Lutopia

Let Summer Begin

2010-05-28T08:30:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was the kids last day of school. Actually I think “school” as we know it ended last week because all they have been doing is signing yearbooks and having parties. I’m so glad school is out, but as much as I wanted it to be over with, I wasn’t ready for the end of year teacher gifts. I knew that gifts require cards so I did the fun part first and made the cards.

I couldn’t think of anything that was both inexpensive and fast so I did a repeat of last year (since they didn’t have any of the same teachers). I found some nice water bottles and filled them with Crystal Light drink packets and put a little tag on them that said, Thanks for quenching my thirst for knowledge. I knew it was kind of lame so I made the kids write their teachers thank you notes inside the cards. I figured it would mean more coming from them. Kyle really knocked his out of the park, I knew his teachers would really appreciate it. I helped Lana organize her thoughts and then made sure she used her best handwriting, luckily we have some erasable pens.

The past week and a half has been exhausting. We have had promotion ceremonies, award assemblies, locker and desk clean outs, a phonics party, a lacrosse party, birthday parties, swimming parties, and did we get pictures of any of it? NO. I did take some video but I’m not going to share it with you out of respect for others privacy. So I’ll show you a picture taken a month ago after my parents returned from Hawaii.

Kyle is still taller than me. I know this isn’t going to change but it still surprises me every time I see us standing together.

It’s the first day of Summer Vacation and what are my kids doing?

Having some much deserved couch time!

We Interrupt This Blog for This Important Message

2010-04-19T09:54:00.001-07:00

Dear Mr. Jamie Oliver,

You are so stinky adorable. I love your fun hair. I love your accent. I love your trucker style hats. I love that half the time you eat with your fingers. I love watching your Food Revolution program.

BUT, can you please tell my children it’s OK to eat pizza every now and then. Seriously! And while your at it can you inform them that if their choice at McDonald’s is a hamburger or chicken nuggets, that chicken nuggets is the better choice. They used to always choose chicken until your lovely chicken nugget experiment.

I have somehow managed to teach my children that veggies are not optional. Not only do they eat them, they request them. If we have spaghetti and I forgot to get the salad out there are questions.

What I would like you to teach them is that there isn’t dessert after every meal. This is one thing that no matter how many times I tell them they refuse to listen. This very morning my daughter asked “what’s for dessert” after breakfast! They do not get dessert after every meal nor do they get it after breakfast but they still ask and it’s getting really annoying.

One other thing before we go…If parents are so outraged by school lunches why don’t they make their kids lunch? I grew up brown bagging it, my kids brown bag it, and we are still alive to tell the tell. I don’t feel it is the school’s job to feed my child, they are there to learn.

Thanks,

Shawna

Wasting Time

2010-03-24T14:43:00.001-07:00

So I’m supposed to be packing for our spring break trip, but I’m finding myself distracted with all the little details. We are flying on a different airline and they charge by the bag. I’m so stressing about their guidelines as to what a carryon is. So much so I’m about to take a little drive to the airport and see if they would measure my bags. I have measured them and if I squish them they are the right size…almost… We picked this airline because they saved us about $600.00 so I guess if I have to pay an extra $80 for a bag I shouldn’t stress about it. We are also going to miss the kid’s Spring Play. It’s more of a concert than a play, but it was going to be SOOOO cute this year. They have a fabulous music teacher who I just adore! She has the kids singing pop songs and they are so excited about it.

Lana’s class is singing New Soul by Yael Naim, such a cute song for her to sing. Take a listen:

Kyle’s class is singing Replay by Iyaz. While Kyle’s class is singing the chorus Lana’s class is going to be freestyle dancing, little kids dancing always cracks me up.

The whole school is singing Fireflies by Owl City.

They are also singing Don’t Stop Believing the Glee version. The older kids sing while the younger ones do the Da Da Da’s.

Kyle’s class and the older kids are also singing Viva La Vida by Coldplay

Kyle was going to be in a group of boys singing Nine in the Afternoon by Panic at the Disco

Wouldn’t you be so bummed about missing it too? Maybe there will be an encore performance after Spring Break. On the bright side we are in for a week of chilling to the max. It’s so relaxing when we go to visit Ronnie’s parents, I’m so looking forward to it. I hope you all have a great Spring Break!

I am Persistent if Nothing Else

2010-03-15T19:31:00.001-07:00

So Today I was totally free. No grocery shopping to do, no helping at the kids school, no laundry, no cooking to be done, no driving anyone to anywhere, totally free. So I had two things I was thinking about doing, getting my eyebrows threaded or making a baby gift for a baby shower.

I want to get my eyebrows threaded and need to also but for some reason I keep putting it off.

So today I ended up making a baby blanket. As always something goes wrong every time I get behind the sewing machine and today was no different. One of these days I’m gonna learn that there are some things I just can’t do well, but until then I will keep sharing my sewing mishaps with you.

So I get the blanket all trimmed up and thread my sewing machine and load up the bobbin with matching thread and place the blanket on the machine. I start to sew and then this happened:

That’s my sewing machine needle, broke into two pieces. I’m so special when it come to sewing, you just have to believe me. So I figured out that my bobbin was too full. Who knew it could be too full? Luckily I had extra needles so I didn’t have to run to the store.

I decided to make my baby blanket have rounded corner because it was something new for me. I left the opening on the corner because I didn’t know what I was doing. Then after I pulled it right side out and was ironing it I realized I did not want the opening on the corner because it would be too hard to topstitch and make it look pretty. So then I flipped it wrong side out again and sewed the corner and left a teeny tiny baby hole for me to turn it right side out through. After pinching and pulling I finally was able to get it turned right side out and finish it.

End result: A finished baby blanket that passed the “can I give this as a gift” test.

Sewing is just one of many things on my “I need to get better at this list”. One other thing I need to get better at is bread baking. So every Sunday is bread baking day. Here are a few breads I’ve been baking:

Well, I’ve baked for 4 Sundays now but I guess I only took pictures on the Sunday when Ronnie was working so I could email him and he could see what he was missing. I’m a nice wife like that. The above pictured are cinnamon and dinner rolls made with potato pearls. I’ve made whole wheat butter horns twice and last Sunday were plain white rolls shaped like knots. I like the rolls so far because they actually rise. Unlike my many loaves of wheat bread I have tried in the past.

Maybe my next “free” day will be the day I finally get my eyebrows threaded.

Where is My Gold Star?

2010-02-05T14:43:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I was so productive. My house looks like it was turned upside down but I got a lot of things done that needed to be done. And I always have the kids to help clean the house up on the weekend anyways. Isn’t that the real reason we have kids, free child labor?

So anyway, Yesterday I made Valentine bags for Lana to give to her class at school. Kyle didn’t want anything to give to his friends, I guess it’s not cool anymore.

Then I made Valentine cards for Lana to pass out to her class. I seem to have an aversion to store bought holiday cards. I’m weird like that. I made the Valentine cards with a stamp set called tiny treats from Papertrey Ink. I am in love with these stamps!

Then I went grocery shopping and got a really good deal on ground beef. So I went home and made 4 tater tot casseroles and put them in the freezer. Then I went back and picked up some more ground beef and made some taco meat and meat to add to rice or spaghetti sauce and froze it too. I told Ronnie how I really wished all those Ziploc bags we just bought from Sam’s were freezer bags. Then as he saw me trying to suck all the air out of the bags and my face turning three shades of red he said why don’t you use that food saver thing we have up in the cabinet. Oh yeah we have one of those thingys. So after wiping the dust off and using it I was no longer mad at our Ziploc bags and all was right with the world. I also made some Valentine Cookies, but they were gone before I thought to take a picture. They are probably my favorite cookies and I think every time I make them if I have any left the next morning I eat no less than 3 for breakfast. So I have to give them away before the next morning.

While I was cooking I kept looking at my super cute recipe box my sister gave me and thinking how I should really start putting recipes in there instead of just admiring it’s looks.

So I made some recipe cards. I only made two but it’s a start.

Then I realized how little I actually use recipes. Another realization I’ve had is how much my thumb looks like it belongs on a man’s hand. Now if you sit by me at church and I don’t want to share a hymn book with you, you know it’s not you, I’m just trying to hide my manly thumbs.

So now since I got so much done yesterday, I’ve just wasted away an hour today blogging. I’m cool like that. :)

Year of Photos that Make Me Smile

2010-01-25T15:57:00.001-08:00

I went through my photos and picked one photo each month that brought a smile to my face.

Christmas…It’s Practically Here!

2009-12-17T19:28:00.001-08:00

Thanksgiving has come and gone. It kind of lost it’s luster this year because two very important people were not here. Ronnie’s parents could not make it out this year because of cancer treatments and such. Ronnie’s Mom, Sue, has been my Black Friday buddy for the past few years and I so missed her this year. I couldn’t even bring myself to go out and join the crazies without her. Our French silk pie didn’t taste the same without Ronnie’s Dad helping to make it. Now I’m in no way saying this was his doing but, one year I left the pie making up to the guys while I went to take a shower. Upon my return to the kitchen I see everyone hovered over the mixing bowl. Apparently an eggshell dropped into the mixing bowl as it was whipping around as fast as it could. They managed to save the pie by picking each tiny eggshell out. There may have been a strainer used in the process, I can’t remember all the details, nevertheless the pie never tasted so good.

Now Christmas is right around the corner. There are so many fun things to do this time of year but so little time. We did make it to the kids Christmas Program at school where a very nervous little kindergartener ran from the stage throwing up. That’s a night we wont soon forget! Lana is getting over her stage freight and can now stay up on stage without crying out DADDY, DADDY. DADDY. Kyle can sing wonderfully and really enjoys it but you could never tell from the look on his face. During the whole program he had a scour look on his face because it’s no longer “cool” to smile. I tried to get a good picture of them all dressed and ready to impress but…

We have been to many places where Lana has visited with the Jolly Ol’ Man himself. Places like Opportunity Village, Ethel M, the Church Christmas Party, and even Wal-Mart. Each Santa she visited with she told them she wanted the same thing. Now here is where I wish I could scream this from the rooftops because it makes me look like a good mom, she told all 4 Santa’s that she wanted a book. A BOOK, not a video game, or bike, or the latest and greatest toy, but a BOOK. Now here is where I tell you the truth behind this. She has given Grandma a list of things she would like from her. Then when my parents asked her what she wanted she couldn’t come up with anything because she knew that Grandma would get her everything on her list so she needed to think of something new for them to get her. We were over at my parents house one day organizing craft supplies using a label maker when Lana discovered this new device. She then asked them to give her a label maker for Christmas. Then when we went to the 4 Santa’s she was out of gift ideas so she asked for books, because you can never have too many books. Regardless of how this came to be, Santa will be very happy to buy her books, I’m just sure of it.

We finally got the Christmas cards in the mail and now we can eat dinner on the table without being surrounded by cardstock, tape, sticky dots, pictures…all the ~~CRAP STUFF~~ craft stuff it took to make them. Ronnie actually came up with the idea this year. We tried to mimic the It’s A Wonderful Life DVD cover. Incase you’re wondering, yes I made Kyle squat down. He’s about as tall as I am!

The kids made puppets one night.

They also got to play in snow. They have a teacher at school that lives on Mt. Charleston and he drives a truck so when it snows he brings snow down for the kids to play with.

And at some point Lana turned into a singing elf.

I think she was singing…All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth.

Halloween Happenings

2009-11-06T09:31:00.001-08:00

Kyle and Lana’s last day of school was Thursday since Nevada Day is Nov. 30th (Friday). So the Halloween parties were held that day. Middle School kids kind of get a bum deal, they get to carve pumpkins at home then bring them in for the pumpkin carving contest and if they are lucky some parents bring in snack for them to eat. Lana’s grade had an all out party. With me being room-mom had to plan and organize said party. They first had to get dressed in their costume for the Halloween Parade. Lana was a mermaid…yes people use your imagination.

She is a very reverent child, so much so she even folded her arms during the parade. NOT! It was windy and cold that day. Then they played some games and made some crafts and ate some snacks.

Then the glorious bell rang that ended the day.

Then wicked wind had blown all the cold air away and we woke up to a beautiful day. Ronnie was off work, the kids were out of school, so we stayed in our PJs until noon. Then we went to a corn maze in Glendale. I heard that you had to pay $10 per person, but when we got there they said you can just walk through it for free. It was kind of lame, I would have been mad if we paid $40 for this.

Lana was our leader so we would not get lost and Kyle found a friend:

Then we found Ron’s car from Harry Potter, we almost lost Lana to the spider:

Then we went home with our dusty dirty shoes.

The next day was Halloween. We went to the ward Trunk or Treat. Kyle was a hobbit and we tried to make Lana’s costume look more mermaidy, but it just wasn’t happening.

Our trunk was decorated and we were parked next to the cutest “chicken rider” I have ever seen!

The kids came home with loads of candy, but sadly hardly any chocolate. Jerry, I know you’ll be disappointed to hear that there wasn’t a good pile / bad pile this year. Only once did I hear, mom my tummy hurts, so all in all it was a great Halloween.

What’s Going On In There?

2009-10-21T15:41:00.001-07:00

Some things that have been taking up space in my brain:

My sister had her beautiful baby boy Layton. He was born on 09/30/09, weighing in at 8lb 8oz and 21 inches long. He has her long fingers and toes and I’m just sure he is going to be the next great piano player. His mom might say the next great basketball star. Words can’t express how beautiful it is to see a young woman transform into a selfless caring mom. She is a great mom and Layton is a very lucky boy to have her to look up to.

Sam’s Club pumpkin pies totally beat Costco pumpkin pies but Costco blueberry muffins are far superior than Sam’s Club blueberry muffins. Why can’t all my favorites come from one place?

My deadline for getting my NV driver license is coming fast. Don’t ask why I don’t have one yet. To make things even more fun I have to get a new Social Security card since mine was stolen along with my wallet in June. So I have to get that before I can get my license.

The whole Boy Scout program totally mystifies me. I know the Personal Progress program backward and forward, too bad Kyle had that darn Y chromosome thingy that made him ineligible for the Personal Progress program.

I’ve been putting together a breast cancer awareness meeting for church. I’ve been working on it for about a month. We found out a week ago that Ronnie’s mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. At first they thought she had leukemia. Then they came back after some tests and said it looks like breast cancer that has spread to a bone. We also had a women in our Ward that was diagnosed a week or two ago. Coincidence? I think not.

I am so loving the .39 cent tacos from Taco Bell. They taste even better when they are that cheap.

The Clinique’s free gift from Macy’s this year is very cute! It could double as a teacher gift if I were a nice person and saved it for someone else. I’m not, I opened up my stuff as soon as I got in the car and played with the new colors. I really love the lipstick color.

My most played song on my iPod right now is In The Meantime by Spacehog. It’s best when played loud without any kids in the car so they can’t make fun of you when you are signing. Spacehog always reminded me of David Bowie. Take a listen if you want:

My New Fav

2009-10-18T12:16:00.001-07:00

Each Fall we are inundated with new TV shows to hit the airwaves. And I have a new favorite. I haven’t even seen a commercial for it because life has taken over and I haven’t had time to watch TV very much. But I did see this picture on hulu and it caught my eye.

