QUOTE OF THE DAY

When tucking Blake into bed last night, I told him that Nana was coming to visit us this weekend.
Blake asked, "How long is she staying?"
Me, "Only Saturday and part of Sunday."

He replied in his cute little four-year old voice, "Do we have to give her back to Utah?"

She can still talk her way out of a ticket folks!

Back in the day, I prided myself on the uncanny ability of being able to talk my way out of tickets. I think I had talked my way out of seven speeding tickets at one point. Anyway, I must have lost my dazzling personality and stunning looks because I no longer could talk my way out of anything after I had children. But the losing streak has been broken because last Sunday two very nice policeman pulled in next to my car with the expired tabs (three months overdue) and did not give me a ticket. I promptly went home and renewed my tabs online - it took me all of two minutes to do.

May I introduce you to defender of the Galaxy?

Blake has a new hero - his name is Link. In case you are not a "gamer" and are not familiar with Link, I'll give you a quick heads up. Link is the main character of Nintendo's video game The Legend of Zelda. He is kind of like an elf that fights bosses with a wide array of weapons which include: swords, slingshots, boomerangs, bombs, bow and arrows, hookshots - you get the picture.

See a resemblence?

Grandma Deshazer made the green top and hat and Blake personalized the rest with his own rain boots, basketball shorts, and winter gloves.

And because he loves his costume soooo much, he even sleeps in it.

Like firemen who must ready their equipment for any moment's notice, so must a hero like Link sleep in costume so as to be ready for action if awakened in the middle of the night.

If you're an Adam Sandler fan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8knw_ao2ss

What the sun is good for...

Today is Thursday, right?

Today I figured out a new 'good thing' about the sun - it shows you all the things you need to clean in your house.

Let me explain, see, here in Seattle - i don't know if you've heard this or not - but it's cloudy and grey a lot of the time. So when that muted light shines through the windows and skylights, your house appears to be pretty clean. Kind of like when you do your makeup in a dark room - it looks good right?

Well, today when a brief bit of bright sun shone through my kitchen windows I saw every smudge mark on the windows, all the dust covering the surfaces of my family room, the grease on the stove, the clear gunk and shabby wipeups on my kitchen counters, the slight yellowing in my white porcelin sink. Sheez - no wonder I don't want to move to a sun shiney area - I would spend the whole day cleaning just to make peace with the white-glove inspection of the sun.

Monday Musings

i'm feeling too lazy to hassle with posting pictures right now, but felt like I wanted to talk to you all. We are still in a holding pattern with the promotion to utah. With jeremy offering to go to utah, the big bosses' eyes were opened and they all of a sudden decided that perhaps they did not want jeremy to leave the seattle area after all. They are currently locked in behind-door talks about how to keep Jeremy here in Seattle. While staying in Seattle has its advantages, going to utah did seem like a really fantastic option as well - for all of us. I've resigned myself to saying that i trust that whatever is meant to be for our lives is the right choice. i just have to put aside my own wants and trust God that His plan is the right plan. Enough said.
I don't know how many of you know this, but this year we decided that perhaps we would like to add another member to our family - the two legged version, not the four legged version. Five months into the process and so far no luck. Just like the old debate, which came first - the chicken or the egg, i have to wonder - which will come first - the promotion or the baby? only time will tell.
A big shout out to Heather for tomorrow - you know what I'm talking about and I hope all turns out great for you!! Another big shoutout to Jeremy's mom who was diagnosed with breast cancer a couple of weeks ago and is handling the news very well. Luckily her lump was found very early and is highly treatable. Do your self exams ladies - hers was found in a checkup exam and they all say they were lucky that they found it this way because it was so small. Send her your prayers tonight.
So, until next time, cheers to all!!

Happy early Birthday to me!

I had a wonderful early birthday present given to me last night. Grandma and Grandpa Deshazer offered to have Jackson spend the night. Aunt Michelle and Uncle James offered to have Blake spend the night at their house. So I've been child-free since 9pm on Saturday night. It's been fun to wake up on Sunday morning and have absolutely no one demanding anything of you. happy birthday!!

p.s. I'll add in that I'm almost ready for them to come home - almost. By 4pm I'll be ready!

If you give a kid a sharpie...

Do you know the popular children's book, "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie"? let me introduce you to our version of this book.

