snippets

I don't have a ton going on right now, and I'm glad.

The yard sale is over.

I'm finished with doing 4 sharing times in a row in Primary.

The kids are back in school.

I'm still cleaning out the garage. It's amazing how much stuff there still is in there.

I have a new piano student, fortunately one who can have lessons during the day.

I ate lunch with Jill yesterday! It felt like forever since we'd talked.

I went to the temple today.

I need to write the Sacrament Meeting program.

I've been going to the gym regularly.

I'm trying to figure out how to minister to the women I visit teach.

Our front and side yards could use a little work. Our backyard is a cross between a desert and a jungle. I'm slowly chipping away at it.

But I have this little oasis in a pot on the front porch that makes me happy every time I see it.

And now, instead of starting dinner, I'm going to go read.

Saturday miscellany

::I bought a package of these fusible beads for Eva to try. They were a huge hit. She made several dogs, cats, and turtles and invited some friends over to create with her. She decided to spend some of her Christmas money to buy another set: princesses.

I was tired of having the loose container of beads around, so I gave her a little divided plastic container and we sorted them by color. She was as pleased with the sorting as I. I love it when she wants to do something with me other than play imagination games!!

Mental picture: when we came back from the craft store, I so wished I had had my camera with me. She had a cute outfit on and her hair done in braids. She was wearing her khaki coat. She was holding a red balloon she got at the store in one hand, and her package in the other. She looked so pleased and grown-up. Sigh.


::I had a dream that we bought a new house. It was a pretty big house (even though we don't want a really big house). We went to move in, and discovered that the previous owners had decided to leave all their stuff there and start fresh. Also that it was nienie's house! I was wandering from room to room, poring over all of the cute things, thinking maybe I wouldn't bother moving mine in. And then, suddenly, we had to leave for a fancy party. I put on one of Stephanie's darling pairs of shoes and they actually fit! And I felt pretty. Weird.


::I also had a dream that Jill and her family were offering to pay us to come over and get rid of a mouse in their house. What the? I suggested they buy some blocks of mouse poison! (**When I got home from being out with Jill today, I was informed that there was a mouse sighting at our house today. Not again...)


::Yesterday I went for my last session of physical therapy! Hooray! I baked cookies to take to all of the people who have helped me. Then someone mentioned that I would have to return next week for a final visit with the doctor. Noooooooo! I brought cookies! It was supposed to be the last day! I felt a little deflated. But at least I'm done with the PT.

::Next week I will be taking Max to get his driver's permit. Still trying to wrap my mind around that.

new baby & miscellany

My newest niece, Sophia, was born last night! Marc's sister Lisa delivered her 7th baby (what a woman). Incidentally, she has two grandchildren that are older than this latest child! So happy that mama & baby are both doing well. They live in California, so it may be awhile before we get to meet Sophia. {photos from niece Michelle's Facebook}

I bought myself some memory foam slippers last night when I ran to the grocery store. They were on sale for $7! The verdict: very cozy, but I don't know if my feet can handle that much warmth.

I may have to make these cookies/candies this weekend. Swoon.

Eva learned how to write her full name correctly. It was kind of a sad day, as I was rather fond of the "Owliveay" version...

I took Max to audition today for the American Fork Symphony's Young Artists concert. He was nervous, of course, but looked very dapper in his suit and tie. (Here he is warming up in a practice room.) I thought he played very well, but we have to wait to get the results.

This sign was on one of the practice rooms. Ouch!

Eva just told Lucas that she is the princess, he is the prince, and Mom is the maid. !!! I knew it. But Lucas stood up for me and said that I am the queen. He is my favorite child right now.

quickie

I seem to be having serious difficulties in finding time to post (not to mention how much Max is monopolizing the computer due to all of his homework). So, a quickie (i.e., some recently starred items in my Google Reader):


Seriously cute idea! I will be making some of these for Eva when she is looking for projects to do in the morning before school.

This one is a whole lot more work, but it sure is cute!

I would love to make some pillows like these ones from Pottery Barn!

Or perhaps this bat version for Halloween?

Check out these cool labels you can download and especially what she did with them! I might have to try that.

