One More Mother's Day Thing...

Rebecca brought this paper to me after Mother's Day:

I think she made it at school. It says:

My mom was voted #1 Mom because...She gives me alot of kisses.

I love when my Mom smiles at me when she kisses me.

3 Fun Facts About My Mom  1. She likes to cook  2. She has brown hair  3. She has brown hair

(That's not a mistake. She wrote the same thing for 2 and 3.)

My mom and I like to make cookies.

By the way, I really don't like to cook, so I'm not sure where that came from. I do like to make cookies with Rebecca though. And I love the little picture she drew of me in the left corner.

These little questionnaires are my favorite Mother's Day gifts.

And William made me this cute card at school:

William is 6

My Bubba turned six yesterday. I took cupcakes to his school in the afternoon to celebrate. He'd been telling his teachers all day that it was his birthday, but they didn't believe him because his birthday was listed as May 4th in their system. When I walked in with cupcakes, they realized the poor kid was telling the truth.

After school we picked up William's favorite cousin Spencer and took them to Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate.

I love the fake smiles. I had some pictures taken of the kids on Saturday so that I have a picture of the baby in the house. The photographer knew how to get real smiles out of my kids. I have to figure out how to do it.

On a whim, we got Rebecca a scooter for Christmas. It was a really good Black Friday deal. All three of my older kids have loved that pink scooter. So we got William a red one for his birthday. He loves it. I'm sure Braden will get one for Christmas. This morning while William was at school, Braden said, "Can I go outside and ride Bub's scooter? It's Braden size..." 

William has been the sweetest little boy for all six years he's been mine. His church teachers and school teachers always love him. He loves school, and he likes playing the Wii and watching Power Rangers, Batman, Sonic, or Super Mario Bros. on tv.

We love this boy. Happy Birthday, William!

Mother's Day

I got some great stuff for Mother's Day this year:

Kevin has brought me home one of these plants from work for the past two years. I think a resident buys them for the employees to take to their wives. Kevin said they are just sitting out with a note that says, "for Mother's Day."

I got all of this stuff from Kevin and the kids in the morning. I traded the apple for a banana. Rebecca made me the card and decorated candle at Activity Days. I picked her up from her AD meeting on Tuesday and didn't even notice the stuff she made for me. She kept it hidden from me until yesterday.

I hope everyone else had a nice Mother's Day!

5 Months

Lia is five months old today. She had a well check appointment about a month ago, and she weighed 13 pounds, 2 ounces, which seems petite to me, especially since her cousin who is three months younger weighs 15 pounds!

Kevin got out her doorway bouncer which is my favorite baby accessory ever.

Sorry about the funny pictures.  It's hard to get a non-blurry picture of her when she's jumping around in this thing.  These were the best I could get.

I love watching babies jump around in these jumpers.  She seems to like it.

She also likes to clap her feet together when she's on her back:

Some other new things about five-month-old Lia:

• She laughed for the first time two days ago.  She was on my lap while I watched the boys in the tub, and she laughed at everything they were doing.
• She likes to eat sweet potatoes, bananas, and applesauce.  We tried carrots, but I think she is still a little young for them.  She gagged when she tried swallowing them.
• She's out of our room and sleeping in her crib in her/Rebecca's room.  She's been doing great in her crib!
• She was sleeping through the night, but I stopped swaddling her, and now she's waking up at night.  I hope she gets used to no swaddle and sleeps through the night again. Soon!
• She still looks just like Rebecca as a baby, but her eyes are very blue.  If she keeps them, we will have two kids with blue eyes and two kids with brown.

We love this girl.  She is growing up way too fast.

Dancing with the Stars

Quick update on my neighbor. I've seen two of my other neighbors go over and talk to him to make sure he's okay. I've gotten the chance to talk to  other neighbors who don't usually leave their houses, and everyone of them is very supportive of him, saying things like, "I don't care what happened with the police. I just hope he's okay." This includes a few neighbors who I did find out were evacuated from their homes. It's so nice to see the humanity of the people I live around. I can say after this week that I've really grown to love the people who live on my street.

Anyway, during my blogging hiatus, I forgot to mention that a couple weeks before Lia was born, I got to see a live taping of Dancing with the Stars. My friend Amy who got the tickets mentioned this week that she's been getting emails recently that there are more tickets available for this season, and she asked me if I want to go again. It made me think I should write about our last adventure.

These are the pretty ladies I went with. Left to right: Liz, Amy, me, and Stacy

I think we got tickets to the best show of all the seasons. It was the finale show of the all-star season! We got to see all of the all-stars dance, even the ones who got kicked off. Some of the people we saw were: Pam Anderson, Joey Fatone, Drew Lachey, Kirstie Alley, Bristol Palin, Emmitt Smith, Apolo Ohno, Helio Castroneves, Gilles Marini, Sabrina Brian, Shawn Johnson, Kelly Monaco, and Melissa Rycroft.

By the way, the girls who look skinny on tv are even skinnier in person. And the girls who look a little chubby actually look pretty good - like Kirstie Alley. The camera really does add ten pounds.

Some of the people we saw in the audience that night were Julianne Hough, Maria Menounos, Caroline Rhea, and Ann Romney. I LOVED seeing Ann Romney.

