Happy Easter!

When I think of Easter I think of family, beautiful spring weather, and of course my Savior, Jesus Christ. Since these are all some of my favorite things, I dare say Easter is one of my favorite holidays. My mom had a fun Easter party for all the grandkids on Saturday including a great lunch, easter egg hunt, and coloring eggs. As you can see from the picture Mason had a blast. Thanks mom for making it such a fun day. I was really disappointed when I came home from work Sunday morning feeling miserably sick. I ended up staying home from church and missing the Easter program. Scott said it was really great and I'm still sad I missed out. The Easter Bunny visited our house and brought us all of our swim gear for the summer including a pass to Scera Pool which I'm sure will be well used. It also brought Scott all his yard tools including a shovel, rake, hoe, push broom, hose, wheelbarrow, and garden tools. Our camera batteries died so we didn't get any pictures with Mason and his Easter bucket (we had fun buckets rather than baskets to go along with our summer themed Easter).

Nu Skin Easter Egg Hunt

Yesterday Nu Skin kicked off the Easter Holiday with an Easter egg hunt for all the kiddos. This is one of the things that keeps Scott at Nu Skin, no I'm not talking about the egg hunt specifically, but the family centered environment. Nu Skin has activities for the families on pretty much every holiday you can think of and then sometimes just for fun (and the best part is they are on the clock). They have a field next to their Distribution Warehouses that they cover with eggs then section it off for different age groups. Mason, Jackson Dastrup, and Katelyn Carlile (these are Mason's friends that we do everything with) were all together in the 3 and younger. Halle Dastrup graduated to the 4-7 year olds. We were told ahead of time it was a very competitive event and Mason would be lucky to get an egg, so we didn't even bother bringing a basket for him. Sure enough from the time they said go the eggs only lasted about 30 seconds. Mason did get 2 eggs. He seemed to enjoy eating the grass more than eating the treats in his eggs. This was only part of the 3 and under field. The field was completely encircled by parents and their kids anxiously waiting for the whistle. As you can tell Mason was pretty competitive. He found his 2 eggs about 3 feet from where he started and then just plopped down to enjoy them and the grass. I was worried he was going to get trampled by all the serious egg hunters. Here are Mason and his best bud Jackson gloating over their victorious hunt (they each got 2 eggs)

Family Night

I want you to picture yourself in this situation.

You walk in the door from church, starving. Just as you get everything out to make a sandwich you realize there is only the end piece of bread left...that simply won't work. Okay, plan B: Marshmallow Mateys. You get out the biggest bowl you can find and fill it to the brim with cereal and realize the milk carton only has two drops of milk left. Mac and Cheese...no milk; grilled cheese and soup....no bread; cheese and crackers....no cheese or crackers. Looks like it's going to be ramen again.

There is nothing worse than being stranded on a Sunday afternoon with empty cupboards. Well that's what Scott goes through every week. You see I have a hard time getting to the grocery store until there is simply no other option. Why is it so hard? I'll give you a hint.....Mason. It is so hard to go to the store alone with Mason because he will not sit in the cart, he starts yelling really loud when he gets sick of shopping (usually by the end of the 3rd isle), and he tries to jump out of the cart or my arms the whole time and he gets pretty close to succeeding. So tonight the three of us went grocery shopping together. Here are some pictures we took of our adventure with Scott's phone.

Mason decided he needed to be pushing the cart. So we had to hold him down in front of the cart and let him push. The trick was the cart had to be moving. If we stopped moving he would lose interest and try to get down.

Then Mason squirmed and arched his back to the point I couldn't physically hold him without dropping him on his head. So, yes, I let him get down and crawl up and down the isle. And even better, on the isle with all the harsh chemicals you are supposed to keep out of children's reach.

The final attempt was letting him ride on my shoulders,but that just created the potential for a longer fall when he tried to jump down. (Notice that all of this was just trying to get down a single isle)

I don't mean to make it sound like Mason is a bad boy, because he most definitely is not. He is just so curious and adventurous right now that the grocery store is torture for him because he just needs to explore all those brightly colored objects that surround him. So until he gets a little bit older and can ride in the little car hooked onto the cart, then we will be finding alternative arrangement for going grocery shopping. At the end of the day, I would never trade having Mason be so animated for an easy shopping trip.

Family Pictures

My family had these pictures taken right after Christmas by our friend Rogan Taylor. It was nice because he has this wonderful studio in his basement so it was a comfortable setting and his wife and daughter were there to entertain the kids. I am a little late posting them and it's amazing how fast pictures become outdated with little kids. My Mom and Dad are in the middle holding the grandkids (Mason, Cannon, and Kennedy), Scott and Rachel on the left, Whitney and Brandon in the back (Rachel Faye is right behind my dad's head, you can't see her very well yet in these pictures) and Chris and Kacie on the right. That's my family!

