I'm So Glad When Daddy Stays Home

If I had a day off from the hustle and bustle of the workforce, I'd sit by the pool, read a book, or take a nap. Oh no, not my husband. A day off is a day to get stuff done and spend a lot of money! Here is how I almost got my penny-pincher husband to spend over $1,000 one day that he took off of work:

Elliot woke me up at 6:00. By 11:00 a.m., we had eaten breakfast, cleaned up, gone to the park, showered, picked up a babysitter, and had gone to the temple. We dropped Stella off at Grandma's later so we could have our date night/afternoon at Cheesecake Factory (I've never been), and then found ourselves at the mall looking for running/hiking shoes for Elliot. Also, I love it when Elliot is in the mood to spend money because we spontaneously bought a freezer. However, after we drove home, we realized that the outlet won't work with the freezer. So we cancelled the freezer transaction.

We got Stella to bed and I hoped to watch a movie, but Elliot wrote in his journal instead. I almost got Elliot to spend some more money when I turned on the TV and started watching the Classic Soft Rock infomercial (why can't I change the channel?). I was singing every song! Elliot thinks that there is some subliminal messages in these infomercials which is why you can't turn the channel even if you've seen the infomercial several times before. He was sure of it when we started discussing how we could work out a payment plan to buy the 10 CD's of these incredible songs, but wait, if you call in the next 10 minutes they make one of the 17 payments for you! Suddenly, we needed these CD's full of music from Air Supply, Journey, Chicago, Joshua Kadison, and Phil Collins. It's a good thing Elliot snapped out of it before we broke our budget.

Infomercials are tricky. They get you late at night when your judgement is hazy. Hence my first infomercial purchase in college in 1997 when I bought this incredible 2-disc collection of love songs. I love Reflections of Love.

New Babies and a Husband!

My cousin Clarissa had her first baby boy back in February! Welcome Mark!

My cousin Julie had her 2nd baby boy last month! Welcome Matthew!

I don't have a picture, but my cousin Brian had his 2nd baby girl this month! Welcome Lily!

And Elliot's cousin Whitney married Alex Putnam in the Logan Temple at the beginning of this month! Congratulations!

Kayla the Graduate

My oldest niece Kayla graduated from Kimberly High School at the end of May. I'm old. No, Marci is old. :)

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Kayla's graduating class (made up of less than 100 people) was able to secure over $1,000,000 in scholarships!

Dress Up

Mother Dibble and Aunt Bethany watched Stella for a while the other day while Elliot and I went out. I wish I could have seen Stella's face when she saw Aunt Beth dress up in her old prom dress.

New Addition

Don't freak out, it's just a dog.

Elliot's family just sort of adopted (ownership is unclear) a little dog named Samantha. She loves Anabelle and Stella. She does not like Kent. She is not very fond of the vacuum.

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Pot Minder

The Pot Minder can be found at www.jbkpottery.com.

This is perfect for bloggers who start dinner and then forget that they are boiling something until the sounds of steam and water burn their mark into your stovetop.

Wal-Mart Alarm

I hate to disappoint everyone with the actual story of Stella setting off the fire alarm at Wal-Mart. I tried to come up with a more interesting story. Believe me, if it was a huge deal, I would have taken a picture and it would have earned itself it's own blog entry. But the real story is that Stella thinks she's too big to sit in the cart and "promises" not to touch anything if I let her walk next to the cart. I needed some shampoo, so we headed over to the Cosmetics area past the Pharmacy. Minutes after we arrived, I heard over the loud speaker "All associates report to the the staff meeting in 5 minutes." Why it stuck in my head, I don't know. In the five minutes that it always takes me to decide if I'm going to keep using my old shampoo or not, I took my eye off of Stella who was roaming about in the same isle. At the end of the isle was the double-doors with big red signs saying things such as "Do Not Open," "Keep Away," and "Fire Alarm Will Sound." It was entirely too much of a temptation for Stella to stay away from, so she pushed the door open. Fire alarm sounded.

Stella was at my side in seconds holding her hands over her ears and apologizing profusely. We stood by the door for about 5 minutes hoping that an associate would come to turn it off and we could explain what happened. After that didn't happen, I walked around to try to find an associate as the alarm was getting quite annoying. However, as I walked to the check-out stands, I noticed that the alarm was very faint and the 2 associates in the whole store that weren't at the staff meeting probably didn't notice it. I told them about the alarm and figured that my job there was done.

I continued my shopping and heard the alarm for the next 25 minutes when they finally figured out how to turn it off. I do believe that Stella may have been the first at the store to set off the alarm. We like to leave our mark wherever we go (without the pee, of course).

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to the man that I had the privilege of making a father! I sure love you, you adorable man!

Happy Father's Day Elliot, Dad and Kent!

Busy, Busy . . . and Random

We've been busy since we got back from Idaho. Stella started swim lessons,

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set off the fire alarm at Wal-Mart (which they couldn't turn off for 30-minutes),

stood in front of the mirror at least 3 hours a day fixing and re-fixing her hair,

got into my eyeliner,

hid in the dryer,

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scared the ducks, and other things.

I've been trying to play catch-up with my garden as it is producing tomatoes like there is some sort of shortage everywhere else . . . oh, there is. If anyone would like some cherry tomatoes or bigger Roma tomatoes, please call! I have tons! However, these were our only successful ears of corn. Delicious. And why are they called "ears?"

I picked this little bushel right before bedtime because Elliot wanted a salad for his lunch the next day. Anything for my Sweetie!