Amy paused her dvr to get a few pictures of where we got to stand for the show:

We were on the second balcony above the Red Room where the stars go before and after they dance. If we looked down, we could see the red couch where the stars sit. If you look closely, you can see that I was leaning on the railing. I was 35 weeks pregnant, we had been standing in line for hours, and then we had to keep standing once we got in there. I was EXHAUSTED! But it was sooooo worth it. I even got a t-shirt from the emcee who goes around and talks to the audience during commercial breaks (not Tom Bergeron or Brook Burke - they have a different guy for that). I think he came to me because I was so noticeably pregnant.

Every time I watch it on tv now, I wish I was there watching it in person again. I hope my friend can get tickets again!

My neighbor was in his front yard this morning...

I noticed him when I went to put the baby down for a nap. He was taken away in a police car on Wednesday, and his wife left with their kids Wednesday night, and neither one of them has been back to their house since then. I wasn't sure if it was him at first, but then I saw him leaning on his car, and I figured it had to be him. I went to talk to him - mostly because I want him to feel like he has some support in the neighborhood. I don't want him or his family to feel ostracized because of what happened.

He looked like he was locked out, so I took my phone out in case he needed to use it. He let me know that he had already called a lock smith to get into his car. And then he immediately apologized to me for what happened. He told me that he was going to shoot himself, so his wife called the police. The police responded with way more people than necessary because of the guns he has that he uses for hunting big game.  He seemed more embarrassed about it than anything. He cried a little bit while he talked to me.

I told him that we knew him well enough to know that what happened was not a serious issue and that we were more worried that he and his family were okay. I also let him know that we were available to help with whatever he or his family might need. He said that their lease is up in July, and they will probably be moving back to Hawthorne, Nevada where it is a lot quieter.

I'm sure the police have to respond the way they did because of the way others have decided to commit suicide in this city. In my in-laws neighborhood, a suicidal man shot his wife and then shot himself. The police are trying to do everything they can to protect everyone involved whenever they get a suicide call. And SWAT is probably called in if the officers find out the suicidal person has multiple guns in the home.

I'm heartbroken for my neighbor and his young family. Forget my trivial embarrassing moments last week. This man is obviously going through something more earth-shattering. I hope that they can move on from this and be okay. I also hope that he can be happy and that whatever made him feel suicidal last week will be alright.

What a week!

I haven't had an embarrassing moment for a while, but I've had two this week. With those and the bombings in Boston, I'm ready for this week to be over.

My first EM happened Sunday at church. There used to be a girl in our ward named Nicole Hendricks. I grew up near a girl named Heather Hendricks. Nicole was back in town and in our ward on Sunday, and guess what I called her? Yep, I called her Heather. Even picturing her in my mind, I still want to call her Heather. Nicole, Nicole, Nicole.

And then there's today. A tall man dressed in fatigues jumped in my backyard. I actually screamed out loud when I saw him. And then guess what I did? I let him in my back door. He came in and asked me if I knew what was going on across the street. I had no clue, and it was at that moment that I realized that I just let a complete stranger right into my house with me, my kids, and no husband. I panicked and ran out the front door to call for help. It was then that I saw what this man was talking about. There were about ten other men hidden between parked cars across the street dressed in similar fatigues and holding the biggest guns I've ever seen in real life. All of them started screaming at me to get back in my house. So I ran right back in. Of course the fatigued man in my house asked me what the heck I was doing. I told him I'm home alone, and he didn't show me any id, and I got scared.

This man proceeded to tell me and my kids that we needed to stay toward the back of the house away from front windows. I thought that was all he needed, until 3 or 4 more guys jumped over my wall with more big guns, came in my house, and went upstairs.

Here's what the Internet said was happening:

"According to Metro police, a man surrendered to authorities after barricading himself inside a home on Wednesday afternoon near Blue Diamond and Fort Apache roads. He apparently had threatened to take his own life.

Police closed and evacuated the neighborhood.

A SWAT team responded as police believed the man was armed.

Following a standoff, the man surrendered peacefully, was arrested and taken into custody. Police located guns inside the home.

No injuries were reported and neighbors have since been allowed back into their homes."

It says we were evacuated from the neighborhood, but I'm pretty sure none of my neighbors were. I think they got some misinformation.

The sad thing is I was the last to know what was going on right across the street from my house. If I had my phone on me, I would have received all the calls and texts asking if I was okay. But I didn't have my phone, and I missed those. My whole street was barricaded so no one could get in or out, and I had no clue. Hence I ran right out my front door right in the middle of all the action. I'm sure SWAT (all the fatigue-wearing men) thought I was a complete nutcase.

It's been 5 hours, and everything is back to normal. We know the neighbors across the street, and they are a nice family. They have two kids who are only maybe 3 and 1. Such a sad situation. The husband either was or is still in the military, so I wonder if he suffers from PTSD. Who knows. I will pray for them and hope for the best for their young family.

I did manage to get two pictures out of my sons' bedroom window after the SWAT officers left my house:

At one time, there were 6 police cars in front of my house.

I'll go crawl in a hole now and wait for this week to end.

***Update: Kevin had his own crazy day at Park Towers yesterday.  First a guy showed up in a taxi with two women following behind him in his car.  He didn't live there, and Kevin wouldn't give him his car keys because he was obviously drunk.  The guy refused to call a cab to take him home, so Kevin had to call the cops to come pick him up.  When Kevin left work last night, the man's car was still at Park Towers.

Then an older resident called down to let him know that she had fallen and wasn't able to get off the floor.  The employees don't have keys to the residents' condos, so they had to call a manager back in to work to unlock the emergency box with residents' extra keys.  When Kevin finally got to the old woman, she was stark naked on her floor next to her phone.

I swear yesterday could not have gotten any weirder for our family.