While the cat's away the mice will play!

Actually...I haven't been THAT bad while Chris has been out of the country...but I have had some sort of weird burst of energy and I just have ALL of these things that I want to do!

A few days ago I decided that I needed to Spring Clean my house! I call it Spring Cleaning because I am fairly confident that by the time I get DONE it will be Spring if not Summer! I'm kind of a slow cleaner, and Bubby doesn't make cleaning very easy on top of being slow. :)

I Spring Cleaned my bedroom and also my bathroom. I am also doing a 21 day challenge with my sisters to "Get Organized". So on top of Spring Cleaning, I am also dumping drawers and cupboards and trying to get on top of my mess!

I've given myself a "timeline" of sorts. I have a "job" that I tell myself has to be done "sometime" today! It may be done by noon...it may be done by 11:30 p.m. but it HAS to be done by that day. That way if Bubby is just too lonely and needs me for a couple of hours, I can still play with him and not feel too "guilty".

Today's "job" was walls and baseboards upstairs. It's amazing how GROSS your walls get, and how much BETTER I feel having them cleaned! They need painted terribly, but that's another project and another story. For right now...they are clean! Part of washing the walls and baseboards included the stairway. Probably the worst part of all!

Some of you may remember that my stairway has three very precisely cut holes in my wall. These holes have been there for MONTHS and I HATE them! Chris has been really busy with work, and really doesn't have much "free" time. In the time that he DOES have, he has been working down in the basement, so I try not to harp too much on the holes in the wall...but I really do hate them!



If you DON'T remember how this all came to be, you can go read the story HERE. It's a good story if you need a good laugh!

So I came up with a plan to "fix" them. I have this little black end table in my kitchen that I love, but it kind of gets pushed in the corner and filled up with junk. My friend Susan has the cutest little table on her stairway landing that I have always thought was so fun! So I decided to take my little table and move it up to the stairway landing.

That covered up ONE of the holes... :) The other two I had to get more creative with. I found these two artist canvas' at Walmart and some really cute fabric and decided to make some wall hangings.





I've seen tutorials on these little wall hangings, and they always looked super easy and fun to make. So I decided to make some.

I just hot glued the fabric onto the back of the canvas



and then just kind of wrapped the fabric like you would a present.



This was the final outcome:



Then I hung them on the wall, and Viola...the holes are fixed!!



Bubby came up the stairs and said "Oh Lookie that Mommy! I like it!" So at least he liked it. LOL

I texted a picture of it to Chris and he wasn't as impressed. In fact his reply to me was "It's very interesting....maybe this will be my motivation to fix it!" Well...Rude, but if that really is true, then I guess...mission accomplished! :)

"A Chompie Pampis?"

Oh this little boy of mine! He truly makes the days exciting, and funny!

Tonight when I went to change his diaper aka "Pampis" as he likes to call it, he insisted that CHOMPIE get his pampis changed also!

If there is one thing I have learned in the 2 1/2 years that I have been privileged to have this little monkey in my life, it's that you learn to pick your battles with him! I knew that the battle between him and I would be much worse than the battle between Chompie and I, so I did as he asked and put a diaper on the poor dog.





Poor Chompie. He's such a good sport! He only struggled a little bit, but then he let me put a diaper on him, and in turn Bubby let me put one on him. Win-Win, well except for poor Chompie, who very OBVIOUSLY lost! :)

The "Foo Game"

No one but Chris and I will probably find this post funny, but I had to write this down so I wouldn't forget it!

A few weeks ago I was out doing some Christmas shopping and I had Keric with me. We were in Old Navy and I could tell he was getting upset with the time it was taking me to find things. He was getting restless, and I was trying to hurry. He found a huge gumball machine that had all sorts of different prizes in it, and he insisted that he have a "coin" to buy a prize. By this time I was willing to do WHATEVER would make him happy for 10 more mins. So I gave him a quarter and we watched the little yellow container come down the clear plastic spiral with the mystery prize inside! Keric quickly opened the container and out popped this big huge plastic dice!

My immediate reaction was "What a waste of 25 cents", but he was thrilled with his dice! He threw it ALL over the store, and had a great time finding it in all sorts of great hiding places. After we left Old Navy I kind of forgot about the obnoxious big dice, but Keric didn't!

He had put it in his pocket, and played with it for several days! Maybe it wasn't such a wasted 25 cents after all? A few days later, he wanted me to play a game with him and his dice. This was a game that he had either made up, or one he had played with Chris or one of the kids, I don't know, but he was very specific in what I was to do to play this game.

