Creative Friday--9 Days Later Edition

This was the scene in the back seat of the car on our way to Creative Friday last Wednesday. Lucas had slept over the night before and the boys just soaked up every second of play time. Here they were playing a game together on their DSs.


We picked up Taco Amigo for lunch on the way over (the fries were for the kids...mostly). Michelle was busy preparing for Jessie and family's arrival so I didn't want her doing one more thing for me.


Poor Michelle, this is the pose she struck after letting Jack (dog/bane of her existence) in the house with muddy paws. She had been cleaning all week and he just undoes all her hard work.


I asked Eva to make her "rock on" sign and this is what she did, that's just hilarious coming from a 4 year old isn't it?


This shot of the kids playing a game together, with Eva cheering them on, was just too cute. I love it that they get along so well, especially considering the range of ages is 14, 10, 9, 8 and 4.

Michelle worked on her marvelous birthday-mail tags.

I got some cards written and 2 little packages put together, in addition to the 2 I sent from my mailbox earlier that morning.

Michelle took a break to make a watermelon lemonade recipe she'd seen on a blog earlier in the week. I'd never had anything like that before and took a few minutes to decide whether I liked it not (I'm not fond of pulp in drinks), but ended up enjoying it as it got colder from the ice. Watermelon lemonade who knew?

Our self-portrait for the day.

**What's your fast food of choice?
What pose would you strike if a dog undid your cleaning?
Have you ever had watermelon lemonade?
Have you been sending good mail?**

Lemon, Lizzie, Lythgoe

Last Thursday (and I've been trying to post about this since then...good grief) I met blogging friend Amanda Lythgoe for dinner at The Blue Lemon. Michelle was supposed to join us, but was unable to come due to Eva's current sleep woes and resulting behavior (it's not pretty).


I had never been here before, so it was fun to find out that such a cool place was so nearby.


I ordered the raspberry chicken salad (with some fear since I'm not so keen on chicken or vinaigrette dressing), but after the first few bites I was sold and ended up cleaning my plate. I find that having fruit and nuts in a salad makes it far more tasty, yet this technology somehow eludes me at home.


Amanda brought these cute monogram necklaces for Michelle and I, they're double-sided with the reverse color-scheme on the back.


I gave Amanda 3 decorative tiles with black ribbon hangers that spell out her word for the year, JOY. (I thought it was funny and enjoyable that we both brought gifts for each other.)


Amanda suggested that we go across the street to Dear Lizzie for dessert. I have passed that place at least 50 times and never gone in, so I was very happy to finally see it's charming goodness for myself.


How pleasing is this cupcake? The answer is (of course) SO PLEASING!


Dear Lizzie closed at 7:00, so Amanda and I ended up talking in her car for awhile longer. It was so fun to meet her in real life and to feel like good friends.

The winner of the birthday label drawing (courtesy of random.org) is Lisa Price!

**Do you like vinaigrettes?
Have you been to The Blue Lemon or Dear Lizzie?
Don't you just love spontaneous gift giving?
Can you believe this post took me a week
to create because of picture-loading woes?**

P.S. My picture-loading woes are NOT over. Each of these photos took about a half hour and sometimes multiple tries to load.

Creative Friday--Garage Assault Edition

One of the big stresses on Michelle's preParis to-do list was to clean out the garage. I also suffer from recurring garage pile-ups so I could empathize with her situation and just had to offer to help.

I arrived at 9:15am, armed with a big drink for Michelle, a big cup of ice and some water for me, and my iPod and player so we could have good music to help us along.

This is our early morning (and frightening for me) self-portrait before we got dirty.


Michelle listed this couch on KSL the night before and had already received a couple calls about it by the time we started.


We were so happy when someone came to pick it up within the first half hour of our garage assault, because getting rid of such a space-hogging item made us feel like we'd made progress already.


We broke for lunch around 1:00pm and were so happy to replenish ourselves with these tasty sandwiches on homemade bread. It felt risky to sit down at that point, because there's always a risk of losing momentum.


Whitney was with Robyn's kids for the day, but Landon played with Max & Lucas.


