Comedy

We had school off for Martin Luther King day yesterday (which was glorious) and I planned to go for a walk in the morning before heading to Michelle's house for Creative Friday. But it was super windy and cold outside so I couldn't go. Instead I chose to do the kids' new "Just Dance" game on the wii! Oh my goodness, it was so funny. Luckily Landon was at Physical Therapy, Randy was in the shower, and Whitney was having a sleepover at my parents' house, otherwise there would have been witnesses to the humiliation of seeing my large, uncoordinated self "dancing" in the family room. (I have lost a lot of the rhythm I used to have.)

I was able to appreciate the humor of this sight even when there was no one there to see it! I kept looking over to make sure Randy wasn't peeking around the corner! It was so funny and proved to be a good workout for me. My heart was going, I was sweating and smiling, plus I got 5476 steps on my pedometer. Good times.

**Have you played a game like this?

Was it embarrassingly fun for you?**

Comment Window Tidbit: Today is the first day of the new term at school, which means tons of kids will have lost their schedules and won't know where to go. Aargh! Plus, I stayed up until midnight (unheard of!) to finish my bookclub book so I'm tired today!

Creative Friday--11 Days Late

In all my frenzy of getting ready for our guests I failed to post about Creative Friday.


While we were taking our self-portraits someone came to the door and I looked to see who it was so that's how we ended up with this shot, which actually ended up being the best one of the 3 we took.

Michelle served homemade pizza for lunch.

I cut out some good mail labels and wrote several cards.

Blog friend Sandy sent us a bag of sesame honey almonds for a candy-free snack alternative, and they were great.


Poor Eva was NOT so keen on them, and I felt sorry for steering her wrong, usually our bowl is full of chocolaty goodness.


Michelle's mom requested good mail labels for her birthday so I obliged. I am always super intimidated about making or buying anything for her because she is such a style guru, but I did what I could do.

I love Michelle's lists!

Michelle made a tinfoil dinner for Max then dropped him off for his scout camp out.

Eva did some "tricks" for me while Michelle was gone.

Ole!

Poor Lucas was on day 5 at home in bed sick and was not keen on posing for a picture.


We finished the day with 4 cups each from the world's cutest tea set.


This was our output for the day, and as I was dropping them off at the drive-thru mailboxes I dropped one of the envelopes and had to get out of the car to retrieve it. This was embarrassing as there were cars behind mine and it was a very tight fit because I had pulled up close to the mailboxes. It was a total "I Love Lucy" moment.

**Don't you love the spontaneity of self-portraits?
Have you tried those sesame honeyed almonds?
Have you ever sipped from such a cute cup?**

FYI: Lelly is starting Self-Portrait Tuesdays again, woohoo!!

Comment Window Tidbit: Even though we're having crappy weather, I am so loving spring break!

Creative Friday--Power Lunch Edition

Our Creative Friday this week needed to be a house-related, cleaning, Paris prep-type thing, so I went over to Michelle's house intending to vacuum, clean out the fridge, and do miscellaneous chores. But as Marc was running out the door he took me aside and told me to be the voice of reason for Michelle, to give her permission to remove negotiable items off her to-do list. He even suggested that we take a break and go to lunch! Well color me surprised! It took about 3 seconds for the idea to take root in my mind (especially since I was already hungry) so I needed no convincing.


Fabulous Hannah had offered to take care of Eva for us, so we just had to tell the boys we were leaving and that was it. We decided we'd have a power lunch at CPK, which involved Michelle making a new to-do list out of the 3 she had going already!


It felt so great to be sitting in a restaurant waiting to be served good food, while working on important Paris prep stuff, plus it was our first power lunch!


We were tempted to order their new Cheeseburger Pizza, but both of us ended up going with our old favorites...Pear Gorgonzola for her and the BLT for me.


