Just say no to mom jousting.

I recently read this blog post
after it was shared several times
by my friends on facebook.
Rage Against the minivan wrote it.
Can I rage against the minivan too
even if I drive one?

This is my two cents today.
Parents don't have to tell other parents
what to do or not to do.
Parents have to grow a backbone
and tell their kids to NOT expect something
just because other kids have it.
This is the problem with our society in general.
Parents are all competing
instead of supporting each other.

Sometimes (actually all the time)
we just need to check out of the
Mormon mommy blogger culture.

"Oh, you throw huge themed parties for your kids,
well my kids must have that too."

You read 10 books every night.
You always have ironed clothes.
You have sterile bathrooms.
All your clothes are from Matilda Jane.
You have an elf on the shelf.
You have a 5 course meal every night?
Your kids are each in a music lesson, a sport, and a cultural extra-curricular...
and you have 10 boys and 5 girls?
You have a leprechaun that shows up for Christmas?

Do you see how it can become a really huge problem
when you try to do everything like everyone else?

No. No. No.
That's all it takes.

And guess what?
Your kids don't care.

Or they may care
and then when you say no
they'll figure it out for themselves.

Case in point.

This is Bella
pretending to be
a leprechaun
for Saint Patrick's Day.
She thought that
Caroline deserved some fun
that we didn't want to provide.

Bend Out of Shape

I have this great friend 

Lynnae Boyer Weller.

She owns a little business called

Savannah Balloons.

You can learn more about her through her 

website or facebook page.

Her balloon skills are awesome.

Here is her version of

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I love it when people

can make our world

a better place

with their

amazing

artistic

abilities.

I wish I had more artistic abilities.

I plan to read

The Artist's Way

to explore

if there is something

I have been missing.

Remember I blogged about Lynnae's mom here.

I miss her mom,

she always made me smile.

I hope you all have a great green weekend.

I plan to make some shamrock

sugar cookies

clean house,

squeeze in a date with my hubby,

and enjoy

every last minute

or our last lazy Saturday

before Spring sports begin.

I wish you all the

luck of the Irish.

And just so you know

if you google

funny + st patricks day

you are going to

see a lot of stuff about beer

and even some naked redheads.

Romance for Poor People

LBJ and LadyBird courted over 90 love letters
and we can read them online here.
I know what I will be doing all afternoon:
reading real romance for free.
The love letters are
living proof
that you can have romance
at the price of a few stamps.

LG and I have an honorary membership in
America's newest poor class.

The middle class is taking some serious hits.

Add in four kids to the mix,

and it was time for a frugal

Valentine's Day.

LG and I started a new Valentine's tradition.

We each got $10 to spend on each other

at our favorite local Dollar Tree.

I made up a package called "Dreams come true" for LG.

I used some of his favorite things

and added in some dream hearts explaining.

- He loves lemon juice in his water. 

   (I wish I could make all your lemons into lemonade)

- A toy stuff basketball 

  (I wish I was always your soft place to land)

- Toy airplanes

   (I wish I could take you on a getaway)

- His favorite gel pens 

  (I wish I could do all your work for you)

- Sugar-free candy for the diabetic 

  (I wish you could eat as much sugar as you wanted)

- A McDonald's giftcard for the man 

  who loves breakfast 

  and is married to a lazy breakfast chef.

  (I wish I could hire you a breakfast fairy)

LG wasn't quite as cutesy, of course,

but it was still so fun to see what he picked out.

He knows me well.

And isn't that what Valentine's is about?

thinking of each other

and showing that you know one another

better than anyone else.

I feel loved

just knowing

that LG knows me.

I'm a huge believer that gifts don't have to cost a lot of money.

My dad talked at my Grandma Dorothy's funeral
about how she would always pick up little things
here and there and the five and dime to show
that she loved you.
One of his favorite gifts:
a portable toothpick holder.
That is one of the things he remembered
most at her funeral.

I love Valentine's Day. It may be my favorite.
I also love the love language of gift-giving.
I look forward to all of our future
Dollar Tree romances.

