i can't resist

a baby in a hat!

ps-

its come to my attention (thanks tina) that i need to clarify a bit about the immodium. as gross as it is, diarrhea actually serves a purpose and that is to purge the body of the virus. don't take immodium at the 1st sign of tummy trouble. take it only if you are on the verge of dehydration and are suffering from severe diarrhea. alright, enough potty talk. and as always, please consult a real medical professional not just some cool chick's blog for your medical needs. ;)

better safe than sorry

i debated even writing this post for fear as being perceived as a "panicked" by the recent outbreak of swine flu. however, i decided to do it anyway and who cares what you think of me? i am not panicky but i feel a great satisfaction from being prepared for whatever calamity, (man-made or natural) that will befall in the future. its the boy scout motto, "Be Prepared." these are not drastic measures, merely a few things to help your family organize the resources you already have and perhaps learn a helpful thing or two.

our ward hosted a preparedness party last month (the guy in charge thought "firesides" were too boring, no one wants to go to those, but everybody wants to go to parties) and Shanna Christ, a local RN was the presenter. (BTW, she is on the front page of our local newspaper today. she has given hundreds of prepardness presentations) It was about 2 hours long and chock full of information. It was almost too much to process at the time, but with great hand-outs and lots of web sites she recommended, travis and i have started to get our ducks in a row, so to speak.

first, here are the sites: www.getpandemicready.org
its a grassroots, volunteer based organization that has compiled amazingly helpful resources and its all available on their website. so once you have gone to their main page, on the lower left, in the box labeled "support" click on "downloads." all of the downloads are useful, but the RN especially recommended downloading the first two. the 1st is called "Pandemic Influenza Preparation and Response: A citizen's guide." and the other one is called "Good Home Treatment of Influenza" and its written by a MD. its recommended to download, print and store these in a binder and that is the start of your family prepardness information. other things to keep in the binder are family contact info, a list of all medications currently being taken by your household, an inventory of your food storage, your 72 hour kits, etc.

travis and i recently cleaned out our medicine cabinet and first aid kit. we chucked the expired stuff, made a list of all we have and made a list of all we need. a tip for families with small children, buy childrens tylenol suppositories. if your children are severly dehydrated by the flu, they might not be able to keep down orally administered drugs and yet, they still need fever reducing medicine. also, make sure you have some immodium.

okay, back to the websites. another one is www.cdc.gov/swineflu.
whether you are a fox news loyalist or love your CNN, it doesn't matter because the news you receive from the media is always going to be slighly scewed so its best to visit the official website for all the updates and most accurate (hopefully) information.

another good one for accurate updates is www.who.int/en
its the World Health Organization and more of an global community. many of us have friends and loved ones who live outside the US and this is the site to read about other countries . they are also the group in charge of the raising the pandemic alert from level 3 to its current level 4.

another tip from the RN was about money. she said during times of crisis, it might prove very difficult to our hands on some cold, hard cash. she says everytime she goes to the store, she gets cash back and asks for $20 to be in small bills, tens, fives and ones. she said that often times people end up running out of their cash supply because they have no small bills. people end up paying $100 or $50 for an item that would normally cost $5 because no one can make change. we live in such a debit/credit card world, few people carry a lot of cash.

and finally, i would be most remiss if i didn't include a link to www.providentliving.org
once on their site, on the directory on the left, click "emergency prepardness and response" its a wealth of knowledge.

thought i'd share these as well:

Proverbs 3:5-6 "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths."

Docterine and Covenants 132:8 "Behold, mine house is a house of order, saith the Lord God, and not a house of confusion."

what i've been up to: a week in pictures

i've eaten too many of these

(made cookies 3 separate times in 7 days. not great for the ol' waistline.)

have gone through these like there's no tomorrow.

me and el bambino are the most recent victims of the congestion/snotty noses. fun!

felt like my head is going to explode.

travis has been working a lot more this month which means its ME on duty for long periods of time. tired/under the weather mom + cRaZy kids= headache

counting down the days until i can go here

its less than a month away!

and read this over the weekend. great series.

recommend it to adults, teens, and families looking for something worthwhile and exciting to read together.

