All Those Posts I Meant To Do - The Amazing Race

This year, Steve and I had the special opportunity to put on a Youth Conference for the youth in our ward. We had the help of another couple in the ward. When we got together the first time to plan what we were going to do, both couples came with the idea to do the Amazing Race. And lemmetellya. It was AMAZING. We had such a fun time planning and executing it. We began preparations back in January and the race took place in August. It was one of the best experiences we have ever had and we hope to have the opportunity to do it again sometime. It lasted for 3 days. The first day we started with a service project at the Humanitarian Center. We then sent those kids running all over Salt Lake City completing tasks. The second day was a high adventure day. On that day I was able to be a driver for a team and I loved seeing that side of the race and interacting more with the kids. The last day we had a speaker come talk to us. He is a soldier who was wounded in Iraq.

Everywhere we went, people thought we were the real Amazing Race crew. Our clue boxes looked just like the real ones for the race and we found people posing next to them taking pictures. We had the race flag on the back of the cars and people would stop and ask if we were from the Amazing Race. We had this one couple going at one time, thinking we were. They said, Yeah! We saw some other cars down the canyon that had the flag on them. It was fun, fun, FUN! Here are just a few pictures of our exciting, amazing adventure.

Happy Birthday Dad!

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All Those Posts I Meant To Do - Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

WE HAVE CHICKENS! Boock, bock, bock, bock, booock booock. That was chicken talk. You never knew I could speak chicken, did ya? Well I can. And I can speak it well. I can do a near perfect chicken imitation. I talk to my ladies every day in their native tongue. We got them during the summer. Our neighbors got a whole flock of little baby chicks and when they got all growed up, they let us have four of them. My kids were so excited, lemmetellya. They spent all summer playing with their chickens. Poor kids who's mean old mother would never let them have a pet before. Now they each have their own pet. They have named them. These are their chickens names:

Addy: Niki the Chickie
Aubrey: Julie
Emily: Stephanie
Zac: Chickenzilla

They can tell them apart, me, not so much. The first few weeks we had them, all the eggs stacked up in the fridge because everyone was to "chicken" to eat them. I remember the first time I made scrambled eggs from the chicken eggs. First of all, Aubrey was absolutely horrified. She looked at me like I was a murderer and said, "WE ARE GOING TO EAT THE EGGS!" I think she thought we were just gonna let them hatch and have 70 million chickens running around here. Steve and Zac ate them, no problem. The girls maybe tried one bite. I don't think I was even able to muster up enough courage to take a bite. But we got over that real quick. Now, we never have enough eggs. And when my sister was in town and we had to buy eggs from the store, it was so weird to me. First of all, store bought eggs have no color. Second of all, they have no taste. I don't think I can ever go back to store bought eggs.



It took me a while to get used to the fact that my children were going to be touching the chickens. The first few days, they would come inside after playing with them and I would make them change clothes and scrub their arms all the way up. (Anyone out there still wondering why I've never let my kids have a pet?) But after a few days of craziness, I finally told myself, "Self, there are a lot of people out there with all kinds of pets. And when they touch their pet, they don't have to go through a biochemical spray down to come back in the house."



These are some things we have learned about chickens in the last 6 months. Chickens are not so smart. Chickens can be very mean to each other. If you give them, say 70 grapes, they don't understand that they can each have their own. No. They fight over one grape. It's pretty entertaining to watch. Chickens poop a whole dang lot. And their favorite place to poop is my patio. All of these things and more make me crazy on a daily basis, but hey, my kids make me crazy too and I still love them.

This is one of my favorite pictures:

Addy and Niki the Chickie

This is where Aubrey spent a good part of her summer

Emily and Stephanie

We haven't had too many strange eggs. Just one so far with a double yolk. And one day one of the ladies dropped this in the middle of the yard. An egg with no shell.

Hallelujah!

Do you hear that? That chorus of angles, singing a round of Hallelujah. Oh yeah. Today has been a joyous hallelujah kinda day. I decided that my negative attitude towards shopping and clothing in general was probably keeping me from finding anything purchasable. So I decided that I would go dress shopping with a whole new attitude. The whole way to the store I was repeating positive mantras in my head. "I am going to go into this store with a smile on my face. I am going to find a dress that I like and that likes me. And I am going to walk out of the store with a dress to wear to the wedding and a smile on my face." And guess what? It worked! Only instead of walking out of the store with a dress, I walked outta there with 2 dresses. Only it took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to that point.

