Giveaway and cute Man Boy

Seriously the cutest little Sammy I've ever seen.....


Well, the cute boy is pictured above. He is getting a hang of this eating thing! I love determination to attack the spoon and suck it dry.

Second thing? I want to give away a package of my favorite non-chocolate treats, sour gummi worms. I may substitute anything I have on hand if I so desire but I'll try to give you the real deal, or Target brand, since it is pretty dang good. Nothing better than a soft, car-warmed gummi worm.

What's the catch? Well, I want you to give away something too so I can win something. But you don't have to if you're stingy.

The person who writes the best two line poem about summer (determined by Anika) will win the gummis. Deadline is Monday, August 4th at 6 pm.

Good luck!

This never would have happened at Macey's...

Today R had to go back to work after the big parade. I wanted to hit the Albertson's sale to buy some cereals. After the five-minute process of getting the kids out of the van and Sammy into the front-pack, we were finally ready. As we were walking into the store, a gruff, slightly rough 40-something male passed us. I heard him muttering loud enough for me to hear or catch the drift of his wussy statement.

What did he say? No, not the obvious and expected "hey hot mama- your oven must be as hot as you!", or even "hey- your kids are adorable. But you're too young to be their Mom!" Of course I've never gotten either of those comments before but I would have preferred either of them. Instead the stinky sourpuss just said with disgust, "sheesh (or a swear-word)...how many kids do you have...mumble mumble". Since we never made eye-contact (the weakling) my reaction time was too slow. We entered the store and all of a sudden I got really mad! I wanted to race back out there and say "excuse me, what did you say? What is your problem man?" I would have, but obviously I did have quite a crowd with me that I couldn't take with me while throwing that man down.

What makes me mad is that my kids weren't even misbehaving yet! They weren't in this man's way, they weren't whining. They weren't crying or being loud.

What kind of person doesn't like the sight of children? What kind of person takes out his grumpiness on a mom and her posse he knows nothing about?

A mean person.

I only wish I could have punched I mean talked nicely with this man to find out why he he is such a lame rottom. Then we'd both be resolved.

RRrgg... unrequited anger is a tough one for me...

Good town fun

...cute Sammy and the blessed suckable seatbelt

Well, there is a week every year devoted to fun city partying. Carnival time. Lots of expensive food is sold, cotton candy is 4 dollars, much to R's sadness (I promised him the store-bought 99 cent kind for later), and booths are set up selling eagle camouflage car seats, dream-catchers and many other oddities. The first night of the carnival all rides are 1 dollar. We usually hit this night. Sadly, we didn't make it last night due to busy-ness and light fatigue and we paid for that mistake today. However, the girls were okay with their limited number of pricey rides because of the promise of Shave Ice (you have to try it!) afterward. I love the value of a treat. It saved the day.




This was Olivia's first year on the roller coaster so I went with her. I've seen kids go it alone at age 2-3 and I really didn't want my child to be the one screaming while the dazed carni worker looks on. That choice gave me some good whiplash but even if the choo-choo barely goes 15 mph it still gave me an adrenaline rush.








I'm glad we are getting Mom's money worth with the reunion shirt. Anika is proud that she's worn it two days in a row. It is one of her few shirts that cross over as both a pajama shirt and day shirt. The others being, well, her other reunion shirts.

Don't you love small town fun? We bought Isabelle some cool sunglasses and tried to bargain to get 3 for 10 dollars but we did it all wrong. Russell was supposed to say "I'll give you 10 dollars for these 3 glasses", instead he said "could we get a deal if we buy these 3 glasses?" which us good bargainers know is not a good approach. But I'm only good in my head, which is why I made Russell do the job. We'll have to practice together before we do this next time.

The end.

Summer movies and wholesome stuff...

Well, we are going through some changes at our house. First of all, as much as we love our Barbie and Strawberry Shortcake dvds, (we have several of each), I decided it was time to exit the fantasy lands of dancing princesses and chocolate rivers and enter into a more, well, realistic (?) cinema. Enter in....




Pollyanna! After searching on amazon for a really wheat-bread type cinema experience I settled in on sugary Pollyanna. But it's a healthy sugar, like the kind that comes from bananas and apples, not lollipops and cotton candy. A few years ago I was over-excited about the idea of watching non-animated (I'm not a fan!) movies with Anika. So I bought The Secret Garden. Um....she wasn't ready. I still have to re-try that one. Plus that Colin is a bit scary and whiny! I'm afraid of exposing my kids to that. Well, A and I liked Pollyanna, though it was a whoppin' 2 1/2 hours. And I'm not sure they knew when it was really over, because they just said it ended after Pollyanna fell from the tree and I'm not sure it had that much of a cliff-hanger ending.


