Flashback Friday

Recently I was going through some old postcards and letters I have received and came across two that reminded me of who I was was as a pre-teen.
Both postcards were sent by Marty. The first depicts a girl sitting in an extremely messy room. As a child I could not keep my room clean. I had no motivation, willingness or drive to live in a clean room. It was truly overwhelming for me. I didn't know where to start and it was so messy that I would get burned out way before I could finish.

If you read the back of the card you will see that it talks about when he saw this card he thought of me, and how my room was actually much worse. He was right. We won't go into the psychological reasons why my room was so messy, we will just be grateful that I grew out of it.
As a pre-teen I was also obsessed with professional wrestling. I watched it on T.V. and saw all of the greats wrestle in person (Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, Macho Man Randy Savage, Brutus the Barber Beefcake). I loved it. Marty also sent me this postcard about the same time as the last one.

We can also be grateful I grew out of this stage.

Say Uncle

This weekend Eric' s brother Todd came to visit, which thrilled the kids (and Eric and I too, of course). Jackson has always loved playing with cars. Recently he has been playing on HotWheels.com every chance he gets. He also will spends hours in his room building tracks like the ones he has seen on Hot Wheels. So you can imagine how excited he was to have someone build a cool track with him. Here is some video of the track Todd built. I am sorry about the camera work, once it started filming it refused to zoom out, but you get the idea.

The Randall's also came over this weekend to make smores with us.

Who says you have to go camping to have smores? All you need is a kitchen table and some Sterno fuel.

Megan was actually pretending to eat a smore in this picture. Both Megan and Jackson dislike smores, but they do enjoy making them for Eric to eat.

SPT

Our final challenge for "wedding month" was to photograph something blue.

This is a necklace that I wear every day. I don't wear much jewelry but I rarely leave the house without this on.
And of course I couldn't forget about my all blue-eyed family. This picture was taken right before bed, so Sadie was mad and Jackson was being crazy. Nothing too unusual.

It's Here!!

A few weeks ago I won the "Pay It Forward" sweepstakes on my friend Amy's blog. I have been so excited to receive my gift because I know how talented and creative she is. I have been secretly hoping for an apron, and to my delight she sent me one. I love aprons! I wear one every time I clean and every time I cook. Could this one possibly be even cuter? I can't wait to break it in. Thank you Amy.



I will be having my own "Pay It Forward" contest soon, but due to the fact that I am not as talented as Amy and have very few crafting skills, I am still trying to think of something to send to my winners. I will keep you posted.

Wordless Wednesday

SPT

The "wedding month" challenges continue. This week it is time for something borrowed. I immediately knew what I was going to do for this challenge because I borrow something every night of my life. I go into my closet, to my husbands side, and pull out one of his t-shirts. They are my favorite things to sleep in. I always choose his oldest ones, because they are the softest. Don't you love a t-shirt that has been washed hundreds of times? He actually wore one the other day that I generally wear to bed, and my little boy asked him why he was wearing one of my shirts.


I also borrow almost every book I read. Either from the library or from friends. Here are the last 3 books I borrowed. For the record I enjoyed all of them. I had put off reading "Eat, Pray, Love" for quite a while, because for some reason I didn't think I would like it. I was wrong. I thought it was great.

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Boys Night Out

Eric and Jackson headed out to Hidden Valley this weekend for the annual Father & Sons campout. Jackson has been so excited to go all week and has been counting down the days. Every morning he would tell me, "Only 7 more days until me and my Dad go camping." He had so much fun last year when they went to Mt. Charleston. This year he had fun too, but as you can see by this picture it wasn't exactly Mt. Charleston.

They were surrounded by dirt, and it was pretty hot. Luckily Jacksons good friend Eli came, so they had a lot of fun playing together. Look at their red cheeks. They weren't sunburned, they were just red from the heat.

As I said before Jackson was really excited to go. However, that sweet little part of him was concerned all week that Megan wasn't going. Whenever we would talk about the campout he would always tell me in a sad voice that Megan really wanted to go camping too. We explained that it was just for boys, and we could all go camping sometime as a family. He said okay, but I still know he felt bad for Megan that she couldn't go. He is such a loving boy. By the way, Megan didn't really want to go. She would never willingly hang out with so many boys.

WHY??

Sadie has been plagued with numerous colds in her short life. I blame it on her being born in January. So for the first 4 months of her life I had her sleeping in her car seat, since when she slept flat in her crib she would get so stuffed up she could barely breathe.


