FRIDAY FIVES

Randoms

1. Whats your go to recipe? I'm going to be more specific and say what recipe I could make in a pinch and I love it. Chile Cassarole: cook Rotelle Noodles, add one can of chili with beans and one can of chili without beans. Add cheese or corn or nothing. It's yummy to me but Mike doesn't like it :(.

2. When you hear "American food" what comes to mind? Definately Burgers and fries or Steak and potato comes to mind. Mmm. I'm so hungry right now!

3. What would you say is one of your "weirdest" quirks? That I move my legs or feet constantly (like my mommy) it bugs my husband. Also, I am notorious for laughing outloud while reading mail (cherilyn, i'm sure you remember this clearly! :) he he), emails or watching funny movies... BY MYSELF. ha ha ha.

4.What color do you mainly wear? hmmm. I really like to wear a variety but unfortunately tend to wear a lot of green, blue, copper or brown (anything 'earth' toned). Nothing wrong with those colors but I would like to get out of my box! Spy on me What not to Wear! Please!5. Always have to say everything on your mind or never speak again? Always have to say everything on my mind for sure. I do not enjoy when others don't tell me how they feel and I'm left to guess. I always prefer honesty and truth and that doesn't mean it has to be hurtful (hopefully it's not).

Pumpkins

We painted our pumpkins this year and Evan 'helped'. We dotted glow in the dark paint around the eyes etc and I let him 'dot'. :) It's pretty cute actually cause he knows the top left is daddy's, bottom left is his, top right is mommy's and bottom right is cora's. :)

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Top of the Blog

These are the spooky images I have posted before from my backyard fence. Now you know what they look like this year. ;)

Ants on a caterpillar?

Evan's new snack. :)

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

We voted! :)

Now, to shower before my visiting teachers come over. Lol.

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

How to give your kid a....

Mohawk. Oh yes I di'id. He loves it too.

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

#1

I almost forgot! The other day I was throwing Evan in the bathtub after a dirty day in the backyard. I was rushing the time before getting him undressed (while the tub is filling) and plopping him in the water because he has a tenancy to uh... pee. Lo and behold I was too late, he'd pee'd a little on the floor... 3 inches from a big white toilet! I ALWAYS ask him if he needs to go poo poo or use the potty and he has started saying "no" or "don't want it" (meaning=no). lol. So.. when I saw his little accident, I said, "Nooo! Darn it (which he always repeats, it's hilarious)... Let's get on the potty and go pee pee." He said no but I made him sit on the toilet anyway. :) AND HE DID IT!!!! He finished peeing in the potty for the first time ever! WHOO HOO! Not only that but he used the regular toilet like a big boy. It was totally cute and I made a big big deal about it, even calling to Daddy to come see. We are excited about the possibility of Evan's potty success in the near future. Three cheers for E-V-A-N, Evan!

Just another day in the closet

Welcome to middle tennessee at the change of the seasons. Here's the kids & I plus smokey (ever tried to wrangle a cat in a storm closet with you??), holding out the storm that was coming near my house. Since mike was at work I decided to take to precaution since there was just me to get both kids safe. We're fine but the weather be bad again later. Thankful for smart phones giving me weather when t.v. Satellite goes out. :)

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

The growler

(second try). Don't worry, it's really just a baby not a ferocious animal. :) C.G. just started this 'growling' and know you all want to see it.

