BRRR....

(This will be my second attempt at this post as I lost power again when writing it the first time!)

Did you hear about our weather? I hear it made the national news. Not that I saw ANY news, national or local, on it.

Thursday night we had a pretty major wind storm come through the area. It raged all night long knocking over fences, trees, power lines, trampolines, and anything that wasn't nailed down. It was fierce and powerful. We had a tree come down a few blocks from our house knocking out our power about 5:30 Thursday evening. I had my first Enrichment class that night, so you can imagine how disappointing it was for me to come home to darkness. (We did the class anyway, just by candlelight and with only the bravest few.) We hoped power would be back up by morning, but that was not to be. We woke up to learn most of our area was in a blackout. More than a million people were without power. And it was COLD. Inside my house was about 55 degrees when we woke up, but it was easily 20 degrees colder outside.

My neighbor and I took our kids up to the mall where there was power, but nothing on our way up to the mall did. It was like that was the lone grid with power in a sea of darkness. Then my neighbor talked to her husband who is a lineman for Qwest. They were told not to expect power back to our area for 3-6 days! And then came the weather forecast that predicted snow!

But we were one of the lucky ones. My neighbor was able to tell the power company exactly where the tree hit that knocked out our particular area, and when we were coming home we saw two power trucks pull over right at that spot! About 2 hours later, my lights (and heat!) came on!! I can't tell you how excited we were. My kids were dancing around and cheering the lights, and I was saying a heartfelt prayer of thanks.

My power did flicker a couple of times, and even went off completely for about 5 seconds at one point (when I was attempting this blog the first time). But we've been fine ever since. And we are lucky. At church yesterday we learned that there are still many people in our ward without power, and the majority of the ward got their power back Sunday morning. So it has been a cold, long weekend for many. I am grateful we got our heat back so quickly. 24 hours without power was an adventure. Much more than that would have been pretty miserable.

But it's still COLD!

Easy as can be!

Thank you Jenn for giving me your incredibly easy and oh so yummy popcorn recipe!

I know it's not nearly as cute as yours, but for a first try I thought it turned out really well! I probably should have drizzled more chocolate, but I loved how it turned out! So thank you so much! I'm sure this will quickly become a favorite at my house!

Real beats fake any day!

After a decade with our fake tree, we decided it was just too sad to pull out yet again, so Friday night the family took a little outing to go pick out a live Christmas tree! There was a lot about 2 miles from the house, so we didn't even have to go far. Just walking onto the lot made me smile. I LOVE that smell! We spent about 20 minutes debating over size and shape and finally found one everybody was happy with. But when we got it home, we realized it was a little too big to fit exactly where we wanted it! It is quite a bit bigger than our little fake tree. Add to that the fact that my kids broke most of our ornaments last year, and our nice tree is looking a little sad. We are definitely in need of more ornaments. (Mom, is there any chance I'll ever get MY ornaments from when I was a kid? I'd love to have them if you're ever willing to part with them!) But you can't beat the smell. Every time I walk into my front room I smell it all over again. The smell does permeate all over the house, but obviously it's strongest in the room the tree is in. And it's wonderful. All the pine candles in the world can't duplicate this smell. I would much rather have a real tree with very few ornaments over a fake tree all decked out. The wonderful aroma makes it totally worth it! It is definitely my fizzy joy of the day!

Lazy?

I've noticed only Jenn has posted a blog since we got home from the cruise, and she's only posted one. What is up with us?? Are we just lazy about blogging? I know we're not lazy in our every day lives. I know we're all busy and getting back to real life has been difficult, at least for me, but we're better than this, aren't we? I want to know what's going on in your lives! Where are my sisters at? Where are Mom's deep thoughts? Where are the blogs???

I made divinity and Valerie's caramels last week. The divinity turned out perfectly and I did a much better job on the caramels this time, though this time they ended up a little bit hard instead of too soft. I'll be making both again next week along with all my other Christmas candy. The problem is I want to make it, but I don't want to eat it all! The calories are killing me, especially after the cruise. I wish you were all here to eat it for me!

Fizzy joys: divinity and caramel, having a kitchen-aid mixer, a brand new box of tissues, unexpected telephone calls from old friends, finding the perfect gift.

Ready for a change!

I've decided I think I am going to be the most grateful out of all of us for the change of weather we're going to get on the cruise. Have you heard about our weather the last week and a half? With the constant rain, flooding all over the area, power outages (three times and counting at my house), and winds so strong it blows cars off the road and half my fence down (well, maybe not half, but several sections), I'm ready for a little fun in the sun!! So bring it on! Mexico, here I come!

Believe it or not, I'm actually really enjoying the wind. In fact, I'm liking it so much, it's my fizzy joy for the day! I love the way it makes everything smell clean. I love how refreshed I feel when it blows directly on my face. I even laughed today at how my hair was constantly getting caught in my lip gloss! Why did I even bother to put it on?

Am I crazy?

I just volunteered to start and run a new Enrichment group for my ward! I don't know what I was thinking. Except that I thought the idea was wonderful (thank you Mom!) and I really wanted to do it. I figured this was the only way it would get done, so I'm organizing it!

It's going to be a cooking group, but the way it's going to work is we're going to have a category for the month, and everyone is going to come having cooked something from that category. We can compare recipes, talk about what we've found that works and what doesn't, and have some kind of demonstration on the topic. At the end of the night you'll get to take home any of the recipes you want, and we're even looking into getting recipe notebooks to keep them all together.

Our first class is Thursday, December 14th at my house. Our topic will be Christmas candy. I'm actually really excited about this one, and I personally plan on making 3 or 4 different things. The women I've talked to about this seem really excited about it, so I hope it's as fun and successful as it sounds.

Future topics I've been considering: breads and rolls, casseroles, Mexican food, brownies, food storage, cookies, and cheesecake. Any other thoughts on what I can do? What would you like to see in a class like this? I've never done anything like this, so I'm a little worried about how to make it a success. I would love any thoughts any of you have!

Oh, I've also volunteered to start up a book club. It won't be under the umbrella of the Relief Society since our Stake President won't allow it, but my guess is it'll be almost entirely women from my ward. I'll have to deal with that when I get back from Mexico too!

Halloween

I forgot to blog on Halloween! I'll be brief, but in case you were wondering, here's a picture of my kids.

Rachel was a gogo dancer, complete with knee high boots (which she already owned). Rebecca was a cheerleader, a costume chosen over a princess costume. Tyler was a karate master, even though it's actually a tai kwan do outfit. Becca carried her pompoms for all of about 4 houses before she asked me to carry them. And they were all bundled up so much it was hard to see what any of them were! But Becca was really good about telling everyone at every house that she was a cheerleader. We walked around our entire neighborhood, which took a little over an hour. Their candy buckets were full! They whined and complained for at least half the walk, but by the time we got home, they said it had been lots of fun. Go figure.

We also got the little necklaces and bracelets that glow in different colors for my kids. This was the best thing I've done. Each kid was a different color, with a bracelet on each arm plus a necklace I could see from the front and the back. In times when they got caught up in large groups at a door, it was very easy for me to spot my own kids and keep track of them. It made the entire night much easier.

I didn't have the time that day to do the full Halloween dinner we usually do, so I came up with something a little different. Of course we did the spider dogs. My kids love those. But I also made "pumpkin cakes." It was just potato pancakes with food coloring added to make them orange. My kids loved it! And it was pretty simple to do. So if you're looking for something different to add to your Halloween dinner, this worked great.

That's my Halloween recap. It's not much, but at least you can see how cute my kids were!

Relief

I had sort of a rough week. Besides being busier than normal, my babysitter for the first half of the week of the cruise cancelled on me!! I was so upset I was almost in tears. I had 2 1/2 weeks until we were to leave and 4 days of no child care! So it's been stressful for me. But I am happy to report that I have solved that dilemma and I now have child care arranged for all 8 days we will be gone, as well as transportation to and from the airport! There are still a few minor details to work out, but overall the main issues are taken care of! I am so relieved. And I'm happy with the arrangements. I don't feel like I'm going to need to worry about my kids, who they're with, or if they're happy or being well cared for. So now I feel like I can finally be excited about the cruise! And we are. Very excited! We'll see you all in 2 weeks!

Fizzy Joys: Cheddar chowder, Halloween candy, a full moon, pumpkin candles, and new lip gloss.

