Countdown to 400 - #3: Ya Put Your Left Foot In And Ya Paint It All About

Steve and I have noticed that Emily has really been trying to be good lately. So Steve thought we should do something to let her know we notice and we appreciate her. He asked if I had any suggestions. I thought for a minute, and while I was thinking I looked down at my nasty summer sandal wearin' feet and said, "I really think she would like to go with me to get a pedicure." So that is what we did. We went last night and now I can strap on my sandals and walk out into the world with my head held high.

Countdown To 400 - #4: Some Stuff We Did Last Week

We went to the park with our friends

Above: Kid Friends/Below: Mom Friends

We went to the library and learned more than we wanted to know about didgeridoos

The highlight of the week was having a new telephone pole installed in the backyard. We also had our street repaved the same day. Very exciting stuff.

I went to book club

Can you guess what book we discussed based on the centerpiece below?

I also went to Girls Night Out which is one of our Enrichment groups

Countdown To 400 - #5: All 4 Wheels

In case you didn't notice, I am doing really bad about getting to 400. Part of my problem is that I made a whole big old giant list of possible posts in my handy dandy calendar and I have seemed to have misplaced said calendar. Or more likely, MB (I don't think I should label her anymore, maybe she won't know that MB stands for Monster Baby when she grows up) misplaced it.

Anyway, above you will notice some pictures from when we were riding ATV's on Saturday. And below you will notice some videos from the before mentioned activity.

Countdown To 400 - #6: The Monster Baby Chronicles

Side Note: One day last week Addison was being especially.......energetic......going from one thing to the next. So Steve wrapped blue painters tape around her wrists. It is very light adhesive, less adhesive than masking tape, more like a post it note really, and it only took her a minute to break it off. So I just wanted to make sure you know that NO BABIES WERE HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THIS VIDEO.

Countdown to 400 - #7: Experimental

Zac is my little scientist in the making. And he has been since he was born. Since he was little he has loved nature and science. He has been collecting rocks since he was old enough to pick them up. It used to make me crazy and I used to try and discourage his rock collecting. Then the older he got, the more interested he became. When he was 6 years old he could tell you all about rocks. He would say things like, "This is a sedimentary rock because...blah, blah, blah.....I say blah because I have no idea what makes a rock sedimentary. A rock is a rock to me and I could care less about how it was formed. I decided that it was very bad of me to try and squelch his natural love for things such as that because I could be discouraging him from his future career. I mean what kind of kid at 6 years old tells you they want to be a geologist, and can actually give you reasons why?

He also loves to read. One of his favorite things to read is Encyclopedias. Really. When he was about 5 or 6 we were at the library and they were selling one of their sets of encyclopedias. I think I paid like $10 for the entire set. And it was probably the best money I ever spent. He has been reading them since he could read. I regularly find him late at night in bed with a flashlight reading all about things that start with the letter L.

A few of the other books on his shelf include: Safari Animals, Rainforest Animals, Prize Winning Science Fair Projects, Lost Civilizations, Smithsonian Earth, Illustrated History Of The World, and most recently acquired from the library is The Book Of Popular Science volumes 1-9. And he reads them and re-reads them. I would be bored out of my mind.

Being the little scientist that he is, he is always conducting experiments. He has been since he was like 2 years old. These really drive me crazy, make a huge mess, and I do not feel bad putting a stop to those. But he still continues to do them. Here is one of his most recent experiments.

Countdown to 400 - #8: Let The Memory Live Again

ARRRGGGGHHHHH! I went all day yesterday without posting. That isn't helping me get any closer to 400. Steve decided that we should take the ATV's for a little ride so I spent all morning trying to clean my house just in case someone wanted to come see it while we were gone. (I am really getting weary of cleaning my house before I can go anywhere) And then we were gone the rest of the day and didn't get home until 11:30 last night.

So here I am 1 hour before I have to be at church, unshowered. Toenails need to have a little attention before I can put them on public display, kids need to be dressed and hair done. But ya know, I thought, I should really do a post right now. I obviously have my priorities straight.

I got this idea from my cousin Marissa. I think it is a fun idea. So that is why I'm bringin' it to you today. (Mawiage, is wat bwings us togatha todaaaay)(do you know what movie that's from???) Sorry, I got a little side tracked. I do that sometimes. Anyway, here it goes.

Here are the directions:

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses.

Countdown To 400 - #9: Loose Your Atitood

July 15th, smack dab in the middle of summer. I think we all pretty much reached our breaking point that day.

Countdown To 400 - #10: Flashback Friday - Material Girls

It's like this. It has been just a little over a week since I invited you all do de-lurk yourselves. I am so disappointed in the majority of you. 20 different people commented on that post. Thank you. I had 2 more comments on another post. Maybe they think I won't post pictures that way, but sorry. I'm postin' em anyway. How many people have looked at my blog since I made that plea? 74 different people have looked at it 327 times. Ummm hmmmm. Rude.

