Mamma Mia!!

Three words: GO SEE IT! I went last week with my mom and Grandma and it was so fun. I personally LOVE musicals so I was very excited to go see this movie. One Warning: This is a total chick flick. That said: there were lots of men in the theater I was in and they were laughing too! Meryl Streep is now my new favorite actress. She is amazing at whatever she does and singing and dancing is now on her list! I have to admit that when Pierce Brosnan started singing, my mom and I both looked at each other and laughed thinking "James Bond is singing and dancing!" That was a little strange but nonetheless he was good and the movie was one crack up after another. I also love Abba music. I have been grooving to Dancing Queen since I was little so I instantly downloaded the soundtrack from iTunes when I got home. Love it!

I give it two thumbs up with an A+++++!!

Somethings to think about...

Even though I really don't like Jay Leno I got this in an email and felt I should post it. It really makes sense and makes me think hard about what I have to be grateful for even though we live in an imperfect world and an imperfect society.

Something to think about from Jay Leno….

----- 'As most of you know I am not a President Bush fan, nor have I ever been, but this is not about Bush, it is about us, as Americans, and it seems to hit the mark. The other day I was reading Newsweek magazine and came across some Poll data I found rather hard to believe. It must be true given the source, right? The Newsweek poll alleges that 67 percent of Americans are unhappy with the direction the country is headed and 69 percent of the country is unhappy with the performance of the President. In essence 2/3 of the citizenry just ain't happy and wants a change. So being the knuckle dragger I am, I started thinking, 'What are we so unhappy about?''

A.. Is it that we have electricity and running water 24 hours a day, 7 Days a week?

B.. Is our unhappiness the result of having air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter?

C.. Could it be that 95.4 percent of these unhappy folks have a job?

D.. Maybe it is the ability to walk into a grocery store at any time and see more food in moments than Darfur has seen in the last year?

E.. Maybe it is the ability to drive our cars and trucks from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean without having to present identification papers as we move through each state?

F.. Or possibly the hundreds of clean and safe motels we would find along the way that can provide temporary shelter?

G.. I guess having thousands of restaurants with varying cuisine from around the world is just not good enough either.

H. Or could it be that when we wreck our car, emergency workers show up and provide services to help all and even send a helicopter to take you to the hospital.

I.. Perhaps you are one of the 70 percent of Americans who own a home.

J..You may be upset with knowing that in the unfortunate case of a fire, a group of trained firefighters will appear in moments and use top notch equipment to extinguish the flames, thus saving you, your family, and your belongings.

K..Or if, while at home watching one of your many flat screen TVs, a burglar or prowler intrudes, an officer equipped with a gun and a bullet-proof vest will come to defend you and your family against attack or loss.

L .. This all in the backdrop of a neighborhood free of bombs or militias raping and pillaging the residents. Neighborhoods where 90% of teenagers own cell phones and computers.

M.. How about the complete religious, social and political freedoms we enjoy that are the envy of everyone in the world?

Maybe that is what has 67% of you folks unhappy.

The Fact is, we are the largest group of ungrateful, spoiled brats the world has ever seen. No wonder the world loves the U.S., yet has a great disdain for its citizens. They see us for what we are. The most blessed people in the world who do nothing but complain about what we don't have, and what we hate about the country instead of thanking the good Lord we live here.

I know, I know. What about the president who took us into war and has no plan to get us out? The president who has a measly 31 percent approval rating? Is this the same president who guided the nation in the dark days after 9/11? The president that cut taxes to bring an economy out of recession? Could this be the same guy who has been called every name in the book for succeeding in keeping all the spoiled ungrateful brats safe from terrorist attacks? The commander in chief of an all-volunteer army that is out there defending you and me?

Did you hear how bad the President is on the news or a talk show? Did this news affect you so much, make you so unhappy you couldn't take a look around for yourself and see all the good things and be glad? Think about it......are you upset at the President because he actually caused you personal pain, OR is it because the 'Media' told you he was failing to kiss your sorry, ungrateful behind every day?

