Tired of the Poop

Let me apologize first for the contents of this blog, but this is just one thing mothers deal with on a daily basis!

I am sooooooo ready for my 2 year old to get potty trained! Although she just turned 2 in September, I am ready for her to use the potty. I'm tired of changing her poopy diapers! She used to be a one day pooper, and I was okay with that. But all of a sudden she has been pooping 3 or 4 times a day. Yuck! It seems like every time I change her diaper lately there is a surprise in there waiting for me. These are not the kind of surprises I enjoy. I guess that it's all just part of being a mother, and I guess I should enjoy this time while they are little, but tell me what mother enjoys changing poopy diapers?

A Great Thanksgiving Weekend

Fred's favorite holiday has come and gone. Fred loves Thanksgiving due to stuffing yourself full of food and watching football all day long. At lest that's what he says, but I didn't witness him doing much of either activity. We did however have the first ever Gooch Family 5K Turkey Trot. Which included Fred, Camille (his sister), George (his dad), and me on the bike pulling our girls in the bike trailer. We had a great time, thanks Fred for putting that together. It was great to burn a few calories before a bunch were consumed. When it was time to eat the little girls were ready, even if they only lasted 5 minutes, they were excited to be together. Thanks Tammy for the great dinner.

Later that evening Emma and Ellsee played a beautiful duet together on the piano. They are so cute together! They like to pretend they are reading music while they are playing, but if you notice the children's song book, it's open to a picture. Silly girls! We did learned a great trick to get 5 little girls all to smile in one picture, the key is give them all ice cream cones!



A few hours later it was Black Friday! I get so excited for great deals, it's almost as exciting as Christmas morning. That is if there is anything that we really want or we get everything we went out for. This year Fred's mom, Tammy, and I were at Wal Mart around 4:45 am. Talk about a crazy place to be so early in the morning! People were standing around the toys with their hands on the item that they wanted until it was 5:00 am, because the sales didn't officially start until 5 am. I heard some people say that they had been there since 3 am!!! I won't go to that extreme, my children don't need a toy that bad. I was pretty happy because we got pretty much everything that I went out to get. Tammy & I went to a few more stores that were pretty crazy too; we were back at the house by 7:30 am. I so happy Tammy went with me, because I couldn't have done that by myself. Thanks again!

Saturday was our Aggie day! Fred, the girls, and I all went up to Logan for a cold, rainy football game and later a basketball game. The girls are trooper putting up with their daddy's love of sports. I have to say a big thanks to Kari and Jon (Fred's brother) for hosting the tailgate party and letting us hang out at their place every time we're in Logan. Our girls love to play with you guys and tickle their Uncle Jon. We had a great Thanksgiving weekend!

5 Stars to My Brother Adam

I have to brag a little about my big brother Adam and his amazing ability to cook. He was just featured in magazine, Nicholas & Company (http://nicholasandco.com/articles/foodtrend/foodtrend1.pdf), as an award winning chef for one of Salt Lake’s finest restaurants, Tuscany. He is a great cook and has been cooking for years. According to the article "Chef Adam Vickers training came during years of working in his mother’s restaurant kitchen in Idaho." Mom, why didn't you tell the rest of us that you had a restaurant? I guess Adam was the only one invited! Mom always said Adam loved to cook from the time he was two years old, he would make himself peanut & jelly sandwiches all the time. Look at him now "an award winning chef." Congrats big bro, you are amazing! You can cook for us anytime you want! We love you!

Tierd of Looking for the Answer

Okay, I have been looking all over the web and my blog for the answer to my question. How do I make comments show up under my posts? If anyone could let me know how to do that, I would be very grateful and it would save me a lot of time. Thanks!

Children Say and Do the Funniest Things!

Emma is our little "goof ball," for those who know her know exactly what I'm talking about. She is constantly making funny faces, dancing, or just being herself which is always funny (like in the picture above). We were walking back to the car after the Utah State Aggie game and she decided that she needed to be cool and walk with her hands in her pockets. She walk almost two blocks like that, until she tried to pick up some leaves and found out she couldn't pick them up with her hands in her pockets. It was so funny because she was looking at us like "what's wrong with you guys? Can't a girl walk down the street with her hands in her pockets without someone laughing at her?" We get a kick out of her daily! Emma hasn't gotten over Halloween, every day she wears a costume. She even tried to wear the Snow White dress to church last Sunday. Today we went to the library, while McKenzie was at preschool, and she wore her ladybug costume. I think she loves all the attention!

