must-watch halloween dvds

Halloween is my favorite holiday! It truly is. Of all time. I think it is due in large part to my birthday being two days before. But I just love this time of year all together, which I have mentioned already.

I always loved going out trick-or-treating and then returning home to hot cocoa and fun Halloween shows on T.V. Yes, T.V.!! Nowadays, they show The Great Pumpkin about three days before Halloween. Why? Well, because if your favorite show comes on the same night, then the network will get too many phone calls as to why The Great Pumpkin was on instead of their favorite show. Therefore, the networks have given up and will not interfere with other scheduled shows. Luckily, when I was a kid, this was not the case.

Here are a few of my favorites from my childhood and also one more recent addition.

Plus, it is fun to show these to my kids and carry on the same tradition and fun holiday memories. A favorite right now at our house is The Great Pumpkin. My son has requested to watch this for the past few days. And it has been great to watch it with him. :)

What are your favorites?

progress update

Here is a progress report on the front room. As you can see, only minimal changes have been made so far. Though, as of tonight, the wood wall paneling is now white with primer and ready for paint.

The carpet is all gone and the pad needs to come up next. We took out the large wood adornment that was next to the front door.

New baseboards have also been added. Though these improvements are minimal, it truly has made such a difference! It is starting to feel more like our house.

dehn rojdehnyu

{happy birthday}

Today starts the last year of my twenties. I am 29 on the 29th. I was told this is my golden year and therefore, I have every right to party hard. I wonder if starting my day at 1:30 am, with maple leaf baby no. 1 puking all over our bed, consitutes as starting things off right. Another memorable part of my day was closing on our house. We are official homeowners! So exciting but also very stressful; such a huge responsiblity but also very rewarding.

I also had so many phone calls, emails and messages wishing me a happy day. I got some very cool presents as well. Of course, getting a home on my birthday is at the top of the list. This was delivered to my door this afternoon:

Yes, he is the best ("Those are not from the hot house." "I must confess I picked them from a nearby field...") I also got this very cool book from my sis:

Such a great day. Now all I ask is 10 hours of uninterrupted, peaceful sleep.

maple leafs are my favorite

I love my Maple Leaf (i.e. Canadian hubby) because he let me sleep in this morning. He got up with the kids and fed them breakfast. I love him because, after church, he let me take a nap while he got the kids lunch AND put the clean dishes away. He also gave me my little maple leafs...what more can I ask for? He's the best.

the swedes are geniuses

I have decided that the Swedes know what they are doing. IKEA rules. I love all their styles, the way there are different rooms set up for ideas and creative thinking. AND they have the exact table I want...for hundreds less than the other store I had mentioned. Plus it is extendable. Wow. I am so excited.

We have picked out paint colors as well. Will post more about that later. Am I considered a coward for being scared to paint my own walls?

snl weekly

Tina Fey's skits as Sarah Palin have been great. But Amy Poehler steals the show with this rap. I just can't believe she can rap like that while pregnant. I could barely breathe while walking up the stairs when I was pregnant...especially when I was far along. My Maple Leaf hubby and I could not stop laughing. Enjoy.

prioritizer

In the midst of the craziness we like to refer to as "buying a house", I am realizing more and more of what a prioritizer I am not. In handling my day-to-day activities, I usually just make a mental list in my head of what I am needing to accomplish. Then I go about my day, tra-la-la, and accomplish as needed. BUT with life getting hairier and hairier by the minute (and I'm not referring to my upper lip...though I am trying to scientifically prove the connection between dense/dark facial hair and age), I am finding that actually writing down a set plan would be very, very helpful.

My sweet Canadian hubby (whom I will refer to as the Maple Leaf...oh yeah, we are now talking in code) is so good at thinking through everything. Sometimes...actually, most of the time, it drives me nuts because I want to be the one in control (did I mention I'm a control freak?). Plus it is so hard for me to admit that his way is better.

So now...I need to be making a master plan for each day/overall weekly. Let's take the laundry, for example. If I decide that Monday is the day to wash all the whites. Then I can plan to throw the laundry in at 9:30. Then pull above-mentioned laundry out of the washer and into the dryer at 10. Then plan to fold the laundry with ML later that night and use such time to also talk about our day, what is happening the next, etc. I really think this helps me focus on a specific task instead of just saying, "Today is laundry day and there is so much laundry to be done, it is overwhelming. So I will just sit and watch laundry pile up because I'm too lazy to do it OR if I do it all, then I will be too exhausted to tackle anything else today."

