What's cooler than cool?

Getting to see the launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery and the pictures to prove it!

How totally awesome is THAT?!?!?

Not so cool? Coming down with the flu while on a big planned-four-months-in-advance family trip to DisneyWorld.

Kid funny for the day:

I went to my son's parent/teacher conference today. He's doing FANTASTIC by the way.....

Afterwards, I went into his classroom to tell Jack that he could come home with me since school was about to end anyways. As I was waiting for him to collect his things, a friendly little girl asked me whose mom I was. I told her I was Jack's mom.

Then she said, "You look a lot like MY mom."

I replied, "Oh. Really?"

Cute, friendly girl said, "Yeah. Her hair looks like yours."

I politely reply, "Oh. She has short flippy hair too, huh?"


Awkward pause.


Cute friendly girl I swear I didn't pay to say it said, "Yeah. But you're prettier."

Don't you just love little kids? They are so candid and brutally honest.

And now I get to be really shallow and spend the rest of the year trying to figure out which one is her mom. Oh come on! Like you wouldn't do the same thing!

What our little house flip has taught us....

I used to watch WAY too many of those home improvement shows. "Flip this", "Flipping Out", "Flipping on a budget", "Flippity flip flip flip". You name it.....I watched it. I was obsessed. I even had them set on the DVR to record those 3AM shows for later viewing enjoyment.


It was fun to watch those kinds of shows until it came time for us to do it ourselves. I'm wiser now to the miracles of turning a house around in a 30 minute TV show. And "flip" has taken on a whole new meaning. It's a word that as of late, has been used more often as a Mormon version of a swear word than for referencing a TV show.


Now that our journey is coming to a much anticipated end, I thought I'd share some things we learned throughout the whole process:



I should own stock in the company that makes Liquid Nails.

I'll miss counting 4 "Activity points" each time I went over and did work. Now I might actually have to exercise.

Tile in our new house is very much perminant.

Screws don't hold a heavy metal planter box in stucco very well.

Electricity should be turned off PRIOR to installing a light fixture.

Black Sharpies make good floor "fillers".

You get to a point where you find yourself saying, "Eh. So what if those baseboards/trim/bookshelves are crooked. We aren't the ones who will be living here."

My Bissell Carpet cleaner can do just as good a job as paying a "professional".

It's never ever a good idea to have an open can of paint within a two mile radius of a roaming toddler.

Craigslist ROCKS!

Joint Compound is my friend.

And my biggest lesson learned?........

I don't ever want to flippin' do this again.

Are you intelligent?

I sometimes get calls from a marketing company to potentially take part in a focus group if I fit in their little window of the perfect demographic. I can always tell which direction they want to go by the types of questions they ask. I then try and base my answers accordingly.

Like, "When shopping for groceries would you say you shop at Walmart 0 - 25% of the time, 25 - 50% of the time, 50 - 75% of the time or 75-100% of the time?"

Uhhhh. 75 - 100 percent of the time?

I got such a call the other day and found it amusing enough that I had to share. I mean....I really was on the phone with this guy in the middle of the interview thinking to myself, "Thank you for giving me something to blog. I was starting to get Bloggers Block."

In the beginning, the interview went the same way that the hundred other interviews had gone in the past. This focus was on laundry soap. Typical questions might include something like,

Interviewer: What percentage of the time would you say you were responsible for doing the laundry in your home?

Me: ( chuckle and/or other assorted throat noise ) Uh. That would be 99% .

My husband wanted me to mention that it was a good thing they didn't ask who it was who did most of the ironing in our home. Ha ha. Funny. He's just lucky the interview wasn't about the garbage.


Then realizing I had gone pretty far in the interview without hearing, "I'm sorry. You don't qualify for our study this time", we started getting into the more personal side of my character. He told me he was going to say a word and I was supposed to say if it was a word I would use to describe myself.

This is where it got good.

Creative?

Yes. (I'd say I'm pretty right-brained )

Adventurous?

Yes. (I had four kids didn't I?)

