Training Chickens Vs. Training Children

Did you know that I can train baby chickens? I can. I have twice taught baby chicks to turn clockwise and counterclockwise circles and peck at red and white dots in complex orders--all for food.

(I was also supposed to train a rat, but I didn't like the rat. Once it bit me in front of a guy I had a crush on ((way before I met Nathan)) and I made sure that rat died.)

I even showed my amazingness to Elder Bednar when he was president at Ricks. (Is it obvious I can't say BYU-I?) I showed Elder Bednar and a bunch of rich people who were thinking about investing in the college.

They thought I was cool.

Yes, I can train chickens.

But I cannot for the life of me train my children--or myself for that matter.


Does this make the chickens smarter?

Short Skirt, L-O-N-G Jacket!

If you don't know the Cake song I pulled the title from, then go check it out with the music player at the bottom of my blog. I've set it as the first song for a while so you can hear it if you want.

Ok, ever since Megan was about 7 or 8 months old, she's loved the band Cake. I don't know why, but she does. Now Jeremy likes them, too. The other day I heard Jeremy walking down the hall singing, "He's going for speed, he's all alone, all alone!" from their song The Distance. So on Monday we were driving to the grocery store and listening to a CD my dad made for me with about four Cake songs on it and Short Skirt, Long Jacket came on. There's a line in it that says, "I want a girl whose eyes burn like cigarettes." Wanna know what Megan asked me after she heard that line?

"Mom, why does he want a girl with stinky eyes?"


I love it!

My Lucky Five

Ok my little lucky five friends. I know what I'm sending out. Do you?

Jess
Josie
Ryan/Kristy
Lindsey
Janeen

Give me time though. It will take a while.

BTW

We aren't moving out of the ward. I think I forgot to mention that part. So don't worry y'all! We found a place where there are a couple people in the ward on the same street. If you want specifics, email me.

House Mission (Almost) Complete

I'm way excited. I have been jumping up and down periodically today just from excitement. And now that it is quite late (although you may not know it because I will be scheduling this to post Tuesday morning instead of posting it right now Monday night) I have to stop jumping up and down. But still, I am quite excited.

Saturday when we went house hunting and found my dream retro house we were all kinds of prepared to make an offer asap. We had to wait over the weekend though, you know, because of the whole Sunday being the Sabbath and all. The owner was asking $6,000 more than what we could possibly pay, so we were hoping that he would take our offer/not counter it too much. The Monday afternoon I got a call from our Realtor.

My new friend: "Kellie, I have such exciting news to tell you!"

Me: [What could she have to tell me? We haven't put in an offer yet. . . .] What is it?

My new friend: "He reduced the price by $15,000!"


I think I almost fainted just before I started jumping up and down. All I could think was, "I'm finally getting out of an apartment and getting a house! Wahoo!"

So Monday night we drove out and signed all the paperwork for our offer. She is sure we'll get the house. I'm very, very excited right now. I'm getting a house, and not just any house, but the house of my very retro dreams!

One thing though, a really awesome lamp in the girl room won't be staying. He specifically stated that he wanted to take that with him. It's a really cool lamp and I'll have to take a picture of it and see if I can find one like it on Ebay or something.

AAAAAAGH! I'm getting out of an apartment! AAAAAGH! I don't have to have wall to wall neighbors anymore! AAAAAAAGH! I get to have my own washer and dryer and deep freeze and two, count them, TWO (2) ovens! AAAAAAGH! Party at my place! In June! Come on over!

The Most Tramatic Thing to Happen To Jeremy Since his Hip Caught a Cold

Today it happened.
I sent my first born into the wilderness.


Today was Megan's first day of school.

Jeremy cried.
A lot.
Nathan walked out with Megan and Jeremy wailed out,
"They left me! WAAAAAAH!"

He cried for his backpack so he could go to school, too. I found it for him. And his pirate map. We put the map in the front pocket of the backpack so he could be like Dora.
This cheered him up a little.

But mostly he just looked like this----->

Megan however, looked like this----->
and this

Home Sweet Retro Home

Goin' on a house-hunt (goin' on a house-hunt)

I'm not afraid (well, maybe a little)

Got a real good friend (it is my husband)

By my side (by my side)

Oh, Oh (Oh, oh)

What do we see? (What do we see?)

