Happy V-Day!

In honor of Valentine's day I'm going to share a little secret...I LOVE Youtube movie music montages. Most of them are next to awful, but I don't care. I've sat through a lot of cheese to bring you this little gem. Enjoy!



I just love a good romance. Here are some more of my favorites:
The Office
The Painted Veil
Lost
And this one did not need any editing, it makes me cry every time:
Dan In Real Life
I'm a nerd. I already know!

Baby Booties

This is the result of a new favorite blog (Tip Junkie), downloading "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn" onto my Ipod, and trying to ignore the mess from our remodel:

(Or maybe I'm just baby hungry?)

Now I need something else to do while I listen to the last half of the book.

Random Acts

Nothing and everything happened this weekend.

Adelaide brought me breakfast in bed--plastic food on tiny plates, that is.

Randal decided not to make good on his threats of simply hanging peace beads, instead the walls went up between our kitchen and bathroom. No more looking out from the potty. Yeah!

Although I did find these door beads in the shape of Captain Kirk. Too bad. My mom would have been pleased. She's a Trekkie.Adelaide is speaking in tongues. She says, "alli esta!" ("there it is!") in the proper context. Thanks, Dora the Explorer for educating my daughter.

Ethan's not to be bested. He managed a 111 note streak on "School's Out for Summer". Thanks, Alice Cooper and Guitar Hero for educating my son.

After an entire afternoon of balancing the checkbook, sorting and filing, all my paperwork has a home. Plus my kids got to do their favorite chore--shred.
We didn't lose any fingers during said shredding. Bonus.

Without any prompting, Ethan prayed we would make it to church on time the next morning. We just about made it. Missed it by that much!

Randal made it through his lesson with only one belch out of a deacon--right in the middle of his testimony.

My beehives are angels--none of them burped.

It took me all day Saturday but I now only have one wall left to do tomorrow of that blasted wallpaper.

Thinking of Joining a Cult

Have you ever seen the infomercial for this fine product?Ethan thinks a blanket with sleeves is an excellent idea. He was excited to find them available at Bed Bath & Beyond and tried his hardest to get me to buy one.

Since then Ethan has come up with many useful purposes for a Snuggie:
1. You can play video games in a Snuggie. (no big surprise)
2. You can do somersaults and flips in a Snuggie.
3. You can drive a car in a Snuggie.
4. Better yet, you can fly an airplane too.
But my favorite...
5. You can bring a Snuggie for show and tell.

After a disappointing Ab Roller incident, I promised myself I'd never buy an as-seen-on-tv product again; but Ethan's arguments are so compelling I'm thinking of lifting the ban. I've always wanted to fly an airplane, so don't be surprised if I post a photo with us looking like a bunch of monks someday soon.

My Crush

Is it weird to fall in love with a grocery store? Right or wrong, I officially began my affair with Wegmans today. (I put a link because their site has great recipes.) This is why:

1. It's beautiful inside.
2. Some of their prices rival, and sometimes even beat, a certain big-box store we all know and "love". Plus, I have the added bonus of not feeling my soul die a little as I do when I hand money over to WM.
3. Wegmans is the perfect marriage of utility and specialty foods. I'm excited to learn how to make sushi rolls. I found Wegmans to have not just an Asian section, but three isles of Asian grocery. I came home with all my supplies.
4. After a failed attempt to grow basil myself, I was thrilled to find mature plants I can continue to grow at home.
5. We ate lunch in their cafe. Not bad. I'm always a happier shopper when my belly is full.
6. Finding the mini shopping carts for Adelaide to use ultimately pushed me over the edge into full on Wegmans devotion. It's as if Maceys has come back home to me after a long, heartbreaking absence--only ten times better because of a selection that far exceeds Western Family's wildest dreams.

(photo taken last year at West Jordan's Maceys)

Pretty in Pink

A photo of Randal's fantastic bottom.

Randal spent the weekend working on the remodel. Notice the Disney princess flashlight in the right, tool-belt pocket? He said he found it very useful and to quit laughing.

He

Ethan came home with a poster today. From what I can gather the children are chosen to answer a few questions about themselves. The teacher writes the answers on the 2x3 sheet of ruled paper for the class to then work on word and letter recognition. I think. This is the second time Ethan has brought such a sheet home about himself. His first answer had something to do with playing Indiana Jones on the Wii. This time it said: Ethan Nelson likes playing Transformers on the Wii. I hope his teacher isn't using this exercise to establish a pattern of negligence.

The other night, while Randal was out of town, I noticed the house was getting colder and the boiler seemed not to be working. I called our neighbor who happens to be the one who installed the new boiler. He was out but promised to stop by on his way home. I bundled the kids up, sent them to bed and waited. Glen immediately diagnosed the problem--power had been shut off to the boiler. I didn't even know there was a power switch. Who had shut it off? I was the only adult home. It's not like the switch was in plain view or could be accidentally bumped. After a restless night's sleep thinking a serial killer was in the basement toying with me, I took Ethan down to the switch and asked if he had touched it. He said he had. Why? The noisy boiler had interfered with his video game playing in the other room.

There's no denying he loves video games. I don't mind. He follows the rules and doesn't whine when his time is up.

But he likes a lot of other things too. So I'm documenting proof Ethan is not so one-dimensional...

He likes to take hot, hot showers like me. Not woosey warm ones like his dad.

Apparently he loves pineapple, but not tomatoes. I found these post-it notes:
He likes to come home from school and tell me what he has learned. "Do you want to learn about Martin Luther King JR.?" he asked me. His tone was such I think he thought I was learning these things for the very first time. I played along.

He loves to write and receive mail. He calls any kind of mail "e-mail" and he doesn't believe me when I tell him e-mail really comes only by way of computer. I'm waiting for his teacher to explain it. Only then will he accept it as true.

He loves his Transformers calendar. He purchased it himself. He was even more proud of the receipt; showing it to his dad and saying, "I even got a receipt!" I couldn't throw it away for days.

He likes legos. And he likes making me gifts. Sometimes I even get lego gifts.
His likes his sister, and his sister really likes him. Instead of Ethan, she calls him "bwuddo" (brother). For a time she called him her son. I was relieved when she moved on from that one. Now she calls him my personal favorite--"best f-wend". It makes me cry.

In a family prayer, he recently thanked Heavenly Father for not mixing up families. I questioned him afterward to understand his meaning. He said, "if Steven [his friend] got mixed up with our family and I got mixed up in his family then you couldn't be my mom and I couldn't be your boy. So I'm glad Heavenly Father doesn't mix up families." I guess this means he likes us too.

I must stop there for now. He and I are going out for bubble-gum ice cream--something I know he likes better than video games.