Good Week

The Broadway Musical, The Drowsey Chaperone, is on tour and came to PA this week. My friend, Jana, talked me into going with her. I didn't really have an especially strong desire to see it, but she needed someone to go and you don't really have to bend my thumb back that far to get me to a musical. It was HILARIOUS! I laughed out loud almost the whole way through. I loved the script, loved the music, and I thought the performers were flawless. So good.
If it comes to a village near you, it is definitely worth your money to go see it. (Monica, its coming to SLC in June- Go).

Also, I finished reading North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. If you like Jane Austen, this author is from the same time period, dabbles in good romantic storylines, writes in even clearer English, but does throw too much English politics from the 1800s in there. I really enjoyed it, regardless. There is a BBC movie of the book which I hear is really, really good. I am excited to read her other book that I have also heard good things about, Wives and Daughters. On my list of things to do.

Happy Leap Day. Have a great weekend.

(Just a reminder, tomorrow is national pig day. Find the nearest pig and tell them how much you appreciate them)

Things I Shouldn't Say

If you asked me, I'd say I have a pretty healthy self-esteem. Not to high, because then I would be Michael Flatley and that just ain't good. I think part of having a healthy self-esteem is realizing that sometimes it's okay to have low self-esteem. I had a low self-esteem weekend. Does that ever happen to you?

You know when you are kinda in a funk and even when surrounded by people you like, you say things you don't mean, and/or you say things that you do mean, but shouldn't have said. You know, when your three year old has realized you have no control over them, and so they decide to act according to the dictates of their own conscience (and the conscience of a three year old is darn near the definition of futility). You know, one of those weekends, when you go to aerobics class with three-quarter length exercise pants, and just as you walk in the class you realize you haven't shaved your legs in a week? Or that the wall of mirrors staring you down informs you that, yes in fact, you do still have those big hips left over from the baby. And you realize, that no matter how much you have envisioned yourself on So You Think You Can Dance, you seriously aren't coordinated enough to pick up the simple step aerobic combos that the peppy instructor is shouting out unintelligibly into her headset (all you hear is "wah, wah, wah, knee") and you find yourself flailing in circles trying to keep up with everyone else all while being awkwardly conscious that the girl behind you is most likely focusing on your furry calves. So then you decide, I am not feeling like myself, so why don't we eat dinner at 4:00, get in bed at 7:45 and fall asleep by 8:30, like senior citizens do. Then you can wake up nice and refreshed, right? No. Apparently your body decides to keep kicking you while you are down by making every muscle in your body ache, causing you to curse every single, minuscule movement that you make. Even your knee-pit hurts. How? Why? Oh, that's right, because you are way, way, way out of shape and a simple step aerobics class has kicked your sorry butt.

Do you sometimes have those days where you just don't feel like you are measuring up? That is a rhetorical question. I don't want you to answer, because I will assume you do. And if you don't, then you are way too annoying. There I go again, saying things I shouldn't say.

But me and my healthy self-esteem can't stay dejected for long. I have a husband who knows when I need a good hug, a three year old who knows how to schmooze me with her charm, a six month old whose smiles melt my cold heart, and a good book to cuddle up and read after the kids have gone to bed. Just what the doctor order.

Slight Detour

Claire gave her first talk in primary last Sunday. I was really, shall we say, interested to see how she would do up in front of everyone. She loves the microphone, and absolutely does NOT suffer from any sort of stage fright. My big concern was wondering if she would really say her talk or start talking about red-eye tree frogs or something random like that. She had three pictures to hold up, with the words written on the back for me to read them to Claire and have Claire repeat. I tried practicing with her on Saturday. Apparently she doesn't get the concept of repeat after me. I kept asking her to repeat after me, but she would try to say it exactly at the same time as me or she would just add on an extremely entertaining tangent everytime I said something.

So then came Sunday. She was very excited to be giving a talk, and she stands up to the pulpit takes her picture, puts it down and starts moving her fingers along with the words, pretending like she is reading it. I just let her go on her own, and she did a pretty decent job staying on target. Well, 'decent' is relative. Here is basically how it went:


"When we drive in our cars, we have to follow the signs which tell us where to go or we might get lost and crash and get hurt and die. (those extra gory details were hers)

When we drive in our cars, we have to follow the signs to be safe. Red means go, Green means stop. We have to follow the signs or we crash and die. (again, her)

The scriptures tell us stories about the way to get to the children's museum.

(this is where I interrupt to help her correctly finish her talk- she thankfully repeated after me)

The scriptures tell us stories that teach us the right way to go and help us to be safe and happy. I love the scriptures. "


That was the jist, almost word for word what she said. Our microphone in primary isn't working, so only me, and maybe the first row heard her talk, but I was pretty proud of her (after all, there was only one slight detour to the children's museum, but other than that she stayed pretty focused) .

I love sunbeam talks; they are always good chuckle for me, and we have 10 more sunbeams to look forward to! Viva la primary!