She has been cold free for a couple of weeks, so I finally decided she needed to learn to sleep in her crib. I have been dreading it, because I anticipated many sleepless nights ahead of me. So we tried it, and to my surprise she seemed to have no problems. I was so excited. I could hardly believe my luck. Fast forward 2 days later when she decided to switch up her night time routine. You may have heard me brag about her sleeping through the night at a young age, but those days seem to be over. She is now waking up every 2 to 3 hours, and I am not enjoying it. I fear it is becoming a habit. Any advice?

SPT

We are continuing on with the "wedding month" challenges.

Last week was something old, and this week is something new. This challenge gave me the perfect opportunity to do something that I have wanted to do for a very long time. Practically everyone I know gets their eyebrows waxed. In the 30 years I have been alive, I have never touched mine. That's right, not even with a tweezer. When I went to get it done, the lady kept asking me who did mine before (because as she said, "They didn't do a very good job"). She also told me I had to stop plucking my right one more than my left. I explained to her that I had never had my eyebrows waxed, nor had I ever plucked them, but she looked at me like she didn't believe me. I would also like to say that my friend, Rachael, told me that it didn't hurt, but that is completely untrue. It did hurt.

Before

After

Now that I am comparing the two photos I think I look better in the before photo. However, I think it is probably because my eyes look swollen from the waxing, and they had been watering quite a bit. Now that it has been a few days I am happy with the results. Only time will tell if I decide to keep it up.

Flashback Friday-Mother's Day Edition

For this Flashback Friday I am celebrating my Mom. She is not only a kind-hearted, loving, and supportive Mom, but she is also incredibly funny. We obviously have a shared history, and with that comes stories and experiences that are uniquely ours. By saying one word or phrase, I can be reduced to hysterical laughing. I am surprised by how many pictures I have where I am laughing uncontrollably while sitting next to my mom. So for this Flashback Friday I am going to share three of me laughing, that were all taken at different Christmas's.

Happy Mother's Day Mom!!! I Love You!!

Tea For Two

Today was the annual Mother's Day Tea at Jackson's Pre-School. They sang to us, served us refreshments, and we played a very informative game called MYSTERY MOM. I learned quite a bit about myself. The kids were asked a series of questions about us mom's, and we had to guess which kid said what. Here is what Jackson thinks of me:

1. What is your Mom's favorite color? Red (He was right)
2. What does your Mom cook the very best? Macaroni & Cheese (Right again)
3. How old is your mom? 3 (Pretty close)
4. What color is your Mom's hair? Dark Gray (Is he trying to tell me something)
5. What is the funniest thing your mom does? Nothing (Apparently I am void of any funniness)
6. Why do you love your Mom? Because I like her
7. If you could give your Mom any gift what would it be? Jewelry (I can't wait until he is rich)

They gave us these cute tea towels with their hand prints on them, and we also had to draw pictures of each other. You may have to click on the picture to enlarge it. It may be hard to tell who drew what picture since I am severely lagging in artistic ability.

The kids were all so great and well behaved. They have a fantastic teacher, who also happened to be Megan's pre-school teacher when she was 3. See how calm they are listening to the book. Not bad for a bunch of 3 year olds.

SPT

This Week's Challenge:

May means "wedding month" to me. And no, this challenge is not going to be about weddings (unless you want it to be...). This months challenge is simply:

May 6th: Something Old
May 13th: Something New
May 20th: Something Borrowed
May 27th: Something Blue


I actually had something else in mind until this morning when I pulled out some stationary to write a note to a friend. I happened to pull out some that my mom gave to me probably 15 years ago. I admit that I have a habit of hording stationary and cards. I love to buy it, and receive it as gifts, but sometimes I put off using it because I realize once I use it, it will be gone. Obviously. This particular stationary came with 15 cards, and I have 4 left. After I wrote the note, I went to put it in an envelope and discovered that they were so old, the seals were already stuck to the envelopes. I truly have become better over the years, but admit that I have a long way to go. My friend Rachael and I bought the same box of multi-occasion cards at Costco a year ago, and while she has used almost all of hers, I still have at least 80 percent. They do all eventually get used, it may just take me 15 or 20 years!!

Special Olympics

"Let me win,but if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt."

(Special Olympics Oath)

Today Megan was able to participate in a wonderful event. This year her school was chosen to participate in the Special Olympics track and field competition. Non-disabled peers were paired up with the Special Olympics athletes from their respective schools. Megan has been training since February with special needs kids from her school, and today was the big event. I was so thrilled when she was chosen. I always feel so lucky when my kids get to participate in activities that will make them better people. For those of you that don't know Megan, she does have arms, they were just inside her shirt because it was so cold.

She participated in the 50 meter run, the softball throw, and the standing long jump. They all looked so cute lining up.