Make no mistake about it. The troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have volunteered to serve, and in many cases may have died for your freedom. There is currently no draft in this country. They didn't have to go. They are able to refuse to go and end up with either a 'general' discharge, an 'other than honorable' discharge or, worst case scenario, a ''dishonorable'' discharge after a few days in the brig.

So why then the flat-out discontentment in the minds of 69 percent of Americans? Say what you want, but I blame it on the Media. If it bleeds, it leads, and they specialize in bad news. Everybody will watch a car crash with blood and guts. How many will watch kids selling lemonade at the corner?

The Media knows this and Media outlets are 'for-profit' corporations. They offer what sells, and when criticized, try to defend their actions by 'justifying' themselves in one way or another. Just ask why they tried to allow a murderer like O.J. Simpson to write a book about how he didn't kill his wife, but if he did he would have done it this way......Insane!

Turn off the TV, burn Newsweek, and use the New York Times for the bottom of your bird cage. Then start being grateful for all we have in this country. There is exponentially more good than bad! We are among the most blessed people on Earth and should thank God several times a day or at least be thankful and appreciative.'

'With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, 'Are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?'

Jay Leno

Please keep this in circulation. There are so many people who need to read this and grasp the truth of it all. If we're not careful, we may get a president that will make us wish for President Bush again.

Google Reader!

I have to share with anyone who might look that Google reader has saved me many hours per day of surfing from blog to blog to try to keep up my BLOG stalking. Go to https://www.google.com/reader and check it out. Al you do is put in the URLs of the Blogs and other websites the you may frequent and it will list all new posts when you log in right there in front of you on one page. No need to surf and open every BLOG to see whats new. I even set this to be my home page so its right there when I open up by browser. I still surf a little probably just purely out of habit but this has saved me many annoyed looks from my husband. Give it a try!!

Fireworks and the color Purple

Our 4th of July began with our Ward/neighborhood's Independence Day pancake breakfast. Its pretty cool as our ward sponsors the event but invites the entire neighborhood so we get many of our neighbors there with their kids.

Braiden and the 2 other Cub Scouts there performed the flag raising ceremony. Braiden was very proud of him self since this was his first time doing it and he really had no help from any leaders. He just winged it.

Paige was all decked out in Red, White and Blue of course. You wont see me in any of these pics because, as you will learn, I was covered in purple. (And I had just woken up so I looked like i had been beat up).

After the breakfast the kids all get to participate in the "Parade" that follows a fire truck around the neighborhood, however, this year there was an emergency so the firetruck did not make it. It turned out to be an interesting parade. I think the kids were a little baffled as to why they were allowed to ride their bikes in the street this one time. Paige and Cameron love their little Red Wagon. Braiden wishes he was 3 again so he can ride in it.

That evening we went to a BBQ at friends house and then went home and did our own firework extravaganza in our driveway. It always amazes me how men seem to be born with this "pyro-maniac" tendency. No matter what age, they are more than excited to get in there and try to catch something on fire. Not Paige!! When those fireworks started, she bolted in the other direction. I caught this shot right before she pretty much headed for the hills.

SO remember when I told you that I was covered with purple? Well, this is why. See that lovely color on the wall behind Eric? And see Eric's look of "Please don't ever make me stay up until midnight, drawing 75 stripes on walls with you again"? Well that is what we did over our 3 day weekend. Beginning Thursday afternoon when I got off work through Saturday evening, we painted Paige's room for the final time until I move out of this house. I really mean it this time...

I got this brilliant idea to paint stripes in her room. Originally I was just going to do purple. Then I decided to do two shades of purple, one for the lower walls and one for the upper vaulted part. THEN- I made the mistake of looking through the idea books at Home Depot and saw these great striped walls and thought "How hard can it be?" HA!! How hard? So then I was talking to my friend at work about faux painting and thought "Hey! I should rag paint the stripes!! I AM A GENIUS!!

