finger lickin' good

Last night we tried a new BBQ restaurant that we saw on a "Vegas' BEST of list" and were surprised to find this little hole in the wall (where you couldn't find a place to sit.) Let me tell you-- it was delicious. I seriously had bbq sauce down to my elbows. We had juicy ribs, bbq chicken, corn bread, potato salad, baked beans, collard greens, and homestyle peach cobbler... I thought I was back in Georgia for a minute. We stayed at the restaurant forever because we didn't have anything else to do- and I had a great time. Maybe I was just grateful to be out of the house. ? We paid for dinner with a coupon and picked up our old Honda from the mechanic on the way home... are we ghetto or what? It may not go down in the book (I mean, the blog) as the most romantic date ever, but it doesn't really matter what we do. Aaron is so my style and I am happy just being with him.

I hit the jack pot in Vegas

I cannot tell you how grateful I am to have close friends! Even though I consider myself to be friendly person, I've lived in places where it seemed almost impossible to make girl friends.. and life is so much harder when you feel lonely!! We have only been in this area for about a year and I have made friends that I know I will always stay close with. As cool as my husband is, I NEED that female time to laugh, be silly and have girl talk. On Tuesday of last week, we met for an incredible book club discussion on C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters and on Thurs we headed to BJ's for a birthday dinner.. over 30 girls showed up to celebrate and it was a ParTAY. Happy Birthday Kate, Denett, Amy and Emily!

For Enrichment last night we had a service auction and it turned out great... I stayed late chatting, which led to a few of us going out for ice cream-- where we were kicked out because it closed. So we decided to rent a movie (August Rush) and stay up until the wee hours of the morning... again!. Sometimes I seriously feel like I am a teenager again and we are begging our husbands if we can stay out later. And it's really not good for me to stay up so late!! But even though it's hard on my health (not getting as much sleep as I need) it's so good for me emotionally. Laughing with good friends is cheaper than therapy.. and a lot better than taking Prozac--I am telling ya!

Anyway, I got to thinking about all the service I have received in the past few months from all the sisters in my ward. I believe that's what REAL friendship is... helping each other and feeling comfortable to ask when you need it. Without naming names (you know who you are!) this is just a small list of things these girls have done for me....

Brought me fresh flowers, invited our family over for dinner,
made me LOTS of delicious chocolates, give me rides when I don't have a car,
made us delish homemade quiche for breakfast,
trusted me during Mofia-- when I really was telling the truth!
shared great recipes and sometimes the all ingredients too!
filled a prescription for my sick child, let me throw a party at their house!
volunteered their husbands to help Aaron fix our car,
made us a fresh plate of yummy cinnamon rolls!
took my older boys to a movie, make lots of nice comments on my blog,
helped me with my Primary class when we were so sick,
made me laugh so hard that I almost peed my pants,
hung out at my house ALL day just because,
make me run in the mornings when I don't want to,
brought me medicine, movies and a humidifier when we were really sick,
made warm gooey cookies for our fam, (several times!)
invited us over for parties, planned FHE so we didn't have to,
hung out at cannery with us.. (wish we our camera for that!)
watch my kids so I can clean my house, work out, go VT or on a hot date with my hubby!
Called me just to say hi, smiled at me during church.

And even though some of these things are big and extravagant, it's the little things that mean the most. I have felt the LOVE since moving in this ward and I am truly grateful for the friendships we have made!

ps. to all the WJHS friends out there.. do you recognize a familiar face in the ice cream picture? Yep.. Krystal D has moved into the ward and we broke her in with her first late night party.. but we were easy on her... she was home by 1:30 am.

you'll have to see it to believe it.....