And for the record,
last night we got a tray of
chicken nuggets from
Chik-fil-a
wrote off all the evening
activities
and sat home as a family
and watched
Pirates of the Caribbean.
It was pure bliss.

Utah style Sugar Cookies

Here is my Valentine's gift

to the rest of you

that I don't sleep with.

I wish I could send you a warm cookie

through my Ethernet cable,

but since we haven't figured that one out yet,

I'll give you my recipe.

I call these 

Loralee's Sugar Cookies

(I got the recipe from my boss

twenty years ago

Her name was Loralee.

Go figure.)

This recipe makes about 60 medium size cookies

so be sure you have some plates ready to share

with neighbors

or make them on the day you are running a marathon.

1 1/3 cup shortening

1 1/2 cup sugar

4 eggs

1/2 cup milk

2 tsp vanilla

5 cups flour

3/4 tsp salt

6 tsp. baking powder

Cream together the shortening and sugar.

Add eggs, milk, and vanilla.

Sift in the flour, salt, and baking powder at the same time

Mix.

The real trick with these is to let them be a little sticky.

Don't think you need to add more flour.

Refrigerate the dough for about an hour.

Then the next trick is to roll them out thin.

No more than 1/4" thick,

like pie dough.

They will puff up a bit

in the oven.

Bake at 350 degrees

on the middle rack.

for 8-10 minutes.

In my current oven 9 minutes 

was the magic number.

Let cool.

Frost with 

Buttercream Frosting

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter - partially melted

4 - 5 cups powdered sugar

2.5 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

2-3 Tablespoons of milk or cream

(for you cheapos out there

like my mom,

you have to buy the real vanilla

and the real butter

it makes all the difference

I get mine at Costco)

Enjoy.

2CUL Craft

Somehow I always get stuck

with doing the crafts for

the kids' school parties.

All the other moms are

too afraid.

So here is what we are

doing for Valentines

this year.

And this crafty-challenged

lady

has made a tutorial

for you and yours

with all my V-day love.

1 - Use graph paper

to make block letter

conversation heart sayings.

2- Cut out

3 - Apply glue on graph side.

3- Stick onto sandpaper

from right to left.

Remember it will iron on

like a mirror image.

(That's why you glue on the right side)

4 - Outline well with crayon.

5 - Color in rest of sandpaper.

(I plan to actually have hearts

but this was the scrap I used

today for the prototype)

6 - Heat up iron to cotton/dry setting.

7 - Cut out a square of an old white sheet.

(600 threadcount egyptian cotton

 is optional but soooo soft)

I happened to have a perfectly great

topsheet leftover

from our tragic "ruined by talon toes"

sheet set

shown here on instagram.

7 - Sew up the 2 cut sides.

I will use the already folded over side

for the yarn-tie.

(Use a sewing machine if you want)

8 - This is what I did to make it go faster

(I hear you screaming you seamstress people)

I actually may just use fabric glue at school.

9 - Safety pin your yarn.

10 - Lead it through the fold.

11 - Tie big knots on each end.

(So they won't ravel or go back into fold)

12 - Place sandpaper on finished bag

that I turned inside out from stitching.

(Hopefully you guys are smart enough 

to understand that part)

13 - Turn sandpaper crayon side

 onto the fabric.

Cover with parchment paper or a tea towel.

14 - Iron (moving iron in circles)

for about 30 seconds.

Wa-la

Inspiration for this craft

came from alphamom.

Like I said above,

I plan to make them actual hearts

and either pre-make the bags

or have the kids glue them

(because of school time limits)

or do t-shirts

or just make the

sandpaper cut-outs

and send

iron on instructions home with kids.

Happy V-day

crafting all you cupid moms

who like me

 are suckers for love.

Feel free to leave

all your suggestions for betterment

below in the comments.

I have til Thursday to fine-tune.

Or just tell me how cool I am

because moms need

to love other moms.

And you're so welcome.

I couldn't find a single

thing good enough

on my beloved forthekids 

pinterest board

so I had to tweak.

I'm thrilled

with  my mom 

abilities

today.

As you should be too.

Almost Monochromatic

It's been snowing for

what seems like months.

Today is the second blue sky in

about four weeks.

