I hit a thousand!

I just noticed that I went over 1000 hits on my counter! I feel so cool!
I'm sure it's just the same 10 of you coming back over and over, but I still feel cool.

See, I knew I was weird...

OK, I thought of 3 more interesting things about me, so here we go:

4. I sew my family's Halloween costumes every year. I have not sewn anyone's very first costume - usually they are too little to really dress up anyway, but from age 2 on, I've sewn their costumes. This year we decided that we were all going to dress up, so I sewed 5 costumes. We were all characters from Peter Pan. Let me see if I have a pic on this computer of it.... You're in luck:



In case you can't figure it out: Danielle is Tinkerbell, Isaac is Peter Pan, Abby is Princess Tigerlily, Cameron is Captain Hook and I am Wendy.

5. I know all the words to (and usually sing along with) the following Disney Channel theme songs:
My Friends Tiger and Pooh (I also know the Think, Think, Think song they sing during every episode)
Mickey Mouse Club House (opening and closing credits)
Jake Long American Dragon
and (my personal favorite) Kim Possible

I also know enough words to sing along with Nobody's Perfect and I Might Even be a Rock Star by Hannah Montana and Start All Over by Miley Cirrus (ok, so they are really the same person...) when they come on between shows. My current fav song between the shows is Double Dutch Bus by Raven Samone, but I haven't heard it enough times to know all the words yet.

6. As of this afternoon, I can weave Ti leaves into decorative Polynesian costume elements. The parents of the first graders were all required to come in after school today and make either a headband (for the boys) or a waistband (for the girls). It's part of their May Day costume. I will write more about May Day later this week. But for now here is a picture of Abby modeling her completed waistband:



I'm so proud of myself, it turned out so cute. It really wasn't hard to make, Ti leaves are easy to come by, snd now I know how to make them if I'm ever so inclined in the future.

OK, that's it for me. I've been busy sewing May Day costumes for Isaac's class this week, and now that they are done I need to finish assembling Wedding Announcements for a friend of mine. Then its on to my apron sewing for the Summer Fun Apron Swap (come on, you know you want to join). Oh, and I have to start planning Abby's birthday party - she wants to have it at the beach. Which will be lots of fun, but will require more planning ahead than I'm used to. But the invitations are going to be so stinkin' cute. You just wait and see.

We used to date, right? and I've been Tagged!

For those of you who don't know (and if you do know, I don't know why you would be keeping track) it was Cameron and I's (that so doesn't sound right) 10th wedding anniversary this last Friday. And guess what? We actually went out on a date. No kids or anything! Pretty amazing. And nice that I have a friend great enough to willingly tackle watching all 4 kids for an evening. And when drive time alone is an hour there and back to anything decent, that's a long evening. It was nice to get all dressed up and go out on the town. We even had conversations that weren't interrupted, didn't have to lug around a cumbersome carseat, and I could wearing clothing that didn't have instant nursing access. It was heaven. I meant to take a picture of us before we left (cause I actually did my hair and, oh my gosh, my make up, too), but will all my pre-date jitters, I somehow forgot. Oh well, there's always our 20 year anniversary, right?

On to that game of tag I mentioned.

I knew it was only a matter of time until one of my blogging friends managed to tag me. At least this one is fun. And since I'm not a pass-along-the-chain kind of gal (yep, I'm that annoying one that breaks all chain letters, whether email or snail mail - I detest them), so I won't tag anyone else specifically, but if you read this and want to play - then consider yourself tagged!

So I'm supposed to share 6 things about myself that are funny/unusual/weird, etc, that not many people know. We'll see if I can come up with 6:

1. I have to write in blue ink. I know most of you are thinking this is just a personal preference, but it's not. I HAVE to use blue. Black drives me insane. And since I know that I'm completely neurotic about this, 99% of the time I carry my own blue pen with me just in case - usually stuck through my ponytail (which gives me yet another reason not to bother doing my hair).

2. I have played the violin since I was 4 years old. That's a heck of a long time. But in all fairness, I haven't actually played in over a year, and I haven't taken a lesson or tried to better my skills in over 10 years. But I can still play. And now Abby wants to learn, so maybe I'll pick it up again.

3. I have to have my toenails painted. This one seems kind of silly, but it's true. I would much rather have gross, long, chipped painted nails then have naked ones. They just don't feel right naked. I am so obsessed with having them always painted that I force myself into contorted positions to paint them even while I'm pregnant.


