Auction for Nie Nie!

Hi blogging friends. Do you read NieNie too? If not, you have not heard about the beautiful, talented mother of 4 who was in a serious plane crash last week with her dear husband, Mr. Nielson. The blogging world has united to raise money to help this sweet family in the months long recovery process. I don't know Nie personally but have been inspired by her parenting and her amazing style and flair for the last two years that I've been reading her blog.

For more details on Nie, check her blog here: Nie Nie Dialogues

For details on the recovery, check her sister's blog here: CJaneRun

Now, Design Mom has decided to host a silent auction to raise money for Nie. She is also spreading the word about nearly 200 other auctions taking place all over the web today through Sunday. There are some AMAZING things being offered. Find all the details at Design Mom's blog.

Here's where I'm doing my teeny tiny part. I'm auctioning off a custom made vinyl family name sign for the cause. I will cover all the materials and shipping for this project to the highest bidder. Here's a sample of the sign (the one hanging in my house):

And some perspective on the size:


Here's how it works:
1. Leave your bid in the comments section of the post.
2. The bidding will end on Sunday at midnight
3. The winning bidder will be contacted via email
4. Payment will be made through the Stephanie and Christian Nielson Recovery fund
5. Once payment is made, I will be contacted and then I can get to work on the sign. It will take me about 7 days to get the sign completed and in the mail

This sign is COMPLETELY customizable. The background can be stained any color and I have a variety of vinyl colors available. The sign is 36" x 8 " but can be made smaller. I can make it for a family, a child's room, etc.

If this doesn't strike your fancy, make sure to check out the other auctions on Design Mom! Remember, this is for a GREAT cause!

401

A BIG congrats to Jan who got 8 of the 12 answers correct! The correct answers have been bolded. Thanks to all for playing! (Amy, Rebecca and Hilary all had 7 correct answers. My mom and sister each got 3 correct, which totally makes me laugh!)

Since I missed my 2nd blogiversary back in July, I decided I would save my contest for my 400th post. Except that I just realized that was used for my Martha Stewart lantern post. Oops. So hooray for the 401st post!

So here's the deal. Here's a little test to see how well you know us. Most of these answers will NOT be found on the blog and are fairly obscure (aren't we nice to level the playing field?) Here's the rules:

1. Answer all 12 questions in the comments section (the number and letter will suffice)

2. In your comment, also leave the name of your favorite CHAIN restaurant

3. Have your answers submitted by midnight on Wednesday

In honor of our love for eating out, the person with the most correct answers will win a $25 gift card to the restaurant of their choice (the one you left in the comments section). If there are several people with the same number of correct answers, they'll all go into a drawing for the card.

1. What is my favorite smell in the world?
a. Clean laundry
b. Gardenia's
c. baking bread
d. Russian Olive Trees

2. I love to read historical fiction, what is my favorite time period to read about?
a. LDS church history
b. English Tudor History
c. Revolutionary war history
d. African tribal history

3. Where's the next place we're planning to travel to?
a. Caribbean Cruise (Tentatively planned for our anniversary next year. However, all these places are in our travel plans for the next 2 years)
b. Disneyland
c. Italy
d. Mexico

4. What chore do I hate the most?
a. Making dinner
b. Folding laundry (followed closely by balancing the checkbook!)
c. Scrubbing toilets
d. Balancing the checkbook

5. What's Allen's favorite outdoor activity?
a. Surfing
b. Hiking
c. Snow Skiing
d. Biking

6. What was our biggest fight during our first year of marriage about?
a. A football game
b. The cleanliness of our car
c. A rotten cucumber (For real, Allen was mad that I'd let some produce go bad - specifically a cucumber. We laugh now that our biggest fight was over about 30 cents of bad produce)
d. Which family to see at Christmas

7. What is our favorite chain restaurant?
a. Red Robin
b. PF Changs
c. Carrabas
d. Chile's

8. What were Al/Monique's first jobs?
a. BYU grounds crew/paper route
b. Electricians apprentice/auto body shop receptionist
c. Paper route/babysitting
d. Road paving crew/ working at the Gap

