I can get you an autograph or a crocheted hand towel if you like...)

and so it came time for my big debut, it wasn't until after we were back home that mr. oliver informed me that my outfit didn't match...purple shoes...orange + taupe? skirt....black jacket/cardigan thingy....Oh well, I was having a fat + no clean laundry day. So I informed him to just not tell me these things AFTER the fact.

Have a cookie. Please, I insist.

Just ask Mr. Oliver. I have been on a baking frenzy lately. Ginger cookies, sugar cookies, chocolately chip cookies...mmmmm....and I can't eat a single one. I'm on a stupid diet, inwhich I can only eat tasty things like broccoli + zucchini + chicken + strawberries (if they are on sale).

So what do I do? I smell them. I smell the sugar jar, then I smell the dough, then I smell the actual cookie (everytime I give one away I HAVE to sniff it first) but I am very careful that my nose does not actually end up in the cookie. that would be gross.



I've even resorted to smelling chubbers "banana + apple + yogurt" baby food. (It smells divine.) I make the mister let me smell his cheeseburgers, or his chocolate bar. and then I sigh and long sigh. and bite into my celery. Why can't veggies taste like sugar cookies? seriously. something needs to be done about this.

Poor chubbers. Poor mommy.

My chubbers has been sick, last night he threw up a couple times, I don't know if it was his bottle, or because he's teething or the gamboo thats going around...anyway, I put him into bed with me incase he had to throw up again, and he did pretty good through the night until 7:00 this morning.

He threw up again.

and because he was half asleep + laying on his backside, he started choking on said throw up.

I quickly sat him up "cough. cough. hack." all. over. my. face.

I ran to the bathroom and doused my face in rubbing alcohol.

...good thing my mouth was shut.

Happy 7th Birthday Sissy!

My darling little sister turned 7 years old this past month! We celebrated at Pirate Island Pizza and let me tell you that was a feat just getting bubba through the door. He is absolutely terrified of that magical place. Which actually worked out well for us, and we were able to eat our food with out chasing a two year old around the resturant. He sat ever so quietly and hardly made a peep for at least an hour, and I thought to myself- "dang. I am totally bringing my inlaws here, they'll think my child is so well behaved!"

I made sissy a blanket this year, shes been wanting one out of rocketships for the longest time. It was made with love, which means it wasn't very good- (according to my beloved husband "good thing that blanket is for her...your stitching is all over the place." (dont ask me why he even cares, I suppose it stems from having a mother who has her degree in clothing and textiles.))



This last picture is of my cute/weird dad.(please note: His eyes go squinty when he smiles too. curse you father.) He was pretending that chubbers was Spiderman, and chubbers was thinking "who is this madman? and why the crap did my parents give me to him? curse you parents."