Saint Pats

Another St. Patricks day has come and gone in our household.
And, as is custom in this house, the kids scavenge our recycling for things to trap the leprechaun the night before so we are left inventing a makeshift trap at the last minute.
This year Sadie conceived most of the plan. Since the leprechaun usually runs away before a trap can fall on top of him, this year she wanted a trap he could fall INTO. Clever. Also making my lying responsibility more difficult butwhateveritsaboutthekidsandnotme.
We took a milk box, cut a square on top and then replaced it so the weight of the leprechaun, when standing on it to get the 'treasure', would fall in and be trapped. They wrote their notes and went to bed.
The highlight of this for me was Elliet. She came to me privately and asked me if this is really real, so I confided in her that it wasn't and invited her to help me make it fun for Sadie and Luke. She lit up and loved it. It was so fun to have her be part of it, hence her wink in the photo.



Our 'escape plan' in the end was a hole cut out of the box at the bottom and the leprechauns note said he used his magic to get out. Bummer! But this has renewed Sadie's determination to catch him. She said next year we are going to use a metal trap so he CANNOT get out, even with his magic. Maybe Mom will just spill the magic beans, as it were.

Luke's Lesson

A couple of weeks ago I bought the Puss N Boots movie for the kids and they have been watching it a lot. This new mania influenced them to repeatedly ask me about making 'costumes' for their stuffed animal kitties. Note: Luke does not have a kitty, but a lion named Patrick. This was important way back when he wanted to participate in the playing.
I, of course, agreed to do this (this is where my friends say I deserved what's coming) so we went to Michaels and bought the felt and feathers.
I cut out little hats, glued on feathers and made little belts. I also made tiny boots for each kitty (plus lion) and was about to put a gun to my throat (WHY do I agree to this stuff?!), but they were thrilled and it benefits me in the end because hours of playtime ensue.
WELL,...
We come home from church on Sunday and Luke informs me his Lion's belt is stretched out and loose. I told him I would make him another one after I make lunch.
Five minutes later, Luke comes in and says this to me:
"Mom, I think I accidentally made a mistake". In his hands is his Lion thickly waisted with Luke's black, leather church belt cut in half and belted around him. I was so mad! Could he not have waited 10 minutes!? His lion is the best dressed animal in our house with a genuine leather costume around his waist! Stinker. Soon after I left for choir and told some of my friends who just laughed and said that's what I get for making creative costumes for their animals. I guess they are right.
I returned home with a softened heart, had a talk with Luke, doled out his punishment which he accepted, and took photos so I could document this moment and rub it in his face when he has sons of his own. :) I'm a good Mom, huh.

Proud little Patrick. Hmph.

The Last... Month?

Well, Hi There! Did you think I had vanished for good? I did. I am going to be honest here. I am really losing motivation to blog. I don't know if it's laziness or aging or what, but I am just really not that interested in sharing my experiences with others lately. I am already sharing them with the family and friends that I would do them with anyway, right? This, my friends, is the senile in me coming to the surface. But this is not fair because without blogs and such, I wouldn't know what was going on with my peeps. PS- I am aware of the hypocrisy sprinkled throughout that opinion. I know I make no sense.
Anyway, I recently made a photo book of my kids and realized what a great journal and timeline this blog has been for me and my fam-damily, so I need to keep it up.
So on to latest Leaver things. I guess I should sum up that, oh... has a month or more gone by since I have posted? February came and went... I did not bother impressing others with cute Valentines for my kids (Target sufficeth and the Leaverites were happy and did prosper), Rich and Randi visited which was SO fun, we've enjoyed the blossoming trees and warming weather, etc. etc. Luke has been playing his Lego Pirates of the Caribbean Wii game (and I just HAVE to play with him), so we've been Pirate heads at our house. I bent my PG-13 rule and have shown them the movies one by one, slowly and steadily (does that justify my sin?) and it's been really fun to have them enjoy them. Unfortunately it required me to make pirate hats and swords for play time but that is what I have a glue gun for, right? Oh, and juicy bit: Elliet has experienced (as far as I know) her first crush on Orlando Bloom. She just loves 'Will Turner' but turns pink when I tease her about it. :))))
Enough babble. Pics:
I took the kids to the Springs Preserve playground one beautiful day they were out of school.

We also enjoyed the Lorax last weekend (Eh... it was okay. Maybe a 7. I wanted another Despicable Me but no such luck. Listening to Z. Efron is never bad, though.)
Ha- look at the kids in this photo. Sadie will kill me for this one day.

