things I would like for my Birthday

Ok, I'm not going the world peace thing ... other people can wish for that.. but it's all about ME! isn't it always???!?!?

Wii Resort


the edge browning pan

I just saw that I could make Lasagna in this too.
ALL EDGE Lasagna ... not much better than that!

dinner out
(I'll arrange that!)



a quiet afternoon on a beach with a good book


well, I'm still sunburned ... maybe not right now!

AND a general , "Yes, Mom" kind of day!

My new best friend

After a wonderful day sitting in a cool pool

this is my currently best friend

latest pictures

My wonderful and ever patient sister-in-law, Maurice (Hi Maurice, you're a saint) is putting together a scrapbook for my mother-in-laws 89th Birthday.

I believe the due date for everyone to get things to her was a few weeks ago!?!

today I 'mom handled' my boys into pictures.

Our pictures for the scrapbook included "happy birthday"

but I cropped that out for our copies of the pictures

(well, most of them, you can see alittle bit of one of the signs in the picture of Hubby and I)

Sunday thoughts ..

I'm going to be honest, very honest ~ lately I've been very un~enchanted with church. I would rather sit home than go. It's just an attitude with me, but it's frustrating. Today on the way to church I had a little talk with myself ... while thinking it came to me.....

PRIDE has been my issue. Pride was the root of my attitude.

So today at church my challenge was to recognize my PRIDE and ignore it.

You know I had a pleasant day at church.

Now my challenge is to continue to recognize and ignore PRIDE this week.

College Shopping

Hmmmm what can I say?
much to my disappointment, I've raised a MAN!

W just isn't much of a shopper!


With isle and isles of sheets and comforters to pick from ... he walked over, picked up the second one on the first isle... "I'm done, mom"

NOW that wasn't the case at the NIKE shop with the Portugal football jerseys.....
Just how can this be?

SURPRISE! it's a birthday party

I was meeting my aunts and my mom for lunch this Tuesday.

When we got there, it was a Surprise Early Birthday lunch for me!

Yep, that's what I thought, too ~ that's the best kind!

Now let's play a game.

Can you find what's wrong in this picture?

Look at me!?!? it looks like they propped the 'blind girl' up in the back and point her the wrong way while they take the picture! That wasn't very nice of them!?!?

this picture just cracks me up!

thanks for a fun day!

wonderful little book.......

The Guernsey Literary and

Potato Peel Pie Society.

Highly recommended

I'll be honest I think it's hard to get into but well worth sticking it out

I want to move to Guernsey and live with these people!

Click here to learn more

Measured in Love ....

Enjoy ~

Cub Scout Wednesday ... Messy Day

Tonight we had one of our summer activities
(once a month in the summer for the summertime award)


Messy Day

We made Homemade Silly Putty ....
They got to take this home









We did the ever wonderful yet amazing
Mentos in the Diet Coke fountains.
This was great, they competed for the highest
(notice that I sent my assistant out there
to hold the funnel?? She stayed dry for the first couple
and then got one in the head! She's a fitness trainer
I expected she could move faster than I could)





Made bigger volcano eruptions than we'd done before.
added dish soap to make it bigger!





finished the night off by making Homemade Goop!
acts like a solid and a liquid, this stuff is so cool.

They'll be talking about this night for a while.

it all makes sense ....

During the winter months G has a large amount of ear wax. At times spilling out! very much different from all the rest of our family, OK, I know this is enough detail on this gross subject!

This morning I was flipping through a magazine and it told about ear wax in kids .... trying to break the cycle of mother's with Q~tips I'm sure!

AND here is the kicker ......

Ear Wax is pushed out when the jaw moves (TALKING)! For those of you who know G, doesn't that just make you laugh!??? I should be glad he doesn't have a river coming out of this ear 24/7!

Seriously, just don't mess with a good thing...

I love m&m's

as much (if not more)

than the next person,

but seriously why are they messing with them????

Several years ago they came out with Mint m&m's .... that's just wrong.

For someone to be able to put out a bowl of colorful m&m's and

then with the muncher (ME) comes by and innocently

grabs a some (ok, maybe a handful)

pops them in her mouth ....WHAT the *^#$? MINT!

Then I found raspberry m&m's ....

those were good but ate too many and that got moved to my bad list.

A couple of weeks I saw a display of new m&m ....

Coconut m&ms? NOPE, just not right.

Today I tried the latest find .... Strawberry Peanut Butter ....

Just leave it alone!

3 Strikes your out!

I must say that this day just wasn't one of my best!

First of all it started extremely early ... I'm not even really sure of how early... but there was a thunderstorm. This means that G is awake and scared. He wanted to go downstairs with W. He couldn't ... fill you with that later.

When everyone finally goes back to sleep the alarm goes off ... 6:15AM! Now that I have this cute hair it's early fix your hair time (I'm really loving the hair but not the time it takes to fix it ...especially when it's 6am).

G got up at 6:45 ... I'm not sure he was asleep the entire time I was in the bathroom, but I like to think so.

