Oh Spit

A few weeks ago Jared was watching Jax one afternoon. Sweet right? I thought so too. When I got home Jared was so proud of himself because he taught Jax a new trick ( I know, it sounds like he's a dog right?). So Jax showed me his new trick: He stuck out his little tongue and blew a quick raspberry spit and laughed a cute little laugh. I had to give a little laugh too because at the time it was pretty funny.

Well, it has been 3 weeks and it's not funny anymore. He spits all the time as his form of communication. At 16 months old he is not really talking coherently yet, he just babbles, makes sounds like tttsss, ppsss, kkksss, etc... and he SPITS! How can I stop this. I really blame Jared for this one. Each time he spits, I get down to his eye level and calmly say "no" and try to distract him, but he just thinks it's so fun to keep spitting away. I'm hoping this is just a phase. Any other moms have little spitters?

Random thoughts...

- Most celebrities drive me crazy. Take Britney Spears. I think she is spoiled, selfish and grew up in a sad situation where values were not taught. Hollywood stars may seem to have it all, and exude a sort of confident content front, but really they must be miserable. The media is obsessed with these people, and frankly I get sick of hearing about their sad lives.

-I really REALLY want to watch Tiger Woods play this year. I mean lets be honest; He's the greatest golfer in history. I know people who just can't stand him and I just don't get it. In my opinion he doesn't seem conceited, or irritating. He is a family man with a generous heart. And he is the most amazing golfer I've ever seen. His swing is perfection, and I predict a grand slam this year. That's my take.

-The church has a brilliant welfare system. The government does not. Jared was working with a patient a while ago who was on food stamps. He told Jared that he buys cigarettes with his food stamps. HOW STUPID IS THAT! Giving people money will do very little to really help. If people are in need, it's goods that should be given out, not money.

- I am really excited to watch LOST on Thursday and welcome any other losties to let me know their opinions and theories about this whole story.

- I love the gym I go to because everyone wipes down the machine after every use. It helps that every single workout machine has a cleaner bottle attached to the machine and fresh towels . How convenient. And smart. No MRSA for me thank you very much.

-I love Costco. I have to go every week even if I don't need anything. I just love it; can't explain it.
-If I'm tempted to eat a not so healthy nightime snack, I resist the urge by brushing and flossing my teeth. I mean who wants to eat anything right after you brush your teeth? Right?

-Speaking of not so healthy snacks, sometimes I eat chocolate chips right out of the bag. I take a spoon, scoop some peanut butter onto it and smother it with chocolate chips. Delicious.

- This immature bickering between Obama and Clinton is actually a good thing for Republicans, so I say keep it coming!

- I bought myself a hand held vacuum for my 28th birthday. Wow, to think I get excited that this thing sucks up everything with serious force. I'm strange.

- I have this habit of picking the skin around my finger nails. I really really REALLY want to stop this, but for the last decade I can't seem to stop. I used to bite them, but now instead I just pick away. It's equally destructive to my poor fingers. Any advice on how to stop this bad habit?

- Well, I'm off to read my book. I just started "The Bourne Identity." It's completely different from the movie, but still pretty gripping.

Peace be with you

I will never forget Gordon B. Hinckley. I loved hearing him bear testimony of precious truths. His endless service will forever impact the world. I will always remember hearing his words and feeling the spirit bear witness that they were true. Let us honor him by being a little better in everything we do, and bearing testimony of this wonderful gospel. I can only tear up as I imagine him with his sweet wife, Marjorie, and no doubt embracing our Savior.

My new Niece!

Welcome little Reese Ann Richards! Isn't she SO ADORABLE!!

Jason, I love you so much and I am so excited that you are a daddy! Reese is so lucky to have you and Charlotte. Just enjoy every single snuggle, because they grow so fast.

I remember the first time I held Jax in the hospital. He was SO TINY! It seems like one minute they are so little and the next minute....

They look like this!!! Gotta love it!

Can't wait to read this!!!!

Cell in the Chamber

Jared and I call our little bathroom the Chamber of Secrets. You Potter fans will get this, you non-fans might not. Jax thinks the Chamber is a fascinating place. He's probably thinking it must be pretty neat if mom and dad go in there so often. I try to keep him out but let's face it, I can't always close the door behind me everytime. Because the room is so small there is only room for him to stand right in front of me. He loves the TP roll and of course rolling it onto the floor. It's funny to watch how excited he gets, but not fun to clean up. I have to stay vigilent at keeping the bathroom door closed otherwise he'll go right for the TP roll and go to town. I also realize it's a dangerous place. Children have been known to drown in the toilet. So I try to be careful.
Well, the day we got back from Utah I was busy with a million things. The house was pretty clean because as I've said before I have to leave my house completely spotless before I go out of town. But I had other things on my mind. So that afternoon Jax was bored and so I gave him my cell phone to play with. I locked the phone so no calls could be made and then handed it to him much to his delight. So he was roaming through the house just pushing the buttons on the phone and smiling. I was busy on my computer and after about 5 minutes I heard jax laughing accompanied by a sound that yanked me back into reality because I don't know how but I knew EXACTLY what had just happened. I had left that bathroom door open. I walked out of my room, and much to my despair I saw Jax walking out of the Chamber of Secrets, smiling and clapping his emtpy hands. I peeked inside just dreading the obvious. My poor phone! The toilet lid was up. I looked inside. There is was, lodged in the bottom of the toilet. Well the next few minutes were unpleasant, and the final diagnosis for my phone: water damage beyond repair. Ya think?
So now I have a new cell phone.

