Spring Break

Hope you all have a good Spring Break!

We are headed to Seattle, so I won't be posting anything until at least Thursday.

Ta Ta for Now.

uhhhh...what month is it?

Can you believe this?

It's Spring and this morning we woke up to 3 inches of snow and a temperature in the 20's. I had to pull out our winter coats, hats and gloves. Spring break just started and everyone is headed up to the ski resorts. Some of resorts have 18 inches of new powder.

I think I will crawl into bed and come out when Summer arrives...that may not be until November.

photo favorites

This is a tag from my sister, I loved this idea...i might just use it again, with different favorites, besides things change over time, I might just find a new color that I like.

creative tag about favorites....
the rules are to answer the question using only pictures.

my favorite color:

holiday:

animal:

food:

vacation place:

worst habit:

job:

dessert/treat:

hobby:

me:

I tag: Lori, Cindy, Janet, Karen Megan Call, and Juli

A life in 29 days...

I came across this on MSNBC this morning. It is hard to watch, but I feel exactly the same way these parents do.

Eggs and Baskets

We celebrate the Easter Bunny on Saturday. I always did growing up and didn't realize, until I was older, that Easter is on Sunday. My most memorable Easter was about 5 years ago...Brinley was born. She is my most favorite Easter gift!

Here is what it looked liked saturday morning... The Easter Bunny had left a train of M&M's leading to Brinley's basket in the front room.
It was almost as exciting as Christmas day. Her favorite thing in her basket was...She is obsessed with Littlest Pet Shop. The first thing we heard when she got to her basket and lifted these out... "These are what I wanted! Woohoo. See Mom, I told you the Easter Bunny would bring them."

The Bunny puts gifts and activities in the baskets and not so much candy. We get enough from the Easter Egg Hunt, she did get a chocolate bunny and a PEZ dispenser though.

Chocolate for breakfast...then I made eggs and pancakes.
Cody and Julie came over for the Easter Egg Hunt. These kids were so egg-cited, get it? I know, I'm a dork!

We had hid so many eggs, cody and Brinley kept dropping them out of their baskets. I don't know what we were thinking, there are only two of them!

We had to even things up, so we dumped out the eggs and made sure that each of them got an even amount of junk food...for their parents to eat, I mean, for the kids to munch on over the next few months.

Brinley found the big egg. There was nothing extra in it, but I think it was the highlight of the hunt. Cody and Brinley both wanted the egg more than anything, I think it may end up at Cody's house anyway.

Oh, and the best part...we woke up to sun, and there wasn't a snowflake in sight.

where is Spring?

This is what we woke up to this morning...surprise to me! We have had rainy weather, which is normal for this time of year, but snow!!! So depressing...

Today I woke up feeling great about the day. I had things planned, etc. There were some bills to pay, one, in particular, was way past due (like 6 months) and i needed to call them. I apologized and explained to them why i had forgotten to pay this bill...Olivia. I burst into tears! I have not done this on the phone before, i could hardly talk! I felt so dumb. They were very kind, but i couldn't believe it. I just broke down. It was really weird to me.
I imagine this type of thing is normal under my cirumstance. I just didn't expect it. For hours after, I would just sob in spurts and then be fine. In my support group, we have talked about how odd grieving can be. How you can talk to one person and be completely fine with it, and then some people you just can't control emotions. I guess i have been a bit emotional lately. I hate that!

Eggs

My SIL, Becca, is in town with the girls. Since they aren't staying through the weekend, we decided to decorate eggs early. Julie boiled 6 dozen eggs, not that we will actually eat them, but so that the kids had plenty of eggs to dye. It was quite a mess, but we had fun!I had quite a house full of guests, my sisters, Julie and Kami, Becca, Isabel, Makaela, Cody, my mom and Becca's mom.

i really am not concerned that I have dye all over my table. It just adds to the paint, glitter and glue that is already there.
Eggs weren't enough, we frosted cookies too. We don't get to see Becca and the girls that often, so we packed in as much as we could in the time we had with them. Julie took the kids to spend the night at her house, but left me with all the cookies. Thanks!

more cloggity stuff

This was at a ward talent show. My sister, Julie, and i made up the dance. I was 14, i think, and obviously a dork back then too. I know that Julie is going to appreciate me having this on my blog.

