Chaos and Cupcakes

Today is Jared’s birthday.  It has been an awful birthday for him.  First, we missed the movie we were going to go see on Saturday night to celebrate his birthday, just the two of us.  Then, a bunch of us have been sick, including me.  So he spent today taking care of the kids and me, picking up prescriptions, working, etc.  He didn’t even get a cake since I was too sick to make one or to go to the store to buy one.  I feel so bad.  We were going to go celebrate with my family tomorrow but now since we are sick we can’t do that.  I promise we will make it up to you later in the week, Jared!

I am the luckiest girl in the world to have such a wonderful husband.  I could go on and on about how fabulous Jared is.  He is the best father.  He loves to play games with his kids, to teach them, and he loves to just be with his family.  He works so hard for us and is so good at his job.  He is the smartest man I know.

I would write so much more about how wonderful Jared is, but I can barely stay awake.   Just know that I love you with all my heart, Jared.  Happy birthday!

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This past Monday marked our 9th anniversary.  The nine years have absolutely flown by.  I am so thankful to be married to the world’s most wonderful husband and father.  Jared is a very hard-worker, ambitious, intelligent, passionate about his job and family, witty, and fun.  He is truly my best friend.  Thank you for always taking such good care of us, Jared!

We celebrated a day late.  Last night we went to The Melting Pot for dinner and then went to a movie.  Dinner took longer than we expected so we didn’t get to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button as we had planned.  Instead, my sweet husband (I told you he was wonderful!) took me to see Twilight.

My anniversary gift

Jared's anniversary gift- new sunglasses

Today was a nice, relaxing, low-key New Year’s Eve.  We went to lunch at Chili’s and then did some shopping.  We came home and relaxed for a bit before dinner.  Inspired by our delicious anniversary dinner, we decided to make a new New Year’s Eve tradition– fondue!  The kids loved it!  Taylor asked me tonight if he had to stay up late, because he was tired and wanted to go to bed.  So we had a faux countdown to midnight at 9pm, sang Auld Lang Syne, had Martenelli’s, and sent the kids up to bed.  A funny story about the Martenelli’s– Taylor declined having a glass.  I asked him why and he said, “I don’t drink alcohol.”  I explained to him that Martenelli’s is non-alcoholic sparkling apple cider.  He said, “Can I read the ingredient list myself, please?”  Once satisfied with the “Contains no alcohol” on the front label, he accepted a glass.  I sure love that kid.

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After I read Breaking Dawn, the thought came to me late one night that I would just jot out some thoughts that I had on it.  I didn’t realize that it would get a pretty good response.  I was talking about this with Jared and we came up with the idea to start a new collaborative blog.  We haven’t got it all set up yet so don’t go to the page just yet, but the website will be bookreviews.ottleys.net.  Jared, Taylor, and I are all voracious readers (and hopefully all the other kids will follow suit).  I read at least three books a week.  I get asked all the time by those looking for a good book what I am reading or have recently read.  So I thought this blog would be a great way for people to get suggestions on reading material.  Hopefully it will be up and running by next weekend.

We’ve got another blog coming soon, too!  It will be aspergers.ottleys.net.  If you go to that page right now, though, it is just blank.  I am waiting for Jared to get our new server set up and migrate everything over to it.  Hopefully he will get his priorities straight and get that done this week rather than doing his real job.  This spin-off blog will be all about Andrew’s experiences with Asperger’s and our experiences parenting a child with Asperger’s.  It will be authored by both Jared and me.  Our hope is to get a big enough reader community that we can have lots of guest posts by other Asperger’s parents, people with Asperger’s, and family members of Aspies.  We will also be asking our own kids and our parents to guest post from time to time.  I am really excited about this new blog and hope that it will be a great support to those out there who either have Asperger’s Syndrome or have a loved one who is an Aspie or who are just curious as to what life is like with this in it.  Look for it hopefully by the beginning of next week!

Since we have so many blogs in our family (Jared’s, mine, Taylor’s, and these 2 new ones) we will have a central page, www.ottleys.net,  that you can go to and access all our blogs (Taylor’s will still be password-protected).  It will be ready along with the new blogs.

