Sleep Deprived

This is what my bedroom looks like when
I am working on the computer.





All of my drawers get emptied





And becomes a big mound of stuff on the floor.

Apparently, whenever Rob is gone, yours truly can not get much sleep. Isn't it interesting, that you spend all of your pre-married life sleeping alone and then once you get married, it only takes a few weeks of sleeping in the same bed that when your spouse is gone you can't seem to get a good nights sleep. You would think that I would be used to sleeping alone considering Rob's work takes him away from home 6 months a year or more, but whenever he is gone I can't sleep even a wink hardly. Last night, I didn't even want to attempt going to bed until I exhausted myself to the point that I would sleep once my head hit the pillow. I think that was around 3:30 am. Maysie seems to have a sensor that when I finally get to sleep, she has to wake up for her 5 minute feeding. I'm serious... She wakes up in the middle of the night, screaming for you, and then when you get her and feed her, she is asleep 5 minutes later and you can go back to bed knowing that you are fully awake and it will take at least 45 minutes to get some shut eye again...

Today, I am going to drive up to Ogden and meet Rob for dinner and a movie. He is in the middle of trips but it cost too much money to make the detour to come home even though it is only 30 minutes away. Sense we are watching a movie we have seen lots of times before, (We are just watching it in the truck) I might be able to catch a snooze while my lovey dove watches the little one. That will probably be my only chance to catch a nap since Maysie rarely takes any naps during the day, and if I ever thought of just letting her play while I dozed in and out.... well that would be disastrous. Just while I get some work done on the computer, my bedroom looks like a tornado hit it. I'll let the pictures prove it.

Boys Will Be Boys

So, today was scouts day, and I was in charge this week. For those of you who don't know, I am a cub scout leader in my ward. Anyway, the theme for the month of March is, "When I Grow Up" so me and the other leader in the ward got an idea that we should have Rob bring the semi over to the church and discuss what the duties include of being a truck driver and then let them take a peek inside the truck. That sounds fun right? Anyways, I had also asked my brother-in-law, Willy bring his tow truck over too and show them how to load a car and whatever else tow truck drivers do. It would be an afternoon of testosterone pumping, diesel smelling, engine looking wonderland for these boys. Well, of course Rob had to be out of town, so that put a kink on things. Luckily, our friend was able to bring a semi over from the company he drives for and fill in for Rob. Our friends truck isn't quite as cool as ours, it is a day cab instead of the sleeper, but all the boys were in heaven being able to honk the horn. I hope all of the neighbors had ear plugs handy. :) I wish that we had our truck there just because the boys can't really comprehend how big these trucks are inside. I told them that a lot of semi's have beds, and refrigerators, and even TVs and microwaves in them, (at least ours does) and there eyes got so big trying to picture it. I told them that when they drive a semi, that the semi is like there home... One little boy asked what happened when the truck broke down, if we would be homeless. Bless his heart. I for sure have to have Rob bring the truck over when he is home and we have scouts, just to let the kids look inside of it. Anyways, they had tons of fun. Willy,was so awesome. He loaded up my car on the back of the tow truck and then let the boys pile inside the truck and then he drove them around the church parking lot. They were so excited. They have done something that I haven't even done.... ride in a tow truck. Someday maybe... The boys all thought that it was cool that he gets to work with wrecked cars and "twisted metal" they called it. I guess anything that involves crashing, blood, guts, etc. will get their attention.

We got lucky and the weather cleared up just long enough for us to do our scouts. It has been raining/snowing most of the day and then tonight there is supposed to be a big snow storm coming in just in time to make a mess of the rush hour commute. At least I don't have to worry about it anymore now that I stay home. After scouts, I went to my in-laws to chill for the evening. (Actually it was more or less because I didn't want to go home and fix dinner....) Maysie actually liked all of them today. She normally cries around my mother-in-law and my sister-in-laws and right now she is in this phase that she has to be held all the time, by MOM... but she actually got down on the ground an played. Total shocker!

Oh, yeah, while at my sisters house today, Maysie kept trying to eat dog food...... She kept picking it up but I got to her before it got into her mouth, although, a few times she got really close. It seem like I have to be 2 steps ahead of her at all times and I have to expect the unexpected.... When does this madness end?

So Many Things...

OK, so there really isn't much to blog about but I have lots on my mind right now.... So run with me... (Note to my family: you already know all of this stuff.)



