Happy 41st Claudia!!!

She has beautiful, expressive eyes.
She loves traveling, especially to Europe.
She loves white linen clothes.


Her cute boys are always dressed alike.
She loves to hang out and chat for hours.
She LOVES to shop and can always find many bargains.
She is super generous with her time, talents and money.


She and Alfredo are a great couple, even during rough patches.
She keeps in touch with people all over the world.
She LOVES her family and serves them well.
She is a dutiful daughter.


She loves the beach.
She speaks 4 languages!
She has no inhibitions at all.
She tries to haggle over prices at Nordstroms! (I almost died the first time I saw her do this over a pair of huge earrings.)


She loves paper and stationery as much (or more) than even I do! (This is a very endearing quality.)
She loves to go to the movies and talks a lot during them.


She loves beautiful magazines.
She has a gorgeous home, but would rather be out and about. (I don't understand this at all.)


She's an excellent hostess and has cozy bedding and luxurious towels.
She considered naming her first son D'Artagnan.
She wants to have a room full of pillows in her future mansion.



She loves wearing navy blue and white. (Whenever I see clothes with these colors together I ALWAYS think of her.)


She looks like an heiress when she's all made up and ready to go out.
She goes to Disneyland once a week just to walk around.
She is incredibly easygoing.


She's a great cook.
She has a natural talent for making her home beautiful, yet comfortable.
She knows how to clean exceptionally well.


She loves to drive, and drives fast and crazy (she's often on the phone, eating and doing her nails at the same time.)
She loves living in California.
We call each other Missy (as in Missy Jill, Missy Claudia, the reason why is too long to tell).


She's a patient and loving mother.
She loves to wander Barnes & Noble, especially the magazine section.
She loves high fashion and anything expensive (how are we friends again?)
She often uses the word "tasty".


She loves Paper Source as much as I do.
She is a great friend!
When she wrote her list of 100 things about herself she ended up with 190 things!
She had a really rough 40th year but will have a great 41st!


She loves sending and receiving cards and letters and considers them a gift. (She has sent me cards with hardly any writing in them just because she thought the card was so pretty.)

Happy Birthday Missy,
I hope you have a wonderful day!

Clothes Shopping--A Poem

3 hours of clothes shopping,
only 1 shirt bought.
@#$%!
Why must it be so hard?
Even when I go to stores that carry clothes that fit me
I still don't have success.
The sleeves are too short,
the necklines too low,
many shirt styles look like maternity clothes on my potato-shaped self
and must be avoided so as not to invite "the question."
What's a girl to do?
I was in and out of so many dressing rooms,
which were all too hot with their slated doors and full-length mirrors.
They mock me so.
I am feeling frumptastic and shiny.
Not good.

Happy Birthday Jenny!!!

Preparations

This week is Women's Conference and the Blog Party (I really wish everyone would RSVP already) so I am making preparations for house guests (to be revealed later). I always enjoy the deep cleaning involved when prepping for house guests because I like knowing that everything is really clean, what I don't enjoy is all the mental shopping and wishing that goes on when I'm preparing for guests, especially when poverty has set in.


I had a couple hours at home alone today with the windows open and the music blasting while I moved furniture around so that I could vacuum under it and over it. I do this fairly regularly but am still surprised by what I find under the couch cushions. Today I found popcorn and cereal bits, 2 puzzle pieces and a mini horse toy.


I dusted all the picture frames on my wall-o-frames and thoroughly dusted the buffet. This just makes me happy. I really should change some of the photos in the frames, but have a hard time demoting these pictures.


I'm already overwhelmed by what's going on in my flower beds though and feel like I need a team of specialists to sort this out. I can see flower foliage growing, but the rest is mostly weeds and grass (how does that get in there?). I don't like how messy this looks, but don't feel like I can fix this myself. I think the soil needs to be modified and I'm not sure how to go about that either. Grrrr.

I need to manage my time well this week because I know things are going to get crazy and I'm going to be wishing I could go back and rework things. I'm going visiting teaching tomorrow (very late in the month for us) and have a primary teacher development meeting to run this week. My calendar for May is filling up so quickly it's kind of making me mad.


I have recently started buying a whole bag of Sonic's pebble ice so I can have it at home all the time. This isn't such a new concept except that my innovation is that I keep it in the refrigerator. This keeps it from freezing into one big chunk of ice and keeps it nice and soft (plus I don't have enough freezer space for a bag of ice). There's a little bit of melting each day so I just drain the water out each time I fill my cup. It's glorious!

