Thoughtful Thursday

Would you rather.....
be extremely lucky
or be extremely smart....but not
both lucky and smart?

Like White on Rice Merrianne? Oh yeah, I'm all over this like white on rice.

I may have to play hookie from work on Friday.

Why?

sigh.

Hugh Jackman.

excuse me while I drool.

sigh. Ok. the player thingy isn't working for me. Is it working for you?

If not, try this link. You know, just so you can see what I'm talking about. sheesh!

Mad Monday

This is what Monday's do to me.

I'm going crazy,

why don't you come along?

I love my mother in law...

So, we're planning a quick trip up to Sandy/Draper (Utah) on the eighth of May, for my grandma's 92nd birthday party. We're taking both of our vehicles because we don't have a minivan and it's just too pricey to rent one for the trip. Well, Jon needed to go and get the oil changed in his car, and of course, while there they let him know he needs a couple belts changed. (he double checked himself, and yeah, it's true). So, he went to get that taken care of. We don't want to risk it for the trip. Nice chunk of change, $200+. Should have just rented the van, but too late now. So, while he's there, his mom calls and he tells her about it. SO, she says she'll send us half the money it takes to rent a van, and we should do that instead, because it'll be less wear and tear on the cars, and safer for all of us to drive up together and yada, yada, yada. AY!!!
I love my mother in law. She's really pretty awesome, raised a terrific boy, is good to me. But, we're not going to do this. She is very opinionated sometimes, and is not scared to let us know what she thinks we should do. I really do appreciate her offer, but we just shelled out $240 to get his car repaired, we can't really afford the other half of the money we would need to rent the van.
I told Jon that she can send the money, and we'll do what we're planning on doing anyway, and then we'll send her back the money for her birthday present. LOL (just kidding)
sigh
How do you handle your mother in law when she's just trying to be helpful?

Humbled

Ok, so I worked for several years for the Titanic Exhibition. Doing so, I of course gleaned lots of information about that great disaster. More than I ever wanted to know.
I've come to the point for the most part, where I'm kind of tired of it. I think most people when they think of the Titanic, think of the big James Cameron movie from '97, and they roll their eyes, or make a joke about it.
Every once in a while though, I'll open a book, and read a personal story or two about the passengers, and man! Can't help but get emotional.
For example:
"Mrs. Stanton Abbott, divorced wife of a former middleweight boxer in England, was returning to East Providence with her two sons Rossmore (16 yrs.) and Eugene (13 yrs). As Titanic was sinking all three waited until the end, then jumped into the water. Mrs. Abbott managed to get into the half-submerged Collapsible Lifeboat A and had to stand for several hours in water up to her knees until picked up by Fifth Officer Lowe in Collapsible Lifeboat D. The two boys were never seen again after they jumped into the water." --Titanic Names by Lee W. Merideth
--as I read this, I thought of my sweet boys. I'd just want to die myself if I lost any of my kids.
also:
"Edith Evans was single and traveling alone. She met up with several passengers, including Mrs. John M. Brown who although was much older, had young children at home. Miss Evans and Mrs. Brown managed to get up to Collapsible Lifeboat D, the last lifeboat, but it was full and only had room for one more person. Edith Evans, who was closest to the lifeboat, stepped back and told Mrs. Brown to get in, telling her "you go first, you have children waiting at home". Mrs. Brown was saved, but Miss Evans was not. She was one of four First Class women who were lost."--Titanic Names by Lee W. Merideth
Wow! chokes me up every time I read that story.
What a heroic woman. I know there is a special place reserved for her in Heaven. Not to mention the hundreds of other heroic men and women who gave their lives that night.
I pray I will never have to find out if I have what it takes to make that kind of sacrifice.

Playing Ketchup

So, thought I'd take a few minutes and catch you all up on our amazingly awesome spring/track break activities from a few weeks back. Wish I could say we did lots of fantastic things, but alas, just not the case.

We did go to the zoo though. The local zoo. It's kind of small, but it's still pretty cool. Hello Mr. Tortoise. How are you today?

The Barbary apes really have attitude.

This is one bea-u-tiful kitty. A bobcat, or mountain lion. I always forget how big these guys actually are.

Definitely not someone to mess with.

The obligatory kid shot on the fake elephant.

and another one, just cuz'.

Isn't he gorgeous?

We really lucked out. They were getting ready to feed the lions while we were there.

