Mother's Day

Mother's Day was much better this year for a lot of reasons.  We celebrated my mom on Saturday. Jen and her kids came up and we ran around getting a few last minute things, like a new BBQ for mom.  I love this self portrait of us.

My cute niece McKenzie helped me with the baking.  I cannot believe she is going to be 14 this fall!

After we ate, we played a little backyard "baseball" which was very fun.  Except I cannot hit.  At.  All.

Leah then came by and surprised me with flowers.  Love that girl.

Ben called a bit later and asked if I'd help him complete his Mother's Day shopping by driving him to the store.  He ditched me for a bit and got me these perfect earrings, a DC and my favorite gum.  So very sweet and thoughtful.

On Sunday, church was less than painful this year (thankfully.)  Then I went over to Mom's and we had dinner together. Cindy came over a bit later with these cute tulips and kisses. Love this girl.
 

Late birthday recap

My birthday was nearly two months ago but since I've been on a bit of a blogging vacation, it never made the blog.  So in an effort to move my last somewhat whiny post down a bit, I'm going to play a little catch up and blog about my wonderful 45th birthday.

I took the day off on the actual day and met Lynda and Greg for lunch at Spaghetti Factory.  They brought me Greg-selected gifts...a fun hair thing to wear at camp and an electric bug zapper.  I've mentioned before how much I adore this guy but seriously, I adore him. (Know any fantastic 20-something women looking for a great guy??? I'd love to get him married off!)

After lunch, I met Michelle for a movie to see The Avengers - loved it.  But during the movie, I started getting panicked texts from Susan so after the movie I called her to find out what was wrong.  Our friend Bret had passed away suddenly and unexpectedly.  Bret and I met at Boeing more than 20 years ago and then I became friends with his wife Tammy through our camp service a few years ago.  It was heartbreakingly sad and I plan on yelling at him for dying on my birthday when I see him again. (Kidding...mostly.)

Despite the sadness, my family and the Kings were gathering at Red Robin for my birthday dinner so I put on a happy face and carried on.  Here are my beautiful sisters, Jaylene and Jenilee.

Cindy and Rylee

But my day wasn't over yet!  After dinner, I went up to the church for dance festival practice where everyone serenaded me and we celebrated with Oreos, then, to the King's for gifts.

When I finally got home, I found this fun sight, courtesy of Leah and Paige.  They decorated my "porch" and more and I loved it.

They wrote on my (eww, dirty) kitchen window.

This was one of my favorite things - this sea of colorful post-its stayed up for a couple of weeks, in fact.  So fun!

I celebrated at work too, coming in to find all of these fun things waiting on my desk when I finally decided to roll on in.

One bag contained some of this yummy goodness.  Have you tried it yet?  Yum.

My boss (well, his wife, really) sent me this amazing bag.  It's the perfect tote for travel - simply beautiful.

I also got wonderful gifts in the mail from my far away friends like all of the Catron ladies.  I know what a pain it is to ship things so these gifts are especially meaningful.  My birthday went on and on this time - from a surprise Oreo delivery from Natalie to a belated birthday cake from my mom.  All of this love helped make this a truly wonderful birthday.

June...in photos

With only 10 minutes left in June, I'm scrambling to post at least once this month.  How incredibly sad is that?  Sigh.  So, here are a bunch of pics from fun times I had in June.  Two things I realized when loading these pictures?  One, I wear black entirely too much (although several of these pics are from the same day.)  Two, my life is pretty dang awesome.

Me and the kids...love love love.

Dani and Michelle

Lovely Lilly.

Another graduate...Paige.  So love this girl.

Oh just me and a hot dog. No big deal.

We're on a boat!

Someone was VERY excited to get a JB watch

Celebrating Jen's b-day.  I adore my family.

Me and my cute momma in her ginormous back yard

Rylee, Leah and best-photo-face-ever-Kenna

Just two girls, preparing to scatter a little sunshine

Eric, Abbie & Josh

Lisa popping in.  And Kim was here!!! Oh happy day...

Celebrating Kim's visit.  What was with the black?  Sheesh.

At the temple

Cody, Linsie & Paige at Linsie's last dance recital

Leah and Glenn - best Slurpee deliverers ever!

Riding a sea lion

Me and a statue on a super fun day

Are you ready for some football?

First, the food turned out great.  I should have taken pictures of it but I'm bad about that.  The peanut butter fingers have been renamed "Peanut Butter Chocolatey Goodness" because a. the other name is dumb and b. who cuts cookies into finger shape anyway??? We also loved the jalapeno popper dip. Yum.