**Do you vacuum under your couch cushions?
Do you have a hard time demoting pictures from frames?
Does your yard need a team of specialists too?
Do you resent your calendar filling up?**

Sunday Thoughts

This is one of the first thoughts I came across in the fabulous book of quotes by President Hinckley that Laurie B. sent me last month. I shared this for our spiritual thought during presidency meeting last week and thought of it again today as I sat in primary listening to the kids sing about their mothers (we've been practicing for Mother's Day). Of course I got all choked up as I tried to sing the words "I want to mind you, I want to find you, happy and smiling because I love you."

I don't remember ever singing this 2nd verse before and had to wonder how often my kids find me happy and smiling...yikes. I think I'm happy and smiling a lot of the time, but I'm often on my bed with a pillow over my eyes because I have a headache too. I'm need to be more aware of how they see me and what they're getting from me.


"It is so tremendously important that the women of the Church stand strong and immovable for that which is correct and proper under the plan of the Lord. They must begin in their own homes. They can teach it in their classes. They can voice it in their communities. They must be the teachers and the guardians of their daughters. When you save a girl, you save generations. I see this as the one bright shining hope in a world that is marching toward moral self-destruction." --Gordon B. Hinckley

My favorite line is "When you save a girl, you save generations." It is so powerful and so true, and also means when we lose a girl, we lose generations. How's that for perspective?

Happy Birthday Emily!!!

**What do you think??**

It Hurts!

One year ago today Randy stepped in to be the interim blogger for me as I set off for Paris with my book club girls. I have felt this anniversary approaching (much more so than any normal anniversary has before) and am officially longing not only to go back, but to not have it already be a year in the past!

On this day in 2007 we ate in our first Paris cafe.


We walked through the jardin de luxembourg and took this group photo.

We had the tastiest gelato.

We stayed at this adorable hotel.

I had to walk barefoot through the streets of Paris because
my blisters from day 1 in my cute shoes were that painful!

There was so much more to this day one year ago, but these few photos and words are all I'm going to post. I have such fond feelings for that amazing trip and am still ripe with gratitude that I got to go at all. I just can't believe it has already been a year!

**Do you have any trip anniversaries you remember?
Can you believe it has been a year already?**

P.S. It also hurt going shopping with Whitney today and have her tell me "Purple is NOT your color!"

Creative Friday--Ashley & Eva Edition

Today was a first for our Creative Fridays because Ashley came with me as a special guest and friend for Eva. Robyn was taking Olivia out today for her birthday and I happened to say, "Why don't you bring Ashley to me?" One might think I was having a momentary lapse in judgment due to residual pain from yesterday's migraine, but I actually had my wits completely about me. I'm just fond of Ashley.


Robyn met me at Sonic of all places today to do the kid/car seat exchange. I thought it was rather amusing that we did that there, but nobody was paying attention to us.

I just couldn't believe how strange it was to have a little person in a car seat in my car again. She was cracking me up, chatting away, asking for "fies and nuggets", asking me for a napkin or to put the window down or to close her baggy of crackers "zip it". It was fun having her there and totally made me nostalgic for when my kids were cute and tiny like that. (It was surprisingly difficult to get a picture of her from where I sat, I have no skills.)


Ashley and Eva bonded quickly as they shared the Wendy's kids' meal I brought for them. They're so tiny that they managed to have 1.5 chicken nuggets left out of the original 4...what in the world? They got busy playing soon after that and started off in Eva's crib with their babies. Is it me or is this just cute? Ashley managed to climb into the crib, but Eva had to come get help.



I only ended up writing 3 cards today! I was feeling more productive than that, but I guess with interruptions from the girls and then a long trampoline break for them (which was so amusing I cried with laughter) we just didn't have a lot of table time. Oh well, it was still a good day of regrouping for me and Michelle. Look at the cutest metal mailbox bank Michelle gave me...she got from Ebay. It's painfully cute!


Have you ever held a friend's face on your first day of friendship? I haven't. Ashley and Eva did as they bonded over cheese nips in their Dora bowls.


They even managed to share the same stool to stand on. Ashley is the only person I've ever seen who makes Eva look tall.


Michelle worked on her birthday banner again this week and appeared to have gotten some of it done. (Notice the left over chicken nugget in the bottom right corner of the photo...that's funny no?)



It was just too appropriate to have the girls in our self-portrait today, but Eva was tired and uncooperative at this point so she denied the camera. This is a Creative Friday we won't forget any time soon.

**Why don't adults make friends this easily?
Did you send any cards this week?
What did you do today?**

Quite the Combo

Riding a bus with 60 first graders is nowhere near one of my favorite things to do. It was so LOUD! The ride to the zoo wasn't so bad because I got to sit by myself and look out the window. The weather became increasingly worse the further North we went...oh joy. We left the school with wet streets and sunny skies and drove into wet streets and cloud-filled skies and snow! It was April 24th, where was spring?!


