Road Trip

We just got back from a little weekend excursion and I'm tired. Are you tired too? Sometimes long weekends end up making us more tired instead of better rested.

Ya, so I'm tired. And I think a little sick, although I can't figure out what I might have. My husband made me some tea and I'm watching a movie on HBO that is making me cry every 10 seconds. He's doing something in his office that involves NOT watching me cry at a movie every 10 seconds. I really need to get control over my tears, it's just plain annoying how often I cry.

Anyway, point being that I don't really have the energy to post a whole lot, but we DID just get back from a weekend excursion and I wanted to post something.

These are photos from our car ride down to grandma's house.

I'd like to bear my testimony of buying your kids Happy Meals on the way out of town.

They get all filled up, they get a new toy that keeps them entertained (which only works to your advantage if you can tune out the ones that make noise),

and apparently the boxes make for a good time as well.

Oh, children of mine.... I love you all. And I'm super glad that you are all asleep because tomorrow, life goes back to normal. And normal will not include getting Happy Meals for dinner.

Remember when I said...

that I was going to start posting crafting stuff on this blog? Well my words have come back to haunt you.

This post is to inform people that I am restocking my Etsy store. Because much to my dismay, money doesn't grow on trees and new fancy shmancy chairs and new doors and 20 Leonardo Divinci sketches and their frames (i'll tell you about it later) don't pay for themselves.

Head on over to have a looksey, if you'd like.

I want you all to know a couple of things

1 - I am not a photographer. More specifically, I am not a food photographer.

2 - That said... I made this:

Yes I did.

That would be an Italian Cream Cake made from scratch. SCRATCH, I tell you! With cream cheese coconut frosting and crusted in home toasted coconut. I like coconut. You should too. I understand that there are actually people out there who don't like coconut? I pity your tastebuds. Because you couldn't even have enjoyed this.

And it was very much enjoyed. And I think that I'm still trying to jog off the calories that were consumed as a result of it. Mmmmm. Coconut.

I got the recipe from here

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/07/billies-italian-cream-cake-recipe/

so now you can make one too. And you should. It'll be a good way to push through your coconut aversion.

Reduce, reuse, recycle

So, I don't know that anyone will actually care about what I have to tell you this evening, but I haven't posted in a while and I have something (boring) that I could tell you and so I've decided that I will tell you. I'm assertive like that.

I needed some new throw pillows to adorn some new fancy, shmancy chairs that I've recently acquired. But since I spent all my money purchasing said chairs, it turns out that I don't actually have money for throw pillows. Fortunately for me, I'm very much in tune with my inner crafter, so I just trotted* down to my local Home Fabrics (which is, btw, the very best fabric store ever) and picked up a couple half yards of some uber cheap fabric. $7 on fabric was in the budget. Pillows themselves? notsomuch. In my complaining to my husband about my predicament, he reminded me that I've got tons of pillows hiding in closets and storage rooms in my house that I'm not using anymore and why don't I just go scrounge and dig some up. That husband of mine is a smart man. And that's what I did.

Tonight, I brought up a couple of lumbar pillows that I had covered a couple years ago and tore off the old material and you know what I found? You're going to love this... That wasn't the first time I had recovered those pillows. I showed Brent and he started laughing at me. So I tore off that material and as it turns out, I had covered them before THAT!!!!! I know, right? Freaking hilarious stuff going on over here. It's a party every night, you should all be jealous.

These are the ways I get my thrills, people.

So Brent wanted to document the occasion, and I was perfectly willing to oblige him.

Cheese!

Behold! That's 4 layers of fabric we're talking here.

So, as it turns out, I'm totally green these days. Yup. That's me, the eco-conscious girl next door. Here I am, reusing my pillows over and over and over and over again. People that are wasteful are so not as earth friendly as me. Either that, or I redecorate far too frequently.

Ya, I'm going with the latter.

* (and by "trotted" i mean that i loaded up my three screaming, hungry children and made them come with me to the fabric store AGAIN and they started to cry because they all hate that store and i tried to bribe them to behave with suckers that they just tried to stick to the fabric and then they all ran away from me and started to jump on the rugs and i got dirty looks because the people that work there have specifically asked me to NOT allow my children on the rugs and then they crawled under the sale tables and tried to pull the fabric skirts off of them and i started to yell and maybe cry a little and i finally paid and hurried them all to the door to discover that charlie had a poopy diaper and it really stunk and i didn't have a diaper to change him into and i had to smell the stink all the way home where i ended up being so sick of hearing the kids screaming that i just closed the garage door and let my kids sit in the car for several minutes while i tried to regain some composure.)

Fun with color

So, we're getting a new front door. Hopefully, it will be here any day and we'll be able to get it installed before Jaime gets super busy again.

Since were ARE getting a new door, I thought it might be a nice opportunity to make a change and vary from my old reliable red.

