Get On The Bus

How sad is it that my current favorite song is "Get On The Bus" by the Doodlebops??? I seriously can't stop singing that song. It is even getting on Aubrey's nerves. She started crying yesterday and said, "Mommy PLEASE stop singing that song." Sad when your 4 year old has to ask you to stop singing a song from her favorite TV show. I don't know what my problem is. I really like Bus Driver Bob for some strange, and slightly disturbing reason.

Books, Books, And More Books

You might notice a few things have changed around here. I got tired of my old template for my blog. I have also changed the name. When I first designed my blog, I did it as an easy way to share pictures of my kids and stuff with our family who live all over everywhere. Hence the name "Steve & Allyson's" blog. I felt a name change was due since A) Steve has never posted anything on here what-so-ever and B) it has kind of evolved into mindless ramblings on my part and C) my last post was about pantyhose and I am sure my husband wants no part or credit for that. I have also added 3 new page elements all to do with books. My sister Kristy added one to her blog and it is "On my nightstand" and pictures the current book she has, well, on her nightstand. I was also reading my cousin Kathy's blog yesterday and she was talking about books and well, by golly I got all excited. I love books and I love to read. I am always reading 3 books at once. I started a book club in my neighborhood about 4 years ago and so I read a new book each month for that. The book this month is "The Wedding" by Nicholas Sparks. I have to tell ya. I never ever ever EVER planned on reading this book. Too much hype and I just wasn't interested. But it was selected by others as our book club book for April. And I must say, it is so good. Who knew? I guess all them millions of people who made such a big deal about it and gave it so much hype in the first place knew. Oh well, live and learn. I am also always listening to a book on CD in my car. Right now that book is "Rachel and Leah" . I also read to the kids and the book we are currently reading is "Ida B. ...and Her Plans to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster, and (Possibly) Save the World". Kathy asked for recommendations for books so I thought I would take a minute here to recommend some of my favorite. These are some that we have read in my book club that I have really enjoyed: Eat Cake and Julie and Romeo Get Lucky. Carry On Mr. Bowditch which is a juvenile book but I loved it. The Kite Runner which is about 2 boys who grow up in Afghanistan-good,good,good, Mrs. Mike from which I learned not to judge a book by it's cover, The Hiding Place which was an excellent book about the Holocaust- you know how most books about this subject matter are depressing, this one is actually very uplifting. Girl With A Pearl Earring is excellent and I have read all this authors other books (hey, I just found out she has a new one I haven't read yet!) and they are wonderful also. They are all historical fiction. Follow The River is a great book. It is a true story about a frontier woman who gets kidnapped by Indians and escapes and makes her way home. It starts out gory but if you get past that you will NEVER NEVER NEVER forget this book. One of my favorite books we have read in book club is The Time Travelers Wife. Sounds science fictiony, but really isn't and I loved it! I am warning you that is does have some language and adult situations so it might not be the book for you. Kristy I know I have talked to you about this book before and you said you didn't think you could read a book about time travel but I know you would LOVE this book if you read it. Oh, and Rebecca is another one of my favorites but it takes a while to get into it. And my favorite book of all time that I have read at least a dozen times since I was about 12 years old is A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. The book we just read last month in book club is The Goose Girl which is very good. I recommend listening to it on CD because it is not just a person reading it, it is acted out by different actors and it is very well done. And I also really like the Women of Genesis series by Orson Scott Card. Ok so there are a few of my suggestions. Happy Reading.

Spanx Me

I have found something every woman should have. I learned about Spanx on Oprah and have wanted to get some ever since. I bought some the other day when the girls and I were at the mall and I LOVE THEM! They are footless pantyhose and a body shaper all in one. And they have a new product called the High-Falutin' Pantyhose. I love them because they go all the way up to the bra line. I have always been a firm believer in the body shaper, slimmer, whatever you want to call it. Even if you are skinny. It just helps to (slurp) suck everything in and make things smooth. I love the High-Falutin' one because most slimmers stop right in the middle of the stomach and so you have tight and smooth goin' on below and mushroom cloud above. And then if you wear it with pants, HELLO! You can see the band around your leg. These are footless and you can adjust the length to anywhere you want. I wore them on Sunday with the leg band all the way up above my knee because I didn't want them to show. The girl in the store who sold them to me was wearing black ones with the leg band about mid calf like leggings and it was so cute. So there you have it. You can order them off the website, I got mine at Nordstrom's.

