My eye!! and the bird cafe...

I got a sty in my eye last night. It was/is huge. JaDee is calling me cyclops. I am running around with hot packs praying that I don't get staph and have to have my eyelid lanced.

After a solid week of sunshine I woke up this morning and pulled my stuck-together-eye apart to see fresh snow! It is still quite beautiful and we have until like May for it to be spring so I had better think it is beautiful for some time still. We have a little pine tree right out my kitchen window that is so cute. I love pine trees. And while we do have a few majestic giants in our yard, this little guy is my favorite. He looks so pretty all covered in fresh snow.

And finally, I was talking to Naomi the other day and she was commenting on my domesticity. Making curtains, knitting, homemade rolls, chopping my own wood (that was on Facebook, but yeah last weekend I chopped enough wood for a pretty decent fire while JaDee was off camping with Carter). I have to say I too wonder what has gotten into me.

But the final evidence that I am really off my rocker or completely bored or need my TV hooked back up is my bird feeders. Yep. I have turned into my Dad and my Grandmother. In my defense the bird feeders were here and we were left with a huge bucket of seed. I felt sorry for the little guys having to find new sources of food so late into the winter so I have kept up on feeding them.

But now with my new soft snow on my darling tree and the birds looking so cute all fluffed up in the cold, I took pictures. I even looked up a breed in a book (but left that book in the store although it keeps whispering to me to buy it). Turns out we have a little woodpecker who frequents our cafe. I will try to capture him on film for your viewing enjoyment. In the mean time, enjoy the sparrows.




PS- the kitties enjoy looking at the birds too...as does our bird dog Champ. So far no casualties at the Bird Cafe.

Xena's rival

I learned to knit last night. I was quite a "natural" according to my teacher. I signed up for the class a month ago as a way to make Alaska an educational experience for me since it is one big fishing trip for my husband. I picture myself on the banks of the rivers with a quaint knitting basket on my lap toiling away at warm goods to store for the winter with my Mighty Hunter providing for our family in the water.

Whatever. The reality is I know how much time he is going to be gone and I am going to be wanting to tear my hair out. I figure I better keep my hands busy to prevent that.

Turns out it is quite fun. And my teacher had a beautiful sweater on that she made herself. I love sweaters. JaDee will tell you I have gobs of them. I also have gobs of scarves. And this being Alaska I see no reason not to have more of both. Guess what I'll be sending out for Christmas??

And I started tackling my room. I got the closet situation under control. Got rid of some of my lesser used sweaters and only one pair of shoes and 3 handbags. I also got rid of some of JaDee's worn out T-shirts that he insists are still good for changing the oil in the car. I narrowed the selection of oil t-shirts down to 1 and camping T-shirts down to 3 since he hardly ever changes his clothes in the wild anyway. All in all there was 1 box of trash, 2 to go to the Salvation Army and 1 to go to Courtney for Brooke.


The organized closet...notice how I separate my hanging shirts by color. JaDee thinks I am nuts and his shirts only stay this way for like a week.


The chaos of the rest of the room.

PS: want to see my brother in law get tasered?? click here!

Show off

I got this off of Facebook from Sherie. I had to show off how cool our bookclub is since most of what I have read is because The Ladies of the Club are so smart in choosing books for us to enrich our already brilliant minds.

The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up? Let us know and post your score at the bottom.Copy, edit and paste into a note of your own. (bold and red are what I've read)

I could tell you that most of these would make my all time favorites list too. And that I own many of them as my own personal friends in my library.

I have read 42 of these! The stars are what we read in book club. Plus signs I have read more than once!

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen*+

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte*+

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee *+

6 The Bible +

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 1984 - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens *+

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott +

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (some, not all)

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier *

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger +

19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell *+

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy *+

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens 3

3 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis+

34 Emma - Jane Austen *

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen *

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis +

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery *+

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen *

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas *

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville *

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Inferno - Dante

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens *

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White+

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery *

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl +

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo *

And finally a tribute to my grandfather whom I never met. Turns out he is one of the reasons I love books so much.

