i hope everyone had a very merry christmas. mine was fantastic. all my kids here for the first time together in a long time. needless to say we had a blast. anna got baptized by dallas, we ate good food, played games, saw christmas lights, drank eggnog, played wii, opened gifts, took a hike, dallas pooped a D. yes, my 22 year old son came running in one day asking where my camera was. later when i asked what he needed it for he told me he had pooped his initial D. lovely. i won't post a pic. other than that it was probably the best christmas i ever remember. i will post some highight pics later.

saturday i took carson down to the valley to stay with her good friend McKenzie. shanna's husband and kids are gone so i spent the rest of the day with her. we had a good time. we went to lunch at the cheesecake factory. i talked shanna out of a pink cotton candy looking maternity shirt. we drove to apache junction to pick up her pictures. wait--i think it was PAST AJ! lol then we stopped off at scrapbooks, etc. then headed home to scrap. which we did. the picture above is one of the four that i did. the rest need journaling. later we headed out to the scrapbook barn and ate dinner at serranos. scrapped some more then i headed home. a fun day for sure. and one that won't be happening after shanna moves. sniff, sniff.

i hope everyone has a great new year!!!!! smooch...L

this has been one crazy, busy week. haley turned 5. five years old. my baby. unbelievable. dallas will be coming home tomorrow. can't wait. i watched my friend's 7 month old baby today while she went to work. all my girls love him and couldn't get enough of him when they got home from school. taylor told me that she wants a puppy or a baby for christmas. well that would be nice but that's crazy--AND WE'RE ALL FULL UP HERE!

some really funny things happened here as well. not to me. that's what makes them funny. first of all dave met me for lunch the other day. and i picked the place. one i have talked about going to for like, 6 months, and one that dave never wanted to try. so we go into this place and you order at the counter. and the menu is really small and dave can't read it so he asks me to order for him. so i see a sausage sandwich and order that. and i order a muffaletto sandwich and some bruchetta. which come to around $30. for lunch. so when we get the bruchetta dave remarks that it tastes like a tostino's pizza roll. but hey, he says, those are good. uh-huh. then we get our sandwiches. mine is a ginormous italian sandwich. i look at dave's plate and there is the tiniest sausage sandwich i have ever seen. it looked like a beanie weenie in a biscuit with some red sauce on top. i look at dave's face and the sandwich and i just start laughing. i mean i can't stop laughing. when i do stop to eat a bite i start to look at his plate and get the giggles all over again. i eventually snorted sandwich down my windpipe i was laughing so hard. for the rest of the day i would just uncontrollaby start laughing when i saw him. needless to say i won't get him back there for sure.

while we are laughing at other's misfortunes, i must say that brianne called me today. she went to the jewelry store so they could fix a diamond on her ring. she went during her lunch break at work. so she knows some people that work in there and while she is talking to a woman about getting her ring fixed she notices that everyone is looking at her. the woman then tells brianne she has a post-it note on her. brianne looks down and low and behold she does have a post-it note stuck on her. ON HER BOOBIE! LOL that was a good one. i'm just glad it didn't say something like "file this immediately!" brianne--love ya and can't wait to see you in a week!!!

the girls decorated the tree tonight and it looks great. i played james browns funky christmas and worked on some christmas presents while they put on the ornaments. i loved seeing and hearing them find all the ornaments that they have made and cherished over the years. christmas is almost here...L

yesterday.i can't begin to tell you how much fun yesterday was. friends, gifts, food, scrapping, snow, shopping and pictures to remember it all. just a great girl's day. love these women. they are all unique and fun in their own way. and i have known them all for four plus years. and yesterday was our annual christmas scrap. and they caravaned up here to prescott to spend it with me. loved it. love all of you...L

and another treat for me to top the night off. brianne and jeff sent this to dave and i. you must click it and enjoy some holiday fun...L

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1253525347

best break dance ever.........

this is awesome!

so the bloody flu bug hit me hard early monday morning. i'll spare you the gory details. still not 100% better but hopefully tomorrow will bring full recovery. before i got sick i had started sewing again. i decided to make my girls christmas dresses this year. because nothing brings me more stress, i mean joy, than to sew up not one, not two, but FOUR satin/taffeta dresses. let it be known--taffeta and satin rank right up there as the worst materials to sew. slippery little bastard! reminds me of the time that i let brianne pick out her easter dress pattern and material when she was 8. it was pink and it was lace. 2 things that shouldn't ever be brought together. because i literally had to sew that thing twice. once for the lining and then the lace dress. i learned some new words during that time. but of course this time i have no one to blame but moi. so haley's dress got done before the illness. one down.

