What’s Going On In There?

Some things that have been taking up space in my brain:

                                                                                                                          My sister had her beautiful baby boy Layton.  He was born on 09/30/09, weighing in at 8lb 8oz and 21 inches long.  He has her long fingers and toes and I’m just sure he is going to be the next great piano player.  His mom might say the next great basketball star.  Words can’t express how beautiful it is to see a young woman transform into a selfless caring mom.  She is a great mom and Layton is a very lucky boy to have her to look up to. 

 

 

Sam’s Club pumpkin pies totally beat Costco pumpkin pies but Costco blueberry muffins are far superior than Sam’s Club blueberry muffins.  Why can’t all my favorites come from one place?

 

My deadline for getting my NV driver license is coming fast.  Don’t ask why I don’t have one yet.  To make things even more fun I have to get a new Social Security card since mine was stolen along with my wallet in June.  So I have to get that before I can get my license. 

 

The whole Boy Scout program totally mystifies me.  I know the Personal Progress program backward and forward, too bad Kyle had that darn Y chromosome thingy that made him ineligible for the Personal Progress program.

 

I’ve been putting together a breast cancer awareness meeting for church.  I’ve been working on it for about a month.  We found out a week ago that Ronnie’s mom was diagnosed with breast cancer.  At first they thought she had leukemia.  Then they came back after some tests and said it looks like breast cancer that has spread to a bone.  We also had a women in our Ward that was diagnosed a week or two ago.  Coincidence?  I think not.  

 

 

I am so loving the .39 cent tacos from Taco Bell.  They taste even better when they are that cheap. 

 

                                                                                                                           The Clinique’s free gift from Macy’s this year is very cute!  It could double as a teacher gift if I were a nice person and saved it for someone else.  I’m not, I opened up my stuff as soon as I got in the car and played with the new colors.   I really love the lipstick color. 

 

 

 

My most played song on my iPod right now is In The Meantime by Spacehog.  It’s best when played loud without any kids in the car so they can’t make fun of you when you are signing.  Spacehog always reminded me of David Bowie.  Take a listen if you want:

My New Fav

Each Fall we are inundated with new TV shows to hit the airwaves.  And I have a new favorite.  I haven’t even seen a commercial for it because life has taken over and I haven’t had time to watch TV very much.  But I did see this picture on hulu and it caught my eye.

So Ronnie and I watched it.  Then we watched two more episodes that same night and it was going on 1:30am.  We were laughing so hard we woke Kyle up, but I doubt he was really asleep, probably up late reading.  We got caught up on all the episodes that night and had a wait week to see the next.  I was not even prepared for the next episode!  It was the best one yet.  It started out with this clip:

Then ended with this one:

So far my favorite episode.  It comes on Wednesday at 9pm, usually before Kyle’s in bed.  But thanks to hulu we can watch it when we want to, after the kids are in bed.  Not a show I would watch with the whole family.

Ronnie has hooked one of our computers up to the TV in the effort to rid ourselves of cable.  It seems to be working for us.  We get to pick what comes on our TV and when for free.  We also use Netflix watch instantly and a few other internet sites that have full episodes to TV shows.  He has even downloaded an iPhone and iPod app that turned them into a mouse for the computer.  So it’s like our remote control for the computer. 

A Few Sweet Things

I kind of have this thing for candy corn decorations, can you tell?

I really can’t stand the taste of candy corns but they sure are cute to look at.  Speaking of cute take a look at these two:

One blogger called them literary luminaries, but I call them CUTE.  I just made these tonight and they weren’t hard at all.  I saw them here and had to make some right away.  They are old novels just folded.  I actually made one of them while making dinner.  Well I’m not Supermom, it was Hamburger Helper so I just watched it and made sure it didn’t bubble over as I folded page after page.  Hey no judging here, there were crafts waiting to be made!  I haven’t named them yet but I’m thinking the more shapely one is a girl and the other a boy.  Jack and Jill is just too predictable…hmm.  Maybe Emerson and Christie.

Pennsylvania Part Deuce

Catching up again…

Ronnie and I had a great time in Altoona, PA.  I learned two things about people there, one – you can’t live there is you’re not a sports fanatic.  You have to own a Steelers shirt if you are going to live in Pennsylvania.  On our airplane ride home the captain updated us 4 times with the football score because the Steelers were playing.  They put a Steelers logo on anything that will stand still.

 

 

Normal everyday products for sale have the logo

They make their pizzas Steelers Pizza              I’m sure he made his mama proud with this

Second – They are big fans of putting faces on things you eat. There’s a restaurant called Kings and they are home of the Frownie.   I introduce to you the Frownie.

If you buy a pack to go it’s called a pity party.

Then they even have a dessert competition called the Angry Mob

 

Then there’s the happier side, a restaurant called Eat ‘n Park has smiles everywhere. 

Smiley Cookies

Smiley Waffles

They even try arrange the food you order into a smile when possible.  It did make me giggle, so I guess smiles are contagious. 

It’s not surprising that the Frownie originated near Pittsburgh, home of Carnegie Mellon University. Carnegie Mellon, if you didn’t know, is the birthplace of the emoticon, thanks to Scott Fahlman, who started the whole sideways smiling business more than 25 years ago on the University’s Computer Science community b(ulliten)-board. He invented the frowning emoticon, too. In the same message, no less.

There reason why we went there…

To see these two get married…

and start their life together.

What I’ve been up to…

The first weekend after school started I had a baby shower at my house for my sister Sadie.

I was wondering around Michael’s Craft Store one day and came across a party in a box that was monkey themed and on clearance.   So it didn’t take me long to figure out a theme for the shower. 

