Flashback Friday - Hawked

YIKES! I forgot it was Friday. Here is a picture of my little brother Sam who is in Mexico on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Poor boy had 4 older sisters. We were always fixin' him up somehow.

Elfin Magic

Click HERE to see my little cuties wish you a

Merry Christmas

in their own special way.

Giving Thanks

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. ~John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Mind Your Own D*** Business

OK. So I know there are people who get really upset when total strangers BUTT into their lives and try and tell them how to raise their children. I am not one of those people. I usually just let it go in one ear and out the other. It is a waste of my time and energy to get mad at people such as that. But lately, I have been having a very hard time controlling my emotions over one particular matter.

I have an 11 month old who refuses to have anything on her feet. I could put her socks on 265 times a day and she would pull them off 265 times. Same with her shoes. I can't even begin to tell you how many socks I have lost and how many hours of my life I have spent searching aisles of stores for her shoes. She just takes them off and drops them wherever. And if I don't happened to notice the drop, well, bye-bye shoe.

So when we are at a store (which now that it is the season to be jolly we are finding ourselves at stores more and more often) and she takes her shoes and socks off, I just put them in my purse so that they don't get lost. Most stores that we frequent are heated. I don't feel like there is any imminent danger of frost bite or anything.

Well, I'm abouts to make myself a big ole sign to hang around my neck that says:

"HER SOCKS AND SHOES ARE IN MY PURSE-SHE WON'T KEEP THEM ON-MOVE ALONG AND MIND YOUR OWN

_ _ _ _ BUSINESS!!!"

Because I can't make it through one store without someone stopping me and telling me that I need to put some shoes on my poor baby's freezing feet. And it's really starting to piss me off!

Monday Morning Musings - Every Other Day Of The Week Is Fine

The song that gets stuck in my head everytime I do my Monday Morning Musings:

It's not exactly morning. I spent the morning in Zac's class. They are about to learn about the Colonial period so they were doing activities that had to do with that. I got to help them make candles. It was so very fun and now I feel like I had a paraffin hand treatment at the spa.

Addison is congested and she coughed and tossed and turned all night last night. The baby monitor is right by my head so she kept me awake all night. Then she woke up at 5am to eat (she usually waked up at 8) and I had so much to do I just stayed up after I fed her. If I don't make much sense, sorry.

At some point last night, I believe it was 2 or 3ish, I remembered that Zac's entry in the Reflections contest was due this morning and we were going to do it over the weekend but totally forgot. I woke him up early to race through it.

Addison is turning into quite the daddy's girl. I will say to her, "Addy, say MaMa" and she says "DA DA!"

Everything Addison picks up now she holds up to her ear and jabbers. I wonder where she picked that up from?

2 weeks ago I bought a new pair of very cute shoes. They killed my feet so I took them back last week. I spent forever picking out a new pair. They killed my feet. In between that I bought another pair then decided I didn't like them so I am taking them back tomorrow. That still leaves me with the other pair that I am also taking back. I am thinking my feet grew and I need to go up 1/2 a size. I already had to go up 1/2 a size a couple of years ago and I am trying to pretend like I don't need to go up again but I think I am going to have to deal with it now.

Addison has this fun new thing she does. She stands up in her high chair and climbs onto the tray. CONSTANTLY. It makes me crazy. Anyway, she fell out of it on Saturday. Just what a baby with a skull fracture needs, right?

I cleaned out my kitchen drawer that holds all my big stuff like spoons, whisk, spatula. I put in nice drawer organizers. Now nothing fits. And I threw half of it away. So much for being organized.

So honey, I knew we said we weren't going to tell anyone this, but I think I should just share it with a few people. Steve and I went out on a date Friday night. We went out to eat and then to a movie. When the movie ended it was 9:00. I didn't want to go home because Aubrey was at a party that ended at 9 and I told the babysitter the rest of the kids could stay up until Aubrey got home. I didn't want to go home and put kids in bed. So we decided we would go to Marie Calendars and have pie. We both sat down, looked at our menu. Looked at each other. Knew what the other was thinking. Wrinkled our foreheads. Looked back at the menu. Looked at each other again. And then we ordered...dinner. Again. We did have Chinese the first time around, so you know how filling that is. We took a whole pie home.

