HAPPY BIRTHDAY AUNT ANN!

Another birthday today - AUNT ANN! So, our boys have always been really close to their Aunt Ann (who is Sunny's mom from the previous post, for those not in the family). Aunt Ann baby sat Gunnar from the time he was about 5 months old until we moved, basically. As the years went on, the days got fewer that she watched him, but for a good long while, she was his primary caregiver while I was working and Neil finished school, then when he went to work substitute teaching. She was even so gracious as to take on baby Paden on many days (spliting time with Gram & Gramp). We will forever be grateful for the care that Aunt Ann selflessly gave to our boys. So, sometimes Aunt Ann gets a little carried away with shopping and we have many funny stories about that. One memorable one is when Grandpa's lawn mower finally died after numerous attempts at revival. So, Paden (remember he's 2.5 at the time), is talking to Grandpa about the "dead" lawn mower. I am sure Grandpa probably mentioned he was looking at buying a new one, checking the paper, etc. Paden just so matter-of-factly says, "Just tell Aunt Ann, she'll buy you a new one!" Yes, even a 2-year old knows that he's got Aunt Ann wrapped around his little finger. However, I do believe that all nieces and nephews tend to benefit from Aunt Ann's little shopping habit! That is not the only reason we love Aunt Ann though! She is very caring, she has a BIG heart! She has a great sense of humor. She is VERY easy-going and it's pretty funny when she does get "mad" - she usually laughs it off! She has a fabric store at her house - not quite as organized as say JoAnn's Fabrics, but I think there's as much product! She is a great seemstress. She always gives of herself without complaint. She is a dedicated primary teacher and she loves kids! She's a great mom, grandma (a very young grandma!), sister, sister-in-law and aunt! We love you Aunt Ann and we hope to see you soon!

Happy Birthday Sunny!

I once had a goal to send all my nieces and nephews handmade cards for their birthdays. I did well one year and last year, I did send any.

So what happened was that last year I missed Sunny's birthday and that really threw me all off for birthday cards last year. Her birthday is the first birthday of the nieces/nephews. So, this year I REALLY wanted to start off right and get cards out to family and friends. Well, today is Sunny's birthday - second birthday in my family of the year and I am already beind! Yikes - where does the time go?

At any rate, I want Sunny to know that just because I am a little behind, it does NOT mean that I love her any less!

Today, Sunny turns 16! Wow, so when I first met the family, she was like so little! She's grown into a young woman so quickly! Aunt Susan did a nice tribute to Sunny, which I completely DITTO!

To Sunny Lynn - here's your card my love - it's in mail (tomorrow)!


When you get your license (and the weather gets nicer) you can head on down for a visit! We love you lots! We appreciate all that you have done for us and with us! Life without you would definitely not be as fun! Happy day and sorry I'm late! Love, Aunt Tina

Self-Portrait Tuesday

Lelly's challenge this week (finally something I had no trouble thinking of):

. . .but what if there was a way to do it all? what if there was a twenty-fifth hour of the day, an hour all to yourself! no commitments, no distractions, no need to sleep. what would you do?

If I had an extra hour to do anything I wanted, the first thing that came to my mind is CLEAN this:


so that I do more of this:


There are other things I would probably love to do or that I should do, but that at this moment, I just want to create something! I have not done any scrapbook pages since November at the Retreat (See Neighbor Jane Payne for retreat details). I have done a few cards in the last couple of weeks, which are posted in my scrap gallary at SB.com. But, really I would like to actually do some scrapbooking of pictures - I need to organize pictures, send some in for developing (since there's thousands just hanging out on my computer!) and I just would love that extra hour to work on that part of my life that so frequently gets neglected!

PS - I haven't figured out real well how to take pictures of myself with my camera - too big & awkward and I have no idea where our point-n-shoot camera is at this moment. Anyway, sorry for not including myself in SPT - I know, I know - the point is to include your own picture! :) Just trying to get back in the groove of SPT, so maybe next week!

