A Winter Spring Day At The Zoo

Presidents Day.  No school.  No work.  Gorgeous day outside.  It has been a long time since all of those things have happened in one day.  We have had a freezing cold, hazy, smoggy, snowy, long, sunless winter.  I walked outside this morning and the sun was out and it felt like spring.  I knew we had to get outta the house and spend the day outside.  So we went to the zoo.  It was a fun, super fun day.  I loved spending it with the people I love the most.

Annie, Addy's bear she built for her birthday in November and who is now the 7th member of our family, had to come with us.  Here is Addy showing Annie the bears.  Real ones.  When she did this Zac and Em started singing, "Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba Sithi uhm ingonyama...The circle of life..." (yes I looked up the first part of the song on the internet)

We had lunch in the cafe where Steve did the floors.  

If you look down at the end of the table, you will see Annie in a highchair.

"Will you all stand there and let me take a picture of you?"  Yeah...that worked well.

Flashback/Flashforward Friday - Pioneer Chic

Flashback: 1991-2ish?

 Allyson, Kristy, Farrah, Earl

I can't remember the year.  It was sometime before I graduated High School in 1992.  We had a Stake "Trek" Youth Conference.  This was back in the day before "Trek" became "Trek".  It was basically nothing like the Trek Youth Conferences they do in this day and age.  But it was fun and it was a great experience.  (If you have no idea what I'm talking about and want to learn more about this whole trek business, click here.)

Lore, Kim, Allyson, Alicia, Marisa, Farrah, Barbara

Flashforward: 2013

Emily and Anika

So my mom made the dresses my sister Farrah and I wore for our trek.  A few years ago as I was helping her clean out some things in her house, I came across the dresses.  I tried to talk my mother into getting rid of them.  But in her infinite wisdom she talked me into keeping them.  Any good Mormon has some type pioneer clothing hanging in their closets, after all.  Well, just last week, the occasion arose in which we needed some good old fashioned pioneer garb.  This summer our stake is doing trek and Zac will have to opportunity to go.  To help get the kids all ready and excited, our ward had a pioneer activity in which they had to dress for the occasion.  Emily and Zac both refused.  I knew there was no talking Zac into dressing up.  But I tried to work on Emily.  I kept telling her that I had the perfect outfit for her to wear.  No, no, no, no, no.  She was dead set against it.  That's when I remembered that not only did I have one perfect outfit to wear, I had TWO!  So I had her call her friend Anika and talk her into dressing up with her.  It worked!  Look how cute they are!  It was fun to see those dresses resurrected.  It would be nice to see the figure I once smushed in that dress resurrected too.

Interesting side note:  I wore that dress to the trek in Dallas Texas with some of Anika's cousins.  Learn more about that by clicking here.

A Post Mostly Because I Felt Like Rambling And Avoiding My List For A Little Longer And Because Valentine's Day Is Way Closer Than Easter And I'm Even Rambling In The Post Title So There!

I went to the store today.  Not because I needed to go to the store.  Because I needed to go to my bank.  Which happens to be inside the store.  While I was there I thought, "I should pick up some Valentines stuff while I am here so I don't have to come back."  You see, I am in charge of a game for Addy's class party.  And I have to take stuff to decorate cookies for Aubrey's class party.  At this point I have no idea what game I am going to play.  There is time to figure that out later, and I am sure it will involve some type of heart shaped candy, so I thought I would save myself a trip. And there is still plenty of time until Valentines Day to work all the details out.  At least I thought so.  Apparently the grocery store does not feel the same way.  According to them Valentines Day is done and over.  Because when I got to the place in the store where the Valentines crap stuff should be, I was stopped dead in my tracks by this ↑.  They do know that the closest holiday is Valentines Day, right?  I mean, it's only 2 days away.  Easter however, is a whole 47 days away.  I know because I just counted.

I'm not sure what bothered me the most about this.  It could have been because they cleared all the Valentine stuff out and didn't clearance it yet so I still had to pay full price.  Or it could be because the emergence of Cadbury Mini eggs (my archnemesis and greatest weakness in this world) gets earlier each year, therefore leaving me with the need for greater willpower over an ever expanding period of time.   Maybe it is because in a former life I would have had my dumb party game planned out and purchases made a month in advance.  But at this moment my life is not functioning at that level.  I'm sorry, it just isn't.  (I would like to remind myself at this moment that Aubrey's and Addy's Valentine cards were purchased over a month ago and have been filled out for several days).  Still.

You know what today was like for me?  I had 5,000 things on my  THINGS I ABSOLUTELY MUST GET DONE TODAY LIST.  And it was one of those days that I had so many pressing things I had to get done that I didn't know where to start so I never started and now I still have those 5,000 things + whatever things I absolutely need to get done tomorrow one of which is to figure out a dang valentine party game.

