imagine that...

Double Overtime

2012-01-26T18:46:00.000-07:00

Last night's Jazz/Raptors game was fantabulous. The Raptors won in double overtime. Was pretty awesome for the 4 of us yelling and screaming our heads off for Toronto in the sea of Jazz fans. So fun! :)

And I'm sorry there hasn't been a Maiah birthday entry yet. (She did have an awesome one!) The lack of blogging isn't for want of things to say, it's more about lack of energy and such. I'll get to where I'm doing better at these things again. Thanks for hanging in there. :)

Hugs!

Happy 2012!

2012-01-06T04:10:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I'm this late, but Happy New Year!
I have no awesome entry ideas, pictures or anything, but I do have me a cherry zero and a tootsie roll. :p Hope those of you still checking in have had an awesome start to your new year. Cheers! :)

shocking, I know...

2011-12-26T01:54:00.000-07:00

...for me to be posting again so soon after my last blog entry. I just am scheduled to work all this week starting tonight so I figure I had better hurry and wish everyone a happy new year. lol

So this past year in a nutshell was...
...stressful. We moved to Orem, Vern stopped working full-time, I started working for the first time since I left Toronto, Brandon possibly had his identity stolen, Kirsten struggled at first here big time... Yeah - it's been stressful.
...it's been fun too though. Lagoon was fun this summer, Kirsten's Honk! experience was awesome, Brandon built his monster of a PC, and I, uh went kinda blonde again?! lol

Yeah, definitely on the lighter side. I love it! :)

This year has flown by, and changes keep on coming. Hopefully I start doing better at things like blogging & keeping in touch with people than I have been. Hopefully I keep my job past the seasonal stint, and hopefully Brandon gets things figured out so he can start doing some of the things he's been planning on. I miss blogging more, playing more, and keeping up on what's going on in other people's lives. There have been some big adjustments for me though, with even more on the horizon, so yeah. Just looking forward to a new year - hanging on to my monkeys and hoping for the best!

/hugs!!!

Merry Christmas!!

2011-12-25T04:59:00.000-07:00

The last 20 days have been a blur of work & sleep and I can't believe it's already Christmas. Santa has been here though so I guess it's time?! I hope that those of you who find this are having the most awesome sort of holiday season. Merry Christmas!
/hugs! :)

Honk!

2011-12-04T20:57:00.001-07:00

So yesterday was the final performance of Kirsten's school production of Honk. I can't remember the last time she was home from school before 10:30 pm between practices & tech stuff. She was assistant stage manager, and in several scenes. See if you can pick her out! :) I'm sad that my phone's camera didn't handle the snowflake dance scene better. It was so pretty. Kirsten rocked it as always. :) I paused my phone for scene changes, but got the whole thing with a break at intermission. I'm hoping the videos aren't too big to upload. :p

Okay, so they are. :p Will have to see think of a plan B, because these kids did such an awesome job - it's worth sharing - I'll figure something out.

Gogo youtube!! Aw, what the hey? Too long for youtube? Stinky. :p
Oh, and her and the tech crew built the set & everything. Aren't they awesome?
Enjoy! :)

when little ones are sick

2011-12-02T18:03:00.001-07:00

...it breaks my heart.

She had a fever, was lethargic & her cough had gotten scary so we took her to the instacare. There they took her temp (it was 104.1) and her oxygen saturation was too low/heart rate too high for their liking so they sent us to the ER. At the emergency room she had motrin for her fever & X-rays of her chest. Almost 5 hours later upper respiratory infection/ pneumonia was the diagnosis. She got a shot (the thick one they give you in the butt when you have pneumonia) and a prescription of antibiotics. Follow ups tomorrow & next week.

That was most of my day. :p
Oh, and yeah that's makeup on her right eye. She "got ready" for work with me last night & it won't come off. o.O

Happy Friday!

Thankful

2011-11-24T23:09:00.000-07:00

...for the crazy job I'm lovin' so much (I'm headed there, so it comes first. gogo Black Friday!)
...for the very cutest monkeys in the whole world, who give the me the bestest cuddles on a regular basis
...for the people in my life who make me smile :-)
...for naps & bubblebaths
...for my family even though I haven't seen so many of them in so long
...for pudding! Deliciousness.
...for the most awesome friends, who mostly live way too far away
...for energy drinks & pain meds
...for a happy sort of place to work & fun people to work with
...for the support of the people around me
...for comfy shoes & a cheap gym close by
...for whipped cream in my hot chocolate
...for my babies, even the fully grown ones ;-)

Happy Thanksgiving!!! :-)

one word

2011-11-13T01:35:00.000-07:00

An easy kind of meme for a busy, sleepy girl who needs to blog more! :p

You: exhausted o.O
Life: busy!
Feeling: cold
Home: messy (grrrr...)
Enjoying: squishymonkeycuddles (it's one word, I swear :p)
Mood: better :)
Want: chocolate
Need: pudding
Love: pudding!
Like: working
Tunes: random! :p
Clothes: sweats (comfy!)
Comfort: bubbles!

K, so the mood is better because I got to see Kirsten perform tonight at OHS. She's so awesome! I would do anything for some pudding at the moment, but will have to settle for a bubble bath. Been buried in finishing up these pictures (yeah, I'm late yet again - was hoping to be done by Halloween - so sorry - technical difficulties! Almost there!) Tomorrow's going to be a busy day, and I work tomorrow night. So yeah, bubble time! Then more pictures! Then sleep.

'night! :)

Halloween 2011

2011-11-01T00:56:00.000-06:00

Ok, so I'm sicker than a dog with the flu, but had to share some pics (and hopefully vids) from today. My monkeys are the bestest!!! :-)

Oh, and I should clarify - being sicker than a dog, I slept half of the day away & it was Vern who took Maiah to the boys' school Halloween parade and got the hilarious footage of my monkey's awesome dance moves. Thanks Vern!
...and while I was out trick-or-treating with them tonight, it was Vern who I asked to get videos then too. (His phone's camera is much nicer than mine.) I did take the photos before we headed to Riverton, but yeah, the vids were all taken by Vern.

And yeah. It's supposed to maybe snow tomorrow.
Happy November?!

Smile! :)

apologies

2011-10-23T14:26:00.000-06:00

I have been told that I am constantly apologizing for everything lately, so I thought I'd get it over with first here. I am sorry that I've been slacking as a blogger. :p
It's been forever since I last tried to put into words my life of late, so lets see what I come up with today. :) lol

Okay, first of all, I have a job! I'll be working at Target, overnight stocking. (Yay!) I was originally going to have my orientation on Nov. 1st, but they want me to come in on Tuesday instead now. I'm nervous & excited all at once! The orientation isn't an overnight shift - the first real overnight shift will be on Wednesday. Go me!
This past Wednesday I had oral surgery. Pretty much it was just like having wisdom teeth out, except that it was 2 molars & 1 wisdom tooth, and two of them were broken & had to be kind of dug out. :p It's actually hurt more the last 2 days than it did at first. :p I'm hoping to be feeling 100% some time soon. Oh, and I've had the cold my kiddos started passing around this past week too. Swollen glands, a cough & sore throat. Such fun timing. :p lol
So yeah, I've been in bed a bunch of late. Haven't been able to sleep so much though. Still struggling with headaches on top of the aforementioned stuff I've got going on. I'm one exhausted girl, who unfortunately finds that sleep does not come easily. (I'm even blogging from bed - since today my head is threatening to explode & my jaw is not so happy.) Oooh, I must say that my husky, 2 octaves lower voice has been fun though. lol
Brandon finally got his first paycheck and built himself a computer. it's beastly & awesome. It's fun to see him doing things that make him happy.
Kirsten still votes that we move back to Riverton. There are lots of things about school here that she's not lovin' but there have been some good opportunities mixed in. I say there's hope where her feelings about Orem are concerned. (totally crossing my fingers there)
Alright, I'm sorry but my head is hurting & I think I'm gonna hide under my pillow & close my eyes. I'll try and do better about sitting at my computer and keep people posted. So much is changing here, and I've just been focusing on surviving.

Happy Sunday peoples! keep on smiling!

so yeah

2011-10-11T10:18:00.000-06:00

Wow, it's almost been a week again. Time flies when you're hiding your head under a pillow fighting headaches?! I'm trying to think of something that I personally accomplished since I last wrote. Stuff has happened for sure, but I'm not sure I can claim to have accomplished anything of note myself. There have been monkey cuddles, and I've made cookies, helped with homework, searched job listings & done some laundry but yeah - just the same old stuff, and less of it. :p I do have photoshop open, and plans to get these pics done once and for all, but that's more in-the-works than anything. There's a million things I should be doing, and my guess is that the stress that probably helps cause said explosive-head syndrome is going to go nowhere until I get moving, so yeah.

Hugs!

an easy way

2011-10-05T10:50:00.000-06:00

...to break the silence is a meme! I haven't done one in forever. Of course, first I have to find one. Let's see...

Oooh, a simple one. Will make for a short little entry. Five things that you'd say to you right now if you were someone else:

Smile! :p
Trust your own instincts. Pray. Things will get better.
It's not selfish to take care of yourself too. Kiddos need a healthy mom.
Chin-up! If you keep trying someone's bound to hire you!
You have such beautiful children. :)

she blogs?!

2011-09-30T09:58:00.000-06:00

It's been pointed out to me by several people that I've been seriously slacking in the blogging department. I am so sorry. Sometimes life gets crazy and you really don't have much to say about it. :p I'll attempt a little bit of catch up for now, and promise to do better.

Okay, so...

Kirsten made it into her school play. They're doing Honk! Should be awesome. She also made it into the Shakespearean Festival competition. She gets to be in a scene, competing against schools across Utah. Go Kirsten go! Overall I think school's sucking a little less for her, though she'll still tell you it sucks. :p
I still have no job. :(
Brandon's been landscaping though. He's saving up to go to Toronto with Keith in January. I have to admit, I'm kind of jealous. I'd love to go to Toronto for 3 weeks!!
Maiah's growing up way too fast. She's so beautiful though! I love my princess monkey. She loves Caillou. :)
I got to take some pictures of Zoey the other day. She's a beautiful baby. :)

It was a good chance to see if I have my photoshop ready to go for bigger things. I was still missing one or 2 important actions, but re-wrote one & re-downloaded the other. Now I just have to replace all of my fonts, figure out how to organize files, create slideshows and batch process finishing touches without acdsee. (Unless I can remember the info for the software - it was a downloaded program purchase :p) It's funny how much I took for granted from all of my software that I've had forever. I found the disk to re-install ps7 and was like "Yay!" Then I opened it up and everything was at a default setting, I had no actions - no anything & I about cried. lol I think I do have it almost to where it was (except the fonts, a few brushes & such) and now I'm just missing the workflow support programs like acdsee & nero. A big deal, but with ps7 running (almost) properly I can at least start working on Kori's wedding stuff again. Having to work without those other programs will just make me slower. At this point, when their stuff was on hold for sooooooo long, I'm not sure that me being slower is any sort of good news, but at least they'll know they have pictures coming to them. Soon-ish maybe. I'm sorry. :p

So yeah, I'm here. Just praying for a job and excited to finish a project that was put on hold for way too long. The kiddos are good.
I'll try to blog more.
Yeah.

Hugs!

the fair

2011-09-18T22:28:00.000-06:00

Well really it's more like the kiddos ...at the fair.

The only camera I took with me when we went last week to the salt lake county fair was my phone & it's crappy little lens. I guess it really doesn't matter what you have in hand when capturing the likenesses of those you love, just that you do it. I can say that because these rare shots of 4 of my 5 monkeys in one frame are new favorites of mine. Coming straight from my little GalaxyS to this little blog.

Are they beautiful or what?! Even if they're making faces at mommy. :p

/squishes to all!

my girlies

2011-09-16T14:25:00.000-06:00

Ooh, I have a couple of recent pics of my girlies to share. I actually have taken a bazillion as always, but I'm on day 4 of a migraine that has made me cry & pretty much immobilized me, so I haven't uploaded many.
But...

Like I said - I have a couple. Straight from the camera to the blog. First up, my stunning K. :)

...Maiah Joy. Love how the light shows off those cheekies here. Beautiful monkey. :)

And because Maiah loves looking at all the baby pictures in my slideshows & the pics of Zoey up there, here's a couple baby-Maiah-monkey pics just for the benefit of her pretty smile. :)

...less than a day old :)

...6 days old (took hundreds of shots of my babe that day)

above at 2 weeks, next at 3...

