Big Project #1

Yesterday, I took it upon myself to tackle the office. It was supposed to be Mike's space and I was to have no say, his stuff, his space. However, it was a big, giant junk pile. Last spring, I said "Listen babe, that office is totally unusable space. You're not using it, so I will give you until August to clean it up and use it or it's mine!" (I don't usually lay down the law with my husband, but this was something I felt pretty strong about)

It has literally been a death trap! So yesterday I felt inspired and dove right in!

BEFORE:

Last night, I felt very accomplished as I turned the light off and headed to bed. Not quite done, but well on it's way.

Last night at closing time ;)

That big black garbage bag was the 3rd load of grabage!

The trade off however is the giant pile of stuff in my living room, waiting to be organized and put in happy containers and boxes back into the office. I am heading to Target after Brooklyn's ballet class to buy organzing supplies.

I still hate the color on the walls ( I would have painted it chocolate brown) and the monstrosity of a desk that Mike built when it was still his office ;) However the aesthetics of it will have to wait for another time. Functionality is my goal. And, the walls in my living room/dining room/ entry/stairs are unpainted except for the random splotches where I have tested colors. That will be my next big project........

I'll post pictures of the finished office once I get everything put back in :)

Art!

We have had a naked wall over our fireplace mantle for 3 years, except at Christmas time when I hang a wreath. I just couldn't find the right piece of art to hang there. ( not like I am some sort of art connoisseur, but I like what I like) I could have just given up and hung a big family picture, or something that I didn't LOVE, but I held out. And there it was.....Perfect! I found a piece of art for over my mantle that I love. Now I don't know if it can really be called art, because I bought it at Target, but I LOVE it nonetheless. And every time I walk into the room and see it sitting on the mantle (it isn't hung yet, just resting there) I feel happy and satisfied!

What you may not be able to tell from the picture is that, the tree is just wood grain. I know I'm lame. I am quite certain that any of you who really know anything about art are laughing at me, but I waited 3 years for it!

Hey Judah!

There are so many moments in my kids lives that I wish I could videotape. The little precious, moments that by the time you get the camera are over, or even if you do get the camera in time, they will stop as soon as they see it. One of those came this morning after 'Family Breakfast'. We all love the Beatles song "Hey Jude" (obviously because of our own little Judah). But Judah, loves this song. I mean how awesome is it to have a song about you? Well, this morning as family breakfast was wrapping up, I turned my ipod to the song and my little Judah man let loose. Dancing with his whole body, laughing and singing the "Na, Na, Na Naa Naa Na, Na, Na , Na Na Naaa, HEY JUD(AH), at the very top of his lungs. Awesome, I never want to foget those moments! For as much as he makes me crazy and sometimes I wish I could duct tape his mouth closed and glue his hands together.....He is such a joy and his wild personality makes his hugs the absolute squeeziest and when he gives me kisses, he really means it! I love you dude!

BTW, my husband bought me an awesome ipod dock for Christmas, that made this mornings kitchen dance party possible. Thanks Babe! I love it!

The Cost of Conviction

Well today I can tell you exactly what the cost of conviction is. It is $5.99 for a package of free range organic roasted chicken breast lunch meat!!! My kids are not PB&J sandwich kids. They eat turkey/chicken sandwiches almost every day. That was one of the things that I had never thought of when deciding that I would only by organic, free range meat. But as I kept telling myself at the grocery store while wrestling with the cost of organic lunch meat...."Either I believe that this is right or I don't." And I do believe that this is the right thing to do. It still hurts a little though.
It did inspire another conversation with Brooklyn about doing the "right" thing even though it's hard.

Life Changing Film!

