FOF

I know I didn't do my FOF last week. But that doesn't mean I didn't draft it. I did. Sometimes I start, and because I don't have time to do pictures, I never post it.

For Anna this week, five random things I thought about this week:

1. I've been thinking about the phrase: "Make yourself at home." I love having visitors and I love having company. It is fun for me to have guests in my home. When you're in my house, please, make yourself at home. Unless you're a slob, then please don't treat my home like you do your's.

2. I had some of the best friends in high school. I've kept in touch with most of them and they continue to be not only good friends, but good people too. Every single one of them, seriously. That really amazes me.

3. Why is it so hard to spend more time reading the scriptures than doing other things? And why do I continuously wait until five minutes before I'm about to pass out to start reading my scriptures most nights? Because every night it happens, I feel just as guilty as the night before, yet it doesn't change the next night.

4. Laundry doesn't multiply so much when you have kids just because of the kids' clothes. With Clara, I'm now washing my own clothes twice as much as I did prior because she gets me so dirty with food, dirt or slobber.

5. Opposition is such an interesting concept to me. I could easily write a whole post about my thoughts on the subject. It seems the harder the trials are, the more joy blessings bring. Knowing that makes the trials easier to bear.

Clara, on the other hand, would like to share five naughty things she has started doing:

1. Coloring on the walls. She plays with colored pencils all the time. I was getting ready and seconds after I heard "the noise" I knew exactly what I'd find when I went around the corner. 2. When she has something she's not supposed to and you say, "Clara, come here." she bolts in the other direction. Granted, this is very cute: big huge grin, wobbly, prancing new-born horse legs and silly laughs.

3. I'm pretty sure she can smell when my lap top is not closed. If I ever leave it open, anywhere, the second she can sneak away from my sight, she runs and finds it. Too bad for her, if she disapears that quickly, I know exactly where she's headed. It's amazing to me that she seems to see it, store where it is in her memory and makes a note that I didn't close it and heads straight to it.

4. Waking up an hour or so after she goes to bed for a nap. The first couple times I got her out of bed, only to have one crabby baby until bed time. The last few days, I've left her, she cries for a minute or two (literally) and then is back to sleep for at least another hour.

5. Pinching mom. Latley if I'm holding her and she's wanting something she can't have or if she gets mad at me, she can't control her frustrating and grunts/screams and pinches me, full-fisted with both hands. It doesn't hurt and it's hard not to laugh but it is certainly not something she needs to make a habit of!

But don't worry, she's still awfully sweet (even with scraggly hair).

All Expense Paid Getaway!

As a graduation gift, Ryan and Kathryn gave Jason an all expense paid getaway... to the Diamondback's game. Tickets would've been cool, but we also got money for parking and food and tokens for the kids' area if we took Clara. We tried really hard to buy lots of food and snacks, but being accustomed to our current disposable income of a negative amount, it was too hard. :) We sure had fun trying though! My mom convinced us to leave Clara with her (thank goodness we did). Clara would've had fun for ten minutes and then I'm sure would've kept trying to run around, eat the food and nut shells off the floor and bother everyone sitting near us. We'll do a family D-backs game another time.

Part of the fun of professional ball games are the other spectators. The people behind us decided to fake their engagement in an attempt to be featured on the jumbotron. They were unsuccessful, but I got a good laugh out of it and the people behind them totally bought in to it.

That game had more action than normal and I actually really liked the seats. They are outfield, right behind right field, second row up. Oh, and the weather couldn't have been better. Thanks Ryan and Kathryn!

Let the Fun (or Chaos) Begin

Angela is awesome. I could easily post this picture and end this post, but this weekend was about Jason. I will leave the picture here so Angela can see it every time she comes to my blog to admire her ninja moves.In the beginning...
It began on a Thursday morning... Clara and I took Adalyn to the Zoo. Her parents are Arizona-haters (just kidding) so they decided to move to Utah. I figured one less 20 month old helping pack might speed things up so why not take her to the Zoo? The only downfall was I didn't find a double-stroller in time so there I was with a 16-month and 20-month old in a single stroller. The girls really didn't seem to mind it for the first 45 minutes. Then, I took them out and Adalyn had a hard time parting with the stone frog. Kiri, you should really look into getting one of these for her room. Adalyn seemed to be content being in the stroller alone so I let Clara help "push" the stroller (in other words, walk with her hands on the basket). This makes walking very slow, but I was in no hurry, so I didn't mind. I tried to put the girls in together again and had to put Adalyn in first, then Clara because Clara's legs are easier to force into the leg opening. Adalyn told me several times "Adalyn sad" and everyone around felt much sympathy for her. Then I decided to let them play in the water. Adalyn just liked to run away. Clara was a little more into the spraying water than last time. They got wet and loved it though, and that was the important part. Bye bye Adalyn, I know you love Utah because you said "Go Utah" about 100 times at the Zoo. Somebody was anxiously awaiting the move. But we know you still love us. I promise they had fun... eh he he
That night we cleaned, did laundry and worked. Not that we got everything done, but we at least tried.

