Merry Christmas everyone. We are headed to my parents house for the holiday and Jeff's mission report! Everyone drive safe, have a great time, and no spiking the eggnog! (cuz I know a few of you were thinking about doing that :)

Here's a chuckle for everyone...

This morning I took a shower and left the kid to watch the Incredibles. When I came out of the bathroom ten minutes later, I found Rees playing with the toaster (which is always stored unplugged, thank goodness) at the table. Upon closer examination, I realized that the kid had filled the toaster with pancake syrup.

Awe.some.

Good thing I hated that toaster anyway.

Storytime

Once upon I was cleaning the house when I realized it was way to quiet. I yelled for Rees but didn't hear anything. I went into his room to look for him but I didn't see him. I checked the whole house and then started to panic. I was back in his room looking again when I heard a cute little giggle. It came from under the bed. Turns out my little prince had been hiding under the bed the whole time.
The end.
My little stinker of a prince

Heroes

The last two and half weeks have been hard and I have really been stuggleing. We have had major car problems, sickness up the wazoo, things breaking, a new calling that has me feeling totally under qualified for, events that have gotten totally out of control, and the sadness of doing everything possible to see our family, having that not work out, and then feeling crapped on because even though we are doing our best, it is not enough (the silver lining to all of this is that Benjy still has his job, yeah!, and we know we can handle this stuff cuz we have been through worse:). While thinking about all of this and the best ways to handle stuff, examples of people around me keep floating to my mind.

While growing up, picking and choosing heroes was so easy. The list almost always includes parents, grandparents, teachers, coaches, and whom ever has the most popular show/song at the time. My list has drastically shortened the older I have gotten. During these last few weeks, I realized there are more people I look to for an example than I had previously realized. I have decided most of them belong on my list of heroes and the reasons why they belong there aren't normal reasons. I would love to give you everyone's names and reasons why they are on my list but in respect for their privacy, I'm not going to (Except for my mom and dad. They top the list and you all should know that).

I do hope that from these peoples example I can learn to get some of these qualities. I want to be able to have and show genuine love for everyone around me. No matter peoples mistakes, current habits, living arrangements, or ways they view life, I want to be able to have a respect and love for them that is unconditional. I want to be a more supportive person. Especially with my family. I want to be able to show my kids I love them no matter what paths in life they choose to take, where they decide to live, or how wrong of decisions they make. I hope can develop better service habits. Instead of just thinking of ways to help people, I hope I do better at actually doing it. I need to do better at learning some kind of skill I can offer to people. I wish I could do better with handling stress. One of my heroes has this trait as a super power. I need learn more effective ways to keep my cool and just power through.

Anyways, the list goes on and on. This has been something that has really been weighing on me lately and I really felt like I needed to get it out in the open.

Sometimes I forget how cute and funny Rees can be.This was taken in Delta about two months ago.

Little Moments

Our little hometown and community is frequently referred to as a sky island. (click the link for the definition) I love our sky island. When there is no moon, you can't see where the ground or mountain ends and the sky begins. The town looks like it is floating in the sky, like a real island in the night. It's beautiful.

We live on the extreme, lower edge of town (seriously, there is NOTHING behind our house). Tonight I had to drive through town on the way to get Benjy. The beauty of the sky island is so apparent in the dark but tonight there was something different. What ever it was made the lights above me look beautiful. Then I found the difference. On the very, very top of the mountain, the town has placed a very simple star made of white Christmas lights. While looking up at this star, I was totally overcome with emotion. A simple star. Simply placed. So full of meaning.

I have so much to be thankful for.

This is what I have been feeling this week...

Christmas time is here,
happiness and cheer,
fun for all that children
call their favorite time of year.

Snowflakes in the air,
carols everywhere,
olden times and ancient rhymes
and love and dreams to share.

Sleigh bells in the air;
beauty every where;
yuletide by the fireside
and joyful memories there.

Christmas time is here;
we'll be drawing near;
oh that we could always see
such spirit through the year,
such spirit through the year.