I was in charge of 5 kids, including Whitney. I know them pretty well from working in the class room each week, but still found it kind of maddening trying to keep track of them. We explored the zoo on our own, so at least we didn't have to try to stay with a huge group of kids, but it was still crazy because there were a ton of field trips going on. I suppose it made it easier that there weren't many nonfield-trip visitors there thanks to the crazy weather.


Lunch time was a joke because we had been told to gather at the Peacock Pavilion, but apparently everyone else (meaning all the other schools) had been told the same thing...nice! The snow was coming down in hail-sized balls (though they didn't hurt), the sidewalks had become slushy so we were all getting really wet, and there was nowhere to sit! Good grief. I was laughing because it was just so insane, but a lot of the kids were shivering like crazy.


I love how this picture of the white alligator also shows Whitney's reflection (not too shabby eh?). This was the coolest animal we saw yesterday, so the kids looked at it for a whole minute. They were just flying from animal to animal. That was fine with me because I really don't enjoy lingering in smelly, crowded places (the reptile house was foul) but it was like they had somewhere to be and just had to breeze past everything.


We actually only ended up having about 2 hours at the zoo, so the time went quickly but did make me wonder if all the effort was worth it for such a short time. Not that I really wanted to stay longer, but still. The bus ride home was an exercise in mind-over-matter for me. The bus was more crowded (how?) on the way home so I ended up sitting with one of Whitney's friends and "got" to play I Spy the whole way home. Plus, the heat on the bus was cranked up high, the kids were extra loud and there was more traffic so it took longer. I thought I was going to hurl! I had to talk myself through it like "I'm fine, I'm fine, only 20 more minutes," and then "I'm okay, not sick at all, we're almost there, fresh air is coming."


Of course I had a headache by the time we got home (that burst of fresh air upon getting off the bus was heavenly), so I came home to eat some lunch (once again I had chocolate milk and Scooby snacks on the field trip) and then retired to the cozy to try to regroup. I slept for 2 hours and woke up totally disoriented and in a panic that I had forgotten to set my alarm and was supposed to be somewhere Friday morning. Alas, it was only 5:45 on Thursday evening so I was okay except that my headache had morphed into a full-on migraine #$@!. I had to take one of my precious Relpax pills and keep a pillow over my eyes until it went away an hour later.



This meant I was late for the Pinewood Derby, but fortunately Randy had gotten the kids there on time. Randy has been working on their cars and had talked with a friend who knows on the ins and outs of making a speedy car, so Landon and Whitney's cars were both the fastest. I was actually a little embarrassed because it felt like Randy's cars were winning the races, not the kids' cars (though the kids were fine with this).


This is the only Pack Meeting of the whole year that I don't mind going to so it was fun. I think they should have a Pinewood Derby for the men of the ward so they can make their own cars and get it out of their systems.

After such a crazy day it was a total treat to get the kids in bed and then get some take-out for Randy and I and then sit back and watch our Thursday shows, plus they were finally new! The contrast between being plagued with a migraine to feeling 100% better after a Relpax is staggering, I was so thankful!

**How do you feel about the zoo?
Ever seen a white alligator before?
Do you go on field trips?
Do buses make you nauseous?
Have you been to the Pinewood Derby?
Were you happy about last night's tv?**

Happy 33rd Robyn!

Today is my sister Robyn's 33rd birthday--I made a list of 32 things for her birthday last year and have decided to repost it with some updated photos and another thing about her.

She loves to exercise.
She's very fond of salad.
She only ever drinks water.
She served a mission in Thailand.


She is short, but often wears heels.
She's not super coordinated (this is highly amusing).
She likes to critique people on tv while she's watching shows.
She's most like our mother.


She can wear her hair in like 20 different ways.


She loves funky foods and is an adventurous eater.
She's a good mom.


She married an Australian guy she met at BYU.
She has a permanently twisted elbow from multiple breaks as a child.
She's clean and organized.


She's been to South Africa, Thailand, France, England, Australia.
She scratched my Fame record when she was 6 and took it to a friend's house without asking (I definitely would have said no!)

{She's the cutie with the blonde pig tails.}

She likes to cook.
She's very skinny.


She has pretty blue eyes.
She loves to read.
She has 3 very cute kids.



She loves to scrapbook.
She loves to sew.
She is creative.

She's prone to cold sores.
She can't sing.


She is strong emotionally and physically.
She loves to buy clothes.
She loves the gospel.
She works hard.


She's a shop-a-holic, much to her husband's chagrin.
She lived in Australia for almost 2 years.


I'm glad she moved back to Utah!

Happy Birthday Robyn!!