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Spark People and Blog

I LOVE this site, www.sparkpeople.com. Although I do not use it as I should, I was once very active in weight loss competition my sister Katrina helped to create and I wouldn't be surprised if it is one of the most effect ones on the site to get involved with and loose weight in a fun way. The site is FREE to look at and to join and is for people who want to track their food/calories, loose weight, stay fit and even hold yourself accountable to others if you want. It will also show you graphs and charts of your progress I believe. I also have friends that joined and friends I've made that have a common goal of being healthy. We'll when Evan was born I completely put the site on hold and didn't contribute. I don't think I even gained weight either. If anything, I lost but I wasn't paying attention. At my age (36), your body MAKES you listen cause it doesn't bounce back as it once did from frivolous eating and irresponsible food choices. :) When I started on SP in November? 2007 I was at a total frustration, weighing 187 pounds. Some may not think that is a lot, some may say 'awe, you didn't look overweight" (and don't you dare say i did! lol) but the fact is, it is overweight and I did not feel good and didn't want to take pictures or anything. I got involved at SP and met others with various backgrounds and reasons for why they joined too. You can't help but root for one another cause it's all about feeling your best and for me, being healthy so I can live life to it's fullest for my children (at the time I started, I remind you, I had no child or REN. :) he he). Anyway, I lost weight, I was motivated my others and I felt good about myself. Spiritually I was on a high too and to add to it... I became a mommy for the first time! whoo hoo! That's when I stopped paying attention. Now Cora Grace is here and I know what it is like and I know what excuses are like so I'm beginning again. About a month ago I weighed myself for the first time since Evan was born I think and I was at 174.5 :(. I don't like that so... Michael and I are both motivated to loose weight and keep it off! I will reward myself with new clothes and hopefully I can get a personal shopper to help me figure out what in the heck looks good on me cause I HATE shopping!!! But... I do know what I like when I see it or feel it on so not just anyone can help me. I'm afraid, they will show me their style and I don't want to hurt their feelings if it isn't mine. So, challenge has begun. I refreshed my Spark page and stepped on the scale to see.... 172.5!! Whoo hoo, 2 pounds with out trying, now think about what I can accomplish when I do put my mind to it. I hope to get to 152 at first, see how I feel about it then may go for 5 more, we'll see. I will log pounds, gained and lost on SP and occasionally on here but I'm excited. In related news, as I refreshed my page, I told the story of getting sweet Cora Grace in the blog section. I realized that in all the chaos, I don't think I ever really told the whole story on blogger so the link is below to read it. There are some things I purposefully didn't include on the blog for risk of others being judgemental towards my sweet baby but I'm ready to protect her now from comments possibly made (and people WILL make them, not here maybe but silly things have been said to me as a result of me being an open book). Of course I could have included WAY more details but I decided to spare the reader. he he he. I hope you enjoy it:

http://www.sparkpeople.com/mypage_public_journal_individual.asp?blog_id=3739270

Rice Cereal

'Someone' isn't too excited about her introduction to rice cereal. Lol. She is sooO unlike Evan. Ha ha ha. He loved it right away. In other baby comparrison news, I was looking at old posts of evans milestones at this age it is crazy how active he was from birth. At this age he was already going crazy in his doorway bouncer as some of you may remember but Cora just sits in it. He loved baths and she can't wait to unclench her fists and get out. :) Oh well. He he he. ....

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

FRIDAY FIVES

If you come to Tennessee, this is where I would take you to eat at...

{in no particular order}

1. BUSTER'S Place in Murfreesboro. It is a total dive but they make delicious fresh beef hamburgers. They only make them at certain hours of the day (till 4pm only?) so get em' while they're hot. And let me tell you... THEY ARE FILLING!

2. City Cafe in Murfreesboro. Southern Cooking and hospitality. I personally love their Turkey and dressing (stuffing for you Californians) or any pie. Besides the price being extremely reasonable, you can never go wrong with the special of the day.

3. I don't have anywhere else to take you to eat that isn't a chain and I don't go to downtown Nashville to eat but... Michael gives a mean tour of both our city and Nashvegas. This is where we'd take you in Nashville:

Love Circle for one view of Down town, Titans Stadium, The Parthenon, ok- maybe Rotiere's we would need to stop for lunch anyway and it's right next to the Parthenon, historic and the bomb, if it's in season I'd love to take you to a Nashville Predators game and of course drive around downtown, see the Capitol (where President James K. Polk is buried) and the Bicentenial Mall/Farmers Market. If it's the summer and you have kids, they should bring a suit and a towel so we can play in the waterway display. Whoo hoo!

4. If we are in Murfreesboro: We'd see the monument for the geographical Center of Tennessee located on Lascassas Pike near Greenland
http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=26067. Talk about living in "Middle Tennessee"! :) We'd also take you to the Stones River Civil War Battlefield http://www.nps.gov/stri/
and maybe the greenway trail for some exercise after we eat at our favorite Indian Food, The Clay Pit. mmmm Tikka Masala... mmmm.

5. My house, my backyard and my kids. I'll make you grilled cheese or peanut butter and jelly. ;)

Neeeeew Birthday bike...

This is a video of Evan on his new Schwinn Roadster Trike that Mom and Dad and Grandma Putsie (I'm playing with grandma names for my mom, she was called Putsie growing up by her parents. I like it) and Grandpa Allan bought together for him. I finally put it together today and Evan (and I) love it!! Here is a snipet from what I took from my phone today. There is more to the story but it wouldn't let me post that much from my phone. :( He can't pedal yet but he's having a fun time pushing it and being pushed. Plus: it has a super cool bell on it. I'll take better pictures later.

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

New toy.

Do you think Evan likes his new (impulse buy) from mommy? :)

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

It's time...