...then a month.

I love my beautiful girlies. Maiah's already diggin' her baby pics. Of course, she thought it was Zoey at first but now she's telling me about baby Maiah. :) She's always been a sweet little thing. Hope she gets feeling better. (Day one of a little cold - fun! we shall cuddle and watch tv.)

Happy Friday peoples! Have fun. :)

Zoey

2011-09-10T19:11:00.000-06:00

She's beautiful, huh? :)

Congratulations Lauren & Ty. She's so sweet.

<---slacker

2011-09-09T10:45:00.000-06:00

I'm sorry I haven't been posting of late. I keep meaning to, but yeah - I have failed. Apologies!

I do have plans to take pics of the new abode to share here, and of my refinishing project for Kirsten last weekend. (It turned out awesome!) And, and... Yeah there's stuff I've been meaning to blog about. I'll get on it - I promise. :)

But first, I have to get ready for the day, because it sounds like I will get to be part of a welcoming party before the day is over. Lauren's water broke this morning! I know Zoey's going to be beautiful like her mommy, but it'll be fun to go hold her & take a pic or 2. :)

Happy Friday!
/squishes! :)

one week

2011-08-31T10:06:00.000-06:00

...and I haven't taken any pics yet.
...and there's still a few boxes.
...and I decided to blog even though I have no clue what I'm going to say.

I'm still here.
The kiddos are (hopefully) adjusting.
Brandon has a job prospect. (Cross your fingers for him please.)
I think I really like Orem.

Yeah, that's all I've got, and I need to get going again. I promise there will be pics soon. And I hope there will be jobs soon. And blogging will become a more regular thing again. Soon. :p

Hugs!

not there yet

2011-08-24T12:25:00.000-06:00

Ok, so we're still cleaning carpets at the old place and still unpacking here. When the rooms there were all full of stuff I underestimated the amount of carpets we had needing cleaning over there. And of course, all of that same stuff is taking awhile to get unpacked, put away & organized here.We're all working on it though.
This place is so much prettier, I really like our new landlord and Kirsten Brandon & I found a great walking/biking/running neighborhood close by.
We're still looking for jobs, so please keep us in your prayers.
The kiddos started school yesterday. The little boys had fun & Kirsten cried a bunch. (She didn't have the best day. Hopefully B days will be better/have nicer classmates.) No new friends yet for any of them, but hopefully that'll change.
K, time to get back to work. Not loving the clutter of boxes needing unpacking. :p

/squishes!!

boxes everywhere

2011-08-21T10:05:00.000-06:00

Well, I think we're mostly moved at this point. Most of our stuff is at the new place & we slept here last night. I have to go back tomorrow to the old place and clean the carpets & take care of the last of the odds & ends. I want that place as sparkly as possible. :p
Here we're still surrounded by boxes. I'll have that fixed before the end of the day. I'm loving this place so far. Everything works (2.5 baths and central air - woohoo!) & it's prettier imho.
I will take pics today as I unpack & organize, then figure out how to get 'em uploaded. I'm just on the laptop, using Vern's blackberry as a modem, and my phone's camera might be what I end up using, but there will be pictures! No internet until Thursday. Less than a week - I think we'll survive. :p

So yeah, I really just wanted to check in here and say we survived 90% of the move. We'll finish up & by the end of the week life should start settling down & we'll discover the new normal. Exciting stuff!

If you're a praying type please pray that I'll be able to find a job quick. Brandon too.

Have a great day!

still eating cake

2011-08-15T12:27:00.002-06:00

It's been the worst kind of yucky headache-y day for me so far, but...
Today is my Kirstie Leigh's 14th birthday! And yes, we really are still eating yummy chocolate birthday cake. Mmmmm...

We're headed to Kirsten's new school to pick up her schedule, and to Vern's school to get his financial aid stuff updated. Very exciting stuff. :p Here's hoping that somewhere in there I'll be able to make Kirsten feel special & loved. She so is. She's so very beautiful and talented. I'm proud of my chicka and who she is and where she's headed. Like lots of monkeys her age, she just bursting with potential & I'm so excited to see where she goes with it. I love you Kirsten. Be awesome! I love you!

birthday cake for breakfast

2011-08-13T11:34:00.001-06:00

Okay, so it freaks me out just a little that my oldest child is 20 years old. But he is. Today! Happy birthday Brandon!

My B is such an awesome young man with so much going for him. I'm totally excited to see him finally getting the chance to do something for himself - to move forward with his life. He just wants a job for now, and has some travel plans - but he's hoping to land in AZ and go to school there. I think it's a great choice and am so proud of him.

I love you Brandon! Hope you have an awesome birthday, and an even more fabulous year ahead. I'm so totally cheering you on. :-)

I have to dig out an old picture or two for his post - sorry no ps yet. :p

I love you! Happy birthday!

a day late

2011-08-03T02:29:00.000-06:00

...for my own birthday post. :p
...and I don't even have a picture.
But yeah - happy birthday to me!!! There will be the annual picture coming as soon as I can.

Sorry I've been slacking when it comes to posting here of late in general. It's just that, as I was saying the last time I posted, things are totally cRazy around here. We are moving on the weekend of the 20th! To Orem. Practically right next to Vern's school. It's super-convenient to everything retail. Like, yeah - everything. :p
So, as you can imagine, I am really busy trying to get things done - cleaning, packing, looking for a job... yeah. Fun stuff! :) But we'll have our high speed internet up quick, the dust will settle from this crazy whirlwind and I'll be back to blogging on a regular basis. I really do need to get some form of PS up and running asap, first of all for Kori & Ryan, who have been patient while their pictures have been held hostage by my horrible working-computer-luck, as well as for the ability to be picture happy here again. Just like old times. Blogging just isn't the same without pictures. Life isn't the same without me taking pictures. :p I'll have some catching up to do. :)

Meanwhile, a big thank you to those of you who remembered I turned another year older today, and a great big squishy hug to all of you people out there who I love and miss so much when life gets going all tornado-like on me.

Smile!

10 days later

2011-07-22T22:34:00.001-06:00

...and I'm sitting here with some fresh cut pineapple and nothing much to say. Been busy looking for employment, a home and everything that comes with the fact that Vern registered himself for fall classes at UVU and is going P/T at his job on August 4th.

Yeah, still slightly panicked and all at the moment, but still breathing, enjoying pineapple even, and trying to smile.

Hugs!

crazy stuff

2011-07-12T08:09:00.000-06:00

I'm sorry it's been so quiet around here. Life has been a little on the crazy side, and when it does that I'm not always sure what to say. :p

First of all - we went to see Kirsten in Bye Bye Birdie on Saturday & she was awesome. The whole cast did a good job - I laughed. I'm so especially proud of my girlie though. :)

The major craziness around here is centered around the fact that it looks like we're moving to Provo. Next month! Yeah. Brandon & Kirsten are not huge fans of this idea, and I'm completely freaked out, but Vern has decided he wants to go to school there. I've told him for the last 15 years that if he knows what he wants to do and just needs the schooling, he should just do it. He finally is. Crazy timing, but yeah. I'm hoping that if I work full-time nights & he at least works part-time we can maybe almost make about a third of what he's been making at the job he's quit. Not that we have jobs lined up yet, but yeah. Hopefully we will?! o.O

There's so much more I could say, and I might just come back & do it, but I promised Elijah he could have his turn on here so I need to stop typing. Just know I'm alive and all, life is just crazy right now.

/hugs!!!

rain rain go away

2011-07-07T21:20:00.000-06:00

It was a rainy kind of day, which resulted in the very-tired-April accidentally sleeping half of the day away. :p It was probably a good thing - I've been so exhausted of late, but yeah. I woke up in time to make some yummy dinner!

Hope everyone else had a fabulous kind of Thursday.
Hugs!

surprise!

2011-07-02T14:25:00.001-06:00

This holiday weekend snuck up on me. Seriously. It was a normal, kind of crazy type of week, then BAM! Yesterday was the parade, which Kirsten walked in with the arts council/cast of Bye Bye Birdie. Today is the fair & fireworks already?! Yeah - July totally snuck up on me. But hey, I was able to grab a shot of Brandon yesterday at the parade, so I'm excited! :)

Happy Canada Day! Happy 4th of July! Happy whatever you may be celebrating! Have fun! :)

observations

2011-06-26T22:57:00.001-06:00

...spending a Summer day with my kiddos where we ran through sprinklers, laid on a blanket in the sun, had popsicles and went to the park was awesome. It was totally weird when I realized the boys have school tomorrow. They only have one more week though! :p
...it's not all that helpful for Kirsten to do her (hilarious) interpretive dancing while I'm supposed to be playing guitar in rockband. It's pretty hard to hit the notes when you're laughing. :p
...it doesn't feel like a compliment when people say "Hey, you've lost weight..." Of course, when the scale says the same thing it's totally cool. :p
...days go by fast when you're playing.
...and tongue slides are cool. :)
...my kiddos are so awesome! Just sayin' :)

Yeah, I'm trying my best to kick a headache, holding a sleepy monkey princess & taking a break from rockband with Kirsten so I thought I'd poke my head in here to say hi. I don't really have anything much going on - just thought I'd send hugs to those who check in here. Squishy ones! :)

catch-up

2011-06-24T11:08:00.000-06:00

It's almost been a week again?!

Let's see... Well, Summer finally arrived! Yay. :)
And, um I've been going to the gym a lot.
The boys have just one week left of school.
Brandon's been trying to get all of his school stuff done. Gym class being 2 hrs of working out at Golds Gym a day is going much better than his bowling packet did. lol
Kirsten has had play practices every day this week. The play is July 8-18th. Can't wait to see it. :)
And um, yeah. It's Friday!

Yay!

more monkeys

2011-06-19T14:45:00.000-06:00

I was supposed to be chopping broccoli & cauliflower this morning for a side dish for today's bbq, but first I decided to get more monkey pics up. It's been so long, and even though it's a jerry-rigged solution, I'm just happy to be able to add pics to a post for once! lol

Ooh, and I found a shot that shows the blondness better. Just please don't tell me I look sad. It's already been said. :p

Hooray for monkeys!
Happy Father's Day!

monkeyness

2011-06-19T02:46:00.000-06:00

Okay, so this takes effort, and I'm way tired, but I have to share some cute monkeyness with all of you. Maiah was adorable today at Glen's wedding in her "tutu dress". I even got her to share her knock know joke with a few people.

It goes...
her cuteness: knock knock
mommy: who's there
her cuteness: banana
Mommy: banana who?
her cuteness: nummy tummy!!!

Nobody has a clue where she learned to tell knock knock jokes, or how she came up with hers, but it's unchanging, adorable & if I catch her in the right mood I can get her to share it with random people. lol

I love my monkeys. :)

There will be more when I'm not falling asleep at my keyboard. :)

just a quickie - pic added :)

2011-06-16T14:52:00.002-06:00

I have got to figure out how to get a picture of my new mucho-blonder hair on here. Ashley did an awesome job - it makes me smile. :)

Been kinda feeling down of late though. :(
I think the get-happy plan for today is to walk to the gym and sweat, move & lift til it hurts, walk home, make my kiddos dinner & play some WoW. It's been way too long since I last played. :p
...and I need to take a picture of the blondness. And figure out how to upload it to a computer without my camera software & how to size it without photoshop so that I can share here.

Yeah, that's all I've got. I'll attach above-mentioned-yet-to-be-taken-pic to this post when I figure out all of the hows. :)

Wish me luck! And a fantabulous gym session!
/squishes!!!

K - I'm back with a pic. Hooray! It doesn't even show the blonde all that well - we had some crazy wind gusts, but yeah. (It's the only shot where I don't look pissed or like I'm about to cry, and I'm getting tired of being told how sad I look of late. Yeah, not feeling awesome can do that sometimes. :p) It is pretty awesome however, to show a "hair" pic showcasing a totally bad hair moment. lol There's a LOT of light blonde highlights in there somewhere, I swear. You can tell in person. o.O

Now to go through the same crap I did to share that shot so that I can show off the cutest little monkeys in the world. It's only been forever.
My cute monkeys. ...coming soon to a blog near you! :)

disclaimer: Sorry for the less than stellar quality image. I miss my PS, and all of the tools that I constantly used without realizing how integral they were in how I did just about everything online. I'll get it all back someday.
...soon I hope. :p

Hugs!

smile!

