12 on the 12th--June Edition

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1. Whitney is hard to wake up in the morning.
2. I brought Junie in to help coax Whitney out of bed (it worked).
3. I made a new blog banner and changed the background color on my blog.
4. Book of Mormon reading for the day.
5. Shot of the stuff on my dresser as seen from my spot on the bed.
6. My friend Shannon sent Whitney a good mail package with goodies for Junie (Whitney has a bad sunburn on her shoulders, hence her attire). 
7. I got my hair cut and colored (it's getting harder and harder to keep up on the gray).
8. Quick stop at the grocery store to get taco fixins for dinner.
9. It was pouring rain as I left the store (of course my car windows were partially down).
10. The big bottle of aloe gel I bought to help Whitney's shoulders.
11. Catching up on So You Think You Can Dance.
12. I'm currently reading the 5th Flavia de Luce Mystery, which is a treat.

Just Keep Swimming...

We had some glorious storms on Saturday, with blue skies and sun in-between, it was weird but kind of great too. We had a mellow afternoon at home together hanging out (very rare for a Saturday).

The weather is similar now so I just made 9 phone calls to cancel soccer practice, woohoo, bonus hours in my day! I am so weary, despite it only being a 4 day work week. I feel like I'm constantly review the "open loops" in my brain (i.e., pick up Whitney, buy posterboard, go to band, call about football carpool, make chicken salad for Saturday and on and on), I realize this is normal life but it is exhausting!

That's about all I've got to say.

Creative Friday--Masterpiece Theater Edition

I found this video from Landon on my camera, kind of funny.

This was actually our 4th Creative Friday of the summer, but I haven't blogged about the other 3 yet. I will probably end up backdating those and slipping them into the weeks they actually occurred whenever I finally get around to posting about them.

Our self-portrait.

Michelle, Lucas and Eva came to our house today and Michelle was kind enough to bring me lunch from JCW's! This was particularly generous of her considering she's still on her Carb-Addict's Diet and didn't get anything for herself.

The girls got busy coloring right away. It's so nice that they have several activities they both enjoy doing, otherwise filling the time together would be more difficult because of the 4.5 year age difference. I have taken to paying Whitney $2.25 each Creative Friday stint so she'll play with/entertain Eva. It's working out brilliantly and giving Whitney a chance to earn some money.

The cloudy weather broke into a crazy rain storm (like the rain couldn't fall fast enough kind of storm) so we opened all the windows and enjoyed the rainy breeze. We suggested that the girls go outside to play in the rain, but they were too busy coloring. Of course, it stopped by the time all four kids decided to go outside to play in it.

Lucas has caught up to Landon in height! They are a year and 4 days apart in age.

I wrote a bunch of cards and Michelle wrote cards and then made some of her very cool tags.

Here's my little side table (i.e., beat up dining room chair) with my stash of Cadbury Eggs kept out of sight so as not to taunt Iron-Willed Michelle.

The kids ended up playing together most of the afternoon. They got costumes from the our dress-up box in the garage and filmed an entire movie.

We never knew what they were going to come out wearing.

This is the abduction scene from their movie, Whitney steals the show with her bad-guy's sidekick lines at the end.

Strangely, the weather changed again and got all sunny and beautiful...weird.

Here are some of Michelle's very cute tag fixins.

Miscellaneous happiness.

When the kids were finally done with their movie we all crowded around the laptop to watch it.

My pleasing output for the day!

**Have you done anything creative lately?

Don't you just love a rainy breeze?

Did you ever make your own movie?

When was the last time you wrote and sent a card?**

Comment Window Tidbit:  I got two birthday envelopes in the mail today, but I'm not opening them until Saturday, woohoo!

Too Busy to Post...But

I just have to post these beauties from our glorious Fall day. It rained like crazy and the low clouds made for a rather dramatic scene.






Today's activities included

• An early morning Primary Program Practice
• Randy and Landon helping a family in our ward move for 3 hours
• Picking up an amazing gift from Lindsay (there were tears)
• Picking up a beret from Jenn for Whitney's Halloween costume
  
• Baking some bread (I just needed something homey and warm)
  
• Doing some laundry
• A family trip to the grocery store for .09 cent a pound pumpkins (woohoo) and some groceries
• Making Mexican Layer dip
  
• Watching the last part of Austin's rainy soccer game
• A family party to celebrate Andrew, Randy and Whitney's birthdays
• And then some preSunday housecleaning so I don't go insane tomorrow. Phew!

**How was your Saturday??**

Comment Window Tidbit: I am so glad we don't have early church tomorrow. Just knowing that I don't have to set my alarm and that I can lounge around in the morning makes all seem right with my world.