BOOK HOUSE

from the papers of my Grandfather Sidney W. Campbell

I always think the cover of a book is like a door

Which opens into someone's house where I've not been before.

A pirate or a fairy queen may lift the latch for me.

I always wonder when I knock, what welcome there will be.

And when I find a house that's dull, I do not often stay

But when I find one full of friends, I'm apt to spend the day.

I never know what sort of folks will be within you see.

And that's why reading always is so interesting to me.

~~Annie Fellows Johnston

I have no cool pictures

Yet. We had a busy and fun weekend, but no pictures. Sorry so boring. Should I make a new acronym for that. SSB? Let's start something new in the text world!

Went to Stake Relief Society Women's Conference. For more info on our Church's women's organization click here. It is the largest and oldest women's organization in the world. Kind of glad to be part of that. Not to mention that the spirit these women bring to my life is just what I needed.

I went with 2 new friends from my ward. Liz and Bethany. Bethany is a fellow blogger and has a super cute mural on her girls' wall that you should check out. I had a great time with them and with all the other women from our ward that turned out for the event. I went to 2 really good workshops. One on parenting and one on creative dating with your spouse.

The best thing I got out of the parenting class was a story from the Bible. Elisha was surrounded by an invading army and his right hand man was doubting how they would ever survive such an attack. Elisha prayed that the Lord would let this man see the support the Lord was giving them as His righteous servants. And the Heavenly hosts surrounding their city were revealed to them. The teacher likened this to parenting. There are invading armies, per say, at our very doorstep. Sometimes we feel overwhelmed with the responsibility of raising these little spirits entrusted in our care.

But, we are not alone. We too are surrounded by heavenly hosts to aid in our mission to raise a righteous family. I know I have felt that at times. I know the Lord will protect our families. Families are His most important priority here. they are the center of His plan. He will not let us fail!

So I feel bolstered and renewed to fight the good fight!

Ethan had a birthday party, JaDee and I went to a social at church later that night, I sang in a women's ensemble at church on Sunday, made a successful batch of rolls from scratch and had friends over for dinner! Whew! I am off to the gym to try a new strength training class and then to start on my cave of a room!

OH and I can now get my van in the garage! Thanks sweetie!

And I saw another huge moose in Anchorage. Check out the moose counter.

Second wind

OK I am over my feeling sorry for myself with a whole lifetime of boxes to unpack. I am ready to tackle my bedroom. I brainstormed all night one night and I think I have a good picture of what I want to look like in my head. I even know where to get the fabric for the hot (and my that i mean Glue gun hot) curtains I want to put up.

I joined the gym this week on Tuesday. Olivia and I have been Wed. Thurs. and Fri. They have a cool class called Kardio Kids 2 mornings a week for 3 and 4 year olds. She gets to run around and I hit the treadmill and weights for 45 minutes without having to pay for the day care. Which is only $2 an hour but it can add up quick if I go every day.

I am going to Stake Women's conference tomorrow with 2 other ladies. We were there today as the set up committee. I am looking forward to it as a much needed social out if nothing else. Although I am betting I may even get some spiritual nourishment if I let it.

I think my 2.3 miles of hills is helping my attitude.

Get ready for next week Xena!

My favorite

We are trying an experiment at our house. It is the no TV experiment. We did not hook up to cable or dish because it is a bit more expensive than our $15 basic cable that was really extended basic because we were nice to the guy when he installed the new cable lines in our backyard for our street. So far we have survived. The kids have. I am dying for the national news and my stupid XM radio is having issues up here. Being on the top of the globe means to get a "south" signal involves pointing your receiver like into the ground.

Anyway, I get off track easily. We went to the library and borrowed a Dora DVD. They run on a loop. It never returns the main menu it just keeps going around and around. So we have seen a lot of Dora lately. And I had to share you the funniest thing I ever saw on SNL one night. It took a little searching for it, but I found it. A little spoof on Dora.

It is a tiny bit offensive but they beep the word out.

And there is a commercial at the beginning but seriously, stay with it!