I was worried...

I was a little worried about school pictures. Rachel got a great one last year, but with her missing and half grown in teeth, I was worried about what she would come back with. I was even more worried about Tyler who tends to make goofy faces for pictures. Imagine my surprise and pleasure when they BOTH came back with wonderful pictures! Here they are!

The beautiful and wonderful Rachel.

And my very handsome Tyler.

Obviously I'm thrilled with their pictures. Aren't my kids just the cutest ever??

What a great weekend!

I got to spend last weekend with Jennifer and her family, and it was WONDERFUL! Here's the recap:

We met Friday late morning in Seattle and started with lunch at Ivar's. It was, of course, so yummy, and the kids had a great time sharing their lunch with the seagulls, much to the chagrin of Jenn.

We had to make a quick stop by Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe on our way to our next destination which was the Seattle Aquarium. It's right on the waterfront, just 5 blocks from the ferry dock. Becca got scared by the giant shark hanging up but loved the touch tank, Tyler couldn't pick what he wanted to see most and ran around constantly, and Rachel just wanted to do whatever her cousins were doing! Personally, I liked the arch of jellyfish myself. That and watching Ethan's excitement when he saw Dori!

Next we hiked up to Westlake in hopes of taking the monorail, but alas, it was still broken down. We did take a quick walk through the fountain where those who did it got drenched! Becca thought getting wet was hilarious, Emily didn't like it at all, and the rest of us were damp for the rest of the day!

Then we hopped a bus and headed off to the Seattle Center. The plan was to go to the Pacific Science Center, but we got there later than we'd hoped, and the line to get in was obnoxiously long, so we decided to play around on the rides there in the Center. My kids all loved the frog hopper ride the best. We sent Kate, Megan, Emily and Rachel up in the ferris wheel all by themselves! Then after some cotton candy to give the kids a sugar high, we trekked all the way back down to the ferry dock! We just barely missed the bus that would have taken us most the way, so we walked it.

We grabbed food to go (McDonalds for the kids, Ivar's again for the adults) and took it on the ferry to head home. Scott hadn't been on a ferry in about 20 years, and my kids had never been on one, so it was a real treat for everyone.

Once off the ferry it was back to the lake house. The kids watched a movie and ate popcorn. Or that's what they were supposed to be doing. In reality they played and jumped around. All 5 girls shared a room, and I'm amazed they got as much sleep as they did! Once kids were in bed, the grown ups got to play games. I don't think Jenn will be going out to buy Dread Pirate any time soon. Then Scott killed us at Scattergories! It was a fun, but late night.

Everyone but Jenn got a bit of a slow start Saturday morning. She was up bright and early with Ethan. What a ball of energy that kid is! We hung around the house, built fun stuff with Lego's (you should have seen Kelly's space needle and Eiffel tower!), fed the ducks, ate pink champagne cake (so yum!), walked to Star Valley for candy, went to Tony's Pizza for lunch, took naps, played more games, watched TV, had a late dinner, and finally left Jenn's family in peace a little after 9:00 that night. Amazingly my kids stayed awake the whole way home, They couldn't stop talking about all their favorite things about the weekend. But as soon as they were in their beds, they crashed hard and fast.

It was a wonderful, perfect weekend. It was so great to be able to have that kind of time with Jennifer and her family. At least for me and my family, it could not have been any better. Even though Tyler still can't remember Soren's name (he just calls him his buddy), my kids had a really wonderful time playing with and getting to know their cousins. I loved having so much time with Jenn! We never get that. I just can't say enough about how awesome our weekend was!! Thanks Jenn for letting us be a part of your trip!

(I've tried three times to add pictures to this post, but as is becoming all too common, they're not uploading!)

Books

I've decided that when it comes to books, I don't have a very good memory. I don't often remember what I've read, who it was by, or even how much I liked it. So I've decided to do something about it. When school supplies came out, I purchased several basic spiral notebooks. At ten cents a piece, I couldn't resist, even though I had no idea what I was going to use them for. One of them has become my book journal. I don't write a lot in it, but I do record what I read, who it was by, what genre it belongs in (though sometimes I make up my own), and either a brief description or a review of some kind. That way I can remember what I've read! And if there was something I liked a lot, when it comes time to find a new book, I at least have an author's name to use as a starting point. I also have a place at the end for book recommendations from others (and books I want to read but haven't gotten to yet) and a place to write down words I may come across that I don't know the meaning of, or am not 100% sure of the meaning, so when I have time I can go look them up! I'm hoping this will help me keep better track of what I read, what I like, and what I want to read next!

Fizzy Joy: Book recommendations! I want to know what you're reading and what books you love!

The Tooth

Yesterday I had to take Rachel to an oral surgeon. She had a molar that never grew in fully, and as her first permanent molar started coming in behind it, it was crowding out her "little tooth," as she liked to call it. The gums were also growing down around it, so it was slowly disappearing. Her dentist, who is very good, decided it would just be safer to have an oral surgeon remove the tooth, so we got up bright and early yesterday to take her in. Rachel was calm and matter of fact about most of it, even though she was thoroughly scared about it. She was so scared about it she wouldn't even talk to Scott about it the night before. But when we got there, she didn't even want me going back into the room with her. I usually don't go back with her at the dentist's office, but this time I insisted. At least until they started anesthesia. They started with the laughing gas, then put in an IV to administer the good stuff. I wasn't there for any of that though. And I certainly wasn't there for the procedure itself. They had to cut away part of the gum to get the darn thing out. They did knock her out completely so she wasn't awake for any of it, but she woke up crying. Her arm hurt from where they'd put in an IV and her lip was numb from the novacane which was a sensation she did not like AT ALL! Apparently it's completely normal for girls to wake up crying. She said even the teenage girls do it. But boys tend to wake up laughing. Go figure. Rachel cried all the way home. Even the doctor ordered milk shake didn't stop her. She just cried as she ate it! Once we got her home, back in her pajamas, and settled in MY bed with the TV on, she finally settled down. So I spent my day tending to her. I'm pretty sure she milked it a little, but mostly she was a hurting and sore little girl. She's back to normal and back to school today, and the tooth fairy brought her $2 instead of the usual $1 for this big and difficult tooth. I have to say, it's much different looking at a molar with all the large roots still attached as opposed to a little baby tooth that fell out naturally. I hope this is the last time we have to do something like this. Overall, not a fun day.

Fizzy Joys: Dental insurance, Russian tang (for when I'm sick, like now), naps, afternoon sunshine, season premiers for favorite shows.

Talent and Ability

I'm not sure if anyone knows this about me, but I've always had a desire to be an artist. I've always craved the ability to draw or paint or do something artistic. Even just today I put pen to paper and wanted so much to be able to draw something. But here's the problem; I have absolutely no artistic ability. It's not that I haven't had the opportunity or inclination to develop a latent talent, I just do not have the ability. I've tried. Even things as simple as a step by step lesson on how to draw Mickey Mouse just goes over my head. Try as I might, I cannot get my drawing to look anything like Mickey. I know there are people who say I can and do express my creativity in other ways, but it's just not the same. I can't look at a blank piece of paper and imagine what to put on it, and even if I could, I am not able to bring that vision to reality. Something just doesn't connect. There is that story out there about when Michelangelo was working on the statue of David, he said that David was already in the block of marble, he was just removing the excess. It's a nice idea, but totally foreign to me.

This isn't a blog to complain about something I cannot do. There are many things I do, and even some I do well. This is more a blog about something that's been on my mind lately. Do we have legitimate limitations or do we limit ourselves? Are we capable of anything we're willing to put the work into or are there things, try as we might, that we just are not able to accomplish? I truly feel I do not have the talent or ability to be any kind of artist, and yet, I've always felt the desire to do it. I struggle to reconcile my longing to do something with the reality of my complete inability to do it. Does anyone have anything to say about this? Am I even making sense? I would love to hear what you have to say.

Full!

I haven't been able to make a dent in my quart jars (and won't be able to this summer) but I did spend some time filling up my pint and half pint jars this week. I made 6 kinds of jam, 5 of them new and different! I wanted to experiment with combinations, so when I was done canning my peaches and pears, I thawed some berries and went to work. This is what I came up with:

Peach
Strawberry Peach
Strawberry Raspberry
Blackberry Pear
Strawberry Raspberry Blueberry Peach
Strawberry Raspberry Blueberry Blackberry Peach Pear!

