New paint!

My office (the school library) is getting a paint job! These turquoise walls will soon be white and have murals painted on them! A local artist has volunteered her time and paint to spruce up our library.

I

Can't

Wait!

Girls, girls, girls.

What do most kids do if their Mom is taking a nap? I've heard some Mom's don't have the luxury of taking a daily nap. I've heard that they can't for fear of what their kids will do while they are asleep. I don't think I could or would survive if I couldn't take a nap. Lately I've been taking an almost daily nap. My kids are wonderful to let me. They play quietly an entertain themselves while I get a quick hour of shut eye. Yesterday was no different. We got home from school, the girls started their homework and the dishes, I picked up a little bit. The next thing I know I'm waking up from a LONG nap. I had slept almost two hours. I woke up because it was so quiet. Where were the girls? I look around for them. I found them in the back yard like this!

Reading books on the trampoline. My kids are amazing! I think it's a kind of strange way to spend free time, but hey, I got a nap!

They are the best of friends and the best kids any parent could ever wish for. I love my girls. I love my afternoon naps. I love days like these.

Thanks for being awesome girls! Mom loves you!!

Tooting my own horn!

OK, so I am not one to go around tooting my own horn but I think I've earned the right. I made yet another New Years resolution this year. My resolution was not some unattainable, lose weight, starve, or kill myself goal. My goal this year was to try to get more in shape. I decided on doing push ups and sit ups every day. So far I have done this every single day of 2012 ( I know the year just began but for me that's huge!). Yay me!! I started out doing what I could, now about every week or less I add a few more sit up or push ups. I tell ya, it's been harder than last years resolution of no ice cream and soda (which I stuck to the entire year!). I get up earlier than I use to so I don't have all eyes in the house watching me and critiquing me. I'm not doing this for them, it's for me. I've noticed a difference. I feel great and can't wait to see what the final out come is. I'd rather gain muscle than lose weight. My biceps are starting to resemble something a little like what they looked like in High school. Not that I was a huge body builder or anything but I was one buff chick thanks to hanging out with my brothers and the wrestling team.
If you made a resolution.....stick to it! It's an amazing feeling to know that YOU did it. I keep a journal. It helps me drag my buns out of bed at 4 in the morning to do sit ups. I don't want to miss a day and have a blank line in my journal. I'm putting my horn away now, I'm all tooted out. If you ever need an encouraging word to help you stick to your goal, call me, I'll be there for ya! Good luck!

Super Bowl 2012

Today started out like any other Sunday. We were up early, went to church ( I loved all the testimonies and the great lesson in relief society), took my Sunday nap, and watched the super bowl! My parents couldn't come down this year to watch it with us, so it was just us having a party. We partied that's for sure! We had a full spread. The MVP of the food table was the grilled asparagus. It was a hit, thanks to our produce man for talking me into buying it. It was awesome, the girls ate it up! We also had zucchini squash, hot dogs, grilled chicken, carrots and ranch, black olives, chips and dip, and soda. We were stuffed when kick off time came around. We saw the Pepsi commercial with Elton John as the king. Sydney ran and found her colored rocks. She looks just like him and his goofy colored glasses. I got a kick out of that!

Clay was really into the game can you tell. He's just doing what his wife doesn't like to do. I did offer but he said no. I sat happily on the couch bundled up watching the very handsome Tom Brady play a good game. (I was cheering for the Patriots because their uniforms were cuter and they have the better looking quarterback, plus I don't like all the showboating Cruz and the rest of the Giants do. I'm sad my team lost but really it's not like I watch every game of the NFL season. I only watch the super bowl.)

Our favorite commercial of the night was this M&Ms commercial. Made me laugh, the song was funny, and the girls are still saying, wiggle wiggle wiggle. Too funny. We also like the new Sonic car commercial because it was filmed in Arizona (At the Eloy Municipal Airport), and because Rob Dyrdek starred in it. He's one funny guy.

Halftime was the best I have seen in a long time. Madonna rocked the stadium. Complete with old songs, cool dance moves, no wardrobe malfunctions, new songs, and of course Madonna herself. Amazing!!

