Loooove songs

Today being a lovey-type day, I thought it would be fun to put a few of my favorite mushy songs about love on here.

-Just a little blurb about each one:

1. Je t'aime
This is our special song. One night Kraig drove me to this pretty overlook, and he played this song for me. I spoke enough French to understand the words without it losing any beauty in translation, and it pretty much melted me. We also did a walz in front of everyone to this at our reception. Aaaahhh....I love it.

2. The Way I Am (Ingrid Michaelson)
Just a fun, catchy, laid-back song. It reminds me of how I feel about my sweetie.

3. Better Together (Jack Johnson)
Again, catchy and laid-back. I love the live version but couldn't find the one that sounds the best.

4.You Were Meant for Me (Jewel)
This song was 'meant' for me and Kraig. Our paths were absolutely meant to cross at the perfect time, and we were prepared along the way to meet each other through specific experiences. When we met things just clicked a little too easily and naturally, and we were amazed at the common backgrounds we had, even though we grew up thousands of miles apart. I feel very lucky to have this guy who treats me so sweetly (though he's a cheeky bandit lots of the time, it makes things pretty fun.)

5.Eternal Flame (Bangles)
Okay, I know, pretty cheesey, but a classic oldie. It brings back memories for me cuz it was one of those well known songs among me and my friends when I was a teenager and a fave karaoke song.

Mikayla's Favorite Pastimes

These days we think of our girl as 'Sweet and Sassy' (or 'Sweet'n' Sour') because she is usually so happy and loving, but if she doesn't feel good or doesn't get her way.....watch out. That's normal, right? A healthy part of becoming more independent. She has a pretty strong will, and I spend a lot of the day playing games to 'trick' or distract her into doing things she doesn't want to, like eating good food or getting in her car seat or come inside to warm up. But then there's those times when she just has to deal with life being not fair and handles that with screaming and big, sad tears. But she gets over it. It must be so frustrating to be a toddler..... It sure has its perks too, though! Sometimes I'm envious of a toddler's life - at night I wish someone would put me in my PJ's, give me a snack, cuddle me, read me stories and put me to bed!

The other day my friend mentioned to me that I haven't blogged about Mikayla in a while - here's a list of her fave things to do:

1. Wrestling with us on our bed - SO MUCH FUN! She goes crazy!!!

2. Painting with Food instead of EATING it

3."Helping" us with ANYTHING (Even loves to pick up things and put them away)


4. Exploring Outside

5.Petting her dogs




6.Playing the Piano

7. Pouting

Heh heh, I think this pic is so funny with her one sad blue eye peeking out. My favorite is when she is upset and will run and put her hands over her eyes and bury her head into the couch or the wall. WHERE do they learn these things?!?


8. Reading Stories


9. dancing (this was back at Christmas time)

10. Fooling w/ our electronics (She has somehow reset our Stereo so that we can't adjust the volume with the remote anymore, and changed our DVD player's default setting to Spanish.......!?!?!?!!!)

11. Taking her baby for a walk. She likes to make us kiss her baby.

12.Singing (anytime she hears us sing along to a song, or when she finds Kraig's french little hymn book)


13. tantrums (always accompanied by finding something to bite down on..in this case a dinosaur tail did nicely)

14. Pushing stuff around. Anything that will roll, anything that won't but she'll give it a try (like our coffee table)

15. dress up. The shoes are a normal occurance, but today she had my pajama bottoms on her head like a hood.




16.Playing hide and seek (more like 'find daddy')Kraig started this a few months ago, and it's really fun to run from room to room hiding and have her come in and check the 'usual' spots - and then jump out from somewhere new and scare her, sending her into a fit of giggles. I love the simple games of childhood!

DOG GONE (it)!

So....with the milder weather the ground thawed enough. Enough for my free-spirited, mischievous (and annoying!) golden retriever to get the idea to dig her way out to go on a walk-about. AAAAAAAARRRRRHHHGGGGG! She's driving me crazy how she does this. Miko, being the German Shepherd police dog/mother hen that she is, always thinks she has to go after her. So this is how it goes down. (We've actually spied on them before). Tiggi digs the hole, Miko looks around nervously, Tiggi disappears through the hole, Miko squeals, wimpers, and looks around nervously again, then goes after her.