I discovered this site via Marta and there are some seriously great free downloads. I snagged them all.

I am loving these, but I'm not willing to pay $30.00 for tape.

I made these cookies last week – they are delicious and my freezer was fully stocked with treats for school lunches, but I think they might be gone already...

Oh my goodness. I am dying to make a skirt like this for Eva! If anyone has pointers for me, please let me know.

Check out this cute, no-sew costume! Eva already has a princess dress, otherwise I might be going this route.

Sigh. I have so many recipes I want to try, things I want to sew, techniques to try my hand at... I wish I had a couple of extra hours in each day.

five for Friday

1. It's so weird to think that we were living in Paris this time last year. It keeps coming up, every time I do something that I didn't do last year because we were gone. Starting school, school pictures, book fair, fall yard work, picking grapes and making juice, putting up Halloween decorations – all things we didn't do last fall, and somehow it all seems fresh. I enjoy that.

2. I've been having fun doing Eva's hair for school. If she had her way, she would wear it long and loose every day, but somehow I convinced her that we need to fix it for school. (Victory!) But the first thing she does when she comes home is to rip it all out. Weirdo.

3. We heard what sounded like a woodpecker in our tree, but when we tracked him down, it was this guy here. Now I'll be the first to admit that I don't know my birds, but this looks like a bluejay to me... Is he having an identity crisis? Or am I way off base?

4. The other day, Eva asked what the white thing was under the couch. I told her it is my portable crafts table. I guess it's been a long time since I used it, because she didn't recognize it. She immediately wanted to use it to work on a project while watching a movie. But not just any project. A project she'd never done before. Hmmm. I finally found some plastic beads and she got to work stringing them. She made 3 necklaces and a bracelet!

It was such a success, I think I may have to come up with some new projects!

5. I am so excited for General Conference this weekend, even more so than usual, because I haven't been able to watch the whole thing since April 2009! We will be hanging out at home in our jammies, eating good food, making homemade donuts, taking notes, knitting (me), drawing (Eva), and just soaking it all in. (This week has been so busy that I haven't put together baskets for my kids or anything to take to my visiting teachees! I know what I'm doing today. You can print out Conference packets for different ages here.)

Monday miscellany

A week ago Saturday, Eva went to a birthday party up in Provo canyon. On our way, we passed a stand for fresh-picked peaches, and I had to buy a box. I am not canning this year, we just really love Lemon Elberta peaches! We have been eating them ever since.

I packaged some up and took them to the sisters that I visit teach. Now they are nearing over-ripeness, so I am cutting them up and freezing them and making more peach sauce. Smoothies today!

I made this granola last week and I am officially in love. It is now gone and I stocked up on oatmeal when it was on sale so I can make it again and again!

After about a year of trying to get Crystal over to make artisan bread, it finally happened last Wednesday! Jill and Amie were interested as well, so we made a day of it.

Crystal brought her little boy Jack with her. While it hasn't been that long since I had a toddler around the house, I had forgotten what a whirlwind they are! No wonder moms are tired.

Jill brought our favorite chicken salad, Amie brought croissants, I provided the peaches (of course), and Crystal brought cannoli for dessert. What a feast!

Crystal with her finished loaf. This bread is truly so easy to make, it's crazy to put it off. If you like bread, you really should try this recipe.

And on a non-food-related note: I have decided that I need to come to terms with my new role as constant chauffeur. Somehow, I have avoided that pretty well up until now, but no more. I have a minimum of 4 trips a day driving kids around, more often it's more like 6. I've been feeling quite grumbly about the whole thing, as it breaks up my day so much that I don't have any big chunks of time to get stuff done. After a few weeks of this, I finally decided that being annoyed about having to do all this running around isn't helping me at all, and I don't want my kids to think that I begrudge helping them out, so... I just have to embrace this new normal. I think I'm doing an okay job of it.

five for Friday

1. I dropped off season 2 of Chuck at the library drive-through. Later they called me to say that disc 3 was missing. Bummer. I had to make another trip over, but was rewarded with this view:

So, not too bad! I just love spring.

