Anyone Need a White Elephant Gift?

I have been anxiously awaiting my 24"x24" canvas print of my family. It was scheduled to arrive yesterday and I was really disappointed when it didn't arrive. I checked the Fed Ex tracking to see what happened and it said there was a security delay. A security delay? What does that mean? Well I called Fed Ex to find out what it meant and also make sure it didn't happen again, they told me it was probably because my building was locked. Well, I do make it a habit to lock my door, but I didn't think it was customary for the Fed Ex guy to walk right into my home. Then he told me that it was possible that my gate was locked. Now, I do have a gate to my backyard, but again delivery guys normally leave packages on the front porch, plus we don't have a lock on the gate. In the end, they had no answer for me. My theory is the delivery guy still hadn't bought his wife a present and decided to get done with work a little early, stamp a few "security delay's" on some packages and he is out of there.

I was excited when I heard the big Fed Ex truck coming up my street and ring the doorbell today. The package was enormous, I thought, "wow, Canvas on Demand really takes time to package well." I tore open the enormous box that took me 10 minutes to haul up my stairs. To my dismay, this is what I found:
Not just one sweet little grandma, but SIX SWEET GRANDMA'S!!! My heart sank, I want my family picture! Luckily, buried under grandma #6 was my canvas.

I quickly called Canvas on Demand to let them know about my order, because someone is expecting 6 sweet grandma's. They told me that I could keep them and they would reprint the order for the customer. So, all six sweet grandma's are now mine! Anyone going to a white elephant party?

Oh, here is a picture of my canvas hanging in my house.

I'm in love with this song!

The Joys of Parenthood

A few years ago my mom gave me a book titled, "How To Live With Your Kids and Like Them", I think I'm going to have to open that book up.

A few nights ago, Maya was in the tub. I went to check on her and the tub was full of bubbles. I'm talking "Pretty Woman" in the tub scene kind of bubbles. (of course I've only seen the edited TV version) I'm not sure what kind of bubble bath she was using, but if you are like me and you follow the recommended amount of bubble bath, you know you get a few measly bubbles in the tub. To get that many bubbles, you have to use the entire bottle.


Well, apparently that is what she did. I buy the econo-size Dove shampoo from Sams, the thing is huge. I don't remember it being completely full, but I remember it being pretty heavy. I got the bottle to shampoo her hair, and the bottle was completely empty, completely. Now, remember this was the econo-size. She had used over half the bottle to make herself a luxurious bubble bath.

I was ticked, to say the least. I washed her hair with the suds, there were plenty of them, then used the water from the tub to rinse her hair. There was so much shampoo in the water that it would bubble up as I poured the water on her hair. I had to use fresh water from the tap to get the soap out, and lets just say I didn't use the warmest water I could have. The girl doesn't appreciate that I buy her nice shampoo, I could be buying her 99 cent Suave like I do for the boys. I was upset that my little 5 year old daughter didn't appreciate that I'm looking out for her beauty.

Anyways, I felt bad that I had rinsed her hair with cool water and decided that wasn't the best punishment for the crime. I needed to think of a natural consequence for her behavior. I talked to her and we decided that she would buy a new bottle of shampoo to replace the one she wasted. We talked about how we should just use what we need and not be wasteful. So Maya and I took a little date to the grocery store, she had her $5 bill in her purse. We chose a shampoo that was affordable for her and acceptable to me. We get up to pay at the self check-out and I helped her feed her $5 bill in the machine. Seconds later, out popped her change. As she grabbed her $2 and 20 cents, her eyes got big and they lit up with glee. She exclaimed, "I got TWO DOLLARS BACK! I only had to put one dollar in and I got two back!!!" In the eyes of a five year old, two is better than one. She went on to explain that she was going to buy shampoo every time we went to the store. I explained that in actuality she had five dollars before and now only had two. She must not have listened or understood because when she got home she excitedly told Michael all about how she got $2 back. AGHHHH, so much for my natural consequences.

