Quiz

What could cause a child to quake with fear, retreat to the floor of the car, and not stop crying until we were far away?

Linda the Llama? Nope, she's too gentle.

Willy the Wildebeest? Too bored with humans.

The pretty Oryx? No way! He let you pet him.

The other type of Oryx with the straight horns? Nope, wouldn't even come close.




The big bison? Too sleepy!

It's Ozzy. Ozzy the Ostrich! Helped himself to our car, and nipped Tyler's finger. He looks sweet here, but he's a maniac!

The Zoo

Several families in our ward have Zoo memberships. It's very inexpensive, it's something for the whole family, and the San Antonio Zoo is supposedly one of the best in the nation. So we decided to jump on the bandwagon and join too.

We had a lot of fun fake fishing...

Drumming...

Posing...


Jumping...



And climbing...

...Maybe next time he'll be interested in the animals!

This Made Me Cry

If you've been following NieNie at all, you know all about her and her husband's plane crash, and subsequent fight for life; you know all about her burns; you know all her family, especially her sister Courtney, who is raising her children. You also know how the blogging community has come together to support her and her family, and you know what a missionary tool it's been to thousands.

Well, after several months, Nie Nie is back, and she posted her first blog post AC (after the crash). That picture of her and her husband in their burn bandages...oh, it just hit me hard this morning. That is true love right there. To know how incredible of a couple they were before, and to know that by God's grace they can continue being together, even though it will be painful and costly, and scary, and whatever else...it's a miracle.

And speaking of miracles, how about that plane crash yesterday? Amazing!

Man Tag

My friend and former mission companion, Lindsay, tagged me just in time! I had no idea what to write about today, so here's my version of Husband Tag.

Brad's 5 favorite things:

1. Family

2. Lasagna

3. Playing soccer

4. Watching football

5. Vacations

5 things on his to-do list:

1. Spray the yard w/ weed and bug killer

2. Get a better office space

3. Go gray or bald, so people won't think he's a kid at his job

4. Prepare this week's Sunday School lesson

5. Take family to Wildlife Ranch (thanks TJ and fam!)

5 snacks he loves:

1. Chocolate ice cream

2. Chocolate

3. Cheese ball w/ Wheat Thins

4. Chocolate Chip Cookies

5. m&m's

5 facts you may not know about him:

1. He gets just about all his clothes at thrift stores, but he's a total shoe snob. He would NEVER buy a pair of shoes at some place like Payless.

2. His summer jobs as a kid included picking beans, KFC, and working at a shoe store.

3. He is freakishly strong.

4. He'll be getting his LCSW (the highest licensure in his profession) this month!

5. He loves bubble baths.

5 places he has lived:

1. Idaho

2. Utah

3. Oklahoma

4. Missouri

5.Texas

5 quirky things about him:

1. He compartmentalizes his food. No foods touching each other, unless it's a casserole.

2. He has been known to cheat at board games.

3. He loves the Chicken Soup for the Soul books.

4. He loves the feeling of getting in a really hot car, even on really hot days.

5. When I'm out of town, he has challenges with himself to see if he can go without going to a grocery store or out to eat. He'd eat PB from a spoon rather than go get something somewhere!

I tag anyone who doesn't know what to write about on their next post!

My Word for 2009

Nurture:

• to help develop; help grow
• to feed and protect
• to support and encourage

I feel a real push to be more nurturing this year. I've never thought of myself as a nurturing person. I've never really liked babysitting, or animals, or other nurturing-type things. I think my call to serve in the Primary has kicked me in the bum a little bit towards this. But I don't think this goal ends with the Primary kids.

I can definitely stand to nurture my relationships more: with my husband, my son, friends and family, and the Savior.

I want to learn how to nurture plants better. My dad gave me some MARVELOUS bulbs and I want to treat them right and have some beautiful flowers.

I want to continue nurturing my own health. I've been taking care of myself a little bit more and I want to continue on that path.

This word just has a lot of meaning for me this year, so thanks to Tip Junkie for the challenge.

A Taste of the Holidays

What a great Christmas Season we had! Blogging wasn't exactly first priority, so here's a taste of what we did last month.

Tyler's preschool put on a little Christmas concert for us.

The Big Guy in Red visited our ward party, and Tyler chatted his ear off. Seriously, we had to pry him off Santa's lap, because other kids were starting to get mad.