The let down

My fans (OK sister) are rumbling on facebook saying I need a new post. Here is the thing, I got all done with the cheery yellow kitchen and dining and turned around to see how the rest of the house was taking care of itself while Xena and I were off saving our corner of the world.

Turns out the rest of the house had revolted.

Laundry and kitchen floors and vacuuming and oh, do I dare mention the boxes. Yeah I still have several hundreds of those left.

And I deflated. I can't do this! I just want to sit in my cool retro kitchen chair and watch the birds fly in and out of the bird feeders we just filled. I want to cook in my bigger kitchen and clean it up and then take a load off. I want it all to be done.

My room is probably the next task to undertake. But it is very discouraging. We went from a walk in closet to a wall of bi-fold doors. I have a serious collection of handbags that take up 2 boxes in our room and no where to put a single one. A whole wall of closet doors limits where the bed, dresser and super cool floating shelves, and rows of iron hooks get to rest. Bi-fold doors mean my closet shoe rack has no where to get hung ergo, no shoes have homes either. Except in the boxes they currently reside.

And when JaDee started opening and dumping boxes I went ballistic. He was dumping things on the bed. I hate things on the bed because they end up on the floor at bed time. And since there are no homes for the things coming out of the boxes, there is no point emptying them until I figure this out.

But when I saw that one of the boxes contained a humidifier, a couple of lids to totes, an old pair of running shoes, and MY MEMORY BOX OF WEDDING CARDS FROM THE BASEMENT, I really lost it.

This is not the first box of the most random things I have run into. The first was in the kitchen when I opened a box containing my food dehydrator, juicer and a purse my great grandmother crocheted when I was 3. What???

See the movers had to re-box all of the boxes from the storage room for liability purposes. Well over the last year and a half, I finally conquered the memorabilia boxes downstairs. I went through everything from childhood, high school, mission (JaDee), college, wedding and babies and put it in its place. Meticulously labelled, sorted and stored everything that held an inkling of sentimentality.

I even went through and purged and sorted bins and bins of baby clothes, cards, papers, files etc and was very organized when the movers got to our house in Perry. I thought that when packing it all up, they would simply open an empty box and repack all of the items in my boxes together into that new box and ship it on its way. I am fast finding out that this is definitely not the case.

I can't even begin to tell you how depressed this makes me feel. I anticipated my lack of storage and made it easy for me to theoretically open a box, see it was full of stuff from say, Argentina (JaDee's mission), and promptly place it in the storage loft in our garage. This is not turning out to be the case. All my work and stress those weeks before the move to make sure each baby had a box with their blanket, blessing dress, baby book, favorite toy is now scattered to the winds with my crock pot, camping gear, and Christmas ornaments. I do not have a basement do sort this in or even a room big enough to start making piles.

I can tell you this much though. It is making me see if I really need to keep that JV Volleyball trophy for Most Improved Player. And a box of T-shirts from various vacation spots, really do I need this when I have the pictures? And do I need to buy another one when I know now that it just gets lugged around?

But I do want the purse my great grandma made for me and it had a home next to a bundle of letters from my Grandmother Campbell, who died when I was 15. And my music box my mom got me with a ballerina on it. Both of those are who knows where now.

However, when I do find them, and label their boxes AGAIN, I will be adding big black X's to the sides of the box. These will be the boxes that I will drive back to Utah down the Al-Can Highway my self if I have to, in order to keep those grubby movers out of my stuff again!

....in 1020 days, in case you lost track...

the unveiling

Xena enjoyed her day off yesterday, but today it was back to work.

Enjoy the finished dining room. Oh how I wish you could all join me for hot chocolate and cookies in my cheery yellow room. But picture me writing to all of you from the desk that Xena and I mistreated today.

The runs

Again aren't I tricky with the titles! This is about the running I got to do today and how Xena had the day off.

9 am shower, hair, makeup, eat, feed and dress Livs

10 am start the car, let the dog out to pee, find and wrestle Livs into boots, coat mitten, wipe her snot and fix her poor hair again to keep IT out of the snot.

