a little update

This is me and my mama at the APS light parade the Saturday after Thanksgiving. We had a fun time. The kids loved it and then cried when we wouldn't let them sit on Santa's lap. (The line was over an hour long) So instead we went to Bill Johnson's and got 55cent cobbler/pies. They like the icecream. I did too.


This is the turkey I made for Thanksgiving. Anything bacon wrapped is delicious, right? too bad almost no one in our family likes turkey. they missed out on the goodness. at least it was pretty!!

Baby #6 will be arriving soon. & it's TAX SEASON! (it's like a holiday season around here... well, tax day is anyway) ha ha.

house

Our house in SanTanValley will be available to rent come November! If you, or anyone you know is looking to rent, let us know! Ryanmanor@hotmail.com

It's 1700sq. ft, 4bed, 2 bath, split floor plan, large front and backyard, in the circle part of the culdesac. :)

give-a-way!!!

MellowYellow & ShirtJunkie are being featured in this blog:
The Craft Floozy

So exciting!!!!

Even more exciting is that she is hosting a give-a-way for each shop!!!
ShirtJunkie & MellowYellow!

GO VISIT and enter to win!!! Tell your friends!

oh how i wish

we got to go to this 2 years ago.... um besides the humorous fact that most couldn't understand why we weren't taking the wine glasses... um HELLO... we were there for the 10 different cupcake shops, 5 different asian restaurants, and lots of different AMAZING dining places SAMPLES!!!! it was neat to see some mainstage, live demonstrations,,, but the food, oh the food was so great! and the classes... I'd spend all day in classes if they weren't $10 per half hour! I loved trying things that i'd want to try in a restaurant but wouldn't have enough money to get a 'tester meal'... know what i mean?

here's to wishing!!! (while holding up my water glass and cupcake!)

time

anyone have some extra time to share?
or tips to cope with a child with a tinge of attitude, one with a over-exuberance for sneakiness, one that falls on the floor when spoken to, & another that is more stubborn than myself?

any and all help welcomed. (be kind. i love being a mom. summer is just hitting a little too hard right now)

books

We're doing the summer reading program at our house.
We have one very ambitios worker & another that needs a little (and sometimes a lot) poking and proding to do work. Then there are the younger ones that sort of follow along and do what they can when necc.

At the library the older 2 are getting their 2nd prizes for reading books, the younger 2 getting their first prizes:
child 3: (mad b/c he didn't get the same 1st prize that the older 2 got) ugh! I wanted a water bomb!
child 1: you are in a different reading group so you get different prizes. It's okay, we'll play with your prize on the slip'n'slide today.
child 3: ya, i am in a different group. i have to rent books and look at pictures. then i get prizes.


**honestly, i was shocked that he knew/thought that! ha ha. when we started the program i told the them that in order for the younger 2 to earn their stickers, either they or i would have to read to the younger 2. If they read, it would count on both the charts. If i read it would only count on the younger one's charts. ..... Picture books!!! ah ha ha ha.

check it out!

check out the new addition to Mellow Yellow!
www.mellowyellowdecor.blogspot.com

piston cup

Scene: We're making Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwiches for lunch
Characters: son, daughter & mama

S: I want triangles - (to the daughter) do you want squares?
D: ya, I want squares
M: do you want squares or triangles?
D: squares, please, please, please (while bouncing)
M: okay.
S: mom, you are the best maker of squares. I bet if there was a contest, you'd win the piston cup.

M: (in my head) oh ya! I've mastered cutting squares in sandwiches... FINALLY!

alive?

Alive? yes, we are definitely alive.
Busy... ya super busy.
A few things - there is now a 10 month old, a broken wrist, 2 ear aches, pink eye, a hair cut for ice cream (sometimes bribery is necc.), a new business, an out of control eye, 2 animal projects, a trip to the zoo, and lots of fun other things.
Life is good!!! Now I just need to find time to upload pictures and such. :)

significance

Today is a day of significance. It is Easter. I heart Easter.

I love spring, love the colors. love the weather, love the 'newness' of things.

