I'm Back!

I'm not just back to the blogging world, but back from a 2-week vacation. Now, wouldn't it be nice if I had actually been enjoying the beautiful gardens in Tokyo like the above picture, but that's actually what my husband was doing. And, he also traveled to New Zealand, Australia, and Korea.

Here's a bit of what I was doing, versus what he was doing. Since his pictures are probably more interesting, I'll start with him:



An Aborigine street performer in Sydney.



This gives a new meaning to the term "pole dancers" doesn't it? This is a performance in front of the Sydney Opera house.



The Sydney Opera House



Bats in the Botanical Gardens in Sydney. They are called Grey-Headed Fruit Bats because they eat the fruit in the gardens and are an important part of the pollination process.



His hotel in Tokyo. Cool view, huh?



He had a million pics. I keep trying to decide if this was really "work" for him. But then I think about it and realize it was a good thing he got paid for the last two weeks: In 14 days, he had 13 flights, adjusted to 5 time zones, travelled to 5 countries, passed through 4 states, had 45 meetings, and ate ox tail, horse sashimi, horse aorta, and whale meat. Ughh. Not fun.

The girls and I have been hanging in Utah with my family.



Aubrie enjoying her pony ride at Gardner village.



Ellie loving the petting zoo.



Attending my sweet sister-in-law's graduation from BYU. Congrats Julia!



Getting caught in the cross-fires of way too much prom dress selection drama. Love you Lauren. Good luck with that. Do you see Aubrie in the background?



I had a lot of sleepless nights with Teyah. She was super sick with a double ear infection for a whole week. Thanks so much Mom for all your help! I would have died if I had to do that on my own. You're the best.



Enjoyed a few nice spring days with the girls outside (along with a handful of windy, snowy days too).

So, who do you think had the most fun?

Blog Marriages

I spend so much valuable time each day reading blogs (about 35!). In my readings, I've discovered that some of you have so much in common that if distance didn't separate you, you would probably be great friends! So, I came up with the idea to be a blog matchmaker.*

My first marriage: is Natalie and Anita. Natalie is my friend whom I am so lucky to live so close to and Anita is my friend from my married BYU days. This day in matrimony brings you together because of your challenges with your 2-year-old boys. This blog entry and this blog entry are just a couple that unite you on this day. Natalie, make sure you don't miss this post and also this one too.

Another blog marriage unites Dave's aunt Michelle and my friend from Tokyo, Julie. The reason for this pairing is due to your love of quilting. You two should definitely hook up so you can share your work and join each other's quilting blog games. Take for example, this quilt and this quilt -- beautiful. I'm envious.

My final marriage for today is Dave's cousin's wife Ashley and my good friend from Thunderbird, Crystal. The link here is because of your impressive digital scrapbook pages. You'll have to view each other's work. Amazing!

Even though miles apart, I hope to bring each other true friendship. After all, if you are anything like me, I'm always up for another blog to keep up with (doesn't that give you about 5 minutes more of putting off the dishes?).

And, now for the moment you've all been waiting for. The blogs that I have found while scouring the Internet that I am married to.

Here are my favs: Deal-Seeking Diva , Baby Cheapskate, Freebies 4 Mom, The Bargain Shopper Lady, A Year of Crockpotting.

Through these websites, I have found amazing deals, great freebies, info on real sales, tried and true Crockpot recipes, a schedule for 90 percent off deals at Target, the best-priced diapers of the week, etc. Isn't it great that somebody does all this work for me to save me money or post a recipe? I am in love!

Cheers to all of your work blogging friends! I love staying connected, entertained, distracted, and informed.

*Please note that if I have not mentioned your blog, it does not mean that I'm not a religious reader. I apologize though for my lack of comments. Most of the time I read blogs while I'm nursing, and it's next to impossible to type.

Sharing clothes

Look who stole the bear's coat!

"Spring" break

My sister Heather and her family chose to spend their Spring Break with us! We had so much fun, but Minnesota could not deliver anything remotely close to Spring. We were so lucky that we not only had a white Christmas this year, but also a white Easter with about six inches of snow (just what everyone always wants)! Good thing for indoor parks, indoor Amusement Rides, and movie theaters to provide us entertainment!

9 months of growing, 1 week of misery

All in a matter of four days, not only has my Teyah turned 9 months old, stood alone, and cut a new tooth, but she also had terrible croup (the worst episode of all my kids so far), had a trip to the ER, had nebulizer treatment, steroid medication, had a high fever, had her first taste of prunes (as you may guess why). It has been a rough one to say the least. I can't wait until she feels better and this sweet smile returns. My heart is breaking for her. Her nose and eyes are a fountain. She can't sleep. Poor, poor baby.