I just had to do one with all 6 kinds of fruit I had on hand. I have to say it turned out quite well. I filled up a total of 45 jars in pint and half pint sizes and ended up with approximately 36 pints of jam! Add that to the pear, raspberry peach, strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, strawberry blueberry, and raspberry blackberry jam I already had on hand, and I think I'm pretty set for quite a while. I don't think we're going to be getting bored with any one particular flavor any time soon, do you? Anyone who wants to make the trip up to see me will most certainly be sent home with a jar or freezer container of the jam of their choice! So come see me! I'd love to share!

Fizzy Joys: a sense of accomplishment, snuggling, laughter, making new friends.

Empty?

I canned my pears yesterday, and it went surprisingly smoothly. I was able to do it all in about 3 hours. I only had 2 boxes of pears instead of the 3 of peaches I had, but I still got WAY less with the pears than peaches. I canned 42 quarts of peaches, but only half that with pears. Why is that? I don't know. I thought I would get about the same amount per box so I should have had 28 quarts of pears, not 21.
Then this morning, I took a little time to rearrange my canning shelves to get it organized. I am so surprised at how many empty jars I have. I have more than 4 boxes of empty pint jars, at least that many in empty quart jars, and a couple dozen empty half pint jars. Where did all these empty jars come from? I know I didn't do green beans or salsa this year, but I didn't think I did that many jars of either of those things, and that only takes pint jars, not quart. I still have jam to do, but only peach, and that'll only be half a dozen or so jars. I don't remember ever doing a whole lot more canning than I did this year, and yet I have way more empty jars than I should. I was looking forward to shelves overflowing with canned goodness and love, but I'm left with half empty shelves and boxes and boxes of empty jars. It actually makes me rather sad.

Fizzy Joy: the white beauty of pears when they come out of the canner.

Oh, one other totally unrelated thing. A few days ago, we had a really foggy morning. It burned off by about 10:00, but it was foggy for a while. Yesterday, when Becca woke up, I happened to be standing right by her bed. She opened her eyes, jumped up, looked out the window, and the first words out of her mouth (with great enthusiasm) were, "Hooray! It's not foggy!" How funny is that coming from a 3 year old?

Catch up time again!

I know it's been quite a while since I blogged last, so let me try to catch you up on what's been going on around here.

Last Thursday was Rachel's first day of school. This girl was so excited she could hardly be contained! The night before school she picked out which of her new clothes she wanted to wear and helped me make her lunch for the next day. She made sure she had every thing she needed, even double checking her supply list, to make sure she didn't forget anything. She was still in bed, but wide awake when I went to get her up. She got dressed faster than I've ever seen her get dressed! She was dressed and fed and ready to go in all of about 10 minutes, which meant we had more than half an hour before it was time to go to the bus stop! Of course we went down early. Of course the bus was late (first day, plus there's major construction near our house which slows down EVERYTHING). But she didn't look back even once. She was ready to start her day as a first grader! What's better is that she came home even more excited than she was when she left, and was up and dressed before my alarm went off the next day! This girl LOVES school. She likes her teacher, she has friends in her class, and she loves going all day long and eating lunch at school. There isn't anything she doesn't like about it!

I tried to post a picture of Rachel on her first day, but it's not allowing me to post it. But if you want to see it, check here: http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f307/lizzybb/rachelschool.jpg

While Rachel was at school, it was time for me to start processing my peaches (pears should be later today, so more to come on that). I don't know why, but this crop of peaches was harder to process than others I've done. Usually I can soak the peaches in hot tap water in my sink and the skin peels off pretty easily. Not this time. I had to cut away much more than I wanted to and it took much longer than I remember it ever taking before. It was frustrating and my back ached terribly by the time I was done, but when I got up the next morning and saw that all 42 quarts of peaches had sealed, I was thrilled! 75 pounds of peaches is a lot to do in a day, but it is so worth the effort it takes. Plus my very kind husband helped with my last box after kids were in bed. Thanks Babe!

Scott had Monday off, and instead of just sitting around the house like we would normally do, we decided to actually do something fun as a family! We got up and packed a picnic lunch then made the long drive out to Sequim. Yes, Sequim. We took a slight detour to look at Troll Haven, a couple of houses made to look like a castle and other medieval buildings with lots of carvings of trolls (we forgot our camera so we don't really have pictures to share). Then we stopped at a little country store that has really great produce and interesting foods. Scott goes there for a ginger ale that is so strong I can't even drink it. They also have local flavored honeys, lots of organic foods, and lots of small brand (often local) foods. You're not going to fing Nabisco or Kraft in this store. They also have samples of some of the fruits in season. I got to try a kind of melon I'd never even heard of before, and Scott tried some golden honeydew. It's remarkably busy, but I totally understand why. We had fun just walking up and down each aisle looking at everything. We did get a few things from their bulk department. My choice was dried cantaloupe slices. YUM!! They're sweeter than candy and oh so good! Rachel wanted some raspberry flavored yogurt covered pretzels. We haven't tried them yet, but they sure do smell good! We got some more ordinary things as well, then head off to our real destination of the day. We drove down to Dungeness Spit. I knew the walk down to the lighthouse was probably more than my kids would want to do, but I thought it would be a fun place to go. Just out of curiosity, anyone remember just how far of a hike it is to the lighthouse?? Anyway, when we got there, our sun seemed to disappear. The hike down to the beach was fun, but chilly. When we got onto the beach, with the wind off the water, it was downright cold! My kids wrapped themselves in their towels while they ate lunch. They abandoned them soon after though so they could go play. There was a little fort made out of driftwood that someone had started to build that my kids played in. Rachel spent most of her time trying to make it better, looking for more sticks to plug up the holes. Tyler found some driftwood clumped together that he said was a spaceship. I got to climb up and be the look out for aliens and asteroids! Rebecca just ran around, doing everything and seeing all she could. Sometimes she would be helping Rachel, sometimes playing with Tyler, sometimes just doing her own thing. We walked long pieces of driftwood pretending they were balance beams, Rachel found a stick that looked just like a sword (and gave it to Tyler!), and they tried to build a sandcastle, but we didn't have any buckets (oversight on my part). We were told we couldn't take our frisbee or kites down to the water because it is a wild life preserve, so that particular activity was out. It was high tide so there wasn't much beach to play on, but my kids still had a blast. They definitely want to go back to the beach again. But next time we'll check the tide chart and take jackets. After a couple hours on the beach, we went a little farther west up to Port Angeles where we met a friend for a quick dinner at McDonalds. They had a pretty cool play area, so my kids played some more, running around like they hadn't just spent hours at the beach! Overall it was an exhausting, but VERY fun day.

Scott did manage to get a picture with his camera, but again it's not loading. Here's the link: http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f307/lizzybb/spit.jpg

Today is Tyler's first day of school. He was up even before Rachel this morning! He's in afternoon kindergarten, so being up early isn't actually necessary for him, but he was up anyway! The moment Rachel left for the bus, he started asking me when was it HIS turn to go to the bus stop. I told him we had a few hours, but that didn't mean anything to him. I told him it would be after lunch, but that just got him asking if it was lunch time. I told him what time on the clock it would be when it was lunch time, but he kept saying we missed the time and we were late! Finally I just set a timer and told him when the timer went off it would be time to make lunch. Then after lunch we would do his spiky hair and take a couple pictures and then, finally, it would be time to go to his bus stop. He ran out the door so fast, he ran right past our neighbors without even knowing they were there! He was down to the bus stop before I was even down the stairs! His excitement definitely matched Rachel's. I can't wait to see how his first day went.

I know Scott and I really talk up school to our kids, but even I am amazed at just how excited they get over it. I really hope this excitement continues throughout their entire education. As a parent, it makes me so happy.

Fizzy Joys: dried cantaloupe, cozy blankets, old friends, tylenol, blogs, school starting, the sense of accomplishment that comes with finishing a large project, fresh peaches and pears, books that can be read in a day, surprise good mail, afternoon church, good advice.

