Grocery store lines

I actually don't mind standing in long lines at the grocery store, sometimes I even seek them out, as long as there's a magazine that I want to read but by no means do I feel the need to pay for. I'm such a mooch.

Favorite Animals

This is an odd post.

I admit that.

I have a lot of favorite animals. I like animals. Ryan and I were talking about favorite animals... when I realized I have a favorite animal for each area/climate they live in. Who does that? Apparently me.
So for your amusement, and to learn more useless information about me, I give you, a list of my favorite animals.

Ocean 
Shark
Octopus
Jelly Fish
Otter

Forest
Cougar
Squirrel
Owl

Safari/Africa
Elephant
Lion
Hippo

Rainforest
Tiger
Monkey

Farm
Cow
Pig
Bunny

Arctic
Penguin
Sea Lion
Polar Bear

21 Days

Starting Today...

21 Days No Junk Food Challenge

The Rules:

No Chocolate

No Candy

No Biscuits or Cookies

No Cake, Donuts or Muffins

No Pastries

No White Bread

No Chips

No Fast Food

No Nutella or Naughty Spreads

No Ice cream

10 Points Per Item Eaten-Least Amount of Points at End of Challenge, Wins.

Ryan and I are competing against one another. We timed it perfectly so we had a couple of days of halloween candy to enjoy, and pumpkin pie and sorts as a reward on Thanksgiving.

Wish Us Luck!!! 

Early Christmas Present

A little music shop in Gresham is having an awesome sale on electric and acoustic guitars. Ryan & I stopped in.. and we now have a new addition to the family... meet Lucy (as in the vivacious red head we all know and love, Lucille Ball)

She is my early Christmas present. I Love it. My first metal string guitar I purchased from a store. I already have a nylon string classical, it is an heirloom and I love it, it's kinda exciting to buy a new guitar, and now I have TWO!
Which doesn't quite compare to Ryan's 5, but I'm working on it. ;)

One of the quotes I really liked from General Conference...

I really like this. It's a good reminder for me, cause when I see cute little babies, I freak out a little sometimes cause I think I want one right now, but I need to remember they are not a stamp collection (or button collection in my case) and they take time and preparation. But I also need to remember, that when having a child/children, it's on the Lord's time table.

(no I'm not announcing anything, Ryan and I are just in a point of our marriage where we are talking more of the "when are we going to?", not just, "someday" and discussing the next 5 years with those types of things to consider.)

Pickletown

Okay we're not really in Pickletown, we're in Bickleton. But my friends call it Pickletown and insist that zombies live up here, cause what else would? My brother and his family of course! Ryan & I made a quick trip up here lllaaaattteeeee last night. We saw 6 deer and killed a zillion bugs on our windshield, but we made it! We've been relaxing and watching general conference. Ate cinnamon rolls and cheesey dip so far. In between the morning and afternoon sessions, we walked to the post office and grabbed some lunch at the cafe and got back just in time to eat and then fall asleep during the session.

Here are some (a lot) photos of our endeavor into the windy town of Pickletown.

love that girl

Just Curious...

Not announcing or hinting, but just curious,
when you name your kid, a name that has a common nickname, for instance, William->Will, Samuel->Sam, Anthony-> Tony
Are you allowed to somehow politely stop people from calling them that nickname if you don't like it?
I mean, until said kid has formed own opinion of being called whatever nickname, but until then will I have any say in that? .... did that make any sense? I like the name Harrison, but I wouldn't want to call my boy Harry... there's only one Harry in the world, and his last name is Potter.

Subway Art

So a new trend in decor, is subway art. I absolutely love it. I know that the bloggers who make them use those fancy photoshop programs that I have no idea how to work, or could even afford to buy. But I do have a couple of programs that had tools to mimic what they do, so I tried to give it a shot. First I want to show you some of my favorite holiday/seasonal subway arts that I got at http://eighteen25.blogspot.com/ such a fun/cute blog!!!

now here's my attempts to mimic. I love the unique ways of having scripture and prophet quotes in the home.


Theirs:

Mine:

Ta da!

Goal

So my friend Erika (who is hilarious and has the most adorable chubby fuzzy haired baby Eloise I've ever seen) started a weekly goal thing. You post your goal on a link party so it's out there for all to see and we can all cheer each other on. SO I made a goal this week (and probably next week and the week after) that I will stick to my daily chore chart. Hopefully this will help with being more organized and nothing getting too out of hand, also maybe Ryan can help more knowing what is on the days' list.


Monday
Darks
-wash
-foly
-put away

vacuum

Tuesday
bathrooms
-disinfect
-tidy
-clean mirrors

dust

take out recycles


Wednesday
whites
-wash
-fold
-put away

bedroom
-tidy

Thursday
kitchen
-disinfect
-sweep
-mop

garbages
-empty all big & small

Mally's Litter box
-clean
-refill

Friday
dishes catch up
-wash
-put away

sheets
-change
-make bed

Saturday

NADA! (hopefully all will go according to plan)

Daily
sort mail

keep dining room table clear (have a huge problem with this, it's my i'll-put-this-away-later-keep-this-away-from-the-dogs area)

tidy house

dishes
-rinse and put in dishwasher

make bed

And Cause I know you're dying to see a picture, here it is. ;)

The top says 

"...clean enough to be healthy, dirty enough to be happy"

I think I'm going to stick it on the laundry room doors.

