Blogging has changed my life and Kerry is a little short handed (or fingered)?

Is is just me, or do you fellow bloggers look at things differently since starting a blog? For instance, I went to Black Friday for the first time ever this year. It was a ton of fun, but as I was waiting at midnight to get into the mall I kept thinking, man I should have brought my camera to get a picture of all these suckers! And later upon leaving a store, purchases in hand I lingered near a group of people fighting with a security guard over whose was the last free teddy bear- not because I was interested, but because I wanted to make sure I had the story right before I posted it on my blog! Blogging has become part of our vocab in the Burgess house, as in "that's so going on the blog" and "what did the kids say again, that was totally bloggable." It's good though, because now I write down what the kids do and say more than I ever did before, and my blog has become a better journal than I have kept since I was a kid. So I'm not saying that it is a bad thing that blogging has invaded my life- but I can tend to become a little too obsessed...

So my hubby is now a little less of himself than he was before. A half a fingertip to be exact. We were over at his mom's helping her with some stuff for relief society and he was using the big paper cutter. It was pretty dull so he had to really whack that thing down to cut the paper. I made a comment to him about being careful not to lose a finger, I mean those are the money makers. Not five minutes later I hear, "oww! I cut my finger off." Now those of you who know Kerry understand why I did not call an ambulance or even get up from my seat. But then he says, "i'm serious..well maybe no I think it was just a scratch." SO I run over to where he was cutting and sure enough there near the blade was a chunk of... well, finger. I grabbed it (I know, thinking about it now makes me a little sick to my stomach) and grabbed some ice and threw it all in a ziploc, told Kerry to get in the car and started out the door. My poor mother-in-law yelling, "i'll watch the kids" as we hurry past. It helped that I had watched the Friends episode where Monica drops a knife on Chandler's toe and cuts it off, that's where I got the put it on ice idea. Anyways, for all the crap local hospitals get, I have to admit they got us in pretty fast. The worst part was seeing Kerry in pain and not being able to do anything about it. My hubby is so tough- and has a good sense of humor we were crackin some great finger jokes. Turns out they didn't need my finger-in-a-bag after all, they couldn't have sewn it back on. he didn't cut any bones, and now just has to wear an incredibly fashionable bright blue "dressing" I think they called it. he does have pain medication- thank goodness that thing has got to hurt! But on the bright side, he says if he ever commits a crime and the only evidence thay have is a left index finger print, they will never be able to get him, because now he only has half a left index finger print! Ahhh good times!
So, did I think of the blog during this "crisis"? the answer is yes, more than once- but only while we were waiting to be discharged, and then again when I told his brother what had happened over the phone and he was laughing so hard, I couldn't even understand what he was saying. BUT Kerry is fine. Like I said, he is tough! He will take it easy for a couple of days. He goes to see the doctor again tuesday to get the bandage changed, hopefully they can make it a little smaller. Right now it looks like when a cartoon is using a hammer and misses the nail, all swollen up (the bandage, not the finger), but there is no way he will be able to get a glove over that montrousity (I so did not spell that right)
Okay and lastly, I have to share the sick part of me. So I was driving through Wendy's after and I still had my finger-in-a-bag (I guess I just hadn't thought to throw it out yet) and so (you can see where this is going) no just kidding I did not order the chili, but it was tempting! (that was sarcasm by the way, just in case anyone thought that I would ever actually put a finger in a bowl of Wendy's chili. I would not, in fact I can not even eat Wendy's chili because every onion makes me wonder)

25 more days!

So check me out I am all Christmas-y! THis is by far my favorite time of year. I love Christmas, and the entire season. I am looking forward to all the baking, and shopping, and wrapping, I can't wait to get started. Our lights are up, thanks to a handy dandy stick tool that let Kerry stay on the ground. He was so excited, he was finished in about 20 minutes. I am so happy, because last year he refused to put up lights. Mind you it is only one strand on the front of the house, but he did do the tree also. The people in my neighborhood all seem to be getting in the Christmas spirit too. One if my neighbors has actually had his lights up for a few weeks now. We are turning into quite a festive neighborhood!
So anytime you are feeling blue this season, come visit (me or my blog), sip a cup of hot cocoa and listen to the relaxing Christmas music...sigh I love this time of year.

who was that?

okay so, I'm not sure who that negative chick who posted last was. Man was she a bummer! ANyways, I was reading my poor me post, and I decided that it was all in the perspective. I should have said- I am thankful to have eyes to need contacts for, I am thankful to have friends to go visit (even though I didn't make it), I am soo thankful for visiting teachers (who offered by the way to go get me contacts). I am so thankful to have 3 beautiful, healthy, active children who make me laugh everyday and still need me and want me around. I am thankful for that super yummy bread (hopefully Candice will make me more), and I am thankful for the change in weather, because it has brought with it cool, crisp air just in time for Thanksgiving. SO that is what I should have said. I love the song "Count your Blessings" it really puts things in perspective. So the gloom and doom is officially over- I just need to remember to look for the silver lining. And keep my diet coke supply well stocked! Just kidding it was not the diet coke.