We had Banana Slush Punch, Banana Pudding, Chocolate Monkey Munch (trail mix), and everyone took home some banana bread.  We also had some non monkey related food.  

 

Then I was released from my calling in Young Women’s at church and called to Enrichment Leader a few weeks before a quarterly enrichment night.  Which I was going to be out of town for.  I still needed to help out with a few things before I left and also get things planned for the next 3 months.

Then I signed up to be room mom for Lana’s class at school.  I help run a student store at school 3 days a week for a few hours at a time and figured room mom would be easy since I was already going to be there.  Boy was I wrong!  I needed to get everything organized for a family picnic, that was wasn’t even going to be there for, before I went out of town.  Talk about a major headache! 

We celebrated Ronnie’s birthday on the 10th, then my sister Lacey’s birthday on the 20th, and then Lana’s birthday on the 22nd. 

Ronnie’s birthday was easy, it was the day after Beatles RockBand came out.  So that was a no brainer!

My Sister Lacey turned 23!

Lana turned 6 and had a Flower birthday party. 

 

I wrangled my Dad and Ronnie into making a golf game for the school carnival that was supposed to be in Oct. but I think it got moved to Nov.  Well I guess we are ahead of schedule now. 

Now I’m in Altoona PA for a friend’s, Jerry’s, wedding.   Don’t even get me started on the roads here!  We totally got lost and ended up taking 4 hours to get to our hotel that should have only took 2 hours to get to.  Plus we didn’t get a toll ticket at one of the toll road booths and they charged us $26 for a .95 cent toll!  And to top it off they don’t take debit cards at the toll booths!  Luckily a guy that was in a hurry came up and helped us pay our $26 fee for not getting a ticket since we hardly carry any cash.  It’s nice to know there are still kind people out there!   On the up side we had beautiful scenery to enjoy while we were lost.

For those back in Vegas, those would be leaves changing on trees.  It really happens!

And that is my month in review for the most part.  I left out some other major things because I might get around to blogging about them more in depth one day.

First Day of School

2009    Lana – 1st Grade   Kyle - 7th Grade

 

2008    Kyle – 6th Grade   Lana - Kindergarten

2007   Lana - Preschool   Kyle - 5th Grade

2006   Kyle – 4th Grade   Lana – 3 years old

 

Those bars on the windows that I hate come in handy for something.  They show me how much my kids have grown! 

I am very lucky because I have kids that love school and actually like getting up early.  I know one of these days in the near future all that will change, but for now just let me revel in the ease of the first day of school.

The Uncamping Trip

School was starting and we hadn’t taken the kids camping all summer long, so what do we do?  We take the kids camping the weekend before school starts of course, because it’s not like we need to prepare for school or anything.  Okay, so it was probably all my idea and the we referenced earlier should be I and Ronnie was just along for the ride. 

On Friday we went to Valley of Fire and set up camp around 3:00pm.  It was hot but luckily our camper has an air conditioner and the next day was supposed to be cooler.  We had to come back to Las Vegas for Kyle’s Court of Honor for Boy Scouts at 6:30pm on Friday, which I found out about after planning this trip.  We also had the kids meet and greet at school at 7:00pm that same night.  So we leave Valley of Fire and and get to Kyle’s Court of Honor.  Kyle’s Scout Master had Kyle’s scout shirt that Kyle lost at a campout and was supposed to bring it to the Court of Honor.  Well, he forgot it.  Kyle advanced 2 ranks and all I got where pictures of him in a black shirt and my eyes were closed.  Not going to be scrapbooking those. 

Then we left early to make it to the meet and greet at school.  The kids have really great teachers this year and are very excited about school.  We just said hi to the teachers, grabbed their letters telling about themselves, and left. On the way back to camp I was reading the letters from the kids teachers and when I got to the part that is underlined Lana busted up laughing.

She said, “I can’t believe that he said that!  Why would Kyle’s teacher say that!” She went on and on and we were just laughing so hard, her reaction was just priceless.  Of course we didn’t tell her the difference between tutor and tooter, because we’re good parents like that.  So, to this day she still thinks one of Kyle’s teachers is a “tooter”. 

Finally we make it back to camp around 9:30pm and realized we left the camper keys in Vegas.  Luckily our camper is not very secure and we managed to get in.  The night sky was beautiful that night.  There was no moon to be seen and the stars were so bright.  We sat outside for about an hour looking at the sky until our necks started to hurt then went to bed.  That’s when the fun started, wind, and lots of it.  The kids fall asleep no problem, but Ronnie and I couldn’t fall asleep until 3:00am we kept thinking our camper was going to blow over or something.  Then of course we wake up at 7:00am and the kids are ready for a hike.  So off we go!

Then it gets hot and the wind picks up again so we head back to the camper around noon.  We eat some lunch, take showers, then decided to go to St. George.  We are really campers huh?  On the way to St. George we call my Dad who is working there that week and see if he wants to meet up after work.  We make plans to have dinner together.  When we make it to St. George we have about 45 minutes before my Dad is off of work so we go visit the Brigham Young House.  We take the tour and then meet for dinner at Outback.  Doesn’t everyone go out for steaks when they are camping?  Then my Dad heads back to Las Vegas and we go shopping.  I love Tai Pan and wanted to pick up some Halloween decorations.  Then we hit Seagull to stock up on reading material.  Then head back to the camper and sleep.  Then Sunday morning we eat breakfast and pack up.  We made it home at 11:00am and shower and go to church.  We didn’t really do much camping, but we had fun none the less. 

Now I’ve spent the first part of the week getting caught up on all the school preparations that should have been done before school started.  Oh well, there is always next year to be totally ready for school to start.