Familiar Scene

Thumb in mouth, hand on hair, and dancing to "Itsy Bitsy Spider". (oh, and the Buzz Lightyear wings) What could be better? Time for bed for my baby girl.

If You Chance to Meet a Frown

It is "Pout" week over at I ♥ Faces. Go check out all the other sad faces and show us your best pout!

If you chance to meet a frown
Do not let it stay
Quickly turn it upside down
And smile that frown away!

No one likes a frowning face
Change it for a smile
Make the world a better place
By smiling all the while.

PS- http://www.picnik.com/ is an AWESOME and easy to use site for photo editing!

Photos of the Week

This picture cracks me up. Andrew has been wearing his Buzz Lightyear glove all week. Thank goodness the glove isnt sparkly or people might think Andrew is a Michael Jackson wannabe.

Madeline LOVES her Uncle Nate!

I think this is the sweetest photo of my parents with Madeline.

Flashback Friday: Guess that Baby

Name these babies. (This is a random assortment of my siblings, kids, spouse, parent, nieces, and nephews) Can you guess them all?

1.

2.

3.

4. 5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

The 5k Challenge

I'm in need of some motivation to get back to serious working out and have decided to sign up for a 5k run. Believe it or not I used to be a cross country runner. (I know, I know, wipe that shocked expression off your face!) I was doing really well working out for awhile, but things have gone downhill since my kids have been sick pretty much all winter. So, I decided to sign up for a local 5k race this summer. Would any of you like to join me in a 5k challenge? You can either join me in the race I'm going to run or you can sign up for a race in your area. Let me know if you are willing to accept the challenge. If you want to be part of my team and run with me locally, leave me a comment and I'll send you the information.

The Promised Proof

It's a miracle! Look at her go!

And She Walks!

It's a miracle. Madeline's 14 1/2 months and finally wants to walk. She walked 10+ steps at a time, multiple times today. We are soooo excited! Finally! Now how long will it be until she stops crawling completely?? I really can't wait. She gets so dirty crawling. Pictures forthcoming.

Top Ten Reasons We Love...

...When Grandma and Grandpa Come to Town:

10. Watching TV together

Andrew and Dad fighting over the remote
9. My brother, Nate, comes over way more often
8. My kids food choices expand considerably (i.e. Code Red Mountain Dew & Frosted Animal Crackers)

7. Mom helps clean, cook, and take care of my kiddos-she even lets Madeline hold her hair. (My dad helps some too :o)
6. We get to see long lost relatives whom we haven't seen in many, many years. (Yes, they do live in the area)
5. I never have to drive, since my dad is a great chauffer

4. Tom and I get to go out without the pain of finding a trustworthy babysitter

3. And we get to go see Wicked!!

2. Shopping by myself. I can not believe how much easier Costco is without a 3-year-old boy running off and a 1 year old trying to jump out of the cart at every item that looks interesting to her.

And the most important reason is...

1. My parents are the greatest parents in the world and we love them so much!

Contemplative Girl

My entry for this week's I ♥ Faces contest is a picture of my sweet little contemplative girl. This picture was taken on the grounds of the Mesa Temple last month. Be sure to go check out I ♥ Faces for inspiration and to enter your own "No Flash" photos!

Anniversary Present in March?

What could be more exciting than an anniversary present almost 4 months late? Tom surprised me last night with a night on the town (childless). It was awesome. We went to our favorite restaurant, Izzy's, and afterwards... ...to the Broadway show he wanted to take me to for our anniversary, but it wasn't playing yet.

Wicked is awesome! The music was amazing and I couldn't have enjoyed myself more. Everything was perfect! Thanks for being the best husband in the world and for not forgetting your promise to take me!

Big thanks also goes out to my parents for coming to town, watching our kids, and giving us a night out. You guys are the best!

Flashback Friday

Tom and his sister, Christina, at Sea World in the early 80's. (Look at those hot shorts!)

Andrew at Sea World in September 2007

What Would You Do?

