Monday Morning Musings - Dora, The Freakishly Hairy Explorer

Today might as well be Monday, right? Monday holidays nullify all the fun that goes along with Monday and push it all over to Tuesday. Poor Tuesday. When the whole Monday holiday thing happens, Tuesday gets pretty much overlooked. I don't think Monday is the same for me, as a stay at home mom, as it is for most people. Instead of dreading the Monday Morning Back to the Grindstone routine, I look forward to getting everyone and everything back on schedule.


Yesterday, for our holiday, we all went our separate ways around here. My brother Sam and his wife Teresa were in town over the weekend. Teresa and my sister Lauren took Emily and Aubrey to see Justin Bieber. In 3D, nonetheless. And may I say a sincere heartfelt thank you from both Steve and me, to Lauren and Teresa for sparing us from such an event. Sam and Zac headed for the slopes for a day of skiing and boarding. And Steve, Addy and I went to IKEA, along with the rest of the greater Salt Lake area. But now, everyone is doing their "Back to the Grindstone Thing" and I am the only one left in the house. Yay me!


On Sunday we had the opportunity to attend not one, but two Sacrament Meetings. The first one was our own. We were getting a new Bishopric and just could not miss out. When that meeting was over, we loaded up in the car and headed over to our friend Spencer's ward for his baby's blessing. It was really super fun trying to keep all the kids quiet and reverent for two back to back Sacrament Meetings. Half of the kids were just fine. The other half, my twins who are seven years apart, were having trouble getting along. Mostly because the older one kept doing things to try and get the younger one to scream. At one point the youngest actually did scream. Right out loud. In the middle of Sacrament Meeting #2. One of the many things her sister was doing to upset her that day? She had her Dora coloring book and was proceeding to color all the Doras so they would look like this:
(to make it even better, when we got home, she cut them out and taped them to her sisters bedroom door) Addy was pretty upset over hairy Dora, but what upset her the most and what she yelled out rather loudly in Sacrament Meeting #1 was this, "DORA DOESN'T HAVE GREEN EYES!" Really Addy? That's what you are upset the most about?


Speaking of the oldest twin of mine. Here is her post it note shrine she made in the kitchen. It had things on it like, "Mom, buy new cereal at the store", "Mom, I need money so I can shop online at Justice". I will say, I did buy new cereal at the store, but the Justice thing, yeah. I just threw that one in the trash. I love you Em!

This morning, as Aubrey was getting ready for school, she told me that queen ants really freak her out. The regular ones, not so much. But the queen ones, well, she went on for five minutes telling me why she found them so offensively freaky. I was just listening to her and when she was done I said, "Well, OK then." And she looked at me and said, "Uhh, this is the part where you say, 'yeah, the freak me out a little too', so that I don't feel so weird for being the only one freaked out by them." I said, "Sorry, Aubrey, you ARE the only one freaked out by them".

So, you know, Survivor started again last week. I remember the days when I was a lone viewer of Survivor in my home. Then just a few years ago, I got Steve hooked on it too. Now he is more excited than me when it come on. Last week, our power went out a few hours before the season premier came on. Steve called the power company to see when the power would be restored. They told him it would probably be around 9pm. Steve then said, "You do know the Season Premier of Survivor is tonight, don't you?" And the power company guy said, "Sorry to cause you any inconvenience Sir. We are working on it the best we can." Looks like I've created a monster. You will be glad to know that the power and DVR were up and running before Survivor came on. Whew! Disaster averted. And please, Survivor people, keep Boston Rob around a little longer than last time. I'm begging you.

Flashback Friday - Best Friends

Flashback: January 2005

Rylee, Emily & Kylee

Flashforward: February 2011

Kylee, Emily & Rylee

These girls have been friends pretty much since they left their mothers wombs. The first 8 years of their lives they spent living just around the corner from each other. Now they all live 30-60 minutes apart. They were so excited to see each other again when we went to Max's Birthday party a few weeks ago. It was hard to get them to say good bye to each other when it was time to leave.

