Chillin with the Skillins - seriously, Grant stole a coat!

Katie and her kids were kind enough to watch Grant the other day while I went to work (more about that below the pictures).  I guess shortly after Grant got there, he got his hands on Drew's coat and put it on... upside down, and kept it on the entire time he was there.  Katie snapped some pictures of it - even got Grant to pose so she could get a shot of the back where the hood fit perfectly over his little bum!

 

Ahhhh so cute!  Thanks for getting these pictures Katie!

In other news this week, I found a job!  It's in a construction subcontractor's office and it's really close to home.  Finally!!!  It's been such a big answer to so many prayers.  I went in for a few hours last week just to get a feel for things and to help take care of some work that had been piling up.  I'll start full time tomorrow.  I'm a little excited to be able to use some of these skills again.

My only regret is leaving Grant with someone else.  That part always brings some tender feelings to the surface.  I just keep telling myself that life is life and I'm going to do the best I can with the situation.  Much love to you all!

The Gang's All Here!

Another of Mother's dreams came true on February 25th.  Britt was flying in from her Island Paradise for a conference and made it possible for Grant and me to come home as well so we could have the whole family together again.  It's the first time in about 2 years (the last being Christmas of '06, but Cash Man wasn't even there yet).

Britt arrived at SFO a few hours before Grant and I arrived in Oakland.  She scooped us up and we headed home.

  

As Britt bragged about on her blog, she had found a CRAZY sale on Target brand jeans out in the RMI ($1.50 / pair) and had bought a pair for each of us.  These might be the only photos we ever have of Mom wearing REAL jeans.  I was surprised that we got her to wear them in the first place, but it was so fun!  My favorite quote from the evening was when she said, "It's like being squeezed to death WHILE feeling like your pants are falling off!"  Never have I heard such an accurate description of the styles these days!

My 2nd favorite quote was when Britt said (out of Mom's earshot), "Mom lived through the 70's!  She can't say she's never worn tight fitting clothes before!"

(Ah how I love blogging - where I can narc on my siblings for something they JUST said, yet somehow it kinda sounds like a confessions from YEARS ago so nobody can get in trouble for it... Britt, let me know if Mom gets mad ok?)

  

Britt spent as much time as she could playing with her nephews.  I was excited to see how the cousins would do around each other - thinking that they'd be little pals, but that first day proved to be otherwise.  I'm sure you can see it in both their faces in the picture above, but they sized each other up, realised that they'd be competing with each other for attention from the same group and promptly claimed ownership on anything they didn't really want to share.  They eventually warmed up to each other as the days passed and one evening while at our parents house, I saw them together on the floor playing with a train.  Grant was saying and signing "train" like he was trying to teach Cash.  Cash just giggled and kept playing.

I wasn't quite sure how the 3 of us fit on the couch together, but as Britt later pointed out to me I was laying on top of her, taking up most of the room.  Britt, that's the price you pay for precious sibling physical bonding!  You know I'll squish you anytime, anywhere!  That's how much I love ya!

  

The second night that we were in town, we got together for the first family dinner.  Uncle Clay had quite a knack for distracting Grant who was in a bit of a bad mood.  I'll love these pictures FOREVER!

  

After dinner our friend Nancy came over to snap a few family pictures.  What you see here are photos Mom took with our cameras while we were posing for Nancy.  I'll post her pictures as soon as they're available.

  

Grant got his fare share of spoiling from his Grandparents, Aunts and Uncle.  This was his first experience with licking the brownie bowl, and I'm sure it won't be his last.

One of his favorite features at Gr'ma & Papa's house was the piano.  Any chance he got, he was testing out just how much sound he could get out of it.

  

On Friday evening we stopped by Trader Joes and Britt found Grant a kiddie cart.  I don't think Grant has EVER had that much fun shopping.  He was a pretty good little cart handler, even if he wanted to run more than walk.