This afternoon, I found a big chunk of hair on the bathroom tile... laying next to my kitchen sheers. My immediate thought was Zack (aka Scissorhands) was left alone for too long. But the hair was dark, so I wondered if Luke let Zack cut his hair. Because SURELY Ben wasn't involved.. and I don't think either of my older boys would ever do that to themselves! I found Luke and he didn't know what I was talking about. And a minute later, I was shocked to find Ben like this:

What SIX (almost SEVEN) year old does this to their own hair?? I mean, I have heard of the terrible two's before, but I am totally speechless over this!! I honestly don't know what to say. and Ben doesn't either because when I ask him why he cut his own hair he just shrugs his shoulders. I guess it's already time for the summer buzz...... GEEZ Louise!

And this is just a few hours later...
when my boys don't have any hair,
their eyebrows and EYELASHES seem so much more defined.
He's lucky he has such a cute face!!

counting sheep...

You may think I am making this up... but
I am telling the truth,
the WHOLE truth
and nothing
but the truth.

For those of you who know me well, know that I crash as soon as I lay my head on the pillow. I am usually out before my husband brushes his teeth. Falling asleep has never been hard for me. But every once in a while, I wake up in the middle of the night and I start thinking about something annoying and end up tossing and turning for hours. I HATE when I do this!!! I don't want to waste my precious sleeping time thinking about something lame--so several years ago (I believe it was the jr. high-ish years) I came up with a great solution.

I don't count sheep-- I pretend I am DEAD. I am not kidding, I picture myself at my own viewing.. in an open coffin. I lay flat on my back, make my body really long and straight and place my hands comfortably on my waist with my fingers beautifully interlinked. I picture myself dressed in white and everything around me is bright and blurry at the same time (?) My breathing gets really slow because [obviously] dead people don't breathe. There is soft music in the background and lots of people around but I can't hear what they are saying because it's all too quiet (and my ears are dead too.) For some reason everything that I started stressing about doesn't matter anymore because really, what do I care?-- I am dead. I know this sounds weird and crazy, but it seriously works for me. I always fall right back to sleep... at least 98% of the time.

Every once in a while I start stressing about actually dying and wondering what I would have done differently if this had been my LAST day as a mother/wife. And when this happens, it's bad because it's ONLY after I had a hard day with the kids and then I think about how dumb it was for me to get mad at them for making their own ice cream disaster creation. I realize that I should have called my family just to tell them that I love them (something I hardly ever do.) And I usually always feel guilty for falling asleep while Aaron was brushing his teeth-- because if it was my last night I would have said goodbye properly (wink, wink.) Anyway, I only stress about really dying about 1% of the time.

The other 1% of the time, I imagine myself at my funeral, but my breathing is so slow that everyone THINKS I am dead, but I am NOT! And just as they are about to shut the coffin, I try to yell or scream but I can't move!!! When Aaron touches my hand for the last time, I am able to slightly squeeze him back, and he realizes that I tried to move! But everyone else thinks he crazy--so they bury me anyway. And then it turns black and dark and I realize that I have been buried alive and now I am really going to die-- this time for good--- so I sob like a baby.. BUT THEN, I hear something. It's Aaron and he's yelling for me and telling me that he's going to save me!! And by this time, he magically transforms into Bo Brady from Days of Our Lives.. because it's easier to picture Bo digging a grave without a shovel... in the rain... and of course, he rescues me and we are both dirty and crying and so happy to be together again. When I wake up, it's morning and I'm delighted because not only am I alive, but I my husband (sort of) dug me out of my grave with his bare hands! How LOVED am I??

april fools

I am not posting something cheesy in attempt to TRICK you
not because I think it would be lame,
but because I can't think of anything clever.
Instead I will share a couple of pranks from the past
that should have been pulled on April 1st…

Two Pink Lines= Positive, BABY.