(Tiggi Hoodini)



(Miko to the rescue)


So I had just got back from the gym, and there's a couple messages on the phone. One lady who says she found my dastardly dogs (OK those were not her words they are mine) and she put them back in our yard. WELL they're not there anymore because there's a huge HOLE under the fence. Now, there's nothing more fruitless and frustrating than driving around random streets in the neighborhood looking for two fast-moving animals. The whole time I'm worried about them getting run over, or maybe freaking out a kid or two, or them getting caught by the pound and having to pay a ton of fines.
We live in the friendliest area...or maybe we just continue to get really lucky. After driving around for an hour, I went home to find a different lady than the one who called earlier - she'd found the little punks by a burger joint helping themselves to some scraps on the ground. I could tell that she was an outdoorsy, dog-lovin type of lady. She has two golden retrievers of her own so at least she had a blanket in the back of her SUV and didn't get her car too dirty. It was such a blessing to have her help us out like that! She read our address off their colars and somehow found our house. I thanked her and we chatted for a bit.

As we chatted, she made the comment, "Your dogs are like your kids" which I inwardly balked at, but she just did me a huge favor so I wasn't about to argue with her - maybe her dogs are her 'kids' but to me, pets and kids are worlds apart. I just think it's funny and kind of sad how lots of women are choosing to not have kids these days, but they still have those motherly instincts and so they shower their affections, money, time, etc. on a dog. Obviously I like dogs, they're great companions (I especially like mine for running and hiking) but they just can't compare to your own flesh and blood, a little wonder running around with some of your characteristics mixed together with their own personality.

I am so grateful that I am able to have children. Mikayla drives me CRAZY sometimes with her little tantrums and 'food finger painting/tossing' (every mother has to deal with, I know, but I know it's all part of healthy development). BUT SHE IS SO SWEET AND SO FUNNY so I guess all the times she gives us kisses or makes us laugh makes up for her toddler ways. When she does something 'naughty' like turn off the T.V. or make something fall over, she runs and hides! And she sometimes grabs your face and looks so intently into your eyes and jabbers in her language like you should understand. My favorite thing lately - when we put her to bed at night, after some songs and a prayer, we whisper little things to her, which sometimes makes her giggle, and then she whispers back.

These little moments are ones that as a parent I never want to forget.


(Do you like my boufy hair? This 'highly recommended' lady did it - only took FOUR hours and WAY too much hair product...)

"The Best is Yet to Come"

I wish I would've kept a quote book throughout my life like my friend Amy used to. She would write down funny/insightful/quirky quotes said by her family and friends. I am sure I would have some GREAT little treasures of things all of ya have said! When Mikayla starts talking in legible sentences, my goal is to keep a little quote book of the funny things she says. Anyway, I've been trying to update my little quote section at the top each time I post, and most of the ones I've put up there have just been from memory. But I have no more ideas. What are all of your favorite quotes??? (Be warned though, if you comment and share a quote, I might just steal it!)
For this month, my favorite quotes come from a talk I read from the January Ensign -"The best is yet to come" and "Faith is in the future, not the past" - Jeffery R. Holland. That just sets a very positive tone for the year, and it's pretty refreshing when it's so common and so fashionable to be a complainer, you know the talk - the economy stinks, our nation is falling apart, we're all gonna die from the icecaps melting, I have the worst in-laws ever, we don't have enough money, etc. etc. I've definately got caught up in negative patterns a few times this past year, but this year I want to believe that the best is yet to come, and our lives really aren't that miserable, we are actually pretty spoiled and pretty lucky to be living in this country, imperfect as it is. And our families are pretty great too, imperfect as they are!
A few months ago Kraig had an opportunity to apply for a job in Montreal, Canada. Now, I LOVE to see new places and to travel, but after the initial thrill of going somewhere different had worn off, I remembered that I love the United States, and that I did want my kids to grow up here and have opportunities that will enrich their lives. By opportunities I mean little things (but in my mind important) like the chance to play American sports, to be part of U.S. history in the making, to grow up with American traditions and culture and friends. While I really appreciate my experiences growing up in England (especially my awesome British friends) I do think that it's not easy to grow up being the foreigner (but not completely). You feel kind of like a mutt - not fully either nationality.
Also, I am going to appreciate Utah for all of the great things there are here. Sometimes I wished I lived somewhere with more diversity and with more money allotted to education, but there are so many great things here - lots to do, family-friendly, I love my ward, skiing is 20 mins. away, I have some family here, lots of memories from when we'd visit in our childhood, and so on...