Flashback Friday - Over The Hill

Flashback: April 5, 2007

Steve's 40th Birthday. We woke up that morning to find this gift from our friend Max on our front porch. That night we went out to dinner with friends to celebrate.

Allyson & Steve

Dianna, Michelle, Ken & Max
LaRee & Brent

Aron & Cammy

Ash, Scott & April

Flashforward: February 5, 2011

Brian, Steve, Zac, Aron, Max & Brent

That same friend Max, who left the gift for Steve on our front porch, finally turned 40. We went to his "Kid" Birthday party complete with pin the tail on the donkey, bingo and a pinata. It was a fun night.

Dianna, Cammy, Allyson, LaRee

Playing a serious game of Bingo

Max sharing his HUGE helium balloon with all the kids.

Knife Dreams

This is the sad, sad story of my knife drawer. It's pretty embarrassing really. I have never in my life owned a decent kitchen knife. It's true. Those two knives up there, those are a pretty accurate representation of my knife drawer. I've never had (but have always longed for) a nifty knife block with fancy pants knife handles sticking out of the top. This is the situation though. I am just about the cheapest person you will ever meet. Really. And to spend an exuberant amount of money on a knife has never really seemed rational to me. That top knife is a Pampered Chef bread knife I broke down and bought for $20 about 10 years ago when I had a functioning bread maker and was "making" homemade bread on a regular basis. It is the best knife I have. OK, it's pretty much the ONLY knife I have. Except for that bottom knife. I have about 10 of those I bought at Walmart for like $5.

It has never bothered me much before, except lately. I have found myself wanting a real grown up woman's knife to use for all my slicing and dicing needs. A few weeks ago I happened to find myself in my friend Carla's kitchen for a Pampered Chef Cooking Show. And I found myself longingly gazing at this little beauty:

I know, right. Guess how much it costs? This bamboo block with 9 luscious forged knives, the Pampered Chef shears which I have seen cut through chicken bones and a lid from a can of corn. And don't forget the honing tool that also comes with the set. Yeah....$415. BAHAHAHAHA! Yep. Like I would ever even consider paying that much for ANYTHING. But then I heard this...Anyone who holds a show in February and has $650 in sales can buy this puppy for what? Lemme hear ya? $166. SAY WHA? Oh yeah, you heard me. One hunered sixey six. Now that....I would consider. I mean, look what you're getting. So I somehow found myself booking a Pampered Chef Cooking Show for February. Who would have ever thunk it?

Anyhoo. I am not a shallow, stupid person. I know that my lack of a decent knife is not a big deal in the grand scheme of everything that is going on in the world today. But I look at it this way. I am a 37 year old woman who spends a vast majority of my life in the kitchen cooking and has never in my whole 37 years of life had a decent knife to call my own. And dang it. I would like to buy myself this set of knives.

So yeah. I'm havin' a PAR-TAY! And you're all invited. Really. You are. Here's the low down:

Thursday, February 24th

My House

6:30 PM

"Real Food, Real Fast"

And if you can't come but would still LOVE to help me get to $650 worth of orders while getting some fabulous products in return (for yourself or someone you know who is getting married or having a birthday or, you know, Mother's Day is coming up), you can order online and have your order shipped right straight to you! How awesome is that? Click here to go to the website, go to "Shop Online" in the top right corner, and enter my name as hostess. Click here for the February Special! And thanks in advance, for helping to make my knife dream my knife reality.

(If you order online your order will not ship until I close my party on Monday Feb. 28th)

Monday Morning Musings - HELLO!

Addy and I just got home from eating lunch at the school with Emily and Aubrey and their friends. Here are some pictures we took when we went out to recess with them. I think I might have suffered permanent damage to my ear, it was so cold and windy. And you'd think I would have learned after last week when I went to Zac's school to talk to his teacher and in the time it took me to walk from the parking lot to the inside of the school, my wet, just showered hair was completely frozen solid. But no. I went with it wet again today.