I love that we get to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior. A gift he has given to all man kind and I personally am eternally grateful for His lasting sacrifice.

This weekend also happened to be General Conference. (http://www.lds.org/) General Conference weekends are especially fun. I love it because we get to listen to council from the Prophet and the 12 Apostles and other general authorities. I love that we get to find answers to questions and insight on topics we've pondered. I love that we get to be uplifted and edified. I love that it's a weekend filled with JOY.

And to make it even more memorable, we just got to feel our first earthquake as a family.

We were sitting in Curtis' and my room watching 'Emma, My Story' on BYU. I thought one of the kids was kicking the bed and almost asked them to stop when Curtis' and my eyes caught each other. We both knew something wasn't right. We both looked out the window and the blinds on the window were shaking too. By no means was it furious or any sort like that... but very strange. My first idea was that if we felt it here and that really was an earthquake, something big happened somewhere! So we took all the kids in the backyard and after a few minutes we went back in. Curtis and I both searched and saw there had just been a 6.9 earthquake in Baja, CA. We felt it! Wild. Noteworthy. Significant.

stress

Life has been CRAZY for that last couple of months. We knew this year would be a year of change and take us out of our comfort levels more so than in the past.
However, I will say that no matter how stressed I was or am, I would never even come close to considering this! [above picture] I found this picture on MSN.COM this morning with the title, "Stressed? Try a snake massage"
Oh for real are there more than just a handful of people that would actually do this and it would relax them???

In other news, I'm sick. This is the last thing I or anyone else in my family needed right now. The house has been quarantined due to pink eye [thankfully only one has actually gotten it so far] and me and one other have full blown snot noses [by full blown i mean i 'm confident i could launch a snot rocket further than my sidewalk... or even possibly out the window in a moving car and it would go out far enough to not land on the back of my car, but on the next person's car...now that is full blown snot] I'm dying at the idea of that... with all the nastiness in the world, that should be one of the summer Olympic games!

We're surviving though and that is good - right? 2 steps forward and sometimes we are required to take one step back. (I'll make it a little itty bitty one)

compooper

Alas, My compooper is slowly dying. Likely a slow painful death. I only know this b/c the poor thing begins to make very loud fan noises and gets very very hot. I could probably cook bacon on it.

My computer is the one we bought when Curtis got into the Accounting program in college. When he decided this one was outdated for what he needed a few years later, I inherited it. And I've used it lovingly since. It has been good to me over the years. Held all my special pictures safe, kept all my programs running (sometimes with a glitch, but come on, who doesn't make mistakes?), It has done a great job for what I've needed it for.

It still has a time left... but I'm trying to plan ahead for the dreaded day.

Do I bury it? Do I strip it of it's dignity and give it a home in the top of a closet? Do I trade it in for credit at Costco (probably very little - though i think it is worth millions, i think costco would give me $8 or so), maybe make a centerpiece for the table out of it (now that is a little overboard)...

poor compooper. you've given me much.

swimming

it was 80 degrees last week. the kids were sweating while they were outside. One decided she wanted to go swimming. There was no chance i was taking all the kids swimming. One, because the pool is not heated & Two b/c I was not going with all of them myself.

The oldest bartered her way around $5 if she jumped in all the way down to 10 double chocolate cookies. (I'm not sure which is better). My sister was there and said she'd take her the next afternoon. (thank goodness for sisters!)

The next day rolls around. It's all they could talk about. I told them to put their swimsuits on (by this point number 2 decided she wanted a go at the pool too.) Oh, the poor swimsuits were definitely outdated and sized a bit too small. My sister showed up and off they were to the pool.

I was sure they would come back ice cubes.

I was wrong. They jumped in and swam around a while. I suppose I forgot what it was like to be that age and beg to go swimming regardless of the weather. The rule growing up was that it had to be 80 degrees out. I think I'll change it to 85 or I may walk home icicle like.

I made 20 (and a few more) double chocolate cookies the next day and paid up.

today

I got up this morning and had an itch to cut the grass. So I did. Brooke helped. I love cutting the grass in lines like this. It makes me feel like things are a little more orderly. Is that weird?