Droplets of Goodness--Plus Giveaway Winners

We have had rain off and on every day this week and it has been fabulous! It is so rare for us to have a week like this since the sun insists on shining most of the time, so I always savor these days when we get them.


Of course I had to take a picture of the rainy view from my front porch, it's what I see most often. Notice the hues of green and yellow happening on the front lawn. The shade from the two big trees makes for some interesting patterns for sure.


This picture doesn't do the view justice, but there was a ginormous rainbow mixed with ethereal cloud cover over the mountain peak when I took Landon to flag football on Monday. It was spectacular, truly one of those moments when you feel like yelling to everyone to stop what they're doing so they don't miss out on seeing it.


We have two apple trees in our backyard, but usually our landlord (who lives next door) harvests them. They haven't done so yet, so I helped myself to a few and am planning on making caramel apples, especially since Jane posted her fabulous caramel recipe today.

We even have 2 different kinds of apples, and they look so beautiful in the rain.

There's a very nice, smiley lady who works as a crossing guard for our school morning and afternoon, and she was still smiling even while getting soaked. Whitney doesn't actually cross the street at this place, but seeing the crossing guard helping the kids made me want to do something for her.

**Do you enjoy rainy days?
Do you ever find yourself wanting
to point out the view to strangers?
Do you make caramel apples?**

Giveaway Winners
4--Erin
6--Melinda
12--Kristin
7--Becca
17--Kelly MM

Comment Window Tidbit: I found out that we don't have to pay a copay for preventative doctor/dentist visits, woohoo! So I made all of us dentist appointments for the first time in over 2.5 years!

Easter Rewind

In my haste to get back to blogging last week after being sick the week before, I failed to write about our Easter activities with the family.


Randy and I filled many eggs for the Easter Egg Hunt. We had a ridiculous amount of candy (Randy did the shopping while I was sick in bed) and we still have lots left (oh dear).


We gathered at my parents' house at 3:00 on Saturday the 11th (that means I'm 10 days late in posting this).


It's nice that the kids can be crazy in the basement while the adults are upstairs talking and getting the food ready. SingStar is a whole new experience on their huge TV.


Ashley invited me to play with her in the play house. I just loved feeling like a giant in there...not.

She cracked me up because she had some candy in there from an egg hunt she'd gone to earlier that day and was eating the candy but said, "Shh, don't let mom see." Stealthiness in children starts so young!


It was too rainy and wet outside to have our egg hunt so we had to do it inside. We ended up having way more eggs than hiding places, so there were many eggs grouped together or just out in the open. Robyn tried to get a picture of the kids waiting to come upstairs for the hunt, and this is the best she could do. What is with kids and photos anyway?


Andrew joined us for the egg hunt even though he has no interest in candy at all. He loves the process of finding the eggs. Should that be a lesson to me about finding joy in the journey?


My mom and Robyn made homemade rolls and a stuffed turkey for our dinner. It's no easy thing to time a meal to feed 18 people!

Oh la la.

Turkey smells like heaven even though I don't really love eating it. I do love everything that goes with it though, and find the smell hugely festive and comforting.

Adam labeled all the kids' cups with funny nicknames and made us laugh with Ashley's cup because he put the letters E.D. on it. None of us knew what that was about until he said, "emotionally distant" because she tends to ignore him completely. Ha.


The kids really didn't appreciate the tastiness of the meal. They all had such tiny portions and still left half of that on their plates.


Lori and Landon had planned a bunch of fun activities for the day, but since it was raining we ended up staying inside and having a SingStar contest instead.

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Landon created this elimination sheet (you can see I lost to him in the first round) to chart the path to victory. Amy got 1st place, Randy got 2nd and Landon got 3rd with Jared closely behind in 4th, Lori and Landon had even purchased ribbons for the winners. I spent most of the night watching the contest and coughing (#$@!).

Easter Sunday ended up being a beautiful day. We went to church, came home and gave the kids their Easter Baskets (there's no talk of bunnies here), then Randy and I took a nap before our evening meal and Family Home Evening lesson about Easter. It was a good, low key day since I still wasn't back to full strength.

**Do you enjoy filling eggs with candy?
Do you find joy in the journey?
Do you love the smell of turkey cooking?
Have you ever had a tournament like this?**

Spring Break--Day 2

I'm so glad I checked the forecast on Monday so that I wasn't taken by surprise by the rainy weather we're going to have for the rest of the week, being mentally prepared is half the battle for me.

Day 2 of Spring Break was much mellower than Day 1. I slept in and then read in bed for an hour (glorious!) then finally got up and got ready for the day. I have no drive to get up early if I don't have to (understatement of the year), and since the kids are so independent there's no reason to surface early on free days.