Listen, I posted these pictures in reverse order. And right now, I really don't feel like going through all the blogger ridiculous editing hassle of putting them in the right order. I'm just lucky to be gettin' a post out at all. So the picture below is of Em and Aubrey about a week and a half ago. They had crazy hair day at school. After school they had some friends over to play and they all had crazy hair and Addy felt left out. So the girls fixed her all up. That would be the above picture.



OK. So I bought this shirt when I was on my little dress shopping excursion. I don't know how it really happened. I think what happened is I tried on a similar shirt when I was trying on skirts. Then at some point I took this one off the clearance rack but never actually tried it on. So when I was trying to figure out my mess of clothing and what I was going to buy, I looked at the price tag on this shirt and it said $5. And so I bought it thinking it was the one I had tried on. I tried to wear it the other day. HELLO! Can you say ridiculous?

This is what I felt like. Jerry. In the puffy shirt. If I had any ambition at all I would take the little flower things off and make some cute hair thing for my girls. Maybe some day.....

When we were at the circus last week, there was a guy juggling knives. Addy was sitting next to Zac. Her eyes got really big and she turned to him and said, "HELLO! DANGEROUS!" I don't know where she gets that hello thing from. (see above)

Zac is always so hard to wake up in the morning. It takes me forever to get him up and moving. But last week I went in his room and I was trying to get him up. I was sitting next to his bed in a chair and I looked out the window and there was a bright star. I said, "Hey look Z, is that a star or a planet I can see out your window?" Lemmetellya. He shot right out of bed and came over to take a look. I'm gonna have to use that trick again. And I did google it. It was Venus the "Morning Star" that we saw.

Flashback/Flashforward Friday - Circus Freaks

Flashback: August 3, 2000

Sam & Earl

Earl & Zac

Zac, Lauren & Allyson

Farrah & Bart

In August of 2000, when Emily was only 4 months old, Zac, Em and I went to Dallas for a few weeks to visit. While we were there my dad took us to the circus. Emily stayed home with my mom. This was Zac's first visit to the circus.

Flashforward: January 31, 2010

Aubrey, Emily, Zac, Addy & Steve

Zac, Allyson, Aubrey, Addy & Emily

Monday night, we made an impromptu visit to the circus. A few weeks ago Aubrey brought home a free ticket to the circus, but I forgot all about it. Monday afternoon I took Em to do something she has been begging me to do for a long long time and which I cannot speak of on this blog or she will be very mad at me. Let's just say that her unibrow (according to her) is no more. While we were at this certain place having this certain thing ripped from our faces, I noticed that on their counter they had a whole stack of free kids tickets to the circus sitting there. And the circus started in just a few hours. So Em and I went to her parent/teacher conference and then went by the house and picked everyone up and set off for the show. We had such a fun time. Addy loved it and this was her first visit to the circus.

Monday Morning Musings - Through, Throughout, To, Toward, Under, Underneath, M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-EEEEEE!

Man. I am in denial about it being Wednesday night. Where has this week gone? I still have too much to do this week, and only a few days left to do it.



So last week I made an innocent trip to the store to buy milk. That was it. Milk. Do you know what they had though, sitting right out in the middle of the store for all to see? Cadbury Mini Eggs (please see #15). IT'S JANUARY PEOPLE (it was Jan on Mon when I planned on writing this). How much torture do we possibly need to put ourselves through for the next, oh, I don't know - THREE MONTHS!?! So yeah. I bought some. And halfway through the bag I figured I might as well just finish the whole dang thing off and get the temptation over with. Thankfully my kids got home from school and finished them off before I did. Cause lemmetellya. I was being serious.



