Halloween 2009

Last year, about this time, we had recently visited England, so for Halloween, Talea was a damsel in distress, Hyatt was a knight, and Kiersa was a dragon.


We had so much fun with doing a theme last year that this year I continued the tradition. The kids were the 3 little pigs and the medium bad wolf. The girls were the pigs and Hyatt was the wolf. Hyatt insisted that he wasn't "big" since he wasn't a grown up, and he wasn't small since he's not a baby, so he was the medium bad wolf.


Pailsi actually HATED the pig nose and had a hard time tolerating the hat. She about went crazy for the 30 seconds she had the pig nose on.


Hyatt only wore the fangs for this picture because since they were too big for his mouth, they made him drool down his chin, and he couldn't stand that.

Here are my two piggies up close who would actually wear the noses.


These costumes were actually pretty simple to make and consisted mostly of clothes the kids already had. The fake fur was awful though with it's realistic shedding. I love the pig tails, though they were constantly crushed and misshapen from the kids sitting down.


We went to a trunk-or-treat at the church...




and the kids got LOADED with candy! Kiersa isn't pictured above because she was always off in the arms of various young women so I never got a chance to snap her picture before I forgot about it. We went home after that and did a second trunk-or-treat at a nearby church and then hit some homes around the neighborhood. Hyrum wasn't with us because he had gone to the temple with the youth and his ride brought him home later than the others. I definitely appreciate the help I get from Hyrum because one day and a night of trick-or-treating without him made me realize how much of my burden he lightens.

Speaking of Kiersa in the arms of others, every time I take her to a park, she's a magnet for other kids. She can't play without someone wanting to hold her hand, hug her, lead her around, or what not. People are just drawn to her. Buuuut, when we were in Rexburg, we went to a park where she finally encountered her nemesis. A little boy there, from the time we arrived, went around telling her "No!" every time she wanted to play on something and he actually got pretty bullyish. I was surprised since this never happens with Kiersa. Eventually, the bully did something nasty to her when I wasn't looking, leaving Kiersa screaming and crying. The boy's mother saw it and quickly started scolding the boy, and when I got to her, Kiersa was pointing her finger at the boy, crying, "Mean!!! Owiee!!" The rest of our time there, she kept pointing and saying "Mean!" Maybe you had to be there, but it was hilarious.

Mermaid tears

After working for weeks on filling her "mermaid tear jar", Talea finally did it! Her prize she picked? A 99 cent fishing game on Hyrum's iPhone. Perfect.

Talea can be stubborn, defiant, argumentative, disrespectful and disobedient at times, so in order to curb that behavior, we've adopted Daisha's mermaid tear strategy. Every time she says "Yes, mother/father" when we ask her to do something instead of arguing or making us ask her over and over, she gets to put a mermaid tear or two in the jar. Each time she pulls her naughty behavior out, she loses tears. It's a great tactic for her!

We tried to get her to say ma'am/sir, but she insists on saying mother/father because my mom taught her that. It's cute anyway, and people laugh in surprise when they hear her say "Yes, mother" after not getting her way in a store or other public places.

Humidity withdrawals

What happens when you plop an Oregon boy down in the arid climate of Idaho?


He asked for some lotion, so I gave him the Eucerin creme I use for his eczema and I didn't keep an eye on him. He went to town lathering his face until it felt better!

The kids love Idaho, though, and can't wait to move.

The informant

Kiersa is 20 months and is really starting to communicate well and be one of the big kids.