Oh look! It's hideous tile! (hideous tile!)

Oh look! It's a ceiling falling down! (ceiling falling down!)

Oh look! It's twenty city violations! (20 violations!)

Do we got to go through it? (Got to go through it?) (Make motions with hand like you are holding your nose to avoid smelling mold)

Ok, that's enough of that.

So we went house-hunting this weekend. The first house I could have said no as soon as we turned down the street. I'm pretty picky about where we live, but even Nathan agreed that the area wasn't good. When we went into the house we realized it didn't have a dinning room. Or even a breakfast nook. There was no place to eat at all. So we joked that I'd have to buy a desk off an elementary school and put it next to the kitchen window and serve dinner one person at a time.
Other than those two things, the house wasn't bad.

The next 2 houses and the very last house we saw were all bank owned. The first wasn't too bad, but I'm pretty sure I smelled something funny. And the kitchen wasn't any bigger than what we've got now. And if you've seen what we've got now, you know it isn't much. The next house was really bad. It was completely deceiving. The outside looked wonderful. They've completely redone the outside. Too bad they forgot to do the house's ROOF. The ceiling was falling down in every room. We went maybe 2 feet in and had to go back out. Nathan thinks the problem might have actually started from the upstairs bath and they just never got it fixed and then the problem got worse and worse until all the ceilings started coming down. To be honest, I don't remember a thing from the last house because I was still so enamored with the one just before it.

The next to last house was awesome. The man that owns it is 90 years old and I don't think he's changed a thing in the house (except new fridge, hot water tank, stuff like that) since it was built in 1950. He is a widower and I'm certain he's left everything how it was when his wife passed. He's also really clean. There was no dust anywhere. Not even on the hot water tank.

Nathan has been really good about this. He likes the house because it has nice carpet and the roof isn't falling in. I like it because it's funky. He hates the funky.

Here's my I Love It!/He Hates It! List:

-The dining room. Not such a big deal, but all we have to do it take down some wallpaper and paint (Nathan is insistent here). I get to pick the colors, so that's ok.

-Extra room off the dining room that I'm making into a sewing/craft/writing room.

-The kitchen (and I can't believe I'm putting it at a positive) has turquoise and black tile counter tops. I've always hated tile counter tops, but these along with the rest of the very retro kitchen, well. . .it's just so dang cute! Pink walls with turquoise and black tile counters? What could be better? I guess Nathan knows what is better because he's going to put in new counter tops.

-The master bedroom has dual closets and the room is HUGE! He has no qualms with this, but he hates the light fixture in the room and I think it's one of the coolest things I've ever seen. The rest of the coolest things I've ever seen are also in this house and things he hates. Other way awesome light fixtures are in the small bedroom (where Megan will be) and in the half-bath).

-The second bedroom is also very large. Unfortunately it has linoleum which Nathan also plans on changing to carpet. I guess I agree with that one.

-The third bedroom is very girly, perfect for Megan. Pink with amazingly cute, perfect, girly wallpaper and built-in book shelves and tons of storage in the closet.

-The bathroom. Oh where to start? Nathan hates it. I love it. Description won't do it justice, so when we get the house (I hope I hope I hope) then I'll be taking lots of pictures of everything.

-Partially finished basement. I can just send the kids down there to play and not have to worry about what a huge mess they are making. And they can make almost as much noise as they want. There's also a wet bar in it, which of course we don't care about since we don't drink, but it's cool if we want to entertain down there ever. Which I don't really see us doing since we are basically giving that part of the house to the kids so I can have some space.

-Two Words: Deep Freeze.

-The house is in a really nice area where some houses are going for over 200,000 but our price isn't anywhere near that (thankfully or we'd never have even seen the house).

So I guess that's it until we get the house and can take pictures of it's loveliness. It's really funny because I almost nixed the house before we even saw it. I'd seen a couple pictures on the Realtor website and couldn't get over the curtains in the living room. I know I shouldn't have based the house off a picture of curtains, but I almost did. SO GLAD I DIDN'T!!