Hierarchy of Love Notes

This past Monday, Claire had her first ever valentine exchange experience at dance class. Before we left for dance class, she was not liking the idea of having to give away her valentine cards, but I dragged her to dance class anyways. Once we got there, all the sudden the idea of handing out valentines seemed brilliant to her. She wanted to tell everyone and everyone's uncle that she had valentines to give to her friends. So after dance, they had a cute little party, the exchanging of valentines, and a cupcake to goop up the floor. Claire was pretty pleased.

And. . .

WHAT IS UP WITH VALENTINE CARDS? When I was little there was such a variety of famous characters (remember ziggy?), generic characters, fuzzy felt, shiny foil. All I could find at the four stores I went to were Bratz, Barbie, and Spiderman. Do they have a monopoly on crappy v-day cards? Bratz, really? Do I want Claire to tell her little three year old friends I love you, by saying, 'Your skankin' shirt is super blinging it, girrrl!" or "Be my BFF, but behind your back I am saying you have a huge butt." No thanks. Claire is still three. I don't want her exposed that early to that sort of skankiness in a valentines card (please, I much rather her see skanky people in real life at the food court in the mall).

Ah, talking about valentines cards and their quality or lack of brings me back to a certain story that my lawyer has advised me to stop talking about, after I was made ammends to last year by the so-called offender. It involved one wheeling and dealing gal, who managed to talk a little girl out of a whole lot of valentine cards. I won't rehash, but it really illustrates that to a kid, there is a whole currency system with valentines- a hierarchy, if you will. At the bottom are the lame, generic, don't even fold in half cards with some gangsta looking puppy on it that says, 'Don't be doggin' me, be my valentine" (Claire received one of those yesterday, if you thought I was making that up). A slight step above is anything with well known characters, because even though I think they're lame, Claire was excited to receive princess and mickey mouse cards. If it folds in any way, it ups the value of a card immediately. Throw on a metalic shiny sticker to seal it and you are in a whole new level. Then comes the cards that are interactive- you know, they have a fuzzy heart that you can feel, a scratch n' sniff section (though, boo, to black liquorice smells), or any type of 3-D embelishments/game. The top of the cake when it comes to valentine cards are the ones with candy some how involved. Suckers and sweethearts tend to be the favs, and those life saver ones are pretty snazzy, too. Though, lets just be honest here; those are all kinda crap candy. The day that they figure out how to make a nutrageous candy bar a valentine, well, then some serious trading will be going on in our house. Can't you see it?

Mom: Alright Claire, this is my final offer. I will give you four Bratz cards, two lacy victorian cards, and one life saver plane, if you give me your nutrageous card.

Claire: No deal, mom.

Mom: Oh, c'mon Claire, you're busting my back, here!

Created

First off, congratulations to my big sis, Shells, who gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, Abigail Hannah, on Thursday.

Are those chubby cheeks not divine?? And I think she looks a lot like her beautiful mother. I can't wait to cuddle with her and pinch her cheeks. It's an aunt's right.

_____________

Second, I thought I would share the contents of the prize I gave away last week. It ain't much, but I hope Heather enjoys it (or throws it away, I won't be offended). I had fun making it and that is the bottom line for me.

I have a little obsession with making these mod podged magnets. It just think they are cute, simple, and very versatile. Here are the ones I sent to Heather.


I think they make delightful valentines card keeper uppers. That's what I am using my magnets for. To make these, you round up some magnets, chipboard shapes, pretty paper, and mod podge glue. Its pretty straight forward- glue the paper onto the chipboard with mod podge, making sure there are no air or glue bubbles, add any embleshments or stamping that you desire, glue the magnet on the back, and viola. Simple. Seasonal. Stolen. I mean I stole this idea from her.

The second idea is stolen from Martha Stewart. Naturally. I found this way back in the day before I had kids and I always wanted to try it. So I did, and I love them.

I just made them with valentine scrapbooking paper and put them in my apothecary jar. A few days ago, I was browsing creative blogs when I saw that I wasn't thinking that far off from this genius. Of course, hers are about 49 times more cute, and I will definetly be stealing her ideas as well.

The final thing is this glittering word:



I love, LOVE, love glitter. I am like a magpie, I am attracted to anything that sparkles. I already had sparkling JOY letters for Christmas, and I really wanted something for valentines, so thats how this love came about. I purchased pre-cut wood lettering at Joanns, and painted it red. Then I applied glue all over it with a paint brush, poured glitter over it, let it dry, reapplied more glue over the glitter, and then sprinkled fine glitter over it. I just love the way they sparkle and you can decorate with these letters anywhere you want- on the mantel, in a picture frame, attatched to the wall (use sticky tack), or string a ribbon through it and make a garland. Ah glitter, how do I love thee.


Well, thats it. From my blog to yours, happy decorating.

Ronald Reagan and Me Mom

My mom's name is Wileen, the only Wileen I have ever met. My dad calls her 'Wy' sometimes. I think that is cute.