... For Eggnog! Mmmmm.... Pumpkin eggnog is yummy. I just had to try it & Evan loved it as you can see. :)

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

my sweet friend jessica

I have a little crush on my friend Jessica Jay. First of all she has a cool name and second of all, she's I think in her mid? 20's and already experienced too much in her life. Anyway, I was on her blog which she recently rekindled and after cracking up over her craziness, I noticed her "about me" section of which I could literally copy and paste for my own discription. I know you're DYING to hear what I think about myself so here is her (edited) description of herself with my 2 cents included. ;)

I'm a straight-forward, tell-it-like-it-is, honest person. I'm a yankee {californian/west coaster} and you can tell! I'm outgoing, and outspoken. I'm very opinionated and that can get me in trouble sometimes. I laugh a lot, and I'm usually always smiling. I forgive, but I don't forget. I'm a pretty goofy person. I'm very sarcastic, so don't take me too seriously. I like people with a good sense of humor. I'm easy going and laid back. I {used to fall in} love a little too easy, and I trust a little too much {i would say, I can/could be naive}. I'm a very random person, and most would say I have ADD {anyone who DOESN'T say they think I have ADD, doesn't know me at all. lol}. Music is my passion, and I love to sing {i am clueless about music but do love it in doses}. Money burns a hole in my pocket {i don't like to spent and when I do, I am very thrifty}. In my world, I'm always right. I love to argue, simply because I think its fun to get a rise out of people {i do not "like" to argue ever because I also hate conflict but will not stand down from protecting what is right}. However, I hate conflict. I love babies, and I'm a big softie for any animal {i wouldn't say I was a softy but am an animal lover, especially at someone elses house}. I have no patience for ignorant {passive} people. I have a gift of seeing peoples true colors, so don't think you can fool me. I still like to color in a coloring book. I have Crohn's Disease {i do not but am sorry you do and love you!} . I hate feet, they gross me out {i was once all about hating anyone's feet, including my own but now I'm ok with all feet, glad to report. he he he}. I think springtime is the prettiest, but I'm a summer girl. I'm just a down-to-earth girl who loves life.

Jessica, thanks for reminding me of a younger me :) xoxo

FRIDAY 5's

Ok so I'm a little late for last weeks Friday 5's but I was working all day then left for the weekend with Amber Jean but this is the subject:



5 Pictures of your house



Now, I could put pictures on here but I really don't want to look through everything to find them. It's 930pm and I'm not going to take any so if any show up on here, it's pure luck. :) I would rather describe to you some of my favorite things about or in my home and there may be more than 5...



1. When we brought Evan home from being born in Atlanta, he was about 6 or 7 days old. This was sad to me as I have always wanted to be a mother and with that idealized the "It's a boy" sign sticking in my yard (amoung other things), when you come home from the hospital. Well, I can be a martyr sometimes and just wished inside that certain things would be there when we got home but I wasn't willing to ask (even though there were plenty willing to come to our aide). He was born 2 weeks early and we found out Courtney was in labor, packed and left all in a 3 hour time frame, leaving our house a disaster. Here are the blessings that followed that I will never forget: A friend, Tara, gave us her hotel reward points so we didn't have to spent $100+ a night while in GA. Our friend Marrion, offered before hand to stay AT and watch our house and pets at a moments notice and it was, a moments notice. :) When we drove in, I wanted to cry because the most generious, thoughtful and silly friend I have, Lindsey had got another friend Katie to make us a "WELCOME HOME" Evan sign and it was HUGE across my porch! It was perfect and so so so so so touching. When I got inside the house, Marrion had staightened things up, made a Welcome banner inside and displayed the flowers that Kathy and Loretta had sent. MMM they smelled good! In the babies room Marrions gift of a changing pad was in it's place (whew! we had NO baby shower yet cause he was early and had ZERO things for him but an empty crib and a dresser - now holding a changing pad). There were gifts from L & K and from my wards Primary there was a huge poster board signed by all the kids with balloons saying congratulations thanks to my friend Beth. It was amazing. I always imagined my Mommy would be there to help me but I didn't need her cause I had so much 'family' here in my Ward and community. ( I'm SURE I forgot to mention others just now but the love is there for everyone)

2. I have this old framed picture of the Los Angeles Temple where Michael and I were sealed. It used to be my brother Wade's and his wife Lisa's but I'm assuming they got an updated one. They asked who wanted it and it's mine (although I'd really like an updated one myself and have considered drawing one... in my 'free' time. lmbo!). Anyway...

Something funny we did with it is cut our image out from our Open House (at the Neely's here in TN) and put it on the picture. It always gets a laugh when people find it. We have grand plans of how we will encorporate our children on the picture as well but as will everything in my life, it has been procrastinated. :) Still, this item in our home gives me great joy.