Hair

Summer is coming to an end here in Washington, so it's time for me to make a hair care decision. Do I continue with the blonde hair I've sported all summer or go back to my natural brunette? Initially I figured the blonde would just be something fun for the summer, but I am enjoying being blonde, even if I don't like the upkeep or the damage to my hair. But it is a hassle. Going back to brunette would be easier and better on my hair, but not as much fun. I can't seem to make up my mind. Any thoughts? I considered going red, but I don't think red would look right with my tan, and I will be maintaining the tan up until the cruise in November. Seriously, I can't make up my mind! Does anyone else have an opinion?

Blonde or Brunette. That is the question of the day!

Finished!!

I am FINALLY finished with my data entry job!! I got the last of the envelopes yesterday and spent about 3 hours last night putting 3500 labels onto them. Scott will be delivering them, along with my invoice for $1276.68 to them later today. I am so thrilled to finally be done!

Fizzy Joy: The machine Scott was able to borrow for me that peeled labels off the sheets so I didn't have to! It saved me HOURS!

I'll be brief.

I don't have a lot of time to blog, but it's been so long since I posted one, I wanted to do something. I have a rather busy week this week so this may be the only chance I get to blog!
I still have not finished my data entry job. It's not that I'm being lazy, just that I've encountered one problem after another. At the moment, I'm waiting on more envelopes from the people I'm doing the job for. All I have left to do is put the labels on the envelopes, but I can't do that until I have them!
Rachel starts school on Thursday. She can't wait! We have an open house at the school tomorrow. Tyler has orientation on Thursday and testing on Friday but doesn't start officially until next Tuesday.
Until the primary sacrament program is done, I'm going to have weekly presidency meetings. It happens to fall on Wednesday night this week, the night I would have preferred getting Rachel ready for school. But I serve when and where I'm asked, and it was the only night that worked for everyone else.
Peaches and pears are finally in, so somewhere between everything I have to do, I need to find the time to do my canning! This is one thing I'm not complaining about. I'm down to 1 jar of pears and 2 jars of peaches so I need to restock! The timing just ended up to be bad. Why couldn't they have waited one more week when I had 2 kids in school??
I've had some fun things happen over the last week or so, I just haven't had time to write them up. I'll try really hard to get back to them. I promise!

Fizzy Joys: this blog, knowing how to can fruit and make jam, having smart kids, my big back yard, a sunny day.

Family Pictures

The entire Carnegie clan met together to take new family pictures yesterday. There are 18 of us total, and Sears was brave enough to take us in. It was quite an experience. We had more grumbling and problems from the adults than from the 7 kids! The kids were all amazing and did just what they were told. They mostly stayed still and smiled when asked. We were all so thrilled with them! Anyway, I thought I'd share some of the pictures we got!

Here is the entire clan!

And the very handsome brothers.

The sisters-in-law! Aren't we hot?

And the 7 grandkids all together.

The experience was long and hot, but we got such great pictures that nobody is inclined to complain about anything! Even Rebecca's hair ended up to be pretty cute!

Happy Birthday Scott!

Today is Scott's 35th birthday! I thought I'd take a moment to rave about him and how much I love him. :)

So here are some of the qualities I love about him:
He is a very hard worker.
He is very handy and can fix almost anything.
He enjoys changing the oil on our cars.
He enjoys a good joke more than anyone I know.
He's very funny, even if his comedic timing needs a bit of work. ;)
His sense of time is so bad, it's become a running joke with almost everyone who knows him!
He does dishes willingly!
He always has warm hands.
He'll sit on my cold feet to warm them up for me.
He sticks out his tongue when he concentrates.
His eyes squint into little slits when he laughs hard.
He encourages me in anything I want to do.
He stands up for me.
He'll help me see when I'm being unreasonable.
He loves his kids with all his heart.
He is a good husband and a good dad, and I love him so much! I am so glad to have Scott as my husband. So today, since I know he reads my blogs, I just have to say

Happy Birthday Scott!!

I love you!

Zucchini

This isn't the biggest zucchini I've grown from my garden, just the only one we thought to take a picture of before we ate it! I'm not sure how many more I'll get before the end of the summer, but I've sure enjoyed having fresh zucchini from my own garden!

Fizzy Joy: Having a mother who taught me to love vegetables!

She did it again!

Rebecca, for about the 5th time, cut her hair today. She took huge chunks out of her bangs, off the side, and even off the back. Her hair was finally at a point where I could at least put it into pigtails if I needed to, and except for the chunk taken right out of the front of the bangs, it would look normal, but now I can't even do that. I don't know what to do with her. I'm on the verge of just cutting it all off and making her go bald until it grows back. I don't know how to teach her not to do this! I've sort of learned to live with her goofy hair, but this comes at a particularly bad time since we're doing family pictures with Scott's entire family on Saturday. There is just no real way to fix her hair at this point.
Oh, and when I caught her, she was done cutting her hair and was about to start in on Tyler's! He was just sitting there, allowing her to do it!

What do I do about this girl??

Tedious part 2

So here I am more than a week later, still trudging through this data entry job. When I started, I was told it would be about 3,000 names. Whoever did the estimate on that was way off. When I'm finished, it will be....
4,583 names!
That's a good 50% more than expected. The good news is that I get paid per entry, so my paycheck will be bigger, but it also means this project STILL isn't over. And add to that the fact that they still haven't gotten me the envelopes I need, and this is looking like the job that never ends.

Fizzy Joy: A teacher who included 10 key in our typing class!

Tedious

I finally got the information I needed to start my data entry project on Friday. We had a really busy weekend, so there was no time to work on it. I had this idea in my mind that I'd have it done in a week. I figured I could type in all the names and addresses during the week, then on Saturday Rachel and I could put the labels onto the envelopes then Scott could deliver it back to them next Monday. It was great in theory, but it's not working out quite so well. I worked all day yesterday and only managed to get about 850 of the 3,000 names typed up. That wouldn't be so bad except I have 2 days this week I will not be home at all. I really needed to get a whole lot more done than that yesterday, my one and only day where I had no other commitments during the day. It looks like I'll be at this a lot longer than I thought. I just keep reminding myself what it's going for. This job is a blessing. But already my back is sore and I'm missing being outside with my kids.

Happy Birthday Mom!

You may be another year older, but really it's just another day older than you were yesterday. And with the years you've lived, you have gained wisdom and insights that you continue to share. You have raised 8 children, and raised them well. We are all blessed because we had you as our mother. And with your wonderful blog that you think so little of, you are continuing to share your wisdom with others. I think I speak for all of your readers when I say thank you for sharing your knowledge and testimony with us. I just can't begin to list all the many ways I've been blessed by you. I have often said if I could be half the mother you were I'd be doing pretty well. You really have been a perfect mother. I couldn't ask for anything more. You are my greatest example of what it means to be a righteous mother in Zion. You are my hero.
I wish I could be with you today to make sure you celebrate in a way that is fitting for such an amazing woman. I love you!

Surprise!

A few days ago Jill had a blog that included a bit about Landon's cd that he created for himself with all of his favorite songs. In commenting on her blog, I asked if I could have a copy of it, never dreaming she would actually make me a copy and put it in the mail to me. But that is exactly what she did! I should have known! I know how much she loves good mail, both sending and receiving, and how caring and giving and generous she is, so it shouldn't have surprised me. But it did. I am thrilled, as is Rachel who loves it as much as I do! Thank you so much Jill. You are just wonderful.

Data Entry

A salesman Scott works with mentioned to him that he was looking for someone to do some data entry. Scott suggested me. I don't know why, but he did. My name got passed around to several people and I got an e-mail last week from a woman asking me if I was available to do some work for them. It's a pretty simple job, just entering in addresses from a printout and printing them on labels. After a few e-mails back and forth about what it would entail and how much I would charge, I found out today that I got the job. It's just a one time thing, but it's going to pay for fall tuition for my kids to do gymnastics. I had no idea how I was going to manage to pay it this time, but along came this odd job, and now I'll have the money. Funny how these things work.

A GREAT mail day!

