WebCam Wednesday - She Was Givin' Me The Evil Eye

Monday Morning Musings - Warning: Animal Cruelty Photo Included

Some of you might have noticed that I have not been a very diligent blogger lately. This is what is goin' down. See, we thought we had until the end of November before we had to renew our construction loan AGAIN, but we recently found out that it is actually up for renewal on the 4th of November. So we decided to kick it into high gear and run ourselves ragged trying to finish the house by then. The lady in charge of our loan did say she would give us a few extra days if needed. I think we just might make it. We might kill ourselves in the process, but it will be very nice to have it done and to be able to move in! We had about a thousand people working on the house on Saturday and made huge progress.





My sweet little Emily was chosen to be on the student council at school. Each class in the school has 1 representative on the student council. She had to turn in an application along with a conduct form from her teacher. They chose the top 3 students from each class. Then she had to go through and interview process, after which she was chosen to represent her class. Way to go Emily!!! She was also chosen to be in the gifted class which she leaves her regular class for and goes to 3 times a week.





I am really getting irritated at my children. They think it is great fun to click my little blue tool bar along the bottom of the computer screen up on it's side. Then I try for like an hour to flip it back down and only have success 10% of the time. Addison got up on my chair and was playing around on the keyboard the other day and SHE flipped it up. If someone knows an easy way to flip it back down, please share! It makes me crazy to have it up on end.





My "sweet" little Addy who isn't even 2 yet, came to me the other day with all her clothes off and said, "Bathroom". So I took her to the bathroom and put her on the potty. (Hey, I'm a mom. That's what we call it, a POTTY) She did the most amazing thing. She pooped. On the potty. All of her own free will and choice. So I went out that very day and bought her a potty (cause who knows where the one we already have is) and she has gone on it several times since. Yes! I see and end in sight.





You wanna know why I said "sweet" little Addy? I mean she is the sweetest cutest little thing ever, but let me just tell ya. She has taken Monster Baby to a whole new level. Friday I loaded up the girls and made the long trek to Ikea. We were in the store for over 3 hours because I was getting stuff we needed for the house (drawer handles, mirrors, an oven range). Huhhhhh.....It was a pure delight to have that child in the store with me. Pure de-light. By the time we finally had everything we needed (it really is a long drive and I didn't want to have to make it again for something I forgot) I was like, "YES!". I was so ready to strap her in her car seat and go home and put her in bed, and put myself in bed too. I get up to the front register and I am about to pass out right there and what do I find? Only self checkouts open. I was ready to cry. After struggling with Monster Baby for hours in the store my arms felt like they were made out of butter (butta). Then I had to find a way to keep her next to me all while pulling huge heavy mirrors out of my cart so I could get to the 80 some odd drawer handles in the bottom of the cart. We checked out and got everything loaded in the truck and then my sweet little Aubrey decided she wanted to cry the entire way home. Yeah. Sigh. Hooooo.....that was a fun trip right there, let me tell ya.

Hee,hee. The other day I was at Target and they had these doggie shirts on sale for 25 cents. I just couldn't resist. I wanted so bad to put one on my brother's dog, Bean-O. That dog is the bane of my existence. So I put it on him and he hung his head really low. Emily said, "Mom! Take that off, he looks like he is ashamed." Ahhhh, ha ha ha ha. He really did. Next time he makes me mad, I'm pullin it back out.

The kids and I drove up to the new house the other day and we saw that we had a visitor on our scaffolding. Actually Emily saw him and pointed him out to the rest of us. I being so observant would have totally missed him if I had been by myself.

Flashback Friday - Three Little Pumpkins

This picture is from Halloween 2005. We painted faces on our pumpkins that year. I believe Aubrey's pumpkin won a prize at the Halloween party at church. It is funny because it doesn't seem like this was that long ago to me. But Aubrey is the same age (almost) in this picture as Addy is now.

Pure Gold

When I was growing up I was in Brownies and my mom was my brownie leader. Every time we met we would stand in a circle and hold hands and sing this song: "Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other gold." That song has new meaning to me now that we have moved out of the neighborhood we lived in for 12 years. We had the opportunity to get together with our friends from our old neighborhood last week. The plan was to drive up the canyon and have a picnic lunch. We drove up the canyon and found out that all the picnic areas were closed for the winter. So at Julie's insistence (because it IS her favorite place) we went to a local farm and had lunch. The kids loved seeing their friends again. Me too....

Nature Walk

Last Wednesday after the kids got out of school, we decided to take a little drive through our new town and have a look around. We found a fun little walking trail. The reason Emily looks so thrilled in the above picture? She really had to go to the bathroom and I kept stopping to take pictures.

Oops I Did It Again

I guess this is becoming a habit. I ran out of time everyday this week to post so I decided to do a weeks worth of posts today. Read on.....

Flashback Friday - A Little House On Quadrangle Dr.

These are pictures my sister Farrah took of the house we grew up in. My parents moved into this house when I was 2 years old. They lived there and raised their family there until 3 years ago when they decided to take a leap of faith and move out of state. A few years ago Farrah made a BEAUTIFUL album for me with pictures of the house. I found these pictures she scanned on my moms computer. I thought I would share them here. I know there are many of you reading this who have very fond memories of that little house on Quadrangle Drive.

If you are one of those lucky people, I would love for you to share a memory you have in this house in the comment section of this post.

Thinkin' Thursday - A Much Needed Laugh

The other night night I watched the The Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner on TV. It was the best thing I have watched on TV in a long time. I thought it was great to hear McCain and Obama making jokes and laughing at one another. It was a much needed break from all the craziness that surrounds this election year. I think it probably did the two of them a great deal of good to pause for a minute and take time to laugh. I think it was good for the rest of us to see also. Did you miss it? Click here to watch videos of the event.

WebCam Wednesday - The Scary Family

We found out that we literally have a pumpkin patch/corn maze right in our back yard. Earlier this month we took the kids and my sister Lauren there. It was so much fun (except for the mosquitoes) (thanks people for putting the can of bug spray at the ticket counter AFTER we went through). They had a little hay maze for the kids to go through, then at the end you get to pose with the scarecrow family. Then we went through the corn maze. Thankfully Steve was with us because with my sense of direction, we would probably still be wandering around in there today. After finishing the maze we got to take cute little handcarts out into the pumpkin patch to make our selections. I was sad because my camera battery was dead, as I found out after we got there. So I took videos instead. I decided not to bore you with the long videos of us tromping through the corn maze and pumpkin patch.

Elder Snow Returns From Mexico!

My brother Sam just returned last Wednesday from serving a 2 year mission for our church in Mexico City Mexico. We are very proud of him for completing his mission and staying out in spite of personal tragedy and loss. We are very excited to have him home with us now.

He was so excited when he came home that night to share with us some of his favorite candy he brought all the way from Mexico. I think he was probably a little disappointed at our reactions. I wasn't even nice about it. I just started gagging and ran to the trash to spit it out.

He still has some funny missionary habits. He has to ask us regularly how to say something in English. This morning when I woke up I walked past his room and he was still half asleep in bed. He said something and I asked what he had said. He kept repeating it and I kept asking 'what?'. We both finally realized he was speaking to me in Spanish.

I don't want to embarrass him, but he is going on his first date tonight! And she's cute! Way to go Sam!

From Sam Returns

From Sam Returns