2011-06-14T12:10:00.000-06:00

Maiah and Eljah always make me awesome artwork in Paint. I added the background to this one - it makes me smile! I hope you readers are smiling today!

Hugs!

!!!

2011-06-08T11:10:00.000-06:00

I'm sorry I haven't blogged in so long. It's been gogogo and I haven't sat at a computer in about a week.

So, our interviews yesterday went really well!
Brandon & I will have our green cards in a week or so. :) We're permanent residents! I'm sure if I weren't completely tired & sore I'd sound more excited. It really is a big deal, it's just been a totally crazy week or so leading up to this. I'm pretty much exhausted. :p

There's other things I could catch up on, but we'll save 'em for now. I'm hungry and Maiah is looking awfully cuddly. :)

Have a great day!

so crazy

2011-05-31T23:40:00.001-06:00

So today we went to get our state IDs that we're supposed to have at our interviews on the 7th, and the state wouldn't issue them without either social security numbers or a letter from the social security office stating that we're ineligible for SSNs. Okay... so we ran over there to find out that the office is only open from 10-4. Dangit. No letters for us today. We need to try again another day. Really soon. Like tomorrow if Vern can swing it. A little frustrating that this particular hoop seems to be one that wouldn't be an issue if we were Mexican. (Apparantly for them the ITIN would suffice.) Anyhow, really it just means that the craziness of today was fruitless & we get to do it again. Yay! :p This is looking like it's going to be a crazy week.

I did have an awesome workout tonight though! 6 miles followed by a killer leg session. Hope I can walk tomorrow. lol
And it was 70 degrees today. And it's supposed to be 80 tomorrow. Followed by rain on Thursday. lol
Oooh, and it looks like I might really have a computer again soon. For reals! Yay! There will be pictures once again. I so can't wait. :)
Firework (Katy Perry) played at the gym tonight and I had the worst miss you pang for my Dissension friends. I haven't even been able to play WoW for almost a week, but the thought that most of them aren't there anymore is just the saddest thing. :( I prefer life when I get to /squish those awesome people on a daily basis. Even when I wouldn't be able to anyway. :p (What's really funny is that most of those guys would find the idea of Katy Perry being "our song" worse than completely mortifying, but hey. lol Blame Craig. :))
Kirsten is almost off for the summer (1.5 days), and Brandon does his placement testing for school on the 13th, followed by registration on the 14th. He'll finally get his diploma! Yay!! :)

So yeah, things are a little crazy/busy around here right now, but we're gearing up for good things. If I'm a little absent most places it's just that life is insane. My plan to combat the stress is to work out like the crazy person that I am. (Besides, something has to be done about the winter chunk. lol) So yeah, while I'm not blogging I'm either running/lifting my butt off or passed out with exhaustion, cuddled somewhere with my babes.

Hugs!

holiday weekend

2011-05-30T01:04:00.000-06:00

I miss blogging when life gets going like it has been! /humungosquishes to those I've been missing! You all know who you are. :)
Hooray for long weekends! Even the rainy, still feeling icky ones. :p I felt a little better tonight and decided to use my energy to get some cleaning done. Our house is in serious need. :p
Kirsten's still working on her room as I type. Go girlie go! :D
Tomorrow we're headed to Vern's sister Jill's house for a bbq. Might be a wet one, but yeah we'll see.
I've logged some decent miles at the gym this past week in spite of feeling cruddy. (Yeah, I'm stubborn like that. :p) Go me!
I'm dying to figure out a way to share pics of my cute monkeys on here again. It's been so long. :p Being without a computer of my own for this long is severely suckish. I feel so bad for Kori & Ryan that their wedding shots are all (safely) stuck in limbo like that. Seriously not cool.
Ooh, and the way things have been going I've had like zero time to play WoW. It seems like I'm always sleeping off sickies or people are using their computers or something. So sad. :(
In spite of the chilly, damp weather I'm ready for some pretty polish on my toes, some cute shorts & sandals and dates at the park with my kiddos that include sunshine. And maybe slurpees. Yeah. :D
We found a new pediatrician for Elijah (who needed some catching up with immunizations) and I'm so impressed with the staff there. The doc was completely awesome with Ej, and I became a fan when he did the double-take after asking how many siblings Elijah has/what ages & I said I had a 19 year old. I always love it when people do the "how young were you when you started having kids? You don't look old enough..." thing. Yeah, makes my day when that stuff happens.
My kiddos & I have been putting my library card to good use. Kirsten devours books like I do, and B and Vernie read a bunch too. Maiah & Elijah just love borrowing dvds. There's been a lot of Scooby-Doo-ing here of late. :p
Oh, I wanted to try to describe how I've been feeling in case anyone out there has any good ideas about what might be up with me. :p I've been kind of out of it, woozy & lightheaded and feel like I'm going to pass out way too many times a day. The best way I can think of to describe it when it's at its worst is like I'm on a heavy narcotic or something. (Which I'm not. :p) It might be my anemia acting up - the passing out was an issue for me when I was younger & it was more of a pronounced thing. Or my blood pressure - but it's reading fine; or my bp meds, except they haven't changed. Yeah. Not sure what's going on, but the headache-y-ness that happens after the near-pass-out moments is getting old. As is the feeling of not being totally with it. Any ideas? *crosses fingers*
Alrighty, time to find my pillow. And some warmth. Can't believe I'm saying this when it's almost June, but brrrrrrrrrr.

pounding

2011-05-25T03:21:00.000-06:00

I know I often talk about my love of sleeping in on this little blog of mine, but the migraine I battled today had me in bed with a pillow over my head popping medicine the moment I could again all day until after 4:30 pm. Yes folks, I slept all day. o.O (Well, I guess it's more like I tried to but with my head threatening to explode & pain to the point of nausea it was more like lay very still & do not open your eyes and you might just survive this. :p) The tactic eventually worked, and I even logged 6+ miles at the gym tonight.
...while watching American Idol & Glee. Yeah I'm awesome like that. lol

Here's hoping for a functioning me tomorrow! And for more sunshine. (Yeah we finally had a decent day while I hid under my pillow.) Go figure. :p

'night folks!

blue

2011-05-24T00:12:00.001-06:00

...is the color of the new cast on Elijah's arm. His first cast was loose enough (your arm shrinks from non-use etc.) this morning at his follow-up appointment that the doctor re-cast it to keep it from moving. One of the bones didn't really go back into place but is starting to heal, so at this point he wants to keep it in the position it's in so it can continue to progress. (Beats re-breaking & resetting it, right? :p) His teacher had just signed the green cast this morning too. Now he has an almost blank canvas again. (He and I did the initiating again. Gogo smiley faces & a big orange dot. lol :D)

I'm kinda blue too. Have not been feeling so great these last few days and am totally sick of the damp, cold weather. I realize there are people way worse off than me thanks to the crazy weather going on in this country alone and am grateful for the roof over my head tonight. I truly am. I just would love a little warmth & sunshine. It is almost June and all... :p
Oh yeah, our water heater is on the fritz & I'm learning that warm showers are something to appreciate as well.
...And I appreciate Maiah's fantabulous cuddles 'n kisses. And the case of Diet Vanilla Pepsi I have going thanks to Brian & his congratulatory thoughtfulness. (Thank you! Was so good to see you guys!)

Now I just need a hot tub for my sore back, some dark quietness for my headache & to grab me one of those DVPs I just mentioned. :p

Hugs all around! I miss people. I feel like it's been days since I last got to be social.
Smile! :)

I cried

2011-05-17T23:19:00.002-06:00

...and then I yelled for the kids to wake Brandon up.
...then I made him open his. :)
...then we spent the rest of the evening/afternoon looking at local job openings.

Hooray for our employment authorization cards! They came before we expected & were a very welcome shock. lol (The way we understood it they would arrive some time after this coming interview. I knew that changing our status to residents was different/seperate from being permitted to work, I just remembered our lawyer's office saying that we'd receive our employment authorization shortly after our interviews.) I like this *before* plan much better!

Now to find something that fits. For each of us. (B can finally finish up the last of his high school credits, and I'd love to find some form of employment that works with mommyhood. A late night shift or something. Something. We're finally allowed to do something. Go us!) :)

I celebrated by getting a library card. Because I could.

Rawr.

1 week

2011-05-17T01:30:00.001-06:00

A whole week with no blogging?! Let's see if I can catch us up. :)

Kenyon & Jeannette blessed little Berick on Sunday, and afterward we had a big family dinner. I say big because with all of Vern's siblings & all of their children there are 33+. o.O
My boys have been enjoying being off track. There's been a lot of gaming going on (of course) and some good old-fashioned playing too. It's been fun. :)
I've been loving going to the gym lately. After a few months with no membership it feels so good to be sweating daily again. :)
It's been lonely playing WoW of late. (Well, when I actually get to play, which isn't all that much.) Our raiding team fell apart. Sadness. Gogo dailies! And levelling my little toons. I love and am gonna miss seeing those friends on a regular basis though. :(
I'm watching Dinner for Schmucks while blogging. Strange but kind of funny movie. I think I like it... not really sure what to think?! lol K, it ended. Wow. Just ...wow.
We're meeting with our lawyer on Thursday to prep for our interviews June 7th. Progress! Yay!!
Elijah went back to the doctor today for a follow-up x-ray. He's healing pretty well! His cast is quite the weapon though. He almost broke my nose with his broken arm while cuddling the other day. Owie. :p
Cross your fingers/say a prayer for my girlie this week! Dance Company tryouts for next year have begun. Go Kirsten go!!! :)
Alrighty, I'm pretty sleepy tonight. Killed it in my chest/back session & ran five miles. Time to find my pillow.

'night!

sunshine?!

2011-05-10T18:55:00.001-06:00

Rain, snow, cold, floods, hail, more rain, more snow, brrrrrr...
This has been one crazy Spring. Our poor flowers in this part of the world have been struggling a bit what with the cold temps, hail, wind and such. My tulips are very sad indeed.

Elijah's cast is very green though! And my tulips partly survived! And Maiah's like a little burst of sunshine. And, and... yeah. :)

Have a happy, cold, wet & gray May day!

I love you Mom!

2011-05-08T15:04:00.000-06:00

Happy Mother's Day Mom! I love you.
You probably won't see this, but I'm thinking of you regardless. :)

...my day so far has consisted of sleeping in & Maiah cuddles. (Uh yeah, it wouldn't be me if my day started any other way, right? :p) Oh, and I made me some frozen pizza for brunch. Also very me. :)
I have a little cold (from the day at the park in the cold wind with my little kiddos when we were without power) and am fighting a bit of a headache. Awesomeness?!
I've been itching to play WoW - haven't played since early Friday. (Pre-broken-arm-adventure. O.o) I doubt we'll have a raid or anything tonight though since gamer-type people have mommies too. :p And I kinda feel like we should go to the bring-your-own-meat-&-a-side-to-share bbq at Nina's so that Vern can see his mom today. It's supposed to rain though, I'm still in my jammies & really really wanna play. We shall see! I should at least check in & /squish my friends. And I should shower & put some clothes on so Vern can go hug his mom. I doubt he'd go without me, so yeah. That's the plan. :)

That's my day. I hope that all of the mommy types out there are having themselves an awesome day and are feeling loved & appreciated.

today (...1 monkey, 2 breaks)

2011-05-06T19:46:00.002-06:00

Today Elijah had a field trip to Wheeler Farm & the Living Planet Aquarium. He wasn't sure if he was going to have his usual drive home, so Maiah and I went to pick him up.
I got there and saw some of his classmates but no sign of him or any of the people he rides with. I tried to get his teacher's attention to ask if he'd gone home already but she was busy shepherding straggling kindergarteners so I assumed I'd missed him & walked home quickly. When I got home Elijah wasn't there, so in a panic I left Maiah with Brandon & ran back to the school. When I arrived there was no sign of anyone from his class outside, so I went in to their classroom to check. No luck.
Figuring I'd somehow crossed paths with the awesome lady who drives him home every day I started back home. As I turned onto the street from the school's driveway, his class aide Mrs. Lambert pulled up and told me he was at home, Miss Karen was with him and that he'd broken his arm. She offered me a ride, but I figured we live close enough that it was sixes for time & started jogging. Once there, I found a worried-looking Karen, a pale Elijah holding his arm laying in the front passenger seat of her car & the two kiddos he drives home with playing in my front yard. Lauren, Tyler, Nina & Vern were on their way. I splinted Ej's arm with an umbrella from Karen's car, Brandon carried him out so I could hold him, Lauren & Nina showed up and away we went to the kid's instacare over at the hospital.

