Stress Out for Spring

*****WARNING*****VENTING POST******FEEL FREE TO MOVE ON*******

For the past several years, March and April have tended to be my biggest stress out months of the year.

Three years ago March: my grandfather passed away, we all drove out to his funeral only to total our rental car in a head on collision on the San Diego freeway 2 days after his funeral. I had another small car accident a couple of days after coming home. In April, I refinanced my house, fell off the bathroom counter and broke my wrist, and we had family issues.

Two years ago March: Harvey transitioned jobs after a lay off and found myself pregnant unexpectedly. In April, my grandmother passed away, I flew out to her funeral by myself this time(with my parents,) we excavated and finished our secret room and we had family issues.

Last year March: Kelty was in the hospital with RSV, both my kiddos got TERRIBLE haircuts and Kyra was mortified. We had major familiy issues.

That brings us to this year. Granted trauma gets less and less each year. In fact, I thought that we might be skipping it all together this year but, it is starting to creep up on us. Over the past 2 weeks, Kyra has missed four full days of school and 4 half days of school. That is not good. I had to pull her out of school today after only an hour and a half of being there because the doctor called and said that her strep test cooked positive. She wont be there tomorrow either.

Kaeson was finally diagnosed. That was quite a relief to me and I immediately started a treatment that I thought would help him out. I have now been talking to my pediatrican who very strongly disagrees with the diagnosis. I trust her implicitly, so we are back to square one with seeing a new specialist. To boot, today he opened and drank half a bottle of Benadryl (when I was out of the room for literally 5 seconds or less) warranting another call to Poison Control. That brings us up to...easily 25 calls to Poison Control.

Kelty, well, poor kid has yet another ear infection.

I have been talking to several friends lately and have been misunderstood several times. I am not easily offended but, I tend to get very upset if I think that I have offended someone else. That stresses me out more than anything else in the world.

And we have had family issues. All of this has had me breaking my diet all over the place with overdoses of cream cheese, cookie dough, chocolate, ice cream and diet coke! To boot...I have a 5K in a month and haven't run since December! AAAAAARGH!

So, if I have seemed in a bad mood, distant or we haven't seen eye to eye or I have offended you, please forgive me and just know that I love you anyway and it is just my time of the year. Be patient, I will get a grip sooner or later!

Good Prank, Naivity or Am I Just An Idiot?

My dad is the king of April Fools jokes. Every year he would come up with a fabulous one and I just never seemed to catch on. So, this year in the spirit of April Fools Day, I thought that I would share one of his greatest. Now, keep in mind that I really was old enough to have caught on to this one sooner. However, I may just be the most gullible person on the planet.

One morning our parents came up to us with a frantic look in their eyes and told us what they had just seen on the news. Apparently, some person made an attempt at releasing a snake back into the wild by dumping it into the sewer system. This snake had then gone to fight its way through the city pipes and had appeared in the homes of several people in the Salt Lake Valley (the more I type, the more I can not believe that I believed this. Oh, well.)

At one residence, it had popped up and eaten a small dog. At another, this time the home of a little old lady, it had come up while she was using the potty and bit her on her fragile little behind. Oh, did those stories get to me! I immediately took my little toy poodle and locked him safely away inside of his kennel. We ran around the house securing the other pets safely into rooms without plumbing. I called all of my friends and told them to tape down their toilet seats so that they could spare their behinds from the wrath of the sewer snake.

It gets worse.....

My parents, seeing that they had completely duped us all, carried this prank a little further. They came to us moments later and said that the news released a broadcast that if anyone was able to capture the snake and keep it until animal services arrived, they would be given a cash reward.

Well, dollar signs appeared in each of our eyes. We knew that if anyone could catch that slithery beast it could be us... The Griner Gang. My brothers went and fashioned make shift fishing poles using serving tongs and dental floss. For bait, they tied pieces of hot dogs and lunch meat to the ends of the end of the floss. We all spent the next 30 minutes atleast huddled around the toilet flushing these tasty treats in hopes that we could entice the serpent into our bathroom. Can you imagine that. Seeing 5 kids fishing in the toilet.

I don't remember if my parents took pictures or not. For my sake I hope that they didn't. The mental image is more than enough for me! When they finally did start to feel bad that their children were trying to earn money by sewer surfing, they told us that it was just a prank. I think that several mintutes passed before we realized what they were saying.

As humilated as I felt that I had taken part in the fishing expedition, I felt even more stupid as I called all of my friends back (who obviously had already figured out that it was April Fools Day) and told them that I was indeed mistaken.

As often as I claim that I have learned my lesson and wont fall for another obviously stupid story that couldn't possibly be true, I turn around and fall for another one. So you tell me, are they good pranks, and I just naive or am I just an idiot?

