Preschool Mother's Day Tea!!

Today was our Mother's Day Tea for my preschool. I think it went relatively well besides ending way earlier than expected :) The kids were so excited to have their mom's come to preschool and to pamper them for the day. It was so hot outside so we resorted to setting up under the porch in hopes it would be a bit cooler. We had many little activities for them to do for their mom's including first making a lei or flower necklace for their mom's.

My sweet Grandma Allen hosted it at her house since our grass still hasn't yet showed itself in our yard. She also took my place with Cambree since I had to run the event. It's neat Cambree got to have her great-grandma there with her.

Each kid got to paint their mom's nails. They turned out great with a couple colors for each mom :)

The kids then enjoyed 'shaving' their mom's legs with popsicle sticks. Made for some good laughs. I especially love the mom's faces in these pictures.

Then they massaged their backs....

We finished off the day with some cute little poems, refrehments and cute pictures.

Dathan with his mom 

Elly's little sister Reagan looking so cute...

Rylee with her mom 

Elly with her mom

Carter with him mom (he has the cutest smile)

Cambree with her great-grandma

It was a lot of fun despite the heat. I hope everyone who came enjoyed it as well and has a WONDERFUL Mother's Day!!

Cambree- my blond bombshell!!!???

So my mother-in-law bought this wonderful wig and a new little play dress that Cambree just so happened to find. I didn't think she would love it as much as she does. She is HILARIOUS in it. She purposely bounces around to see her curls move and loves to look at herself in the mirror to see herself. As we were leaving we told her to take everything off...well she came out in her underwear and the WIG!!! She thought she was entitled to that wig and it was now hers. We couldn't stop laughing it was so funny. She calls it her Hanna Montana hair. Just thought I would share this piece of joy for the day :)

Update on Ridge

First, thanks to everyone who posted advice and support on what I could try or what it could be. I really appreciate it. After many discussions, especially with my mom, I decided to really try the theory of teething once more. Monday was the first day I started him on a true regimen of tylenol and ibprofen and finally found the boy I once knew. Its amazing how medicine can really change someone's behavior. I can tell when he is due for more medicine because he begins to go back to what he was doing (crying all the time). His hands are constantly in his mouth and he is sticking out his tongue all the time so I now know it really is teething. I am hoping he'll get these teeth in soon so I can get him off of the medicine regimen and just have my happy boy back for good. 

As for all those worried about his speech- thanks for all your advice in that department. He got ear tubes when he was a year old after chronic ear infections so speech will just come later I am sure. I have started teaching him SOME vocab in sign language but I am not knowledgeable enough to teach him too much more but will keep trying it. He is SLOWLY picking up more and more words so hopefully time will help that. 

So hopefully my next few posts will be happier and more about events in my life. Again I appreciate all the support and help I got from you all. Thanks

Parenting Advice Desperately Needed!!!

So I am truly at a loss of what to do with my son Ridge. I always swore I would never have a momma's boy or a whiner and I have both in one little boy. He's mute when it comes to words, but he fails to mute the sounds he puts out constantly. He is CONSTANTLY crying, whining, wanting to be held, wanting something I can't figure out because he won't talk. I truly cannot take it anymore. He was a great baby but as he's gotten older and he is now 18 months old, he's getting worse and worse. I know a lot of the patience issues has to do with me being pregnant but even Curtis is done with the whole deal. The thing that baffles me is that I will get more upset with him than Curtis and yet he still chooses to come to me or want me over Curtis which I don't understand or even enjoy which I am sorry to say. We've tried putting him in his bed every time he starts to cry for absolutely no reason, but it doesn't seem to do anything. He comes out and within a few SECONDS, he's back to whining and crying again. It is the most draining and frustrating thing. I feel so bad for Cambree who is such a great girl who seems to be getting the short end of the stick. Mom and dad are sick of dealing with Ridge that she gets bothered parents and lack of attention. I just don't know what else to do. I have another baby coming in a couple months and it truly scares me to think I will have Ridge still acting like he does with a brand new baby that will truly need my full attention. I watch him at times and want to believe he's in pain or something is bothering him (he still only has 7 teeth so he could be teething), or he always wants to be held so I link that to being in pain but I can't figure it to be the cause for everything. I am hoping there is someone out there who reads this that can shed some light on what I can do to curb this attitude. So anyone with ANY advice even simple as it may seem, please let me know because I truly don't know if I can handle too much more of things the way they are. Thanks for any help. 