Our first day in Eugene brought SNOW!!!

Snow Angels with snow are a lot more fun than just pretending, like we do in San Antonio!

Christmas morning line-up. Love the teenager's glee on the top of the stairs. If he'd had his say, we would have waited a couple more hours. As it was, we had to wake all the kids up!

Santa hit paydirt with this one.

Back home in San Antonio, we had to try Pioneer Woman's black-eyed pea salsa on New Year's Day for good luck. We do live in the South now, ya know.

Feelin' Old

This is for all of my 20-something pals from the other night, who, although they knew many things, had NO IDEA who Howard Jones was! Enjoy this taste of the 80's, my friends. And please...watch Better Off Dead at least once before you die!

Can I get an amen from my fellow thirty-somethings?

My Favorite Day!

I have a new favorite day: Tuesday. Yes, Tuesday is nice because it's Play Group, and that's always fun; Tuesday is also nice because Brad has his appointments on our side of town, so sometimes he comes home for lunch; but the reason Tuesday is my favorite day is that...

It's Delivery Day at the 99 cent Store!!

I'm serious, here. I have never seen a dollar store like this before! Here are some of my most recent purchases--all for only 99 cents:

That very same meat at Wal-Mart was $4.88!!! We've also gotten a 5 lb bag of Idaho Potatoes, Waffles, Yoplait yogurt for only .39, Salad, a big bag of onions--they're quite the produce people! Oh, and I forgot--sometimes they have half-gallons of Dreyer's Ice Cream!! It's very crowded on Tuesdays around 11:30am, but worth it! Although I did almost get stampeded today for that cookie dough. People were buying cases of the stuff!

I never would have guessed in my wildest dreams that a dollar store could be soooo awesome!

Mr. Fix It

Mr. Fix It in one of his less-proud moments, after trying to smash an aluminum can on his forehead.

Did your school have superlatives at the end of the year? We did at our senior breakfast, although I didn't know they were called Superlatives until I taught Junior High. Maybe it's a Utah thing. Anyway...you know what I'm talking about. Where you vote for kids in your class on different things. Like cutest hair, or best athlete, or most likely to end up in jail. Fun stuff like that!

The only one I remember from Senior breakfast was that Tonya was voted to have most kids. While 15 years later (has it really been 15 years?! YIKES!) she has four cute ones, she got beat out by our other friend Catharine, who has five! (She not only has five, but had them all by age 27! Go Cat!) I wonder if anyone else in our class has more? Hmmm...

Anyway, back to my point--and I do have one--we have a new Superlative in our house: Best Handyman! Now, when I got married, my loving husband had many qualities I loved and adored; handiness was not one of them. But darned if he hasn't learned how! He is a regular fix-it guy now. Electrical, structural, duct-taping, he does it all! The latest was that he saved us over a Thousand Dollars ($1074.10 to be exact!) by fixing a leak on our water main. We had a guy come over and give an estimate, and he found a couple of problems, I'm not going to name them because, really, it's all blah blah blah to me. But Brad said no thanks, got himself down to Lowes, found a knowledgable guy named Darrell to tell him how to do it, talked to a neighbor, and a little digging, a lot of mud, some pipes, saws, pressure valves, and glue later, ta-da! It's fixed! I and Our Water Bill thank him!

November so Far

November has been busy for us! Brad being gone on a work retreat for three days, tons of Primary stuff, Thanksgiving celebrations at Tyler's school, speaking in church, and meetings, meetings, and more meetings have seemed to take up a lot of time. We also had our home inspection and finished up everything for our 2nd adoption. We should be approved anytime, and online right after that. Sooo...if anyone knows any birth mothers considering adoption, send them our way, k?!

Thankfully, we were able to fit in some fun stuff:

This is where I crashed Spencer and Sara's date night and we enjoyed an EXCELLENT free Veteran's day concert put on by the San Antonio Symphony. These guys were dressed up like revolutionary soldiers and played the fife, bugle, and drum.

Costumes at 75% off are da Bomb.

Creative Daddy hooked up his projecter and laptop and we watched Kung-Fu Panda on the ceiling!

