From wise to dumb in a week!

I had to post this because I thought it was hilarious. There is this site that determines the reading level of your blog. You simply enter your blog address and it lets you know how smart you are, basically. We'll two weeks ago I entered my blog address and it said "COLLEGE-POSTGRAD". I was pretty happy with myself...because after entering my friends blogs (yes yours) most were undergrads. Ha, I thought! Well, just for fun last week I entered my address again. This time I was an "COLLEGE-UNDERGRAD". Hmmm. Okay. Well, today I thought I would try one last time and sure enough today I was "HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL" Do you think I gone an got dumber in a week??? Maybe naxt wek ill be en grade skool?

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A stylist's unstylish do.

I'm going to risk sounding a little snobby...but this is my opinion.
What's the first thing you notice when you go to a new hairdresser. Their hair right? You expect it to be cute, stylish, maybe with some funky highlights. You judge their abilities as a hairdresser on their own hair. (At least i do!) I mean, their expertise IS in hair after all. So i've been needing a trim. I wasn't willing to fork over $35 for a trim, so I went to one of those walk-in places, ("Anastasia's Paul Mitchell salon" if you care to know). The place was empty. (my first red flag) My hairdresser walked in from outside, absolutely reeking of smoke. She had stringy bleach blonde hair with dark roots. As she sat me in my chair I wondered if it was too late to pick up my purse and declare that i'd changed my mind. I didn't. She brushed my hair out so I had a huge afro. I sat and watched her every move, just to make sure she was just "trimming". While she was cutting my hair I asked her how she like her job. She replied, "I just wish it was busier...I have a lot of free time on my hands." (second red flag) After the cut she asked how I like it. I had to be honest, it was hard to tell with my curly hair brushed out and frizzing like crazy. I told her just that, "it was hard to tell." (i'm not a very good liar) She sent me on my way to the grocery store, huge frizzy hair and all. This morning after a wash and some product, it looks fine. But I am grateful that I was just getting a trim. The whole experience just got me thinking. For all of those "stylists" in the world. We are checking your hair out...the cuter the hair, the more clients you'll get. Sad, but true.

Another Brent creation

I know you are probably tired of me posting all of Brent's creations, but what can I say...I think they're fabulous. I found a pic of this in a magazine and asked Brent to make it. I still need to distress it, but darn it's cute. We'll try to sell it this weekend, but i'm secretly hoping no one buys it so I can have it.

Thanksgiving is over, here comes Santa Claus!

We drove down to Albany to spend Thanksgiving with my parents. Two of my sisters were there and my brother was there with his fiance. We were missing my other two sisters who were in California. It was great to get together, but we did miss you Deyce and Dawn (and family)! Brent and I were in charge of the turkey. It seems to have become a tradition on both sides of the family, for us to make our smoked turkey. It turned out deeelicious! I also made a green salad and two cheesecakes (another tradition now :) We spent the day trying to keep the kiddo's under control and even snuck in a game or two. Dinner was fabulous and of course I ate enough to feed a small army. Brent and I left the kids at my mom's and drove up to Woodburn for the outlet malls "midnight madness" sale. And madness it was....the freeway exit lane was backed up for miles. We were adventurous and tried to take the back roads...and we made it....laughing at all of the cars who were at a standstill on the freeway. The stores were packed. It seriously, was crazy. But I did score a cute jacket at the columbia store for $50 off. The one I bought is green, and very cute.

I also scored a fleece jacket, so I don't have to steal Brent's anymore. Notice that we bought nothing for the kids! We left around 1:30 in the morning, cars were still at a standstill on the freeway. I think we'll be skipping this sale next year! To make things even crazier, we got home at 2, then got up at 5:30 to head to target. You know you have to take advantage of the no kid situation! I am happy to report that we have all of our Christmas shopping done for the kids. Target had some great sales and plenty of everything. It was fun to shop with Brent and no kids.
The only downer of Thanksgiving was that Claire came down with thrush. She hadn't been sleeping well at night and was sucking on her bottles kind of funny, I thought she just had a cold, but I finally figured out what was wrong with her on Thanksgiving morning. Of course her doctor's office was closed for a four day holiday. So we gave a doctor friend from Albany a call, and he was able to call a prescription in for us. Thank goodness for good friends...I'm sure he loved taking care of our medical problems...but we were very grateful.
This week will be busy prepping for our craft fair this Friday. We'll update you on how it goes! Can you believe it's the Christmas holiday season already! Happy Holidays everyone!

