Dreams

Dear naked black man with flies buzzing all around and your injured dogs laying in the streets...Please stay out of my dreams!

This is one reason why I never explain my dreams...Because I don't understand them myself!

Comfortable In My Own Skin

I like to think of myself as "comfortable in my own skin" Sure, I don't wear make-up, I don't even own make-up. In fact the only make-up in this house has pictures of Hannah Montana on it and resides in a Hello Kitty purse in my daughter's room. I keep my womanly figure by eating my kids' leftovers and doing it in between feeding rice cereal to my 6 month old as well as attending the gym whenever I "feel" like it. For the past six months I've been basically a functioning zombie. I'm often caught in public with wrinkled clothes with the delectable scent of spit up as my heavenly aroma. My hair does get brushed and most days my teeth too. I put a bra on before I leave the house but not necessarily when I go out to get the mail. I try to take a shower once a day even if I don't wash my hair or shave my legs and lotion gets put on only out of necessity, like when I am wearing shorts or capri's. But I am comfortable in my skin.
So I've been playing on this website called myHeritage.com. It's quite fun. There are a lot of different adventures one can go on using photos of themselves or whomever. One adventure is the Celebrity Look A-Like. You upload a picture of yourself and then the computer gives you pictures of celebrities that look like you. Knowing that I was most likely going to post it on this blog, I picked out what I thought was a decent almost really good picture of myself and this is what I got:
MyHeritage - free family trees, genealogy and face recognition">
Who would have thought that I looked like a black male??? And who the heck is Kian Egan? Cate Blanchett, Stevie Nicks...am I really that old looking? Come on! Maybe I should go blond... so I can really resemble Sharpay... errr, I mean, Ashley Tisdale. I wasn't satisfied so I decided to try a different photo of me. and this is what I got:
MyHeritage - free family trees, genealogy and face recognition">
All Males! This sure gave my femininity a boost! Apparently I look Hispanic seeing everyone except for that blond headed Backstreet Boys little brother were Hispanic. So, I decided to use yet another photo. When I picked this photo out, I thought that I would use something more of myself, something that captured how I really feel day in and day out...and this is what I got:
MyHeritage - free family trees, genealogy and face recognition">
FINALLY some Freakin' HOT sexy chicks! I knew I had it in me. I learned a lesson today...When you're just being yourself, being who you really are...You're a Freakin' Hot Sexy Chick!

Growing Up

I got Carly's six month pictures done last week. Ok, so she's almost 7 months, but I have to give myself props for getting her pictures done before she actually turned 7 months (yay Rachael!) I was worried about getting them done because let's just say that Carly isn't the "happiest" baby on earth, so I wasn't sure how the session was going to go. I've got to say, it was better than expected. Since Carly has learned to sit up, she's been a much happier baby and it sure shows in her pictures. I have a feeling that Carly is going to walk before she rolls over :-)


When I had only a few kids, I got their pictures done every six months. Since I'm not that crazy anymore (or maybe I'm just in denial), I've cut down to once a year around their birthdays. Since Raya turned 9 in June and Malia 6 in May, I took them along on this rather eventful day. When I got there, I thought that maybe I should have gotten Ethan's done too. I was kind of disappointed in myself for not dressing him accordingly. I got home and looked at his 4 year picture...ya, he looks the same so I'm good!

Tag...You're It!

Before I begin, I have to say that Carly is helping me type this email soooooo just in case I miss any corrections, you won't think I flunked spelling in school...

So I've been tagged (whatever that means). I guess I am supposed to fill out a questionair of sorts and tag someone else. This ones for you Marivic!

4 Places I frequently visit:

1. The Pediatrician
2. The Gym
3. San Francisco
4. Utah

4 People who Call/Text/Email regularly:

1. Patrick
2. My sister Sarah
3. My Dad
4. and the email forwarding queen Lisa

4 Favorite Foods:

1. Fair Oaks Roll from Wasabi Sushi
2. Ice Cream
3. Chicken and Rice
4. Panzit (I think that's how you spell it)

4 Places I'd rather be:

1. Getting a Massage
2. Disneyland
3. Lake Tahoe Cabin Scrapbooking
4. Sleeping un-interrutpted

4 Movies I'd watch over and over:

1. The Illusionist
2. All Harry Potters
3. Cool Running's
4. Happy Gilmore

4 Bands I like to listen to:

1. Journey
2. Van Halen
3. Jack Johnson (I know he's not a band but he has a band :-)
4. Rusted Root

4 People I'm tagging are:

1. Stasia
2. Evonne
3. Jen Cudney
4. Christine

We've Upgrated!