10:30 am leave and fill car with gas

11:20 am what should have taken 15 minutes to get Michael's and Costco took like twice that because I got lost. Oh and the little snowflakes here in Eagle River were a veritable blizzard by the time I crossed the river

12 pm get to Costco with gigantic list, sample some yummy cheese and hummus, stick almost entirely to the list (I only bought JaDee some new running tights and did not even look at books or get a treat after)

1 pm assess Livs for damage and possible ER visit after she jammed a mechanical pencil into the back of her mouth. Quite a hole, but after examining the lead to realize it was down and not broke off into her throat, we proceeded to checkout.

1:30 pm load car (wait! I forgot shoving a freight train sized cart through Anchorage's lovely unplowed but packed down parking lot. Those wheels just sink right in.)

1:50 pm stop at PO Box and get lovely Valentine's from Grammy and Grandpa, and my lovely afghan I won at the silent auction for Nie Nie. Dream of reading under this masterpiece but I have $60 worth of meat that needs divided and frozen

2:30 pm after lunch at the grocery store salad bar (delish!) we arrive home to sort the spoils of the Costco run

4 pm kids home, dog pukes after getting fed yesterday's meringues, a tortilla and who knows how much cat food, new friends come to pick up emptied moving boxes, homework done.

4:50 pm Start dinner: rotisserie chicken, peas, french fries and ketchup

5:30 pm eat

6 pm go to science fair exhibit with boys at school

8pm Wal-mart for those things you just don't buy in bulk (I only needed 3 lemons this week not 3 pounds)

9 pm eat pudding with Livs, who stayed home with dad and made a hook rack for the entry to tame the abundance of coats and backpacks,

9:30 check the ol' blog and write this post!

10:00 drag these tired bones to bed!

Xena warrior Princess

I bet you would never guess from the title of this blog that I would be talking about making curtains. I bet you were thinking that I sat and watched a marathon of Xena while sitting on a donut pillow all day. While I was in considerable amount of pain after yesterday's events on the streets of Alaska, I did not watch one episode of Xena Warrior Princess.

Instead I bought a glue gun.

I'll get back to Xena in minute.

I have been studying this blog The Nesting Place quite religiously since I discovered it. I think I got it off of Meredith's blog, thanks my dear! I was wondering what to do about window treatments in the new abode. The owner is a good little seamstress and made some wonderful curtains for the place, but (could you see that "but" coming mid-sentence, I did.) I would not have chosen a red polyester blend for my breakfast nook of canary yellow.

After taking copious notes on The Nesting Place's subject titled "Window Mistreatments," I scoped out a fabric store and fell in love with a yellow on white floral, in kind of a toile style print. I was encouraged by Miss Nesting Place's permission to not obey any rules and go with what I liked. Also, she doesn't sew. She uses a glue gun named Priscilla.

I don't sew. I made a Pillow in Home Ec in 8th grade and was successful at it. If you don't look to close that is. But when the project to sew an article of clothing came up I picked a simple pair of Bermuda shorts. And proceeded to make one leg longer and sew a pocket shut. Since then I have been plagued by sewing misfortunes that usually start when I can't figure out how to thread the blasted machine.

I bought my fabric yesterday on the way to the Ozark Antique Store (seriously, that's its name and it is run by 2 little southern ladies who new immediately that I was from out of town. Apparently locals and Natives haven't caught their vision. Only us transplants held against our will frequent their store). At the store I picked out a table and 3 chairs for the breakfast nook and a chair for the desk area (that is another post hopefully coming tomorrow night!).

Today I got out my fabric, the rods, measuring tape, and scissors. Halt! My glue gun is still in a box in the garage! Yeah and when we open up boxes that say "Toys" and find camping equipment, we have to wonder what they labelled my craft supplies from the laundry room (when I find the box labelled "Worthless Crap" I guess I'll know).

So I threw on a coat over my PJ's and Livvy's PJ's as well. Scraped and warmed the car and trucked the 1.5 miles to Wal-Mart. Seriously, I used more gas to warm the car and I am closer to Wal-Mart here than in Perry and I did not think that was possible.