Please tell me I'm not the only one thinking about such things.

mrs. mcnosh and the great big squash

Mrs. Nelly McNosh has a problem: the minute she plants a squash seed, it begins to grow at an alarming rate. Soon the squash is terrorizing the neighborhood. Mrs. McNosh stops the squash by plucking it from its stem and then tries to figure out the perfect use for a great big squash. The illustrations are cheerfully bright and enhance the rhyming, rollicking text. It is infectious and a very fun read.

snl weekly

This was so, so funny!! I had to post this for my weekly SNL clip.

cool site

After mingling with some new neighbors tonight, we found out they have started up a business of their own selling shelf stable milk to the masses. Their website is called Milk on the Moove. It is so very cute and smart! Gossner's has been a staple of Cache Valley since -- who knows when!! They are a cheese factory but has also produce this awesome shelf milk in all varieties of flavors! Unfortunately, it was only sold locally. Well, not anymore!! Some favorites are the rootbeer flavored milk, strawberry and chocolate, of course.

new house: room 1

The time has come!! It is time to decorate my new house. How desperate am I to have this sucker decorated? Enough to have gone to every talk show site (especially Oprah...Nate Berkus...pray hard!) and apply to have a room/house makeover. BUT since we know that is very unlikely, I will just have to put myself to work and figure things out. I am commissioning you to help me out on this though. I am not creative enough or cool enough to put things together and not have it look like a Muppet mish-mosh. So, let's get started.

First room of choice: the front living room.

Okay. So very Napoleon Dynamite-ish (like Kerry would say). I could definitely leave things the way they are and apply to have our house be the site for the next movie OR make it look very modern/cozy/awesome.

Your job: go crazy! Tell me everything and anything you are thinking...paint colors, furntiture styles, decorating, etc. How should the room be arranged? Would you recommend a TV in the corner? Where can I get some cool slip covers? Oh. And have fun! ;)

snapshot

Sunday, October 12

9:05am (walking in late to church).

M: "Hey! Someone swept up the waspspspsps! Where'd they go? They are gone. Dad! The waspspsps! They are gone!"

D: "Yup. They are gone. Let's go. Open the door."

M: "Yup. Gone. Holy CACK!"

D and I trying to not to break our serious church faces and control uncontrollable laughter: "Mmmph...hhhmmmp...hhhmmpp...hahahahaha!"

arbonne

The About Face Lash Colour mascara from Arbonne is wonderful. It actually picks up and clings to even the tiniest of eyelashes. Some I didn't even know I had show up when I put this on. This product is a combination of a colorless primer agent that conditions and preps lashes, and a mascara that offers water-resistant lash coloring. This formula won't irritate lids and offers extended wear that is easy to remove. It comes in two shades and is simply the best.

turbo this

So I was up at 1am, flipping channels, when I became a victim of infomercials. You all have been there, right?

I know it was 1am and I should have been sleeping but I just could not stop watching Chalene and her Turbo Jam Enterprise. Honestly, I am bored of the plain old running, elliptical, run-of-the-mill aerobics classes. I have been wishing there was something with more of a dance routine mixed in (I could be on one of these commercials) and then I saw Turbo Jam. Of course, if you put your mind to anything, it can happen (i.e. if I set aside 30 minutes-an hour each day to work-out, I'm sure I could lose weight). The point is: I am bored of the same old.

I am soooooooo tempted to give this a try. I want to know if anyone else has tried this/seen this and what you think. :)

snl weekly

Oh. My. Goodness. Dan and I could not stop laughing during this skit. Did anyone else catch this on Saturday night?

house hunt

Now that our house hunting days are over (YEAH! we will soon be homeowners!!!!), the flipside is now starting the renovation process. Updates will need to be done to our home because it is an older home (built in 1965). Luckily, the home is in great shape and doesn't need a lot to be done right off the bat (translation: we wish we had more money). But trying to pick out colors of paint, carpet and furniture is a task. Once we have the keys in hand, we will be able to look at each room more carefully and decide what to do. Until then, I have been having fun looking at furniture on the internet. I love this:

I love the idea of a round/oval table. Plus I love the colored chairs.

Potterybarn and Restoration Hardware are definitely favorites. I am sure there are so many other awesome furniture companies out there that I have no clue about. Any suggestions?

Also, stay tuned because I will be taking pictures of different rooms in the house and asking for your help on how to decorate, paint, etc. It will be fun to do before and after pictures. We will just have to see how far our money can stretch. :)