Doors are fun. They are like the lipstick on your house and it's fun to try out new colors to spice things up. I've been looking at greens and blues (for the house, not my lips), but making very little progress. For like a month, I've had a bunch of paint chips taped to the door and I've thought several times that I should keep a pen out there and let people vote on them since I've made no progress in making my decision and time is starting to run out.

Leslie sent me a photo a while ago of a yellow door with dark hardware (like the kind that I've got sitting around waiting to be installed) and on Saturday, on a whim, I decided to see what yellow would look like. So I grabbed a can of yellow paint that I had left over from a recent project - yes, i have lots of paint left over in lots of different colors and lots of different sheens. want some? brent would like me to start getting rid of it - and slapped it on my existing door just to get a sense of what it would look like.

I only put on one coat, but even then I could feel the effect that the yellow would have on the house. I stepped back and took a good look at what I had done.

As it turns out, painting the door yellow was the best thing that I could have done. Now, I know exactly what I'm going to paint when the new door gets here and one thing is for certain...

It's NOT going to be yellow.

A huge disappointment

Long before I met Brent, he had been thinking of himself as a mt. biker. He loved to be on his bike, still does. He craves it. I believe that when he met me, he had great hopes that together, we would raise a family of dedicated mt. bikers. When we went for our first bike ride together and I spent the first half of it crying as I struggled to haul my bike up the hill and the other half walking it down the hill out of sheer fright, I think he died a little inside. I'm afraid that my children have been equally disappointing in that department.

Case in point: this evening's "bike ride."

When Lizzy wasn't pushing her Barbie trike around Fred Flinstone style, she was dangling, motionless from Jane's bike.

Meanwhile, even though Jane has a bike that fits her, she stole the Barbie trike and did her best to take it at top speed around the circle without banging her knees into the handles.

And Charlie was much more interested in wearing the appropriate protective gear than actually riding anything.

All the while, I just sat on the front porch and complained about how tired I was.

I don't think that these are the kinds of "family bike rides" Brent had in mind.

My 15 minutes

My sister has a sister in law who has a sister who has a blog. It's a cool blog. She invites fellow bloggers to answer 5 questions about themselves and then posts a different set of answers every day. It's really fun to read all the different answers and get to know other people. It opens the door to some good blurkes and I'm all about the blog stalking.

So today is my day. Head on over to 5 Questions and get to know me even better... if you dare.

p.s. - i have come to the realization that my last post was really. freaking. long. my sincerest apologies. you don't have to read all those words. i won't be offended, promise. as i was posting, i was admittedly distracted by thursday night TV on NBC (was that the Community season finale? what a sad day.) i'll try to stay more focussed next time. try.

Did I ever tell you about the time....

that Lizzy turned 3?

Well she did. A while back. It was a good time. I took a lot of photos.

Since her birthday WAS a while back, I'm a little foggy on the deets. I recall that it was a really fun day. We pretty much allowed Lizzy to pick everything that we did and 3 year olds only want to do things that are fun, hence the fun.

The birthday girl wanted to go to McDonald's for breakfast... in pajamas.

And so it was.

Charlie was required to wear his jammies too. This photo was pre-haircut. He looks a little "i eat paper" here...

In retrospect, I see why just a few days later, Leslie forced me to pin his arms down while she savagely shaved his head... and then wondered why he didn't seem to like her very much for the rest of the day. It's all for the best.

Hmmmmm. This must have been before McDonald's had the Barbie/Hotwheels toys. Does anyone else HATE the dragon toys because their wings are constantly falling off? Does anyone else think that I spend entirely too much time at McDonald's?

Ya.

Brent and I like this photo because the light hits her rat's nest just right. I'm also fond of the mismatched jammie jams. Oh Lizzy, How do I love thee?

So after that, I forced my family to go home and shower.

It took several hours to get us all presentable and by the time I was finished, I was ready for lunch. Brent and I lured the children to Hagermann's by offering them frosted sugar cookies.

Cookies generally do the trick.

It's amazing what small children will do for frosted sugar cookies.

I tried to get Charlie to pose for a photo with me.

a couple of times.

I was unsuccessful in my attempt to capture his love for me in a picture.

And now I want Hagermann's.

Lizzy was all 'gung ho' to go to Chuck E. Cheese. I was a little ticked because it was really Jane that was so desperate to go to Chuck E. Cheese, so for like the month before Lizzy's birthday, she was prepping her.

"Lizzy, have you ever been to Chuck E. Cheese?"

"Lizzy, have you seen the commercials for Chuck E. Cheese? Doesn't it look fun?"

"Lizzy, wouldn't it be great if we could go to Chuck E. Cheese for your birthday? I bet that Mom and Dad would take us all if you asked them."

So we went to Chuck E. Cheese.

Fortunately, our best bud, Brooklyn, was willing to come with us and show us the ropes. She has a brother that works there, so she knows her way around.