9. Where would we love to own a vacation home?
a. Maui
b. Pacific NW beach house
c. Aspen, CO
d. Hilton Head, SC

10. If money were not a factor, what would Al love to do for work?
a. Professional musician
b. High School teacher
c. Professional chef
d. Non Profit fundraising

11. What are we planning to buy for our big Christmas gift this year (to each other)?
a. Entertainment center
b. Flat screen TV
c. Camping Equipment
d. Generator (More of that preparedness thing)

12. What are Al/Monique's dream cars?

a. Mercedes 380/Volvo SUV (this question is a little misleading because those who know us well know we really couldn't care less about the kind of cars we drive! We would much, much rather travel than have a nice car. BUT if we had all the money in the world, this is what we would drive)

b. Land Rover/Nissan Armada
c. Ford Mustang Shelby/BMW 7 series
d. None of the above - don't care about cars

{Play along even if you've never played before} Good luck and have fun! I'll post all the answers on Thursday morning along with the winner.

I *heart* Martha!

Did you know Wal Mart carries Martha Stewart project kits? Yeah, neither did I, until yesterday. I found the kits in the party section of the store and she has some AWESOME things available.

I've been looking for something to put in the corner of the girls' room above their reading nook. I considered this from Land of Nod:

But realized it is way too big for the space in there. (I do love it so much that I think I may purchase it for the playroom though).

Then I saw them. White eyelet paper lanterns. 3 for $11 and stinkin' adorable. How could I possibly pass them up?!?



Big bang, little buck! (And even cuter in real life, I promise!!)

Get thee to Michael's!

I was at Michael's a couple days ago to get some ribbon and happened to wander to the back of the store where they keep their clearance section. I was thrilled to find 4 long rows of 90% off clearance merchandise. I'm a pretty responsible shopper when it comes to my house. I don't usually purchase anything that doesn't have a specific purpose or place in the house. I've learned for the past that if I buy without a purpose I end up with stuff I don't know what to do with. But really, you can't beat 90% off even if you don't have a grand plan for the item. I am looking at things with new eyes these days: I know I can transform pretty much anything with a little bit of paint and sandpaper.

So here's what I scored:

Footed bowl - imagine it filled with small pumpkins and gourds in a few weeks for fall - perfecto - $2 (this was my favorite thing I bought)

5 green candles - this might seem like overkill but these were .15 each! This is one of the colors we will be using in our master suite so .75 for all five seemed pretty reasonable! (And if I don't use them there, I'll add them to our food storage/preparedness stuff)

Wooden ducks - I've considered ducks like these at Target in the Smith & Hawken aisle but never wanted to drop the $$. These were .49 each and can be painted whatever color I want. I stuck them in my spring decor bin and will hopefully have figured out a color by next spring!

3 Red Candle holders - I really wish I would have bought a couple more of these. I will for sure be losing the ugly glass part of these and possibly repainting the bases. But I think these would look great as a holiday centerpiece with some kind of greenery and colored balls around them. Imagine the ambiance during Christmas eve dinner. These were $1.29 each

Two white mirrors. I was most hesitant about this purchase. I don't love these and would certainly not keep them white. But they were $3 each and are pretty big. I might use them in my bedroom/bathroom. If nothing else, I can pop out the mirror, cut off the sorta ugly scrolly thing and have a couple of cool frames.

Grand total $13.60

Not bad, not bad. You'd better hurry though. I went back today to get a few more things and almost everything was GONE. Bummer!

Ok, and speaking of our master suite. We're on hold for now. I had it budgeted to a certain amount that I felt was feasible for this year but now I've decided I want to spend a bit (or a lot) more money than I orginally planned for so I'm holding off so I can do it right! I'll be buying a bit here and there and continue to gather ideas for the next couple months. We decided as a couple at the beginning of this year that our extra money would be used for emergency preparedness. We are on track to have ALL of our food storage completely purchased by the end of the year (YAY!!!!!) I really credit Al for keeping us on track and cannot tell you how many times he has said to me, "Monique, you can't eat _________________" (insert whatever furniture, trip, house project I was pining away for at the moment).