Hair Cut Results

So, the results are in. Quickly, because it's late, I will get these pics up. I really do NOT believe that I am in any way photogenic and I do NOT like to see pictures of myself most of the time. Since I've not participated in SPT (see Lelly's Musings) for a while, I have to get back used to having my picture taken and shared with others!

BEFORE - terrible lighting and position in this one, but it's the best we got. I came home quickly after work to grab the checkbook (which was already in the car), so we snapped this pic quickly.




After - pretty satisfied with it. I can curl under or out for a little body for my board-straight hair. I think it will work. I just need to not go for 5 months without a cut! It was $22.00, which I believe is a good price for a cut, but I am not 100% sure on that. Anyway, this isn't a great picture because of the lighting and shadow, but Neil was really tired of taking pictures I would be satisfied with, so this is what I get! :) (Thank you for helping though!)



Got to get to bed - everyone's going to be tired in the morning - I can feel it already! :)

Sianara!

It's the day

Well, tomorrow is the day I FINALLY get my hair cut. So, we've been in our new home/area for about 3 months and I really didn't know where to go to get a hair cut. It's a tough decision. I really should have got it cut before we left our old town. I am not too hip on saloons and didn't really have a steady one anyway. I had a friend in our old ward that did hair and did a pretty good job for a good prices, so I defaulted to her quite often. I'm just not a saloon person. So, after we had tried the Academy of Hair Design (beauty school) for pedicures and had good luck, I went for a haircut. Not a great decision. It wasn't a great haircut. Luckily my hair grows pretty fast and I think my hair is finally long enough to cut out all the bad and uneven layers I had. Phew!

A new friend in our new town recommend someone - referrals only. So, my dear husband called for me. Well, he called our friend for me (or behind my back, I can't remember - he just informed me it wasn't behind my back, but he's just a "get things done" guy and was helping, which is good because he knows how I procrastinate on this stuff) to find out a place to get a hair cut. Then, he called the hair cut place to get an appointment for me. The soonest appointment was nearly three weeks out, so I didn't schedule it. Then last week, I realized that the three weeks was almost here and I still have crap-tacular looking hair, so why did I not just take that appointment? I called her back and luckily she still had openings this week. SOOOOO, tomorrow is it! Maybe, just maybe, I can talk myself into posting some picutures of the new look vs. old look. I know my long lost friend from HS/College, Kelley, would like for me to that, so I'm thinkin' about it, Kel!

So, my inspirations for hair design are characters from TV. One is from One Live to Live (Gigi, linked for your viewing convenience). But, I think I like better the lady detective from Law & Order: SVU - Det. Benson seen here. Either one is better than the current state of my hair.

I'll see what I can do for pictures later this week.

TTFN!

PS - I really tried to put spaces in to help the eyes read easily, but blogger just ain't havin' it! That's kind of annoying!

Have wanted to . . .

. . . create a blog entry for several days. I really feel like I have a lot to write about, but we have had some technical difficulties. Our desktop computer still isn't working all that well. It's really sick apparently. We took it back to the computer "doctor" but it's still not working great. It's better, but sometimes slower than I have patience for, which admitedly doesn't take much. So, then there was this weird thing going on where Neil created a GMAIL account for his iPhone and linked it to my hotmail account which is what I use to login to blogger, well not sure exactly all the details, but I was very close to loosing access to this blog. It's a long complicated story. I remembered that I had set Neil up as a blogger on here, so luckily I was able to login as him and get in. It was ALMOST tragic. I was mulling over how I would let everyone know I had to start a new blog and why the other one wasn't being updated. Wow that would have not been fun. So, luckily, I found a way back in!