So Ronnie and I watched it. Then we watched two more episodes that same night and it was going on 1:30am. We were laughing so hard we woke Kyle up, but I doubt he was really asleep, probably up late reading. We got caught up on all the episodes that night and had a wait week to see the next. I was not even prepared for the next episode! It was the best one yet. It started out with this clip:

Then ended with this one:

So far my favorite episode. It comes on Wednesday at 9pm, usually before Kyle’s in bed. But thanks to hulu we can watch it when we want to, after the kids are in bed. Not a show I would watch with the whole family.

Ronnie has hooked one of our computers up to the TV in the effort to rid ourselves of cable. It seems to be working for us. We get to pick what comes on our TV and when for free. We also use Netflix watch instantly and a few other internet sites that have full episodes to TV shows. He has even downloaded an iPhone and iPod app that turned them into a mouse for the computer. So it’s like our remote control for the computer.

A Few Sweet Things

2009-10-15T22:42:00.001-07:00

I kind of have this thing for candy corn decorations, can you tell?

I really can’t stand the taste of candy corns but they sure are cute to look at. Speaking of cute take a look at these two:

One blogger called them literary luminaries, but I call them CUTE. I just made these tonight and they weren’t hard at all. I saw them here and had to make some right away. They are old novels just folded. I actually made one of them while making dinner. Well I’m not Supermom, it was Hamburger Helper so I just watched it and made sure it didn’t bubble over as I folded page after page. Hey no judging here, there were crafts waiting to be made! I haven’t named them yet but I’m thinking the more shapely one is a girl and the other a boy. Jack and Jill is just too predictable…hmm. Maybe Emerson and Christie.

Pennsylvania Part Deuce

2009-10-11T20:30:00.001-07:00

Catching up again…

Ronnie and I had a great time in Altoona, PA. I learned two things about people there, one – you can’t live there is you’re not a sports fanatic. You have to own a Steelers shirt if you are going to live in Pennsylvania. On our airplane ride home the captain updated us 4 times with the football score because the Steelers were playing. They put a Steelers logo on anything that will stand still.

Normal everyday products for sale have the logo

They make their pizzas Steelers Pizza I’m sure he made his mama proud with this

Second – They are big fans of putting faces on things you eat. There’s a restaurant called Kings and they are home of the Frownie. I introduce to you the Frownie.

If you buy a pack to go it’s called a pity party.

Then they even have a dessert competition called the Angry Mob

Then there’s the happier side, a restaurant called Eat ‘n Park has smiles everywhere.

Smiley Cookies

Smiley Waffles

They even try arrange the food you order into a smile when possible. It did make me giggle, so I guess smiles are contagious.

It’s not surprising that the Frownie originated near Pittsburgh, home of Carnegie Mellon University. Carnegie Mellon, if you didn’t know, is the birthplace of the emoticon, thanks to Scott Fahlman, who started the whole sideways smiling business more than 25 years ago on the University’s Computer Science community b(ulliten)-board. He invented the frowning emoticon, too. In the same message, no less.

There reason why we went there…

To see these two get married…

and start their life together.

What I’ve been up to…

2009-09-23T22:26:00.001-07:00

The first weekend after school started I had a baby shower at my house for my sister Sadie.

I was wondering around Michael’s Craft Store one day and came across a party in a box that was monkey themed and on clearance. So it didn’t take me long to figure out a theme for the shower.

We had Banana Slush Punch, Banana Pudding, Chocolate Monkey Munch (trail mix), and everyone took home some banana bread. We also had some non monkey related food.

Then I was released from my calling in Young Women’s at church and called to Enrichment Leader a few weeks before a quarterly enrichment night. Which I was going to be out of town for. I still needed to help out with a few things before I left and also get things planned for the next 3 months.

Then I signed up to be room mom for Lana’s class at school. I help run a student store at school 3 days a week for a few hours at a time and figured room mom would be easy since I was already going to be there. Boy was I wrong! I needed to get everything organized for a family picnic, that was wasn’t even going to be there for, before I went out of town. Talk about a major headache!

We celebrated Ronnie’s birthday on the 10th, then my sister Lacey’s birthday on the 20th, and then Lana’s birthday on the 22nd.

Ronnie’s birthday was easy, it was the day after Beatles RockBand came out. So that was a no brainer!

My Sister Lacey turned 23!

Lana turned 6 and had a Flower birthday party.

I wrangled my Dad and Ronnie into making a golf game for the school carnival that was supposed to be in Oct. but I think it got moved to Nov. Well I guess we are ahead of schedule now.

Now I’m in Altoona PA for a friend’s, Jerry’s, wedding. Don’t even get me started on the roads here! We totally got lost and ended up taking 4 hours to get to our hotel that should have only took 2 hours to get to. Plus we didn’t get a toll ticket at one of the toll road booths and they charged us $26 for a .95 cent toll! And to top it off they don’t take debit cards at the toll booths! Luckily a guy that was in a hurry came up and helped us pay our $26 fee for not getting a ticket since we hardly carry any cash. It’s nice to know there are still kind people out there! On the up side we had beautiful scenery to enjoy while we were lost.

For those back in Vegas, those would be leaves changing on trees. It really happens!

And that is my month in review for the most part. I left out some other major things because I might get around to blogging about them more in depth one day.

First Day of School

2009-08-29T10:02:00.001-07:00

2009 Lana – 1st Grade Kyle - 7th Grade

2008 Kyle – 6th Grade Lana - Kindergarten

2007 Lana - Preschool Kyle - 5th Grade

2006 Kyle – 4th Grade Lana – 3 years old

Those bars on the windows that I hate come in handy for something. They show me how much my kids have grown!

I am very lucky because I have kids that love school and actually like getting up early. I know one of these days in the near future all that will change, but for now just let me revel in the ease of the first day of school.

The Uncamping Trip

2009-08-26T19:13:00.001-07:00

School was starting and we hadn’t taken the kids camping all summer long, so what do we do? We take the kids camping the weekend before school starts of course, because it’s not like we need to prepare for school or anything. Okay, so it was probably all my idea and the we referenced earlier should be I and Ronnie was just along for the ride.

On Friday we went to Valley of Fire and set up camp around 3:00pm. It was hot but luckily our camper has an air conditioner and the next day was supposed to be cooler. We had to come back to Las Vegas for Kyle’s Court of Honor for Boy Scouts at 6:30pm on Friday, which I found out about after planning this trip. We also had the kids meet and greet at school at 7:00pm that same night. So we leave Valley of Fire and and get to Kyle’s Court of Honor. Kyle’s Scout Master had Kyle’s scout shirt that Kyle lost at a campout and was supposed to bring it to the Court of Honor. Well, he forgot it. Kyle advanced 2 ranks and all I got where pictures of him in a black shirt and my eyes were closed. Not going to be scrapbooking those.

Then we left early to make it to the meet and greet at school. The kids have really great teachers this year and are very excited about school. We just said hi to the teachers, grabbed their letters telling about themselves, and left. On the way back to camp I was reading the letters from the kids teachers and when I got to the part that is underlined Lana busted up laughing.

She said, “I can’t believe that he said that! Why would Kyle’s teacher say that!” She went on and on and we were just laughing so hard, her reaction was just priceless. Of course we didn’t tell her the difference between tutor and tooter, because we’re good parents like that. So, to this day she still thinks one of Kyle’s teachers is a “tooter”.

Finally we make it back to camp around 9:30pm and realized we left the camper keys in Vegas. Luckily our camper is not very secure and we managed to get in. The night sky was beautiful that night. There was no moon to be seen and the stars were so bright. We sat outside for about an hour looking at the sky until our necks started to hurt then went to bed. That’s when the fun started, wind, and lots of it. The kids fall asleep no problem, but Ronnie and I couldn’t fall asleep until 3:00am we kept thinking our camper was going to blow over or something. Then of course we wake up at 7:00am and the kids are ready for a hike. So off we go!

Then it gets hot and the wind picks up again so we head back to the camper around noon. We eat some lunch, take showers, then decided to go to St. George. We are really campers huh? On the way to St. George we call my Dad who is working there that week and see if he wants to meet up after work. We make plans to have dinner together. When we make it to St. George we have about 45 minutes before my Dad is off of work so we go visit the Brigham Young House. We take the tour and then meet for dinner at Outback. Doesn’t everyone go out for steaks when they are camping? Then my Dad heads back to Las Vegas and we go shopping. I love Tai Pan and wanted to pick up some Halloween decorations. Then we hit Seagull to stock up on reading material. Then head back to the camper and sleep. Then Sunday morning we eat breakfast and pack up. We made it home at 11:00am and shower and go to church. We didn’t really do much camping, but we had fun none the less.

Now I’ve spent the first part of the week getting caught up on all the school preparations that should have been done before school started. Oh well, there is always next year to be totally ready for school to start.

Bring on the Homework

2009-08-18T22:20:00.001-07:00

We are gearing up for school in our house. This year both kids are in all day school and at the same school. There are good and bad things about it but I think the good outweighs the bad. For example less miles put on my car, I am able to spend more time helping at school, and I don’t have to keep track of two different school schedules. But with both kids coming home at the same time homework time is going to be tough. Kyle is really good about doing what needs to be done, he’ll just go to his room and lock the door so Lana doesn’t bother him and spend hours doing homework. His homework shouldn’t take hours to do so I guess he gets sidetracked a bit. I’ve decided this year he’ll do homework at the kitchen table so I can help him stay on track. Lana is used to having me all to herself helping with homework so that will be an adjustment.

I was flipping through a Family Fun magazine today and saw these awesome homework stations that I wanted to make. So after dinner the kids and I braved the Wal-Mart school supply aisle a week before school starts. It really wasn’t that bad and we were able to find all the stuff we needed. I went home and an hour and a half later had two homework stations with their own privacy walls ready for the new school year.

Kyle’s Homework Station

Lana’s Homework Station

Here is one of the all folded up.

Cardboard, hot glue, and spray paint never cease to amaze me. There is plenty of room for us to add things we didn’t think of later. Here is a link to Family Fun if you think you might need this at your house.

I don’t know about you but I’m dreading the first week of school. I sleep in longer than Kyle does and I must say I love the freedom Summer brings. Kyle will have no problem at all getting back in the groove, he has set his alarm for 6:00am almost every morning since school was out back in June. Many times I sent him back to bed, it’s just wrong, kids should like sleeping in. The only ripple I see in Lana getting back in the groove is she doesn’t like to eat before 11:00am. Any yummy breakfast recipes I can try to entice her with?

Kyle’s 12th Birthday Party

2009-08-10T10:13:00.001-07:00

I thought this might be Kyle’s last themed party so I had to do it up right. He loves cooking and thinks he will open his own restaurant some day so I used that as my theme. His invitations where printed on manly recipe cards.

We had been recording episodes of Good Eats on our DVR for about a week. Our plan was to have that playing on TV while all the boys were coming in, but some how Rock Band took over. Go figure, a TV, boys, and a video game, silly me, what was I thinking.

Once everyone arrived the boys were asked to put on some aprons and make some lasagnas for lunch.

While the lasagnas were baking they went outside and played cold potato, with ice cold water balloons.

In case the ice cold water balloons weren’t enough refreshment the boys came inside and did a root beer tasting.

They knew their root beers! I was impressed. The favorites were IBC and Mug. Then they made some fruit kabobs before sitting down to eat.

After lunch we brought out the bugs.

Followed up by the stinky cheese.

I was really surprised by how many folks tried insects and how many thought the stinky cheese tasted good. We also had some nasty tasting jelly beans like from Harry Potter, but I didn’t get good pictures of that, see the video. As to not leave a bad taste in their mouths, we saved the best for last.

Then it was back to Rock Band

And who could forget presents

Can you tell his Grandparents did good?

Perhaps the biggest surprise was his cousin from Logan showing up

As a parting gift, Kyle made some brownie mix for his friends to take home.

I don’t know about them, but I had a blast. I’m so glad Kyle has such a good group of friends and they were able to come celebrate with us. I’ve put together a little video or the craziness that was the party…enjoy.

Kyle's 12th Birthday Party from Shawna Lutes on Vimeo.

Nobody was Kung Fu Fighting

2009-07-28T11:00:00.001-07:00

I happen to live really close to the Chinatown part of Las Vegas. I don’t really know if we call it Chinatown or Asiantown or the Asian District, but you get my drift, a lot of pagoda shaped buildings and signs I can’t read.

I’ve never been into one of the stores because I was kind of scared. I was scared because of what I might see and what people might say when they saw me, and just like when you go get pedicures you have no clue what they are saying about you.

And I didn’t want to walk into one of these places by mistake. Luckily this one is labeled quite plainly. I don’t even want to know what table shower is…

Anyway, I had a reason to venture into Chinatown. Kyle is turning 12 and is going to have a birthday party centered around cooking/food. I think the kids are going to make their own mini lasagnas and do a blind taste test to see which potato chip reigns supreme and see how many different fruit they can identify by tasting them with blindfolds on. And because this is a boys party there has to be something gross, which brings us to the fear factor part and why I needed to go to Chinatown. I needed to find mealworms and crickets and chocolate covered ants. After researching what countries eat insects I found out that Thailand eats a lot of insects and luckily our Chinatown represents many Asian countries, not just China.

Armed with my posse, Ronnie and I thought it would be a fun field trip for the kids, we headed into Chinatown. Our first store was very busy and the smell of fish filled the whole store. I found the snack aisle but there were no mealworms in it. At our second store I was much more relaxed and wondered around the produce section for a bit.

We saw a Durian, king fruit, the smell from this fruit evokes reactions from deep appreciation to intense disgust. The odor has led to the fruit's banishment from certain hotels and public transportation in southeast Asia, I’m REALLY glad Lana did not drop it. The other picture is of Asian Okra. It is used in stir fries and curried dishes. Other varieties are used to make loofahs or luffas.

Then we headed down the snack aisle and saw lots of dried fish in bags. I’ve never seen anyone munching on a dried flounder filet, but I guess they sell them since the whole aisle was packed with dried fish. Here’s a bad picture of dried anchovies.

The fish smell was not as strong at our second store so we looked around the fish market part. They had live fish swimming in tanks. As soon as you told the fish guys what you wanted it was off with their heads and they were in your cart in the blink of an eye. They also had live crabs and oysters in some shallow tanks where you get to pick your own with tongs. We saw some boys playing with them, trying to get them to pinch the other boy. It was a fun store to visit, but we left without any worms or crickets or ants.

The next day my parents asked me if I went to the place outside of Chinatown called the International Marketplace, which I didn’t. They had been there once when they were looking for buckwheat. This store was my favorite. They had European stuff on the right and Asian on the left with freezers and a fish counter in the middle. I got really brave and ventured into the meats, and really wished I hadn’t. I took a picture of this and emailed it to Ronnie, who was working, with Dinner in the subject line. I know, I’m so wrong!

No insects, but I did leave with a knowledge of how much we waste in our country. I saw things like acorn starch, dried jellyfish, and well the above pictured, pork uterus and had a new appreciation for how resourceful people can be.