My 14 year old car has finally met its match. I'm sad to see it go because it has been such a great car, but I am happy to announce the new arrival to our family!





We've upgrated to a newer version of our old car. We absolutely loved our Mazda MPV, so much that we got the same car (only newer!) I'm super excited!

My Vespa!

I sometimes enter contests online, but I am very skeptical when it comes to getting emails saying that I won something. I received an email last week from someone claiming that I won a contest from a radio station. It didn't say WHAT I won. I was skeptical but kept thinking about it because I did enter some contests from this particular radio station. After a lot of investigation work, I found that the person emailing me did in fact work for the radio station, so I called him. Turns out that I haven't actually won anything but I did qualify to win a 2008 LX50 Vespa from a local dealer. On August 2nd, I get to go down to Roseville Vespa along with 19 other people and get a key. If the key starts the Vespa...It's mine. It also pays for my M1license fee, but not tax and registration (Of course). I called Patrick to tell him. He was somewhat excited but said chances weren't very good. He proceeded to ask me to pick the number he was thinking of between 1 and 20. I chose 17...That was the number he was thinking of. I then said "I just won a Vespa!" With gas prices the way they are today, and a Vespa getting 70 miles per gallon, if I win, this will save us a ton of money in gas because Patrick would be riding it to work and with all that money we will save, maybe I will get a new van! I'm sooooo totally excited. I'll keep you all posted!

Those Crazy Genes

A few weeks ago, I was in a dead sleep and Patrick being soooo considerate woke me up at 1:30am to view a picture of his grandmother as a teenager. He asked me who I thought she looked like. With blurry eyes and a scrambled brain, I told him to just tell me so I didn't have to actually think about it. He said "Raya". So I rubbed my eyes and looked closer. Sure enough, I saw Raya in Grandma Giannini's 17 year old picture.

A year and a half ago, my paternal grandmother passed away. She was 78 years old. It wasn't until after she passed away that I was able to see pictures of my dad's side of the family from years ago. I scanned all the pictures into the computer for later access. I've been working on a book for my dad's birthday with all these pictures put into it. I've never been one to get excited about family history and even though we have been asked to do it, I thought that it would have to wait until the kids are grown so that I would have time to do it. I now know why people get excited about family history! Too see where one has come from. To hear the stories mostly good and some not so much of grandmother's and grandfather's who lived and died before you were even born.
Looking at the pictures of my dad from when he was a baby, toddler, child, young man...adult...I saw all 3 of my brother's in various stages of their lives in those pictures.






I saw pictures of my parents when they were 16 and 17 years old...together...as a couple.


I saw one of the earliest pictures we have of my grandfather, John Fox Poindexter (Who Carly Fox was named after) when he was about 15 years old. Viewing all his pictures brought back sooo many memories of him. I was 7 when he died.

and some of my grandmother when she was 9 years old.

These pictures are almost 80 years old. I couldn't help as I looked at blurry pictures as well as shots where the subject isn't looking at the camera and think how we take our digital camera's for granted. It had to cost a lot of money for the pictures of those days to get developed and now we can take the "perfect" picture and not even have to print them out to view it!
When viewing these pictures, I came across one that looked dead on with Malia. I did a comparasion below.
This is my Aunt Patty, my dad's sister

and this is Malia. I swear I have a better picture but for the sake of saving some time...this one will do

I was able to reminise of times when I was a child. Seeing baby pictures of me sucking my thumb and seeing Carly's eyes in mine was amazing.

Looking at pictures of me when I was my own kids' ages, the hairstyle's of those days (can you say 80's scrunchy?), and laughing that I even wore that particualr outfit was fun.






I guess what I am trying to say is that, I am my own self, yet the genes are carried from generation to generation and somehow when looking at old pictures of relative's, you see yourself.