K, here's Elijah's side of this story thus far.
Today after school I was playing on the monkeybars. I can't go all the way across, so I dropped and fell on the woodchips on my arm. I saw my arm at the bottom there was a big white spot on my skin and I saw my bone stick up. They carried me into the office and miss Karen laid me down in the car and took me home. My mom and Grandma took me to the doctors, and they took 2 pictures. Then I found out I broke my arm.
(From what all the teachers/helpers said he was in shock, bluish-white and obviously in pain. He scared 'em good. :p)

Yeah, so he broke both bones in his left forearm & will get a cast on Monday. For right now he's splinted, medicated & being such a good sport. The doctor & nurses were amazed by how brave, sweet & good he was for them. He's awesome like that. :) They gave him lots of extra stickers & lollipops for being such a trooper. He would have loved to keep the wheelchair, but yeah. lol
Actually, the guy at in & out, where we grabbed lunch on the way home (complete with a vanilla-milkshake-brave-reward) gave him oodles of stickers too. lol Gogo cuteness factor. :)

It's been a very long day thus far. :p
Oh, but his fieldtrip was awesome & now he's off-track for the next 3 weeks.

Sorry for the bad scan of the photocopied x-ray. You can see the 2 breaks though.
Yeah.

I do believe it's naptime!

Huggishness!

maybe later

2011-05-05T15:12:00.000-06:00

I don't want to jinx this nice weather, but it's actually all Spring-like and pretty outside. It's about time! :p I'm feelin' way overdue for a nice dose of sunshine.
I miss my sister. And her Canadian chocolate. lol
We survived our day and a half without power. Barely. I hope to never experience that again.o.O
I finally get to renew my gym membership tomorrow. Yay!! I'm so excited to get going again.
I've been getting headaches a lot lately. So not my favorite.
Maiah's so cute over there, watching Carebears & Strawberry Shortcake online. I blame Kirsten.
Yeah I know this is all random useless info. I'd been wanting to blog, and when I finally got to sit down here I totally forgot whatever it was I wanted to say. :p
Yeah, all I can think right now is that it's about naptime. Maybe I'll remember what I have to say later. :)

Hugs!

powerless

2011-05-03T22:42:00.000-06:00

...yeah.
Our power will be turned back on some time tomorrow. Makes for a long day today, that's for sure. We came to Nina's house to borrow her kitchen to make dinner, bathed Maiah & I'm blogging from Vern's laptop while it's charging here. Fun stuff. o.O

I have to admit that I'm still laughing at my nephew Chris' comment on my last entry. lol I was ready to huck that camera something fierce after walking along the strip trying to figure out how to turn that damn menu off. Figures it was user-uselessness. lol I still say it's another reason to switch to Canon. :p

My kiddos send hugs Robin! And Brandon loved the chocolate fix. Thank you. :)

Okay, hopefully life will be normal tomorrow. Being without electricity is not so fabulous, though I'm grateful it's only for one day.

'night peoples!

Happy May!

2011-05-03T00:45:00.001-06:00

I loved being able to see my big sister over the weekend and hug her happy birthday in person!

Thanks again Lauren & Ty for helping to make it possible, Judy for taking Robin to Vegas for her birthday, Vern for driving 14-ish hours total so I could spend half a day with my sister, and Brandon for keeping the monkeys safe in my absence.

We have our letters of appointment with the immigration officers on the morning of June 7th. Hooray for progress! I just hope everything goes smoothly at this point. We've had enough glitches & such. :p

Lauren & Tyler found out today that they're having a girl! I'm so excited for them! Hooray! :)

Maiah's been the cuddliest, sweetest baby girl tonight. I think maybe she missed me, even though she did so awesome for Brandon. I love my beautiful monkeys!

I really really really need to get my gym membership back up and running. Especially after 2 days of eating out & driving. Seriously feeling extra-pudgy today. lol Gotta get moving. :p

K, so I'm still tired from the weekend whirlwind & Maiah's not liking this blogging thing. Sounds like cuddle-to-sleep time to me.

'night!

a pink cowboy hat & half-naked men

2011-04-29T14:49:00.001-06:00

...that seems to be the gist of how my big sister is planning to celebrate her 40th birthday in Vegas today. lol
Happy birthday Robin!
I'd say be good but yeah... we'll go with have fun & be safe! :)
I love you!
Can't wait to see you Sunday. Hooray!

Oh, and Simple Plan is coming out with a new album! Yay! Sounds like old school SP, and Pierre is looking more like his old-school self these days too. Yum.
The first new single makes me smile.

Happy Friday peoples!!

so yeah

2011-04-28T20:59:00.001-06:00

It has been a crazy kind of week. In order to fill you all in I'm going to do the random catch-up thing.

Kirsten's figured out how to style her hair so that she doesn't hate it so much. She's lookin cute as ever! Yay!

Vern & I are headed to St. George on Saturday so I can ninja some of my big sister's Sunday. She'll be in Vegas for her (39+1) birthday with her friend Judy. I can't wait to go hug her! Special thanks to Lauren & Tyler for allowing us to stay with them Saturday night in St. George so that we can pull off the last minute trip. :o)

Maiah is running around the house in her tutu. I love my little monkey princess.

Dissension is looking for 2 raiders! (I wish I was joking. My favorite group of WoW friends has shrunk & we need replacements before we lose more people.) Good friends leaving the game and the thought of Dissension raids being at an end makes for one sad April.

My dad is doing ok with recovery so far. I love you dad! Please take care.
I'm so excited for this movie!

brb I need to go stop 2 little boys from killing eachother. The yelling happening in the other room is so not cool.

...K! No bloodshed, just some grumpy kiddos on the verge of beditme.

Alrighty, I'm hungry, still need to run to the store and have some monkeys who need to be tucked in.

'night!

oh no she didn't...

2011-04-26T12:26:00.002-06:00

I am so tired this morning, but I'm gonna blog anyway. So there.
I just might have a nap when I'm done. :p

I made the mistake of taking Kirsten to one of those walk-in places for her haircut yesterday. (In my defense, she'd had very good luck the last 3 times she went there.) This was not the case yesterday. At all. In fact, Kirsten had the unfortunate opportunity of receiving the worst hack-job I've ever seen. Ever. Seriously. Not only did the girl not do what we asked (I helped Kirsten explain that she did NOT want to lose length, just get some wispy long layers worked in & cute, choppy-like bangs.) The picture we brought in was of a totally cute haircut that Kirsten's hair was finally long enough to do. The girl obviously had zero clue what she was doing, and she didn't seem to care. She kind of tried. She failed. Horribly.
She made my girlio cry. :(
I tried to help her fix it. We died it brown. She was trying to match her natural haircolor ...it went darker than I expected. Cute, but yeah - it's dark. And short. Again. Poor girl.
It's a good thing she's so cute no matter what. :)

Yeah. Oh, and I cut myself twice while trying to help fix it. Two different fingers. Damn those sharp hair scissors... :p

I love you dad

2011-04-24T02:05:00.001-06:00

My dad had some serious surgery on Thursday. I'm so grateful that it went well & that so far he's ok.
Prayers please!

I loved holding my newest nephew Berick on Friday. He's so soft, sweet & beautiful. Kenyon & Jeannette will be such cute parents.

The kiddos had a blast at the easter egg hunt today, then coloring eggs with aunt Lauren & Kori. Fun times.

In case you can't tell, I'm totally exhausted.
Time for me to find my pillow.
nighty night!

babies

2011-04-22T00:10:00.000-06:00

Congratulations Kenyon & Jeannette! Berick is so cute! Can't wait to hold him. :)

Sorry I've been quiet.
Had a scare last night when we couldn't find Maiah, who'd gone outside in the dark, wet & cold wearing only a t-shirt & diaper and walked 1/2 a mile, headed apparently to the store. She was supposed to be upstairs looking for pajama pants with Vernie while we were downstairs where the tv & computers are. 5 minutes after he came back down we asked where Maiah was & he went to look. He didn't find her so we all started looking. I ran outside to the corner, but decided it was way too cold & dark for her to be out there, besides there was no sign of her. After scouring the house and immediately outside Vern called Kirsten, who was sleeping over at her friends, to ask if she'd left the door open or seen Maiah upstairs before she left. Kirsten told him "I have her." Apparantly her & Kiana were walking to the store when the police stopped them & asked if they were looking for someone. Kirsten said no and they asked if she knew any 18 month-2 year olds in the area. Kirsten responded "Maiah...?" Thankfully Maiah says her name clearly, and Kirsten's as well. The police let Kirsten claim her & they were headed home with their escort when we found them. Vern had been gone to meet Kirsten for far too long so I went running tear-streaked & barefoot down the street and around the corner to find a calm but cold baby who was holding a teddy bear & wrapped in Kirsten's hoody, and a very distraught big sister holding her. All told the police say Maiah had been outside for half an hour. They made me promise it wouldn't happen again. Uh, yeah.
We were so lucky that Kirsten & Kiana headed to Peterson's and stumbled across the police & my baby. I'm grateful it didn't take us longer (though it was obviously too long) to check where Maiah had wandered off to. We all seemed to think someone else was with her. Not good. I still can't believe that she decided to sneak out in the cold & dark and made it so far before being stopped. I'm grateful all she got was cold.

...and I'm happy to report that I knew exactly where my babe was every minute of the last 24 hours.
That was the scariest thing. Kiss your babies and keep them safe.

'night.

Vivian & Wil

2011-04-18T13:53:00.000-06:00

I'm thinking of your beautiful family today, seeing how hard the Raleigh area was hit by the storms yesterday.
Love you!

Brian and Brooks too - hope they're ok.

hugs!

sunshine, fresh air, pudding and K

2011-04-18T00:51:00.000-06:00

It was a beautiful sunshine-y Sunday and I made a point of getting outside & enjoying it. I grabbed Kirsten & we went for a 5.75 mile walk. It was a good thing. I've been kind of down of late for so many reasons, and some quiet, active sunshine was the perfect lift.
Of course, then I logged into WoW for raid night and there was none. :o( There were some of my favorite voices over vent, but yeah - we were short people again. We had enough for a heroic and a wand attempt for Ari (no dice) then Vern got home and I surrendered his computer and went for another walk with my K.
Thank goodness for sunshine, fresh air, friendly voices & Kirsten.
...And my pillow. And late night blogging from bed.
Yeah.
Now if only I had me some pudding.
Things would seem better if there was pudding. :)

'night blogland!

Kirsten Rocks

2011-04-16T01:50:00.000-06:00

My girlie nailed her part at her school talent show today!
She looked & sounded so beautiful. I'm totally proud of her! She's happy that she went through with it & I'm so happy that it was a positive experience for her. The 3 girls are having (yet another) sleepover to celebrate the fun they had onstage together. (They slept at Kiana's last night too - so that they could get all ready & primped as a group this morning.) It's been quite the day for them. :)
Thank you Lauren for the drive to the school. I always enjoy your company.
I have a video & Laurie had her camera too - but I have no way to upload the flip as of yet. It exists though, so once I have a working computer I'll share. Well, unless I find the flip software before my computer gets resurrected - then I could use Vern's comp to upload & share.

Anyway, just had to tell the world how awesome my Kirsten is. I love watching her perform. She's so awesome!

just some words tonight

2011-04-11T00:07:00.000-06:00

Thank you Dissension friends for our raid tonight. I needed some play time. :)
I'm sorry mom that I didn't call you on your birthday. I hope to do better on Mothers' Day. :)
Slow down Maiah. You're growing up way too fast.
Thank you Dixie, for always thinking of me.
You're amazing Helena. When's the last time I let you know how much I enjoy knowing you, in the small way that I do?
Shhhh... It's okay Elijah. No more spider. Go back to bed sweetie.
Go get 'em Kirsten! Hope your first play practice goes well tomorrow & I can't wait to cheer you on at the talent show on Friday!
Hang in there Lauren! Pregnancies have their fun times too. :)
I love you monkeys! Sweet dreams my beautiful kiddos.
Please mail-person, bring me the papers I need in order to be able to go to my biometric appointment.
And please Melissa, no more mistakes in our paperwork.
Hey Robin, please squish my nephews for me. :)
Congratulations Tyler on being done with persuasive essays, hopefully forever. lol
Mercy, life. I don't think I can handle any more things going wrong right now.

hugs!

abcd efg hijk lmnop qrs tuv wxy and z sing with me!

