Potty training a 2 year old

So Ashton has been working on the whole potty training thing. It has been successful-he wears underwear every day with only occasional issues. I had learn new vocabulary because apparently boys don't wear panties. Thay wear underwear. Who knew? Anyway, Jason decided to teach Ashton how to stand up to pee. The only problem we ran into was him forgetting to put up both seats. That is, until yesterday. All I'm going to say is that Jason obviously forgot to tell him that you cannot poop from a standing position. Yeeaah. Kind of an messy mistake.

Stalking myself

So because I got sucked into my computer today, I was randomly searching for things on the web. I decided to type my maiden name into google and see what I got. Well to my surprise, I found out that an experience I had submitted to the BYU Alumni magazine like 4 years ago had been put in their online section. Cool huh! I also found out that it would be pretty easy to find me if anyone was looking. I'm not sure if that's good or bad...
Anyway here is the story from the magazine:

California Dreaming
Nikkie Garrison Benson, ’93, Sandy, Utah
I will always remember a road trip I took over Presidents’ Day weekend in 1993. Seven of us took two cars and started early in the morning on our way to Los Angeles. We lost track of each other part way through the trip and, because these were pre–cell phone days, we had no way of communicating. Our solution was to pull over and stand on the side of the freeway until the other car came into sight. We did line dances, waved at cars, and got truckers to blow their horns as we waited. We have hilarious pictures to remind us of our craziness.
We made it to Los Angeles and stayed at the home of a friend, toured the “new” San Diego California Temple, and ate at a fancy restaurant. That night we drove to Mexico to stay at a friend’s beach house. We went dancing and drank virgin pina coladas and had fun flirting with the locals. As we drove out through Tijuana the next day, we had fun trying out our Spanish while we bought blankets and souvenirs.
The most memorable part of the trip, however, was the conversation. We talked about everything. In particular, I had a boy I was dating that I wasn’t very interested in; as we started talking about relationships, I realized that this boy had some really good qualities that maybe I should think twice about. I decided that when we got back I would give him a real chance instead of just thinking about how to get rid of him. We wound up getting engaged just one month later and have now been married for 11 years. That road trip gave me some awesome memories, international experience (I had never left the United States before this), and the opportunity to “meet” the man I would eventually marry.

Bon Jovi, as sung by Kelsie

"Shot through the heart and you're too laaame, you give love a band aid; you give lo-ove a band aid".
Jason downloaded some of my music onto a MP3 player that Kelsie got for christmas, it's very educational to hear your 7 year old's version of some of the lyrics. For anyone who doesn't know the real lyrics-"shot through the heart, and you're to blame, you give love a bad name". I bet Jon would laugh too if he heard her sing it.

A new year, a new blog

I decided that I wanted to try a new blogging platform this year. I liked typepad, but the photo upload was soo slow and some parts of it just weren't very user friendly. Since my renewal is coming up, I decided to try blogspot and see if it works out better for me. I know that you usually get what you pay for (which is why I started with typepad) but I am hoping that the milllions of people who use blogspot are an indication that it works just as well if not better. And really-free is always good!

January is off to a great start! We spent New Year's day with the family and got in a lot of "together" time before the kids went back to school. The first week back was a little rough-we were all way too used to staying up late and sleeping in. This week we have been able to get back into a normal schedule at last.

For Christmas Jason gave me a laser hair removal package. I had my first appointment last week. I had decided to do my bikini area, 'cause truthfully, that is the biggest pain in the summer. I wasn't sure what to expect in terms of pain, but the people had assured me that if I could handle waxing than this was a piece of cake. When I went to my appointment the first thing the lady said to me was "did they tell you this was going to hurt?" I was kind taken back and she continued "this really hurts a lot". I was thinking great, what have I gotten myself into? Well, she was right. It hurt A LOT! Think about a razor sharp, red hot, staple gun methodically stapling you over and over. Sound nice? Yeah, I didn't like it either. The lady who was doing it was a little surprised at my pain levels and told me that people usually tolerated even higher levels with no problem. I guess I'm a wimp. Although I did find out in parting that apparently your pain threshold in that area can be much lower when it is close to that time of the month. I made sure to schedule my next appointment so that hopefully my pain tolerance would be much better. Before you reconsider ever having this done, the pain was only present when she was doing the treatment. As soon as she stopped I was fine and there was very little redness or tenderness in the areas that were treated. I will make sure and let you know how the next appointment goes-'cause darn it, I am going to do this!!!

I am currently sick with strep throat but don't feel very bad physically. I am taking advantage of my "sick" day to get all this blogging done and organize our pictures. I bet I can even get Jason to fix dinner-or at least order out. Maybe I could spend the night watching tv without feeling guilty for my messy house. Hmmm, sometimes I love to be sick!!