Today I had some fun mail come, which is such a nice change over the bills and junk I normally get. First off, Scott had a couple of books from his favorite author he's been trying to find, but they're out of print. Of course I was able to find them (used) at half.com, so I bought them. The second of the three books he wanted arrived today. He's thrilled!
Also with the mail came an order from bidz.com. If you don't know what this is, I'm sorry for introducing you. It's an auction site for jewelry. But unlike sites like ebay or half, it's not random people selling their old stuff, it's brand new jewelry. With a little patience, one can get some amazing deals on this site. And we have. We got a $259 mens titanium ring for $5, a $179 opal necklace for $15, opal earrings for $7, and several other pieces of jewelry, often for 10% or less of the retail value. It is a highly addictive and time consuming site, but to get this delivery today was such a thrill!
Then came the UPS man with my second pair of shoes from zappos.com. Believe it or not, I totally forgot they were going to be delivered today. Like my first pair of shoes, these are even better in person than I thought they would be. And since I'm realizing I never mentioned I got my first pair, let me just say they are fantastic! I couldn't take them off all day! I think the pair I got on Friday are my new all time favorite shoes! And these are promising to be a very close second. It was just so exciting to get so much cool stuff all in one day!

Time to exercise!

Rachel has developed a fondness for exercising lately. With two couch potato parents, I have no idea where she learned this. But on Saturday she asked, several times, if she could walk on the treadmill. After being pestered all morning and into the afternoon about it, we finally relented. We figured she'd be on it for 10 minutes at most then be done. Boy were we wrong. She got herself all set up with a cup of water and the fan blowing on her and went to town. 80 minutes and 3.5 miles later she was finally done! I don't even go 80 minutes on the treadmill ever! I don't know where this girl gets her enthusiasm for exercise, but she makes a point to do it every day, and loves to discover new things and new ways she can get exercise. She is a great example to me!

Producing

I started a little bit of a garden a while back, but I haven't had a whole lot of luck with it. Because of our cold spring, I started most things inside, and everything sprouted well, but very little survived transplanting outside. I have no idea what I did wrong, but almost everything died. I had 4 zucchini plants survive, but Becca pulled up the most promising of them about 3 weeks ago. About half of my cherry tomato plants survived, but they were looking really weak and sad for quite a while. I never got the peas planted, the onion didn't make it at all, and I have no idea if the peppers are going to rebound at all. They haven't totally died, but they haven't grown at all either. But on the good side, my 3 remaining zucchini plants are indeed producing some real vegetables! We actually picked our first one and had it with dinner last night! It was so exciting to eat something we'd grown ourselves. And I'm starting to see the first buds of tomatoes on a few of the cherry tomato plants! They're tiny and green, but there will be real tomatoes there soon! There is something really satisfying about eating something you've grown yourself. Next year I won't bother with indoor planting so I don't kill so much, but I'll definitely be expanding my garden next year. It's uniquely rewarding.

Fizzy joys: fried zucchini (especially out of your own garden), wearing something new for the first time, a good haircut, snuggling with a warm baby.

Long day at the park!

On good weather Thursdays, when my kids are done with their gymnastics classes, we head to a local park. I've blogged on this particular park before. It has a great play area and a nice little lake that my kids love to walk around. We're usually there for 3-4 hours. Yesterday ended up being rather longer. As we were about to start our walk around the "duck pond," as my kids call it, we noticed some people setting up a concessions stand. I thought this was odd as the afternoon rush had come and gone for the day, but when we got back from our walk, we also saw a small stage had been set up next to the bathrooms, not far from the concessions stand. It was about this time that Scott called me. I mentioned it to him, and he knew exactly what was going on. The Concert in the Park series had changed locations! He has a friend, Dan, with a hot dog stand who was then on his way to where we were to set up. I'd never met Dan, though we'd talked a couple of times. We decided we'd stick around long enough to meet him.
It was in a later conversation with Scott that we decided it would be fun if we pulled the blanket out of the car and stuck around to actually watch the concert! We had no idea what was playing, but the kids still didn't want to leave and Scott actually left work in enough time to be able to join us.
To our delight, we found the band was actually one we could all enjoy. They played mostly cover songs from the 70's, so my kids got introduced to music from The Beatles to Lynard Skynard to Jimi Hendrix. There was some softer stuff, as well as some more modern stuff thrown in as well. Poor Rebecca fell asleep sitting up during the second song because she was so exhausted. She had a nice little nap (about 40 minutes) then woke up ready to rock out! Tyler wanted SO BAD to go up on stage and kept telling us he knew how to play the guitar, and since there was one on stage not being used, he thought he should be able to go up there and play it! He finally settled for standing in front of the stage and dancing his little heart out. Rachel did more running around than actual listening, but since there were two little girls near us doing the same thing (girls she'd played with earlier in the day), she had a great time. After Becca woke up, she was content to just sit on my lap and pretend to sing with me.
The kids got treated to hot dogs (from Dan's cart, of course) for dinner, which they loved, and even got to share a Hawaiian shaved ice, with cotton candy flavored syrup, for dessert.
We all had a great time. The kids keep asking when we can go to another show. It means I was at that park for about 8 hours total, and gone from the house for a full 12 hours, but with such fun activities to entertain us, how could I possibly complain? I just wish I'd had my camera there to document it all.

Not quite the way he planned...

Scott decided to play a little joke on Rachel today. When eating cherries this afternoon, she accidentally swallowed a pit. When we talked to Scott, he told her she might have a cherry tree growing inside her because of it. But she might be okay. When we got home tonight (and our activities tonight will have to wait for another blog because I'm tired and want to do them justice), he decided he'd try to freak her out by pulling a cherry from her ear (like pulling a quarter from an ear) to show her she did, in fact, have a cherry tree growing inside her. He went through this big production of finding something, digging it out, and even pounding on the side of her head a little to get it out. When he finally pulled the cherry out, she didn't freak out at all. Her only comment was, "That's cooooool." Not quite the reaction he was expecting. :)

Fizzy Joy: antibacterial foam from Bath and Body Works

Update: Dilemma solved!

After a lot of consideration, Scott has decided to pass on the new job offer. It was more money, and of course we could have used that, but it wasn't a lot more. He decided it just wasn't worth the extra commute time and the hassle that goes along with a job change. He likes his current job very much and decided he just wanted to stay where he was. Truth be told, I'm relieved. I just didn't feel good about him taking the other job. This one seems like a much better fit for him. But it's sure nice to know he's wanted somewhere else!

Happy Anniversary to me!

Scott and I celebrated our 11th anniversary on Saturday. Scott actually started things early when he came home from work on Friday with a beautiful bouquet of roses. Dark yellow with red along the edges. They're gorgeous! (I attempted to post a picture, but it wouldn't load, even though it took my shoe pic just fine. Go figure.)

Saturday morning I woke up to find a new message in my e-mail box from a website called Zappos. If you've never been to zappos.com, I highly recommend it. It's shoes. And not just shoes, hundreds and hundreds of shoes! They have many categories and subcategories of shoes. You can browse by color, style, size, width, heel height, and price. I can spend hours just browsing the site. But I've never actually purchased from them, so I didn't know how or why I had an e-mail from them. It turns out my thoughtful husband purchased a gift certificate for me as an anniversary gift! This from the guy who already says I have way too many shoes! So I spent way too much time on Saturday morning looking at shoes.

We got a babysitter for the afternoon and got to go on a real date! We started with going to see Pirates of the Caribbean. I'd heard it was campy. I thought it was dark. But thoroughly enjoyable. I can't wait for the third one. Then it was off to the mall to find Scott some new shoes. We actually found a pair we BOTH liked that was in our price range. Always a good thing. Then to Red Robin for dinner. In case you didn't know, Scott proposed to me in the Red Robin parking lot in Silverdale, so it's tradition that we go back for our anniversary. We also love the food. :) Then we did something I don't think we'd ever done together. We went bowling! Let me just say, I suck at bowling, but I still had a great time. I think my high score of the night was 91.

We had a really nice anniversary. It was nice to be able to spend so much time with Scott. We have so little time together, and time away from the house is almost nonexistent. It was so great to reconnect with him, to remember how much I love and appreciate him. I'd forgotten just how much fun he is, and how much I love his company. 11 years and counting. And very, very happy.

Fizzy Joy: My fabulous husband of course!
Oh, and Red Robin french fries, ankle socks, movie theater popcorn, stargazing, and 4" stilettos!

