Twi-light budget

Loved getting together with the girls for the much-anticipated movie. If you tell anyone I went twice I will deny it--once with my bookclub girls. Connie arranged for us to drive up to Ogden and stay overnight in their condo. So much fun. Then again with the bunco girls and Amber. Amber snapped this, and I stole it just now from Kelly's blog.

The movie was fun. Way low budget--the vampires' necks were still pink. Finish your makeup, people!! Not a fan of the unnecessary obsession with trees or the monkey comments. Weird. I also thought they should have left Bella and her dad at home instead of eating out every meal in the diner. I thought that diverted from her character. And other things. A good first draft, but not Hollywood polished enough for all the hype. I heard on the radio the next one will start filming in March and that now they have enough money to actually go to Italy!!

Robert Pattinson, however, did a much better job than I had hoped. I think he could be an Edward. Kudos to Robert.

Oh, Christmas Tree!!

Ashley, Grace and I put up our living room tree today. Kourtney refused to help on principle because she said it looks too much like a Utes tree. I told her it's the same tree we put up every year and she's never thrown a fit before. She said that was because BYU had won in the past few years, but now this tree is just too red and white for her taste. I said it's just Christmas--it's fun!! She said it's not Christmas yet--it's not even December. Almost December. Bah humbug to Kourtney.

It took a few hours to put up because I made a Black Friday run to Tai Pan with Amber yesterday. I had to regroup and rethink some of the decorations. But it is up, and as I sat back in the lovely glittery glow I felt like "all is calm, all is bright." (The flash lit the room up a bit too much for the right effect, sorry) That is, until I looked around at the rest of the house. Good grief!!

Merry Blog-mas

Well, my blog is now all decorated and ready for Christmas--my house, however, is a bit of a disaster. Isn't virtual decor great?!!

Congratulations, Kerri and Brett

We've been waiting two long years to officially welcome Isabelle Allison Reynolds into our family!!
Kevin's sister Kerri and her husband Brett took Izzie into their lives when she was six weeks old, and she was finally adopted and sealed this week. By the time we made it down to the atrium the kids were beyond ready to go home. These were the best candid shots I could manage, but they don't do justice to the beautiful sealing dresses. AND they leave out the rest of the family. I'll take them though and get more from Kev's family later.
Beautiful Izzie

Grouchy Izzie and Kerri

Sweet Izzie

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!
(Gracie's paperbag outfit from the preschool feast)

Tea Party Girls

Here's to long, lost friends--the kind you had themed, dress-up tea parties with in high school (our senior year we came as our future selves) and swore you would never forget, no matter what people said. Well it's been fifteen years, and I admit I let my friends kinda slip away just a little--okay, completely. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

It took a bit of effort, and Carol had to drive all the way down from Idaho, but we finally got together. Holy blast from the past!! We were a bit on the quiet side at first, but then the old yearbooks and home movies (of Jeanette, Carol and Christina performing Grease) came out. The ice melted, we reminisced about "remember when" and "Ooh, he was so cuute!" and "whatever happened to"...

Christina had us all over to her new house she's only been living in for two weeks--one of which she spent on vacation. It was immaculate and decorated. Nobody was shocked :) Hooray! Some things never change.

I stole these great pictures from Chris's blog--she was the only one with a timer on her camera. I don't even know when or how this little beauty was taken, but it's great. That is a classic Christina grin, and I have got a fabulous fan of eyelashes, plus a shot up the nose going for me.

Happy Nov. 4

Got my sticker. Went to the polls around 11:45, and luckily I beat the lunch crowd. Walked in, walked out, thanks to Charity. We did an election day kid-swap, and we were both done within an hour!

HALLOWEEN!!!

Suzanne and I went to Ashley's school parade today and saw some of our neighbors dressed to the hilt--so much fun. Karen, Trista, Jessica and Heather looked great!! Heather Mecham was decked out all punk goth. She said it was her alter ego and that she was having a ton of fun. Ooo, alter ego--intriguing. For those of you who know me--or thought you did, I just had to try. So here are the before and afters!

Before--helped out at Ashely's school party;

After--went to the mall and asked the helpful, friendly pierced kids where I could buy faux body jewelry. They were super nice (btw, the answer is: you can just buy the real stuff and pull out the ball). Unfortunately, you can't even see the faux piercings in this photo unless you click on it. And you thought Halloween was all about the kids!

Well okay, here they are.

Grace is Snow White.

Ashley is a devil.

Kourtney is a vampire.

Happy Halloween!!!

Preschool parade

The preschool parade, led my Miss Heidi as Dorothy.

WARNING: Highly Flammable

The girls carved their pumpkins on Monday; they did a great job. As an after thought we added some spray paint I had lying around for special effect. Now their pumpkins look extra cool and are highly flammable. No candles inside for us this year. I was thinking I might string orange lights through the older girls' and through the basket they sit in front of, or else I can just put flashlights or those elecric tea lights in them.