As you can see it was very windy, which made it kind of cold outside. However, I think it was better than having it be too hot, which definitely could have been a possibility here in Las Vegas. Sadie is finally getting used to the wind, so she was quite content in her carrier.

Eric challenged Jackson to a race of their own, and Jackson was as fast as lightning.

Lastly, here is a picture of Megan at the 2nd trimester awards assembly at her school. She collected 3 awards yesterday (Academic Achievement, Excellent Attendance, and Citizenship). Megan is very conscientious of her school work and has worked hard to bring home all A's since she has been going to school. As soon as she gets home, she does her homework and practices her spelling words. I am always very proud of her. Of course I would still be proud of her even if she didn't do well in school, because all around she is a great girl.

Sadie, Sadie Pretty Lady

My little Sade is almost 4 months old, and I think gets cuter and cuter everyday. She has started grabbing everything in sight (her blanket, toys, and her toes (my personal favorite)). She is super close to rolling over, if her pesky arm would not get in the way. She has been a great nighttime sleeper since she was 6 weeks old, usually only waking up once around 3 a.m. And for the last 3 nights she has slept until 6 a.m., woken up to eat, and gone back to sleep until 8:30 a.m. Hooray. Let's hope she keeps it up. By the way, my 3 year old still does not sleep through the night, so no one out there can be too jealous.
She has big blue eyes, the fairest skin of any of my kids, and such kissable cheeks. She puts up with a lot of kissing, given that Jackson can't seem to keep his lips off of her. He always tells me that he has to kiss her so much because he loves her so much. We all talk to her in our highest voices and smile at her all day, in hopes that she will smile back at us (and she almost always does).

I had to post one picture of her screaming her little heart out, because she does like to do that quite a bit too. She is a baby, so she likes to be held (while standing up), and is definitely not patient when she wants to eat or is tired. But all in all we could not be luckier. I feel blessed every day that she is part of our family.

SPT

This Week's Challenge:

Find your last receipt from the gas station? How much did you spend? What if you could take that amount and spend it on something for you? What would you buy? This item must be within $5 of what you spent.

We were at the gas station last night and spent $72.26. I still had a few gallons left, so in reality it could have been even more. So if I had approximately $75 to spend, what would I spend it on?

I would maybe rent out a storage unit for my husband to keep all of his work stuff in. It would be amazing to have my garage back. OR,

I would hire someone to come clean my house. Oh wait, I forgot, I already have someone. (Isn't he a good sport). Or,

I would take that $75 and spend it on something impractical and just for me. I have always wanted to learn how to tap dance, so I could see me buying myself a really nice pair of high-heeled tap shoes. Even though I don't know how to tap dance, I would get so much enjoyment walking around the house with them on.

Flashback Friday-Graduation Edition

I grew up in Logan, Utah and graduated from High School in 1995. We were the home of the Grizzlies, and our school colors were red and gold. This is the only picture I have of me in my cap and gown. And if you are wondering, it wasn't even me who cut around this picture, it was my mom. Way to ruin the picture mom. Just kidding!!

Here I am after graduation with mom, my two grandma's, my dad, and Aron (my boyfriend at the time). As I go through old pictures I realize that in almost all of them from 15 on I am with a boyfriend. Could I not take a picture by myself?

Marty, me and my mom.

Here is my college graduation. I graduated from Utah State University in 1999. I truly hate the shoes I am wearing. I didn't even like them at the time, but for some unknown reason decided to wear them. I actually still had them up until a year ago when I finally decided to throw them away. They were Steve Madden (my brand of choice along with Doc Marten's in high school and college). Now my brand of choice is Target.

SPT

This Week's Challenge:

In honor of Earth Day. Do you consider yourself a part of "The Green Generation."

I definitely consider myself a part of "The Green Generation" in theory, but I don't always come through in practice. So for this Earth Day I decided to turn off my water, and let my grass die.

Ha, Ha, Just Kidding. There are parts of our yard that look like this, but it is mostly because of my inattention to it. However, if we move to a new house or suddenly come into a lot of money, I would replace our real grass with fake grass in a heartbeat. Not only would it be much easier to take care of in our climate, but we would save a lot of water.

The one thing I am definitely going to change this year is our use of water bottles. It is not unusual for me to clean 5 or 6 half empty water bottles out of our car. Last Friday I found these 4 barely used water bottles in my 7 year olds backpack. I bought these smaller bottles hoping that it would cause less waste, but she is still not drinking them. I am going to go out this week and buy her a reusable bottle for her lunch.

Lastly, I have considered switching to these new light bulbs. I have not made myself do it yet because I find them grossly unattractive. I realize this is ridiculous, and I am sure I will be able to talk myself into them soon.

Happy Earth Day!!!!