sleep

This morning around 4:15, I remember hearing Will in the bathroom shaving and seeing the light on. He had one of his clinicals today at Hawai'i Medical Center East, in Honolulu. Since he had to be there by 6:30, he tries to give himself a little over an hour to travel the 20.02 (according to mapquest) miles.

At 5:10, the house phone rang one quick ring, but it woke me up again and I picked my head up off the pillow confused by the dark room. I realized that Will must already be gone, but couldn't figure out why the phone had rung. In that moment my cell phone rang and it was Will. He says "I locked my scooter keys in the scooter and I can't go anywhere." I asked him where he was and he said he was in the garage and he had already locked the door so he couldn't get back inside to get the spare scooter key. So I hurried downstairs and opened the garage door. He came in as I was already headed back upstairs and said "Sorry..." I said, "It's ok" and went straight back to bed knowing that since I had to get out of bed that there was no way I was going to be able to fall back to sleep. I've been that way since Brinlee was born. If I have to get out of bed for any reason after about 1:30 or 2 am. I am awake for hours afterward.

So I tossed and turned for about 45 minutes and then at about 6:20, I had just started to drift off again when I heard Tatum fussing over the monitor. GRR! I hurried in so that she wouldn't wake Asia and it turns out that she couldn't find her little blankie. I found it, gave it to her and hurried back to the bed again to try and get 20 mins of shut-eye before having to get the other girls ready for school. NOPE! Not even 30 seconds after I layed my head down. I heard Asia and Tatum giggling at each other and then Brinlee yelling at Mariah to stop taking the covers away (they share a king size bed). UGH!

I got absolutely NOTHING done today. I was so tired that I couldn't think straight. When I put Tatum down around 11:30, I layed on the couch and Asia wanted to watch High School Musical 2. I usually give her the choice of laying down with me or watching a movie. She mostly always picks a movie and watches quietly while I nap. NOT today! Every 10 minutes she was whining for something or other. When I finally fell asleep (not sure how long) the phone rang. Oh well....it made me get off my lazy behind and clean the kitchen. I do feel better. I guess I must have gotten a little sleep. Sometimes a "power nap" is all I need.

Brinlee ~ Student of the Quarter!!

Brinlee came home with an award from her school that she was the student of the quarter, for last quarter. Her teacher told us that one student is chosen from each classroom each quarter. They are presented with an award in class from the school's student counselor, Mr. Chung. They also receive a certificate for a free pizza from Papa John's. I think Brinlee was more excited about that than anything!
This is what her teacher said about her and how they choose the student:

"The teacher selects the student of the quarter based on certain criteria ~ being responsible for their learning, completing their work on time, being kind to others, etc. I chose her because Brinlee has shown me that she can persevere in those areas. I am so proud of her. We all cheered when our counselor, Mr. Chung, came to present her with the certificate and pizza certificate. Congratulations!" -Ms. Uytingco.

The TOE saga continues...

First, can I just say that feet are so nasty to begin with and then my kids think they are Hawaiian and run around without their shoes all day long. So, Tatum's toes are looking much better, but Mariah and Brinlee are now having issues. On Saturday, Mariah was outside playing (without her shoes, HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL THEM!!) and she says she stubbed her toe on a rock. It sliced into her big toe pretty good and then on Sunday she kept complaining that the skin kept catching on stuff making it bleed again, so Will clipped it off. (YUCK!)

Before the skin got clipped

after

Then, yesterday, Andrea Allen came and took Mariah and Brinlee with her kids to our pool while I finished cleaning and put Tatum down for a nap. She came back about an hour and half later with Brinlee bleeding from the toe. She said that Brinlee scraped it on the rough ground around the pool. It looks like she took a pretty deep chunk, though. Probably because her feet were prune-y and wet and that made the skin really soft. Pretty GROSS! They both wore socks and tennis shoes to school today! HA HA HA!

