My 25 random things

So on facebook I got tagged for the 25 random things about me. I know that most of the people that read my blog are probably my friends on facebook, but someday I want to print my blog. I'm still researching that. So, I want it here so it can become part of my pseudo journal!

Here you go:
1. 25 things about myself seems like a lot of things. If it were about my kids or my hubbie I could write this list much quicker!

2. Speaking of husband and kids, I have been married for almost 8 years, some days I think wow it seems like it's been a lot longer, but most it seems like just last year. But then again we have 3 kiddos, good thing it wasn't just last year!

3. I am a stay at home mom to my 3 kids. Benjamin is in the 1st grade and is really doing well in school, except when he is daydreaming, falling out of his seat or picking his nose. Emma is in preschool and can't quit talking. She seriously talks more than anyone I know! Matthew, or mister distructo as I have taken to calling him is now past the walking stage in quickly moving to the running stage.

4. I live in the middle of nowhere. Now people say that, but really I do. The closest international airport is 3 hours away, the closest mall is 1 1/2 hours, so is the closest costco. And not only is it the middle of nowhere, it's the middle of the desert.

5. We live here for the job (obviously, why else would we live in the middle of nowhere!!). Nate works at NavAir China Lake. He's a physcist, but does a lot of computer programming.

6. To help keep myself occupied when my kids aren't demanding my attention I started a small vinyl lettering business. www.vinylchitchat.com It gives me an excuse to craft!

7. Speaking of crafting!! I love to do crafts. I have tons of fabric, paper, beads, you name it. It's my creative outlet.

8. To go along with the crafting...If I could met a famous person it would totally be Martha Stewart! I don't hold the fact that she has served time against her. It just makes her life history more interesting!

9. My other pastime is blogging. I enjoy writing about our family happenings, or my latest craft. But I mostly do it because I can't keep up a journal. This is the closest I come! Here's the blog btw- http://n8swife.blogspot.com/

10. I also am a blog stalker. My bookmarked list of blogs is embarrassingly long. Some of of people I know, but there are quite few random people that are just an interesting read!

11. Because of the vinyl business, blogging, deal sites, message boards and of course facebook- I spend a lot of time on the computer. Now at church they've asked me to keep up our ward website. Yet another reason to be at the computer!

12. I would rather be on the computer or crafting instead of cooking. I like it once the meal is made, but I haven't quite found the joy of cooking yet. This is why my family eats a lot of quesadiallas for dinner!

13. I do enjoy baking, but most of the time it just chocolate chip cookies. I feel like I have perfected the art of making chocolate chip cookies. I have long since stopped using a recipe and I don't even measure half of the ingredients anymore!

14. Even though I'm a stay at home mom I am educated. I got my BS in Early Childhood and Elementary Education from BYU. Nate and I both graduated in April of 2002 and moved to California a week later.

15. I have never had a full-time teaching position, but I spent my last semester at BYU subbing at local elementary schools.

16. Because of that subbing experience I now know I never want to be a 5th or 6th grade teacher! Those kids really stink after recess! They hadn't learned about the invention of deodorant!! My pick would be 1st or 2nd grade, or a preschool teacher.

17. I am a cat person. I love cats and would be just fine if there were no dogs in the world (sorry to all of you dog lovers).

18. My childhood cat, Emily, lived to be 22 years old (that's human years!). By the time she died she had lost quite a few teeth!

19. We have 2 cats.- Pichi and Paccha. Pichi means armadillo and Paccha means earth in a native Peruvian language Nate spoke on his mission.

20. We've also had 2 other cats- Penny was a great cat and suffered a very tragic death. Cat vs garage door. The garage door won. Nickel was a naughty kitty and pooped everywhere. He quickly got taken back to the shelter for someone else to deal with!

21. I secretly, or not so secretly now, enjoy reality TV. My list includes: Americas Next Top Model, Bachelorette, Bachelor, The Amazing Race, American Idol and now even True Beauty! I'm not sure how I love True Beauty, but I keep watching!!

22. I hate wearing shoes. If I have to be wearing something it's sandals. Birkenstock, Crocs (flip flops) and Chaco's are my preferred sandals.

23. I wore Birkenstock even in the snow while at BYU. I'd just throw on a pair of thick socks and put an extra pair in my backpack for the walk home.