Ellie's 3rd Birthday

Ellie then:


Ellie now:



Our sweet strawberry shortcake is in love with PINK!



How special to have Grandma here for her birthday!! Thanks for all those who made sacrifices to have her here with us. We LOVED it!



My attempt at a cake.



Ellie playing games at her party but not so sure about being in front. She is definitely more shy in a crowd -- well, not that this was a big crowd (there were just two friends there!).



Ellie is beyond her years. Here's an example of a conversation this week:

"Mom, I have two goals. (Holding up one finger) The first is to not pick my nose. (Holding up two fingers) The second is to put things away when I'm done with them."

My cuties

This is probably one of those posts that only Grandma will truly appreciate. But, it doesn't mean the rest of you can't watch too! (;

Here's our "Sweet Po-Teyah":



Ellie is just simply adorable these days. How did I get so lucky to have such a cute 2-year-old? I wonder if 3 will be her hard year? This week, Dave was leaving for his basketball game and Aubrie said, "Good luck!" And Ellie said in a serious tone: "Daddy, GET YOUR HEAD IN THE GAME!"




I don't want to leave Aubrie out of this post. A cute thing she said this week was: "Mom, why do you have to be big to be on American Idol? I want to be on it NOW!"

This picture is Aubrie pouting in the bathroom because she's jealous that it's Ellie's birthday this week. As soon as I pulled the camera out she had a hard time keeping a straight face.

A Few of my Favorite Things

Cami tagged me wanting to know a "Few of my Favorite Things." This reminds me of something from our Melaleuca days called "Products I Can't Live Without." Well, I've been stewing over that and truthfully, I don't think there are a whole lot of products I can't live without (as long as there's a decent substitute) except for one of Melaleuca's own products and that's the Renew lotion. It's truly the only thing that works for my ridiculously dry skin.




That sounded like a commercial, didn't it? Anyway, another one of my favorite things is eating out. It gives me a break from the parts of my job I don't particularly care for, like cooking and cleaning the kitchen, and I also love being with my family stuck to the table without distractions while someone else is waiting on ME. Here's my favorite restaurant. Unfortunately, it doesn't exist within 50 miles of my house:



I have sort of a love/hate relationship with the next two (well, I should say my husband and I have a love/hate relationship with them -- you can guess who adores and despises):


I actually started this post yesterday afternoon, and I completely changed it just now. I reread it, and it didn't make any sense at all. I can safely say the ONLY time I slept last night was when my husband came home from seminary on his way to work and took our sick baby from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. Sleep deprivation made for one random first draft. But I wonder what it's doing to draft two, because it's the next night at 3 a.m. and I still haven't slept because I'm holding a restless baby typing like a chicken (with one hand). Oh, that reminds me of my most favorite thing that I truly cannot live without: SLEEP!!




Isn't it this parenting thing an adventure? I tag Allison A. and Holly C.

Bleeding Orange

We had major drama at our house last night. In the words of Aubrie "this is the worstest thing that ever happened to me!"



Why don't the parenting magazines tell you this?

1. Throw away old nail polish because they might shatter in your child's hand while she's shaking it.

2. Don't let children have nail polish on the carpet (OK, they probably do say this one, but I haven't had time to read parenting magazines. Come on, I have three kids).

3. Don't ever, I mean ever buy orange nail polish (why in the world did I have orange nail polish anyway?).

4. When you have a house full of girls, part of your Emergency Food Storage should be nail polish remover (I had to race to the store because mine was gone).

5. Area rugs are highly underrated.

6. Remember that now that your oldest is 5, you need to be more sensitive to her total devastation that her favorite blanket was ruined.

I had the epiphany last night that it's kind of nice that you have about 3 years of a grace period before your kids start to remember things forever. However, Aubrie is past that now, and if I mess up, she may hold it to me the rest of my life. Yikes!

Fortunately, the glass didn't hurt anyone, but our nice, quiet evening turned into hours of scrubbing. The above picture has Oxy Clean over the spots. I thought about taking a picture before this so you could see the bright orange, but I was afraid every second mattered before it would dry.

Considering, I think we did pretty well. There's just some slight pink on the blanket and the carpet looks pretty good too. Ellie and my pajamas are ruined. Oh well.

The Hairspray Girls

Broadway here we come. High energy...cool acrobatic tricks..."creative" lyrics. These girls have the Hairspray routine down. My favorite line from the song is Ellie's line, "I've had the taste of chocolate, and I ain't never goin' back!"

By the way, our little performer Aubrie had her debut singing performance at church last Sunday. She did a great job.

Love is Sweet

After that last post the hubby here had to come up with some "sweet redemption". I even came up with a catchy little romantic, personalized saying to have inscribed along the top.

