Worst Mom of the Year Award goes to..........ME!

I had to run into the mall yesterday to grab Joseph's last Christmas gift. For those of you who don't know I hate to shop. I think it is the devil especially with Bree-she also hates to shop :) I was wanting to run in and run out so I threw Bree in the stroller and ran inside JCPenny (where I had a coupon for 10bucks off a 10buck purchase YEAH). I stopped to look at some stocking stuffers and WHAM-Bree fell out of the stroller!! OH MY GOODNESS. Bleeding everywhere! I, of course, have no wipes or kleenex so a diaper had to be the gauze. All these people were surounding me and trying to be helpful but I just wanted to crawl in a hole and comfort my little princess. I felt so dumb and helpless. Then the JCPenny's lady made me fill out a report and she asked me if Bree was buckled in....I had to respond "no" beause I am the worst mom ever and did not buckle her in. I called Jospeh when everything calmed down and was just in tears over my hurry hurry mode and not saftey saftey mode.

Good news is though I took her to the hospital nurse and they checked her all out. No stitches no concussion. And good news for her she is getting one of these for Christmas :) It even comes in PINK!! Who needs toys?

Yeah for a warm fall!

Yes that is a Slurpee and yes she loved it
Fall-beautiful!


Yes we know that Taylee is supposed to sit up with Bree but she needed a nap:) And Bree would have killed her


The other day we took Auntie Afton and cousin Taylee for a quick bike ride:) We loved it! Except possibly Bree...

October brings lots of news:)

Started off the month of Halloween with a date to Thriller! Our favorite October tradition!
Then we went to a Halloween party where we won the $25 prize for the best costumes:) Can you guess what we are???

We went on a trip back east to check out some schools Joseph is applying for his MBA at. We left Bree with my parents and off we were! I was super excited to see Boston in the fall and I've always liked the idea of living on the east coast for at least some of my life.

So to be honest this was THE WORST vacation I have ever taken. I will try and focus on the positive but just know that among this one thing that was positive EVERYTHING else was really bad, really. I will not bore you with the never ending details but know that they include-getting lost for two hours trying to find our hotel, pictures falling off walls hitting Joseph in the head during dinner, walking in the pouring rain for who knows how long with our luggage, almost missing Joseph's interview TWICE, almost missing my flight, aunt flow coming to visit two weeks early, long nasty black hair in our curry, panic attack (yep haven't had one of those for five years) and my husband was stressed-something I have never seen so I didn't know how to handle it.....I could not wait to get home!! Anyway-positive think positive

He had an interview with Dartmouth in Hanover New Hampshire that went well (he thinks:) I also was able to have lunch with a girl who is supporting her boyfriend as he is in his first year there. She was super nice and I was glad she spent an hour of her life answering my questions. It is a small cute town where the people are actually kind and not fake kind but really are willing to help in anyway they can. They are opinionated but also allow you to have yours. I was expecting more of a New York City feel and that is not at all what we experienced. We loved it :)









Boston was nice too. We went to the Museum of Science because there was a
HARRY POTTER EXHIBIT! Hello how could we pass that up???? It ended up being super expensive and we were not allowed to take pictures!! Hello do you realize that I love Harry Potter and I need a picture or two???? They had crazy no picture natzies all over the place-but since when do I follow really dumb rules???? never (don't tell Joseph, it will ruin his idea of me. He is a rule following boy) So here are a few of my sneaky shots:)
Yule Ball outfits! Can you guess whose they are??


He who should not be named- wand. They told us that each charactor has around 6 wands each because they break and get lost all the time

Hagrids clothing

Mandrake-yep they even screamed! And the prompt said that the prop people for the movie had a hard time keeping track of them because the teenagers kept stealing them to play jokes on each other:)

THE wand:) Glasses and Marauder's map PLUS his letter of request from Hogwarts.

Also, I got sorted by the sorting hat!!!! Gryffindor!!! But do we have a picture to prove it? Nope, Joseph was not having any part of breaking the rules. EVEN IF HIS WIFE WAS BEING SORTED BY THE SORTING HAT.....come on!!!

Two hours before we left for Boston Joseph received a new calling. We are now in our Stake Singles ward. Joseph is in the bishopric and I am just there for now. But guess what that means?? NO MORE STATE HOSPITAL! That was a hard calling for me-really. So we are grateful for the opportunity and now I actually have to go to FHE and ward prayer. I never went to FHE or ward prayer as a single person so I guess I am making up for it now. I think ward prayer is the dumbest made up BYU thing in the world!! What are we Catholic? I just think if we want the singles to mingle then call it something like meet and marry or something but WARD PRAYER?? Who is presiding and what do we do?? I just hate it.