Headband Storage

A few of you mentioned issues with storing headbands in my last organizing post. So voila, here's an easy peasy solution for you:

I store all our headbands around a large glass vase. It works beautifully. I use the middle to store fabric headbands and hair ribbons. If you don't have an appropriately sized vase or if you have A LOT of headbands (we will no doubt get there eventually), you can use an oatmeal canister that you cover in cute paper!

Hope that helps!

Learn from my mistake...

Ahem. I decided that my kiddos will have homemade cookies every day in their school lunches. For. The. Rest. Of. Their. Lives. What have I gotten myself into here? That's 18ish more years of homemade cookies. So, Sunday night we do the whole cookie making ritual together. Chocolate chip is the family favorite but this week I decided to shake it up a bit and make a batch of delish chocolate chocolate chip. In my effort to be more healthy (an oxymoron when talking about cookies, for sure) I decided to substitute half of the oil with applesauce. I do this pretty frequently when making baked goods - it works amazing for brownies and cakes and the like. Not so much with cookies. Never again. They are horrible - too cakey, thin and spread out. They taste fine but no one likes the texture. I may have to chuck the entire batch and make a mid week batch instead. Don't try this at home...

And just because I found this AMAZING quote today and don't want to give it it's own post:

"We write to taste life twice, once in the moment and in retrospection." - Anais Nin

{Sigh, isn't that beautifully eloquent? This is why we blog folks!}

My kids are funny!

Ok, seriously, I know that these funny stories are a lot funnier to the parents. But I've got to keep a record of them. My mom wrote down funny things we said or did as kids in her journal and it's SO fun to look back on them now! So here's a few recent funnies:

1. A few weeks ago Carter was having a play date with a friend. An argument ensued:

Friend: I'm taller
Carter: No, I'm taller
(they go back and forth a few times)
Me: Ok boys, stand back to back and let's see who is taller
(I measure the boys)
Me: Friend, you are taller than Carter
(Seriously, without missing a beat)
Carter: Well, you might be taller, but I'm smarter and I'd rather be smart than tall

(And yes, we did have a private conversation about being rude to our friends/comparing, etc.)

2. Carter and Makenna were playing together one afternoon. Makenna comes out of C's room crying:

Me: Kenna, what's wrong?
Makenna: Carter called me COOL!!!
Me: Ok, what's wrong with being called cool?
Makenna: I don't want to be cool, I want to be CUTE!!!

3. A few weekends ago we went up to the ranch and Carter was allowed to shoot a gun for the first time. He's been talking about it a TON ever since. This is a convo he had with Allen and me a few days ago:

Carter: Dad, have you ever shot a bazooka?
Al: Um, no, I've never shot a bazooka
Carter: Why not?
Me: Daddy's never shot a bazooka because only people in the military are allowed to shoot bazooka's
Carter: I don't think so mom, I think it's because daddy is too SCARED.

(No amount of discussion would convince him otherwise. Apparently Allen is just a big wimp!)

4. To have fresh flowers in Phoenix means you have to water them at least once a day (usually twice). A few days ago I was out watering my flowers in front of the house. Carter says to me, "Mom, you know you could avoid all this watering if you just got some Aquaglobes

I was laughing so hard! He proceeded to tell me all the colors they come in. Once again, repeating an infomercial from a movie we have recorded on our DVR.

5. A few days ago we were running some errands and Allen noticed something poking out of the top of Makenna's shirt. She was wearing a top that was smocked (tight) at the top. He pointed it out to me and we had a good laugh that she had stuck a breastpad in the top of her shirt. Apparently she found a leftover pad in the diaper bag and put it where she knew it went.

Five Friday Favorites

1. I just bought these silicone ice molds:

They were a little pricey but I have some BIG plans for them. Stay tuned for lots-o-fun!

2. I found this book while in Utah:

It's an FHE book based on the Book of Mormon but we have been using it for family scripture study. It is awesome. It breaks down each verse with simple questions. There are games and activities relating to each major scripture story. Get yours here

3. This is one of my favorite blogs:

Matt, Liz & Madeline

My friend Charles wrote about it on his blog a couple months ago and I have been hooked ever since. I read it every day and still cry EVERY.SINGLE.TIME. His emotion is so raw, you just can't help feel heartbroken for this little family. It's also incredibly touching to see how he has coped with his tragedy. Be warned though, he occasionally uses some colorful language so if that offends you, stay away!