B-U-N-C-O

I got a call Friday afternoon from a friend. She attends a monthly Bunco party. Ever heard of it? It's a dice game played with 12 people at 3 tables where you're constantly paired with different people and you rotate tables depending on whether you win or lose. It's kind of hard to describe. She tried 3 times, and I didn't get it until I sat down and played it. Anyway, her group was missing a few people and they needed a sub so she asked me. She warned me ahead of time that it's a group of non LDS women, they drink quite a bit, and they can get rather rowdy. I was a little worried. It turns out they all had wine or beer with their dinner (a very nice potluck dinner comes before the game) but once the game started, it was iced tea or water for almost everyone. It's a pretty simple game once you start playing. It's all a matter of luck. There's no real skill involved. But still I did pretty badly. Not the worst, but still pretty poor. Even though, it was great fun! It can be an exciting game, fast paced, and always changing. But mostly it was really nice for me to get out of the house to do something completely non kid related. I got to spend a few hours with adult women having fun. That is something I don't get the chance to do very often. And given the chance, I'd definitely go back!

A GOOD Dilemma

Scott got a call from someone he used to work with telling him about a job opening at the company he works for. Scott had interviewed with this company once before, but his friend ended up getting the job instead. It seems they are still interested in him though. So they set up an "interview" with Scott on Wednesday. It was unlike any interview Scott has ever known. Instead of having to sell himself to this company, it was two hours of the company trying to sell themselves to Scott! And the very next day they called with a job offer.
Scott is in a job he likes a lot, and he works with his best friend. This new job is a little more money, and he would again work with a good friend. We just have no idea what to do. Which of two good jobs does Scott go with?
Like I said, a good dilemma!

Funny kids

I've decided I have the funniest kids around. People tell me all the time how cute and funny they are. Let me give you two examples:

Tyler wants to go camping. I'm not even sure he knows what it is fully, but he wants to go. I am NOT a camper. I don't own a tent, and the one and only sleeping bag in our house was Scott's from when he was a teenager. But that didn't stop him. He pulled the top off the storage bin I keep under his bed (it's hinged in the middle) and propped it up, making himself a dandy little tent. He slept under it all night. I tried to move him to his bed, but he woke up and demanded I put him back under his tent. He did consent to let me give him a pillow, but that's it.


Then there's Becca. In case you don't know, this girl LOVES to be naked! She's also stubborn, independent, and does what she wants when she wants. Last weekend, she had been told most definitely that she was done playing in the pool and it was time to get dressed. After a while, she finally consented to putting some clothes on. But as soon as our backs were turned, she had them stripped off and was once again playing in the pool, this time naked! She was just so pleased with herself! She is already trouble. I don't know what I'm going to do with her as she gets older!


But she can also be cute and cuddly. And on the rare occasions you can get her to hold still, she is great to nap with. :)

And just so I don't forget Rachel, I don't have any new pictures of her, but she is becoming a great little reader, and in just one gymnastics session she nailed her round off! She'd steadily refused to even try one before last week, and now she's quite a pro!

Treat!

I had another little splurge this weekend, and I'm really excited about it! For years I've been wanting an ice cream maker, and seeing there was one for just $16.66 at Walmart, I bought it! Then I came right home and started making ice cream. Of course I started with a basic vanilla, but my second batch I got to do more. I added in some of my really yummy strawberries and raspberries! The recipe said to make sure the fruit was well pureed, but I wanted nice big chunks, so I put in chunks. It is SO YUMMY!! There really is nothing better than homemade ice cream.

Busy day!

Yesterday was my busy day of the week. It started with 2 of my kids having gymnastics classes. Rebecca and Tyler's classes are back to back, so I only have to go uptown once for two classes. It's nice, but it also means I have 2 1/2 hours I have to keep other kids occupied and out of trouble. But my day wasn't done there. Three of us had doctor's appointments. But we had another 2 1/2 hours to kill between gymnastics and the doctor. I didn't really want to take half an hour to drive home and half an hour to drive back, so we had to kill time. We started with lunch at Wendy's, though even that was a fight. Everyone wanted to eat somewhere different and nobody was willing to compromise. So I got to pick and nobody was happy. After lunch I decided I was sick and tired of Walmart, so I was going to risk my kids wreaking havoc and attempt the mall. They were actually pretty good! Except for Becca dragging a shirt around Old Navy that I attempted to take from her several times (she kept finding it, no matter where I tried to hide it), they actually mostly stayed with me and did as I asked. And I found this skirt that I just fell in love with. I don't usually pay full price for things for myself at Old Navy. I figure it'll all go on sale eventually. But I wasn't willing to risk it on this one. It's pretty and feminine and just the right length. I love the embroidery on it, and the little touch of tulle at the hem. It fits beautifully. It was just so perfect, I splurged! But now I think I'm going to need some new shoes to go with it. :)
So then we went to our doctor's appointments. Mine was first. When I made the appointments, I asked 3 separate times if my appointment was early enough that I could ensure availability for my kids to get to theirs on time. I was assured all three times it would be no problem at all. When I checked in, I was told they would only check me in and I would have to come back to do the kids when I was done (since I can't be two places at once). Right after getting undressed, the nurse knocked on my door and said they didn't realize one of my kids had an appointment so soon after mine, the doctor was running a little late, and all of this was a pretty big problem. I explained, none too patiently, about the conversation when I scheduled the appointments, and they reluctantly agreed that we could make it work. It means my first physical in years was perfunctory at best. They did little more than take my vitals (pulse, bp, height and weight) and the exam itself was as short as I can recall one ever being. The person who came to get information for our life insurance has more information about me than my doctor does. I did get a tetanus booster though. I can't recall ever having had one, so I figured it was time to get that done.
Then came the appointments for my kids. I thought they were scheduled back to back, but apparently I was wrong about that. There was someone in between my kids, so the doctor came in to do Becca's check up (Becca charmed all the nurses, by the way.), then left. Tyler was feeling like he'd been left out since he was promised a check up as well. She did come back about 10 minutes later to do him, but he wasn't too happy about it. Then I had to get my girls Hep A vaccines (there has been a lot of it in surrounding counties lately, so it was highly recommended). Rachel was pretty angry with me because I had told her this appointment wasn't for her at all so she could just relax, but then I made her get a shot! Tyler got his first dose of the vaccine last month with his other immunizations. Then I had to wait in two separate lines to get fluoride for my kids. I totally don't understand their pharmacy. The fluoride was ordered by the doctor, so I didn't have to actually take the Rx to them. They already had it. So I had to wait in one line just to let them know I was ready to pick it up. That person bagged it then sent it over to another window where I had to wait in another line to pay for it before actually getting it into my hands. Why two separate lines? I have no idea.
All told, we were in Group Health for a little over 3 hours, and were gone from the house for almost 9. It was definitely a long and busy day.

Peace

I've had a rather interesting thing happen to me over the last few weeks. Since being put in this new calling of Primary Secretary, I've noticed a definite increase in the peace I feel in life. That is NOT to say my kids are better behaved, that I have fewer problems, that life is any less hectic or difficult, or that anything else has really changed, but internally I feel much more at peace than I have in a long time. I never would have thought this was a calling I could do, and certainly not well, but I'm trying. I know it really is the calling the Lord wants me in. And I'm happy to serve.

Jam

There are times I really love living in Washington. When I can drive 25 minutes and get flats of fresh raspberries, blackberries, blueberries and strawberries that were picked from local fields just that morning, I get really happy. Most of my berries I'll be freezing, but I did make a bit of jam yesterday. I was just about out of raspberry jam, so I made more of that; I made some raspberry/blackberry combo, and I experimented combining strawberry and blueberry (YUM!). Later in the summer when I have my peaches and pears, I'll do even more experimenting and mixing of fruits. I'm thinking blackberry/pear, strawberry/peach, and maybe one batch that's just a mix of everything I have on hand! Anyone want to come be my taste tester?

Fizzy joy: fresh berries, especially raspberries!!

Where have I been?

Jenn commented that I've been MIA lately, and I realize she was right! I check her blog (among others) every day, but it's been a while since I posted. I guess it's time to fix that! The only problem is I'm not quite sure what to say! There hasn't been anything interesting going on in my life. It's the same old combination of busy and boring. But I am alive and things are well.
We had a nice Independence Day. We went to a picnic with Scott's family in the afternoon then had friends over in the evening. My kids loved the fireworks!
Scott managed to get the swing set stained (after 4 years!) during his 4 day weekend. It's really nice to have that done, and it looks great.
We ended up enrolling our kids into gymnastics again.
I lightened my hair again, so I'm pretty truly blonde right now (I'll try to get a picture up soon).
I made a new friend who totally gets my sense of humor. We laugh like I've never laughed with anyone before. But she's only 19. What does that say about me?
Even though I don't comment much, I do love reading everyone else's blogs. I go to Jenn's and Jill's every single day. Thank you for being so good at documenting your lives!
Jill, your pictures of Jenn's kids are truly amazing. I loved every single one you took! I don't know how you do it, but if you ever make a trip up to Seattle, you better believe I'll be using your services for my own kids!

