Vote!

I saw a commercial on TV for this awesome idea. American Express is donating $1.5 million to a cause chosen by cardmembers. There is a list if 25 worthy causes which will be cropped to 5 on September 30, and the winner will be chosen Oct. 14th. I voted on the idea below, but there were many awesome ideas, all submitted by cardmembers. Go check it out!

6 Food Mistakes Parents Make

I feel like all I've been posting lately are links to other websites...sorry, add this one to the list.

I just came across a very interesting article in the NY Times called "6 Food Mistakes Parents Make." I was surprised at a few and not so surprised at the rest. The first food mistake surprised me the most: Sending Children Out of the Kitchen. I do this all the time! I'm usually a bit stressed when I'm making dinner because bedtime is rapidly approaching, I'm trying to hurry, everyone is hungry and whiny, and the stove is HOT!! So my easiest fix is just to send everyone out of the kitchen so I can finish quickly and nobody gets stepped on or burned. This study suggests that involving your children in food preparation increases their interest and desire to eat the foods being prepared. Most of you know that David is not a big fan of eating in general(and hates chocolate - gasp!) so maybe if I start preparing dinner a little earlier(to lessen the stress factor) he and I will have time to cook together and he might be a little more interested in the food(if that's not a sentence worthy of making an English teacher faint - I don't know what is). Interesting...

Go check it out for yourself!

More Shopping!

It's Old Navy's Best Friend Weekend Sale. You get 20% off your order, plus free shipping. I bought David: 1 shirt, 2 pairs of shorts, 1 pair of shoes, 1 pair of jammies, and one pair of denim capris for me...all on clearance...and all for $24.45 - and that includes tax and shipping!


It's also a great time to buy baby clothes if you're expecting or have a baby to buy for. The smaller sizes are usually easier to get than the bigger sizes.

When you check out use promo code: BFF to get the 20% off and free shipping. Now, go do some shopping!!!

FREE?!

I love a great deal. I also love free things. What I love even better is something free and a great deal! I got this in the mail today:

Can you believe it? I got a free Shade shirt! There's a new Shade store opening at the Chandler Fashion Center - so they sent me a free shirt, along with 10 coupons to save 30% off my entire purchase. How stinkin awesome is that? The shirt usually costs 14.50 and they're just handing them out. I'm shocked. I love this company. Anyone want to go shopping? I'm going Saturday and I've got plenty of coupons. . .

Sunday Ramblings...and a little announcement

Sorry for the lack of an update lately...saying we've been busy is an understatement. There really hasn't been anything significant that has kept us busy, other than life in general.

Mckenna started preschool at the beginning of this month. Her teacher is my nephew Porter's old teacher, Amber Olsen. When we moved to AZ she just happened to live 2 doors down from us! They have since moved to a bigger house, but are still in the neighborhood. When I drop off Ken, I pick up her teacher's 1 1/2 year old son and he and David play for a couple hours. Mckenna loves preschool and adores her teacher. I think the thing she loves the most is that she gets to do something fun without her sister dictating her every move. And she comes home with all sorts of stories about everything they did and all of the friends she played with that day. She's such a happy girl, I just love her. Here she is on her first day of school in Amber's driveway:

Warning: Picture with blood below.

2 weeks ago David was lying on our LoveSac upstairs and rolled off, landing on the treadmill. Ian was trying to rub the spot on his head that he thought David had hit until his fingers moved over a little bit and got wet. Sure enough, David had split his head open. I always knew my son would be the first one. After cleaning him up, we got a better look at the cut. It was about 3/4 of an inch long and a couple millimeters wide. It stopped bleeding, but didn't look so great. We called the doctor and waited around for them to call us back. Eventually we just gave up and Ian went to the store, got some liquid bandage, we glued it back together, stuck some butterfly bandages on it and called it good. The moment we finished all that - the doctor finally called back and suggested we take him in and have them staple it. Gee thanks for the speedy reply, Doc. Through all of it, David was a little trooper. He only cried right when it happened and he stayed still every time we needed to look at it, clean it, or when we were bandaging him up. It looks a lot better now. Worst case scenario he'll have a little bald spot on the back of his head. But that's ok, then he'll just look like his daddy(sorry, Laurie, I couldn't resist!). Here's a pic of his cut, before we glued it:

I made sure it was small so you couldn't see the nastiness.

