seriously one of the most fun things i've done

Other then the horrible traffic into LA today has been so much fun.  

I wanted to post a great American Idol write up but I am so tired it will have to wait until tomorrow.  We had so much fun.  I loved having the girls there, I think it made it much more fun. The girls got to have a truly unique experience and it was great to be a part of it.

More to come tomorrow!

don't want to jinx it, but...

We are going to American Idol tomorrow.  I am hoping for a much better experience compared to last time - we'll see what happens.

I am way disappointed that Carly is gone and Sayesha is still there - I would much rather see Carly tomorrow.  I know she isn't everyone's favorite but I really like her - her voice has a cool sound to it.

I am excited to see David Cook and the rest of the contestants.  

David A. kind of bores me but before I get hate mail let me say...his voice in incredible I just don't love his song choices or style.  I'm hoping he'll pick a great song but I won't hold my breath since it is Neil Diamond week (what are the producers thinking?!?!?!)

I happen to like Jason Castro (like Carly, I realize a lot of folks don't love him)  I really like his voice and the style of music he sings - I would buy one of his albums but I don't think I would buy David A.

I would also buy an album from Brooke - I love her voice (although the personality is a bit much at times.  I like the Carly Simon vibe that she has.

Sayesha bugs me.  Her past couple of performances have been ok but I just don't love what she does.  She seems way into herself.

I'm a David Cook fan but oh how I wish he had better hair (there has been some improvement during the season)  In my book David wins it but what do I know - I had Carly as the runner up. 

the latest photo booth installment

grown ups need field trips too

Last week I headed down to San Juan Capistrano (near the mission) with a couple a friends for a photography field trip.  I haven't taken many photos lately.  Of course I take pictures of family but ever since my photography class ended last year I haven't really done much else.

We didn't go into the mission because we were short on time and didn't want to fork over the cash for such a quick trip.  We did manage to get some good shots outside the mission walls though.
It was fun to be shooting just to be shooting.  One of the things I love about going on a field trip is seeing the outcome of the photographs - we all see the same things and tend to take pictures of the same subject(s) but everyone has such a different take on the subject and the pictures come out so differently.  
I wasn't particularly moved emotionally with anything that I shot but it was still nice to shoot and work on the mechanics of photography.  It is amazing how much I have forgotten because I have gotten lazy with settings, lighting, etc.
I'm looking forward to many more monthly field trips this year.

do you see what i see?

Apparently Luke does not see what the rest of us see. We have noticed a lot of squinting going on with him for the past couple of months but we weren't extremely concerned.  When his teacher also mentioned that she has seen him squinting we decided to get him to the doctor to see what was going on.  The diagnoses...he is near sighted.  

This picture makes me laugh.  Having never visited the eye doctor before Luke was a bit apprehensive with everything.  Once the eye doctor assured him that there would be no needles he began to feel comfortable being himself (see picture below)

The exploration began.  He loved checking out all the equipment.


We ended the visit by trying on a bunch of different glasses and it became very obvious that Luke knew what he wanted and that I would not have much say in what the glasses looked like. We are waiting for his glasses to arrive so you will have to wait to see his choice - and they were very much his choice, although the pair he chose was in my top 3 (just not my favorite of the 3)

found them

Here are some pictures to go along with the previous post.

gentlemen, start your engines

Nathan was able to participate in his first pinewood derby last week.  This derby action is serious stuff!

I loved watching Nathan and Derek work together to create the car.  

I loved that they both got to spend time with Uncle Kevin learning all the "legal" tricks to making a car move faster.  It's a good thing to have an uncle that is an engineer - Nate was able to learn a lot from him.  

I loved having all my ideas for the design of the car shot down by my practical husband..would it really be that hard to make a pirate ship with a huge mast or a 4 wheeling casket with a lid that raises up and down with skeleton hands pushing it up while a voice yells "let me outta here"? 