So, we've had some home projects that I have wanted to post just for the hay of it. We moved into our new house the first weekend of December and have continually been unpacking, buying new stuff, fixing stuff up, etc. It's been quite busy really. The house was/is in excellent condition for its age (like 20 years or so). So, we are quite happy with it. The colors are a little bland, so we have wanted to paint, which I'll get to that part here shortly. We needed to buy some new furniture because we just didn't have enough to fill the house. We kept our old couch, which is quite comfy, but not much bigger than love seat size, for the family room where the TV is. We found a great slip cover for it at Bed, Bath & Beyond on our anniversary trip to Portland, so it's looking better than the dingy beige it was pre-slip cover. We have purchased a nice couch for teh living room, along with a chair. But, before we even moved, we knew we were moving and we knew we wanted a new dining table. The one we had was pretty old. I got it from my grandparents when I was in college (which is getting to be quite a while back now). We had a cat once that scratched all the bases of all the legs of all the chairs. The chairs were kind of falling apart in other places. The table was still pretty solid, but it's small. So we found a nice table at our new favorite store, Furniture Row Outlet. It was $450 - yikes - that's just for the table. It's a tall gathering table with slate tiles inset in it. The chairs, $119 each, have the microfiber suade stuff on them, which my sis-in-law (Susan) swears don't stain. So, we kept looking around and went into the clearance area browing for some good deals. Amazingly, there was the table - marked $75! Yea!! Yeah, there's a catch. It's broken. Some of the slate tiles were broken. Here's a picture (didn't save too many before pictures of this project). Neil some how talked them down to $50, originally with the stipulation that we had to take it that day. Well, of course we didn't drive the truck so we couldn't take it. Well, after all was said and done they gave us 48 hours to come pick it. So, we picked up this great table for $50. Now, if you don't know us well, I should tell you that we aren't really great at home projects. We can do some stuff, but we aren't really good carpenters or anything. We didn't think this would be out of our ability, so we took a chance.

So, once we got to our new house and got much stuff unpacked and put away, we cleared out a spot in the garage around this table big enough to work on it. By we, I mean my wonderful husband. I really had not a lot to do with this at all, actually. We bought a wet tile saw because it's just the best thing to do. Gotta love Harbor Freight Tools - inexpensive tools just right for those who don't use them a lot! OK, so long story short, we (again, not really me) got the table fixed in time for Christmas. We did have to buy the chairs which weren't on clearnance. Luckily they had them in stock - sometimes they don't have stuff in stock - like an ottoman that we ordered two weeks ago that is backordered until April. So, here's the pictures of the fixed beautiful table. It's fabulous and the workmanship is pretty darn good for us (again, I'm not really part of the equation).

I think that it turned out quite well and we enjoy eating dinner as a family at it. We have the lazy susan in the middle and it doesn't match (wood color wise), but it's necessary because you really can't reach much past the middle of the table. We enjoyed a very nice prime rib Christmas Eve dinner as one of the first meals. I think we ate one before the prime rib, but it obviously wasn't very memorable. Plus it sounds better to say that our first meal was prime rib! :)

So, next project for us (meaning my husband) was a fish tank. So, Neil's always really enjoyed having fish and so do I. They are easy pets and they don't stink like our stinkin' dog (topic of another day). So, the latest purchase was a 90 gallon fish tank. So, I don't know if you can imagine how big that is, but it's HUGENORMOUS! My mom used to have one that big (or maybe slightly bigger) and it was pretty cool. I think back then Neil thought it would be fabulous to have one that big. So, we went from 20 gallon to 30 or so gallon to 90 gallon. Well, it was a screaming deal off Craig's List and it came with pretty much everything including the stand. So, I have no "before" pics of the stand, so you will need to imagine a plain wood, unstained and worn. You know how wood gets if you don't stain it - it starts looking dingy and yuck. So, this is what the stand looks like. We were hoping for a nice new looking stand - like the store-bought look. You never know exactly what you are going to get when you are shopping the classifieds, so you win some, you lose some. So, Neil comes home from Kennewick with this GIGANTIC tank and stand. We are living in a rental at the time piled with boxes and furniture everywhere waiting to get into our new house. It was a little crammed! Once we got settled and again cleared enough space to work on it in the garage, Neil started working on making this stand look nicer. We decided to cover it with lamianate stuff (like you'd put on countertops). We went with a dark slate color and stained the trim black. Here's the final product.