Surgery Day

Hydrocele (Websters Dictionary)
[hahy-druh-seel]
A collection of serous fluid in the areolar texture of the scrotum or in the coverings, especially in the serous sac, investing the testicle or the spermatic cord; dropsy of the testicle.

Hydrocele (Durling Dictionary)
Before a male is born, his testicles are formed in his stomach. Right before birth they drop into the scrotum. In most cases, the pathway the testis make will close shortly after birth or by the time the child is 3 years of age, but in some cases this pathway is left open causing mostly hernia's (intestine falling into the opening left by the testis). In Ethan's case, this opening didn't become visible until he was 3 years old having his bouts with croup. When he went into the emergency room, the doctor initially thought it was a hernia and sedated him to push it back up into place and told us that he may need to have emergency surgery. When the "hernia" wasn't cooperating, the doctors decided to do an ultrasound finding that it was not a hernia but a hydrocele. So basically, a hydrocele is very similar to a hernia (they are surgically fixed the same way)only the pathway is filled with fluid rather than intestine.




We were supposed to be at the hospital at 8:30am for a 10:30 procedure time. Grandma Durling (Patrick's mom) came along to help with Carly while Patrick worked from the waiting room and the older girls went to our home teachers for the day. After checking in and waiting we were told that our scheduled time had been moved to 1:30 because the anesthesiologist got hung up in another surgery. I was so disappointed because I knew that Ethan would be getting hungry real quick seeing he hadn't eaten since dinner the night before.



During the waiting time, we were escorted to the 6th floor up to the pediatric unit where all the sick children with cancer and other diseases were. We were able to play in the playroom. They had painting, trucks, trains, fish...all sorts of fun things to do. Ethan told me only once that he was hungry. My dad was able to come and he helped out with Ethan during that waiting time while I ran back downstairs to feed Carly during which the nurses called upstairs and said that they called another anesthesiologist to come in. Thank goodness! We didn't have to wait 3 extra hours. In fact, Ethan went into surgery only 45 minutes after his scheduled time. The nurses gave Ethan some medicine to help make him loopy that also had an amnesia effect so that he wouldn't remember being separated from us. During this time, he was given a huge box of brand new toys that he was able to choose one of to bring home with him. He chose a cylinder of dinosaurs. By this time, Ethan was about ready to fall asleep. The anesthesiologist picked Ethan up and carried him in her arms to the surgery room. The waiting game began. We were told that the surgery would last about an hour if the doctor only had to do the one side. She was going to scope out the opposite side to see if it too needed repair, but she possibly couldn't due to the opening size of the left side. If she was able to see that the right side needed fixing then it would be about an hour and a half procedure. About 45 minutes later, the doctor appeared saying all went well and that in about 10 minutes we would be able to go back to be with Ethan when he woke up. It was about 45 minutes later when they finally called us back. Of course I was freaking out thinking that something terrible had gone wrong and that is why it was taking so long for us to go back to him. Turns out that he was just snoozing away.




Patrick and I went back to recovery and tried with the help of 3 nurses and the anesthesiologist to wake Ethan up, but he just wouldn't wake up. We were told he should be awake within 45 minutes of going to recovery. Recovering shipped him off back to the starting place where patients wait to go into surgery to let him sleep because it was taking so long. The nurses were so nice there. They didn't rush him and he was able to wake up on his own terms 3 and half hours late!.



I rubbed him and tickled him and he started moving around and when he finally came through, the first thing he said was that he wanted to take his dinosaurs home. He wasn't supposed to remember the dinosaurs because of the amnesia medicine, but those dinosaurs were very special to him I guess. He came out of his sleep so well. He didn't throw up nor did he have a tummy ache. He was very thirsty but we were only able to let him have a few sips at a time until we knew how his tummy would react. He sat up, he felt ok and then I asked if he had any owies. He nodded yes and pointed to his throat. Since he was under general anesthesia, he had a tube down his throat. In fact, when we first went back to be with him in recovery, they still had a partial tube in his mouth. Pulling that out didn't even wake him up.



The nurse said we could keep Ethan's hospital outfit. Why was I excited about that? Perhaps it's the memories that we'll have looking at it in 20 years. Ethan was able to ride in a wheel chair out to the smoldering hot 108 degree smoky weather. It was the worse ride home. The smoke was ridiculous from all the forest fires going on. At one point, we thought that there must had been a grass fire off the side of the rode because it was sooo dang smokey. Turns out, there wasn't. It was just in the air.
Ethan has a very small sutured "oweie" He hasn't complained once about it. It's mostly his throat that he complains about.