The final design ended up being pretty nice.  Nate and Derek drew up a bunch of designs and Nathan settled on the one above - pretty cool looking car, huh?  I'm glad that this was a dad/son project.  I don't know that I would have been as good as Derek at letting Nate use the tools.  I went out at one point to take some pictures and immediately became nervous watching my son with the saw.  Note to self...find those pictures and post them.  Derek was great about letting this be Nathan's project - I know it made it a lot of fun for Nate.

We were a bit nervous about weighing in the car but luckily it came in right at 5 oz.  The block of wood must have been heavy because we added no weights and had to take some wood out of the bottom of the car.

Nate's car, "Crazy Eight" in the first lane.

The finish from another race - Nathan's car came in 1st. His total for the night was 1 win, 1 3rd place finish and about 5 2nd place finishes.  He was happy with what his car did.

Nathan's other award of the night was winning coolest car.   

yeah, yeah, we're alive (but just barely)

Life has been a bit hectic around here.  We have had baby blessings (no, not our own) family in town, multiple Disneyland trips, bathroom remodeling decisions, etc.  It has all been fun (with one exception, more on that in a minute) but it has kept us busy.

Now the exception...

Derek's cousin Renee was here visiting from Utah with her kids - Josh, Tanner & Michelle (nice kids, or so I thought)  We spent some time with them at Disneyland a couple days ago and we were having a great time until Tanner forced me, physically I might add, to ride California Screamin'  I can't even begin to tell you how much I did not want to go on this ride but there I was strapped in to the beast with my heart pumping.  Tell me how an 18 year old has the power to get a much older and wiser person to do something against her will?!?!?

Stepping off the ride I was a bit unstable and it took me some time to get my stomach feeling better but I survived.  The coaster did not jump the tracks and I did not plummet to my death - all positives in my book.  

Although I'm glad I survived it doesn't change the fact that I did not find any enjoyment on the ride. I am sure Tanner, Michelle, Garin (my little brother) and Megan all found immense enjoyment at my expense so I guess I'll chalk it up to taking one for the team.

I was wishing I had been at Disneyland with Renee's sister Deanne...if my memory serves me I believe she pays people to get them to ride California Screamin'. $20 would have made the ride a little bit better.

picnic party

I would love to have these for a picnic.  What a fun way to set a table.  These as well as lots of other fun products can be found at The Spoon Sisters.  I also want this - do you think it would work? ;)

conference

The conference talks are now online for anyone interested.

idol gives back(aches)

Oh, you should all be jealous of our night at American Idol - Idol Gives Back.

For those who are not caught up...a couple days ago I got an email letting me know that I could get tickets to AI (see post below) and now the story begins...

There was a bit of preparation involved in going to the show.  There is a strict dress code stated on the Internet tickets  

DRESS CODE IN EFFECT! Make sure to read and follow the dress code noted below. YOUR ADMITTANCE DEPENDS ON IT.

Dress Code:
DRESS CODE IS STRICTLY ENFORCED FOR OUR INTERNET TICKET HOLDERS! UPSCALE ATTIRE ONLY. DARKER COLORS OR BLACK. ABSOLUTELY no apparel with logos of any kind on the front or back are allowed in the studio audience. ABSOLUTELY no t-shirts, sweatshirts, white clothing, shorts, or flip flops! We also prefer that you do not wear jeans. Please dress hip and upscale or as if going to a nice dinner. You will be on camera so it is very important that you dress nicely! When you look great, the show looks great! IF YOU DO NOT DRESS ACCORDING TO THE DRESS CODE YOU WILL NOT BE ADMITTED

Since we basically live in jeans, t-shirts and flip flops it was off to the mall Tuesday night to find some "hip AND upscale" attire for the girls (I actually had something in my closet thanks to a few Oakley Christmas parties)

Wednesday afternoon we picked up my friend Rona and made a quick stop at Oakley to drop of the boys with Derek (the boys had a blast hanging out at his office for part of the day) The ride to LA was easy - no traffic and we got to the studio at 2 pm - the tickets state you have to be in line by 3:30 pm so we were glad to be early (we have missed a few Hannah Montana tapings in the past because we have gotten in line just 2 minutes too late) I left Rona and Emily in line while Megan and I found a parking spot (like the drive up, this proved to easy - it was turning into a great day)