Griner Family Get Together

Isn't this what you do at your family get togethers? Funny thing is, this doesn't seem strange to me at all. Oh, and this is the day that my brother brings his girlfriend over to meet the family for the first time. If she can get past this, she can get past anything!!!! Lucky for us, she joined right in!

My Family

As many of you know, I am the oldest of 8 children. I have 5 brothers and 2 sisters. My parents had 5 of us in just under 6 years, waited 10 years and then had 3 more. I am 18 years older than my little sister. Then, to boot, we all of our names start with "D," have two syllables in them and none of us have middle names! How is that for fun! Here we are listed by in our birth order: Darci, Derek, Devan, Dustin, Downi, Dalton, Daynon, Danza. Can you say that even one time fast???

This picture is of most of my family. I do have a brother, Devan, that lives back East with his wife and new baby son. Everyone else is in the picture though. Here we are in the picture from left to right:

My mom (Michelle,) Creamy the cat, Dustin, Derek, Kyra, Daynon, Dalton, Me (Darci,) Kaeson, Downi, Danza, Kelton, Harvey, My dad (George)

Outside

After coming home from a warm weekend in Moab, we were bombarded with snow. Lots and lots of cold and snow. If you know me at all, you know how much I HATE snow. I can handle it on Christmas and that is just about it.

Well, today the sun was out but it was still rather cold but, I couldn't keep the kiddos inside for one second longer or there would have been mutiny here in Francoville. We headed out to the front yard to ride scooters and play soccer. I was freezing (nothing new) but the kids loved it. We had to come inside once to warm up and get a snack. However, it wasn't long before we were all out again!

I let the kiddos use the camera again and these are the shots that they got! (Don't mind the state of the yard! I PROMISE that I am going to work on it this year!

Red Cliffs Lodge

I found something new to put on my bucket list. When we were down in Moab this past weekend, we passed a lodge nestled up in the hills. What a fun place. This lodge is made up of a series of cabins that line the Colorado river. Each cabin has it's own private deck that looks over the river. It seems like such a fun, romantic hideaway. I usually don't get excited over hotels. However, this one certainly caught my attention. It got me excited to go stay there someday. I am definantly putting this on my someday list.

Hiking in Arches

Moab Half Marathon

Atleast once a year we head on a road trip that is completely based around one of Harvey's runs. We have been to the St. George Marathon more about 5 times. This year Harvey decided to join Lou on the Moab Half Marathon. I have never been to Moab so despite the fact that these road trips are extremely stressful for me, I was excited to go.

I was up until 4:00 a.m. Thursday night finishing laundry, packing and getting stuff together. That sounds terrible until I tell you that I was up watching a movie with a friend until 1:30 a.m. So, I was tired from the getgo. I assumed the kiddos would sleep on the trip down. NOPE! Not a wink. We ended up with some cranky little kiddos. One of which has an ear infection. I will also admit that I was starting to walk on the cranky side too!!





The scenery was beautiful and the drive down was peaceful. Last night was not as much fun. Kelty would not go to sleep and was up forever crying. I finally had to take him on a walk at 11:30!

Today couldn't have been prettier for the run. It was beautiful and just the perfect temperature. See, I need to move to a place like Moab. I have had it with the snow! Harvey and Lou did great on the run and came in sooner than they had expected.








Then, we spend the rest of the afternoon at the pool. That was certainly fun for the kiddos. They loved every single last second of it. I am now hoping that they will fall asleep EARLY and let me get some rest tonight!!! I am not holding my breath though!!

Being a Mother of 3

My mom brought this over to me and could barely contain herself she was laughing so hard. I do have to agree with her though. A lot of times, this is a very good example of how my days go.

Teaching Them Early

As a mom, you rarely get a moment to yourself. That is true in my case atleast. I often feel like I am running like crazy and trying to work everything into a single moment.

Lately, instead of waking up an extra half hour earlier, I have been fitting my shower in after I drop the kiddos off at school. This means that Toad is on the loose. Well, he generally just stands at the shower door and cries until I let him in. Sometimes he even hops in fully clothed.

I hadn't realized how much of a habit this had become until yesterday when I noticed that he was copying my "shower routine" nearly to the T. Yes, I have a routine. I am a bit OCD on shaving my legs and do it every day. I usually give Toad a bit of shower foam to play with while I am in there. Well, yesterday, I noticed that Toad put the foam on his legs and was trying to shave them using a plastic Winnie the Pooh tub toy. Yes, I am getting the hint that I now need to get up a half hour earlier and get my shower done before the kids wake up. The last thing that I need is to have Toad grow up and thinking that he has to shave his legs to go to kindergarten.

TMI? Who knows. Just thought that you might enjoy this part of mommyhood.