W had a soccer tournament in town ... so he had a couple of the players over to spend the night (I think as player confinement) Hence G couldn't go down and sleep in his basement, dark room! Around 7am I noticed there wasn't any sound or movement from the basement. They'd set they're alarm for 6:45PM. It was sort of entertaining watching the 3 of them scrabble to get out of here!

G and I left at 7:30 for our church fieldtrip ...only to get there and see that they'd over planned with cars and didn't need me! BUT BUT I'd gotten up at 6:15 to do my hair!! Strike 1

So I'm off to W game. It was fun. W now played for the Alumni and not the HS team. I still cheered for the both sides.

Then I come home only for hubby to send me off to the city for more rock. I finally got W and his buddy to work on the rock wall... they ran out of rock and didn't finish! After driving the distance for the rock (of which they said they had in stock) they don't have it in stock. WHAT BUT WE CALLED TO MAKE SURE YOU HAD IT IN STOCK Strike 2

I finally make it home, where I stay. I'd rented some RED BOX movies yesterday so I sat down to watch "Bride Wars" I wasn't impressed (don't bother) BUT I HADN'T SAT DOWN TO WATCH A MOVIE IN MONTHS ... I WANTED IT TO BE GOOD! Strike 3

I've settled in with a good book, and just about forgotten about all the Strikes ... I'm sure a good night's sleep will erase the day!

Marking the summer chores off.....

Today we (G and I) cleaned the garage. We got all the stuff (junk) out when it clouded over and started to rumble. Boy that's when the challenge started .......

I was surrounded by scaredy cats ~

A helper that was wearing ear phones! He swears he can hear everything I say, but I beg to differ! and the Dog that wanted to be in garage. He was in there but when the rumbles got too loud he would follow me around.

Nothing like a deaf helper and a guide dog on my heals!

It finally sprinkled for 2 minutes, nothing but HOT, HUMIDITY when it was over!

The garage is done, it looks good, smells good (well, abit too much like bleach), a big pile of trash for the garbage man and another summer chore checked off my list.

7/8/9

joke ~ do you know what made 4, 5 and 6 so upset?

think, think, think!

answer ~ because 789. Think about it!

today at 12:34 and 56 seconds it will be 123456789!

07-07

Since it's a double 7 day I thought I'd give you a 7-7 picture.

I've gone to my picture file, picked the 2007 file then the 7th file and then the 7th picture.

This is a scary process but it gets me to clean out my pictures

and you get to see some pictures that maybe you haven't seen before.

Well, obviously this is Christmas of 2007. I decided (somewhat) late one night that we were going to take the Christmas card picture THAT NIGHT! G was out of the shower (hence the wet hair) when W informed me that he couldn't take the picture without taking a shower! HEAVY Sigh......W takes forever in the shower. It very well could be midnight before we get to snapping pictures. When he got all done with his shower and dressed, he was in an ORANGE shirt. How Christmasy is ORANGE? problem solved ..... I sent out black and white pictures!

Hideous I tell you!

I was awaken at 6:30am by G telling me that the electric tape (the 2000's electric wire) from next door had blown all over our tree. Much to his amazement I didn't care at this early hour. About 15 minutes later he comes in and claims that he's going outside to check it out, that I did care about. I told him that he couldn't go outside and mess with the electrical tape. By this time I'm awake enough to know that the wind hadn't blown in the night, so exactly how could the electric tape be in our tree?!?!

When I finally did rise and shine......I saw it.....We'd been massively TPed. Our home had made it 4 years of High school and not been tped. This time every tree, every bush, even the driveway had been covered.

I suppose G never even thought of toilet paper.

As I pulled out of the drive way (for swim practice) I saw the empty package. These were not armatures these were Professionals. They'd used the good stuff and a big family size!

G was quite upset ... "Mom, I can't believe someone would do this to us, it just makes our house look 'hideous'". Yes that were his exact words .... Hideous. I believe he is seeking revenge more than W.

I'd have pictures but by the time I got home W had taken most of it down.

I seems that we weren't the only house (there were 3 others), but ours was certainly the furthest out!

oh and hubby's only response ... "where was the dog?"

Sunday Thoughts

"you can gain knowledge from reading a book but you gain wisdom from prayer"

The lesson was based on this talk by Elder Hales.

the highlights from this talk for me are ......

"Becoming Provident Providers Temporally and Spiritually"

*"Our success is never measured by how strongly we are tempted but by how faithfully we respond."
We MUST practice these principles of provident living.....
~joyfully live within our means
~be content with what we have
~avoid excessive debt
~diligently saving and preparing for rainy days

Being Provident Providers
~ "Thou shall not covet"
~ four most caring words "We can't afford it"
~Are you buying this for me or for you?

Law of Tithe
~ principle of faith
Fast Offerings

important to establish a family budget, review the budget and spending with family.


De clutter our lives, of temporal junk, and emotional junk.

fun Fourth fieldtrip

The entire time we've lived here, we've past a place that is a tiger reserve. We've never had time to stop when we've past it and out of sight out of mind any other time.