I went home and ordered my insects over the internet, the old boring way to find something. I also had to pay $30 to have them shipped to me so the chocolate wouldn’t melt. Oh well a boy only turns 12 once in his life I guess.

What’s That Smell???

2009-07-10T11:17:00.001-07:00

After three months the carnival fish passed. But no fear, the kids have plans of buying new fish.

It was really weird that they both died at the same time. I walked in from the store one evening and looked at Ronnie and Kyle and said what’s that smell? Kyle said, it wasn’t me! Ronnie said, what smell? And I was left to find it on my own. Soon I found them both belly up and stinking up my living room to high heaven. I know they were still alive that morning, man they sure can bring a stink into a room when they die! Since Ronnie couldn’t smell he got the honors of disposing of the bodies. And so ends the life of Fish Norris and Goldie, they will be missed (just no by me).

Our Summer Started Out With a Flop

2009-06-29T10:00:00.001-07:00

The last week of school the kids schedule was jammed packed. Lana had a promotion ceremony the day before school was out and then a half day on the last day of school. Then Kyle had a promotion ceremony one evening, a pool party the next day and an awards ceremony the last day of school. Kyle told me he wasn’t feeling well at the beginning of the week and I told him to buck up, this is the last week of school. The morning of his pool party he said he really didn’t feel well and I told him if your not going to school then your not going to the pool party, then he got dressed for school. Then last day of school he said in a whinny sick voice, Mom it’s the last day of school and I don’t feel well do I have to go? To which I answered in an enthusiastic voice, Your right, it’s the last day of school Kyle then you have the whole summer to stay home and be sick. Now I didn’t think for one minute that Kyle was sick, I just thought was wasn’t as sick as he thought he was.

On the last day of school we try to do something fun for the kids to kind of signal the start of summer. In past years we would go to Chucky Cheese, but Kyle has out grown that place thank goodness! So we took them to see the movie UP, which is one of the cutest movies I have seen in a long time. The next day is when I discovered someone broke into my car and stole my wallet and both Kyle’s and mine cameras. I had so much on my plate already that day and that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. We had decided the day before to send Lana to the same school as Kyle. Which meant I needed to gather up paperwork from Lana’s school then sort through uniforms from Kyle’s school. I also had to teach the combined lesson in YW which I hadn't started because of all the end of year stuff with the kids schools. Now I needed time to grieve over the lost pictures and videos from the kids year end activities. And then I needed to call all the appropriate companies and tell them my wallet was stolen. And finally take care of Kyle who had gotten much worse overnight. After I had a good cry because I’m the only parent ever to not have a picture of her child graduating Kindergarten, I tried calling a few credit card companies to report my card as stolen. Which was a problem because apparently being a co on a credit card does nothing for you, they only want to speak to the primary. So then I had to bug Ronnie at work and telling him how my day was going and see if he could call these people whenever he got a chance. A few minutes later he called to say he was on his way home from work. My knight in shining armor was saving me again and I could breath easy and get everything accomplished.

Here’s a few pictures of Lana that I took with my phone…not all is lost. After her promotion from kindergarten we let her pick where she wanted to go for breakfast and she picked WaffleS Cafe where she got a banana split sundae waffle and a honeydew smoothie.

Here is Lana trying on her new uniform

Sadly the only picture I took of Kyle with my phone was when he was coming down the slide at his pool party, all you can see is a head and you wouldn’t know it was him before I told ya.

A few days later Lana got sick then a few days after that I got sick then a few days after that Ronnie got sick. But I’m glad to say we are all finialy feeling better and ready to hit summer head on. Now if someone could just do something about the heat thing…that’s kind of annoying.

How Did This Happen??

2009-06-24T08:40:00.001-07:00

Kyle’s school had a carnival at the first of May. I really didn’t want to go. Our Ward was going camping that same night and well we couldn’t go camping because Ronnie had to work the next morning. So we went to the carnival and the kids had a great time. Kyle ran off with his friends and Lana went from booth to booth getting prizes. Ronnie took Lana around because I was helping out in the karaoke room. Next year I will suggest ear plugs for the helpers! Ronnie and Lana would stop in and show me their prizes and Ronnie said that we also have a ticket for goldfish, I don’t know what that means. I thought well surely they are just giving the kids goldfish crackers, right?

Soon enough my time in the karaoke room was over and I went out to watch the kids play carnival games.

Lana fished And got her face painted

She tossed ping pong balls in bowls And did the ring toss

Kyle held a snake (but I didn’t get a picture) And volunteered for the sponge toss

He spent most of the evening at the dunk tank where they could dunk the teachers. I felt for the teachers and couldn’t bare take a picture of them getting dunked. Then it was time for us to go and Ronnie said what about this ticket for goldfish. So we went over to where we were to redeem the ticket and they were real goldfish! Once Lana saw them she was so excited and ran to tell Kyle who in turn had to go play the game until he too got a ticket. We came home with 2 goldfish, oh boy! I was not excited because we have a horrible time with pets or fish in general. Lana always does something to ruin the whole tank and I have to spend a day cleaning and trying to save the fish.

So on the way home the kids named the fish. Kyle named his Fish Norris after none other than Chuck Norris and Lana named hers Goldie. Much like she names her balloons, balloonie and her squid, squidie and well just take anything and add an ie to the end. So we get our fish home and have to put them in something and I found some ice cream glasses.

I really didn’t think that they would live very long so I didn’t want to commit to a real fish bowl just yet. One week went by and they were still swimming, then two weeks went by and I really wanted my kitchen counter space back so I broke down and got a fish bowl.

Here it is almost two months later and they are still swimming. I guess I should invest in a plant or something to decorate their fish bowl. I’m just really hoping we don’t have baby fish in our future.

And that my friends is how we came to have more fish in our house. I knew we shouldn’t have gone to that carnival!

Chef Lutes is at it Again

2009-06-11T19:45:00.001-07:00

Kyle loves to watch Good Eats on the Food Network with me. One day we were watching and Alton was making something called Pork Wellington. Kyle looked at me and said, I want to make that! So we planed to let him cook it for Sunday dinner.

He and Ronnie went shopping for everything on Saturday. He was so excited that he watched the episode 3 times before he started to cook. When I would try to help him I got the, that’s not how Alton did it mom, so I backed off and let him do it Alton’s way. He did a fabulous job! We had invited my mom and dad and sisters over for dinner and he wanted to take some down to his piano teacher and her husband also so he made 2. We got a call the next day from the piano teacher and she said thank you so much for the meal is was very good. Then Ronnie told her it was made by Kyle she was just amazed. She said it was a gourmet meal. I think Alton would be pleased. I know I am very pleased to have a son who like cooking as much as Kyle does.

Here is Kyle doing his interpretation of Alton.

Here is a picture of the shirt he modified before cooking for us. In case you can’t see, he crossed out Pedro and wrote Kyle. What can I say, he’s cool like that.

We had more pictures but sadly our car was broken into while we were at the movies on the last day of school and both mine and Kyle’s cameras were stolen. Along with all the photos I had taken for the past month. I’ve been very “Be Calm and Carry On” about the whole thing, but I’m sad about all the memories that we lost.

An Edible Front Yard

2009-05-16T15:27:00.001-07:00

After my Earth Day rant I’m sure no one would expect to hear me talking about this, but it just makes since, an edible front lawn. I’m not apposed to living healthy and making the world a better place to live, I was just tired of hearing all the “green” talk and yes some of it seems to be nonsense. But, then I stumbled across this article on Edible Estates and it just makes sense. The concept is to replace the manicured front lawn with a vegetable garden. If your going to waste water on the front lawn to look pretty why not have it grow vegetables to feed your family and friends. Vegetable gardens can be pretty and productive.

In Las Vegas I love having a yard where my kids can play barefoot and not burn their feet on the hot concrete. I love to be able to have a spontaneous picnic whenever I please on our lawn. I do however see the kids spending less and less time on the grass as they get older.

In Las Vegas it takes a lot of water to have a front lawn. I am aware that I live in a desert and I should conserve water. I do try, I have a toilet that has two flush options, half or whole flush. There is always a conversation about the toilet whenever we have company over and our son likes to tell us if he is going to have to use the whole flush before is goes to the bathroom. We have the low flow showerheads and I would love to have a new water saving washing machine but our old one still works. The lawn is one thing I thought I couldn’t give up until I heard about the edible front lawn. I’m not saying I’m digging up my lawn tomorrow, but it does make a lot of sense. Maybe one of these days whenever I figure out gardening in Las Vegas I’ll be more serious about it. In the meantime I’ve been browsing some cool layouts. Here is my favorite, it’s called the pizza garden:

Wake Up Already!

2009-05-13T15:58:00.001-07:00

Last night I was watching TV in bed. Ronnie had been up since 2:30am and was fast asleep. As I was channel surfing I stumbled upon this show called Cupid. It had music and mole sauce in it so of course it grabbed my attention.

Then a funny thing happened. The show mentioned one of my favorite bands…Uncle Tupelo! I was shocked to hear Uncle Tupelo mentioned on TV! I had to tell someone, but my someone that totally gets me was asleep and I didn’t want to wake him. So I waited, and turned the volume up on the TV and pulled the covers off him and made the bed move, but all my subtle little ways to wake him up weren’t working. So I had to bring out the elbow. I did think twice before I jabbed my elbow in his side since he had been up since 2:30. He woke up and I started to tell him what I just saw on TV and then he started snoring. I had to wake him up again and decided to get straight to the point of my story without any background and then when I was finished he said OK and went back to sleep. Then today when I asked him about it he didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. Lesson learned…never tell Ronnie anything important past 9:00pm.

A similar thing happened to my friend a while back. She was at a Britney Spears concert. Let me just stop right there and explain…she was at the concert for her little brother who is 22 and autistic and just loves Britney, she was not at the concert because she really wanted to be there. Anyway here she was and she looks over and sees Pauly Shore in the audience and immediately wants to call me. There was no one else she could think of that would share in her excitement about seeing Pauly Shore, but she didn’t want to call because it was kind of late. She had more restraint then me. Yes, I know I’m a big nerd, but I was sure I was gonna marry Pauly Shore when I was younger. There I said it, and I even wanted customized license plates that said WEEZEL and I may have wrote Shawna Shore a few hundred times. Could you imagine our kids hair…that is a crime itself.

Both instances left me thinking, who do you call when you just have to share something with someone? You husband, sister, brother, good friend? And what do you do when you can’t reach them?

Nothing in Particular

2009-04-22T12:22:00.001-07:00

Well it getting harder and harder to blog lately. For some reason I feel like I have to blog about holidays and major family events and anytime you feel like you have to do something it just sucks the fun out of it. So instead of blogging about Easter, I’m gonna throw caution to the wind and blog about nothing. Well not nothing, but nothing really significant.

So yesterday Ronnie had to go out of town for work and he was supposed to be picked up by a coworker. The coworker picked Ronnie up at around 10am and then I get a call from Ronnie at 10:10AM saying they had almost had an accident, but instead they were able to swerve out of the way and ran up onto the median and now have two flat tires. I didn’t even have time to really freakout and they were back at our house pilling all their stuff into Ronnie’s truck and I was left standing with the coworkers keys in my hand. I got to wait around for the tow truck.

Yesterday afternoon was defiantly all about Kyle as I picked him up from school and dropped him off at lacrosse and then picked up up from scouts. I had been warned a few day ago that he was going on a campout this weekend for scouts but it hadn’t really sunk in yet, so when I picked him up and he told me, mom I have to bring cheese, I kind of flip out at his scout leader guy. Poor guy, he kind of got the brunt of my day, luckily he has thick skin.

I was glad to go to bed early last night, although I was expecting to be woke up by a a good night phone call from Ronnie, but I wasn’t.

So this morning I awoke to the sound of a jackhammer right outside my window. After I sent Kyle out of get a picture, we had to wait for them to move their truck so we could back out our driveway. I dropped Kyle off at school and then I drove to Lana’s school. We have a few extra minutes before Lana’s school starts so we read books. Then I went to open the door for her to get out and I saw Kyle’s lunch, the sac lunch he had to have today since he is going on a field trip. So I RAN her up to her class and took off back to Kyle’s school. They were supposed to leave at 9am and it was 8:55. Luckily there were no police on Oakey today so I made it on time.

Now Lana is home from school and telling me all about Earth Day. I’m trying to go along with it and act happy, but really I’m not amused by Earth Day this year. Maybe because of all the hype I’ve had to listen to on the radio and TV. I even rebelled this year and didn’t wear green, I’m wearing brown. Still a very earthy color, but not the ever so popular green. Why? Why be rebellious about Earth Day? I don’t know, I’ve just heard enough from the whole “Green” movement. Why does being green cost so much? When the hippies were all into loving the earth and well pretty much loving everything, they didn’t have loads of money to buy “earth friendly” products. They just did what they could. That’s my approach, do what I can. I’m leery of “earth friendly” products until I investigate them, sometimes recycling things produce more waste and use more energy and blah blah blah, sorry I’ll get off my soapbox. Happy Earth Day.

Did You Get Fooled?

2009-04-01T22:13:00.001-07:00

This year Lana actually “got” what April Fool’s Day was all about. All the way home she kept saying look at that donkey out the window…April Fool’s, I have a bug on my nose…April Fool’s, There is a cow on the road…April Fool’s. I’ll spare you the whole ride home and just leave you with the first 2 minutes after we picked her up from school. Kyle was not into April Fool’s Day this year. he didn’t come up with any pranks for us or at school, which I’m kind of glad about. The older they get the smarter they get, you know what I mean.

This year I made the meatloaf cupcakes I thought about making last year. I told Lana that for April Fool’s Day we were going to have dessert first to play a trick on Kyle. She was so excited. After both kids were home from school Ronnie took them to the park to I could prepare dinner. I made meatloaf and baked it in cupcake wrappers. Then I made mashed potatoes and colored them different colors with food coloring. I iced the meatloaf cakes with the colored mashed potatoes and then moved on to dessert.

I made chicken not pie which my friend Elizabeth had told me about last year. It’s a bit more complicated to explain, just go to the link above if you want to know more.

So the kids reactions? Well Lana was very excited to eat cupcakes before dinner so excited she was jumping around while Kyle was tasting some of the frosting with his finger. I think he was on to me and decided to examine his cupcake further.

He clued Lana in after he figured it out and Lana was not happy at all…

After our cupcake dinner I brought out the potpies but it was no surprise to them that they were actually dessert.

The potpie made Lana’s smile come back

And we all say goodbye to April Fool’s Day with a smile on our faces.

Am I Irish?

2009-03-27T16:31:00.001-07:00

I’m a little late getting around to my St. Patrick’s Day post, better late than never, I guess.

See this man pictured above? This is my father in 1972. I am told by my mom that these clothes were really in style. She said that my dad was quite the dresser back in the day. Unfortunately, all that fashion sense was lost on me, thank goodness style is not hereditary. One thing I did inherit was his red hair, green eyes, and freckles. All three of which we seem to think are Irish traits. But a quick Google search and I discover that some of those traits are not Irish after all. Only 10% of Irish people have red hair. Most Irish people have blue eyes, 42%. As for the freckles however, 40% of Irish folks have them.