2011-04-07T04:25:00.001-06:00

Is it really Thursday already? I am such a slacker! My apologies. :)
Let's see... Well, I am still gimped in the photograph department. (A fact I find quite depressing, actually, though I have planned a work-around or two. So sneaky, I know, but I can promise that this entry will not just be another boring wall of text.)

So here we go with the week so far in my little world. Alphabetically for kicks!

Another random post is about to happen. Sorry!
I've been helping Brandon level his warlock a little bit in WoW. Fun stuff! I may finally finish levelling mine and actually learn how to play one. :)
Of course C is for cuddles! They are a much-needed daily dose of sunshine for me. :)
Dear Vivian, I thought of you lots yesterday. (the 5th) I hope you had a fabulous birthday!

Elijah has decided that he wants to be a rock star when he grows up. Such cuteness! lol I think that Lego Rockband may be responsible, at least in part, for this decision. :)
My whole Family has been singing Forget You lately. Blame Kirsten. And Glee. Yeah. :)

Gosh, I'm only on G? This is gonna take awhile... :P
Have I mentioned yet that I want pudding? Yeah, it's 3 am, I can't sleep and I want pudding. Mmmmm... :)
I have not been running lately. My gym membership ran out & we haven't been able to renew it yet, and my treadmill belt has needed to be oiled for months now, rendering it unusable. Yeah, another no-go. My life seems to be filled with those things of late. Bummer. :(
I Just changed two pillowcases, Maiah's diaper, her pajamas & the sheets beneath her. Her diaper soaked through. Ick. No wonder she's having a big middle-of-the night awake period. Maybe she'll get warm & comfy now that she's dry.:p
Kirsten and two of her friends are trying out for their school talent show tomorrow. Wish them luck! There will be flippage of their performance at the show, of course!
I had my Last can of diet vanilla Pepsi earlier. Sadness. :(
Maiah still hasn't gone back to sleep. She keeps tickling my lower back, giggling and saying "mommy's butt!" and "got you!" So cute, but I swear it's just my back. :p
Another No-go: The race I wanted to run this month. Registration never happened & training fell apart with the whole gym thing, so yeah. I plan to go cheer the runners on though, to motivate me for September. :)
Of course, the lack of gym membership paired with the fact that I actually still get hungry (even when I don't work out) has me feeling positively chunky. Sometimes I hate that I like food. o.O
Mmmmm... Pudding please! And sunshine too - so I can run outside. And the stupid expensive lube for my treadmill. And my gym membership. While we're at it could we fix my computer? And Vern's? And, and... Okay, yeah, I could really use some pudding. :P
I'll Quit whining. Sorry!
Richard is still MIA. :( He told Pain (I think ...or someone) that he'd be gone a couple weeks or something, but yeah - I miss him. We have this core group of people that have played together for so long - I honestly worry/miss them when real life happens and they disappear. (*cough* Yen... *coughcough* Canc & Oshee ...It'll be *cough/bonkLorecough* soonish if he stays gone. :p) I guess it's dumb, we just play a game and all, but these are some of my most favorite-est people ever and they matter to me. It's not as much fun when they go away. :(
It is Spring! And it hasn't snowed in a day and a half! And the next storm isn't here yet. Yay!
Oh, and my Tulips are looking good so far, despite the crazy Utah weather. I hope they hang in there. We'll see. :)
My Usual happy things list has been impaired with my photography, working out/running, WoW, blogging and such all being impacted in negative ways right now. And there's the guilt that stems from Kori's wedding pictures being stuck just because I am. I'm used to being stuck in some ways, but lately life has been a little ridiculous. :(
All I can say is thank goodness for monkey cuddles. And pudding. And yeah, bring on the damn tulips! :)
(Oooh, I wonder if I can remember how to get into my photobucket account - I could put up my old Spring banner - it had some happy tulips! I'd make a new one, but yeah. Not an option.)
Vern's computer is sick. He was trying to re-format it tonight but it was still not acting right at first, and he started to wonder if it was a hardware issue. Not sure yet what it was, but I'm really hoping he can get it back up and running so that I can continue to use it to play & blog while mine is collecting dust, waiting for parts. *crosses fingers*
Wait, I was supposed to stop whining. Let me think of some happy things to share. Hmmm... I was told last night by 3 different people that I don't look my age. (We all know I love it when that happens. lol) I had mentioned Brandon's age & was told I don't look at all old enough to be his mom - 2 ladies had guessed that I was 13 years younger?! Yeah, I do love those moments. Especially when they happen in 3s!
Oh, and it happened at an art eXhibit at BYU that I ended up going to. It was a girls night that I was unsure about, but that ended up being fun. If you ever find yourself on campus, go to the BYU Creamery on 9th street. Seriously yummy burgers & fries at the grill, and the ice cream & waffle cones are so good. :)
Yet another person I was speaking to the other day looked at me when I spoke of loving shaking a brand new bag of milk as a kid - getting it nice and foamy, then making a tiny hole in the corner & squeezing out the yummy bubbles straight into my mouth. Mmmmmm... :) Everyone I say "bag of milk" to here thinks I'm crazy. I promise I'm not. At least not about this. :p So I looked up some pictures of said format online. Here's what I'm talking about - milk... in bags... sold in Canada... consumed by happy little kiddos like I once was. Oh, and this first one shows a milk jug, like the ones we all put the bags in, after we sliced the corner off for pouring. :)

(No copyright infringement intended - these are not my images. I'm grateful these photos existed online to demonstrate what my own words could not.)

Zzzzzzzzzz... Time to find my pillow.
'night!

o.O

2011-04-03T13:56:00.000-06:00

Okay, so while it was so sunny and beautiful this past week I kept hearing "but it's going to snow this weekend." I figured it would. This is Utah after all. :p
What I wasn't expecting was snow that was heavy enough to break one of our trees. o.O It wasn't just a limb either. The trunk was v-shaped and it split in the middle from the weight on one half. My neighbor is gonna love it - she's always said she can't see well pulling out because of our pretty pink trees. Well there she goes. The closest half of the one closest to her driveway is laying across ours. :(
I wish I could share a picture of this craziness. :p
Instead I'm just sending out hugs & wishing everyone a happy Sunday!

girls only

2011-04-02T02:39:00.000-06:00

Kirsten & I have had some good opportunities to hang out and talk lately. Girls nights/days kind of rock. :)
On Thursday we sat out on the driveway with Maiah & Elijah, enjoying the sunshine & creating some awesome sidewalk chalk art. It was fun! We need to get some more sidewalk chalk. And we need more sunny days. :)
We watched mobbed together last night. Awesome proposal/wedding! The girl freaking out and being so emotional was some seriously good watching. We decided that from now on any guy who proposes to his girl, no matter how much thought or heart he puts into it is going to be asked "um, where are my dancers?" Okay, so we're mostly kidding, but it was a fun show.
Then tonight Tangled brought tears. It was an I laughed, I cried, it moved me Bob kind of movie. "You were my new dream..." "you were mine..." *sniff* So sweet. :)
It's been nice enough for evening walks this week too. (Well, non freezy-cold ones. It's not like we didn't walk all winter - it was just less enjoyable. :p) I love that tradition of ours. More talking. And exercise. And chocolate. Well, usually. ;) Oh, and she can still find Orion on a clear night like I taught her. Good girl. :)
Kirsten is way too hard on herself, like most girls are, and she's every bit emotional as I remember being at that age. Maybe worse. lol She has some good friends, and there are some girls I'd like to strangle on her behalf. (Okay, so I'm mostly kidding again, but I still think girls are mean and wish I could do more than just listen & try to help her through these years.) Jr. High is seriously difficult stuff at times, but those can also be some totally fun years to look back on. She's a lot like I was, though I'd say she's better off in some ways and is dealing with her own issues and circumstances. I think she'll be okay. I hope so.
I wish I could share some pics of my beautiful Kirstie Leigh. And of our awesome sidewalk chalk art. Or something. Soon I hope. Blogging without pictures is only half as fun.
For now though I'm going to sneak me in a WoW turn. I waited all night for a free computer.
It's me time. :)

Later!

lasagna, garlic bread and swedish fish

2011-03-31T01:46:00.001-06:00

Mmmmmm...
That's what I made us for dinner. And what we shared for dessert. Yum! lol

Okay, so I have just a few quick things to share...

First of all, Kirsten made it into the production of Bye Bye Birdie that she auditioned for, as part of the ensemble cast. Go Kirstie Leigh go! I'm so proud of you. :)
I have my parent/teacher conference with Elijah's teacher tomorrow afternoon. Can't wait to hear how he's doing. (Yeah, I already know he's awesome. lol)
That lasagna we had for dinner was good, but I'm so totally craving jalapeño poppers from Arbys. With the buffalo berry sauce. Yummy! *must-have-some-soon*
Kirsten's hanging out in my room with me tonight. She's been sick & home from school the last couple of days. She's fun to talk to. A little boy crazy, but yeah. lol We are in agreement that we need to do a photo shoot soon. Just because I have no computer to upload them to doesn't mean we cant have some fun taking pics of eachother. And Maiah. And Elijah. And Vernie. And whoever else wants in. lol :)
My back has been hurting a lot lately. Like, I can't stand up straight half of the time again because of lower back pain. Beats headaches I guess, but yeah, I'm getting sick of being in pain. :p
My notice of receipt from the US government for filing for the change of status finally came. (Brandon's & Vern's came last week.) ...mine was sent to the wrong address. Somehow the paralegal made yet another mistake that we didn't catch & turned mine in with half of Nina's address & half of ours?! It went to Nina's house. Yeah. Not too happy to have another mistake on our hands. Especially at the crazy amount this stuff is costing us. Those official receipts (complete with a do not leave the country while this is pending notice) are a big step. Yay!

K, yeah - that's plenty of random babbling. My apologies for the continued lack of pics. I honestly have no clue when Vern will get around to fixing my computer. Bummer, huh. :p

'night blogland!

my first half = the other half!

2011-03-28T12:10:00.001-06:00

So it looks like my first half marathon will be the Other Half! I really need to register asap, which I hope to do. I'm all excited - this race is run by the same people that ran the Winter Sun (my first 10k) and the course looks so beautiful. I'm really excited to do this one. When we finished the 10k I felt like I could do a longer race, and saw some info on this one while we were down there, but with everyone still trying to recover from the race we'd just done nobody else was interested. Yet. I'm still not sure I'll find anyone to do this with me, but it really doesn't matter.This is one I want to do for myself anyway. I promise I'll try my best not to bore everybody with oodles of running talk when I get into training, but will obviously keep folks posted some. I'll be so excited when we get me all registered!

Oooh, and I have to shout out to my Dissension friends - we had a fun raid last night! We finally timed a Baradin Hold run & got through there easily. BWD was fun too, though we're still not huge fans of worms. lol

Okay, it's almost naptime. :p I had an early morning (well, for me) appointment and it's snowing again, so warm blankets, cuddly babe & pillow here I come! :)

Happy Spring!

2011-03-25T12:50:00.000-06:00

...even though it's snowing here right now. Yeah...
I'm just happy to be back online. We've been without our home internet since Tuesday. Our phone is through Vonage, so no internet connection has meant no home phone either. :p Fun huh? But it's Friday afternoon and all is well again. :) I might just brave the snow & get a couple of things done. And there's definitely some WoW in my near future. I wish there was some PS time & wedding pic proofing as well, but not yet. :p Yeah, still missing my computer something fierce.

But hey, it's Spring! And I visited Viv & Wil in my dreams this morning and North Carolina was was exceptionally beautiful and full of pretty flowers in my head. I'll take my dream over the snow going on here. Seriously uncool to be dumped on like this today. lol

Anyway, I'm happy to be back online and excited to see some Spring-y-ness here soon!

Hugs!

4 days

2011-03-21T16:41:00.002-06:00

...since I last blogged.

