Loving Pancake Covered Life

Ok peeps. I love being a parent. I really do.

But aren't there some days when you just want to hang up the towel?

Give up the ghost?

Give parenthood the old heave-ho?

Wow, I bet you're impressed with my cliche usage. I'll stop, I promise.

But I really had one of those days yesterday. It started super early in the morning with me shoving NutriGrain bars down my kids throats while trying to put their seat belts on. Breakfast at the Burke house. The dog (darn you Gordy!) wouldn't get out of the car. And Cam Cam kept feeding him little bites of her bar. Then screaming like a mad man when she realized it wasn't coming back to her. Then she would calm down. Feed Gordy. Scream over losing a bite. And this went on for probably four bites. Gordy was loving life. I was hating it.

Then I dropped Izzy off at school where I got a hearty "Congratulations" from a teacher. I honestly thought this was a sarcastic way of saying "Wow, you are on time." But I have been so good about being on time, I thought this behavior would be a little premature. Let's give it another month so I can really show them what being late means.

Come to find out, Izzy announced duirng circle sharing time that her mom was FINALLY marrying her boyfriend. Well doesn't that just make us sound like a happy family. I mean, we are FINALLY getting married.

Never mind the actual wedding that happened six years ago.

Things just went down hill from there. I will spare you the boring details. But later that night I was standing next to the kitchen table talking to my dad, who had just made pancakes. I swear that when you have kids, you lose all personal awareness. Izzy is always hanging all over me, so why would it ever be different?

Oh wait, she was lifting my shirt, sticking her fork on me and dragging a piece of syrup covered pancake down my back. Sweet. Syrup comes off easily you know. Especially in an easily reached location, such as your lower back.

I give up.

Merry Christmas Mom!

I did something really scary at work. REALLY SCARY!

I gave my notice.

AAAAHHHHHH!

Words cannot even express how difficult walking away from great people and 9 1/2 YEARS is going to be for me. But I'm excited to see where this new road takes us. My mom always said that being a stay at home mom benefited her and her kids and she wanted me to try it. I always felt like I was doing the right thing for my family but Chasey and I have decided to try something new and have me stay at home.

Starting November 5th, I will officially be a stay at home trophy wife who goes to school full time. CRAZY!!

I'm UnIdahoan

I was told by a coworker that I was unIdahoan.

I rectified the problem.

So now it's official, I AM an Idahoan. Forget the fact that I was born and raised here.

The peeps and I went to Bear World, a place I had never been to. Which I guess makes you unIdahoan. But now I have been. And let me tell you peeps, I found the whole experience to be exciting. The not-so-exciting part? It cost us $55. Wowza.

We saw an Albino Elk.

And we saw super cute bear cubs.

The most random part of the day was when this huge A grizzly bear parked himself in the middle of the road and wouldn't move. Yet the employee opened the gate out and motioned us to continue driving with no regard to the beast that less than five feet away from him.

Chase used the car to nudge the 1000+ bear out the way. And the bear didn't even care. Isn't there something wrong with a wild animal that doesn't react to a car pushing it away? What are we doing to the animals?

Not that I'm some kind of weird bear lover. I actually think the wild would be more enjoyable for me if all bears went away. But being that they are here, are we allowed to make freak shows out of them?

Hmmmm....

Cambri thought sitting next to this deer was awesome. I couldn't pull her away. I did object when she moved in for kisses. I had no idea what kind of diseases to fear but I know there are some.

Chase had fun because he talked Paula and I into stopping to fish. Seriously, he likes to fish more than he likes me. I'm probably not even lying.

The House Fairy Makes Me Beat You

My friend Paula invented the house fairy in order to motivate her children. It's a fairly basic concept. If you make your bed and keep your room clean, then the house fairy comes and leaves you presents. Isabelle has completely and utterly latched onto this concept. Every morning, she jumps out of bed and make it before even leaving to use the restroom. Once the house fairy actually made an appearance at the Golicova household, she was especially excited. Here is an actual conversation that went down last week. When she realized she forgot to make her bed. Not because I reminded her but because she remembered.

Katie: Let's go. I'm going to be late again.

Isabelle: Oh my gosh. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I forgot to make my bed. I'm so sorry.

Katie: Uuuh o.k.

Isabelle: Are you mad? Are you mad? I'm soooo sorry. I'm soo sorry. I'm going to do it right now.

Katie: Uuuuh o.k.

Isabelle: I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'll be right back.

Katie: Uuuuh o.k.

I was actually completely stunned. Happy but stunned. I have never made that kid make her bed ever. I'm sure it's a good habit but not one that seriously ever occurred to me. But this conversation left me feeling bad because it seemed like she was an abused child, scared to death of me. Which if you have ever read this blog, then you know this kid is not scared of anything, ESPECIALLY me. But it made me realize that this is important to her (yay!) and maybe the house fairy should make an appearance.