The kids have been creative, as usual, with their play time.
This was how I found Sadie's stuffed animal, SHOVED into a barbie dress. It's an armless Cat princess!

I nicknamed Sadie 'Sadie-bug' since she was little. One day I drew a Sadie bug on her board.
The next day I found her reply.

She also rewrote Tinkerbell's Pixie Hollow Pledge "Faith, Trust and Fairy Dust", to "Fifty Bucks". Money. Smart girl. She knows what those tinkers really want. She drew a graph to illustrate this, no less!

The new sign before ascending the stairs. Consider yourself warned.

Happy Birthday to Me

Well, it is happening. I am still getting older. I didn't think I would care about it but as I get closer to 40, it's kind of depressing. But I'm not 40 yet so I partied like a teen.
This past weekend was our Stake Conference. Translation: I could travel. Scott had many things to take care of at home and was going to be practically MIA the entire weekend, so I took the kids out of school on Thursday and Friday and we went to Utah to see my family. It was a quick trip but so nice to be home for a couple of days.
On the night of my Birthday, we went out to Benihana for onion choo-choo trains and then went to Cosmic where Marty graciously set up everything for us to engage in such sophisticating activities like Michael Jackson experience & Just Dance on the BIG SCREEN. Look at all that dancing room! It was awesome!

Another reason to go up this weekend was to join my family in seeing Brian Regan live in SLC. He's hilarious so it was dandy-ho.

The kids had a great time playing with cousins and I loved spending time with everyone. Except Richard who was traveling for work (boohiss). It was a great way to ring in my old age, so thanks to all my awesome family for the great time!
Another fun thing I've been playing with are these. Peek in Academe for more if you're interested.
Happy January!

Palm Springs 2012

Usually right after the holiday break, Scott and I try to getaway and catch up on some R&R. It's a great way to start the New Year and we usually try to go somewhere warmer than where we are.
This year we went to Palm Springs. Palm Springs is an interesting place. If you don't golf then it's a great place to serve our purpose. The pace is mellow, there's not a lot going on or much to do other than relax, eat and shop. Sign me up!
We took a fast way down thanks to the tips from some friends and these back roads were a blast to drive on. Lots of rolling hills and driving those at fast speeds can feel like a roller coaster.
The scenery was cool, too.

The next day we soaked up the sun. Just nap dreaming in a bathing suit was divine.

We went to the museum and saw some great stuff. I was drawn in the most by the Wyeth exhibit (more about that on Academe). Oh, and family, while in the gift shop I acquired our puzzle for this years Powell trip. Another winner! (teeheehaahaa)

The consignment shopping was dandy. Cool stuff everywhere, though most vendors know it and it isn't cheap. This is probably the coolest string art I have seen yet but they were asking around $250 for it! Poppycock! I'll make it myself for that.

Played a lot with my photo apps... :)

We went on a new hike this time. It was quite a workout but worth it for the view. Beautiful weather for it!

Here is what Palm Springs looks like as a teeny model! (sorry, more app play)

We cruised the neighborhoods so I could take some photos of the cool mid-cent houses. This was so enjoyable. It should be noted here that the irony of this was not overlooked. We both had parents drive around on Sunday afternoons to do this very thing, and here we were, doing it whilst on vacation no less...we had a good laugh over that. But for reals- look at that rad house. I got some great images for some artwork ideas in my brain. I am so excited.

We also spent a couple of our evenings watching all of Downton Abbey Season 1, just in time for season 2 to begin. I had heard about it long enough so we used this trip to finally get lost in the show. I felt especially pleased that Scott not only watched it with me but enjoyed it! Hooray because I needed someone the rest of the weekend to gossip to about Mary's scandal, evil Thomas and all the drama! What a man. :)

What Do You Do When...

You are at a doctors office with your kids and have waiting time to kill?
Thumb Wars.
And what takes it to the next level?
A pen.


WARNING: This may create some pretty hard giggling. We had the staff peering into the room because my kids are not quiet gigglers. It may have been bad judgement on my part. :)
(PS- It was a check up for Luke's arm; all is well!)