I got news last week that my old neighbor, Steve, tried to commit suicide a few weeks ago because he was so depressed about his current financial situation. If you knew this guy, this concept would totally blow you away. Steve was the "fun" neighbor that quickly became the "Mr. Wilson" of the block. All of the little kids loved to just congregate at his house just to see what he was doing. I remember our little neighbor boy invited him to his birthday party once. I think he was turning 6 or so. Steve is a grown man, married with 2 kids that are out of high school at this point. But Steve being the cool guy that he was, went to this birthday party because this little boy invited him. (Believe me, he is not some sicko that stalks kids, he is just a great neighbor.) When I found out the news, it just seemed like they were talking about the wrong guy. This isn't the Steve I know. My thoughts and prayers go out to Steve and his family at this time that they may all have the help and strength to overcome this trial in there lives. I pray that Steve may come to realize that he is a beloved child of God and that the Savior is always there for him in the future when the rough days ahead of him come. Just like that quote, "I never said it would be easy, I only said it would be worth it...."



Today while on Facebook I discovered that someone from where I grew up had passed away from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident. He was only in his early 30's. I know him, but I know his parents way better. I feel so bad for his parents, they have already lost one of there children to cancer and now to loose another one. At least they have the knowledge and understanding of an eternal family and that will be able to be of great comfort to them at this time. When I hear about this accident, I keep thinking about Kevin. Kevin is an old family friend who was raised like a cousin to me. He passed away a little over 3 years ago from a motorcycle accident at the age of 24 leaving behind a wife who was 6 months pregnant with their first child. I still have a hard time realizing that he is gone. I mean, I know that he is because I was at his funeral, but mentally I still think that he is going to be there with a pile of candy and ready to play poker at the family reunion with us kids. (Growing up, us "Mormon" kids wouldn't use real money to play poker like the rest of the gang, we would use candy when we played, or we would just play some other type of card game.) Oh, the good ol' days.



On a much happier note... Rob is almost half way done with work this week until he has to take at least a day and a half off! I think that he will be home Friday sometime. He has been gone since Saturday morning going back and forth from Billings, Montana to Ogden. I grew so accustomed to him being here everyday over the winter break, it is taking me a while to get back into the swing of things. I am glad that he has the chance to work much earlier this year. Last year, the season didn't really start up until the middle of July. This is going to be a great year for him for work... I can feel it! :)

Home At Last

Maysie's first pony-tail

Yea, I'm finally home!! I loved being at my mom's house, but there is no place better then your own home. I was planning on coming home on Friday morning but since Rob had to work, I ended up just staying until this afternoon. I had so many interesting experiences there.... where do I start?

Experience #1: I had my 1st experience with poo in the tub. Eeeww, gross. Hopefully it is my last experience. I was giving Maysie a bath and while she was playing, I was talking to my mom who was standing at the doorway of the bathroom. Good thing I noticed it right after it appeared because I can just imagine Maysie trying to eat it or just playing with it. Totally grossed out now.

Experience # 2: Accomplished a lot of shopping. (ssh, don't tell my husband ;)' ) Old Navy had all the baby clothes on sale for $5.00 an item, so we loaded up for the summer and got some totally cute stuff for the wee one, for way cheaper than the normal retail price. Bargain Shopping... LOVE IT!

Experience #3: Saw some long lost high school friends in random spots around the town. It was fun to catch up on each others lives. (We're all married with children now... it kinda seems like we're old) :S

(This one is kinda long story but actually funny)

Experience #4: On Saturday, I went with my mom and sister to do some errands around town, and my Grandma wanted us to get her a shirt like the one my mom bought earlier that week at JcPenney's , so while we were there, we were of course scoping the merchandise for ourselves too, since we were already there ya know... Anyways, my sister and I found some capri's that we liked so we went to try them on and as soon as I was was stepping into the pants, the power goes out. Totally black inside the fitting rooms. Pretty soon some lady that worked there came into the dressing room area and told us we had to go by the doors. So barefoot we go, (we had to leave our regular clothes behind... just grabbed our purses and went) we congregated by the doors. The whole mall's power went out and all of the employee's were trying to figure out what to do. So after waiting around for about 20 minutes or so, they decided to close the mall down until the power was working again. It took me and my sister a few minutes to convince the store's employee's that we needed to go back to the dressing rooms to change our clothes again. Finally some lady came and brought a flashlight with her and escorted us back to the fitting rooms. It was kinda weird being in the mall when the power goes out... an eerie, creepy feeling. When we left the mall the power was out all over that side of town and we soon discovered that the people in Idaho forgot how a 4-way stop is supposed to work when the stop-lights are not in a working condition... I am just glad we made it back to my mom's safe and sound. (F.Y.I. the power was out because some small delivery truck jumped the curb somehow and knocked over a power pole, don't know if anyone was injured or not but the truck look ok, considering... when we drove past)