I think I am really going to send this letter

Dear TNT channel,

How did you know that ever since Live Free or Die Hard went into theaters, I have been DYING for someone to play edited versions of the previous Die Hard movies? Even though I had to wait a few years, it was totally worth it. It was worth listening to a movie so heavily edited Bruce Willis' voice was not really his voice (honestly, the voice over person sounded a little oriental). I didn't really feel bad about giving my self a stress head ache from yelling, "Hurry McClane, shoot faster!!!" at the television. I was even okay with being exhausted the next day from staying up WAY past my bedtime to watch Die Hard 2. All of this was totally worth it. Thank you for feeding my need to experience excitement vicariously Officer John McClane.

Sincerely,

Do you think if I really send this, TNT will run some edited versions of Lethal Weapon next?

Life in the fast lane.

Sometimes life gets away from me. I just can't seem to keep up some days. And then panic hits when I realize how little I have done compared to what I wanted to have finished. And then the panic gets worse when I wonder what I am going to do when I have more kids?! ?!?!?!

So here is the run down of the blur that has been my life lately...

-We went to Reno the watch my little brother play in the state football game. We were supposed to go to the temple with our ward too but I totally forgot about it. Even though I made us all pack church clothes and everything, I still forgot. Oops.

-My parents and I saw New Moon. It was SO good. Much better than I expected.

-Rees is getting very good at walking behind me and repeating over and over again the last thing I said. Needless to say, I am now working on my vocal habits.

-Benjy is still working like a mad man. Luckily he still likes his job so this hasn't bummed him out yet. The really good new is that he is going to get Christmas off so he can see my brother come home from Australia. Ya!

-P.S. in a week November will be over. So far nothing catastrophic has happened. Only one more week and the November curse might be broken.

-I have been working on some projects in my bathroom. If I ever get finished, I will post pictures. It is pretty awesome so far especially considering I can't do anything permanent in there. Are you curious? Good. :)

Buddies

So what do you do when you live in hillbilly hell? You find friends who are stuck here too! haha Thank goodness these girls are here. They make this place so much more bearable and fun and are such awesome buddies. This picture is when they took me out to lunch for my birthday. They totally made my day. Since Ben had to work all day, I woke up, had my mini identity crisis and then got more bummed because I was alone and had no twinner to celebrate with. Thankfully these buddies saved the me from myself with the lunch party and made the rest of the day AWESOME for me.

(Counter Clockwise Me, Sarah, Jess, Shauna, Toni, and Leslie

These chicas are my daily partners in crime. My total saviors of sanity. Thanks girls, luv ya tons!

The Faithful Four

(Sarah, Me, Leslie, and Toni)

Now for the rest of the b-day stories. I have had an awesome birthday week. Since Benjy had to work on my actual birthday we celebrated early. Benjy gave me the whole day to myself and even sent Rees into the bedroom with breakfast in bed. How cute is that? I spent the day reading, napping, went on a walk, played with the boys, and didn't have to lift a finger. Benjy made all the meals and topped off the cooking by making a better-than-anything-cake. Yep, I married a stud. Between him, family, and friends I was spoiled rotten with gifts and attention. I feel so lucky.

p.s. Thanks for all the happy birthday wishes! I loved it!

Confessions

-I changed my desktop picture to the New Moon movie promo picture.

-When I put Rees down for a nap, I go and lay on the living room floor for a few minutes. It is the only time of day that I can lay on the floor and not get completely mauled by an almost two year old.

-I hate wearing base makeup but I still use it when I am going to somewhere. I know, weird, why wear if I don't like it? It's an ego thing.

-My whole life I couldn't wait to have my own birthday. And I finally got that wish when I got married. Every birthday since I have feel like it isn't complete happiness with out my sister.

-I used to tease my sister that she was going to worry herself into getting an ulcer. Now I worry about that for my self WAY to often.

-I still sometimes watch shows I would watch as a kid (i.e. Even Stevens, the Nanny, Bugs Bunny, etc).

-I let Rees jump on my bed just to prove to myself that I'm not so cranky and I still know how to have fun.