NY heading to AZ for SB XLII

I was hoping to see Brett Favre lead his Green Bay Packers to the Super Bowl because he is my favorite NFL QB, but I do like Eli Manning as well. I think I'll root for the underdog, so GO GIANTS!

Mornings

Jax is a total morning person. He is now sleeping a solid 12 hours; 7 to 7 and I am loving that schedule. It gives me enough time at night to work out and get errands done (if Jared is home) and 7 is not too incredibly early in the morning. He is so happy in the morning. Our typical morning starts with breakfast. He gobbles down an entire banana, a bowl of kix and some milk. I eat the same thing, except I like cheerios instead of kix and skim milk instead of whole. Sometimes I eat my breakfast in the front room and watch the morning news, but lately I've been eating at the table with Jax. He thinks it's funny to watch me eat with my spoon, and likes to chat with me while we eat. One of my goals is to read to Jax from the scriptures every morning. So right after I finish breakfast I read to him. He sits in his high chair happily kicking his feet while I read, and he always smiles and giggles when I look up from the page, give him a smile and emphasize the last word in a sentence. I really love this time of morning. Here are some other morning activities.

He loves his dinosaur drop and roar toy. It's the best "Once Upon a Child" purchase I've made.

He loves his Melissa and Doug farm puzzle. The large knobs are perfect for his little hands. He puts this one together pretty quickly.

This game is entitled, "Jax handing me all his toys, and re-handing them to me should I put them down too soon."

He likes to share.

Do you see the pile of toys starting to form?

And here is Jax acting like a big boy. He loves, I mean LOVES Jared's new office chair.

Mitt in MI

A popular song here in Ohio goes something like this..
"We don't give a damn for the whole state of Michigan, the whole state of Michigan, the whole state of Michigan. We don't give a damn for the the whole state of Michigan cause we're from OHIO."
For you non-Ohioans, you can listen to it here.

Now, this song is really fun to sing in the spirit of football because of the fierce rivarly. Recent events however have made me nod my head toward the wolverine state. I have to say to the folks in Michigan, "WAY TO SUPPORT MITT! He's the right man for the job."
So, the warm fuzzies I feel toward Michiganians will stay until next football season at which point that feeling will swiftly take an opposite turn. Go Mitt, and as always, Good luck next year Bucks!

A Good Movie

I picked up this DVD from the Library today, along with a couple of Elmo DVD's for Jax. He didn't really care for Elmo which puts him at about a zero on the TV interest scale. But anyway, I thought this movie was great. Some people don't like J Lo as an actress, but I really like her. This flick is a little on the slower side, but well worth it for its message about forgiveness, love, change, acceptance and courage. So, here's my DVD recommendation for y'all.

Tough Love

I would do this too! I am so glad this mother decided to stand for what is right. The world needs more mothers like this!. Tough love is sometimes necessary; without it her son would have learned nothing. It's not always easy being brave but parents are stronger than they think when they dig down deep and follow their gut feelings.

2 weeks in Utah.

Here are a few pics to capture our trip.

This scene made me laugh. It was quite an experience trying to get so many little kids to cooperate for a picture at the wedding reception.

Skiing at Alta. I went with my mom, Tyler and Heather. We had a blast!. I love to Ski. It took a while for my ski legs to kick in, but once they did it was so much fun.

Lance and Jen competing in "Sing Star". This is such a hilarious game where you compete against another and try to sing on tune to various songs. It's so much fun.

My brother-in-law's wedding. It was so beautiful! And I love my black dress.

handsome little guy, isn't he?

Cousin Halle. We love you Hal

New PJ's from Grandma Miner. She gives all the grandkids new PJ's every Christmas Eve. Jax is the 20th Miner grandchild. It was so much fun watching all the kids open their new cozy pajamas.

The Richards girls! From left: Charlotte, Heather, Jen, me, my mom. This was taken at the Richards family Christmas party.

My 2 youngest brothers, Chase and Preston. Love you guys!

My Mom and Dad. They are crazy about their Grandkids.

Christmas lights! Gotta love it.

