Pebbles

Here's Pebbles. We took her around the neighborhood a little on Halloween and while she was not quite sure what was going on she enjoyed watching all the kids run around and we were able to collect a nice stash of candy (free candy for the parents...yeah!)

12 inches

This is a 'guess what this picture is' post.

Any ideas????

Is it a drowned rat?

Is it a new fangled type of whip? (to use in the future when my children don't obey)

Nope...
That would be approximately 12 inches of my hair in a cut off form!!!! Yep I once again wacked it all off to do locks of love. It's a little shorter than I wanted (which is always the case) but it's done. I'm not posting a 'what I look like now' picture as that would just be plain scary.

Down-Fall

Fall is one of my least favorite times of year. Everyone has been blogging how they love it but I do not. Below is my top 5 reasons why:

1 - The Cold - 'Nuff said
2 - Haunted Houses...Those of you who have gone to a haunted house with me know this. Once I had two unnamed friends try and trick me into going to a haunted house and they felt my wrath when I figured out what they were trying to do. I don't really get why anyone would spend quite a bit of money to go and scare themselves...I don't like being scared, in fact I hate it so why would I subject myself to that? Call me a pansy...go ahead, I admit it.
3 - I can't wear flip flops anymore. My toes get too cold.
4 - Football season. I have already watched a ka-zillion hours of football this fall already (well ok I wouldn't really say I've watched it but I've been subjected to it while reading or such).
5 - There are not as many things to do. Really in fall/winter you are limited to watching a movie and eating unless you really like iceskating or the such.

There are probably more reasons I could list that I can't think of right now but most of them probably revolve around the fact this it is getting frikin' cold and I'm just not ready for that yet.

Yikes!!!

The proof is in the pictures. We are definitely in trouble!

HFPE Cmas Ideas

So I'm the enrichment whatever in my ward and need ideas for Christmas. Has anyone had an activity they really like that their ward has done for Christmas that I can steal? Leave me a comment if so!

The Ladder = trouble...

So Erin usually fills this blog with her witty banter and life experiences, but this one happened to me (Aaron). I was on the phone in the bedroom and Acelin was playing around on the floor. I looked up and she was climbing the ladder! She made it to the top rung and then made her way back to the floor. We got it on video, but I guess it is too big to upload onto the blog. Pretty amazing though. She has started to climb on everything. She also likes to climb up on the coffee table and bounce up and down. I think we are in trouble!!!

Is anyone else freaking out about the economy? I am...a little...not a lot, but a little. We are prepared but part of the problem is we have some potentially big decisions to make within the next year and it is kind of hard to make them with everything that is going on! And I don't think the 'next' president will make a difference either, no matter what they claim they can do. The economy is not necessarily in the condition it is all because of the current president. I think it is funny people think that he rules every decision that is made in congress etc...It's not like he wakes up and says, I like the rule that only people can eat apples for breakfast so I'm going to pass a bill all by myself so that they must. Not that he doesn't have some control but it is not all-ruling. I guess we will have to wait for another five years or however long it takes for this economic cycle to run through to do anything...maybe. It's funny working in the housing market sector as I get to see a lot about the people who work in it and the reaction of people out there buying. It definately is an interesting time.

Ramblings

I've been feeling 'ick' lately...not sick (though I was that also...I suspect I have the black lung) just ick...and I can't quite put my finger on it. I'm just wondering am I the only one who goes through moods like this? I'm sure I'm not but sometimes you just feel that way. I've done a lot of blog surfing lately which I do not think is good for me. I'm somewhat a competitive person by nature...I'm motivated by competition, otherwise I don't do much. Sad but true. So looking at what other people are doing sometimes gets to me. It makes me feel like I have not done much with my life at all. There are so many experiences out there that still need to be explored (unfortunatley most of them require mass loads of money). I know I have certain accomplishments that I have reached and those have been my goals but I am now realizing goals are a little harder to set when you are older, at least for me. When you are 18 you have the whole world before you and all the time in the world. When you are 30 you feel like your options are somewhat limited, especially when you have kids. So I need some new goals. I don't really want the typical goals most people have like running a marathon, or being the best mom in the world (though I do want to be that don't get me wrong) so that is probably why I have made it more complicated for myself. I love learning but I hate school. I don't mind self teaching myself things but find it harder to find time to myself to do so as a certain stinkerpots in our family decides she....should I actually say it........is getting a mind of her own. Who told them they could do that?!?! Anywhoo this is just a rambling post that will hopefully get this question off my mind for a while...Life will figure it's way out. It always does.