The luncheon...
Friday morning Jason's parents came and they watched Clara while we went to a luncheon at some hotel by ASU for the Civil Engineer graduates. The food was pretty good and although it was a tad boring, I'm glad we went. They had all the graduates go to the front and say thanks to whomever. Jason thanked me for my patience. My favorite was the guy that said, "I'm thankful for my mom, she's right there taking a picture, and she can't understand a single thing I'm saying." (He was Mexican). Or, maybe it was the guy that said, "I'm thankful for my wife because she would buy my books for me and let me keep the money when I sold them back." I definitely didn't like everyone that thanked parents and grandparents for financial support. Just kidding, I was just jealous. PS from here until Saturday night I borrowed Angela's camera so I wouldn't find myself having an indicent with my camera in the middle of graduation. Thanks Ang![Trent, Jason and Lewis: Man Love]

We just hung out a bit before we had to leave for graduation.

The graduation...
We went to our house to pick up Connie, Rodney and Clara. Then back we went to ASU for graduation. Let me just say it's awesome to have two grandmas and one grandpa to one grandchild. Golden children have it easy... or should I say golden children's parents have it easy! I don't think I ever had to carry Clara the whole night. As we were standing around looking for a seat, some nice lady said there were four seats in front of her that she didn't think were taken. They weren't, it was the third row up and even luckier, it was directly up from Jason's row and he was near the end. It was nearly the perfect seat. Plus, the nice people behind us kept giving Clara popcorn and eventually would just put handfulls of it into Clara's snack container when she'd say please and look at it. The woman couldn't believe how much she was eating; I tried to warn her. They were LDS, from New York and between the two of them, they have 8 kids so they had no problem with it. Thank you nice lady for sharing with my little piggy. They were both Engineers and the man also got his MBA from MIT. Not too shabby, I say!

One of my absolute favorite parts of the graduation was the opening music. They had a group of bagpipe players enter playing and they played as all the graduates assembled. Live bagpipe music is incredible. Scotland, anyone? Graduation was WAY too long. We probably had twice as many graudates and mine was under two hours. This one lasted nearly two and a half hours. They only talk I enjoyed was Ira Fulton's. He rocks. He just had funny and encouraging things to say. Like, "Someone asked me how he can get his name on the side of a building. I told him, it's easy, you just write a check for $50 million." What a character. Fortunately, my mom was more than happy to take Clara away (she was not into sitting still and she discovered her bribe before the ceremony even started). They walked around, ran in the grass and ate lots and lots of popcorn. Joel, Trent, Jason & Ryan: These boys spent far too much time together during the last little while. I was hoping to get more pictures of these fellas, but they decided to leave too soon. I guess one is all we need, right? Too bad there's a balding head in it with them!

BS Civil Engineering, yippeee!

When it finally ended, we went and found Jason. I couldn't resist getting a picture in the same spot I got one. Too bad it was dark and the pond is not near as beautiful as it was when I graduated. I am so proud of Jason and his hard work. One thing I learned from watching Jason go through school was how much harder school can be for different people. School came so naturally to me but I watched Jason struggle and spend more time in a semester than I did in four years (it seemed) with results that weren't the same. I'm glad I could witness that hard work doesn't always get A's because what matters is trying your best and not giving up. I am hoping this will help me be more understanding when my children are in school.Oh, to be young again!

Dinner out, celebration number one...
From there we went to Famous Dave's (Jason's request) for dinner. My mom went home to get Lily and Lamar met us there. Clara really enjoyed the pig that came out to visit. Personally, I can't imagine how much I'd have to get paid to act like that, in a full costume in the Summer. Wewsh!I started practicing my self-portraits with Angela's camera as we waited. And annoyed other people by taking their pictures. I can't say I enjoy their food as much as Jason, but we had a fun crowd. Clara entertained us with her lemon faces and no, I don't make her eat them. She asks for them. And continued to eat it after this picture.Thanks to Aunt Lily, once Clara was done with her food, I got to keep eating mine and didn't have to try to keep Clara happy in her high chair. It was late, she was tired but I still got to eat in peace.After dinner we went to our house and visited for a little bith with Connie, Rodney and Lamar. I went to bed "early" (Midnight or so, lol) so I wouldn't be completely dead on Saturday.