Anyway......(I said that with a roll and bob of my head). It's not to late to leave a comment. Think about it.

My dear sister Farrah was the second person to comment on that post. Farrah is 3 years younger than me. When I look back over our childhood, I am really shocked that one of us didn't kill the other. There came a time when we were teenagers that my mother announced that we were going to have to share a bedroom. We were both like, "Uh, NO! I don't think so!". We begged her not to make us live in the same room together. We told her we would kill each other. We were being serious. She said, "You two are sharing a room weather you like it or not. You can either kill each other or learn to get along. I don't care which." Well, that was probably the best thing my mother did. We became best friends. I really loved it when she lived up here and was going to BYU. She came to visit us almost every weekend. She is now the mother of two very cute little boys. Farrah, I love you!

Allyson and Farrah sporting our Madonna hair thingies. We probably have the lace gloves on too, you just can't see them. The back of the picture says 1985.

When we were teenagers we were fed up with the Mormon boys in our stake and their lack of creative dating. So we decided to go on a creative dating streak. We planned some pretty awesome dates if I do say so myself. We were even gonna write a creative dating book. This is a picture from one of our dates.

Farrah and Allyson the night before Steve and I were sealed in the Temple.

Countdown to 400 - #11: A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Park

OK, it really wasn't funny. That's just the title that keeps running through my head.

We went to the park to eat lunch today. As we pulled into a parking space, an old man walked by our car and he looked very confused. The kids jumped right out of the van and ran off and as I was getting Addy out of her car seat and putting her in the stroller, I had this feeling that I needed to stop what I was doing and watch this man. He walked around the fence to the park and over to a busy street. I thought he was going to step into traffic and get hit, he came so close to the road. He stuck his thumb out like he was hitch hiking and I thought, that was strange because he didn't look the type. And I knew there was something wrong with him by the way he was acting, like he really didn't know what he was doing or where he was. I still felt like I should continue watching him and a minute later a bus pulled up (he was standing right next to a bus stop with his thumb out) and he got on. I thought, he probably doesn't have any money and he is going to get out of the bus because the driver won't let him on. The bus sat there for another minute and then it drove off.

For some reason I was very disturbed by the whole thing. It just wasn't right. So I got Addy out of the car and into her stroller and went to find the kids. As I was walking over to where the kids went I saw a man walking around the park like he was looking for something or someone. I thought I needed to go over and ask him if he was looking for that older man. I went to go get my kids to make sure they were OK and then I went over to where I had seen then man looking. He was gone. I looked around and saw him getting into a car and driving away. I thought, hmmm, I must have been wrong. He wouldn't be leaving the park if he had lost someone here.

I still was very bothered by the whole thing and kept going back to the thought that that other man had to be looking for the old man. And I thought maybe he just got in the car to drive down the street and see if he could see him and he would come back to the park in a minute and I could tell him what I saw. I kept watching for him to come back. Time went by and more time went by and it was getting close to time for us to leave the park. I really felt like I needed to do something about that old man. But what was I going to do? Call the police and say, "An old man got on a bus."?

Then I turned around behind me and way far at the back of the park I could see the man who had been looking for something and he was once again looking for something. He had parked in a different parking lot and was behind me where I couldn't see him. So I walked over to him and asked him if he was looking for someone. He said yes. I asked if it was an older man with a white shirt on. He said yes. And I told him what I saw. He said, "He got on a bus?". He asked me what direction it was going and I told him. He thanked me and started to call someone and made his way back to his car.

Whew! I was so relieved.

It made me start thinking about how Heavenly Father works. When someone needs help, it usually comes in the form of another person. That's one of the reasons we're here, right, to help each other? I was so glad that I was listening and that I followed the promptings I received. If I hadn't, I would have been busy getting Addy out and getting the stroller out that I wouldn't have seen that man get on the bus. And who knows what would have happened. I am glad I was able to be an instrument in the Lord's hands today and I am so thankful that I listened to what he was trying to tell me.

Countdown to 400- #12: A Powerful Combination

I caved. I was making Addison a bowl of Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch with bananas and I couldn't resist. I mean peanut butter and bananas. And since I stopped drinking milk I stopped buying skim so my only option was 2% which tastes like ice cream to my skim milk drinkin' taste buds. So after going about 2, almost 3 months without eating cereal, I had myself a big old bowl. And now I feel like I wanna throw up. I mean, it could all be in my head, but my throat feels irritated now. And I know the desire to puke isn't in my head. Back in my cereal eating days, whenever I would eat a bowl of kid cereal I would always feel this way. And I forgot that Cap'n Crunch has an ability to coat the inside of your mouth and teeth with this nasty film that is hard to get rid of. And brushing your teeth right after you eat PB Cap'n Crunch is REALLY nasty. How I wish I had the grace of a supermodel. I could walk into the bathroom right now and stick a long, slender finger down my throat and be all better. Unfortunately grace isn't something I come with.