so while i was at the fabric store i picked up some material to make me a skirt. this beautiful grey wool flannel with loopy cream stitching. i decided i would give myself a break from the girls dresses and sew my skirt. no pics yet. but it turned out fabulous. and only $6 to make it. i kid you not. dave was impressed.

that's all for now. back to taking it easy and pouring over magazines. and scrapping a little...L

(sorry for lousy pics!)

on this thanksgiving day i just wanted to name a few things i'm thankful for. (a shout out to carson for taking the picture of me!)

ipods
the moon
my children
cool nights
good hair days
email
friends
good food
the color green
flowers
sense of touch
babies
my husband
wind
music
art
puppies
creme brulee
love
inside jokes
tattoos
fresh bread
massages

i hope everyone has a great thanksgiving...L

that's my baby--you know, some people take halloween a little too far. that picture cracks me up. so here's the story. brianne got sick, she threw up, she threw up so hard that she burst the blood vessels in her eyes. right before halloween. end of story. i used to joke about her having the evil eye!!

so brianne called me tonight and we had a good talk--it cheered me up since i haven't been in the best of moods or health. anyway she told me about how the bishopric (male leaders in the church) came to visit her. they asked brianne about her job (in real estate) and asked if she had a license. brianne then unleashed her loathing of real estate agents, their hours and pay, and yada, yada, yada. then the men started chuckling. brianne asked what was funny. turns out her bishop is a broker and the counselors are real estate agents. that girl is a chip off the old block. just like something i would do.

if you want to see some funny things take a look at their blog: http://jeffbrianne.blogspot.com/

make sure to start thawing those turkeys. it's not much longer...L

since i can't upload all my layouts at once i have to do them in batches...L

a layout that i scraplifted from cari...

a few layouts...L

david took the girls to cali for the weekend. they all returned this afternoon. i took the opportunity to get a lot of things done that are difficult to do with everyone around. the first thing that got tackled was my girl's dresser drawers. if anything would make me stop and think about having any more children (i'm not) it would be the fact that those cute, sweet babies grow up and turn their rooms into a landfill. the trash and items under the bed would make a grown man cry. whenever my girls go missing things the first place i tell them to look is under the bed. of course that is the last place they look because even they can't stomach it.

and their dresser drawers. as much as a mess or worse. i mean, i could understand if they had no dressers or even if they had only one drawer. but there are at least 4 drawers. and this is how they should roll--underwear and socks in one drawer, pajamas in another, shirts in yet another drawer and pants in the last one. my girl's drawers looked like the apocalypse had taken place in them. coats with hangers and sweaters and tops all crammed into one tiny area. pants and dresses living together in sin. dresses go in a closet on a hanger--am i wrong?

so i cleaned it all up and i have a bet with myself--i give it one week before it is all helter skelter again. although i would be happily surprised if it remained in any semblance of order for longer than that. and kerry challenged me to scrap this and put it up on my blog by friday. so i will take her up on her challenge and challenge any of you that read this to scrap their kid's mess. peace...L

what a week. and it's barely wednesday! oy. i took haley to get her haircut today and she wanted it cut like dora's. so that's what she got. a lot of hair got chopped off. she looks pretty dang cute.

my kids have been cracking me up with their funny stuff they have been telling me. haley went over to play at a friends house the other morning and told me to come and pick her up at "9 1/2 o'clock--thats a really long time mom." got it. then the other day carson wants to know if i like the "foo foo fighters" hello--only one foo please. then she wants to know if i like the band "inks" um yeah--that is INXS!

anna started brownies on monday and loves it. i am so happy. they have a lot of fun things planned. a trip to out of africa and an overnighter at some cabins in prescott with sugar cookies and hot chocolate--no kidding--that is the description in the brochure. i think i want to go to that one. and anna also is running around telling me every other hour that she has a brain freeze and that some one gave it to her. tonight she told me that haley had given her a brain freeze and therefore she could not sleep with her. i told her that you get a brain freeze by eating something cold--she then informed me that she had eaten something cold earlier in the evening. ahhh, that explains it.

