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!

Sunny San Diego

Scott and I went on a quick weekend getaway to San Diego last weekend. We were there in February for a conference but we didn't have much time to explore so I left not knowing when we'd be back. Little did I know that he had been trying to plan a surfing trip w/ his friend who lives there so we were able to return sooner than I expected.
We had such a great time. San Diego is a cool city and the mid. century architecture made it fun to walk around. And the weather was much better than in Feb! Perfectly sunny and warm.
We caught up with some friends who we love dearly, wandered the Farmers Market in Little Italy, shopped and got to see The Drums in concert. Woot!

But I must say that the highlight of the trip for me was catching the Red Tide in Carlsbad on Friday night. Have you heard of this??? It was AMAZING.
The red algae blooming in the ocean makes the water dirty and red. But when the water is agitated, it activates the bioluminescence and it GLOWS. GLOWS! So at night there are neon blue waves lighting up the coast.

These are not my pics, I found them here.

Check out this video though to see it in action. It is seriously a wonderful phenomenon. Our earth is so beautiful!

Ohyeahbigstuff

September has passed by somewhat quietly. But two eventful things have happened around our house that are in need of recording. One: Do you remember me telling you about Elliet getting spacers to prep for braces? She got them about a week into school. The first band colors she chose were purple and black (whah??). She likes them and they make her (and me) look older.


Two: Oh yes. What you see is what you think. I was on a fun little getaway with some girlfriends in Laguna and Scott sends me a text with an image of Luke in the ER. They went to the park and Luke jumped off the equipment, snapping his ulna in two. Hm. Does this sound familiar? A little? Similar to his twin sister about five months ago? Ah twins. Tweeeeeennnzzz!! (insert image here of me shaking my fist)
Poor Luke. The following Monday we took him to the doc who confirmed he'd need surgery because of the dislocation from his elbow. He'd need pins like Sadie. Wednesday comes and we have surgery, only now the doc tells me the pins won't be adequate so he was given a plate to hold the bone in place. Oy. But everything will heal well and now he'll match his Dad - same arm, same bone, same plate (different time {college}, different situation {soccer, not park equip. Ha! That'd be a good story, though...}).

A few days later, we went to get his cast and he said he wanted a gold one. As in gold, like the 'brazen calf' gold. I told him they didn't do that. So then he said he wanted 'Rainbow'.
No.
Then I suggested he choose a pink one and maybe they could put kitties on it.
No, Mom.
He ended up with Red. I'll post of pic of that one soon, before it get's too gnarly and gross. He's already had it autographed.
OTHER THAN THAT, all is well around here. I love October. Halloween is upon us!!

Summer Time

As I try to catch up on posts here, I came across something I didn't want to forget. During the summer when we had some spare time (Ha! Seems so foreign during the school year), the kids and I set up a make shift miniature golf course upstairs. It was certainly flawed but gave them a good few days of fun! We have this building kit which consists of sticks and plastic balls with holes that you assemble like tinker toys. We put them together for our golf clubs and used tennis balls as the golf balls. Points were awarded according where the ball landed into colored hop-scotch rings, and books were stacked to make hills, tunnels and the final hole. Great fun!

MMMPeaches...

We were in Utah last weekend and picked up a box of some super delicious peaches. What to do with them? Have ye not time to bottle as I? I'll tell yer what!
I still have a few jars of peach jam leftover from last year so I decided to peel & slice all of these, squeeze a lemon in there, add sugar and pour them into ziploc freezer bags for impromptu pie filling. I did this last year and it was goooood. We had a peach pie some random winter evening and it was heaven. So I did that with this box and now I have three bags of filling ready to go in the freezer.
But what did I do with the remaining eight succulent, ripe, juicy peaches? I made this sans the refrig. pie crust (made my own).
Yeah. I ate half of it.