Just an observation I made: The bag the mini eggs are in this year is smaller than normal. I don't know if that means less eggs, same price; or just smaller bags, less air. I'm just sayin'. I know my mini egg packaging. Oh my gosh. No wonder I am so fat. Ok.....



I am thinking I should just go right on down to the Jr. High and enroll myself. I mean, I might as well. When I was in Jr. High....let's just say, I didn't really apply myself. I never learned my prepositions (let me tell ya, I'm learnin' 'em now) (and when my 13 year old asks what the point of learning them is - I can't help but scream the same question on the inside)(WHAT IS THE POINT?!?) Nothing like having this song stuck in your head for 2 weeks straight:


Need I say more?


The other day Aubrey got hurt and she came in to where I was and she was wailing and screaming. I think she was even gnashing her teeth a little (can you say drama?). I was trying to calm her down and access the situation when Addy came running in happily jumping up and down screaming in excitement, "MOM! I DIDN'T GET HURT THIS TIME! I DIDN'T GET HURT!!!" I didn't want Aubrey to think I was insensitive, but I was really glad Addy wasn't hurt. Because when she gets hurt, she really gets hurt and it usually ends up with a trip to the ER.


Like, at least 3 times a week, one of my kids comes up to me and says, "Mom, when I push on this like this, it really hurts bad." Uhhhh....OK, then DON'T PUSH ON IT LIKE THAT! Duh.


I am so glad that Emily has taken it upon herself to be such a good big sister to Addy and teacher her important things. For instance, she has taught her the art of getting dressed by pulling all her clothes out of her dresser and throwing them all over her room. I don't know why I even bother folding. I should just put Emily and Addy's unfolded clothes in a laundry basket and let them have at it everyday.


And to the girl in the youtube video. If you're gonna post a song on youtube, GET THE ENDING RIGHT! Please! I can't have you in my head for 2 solid weeks botching it like that.

Flashback/Flashforward Friday - Geek

Flashback 1992:

Allyson, Kristin, Farrah

Flashforward 2010:

Farrah, Kristin, Allyson

No, I didn't title this Flashback "Geek" because we look like geeks in the top picture. Although, really, we do. And for the most part, we were. Some of us still are. But, I titled it Geek because that was our friend Kristin's nickname.

In the top picture, we are posing with our Seminary Scriptures because we were on our way to our Stake Scripture Chase. The same Scripture Chase Kristin won! And she wasn't even a Mormon at the time. But still, she attended 4 years of Early Morning Seminary and held the title one year as Stake Scripture Chase Champ.

The bottom picture was taken on New Year's Eve Day at Farrah's house in Texas. We thought it would be a cute picture with the three of us and our three little ones who are all about the same age.

That top picture brings back some fun memories. See that white Rabbit car in the background. That was my car. And at one time, all the door handles were broken, and you couldn't open them from the outside. So since Geek was the smallest of us all, we used to make her climb through the hatchback and open the doors for us (it's the price of being so cute and petite). That was until my friend Adrian took me on my one and only trip to the junk yard to get new door handles. Then he taught me how to install them. So, if you ever need help with your car door, I know how to take it apart and fix it. Yeah...anyways....

Monday Morning Musings - What Kind Of Person Tells Her Kid To Shove A Pencil Up His Nose, Really?

My sweet, crazy, spunky little Addy girl. She has this great propensity for getting hurt. She gets hurt about 100 times a day. I think it stems from A) The built in anti-grace, clumsy gene she inherited from yours truly B) Her lack of fear and C) Her determined, curious nature. I am always telling her to be careful and stop hurting my Addy girl. The other day she hurt herself and she came up to me with the most serious sad face and said:

"I'm tired of being Addy. I don't want to get hurt anymore. Will you be Addy for me?"

Oh Addy. It made me want to cry. Only you can be Addy, but I promise I will try to help you be the best Addy you can be with as minimal injuries as possible.