Also, my sweet, perfect, calm little boy has decided it's time to change things up a bit. He's gotten much louder and he's been experimenting with hitting, scratching, and kicking. None of it is painful and most of it is done in a playful way...but each time he'll look up at me with a "Yeah? So? Whatcha gonna do about it?" look on his face...so we're trying to nip this in the bud(or is it butt? I can never remember).

Now on to Emma...She is doing great in school. I really feel like she's being challenged, but at the same time, I feel like she's learning at a very fast rate. She was a little behind most of the kids at the beginning of the year because this school has a different learning style, but she caught up right away and is doing really well. She's made some new friends(like her BFF) and has great new stories about her recess drama everyday. She has gotten her name on the board a few times, but only in true Emma fashion: when she hasn't had enough sleep the night before.

Another thing she did in true Emma fashion happened at church during Primary today...and in this case "true Emma fashion" means she revealed a little more than I would have liked her to.

Each week in Primary the presidency asks the kids to tell about something that makes them special. They call on a few and those kids get to go put a sticker on a poster board with a picture of Christ on it. The kids have their usuals: "I helped my mom do the dishes," and "I cleaned my room." Lately the teachers have been trying to get the kids to say something different than the usuals...which made it the perfect time for Emma to chime in. She doesn't always raise her hand to answer and I'm not sure what made today any different...but she did and she got called on. Here was her answer: "We're adopting from Ethiopia." Sister Perkin's said, "What?" Emma repeated herself. Sister Perkins looked at me...rather confused... To which I repeated Emma, "We're adopting from Ethiopia. Surprise!" I guess we couldn't keep it a secret forever. To read more about it, you can go to my adoption blog. Scroll allllll the way down to the bottom and read from the bottom up. I'm sure you have a million questions and most of them can be answered there. So, thanks for spilling the beans, Em. It had to happen sometime. :)

Also - about my Holiday Boutique. I have almost all of the vendors I need. I'm just looking for 1 more home/holiday decor vendor, 1 handmade jewelry vendor, and one vinyl lettering vendor. I have leads on all three but if you know anyone, pass my post along and I might use them instead! Thanks to all of you who did respond or pass this along to someone you knew. It is going to be so super great! I can't wait!

Betrayal

Have you ever found out that something you've known to be true your whole life...isn't?? For example, my mom had heard the expression, "Might as well..." plenty of times growing up, but it wasn't until she reached adulthood that she realized that she'd been saying it wrong her whole life. She'd been saying, "Mine as well," and never really even understood what the saying meant.

I just finished reading the book "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe" by Fannie Flagg. My two favorite movies of all time are Steel Magnolias and Fried Green Tomatoes.* Both of those movies are about the strong bond of friendship shared between women. They have many life lessons and are always good at making me laugh and cry at the same time.

When we were growing up, we lived out in the boonies and didn't get any TV reception. My mom had a friend who would record TV shows every now and then for us and my sweet grandma recorded any kid movie that came on TV and we could "check out" movies when we went to visit. Somewhere in there we ended up with a VHS copy of Fried Green Tomatoes. Because we didn't have TV channels, we would watch our VHS tapes over and over and over... So I've seen FGT plenty of times and thought I knew the movie pretty well.

Well wasn't I surprised after reading the book that the two main characters in FGT aren't just good friends but good girlfriends... They're gay! Now - prejudices, religious beliefs, and sexual preferences aside(that's a topic for another day), I am most upset that the main reason I loved the story really isn't even valid any more!! I did a little research and found that I'm not the only one who thought the movie was about friendship - the script was written in such a way that the movie can be interpreted either way, and I obviously chose the friendship route. I know this really doesn't sound like that big of a deal, but you need to take into account how many times I've seen this movie(probably at least 50 times) and how much it helped me to understand and value the importance of friendship between women. And now I have come to find out that the story really wasn't about that at all!!