4. Another blog I stumbled on this week: Muffin Tin Meals

Who knew there was a blog dedicated to muffin tin meals? Lots of fun ideas!

5. Yet another organization project! I'm loving these over the door shoe hangers - imagine all the possibilities. I have one in the bathroom right now for all the girl accessories we are accumulating. I also have one in my craft room closet and I'm thinking about one for our game room closet and maybe one for the pantry.

(And no, this doesn't even begin to touch our hair accessories but gives me a spot for some of the bulkier ones! I have alternative storage for M's bows, tiny accessories and headbands)

And Five things on my mind today:

1. Will Allen really get out of training at noon and come home?
2. Master bedroom makeover. I'm ready to get going and have tons of ideas! I just need to finalize my bedding choice (I have three I am trying to choose between)
3. Carter's adjustment to full day Kindergarten (he's still not loving it and I'm so sad!)
4. Getting ready to plant our garden! YAY!
5. Halloween costumes (for real)

Have a great weekend!

Hands Full

Something about having three young children must make people think you've gone over the edge mentally. I can't even begin to tell you how many people have made comments to me about having my hands full since I've had Addison. Surprisingly, it is usually when my kids are behaving that I get the random comment from strangers.

I have two fabulous responses that I give to people who comment about my full hands. They both come from seasoned mothers.

The first is from my friend Susie, who has 5 kids. When someone tells her she has her hands full, she replies, "Yep, full of LOVE."

My sister, who also has 5 kids usually responds, "Better full than empty."

Aren't those awesome? I use both responses ALL the time and people are usually surprised to hear my POSITIVE responses to having my hands full. Who wouldn't want their hands full with such precious little ones?

(And that picture is exactly how my kiddos look right this second, unwinding with a movie after a day at school! Love them!)

Pipsqueak!

Addie finally had her 6 month appointment today. She continues to be our teeny tiny pipsqueak baby. Here's her stats:

Weight: 14 lb. 1 oz (25th percentile)
Height: 26 1/4 inch (75th percentile)
Head: 16 1/2 inches (25th percentile)

One of my friends calls her Feather since she is so light. Her pediatrician was not concerned at all. She has stayed on her own growth curve and is gaining weight.

Do not underestimate Lulu. She may be tiny but she appears to be in a huge hurry to grow up! Yep, she is crawling. She's still pretty awkward at it - she has not yet figured out how to get her legs and arms in tandem with each other. Wouldn't you know that the baby that I want to stay little forever is the one that is in the biggest hurry to catch up with her siblings! I have some baby proofing to do!

First Day of School!!

Well, we all survived the first day of school! Both of the kids did well. Carter was a little bit emotional but did ok once he realized I was able to walk with him into his classroom and help him get settled there. I had to work hard to maintain my composure because I knew if I lost it, he would too. For sure, the hardest part for me was watching Carter and Makenna say goodbye to each other. Makenna sat with her arm around him for about 10 minutes in the classroom before the parents were dismissed. Then she kissed him on the head and said goodbye.

We had about an hour between Carter's drop off and Makenna's so we went home and that's when I cried! It seemed so quiet without Carter around. Makenna did awesome on her drop off and didn't even notice when I left. I'm so glad that a friend planned a first day of school bfast for all our friends so I was distracted for a good 3 hours and had no time to feel sad!

After school when I picked Carter up he looked so tired. I asked him how his first day was and he said, "Mom, it was so exhausting." Poor guy. I think full day Kindy is a bit much (but mandatory in AZ). He wasn't quite as excited to bound out of bed this morning!!

After school we made caramel apples for a first day of school treat. I had seen these mini caramel apples on the Martha Steward website a few months ago and then Family Fun had them in this months issue too! I thought they would be fun to try!

We give them 2 out of 5 stars. The caramel slides right off of them! I guess that is why FF used melted butterscotch chips. They were much easier to eat than regular caramel apples though!

