So Thankful!

Get comfy! This is going to be a long one! :)

I am thankful for almost a full week of time with Trav and our friends! He had Wed.-Fri. off of dental school, so the fun began Wednesday with an afternoon of bowling.

(Creed likes to get close and comfortable. I like that Collin is looking at him like, "Whataya doing so close to my dad!":)

The Shaws and Carters...

the babies...Doug and I have mad skills. I blew everyone away with scores ranging in the 50's and 60's. I was born to bowl.

Da girls.

(and Collin)I was itchin' to watch some FRIENDS Thanksgiving episodes, so that night the Shaws came over to enjoy some with us. We also warmed up our stomachs for the next day by gorging on donuts and eggnog. I can't decide if the football episode or the Brad Pitt one is my favorite, but by far we most like to quote Brad saying, "YAMS!!". Never gets old.

The Marchants hosted us for Thanksgiving along with the Shaws, Shaheens, and Megan's brother's family. I made yams and scalloped pineapple. Sounds gross, I know, but ask anyone there, it's artery-clogging good!

Then later that night we got together at our house for some pie. I think Rachel wins for best looking and Megan and Crescent's tie for best tasting. I made a pecan pie which didn't look too great but ended up tasting pretty good. I also made a chocolate cream pie that turned out terrible!! It looked disgusting and tasted even worse. It won the trash award.

That night I also decided Collin was in need of another hair cut, so I chopped along his mohawk and used the clippers on the sides and back. Then Trav suggested using the clippers on the top to even it out and lo and behold a level 4 guard is a lot shorter than I thought! Goodbye mohawk! I was actually really heartbroken. I liked his do. *tear* I guess hair grows. I'll get over it. Eventually :)

The shorn locks.

I'm not proud of what I'm going to share next. Sadly, I took part in the Black Friday madness. :) My mom is not a "shopper" and never, ever, NEVER would go out on Black Friday. Thus, neither did I. Until this year. I saw a piano keyboard on sale at Target for 50% off, making it $50. To say I play the piano is a stretch, but I have taken lessons and know that if I practiced- HARD- I could plunk out a few hymns. We have no piano players in YW and have gone acapella for quite a while, so I thought it would be good for me to brush up. Target opened at 5am. I wasn't going to be crazy, so I set my alarm for 4:30am. I went to bed at 10pm and spent the next several hours either waking up to check my clock, or dreaming about being lost in a Target, looking for a keyboard. By 4:12am I had awoken for the last time and got dressed to head out. When I arrived, the line had already extended across the front of the mini-mall, and down the side of the building. After I got in line, it continued around to the back of the store and went all the way back. This is what it looked like behind me. At 5am, we started moving. By 5:04, I was in. I squeezed past the already thick crowd by the electronics, wiggling to the back shelf where the keyboards were. My $50, 61 key Casio was gone. It looked like there had only been room for one on the shelf. By 5:07 I had left the building. What was I thinking?

I was consoled later that day by buying myself an early Christmas present. Ta Da! It was $50 off, so not a smokin' deal, but still a bit on sale. I busted it out and marveled at its beautifulness :) It's like a Cadillac compared to what I was using before. The grand daddy of sewing machines. To me anyway. I can't wait to start all my projects!

That night we went out to dinner with the Shaw's and Finlinsons then went back to our place to play games. The boys creamed us playing Cranium. At one point, Jacob leaned forward and then seized up in pain. I guess he has a herniated disk that acts up sometimes. He managed to get on the floor and here's Doug trying out his own version of therapy- wiggling his legs back and forth. Poor guy was in so much pain, but we couldn't help but laugh as Dr. Shaw tried out his {magic} touch.

Saturday night, the Cardon's invited us over to make gingerbread houses. It was a lot of fun, but we won't be changing our careers to architects. We had a pretty shabby looking gingerbread {village}. So I just started throwing candy all over it. Candy makes everything better, right?! We also had some of Tiff's amazing hot chocolate and Creed favored us with some eggnog, including Rice Dream's version of eggnog. Funny thing, it tasted just like horchata. Seriously, go out and try it. Not bad.

Our masterpiece.