I walk back to look at the dresses and I start pulling things off the rack. This sweet little girl (little enough that I could have picked her up with my pinkie finger, easy) came up to me and asked if I needed help. I said, "YES! I DO!" I proceeded to tell her about my lack of fashion sense and the need for a dress to wear to my brothers wedding. Would she please, please help me!?! I showed her a skirt I liked and asked her what shirt she would wear with it. She said she didn't know. I looked at her and her 20 layers of clothing cuteness and wondered how she didn't know what kind of shirt I should wear with a skirt.

Then she started giving me some options. She gave me a t-shirty kind of shirt and said that it would look really cute tucked in. I thought that right about then would be a good time to inform her that I could not wear a t-shirty kind of shirt tucked in to anything because it made me look extra super fat. She said that it would be OK because the type of skirt I had, came up high on my waist and would hide my fatness. I looked at her and thought, listen you skinny little...sweet thang...you don't know whatcher talkin' about.

Anyways, I loaded myself up and headed for the dressing room. The most annoying dressing rooms ever invented in the whole entire world. You can only take 5 items in at a time. The problem with that is when I am shopping, I literally try on about 60 different things to every 1 thing I purchase. And the doors to the dressing room lock, so if I have to run out and get a different size, I have to find skinny little...sweet thang...to let me back in. And guess what? I had to go out and get a different size of EVERYTHING that first go around. I wear medium in pretty much everything. I picked up a medium at this store and I couldn't even get my right ankle in it. Medium my booty. Medium for someone who eats 6 oz. of non fat yogurt for breakfast, lunch and dinner maybe.

OK. I was in that store for 3 full hours. I'm serious. 3 hours. I tried on every article of clothing they have. I was there so long that a lady that lives down the street from me came in, did her shopping and left, and then another lady that lives down the street in the other direction from me came in, did her shopping and left. Little Miss Sweet Thang and I became the best of friends. I know she must have been so relieved when I finally left. But I walked up to the front and turned right around and walked back and made her help me pick out jewelry to match. And I had to get her to open the dressing room again so I could try on the dresses with the jewelry. I could see the look of horror in her eyes when I came back a third time. Oh, poor little gal. She earned her pay today.

So I left with 2 dresses. Because my theory has always been, if you are trying on 500 dresses and you find more than one you like, and it likes you, by 'em all. 'Cause you don't wanna have to repeat that process for a very long long time. And I was so excited because I saw those shoes up there ^^^ at Kohl's a couple months ago and I wanted them so bad, and I told myself way back then that I was gonna find a dress to match so I could go back there and make them mine. And now they are! Yay!

That's three big fat deep juicy drop pop reasons for the Hallelujah chorus, but there is more. I picked up my van from the shop today. They were able to fish 43 cents out of my CD player that Addy shoved in there back last spring. And now my CD player, radio, DVD player and navigation system work! HELLO HONEY! The CD player and radio weren't that important. I hardly every use them. I like to use my time in the car to think deep thoughts and talk up a storm to myself. But if you know me at all, you know it's hard for me to find my way around with my navigator, let alone without it. And the DVD player. The DVD player. That's gonna come in very handy in the next little while.

Also, I finished up my last little bit of shopping I needed to do, came home, wrapped all our presents, and then opened them all up again! And guess what? Santa came to our house tonight! We love Christmas so much, we set our tree up in the middle of November, and we open our presents in the middle of December.

Allyson's Big List of Things to Do Before Friday: check, check, check, check, check, and check!

Monday Morning Musings - Prepare To Be Bombarded

A while back I said I was going to overload you with all the posts I have been meaning to do for the last 6 months. I know, you've just been sitting on the edge of your seat waiting. Well, I don't want to disappoint. So get ready. I have a lot of catchin' up to do. This blog acts as my journal. And the older I get, the worse my memory gets. I am afraid if I don't blog them soon, all those memories will be gone for good. So sit back and prepare to be bombarded this week with "All Those Posts I Meant To Do"!


We are enjoying the Christmas spirit around here. We brought back our new family tradition we started last year. I went to the library and checked out a ton 'o Christmas books and wrapped them and put them under the tree. Every night in December, the kids take turns choosing a book to open and read before bed. They love it, and it helps to ease their desire to open all the other presents. A few weeks ago we went to a tree lighting ceremony. That would be the above picture. There was also a lights parade. The below picture is of Em watching the parade. That was the night I decided I have lived in Utah for 18 years, and it was about time I started dressing like a Utahan. Within reason.