Where do I begin about my mom. I have already written that she is an incredible mom and grandmother, who is willing to sacrifice anything to help out her family. I could go on and on about the wonderful things she has done as a mother and a grandmother, but today, to celebrate her birthday, I want to tell you the things about her that make her a wonderful woman.

She is extremely, EXTREMEMLY creative. All growing up, she tackled any and all types of creativity and crafting. She is an amazing seamstress. She made us clothes, dresses, quilts, holiday decorations, purses, backpacks, car seats, couches- she even made us homemade cabbage patch dolls with clothes to go with them. She decorated cakes, toll painted, stamped, floral arranged, needle pointed. She had a file with torn out magazine pictures of ideas she liked and was inspired by that I use to love to go through and look at. She is amazing.


Sometimes, when something is so funny, she laughs uncontrollably, really loud! It is quite possibly the funniest thing I have ever seen. I can think of two distinct instances. The first is when she was telling a story of a coworker who was rooting for the Lions in the Superbowl, and instead of writing a supportive cheer for his team on the dusty side of a delivery van, he wrote, "Go Loins!" for all of Tri-Cities to see. She lost it and that was funnier than her story! A second time was when we had sister missionaries over for dinner, and one sister missionary was talking about how the mission had been having trouble with the missionaires keeping their pits, a term for their apartments, clean. But my mom didn't get the part that it was their aparment they were talking about; she was thinking arm pits. She sat there just incredulous that the mission was concerned about messy pits. Her eyes buldged out when the sister missionary informed us that the mission presidents wife was even going around, inspecting all their pits. "You mean she actually inspects their arm pits?!?" When she figured out her error, she lost it- as did everyone else. There is just something about unstoppable, uncontrollable laughter that is endearing!


My mom is very kind hearted. Maybe the nicest person I have even met. She will bend over backwards to help you out. She is also very sensitive to other people's feelings. She could always tell when we had hurt feelings and she was great about comforting us. I remember getting off the school bus when I was in elementary school one day when a kid had said embarrassing lies about me on the bus. We were sitting in the back and when I got off the bus, the driver said, "Don't you pay a bit of attention to what he was saying." That made me feel horrible, because I knew then that it had spread all the way up to the front of the bus. When I got home, my mom could tell something was wrong even though I didn't want to talk about it. But she is just so good about comforting, about making you feel like you can face any situation, because she is there to hold you up. It's a trait that had me turning to her when I was in college, when every couple of weeks there was drama of one sort or the other to call home about. And that help was priceless.

She also isn't afraid to tell you when she is proud of you. She tells me this all the time, and to me that is the best compliment she could give. I have a great mom as a role , and if I can emulate her in any way, that is something to be proud of. I love you, Mom!

Happy Birthday!

PS: She bakes the best breads ever. Period. That is not an exaggeration and there is no need to debate it. All hail the Queen!


PSS: GRRR, I can't post pics right now because of blogger, so to see my lovely mother, look no farther than here.

And the Winner Is. . .

The Giants! But that is besides the point.


Thanks for all who entered. I put all the names (even the late ones) in a camouflage hat (thought that would be appropriate somehow) and had Cody draw out the name. So if you are upset your name wasn't picked, it is Cody's fault. And the winner is. . .
.

(by the way, here I am at the Lion King with my friends)

. . . . . .

(Here we are again, the play was pretty darn cool)

.

. . . Heather!!!!

Congratulations. For those who don't know Heather, she is a really cool chica from WA who I met a couple of years ago. She is incredibly talented and always on the pursuit to pick up more talents, like cake decorating, gardening, music, extreme sports, ie, rafting and mountain biking, just to name a few. She is also really funny and loves to laugh (she has a great laugh).

Thanks again to everyone who commented. I am excited to keep writing another 100 posts. I love having you along for the ride!

February 1st

So today is the start of February and you all know how much I love Valentines day- mostly because we get to decorate in RED and PINK. Love it.

So I pulled out my valentines decoration box and this was it.

Hardly anything. Nothing would better describe it. So now that I have reconnected with my crafting side I decided to make some hand made decorations, because my house needs it. So for the last few days I have been busy making some fun stuff. And I put it all inside a Valentine Box.

Oh, yeah. Today is my 100th post!!!! So it only took me a year and a half, but whatever. I finally made it. And one of the reasons I love blogging so much is the interaction I get with you, the reader. So to celebrate. . . wait for it. . . I am doing a give away. WHAT?? I know you mind is reeling that I would actually do something interactive on my blog. But you deserve it. Thanks for sticking with me through a 100 drawn out posts. The give away is the Valentine Box, but more importantly, it's the cool stuff inside to help you get ready for Valentine's Day. Just leave a comment and you will be entered into the drawing. You have until Saturday night at Midnight, EST to comment. You only need to comment once. Thanks again!

Oh, Happy Groundhogs Day tomorrow!