Hello, is Mr. Petersen there? Anywhere?

Earlier in the week (when it was nice and warm) we received a large box that was shipped from Tennessee with some vaccine in it. Matt ordered the vaccine and they 2nd day shipped it in the box below. The vaccine needs to be refrigerated so they threw in 2 ice packs. When it arrived, the vaccine was warm and so were the ice packs.

Crap! I had to call the company and tell them what happened. They told me "sorry" and that they would ship more out to me. The next day we received another box shipped once again from Tennessee. I expected a SMALLER box, but as you can see, it was a LARGER box. (The picture below.) They threw in 6 ice packs this time and they overnighted it. The vaccine was cold and the ice packs were still semi frozen and very cold also. Lucky schmucky, when I saw the huge box I was truly concerned with someone's reasoning.

Here is the kicker, the vaccine Matt ordered was ONE, yes one, little 10 dose tank that holds about 1/4 cup of liquid. Kendal is holding it up for you to see. It is that tiny little pinkish reddish thing in the big baggie. Now tell me, what kind of box would YOU package one little vaccine tank in if you wanted it to go across the nation and stay cold? I personally would think a shoe box size would work great, not television size!! Please note the 6 ice packs in the Olympic sized box.

I had an amazing science teacher in high school, Mr. Petersen. He did such a great job at teaching me science, he made me want to become a science teacher too. Not only did he inspire me, he inspired many kids and taught us all quite a bit. There were kids in my class and I am sure other classes that did not love science like I did, but he still taught them well enough to know this - If you are shipping something that needs to stay cold from Tennessee to Utah and the weather is nice, you need more than 2 ice packs and it sure would be nice to confine the area a little bit so it will stay cooler longer. I want to know who packaged this and what they were thinking! Everyone should have a Mr. Petersen, or at least some common sense in their brain!

This same company did this last summer, in July!! Gimme a break people! That little tank of vaccine cost Matt $211.00 and now we have one tank that is no good because it got warm. By the way, we will not be paying for that one. They are sending a 'call tag' for that one so we can return it. Maybe if they used their brains, they could lower the vaccine prices so they wouldn't have to pay for all the warm vaccine that gets shipped all over and gets ruined. People, people, people. Mr. Petersen, where are you?!?!?!

Redenbacher Fever

I cleaned out one of my cupboards yesterday - NOTE TO SELF: DO NOT BUY ANYMORE MICROWAVE POPCORN, EVEN IF IT IS ON SOME KILLER SALE!!!

I have 14 boxes of popcorn in my cupboard. All different brands, all levels of butter, all ridiculous. Anyone wanna come over for a movie? Bring one that won't make me angry at the ending!!

Another wonderful Tuesday

Matt was home all day yesterday and it was a great, busy day. The girls rode their scooters to school in the morning while I walked. BIG MISTAKE! It took Kendal 18 minutes to ride DOWNHILL about 6 blocks. She can walk faster than she can scoot! She was so cute though, she kept stopping and saying "my yeg hurts mom" and rubbing her tight little thigh. I told her to change legs and she tried it once or twice and then said "No, yis one feels better"and then she would change back to the other leg.

Matt mowed the lawn while I stained the deck. That worked out great. Matt HATES yardwork and mowing the lawn, but he is a good guy and did it just for me. Emmitt usually sleeps the morning away, but he didn't yesterday which made it a little hard. I also got to clean out a few flowers beds and just play in the dirt. It was a wonderful afternoon. Matt had to go look at a horse and took Kendal to help. It is kind of nice when he can work here in town!!

Kelsey had a soccer game at 6:00. This year she plays with just 7 and 8 year old girls. It is a WHOLE lot different from the past 2 years! They actually PLAY soccer. I was amazed at how good the girls are and how aggressive they are! Holy smokes!

Kendal wouldn't leave the corner cone alone so Matt had to tickle her with it for a good 15 minutes to keep her busy. I have gone to the 2 previous soccer games alone and in the rain/wind/cold. It was wonderful to have Matt at this game to keep Kendal busy.

Kelsey is #4 and I am amazed at how well she plays. They say you play as well as those you play with or against. It is so true. She is a little scrapper and gets in there really well.