taylor is hooked on the stephanie myers books--the vampire ones. i gave her the first two books on saturday and she is already ready for the 3rd book. i want to read them now. speaking of books--everytime i call dallas he is in the library studying. (at least that is his story! ha) so today i called him and at the end of speaking i said i love you--then he said i love you too. then i told him that after he got off the phone he should say loudly "that was my mom--i'm still availabe!" LOL
and brianne just got a promotion at work. she is now in charge of marketing and advertising. i think that's awesome!

tell me how you would feel if you came home to this...


the other day i was just plain worn out. and i came home to folded laundry and this note on my bed (which she had also made) from carson. i love that girl.

now i am off to bed. i have a busy week still left ahead of me and i need sleep...L

halloween. it's over. well, it was a good one. i tried to get more photos up but it wasn't happening. i will try to put more up later. and that was my costume. nasty curves. it has a story--it wouldn't be halloween if i didn't have a story to go with my costume.

first of all, i had a costume--dorothy. but the dorothy costume was meant to fit toto so the night before halloween i left in a panic for the spirit store to find a costume. i grabbed about 4 costumes and was waiting in line when i see a sales person folding a baseball looking costume. i asked what it was and they told me it was a referee costume. i asked what size it was and asked to try it on. it didn't have a package they told me and came with a baseball cap. i glanced at it thinking it was a cubs shirt.

so i finally get in to the dressing room and they only let you take 2 costumes at a time in to try on. ok. changing my clothes and putting on costumes and i try on a fairy costume and know that i need to take my "underwear" off to try it on. no problem, just put all my clothes in a pile on top of my shirt. after trying on costumes i throw my pants and shirt on so i can hand out the 2 costumes i tried on and get another 2 to try on. so i gather up all the stuff and hand it out and get the other costumes to try on. a minute of me starting to try on a costume i see my underwear bottoms being thrown under the dressing curtain--INSIDE OUT! oh yeah--i just said that. now any normal person with a shred of dignity would have bolted right then and there. not me--i need a costume!!

so yeah--i have to give the girls credit--i didn't hear them giggle once. and i even came out with my ref costume on to ask if they liked it. so after coming home with my costume dave asks me to try it on. i come out with it on and he says "nasty curves" and i'm like what? and he says--nasty curves--on your shirt. WHAT? oh yeah--not a cubs shirt like i thought. so that's the halloween costume story for this year. stay tuned for next year and some more pics.

but enough about costumes. let's talk halloween. so my girls had cute costumes. taylor was a harajuku girl, carson--some sort of twisted fairy w/o the $30 wings i bought special for her, anna was a pirate and haley was tinkerbell. usually we have a lot of costume switching goin' on but this year was good. then we had our 2nd annual halloween party. this year it was soup and bread. yummy. we had lots of friends show up and hot dogs for the kids who played outside. then people left to go trick or treating and we let taylor and carson go with their friends around the neighborhood. we left with another family and our little ones to take them around. we went to two neighborhoods before i remembered a cool historic district downtown that i had heard was really cool at halloween time.

so we drove over and it was not disappointing. cool decorations and everyone dressed up and a gazillion kids everywhere. one house had 20 buckets of candy and every kid got one candy from each bucket. after that we came home and took all the kids in the hot tub. i'm telling you it was good times here. i think taylor and carson's loot weighs about 5 lbs. each. so that's it for this halloween. go find some good sales...L

woo hoo! i think disney pics are up! finally. blogger is so slow. but i don't even know how to change my template anymore. i wish i had computer skills. less than a week before halloween! i have been a glittering fool tonight and hopefully in a few days you will have pictures of all my halloweeness on this blog. happy early friday...L

so i got tagged by care bear and since i love her i will oblige. :)

1. What is your spouses name? david. but his street name is fruit loops.

2. How long have you been together? married for 13 years.

3. How long did you date? 9 months

4. Who eats more? him

5. Who said I love you first? don't remember but i bet it was me.

6. Who is taller? that would be dave for sure

7.Who sings better? that's funny.

8. Who is smarter? me--shhh, don't tell him though.

9. Whose temper is worse? him

10. Who does the laundry? me

11. Who does the dishes? me

12. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? is there a wrong side?