Ikea Flashback

Remember when I wrote about our little trip to Ikea? A few of you said you wanted to see what we bought. Well, I know our trip was way back forever ago, but I'm just now getting around to it. You see, I didn't want to post it until it was finished. I bought some funky (and we all know how much I love funky) hardware for the dresser we got Megan and Emma and for a while only the first four were on it. Well today Nathan surprised me while I was in the kitchen cleaning up cupcake messes. I came out of the kitchen and saw him finishing up this project of ours.


As you can see, Megan is very excited to finally have the rest of these on the dresser. Probably because it was her drawers that were missing the hardware for three months.


Here are a couple close up pictures of a couple of my favorite ones.


This is actually the one that started it all. I went to Anthropologie's website and saw it. I decided to go to the store here and go get some, but when I went I couldn't find any. I bought 6 pieces of mismatching ones to make it more fun (for me, not Nathan :( ) and then walked over to Cold Stone for icecream. Then I walked back over to Anthropologie after deciding to go ahead and buy the last four I would need to complete it. That's when I saw the sale bin that for some odd reason I hadn't noticed before. I'd been in the store for about an hour and never noticed it, even though it was right next to the hardware. That's when I found the piece I'd originally gone in for and they only had one!

She's so happy!

The Everyone and Their Dog Tag

I think every one I know has tagged me with this, but most of them have been on Facebook. Sorry folks, I just don't do much there and to be honest, I don't even know how to post it on Facebook. So I decided to do it here when Cathy tagged me with it on her blog.

25 Random Things About Me

1. Growing up I thought I was going to work in Hollywood. I wanted to bring Steven Spielberg his coffee.
2. Along the same lines (kind of) when I was in 8th grade I got the lead in the school play, Babe Archer, Private Investigator, in the play My Gun is Pink. Kind of funny since my maiden name is Gunn. And I actually had a pink (toy) gun in the play.
3. My right earlobe is detached. My left earlobe isn't. When I get nervous or sad I pull on my right earlobe, hence it's detachedness.
4. My left eye has twitched every single day since the beginning of January. Every once is a while it takes a few hours off, but still, it has twitched every single day.
5. I want to go to Texas and visit family and friends.
6. I want to live in Texas when dental school is over.
7. I wish my Texan accent was more pronounced. (It really comes out if I'm mad, I'd like it to come out when I'm not mad, too.)
8. I made a yummy apricot tart yesterday and had some for breakfast today.
9. I really want a house within our ward (church congregation) boundaries.
10. Of the houses we've seen, the one I want isn't in the boundaries. :(
11. My Church calling is in the nursery.
12. I don't want to be in the nursery.
13. I babysit 2-3 other kids almost every day. Hence random thing #12.
14. I like to sew.
15. I would read all day long if there was nothing else that required my time and attention.
16. I love to play sports. Basketball and softball being my favs.
17. I don't understand makeup or hair products. I've never really understood how to use them. Except for stage makeup. I can make myself look really, really old--I just can't make myself look nice.
18. I want someone who's never left a comment on my blog before to leave one.
19. I have the cutest kids ever.
20. I'm excited for the resurrection so I won't need glasses or contacts to see.
21. I used to work in the photograph archives in the Special Collections and Archives at Utah State University and if you google my name you can find some of my work. But be sure to include something about Special Collections in the search or it may take a while to come up because most of the things that come up are comments on your blogs.
22. I know more about debt consolidation and injury law in the UK than I do about those topics in the U.S. and it is more than I ever cared to know.
23. My favorite restaraunt is Earls and there are only three in the U.S., none of them close to me. The rest are in Canada. I got to eat there almost every P-day in a couple of my mission areas.
24. I would love to teach junior high or high school English or History.
25. I'm babysitting right now and the kids have made multiple forts, are playing t-ball with small nerf balls and k'nex sticks, and trying to type on the keyboar
d

fo
r
me

.

Lucky Five Friends

Reading Jackie's blog I found this fun thing to do, so here I go. . . .

The first 5 people to respond to this post will receive something made by me for you.

I get to pick what I make for you, but it will be especially for you.

But here's the deal:
~
1 I make no guarantees that you will like what I make! (But I'll try to make something cool:)
2 What I create will be just for you.
3 It will be done sometime this year.
4 You have no clue what it will be.
5 I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch? The catch is that you must repost this on your own blog
and offer the same to the first 5 people who do the same on their blog.

The first 5 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they did will win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift by me!!

