The AVP was in Glendale this weekend so we decided to go check it out. We really had no plan. Didn't know what time the games were at, how much it cost or how fun it would be since it was 100 degrees. When we got there we went up to buy some tickets when this man approached us and gave us some extra wrist bands that he had. He was being very hush, hush about it but I don't know what the big deal was cause they were just extra and he gave them to us. So we slap them on and head in not sure where the wrist bands would get us. We headed to the stairs that headed up to the covered suites and sure enough we were good-to-go. We ended up in this nice little suite with couches and there were coolers full of free water and Gatorade. It was pretty sweet! Not to mention that we ended up walking in on a game where Kerri Walsh was playing. If you watched the Olympics at all, you know who she is. So we watched her game and then when it was done, they raised the nets and the men were playing. Of course the first game was with Dalhausser and Gibb playing some other men I didn't know. Dalhausser, won the gold medal in Beijing and Gibb is from Bountiful and went to the University of Utah. I'm pretty sure he went to the U but I could be wrong. Anyways I was pretty excited to catch both of those games. Josh thought it was cool too. The kids just liked jumping on the couches. So it turned out to be a nice little Saturday.

WOW

Last week we were coming home from the lake and we saw some people walking down the side of the road holding bags. It was unusual cause they were out in the middle of nowhere and at first we wondered what they were doing but we realized they were collecting cans. I got kind of excited because I remembered when I use was young and I collected cans. I thought it was so fun! It was like finding a treasure! Maybe that's why I like cleaning my cat's litter box, each clump is like a little treasure! I also think that I liked it so much cause it was something we did as a family. I remember that my mom would just open the trunk of the car and we would ride in the trunk and then jump out when we saw a can. Perfectly legal I'm sure. So when we got home and the kids woke up from their naps, I grabbed some bags and off we went. I can say that I was pretty excited and so were they! We have 1100 acres of state land across from our house so that's where we headed. Within a 5 minute walk of our house our bag was almost full. Here is some of the loot we scored.



I was feeling pretty happy about our take. Mostly because I felt like I was teaching our children about being good citizens and keeping our earth clean. I want them to WANT to DO good things and BE great people. I also found out that the price of aluminum is up from 35 cents to 60 cents per pound. Obviously not a huge motivator but a nice little perk if this really becomes a habit.

So two days later I headed to Wal-Mart to do some grocery shopping. On the drive there I started thinking about the cans and began to notice that there are a TON of cans all up and down the roads here in Desert Hills. I got a good feeling an couldn't wait to go can hunting again. Yes I do know that sounds pathetic! I do not live an exciting life. IN FACT, not that you need more proof as to how glamorous my life is since I'm blogging about cans but the other day Addi got naked and pooped on the patio. Yeah...that's my life. Anyways, when we got to Wal-Mart I saw this:

I was in AWE! He hit the MOTHER LOAD!! If I were a lesser person and had a large truck I would have stolen them! Not really but I was a little jealous!

GOODBYE DEAR FRIEND!

Yesterday I said goodbye to a dear friend that I've had for 7 years. "She'd" been with me through thick and thin. I turned to "her" when I needed support. I was always very comfortable with her but I finally wore her out. When I finally sat down and took a good look at "her" I realized that it was time to put her down. I'm talking about my "go-to" underwear. Or as Josh calls them,"My skanky underwear." Not cause they are too risque', well maybe for some people but because they are stretched out and full of holes. Do any of you have a favorite pair? Maybe it's garments, or some granny panties that were so comfy that all your other granny panties were jealous? For some reason these particular pair of lime green undies from Victoria's Secret have been that pair. There's nothing special about them, in fact I have at least six of this very same kind just in different colors. You may have noticed them sticking out of my pants. Not on purpose, I'm really not one of those girls that think it's sexy to have you skivvies pokin' out of the top of your pants. Only because I'm freakishly huge and have an odd body. I can't find pants or shirts that will cover that part of my butt, what I call my upper butt. As long as I'm standing still it's not a problem. If I bend over or crouch down, WATCH OUT! I have flashed my close friends on numerous occasions. I truly feel bad for Suzi, Josh's mom. She puts up with a lot of "crack". Anyways the other day while I was wearing my favorite pair, Josh came in to the bathroom where I was bending over doing something and he said,"SO, you're still hangin' on to those underwear huh? Holes and all, ya just can't give them up?" OBVIOUSLY he reeeally liked them. So with a sad heart, I said goodbye. It wasn't a long ceremony, closed casket. I really just pushed them to the bottom of the garbage can. I knew that there would be less of a chance of me pulling them out and sticking them back in my drawer if I did that. It was good though. I can start fresh again... literally!