Not your typical Sabbath day that's for sure. Maybe not the most reverent and calm, but we had a great time spending time together as a family. I do have to say this, I completely despise the Go Daddy commercials. I do every year. They're full of half naked girls and provocative suggestive language. I have no idea what they're even pitching or wanting me to buy, of course I'd never check out their website. I'd hate to end up on a site full of smut. They ruin the whole super bowl party experience every year. I wish they would stick to Internet advertising so I can choose not to see their lame commercials. OK, that's my rant! I'm done.

An eventful Sunday!

We went to church like any other Sunday. Alex's stomach has been bothering her for over a week now. Last night she was hunched over and crying because it hurt so bad. I peeked in primary to see how she was doing and she was sitting hunched over, arms wrapped around her sides. She looked like she was in so much pain. After sacrament meeting we had asked our bishop, who is a doctor, what he thought. He didn't think it was an appendicitis but that she should probably be seen. We left church a little early and headed to the ER.

After the first nurse couldn't find a vein, made Alex bleed, and made her arm hurt, reinforcements came. A very nice nurse by the name of Jennifer came in, took blood from Alex's other arm and left to run tests.

Alex was very bored, in lots of pain, and very hungry. I kept nodding off and my tummy was rumbling also. After a few hours the doctor came in and said her urine and blood tests were fine. He thought she might have some kind of virus. He said to keep an eye on her and if she started to vomit or run a high fever come back. Home we went to eat lunch.

After lunch the girls played in their rooms, stopping every once in a while for Alex to hunch over and wait for her pain to go away. Their room became a huge mess but they were having fun. The newest game they love to play is recipes. The get bowls and spoons from the kitchen and make recipes with their stuffed animals and different fake spices. It's funny to hear the name of some of the things they pretend to make. The girls friend Madison came to play on Saturday and they must have played this same exact game for almost two hours!

Then after I took my Sunday nap, Alex and I made brownies. For dessert we had brownies and ice cream and played the game we got Clay for his birthday.

It's called beat the parents. It's a trivia game. The adults get questions that kids would know and the kids get questions about stuff adults know. It was way harder then we thought it was going to be. The kids won! We barely moved our pieces. There were lots of Harry Potter questions and stuff we had no clue about. The kids skunked us bad!

All in all it turned out to be a good day. I hope Alex starts to feel better soon. Poor little pumpkin!

Sewing weekend

This weekend I hardly did a thing but sew. Thursday night we had a sewing night for a Relief Society activity. It made me want to sew even more all weekend. I did do the laundry but that was about all I accomplished in the area of housework this weekend. The Special Education teacher at school asked me to make her a few things. You can't really tell by the picture but this blanket has rice sewn into it. It's a weighted blanket for some of our Autistic kiddos to use. It's more of a lap pad than a blanket. The weight helps them calm down a bit.

This is also a lap pad filled with rice, just in a smaller size.

This is a weighted sock(also rice) to go around the back of the child's neck for weight on the neck and shoulders. I also made lots of different textured bean bags, some filled with rice and some with different objects. All these things are to help them with their sensory issues. It was a lot of fun to make so many different things. Alex loved helping me with all the rice and sewing.

At the sewing night on Thursday I finished the last two of my twenty four trees I was making. I then made them blocks and soon it will be a whole quilt of trees. I'm so excited to see it done.

I have all the small trees sewn into blocks, I'll finish the big trees soon, then it's on to making it a quilt!! What a weekend!

2011 blog book.

It came, it came, it finally came!!

This year we went with a different company to print our blog book. I like this book because it reads just like the blog. All the posts stay the same and all the pictures described match with that paragraph. This book also came with an index. It didn't take as long to put together as other blog books have. All you have to do is go to blog2print.com, select a cover and size of book, upload blog, pay, and in a few weeks it arrives. So easy!!

2010's blog book was done at blurb.com and you have to download a program. It's labor intensive and takes a lot of time. I like this book because you can play around with different picture layouts and text layouts. Sometimes the picture on the page is described within the paragraph. It will say something like, in the picture below there is a fat cat but the picture won't be right under it because this program puts all the text together, you could separate them but then you'd be adding a lot more pages.