For the record, I don't like that place.

It feels damp in there.

There's no reason for that.

No reason for dampness in the Chuck E. Cheese.

The lighting also made me uncomfortable. Particularly bad for someone that might have been wanting to take a couple pictures. This is the only one I got.

And it's not even one of Lizzy. Jane won the jackpot on one of the games and got, like hundreds of tickets, or something like that. We took a video. I'm not posting it. Jane is a glory hog (remind me to tell you about the time that Leslie accused her as such) and this post isn't about Jane and Chuck E. Cheese. It's about Lizzy's birthday.

I WAS going to post a video of Lizzy blowing out the candles on her cake, but computers are dumb and make life hard, so nevermind.

All the family came for dinner and brought presents and had princess cake and Brent was in charge of the camera and Brent thinks like a boy and DOESN'T think "Oh, I'd better take some photos that are in focus and some cute ones of Lizzy having the time of her life because if I don't have them, how will I post them on my blog later?"

So this is what I got instead.

Brent's a good man. And he tried.

Notice how quickly Lizzy is capable of becoming disheveled even after I spend extra time trying to make her look as though she's loved and cared for? I swear I try.

All in all, it was good. Miss Biz has been asking for another birthday ever since, so I think she liked it too.

In conclusion, I want you all to know that I feel very much relieved now that I've posted this. NOT sharing the details of my middle child's third birthday via blog has been eating away at my conscience for the last month. I'll sleep good tonight.

Rain

Today, it's been rainy.

By the time I get to June, as a resident of the greater Salt Lake metropolitan area, I'm always a little confounded. I am aware of that fact that the weather in Utah is incredibly reliable in that it offers no reliability at all. One day it's hot in April and you're thinking about turning on the A/C and 2 days later, you're lighting a fire. You have freak snow storms in May sometimes. I am aware of this. Each year I begin bracing myself in March for a long, drawn out Winter. But still, no matter how long you've lived here, after a while you just start to wonder if a higher power just finds it amusing to taunt us with tastes of spring.

Today, it's been rainy.

But yesterday? Yesterday was glorious.

So glorious that Brent ran the sprinklers for the second time this year. BTW, when your sprinklers turn on, are you supposed to her a banging, clanging sound throughout the house? I'm thinking no. I'm thinking we'd better get on that before we have to turn them on again. Good thing that today, it's been rainy.

Anyway, the girls were so excited about the sprinklers that they ran upstairs and before you could say "Bob's your uncle," they reappeared in the their new swimsuits. Never mind their adorable Sunday dresses or their hair that took me all morning to curl (I'm in serious need of some better hairspray, I swear the stuff I have is counterproductive).

I took deep offense at their lack of appreciation.

But after some time and introspection, I decided to forgive them.

Because their swimsuits this year are pretty cute too.

(I'd like to bear my testimony of buying swimsuits and bikes and anything else from Target.)

And, let's face it, my girls are also pretty cute.

And the fact that they were so happy to be playing together on a warm, sunny Sunday afternoon is pretty cute as well.

So you see, for the sake of the cuteness involved, I really HAD to forgive them. And I'm glad that they were able to out and enjoy the warm sun, because today... it's been rainy.

A Gift.

My mom was in town for Mother's Day today. I woke up and I told my husband that I wanted to get pictures of me with my mom and and my kids. Sometimes I amaze even myself at my inability to accomplish something so simple.

Brent got me a bike "for Mother's Day" and by that, I mean that several weeks ago, Brent, myself, my sister and her husband went to Target on a date night (yes, we often go to Target on date night) to get a bike for my sister and whilst there I decided I needed one too. Even though it was technically purchased for "Mother's Day," we ended up getting it out to ride on Friday and if someone was riding a bike, we all had to be riding bikes (my family is in sync that way), so the kids came out too.

From far enough away, that grainy photo up there makes me look uncommonly serious and chic. It's very unlike me. It makes me a little uncomfortable.

This must be rectified.

Ah, that's more like it. Much less dignified and with a child in tow.

Why was this photo even taken? I think I told Brent to "take a photo of me on my bike," but let me assure you, that is NOT what I meant.

Sometimes I worry that Charlie is determined to get run over by a car. He's on the sidewalk here, but generally speaking, it's next to impossible to keep him out of the street. The best part is that he likes to crawl down the curbs, keeping him nice and low to the ground where no one could possibly see him. If you have business in our circle, do me a favor and drive slow.

I really like him. A lot.

Ah, Miss Biz.

Why are your shoes always on the wrong feet?

Brent needed to put the training wheels back on Jane's bike. She wasn't quite ready for the two wheeling experience.

And she's not too happy about it.

So if you see a woman out on a new bike, in a puffy red coat, looking most undignified, with a couple of kids following behind and perhaps a baby crawling in the street, chances are fairly good that it's me.

Happy Mother's Day to all!