The documentary Food Inc, by filmaker Robert Kenner takes a hard look at the food we are eating, where it is coming from and the politics behind the food industry. Let me tell you people, this film is shocking and at least for me LIFE CHANGING! There are so many reasons why you NEED to watch this film. Ignorance is not bliss. There were some very shocking things about bacteria such as ecoli and salmonella in the meat products you are eating and the SHOCKING origins of ecoli. They also tried to uncover the corruption in the beurocratic and political arenas that are supposed to be protecting us such as the FDA, and the USDA. However for me, these were not the things that have changed my views on the meats and animal products I will be buying.
Now, I am not a crazy 'animal rights' type person. I believe that God gave us animals as food, but in saying that I also believe that God gave us dominion over the animals and therefore we are responsible for how these animals are being treated. In watching this film I saw chickens who were so fat (pumped up with homones, to make them bigger, faster, because we all love those big, white meat, boneless skinless chicken breasts) that they can not support the weight of their own legs, and either don't move or have broken legs. The chickens never even see the light of day. Cattle that are sick, because they are being fed corn instead of grass. Cows that never see a pasture and stand ankle deep in their manure, until they are loaded into a truck to be slaughtered. I just don't think that we are being responsible stewards of what God has given us to take care of.
Last Saturday night we had a mouse in our gargage and I set a trap to get it. On Sunday morning, the kids were anxious to see if we had caught the mouse. Now I did not really want the kids to see the dead mouse, but they were insistent and I decided to let them have a peak anyway, and then we would talk about it. Sure enough we went out to the garage, and in our trap was a little, dead mouse. It brought up some really great conversation between Brooklyn and I about how God gave us authority over the animals, but that also means that we are responsible to take care of them. She wanted to know why I killed the mouse and I told her because the little mouse already knew how to get into our garage and the last mouse found it's way into the house, and that they will chew holes in the wall and poop on stuff. This satisfied her curiosity. But while watching this documentary about where our food is coming from I was reminded of my conversation with Brooklyn and what it means for us to have authority over the animals.
I felt horrible for the way our food industry is handling the animals, and feel like it is irresponsible and immoral to support these practices. I have always known that organic meats are a better choice for the health of my family, and when on sale I would buy them. Most of the time, however I would make a choice in favor of my budget and but the cheaper meats, but I can't do that anymore.

I feel morally compelled to vote with my dollar, and back-up what I believe about our responsibilty to the creatures God placed us over, and only buy organic, free range, grown the way God intended meats. It's going to be a hard road sometimes, Organic meat is Expensive, but that's the beauty of our wonderful capitalistic society. We have a choice to vote with our dollar, and the larger demand that there is for chicken and beef raised the way God intended, the industry will follow suit and things can change. But as long as people keep demanding, giant hormone filled, grown in 48 days by genetic engineering instead of 5 months, boneless skinless chicken breasts for $1.99 a lb, there will never be any change in the industry. Even if only to model to my children that we are responsible for the choices we make, and that choosing to do the right thing IS important.

We had a busy weekend with lots of firsts! Saturday Brooklyn was invited to a roller skating birthday @ Skate City. Her first time one skates. It was a little rough at first, but once we got her wheels tightened a little, she had a blast.

Yep, that's her wrestling with the boys. They were knocking each other down on purpose. I kept trying to convince her to skate with the girls. But she would much rather play "crash" with the boys

The boys had their first all boys "brother" bath and Brooklyn took her first shower all by herself. (sniff, sniff)

Joel is experimenting with standing up in the tub. Last night we actually had quite the battle where he would stand up, I'd say no, no Joely and make him sit down. He'd get mad and throw himself back, I'd hold his head up while he threw a fit so he didn't drown. When he was done with his tantrum, I'd sit him back up. At which point he would pull himself back up on the side of the tub and we'd repeat the whole process. We did that about 6 or 7 times and then I just got him out of the tub.

Sunday morning was the first big snowfall that the kids got to go out and play this year. I agreed to suit up as well and go help build a snowman.


Brooklyn putting the final touches on our "snow lady"

"TA-DA"


As soon as we came in, and got all un-suited. They climbed onto the couch to stare out the window at their creation. It was adorable!