Here's to a more positive and grateful 2010.

Update

Back in October I lost my camera...so I was discouraged about blogging for a while...but we got a new one for our Thanksgiving trip, so I'm up and running again. We had a wonderful time for Thanksgiving. We went to Rancho Cucamunga, CA to stay with Kraig's brother Kent. They just bought a big beautiful home and we got to help them break it in. Mikayla was in heaven with all of her older cousins who loved to entertain her, plus she got to play outside in the warmth, and she couldn't get enought of pushing around their little doll stroller. Kraig's ENTIRE family made it for the big dinner, and it was a busy, noisy crowd. There was always at least one kid crying, it seemed! We played a lot of games with the kids, watched the BYU-Utah football game, and rode bikes in their backyard. This is Mikayla with her cousins Grace and Levi - she loves Levi especially! He's just so entertaining and nice to her and likes to make her giggle. It was fun to hit some sales with my Sis.-in-laws (with no kids), and we played at a beautiful park in 75 degree weather. This is all the cousins playing in the leaves at the park. Game day. Kraig and I wanted to go to the beach, but his family were all saying it was 'too cold'. CRAZY CALIFORNIANS! (Gotta love 'em).
This is the little doll wiped out on the way home to Utah. As for this month, I am thoroughly enjoying the Christmas season. I've had some fun decorating for Christmas this year....Here's a couple of things that I think are really pretty that I found at...shhhh...don't tell anyone...the dollar store. Okay. I know it's kind of tacky to get decorations there, but I wanted to keep costs down and these things fulfil their purpose for now. When we move into a larger house I'll probably need to get different decorations anyway, right? I even got up the gusto to hang the lights on the outside of the house this year. Usually Kriag does it, but he's pretty busy every Saturday, and by the time he gets home from work it's FREEZING and dark, so I knew it wouldn't get done for a while, so I did it. The only problem - I hung them so that the wrong plug (the 'female' end) is near the electrical outlet so now we have to run an extension cord all the way across the driveway to plug them in, and we have to make sure not to run it over, and it's really cold to have to go unplug them, etc. Next year Kraig is doing it.
Mikayla is quite entertaining every day (even when she's throwing tantrums it's hard not to laugh) and she's my little buddy. Here's a couple of videos of her fooling around at home.

Honey, apples, and my beanie baby

Autumn has been extremely busy for us. Between finishing home projects, committing to an exercise routine, adjusting to new callings, and adding another student to tutor, we've been doing some fall harvesting.
Some of you might not know that we are backyard beekeepers now - anyway, we got our second batch of honey and it is GOOD. It's a lot darker, sweeter, and milder than the first batch. In September we decided on a company name, bottled it up, labeled it, and sold it at our first Farmer's Market. The market was a really fun atmosphere, and the other venders were nice and down-to-earth. It was nice to make some $$ too! Our company name is "Gemstone Honey Co." since we live in an area where all the streets are named after gems. After harvesting the honey, it gets filtered through this mesh cloth. This is about 30 lbs. of honey I'm guessing. Bottling it up....an exercise in patience and cooperation to say the least. Kraig has since sold a case of it to his coworker, so we have about 15 jars left (and we have a good supply for food storage for ourselves).