Since I didn't have enough going on...
I had to go to the Cub Scout Day Camp Saturday morning. I was at the church at 7:15am. I think the boys had fun and I did too for a little bit. Then it got old sitting around and worrying about how I would get everything done I needed to. The boys needed a bit of encouragement, but not four or five leaders worth. Meanwhile, Clara got some practice with her shopping skills (they were there for hours with no stroller).Day Camp lasted until 1:30pm, at which time I rushed home. I still had to buy most of the food and prepare it. I knew it'd be close, but with all the help I anticipated, I wasn't too worried.

The anti-climatic party, celebration number two...
We got to my mom's around 4:00pm and Lily watched Clara while I started prepping and Jason went to Wal Mart (for the second time). My mom started feeling super sick and had to go sit down and eventually went to bed for the rest of the night. My poor mom got the flu so not only could she not help (I know she missed out, huh?) but she didn't get to see anyone or enjoy the food or the party. She felt so bad and wanted to make sure I knew she'd never do that on purpose. She is too funny. With one helper down, I started to worry. Then, my other helpers didn't show up and it was five so I kind of started panicking. I knew there was no way I could prepare all of the food alone. I'm stubborn and don't like to ask for help, until I panick.

Right about then, Amy called to make sure the party was that night. I think I forced her into offering to help, but she came willfully (I promise) and saved the day. I was SO grateful to her and everyone else who helped when they arrived. It wasn't quite all done at six, but with how much we got done with so few people, we were lucky we ate by 6:30pm. Up until that last minute, even Lily was doing dishes so the kitchen was clean.

Things I learned from this party: Superstition Ranch Market is totally awesome (more than twice the vegetables and fruit needed to serve 40 people or so was $44, how cool is that?), I love throwing parties, watermelons can be yellow (yeah, Amy cut open the watermelon only to find it was yellow... like it was a yellow watermelon, not that it wasn't ripe. It was actually delicious, just a little deceiving) and I will have my daughter's weddings catered. :)

Menu and guests...
Much to Jason's pleasure (well, just the wings part), we had hot wings, yoshida wings, 9 vegetables (okay, I went a little overboard) with dip, fruit with dip, crackers with either a bell pepper/pineapple cheese dip or a sun-dried tomato dip and brownies and rice krispy treats for dessert. After I explained it all, Ryan asked me if we had any dip. What can I say, dips complete everything. We barely had enough wings (I bought 30 pounds but only cooked 20 thanks to my mother's suggestion), had a good amount of fruits and veggies and came home with no rice krispy treats and just a few brownie crumbs. For the record, so I know who not to invite next time, just kidding, but this is who was able to make it: moms and dads, Ryan, Kathryn, Lucy, Elsa, Angela, Clint, Lily, James (he was there the beginning and left but came back just as we were packing up and the first thing he did was offer to help us carry stuff out, how nice is that?), Kevin, Chrystie, Mason, Tanner, Caitlyn, Amy, Steven, Ryan, Steven, Lamar, Landry, Lindsay, Trent, Karen, Beka, Danny, Landon, Braden, Eric, Shauna, Brenden and Nikki. You rock Amy!
Trent graduated with Jason. He's completely done and works at Wood Patel too. I'm pretty sure Lindsay has some of the same feelings as me and is glad to have a husband again.
I decided to take pictures of people at the party... I started saying "Act like you like each other" but realized that might be asking too much of some, so it was, "Act like you know each other"...

Obviously Elsa doesn't know that man carrying her out of the house Long time friends... how cute.
Sorry if this embarassed you Nikki, but you are going to be the BEST mother some day! She is so sweet and gentle with kids and let them play with her bracelets, which they thought was great.
These boys have known each other for years and years and years...
I did realize I like to visit with everyone when I have parties and when there are a lot of people, I don't feel like I give each of the guests adequate attention so I start worrying people feel left out. In smaller settings, I can make sure I'm always talking to guests. Thanks to everyone that helped clean up. It took a long time just to carry everything out to the car. It will be nice when I have a home big enough to have big parties. It would have been much easier not having to load everything in the car, unload at my mom's, load it back in the car and then unload it into our house. I was totally exhausted when we got home. Too bad I had to get some work done if I didn't want to work on Sunday. We borrowed Juno to watch and Jason fell asleep about half-way through. I definitely enjoyed the music, probably the best part about it. There were some funny lines and some good points made, but overall it was a wee bit inappropriate for me. I did enjoy it because it helped me work until 1am. As I was going to bed I realized I hadn't glued the magnets onto the magnets I helped the Scouts make for their mom's. I had to do that and I am pretty sure I was able to go to bed before 2am.