(PS, I'm sick as a dog and went to bed at 8 last night after taking TWO naps yesterday! So I have lots of blog catching up to do!)

Back to School: Ideas 3 & 4

I have two quick ideas to share that we did over the weekend.

Idea 3: Have the kids plan a last hurrah of the summer. We let them plan our entire day on Saturday. We started the day at Makenna's first dance class of the "fall" (this was unavoidable). We then made our way to the AZ Science Center where we watched a show at the Planetarium. Carter is VERY into space/planets/rockets lately so this was his choice. We spent a couple more hours at the Science Center visiting exhibits. After a quick lunch on our way home, we changed into our swimsuits and spent the afternoon at the pool. We ate dinner at In-and-Out Burger and ended the day with a movie at home!

They totally loved having control of the entire day! And my battery pack for the camera was dead so no pictures (bah!!)

Idea 4: First Day of School Cone: I borrowed this idea from the Chasing Fireflies catalog. Here's what the catalog says about this tradition:

"Germany has a sweet tradition to celebrate a child's first day of school. Parents give their child a Schultüte, a giant paper cone filled with school supplies, small gifts and candy. We've created a treat-filled cone to help make your child's first day extra special."

I thought this was such a fun idea and could turn into such a fun tradition. The CF cones were quite a bit more than I wanted to spend but I knew I could replicate the idea myself.

Here are the cones I made:

And the kids with their goodies:

I put a nail polish set, a jewelry kit, some candy and a big balloon in Miss M's cone.I put a race car model kit, a Speed Racer puzzle, candy and a huge balloon in Carter's cone.

This was just a cute picture of Allen with the kids right after he gave them their school blessings (yes, I bawled like a baby!)

I can't believe tomorrow is the BIG day!

Back to School: Idea 2

There are tons of books out there to prepare kids for school. My absolute favorite is The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn. This book is a must have if you have a child entering school! It is so sweet and touching!

We've been reading the book for the last few days and then we made some "hugs" for each other that the kids will have in their bags in case they ever feel sad or miss home. I laminated their hugs and attached them to their bags (no worries, Carter' s is on the inside of his bag so as to not take away from the toughness of his Batman backpack).

Here's Makenna's attached to her backpack. It says, "1 hug for Makenna".

The kids also made hugs for me and Allen that we can refer to when we are sad and missing them. It's not a big thing but I hope they will remember they are loved and missed when they are away from me.

A couple other books that we've enjoyed in prep for school this year:

First Day Jitters by Julie Danneberg

Kindergarten Rocks! by Katie Davis

Have fun!

Are you Watching?

I am so excited to watch the Olympics opening ceremonies tonight! I LOVE the Olympics. The passion started way, way back with the summer 1984 Olympics where Mary Lou Retton won the gold in gymnastics. I was hooked and like millions of little girls, decided I wanted to be a gymnast. I did in fact take many years of gymnastics after watching those Olympic games.

I fell even more in love with the Olympics when Salt Lake hosted the Winter games in 2002. Allen was finishing his last year at BYU and we were able to attend several different events. It was so amazing getting to see the Olympics up close and we have always been so glad we had the opportunity to go.

Overall, I'm not a huge TV sports watcher but I do love the Olympics. Something about the unconquerable human spirit makes it so inspiring to watch! My favorite events are gymnastics and swimming/diving.

Get your Olympics event schedule here.

More on the School Drama!

I'm back with another update on Carter's schooling situation. I can't even begin to explain what a stressful situation this has been. It's so crazy that you make decisions as a parent and have no idea if what you're doing is right!

We 've thought so much about Carter going in to first grade this year and just haven't felt completely comfortable with it. The school really got us with the surprise factor and that's probably what has bothered me the most. We were never consulted to see if it's what we wanted for him. We also want to make sure he's challenged but not overwhelmed. On Wednesday after BTSN, I made a ton of phone calls to friends who have had their kids in the school, to the teacher and to the curriculum/placement counselor. I got about a 50/50 response. 50% of people thought he'd do great, 50% thought it was a bad idea to move him up. I did find out that he was the only boy out of the 4 kids that were moving up to 1st grade. That bothered me quite a bit as boys have a tendency to be more immature than girls, anyway. I'm pretty confident that he could handle it academically so my main concern has been the social aspect. It has also been so strange trying to figure out if this is right for him for the future - like high school future. Did we want him to always be the youngest kid in his class, would we hold him back in the future, etc.

