Why I Don't Exercise

This morning I got a wild hair and decided to take Asher and Andyn for a walk around the neighborhood. I haven't exercised in months. I know, you couldn't tell. I'm looking so thin these days ::sarcasm::. Maybe it's been a while because the last few times I've gotten this wild hair I've been on the receiving end of some terrible mojo. Many of the times that I've tried to begin an exercise program I've shortly thereafter become pregnant (you can email me privately if you want to discuss cause and effect). After having my fourth kid I'm slightly trepedatious about testing this theory. This year we celebrated New Year's with Shelley and Dave here at our home. On January 1, 2007, after eating a butt-load of biscuits and chocolate gravy (ooh! a recipe I need to share on our recipe blog), Shelley, acting out of love and concern for my length and quality of life, decided we should go for a walk. You know, start the new year off right. Most people wait until January 2. Not us. We were getting a head start on all those lazy bums! So we head out. 5 minutes into it I'm about to fall over with heart failure and Shelley sweetly asks me if I would mind if she ran up ahead to raise her heart rate? "Nooo" I say, "Not a problem!" Maybe if she did that then she wouldn't notice if I slowed down to almost a crawl! This pattern continued the length of our walk. About a quarter of a mile from home she was off on one of her escapades without me and I jokingly tried to hitch a ride with a friend and she started screaming "Oh no you don't, Fatty Fathead!" As my friend pulled away (without me in the car), I twisted my ankle and fell full force directly onto my knee. All 500 lbs of me!!!! I was in excruciating pain (both ankle and knee) and my knee looked like a package of hamburger meat! Shelley ran, of course, and got her van and life flighted me back to the house. Just in time, I might add, for Aspen to run into the house with the same hamburger knee from falling off of her bike! Needless to say I didn't exercise for many weeks. It was so bad after a couple of days that I had to go to the doctor and get an x-ray. Even in all my pain, I managed to accompany Shelley to NJ for a little house-hunting excursion. You might wonder why I would do such a wonderful thing for the woman who pretty much maimed me? She's my best friend. I would do anything for her. After my sister and I had our babies (5 weeks apart) we decided that we should probably lose some weight so started another attempt at the exercise thing. Well, she got pregnant. I stopped immediately. Today I woke up and thought "The temp is finally below 90* at 7:30 am - good day for a walk". I went to the shed, pulled out the enormous bulky double stroller and started to clean the cobwebs off. By the time it was clean enough for the kids to sit in it, I was dripping in sweat and breathing heavy. BUT I still went on a walk. We had a good time. Andyn danced the whole time to MP3's I played on my phone. Asher talked to everything we passed. I came home with 2 huge blisters on my heals thanks to the new 'no show' socks I just bought. Next time I'll just look like a dork and wear tube socks.

Now That's More Like It!

Mystery Photos

I was searching for some pictures of Shelley back when we lived in Michigan and came across an entire folder of pictures that I had never seen before. They're all of people I've never seen before. I actually got a little freaked out because I thought maybe someone had hacked into our computer and somehow inadvertently loaded some of their pictures on to our hard drive!

But then I came across this photo:

I instantly recognized this man as a former co-worker of Geoff's. So, I'm glad I know where the pictures came from but still a little freaked out. I mean, he's sharing his hamburger with a piece of paper!

Andyn's New Pastimes

I think all of my kiddos have enjoyed digging in the cabinets. Why should Andyn be an exception? This is probably her favorite thing to do. And what kid doesn't enjoy crawling around with a rocket ship hanging out of their mouth?

Memory Lane

So, we have a ton of pictures that we need to scan in (from before time of digital camera) and I was looking through them to find some good pics of the Holt Ward gang. I think I hit the jackpot. Here's one of Aubrey Alvesteffer and Aspen playing around on the keyboard. Totally cute!