I should have knocked on wood.  Megan and I left the parking structure and proceeded to take a walking tour around the area.  We parked in the parking structure of The Grove - big outdoor shopping center, which is right next store to CBS studios.  The problem is that both The Grove and the studio are big and the studio is fenced in so we ended up walking a lot, and I do mean a lot.  The best part was that I was wearing my heeled boots that aren't really all that comfortable anyway.  By the time we got to Rona and Em my feet were in some serious pain. Luckily at this point we knew we only had about an hour more to stand in line - I could work through the pain.

Let it be noted that as we waited in line it became very obvious that not everyone followed the dress code.  One of my favorite outfits was seen on an older woman...short jean mini, white tshirt, oversized long sleeve flannel shirt, white tube socks, and tennis shoes - I want to know what hip, upscale club she goes to.  If you ever want to people watch, the line for American Idol is where you should be.  We thought perhaps that those not in accordance with the dress code would not get in - we were wrong.  

The line moved slowly.  About every 20 to 30 minutes they would let in groups of around 30 people.  We kept inching our way to the front although at this point it was past 3:30.  No worries though - taping didn't begin until 4:30 pm so it could go live on the East coast.

Well long (very long) story short...we finally made it to the group of 30 or so at the front of the line around 5:00 pm (so what if we missed the first little bit of the show) and finally at 5:45 pm were told that the studio was full and that we should head on out.  What?!?!? Remember my feet that were killing me at the beginning of this story?  Well you can only imagine how they felt after nearly 4 hours of standing in line.  

We were told to turn in our tickets and we would be given priority tickets for a future show this season.  Tons of people were outraged and took it out on the workers.  It was unbelievable how people acted.  Whenever you get these type of tickets admittance is never guaranteed.  The workers are just doing their job - they can only do so much, people.  We were disappointed too but it is what it is.

We made the most of it and tried to salvage the night.  Our first stop was the first store we saw that had flip flops.  It turned out to be The Gap.  Rona and I stumbled in there as fast as our aching feet would let us and bought flip flops.  I didn't care that they were $25 or that they would look silly with my" hip and upscale" outfit.  Even after putting on the flips it was painful to walk - I'm not sure my feet have ever hurt that bad.

Next we went to the American Girl store.  What a cute place.  We also ended up at a great Farmers Market and ate some delicious Mexican Food.  About the time we were sitting down to eat dinner my back was hurting as much as my feet.  I was having a difficult time at this point.  We kept at it a bit longer - visiting a few more little shops and stopping at Pinkberry (I'm definitely a Golden Spoon kinda gal)  By now I just wanted to be in the car heading home so we loaded up and hit the freeway.

The ride home was fine, traffic wise but my back was a whole different story.  When I got home I took some strong medication and got comfy (as comfy as I could get with the pain) to watch Idol Gives Back.  Watching the show I realized we didn't miss anything.  All the performances at the Kodak theater had happened on Sunday.  We were in line to sit in the studio audience to watch the contestants answer phones.  I guess the contestants performed but I don't remember that (I told you it was strong medicine) because I was asleep.

So for all of you that thought we would be having a star studded fabulous time at American Idol - think again.  The weird thing is I'm still glad we went.  We still had fun (minus the foot and back pain) and now we get tickets to actually see the contestants perform.  I'm sure that when we go to that taping the night will be star studded and fabulous.  And on that night I'm wearing jeans and flip flops!

spring break idea

For those in the LA or OC area needing an idea for Spring Break check this out.  We have gone before and found it really interesting and fun.  Make a day of it...take the train, visit the exhibit (won't take you long), go to the California Science Center (the body exhibit looks interesting) or find another of the many wonders of LA.  If I am not spent from the drive to LA tomorrow for AI I may take my kids to do this on Friday.

i'm peanut butter and you are jelly

Oh Roadshows (a 15 minute production that the youth in our church put on every two years)....It was a great experience for Megan as well as all the kids involved  but I am so glad that I don't have a house full of costumes anymore.  I have been wanting post some pics from the performance but I don't have many - I never had a minute to pull out my camera (I am waiting for friends to shower m with pictures)  I did get a few from a friend and I just had to share them because these costumes were amazing.

