HOW TO GET PAINT OUT OF CARPET

Yep. "HOW TO GET PAINT OUT OF CARPET" was my google question for about five minutes until I realized there was no quick cure for the puddle of sapphire blue paint on the carpet in Trevor's room. I was finally finishing up Trevor's room last week. I had installed the baseboards and was just doing some touchup painting before the room was complete (besides adding a closet door, but it's a weird size and I just haven't made it to the Special Order desk). Since I was just doing some touchup work I thought it would be easier if I just put paint in a paper cup instead of lugging around the big gallon of paint. Worked great. There were a few areas that needed a second coat since Suddenly Sapphire is such a dark and vibrant color, so I had the paper cup on the floor (I know, stupid mistake) while I was cleaning some stuff in Trevor's room. He was at EFY so I thought I'd have the room all finished and clean when he came home--I was trying to be such a nice mom. Next thing I know, I look around the corner and the paper cup had somehow fallen and there was a nice puddle of blue paint on the tan carpet.

My heart started pounding and I started panicking. I tried googling for help...but no easy and sure fire ideas came to me. I thought about taking a picture for the blog--really--but I did not want to waste any time at all in my feeble rescue attempt.

I started blotting and blotting. I went through one roll of paper towels. I started dabbing with water and blotting. I went through another roll of paper towels. I did this for four hours until I needed a dinner break. I was starving, exhausted, and my shoulders were killing me. I told Chris "We're going to In and Out and I'm getting fries and a shake and I'm not sharing with anybody." Hunger and stress had clearly taken it's toll.

I came back from dinner and dabbed and blotted for a couple more hours. I thought it was looking pretty good before I went to bed. Not perfect, but better. The next morning it didn't look as good as it seemed to the night before it so I contined my blotting, scrubbing, and stressing. I went through at least four rolls of paper towels (thank goodness I had bought some from Costco) and all my white hand towels.

And now? There's still a very slight blue tint to the area of carpet, but it looks so much better than I ever dreamed it would. I thought for sure the room would need new carpet or a permanent rug over the area, but it's not too noticeable. I'm still going to work on it a little bit more...I think I can get it looking even better. And yes, I've learned my lesson.

Reunited...and it feels so good!

My little family is finally all back home together.

Branden graduated from 6th grade on a Wednesday and Saturday morning he left for his first ever week long Boy Scout camp. I was a little more secure sending Branden to camp than Trevor, since Branden is a little more cautious. But, a week is a very long time for a 12 year old! However, he loved it! He only called me on the last day to see when Chris was coming up (Chris was driving up to bring back scouts). He earned six merit badges (woo-hoo!). His favorite was wilderness survival where he had to build his own shelter outside and actually sleep in it. SCARY...for me...but he did it! He least favorite was pioneering...too many knots for him. He also earned swimming, enviromental science, photography, and orienteering.

Two days after he came back Kelsie and Trevor left for EFY in Santa Barbara. They had a fantastic time and can't wait to go again.
They came home today...so now we're finally ready to start our summer with everyone home.

While they were gone I learned some things:
1. Branden entertains himself pretty well. The house was extemely quite while he was home. I would see him read for a couple of hours, watch TV, read some more, play video games, read some more. He was perfectly content staying home and keeping his pajamas on all day.

2. The bathroom stays much cleaner with Trevor and Kelsie gone.

3. The living room and kitchen stays much cleaner with Branden gone.

4. And...I finally figured out which son keeps peeing on the seat!

I missed each one of them when they were gone and I am so glad everyone is back home!

Birthmonth

Yesterday was my birthday, but I'm still celebrating birthmonth. I'm not sure when I started celebrating birthmonth, I know it began after I was married and had kids. I think I kind of invented it when I felt I was being jipped out of my birthday one too many times. My birthday always falls close to end of school celebrations, graduations, Father's Day (sometimes it's actually ON Father's Day...I don't reallly like that one), the beginning of summer madness, and my wedding anniversary (that was my own fault to plan a wedding so close to my birthday, but I was dumb and in love). Little by little I realized I wasn't getting to celebrate my birthday because of all the other things that tended to happen the same week as my birthday. I ended up having to celebrate my birthday a little bit earlier because something else was scheduled on my birthday, or postpone my birthday celebration until things calmed down...hence birthmonth was born.