Tag You're It!

I was tagged a while ago, but have been slow getting around to doing it. For those of you unfamiliar with what being "tagged" is (as I was when it first happened to me), it is a list of questions you answer on your blog and then at the end you "tag" people who then are supposed to answer the questions on their blog. So here I go:

1. What were you doing 10 years ago?
In March of 1998 I was a 7th grader roaming the halls of CVJH. My life pretty much revolved around sports. At the time I was participating in volleyball, basketball (this would have been right about the time my Jr. Jazz team won the city championship), swimming with OTAC (orem timpanogas aquatic club), and running track (I was named 7th grade MVP). I'm sure there was a lot of friendship drama going on (Ashely O. you know what I'm talking about :). But overall I think it was a pretty great time.

2. 5 thing on my to-do list today

• Sleep (I work tonight)
• Play with Mason
• Fold laundry
• Do the dishes
• Go to work

3. 5 snack I enjoy

• Grahm Crackers and milk
• Fruit Snacks
• Quesadillas
• Nachos
• Cookies

4. 3 bad habits

• Leaving wrapers on couch after I eat a treat.
• Going to bed WAY too late.
• Getting mad at Scott when he eats chips, crackers.... or pretty much anything noisy. (and it's not just Scott that bugs me, it's everyone, but it would just be weird if I asked my co-workers to eat more quietly)

5. What would you do if you were instantly a billionaire?

• By Scott his FJ Cruiser or whatever other car he wants at that time.
• I would not buy a house because you couldn't pay be a billion dollars to move again right now, I'm finally getting settled. But I would put money aside to buy a new house when the time comes.
• Buy a houseboat down at Lake Powell.
• I guess I would just save most of it so I could buy things when I wanted to.

6. 5 places I have lived

• Orem, UT (My house growing up)
• Provo, UT (The dorms)
• Orem, UT (Back to my parent's house)
• Orem, UT (Our basement apartment aka "The Dungeon")
• Orem, UT (Our house)

Wow, that was an exciting question!

7. 5 things people don't know about me.

• I secretly would love to sing on broadway (although it's not so secret when I belt out the songs in the shower.) And Scott told me that I was good enough to make it on broadway.......as a stagehand :(
• I am pretty sure I am allergic to doing the dishes. I clean up poopy adult bums all night at work and really don't care, but knowing I have to do the dishes makes me want to vomit.
• I have the same allergy to doing the laundry.
• I HATE shopping. I hate buying clothes. I think shoes cost way too much. I think all the fashion trends are really ugly right now and have no desire to participate in them (especially all the high-waisted pants I saw on American Idol this week....can you say UGLY... sorry to anyone wearing them as they read this.) And now you all know why I am happy and comfortable wearing jeans (normal waistline) and a t-shirt every day, and why I chose a profession which I can wear scrubs to work.
• I am really good at taking naps. I can go to sleep anytime anywhere. It can be light or dark, soft or hard, quiet or loud and I can sleep. It's not like I have narcolepsy and can't stay awake, but anytime I want to sleep I just have to lie down and hold still for about 2 minutes and I'm gone. My mom tells me it is a sign of sleep deprivation.....which looking at the facts (I work nights and have a 10 month old) is probably the case.

Now is when I'm supposed to "tag" some people, but as I was looking on other blogs it seems to me a lot of people have already been tagged. So consider this an open-ended tag. Anyone who has not been tagged and is feeling left out you have now been tagged.

I Passed!!

It's official, I passed the NCLEX-RN!

NCLEX

This morning was the first time in a while I have had to set my alarm clock. These days I usually just wake up when my rooster crows (Mason). But this morning I had to wake up bright and early to take the NCLEX-RN in Salt Lake. For those of you unfamiliar with this acronym (Scott tells me I use too many nursing acronyms and expect people to follow what I'm saying) it stands for National Council Licensure Exam-Registered Nurse aka my nursing boards. I have done approximately 3,000-4,000 practice questions since August preparing for this test as well as reviewing specific medications and disease processes. (Just for the record I didn't really use the NCLEX for dummies book I just thought it made a nice image) The NCLEX is a Computerized Adaptive Test which means it asks you a question, if you get it right the next one is harder if you get it wrong the next one is easier and it keeps going until you achieve an average level consitantly and then it determines if that level is higher than the set standard or not. It will give you the most opportunity it can to get above the standard. You get a minimum of 75 questions and a maximum of 265 with 6 hours to take it. I felt pretty good about how I was doing and then my test turned off after the 75th question. This means either I did really well and was far enough above the passing level after 75 questions it could determine I was competent or I totally bombed it and was so far below the passing level there was no way I could pass. I am definitely hoping for the prior. If I did pass my license should be posted on DOPL (Department of Professional Licensing) within a week. I'll let you know.