Gothtastic

If you have been a reader of my blog for a while, you may remember when Eric and I dressed up for standards night a while back.

Eric was Snake Felony and I was a 15 year old schoolgirl. It was quite enjoyable. So this year I was very excited to get the call to dress up again. And even more excited when I was asked to dress up goth!

 

The eyebrow ring, lip ring, and spiked dog collar were my favorite parts.

I am also partial to my purple Doc Martin boots, that I have insisted on saving all these years since high school. I knew I would have occasion to wear them again.

Sadie did not find my new persona likeable in the least. After seeing me in the make-up for the first time she said, "You look scary." She then ran out of the room and would not come to me for the rest of the night. As you can tell by the above picture, when she discovered she was going to have to sit next to me on the way home, she was not amused. She cried the entire way home. Poor Sade's.

12 X 12 - February 2011

Well I guess a 12 X 12 is as good a time as any to start blogging again. The last month and a half has been tough, and hence my blogging suffered.

I woke up Saturday morning to see my little Sade in bed with us. Lately she has been coming in quite often. Usually around 3 am. She comes to the side of the bed and asks, "Can I cuddle with you?" Neither Eric or I can resist her, so we of course say yes. Luckily she is a calm sleeper. I don't think I would be so accommodating if she was a kicker.

 Jackson was the only one awake when I walked out to the living room. I found him working on his Valentines. This year he chose paper airplane Valentines.

I left the house quite early (7:45 am!) to make it to a Worldwide Leadership Training Meeting. I do not enjoy early mornings, especially when they come on a Saturday. Nevertheless, I went.

I came home and was very happy to see Eric had made pancakes (with fresh blueberries). It almost made up for my early morning.

After he left for work, I didn't feel like doing anything (including cleaning my messy house), so I climbed under my covers and started a new book.

I was soon joined on my bed by Sade, who delighted me with a very special dance performance.

 My reading time ended up turning into a nap time for me. I knew better than to crawl into bed, but I was just could not help myself!

My kiddies spent most of the afternoon outside enjoying the 70 degree weather. Eventually they came back in, and I gave Jackson a hair-cut. He has literally been asking me every day for weeks to cut his hair, and I finally obliged.

 He needed it!

When Eric finally came home, we went to Macayo's.

I swear we have not been in over a month, although it seems like we go all the time.

 In this picture Sadie is sticking her "booty" out at us, and singing the ever popular "Shake My Booty" song. She finds it hilarious (and so do the rest of us).

After dinner, we went to Wal-Mart to grocery shop. It was painful. My kids were surprisingly good, even though it was late, but the lines were horrendous! I am talking about 10 people deep, backed up into the clothing section horrendous.

 We made it home, quite late. I took my pain pills and went to bed! I wasn't going to blog about the reason for taking pain pills, but it seems if I include them in my 12 X 12 some may wonder about them. So, for those that do not know, I had a D & C last week, and still have to take the pills for some residual pain. But I am doing much better now, and think the pain pills will be relegated to the medicine cabinet soon.

Red Rock

Monday was a perfect day. If you are reading this from a cold climate....I am sorry. We have had the most amazing weather this past week. I don't remember January ever being so nice. As luck would have it, Eric was off of work on Monday, so we were able to thoroughly enjoy the unseasonably warm weather at Red Rock. And to make it even more enjoyable, when we arrived we discovered it was a free day! Woo-hoo, I love going places for free.

Our first stop was Calico Vista. We have never hiked there before, and it was beautiful. We climbed plenty of rocks, and were able to hike pretty deep down into a canyon.

Jackson's naturally cautious demeanor surprisingly leaves him when we hike. He is a wild climbing man!

Megan is always fearless.

See the hole down there, by all the trees? That is where we climbed down. It looked quite scary from this vantage point.

And Sade's always does her best to keep up.

After we explored Calico Vista, we went to Lost Creek. This is one of our favorite hikes, and is perfect if you have small children. 