We have worked on our family tree, trying to see if we have Irish heritage in our past, but it’s difficult. You see my father was adopted when he was an infant and considers the parents that raised him to be his parents. Our family tree is full of all the people we consider family but none of them have my dad’s genes. So we can only guess where his physical traits came from.

Some other things to consider are:

He has an uncanny love of potatoes
A weird fascination with plaid
He gobbles up any and all green vegetables including cabbage
He really knew how to pinch pennies, but now that he is older he like to spend his pot of gold

Are you thinking what I’m thinking…

Forget being Irish I think my dad is a leprechaun!

Ronnie the Plumber

2009-03-10T07:19:00.001-07:00

Last Monday our family was just finishing up dinner and Kyle was clearing off the table so we could have FHE. Kyle was rinsing the dishes when all of a sudden Ronnie looked up to see a stream of water coming toward him. Unfortunately he used is cat like reflexes and dodged it. It might have made it more fun if it actually hit him. Anyway, we were all stunned and still processing what just happened when Kyle turn the water on again and again a stream of water came rushing towards the kitchen table. The kitchen faucet broke. After shopping at two different stores we found a replacement faucet and returned home where the real fun began. I tried to stay far away form the faucet changing process but I ended up getting sucked in. When it was my turn under the sink all I could think of was this spider leg I had found under there last summer. It was probably an inch and a half long and even though I sprayed bug spray under there I knew that most bug sprays don’t kill spiders. I just knew that spider leg was there because a bigger spider ate the rest of him ( I know spiders don’t eat, they suck the blood, I never said I was a rational person) and the bigger spider had babies that were just waiting to hatch at any moment. Yeah, I kind of have a thing about spiders. Anyway, I was able to help minimally in the changing of the faucet that took over 3 hours and flooded our kitchen at least 3 times.

I guess a good thing did come out of the faucet experience…Ronnie gained some plumbing skills. On Wednesday he thought he would tackle the sprinkler system from H_LL. It really is the sprinkler system from H_LL, because every year we have some major issue with it and it costs a lot to fix it because the company that all the parts are from went commercial and now charges 4 times the normal amount. I think it’s about as old as I am too, which isn’t that bad if you’re me but really bad if you’re a bunch of PVC held together by glue and exposed to harsh desert heat. Just look at, it’s looking old and it was a decroded piece of crap:

I had an idea to take a picture of it and take it to Plant World and see if they could help us. I just love Plant World, they are always so nice and will take the time to try to help you out. I’ve gotten to know the guy in the sprinkler part pretty well since they are the only ones on our side of town that carry our sprinkler parts. So Ronnie went to talk to sprinkler man and Lana and I went to visit the birds…they have really cool talking birds among the plants, it’s better than our Zoo and it’s free. The sprinkler guy hooked Ronnie up and sent us on our way. A few hours later Ronnie had done this:

Much prettier! Turns out we didn’t even need one of those value thingies. Unfortunately, Ronnie’s favorite cell phone died in the process, a moment of silence please…

Our sprinkler box is right next to the car port so Ronnie set his phone down on the hood of the Jeep while he was working. I had to leave to pick kids up from school so I just hopped in the car and went on my marry little way. Picked up the kids from school and was heading home when I saw something fly right across my hood and smash on the street. I knew what it was, but I still called Ronnie anyway to see if by chance I was wrong. I wasn’t. I pulled over by Bonanza High School where some boys were playing lacrosse and hopped I didn’t get hit in the head by a stray ball. Then I saw pieces of his phone scattered on the street. I gathered what I could and went home to tell Ronnie the bad news. It was no surprise to him, because he needed to make a call and realized where he put his phone down at, but it did surprise him that I made it that far with phone still on the hood. What gets me is no one said hey lady, you have a phone on your hood. Oh well, he had two replacement phones he can mess around with so it’s not a horrible tragedy.

Daylight Savings Time

2009-03-09T08:10:00.001-07:00

I really hate the Monday after Daylight Savings Time!

I was curious what this song was really about so I Googled it. Sad.

Brenda Ann Spencer (born April 3, 1962) is a convicted American murderer who carried out a shooting spree at Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego, California on January 29, 1979. Principal Burton Wragg and head custodian Mike Suchar were killed in the attack, while eight children and a police officer sustained wounds. One of the children, who was hit in the hand, talked about the incident on a local radio station to San Diego County.

The school was across the street from Spencer's house, from which she fired the shots. She used a rifle that she had recently been given for her sixteenth birthday by her father. When the six-hour incident ended and she was asked whom she wanted to shoot, she said, "I like red and blue jackets". When asked why, she shrugged and replied, "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day."^[1] She also said, "I had no reason for it, and it was just a lot of fun"; "It was just like shooting ducks in a pond"' and "[The children] looked like a herd of cows standing around; it was really easy pickings." At the time of the shootings, Brenda Ann Spencer was 16 years old.

She pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and assault with a deadly weapon, and was sentenced to prison for 25 years to life, currently being served at The California Institution for Women in Chino.^[1] She has been eligible for parole four times and has been turned down each time, most recently in 2005. She will be eligible for parole again in 2009.

In 2005, she claimed that she was drunk and under the influence of PCP, and that her father, Wallace Spencer, had sexually abused her as a child and that the state and her attorney conspired to hide her drug test results.

Spencer's crime, her perceived lack of remorse, and lack of a serious explanation for her actions when she was captured, inspired the song "I Don't Like Mondays" by The Boomtown Rats, written by Bob Geldof.

Her quote, "I Don't Like Mondays," also appears written on a wall in the 1985 movie The Breakfast Club.

Waffles on Wednesday

2009-03-05T09:25:00.001-08:00

Ronnie and I have started a new tradition called Waffles on Wednesday. Doesn’t it sound delicious? It’s the new WOW.

Most Wednesdays Ronnie is off from work so we get the kids dropped off to school and then start thinking what are we going to do for the rest of the day. We usually come up with things that need to be fixed around the house so we head to Lowes. But before we get there realize we purposely didn’t eat breakfast with the kids so we could go out to a nice breakfast kid free. It just so happens there are tons of places to eat around Lowes, but we have found the best.

It’s called Waffle Cafe. It’s a small business and I’ve only seen two people working there. Jeff takes your order and pretty much acts like a waiter even though it’s not supposed to be a waiter type place. Yooni is in the back creating the best waffles ever. So here’s the deal with the food. You get to choose your waffle, they have regular, oat, flax, pumpkin, and maybe another one but I can’t remember. Then you choose what to put on top of it like fruit, nuts, candy, and sauces.

I tried the oat waffle with pecans and haven’t been able to deviate. Their oat waffle is made with cooked oatmeal I think and the texture is amazing. Ronnie loves the waffle breakfast sandwich. It’s a regular waffle folded in half and stuffed with eggs, bacon, ham, and a super secret sauce. It looks like honey, but Ronnie says it has some ginger in it. I asked Jeff what the sauce was and he said it’s super secret. Then a lady dinning next to us said she asked the same question and got the same answer.

I have seen a lady order the chocolate strawberry waffle and she was making noises that were not appropriate at the breakfast table. I swear I was sitting at the diner in When Harry Met Sally. Anyway from her response I would say it was fabulous, just look at it!

They do lunch and dinner too with things like a waffle lunch sandwich, BBQ waffle and waffle pizza. They also have smoothies, and bubble tea. The most indulgent item on the menu are the waffle sundaes.

Their prices are fair and everything is cooked to order. So if your hankering for the best waffle ever and it happens to be Wednesday meet us there around 9:15am.

WaffleS Cafe

5165 S Fort Apache Rd
Ste 160
Las Vegas, NV 89148
(702) 597-9775

Happy Valentine’s Day

2009-02-14T07:19:00.001-08:00

I only had one child taking Valentines to school this year so I went a little crazy. I found some really cute printable cards and made some candy to go along with it.

We tried to make owl eyes, but they look more like mini cupcakes to me. Anyway, they tasted yummy. I got Snyder's peanut butter pretzel sandwiches and toped them with a Hershey Hug then popped them into the oven for a minute or two then put an M&M on top.

Kyle and Lana brought these for their teachers.

I found the idea here. They were supposed to be homemade bath bomb. Of course I didn’t start on it until the day before so I thought I could use store bought bath bombs. Well after searching several stores I realized I wasn’t going to find them and switched it to foot soak. Doesn’t go along with the whole bomb thing as well but I’ll get over it, I think.

Since I was a kid I can remember pizza places doing the heart shaped pizza thing, but since I moved here this is the first year I’ve seen it advertised in Vegas. A few years ago I called up a small pizza place (Seattle Dan’s Pizza) and asked them if they could make a heart pizza for me and they agreed, Here it is:

They did such a cute job, I love the arrow through it, and I’ve never seen one as cute since. I think I’ll have to call them up again this year for the kids valentine’s surprise. This year the grown ups are going to The Melting Pot for our Valentine date. As I was putting this blog together Ronnie has been emailing me and this is one thing he sent me:

Love is like a cheese fondue - as long as you stir it, it stays fresh. If you don't stir it, it gets hard and crusty. LOL. Just off the top of my head. I’m a genius.

I know what you are saying…what a romantic…and what a humble guy. What can I say, I’m one lucky girl.

Happy Valentine’s Day

LV vs MO

2009-02-04T10:32:00.001-08:00

Well life has been a bit crazy this past month. The whole family made a trip out to Missouri to visit some family for a week. We left on Saturday and came home on Saturday. Then when we returned home the kids had a three day week. Normally this would be great, but when you have a week’s worth of makeup work to do in three days it’s not so great. Now I know my kids didn’t have to finish all their makeup work in three days but I kind of had the feeling that I was going to be going back to Missouri before too long and I wanted to make sure everything got handed in.

My feeling was right. Thursday morning Ronnie’s Grandmother passed and we started looking at plane tickets. We booked some tickets for 12:30pm that day. The kids were going to stay with my parents. So we needed to tell them why we were leaving before school that morning. I hated doing that because Kyle is so tenderhearted and I just knew that it would effect his whole school day. To my surprise he was ok, he said that he felt a lot better about Grandma’s situation since he talked to Sister Turner ( his friend down the street that is in her 90th year). How grateful I am to her! So we drop our kids off at school and head home to pack.

We leave for the airport at 10:30. We had an hour delay on the plane because of some light that wouldn’t turn off on the plane. Haven’t these people ever dealt with a check engine light before? You unplug the battery wait 15 minutes then plug it back in and your good to go. It took them almost an hour before they turned everything off on the plane waited a few minutes then turned it back on and we were good to go. I really didn’t mind too much, I was just glad we weren’t traveling with kids. We had a 3 hour 15 minute flight then we had to get a rental car. Then we had a 2 1/2 to 3 hour drive to Ronnie’s parent’s house. It was 9pm when we arrived in his hometown. Long day of traveling.

While we were in Missouri I noticed some differences in lifestyle.

First off, what people consider “nice” cars are way different. For example, in Vegas a think a nice car is one that has all the bells and whistles and is fairly new. In Missouri a nice car is one that reeks of gasoline, vibrates the floorboard so much your feet start to tickle, and supposedly goes really fast.

This is one of Ronnie’s old cars that his cousin now drives. And if you wondering yes, I had to go for a ride in it. What is it with guys and cars???

The next thing that is different in these two regions is cracks. I never knew this until I came back from Missouri. The faint of heart please skip this part. Sorry I have to share my experience with someone. Ok, so we have all seen plumber’s crack before, right? Well in Ronnie’s family there is this one habitual perpetrator of this crime to society. I got to hear a story of what happened at the last family reunion, let me share. I will change names in order to protect the safety of all parties involved. Alisa was appalled by the plumber’s crack that appeared before her eyes and devised a plan to maybe make the perpetrator more aware of his heinous crime. She told all the kids around that she had a fun new game. She told them to try to flip a quarter in uncle Mock’s crack. Sadly she had no takers, imagine that. Now how this is different in Vegas? Well a few days after we returned home I was in line at Sam’s Club and I saw what I’m calling a front crack! Unbelievable! Inconceivable! This woman inline ahead of me had on the lowest low rise jeans I had ever seen and I had to do a double take to make sure I saw what I thought I saw. Then I just wanted to run away, far far away. Oh the horror, I will never be the same. There will be no pictures for this section!

The last difference that I’ll be pointing out in this post are biscuits. I think what most people think of when they hear biscuit is a light and airy biscuit. They are golden brown on top and light in the middle. The bottoms are light brown and not too greasy. They are easily split open with a fork and just sturdy enough to hold butter and jelly. Unless they are from Europe. Something that looks like this:

I don’t know if this is a family thing or Southeast Missouri thing but in Ronnie’s family biscuits resemble more of Indian Fry Bread to me. The bottoms of the biscuit are fried. Don’t get me wrong they taste good, but the first time I was served them I was looking for some honey or powder sugar to put on them.

Even though we went back to Missouri for a funeral we did have a great time catching up with family. Family make us whole, the good, the bad, the less desirable, they all have their place in a family.

Gus What We Did

2009-02-02T17:57:00.001-08:00

While we all look forward to Groundhog Day on February 2nd and the forecast for an early spring from the two greatest weatherhogs on the planet - Wiarton Willie in Wiarton, Ontario and Punxsutawney Phil in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, the truth behind this 200 year-old tradition is oftentimes forgotten.

Long before the advent of Groundhog Day on February 2nd, the Romans observed a similar event thousands of years ago on the exact same day. Rather than use the North American groundhog, the Romans used the hedgehog.

“If during hibernation, he (the hedgehog) looks out of his den on 2nd February and sees his shadow it means there is a clear moon and six more weeks of winter so he returns to his burrow.”

The only difference between this ancient event and the present day version (aside from the hedgehog, of course) is the fact that the Romans would look to see if the hedgehog saw its shadow under a clear moon at night.

Here in North America, where we have no indigenous species of hedgehog, we replaced the hedgehog with the native groundhog. To this day “Punxsutawney Phil” and “Wiarton Willie” battle it out to see who is the better weather forecaster, but little do they or their handlers know that the original prognosticator of spring was a hedgehog.

See: www.hedgehogcentral.com

Today (because we are big nerds) we celebrated a bit of the old tradition. We made a hedgehog cake in honor of Groundhog Day.

We named him Gus short for Augustus in honor of his Roman heritage. I don’t know, but I think we have all grown too found of him to slice him up and eat him. I wonder if Duff from Ace of Cakes ever has this dilemma?

Family

2009-01-22T06:29:00.001-08:00

Family means something different to everyone. Growing up I had always heard the saying blood is thicker than water. It was usually said when my brother wanted to hang out with his friends and not have to take his little sister along and I think I also used it to snag the front seat over one of his friends on occasion. Growing up I had a lot of family members around. Both sides of the family were just an hour away. My brother and I were spoiled royally. One grandparent's house always was stocked full of ice cream, not just any ice cream but the best, Blue Bell. At the other grandparent's we knew that our grandpa would take us to Putt Putt where we would spend a few hours playing video games and once in a while play a game of mini golf while our mom and grandmother were off shopping. We also had plenty of aunts and uncles to entertain us with trips to the movies, go kart rides, public pools, not to mention they would come out to visit us on the farm and we could always have lots of fun. We also had two cousins we could play with at all the boring adult functions. Come to think of it, I guess we didn't have a big family, but what family we did have were very active in our lives.

