WAIT! STOP!

I did NOT do this to my blog! Someone, I won't name any names (but you can figure it out for yourself on the bottom right column), but someone, hacked into my blog and picked the most ludicrous background she could find. I didn't know until my friend Dawnell commented on it.

Truthfully, I've been wanting to change my background, but this is not what I had in mind.

I don't remember how to change my back drop, and I don't have time to figure it out right now. But I'm certainly more motivated to get it done.

Geeeeezzzzz.....

Last Dream Package

This time Melinda was sending a package to me and our theme was "handmade". She made such sweet things!!

First I want to acknowledge the cute rose she drew on my package. I just love little details like this...



When I opened this box it was like I was 7 years old again. My mom often made me things with roses on them because my middle name is Rose. That's exactly what Melinda had done and it was so nostalgic and cute.

First pic is a little rose necklace. I actually sneaked into my mom's room and stole a rose necklace from her once when I was like 6 because I thought it should belong to me. Now one does :-)

Second pic is the handmade pillow and covered hat box. As soon as I saw this pillow I could just imagine Melinda stitching on every single one of these buttons into a letter M. It must have taken forever! Melli, thanks for taking that kind of time for me. And this box is perfect for storing my craft ribbons!

Third and Fourth pics are my cute shabby chic rose bracelet. I love this! I've gotten lots of compliments and I'm totally making some more! SO cute.

Thank you Melinda!!!! I love you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Once Upon a Poison Oak...

We have a little tiny house and nice big super great yard. I mean, look how pretty!

But there are a few dangers, the creek and the busy street we are on, for starters. But the one that sneaked up on us has been the worst... poison oak. Here's how it went down.

During 2006 Spring yard clean-up, (you know raking up dead leaves and things that were buried in the snow) I developed an allergic reaction to something I touched. It was horrible. It would itch beyond belief, but scratching or rubbing it was like setting my arm on fire. NO JOKE. It kept me awake at night for over a week. It had hard blisters that would "weep". EW. EW. EW.(I've spared you the nastiness of the weeping sores photos- but I do have them!). I finally saw a doctor and found out it had gotten infected too. He had no idea what caused it except that it looked like a plant allergy. FINE. So we looked for new plants that I may have come in contant with, and Jeff killed it with poison. My arms took nearly 4 weeks to heal.

There are all kinds of wild vegetation that we can't identify in our yard. We don't care though, it's pretty. One spring purple wild flowers sprang up, and they continueto bloom every spring. Awesome. Then another spring this dark leafy ground cover started growing along the creek. I loved that too- so pretty! It got a little taller as June progressed but I still thought it was pretty.

At the end of June 2006, Jeff went on a trip for about a week. We were just fine at home. On Sunday night I let the kids play in the yard for 30 minutes before bed, got them cleaned up, in pajamas, and kissed them goodnight.

No one was sick or unhappy, but after 3 year old Bear took his nap the next day he looked like this:

Odd. Slightly swollen but nothing alarming. I decided to take a picture to so I could compare it later to see if it got worse. IT DID.

My mother-in-law-offered to take the kids overnight so I could have a break from being a single mother (she's crazy awesome like that). But she called me the next morning to tell me that he looked worse. MUCH worse. When I saw him I was horrified- so I rushed him to Insta Care.

The strange thing was that he really didn't seem uncomfortable. They did a lot of shoulder shrugging and one doctor suggested it was probably poison oak. Of course! My neighbors had mentioned in the past that there was a lot of poison oak in our area.

Over the next few days he got a little worse...

... and then slowly better. By the time Jeff got home, Bear looked like this:

Jeff said he looked Chinese.

Unfortunately, by the time Jeff got home, MY lips looked like this:

I had kissed Bear goodnight before I'd known he'd rubbed flipping poison oak all over his face! I don't know why it took a few days longer to affect me, but I'm glad it waited because I was able to focus on my poor swollen baby.

I swore to Jeff that if we ever got poison oak again we were MOVING. I was not going through this again. We finally figured out which plant it was and got rid of it (it's that nice big leafy plant behind Bear at the creek's edge). And every spring we carefully watch for new growth and keep it at bay.

