This Is The Year

and then Wednesday, and Thursday, and Friday.... This tackle took way more than a Tuesday.  But in the end it was worth it.  I won't go into all the details of what became quite an adventure - at least not today.  But I will just explain the project and show you some great pics! We live in a ghetto house.  I mean it is a good size house to fit our family, and it keeps us warm and safe, and we love our neighbors.  But inside it is in need of some serious TLC.  Mostly because one of the previous owners did a bunch of stupid crap that we now have to suffer with.  And you buy a house, thinking of all the potential to make it exactly what you want.  But then financial reality sets in, and 12 years later your house is still the ghetto. I mean, there's the pink carpet (GAG), and the butt-chuckin' UGLY sky-blue and white kitchen.  There's the fact that they were too lazy to remove the hardware from the old curtains when the decided to replace ...

I'm hanging with my blog friend turned IRL friend, Sami today. I'll catch you up on the details later.  I'm too busy hanging to blog, but tomorrow I will finally be revealing the big project I've been working on for the past couple of weeks - you don't want to miss it, for sure. Hope everyone had a fabulous weekend - I did!

Part 1 Part2 Part 3 Are you all caught up on why last Saturday night was perfect for me on so many different levels?  If not you can click any of the links above. I have loved journaling my thoughts and feelings over the past week and am so glad that I have it all written down.  I should probably do that more often.  I find myself worrying more about creating posts that people will find entertaining, rather than actually using my blog to journal my own thoughts and experiences.  It's a delicate balance, I suppose. Are you ready to hear about the final (and probably most thrilling) reason that winning tickets to see Stars On Ice, the 10th anniversary celebration of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games was such a wonderful prize? I mentioned previously a couple of stories related by the CEO of the games.  Love him or hate him, if you love ME, then you will love that I got to be in the house with MITT freakin' ROMNEY!!!  See him standing next to my gi...

Are you tired of this yet?  I'm sorry if that's the case - but I'm on a roll and I'm excited to actually be legitimately journaling  something that I can have recorded and look back on.  Not that I don't LOVE linking up to the different meme's my friends host - but it's nice to feel like I'm actually keeping a journal this week. I told you how I won the perfect prize last Friday night, and have explained one reason this event was so perfect for me.  You can read here and here . Then next thing about winning tickets to see Stars On Ice that is so perfect for me is much more obvious - and that is simply that it's figure skating. I have loved figure skating for as long as I can remember.  I remember watching events on the TV with my mom back in her single mom days when I was a little girl.  I was fascinated with the beauty of figure skating even back then.  I remember later in my new school, after my mom had met and married my adoptive dad, we we...

I know I owe you guys a big reveal for my Tackle it Tuesday.  But I just need a couple more days for everything to be ready for the reveal. In the meantime, I thought I'd share a little bit more about what made my Saturday night so perfect.  And it's long - sorry. You can read part 1 here . We were at the part where I fell in love with the Olympic Games. The day finally arrived, the world had been trickling into our state for days, and the weather was cooperating perfectly.  Snow on the ground, fresh powder in the mountains, but no storms in the valley to hamper travel.  National Guardsmen from all over the country were here.  Security was on highest alert.  My mom is now retired from the FBI, and during the Olympics she was working all-night shifts.  They had people working around the clock.  Members of the Armed Forces manned the rooftops of buildings surrounding venues where large crowds were gathered.  It was the early days of ...

So I have something pretty cool to tell you about.  And by "pretty cool", what I really mean is "awesomely fantastic".  I won something.  And it was something that was SO perfect for me on so many levels.  And in telling you why it was so perfect for me, I'm going to take the opportunity to let you get to know me just a little bit better, and maybe a little bit more in depth than I usually go.  And it's going to take more than one post, and you may or may not be bored.  But it's really something I want to write about, as I've reflected this weekend on my pretty cool experience.  I'd love you to stay and hear my story.  If you want. Late Friday night I won tickets to a special performance of Stars On Ice.  Tickets that I have been coveting for weeks and weeks, ever since I found out the event was taking place.  Tickets that just weren't in our budget this month. It was a celebration for the 10th anniversary of the 2002 Winter Olympic Ga...

Recently 2 of my kiddos have had the opportunity to get some good experience performing in front of an audience. For Discovery at our school, this session the classes are all about the performing arts.  Pixie signed up for the class "Showtime".  They learned proper singing techniques, acting skills, and basic choreography.  They had the opportunity to audition for parts and were taught about stage presentation, vocal projection, and facial expression, and what it takes to make a great performance.  They work for 2 hrs once a week for 5 weeks, then they put on a recital where each of the different classes presents a performance.  Classes included drumming, ballroom dancing, accents and dialect, playwriting, etc. The "Showtime" class presented "the Lonely Goatherd" from "The Sound of Music".  They did a wonderful job.    I wish I could post the video, however because there are many students in the group, and I'm unsure of the media release ...

I pretty much just have one thing to say today. Is it March yet?? Myya, pay special attention to 0:40 - 0:51. You're Welcome. I just know I have to be in this video somewhere - I'll keep looking. Dear March - please get here.

 I got a text from a funny girl this morning.  It said "Happy VD" - totally made my morning!  What?  You don't joke incessantly about VD with your friends?  Whatever. So is the big V-day a big deal around your house?  Here - not so much.  I mean we always get a little something for the kids, and help them get valentines prepared for their friends.  But really it's just another day around here - and I'm okay with that.  I'd rather my husband save his money to take me to soccer games.  And I KNOW he feels the same.  I probably will make him take me out to breakfast after I finish writing this post.  But that's more of a "craving Eggs Benedict" thing than a Valentine's Day thing. Speaking of the kids' valentines.  Remember when I posted here about the last minute valentines that the kids and I put together?  Here's a reminder shot: Well, we needed to come up with something for our really good friends who go ...

