Angry Chicken

If only my chickens were this smart!

President Hinkley

With sadness I say farewell to a prophet that I have held so dear to my heart. When I found out the news last night, I called my mom to mourn with her. Surprisingly she was so happy for him, he has lived a long successful life, served well, and he can now be united with his sweetheart. He is the prophet that I have grown up with, he has a great sense of humor, and is so kind, but also surprisingly hip. President Hinkley, I have to say thank you for your years of tireless service, love of the gospel, and love of the members of the church.

Doesn't this kid have a bed???

Seriously! Our house is pretty small, is he so tired that he can't take the 10 steps to get to his bed?

1987

You Belong in 1987

Wild, over the top, and just a little bit cheesy. You're colorful at night - and successful during the day.

What Year Do You Belong In?

Take the test and share what year you belong to in the comments area.

Backyard Farming

If you haven't heard, I have another blog! Go check it out, feel free to link it from your blog, and you could even write a post about it on your blog if you wanted. We are really trying to make it a great resource, but the only way to do that is to get our name out there.

Oh and by the way - we can tell where people are coming to our site from, and the few of you who have already linked us from a post are making a big difference!

Funniest blog post I have ever read!

Some of you have heard me talk about my 'crazy friend Megan', well she had one of the funniest things happen to her. Take 2 minutes to read this blog entry, you will not be sorry that you did! Sorry to sell you out Meg.

Click here

How Low Can You Go?

Cue the limbo music for the limboing snowman. Reece built this guy (originally anatomically correct, we quickly made him 'fix' it, but not before some of the neighbors got a good laugh out of it). Seriously, how long can a snowman last like this? It has been at least a week.

Catalytic Converter=Cash

We recently had one of these things taken out of our vehicle. I took it to our local recycling center and asked if they buy them used. They did, I expected maybe $5 for it. They offered me $20. Sweet, I'll take it! I think I was a little too excited, and he regretted offering me that much. I would have taken the $5. So I called my husband really excited. He asked me "what foolish thing are we going to spend it on? I think you need MORE picture frames or something!" Well, I did want to make a new bed-skirt for our bed, but now that he made that comment, I have to prove that I can spend the money wisely. Any suggestions? I'm really bad about spending money wisely!

Honestly, I don't think I should have to spend it wisely. I already did a wise thing by having it recycled. Right?

Backyard Farming

A few friends and I have started a new blog! We are really excited about it and hope it will be a helpful tool to not only our friends and family but everyone that finds it - so it's not really a personal blog. It is pretty sparse right now but with time we hope with time it will become a great resource. We plan on adding book reviews, practical instruction, and articles about our experiences with backyard farming. Eventually it will have a website linked with it to add even more features.

Take a look and pass it on!

http://backyardfarming.blogspot.com/

The Scare of My Life

Today, I had the scare of my life. I actually pictured other mothers shaking their heads, as they watched the news, whispering "what an unfit mother."

I put my kids down for "rest time", we changed 'nap time' to 'rest time' to encompass my children that no longer require naps. That way I still get a few minuets of time to myself during the day. I put Mason in his bed, sang him a few songs, and gave him a kiss. I put on a movie for Maya in the playroom gave her a kiss and told her I was going to hop in the shower.

I got out of the shower, got dressed, and started putting on makeup. I realized it was pretty quiet and figured Mason was asleep. I went into his room to check on him.

He wasn't there.

I went into Maya's room to see if he was playing in there.

He wasn't there.

I thought, "Oh, that little stinker, he snuck into the playroom to play with Maya."

He wasn't there, and Maya hadn't seen him.

I checked the rest of the house.

He was NOWHERE to be seen.

At this point my stomach is turning and I'm getting pretty nervous. I checked the doors, all of them were locked, there was no way he could have gotten outside. Then I thought of the possibility of him being kidnapped. This is where the thoughts of being on the news came into play. How could I ever forgive myself for taking a shower while the kids are left unattended?!?!?! Maybe I AM an unfit mother. In my own defense, I do sacrifice privacy and leave the door open while I shower so I can hear what is going on, or if they really needed me they could come and get me.

I checked all of the windows. They were locked, would a kidnapper really take the time to lock us back in? He would if he was smart! But, it wasn't likely, so at this point I realized he had to be in the house, now I just had to figure out where.

I found him asleep under Maya's bed. For the picture, I pulled up the bedskirt.

Beach bumming in December

We made a trek out to California 2 days after Christmas for my BIL's wedding in L.A. & San Louis Obispo. My one request is that we visit the beach. I didn't care if it was overcast, raining, snowing, hailing, storming, tsunami (well, that one I would make an exception for). I was determined to go to the beach. Growing up, we would go to my Grandparents beach house on the Oregon coast in the summer. We learned to wear layers, my most common attire was a swimsuit with a sweatshirt over it. I have such great memories running down the beach, rolling around in the sand, then running back into the ocean to wash off. All the while we were pretending to be on motorcycles.

We went to Morro Beach, for anyone who is familiar with the area.

Since it was December, the local K-mart (the only store around) didn't have beach shovels and buckets. We got creative and bought the kids Tupperware containers for buckets and serving spoons for shovels, which worked great!

We were having a great time until Mason got a bit of sand on his foot. It was pretty devastating for him.

Then Reece decided to get his feet wet and was surprised by the pain caused by salt water in a fresh scrape. Boy, this trip to the beach wasn't turning out as dreamy as I had anticipated.

I decided I needed to show them what the beach was all about and got a sandcastle going. The kids began to shed their sweatshirts and jeans. Maya was the first to get down to just a swimsuit, that's my girl!!! Luckily, Michael is scared of my camera, so there are no pictures of me.

It wasn't long after that they got more adventurous, and started venturing into the water.

Mason wasn't quite as adventurous as Reece and Maya

Eventually all 3 of them were down to their bathing suits.

It ended up being everything I had hoped for that day at the beach!

Happy New Year

Maybe if I voice my New Year's Resolution, it will help me stick with it all year. Probably not, but one could hope.

My resolution is to stay more organized.

It isn't always cheap to stay organized, I have used over priced planners in the past, most of which I don't use. Either the system was too big, or it had too many features I didn't want. I have tried using the calendar on my computer, I have tried using just a plain notebook to write everything down. None of them work better than the year I used the $7.92 planner from Walmart (nicknamed Hellmart by one of my friends). And you just can't beat that price!

This trusty little planner has one page per day. It has time slots that I can block out and write what I need to be doing during that time period. Next to that it has space for me to write down my 'to do' lists, phone numbers, etc.

But of course, I didn't want a boring old Walmart planner. I called my amazingly talented mother, who can make anything look great with a sewing machine and some scraps of fabric.

I told her what I wanted to do, and she was actually able to give me directions over the phone of how to make this thing beautiful.

And here it is.

It just makes me want to pick it up and write things down in it. I'm not ashamed to carry it around. My favorite feature, (which I'm still so amazed that I was able to do it, and that my mom could explain it over the phone) is that it is lined with coordinating fabric.


What is your New Year's Resolution????