Wish List

Top three items on Vivian's wish list today:

1. A pink diamond
2. A pondo (condo)
3. Some pink silly willy (silly putty)

Eenie Meenie Miney Moe

Choosing a husband is pretty serious business, and Vivian has clearly been putting some thought into it lately. Her first hopes were dashed recently when she learned she couldn't marry Aunt Beccah - but she did get a picture with the bride as a consolation prize.

This afternoon while riding in the car, she was listing her choices and the boys were shooting her down left and right.

Dad? Nope, already taken. Plus it's illegal. And uncouth.
Hyrum? Nope, he's probably going to marry Mia.
Aiden? Nope, he's a relative. (Although this one actually could be legit, since they're like twentieth cousins or something.)

Exasperatedly sighing and rolling her eyes, she glanced out the window, pointed out a random jogger, and said, "Fine. I'll just marry that guy then."

Ummm...no rush, baby girl. You have plenty of time.

Crafty is Not My Middle Name

I'm not a natural crafter, but somehow I've found myself in charge of a few craft projects lately so I'm adapting. One thing I will say is that I'm very good at reading instructions. I can assemble a piece of furniture from the most poorly worded/translated directions and wield a keyboard and mouse with expertise.

Being the end of the school year, and having tapped the parents dry already for various school fundraisers and class projects, I needed to come up with a cheap but cool/meaningful end of year gift. I snuck into the school on a day the teacher was sick, snapped photos of the kids, and had each of them write a thank you note. (Some of the girls, inevitably more crafty than I, embellished their notes with rocks, feathers, beads, erasers, and other bits of flotsam they had in their desks. Presented a bit of a challenge in fitting them into an album, but we worked it out.) I planned to cover two pieces of cardboard with cute paper,  punch a few holes, and tie it all together with ribbon. At the last minute I decided to go for something cuter, so I bought some felt and embroidery floss, googled instructions for a back stitch and blanket stitch, and came up with this:

I'm not going to admit how much time I spent on it, because that would probably ruin my bragging.

In other news, I signed up to donate three cakes for the school carnival's cake walk. Three didn't seem like a lot at the time I signed up, but on the actual day of the carnival I found myself wondering what I had done. Rather than mess with success, I decided to just make three of my same cake from last year. I even used a little math, calculating the circumference of my cake pans, multiplying by 3 pans, then dividing by the length of a kit kat bar to determine the number of kit kats I needed to buy. See how helpful 6th grade math can be? By the time I was done, my kitchen looked like this:

















and the cakes looked like this:

They sold quickly - I guess you can't really go wrong with chocolate frosted chocolate wrapped in chocolate with extra chocolate poured on top. My condolences to the parents of the winners.

Anyway, there's my super crafty week in a nutshell. Thank goodness for google, and thank goodness for summer vacation.

In the Middle

It's a little bittersweet, watching your kids grow up. I guess Theron is either a big little boy or a little big boy these days. He seems so grown up sometimes, carrying on conversations and such; then when I check on  him at night before I go to bed, I'll notice that he still has little boys hands and sleeps burrowed down into a nest of pillows and his childhood blanket. It's an interesting mix, and one I'm guessing won't last too long. Today I offered to pay him to mow the lawn (he's saving up for a keyboard) and he just went right out and did it. He donned the safety glasses that came with a nerf dartgun (see - still my little boy!), got the mower out of the shed, started it up, and went at it all by himself. (I can see this being a very good thing in my life.) His wrists are sticking out of the sleeves of a shirt we bought two weeks ago and he still doesn't care much about brushing his hair before he leaves the house in the morning, but all signs are pointing toward the impending fact that he is growing up. I can't quite decide how I feel about it.

A Few thing I Love (AKA Smells I like)

For lack of a more exciting subject, and in an attempt to beat my all time blog posts per year record (a lofty goal, I know) I decided to let you all in on a few of my favorite things.

Thing # 1: Baudelaire Essence Sea Loofah

It's french triple milled soap (so it lasts forever) and smells great for guys or gals. Plus it has nice little scrubby bits of seaweed in it that will make your skin soooo soft.


Thing # 2: Restoration Hardware Meyer Lemon Vacuum BBs

You put a little handful of these in your vacuum bag and then every time you vacuum your house smells great. Since vacuuming is my favorite chore, these are right up my alley. They come in lots of yummy scents but the lemon is my favorite.

Thing # 3: Speaking of a delicious, lemony smelling house... Lemon Pledge

Need I say more?

Thing # 4 Aveda Caribbean Therapy Bath Soak

This stuff is apparently going out of production and I don't know why because it is the best bath product ever invented. The smell is so great, it makes me want to buy up all the remaining bottles in the world and horde them. So far, they're still pretty easy to find.

