Busy Elves

My three little guys...

So today was busy and lots of fun. I worked for a couple of hours this morning. We had a company meeting where we discussed these personality tests we had to take. It was interesting. Kind of. I learned some things about myself and my family members.

After that, I piled the kids in the car and went to Ikea with a couple of friends and their kids. We put all the kids in Ikea's child play area and walked around for an hour with just the babies. Then we heard our names being called on the loud speakers telling us to come back to the play area. Upon walking back, we were taking bets on whose kid would be the problem child. It was mine. It was Gar. He had gone into the bathroom and taken off his pants and couldn't put them back on. The girls there legally can't help with that kind of thing so I was called to help him. Basically he was in the bathroom sans pants and was playing with the toilet paper. I came and helped him put his clothes back on and then he decided he didn't want to stay and play so he came with me. It was way past lunch and naptime anyway.

We went to the dining area and got some Swedish meatballs for a snack. When we were done eating it was time to pick up the older kids. So we got them and piled Uly, Jay Jay and Amelia (all 3 years old) in a shopping cart and went back out into the wilds of Ikea. We got some good shopping done and I was able to check some Christmas items off my mental list. When we were finally finished with Ikea we headed home, exhausted.

By this time it had started to snow so traffic was slow and I got home around 6:30. My babysitter was supposed to be there at 6:15 and I had missed her. So I went and got her and then left to go to my Mom's Night Out dinner at the best little Italian restaurant in Provo called Gloria's Little Italy. YUMMMMM!!!!! It was really fun and yummy.

Magnus Flipped Over

I'm documenting that Magnus flipped from his back to his tummy today for the first time. Around 10:30am...

He's getting so big!!!

This is an edit on 12/04/07. I was told that I'm not allowed to make posts without photos anymore... We'll see... Anyway, I got some really cute pictures of Mag playing and rolling over.

I also have proof that I threw my diet out the window in favor of Christmas Cheer. Cheer = Sanity on some days. Uly is a great help in the kitchen. Here he is helping me make our experiemental Sour Cream Sugar Cookies out of whole wheat flour (that was the experiment part). They turned out great and we had a lot of fun.

Is that irony? I was uploading the photos but it kept timing out. I'll upload them later. I'm trying to get some work done right now. Ciao! jgs

 

In honor of our first real snow and the stark contrast of Southern California (from which we moved one year ago this weekend) here is another scrapbook page. We woke up and there was about 8 or so inches being dumped on us. It was a blast.

Salty Cedar Surf

I finally got a version of Sariah's website online!!! I learned some things and have some things to change but all in all, it's not too bad. She likes it and that's the important thing. I'm not dissatisfied with it, but I do want to make a few minor changes. Ultimately, I need to get photos for the Manchitos, a new family photo of her and also put Paypal usability features on it.

Anyway... Check it out here!!! My first web design project.


www.saltycedarsurf.com

Helping in a Very Small Way,,,

When I was in High School, I was the president of my Amnesty International group for 3 years. I was really into it and felt like I was making a difference and helping fight for people who couldn't fight themselves. Kind of giving a voice to those who were mute or were not heard. In my Senior year, I went to an AI convention in Seattle or Olympia. I forget where, but that is not the important thing... We spent the day listening to speakers, hanging out with other like minded people and signing a million petitions.

Up until this point, I had not given much thought about AI's presence in the United States. All of the action items that I had been a part of were in foreign countries and in my blissful youth mind I was not aware of any injustices here on our own home front.

There was one petition that really made me think and ultimately ended with me parting ways with Amnesty International. That was a petition that was aimed at ending Capital Punishment here in the US of A. I couldn't sign that petition because I think the death penalty is a good thing.

My AI bubble had popped. I couldn't support and give money to a program that used it against something I believed in.

I finished out the year and handed over the mantle of presidency to an underclassmen and went out into the wide world.

Recently, I have discovered AI's website: www.amnestyinternational.com. They offer a way that I can choose the causes I am for and send emails to leaders and people of influence without contributing financially to AI as an organization. AI Action Center Home

I urge anyone who reads this to go to that link and also choose the causes that you are concerned with and support them by sending emails or letters to the people who can help. It's really easy to do and doesn't take much time.

Tonight I learned about another organization. www.one.org I am learning more about it and trying to figure out exactly what they are about. Their goal is to fight extreme poverty. I signed their petition but I'm still not sure what level of commitment I am willing to give to them yet. http://one.org/takeaction/

I will have to post more on that later when I know more.