I knew this was going to be hard. I might have to come up with more for another day. Either I'm not weird, or I'm just too open with my friends and there's not much no one doesn't know about me. I'm pretty sure it's not the former. I won't argue that I'm necessarily an interesting person, but weird I got down.

OK, I'll try really hard to come up with 3 more things from tomorrow. Maybe you guys can help - if you know something secretly weird about me let me know.

And before I sign off, I just want to remind you that if anyone is interested in participating in the apron swap I post about, now's the time to sign up. I did it myself earlier today.

Baby Talk

Juliana is such a sweet little baby. The Lord really blessed us with a perfect little child, He knew we couldn't have handled much else.
And she is growing in the leaps and bounds that are expected during the first year of life. Right now she doesn't do a whole lot, but she sure can talk up a storm if you let her.
I was finally able to get some video footage of her talking, but of course as soon as I put the camera in front of her she gets totally distracted, so it's not a true showing of her conversation skills, but it's too cute not to share.



I don't know why it's so dark. It isn't this dark on my computer - something with uploading it. But you can still hear your sweet chattering. I will see if I can't figure out a way to lighten it up tomorrow.

Excuse me!

We've been trying to make an effort to all sit at the dinner table and eat together as a family. It's not easy since we have only a table built for 4, but we make it work long enough to eat. Tonight we had yummy Chicken Bombs - I will post the details on my recipe blog tomorrow. And as we all know, when eating dinner with children, the conversations always seem to take any interesting turn. The finer points of tonight's discussion included questions about how to make oneself burp on demand. Burping is of course fascinating and hilarious to children of all ages. And at some point I made the mistake of letting them know that I was a cool mommy and I could burp on demand. So tonight's conversing was basically them begging me to tell them how it was done. Which I did, you just have to swallow air and then push it back out of your stomach. But of course they can't do this yet - it took me years of practicing, though my brother had it down at an earlier age. And then my sister could never do it growing up - she never even burped naturally growing up. I wonder if she does now.... I'll have to ask her.
So now my children will continue to try to make themselves burp for many days to come. At least until they get bored of it. No harm done - I just hope they remember to day "excuse me."

Batter up!

Isaac had his first T-ball practice on Tuesday (I took pics on Weds, for those of you who notice the date on the pic). I think he's more into the idea of baseball, rather than actually playing it. But I think he'll have fun anyway. Here are some pics:

Here is the team out on the field. Isaac is wearing an olive green shirt, way out in the field about a 1/4 in from the left side.



Here he is taking a little breather while playing second base. The ball doesn't usually get hit that far out into the field, and they are all told to "throw it to first" when they do it the ball, so he was getting a little bored, I think.



Up to bat - I'm not sure where his batting helmet is.... (Notice the ghetto T? Too funny. I wonder what the kids will think come game time and they have to use a real T.)



He's running home! All the parents have to basically shout the running directions to the kids. Most of them have never played, so they are still trying to figure out when and where to run.



Putting their hands in at the end of practice for their cheer, "Go Dodgers!"



All the little players are so cute. I'm kind of glad I didn't take pics until Wed, since on Tues most of them had that wide-eyed, deer in the headlights kind of look. But they're starting to get the hang of it.

Both Abby and Isaac have their first games next Wed. I'll be sure to get pics in their uniforms.

Spring is in the air...

OK, so the weather's nice here all the time, but you know.
Actually I chose that title because Isaac and Abby have started playing baseball, so my mind went from baseball to spring training, to spring is in the air.... I know, welcome aboard Lisa's train of thought, it may be a bumpy ride, but we'll get there eventually.

Anyhoo - I took some cute pictures of Abby at her very first practice this week (Isaac's is next week, so I'll post so then). I've been a bad sporty Mom (Dad has a good excuse, he's not sport oriented - AT ALL. Sorry babe, I love you, but you know it's true.) and not even taught my kids to play catch with a baseball. In fact they didn't even know how to put on a mitt or hold a bat until this week, when I was trying to cram the info into their little heads so that they at least looked like they had tried playing before. But it will be fun.

Here's Abby out on the playing field - it's hard to see, but she's in the pink shirt just to the right of her coach in the blue.



