Dirty Dining report...

WARNING: this post includes some content that may not be suitable for the weak of stomach and easily influenced.....Consider yourselves warned.

To clarify - I will not be eating at any of these places ever again. I don't care if it's in another city, another state or even another country - I WILL NOT eat at the following places anymore. They have lost my business.

#1 - Granny's Buffet in Kennewick, WA. I broke out in hives one night after eating there with my family. Spent the night in the ER with my mom. (I was in high school)

#2 - Wienerschnitzel - Orem, UT. Went there one night with our friends the Webbs. There was a sign posted on the door that the lobby was closed because of ants - here's the clincher: The drive-thru was still open. Ewwwwwww! (Seems like this was at least 6 years ago - before the kiddos)

#3 - Taco Bell (this is the most recent - happened Friday Nov 28. While eating a chalupa - a piece of meat fell on my paper and ......... be careful...... there was a tiny white spider (makes me gag just thinking about it) climbing over. I choked down my bite and put the rest down. I was so flustered - will not be eating at Taco Bell ever. Also the last 3 times we've been to Taco Bell in the valley - orders always messed up. Not to our favor either.

#4 - Dairy Queen in Idaho Falls - no bugs, just horrible customer service. They gave us a small blizzard (ordered a medium) and when Jeff took it back to the counter, the one guy told the other to just add more ice cream to a bigger cup and give it back - Jeff heard the whole conversation as the ice cream machine is right by the counter. Nice.

#5 - will only return if we do not have kids with us. Texas Roadhouse - again only because of poor customer service. Imagine a table with 6 kids (5 yrs (2), 2 yrs (2) and 2 infants) and 5 adults. The table behind us - customers finished, new customers - food ordered, eaten and onto dessert before we even received our appetizers. The waitress returned and no kidding this was her exact comment "Oh you don't have your food yet?" Um, no - shouldn't she have known that? I was never a waitress, but I'm pretty sure she should have known her table didn't have food yet - especially after having waited so long. Luckily our kids were being good so it wasn't as horrible as it could have been.

So sorry if you like these places and will now be influenced by my dirty dining report, but there you have it. This is mostly why I'm a picky eater - one bad moment and I'm done. For the longest time I couldn't each peach cobbler because I ended up with the flu and a couple Christmas' ago when Lucas was a baby - I had breakfast for dinner and had the flu for 2 days - haven't had that breakfast since then.

Huh?

One of my favorite games is Mad Gab and if you've ever tried to understand kids - you might feel this is the game you're playing. They know exactly what they're saying, but it seems that noone else does. This is where the mama-knows gene comes in handy. I normally can't understand any other child, but my own.

Black Friday as we left Costco - (just cruising for samples, no shopping was actually done), Jeff was scaring the kids by pushing the cart away from us and the kids love to go "Supa fast" - Lucas. They were both screaming and Abbey was asleep in the back. Lea said, "Lucas screamed like a girl!"

Lea has more: Saturday morning we were talking about her clothes for school. She said she wanted to wear a jumper because a jumper to school would make her jump higher.
A leotard for her dance class is actually called a "Lea"-tard because it's hers. :)

Lucas: (going to the park to feed the ducks) - "We fee sanwich to da duts." Yes Lukie, we're feeding the ducks a sandwich.
"Abbers is wake!" as he stands at her door and yells into the room. She wasn't, but she is now. He used to run to us and say "Baby dying!" We'd try to correct him and say "CRY-ing" and he would tell us no and repeat that Baby was dying.

Turkeys

We decided to raise our own turkey this year. yum, yum. :)

kids say....

Thanksgiving day we decided to go for a walk and Lea asked if she could ride her bike. We told her no (quit shaking your heads in disgust - there is a good reason) because Lucas would want to ride and he doesn't have a bike nor does he know how to ride one. The conversation turned to us taking the training wheels off her bike - here came this response: "Noooooooo." Okay maybe at Christmas time and again. "Nooooooooo." Okay when? Very thoughtful: "How about when I turn 14." Sure Miss Daredevil. :)

Lea is currently rocking out to the Jo Bros (aka Jonas Brothers) who are performing at the Cowboys game.

