La Familia

This weekend my aunt and cousins came to visit. They drove all the way here from East Texas, convincing me that they must REALLY love me. We laughed a lot and learned a few things about each other. The visit was way too short (considering I hadn't seen some of them for almost four years), and it was hard to pick a highlight of our visit. It was a toss up between our scenic trip to Sedona and Hazel's scary, screaming fits. The only reason I chose Sedona was because I didn't have any pictures to document Hazel's episodes.

My sweet cousin Jennifer and her daughter, Jordan (sweet baby cousin)

Yipee!!! Sedona, baby!

The whole crew

Partners in crime

The Church on the Rock

Jennifer looking sad to leave. :(

We miss them so much, and I'm sure they are desperately missing Hazel's tantrums.

My latest love

I happen to love Olive Garden (even though my husband calls it Italian fast food). I drool over their salad, and I am pretty sure I have come extremely close to duplicating (replicating?) it.

*Dole bagged salad: Classic Romaine (with shredded carrots and cabbage) FYI- Olive Garden just uses bagged salad anyway!
*A can of black olives (and I am making the salad, so I can have as many as I want instead of 1 per person)
*1 red onion
*2-3 tomatoes
*Ken's dressing



2 bags of salad will last me a couple of weeks, and when they are $1 a bag, you just can't beat that for a delicious lunch every day. Yum.

Visitors = productivity

I have company coming in a few days, and it has made me do some strange things. Things that make me realize I am definitely my mom's daughter. I used to roll my eyes at her because she would (and still does) decide to rearrange the whole house if someone was coming to visit. And she would think of these totally unnecessary projects that just HAD to be done before they got there. Now I realize that maybe she was just using that company as an excuse to finally do the things she had been wanting to get done!

OR she is just super OCD (I am still talking about myself as my mother here).

So- I climbed on my roof to cut down some branches off a tree. They weren't harming anyone! Poor branches. I scrubbed and washed my front porch and front door. I raked my back yard. I organized all my sheet music (just in case they rifle through THAT cabinet). I hung the pictures on my kids' walls that have been sitting on the floor for the past 5 months. And I painted my dining room table.

I have REALLY been wanting to paint my table since the day I got it. It is seriously the table I have always wanted. I have always wanted a really long, dark brown, farmhouse style table. And this was IT! Except the leaf wasn't painted the same color as the rest of the table.....and the rest of the table wasn't brown. But it was a GREAT deal, and my mommy bought it for me for Christmas, so I knew I would be able to make it my dream table. :) Not to mention the fact that it would fill a completely empty room. I wasn't going to complain!

So- here it is before:

And here it is after:

Now I just need the second leaf, a rug, a light fixture, curtains, two upholstered armchairs, paint and art on the walls, and I will love my dining room! Who am I kidding? I will never be satisfied. But I do like the table!

.pu flesym gnireehc

I have been seriously "frustrated" with Hazel lately. She is going through a......well, a rough patch.

So I thought I would type some of the cute things that she has been saying/doing this week. Maybe that will make me feel a little better about her.

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This morning she rolled over in bed and said in her sweet little first-thing-in-the-morning voice "Mommy, is this tomorrow?"

I said "Yes." And she said "YAY! I love tomorrow."

***
While playing with Owen she all of a sudden grabbed my desk calendar and, talking in a robotic voice, said "I am an alien. I stole your scriptures."

***
On Sunday she was sitting in my lap and whispered in my ear "You make my heart super happy."

***
Today she named her favorite stuffed puppy Kyle. She has her new cousin on the brain a lot lately. She talked to her Aunt Paige on the phone and said "Did you see baby Kyle yet? He came out of Aunt Meredithses belly already."

***
I can't think of anymore right now....but this helped a little. :) And here's a super-random (not to mention old) picture that I just saw that made me laugh. I don't know if it has already made an appearance on my blog before, but it cheered me up, and that's what this post is all about.






I almost forgot! Hazel pulled this plastic tub onto her "nest" at nap time and made a little bed in it. That's where she wanted to take her nap. The only way I could convince her not to was to finally pick it up and dump her out of it. And the only reason I didn't let her is because I was afraid she would roll over and hit her head on the side of the tub, thus cutting MY nap short.

How Nintendo brings us all together

Owen: "Climb up that ladder!"

Hazel: "AAUUUGH! Stop killing me!"

Owen: "Press A! Press A!"

Hazel: "I AM pressing A! It's not doing anything!"

Owen: "I won!"

Hazel: "Mooooommmmm! He's not letting me win!"

Me: "Turn it off."

And there you have it! We managed to all interact and bond this morning.

Chapter One

Since the day that Carly the cat discovered Max the fish, she has spent all her waking hours watching and waiting....hoping against all odds- odds that her tiny little cat brain can not comprehend- that Max will soon break through that glass and finally be within reach of her anxious paws.

*Disclaimer: This counter is on the other side of the kitchen from the one we use for food prep. The ONLY reason I permit this to happen.

Up for discussion....

Why is it that almost every time I walk into the locker room at the gym, I am forced to see nudity? In the past, I have complained that it always seemed to be the women in their 80's that liked to walk around in the locker room air-drying after their water aerobics class. And these women sit their BARE rear-ends on the benches that other people set their belongings on. I have personally witnessed a poor, oblivious girl walking in and throwing her gym bag and towel down and a recently bare-bum occupied bench.

Somehow I convinced myself that wrinkled, sagging nudity is worse than the regular kind. But then I walked in there today to see a semi-young person walking around nude....and I realized that it's pretty much innapropriate for any age or body type. I mean...this lady was obviously proud of her body (especially her unquestionably fake breasts), but why did she feel the need to show US?! Why would she think a bunch of stay-at-home moms have any desire to see her NAKED?! I just don't get it. And frankly, it disgusts me.