Before the game started, we went outside to play catch. We had really nice weather this weekend - crazy that it was 60 degrees in early February!

I think Cindy is showing Ben how her hands are too small to grip the football.  Possibly.

Ben giving me a target to aim for.  Let's just say, it didn't help.  I have terrible aim.

I was better at catching than throwing. Seriously.  Terrible form! But it was my first time throwing a football! Go, me!

I'd rather pose than pass...thanks.

Lonnie came out to show us how it's done. They were kicking it old school and playing football in the street.

I put my camera away so I missed getting any pics of our friends, the Lyons family, who came over and brought even more yummy food.  I also missed getting a picture of most of us with our electronic devices in front of our faces when we should have been watching the game.

I loved the Jerry Seinfeld/Acura commercial the most (Leno!) and thought the halftime show was one of the best ever.  It was a really fun day - hope yours was too.

(Don't) Bring in Da Funk

So as some of you may know, I tend to get pretty depressed in January.  (You can read about the most recent occurrence here.)  I’m fighting hard to not feel like that again this year and one of the ways that I think will help me to ward off the sadness is to keep a psychotically busy schedule.  As I was emailing what I’ve been doing lately with my far-away friend Kim (FYI – you can move back now) she commented that my schedule exhausts her.  I thought it would be fun if I’d capture the last week of my life here for you, dear readers.  Of course, the times are all estimates and the schedule doesn’t include stuff like work, phone calls, answering emails (for example, I got 28 church related emails on Sunday alone…28!), laundry, etc. Yes, I know you're all busy too - I'm just sharing my version of busy.

January 4 - Wednesday

5:15-6:45 Ben’s basketball game

7:30-10:30 Camp meeting

January 5 - Thursday

6:00-8:00 Hair appt

8:15-8:45 Grocery shopping

8:45-9:15 Drop off curtains at the King’s

January 6 - Friday

4:45-9:30 Ben’s basketball game (I stayed for all 3 games – when a 15 year old boy says “stay and hang out” you do just that.)

January 7 - Saturday

11:00-3:00 Bake pumpkin bars/make peanut butter chocolate ritz for tonight’s party

3:00-6:00 Hobby Lobby with sisters & mom

6:00-1:00 Party with the girls

January 8 – Sunday (get ready – this is a doozy)

9:00-11:00 Attend another ward’s sacrament meeting & Sunday school

11:10-11:20 Visit their YW to give camp announcement

11:30-1:00 Attend my own ward

1:10-1:20 Give camp announcement to my own ward

1:30-1:45 Travel to another church building

1:45-2:30 Visit with friends/wait

2:30-2:40 Give camp announcement to another ward

2:45-3:00 Travel back to my church building

3:10-3:20 Give camp announcement to another ward

3:30-6:30 Bowl of cereal, quick nap, work on script for upcoming dance festival

6:30-7:00 Travel to another church building

7:00-8:30 Dance Festival production committee meeting

8:30-9:30 Travel back to the Lyons’ house, deliver leftover pumpkin bars, eat spaghetti, chat

January 9 – Monday

5:15-10:00 Dinner at Robinson’s

January 10 – Tuesday

5:00-6:15 Impromptu dinner at King’s

6:30-8:30 Blog makeover at Natalie’s

January 11 – Wednesday

5:15-6:30 Ben’s basketball game

6:45-7:10 Drive Cindy home

7:30-9:00 Stake YW Presidency meeting at Panera

I really, really, really love my life and I prefer to have lots to do as opposed to sitting at home on my couch or you know, cleaning or sleeping.  I also know that my posting this here will make some people think I never have time for them which is so totally untrue.  I can and do fit things in whenever necessary. I also don’t want anyone to think they can’t ever call me to do something.  Got it?  Okay, good. 

So far, the crazy busy schedule is working - I've not turned into a blubbering mess at church nor am I sitting at home saying "woe is me."  There are 18 days left in the month though, so we'll see how it goes.

A photo update

I think 2011 is the year of bad blogging.  I'm giving up on being a good blogger again this year - maybe I'll be better next year...

Here are some things I've been doing since I posted last (not including my super fun Idaho trip...that's a blog post all in itself.)  Here's a list - not necessarily in chronological order.  Remember, I'm bad at blogging this year.  Bad bloggers don't do anything in order.

I got released from my calling and put back into the stake YW presidency as 1st counselor.  I will miss serving with these fabulous women more than I can even say.

