the pumpkins

As Jesse pointed out, you'll notice, even in these blurry below-par photos that there's still lots of insides left in them.....and my response to that is it's quite a tough job to do 4 in one night, and I'm lucky I finished them at all! :O)

Here they are:



Mallory's pumpkin, cat on the moon:

Mariah's pumpkin, star eyes and 'kissy' lips:

Arissa's pumpkin, silly face:

Family pumpkin, scared face:

And here's my pretty little "tiny tot" dancer in her brand new leotard:

And here's the recent little gal that I made (her skirt lifts up to show white little underpants) :):

School pics ~ Boo Parade ~ Pumpkin Carving

Arissa & Mariah got their school pics in yesterday:
Arissa, third grade

Mariah, kindergarten

Last weekend was Arissa's first actual parade with her drill team. It was hot as all heck, and by the end of the parade route, every girl on the team had red cheeks and could barely force a smile. :O) But they did great, it is so amazing to watch them. They're just little girls but they memorize all these complicated routines and they are super performers. Not to mention they're all super super sweet kids.

What was NOT sweet, however, was the fact that our camera broke JUST as Arissa's group rounded the corner into view. So I have no actual shots of the team. Seriously, it worked seconds before they marched up, and it worked after. Go figure.

But here's what I did capture:

How to keep 2 little tinies busy while you wait 2 hours for the parade to start:

take 'em to Burger King and give 'em an ipod:

The girls waiting for sister to march....with Aunt Nancy and Cousin Marcy visiting from Utah:

And the pumpkin carving! I so wanted to get those new pumpkins I had seen at JoAnn's....they're plastic but they're meant to be carved----so there's no mess and you can reuse them. But then I figured, we already have a fake Christmastreee, we can't have fake everything or why even celebrate! So we got a big pumpkin and the girls helped clear out the insides. Arissa REALLY wanted to do some cutting, and we let her do a little but then I couldn't take it anymore...I was scared she'd slice off a finger.

don't you love how Mallory is blurry in this photo? It's just like real life...she's always a blur of movement!

Then last night Jesse bought FOUR MORE pumpkins...because the girls all fought over what we would carve on the first one. So I printed out several tempaltes and let them each choose, then I spent last night carving them all. Our porch looks quite Halloween-y, I love it. I have to upload those pictures, so pumpkin pictures will post tomorrow!

the best book....

...EVER:








Seriously, this is the very best book I've ever read. It's about a brain scientist who had a stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain, and lost all use of that side for awhile. So she had no language skills, linear thinking, reasoning, etc. But her right side was fully functioning, and she eventaully recovered completely. Since I picked it up, I've not been able to stop thinking about it...even though I've been done for several days now. Jesse can attest to my obsession with it....because I keep coming to him with random facts about the human brain that I either learned in the book or discovered through research online. It is just a really really great book, and it's impossible to read it and not think differently afterward about SO many things.

Disney....Injury....School Pics

Last week I got an email from my friend saying she had won tickets to DISNEY ON ICE and would I like to bring the girls and go with her...my answer: ARE YOU KIDDING???? We are ALL about Disney On Ice....but now that are girls are of the ticket-requiring age, we don't go to those kind of shows often if at all because it's like $100 for the 5 of us to go. So I was giddy with excitment and managed to not even tell the girls about it until the very day of the show. Needless to say, THEY LOVED IT:


Our group (minus me)...thank you CULA for inviting us!!!!:

Through the eyes of a child:

The one photo of the actual show that didn't come out horribly blurry:


A few weeks ago I got to work and saw an email from Mallory's preschool, reminding parents about picture day...which was that very day. I, being at work and a long trolley ride away from home couldn't do anything about it, so I called Jesse frantically and tried to instruct him over the phone on what to dress Mallory in and what to do with her hair. These are her proofs:


And this is my latest adventure.....I fell in our yard in the dark, hyperextended (I don't know if that's the right word but that's the one I like to use cause it sure feels like what happened to me!) my right arm so badly I couldn't move it, scratched and bruised my leg in 3 places, and impaled my hand with the fence which I tried to grab onto. It was bad. I screamed....of course, and Jesse thought it was my usual "hee hee, I'm being silly" scream, when actually it was a "help me I think my arm is being ripped off and I'm going to die" scream. I just laid on the grass and cried! I really thought my arm muscle must have been ripped to shreds and I'd forever be in a sling. I went to the dr and got some RX meds, and today my hand looks much better and I have more use of my arm, although I still can't lift it. Such drama!

random stuff again

Once again, I might be the only one who finds things like this funny, but this made me smile this morning:





it's a "deviled" egg. :O)

how come i'm happy:

springtreescollage
Originally uploaded by katyart

it's nice and cool outside, w/ clouds hanging around....