Hippity Hoppity

I asked Zac this morning what the date was and he told me it was the 10th. Hello! April is 1/3 over and I missed the whole first 10 days somehow. We had a fun Easter. Steve and Zac went with Steve's friend Scott and his little boy to Moab on Friday and Saturday to ride ATV's. They had lots of fun and came home dirty and tired on Saturday night. The girls and I spent Friday and Saturday at the mall (malls) shopping for Easter dresses. We came home clean and tired. We quickly boiled Easter eggs while I gave everyone a bath, then the kids decorated the eggs in record time. I knew we would be doing it late and I had a ton of stuff that I need to do before I went to bed so we cheated and just stuck Easter stickers on our eggs. We went to church on Sunday morning. My sweet little Aubrey Anna gave her first talk in Primary. She did a wonderful job. She spoke loud and clear so everyone could hear her. That night we went to my cousins house for our annual family Easter egg hunt. There were over 400 eggs and under 10 children hunting so the kid LOVED that. It was fun. Click here for more Easter pictures.

Tree Climbing Cutie

Aubrey has learned a new trick. She has learned how to climb a tree. She had me come out back and watch this wonderful feat. Then she said, "Mommy go get the camera and take a picture of me". After I took the picture she said, "now all my cousins can see me climbing the tree". I took that to mean that she wanted me to put her picture on the blog. Here she is my little tree climbing cutie.

The Big 4-0

My dear husband turned 40 yesterday. He is officially an old man. He even has the gray hair to prove it. We woke up yesterday morning to find our house had been TP'd and this lovely coffin was on the front porch. Our friend Max and our neighbor Levi are the responsible parties. Steve went golfing with his friend Scott later that day and then I had a B-day party for him. We went out to eat at a restaurant with 6 other couples. It was a lot of fun. Click here to see the pictures. For his b-day the kids and I bought him an x-box 360. Sam, I am sorry you have to learn about it like this, but your x-box doesn't work with the new games. It overheats and freezes. Sorry. So now Steve has his very own. Happy birthday honey. I love you, you old man!

Oh, and my neighbor thought she would be funny. She said to me, "Allyson, I didn't know you were 40!". I have a long way to go 'till I'm 40. Thank you very much!

Feeling Better

I am feeling better. Or I guess I should say I was feeling better. I left the kids with a babysitter this afternoon and went to get waxed. I was going to take Addison with me because I have never left her with a babysitter before, other than my mom or one of my friends. I decided at the last minute that she would probably be ok to leave. She was just fine and wow. For the first time in a long time I went somewhere by myself. I felt much better when I got home. No more blah. I guess there is something about getting all the hair ripped out of your body that is invigorating and rejuvenating. That didn't last too long. You see I thought it would be fun to take the girls to the mall to buy Easter dresses. I have always picked out their Easter dresses by myself. I thought they were getting older and it would be a fun mom/daughter thing to do. Learned my lesson. Taking all 3 girls to the mall. They were pulling every dress off the rack. They loved them all, they wanted them all. Emily's favorites were the immodest ones. Why do they make clothes like that for a little kid in the first place? We were at the mall for a couple of hours and we ended up with 1 dress for Aubrey. So much for that. The best thing? We get to do it all again tomorrow.

BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH

That's how I feel right now. BLAH! I don't know what my problem is. You know last week I wrote a post titled "Undone". I talked about how I feel like I work and work all day and at the end of the day I have nothing to show for it because it has all been undone. Since then I have come to the conclusion that my life is too cluttered. We have too much going on and we have way too much stuff in our house. The less stuff we have the less to clean up, right. So I have really been doing a good job of going through things room by room and getting rid of as much stuff as possible. Throwing things away has always been one of my favorite pastimes. I love it. It is so freeing. I just don't do it much anymore because I just run out of time at the end of the day. I barely get the stuff done that HAS to be done as it is. So it is going slow because I don't have a lot of time to devote to it. But what I have done makes me feel good and I can tell it does make a difference. I have reminded myself that I need to be more careful about what I let into my house. So much comes in each and everyday and if I am not vigilant in sorting through it and throwing it away, it really stacks up. For instance, Zac and Emily go to school 5 days a week, Aubrey 2. They each bring home at least, AT LEAST 5 papers every day they go to school. That is 60, yes 60 papers a week. If I am really busy one week and don't have time to go through their stuff we have 60 papers floating around the house. Anyway, I have been doing a lot of purging the last little while and it has helped me feel better. But today is just....I don't know. I fell so...I don't know any other way to say it except BLAH. BLAH BLAH BLAH. And it's not because I have been cooped up in my house for too long. The kids and I went to the Children's Museum and spent the day there yesterday and Steve and I went out to dinner last night with friends for his b-day. And I am leaving in a few minutes to go to a waxing appointment. And I was going to take the girls later today to go shopping for Easter dresses. But I really don't feel like doing any of that. I just feel like sitting and doing nothing. Maybe crying. I don't know. It is making me crazy though. I hate feeling this way. I thought writing about it might help, but it hasn't. Oh well. I have too much to do than just sitting her typing away. I have a baby to feed before I have to leave. And laundry to do and dishes to wash and BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH.....

Revenge of the Toothbrush

I am getting the girls ready for bed tonight. I am in their bathroom brushing Emily's hair while she is brushing her teeth. She can't find her toothbrush. I find it stuck in the middle of the toilet paper roll on the floor between the sink and the toilet. Emily gets mad and says, "OOOHHH Aubrey! She always does that to my toothbrush". Then in one swift continuous motion she picks up Aubrey's toothbrush, holds it under the soap pump and squirts hand soap on it. She didn't even have time to think it through and I am wondering how she came up with it. It was so funny the way she didn't even hesitate, just acted, that I couldn't help but laugh. I tried to cover it up with a cough but it just turned into an all out belly laugh. Emily looked up at me with her sweet innocent toothless grin and said, "What are you laughing about mommy?"

The Return Of The Cookie Dough Nightmare

Ya know how I had my whole fun experience of collecting and ordering the cookie dough for the PTA fundraiser? Well the nightmare continued today. It was delivered. Kind of. It was supposed to arrive at the school at 8:30 this morning. It was well after 9 before it came. Then the cookie dough man came and said that the double chocolate brownie cookie dough did not come in and it would not be in until tomorrow. Well it's like this. I had all my volunteers there this morning, a good portion of which was spent just sitting around waiting for the truck to arrive. We had to pull each individual child's order and fill it and deliver it to the classrooms. I already had a ton of people calling telling me they were leaving to go out of town because the kids get out of school early tomorrow and don't come back to school until next Tuesday. (it is spring break and it is the stupidest way to do spring break ever). So I already knew we were going to have a problem with people not getting their orders today, let alone tomorrow. And how am I gonna get volunteers to come and help me again tomorrow. And to have to go through the whole ordeal of sorting and delivering again. Please. But what do you do? So we dealt with it. We sent a note home in the orders saying that the double choc. cookies would be coming home tomorrow. Then we start sorting orders and find out that we are missing a ton of stuff. If you read my previous post about the cookie dough you will remember that after I called in the order we realized that we were missing 2 classes orders. I called those in and he said it would be no problem to add them. Well apparently it was a problem because they didn't come with the other order. I called the guy and called him and called him and called him and called him. Finally he answered and apologized and said he would go to the warehouse and pick it up and bring it to us. Can I just tell you how confusing it makes it to be trying to sort orders and have a ton of orders missing stuff? He finally brings that and I am checking what he brought against the list of things we need and he still didn't bring everything. We were still missing 7 CASES! So he said he would bring them tomorrow with the double chocolate. I said uh, no. You will bring it today so it can go home and the only thing we will be missing tomorrow is the choc. whatever. How crazy would that be to try and figure out that mess?! Please. So he went back to get that and brought it this afternoon. And as people started picking up orders, problems started rollin' in. People were missing things, they had the wrong stuff, there was one lady whose child's order wasn't even there. So I got out my copies of the orders and we had nothing ordered for her kid. She found the order form and $ in the kids backpack. I am scared to wake up tomorrow and find out what other problems we have. Seriously. Scared. Not to mention the fact that I kind of had other stuff I need to take care of tomorrow morning before my kids are out of school for 5 days. My friend who was PTA president last year said they were dealing with problems with orders for weeks after. FUN! What in the heck was I thinking???? Gettin' myself into a mess like this.