By Wed. afternoon I had decided that I would prefer to have him in Kindergarten with his peers. There are 8 Kindy classes at the school and they still separate the kids out by ability so I knew he could still be in the class with the more advanced Kindergartners. I called the school and found out that they didn't have a single spot open in the entire Kindy program. At that point I had no choice but to leave it in the Lord's hands and we prayed that a spot would open for him if it was right. We went ahead and prepared for the 1st grade class.

Well, finally this morning, the school called to tell me that had a spot open up for him in Kindy. I am so relieved and FINALLY FINALLY feel at peace with this situation. This entire process has been such a huge roller coaster. We feel really blessed that it's worked out for us! We're off to the school this afternoon to meet his new teacher.

Whew! I promise I have lots more ideas that I hope I can share this weekend! Thanks for all your support and encouraging words!

6 Months!

How can half of a year already have gone by? It's going by SO FAST!!

Yes, our sweet Addison is 6 months old. She is so much fun right now and doing something new almost every day!

Here's the latest and greatest:

- She is doing slightly better with baby food. Still not her favorite but she tolerates it twice a day. She'll eat cereal and most fruits. HOWEVER, she LOVES real people food. She loves gnawing on those big fat pretzel rods and will work on one for the better part of an hour. We also let her have a french fry last week when we went out dinner and she was in heaven. She cried and cried when we finally took it away. This was a few days ago:

- She is still waking up for a middle of the night feeding. I'm not loving it but it is beefing her up a bit so I'm willing to let her keep at it.

- She is comfortable sitting up alone.

- She is still army crawling or rolling wherever she wants to be.

- She has started getting up on all fours and I'm guessing she'll be crawling before the end of the month.

- Love, love, loves her daddy. Most nights after she has had her middle of the night feeding she will not go back to sleep until I wake up Allen and he interacts with her. It's so funny! She will just lay there and stare at him until he wakes up.

- She gets really easily distracted while nursing these days. If either of the other kids are in the room, she just wants to play with them. She is all smiles for her siblings. She is also wants my undivided attention while she eats. She gets mad if I read a book or talk on the phone while she's nursing.

- She usually holds her foot or rubs the back of her head while she's nursing. It's so cute and funny.

- She loves her walker, the bumbo, teething rings and her glow worm. She also LOVES crumpling paper:

She is the most adorable baby in the world (I might be slightly biased) and the love of all of our lives! We feel so blessed to have her in our family!

Back To School Night

Tonight was back to school night for Carter. Let me back up here. At Carter's last parent teacher conference last year, his teacher was slightly concerned that the public school system would not challenge him enough. She gave me some alternative ideas that we toyed with for months and months. It was an agonizing decision and process for us. We finally decided to enroll him in a local charter school near our home. I have several friends who have sent their kids to this school and most of them gave glowing reviews. The two things that we liked about the school is that they test the kids before the school year starts and group them in classes based on their abilities AND the school is extremely focused on academics. Our main concern was that Carter not be bored in school.

When I went to enroll him we found out that the school was already full. I was heartbroken. We had prayed and agonized about the decision for so long. The school tested him and put him on the waiting list. In the mean time we went forward preparing him for enrollment in the public school. We were thrilled last week when the charter school called and said they had a spot for him.

So anyway, tonight was back to school night. Carter was excited to meet his teacher. We went to the welcome meeting in the cafeteria and then went to the classroom for the teacher introduction/meeting. Imagine my surprise when we found out he has been placed in a FIRST GRADE class. We knew from last year that he is reading on about a 2nd grade level but had no idea he had tested high enough in everything else to skip over Kindergarten all together. I am a little bit concerned, mostly about his maturity and socialization. His teacher had plenty of reassuring words for me. There are 3 other Kindy students that will also be in this first grade class with him.