True story.

Every other day has just been

white everywhere you look.

How my soul loves

the beauty

of a the blue sky

among the

black and white earth.

Winter white.

Everywhere

the eye can see.

The earth

seems

black
under

blanket

after blanket

of

snow.

Dead.

Yet

piercingly

beautiful.

The white

touches the white

part of my soul.

And the black

touches the black.

The complexity

of my emotions

seems to find

a balance

among the

monochromatic

landscape.

The only

colors

that surround

are

black,white, and brown.

And then the clouds lift

and

blue shines through.

Like a breath

of fresh air.

Or water

to the thirsty

Sahara traveler

who reached

her oasis.

There is blue

in my soul too.

And red,

and yellow.

The colors release

to find the sky

and remind me

of my beauty

amidst

the wintery white.

New Year

In Utah,

we've had some record colds

for the past week.

I've loved all the snow.

I don't think Olive has though.

Check out her water

frozen over.

We've all been enjoying our

Christmas gifts.

Caroline is up to her same antics.

But like her shirt says,

she is the best present ever

so it's o.k. that

she's spoiled rotten.

Right?

Notice that Santa

did bring the girl

all she wanted.

Make-up and nail polish.

Sophia finally got a fijit (she's wanted it for 2 years
and Santa found it on sale at Target for $15.)
Caroline with her make-up case.
 She has carried it around the house with all her treasures.
Bella with her FurReal Pets.
Abigail with her combat boots. Katniss style.

My favorite gift you ask?

It is a 50/50 toss up between

my pizelle maker

that I asked for on pinterest

and

the diamond earrings

that LG

picked out

all by myself.

But my favorite of all was this purse.

I've been looking for the perfect purse for 3 years.

LG and I spotted this at TJMaxx a week after Christmas

but it was $100 so I put it back.

LG went back to the store

on his own accord and

surprised me with it for no reason at all

on New Year's Eve.

He said it is my

"the party is over" purse.

That means I'll have it to enjoy

when I go back to living on a

non-Christmas bonus budget.

It makes me so happy every time I see it.

I love this photo from Christmas.

Abigail thought that Bella's present was awesome.

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is

taking the girls to the Dollar Tree and letting them shop.

It always proves to be entertaining.

I justify the expense by only letting them shop

for a select few and by

not doing stockings.

Oh yeah, this post was supposed to be about New Year.

Well, we had a great New Year.

We got to be reunited with our good friends

The Varnon Family

from Knoxville TN.

They were bringing Jordan out

for his first semester of college

and stayed with us a few days.

That's Jordan.

The kid figured out that he can dominate

at Just Dance4 by only moving his arm.

Yeah, our family room is not made for 13 people,

but cozy is how we prefer to do things around here.

I suck at dancing.

But man I'm looking fit,

even with that layered looking

hanging all out.

Isn't Caroline the cutest?

She's a great dancer.

So are all these girls.

Of course we took the obligatory outoftowners

sightseeing trip to

Temple Square.

Here are two of my favorite photos.

I wish I had more time to play with  my camera.

Here are the Varnon's

in front of the historical

Salt Lake Temple.

And here they are

in the Conference Center.

We stopped in at the church's

Historical Museum.

They have a pretty great kids' wing.

LG was pretty sick that day.

What a trooper.

I'm always amazed at how

some of my favorite pictures

are the spontaneous ones.

I sure love these kids.

Oh yeah,

we have rung in the New Year

 with the Varnon's

every year but 2011 for about 10 years.

We missed our other

partners in crime

The Ryan family.

I am pretty certain

this year was the best.

The photo says it all.

We did some other fun stuff

while the Varnon's were here.

We went up to see

Bridal Veil Falls.

We saw a funny movie.

(Highly recommend Here Comes the Boom).

We went to BYU.

We checked out Deseret Industries.

And last but certainly not least,

we went sledding.

If you made it this far in the post,

you are our true friends

and you are invited

to come and crash at our house

past the 3 day

fish and family stink

rule

any time.

Happy New Year y'all.

We love you Varnon family.

Hope you still love us

after spending that much time at our house.