We've also been harvesting our apples. I used to think it would be fun and kind of romantic/quaint to have fruit trees. I was livin in a dreamworld. It's cost-effective, but it's far from fun - it's a lot of work! Our tree has produced thousands of apples, and I've picked so many off the branches and off the ground but it seems like it will never end. Mikayla has been having fun though. She LOVES to gnaw on apples and help me pick them up. This girl loves to laugh, too. In this video she thinks it's funny to watch me jump up to pick a few hard to reach apples. But it seems like she was just trying to laugh because she enjoys it so much. Silly li'l boo.






I have just been savoring this time with my little girl, when she is so full of life and happiness. Her latest craze is her winter beanies. She used to hate hats, and would pull them off immediately. I wanted to change that for the winter to keep her warm, so one day I pulled out all of her hats and sat with her in front of the mirror. I started putting the hats on my head and acting goofy - she of course thought it was a game and wanted the hats on her head too. She would look at herself in the mirror with her hat on, walk around the room, and then check in the mirror again. It was too cute. Ever since then she's loved to wear her beanies. One night she brought it to me to put it on her head, so I did. It was bedtime, and I took it off for her to go to sleep but she started to throw a fit, so I let her sleep with it on.


Here's another one of her fave's.



Other quirky/cute things she is doing right now:

- plays hide and seek with us. She can't hide yet, only knows how to seek. LOVES to find us under a blanket, behind a door, etc.

-stashes her toys in random places. I went to yoga class the other night, unrolled my mat, and out flew a little toy man she plays with! When friends come over they often find little surprises in their purses or diaper bags.

-giggles when we get out yogurt or crackers. She loves the Brenton whole grain ones (yes!)

-somehow figures out how to push all the buttons she shouldn't on our electronics (like erase phone #'s in the memory of our phone, or cancel recordings on the computer)

-chases the vacuum

-wants to push the stroller and grocery cart (riding is so last year)

-is obsessed with pens, pencils, crayons, and paper. Already has 'decorated' our window sill

-likes to sit on the bottom of slides (this is a problem)

-feeds her bottle to her doll, and loves to feed us her soggy goldfish (yum)

-knows when it's time to get in her crib for the night, so she runs and hides behind it to play peek-a-boo...she already is mastering the art of stalling.

-This is our favorite. She loves to give head bumps to show affection. This is a picture of her asking for one. She lowers her forehead and looks into your eyes. Irresistable...



We love this girl and feel like very lucky parents, and in general very blessed in our lives....if only I was magic and could clean the house like Mary Poppins and then spend the rest of the day playing...

Was it worth it?

We've needed more dresser space and wanted some real nightstands for a while now...so a few months ago, we found a set of nightstands and a dresser at a yard sale. I asked how much for the set and the man told me it was $45...I only paused for a few seconds to decide whether or not it was worth it, plus the work I would have to put in to make them look decent, and the man quickly lowered the price to $25. I couldn't pass up the deal and so in a matter of minutes committed myself to yet another furniture refinishing project....for some reason I like to punish myself and take on these kind of things. I think it's the good deals I can't pass up, plus furniture in the store is marked up SO much, and I like the creative aspect of it where you decide what stain to do, knobs, etc. If I'm gonna do it I find solid, quality furniture that needs a facelift - no compressed sawdust junk. Anyway, this is what the pieces looked like when I was sanding them down.

Finished sanding and with a couple of coats of primer --debating whether to keep them light or do a dark stain.




Decided to go with a dark stain, but the stain didn't 'take' since it had been whitewashed previously. I could've spent HOURS and hours sanding them more, but I paid $25 for these things - I wasn't about to invest that much time in them. I figured that sometime we'll actually buy a nice bedroom set and just pass these down to our kids or something. SO.... I painted them a dark brown. I was kind of skeptical about whether it would look okay or not, but they were sitting around for so many weeks and I just wanted to get 'em finished. So this is how they turned out.

I'm not completely thrilled with them (stain wouldn've been so much better) but we're enjoying the extra storage space and I don't think they look awful. But after calculating the money I spent on primer, paint, sealant, and knobs, I didn't just spend $25 on these things, I spent about $100 and about 4 - 5 hours of my time. (Knobs can really add up quickly)
The question I have in my mind is was it worth it? I'm still wondering.....

This is definately my last furniture project.....maybe......let's hope so. Too much work.