Giveaway Reminder. Weekend Plans. The Grace of God.

Before we venture into our weekend I'd like to remind you about the book Parenting Gag Reel-Hilarious Writes and Wrongs: Take 26.

This book supports autism and only costs $2.99.  A link to buy it is on my sidebar.  Also, I'm giving away 5 copies of it here.

I think I picked up on a rumor that it's going to come out in paperback soon which is really cool.

The Man and I are on the verge of a kidless weekend, because you know, a week camping without The Circus wasn't break enough.

Just kidding kids.

This Season

Here's a taste of what the Christmas season has been around our house.

With the dinning room being under construction, and the fireplace being in the dinning room, stockings have been hung up the railing with care.

And scotch tape.

And the star is too heavy for the top of our tree...

I helped a co-worker drop clothes off at the Homeless Shelter.

This weekend the kids and I will be cleaning out their closets and their toys.  We'll clean out our blanket closet and go buy a bunch of new socks.

And then, with the kids, we'll take their used clothes and toys (all cleaned up) down to the Homeless shelter.

In a hopes to instill in my children how rich of a life they live, and thus have a responsibility to help others.

I got to eat lunch at the Capitol yesterday with my co-workers for our AG Christmas lunch.

I love that building.

I love downtown.

Jayme made this beautiful rag tree that I've kept under the big tree.

And probably will for every year.

"Wrap yourself in the holiday spirit."

I got my Christmas craft on for our neighborhood Christmas breakfast at the church.

With a huge, huge thanks to my girls.  Those lollipops are a two man job.

You have to put the cellophane on the floor, put the balloon on the cellophane, and then hold the tube (sometimes tubes, sometimes rolled up posterboard) on the balloon.  They would hold it while I gathered and hot glued the cellophane around to the tube so we could secure the balloon in without popping it with the hot glue.  I couldn't have done it with out the extra sets of hands.

And Cali got to see Santa again.

Our friends introduced us to the most awesome, magical Christmas house.

There are so many blow up decorations, covering every inch of their yard, up in their trees, hanging on wires in the air, sitting on their roof...

You just can't see it all with one visit.

I've been three times this week and I still find a new blow up that I hadn't noticed before.

Like the mooning Santa:

And the bear with his tongue stuck to a pole:

And Santa in the outhouse, which sadly, I don't have a picture of.

This weekend will be focused on donating to the Homeless Shelter.  I'm hoping that will set the mood for giving with our Circus.  For giving for the simple fact that it creates joy for someone else, and that alone creates the greatest feeling in ourselves.

We have so very much in this life.

We must reach out to those who need a helping hand.

Because when we give what we have, we always seem to have what we need.

Phineas and Ferb Sums Up Motherhood. And Pinterest Recipe Reviews.

Last night we were watching Phineas and Ferb on Netflix.

I love that cartoon.

That and Wizards of Waverly Place.

That's pure entertainment right there.

Anyway, Phineas and Ferb.  This scene happened and I cracked up.  As in giggled myself silly because this scene right here explains exactly what it feels like to be a mom.  Watch how Baljeet reacts to Buford:



I died.

Not 15 minutes after watching that show I was in the kitchen with The Circus talking about "The Muppets Christmas Carol" when someone asked Tayler if she even knew what we were talking about and she replied, "Ihop."

Baljeet ran through my mind.

I feel that way much too often.

Today we wanted to tell you about some more pinterest recipes we've tried out in our home.
There's some seriously good stuff on that website.

Forgotten Chicken
pinterest link here  original link here

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This recipe was easy with a capitol E.

I also heard once that if you want to switch your family over to brown rice instead of white, you should use brown rice in new recipes, not established recipes, because then they don't notice a taste difference.  So I tried that with this recipe.  I used instant brown rice instead of white rice.

I don't think my family has a clue.

Out of 9  votes (Papa Mike at it with us once too) it got...

all 9.

We've eaten it two Sundays in the last month.  It's already become a regular dinner at our house.

Go pin it.  Go make it.

Baked Penne
pinterest link here  original link here

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I usually avoid baked pastas.