Life took us to Las Vegas and soon brought our family 3 little girls (through adoption). My family unit that I had known for 17 years grew and the phrase blood is thicker than water had no meaning any longer. This was an adjustment for everyone involved. It changed my belief of what a family was. I was able to look at close family friends and consider them family. My idea of family was not restricted. Maybe that happens to us all as we grow up.

When I married Ronnie my family grew even larger. I hadn't even met Ronnie's parents until they flew out to Las Vegas for our wedding, but I knew if they raised Ronnie then they must be good people. It was almost a year later before we were able to go to Missouri to see the rest of Ronnie's family. It was at this time that I first got to meet his grandparents. When I met them I never thought that they would have much influence on my life or my kids lives since they lived so far away, but I was wrong. Every time we went to visit his grandparents we always walked into a bustling kitchen. His grandma always fixed us a big lunch which almost always included fried fish that his grandpa had caught, potatoes, biscuits, hush puppies, some vegetables, and striped delight cake. By the time she was finished cooking dirty dishes were piled a mile high. She obviously showed us her love by cooking and we tried to show our appreciation by doing the dishes. His grandpa would visit and play with Kyle and Lana while all the cooking was going on. He also really enjoyed fishing. He shared some of his secrets with Kyle and taught him how to hold a fishing rod. Then he took Kyle out on his boat and watched as Kyle reeled in his first fish.

The short amount of time we have been able to spend with Ronnie's grandparents have taught our kids and ourselves to take some time to relax and enjoy every phase of this life here on earth. Sometimes our kids get into a really obnoxious phase and his grandparents would share with us the little obnoxious things their kids did and how short those phases actually lasted. His grandparents find joy in taking care of each other. I can only imagine how much their love for one another has grown through the years.

This past week Ronnie felt it was important that we take a trip to visit his family in Missouri because both his grandparent's health was failing. We would go to visit his grandmother in the hospital then go to see his grandfather at his house. Every time we would walk in the door his grandfather would smile and greet us, but I knew his mind was elsewhere with concern for his wife. My heart ached as I would hear him ask about his wife and receive bad news. I felt like I was keeping a selfish secret inside about what I knew about life after death and that families can be forever and that marriages can last for time and all eternity and not just till death do you part. But still I sat there quiet probably because I was afraid. Afraid of him not believing me, or not wanting to hear what I knew, or making him more sad talking about death, or not being able to understand me or comprehend what I was saying. I think that the thought crossed my mind that I was too late to talk to him. But I know it's never too late even if I never talk to him. I can still do the work needed for Ronnie's grandparents so that they can make their choice even after this life. I am grateful for my family and I am grateful for the Gospel that can make us an eternal family.

On a lighter note...I sometimes jokingly think...will my kids really want to be stuck with each other for eternity? As much as they fight and argue with each other the thought has crossed my mind more than once, but I've never taken it seriously. Today as I was writing this I stopped in the middle to go pick Lana up from school and this is what her teacher sent her home with today:

Skeletons in the Closet

2009-01-06T17:52:00.001-08:00

As the kids went back to school on Monday I was kind of sad. They have finally got to a point where they can play together and also do things individually without pestering one another. It was actually nice to wake up and not have to run them to school. We actually had days when we didn't even leave the house. Winter break was a welcomed change of pace, but now it's back to the norm.

On Monday after I dropped the kids off at school I didn't quite know what to do with myself, so I clean and organized my pantry. Everyone thinks I'm an organized person, but I'm not. I'm very particular about how I like things done so I usually put them off until I know I have enough time to do it and do it right. I seem to never find the time, so things are left undone. Quite silly I know, but it's me, what am I going to do?

I started my little endeavor with camera in hand. Here is what I was up against.

This is not a pantry of an organized person. Where to start? Well I emptied everything out and checked for expiration dates. On somethings I couldn't find the date but a few had expired Box Tops, so you know it had to be old. Those Box Top deals are good for like 4 or 5 years, if the Box Top is expired the food it beyond expired. I also came across blood worms, how many people can say they had blood worms in their pantry? I can, only because we used to have fish that ate them. I had to move the fish food into our pantry because my darling Lana emptied the whole container into the fish tank on more than one occasion. I also came across, not 1, not 2, but 3 jars of nutmeg. I actually had to take a picture of that find.

It's kind of weird because I don't even know what I would put nutmeg in so why on earth do I have three containers of it. I carry on and empty the pantry and clean the shelves. Then I realize I have flooring as a shelf liner. I'm not so hip on that so I grab my purse and head to the store to find some new shelf liner.

Before I left I made sure I measured. I have a really deep pantry, 23 inches deep to be exact. What does one do with shelves that deep? How does it make any sense to have shelves that deep. You can never see what's in the back. Should I fill up the back with some old home videos we never watch but have to hold on to. These are the thoughts running through my head as I walk around the store looking for shelf liner. I finally find the liners and pinch and feel every one and decide I like the flooring option I have better. While I'm in the aisle I take a gander at the kitchen organizational stuff and leave with 3 shelves and one really long bin. I was really excited about the bin because it was actually a media storage bin, but I had another use for it. I love when I can find another use for something. It's like I'm saying, yes I know you told me to use this bin for my CDs but I'm going to use it for my baking supplies, so neener neener neener. I'm still a rebellious child at heart. It's sad, but that's about as rebellious as I get now a days.

Here is my "baking" bin filled with my special cookie cutters, food coloring, cupcake wrappers and what not. In the end I don't know if my pantry looks any more organized but at least I feel like it is. And I would love to meet the person that thought a 23 inch long pantry was a good idea. With that said here is my "organized really long shelfed pantry" minus the blood worms and 2 of the 3 containers of nutmeg.

Christmas

2008-12-30T20:51:00.001-08:00

Christmas has come and gone but, toys are still strung all through out the house, the tree is still up, the wreath is still on the door, and there are still Christmas goodies on the kitchen counter. I guess since the sense of Christmas is still lingering it's ok to catch up on our Christmas going ons.

The Christmas Card

I had a lot of fun with this year's Christmas card.

First I hunted down red Converse, which was painful until I learned we have several Converse stores in Vegas, who knew?

Then came the photo shoot. This was really fun! Ronnie selected the music and I snapped shots as the kids let loose and had a ball.

A little work on Photoshop and then the assembling began.

Front of Card

Inside of Card

Gingerbread Houses

Fun was had by all this year as we assembled our houses. I think we are still finding candy that rolled off the table and found it's way to every corner of the house. Mom made a cute little cozy cottage with a red and green roof. Cody decorated his love shack, complete with a candy cane heart archway. Lacey, Sadie, and Lana get the award for most candy used and they added a very cool chimney to their house. Kyle worked all by himself on his ginger train, he did a great job, there is even cargo in the train car. Lana carried on the tradition of the Rudolph nose and introduced her cousin Mason to the fun.

Christmas Day

Here's just a few photos of Christmas:

From Cute..........................................................To just Wrong!

The cousins at Christmas

. . . HE HIMSELF, . . . !

The Grinch carved the roast beast!

Snow Day

2008-12-18T22:16:00.001-08:00

Yesterday it started to snow in Las Vegas around noon. It kept snowing until way after the sun went down. Here's a video documenting the snow, hey it's a novelty here, just bear with me.

A Snowy Day from Shawna Lutes on Vimeo.

And here are some pictures of what the kids did with all this snow.

They got all bundled up.

The neighbor girls recruited them to build a snowman.

I guess Kyle was there for the heavy lifting.

Lana was pretty good at rolling the snow balls around.

The girls were hard at work and I wondered where Kyle ran off to.

Ah ha...look no further I found him on top of the camper making snowballs to throw.

He wasn't the only one throwing snowballs! Lana's friend from down the street came over to join the fun.

The neighbor girls finished the snowman. Didn't they do a great job?

All this snow means only one thing to the school aged kids...will we have a snow day tomorrow?? Yes indeed they did. Here is what we did with our snow day.

We journeyed to the mall with letters to Santa in hand.

Lana wasn't feeling her best so no smiles today.

We found the Santa Mailbox at Macy's

Dropped our letters in.

Then had some lunch.

Lana's first Hot Dog on a Stick. She's now hooked.

Oh the wonders a snowy day brings.

A Christmas Tradition

2008-12-13T10:39:00.001-08:00

Each year we add ornaments to our tree, but one ornament is special. As a family we think of something significant that happened in the past year and try to find an ornament to represent it. I love this tradition for many reasons, it's a time when we can remember what happened through the year and it's fun to see what each person thinks was most significant. It's one of my few original traditions, where I haven't copied what one of our families did. It's a time when we all go shopping together which hardly happens this time of year. One day when we are old and gray, I can see Ronnie and I reminiscing on our life together as we put up our Christmas tree.

Here is our collection so far:

2000

Our first year together, this represents our marriage. We were actually married in my parent's home, but I couldn't find an exact replica of their home so I thought this would do.

2001

After getting married in Las Vegas we moved to Colorado. A few miles north of us there were pastures full of buffaloes. Also the University of Colorado's mascot is the Buffalo.

2002

We were able to move back to Las Vegas. I think the dice are self explanatory.

2003

Ronnie and I went to Monterey Bay, CA when we were dating. Years later we were able to go back and visit this awesome place with Kyle and me being 7 months pregnant. It was such a treat because it was only 65 in Monterey and 110 in Vegas. (Lana got her own baby's first Christmas ornament so we choose this one for this year)

2004

Besides kids this is probably the most significant thing to happen to us yet. The purchase of our first home. We were so lucky to have received a call from a dear friend telling us that the other side of her duplex was for sale. I can truly say that great friends make the best neighbors.

2005

Yet another Monterey Bay ornament. We could probably have one of these for every year because it is our favorite place to escape the Las Vegas heat. This year was significant because Kyle was the first person in our family to go scuba diving.

2006

The year of the pickle. I don't know what nutritional value a pickle has, probably none, but Lana lived off of pickles this whole year. It effected our whole family, trust me on this.

2007

We started our first garden in Las Vegas. We did the square foot gardening method and had a lot of fun caring for it. We had a a very prolific eggplant bush that produced eggplants the size of your head!

2008

This year we ventured to southern CA for our family vacation. We hit the highlights with the kids and were able to see the baby pandas at the San Diego Zoo.

I can't even begin to guess what next year will bring, but looking back on the years I feel truly blessed.

Las Vegas Marathon

2008-12-11T16:52:00.001-08:00

This past Sunday was fast Sunday for me. Usually fasting is not a hard thing to do, but this Sunday was hard. Ronnie's company sponsored a mile at the Las Vegas Marathon this Sunday. Everyone was encouraged to go help out by passing cups of water and Gatorade off to the runners. I try to keep the Sabbath day holy and so on and I don't think that going down to the Strip makes it easy for one to do this. But I went because we were volunteering, doing good works. We woke up at 5:45am and got everyone dressed in some sort of red (we were asked to wear red for some reason). We helped fill 4 tables full of water and Gatorade cups. Then the runners started passing by. Everyone was excited to cheer on the brave people running and try to hand off some cups. The kids had a blast.

Las Vegas Marathon from Shawna Lutes on Vimeo.

We saw all kinds of runners...

Santa Runners Elvis Runners

Turtle Elvis Runners Bride and Groom Runners

More Elvis Runners Funky Jive Man Runner

We were set up on mile 25 so when the runners passed us they only had 1.2 miles left. Which is why you see some of the runners walking. Some were running half marathons and some started at mile 7 after getting married. It was apparent some runners were running with a purpose and some were running for fun. No matter though the only thing on my mind as I looked at the runners was...well let me see if you can guess:

You can see it here...

And here...

I tried to block it out here....

But I moved and it came back into focus...

You think I'm taking a picture of my husband don't you....you'd be wrong

See it now...

Yes, that darn IN-N-OUT sign is quite a force to be reckoned with on fast Sunday.

We had to leave before everyone was finished so we could make it to church. This is the sea of cups that had accumulated so far, I can't imagine how many more there were when it was all over and done with. Who knew marathons were so messy?

Thanksgiving

2008-12-06T15:53:00.001-08:00

Well it's now over a week after the fact and I'm finally getting around to doing a post about Thanksgiving. This is not a good sign for the rest of the holiday season.

Lets see, were to begin...oh yeah, Sunday before Thanksgiving I was giving a talk in church. My throat started to feel a little scratchy the day before and I just kept saying, just hold off until after my talk. I even ate 5 clementines on Saturday. Sunday morning I get up feeling ok and I make a fabulous breakfast for my family. After which 2 people feel sick to their stomachs...lovely. Then Lana gets a massive nose bleed and Ronnie decides to clean out his closet resulting in 6 trash bags of junk, I kid you not! So I went on and I made it through my talk barely. I don't know if it was nerves from speaking in front of nearly 200 people or the start of a really bad cold, but my hands were so cold and clammy that I was too embarrassed to shake anyone's hand. At one point I felt so weak I remember holding on to the podium with both hands. Afterward I grabbed a tissue as I sat down because my nose started to run then my eyes were burning because I could feel a fever setting in. A few hours later I was curled up on the couch watching my kids destroy the house because my throat hurt too much to tell them to stop. Ronnie had to go to work unexpectedly. And panic set in as I looked at the state of my house and thought Ronnie's parents are coming to stay with us tomorrow from Missouri. They are super nice people and wouldn't care what my house looked liked, but I cared. It was not up to my standard to have people over, much less staying in my house. Ronnie came home from work and saved the day. He and the kids got all the common areas cleaned and ready for company. The bedrooms didn't get touched. Kyle's bedroom is where the grandparents stay when they come for a visit and it was truly atrocious. Lana's bedroom remains messy most of the time since she gets up after we put her to bed and has a ball playing with all her toys. And our bedroom wasn't looking so hot after the surprise closet clean out either. Kyle managed to clean his room enough to fit an airbed under his loft bed and that's all I could ask for. Grandparents came and everyone was glad to see everyone and nobody cared about the surroundings. Imagine that!

Thanksgiving was held at my house because I like everyone eating together, in the same room. All of our family won’t fit at one table but I'm luckily because I can fit two or three table into my dining room. Everyone helped with Thanksgiving. I called my mom and pawned off more dishes for her to make the day before and boy did she come through. Everyone at my house helped set up and cook and clean. Even Lana helped set the table until she was distracted by the frying of the turkey. She said that the raw turkey looked like a brain, now how would she know what a brain looks like? Kyle was the gofer, we had him running to the garage for something constantly. Even with my brother coming down from Logan, UT this was our smallest gathering so far for Thanksgiving. Probably because my grandmother was out of town and we didn't have any friends take us up on our offer this year. The food was great and the company was even better. I just wished I had more room for lounging around afterward. My brother didn't seem to care; he found him a nice comfy spot on the floor. After dinner we always start perusing the Black Friday ads. I had my eye on a tree from Home Depot, finally I found a tree with warm/white LED lights and it was only $50. The next morning my mother-in-law, Sue, and I hit the sales. A few hours later we arrived home victorious. What a great day!