Here she is up to bat - and no, I'm not a psycho mom, I didn't make everybody wait while I took the pic. I just made her recreate the moment as soon as practice was over. OK, so maybe I'm a little psycho - the worst part is that she knew exactly what I was doing and played right along.



The post-practice rundown.



The huddle-up before being dismissed. They are the Tigers, so they all yelled, "Go Tigers". So cute.



Oh, and the biggest news of the day - I finally got my hair cut. It's only been a year. I'm totally serious - the last time I had it cut was in Utah. My good friend Elise gave me one last cut and color right before we moved at the end of March. Anyway, I always look slightly not like me when I take pics of myself, but you can see my cute hair.



I took this about 3 hours after it was cut and right before I put it back into the ponytail that I forever wear here - it's just too hot to have hair on the back of your neck during the day. But now I can actually wear it down if I'm so inclined. My friend, Jule, cut off about 5 inches of frizzy ends. I can't believe how long my hair had gotten. And I have to say that NO ONE has noticed that I even got it cut since I always wear it up, so they never know how long it really was.

And before you comment (quietly to yourself, I hope) that I look like I haven't gotten much sleep lately - I know, it's because I haven't. Just when you think life is getting into a normal routine and good sleep patterns are forming, you get a curve ball (keeping with the baseball theme) like 2 month shots, 2 people with stomach flu on different nights, and 3 yr olds who are just starting to wake up when they need to go potty at night and screaming at the top of their lungs while doing so (at least she was on the toilet, right?).

OK, OK, I have better, more productive things that needs to be accomplished. But I wanted to leave you with a thought that I just shared with Cameron. Tonight was a cop-out dinner, but the kids chose it. Never in a million years would they have eaten this in Utah - chicken nuggets (OK, they would have eaten that in Utah) and plain white rice on the side. They like it that way, plain. It's a Hawaii thing, and I'm glad that they like rice, it just still seems weird to me. But then they think they are native Hawaiians now and wonder (sometimes out load, I'm not joking) why their skin isn't any browner.

She's a poet and I didn't even know it.

I don't know if this is the first materpiece of a future poetic genius, or just the ramblings of a very hungry six-year-old. Either way it needs to be shared. By the way - she typed this up on the computer. She only asked my how to spell one word and then I had to wait to read it until she was done. The meter's a little off, but she's only six - and hey, what do I know about poetry, she's the genius.

Abby’s poem:
Spaghetti. Spaghetti.
I want spaghetti.
Give me spaghetti or else I will be crazy.

Funny thing, we didn't even have spaghetti for dinner. But she said it smelled like spaghetti - must have been the rice cooking. You see dinner was about 45 minutes late because I hit the wrong button on the rice cooker. It took my 20 minutes to realize that I hadn't seen any steam coming out of the vent. Oh well.

When it rains, it pours

See, I don't post forever and then you get two entries in the same day - wait, technically three. Because I just posted a new recipe on my recipe blog. Check it out when you have a minute.

And I want to hear back if any of you try out the recipes. I know my Auntie Lynne tried the Sweet and Sour Chicken, and even put her own twist on it. Click here to see it. Plus she has a ton of other recipes that she's posted. So yummy!

Now I'll just leave you with a quote by Charles Schultz that was at the end of a great email my friend Teri sent me today. It just made me laugh since I'm always trying to figure out what time it is tomorrow in China, where my parents are currently living:

"Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia"

I know - I'm a slacker!

I cannot believe how long it has been since I've posted! So sorry. I even remember thinking a couple of times, "oh, that would be perfect to blog today" but did I ever get to it? No. Do I even remember what any of those blog moments were? Not a clue. Oh well.

And I'm going to be a slacker yet again. Because I want to tell you about another blog that I read. Actually I read lots of great blogs - you can check them out over on the side bar. But the one I want to tell you about is A Feathered Nest. Abby is full of tons of cute and fun to make ideas. And she's hosting a Summer Fun Apron Swap!

She's a little obsessed with aprons (just a LITTLE). Now, I know some of you may not consider youselves to be crafty, and that even if you do, you may not sew. But for the rest of you - I thought this looked like fun. I'm totally going to do it. I'm already mentally planning what I'm going to do. Anyway - I just wanted to share the love. Come join us, you don't need to know her - I sure don't, other than through her blogging. Check out her blog for all the nitty-gritty details.


That's it for me today - Juliana is being a little grumpy right now, so I'm must go attend to her (doesn't that make her sound like a princess or something).