Collin had woken up that morning with a runny nose and not feeling too great, so we called it a night kind of early. Luckily, it's not a bad cold at all and on the plus side, he's had a few snuggly moments.

So, besides the usual things to be thankful for (i.e family, the church, etc) I am grateful for Skype (we got to chat with both families this weekend), my YW leaders growing up (I'm finally realizing how much work they put into their callings!), Hobby Lobby (I honestly don't know how many times I've been there the past few weeks), NO SNOW YET(this hasn't happened in 60 + years in Buffalo), and a new nephew (but I don't have any pics of little Rusty since his momma has deprived us! Hint hint :) Most of all, I'm grateful for commercial airliners that will be taking me to see my new nephew and family in just a couple of weeks!!!

Fiddler on the Roof vs. New Moon

Last Thursday I got an unexpected call from Trav, telling me that the Smiths had two extra tickets to see Fiddler on the Roof and had invited us. Wonder of wonder, miracle or miracles!!! :) This is my mom's favorite movie and I grew up hearing the songs, so needless to say I was mucho excited. Collin had also spent the majority of the day working out his wind pipes, so I was more than grateful to get out of the house.

It was playing at Shea Theater, which we had yet to visit. It was built in the early 1900's and was absolutely beautiful inside. I found this picture online, but it hardly does it justice. The walls, stage, and roof were extremely ornate and had a very fancy shmancy feel to it. The performance was sooooo amazing. I loved, loved, loved every second! I wanted to shimmy my arms with Tevye during "Tradition" and dance around with the girls during "Matchmaker". And it has such a good message!! The dad learns to adjust his ideas to the changing times, and does so, when it's appropriate. But when it comes to his daughter wanting to go against their faith, he just can't change!! I thought that was really poignant. This play went straight to the top of my favorite list, tying with Wicked. I can't say enough about how much I enjoyed it! Thank you Smiths for making my night!!! We owe ya big time!

Then last night we finally made it out to see the ever hyped up New Moon. I get pretty bugged when it comes to Twilight mania. The screaming girls and vampire worshippers need to get a life. I did read the books and found them mildly entertaining. Ok, so there were parts when I couldn't put it down, but overall, not that great. I wouldn't read them again. The first movie was so cheesy I had to roll my eyes as many times as Bella whimpered when getting too close to Edward. This one definitely had it's corny moments, but I thought it was much better than the first, albeit much too long. When I got home, Trav wanted to know if I liked the part where Jacob sheds his shirt. Scoff. How shallow does he think I am?! (I'll just claim the 5th on that one!:)

To answer the "question" posed by the post title, Fiddler wins a million times over New Moon. As if.

50 Things You May Never Have Known About Me...

A couple weeks ago, my friend listed 45 things about herself on her blog, for journaling purposes. I had so much fun reading it, I decided to do it myself, then make it one of those much loved "tags". So, make sure to go to the bottom to see if I "tagged" you! :) Here goes!

1. I've never had a cavity.

2. I do not like my “birthing” hips.
3. I want to write a book before I die.
4. I take really hot showers. Scorching hot.
5. I have an unnatural fear of bugs.
6. I carry mace with me almost everywhere.
7. I lick my ice cream bowls clean. (My grandmother used to tease me that I’d never get a husband doing that. Trav now does it too.)
8. I wish I had done sports in high school.
9. I love getting lost in a book.
10. I write out “to do” lists frequently.
11. I don’t adapt well to change, nor do I like it.
12. I miss teaching so much that it hurts sometimes.

13. I love, love, love to dance.
14. I could eat Mexican food every day. Cereal too.
15. I have a secret love of rap music. Not all, but Jay Z/Kayne type stuff.
16. I danced to “Crank dat” (rap) for my class on the last day of school.
17. I don’t like red meat, never have. Bacon and steak are vile.
18. I wish I didn’t care what other people thought.
19. I wore blue contacts for a couple years.
20. I can’t sing for the life of me.
21. I want to get my masters degree.
22. I am a night owl.
23. My husband feels the need to remind me that the cast of F.R.I.E.N.D.S aren’t really my friends.