Christmas Season 2011

Oh. My. Goodness. Happy New Year everyone! I can't believe we are already here. December was a blur and I admit I don't have many photos to show for it because we were running from place to place. But here are a few bits to give you an idea of what we did. The first weeks of the month (while the kids were in school) consisted of school parties, finishing the Christmas shopping, making the Christmas cards as well as attending the Nativity, Ward Christmas Party, youth events and other celebrations. And THEN when the kids were out of school, they had quite a list of activities they wanted to do. Ok fine, and I wanted to do with them. :) They did make gingerbread houses at school so I counted that as done to save on my baking demand.
We made some popsicle stick snowflakes with the leftovers from doing this with my Young Women. This was in order to satisfy the kids constant request for more decorations in their room. They turned out cute and my kids are getting savvy with glue guns!



We went to Michaels one day and picked out plastic-only items to make snow globes. I didn't have any good jars on hand except for these canning jars but they worked fine. We just hot glued (again!) the arrangements to the lid, added some fake snow and they were done. It was a fun craft to do with them. They are so creative! And go figure, mine was the only globe that did NOT work. All my candy fell apart, I still can't figure out why.

We went down to the strip with some friends for Family night to see the holiday display at the Venetian which ended up being pretty lame (a bubble tree?). But afterward we headed over to Max Brennars for the best chocolate desserts EVER. So that made up for it fer sher.

On Christmas Eve I found this Lego note from Sadie by my lamp. Loved it.

I made two huge batches of gingerbread cookies and we took them around to neighbors and friends. A job I enjoy every year.

I found these Star Wars snowflake tutorials online and showed Luke, so naturally, we had to make some...

And an item I will not miss from this holiday season was our most ghetto Christmas tree EVER. We are currently "inbetwee" (Like that? My combo word of inbetween-trees). Our old tree was on it's last leg last year so I bought an inexpensive white tree during holiday sales and forgot about it until I started decorating this year. Perfect! Except I put it up to realize it's under 6' tall and I have to add lights. Hmm... worth the extra effort? Nah. I stood it up stop an urn (this could have looked all Martha if I planted it within but I was too lazy and didn't care), draped a tree skirt around the bottom (so ghetto!) and stuck my few rummaged color light strands around it. GREEN light strands. So they totally stick out. To top it off, I told the kids to put the ornaments on and that was it. Ha! Not a thing of beauty but none of us cared. Here's to hoping next year I have more motivation. That 10 months should be enough for me to commit to what kind of tree I want, right?

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day was nice. We spent time with Scott's family but most of the day on our own. I filmed the events so I don't have many pictures to share, but we kept it small this year and it was nice to focus more on the value of our family and what we already have. I am so grateful for this wonderful and fun year we had, for the fun and festive end, and so thankful for the endless blessings and joy we experienced. I've reflected lately on all the people in my life that inspire me and that I love so much. I'm grateful for wonderful family and friends.
Looking forward to 2012!

Early December

Some of the things we did in December were:
Hikes with the kids. So nice to be outside in the sunshine!

Amid all the crazy school parties and events, Luke still managed to bring home another funny assignment. He still talks about this. I guess it was to encourage creative thinking, so they had to mix up some animal parts and write about it. So funny.

One of the December events was the Birthday party of Elliet's good friend. It was a spa theme so I helped Kristina (my dear friend and host of said party) fill up foot baths, administer pedicures and foot massages while she did manicures and facials. Here is Elliet with her face mask on. This part got the most giggles from the girls in the room. Good times.

Force Your Holiday

Get your tootsies over here for some free templates on making your own Star Wars snowflakes!
So great.

Merry Talents

Okay, Okay... I know it's kind of lame that I haven't been posting and now when I do it again, it's another video. But the other night when I took my girls to a local performance of the Nutrcacker (put on by kids and not too bad, btw, but I digress), there were two boys in the lobby playing this song on the piano. I was pulled in by it's audio spell! (cheese intended) It is seriously an amazing song. Where was this when I was fourteen years old and in my piano playing prime? I would have probably reconsidered my focus if I'd had this stuff to practice. It's beautiful!
Now that I have pursued it more, it appears to me an Everest if I attempt to learn it... though the page is black with notes and is at least 4 sharps... perhaps I will succeed in the end!
And if you don't trust me, don't you dare miss out until you've heard past 2:15. This distant video doesn't quite do it justice because when you are standing next to an open grand piano and this is bellowing out, you will feel chills like I did. Magnifico!

MUST watch

This is an incredible kinetic sculpture of San Francisco, all made out of toothpicks!!!

Novem-bye

Oh my goodness! Girl Next Door is over! It was a great success and always so wonderful to have it well supported. I posted the overview here if you want to check it one two. The highlight for me was finally screen printing! Like my cool dishtowels?
Now it's time to kick back and relax during...whatthewhatOh yeah- December. Forget that.
I've got to get my head into the season now.

