Motivation

"Please oh please oh please get rid of me. I've been hanging here since the 70's and need a rest."


I will not take these pictures of my ugly front room and dining room down until I have repainted them. The room itself isn't ugly just the prior owner's paint job... YUCK! Want to see my inspiration?
The color it will be is called JEKYLL CLUB CHEROKEE TAN. It looks really brown on the paint chip (right Tracy?) but it's more of a green than a brown. I don't know why they think this is a good rendering of the color, because they don't look anything alike.

Catch Up

Sort of. There's not really much to catch up on, but here are some fun things I've learned in the last little while.

LEAH'S HAIRCUT(E)!

I took Leah in to get her haircut about a week ago. Definitely a cute style, but a terrible experience.

After looking at the chair she would sit in, Leah jumped back into my arms and climbed up my chest. She ended up with her knees on my shoulders. Oh and there was a lot of screaming too, A LOT! Of course as soon as we left the building Leah stated, "I like a new haircut!" As if I hadn't just finished holding her down in the chair while immobilizing her head. Ha!
She does look adorable though.

RAKING LEAVES
I enjoy raking leaves. It's relaxing and terribly rewarding. I also learned some new things about our house.

Thing one: I found a bird's nest in our front yard aspen tree. No birds, of course, but I liked the idea that some cute little birds enjoyed that tree as much as I do. Maybe they'll come back to it in the spring.
Thing two: We have a raspberry bush in our front yard! Woo Hoo! You cannot imagine the joy I felt at finding that plant. Oh yes, and all those delicious looking raspberries you see - GONE! I love love love fresh raspberries.

Thing three: I also have a pine tree or something (it looks more pine BEARING to me than anything) in our front yard. To keep or not to keep, that is the question. I probably won't keep it, I don't think it will look good there all alone after I rip out the rose bushes in the spring.

Thing four: I still have all of this to rake. (Deep breaths) I know, I know I better get to it... it's supposed to rain this week.

One Request (make it Cafe Rio style please)

I'm looking to make some shredded pork barbacoa. I've been looking at recipes online but can't quite find one that I can really get behind.

Have any of you found or come up with a recipe that tastes like Cafe Rio's pork barbacoa? I'm needing me some good pork sweetness.

H E L P M E P L E A S E ! ! !

Pop Quiz

What do these four things have in common?

(cue Jeopardy Final Answer music)

Hint - use you two of the products to get another of the products (and ensuing smell) out of the remaining product....

Give Up? Ask Leah what she had before bed last night (too many M&M's) and then throw the remains on a perfectly white and beautiful canopy (that Leah will not sleep without surrounding her) and you'll find the need for the soap and baking soda at the end.

Question - How do you safely and gently remove chocolate - uhem - leftovers from a white canopy?
Answer - Soft soap and baking soda mixture!

Uh hem

Oh yeah, we did Halloween too. It's pretty silly that I'm posting these pictures this late. Oh well. Halloween was great this year. Leah was so excited to be a giraffe and the weather was PERFECT!

During the day we went to my niece and nephew's school parade. Maddie was a cavewoman (looking good with a bone through her hair) and Brayden was an old man (in interpretation of his 20-30 something year old teacher). They were great costumes.

After the parade Giraffe (Leah) and I went with my sisters and their kids to Gardener Village. Bumble Bee the Transformer (Connor), Diego (Fisher), Baby Jaguar (Logan), The beautiful Princess (Mckenzie), Dragon (Tucker), and Giraffe (Leah) all had a great time wandering around looking at the witches on display.


After our foray out into witches land we landed at Noodles and Co. where we proceeded to annoy just about every patron there. After all 6 hungry children (5 of those un-napped) can be a lot to handle.

The evening was fun too. Matt, Giraffe and I headed over to Matt's brother's house for dinner and Trick-Or-Treating. Giraffe really enjoyed Trick-Or-Treating this year and even walked to most of the houses. Her legs couldn't quite keep up with the more energetic 9 year old and 3 year old that were RUNNING to all the houses, but she still loved it.

