Date List!

This is for Carolina. I hope you get some use out of this, and may I suggest a "babysitting co-op"? At least until Sophie can put her shirt on without help. (insert surreptitious wink)

I mentioned that Mark and I banged out a list of 100 date ideas last week, as part of our ad hoc anniversary activities. We actually wrote ours each on a 3x5 card, and made a deck, so we can pick one out of the middle or off the top, and be all spontaneous and surprised by what our option is.

Since I think everyone can benefit from the free flow of idea sharing, I'm posting our ideas here for you. And I would truly enjoy any additions to the list that you can contribute, please leave your vague or specific thoughts in the comments.

Some of this stuff might sound un-fun or super boring to you, but we both liked everything we wrote down. Don't judge until you give it a shot.

In no particular order:

Learn a new game
Do something silly
Write poetry together (good or bad)
Cook a new recipe together
See a new movies
Go out for ice cream
Try something new
Have a long talk (pick topic in advance, or just let it flow)
Visit lonely people
Read a book together
Service project
Penny walk
Write a short story
Plan a vacation
See an old movie
Talk a walk
Go someplace new
Help someone else have a night out (babysit for them or whatever)
Dinner with friends
Go out to dinner
Moonrise or sunset
Take a hike
Research something together
Read & discuss current events
Read & discuss patriarchal blessings
Picnic
Brainstorming
Visit an art gallery or museum
Do something we've been putting off
Paint something (either art or furniture or whatever)
Write letters (missionaries, our future selves, our children, parents, whatever)
Take a nap together
Attend a play
Attend a concert
Go for a scenic drive
Visit friends
Making out
Camping out
Dinner theater
Craft or shop project
Work on the vehicles together (so I can learn more stuff about cars, plus I like working w/ my honey)
Poetry reading (with or without the bongo drums)
Hunting or fishing
Learn phrases in a new language
Plan a project
Surprise someone (presumably with a good surprise)
Visit an historical place
Go to a bed & breakfast
Fix stuff together
Meditating
Write personal history (either joint or separate)
Read jokes and maybe learn some new ones
Yard work/landscaping together
Design something
Contact old friends
Meet new people
Explore a new technology
Play in a fountain
Visit the city (pick a city)
Take a class
Home improvement "window shopping"
Choose & study a gospel topic
Shooting guns (yes, I would enjoy that, actually)
Temple night or weekend
House planning
Day dreaming
Listen to music
Nature walk
"Five Facet" review for each other
"Five Facet" review for the children
Problem solving (personal problems, world problems, everything in between)
Massages
Organize something
Backyard fireside time
Fondue (cheese or chocolate, alone or w/ friends, at home or at a restaurant, whatever)
Yard planning (landscaping! I'm kind of obsessed with it, can you tell?
Read about sex together (hey, we're married, we have seven kids, don't be so shocked)
Listen to a General Conference talk or a Devotional
Star Gazing
Deep cleaning project (sometimes it's more fun to do it together)
Make a treat together
Bear testimony to each other
Learn new nutrition information & concepts
Sing together
Budget evaluation
Do genealogy together
Financial planning (long term, monthly budget, how much to spend on Christmas, whatever)
Midnight rendezvous
Menu planning
Study early Church doctrine
Random act of kindness (planning randomness = irony?...possibly)
Teach each other something new (be a good student, and take turns!)
"Pay it forward" (whatever that means to us on that given day)
Dancing
Worst case scenario contingency planning
Learn to sing specific harmony together
Work on our web pages together
Game night with friends
"What if" speculation
Make art at a studio

There you have it 100 date ideas brought to you by the heads of the House of Phogles. Anything to add to the list?

Smile, Sniffle

I grew up in Utah, on the Wasatch Front. I came of age steeped in Mormon culture and cliches and traditions. It didn't take me very long to get cynical and jaded. I remember as an older teen, rolling my eyes at what I thought was cheesy and syrupy and narrow...Lex de Azevedo, Janice Kapp Perry, Michael McLean; all totally overdone.

Today, I pulled up YouTube, and have been revisiting my Mormon syrupy roots. Each of these songs makes me smile, and some of them make me tear up, and I love it. I want to introduce each of these to my kids, and play them over and over. They're classic. I mean, I can still remember the over-played, over-done phenomenon, but I can see more clearly why people wanted to do and re-do and over-do the songs. Maybe it's because I don't live in Utah anymore, and I have to actively seek this sort of thing, as opposed to having it crammed down my throat. Whatever it was then, whatever it is now, this music makes me feel warm and fuzzy and good.

So, I'm listening and sniffling, and loving every cheesy moment of it (listening, mind you, not watching the videos...I can't be held responsible for someone else's schmaltzy slideshow).