So now I get to go school supply shopping for the THIRD time. The first go around we got the stuff from the public school supply list. The second time we got the stuff for the charter school Kindergarten list and now I have to go get the stuff for the charter school first grade list. Sheesh.

I know this is not the biggest parenting decision we will ever have to make. I guess I'm just a little surprised that we're already making these kinds of decisions when our child is only 5. Like I said, it was a stressful process and decision for us. This is a huge new adventure for us!

Allen stayed home with the girls while I took Carter. Makenna was bawling as we were leaving and crying for Carter to stay home with her. While we were backing out of the driveway Carter said, "Mom, I think my eyes are watering a little bit." I told him it was ok to be sad. He said, "I'm going to miss Makenna when I go to school. I think my eyes are going to water on Monday too." {Cue my heart breaking into a million pieces} I assured him that my eyes would be watering on Monday morning too!

Back to School: Idea 1

Ok, so I've seen school related tshirts all over the web and in various catalogs and think it's a cute idea. But, of course, I was not about to pay $30 for a tshirt. So I made my own. They didn't turn out quite as I imagined but for $3 per shirt (the price of the tshirt at Wal Mart), they're pretty fun anyway. They took me all of about 5 minutes to make!
And, here's my new pillows in the living room. I think it still needs some extra pillows (Allen will die when he reads this). I'm thinking about getting the orange or red in the longer/skinnier pillow. Thoughts?!?

Random Stuff

Eeek. I'm having some computer issues again. Al thinks it is because I have too many high end photo editing/scrapbooking etc. programs on the computer. It's making my computer crash in the weirdest of ways. It's particularly crashing when I try to access blogs. So if you see that I've hit your blog about 10 times in the last 24 hours, I am not stalking you, just trying to figure out my computer woes. We're going to increase the RAM/Memory and see if that fixes things.

We're trying to finish up some school shopping today! School starts here a week from Monday. I honestly can't believe it. I have a ton of fun ideas up my sleeve for Back-To-School so stay tuned next week! We're making the long trek to Scottsdale Fashion Square so I can hit my favorite stores that I don't have in my neck of the woods (namely Gap, Janie & Jack and Pottery Barn) and to use my Gap coupon (Thanks Jenni!!). I am really struggling with shoes for my kids. We pretty much never wear socks here so I'm fairly limited in my shoe options (Keens/Crocs for Carter is pretty much it)

I'm hoping to procure these beauties for my living room:

I am LOVING all the prints in PB this "fall". One of the beauties of having extremely neutral furniture throughout my house is that I can do just about anything with it. This can also be a curse as the options are PLENTIFUL!

My family is awake so I'm off to start the day! Have a great weekend.

Party!

On Tuesday night I hosted a baby shower for a friend in my ward. I had a lot of really fun ideas for this shower but didn't end up doing all of them because the invite list was HUGE. But here are few of the things that I did do.

Food:

I made this amazing trifle based off a recipe I found off allrecipes. I totally modified it though and it was so good. The filling was cheesecake pudding, whipped cream and sour cream. I layered angel food cake, pineapple, bananas and berries and the cream mixture - heavenly.

Then I made pina colada cupcakes based off the recipe that Beverly submitted for my recipe contest. Oh my! They were so so good. Very moist (they are the pink ones w/ coconut in the picture). Beverly's recipe was for a cake so I mixed the pineapple right into the mixture and did everything the same as the cake recipe called for. (I really wanted to do 3 tiers of cake stands but could not for the life of me find a small stand to go on top. If you know where to get one, please let me know - I've seen these around)

I also made Hilary's water punch. It was very light and refreshing and every bit as good as she promised! It's pretty uncharacteristic of me to make 3 brand new recipes for an event but they all turned out great. I also had a fruit tray/dip and a few of my awesome friends contributed desserts for the party.

Favors:

At the last second I decided to do a quick favor for the party goers. Last second, as in, the afternoon of the shower. So I was a little limited in what I could do. I settled on white chocolate covered pretzel rods that I rolled in cute babyish colored nonpareils. They turned out cute.

Here they are displayed:

As usual, I love hosting but am always a little relieved when it's over.