We don't often get to see them so active when we go to the zoo. It's usually roasting hot, and they're napping in the shade. So this was WAY cool for us! These two are brother and sister. They were born the year Ashley was born. We have pictures of them as cubs. So, they're celebrating their ten year birthday's this year.

Feeding the multitudes

(of pigeons, roosters, hens and chicks)

Peeking at the otter. (can you see him?)

watch your fingers!! SNAP!!!

So we also went to the park a couple of times.

Wheeeee!

See that building over there in the distance? That's a school. There was a fire truck in the parking lot, it had just shown up, sirens blazing. Justin decided he needed a much closer view of the "Cah!!!""JUSTIN!!!! Get back here!!"

running away from mommy.

more sliding fun....And last, but not least. Why "playing ketchup"? Justin seems to think it makes a great facial and hair conditioning treatment.

~~~~

Hey, check out this site!!

Wow!! I was watching Rachael Ray today, and she had this little segment on $5 dinners. Her guest is the host of this great website, 5dollardinners.com that has TONS of $5 dinner recipes. I'm adding it to my google reader and definitely planning on checking her out frequently. Goes right along with the coupon clipping that I seriously need to get involved in, what with the economy the way it is and food prices being so high.
Also, she's having a giveaway right now for a book about square foot gardeining. So go check it out if you're interested in something like that.

never leave your child unattended, not even for a minute

Ok, they weren't really unattended, we were all in the same room with them. It's just that we were all preoccupied with other things.

oh the fun we can get into.....
doesn't taste too good, but let's see how it looks mashed into the carpet

sheesh!!!

you'd think we broke some sort of law or something...

seriously???

we have to clean up our own mess????

aren't there child labor laws or something????

I am a Funky Bag Freak

ooohhh!!! I got me some awesome mail today!!!!

Lookie, lookie!!!!! Lucky me!!!!

I was the super duper fastasmagically lucky winner of

Funky Bag Freaks giveaway last week.

Look what she sent me.

I love this purse!!!

Have I ever mentioned I have a purse fetish?

This is a fabulous purse.

Lots of pockets inside, fun, fabulous funky fabric inside and outside.I love it!!!! Thanks FFB!!!!!Isn't that cute? That's on the back of the bag. What a nice touch.

And this was inside, sweet no?

(It says "Made just for you because you're...PRICELESS")

sweet! The cute little round bunny is adorable too, she threw that in just because.

Go check out her Etsy shop.

She's got some other fabulous bags for sale there.

Well, I must go fill up my new purse now. It's going to work with me tonight!

thanks again FFB!!!

I am this close to being all caught up with my laundry

It's only taken me about six weeks to get here.

and uh, yeah, my Christmas village IS still up, but my Easter decorations are down. Except for the wreath on the front door.

word verification

Sorry guys, I turned word verification back on.
Got a little spam from a nasty web address.
I want my blog to be family friendly.

Easter pics

Got Chocolate???

So, thought I'd catch up a bit and post our Easter pictures.

We don't usually do a whole lot on/for Easter. I was quite a bit more spiritually focused on it this year, and I credit General Conference for that. Some spectacular talks, Elder Holland's in particular really moved me.

Normally, and this year was no exception, the kids wake up to find their baskets on the table,

they get to rifle through them for a while,
then Jon will go hide some eggs in the grass for their Easter egg hunt.


This was the boys' first Easter egg hunt. They did pretty well. I think only a few eggs got cracked.

And that's pretty much it. We don't do a big Easter dinner. We did go to church, I stayed in the nursery this week and didn't get to hear the lessons in Sunday School or Relief Society. I was really hoping for a beautiful musical number during sacrament, but that didn't happen, so I was a little bummed. But that's ok. There were two good talks on the Atonement.

I need to incorporate some good Easter traditions into our yearly celebrations. When I was growing up, my dad would always hide our Easter baskets and we'd have to find them. That was always fun, I don't know why I don't do that. Maybe we'll have to start that next year. Mother Goose has some really terrific Easter traditions. I'm going to have to try a few of them next year. I really love the resurrection cookies she posts about. I'm definitely going to try that one.

Somewhere I saw a great idea for doing sort of an Easter advent using those plastic Easter eggs, and putting a scripture reference inside each one to read each day as you approach Easter. Fantastic!!! I'm going to do that next year too. Sorry to whoever it was that posted about that idea, I'd give you credit if I could remember where I saw it.

Now I just need to go take down my Easter decorations. Maybe I should take down my Christmas village while I'm at it....