If you decide to paint your walls, you may decide to put painter's tape on the walls to remind you which walls to paint

Putting tape on the walls, may cause your kid to pick up a Sharpie. And he'll say to himself, "Hey, there's lines on th walls, why don't i draw on them?"

And then he may decide that drawing on walls is not right, so he'll find some paper in his playroom and decide he will want to draw a picture on the paper.

But then, he may say, "I always draw on paper, I think I'll draw on the white playroom table with my permanent Sharpie marker"

This is what happens, if you give a kid a Sharpie.

Here we come to save the DAAAAAY!

Blake had his bestest friend, Luke, over for a play date the other day. I overheard this conversation between the two superhereos:

"We need to save the world"

"Yes, we should save the world, but first we should jump on the bed"

"We can't, it's a bunk bed"

"Oh yeah, right"

Luke, aka Superman, is the son of my best friend from jr. high and high school back in SLC, Utah. We managed to have our second children ten days apart - both boys. We also live five minutes from each other in Maple Valley right now. And they adore each other. I love it when friendships continue into the next generation.

Apparently, superhereos don't have the time to pick up after themselves. Hey, saving the world takes a lot of energy.

Our house is a very very very fine house

As per one of my cousin's requests, here is a picture of our house in late summer. It's a great little house. It has four bedrooms, 2.5 baths, about 1900 sq. feet, built in 2003. Definately the perfect starter home.

Here is a view from the side of our house coming into the backyard. When we bought the house, the front yard was landscaped, but we had to do everything in the backyard - so far we (Jeremy) hauled in topsoil, built a sprinking system with Poppy's help, planted grass seed, Shannan carved out planting beds and designed the planting scheme, built a deck (again with poppy's help), and added landscape elements like flagstone path, firepit, and BBQ area.

Looking at the deck from the top of the hill in our backyard.


View of the backyard and deck from my kitchen sliding glass door.

Celebrity Playlist

For those of you who love a good playlist - I'm going to post a few of my mine just like they do on iTunes with "celebrity playlist".

Hang Out Playlist (for doing light housework, fixing meals in the kitchen, painting a wall, ironing, etc) -Note order: title of song: artist

*Missing: Everything but the girl
*Give a little bit: Goo Goo Dolls
*Landslide: Dixie Chicks
*Bizarre love triangle: New Order
*Manic monday: The Bangles
*Big Yellow Taxi: Counting Crows
*Waiting on the World to Change: John Mayer
*Run Around: Blues Traveler
*Stupid Girls: Pink
*Unwritten: Natasha Bedingfield
*Rain King: Counting Crows
*Hanging Around: Counting Crows
*Hook: Blues Traveler
*Independence Day: Carrie Underwood
*let's get it started: Black Eyed peas
*lonely no more:Rob Thomas
*Better Together: Jack Johnson
*Never know: Jack Johnson
*By Your side: Sade
*Cowboy Take me Away: Dixie Chicks

Why husbands are funny

I was sitting watching TV and then I noticed that Jeremy had put his brand new leather 'gold glove' baseball glove on top of our TV cabinet. Funny what husbands think is worthy of decorative accessories.

Biggest waste of my time this week...

And the prize goes to...........
Renting and watching Borat: The movie. hated it, hated it, only made it through thirty minutes and finally said, don't get this and don't wanna get it. Don't watch it if you value your time, in my never to be humble opinion.

Baseball Season is fast approaching!

Luckily we had a string of good weather earlier in the week. jeremy took the opportunity to take his boys out for a little batting practice.

This would be Blake, the 4 yr. old, pitching to his dad. He's actually quite good!

You should always take the time to climb a fence, here or there.

Food for thought...

I recently came across this information in my psychology studies and I filed it away until further notice. Today, I had the opportunity to use this information to my advantage. Today I volunteered in jackson's school and his teacher assigned me to do report card reading assessments, where I test all the kids in his class in their reading ability (don't worry, I didn't test Jackson because deep down inside - i knew I would skew his results - I'm known for hanging his artwork dead center in all bulletin boards I create). Anyway, here is the information from a study of elementary age boys and girls.

"Girls can become competitive over their looks, friendships, and even their grades. They frequently get down in the dumps about their supposed imperfections and the latest experience of spite. Boys like to vie to become pack leader and play for laughs in class. Increasingly, physical strength and sporting prowess are used to gain status, so smaller boys can feel left out. The earlier confidence becomes tainted by self-doubt.