Airplane Woes

Flying back from Utah yesterday was the WORST flying experience of my life. I'll start at the very beginning, a very good place to start :)(name the movie)

Our flight was scheduled to leave SLC at 10:15am, so we got to the airport and 8:30. The airport was a zoo! The Delta counter was a nightmare. We waited in line forever just to get to the kiosk to get our boarding passes, then we waited in some unorganized line created by all the hurried travelers to get our bags checked. Well let's just say we had tons of stuff. 2 weeks in Utah over the Holidays, and it showed. 2 big suit cases, 2 big duffles, the stroller, the car seat and all our carry one stuff.(including Jax :)
So the lady is checking our bags when she sees our car seat and told us it's a $3 charge to check it with a plastic bag. Uh, stupid, but oh well we're in a hurry, no biggie. Then she weighs our last suitcase and the number came up: 50.6 pounds. She looked at us annoyingly and said, "that'll be a $50 charge." Uh, no thanks. So Jared opens it up and yanks out anything he can get his hands on and stuffs it in our already packed carry ons. Okay now it weighs 50 lbs. We finally got checked in and seated on the plane on time.

And we wait, we wait and wait and wait, still at the gate. What is going on? No one is telling us anything, the gate is still open. Then at 11:00 a frenzied looking passenger hurries onto the plane. Then the pilot comes on and says sorry for the delay, but they have to get some bags onto the plane and they have to re-check the weight of the plane. And of course he follows it with, "we should be off the ground in a few minutes."

Finally we pull away from the gate. I breathe a sigh of relief, and Jax decided to drink a 10 ounce bottle of whole milk and enjoy a little nap. Perfect. Until...
The snow starts falling. It wasn't snowing at all at 10:15 when all of us passengers (minus one annoying guy) were seated properly in our seats. But by 11:15? BLIZZARD. We are stuck on the tarmac, we can't see out the snow covered windows. After 30 minutes of sitting there the pilot says that the airport is probably going to close, and since we had already pulled away from the gate, chances are we'd be here for a while until we can get the plane into the hanger. AGGHHHHHH. I'm going to hit someone, but my arm is asleep because of my sweet baby so I restrain myself.

Then 30 minutes later the snow stops, the runways get plowed, and things are looking up; I can see the skies starting to clear a little through the now only partially obstructed view from my window. Then the pilot comes on and says that we will de-ice and be on our way to Columbus. Shouts and cheers come from a few on the plane, I felt like joining but I'd rather not wake up my already sleep-deprived child.

So, we're off. If you are bored by this tale of long delays which is shared by million of airline travelers everyday you haven't heard the worst part of my story.
This chapter is entitled: Projectile Vomit

About 45 minutes into our 3 hour flight I decided to give Jax some food. So he happily downed a big jar of Gerber chicken noodle dinner. He usually eats real people food but this just seemed easier during travel. So after that we read some books and I gave him a few goldfish crackers. He has a tendency to eat more than one at a time, I mean who doesn't, right? But this time it backfired. I heard him gag and knew to get my hand out, and right on cue he spit up a few of the crackers accompanied by saliva. Ok, no biggie, I've got my wet wipes and we're good to go. But he was not finished. After the first spit up he heaved and heaved and vomit sprayed everywhere! I mean everywhere. Then it just kept coming. There were 4 huge vomiting waves. He threw up everywhere. I couldn't believe how disgusting this sight was. It was in my hair, and face and shirt and all over my new jeans. It was all over Jared and the window, and our seats and the ground and on our carry on stuff, on my purse and just everything. I tried to contain the first round with my hand, and then with his blanket, but that just couldn't contain it after a while. We were covered with a horrible mix of curded milk, chicken noodle in a bottle, goldfish crackers, and I thought I saw a hint of color from the fruit loops his Grandma gave him for breakfast that morning. YUCK YUCK YUCK, what do I do? I sort of panicked, I mean what do you possible choose to clean up first? Our flight attendant saw it happen because we were almost up to order our complimentary drinks. She took a little too long to get us some paper towels, which weren't enough even enough to clean our faces. So then she brings the entire box out and gets some wet ones for us. It took us an hour of humiliation and frustration to even breathe easy again. We had to completely strip Jax of all his clothes (my favorite white Quicksilver shirt was totally ruined) and wrap him in a blanket. Did I pack extra clothes you ask? Yes I did, but we had to check that bag below because of the whole weight of the plane problem as previously mentioned. So Jared and I each took turns holding Jax while the other walked to the back lav to try and clean ourselves up. Meanwhile the flight attendant cleaned our seats and scrubbed the floors near our seats and tried to get that smell out, but no luck. The plane smelled horrible. Jared and I couldn't get any of the orange stained vomit out of our clothes so we just had to sit uncomfortably for the next 2 hours.
It didn't help that the woman behind me kept covering her nose and sighing annoyingly.
So, luckily there were no other hiccups in getting home. We walked into our home and immediately opened the bag of defiled clothing and blankets and threw them into the washing machine. I tried washing everything 3 times but everything was permanently stained. Sadness. But the highlight of the day was when Jax got inside the house and immediately got so excited to see all his familiar things. He starting running around from toy to toy and room to room. He was so excited to be home, and so were we.
Our trip to Utah had many highlights that I will soon blog about, but I just had to tell the story of my less than pleasant plane ride.