WebCam Wednesday - Flashback: Halloween 1987

While trying to find something to entertain my children the other day, I stumbled across home videos from when I was just a youngsta. I was able to locate a VHS player, not always an easy task nowadays, and we spent hours viewing (and laughing at) my family. They were hilarious. First of all. HELLO! We all sound like a bunch of hicks. Somehow over the course of the last 20 years we all seemed to have misplaced our accents. At the beginning of one of the tapes, when I told the kids it was me that they were watching, Emily turned to me and said, "Mom, you have been in Utah too long!".

I had to share this video from Halloween 1987. My friend Darcy and I went as Jim and Tammy Baker. Darcy and I were best friends all through Elementary and Jr. High, but lost touch when we both attended different High Schools. I have recently been reunited with her on Facebook (my newest addiction)(Thank you Farrah). I thought she would get a kick out of seeing this.

You will have to forgive the video quality. I have not the means nor the know how to get the VHS tape to the computer, so I just used my flip camera and recorded it straight from the TV.

Enjoy, and please, always remember that "I love you, I really do".

The House That Steve Built

I have had some requests for pictures of the progression of the house. Here is a picture of the kitchen so far. There is a stainless steel island that goes in the big empty space.

This is the master suite looking toward the bathroom. Steve just finished this wall last week. The wood he put on it is hardwood flooring and it is the same flooring that will be upstairs. The whole main floor is stained concrete, and it is beautiful (good job honey). You can kind of see it through the dust on the kitchen floor.This is Steve's office floor.

Monday Morning Musings - I'm Holding Out For A Hero

So Emily, she can't just say things normally. Like Saturday morning, she was trying to tell me something that had to do with something that happened the night before. Now, if it had just been the two of us in the room, she probably would have said it normally. The thing is, Aubrey was in the room. So in her loudest voice she said, "Mom, remember last night when I stayed up until 11:30 watching TV with you and eating ice cream...", just so she could make her sister jealous. She is always giving way too much information. The other day we were in front of my mom's house and 2 missionaries walked by. So she yells across the yard to me, "MOM! Isn't it exciting that Sam is coming home from his mission in Mexico City, where he is a missionary, in just 3 weeks!".

The cutout of Sam is, at the moment, sitting at the kitchen table. He is wearing one of the girls flower hats and a white and purple scarf is tied around his neck. It cracks me up because it startles everyone else when they walk into the room. But this morning when I took Addy in to eat breakfast, she just waved and said, "Hi Sam!".

I am now the last person on earth to finish reading Breaking Dawn. I just finished it last night. I think I did good considering that I was averaging about 3 pages a day. I really must say that I enjoyed it very much. Bella was not even a little annoying. I have fallen in love with vampires once again. I didn't think I would like the book if Bella and Jacob didn't hook up, but I was wrong. It all worked out. Everyone keeps saying that it was the end of the series, but I wouldn't be surprised if a few years from now we get another little taste of Forks. I mean, the Volturi are gonna want revenge, right. They aren't just gonna let them get away with that. Now I gotta go out and find some kind of library around here.

I know you have probably been worried sick about me not having a life. So to put your mind at ease I thought I would let you know that we now have a DVR in the basement of my mothers house. And this being premiere week and all, I am so excited I can't contain myself. Heroes starts tonight!!!

And one last thing. This song is making me crazy. It just won't stop.

Onety One

Zac turned 11 on September 2nd. Hard to believe 11 years have gone by already. His birthday was right after we moved and he started school in his new school. Since all our friends live so far away from us now, and he didn't really know anyone at his new school yet, we had a family party. His best friend Garrett that lives next door to my mom came with us. We went to see the Star Wars movie, you know the cartoon. It is a must see, by all means.......yeah, kidding. Zac loved it though and that is all that matters. We let him pick where we were eating for dinner. He picked The Outback Steakhouse. Ummmm....we got to eat bluebell for dessert.

Flashback Friday - The Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades

Kristy, Farrah & Allyson

It looks as if I might have to put my special Flashback Fridays on hold until I can get back to my normal computer set up. Sorry. I promise to get back to it as soon as I possibly can. This is a picture I found on my mom's computer. My mom made these outfits for us to wear to 6 flags.

First Day Of School

I finally have a way to get my pictures from my camera to my computer! Here are the pictures I took of the kids on their first day of school. They love their new school. They have all made new friends. They appear to be making the adjustment well.

ZAC

EMILY

AUBREY

ADDY

Monday Morning Musings - Freaking Idiot!

