Remembering Dad

Two years seems like such a long time to go without seeing someone. But in other ways, it is hard to believe that two years have gone by.

It took me a long time to decided what songs to use with this video. I knew my dad would have hated some sappy "We miss you" or "We love you" song. The second song came to me pretty fast, but I just couldn't find a song that fit right for the first song. I even sought an expert opinion from Brian Honea, because if anyone knew what kind of music my dad liked, it was him. He gave me some good suggestions, but they still didn't fit right. I knew when I found it, it would just fit and I would know it. After hours of searching it hit me. The song that instantly transports me to my childhood and places me smack dab in the middle of Quadrangle street on a Saturday morning, in a red brick house with all the windows open and this song blasting on the stero.

Dad, you touched the lives of so many. We miss you.

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Monday Morning Musings - Girl, Get Your Oprah On!

So, we needed something to hang on this wall. I mean, come on. It has been over a year since we moved into the house, and we have yet to put a nail hole in a wall. I think we are scared to actually hammer a nail through one of our beautiful walls. But enough is enough. We were having a Christmas party and I didn't want to embarrass the wall by letting it show up naked. So Steve made some frames and I put fabric over them. We did it very hastily. It took me forever to place the squares in the order in which I felt they should appear on the wall. Then I had to flip them over so Steve could nail them all together. Instead of flipping the whole big piece as one, I flipped each square individually. Stupid. So now they are in the wrong order. So I had to hang the smaller piece upside down to avoid having 2 of the same panels next to each other. It really doesn't matter, because the more I look at it, the more I hate it. SEE! This is why I didn't want to put a hole in the wall in the first place!

Aubrey has this friend and I took her over to her house to play last week. Her friend has cats and Aubrey, poor child with the pet hating mother, LOVES to play with the cats when she is there. On the way over to her house, Aubrey told me, "Grace has 2 cats. She used to have 3, but her Visiting Teacher ran over one." Talk about paranoia when I went to pick her up that night and it was dark outside and the cat followed us out of the house. I had to get out of the car and locate the cat before I could back out of the driveway. And even then I was scared. I think I'll park on the street from now on.

Addison for some reason, calls my apron an Oprah, even though I've corrected her a hundred times. It is kinda funny to hear her say, "MOM! PUT YOUR OPRAH ON!"

Some friends gave us a 50 lb. box of potatoes straight from Idaho for Christmas. I don't know what it is that makes 'em different, 'cause when I buy potatoes at the store, I always buy the ones that say "Idaho Potatoes"on them. But I think that is a big fat lie. Because they don't taste like the potatoes in my big 50 lb. box. Who knew a potato could taste so melt in your mouth yummy? I guess from now on, I will have to drive to Idaho to get my potatoes.

Pre Christmas Visit

A few days before Christmas My Granny and Aunt Vicki came in town to visit. It was fun to have them here and spend time with them.

Monday Morning Musings - All I Want For Christmas Is My Front Tooth To Freakin' Fall Out Already

Hallelujah! This tooth Finally dislodged itself completely from this child's mouth! This tooth that this child showed me 5 months ago and told me it was loose. This tooth that I had to touch with my own two fingers and wiggle every day to track the progression of it's looseness. This tooth that I was for sure was going to fall out a week before Christmas. This tooth that has been hanging by a single thread for 2 weeks. This tooth that I tried to remove myself when this child was sleeping and almost lost a few fingers over in the process. FINALLY! FINALLY! It came out. I cannot begin to tell you how happy I was to be woken up at 4 AM on Sunday morning to learn that it was no longer attached to this child. I was so happy I didn't even complain when she asked me (at 4 AM) to get the camera and take a picture of the blessed event.

The above is a picture of Steve and Emily building the island for our kitchen. It is all assembled now and in place in the kitchen. It just needs the drawers inserted and the drawers need handles and the top needs a counter, and a back and a side and a toe kick would be nice. But hey, who's keepin' track? I will just be SO happy to have the much needed extra cabinet space.
Thanks guys for putting it together! Steve was so excited because we have had the island for well over a year, back when the house was still under construction, and we didn't lose a single piece in all that time. Now that is pretty impressive. This is just one of the three cabinets they put together for it.