The End. (Don't use this for a bed time story. I've found that these pictures frighten children... and some adults.)

Camera Shy

Gabers is actually not camera shy at all. But the other day he was very grouchy and did NOT want his big brother taking his picture in the car.

That's all . I just thought these pictures were funny. :-)

Rez Prez

I was under the impression in the past that as a member of a Relief Society Presidency one would have a sobering and serious work to do. And although that can be true, I've found that as a member of such a presidency there is much more love and cheerfulness and silliness than I expected. I've found some of my dearest friends.

Holla to Sue, Heidi and Joannie- MY Rez Prez.


We went out for a birthday dinner last month and it was too much fun.

When we got to the restaurant it was so windy outside (stupid stupid wind) that it revamped our hair for us. Don't Sue and I look pretty??? This is honestly truly what happened to our hair. Haha!

Heidi forgot her reading glasses, so all she had to read her menu with were her prescription sunglasses! I couldn't stop giggling as she read her menu or looked up at the waiter over her glasses- she looked like some starlet who didn't want to be recognized in public.

We mostly ordered a bunch of appetizers for dinner. It was so unhealthy and indulgent, but boy was it GOOD.

We then shared a slice of chocolate cake.... Happy Birthday Sue and Heidi!!!!

Me and Joannie digging in....

After dinner we went shopping for a bit. Yes, we're in a lingerie department. Don't judge us, sometimes a girl needs a new bra!

I love you Rez Prez!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love hanging out with you a few times a week, caring for others, meeting new people in our ward, sharing our testimonies, and learning from your greatness. And I can't WAIT for our next birthday dinner! :-)

Toilet Troubles

This is Jeff. He was woken on Saturday morning 2 weeks ago by children telling him the toilet didn't work. So poor Jeff tried to plunge the toilet for 10 minutes. When that didn't work he got out the pipe snake and worked at that for about 20 minutes. THEN he ended up disassembling the whole thing.

He then took it outside to find out what may or may not be blocking the flow of traffic, so to speak.

Here is the culprit:

HOW IN THE WORLD DOES ONE ACCIDENTALLY FLUSH THE LID TO AN AEROSOL CAN? How?!?! Why can't anyone tell me exactly how this happened?

After the mystery was solved, Jeff had to go to Home Depot to buy replacement bolts and a seal (or something, don't ask me) before he could put it all back together... sigh...

You know, my brother told me that somewhere in cyber space theres an entire blog dedicated to stuff that children have ruined of their parent's. I understand that anyone can post things. I may look in to that.

And that is how Jeff spent the first 2 hours of his Saturday morning. The End.

Dream Package numero dos

This time for our Dream Package swap the theme was "My Favorite Things". In the rotation Sheryl and I were sending to each other. It was sorta funny that we would end up doing this particular theme for each other because we kind of already know all each other's favorite things. I mean, come on, we've been best friends for fifteen years. But it ended up being really fun to decide which things to do! It was a challenge to make ourselves stay in the budget, and it was also really funny to discuss it all after we got our packages to see the thought process that went into each item.

See all my cute brown paper packages tied up with strings! FUN. Sheryl is gift wrapper/presenter extraordinaire.

I got lots of cute things: notepad and pen because she has always LOVED to doodle, Milano cookies because if you don't love these frankly you're stupid, chick flick, children's books, fabric quarters...

...and MY most favorite thing in the package, a satin flower she made to clip onto my purse. I bought this functional, yet somewhat boring bag months ago and I've been trying to figure out how to snazz it up. She bought satin in the exact colors I had mentioned and I LOVE IT. As a matter of fact, I lost it at the grocery store the other day and I panicked. I went straight back to the store and hunted it down. Whew! Thank you to Adam the bagger at Macey's for finding it for me!!!!

Special recognition goes to Nathanael and Max. They took some of these photos for me and also discovered this hidden message in the bottom of the box under the packing paper!

I love my best friend Sheryl and I love that she'd a doer. We're different and same in all the right ways to make us mesh just perfectly.