We (meaning Neil) still has some work to do on it. He's going to build a hood for it and we need to put a background. We also want to find some decorative items to put on the bottom of the stand. We also realized that we should probably paint the brown trim to black to match the rest of it. But, again, overall this project turned out quite well!

We have a couple of other projects going right now (painting and extending the walls to our laundry area), which I can post another day. This post is getting quite lenghty. I guess that's what happens when it's been nearly 2 weeks since the last post. So, I won't wait two weeks until the next post! I have many topics to get out of my head.

TTFN!

Argh! Computers! / Resolutions

So, I am trying to sit down to do a nice post in response to the new year and all the talk of resolutions. I was on my father-in-law's laptop at first. {Side story: He dropped by on the way to see his 100 year old mother. He is helping us decide how we are going to make our stinking washer and dryer fit into our lovely new house (another post). So, he brings his computer because it's new (old one died, so he just bought a new one) and he needed me to put the "favorites" to the couple of blogs he reads - ours and Susan's. Anyway, he didn't stop by on his way back home, so his computer is still here. Being the lazy person I am, I didn't want to walk upstairs to our computer and I wanted to lounge in our comfy recliner in the nice quiet living room, so I grabbed his computer which was conveniently sitting on the landing to the stairs. End Side Story} So, his computer was really annoying. I was on Susan's blog trying to make a comment and after about the 4th try, I gave up. I kept hitting the touch pad, I guess, and so it would type in odd spots, hightlight stuff and click on stuff I was not trying to click on. By this time, my sweet (stinky) two, almost three, year old had fallen asleep on the chair with me. So, I slide out from under him and decide that outside of the cozy blanket it is cold. So, before I could proceed to make an attempt to comment on Susan's blog, I then make hot cocoa, topped with cool whip of course; find slippers and sweater and proceed to our desktop computer upstairs.

Our desktop had been ill, so we took it to the doctor (last week, I think). It's just got all sorts of spyware and weird stuff on it and was running pretty ragged. So, we take it into town to see if the local computer guy can make it work better. He said it normally takes 24 hours or so and so he'd call us. Well that was on a Friday, I think and we didn't know if he was open on Saturday, so we went in the following Monday to check on it. So, Neil goes in and he says that the dumb thing is so bogged down that it was still not done doing whatever clean up that it was supposed to be doing. Geez! So, I think at that point we told him to wipe it out and just reinstall windows XP and go with it. So that's what he did. Why do I go to lengths to tell this story, well it is because that computer is supposed to be working better right? Wrong-O! So, while I was able to comment on Susan's blog, I was not able to log into my own blog to write about new year's resolutions. It just did the error message deal - do you want to report this problem - the problem that closed the program - the problem I don't even know existed. I tried three times - shut down three times. How annoying! Yesterday, I was going to blog about some pictures from my mom's visit, but no can do. I was able to login to my blog, put a title on my new post, but not able to type in the box. Why, you ask? I wish I knew. It just wasn't havin' it, I guess. I was able to post some new cards to my scrap gallery, but that was being a little difficult too - becuase I couldn't crop picutres and make them clear. A rough couple of computer days. I normally scan my cards, but to do that yesterday would mean a simple unhook the USB cable and hook it back to the scanner - yeah, so hard, I know. After all the aggravation with trying to crop the stinkin' pics, I should have known that taking the extra minute to hook up scanner would have been way easier. So, my new cards on the scrap gallery aren't really the picture or scan quality that I would like to have, but they are there. Feel free to take a look.