Next is at Aspen's 3rd Birthday. Amber and Shelley are supervising the use of the gianormous punch balls all the kids got! The Humphrey's had just barely moved into our ward (like the day before or something) and their daughter Brookelyn was having a birthday so we invited them over along with the Dahles and the Capeners to celebrate her birthday. It was a lot of fun. Here are a few pics from that. This was our Last Hoorah at our house. The Dahles, the Capeners, the Smiths, the Humphrey's, the Clarks, the Stedmans and even our neighbors the Samborskis all came for a BBQ at our house before we moved. Probably to say good riddance! So the following slide show is pictures of that event. I'm just glad that Amber and Craig came prepared for a fire! Finally, the day we moved. When we went to Oklahoma in July, 2002 for my high school reunion Geoff took a job offer and we had exactly 3.5 weeks to sell our house, pack our things, and high tail it to Oklahoma. We had a garage sale. Finished a few 'little' home improvements (like painting our entire house - with the help of several ward members). And we sold the house in about a week and a half. Just in time to jam every last thing that we owned into a moving truck and make our way westward like the Beverly Hillbillies!

So us...

Lolly's Bday

So, my friend Laura (her nickname is Lolly) had a birthday in July and I threw her a surprise birthday party. I just realized that I never blogged about it! It was totally fun! She never even suspected it! We (my friend Carissa helped me stage it) did it the day before her birthday and we used the drive-in movie theme. Carissa's husband even set up a projector to his laptop and hung a sheet out back so that we could watch a movie. Unfortunately, it rained and we couldn't do the movie thing but we had a great time inside playing games and making ourselves sick on nachos, popcorn, candy bars and cake. Speaking of cake, it was one of the most delicious cakes that I've ever made! And it looked really cute too! Just like a bucket of popcorn!

My Latest Project

So about a year ago Shelley and I came across this vinyl lettering stuff (there are a ton of sites selling this stuff) and we talked about doing some cute phrase on one of our walls. Never happened. All talk. Then a few weeks ago our ward's enrichment night leader announced that we would be making these vinyl lettered tiles in September. To be honest I don't really like the tiles but this got me interested once again. Although, I wanted something unique. I saw an example of this on a vinyl lettering website and decided to do something like it. What do ya think?   Now, before you hit that comment button to tell me I'm missing the 'N'. I know. I have successfully picked up 5 picture frames from garage sales and have yet to find the 6th one. It's kind of funny how when you don't need anymore frames there are a million at garage sales and when you just need one - there are none. Have no fear, I will be scouring garage sales tomorrow for that last item for my masterpiece!

Dirty Microwave and Piles of Laundry

You might wonder why in the Sam Hades I might put up pictures of these two things. I'll tell ya - I'm hoping it will force me to do something about it. I, also, feel no embarrassment because I know that each and every one of you have at some point in your existence had similar microwaves and couches. If by chance you never have, please don't tell me. I might be embarrassed!Just a side note: my microwave is so dirty that when I melted butter the other day it was popping up and hitting a dirty metal piece up top and catching fire! By the way, every article of clothing on this couch is clean.

Crazy Baby

So, today I received an email from my friend Kim and it had a link to an ebay listing for pokemon cards that a mom was selling that her kids sneaked into her shopping cart. REALLY funny! You can check it out here. Anyway, this lady has a blog that I went to and read some of her posts. This laughing baby was on there so I'm posting it here.

New Fun Tool

 

I love this new fun tool that my friend Heidi told me about!!! I've used picasa since the very first version and they didn't not have 'grid' option in the collage section. But they have updated the software a couple of times and obviously added this cool feature that I was oblivious to!! Shame! I really like the slideshow option but the grid thing is especially nice if you want to print off your blog like a real journal or scrapbook and still see all the pics!

10th Year Anniversary

It really is hard to believe that we've been married for 10 years! This picture was one of our engagement photos (I have yet to digitize our wedding photos). My, have we changed. I guess everybody does. The actual date of our anniversary occurred while we were in Michigan. Sadly enough we weren't really able to do anything... no babysitter. Once we got the kids down for bed Geoff and I sat on the deck of the cabin and played a game of Parcheesi. I know, very exciting and even more romantic! But we really didn't have a lot of options. Many of my friends are taking exotic trips for their 10 year anniversaries. I hope you have a great time. We'll probably just go to Dallas - if we can find someone crazy enough to watch 4 kids!

