The Mouse

If we're friends on facebook, then you know ALL the drama this past month about our uninvited guest, the mouse. 

Yuck.

I hate mice more than I hate spiders, and that's really saying something. 

A few weeks ago, I woke up one morning at 5am and I could hear something munching something under my dresser. It kept me up, it was so loud. So at 6am, I pulled on some sweatpants and drove to the grocery store, where I bought 10 sticky mouse traps. Bryant didn't even know I had left the house. I got home and placed them all around the dresser, thinking I'd surely catch it sometime that day.

Ever. Single. Night. that mouse would somehow, get past the traps, and eat it's dinner under my dresser. I even had two traps under there! And every day, I'd pull the bottom drawer out thinking I'd find a mouse, and instead, I'd find a half eaten cracker, or fruit loop. One morning, I headed into the bathroom and nearly had a heart attack when the little monster poked it's head out from where the wall and the bathtub meet. So I set two traps there. 

On another day, I was at the computer when it scurried along the wall near my feet. Another two traps along that wall.

On another day, while watching a movie in the living room, I watched it climb out of the heating vent and run into the closet. I yelled at Bryant to keep his eyes on the door to make sure it didn't run out and I set traps all along the threshold. 

Two nights later, It was directly under my bed, munching loudly away. 

At one point, I went to get Savannah's clothes out for the next day and found mouse poop in every single drawer. I took all her clothes out, washed them all, sprayed and wiped out all the drawers, then unleashed nearly a full can of lysol on them. I'm kind of a germaphobe (I make Bryant wash his hands for EVERYTHING like changing diapers, taking out the trash, mowing the lawn. He puts up with me...)

I found more mouse poop in the bottom drawer of my dresser, but I still took out every single drawer and did the same. 

In total, after nearly a month, I had 24 mouse traps (all different kinds) and some "One Bite" that Sandy sent me (thank you Sandy!) and the only thing I managed to catch was Deagan 4 different times (all in the sticky ones. I put the snap traps in the vents and under my bed where the kids can't get to them.)

This mouse was either really clever, or very lucky. There was one dramatic night when my sister and I were watching a movie and we saw it go into the closet again, so we set 4 traps across and 2 deep along the threshold and proceeded to take EVERYTHING out of the closet that was on the floor, like an old stroller, my yoga mat (that I threw away. It was falling apart, had cobwebs on it, smelled, and now had had a mouse near it) and some jackets. The mouse ran out towards us, and made it through all the traps! It ran into the vent on the opposite side of the room, where we placed traps all around. It kept poking it's head out, then scratched around the vent for a while. Seriously, this was the loudest mouse I had ever heard in my life. Every night it would keep me up.

Occasionally I'd find the peanut butter on a trap all smeared and eaten. Or crackers missing from another. Once, I found some hair stuck to one and decided that at least waxing the mouse was a small victory in and of itself.  Somewhere, that mouse had a Brazilian wax and was covered in peanut butter. 

I ALMOST caved in and got a cat. The allergies were almost worth it.

Then, it happened. We caught the little sucker! Last night, Savannah didn't want to go to bed yet so I let her come lay in my bed and watch a movie with Bryant and I. There was a sticky trap right next to my side of the bed that had sat there and not moved for weeks. The mouse had to pass by it in order to get underneath my bed every single night. And then all of a sudden, I heard a squeak and I looked down to see it stuck. I started yelling "Yes! Yes! Yes!" and Savannah looked over the bed and shouted "WooHoo!" and gave me a high five. I was a little worried that she would be sad, because she's referred to this mouse as a pet and constantly talked about making it a door in the wall for it's home. But she took a look and said "Oh, that's not my mouse Mom. That's yours." When she asked what we were going to do with it, I told her that Dad was going to take it outside and let it go. Sometimes you gotta lie to your kids to spare their feelings. I mean, we're talking about the girl who cried this morning because all the snow was gone. I had to show her the snowflake symbol on my weather app to show her it would snow again before she stopped crying. 

I'm keeping the traps around though, for every one you see, who knows how many more are around.

Uck, they are so gross. 

Savannah Jane Desings!

Ok, so if you've followed me on my blog for the last year-ish, then you know I have been talking for months about starting my own clothing business right? Well, we have finally launched!

Ahhhh!!!

It's really been kind of a crazy year, trying to get this thing going, on top of school, kids, and everything in between. But we finally did it! And I really have to thank my parents for this, because without them, who knows if I would have ever accomplished this? I had been talking forever about this, I had ordered shirts and bags in MONTHS ago that were just sitting in a box in my room. Waiting for me to do something with them. Then one day, my Mom said "Hey, I got us a booth at a boutique, in 3 days..."

What?!?

That's what really got me to get off my butt and do this thing! My Mom had given me what I needed all along: A deadline. So those 3 days were spent gathering items to create our booth, printing the shirts and bags, thanks to my dad for all of that by the way! Creating tags, and ordering more product in.

So our first show was the Battlecreek Boutique in Pleasant Grove!

I was pretty surprised at how well we did, at out first show, considering the short time frame we had. The first day, I went down to straighten it up and restock a few things, and realized we had completely sold out of a few things! The first day!!! 