24. I love Jane Austen Novels. I've read all but one of her books (Emma, I just haven't been able to get through it for some odd reason). But I really don't read anymore because when I do, I don't stop. Then I don't take care of my family. Family comes first!

25. My favorite movies have kind of a strange range: Pride and Prejudice (both versions, it all depends on my mood and how much time I have!), Beauty and the Beast (and honestly almost any Disney flick), and So I married and Ax Murderer.

My craft for this week...

So getting Emma through sacrament meeting isn't too much of a struggle for me but sometimes it is for Ricky and Kim. They are kind enough to sit by me each week and Emma keeps her eye out and occasionally kicks people off our pew to save them a spot! Especially with N8 up on the stand now, it helps out a lot!!! Thanks Ricky and Kim!! Emma seems to getting board with my usual church bag items. The small plastic animals still keep her busy, but she gets done with them quicker. So, I came up with a "Family Picture Puzzle" idea.

So, here's the gist of it. I used Picasa to create a collage of pictures. Make sure you you use the grid spacing to give your self a little bit of room in between the pictures. After it's printed (I printed mine as 5x7's at Walmart) I laminated the picture. Then cut out the pictures. Place on a file folder (I actually use 1/2 a file folder for each one) and trace around each picure. place a magnet on the back of each picture and in each spot in the puzzle! To keep all the pieces together I stapled a ziploc baggie on the opposite side. I made one with pictures of each of the kids. I think they turned out pretty fun.





Tomorrow is the 100th day of school for Bud. He got to create an art project using 100 items. He used 100 buttons and turned them into crayons. They can be counted by 2's, 5's and 10's! He was pretty proud!

Happy 100th day of school!!

What's happening?

This past weekend we were able to go down to the LA temple. We picked up Bud about an hour early from school Friday to try and avoid some of the traffic. Ricky and Kim also went down. They were so nice and watched our kids while N8 and I went together into the temple and then to dinner. It had been a very long time since N8 and I did a session together in the temple. We're trying to continue our goal of monthly temple attendance for at least one of us. We were able to get a little bit of shopping in on Saturday and head back home.

Today N8 left of travel for the week and I took Bud to the doctor. His teacher had asked if we would have him evaluated for ADD/ADHD. I was worried about how this would go and what would happen. I came away from the appointment feeling a lot better about the situation. She said she does feel like he has ADHD, but is not at the point of needing medical treatment. She gave me some recommendations for home and school. She also let me know at what point I might want to bring him back in to discuss more treatment. It's something that we're going to monitor a lot more create more stucture for his routine.

We got his progress report for this trimester and he's really doing well. His reading has really improved a lot in the last couple of months. His STAR testing has shown that he's really getting it, which is always nice for a parent to know!


Today I also talked to my parents. Skpe is a wonderful invention! We're able to use webcam's and talk to each other each week. For those that didn't know they are serving in Georgetown, Guyana as family history specialists. They are now serving in the West Indies Mission which is a change from their original call to the Dominican Republic. They are going to get a chance to travel to much of the Caribbean setting up and teaching members about family history.

No major cleaning or organizing goals for the week. Mo has turned into Mister Distructo! So, lately I keep adding more child locks onto things that I never would have thought of! Maybe I'll actually break out some of my mountains of fabric and get working on some projects, mmmm, or maybe I'll play my new favorite Facebook games like: WordPaths and Challenge Suduko! We'll see... If anything Bud will go to school, Emma will go to preschool and we'll all survive another week!~

Random stuff...

So I had a few random pictures that I wanted to share. First anyone that knows Emma, knows that she loves animals. She asks me to stop driving so she can pet a dog that is being walked (of course I don't stop). We have 2 great kitties that love our kids (most of the time). We have Paccha & Pichi (pronounced Peachy). Paccha is a cat that is stuck in a small dogs body. He fetches, he begs, and he's bigger than some small dogs and loves to have his belly rubbed. Pichi is our shy little kitty. She likes to be on your lap but not sit down.

Ricky and Kim recently got two kitties, Bill & Ted. Emma asks all the time if she can go over to see the kitties. Here are 2 pictures that Kim recently took of Emma and the kitties:

This weekend I decided to make blueberry pancakes, or as Bud and Emma call them -Pantycakes! I just can't correct them, it's way to funny. Mo was a big BIG fan!