2. Max had two classmates over to work on a group project. They were here for four hours! But they seemed to be having fun, chatting, laughing, and eating homemade bread.

When Max asked Eva to come and meet his friends, she said, "Hi! I'm Eva. I'm really nice." She did not appreciate it when we started cracking up.

the finished product

3. Lucas's drum kit for Guitar Hero arrived this week. I had no idea what we were in for – the thing is huge and LOUD! He loves it, of course.


4. Eva wore the leg warmers that she got from Aunt Michelle for Christmas to dance this week. They were a huge hit. This photo taken through a window is terrible, but I love it anyway.


5. I went to BYU this week to register for Women's Conference. (Why must I always procrastinate?) Gotta love the rows of trees in blossom with snow-covered mountains at the same time.

I stopped at the Cocoa Bean Cafe to pick up a double vanilla cupcake on my way home. Worth the splurge. But now I want to learn how to make these at home!

a few for Friday

1. I'm super excited about the photo book I made with a free Picaboo book deal a couple of weeks ago. I got this idea towards the end of our stay in Paris, and after we got home I gradually started sorting all my photos by color. These are some of my favorite colorful photos, and I am thrilled with the way it turned out. You can see some (not very good) pictures of the book here.

2. T. Rexes being attacked by raptors. Who will be victorious?

3. Another photo from my trip to Denver. I got to the airport at 4:30 a.m. and the Southwest counter doesn't open until 5:00. Their check-in machines were all shut down and the counter was completely abandoned. It just felt wrong that I was there that early. But it was definitely a new experience to beat airport employees to their jobs.

Also, another couple of quotables from the trip: Emily mentioned that she had tried racquetball recently and Claire said, "You have hand-eye coordination?!" Yep. It's the holy grail in our family.

And my personal favorite: right after Grandma died, Denise leaned over her with tears in her eyes and said, "Haunt me with menu ideas, okay?" Me too, Grandma.

4. I've been dabbling in making flowers. I sent these pins/barrettes to my mom for her birthday, with a disclaimer about them perhaps being handmade in a bad way. I think I'm on the right track with some, but others may still need work.

5. Lucas had a day-long Ellis Island activity at school this week. Each child was assigned the identity of an immigrant, and as they went through different stations, they had to do their best to remain in character and try not to get deported. Lucas thought it was a great day.

He was supposed to be an orthodox rabbi, but we couldn't find anything to approximate forelocks, so we just did our best without them. I had given him a scarf to represent a prayer shawl, but he forgot it. Still, just looking at him sent Eva and I into a fit of giggles.

6. Max went to the French Fair at BYU yesterday. He won the Grand Prize for grammar. Marc was running the cabaret, so he only saw him briefly, but a colleague informed him of Max's prize. When Max got home from school, I congratulated him and he looked completely mystified by my insider's knowledge. Bwahaha! Mothers know all.

Bonus: Track 2. Another Eva original.

miscellany on my mind

:: Much to Lucas's dismay, I insisted upon a haircut on Saturday. He seems to think that having long hair means never having to have it cut. Sorry, buddy.

Some pictures that Marc put together for inspiration. I can maybe go along with some of these, but NOT that one in the middle! It gives me the shivers.

I would say it is a huge improvement, but Lucas is none too happy with his new cut.


:: I took Max to the hospital to have his foot x-rayed. We went to Orem Community Hospital, which is tiny, because our doctor said it would be faster there. He was not kidding! We were the only ones there, even when we went to register in the E.R. I don't know if it was because it was 7:00 p.m. or what, but we were in and out in 10 minutes–it was amazing.

The x-ray didn't show any damage, so it must just be bruised or something. He has been walking around in his hiking boots, trying to determine if he is in good enough shape to go on a campout/hiking trip to Moab this weekend. He decided to go tonight, which meant that he had to scramble to get all his gear together, because they are leaving right after school tomorrow. I hope his foot holds out and he is not in too much pain!

This is still making her (and me) happy every week.

:: Today I took Lucas back to the doctor's office. He has been home all week with a fever and a terrible cough that sounds like he is going to cough up something vital. He did some breathing tests and a breathing treatment and was feeling better this afternoon. He is now on round 3 of antibiotics, antihistamines and a steroid nose spray.