I think I impressed Michelle with my dormant baton twirling skills, she had no idea I could twirl.


We had several piles of stuff going, but the largest pile was this D.I. pile.


We loaded up my car with stuff to give to Robyn, a few dumpster items and some recycling as well.


Michelle's car was loaded too with D.I. offerings and stuff to take to Kid-to-Kid.


We were sweaty messes by the end of the day, but were very pleased to be done with such a huge project by 4:20. Eight hours isn't too shabby for such a job!

Blogging Tizzy

My pictures won't load.
I am lost without them.
If a picture speaks 1000 words and
I usually have 5-10 pictures in a post...
then I'm hosed.

Caliente Pocket

**Did this make you laugh?**

Sunday Thoughts

“We suffered beyond anything you can imagine and many died of exposure and starvation, but did you ever hear a survivor of that company utter a word of criticism? …

“ ‘I have pulled my handcart when I was so weak and weary from illness and lack of food that I could hardly put one foot ahead of the other. I have looked ahead and seen a patch of sand or a hill slope and I have said, I can go only that far and there I must give up, for I cannot pull the load through it.’ ”

He continues: “ ‘I have gone on to that sand and when I reached it, the cart began pushing me. I have looked back many times to see who was pushing my cart, but my eyes saw no one. I knew then that the angels of God were there.

“ ‘Was I sorry that I chose to come by handcart? No. Neither then nor any minute of my life since. The price we paid to become acquainted with God was a privilege to pay, and I am thankful that I was privileged to come in the Martin Handcart Company.’ ” 1

This story comes to mind whenever I think of the pioneers, and it was shared again today during church. I was especially struck by the last sentence and found myself thinking how so many people are willing to pay the price to have nice things, to get in great shape, to get an education and so on, but that there's a price to be paid for our spiritual growth and relationship with God as well. In this case, there are no get rich quick opportunities or spiritual lottery winners, we must do the work ourselves bit by bit.

**Thoughts??**

Aargh!

I have no post for today because my photos are taking forever to load. I don't know if this is a Blogger problem or a clogged hard drive problem, but either way I'm seriously bugged. Serenity now!

Five for Friday--Life Edition

1. Have you seen this? It cracked me up and just made me feel good, plus I now love that song.



2. I created these good mail labels this week (they're bigger than the normal ones) and absolutely love them. I'm going to send a set of these to a randomly chosen commenter, so say something!


3. Whitney had some serious, morning grumpiness about her Popsicle stick job yesterday. She got "clean a bathroom" while Landon got "learn to make a treat" so she thought that was unfair. I don't know what fair has to do with anything, and am sure she wouldn't have had an issue with it had it gone the other way.


After her initial grumpiness and an unpleasant exchange between us, she came out of it alright and ended up being okay with it. She perked up considerably when I told her she could wear some big, yellow plastic gloves (I never wear them) while cleaning. Who knew?


Landon learned how to make chocolate-chip cookies and did a fabulous job. It was our first time using the hand-me-down, Kitchen Aid Mixer I got for my birthday. This job ended up taking much longer than Whitney's bathroom cleaning job, but he was very pleased with himself at the end of it.

The perfect cookies!

4. We have a no sleepover policy (except for cousins) in our house, but when Landon and Lucas asked if they could have a sleepover Michelle and I were both at a loss in coming up with a reason why they couldn't. They're practically cousins, have known each other since birth, and their mothers are like sisters, so after talking with Marc and Randy about it, we gave them the go ahead.

They spent Monday night at Lucas' house, then Tuesday night at our house where they made this amazing fort which they outfitted with the Play Station 2, Game cube, their DS' and everything else they could want. I hardly saw them while they were here!

5. The postage I ordered from USPS.com (thanks to the VISA gift card from Adam and Amy) arrived this week. It was hard to decided what postage to get, since I use so much of it and was working with a $25 budget, but I ended up getting one sheet of regular .44 cent stamps, a set of .28, a set of .27 and a bunch of 4 and 5 cent stamps. I'm always trying to create the right amount of postage on my packages so these small denominations should help.