24. I am a big time germ-a-phob.

25. I do not like animals- they encompass the whole "germ" thing to me.
26. I have at one point in my life learned to crochet, knit, embroider, sew, and do counted cross stitch, but can no longer remember how to do any of it!
27. I want to learn Spanish so bad. The Rosetta Stone is on my list of “Things I’ll buy when we have money”.
28. I wish I didn’t have a “Things I’ll buy when we have money” list and could just be happy being poor.
29. I will eat food after I’ve brushed my teeth for the night, and will not brush them again.
30. I cannot stand it when people’s dogs jump on me and lick my toes. It’s’ awful.
31. I sleep most nights with a teddy bear.
32. I have never driven farther than about an hour’s distance.
33. I have a constant urge to “document” my life with journal entries and pictures.
34. I’m afraid of what’s under the ocean.
35. I have a streak of road rage that’s embarrassing.
36. I’m not a “swearer”, but have been known to drop a naughty word when I think I’m going to die.
37. I typically think I’m going to die in a close call car situation.
38. I have rolled a car- oddly enough I did not swear then.
39. I hate being cold! I’d much rather be too hot than too cold.
40. I think animals and inanimate objects that act like they are human (you know, in commercials or the movies) is pure comic genius.
41. I edit everything I read.

42. I will lie to avoid hurting someone's feelings.
43. I love frozen, burnt cookies. Not just “a little on the done side”, I’m talking charred. Cold, black cookies = Yum!
44. I love Harry Potter and wish they would make a Hogsworth theme park. I would go every year.
45. I want to have at least one of my babies without an epidural. (Sorry, for once I don’t care what you think.)
46. I am a perfectionist in most things.
47. I think the absolute BEST smell in the world is a tire store, hands down. (In college, a friend actually gave me a tire to keep in my room so it could smell like a tire store.)
48. I am a people-pleaser.

49. I think people would have described me as "painfully shy" growing up in school.

50. I think being a stay at home mom is the best job in the world.

I tag: Shelley, Marcie, Jessica, Rachel, Leah, Paula, Megan E., Karen, Carrie, Megan S. and Tiffany!

We're on air in 5, 4, 3. .....

So tonight I recorded my first ever radio interview! Pretty exciting for my ho hum life. :) I guess the church buys 1/2 hour of air time each week and my friend, Megan's, calling is to host interviews for that 1/2 hour every month or so. This week's topic was about the youth programs in the church. Since I'm in the YW presidency and have served in YW for three years now, she thought I would suffice.

This is just what the outside of the recording studios looked like. I know I'm lame, but you should know by now that I take pictures of everything!

My friend, Bron, also did the interview.

Here is our hostess with the mostess, Megan! Isn't she cute?! She's pretty professional too. She hosted a show in Hawaii called Talkin' Stories with Megan and even worked in L.A. for a while on Hollywood sets like Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

So, I was stinkin' nervous, but it all turned out ok. The program is 28 minutes long and will air on WJYE 96.1 on Sunday morning at 6am. I know, way too early to be up or expect anyone else to be up listening either. But I will be! :) I'll probably be videotaping the radio too haha. I thought it would air on some obscure a.m. station, so it is kinda cool that it's on 96.1. That's a station we listen to all the time anyway. I'll consider it my 15 minutes of "fame". :)

A Must Read!