What is this you ask? If the fancy Wal-mart scarecrow doesn't give it away, this is my garden. I've never had a garden in AZ before and I decided I wanted to plant one. It's really just an experimental garden. Experimental because we have so many freakin' rabbits (and usually ground squirrels for that matter) that I don't know if having a garden without a mote or land mines is really do-able. So why even try? Well, I'm thinkin' that now is a good time for several reasons: 1) The weather is cooling off so our fall planting season has arrived. Well actually fall itself has arrived. It only got to 100 degrees today! 2) The owls are back so I'm counting on them to guard my garden at night. They better do a good job! Maybe it's not fair that they don't know I'm relying on them but I don't speak owl sooo... 3) Most of the ground squirrels are gone. I'm not sure where they went. I'm giving credit to the owls and other various predators that live around my house. So those are my reasons not to mention the fact that my dad in Utah always has amazing gardens and I would love to do the same. It's nice to be self-sufficient even if it's only for a few months. As you can see, it's very small and will not sustain us for long...or at all really. Especially since all I planted was pumpkins, yellow squash and corn. Really, what do you do with the pumpkins besides be excited that you grew pumpkins and carve them of course. (If you have recipes on how to make pumpkin pie please let me know). Josh won't eat the squash but the rest of us will. And I read that you must plant at least 12 corn plants for there to be enough for pollination. I think I planted just enough so cross your fingers for me. I didn't want to put a lot of back breaking work into this just to have it eaten so that is the story of our wimpy garden! This picture is a couple of weeks old but I wanted to share. I will show you the results of my garden at another time. I know you're all just dying to find out!! I hope the anticipation isn't too great!! ;)

I LOVE TODAY! (Really long, sorry.)