First Day of School

The kids started school on August 9th. I know. Here in Oklahoma we start school quite a bit earlier than everybody else in the country!! It actually drives me crazy. Regardless, the kids were mostly excited for this event. Aspen started 3rd grade with Mrs. Roxane Adams as her teacher and Ainsley started 1st grade with Mrs. Rachel Shelton as her teacher. I'm very pleased with the teachers that they have. I think the girls are going to love them! I usually try to take a couple of snapshots of the special occasion and until this year had no baulking from the girls. Ainsley was perfectly fine taking a picture outside her class and with her teacher but Aspen... was not. As I'm sure you can tell from the photo. If I was as clever as many of you I would have taken pictures at home where NO ONE COULD SEE!

Mrs. T's Pierogies

Years ago when I was single and living by myself in an apartment in Tulsa a good friend of mine - Tracy Smith - came over to my place and made me homemade pierogies. Basically, they're a sheet of pasta wrapped around a potato/cheese mixture and either boiled, fried, or baked. We ate them dipped in sour cream and till we were sick to our stomachs! They were delicious! I haven't had pierogies since then but this weekend at the grocery store a box of them caught my eye in the frozen section and I just couldn't resist! Geoff and I ate the whole box yesterday! I thought I was going to be sick but they were so good. I don't think they were as good as homemade (it's been so long it's hard to remember) but they were tasty none-the-less! Out of curiosity I looked up their nutritional value, scared of what I was going to find, and was sort of surprised they didn't have more calories. Let's just say that I ate half of the 12 count box and Geoff ate the other half (in reality I maybe had one more than Geoff) that was only 380 calories! As long as I didn't eat anything else (and I didn't) the caloric intake wasn't too bad. Not as good and nutritious as a salad but not horrible either! Oh well, maybe I'll try them again in 15 years or so!

Look Out Moths...

Here she comes!  We've had a miniature invasion (of grand proportions) of pantry moths! They are driving me crazy! Anyway, Geoff got out the kids' bug vacuum and has been sucking them up whenever he sees one. This particular day Ashley got a hold of the bug vacuum and perfected the art of sucking up moths without letting any others free! I must add that just a couple of days later Geoff brought me the vacuum to illustrate the miracle of life. They had reproduced while awaiting there imminent death! Make love not war! By the way, today is this woman's birthday!! Happy 25th Ashley!

3 Girls and a Really Good Pair of Scissors

I'm such a cheapskate that I've never actually paid to have my kids get haircuts (or me for that matter). I've always just cut it myself - and done a pretty fine job if you ask me. But recently Aspen announced that she wanted a haircut like one of her friends. Something that far exceeded my expertise. So I broke down and let her go. Of course, if Aspen was going then so was Ainsley (I swear they are attached at the hip). This was the result:     Just an interesting side note - I've been messing around with PhotoShop for scrapbooking and I digitally removed an enormous red zit from the middle of my forehead! Bet ya can't tell!! I love computers!

My New Hobby... I Think

Look what I did today!! As long as I can remember I have bought cute scrapbooking supplies and dreamed of being supermom and having a scrapbook for everyone in our family! I've even attended a couple of scrapbooking "crops" but ended up just sitting around talking and not getting anything done!! Mostly because I just don't feel very creative and feel overwhelmed by the possibilities. Well, recently my dear friend Ashley turned me on to a new magazine called ShopSmart. It's put out by consumer reports and it's great. Information on everyday better buys. I love it! This last edition had an article on 'digital scrapbooking' and it peaked my interest. So, I started messing around with it and I truly believe this is the way to go!! No mess. No millions of supplies that you're not sure what do with AND have to store some where AND haul out every time you want to do a page. Also, there's a whole digital scrapbooking online world out there! THE cutest stuff!! Here are a couple that I've found that I like so far: Golden Girls and Atomic Cupcake. One of the ladies at GG has been emailing me personally to help me get started. New hobby? Maybe. Another reason to avoid housework? Absolutely!

Super Hero Cape

    Amber mentioned that she couldn't really see the cape so I snapped these for better viewing.

