cousinpalooza

sisters! sisters! there were never such devoted sisters!

my darling sister came and visited me. it was the BEST WEEK. 

she played with my kids. she cleaned. she played music. she wore the sequin blouse. 

the babies became fast friends. for about a week afterward blythe was so lonely for cousin june. they were best cousins. 

they played. they crawled. they ate crackers off the floor. 

the best thing about heather is that she's up for anything. we made a weekly schedule and listed all the things we had to do and what we wanted to do. we even got lofty and wrote down a few craft projects that we didn't even get close to starting. because we don't even LIKE crafts! we went running together. we made fun of  people from our childhood. we figured out what is wrong with everyone but us. 

this baby likes pushing her own buggy.

 heather feeding june food that she already chewed up. mama bird to baby bird. (not really)

and as much fun as the twin cousins had together, there sure was lots of screaming.

and we ATE! take that myfitnesspal!!! the amount of calories consumed would make that app explode. 

grilled pimento cheese and broccoli salad. and whatever heather had.

the best thing i've ever made:

crownies. brownies with cookies baked on top with milk chocolate chips, m&ms and peanut butter m&ms.

and the worst thing i've ever made:

this was the hottest, most spiciest chicken breading ever. heather choked down 4 bites so that she wouldn't hurt my feelings. i got two bites in and one big bites of fried breading and i about died. we didn't recover for a full 24 hours.

and random tidbits and quotables:

heather's active bowel

artisphere. probably the most work for so little fun. too many kids, too few parents.

i actually can't remember what was happening here:

post running baby breakfast

controlled chaos:

things that will only make sense to heather and me:

heather- "weird, weird, no one likes, jorts. the end.

heather- "do you remember the time mom ate david's thrown up peppperoni?"

heidi- "voop"

reagan- "Pig, i mean, Mom?"

heidi- "gene haynes"

scarlett- "do you choose the devil or do you choose God? i choose God."

the best mother's day gift ever amen

i happened upon the best mother's day gift ever. i had just returned home from taking my sister to the airport and i walked into the front hallway and noticed that my vacuum and floor shark were pulled out of the closet. i was about to be annoyed at the children when i noticed who the real culprit was.

my dearest love, thomas, was deep cleaning the front staircase. he looked at me and said, "happy mother's day". there is no better gift than service. for the past month he hasn't been getting home from work until around 11 o'clock at night and he chose to spend a good chunk of his precious saturday doing this for me. he could have bought me pretty much anything under the sun and it wouldn't have meant as much as this gift of cleaning. he just gets me. i especially hate and despise cleaning the stairs. until today, i had forgotten that the carpet could be so clean. 

so handsome. look how he handles that shark like he was born doing it. i'll add carpet cleaning extraordinaire to his lengthy resume of home economical skills, right next to master cookie sheet scrubber(so that all the baked on non-stick spray comes off) and the ultimate curtain rod hanger. 

beautiful! 

happy mother's day to me.

ye olde garage sale

a large part of being a parent is doing things that you really don't want to do, but since everything sounds fun to kids and nothing sounds fun to a mom who will be doing the majority of the work, we end up appeasing kids so they can have good memories and we can clean out our goodwill boxes. for example, having a garage sale. it's a parental rite of passage. the kids have been begging to have one but they haven't really wanted to give up any of their junk, so our garage sale was mostly 5 years worth of goodwill clothing. cleaning out the goodwill box is a really great exercise to remind you 1. to not shop impulsively, 2. to not buy something simply because it is on the clearance rack and 3. to never expect your hips to be the same after having a baby because you will be sorely disappointed. that pretty much puts all those items of clothing that meet those criteria on the chopping block. finally, i recall when my family had a garage sale when i was about 11, i calculated that i would make a whopping $80 with how strategically i had priced my items for the sale(because, who wouldn't want my stuff???). imagine my disappointment when i made only a paltry $3. so, that was a deterrent. nevertheless, i made a new goal of making enough to pay a babysitter for date night and having loads of fun with the kids and i plunged forward into garage sale oblivion.

1. prep

2. finished product(i knew all that time doing merchandising at the BYU bookstore would FINALLY come in handy.)

3. my unhelpful helper

4. scarlett is a born salesperson. every person that wandered down our driveway was greeted with, "COME  BUY SOME COOKIES AND BROWNIES FROM ME!" and it worked because she sold out rather fast.

5. i did tear up a few time having to part with blythe's baby clothes. 

6.i naturally had major issues parting with much of my clothing even though much of it had been in my goodwill box for so long. i just hate wasting money and i always try and convince myself that maybe i can revive some of my bad decision or unloved clothing and love it again. 

7. capitalism at it's best.

'

*none of it was marked otherwise. being married to a lawyer, i felt like i had to add that caveat for safe keeping.

final tally, $71. not bad. and then i dumped the rest at goodwill that afternoon. 

the end.