Sam's First Dance

Now that Sam's 16 she's going to the Sweetheart's Dance at the High School.  Her room was decorated so cute and she's looking forward to it.

Great Song

It's hard to find songs lately that aren't jumbled up with techno computer stuff or corny lyrics put to rap hoping to make them seem cool.
"Just Breathe" by Pearl Jam.   I thought I'd pass it along.  

Enjoy.

There's No Place Like Home

I love to be out and about enjoying new adventures, but my favorite place is home.  

Top 10 reasons:

10) It's homebase- you know when you were a kid playing tag and you were running all over the place, but when you hit homebase you were safe.  That's what it's like.

9) It feels good.

8) It has all my stuff.

7)  I know I can get warm.

6) Everything I need is here (including the people I love the most).

5) It's where the best memories are made.

4) I can use it to create or just sit and do nothing with nobody watching... except the 5 kids and they like when I do nothing because then I'm not crackin' the whip!

3) It's a learning laboratory.

2) It's walls are filled with laughter, good times, sometimes heartache and tears, the smell of cookies (or a candle that smells like cookies), and the sound of "Mom... Mom... Mom...  I just want to know where you are." 

1) It's where dreams begin, plans are made, adventures are born, my babies were brought, and no matter where I go, where I always want to come back to.

Decorating Madness

I think making all those quilts put me into a sewing mood, plus Terrence has been traveling and I've gone into decorating mode.

It all started with a little fabric for curtains...

and a few new pillows for our bed...

When Terrence got home from his business trip the curtains were made.  The dishes weren't done.  The children weren't fed.  They looked AWFUL (the curtains, or maybe all of the above).  I loved the fabric and I made them right, but they hung like an old dish rag.

He wisked the fam off to Deer Valley for the long weekend, but secretly I wanted to stay home and remake those curtains.  I'm kind of obsessed when it comes to finishing.  

Deer Valley was beautiful and we had a great time.

 We went to church in Park City and ended up at a singles ward.  Yeah, we got some weird looks and I'm pretty sure Kinsey and Kacey were embarrassed to be there with their parents and little siblings.

When we got home it was MLK Day

 Terrence left for another business trip and I was back to the curtains.  I remade them, hung them, made a trip to Bed Bath and Beyond and Lowes for a few finishing touches and Viola!  Before and afters:

Before

After

Before

 After

Sam said these curtains look like a prom dress.  Now that she's 16 I think she has prom-on-the-mind.  So my house is dressed for prom and I love it!  It counter acts when I wander around in my not so fancy- not from Victoria's Secret warm and ugly bathrobe.

and a couple of other goodies-

 I love these bamboo place mats from Costco instead of a table cloth all the time.  

I got the quilt holder from Bed Bath and Beyond.  There's an empty spot.  I might have to make a quilt to go on the last wrung.  Is it really only Tuesday?  Terrence better get home quick or I might start knocking out walls.

New Find

Coolest camera bag EVER...

I found this little treasure on Etsy.com.  Only problem is it takes 2-3 weeks for a custom order (you can choose your own fabrics and stuff).  I am so excited to get mine!

Pajamas at School

Brooke and I differ on fashion.  To her if it's comfy- it's fashion.  She likes to wear the same comfy things over and over again.  I buy her what I consider to be fashionable which she chooses  not to wear until they are nearly too small and then they become her favorite thing and she says, "I love this!  I wish it wasn't almost too small."  I just cringe and sometimes bite my tongue.

For that reason she got "nearly" no clothes for Christmas.  At the last minute I saw the cutest pink cheetah sweat suit.  I thought, "Ahhhhhhh.  Comfy and cute.  How could I go wrong?" I threw it in the basket.

It sat for weeks.  Finally I said, "Brooke (choosing not to bite my tongue), why don't you wear your new sweat suit with the cute jacket before it gets too small?"  "Nahhhhhh.  I don't want to." "Ok- I'm not buying you anymore clothes because they just sit there and go to waste."  She put on the pink cheetahs.

That day she came home from school near tears.  Evidently several people asked her why she was wearing her pajamas at school when it wasn't pajama day.  It was worse than when I was out of town and her dad let her get dressed out of the dress up box wearing a mini skirt and fishnet stockings with high heeled church shoes.  The teacher called it "colorful".  We had another word for it.

The next day after the cheetah pants incident I let her wear what she wanted... not - saying - a - word.

Sundays

So we had a pretty good Sunday.  Got up, church at nine, home by noon, had lunch, FHE and family scriptures (Terrence is traveling this week on Monday... so Sunday FHE it is), had a nap, did a little reading, Sunday drive up the canyon, went to grandmas, came home, visited with Kinsey and Lane, went to bed at 10:00.

Our lesson at church was on keeping the Sabbath Day holy.  Definately something you should do.  People started talking about what they do to keep it holy, a lot of rules, do's and don't do's.  Someone said if you lounge around all day on Sunday you're breaking it and somebody next to me whispered, "I'm in so much trouble!"  As I was taking my nap I had to ask myself, am I breaking the Sabbath?  I felt this overwhelming love come over me as I drifted off to sleep, knowing I wasn't going to go to hell for it.  

We can have our checklists, our little rules that make us feel better like no tv on sunday, or no laundry, and then there are those that have their rules and think it would be a good idea for everybody else to do them too,  but what it really came down to for me was not a checklist, but a reverence, a day of worship that hopefully leads into a week of worship.  I decided it's important to check my heart and keep the lists to a minimum.

Water

Water.

It's an amazing thing.

It's hard to believe last month we were doing this...

and this month we're doing this...

God was good when He gave us water.

Sweet 16

Our Sweet, Sweet Sam has turned sweet 16!

She's been waiting for this day since she was about 4.

When I'm 16...

I can drive

I can date

I can have a job

I can pretty much do whatever I want.

16 is great.  I love being 16 she's now saying.  She has also added to it...

When I'm 18...

Love you Sam!

New Hair?

Why do women care so much about their hair?  I'm not sure- we just do.  It's one of those earthly experiences that I'm hoping in the next life we can find the perfect hairstyle and just go with it.  I color it, cut it, curl it, straighten it, and in a couple of months no matter what I've been doing to it, it just grows into the same helmet head I had before.  I'm thinking about getting an A-line like this one on Friday-

but why does it matter because in a few months it will morph back into what I always have.

Why not just keep it the same?  It's just not as fun.

Happy New Year!

Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man.  ~Benjamin Franklin