Flashback Friday - Trail Dust Or Bust

Kristy, Lauren, Farrah, Allyson, Sam, Steve

Kristy, Allyson, Lauren & Farrah doin' the Cotton Eyed Joe

I must start out by making a plea for you to overlook the fact that I am hugely pregnant with Zac in this picture and also remember that 10 years ago maternity clothes were not what they are today.

This was a trip Steve and I took to Dallas about 10 years ago. While there we went to the "Trail Dust Steakhouse". We had so much fun. I really right now would love to be in Texas so I could go and take my kids to "Trail Dust". They would have so much fun.

It is, as I said a steakhouse and it has this huge 2 story slide that goes down to the dance floor, they have a live band that plays and a huge dance floor. They also do not allow ties to be worn so when someone comes in wearing a tie they make a big deal about it and cut it off of them and hang it on the wall.

They just don't have fun places like that to eat here. It has been a while, but right now I am really missing my Texas home!

I Thought We Had Moved Past This

Yes, I really thought we had moved past it. Obviously I was wrong. I don't know what the deal is with my children and the cutting of hair business. Apparently I am raising up a whole new generation of hair cutters.

On Wednesday after Aubery and I took the other kids to school, I came home and went in my room to put on makeup and do my hair. Aubrey was in my room with me watching TV. Then I went downstairs to eat breakfast and Aubrey came down a while later and she stood in front of me smiling like she wanted me to notice something. I immediately noticed that she had put on makeup and I said, "Oh, Aubrey, you look pretty." Then I noticed a bunch of hair on her shirt and wondered how that much hair got on her shirt. Then I noticed that half of her hair was missing.

I am past freaking out and crying about children ruining their, or their siblings hair. So I called and made an appointment to take her into Ly to get her hair fixed. Ly (pronounced Lee) is the best haircut fixer I know. She has probably fixed 5 or 6 do it yourself children haircuts for us. In fact we came to know Ly 4 years ago almost to the date when Zac took scissors to Emily's bangs and cut right down to the scalp, not to mention the various other chunks that he took out. Ly was a miracle worker then and we have been getting our hair cut, or fixed by her ever since.

Aubrey loves her new haircut and in fact told me that the reason she cut her own hair was

because she wanted Ly to cut it short like that.

PreSchool Graduation

This is Aubrey with her PreSchool/Dance teacher Miss Margene. She graduated from her first year of PreSchool this morning. She still has one more year before she starts Kindergarten. We just love her teacher Miss Margene who I believe is a woman who knows what her calling in this world is and she is fulfilling it to the highest degree. I am grateful that my children (Emily also takes dance from her) get to have her in their lives. She truly loves all children. Congratulations my sweet little Aubrey! Click here for more pictures.

Our Own Little Sweat Shop

Last week Zac's class went on a field trip downtown to a "Living Traditions" marketplace. They had booths where people made and sold cultural items. They are having their own market bizarre type thing at his school today. They each get to have their own booth where they get to sell their wares. They each had to choose some type of "cultural" item from a list their teacher had and for the past few weeks in class they have been making these items. Then they get to manage their own booth, set the price, make the sales, close the booth while they go around and make purchases (all with pretend money).

So Zac comes home from school yesterday and says that he has to have at least 20 Chinese lanterns (this was his item of choice) to have a successful booth and he only has 2 1/2 completed and his teacher said he could work on making some at home. So we took Emily to piano lessons, came home and made dinner, ate, took Zac to TaeKwonDo, gave the girls a bath while he was there, picked him up, had Family Home Evening, put the girls in bed, then turned our attention to the matter of making lanterns.

I had seen the lanterns he was making in school when I was in his class last week. In order to make them I would have had to go to the store and bought a ton of stuff and we would have been up till midnight at least trying to turn those things out. So I scrounged around my craft room found some rubber stamps with Chinese letters on them, found the paper crimper I haven't used in about 10 years (it sure came in handy last night) and came up with this lovely design for lanterns. Zac and I turned out 25 lanterns in about 40 minutes. Pretty good work if I do say so myself.

AAAHHHYAAAAA!

Zac had belt testing this morning for Tae-Kwon-Do. He did a great job and was able to move up to Green Belt. Congratulations my little board breaking buddy! Click here for more pictures.