13. Who pays the bills? him for the last 4 years

14. Who mows the lawn? he does

15. Who cooks dinner? me mostly, but he cooks like once a week. he's the master griller for sure

16. Who drives when you are together? usually him because he says he doesn't have a death wish.

17. Who is more stubborn? i'm gonna say me, but he's a close 2nd

18. Who is the first to admit when they are wrong? I always admit i'm wrong, even though i'm not!

19. Who kissed who first? he kissed me

20. Who asked who out? he asked me after months of me calling him

21. Who proposed? no one. i don't know how we ended up married

22. Who is more sensitive? he is

23. Who has more friends? i think he might have more friends but i do stuff with mine more than he does.

24. Who wears the pants in the family? neither--we both prefer skirts

i'm not tagging anyone--just look to question #23! peace..L

gasoline: $40
scrapbook supplies: $100
seeing beth snort powdered sugar out of her nose: priceless

had myself and adventure today. not of the fun variety really. more of the humiliating painful kind. i was asked to do a demo of a crock pot recipe in front of a group of church women. so i had to do it not in a kitchen but out in the basketball court area. so i brought all my stuff already pretty prepared except a can of apple pie filling that had to be opened. as i am talking and opening i was tearing the last of the lid of the can off and just fling apple filling all over me. then as i get back to business of adding ingredients i look down to see the table with large drops of blood. well, i have had 2 bloody noses in the past 2 days so i am thinking i am having a nose bleed--all over my demo dessert. then i look down and realize my thumb is covered in blood and dripping A LOT!

so i kind of announce to everyone that i cut myself and run to the bathroom to wash it off and put a paper towel around it. which i do and by the time i get back and start up again the towel is bloody. so i get the dessert made and tell everyone that this will go home to my family (no blood actually got in the crock pot). but i got recollections of the snl dan ackroyd parody of julia child where he is cooking and cuts his hand off and is just gushing blood everywhere. that's kind of how i felt.

meantime--someone gives me 2 bandaids and by the time i got home those were soaked. i had at least an inch gash. thank heavens i got a tetanus shot this year! anyhoo i ask dave to take a look at it. now for the backstory--when anna got her head split open for the 2nd time the hospital gave dave the superglue they use instead of stitches. so of course the first thing dave wants to do is "glue" it. no thanks dr. evil. then he wants to sanitize it. guess again monkey boy. finally he gets the iodine package out of the first aid kit and wraps it on my thumb and covers it with 3 bandaids. i took it off tonight and washed it and replaced it with one of those bandaids with antibiotic on it. but it is sore and hurts to bend my thumb. ouch.

i am off tomorrow to scrap with my homeys. but i thought i would post some layouts i did before we left for disneyland. run, my peeps and good times were scraplifts. peace out and go buy some pumpkins for me...L

well disneyland was awesome. i have tried to load pictures twice now to no avail. but i loved having all my kiddo's together on vacation. we had a great time. no one was killed. believe me, that makes a family vacation a success. since i can't get any pictures on i though i would let you watch one of my favorite bands playing one of my new favorite songs. here are, what carson likes to call, the foo foo fighters. enjoy...L

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKhnmUdmz74&mode=related&search=

I don't know how i could have forgotten my 6th daughter alyssa!! who went and moved all the way to new york (which is too far for me to ride my bike there to go and see her). she has been one of brianne's best friends since their freshman year at BYU and we have been cursed, i mean blessed, to have her in our family since then! she can cook up some good chinese food and is utterly beautiful and full of some funky spirit! I keep telling her she should marry dallas but she is one stubborn girl! plus all of my girls love her and they sat with alyssa and her "friend" (she should so marry that boy!) at brianne and jeff's wedding luncheon. i miss you alyssa!! my sweet hapa daughter!!!

in other news we are planning on going to cali for october break and all of my kids are going!!! brianne, jeff and dallas are going to hook up with us at disneyland. i haven't had all of my family together for a vacation in a long, long, time! and i am so looking forward to spending time together. just think--all 9 of us in a hotel room together for 4 days=let the fun begin...L

HAPPY DAY! i got a wedding photo posted. and all of those girls right there in that pic? they will be reunited tonight when brianne gets in! yay! a wonderful 4 days with my girls together! have a lovely weekend...L