Clever Girl





This morning as I was still laying in bed I caught this conversation that Ben and Rosa where having in the bathroom.

"Daddy, who put that hair on your tummy?" she asked.

He paused for a moment, then said, "Mommy put hair on my tummy."


Seconds later Rosa came and jumped on the bed and said,

"Naughty Mommy. Don't put hair on Daddy's tummy!"

Ben and I had a good laugh. Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge.


Later tonight as Rosa and I were in the bathroom painting her nails we were talking about freckles and moles. (She has two that she likes to point out to people.)

"Mommy, MOMMY, Daddy has polk-ta-dots." I was confused because we weren't talking about polka-dots.

"Where does Daddy have polka-dots?" Rather than telling me she used both hands to point to her face over and over.

"Those are just Daddy's freckles."

She gave me a smile of acknowledgment. Like "duh" but aren't I clever for calling them polka-dots? She then ran into the other room to tell him her clever name for freckles.


She has no idea that she will probably inherit the dominant polka-dot genes from him. So cute!

Who you gonna call?




In the kid's room we have a bit of a Freaky Phenomenon with the box fan that helps block noise. In the playroom adjacent to the kid's room, we have all the toys etc. but one toy is particularly unusual. We have an assortment of wooden puzzles which are stacked inside this little toy cupboard. The one shown on the bottom is a puzzle that makes the sound of the animal when you put the correct puzzle piece in.

The Freaky Phenomenon is that when you turn the fan on in the kid's room next door you can hear the dog of the puzzle bark. When you turn the fan off you can hear the horse of the puzzle neigh. I know, strange right?







We can't figure out why, even when this puzzle is stored inside the cupboard, that it still finds a way to make some noise. The question is why? Do we have a "Slimer" hanging out in our house anxiously awaiting every turn of the dial on our box fan? We'd like some answers, we need a ghost exterminator or at the very least an electrician to provide some insight. Why do the horse and the dog take turns? Why are they consistent? Why can't we hear from the rooster or cat every once in a while? Is there some unwritten law that Dogs and Horses are the "kings" of the farms animals? Luckily, the kids are not afraid of this freaky phenomenon, instead we all listen together for the neigh or bark in the next room with little smiles of wonder on our faces.

Does anyone have any solutions or explanations they would like to offer for this strange occurance?

Old News

Avert your eyes if you don't have the stomach for looking at the stomach.

So one of the other events that came and went this summer was Ben's Gall Bladder Surgery. Two weeks prior to finals Ben was having back pain and he was losing sleep over the intense pain. After he had had enough, one Saturday morning he woke up and said take me to the doctor now. We rushed into his clinic and emerged knowing relatively little, but luckily he was given the good stuff to take the pain away. Unfortunately, the coming week was a huge one for all of us. Starting early Monday morning Ben took some of his finals mingled with various doctor appointments, and ultra sounds, lab work. etc. Ben even called me right before one of his finals started and told me to rush over to Provo with some of his "good stuff" so that he could at least sit down in the chair. By 7:30 p.m. that night and after Ben had finished up a terrible day it was determined that he had stones.

The next day began the same. Finals for Ben, but in between it all I received a call from his doctor indicating that he was to get to the hospital A.S.A.P. (Ben's phone was shut off.) After reviewing more of Ben's lab work it was decided that he had something worse than stones. His stones were causing Pancreatitus. I showed amazing restraint in calling Ben. I knew he needed to finish the final that he was in . . . after a funny conversation Ben hopped the bus home and we headed for the hospital.






Ben ended up staying in the hospital only for the night. All it took was two Priesthood blessings and some skilled doctors and staff. We only have these two stones to show for it, about 5 tiny red scars, in strange places on his abdomen and oh yeah, a sizable monthly medical payment that will take many months to pay off.

As you can imagine his teachers cut him some slack and allowed him to finish the remainder of his finals a few days later.

And guess what, no more back pain.

Have you ever felt like. . .

"I'm not a woman any more, I'm a mom."

Check out Mom Jeans-This SNL clip is still one of my absolute favorites, I still laugh hard every

time I see it. It is only 59 seconds long.


D0 any of your moms fall victim to "mom jeans"?

Cut and paste the link into the URL.


http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=29142171&searchid=bc3a037f-00c2-4f00-a85d-0a6401b35777

Boy Bands
my secrets revealed. . .