  

On Saturday evening we had the second and final family dinner.  While I'm sure Mom was hoping for some sweet family dinner pictures, her children made sure that our true personalities shone through.  Cammie posed for the pizza bite and I was trying to, but at the last minute, my food fell in my lap.

We all went to church together on Sunday (at least to Sacrament Meeting) before Britt, Grant and I headed back to the airport for our departure.  As we were all in the bathroom changing into our traveling clothes, Mom managed to snap one last picture of her girls.  Looking at that picture, I can't help but think, "We're sisters?!  How did we all end up with such unique looks?!"

While it probably wasn't the most choice setting for a photo (with the pink and white bathroom tile that EVERYBODY knows from the Stake Center in the background) I love that usually the quirky memories are the most fun and often held the most dear.

What a WONDERFUL weekend it was!

I LOVE WYOTK!

No, that's doesn't stand for New Kids on the Block, you dummie, that'd be NKOTB...

It stands for What You Ought To Know and it's an AWESOME website.  Ok so I'll admit that I'm stealing it from Cullen and Clay's blog.  Cullen had put up a link to a funny Prop 8 video and I fell in love with the site.  I've spent way too much time watching all of their videos.  It's a pair of brothers, Jed (camera guy) & Brett (the face) Winn, that post a clip once a week about something that we ought to know.  Ok so some of the things they talk about are NOT going to change your life, but they are incredibly interesting and I LOVE their sense of humor!  They could be talking about the most serious of political subjects, the proper way to cook bacon, or how to play the Digeridoo, and you're going to find me laughing every time. 

I love their style, their timing and their wit.  It just works!

Does it sound like I have a non-celebrity, celebrity crush?  Yes, yes I do, but it's a crush on their combined personality, writing skills and Brett's comedic timing so it's not like I'm lusting and that makes it ok.....   

ALRIGHT?! 

Enjoy this week's show: 

Bailout!  Bailout!

(look for the link over there on the right hand side - it's there to stay)

If you liked that one, here's some of my other favorites:

Noodle Sword Ballerinas (Christmas gift idea)

Propeller Whirlies (another Christmas gift idea)

Veggy People

Language Guide

Women

Little Piggies

Me, Myself and I

Irony

I'll leave the list at that.  Hopefully I've sparked a new favorite site for yall and maybe a new non-celeb, celeb crush (wipe up your drool, they're mine) but regardless, I bet I just helped you waste an hour with laughter!

January Snow Day!

Grant and I went to Sugarhouse Park the other day to play in the snow.  It had been one of our favorite places to play in the Spring and Summer, but it had just been too long and we couldn't wait for the seasons to change.

Grant would wander off and explore a little bit and then would run back to me and we'd snap a picture or he'd try to get me to chase him, which in the foot of snow on the ground wasn't an easy thing for either of us!

Grant decided that he wanted to take his hat off.  Wasn't the wisest choice in my opinion, but I figured he'd learn about getting cold pretty quick.  I was wrong.  You'll see how in the video below.  He decided to put his head in the snow, then rub snow on it, and STILL kept his hat off for the rest of the time we were at the park.  I guess THAT'S why God gave us mothers!  Because we'd never wear our hats in the snow otherwise (Mom, it's all starting to make sense - I really might have died if you hadn't made me take a coat with me all those times :p).

How sweet huh!  Riiiight, look below.  You see how he's leaning down to grab something in the picture on the left?  It was a handful of snow that he threw in my face!  WHERE is he learning this stuff?!?! (don't answer that)

We made snow angels (Grant's is on the left, mine is on the right), but if you look close enough, you can see that if I had brought my right arm down (yes we were making them at the same both at the same time), I would have been bopping my baby on the head so I'm just a one winged angel this year.  I'm ok with that though.  Grant also made sure that he helped contribute to the frozen moisture on the ground.

I've never been much of a photographer, but I saw some beautiful things that day and managed to capture them.