This week they ran an ad in the paper that they were having tours on Independence day a special "Rawrs and Stripes!"

I took G over there (it helped use time and use energy) for a tour. They had all sorts of cats. Bob cats, tigers, Siberian tigers, leopard and more. I took all sorts of pictures of G and the cats ... promptly came home and loaded them ... pressed the wrong button ... deleted them. Once again something in my life ... pioneerish .... an event without pictures!

We had fun!
I'm sure you can read more on G's blog.

Lovin' Wii

We have been playing Wii (we as in the boys and I). I have discovered that both boys check their Wii age everyday! Those stickers, I only test my Wii age (maybe) every week and thus I'm 78! AND W even warms up before taking his test! I personally think that's cheating, but he has a 20 Wii age (got the that just this morning). Little G sneaks down every morning to do his Wii age testing! He got a 51 today!

I'm going to have to get with this .... BUT I have to say that today I was 47! W, who was sitting there watching me was guessing that I'd get over 100 (GASP)
Yes, that's the kind of entertainment I provide for them!


then we moved on to Wii Play ....

Where MY favorites are racing cows! I'm not good, alot of the fact is when the cows jump they Mooo ... You know those boxes that you turn over and they make the sound ....Mooooo. It's that sound they make ... it cracks me up everytime.

Then I like to shoot things ...... except for when I forget which cross hair is mine and think I'm shooting with my opponents crosshairs.

We're having fun!

Thanks Big Bro and AuntyAna ~

Also .... my boys were thinking about if our house burnt down what would they grab .... they both together shouted the "The Wii"

it's finally DONE!

Well I felt like this mess and this smell was never going to get done.

Finally last Saturday late afternoon, the sink was pulled out. They chipped it a couple of times, but not in really obvious places. When we took the old faucet off (it had been one that was all one piece and we were replacing it with one that 4 separate pieces) the scrapping to get the puddy and glue off marked it..... so hubby says, "why don't you just run and get a new sink?" Don't have to tell me twice... .I was gone. As I was running out the door..... "and you might was well just get a new garbage disposal also." Music to my ears .... why couldn't he follow all this up with "and pick out new counter tops, and just throw in a new frig while your there" Ok, that would be extreme and hubby isn't really an extremist!

I rushed since it was Saturday night and I knew my hired help (W) probably had plans. I only went to one place (the closest) and had only one to choose from! Trust me boy did I second guess my choice all the next day. One is not a choice, it's a get the one they have! I don't like Home Depot, it a guy's store, "walk in get want you need and leave" not a woman's store, "pick out what you like best" store.

As I pulled in back home... My hired help was pulling out! I was sinkless for the night! and all the next day.....it was ridiculous and almost pioneerish ... we had to walk all the way to the bathroom to wash our hands or fill a pot! barbaric, I tell you

It's done now, it's beautiful, and wonderful! I love it! I've even caught W just in there running the water ....enjoying his work.

I'd post a picture if the sink wasn't filled with dirty dishes! it's working well!

As close as I ever want to get....

I believe I'm as close to one of worst fears that I ever want to be!! Ok, on my more shallow list of worst fears.

Last week when we were at the pool, the newspaper's photographer was there taking shots of the boys doing their tricks off the diving boards. It's the yearly how to beat the heat front page picture.

Do ya see where this is going?

Today the picture of the boy is in the paper, fortunately the picture extends to the 2nd half of the page (the folded page) and as you turn the paper over to see the other portion of the picture.... there it is ...... it being ME! I know it's me but no one else will know. that's what I keep telling myself. It's too far away to recognize me, lucky for me!

Just too close for comfort .... but hey I'm glad I have that suit that I love on!

new Shelves all over the place

Several of my summer chores involved cleaning out and organizing. I want to create organization of my chaos and this summer was going to see it happen.

I've pulled everything out of one side of basement storage room. The side will all my food storage in it. Sort through it, put up wonderful shelves and put it all back .... well, not everything but I'm waiting on hubby to sort through some of HIS boxes.

FYI ~ if you'd like to see hubby's financial papers all the way back to the 80's, we have them for your viewing! receipts, bank statements, tax returnes, returned checks...... goodness!

I still have to replace the light in that portion of the storage room, but that will be soon. I don't look forward to that since it will be pitch black in there until I get the new light up! Oh well, I have 'willing' (?) sons the hold the flashlight!?!?

I also put up new shelves in the office, better, stronger, higher. I love organization!

Can you relate?

One of my summer jobs this summer was to clean out and purge my plastic containers! They were multiplying faster than I could blink! They had filled one deep drawer, spilling over to another drawer and for the past couple of months were sitting on the counter.

Well, last Saturday was the day to rid myself of the Plastic tub clutter!

This picture is of all the lids with out mates, the divorce rate was overwhelming in my drawer it seems. I pitched (tossed, flung, trashed, whatever you want to call it) an stuffed full Wal-mart bag of just lids!

Now my nice plastic container and their lids all fit VERY comfortably in a single drawer!