Let the Christmas preparations begin

So, I'm totally copying my friend Paige by making my blog more festive for the holidays. I can't help it. She's got me in the holiday mood.

I bought Christmas Mint M&M's, a pretty christmas dress for Makayla (they didn't have one in Ellie's size)

and new holiday jammies for me.

I also found myself browsing the Christmas section of WalMart for music, stockings, lights, and ornaments. I love Christmas! It's just so fun!

Cooking Class Flyer

I am in charge of a monthly cooking class for church. I needed to come up with some sort of flyer to let the ladies know when each class would be and what we would be making and so forth. So, I came up with this idea.

The white index cards are removable so I can change the information every month without having to make all new flyers every time.

I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. What do you think?

Another bout of random thoughts to help me get to sleep

I've discovered that when I am trying to get back to sleep and can't, the weirdest thoughts enter my head. So, for the second installment of random thoughts from my sleepless nights, I will begin with Robin Williams.

Anyone remember this movie?

I love it! My 2 favorite parts, which I happened to be thinking about this morning are 1) the boys in Robin Williams' class are standing in front of pictures of previous classes. Robin is trying to impress on the boys' minds the importance of seizing the day. He is whispering Carpe Diem, pretending like it's the people in the picture saying it. It's really so much more comical than I can describe. 2) In the class, which is a literature class, I believe, ( I haven't seen the movie for several years, so I can't remember for sure) they are reading a poem that uses the phrase "barbaric yawp." I love that phrase. Not sure why, I just do.

Thinking about the word "Yawp" made me think of other words that don't sound like words after you say them repeatedly. It's been about 10 hours since I was thinking of these words, and now the only one I can remember is "chuckle." So if you are alone, or even if you are not, go ahead and say them out loud. After a minute they start not sounding like words at all.

Yeah, yeah, give me a break. It was 4 in the morning. Let's see how much sense you make at 4 in the morning when you wish you were sleeping instead of staring at the ceiling wishing you were sleeping.

Moving on...I was thinking about nicknames. That boy from my 8th grade math class gave people nicknames all the time. Here are some of my favorite examples from him. Thomas: Smitty, Marti: Murphy, Wes: Evan (althought that one isn't a stretch because Evan was actually this kid's middle name), Lane: Beano, Aaron: Isaac. I think this boy is one of my favorite people because he was always so completely random, as is evident by these crazy nicknames.

Well, so much for my randomness today. I'm really going to try to post something coherent tomorrow. Or maybe tonight since Kasey is working out of town and I'll have nothing better to do.

laughing babies will make you laugh

Check out this video. My girls love it. They also love this one. But this is the one that gets me.

Random thoughts to start your day

Ellie woke up this morning at 3:00. I got her back to sleep, but Kasey was up getting ready for work, so I decided to stay up until he left. After he had gone, I stayed up a little bit longer to read. But then I had a hard time getting back to sleep.

While I was lying in bed, not falling asleep, I had some fairly random thoughts. So, because I'm trying very hard to avoid doing my dishes this morning, I'm going to share those completely random, have-nothing-to-do-with-anything thoughts.

1) Have you seen that episode of Friends with the cheesecake? In case you haven't, or don't remember, a cheesecake is delivered to Monica's apartment by mistake. Chandler is there and he ends up trying a bite. Well, this is the BEST cheesecake ever. (speeding things up) Rachel has some, they fight over the cake, it falls on the floor. But this cheesecake is so delicious that they end up eating it off the ground. So there's the back story.

For my birthday, I made my favorite potato dish. It's know by many names: Idaho potato supreme, company potatoes, creamy potato casserole, and my personal favorite--funeral potatoes. For those of you who have not had it, it's shredded potatoes, cream soup, sour cream, maybe a little milk, onions, and cheese. Stir together and bake. There are several variations of this recipe, but you get the basic idea.

So, yesterday I was reheating some of this to eat for breakfast. I got a plateful and as I was putting the lid back on the casserole dish, I knocked my plate on the ground. upside down. I just stared at the upturned plate. I was so sad. I lifted the plate and then stared at my potatoes on my floor. Then I seriously considered scooping them back on my plate and eating them. They are just that good. I started thinking about how dirty my floor was. I swept it like 3 days prior. Surely it couldn't be that dirty. Maybe I could just eat the part that hadn't touched the floor. So, as I tried to scoop up potatoes that hadn't touched the floor I thought, "This is really sad. I can't believe I'm actually doing this." At which point I wiped up the entire pile of scrumptious funeral potatoes and threw them in the garbage. I may have shed a tear.

2) My thoughts drifted to New York City. I've never been there, but I was thinking that in a city of 17 million or so people, there must be enough restaurants to eat at a different one every day of the year. With so many choices, how could you possibly choose a favorite? I suppose price and cleanliness and proximity to your house/apt would play a big part.

The thought of some place so big was eventually too much for my brain to digest at 4:00 in the morning, so I moved on to a lighter topic. Still, all this while, trying to fall asleep.

3) I'm reading this freaking hi-lar-i-ous book right now. Whatever you are reading right now...STOP! Go to the library and pick up a copy of "I'm a Stranger Here Myself" by Bill Bryson. It is laugh-out-loud funny. Even as I was reading it this morning, I was laughing. I was so tired that my eye lids were drooping, but I was still laughing. It's about this guy who lived in England for 20 years before returning to America to live. This book talks about different idiosyncrasies of Americans. It's so funny because it's stuff all around us, but we don't ever really think about. Some examples are, our fascination with cup holders, the postal system, basements, and garbage disposals. If you need a good laugh today, go get this book. You won't be sorry.

4) The thing that I last remember as I was drifting off to sleep this morning is a boy in my 8th grade math class that always used to poke me in the back with his pencil and sing "Mama's little baby loves short'nin, short'nin. Mama's little baby loves short'nin bread." I wonder whatever happened to that boy....

5) A picture of the sweet girl who woke me up when I would have rather been sleeping.

Learning a little more about me

I realized something about myself today after I read this quote:

I know a lot of morning people and I know a lot of night people but I have yet
to meet a late afternoon person.

I thought for a while that I was a morning person, but I hate getting up early. So I thought I must be a night person, but I get so tired after about 10. This quote has made me realize that I'm a late afternoon person. My favorite time of day is right after naptime between 4 and 6.

It's between these hours when I am happiest. I do my best shopping, my best reading, my best thinking, pretty much my best everything at this time of day. It's also when I am most likely to crank up the music and dance around the house with my children.

See, this is why I love good quotes. They make me think things about which I might not normally think.

Trick or Treat, Smell My Feet

I'm trying to get this picture thing figured out still. But here a few photos of my girls at Halloween.

Ellie as a kitty


Makayla as a princess

We sure had a lot of fun trick or treating. Makayla managed a "trick or treat" or two while Ellie mostly looked around at everyone.