So come and play along!


And no, the picture has nothing to do with this post. I just love it. The one in the blue shirt with glasses is Nathan's dad. Doesn't he look so excited to be at Knotts Berry Farm?!! Hey Kent!

Bragging and bedsheets

I know I shouldn't be bragging about this, because I know y'all will all be jealous and hate me, but I just changed the sheets on my bed (all by myself, Nathan's at school) and I did the fitted sheet correctly the FIRST TIME without ANY PROBLEMS. I then proceeded to put all the other sheets and blankets on the bed (we have about 50 that go on the bed because it's so freakin' cold here) and I got them all right the first time, too.

So sorry if you're all jealous of me and my amazing skills. I didn't even try to do it right the first time. I just guessed without even looking at the sheets.

I know. I'm amazing.

The . . . Thing?

I don't know what it is about our family or our kids, but sometimes it seems like everything is named "thing" in our home.

-"the brand new thing" - a flash browser that has games for kids that doesn't work half the time and which is not anywhere near new anymore, yet is still referred to as new.

-"the secret thing" - every night when we put the kids to sleep we whisper in their ears a relaxation thing where we have them visualize a pleasant dream, be it a tea party with fairies and unicorns or rescuing animals with Diego and Alyssia. I guess because it is whispered and quiet, it is a secret.

-"the hot thing" - Nathan's younger brother made us a corn sack for Christmas. He knitted it because Buckner boys are talented like that. Anyway, Jeremy has fallen in love with it and sleeps with it every night. In fact, I am positive that the corn sack is what will teach him to fall asleep in his own bed because he rarely gets out now after we have put him to bed. Anyway, Jeremy calls it his "hot thing." Megan has a long rice sack that I made her about a year ago when she got a crick in her neck, so she has a "hot thing," too and because Jeremy sleeps with his, she has to sleep with hers.

-and just for fun, once when we were driving in southern Arizona we saw signs all over the place for "The . . . . Thing?" We never stopped to see what exactly the Thing was. Probably a rest stop with cheap magnets and t-shirts.

Love List #14--Nathan

Nathan

I love you.

Thank you for loving me.

You keep me happy, sane, and safe.

Thank you for my Valentine's Day presents.

Kisses.

Love List #13

(Today's is a little late in coming because we've been out all day long, having left kind of early this morning. And I forgot to do it last night and schedule it. Oops.)

My children. Oh how I love them. They drive me absolutely crazy. But I love them.

Sometimes when they are at their worst, that's when I realize how much I love them.

They remind me of what is important.

Megan, Jeremy, and Emma. . .thank you for being mine.

Love List #12- A Hunka, Hunka Odd Lovin'

Some of you might think I'm weird for including this on my loves list, but this is seriously one of my all time favorite things to do/read/collect.

Folklore.

I took a few folklore classes at USU (as many as I could justify) and loved them all. I even tried to audit a class right after Megan was born, but it didn't work out. Reading intensive class+newborn+not much sleep≠conducive learning environment

I kept all my textbooks from those classes (including the class I ended up not auditing) and one summer I did a personal study class where I went down to Texas and collected Hispanic folklore from people I knew and complete strangers. I asked them about ghost stories they might have heard, monster stories, any kind of story and then analysed how many times similar stories came up and what their similarities and differences were. I loved doing it. And now a record of my project with all the stories is available in the Utah State University Special Collections and Archives! Wahoo!

Two of my favorite textbooks were The Vanishing Hitchhiker and I Heard the Old Fisherman Say. I think most people in my class didn't particuarly enjoy Fisherman, but I loved it. It was all folklore and superstitions of fisherman mostly in the Galveston, Texas area, which is of course 20 minutes from where I grew up. Hitchhiker was a lot like the Scary Stories to Read in the Dark books that everyone read in junior high school. They just had analyses of the stories and lore at the end of each chapter.

Anyway, this really is something I absolutly love and if I could have, I would have majored in folklore and for a living I would just read cool stories and study them.

Love List #11 Retro Lovin'

I love retro stuff. The polka dot plate and doily remind me of the 1950s and Donna Reed. The sweetness sitting on the doily is something I love, too :)

Love List #10 Life in Ohio-Oh! Surprise! There's Something Positive About Life in Ohio!