First, before I get started, I just want to clear one thing up. I am an idiot. I know that most of you were already aware of this, but for those of you living in denial, I am sorry, but it is true. Here is the proof. When we moved out of our house, I went to the cable company and turned in our DVR's and modem and canceled our service with them. Did it ever once cross my mind that when I did this, I would also be canceling my internet service. No. It did not. #!*#!!! Yeah, see, I told you. Ummmm, so I have now lost every one's e-mail addresses. Sigh. For those of you reading this, could you please send me your e-mail address. My e-mail is now listed on the side of my blog but here it is just in case you are too lazy to find it there:

lifeaccordingtoallyson@gmail.com

So yesterday, I had a little breakdown in church. It was right after sacrament meeting. Thankfully we were in a public place or I would have been bawling my eyes out. I told Steve we made a really big mistake. I wanna go baaaaack. Whaaaaaahhhhhh. What did we do? I want my people back. I don't wanna meet any new people. I liked the old ones just fine. Sniff, sniff....I miss y'all.......sniff......

Really, we lived in the best neighborhood surrounded by the best neighbors. What was I thinking leaving? I love those people with all my heart. And my girls. Betsy, Dianna, Cammy, LaRee, Julie. Friends like that only come around once in a life time. I just left them and moved far, far away. I wish they would move here too. Y'all could move here too? Please? Ok, I really am crying now. Big baby. It's not like I'll never see you again, right? I just won't get to see you everyday.

This morning my sister Lauren had to have an EEG and it had to be done sleep deprived. Which means she had to stay up all night last night. I took a shift staying up with her so my mom could get some sleep. We ate ice cream and pizza and watched a movie and played Deal or No Deal. The problem is that I fell asleep during the last 1/2 of the movie. When I woke up I was so hyper. Like really, really annoyingly hyper. My mom woke up to take over with Lauren and I was so awake I stayed up with them for another hour. I know I was really getting on their nerves because they both kept saying things like, "Allyson, don't you want to go to bed now?", "Allyson, why don't you go to bed now?", "Allyson go to bed! You are making us crazy!".



You know how my brother Sam is on his mission in Mexico City? Well, you remember back at Christmas when Bart and Farrah made the big cut out of him? Since we moved in to my mom's house, Zac has been moving the cutout around. It's a little freaky. Sometimes I walk by a room and Sam is sitting at the computer typing. Sometimes he is playing video games. Sometimes he is watching TV. Addy sees the cutout and gets excited and yells, "SAM! SAM!". I don't know what she is going to do in a few weeks when he comes home and is a real person.

And one last, sad commentary on my life: Life without a DVR is really no life at all.

Flashback Friday - Snow In Yellowstone

Kristy, Allyson, Earl, Sam, Farrah, Lauren

Still having scanner issues. I think I am gonna have to call it another bi week on my especial Flashback Friday. I was looking at the pictures my mom had on her computer and I found this one. This picture was taken on a family trip we took to Yellowstone. I believe it was in 1998 because Zac was a baby. This is the view we had right outside our cabin. That was a fun trip. Kristy is hiding the fact that she was all scraped and bandaged up from a bike incident she had right before the trip. And I am sporting some ever so lovely shorts. Hee hee, Sam is just a little baby. He will be returning from his mission in Mexico city in less than a month!

Thinkin' Thursday - Remember

9/11. I had the TV on this morning and the station I was listening to was replaying the broadcast from the morning of September 11, 2001. As I listened to and watched those events being replayed, I was hit with a rush of emotion. Tears came to my eyes. All the feelings that I had on that day, 7 years ago, were present today. What a very sad, scary time for our country. That was before Al Queda and Osama Bin Laden were words that everyday Americans knew how to use in a sentence. Think back. Remember what it was like. On that day. I can remember sitting in my kitchen eating breakfast and watching as newscasters speculated on what happened. Then the realization that came while the world watched as the second plane hit the second tower. And then the horror I felt as I watched both towers fall. Americans were glued to their televisions. Another plane? The pentagon? There are still more planes in the air, unaccounted for? What is going on? Can you remember how you felt?

In just a few months, our country will select a new President to lead us. A man who will stand in front of the world as The President Of The United States Of America. What kind of message will that man send to our enemies and the people who hate us most? To the kind of people who would feel it and honor to give their lives in the shedding of innocent blood.

As you make your decision on who to vote for in November, please think about this. Read about the candidates. Find out about their knowledge and views of foreign policy. Pray that we as individuals and as a country will make the best decision for our future.