Well about 20 hours, 6 rolls of tape and 40 bruises on my legs later...the end result is adorable!! And so are Paige and Cameron in this picture..

I am so happy with the results. Believe it or not, purple is actually a very versatile color. You can put anything from pumpkin orange to fire engine red to cotton candy pink with it and it all looks cute. I remember that my mom always made sure that we had cute rooms while we were growing up. That is one of the things I looked forward to the most about having my own kids. Paige better appreciate my bruises and broken nails. If I could do it all over again, I would have gone to interior design school. Helping save lives is good and stuff but making people's houses prettier would be a super fun job...maybe

I had to throw this in too. Paige fell asleep in the car the other day with her sunglasses on upside-down. In case you were wondering, I broke out the camera and took this pic behind my head whilst driving 80 mph on I-15. Anything for a good blogging op.

The Mormon Miracle Pageant (The Marmons Gather in Manti)

Eric and I have been to the Mormon Manti Temple Pageant many times but this would be our first adventure with the little kids. I would say for any of you who lack wisdom in the area of dragging your little, tired children to a very crowded small town in the middle of Utah in the 95 degree weather and attempt to keep them quiet and reverent during a production of this nature: If your going to do it, sit out on the street with the anti's where they don't mind that your toddler is creaming "I'm poopy!" and your baby is screaming hysterically because he is being eaten alive by mosquitos. Oh and bring a leash.

I have always loved attending the Manti Temple Pageant. My first experience there was when I was 11 years old and my brave Grandmother trekked from California to Utah with 5 granddaughters to visit family here and decided to give us the Manti Pageant Experience. I remember it rained and we ended sitting under chairs in puddles so that we could still try to see it. I still recall that I loved it and my absolute favorite part is the Heavenly Choir at the end.

This is the Manti Temple at first sight when driving into Manti. It really is one of the most gorgeous temples I have been in. So majestic being up on that hill.

Those are the Ephraim cows. There are lots of them.

Cameron is finally sitting up well enough that we take him out of the infant seat and put him into the stroller. He is so happy to be "free" of the seat.

Like my shadow down in the corner? Skill.

So I will admit that even more than the Pageant, I love funnel cakes. OK I guess its really just a perk but its really not the same experience unless we get a funnel cake with strawberries and powdered sugar!

I thought I would throw these in just because my kids are cute. When Braiden is away I can always catch Paige playing in his bed. Cameron will just sit in his crib and watch Paige on the bed and bust up when she bounces. They are so cute when they play together.

One of my favorite things

So this is a little random compared to my regular posts but today I was searching for the perfect wall art for Paige's bedroom and I found these darling prints by illustrator Alison Jay . Most of her work is in children's Books but I thought that these were so cute.
I had to get on Amazon and look for her books and I ended up buying Alice in Wonderland for Paige. It is so cute.







As a side note: I did not buy all or any of them for that matter. I just thought these were great. I still have not found the right picture for Paige's room that I would like to do in a fun circus theme. Any suggestions?

Days 6 & 7 in Orlando: More Magic and the long journey home!

So on Monday we decided to take it easy and sleep in, go to the pool and then later in the day go back to Magic Kingdom for Fireworks and parades. So since the boys thought the girls were party-poopers, they left at 1 pm so that we could meet them later.

My mom, Whitney and I decided to go for a walk to find food and we passed this little pond with this sign. Seriously?
Later that evening we met the boys at the Magic Kingdom and scoped out a perfect seat for the Mickey and Friends show that happens right in from of the Castle.
This is me in front of the Walt and Mickey statue. Self portrait, in case you were wondering.
My little animals in front of the castle.

This was pretty much Braiden's demeanor anytime we were doing anything that had to do with Princesses or Pooh or Mickey. If it was Pirates or Roller Coasters, then he is his other personality. What a boy.

This was a very cool show and I highly recommend you don't miss it if you go to The Magic Kingdom. All the favorite Disney characters and Princesses as well as Peter Pan were there.