Questions For You

I've decided to start teaching piano lessons. It just makes sense. I play the piano. I love the piano. I have a degree in teaching. I want to stay at home. I want to make some extra money. I know lots of people that want to take piano, but don't know anyone who teaches it. Well, now they do.

I've been researching and preparing for a couple days, but I have some questions for you, my friends and blog friends who either play yourselves or have children who play.

1. What do you like about your/your child's teacher?

2. What do you think is a fair price for a lesson?

3. Do you have a favorite curriculum?

4. Do you have any advice?

More Potty Talk

Tyler has been day-time potty trained for several months now. But he was still wearing nightime diapers until last week. He would sometimes leak even with the diapers, so I thought he just wasn't ready. Several of my friends said that their sons just started having dry diapers in the morning, so that's how they knew they were ready to go diaperless at night. Well, I waited and waited for that to happen, but it never did. Every morning his diaper was full!

I was at the store last week, and as I put the $12 pack of 17 specialty nightime diapers in the cart, I realized I had had enough. The kid is four. He can be diaperless! So I put the diapers back on the shelf and went home to see how it would go over. We had one last diaper, so we told him this was his last one.

Brad was so great. He got our tarp all clean and put it underneath the sheet so we wouldn't have to keep changing the matress pad, too. The first night Ty was wet in the morning, but since then we've gone 5 nights accident free! I think our little guy just knew the diaper was there, so he used it.

Now if we could only master the whole wiping thing...

Travelocity Gnomes

Maybe we've been watching too much of The Amazing Race on TV. Their sponsor is Travelocity, and often the contestants have to find the Travelocity Gnome and bring it to the pit stop with them. Anyway, thought this would be a fun costume. (It also reminds me of my mission. People in Missouri have a strange affinity for gnomes as lawn ornaments! Can I get an amen?)

Here's our version

Here's Travelocity's version.

The Gnome men.

This was inbetween trick-or-treating and the trunk-or-treat. They were both hot. Note to self: Halloween in South Texas is a little bit warmer than Halloween in Northern Utah.

I actually did a bit of research on Gnome families. It turns out the female gnomes are quite homely and only wear grey or brown. So homely, if fact, that the females do not go out in public, only the males. And females start growing beards at around age 350. Hmmm...the guy's costumes were definitely cuter!

I accidentally got a big glob of hot glue on my hat, so I covered it with a picture of a toadstool that said Home Sweet Home. I crack myself up!

Signs

In the car, a day after reading about the Millenium:

Tyler: When is Jesus coming back?

Us: Nobody knows except Heavenly Father.

Tyler: Nobody knows?

Us: No, but we've been given signs to know that He's coming soon. We just need to make sure we're ready anytime.

Tyler: Well, we're ready right?

Us: Well, are we reading scriptures and saying prayers?

Tyler: Yes.

Us: Are we paying tithing? Are we obeying Heavenly Father?

Tyler: I am a very obedient boy.

Us: Yes you are. Obedience is important!

Tyler: Then I guess we're ready. We'll hold 'em up when Jesus comes, right?

Us: What?

Tyler: We'll hold em up.

Us: Hold what up?

Tyler: The signs!

Us: What signs?

Tyler: The signs when Jesus comes! We'll hold em up in our yard, right?

Us: (long pause) Oh, the signs! Well, we're given different kinds of signs to know that Jesus is coming, not actual signs that we hold up...

Who are you like?

Take the Quiz and Share Your Results!

You are thoughtful and care very deeply for your family. A loving home is of great
importance to you and you always try to make people feel welcome. Although you have a great capacity to love, you also have a great capacity to hurt, so at times you can be sensitive. You're firm when you need to be, but people trust your judgment and appreciate the kind way you always handle things.

I know, I didn't LOVE the Twilight series like everyone else. (I hate Bella and Edward's relationship. She should be with Jacob.) But my good friend TJ posted this and it picqued my curiosity to see who I'm most like. I'm glad it's Esme.

Who are you like?

Random

This pic was taken in Fort Worth at the Stockyards during a cattle drive. That blue car with the Go Cougs poster in the window is ours. We had NO IDEA when we parked there that cows with long, sharp horns would be traipsing by. There was a moment when I thought we might get horned!

I got gas for $2.22 today!! I'm sooooo happpppyyy!

I finally made up my mind and voted today (early voting--avoid the lines)! I love voting!