These costumes were a huge group effort with my  contribution to them seriously lacking but I am so happy with how they turned out.  My friend Max came to the rescue when I was seriously worried about how I was going to make jelly costumes.  She came up with the idea for the jelly costumes and even brought me a scaled down model that she sewed so that I could see what she was talking about.  I had an idea for the bread but my attempts to get what was in my head produced into a costume were pathetic - it was not turning out like the glorious vision in my mind.

Erica to the rescue...not only did my friend Erica come up with a superb bread costume she also took over all the sewing of the jelly costumes.  She was amazing!  Her talent and skill is unbelievable and she did an amazing job on these costumes (she did much more than sew these costumes but these are just my favorites)

I did the labels for the costumes - a couple of Jif labels and some strawberry, raspberry, grape and honey labels.  I added some striped socks and big character gloves and the costumes were complete. 

score

About 3 weeks ago I got an email stating that my name had come up on the wait list for American Idol.  I declined the tickets - it is hard to get out to LA in the middle of the afternoon while trying to make arrangements for all the kids - how will they get home after school, where will they go, etc.

Well last night I happened to get another email - it must be my lucky season...I got 4 tickets to tomorrows Idol Gives Back show.  I'm taking Megan and Emily (we are on Spring Break this week) and my friend/neighbor Rona who is an American Idol fan and it is her birthday today (I thought this would be a fun birthday present) The best part about going to tomorrows show is that the 4 of us will get tickets to a future full dress rehearsal. At the dress rehearsal Ryan does his bit and all the contestants perform.  I'll get to hear some of my favorites...David Cook, Carly, Australian boy (whose name escapes me at the moment), and Brooke.  

Look for us in the audience!

halleluljah

While reading the OC Register a week or so ago I ran across these articles.  These confirm that dreams really do come true.  I taped them up to the door so Derek could take it all in when he left for work.

Derek loves Tommy's.  Over the years he has partaking of gallons of chili goodness.  He and his high school buddies would frequent this fine establishment numerous times a week on many occasions.  If I remember correctly these fine boys would often drop off their dates on a Friday or Saturday night and then have some boys time at Tommy's (I'm sure to discuss how wonderful their girlfriends were)

The Tommy's closest to us has been Fountain Valley (a 20 or so minute drive)  We don't go a ton but we go enough that the kids all know the menu and they know it is Daddy's true love (after me and the kids, of course)  We'll the heavens have now smiled upon Derek and a new Tommy's opened in Lake Forest (less then 10 minutes from us)

We had been keeping our eye on the new Tommy's building during construction waiting for the "Now Open" sign to appear.  When Derek saw the article I had taped to the door there was no question what we would be having for dinner that night.  That night we braved the crowds (yes, it was extremely crowded) so that we could stuff our face with fast food tastiness.  I have eaten my fair share of Tommy's but my order of chili cheese fries with onions and peppers did not sit well.  We have made big efforts to eat more healthfully in the last while.  I don't believe my stomach was prepared for that famous chili after months of careful eating but I had to take one for the team.  This is Derek's dream we are talking about - Tommy's, right here in our own backyard.

moon cakes

Not sure when baking became part of social studies but we went with it because Emily wanted some extra credit points.

Emily needed to make 30+ moon cakes to earn extra credit in her social studies class.  Baking with a recipe that we had never seen or tasted prove to be a bit of a challenge.  We started at the local Asian market to find lotus bean paste.  After some challenging conversation due to the language barrier a nice customer that spoke both English and Chinese helped us locate red bean paste since the market did not have lotus bean paste (that lotus bean paste is in high demand)

Emily and I worked together to get the dough made, stuffed, shaped and baked.  Our efforts looked nothing like a moon cake and we are not sure how they tasted, since neither of us tried them.  I'm usually up to try something new but was dealing with a not so settled stomach due to our dinner that night (that post coming next)

Although Emily and I did all the baking it really was a fun activity for the whole family.  The kids loved going to the Asian market.  The boys were especially intrigued by all the fish - alive and dead.  I do think Luke enjoyed seeing all the dead fish - eyeballs and all.

new find

So I just found a new website that I am in love with...Three Potato Four.  I am in love with all the everything thy have - here are a few favorites I found

I am loving this phone.  There is also a great orange one on the website.  