So, "THEN," . . . you might be thinking, "well, if you weren't able to log into blogger - how are you blogging now?" Well, we have a laptop, as well. It was purchased in the summer when Neil was getting into Real Estate. So, here I am in the comfort of my bed with the LSU v. OSU football game in the background (LSU is winning 38 to 17, only 1:50 left in the game) blogging away. It's been a long while since I have taken the time to empty my mind on my blog. Usually, I have a specific picture to post and write about, but not today. I do have some, but those are going to have to wait for another day. Funny thing is that Paden can play on the messed up desktop upstairs for hours at a time and not have any random "let's close internet explorer on you and ask if you want to report the problem" issues. He stays on Playhouse Disney for the most part and so maybe that's a troublefree site. Someone is about to be doused with ice cold gatorade, by the way, at the football game. I am not sure I have ever understood that tradition.

Anyway . . . about New Year's Resolutions . . . I really just wanted to copy and paste my comment from Susan's blog to mine. So, here it is:

I am not really into making and writing down resolutions. It's my rebellion against mainstream, I guess . . . I don't know. It's just not something I really get into. I was writing on Darla's blog though that everytime my hair grows too long I get in a rut that begins with not "doing" my hair, then I get a haircut and refocus on what's important. Ya know, looking good or feeling like you are looking good really does attribute to better mood, better focus, better productivity - for me anyway. Yes, I know I am loca! I never really verbalized the whole haircut thing before, but I was thinking about it recently as I was feeling a little down. I thought to myself, "Self, everything is going well in life, why are you feeling lazy and down?" It's the hair - root cause! So, by the way, it took me forever to post this comment because laptops are not my friends. I finally had to shut down the laptop, slide out from sleeping two year old, find hot cocoa, slippers & sweater and hit the old desktop computer. The dumb little touchpad really gets in my way and causes me much grief and frustration! Phew! Had to get that out!

So, there you have it. You now know that I am a little more crazy that you thought I was! I really don't do resolutions because . . . well because, I am not sure, but I have not really ever done them seriously. I know I used to think of them, but never carried them out. It is a true story about my hair though. I like my hair short (just below ear lobes). I like it to kind of curl outward. When it gets long (which is just above my shoulders - touching the shoulders would be WAY TOO long!), I get lazy. It's long enough to pull back; it's long enough that it takes an extra several minutes to blow dry, so it doesn't get blown dry. So, when I don't blow dry, I don't curl and there it starts. Ugly hair. My hair is so straight that it feels like it is slicked down to my head and I don't like that feeling. So, when my hair gets long, I get lazy and then I start feeling lazy in other areas of life as well. Once I get a hair cut, I feel rejuvenated and I start steppin' it up a bit. I feel like I am sounding really superficial right now. However, I do believe that if you feel like you look good or you feel like you feel good, then you are happier. If you are happy with what you look like on the outside, it makes you feel better on the inside. I don't know if that is how it should be, but I believe that is how it works for me and I should accept that. So, I do. I do not wear make-up most days. I don't wear a lot of jewelery (three rings only - tiny CTR ring, wedding ring and pink breast cancer ring - NO other jewelery). I don't spend hours getting ready on a daily basis. I am pretty low-maintenance. I do admit though that putting on a little make-up, doing a little curl in the hair and wearing more than jeans & sweatshirts on occasion makes me feel a little better. By the way, my hair grows pretty fast and it seems like every other month I should get my hair cut to avoid getting into the funk.

I am sure I have several things that I would like to work on this year, but I am not willing to document them at this moment. They are seeming the same things every day of every year. I always have things I want to work on. I am surprised I don't do resolutions, actually. I am typically a person who likes to have a list of things and I like to cross them off (whether it's written or just in my head). I like to actually accomplish things and move on to the next. Resolutions also seem too big to accomplish, so I just don't write them down. So, I probably will have some resolutions, but they will be between me, myself and I. You all (all 3 of you that read this blog) won't be privy to them. Sorry! :)

TTFN!

Happy Anniversary!

We celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary on December 29th. Well, that's a lie - we had to celebrate a couple of days early. Because my mom couldn't come the Sunday before Christmas, she came on Saturday the 29th. We were very glad to see her (another post). I got sick actually before Christmas and ended up going to the walk-in clinic the day after Christmas. That was an adventure (again subject for another post). I got some antibiotics and started feeling better by the time we went for our anniversary trip. I do need to apologize because I was supposed to be in charge in planning our anniversary trip, but I seemed to not remember that. We had decided on going to Portland. So, we ended up trying to make some last minute plans sort of. We found a really neat hotel on the internet - McMenamins - we stayed at Kennedy School. It's an old school that was turned in to a hotel - it has a couple of bars, a restaurant, movie theatre. It's a really cool place.

The rooms have the original chalkboards in them. It's really neat - I suggest reading more on their website.

We went to have breakfast at a place called the Byways Cafe. It was on the Food Network on the Diners, Drive-ins & Dives.

It had fabulous breakfast! It was really, really good. A cool diner in a big city - so not our norm, but it was really fun! We actually like to venture out to places like this, there's just not been a lot of options like that in the places we live, so it is out of the norm for us.

We hit a couple of stores in Portland just doing some shopping. We also had found a place called Tour de Crepes. It had the most tasty, yummy, large, fantastic crepes. It was a cool little funky place too.

That's the kitchen - an airstream trailer. It's pretty cool. The place is empty, the cook stays out back in the trailer and comes out when someone comes in - takes your order then goes back to the trailer. It's different. She's the only one there. There's another web site that raves about the place for the kid friendly environment and sandbox outside for the parent and kid playdates they have. It's really too bad we don't live closer to that place, although we'd probably gain tons of lbs because we'd eat too much. They have all sorts of crepes, not just dessert ones.

So, all in all we had a great trip. We got to go to a couple of fun places to stay and eat. It's nice to get away from real life and just spend time together. So, we have been married for seven years. I would like to also mention we did date for two years prior to getting married - which is quite a long time by LDS standards. Anyway, in celebration of 7 years, here's the top 7 reasons why I love my husband (in random order):

1) - He always makes sure I am happy. He lets me win many an argument.

2) - He makes me laugh.

3) - He is a kid at heart and loves to play.

4) - He is a good father to our two boys.

5) - He supports my hobby and makes me buy the latest and greatest scrapbooking tools and gadgets.

6) - He has a stong testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ.

7) - He is adventurous and we have had many fun adventures over the last 7+ years.

I am very grateful and lucky to be who I am and where I am.

Christmas recap

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas. We had a fabulous Christmas in our new home and were very happy to stay home and NOT travel. We did our Christmas visiting the weekend prior to the Christmas weekend. We do love to see our family & friends, but it is kind of a big production to go anywhere, really. So, we were able to stay home and enjoy Christmas with our little family. My mom tried to come on Sunday, but had car trouble (motor home actually), so she wasn't able to come. She ended up coming on the next weekend. So, we cooked prime rib on Christmas Eve which was fabulous. We told the boys that they could wake up no earlier than 6am to open their gifts. At about 5:50am Gunnar woke up and he was laying next to me and about every minute he asked if it was time to get up yet. So, finally after 10 mintues I rolled out of bed. Paden woke up and proclaimed he needed to see if Santa brought him the Superman computer. I had to tell him to remember that Santa doesn't bring everything we want. So, they ran downstairs to find their gifts. They were really excited. They got some of the things they wanted. Gunnar wanted the "track-a-ho with buttons" - also known as a battery operated CAT excavator. Paden got a kitchen - yep a play kitchen. He loves it! Gunnar got some more K'nex, which are very fun. Gunnar got a guitar from Grandma with the puppies (my mom). So, we'll have to find some guitar lessons for him. Paden almost got drums from Grandma, but luckily she found him a truck instead! Of course it's a Ford! It's OK, we have the battle of Ford vs. Dodge going on in our family. Livingston vs. Peterman - Dodge vs. Ford - it's always going to be a lifelong battle! :)

Anyway, here's a couple of fabulous pictures of the boys' Christmas. We had a great, relaxing day.