This book isn't new, but I just heard about it last month during a self defense class at church and it is a MUST READ! I consider myself a fairly nervous person, prone to worrying (thanks mom! :) and I learned tons from this book! The author, Gavin de Becker, is truly amazing. He owns a corporation that provides consultation and protection to the rich and famous and your average joe shmoe. He's developed complex, high stakes prediction systems used by police agencies, the CIA, FBI, etc. I also really admire him because he came from a very violent home and had a violent filled childhood. And yet, he turned it around and has become a protector and watchman against violence. His life is truly a testiment that you can't blame your childhood for a negative adulthood. The book is filled with personal stories and examples of people that encountered violence and ways they could have, or did, predict that violence. He offers signals to look for like, "Loan Sharking", "Unsolicited Promises", or "Discounting the word NO". He teaches that violence is very predictable. While several chapters didn't seem to apply to me, like marital violence or date stalking, I still felt like I learned a lot. And many have written to him to say that those chapters didn't help them personally, but helped them to intervene for a friend or family member. Most importantly I think, he encourages you to follow your intuition. For example, listen to nagging or "gut" feelings. They'll never lead you astray. We shouldn't be constantly fearful or always in panic mode, because then there is no signal reserved for the times when it's really needed. True fear is not an emotion, like sadness, or a state, like anxiety. True fear is a survival signal that sounds only in the presence of danger. Seriously, an EXCELLENT read!
Last month for book club, I read Banker to the Poor. It's about a man from Bangladesh, Muhammad Yunus, who saw horrible poverty and starvation in his country and decided to do more about it than just donate food. The book chronicles his efforts to start a bank that would loan out very small amounts to the very poorest of people so that they could raise themselves out of poverty. Until he came along, these people had to borrow from high interest moneychangers, because banks wanted nothing to do with illiterate peasants. His "microlending" idea has helped millions of people and spread to many 3rd world countries and even parts of the U.S. Parts of the book dragged for me because it read like an economics book and I knew I wouldn't need such specific details on how to start such a bank myself, but it did give me a better idea of how immense a challenge he took on and all the years of excruciating labor it took to make it successful. This is a man TRULY deserving of a Nobel Peace prize. (Not like some others that come to mind!) I love that his goal was not to just give a hand-out, but to allow these people to help themselves. His, was actually a realistic and lasting attempt to solve world hunger, not just put a band aid on it.

The month before, I read Outliers for book club. This book kind of jumps around a lot in telling famous people's success stories. His point was that there is no such thing as a "rags to riches" story. In every case, there were extraordinary circumstances that lead to such things as Bill Gates founding Microsoft. It reminded me of the book Freakonomics, because he takes an unconvential look at statistics and studies, analyzing them to portray a new perspective. He also claims that after 10,000 hours of practice, anyone can do just about anything. It just takes time. I liked this book, but for some reason I read it kind of skeptically. I guess when someone is trying SO HARD to convince me of something, regardless of how many studies back it up, I just get a little wary.

And finally, way back in July I picked Confessions of a Shopaholic for book club. I was getting tired of all the serious, life changing books I was reading and just wanted something silly and light to read on the beach. This definitely fit the bill! An easy read and even a semi-good moral at the end. And I just LoVe shopping, so it was fun to read about the fancy stores and merchandise and also to feel consoled about the fact that compartively, I have never even come CLOSE to having a shopping problem! :)

Fun at the Cemetery

Yes, you read the title correctly, stayed tuned for reasons why.... :)

My sister wanted to know if I was alive due to my lack of blogging, and I told her I had taken all of three pictures over the last week and a half.

Here's #1.

Yesterday was Friday the 13th and Collin's eight month birthday.

He has mastered sitting up on his own. He even pulled himself up to a standing position by grabbing on a stand up toy we have. His bottom two teeth finally busted through. That was no small miracle. He was Mr. Crankypants for those couple weeks. Yesterday I went to put him on his stomach and he scrunched up his body so that he landed on all fours. Amused, I stood back and said, "Yea Collin! Start crawling!". To which he turned to me with a look of horror and screamed. You can see the panic on his face. He's looking at me like, "Why the heck did you leave me like this- it's dangerous!" (If you enlarge the pic, you can kind of see the intruding chompers in his gums, but it's blurry)The weather has been A.Mazing. Rach and I have taken advantage of these 50 degree blessings by going on lots of walks. We also went on a little outing on Thursday to the outlet malls in Niagra Falls. It's fun to pack the kids and strollers up and go play "mom". Sometimes it still feels like playing house instead of realizing it's actually my life.

Today it was in the 60's!!! Nov. 14 and 61 degrees. Go figure.

I heard about a really cool cemetery a few miles from our house called Forest Lawn Cemetery. I know what you're thinking, cool and cemetery don't usually go together. But for reals, this turned out to be a good time. Most of the graves were from the 1800's to early 1900's. And they were pretty elaborate. These people wanted to go out in style, and a bit ostentatiously if you ask me.

There were big cement seats here and there, but this one cracked me up. It's shaped like a big sofa! Got to love the self timed camera perched precariously on the stroller, threatening to fall off if Collin so much as sneezed.

This grave/monument had a "scene" going on inside.