Loved this book!

I love to read, so much that sometimes everything around me is neglected, just so I can finish those last 20 pages. I am always on the lookout for a great book, so I thought I would post those that i've recently read, and enjoyed. I just finished "Falling Leaves"- By Adeline Yen Mah this week. It is a memoir of her life as an unwanted daughter. She was mistreated, unloved, and neglected. It is sad, but amazing how she triumphs. It is one of those books that makes you look at your own life and realize how blessed you are. I really loved it. I also came across a blog called "Good clean reads", the address is www.goodcleanreads.blogspot.com.

Just venting

So I went to Michael's craft store last week...that makes the date around Nov. 6th. They had a huge section of Christmas stuff, a little annoying, but i'm okay with that. I have no problem with people buying Christmas decorations early. But what really got me, was that the store was playing Christmas music over their intercom. I mean really???? Christmas music on November 6th...just kind of bugs me. Saturday I went for a walk and saw two houses putting up Christmas lights. And today driving through downtown Salem, I noticed that the Christmas wreaths and "seasons greetings" signs were already up on the light posts. Can't we just enjoy Thanksgiving first? The unspoken rule should be, no Christmas music, no lights, no decorations until the day after Thanksgiving. (okay, i'll allow it on Thanksgiving day, if you're really antsy) But seriously people....it takes a bit of the specialness (is that a word) out of Christmas when you start celebrating it in July!

Brent's bulletin board

Someone in our ward asked Brent is he could make them a bulletin board with a black, distressed frame. This is how it turned out. I think it's pretty cute!

Veterinarian's Day

Malia was cute this morning. It is really cold, windy and stormy outside. Malia looked at me and said, "Mom, this isn't a very good veterinarian's day is it?" I bet all of those veterinarian's out there wish they had their own day. :)

Ditto designs

Brent and I have been busy making some crafts for the Linn county Christmas bazaar, the week after Thanksgiving. This picture shows just a few of the things we have made. It should be interesting....we may leave having sold nothing...or everything. You just never know?? If we sell nothing, you all know what you're getting for Christmas!
This weekend we scored some OSU football tickets from my sister. (Thanks Kaysha!) Brent and I had so much fun...it was freezing, but fun. To make things even better the beavs won! Walking through campus to get to the stadium brought back so many good memories. The game started at 7pm and didn't get over until 11:30pm...so by the time we gathered up the kids (from my mom's) and drove home it was 1:00 in the morning. So we were all tired and a bit grumpy today. But it was worth it!

Halloween

I need to get with the program and post my Halloween pics. For FHE on monday we carved pumkins...or rather, Brent and I carved pumpkins. The kids lasted about 10 minutes and then we ended up putting a movie on for them so we could finish the carving. This year Malia wanted to be a witch, Jacob was spiderman (along with the other 964,435,434,575 others), and Cole ended up as a pirate. We literally threw his costume together at 5:30 Halloween night. We were bummed our ward didn't have a party this year...so no need for costumes until the day of. The kids had a great time trick-or-treating. Our neighborhood is great, there are SO many kids out, that it turns into a big block party. It was a fun night. Now we have enough candy to last us until next Halloween.

I bet you wish you had "Claire Hair"

(Click on the picture so you can see the close up...)
People pay a lot of money for products that make their hair spikey. Claire is one of the lucky few who will not have to fork over money for these products. Check out this picture...paying close attention to her hair. No, we did not rub her hair with a balloon, it always looks like this. The other day I overheard a lady say "look at the static in that babies hair." I think it is too cute!

Things have been really busy. Just with life in general. I spent the last few days making four different cheesecakes and three cakes for a special young womens activity. I have to admit, I had rave reviews on the cheesecakes...but I only had one sliver of one...so I was bummed I didn't get to try them all. I made a white chocolate raspberry, chocolate turtle, chocolate chip, and pumpkin. YUM!

I still haven't posted the kids' Halloween pics...I promise i'll do it soon!.