First it was croup, then bronchiolitis, then just a good old-fashioned cold. Just as the smaller citizens of our home were healing Emilie got sick. Memorial weekend approached, Emilie was better and then I got sick. It started with coughing fits that lasted through the night, then came the headaches, congestion, blah, blah, blah. I missed two days of work - even when I had nasty Eldorado-caused food poisoning I didn't miss a whole day. I felt pretty horrible on Tuesday, but I stayed home yesterday, too, because cow-orkers can be very unforgiving when you make all of them sick.

Just as I am feeling mostly recovered all the of the kids are now sick again with colds. I mean, honestly.

Many of you may know that tax freedom day occurred quite recently. There is an even more important freedom day that also occurs around this time of year: TV Freedom Day. It's the time of the year when all the shows are over and we get our lives back. It's a perfect chance to repent for watching so much terrificly entertaining television and do something better with our lives.

I'm blogging.

About watching television.

Emilie mentioned the concert that I attended a few weeks ago. I went to see Rush - definitely one of the bands of all time. But seriously, Rush is pretty awesome. The show was very good and was twice as loud as it was good. A lot of people complained about how much new stuff they played, but the show was three-and-a-half hours long with no opening act. I don't think anyone had a legitimate reason to complain. In my opinion the new songs they did were pretty good, so I didn't mind.

As Emilie also mentioned, there are a lot of unknowns about concert-going. Mike and I ended up next to "Smog Check", as named by Mike. Missing from Mike's rendition is the purple-red hair, which did not go well with his heavily graying beard. He insisted on standing in front of me even when no one else was standing. He and his woman had that PDA thing down pat. The bad news was that his lady was sitting, he was standing, which meant that while he was bending over to make-out the toxic emissions came my way. That's thoroughly enough about that subject.

Speaking of fumes, I counted no less than four people smoking illegal substances in our general area. During intermission one guy actual sat down next to me and asked if it was okay to "burn". I replied that I preferred he didn't. He got up and left. What kind of jerk am I? An awesome one. Fortunately, the area was ventilated pretty well and we couldn't smell what was going on, with the exception of one or two strange whiffs.

That show was in stark contrast to the show the night before. My dad called the Thursday before and asked if I wanted to go see Sean Hannity with him and Edge (I think that's how he spells his name). Edge had purchased a ticket but then got a couple more from somewhere else. Unlike the previous Hannity event, this one was actually well-planned. In addition to Sean Hannity, Oliver North and Mark Levin were also present. I like Sean Hannity, but seeing Oliver North and Mark Levin was the real sweet deal.

Anyway, an extremely fun weekend. I'll be thinking of it years down the road when my permanent hearing loss starts kicking in.

Chase eating pancakes
Mom: Yum, these pancakes are yummy. Chase do you think these pancakes are yummy?
Chase: Um... no

Chase and I naming parts on the body.
Mom: Chase what are these(pointing to his toes)
Chase: Piggies

So Ive been pretty good on the food storage thing. We received some instruction last year at church from the Sorenson's.
Ive got food from the cannery that we use regularly in our diet, I buy extra foods we like and I actually "rotate". Not to stocked on the water other than bottled water, but I'm working on the water barrels. This is big business here a lot of work!

Brad purchased a flour mill for me so I can grind the wheat that I have from the cannery. In turn maybe I can actually start making some bread. It is electric, not manual which I question, but Brad says that I'll burn more calories grinding the wheat by hand than I would eat. So basicly he is saying.. that I will die faster using a manual mill.
What happens when we have no power. Heck I can't make anything without power. So now were are thinking of generators, camp stoves etc.
I wouldn't mind putting everything on the BBQ. Yum BBQ. I don't think bread would bake on a BBQ though.

Due to the recent earthquakes in Reno, Brad's mom put some 72 hour kits together for the family. Thank You Mom.
I've been so busy I haven't even thought about preparing if there was a "big" earthquake. It dawned on me the other night that, Emilie you have three kids you need to take care of, get you rear in gear and prepare. I need to work on the non-food essentials of family preparedness. Food is not the problem, extra batteries for the flashlight is
what I always forget along with extra clothes that my kids will outgrow in a week, matches, toiletries etc. etc..

Brad and I were planning on going to see "Rush" a few weeks ago (not really a fan, but I wanted to support my hubby), but do to our babysitter bailing on our much awaited date night I ended up staying home with the kiddos, and Brad went with his brother.
I guess it was good that I didn't go, because It could have been detrimental to me and my growing fetus. I guess it was a loud, pot smelling, many in a drunken stupor concert.

So Brad bought be Carrie Underwood tickets so I can go to a concert. I asked if he wanted to go ....he passed.
I guess Brad hates country music, something I found out a few hours after I got married. Dang It. Anywho, I went with my friend Lisa Allred and we had a fun time. It was a very good concert with only a few in a drunken stupor. Carrie is a great singer with predicable costume changes. Ive been a fan of Carrie's since American Idol. Josh Turner has an amazing low voice, and I must say cuter in person.

I think I am very sheltered. I don't like to go places where I might feel uncomfortable. Concerts are always an iffy. At a concert who are you going to have to sit next to, will they drink, puke, smoke, shoot out curse words?... these factors could ruin the whole concert.

I guess I was excited to get out of the house for the "Rush" concert that I forgot all of those uncomfortable factors. Carrie's Concert was definitely family oriented, so no stress there just a very enjoyable night.

