because I really can't get enough of myself

You heard me.  I'm giving something away. WEEKS ago I mentioned that I had crocheted some new super cute shirt/dresses.  I doubt you remember.  But still.  I did mention it. I finally listed them in my etsy shop .  See, MY ETSY SHOP .  (Fancy, no?) Anyways, I'm giving one away.  They look like this: Two cool things: you get to pick your own size and color AND I make them so that they grow with your kid.  Because I hate how my kids grow out of their clothes so fast.  The blue and pink/green ones are Two Bits and Number Four's.  They share them.  Yeah, my 2 year old and almost 7 year old can both wear them.  Have I made my point? What?  No?  Ok, here's proof: (I also recruited my niece and neighbor girls for photos.  THANKS MICHELLE AND COURTNEY.) So, if you want one.  FOR FREE.   You just have to help me advertise for my etsy shop .  Because it really reeeeeeally needs help in ...

I really am. But not one of those deeply moving, "what do you mean you don't understand my painting, it's BLUE" kind of artists.  I'm more like one of those "oh hey, a pen and a napkin, doodle doodle doodle" kind of artists.  Because I do it for fun.  And yeah, for money.  But still.  Fun....most of the time. But I feel like branching into new mediums.  Do you know how long it's been since I painted?  Like with something other than finger paints or the kids' water colors where all the colors are mixed so they just come out brown anyway? It's been awhile.  I've been itching to paint for months. I've also wanted to let Monkey loose on a canvas for awhile.  He's not like my other kids (who all carry mine and Husband's arty genes) who like to draw endless pictures of unicorns, princesses, transformers or dinosaurs.  Monkey likes to feel his art.  He'll probably end up being one of those deeply moving types.  And I'...

I murdered our washing machine. It was actually the washing machine I got from my cousin when she moved because I had already murdered my old washing machine. So Husband tried to fix it.  Because whenever we'd turn it on, it wouldn't spin but instead emit a horrendously foul odor.  (I like to compare the odor to that of a melted vacuum belt - because I'm pretty good at killing vacuums too, so it's a common smell here.) Turns out Husband has no idea how to fix washing machines. Luckily a guy in our ward does. Unluckily, the washing machine was totally unfixable. So now Husband is trying to fix the old washing machine.  Because I told him about 5 billion times to get it out of our garage, so of course that meant it wasn't going anywhere. And here's to hoping Husband can actually fix this one (or the guy in our ward- I'm not picky.)  Because if it doesn't get fixed, I'm going to set up a donation button on my sidebar titled "Operation...

Are my kids the only ones that go to school into June? In celebration of today being the last day of school we played all afternoon.  And when I say "all afternoon" I really mean from 4:00-5:30, because the school day here ends really late. We all went outside (well, not all of us, because Opie has been spending a considerable amount of time in time-outs the past few days, so he came out a few minutes after every one else.) The kids had Otter Pops. I grabbed a shovel.  The stupid shorty shovel that Husband bought, that I curse everytime I shovel anything.  It's like half the size of a real shovel.  STUPID SHORTY SHOVEL. I started to dig out the spot where I want to plant a garden (yeah, I know I better hurry if I even want to grow anything.  But with the weird-o cold weather, I figure I can't be that far behind, right?) I let the kids play with the hose.  All they wanted.  And get as wet as they wanted.  In their clothes.  For as...

Yesterday there was almost a tornado here.  We don't exactly live in tornado country, but we live in gale force wind country so hearing a tornado warning wasn't a massive shocker (if they had said tsunami, then yeah, shock).  Of course, the warning happened just when I needed to pick Two Bits up from school.  As we got ready to jump in the car I mentioned the tornado to Opie.  Which was a really stupid idea (I should have known better).  Because when I told him what a tornado was, he commenced in a full-on anxiety freak out.  First he spouted off about 35 questions like, "What are we going to do?!  Where will we hide?!!  Is it going to suck up all of my stuff?!!!!" Then he got Monkey involved and the boys started running in circles screaming, "DON'T LET THE TOMATO GET US!!!!!" My imagination does a pretty good job at scaring me about things like tornadoes without my kids having their own panic attacks.  So as I was saying stuff like...

One of my sons is shooting Storm Troopers on our old Nintendo 64.  And the other one?  He's having a tea party and picking his nose. Sometimes I like to just think about tons of different things at the same time.  But then my brain usually gets confused and I end up blurting out sentences like, "You need to put your shoes in the we can eat the library called what is that smell? I have been wondering how many squares of toilet paper Two Bits uses on a daily basis.  Your probably thinking that I'm assuming she uses too much?  Nope.  The opposite. When we were driving home from Utah on monday we made a potty stop, and I had to join Two Bits in the stall.  Generally I wouldn't, but she's afraid of "magic potties."  That's what we call the toilets that flush themselves.  So if my kids see a magic potty I have to squeeze in the stall and keep my hand over the sensor until the pee-er is finished and far away from the scary flushing t...

Did you see this ?!  If that doesn't make you afraid of tropical storms and/or giant man-eating earthworms I don't know what would. And does that hole just look a little too perfectly round to anyone else?  It's almost like it's been photoshopped.  Either that or it really was created by a giant man-eating earthworm and Guatemala is just using a cover story.  Except that hole is like the size of a city block, so I guess we'd have to call it a giant three-story-building-eating earthworm? Either way.  Scary. So you wanna know who I hung out with at CBC?  I met so many people that my brain is kind of on strike with the whole remembering names thing, so I'll probably forget like 3/4 of the people I met.  But here are a few: Rachel Sue , who is clearly awesome, and never even got annoyed that I leeched onto her whenever possible.  I felt like I knew her before, but now it's official.  So now we can hang out in the future and bring our fa...