Hoover Died Today

I hate vacuums. We got one for our wedding which worked pretty swell for the first 5 years of our special cleaning life together but it eventually stopped picking up little pieces of rubbish that accumulate magically on our carpet everyday. So we bought a new Hoover for roughly around $100 bucks which to me is a boatload for a cleaning apparatis. 9 months later the belt on it stretched out so it was not working so well anymore....quickly fixed by buying a new $2 belt. However we suspect the belt was too small as the vacuum started to internally combust after 15 minutes of use rendering the vacuum pretty much, wellllll useless. So the question to everyone is do we just keep buying crappy cheap vacuums for our carpet cleaning needs or do we break down and buy the top of the line Dyson which the price upon it makes me cringe? What do you think????

X MEN 3

So I was cruising through the television channels the other day and ran into XMEN III The Last Stand. When this movie originally came out I was super excited to see it (as any of my peeps know I am a huge X Men buff thanks to my neighbor growing up across the street Shane). However after viewing it I was HIGHLY disappointed. Soooo I decided to give it another chance to see if I would like it any better. Again, not so much. I hate how they portrayed Phoenix as almost possessed by the devil and how they killed everyone off, amongst many other things. Dumb, Dumb, Dumb...I cannot tell you how irritated I am all over again after making the mistake of watching it again. Oh I know many of you are thinking how odd I am, but I am sure you already knew that anyway.

Self Fed

I have decided to give the stink a spoon and let her run with it. Here is the following result:


Hello! Do you see how I ate all my yogurt by myself?




Aren't I cute all covered in yogurt?



Who wants to clean me up? Anyone???? Certainly not my Mom...

Huff & Puff

If you ever want to know how out of shape you are just go on a vertical hike.
On Saturday we drove up to Silver Lake at the base of Brighton and then hiked up to Twin Lakes (or lake I should say as there was only one lake) with Sabrina, Tad, Brandi and kiddies. When checking out this hike on the internet the description of it went like this "EASY". It is only a mile or so hike however the mile is straight up so between the altitude and climbing I was cursing the word "easy" by the time we got to the top. I felt like a major loser, especially going with Tad who pretty much bounded up the mountain. Pathetic! We chilled by the lake for a while and then hiked around it trying to find it's non existent counterpart.


Here is our beautiful family photo by the lake (as you can see we had to bribe the stink with a water bottle to get her to sit still for a second)


The stink pondering the mysteries of the lake


The betrothed's. Apparently the stink is just using him for his binky.


A duck and her babies swimming down on Silver lake.

Classic

These pictures are Classic Stinker right now...


Imagine a high pitch scream coming out of this one...


I love the two front teeth and crinkled nose on this one...


And this one...


Ahhh, There's the smile!

New Things To Do

I am always looking around for new things to do. We like to go out for walks in our neighborhood often and just get out of the house in general on the weekends so I was pretty excited when I found the following website link that somewhat introduces new things to do in Salt Lake. Last weekend we went to Granato's to sample an Italian Sandwich there and it was pretty tasty.
I found this store through the following site:


Then we headed over to the new HUGE Harmon's in Draper to check it out:

If you are ever in need of specialty cheeses or breads this is the place to go. They have an enormous section devoted to both those items. However much to A's dismay they did not have any Chilean bread.

Now I know this is not much of a normal activity (aside from going to the grocery store regularly) but I never said we were much of normal.
If you want to read about this new Harmons many amenities you can check out the article here.
It is pretty incredible as far as grocery stores go.

Then we topped it off with a visit to this place:

We of course like the rest of Salt Lake and Utah County have been there several times. It's kind of fun to walk around and check things out but I can say we are not really much into the IKEA style of things. I don't think they are really all that cheap like everyone says they are (with exceptions on a few things) so we rarely buy anything when we are there...which is probably a good thing.

I'm excited to go and try out a few new restaurants and other places to visit just by going onto a downtown website I found. I'm not much of a downtown person but some of the restaurants you can find in other parts of the county and sometimes it's fun to go down there.

One other place I have been wanting to go to for a while is here:

So I will put that on my list and see when I can finally get there.

The last site I will finally direct you to is totally off the subject but I LOVE the following site!

If you are in need of good recipies, tips on photography/photoshop or just like reading about life in rural ranchness (which has always been my dream way of growing up...weird I know. I always had visions of myself marrying a cowboy...or a baseball star...hmmmm or a sarcastic man) this is the site for you.

Soooo if anyone else has any good sites to check out with things to do or that they just love browsing let me know!!!

Self Sufficiency

So my garden produced. Here are the pictures of peas and beans. This is probably the last blog I will do on the garden as I'm sure you will all be happy about that (unless I post some on my potatoes, carrots, and corn that haven't fully come on yet). I'm glad I actually got something out of it aside from a pumpkin this year. However man has it been a lot of work with the weeding and picking. I can't wait until my kid grows up so I can torture her with making her do gardening work (like my parents did to us). Right now all she does is eat the dirt while I work. Extra nutrients for a child right?