And as promised, this will be at least a little different than what has become standard here of late. Of course, I'm still without my own computer, camera & such so I'm just going to find a meme. Kind of cheating, I know but hey - at least it's a break from the "weekend update" format. :)

a meme about something!

something interesting
...Inception. Fascinating movie. Two thumbs up!

something yummy

...Pudding! Mmmmm...

something sad
...No Lore last night. No raid last night even though we had 10 people. We even had enough ranged. Yeah, sadness. :(
something funny
...Will Smith.

something blue
...My pajama pants. They're comfy too. :)
something little
...Maiah! She's cute too. :)
something happy
...Elijah playing Lego Rockband. Maiah cuddles. Brandon's smile. Kirsten Dancing. Vernie eating something besides a purple burrito. Pudding! Yeah :)
something gross
...Worms all over the sidewalk after it rains. Ick.
something fun
...Training for a race. Weight-lifting when I'm stressed. Walking in a pretty neighborhood. Playing WoW. Talking to my friends.
something scary
...The thought of anything bad happening to my kiddos.
something soft
...My pillow. My hands. Maiah's hair.
something exciting
...Kirsten auditioned for Bye Bye Birdie, since they cancelled the production of Saturday's Warrior. Callbacks should be some time this week.
something frustrating
...Not having access to my own computer. Not being able to work on Kori & Ryan's stuff. Having nowhere to upload new pictures, therefore not really playing with my camera at all. Yeah.
something tempting
...An afternoon nap. (I'm so tired :p)

Ok, yeah - I am really tired. I think a nap sounds amazing before I walk to the store to get the rest of the stuff to make dinner. And maybe some banana bread. Mmmmmm...

Hugs!

one more time

2011-03-17T18:38:00.000-06:00

I promise that I will beak out of this random paragraph style of blog entry soon. It's driving me crazy almost as much as not having the ability to share pictures does. Things are just less exciting without pictures! But yeah, it's what I have for now.
Happy St. Patrick's Day! I'm not Irish, but do like kisses. :)
Vern's surgery went really well this morning. His doctor is excited for him - he should be pain-free once he recovers (which should be quick), he's comfortable so far & we're just recovering from the early start to our day. Oh man I am so not a natural morning person. o.O
Today our papers were officially submitted! We finally applied for an adjustment of status for B & I with Vern as our sponsor. I'm just trying to get hold of people we knew back when we came here to help verify where & when we were admitted into the US. They'll want more info to corroborate our statement about our entry.
I heart Adam Sandler. He totally makes me laugh. :)
American Idol results show tonight! Yay. :)
Oooh, it's soon-ish. Didn't realize it was that late. :p I had better hurry & run to the store so I can be back in time to catch it.
Have a good one!
:)

another one

2011-03-16T00:26:00.000-06:00

Another words-only blog entry makes for a sad sort of April. :(

But...

Elijah is 6 today. S-I-X!
Completely unbelievable, but true. My little monkey is not all that little anymore. He's lovin' kindergarten, doing awesome with reading & is as sweet and cuddly as ever. He's so excited to have new Lego sets to play with. (Brandon got him the ice dragon and a little set with another guy.) I still need to make his cake before I go to bed so that he can have a piece for breakfast.

So with no pictures, how do I describe Elijah?
He's my sweetheart, and my can-take-him anywhere child. He's happy, friendly and full of cuddles. He loves hotwheels, mac 'n cheese and going for walks with mom. I've shared lots of pics of his cuteness on here through the years, so just picture him as always - just a little taller. He needs to stop getting taller. :p I love him so much though! He makes me smile all the time & lets me squish him when I need hugs. He's an awesome little monkey.

Happy birthday Elijah!
I love you! :)

birthday boy

2011-03-13T17:57:00.000-06:00

I have no pictures of him, but my Vernie is 10 today.

He's the monkey with the chocolate brown eyes. He's my little gamer - he loves strategy/war games, and first person shooters. He's a natural at math and enjoys school in general. He's good at it. Smart kiddo. He's a thinker, a builder, a strategist & gives great hugs when nobody's looking.

We took the kiddos to a park today (it's nice out!) made Vernie a cake and dinner is almost ready. His favorite - chicken alfredo. Brandon bought him a new game - gears of war 2 or something like that. We got him & Elijah (Ej's b-day is on Wednesday) Lego Universe, with 3 month subscriptions each. Fun stuff!'

Oh, and he's got a general request. Please dont call him "little Vern" anymore. Double-digits and all. yeah.

Happy birthday chocolate monkey! I love you so much & hope you're having an awesome sort of day. :)

Hugs!

another random one

2011-03-12T03:35:00.002-07:00

Sorry I've been in a random "this is what I did today/is going on with the family/I'm thinking about" mode around here. I've lost my mojo ...among many other things. :p It's what I've got though, along with Vern's laptop, my pillow & some cold air coming in my window, so I'm going with it. So there! Here goes...
I really wanted to play WoW tonight, but when we got home from shopping my keys were missing from Vern's desk. Sound familar? lol Yeah, sucks when it happens. :( The kiddos were asleep when I went looking for them, so I'm hoping they'll be lucky little monkeys and be able to help find them quickly in the morning. Or, even better - maybe I can ask Maiah where she put them & she'll remember. :p
Vern scheduled his shoulder surgery for Thursday. They say it's an outpatient type of thing, but he'll need 6 weeks recovery time. People who have had the same thing done say DO NOT take the sling off early. I wonder how he'll adjust to left-handed everything with his right shoulder/arm/whatever in a sling for that long. He was home sick today, trying to overcome the flu. I don't think he's told his boss yet. :p
Brandon's really coming home some time tomorrow night. For reals. I'm almost positive this time. I think. :p
Elijah will be too. He went to Blanding with Nina overnight. Long drive. He was so excited!
I spent a couple of hours at the gym tonight - got an awesome workout in. 4.5 miles on the treadmill, a killer leg session & the freeweight area all to myself. Muahaha. I love Friday nights at the gym!
Of course, it's Friday, Vern's sick & I was headed to the gym so Pizza Hut made us dinner... Yeah, I'm not sure how much the workout counts for after a couple slices of stuffed-crust veggie lovers. :p It was so good though. And I was hungry!
I'm still just so sad to have no access to my computer/photoshop. There are a bazillion things I could/should be doing but yeah. Instead I'm blogging in the dark. :(
Vernie's birthday is on Sunday, Elijah's is Wednesday and I have no way to share pics of them on here. It's a tradition, and as far as I can tell so far I'm going to fail. Suckishness. 10 & 6 though. Crazy huh? They were my babies yesterday. I swear! :p

Alrighty, I'm getting sleepy. Time to turn this thing off.
Sweet dreams!

it's today! it's today!

2011-03-10T18:54:00.002-07:00

Brandon should be home some time tonight from his week in Arizona.
I've missed him. Hope he's had an awesome time! :)

In keeping with our crazy Utah weather, things changed up again and it was almost Spring-like today. Warm enough to melt all the snow from our most recent storm in the valley. It's not AZ warm, but hey I'll take it. :)

Dissension finally started doing cataclysm raids. lol It's fun but hard. We're barely geared to start & need to figure out how to get more ranged dps - our group of people isn't very diverse. :p We have the most awesome group of people, but yeah - not necessarily an optimal class makeup for success. Hy is helping Yen level his mage, which could be enough. Well, with Vern on his hunter at least - that's 3 ranged. I'm just not sure how we're going to do that - we had 10 with no Vern yesterday. And all melee except Oshee. lol Poor Oshee. Long night. :p

No, I have not yet signed the change-of-status papers. We're a week over what I thought. Yeah. That always seems to be how these things go. :(

Vern might be getting his explorative shoulder surgery soon. The doc told him yesterday that it's really the only logical next step since nothing else has worked. He seems scared but ready to get this thing figured out.

Well, yeah. Random I know but that's everything on my mind at the moment. I have a run soon, and AI the results show at the same time, so it's time to pour me some diet pepsi & get comfy.

'night!

Tuesday was...

2011-03-08T22:59:00.001-07:00

...slow
At least this morning it was. I had a hard time getting out of bed - it took me awhile. :p
...wet
All of the snow from our storm was melty & slushy this afternoon. It was sunny but not all that warm. :p
...sweet
I had an Easter Cream Egg today. Mmmmmm...
...cuddly
Maiah was mommy's little girl lots today. Love it when she wants extra doses of cuddles. :)
...busy
I couldn't believe how crowded the gym was. It gets insane when the High School teams show up to practice & work out. The track, both basketball gyms, the indoor soccer field & both weight rooms were just so completely busy. Thankfully I squished my session in just fine, but yeah. :p
...owie
I had the ickiest headache that I tried so hard to get rid of before walking to the gym. Thankfully it got a little better during the 3 mile walk. :)
...delicious
I made some yummy loaded mashed potatoes for dinner - bacon, chives & cheddar. Yum.
...entertaining
There was a new Glee tonight! 'nuff said. :)
...quiet
Everyone's asleep, and all I have left to do is a little ab session & maybe peek into WoW. Love my late-night me time. :)

'night blogland! :)

I should post something.

2011-03-03T15:00:00.000-07:00

Yeah, that's what I keep telling myself.

So here I am. :)

If you can't tell, it's really a bummer for me to not have access to my stuff. My computer is the key to so much fun & important ...stuff. But hey - it was actually warm enough to walk to the gym a couple of days this week. And this season of American Idol is under way, so there are good things going on as well. :)

It's not like I don't blog picture-less all the time either, I just prefer having that option. Yeah. Good thing there are other things too. Like happy little videos. And memes, though I don't have time to find one today. And and... /squishes! Nothing wrong with poking my head in here just to send out squishes. :)

Smile!

Aw yeah.

Happy Thursday!

agh... adventures in laptop blogging

2011-02-26T01:22:00.001-07:00

Upon arriving home this evening from our grocery shopping trip I found my computer off. Elijah, who had played it while I tried to sleep off my headache this afternoon said it was "tired". I was a little frustrated when it wouldn't turn back on. :p Vern went into troubleshooting mode & I grabbed Maiah & my pint of fresh blueberries (man, she loves those things) and came up here to flip through a magazine while he figured it out.
He did.
My motherboard is dead. :(
What really sucks is that we can't replace it immediately. Vern does think he has on old one that can get me back up & running in the morning to tide me over, but yeah. I am, at least momentarily, without my computer.
Poor Kori. it's been one thing after another - it's gonna be forever before she sees her wedding pics at this rate.
Poor me too. So much of what I love to do is tied to my computer. Blogging, WoW & all my photo stuff. Yeah. Such a bummer.
I do have those blueberries though! Yum. :) A new fitness magazine too. Yay! And of course, I have access to the best monkey cuddles in the world. So yeah, it could be worse.

Happy Friday!
--------------

Monday Update...

So yeah. It wasn't my motherboard. Or, at least it wasn't just my motherboard.

Might be the power supply? :p

All I know is that I'm still without my computer.

afk

2011-02-24T14:24:00.000-07:00

...sorry I haven't been blogging.

It's cold, I'm tired and most definitely sick of being cold. :p

I vote we bring on some Sunshine.

Yeah. Spring please!

Saturday's to-do list

2011-02-19T20:01:00.002-07:00

Sleep in.

...done.

Go to the library with Kirsten.

...done.

Get a nice chunk of Kori's pictures done.

...working on it!

Then upload some to the photo blog for her.

...I totally should!

Read to Elijah.

...done :)

Play some Rock Band2.

...done

Eat too much licorice. And too much pizza.

...done. :p

Work out.

...partly done.

Do some laundry.

...done.

Blog!

...almost done.

Include a new picture of yourself.

...done

A monkey pic too please!

...done

Aw, that one makes me happy. :)

Okay... now I need to get back to proofing.

Happy Saturday!

Friday morning

2011-02-18T19:47:00.000-07:00

So this morning at around 2:30 Vern woke up thinking he needed to take his bp meds. Instead of falling back asleep he laid there feeling like he'd been running a marathon. At some point he came wandering downstairs to Brandon & I looking distraught. His heart was racing and acting like it was ready to jump right out of his chest, and he was more than just a little freaked out. He tried to relax down here & it didn't stop. So I called his mom and away to the ER we went. Some meds to slow it down later, along with an ekg and an hour of observation & Vern is now aware of a congenial defect he has called Paroxysmal Atrial Tachycardia. Not life-threatening in and of itself, but could obviously compound other things if he were to have an episode at the wrong moment. (His heart rate was 215-ish - a normal heart rate is somewhere between 50-100.) Mine beats like this. ...hiswasbeatingmorelikethis

So yeah, fun morning. Oh, and today was the day that our local power company had sent around flyers letting us know they'd be working on lines in our area and that there could be outages in the morning/afternoon hours. There was. It's okay - we just took the kiddos to Carls Jr for lunch and playplace time. Hooray.