I have never seen a child love a Christmas present quite as much as this child LOVES her kitchen. On Sunday her brother and sisters made her her own little cafe, complete with red ribbon for the grand opening ceremony.

She ran right over to pose for the picture but then changed her mind, ran over to the cabinet and opened it so I could get a shot of what was inside, and then went back to her position.



Last night my mom and Lauren came over for dinner. We had yummy waffles and eggs and sausage. It was a fun dinner because everyone got in on the preparations. We all had a good time working together in the kitchen. You can see how thrilling it was by the look on Zac's face.
P.S. I take no responsibility for Aubrey's attire.

This picture was taken with my cell phone and obviously my cell phone takes pictures sideways and makes it impossible for you to flip them around. This is Addy. The girls and I stopped one day last week for ice cream and I made the mistake of letting them eat it in the car on the way home. When I opened the door to get Addy out of her seat this is what I found:

Again, another sideways phone pic. I walked out into the living room the other day to find this. Toilet paper leading from the bathroom all the way up the stairs. And then I walked out into the living room the next day. To find pretty much the same thing. I'm...not...really...sure...what....

Ringin' In Twenty Ten!

A new year. A new decade. An endless amount of possibilities. I LOVE a new year! I really do. It is one of my favorite times of the year. A fresh start. Everything is so clean and new. As much as I love pulling out the Christmas decorations, I think I love taking them down and putting them away even more. It gives the house a new sense of order. I love having all the holiday festivities over and moving on with life as normal. I love operating on a schedule. I love making goals and plans for the brand spankin' new year that lies before me. I love reaching deep within my soul and searching for the changes I need to bring about in my life so that I can take a step closer to the person that I hope to become one day. A New Year. I LOVE it!

2009 was good year. It was a hard year. But when you work your way through a hard time and come out the other end, you are usually a better person for it. A lot of changes occurred in 2009 and I like to think that I handled them well and learned from them. I am thankful for all that 2009 taught me. I am thankful for the ever present hand of the Lord in my life. I am thankful for the blessings he has bestowed upon me.

We had a fun night last night. Our neighbors came over and we played a little Rock Band, played some other games, ate yummy homemade salsa and waffles with all the fixins. Here is a picture of everyone looking out the kitchen window at the fireworks.

After midnight and the banging of the pots and pans, everyone was getting ready to leave and Addy ran to the door and wouldn't let anyone out. We are so thankful for good neighbors and friends. It was hard for us to leave our old neighborhood full of people we love behind, and we are thankful for good people in this neighborhood to help soften the blow.

Happy New Year everyone! And just a reminder from a post I did back in April of 2,008. The time has finally come:

Emily was asking Steve what year he graduated from high school. He told her and then she wanted to know what year she would graduate. That is easy to figure out because she was born in 2000. So I said she will graduate in 20-18. That's how I said it, twenty eighteen. But then I started to wonder, is that how people will say it? Or will they say 2,018? 'Cause when you watch movies that are set in the future they always say the year as 20-18 but when we say the year now we way 2,008. I like saying it 20-18. It sounds better than 2,018, don't you think? I think we should start a date reference revolution. If we all start saying the year as twenty-o- eight maybe it will catch on. OK, twenty-o-eight doesn't sound good. Let's wait until 2010 and then start saying twenty ten. I will remind you when it gets closer.

Family Christmas Party

On December 19th we had a little family get together at our house for our extended family that live in the area. It has been a long time since we have had this gang together. It was fun to see everyone again. Poor Steve had to miss it. He found out the day before the party that he had to go out of town. We missed him!

Christmas Day

Santa's Loot:

My poor kids have to make due with fake pets since their parents are so mean and won't let them have real ones. Aubrey LOVES this cat.