I'm very excited about the new ladies I'm working with.  They are incredible, smart and talented and I have much to learn from them.  I'll be over YW Camp in my new role and that makes me happier than I can even say.  Oh and one more bonus?  I don't have to take notes at meetings anymore.  Hallelujah.  I loathe taking notes for anyone other than myself.

I spoke at the baptism of my adorable and amazing friend Leah.

I love that I was the first person Leah texted to tell that her dad had finally given her permission to get baptized after years of waiting.  She called me a few days later to ask me to give the Holy Ghost talk and of course I said yes.  Leah and I bonded at camp last year and I love her so much.  Apparently, I embarrassed her during my talk because apparently I mentioned a boy that she may or may not think is cute.  Apparently.  But whatevs.  She'll get over it...someday, right, Leah?

I said goodbye to some of my most favorite girls in the world...

Emily, Kristina and Sarah left for school and I miss them TONS already.  Since I'm no longer their camp leader, I gave them permission to start calling me by my first name and some of them have taken me up on it. 

I said goodbye to Bridget too...sniff, sniff. (she was the funniest about the first name thing - she called me Jeanelle like 20 times in about a three minute span of time.)  

I'm glad these girls are growing up and having fun new adventures...I just wish their fun new adventures weren't so dang far away.  Sigh.

Our stake does a day of service in honor of 9/11.  I worked with some good friends for a few hours ripping out blackberries near a river in my town.  I got totally scratched up but it was a wonderful day. Here's me and my cute friend Cody.

We had a stake dance last night.  I don't necessarily always want to spend one of my oh so busy Saturday nights at a youth dance but the kids I know and love never fail to make it fun and memorable for me.  Last night's was no exception.  Nikki and Cindy came to visit and brought me a slurpee - yum.  They are both too old to go to the dances now but I love that they come to hang out with me.

Darling Leah (see above) asked for my keys when I first got there and I handed them over without a thought.  Silly me.  She, Abbie and Emily are kind of the queens of the heart attack and look what they did to my car:

I didn't get a picture of the inside but they filled it with balloons too.  We're missing Emily but here's a pic of me with Leah and Abbie.  Love, love, love these cute girls!

Okay, and finally...the planking.  Have you heard about planking??? It was also depicted hilariously on The Office this week.  If you don't know what it is, basically, you lie face down wherever you are and voila, you're planking.

So last night at the dance, we (the adults) were waiting for all of the kids to get picked up (don't get me started on this topic just please promise me you'll pick your kids up on time from dances okay??)  and I came outside to check how many kids were still left waiting and saw this.

That's Leah, Abbie, Emily plus two cute boys, Brooks and Eric planking on my car! The boys' mom is in the presidency with me so they are stuck there until we can leave so they were looking for ways to entertain themselves while they waited. It was so hilarious.  I made them freeze long enough to get a photo because maybe I'm a better blogger than I thought...

Later this week...my Idaho trip recap!  

A quickie photo recap

So guess what?  I leave for camp on Monday.  I wish I was brave enough to take a photo of my living room where there is not even a path to walk through currently.  It's bad, people.  I've also been having some fun since I got home from trek.  Here's a quick little picture recap for the 12 of you who are still reading my blog...

I had a sleepover at the Allens. Love this family!!



Cindy and I went to the beach on one of the few sunny days we had.  Then a kid threw sand on us and we met Cindy's family for dinner at Red Robin and then saw Super 8 (good movie.) 



I said goodbye to another dear friend.  Alberta moved about 40 minutes away, which isn't London but still, sad.

I got a pic with my four favorite boys at the open house for Alberta and her family.  Am I a lucky girl or what?

I went to Cindy's mutual activity and got this funny pic of her and Sarah having fun

My darling girls Nikki & Bridget at yet another 2YCL party.  Triple love them!



Cindy and I hang out a lot, obviously (ha.)  Here she is with my two nieces Makenna and Rylee. Shortly thereafter, I was "hit on" by my mom's neighbor who I found out, after talking to him again today, is twice divorced with seven children.  And that's all I have to say about that.



Susan, her daughter Emily, Cindy and I went to see Harry Potter (loved it!)  Emily drew scars on our foreheads.  We are so dang cool.

I had FHE with the Ekins and Taggarts this week.  I love that we've been pretty consistently getting together this year.

Here's my wonderful home teacher/Stake Pres and his amazing wife

My friends the I's came to visit from Chicago and we took our typical family shot with B's wife behind the camera.  Cute family, no?

AND...Cindy and I saw a deer.  I was excited so had to take a pic.