It's supposed to be the parents standing over their only son who died of a year long illness.

We also had a picnic by the {mirror lake}.

It was all fun and games until these geese hopped out of the water looking for food. I thought they were going to peck our eyes out. Trav was warming up his foot to give em a swift kick to the head. We aren't animal lovers.

Trav likes to "fly" Collin.

These are the chapel doors. It seemed to also be part of the cremetorium. I was bummed because we were there during their "open" hours but the door was locked. We also went to the "Masoleum Garden" and went inside one of the buildings. I've never done that before and it was quite interesting. It was really cold and austere feeling. I thought it was most interesting to look at the old fashioned pictures of the people. Some had notes left by family members wishing them a Happy Father's Day or something. It was weird to think that their bodies were just beyond the granit "headstones". Why does this stuff fascinate me?

This was a colosseum monument. Pretty unique.

There were so many towering oblisk headstones. I told Trav to stand in the middle of some so you could tell how massive they were.

On our way out I spotted what I thought was a deer statue. Nope! It was the real thing. It was weird because it let us get really close. This picture wasn't zoomed in at all. This is really how close we got to it. I think Trav would have mounted it if I hadn't expressed some concern. Those pointy antlers made me just a bit uneasy.

Some video of the deer escapade.

Not a bad morning! :)

More Halloween, Happy Birthdays, and Haircuts!

Well, on actual Halloween night, we were scrooges and only handed out candy to one group of trick or treaters before heading out to dinner with some friends. Then we ended up at the Shaheen's house to carve pumpkins. I guess we're all getting rusty on keeping with traditions, because no one was too eager to jump into the pumkin guts. So between three families, this is the only pumpkin that got to fulfill his "Halloween destiny". Trav gutted it and Bron and Doug each carved a side. This was Bron's side, a tooth. He's gonna be a good dentist :)

Got to have a family picture! I'm sad you can't see Collin's onsie, because it was a cute ghost face that Grandma Evan's sent in a Halloween package. (This package even had REAL Mexican tortillas from AZ. I love good tortillas, you know the kind you can sort of see through)

Then on Sunday, Nov.1, Rachel and Crescent had their birthdays! We celebrated by having the Carters, Shaheens, Camille, Cardons, and of course the Shaws and Marchants over. We scarfed on Cafe Rio and got sugar highs from Megan's yummy cheesecake and chocolate cake.Then on Monday the celebrating continued with dinner at Olive Garden. (Luckily, there were no surprises for Rach in her napkin)These are some friends from the Amherst side of town :)... Kendra, Megan, Jen, Rach, me, Crescent, and Heather. Afterward, we went to the mall to go shopping. When I told Trav that we were going to the mall to hang out, he sarcastically asked if we were going to go pick up on guys. We all kind of agreed it felt a bit high schoolish to go to the mall but it was still a lot of fun.

On to Tuesday! This little guy was in desperate need of a haircut. His mohawk was so long, it kept flopping over, looking much like a curl. I started trying new styles like a comb over, "butt crack hair", and even a ponytail hehe, but Trav was not likin' it. (The only way he let me even do the ponytail, was if I swore I wouldn't post it on the blog :( sad, cuz it was stinkin cute)

In the Bumbo, ready to cut....

Ta da! No more curl :)

Later that night I had Bunco at Camille's house. We decided to get creative when there happened to be a "tie" for a prize. In this case, there was a three way tie for Most Buncos. So they all had to do a {jig}. It was hilarious.

I believe Natalie won.

Then we had another tie and Tiff and Chanda had a push up contest. So glad I wasn't involved in this one! I only do {girl} pushups and not many at that!

As for Wednesday, we had some more "Mesa-onians" come to the Buff for interviews, so Amy and her husband, Bret came to stay for a couple nights. Last week we had Lucas Brimley come stay with us while he interviewed. We're crossing our fingers that we get some more fun people out here next year!

And finally, today and tomorrow we get to have Miss Lily come hang out with us while her mom is working at a shot clinic. Collin is all smiles when he sees her. She is such a good baby, but it is a bit of a wake up on what it would be like to have TWO kids. Just a bit more juggling. Hopefully, I'll never have two kids this close in age though. :)