How???? What???? Why????

2008-11-20T13:22:00.001-08:00

You clean house all day long on a Saturday.

Since both kids are home all day they mess up the house as fast as you can clean.

You do all the laundry in the house.

On the last load you ask your son to switch out the laundry from washer to dryer.

He hands you the house phone and say's at least the phone will be clean.

How does this happen????

Monday morning at 7:30 a construction worker knocks on your door to tell you they are turning your water off for a few hours to do some work on the city's pipes.

You run to brush your teeth.

You run out the door to take the kids to school (running late) and buckle your daughter into her car seat and when you shut the door you notice a huge hole in the street right in front of your driveway.

The construction workers see your look of angst and say I think you can make it out over here if you angle the car just right.

You reply, No I can't, but maybe you can.

The construction worker asks, would you like me to back your car out?

You reply with a resounding YES.

The construction worker backs your car out with your two kids in back and you kind of freak out a little bit as he drives on your lawn in order to avoid falling in the huge hole in the street.

What???? They couldn't have asked me to move my car when they told me they were turning off my water????

Your daughter eats some soup for lunch that contains beans.

She tell you there is something stuck in her mouth and thinks it is like a popcorn shell.

You tell her it is probably some skin from a bean.

She says I can't live like this.

You tell her to use her finger and get it out.

She gags and then says I really can't live like this.

You tell her to take a drink and swish it around and it should come loose.

She does and then says it's a good thing because there's no way I could live like that.

You die laughing.

Why are little kids so stinking funny????

She's Crafty

2008-11-17T17:00:00.001-08:00

A few weeks ago Ronnie bought me this T-shirt.

Normally I don't wear crew neck T-shirts out of the house. I prefer V-neck or something, anything other than a crew neck. I guess I watch too much What Not to Wear. I love this shirt, it totally cracks me up! It combines my love of all things crafty and all kinds of music all on one shirt. I'm sure it would end up in the trash can of shame if Stacey and Clinton ever came knocking on my door, but oh well. When I wear it I think...isn't it cool that my husband totally gets me.

So while we are talking about crafts, let me show you the biggest bang for your buck when it comes to decorating for a party. This is a paper bag flower.

I hung a few of these at a baby shower and everyone thought they were way cool. I learned about them from Martha Stewart. I guess I'm the only one that still watches Martha. I would much rather read her magazine than watch her because she really can be quite annoying, but I could never throw away her magazines. I have 8 years wroth of subscriptions in a closet and I decided, once the shelf they were on started to bow in the middle, that I had enough magazines. Now your probably asking yourself how often to I look through them. Well I organize them by month so in October I can go grab the October box and see all the fun Halloween crafts. Whenever I want to do a holiday craft I just go grab that box and I'm set.

Alright, enough about my magazine hoarding issues, back to paper bag flowers.

1.Get six paper lunch sacs any color.

2.Fold the bottom flap back.

3.Cut the bottom of the sac off.

4.Cut all six bottoms off the sacs

5.Grab some double sided tape or glue. I love Zip Dry.

6.Glue or tape down the sides of all six sacs and stack them on top of each other.

7.Cut a petal shape out on one side of the sacs.

8.Use a hole punch to make a hole through all six sacs. Then tie a ribbon around them loosely.

9.Bring the front and back sides of the sacs together and glue or tape. If you have a hard time making them both meet, then cut the petal shape further down the side. Then hang from the ceiling. Stand back and marvel at what you can do for less than a buck.

I Can't Have Everything

2008-11-06T23:36:00.001-08:00

I absolutely adore these boots. I can imagine buying outfits solely to be worn with these boots. I can imagine sitting and looking at them all the time and counting all the buttons on these boots. I can imagine learning how to properly care for leather shoes if I owned these boots.

I will never own these boots, because I am too practical.

I love Kevin Spacey. I love the way his eyes wrinkle when he smiles. I love the sound of his voice. I love his 5 o'clock shadow that he seems to always have no matter the time. Ronnie knows that if he goes to rent a movie and can't find one he wants to watch all he has to do is pick a Kevin Spacey movie and I'll be happy.

I will never be Mrs. Spacey, because I'm very happy being Mrs. Lutes.

I love this vehicle. I have priced this vehicle loaded with all the things I wanted it to have on it and even the color I wanted it to be (olive). I figured out how much money I would put down on this vehicle and what my monthly payments would be. I test drove it more than once.

I will never have this car, because my kid's education means more to me.

I know I can't have everything. I know that if I did get those boots they would probably make blisters on my feet and I would still wear them because they cost so much. I know that if I were Mrs. Spacey I would probably be annoyed because I would never get to see him due to work and well life just wouldn't be any fun without Ronnie. I know that if I drove a Commander I would park in the back of parking lots so my car wouldn't get dinged by carts. I know that you can't always get what you want and sometimes when you do get it, it's not that great. Lana has learned this life lesson this week.

Trunk or Treat

2008-11-02T19:13:00.001-08:00

Kyle and Lana (aka Indy and the Indian) at the Trunk or Treat.

Notice Indy's whip, I let Kyle take a weapon but not before I duct taped the heck out of it...he he he. Also notice Lana's peacock feather? Just so happens my really nice neighbor reads my blog and saw my costume post and called me up and said we have some peacock feathers and you can have one so Lana will be just like you. How cool is that!

I dressed up for Halloween this year. I was really scary. I was so scary I looked in the mirror and was scared STRAIGHT...my hair that is!

Lana came across a fellow tribe mate. Boy howdy, was she ever surprised or maybe that is the

sugar comma kicking in.

Indy found the Holy Grail of the Trunk or Treat...cotton candy, it sure beats monkey brains!

I made Ronnie go vote after work on the last day of early voting. So he arrived a little late to the Trunk or Treat. He invited his friend Jerry to come and enjoy the festivities also.

So here are Jerry and Ronnie dressed up as two guys that just got off work. I won't tell you why Ronnie is laughing so hard, you'll have to ask him yourself. That Jerry is one funny guy. Too bad he's moving in a few weeks. We'll sure miss him.

It was getting late and the natives were getting restless. For real...what you don't believe me?

See.....proof!

So we high tailed it home.

We hope you all had a Fun and Safe Halloween!

I'm Kind of Handy

2008-10-29T21:33:00.001-07:00

Lana's class is having a Halloween party tomorrow. There has been a sign-up sheet for parents to sign-up to help or bring something for the party. Since I'm good friends with Lana's teacher I told her of course I'll come help with the party and just let me know what you need me to bring. I knew there would probably be something that no one would sing-up for and I'll just bring that. So then yesterday she called and asked me to bring 40 pumpkin shaped sugar cookies, but not for Lana's class, no this was for her afternoon class. I said sure why not after giving her a little bit of a hard time.

Today I set out to make the cookies and first started with clearing off the counter. There was a bag that had motor oil in it because my car has decided that oil tastes good and drinks it right up these days. Yes, I've taken it to the shop and it's still a mystery why my car uses so much oil. So anyway, the oil reminded me I need to go check the oil, something I've been forgetting to do. So I go out and check my oil and while I'm doing so my neighbor walks out of his house to get something from his car and I smile and say hi. This is the same neighbor who's lawn I mowed without asking and then blamed it on my son. Nothing else really happen here other than my self thinking, hey I'm a pretty handy woman, I can check my own oil. Ok enough thinking back to the oil, which was just this time...my car is odd.

So then I head back in to make cookies. I go to turn the oven on and notice there is a dirty pot from dinner still sitting there, hey it happens. So I empty the remains in the sink and turn on the disposal. The disposal isn't working. I remember about the reset switch, but that didn't work either. I turn to the internet and learn that there is a place for an allen wrench. Ok, now I'm mad at myself for making Ronnie put his tools away. I have to go find the allen wrench in the garage, I hate the garage. I found it and headed back in. It only took 3 different allen wrenches before I found the right one. Then I flip the switch and hey it worked. I'm feeling pretty handy again. Then I notice that the water is backing up into the other part of the sink. I look up kitchen sink clogs on the internet. I find out you can use a plunger. Well the only plunger we have is a bathroom plunger and well it's just not going anywhere near the sink, YUCK! I decided it would be silly to run out and buy a new one so I grab an old toothbrush and break out the bleach and get to work. I think my plunger is sink worthy now and head back to the kitchen. I decide to try the disposal one last time before I put the plunger in the sink. What do you know the sink with the disposal cleared. The other sink was still clogged with mac and cheese (last night's dinner) so I grab a spoon and start scooping it out and then the clog is cleared. So I have a really clean plunger now and a clean sink, really feeling handy now.

Back to the cookies. As I am making cookies my little helper, Lana, spills some sugar on the floor. Sugar and bare feet are really annoying to me so I stand still and ask Lana to bring me the broom. She breaks out singing, baby come back you can blame it all on me....all the while dancing with the broom. I guess my kids watch way too much TV if they can sing a Swiffer commercial. I was laughing too hard to think straight. I can't even make this stuff up! Kids are hilarious.

We dedicate this song to Ronnie, because well we can get by without you but it sure is so much nicer not to have to.

Oh and here are the cookies I finally got around to making.

How to Flirt With Your Husband Over Email

2008-10-29T14:12:00.001-07:00

Ronnie had to go out of town for work early Tuesday morning. I've been know to send him pictures of the kids to let him see what's been going on. He has this nifty phone that lets him get emails and so I talk to him throughout the day via email and no one knows he's taking a personal call (of sorts). He checks his email during meeting and no one knows because it looks like he is just taking notes. So this morning I thought I would send him an email that would make him start laughing during the middle of his meeting.

Here is what I sent him:

Hey, here is me wearing my new PTA style shirt. I fit right in at Lana’s school now.

Here’s my fishy face

Here’s my kissy face

OH my!

Ok, I’ve composed myself and am back to normal…normal as I can be.

LOVE YOU

I don't know if he started laughing or even if he was in the middle of a meeting, but I did get not one but two emails in return.

The first one said:

that's awesome - love you

The second said:

you should blog that.

So like a good wife I obeyed...probably for the first time ever!

Costumes

2008-10-25T21:13:00.001-07:00

A few years back I decided to try to make Halloween less commercial. I know it's hard to do especially when there really is no substance to Halloween. It's not like Christmas where you can focus on Christ or Thanksgiving where our focus is on all our many blessings or Easter where we are grateful for the resurrection of our Savior. Since I really didn't want to delve into why Halloween started I just took the traditions of today and made them a little more homey.

I have tried making at least one Halloween costume each year for the past few years. Here they are:

Kyle as Anakin Skywalker. I'm pretty sure my mom made most if not all of this. Since Lana was born about 1 month before this I doubt I had anything to contribute. My mom made the tunic and tied a brown sash around Kyle's waist. He already had some tan pants and a light saber so he was all set.

Kyle as an astronaut. I got the idea from one of Martha Stewart's birthday party ideas. I got Kyle a disposable painters suit and colored duct tape. Ronnie helped me find some patches on the computer to decorate Kyle's costume with. I also put Ronnie in charge of the box thing and helmet. The best part of all...no sewing!

Lana as a monarch butterfly. I got this idea from Pottery Barn. Pottery Barn's costume was so cute and I would have just bought if I had lost my mind and somehow thought that spending $100 on a costume was logical. Luckily my mind is still functioning and I decided to try to make it instead. Lana had a black sweat suit and I made the wings with felt. I used a really strong stabilizer in between the wings to make them stand up instead of flop down. I made the pattern with felt also and I decorated both sides so you could tell what she was coming and going. Then I put some grommets in the wings and laced black string through them so Lana could wear the wings like a backpack.

Kyle as Link from Zelda. I really didn't want to try to take on such a hard costume so I actually look online to buy a costume...but no one made them. So them I turned to the Internet again for directions on how to make one and bingo I found some directions that made it seem actually doable. I learned a lot about Link in trying to make this costume, for example who knew that in each Zelda game Link's costume was different? Well then I had to ask Kyle witch costume he wanted and he said Link in Twilight Princess. So then I got started. Here's a blog I wrote last year about the day when I was making this costume. The costume didn't turn out exactly how I wanted it to, but at least I pushed on and finished it.

This year Lana is going to be an Indian. She started out wanting to be a ladybug, then she wanted to be an Indian. As I was at the store getting her Indian costume fabric she started saying she wanted to be a princess. I didn't give in. The people around the cutting table thought it was quite amusing that my darling daughter was crying and telling me over and over that she wanted to be a princess while I was buying her stuff to be an Indian. It was never going to end, if I had caved and said ok you can be a princess the next day she would want to be something else. So I looked at her and said ok how about you can be an Indian princess and then all was right with the world. Everyone around the fabric table got a good chuckle and then I high tailed it out of there before anymore costume ideas came to her.

I used one of her dresses and traced around it on newspaper for a pattern. Then I added a few trimmings. I had some left over fabric so I made some mock moccasin boots. Mock because they really don't cover her feet , just her legs. On Halloween she will have a fluffy pink headband with a pink feather in the back.

Here is a picture of me in an Indian costume my mom made....so the tradition continues. See my feather...it was a peacock feather form our very own peacock...how cool is that!

Way to go Neal!

2008-10-18T14:33:00.001-07:00

Last night Ronnie and I went to the America's Got Talent show at the MGM Grand and it was AWESOME!

First let me tell you what happen to Ronnie at work yesterday. Ronnie was stuck in his office in a meeting when some of his employees came running in to tell him that Terry Fator was shopping in his Sam's Club. Terry Fator won America's Got Talent last year, I think it was last year. He does amazing celebrity impersonations all the while never moving his lips. He's a ventriloquist. Ronnie wasn't able to leave the meeting to go down and meet Terry but some of his employees were able to talk to him and they said he was the nicest guy.

Now back to the show. Our first ever Vegas show and Ronnie just happens to know the guy, so bizarre! Ronnie was looking at the tickets online and asked me what seats we should get. I looked at him and said, you're going to a show where someone you know is headlining...how often does that happen? We got floor seats.

So we get to the show and sit down just feet away from the stage. Jerry Springer is hosting the show just like on TV but unlike TV he is just feet away from me!

We got to see:

Terry Fator Joseph Hall Queen Emily

Donald Braswell Paul Salos Jessica Price

Nuttin But Stringz Eli Mattson Jonathan Burkin

Neal E. Boyd

Of course everyone was great, but the star of the show was definitely Neal. The first time we got to see him in the show was when he came out with Nuttin But Stringz and sang with them. Later he did some songs by himself and I'm sure that everyone had goosebumps like I did.

After the show, as we were leaving, I heard an usher say, oh man, why did he have to do that. Then I looked over to see Neal talking to some fans. Ronnie went over to say hi and was met with a big giant bear hug. It was a total Kodak moment, but ill prepared me didn't have a camera.

