Saturday, January 31, 2009

Boys Day Out


Mark likes to take the boys to run errands on Saturday mornings. They usually go to Lowe's or Wal-mart and always have to get a treat on the way home (usually from Maverik). Today they came home with matching hats and Brady said, "We're not going to tell you where we got our hats from." Ummm...maybe from Cabela's? This from the kid who said last night, "When I lose my tooth are you going to change my name?" When we asked what we should call him, he in all seriousness replied, "Larry." Gotta love these boys!
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Monday, January 26, 2009

Sunny days are here again


This is the view coming out of our neighborhood. See those mountains in the distance? Until today we hadn't seen them for over two weeks! I'm so glad the "inversion" has left (hopefully for good!) and we get to see the sun again. I can already feel my mood improving, something I'm sure my family will appreciate. Too bad it's colder than ever now that we have clear skies (about 10 degrees with the wind chill...brrr!) The high temp for Phoenix last week? 82 degrees.
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Friday, January 23, 2009

Mission Accomplished


I finally finished my last decorating project for the house, framing black and white photos for the main hallway. I feel like everything is done now (except for hanging more curtains...and figuring out furniture for the theater room...and doing something with the blank wall in my bedroom...and...) I guess you're never really finished.
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Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Ready to get Lost every Wednesday night

It took us more than a year and countless DVD rentals (thank you Netflix!) but Mark and I have finally caught up and are ready to start the new season of Lost tonight. Who knows what bizarre scenario they've thought of next? ( I can't wait to find out!)

Monday, January 19, 2009

January Blahs

We have not seen the sun here for over a week. I am hating it! Every day we wake up to same gray cloudy yuck. And the snow has all melted so it's not even pretty all around, just brown and dead. The weather report said we might have some sun on Thursday (three days away!). I'm not used to this dreary winterness, it's almost like we're living in the Pacific Northwest (oh wait...maybe we kinda are...) The weather leaves me feeling blah, with no energy to do anything and no desire to leave my house. If you consider yourself my friend you will not leave a comment telling me how glorious the winter has been in Phoenix this year. I'm well aware. Instead tell me how awful it is where you live and how you're coping with the winter doldrums.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

All that time reading blogs of people I don't know has finally paid off

Look who just won an awesome knife from The Pioneer Woman!
Picture 4Winner #7: 7,939 to 9,261: 8,141 Tiffani.

That's right, she randomly chose 10 winners out of over 13,000 entries. I feel like I should go out and buy a lottery ticket now!

Thursday, January 15, 2009

The "P" word


Being the mother of two middle-school girls is not always easy. Kenzie, Mallory and I were having a discussion at the dinner table the other night about Mallory's plan to run for student council. She said, "I want to be on it instead of all the snotty "popular" people." (Yes, she did the air quotes, as they both always do when saying the "P" word.) I have always been of the opinion that I want my girls to have good friends, to be well-liked, but to NOT be popular. (No offense to all of you that WERE popular, including my sisters). I've seen those girls at school and I know you all remember them too. The ones who care too much about how they look, who start liking boys way too early, who are mean to everyone else just because they can be. So far, I've been proud of my girls for staying away from all that nonsense and being happy with who they are.

So as Mallory and I were writing her speech for the student council elections ("Hi!My name is Mallory, and I may be little but I can make a big difference!") , she wanted to be sure to include her feelings about the middle school social structure. Part of the speech says stuff about how we shouldn't care so much how much people look, but how they are on the inside, and we should stop bullying and judging, etc. I was really proud of her! Then at the end I thought she should say something to appeal to all the "nobodies" out there who don't feel like they have a say in middle school (let's face it...the vast majority of the kids).

"But Mom," Mall says, "I don't want it to sound like I'm one of those people."

"Aren't we trying to get them to vote for you instead of one of the "popular" people?" I ask.

"Oh no, Mom, I'm popular, I'm just not snotty."

I'm not sure how I feel about this...

P.S. If you know any kids from Lake Hazel Middle School be sure to have them vote for Mallory for Sixth Grade Secretary. Thank you.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Worth the wait

Happy Birthday to the best thing that happened in 2008. We love you Sydney!

Legomania




I'm sure I'm not the only mother of young boys who has a love/hate relationship with Legos. On the one hand I think they're one of the best toys, they encourage so much creativity and occupy my boys (especially Brady) for hours. On the other hand, they are stinkin' expensive, they get lost easily (we never keep all the pieces to a set for more than a day), and they end up everywhere in the house. We have pretty thick carpet and you should hear the vacuum as it sucks up all the lost pieces. Seriously, I bet you could find at least one Lego in every room in this house since Brady is rarely found without them in his hand. And don't even get me started on the Lego Star Wars/ Indiana Jones/ Batman video games. But I do love the imaginative creations that are made, so I'm sure the Legos are here to stay.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Rise and Shine!


Although I've never been a morning person and I hate getting up so early with the kids, I do love seeing a beautiful sunrise outside my kitchen windows.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Happiness is...

Having the house to yourself after two busy weeks

Snow gently falling again

A husband who is finally not on call after a long holiday weekend

And most importantly:


A clean kitchen island. Some of you may have heard me say, "If your island is cleared off then it just feels like the whole house is clean." Unfortunately my island and therefore my house hasn't been clean for a very long time. What's making you happy today?

Saturday, January 3, 2009

The Official Holiday Review

It has been a very crazy but fun week at our house. We started with having Christmas as just our little family. It was so fun to have a white Christmas and we had a cozy, relaxing day at home.

Then over the next three days we had a lot of my family come to stay, with a total of 17 people in the house at one point. Thank goodness for our bigger house and lots of bathrooms! We had such a great time. Highlights included: bowling, eating out, shopping, going to the movies, watching football and movies in the theater room,


tubing at Bogus Basin, the ski resort outside of Boise,


lots of games (Phase 10, Speed Scrabble, Golf, Nertz and Partini)


competitions on the Wii,

all topped off by a fun New Year's Eve (complete with champagne bottle/bomb pinata). Thanks for coming up everyone, and we missed the rest of you.
Happy 2009!