Halloween was a blast. We went to Amy's and got a little crazy with the gummy eyeballs! Boy do I love Draschil's!





Any guesses as to what we are dressed as?? Think childhood??? I know you recognize us....

CandyLand!!!! I am Queen Frostine, Mr. Mint and Bree is Princess Lolli. Her hair is purple though she was having nothing to do with her crown:(

Thanks for the flowers.....

Bree and I came home from the gym this morning and found this:

I immediately called Joseph and praised his name!! Thank you! thank you! you're so wonderful! He says "WHY?" I say "for the flowers! You are such a wonderful husband and I just love you!" He's like "uuuumm I didn't leave you flowers.....But I wish that I would have! What a good idea!"

That's weird.....who could have done it if not Joseph? He is romantic so I thought for sure it was him AND there was no card so of course it was Joseph...... Have I done anything nice for anyone recently???-no-sadly. Is it my birthday???-nope last month. Did someone die??-Hope not. I can't figure it out

So.....thank you to whomever decided to make my day! It worked! I hope you read my blog so you will know how much it meant to be thought of on a Tuesday Morning!

Who knows....maybe it was the previous people who lived here. Because they feel bad for screaming curse words at me and throwing my belongings out the door before they moved out:)

Happy Fall!!

She loves to be in the garden with her mom:)

Is she in PAIN????




Bree's hair is finally long enough to do something with so we were excited and took some pictures!

Finally

So I have been waiting to post because I wanted to post this together with Joseph because he is the funny one and I add what I like to call the "realistic aspect...." He informed me today that he wanted us to do separate posts because we had different experiences......anyway here goes my REALISTIC TRIATHLON EXPERIENCE

After our last small triathlon, I all of a sudden had a new sense of the sport and a new mental toughness. I felt like I CAN do this!! AND I will do this!! I only missed like 2 days working out and I really kicked it up a gear. I actually started LIKING working out and even became really anxious (shocking that something makes ME anxious. HA!) if I didn't make it to the gym......kinda annoying, but working out is good for me mentally. I have struggled a lot since mommyhood has blessed my life, but working out and having "Melinda time" has helped more than any medication or diet or scrap booking ever could:) AND I even lost a few inches in the process. I may be able to do this mommy thing and maybe more than once now that I have found my balance:)

(don't worry we aren't announcing anything)

First, can we talk about our outfits?.......Really people. I would have rather shown up in a potato sack, than have to wear what we did! OH MY they were BAD!! AND we MATCHED!! How tacky and embarrassing. So the story goes like this.....we signed up to be on a triathlon team. They had outfits. We wanted "FREE" outfits so we signed up. The president of the club talked on and on about how good looking the outfits were and how his wife helped to design them.......well, without further ado, here you go:
WOW.........argyle......really.....are we in the circus, as we sweat like crazy? I HATED them. I was talking to some ladies in line as we were waiting for the swim and was complaining about my unfortunate shorts. They tried to be polite, but we all know what they were thinking, "Did you sew those yourself?"

Anyway-triathlons are interesting because you see all kinds of people there. I talked to one lady who hadn't been on a bike since she was 12 and couldn't swim........I couldn't help thinking "this lady is going to die." Then she tells me she had a cup of coffee for breakfast. Lady—listen, I realize you are 5 foot nothing and weigh 53 pounds. but you are going to die! While you have been working on your tan, I have been working my butt off for 3 and a half MONTHS and I still might die. I ate breakfast during which I counted ALL the carbs and calories, put an alarm on my phone reminding me when I should stop drinking water and when to take my nasty gel pack......I bought a really expensive bike AND have to wear THESE SHORTS, so move over and let me at least get ahead of you in the pool.

I never saw that lady again-I bet she died, really.

Then you see people who you can tell this triathlon was there "new years resolution." You see the skin sagging off their bodies because they have lost so much weight....their family is all there taking pictures and have balloons and flowers at the end—these types inspire me.