On a different note, I am super excited for Thanksgiving. SOme of my family got here last night and I love to see them. I know that other people are not so lucky- but I love my brothers and sister, and have so much fun hanging out with them. And, again lucky, the people that they chose to marry are great and I love hanging out with them too. Seriously! And I am really looking forward to tomorrow, because we will start cooking and baking and then it will really feel like Thanksgiving. It's so weird not to be traveling somewhere for Thanksgiving- we have never lived here before. But it should be fun. okay enough of my late (well kinda late) night rambling. I'm off to bed, and that really negative alter ego won't be showing her face again any time soon- I have too much good stuff in my life to feel sorry for myself.

As gloomy as the sky

So I feel like Eeyore today. No special reason, nothing terrible has happened to me, I'm just feeling glum. Maybe it's because I woke up not being able to see, because I am out of contacts and I can't find my glasses. I did find one contact in the bottom of my purse so now I can kinda see. Maybe it's because I didn't get to go see my friends because of said contacts/glasses mishap, and I was not feeling like it would be safe for me to drive- depth perception and all. Maybe it's because my sweet visiting teachers came this morning and brought a really yummy loaf of homemade bread, which I have now polished off (by myself, with a little help from Parker and Zach) and I am feeling a little guilty about that. Maybe it's because my kids are STILL on break from school (p.s. I really do love my kids, I just want to make sure that everyone knows that) Or maybe it is just because the sky is so gloomy, overcast like it's going to rain, but it's really just teasing me. It has no intention of actually raining!
Whatever the reason, I am in a funk! I don't feel like doing anything but curling up in the nook of my sectional with a comfy blanket and staring out the window. This is definitely an old sweatshirt and pajama pants afternoon, maybe with a nice hot cup of soup and some homemade bread to dip in it - oh wait I ate all the bread- okay crackers. If I was a better cook I would whip some up, but I burned the last soup I tried to make. Sigh I'll just sit in my nook and dream about it...
Have you ever had a day like this? How do you pull yourself out of a funk? I'm actually on my way now to get a diet coke and see a friend, that will probably help.

Fine- I'll get up

You know it's bad and you might be sleeping in a bit too often when you hear your children downstairs making cereal for breakfast(again), and smile as the eldest says, "Wait, we forgot to say the prayer- Hannah will you please say the prayer this morning?" Patting yourself on the back for raising such wonderful, thoughtful children- then rolling over to go back to sleep as you hear your sweet daughter start her prayer only to be jolted awake as you hear, "and please bless Mommy to come downstairs with us."
Man that mother of the year award keeps slipping further and further from my grasp!

A turkey for my turkeys

Can you tell I am trying to catch up on posts? Life seems to be happening so fast these days...anyways, so I HATE the fact that Christmas decorations are in the stores before Halloween. And now Christmas has hit full force on TV, the stores, and even radio. I found a ton of fall/harvest decorations in the clearance bin the other day. And while I always appreciate a good sale, It's like they want to just skip over Thanksgiving completely. I happen to love Thanksgiving, and all that goes with it. In fact I love from October til the end of the year. The changing weather, the leaves changing color (or so I've heard). There is a cripsness in the air. Plus, Thanksgiving is a fabulous holiday- how can you skip it? Football, Family, and Turkey what more could you want?
SO to help my kids remember the holiday and think about being thankful we made a Thankful Turkey. For FHE a couple of weeks ago, we talked about what we are thankful for.

We took turns naming things and I wrote each thing on a turkey feather. Then on the back of each feather I wrote an activity for us to do as a family. Like on the back of the "friends" feather it says, "we are thankful for our friends let's meet them for a picnic in the park." (and then that feather was pulled on verteran's day when we were already planning to meet some friends) or for the "mom" feather it says, "we are thankful for Mom, let's help Dad make dinner tonight and give her a break." And on the "diet coke" feather (oh yes there is a diet coke feather-it is something Mom is VERY thankful for) it says, "Mom is thankful for diet coke, and we are thankful for treats, let's go to sonic and get a treat." So you get the idea. I am surprised how much they look forward to pulling a feather each day. When we get to Thanksgiving all of the feathers will be gone, and we get to spend a little bit each day reflecting on all we have to be thankful for. I can't take full credit for the idea, I put 2 other ideas together that I saw on Sugardoodle here and here but tweaking other peoples ideas is where I get most of mine. It's not super fancy, but that way I can throw it away when I'm done, and it was fun to make and the kids love it- plus it is helping me keep my sanity while the are out of school for the whole month of November!