3. I love my back yard! It is just big enough for our house, it's privacy fenced except for the back which is a 'farm' type open fence so we can still see the woods behind our house. It makes it feel much more expansive and I'm so glad I'm not looking at someone elses house. I also love my trees although, the ones on the line of property between our yard and the 'forrest' are dangerously dropping huge branches and I wish the tree line could be taken care of (by someone else of course). What I really love is my cropping of trees off center to my yard. they create a great landscape and texture. Evan loves playing in it too so it's all validated.

4. I really like my purple walls in my "Great Room". It's quite soothing and it turns out to be a great back drop for art and etc. I also LOVE Evan's room colors how they turned out; a silvery grey that registers blue and a brown accent wall.

5. I love having wood floors and would love it even more if there was not pet hair or kitty litter to step on (some day), lol.

6. I love that I live outside of town. I have always lived outside of town and it sorta reminds me of home. I have a peaceful neighborhood and have hard working neighbors so they seem to appreciate what they have and take care of their homes (for the most part). Once you own your home, it's surprising how much you care about whether your neighbor keeps up their yard or parks too many cars outside. lol. So I have to say I feel blessed (knock on wood) that my neighbors are pretty neat. I do have dreams of one day posting a challenge in our neighborhood to have a landscaping competition to make our street beautiful as it IS called "Royal Garden" you'd think we ought to be better gardiners, right? ;) It would be a fun way to talk to everyone anyway.

Ok, that's it I guess. With all this said about my house, I still want more space so I can empty my garage and have a place for those things inside my house. Hopefully that dream can come true sooner rather than later. :)

We love our daddy.

This sweetness was taken the other day. This baby is always happy and that makes Daddy always happy too. :) We love you. xoxo

Oakes Farm Weekend

This weekend myself and the kids went to Knoxville with my friend Amber and 2 of her boys. We visited with her sister Kacey whom I've only seen in person like 3 times (can you believe that?!) but it's as if we, like Amber and I, were meant to meet and be kindred spirits. We were only there for one full day and spent it with our kids and no husbands (maybe a treat for them, lol) at Oakes Farm in Corryton. It was a fun day of activities, great weather and relatively behaving children. :) Here are some pictures from the day...

This is my little stinker running this far away from me. He does love corn...maybe he was being called to "build it" so "they will come". (movie reference)

Amber and Kacey's riff-raff. Henry, Nathan, Oliver and Sam. I love Sam's 'belt' accessory (you may need to click to enlarge it).

Gotcha! ;)

Yes, I let my poor 2 year old go down this humongous slide! I only wish I was at the top to see if he thought twice about going down it but I felt the need to be the photographer instead.

He survived but was totally confused when he got out. lol. I'm a horrible mother. he he he

Smaller one that he did by himself but...

Mommy and Cora Grace came this time too! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!

This was a great bouncy thing. Too bad there were so many big kids, Evan couldn't even stand up and gave up.

It's ok, there were plenty of gravel filled tires to climb up onto. :) lol.

Kid's sized corn maze made him very happy.

You've heard the phrase "stop and smell the corn husk" right?

In...

and up!

Start....

and finish!

Who needs the beach when you have a huge sand pit in the middle of a farm? ha ha ha.

All our boys together for the hayride. Evan sat by himself at the front the whole time (right behind the fumes. Yeah, mother of the year award is MINE!).

Look at these little lovebirds. They are just the sweetest sisters and their closeness shows. Thank you for letting me hang out with you girls. :)

Too cute of Sam, not to post of one him alone. muah!

Example of my good boy holding on so well.

Oh! There I am. Little C.G. looks like she's sucking her thumb. I temporarily tore Evan from his primo seat to get a photo op.

Done with the hayride, Amber and Henry took a turn at racing tractors. lol. I also did this with Evan but there were no witnesses. ha ha ha.

Look at that little face. Don't you just want to eat him up?

Amber hooked me up so I could have some evidence of being there too. C.G. didn't get much photo time since she was all strapped to me and all.

I love it! This picture makes me happy and I think MDS will love it too since it has his beautiful girls in the shot but there is rows and rows of his favorite... corn, in the back ground. Honey, wipe your mouth, you're drooling. he he he he.

Evan didn't quite cooperate here but Amber did her best to try.

peek a boo!

:)

At the end of the day, Evan was done listening...

He actually preferred to sit like that for a minute or so. Mom didn't like it.

So when we got back to Kacey's house, Evan decided to continue his mischief in their new puppy's kennel.

I considered leaving him in there... but I do love him so. :)

In closing. All the boys really loved baby Cora. They all took a turn saying something nice to and about here without being prompted so C.G. really got a big head about it. (We'll have a talk with her later. he he) We really did have a nice weekend thanks to our sweet pet sitters for being the best ones there are and for the house being clean when we got home (not anymore but it was nice for a moment).