I stood on one end of our kitchen table, and he stood at the other end, and we threw the dice back and forth, back and forth! I promise we have NEVER taken him to Vegas, or Wendover for that matter and let him play craps! Anyway...I did this for probably 10 mins, and I could tell that this game could possibly go on for HOURS if I let it. I being the wonderful mother that I am, told him that I had things to do, and didn't have time to play his "foo game" anymore.

Now why I chose to call it a "Foo game" I don't really know, but I did. He cried and asked me to "Peas pay Foo Game!" and so I played for another little bit.

For days after he would lose his dice and ask me "Where Foo Game go?" It took me awhile to figure out what he was even talking about! Thankfully I realized it was the dice he was looking for, and together we would go searching for "Foo Game".

Well I don't know where the dice has since gone, He hasn't asked for it and I haven't seen it for awhile. I kind of forgot about it until this morning.

This morning while we were getting ready for church Keric came bringing in a game of "Yahtzee" and announced that he had found the "Foo Game!" He was so excited about the foo game and wanted me to open it immediately. I had to explain to him that we had to get ready to go to Nursery, so we didn't have time to play the foo game, but we would play it later.

He then sat on the floor and looked at the picture and proudly counted out 5 "foo's", 1 cup, and 8 "coins".

Oh this little boy makes me laugh so hard some days I think I will pee my pants! I suppose one day I should tell him that they are called "DICE" but somehow "Mommy I play Dice Game?" just doesn't sound as funny as "Mommy I play Foo Game?"

For the record...after Keric asked at least 50 times, we DID play the "Foo Game" tonight, and MOMMY won! YEA!!!

Writers Block....

It seems like things happen so fast, and that with facebook, scrapbooking and two blogs, I feel like I just repeat myself, and well...no one wants to hear me ramble on again.

Fast forward to the end of the year, and I haven't written anything here since OCTOBER!!!! Chris is good about reminding me of this on a rather frequent basis, but well...see above paragraph. :)

In all honesty, I DID post a layout a day in November on my 365 blog, so it hasn't REALLY been since October. :)

December seems to have been a total whirlwind! For whatever reason I feel like I have been running around like a chicken with my head cut off this whole month!

We did have lots of fun though...and even though I feel like it went by like a whirlwind, and my house SHOWS it, it was a great month! :)

So...instead of trying to catch up on an entire month, and bore you all with my long-windiness, I'll just post some pictures of our crazy month!

Hope you all had a wonderful Holiday Season and a WONDERFUL New Year! Bring on 2011!!


Decorating the Tree


Christmas Cards



Making Reindeer Cupcakes for the Ward Party


Lots of Hot Chocolate Nights!



Made Cake Balls for the first time for Neighbor Gifts



Lights at Temple Square with Mama Anne & Matt, Denise, Jack, Anna & Baby Porter.


All Ready for the long trip to Grandma and Grandpa Bennion's!


Of COURSE we played Rock Band at Grandmas!!


A visit from Santa at Grandma Bennion's House



Ice-Skating on Christmas Eve with all the Bennion Cousins



Dreaming of Sugar Plums...well most likely M&M's...while Santa was busy at work


All the cousins waiting at the top of the stairs for the "GO!" from Grandpa. :)


Opening Presents


SO EARLY in the morning! Back in the car on our way home. Good thing we have "games" to play. Thanks Santa!




We left so early in the morning, that we didn't realize we had left poor Puppy behind still sleeping!!! We only noticed when Keric started asking for him...and neither of us had packed him! :( Thankfully Grandma Bennion found Puppy safely sleeping in Keric's bed, and sent him back home. It was a rough few days without Puppy...but we were SO GLAD to have him home again! Thanks Grandma!! Especially for the left over Tootsie Rolls that Puppy didn't eat on his trip! ;)


Happy New Year! Hope 2011 Brings many more wonderful adventures, and a few more blog posts! ;)

I'll Never be my Grandma!

With Conference and the RS Broadcast still being fresh in my mind, I have been asking myself what can I do to be a better wife to my husband and mother to my children!

I constantly feel inadequate about the things that I do and don't do for my family. I love my family, don't get me wrong, but I know there are many MANY things that I can improve on!

I won't make a list of all the many many things that I fail at daily, but let's just say the list is long! :)

I joke with Chris quite a bit that "I'll just never be my Mother" but today I learned that I will also never be my GRANDMA!