Zac and I were playing around one day last week. I don't know how it started but this is how our conversation went:

Me: Here, Zac, why don't you take this pencil and shove it up your
nose.
Zac: OK, and why don't you take this pen and shove it up yours.
Me: Well, at least I won't get lead poisoning.
Zac: (looking at me like I'm stupid) There is no lead in that pencil.
It's like 20% graphite and 80% clay.
Me: Why do you know that kind of useless stuff?
Zac: It's not useless, I know that if I shove that pencil up my nose, I
won't get lead poisoning.

So Steve and I started reading The Hunger Games on the way home from Dallas. We were almost finished with the first book when we got home. But we have had little time to read since our return, so it sits unfinished on my bedside table. Zac, who listened to most of the book when I was reading on our drive home, has now finished the first book, the second book and will probably finish the third today. He keeps telling me stuff though, and it is really making me mad. He will come up to me and say things like, "Hey mom, you know how everyone SAYS that District 13 was destroyed???" It's really starting to tick me off.

OK. So Zac bought an airsoft gun from his friend. Which lead Steve to buy himself and airsoft gun. Which lead to this major airsoft war in the backwoods of Missouri. Which also lead to Steve and Zac going with friends last Saturday to have another airsoft war. Which also leads to the story I'm abouta tell ya. I haven't told this story yet (and I'm still not gonna really tell it) because the people involved have kissed, made up, and moved on with life. But I kinda have to give you some parts of the story so you can understand what happened on Friday night when the old man and I were out on the town.

This story involves a new friend of Emily's, a crazy cat lady, a boy with an airsoft gun, a herd of feral diseased cats living in our chicken coop eating all our chicken food, and some yelling and screaming at a 13 year old boy who was trying to protect his chickens.

So Friday night, Steve and I went to see "True Grit" and then went to dinner. While waiting for our table, two couples walked in and one of the ladies came over to me and started talking to me. We exchanged pleasantries and then Steve and I were escorted back to our table. We got to the table and I whispered to Steve, "That was crazy cat lady".

A little later, the two couples were seated at a table just across the aisle from us. Then I made the mistake of asking Steve what he thought of the movie, since he is a big John Wayne fan and wasn't sure if he would like the remake. He said he really liked it and then told me why some parts were better in this one and others were better in that one. Then he proceeded to demonstrate for me how when the guy rides his horse into the group of bad guys shooting the two pistols (remember he is demonstrating with his hands) John Wayne did it with two rifles and he was cocking and spinning them (more demonstration).

My eyes got really wide and without moving my lips I said, "STOP! STOP! STOP making gun signs with your hands!" A few minutes later I looked over and one of the members from the foursome was looking over at our table. I told Steve he was looking at us and I said, "You know how I said, 'That's the Crazy Cat Lady' as soon as we sat down at our table? Do you think she said, 'Those are the crazy gun people' as soon as she sat down at hers? And then the guy that was looking at us was saying, 'I know, he was just making shooting actions with his hands."

Aye, yai, yai. Anyhoo. I just thought it was funny. So Crazy Cat Lady, if you are somehow reading my blog, I only told this story because I thought it was funny. With my husband and his shooting hands at our dinner table right across from yours. And I only call you Crazy Cat Lady because that is what you called yourself when you were talking to me. And really, I promise, we are not crazy gun people. Crazy people, yes. Yes indeed. I'll give you that much.

Flashback/Flashforward Friday - Hats Off

Flashback: Christmas 1997

Flashforward: Christmas 2010

Steve's dad has a thing for hats. Military hats to be precise. When Steve was in high school going to early morning seminary, there was one month when he wore a different hat every morning to seminary. For a whole month. That is a lot of hats. So one year, when we were in St. Louis for Christmas, everyone was goofing off trying on all the hats. I took a picture. We decided this year while we were there it was time to recreate that picture. So 13 years later we rounded up all the hats and all the participants and had a little photo session.