Runaway Truck Pics

So here is the pictures from the whole ordeal. I have some better pics on my phone but don't know how to upload them so these will have to do. Here Aaron is trying to pull the truck out with his prowler but you can see how deep the wheels are in the rocks. You can also see how far into the pit I got until I stopped. So yeah, very interesting and no we still haven't found out what may have caused it. 

Easter Pics

After my huge ordeal with my runaway truck and after I got to my parents house we were able to celebrate a little Easter celebration. Both sets of Grandma's and Grandpa came over to help us celebrate. We had a bar-b-que and a little Easter egg hunt for the kids.

Here is me with my Grandma McKnight and Grandma Meikle

Grandma McKnight with my mom...

I love this picture of my Grandpa Meikle with Ridge

Grandma and Grandpa Meikle with kids

My sweet Uncle Billy. He's been recently diagnosed with brittle diabetes and its been quite the road for my Grandma McKnight and my mom. He did so good at the party though. It was fun to have him there.

Here's the preschool Easter Party. They had an Easter Egg hunt in the backyard. Cute to see them running all around.

Kids making their Easter Baskets.

All cute in their Easter Bunny hats.

Overrall, everything went really good. I took pictures of our little Easter celebration but they won't upload so I'll try later. 

Runaway Truck

I have passed those emergency runaway truck ramps 1,000 times and have thought several times if people really need to use those.... well yesterday I got to answer my question with a huge YES!! With no preschool on Friday I decided to go to my parents for a few days and enjoy some Easter celebrating with them. We left Thatcher about 11:30. Well we got stopped for blasting outside of Globe for about 20 minutes and so our next leg of the trip was spent in a long line of cars heading into the Superior Mountains. This is when things got really scary.

I was literally coasting, following about 3 car lengths behind the car in front of me, when all of the sudden I lost my power steering and my brake pedal went out. I don't know if any of you have had either of those things happen to you, but its a very scary thing. My mind started going a mile a minute. We were heading into the cliffs of Superior which meant a downward slope and no control around teh curves. Things were flashing through my mind. Cambree was constantly asking me questions making things even more frantic. I tried down shifting, I tried turning off the car and turning it back on...nothing!! Luckily I was able to PULL and I mean literally PULL the steering wheel back and forth to maneuver the curves enough that we were ok. The brake situation, well I had my whole weight on it and it would slow me ever so slightly. I nearly hit the truck in front of me 3 times. I don't think I have ever been so scared in my life. We were some how able to get through the tunnel and I saw the emergency runaway truck ramp. I was weighing my options but in the end, that seemed to be safest thing to do. So I braced myself and headed towards it. We rolled quite a ways in there before ultimately coming to a stop. That's when I lost it and also when the kids got a little scared....mom was freaking out. I called Curtis and scared him I'm sure with my crying. I couldn't spit it out fast enough to ensure him everyone was fine just had a situation. We were now stuck outside of Superior in this gravel pit. I got out and check the damage and luckily nothing seemed damaged. I got the kids out and let them stretch while I starting figuring out the next play. We were there about 10 minutes and no one stopped to see if we were ok or if we needed help. Luckily my brother-in-law Aaron was heading home and saw us last minute and pulled off. Unfortunately he got stuck too. He had his Arctic cat on his truck so we tried a couple times to pull the truck out but broke two straps.

Eventually my father-in-law also stopped as he was on his way to the valley as well. We ended up that he took my kids to Phoenix to meet my parents while I stayed with Aaron to wait for the truck to get towed out and to get the vehicles are traded out. So I didn't get to my ultimate destination till after 7:00.

I still have no clue as to what happened in that car. I have explained it to several people and they are all so confused by the steering and brakes went out. I wasn't distracted by anything, I wasn't on the phone (there is no service in the mountains to begin with), the kids were behaving, so I was focused completely on the road. (I hate driving the Superior Mountains to begin with). I am trying to recall little details to hopefully be able to shed some light as to what exactly happened but things were so frantic that truly the sequence of events is all a little jumbled. After stopping in the gravel pit, we turned to the truck off and back on and what do you know, everything works just fine. Makes me feel like the biggest idiot alive. I know there are people out there that thinks I did something to cause it but I truly know it is all a mechanical error of some sort. Curtis is taking in the truck today to get it looked at. In a way I am hoping they come back saying they found a reason, so I don't look so crazy but we'll see. I am just glad everyone is ok and it wasn't worse than it really could have been. We are very lucky that I didn't hit anyone else. I have pictures but am currently at my parents house so I can't upload them yet so I will do that soon. Just had to share that experience. Not fun!! But now I know what those ramps are for. :)