7 random things-about me!

i was tagged by michelle to post the 7 random things, so here goes

1. i always wanted to be a trapeez artist-still kind of do. they do lessons in the city-i'm hoping to get there one day(after this baby of course!)

2. i have issues with some P words like, pocketbook, pantyhose, panties. can't use them and hate when others use them.

3. shaka-that was a nickname given to me way back in 8th grade. shaka zulu was being shown on tv at the time and a boy in my class came back to school calling me shaka after he had watched the show. of course i didn't respond at first and then one day he was walking down the hall behind me chanting shaka, shaka and i turned around and said "What!" he got all excited "she answers to it!" and that was what i was known as from then on! if you meet anyone from school that's what they call me, it's sewn into all of my sports sweatshirts and things like that from high school. so now you know it's not as random as it may have seemed. if you have emailed me you see my email says shaka con but that is just because shaka zulu was taken. oh well.

4. i love pajamas! it is not unusual for me to crawl into them at 5pm-if i know i'm home for the night! i also love a good comfy pair of slippers!

5. i received my bachelors degree in early childhood education from byu. that certified me to teach pre-k through 3rd grade. i never taught though.

6. i love to dance. i don't dance well, i prob. have no rhythm but i can't stand or sit still if there's good music on! i'm waiting for the day when the other "adult" leaders at the youth dances tell me to sit down!

7. i (me and a few friends) were held at gunpoint by my hometown police when i was in high school!
it was a day off of school and some friends and i were hanging out at one of my friends houses. she jokingly locked the guys out so they went around back to come in the slider, as they opened the door the screen fell off(as it always did) i guess a neighbor saw this and thought someone was breaking in and called the cops. so while we were inside goofing around, the house was being surrounded by cops! all of the sudden we see a gun in the sliding glass door and then there's cops coming in all over the place. it was a bit frightening. i can't even imagine what kind of look was on my face!

there it is, 7 random things! now i am to tag 7 people. laina, i know you were tagged a while back so i won't tag you. if i tag someone who has been tagged-sorry!
1. laurel
2. traci
3. laci
4. sarah
5. katie
6. cecily
7. rochelle
HAVE FUN!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

today my sweet little first born turns 8. hard to believe! he is the happiest little kid(most of the time)! he was born smiling! as a baby and still today he has a big beautiful smile for everyone! he was the baby that was always hugging and kissing all of his friends. one time, when he was 2, he and a couple other friends were playing together and we tossed them all in a crib. while the other 2 boys were jumping around thing 1 was in the corner kissing the little girl!

he was a perfect little baby, so easy going and just happy to be loved! i feel like as he gets older i don't hug and kiss him as much-he's always in a hurry to get outside to play with his friends! but i know that he still loves a good hug and though he scrunches up his face and makes ucky noises, i know he still loves to be kissed!

we love you! you are a great big brother and son! keep smiling!

star struck!

a rainy saturday turned us up at the mall (and everyone else-it was like christmas!). so while sitting in the hall waiting for the dad to check on a hat at finish line i caught a quick glimpse of a man wandering by with 3 kids. that quick glimpse screamed vincent d'onofrio!

i kind of didn't believe myself but told the dad "i swear that was him" so he said "lets go see". so we followed the man to the other end of the mall before we caught up to him and sure enough it was him!! he was wearing black pants and a black hoodie and roaming the mall with 3 kids-two teenage girls and an early teen boy! he has a lot of the same mannerisms as he does on the show! we followed him into old navy where he ended up with his arms full of clothes and then we left! left him to do his shopping without gawkers like us hanging around!

it was very exciting and i still can't believe i saw him! i never run into "stars"! it's just not my kind of luck or maybe i'm just too clueless to notice them. part of the fun thing is that i really don't pay much attention to actors/actresses but this is one that we really like! and he was in our little rinky dink of a mall! too cool!

the office

the office last night was great-too short though! they got me hooked on those hour long episodes and then they throw a half hour one at me! what is that about?

anyway, my husband emailed this to me yesterday. it's about 10 minutes but fun-of course, it's the office!