How do the primaries in your ward or stake excuse children? Do they wait for the parents to pick them up? Is there a big back up at the door? Is there a more efficient way to do this?

The Cake

It started around his second birthday. Ty was really into Elmo, and saw an Elmo cake at the store. Only I didn't want to pay 50,000 dollars for some cheap-o cake, so I decided to make one myself. He loved it! I enjoyed doing it. And so a tradition was born.

Birthday #3. Spiderman was all the rage. To this day he has never actually seen a spiderman cartoon or movie, but he loves him all the same. I was especially proud of this cake.

Birthday #4. Let's back up here a moment. Just a few weeks after his third birthday, he somehow decided that he wanted a Jesus cake for his fourth birthday. I thought that was cute, but didn't think too much about it, because I was sure he would change his mind before his birthday, which was almost a year away! Only he never changed his mind. All year he talked about his Jesus cake, and never wavered!

So here is where a mother gets confused. Is it disrespectful to put Him on a cake? How do you cut the cake? Who gets what part of His face? It doesn't seem right to just pick at the leftovers like our family tends to do (my sister-in-law calls this phenomenon the Domecake, because the cakes always end up as a circle as we pick at them one bite at a time). After worrying for awhile, I came to the conclusion that if my little boy looks to Jesus as his hero, then that's a great thing, and maybe He would be honored.

So...don't laugh, I did the best I could!






Ty loved it! I just hope that next year we're back to an earthly cake!

p.s. Please ignore the lame-o toothpicks that he's blowing out. I forgot the candles!

Interview with Ty

My friend Tonya interviewed her son and tagged anyone else to do the same. It was funny to hear what Ty had to say.

1. What is something that Mom always says to you? " Listen."

2. What makes Mom happy? "Me"

3. What makes Mom sad? "When I don't do the right things."

4. How does your Mom make you laugh? "By saying silly words."

5. What was you Mom like as a child? "Like me!"

6. How old is your Mom? "4."

7. How tall is your Mom? "The same as I was when I was Number Three."

8. What is her favorite thing to do with you? "Play Transformers!"

9. What does your Mom do when you're not around? "You just go somewhere."

10. If your Mom becomes famous what would it be for? "For everybody."

11. What is your Mom really good at? "At Transformers"

12. What is your Mom not very good at? "It's hard for you to play with Transformers."

13. What does your mom do for her job? "You be silly."

14. What is Mom's favorite food? "Daddy's Special Oatmeal"

15. What makes you proud of Mom? "When we get birthday cards and birthday presents."

16. If your Mom was a cartoon character who would she be? "I don't know."

17. What do you and your Mom do together? "Play with Transformers."

18. How are you and your Mom the same? "We both play."

19. How are you and your Mom different? "Cause we have different shirts on and different pants."

20. How do you know your Mom loves you? "Cause I love you."

Focusing on the Positive

OK. So our Dallas trip wasn't as joyful as we had hoped. So our mighty Cougars didn't even show up to play. So it was embarrassing to sit among the TCU fans (who really were very nice) trying to explain to them why we were ranked 8th in the country. So we're out of the running for a BCS bowl. So that's millions of dollars to the school that we won't get.

There were some positives:

Ty got to meet Cosmo face to face. We named our car after Cosmo, so this is a big deal for him.

Ty got to meet our other favorite Ty! He was so nice, even when we came back to get another picture since the first one on Brad's phone (we forgot our camera) didn't get saved. Here's our Ty saying how old he was when Ty Detmer asked him.

I'm just glad we got the pictures before TCU broke the longest winning streak in the nation. There weren't as many smiles after the game.

p.s. Isn't it so great that the last time the Cougars lost (16 games ago), we were there to see it in Tulsa? I'm thinking we're jinxed. Maybe the next time they come to our area of the country we should pass.

Spooky

This was our fun FHE project tonight. I found the idea online somewhere--I googled ModPodge projects, cause I was in the mood to decoupage. I love that word: decoupage.

Anyway, very simple to make, and tons of fun for a three (almost four!) year old.

I couldn't find the exact site where I got the idea, but there's pretty much the same thing on a site called Skip to My Lou.

Another tip: if you don't have the glassware lying around waiting to be decoupaged, go to a thrift store, they've got all sorts of funky shapes and sizes. I got mine for 49 cents each.