'Wicked' adventures!

I have been dying to see Wicked for YEARS! I actually was trying to plan a whole girls trip to L.A. last fall with the sole purpose of seeing it. Instead I had a baby. Naturally, when I heard Wicked was coming to Denver I was overjoyed, especially when Mike called and said he was going to take me to see it. Well, without verbally crucifying my husband on line, I'll just say....the tickets did not get bought and the show was sold out. Thus began the adventure.

I have been trying to find some on Craigslist, ebay, other ticket vendors etc for a couple of weeks, All to no avail. This weekend is closing weekend, so I decided to take matters to the next level. Every night they do a lottery drawing @ 6 pm for tickets to the show, so Elaina and I decided to head to Denver last night to try the lottery. We left @ 4pm which should have got us to the box office for 5:30. Once we got into Denver, the traffic was UNREAL! I think according to the GPS we only had 15 miles to destination, but there we were, on I 25 barely moving. Meanwhile I was developing an ulcer as I watched the time for the lottery drawing come and go. But we pressed on, thinking surely there will be scalpers? When we got to the theatre, we walked around for a few minutes looking for someone who pehaps was trying to profit from our misfortune. Since it was still 1 1/2 hours from the show starting, we decided to grab a quick bite and coffee from a cafe right out front of the theatre where we could scout for shady people with tickets to sell. For those of you who really know Elaina and I, you can imagine how much fun we had doing this. Every person with a back pack or trenchcoat, or ball cap was clearly a scalper (to us) and we tried to track there activity. At about 7 we headed back out to the cold to find us some tickets. There was another couple holding a little sign, looking for tickets so we stole their idea, made a better sign and tried to look more desperate and pathetic.

The first single ticket came within 15 min. A group of ladies from Salt Lake City, a girls trip planned months in advance, one of the ladies couldn't come. We didn't buy the ticket outright, but we exchanged numbers in case we found another single. Another 10 min or so, a family sees our sign, and says they have a single seat. Their son broke up with his girlfriend. A quick call to the ladies from Salt Lake and we were in!!!! My heart was leaping with joy!!!

I actually got choked up during one of the first songs, not beacuse it was an emotional song but I couldn't believe I was finally there, watching WICKED! It was an awesome show. Not even too built up in my mind. Better than I imagined. The music was awesome!

We finally arrived home between 12 and 12:30. Upon my arrival home I found a hallway full of dirty diapers. Someone had dumped out the diaper pail and there were nasty diapers every where. I couldn't even have got into the door of Joels room. ( Mike had to get up to let me in, and as we was sleepily climbing back into bed, said that Judah had probably done it. Mike had found him awake and wondering around at approx 11pm.) Mike climbed back into bed and I cleaned up all the diapers. After taking them out to the trash, I popped into the kids bathroom to wash my hands so that I wouldn't have to turn the light on in our bathroom and there it was.... An entire bottle of Childrens Motrin sitting on the counter, lid off, empty. Now I knew that this was an almost brand new bottle, so immediately I ran to Mike and woke him up with a "WHERE"S THE MOTRIN?" He sleepily looked at me and said "What are you talking about?" I shoved the empty bottle in his face and said "IT'S EMPTY!" Mike jumped out of bed and we ran downstairs to our respective computers and tried to find out about Motrin overdose. After a quick call to Poison Control, they sent me to the ER with some scary words. I believe what she said was "What E.R. will you go to? I'm going to call them and give them all the info and tell them you're on your way. They'll be waiting for you. We need to check his kidneys for Renal function." Those are not the words a mommy wants to hear, let me tell you!

When we got to the E.R. it was not as big of a deal as the woman from poison control thought. They monitored him for a bit, gave him an orange popsicle and sent us home. The very cute doctor told me he might have a tummy ache today, and to keep an eye on him.

Not exactly how I wanted to end my night at the theatre, but so glad I took him in, and very thankful that he was alright!!