Time flies when you're having fun!

9 years ago this morning I was sitting in the Seattle temple waiting for Dave to show up so we could get hitched. It was such a beautiful day, not like this icky, freezing cold winter we're having this year. The sun was even shining, and if you know Seattle winters, you know that's not normal!

So, yesterday, I was looking for something (anything!) to get for Dave for our anniversary. We're not huge on gifts, but I wanted to find something. I finally stumbled across the perfect gift. On sale for $5 no less. (don't mock! He always steals my nail clippers off my key ring. And these are manly! There's a knife!) So I wrote him a note on his iphone and gave him the knife/clipper/flashlight thingy. Romantic, eh?

I also bought myself a lovely new coat from him to wear to dinner tonight. :)

Anyway, I got to thinking about anniversary gifts and remembered the first 2 he ever gave me. Since we got married only 7 weeks after we met, we didn't have a lot of anniversaries to celebrate til after we got married.

So Dave decided he'd buy me a gift for each month-iversary after we were married. His plan was to buy the number of things of which month it was.

Dave loooves surprises (I hate them, but he didn't know that yet) and so month 1 he was all "I got you something, but you have to find it." So, I start looking. We lived in this little apartment, with very little to fill it with, so there weren't that many places to look, but I was having serious issues finding whatever the gift was. He was just following me around smirking. Finally he was all, let's go out to eat (or something...I don't remember why we were leaving) and we went out to the car. He proceeded to walk around it slowly with this goofy expression and I, being clueless, and having entirely given up on finding the mysterious month-iversary gift, was just getting in the car and wondering why he was acting weird (remember...we hadn't known each other long...for all I knew, this was normal.)

He then started dropping some heavy clues to get me to realize I was still supposed to be looking for my gift.

And there it was...on the back of the car. 9 years and 2 cars later...I still have it. (please excuse the dirt. I don't believe in washing cars)



Month 2 he took pity on me and made my 2 silver candlesticks easy to find.



Month 3, he hid 3 brightly colored pillows in the bathtub and month 4 was another search all over month only to finally have him inform me that he put 4 new hubcaps on the car. (I don't notice things about cars apparently).

And that was the end of month-iversary gift giving.

I'm often accused of being not fun to buy things for because I don't show the appropriate amount of enthusiasm. Perhaps if I was a little more...cheerleadery...those month-iversaries would have lasted longer. Alas...I'll never know.

But happy 9 years to us! I love you, Dave!

Overheard

Aria: Gabe, what's your favorite vegetable?
Gabe: mmmm....COOKIES!

Uh...Gabe can read and write and he's 3.

So, I knew he knew his letters and sounds and I knew he knew how to spell some things (his favorite game is "Mom, how do you spell ______?") but the other day he brought me this picture.



See the Mom at the bottom?

Then he brought this book to me that I just bought for him



(.99 at The Gap) and said "Hey Mom! Will you read 'How...Do...Dinosaurs...Play...Will...Teeth...Friends' to me?"

So apparently, he's looking at the first letters and the pictures and figuring it out.

Oh, and as long as I'm bragging about him...he can count to 29. (after that it becomes twenty-ten, twenty-eleven...and there's no persuading him otherwise)

Had some fun today

I had this idea to try to use shoes and create each letter of the alphabet.

It was an amusing way to kill 3 hours. My sister has enough shoes to open her own shoe store, so I went to her house and used her shoes. (after browsing through Rachel's shoes, Aria was all, Mom...my shoes are not good. lol) Wanna see?

They're in order...you might have to use your imagination on some. lol. They're randomly upper/lower case.

In case you get confused, there are....

2 A's
2 B's
1 C
1 D
2 E's
2 F's
1 G
2 H's
2 I's
2 J's
1 K
1 L
2 M's
2 N's
2 O's
2 P's
1 Q
2 R's
2 S's
1 T
2 U's
1 V
1 W
2 X's
3 Y's
1 Z

And some of them can be used for other letters...like E/M/W depending on it's orientation.

Here's the link!

I'll probably randomly do other themes.

Hi

I'm still here. In case you were wondering. :)

I painted my kitchen.

Wanna see?

It's been 3 shades of yellow for a very long time. I liked one shade. Dave liked another. We were thinking about compromising with the third. Then we gave up and put it back to boring old white. But at least it's all one color now.