I grew up in Dallas Texas. I've never owned a lot of winter clothes. When I was growing up, and it "snowed" like once every couple of years and the whole city of Dallas would shut down and we would spend the day playing in the "snow", you know what we wore on our hands? Socks. I've never had a pair of snow boots in my whole entire life. I don't wear hats, gloves, scarfs. Most of the time I don't even wear a coat. The only socks I own are little tiny thin no show socks. I go to the grocery store in January in flip flops. That's just the way it is. UNTIL I ALMOST LOST MY PINKY TOE TO FROST BITE THE OTHER NIGHT! Seriously. It was so cold that night of the tree lighting/parade. And I was wearing converse and no show socks, like an idiot. So I decided that very night, that before this winter was over, I would be the owner of snow boots. Maybe even a hat and some gloves. Maybe.

This is my problem though. I think I look ridiculous in boots. I don't have any of the right jeans to wear with boots. So of course to be able to get boots, I have to get new jeans. But that's OK, because it was my Birthday yesterday. And I have this special form of torture I reserve just for my Birthday. Jean shopping. *SCREAM* First of all, I hate shopping. And of all shopping that I hate, shopping for jeans and dresses are my most hated. H. A. T. E. D. I don't know why I hate myself so much that I go shopping for jeans every year on my birthday. But I do. Anyway. The last time I bought new jeans? My b-day 2009. The time before that? My b-day 2008. You get the picture, right? So it gets around to my birthday again and I think I am going to have a nervous breakdown if I have to wear my past b-day jeans one more time. Hence the nightmarish torture session. But this year to make it more especial, I decided that I also need a new dress to wear to my brothers wedding. So to make my birthday double fun I would not only be shopping for jeans this year, but also a new dress. *SCREAM* Because I'm also going to have a nervous breakdown if I have to wear any of my dresses EVER AGAIN!

My poor husband. I made him accompany me on my torture session Saturday night. He's such a good man. If anyone hates shopping more than me, it's him. We're a good pair. He's the kind of person who looks at a pair of jeans, decides he likes them, finds the right size, and then goes and pays for them. He never tries anything on before he buys it. I could tell he was nervous at first when I started loading up on like 20 pairs of jeans to try on. I'm sure he was thinking, "Is she seriously gonna buy 20 pairs of jeans?" The trying on session was so foreign to him. I was so glad he was with me though. From now on, he has to go with me EVERY TIME I go shopping. Sorry honey, it's the truth. You do. I would try on a pair of jeans, leave them on for 1/2 a second, and then rip them off. And he'd be like what was wrong with those? I'd just look at him and growl *grrrrr*. Then we'd repeat the whole process. Finally I was like, "LET'S JUST LEAVE THIS STUPID STORE!" And he was very calm and rational and said, "What's wrong with the jeans you tried on?" *grrrrr* Well, he talked me into buying a couple of pairs. It was so weird for me. I only tried on 20 pairs. At one store. Multiply that by 4 or 5 and you get my normal jean shopping numbers. So there you go babe! You've made it so that from now on, you go shopping with me every time! (Right now I can picture the look of terror on his face when he reads this. And I can hear him thinking..."What in the world did I get myself into? I was just hungry and wanted to go eat!"

So anyhoo. I'm still bootless and dressless, but that's just gonna have to wait for another day. I wouldn't want to get too carried away.

Last night, my dear mother made me a delicious dinner and a super yummy banana cake with homemade cream cheese frosting. Thanks mom! And last night, after most of the kids were in bed (except for the one who opened a brand new gallon of milk, poured one cup and then left the entire gallon sitting on the counter all night. Again.) and Steve was in the kitchen watching the Cowboys game he recorded, I went in and said, "It's my Birthday. If you love me, you will turn off this dang football game and come watch a movie with me." He looked at me like I was some kind of crazy woman. Then he said, "Your birthday lasts for 24 hours." So I said, "Yeah, well, it's still December 12th, so what's the problem?" And he said, "You know what time we went out last night. It's been more than 24 hours." So I threw a pillow at his head. But I knew he would turn the game off. And he did. Now that is true love.

So the other night, Addy wouldn't go to bed because she was afraid she would have a bad dream. She was overtired that day, so she was crying and being totally irrational. Because she would never cry or be irrational if she wasn't overtired...Anyway, I was trying to calm her down and I told her if she would think of something good that she liked before she went to sleep, she would dream about that. This is how our conversation went:

Me: OK, lets think of a place you really like. Where is your favorite
place?

Addy: Disneyland.

Me: OK, let close our eyes and pretend we are at Disneyland.

Addy: *crying* I WANNA GO BACK TO DISNEYLAND!!!

Me: Wait a minute, don't cry. We can't go back to Disneyland right
now, but you can pretend you are there and you can dream about it tonight.
What was your favorite ride at Disneyland?