Resourceful?

Yes. (I'm making a scarecrow out of a #10 can for my kid's school this week)

Inspiring?

Yes. (Like that I'm delusional to think others are in awe of me?)

Adaptable?

Yes. (My kids think it's more normal to have pancakes for dinner than for breakfast. See? I can change it up if I have to)


Organized?

Yes. (Ok. If by "organized" you mean is my house always tidy and my bills are nicely filed in their proper place? Then no. If you mean are my twenty half used bottles of salad dressings all neatly in a row in the door of my refrigerator? Then I'd say yes.)

After this next defining adjective he said, the rest of the interview was all a blur. I just couldn't stop giggling inside.

Would you say you are intelligent?

( Assorted throat noise again ) Uh. Are you serious? Uh. Yeah.

In retrospect, I should have come back with something witty like, "I couldn't be THAT dumb if I commit to showing up for your focus group and get paid ninety bucks for an hour of my time."

And even if I thought I wasn't intelligent, like I was going to admit it to Mr. Telemarketer Man.

Please.

No one is THAT dumb.

Well darn it all!

I missed being on the Forbes top 400 wealthiest in the country again by a few billion dollars.



There's always next year..............

Throw down Thursday

If I had written a blog entry about my morning yesterday, it might have gone a little something like this......

The word for the day by the way is "Inadvertently".


I was nursing Ian while my two year old figured out how to open the lower oven door. This all started because he heard me setting the timer for something non baking related and went to the drawer, grabbed a spoon and pointed to the oven saying screaming, "Toochie! Toochie!" That's "cookie" in two year speak. After convincing him in my best Vanna White impersonation by lovingly gesturing with my hands the empty contents of the oven where there were no cookies I in turn inadvertently showed him how to open the oven door. He then thought it would be a good idea to fill the oven with spoons and bottles of glue.

I decided I wasn't going to fight that battle because for one thing, I was nursing a baby and for another thing I figured he could be doing something worse.

I inadvertently figured wrong.

At some point, I looked over and he was holding the right half of a now unhinged door in his arms. I put the baby down and ran over to put the door back on the hinge and realized just how ridiculously heavy that thing really was!

I couldn't fix it so I held it together with some string and packaging tape and hoped that my mechanical engineer husband would be able to figure it out when he got home from work......which he did. In case you ever wanted to know what the inside of an oven door looked like.... Inadvertently, just two days ago I invited people over to my place for Thanksgiving dinner because....you guessed it......I have a double oven.


Then I got a phone call from my five year old's nurse at school. It appears he put the "P" in P.E. ....if you know what I mean. So, I got the baby up from the nap that I had just put him down for, finally dressed the two year old, grabbed a change of underwear and pants and headed to his school so that he could change his clothes.

All of this happened before 11AM.

My son's accident incident inadvertently reminded me of a blog entry I did about a year and a half ago. So, I thought I'd have a "Throw down" and post a past entry that was one of my favorites for you to enjoy. Post your own "Throw down" if you'd like!

I call it....... The Spare Pair

Drum roll please...................

Final pictures of the house remodel! We just have a few odds and ends of things to do inside and then some landscaping stuff in the front/back then we are done!

Ready for a bunch of pictures???

Views into the kitchen:

Office space:

Guest bath. We tiled the floors and framed in the mirror. We have plans to frame the window like the other ones but it's on our "if we have time and feel like it" list:

Family room:

Close up of archway in family room:

Down the hall to the kid's rooms. The left door is the bathroom, the one straight ahead is one of the bedrooms. Notice the pretty trim around the doors?

Kitchen eating area:

Front entry:

The end.

Would you like a little cheese with your art?

Lauren has always loved to draw and create little masterpieces. I remember one day when she was about four, she drew pictures of the cast from Fairly Oddparents and it was pretty darn good I must say! Better than I could have done that's for sure.

A few weeks ago, she brought home a nice 11 X 14 abstract watercolor creation she made in art class. She felt inclined to show us how she did it and explained all of the different mediums you can use to create art. Watercolors. Oil. Acrylic. Clay. Plaster. Toothpaste. Cheese.