Clogging Video

Okay, i recall saying that if my sister sent me the video, i would post it. I will just say, I do not belong in front of a camera. I am a total dork. I believe that we were making a home movie to send to my grandparents for Christmas. Remember that this is about 1986-87, so the clothing choice will reflect that, along with the hairstyle, that happened to be my favorite at the time. Enjoy...
the worst clogging video ever!

Media Fast

At church yesterday, Bishop Creagh asked us to have a media fast this week so that we could focus on more spiritual things leading up to Easter. So far, things have been not to bad. I woke up this morning and turned on the TV and then turned it right back off, remember that news is media. (I don't consider that email and blogging to be media. Blogs are like journals. Email is just like walking out to your mailbox to get get mail, except you don't have to put your shoes on.)

After church, i did some visiting and Matt and Brinley took a nap. We had got invited to dinner at some friends house, so I got home just in time to leave again. so overall, Sunday was not hard.

So, today after taking Brinley to school, I came home and paid bills. After picking her up, we went to visit Grandma Kunz. I had errands to run and I don't usually listen to the radio in the car, Brinley and I have great conversations or it's listening to Brinley's music. Then we got home and this is what we did...

Brinley picked out this cake mold for her birthday. I thought it would be a good idea to test to see if it would work out okay. We had a lot of fun! Brinley picked the colors. Oh yeah, it's supposed to be a cupcake.

Brinley hasn't mentioned the TV once today. I am impressed with her. This week should be interesting.

ABC's

My sister Julie tagged me...

A-Attached or single: Attached
B- Best Friend(s): Matt is my bestest, but there are so many others...
C-Cake or Pie: Cake! I eat pie once a year at Thanksgiving and it's always pumpkin. I make an amazingly good chocolatey chocolate cake...thanks to my SIL Ami!
D-Day of Choice: Hmmm...i can't even remember what the day is half the time, but like my sister, I like Friday. Brinley doesn't have school so we can sleep in a little, but it is also the best day for yard sales with my sister, Julie.
E- Essential Item: my glasses, I can't see anything without them. A snack for Brinley.
F- Favorite Color: if you know me well enough, you know I love navy blue.
G- Gummi Bears or Worms: gross! i prefer cinnamon bears.
H- Hometown: I, like my sister, was born in Arizona and have lived practically all over the western US, but consider Spokane to be home. I love it here and most of mi familia lives here too.
I- Indulgence(s): ...chocolate, the internet (etsy mostly)
J- January or July: well, my birthday is in Jan, but I have never been a fan of the month, it's kinda the let down month, the month when you wish winter was over, nothing exciting is happening, etc. I will have to go with July. There is always a birthday happening in our family, along with it being nice weather to have bbqs, stay up late, the kids smell like summer...LOVE IT! Brings back memories of kick the can with neighborhood kids, just thinking about it.
K-Kids: Brinley will be 5 in April, Olivia would have been 4 months, and ???
L-Life is incomplete without: my family and friends, the church, chocolate, laughter...
M- Marriage Date: Dec. 10, 1999
N- Number of Siblings:3 sisters 2 brothers.
O- Oranges or Apples: I can't really eat oranges since i have an allergy to citrus fruit, so apples, but i can't just sit and eat an apple. i eat way more veggies than fruit.
P- Phobias or Fears: well, now that i have been through losing a child, I would have to say that losing Matt and Brinley would be the next worse thing. I hate spiders and snakes too.
Q- Quote: ??? I will have to think about that.
R- Reason To Smile: my life is awesome and I have been blessed with an amazing family.
S- Season: I love all the seasons. One of the reasons I love Spokane so much. the Fall colors are beautiful, but summer is a time when we can stay outside all day long and let the kids just run. Spring smells so good, and you can't beat the first snow of winter...
T- Tag Six: Lori, Pam, Karen, Shevaun, Carmel and Jill
U- Unknown Fact About Me: well, not unknown to family, I used to clog when I was young. What a nerd I was! I know that my sister Kami even has a video of some of it somewhere. Another thing, one of my molars grew in backwards, EVERYTIME i go to the dentist, they have to mention this to me...I'm 30 years old, I think I would know by now.
V- Vegetarian or Oppressor of Animal: Yeah for Chicken!
W- Worst Habit: I don't think before I talk and usually end up saying something that either offends someone (never on purpose) or I just ramble.
X- X-Rays or Ultrasounds: I have had one x-ray and that wasn't very exciting. So ultrasounds, but it is bittersweet. The Tech seems to always find something abnormal. Even when I was pregnant with Brinley, they thought I had an Incompotent Cervix. It's always an eventful visit.
Y- Your Favorite Food: Turkish cigars from White House Grill. YUM!
Z- Zippers or Zebras: What? I guess a Zebra...