It looks even more icky in person when you can see how deep it really goes

There are still no toenails, but looking SO much better! you can kinda see in this picture that she is finally breaking that 4th tooth through on the bottom! She has 4 on top and now 4 on bottom and I just noticed today that she has a molar on each side in the back starting to come through on the bottom gums.

Tatum's Funky Toe

On Wed, the 23rd of January, we were having a meeting at the Detton's house and Tatum (we think) got her toes stuck under the opening door. She was bleeding from her 2nd toe over on her right foot, but it didn't bleed for long and she seemed fine.

The next week on Thurs, Will noticed that her 3rd toe over on her right foot was all red and swollen. We thought it was weird that it took a whole week to show up AND that it was the 3rd toe over. We didn't think it was that toe originally.

Anyway, that Friday night we went to the Temple and the couples doing the child care at the chapel by the temple said that it looked really bad and we should take her to the dr. We looked at it when we got there and it had gotten all swollen and filled with puss. EWWW! So first thing Saturday, Will took her to the dr and he said it was a pretty bad infection and gave us some antibiotic ointment and and oral antibiotics just in case.

Well a few days later her 3rd toenail over fell off and it started to bleed again. I took these pictures last Sunday the 3rd of Feb and you can see that the skin is all peeling away and looking nasty. Well about 2 or 3 days ago the 2nd toenail over fell off too!! Poor baby! She doesn't complain about it, but she does pick at it relentlessly. UCK!!

sorry she's naked....she's still potty training

my analytical side

I have this need to analyze everything and try to figure out why things happen the way they do. These are my ideas for what took me so long to get pregnant. (NO LAUGHING!! hee hee hee)

For one thing, I did this retarded survey thing that supposedly tells you which months you can conceive which gender. This "survey" said that I was supposed to be able to conceive a boy from March until Dec of last year. Then Jan 08 is a girl and then Feb-Apr is boy again. Well, wouldn't you know that I conceived in Jan! GRR!

Another thing is that I have been doing some pretty intense working out and YOGA since about last March/April. This is about the time we started trying to conceive. The only other time I've had problems with a pregnancy was right before I conceived Tatum, I had a miscarriage and the only thing I could think of for a reason why was that I was doing Body For Life at the time and exercising religiously 6 days a week. So I had stopped exercising around Thanksgiving for no other reason than just being "too busy". Now all of a sudden about 6 weeks after that I am pregnant! I am guessing my "female" body doesn't like exercise! LOL! hahaha

The last one came from my good friend Shelley Detton. She, Will and I were chatting at church several months ago, shortly after the birth of her baby Hazel. And I told her that we had been trying. She suggested that possibly Heavenly Father was "making me wait" because he wants to send us another girl and he wanted me to be so desperate for a the pregnancy that I wouldn't care whether it was a boy or a girl. She was right! I was getting so desperate that I knelt down and prayed (again) telling Heavenly Father that I would be happy with either one. And here we are now!!

the background

This is so silly, but I really am torn. I like having a personal blog template that gives a little panache to my page, but these darn templates make everything so skinny and cut most of my videos and slide shows off. Plus when I added the template HTML, it deleted my stuff, which they call "widgets" (HUH?). The widgets contained my music, a slideshow and my link list. I was annoyed because then I had to go re-add all my friends blog sites, some of which I have wrong and can't remember. GRR! Any suggestions? Maybe I just need to conform and use one of their boring templates and be good with it.

Thunder

We just got through a pretty loud and wet thunder storm. It started a few hours ago. The girls are always uneasy in thunder storms, especially Brinlee. Each time the thunder would boom, she would plug her ears. So then Asia started plugging her ears, too. One of the times I told Will to look at Asia plugging her ears and she got all embarrased and yelled (I so wish you could hear her talking. You just can't get the full effect of her little twisted accent! LOL)

"NOT! It's Bwinlee! She scayow (scare) of da dwums!"