OK, I'm going to backtrack a second. After I got all the shampoo out of Maya's hair, I drained the tub. I went downstairs to put a load of laundry in (which you can see all over my floor in the video) and you will see what happened.... click the video.

So You Think You Can Dance

Maya is just so full of coordination and grace. I especially love her bum shake 35 seconds in, and the leg lift at about 1:40 (she gets her flexibility from me) and the hip circles at the end. She is in dance with 2 of her best friends and she loves every minute of it. I actually am very impressed with how well she did.

Twilight The Puppet Saga

Nothing Says Thanksgiving like....

Golden Corral!

Yes, we went to Golden Corral for Thanksgiving, but don't feel bad for us. Whenever we tell people where we went we hear, "ah, you could have had Thanksgiving with us!" We had a great time, we all got to eat whatever we wanted, and the best part, no cooking and no clean up. The downside, no leftovers. Mason eating pizza

Reece eating pizza

Maya eating, you guessed it... pizza

Our kids would have nothing to do with the traditional Thanksgiving items. Michael tried some yams and I tried some cornbread stuffing, they were not up to par. So, we stuck with steak, chicken, pot roast, shrimp, salad, fruit etc.

Afterwards we went to see Bolt in 3D, it was fantastic. We had a great time, the kids are still quoting the movie. Michael and I loved that it was in 3D, it made it so much fun.

Twilight

*Jamie and I both left the theater a little embarrassed to be there, I'm just glad the tickets were free. *

This was taken from Rebecca Westovers blog, and it is pretty much how I felt about the movie:

-NO, the movie was NOT good.

-Yes, the movie was hysterically funny (but it's not SUPPOSED to be funny).

-Yes, it was purely ridiculous.

-No, I can't stop laughing about it.

-Yes, it had lots of slow motion, silly special effects, and hilariously pathetic acting.

-Yes, I was the gal in the theater who kept laughing at all the wrong times, and at all the wrong scenes.

-No, you should not go see this movie.

-Yes, your 10-year-old daughter would love it.

-And YES, the vampires dancing around the fire was quite possibly the most hilarious thing I've seen in a long time.

I can't stop laughing about it.

At any rate, the movie made a great "girls night out."

Twilight!

My friend Jamie just called me and asked me if I wanted to go to a preview screening of Twilight tonight before the general screening. So I'm going tonight at 8. I'm really excited. I wasn't the biggest fan of the book, I think it has been hyped up too much before I read it. The movie looks pretty good to me though.

Seriously

How can that be comfortable?!?!?! This kid can fall asleep anywhere at anytime in any position. I'm going to make a book of the odd places Mason has fallen asleep.

I miss my Mimi

We have year round school here in our area, and since we do, the kids take turns having a few weeks off periodically throughout the school year, called going 'off track'. Maya went off track for the first time, and we decided to utilize the time off from school and see what it would be like to homeschool her as well as Reece. I loved that we could have a morning routine that was calm and we could be together as a family. At 7:30, the kids would jump into bed for family snuggle. After some snuggling, giggling, and sometimes whining about lack of space, we would read scriptures. Then the kids would clean their rooms, make their beds and get dressed before we had breakfast together. Chores came next, and everyone had at least 2. School started at 9:00 for everyone. Maya called her school 'Mimi School' since Mimi is her nickname. Maya worked on counting, letter names and sounds, beginning reading, the names of coins, and basic addition.


Mason enrolled in Bubba School, since about 75% of the time he will only respond to the name Bubba. He will yell at us, "Don't call me Mason, call me Bubba." It is Michael's worst nightmare that he is going to be an overweight middle aged man going by the name Bubba.

Mason has continued to go to Bubba School even though Maya has gone back on track.

He loves it and asks each morning when he can start Bubba School.

He has passed off his colors and we are now working on shapes and patterns.

I was so sad to send Maya back to school on Monday, I wanted to hold her in my arms and convince her that she liked being at home with us more than going off to school. But, I want it to be her decision to homeschool, not mine.