Thanks Lisa for a fun night of Qdoba, Carrie Underwood and valet parking.
Thanks Brad for giving me a night off.

Yes another Carpenter is on the way, and we are surprised, but happy.
What ever happened to.." you will always need help to conceive" or "I wouldn't worry about birth control."
Funny thing is Brad and I after having the twins said to each other, if we were to get pregnant again it would have to happen "all natural", "No doctors, no more paying for babies".
And I guess a miracle happened, just alittle to soon for me. It must be for a reason. Or we are just dumb.
My official due date is December 17. Chase will be still be two when the baby is born.
4 kids under the age of two until Chase turns three on the 22nd.
Then its 4 kids under the age of 3. Anyway you put it, it's bad.

I guess this is our time and season, to raise many a baby.

Our house in on the market. Due to the expanding family, we thought maybe now is the time to get in a bigger house if we can. It is not a sellers market but it is a buyers market. We will see how this goes.

There's a reason why the weather has fluctuated so much this week. There's a reason why it's fairly cold outside today. The earth is trying to warn us about impending storm that most of us can probably not even imagine. While people all over the world fret about the ridiculous global warming claims, they fail to understand the real tragedy at hand.

Tonight David Cook is going to be named the next American Idol. Not because he's better (he's not). Not because he's nicer (he's not). Not because he looks less like a Monchichi than David Archuleta. There is no reason why David Cook should win. David Archuleta clearly beat the singing snot out of David Cook. David Cook sounded like a 1st grader singing "head, shoulder, knees and toes" in an elementary school choir compared to Archuleta.

The bottom line is this: I've never missed an episode of American Idol in the history of the show. Never. Tonight that all changes. You can be part of this atrocity and watch, or you can stand for something and deny Fox viewership. Do the right thing.

Long live Archuleta.

For those of you who don't believe in miracles, here's something for you to chew on:

The following headline appeared on KRNV.com today: Krispy Kreme in Reno closes due to economic struggles

At first glance you are led to believe that there simply isn't a market for nasty doughnuts, thus causing Krispy Kreme to close it's doors. In fact, it's a bunch of blah blah about increased prices for gas and commodities, blah, blah. Specifics aside, this is a huge win for Reno.

I mean, it's always terrible whenever someone loses their job - especially when their termination notice is taped to the front door. You have to look at it objectively, though. If there was a business that sold beverages that were made from rejected blood donations and they were forced to close, how bad would you feel? It's the same thing with Krispy Kreme - they sold an unsatisfactory product and it finally caught up with them.

The KTVN story offers additional insight. Although the headline reads "Gas Prices Shut Down Reno Krispy Kreme Permanently", the story goes on to say "the company says they're not ruling out one day returning to the Reno market." I would encourage the company to rule out returning to Reno. Consider what happened in Arizona: "...after pulling out of Arizona two years ago, a new store opened there just week." Of course, there is a typo in this sentence - it should have read "a new store opened there just weak." In any case, we know what they meant.

Since it's unlikely that we're going to see a Tim Horton's in Reno, I'll settle for some good ol' Dunkin'.

This week may be the most uninteresting American Idol contest of the season. Unless there is some sort of shocker I think Syesha is on her way home. And, as predicted by many people much earlier this season, the finale will be a showdown between the Davids. Of course, I was wrong. I had no idea David Cook would make it this far. I don't know how I can prove it, but I suspect there are a lot of people who used their one phone call to vote for David Cook. If you know what I mean.

The real tragedy took place over the last few weeks. I think we knew that Brooke probably wasn't going to win, but for her to be eliminated before Jason Castro was particularly egregious. I think Brooke's personality kept her in because people liked that she was humble and nice. Jason, on the other hand, couldn't sing and was either a certifiable idiot or, more likely, partaking of the "herb". How bad is it? If it came down to a contest between David Cook and Jason Castro I would vote for David Cook.

Just when it seemed that everyone was recovering from their croup David Cook went on stage again and made everyone sick. Chase was hit the hardest with a cold accompanied by chills and fever. Jaxon has picked up the cold and Mason is starting to get a runny nose. I was looking forward to the end of winter because I thought we would get past all the sick children. So much for that idea. The worst part of it all is seeing how horrible they feel and not being able to do anything about it.

Jaxon is surpassing Mason in the teeth area. Jaxon now has two bottom teeth, but he also has top teeth that are starting to break through. Mason still has nothing in the top-teeth-department.

Neither of the boys are crawling; however, they are becoming increasingly skilled at scooting. They use their toes to launch forward, which is always fun to watch. They become particularly motivated when they see something they really want, like a cell phone, remote control or any other technical thing. That's because they are awesome.

I've been spending several hours outdoors lately as I've tried replacing the pump in our "water feature." I call it a "water feature" because if I omitted the quotes I would be inaccurately describing it. Chase had been putting sand from the sandbox down the fountain tube when it was turned off and as a result the pump stopped working. The good news is that the company that originally put the "feature" together only barely broke into the double-digits with the cost of the pump they used. The bad news is that it has taken quite a bit of time disassembling the "feature" to replace the pump. I hope to have everything put back together today. Maybe I'll put up a picture of our awesome "water feature" when I'm done.

I'm not going to discuss American Idol right now. I'll include my analysis in a future post.