Today in Sacrament Meeting the bishop was announcing Super Saturday this coming weekend and he said "So husbands, plan to have your wives gone for a couple of hours, and well...you'll have to get your own lunch." I looked over at Chris and he was kind of laughing, and I said..."So what else is new??" He just kind of chuckled.

My Grandma has made my Grandpa lunch probably everyday of their married life! And I'm not talking about a little sandwich with a few chips and a nice diet Pepsi...I'm talking Fried Chicken, mashed potatoes, fresh carrots, AND dessert! Apparently our Bishop is used to such pampering as well! My husband...not so much! He sometimes gets a sandwich while I'm making Bubby's lunch!

So there is another thing I guess I need to improve on! Good Grief! The list gets added to every day! Maybe I should have just never asked the question!

6 Months and Still Going Strong!

Yesterday I went to Dr. Bertin's office for my 6 month check-up. This is an x-ray of my new hip. Pretty cool huh?

I still can't believe that it's already been 6 months since I had my hip replaced!

In so many ways it seems like it was just yesterday, and in other ways, it seems like it was an eternity ago!

I still thank my Father in Heaven every single day for the miracle that happened to me 6 months ago! Thankfully our brains don't remember pain, but I do remember the limitations that I had 6 months ago.

It was so hard to do the simplest things everyday! Now I hardly think about doing the things I used to dread from day to day!

I still can't believe how easy it is to climb my stairs more than twice a day, to go grocery shopping, to chase my child, to go on a walk with my friends! It just baffles my mind some days!

Chris has said many times, that since my 24/7 pain has been taken away from me, I am a different person! I'm much happier, and much more the girl he married. I think he's right, because I FEEL happier! :)

I get stronger everyday! My limp is pretty much totally gone. It comes back if I'm really tired, or have worked too hard that day. The other day Keric took off running and much to my surprise AND his, I RAN after him, and caught him! Maybe he has finally met his match? haha

I will truly be forever grateful for Dr. Bertin and his staff, for my sweet husband and children for taking care of me for so long, and for my Father in Heaven, who knows me and who answers not only MY prayers, but the prayers of so many family members and friends!

Here is to another great 6 months...and MANY MANY MORE!!!

Brownie Supreme!

This will in no way be as exciting to anyone else as it is to me, but since this is MY blog, I get to blog about whatever I want to...so I'm going to blog about this! :)

At the beginning of the month I signed up to participate in a month long contest over at Brownie Scraps. The prize was a three month guest spot as a Brownie Supreme. A Brownie Supreme is a person who gets to scrap layouts with ALL the kits that are sold at Brownie Scraps. Basically you are on the creative team for the whole store, versus being on a creative team for one or two designers who sell at the store. These layouts are then used all over to advertise scrap booking products that are sold at the store.

The contest was REALLY fun! There were probably 40+ people who entered the contest, and it was all based on "votes" from store customers and also the designers themselves. The layouts who got the most votes for that week, got a certain number of points, and the 5 people with the highest amount of votes at the end of the contest were offered guest spots on the team for three months.

I felt pretty good about my layouts. I worked really hard on each one of them. We had a challenge every week, and I really had to "stretch" myself in some of these challenges! They were NOT easy!

The first week our challenge was to scrap our "everyday life". The catch was, the ONLY words on the page that could be used, were lyrics from a song that described our life! Um...my life consists of laundry, cleaning, poopy diapers and scrap booking! Not real exciting!! So I looked through what felt like HUNDREDS of songs, and finally found one that I felt like described my life: "Blessed" by Martina McBride. This was my week one layout:



The Second week was an even HARDER. This week we had to scrap a body part, and we could only use three words to describe our picture. This was my layout for the second week:



The third week we had to scrap someone or something we loved and then make a page that looked like a traditional scrapbook page! So basically a page that you could scrap with actual paper supplies. This was hard for me since I was really never a paper scrapper, but this was my page for the third week.



Each week we could get a possible 6 points per layout, depending on the votes we received. By the end of week 4, I only had 5 points! :( I was so sad!

By the end of the challenge I was pretty much down towards the bottom of the list, and figured I had lost my chance. Yesterday however I got an e-mail from Romana, who is the owner of Brownie Scraps. She said that all the designers "loved my layouts" and she wanted to offer me a PERMANENT position on the Brownie Supreme team!

I was so excited I actually screamed out loud! It's a huge deal to be on a store Creative Team, and I am totally flattered that the designers chose ME to advertise their products!

So I have been scrapping away, and having a great time, as you can probably tell! :)







Anyway....that's my big fun news for the week! My life is a little boring, so I get excited over silly things I know....but...I'm pretty excited! :)