-Today I sat outside the post office listening to the radio for about 10 minutes just because Benjy had the kid at home. Don't judge me! :)

Sleep Deprived Ramblings

My brain is very random. I sometimes have the strangest things pop into my mind and unfortunately the thoughts quite often make it out my mouth (but that is a whole different convo).

First of all, I have never had a problem following my religions health guidelines (the Word of Wisdom) . Having said that my brain sure shocked me this morning. Rees has started to wake up at 5:30 am. This has been INCREDIBLY difficult for me because the kid went from sleeping until 8:30 to waking up before the sun rises in one day. So this morning I was stumbling around in the dark trying to get my wits about me when the thought, "Where's my coffee? I need my coffee!" popped into my head. Uuuhhh, what? I have no idea where that came from or why it entered my head. Needless to say, I was wide awake with shock after that thought. Clearly, Rees is getting me up WAY before it mentally healthy for me to wake up.

p.s. I decided to stock up on some diet coke in case the need for caffeine gets a little to strong again. haha

Passive Aggressive

I think the kid is trying to tell us he would like a horse to ride. The teddy bear seems to like the dog better though.

Superstitions

November has officially begun. Honestly, I am terrified. Anyone who knows us and our history at all will know that every November since Benjy and I were married has been pure hell. Our life completely falls to pieces. I have been so stressed about what could possible happen to us this time that I haven't been able to sleep. For the first time in three years, I actually think our job is secure (knock on wood) so hopefully anything else that can happen to us will be minor in comparison. Either way, I am quaking in my boots.

On a happier note, we have decided to do a few things to show good faith in the up coming month. Our tv was totally breaking (it had those permanent snowy lines going through it, so annoying) so we purchased a new television and got a dish! yeah! It is so nice to feel connected to the world again. We had another reality check about where we live while we were trying to purchase these items though. When we were trying to get some kind of cable, not only is there no antenna but it turns out that the only cable company in the area has closed down. So that left with one option which turned out to be ok because dish/direct tv are actually cheaper and better than the cable was. Whoop! The next ordeal was getting the television. Since it is a minimum of three hours to any kind of store that would sell a television, we decided to purchase on line. For an item that usually arrives in three days to arrive (as advertised) it took us 14 days to receive our item. The best was when I finally called to have it out with the freight company (because the tv had been sitting in Vegas for days while they tried to figure out what to do with it.) The operator I spoke to actually said, "Whoa. Did you know how far away you are from Las Vegas? It is at least 3 hours!" Of course I thoroughly enjoyed telling her that I had no idea and why hadn't some one let me know that before I moved here. Enough ranting though. Everything finally arrived, has been installed, and works beautifully. We feel so blessed and couldn't be happier!

Ward Party

We had an AWESOME Halloween party at the church Friday night. It is hard to explain how much I loved and appreciated it. It took a couple of days but I figured out why it meant so much to me. It was just like the Halloween ward parties I remember having as a young kid (it seems like parties like this ended when I was about 5). It was so old school and I loved. In a nut shell, here was the party timeline.

Costume party, chili cook off, kids parade, pictures, children's carnival (done by the young men and young women), then trick or treating to all of the class rooms.

So many people came. Even people that are rumored to not even like the Mormons came. The food was awesome and almost everyone dressed up. Toni took everyone's pictures and then sent them off the play the carnival games. The games weren't even that amazing but just the effort and willingness from everyone made them spectacular. Rees won several rubber duckies (he has a thing for those), lots of candy, and a few cupcakes from the cake walk (don't worry, all sugar items were willingly given to mom instead of the growing child. Sacrifices must be made!). We all had a blast and I am so grateful for all the people who went to so much work to make the party so much fun.

P.S. Everyone just pretend like I look normal in this picture. For some reason, I think I look a little demented in this pic.

Halloween

In spite of Benjy being sick, we had a great Halloween. Rees colored his pumpkin with markers. Several days later and he is still so proud of his work that he won't let us get rid of it.
Benjy carved our pumpkin look look like Nemo. Rees was in love.
Rees was very concerned for the pumkin when he saw us gutting it. He started to pitch a fit but we thought that was because he wanted to help. We stuck him up there and he started to shove all of the pumpkin guts back into the pumpkin.
Reesie Boy was a cowboy for Halloween and the cutest little cowboy ever!