...from Dave with Love

Milestones of Love

Valentine's Day was a milestone for me.

A milestone because of this. (Scroll to the bottom of my good friend Anna Marie's blog entry). It marked 8 years.

A milestone because of this. (It makes 8 months).

Love them both.

We celebrated by going here. Love it.

In lieu of flowers, don't you think the DQ cake at the top would be another great way to celebrate all week long? Hint, hint, nudge, nudge honey.

Love you all.

Super Fun!

Even though this looks like Teyah's cousin who must be a year older than her, he is just 9 days older! Can you believe the size difference! He's a big boy and she's a petite girl. We were cracking up that they could be so different in size. Talk about both ends of the spectrum! Click on these pics to see them big and get a better feel for it.



I mean look at the height difference too!



All the cousins. Can you guess which ones are mine?







The ages and blonde vs. dark make a balanced picture!



One thing that all the cousins have in common is that they LOVE their grandma!

How I Survived My First Presidential Caucus

10. I arrived 15 minutes early but cleverly created my own parking space so I didn't have to park 3 miles away and walk like everyone who showed up after me. (And no parking ticket!)

9. My district's table was next to a door that was quickly opened for a brisk 18-degree breeze to cool down the overly-packed VFW Barn.

8. 10 minutes later I was able to put on my down winter coat to slow my shivering.

7. I brought my baby with me so I deserved to sit down even though most of the 500 people had to stand.

6. Everyone in my district wore deodorant, or so it seemed.

5. A person in my district had actually been to a caucus before (even though he failed to tell us before-hand that the volunteer delegates could vote for whoever they chose at the next level so we should have actually found out whom they planned on voting for. In other words our votes meant NOTHING).

4. I was able to look away and hide my tears during the Pledge of Allegiance (how embarrassing. I'm so sappy.)

3. I didn't feel like an odd-woman out because my guy won by a large margin in my district & state. Wahoo!

2. I held Teyah off so she didn't have to breastfeed. That would have been kind of awkward. Didn't think that one through, now did I?

1. I got a babysitter for Aubrie and Ellie!

Overall, I was largely let down by this democratic process in our state. I suppose the only way to make it better is to get more involved. At least I'm more educated for next time.

Loving living in the land of lakes

In 24 hours, we dropped 50 degrees! See our sad, leaning refrozen snowman? Driving home last night my thermometer said -12, but the wind chill made it to -45. Just to clarify to some of you who were confused by my last post, we actually DON'T live in Alaska, it just has been feeling like it lately. Not that I've even been there before, but I can't imagine worse that this. The last two years, by February, Dave and I have both been ready for a job transfer out of the midwest! But we love it here, how could you not. I'm going to reference my dear friend Natalie's hilarious "Why I love the midwest" post that I just wholeheartedly agree with. Thanks Natalie.



I was thinking today about the hottest I've ever felt (living in Phoenix). Isn't it amazing that my human body can withstand (barely) temperatures of extremes as cold as -45 windchills all the way to 118 degrees above zero! Is that an accomplishment, or does everyone experience those extremes at some point in their life? I've also lived through the heat and stickiness of Tokyo. The worst part about that one is all the stinky, non-deodorant users that you're jam-packed on the subways with. Eeew. At least at -9 degrees, your nostrils are frozen and the sense of smell doesn't contribute to your miserableness like humidity does.

Somehow life carried on today with school, preschool, etc. I took the picture of my car thermometer right before taking my kids out to watch Aubrie's preschool program this a.m. Isn't she a cutie? She was so excited she jumped up and down through the first several songs. It was fun.

Warm-up

We are experiencing a 56-degree warm-up! Tropical weather in January, you say. Ha! It's only going to reach 38 degrees Farenheit. But no worries, two days later we will experience a 53-degree cool-down. Lately, I've been thinking living in Alaska couldn't be any worse than this!

Happy 5th Birthday Aubrie!

Why I love Aubrie:

*She is such a sweet, fun-loving girl!
*She tries so hard to be obedient
*She memorizes anything she hears
*She is the biggest girly-girl I've ever known (loves dressing up, beautiful things, jewelry, makeup, etc.)
*She loves to sing and dance
*She loves coloring
*She's a lefty
*She's an extreme extrovert and NEEDS time with friends to keep her happy
*She is socially aware and kind to others
*She's a great big sister

I love this girl! Happy Birthday Sweetie!



She wanted an Enchanted birthday party. Here's my best attempt at a Giselle cake. The girls looked so cute all dressed up.







Ellie was crying because she wanted presents too. She didn't quite get that it wasn't Christmas again. But she was happy once the presents were opened and Aubrie shared with her!