Thing # 5 Wild Violets

For the longest time I tried to find seeds for these and no one seems to have any. After some recent googling, I discovered that most people consider them weeds. Too bad, because they smell so good and it's like finding a perfect little surprise when you come across one. (At least it is for me. I guess it's actually like coming across a minor annoyance for lots of people).

Anyway, there's my ultra exciting post of some of the most delicious smelling things in my life. And the blog keeps chugging along...

Show Them you Love Them

I found this link on a friend's blog and loved the suggestions of simple ways we can show our kids we love them. Click HERE to read it.

                                       Me with my mom 1983-ish.

Not to Brag or Anything, but...

I'm sort of proud of these. I signed up to contribute a dessert to the school auction, thinking it would be a bake sale kind of thing. Turns out the desserts are being auctioned off, and I do NOT want to be the person who made the undesirable dessert. "Anyone? Come on folks, it's for a good cause. A dollar? Anybody?"

The pressure! So I racked my brain and came up with these. I think they'll be delish - I haven't actually eaten one yet, but what can be bad about cream cheese, fresh strawberries, and dark chocolate? More important in this situation though is that they're pretty. By the time someone has forked over their money it will be too late. Muahahaha.

What Goes On in the Back Seat

The boys' conversation on the way home from scouts tonight:

THERON: Did you know if you get hit in the front of the head you can change your whole personality? A girl in my class knows someone who hit her head really hard and her parents were happy because all of a sudden she was a lot more responsible.
SETH: You mean she did her homework when her parents weren't home?
THERON: Yep....But don't hit me in the head, okay Mom?
(pause)
THERON: I've always had a lot of arm hair.
SETH: Well I've always had a lot of armpit hair.
THERON: No you haven't.
SETH: Yes I have, but at least I don't lick my armpits (gives armpit licking demonstration).
(pause)
THERON: What's your dream car?
SETH: (describes his dream car).
THERON: Well what's your dream house?
SETH: My dream car IS my dream house. I can live in my car and be a hobo.

Great. A pit-licking hobo. Regardless, I wouldn't hit the fronts of those two heads for all the world.

A Conversation with Vivian

ME: Dad tore off the hub cap with his bare hands.
VIVIAN: Dad doesn't have bear hands!
THERON: Bare means no clothes on.
VIVIAN: But bears don't wear clothes.

This reminds me of another little chat we had last summer (back in my non-blogging days).

VIV:do rats live in the dark?
ME: in some places I guess.
VIV: and they fly around?
ME:Do you mean bats?
VIV:that's what I just said.
ME:Oh. Well, yes, bats fly around at night and sleep during the day.
VIV:Do rats eat their breakfast in the sunshine?
ME:You mean bats?
VIV:That's what I just said.
ME:No, bats eat at night.
VIV: Do rats eat their breakfast in the morning?
ME:You mean bats?
VIV:No, I'm talking about rats now. Do they eat their breakfast in the sunshine?
ME:I guess they do.
VIV:And they don't get too hot? ...

That's what goes on ALLLLLLLL day at our house.

Fun with Photo Booth

Don't I just have the most attractive children?

taking flight

As the room parent for Seth's second class, and finding myself unsuccessful at rounding up a volunteer to head up this year's PTA auction project, the task ended up on my to do list. For the last few weeks I've spend lots of time in the classroom helping the kids to draw birds with pastels. Then we talked about growing up, what they think life as an adult will be like, how they're different at 7 or 8 than they were at 3 or 4, etc. I had them write down their thoughts and ended up with some pretty cute statements:

"So far I've loved being seven."
"When I grow up I want to be a builder like my dad."
"When I grow up I'm only going to play video games, eat ice cream, and go to bed at 12:00."
"When I'm older I'm going to fix everything up."

After all the kids' contributions were turned in, I scanned, resized, printed, and cut them out then took a stab at painting and decoupaging. The project being due today, I worked into the wee hours this morning, took a break for some chicken pot pie at 1:00 am, and wrapped it up this morning around 2:30.

...


until i woke up this morning and realized I'd completely forgotten to put one of the kids' birds on it. So I added a branch, added a bird, smoothed a little Mod Podge over it, and voila! Now I just have to run it down to the school and clean up my disaster of a house.

"Dear Journal...

It's been a long time since I've written, but I'm trying to be a better person. From now on I'm going to write in my journal, say my prayers, read my scriptures, wake up at 6 every morning to exercise, and do a service for someone every day. I'm making a little chart so I can check off the boxes as I go."

6-12 months later:

"Dear Journal,

It's been a long time..."

It's always a little embarrassing to start back up again when the last thing you wrote was that you were starting up again back THEN. My old journals are full of little charts that are faithfully fulfilled for about 3 days. I even made them for my sister and I'm sure she was really grateful.





So, true to form, here I am starting up yet again. In other news, this is what the kids look like these days:

The end. I'll be back again soon (I hope).