There was one amazing moment when the sun came out and made everything sparkle.  The kind of sun burst that looks like rays from heaven.  Simply amazing!

Overall it was a magnificent day!  SO much fun with the Little Rascal!

Random Tid Bits

Like mother, like son!  The other night while reading books before bedtime, I noticed Grant was sitting like this, and had to grab the camera.  There's a picture of mine doing the SAME pose while reading one of my books.  I believe I was copying the way my dad would read the paper.

I managed to catch a video of Grant making different animal sounds.  It's a shame I couldn't get him sounding like a horse.  He says, "eeeeehehehehehehe" and it makes me laugh every time.  Sadly, I didn't, but trust me, hearing him imitate a sheep is pretty cute anyway!

While watching Signing Time today I noticed that Grant was trying to sing along with the song at the end.  He was saying the last words of a phrase and trying to sign along.  At one part, he totally gave it his all and it almost sounded like he was just yelling, but he really was trying to sing.  The poor kid seems to be TOTALLY tone deaf, but it made this Mama's spirits soar!

Girl, Get Your Scarf On!

This post is a little late, but it's finally up!  If you noticed the little picture over on the right hand side of my blog you might have been wondering what it was all about.  My friend Katie told me about a scarf exchange that was posted on someones blog.  We all signed up to participate and then we got matched with someone else and sent each other scarves.  

Erin from Illinois is my scarf buddy.  I sent her the following:

And she sent me this one!

Thanks Erin!  I don't think I even told you that my favorite color was purple!

Wine Country Christmas

Christmas morning... my eyes pop open and I see.....


Ahh how I love my hometown! I can totally live without a white Christmas. A few more pictures out the bedroom window where I was staying...





On Tuesday night my parents, brother, sister in law, nephew, sister, sister's boyfriend, and I set out with hymn books in hand with the intention of caroling to some of our friends. We ended up only subjecting one family to our surprise singing and we visited with them for a bit. Then we went to find a few houses that had been rumored to have amazing light displays. We hit the jackpot with the first house we went to. We even ran into a lady from the ward I grew up in, while "ooing" and "ahhing" over the electric bill that this guy was going to have. It won't embed the video, but there's a link to a video of it HERE.

(Cash & Clay --- Honor)

On Christmas Eve, we congregated at the home where Cammie was house sitting, added my sister in law's parents to the bunch and had a lovely dinner. We watched the MOTAB Christmas special on PBS and sat and talked/laughed before opening Christmas socks from my mom.


(Dad & Mom --- Mom & Honor --- Cullen with her camera)


(Cammie, Cash & Mom --- Cammie being sly & Honor being oblivious --- Cam & Honor being ADORABLE!)


(Cam, Honor & JP's intrusion --- Dad & Honor lounging --- Cammie, Honor & Clay working on his Wallace face)

Cammie and I slept in on Christmas morning before spending the day at Mom & Dad's playing Yahtzee and watching movies. That evening, everyone else descended on our day of vegging and we had a family dinner.

(Our sprawling family --- Cammie & JP being entertained by Clay --- Clay entertaining Cash and the rest of us)

JP did a magic show for us (he's amazing!) that ended with our card being stuck to the roof... I think it's still up there. Poor Mom doesn't know what to do without any of her REALLY tall children left at home to help out.




We were determined to get a family picture. JP took one or two, but then we tried to get some with him in it and Cullen was deemed the timer setter on the camera. As you can see, she didn't always make it back in time to pose. Of course we couldn't pass up making fools of ourselves.





Ahhh a lovely Christmas Day! Friday was spent having lunch with my mother and my dear friends Nancy and Vickie. Then I ran some errands with Cullen and Cash and finished things up with pizza back at their house with Clay while we watched YouTube videos. If you know Clay, you know it's one of his favorite things to do. It's called "Mitchell Quality Time".



I hope that all of your weeks have been as enjoyable as mine was. Happy Holidays!