Then a few minutes after that, she says to me "Mommy, teow (tell) da boys stop hit da dwums, day scayoween (scaring) me".

Only in true local hula style would Asia think that the thunder was drums!!! HA HA HA!

It's official!

Soooooo, I FINALLY went to the doctor today and the result was +!!! YAY! We are so happy (well I haven't talked to Will yet, but we have already known it would be since I am late anyway) and just to answer your question...."Yes, we are hoping it's a boy, but will be just as happy with another girl." I think I have finally succombed to the idea that we are here to have all girls. Will has been fine with it. It's me that really really really wants a son. But we both agree that even if we did have a son already, we would still have more kids. So we aren't just having more kids in hopes of a boy. We really do want more kids!

misc pics and clips

Tatum and Will were jammin on the Barbie mp3 player.

Will jammin' to B-A-R-B-I-E!!

Tatum trying to figure out what's going on.

And then I caught Tatum trying to immitate her sisters in Poi Ball practice! LOL

Asia's hair cut

I decided to cut Asia's hair short again because it is starting to fall out in handfulls again. The last time this happened, it seemed to stopped coming out when I cut her hair off. The first thing she said when she went upstairs to the bathroom mirror is (in true Asia local fashion) "I looks like a muver" (mother) LOL! I was dying laughing. That girl pops off with the craziest stuff sometimes!

Swiffer

Just thought I'd share. I found this website that has all kinds of tips about stretching the refills and pads and such for the swiffer. Not only can they be spendy, but the disposable stuff just creates more rubbish than neccessary. Here are 2 different links with good info and reviews on how others like the ideas http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf871775.tip.html and/or http://www.instructables.com/id/Hack-your-Swiffer-Sweeper.-Weep-Swiffer-CEO-,-Weep/

Anyway, the first tip that I tried was for the dry dust mop. The pads can be used on the "right" side and then turned directly over to be used in the exact same way with the same results on the "wrong" side. Not only that, but they can washed AND dried in your washing machine and dryer. I just throw them in with my towels (which I always wash on hot) and dried on regular heat. They come out a little fluffy looking but work just the same. I have washed and dried the same 2 or 3 cloths about 4 times, and they still seem to have a lot of life left.

The next thing I tried is refilling the swiffer liquid bottle. There are several different suggestions, but this is the one I tried. I took a pair of pliers to untwist the supposedly un-removeable cap. Just squeeze hard with the pliers and twist. Then I added some generic pine sol cleaner and water according to the directions on the pine sol bottle. The only problem I had (my own fault) is that I wasn't careful putting the cap back on the bottle to ensure that the orignial puncture holes were lined up the same. So the bottle leaks if left in the mop for storage. So I store the bottle upright, under my kitchen sink. It only costs me about $0.15 for the refill which is a HUGE savings from $4-$6 bucks for the refill bottles!
The other suggestions were to drill a hole in the bottom of the bottle (which is the top when inserted into the mop) and refill it with Pine Sol then purchase a cheap cork from Home Depot to keep it closed. I would imagine this idea would eliminate the problems with the leaking. And someone else used a large syringe with a needle to punture through the rubber to refill with Pine Sol.

The last suggestion, that I just tried for the first time yesterday, was using a bar towel instead of the pads. I went to mop my floor yesterday and realized that I didn't have any more of those annoying, expensive pads, so I grabbed a cloth and got it wet with hot water so that it would move easier on the floor and I totally feel like my (tile GRR!!) floor is cleaner than it has been in a while. I think it was the texture of the cloth that was able to get into the grout of the floor easier. I also felt like I wasn't dragging a dirt filled pad over my entire floor. I simply rinsed and wrung the cloth a couple times during mopping and it was great! Then, of course, you just wash and reuse!!!

Some of the other suggestions were that people make with, polar fleece and elastic, a fitted washable pad that fits around the entire mop head. There are patterns and stuff on one of those website listed above.