The night that I had to take everything down, I was running late and asked my brother and his friend if they could go down and start packing it up for me. I made it down by the time they had everything in boxes, so I didn't notice that we had also sold out completely of 5 other designs until the next day when I unpacked everything and started cataloging our inventory! As I was cleaning up, I was talking to a gentleman next to me who said he had noticed a lot of people at my booth and said he was very impressed. He said he does shows all of the time, and this was the slowest and least profitable of all the ones he had done this year, yet I had appeared to do really well! 

He advised that I try to get into a holiday show, since those do really well, so we did just that! My Mom had found a show that will be held this weekend called the Raspberry Robin Market, in Manilla at the Stone Gate Events Center. We are also going to be in one on Black Friday and Saturday later this month in Spanish Fork!

We inquired about the Christmas Show that is held at the convention center in Sandy every year, and they said they had no openings. Then the next day, my Mom got a call from the coordinator, and she said she moved us from the bottom of the waiting list to the top because she really liked our stuff, and they had a spot open up. Unfortunately, we decided to decline this time. We are just barely starting out and I wasn't feeling quite ready to play with the big dogs just yet. But next year, I am planning on applying again!

I've also been working hard on getting a website up, since I had a ton of people message me, asking where they can order from, which I found really encouraging!

I'm really grateful to my Mom, if this business was a band, she'd be the band manager. She's helped me with finding the boutiques and shows, and she used to do this all the time when I was a kid, so she's well experienced. I'm grateful to my dad for helping me navigate the ordering process, and for helping me with my designs and for helping me print everything! And I'm really grateful to Bryant, for when I went to him and said "Hey honey, I have this crazy idea. I want to start a business, but I need your hard earned money to start it" and he just said "Alright! Let's do this!". He's been supporting me every single step of the way. He's been encouraging me through all of it. When I start doubting myself, he is there to make me feel confident!

I'm really excited about this new adventure! Wish me luck!

Punkies!

A few days before Halloween, we decided it was high time we go out and get us some pumpkins! So we headed out to a pumpkin patch in Orem to scout some out! 

 

^^Most of my photos didn't turn out. Partly because it was starting to get dark, and partly because trying to take a photo of Deagan is equivalent to attempting to take a photo of The Flash.^^

As soon as we arrived, the kids went NUTS! I don't know what it is, but both my kids are fascinated by pumpkins. They both just took off and ran their little hearts out! Deagan was adorable, shouting "Pumpkins! Pumpkins! Punkiiiissss!" It was like he had discovered gold! 

There was a teepee made out of corn stalks, which lead into a tunnel. Savannah went through probably a dozen times, but Deagan crawled in and camped out in the middle of the tunnel, which was far too small for Bryant or I to climb in after him. We basically had to ask the other kids to go in and shove him out for us. 

^^This was the best photo I could get of both of them together, and it still came out blurry!^^

It's always fun to do little things, like go pick out pumpkins, with the kids, because it's a really big thing to them!

Frightmares!

Remember my last post where I committed to writing more often? Yeah I'm still working on that. But I've been crazy busy (which I'll write ALL about in it's own separate post. Someday.)

So last week, my brother Sawyer and my sister-in-law Kenna invited Bryant and I to Lagoon for Frightmares!

 

For those not from Utah, Lagoon is an amusement park, and every October, they hold an event called Frightmares. Basically, they have a few haunted house walk-throughs and have people dressed up in scary costumes running around scaring people (the chainsaw people are the worst! Ack!)

 ^^This is one ride I refused to go on.^^

Now, there are two things in this world I am more scared of than earthquakes, and that is big roller coasters, and being chased by creepy people. And Frightmares has both. But I still really wanted to have a night out, sans kids, with Bryant, Sawyer and Kenna, so I agreed to go along. 

I had not been to Lagoon in probably 6-7 years, and I had never done Frightmares, and Bryant had never been to Lagoon, so it was an adventure for both of us!

 

^^They had a few different performances going on throughout the park.^^

 

^^It was freezing, by the way... And yes, both of us are wearing Savannah's hats.^

We were kind of disappointed in the fact that the park was only open from 5-10 (and yet, you still had to pay full admission AND basically the entire back half of the park is closed.) but thankfully, the park was pretty empty. We walked right onto every ride. And yes, I even rode some of the roller coasters! Including colossus, which has TWO loops, thank you very much! The boys rode everything several times. I was good with one. I only did one of the haunted walk throughs, and I didn't even see much of it. Bryant wrapped his arms around me and I buried my face into his arms. One thing I didn't know about myself, but that happened several times that night: I get the hiccups when I get scared. 

Once we rode everything, we walked around and played some of the carnival type games, and we even won a few things!

I will say this about Lagoon, most of the people who work there are high school aged kids, and every single one of them was extremely friendly and nice (I'm sure the chainsaw people were lovely as well, I just didn't stick around to find out!). Lagoon seems to hire some really great kids! I just thought I'd throw that out there because they really made an impression on me!

We really had SO much fun! It was really great to go out on a double date, somewhere other than dinner or a movie, and get to spend time with Sawyer and Kenna. Bryant was extra flirty too, which was probably my favorite thing about the whole trip :-)