Addy: The teacups.

Me: OK, let's pretend we are on the teacups. Which color teacup
do you want to be in?

Addy: Pink, because it's my favorite color.

Me: OK, we are in a pink teacup at Disneyland-

Addy: *hysterical crying* BUT I DIDN'T GET TO RIDE IN THE PINK ONE BECAUSE YOU MADE ME RIDE IN THE BLUE ONE AND THAT OTHER
GIRL GOT TO RIDE IN THE PINK ONE AND PINK IS MY FAVORITE COLOR!

It pretty much got worse after that. So much for helping her find her happy place.

Oh Addy. Sweet, sweet Addy. The other day she wanted to weigh herself. So she got on the scale and looked at her sweet little double digit number. Then she said, OK mom. It's your turn. I was like, no that's OK. I know exactly how much I weigh. But she was insistent and I thought, well, she doesn't know her numbers so she won't be sitting in her class at church announcing to everyone my weight. So I got on. And up popped my three digit number and she said, "WHOA MOM! YOU WEIGH A LOT!" Thanks Addy, I had no idea. Really.

Flashback/Flashforward Friday - Santa Baby

Flashback December 2006

It is a secret that only our family knows about, but I think we are safe to share it now. My dad, he was one of Santa's special helpers. A fact that my children think is super awesome. Above is a picture of him in his Santa helping role with my kids and me. Addy was only a few weeks old so she was at home with my mom. Below is a picture of her in her Santa dress.

Flashforward December 2010
Last Saturday Santa came to our town and the kids and I went to pay him a visit.

The Post That Almost Was

I bought this coat a few years ago at Costco of all places. Just a word of caution to anyone out there thinking of buying your coat at the same place you buy your groceries. If you're gonna buy a coat a Costco for $20, you are not the only person out there buying your coat at Costco for $20.

At the beginning of last winter, I could not leave the house without finding a twin somewhere out there. There were some days whenI saw 2 or 3 people wearing the same coat. One day-I'm not kidding-I went to the kids school, the post office, the grocery store and the bank. And at all those places-I'm not kidding-I saw someone wearing this same exact coat! After the last place I was like, DANG! I should have taken a picture of each of them and done a blog post! Then I wished I had done that all along, from the start of winter. So I decided that from that point forth, I would take a picture of each person I saw wearing the coat so I could do a post.

But guess what? I didn't see anyone wearing it after that. Which was weird because I seriously never left the house before without seeing my coat on someone else. I think it's because winter was almost over and everyone probably stopped wearing it because they were sick and tired of matching all the other people who were out running errands.

Well, HELLO! It's winter again. And it is the very beginning of winter. The coat is all brand new now. It hasn't been worn simultaneously by 1/2 the population of Utah for about 9 months or so. I wore it Saturday morning when I went to pick up my food co-op. And as I was starting my car up to leave, low and behold. What to my wondering eyes should appear? But a lady, getting her food, in my brown coat too! I fumbled all around my car trying to get my phone and turn on the camera. And then she was gone....

But now, now I'm ready. Freddy. Game on. Watch out brown $20 Costco coat wearin' errand runnin' Utah mommas! I'm watchin' for you, with my camera. Locked and loaded.

Our Day Of Thanks Giving

I've decided that Thanksgiving should not be a compound word. It should be a day of giving thanks for all we have been blessed with. And to make it into two words: Thanks Giving, seems so much more meaningful to me. My family and I have been blessed in so many ways and I am thankful for the time we had to pause last week and think of all that the Lord has blessed us with. Our gratitude and thanks giving don't even compare to his love for us. My kids loved writing in our Gratitude Journal. I think it was a great experience for them to take a few minutes each day and reflect on the hundreds of small things that blessed their lives that day and be thankful for them.

As you can see from the above picture, my turkey I was so worried about turned out just dandy. I was nervous because I had never brined a turkey (or anything else) before. But from here on out, I will and forever more be a brinin' fool. We were blessed to be able to have friends and family join us for Thanks Giving. Here's the proof:

Monday Morning Musings - In Utah We Stack Cups. In Bangladesh They Stack People.