And then I napped. :)

speaking of man-food

2011-02-16T18:10:00.000-07:00

I made the boys some poutine for dinner tonight.

mmmmm...
I must've done ok - Vern said it made him think of Toronto. Yep. Then it tasted like poutine. :)
I didn't partake though. I'm still full from the sandwich Vern brought me home from Gourmandise tonight. Oh man, I heart their curry-chicken-salad sandwiches. So good.

Oh, and if you don't know what on earth poutine is, here's the wikipedia entry. lol
poutine-wiki
Please note, I had no cheese curds so I used chunks of cheese instead. Almost as good.

Happy Valentines Day!

2011-02-14T10:50:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to quickly wish all you blog readers a happy, love-filled day. :)

Hugs!

cuteness and other happy things

2011-02-11T22:03:00.000-07:00

I finally got us some pictures of Maiah! I didn't get her all dressed up, but Kirsten had just done her hair & I thought they were cute playing on the couch so I grabbed the camera. We did pause to clean up her boogies. Yeah, she's still sick. ...but so stinkin' cute. :)

So yeah - we totally needed a dose of happy little monkey cuteness around here. You're welcome. :)

Oh, and fantabulous news - Brandon's Canadian passport came today! Now we can both finally prove who we are! We're just waiting on Vern to clear up the tax/financial stuff as our sponsor and I think we'll be ready to file for our change of status. I hope. I really really really hope. :)

Happy Friday night peoples!
Smile! :)

so proud

2011-02-08T10:59:00.000-07:00

Of this girl...

This here beautiful girl went to her first audition last night. The local arts council is putting on a musical - Saturday's Warrior. The idea of auditioning was a last minute one. Her friend Kyle told her there were still openings, so her & Kiana did a last minute rush to get a song together. K feels really good about her audition, so we'll see what happens with callbacks. Crossing my fingers for the girlios!:)

Afterward I made these...

Yeah, finally. They're so yummy. :)

yeah, that's me tonight

2011-02-06T02:28:00.003-07:00

First of all...

It's true. I do. :)

Second of all, after waking up with The.Worst. Headache. Ever. I'm pretty proud of the 4 miles I ran at the gym today. A couple minutes over goal pace for April's 5k, but with time to train & considering I've been sick all week & felt like crud today with my head threatening to explode and all I'll so take it. And smile. Yay!

And since I haven't done one in forever, it's meme time! 1,2,3,4,5!!!

One picture of you today (and one thing you love about the person in that picture):
Ugh post workout, pre-shower :p Kind of mugshot-like. Too many bad shots in a row on here. Must have a pretty picture day soon... :(

K, and um - I've always liked my eyes. At first glance you'd say they're brown, but here's a closer look from that same shot.

Not the best example, but I have a ring of brown, a ring of green and then a dark ring. Kirsten has the same colors in her eyes, but her green ring is dominant and my brown ring is. Oh, and I have a little black spot in both irises in the same place under my pupil. It's something people rarely notice. It's a little detail but I like it. :p

Two of today's accomplishments:
Well, the workout with 4 miles almost at pace was a favorite for sure. And, um... I bought groceries? Cuddled with some cute little monkeys? Yeah, the workout & the monkey cuddles were the bestest. :)

Three things that made you smile today:
Maiah playing Caillou on my computer. My Jr. Mints. P.S. P.P.S lol

Four thoughts to take to bed with you tonight:
Maybe I'll wake up headache-less! I am seriously in need of some pudding. mmmmm... I love pudding. I hope Brandon's having fun at Mo's!

Five things you have planned for tomorrow:
Um, well I'm supposed to make sloppy Joes, and maybe finally the cake balls. (I know, I know - just do it already. I'm just afraid I'll eat too many of them. :p) I should definitely sleep in since it's Sunday and all. Oh, and I'm pretty sure there will be some football on tv... lol Oooh, and if Maiah's feeling up to it I want to do a little photo shoot with her. I've just been waiting out her sickies. Hopefully tomorrow she'll feel a little better & I can get some pics of my pretty little monkey. :)

Those things always take longer than I expect. And all I accomplished with that one was to talk about monkey cuddles & food as always. lol Go me! Well, I did get to share another un-fabulous pic of me as well. So awesome?! :p But yeah, for the most part grabbing memes online is a nice cheat for when you want to blog & have nothing new to talk about.
Yeah, that's me tonight. :p

Sweet dreams!

a quick one

2011-02-04T17:00:00.002-07:00

Happy Friday peoples!
Just a quick entry from me tonight. :)

We've got some Rock Band going on here on this brrrr-frickin-cold Friday evening, though Maiah & I are still both miserably sick. :p

I went to help with Elijah class Valentine's Day party this morning. It was fun! (Yeah, they know they were 10 days early - the kiddos are going off track for 3 weeks though.)

We're hoping for some In 'n Out for dinner tonight. ("We" being mostly Brandon & I. :p)

Oooh, last night we went back to Ulduar to get the last couple of dwarves that a handful of us missed for our rusted protodrakes. We got a few other titles & mounts for people while we were at it. Fun stuff. Good night! (Don't mind the raid frames being all skiddleywampus in my screenshot - been pvping lately and was too lazy to get stuff put back in order. Looking at this makes me wanna go do it right now though. :p)

Kirsten is feeling pretty today. I need to grab my camera and take a few pics of her.
I haven't made the cake balls yet. I just might have to do that at some point tonight. Mmmmm...

Aw, my baby girl is so sad - she's so not enjoying this round of sickies. :( Time for cuddles!

Have a great weekend. :)

brrr cold, ridiculously high and super low

2011-02-02T14:11:00.000-07:00

Happy February peoples!

Here in Utah we're starting this month out with some seriously-brrrr-cold weather. As a result I'm all wrapped up in my blanket hoping I don't find a reason to have to venture out walking anywhere.

My blood pressure at the doctors office yesterday was ridiculously high. Like 168/119 or something like that. lol So hopefully when we fill my prescription on Friday and I have meds again I'll start feeling better in some small way. Maybe some of the headaches will go or maybe I'll be able to sleep or something. We shall see. :p

I was a little surprised - my heart rate was really low. Like, the machine double checked that I was still there or something kind of low. Apparently that's normal for someone who gets the amount of exercise I do. They said it makes you more efficient. Yay! Bring on the 5K in April! I'm still not registered for that. I hope I can be soon. :p Kirsten had said she wanted to run it with me, but has wavered ever since and I haven't been able to get Lauren to say she'll do it, so it might be a loner one. I need this though, so I say bring it - no matter what.

So yeah, that's all I've got. :p I'm cold, a little hungry and should really be working on proofing for Kori instead of typing this. :p

Have a great day!

/squishes!

a couple of weeks late

2011-01-31T17:44:00.000-07:00

...But I decided today that I'd grab some pics of the blondness before it completely grows out. lol

Sorry it's taken so long, but I've been feeling cruddy which doesn't exactly make me excited to get in front of the camera, so yeah. :p Kirsten kept telling me to try and look happy, and resorted to teasing. I guess it worked - I don't feel like these look all death-warmed over or whatever. :p

I actually slept in again today. Well, crawled back into bed is more like it. I finished my book & cuddled with Maiah - made for an easy start to the day. I needed some lovin' and monkey cuddles are magic like that. As a matter of fact I might just smuggle my babygirl and go back to my pillow once I get dinner made. Naptime! Oh yeah...

Have a good one!

fabuliscious

2011-01-29T18:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was not a great day. I was kind of bummed, taking everything far too personally & was just kind of sad for no concrete reason.

So I woke up today & decided that one day like that per week is plenty, and set out to have a better day today. This is what I did...

I slept in.

I went to the gym and lifted weights, plus ran 3 miles. My time was much better today than Thursday. Yay!

I stole hugs & kisses from all of my kiddos, including Brandon. Go me!

I got me some sunshine. It's still cold-ish, but the sun was shining. So yeah.

I bought me a Cadbury easter cream egg when we went grocery shopping. Mmmmm...

I made enchiladas for dinner. Yes, again - hey it was a request. :p

And I'm planning on making chocolate pie in a little while.

Oooh, and I bought the stuff to make cake balls. Strawberry cream cheese ones. Yum!

Oh and I bought lotion for my poor dry skin. Utah winters are so dry it's crazy.

I'm also going to finish up my elder achievements. Well, I hope. I would have yesterday but my internet connection conked out. :( Gig was awesome enough to help me with the Wrath dungeons. He's so fabuliscious. :)

So yeah, I've had a better day today. By choice. :p

Tuesday evening

2011-01-25T16:43:00.004-07:00

It's been lightly snowing all day today. Brrr...
The little kiddos went to play at Nina's house. Maiah's so excited - mostly because she's been asking for Lauren for the last two days, and we promised she'd be able to see her there. She loves you so much aunt Laurie! :)
I made chicken enchiladas for dinner. Delisciousness. Makes for a very happy Brandon. :)

I heart Dissension! My group of WoW friends are seriously the bestest. I'm hoping we get to start raiding soon-ish so we can rock this xpac a little faster than the last one. :p

I was hoping that somewhere in Kori's wedding pics there'd be a picture of my hair, but I finally got finished sorting everything and there's not. I seriously have to get a pic of the blondeness soon. :p

This right here is dangerous. And probably partly responsible for the wriggling it took to put my jeans on today.

Well that and the fact that it's been too cold to walk to the gym as often. :p (Maiah loves the soft bean burritos. Elijah's a mexi-fry guy and I find the crisp burritos totally addictive. Mmmmmm... yeah just looking at those makes me feel like I should be running or something. )

The doctors still don't know what to do about Vern's shoulder pain. He got another shot yesterday, which seemed to help. Sounds like they might run a bunch more tests before doing the surgery he's been hoping to avoid. He just wants the pain gone I think.

No word yet about Brandon's passport. I think we need to call them again and see what's holding it up now. I figure if they'd sent it after he gave them the last bit of information they requested it'd be here by now, so... :p

Oh, and RockBand rocks! It's so much fun. :)

Well yeah, since I'm hair pic-less yet again & I obviously don't have all that much to say, I'll just send squishes out and wish you all a happy Tuesday evening.

Smile! :)

so excited!

2011-01-22T18:39:00.001-07:00

I've been wanting to find a race to run between now & the Moab Second Half in the Fall. (Which I'm hoping to do. Oh Laurie...) Was hoping for a 5k or something this Spring, to get ready for the half marathon.

I'm all excited tonight because I think I've found it! The Salt Lake City Marathon is held in April, and they hold a 5k that day also. (It's on April 16th to be exact) It sounds just about perfect. Lauren, you've gotta check this one out - the info is here. Here's an excerpt from their website:

New this year…the 5K will start and finish at The Gateway Plaza. The new route can accommodate increased participation, plus the space and parking needed to accommodate much larger crowds. It also makes for a much more exciting 5K venue with thousands of spectators to cheer you on.

The "new" route will start adjacent to the fountain, then depart the Gateway traveling east on South Temple past the Energy Solutions Arena to State St. Participants will then journey south on State for approximately .8 miles just past the Marriott City Center, turning west on Gallivan Ave. There you’ll be able to refuel at an aid station before returning back… traveling east on 300 South and then north on State St, onto South Temple and back the Gateway.

The finish line will be filled with spirit, music and celebration. The last mile of the course is a lively Celebration Station, filled with crowds of well-wishers and more energy than you thought possible! Live bands will be performing on the entertainment stages, school cheering squads will be on hand and there will be plenty of fun diversions for participants, their families and friends. Fun interactive exhibits for adults and children, and great food and great music will all be part of the festivities to help celebrate and cheer on the athletes.

All 5K participants will receive a race goody bag, a participant shirt, and entrance to the Quality of Life Expo.

There's this one that looked fun as well - it's just that it's in March & I'm thinking a couple extra weeks of training could be good after the way I've slacked the last month or so. :p Besides, starting & ending at the gateway, and being part of the big marathon day in a small way sounds awesome. And Kirsten's gonna run this one! (Lauren should come too. hint. hint.) So yeah - I'm all excited at the thought of running a race in April. A quick, fun one. Yeah - so excited!

And now I'm off to the gym, wanting to see where I'm at and getting into the swing of training again. Yay!