Angel of Music

i really enjoyed april's book club pick, "The Phantom" by susan kay. i saw phantom of the opera, the musical, in SLC in june of 99 with travis. that was like a few days before we got engaged. anyway, i loved it. thought it was terrific. and then the movie with gerard butler came along in 2004. now THAT was a movie! the singing, the costumes, the singing, and did i mention gerard butler? (incidentally, he's rumored to be dating jennifer aniston post john mayer break-up. hope gerard treats her well, she's been on the jerk roller coaster for awhile now!) the music is incredible. and the story is equally mesmerizing. but haven't you always wanted to know more about how the phantom became, well, the crazy-twisted-brillant-dashing-creepy-stalker-passionate phantom? read this book and let the author tell you a back story like no other.

i've discovered i'm a sucker for the "back story." i loved the flashbacks during the first few seasons of the tv show LOST. its so intriguing to learn about a person, see why they are the way they are, watch how their early relationships/life experiences have shaped them (good or bad) to become the individual they are now. same thing with harry potter. one of my very favorite things was learning about the evil lord voldemort and his steady rise to power in the wizarding world. fascinating. it just allows the reader that extra dimension, makes the character all the more rounded and full. alright, enough psycho-babble from me. read the book and we'll chat it up. :)

the one and only

blanket skirt!! coming soon to a store near you.

brotherly love

mason love LOVES it when he and jo-jo match. he busts out his biggest grin and is just so very happy. so today was a matching day. here are the results of our little photo shoot this morning. 2 different little guys, but i have a sneaking suspicsion joe is gonna be rowdy like his brother. i can tell already. at least they can be rowdy together!

just chilling, being all cute and stuff
joe is afraid for life at this point. and i can't blame him, mason is tad uncontrollable.
aren't we funny?
they look so innocent. "we will never destroy the toy room, mom." i can hear it already.
joe- what is going on here? i was napping and then boom, you're taking my picture and he's squeezing the daylights out of me, woman!


ps- when i was typing the title of this post, i accidentally typed "brothely love", that's only a slight difference, right?

kite festival

love the blue, blue sky

sun squinters
riding the train

this past saturday, we headed over to the kite festival. what is a kite festival, you ask? well, let me tell you what i thought it was. i thought it was a festival dedicated to kites. i thought there would be many kite vendors selling a plethora of kites in all shapes, sizes and mostly, all price ranges. i thought there might be expert (dare i say professional, if such a thing exists) kite fliers who would amaze the crowds with their crazy, mad kite flying skills.

that is not what this kite festival is about. its basically a reading incentive program for the local elementary school kids. there were TONS of people, they had shuttles running from the parking lot to the golf course where it was held. but it was a gorgeous day so we didn't mind walking. at the festival there was an outrageously priced bounce house section, and the same food vendors that are at all the fairs/festivals. (i'm not paying $5 for one roasted ear of corn, i'll tell ya that much.) and yet, i digress. moving along. so they had very fun, cute, perfect sized kites with buzz lightyear, lightening mcqueen, barbie, spiderman, etc. for the elementary school students who completed the specific reading program. there was ONE kite selling booth, with huge, complex kites with price tags around $40. hello! no cheapie, kid friendly kites. i even asked the volunteers at the desk if i could pay money for the kites from the reading program and they said no, they were absolutley not for sale. boo.

the kids rode the silly train for a buck a piece and we indulged in some orange peel smoothie goodness. that was it. now we are prepared for next year. i think its really cool they reward the kids with the kites so i'm sure we'll participate, but it will probably be more of a "go-in-get-your-free-kite" and leave typa thing. and then we'll go to a non-crowded park, have cafe rio and fly kites! that sounds like fun to me.

the big party

finally, i've scanned in my papers from my surprise 30th birthday party! and since this is my journal, i'm gonna be a little wordy (something new for me, i know) and so if you don't want to read it, just look at the pictures, i don't mind at all. ;)

it all started back in december when i started really thinking about my birthday party. i was brainstorming various ideas, and i finally decided upon a photo scanvenger themed party. i would invite a crack load of people, divide them into teams, every team would have a camera and a list of 20 things to photograph. they would have to return in an hour and whichever team did them all, would win. so i dug out an old spiral notebook and started jotting down everything swimming in my brain. i had the invite list. i had a mock invitation written down. i started my list of scavenger things. at this point, it was mid-february. i started talking to people and wanting feedback about my ideas. naturally, that included my husband. especially since we share the same b-day, i wanted him to have a good time at the party too.

so now that i'd done all the work, he comes to me one day and tells me to stop working on it, he's going to take over. um . . . okay. i was little surprised but thought, okay anne, this is not the time to be a beast, just let him do this for you. so i did. i didn't talk to him anymore about the party, i didn't ask questions. i, of course, commiserated with staci and she graciously volunteered to help him plan the party. good, i thought, at least she'll make sure we have decent food to eat. (no offense to my very capable honey!)

night of the party rolls around. invitations have been delivered, i'd heard about but not seen the cute invites. (here they are, this is the front and the bottom is the back)

i am told the party starts at 7, which is what i had originally planned. oh, and its no longer at my house because staci told me i didn't want to have to clean/hostess a party on my birthday, it would be too much work. so now it is at her grandma's house, which is an ideal party location. alright, back to the night of. staci calls and asks if travis and i can come over and help set things up, move some things, etc. and wants us over there by 6. i agree to this and tell travis he can go over and i'll feed the baby and then come over. he's like, no, lets not take 2 cars, lets just go together, i'll wait for you. but i tell him, no, staci needs your help, please go over there and i'll come later, it'll be fine.