About me

1. Where is your cell phone? Under my pillow. Thanks for the reminder. 2. Relationship? Married 3. Your hair? Red and just cut kind of cute. 4. Work? Well, Dr Phil says that being a SAHM is like working TWO full-time jobs. And don't we all listen to him! 5. Your sister/s? One very beautiful sister and one very beautiful best friend who is just like a sister!! 6. Your favorite thing? Right now - my blog. 7. Your dream last night? All about roaches. 8. Your favorite drink? water 9. Your dream car? I'm not a car person. I like one that runs and has ac. 10. The room you’re in? Dining/living room 11. Your shoes? Barefoot 12. Your fears? that my kids will hate me 13. What do you want to be in 10 years? a better mom 14. Who did you hang out with this weekend? dad, sister, brother, lolly, pj, and most important - my son. He's now three! 15. What are you not good at? I'm not very good at keeping my great advice to myself when people don't ask for it... and excercise. 16. Muffin? Banana nut 17. One of your wish list items? to do SOMETHING for our 10yr anniversary! Let me rephrase that: a babysitter so that we CAN do something for our 10 yr anniversary tha was a month ago. 18. Where you grew up? 13yrs-Talihina, Ok / the rest of school years Poteau, OK 19. Last thing you did? did a happy dance for asher who pooped on the potty 20. What are you wearing? you don't want to know 21. What aren’t you wearing? you probably don't want to know that either 22. Your pet? Princess the Boy Cat and Hoper the fire-bellied toad 23. Your computer? is my 2nd best friend 24. Your life? seems so crazy but i'm trying to enjoy it more 25. Your mood? not grumpy - this is good for asher 26. Missing? Shelley 27. What are you thinking about right now? how much i hate these surveys 28. Your car? reliable 29. Your kitchen? mostly clean and cute painted cabinets 30. Your summer? fun packed and happy when it ended 31. Your favorite color? right now probably brown 32. Last time you laughed? last night when cleaning lolly's house 33. Last time you cried? probably aspen's baptism 34. School? just for my kiddos. i'm done - thank goodness 35. Love? rediscovering it 36. Name? Steph but most of the time "mom"

Asher's Birthday

Asher's birthday was on Saturday (He turned 3!) and he insisted on a Spider-Man birthday. Now, I really hate doing character birthdays but I relented out of sheer gratitude that he didn't want a princess party. (Which was a real possibility! -One of the cons to having all sisters) While searching through SMan cakes online I ran across one made of cupcakes and didn't like how it looked... so that's what I made. What can I say, it was easy and I was tired. Also, we made a butterfly cake out of cupcakes for a little girl in our ward who is in foster care right now and wasn't getting a party (her bday was the day before). I think hers turned out a lot better but my camera didn't take a very good picture. When we were at the Dahle's in July they had just had Lincoln's birthday and they had gotten him this really cool reversible superhero cape. Asher loved it! I wanted to get him one but I didn't want to pay what they cost so... I made one. Have I mentioned that I hate to sew? It turned out pretty good anyway. He loves it - and that's all that matters! Even Andyn can be seen wearing it at times! My Dad (+wife), Sister(+husband and kid) and Brother(+kid) all showed for his special day! My mom (+husband) even stopped by on her way through on Sunday! I don't know why but it really makes me happy when my family comes to special things for my kids! We also had some really good friends here that came. Lots of swimming. Lots of good food. Good times had by all.

Add Baby Powder to My Shopping List

As I was blogging this morning a baby fresh scent wafted past my nose. I thought to my self 'I must have put a ton of baby powder on Andyn's bootie this morning' as she sat next to me in her highchair with the fan blowing behind her. Boy, was I wrong! Asher isn't normally mischievous (tantrums - yes, mischief - not so much) so I was really shocked when I turned around to check on him and saw him covered head to toe with every last speck of baby powder! If this had happened a week ago the consequences quite possibly would have been severe! But since things have kind of calmed down around here I just grabbed the camera... then cleaned up the mess. The funny thing is that the bottle of baby powder had been in our family since Aspen was born. I don't use it very often and it was a huge bottle! I guess this would be a good time to share with you a newsletter that I subscribe to. It's by a woman named Hannah Keeley and called "The Cure For The Common Mom". She is totally inspirational. She has 7 kids and seems to have it all together but even she admits that she doesn't. Anyway, reading some of her stuff the past couple of days probably saved Asher's life this morning! Check out her website when you get a chance: The Cure For The Common Mom.

Squeaky Clean!

