The great fast-food conspiracy

It's not what you think.
As if it isn't bad enough that the fast-food chains of the world offer ginormous serving sizes and charge you less for those than they do for the regular size servings, thus forcing you to purchase the over sized servings;  I have recently uncovered another menacing plot of theirs.
What is it? What could it be?

Let me just explain how I came by this little discovery.
Tuesday September 28, 2010
I stopped at a well known hamburger chain after dropping my girls off at Activity Days, to pick up some burgers for dinner. I'd just returned home about three hours prior from my long road trip to Utah, and had NO desire to prepare dinner.
I ordered 12 cheeseburgers, 3 medium fries and a couple drinks.
Upon getting into my car, I discovered that I was short one cheeseburger. Swearing ensued.
I was tired. I didn't feel like going all the way back inside to complain about my missing burger. So, I just complained all the way home instead.
Wednesday September 29, 2010
I decided to stop and have lunch with my husband at his work.
I chose the drive-thru at a well known taco chain. I ordered about four taco type things, nachos and cheese sauce (for the boys)  and an order of cinnamon twisty things.
I exited the drive-thru lane and peeked inside my bags to make sure I got everything. Lo and behold, I was missing my cinnamon twisty things!!!!!!!! Tongue biting ensued. Would have been swearing but four little ears in the back seat helped me to hold my tongue. Well, one swear word might have slipped out.
I was definitely not going inside, because of my precious cargo--it's a royal pain in the kiester to get them out of the car, and I wasn't going back through the drive-thru lane. So I just grumbled all the way to Jon's work.

Do you see what's going on here? Aside from the fact that I obviously eat too much fast-food?

Inconspicuously, one dollar at a time; they're ripping us off!!!!!
Think about it.

funny

Crazy how some things work out.
I kind of sort of but not really almost for about a minute (get that?), had the chance to go to London next month. It would have been with work. Helping to set up a store for one of our exhibitions. Fell through. Poor me.
As I pondered my options for all of those three minutes, here were my thoughts:
It would be awesome to go to London!!! Yes, count me in!
Leave the kids for a week? Sure!!! I could use a break. Would it really be a break? I'd be working the whole time.
Can I really leave my kids for a week?
Sure, no problem.
Really? It's the other side of the world practically!! Do I want to be THAT far away from them?
um, no. What if the plane crashes or something?  Then they'd have no mommy. Jason would be devastated (he's kind of a momma's boy). They'd all be devastated. Except maybe for Justin, I think sometimes he just doesn't like me all that much.
Hmmm, not sure if I want to do this after all.

Funny. I didn't even have to get away to realize how much I would miss them.

Well, now I get to go to Salt Lake without the kids (without daddy too) for my grandma's funeral.

And even though the reason I'm going isn't the greatest, I sure am looking forward to a little time away.

Guess it's easier knowing I'm just one state away.

I suppose I should be packing and stuff. dang internet.

Post Edit: Jon, if you're reading--don't be offended. I'm not looking forward to getting away from you!!!! Just the kids, you know, those moments when they're acting up (which is like, all of them). And those times when I can't use the toilet without an audience of two plus a cat (which is like, all of the time).

In loving memory

My dear grandma passed away this morning.
I just got word from my mom.
I hung up the phone and shed some tears.
Tears of sadness, as she will be missed.
And tears of joy, because I know she is at peace and with family.
And happy beyond reason.
I love you Grandma!!
I look forward to seeing you again someday.
Give Grandpa a hug for me.
And give James a thump on the head for me.

His and Her Home Decor

So, just thought it would be fun to share some pics of our decor.

Of course, there's a little catch.

It takes two to tango.

It takes two baby!

sigh.

Give and take right?

Well there's my idea of attractive home decor......



pretty picture above our bed.

Nice little grouping above the fireplace.

The pot/plant shelves in our bedroom. Again, my idea of attractive decor.

The other side.
Wait.....
What's going on here?

Oh. That's right.
Then there's HIS idea of
attractive home decor.
This is next to the bed.
Oh so romantic don't you think?


I guess it could be worse.
It could be deer heads and weapons on display in the living room.