So little Miss Mimi, we will miss you until you go off track again.

Synchronized Swimming Mormon Style

Snow Day!

We had our first big snow of the year yesterday, and boy it was a good one. This stuff really stuck! We dug out all our snow gear, unfortunately, Maya's snow pants don't fit anymore. Her sweat pants were drenched by the time they were done.

Patriotism?

Art Class

Reece is studying architecture in art class, today we studied Brunelleschi and the Dome of Duomo. Reece had to make blueprints for the dome he would make if he were asked to design one. I thought he did a great job, it includes the key elements of a dome, the collar, ribs and a lantern. He even added air holes in the dome to let air pass through, this is not a common practice in modern domes, but was used back in Brunelleschi's day.

Rockin' The Vote

Uh...that is if you can rock the vote in Utah.

Halloween

A few nights ago we got together with some of our friends to carve pumpkins, Mason was to little to carve one, so he painted his instead.

Maya in her cute new hat.

Reece had two pumpkins this year. One of his pumpkins was grown by Grandma, the other one he bought at the Scarecrow Festival from Shawn Bradley. Michael made a complete fool of himself when he noticed who it was.

All the finished pumpkins.

Halloween started with Reece reading scary stories to the kids.

The kids loved, The Ghost of Sifty Sifty Sam, The Little Old Lady Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything, and The Bones of Fred McFee.

Halloween Night.

The best part, sorting through the candy the next day.

Holiday Cards

Go to Moondoggie Photography's Blog to view all of our Holiday Cards!

Knitting

This time of year, as the weather gets cooler, I start to yearn for yarn. I really don't like knitting, I much prefer crocheting, but I have found there are way better patterns for knitting. If I knit something, I end up knitting it at least 10 times due to a mistake, where I have to tear it apart and start again. I try it every year, even if I just do a scarf. I have never used circular needles and a hat for Maya was my first attempt. I finally got it right, after about 15 tries. I am so happy with the finished product, I will be making hats for my boys and a hat for myself.

LOOK AT THE PRICE OF THE GAS!!!

Look at the price of that gas. $1.01, WOW crazy. Kristi (3rd from left) just sent me a bunch of pictures that she just found at her mom's house, this was one of them.

This happens to be one of the funnest days of my high school life. I will have to do an entire post on it. It was an unplanned skip day, the car broke down outside my dad's office. We saw Sister Simmons (my seminary teacher) walking downtown as we drove by, this creepy gas station guy Omar (shown on the left) asked me out, and then we took a picture with him?!?!?! and so much more.

Rub a dub dub

My friend Holly has started making soaps, you can go to her site to view some of her products. Before I knew she had started soap making, she gave me some really cute soaps. I emailed her to thank her for them and asked her where she got them. She informed me that she had make them. I was in shock, she made a soap that looked and smelled like it had come straight from a boutique, and she said she could teach me how!

When Holly does something, she DOES IT, there is no halfway for her. She has a soap making room. A SOAP MAKING ROOM! I think I need one. This is the soap that we made, I decided to make it for Michael, it is wasabi flavor. It actually smells really good. This slab will be cut into 4 bars.


I think I found a new hobby, so don't be surprised if you get soap for your birthday or Christmas.

My Lucky Day

My day started out with my friend Holly, and a soap making lesson, what a great way to start the day. I think I found a new hobby!!! Thanks Holly! On my way home, Michael told me to go and do something and he would watch the kids. Whenever Michael says something like that, I can't figure out anything to do. I decided to take him up on the offer when I spotted a Salvation Army. I'm a sucker for yard sales and thrift stores.

This thrift store was particularly good, they had a whole section of items from Target, brand new. I got these boots for $10, I have been wanting some for a long time. They are perfect for tromping around the chicken coop in the fall/winter/spring.

This lamp goes perfect in Mason's surf themed room, I couldn't pass it for $7.
Last but not least, I got these cute shoes, also new for $6. It isn't really the season for them, but I will still wear them until the snow is seeping in.