Magnus Laughed

Magnus laughed today for the first time.

I was upstairs on my computer and I could hear Uly talking to Mag and playing with him. I heard some really good belly laughs from that boy. He's made almost laughing sounds in the past but this was the first full on laugh.

November 2, 2007 - Magnus' first laugh.

Also, today I took the boys up to Soldier Hollow lodge and stood in line to get a Christmas tree tag. We will be able to go into the National Forest and cut our own tree. How fun will that be??? Way fun, me thinks! I believe this is the beginning of a new family tradition.

Halloween - The Long, Hard Day

Preface... This is way long. It's just me venting so don't really feel like you need to read it. :)

So today was Halloween. It was busy!

I don't get it. I feel like I am the busiest I have ever been in my entire life. I am getting nothing complete and just running around in circles trying to juggle my babies, my home, my husband and my job. On days when I do manage to work for a couple of hours, my house falls apart. My kids are in various states of undress and I am lucky if I get out of my pajamas and take a shower. It's so embarrassing if someone happens to stop by. They must think I'm the worst mom ever. On days when I don't do any work other then check my email a few times, I am running around like a chicken with its head cut off. My house is still a disaster and filthy.

Today for example... We all got up and exercised for a while. I did one of my DVDs. Uly and Gar were very fascinated with it for some reason today. They kept trying to run around me. It's hard to do strange aerobic movements in my teensy living room while trying not to kick one of my kids and also trying to make sure they don't get oatmeal on the couch. Why do I bother? The couch can't stay clean for more then a week. It's disgusting. Thank goodness for washable micro-fiber. Tangent...

Back to today... After exercising, I fed Magnus for about 15 minutes then took a shower and got dressed. Then we decided to carve our pumpkin. I did a good job of carving a cute little ghost. Then I had to use up that banana squash in the fridge before it started to mold so I made a curried stew out of it. I loved it but of course my boys wouldn't eat it. At this time it's way past nap time and we have to get our costumes on and go to the store to get more candy. I have this sneaky suspicion that our neighborhood will be a madhouse. It was. We go to the store and get a few things and some candy. Uly and Gar are having all sorts of fits about this and about that. Uly throws a gigantic fit because I made us leave the store instead of letting him buy a sticker from those stupid machines they put by the door. Apparently he brought money just for that purpose. I didn't know that. We had a discussion about the kinds of things we spend our money on and about the value of products. I'm sure it didn't make a dent.

Then we get home, I heat up two corn dogs and as we're eating we're getting accosted by trick or treaters. Every 10 seconds the door bell is ringing. It's hard to get kids ready to go out when they're so excited by the kids at the door.

We go trick or treating, leaving a note on the door telling our neighbors that we're not home and will be back later. Did I mention that Ben's out of town all week? Boston Monday through Wednesday and Wednesday to Friday in Vegas...

We go trick or treating. There are various melt downs through out our journey around the neighborhood.

I didn't even mention the poop incident... Or the fact that I can't take any photographs of my kids. Ben took my camera with him. He left his cool camera that is more advanced then I can handle. It's all set up to take shots in the day time. I tried to take some shots of the cute pumpkin and of the kids but they just turned out way dark. I don't know how to change that. He didn't answer either of his phones to answer my question about it.

The highlight of the evening was after I put Gar to bed and Uly was handing out the candy to the kids. He did such a good job. He's so friendly and wants to be everyone's friend. He's such a sweetie. He's very generous too. He doesn't get a lot of opportunities to hang out with kids and it breaks my heart to see him out there having so much fun with kids. It makes me sad because of how much he enjoys it and how little exposure to kids he actually gets. I need to find more time in my day so that he can have more chances to be with more kids.

It just depresses me. It's 1:13am. It's not Halloween anymore. I hate going to bed. I think I'm getting a sore throat. Great. My most hated ailment.

This is WAY long. I guess I'm bummed out and needed to type it all down. oh well. No one has to read it. If you do, maybe you'll tell me some advice. Some way to not be a total disaster mom and some way to keep on top of it all. I don't know what it is...

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow night. I got a babysitter for Uly and Gar. I'm going over to a girlfriend's house to work on some sewing/art/craft project. I'm not sure what I'm going to work on. I really need to make some slacks and a shirt to wear in Denver next month.