When Ben was 3 months old, I was cleaning underneath the bathroom sink and found the positive pregnancy test that I took a year earlier. It's probably disgusting to save it, but it was my first pregnancy and I was a little excited.. I was about to throw it away when a genius idea popped into my head... "wait a minute,” I said to myself. “This little thing could make for a funny prank." The next couple of days, I pretended to be really tired and nauseous.. and finally made the trip with Aaron to the store to buy a pregnancy test. When we came home, I went into the bathroom, pretended to pee and came out with the old test in hand… I gave it to Aaron without saying anything. To put it mildly, he FREAKED out!! It was so funny to see him pacing the hallway saying over and over, "What does this mean? How did this happen?" I planned on waiting a while to tell him the truth, but I was afraid he was going to have a heart attack... so I confessed about 5 minutes later. And don't you worry, I discarded the positive prego test.. (for those of you who think I glued it in Ben's scrapbook.)

What is really funny is that we actually got pregnant about 6 months later with Luke... neither of us were laughing, though. I guess you could say that it turned out okay. We're going to keep him and all.

The Fake Wedding Announcement

I went to Ricks College (BYU-Idaho, if you must.) Ricks is the capital of young girls getting married a few months after high school graduation. It's a great place to be, don't get me wrong, but the LAST thing that I wanted to do was get married at 18. My roommate Val and I thought it would be really funny to send fake wedding announcements to our family just weeks after school began. We borrowed someone's big grandma ring, found random good-looking men on campus to take pictures with and made our own homemade announcements. And if I remember correctly, we couldn't find envelopes big enough, so we stole some from a local grocery store in the greeting card section.. no? We were such little devils back then. We really thought we were hilarious while cutting out squares of tissue paper and inserting them with pictures we took with total strangers. ((BTW, if this is your husband, he was never engaged before.. and he didn’t cheat on you. Since blogging, the world is a much smaller place than it used to be.. you never know who’s reading!))

We sent the invites out and our family members laughed and knew we were kidding. The pictures were not exactly cute (you would think we would do our hair before taking engagement photos!) and the announcements themselves were not so fancy --the info on them was a total joke.. (reception in the Clark building on campus, etc. and who would EVER get married in the Idaho Falls Temple??? jk) But my older brother, Scott, was serving his mission at the time and when he opened the envelope, he FLIPPED OUT. He couldn't believe that I was getting married two weeks into my first semester at college. Somehow he tracked down my apartment number and called. I wasn’t home, but my sweet, Should Have Been Blonde roommate answered the phone. He tried asking her a few questions about my upcoming wedding. She was as confused as he was-- I am telling you, not every light was on in the attic... (and if you ever read this Denise, you know I love you!!) Anyway, she couldn't give him any useful information, but told him to call right back and leave a message on the answering machine with his number. He called back and let it ring and ring and ring... only later to find out that we didn't have an answering machine…ever. He finally called my mom to get the scoop... and boy! I am glad I wasn’t living at home because I would have been grounded! My mom was so mad at me for playing a trick on the hardworking missionary. But it goes down in the books as one of my best pranks ever!

Without Transportation

This past Friday, Aaron went to leave for work, but his car wouldn't start. And we were totally shocked over this because HELLO!! It's a 1991 Honda and we have NEVER had any problems with it (April fools).. I am sure Aaron will have to get a new car sooner or later, but I just hope is later and not sooner. Anyway, until then, he is driving the fancy minivan to work. About ten minutes after he left, he called me on his cell. This was our conversation:

Me: Hello dear. How can I help you? (with my Giselle voice, of course.)

Aaron: The minivan is DEAD.

Me: WHAT IN THE CRAP IS GOING ON HERE? Why does God hate us? Where are you? What happened?

Aaron: I am just kidding. Man, you really freaked out. I was just calling to say that I left my lunch on the counter.

Whoa, Betsy. That was a close call. Until last Friday, I never knew how much the minivan meant to me. It is the BEST car I have ever had and I would DIE if it died. (April fools again) But it is the only form of transportation we got.. and for that, I am grateful.

So.. this is my show and tell for today. Does anyone else have any classic pranks they've pulled on their friends or family? How about any good ideas for unsuspecting husbands after work tonight? Do share...