YouTube - The Office - Greatest Moments part 1

(i don't know how to put the player in my blog so i just have the link)

so cute!

traci posted about her sister-in-laws new blog where she sells these adorable shoes.

i love them. i think that baby craze is starting for me. i just don't know what i'm having yet so i can't make any purchases.

go on over and check them out!

tagged

i have been tagged

thanks michelle, i enjoy reading your blog too.

now i tag

laina

laurel

lacie

so you guys can post this cute little candy guy in your side bar and tag 3 more people.

have fun!

when she was bad she was horrid

there was a little girl, who had a little curl... you know the rest. well this time she was bad!

we put her to bed and thought she stayed-about an hour later thing 1 hollered down that "thing 3" would not leave his room, uh, oh. the dad headed up the stairs and about fell over once he reached the top. what did she do!?

the little bugger found my notary stamp and stamped all over my bedroom! my night stand, dresser, footboard, bed rail, floor and door were all covered in stamps!!!! she was in trouble!!!!! put to bed and door shut!!

thank goodness -i think -for the magic eraser. it took it all off, and some of the finish, but at least the stamp is gone.

where did this girl come from-my other two never did anything like this!

bad habits

i am not a family bed person. it's just not for me. i want and need my space at night.

unfortunately though we have let thing 3 get into some bad habits. first of all she doesn't even want to go to bed at night so we have let her stay up with us for a while. when we do put her to bed she just keeps coming out and i guess we have just gotten lazy with her. then when we do finally put her to bed she comes and crawls in with us about half way through the night. and again-we have gotten lazy and let her stay!

with her in the bed, no one gets a good nights sleep. we fight over blankets-she kicks them off and i want them pulled up to my chin. she snuggles close so if i want to roll over i have to slide her over first and often times she sleeps sideways.

now with a baby on the way, who is going to have me up nights anyway, we need to get thing 3's sleeping habits straightened out.

we never had an issue like this with thing 1. he has always slept in his own bed.

thing 2 did come into our bed for a while. he was about 3 years old and so we would talk to him about it and ask why he liked to sleep in our bed. he told us it was comfortable. then finally, we started asking him what was comfortable about it-the bed, the blankets? he told us the blankets. now, we sleep in heaven under a down comforter. if you have one you know that it is the greatest thing in the world. we can't sleep well under anything else either. so, when he said the blankets were comfortable we decided to buy him his own down comforter-it was worth a shot! we haven't seen him since!

now what's thing 3's trick!?-probably just us being consistent. we'll see but that is one of our messes we are trying to clean up before the baby gets here.

BIG NEWS!

Your baby is now 5/8 of an inch long, about the size of a kidney bean. New this week: Webbed fingers and toes are poking out from your baby's hands and feet, his eyelids practically cover his eyes, breathing tubes extend from his throat to the branches of his developing lungs, and his "tail" is just about gone. His arms have lengthened, too, and his hands are now flexed at the wrist and meet over his heart. His knee joints have formed, and his feet may be long enough to meet in front of his body. In his brain, nerve cells are branching out to connect with one another, forming primitive neural pathways.

so, this is kind of where i have been-stuck to the couch feeling yucky!!! i'm in my 8th week now. i discovered this about 3 weeks ago when the nausea set in. it was planned but right now it hasn't been very exciting! as i start feeling better i'm sure i will feel happy about it. i apologize for my complaining to those of you who get really sick and throw up and all of that. i know i could be much worse but for me this is the worst one yet. with my other 3 i've only felt nauseous until i ate-this one is constant and draining. anyway, we are preparing for thing 4. i'm due in may(spring baby-just what i wanted). the things are excited-but they don't like our name choices! i told them they could call the baby whatever they want. they want to name it after their favorite cartoon characters.

now you know where i've been! i think i'm a bit on the upswing of things-i hope! so i'll be around more.

i-yi-yi

i don't know what happened, i got sucked in for a second!
as i was registering for an online newsletter an offer caught my eye and ignorantly i filled in the information! now i am getting about 40 spam e-mails a day!!! it's driving me crazy! i guess it shouldn't -all i have to do is delete them, and they go in a separate folder anyway but i wish i had thought about it before i filled in that darn offer! oh well, now my email has been exposed to the world of junk!!
does the junk bother you or can you just ignore it?

ooh la la

i unfortunately subscribe to domino-i expected it to be different and it's not my style.

i do, however, flip through it every month when it shows up in my mailbox and occasionally i find a couple of things i like. this month i must share...

isn't this tub gorgeous!?

it won't be showing up in my bathroom ever though-$9,267!!! i'll just enjoy looking at it on the pages of a magazine!