I REALLY love birthmonth. I go out to eat A LOT. I take advantage of celebrating my birthday in any way possible for the entire month. I wanted to get a pedicure for my birthday yesterday but I ran out of time and I was kind of bummed until Trevor reminded me, "Mom, it's birthmonth, you can just go Monday...or Tuesday...or Wednesday." Then I wasn't sad anymore after I realized he was right, I didn't miss my birthday pedicure because I don't celebrate just one day. The kids want birthmonths...but I tell them they're not old enough. Sometimes they get birthweeks if I'm really busy, but I reserve birthmonth just for me.

End of an Era

Branden graduated (promoted?) from 6th grade on Wednesday. It was your typical 6th grade graduation...parents lining up at 6:30 in the morning to get a "good" seat...6th graders walking in one at a time...awards being given out for various accomplishments. Branden received a presidential academic award for having a 3.5 GPA or higher from 3rd-6th grade and receiving advanced scores on his star testing. About twenty 6th graders received that award, but Branden thinks it's cool that Obama signed it. Someone had prepared a video of all the students morphing from their kindergarten school picture to their 6th grade school picture. It was nice to see that Branden grew into his kindergarten ears.

Since Kelsie and Trevor were done with their finals, they went to support their little brother at graduation. Trevor had made a sign that said "I 'heart' Brande(o)n" in honor of his brother and the other Brandon's that were his friends. Trevor made sure to yell and hold up his sign whenever Branden's name was mentioned. It was pretty funny.

After graduation I realized that that was my last elementary school event. I have had kids at that school for 10 years. It's weird to think that I wont be driving there every day next year...but yet I'm not sad. Since I've already had kids at the junior high and high school I'm ready for it. And besides, Branden can walk to school next year so I wont have to drive. Now, that's something to look forward to.

After the graduation we rushed home, changed our clothes and hit the beach! The sun came out and the weather was beautiful. I'm SOOOOO glad it's summer!

Trevor's 15!

It's not really Trevor's birthday, his birthday was last month. He had a really crummy birthday so I didn't get around to blogging about it. First of all, he had procrastinated a HUGE English paper that he had to spend ALL weekend finishing up. Secondly, his birthday was on a Sunday. Sometimes that's a bummer because we always let the kids choose a restaurant for their birthday dinner, so since his birthday was on a Sunday we had to postpone that. Not only was his birthday on a Sunday, but since our Stake conference was the first Sunday in May, they switched Fast Sunday to April 26th which, of course, is Trevor's birthday. For Trevor, fasting on his birthday was not his favorite thing to do. We tried to make it up to him by fixing his favorite things for dinner on Sunday, so dinner consisted of pancakes AND waffles. On Monday we were planning on going out to eat for his birthday, but Monday was the Swine Flu and Stitches day (see next post). He still wanted to go out to eat after the Urgent Care visit so we went to Red Robin with chin swollen and stitched up, but Kelsie was too sick to go.

Being a middle child and loving attention, Trevor missed a birthday blog about him, so I'm making it up to him now. Here are 15 things I love about Trevor.

1. He loves me. He is not embarrassed of giving me a huge hug whenever he sees me...even when he's with his friends. When he's on the basketball or volleyball court he'll make a heart shape with his hands and point to me. Gotta love it!
2. He loves his curly hair--and so do I!
3. His room is the cleanest of all my children.
4. He likes nice long baths.
5. He can make me laugh. He's really funny.
6. He likes to be unique. He taught himself to ride a unicycle...and juggle...and do magic tricks.
7. He is incredibly athletic. Whatever sport he plays he has such natural athletic ability that it's really fun to watch.
9. He LOVES attention. Sometimes it's annoying, but the things he does to get attention are often pretty funny.
10. He truly thinks outside of the box. He is extremely creative in his thinking.
11. He doesn't succumb to peer pressure. He really doesn't care what anyone else thinks probably because he doesn't mind being different.
12. Not only does he want to have fun, but he likes to make sure that everyone around him is having fun!
13. He is almost always in an good mood.
14. He's pretty musical. He never wanted piano lessons when he was younger, but he's taught himself to play the guitar and even some songs on the piano.
15. He talks/sings in his sleep....it's always good for a laugh!