And there I found her. The choices were the $5 glue gun or the $10 glue gun with two settings and removable cord for "hard to reach places" (do I dare ask where those are??). I went with $10 option with the deluxe features like: precision tip, and the aforementioned cord and hi/lo settings. Found Pom Poms for the finished edge and.........

90 minutes later I had THIS!



I felt so empowered that I had to name my trusty tool who made things so easy and so satisfying something worthy of my accomplishment. I had to honor that domestic goddess inside and like a revelation from the glue gun herself the name came to me!

XENA WARRIOR PRINCESS!!!!!

Tomorrow we tackle the skirt for the desk. And a leak in my shower!

In case you were wondering

The volcano has not exploded, or rather erupted. It is still rumbling, and letting off steam now so we are still at "ORANGE" and on "WATCH." I have face masks for everyone if we need to go outside and plenty of boxes left to unpack so we will be fine. Oh and I found my food storage. I feel prepared.

We are currently at 8 1/2 hours of daylight. The official navy sunrise/sunset times for today were 8:58 AM and 5:31 PM. We have gained about 3 hours of daylight since we got here!

The temperature is in the high teens to low twenties most days. It snows a little bit just about everyday but so far no big dumps of snow all at once.

The roads always have snow on them. It is too cold for salt to work so they dump gravel on top of the snow for traction and pack it down. Gee and they wonder why they have a problem when all this stuff melts. I tell you, as a New Yorker I am proud to say we are the only ones who know how to deal with snow. 200" a year and always bare roads.

Things are doing better with Professor Umbridge. It is at least tolerable and we are just counting down and jumping through hoops until May.

Sarah Palin is still governor and yes the locals born and bred here talk like her.

We ate Alaska Salmon caught by our landlords and left in our freezer for us. It was tasty. We think there is Halibut too.

I have decided to keep the yellow kitchen and dining room. It is almost all together. I have curtains to hang and a desk to put in and then I will unveil all the fun I have been having.

Carter and JaDee go to the "Freeze-O-Ree" scout camp out this weekend. Yeah, I know, it doesn't sound like fun to me either. But this is Alaska and they are guys. Whatever.

And tomorrow I think I am getting my gym membership. I just got home from talking Champ for a run. If you think the hills in Perry are bad, whoa Nellie, our hills have hills here! Got a great workout until the last hill coming down. Totally biffed it. Flat on my can. Knocked the wind out of me. Shock headache up my spine. And I would still be lying there trying not to puke but I got caught in the headlights of an oncoming car and thought I better move. I had about a quarter of a mile to go to get home and I limped along. And froze. You have to keep moving and I wouldn't call what I was doing "moving." More like lurching. Anyway, I am off to warm my poor bones.

If you have a donut pillow, you might think about sending it.

Hazing

I got a calling in Church last week. For those of you not of the Mormon persuasion all of our church duties are filled by inspiration from our ward leaders to ask us to fulfill a certain duty, or calling. I got called to be the Assistant Wolf Den Leader. And the Wolf leader had a baby last week so I am it. And last Thursday was our first night.

It was me, and I had to drag JaDee along since the scouts requires 2 people, and I really didn't know who else to ask. We were making invitations to the Blue and Gold Banquet at the end of the month. And for an art requirement we were making a stencil of the United States to paint on the front of the invitation.

Did I mention that I had 8 boys in the den. Yeah, well I have 8 boys!

And I only had 2 pairs of scissors. That was all I could find in the boxes we had opened so far.

It went well. A lot of chaos, which is to be expected. And at the end of it all I was packing up and I was beat. And I have to do this again every week, for well, until my bishop gets heavenly inspiration to move me somewhere else.

I am praying for him to get that inspiration soon.

You can too.

Invasion of the body snatchers

Our boys and their hand prints in our house in Perry. Ethan was 5 weeks and carter was almost 4.