As much as I love them, The Man needs meat.  And baked pastas are usually just pasta and cheese, and sometimes veggies.  So when I saw that this baked pasta called for meat I sang with the hallelujah choir in my head.

Out of 8 votes it got...

all 8.

Again we've made this twice in a month's time and then a third time on left over night.  When The Circus found out I was making if for a second time they got excited.

Huge hit.

I skipped the green peppers in it and used regular ground hamburger.

Amazing Crockpot Chicken Taco Chili
pinterest link here  original link here

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We didn't cover ours with Fritos.

I can't say enough about finding really good recipes for the crockpot, especially as a working mom.

Out of 8 votes it got...

7

Sort of.  The first time I made it Tayler claimed it to be too "spicy" but she ate it perfectly fine the next time I made it.

And The Man said it was "okay," but when I told him it a healthier recipe he said in that case it was really good.  He likes it when eating healthier tastes good.

I've made this repeatedly and there haven't been any other comments "against" it.

I'm also planning on making for my work party coming up in a couple of weeks.  I think it's good enough to share.

Baked Spaghetti
pinterest link here  original link here

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Spaghetti has been a fall back out our house for years because I'm lame and use jarred sauce.  It doesn't get any easier than boiling noodles and opening a jar.

Needless to say The Man is sick of spaghetti.

I decided to try this and see if I couldn't change it up a little bit.

Only 6 of us were home that night and out of 6 votes it got...

5

The Man is still sick of spaghetti.  So I don't really think that counts against this recipe.  It was super fun to present spaghetti in a different way like this.  I found it a little dry when I ate it so I just poured a little extra sauce on the plate and dipped.

Also, when I do this again (after a few months.  Let The Man get his spaghetti vibe back) I'd like to make it more garlicky.

Lime Chicken Tacos
pinterest link here  original link here

{source}

This recipe was for the crockpot, but I just did it one night in a pan.

Out of 6 votes it got...

5

The Man had an aversion, for some reason, to the smell of it as it was cooking and thus refused to even taste it.

I wonder if I did it in the crockpot if it would smell better to him?  Because the rest of us thought it was fantastic.

This weekend I get to take The Man on an adventure for his birthday.  Which is still two weeks away but I'm working with an expiration date here, what do you do?  You do it early, that's what.

I can not wait.

Also, I read this article and fell in love with it.

“Let us ask ourselves the questions,” he (Pres. Thomas S. Monson) has said, “‘Have I done any good in the world today? Have I helped anyone in need?’ What a formula for happiness! What a prescription for contentment, for inner peace. … There are hearts to gladden. There are kind words to say. There are gifts to be given. There are deeds to be done. There are souls to be saved.”


“The prayers of people are almost always answered by the actions of others.”

And this one too.  (Thanks Evonne).

For that, good intentions are not enough. We must do.

Let us resolve to cherish those we love by spending meaningful time with them, doing things together, and cultivating treasured memories.

It's Where They Hid the Dead Body

Sometimes when you take on a remodel project in your house, it ends up being ten times bigger than you had anticipated.

Actually, this would be always in our case.

Maybe if we weren't such anal perfectionists.

This particular project started out innocent enough. "How about for Christmas we give each other new wood flooring?"

Brilliant.

So we saved up some money and bought a car load of flooring.

I started painting while the old carpet was in place.

Drip on the floor?  Oh well.

It was awesome.

The Man hates painting so that falls on to me.  The only bad thing about that is The Man gets antsy and wants to do something.  So he started pulling up the old carpet.

Here's where the project expands on us.

From here we should have just been able to lay down the squishy stuff (very technical term) that goes under the wood floor and then start laying down the wood.

But the more carpet The Man pulled up, the more he realized how much squeaking and creaking the carpet muffled, and now that the carpet was gone our floor was making all sorts of noises.

Needles to say, The Man decided that he just could not live with that.

I don't know if it's the perfectionist in him or the framer in him.

Maybe it's the perfectionist framer.

So the easy job became bigger as the man began to remove the sub-flooring.

This is how I was helping the whole process.