Grace wanted to hold hers. It's a sparkly black kitty, and we just had to poke on the costume. That's my favorite way to carve a pumpkin. Ashley's is the black witch with gold sparkles, and Kourtney's is the pearly white pumpkin face.

A love for all time--KEVIN and MINDY

Kevin and Mindy in 1994--the year they were married.
Kevin and Mindy in 1990.

Kevin and Mindy in 1984/1982.

Kevin and Mindy in 1978.

Kevin and Mindy in their afro stages in 1976.

Kevin and Mindy in 1964.

Kevin and Mindy in 1952.

No new skin off Grace's nose

Holy cow, look at the improvement to Gracie's face after just one week! That's the miracle of Neosporine at work right there :) A doctor in our neighborhood once told me he's encountered two kinds of mothers in his years of practice. Mother 1. Rushes her child to the doctor for every tiny thing. Mother 2. Assumes all is well and believes that a little Neosporine will cure anything.

I must say, I'm a bit jealous of that beautiful baby skin. No way do I heal that quickly. I'm thinking there's definitely something to these human growth hormone treatments.

Anyway, we're just glad she's doing so great. Thanks for all your sweet notes and calls about her.

Just a few bumps and bruises

Poor Gracie fell off the trampoline Saturday evening at her friend's house. She bit the cement in a sad little line up her cute face. So sad. Aside from two slightly scraped knuckles, there's no other injury on her. She took it all on her face!! She's doing great though--she's a good little trooper. She's pretty banged up, but she only injured her skin--which is healing nicely!


As an extra disaster sidenote, I got stung by a bee earlier at Kourtney's soccer game, and the girls shattered our rotating microwave plate all over the kitchen floor, all in less than 24 hours. Not my favorite weekend.

Hair, hair, it's everywhere!!

The girls and I got new haircuts--our neighbor Jeanette did a beautiuful job, and I think everyone is happy with her new hairs. We figure between the four of us we cut off about three feet of hair. Big change!! Here we all are, lookin sassy!

Quirky

The Rules: Link the person who TAGGED you. That would be Amber at http://www.kennyandamber.blogspot.com/
Mention rules on your blog.
Tell about six quirks of yours.
Tag six fellow bloggers to do the same.

1. I hate knuckle-popping.

2. I say I don't want food, and then I eat bites of yours.

3. I apparantly don't consider tuna to be seafood.

4. I file my nails really short, square and even--if one gets a little lower than the others, they all must be filed to match.

5. This is a repeat, but I HATE feet. Ooh, (add-on )I'm also a chapstick addict.

6. People tell me I walk really straight; I've never noticed, and I don't know how to fix it or how to teach you to instill it in your children.

My favorite stalker

I just discovered I've been blog-stalked by my cute little bride friend, Christine, who found the slideshow about "Seven Brides"!! It's been so much fun catching up with her and finding out that she's still cute, but not so little anymore. When we did the play she was sixteen and silly and giggly. Now she's a law student at BYU and married. This is a pic of Christine and I at a Riverton parade. This is Christine with her new hubby--David Beck--looking grown-up and beautiful, but I'm sure she's still giggly and fun. Congrats, Christine!!

BLOG ISSUES

This blog is temporarily under construction.

I'm not sure what the problem is, but I can't put a new, cute background on it.

I'll continue working on it, and keep you "posted." :0

Update: I thought I was going crazy because I've never had such issues with TCBOTB before, but I just went to the website and found this notice on the homepage:

"We're running some tests with a new server so please be aware that you may experience issues with the site such as:-problems logging in.-updated information not showing.-backgrounds not loading correctly.Thanks for your patience. Please try back tomorrow! No need to send an email regarding these issues as we are working on fixing them as soon as possible. :)

Thanks!
Ashley - TCBOTB"

These, by the way, are my exact issues, and I did send an email. SO, I'll try again tomorrow.

All About Grace

Gracie's first day of preschool was Tuesday. She barely makes the cut--Sept. 1 is the cut-off date for the three-year old class, even though Grace looks like she's 4 1/2. She did pretty well. She'd had so much fun on her birthday that 9:00 a.m. class time came pretty early for her;(uh, me too--I had to call Suzanne to drive car pool for me) she was a little tired and nervous. She absolutely refused to wear the perfect first day of school outfit I'd laid out. The outfit she picked out, however, suited her. She looked like a bright little ray of sunshine with her "Smile" shirt and bright yellow shoes from Grandma and Grandpa.
I loved the project they did; that is in fact Gracie's signature at the bottom.
Right before bed on Tuesday night I snapped a pic of the perfect first day of school outfit, (it says "I got an A+ in school) and Grace was more than willing to lay next to it in jammies and smile away.