May God bless the families of those who lost their lives on September 11th, 2001. And may he bless the families of those who's lives have been lost since then, in service to our country.

WebCam Wednesday - Aubrey En Espanol

Aubrey loves learning Spanish. She comes home everyday and tells me new words she has learned.

Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?

Abso-freakin-lutely not!

Math. Let's just say, not exactly my forte. I'm the person that has to count on her fingers when adding up her Yahtzee score. I won't tell you how many times I had to take algebra. I'm pretty sure the last time around, my senior year of high school, my teacher just passed me so I could graduate. And guess what??? Never been a problem. Haven't ever had to figure out why x+y=z in the for reals life. Up to this point in time, I really thought I had escaped, scott free. Until yesterday.

My lack of mathematical knowledge has suddenly become a problem, now that I have a child in the fifth grade. Fifth. Grade. Math. Makes. Me. CRAZY.

I started to recognize the problem last year. He would bring home work and it would say write the blahblahblahblah form of this number. And I'd be like, "Ok, Zac, wait here for a minute". Then I would go to the internet and look up the blahblah word and go, "Oh, yeah. I remember", and I was able to help him. How people survived before the internet, I have no idea.

Anyhoo, last night, not so easy. I was stumped on the first question. So I turned to my handy dandy internet and.......uhhhhh.....yeah.......huhhhhhh. After about an hour of really trying to understand the words and numbers before my eyes, and after resisting the urge to kick Mr. Internet across the room, I called Steve. I asked him if he was going to be home any time soon. He said yes, he was almost here. I said good, 'cause I have spent the last hour abusing my brain and I am about ready for the torture to stop.

So he came home and said, "Oh, yeah, this is easy". To which I replied with a look that said, "If you know what's good for you, you will just shut the heck up and help the kid". Steve and Zac finished the math paper in no time. And Zac came up to me and said, "Dad explained it to me in a way that made it really easy". Well, good for dad.

I don't know what we are going to do when the kids homework outgrows both of our intelligences.

Monday Morning Musings - I Wish Obama Was My Momma

On Saturday, Emily was really mad at me. She kept saying things like she wished I wasn't her mom, or I am the meanest mom ever. At one point she said, "You are so mean, I would rather have Obama for a mom than you. And I hate Obama." She really knows how to cut a person right to the heart. (side note: We do not foster feelings of hate for any individual in our home. Emily was just speaking out of anger and I am sure that is the first name that came to mind. She was punished accordingly. Both for speaking to me with such disrespect, and for making any kind of comparison between me and what's his name. :p )

Zac found Steve's applied physics book when we were packing and he rescued it from the trash. He has actually been reading it. Every night. Sounds like fun, light reading for an 11 year old, doesn't it?

The other night, around the dinner table, I was trying to make conversation. I asked the question, "Did anyone make any new friends at school today?". To which everyone replied with dead silence. So then Zac said, "Chirp, chirp, chirp". You know, how they do on TV when someone says something that is immediately followed by dead silence. It was funny.

Last week I went to "Back To School Night" at the kids new school. It was there that I learned that not only does everyone in my new neighborhood have the same house, they also have the same hairstyle. It was seriously hard for me not to laugh when all 5 of the women sitting in front of me looked like carbon copies of each other. Then I started looking around and went, oh, it's not just them. I felt like I had walked into some remake of the Stepford Wives.

I picked the kids up from school one day last week and I had to go into the school for something. So I had Addy in the stroller and was walking toward the kids. They looked my way and started walking toward me. Then they stopped, like they were unsure it was me. I waved. They looked. I waved again. They started walking. When they caught up to me Zac said, "I told Emily that was you, but she said it was too skinny to be you." I'm not really sure if that is a compliment or not.

On Saturday, we were really lazy. I let the kids stay in their PJ's and watch TV until sometime in the afternoon. I was amazed at how well they were getting along. I went into the room where they were and asked why they were all getting along so well. Emily didn't even look up from the TV. She just said, "It's because we are watching TV".

Happy Monday everybody!

Flashback Friday - Hey, Did Anyone See Where I Put Those Headbands???

So it is like this. Today's Flashback Friday is supposed to be about Britta. Well, this is what the last hour and a half has been like for me. I packed all our pictures and scrapbooks into boxes when we moved and brought them to my mom's house. I couldn't find the scrapbook that has all the pictures of Britta in it, so it is obviously packed away somewhere. So I spent forever looking through other pictures. Which didn't bother me because it was so fun to see all those old pictures. Well, I found some pictures of Britta. YEA!!! Howeva, my computer situation is not real great at the moment. My scanner is actually Steve's fax machine which is at our new house because he had his fax line transferred there. I am trying to get my mom's scanner to co-operate but between you and me (my mom's computer is real messed up). So I am giving up before I get any more frustrated. I am using pictures that I already have on my computer for this flashback. Sorry Britta. I will work on the scanner situation before next Friday.