We were invited to dinner at our bishop's house on Sunday. The bishop is also Ethan's teacher at school too, so Ethan was so excited to go to his teacher's house for dinner. I pleaded with everyone to eat what was prepared, use manners, and above all NO FIGHTING!

We arrived in the driveway and had all 3 acting like hyenas. We had all the seats out of the van so the kiddos were smooshed in the backseat of JaDee's Saturn. Olivia was kicking Carter. Carter was yelling and in the wind up to retaliate against his sister, Carter smashed into Ethan causing more wails.

"Knock it off!" JaDee yells above the din.

He is answered by cries of "But he-!" "I didn't-!" "She was-!"

"I don't care! You have 2 choices. Shape up and come inside nicely or you stay in the car."

"Fine." and they all 3 go stomping up the stairs, sulking to the door.

But once we got inside and around the dinner table they were angels. Seriously. Ethan gave the prayer. He sounded like a General Authority! All of thee's and thou's and the best line, "We thank thee for Mr. Herbert and his wife for having us over for dinner. May it nourish and strengthen us."

I kid you not! Those were his exact words. I had to peek over at him to make sure that was my kid. Dinner went equally as smooth. The boys were sitting next to each other and they passed the food politely, Carter helped Ethan dish up some of the bigger dishes, Ethan got Carter a drink and Olivia asked sweetly, "May I please have some more corn?" They cleared their plates without being asked and I should mention they ate everything on their plates without being coerced or threats of no dessert.

Amazing! And boy did I look like a great parent with such well behaved off spring. But I had to wonder, what happened to my children?

After a most enjoyable evening we got our coats and headed down the stairs. The stairs must be some sort of a portal or a force field at the very least because by the time we got to the car someone was touching someone else, and budging in front, and making weird noises again.

Whew, I thought. At least I won't have to worry about aliens any more!

Neglect

I need a new bra. I always get them after Christmas when Victoria's Secret has their sale, and I have a card with them and get an extra $10 off for my birthday. But this year there wasn't a lot of bra shopping opportunities. I took off my shirt the other night and JaDee goes, "Do you need a new bra?"

"Why?" I say, looking to see if one of the girls had like burst out or something.

"What is this?" he asks. Pointing to the wire that had come out and was now circling over the girl on the left. It wasn't until then that I noticed the red chaffing there too. I was so busy all day that a rogue wire wasn't even a bother.

I also need a haircut. I got one like 2 days before we moved from Lindsay at Studio 360 on Main in Brigham City. I asked a cute gal in our ward who cuts her hair and got a name, but can't find a time when I can even think of getting a haircut.

I also got a spa certificate from my friend Kim for my birthday and still can't get out the door to go get something done. I need to just schedule something.

I am still reading, though! I am halfway through House of Seven Gables, but fall asleep each time I sit still.

Here are some pictures of the new abode.
From the front entry into the living room with the loft up above. We are hoping kitties (and children) all don't try to take a flying leap off the ledge!




The long living room. Turn left at the end of this room and you go to the Kitchen and dining room.


here is the edge of the kitchen and the dining room. The door the garage is the first one on the left and the second door leads to a half bath. On the right before where our table is hanging out, is a sliding door to the back yard. Gotta love the yellow. I don't like it, but it is kind of funky enough to work with. Still deciding.


And here is where the bulk of our stuff ended up. My 3 car garage has shrunk to a no car garage. But as soon as my new couch makes it up the stairs to the loft I can park my van in the heated space. Heaven.


Stay tuned for more pictures of upstairs and I'll take some after pictures too. I am really excited how it is all going to turn out!

Woo Hoo!!

We are in our house! The kitchen is mostly done. The beds are made and luckily we got a washer and dryer with the house. We also got a cool fridge. It's one of the ones that have the freezer as a drawer on the bottom and the double drawers on top. I really like it so far.

So with all our progress we officially checked out of the hotel last night. I am also sick. I have an achy cold that just hit me this afternoon.

I will take some pictures of the amazingly full 3 car garage that I have to plow through. But right now I am going to call JaDee to buy a few bundles of wood for a cozy fire in the fireplace for my achy bones.