I am glad to have something to look at in my back yard now. When we bought this lot, there were so many horses behind us. And silly us, we thought they would always be there. But they haven't been. We did have a few horses all summer and the kids loved talking to them through the fence. But it's been empty and boring for a while now. I was excited last week when I came home in the middle of the day to find this whole giant heard back there. I would be lying however, if I didn't say I was just a tad bit nervous. You know. With last time and all. When we had a bull tromping wildly through our newly sodded, sodden yard. There was a day last week that there were about 5 of these cows with their heads sticking through the fence eating our grass. One or two more, and I am almost certain the fence would have no longer been standing. Steve had to go out and...persuade...them to go back on their own side. It's all good though. It has been far too quiet around here lately. We need a little excitement. And since it's winter and not spring, I am not too worried about the children being trampled.

We have a covered patio out back and apparently it is a good shelter for stray animals at night. We woke up this morning with 3 different types of tracks leading up to the back patio. We believe them to be deer, cat and raccoon tracks. Fun, fun. We also have all kinds of tracks over by the chicken coop. And it seems that we have 2 stray cats now squatting in our coop. Almost every time we go out to tuck the ladies in for the night, we have to chase out the cats. I don't mind it if they will keep the mice away and stop pooping on my patio. WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH ALL THE ANIMALS THINKING MY PATIO IS THEIR OWN PERSONAL TOILET??? If you're gonna squat here, don't take the term squat too literally! Please!


Last night, Steve and I were watching the Amazing Race. The last pit stop was in Dhka Bangladesh. At the beginning of the show they were giving facts about the city. They said that there are 100,000 people per square mile. SAY WHAT? Steve said, "Did he just say what I think he said?" So we rewound it and listened again. Sure 'nuff. That's exactly what Phil said. He then went on to say that that would be the equivalent of taking all the people in The United States and Mexico and putting them in the city of Los Angeles. HELLO! We had to pause the TV and take that in for a full 60 seconds. Then we had to rewind it and hear it again, just to make sure we weren't imagining it. Dude!


Usually, the night before a big event, I will have nightmares all night long where everything that could possibly go wrong at the event does. Well, the night before Thanks Giving, I fully expected to have Thank Giving Day nightmares. But I didn't. I did have the freakin' weirdest dream though. I had a dream that I was a teenager and someone asked me my age and I couldn't remember how old I was. I knew I was 16 or 17, but I couldn't remember exactly. And I kept trying to figure out how old I was and why I didn't know. Then I woke up and there was a man in bed next to me! And that's when I realized I wasn't really a teenager, I was married. So I tried to remember how old I was and I started thinking, I'm married and I think I have kids. And I was remembering Zac and Emily as little kids and I thought, I must be about 23 or 24 years old. Then I remembered that I was about to turn THIRTY-SEVEN! It was the weirdest feeling to be awake and not know that I'm a middle aged woman with 4 kids and a husband in bed next to me.


My children have this obsession with cup stacking. I don't know where it comes from. I would rather have them stacking cups instead of watching TV, but, I must admit- it kinda gives me the crazy shakes. I kinda have this thing about things having a place where they belong and I feel much better when things are all in that place where they belong. When there are 70 million cups and other various items stacked all over my kitchen counter and table, well, that's a lot of stuff that is not where it belongs. Even if they are all red cups that can easily be put together and where they belong in a matter of seconds, all I see are 70 million things out of place. It's a personal problem, I know. Here they are Thanks Giving night, stacking away.

Emily asked me to take a picture of the "stuff" (no pun intended, you know, with the Stove Top and all) she stacked. I took the picture and as soon as the camera flashed, Addy who was standing right next to me went straight into her modeling pose:

The day after Thanks Giving, we took the kids to the dollar movie to see Despicable Me. Then we went to a display nearby that had all these Nativity's from all over the world on display. They also had some Nativity type activities for the kids to do. There was this puzzle there that had all the Nativity figures and they all fit inside this stable. It was making me crazy trying to help Addy put it together. I finally gave up, figuring that it was not a suitable children's activity, because there was no way in the world anyone could actually figure out how to get all those pieces in there. I was filling Steve in on the whole thing, and he just stood there looking at the puzzle. He was like, "Really? You can't figure that out?" All smug like and all. So I said, "FINE! Mister smarty pants, you give it a try!" So he nonchalantly started picking up the pieces and putting them in the puzzle. In about a minute, he had the whole thing put together. Whatever. It must have been the angle he had on it from standing up. I was sitting all squished up in a little tiny chair with Addy sitting on my lap helping me. That must be it, right?

Fabulous Four!

Four years ago today, my sweet little Addy was born. And life has never been the same since...

We had a Princess Birthday party yesterday with her friends.

Today we had a special Birthday Dinner of her choice. What was on the menu? Hot dogs and Mac 'n cheese. Mmmm...good stuff. At least we didn't have to eat leftovers from Thanksgiving again!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY SWEET ADDY GIRL!