HOW OLD ARE YOU NOW?

yesterday was thing 2's birthday-the big 6! which is absolutely crazy to me! not because he's getting old-though that is hard-but because i thought he was already 6! i did this when he turned 2 also! i had to stop and calculate because he just seemed older already! he's one of those kids though. i firmly believe he came to this world to be with his big brother-yeah, he loves us but big brother was the driving force. so, since day one pretty much, he has done everything thing 1 has done and sometimes more. as my friend says, "he's an old soul". and it's not that he's super mature and beyond his years, he just seems older-maybe because he started bigger-9lbs 50z! my first was 6,14 and my third was 7,12-so he is one of a kind around here! a three month old from birth!-and we are small people-we could lose a few inches but small in general!

so anyway, he's a great kid. pretty even tempered-agreeable most of the time but when he is cranky-watch out!! he is really a fun kid, very excited about life! we are so glad he is part of our family!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BUDDY!

staying on task!

this is the chart i use with my boys every morning. we started using it several years ago after a family home evening lesson on family responsibilities. this chart has been very helpful. when they get distracted(which happens often) i just ask them what is left for them to do on their chart and they know what they need to do. the whole thing is laminated (love my laminator!) and each tag is attached with a piece of velcro and on the reverse side is a happy face sticker, so as they finish each task they flip it over. they started using it probably around the age of 2 or 3 and were able to follow along. in those days i was much more involved of course but it got them started doing it on their own. now they are responsible for everything including making their bed (it's not always beautiful but they are getting it down-i just go back and straighten it after they have left)

i guess it's time to get out the master and make thing 3 one of her own. as crazy as it is i'll catch her making her bed some mornings-better keep that going while she enjoys it! (she just pulls all of the blankets up flat on her little toddler bed, but the first day i found it like that i was very confused and even though she said she had done it i had to ask everyone else in the house if they had done it for her and then i still didn't believe she had done it until i caught her doing it one day!-children are so much smarter than we realize!)

do you have any little trick to keep your kids on task?

spirit jugs

i'm saving my milk cartons for this cute halloween decoration!

spirit jugs

cravings

i woke up this morning and decided on taco soup for dinner. by lunch time i was craving it so badly i decided to fix it right then and to fix a double batch so there was enough for me to start eating it!

everyone has probably had taco soup but in case you haven't, it's a great way to get that sour cream, cheese and chips in your mouth! YUM YUM!

here's the recipe...

1lb hamburger
1/4 cup onion chopped
1 16oz can stewed tomatoes
1 16 oz can kidney beans-drained
1 17 oz can corn-drained
1 8oz can tomato sauce
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cumin

brown and drain hamburger, add onions. cook till onions are tender, add remaining ingredients over med. heat. cook till heated through. serve with cheese, chips (Doritos, Frito's or tortilla chips) and sour cream!

*some people just add a taco seasoning packet in place of the last 6 ingredients.
**i also add a can of chicken broth and a can or two of water-i like mine with more broth so it is soupier!

now that hit the spot!-and dinner's ready!

uh, oh!

while i was typing my last post i started to hear a lot of crinkling upstairs! i quickly finished up and headed up to see what the girl had gotten into!

she found the box of birthday presents sent from grandma for the boys. (their birthday's are this month and next month and along with their gifts she sent a couple little gifts for thing 3)!

the little booger ripped almost all of them open!

i'm not sure how the boys will react-they'll prob. just be happy they get their present now and don't have to wait-or i could wrap them up again and hide them away! hmmmm not sure-one thing i realized though is i'm not sure what was for who!

i guess it's time to get off the computer as thing 3 has climbed into the freezer and brought me the ice cream (Edy's loaded chocolate fudge Brownie-yum!) and is telling me she NEEDS ice cream! (i think i need some too!)

uplifting thoughts?

a local business that i pass almost every day puts out a new thought every week. they start out feeling positive but end up... well, not so positive! a few weeks ago it read...

"if life is like a bowl of cherries, then why are there so many nuts?"

this weeks reads...

"life's too short to take seriously. besides, no one gets out alive!"

a little food for thought i guess.

BLOGGEDY BLOG BLOG BLAH'S!

that's what i have right now!

LAUREL!

no homework-yet!

the first week went great! the boys came home excited about school-thing 1 let us know very clearly that he had no homework! that was the one thing he was dreading-homework! last year we(and i do mean to say we) had a lot of homework! i think we will this year too, it just hasn't hit yet! this year i think he will be able to work more independently on it though.(at least i hope)

thing 2 was excited for FUN FRIDAY!

what a great way to keep the kids going all week-give them something to look forward to at the end!

he's been up early everyday, dressed quickly and ready to go-thing 1 has been slow to wake and very cranky at thing 2 for disturbing him! such different boys!

thing 2 hasn't had any homework yet either. thing 1 had the same teacher when he was in 1st grade so i think i know what to expect. not a ton of homework (busywork style) but a lot of reading.

so, we are off to a fun start but i'm sure attitudes will change when the homework hits!