I wish I wasn't so damn fat!!! I hate this. Don't give me any crap about embracing my curviness. That's just stupid. I'm fat. I'm sick of it. I'm depressed. I eat crap when I'm depressed. It's this really frustrating vicious cycle. I want a magic cure. I want to be like I used to be. I guess I just have to want it bad enough so I'll make it happen.

Aaaaaghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's me. My book. The first day of November 2007. That means it is only 36 days until I turn 32. That just makes me want to cry. I hate birthdays. I hate them so much. Plus I look in the mirror and not only am I fat, but I'm getting wrinkles. I don't like how the skin around my eyes are starting to look.

I have to just shut up now. I'm typing and typing and typing. I like to think that if Ben was home I'd just talk to him about all this but I wouldn't. He's too busy. I'm too busy. Life goes on. Things that are so important this minute aren't really.

Oh one more thing... I decided to start teaching Uly how to play the violin. I found a vendor on eBay that will sell his size violin for $45 including shipping. I think that's a great deal. I am going to get him one, one of these days. I hope I will have the patience for that.

Yeah, that's another thing. What happened to all my patience? Or however you spell that stupid word. I used to be way more patient with my kids. Lately I'm having a hard time with that. One more thing to be down on myself about... great.

Motherhood is awesome. It's the best thing ever. I am so glad and thankful for my babies. But some days it is all I can do to pretend I'm still sane.

A Really Great Invention...

This is an innovative new product made by a girl on my Moms' Forum. She is the cute pregnant one in the link.

Blush The Topless Undershirt

Their website is here.

 

 

 

 

We went to a little Halloween party in Scera Park this afternoon. My online Moms' forum put it on. It was fun to meet some of the other ladies that I've been talking with online and see their darling little kids. My kids were absolutely adorable! Uly was a Scary Skeldotin. Magnus was a little black belt karate guy and Gar was supposed to be Spongebob, but he wasn't too into wearing the costume today. That's OK. They were all adorable.

Here's a picture of Ben and Uly. Ben's an exercise guy who needs to go to the gym more often, complete with enhance gut. Bella is my cousin Kristina's oldest daughter and she was Raggedy Anne but she didn't want to wear her cute red pig tail braids. Kristina ended up putting the red wig she had wore on Bella. It was super cute. You can see her and Uly holding hands. Aren't they too much?

Then we picked up Junkie's and went back to Kristina & Ben's house to eat it. Yummmm!!! It's been something like 4 months since I've had it.

Now I'm way tired... I should go to sleep.

 

Uly & Gar eating Green River watermelon in Moab, UT.

 

My cute mom.

 

Uly on a boulder in Moab, UT.

 

My daddy.

We went to Moab for a Walker family reunion this past weekend. It was a blast. My Walker relatives have always been a mystery to me. My dad's dad died when my dad was 2. My grandma remarried and ended up moving away from that area. I had heard stories about my dad's cousins but this was the first time I'd really ever met them (with the exception of his cousin Ron, whom I had met in SoCal once). So I met a ton of relatives I had never met before and saw some beautiful scenery. My dad's cousin Jimmy has two daughters - Tammy and Sherry. They are about my age, maybe a little older. They are really nice. I'm looking forward to seeing them next year at the reunion.

We stayed in Green River, about 40 minutes away, because there was a bike marathon scheduled for Sunday. That meant that all the hotels were pricey and booked. We couldn't even get a room for Saturday night. We are planning on going next year and making a long weekend of it, with some planning. We want to go to the Arches National Park and play around the Moab area. We could see the Arches way off in the distance from the road but didn't have time to stop and check them out.

New Neighbors

So we have new neighbors. If you don't know, we live in what's called a Twin Home. That's basically a fancy term for duplex. We share a wall. The garage, laundry room, little bathroom and our bedrooms all share walls.

We live in what I now call the California Twin. Our neighbors are from California too. More specifically, Santa Monica. We all have CA license plates. They are really nice and have 4 kids.

I made three different batches of cookies on Saturday - carrot, peanut butter and cream cheese. They were all really good. I filled a little brown lunch bag full with the booty and brought it over to them tonight as kind of a welcome to the neighborhood gift. They came over a little bit later and thanked me and visited a bit. I thought it would be nice to get a bunch of cookies if I were moving in. I like cookies. Plus I am never really friendly with my neighbors. I thought maybe this time will be different. So I had to do something nice. Cookies are nice, I think. At least they are yummy...