If only I had a place to put this typewriter (and some extra cash lying around)  Look at it!  The color is fabulous.

Simple wood box...$10 - lollipop written in a great font on the side of the box...priceless.  Wish I had a place to put this too.

I am loving this print.  Again, no where to put it but boy do I love it.  It hearkens back to my years in Greenpeace - don't ask.  Derek likes to keep my dark, seedy, rebellious past hidden.

a reminder of how it started

The before photo of the kitchen

the final outcome

Here is our new kitchen!  I don't think we ever posted pictures of the kitchen with appliances in place, flooring, etc. 

a big thanks

for all the birthday wishes from friends and family.  Thank you for the phone calls, the Pier 1 gift certificate, the lunch at Nordstrom Cafe, 2 dozen roses, the gigantic water jug, camera flash diffuser, photography book, fruit salsa with homemade cinnamon/sugar chips, flowers, money, and chocolate cake with birthday candles.  I hope I didn't forget anything.

Everyone helped to make this a special day - so big, big thanks!  Now I'm 38 and quickly inching my way to 40 - yikes, when did I get so old!?!

mormons are off the hook, for shizzle

My little brother thought his April Fools joke was good - I think this may top it.  I'm off to Snopes to just check on my suspicions of this being a joke.

we interrupt blog catch-up to bring you april fool's

For our April Fool's dinner we had chicken pot pie and for dessert we had cupcakes.

Where is the fooling in that you ask?  The pot pie was made with vanilla pudding for gravy, dried pineapple slices for chicken, and candy for corn, peas and carrots.  

I was especially fond of the corn.  Who knew that nuking some Starbursts in the microwave could create such a good "clay" to mold little corn kernels?!?!?  The carrots were also Starbursts and the peas were nuked Airheads rolled into little balls.

The cupcakes were made from meatloaf and covered in purple mashed potato frosting.  We have had the cupcakes for previous April Fool's dinners  so the kids weren't as surprised by them (Luke was - he was obviously to young to remember the last time) but the chicken pot pie was a hit.  

one fish, two fish how will we do this?

We don't do Halloween at our school but they do let the kids dress up for literary character day ?!?!  Go figure.  Anyway, I got a call from a neighbor (thanks Aimee) and she reminded me that the next day was dress up day (bad mom forgot yet one more thing)  The boys had a few ideas of what they wanted to be, none of which we could pull together from our costume box so Derek and I were off to Costume Castle.

We started by looking at the Thing 1 & 2 costumes because that is what Luke wanted to be. Derek was not keen on the $30-40 costume so we bought some blue hair spray and a cat in the hat hat (Nate had mentioned he wanted to be that) and called it good.    After a quick stop to pick up a red tshirt we headed home.

The boys were asleep so I couldn't get kid approval on the costumes.  I made the thing 1 sign on the computer and decided at the last minute that I better make thing 2 because I had a feeling that Nate would be diggin' the blue hairspray and would want to be the same thing.  Let's just say that I'm getting good after all these years of being a mom.  Nate wanted to be thing 2 so we cut up a red sweatshirt so that it would look like Luke's shirt and ironed on the sign.  Score one for Mom!

This was the aftermath during Nate's bath after school.  

playing hookie

It's time for some blog catch up...

A few weeks ago Nate woke up in the middle of the night complaining about some pain in his knee.  It still hurt in the morning (and he never complains about being sick or hurt unless he really is) so we kept him home.  The pain never got better and he was having a really difficult time walking.  This made for a fun day since we still have no downstairs bathroom and I had to somehow get him upstairs to use the "facilities".  It was a bit of a nightmare so it was off to the doctor's office to see what was up.