It turns out that Halloween in our little town is pretty awesome. The whole neighborhood went crazy decorating their front yards and door ways. On house even carved about 20 pumpkin and had them leading up to his door way. My personal favorite was the house a few houses up from us. It is true that there is very little grass here, so they dug holes all over their yard to represent graves. Each grave had a home made tombstone and each person had died of some sort of D.U.I. (this town has some major problems). I thought they did a good job getting into the halloween spirit and definitely giving a ligit scare. Everything was amazing. We started out with two HUGE bags of candy and ran out after only an hour and a half of trick or treaters! Note to self, buy more candy next year and actually put up decorations next year.

Yep, I know...

...I am a slacker. I have a couple of posts in the works but finishing is never as fun as starting them. Until then, I will leave you with an update on Scarlett. I finished the book. Once I was done reading and looked back on it as a whole, I torts were necessary evils that added to the totally loved it. All the slow and depressing paal effect. I totally loved it and I am so glad that I stuck with it.

Scarlett

For the past two weeks I have been reading Scarlett, the sequel to Gone with the Wind. I saw it at the bookstore and I thought it might be interesting. So far the book is thoroughly depressing. I was telling my sister this when she made a good point. That is exactly what the movie it. It is a depressing movie about a woman screwing herself over left and right.

My question is, why to I like the movie so much and feel the need to finish the book? Is it because I have a love for things that have history and have made it through several generations? Is it because I get an ego boost from knowing that Scarlett is a worse person than I am? Do I just like depressing things? Do I need therapy? Help, help. and help.

Randomness

Outside my window…Barren wasteland called a desert...and a whole lot of four wheelers buzzing around...

I am thinking… About what color to dye my hair. I am either going to go REALLY blonde or maybe a super dark dark. Light brown just feels boring. Any suggestions?...

I am thankful for… Just about everything. Especially that my husband finally has a job that he really loves and can make a career of it. It was so sad to watch the happiness slowly leave his eyes while he was working in construction and while he was in school. I am especially grateful for the little experiences we have that helps us enjoy everyday life...

I am wearing...White socks, Green and Black skirt from my momma, a Black 3/4 sleeve length shirt, and a HUGE pair of black earrings :) I think with all the black I always wear, I might have been born to be goth...

I am remembering… when a bunch of friends went four wheeling to duck creek when we were juniors in high school. So much fun...

I am going… Somewhere cool. Don't know where yet, but I'm definitely going...

I am reading… Scarlett, the Gone with the Wind sequel. So far it is depressingly frustrating but I just can't put it down...

I am hoping… That someday I will magically become skinny... oh, and a genius...

On my mind… I've been thinking about how proud I am of my siblings and how much I admire them. All three of them of doing awesome in life and I couldn't hope for more...

Noticing that… Rees has a fetish with pushing the kitchen chairs to where ever I am at. Washing dishes is getting difficult with his little hands splashing water everywhere or dirtying up to freshly washed dishes...

Pondering these words… Hind sight is 20/20...

From the kitchen… Spinich and Swiss manicotti. Heavenly. Now I just need some hot cocoa...

Around the house… Needs some help. I need Amber V. or Toni E. to give my house a make over. If I owned the house, I would be writing to Dear Genevive...

One of my favorite things… eBay. I think I actually may have an eBay problem. Do they have eBay Anonymous?

Food For Thought

I just read this really fascinating article. It was about what factors suggest kids will have a better chance of graduating from college. I think studies like these are so fascinating. This study in particular. I have a family member how has the idea that if you aren’t raised in a prosperous city, you will have very few opportunities. Being from a small town I disagree with this philosophy. I do think you need to live with a hour and half from a city but you don’t need to be in the middle of the hustle and bustle. Rural and urban life styles both have their pros and cons. Bloom where you are planted. Oh, I totally got side tracked. Anyways, the article points out that you can succeed in your education from being from a small school in a less than ideal location. I chose to tweak this into meaning rural for my benefit even though that is not what she really meant.