he's pretty frusterated at this point and tells me to hurry up, we'll leave together and if we don't hurry, (and this is a direct quote) "staci will beat us like a wednesday's child." so 6:20 we zoom over to grandma doty's house and as we pull into her driveway, i think, huh, ruth miller must be having people over at her house across the street, there are a few cars there. we park the van, he opens the door for me and SURPRISE!!!! there are 30 of my nearest and dearest friends!!!!

no scanvenger hunt, its dinner and games instead! we had scrumptious lasagna, delish salad with toasted almonds, bread, terrific punch and for the appetizer, my favorite thing in the whole wide world, stuffed mushrooms! am i loved or what? thanks to staci for doing the lion's share of the food work, but also thanks to christy miller and andrea wittwer for their help as well.
for dessert we had 3 of my all time favorite-est things ever; triple layer cheesecake (its heaven in your mouth, for real, have i ever led you astray?) strawberry white chocolate cupcakes (oh.my.goodness.) and what birthday is complete without a german chocolate cake? not mine! i am getting fatter just typing this. so that is what we ate.

and what did we do, might you ask? my dear, sweet, always fun husband was in charge of games. we played "anne scattegories!" and while we were eating dinner, there was an "anne trivia" sheet being filled out.

it turns out that staci was the real puppet master, not travis. he was the willing and helpful sidekick, but mrs.shaw was the brains behind the whole operation. she's a slippery one. watch out!

let me tell you, the whole night was a little surreal. i felt like a contestant on the old game show, "this is your life." and it was fun to hear everyone's answers yet at the same time there was a tiny voice in the back of my head that was telling me, "run! these people know all your secrets. you are revealed. nothing is sacred!" perhaps someday, you will have the same thing happen to you and know what i'm talking about. (robyn, you understand what i'm saying)

i was totally and completely surprised. i really didn't see it coming AT ALL. silly girl, i trusted my husband and closest friends. nope, they all lied to me, right to my face. i guess i'll forgive them because it was such a fun night. and there was a sensational dinner involved. i still can't believe they pulled it off. i feel so lucky to have such a great group of close friends. really, i felt spoiled and loved. thanks so much to those who attended, it was a helluva night! here's to another birthday survived, 70 more to go!

overheard

marissa, "can i have a muffin?"

mom, "sure, they're apple muffins."

marissa takes a bite, chews thoughtfully for a second.

marissa, "you know what would taste really good in muffins, mom?"

mom, "what?"

marissa, "m&m's!"

learning a lesson

this past week lin's grocery store sponsored an easter coloring contest. travis brought home 2 coloring sheets for the kids to enter. marissa was very excited and picked the one she wanted to color. we asked her if she was sure she wanted to color that one, because the other sheet looked like more fun. she insisted on coloring the one she choose because "the girl bunny with the hair bow is in it." so thursday while mason was at school, marissa comes upstairs and brings me TWO completely colored sheets. she colored the one she originally picked out, wrote her name and the #4 for her age. she also gave me the other sheet, all colored, with mason's name on it (misspelled) and the #5 written for age. WHAT????

i asked her why she colored mason's picture and put his name on it and she said she didn't. i then pointed out that since mason WASN'T EVEN HOME he couldn't possibly have colored it. she was like, oh, well, i colored it for him, he didn't want to do it. i was a little miffed because she lied plus mason wouldn't get to color his sheet. which, in all honesty, is not that big a travesty because he detests coloring. i decided to turn them in anyway, because i was like, why not? i have to drive over and turn one in, might as well just grab both while i'm going.

so saturday comes around. and the store took all the colored sheets, judged them and hid them around the grocery store. you found your picture and then returned it to the prize table and everybody who participated got a package of peeps (blech, i loathe peeps.) and the top 3 pictures from each age group were awarded a special prize. here's where our story gets interesting.

guess who won? that's right, mason. his picture won 2nd prize. and what did he win, you ask? a huge easter basket with a big red truck, little cars, candy, etc. and he got his picture taken at the store. what was his reaction to all this? his attitude was very much, "hey, if you want to give me all this great stuff and take my picture, who am i to stop you?" he thought it was great. loved it. and what was marissa's attitude? a little bit confused. she was very happy for him, very excited for him to open all his stuff. she wanted to know where her prize was, for her picture with her name on it. i explained not everybody won an easter basket, only the very best colorers. and that mason's picture was one of the best colored. so we had a long talk about doing our own work, putting our own name on things that we do. lets hope a lesson was learned and that its not the lesson of "look at the fun thing that happened when i did the work for you, mason!"

i love you messy face!