It's a little crazy how many baptisms have taken place in the last couple of months. Mostly my friends' kids. Well, I would like to add Aspen's to the pile of cuteness! She was baptized on July 22, 2007. Exactly 15 years and 1 day after me. Kinda neat. She was baptized along side her twin cousins - Brooke and Blair. Grandma and Grandpa Gibson haven't missed any of the grandkids baptisms so far and since Grandma isn't able to travel we took the baptisms to her. My mom made her dress. She used some left over material from my wedding dress for the top part of the dress. I'm so glad I have a mom that knows her way around sewing machine! (I know how to sew and hate it!!) The baptism was really nice. Interestingly enough, Aspen asked me to give the talk on Baptism and the twins wanted Allyson (their mother) to give the talk on the Holy Ghost. I say interesting because Aspen didn't ask her daddy to do it. She adores her dad so I was sure she would want him to do it but she didn't even hesitate. We didn't even give her any suggestions. She wanted me. It made me feel really special. Truth is that most of the time I feel like she hates me! Of course I started crying when the opening song was being sung. Allyson told me it was okay for us to cry because it was my first to be baptized and her last. So, I just kept doing it. All the way through my talk. Just kidding! I did manage to regain my composure so I could say a few things that they will never remember! Also, Aspen had to be baptized twice! She went first and I kept thinking that he was doing something wrong but I couldn't put my finger on it until Gregg (his brother) baptized one of the twins. Geoff had raised his left arm instead of his right. When Geoff and Aspen had come out of the water, I told him "I think that you did it backwards." He just whispered "It'll be our little secret" and smiled. I told him that I thought he would have to do it over. Needless to say, he had to do it over! Aspen didn't seem to mind. I think Geoff was a little embarrassed. (Just think of his embarrassment when he reads this post and realizes that all of my friends will read it!!) It was a really sweet memory to make.        

Last Word

 

8 is Enough

This picture I actually took while sitting at the edge of the boat dock. I was trying to take a picture of a fish that was swimming under my feet. (Trying to finish blogging about our trip to Michigan) After our stop in St. Louis, it was on to our destination of Hastings, Michigan. I took a ton of pictures and it's been kind of hard to cull them for the best. We were truly grateful to be able to stay at an adorable little cabin (Papa Tom's Cabin) on Algonquin Lake. It was especially neat for Geoff because he grew up going to the YMCA camp at this lake and later even working there as a Camp Youth Counselor and Water Front Director. At one point Geoff and I loaded up all the kids on the motor/row boat and motored out to "Indian Island" - an actual little island where the Y camp has a ropes course set up. We hiked it and took a couple of pictures. Here's a slide show of the lake ones that I picked out. If you click on the slide show it will take you to the album and you can read the descriptions of the pictures there. Click here to go to my picture albums. You can just look at the rest of the pictures there. If I get time this week, I will blog about what a special experience Aspen's baptism was. We were in Michigan for 8 days. We had a great time but... 8 is enough!

Geckos, Toads, and Crickets - Oh My!

 

I found this little guy in my Wal-Mart bag the other day after returning from a grocery shopping trip! To be honest, they kind of creep me out. Right now they are EVERYWHERE! (I'm not sure why - something with the weather I suppose.) Anyway, I think he hopped into my bag as I was loading the groceries into the van. Then, Friday Aspen talked me into buying a little reptile tank (purchased at a garage sale) so she could have a pet turtle, frog, lizard... anything (she's desperate for a pet). I took her to the pet store yesterday and we mulled over the all the icky possibilities and in the end she chose a fire-bellied toad.(Below) I actually thought that he was pretty cute and was just getting over the ick factor when the kid who was helping us started scooping out a dozen little crickets for us to take home to feed the critter and then informed us we should also take home a container of meal worms!! I seriously almost threw up! The lady that runs the shop was standing nearby and looked thoroughly annoyed with me! I can't help it!! Well, we brought him home and everybody gave a couple of ideas for names and then Aspen drew from them and on the paper Ainsley had written 'hoper' (she really meant 'hopper') so his name is Hoper! Ainsley informed me that she too wanted a little pet - a gecko. Fortunately for her, the gecko and toad can co-exist. Unfortunately for me, this means more crickets that I have to purchase each week!

To Post or Not to Post

I debated whether to post about this or not because of the guilt I feel from not keeping a better journal when all my other kids were babies but as Oprah says "When you know better, you do better". So, a couple of weeks ago, Andyn started saying "Dada". Of course I didn't take note of the actual day. But, TODAY she finally said "Mama". I loved it!!! It was so sweet.