We were able to go back and talk to Neal after the show in this room were all the other performers were. Neal had quite the crowd of friends that had come to see him from Missouri. People were standing beside Neal and getting pictures and Ronnie asked if I wanted to get a picture with Neal and I said no, it's Neal's night he doesn't know me and I don't want to take time away from him. Then Neal asked Ronnie to sit down so they could talk. As they talked I looked around the room and I was over come with the American Spirit in the room. All of those folks just had their dreams come true. They didn't feel like they lost a talent competition, but they were the brave few that were able to share their talents with the world. I realized that there were no losers in the room and I doubt that the prize money really mattered to any one of them. What mattered was the fact that they made it through the journey. How many of us have talents that we don't share because we might be afraid of criticism? This was not a night about hey I won and you didn't, this was a night about overcoming obstacles. I was in awe to have been in a room with so many kind, strong, and talented people. Thank you for that opportunity Neal.

Now back to the lighter side. Ronnie was talking to Neal about about seeing a picture of Neal wearing his football uniform and get this, it was the number that Ronnie wore. Neal said I know, when I got my number I looked in the yearbook to see he wore it before me and it was you. So let's hear it for number 74! Then things kind of calmed down and Neal wasn't getting asked every few second to look at a camera and smile and Ronnie asked if it was alright for me to take a picture of them together. Ronnie told Neal, my wife wants a picture of us for her blog. I was horrified, then Neal said oh yeah sure, I've read your blog. He said he came across it on a Google search or from a video link or something. I was shocked! After that I couldn't stop smiling. How cool is that! He read my blog! So Neal if you ever come across my blog again, please leave a comment it would totally make me smile.

Then Neal introduced us to Terry Fator's wife Melinda. Ronnie of course had to share the story about Sam's Club people going insane early that day when her husband was shopping. I think she got a kick out of that. I can't imagine how her life has changed since her husband won the show last year. They announced at the show last night that Terry Fator signed a 100 million dollar contract with Mirage. WOW. At the show last night Terry Fator sang the song by Brooks & Dunn called the Boot Scootin' Boogie. Before Melinda left I had to tell her that Ronnie does the Electric Slide to that song every Saturday at 2pm with his demo ladies (the ladies that pass out samples). So if Terry is ever shopping he'll have to stop over and maybe sing. Like that would ever happen, but hey stranger things have happened.

It was just an amazing night. We finally got home around 1:30 or 2:00am and poor Ronnie had to get up at 5:00am for work. Ronnie said it was worth it, but he is getting too old for that kind of thing.

Musical Musings on the Presidential Debate

2008-10-09T01:27:00.000-07:00

For those that know me well, know I love quoting songs. Ronnie and I can have whole conversations using only lines in songs.

A lot of times when people talk I hear song lines in my head. Here are a few songs that came to mind as I watched the presidential debate. They are by a band called UNCLE TUPELO that I really DIG, but sadly the band split many years ago and then went on to form two different bands, WILCO and SON VOLT, that are really good, but not as great.

Debate Topic: Economy

Debate Topic: Energy

Debate Topic: Environment

It's a Small World After All

2008-10-08T09:57:00.001-07:00

Have you seen this show?

I haven't ever really watched this show until this season when we programmed our DVDR to record the whole series. Why? What makes this season so special? Well I'll get to that.

If you have seen it then I'm sure you have heard this guy sing. Well if you haven't you can watch him here.

He is such an amazing singer he even made our kids stop arguing and listen, listen to opera no less!

Neal E. Boyd won the $1 Million Prize and a headline show in Las Vegas. It just so happens that Ronnie grew up in the same town as this guy. Not only that but he was good friends with Neal's older brother and even had sleep overs at his house. Now Neal will be headlining in a show in our town...how bizarre!

We have lived in Vegas for quite sometime and never gone to a show...that is going to change!

Oh My! What Have I Done

2008-10-04T11:45:00.001-07:00

This is a blog I wrote back in April of this year and was too chicken to post. After what I did yesterday this blog pales in comparison and the story needs to be told.

The other day Ronnie was helping a neighbor down the street with his yard. He learned if there are three guys, two wheelbarrows, and one shovel, you don’t want to be the guy left holding the shovel. They were putting rock down in their yard. Ronnie would fill one wheelbarrow and just when he was finished the other wheelbarrow would show up needing to be filled. But I must say, I’m glad he did the shoveling, his ringer tees look like they got a little tighter around the arm area…mighty nice looking. Maybe I just washed them in hot water and they shrank…who knows either way they look good!

Anyway, back to the story I was going to tell you before I got distracted. While he was over at the neighbors he said many times how much he liked grass. It wasn’t just because of the hard work involved with laying down rock. We are just grass people. It’s not the most intelligent choice for a yard when you live in a dessert, I know, but it sure feels good on bare feet in the heat of the summer. It is also a great backdrop for photos. We follow the water restrictions and so forth and we try our hardest to keep our grass looking pretty. Right now our major problem is dandelions. Today we took a stand against the on slot of dandelions attacking our yard. As soon as our neighbor left in his car we spread out in his yard pulling all the dandelions we could find. Some with roots that would rival that of a tree! We only had a small time frame because we didn’t know when he would be back. I kept thinking what if he forgot something and is driving up the street right now. How embarrassing would that be? I could just see the look on his face as he drives up to see his neighbors in his yard pulling weeds. We have crossed a line and I knew it, but why stop now, we when we were almost finished. It was at this point I started to realize that I am quite neurotic about some things, dandelions being one of them. Luckily we finished before he got home and hid the evidence deep inside a trash bag, never to be seen again. Then in a self reflective moment I had to wonder…why I can’t be as neurotic about housework as I am about yard work.

Ok that’s enough self reflecting; let’s just bask in the glory, that for a little while there will be no dandelion seeds floating into my yard. Now I must go outside barefoot and turn a few cartwheels in my yard, why…because I can.

Now on to what I did yesterday...

Now first let me tell you my neighbor is a very nice young man. He is probably in his mid to late twenties and rents the house next door. He is a chef and works two jobs. When he has get togethers with friends we can hardly hear a peep. He has even offered to hook us up on a ski vacation in Cedar City, UT because one of his friends owns a rental condo there. In case you need a visual, he reminds me of the funny Japanese guy from Heroes.

He is just a totally nice guy, but since he rents he has not invested in a lawn mower and I don't blame the guy. There used to be an arrangement where someone would come and mow the lawn and trim the bushes about once or twice a month. I don't know what happened to that, but the lawn hasn’t been mowed for at least two months. This summer his grass was attacked by fungus and it made large brown spots that crept over onto our side of the lawn. So I had to take matters into my own hands. I treated our lawns with some spray on fungicide when he wasn't home. Well that didn't work very well, so then I talked to professionals and they said I should use granules instead of spray on fungicide. Uggh, at least with the spray on stuff I could stand on my own sidewalk and it would look like I was just spraying my lawn. Now with the granule stuff I have to walk over on his side all the while pushing a big green spreader for all too see. Ok, so I did it and I wasn't caught.

Now yesterday I did something totally wrong. Kyle and his friend down the street were helping each other do chores. They were taking turns at each other’s house and when they got to mine they mowed my lawn. Then I went out to see if they could use the spreader to put down some more fungicide and I just started mowing my neighbor's lawn! Since the grass was so tall grass was flying everywhere, so then I had Kyle grab the broom and start sweeping off our neighbor’s sidewalk. I get done mowing and look over to see what the kids are doing and guess what I see...Lana, Kyle, and his friend all over under my neighbor's carport playing around! Not only did I over step my bounds, but I taught the kids that it was ok too! I stopped right then and there and started to clean up and get the kids back onto our side. I was going to mow the other side of his lawn, but didn't. Instead I only mowed half and then I left a note on his door. In the note I totally lied! I said my son needed to do a service in his neighborhood for Boy Scouts so he mowed your lawn, I hope you don't mind. Yes, I know, I'm so WRONG!

Our lawns are cut in half by the driveway, so now my neighbor has one side mowed and the other not. What to do, what to do...to mow or not to mow that is the question. I know what I need to do, but I just don’t wanna! I know I should talk to him and say hey, can we finish the other half of your lawn. I'm sure he would let us. I'm sure he feels bad that his lawn was so bad that his neighbors felt compelled to fix it for him. I'm sure all I had to do was say, hey my son can mow your lawn for five bucks if you like and then I wouldn't have made him feel bad. I'm sure this is one of those should have, would have, could have moments.

Lana's Birthday Party

2008-09-30T16:48:00.000-07:00

Last week we celebrated Lana's 5th birthday. She had a Fancy Nancy party. Everyone dressed up very fancy and we had a fancy dinner and even her presents were wrapped in a very fancy way.

We all got to make our own fancy crowns.

Our fancy dinner didn't turn out right but Lana helped it out with the addition of a pink feather...very fancy!
Leave it to her parents to give her a toy/organizer. It's a bean bag stuffed with stuffed animals. I finally have a place for all her stuffed animals and she can finally have all her animals in her room...it's a win win.
Here are a few more birthday party pictures:

Birthday Mania

2008-09-22T06:50:00.001-07:00

September is a crazy month for birthdays in my little world. First we have Ronnie's (husband) birthday on the 10th, then Lacey's (sister) birthday on the 20th, then Lana's (daughter) birthday on the 22nd.

This year Lana gets to have cupcakes brought to school for her birthday to share with her class. It just so happens that her class is huge! She has 32 kids in her class and that's not including her teacher and another teacher the kids call kleptomaniac that means I get to make 34 cupcakes.

I don't have cake decorating skills so I cheat. How do I cheat? I use candy and things like that to mask the fact that I can't pipe icing in a way that would make it appetizing to eat. This year I went with a flower theme for her cupcakes.

Here are the Daisy cupcakes, I found the idea for them at Family Fun.

And here are the sunflower cupcakes and I found the idea for them here.

With all this birthday cake and cupcakes during the month I am really glad I was able to find a swimsuit. And as predicted, it was on sale! It would have cost about a hundred dollars, but I got it for $24, woohoo. I've been going to a few aquaerobic classes with some friends and they are fun. Today we are trying a new aqua class where we wear foam boots. Too bad I don't have anyone to video tape it, I'm sure it will be amusing and we will make quite a fashion statement. I also discovered the Fit channel on TV and they have a yoga program on there that I do at home. My hands don't slide on our rug so it's much easier and the best part I can do it at night so I can crawl in bed and go to sleep afterward.

Just Call me Buddha

2008-09-11T19:08:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I joined a gym that a couple friends go to. This gym offers all kinds of classes that I am too chicken to go to by myself. So this morning after dropping Lana off at school some friends and I met and went to our first yoga class. The only experience I have had with yoga is from Wii Fit which is totally misleading. Wii Fit shows you the poses and tells you how steady you are but what it doesn't tell you is that the hardest part is going from one pose to another. The yoga teacher called this a sequence. The teacher also kept saying something about being graceful which I am totally not. I guess now I know why...it takes a lot of muscles I don't have to be graceful.

I learned that yoga isn't just stretching and breathing. And I certainly never thought that I would work up a sweat doing yoga. It was really a fun experience and very relaxing. I wished I could have came home and took a nap afterward, but I had to go pick Lana up from school.

Next week I'm going to try the aquatic aerobic class...maybe. I've first got to find a swimsuit, which will most definitely be on sale if there are any left. It just dawned on me, I will actually have time to go swimsuit shopping without a kid in the dressing room with me! Oh how my world is changing.

One question for anyone that does yoga, maybe it's just me, but my hands kept sliding on the mat when I was trying to do downward facing dog...what's up with that???

Kyle Turned 11

2008-09-02T20:46:00.001-07:00

A month ago Kyle turned 11 years old. Wow, I have an 11 year old son, that must make me...yeah, OLD. I didn't go all out this year with Kyle's birthday and I think he was ok with that. We just had a small little family get together. Kyle got to pick where we went for lunch. Get this, he picked Carrabba's. No McDonald's or Chuck E Cheese's anymore, he's growing up. Here are a few videos of his big day.

Here is a video of Lacey making a pizza with Lana. The restaurant gives the kids small pieces of pizza dough to flatten out and then they can top them and bake a little pizza while they are waiting on their order.

Here is the birthday boy. He really does have better manners, I swear.

Kyle and his Papa enjoying his birthday dessert. And yes we went right home and had cake and ice cream too. Overkill??

The birthday song, yes we know, keep our day jobs.

I thought I would list a few things about Kyle right now.

He no longer likes salad

He can sing the Burning Ring of Fire from memory

He knows how to work the DVDR better than his mom

He thinks he is too old for the kids menu

He "secretly" stays up at night reading

He is tall enough to go on roller coasters

I am so glad that he is my son. Everyday he says something that makes me look at things differently. I think I have learned just as much from him as he has from me. I can't wait to see what else he has in store for us as the years go by.

First Day of School

2008-08-26T21:30:00.001-07:00

Here’s Kyle and Lana before we left home today. Kyle has really gotten tall!

I had to go undercover as the momarazzi (paparazzi) Kyle is getting to be too old for first day of school pictures actually at school. Kyle had a rough start to school this year. I got him to school 10 minuets early and that wasn’t early enough. The table with all his guy friends was full and he had to sit at a table with mostly girls. I have a feeling his teacher will be changing this. Then he went to put his lock on one of the lockers and the middle row was all taken. The top row is too high for him and the bottom row is on the ground and he would have to get on his knees to get to it. Some of the lockers in the middle didn’t have locks on them but had a sticky note that said reserved for Sara or someone. I couldn’t let Kyle’s school year start off bad so I secretly grabbed one of the sticky notes and put it in my pocket and told Kyle that I found him a locker. I hope he doesn’t have to pay for my actions. I didn’t feel too bad, I figured first come first served only applies to locks not sticky notes.

Lana was so excited for school! We got there a little bit early so she could play on the kindergarten playground.

Lana was ready for me to leave, can’t you tell by her face.

Lana inherited her picture taking skills from her mom unfortunately. Here is Lana this afternoon when I picked her up with her teacher, I was glad to see they both survived the day.

I forgot to mention that Kyle got up for school today before 6:00am. He didn’t have to get up until 7:00am. He was dressed, packed, and ready to go when I finally rolled out of bed at 6:30. After dropping both kids off at school I had some running around to do. While I was out and about it dawned on my that I never saw Kyle pack a lunch, so I grabbed a few things and headed home to get his lunch box and pack it and take it to him. To my surprise I couldn’t find his lunch box, so I’m assuming he packed it and took it. How grown up!

(All the above was an email I sent to a few people Monday, August 25th around 1:30 pm)

For those that don't know, Kyle is in 6th grade and Lana is in Kindergarten this year.

Later that day it rained. Lana was so excited she ran to put her swimsuit. Here is a short video of her running in the rain.

Kyle was dropped off by a friend we are carpooling with around 3:30pm. I (in a round about way, as not to be suspicious) asked him if everything was ok with his locker. He said he could open his locker just fine (as if that were what I was asking). He also said that his locker is right in between two girls that always hung around him last year. I think I set my son up with his locker pretty well if I do say so myself.

Take another look at the picture of Kyle at school with a lot of other kids. See the tall, long blond haired girl in a yellow shirt? I think she is the unidentified hugger from last year. Last year when I would drop Kyle off I would wait a few minutes to see who he would play with. Quite a few times this girl would give Kyle a hug. I of course asked him about her much to no avail. He would always say, I don't know her she is in the 6th or 7th grade. It seems the mysterious hugger has found Kyle again this year. I will have to investigate this matter further this year. I can get all stealthy and really get into my momarazzi mode.