Second item on the agenda: revamping old reads. Anika's been reading way too much fluff. Bless her heart for loving to read anyway, I know....but I was starting to feel like she was only getting pure joy out of her books, and you know that's not a good thing. When a pasttime is too fun, we moms know it's time to angle in a little work, a little more fiber into the fun diet. (sorry about all the food references)
So what we did last time at the library was to find some alternate-experience books.



How about some historical fiction? That's right. "My America" books. I read this one too and it was wholesome and interesting! This one is Elizabeth's Jamestown Colony Diary. Anika got to read (after a bit of convincing and bribery) about a girl and her family that came over on a ship from England and their struggles establishing the little colony of Jamestown. Plus they left her twin brother back in England because his lungs were weak! A little emotion never hurts when grabbing a youngun's attention. The boys will even like it. After all, she was a tough girl who got to build their houses. Of course.....but anyway, we liked these and will be reading more of this series.




Last item on the agenda is my new bathroom. Who ever doubted my orange paint intentions? Probably all of you....but it seems to work out just fine. For right now, it is definitely the most fun loo to relax in.


Anyway, anyone else have some good old-fashioned movies to recommend? A hearty series for the kiddies?

Not a lame question game!

Well, lots of blogs have these questions games and Megan did one once but it was too long and intimidating. So I made up my own TAG game and you can all do it and then tag your wide, numerous blog audiences. Thanks. It's fun to spend some time thinking about yourself for a while. This is YOU time. You can pretend Barbara Walters is asking you these questions in a formal interview. Or Katie Couric. Or Dick Nourse.

1. What is your favorite day of the week: Thursday. Well, it used to be because Lost was on and also because it was the last day before the anticipated weekend, in which the actual weekend never usually lives up to anticipation in actuality. Well said?
2. What is your favorite candybar? Right now? Caramel Twix and Caramello.
3. What is your favorite restaurant? PF Chang's. Probably because I've only been twice but both times are good and it's too $$ for me to get sick of cause we never go.
4. Favorite fast food? Wendy's nuggets and frosty. Best 2 dollar meal ever!
5. What city in UT would you most like to live? Mapleton. Give me my acre near the mountains.
6. Would you rather get flowers or a pint of ice cream from your hubby? The latter.
7. Would you rather be an anchorwoman or an owner of a small shop? Hmmmm...I think my own store! Selling cool stuff.
8. Magazine editor or prosecution lawyer in the big city? Mag Ed.
9. Favorite household chore? Laundry.
10. Least favorite? Emptying dishwasher.
11. Favorite cereal? Raisin Bran Crunch, Rice Krispie Treats
12. Favorite season? Fall
13. What is your favorite active activity? Shopping, tennis
14. Favorite leisure activity? Reading
15. Do you take vitamins? Yes.
16. How many tickets? None, 2 warnings.
17. What does your retirement bring? Probably some Europe exploration.
18. What talent you want to have? Painting.

PS. If you don't have your own blog please just answer a couple of your favorite q's for me. Thanks!

Hairdo fixation update and ending

Back in February, I had the urge to cut my hair. See here. Anyway, that urge kept being put aside because finding that time to do something so brave and bold wasn't easily happened upon. So after a few months of waffling (is that the right word?), I had a couple bad hair days in a row and I decided enough was enough! Long story short, (and not that interesting to any of you!) I said au revoir to the hair that's been with me for around 4 years. It wasn't that emotional of a goodbye, thankfully. I'm not too attached.

sorry about undi and back show-
so much for modest under t's!
Here are the results. It is a good haircut, but I am trying to sass it up to take away any feelings of a "mom-do". I am in no way a good hair do-er. My hair looks good only as long as I can refrain from washing it after having a pro do it! Any tips about pomade or piecy-ness, send it my way. I did buy one of these. It's a curling brush that blow dries your hair at the same time. I like it! I also bought some Garnier Fructis Play Putty. Smells good.



Well, the point of this post is to not only inform, but to ask all you fashionistas what do I do next time I get my hair trimmed? Do I ask for more edginess? Razor ends? Crazy streaks?