That's about all I can think of to say. I will try to be better at blogging. Thanks for the reminder Jenn!

Fizzy joy: taking a big spoonful of peanut butter out of a brand new jar!

It's over

The heat wave is officially over. We've dropped something like 25 degrees in 2 days! It was high 90's a couple days ago, mid 80's yesterday, and today is supposed to be low 70's! The one nice thing about Washington is that the dreadful heat never lasts too long!

I'd love to post pictures of my kids in the cute little pool we got, but I still haven't figured out why it's not loading my pictures!

Fizzy joys: sunblock, lemonade, ice water, popsicles, and ceiling fans!

Heat Wave!

In case you hadn't heard, we're in the middle of a heat wave! In fact, the National Weather service has issued a heat advisory for the area in effect until tonight. We had record high temperatures yesterday, though I never did hear what that ended up to be, and I think today may have been even hotter. My neighbor said it got up to 97 today! Our temperatures may not be as hot as yours, but for an area that isn't used to the heat and has no air conditioning, it's pretty miserable.

Tyler's birthday

Yesterday was Tyler's 5th birthday! I can't believe he's 5 years old already. He was so funny. He would walk around the house singing Happy Birthday to himself, and everywhere we went he invited people to his birthday party.
We went to Safeway to let him pick out a birthday cake, and to our surprise, they had a Spiderman birthday cake right there in their cooler! He was so excited. But then we went to get balloons, and they were out of the Spiderman birthday balloon. :( But he was happy enough with the Spongebob Squarepants balloon, so it all worked out.
For his birthday party, we went to Chuck E. Cheese's. We must be crazy, right? On a Tuesday night, it was surprisingly empty. He didn't get to invite tons of friends like we usually do for birthday parties at home, and it turned out the ones he did invite weren't able to come anyway, but we still had a great time. Our neighbor Nathan came with us, and Grammy and Grampy met us there. We gave each kid a little cup of tokens and just let them run crazy! The pizza was better than normal (not that the kids care) and they never had to wait to play a game they wanted. I think Tyler's favorite part was taking tickets to the machine that counted them. He did it every time he got some! I think he ended up with about 9 ticket receipts, and that was only because I started collecting his tickets from him as he played. Otherwise he would have had about 20!
There was one very particular toy he wanted for his birthday. It's called Phlat Ball. It's a ball that will smoosh down into sort of a disc, held flat by a suction cup inside it that will pop loose and turn it back into a ball while you're playing with it. He loves how it "pops." I looked for it, but was unable to find one, so we sent Grampy in search of one. He found it! Tyler was so excited to get it! It made his day. He even went to sleep with it under his pillow!
Overall it was a very fun day for him. He felt special and loved. But mostly he had the time of his life turning 5 years old!

I attempted to post pictures, but I've still been unable to get them to load.

My fizzy joy for today is that I'm lucky enough to have Tyler as my son!

The winds of change

I've had a few things change in my life over the past week, and it's time to document them!

First of all, I am no longer watching extra kids. I won't pretend to miss the obnoxiously early mornings, but I will miss the extra money it brought in. Mostly I'm relieved to be done though. By the end, it was getting tedious. It's possible I'll do it again next school year, but not definite. Right now I'm looking forward to a summer with just my own kids! It's also nice to be able to go to they gym at night, not having to worry about the lack of sleep that will cause because I have to get up so early. I may actually go once in a while now!

Tyler and Rebecca finished their gymnastics sessions yesterday and Rachel finishes hers tonight. We have not yet decided if we're continuing for the summer, and it's possible Rachel will want to do soccer instead in the fall, so this is possibly the end of this particular stage. I hope not, because all three of my kids LOVE gymnastics, but one never knows. I'm adding in a couple pictures of some of the wonderful instructors my kids love so well.

The next big change in my life happened at church. Remember my blog a few weeks ago about nursery? I'd finally gotten myself to a point where I was resigned to spending my year in there, and was starting to actually make plans on how to make it better for the kids when things changed. I've been released! This has to be the shortest stint in nursery EVER! I was in there all of 4 times! So now I have a new calling. I am the secretary in the Primary Presidency. I've never been in the presidency of any organization, so this will be something totally new for me. But I have to say, I'm excited about it. I am really looking forward to this opportunity.

So those are the major changes in my life right now. Oh, and I'm tan! A local tanning salon offered 10 free tans to new members, and since we've had just about NO sun over the last few weeks and the bit of a base I'd managed to build up was fading, I took advantage of this offer and went tanning! Now I'll hopefully be able to spend time outside with my kids this summer without worrying so much about getting burned after 10 minutes! Of course that assumes the sun ever makes a repeat appearance, which is never guaranteed in Washington.

My fizzy joy for today:

My thoughtful husband brought me flowers yesterday just because I was having a rough day!

(I attempted to add in several pictures to go along with this blog, but it wasn't allowing me to add them! I'll try again later to get the pictures on.)

Eating healthy

I have a frustration that I could use some advice on, if anyone has it.

We're trying to make an effort to eat better food. The way I cook tends to be high in fat, and with Scott and I both trying to lose weight, I'm trying to change that.
The problem is that healthier foods cost a lot more money! My budget is pretty tight, and I already feel like I spend too much on food. So how do I incorporate healthier foods without breaking my budget?
Scott loves fish, but how do I justify spending $8.99 a pound for good fish when I can get 5 pounds of hamburger that will do several meals for the same price?
Let's not even start on the price of fresh produce. Even here in Washington, I'm lucky to find apples for less than $1.29 a pound! For apples! And that's not even the good kinds of apples, that's for boring old red delicious. And y'all aren't the only ones with grocery stores charging $3.99 for a half pint of blackberries. How do they justify charging that much for what is basically a weed?!?
Even things like low fat versions of some of the foods we eat tend to be significantly more expensive than the regular versions. I want to cook healthier foods for my family, but I don't know how to do it without destroying my food budget. So if anyone has any ideas on how to do this, I'd love to know!
Also, if anyone can help me cook lower fat versions of the foods my family loves, that's information I'd love to know as well. Any good tips out there?

Fizzy Joy: I colored my hair again, and I am LOVING the lighter shade!

Crush

Rachel has her very first crush. She was so cute about it, I just had to share. Her crush is on her computer teacher, Mr. Lamas. She has computers every Thursday, and last night she couldn't stop talking about it. She asked me if we could do her hair pretty today so she could look good for him. Apparently last week there was a student absent, so she got to sit up at the front of the class. She said she liked it a lot because she could look up at Mr. Lamas. She demonstrated this by doing one of those hand clasped dreamy looks used to show love. I laughed so hard it hurt! My little girl has a crush, and I think it's adorable.

It's about time

For my birthday my visiting teachers gave me some cute little cards with a matching little book. I've been debating what to do with the book. I thought about putting it in my purse and making it a fizzy joy book. I thought about putting it in my church bag so I could attempt to take notes on the rare occasions I actually get to listen in sacrament meeting like Jill does. Finally I decided to take my mother's advice.
She told me years ago that I should write down the funny things my kids say. I always thought it was a good idea, I just never actually did it. I know my kids are now older and won't say as many funny things as they used to, and their pronunciation is now quite good, so we won't get the "Paga" or "wippers" anymore, but I am starting. Better late than never, right? I'm also going to include some of those things you have to say to your kids that you never thought you'd say. My first entry for that particular thing is, "Baby, don't rub your biscuit up your nose, please."
I think this is going to be fun and interesting. Maybe one day I'll have enough for a book!

My fizzy joy for today:
After a week and a half of rain, the sun is shining again today!

nothings

I don't have anything specific to blog on, but I've missed doing it so I'm going to ramble for a bit.