On the bright side, the pictures I am using are of my dear sweet beautiful goofy daughters.

Aubrey & Emily

Thinkin' Thursday - Read My Lipstick

I am ever so very tired so this is gonna be quick and easy (yeah, easy until I start getting comments on it).

YES! If there is going to be a woman in the White House I am glad it will be Sarah Palin. I think McCain made an excellent choice.

I have not stopped laughing at Democrats (except for the ones near and dear to my heart, I have much better reasons to laugh at you) & the media since she was announced as VP pick.

Have you heard the kinds of things they are saying? They are just grasping at straws. It cracks me up. Seriously.

The one that kills me the most is when they talk about her lack of experience. I..dah..wa...a...ya...tha...arrrgh....I don't even know what say. How.....how....how....what....I mean....does that make any sense to you what so ever?

Seriously.

I thought this comparison chart was interesting.

Let's see......what else has me laughing tonight? I was listening to a commentator after McCain gave his speech. He was talking about how McCain was going on and on about being a war hero. He said something like: Democrats won't give him a hard time about that like Republicans did to John Kerry. I can't even type I'm laughing so hard. John Kerry's a war hero because....????

Oops. There it goes. My Thinkin' Thursday went and got all political again.

WebCam Wednesday - Empty Shell

We closed another chapter in our lives last Thursday. I decided to take a video of the house after it was all cleaned out. Here it is.

Monday Morning Musings - OK, So It's 10:00 At Night, When Was The Last Time I Actually Mused In The Morning?

Don't cry for me Argentina. The truth is, I never left you. Yeah, I can tell you have all been boohooing over my lack of blogging from all the concerned comments questioning my whereabouts. But don't worry. I'm back now. Kind of. I'm on my mom's computer and it took about 5 minutes to open this page. Hopefully it will actually post. We will see.

A whole week of my life passed me by and I barely came up for a breath. Let's see. On Friday, last Friday, like over a week ago, we decided, "Hey, we should move tomorrow". So I was crazy that day trying to get storage spaces and pods delivered and people to help move and I also figured I should probably pack. So I did. And we moved most of our stuff out on Saturday. The plan Dan, was to get the big stuff out and then continue to live in the house the rest of the week and finish packing and be out by the next weekend. It didn't turn out that way.

We went back to our house on Saturday night and I was so depressed about all that was still left to do. I also thought about having to drive the kids 1 hour round trip to school, and that didn't seem like a good idea. So we decided to move into my mothers house a week early. We did, and after dropping the kids off at school each morning I drove to the house to pack.

By Wednesday I had just about everything packed and out. Thursday I cleaned. That night we closed. Friday it funded and recorded, and the new people moved in. I must give a very especial thank you to my dear friend Betsy. Because without her, I don't know what I would have done. She came Friday night and helped me pack my kitchen, Wednesday to help pack all the odds and ends left behind, and Thursday to help clean. I honestly don't know what I would have done without her. I never would have been done on time.

Everything happened so fast that I didn't really have time to process the fact that we were moving. MOVING. Leaving our house and our friends and family all behind. We have lived in that house for over 12 years. The people in that neighborhood are our best friends and our children's best friends. They are more than that. They are also our family. Before my parents moved here 3 years ago, we didn't really have any family here. The people in our neighborhood became our family. Like I said, I really hadn't processed the whole moving thing. The last two days we had people stopping in and saying good-bye. Every time I would talk to someone I would start crying. I might start crying now.

The guy who brought our portable storage unit from our house to my mom's house asked Aubrey if the boys across the street at the old house were her friends. He said they came out to talk to him and one of them told him that his best friend Aubrey lived in that house and she moved and he was sad. That also made me cry. Austin and Aubrey have been playing together almost everyday since they were born. Well, since they were old enough to play.

I think I have said enough for now. I don't want to overwhelm you all at once. After going so long without hearing me ramble on, you aren't used to it anymore. Come on. Say it. You missed me. I know you did. You know you did.

One of these days Steve is going to have my computer up and running and I will have to post the cute pictures of my kids on their first day at school. Just a little something for you to look forward to. Try not to lose any sleep in anticipation.