Also, has anyone heard of the The Pot Minder? My friend Kimmie gave one to me and said that if I used it, my water would not boil over (hummm, how does she know me this well?). Well, I can testify that IT WORKS! Look at it trying to boil over, just try to boil over you ugly girl!

Also, we learned about taste and smell in Nursery on Sunday. It looks like Kellin liked the lemon.

However, Jameson did not like the lemon.

We also finally went on a double date with our good friends Travis and Emily. No picture of them, but here's one of Clarkie who found a pink marker and colored himself. Symmetrical. Impressive.

Idaho

Stella and I went to Twin Falls, Idaho a couple of weeks ago for my oldest niece's graduation and my youngest niece's blessing. We were there for almost a week and had a fun time playing with cousins.

We did get a little bored at times though. Those babies sure take a lot of naps!

Baby Tater after her little bath.

Hannah is quite mobile these days and kept us entertained when she wasn't taking her 4 hour naps!

"Excuse me. I'm having father-time."

We went to a parade on Saturday (is there a parade every time I visit Idaho?) and Stella was super excited to get a bag full of candy! Thanks Teener! Hannah and Tatem would have preferred to be asleep.

This is my cousin Christine "Teener" McAllister. She's also single, totally fun, likes running, has perfect teeth, and is really good at chasing down floats in a parade to get the free stuff they forgot to throw at us. She lives in Utah. Call me if you want to set her up with someone! She really is fun!

Kayla graduated on a Wednesday (who does that? . . . what ever happened to the Sunday graduation?) so most of the family couldn't make it. However, I had almost my whole family (minus Elliot and Miles) there for the weekend for Tatem's blessing. Thank Heaven for COUSINS! Stella probably thought she was in heaven because she had so many kids to play with -- or pay attention to her!

We almost got a picture of all my parents grandkids. Karl (15) was working. On the left starting at the bottom is Jayden (3), Brennan (8), Kaiah (almost 6) is holding Kimbal (1), Stella (3), behind them is Brooke (7), Megan (11), Ashley (14), and Cordell (12). On the right, Kayla (17) is holding Tatem (2 months), Alecia (13) is holding Hannah (1), and Alex (8). I love these kids!

Some of the kids wrote, practiced, and performed a little show. Interesting.

I told Stella she couldn't go to the park behind the house until her cousins came over. She waited by the door so patiently.

Nat, Lindsay and I took Kayla shopping for her graduation present on Friday (she was too busy for us on Thursday) which was fun, we had a family barbecue on Saturday, Tatem's blessing on Sunday with another barbecue, and then we went back home on Monday. I didn't get a ton of pictures of the rest of the weekend because I was playing around with Natalie's camera (which I LOVE) and barely touched my own.

Stella fell asleep about 2 minutes before the plane landed and sang a song about being home when she woke up!

I love FHE!

Elliot and I are banking on the promise that if we have our regular Family Home Evenings, that Stella will turn out alright (since niether of us really knows what we're doing). It hasn't been what a lot of people might call "easy" or "fun" for that matter. In fact, in the beginning I kept asking myself that if the good Lord wanted us to be patient, why are we asked to have this wretched family meeting?

However, now that we've taken our spiritual fiber and started getting on the "regular" schedule of FHE, Stella has responded really well and we're all starting to like it a little bit more! We've been working on Stella's reverence (I think that her Primary teachers will appreciate that). I am extremely grateful for the council from a recent Leadership Training meeting that I went to when one of the sisters commented to someone who said they have 10-minute FHE lessons, "That's about 8 minutes too long!" Stella's favorite, of course, is the activity portion of our FHE.

Honk the Horn

What is the actual purpose of the horn in your car? I had to use it yesterday on a driver that pulled out right in front of me driving very, . . . VERY slowly. It made me wonder if that was the real purpose of the horn. And if it is the real purpose of the horn, doesn't that just promote road rage?

I also find it funny when people yell at other drivers. Do they know that the other driver can't actually hear them? I had a roommate yell at another driver "It won't get any greener if you water it!" (it still makes me laugh) Humor, wasted on people who can't hear you.

I have had other opportunities to use the horn in a more friendly look-the-light-is-green reminder sort of way with the short "honk, honk" instead of the one long get-out-of-my-way "HOOOOOONK!" that I used yesterday. Is there a horn language? And if there is, did we cover that in drivers education?

Swim Lessons

She passed! Stella did fantastic during this session of swimming lessons. Last year she didn't like her teacher and wouldn't do anything she told her to. However, the last 2 days of class last year, her teacher had her guy friend come in the water with the class. Stella LOVED him! She did everything he told her to do. Humm.

Well, we've had 2 weeks of swimming lessons so far and the first day of class, she had a boy teacher and LOVED him! He was just a substitute though. Does Stella just respond better to male teachers? It's a mystery. Anyway, her real teacher is a girl and her name happened to be STELLA! Stella was so excited and did very well in class.

She was wearing her swimming suit for 3 hours this morning because she was so excited for class! Stella especially liked today when they got to wear life-jackets. She was just motoring around by herself and when she'd catch up to me for 2 seconds, she'd turn back around and say, "Bye Mom!"

Lullaby

Check out Natalie's blog to hear Stella sing to her new cousin Tatem!

Tatem's Blessing

My niece baby Tatem Jane Service was blessed on Sunday, June 1, 2008 in Twin Falls Idaho by her daddy Ian Service. In our ward, I like it that they recognize the mother after the blessing is done, afterall, she's the one who did most of the work! Plus, Nat looks real cute too.

Couldn't you just eat her up? Well, you probably could because she's just a little bite-size!