McKenzie is a funny girl too, during sacrament on Sunday, Fred was talking to her and all of a sudden he starts laughing really hard. McKenzie was showing him her little burn she got from helping me cook lunch before church that day. He asked her what happened and she said with a very serious face "I cooked myself!" He couldn't stop laughing!

I love remembering and recording all the funny things our girls say and do because they won't be little very long. Time goes by so fast every day! I mean Christmas Eve is only six weeks away!

Zucchini Chips

I was just reading some other blogs and came across a friends blog (Julie) who had canned a bunch of food. Which reminded me about the three buckets full of carrots in our garage that I still need to do something with, but instead I am blogging (anything to not do work)! Oh yeah, and I need to can the rest of our tomatoes that have been ripening down stairs. I'll just add them to my list of things to do but don't really want to do. Anyway, her blog also reminded me of a great recipe for zucchini that I grew up eating. I love it because it's pretty healthy, at lest it seems healthier to me than frying them, and my girls love zucchini this way. Emma can't get enough!

Zucchini Chips

Ingredients:

1 or 2 medium size zucchini

fresh graded Parmesan cheese (the kind in the bag)

Directions:

First wash zucchini and slice about ¼ inch thick. You don’t want them too thick or too thin. Take a cookie sheet and spray it down with vegetable spray, so the zucchini won't stick to the pan. Place sliced zucchini in rows on the cookie sheet as close together as possible. Then cover each zucchini chip with Parmesan cheese. Broil for 10 – 15 minutes or until cheese is browned. Place chips onto a plate and serve warm (not as good when they are cold). Enjoy, we always do!

Halloween Weeks!

Well it is finally all over but what a crazy few weeks we had. I think Halloween gets longer and longer every year. There are just so many things going on all month long. I think if someone tried to make it to every event around the area (including Halloween night), they could have enough candy for a whole year. The Gooch family didn't go that far but we might have enough candy for 6 months!

Our Halloween events actually started on the 18th of October for an annual Halloween party with a few friends in Utah. The theme was Super Heroes or Villains! Fred went as Jack Burton from this really cheesy 80s movie and I went as Cruella Deville.

In this picture, that is my real hair that was sprayed black & white, what a mess that was! I had black all over my neck, face, and hands by the end of the night. So I was smarter the next few times that I dressed up as Cruella, I got a wig and sprayed it, instead of my own hair. Anyway, we had a lot of fun at the party. Thanks Jim and Heather, you guys always throw a great party!

This year for family home evening, we went to a pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins. I think McKenzie's favorite part was being able to cart around the pumpkins in the wagon. Emma was too cold to really get into it but she still had a good time and picked out her own pumpkin. She just wanted to ride on daddy's shoulders! We only ended up paying $5 for 4 pumpkins! It was a really fun place, they had a little kids maze made out of hay bales, wagons to pull your pumpkins around, and a big painted board where you put your face through the holes and take pictures. Here's our family picture, plus my mom's shadow.

That night we went home and painted the pumpkins. Of course Emma ended up a mess, but she enjoyed every minute of it!

I tried something this Halloween that has never been attempted by these hands of mine and may not ever be attempted again. I made McKenzie's Halloween costume, with the help of an old dress up that was falling apart. She wanted to be Ariel, she already had the necklace, crown, and shoes. So, for the costume I took parts off the old dress up, added it to some new fabric, and made an Ariel tutu. Wallah, her costume was done! Oh yeah and we got an Ariel wig. It was a hit, especially when we went to the parade at the library. Little girls were coming up to her and touching her hair and telling her how pretty Ariel's hair was. I think she loved all the attention!

As for Emma, I knew it would depend on the day what she was going to be for Halloween. She had a few choices, she could have been any of the princesses dresses we have, Mini Mouse, or a Ladybug. When we went to the library Emma was Princess Erica from Barbie Princess and the Pauper. At home she was or every day now is Snow White. For the actual day of Halloween, she ended up being a Ladybug.