Today, September 19th, has to be one of my all-time favorite days! Six years ago on this very day I started the morning out by going to the salon with a few friends and getting the royal treatment. After 4 hours of bliss I drove as fast as I could to another salon and had my hair done. The stylist took an hour longer than I thought she would and I raced back to my cute little place in Sugar House to do my makeup in literally 6 minutes. My bf Adrianne was at my house to approve the make-up and hair and we then drove 75 mph up the private canyon of Mill Creek to the Log Haven Restaurant. It had been raining all week but it stopped for this very day. At 6:30pm Josh and I were married! I love him more now than I did then! We were surrounded by family and friends and it was beautiful, romantic and dream-like, for me at least. After the reception we were whisked away in a white Hummer limo to the Grand America Hotel in downtown SLC. It was fabulous! The only part I could have done without was the fact that Josh forgot to drop his car off at the hotel so the next morning we were picked up by his parents in their rental car. Real romantic. "Hi Suzi and Warren. Thanks for pickin' us up after our first night as husband and wife." Embarrassing, of course....grateful, yes. So that's the first reason I love this day. The second reason...it actually begins on Sept. 18th at 6am. I was preggers with Crue and he wasn't due till Oct. 10th. I awoke from a deep sleep and was surprised to discover that I had peed the bed. This was probably the only time that I was glad Josh was working nights cause I would have been majorly embarrassed. I went to the bathroom thinking that I must have been in such a deep sleep that I just didn't wake up. When I'm that pregnant I seriously get up like 3-4 times a night to pee. I changed and since the day before was my last day of work I went back to sleep. I was excited that I could sleep in. I was taking off work three weeks before Crue was due so I would have some time to nest and get prepared...mostly to sleep in. So as I said, I went back to sleep. Josh got home at 8am and when I woke up I realized I had peed the bed yet again. Of course now I'm thinkin','did my water break?' All I'd ever heard about water breaking was that there was always a gush and there was no gush, more like a small leak but only when I was laying down. I didn't say anything to Josh cause the whole peein' the bed thing wasn't something I wanted to bring up to my hubby. Not very sexy, not that being 8 months pregnant is but who needs the added grossness of incontinence. Anyways, Josh goes to sleep and I decide to go get a pedicure. I head to the salon where I got an awesome pedicure and the whole time I'm hoping that I don't leak or pee which ever it was. The funny thing was that I wasn't really worried. I'd just seen my doctor two days before and he told me that I wasn't dilating or effacing at all. He told me that we were pretty much shootin' for the due date but hoping not to go beyond it. So after the pedicure I decide to drop by my work and chit chat with my good friend Kate who I hadn't seen in a few days. I told her about my peeing the bed and asked her what she thought. As much as she didn't want me to be peeing the bed, she was hoping that I was. Since having left the house at about 8:30am, I hadn't had any wetness besides what I'm sure was just being a little sweaty from now weighing in at about 219 lbs. Not a joke. I was jinormous. (It's a new word.) So I leave my work establishment and I'm just driving aimlessly not really knowing what to do. I silently said a prayer asking for guidance and letting my Heavenly Father know that I really didn't want to go to the hospital and have them tell me I was peeing my pants. I'm sure he got that, right! After my little prayer I just had a very peaceful feeling. It wasn't a "go to the hospital now" feeling or a "yes your water broke" it was more of a "I know you'll do what you FEEL is the right thing" type of feeling. It was like my car drove itself and I ended up parked in the lot of the emergency room at Arrowhead Hospital thinking,"What am I doing" but it was a very calm "what am I doing". I don't know that I can explain what I felt. Even though I was wondering what I was doing, without hesitation I walked into the emergency room and just stood there. It was 10am on a Saturday morning and there were only 2 other people in there and they were together. I could see that they were being helped so I was trying to decide whether I should go sit down or go stand behind these other people who were being help and then a nurse approached and asked if I needed help. I quietly told her that I wasn't sure if I had pee'd the bed or if my water had broke and that maybe I should be checked out. She said,"sure let's get you checked in" I was like "no I don't need to be checked in, just checked out, ya know, a little looksie to see if everything was OK". She just kinda laughed and said that they had to check me in and they would get me in a wheel chair and take me up to an exam room. I told them I could walk but they wouldn't let me. Now I was feeling kind of foolish cause they were treating me like I was hurt or something and I wasn't. I was OK and didn't want to make a big deal about it. Well I get up to the room and they do a swab which would quickly turn blue (I think) if it detect amniotic fluid. Of course it doesn't turn blue but they have to take it to the lab to make sure and it's going to take an hour. I realize that no one knows where I am and that I better call someone. Josh is asleep and I didn't want to wake him. If I called Suzi, Josh's mom, I knew she would come to the hospital to check on me and I was sure that I would be walking out of there shortly so I didn't call her. I decided to call my mom. I just told her that I was being checked and I'd let her know when I'm done. She of course tells me that I can't have Crue that weekend because she absolutely has to be to work on Monday. I tell her not to worry cause I was pretty sure I was just peein'! The nurse finally came back and tells me that my water has indeed broke. I was SHOCKED! I literally asked her if I could go stain my front door and come back later. I had things to do. I wasn't ready. I didn't even have a hospital bag packed. Seriously stunned, I decide that I better call Josh. He answers his phone and this is our conversation McKelle: "Hey hun, don't freak out I'm at the hospital. This morning I woke up and thought I'd.." Josh:"WHAT'S WRONG? JUST TELL ME!!" McKelle:"My water broke." Josh: "I'll be right there!" Seriously he was there in 10 minutes in a nice button up polo shirt and some khaki slacks. He was ready. Unfortunately my cervix was not. They decided to start me on some petocine..er..pitocine (don't know how to spell that) and gels to get me started. I was so hungry and luckily my nurse let me eat some food quickly even though I wasn't suppose to. By now it's about 11:30am and to make a longer story just a little bit shorter, I had to go through two cycles of pitocine and gels before anything would happen and though my water broke around 6am on Saturday morning, Crue didn't arrive till after 40 hours of labor (technically). It was really only hard labor for about 15 hours but most of that was taken care of by the epidural and we were just waiting for my cervix to dilate. Once I hit a 10 it took three pushes and at 10:03pm on Sept. 19th, 2004 Crue was born. The cord was wrapped around his neck four times but he was healthy weighing in at 6 lbs 12 ounces. (I can only imagine how big he would have been if he had waited three more weeks. Yikes!) I know that my water broke because the cord was wrapped around Crue's neck so many times. If Crue was allowed to keep growing for the next 3 weeks I truly believe that the cord would have tightened and he wouldn't have made it. That freaks me out to even think that but I know the lord had a hand in allowing Crue to live and he absolute helped me to know what to do. He was beautiful and we're so blessed to have him! Changed our lives and hearts forever!! Now I just love hearing birthing stories so if you feel inspired, I double dog dare you to post about the birth of your child or children. Seriously they never get old to me! I'm so intrigued by the whole birthing process now that I've been through it. It's fun to hear the stories about what my friends and family have gone through to get those precious little spirits here! I am so GRATEFUL to have this AWESOME ability to bring life into this world, with a little...or a lot of help of course!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY CRUE!!!!