3 days

2011-01-19T20:13:00.001-07:00

Let's see if we can catch up from the last three days. I've spent way too many of them all sickie-like & in bed, but yeah - here's the update...

First of all, I heart nyquil. And my pillow. Yeah.

I have a lot of work to do now that I can. I'm all excited to get going on editing & proofing the pics from Friday.

Vernie has an ear infection. Poor guy. I let him stay home from school today. Hope he's feeling better tomorrow.

I'm all excited to be watching American Idol - gogo season 10!

I helped Elijah do his little project on monkeys for his kindergarten class. It was the absolute cutest. :) I'm hoping we get it back since I didn't think to take a picture of it before he handed it in. :p

Maiah keeps talking about Laurie. She loves you aunt Lauren!

Oh, and Tyler - love the latest artwork! So excited that we'll be seeing more of your work throughout this school year. :)

Oooh, I need to get a picture of my hair on here. So much blonde - I love it!

Yeah, sorry for the randomness. I've been doing a whole lot of nothing, and am realizing I don't really have a whole lot to say. :p

Yeah, so I'm not concentrating very well on typing while watching the AI auditions, itching to do my dailies & with so much work I need to get going on, so I'll just send out hugs for now to all you blog readers. :)

nyquil-induced-sleep

2011-01-16T13:50:00.000-07:00

First of all, Kori & Ryan's wedding day was so beautiful! They seem very happy. :)

I've spent the rest of the weekend mostly in a nyquil-induced-sleep sort of state. I woke up Saturday all chilled & achey - really just not feeling so well. So yeah, that's where I've been & plan on being til my head stops threatening to explode and I feel a little closer to normal. Yeah, so there.

I hope you readers are all having a good weekend! :)

a couple days late, still sick and as pretty as ever

2011-01-12T17:10:00.000-07:00

This beautiful little monkey is still sick, but I took pictures of her anyway to commemorate her 2nd birthday.
She loves her dolls, puppies, her playhouse, makeup, being tickled, going for walks with mommy, diet pepsi, playing with her big brothers & sisters, being held by Brandon, taking videos on the flip & singing on rock band. She's talking more and more, loves to laugh & is going to look absolutely beautiful on Friday at her aunt Kori's wedding.

I love my Maiah Joy. She had a low-key kind of birthday with the sickies & all but I hope she knows how very much I love her. :)

princessmonkeybeautiful

2011-01-10T18:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday (January 9th) was Maiah's second birthday. I haven't forgotten to blog about my princessmonkeybeautiful's big day, it's just that she's been sick & I've been sick and we've done more cuddling and less picture-taking than a usual birthday would call for.
When her pretty little head is less boogey-filled there will be a little photo shoot & blog entry in her honor.
Promise. :)

a beautiful thought

2011-01-08T00:41:00.000-07:00

We had some Friday night fun with Lauren & Tyler, and while we were there she showed me this video that Ryan Woodward, one of Ty's future BYU professors in the animation program created. It is so completely beautiful. I was excited when she sent me the link to his blog (which you can view by clicking on his name above, and see some story behind the video and more info on him) that the video had embed code so I could share this with my blog friends. Like I said, I think it's beautiful, and this kind of work fascinates me. Enjoy!

Thought of You from Ryan J Woodward on Vimeo.

13 miles in September

2011-01-07T12:18:00.000-07:00

I would like to run a half marathon in September. The Moab second half to be exact. It's not official yet, and I haven't started training - but I think that's a worthy goal & am hoping Lauren thinks so too! She mentioned it the other day and I got all excited - I'd wanted to run this one and didn't think I had any sort of partner to make it a go-ahead. Please Laurie please oh please... :p

While I'm at it, besides needing to get better snapshots of myself for these things, here are some goals for 2011...

beautiful girls

2011-01-04T03:50:00.000-07:00

I can't believe a week has gone by since my last entry. If that's any indication, this will be another fast year. :p

I have a little something to make up for my absence - I'm going to share some shots of a few of my most favorite beautiful girls. :)

I have to grab a picture of my princessmonkeybeautiful. I can't do a beautiful girl post without including both of my girls, right? :)

There. :) Aw I need to give Maiah a proper little photo shoot soon. She looks so much like Kirsten, they just have different coloring. I heart my pretty girls. I've gotta say too, that I've loved working with Kori. She was always camera shy so I never bugged her to come pose for me like I did Laurie & Kirsten. She's a natural though, and the camera loves her. Beautiful. Just beautiful. :)

Hugs!

a few of my favorite things

2010-12-28T19:34:00.000-07:00

...in no particular order

Elijah's hugs

Pudding

Maiah's kisses

Diet Pepsi

The gym

Vernie's smile

WoW and even better - my Dissension friends

Talking to Kirsten

Brandon's sense of humor

My new shoes - so sexy
Running

My pillow

Bridal sessions

Dancing (in the kitchen. with my kiddos.)

Maiah's laugh

my Victoria's Secret lotions

movie night/girls' night out

Calla lilies

the Beach

Happy babies

Cuddles
Fog
when headache medicines actually work :p

Christmas Eve

2010-12-24T02:50:00.003-07:00

Have you ever worried that all you've got was somehow not enough? That's me this Christmas Eve.

Have you ever missed your family or loved ones during a special day & just wished you could change things and show them that they mean something to you even though they're far away? Yep, that's me too.

Have you ever had a sweet little monkey-babe smile at you and make everything seem almost okay, if only for a moment? Their hugs work too, and kisses are the bestest. Yeah. I heart my monkeys, and that's me this Christmas Eve.

Normally I love Christmas. I still do, I just feel a little detached this year - like something's missing. I've spent a lot of years in Utah and have developed a few traditions with my aforementioned babes, but I guess I haven't been caught up in monkey-joy just yet. I'm sure having Chinese food with Vern's family followed by some hopefully smile-filled Christmas morning festivities and our own traditions will bring some good times.

Yeah, it's just been a slightly blue-ish Christmas season thus far. Maybe more blah than blue - but definitely off regardless. Thankfully, I do think all of my babes will be happy, and so am looking forward to enjoying them (and all of their smiles, hugs & kisses) this weekend. I'm channeling good thoughts to those I love who are far away. I didn't even do cards this year (again) but I'm hoping people feel loved regardless. I was able to do something for my dad that made me feel good. He felt loved I think. :) Hopefully I can do things for everyone else on my list as opportunities arise.

Merry Christmas (or whatever you may be celebrating) peoples! I hope that this entry finds people smiling, healthy and enjoying their loved ones. I'll add tree pictures once Santa arrives. :)

Hooray! Santa made it! My kiddos are going to be so happy when they wake up. Now I hope I can somehow sleep so I can enjoy them in the early morning hours. lol Physically I'm exhausted, but my mind has had problems shutting down & letting me sleep of late.
Wish me luck!

a merry-wishing sort of blog entry

2010-12-23T23:00:00.002-07:00

I'm sorry I haven't blogged in a few days. I've been battling the sickies, trying to get some work done and getting ready for Christmas. I'm all excited to see my kiddos' excitement on Christmas morning - that's my absolute favorite part. :)

Christmas kind of snuck up on me this time around. I just haven't been all that into it, but we were at least able to do good things by our kiddos in the end, so all is well.

I'll do my annual Christmas Eve pic tomorrow & hopefully my kiddos and I will all be feeling well enough to enjoy Christmas morning.

Meanwhile, I hope that all of you blog-reading friends are enjoying your holidays. I wish you all happiness and good times. :)

sweetness

2010-12-20T16:06:00.000-07:00

For those of us in need of a hug, a smile or some dose of sweetness in these last days before Christmas, I've got just the thing.

Awwww... yep. I love that little face so much! It worked for me. :) If the sweet face of a little one doesn't work for you the best consolation prize I can come up with is to share my cherry cordial kisses. So there. :p

/squishes!

tis the season :)

2010-12-18T11:55:00.000-07:00

We're headed Christmas shopping today. I'm hoping it's a one-shot deal & we're able to get everyone everything we're hoping to get. We shall see!

Yesterday's photo shoot with Kori & Ryan went awesome. They're going to have a LOT of fabulous pictures when I get them all sorted, sharpened and such. I crashed after getting them uploaded last night (it was such a long day) and am hoping to get a chunk of work done today in between things to start uploading sneak peeks to the private blog for them to see.

I didn't get to play WoW at all yesterday & today is looking iffy. I'm having withdrawals and am hoping to be able to work hard enough on pics to feel like I've earned at least a dailies run & maybe a heroic if I can catch a guild run. :)

Oh, and with all of the junk food of late an actual get-off-my-butt run would be nice. I really really want my gym membership renewed for Christmas.

I need to get a shot of my kiddos for a blog-style Christmas card, but you're all stuck with more April face for now, since that's what I had for a quickie attempt at some Christmas wishes.

I hope you readers are having a wonderful holiday season!

Squishes!

Monday morning

2010-12-14T18:16:00.000-07:00

It's almost time for me to go pick Elijah up from school, but I wanted to get a quick entry in here first. It feels like it's been awhile.

Arinne hit 85 last night! Just working on gear and rep (mostly for gear) now. I got to heal a couple of runs last night too. (Yay!) Healing in cataclysm is going to be a bit more challenging maybe, but so much fun. :)

...okay, so it's Tuesday evening now & I'm just now coming back to this. I had to go pick up Ej yesterday & then my day snowballed from there. So yeah - I just made dinner & am wanting to log into WoW but here I am to finish this up first. :) I don't even know that I have anything amazing to say. Just hi - I'm here, the kiddos are good and, um - ooh! I can report that I a good temple run last night, and that Ari can run heroics now (though the mana strain should be interesting) and um, no I haven't gone Christmas shopping at all yet. There's not been a way to do it yet. Hopefully things will work out. Kori's bridal/wedding shoot is on Friday so I'll be really busy here soon, and yeah. That's all I've got.

Hugs!

just another Thursday night

2010-12-09T21:36:00.001-07:00

Kirsten's drama showcase at the jr. high tonight was fun. She's so awesome! :)

I was able to get the cataclysm download and played with Brandon last night & got Arinne to 82 this morning. Yay! I'm loving exploring the new stuff - so fun. :) It's been awesome having lots of people on & in vent too - I heart my WoW friends. There are still a few missing, but I'll take what I can get. I hope we get all set to raid & play together. That's the bestest. :)

I'm desperately wanting a treat of some kind and have nothing. I don't even have the ingredients to make something. No pudding. No cookies. No sugar fix of any kind. Sadness.

The race I was thinking might be the next one to train for looks like a no-go after all. I'm a little sad. Mostly because I'd love to have another race to look forward to - though the thought of a 1/2 marathon in March was a little scary. lol I'm hoping to find something to work toward again. Yeah. Gotta find one that fits.

Brandon finally crashed after his couple day blitz to get Groshen to 85. He was fast! He was first in Dissension. He managed to clean the kitchen after helping Nina out with I think hers, then fell asleep the moment he laid down. He looks so cute all curled up on the couch now. :) lol

It's a little cold down here tonight. I need some fuzzy socks or something. Brrrrrr...

I could use a hug too.

Oooooh, go me! I found a cake mix! There are cookies baking as we speak. It might not cheer me up completely, but it's a start. lol

I'm torn between cuddling up with a blankie & my book, or finding some socks & finishing out vashj'ir. Mmmm... and my cookies should be ready. Hooray!

Well, either way - 'night blogland! :)

cataclysm

2010-12-07T09:52:00.000-07:00

So Brandon started playing the cataclysm content last night - I was able to get him the digital copy in time for him to be ready to run as soon as it went live. It's been fun watching over his shoulder. It'll be even more fun when I can play too. :p I was hoping we'd somehow be able to get both of our copies right away but no, I'm still waiting. Starting out a little behind isn't new to me. Thank goodness for friends who'll hold my hand and help me when I'm the lost noob!

There, it feels better to at least mention that I'm excited for the expansion - just don't have it yet. :)
Have a great day!

the finish line

2010-12-05T21:17:00.000-07:00

I figured I'd share the shots from the finish line yesterday. We're all sweaty, happy and sitting in the field listening to the award ceremony. I'm still so proud of us!

When the owie muscles all go away I'm hoping to convince Lauren that she wants to run one again. :)

I'll share the pics from today's excursion to Arches national park soon. It was funny hiking the 1/2 mile to the delicate arch viewpoint with our sore muscles today. lol Good times. :)