Even though we'd just consumed all of our pizzas (justified by the fact that they're basically a salad and bread) we walked over to Cold Stone to take advantage of my new gift card from Lisa. I told Michelle to order anything she wanted (that place is pricey, so the gift card made me feel all powerful). She opted for the Coffee Lover's mix which consists of coffee ice cream, Heath bar, caramel and toasted almonds. I don't like coffee flavored anything so I got the cake batter ice cream with all the same mix-ins as hers. We were embarrassed by how ginormous they were (they were the medium size) but told ourselves we could save the rest for later.


The crazy thing is that right after we walked out of the mall feeling like fat girls with huge cups of ice cream, Melinda drove past us (what are the odds?) and yelled "Hey Girls!" I immediately tried to put my ice cream behind my back! It was a super fast incident, but we both felt embarrassed and like we wanted to stop and explain our gluttony to Melinda...oh the shame.


Back at the house we got busy vacuuming and cleaning out the fridge. It's amazing how much food was in there! I'm convinced someone needs to invent a fridge that has Lazy-Susan type shelves so that we can actually see what's inside there. I think it would be worth giving up the extra space if it meant not wasting so much food due to not remembering it's even in there!


We really should have taken our self-portrait BEFORE we were way too hot and sweaty from all the cleaning. Good grief, will we ever learn?

**Do you ever have power lunches?
Would you have been embarrassed about the huge ice cream?
When was the last time you cleaned your fridge?
Would you like a Lazy Susan fridge?
Do you have multiple to-do lists?**

Comment Window Tidbit: I was so tired last night, but couldn't sleep! I tossed and turned, got up and read blogs from 4-5am (that's just not right) and feel like I'm walking at a slant today. Good Hell!

Festive, Family-Filled Fourth

What happens when 7 adults and 8 kids go to the pool? You bring a TON of stuff! Chairs, umbrellas, towels, lots of sunscreen, life jackets, treats, drinks, cameras, books, magazines, and on and on. It's a wonder anyone ever ends up getting wet.

Randy missed a couple spots as he lathered up in SPF 30.

The pool had been emptied before we got there because of an "incident" from a small child (ew). It was empty for an hour and I'm sure they filled it with oodles of chemicals, then we let all the kids go in. None of the adults were that keen on going in the "poo pool".

The boys ventured out.

Whitney got some serious height as she practiced her dive (at least her hands are diving).


I wore my swim get-up, but was very happy to sit in the shade and read. Whenever I do this it reminds me of that Seinfeld episode where Elaine wears a huge hat at the beach and Jerry says, "And then there's Maude!"

Adam read too!

The crazy thing was that the kids got to play in the water for about 15 minutes, then the pool was cleared for the hourly chlorine check (even though the pool had just been closed for an hour), then they got to swim for another 20 minutes or so before the pool was cleared again for a 2nd "incident." What the? We ended up leaving because it was going to be closed for another hour and then reopen for 30 minutes until they closed for the night. Good Hell!

We caravaned to Adam and Amy's house for a BBQ.

I got out of my swim get-up and was putting on my dry clothes when I realize I'd forgotten to bring a bra! I ended up wearing my swimsuit under my clothes so as to be somewhat supported. It's a good thing I hadn't gone swimming or it would have been a very uncomfortable and embarrassing day for me!


This was seriously a burger to remember. It had ranch dip, lettuce, tomato, and avocado slices. I'm dreaming of it now...


We celebrated my birthday, and I'm happy to report that I wasn't mental at all! It probably helped that it wasn't my actual birthday (whereas in the past it used to bug me to celebrate it early) because I had no expectations and didn't feel like it was "my" day.

I got a Visa gift card from Adam & Amy (I'm going to buy postage online with it, woohoo), a Barnes & Noble gift card from Robyn and Jared, an iHome type thing from Randy and the kids (so I can listen to my iPod in the other side of the house), and my mom's old Kitchen Aid mixer (big surprise) and a gift card for the movie theater from my parents.

Lori made this festive and tasty cake. (The frosting was particularly great.)

They sang our traditional birthday song, "Happy, happy birthday, may all your dreams come true. Happy, happy birthday to you, to you, to you, ole!" I forgot to make a wish when I blew out the candles, oh dear.

Andrew loved the strawberry ice cream.

I love taking miscellaneous shots of the group like this because they're totally candid and capture the family-filled feeling we had going on.