Today I drove carpool to preschool. These kids are so funny. The fist half of the drive the kids were kind of quiet. The last half of the ride I was being moo'd at by two of them (one was mine) and the other two were talking about how they were going to throw up in my eyeballs. They were on the boarder of "silly, potty mouths" but thankfully they never got that far. I did get a silent chuckle as I listened to them pretend to throw up in my eyeballs! That's terrific.

Catch up time.

Since Addi turned 2 she of course was due for another shot at the doctors. She loves the doctors office. Her favorite thing is rolling around on the crackling paper that covers the exam table. She thinks it's great! She's never had any bad memories about doctor appointments since she's so young but this last one may stick in her memory. When she got her shot she looked at me with a,"What the hell was that?" kind of look. She didn't cry till the nurse left and then her cry was a,"I'm mad that you tricked me!" kind of cry. Good news is she doesn't have to worry about Hepatitis B!

She has the best pout.


Crue started preschool.....3 weeks ago! Yeah! He loves it! He goes Tues, Wed, Thurs, from 9 to 1 and I car pool with some friends so I only have to drive once a week. It's working out fabulously but we have had several talks about not having a potty mouth. Crue really is such a good boy but like most children he can get caught up in what I call,"Silly, potty mouth talk." When one of the children that he car pools with said a potty word (probably poop), I was told (cause it wasn't my day to drive) that Crue was quick to let everyone in the car know that,"We do not use potty words. We don't use them in your car, or your car or my car." I was so proud. Having said that, the other morning Crue threw something across the room and said,"AAHH damn it!" I snapped at him and asked,"Crue, what did you say?" He looked at me with big bug eyes and said in a whisper,"Damn it?". This was the day after we had the potty mouth discussion. I quickly turned and grabbed the vinegar out of the cupboard and said,"Crue you know we don't say that." He saw the vinegar, which he has only had once about a year ago for saying damn it, and he slapped his hand across his mouth and held on tight. I approached him and dabbed my finger inside the bottle and said,"Open up". He was screaming but it was just a muffle under his hand. I really had no intentions of putting the vinegar in his mouth cause I knew that it was a slip up and he hasn't said anything like that in a very long time. I did proceed to put my vinegar drenched finger under his nose and it was like I turned on a hose. The tears just started streaming from his eyes. I could tell he was ready to gag but he was able to hold back. I felt kind of bad but I know he learned his lesson. That happened 2 days ago and today we were driving in the car and he said,"Mom, I'm so sorry for saying a potty word yast year (he sometimes struggles with his L's). I won't ever do it again."


He likes to feed leaves to Miss Neva's chickens.


He is a good friend. He offered to push this little girl in the swing and the other little boy followed his example and pushed Addi.



He wanted something for Show-N-Tell and so we took this birds nest out of the tree in our front yard. He was really excited!

Crue and Addi tubin' at 'Pleasant Lake'

Every time our family goes to the lake we end up doing something illegal or embarrasing. (Usually I'm responsible for the embarassing part.) Not on purpose of course but merely because we are uneducated about lake/boating rules. I did read the boaters hand book so we kind of know and it's not like we're out there boozin', racin', or being careless. That being said, if what you see in any of my pictures is illegal please let me know. If it is merely common sense that we lack, we're still working on it! My good friend Eden was nice enough to let me know that my kids need to always wear life jackets. (This is where you refer back to the common sense part.) She waited about a week before telling me cause she didn't want to offend me. Thank you Eden but I hope you know you could never offend me!
Today we went to Bartlet Lake in the Tonto National Forest. I'm sad that I didn't get pics cause it was gorgeous! The ride itself is worth the trip! Crue and Addi always have a good time. Crue's favorite part is swimming and pretending that we are all nice sharks. Addi loves to swim in pools but not so much in lakes. She really enjoys eating. Seriously, she eats the whole time. She will just sit on the back of the boat chowing on anything and everything. I love going to the lake but I'm always relieved when we get the boat back on the trailer intact and everyone accounted for. So far, so good!

So I'm super sad right now cause I saw a story on the news saying that half the draft of Stephanie Meyers next book, "Midnight Sun?", was leaked on the internet. The news also said that Stephanie has put the book on hold indefinitely. Tear!

Addi turns 2!!

Happy Birthday Addison!!