So, she spent a good two hours making another mixed media creation that was three parts watercolor/glitter, two parts Kirkland brand shredded cheddar cheese and one part Aquafresh toothpaste.

Then thankfully, she hung it next to my husband's side of the bed. She had us walk into the room with our eyes closed as she unveiled her masterpiece. I remember my husband said, "Oh WOW! That's great! I see you used watercolors to make pretty circles and stars.....and is that.....cheese?"

Lauren exclaimed, "YES! And toothpaste too!"



The cheese was glued to the center of the paper and underlined with toothpaste for further emphasis. You'll notice the cheese isn't there anymore. A couple of days later, Lauren noticed it was missing. She asked, "HEY! What happened to the cheese?"



I said, "I don't know. Maybe it was the food source for that really lucky scorpion that stung me the other day?"

Well, I thought it was funny but she didn't seem to get it.

Anyone in the market for a two year old?

Two year old.

For sale or lease.

Payment plans available to those who qualify.

Dresses himself.

Adapts well to his surroundings.

Self cleaning.

Great with kids.

Good climber and can find secret hiding places.

A real Prince Charming.

No returns or exchanges. Leasing terms valid only on a sixteen year contract. A two year old is not recommended for women who are pregnant or may become pregnant. Nursing moms should consult a psychiatrist prior to taking on a child of this age. Some side-effects may include gray hairs, broken DVD players, daily viewing of Shrek, snaking of toilets or excessive use of the word "no". A two year old may occasionally incite a sleeping baby or refrain from naps. If you or anyone you know has experienced one or more of these symptoms, take the child to a grandparent's house immediately. If a grandparent is not available, while not ideal, the use of Benadryl can and may be used as an alternate approach.

Assessing the potential risks and damage must be reviewed prior to attempting to potty train a two year old and should only be initiated when Spot-Shot and "rewards" are readily available. The use of ear plugs are recommended to ease discomfort in the event of an occasional outburst. If such an outburst occurs in public, it is advised to disavow any claim of said child. For best results, offer only brownies and chocolate milk for breakfast and lunch. A two year old may display erratic and irrational behavior at any time.

Shameless Snapshots!

Here is the new dining room! It's D.O.N.E.!!! I think it turned out great! I kept my buddy Mel ( Hi Mel! ) up way past her bed time but she helped me out the other night with the picture frame squares.

Here's the view into the kitchen:
Here's the view from the kitchen looking in:

Here's the view from the entry:

Here's the view from the back wall through the entry and into the living room:

Here's the living room window. I still need to paint the trim but after that, this room will be done too!!!

My life as a Mastercard commerical

14 cup Cuisinart to make yummy salsa............... $160.00

Large quart Kitchen Aide you bought the first year you were married and used to make scrumptious rolls............................ $200.00

A drawer full of misc. other gadgets used to mix mouthwatering smoothies and create simple crockpot dinners.............................$100.00

Having a nice double oven for those times you need to make a double batch of cookies but forget that you even used the bottom oven and two days later when you turn it on again to make MORE cookies, you discover the ones still in there from 2 days prior....burned to a crisp........priceless.

This happened to me twice this week. This was the second time around. The first time were peanut butter cookies which met a similar fate except they were a little heavier on the charcoal side. I even had the thought "I should take a picture and blog about it" at the time but was too ashamed and felt really dumb that I even did it in the first place. When it happened again, I just couldn't resist. Darn waste of a perfectly good bag of M & M's too.

Showing off my 6 month old!

He's pretty cute and all.

Some family pictures

The world's cutest and bestest babysitter came over to take a picture of our family for her upcoming Evening of Excellence night.

( Note to self: Sitting further up on the couch than your husband is not a flattering position )

And why is it that they smile better when a sibling is taking the picture then if I do? These last few were taken by Lauren and Jack.

And this last one? Don't ask. I just really don't know...........