School Carnival

Friday night, Brinley and I, with my mom, went to Cody's school carnival. Julie was working one of the games, so we brought Cody along with us. (You can see Julie in the background)I remember school carnivals when I was growing up, and they aren't quite what they used to be. the kids had fun and that is all that really matters. Where else could you spend $10 on tickets and could play as many games as you wanted and eat carny food?
The kids wanted to win a cake from the cake walk so bad, poor Cody was in tears. We must have tried 4 times, but no cake for us.
You have to get your face painted. There was a paper with all the designs the kids could choose from, at first Brinley was pretty sure she wanted a Yin Yang sign, but ended up with a butterfly. Cody wsa going for the train, i think and he ended up with a rainbow...so unlike Cody. The lady made it as boyish as she could, no pink of purple.

These kids were so would up and cranky at the end of the night, and Julie took both of them home with her. Thanks Julie, I owe you one!

Walla Walla

It has been quite a busy weekend for me. Thursday I got up bright...well not bright, but early...3:30am to meet Heather (from the Forget Me Not Program) at 5am so that I could ride down to Walla Walla with her. She was presenting to a bunch of doctors and nurses and such about pallative care (taking care of those in the last stages of life) for infants. She presented Olivia's story. I really enjoyed the conference. I learned a lot about how the other side, not the patients, have to handle things and all the "rules" they have to follow.
These are of Heather telling our story. I got to know Heather a little more also. She is an amazing person. Thanks for letting me hang with you, Heather!

Around my house

I got a few crafts done. So here they are...I saw a butterfly collage on Ali Edwards blog, and I loved it, so I did my own smaller version.
Julie gave me this old metal flower coat hanger. It's cute and fits perfectly in Brinley's bedroom.I made these because I needed a punch of color in my kitchen. They were sooo easy to make, and I love how they turned out. I think less than $3.50 each. Gotta love scrapbook paper!
The side table in our living room is actually a fold up wooden TV tray table. It's ugly! I made this "table cloth" from a yard of fabric. The edges are even done yet. I just threw in on there and left it. I need to paint the legs of the table along with finishing the edges of the fabric. Oh well, just one more project to be finished on the list of a million .

Kid Art

Whenever I do a craft, Brinley always wants to do it with me. Most of the time I let her help me, but there are days where it would drive me crazy and I just want to get it done. So last night, I gave Brinley some cheap canvas to paint on. I had her draw out her picture... a tiger...
and then let her paint it with my acrylics. She was busy for about 2 hours. It was great. I love kid art, and I will put these on the wall in my craft room, unless she sees it, then she takes it back.
her masterpiece!
Brinley decided that I should draw her a flower to paint and she would draw on for me. Above is the one I drew for her, she asked for a sunflower. This is Binley's flower that I painted. I love it. It is now in her room. I think I will have her draw a few more, then I can make a collage with them.

Olivia Pig

For my birthday, my mom found this cast iron pig with wings for me. I love it. It sets in the hallway between my kitchen and living room. Just about everyday, Brinley either makes her something, like a hat out of paper, or brings stuff to sit by her. I was walking by the other day and saw this... these are Brinley's piggy banks. I thought it was adorable. Today, she brought her a washcloth and laid it on her...it was a little chilly this morning, she must have thought that Olivia Pig needed to be warm too. What a thoughtful child I have!
But then I go to take a picture of her, and this is usually what I get.