$1.96

Does that amount of money ring a bell to anyone? It would if you filled up your gas tank at the Costco in Murray today!

Matt just called me and told me that he filled his car up for right around $20 today! He mentioned that everyone at the pumps were acting like best friends all talking about the low gas prices, etc. The guy next to him even said, "Did you ever think you'd see gas prices go below $2.00 again?"

It is a happy day - minus that fact that I didn't get the leaves raked up...

Saturday

"Saturday is a special day it's the day we get ready for Sunday. We wash our hair and we brush our teeth, so we can be ready for Sunday."

I don't really remember if those are the exact lyrics but that's what I seem to be remembering. I'm also thinking there was something in there about cleaning your room. Bottom line: none of this happened for our Saturday. It was crazy busy! However we only accomplished two things. The final home game of the BYU football season was played as was the CBAC Tournament.

The home games ended on a good note with a good win against a terrible team. It was a beautiful day, and though I expected to freeze the entire game it was actually quite nice with only a pullover and gloves on. "It's a beautiful day in this STADIUM,

A beautiful day for a COUGAR FAN.
TOO BAD THE AZTECS,
COULDN'T HANDLE THE COUGS..."

Now it's time to gear up for two more games against Air Force and The U.

CBAC (Conference Basketball Association Championship, for those of you unaware) is a bi-annual basketball tournament that Matt plays in with some friends. He's been playing with these guys for a really long time. I believe this was the 14th tournament... and at two a year, that's 7 years! Holy cow! It was a night full of ups and downs and ultimately Matt's team did not win the championship (not even close really). It was a fun night anyway.

Something is Telling Me to Post Again

P.S. (At this point in the post it means PRE SCRIPT) Is it too early to say, "Way to go California and Arizona on passing Propositions 8 and 102!"

I was tagged twice. I'm only doing one of them though, and that's only because I have nothing better to post about (I'm sick of seeing my dirty hardwood floor from that last picture).

I've Been TAGGED!! "Where Were You?"


20 years ago: I was the ripe old age of 4... thanks to an awesome Kindergartner teacher, Mrs. Crookstein, I was cruising along the path of education.

10 years ago: I actually quite enjoyed being 14 years old, for the most part. I had an AWESOME group of friends in the 9th grade. I was also just figuring out that you don't HAVE to wear a t-shirt every day to be comfortable. Although it is still my preferred article of clothing. Oh, also my oldest brother got married when I was 14 and I was an aunt for the second time.

5 years ago: AGE 19. This was a big year for me. Depending on the month, this answer could be very different. I'll answer for this time exactly 5 years ago. I was going to school at SLCC and enjoying Sounding Joy (one of the institute choirs). I was had a really good friend that helped me learn a lot about myself. So this was a period of getting to know who I was.

3 years ago: Imagine lots of throwing up and back pain, yes I was pregnant.

1 year ago: 2007 marked the year of pretending that we could afford a house when we really couldn't. I was managing our apartment complex at this point and HATING IT! Matt and I kept going back and forth between looking for a house and not looking for a house, depending on how bad a day I was having. This year also brought a new car!

This year: 2008 has been pretty sweet. More nieces and nephews, Matt's graduation, a new job for him as well, a new house and (consequently) I got to quit managing!

Yesterday: I VOTED!

Today: Well, it's only 9:30 AM, so today hasn't really happened yet. But Matt has the day off, as he worked last Saturday, and it's snowing. I'm hoping to convince him of some good outside activities... after we shovel and go to the library. I also have YW tonight. We're going to the Conference Center to hear Elder Holland (I believe?) speak, should be pretty awesome.

Next year: Next year isn't too far away. I don't know what it will bring and I don't have anything planned. I believe that we will be doing a McGee Family Reunion at some time though.