"One of the Ninety and Nine" by Michael McLean


"The Test" by Janice Kapp Perry


"Names" by Cherie Call


"No Ordinary Man" by Janice Kapp Perry


"I Heard Him Come" by Afterglow


"You're Not Alone" by Michael McLean


"It Passes All My Understanding" by Cherie Call


"Oh, My Soul Hungered" by Kurt Bestor


"I Cannot Find My Way" by Micheal McLean

(and, pretty much all of the Forgotten Carols)

"A Child's Prayer" by Janice Kapp Perry


"Be That Friend" by Michael McLean

And I can't forget this one:


There. Now you can have your own little sniffle fest. Or roll your eyes. I don't care. I'm enjoying myself

Made the Cut

Aurora cut her first tooth today! I mean, her teeth have been coming and going for weeks now, but one finally made it through. So, hooray for Aurora. And no more chewing my chin, sweetie. Here she is, with her own personal iceberg of custom crushed ice (thank you, Hyrum!) to soothe her poor gums.

And here she is (a couple of days prior) having her first go at vanilla pudding. She started out with a bowl and spoon, but pretty soon she was eating it with both fists. More pudding made it to the tray than her mouth, so she tossed the bowl (and spoon) and just played in it, licking her fingers frequently for good measure. She laughed and wrinkled her nose and snuffled like she does when she is very pleased with herself.

The other children were laughing so hard they almost forgot to eat their own pudding. Almost. She started laughing back at us, and rubbing her hands on her face and in her hair (she likes to pose when she knows we are all paying attention to her).

I had to put an end to the good times when she started enthusiastically smacking her pudding puddle and splattering everything around her, specifically me. It's kind of sad that she's almost ten months old and this is about only the fourth or fifth time she's had to play with "people" food and try out its skin care qualities. I'm so negligent. Breastfeeding is just too easy.

Anyway, we plucked her out of the pudding, and hustled her upstairs for a bath. She was mad, though, hollering all the way through her bath. Either it was really close to nap time, or she didn't want us messing with her vanilla-coated goodness.

But yes, a new tooth. Congratulations, Aurora. Have some more ice.

ANNIVERSARY!

OH MY GOODNESS! Has it really been fifteen years? It really has. I think the time-space continuum is broken. Sometimes it crawls along at a barely discernable pace, and sometimes it just whooshes past, too fast to even blink.

On Wednesday, Mark and I celebrated our fifteenth wedding anniversary. It's a busy time of year at work for him, so we couldn't just take off and hole up in a b&b somewhere, like we wanted. But he took an extended lunch break, and we drove out to the country with our Chinese takeout.

And we had a picnic. All by ourselves. No toddlers or teenagers. Or even the obligatory "how is everything?" from the waiter. Just shade and song birds and schmoopsey us. It was perfect. 

No sweet and sour sauce, though. This is Mark testing the duck sauce, to see if it will do in a pinch. Apparently, it tasted amusing funny. 

And would you believe that in fifteen years, we've never done the cliche took-it-ourselves couples portrait? Well, we fixed that.

And then it was back to work for him, and domesticity for me. 

But wait! He completely surprised me by playing hooky from Mutual activities. He kissed me good-bye and took Hyrum to the church, and just as I had given myself over to running the home on my own for the evening, he walked back in the door. Ha! I didn't even see it coming.

We left Gabba in charge, and left. What did we do? Nothing daring or phenomenal. We ran a couple of errands, saw a couple of friends, watched the clouds and the sunset. And then ended up at Sonic for shakes.

It was a beautiful evening - especially for August! No bugs, balmy breezes. We sat and held hands and made jokes and talked shop and reminisced. It was wonderful. The truth is that I don't care what we do or where we go, just as long as I get to hang out with him.

Also, we bought a pack of 100 blank 3x5 cards, and daydreamed up our own "date deck," which is 100 different ideas of what we can do on a date. I was impressed, because we didn't have to really strain our brains until after the first 60 ideas. And it didn't get hard until the last fifteen or so. 

So now we have a stack of fun and interesting things we can do on a date, because Friday often finds us totally wanting to go out and do something, but too brain dead to figure out what "something" is. You should try this. It's fun. And if you want our list, I may just post it in the near future...nothing too personal to share. I mean, come on. We've been married fifteen years. How risque can it be? 

Because this is completely risque, right? Here I am, modeling the shake lids from both our drinks. There were two of them, and they fit very nicely over my ears, so I thought I would try them on.

Do I spend too much time around little children? It's possible. Who cares, we enjoy ourselves. Even if no one else gets our jokes, we think we're funny. And here's to, like, eighty-five more years being silly and schmoopsey. I love you, Mark Galbraith!

Duct Tape Butt

You know that adage? "If it moves but shouldn't, use duct tape. If it should move, but doesn't, use WD-40." What catchy little proverb can you come up for when you're doing a service project with the youth and the entire right half of your pants seat gives up on you?

It's very generous of Sister Atkin to provide the duct tape. That stuff is expensive. Too bad she didn't have it in zebra stripes.

Guess Who Came To Dinner?

Yesterday afternoon, there was a knock on my front door. This is unusual, because everyone who knows us knows to come to the back door. We are not formal front entry people. The only ones who knock on the front door are sales people and the utility guys. So when I glimpsed a shortish, youngish man through the front door window, I braced myself for politely but firmly declining whatever he was selling.