-She'll bring a book to me and say, "Read it!" She LOVES books!
-She finishes the lines on all the books I read her regularly.
-She can easily count to 10.
-She can sing her ABCs, with assistance.
-She can sing all the bedtime songs I sing her.
-She tattles all the time, on everyone. She's my personal informant. She'll come tell me that someone is being "rude", "mean", or "naughty". When I ask who is being that way to her, she'll name the person and point.
-She no longer calls all animals "Cowboy". She'll say their name instead. She finally calls "Indian" by her name rather than calling her Cowboy.
-She commands the dogs to "sit" or go to their "kennel".
-She is very competitive, so I can get her to eat something if I threaten that I'll give it to her siblings instead, and she'll potty on the toilet if she sees Tilly and Hyatt do it and get a prize afterward. She's very prize oriented.
-She repeats the last word everyone says.
-She loves to squish my cheeks and say "chubby" so I'll tell her the chubby story.
-If anyone is naked around her, or even partly undressed, she sings, "na-ked noo-noo!"
-When she rides something like a horse (your back or the arm of a chair), she yells, "Cow-boy Ba-by!" (Like the Kid Rock song.)
-She understands everything you say and ask and really concentrates and tries hard to answer you, even if you can't understand what she's saying.
-When she gets hurt, she scolds what hurts her. Such as: If she falls and bonks her head, she'll cry, tell me her head hurts, and then point to the floor and say "naughty...floor...head...hurt...no no floor!" She's getting good at forming sentences.
-She recognizes possession. If I put a shoe on her that used to belong to Hyatt, she's look at me all confused and say, "Hyatt's!" She puts the plural "s" on words too now.
-She notices people's emotions, especially when they're sad. She says, "Sad...cry" anytime someone is crying or sad.

Phantom pregnancy

If I didn't know better, I'd swear I was pregnant.

I mean, all the things it takes for me to get pregnant are in place:
-We went through, and are still dealing with, the most stress I've had in my life.
-We aren't currently remodeling, but we're thinking about improvements we'd like to make to our next place.
-I've gained weight after a recent weight loss.
-We said we're done with having more kids. In fact, Hyrum got the snip to make it final.

AND...I've been having phantom pregnancy symptoms for a month or more. So much so that I've taken 7 pregnancy tests in the last couple of months. I hate surprises and I never have patience to wait for a month after suspecting pregnancy. I can't rely on a missed period since I'm not what you'd consider a "regular" girl, so I just check randomly.

Here are the things I'm experiencing that I've experienced before when I was newly pregnant, which is why I keep thinking I'm pregnant:
-Increased bust size, by a cup!
-Weight gain. Ten pounds since August, but lately it's more body softening/plumping rather than numbers going up on the scale.
-Insatiable appetite
-Lack of desire to exercise, or do anything
-Carpal tunnel pain
-Sciatic nerve pain in my rear
-Nasty headaches

After the first couple of cheap tests looked suspicious, I broke down and bought digital tests...a box of 5. I've been through all the tests now and each one has been negative.

So I guess I'm not pregnant. I'm not hoping to be pregnant, but I wouldn't be sad if I was. I'm pretty neutral on the topic. One thing though, if I am pregnant, I'd finally have a good excuse for my chub! I really don't want to start another pregnancy at this weight though! It makes it sooooo hard to shed! Especially at my age! After 4 kids and being in my thirties, my skin has hardly any elasticity left, I swear!

The sad thing is, all my phantom pregnancy symptoms can be explained away, but I just don't want to face the reality. If I'd finally stop pigging out and actually do some exercise again, I'd lose weight, and then my bust would shrink. I've been sanding the triple bunk we built, so that's probably why I have carpal tunnel. And my sore rear end nerve? Well, I always get weird aches and pains for no reason.

But I keep suspecting that I'm prego! I'm out of tests, so I'm going crazy, and have to hold myself back from buying more.

I'm not pregnant. I'm just fat. I'm not pregnant. I'm just lazy. I'm not pregnant. I'm just stressed. I'M NOT PREGNANT!!!!!

Trailer Park Trash

(This post is forever long...you've been warned.)

We are last-minute people. We wait until the last second to make any plans or finalize anything. Why, you ask?

Here's a perfect example of why we have given up on planning trips, etc, beforehand:

We planned to leave for Idaho to look for a place to live at the end of September, buuut...it was postponed time and again at the last second, because:

I realized the kids had a dentist appointment, and you know how impossible those are to reschedule...it took ages to get an appointment in the first place!

Hyrum had to get the snip and recover from that.

So we planned to give Hyrum a few days to lay low and then leave October 5th, buuuuut...

The kids, one at a time, all came down sick, AGAIN, and this time Hyrum and I caught it too. It was just a cough and runny nose, so not that serious, but we didn't want to pass it on to Grandma Sheri, who we were planning on staying with in Idaho Falls. So we waited. And waited. We kept checking craigslist for mobile home listings in Idaho while we waited, and Hyrum was getting really antsy to get on the road.