I'm having a hard time deciding which one I like best. I may have to order two of each year from now on. I also like all the different picture sizes in the old books, some are big, some small, some in between. In the new book they're all one size.

Let me know your thoughts, if you know of any other good blog publishing sites, let me know that too!! Thanks!!

Alex and Yasmin have a play date!

Alex has been begging me to let Yasmin (her BFF) come over for a play date. Most Friday's we're booked solid, running errands, going to appointments, cleaning. This Friday (the 20th) Sydney had a field trip so Alex would be home alone. The perfect day for a play date. The girls cleaned the house Thursday so it would be nice and clean for Yasmin to come over. A friend came and picked up Sydney to take her to the school for the field trip. Alex and I went to breakfast at Burger King. While we were there Alex said she already missed Sydney and it felt weird not to have her there (she must have told me this over 20 times that day). Another friend came over to pick up toilet paper for a science project and asked Alex if she missed Sydney, she of course said yes! Then Yasmin came and all the missing Sydney flew right out the door. They played a game where they spun each other on the desk chair, then they'd jump up and run down the hall. It was funny to watch them stumbling and crashing their way down the hall.

Then the girls drew with window markers on the sliding glass door, ate some cookies I had just made, spun some more on the chair, looked at cards, played the Wii, played with Yasmin's Vtech tablet, and had another snack. Then they got every pillow in the house, piled them up in the living room and took turns jumping in the pile. They'd laugh and crash and bury each other with pillows. It must have been fun because they played it for over an hour. Then when they got bored of jumping in the pile, they lined the hallway with pillows and set up and obstacle course. Yeah, my house was pretty much covered in pillows by the time Yasmin had to go.

Alex and Yasmin have been friends for years. I think they first met each other in Kindergarten. They don't always have the same class but they always play with each other at recess. I'm so glad she has such a great Best Friend!

Sydney called from the bus and said they would be home earlier than expected. Yasmin was sad she had to leave early but had a good time playing with Alex. Sydney told us all about her field trip to the Symphony (they played 3 Lady Gaga songs) and about her tour at the Children's Detention Center (scary and she doesn't want to go there. The thing that shocked her the most was that the kids had no privacy when they went to the bathroom. "Mom, you could see the silver toilet from the window in the door". She couldn't believe it.). Once we got home Sydney was a little sad. I asked her what was wrong. She said she didn't get to play all day with Alex. I guess she missed Alex as much as Alex missed her. They played happily the rest of the night.

Symphony!

Last night we went and saw the Sierra Vista Symphony Orchestra perform. We got all dressed up for our night out on the town. The girls got in free so with the other two tickets we took my parents. We went early and ate at Chili's, then went to stand in line at the entrance doors so we could get good seats. We were first in line but two little old ladies who were very grumpy thought they were the line leaders. We didn't mind to much, we could still beat them in a foot race!The music was amazing! So peaceful and wonderful. Poor Alex though. The couple that sat in front of her made out with each other the whole time. I asked if she wanted to trade places but she wanted to sit by Nana. Then the 3 little annoying high school boys behind us kept humming and whistling along with the music. Very annoying. The music made up for the rude crowd. It is truly amazing what composers can do, what instruments in capable hands can do, what the human body can teach itself to do, and the sounds that can be made when you combine all three. It was amazing, the girls loved it! My dad must have liked it too, he didn't fall asleep once!
Thanks to my principal for the wonderful tickets. What an experience! If you ever have the opportunity to go see a symphony, whether it be in Sierra Vista or some huge city, take it! It's money and time well spent!

Date night at the Symphony!

Date night at the Symphony!I got 4 free tickets to the Sierra Vista Symphony Orchestra from my boss on Wednesday. The girls get in free with our two tickets so we invited my parents to come along too. Sydney is on a field trip right now. They went to the Symphony and then to tour the children's detention center. She'll be home around 3:00PM, then we'll wait for Clay to get home from work and head back to the Symphony. Hopefully Sydney likes Beethoven and Mozart A LOT!