Before


After


Also, I took Aria on a date to go Ice Skating. She had a lot of fun and after an hour and 5 laps around the rink could sort-of stay up for a second. She wore her sparkly black leggings so she would look like a real ice skater.

Overheard at FHE

Me: How can we exercise faith?
Aria: Shake our head back and forth really fast. (exercise face....)

Me: If you steal something from the store, how can you make it better?
Gabe: A BANDAID! (this answer was repeated, loudly, several times to similar questions)

ahhh...glad to know I'm getting through to them.

Funnies

Aria: Mo-om, when is it my turn to play the Wii? (Nathan is on it)
Me: I don't know.
Aria: (in a worried tone) But you're the Mom! If you can't make a choice, we're going to have to get a different Mom!

--------------------------------------------------------

Nathan: Hey Aria, I think farts smell better than pee.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Gabe: (looking at a soda can) Dad, I know how to spell root beer!
Dave: You do?
Gabe: Yup, A and W.

----------------------------------------------------------

Nathan: Mom, I want a grilled cheese sandwhich.
Gabe: *giggles* NO! Nathan needs a boy cheese sandwhich!

Good news!

Regarding National Bankruptcy Day.

http://www.kval.com/news/37241774.html

and...

http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml09/09086.html

Basically saying ""sellers of used children’s products, such as thrift stores and consignment stores, are not required to certify that those products meet the new lead limits, phthalates standard or new toy standards." And also, "retailers are not required to test children’s products in inventory for compliance with the lead limit before they are sold, though they are advised to avoid products that might contain lead."

YAY!

Celebrating "soft" images

I follow the Shutter Sisters blog and they're always posting these little photo challenges that we respond to by linking to an image we have or take for the challenge.

Today it's about out of focus images that work that way. Normally, I toss out of focus (photographers call them soft) images, but recently I had a couple that were completely out of focus and I loved them.

So here ya go. Celebrating a couple of technically bad photographs because they work just the way they are.

Back to school! Yay!

Christmas break and all the snow days are all done! Yippee! I have one child shuttled off to school (amidst all sorts of whining) and another that's anxiously awaiting afternoon Kindergarten.

Since we had two snow days before break, I had lots of extra time to procrastinate teacher Christmas Gifts.

Last night, I stayed up late to finish them. I think they turned out pretty neat!



When I finally headed to bed, I found this on the stairs.



Closer investigation revealed that he was apparently looking for me, but was just too tired to make it all the way down the stairs.



Don't you just want to pick him up and squeeze all his cuteness?

National Bankruptcy Day is on Feb 10th

A law was passed requiring extensive, retroactive lead and phthalate testing on all products, including clothing, that are sold for children ages 12 and under.

On the surface, it sounds like a good idea, but if you dig in just a little you find the problem. This testing has to be done on each and every item that is sold, resold or GIVEN to consumers. The law covers consignment, thrift stores, garage sales, ebay, etsy and hand me downs. EVERYTHING.

Technically, I could be prosecuted for giving old, untested baby clothes or toys to a friend.

What does this mean for us? Small business are looking at $500-$900 per article of clothing to be tested. That is unreal and so high that it's not even possible to pass the cost onto consumers. Small businesses, boutiques and thrift stores are going to be forces to declare bankruptcy and close their doors.

The places that can afford the testing are going to raise their prices to offset the costs.

To see more about National Bankruptcy Day SEE HERE

To see how it will effect the prices of your children's clothing, SEE HERE

An article to see how this will effect thrift stores SEE HERE

How it will effect small business like Etsy SEE HERE

For a Facebook group that helps you to see how you may be able to change the law SEE HERE

Write your congressman!

Snow pictures from today

There is one thing I like about the snow. When the sun hits it, it sparkles.

These were both taken from inside my house looking out the front window 'cause it's like 3 degrees outside. brr.





And this is what I've been living on lately. I love me some hot cocoa.

All done

Jovie's 1 year old shoot.

Jovie's birthday party pictures. I didn't edit these, but there are a lot and I figured April would want to see them now instead of waiting for the disc. :)

So what's your opinion on orbs?

Check this out...

These pictures were taken with my point and shoot, inside the chapel, before church started on the day Jovie was blessed.

They're 9 seconds apart (I checked the camera data) and there was no change in settings between the shots. The only change was turning my camera from horizontal to vertical. They're both sooc (straight out of camera) with no post processing.

Image 1.


Image 2.


So what do you think? Did something funky happen with the camera? Or was there a spirit hanging around?