So when the princesses went down to bed, I left out their loot.

But little Izzy didn't want to wake up. Good thing Cam Cam got her excited.

The first thing out of her mouth was, "I need to call Tashy & Jhanny. The house fairy only left them rubberbands."

Paula's kids had gotten bend a roos the previous week. Not quite rubberbands.

The second thing out of her mouth was said with much outrage. "How come Cambri got something? She only messes things up."

Doesn't it seem like I'm always a step behind around here?

Animal Dander & Other Fun

Wow, it's already the week of the Eastern Idaho State Fair! Super fun! The fair always reminds me of my dear friend Holly for reasons I can't divulge on the public outlet. But I can tell you that it was always good times. Yesterday I ate a bambino, which also makes me think of Holly. It was like memory overload day.

But on with the point of this little story. Chase and I took the girls to the fair Sunday AND Monday night. I double committed us to two different parties (yes, we are popular) and so we just went twice. Poor Chasey starts swelling up like the marshmellow man though because of the animals so it can only be fun for so long. Your body can actually only handle so much Clairtin, I imagine. But not all animals turn Chase off.  I actually had to pry a puppy out of his hands. He reached down to pull out his wallet and I saw my opportunity or I kid you not, we would have another dog right now. I can barely handle the one we already own. And Chasey tries to bring home another one. I don't get him! Love him but don't get him. We always have this fight at the fair. It really is one of our favorite times of the year though. We always have fun.

Even little Cam Cam.

Hello! It's A River That's Barely Deeper Than My Knees!

So the Burke ladies went to good old Island Park over the weekend. For those of you who don't know, it's pretty much a get away staple for those of us in southeast Idaho. Staying in the cabin was nice and relaxing.
The real morale of this story is that Paula and I are super women. We paddled the Buffalo river with four kids. It's five miles peeps! And some of those hours were spent with a baby sleeping on my shoulder. Every time I rowed, I closed my eyes and hoped baby wouldn't wake up. Because when she wasn't sleeping, she was screaming. And if you have ever been in the great outdoors with people who are trying to fish while holding a screaming baby, then you understand the death glares I was getting.

 The guy at the dock actually had the nerve to say to us, "It's just you two women with four kids? You'll be out there all day!" I was ultra annoyed considering the deepest part of this river is probably no taller than my knees. PLUS I have floated this thing in the middle of DECEMBER (that was a shout out to you two, Megan & Star ;) GIVE ME A BREAK! I had to hold back the "Yup and being that it is the 21st century, woman are actually allowed to own land as well!" comment. Paula handles these things so much better than I, so I let her respond. She responded with such class when asking what he meant by that. I had mentally checked out at that point, so I can't tell you what he said. Probably something stupid.

While it was a lot of fun, it was still a lot of work. There wasn't a whole lot of floating going on. It was a heck of a lot of paddling. I love being on the water. But between passing out juice boxes, chips, crackers and handling a screaming baby, it was a lot more work that it probably should have been. That really doesn't matter because P and I learned that we could do it and make it work. And yes, with just us. Don't get me wrong, it would probably be easier with more people, just not necessary.

The tragic ending was when Paula fell in (here is her version). By the end of our journey, we were exhausted. I suggested she hop out and drag our boat to the dock. But her vision was compromised by her utter exhaustion and she ended up getting her foot stuck in the boat while already in the hopping out motion. I have a great photo memory of looking over my shoulder to see her shocked face being submerged in the water. My first instinct was to laugh, which I did. Of course then I was super embarrassed and quickly jumped up to help her out. She was completely under though. Ok, it's still kind of funny when I think about it :)

Yup, I would have to say the only negative part about this journey was this demon. She was a terror for certain parts of the trip. And it wasn't like we could just pull over and be done with it. We were committed and she was committed to being naughty. At one point, I was considering hooking her life jacket to the bow and using her as screaming ornament to alert bears, elk and moose that we were coming, but I fought the urge. But once she fell asleep, we started having fun again.

Of course that involved me ROWING with a sleeping BABY on my shoulder. Yes Chase does tell me the story gets more and more dramatic every time I tell it. But I ROWED a BOAT with a SLEEPING BABY on my lap. Doesn't that qualify me for some kind of award?

I Can't Help Myself

A few of you know that I just had the girls pictures taken around Izzy's birthday. AND that really was going to be it for the year.

But then my friend Paula was going to have her girls done and she found an AWESOME photographer to do it. And she volunteered to take my girls along for the ride.

Seriously, how could I say no? They are constantly changing and I love photos. I'm an addict. So they went.

And now I am the proud owner of these pictures. I really think I'm the winner in all of this.

Aren't they pretty?