By removing the sub-flooring, it gets rid of  the squeaking and creaking.

It also needs to be replaced now. With a new firmly attached sub-flooring.  The creaking happens when the sub-flooring shifts.  West found that drilling screws into the sub-flooring wasn't helping to keep it in place so he decided to remove it all and start from scratch so he can make sure it's secure and not moving.

Another thing about remodeling an old house is that you never know what you're going to find when you start ripping things apart.

Like when we found the hole in our bathroom that was simply covered by the siding:

That, apparently wasn't the only surprise waiting for us.

You can see in this picture how our entryway had white tile in it:

When west broke the white tile he found that it was laying directly over other tile.

Which of itself isn't unusual, I guess it's okay to lay one layer of tile on top of another (this explains why we had no room to put a rug by our door).

But when he started to pull up that under layer of tile he found...

West started joking that this is were the dead body was hidden.

What it means in reality is that the floor in front of our front door is not anywhere near being level with the floor of the rest of the house.  They just filled it in with a ton of mortar until it was level with the rest of it.

The framer in West is screaming profanities at whoever built our house.

So now we (and by we I mean West) get to chip out all of that mortar, and then build the floor up the right way, you know, with wood, so it's the same level as the rest of the flooring.

Seriously.

Who knew that a simple tearing out the carpet and laying down wood slats would turn into such an ordeal?

So that's what we're working on this weekend.

And here's a beautiful video to start your weekend off.

The Day I Ended Up Wet, On My Back, And Covered In Dog Fur

The other night we had a situation with our dog, Milo, that required us using the hose on his backside.

Milo hates baths and that's in a tub with warm water no less, so take him out into the backyard with the cold hose...

The Man gave me the option.  Hold Milo, or do the job with the hose.

Since the hose job had the possibilities of being "yucky," I decided that I could hold Milo.

I've always claimed that our dog Strider is the Clydsedale horse of dogs.  Apparently, Milo is also, he just doesn't care to exert it as much as his brother.

Milo did not want anything to do with that hose.  The Man had tried to do this job before I got home to no avail.  When we went into the backyard, Milo knew what was coming.

He tried to run and The Man held him in his arms while I got into place.  I watched The Man applying all sorts of muscle power against the struggling dog and knew that I needed to put a lot of weight into this.

I got down on my knees, pulled Milo close to my chest, and wrapped my arms around his torso and in front of his chest while I bent over, laying my body weight on him, enough to hold him there without crushing the ever living daylights out of him.

He struggled, but my hold stayed.

So The Man turned the hose on and began to spray.  As soon as that cold water hit Milo's backside that dog doubled his efforts of force.  I ended up covered in water and somehow on my back, arms above my head as I valiantly tried to keep my hold on the run away dog.  He was running on my hair and my face was being licked by Strider who seemed pleased as punch that it wasn't him who was involved in all of the hassle.

After all of that, the job still needed to be done.

So West held Milo.

And I got the yucky job.

And I got the yucky job done.

In wet clothes, covered in fur and dog saliva.

It was my turn to need a shower after that business.

****

Complete change of course, in case that story wasn't enough for you,  here's a beautiful thought for the day:

Nastolgia in my iPod

Apparently my iPod was feeling nastolgic this morning.
Song after song played and it took me back to my "college days," the first round where I didn't finish, but I still had a lot of fun.

It reminded me of Lambda Delta Sigma-Kappa mostly.
It reminded me of dressing up as the 3 amigos on Cinco de Mayo.
It reminded me of Sarah's red lipstick.
And how there were a million Stephanie's and so I acquired the nick name Sunnie, which I went by up until my divorce.
It reminded me of the Peter Breinhold concert on campus (which was one of the songs my iPod threw at me this morning).
It reminded me of institute.  Oh how I loved institute. I got my 4 year institute certificate in 2 years.
And all the art classes I was enrolled in.
It reminded me of charcoal and ink all over my hands every day.
And of the early morning temple trips.
And that guy in one of my art classes who looked just like Rob Thomas (the lead singer of Matchbox 20).
It reminded me of Sunnie's Bub n' Dee, which made me sad because though I've recently come in touch with Bub again, Dee isn't talking to me because she's now my ex sister-in-law.