At the gym today, I saw the new NKOTB music video. Or for those of you struggling to remember that blessed year when The New Kids On the Block debut their first album (1986), basically they were one of the first boy bands (created by Simon Fuller) to pave the way for other rockin' boy bands like Backstreet boys, N Sync, 98 Degrees etc.

Back to my point, I was "Hangin' Tough" on the treadmill watching the screen and I had such an enormous grin on my face. There is something about being in sixth grade and buying every Teen Beat Magazine that contained a NKOTB poster of one of the members of the band that made me laugh with joy. I owned two albums on cassette. I remember plastering my walls with their images and swooning over heartthrobs Joey and Donnie, who definitely had "The Right Stuff." And who can forget "Step by Step" or "Soul Train," those grade-school anthems that were staples at dances -- we all knew the dance routines by heart.

Sadly, at the end of that year my family moved to another house but the posters did not. They never made it up again, nor did any other bands pictures ever grace my bedroom walls again. At first, I talked about the fall of the NKOTB with bitterness. But then, as was the fashion, I started to mock them, even pretending that I never liked them to begin with (though when I was alone, I still sang along with enthusiasm when one of their songs came on the radio). But don't worry NKOTB, "I'll Be Loving You Forever."



THEY are BACK



In 2000, I was hanging out in London with my soon-to-be-husband and he introduced me to the London sensation Westlife (a boy band from Ireland). Yeah, the first question you should all ask yourselves, why is Ben listening to boy bands? Well, let me squeal on him for a moment. Ben has always been a huge fan of the Backstreet Boys. In fact, while in London, (keep in mind that we are 22 years-old at this time), Ben's journal was a Backstreet Boys journal. I always used to tease him about this because I was not yet a fan of that boy band. What's even stranger is that Ben also owned the N'sync Christmas album, which we just barely threw away last Christmas. Wow, this entry is just full of neat secrets.

So back to Westlife. We brought the boy band Westlife's album back with us from London and we haven't strayed from them ever since. We are still huge fans of them. Westlife became popular in Utah not long after they were the singing sensations in London, thank goodness, and you could even hear them on the radio at times.

After eight long and good years with my honey, I'm happy to say that boy bands are still in my life. I liked the new NKOTB song "Summertime," and for my recent birthday Ben just gave me the newest Westlife album, "Can We Be Frank?" The songs were all originally Frank Sinatra's. I've blogged about music before, (I promise I'm not fanatical about music), but I basically only listen to Oldies. So for Ben to bring two of my favorite kinds of music together is pure harmony.

Check out this old blog for another music update:
http://welchwhirlblog.blogspot.com/2008_02_01_archive.html





Thanks honey for allowing a love of boy bands in the house.

How to have a ROCKIN' Disney Cruise Vacation




Safety First- to calm the kids minds.



Be sure to hit the Karaoke Bar at least a few of the nights on the boat.



Be sure to visit the Caribbean Natives.



Pose with a few of the Disney Royalty every so often.



Hang out with the Mermaids on the beach.



Get some parents like these. They gave us this amazing cruise for our Christmas present last year!!



Be sure to rent mopeds and travel to beautiful beaches with the gals you love in the Bahamas!



Buy sunglasses, multiple pairs, you'll need them for all the rays you will be soaking in.



You can always look forward to the magical bunk beds that just appear out of nowhere for the kids to sleep on in the rooms.



Go scuba diving with the hard core on Disney's private island.


I could go on for hours about this awesome trip. It went way beyond my expectations. Think magical vacation and there you have it. The food was yummy, the company was perfect, the activities were delightful, with kids or sans kids. The kids clubs were very fun, Wiley was always asking to do that first. If anyone needs anymore convincing about this amazing vacation, let me know. It was fabulous! I have about 800 more pictures from this AWESOME trip.

The Bags





As mentioned in my previous blog, today is the first day that I've found some regular time in my day. I'm going to attempt to blog our amazing summer. But after looking through 1000+ pictures I couldn't think of a more appropriate picture to start with other than this picture. It explains how we managed for so long. 3- 50 pound bags loaded with all the necessities as well as an awesomely equipped game bag (nintendo, dvd player/movies, card games), two back packs, two strollers, one car seat, and the computer bag. All that we took was chosen very carefully knowing we had international weight limits to deal with as well as a tiny 1 bedroom apartment in Germany that would fill up faster than we wanted it to.

3 days left of summer!