Don't get any funny ideas honey!



Something a little different for me...

So, I went to visit Terresa's blog, she's an amazing writer of peoms and other things.

She links up to Magpie Tales frequently.

So after reading her poem tonight (which was exquisite by the way), I popped over to Magpie for the first time to check things out.

I guess the idea is that a picture is posted for inspiration and you

write a poem or something based on it.

Here's this weeks inspiration.

Well, a poet I am not. But the picture does remind me of something.

Many, many moons ago when I was a wee bit of a lass.....

Ok, I'm being a bit theatrical here no?

Anyhow, when I was in about the third grade we lived in this house in Sandy,  Utah for a little while.

We lived in most places for only a little while when I was growing up. My dad was an army man, and even after he got out of the military, we continued our gypsy sort of existence, moving from place to place every couple of years.

Well, my sister and I were playing in our room one day, and one of the things we were playing with was my moms hourglass. It wasn't just any hourglass. This was a beautiful prize my mom had won from her bowling league in Germany. Mom had a beautiful collection of crystal pieces that she had won from her leagues, and her hourglass was a part of that collection. We were certainly not supposed to be playing with it.

I don't remember how, but I broke her hourglass that day. Then I hid it under my bed.

There it remained for months.

In that same bedroom I broke a window. I had slammed it closed one day, my hand on the glass and my hand went right through the pane. Fortunately I wasn't hurt, but I was SCARED. My dad was going to kill me. I just knew it.

Somehow I managed to hide the fact that the window was broken for weeks or months as well.

So what's the point of all this?

Well, when dad found out I'd broken that window, what were his first words to me?

Certainly not what I'd been fearing. He asked if I'd hurt myself.

And when mom found that hourglass some time later, was she angry at me as I feared?

Maybe so. Maybe she was sad.

If she was I never knew it.

Apparently my parents know the true value of things, and that hourglass and that window had much less value to them than a very impertinent and disobedient eight year old.

Views from my cell phone

Just thought I'd share some of the fun from my cell phone this week. A little peek into my insanity if you will....

One of my favorite signs in the whole. wide. world.
Why?

Next picture please.....

About 800 calories of PURE BLISS!!!!
Thank goodness it's Friday.
In n Out, here I come!!!

Big fun!!
Grocery shopping with a couple of three year olds.
I don't recommend it.

I think I'm going to make this my new profile pic.
Took it at the park today. I just like the way the sun is shining in it.

Snapped this on the way to work one day. Maybe if you click on it you can make out the words?
I love it.
A dump truck that says:
"Jesus won't dump you!"

Saw this at Target the other day. ARe you kidding me??
Football action figures? This is now on my husbands Christmas wishlist.



This is a little storage ottoman at work. We just use it for seating for our guests.
Do you know what really bugs me?
Everybody looks inside. People are SO nosy! What are they expecting to see?
Know what I REALLY want to do?
Put something scary inside just to see them jump.



Push Justin!  Push!!!

Saw this awesome tent at the local sporting goods store. I don't know if you can tell, but it's ginormous!!!
This is the size we want to buy.

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Ok, I can NOT figure out #1 how this picture got loaded in here twice, and #2 how to get it out of here without deleting the next pic. Got to love blogger!

Took this at work last month. It was for our 2 year anniversary at the Luxor.
This is a cake!
(didn't taste too good!)



My eldest child. She's eleven.
She's been experimenting with eyeliner in this pic.
She's tried to sneak out of the house with it on a few times.
She's cruising for a bruising!

I thought this was COOL! It's a building I drove past the other day. Love how it looks like it's melting.
This is how I feel most of the time here in Vegas.

We need a new one of these to accommodate our water filtration thingy.

Things I wanna know....

What's up with the "kk" in text messaging? Is it supposed to be cute? I just find it annoying.

I mean why 2 k's? Why not just "k"?  If you're going to the trouble of two k's why not just do "ok". They're not that far away from each other on the keypad.

Anyway.

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What do I have to do in order to be able to respond to comments via email? I can't figrue it out. What option do I select on my blog features to enable that?