On another note, I lost my sports bra and so I can't go to my exercise class in the morning. I'm going to order a new on online. I should have more then one. It's silly not to. Especially now that I'm trying to be more active. I think it might be in the washer. I left a load in there to soak and forgot about it. It's too late to wash the load since we now have neighbors. Our washer is really noisy and I don't want to wake them up so I am just going to have to skip my class. I'm really bummed about that but it is just the way it's going to have to be. I'll have to make a concerted effort to be more active tomorrow. I'm going to do a DVD though. I dare you to do a Richard Simmons DVD. Don't underestimate him...

 

Well that post didn't work! I was trying to use Word to publish from but apparently I couldn't upload photos. Hmmmm... I'm still trying to get this figured out. It's cute though, istn' it? My kids constantly need their faces washed. But they are mine and I love them!

My Family

Isn't this such a cute Photo? I love it!!! I've got it here twice I love it so much. They are such a good looking crew!

You are mesmerized by the cuteness and are ignoring the filthy counter in the background…

Riding the Rails...

 

Grandmom & Grandad Walker took us to ride the Soldier Hollow Express. It was so much fun. Uly and Gar are train nuts and so this was complete bliss for them. They were totally blown away. This was their first real train riding experience. We're totally going back! Especially since they have this cool grandparents discount. Kids + an adult = grandparents ride for FREE!!! How cool is that. Yeah, that sealed the deal; we're going back for sure!

This layout was fun. I used some filmstrip templates. I haven't used any templates previously. Ben gave me a few design pointers. He's so good at this. I am excited to keep practising. I hope one day I can be nearly as good as he is.

Early Morning Exercise

I woke up super early this morning and went to a Jazzercise Step Aerobics class. It was super fun and it totally kicked my butt! But I'll be back on Wednesday. It's three days a week and it's so early the sun was just coming up as I was leaving.

I'm really excited about it. It is a great opportunity for me to have some scheduled time to exercise. I think this will really help me get healthy.

Here's to Health!!!

 

Here's another one. I' m sure I'll stop posting then one of these days. This is Uly's birth. I have all the birth information for both Uly & Gar written down but it is packed away. Next time we move (hopefully into our OWN house) I'll unpack them and write up a journal entry for each of their births. I did that for Magnus but didn't post it.

It's crazy to see how much they've grown and changed and yet are still the same.

I learn a little bit more each time I do a new page. I think the next thing I tackle are Uly and Gar's first birthdays. I'm sure I'll post them here too...

 

This is my third layout, but I feel like it's really my second. My real second was just a page that has Mag's birth story on it. Nothing fancy.

So I'm looking at this and I think it looks kind of flat but I don' think it looks too bad for a beginner. I'm going to work on Uly's birth next.

edit... I think I'm going to change this one a bit. I want to switch the location of the before and after pictures, just kind of toggeling them. I think before needs to be at the top.

My First Scrap Book Page!!!

 


This is my first page. Ever. I did it! I'm sure I'll get better as time goes on, but it's going to be a fun learning process. I'm really having fun learning Photoshop.

The first of many.

I'm taking the plunge!

I've decided to stop playing the helpless female and start learning Photoshop. It's about time! I've been depending on Ben's knowledge of the program for years and I just can't do that anymore. Not that he's not dependable - he is. I just need to be able to depend on my own skills so that I am not limited to time, availability and interpretation. I'm excited.

I started going through 3dBuzz's VTMs last night. I learned some cool stuff and I've got a bunch more lessons to go through.

The goal: Be able to create digital scrapbooks for my children. I need to start creating baby books for them.

I am determined to make this happen.

Trena's fantastic SIL showed me a ton of links that are all digital scrapbooking based. I'm excited to wade through them all and learn, learn, learn!!!

I even downloaded my first "kit". That's a bunch of stuff put together that looks good and you can use it to make a page.

I wanna new house. Not just a new house to us, but a brand new house. I can't wait until we can buy one. I'm so tired of renting. I'm so tired of not being "home".

I wish we could get some one to just lend us the money. We're good for it. I promise. Credit reports are a just a game anyways. We just didn't know all the rules of the game when we were little kids. Now we know the rules but we're so far behind that it's going to take some time for us to catch up.

I want a new house!

That's me whining...