Anti-climatic party explained...
Yes, Jason graduated, but no, he's not done completely. :) Jason has two more Summer classes to take. So it was either graduate before or after, in December. I figured celebrating a few months before it's completely official was better than five months after. Plus, I knew his parents would most likely be here for graduation soit made sense to have a celebration the same time. Jason said he felt funny having people give him cards and tell him congratulations when it's not official. Soon enough, though. Eight weeks sounds like a breeze compared to the last four and a half years, so I figured although anti-climatic, a celebration was totally appropriate. He's almost there, so very very close. And at this point, it's pretty much a guarantee that it will end with the last day of his eight week class.

Mother's Day...

On Sunday I got breakfast in bed. The day wasn't quite as crazy, but there was still the getting ready, doing the bulletin, worrying Clara would wake up from the noise, getting Clara's church bag ready and getting to church on time... which we didn't. I enjoyed the speakers in church, taking Clara to Nursery for the second time (they let me go in if I stay with her) and being able to sit in RS and eat cookies. In Nursery, three of the older boys were surrounding Clara staring at her and touching her hair. I guess even at a young age they're drawn to fresh meat. After church we visited for just a bit and I made zucchini for dinner. Jason's parents and Lamar left and we went to Ryan and Kathryn's for dinner with my dad, Lily and James. My mom was still too sick to be around people. We had a delicious meal: roast, scallops, potatoes, salad and zucchini. Yum. Hopefully when we retire we can live next to Ryan and Kathryn and then we can just cook good food together. Jason started the dishes once we got home so I didn't have to worry about that. I tried to go to bed early in order to wake up before the crack of dawn...

Another long day...

I didn't wake up at 4am like I planned, but I was up before 4:30am working on my presentation and the financials on Monday. I thought maybe I'd get it done before Clara woke up so I could go back to bed, but when she woke up a few minutes past eight, I was still working. I was working, cooking and trying to trick Clara into thinking I was paying more attention to her than the work all morning long. I like working, but I hate it when I have such a tight deadline and Clara just wants my attention but I can't stop for too long. I did get everything done and was out the door a little after Noon. I dropped Clara off with Kathryn (thanks again, Kathryn) and headed to Phoenix. I got there a few minutes before the meeting started and had a long, but fairly successful meeting. I like doing things like that, but I was definitely thinking how overrated working is!! I picked up Clara and went to KS to pick some things up there. When we got home I had to start client's payroll, but I figured it could wait and I spent the evening with my little goose.

A phone call...

I answered a phone call that made me completely upset and encouraged me to set a new goal: When people lie (even if "they" are the professional one and they don't know the first thing about a professional relationship), call me a liar, accuse me of doing something they're doing and insult my intelligence even though I know I'm right (trust me, I'm right in this situation) I am going to try to not let it bother me. It is so hard for me to let someone treat me this way and let it go without proving them they're wrong, but it has a horrible effect on me and typically will ruin my whole day. I usually can't stop fretting over it until some type of agreement is reached and I have closure. In this situation, I will probably never talk to this person again, so it was really important to get this off my shoulders asap. I just told myself it was okay to let him think that way and nothing I'd say or do would please him so I just needed to let it go. For Clara I needed to avoid being consumed by being emotionally upset. I've found in a situation like this, the best thing to do is just pray for them. It truly amazes me how your feelings towards a person are changed almost instantly by praying for their well-being. Perspective is so easily altered with prayer. It also helps me realize I have no clue what they are experiencing in their lives or why they're acting in such an offensive way so it is even more reason I shouldn't let it bother me. Everytime comments from our conversation popped into my head, I had to think to myself I couldn't change him or his thoughts and his attitude was making me be a person I didn't want to be.

Momentary Relief...

Anyway, Tuesday night I was dreading payroll and was so relieved when I realized the 15th is Thursday, not Wednesday. :) The whole time I was totally stressed about that, especially since I thought I'd missed a deadline for one of my clients. I had to create some invoices for a new client, which went much quicker than I expected. When that was done, I was finally able to let out a sigh of relief and relax knowing the things on my to do list weren't totally urgent as I've felt everything has been since Thursday night. But it was already 10, so I started this, read and went to bed around 11pm. I was totally exhausted. I knew I'd wake up to having to do payroll and plan Scouts Wednesday morning, but going to bed before Midnight and not having to wake up earlier than Clara was a great thought.

Now somebody PLEASE submit my name to Guiness for the world's longest post... unless of course you've fallen asleep. :)