Duet?

Am I crazy? I'm singing a duet in church tomorrow. Let's see... when was the last time I sang a duet? Ummm... never. But I have sung in small groups. At least it's not a solo, but heaven help me... Let's just hope I don't start crying or laughing during the middle of it. I'm remembering back to when I sang with my sisters at my brother's mission farewell. I think it was me that got emotional and started crying and I think I snorted. I can't recall exactly if that was the case, but something got us laughing. Laughing, crying, and singing at the same time doesn't work. I guess my consolation with this time is knowing that I probably sing better than 90% of our ward... there's some really good singers, but not as many as there were back in my ward growing up, so maybe it won't be as intimidating. We'll see.

Too many toys!

We bought this book today at a book fair at Nathan's school. I think I like it much more than the boys do... I can really relate, as I'm sure most of you do too, to having too many toys (we have at least 4 large rubbermaids of toys in storage right now while our house is on the market). In the story, the mom decides she's had it with all the toys and their potential "hazards" and that some must go. The boy wants to keep them all, of course. He has to try to pick at least one box full of toys. He finally gets 1 box full, but the mom finds them back all over the floor, with the boy saying, "...We can't give away this box... it's the best toy ever!" (He's riding in his new "spaceship".) Here's another part that I liked from the book - where the toys come from:

"Everyone gave toys to Spencer. Of course, his mom and dad did. But so did Grandma Bobo and Poppy and Grandiddy and Auntie Mim and Uncle Fred and Cousin Drew. They gave him toys for every holiday (even the 4th of July!) and his birthday. He also got toys from all his friends on his birthday, and on their birthdays, too, when he went to their parties! He got toys at the Drive-thru with his Kidburger, and at school for having lots of Peace Person Points, and at the dentist and the doctor when he didn't squirm. That's a lot of TOYS!"


Isn't it interesting that they get toys from other kids birthdays? The gift favors these days just aren't what they used to be. A piece of candy just doesn't cut it. (On this tangent - for Nathan's birthday, I made the superhero capes and that was their favors. One little boy was distraught at the end of the party, because he hadn't gotten his "gift bag" favor. Kids these days do expect to go home with a full bag of goodies!) It's gotten out of hand.

I also told my mom not to send the boys any more toys, at least for a while... for Valentine's Day she sent McDonald's gift cards - perfect! (We haven't used them yet, but I'm guessing we'll have some new Happy Meal toys from that.) Anyway, guess what I did today? I bought the boys a couple of new balls when we were at Wal-Mart - I should follow my own rules.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Farewell friend...

Well, we sold it today. It feels like we're saying good-bye to a good friend. We sent her off to get a new "heart". We sold her for a mere $300, but since it needed a new head gasket, we figured we better take what we can get. I can almost hear the car saying, "They just like me fer my body!" A mechanic bought her, so I think she's going to get a 2nd chance at life, keeping the body. All joking aside, we did take her for a good ride. We bought her the week before we got married, and both Alex and I learned how to drive a standard on this car. Whew! That brings back some memories... it took me a good 3 months to learn how to drive it. Poor Alex had to learn in one week and then drive it through Denver and through the mountains of CO (the week of our honeymoon). We weren't sure she would make it up some of those roads. We were a one car family in Houston, through grad school, and it came with us back to OK. We brought Nathan and Jared home from the hospital in this car. Some great memories... farewell good friend!

Oh, and I think maybe she didn't want to come to CA with us... she's an okie at heart...

great beds?

Just thought I'd ask if anyone has a really great mattress? I'm shopping around for a new queen sized mattress and thought I'd check to see if any of you have a good recommendation.

Home improvement and the "show"

We had a couple of showings this week - it was really stressful trying to get everything ready for that 1st show. (And we're still making some improvements...) Now that mostly everything is ready and I know that it has to be clean at a moment's notice, it's not so bad keeping up. We're trying out the "for sale by owner" for a little while - it has been a little weird watching people look around our house. And we get a pretty good idea right then whether they were interested or not. The first showing lasted about 1 minute - just long enough to walk into all the rooms. I don't think she was interested at all. The second show was better (although with a 30 minute warning) - they were here for maybe 20 minutes, trying to picture their furniture in our living room, asking some questions, really looking around. We'll see how it goes. I do wish they could appreciate the improvements we've made. I pulled out some pictures from 2005. The one I really want to show you is the bathroom, but it's not done yet. The countertop we ordered came in a couple of weeks ago, but they didn't get the measurements right. It was about 4 inches too long. We had to take it back and re-order it. I'll have to show you that later. Here's some pics of our home:

baby room beforebaby room now

living room before

living room now

hallway beforehallway now
bedroom before
bedroom now
our kitchen now

master bedroom

If anyone is moving into the area, we have a charming(?) 1956 home with 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, a big kitchen, a huge living room, and 1/2 an acre (which includes a nice garden area and a large shop, which is where most of our extra clutter is right now...) Oh, and we're close to everything. Alex rides his bike to work (1.5 miles). Nathan can walk to school. And we could walk to church if we had to - about 1.5 miles. And it only takes 4 minutes to get to Wal-Mart. That's important.

Stress...