Weeks of Late

Time to catch up! I apologize for my inconsistency. We've been getting back into a routine which has been a welcome thing but still takes adjusting.
Here are some random photos I have taken over the past couple of weeks amid homework, piano and swim lessons.
My kids get more and more creative with their hide and seek spots but I think they'll grow out of this one soon.

They also get creative with how they play with the stuffed animals.

And how do you like Luke's language? This is rocket science silence.
(Obviously, it's a good thing school started up again)

We took the kids up to Mt. Charleston for a hike to Mary Jane Falls. It's a pretty steep, intermediate hike and the kids did great!

We have been trying to get to Lake Mead with some friends all summer and the LAST weekend of the summer, we were able to fit it in. It was a beautiful, hot day, perfect for the lake. We had a great time cliff jumping, tubing, etc. This was another pic taken with that Hipstamatic app on my phone. I'm glad it caught those sparkles in the water... "Because fish like shiny things and don't we all".
Lake Mead has such different terrain than Lake Powell, despite how similar it feels. It's really like being on a strange planet, all that barren dark rock with a bleached band above the water. I'm glad this is so close to us.

All the kids (except for one toddler), jumped off various heights from this cliff. I was impressed with their bravery!

With school beginnings comes the athletic practices. We opted to have Luke skip soccer this season. He wants to try so many things. I was going to sign him up for basketball again, too, but he said not to yet, because he still has to try golf, football and hockey. Uhhh... yeahsureokay.
Here is Sadie and Luke farther back in the lane at their Stroke School.
Can I just say I am glad my kids are learning this at a young age? I wish I had. I did swim practices a few years ago and gave it a good effort but was never good at it. I don't find the happy place that some people do while they do millions of laps. You know why else swim is good for kids? It expels a lot of energy. Yes. That's a nice feature.

And this is unimportant, just a random sunset as the evenings cool off again and say goodbye to summer.

Same sunset, but w/ the hip app.
Hope you're all enjoying your September!

Snowflakes Already

I know I am behind on posting.
One of the reasons is I have been doing some design work, and some of it has been this kind of stuff....

Vote for my design on minted.™ see more from Andrea Leaver vote for me! Check out my competition in Christmas cards and Save the Date cards at Minted.

The deadline for this contest is on Monday. I'm going to try and submit a few more designs before the weekend. So if you feel like having a looksie, vote for me! :)

Watt-ch This!

One of the highlights of our family Powell trip this year was when Marty & Jess hurried the speed boat out into the channel to get a phone signal so they could call in and see if they won a video contest they entered--- as the boat returned a half hour later, Jess stood at the nose of the boat, thrust her arms up and shouted, "We WOOOOON!!!". It was so fun to share in that moment with them. Marty was up all hours of the night for days to finish this and it was worth it. You can check out the video here. And look! They were on TV!

Never Too Early

Hey Friends! How is everyone doing now that school has started?
Scott and I were catching up on Fallon episodes the other night and Jim Gaffigan was on there. His wife just had their fourth baby and he was telling Jimmy if you don't know what it's like to add a fourth child, just imagine yourself drowning and then someone hands you a baby. Ha!! We had a good laugh over that one. I share that because our week of routine has felt like that to me. It's bitter sweet, you know... school lunches to make, working out early again, crazy afternoons... but I could run my errands with NO KIDS and my house stays clean for 6 hours. It's all good. I'll share some pics soon on events but I didn't want to forget to share this.
I've been doing some design work and made these Halloween treat tags for Bake It Pretty. Thought you'd like to get in on the fun. Go to my Academe site for the link to print and make your goodie giveaways fun (or funny). Enjoy and have a great Labor Day weekend!

Powell via Diana F+

I just posted a few of my pictures from my Diana F+ experimentation @ Powell this summer. You can see a few more at my Acade-me site if you are interested.
I have a lot to learn in this medium!

