My Poem

Hahahahhaahahaha.... I'm still laughing about this....

So last night for Relief Society night, we had a service auction. We each wrote down 2 services we were willing to offer. Then we answered questions and got points based on the answers. I won a lunch date with my friend Michell and from Linda- a poem about me that would be presented with a flower. My services offered were to help plan a kids birthday party and bake a batch of cinnamon rolls.

My friend Stacey's, twin sister (who was in town visiting), got the cinnamon rolls. Since Natalie leaves in a few days, this morning I made 2 batches and went to take it to them. When I got home, Linda was pulling out of my driveway. She had left a "gift" for me on the porch. We laughed that we were both already delivering the services that were won last night.

True to her word- she gave me a poem and a flower. The poem is so hysterical that I had to document it. Here it goes:

Ode to Sarah 

by: Sue Heck 

(which is what we jokingly call Linda. 

She reminds a few of us of Sue Heck, from the tv show, "The Middle") 

I have a dear friend, 

who calls herself, Sarah. 

She is lovely and wise

And oh, so fair-ah 

Some call her a "Hoarder!"

Others call her "Party Queen."

Put them together, you got Sarah:

A well-supplied Party Machine!

She smiles when she thinks

of all the holes in her wall.

Right now, she's got roughly

398 in all! 

And if holes make your husband

cringe with dread and fear, 

She will happily convince him, 

Holes can magically disappear. 

She likes a good bargain

She coupons with all her might!

She the "YES- Paper Bandit" 

Who only comes out at night. 

"One out, three in!!" 

Is her motto, yes sir.

But between that and the holes...

I've been grounded from her. 

Hoarder or not, 

She is also quite neat. 

She'll clean any mess,

(Unless its raw meat.)

She likes to sew skirts, 

to wear around town. 

But beware the t-shirt skirt!

It tends to fall down!

If you ever meet Sarah, 

Do tell her Hello!

Then ask for a scoop

of her red, white and blue Jell-o. 

The End

Oh my gosh, isn't this great!!?? Since some of you don't live here, I should explain a few things....

• Lee always calls me a Hoarder because of all my craft stuff. So now people in the ward actually think that I'm a hoarder. For the record, I'm not. You've seen my closets. :) 

• My friends here call me the 'Party Queen' because of my love of parties. 

• Linda's husband cringes when she hangs anything on her walls because he hates the holes. He's very worried they won't get back their deposit from their apartment. I keep assuring him that it'll be ok, and that I haven't lost a deposit yet and "look how many things I've hung!" I have also tried to explain to him that if he's really worried, they can putty the holes and repaint. ("aka: the holes magically disappear) For the record, he isn't convinced yet. 

• The YES paper is a free paper that we get with the weekly coupons. Some of our neighbors don't ever pick up the paper from their driveway, so I swipe it. It's usually at night, unless I have Amy or Will do it. Once Amy asked, "Mom- why are we taking things from people??" I then started having Will do it. He doesn't ask questions. hahaha :)  

• Last night Linda was remarking about her shoe that had broken. I had several pairs of shoes break this summer so I was telling everyone how I replaced one... with 3. And that the "1 in, 1 out," rule doesn't apply to shoes.

• The story of my maternity skirt falling down is still legendary around here. (I had made the maternity top with an old t-shirt. It was a very bad idea that I got from a blog)

• Last year, I hosted a book club for the book 1776. I did it a red, white and blue theme. And I made  red, white and blue jello. They all still laugh at me for this too. 

So anyway, there you have it. This poem is a keeper, for sure! I've got to find a place to hang it! Although I know it was somewhat meant as a joke, and for sure it's hilarious.... but Linda's family will move next year when her husband finishes his PhD program. It's too sad for me to even think of that, as she is a dear friend of mine, one of the best I've ever had. This will always be something I treasure (and read when I need a good laugh!) These were auction points well spent!

Busy, Busy

When Lee was hired at MTSU, another guy named Josh was hired as well. Josh's wife, Gladys, and I have hit it off and have been wanting to get together for awhile. On Friday night I went over there and she showed me how to do these cute mini photobooks. They are like scrapbooks, but smaller. I haven't finished it yet, and I just realized I didn't take a picture, but I'll post it when I'm done. But it was a lot of fun hanging out with her.