What is your goal this week?
It's okay, we're friends, you can tell me.

Nothing & Something

Do you ever feel like doing absolutely nothing, but also like getting up and doing something at the same time?  That's how I feel today, and it's maddening.

Bleh. Even my comfort movie and comfort food aren't helping me feel better.

In my defense, I moved/cleaned/organized a lot of crap yesterday, so I guess that's something.

Little Stinker

How cute is this kid?

So. Stinking. Cute.

Speaking of stinking, we were downstairs playing some Mario Kart on the wii when the most unfortunate odor came upon us... I asked, "UGH, WHO was that?

And Davin, with a grin much like the one in this photo looked up at me and said.

"That one was me"

Baha, he's a Bowles.. no doubt about that.

From the mouth of babes

My nieces and nephews crack me up.

Throughout the week (hopefully) I'll be posting about our activities and quotes from the wee ones.

Davin:

 We were playing on the new swing set my parents bought and Davin ran over all excited and exclaimed


"I LOVE SWINGS FLOWERS & BUTTERFLIES!!"

WESTON:

The gazillion bubble machine was blowing a gazillion bubbles and Weston said:

"I'm the bubble king!!"

Playing on the swing set Weston asked me, 

"Do you know any kung fu? Cause I know real kung fu....for reals"

Ivy:

Is an awesome dancer. And she cracks me up. 

But when she's on the swing she cracks me up by softly cooing

"Weeeeeee"

They're coming....

My nieces & nephews are coming to visit this week.

YAY!!!!

Note: These are all really old when they were babies or really young

The only one I'm missing from my collection is Talia!!!

Once in a lifetime kind of thing... if you think about it

See this little guy?

This is Ob-la-di Ob-la-da, 

or 

Obi for short

He's a baby miniature horse, he's about 4 days old in these photos

And I got to hold him

How cool is that?  I got to hold a baby horse. 

How many people do you know can say that?

Neato

There's No Place Like Home... except on Broadway

so a LOOOOONNNNGGGGG time ago, like.. before Halloween, when I had thought it would be awesome if our family would be great being dressed up as the wizard of Oz, I made these bad boys.

Don't be jealous.

No Really.


Don't be jealous. These things are a mess. Glitter and glue that STILL doesn't seem to have dried completely and gets everywhere.

Consequently, we did not dress up for halloween. let alone get any trick-or-treaters even though we bought 6 bags of candy

These ruby slippers would be going nowhere near a yellow brick road, so, I decided I wanted to make them a decoration instead.  I love the wizard of oz, but even more so, I love WICKED. So, I was going to put these iconic copies on a shelf with "there's no place like home" on a sign next to them, but I decided that was a little too... cliche? Seriously, you can google "no place like home" and there's a ton of plaques of all different fonts and colors, that I like.. but I am REALLY loving craft blogs and amazed at all the other ladies creativity and inspirations they act upon, so I decided to put...

Defy

Gravity

 on my sign, I know Nessa was the one who wore the shoes, but I like it all the same anyway. You see shoes you think wizard of oz and WICKED, to me it's a natural train of thought. I don't know why I'm defending myself right now, cause I loved it. Then all by my self, I borrowed a drill and screws and plastic wall thingys and hung the shelf up all by my self. HUZAH. Woman Power!

So... without further ado... my inspirational/crafty/home decor/movie broadway inspired shelf...

I put the shelf up higher, so you can't really see the insides of the shoes as much, cause they ain't pretty

3 of those 4 pictures were just put up yesterday. I'm loving this wall!

Cause the pictures are hard to see and I love them, I wanted to show them off!

This is not the photo that was on our wedding announcement, I had a different style invitation then that of my two older brothers, where they had the traditional invite on pretty paper, and then a black and white 4x6. 

Well, my mom got both of their photos and blown up to an 8x10 and bought three of the same frames to do with all three of us. So I printed out this one for her to complete the set. I've always liked it.. so I wanted an 8x10 of my own finally.

That was a really long winded explanation. 

sorry.

Not to toot my own horn, but how cute and amazing and romantic is this photo of me and my hubby? 

Kudos to my brother Eli who took all of our engagement photos. (including the black and white one before) This picture was taken with us behind/underneath a clear plastic dome like umbrella, and my brother focused on the raindrops. 

One of my all time favorites, and had to get it in print to hang on my wall.

All of the above photos (except the one that I am in) were taken by me, at Thanksgiving this last year. The main man in the center is Ryan's grandpa, Grandpa Harold.  The lady down in the left corner is my MIL Leona, she absolutely loved that photo of him, but also the photos of all her other children and their spouses, if they currently have one, (the handsome pup is Aimee's dog child-Sammy) so this is what I gave Leona for mother's day, in an 8x10 in a frame. I put on her hutch as of yesterday, hidden behind all the birthday cards and you wouldn't notice it if you weren't looking for it.. Roger (FIL) and I are placing bets on how many days it'll take her to notice. ;)

I really liked the way it turned out, and wanted one for myself of my immediate in-law family (minus the nieces & nephews) 

Yay for photos and crafts and creativity! Now to get to work and clean up my mess! Ha. 

aka sit on the couch and watch my shows telling myself to get off my butt and clean up my mess :-P