Help I'm not ready, I need a break from summer but wait I'm not ready for the constant getting and going of school, homework, school lunches etc. What is the solution? I think I need a vacation from vacation. We have had a very busy summer and today is the first day that I feel like I can do laundry and clean the house knowing it isn't in preparation of the next family vacation/get together.

I somehow missed all the important house work days that a summer gives me. I need a few Saturdays to paint some walls, buy some school supplies, clean my windows, clean out drawers etc. A few of the basic things that are supposed to happen in a summer but somehow I managed to forgo in our travels.

It's no wonder that I don't feel like I have accomplished anything this summer, in the last 7 days alone my kids have slept in 4 different locations. Just a sample of what our whole summer has been like. I just want to stay unpacked for a while. No suitcases, no backpacks, no place to be but home.

I guess I haven't made it official, but we are home for good, and except for about 3 more family reunions we don't have anywhere else to go this summer. After receiving enough emails regarding our where abouts I've felt a little like Carmen SanDiego. Here is the travel list:

Disney World
The Bahamas
Germany
Switzerland
Italy
Tahoe/Reno
A few trips to Timberlakes
Idaho

I'm a bit surprised with the list myself. We have had the best summer in the history of the Welch family. Oh yeah, this list doesn't include the extremely long layover in Philadelphia or Ben's trip to Washington D.C., or a quick trip up to Girl's Camp in Heber.
What a summer!


All is well, we are unpacked finally, with nothing but pictures and a few spare Euros rolling around in the bottom of my purse to remember such a great summer.

Of course we have some souvenirs, more on that later.

Lake Moro, Italy.



Wiley and me on a paddle boat up in the mountains.

Questions that are answered by Wiley. . . thanks Lily for this cute tag!


1. what is something mom always says to you? "No, no, no, no,"
oh dear, now everyone knows . . . I'm so mean.
2. what makes mom happy? "hmmm...kisses from me, . . . that's all."
how nice that he thinks this is my happiest moment each day.
3. what makes mom sad? "when I'm naughty, or when I'm super naughty. "
I'm not sure what the difference is between naughty or super naughty.
4. how does mom make you laugh? "when you tickle me, except that I'm not ticklish "
this is a current super human trick that Wiley has just developed.
5. what was mom like as a child? "nice, . . . ahhhh pickles, I don't know"
Pickles is Wiley's swear word.
6. how old is your mom? "thirteen"
He means thirty but as usual he is just a little mixed up, there is no way I could pass for thirteen.
7. how tall is your mom? "hmmm...taller than daddy. "
This is funny, Ben heard this answer and laughed hard. I think he is just trying to be silly.
8. what is her favorite thing to do? "ummm play, actually that is a tricky question "
Play what, house? All my interests seem to involve my less-than-observant children, of course.
9. what does your mom do when you're not around? "you get my homework ready, I don't really know, why are you asking me such hard questions?"
Really, it seems as though he has no imagination at all.
10. if your mom becomes famous, what will it be for? "a famous Battleship player. you've beat dad like six times"
It's true I am good at Battleship, and lately we have played a lot of Battleship. I've quit cheating, that's the secret to my success!
11. what is your mom really good at? "uhh, checkers, but not baseball "
Checkers yes, because I don't just let Wiley win, although he always asks me to let him jump my players or not to jump his players. I guess I'm not that nice. Baseball on the other hand, we haven't played lately and I don't know where he gets that answer.
12. what is your mom not very good at? "video games, you gotta learn to play video games mom"
Yes that would be true...I'm not good at video games. If I were I think Wiley's respect for me might rise a bit.
13. what does your mom do for her job? "I don't know"
Does he think this is a trick question?
14. what is your mom's favorite food? "fondue"
This is actually Wiley's favorite food but it up on my list as well.
15. what makes you proud of your mom? "when you win games like battleship"
hey, maybe I don't have to learn how to play video games to be cool!!??
16. if your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be? "Superwondergirl. Mom, I'm not good at this game."
I think this is what he thinks I wanted him to say. he he
17. what do you and your mom do together? "we play, that's all, . . .actually lots of stuff, work too."
I like to crack a whip, what can I say?
18. how are you and your mom the same? "our hair."
He looked me up and down to answer this one.
19. how are you and your mom different? "our eyes, I have blue eyes, you have brown eyes right?"
Actually mine are hazel.
20. how do you know your mom loves you? "I can tell in my mind. . . cuz you are my mom. Mom is this the last question? I'm not the world answer questions boy. "
He is very fed up with answering questions! what a crack up.