Girls say they feel good when: Parents and friends are supportive, treat them as equals and as responsible people, give reassurance and hugs, praise them, listen to them, notice helpful deeds or when something has been done well, and want to spend time with them.

Girls can feel down because of: Sarcasm, criticism, unfavorable comparisons, and when they feel they don't have any special talent or look as good as they'd like to.

Boys say they feel good when: Parents and friends give them positive recognition for things they're good at, appreciate it when they've tried hard, recognize and accept them as they are, want to spend time with them and do fun things together, respect their privacy, and don't tattle.

Boys don't like: Pressure, being teased or belittled, being laughed at, being alone, or locked into a male role ("Your handwriting's neat -- for a boy!")."

One of my favorite shows and fantasties...

i love this show - i don't know if you've heard of it - it's on the discovery health channel and sometimes the learning channel. the shows are called - "Fourteen Children and Pregnant Again", "Raising 16 children", "A day in the life of the Duggars", and most recent edition, "On the Road with the Duggars". i love the series of these shows chronicling the lives of this family who live in Arkansas. I don't know if i would ever have that many children, nor do i want their life, but I really love watching them and hearing their ideas and stories, and most of all, GREAT ATTITUDE about life. I have a fantasy to take my kids and live with the Duggars for a day. Check it out if you have the chance.

Due to my stupidity...

Big boss meeting postponed due to wife-al stupidity. As always, with the best of intentions, I offered to walk Jackson to school today. I managed the 7 yr old, the 4 yr old, and the dog through a 2 mile walk through the woods - lost my house keys briefly on the path, but recovered them - and returned to my house around 9:30am. Go to open the front door and discover I forgot to take off the security chain off it. The house was sealed shut and no way to get in despite having my house keys distributed through several of my neighbors. Tried to use a wire hanger to ease the chain through the hook, but apparently my burglary skills are subpar.
Had to call Jeremy to come home now to let me in since he had a garage door opener. Need I mention that Blake and I were both in our PJ's - hey, you know you walk your kids to school in your PJs, right?? as long as they don't look too much like PJs, but more like cute sweats, but I did sleep in them the night before and so did Blake sleep in his.
So Jer missed out on his meeting because he had to let his wife back in the house. If I blew our chances.....

Best Quote of the Day, possibly the week

Okay, so I'm watching one of my secret guilty pleasure - Wife Swap - and in the rules change ceremony, the new mom says that the kids can stay up as late as they want. The husband says in perfect deadpan, "You have a better chance of seeing God than that happening".
Gotta save that for my own personal use later...

I'm getting old - 30 IS NOT the new 20.

So what has been going on, what has been going on??
I tell you this, I definately am getting older. Last Friday, I took the kids to sushi again (kind of addicted), and we met Jeremy at Costco. I've developed this fantastic strategy where I show up at his work right as he is getting off and he takes the kids home with him and I get to shop at Costco kid-free. It's great. However, this plan backfired when I driving home and i get a flat tire, the little Saturn jammed full of groceries. Oh, and I'm in a cell phone dead zone. So as I'm getting out of the car, for some reason, I threw my back out (recurring injury thanks to giving birth to two big baby boys).
Fast forward to Sunday - we get a perfect 58 degree sunny day - I decide to do work in the yard. As i was jumping on my garden shovel to carve out a grass border, I came down on it funny and twisted my ankle, sending me to the ground which happened to be on a hill in my front yard and I literally rolled down the hill clutching my leg. So now I've reinjured my back and my ankle is swollen and my hip hurts from falling down the hill. And boy, do I feel it!! I am no longer a spring chicken that can bounce back in a matter of minutes. My whole body hurts today.
My Utah friends will love this - last Thursday - we got this weird freakish cold snap and it snowed. The snow was very wet, in fact even though it was covering the roofs, lawns, and decks, it didn't stick to the ground. I would say there was about 3/8" of snow on the grass and it was 38 degrees. They still cancelled school.
Still no word about the move to Utah. I was actively stressing to Jeremy tonight that I really would love this 'opportunity'. He promises he will set up a meeting with the big boss tomorrow. keep saying your prayers...