Emmitt was an angel during the soccer game. Thank Goodness! After the soccer game Matt had to go check out a sick dog and I got a hair cut! It was a wonderful evening. The girls were in bed before 9:00 which is okay I guess. Their bedtime has been 8:30 all winter and now that it is so light and nice, it is hard to get them to bed at 8:30 anymore. They were in bed at 8:30 the past few nights and Kelsey complained that she had to go to bed when it was still light outside. The joys of spring and summer!

Yesterday was Emmitt's 4 week birthday. He is getting bigger and I am feeling better. The bounce back from #3 baby sure has taken longer than the other 2!

Message in a Bottle

I am working on a crazy, fun quilting project with a couple of other ladies. We all have "homework" that we need to do on our own and then when we get together, we put it all together and reassign more "homework" so we can finish the quilt. So last night I did some of my homework. I was supposed to make 20ish little fabric circles called yo yos. I knew I would be doing this, so yesterday when Kendal and I were at the library, I got a movie to watch while I made the yo yos. I haven't watched a movie in a long time and I wanted something girly and romantic. I picked up the movie Message in a Bottle.

It looked girly and chick flicky and it wasn't rated R - perfect.

After the girls got put to bed, Emmitt and I stayed up and made yo yos and watched this movie. It is now on my Really Don't Like/Make Me Cry in a Bad Way movie list. It does not end happy! Movies that are totally predictable are not that fun, but then neither are the movies that end horribly!! This one ended horrible. I went to bed at midnight with my yo yos completed and with a snotty headache from crying, PLUS a horrible feeling in my heart from the story ending so terribly!

I was talking to my sister in law over Easter and she doesn't like the movie In Love and War for the same reason. Amanda and I watched that movie together and I agree. Why do they have to make movies that make you feel bad? I know life is not a bowl of cherries all the time, but I like movies that are or at least make you feel like everything will work out! By the way, I love Sandra Bullock movies, all but this one.

So this afternoon I was talking to my neighbor Debbie about my yo yo making evening and what a crappy movie I had watched. She mentioned another movie that fits in the same category - City of Angels. I watched this one a long time ago, but it ends up tragic too! I don't want to live in a fairytale world where things are always perfect, but I like my movies to be that way.

If anyone else has a movie in mind that I can add to my Really Don't Like/Make Me Cry in a Bad Way list, let me know. I will be avoiding them along with a sinus headache.

Highlights of our Easter Weekend

The Crane Easter Egg Hunt

Kendal and Kelsey's spoils from the egg hunt, unfortunately that means lots of candy for mom!





We spent Friday and Saturday at the Ranch with the rest of the Crane Clan. It was a super time, even with the not-so-perfect weather.

Matt and his brothers, Mark, Mace, and Mike

There is NOTHING like a Deviled Egg smile on Easter! Kendal turned into a deviled egg fan.

Kelsey and her 7 year old cousins, Paige and Alysen

One of Kendal's highlights was the 4 wheeler rides, that girl loves the 4 wheeler.

Emmitt spent most of Friday and Saturday in the truck with me, in Mark and Emiko's trailer with someone, or

wrapped up snuggly-tight away from the wind, the fire's smoke, and the cold. It is a good thing he is such a good little baby.

Sunday we spent the day with my parents, visited my grandma in Torrey, and of course rolled eggs at Sunglow.

I have so many Sunglow Easter memories of rolling eggs down those crunchy colored clay hills, eating picnicy foods in the wind, climbing up the rocks far enough to make your parents yell at you to come back, eggs fights with cousins and friends, wow- so many memories at Sunglow.

The girls loved rolling their eggs and Kendal got so into it that it only took her a few minutes to launch her dozen. She was so protective of her little carton of eggs since she colored them - until it was time to let them roll, and then she really got into it.

Kelsey was quite the little rock climber, and Kendal even got brave enough to get to the top of a little clay hill. She is the pink dot on the hill. Kelsey got to the top of the cliffs. What a great weekend it was!

Matt's sister called me this afternoon just to tell me how cute our little Emmitt is. She has never seen him in person, just a few pictures here on the blog. He is so stinking cute that when I finished talking to her, I snapped a few more of my lazy little sleeping man.

Here you go Mindy . . . you get the live version in a few days.

Kendal snuggled up to him after I took his picture, so I of course had to take a few more. She really is doing pretty well with not being the baby of the family anymore. She loves her little brother and is truly super sweet. I say that meaning her intentions are sweet. Right after this picture was taken, she laid on top of him. I guess Emmitt will be tough, he will have to be!