I thought since I've been so down on Ohio lately, specifically Cleveland, that I ought to say some positives about life here that I do love.

1. People in our ward and at the dental school are so friendly. I feel like I've made friends more quickly here than I ever have anywhere else. I don't make friends quickly or easily, so I appreciate those here who have invited me to outings or our family over for dinner, games, etc.

This is me with a group of friends going to see Twilight. I'm in the back wearing the glasses. For some reason that was the week my contacts stopped working and I actually had to wear my glasses in public.

2. The big fancy houses here are so fun to look at. Lots of the houses here in the nice neighborhoods are tudor style and remind me of Jane Austin novels.


3. Ummmmmmmmmm. We're closer to New York? That's something I really like about Ohio. It's close to New York. Although I don't think I can say that's something I really love about Ohio because there are other places that are close to New York where I'd rather be. But I'd feel bad if I could only think of two things for this list. So sure. I'll keep it.

Here's What's Been Going Down

I realized I haven't been doing many "real" posts and I just don't have time for it right now, so here's a quick picture show of what has been happening in our lives the last week or so.

We made Ratatouille for dinner. Crock pot style.
It was quite good and we had the left overs on pasta.


Emma has learned to stand up all on her own. She is very excited about this.


Megan dressed up Nathan and made him "dapper." Then she made me "fancy" and declared that we had to get married again since we were all dressed up. We had a nice little ceremony in the dinning room that lasted about 3 seconds and consisted of, "Ok, you're married!"

Jeremy fell asleep on the couch while he was waiting for me to brush Megan's teeth and put her in bed. We just left him there all night and he actually slept there all night long without coming to our bed. This is how I found him in the morning, with his legs pushing the couch cushion off.


And these were going to be their own post, but I just don't have the time. So here ya go.

These I am doing for Valentine's Day presents for the few girls in Megan's Primary class. They are pink (strawberry) marshmallows dipped in either white or semi-sweet chocolate and then decorated with Valentine's sprinkles. I saw them on Grace Violet (go click on her blinky on the right. It's somewhere in the list.) and decided I had to do them. This is actually a really easy kids' project if you want something fun to do with your kids. They are up high on my fridge in that second picture so the chocolate can harden without getting messy.

Love List #9 More Siblings, Just Different Ones

Yesterday's love topic was the love I have for my siblings. Today's love topic is the love between another set of siblings. My kids. I've always known that Megan, Jeremy, and Emma are very close. But recently we've discovered just how deep their love for each other goes.

You may wonder how an 8 month old can really be that attached to her brother and sister. But she is. When she sees Jeremy her entire face lights up and she get so excited. When Megan sits and plays with her, Emma will call and coo and make the funnest sounds.

Megan is such a wonderful big sister. She constantly makes sure that Emma and Jeremy are doing what they are supposed to be doing. You know, being the "mother hen" to them. Often I will find that Megan has dressed Jeremy before I am even dressed. Or if Jeremy is thirsty, Megan will go to the bathroom and get him a drink of water. Lately Megan has gotten into picking up Emma and taking her to different rooms. While we aren't all too excited about that, it is cute to see.

Jeremy is absolutely enamored with his baby sister also. If Jeremy is in a bad mood, all we have to do is put Emma in front of him and he instantly cheers up. He will go from crying and scowling to his squinty-eyed smile with his head all cocked to one side and will call her a belly button. If we have to wake him up in the morning before he is ready (this only happens on Sunday now that Church is at 9) we will often wake him up with his baby sister.

Also, last week Megan had her first piano lesson. I walked Megan up to the front door and then ran back to the van to drive around with Emma and Jeremy for the next 45 minutes. When I opened the door, Jeremy was crying profusely. "I want to go with Megan! I miss Megan! I want sissy Megan!!!!!" He was so sad to be without Megan that I had to hug him for ten minutes before he calmed down. Then last Friday Megan had an interview for preschool (to be a peer role model) and I wasn't sure if I had to leave her there or stay. I told Megan and Jeremy to just be prepared for either situation. When Jeremy realized that we might be leaving for an hour without Megan he held onto Megan's hand and this sweet conversation followed.