Experience # 5: Maysie had her very first pony-tail. She reminds me so much of Pebbles off the Flinstones. It sticks strait up, but it is going to be a fun alternative to her headbands all the time. :)

Experience #6: On the way home we met up with Rob in Ogden (he is just getting back from a trip but has to go out again) and had dinner with him. So we got to see him for about an hour. I am pretty sure that Maysie missed him because she was so talkative and a perfect angel when we were with him.... not so much the case when we were gone.

So now we are home, safe and sound and really looking forward to sleeping in our own beds tonight. Wa hoo!

Note: Maysie was a so good on the car ride for the most part. She slept most the way and only got crabby the last 20-30 minutes of the trip both ways when she got board with her toys. Thank heavens for that! I was pretty nervous on taking her that far by myself.

Am I just Crazy, or am I just Stupid?

So I am going to my mom's house in Idaho for a few days and I am attempting it solo, along with the infant. Am I just crazy or stupid? Rob was going to go but at the last moment, (Surprise, Surprise) he got a call about a good opportunity to go to work. It seems like that always happens when we plan a trip up there. It is just the life of a trucker I guess. :) So now the car is mostly packed, and ready to go, just waiting on the last batch of laundry to finish to finish packing the rest (I know I am a major procrastinator) and we are off. Wish me luck!

Oh yeah, last night, we went to the all famous Chuck-A-Rama (The only restaurant in Rob's eyes, well except for maybe Sizzler) for Rob's brother's birthday. Maysie totally out-ate my 2 nieces who were there and she is way younger than both of them. Good thing it was a buffet. My mother-in-law is now convinced that Maysie is going to get fat. I didn't know weather to be offended or to take it as a compliment. This is what she ate and you tell me if it is way too much food for a baby: She ate a small spoonful of mashed potatoes with a little bit of gravy on them, about a one inch square of a yellow squash, a french-fry, a tiny-tiny spoonful of cooked peas and carrots that we mashed up for her and then a small spoonful of chocolate pudding for dessert.

Cartoons

On Facebook this morning, I saw this quiz about all the 80's cartoons and if you could recognize what character came from what cartoon. I took it and got only one wrong. I guess that means I watched too many cartoons growing up.

I guess that the reason why I am posting this is because I think that the 80's cartoons were so much better then most of today's cartoons. The cartoons now seem like they have such poor values on them with the exception of a few KBYU cartoons like that are somewhat boring. Rob and I have talked about these cartoons nowadays and we don't want our kids to watch them. I feel like these cartoons will drive the spirit away from our home instead of invite it. I just wanted to do a 'shout-out' to all of those great cartoons we used to watch. I am glad to see a few of them come back around again, for example: Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake, etc. Does anyone know of really good, clean cartoons that are are from today's era besides Dora and Thomas? If so let me know for future reference.

Growing Up!

So my adorable daughter is getting way to big... I mean it is good that she is growing up but she should still have plenty of time left to be a baby right? I guess she doesn't think so. On Friday she just started taking her first steps, then yesterday, she took some more... just give her a few weeks and she will be able to go from one end of the house to the other without falling down. She isn't even 9 months old yet, almost but not quite (she turns 9 months at the end of next week). I think she is a genius, or maybe she just has too much ambition and curiosity that she wants to grow up faster than I would like her to. Just a thought.

Oh, yeah... She also added a new word to her vocabulary.... Bye! So she now says DaDa, Ma, and Bye... What a heart melter she is.

Truckin' again

So I have fineally decided to try this whole blog thing out. I have been scoping out a few peoples blogs lately to figure out how this whole thing works... It kinda looks like a good way to keep a current journal and show everyone pictures of my fast growing Daughter, Maysie without haveing to e-mail it to everyone... Now if I can only figure out how to do that, this might be a more handy way to let people see.. I mean all I have to do is put it on here and then it is up to everyone else to look at it if they want to. I can do that, I think. So wish me luck.....