I just thought the article was interesting. You should read it.

Pablo Picasso

I decided to do try the pudding paint idea.

It worked really well until Rees discovered the paint tasted good. Now I am worried I may have taught him a bad thing. That pitfall aside, the activity was a huge hit!



See that wadded up mess in his hands? That would be his work of art. All of his paintings ended up like looking this way :)


Luckily, pudding is easy to clean up.

No Trickster Here

I thought once I joined the mommy club, I would be endowed with these awesome skills to trick my son so that he would think I was on his side but really I was looking out for his best interest. WRONG. As it turns out , I am a horrible trickster. What really bums me out is Rees is getting old enough that he knows I stink too.

The other afternoon we were at the park(imagine that). One of the park trees is some strange cherry looking thing. Rees is obsessed with these cherry thingies. He has to grab handfuls of them before we can continue on. It was a pretty sad moment when he realized he had to put them down to climb the ladder. Luckily he remembered that he had pockets for them. While he was shoving cherries in his pockets, I was trying to steal the ones that fell. When his back was turned I would chuck the cherries. Well, he totally caught me. He looked at me like I had just shot him in the foot. He knows what mommy is going to do with his cherries if he lets go of them.

It has been two days and he still has the cherries.

Me and my genius self

I think I have been a little bored today. I was coming home from getting the mail when I noticed a cop behind me. For a brief moment I thought, "I've never gotten a ticket, maybe that would be exciting to actually get one." Then the smarter part of my brain smacked some sense into the dumb part.

Oh and just in case...

Dear police man neighbor whose wife reads my blog,

This is not an invite to give me a ticket and if you pull me over as a joke I think I will cry.

I won!! Can you tell what I won? I won a blog giveaway to get a new blog facelift. The ever so talented Lauren made it. What do you think? I think I totally dig it.

Stop by her blog and check out her work. She does awesome stuff.

***UPDATE***

So I was so excited about actually winning something I wanted that Benjy bought oreos and milk to celebrate. How cute is that?!

It's here!

Fall is here! In one day it went from around high 70's to mid 50's in temperature. All of my plants totally croaked and this has definitely put my walks on the back burner. But I LOVE it! I just wish I had some fall decorations to put up and a fall scent for my Scentsy warmer (the scent I do plan on getting at least). Oh, and I have been creating my wish list of fall, keep-me-warm clothing for my man to surprise me with if he chooses. The feeling in the air is so energizing. All I need now is to catch the scent of someone burning their alfalfa field and I will feel like a kid again.

I. Love. Fall.

The next John Wayne

Rees had the chance to ride his first Shetland Pony while we were in Delta. All of my parent's "horsey rides" paid off. He was a natural and LOVED it!

USPS

Living in an old ghetto town has its own charm. Of course it helps that we are always looking for its charms to help keep us in the "we love where we are at" frame of mind. One of my favorite things in town is the United States Post Office. How cute are these old school boxes? I love them. They have had to add some more updated boxes but I just turn my head towards these little cuties when I walk by. I dig the glass windows and all.
You know how Newman, on Seinfeld, is always talking about how postmen are crazy and suicidal? Well, maybe it is because their working conditions are similar to being in prison. Or at least it looks that way from the outside :)

Who needs toys when you have access to a kitchen!

The kid can take anything and turn it into a party. At one point he had about six bowls out there and he was playing with them all. No wonder I can't ever find anything when I am cooking.

I have some WAY cute photo editing ideas for these. If I ever actually do it, I'll make sure to post them so ya'll can think that I am super woman! haha. not.

My very 1st digital scrapbook pages!

What do you think?

Sometimes happiness is found in random things

I have a tea cup. It brings me happiness and serenity. I bought this little beauty when I was in high school as a pick me up. Winter isn't such a good time for me so I use this alot when I am feeling down. I make some herbal tea, pour it into my little tea cup, grab a cookie, and curl up on my bed (I know, cookies on the bed...for shame!) and wait for all of my stress to vaporize with the steam coming out of my tea cup.

Someday, I will own a complete tea set. And not one of those chintzy ones but something like bone china. Someday.

What makes you happy?