Cousins

So my dear nephew, Cameron, got his Eagle Scout Award Sunday. We are all so proud of him, he is setting such a great example. He is the oldest boy cousin so he has set the standard. It was great to see him and his family and for almost all the cousins to see each other (we were missing Kory's and Kim's kids).

Anyways seeing them all together I got as little teary eyed. Not only with pride, but also because I only had 2 cousins growing up and they were way older than me- and while I have a good relationship with them now- we didn't do much together. My Mom is 10 years older than her brothers and my cousins on that side are actually the same ages as my kids. My point is I am glad that my kids have cousins, and I am secretly a little jealous of them. SHHHH don't tell.

Here are the Nelson cousins, so on my side of the fam, my siblings are starting to catch up a little bit so now my kids aren't the only ones.

Watching Zach with Cameron and seeing how cool Zach thinks Cameron is, I hope that Zach grows up to be a good example to his younger cousins. So yea for Cameron, and yea for cousins!

Do it for Edward!

Okay so I am an admitted Twilight addict, so when I was redoing my blog layout today I was searching for a cool countdown to the movie for my sidebar. I found one, but it doesn't fit right so I am going to have to do some tweaking. Anyways, I found this pic on a site and thought it was pretty funny and a cute way to remind people to vote. Yes I am actually more Team Jacob, but it's still pretty good. check it out!


SO if you haven't voted yet- VOTE- if not for the fate of the country, then do it for all the sad vampires out there who will never get to vote because they are stuck at the age of 17!

p.s. they would totally vote for John Mccain by the way.

Halloween fun, and a little drama, too.

So, as I may have mentioned we went to Phoenix last week and while we were there the kids got to go to Parker's Trunk or Trick. My big bro LOVES Halloween and goes all out in the costume department. A few years ago he and Hannah dressed as Sully and Boo from Monsters Inc. He made the costumes himself.


His wife is such a good sport, too that year she went as olive oyl, because Zach wanted to be Popeye.
Anyways, this year I have gotten Stephen hooked on my fav kids show (yes I am taking credit for it) Phineas and Ferb. You'll have to go to his blog to see the fun costumes. SO my kids had a great time.
When the time came for Halloween here, Zach decided that he wanted to be a werewolf. And I (forgetting I am SO not supermom) agreed to make him a costume. Here comes the drama part- I had this brilliant idea: I would cut up one of his many stuffed animals and hot glue the pieces to ratty clothes to simulate fur. I still think that it was a pretty good idea and would have turned out okay. So I am cutting a brownish dog that I don't recognize as anything important when he comes in the door from school. He sees the pile of brown "fur" on the table and says,
"What happened to Yoda?"
"Who's Yoda?" I innocently ask.
"My very special dog that I got for Valentine's Day when I was 5," comes the reply.
"What?!" I am thinking, how did I not realize that I was massacreing (is that a word) his beloved pooch? I am officially the worst Mom ever!!
So I call him over to explain my brilliant plan (which doesn't seem so brilliant anymore) and the poor kid is trying sooo hard not to cry, because he knows that he is getting older and really shouldn't care so much- BUT it's Yoda! come on Mom. AS I am trying to show him how cool Yoda's fur will look as a werewolf costume he interrupts saying, "Mom can you please just sew him back together?" (Have we met? Me sew?) "Is that what you really want?" I ask, "because then you probably can't be a werewolf."
"Yes," comes the answer, "I'll just be a......zombie, I just need face paint for that." I'm thinking, "Why couldn't you have come to that conclusion about 20 minutes ago?" SO I am thinking that I really didn't cut him up too much and I can probably get him sewn to look sort of what he used to. Little did I know that whilst we were discussing the fate of our friend, Yoda, my sweet helpful husband had taken said friend into the other room. Convinced that if Zach could just see how cool a werewolf costume it would be, sweet helpful hubby had cut the animal to strips of fur. SO now I have a ziploc baggie on my counter that may someday be Yoda again- but I'm thinking probably not.
Here is my zombie (and my gorgeous neice, Lauren) and I am sooo buying costumes next year!


Hope you all had a fabulous Halloween.

my nephew is famous!

I guess that technically my brother-in-law, Josh, is famous too. Kimmy sent me a link to this picture. Read all about it here