I just got back from a trip with Rob on Tuesday night. We went to Laurel, Montana to pick up a load and had to deliver it in Ogden. We did two trips back to back which wouldn't normally be so bad except Mother Nature seemed to clue us in on our second trip, that indeed, it is still winter... not spring... The first trip was smooth... good weather, great drive, seen lots of wildlife by Malad which is always fun, Maysie was a gem (she loves going in the truck), despite her teething frustrations.. When we got to Ogden we had to wait to deliver until the morning so we went to dinner and a shower at the good ol' Flying J truck stop because I didn't feel like a can of chili for dinner and my sweet husband was all for it.. (I think it was because of the buffet... he loves them for some reason) We went and showered first, thank heavens... (It always feels good to get cleaned up after a trip). This was my first time ever showering in a truck stop. Normally we get to go home inbetween loads but this time we couldn't. It was $8.00. I couldn't believe it. (Maybe I should hang a sign outside letting truck drivers take showers at my house. I would only charge them $5.00 a shower. You could make millions... j/k). I guess that the good thing about it was that you had plenty of hot water... At dinner, Maysie kept flirting with everyone who walked by. Every time the waitress came over, Maysie would try and grab the waitress' hand. She had most of the restraunt attention with all of her cuteness. Anyways, then next trip we took, we knew that it was susposed to snow some in the higher elevations so we left as soon as possible so we could beat the storm. Going up there wasn't bad although most of the ride got monotamus, we went through Wyoming this time. It seems like forever between the towns. We got there ok, it was just barely starting to snow little flakes. On the way back, things changed completely. We got to just outside Shoshone, Wyoming, and we couldn't hardly see a thing because of all the drifting snow. We drove to Riverton, Wyoming about 20 miles away because they have a small truck stop there that is pretty decent and stopped for the night. (That is the bad thing about being in a semi, there isn't very many places we can park) The visability was horable the whole way there. The next morning, we woke up and then attempted the rest of our journey. The storm had passed us but the roads were still getting cleaned up. It wasn't so bad until we got to South Pass. (For any of you that don't know were that it, it is just south Lander and in the same neck of the woods where Martin's Cove is for all of you Church History buffs). South Pass has lots of these hills that don't look like much but are actually really, really steep. We chained up at the bottom and got going again. We were almost to the top of the first hill when we spun-out and couldn't go anywhere, so we called for a tow truck. While we were waiting, the winds came up. Drifting snow everywhere. I haven't been that scared for a long time. I mean we are on this hill with a huge ravine right next to us, and just on the side of the road right between two big curves, which one of them we learned is named Dead Mans Curve, and the snow is blowing everywhere. I couldn't see anything outside. I was just praying that no one would hit us as they try to surpass us. Fineally a Highway Patrolman came behind us and checked everything out. The tow truck went passed us and told us that he had to go up the mountain a little further to help another truck first and then he would be back for us... 5 hours later, still no sign of the tow truck. Then some pickup came up to the cop and got him because at the bottom of the hill, a semi jack-knifed and was blocking most of the road. So we were just waiting, and waiting, and waiting. Fineally Rob decided to try and put one more set of chains on the inside of the dual tires (the were only on the outside tires at this point). We fineally made it up the hill with that extra set. We were just hopeing that none of the chains would break because we didn't have any extra sets with us. We fineally passed the tow truck about 15 minutes after we started driving and told him we didn't need him anymore. He didn't care because he was on his way to that jack-knifed semi and we would have had to wait yet again for him. Needless to say, we were not on his top list of priorities. But we didn't care too much because we were on our way at last. It took us about 8 hours to get passed South Pass. The roads were horrable, and it was drifting so bad we were really surprised that the roads didn't get closed. Then instead of taking our normal short cut to the interstate, we had to detour around to Rock Springs, because the road was closed because of another accident, (This one was involving a few trucks that actually haul for the same company that Rob does.. Don't worry, no one was hurt, just the equiptment) That added another hour and a half to our trip. Then about 35 miles from the state line, the interstate was closed for another accident. When we was just about there people said that it was open again but they just had to get all the cars moving again... Well we were sitting there parked on the interstate for 30 minutes. It looked like a parking lot of semi's. LOL Finelly we made it back and got unloaded much faster then we expected. Needless to say, I am in no big hurrry to go out on the road again. I'll leave that to my honey bunches.