I, on the other hand, was not anxious to leave. We were planning on driving separate cars. Hyrum would drive the crummy, towing a trailer behind, and I would drive the little Civic. A 15-hour drive (that's straight, mind you, without stops for children or dogs) through barren landscape without a relief driver wasn't an exciting thought.

On Tuesday, we figured we may be well enough to go on Wednesday morning, Theeeeennnnn...

at about 5:30pm, after several restless nights and grumpy days, Kiersa finally grabbed her ear and said "HURT!" Hallelujah! She's old enough to communicate her pains!!! A trip to the after-hours clinic confirmed an ear infection.

We settled into bed that night and planned a Thursday departure, but then Hyatt came crying into our room at 2:30 am holding his ear saying it hurt! What rotten luck! He had gone to the after-hours clinic with Kiersa, but we didn't get him checked because only Kiersa had complained of pain!

So Thursday morning I tried to get him into the doctor's office, but I didn't take into account our Johnson Jinx.

Of course, since we needed a doctor ASAP so we could leave, all the doctor's were off that day except for the on-call doctor, who was booked solid, so Hyatt couldn't get in. The walk-in clinic was of course unexpectedly closed also, probably because I needed them that day. I checked with our insurance (DOCS-Oregon's public health) to see if I could just take him to the ER since no one could see him at the doctor's office, but they said they would only cover life-threatening emergencies, and though painful, an ear infection isn't life-threatening.

Sooooo... we had to wait for an appointment at the after-hours clinic at 6 pm. Poor little Hyatt!

While we were waiting, I found out that Bay Clinic had finally found a new surgeon (after mine mysteriously "retired"). I walked in to get an appointment to see if the previous surgeon's mess could be repaired and was told to come see the surgeon in the morning. Good news, right?

Well, back to Hyatt. When 6:00 finally rolled around, we took Hyatt in, but this time we did some pre-planning and took ALL the kids and had them all checked since they all had the same sickness. Well only Hyatt had an ear infection (aside from Kiersa), but it was a double one.

So...now it was Thursday morning, Oct. 8th, and we still hadn't left. I went to my appointment and was told that the banding my previous surgeon had recommended wouldn't work, and that the surgeon had kind of turned me inside out in a way and I'd need surgery to repair it. Great! No insurance anymore, I'm moving, and I don't want to relive the horrible pain I experienced post-surgery! All I could do was cry, leaving the surgeon a little uncomfortable. I drove home, cursing the Honda since it kept freaking out on me.

I stopped to take a sneaky picture of the home I love so I won't forget it. This is the house Hyrum knocked on to get her paint colors for my Mother's Day present. She gets angry about people taking pictures of her house, so I had to do a sneaky one, so it's not that great, darn it.


Though I was puffy-eyed and upset, we ended up leaving that night, around 6 pm. We drove to Christmas Valley and had to wait until morning to get gas.

Don't worry, all you Cluff's, mom's tradition of sleeping in the car won't die with her! We slept in the crummy! We put a mattress in the back and slept. Well, attempted to sleep. Paisli had a really rough night since she wasn't feeling 100% yet.

In the morning, we looked like we'd been beat with a stick, so of course we ran into people we knew at the gas station. Niiiice. That's ALWAYS my luck.

WE MADE IT TO IDAHO!!
At 9:30 pm on Friday the 9th of October, we rolled into Idaho Falls and got to reacquaint the kids with Grandma Sheri.



So, long story long, we've thrown planning ahead out the window and just fly by the seat of our pants these days. Our pre-set plans never seem to work out anymore.

Amidst our crazy house (or should I say trailer) hunting we did there all day long every day, we did manage to do a few fun things.

We went to a neat park in Idaho Falls...






We had dinner with Grandpa Mike...






We went to the falls in Idaho Falls (which are ridiculously puny compared to the falls around here)...




And we spent our 8 days there searching for a place to live.

While we were stressing over the dilemma of which place to buy, Nana, Aunt Maren, Braxton, Jaiden, Aunt Meghan, and Marlee all came up to visit us. We didn't get a lot of time together, but what we got was fun! At least we'll only be around 4 hours from then now instead of 15!