Dude Looks Like A Lady

That might not be the best title for a post that has my picture immediately underneath. Oh well. Ignore my nasty lookingness. It is 10:30 PM and I have been running around cleaning house for the past 2 hours. But please note my new toy. My dear husband gave me this little teeny tiny ipod for mothers day (how did you know honey?)(I talk to him like his is actually going to be reading this). Anyway, I finally took some time out this afternoon to figure out how to put songs on it. I was so excited to use it I put the girls in bed (Steve & Zac were at the Blaze game) and cleaned my kitchen whilst rockin' out to the likes of "Dude Looks Like A Lady".

Flashback Friday - Spring Break 1997

Kathy, Farrah, Allyson & Kristy at Delicate Arch

Kristy & Farrah

Allyson (Zac in the tummy), Kristy & Kathy

Spring Break 1997. I was pregnant with Zac. Farrah was going to BYU Provo. Kristy and Kathy came up from Dallas to visit. We went hiking in the snow in the mountains here in Salt Lake and then drove down to Moab to go biking. It was a fun trip. Look how deep the snow was in the mountains. It came up to the speed limit sign. That was 10 years ago. Wow!

Laundry Quandary

Am I the only person who thinks this is a ridiculously large amount of clothing??? And how did a 4 year old wear 12 pairs of pants/shorts in 1 weeks time? Why does she have that many in the first place? So I started doing laundry Tuesday night and hallelujah Thursday afternoon I am finally finished (except for the 6 loads of towels/sheets that still need to be done). But alas my victory is short lived. For some reason my dear family felt the need to continue to wear clothing from Tues-Thurs and now all of our laundry hampers are 1/3 of the way full again. So the never ending battle with laundry continues.....

Lost in a Dream

Ok, I am so irritated. Steve and I are a little behind in our Lost episodes. We just watched the one from 2 weeks ago last night. Well, ok Steve watched it and I fell asleep 30 minutes into it and finished it this morning while I was feeding Addison. But I am all riled up!

I told Steve a long time ago that one of my fears is that they are going to cancel the show or something right in the middle of it and we are never going to find out what is going on. Nothing will be resolved, and we will be left hanging. Well I started thinking that they are totally making this whole mess of things and there is no way they can pull it all together and make any sense out of it what-so-ever. Then we found out about the whole fertility thing and that tied in stuff that has been happening from the beginning all the way through to now.

But last night I got this bad feeling that I know how they are going to end it. The episode we watched was the one where Locke's dad is there and they try to get him to kill him. When Locke sees his dad he asks how he got there and Ben says he's here because you brought him here. And then Locke asks his dad how he got here and his dad says "Don't you know John, don't you know where we are???" AHHHHHHHHHH!!!! Right then I paused it and I looked at Steve and said "DID YOU HEAR THAT?????" And he looked at me like I was crazy and said "Hear what?" If they make it end up that this is all a dream that Locke is having I am going to be so angry. Then they won't have to explain anything and nothing will have to make sense and then they will have just drug however many millions of viewers along on a ride of insanity for NOTHING!

NOTHING!

So I watched the rest of the episode with that in mind and it totally makes sense. Think about it. Yes Jack is the leader, but no one trusts him now and who has been the person all along who seems to understand the Island and think that it is his destiny to be there. And last night when that one guy was talking to him and saying that they have been waiting for him to come and that Ben is wasting their time on the fertility thing and that John needs to find his purpose. Hmmm? HMMMM? What do you think about that?

And I don't know if anyone noticed my great use of paragraphs!!!!!!!!!!

And Sam if you are reading this, sorry!

And I don't know if you could tell, but I am yelling this whole post.

And yes it it sad that I feel so passionate about a TV show so you can just keep those kind of comments to yourself.

My Angel Mother

" All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother."

- Abraham Lincoln

On this Mother's Day I would like to thank my mother. It is because of her unconditional love that I am the woman I am today. It is because of the sacrifices that she made on my behalf that I am the woman I am today. It is because of the example she set that I am the mother I am today. Thank you mom for raising me and loving me and teaching me. Thank you for being you. I love you. Happy Mother's Day.

Steve's mother passed away before I met him. I would like to pay tribute to her memory. I thank her for being the person she was and for raising up a young man for me to marry. I know that he is the person he is today because of the influence she was in his life and I love her and thank her for that.

Happy Mother's day to all mothers everywhere.

Flashback Friday - Homecoming

Sara, Liz & Allyson

All I can say is check out the hair people, CHECK OUT THE HAIR! And then be thankful the '80 are over and we all have a little more fashion sense about us.