Also, this weekend Emma and Bud also decided that they were missing Christmastime already. So they made their own Santa, sleigh and reindeer. I think Bud got the bum job out of it! What do you think?


And here's one just to make you smile!

....Sweet is the work

So I have been bugging N8 to upkeep his blog. He's started two different "blogger" blogs and has done a single post on both. But he might have turned over a new leaf. I'm not quite sure how I feel about this though, since 2 of his 3 posts have been directed in some way towards me! So check it out N8's blog www.sweetcoder.com

Now I need to point out a few things from these posts that I mentioned. First the ice cream list. I will admit that I love ice cream, but not just any flavor. I do not do fruit in my ice cream. It's suppose to not be a healthy thing right! Why in the world would you put a healthy thing like fruit in it then? Also, I just bought 2 perfectly good flavors of ice cream. Both contained chocolate, but neither had the word chocolate in the title more than once!!


Here are the 2 flavors. Don't they look good? I'm really liking the waffle cone one! I guess I need to be more thoughtful in my ice cream choices! But our local Albertsons doesn't carry a rare Peruvian fruit ice cream, go figure!

Now onto the hotel snob post. Yes I will admit that I call him a hotel snob. He travels a bit and the government obviously pays for his travel. Now they don't put him up in the Motel 6 or Super 8. Now I will say that much of his list should be the norm when staying in a reputable hotel. We're traveling to Washington DC in May for his brothers wedding and trying to find hotels. That is not a cheep place to stay! Luckily they didn't make the choice to be getting married their this weekend! So we'll see where we end up. I do have to say though that his travel does have some perks. While he's on travel I'm not sure if the perks are worth it, but we'll be able to fly our family out to DC on frequent flyer tickets. Now that's a savings!

So, his blogging has now produced 3 posts. We'll see if it sticks this time! One downside to his blog, where do we make snide comments about his posts? I'll have to pester him about that one!

And the winner is...

Well if there were a winner in the how to clean a shower contest I think I would call a tie between Roxy and Megan. Roxy for the suggestion of SOS pads. I got Brillo instead but is got my shower doors are cleaner than they have ever been before! And who knew, it actually says shower doors on the list of what it cleans!!
Now Megan gets props for actually coming over to my house with an armful of cleaning products ready to tackle my bathroom!!

I did also tackle my bedroom and recaulked the bathroom sink. Now I need to either recaulk the shower or get new shower doors. My vote is the later, but we'll see what happens.

So a video that Megan posted on her blog reminded me of a video my brother showed us over Thanksgiving. It's called "Where the Hell is Matt" . It's 4:30 minute video of a guy dancing all of the world and trying to get people to dance with him! Here's a little info: http://www.wherethehellismatt.com/about.shtml

And here's the video, enjoy!

Back in the swing of things...

So, I've decided that last week didn't count in the week of things. It was the week to get back into the groove after being on hiatus for 2 weeks. Now I have to actually thing about cleaning, organizing, cooking, life! N8 heads out on travel tomorrow for the rest of the week so I need to formulate a plan of attack. I'm not sure why it is when he is gone I tend to try and get a whole bunch of stuff done.

One of my goals this week is to clean my shower. Our shower has felt dirty from the day we moved in (coming up on 5 years!). It's gross, but I try and get myself clean and not think about it. I've tried tons of different cleaning products, but nothing seems to work on the hard water and scum that has invaded the space! The shower doors are the worst. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!! I did get a pumice stone to try and see if that will work. We'll see...

My other goal is to increase my score on word challenge!!
This mindless game on facebook has taken over! I can't seem to stop playing, but here's the really sad thing-- I'm terrible at it!! I look at my friends scores and think I am that big of an idiot! I have to play it again because surely I can get a better score than that! Roxy, you and Dave totally rock btw because there is no way I'm ever going to come near your scores!!

So that's not a very long list is it? Clean my shower and play a computer game. Maybe I should have better goals for the week. I did teach the YW a lesson on setting goals this past week and I thought it went well. Then we also had a great talk in sacrament meeting on setting goals (great job Shar!). I will admit though that after her talk the other speaker (Ron) started talking about finding Niles Krane in the MoTab. That really got my mind wandering!!

But back to the task at hand. Maybe along with my shower I'll tackle my bedroom that happens to be attached to that bathroom. Hmmm, we'll see. Maybe I'll just play more word challenge!