We love Tuesdays

Matt had the day off today so around 3:00 we headed to SLC. We went to Temple Square. While we were watching General Conference with our rabbit ears, Kelsey and I noticed how pretty the flowers were at Temple Square so we decided to head down and see them ourselves.

Kendal wanted to push the stroller most of the time. Poor little Emmitt, it is a good thing he was belted in! It was a wonderful day for a stroll though and we all had a super time.

I showed Kelsey and Kendal what flowers were making it smell so sweet and then they loved smelling the hyacinths. Kendal also had a little problem with picking the flowers too. Guilt is spread all over your face when your two children are carrying around wilted daffodils and pansies!

They LOVED the water. Any and all the water features were admired, touched, loved, and watched for a very long time.

This was Emmitt's first little outing and at 2 weeks old today, he did great. I guess we will see if the wind bothered him tonight. Wish me luck and much sleep! This morning Emmitt had his first professional photo shoot. My cousin Sarah who has her own photography business came and did some super fun photos today. I will be sharing them in a week or so; look for her link on the side of my page.

Since Matt and I don't find out what gender our babies are, I buy one girl outfit and one boy outfit for each baby to come home from the hospital in. I bought Emmitt's little outfits at Walmart a few weeks ago - a pink snail onesie with pink pants and a blue cow onesie and blue pants. He came home in the blue one obviously and the pink little outfit was setting in the computer room with his hospital hat waiting to put into the cedar chest when Little Bird, aka Kendal, decided it was hers. Why would a little boy need pink clothes?


Yesterday she put the pink 0-3 months clothes on and was so proud of herself. I had to take a picture. See the crotch snaps at her belly button and you would not believe how tight the bottom of those little pants are on her legs! She wore it around for about an hour and then I imagine the painted on feeling was a little much for her and she took them off.

She repeated the process again today. I need to get them put away and out of her sight! She thinks I am crazy when I tell her those are Emmitt's clothes!

Yesterday we made a trip to the library. I try to do this when Kendal is in preschool, but with the crumby weather (SNOW), Conference weekend, and Spring Break next week, I had to go and get a little prepared and Kendal came along. She was pretty good. She kept saying "need to pay for this" with every book and dvd she picked out. It was pretty cute. So 6 dvds later, a few books on CD for Matt, about 20 books, and a trip up the EXTREMELY noisy staircase chasing a giggling 3 year old who is also screaming "don't tetch me momma, don't tetch me" in the nice QUIET library, we checked out. The fun kid librarian and I have had a few good-book conversations and another one commenced. She told me about a book called The Hunger Games that she has just read. She thought it was pretty good.

I think to myself "I have not read a book in awhile and since I am now nursing a little sweetie, I can read for a few minutes while I feed him and make use of my sitting time." So I go get the book. Well, when we got home from the library and it was time to feed Emmitt, I got my book out. I read and read and read and read. It is a good book. I finished it this afternoon and I really liked it too. If anyone is looking for a nice, easy read, with a pretty good story, get The Hunger Games. I just looked it up on Amazon.com and there is second book coming out in September. Dang it, I hate it when they do that to me! Get me interested and then I have to wait!

By the way, the fountain of Emmitt had its opening premiere yesterday. And all this time he has been around (a whopping 10 days) I thought I would avoid all those pee-all-over-the-place boy stories. WRONG!

Settling Down

Things at the Crane household are well. My body has finally decided that it is only feeding one child instead of 14, so that is seriously great. I went to Quilt Guild meeting last night. I so love that night of the month. It was once again inspiring and so friendly. We have some truly fun, great ladies that come to guild meeting. Oh, one note on that.

In the past when I tell Kelsey that I am going to quilt guild she usually says something like this "Oh mom, I hate it when you leave. I wish I could go with you or you just didn't have to go. Who is going to babysit us until Dad gets home?" She is usually excited about the babysitter and isn't so hung up on me leaving. Well, last night I told Kelsey that once again I was going to quilt guild and that there wasn't going to be a babysitter. I was just going to wait for Matt to get home and then go. Her response surprised me when she said "Sweet, we are going to party tonight!" She even did a little happy dance.

When I got home from guild meeting, the house was near perfectly picked up, the girls were in bed, Matt was in the recliner watching a cow sale DVD, the fire was roaring (it was snowing again!), and all was very well. I wondered what kind of PARTY had occurred. So I asked Kelsey this morning. She said "It was super fun, we watched Peter Pan and Dad didn't make us have cough medicine before bed." Oh the simple joys of childhood!