To sum up all our Halloween activities we went to a pumpkin patch, school carnival, a church carnival, a library parade, Halloween street down at Snake River Landing, got a pumpkin pizza for dinner, and went trick-or-treating old school way. Over all it was a fun few weeks of Halloween!

The girls were all tuckered out by the end.

I've been tagged!

This too will be hard for me to come up with 7 random or weird facts about myself but I will do my best. My friend and neighbor Rachel tagged me, and then I have to try and find 7 different people who haven't been tagged. I'll see what I can come up with.

1. One weird thing I can do is flip my tongue over both ways and wave it up and down while it is flipped over. I also can make a horse galloping sound with my tongue. I know, weird! I've been asked when or how I learned I could do these tricks, and I told them I didn't know, I've just always been able to do them.

2. I grew up with animals my whole life, went to college got my Bachelor's degree in Veterinary Science from the University of Idaho, and then ended up falling in love and married a man who is extremely allergic to animals and causes his asthma to kick in and he can't breath. I still love him anyway and when ever I need to see animals, I just go over to my mom's house.

3. I hate soggy bread! I can't eat french dipped sandwiches because the bread gets soggy. It's a texture thing for me but it's only soggy bread that bothers me. You would think I wouldn't like my cookies dipped in milk but that's not the case (thank goodness).

4. If you read "About Me" on this blog, you will see that coming up with favorites are hard for me because I like a lot of things and don't really think about certain movies or books or things like that to be my favorites. Probably because my so called "favorites" change a lot too and I tend to forget about things that are me "favorite." Plus, I'm a Libra! Libras have a hard time decided on things or a better word for this is impartial . We like a equal balance.

5. My husband calls me a "lazy anal retentive" (it sounds worse than it is) because I like things clean but I'm not always willing to do the work. When I do have the house clean or mess free, I don't want me kids or my husband to mess it up. I feel like Mr. Incredible when he says "Sometimes I feel like a maid: I just cleaned up this mess! Can we keep it clean for, for 10 minutes?! Please?!'" So, there are times that I just don't care for a while (maybe a day or two) and the house looks like a bomb went off. Welcome to motherhood, right?

6. I love having two little girls! There can never be too much pink, I get to play with barbies or babies; watch the latest Barbie movie or sing to HSM with them,; make hair bows or tutus; and not to mention the clothes and shoes I get to buy for them. They are some much fun, a little dramatic, but still so fun to be with and to play with. I love my girls!

7. I guess one thing that I think people assume about me is that I have naturally curly hair....I don't! I have just permed it for so long, at lest since my first year of college (on & off again), almost 9 or 10 years (wow). It might have a natural wave to it now, I'm not really sure. Maybe one of these days I will find out!


I tag Melanie, Jessica, Miranda, Brooke, Zoe, and I don't have any more people to tag.

These are the girl's latest pictures done this summer by Aaron Lee

I was looking at our video files today and found this very funny one. Emma was 10 months old and found herself very kissable. If you watch closely towards the end, she winks at herself. It is so funny!

Our Silly Emma Girl!

Honking At My Children

There are days when I feel like I'm like this goose, always honking at my children (or yelling). Whether it is to leave each other alone, or not to get into something they've been told to stay out of a million times. Even during these days my love for them never grows weak. They are truly my life and my love. I'm always amazed how strong a mother's love is for her children, humans and animals alike. I just have to remind myself that my girls aren't always fighting (although some days it seems like that is all they do) and that most of the time they play really well together. I REALLY LOVE THOSE DAYS!

Following the Trend

So, I finally did it, I finally started a blog. The new latest craze! I figured it's the best way to share what is going on in our crazy life with friends and family. I know I'm one of the last to start one, but better late than never. I was delayed with my decision to create a blog because I was afraid I wouldn't have much to write about. As I did some surfing through blogs, I noticed not everyone wrote on their blogs all the time. They just wrote on them when there was something interesting or funny going on in their lives. So, thank you to all you bloggers for encouraging me to blog!