Ode To Joy #7 - In Word AND In Deed

Duh! Now I finally get it. Have you ever heard something your whole life and you think you understood it perfectly and then you get a new perspective on it and you find out you really understood nothing at all? That happened to me today in Sunday School. Our lesson was "Teaching Children Through Example And Instruction". I have heard all my life that you teach through example. I pray daily that I will be a good example to my children. And I thought I was a good example for them (in most things). But I realized today that I was over generalizing that statement to "teaching by example". I don't use bad language or watch movies that are not appropriate, I don't drink or smoke or do any of those things. But when I was thinking in class today about the things that my children do that are a problem, the things that they do that make me mad, the things that they do that I am trying to teach them not to do-those things are things they do by following my example. My BAD example. For instance-it drives me crazy that my girls cannot put their clothes away. Nice dresses thrown on the floor after church, dirty clothes that never make it in the dirty clothes hamper, shoes never put away, clothes that they put on and then decide not to wear so they discard them on the floor. This is a constant battle in our home. Well guess what??? I do the EXACT same thing! Of course I have a good excuse. I am way too busy to deal with things like hanging my dress up after church because I have a crying baby that needs to be fed and I have to make lunch for the other 3 kids. I have a chair with a nice big footstool in my bedroom. That footstool is almost always covered with discarded clothing. But I am too busy to deal with it right now and I will be the one who puts things away later so it is ok if I leave it out until I have more time. How can I expect my children to do anything different when that is the example they have placed before them? DUH! After all these years I finally get it. Be an example- not just in general terms, but in very practical, everyday situations.

Flashback Friday - Girls Camp

Allyson, Kristi, Marisa, Farrah

"Is any of this yours?" One day at girls camp someone stole undies (you know who you are) from various suitcases and ran them up the flagpole. No one would claim the items (probably out of embarrassment) and so in order to help return the items to the proper owners we donned them and went through the camp yelling, "Is any of this yours?'

Marisa, Eva, Sean, Allyson, Damon, Jamie, Chad, Farrah

Why are there boys at Girls Camp anyway????

Kristy Looking ever so hot in her sunglasses. I believe this is the year I was the camp director from our ward.

Hot overall wearin' Mamma's Kristy & Coren

Ode To Joy #6 - Three Things

In church about a month ago the speaker was talking about ways to have joy in your life. He was reading about some type of study that was done that determined the things that give people lasting happiness. Naturally money they found out did not bring long term happiness or joy. They listed all the things that did however I don't remember them all. The one I do remember is the #1 thing they said that brings lasting happiness in your life which is writing down 3 things each day that you are thankful for or that made you happy that day. That really made me think. There was a time in my life, many many moons ago, when I would sit down at the end of the day and write in my "Happiness Journal" all the things that made me happy that day. And I remembered the feelings that I would get as I took a moment to reflect on the day gone by and really look for small things that had happened that day that made me happy. Some days were easier than others and I could list a whole slew of things. Other days I really had to search and think hard to find things to write. But you know what, I could always find something. And what it made me realize is that there are so many MANY small things that occur in our day to day hum drum lives that can bring us joy if we just watch for them. If we aren't watching they just pass us by and we go on about our business and never even take the time to notice or appreciate them. And the more we are looking for the simple small good things in our lives, the more simple small good things we will realize we have that we had never even appreciated before because we didn't recognize them. Steve and I have always had a tradition in our home for meal time where we go around the table and have each person tell the best thing that happened to them that day and the worst thing that happened to them that day. This gives us an insight to what is going on in the lives of our children and helps them to talk to us about things that they might not otherwise bring up. Since we heard that talk in church though, we have changed things up a bit. Now we go around the table and have everyone tell 3 good things about their day. It makes a difference when you are focused on the positive. What I have realized is that the more you do this exercise, the more you pay attention all day to the good things that happen and the more time you spend looking for the good things, the more good things there are. And the more good there is, the less bad. It is the law of attraction. But hey, lets not get into that right now. That is a whole other Ode in and of itself. So go out today and take the time to look for all the good around you, I think you might be surprised.

Feeding The Ducks

On Saturday we took dinner to the park and ate. Then we went for a walk and fed the ducks. It was beautiful weather and we had a great time. Click here for more pictures.

Shot Through My Heart

Last night was Bon Jovi night on American Idol. I love Bon Jovi and I love "You Give Love A Bad Name". I think Blake (my vote for the next American Idol) did an AWESOME remix of the song last night. Click here to watch.