**Did you check out that video?
Do you like the new labels?
Do your kids grumble about jobs?
Do you wear plastic gloves when cleaning the bathroom?
Do you have a Kitchen Aid Mixer?
Does your family do friend sleepovers?
Have you ever ordered postage online?**

Birthday Good Mail

I was blessed with a very healthy dose of birthday good mail this year (which I loved!) and just have to document it.


Natasha sent me this personalized birthday card (she knows crocodiles give me the willies) a sheet of postage stamps (woohoo and I've already used them all) and a bag full of Sharpies in all different colors.


Amie gave me 2 Twix candy bars (she knows they're my favorite) and a tube of magical eyelash serum. I thought it was mascara at first, but then looked online and found out that it's full of nutrients and peptides and creates twice the volume of lashes. I can use the help.


Esther sent me a package full of various sizes of envelopes, if only I had a reason to use them...hee.


Kristi sent me (hello, 8 pound package to mail!) a set of her favorite 425 thread count King Sized sheets! This is luxury she enjoys and thought I would too, um yes please! She also sent this package of cute, little magnetic picture frames. I think I'm going to put quotes in them and hang them on the fridge.


Laurie B., Becca and Melinda all went in on this thoughtfully, genius gift for me. It came in a big box from Target (this is what the UPS man brought earlier in the week) and caused me to squeal as I opened it. Now I have shave ice technology at home! I just need to accommodate more ice trays in my freezer to keep up with the demand.


Patsy sent me these fun flip-flop note cards, some Bath & Body goodies, a tissue tote (I always carry mini tissues with me) and some cute clips.



Melinda (in addition to going in on the ice shaver) sent me one of her awesome, homemade birthday banners! How festive is this?


Shannon sent me an odd-shaped package complete with her own touch of whimsy with her good mail label wearing a birthday hat, I love details like this!


The odd-shaped gift she sent was this very cool, monogrammed mug (with some ice breaker mints inside), darling return address labels and a cute notebook.


My sister-in-law Amy sent me a nice birthday card that arrived on my actual birthday (so nice) even though we'd already celebrated my birthday as a family the weekend before.


This is the note that was on the box of donuts Claudia's cousin dropped off for Claudia. That was such a nice thing for Claudia to arrange and her cousin to do for me. I thought it was funny that it was addressed to "Missy" and from "Missy" since that's what we call each other.


Kim Sue sent me a package of her awesome Italian Photo Cards. I love these! Even though I make photo cards all the time, they're not fancy and cool like hers. I was thrilled to receive these.


Denise sent me a Sonic Gift Card (woohoo) along with a very enjoyable card. I'm always happy to have gift cards to anywhere really, but I LOVE having a Sonic gift card especially. I am there every other day for a bag of ice and every Creative Friday to get Michelle's drink and my cup of ice, plus random visits for slushies with the kids.

This was written on Denise's envelope, another fun detail.

Laurie M. sent me this nice birthday card.

Heather did it again, she gave me another generous birthday gift, this time a certificate to Bath & Body Works. I just wish it wasn't so hard to choose what I want!

My sister-in-law Daniela (and family) sent this birthday card.

Kacey sent me this nice card and some postage stamps (woohoo and already gone!).


As Landon carried this present in from the mailbox he said, "Hey mom, did you make some labels for a girl named Wende?" I thought that was funny since I AM THE GIRL who makes the good mail labels, but I was very happy to see that she had 3 of them on this package. Her gift was a set of these very cute cupcake cards she makes, now I'm stocked for birthdays for awhile.

A friend from Church gave me a nice card and a bottle of lotion.

Ann sent me a nice card with a very festive envelope.

Becca (in addition to going in on the ice shaver) sent me a delicious (yes it's gone already) chocolate bar, some foot cream and a lip gloss.

I hope I haven't forgotten anything, I'll add it if I did. I really appreciate all of this generosity and good mail loving!

**Isn't the ice shaver a genius idea?
Do you love gift cards?
Do crocodiles give you the willies?
Do you love colorful Sharpies?
Have you ever received postage for your birthday?**