We were told he had strained some muscle in his leg fairly badly and he should stay off his leg and use crutches when necessary until Friday - if it still hurt on Friday bring him back in. This was not good news since it was on Monday and the thought of keeping a child home all week that was not feeling sick did not appeal to me.  I could already hear the "I'm bored" comments. At least when they are throwing up or have a fever they don't complain or whine much.  Yes, that is my sympathetic mothering skills speaking.

Long story short...we got him on crutches he stayed home 2 more days and by Wed. afternoon he was running around out back and jumping off walls.  And for the two days of non sick school skipping...all I can say is thank you to all the japanese animators that created Pokemon.

i thought i had issues

It seems that Derek has more pressing needs than I do (see previous post for my needs)  After seeing what Derek needs I have decided that I may need to find him some help as well as find out who Mer is and why if Derek is married to me he would need a woman.

1.  Derek needs a woman (see what I'm talking about?)

2.  Derek needs to draw (maybe we can find a tap dancing drawing class to fulfill both our needs)

3.  Derek needs suggestions (I really can't imagine why he would need suggestions - I'm sure I give him plenty)

4.  This one concerns me - Derek needs heartworm treatment (perhaps because of his missionary service in Chile?)

5.  Derek needs God now more then ever

6.  Derek needs emergency dental work (first we need to handle the heartworm)

7.  Derek needs a slap upside the head (this sounds a bit extreme but if he needs it I guess I'll take care of it)

8.  Derek needs to realize that Mer is going through something he can't quite understand (Mer, huh?  Between her and me how could he possibly need a woman - see#1)

9.  Derek needs to talk with someone (you can bet he'll be doing some talking as he explains to me who Mer is.  He better start talking before my mouth is wired shut (see previous post) because I have some words for him)

10. Derek needs to work out his own issues (from the above list it is evident that he has a ton of issues to start working on)

thanks for the giggle allison

I found this idea on my niece-in-laws blog.  Is niece-in-law a legitimate term?  Is she just my regular ol' niece?  Such puzzling questions.

Back to the topic at hand...go to google and type in "(your name) needs" and check out the first few things that come up.  It can be quite an eye opener.  Apparently, I need to reevaluate my life (especially after I saw the first "need")

1.  Denise needs her mouth wired shut (guess I talk far to much)

2.  Denise needs your support

3.  Denise needs more room for her crazy (who knew I had so much crazy and not near enough room to store it)

4.  I did learn that there are some things that I don't need because I already have plenty of it - Denise has a lot of crap

5.  Denise needs your help (this is surprisingly similar to #2 above - perhaps I am unaware of how bad my life really is since I seem to need so much help and support)

6.  Denise needs to take a page from one of the housewives of the OC (??? What? Am I not schooled enough in Orange County traditions?  I am a bit late on making any plastic surgery appointments, I'm not 50 something trying to look 18, I don't wear low tank tops, painted on jeans and heels to parent/teacher conferences - now that I think about it I am failing miserable with this whole OC thing - where is that book so that I can rip out a page?!?!  Hey wait...I did color my  hair last week - that should give me some OC votes)

7.  Denise needs to shut up!  (Again, strikingly similar to another one - see #1 above.  I must really have a problem.)

8.  Denise needs to be loved  (please see #2 and #5 above - maybe the problem isn't me.  I think it is referring to all of you my friends, family and loved ones...YOU are not reaching out to me offering support, help and love - what is with you people?!?!?)

9.  Denise needs to learn to tap dance (Of course, don't we all need this vital life skill.)

10. Denise needs to exploit her kids to make a few bucks (Oh, maybe that was what was meant by take a page out of a OC housewives book.  Since google told me I need to exploit my kids I guess I better get on it - anyone have ideas?  What will bring in the most cash?,  let's think...)

Thanks Allison for posting this on your blog - it was a pleasant way to waste my first 10 minutes on the computer this morning :)  Also, a big thanks to Denise Richards.  I think it was because of her that I was able to find all the "needs" I was missing in my life.