It turns out Kyle did pack his lunch and remembered it on his first back to school, I'm so impressed!

Turned out both kids had a great first day of school. I may be feeling like a taxi this year with both kids in different schools getting out at different times, so if I decided to paint my vehicle bright yellow with a checker pattern you'll know why.

Camp

2008-08-20T13:36:00.000-07:00

Yeah I've been back from camp since Sat. and have been running around like a chicken with it's head cut off trying to deliver thank you notes, go school shopping, trying to cram everything into the camp closet, and I know I know visiting teaching still needs to be done. So I will direct you to my friend Pat's blog to look at some camp photos. And maybe one of these days I'll get Kyle's birthday and Ronnie and mine's anniversary blogs done which both happened a week before camp. Yeah...fun stuff!

Pat's blog about camp

Pat's video of camp games

I'm going to smile and take a deep breath...

The Wild Animal Park

2008-08-10T07:43:00.000-07:00

It was a hot day at the Wild Animal Park so we basically rode the tram and left. Later that day we went to Sunset Cliffs to watch the sunset.

Our trip to the Zoo

2008-08-09T21:34:00.000-07:00

Sea World

2008-08-08T08:03:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago we took a trip to San Diego with our 3 for 1 Passes in hand. These passes allow you to go to Sea World, the Zoo, and Wild Animal Park for 5 consecutive days and let me tell you, we made the most of it. Below are a few photos and videos of our trip. The videos really don't look good so big, but oh well. If you move your cursor to the left side of the pictures you'll be able to see a few comments at the bottom.

I love IKEA

2008-07-11T10:26:00.001-07:00

Have I mentioned lately how much I love IKEA? Well I guess I wont bore you with another discussion on my love for the store, I'll just show you.

Lana's room before our most resent trip to IKEA.

Lana's room after.

See why I love this store...

The lights, comforter, and curtains came form IKEA along with the idea of how to hang the lights.

Happy 4th

2008-07-04T15:09:00.001-07:00

Gilcrease Orchard

2008-07-02T23:42:00.000-07:00

One day a few weeks ago I heard that the temperature was only going to get up to 104. I was so excited for a break in the heat that I decided to take this opportunity to bake a little. I wanted to make some zucchini bread, something I have never made before. Zucchini is one of those vegetables that supposedly grows well out here, but not in my garden. Since I did not have any zucchini and for some odd reason my kids get up at the crack of dawn during the summer I thought it would be fun to go to Gilcrease Orchard. This is a place were you can pick your own fruit and veggies. It was 8:30am and it was already 90 degrease so we just left without eating breakfast. Which wasn't horrible since we would soon be able to eat some fresh fruit. Take a look below at our fresh finds and let me tell you the best part was the ice cold apple cider.

Jello Fun

2008-06-27T08:36:00.001-07:00

I have never been a big fan of jello, but when I saw this I had to make it. It looks so pretty.

The kids loved it, they thought it was super cool to be able to eat a rainbow. The recipe make a ton so we shared with our neighbors. Our neighbors work in Primary at church with the children between the ages for 3 - 11. The kids sing this song that goes...

Our Primary Colors

Our primary colors are 1, 2, 3, red, yellow, and blue.

Each one has a message for you and me.

Each is a symbol true.

Red is for courage to do what right,

Yellow for service from morning till night.

Blue is for truth in our thought and our deed.

We will be happy when this is our creed.

Words and music by Marzelle Mangum

Which is also Kyle's school's spirit song. Since the jello is made with red, yellow, and blue jello it will be a perfect treat for Primary and Kyle's school. Thank you to the creative lady over at Do Better for this idea.

Chef Lutes

2008-06-19T10:38:00.001-07:00

As parents we all hope that our kids grow up and are outstanding members of society. This is my wish for both of my kids but as I see Kyle growing into a young man I also want to make sure he will be a good husband and father. Since Kyle turned 8 I have been teaching him a few skill he can do around the house. He knows how to clean a bathroom and yes that includes the ever dreaded toilet. He can read clothing labels and wash them properly and he even knows which items should be placed in the delicates bag. He can sew about as well as I can on a sewing machine, not that that is say a lot. He knows how to load the dishwasher so everything gets cleaned. He can sew a button, something I know how to do but rarely ever do, hopefully he'll use this skill more. His favorite skill to learn right now has to be cooking. He started out learning how to make the old stand by, mac and cheese from a box. Then he learned how to make it into a well rounded meal. He learned quite a few basics like cooking eggs, browning ground beef and cooking pasta. Notice all these things are kid friendly, they can be stirred a lot. Cooking rice is just boring for him, he likes to constantly be stirring or flipping something when cooking. So I thought I should teach him how to make risotto. We had some peas growing the the garden so I sent Lana out to pick them and we made cheesy risotto with peas.

After he sautéed the onions and garlic he got to add the rice...now the fun starts

He decided he was going to be there a while so he pulled up a stool

He used the line down the middle trick to see if he needed to add more chicken stock

Yes, we actually grew peas in Las Vegas

The finished product was to die for delicious

I can't help but wonder what kind of job Kyle will have when he gets older. I think something along the lines of archaeologist or geologist because he has always been fascinated with ancient civilizations and loves discovering rocks and fossils. I asked him recently what he wants to do when he gets older and he said he wants to be a chef. There is no telling what he'll do to make an income but one thing is for sure, if he keeps making dishes like this he will make is family very happy.

Kyle's Last Day of School

2008-06-18T15:55:00.001-07:00

Kyle got out of school June 4th. He has overcome many challenges this year in going to a new school. I knew he would do just fine, because he can make friends faster than I can spend money. He really had a great year of school. Above is a picture of Kyle and his teacher. She was such an awesome teacher. I have also heard great things about his next year's teacher.

His teacher handed out awards and here are the ones Kyle got:

A/B Honor Roll - for consistently earning A's and B's all year!

Perfectly Punctual - for never being tardy this year!

Awesome Athlete - for always giving 100% during P.E.!

Super Scientist - for your excellent work in science and health!

Enthusiastic Participant - for actively participating in class discussions!

WAY TO GO KYLE!!!

Our Trip to Logan

2008-06-17T09:37:00.001-07:00

Preschool Graduation

2008-06-05T15:59:00.001-07:00

Lana had a very hard time going to preschool. The first week was great then after that if was a struggle. She would cry and latch on to me every time I would leave. Sometimes she would even run out of the preschool, down the driveway, and chase my car down. Well that only happened once but it was still traumatic for both of us. The last two months she finally got over it and ran to preschool with a smile on her face. She always had a great time at preschool even though there was tear shed in the beginning.

Ronnie's parents, Ronnie and Sue were in town at the time of Lana's graduation. Lana had 5 people attend her graduation with cameras at the ready. All the kids marched out proudly with their little hats on and we all waited to see Lana, and waited, and waited. Lana finally made an appearance after her Dad went to talk to her. Here is a video of Lana's class saying the Pledge of Allegiance after Lana finally made her appearance.

Yes, that was Lana under the table. This is were she stayed for the most part of the graduation program. Her teacher finally got her to come out after bribing her with a prize from the reward box. She didn't talk or sing but she did sit in her chair for the last ten minutes. Here is another video of her teacher talking about her.

We have seen her grow a lot this year and I can't wait to see what new things Kindergarten brings.

Faucet Repair 101

2008-06-04T16:38:00.001-07:00

We have had a leaky faucet in the kid's bathtub for quite sometime. We have replaced the washer in it and that would work for a little while but it would eventually start leaking again. So while Ronnie's Dad was in town we asked him to take a look at it and see what else we should do. He recommend replacing another part of the faucet and then said if you want to we could just put a new faucet in. I thought we should just go ahead and get a new faucet, then I asked how hard if would be to center our faucet over the tub. For some reason the tub faucet is set off centered and it just looks odd. Then when he said he could take a look at that I said hey we also have a new tub enclosure we bought at Lowe's one day because it was 80% off can you put that in too. Always willing to help he said sure. So a leaky faucet led to basically a new bathroom.

If you want to know how to repair a faucet I can't help you, but I can advise you to get your Father-in-law to just redo the whole bathroom while he is on vacation.

Thanks Ronnie

Springs Preserve

2008-05-30T17:38:00.001-07:00

Well we finally made it to the Springs Preserve. Ronnie's parents were in town and Kyle was out of school and it just seemed like the perfect thing to do. The kids were so excited they pretty much ran through it. Luckily we got a season pass so we can go back and actually read about the exhibits.

Kyle is really excited about the nature exchange they have. How it works is you bring in something from nature and they assign a point value to it. Then you can save up you points to get something else. Kyle is a rock collector so he is thinking of bringing in dead bugs and exchanging them for rocks.

Lana scared me to death on the playground. The next time we go back I think we will have to get lost and somehow never find the outdoor playground. I think when it's 115 outside she will be as happy as can be playing in the indoor play place that has nothing you can fall off. She really loves looking at all the animals.

There was a lot we didn't see , this place is huge! They even have hiking trails, which we might go on in the fall. I really want to go back and see the conservation area, maybe I'll go by myself when the kids are in school. Then I could really take it all in without being pulled one way or another.

This place is really neat and very family oriented which we are always looking for in Vegas. If you haven't been I highly recommend going.

Fashion Diva

2008-05-16T10:11:00.000-07:00

Lana's fashion sense is beginning to scare me. When I found out I was having a girl I was so excited and went shopping that very same day. I loved dressing her up in all the cute girly outfits. I loved finding bows to match each outfit exactly (after she finally grew hair). And don't get me started on the shoes, lets just say she has more than me and she is still growing! But now it's not so easy to dress her. She has a mind of her own. I can't tell you how many times I have been to the store and wanted to let her walk without holding a hand so that maybe no one would know she belonged to me. I'm not just talking about the fairy/princess outfits either. Lately it's been the socks. She never wants to match the socks to her outfit. Then once I finally give into the socks not matching she insists on wearing sandals with them to really show off the socks. Then I thought she finally grew out of the drawing on herself phase...but I was wrong! She now can draw on her face so that she looks like different animals. I guess I should be glad she is finally out of the Nacho Libre phase...but I have a feeling that might make a comeback also.

Teacher Appreciation

2008-05-05T09:49:00.001-07:00

How I love those individuals that answer the call to teach. They really are the most important people because they are helping mold the minds of the future. Teachers leave a imprint on our children's lives that will last a lifetime.

I can remember my kindergarten teacher, whose name escapes me, allowing me to stay in her classroom after throwing up. She knew I was sick, but she also knew how shy I was and I would have been scared waiting for my mom to pick me up in the nurse's office. We lived 30 minutes away from school and my teacher knew that was a long time for me to be around strangers. My 1st grade teacher taught me it was ok to pray the way I wanted to. In a class room full of Baptists, a little shy girl saying a prayer the Mormon way kind of sticks out like a sore thumb. A lesson you would think would came from a Sunday school teacher surprisingly came from a grade school teacher. I can remember my 2nd grade teacher Mrs. Zinke, who with her perfectly placed salt and pepper hair taught me proper cursive. Then there was my 3rd grade teacher, Mrs. McGee with her phrase "Buttocks to the back" taught me good sitting posture. My 4th grade teacher, Mr. Hebert who taught me harsh words are seldom forgotten. That's the end of my elementary years and I will spare you the boredom of continuing on. I know that Kyle's teachers have impacted his life greatly and I am so fortunate that Kyle and Lana have had great people to teach them.

This year for teacher appreciation week I made this cute little gift for Kyle's and Lana's teachers.

The F is empty because I didn't have any quarters on me at the time. Each day their teachers get to open a box and find a little surprise.

Sunday - You really measure up! (measuring tape)

Monday - A note to let you know that you are a wonderful teacher (sticky notes)

Tuesday - Thanks for holding everything together. (paper clips)

Wednesday - You were mint to teach. Thanks for your hard work. (mints)

Thursday - We are stuck on you! (magnets)

Friday - Soda you know that we think you are a great teacher? (quarters for the soda machine)

Saturday - You are as sharp as a tack. (push pins)

Like everything I do it wasn't my idea, I copied someone. The website I have found is called Skip to my Lou and I copy lots of ideas from this super creative lady. She makes it so easy by giving us prints outs and everything. I'm so glad there is someone out there thinking of the slackers of the world.

So go forth and take a few minutes to appreciate a teacher today.

My Poor Kids...

2008-04-29T11:03:00.001-07:00

Sometimes teaching children lessons are harder on the parents than the child. Well I take that back, not just sometimes but almost always. Last night I asked Kyle to fold/hang up/put away a load of laundry. I told him he could watch TV while he did it. Before I went to bed I checked to see how well he did. I was not pleased to say the least. Nothing was put away, only a few things were on hangers and nothing was folded and he had an hour and a half to do his job. It was his bedtime so I sent him to bed. I did not finish his job, no I just hopped in bed and went to sleep with clean clothes all over the floor (it wasn’t the first time). Today I got Kyle up at his usual time and when he said he was already for school I said ok now please go finish your job. Oh my, that did not make him happy. He came back a few minutes later and said I’m finished. I thought there’s no way, not even I, the one who has the most practice at this job could finish so quickly. So I go and check. I still see a large pile of clothes. Kyle then says, I hung up all the clothes that could be hung up and then put them away. You told me I just had to hang up clothes not fold. See he thinks since I’m turning 30 this week that I’m losing my mind and I might believe his little story. I start to think about how I can get across to him the importance of doing a job and doing it the right way. I then tell him that he will be late for school today because he needs to finish his job. We are never late for school. Kyle knows how important school is and hopefully he will see how important doing a job is also even if it is just laundry. Kyle finally is finished and we head off for school 15 minutes late. I totally could have made up the time by speeding, but what would that have taught him. And besides, I still don’t have my NV driver’s license (I have a valid CO one) and I don’t want to get pulled over. So as I’m driving I’m thinking what is the office lady going to think when she hears I made Kyle stay home and put away the laundry instead of getting him to school on time. She’s going to think, wow, what a lazy mom! She makes her kids late for school just so she doesn’t have to put away the laundry. Oh well I really don’t care what she thinks about me. I know why I did it and Kyle hopefully knows why I did it and that’s all that matters to me. So I walk into the office a second behind Kyle to hear him say why he was late. He said “I was late because of laundry”. The office lady said oh we have days like that too (looking over at me) and sent Kyle on his way. Then she looked at me and told me how hers was piling up on her too. So the office lady totally thought Kyle was late for school because we were waiting on his clothes to dry. Whatever, it’s not really important to me that the office lady knows the truth.

So then I’m driving Lana to preschool and while I’m at a stoplight I look over at the Dairy Queen sign to see what their specials are. That’s normal right, to be thinking about ice cream at 9am, totally normal. The sign said their blizzard of the month was tin roof. Then I break out singing Love Shack by the B52’s. Lana is just sitting in the back staring at me. My poor kids…

If you have no idea why I started singing this song then listen at about 3:50.

Side Note: This is the only song that I have ever sang Karaoke to in public.