♫ Shot through the heart, and you're too late... ♫

Sorry, I'm sharing the office with Steve at the moment.  He can't work without music on.  I can't think with music on.  So if this post makes no sense whatsoever, blame it on Steve.  And Jon.  Bon Jovi.

♫...a bad name...♫

Yoodlehoodle, It's not that I didn't get ANYTHING done today.  Steve did call me 50 times today (literally, I have the phone records to prove it) needing me to call people, type up bids, look things up.  I was able to collect some money and help secure future monies.  So I did get SOMETHINGS done today.  Just not the things I was planning on getting done.  OK, I did get 4 things done on my THINGS I ABSOLUTELY MUST GET DONE TODAY LIST.  But compared with the 5,000 things that needed to get done, they were just a drop in the bucket.

♫...two tickets to paradise..♫

For the love of blogging and endless rambling, can we please turn the music off!

I don't know what it was about that aisle of pastel bunny paraphernalia crowding out the red and pink hearts that bugged me the most today.  Maybe it is because I feel like the world needs to just slow down and enjoy the moment.  Maybe it is because I feel like I need to just slow down and enjoy the moment.

No.  Never mind.  I was the Cadbury Mini Eggs.  It's always the Cadbury Mini Eggs.

My Arrest Record, According To My Kindergartner

Conversation in the car during kindergarten carpool earlier this afternoon:

As we are pulling out of Jett's driveway...

Me:  Addy you need to sit down on your booty. 

Jett: Yeah, because you know what happened to me one time? I was standing up right as this cop car was coming right at us.

Addy: My mom has been in a cop car before.

Jett:  My mom has been arrested!

Me, thinking to myself:  I know a lot of crazy facts about Jamie, but this is one she has failed to mention.  Although it does co-ordinate with some of the other facts I know about her....

Addy:  My mom has been arrested too!  For not stopping at a stop sign.

Jett:  My mom was arrested for going over the white line.

Me, thinking to myself again: Darn it!  That's all?  Going over a white line!  Not as exciting as I had previously thought....Hmmm...what if this same conversation were to take place somewhere where I am not present and people really think I got arrested just like I thought Jamie really got arrested.  You know, because it co-ordinates with some other facts people perceive to know.  I should probably clear this up.

Me, out loud this time:  Y'all know that getting pulled over by the police is not the same thing as getting arrested, right?

Addy and Jett, completely ignoring me:  Yeah, well there was this one time when my mom...Oh and my mom was...Uh hm, and then she....

And then we were at the school in the drop off lane with no more time for clearing the air.  So I sent Addy and Jett off to school still believe that their mothers are convicted felons.

Swearing At Your Children Is Perfectly Acceptable Behavior, As Long As You Do It In Spanish

That is, unless they speak Spanish....

Earlier tonight Addison and Aubrey were sitting at the island in the kitchen doing their homework and I was making pink pancakes for dinner.   I informed them of the decision I had made earlier that day regarding the two of them.  I told them that from here on out, if they were going to speak to each other, they had to do it in Spanish.  No more of this English mumbo jumbo.  Aubrey now has 5 years invested in her Spanish education and Addison is halfway through her first year.

After I told them that, they let out a collective groan.  I told them to stop their bellyaching- if they were going to be groaning they had to do it in Spanish as well.  I told them both of their teachers would appreciate our new rule.

So Addy said something to me in Spanish and I answered her in my broken Spanish.  And Aubrey said, "MOM!  You just said a really bad word!"   I was like,  "No I didn't Aubrey."  And she was like, "Uh, yes you did!"  So to prove her wrong I said the masculine version of the word.  To which she acted even more shocked and horrified.

Sorry.  I learned my Spanish in the kitchen of the restaurant in Dallas Texas that I worked at 18 years ago.  It probably isn't as wholesome as the Spanish they teach in Pleasantville Utah.

Although one might ask the question....How does a child whose Spanish education took place in this Pleasantville Utah place, know of such a word and its meaning?

Happy Birthday Farrah!

It's a big day today!  And no, I'm not talking about the Super Bowl.  I am talking about my sister Farrah's Birthday.  

Farrah and I are three years apart.  I am amazed that we both have lived this long to see this day.  Because there were times growing up when we tried really hard to kill each other.  I will never forget the day we came home from school and our dear mother was rearranging our rooms.  We asked her what she was doing and she said she was putting us both in the same room together.  That did not go over very well.  We explained to her that one, if not both, of us would be dead by morning if we had to share a room together.  She said she didn't care.  I believe her exact words were, "I don't care.  You can either share a room and learn to get along, or you can kill each other.  Your choice, but I've had enough of the fighting and it ends.  Now."  Right there in that moment I thought my mother was crazyouttahermind.

But guess what?!?  It worked.  We didn't kill each other.  And in the process of learning to get along in one room, we became BEST friends.  That was one of the smartest things my mother could have done.  In those years of sharing a bedroom together, some of the greatest memories were created.  

Farrah, I love you!  Happy Birthday!

Can't see the video?  Click here.