While in line I become friends with some other novice triathloners. They tell me about the course since Joseph and I were late and didn't get to drive it (surprise, surprise!) And I don' t know if you know this, but there are hills in Utah AND the course has many of them....one in particular is during the run and is a killer I guess. My new friends decided they were going to walk it because it would save energy—Heck, you don't have to tell me twice! An excuse to walk instead of run?.....DUH!!

Ok. Time for the swim. Joseph is much farther ahead of me in line and so I get to cheer him on as he is in the pool. Do I have ANY trouble finding him? No. Remember, he has the shorts too!! I cut in front of coffee/fake tan lady and am in. I felt good. I felt ready and not too anxious anymore (probably because I had taken Xanex...but that is beside the point). This is always the hardest part for me because I tend to freak out when people get close to me in the water and I'm still not a confident swimmer. But I go and keep going and keep going. For some reason it felt long

Swim? Done.

On to the bike course.....Oh, and did I mention that I don't know how to shift gears?.....That's right. Not even one bit. I have 4 shifters on my bike and have no idea what each one does. This was not a problem at the previous triathlon because it was a very flat course. Joseph was going to give me a lesson before, but did I mention we were late??? So I get going and realize that shifting a bike is a little different then shifting in spin class at the gym.....Yeah, I was struggling. Who's the coffee-drinking, non-swimming, 53-pound lady now????
As I am struggling up the hill on my bike trying to figure out how to shift, I see Joseph running down the same hill on his last leg-he is almost done! Seeing him gave me such a boost I almost forgot my shifting dillema. I love this man!

Though by the end I am SO glad I did my spin classes because they super prepared me and my
legs to make it, BUT.....should have learned a tad bit more about shifting.......maybe 12-year-old mountain bike riders wouldn't have passed me so much if I had :(







One of the rules of Triathlon is no iPods........I guess that they have found that iPods make people go faster so they decided to outlaw them. UUUUUUMMMMMM EXCUSE ME BUT DID YOU KNOW THAT THIS IS A RACE????? This rule for me almost caused me not to even compete! (There may also be something about safety involved but whatever) How in the world do people run without listening to anything? This lack of music became a problem for me at the end of the bike portion. I had sung "One Step at a Time," by Jordan Sparks like a thousand times and was ready for someone else to pump me up. I see Joseph cheering me on as I dismount and I breathlessly explain my problem. He quickly jumps into action and grabs his brand new still in the plastic 3GS and shoves it into the armband explaining that if I just turn the volume up a lot then I would be ok because I didn't have earphones in. BRILLIANT!!! Joseph mumbles something about how he had programed my training playlist and so there was no need to take the phone out of the pouch and I am off with what feels like a new set of legs.
When all of a sudden this dude was next to me


not just like "next to me," but was so close that his arm was like brushing my arm......kinda awkward because he was sweaty and old and just well it was weird!! It's not like the course was too small or something we were on a MAIN ROAD. He stayed there for at least the next 15 seconds before saying out of breath "Can I listen for a minute?" Ummmm, sure dude. You seem to need a little Linkin Park as much as me and we are already mixing sweat! We turn the corner now a "team" attached at the arm.

Oh. Here comes the hill....YES! Time for me to walk and the sweaty dude can be on his way (crossing fingers)
And the hill again-it was a loop.

I get to the top of this hill for the second time and I needed a new song! Bleeding Love was just too slow for how fast I needed to go to pass this running pink mom in front of me. I try and fail to change the song. Ok time to actually take the phone out- Fall Out Boy you always do the trick! A little too well, actually. Oh crash......yep iPhone is now gone......out of my hands onto the pavement.... and I was running so it bounced LAME!!!

Joseph is going to KILL ME, really!

I hurry and assess the dammage, ok just a few scraches and nothing is totally broken.....at least that I can see. Perfect, I just keep running. Maybe he won't notice.....

Then THE SHORTS I see them....Joseph is there!! Crap, did he see???? As I hear him cheering me on I decide he must have missed my little acident and of course I blab what I did. Then he takes the phone!! WHAT?? WHY??? Well, I get why, but I have like 500 yards to go and 3 more ladies to pass and my "kick it song" ("Wasted" by Carrie Underwood) has JUST started!! Can I do this on my own????

The visions begin:
I've given birth
I've done hard things
I've trained like mad
I am a strong person
I am a mom
I am a wife
I am a capable of WHATEVER I set my mind to do

I Can do this and I will do this. I begin to sing and run fast. Goodbye three ladies I am going to finish this and finish strong!!



The end. For now... ;-)