Here is a picture I took of Paisli, Jaiden and Kiersa 8 months ago when Maren's family was living with us. Paisli was a few days old, Jaiden was 6 months, and Kiersa had just turned 1 (about a 6 month jump from kid to kid).

Here they are now.


Paisli is only 5 weeks older than Marlee, so it was cute to see them play together, or at least eat the grass together.






Kiersa was excited to get in some quality Aunt Maren time!


Idaho is farming country, so when I saw a combine, I thought of Edward and couldn't resist taking a picture of it for him since he said he'd rather lose his arm in a freak combine accident than become someone's neighbor on the stupid farmville FB game.


In our search for a home to buy, we discovered a strange fad in Rexburg and the surrounding areas. Giant stars are all the rage in interior and exterior decorating! They are on people's walls in their living rooms and bedrooms and on their walls outside too. Here is the apartment complex I lived in during my first year at Ricks. It's been remodeled since those days, and the remodel includes a giant star on each building. We may have to get one those if we want to fit in with the community!! (I'm not a fan, by the way.)


We were searching for a trailer to live in because we could use our taxes to buy one of those and only have to pay $250 a month for lot rent while in school, rather than renting an apartment or house for $500-800 a month, and then sell it when we're done with school and get some of our money back out of the deal rather than throwing it all away on rent. We'd been looking on craigslist and websites for months, and when we got out to Rexburg, we toured a bunch of trailers and parks and finally had it whittled down to 2 choices: an '85 trailer that was a fixer, but we could install our dream kitchen and bathroom in it that had been intended for our home here, or there was a '99 trailer that was much bigger with more storage, but our kitchen and bath cabinets wouldn't work in it. We were really torn. The big one would take all of our money to the last penny, and the smaller one would leave us with a little money but would take a bunch of time and money to fix up.

Then 2 more big trailers got thrown into the choice at the last minute. We decided on one of those since we could put it on a lot in St. Anthony rather than in a park, but then that fell through at the last minute. So on our last day there, we finally bought the '99 trailer in the Mill Hollow Community trailer park. The park is actually really nice and it looks like a neighborhod rather than a trailer park, and the majority of the people living there are younger couples. I can't imagine what that will be like! There are hardly any young couples in our current area. We had to apply to get into this park and we almost didn't get accepted because of our recent credit plummet! It's really strict, which is how it stays so nice. Background checks and all!

So here are pictures of the place. There are a lot of things I'd like to change, but since it took all our money, it will have to stay as-is. I just hope we can scrounge money to paint the white interior walls! Don't judge it too harshly. I plan to slowly improve some things as time goes by. Look out, Hyrum!

So, we've been trucker trash, 5th wheel trailer trash, double-wide trailer trash, now we're going to be single-wide trailer park trash!!! Yeah, we aim high.


It has a pretty large yard, considering, and it has huge trees Talea will love climbing.


Here is the living room, with it's electric blue carpet. Can you say '90's?


And the nice '90's oak cabinets and laminate. Have I ever mentioned how much I detest oak? Well, I do. At the least the place has sheetrock!


One thing that deterred us from this park originally is that we will have to get rid of all but one of our animals. We are only allowed to have one small indoor pet, and that's it. We've been searching high and low to find a place for our dogs. We have a hard time separating them since they've been together since 2 months old (and they're 7 now), and we hate to lose either one since we've had them 2 years longer than our own kids!

We had 3 until a year ago when my favorite one (the middle one) was hit and killed by a car.

We think we found a place for them though. Some friends of ours that live about an hour from Rexburg will probably take them for us for a few years until we can have them back. If they take both, we can keep our cat. If they take one, we'll have to get rid of our cat. So, if you know of anyone who wants a really cool, spayed, independent cat that has a great temperament and is a strictly outdoor cat, let me know!


On our way back home to Oregon, we went through Sisters, Oregon, and I think that's my favorite place in the country. I LOVE it every time I go through there! This time the leaves were turning colors and it was spectacular! I love the contrast of the yellow deciduous against the dark green evergreens!