She is always baking us wonderful treats, so I made them some from-scratch brownies. My favorite recipe. Although I used 60% cacao chips this time and I did NOT like that. Waaaay too rich, almost bad. I won't be doing that again. :) 

This past weekend was General Conference and we really enjoyed that. Although it was a little frustrating.... we had just finished fall break and then we watched conference all day Saturday and Sunday... the kids were going nuts from all the "sitting around." 

I ordered some fabric and got it in yesterday. Lee worked late, so I whipped up these pillows for the front porch. It looks so festive now. I love it. I wish the lighting was better, but I took these pics as teh sun was setting in front of the house. 

I'm always messing around with the inside decor and I found this shelf that hadn't been used yet. So I used it. Right by the front door. 

Today I started my triathalon training. It's long been a dream of mine to do one, and I decided that next year is the year to do it. I started another blog to chronicle the process of that. That address is lessonsinatri.blogspot.com.  When I get a few more minutes, I'll link it to this blog. It's also in its raw stages. It'll be a simpler blog and it will remain public. So everyone can keep up with my progress! haha. 

Well, it's off to Relief Society night. Lee teaches a night class, so I've got the kids in their PJ's and we'll see what fun tonight has in store. :)  Have I mentioned that I love our ward yet?? :) 

Creativity and More Organization

Where to start.... ok so first and foremost, Amy and Will slept like babies the night we got back from GA. It was such a relief as I was exhausted from their lack of sleeping the entire time we were there. Of course, a healthy dose of melatonin might have helped. I love that stuff.

Lee taught Tuesday night, and when he got home, he brought me the prettiest lilies. Love that guy. Then next morning, Amy drew them. She did a great job! She just loves to draw.

Will likes to draw too, but for some reason he'd rather draw all over his legs than on paper. Maybe that's why he always takes his pants off??? If he has no pants, his canvas (his legs) are free.

Yesterday Amy was a cat. I think she's finally settled on that for Halloween. Anyhow, she went all out- making paper ears (taped to a headband) and a tail for herself. Then she made a face. It cracked me up when she taped her cat face to her real one. She certainly is creative!

The kids have been eating constantly. Bread seems to be their food of choice as I found these crusts all over our living room (these were from Will, of course). I should just make bread everyday, but I'm too lazy and would rather buy it.

Yesterday I finally did it- I bought Vodka!! Now before anyone freaks out, I did it because I want to try making my own vanilla. I've seen blogs and have heard about it for years and I finally took the plunge. Actually, I bought vanilla beans a long time ago.... but never went to the liquor store because I felt like 1) bringing kids into a liquor store was wrong and 2) going into the liquor store while pregnant was really wrong. So yesterday I was by myself and decided to do it.

Can I just say... it's obvious I have no idea what I'm doing in there. And I felt totally weird being there. I had no idea there were so many kinds of liquor!! I mean, I know there were a lot, but I didn't know there were that many! And at all different prices... how does anyone afford to drink?? I can't even imagine affording meat- let alone liquor!

Anyhow, I found the vodka section and from there... so many choices!! I finally chose the cheapest one and went on my way. I'm sure it's some awful brand or something, looking back I should have gotten the vanilla flavored one. But really, I have no idea what I'm doing. Lee laughed when I came home with my brown paper bag!

I added some vanilla beans, dated it and stuck it in a dark corner. It will sit for a few months and then, hopefully will be lovely, homemade vanilla. If it works- its waaaaay cheaper than the McCormack stuff I've been buying! (I'll keep you updated)

My other big adventure the past few days is the playroom! Or the craft side of it. (The playroom side was done awhile ago)

This was the before....

And now the entire room is neatly organized....

Right now I'm using our old computer table for my sewing machine. Mostly because we don't have any chairs that are a normal height. I really should remember to buy one.  Mom and Dad brought me the small (normal sized) table (from the old house) and its been great when I lay out a piece of fabric! I'll also use it as my main "crafting" table.

Over here is mainly my bins of fabric. Sigh. I think I have the problem that so many sewing enthusiasts have- fabric! It's so hard to pass up a great fabric, even if you have no idea what to do with it. Yet. :)  (Lee is going to die when he reads this)

In the cabinet is basically everything I don't want Will to ever touch... paint, glue, staples, glitter, the list goes on and on. This cabinet will be locked. :)

I need to get a small bookshelf as Grandma gave me a ton of great sewing books. I also have a bunch of other crafting books that I've stashed through the years.

So while it may still look a little chaotic- it's organized chaos at its best. At least I know what I have! And man! I have a lot of it! Geesh- why can't I have a hobby that doesn't require anything?? (which is what Lee says in his mind about me every night.... :)

Anyone notice anything different about our porch??............ Our rocking chairs? Oh yes!!!