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Where have all my brain cells gone and am I too young to suffer from dementia?

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Why is it that the louder I raise my voice, the less my kids seem to hear me?

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Which is more addictive, sugar or caffeine?

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Why can everyone else but me get my kids to take a nap? Seriously. I have to get to the point where I've lost it and become Super Mean Mommy before Jason understands he better. go. to. sleep. NOW!

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Is it only Vegas or everywhere these days where girls go out looking like a h**ker on purpose?

I just don't get it.

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Have you ever let the laundry pile up 'til you had absolutely nothing to wear?

(I haven't quite reached that point yet, but I'm considering it).

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Why do swear words feel so right?

Other words just don't generally do the situation justice.

(oh, and how do I break myself of this nasty little habit?)

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So, what kind of things do you wanna' know?

The pinecone park

Alright, I'm really not loving bloggers new features. Especially the picture loading thingamabobber. It does seem to load them faster which is way cool, but I'm not sure about formatting them now. So, these will probably end up posting all out of order. Sorry.

So, we went to the local little park/playground after dropping Haley off this morning. It's a cute little spot. I don't actually know it's name, but I'm calling it the pinecone park.

(see what I mean? All out of whack) Jason's trying to get me to give him the camera.

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so, here's why I'm calling it the pinecone park.


Lots of pine trees, with the much sought after (by my guys anyway)
pinecones.

EXTREME close-up, taken by Justin. Just look at those freckles!

Justin and Jason both had to take some pictures. So here is Justin's (or maybe it was Jason's?)

wow look, here's the other ones'. Eerily similar no?

looking for pinecones.... 

3 little pinecones sitting in a row....

Go forth and propogate!!

nice (or not) candid shot.

this was a fun little discovery. Not sure which tree they come from,
but they're pretty cool. Kind of like a dandelion,
as it matures it becomes all wispy. Make a wish.....

the best picture I got out of this guy. He wasn't being too cooperative., actually wanted me to take a pic of his backside. silly boy.

can you see them? They're looking for pinecones. They kind of blend in with the background. That would be good if we lived on the African plains. Not so great when I need to find one of them asap.

still looking....

our finished product.
If you come to my house, you'll soon find it overflowing I'm sure, with a plethora of pinecones.
Maybe it's time for one of those glitter projects I saw all over the place last year.



So, hey I think I just figured out how to do this formatting now. That's cool, just in time for the end of my post.

stick a fork in me and call me DONE

I'm just done.
done being a mommy.
done being a wife.
done being a maid.
done being a chauffer.
done making schedules.
done being a cook.
done being a bottle washer.
done being an employee.
done making lists.
done paying bills.
done grocery shopping.
done being broke.
done trying to get my monkeys to take a nap.
done with personal hygiene.
done with scooping cat poop.


I'm too selfish for the life I'm leading.

I need a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific with an endles supply of cute notebooks and ink pens, trashy romance novels and In n Out cheeseburgers.

Random

Add this one to the list from yesterday: Spending an hour cleaning their room only to have it all obliterated in 2.6 nanoseconds. This is on the petpeeve list in case you're wondering.
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I need to find my usb cable so I can upload pictures. Wonder which box it's in.......
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Things that send my blood pressure through the roof

• Sass from a three year old. 
• The nicely folded pile of clothes tossed haphazardly across the living room floor.
• The high pitched shriek of previously mentioned three year old.
• Temper tantrums. Theirs, not mine.
• Preparing a nice hearty breakfast for the other three year old, because he asked for scrambled eggs; only to have him NOT eat it. (Have I ever mentioned how much I HATE wasting food?)

Things that make it all worthwhile.

• the flirtatious-y peek/giggle routine from the sassy 3-year old.
• hugs and kisses from the little stinkers
• the funny little things they say or do i.e.  "Haley hit my meatballs!!!" at least that's what it sounded like he said. I think he meant that she took his red ball. Jon say's he'll never think of meatballs the same way again.

Heaven help me not throttle one or both of them today!

Post Edit: Whining. How could I have forgotten whining??????? Note to my kids: The only acceptable whining in this house will be done by ME!!!!!!