and i went to St Tropez french bistro for lunch...

and i had a small sandwich, salad, and a cup of the soup du jour which was clam chowder, with an ice water w/ a slice of lemon.....

and it was so nice a day that even though i was alone I sat outside and ate my food off real plates with metal utensils, instead of the plastic to-go stuff I usually eat out of....

and when they serve your food at St. Tropez, they say "bon apetit!"..... :o)

i've been sewing! seems like the first time I make something, the first time I follow I sewing pattern, it takes me SO long, I get confused, I make mistakes, and I get frustrated. But after that first time, I can whip stuff up in minutes and don't need the instructions anymore. Since last friday I've had Strep Throat (although the dr didn't confirm it until yesterday), so I had a lot of time lazing around in whcih I created these skirts:

They're really super easy to make (proof: I did it), and they're fast and fun.

Saturday was Oktoberfest. It was raining, and the girls spent the night at Nana's, and I was very much in the grip of my strep throat, so I didn't plan on going. But since the girls weren't home, Jesse and I wanted to do SOMETHING, so we headed down there for just an hour. We checked out the crafts, and all the crazy people. I saw tons of cute little crafts that I wanted, but most everything Jesse insisted "we can make that ourselves". So this is the only thing I walked away from Oktoberfest with:

and a bumper sticker. :o) Thank you Jesse!

My Strep Throat is 95% gone, and I hope I never have it again. I didn't have a fever, I didn't have ANY symptoms except an excruciating sore throat and some extra fatigue. i think the girls enjoyed it though because many times I started to reprimand them or intervene when they started making a mess, but my body was just too tired and it hurt too much to speak, so I just let them be. Saturday morning, I got out of bed at 4am and drove the the closest 24-hr walmart to find coughdrops, medicine, ANYthing to help w/ the pain. But the only thing that I tried that worked was some chamomile tea w/ honey. But man, that sore throat was horrible. And the 6 days I had it were SO LOOOOONG, i think because I spent every second of them dreading the next time I would have to swallow, because it hurt so very bad. But I'm back now, and I'm healthy!

what a lovely way to start the day!

I am NOT a coffee drinker. And no, that's not just because I'm Mormon (as people always assume), it's more because I hate the taste of coffee. I love the smell of it brewing, but the taste does nothing for me.

However! I have a wicked sore throat this morning.....the kind that makes me dread the next time I'll have to swallow because it hurts so bad. So I wanted something soothing....I had a bite of ice cream this morning, I thought maybe I could numb the pain but that didn't work (although Rocky Road is a great incentive to get up out of bed!). So as I got off the trolley this morning, I walked into Starbucks cause I thought maybe something warm would soothe my throat. I was going to get a Chai Tea Latte, which is the only thing at Starbuck's I've found that I can handle, when I remembered it's Automn now so they have their seasonal Pumpkin Spice Latte! So I got one of those, forgot to ask for Soy milk but I did ask to hold the whipped cream. $4 later, I no longer cringe with pain every time I swallow (although it still hurts a little), and I feel all warm and cozy and ready for a forecasted rainy weekend, Oktoberfest, hopefully lots of knitting & reading, and maybe a fun Automn craft w/ my girls!!

mmmm...

what's making me smile today:

I came into work this morning (after taking yesterday off, which made today kind of feel like a Monday).....lots of work to do, lots on my mind, and not wanting to be here. First thing, I went to fill up my water bottle from the cooler (which is right next to the printer) and in the pile of discarded printed stuff that people put aside when no one picks it up, was this, which totally made me smile:

And after I sat down at my desk and did some work, I kept thinking about it, so I went back over and got the info so I could google it. :O)

more from Bonita Fest

the last video I posted was of Arissa's team doing their 'cheer', this one is of their actual routine (w/ music.....so scroll down and turn off my music first)

I edited the previous post about the Bonita Fest performance and added a video at the very end.



Also, I changed my blog banner....and I don't know if it's just because my computer is acting funky, or if it's because the picture I used is actually so huge, but it's kind of over-powering and makes the blog look a little weird. Sorry!

oo! oo! look what I made! :O)

I've been feeling very "automn-y" recently, even though it's still un-godly hot and summer-y, and this fabric I saw at JoAnn's just called to me....it was all browns and oranges and greens. So I bought a pattern online for a simple-enough looking dress, and gave it a shot. I've never sewn anything requiring elastic, so that was new. It turned out nicely I think, Mariah wore it to school on Monday. It fits her and Mallory as a dress, and Arissa as sort of a long top. Mariah's arms hurt when she came home from school Monday....I guess I need to loosen the elastic a little. :O) So here it is:



thank you, Arissa, for modeling:










Et voici!