I have been wanting those babies for quite awhile now. (They've been in Lee's mom's attic) Lee was supposed to bring them back when he went to Dragoncon, but he forgot. I was not going to forget. So when we saw her, I got them from the attic, tied them to the roof of the van and brought them back. Don't they look lovely? Yay!  I have plans to make some pillows and "gussy" up the porch a bit. I'm so glad my sewing area is now clean! It'll make working a lot easier!

I've also been doing some halloween decorating, but I'll post pictures when I get it all done.....

Hmmm.....I just re-read this post.... you'd never guess that I threw my back out the morning we left mom's and I had to lay on the couch all day Wednesday, would you? Thankfully things are better and I can now do things like get Tyler from his crib and bend over again. Hurray for no back pain! And seriously, HOW old am I?? I thought I'd be at least 60 before I said lines like, "I threw out my back....."

Short Trip to GA

Amy's fall break is this week and we decided to go to GA for a few days. Lee's break is different, so he stayed home. We got to GA on Saturday morning.

That evening, Mom and I went to the Relief Society broadcast... there was a dinner beforehand for all the sisters in the stake. Since that's the stake that my pals from Carrollton ward are in- I got to see lots of them! Mom said I knew more people than she did.

Probably the biggest highlight was seeing my dear friend Kristy. Oh how I love her!

The dinner was good, I only caught about half of the broadcast because I was in and out with Tyler. At one point, Mom was holding Tyler and he started laughing. And it was quite loud! The entire room (almost) turned and looked at us. Leave it to Mom to be disruptive. :)  Afterwards quite a few people said, "Are you the one with the baby that was laughing??" Uhhhh... yeah.... as I ducked my head and ran. Mom, getting me into trouble. (just kidding- anyone that made a comment remarked on how adorable it was). But the best part of all of it was hanging out with Mom.

Sunday morning the kids and I headed to Carrollton for a quick visit with Lee's mom. Will was asleep when we took pictures, bummer. I really wanted one with her and the 3 grandkids.

The old homestead is looking well. (The house we bought when we got married and now rent)

That evening, Adam's gang came over for dinner and to celebrate Jackson's birthday.

Pretty early on, Will fell and got a nice egg on his forehead.

Tyler adored Uncle Adam.

Jackson liked his gifts.

Look at all the blur! I need a super fast action mode to catch all of these guys standing still!

Ty-Ty loved Grandpa too

Lovely Adam and Lauren

Jackson, Maddox, Amy and a part of Will

While we were there, Mom had Amy and Will collecting acorns. Amy wanted to get 100 of them. So she devised a system- she made 10 piles of 10 acorns each. She said it was easier to count to 100 this way. Mom came up with an experiment- to put them in a pile and the next day see how many were missing (via squirrel or chipmunk). I don't think Amy remembered to look the next day.

Tyler also started sitting up on his own a little more. Mom said, "Did you know he could do that?" I said, "Nope. I should probably take a picure..." Then he fell down.

Yesterday it rained and rained, poured and poured all day. So we stayed inside and all had good naps. I decided to leave today since the kids hadn't been sleeping well. I actually took a picture of them last night, when they finally fell asleep.... but they woke back up in the middle of the night and that made for a very grumpy momma.

Also, Dad was out of town and Mom has to work the next 2 days. Thursday they work at the temple and then Friday they head to NY (I'm jealous!!). So they have a very busy week as well!

It was a great, quick visit! We always love going "home." :)

Babysitting

On Friday night, some friends asked us to watch their kids while they went to the temple. "Of course!" we said. It turned out that we only had 3 of their 5, but that was ok. There was plenty of fun for all!

Amy and Kirsten. They are the same age and best buds.

Kimball. Such a funny kid! He ate half of a large pizza... and he's only 8. I guess Lee and I will need to increase our food budget in the next few years.

Tyler, just sitting cute.

Will was determined to figure this out...

And these 2 guys.... Will and Jarom... had the best teamwork of any 2 yr olds... (they are a month apart)

The kids colored with chalk and when the driveway got boring, our mailbox got some touching up.

Then it was movie time. Surprisingly, it worked out pretty well. Afterwards we put Will down for bed and their kids (and Amy) went upstairs to lie down. And they actually fell asleep!... eventually.

It was fun having them here and as always- we appreciate it when other kids wear ours out!