My kids hit a couple of milestones this week. Rachel has learned how to do a one handed cartwheel. This is a pretty big deal. She's only the second one in her gymnastics class to have done it. All three of her teachers were so excited about it that they all had her demonstrate it for me, not knowing I'd seen her do it while watching her class! :) I really am proud of her. It's a big accomplishment! She is also now reading entire books by herself. She read Hop on Pop to Rebecca this week, reading every word except Constantinople and Timbuktu. She reads and spells to herself all the time. I LOVE having a reader in the house!

Tyler is now counting to 100 all on his own. I had no idea he could count past 20 since I don't really count with him, but I asked him on Tuesday to count for me and he went all the way to 100! Where did he learn that? I didn't teach him. I feel a little like I ignore my kids because I'm often surprised at how much they can do, and I wonder where they learned it all.

Becca is now officially potty trained, except at night. I don't even think about making her go potty before we leave the house, or making sure she goes when it's a convenient time to make sure she doesn't have accidents. She just does it when she needs to, and I don't have to worry about her. She's not even having accidents during nap times anymore. It's a huge relief to have that done. If she didn't wake up with her diaper sopping wet every morning, I'd work on night time too.

How do kids manage to grow up so fast? I feel like I'm missing it!

I thought I'd also mention the Alias finale was awesome, so if you haven't watched it, do so! Scott loved the Lost finale last night, and it was very interesting to learn why the plane crashed.

If Kelly took 2 hours to finish the DaVinci Code final challenge, I beat his time! :) It took me more like 40 minutes, best we can remember. But like him, I'm still cursing that restoration puzzle! What was the pattern that got them to clear? I never did figure it out. I also messed up the sudoku puzzle initially. Ironic, considering I do sudoku all the time, but I had to restart it. I got lucky on the chess one, and hanging the paintings, which is usually pretty hard for me, I figured out pretty quickly. The changing picture in the jigsaw threw me a little, but it was probably the easiest of the 5 for me. It was certainly fun to do, even if I'm not going to win any cool prize over it. We also saw the movie last weekend. Has anyone else seen it yet? We really enjoyed it. There were some pretty obvious differences from the book, but mostly it stuck to it really well. I loved the actress who played Sophie. She was great.

Well, that's about it for me today. Hope everyone is happy and healthy and safe!

Oh, fizzy joys!
My three new shirts from Mervyn's
Not spending $ on diapers
rereading a favorite book
being a little bit tan for the first time in my life
a good sale on something you're buying anyway

Kinda cool!

I had kind of a cool experience this week. A few weeks ago Scott e-mailed me a link to a game on Google. It was a daily puzzle game centered around The Da Vinci Code. The puzzles got increasingly difficult, but it was a fun daily distraction. There was a symbol game sort of like sudoku, observational challenges, geography, chess, and other games. It was a lot of fun! As I was nearing the end of the game, I looked at the rules again, and there are some pretty cool prizes for the winner of the game, but only 10,000 finalists get to compete in the final challenge. Whether or not you qualified depended on time; what time did you finish the final game. The first 10,000 to finish the last game and get their registration form in got to compete. The rules stated the finalists would receive an e-mail on Monday to confirm they were in, as well as instructions for the finals.
I went to my mail box on Monday and found an odd box. It was addressed to me, but I had no idea what it was, and there wasn't a return address on it. I opened it up and found this:

This is a replica of a cryptex from the movie! How cool is that?! And, I'm a finalist!! I get to compete this weekend in the final challenge! I don't expect to win, of course, but I'm pretty excited that I get to do it. Apparently there were MILLIONS of people doing this game. I had no idea it was so popular. And the cryptex is really cool. It's a lot heavier than you would think it would be. Scott looked on ebay and a lot of people are selling theirs. They're selling for somewhere around $65 each. No, I am NOT selling mine. I think it's cool, and I earned it! So wish me luck this weekend! If I'm really good, I would win a trip to Europe!

Belated Mother's Day

I wanted to share a belated Mother's Day present I got from Scott.



How many of you can say you have a picture of your family on a soda bottle?? :)

Crazy!

I've just had one of the most bizarre experiences of my life. Rebecca came walking in the house from the backyard talking about a bird. I was in the middle of something, so I didn't pay too much attention to her at first until I heard Tyler and Marisa talking about the bird and how cute it was. It turns out, a bird flew onto Rebecca's hip and stayed there. It was perfectly content to latch onto her as she walked around the house. It even stayed there as the kids pet it and cooed over it. It didn't get off until I physically took it off her. Why would a bird do such a thing? It really was crazy.

Calling

I have another post in draft form that I'm hoping to get finished today (even though Monday's are my busiest days) but I needed to get this off my chest first.

A week ago, Scott and I were called into the Bishop's office right after sacrament meeting. I mentioned I had a class I was supposed to be teaching (Course 16-17) but I was told it was already covered. That in and of itself was surprising because they always struggle to find substitute teachers for any of the Sunday School classes, and yet they already had one for me even though I was there. They had already planned on me not being able to teach that class. I was informed they would be releasing me from my calling and I should turn in my manual to the Sunday School president that day. Then they told me they had me in mind for nursery leader. I wasn't thrilled with the idea, but I've never turned down a calling in my life. I did express my reservations to the Bishop, but I also told him I would accept any calling he had for me.

So yesterday I was released. I actually wasn't surprised. I'd told Scott a few weeks ago I was pretty sure I was going to be released soon. I feel a difference in my lesson preparation. It's kind of like a little warning light that my time in that calling is about to end. It's happened every time I've taught Sunday School. Then they called me to be a primary worker. As Brother Swonger said it, I felt an overwhelming sadness hit me that I can't explain. It was consuming and I couldn't seem to control it. It's now been a day since it happened, and I'm not feeling any better. Is this just disappointment at being called where I don't want to be? Do I just need an attitude adjustment? Why do I get teary and sad every time I think about my new calling? I don't want these kids to be short changed, and I want to do this calling well. But will I be capable of that if it takes all my self control not to burst into tears every time I think about it?

I'm here, I promise!

I know I haven't posted in a while, or even commented on your posts, and I have no real excuse. But I am still here. I do try to read as many blogs as I can when I have time. Thank you so much to Jenn and Jill for all the amazing thoughts on Women's conference! I'm so jealous of the opportunities you women have.
I will try hard to get back to doing this more often! At the very least I'll try to get a new fizzy joy list done today!

Celebration part 2

I had such a fantastic day yesterday, I have to blog about all the details!

I was up at 4:10 to deal with these extra kids that I have, and I hated it, but I was able to get a little bit of sleep after they went back to sleep. The very first thing Rebecca said to me in the morning was "Happy Birthday Mama!" Then she proceeded to repeat that about every half an hour all day long. My kids were as excited for my birthday as I was! And they were exceptionally good and well behaved. That in and of itself is a pretty amazing present!

Scott had a doctor's appointment at 8:30 (just a check up). About the time I was expecting him to get in to work, he walked through the door! He took the day off so that I could have a day to myself! It was a beautiful sunny day and he wanted me to get out of the house without kids and do something fun just for me. After thinking about it for a while, I decided I really wanted to get to the gym first. (I know, you can make fun of me now.) He decided I needed my birthday presents right away though, so first we had our little party. He'd been talking about his gift to me for a couple of weeks, and he was really excited about it. I wasn't disappointed. He bought me an iPod nano! I am thrilled!! And not only that, the kids gave me a case for it that straps to my arm so I can take it to the gym! It was so nice to not only have my music, but to not have to deal with my cd player that skips on some of the machines, and to not have to put my music away when I go to do my weights. It was a very thoughtful gift, and I love it!

So after the gym I came home and got showered and dressed for the day. After a light lunch outside while Scott washed my car, he sent me off to get a manicure and pedicure! I think a pedicure is the ultimate in pampering and I'm totally hooked on them. When I got home, the kids and I frosted cupcakes, and of course we had to eat one! Then Scott made them dinner while I picked up the babysitter. Then it was off to Hooters!

We ended up with 13 people at Hooters! I didn't know a couple of them, but it was still quite a party. The wings were just as good as I'd hoped, the company was fun, and we had a fantastic time. Because it was my birthday, they had me stand up on a stool while they sang to me (right next to an 18 year old girl). Of course we forgot our camera, so this is what we got from Scott's camera phone. Hooters really was a fun place for a party!

I think yesterday was the best birthday I've ever had. I got several phone calls and e-mails wishing me a happy birthday, and Jenn even blogged on it! Scott worked really hard to make sure I had a great day, and I really did.