Bad Blogger

I'm a horrible blogger. I decided I like reading those blogs of friends and families but don't get too excited about blogging my own. I have tons of pics I need to post and that is what I have been waiting for the most before I blogged but haven't gotten around to getting them downloaded. Anyway I thought I would give an update of what has been going on with us the past month. Basically for me it has been filled with getting ready to go to girls camp, going to girls camp, and recovering from girls camp. For A it has been taking care of our stink and carting her around to babysitters while I was at girls camp and a quick trip to Oakland CA for a work training. That is July in a netshell and it went by quickly! We went and saw Get Smart over the weekend and it was quite entertaining. We just need to get out and see Batman now though I have mixed feelings about seeing it from stuff I have heard about it. I also need to read the next Stephanie Meyers book though I have heard it is not as good as the others. That's about it. Exciting I know!

The Events of the 4th

For the 4th we went to Bear Lake. However before we were able to go to Bear Lake we had to register the boat, fix the boat, insure the boat and basically run around in circles for the boat. My husband whom we will refer to in this post as 'The Procrastinator' left his assigned duties until the last second so on July 3rd we found ourselves at the DMV. For those of you whom have experienced the DMV you can sympathize with me. We were there no less than 2 hours (ok maybe it was just a little over an hour). However there is no shortage of people watching at the DMV so it was not wholly uneventful. Afterwards we missed the boat parts store closure by 6 minutes causing us to visit some major autoparts stores to see if they carried marine products (which by the way they do not). Thanks to Brandi's superior connections we got it all worked out (aside from a few minor fix details 'the procrastinator' did not mention to me) and we were off to the Lake of Bears. The stink did pretty good for her first boating trip. She hated the life jacket as it was a little big for her but didn't mind the rest. We did discover that licorice is a great pacifier (yes she is asleep in the picture above with the licorice).

Addicted

This post is mostly for Sabrina. She has pictures of Logan with a can of Coke on her blog, so to show their betrothal is meant to be, here is the stink with a can of Dr. Pepper (which she is totally addicted to and will down in seconds if we give it to her)

The Passing

This week has been a little busy for us (as it seems like it has been for everyone). My Grandma passed away last Sunday and so we had her viewing and funeral this week. She had basically told my Mom and family that she knew she was going to pass away soon and sure enough she was true to her word. We had a birthday party for her a couple of weeks ago so I made sure I packed my camera along and was able to get some pictures of her with the stink.

Slip and Slide

A couple of weeks ago we had my niece and nephew overnight. Aside from playing their Wii they brought along we busted out the sprinklers a piece of plastic and let them go to town.

Garden Pics

Here is what my garden looks like right now...If you look real close you can see all of the weeds I haven't got out yet (and am contimplating if I ever will after I weeded it for 2 hours last week). My beans are ready to pick which is exciting. I guess the next question is who is going to eat them? The husband won't touch the things so hopefully the stink will like them as I can't eat them all. I guess I will have to try an adventure in canning beans. Good food storage I guess.
Oh...did you notice our dying lawn too? It's not faring so well with the heat apparently.

This is my gardening pal. He is our backyard neighbors dog and his name is Mugsy and he keeps my daughter and I entertained while I am constantly pulling weeds.

I think I have the most boring blog in the world.
Usually I want to update it more but I feel like I need to put pictures on and it just takes me too much time (or in other words I get too lazy) to download all of my pictures and post them. So today you get a pictureless post.
We will count this as an update post. Here are some things going on with us:
-My garden is growing! There is finally more produce than weeds. Quite exciting. I know you are all on the edge of your seat waiting to hear about the progress of my garden. However our grass and tree are dying since the weather is so stinkin' hot lately. A hopeless battle.
-We went up to Alaskan Inn in Ogden Canyon for our anniversary (highly recommended) with a stop at Sabrina's to use her bathroom since the drive up north is HORRID with all the construction they are doing.
-The next day the husband became ill (he loves when I post about him)
-I also found out my Grandma had a stroke and probably won't make it through the weekend. Not all together a bad thing but sad still the same. She is the only one of my Grandparents still alive.
-Went to MacCools for my birthday. It is an Irish Restaurant in The District. I can't say that Irish food is the most delicious food I have ever had in my life but the atmosphere is cool.
-Family functions have been plentiful this month
-I think that is it...exciting eh? I can't believe it is almost the 4th of July.

Number 1, Number 1, Number 1,1,1

So it came & went. The big number one for the stink. We celebrated with both sides of the family so she got twice the cake and relished in both. This year has flown and people keep saying my kid is no longer a baby but I can't see her as anything but a baby still. Crazy. We took her to the doctor today and she is almost 20 pounds which is below average but then the doctor looked at her and said 'She definately isn't starving!' so we figure she is just averaging her own curve.
Here are some pics of her bday:




Here's some classic Stink pics:


Notice the drool?...Classic
Also we are starting to enter the temper tantrum phase. Boy is that fun so far.

And the Celtics just won the playoffs. You want to know why? Because they have clovers on their outfits (oh I've just been corrected, I should be referring to them as uniforms or jerseys...or maybe pansy outfits).