Jeremy: I want to go with you, Megan.
Megan: I know you do bud, but you're not four yet.
Jeremy: But I will miss you.
Megan: Yeah, but you'll be happy when you get to come pick me up!

Luckily, we all got to stay and the preschool teachers encouraged Jeremy to play with Megan and the other kids interviewing. He was so excited and all day he kept saying that he got to go to preschool with Megan.

I love knowing that even though Megan and Jeremy fight everyday, the love they have for each other is strong. I love watching them with their baby sister, trying to take care of her, feeding her when I'm not looking :) and trying so hard to be good examples to each other and have fun with each other. I know one day they may prefer to play with friends instead of each other, but for now, I'm relishing this time, the time they spend together because they want to play together.

Love List #8

Siblings. I love my siblings. I have an older sister and a younger brother and I remember as I was growing up I was always so impressed with both of them. I looked up to both of them and I still do.

I always thought my sister had the most gorgeous hair, dark, long and curly. I knew she was smarter than me by far. I'm completely lost without spell check and a dictionary, completely dependent upon the little red lines that show up under my misspelled words (do you want to guess how many words I misspelled in this sentence before I finished typing it?). My sister and my mom are also grammar/punctuation fiends, where I on the other hand, am not. I once had a high school English teacher tell me that if I didn't understand the stuff by 10th grade it wasn't my fault and I have lived by that ever since. My sister is now a nurse and I can't even imagine learning everything that she had to learn to be where she is now. I took the weed-out biology class at USU and was weeded out more quickly than your average weed.

My brother. I always wanted more of his attention because I thought, and still do, that he is the coolest person I know. Unfortunately, he's one of those people that just don't talk much. It isn't easy for me to get him to have a conversation with me, but I remember that not long after Megan was born he called me on the phone to talk about a movie he saw that he thought I would like. We talked for over ten minutes and when Nathan got home from work hours later, I was still giddy that my brother had called to talk to me. My brother is awesome at sports (baseball and basketball being the ones he played most) and once threw a no-hitter game. And even though my minor was English and I love to read, he has read books I'm still too scared or lazy to look at. As kids I remember I always wanted to play with him. So we would sit in the hallway outside our bedroom door and play He-Man and She-Ra. As we got older I still wanted to play with him and would invite him to do stuff with me, but usually got turned down.

Both my siblings have had people spit on them (figuratively) and they've both risen above it to prove those idiots wrong. They both are incredibly hard workers in everything they do. And they hate feeling like there's nothing for them to be doing or working on, or improving. I've never really been excited about the actual practice of working. (I love the idea of working, it's just putting the idea into practice that I have realized isn't for me.)

I wish I could be with them more often. It's hard being so far away from them and only seeing them every other Christmas and a couple days in the summer.

So today I dedicated the hearts to my siblings, Laurie and Daniel.

Love List #7

I love to learn new things. If I could I would be a forever student. One of those who never graduate from college because they keep changing their major.
(Oh, wait. I think I did do that.)

There's just too much to learn and try. And unfortunately, I'm interested in everything.
Just ask my mom.

For an English class I took at USU I had to do something I'd never done before and then write about it. I couldn't seem to decide between these two.

OR

The beads represent learning how to make beads. Like from scratch.
(Please don't kill me Bonnie, I can't remember the technical name.)

So I decided to do both.

Kind of.

and



Obviously the bead turned out better than the surfing, so that's what I wrote about.

Here are some way cool pictures from making the beads (I made two). I know you wish you had some glasses like these because then you'd look hot, too.


Don't deny your yearning for these safety glasses.



and just so you know, I totally thought I was going to be blown up while making those beads.

Before you go, you've got to check out this picture of Nathan surfing in his nifty wet suit (borrowed obviously) and our instructor. This "Dude" was old and was probably swept away with the waves during the last hurricane to hit Galveston. He probably tried to surf the waves. Click on the picture to get a better view of the guy. He was hilarious.

Love Lists #6

Friends.
Great friends.
Who listen to inspiration when inspiration comes.
Thank you.
You know who you are.

Love Lists #5

I love being crafty.
I'm not that good at it, but it is something I enjoy doing and wish I had more time for.

Love List #4 or I Pledge Allegiance to Thee, Texas, One and Indivisible

I love Texas. I was born and raised there and want to get back as soon as I can.
I am one of those Texas people that has a lot of Texas pride.
I love it when I find things that are named after Texas.
Food is the most common, I think.