Swine Flu and Stitches

Kelsie came home from school on Friday not feeling very well. By Saturday morning, she had a fever of 102.5 and she pretty much stayed in bed all day Saturday, Sunday, and Monday with a fever, body aches, cough, runny nose, sore throat, etc. I kept hearing all the information on the news about Swine Flu and so I called her doctor to see what I should be watching for since we had been in Mexico a week before she started feeling sick. I didn't really think she had Swine Flu and besides, is Ensenada REALLY Mexico? But, I thought I'd be a responsible parent and check with the doctor after three days.

By the time I got around to calling the doctor at about 3:30 in the afternoon, the doctor said "She has the flu and she was in Mexico??? We're booked this afternoon but you must get her to Urgent Care at once" and she gave me a phone number of the Urgent Care place. I really wasn't too concerned about it really being Swine Flu, because Trevor had a really high fever type flu about three weeks earlier, so I just ignored taking her to Urgent Care. I had too many other things to do and I figured she was more likely to get Swine Flu by going to Urgent Care than she was on our little stop in Ensenada on our cruise.

Then...I get a phone call from Trevor at about 4:30. He split his chin open at volleyball practice and needs stitches. I figured as long as I had to take Trevor to Urgent Care to get stitches, I might as well take Kelsie for Swine Flu. I called the Urgent Care place to see how long of a wait it was, since I had never been there before, and I told them what I was bringing the kids in for. They said to let them know when I got there and they would open the side door for me and get me right into a room.

I was pretty excited about that. I figured this Swine Flu thing might get me faster service. They greeted us with masks and gloves. They whisked us into an unused room and everyone that came in had masks and gloves. Trevor, Kelsie, and I had to put on masks, too. The prompt service ended there, while we had to wait for the doctor. Trevor kept us entertained using the "Magic 8 Ball" application on his Ipod and asking questions like "Is Kelsie going to die from Swine Flu?" He'd shake the Magic 8 Ball and he kept getting answers like "Ask Again Later," and "It's Possible." We were having so much fun I grabbed my cell phone for a picture.
After the doctor came in and asked questions about Kelsie's illness I started to get a little worried. All of her comments of "that fits the symptoms..." and "very interesting..." and "that just adds to the list..." started to stress me out a little. I began to worry that Kelsie really did have Swine Flu and we were going to start our own little pandemic in Simi Valley. The doctor worried about cross-contamination with Trevor's stitches and the Swine Flu girl.

The good news...Kelsie doesn't have swine flu. The bad news...Trevor needed three stitches.
Too much fun for a Monday afternoon.

My Baby is 12!

Branden's birthday was Tuesday, March 31st. He is now a twelve year old. I had forgotten what an important birthday 12 is. There are a lot of 12 year old milestones. Of course, he graduates from primary and becomes a deacon. He gets to go to "big boy" scouts. Movie theaters and sporting events now charge an adult price for him, and yet he's not really even a teenager.

To celebrate Branden's 12th birthday I thought I would list my 12 favorite things about Branden:
1. He has a sweet tooth that's even worse than mine. This is great because I can always count on his vote when it comes to getting dessert.
2. He loves to read. I love this! He has even developed my childhood habit of spending hours in his room reading in order to get out of work. You know, out of sight out of mind. Yesterday he was reading in the living room for a couple of hours and I was so jealous I got a book and sat on the couch by him and started reading. It was great.
3. I love his nose. Check it out sometime. It has a great shape to it.
4. He has a great vocabulary...incomparable to all of us.
5. He is competitve...don't know where he gets that from but at least he's fun to play games with.
6. He has a great sense of humor. He tells very intelligent jokes and makes intelligent comments that are way beyond his years.
7. He doesn't bite his fingernails. A great trait for a 12 year old boy.
8. He is an early riser. I am not. I greatly admire and respect this quality in him.
9. He is very intense. Sometimes this is good, sometimes this is bad. But, if he really wants something he will give 200% and wont stop until he has it.
10. He shares. This is great especially when put with #1 above. He will always share skittles, gum, candy, ice cream etc. when I ask him to AND he doesn't complain very much about it.
11. He is very independent. I am often gone all afternoon running other kids around and I know that he will get all his homework done and anything else he needs to get done without me reminding him.
12. He is tall. Come on, admit it. Everyone wants their son to be tall.
Happy birthday, Branden! I love you!