He has a sweet Nascar waterproof band-aid covering it. He will be able to take baths in a couple of days and eventually the band-aid will fall off. He is doing very well and now the trick is, trying to make sure he doesn't climb, straddle or do anything crazy for the next week or so. He's 3 and 3 year olds don't sit still, even after surgery!

Do What is Right!

Wanna see what the Durling's do to keep themselves busy? Check out Ethan's acting debut below...Yes, I am grooming my children for stardom :)Ok, not really but it sure is fun!

4th of July Festivities

Happy 4th of July! I could hardly believe I had to wear a sweater on the 4th of July. I was freezing! Of course it was 8am. We enjoyed a pancake breakfast at the church followed by an awesome parade of the Primary kids (and moms and bishops...ok, anyone who wanted to join in)on bikes, scooters, foot and even wagons! Everyone dressed up their transportation in Red, White and Blue and strutted their stuff in the church parking lot.

Raya dressed up in her Betsy Ross costume I purchased a few months back for a book report. I am sure glad that we were able to get more use out of it! Before the parade even started, she fell off her bike and scraped her elbow. She buried her face in Patrick's side hoping that no one would see her cry! She was able to get through it and show off her hard work of decorating her bike during the parade.

Malia was little miss speed demon! Every time she would turn a corner, I would get nervous thinking that she was going to fall and that would be the end of her good mood. Although she did suffer a scrape on her foot, the ticker of a massive meltdown was when her red star balloon, floated off into the blue sky. We hadn't gotten our family picture taken before that, so as you can see in the top picture, Malia was not a happy girl.

Ethan decided he was going to cut people off on his trike. A little girl had brought a motorized barbie jeep thing and Ethan kept cutting in front of her. The dad of the little girl claimed to us that he didn't have insurance on the vehicle. He also claimed that we should go around to every body's bikes who had balloons on them and cut them off to make Malia feel happy. Ethan really enjoyed riding his bike around but the best part for him was when the garbage truck came to get the garbage.

Carly, was happy if she was being held (of course). Grandma was holding her mostly, then daddy and then I put her in her carseat and she fell asleep.

After a nice nap, we went shopping at the outlets. Patrick got some clothes and shoes and I got some new converse! The girls also got converse for $10 each! We spent way too much money but hey, I got some converse...

As far as fireworks go...My children hate fireworks. They are so scared of them. Last weekend we went up to Rocklin and watched a very cool firework show and Ethan stayed in the car with his ears covered the whole time. The girls eventually joined him, but Carly sat in amazement watching the bright lights in the sky. Our neighbors bought a bunch of fireworks and so we went outside and watched them. It wasn't long before Ethan said he wanted to go inside. So I took Ethan inside and we watched the Macy's 4th of July Spectacular firework show on TV. Raya and Malia made it through all the fireworks. I think we are making progress with them. One of the biggest highlights of the day was when Raya got a phone call from one of our really good friends Jason. Jason and his family drove out to Utah for the "Stadium of Fire" Firework show at the BYU Campus. Hannah Montana was a performer there and Jason called us during her segment and let Raya sit and listen to it live. I swear, if I would have known about it, I would have flown her out there or whatever and got her a ticket so she could see that. Our buddy said that tickets were about $35 a piece which sure beats the thousands of dollars people were paying for Hannah Montana tickets during her last tour. Anyway, despite a few meltdowns, we had a great day together as a family (as always, or at least most of the time :)

Sittin' Pretty!

You are probably wondering how on earth I could post twice in one day with the demands of having 4 kids...The truth is, I just couldn't resist posting about my Carly Fox. Today she turned six months old and has learned a new trick. The girl can't roll over yet, BUT she can sit up now. I guess she's going to be "one of those kids"...Who knows maybe my next "look at what my kid can do" post will be her walking because she skipped everything else. Ever since her double ear infection a month ago, she has figured out that if she cries long enough, mom will come and hold her and now she has got me wrapped around her whole body, but honestly...who could resist those adorable blue eyes?