Nathan and his dad make fun of me for saying the Texas pledge (and yes, I am aware that the title of the post is from the older version of the pledge, it's the one I grew up with). But guess what. I'm gonna teach it to my kiddos.
I'm going to instill Texas pride into them.
Wanna know why?
Because Ohio sucks
and
Utah is cold.

Love List #3

Chocolate.
Deep,
Dark,
Chocolate.

I love it.

Nathan brought this home for me the other day.


Nathan is always so good as to bring home chocolate
or ice cream (of the chocolate variety) when I've had a bad day.

Jeremy and Megan were funny when I let them taste this. We gave them small pieces, being that it is 70% cocoa, and Jeremy thought the citrus taste was lemon
and Megan thought it was strawberry.

They were both quite insistent.


I am very sure that chocolate has on a number of occasions saved my life as well as those around me. For example, right at this moment I am babysitting and the youngest of the three additional kids I watch is having one of those Screaming-At-The-Top-Of-His-Lungs Days, Emma is oddly whiney, and Jeremy keeps locking himself in the bathroom (not a good thing). I'm sure that if I don't medicate myself with the rest of this chocolate bar (and then some) things will get ugly.

Chocolate=Sanity

Love List #2

Warm weather. Summer. Feeling the heat that radiates from the sun.

Not that I've experienced any in the last month, but that is one thing that I love. A lot. I don't like being cold and last Saturday I realized that I have been in cold cities, as in cities that get snow or a lot of snow, since 1997.

That's over a decade of having to live with the cold, wet snow that I hate.

I love feeling the sun warm my hair. I love to feel the sunshine soak into my clothing and settle on my shoulders and back. I love thinking back to my high school marching band days and thinking about how each day was wonderfully hot and how in my sophomore year I actually got a tan. It was probably my first one ever, and nearly my only one.

I can't wait for summer. I love summer. Not only is my birthday during the summer, but one of my favorite holidays (4th of July) is during the summer, the best movies often come out in the summer, and I don't have to bundle the kids or myself up before going outside. Also, I don't have to worry about cold hands or cold feet or heating bills.

In the summer, marshmallows are for roasting with graham crackers and chocolate, not for a drink that only warms me while I'm drinking it.

In the summer I can wear flip flops.

In the summer I get to see my parents and siblings for more that just a couple days.

In the summer there's a greater chance I'll get to see some of the friends I grew up with.

In the summer there are flowers.

In the summer I drink more Gatorade.

In the summer I can go to the beach and play in the sand.

I love summer.

Love List #1

From February 1st through the 14th I will blog about something I love. I got the idea from my Authors Incognito friend Christine. On her blog is a list of other friends who are participating in the Love Lists. For the first day of February I have chosen to blog about the priesthood of God.

The other day I went to the dental school to get a filling done. I needed to have an old filling removed first, however. The old filling was white and so it was hard for the dental student to see where the white filling ended and my actual tooth began and he accidentally hit the pulp of my #29 tooth. When he realized what happened, he was of course very apologetic (and really, because of the old filling being white, it could have happened to any student or plenty of actual dentists) and he informed me that because of this, I may need a root canal. The very words scared me, but I assured him I was fine. Which I was. I really didn't want a root canal, but if I needed one, then I would get one. But I really, really didn't want one. He told me to keep an eye on it, observe it and let him know if I had any major pain. He even called me later that day to see how I was doing.

Well, Saturday one of our home teachers (male members of our Church who are assigned in pairs to visit families in the Church once a month, share a spiritual message, and make sure the family is doing well) came by and I had Nathan and our home teacher give me a priesthood blessing for my tooth. I haven't felt any pain from it yet, but I knew that I could ask for a blessing of healing. I knew that in the blessing God could tell me that I would eventually have to get the root canal and that if it was His will for me to go through this particular trial, that I could do it. But I also knew that I really didn't want to! I knew that God could heal my tooth.

In the blessing I was told that my tooth would heal and that I wouldn't need the root canal. I am so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who watches over me, loves me, and has blessed me with a worthy husband who can bestow a blessing of healing upon me.

I love the priesthood. I have been blessed by it many times over.