Especially if you have small children who still like to be carried. You won't tire yourself out too much.

While hiking we experienced quite the traffic jam. Although this is a fairly easy hike, if you have trouble walking on flat ground, walking uphill, over rocks is probably going to prove difficult for you. We were stuck behind a fairly old woman, who could not walk unassisted. I am shocked she did not fall in the river.

But we finally made it! This waterfall generally flows January through March.

Here we are behind the waterfall.

There was even a bit of snow.

Our view while hiking out. We came away mostly unscathed. Except for Jackson who ended up falling in the river on the hike out. Luckily he just laughed it off. It is a good thing it was Jackson who fell, because if it would have been the other two, you can't even begin to imagine the complaining about being wet and cold we would have been subjected to! And that is no way a judgement against my girls, because if I would have fallen in the river, the complaining would have been even worse.

12 X 12 - January 2011

I can't believe I started these 12 X 12 posts 2 years ago! Look at my little baby Sade from that inaugural post:

Many things have changed, but a lot is the same. The kids started off their day, as they usually do with breakfast.

Jackson always has oatmeal. Sadie usually does too, but yesterday she changed it up a bit and had Apple Jacks. Megan (obviously not pictured), ate Apple Jacks everyday for 8 years, but recently has switched to cinnamon/sugar toast. Interesting!!!

Poor Jackson. I was almost completely out of bread, and only had the ends left. Ordinarily he is a fairly picky eater, but amazingly bread end sandwiches don't bother him much.

After the kids left for school, Sadie asked for the first of her extreme number of snacks she asks for everyday. Her and Jackson are habitual snackers.

Eric was home yesterday morning which is good and bad. On the negative: It means no work, which equals no money. But on the positive: He can do the grocery shopping!

After Eric left for work, I took to my bed, while watching Sadie in the bath. I received this cool gadget for Christmas, which among a myriad of other things, has the Kindle on it. I have mixed feelings about the Kindle. The convenience is great. I often run out of reading material, and it affords me the ability to download a book whenever I want. However, I miss the feel of a book in my hand, and there are no page numbers at the bottom, so it is hard to tell how close to the end of the book you actually are. I ended up finishing The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, which was quite enjoyable.

And when I had finished I was able to go to this large box of books my good friend Behnaz sent me this week. She loves reading as much as I do, and is so good to send me her books. The joy I experience knowing I have numerous books waiting for me to read is immeasurable. And I had plenty of time to read yesterday. I was feeling horrible. Body aches, chills, the whole gamut. Luckily I have a 3 year old who still naps, and loves to watch T.V. because I spent the majority of the day in bed reading and napping.

When Megan and Jackson were due to get home, I decided I needed to pull myself together! I got out of bed and took some medicine.  I am including this picture because I look as bad as I felt. Don't I look dejected?

They soon arrived home thanks to my dear friend Jennie who has been bringing them home everyday for me, due to my lack of car. I was riding my bike everyday, but then it got sooooo cold. As you can tell the front walkway is littered with boxes, which is a familiar site around here. Eric receives shipments like this for work all the time! Megan is also clapping and saying, "Oh joy, its the 12th", in quite the sarcastic tone. She doesn't love 12 X 12 days.

Speaking of lack of car, our neighbor came over and taught us this newfangled way of starting the Volkswagen that involves a screwdriver. It's quite high-tech (NOT). I was excited to try it out, and we did get it started, but then the steering wheel locked up. Of course!

While outside, Sadie and Jackson were playing a game called "SCREAM." I am sure you can imagine the premise.

Although I was out of bed, I was quite lazy, and kept putting off something I really needed to get done, namely, making dessert for 60 for Young Women's that evening. Luckily Eric bailed me out, and helped me with the entire process, and it got done.

I made it just in time for New Beginnings. Notice my new obsession: Arm Warmers! I want them in every color.