We will be busy getting all this done this week!  It is the last week of summer vacation, as well, so we’ve got to fit in one last day at Seven Peaks.  We also just got back an hour or so ago from our four-day camping trip to Zion National Park (post coming soon about this) so I’ve got a mountain of laundry to do.  Hmm, suppose I should get off the computer now and get some of that done!

Jared and I were watching an Everybody Loves Raymond rerun tonight. The episode involves Deborah and Raymond going on a weekend getaway to a bed-and-breakfast in Vermont and Raymond is not too excited about going, thinking it sounds stupid and boring.

Me: You would like going to a bed-and-breakfast in Vermont together, wouldn’t you?

Jared: Do they have hi-speed internet?

Jared got his belated Valentine’s present yesterday. It seems that he will be working from here now instead of his office (at least when he’s not in meetings). I’m glad because he tends to hole up in his office all the time and I get lonely. But now he is out in what is more of the hub of the home and I like that. So here we sit in the family room this morning, typing away on our laptops. When Taylor gets home he will pick up his laptop and and type away, and Andrew and Cameron will get on their computer and type away. We are a geek family.

The weather has been so constantly nasty this winter that the desire to just hole up is natural. Luckily the boys all get lots of exercise what with recess, PE, and Fitness at school. (In case you are wondering what the difference between PE and Fitness is, as I wondered, in PE they do physical games and sports and in Fitness they do things like yoga and sit-ups). But I have been feeling like a slug lately. So I have been trying everyday to either go walk on the trail along the creek across from our house (and I drag everyone else along with me so they get some exercise and fresh air) or go for a bike ride if the weather is semi-decent or walk on the treadmill. I really dislike walking on the treadmill. It is boring and not motivating to me. So I did a lot of research on Monday on exercise equipment. I kept coming across tons of people saying that they love the Gazelle Power Plus. It works and tones the entire body rather than just the lower body like the treadmill, and it provides both an aerobic and strength training workout in one. It does lots of different movements rather than just one like a standard elliptical so it works more areas. It doesn’t jar the joints like walking on a treadmill does. It is quiet so you can watch tv while doing it. Most importantly, people said that it is fun and that they look forward to their workouts rather than dreading it and that this keeps them motivated to do it. So I ordered one and it will arrive next week! I’m excited to try to get in shape before the summer arrives.  Hopefully Jared will enjoy working out on the Gazelle enough to get off his chaise for a little while to use it, too. We are getting old and need to keep our hearts healthy!

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Just saw this post that I wrote in the fall and for some reason forgot to publish it or thought that I had but it didn’t post.  Oops!

Politics have been on my mind a lot lately what with the upcoming elections and also after I recently read Empire by Orson Scott Card. At least in Utah, there seems to be with many an attitude that every LDS member should vote for Mitt Romney simply because he is LDS, without even bothering to look at his stance on things. This bothers me. One should vote for Mitt because one is most aligned with his political views. It is scary that one would vote for a candidate simply based on religion, gender, race, etc. That is most certainly an ignorant and lazy approach that could have disastrous consequences. I’m not saying Mitt Romney is a bad candidate; I’m just using him as an example of the way a lot of people vote. When it comes to choosing whom you want to run our country, take some time and research the issues and make an informed decision! This isn’t the Homecoming Queen election!

Something else that has been on my mind is how so many LDS members think that a prerequisite for being LDS is that you must be a Republican. Some have even gone so far as to say that non-Republicans should not be able to hold temple recommends. Well, they might be surprised at how many leaders of the Church are not Republicans. The funny thing is that I have found that a lot of those with that attitude really have no idea what the Republican ideology actually is. They think that LDS=conservative morals=Republican and that if you aren’t a Republican you are automatically immoral. I find this funny because I would never consider myself or Jared to be immoral; in fact, we have very conservative morals. Jared is a returned missionary who graduated from BYU (with a Political Science degree!). We were married in the temple. We have (almost) 6 kids. Our 2 year old daughter is not allowed to dress immodestly. We have always been hard workers and achieved our success through Church-taught self-reliance. Now I am not patting us on the back; I am simply illustrating how we are a typical morally-conservative LDS family. Here is where the irony of this kicks in: because our political views don’t align completely with the Republican party, some may view us as, I don’t know, liberal hippies? It doesn’t matter that our political views don’t align completely with the Democratic party, though. Forget that we did vote for George W. This all refers back to my post with the quote from Orson Scott Card. Why is it hard for some to understand that politics are not black and white? They aren’t cut and dry. What one must do is find the one candidate who is mostly aligned to their views. Not all Republicans have the same stance on everything; same with Democrats. That is why they have debates within their party and several candidates within a party.