Addy has been slaving away in her kitchen since Christmas day.
Not sure what Santa was thinking, giving Emily and Zac the power to capture video at any given moment. And I LOVE that these ipods have a speaker so we can all hear 2 different ipods playing 2 different types of music simultaneously. After the second day we had to threaten to take them away if headphones weren't used.

That evening my mom and Sam and Lauren, and my mom's neighbors and our friends Curtis and Kami and their boys, came over for dinner.

We had quite the Nerf war going on that night.

I don't think it quite fair that the big boys trapped the little kids in this bedroom. If you look close in this picture, you can see a dart falling through the air:

Snow Much Fun

Last week the girls had some friends over. They played outside in the snow. Here are the before and after pictures.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Monday Morning Musings - Nose Worthy

Some friends of ours gave us a gingerbread house kit for Christmas. We just haven't had the time to assemble it until last night. Uncle Sam came over just as the kids were putting it together. They had fun erecting it last night and today they are having fun dismantling it in a candy free for all frenzy.

We have a bit of a trash problem goin' on at the moment. Our trash cans were full long before Christmas and we had them overflowing and piles of trash and boxes stacking up in our garage. Our trash day is Friday and so the trash pickup didn't happen until Saturday morning. VERY EARLY Saturday morning apparently. We didn't get the cans out to the curb on time. We have to wait now until Saturday again. I am just leaving the monstrosities out at the curb. I'm not taking any chances on missing it again. You would think the garbage collectors would have the common decency to wait a little later in the morning and give people a chance to wake up from their holiday stupor. I'm just sayin'.

I had to drive Steve's truck last night. I took Emily over to my mom's house to spend the night and since her trash pick up is tomorrow and she had 1/2 a can empty, I loaded up the bed of the truck with trash and headed over. I hate driving his truck because it is so big and I feel like I have massive blind spots all over the place when I drive it. The only good thing about driving it is I get a little boost to my self esteem when I drive it. Because when I drive it, I can pretend that all the guys are checkin' me out and pretend that it's not really the truck they are checkin' out. I didn't even get the satisfaction of that last night because it was dark when I was driving.

I love that my kids love their Christmas presents so much. I must take advantage of the leverage I have over the next few weeks before the newness wears off. "If you don't come here right now, I am taking your ipod away for 2 days!" And BAM! They are there. I love it!

The day before Christmas Eve Addy about broke my nose. Again. Why my kids always feel the need to be banging their heads into my nose, I don't know. Maybe it is because it is so big and it is always in their way? Anyway. We have a window about 4 feet above our bed. And Addy likes to climb in the window and jump down on the bed (I don't let her do this, and she gets in big fat trouble when she does it, just so you don't think I am a horrible parent). Anyway. Steve had just got home from work and was putting stuff away and I sat down on the edge of the bed to talk to him. I laid back and closed my eyes for two seconds when all of the sudden BAM! A three year old's teeth embedded in my nose as she jumped out of the window onto my face. Hot dang did that hurt. Really bad. I really thought it was broken and I really thought I was going to have a broken nose and black eyes for Christmas. It hurt like heck for the first few days. I could hardly stand to wear my glasses. Here is a picture of the damage. This is the only good picture I have of it because I have major makeup on it in all the other pictures. This one was taken on Christmas morning by Zac, so be kind to my nasty self.


Poor Addy. As soon as she fell on my face, she immediately went and put herself in the corner. I went right over to her and picked her up and hugged her and told her I loved her. I knew that she had to have been hurt too. She felt so bad. And her teeth hurt pretty bad too.

'Twas The Night Before

On Christmas Eve my mom and Lauren and Sam came over for dinner (mmm...tamales) and a special Christmas program.

He's mighty popular with the ladies.

Emily was in charge of the Nativity. She convinced everyone to dress up in the costumes she picked out special for the event.

Auntie La La

Uncle Sam is good for so many things. Like a seat, just when you needed one the most.