The glow necklaces Amy gave the kids were a serious hit. They were so into them they weren't that interested in the fireworks.


Landon did some fire dancing with his sparklers, good times.


I'm bummed that this photo is blurry, but it still captures the backyard view we had of the fireworks going on in the valley below.

**Do you like to read at the pool?
Do you know which Seinfeld
episode I'm talking about?
What do you think of bra substitution?
What would be on your burger to remember?
Did you watch fireworks?**

A Proud Moment...Not

This afternoon Whitney and I ran in to the grocery store to drop off some film to be developed (yes, I actually used film last Saturday at the kids' soccer games) and to buy some bacon to go with the pancakes we were going to have for dinner. I didn't get a cart because I was only planning on buying bacon, but then I remembered that I needed Halloween m&m's to give to the ladies I visit teach, and then I bought 16 candy bars because they were 4 for $1 and I use them to reward the kids in my primary class when they take notes during Sacrament Meeting each week.

So this meant that I had my arms full of 2 bags of m&ms's, 16 candy bars and a package of bacon. I didn't think anything of it and got in line behind a really old lady who kindly said I could go in front of her. Then she pointed to the stash of "food" in my arms and gestured as if to say "what's going on here?" I laughed and said, "It's not for me!!" and then she said, "Are you sure?"


It wasn't until I was standing in line for a minute or two that I realized how rude her question was, but I'm choosing not to be offended. She was seriously old and was kind enough to let me go in front of her, so surely she wasn't meaning to call me a fat cow right?

**Does stuff like this happen to you
or am I the lucky one?**

Blackberry Shmackberry

Last night was originally going to be our Book Club gathering to discuss Sarah's Quilt, but since Jana can't find a copy of the book and because Jenn and I were nowhere near finishing (this is unusual) we decided just to get together to talk. Apparently that's what we needed to do because we had no trouble filling the 4 hours of time we spent together! As I drove home last night, I thought of several things we didn't even have time to cover. Wow.



Collette got these very tasty cookies from a new place in American Fork called Smart Cookie. She thoughtfully (and humorously) labeled the chocolate mint cookie "Not for Jana" because Jana s mint.


This is a shot of my plate of goodness. We had spinach dip and french bread, wheat thins with cream cheese and chipotle, french fries and fry sauce from JCW's (my contribution), the best berry mix salad ever (strawberries, black berries, blue berries and raspberries), plus the fabulous cookies from Collette. It was sooooo good.


This is what cute Collette looks like when she has a giggling fit. At one point she was laughing so hard she couldn't talk to tell us why. It turned out to be because Jana said something that reminded her of an episode of Friends she'd just watched (she knows EVERY episode). This was highly amusing.


This is a shot of the clock when we finally stood up to leave, wow that's a lot of talking.


Here is our self-portrait (this is a new thing we'll be doing each time we get together) courtesy of Jenn's long, monkey arms. I love it! (L to R: Jana, Collette, Jenn and Amy, back: Me and Michelle)

After book club, I went to the grocery store at midnight to get some fun food items for Landon's birthday (birthday post to come later) breakfast and totally forgot that I was wearing this seriously stained shirt! Aye Carumba! You see, while taking my very last bite of fabulous fruit salad the blackberry I was going for went rogue on me and landed on my shirt. Horrified and annoyed I carefully went to retrieve it when it decided to roll down the rest of my shirt!! Good grief. Jana was in the middle of telling us a serious story so all I could do was eat that pesky blackberry and then put a napkin over my shirt to hide it. I found this stain highly distracting and somewhat comical because it looks like a stain from a laundry detergent commercial.


Anyway, I took this self-portrait at the grocery store to document my humiliation. Fortunately I was the only costumer in there, and most of the employees were stocking shelves, but I still had to face the cashier. I told her what happened but I could still see amusement and judgment in her eyes. I had to resist retelling my story when the bagger came and started bagging up my groceries. I felt like a freak.

**Have you ever gone out in a public
place with a heinous stain?
Do you have a hard time talking
when you get the giggles?**