My husband happens to be one of the absolute smartest people I know. For goodness sake, he studied Political Science at one of the most conservative schools in the nation. He knows politics! He isn’t just trying to be different. Jared and I don’t really discuss politics that much. We didn’t at all when we were engaged. So it was just a bonus for us that we happen to have the exact same political views. But, no, I wouldn’t say that we are liberal hippies. I would say that we are educated and informed. That’s not a bad thing to be.

Jared got me a MacBook for an early Valentine’s Day present! We went to Simply Mac to get some software for him for his MacBook Pro and I whispered to Taylor to tell Dad to get Mom a MacBook and that if it worked Taylor could have my laptop. I didn’t think Jared would go for it but he did! We looked at the new MacBook Air and I didn’t like them for a couple of reasons: they seem too flimsy for a mom of 6 little kids and they also don’t have CD/DVD drives. That is why they are so thin. You can connect them wirelessly to the drive on another MacBook to use that drive or hook it up to an external drive, but I want to be able to burn CDs right on my laptop. The salesguy actually didn’t recommend the Air. So I am going to have fun this weekend playing around with the new laptop. Taylor is going to have fun setting his new laptop up the way he wants. The first thing he wants to do is set up his own blog. His address will be http://taylor.ottleys.net. In order to protect him, it will not be publicly available so if you want the password email me and I’ll let you know what it is. He says to look for his first blog entry tomorrow after he goes to his friend’s birthday party.

Tomorrow is Jared’s birthday. We are going to go to dinner and a movie while my parents watch the kids. Since he was so generous for my V-day present, I wanted to get him an iphone for his birthday but he wants to wait for the 3G version that will be coming out. He didn’t want to get an iphone when they first came out because he wants to wait till they improve them and work all the bugs out. Supposedly this new version is going to be really good.

You know what I said yesterday about wanting more kids?  Strike that.  I changed my mind.  In fact, if anyone is in the market for some cute, precocious kids, check out my Ebay auctions!  Kidding, kidding.  But I am definitely not cut out for single parenting 6 kids 6 and under.  I am tired and grouchy.  And somehow between shuttling kids around, chasing kids around, and having a baby attached to my breast 24/7 because I need to fatten him up, I have to get the house ready for hosting 2 parties this weekend.  I am not using a cleaning lady anymore because after not being satisfied with 5 different people, I have come to the realization that I am too fastidious and that if I want it done to my specifications, I’m going to have to do it myself.  It makes no sense for me to pay someone to clean if I am only going to go back and clean it again when she leaves.  Ahh, the baby just puked all his milk up all over me.  How is he ever going to gain weight if he pukes, poops, and pees all my hard work out?!   Okay, I think I need to go eat some cookie dough now.  Cookie dough will make it all better.

 Jared, if you are reading this, I have become so spoiled having you work from home.  It stinks having to take all the kids with me to do carpool.  It stinks (literally) having to change all the diapers and take out the trash.  And I don’t know how to play Go with Taylor when he asks me.  And Sawyer keeps asking me ”Where Dada go?  Don’t know.” You are never, ever allowed to travel again.  That means no California trip in March.  We need you at home too much!

I am a single parent for the next 130 hours.  Blech.

Why does Jared have to be out of town again right now?

Why did Olivia have to cut two chunks of her gorgeous hair yesterday?

Why did Sawyer’s elbow have to pop out of socket again (I think this is the 4th time)?

Why did Jared’s phone have to break yesterday so I can’t even get a hold of him for help coaching me through putting Sawyer’s arm back in socket like the doctor taught us?

Why does the doctor have to be in a meeting right now?

Why is this happening to me?!?!?