ps- he had prunes for dinner, not chocolate pudding

Hoppy Easter Everybunny

i'm cheesy, i know.

these are a few of my (new) favorite things

shout out to mary ann who inspired me with grant's pudding testimonial (makes me smile just remembering it) and marie, who made a list of baby products she likes to use with cute little lucas. its great to share and the wanna-be psychologist in me loves to see what other people buy and why. here are some of my recent finds:

these nuts are addicting. my whole family likes them. i love the smokey flavor and i can eat a dozen in a flash. i don't feel guilty about snacking on these because they are cholesterol free and reduce the risk of heart disease. and did i mention they taste great too?

this was a gift from my good friend melanie tidwell for my birthday. i listened to this cd and was amazed. it was so powerful and inspiring. she talks about specific things we can to increase the effectiveness of our personal prayers. from the back of the cd, it reads, "the Lord is ever anxious to intervene in our lives as we ask for blessings in prayer. the most repeated promise in the standard works is 'ask and it shall be given, knock and it shall be opened into you.' "

this was also a gift i received and i have loved it. so many keepers! one of my new favorite things comes from this cookbook, butterscotch brownies. oh my goodness, they are scrumptious. :) i could pour over cookbooks for hours. oh wait, i already do that.

travis started carrying this in his pharmacy and brought some home for me to try. I LOVE THIS! its terrific. i have the anti-aging moisturizing cream (pictured above) and also, the exfoliating facial scrub and enzyme mask. all of their products are guaranteed 100% organic and they never test on animals. besides being environmentally friendly, i love it because it smells nice and feels smooth on my skin. i've always bought products labeled "sensitive skin" because i will break out otherwise. what's great about this company is that all of their products are made for sensitive skin. i can see a noticeable difference now that i've been using it for a few months. and BTW, its pronounced derma E, not "dermay."

things that make me go hhmmmm . . .

on tuesday, whilst folding laundry like the perfect mother i am, (ha ha HA!) i noticed something was a little off. for 7 days, marissa has 3 pairs of panties. mason has 9. what is going on here? okay, marissa gets an "eeewwwww" because she's been wearing each pair for roughly 2 days. and mason also gets an "eeeeeewwww" because why is he changing that frequently? does he, (insert gagging noise) *have* to? either way, i guess i'm on under-roo patrol now.

Reflections on 30

this blog post has been banging around in my head for about a month now. thought it was time to set it free and let something else take up that spot. here are a few things i've reflected about.
the first being this, 10 years ago i was 20.

anne at 20:
didn't own a car
wasn't engaged or married
working part-time at hallmark in the pine ridge mall in pocatello, idaho
living with my parents
no college degree
not even old enough to rent a car

anne at 30:
owns a mini-van
owns a home
married for 9.5 years
has 3 children
not working outside the home
no college degree . . . yet

10 years ago my life, as i know it today, did not exist in any shape, way or form. wow. that is mind boggling. i had met travis and we were dating, but we didn't get engaged until june (june 10th to be exact, quiz travis the next time you see him, see if he remembers) and married until august. so much has happened in these past 10 years.
i used to think 30 was old. i'll admit that. but now, 30 isn't old at all. in fact, i'm one of the youngest in my circle of friends. all these amazing, beautiful women, who are in their 30's look and are very young. i hope i always feel young. i think that is one of the secrets to a happy life. and i think the other secret is embrace what you are. i'm not in my 20's anymore, who cares? and one day, i'll be 40. i'll embrace that too. it doesn't mean i have to give up caring about what i look like, because that will never happen. i'll all for covering gray, and a little nip here and a tuck there. we're not talking joan rivers plastic surgery extremes, but more along the lines of courtney cox or demi moore. don't you think they've aged well? i don't want to be the grandma with the applique bunny sweater vest at easter. (apologies to any applique sweater vest readers.)

my 2 options are having more birthdays or not. i'll take the "having more birthdays" please. any reason to celebrate and eat cake, who says no to that?

it was time

i gave the ol' blog a new look. what do you think, fellow bloggers?

8 months and growing . . .

where is the time going? seriously, i had this baby 8 whole months ago? wowza. he's getting his 2nd tooth, bottom left. so apparently, he'll be able to eat food on the left side only because no action on the right side. his hair is getting so blond, i love it. he is looking more and more like baby marissa. happy 8 months jo-jo!

change of plans

adios mexico!

aloha hawaii!

pressure from friends and family caused us to place a call to costco travel. we are now headed to the beautiful island of kauai in may. twist my arm! someday we will head to mexico, but i kinda make it a policy of mine not to visit places listed on the united states state department "trip alert" list. mexico is the company of such popular destinations as banglasdesh and comoros. just one step up is the "travel warning" list that includes, iraq, yemen, and sudan. fun places! i'll take a tropical, relaxing, violence free vacation, thanks.