It's crazy hair day at school today.  Cowgirl has been waiting for this day for weeks.  Ever since we saw the cupcake idea here . We just came up with Pixie's do on our own.... Fun stuff.  I hope they stay all day.  My girls have some pretty fine hair, so getting it to hold any kind of style is quite a chore.  I'm interested to see how it will look when they get home.  Also, what did you think of the Grammy's? I thought most of the performances were lame.  Foo Fighters sucked (and I like them!), Chris Brown is a woman beater, so I just can't bring myself to enjoy a performance of his, Nicki Minaj's performance was highly offensive in my opinion, and I pretty much find her repulsive. The good:  I thought Jason Aldean and Kelly Clarkson sounded decent, but his mic went out partway through, and he also looked like he was having a highly unpleasant experience.  Like he was just really uncomfortable. ...

Am I the only mom who procrastinates helping her kids get valentines prepared for their classes? I saw this idea on Pinterest a while back and pinned it.  I thought it was a cute idea and tucked it away as a possibility for my kids' class valentines. Source: familyfun.go.com via Xazmin on Pinterest Wait what?  Valentine's Day is on Tuesday?  Crap!  I ran over to the Valentine's section at Walmart and grabbed 6 packages of these cute pencils for $.97 each. Then I came home and whipped up my own version of the cardstock heart in MyMemories Suite .  I got the heart from the "So this is Love" scrapbooking kit from Summertime Designs  (favorite place to find free digital scrapbooking kits!). I printed them up on cardstock, let the girls write the "To: and From:" details on the back, and tape a pencil to the back.  I was too lazy to find the right size hole punch, plus supervise the "punching" of 65+ paper hearts. I still th...

Time to get it all off my chest and confess. I confess... I'm more than a little jealous of those who are living in sunny states right now.  It is gray, and dreary, and cold in my neighborhood. I confess... I'm getting a little frustrated with all of the inaccurate things that are being said/printed about Mormons in the media lately.  Yesterday I read an article, and want to know what I learned about myself?  Apparently I am conservative due to my lack of education, and I hate women and black people. I confess... Reading the comments left on that article was even more disturbing as I learned that I also brainwash my children with subliminal messaging techniques, and perform rituals to create slaves for myself in the after life. I confess... Slowly getting some remodeling done in my house in preparation for several different house guests I will be having over the next few months is cheering me up.  Although overwhelming me at the same time. I confess...

Avoiding the housework and linking up! This week's questions come from Mamarazzi - and here we go! {1} What is for dinner tonight (bonus for sharing the recipe)? I'm thinking tacos.  Recipe?  It's sorta top secret, but for you guys, I'll share: I know, I know.  I'm so good to y'all. {2} Share something you are currently looking forward to. I am SOOOOO looking forward to the beginning of the 2012 Major League Soccer season.  More particularly the beginning of ReAL Salt Lake's 2012 season.  It starts on March 10, and the season HOME opener which I am going to with my awesome husband is March 17th!  Cannot WAIT!! Isn't Chris Wingert so much hotter than David Beckham, Myya ? {3} What are your thoughts on re-gifting? Ummm, I'm not going to say I haven't done it before.  Is that so tacky? {4} How often do you rearrange your furniture? Very rarely.  I have a TV mounted on one wall and a fireplace on another.  It sort of limits my op...

That's gonna be my new thing.  So what if I totally ripped off the title from something I saw back in blogland years ago when I first started blogging?  If you are the original person who coined the phrase, "Tackle it Tuesday", just lemme know and I'll come up with something else! I've decided that in order to make sure I can start checking off some of the projects/tasks I have in mind to whip my home into order, I'll tackle a project each Tuesday and blog about it!  I will be sharing some of the corners of my home that I try desperately to hide from people who visit.  I'm a little nervous for you to see, please don't judge me! So I have this bookshelf at the end of the hall.  It was crammed so full of books that sadly, some books got ruined by my kids trying to cram more when there wasn't room!  Eventually they just started getting stacked on the floor in a pile in front of the shelf.  It seriously was becoming a hazard!  It's right in fro...

Everybody keeps blogging about their "word" for the year.  It's like the new-age version of New Year's Resolutions.  And since I am such a trendy girl, I am all over that! Okay, really, I just thought it was a cool idea - to have a word that embodies an ideal that you'd like to implement for yourself over the course of the next year. My word for 2012 is: Discipline. Discipline with what I put into my body, and with regular exercise?  Word. Discipline with keeping my house a warm, clean and inviting place, and with accomplishing projects to get my home in order?  Word. Discipline with feeding my spirit through scripture study, prayer, and implementing gospel principles, and strengthening my relationship with God, my husband, and children?  Word. Discipline is something I have lacked in my life, and it is something I have a great desire to cultivate in my personal character. This is the year I become more disciplined!

I know I'm late for the party.  Yesterday was my sweet daughter's birthday, so I posted about her. But I still want to play.   R we There Yet Mom? Asked about places we LOVE. I haven't been a lot of places in my life.  I've only been to a handful of different states, and so far the only other state my kids have visited is Idaho, when we drive across the border to meet up with family for our bi-annual reunions. But Even if I'd been around the world twice, I don't think there is anywhere I could love more than my beautiful mountains.  Except maybe somebody else's beautiful mountains.  I LOVE the mountains.  I love the smell, and the quiet.  I mean mountain quiet.  The animal sounds, and rushing rivers are part of the mountain quiet.  I love campfires and fishing and looking up into the sky and seeing the millions of stars that aren't visible from the city. We are so blessed to be surrounded by gorgeous mountains on all sides, and to...