There has to be a better way.


:: Eva was expecting a friend to come over today. For some reason, it didn't work out. I thought she was going to be crushed, but instead she shocked me by putting herself down for a nap while I was teaching piano lessons. What the?! And even though she slept from 5-6:00, she still went to bed at 9:00, not too shabby.


:: Yesterday I felt like I was being dragged down into a swirling vortex of some sort. All three kids were emotional and needy. I was dashing around trying to meet deadlines. I couldn't start making dinner until 6:30, and then I realized that we were out of milk. I went to the grocery store, came home, finished dinner, and thought I was going to either run away or crash. Hard. I am not sure exactly what it was that pushed me over the edge, but I was just done.

Fortunately, Marc took note and took over. He put Eva to bed and cleaned up the kitchen, and I went to bed early. I'd like to say I was a new woman today, but I'll just have to settle for better than yesterday.

:: At least I have a good book to read! I am loving this one.

Monday Miscellany

First off, I just need to reiterate that I love Mondays. Even when Max is home sick from school, even when all I do is laundry and cleaning and bake bread, I just love Mondays. It feels like a day of restoring order. Plus, I don't have a lot of commitments on Mondays, so it kind of feels like my day.

Okay, so I didn't just do laundry and clean and bake bread. I may have also spent a chunk of time indulging my obsession with tutus and tulle skirts by doing a lot of web-surfing. I also found a couple of new blogs to love, including Ruffles and Stuff. Eva may just end up with a lot of ruffly, twirly skirts one of these days.

I may have also spend another chunk of time loading photos to work on my very first photo book, so exciting!

This morning we were coloring, and then I looked over and saw this. It made me smile.

But not her. She was outraged that I got my camera out and took a picture of her crayon creations before she added "Mom" to her list of words. Well. For all I know, she was going to swipe them all off the table the next second, so I had to act quickly. And look at that A. You know that orange crayon is going to roll off lickety split. What's a mom to do?

And then I looked over and saw this. She had apparently read the color names and made herself a little key! When did she learn how to read these words??

A little later, I dropped her off at preschool. We saw a dad arriving on his motorcycle, with his daughter sitting in front of him, with a helmet. Eva took one look and announced that someday she's going to buy a motorcycle and ride it to work at the dinosaur museum when she's a paleontologist. Well. I figured today was not the day for me to tell her how frightened I am of motorcycles...

I saw some noodles like these on a cooking blog and that was it. I had to have them. My local grocery store had some -- for $7! Um, no thanks. But I found them at Target for $3. More than I usually spend for pasta, but, as I said, I had to have them. (They were fabulous.) p.s. it turns out I saw them on Smitten Kitchen!

We ate them with this sauce. I know it doesn't look like much, and it isn't. The thing is, it was really tasty. Especially when we ate it with this on the side:

Oh baby. I'll get this recipe up soon. Like, soon. Because you need to taste this.

Emily was wearing this necklace when she came over yesterday. Again, oh baby. Can you even stand it? We started brainstorming about how we could recreate it. Because I think I really need it. Also, we want to make all kinds of fabric flowers. Because they're adorable.

How do you like this fine bit of jerryrigging? Marie told us in our organizing class that we could hook up a cupcake wrapper container to soak the shower head in vinegar (you know, to get rid of the hard water residue). I couldn't figure out how to make it work Marie-style, so I got jiggy with some yarn. Hey, it worked, so mock not. (Well, go ahead, you can mock a little.)

I have to say, it was pretty satisfying. As soon as I poured in the vinegar, it started fizzing and looking like it was getting right down to work. I left it on there for five hours. While I wouldn't say the shower head looks new or anything, it is a huge improvement.

I also tried out the Old English Lemon Oil trick on the glass shower door (also for afore-mentioned hard water deposits). Again, they are not completely gone, but I wish I had taken a before/after shot, maybe with half of it treated and half the way it was before. Back when we were living like animals.

**Multiple people have suggested we put our kids in a bubble. You know, like The Boy in the Bubble for the 21st century. Evidently, that's what it's come to.