The book really was a good book and had soo much more to it than the movie(well...obviously...). I need to go back and watch it again. There were so many minor characters in the movie that had a little more story time in the book. There were also a lot of different incidences that they combined so they could fit it into the 2 hour movie. The book is a bit more harsh in some places than the movie and vice-versa.

Anyway, I just needed to vent a bit about the betrayal I'm feeling. So back to my original question:

Have you ever found out that something you've known to be true your whole life...isn't??

*Funny coincidence worth mentioning: When I looked up the movie FGT on Amazon.com it has a package deal with FGT and Steel Magnolias saying that the two are frequently bought together...interesting since they're my all time fav's!

Pass It On...

I realized I forgot to ask my AZ friends to pass along the link to my boutique post to anyone you think would be interested. I want it to be super great - which means lots of great people selling lots of great stuff! Thanks!

Free Massage! Great Cause!

Recipe Blog

8 new recipes up on my recipe blog!

Holiday Boutique!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

OK, so really, it looks nothing like Christmas. Especially here in Arizona. But if you were to plant yourself in my crazy brain you'd find lots of Christmas thoughts(along with a bunch of other unnecessary things...). I just started planning my (first) annual Holiday Boutique. I'm announcing it now so that I can start signing up vendors. So if you've got some holiday gifts/decorations/crafts/treats/or anything else, let me know! Here are the details:

Holiday Boutique!
November 14th, 5pm-8pm
November 15th, 9am-2pm
At my house in Queen Creek

Please email me or leave a comment with your email address(I'll delete your address as soon as I get the comment) and I'll sign you up. There's a deposit of $15 per vendor to hold your spot, so you'll need to get that to me soon after you sign up. I'll be giving out more details when it gets closer, but I wanted to get started on my vendor list to give you all plenty of time to get ready.*

I'll be printing invitations and will require each vendor to send out at least 15 invitations each. I've got many more details, but for now I'm just concentrating on my vendor list. Thanks, and please pass this along to anyone you think might be interested!

___________

*for those of you that work for retail companies such as Pampered Chef, Cookie Lee, Mary Kay - I will be compiling a secondary list and will fill that with those of you that wish to sign up. If I have any openings left the week before the boutique I will fill them from this list on a first come, first served basis. Thanks!

Bargain Shopping

So all of you who are always asking Ian and me to tell you when there's a great grocery deal going on? Well head over to my sister-in-law's blog, Megan's Bargain's. She's got a pretty good Albertson's deal up right now.

Labor Day!!

Shannon over at Rocks In My Dryer has posted a fun little meme, and I decided to play along(do I seem bored to you?). Here's what she says:

"In honor of Labor Day, it's about...well, labor. And not the kind you get a day off for, either."

How long were your labors?

Emma: 6 hours

Mckenna: 6 hours

David: 8 hours

Where did you deliver?

E: U of U Hospital, Salt Lake City, UT

M: U of U Hospital, Salt Lake City, UT

D: Rancho Springs Medical Center, Murrieta, CA

How did you know you were in labor?

E: Induced. And even then it took a couple of hours to kick in

M: Induced. Had already been having contractions for a few weeks and they intensified over the next hour.

D: Water broke. I mean gushed. Ever seen Niagara Falls? Yeah, something like that.

Drugs?

Ufortunately yes...with all 3. And each time I went as long as I could without them, but ended up needing them. David's was the worst, though, because I got "the shakes." And they intensified during each contraction. I've never felt more out of control in my life.

C-section?

Thankfully, no.

Who delivered?

E: Dr. Raymond Doucette - the best old Grandpa man ever.

M: Dr. Doucette

D: Dr. Charles Yang - Asian man - small hands. 'Nuff said. Although he almost didn't make it to David's birth. I don't think I would have waited for him, but my sister wasn't there either, so I held that big baby in for a full hour. And as soon as the doctor and my sister came in, I lifted my legs and my 9 pound baby popped right out!

Anyone else want to play?