So here are a few pictures. This one is Kelsey and Emmitt getting ready for bed last week. Kelsey has surprised me with this little baby. I thought she would always be wanting to hold him and love on him and it would drive me crazy. WRONG! She doesn't want to hold him because she doesn't want him to "throw up on her." Funny little girl. Kendal went to my parents' house for a week after Emmitt was born. That was a wonderful thing to happen. It was always part of the plan, but the fact that Kendal was sick with fevers for 3 days before he was born was a good excuse too. While at my mom's house, she was treated for bronchitis, an ear infection, and a nasty gooey eye. Thanks mom and dad for taking care of the mischievous 3 year old for a week!

This is our little Emmitt yesterday. He is seriously the best, laziest baby. We are so happy to have this little man join our family. He is a sweetheart.

CLINT

Today is the funeral of one of my good friends, Clint Elmer. He was one of my brother's best friends in high school, and so that meant he was one of my friends too. My brother Glen was a Senior when I was a Freshmen and luckily his friends liked me to tag along with them. Glen didn't like it as well, but his buddies didn't mind. There are a few reasons they liked us 'young girls' to tag along - 1. The older guys needed someone (me and a few of my friends) to drive their trucks in the foothills while they sat in the back shooting rabbits and shouting driving orders. 2. We were so happy to be included it didn't matter that we did dumb stuff like spotlighting rabbits and eating cheese fries. 3. Freshmen girls giggle at most everything, especially 18 year old boys being crazy.

Clint and Glen had a great friendship and I am glad I got to benefit from it also. Clint was a super fun guy and he was super nice too. He was the truest kind of friend and he will be missed. I got to play with him on the Bicknell backroads (he was there when I wrecked my car 6 days after I got my license!), we wrote a few letters when he was in the MTC, for part of my Senior Ball date I went to his wedding reception, and I got to stop in at Checker Auto in Richfield every now and again to see his smiling, happy face. He was always happy to see me and I am grateful for his friendship.

Monroe, Utah - Our beloved husband, father, son, brother and uncle, Clint Ray Elmer, age 37, passed away March 26, 2009 at his home in Monroe, with his family by his side, after one hell of a fight with cancer.
He was born September 21, 1971 in Provo, Utah, a son of Mark Bliss and Diana Lee Stickney Elmer. He graduated from Wayne High School, Class of 1989.

He married Kami Kaye Hammond, the love of his life, February 19, 1993 in the Salt Lake LDS Temple. Together they had a son, Kolton Ray, which was Clint’s pride and joy.
Clint was a manager at Checker Auto and worked for them for over 15 years. He joined the National Guard in 2006, where he was with the 116th Engineer Company of Spanish Fork, currently a Specialist E4.

Clint was an avid reader. He enjoyed playing games with his family and friends. He like to hunt and fly fish, but more than anything, he loved being with his family and his friends. Clint, Kami and Kolton moved to Monroe in 1998 where they have made their home.

He is survived by his devoted and loving wife, Kami; his son, Kolton, both of Monroe; parents: Mark and Diana Elmer of Bicknell; brothers: Dallas and Kristina Elmer of Fremont; Cory and Michelle Elmer of Monroe; Cole and Darci Elmer of Bicknell; grandmother, Jane Elmer of Payson; 23 nieces and nephews; his parents-in-law: Kaye and Russell Hammond of Tooele.
The family would like to thank all the friends, family, hospice staff and the community, for their love, support and help during these past months of Clint’s valiant battle.

Funeral services will be held Wednesday, April 1, 2009 at 12 Noon in the Monroe LDS Stake Center, 140 South Main Street in Monroe. Friends may call for viewing at the Springer Turner Funeral Home, 260 North 400 West, in Richfield, Tuesday evening from 6 to 8 P.M. or at the Stake Center in Monroe, Wednesday morning from 10:00 to 11:30 prior to the services.
Graveside services with military honors accorded by the 116th Engineer Company Spanish Fork Unit of the Utah National Guard, the 222 Richfield Unit of the Utah National Guard and the Utah National Guard Military Funeral Honors Team, will be in the Monroe City Cemetery under the care of the Springer Turner Funeral Home of Richfield and Salina, Utah.