Shake Some Booty And Turn Around

My dear father bought tickets for Lauren, Emily, Aubrey, Zac and me to go to "High School Musical On Ice" today. We went and had a "Fabulous" time. (And just when I thought I had all the HSM songs out of my head.) On the word Fabulous I put the quotes because that is a song from HSM2 not because we had a fabulous (air quote, sarcastic) time. Just thought I should clear that up. We LOVED it. And we had "Fabulous" seats on the 4th row. Zac refused to be photographed at such and event, I am sure that makes his father proud. Emily begged and begged all week to make a poster to take. Hence the "I ♥ Troy" sign she and Lauren and Aubrey have.

Flashback Friday - Insane In The Membrane

I have talked before about how my parents allowed our house to be the hang out house. It wasn't something that started when we were teenagers. It was always the hang out house from the very beginning. We used to have slumber parties galore. This is a picture from one such slumber party. I cannot imagine. I honestly would go crazy if I had 12 wild SCREAMING (because that's what girls do when they are together) girls at my house. ALL NIGHT. Once again, thank you mom and dad for allowing us to have so much fun and make so many fun memories. Can you pick us out? I am on the back row sporting the ever so "stylish" rose colored glasses. Kristy is on the front row in the hot pink shirt and Farrah is in front in the light pink striped shirt.

Repeat After Me, "There's No Such Thing As Vampires"

I just had to share because I know there are some of you who will find this rather amusing. I am reading a book for my book club right now. It is a true story about a woman pioneer who became a doctor. I just read a part of the book that talked about how she spent some time in Mexico teaching people about medicine. This was my thought for about a second and a half, "Oh my gosh! She was in Mexico around the time of the vampire wars! She is lucky she didn't get.....WOAH! Back up the bus! Did I just think what I think I thought?". Ok Allyson. Vampires are fictional characters. That means they are just pretend. The book you are reading now is a Biography. That means the stuff in there- it really happened. In for real life.

Wednesday Morning Musings? What? I Can Muse On A Wednesday Too.

Steve took this picture with his phone yesterday. This is the very beginning of the HOUSE building. I am so excited!!!!

So the votes are in. Thank you to those 11 of you who participated. The rest of you - I know you're there! Anyway. Steve is the WINNER. 7 people voted saying Addison looks like him. 4 voted saying she looks like both of us. And I got ZERO votes. I don't know why that makes me so mad because I know she looks like Steve. I have seen the pictures, I'm tho one that put them up there for Pete's sake (whoever Pete is). I just feel like at least one person could have voted for me. I feel like such a loser.

Some friends of ours came over last night to look at our fireplace. Or should I say the hole where our fireplace used to be. Apparently he ripped theirs out when they moved in too and just left it. I told them that was the in thing. Just tear it up and leave it for....years...(I won't say how many) (in my husbands defence, our new one is finished, it's just not installed) (so then what difference does it make if it's finished, right?) But I digress. Anyway, when they were here they told us about their nice new TV they bought but can't open yet. I asked why they couldn't open it yet. She said there are conditions that must be met around the house before it can be opened. CONDITIONS! I have been married for over 12 years and how come I have never thought about conditions! CONDITIONS! Here I have just been letting Steve walk around doing whatever in the heck he wants to. Let me just tell you. We are going to be getting all kinds of conditions up in here. (SNAP)

For those of you living in Arizona, I saw your governor on TV today. Urging the government to look into the ALIEN sightings 10 years ago. Must make you proud. And secure in you state leadership.

Aubrey and her Friend Austin are PLAYING chess right now. Only they are calling it checkers. And they are rolling dice to see how many spaces they get to move. And they keep saying to the other that they don't know how to play it right.

Current Song Stuck In My Head

i hope you don't mind

i hope you don't mind

that i put down in words

how wonderful life is

while you're in the world