The group watching the show.

So the next day, we packed up, made one more stop at the pool and headed off to the airport for the long flights home. Again everyone did alright but Paige was not feeling very well. She was running a fever and it turns out she has an ear infection. Surprise, surprise! Thank goodness it was the last day of the vacation.

Home at last. We love Salt Lake and its DRY climate. We all had a great trip but we are so glad to be home and in our own beds. Cameron was so happy to see us. I swear he got longer and smarter while we were gone. He started doing this little army crawl over the last seven days. He is no longer stationary. YIKES!!

Welcome Home kids!

Day 5 in Orlando: Sea Worldliness

Its been a couple of days since my last post and the truth is that I am now happily home in my dry climate recovering from the long flights home. I have a couple days of catching up to do so I figured I better do it while all my memories are still somewhat fresh.

Day 5 was begun at 3am with a loud "konk" and scream of "ou-ee" from Paige when she fell out of the hotel bed and hit her face on the hotel nightstand. At the time I didn't realize she had hurt herself because it was dark and I could not see her eye swelling up. I got her calmed down and put her back in bed and in the morning Eric awoke to the huge shiner on her left eye. Poor thing. She was happy nonetheless but I could tell it was sore for her. You know when people see your kid looking like they got beat up that's exactly what they are thinking, right? That you beat up your kid. Not the case people. Not this time anyway. Ha ha, just kidding.

So this day was for the World of Sea. Also known as Sea World. It has been years since I have been to Sea World so I thought that for sure this was something that could not be missed. Well I guess my Orlando Travel tip of the day for you is this: Your kids really can't tell the diff between Sea World and the fish section at Wal-Mart. So seriously, save yourself the $60 per person.

Honestly though, my kids had a blast but for me it was really just a reminder that everything seems cooler and cheaper when you are little.

The first stop was of course, the Shamu show. I didn't want to tell my kids though that Shamu is dead and this is his Great-Great-Grandson. Don't crush the illusion mom.

The show was neat and was I ever glad that I was not sitting in the lower section. It was hot but in Florida weather, if you get wet, you stay wet. All day. The air is so full of moisture that you can't dry off and you get chafed. Braiden learned that the hard way.

We learned that the only place to find real snow in Florida is in the Arctic Exhibit. It was like 50 degrees in there for the animals but remember what I said about Braiden being wet? He was shivering after hugging that ice wall.

In case you were wondering, these whales are not real.

This is the weirdest thing I have ever seen. Its called a Leafy Sea Dragon. Google it. Very cool. Its in the Seahorse family and I thought it was amazing. This was the coolest thing I saw at Sea World.

This was the coolest thing Paige did at Sea World. Oh, to be a little one again and run around in nothing but a diaper and pigtails. She was so hot that I let her undress an play in this little water park for like an hour. She was so happy. I had to drag her out.

Aren't my kids cute? Like the black eye?

Um, those whales aren't real either. But don't tell Paige.

By the end of the day we were all a little tired. We took a cab right from Sea World to Downtown Disney where we ate at Hollywood Planet (the loudest restaurant in the world) and walked some more fighting through more crowds and then took the bus back tot hotel.

This did us in as you can see. That explains why I did not post that night.


Good night.

Day 4: Magic in the Magic Kingdom

Its a little late so today I will mostly just let the pictures speak for themselves. We spent the day in the Magic Kingdom which is like the Disneyland we know and love but a little different. We started the day with a character breakfast with Pooh and Friends. We did the Jungle Cruise, The Enchanted Tiki Room, The Haunted Mansion, Its a small World, Peter Pan, Snow White, Dumbo, etc.




The little cafe we ate lunch at was right overlooking the launching area for Its a Small World. Paige was staning there waving to people and it was so hilarious that people were totally waving back at her and getting a huge kick out of it. Some people even took pictures of her which I was not too crazy about but what do you do? She is quite a ham.

Tomorrow? Sea World, here we come.