That breaks my heart.

It reminded me of the singing group sensation "The Fermatas," who always walked around and said "hold me, I'm a fermata."  Because a fermata is a note that you hold when singing.  Clever boys they were.
And "City of Angels."
I thought of the time Bub's brother drove us a mile out from their house and dropped us off so we had to run back.  I died that day.
I remember the contract.  The contract where you had to pay goodies for holding hands or kissing a boy.
I still have that contract actually.
"Good job, Jen," and our trip to California.
Jenny Perry and how I loved to say her full name because it almost rhymed.
The color yellow.
Working at the advertising agency, Dahlin, Smith, White.
It kind of makes me sad because I think of all the girls I knew from Kappa, and I can see their faces, but I'm having a hard time remembering their names.
Maybe I need to have a memory lane session with Bub.

Hey Bub.  Let's do lunch again.
I need a pic of us together.

So for the sake of my iPod's nastolgia this morning, here's some songs that played out in a row and sent me back to that time.







Dude, Savage Garden was my first concert ever.  They sang "Like a Virgin," and I laughed until I cried.

There's so much I wish I would have done differently.
I would have dated a ton more guys.  I had the chance... I just didn't. 

I should have.

I would have finished my degree.  I had the chance... I just didn't.

I should have.

I can now though.  I am.

I would have stayed in touch with everybody.  I had the chance... I just didn't.

I should have.

But as it is there's still so much I did right and I remember that time with fondness.  I've been recently finding friends from that time on facebook, and as much as I come to get so sick of facebook sometimes, it's for that reason that I love it.  I'd never reconnect with lost friends if it weren't for that crazy website.

So with those memories and thoughts I get to start my Friday and say happy weekend!  We're a little off this weekend having only Jay and Sean with us.
My ex asked to be able to use this weekend for a camping trip with the girls so we'll be thrown off sync for a couple of weekends.  I don't like it when that happens, but what do you do?

While preparing for my lesson on Sunday I ran across this video.  About being a friend and a companion. 
It's by Jeffrey R. Holland who is my personal favorite, he seems to nail it right on the head for me every time.
I've not always been the best friend in my life, but I'm trying to change that.

I've been rounding up my text books to head back to school.  Again.  Maybe this time I'll finish it?  Yes.  A resounding yes.  I'm sick of it hanging over my head.  Let's get on with this and get it over with all ready.

One book I couldn't find online.  I couldn't rent it for a fraction of the cost, I coudn't find it used on a non-school affiliated website.
And I gumbled.  The book is written by the teacher.  The only place I can find it is on campus.
How posh is that?  Write a book (because this book is a book of police stories), require it for you class, and then charge $100 a pop.
Seriously, this book is a small paperback and I should have paid no more than $15 for it, realistically.  But I bought a used copy for $71.
It makes me so frustrated that textbooks are like this.

I was complaining about it at work and now I have this on my desk:

The guys are calling it the "charity by a book fund."

I think they can pay for the first sentence with that.
I think I'll just buy them a drink with their own money.
They can share the drink.
Actually, looking at it, I could buy two drinks for them.
They can share two drinks.

St. George-shaved ice or bust

Grandpa Dick knows all the sweet spots.

Right now he's all about his blackcherry snow cones.

He took The Circus there at least once a day while they were hanging out with him.

On Friday they waited for me to be done with my conference so I could join them. 

We won't mention that this trip was already Grandpa's second trip of the day.

I think next time I'm going to have to try the Dragon's Blood flavor.

Grandpa Dick knows all the sweet spots.

Want to read something good before the weekend starts?  Check this out.  I'll be using parts of it for our upcoming Girl's Camp.

It's good stuff.

Maybe even better than blackcherry snow cones.

it's all about perspective

Sometimes in life all you need is a little perspective.

Sometimes even though you're looking at the same scenery over, and, over, and over,

just changing your perspective can make all the difference in the world.

This is beautiful and just what I needed. You should go read it.