Here's the scenario:

You go to the grocery store to shop the sales. The specific sale is a mix and match sale that if you buy a certain number of items at a certain price, you will get an instant savings. So, you go shopping the morning the sale starts and buy lots of the mix and match items, but in the end the instant savings of $20 never comes off. (there is no doubt that you have shopped correctly for the sale) How do you react?

a. You never pay attention to prices anyway, so you wouldn't notice
b. Even in a long line, you immediately demand the cashier give you the $20 instant savings
c. You go directly to customer service and demand the $20 back
d. You notice, but go home mad and swear to never shop at the lame store again.
e. Forget about it, it doesn't really matter. It's just $20.
e. None of the above

As you can probably guess, I just had this exact scenario happen to me yesterday. My Mom, Tom, and I have been discussing how to properly handle the situation. I opted for C, but the customer service person who was completely ignorant of the store's main sale of the week did not want to help me. What would you do at that point? Demand to see a manager, forget about it, return everything, or do something else? I'm very curious to know how other people would react in this type of situation.

What's your least favorite chore?

Chores. Something we all have to do every single day. So, do you have a least favorite one that you just dread doing and put off as long as possible? Hands down my least favorite chore is:

Thankfully, this is NOT my actual bathroom, but rather how I feel about bathroom cleaning. It's DISGUSTING! Thanks to Google Images for the picture.

Cleaning the bathroom! YUCK!

On the flip side, do you enjoy any chores? If so, which ones?

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Things I am grateful for this "lucky" day:

1. My mom visiting from Utah. She not only let me sleep in this morning, but she's also helped clean my house and sorted ALL our socks. (That last one happens ONLY when my mom comes to town-I think she sees it as her responsibility to keep our feet covered in matching socks! HA!) 2. Antibiotics to help bring this kiddo back to health. It's strep again. Don't ask me how he gets it twice in 5 weeks.

3. This little one who loves to sleep enough to wake up with hair like this:

4. Photoshop to add a little green to some of my photos today.

5. A husband with a good solid job, even if he has to travel too much right now.

Have a very happy and lucky day!

"Not Me" Monday

Who me?

There's no way I would ever forget to put a diaper on my fourteen month old.

And when I discovered poop running all down her leg I did not immediately call my husband to blame him, only to realize a moment later that he had worked late last night and there's no way it could have been him.

Nope. Not me. I'm much too attentive and kind to ever do that.

Now go check out MckMama at My Charming Kids to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

I ♥ Faces “Green”

In celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, I ♥ Faces is having a "green" themed week!

So I had some fun with this photo. The more I learn on photoshop, the more I like it. I'm obviously not an expert yet, but maybe someday I will be.

I thought we could use a few shamrocks with this week's theme. Head on over to I ♥ Faces to check out the other "green" photos and to add one of your own.

"Obvious Problems"

As I posted recently on my project 365 blog, we have started experiencing mold/mildew problems in our bedroom and living room. We wrote the (absentee) landlord to let him know of the issue and request guidance on how to proceed. In response he asked us to look for any "obvious problems." So yesterday Tom got out the ladder and climbed into the attic. This is what he found:

This is looking up towards the roof

Does anyone see any obvious problems with this? Not that we should be surprised that there is a problem with our roof...

Yes, this is really what our roof looks like from the outside. Ours is one of about three roofs in the whole entire neighborhood that is original from when the home was built in the 1970's.

The question is what do you think our cheap landlord will actually do about the issue?

Home Prices

Here are the actual home prices from the "Name that Price" post.

1. Plano, Texas

$291,000

2. Great Falls, Virginia

$4.2 million

3. Foster City, California

$1.25 million

And the winner is my Mom with Tom coming in a close second! Congrats!

Flashback Friday

Europe 2000

While in college 4 friends and I took a trip to Europe. We bought Eurorail passes and travelled for three weeks across Europe. We visited Holland, Belgium, England, France, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland. We ended our trip with a week spent in Russia with a stop back to my old mission stomping grounds. I have great memories of the trip and am so grateful for the opportunity that I had to travel. (travelling to Europe now with two kids isn't going to happen anytime soon.) My friends Brittney and Charity came with on the trip.

Barcelona

Vatican City

London on top of a double decker bus

London

Perm, Russia

Chelyabinsk, Russia with members of the church branch

Top of a mountain in Interlaken Switzerland with my favorite chocolate

Moscow, Russia

Church in Interlaken, Switzerland

Interlaken, Switzerland (my favorite place of the trip!)

Crowded Moscow Metro

McDonalds in Moscow (You had to recognize the golden arches, right?)

Holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa

Nice, France beach (can you pick me out? don't you love the hot guy in a speedo?)
Paris, France