{Notice the lovely weather}

We finally left the house at 12:15 to drop Landon off at a friend's house to play, then Whitney and I went shopping in accordance with item #10 (Get Stuff Like Shoes) of the Spring Break Wish List. She needed new flip flops for this year (thank you Old Navy 2 for $5) and we wanted to look for a new dress since we weren't able to shop last week for an Easter dress since I was so sick. I had hoped we'd find something on sale since it was after Easter, but we didn't find anything at all.


We went to Target and thought we'd scored by finding some $4 shirts, but upon trying them on at home the fit was less than ideal. They were long enough, but were tight in the belly region (#$@!). Poor girl. We have the hardest time finding clothes to fit Whitney, even when we buy bigger sizes, the cut of the clothes is still strange and doesn't fit. She was seriously bummed out and so was I ($4 shirts are a steal, but now I have to return them.)


I let Whitney pick out a pack of headbands since she's been wanting some forever and often has unruly hair. She picked out a set of 6 for $2.99, then wanted to spend her own money on a different set of headbands as well. She has no concept of money and often feels drunk with power when she has any. She got $6 from the weekend's Easter Egg Hunts, and has already spent it all. ($2.67 on a blank sketch book from the BYU bookstore and the rest on her Target purchase.)


The headbands ended up getting put back so she could purchase a big, green rubber snake instead (that's my girl!). She's got several squishy dinosaurs from this same line of toys (all bought with her own money), but surprised me by choosing a snake. She's usually a dinosaur girl.


I gave in and accomplished item #15 of the Spring Break Wish List by taking her to the pet store. I HATE pet stores! I feel so badly for the animals that it makes me want to cry. I also didn't appreciate almost stepping in dog crap on the way in to the store, thanks to the fact that people bring their dogs to the store! We checked out the sad cats, the bullied fish, the lethargic birds, the cute rodents and saw some ugly dogs being groomed...this is so NOT my scene!


We picked up Landon and his friend on our way home so they could play at our house. The friend's mom was totally bewildered as to how the boys could be bored at their house in 2 hour's time. I shared her feelings and hoped they would have better luck at our house. Apparently they wanted to play in "the lots" (a weed-filled wilderness nearby) in the rain. Okay.

**Do you hop out of bed in the morning
or do you prefer to linger?
Do you buy flip flops from Old Navy?
Where do you find Easter dresses?
Would you have bought headbands or a snake?**

Rain, Solitude & SEP

This was a glorious day for me. I had no obligations for the day so I got to stay, rain was in the forecast and the kids were at school...deeeelightful.

I checked my email when the kids left for school and planned on blogging about bookclub, but then talked myself out of blogging until I'd cleaned for awhile and taken a shower. (Oh foolish, foolish girl.) I was promptly punished for my practicality by the fates via lightning, because by the time I was ready to blog (around 11:00) my internet was down! I thought it was probably temporary so I didn't fret (it's probably good that I didn't know it would end up being 7 freakin days).


I put a dvd (Just Friends & Sliding Doors) in the computer and started cleaning my scrap room. I realize this process is insanely ongoing, but I usually enjoy it so I don't fret about it. It would be nice if it was ever actually all the way done, but since I don't have solutions for some of my storage issues that's just not happening. I made some good progress and thoroughly enjoyed myself in the process, but am still left with some things that don't have a home.


It rained off and on during the day, so I was thrilled with that. I had the windows open and was loving the smell and the breeze. The bummer was that it didn't last. It kept getting sunny again. I know that's a silly thing to be bothered by, but is it so wrong to one a completely rainy day? I kept turning on lamps and loving the gray feel of the day only to have the house get bright again, turn off the lamps, mentally readjust and then have it go gray again. Aargh!


Adam called in the afternoon to see if I was going to be around because he had some time to kill before his planning commission meeting in town and wanted to stop by. He picked up some Nachos from Los Hermanos (so tasty and good) and came over to hang out. We chatted for awhile and then he said, "I've got quite awhile still, so this is kind of a long "stop by". We moved to a more comfy seating situation and then got into some quality SEP. I have found that I'm not very keen on discussing mine in a group setting (like game night), but do fairly well when it's one on one with Adam. At one point he said to me (I actually wrote it down)...

"You are far more difficult than you'll ever be willing to admit."

You'd think a comment like that would knock me to my knees, but instead it cracked me up. Only Adam (and maybe Claudia) could say something like that to me without sending me in to the fetal position. I can't even remember the context of his statement, just the sincerity of it. Even though he occasionally says things like this to me, it's not in a confrontational way, more just a matter of fact, plus he still feels like he's on my side as someone who sees potential in me. Good times.

**How do you handle blunt comments about yourself?
Are you okay with comments from
some people more than others?
Do you prefer the weather to commit to all one way?