So we watered a few plants, swept off the driveway and porch and moved onto the backyard.

Brooke & Landon cleaned all the toys off the grass so I could mow it. The front yard still has winter grass doing quite well b/c it's mostly shaded still. The backyard (we didn't put winter grass there this year) has summer grass coming in already. Albeit, patchy and weedy... but it's coming in. I mowed it and it felt good. Why do I like yard work so much?

Then we planted the flowers and tomato plants Curtis' mom gave us. She is so nice to share. We didn't have to water them much b/c it was about to rain. So we cleaned up, went inside and made the chocolate cookies I owed the girls for jumping in the pool yesterday.

I'll post about that tomorrow.

*clarification*

*clarification to the previous post.*
Nope, I'm not pregnant. There was no annoucement intended.
I adore pregnant people and being pregnant aint so bad... however....
ha ha ha ha ha ha... I meant that I could relate to her being pregnant because I have pretty much lived in that state for about 70% of the last 9 years. Relating to prego girls is a piece of cake at this stage of my life.

more eyes

Went to the eye dr. the other day.

My contacts have been bothering me. not so much in one eye. but the other.

I have an astigmatism in one eye, so that contact is a toric and has weights on it. Ya, the astigmatism eye lifts weights all day long. It's pretty buff.

That eye, the buff one, quit working out lately - or has been working out overtime {i haven't figured out which one it is}. The contact keeps spinning in my eye - creating a very messy picture in one eye and a clear picture in the other. Resulting in one of the most instant headaches one could imagine.

Further results - I've been wearing my glasses more {I will not go into how much I truly dislike wearing glasses...it's like one constant headache the whole time they are on. If I wasn't so terrible at relating pain to taking medicine, one could almost guarantee I've been living on tylenol for the times glasses are on my face. that is how much i dislike them}

So, with almost 2 full boxes of contacts unopened, I broke down and went to an eye doctor. A new one. She was fabulous. Uncanny, full of spice, and pregnant. Every word that came out of her mouth directly related to pregnancy - I can relate to that.

So when she told me that my eyes are cone shaped, we talked about ice cream.

it was great.

I told her about my buff eye. I told her it was sick and tired of the wimpy weights from the other contacts. 5lbs is doing nothing for the biceps. So we're changing the brand of contact and changing the axis. I've got 3 spankin' new contacts to try over the next month. I hope the buff eye knows what to do.

i didn't know my eyes were so strangely shaped. Other contacts have always fit well, until 6 or so months ago. hmmm... back to pregnancy. that is a possibility - PREGNANCY. stranger things have happened I suppose. (for the record, girls give me no cavities but stronger eye prescriptions. Boys give me cavities or broken teeth & better eyes - 100% true)

**this was such a fun appointment that it would have been fun to bring my grandma in with me. she has graves disease and it caused her eyes to buldge. she gives cone-shaped eyes new meaning.**

blah

i quit the private stuff. well no, not really. I just like being friendly too much and so well, i don't like blocking out people. so i'm keeping my other blog private... if you want to read it GREAT! if you haven't gotten an invite and want one... email me! Feel free to read this one too.

onto life. my eyelashes are finally growing back in. hooray! i wish i had some wild and crazy story as to why they fall out... but i don't. My eyelashes go through phases. 2 or 3 times a year most of them fall out and I get a whole new crop of thick lovely lashes. I'm not sure why this happens. It's gone on most of my life that I can remember. Maybe this is completely normal and everyone is eyelash-less every few months. i've never put any on, but do more people wear fake eyelashes then i thought?

pRiVaTe!

After running analytics on the blog for a while and getting extended visits from countries I know no one in... we've gone private! I know, no fun. But, that is the way it is these days. The mama bear comes out in me!

I've sent out some invites - but if you didn't get one, it has nothing to do with whether we like you or want you to read our blog... it's because we sent out just a few invites b/c we're lazy.

Shoot me an email and I'll get you an invite!
ryanmanor@hotmail.com
(don't be shy)