Jingle Bell ROCK

I may or may not have just danced to this, my myself, in my office.
(me wanty for the holidays)

Halloween Act 2

Alright- so we get home from CA and have an hour to spare in which I had to:
Make Chili to take to the ward party
Get the kids in their costumes
Find their treat buckets for the candy
Load the trunk decorations in the car (which meant unpacking from the trip)
Unbag and load the candy we were giving out
Have a strong drink
---
Since Scott wasn't feeling all that great still, he decided to help me out with everything and then stay home. He was so helpful and we pulled it off. I even got a few pics of the kids before we left.
Sadie was a witch (she was very specific about wanting to be a green and black witch), Elliet was Hermione, wearing Luke's Sunday shirt and a tie/robe donated from the Hills (huge thanks!) and Luke was Toad from Mario Kart.
Was I happy I didn't have to make costumes this year? Absolutely.

After arriving and eating, we all start to slip out and get our trunks ready. I used this same monster mouth as last year. It is still genius because I can get up in 10 minutes or less. The kids are all old enough go around with friends so it was nice to sit back and talk to everyone coming by. It was a fun evening but I was exhausted!

Sunday, rest.
Monday, Happy Halloween! First things first. After the kids went to school I joined some friends in a Thriller Zumba class at the gym. I'm not a Zumba fan, but Thriller & Halloween songs? I'm in. It was still mixed with that annoying Latin music on speed but the Halloween moments were worth it. I walked and clawed like a Zombie, yo.
Then it was hurry home, eat, shower and head to the school for the Halloween Trunk Parade.
I recruited some other friends to do it with me so we had a row together and helped with each others trunk deco's. This year I put an old school T on the kid skelly in the car. The kids liked that touch. Oh, that and I also wore pink octopus tentacle fingers. Good times.

We braided Elliet's hair the night before so it was big and wavy for her costume. Most of it had relaxed by the time I saw her.

Then after school it was hurry home and get ready for our last hurrah. We had friends come over and eat dinner, get the kids costumed up and hit the 'hood for candy.
This part was fun. Bruce slipped away from our group and hurried to his house so when the kids rang the doorbell, he could answer as Yoda. It was great. He's also the one who will put on rubber masks and attack kids from the water at the Lake. This is serious stuff.

By the time we circled the neighborhood, we were ALL pooped out.

It was a really fun way to end the month. We're so grateful for our awesome friends and celebrating with us. And I think it took me two days to recover!
Hope you all had a great Halloween!

Halloween Act 1

What a month we had. October was so fun and so busy. After returning from San Diego, we had a week of more Halloween and other activities going on before we all headed to CA for the long Nevada weekend. We have had many friends over the years go to Disneyland over this break but have never gone since we usually go at the beginning of the month (but plans change when your son breaks his arm). We joined the masses and it wasn't as crowded as I thought it would be. Plus, going with friends is always so fun! I think it was one of the funnest trips we have had.

As usual, I am happy to take one for the team in the teacups. I love them and with these eager lassies ready for fun, we spun like cah-razy, y'all.

Ahhh Space Mountain. Still so architecturally cool.
And the new Star Tours ride was rad. They have a new element in the ride where they take a picture of an audience member and then post it as a Rebel Spy that the Dark Side is pursuing. Elliet was it! And almost the whole ride was full of friends so that made it really fun for her.

The post-ride pics that were most memorable. This first one of us on the Tower of Terror is probably my favorite. Scott HATES this ride but still goes with the family. I love how it captures his true feelings. And mine. It's such a love-hate thing, that drop... but boy is it fun. This Splash Mountain pic is cool to me because our family fills the boat.

We had a glorious day of weather. The evening light was so pretty and it stayed warm.
We stayed through to the end, grabbed dinner on the way to stay over at our friends home where he grew up. After getting the kids to bed, we sat in the hot tub and relaxed. Nice.

On Friday we hung around and went to the beach. Poor Scott had come down with something and was not feeling well so he stayed home in bed.

Beautiful day! If I had known, I would have had the kids in suits. Instead they got half way wet and sandy. Awesome.


We said goodbye that afternoon and drove to Corona to stay with our good friends, the Hills for the night. We left around lunchtime and headed home for our ward Trunk or Treat and the Halloween agenda through Monday night. It was such a fun three days!