Plaid Fedora

Max is such a nut. He adds shades and looks like he is one of the Blue's Brothers.

Sweet!

This morning the boys and I took a quick factory tour at Sweet's Candy Factory. If you live in SLC and haven't done this--I recommend it! There is , of course, a candy shop at the end.  http://www.sweetcandy.com/factorytour

Dolly Love

Boys just seem to love dollies. Too bad it is only a matter of time before they crack their heads open. I should have made them wear helmets. Why is it that girls don't need helmets to play with dolly's?

In other news...spring has come to Utah which means this today and snow tomorrow.

My kids were offended

That they didn't get to be the hat models. They are usually my models, but Jeremi (whose photos are awesome) doesn't live in the same town. I felt bad, so I took a few shots of "Max Monkey".

Hats Hats Hats

My latest "business venture" is in handknit hats. I just love the photography that Jeremi Broadhurst did to show off some of my samples. There are lots more to come so stay tuned!



Check out more of her photography here:Jeremi Broadhurst

Car Seat Cover

Sorry about the bad pictures, the light was pretty much gone. A friend of mine called me this morning who will be having a baby girl in less than a week. She needed a car seat cover quickly (because her baby will be born any day.)


So, this is what I spent my day doing! I think the flowers totally make it.

This is the tutorial I used http://tiny.cc/FlowerTutorial

I also made a matching keychain, because everyone needs a keychain to match their baby's carseat, right?

I don't know if you can tell, but the flowers snap on and off because I doubt they would make it through the washing machine.

The Pop Garden fabric by Heather Bailey is one of my absolute favorites of all time. I used Sea Ta Dot for the back.

Joann's Employees- What comes first?

It's kind of like cops. What comes first, your personality disorder or does the job make you act like this?

Bedmaking by Brad

Brad has started making our bed in the morning just as soon as we get up. "Great, I wish my husband would do that!" you may be thinking. But you would be wrong.

I am pretty sure he only does it so that I can't get back IN bed and play Sudoku on Max's DS for hours. He's a schemer, that one.

Dr. Phil take 2

I was picked up from the airport by "Bill." My head was killing me so I turned the radio off in the back. After that, it was oddly quiet so I asked Bill to tell me a story. I thought he might have some good one's from his experiences as a driver in LA. He just laughed and didn't say anything. After about 20 minutes, he said,"Okay, I have a story for you. It is about the best tip I have ever gotten."

He told me about a couple from Saudi Arabia with a 2 year old little girl. They had come to America to vacation for a month. He was their driver for time they were here. The only place they ever wanted to go was "shopping, shopping, shopping."

The other thing they wanted was a dog for their 2 year old little girl to play with while she was in America. Apparently, dogs are considered unclean in the Muslim world and they would not be able to take it home with them. They told Bill it wasn't considered sanitary to eat in the same building as a dog "poops".

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,212980,00.html This link talks about dogs being banned in Saudi Arabia, but for reasons including western influence as well as cleanliness. From the article: "Then what's the point of dragging a dog behind you?" he added. "This is blind emulation of the infidels."

Anyway, Bill bought the girl a $2,600 Maltese puppy and got to keep it when they left. I was not able to top that tip.

We still haven't gotten anywhere near the Dr. Phil studios, but this photo was taken from my hotel room.

At this point, my head and neck are killing me (that's what whiplash does to you) and my cell phone doesn't have coverage. I can't even check on my kids to see if they are being shuttled from babysitter to babysitter correctly. Brad, meanwhile, is living it up in Las Vegas.

I order about $70 worth of room service which was pretty disgusting except for the creme brulee, but it's pretty hard to ruin creme brulee and go to bed.

Best Christmas Ever

Dr. Phil, Dr. Schmil. I don't know why I have such an aversion to writing that story. I will get back to it someday though. I promise.










I told my kids we were having a handmade Christmas this year. Beck gave me this cute bear who appears to have lost an arm. Fortunately he repaired him with magnets and tape. Future surgeon? Future Frankenstein?

Max gave me such sweet gifts. I think these may be his most treasured items. Notice that they are boxed in a cream cheese box. He also enclosed his reading reward to pizza hut.

Gettin' Real Part One

I don't even watch Dr. Phil but the universe must have decided that I need to "get real". One Sunday night in November, I received an email from a woman who identified herself as a "producer from a daytime television program." Five seconds later my best friend, Google, told me she worked for the Dr. Phil show.

Apparently, she had come across one of my posts on

concerning my goal to stop yelling at my kids. This isn't exactly a huge issue for me (denial). It was mixed in among other goals like: visit the 7 wonders of the world, run the Boston marathon, drink more water and have better posture. Unfortunately, Dr. Phil showed no interest in helping me visit the 7 Wonders of the World--he just wanted to save my children from their verbally abusive mother.

The producer assured me that this would be a "light and fun" show consisting of many parents, a panel, and an audience full of mothers and mothers-to-be. My sister assured me that "no one comes off of shows like that looking good" and "they already know you have a temper, they just need to make you blow-up, which shouldn't be difficult."

I must be easily persuaded because just after Lori convinced me of the utter folly of doing the show, Gyllian convinced me that it would be fun and "no big deal." I failed in my attempt to get a clothing allowance out of her.

Brad was already planning to be out of town for the week so I exhausted every resource I could think of to find babysitters.

(Don't you love all my cheesy graphics? It's boring without pictures.)

This all happened between Sunday night and Tuesday afternoon. Tuesday afternoon, late as usual, I was rushing to the airport trying to remember everything and completely second guessing my decision to go at all, when I arrived at Diamond Parking.

I saw the sign for valet parking, but I couldn't see the valet. I pulled into the nearest parking spot, undid my seatbelt and turned my head. Across the lot I saw an employee and decided to just reverse and go ask him. That was when I reversed into a pole.

Isn't this exciting? And I haven't even gotten on the plane yet! I know you'll all be sitting on the edge of your seats waiting for the next installment. This one only took me a month and I promised it would just be a few days...

Chair

Brad recovered this. Didnt he do an excellent job?

"Up" Cakes

For Beck's birthday treat to take to school. At what age do kids stop doing this, anyway?

Walking Snail

My neice, Paizley, just started walking and no matter what I did, I just couldn't manage to keep that snail on the ground!

Max and Moishe

I made the costumes (swearing, tears, more swearing), my dad made the mask. These costumes just fit my kids personalities perfectly.