Instead, I opened the door and found this person:

Holy cow! There was a Jacob Huyck on my front porch! I squealed (yes, I did) and gave him a huge hug. Jacob and I haven't seen each other in almost twelve years...or five children, depending on how you measure the passage of time. He and I were the best of friends all the way up until he left on a mission and I got married. I mean, we were still friends, but we didn't hang out, and then time went on and life got busy. I had children, he got married, they had twins, he graduated from college, I had more children, they had more children, they moved to Florida... you get the idea. But we keep in touch. And he's friends with my husband, and I really like his wife.

So when their summer vacation route was re-routed - the only thing for which I can thank the Missouri river flooding - right past my town, they stopped in.

It was great!. Their five kids got to run wild and free for a couple of hours after being in the van all day, we got to talk and catch up and tell old jokes. Mark ordered pizza so I wasn't stuck in the kitchen preparing dinner instead of visiting in the living room. More running and freedom. Part of me was tempted to panic and feel all self-conscious because my house is really neglected (perhaps I am on an extended stay-cation?). As I invited them all in, I said to Melinda, "I would apologize for the house, but I have seven kids, so I don't have to apologize." She smiled. As the mother of four rowdy boys and one toddler girl, I am pretty sure she "gets" neglected house syndrome. And Jacob doesn't care. He's a guy, and he came from a big homeschooled family, too.

It was so incredibly nice to see them, and meet their kids - yes, it's been that long - and just, well, visit. And already my little brain is scheming on how to go visit Florida and hang out with Huycks again.

Maximum Capacity

Oh my, how full my life is! This summer has been ... wait, "has been"? It's not over yet! How come we're already in sack cloth and ashes, mourning the end of summer? August isn't even half over. Just 'cause school is looming doesn't mean we're done, does it? Totally not.

A-hem. Where was I?

Oh yes. My summer has been so full of fun and interesting and amazing stuff. I feel like my head and my heart have reached maximum capacity, and if I try to cram anything else in, it would be messy. Maybe painful.

I have been M.I.A. in BloggerLand because I've been busy living my life. Also, I've been competing with my kids for computer time. Oh, and it's hard to type while I hold my squirmy, chubby nugget of a baby. Whatever. But today I have several things I really really want to share before they fall out of my brain. Because I have a brain like a spaghetti sieve: it holds the big stuff, but little things get lost all the time.

Anyway, here is the list of awesomeness, brought to me by so many of my amazing friends and family. Thank you all for giving me so much brain food and so many reasons to get lost on "Teh Interwebs." (commence shared link overload)

From Natalie, who shared the fabulous site I Share Printables. Oh me, oh my, I need more printer ink! My favorite one right off the bat was this one from It Works For Me!

And so you know, the enthusiastic and talented Les at {Words of Me Project} is having another amazing giveaway. Go enter it. The stuff she is handing out is glorious. You should probably follow her. You won't regret it.

Can I brag about the photographer we found for our family reunion? Well really, my s-i-l found her, because they are actual friends in real life. Samantha from Woolsey Photography was just wonderful. Being available with only five days advanced notice is the least of her qualifications. Good gracious, what a patient, talented lady! She managed to take our entire group and get us all facing forward at the same time.

Oh my goodness. And she took about 900 pictures (not an exaggeration). I can't tell you how wonderful it was to have our own personal paparazzi for two whole hours. Everyone got to play AND we have pictures to show for it. Heavenly.

The reunion was also heavenly, you should know. It's the reason I fell off Blogger Planet. But I'm back. More to follow.

Also, I made cookies today. Twice. And we ate them. All. OK, we shared with friends, coworkers and fellow board members, but still. Have you ever had Grace's Best sunflower seed cookies?

I never buy cookies at the store, but there was this one time they had them out for free samples.

Beware evil grocery store samples.

I was hooked in one bite. So, so tasty that I hate to complain about how small they are, or how few there are in a bag, or how pricey they seem to be. I've splurged on them several times, only to regret it just as soon as the bag is empty. So I read through the ingredients (uhm, they're healthy), thinking I could try to recreate the magical yumminess. But I'm just too lazy. I checked out CopyKat's recipes to see if she had anything. I ended up at Yum, where there is even more amazing stuff. I want to try all of it. I shouldn't be allowed on recipe blogs, because I go a little crazy. Maximum capacity, indeed! Anyway, Sherri from Yum has cracked the Grace's Best code, and posted it for all the world to love and binge upon. Again, I recommend you give it a try. Although, you may (or may not!) regret it.

I did learn that Grace's cookies have their own cult facebook page. I'm not the only one addicted. I just dare you to Google Grace's sunflower cookie recipe, and all manner of copycat attempts pop up. I will not try them all. I will not try them all. I. Will. Not. Try. Them. All.

By the way, happy birthday, Georgie Lynn! Love you, sis.

There is more. Of course. There is always more. But if I don't draw a line and publish this post, I am going to just go on and on forever. So. OK. Publishing.