Pacific Festival 2011

Well, dear friends, if you are a pal of mine, then you know that I love music. And some of my favorite artists were performing at a Festival this year at Irvine Lake in CA.
Now, I am not too keen on attending festivals in general because I am old and like my comforts. I don't want to camp or stand in the sun for three days and fight crowds of trendy, drunk kids to see my band from far away. But when this presented itself, Scott and I decided to give it a go. There were just too many good artists there + it was smaller + it was one day + it was close.
Were there annoying drunk trendies? Of course. But it was worth it to see:
CUT COPY, Calvin Harris, The Bag Raiders, The Twelves, Classixx, Fred Falke, Toro Y Moi, The Black Lips, !!! and more.... It was great fun. I danced like a leetle gurl!


This is a pic of Calvin Harris laughing at a joke I told him before he, like, hit his turntables since we are close like that*.
*Not really. This is a pic (that is NOT mine) from the event site. Bummer. Would have made a good story, huh.
Same with this one below. Don't you love the rainbow fade they put in the image? Coolish.

This is the stage where the Twelves, Fred Falke and Classixx all played. Great fun was had here, especially when the Twelves played 'Otto's Journey' by Mylo. Oh man! I busted out some freakish moves then!

It was a nice location, small stages and not too far from each other, which I was grateful for.

The food truck village for yummy gourmet eats!

And the best part was ending the show with Cut Copy. They sounded fabulous as always and were so fun. They even pulled out a few songs from Bright Like Neon Love. Wow- so fun! I love, love, love that not only is Scott with me, but he's singing and jumping as much as me! (well, almost- he doesn't look as embarrassing as I do). What an awesome husband is he.

We were up sooooooo late. CC was supposed to start at midnight but they didn't come on until 1:30. Then they played for over an hour and then the fun was over and we had to endure the parking lot traffic for an hour out of there, then drive to our hotel! Ugh. You do the math. It was great fun but I was going to scream if I saw the dawn.
Luckily we made a nice weekend out of it so we slept in late, ate late, went to church late and relaxed all day and didn't have to return until Monday.
A great date weekend w/ my hubs!

Climbing

There is a rock wall at our new local gym and our kids absolutely love the rock wall. We have only been a handful of times but when we go, they never fatigue. I don't know how they do it. And they get higher and higher...
This last time I giggled to myself because it was a little weird to have all my kids old enough, and brave enough to enjoy this and have each on a different wall at the same time. I created those kids. Uh oh.
Like how Luke has posed all casually?

Lake Powell 2011

Well, I am finally posting about our trip nearly a month ago. We had such a wonderful time. I feel like we all relaxed more this year, so I don't have any synchronized swimming vids for you this time (oh, I know you are so sad) but I did take some fun snaps! Here's a briefing of some of our activities:

This year I took my Diana F camera to test it out and get some rad shots like these. I took these with a cool iphone app called 'Hipstamatic'. Guess what? I think they are cooler than my Diana F shots. I'll post those soon so you can agree. Cuz ya will. But that's okay. These are groovy.

Is this place BEAUTIFUL OR WHAT?


This was our beach way up lake in Dungeon Canyon.
We did some horrendous puzzling. Yes. I chose that one. It's a stain glass by Frank Lloyd Wright about saguaros. He put the devil in it, he did. El Diablo!!

Our new little niece accompanied the all-adult trip this year. Boy, she was cute. I miss that little thing!

We got some crafty time in on the top of the boat Sunday and custom stenciled some tea towels. Good times.


As always, explore we must! This was Driftwood Canyon. Nice and narrow back and forth, back and forth. Even a great spot for cliff diving! (which I didn't do because I'm lazy now)



We even found a super wee frog.

The best part of these trips is being with my family. My Dad always gives our family a great Sunday meeting reminding us about respecting our spouses and marriages, honoring our callings and responsibilities in life and shares valuable experiences with us. This wisdom we hear every year is one of the highlights.

Another amazing year with my favorite people ever. Thank you Mom & Dad for hosting us and all you do for this trip and to my fabulous siblings for coming, cooking and dancing :). Loves forever.