Ronald Mcdonald House Gala

I am so lucky to work with an amazing committee who has once again, pulled off the unimaginable. 4 years ago, my brother's MIL asked if I want to help her with a charity event. I figured why not. I had a baby, that was finally health and pretty content, and I needed to regain my sense of self. So May introduced me to the Ronald Mcdonald House. I knew of their existence, we had pod buddies in the NICU that used their services. I never had been to the house or had used them personally, but I loved their comittment to families and I KNEW how it felt to be the parent with a child who was not well and to watch his medical bills just keep growing, so I signed on for the few months she needed help.
What if you live in Utah and need to be at a hospital in California for your childs care...what would you do? where would you stay? I know we would all be out the door and say we will figure it out when we get there right?...that is where the House comes in. I had the chance to meet a mom from California who came to visit for a quick girls getaway when she was 30 weeks pregnant. She was here for one last hoorah before her (first) baby was born. The morning she woke up to go home with her friends, she figured out she was in labor. She delivered at a local SLC hospital and stayed at the house until her daughter was strong enough to go home. Can you imagine? And I can tell you first hand that NICU bills add up fast. My son was born six weeks premature, and is my $100,000 boy, and when you consider he had no big complications, that is a ton of cash. Not something I had laying around. I was lucky to live here, but the House serves families every night that live more than 35 miles away from here. So the bottom line, need a charity to support? What to do something great? check out the website...... http://www.rmhcslc.org/ and see what you can do to help. If you don't want to write a check, there are some great ways to help out and be involved. And by all meanss, find the local Ronald Mcdonald House in you r area if you aren't here local to me!
So Saturday is the Gala for 2009. We have had a difficult year, but have made it thru. Despite some rough economic times, we have 700+ silent auction items, plus some great live auction items too. We are expecting a full house, which is so exciting, and I cannot wait to see how we do....and to see if I can snag myself a little something at the auction too. I have my eye on a few items.......we will have to see. I'll keep you posted!

Happy Easter

So as I was trying to explain Easter to my four year old this morning, I thought about how truly amazing this season is. In short, I explained to Nathan that just like Christmas is Jesus's birthday, so is Easter in a sense. You must understand that he is a very logical, tactile child, and has yet to experience death, so I have not had to deal a lot with things that are really abstract. He seemed to take what I said at face value, and didn't even ask why Jesus got two birthdays and he only got one. So, despite, a very vague explanation, I was able to get the point accross that Easter is about a whole lot more that just a bunny and a basket of eggs. Which really is the point. Once again, Jesus is the reason for the season!

Boys will be Boys....

The living room from the stairs, if you look close you can see the THOMAS toys and train tracks underneath the SNOW!

Can you find the empty couch cushion in the above picture?

Just some more mayhem! Let it snow, let it snow!

Have you ever thought to yourself....."Self, I wonder what it would look like if a 3 year old and a 4 year old pulled all the stuffing out of couch coushion?" You no longer have to wonder, THIS is the result. Last week my friend Jannda, had a family emergency, and asked if I could take Mason for a couple of hours while she went and did what was necessary. I said sure no problem, drop him off whenever. She dropped him off about 1 just as Lex was waking up and deciding she was hungry, so I left the boys to play train in the living room, something they had done a million times before, and also the only place that Lex cannot go Godzilla all over the track and yank it apart. Lex and I are happily in the kitchen, she eating some leftover chili (divine recipe by the way it is on my recipe blog, check it out!) when Mason sticks his arms over the gate and says to me "Look Snow." I turn to see what he could possibly be talking about and I nearly fall over, where I ask myself, could he have gotten THAT! So I put the baby on the floor so she doesn't nose dive out of her highchair, and I make it to the gate in about 3 steps........pretty good for a 12 foot walk.....and I am met by the above sight. And my son saying "look Mom it is snowing" I am so far beyond speechless....hello, me speechless!!!.....I stammered for words and the first ones I found were "get in time-out NOW" and they looked at me, and suddenly the words came flowing.....

"what in the hell were you thinking".....

"TIME-OUT NOW, both of you! I said NOW"......

"don't move until I tell you.".........

"seriously whose idea was this"....

two sets of puppy dog eyes, Nate "Mom we just wanted snow" Me "there are a whole lot better ways then this..I had some packing peanuts in the garage you could have played with." Nate "Oh, go get those" Me "OH HELL NO!!!"

So I stuck both of the boys in time-out, cleaned up the mess (and to all of you who say I should have made them clean it up, all I can say is really, my pillows are having a tough enough life, the last thing they need it to stuffed half full, or one half full and one over flowing full, I just did it myself so I did not have to hurt anyone), had a little chat with the boys about what will happen to them if that were to ever happen again, and then took pictures and texted them to Mason's mom and my sweet husband. Both were surprised to say the least.....Greg asked if there was blood shed, Jannda just apologized over and over again. Seriously it took them 15 minutes to tear the place apart. But we all survived, and I learned that even the best of kids can work a wire lose and go NUTS!