Lucas had more clever things to say as well. I asked him to leave my room today as I didn't need an audience to change my clothes. He looked at me and very seriously and with hands in the air said "I need to change my diaper. I'm wet." Totally annoyed that I would even try to get rid of him with a wet diaper. He finally followed Jeff to change his diaper. He also likes to tell me when Abbers is crying. He'll run to my side and say "Mom! Abbers crying." Great - go fix it. :) Another one is "Guys the TB (TV) is coming. Let's watch the TB." He says this when we're at the church playing sports and the kids are in the nursery - he's so excited to watch a "show" with his friends and "wit you". He's just so dang cute and fiesty about certain things. On occasion he's been known to grump at his friends when Lucas is told to do something and they are doing something else.I'll tell him to stay by me at the t-ball game and he'll tell Jaxon to "Come here, right now." He grunts and the veins in his neck pop out and he's bent over trying to get Jaxon to come back.
It's pretty funny as Jaxon looks at him and continues on his way.

Grumpy old man...

Saturday (Nov 22) was Jeff's 30th birthday! 30 candles takes a lot of hot air to blow out. He wanted to have a get together with his friends to watch the BYU v Utah game. He tried to get all of his friends to come over and for some reason they couldn't come...........hehehe. That was my fault. I had them tell him they couldn't come so we could have a surprise party instead. So that's how the week started for Jeff. He was bummed that noone was going to come.

Anywho, Saturday started pretty great. Lea, Lucas and I went in to sing Happy Birthday to Jeff (he was still sleeping). Lucas sang "Happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday" while waving his arm to lead the song. Lea told me a couple days ago she had a special song for her daddy's birthday. So we sang this "Happy birthday to you, you live in a zoo, you look like a monkey (Lea at this point was giggling behind a book in her hand), annnnnnnd, you smell like one too." Jeff was thrilled and the kids jumped on the bed to hug their "old" dad. Lea told all her friends at school that her dad was going to turn 30 - she was so proud. :)

Next we had blueberry muffins for breakfast - a Jeff favorite and out the door for t-ball. Jeff was still trying to figure out why his friends couldn't come, but I had him convinced they all had something else to do and a few of them actually did and couldn't make it - that totally helped my "story". Steven & Rozann came down to attend the temple and we watched their 4 kids - we got a little taste of what it was like to have 7 kids under the age of 9. It was really nice when the 3 youngest - 2 (Lucas), 1 (Shay) and Abbey 6 months were all asleep. In return, they watched our kids while we went to dinner and they let our friends in for the surprise party. I told Lea about the surprise party about 20 minutes before we left for dinner (I should have had more faith in her to keep a secret), she reassured me that she would not tell Daddy the surprise that she would only tell him "other things" and "everything else". She did a great job and was so happy to surprise her dad again. :) In the pic: kids are feeding our pig for our ward. "Bacon" will be eaten for dinner at our ward Christmas party......oink, oink. :0)


After a quick dinner at Red Robin (yum) we came home to the surprise party. Michelle made a cupcake cake in the shape of a "Y" - she's very creative and makes the best frosting - Thank you Michelle! Thank you to everyone who came to the party and we missed those that really were not able to make it. :)

BYU went on to lose the game and lucky for us we missed the 3rd quarter due to user error on the remote control.....apparently your coordination goes when you turn 30......... :) So it worked to our favor because Jeff was okay with loss, good for the MWC and BCS, blah, blah, blah...... :)

Jeff woke up Sunday morning with a severe headache and sore back - he overnight became a grumpy old man with health problems, but we still love him. He's a great friend, hubby and dad. Happy 30th!

Growing up

A few weeks ago, someone in our ward was giving away a toddler bed. Lucas was still in the crib and Abbey was sleeping in the port-a-crib. I was content with the situation, but hated for her to sleep in that and Lucas was content and caged in his crib. He never climbed out and was more than happy to "climb" in with assistance to take a nap or go to bed. Well, we figured it was now or later and why not now with a free bed for Lucas. So we picked up this Spiderman toddler bed an brought it home. The first two days were awful because Lucas did not nap and I look forward to nap time - 1. I can take a nap, 2. I can work on projects unassisted, and 3. I can clean. He was so grumpy by the time 7 o'clock rolled around I was ready to switch back so he would nap, but didn't and we've survived so far. In the morning, he will stay in his room and possibly even on his bed until we come for him, but nap times he tends to get up more, but will not leave his room - happy for that at least. :) Abbey is now in the crib and I am finally able to use my crib bumpers again that I made for Lea.

Here are their "grown up" beds.

Abbey has also tried rice cereal and oatmeal for the first time - judge for yourself if she liked it or not.