Ahhhh my 31st birthday

Today, January 9th, is my 31st birthday.  It doesn't feel special at all.  Not because people haven't made it a special time, (because I've had a blast this weekend which I will tell you about in a minute) but because I have realized that your actual birth day doesn't mean very much.  I think that instead of celebrating your birthday, you should throw a party every time you change for the better or learn a life lesson or accomplish something great.  I want to send out an invitation to a party that reads "Come to my party celebrating 40 pounds lost!" or "I've just learned a major life lesson involving tears and many sleepless nights- give me presents."  LOL  But really, we make it easier by celebrating each year in hopes that you've done something with the last 365 days to better yourself and mature a little.  So now when I hear someone say "Happy Birthday"  I'll have to think about the previous year and decide if it really is a happy birthday or not.  Have I changed for the better- at least a little?  Or have I wasted this year? 

This birthday is a very happy birthday.  I have a husband who loves me despite my faults and many attempts to convince him I don't deserve him.  I have children who have good hearts and are smart and who love me.  I have parents who are strong in the gospel, love each other, and have been the ultimate examples of sacrifice, humility, unconditional love and wisdom.  I have wonderful supportive friends and family who have seen me through a very difficult and life-changing year and make me cry when I write this. stop it.  But most importantly I have my Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, who has sacrificed all for me.  Who has let me know that no matter how I falter He loves me and has atoned for my sins so that I can live with my Father in Heaven again.  I cherish this year. Through all of the trials and blessings I have learned a lot of lessons that have changed me and will stay with me forever.  I would be an ungrateful wretch if I didn't publicly thank my Heavenly Father for the blessings I've received and for the gift of forgiveness in my life.  Thank you, everyone, for your roles in my life, especially in the last year.  Happy Stephanie's Birthday to you.

Ok, as for YESTERDAY!!!!  My parents didn't make the flight- they fly standby so they rely on the flight having empty seats and there weren't any yesterday, so they're planning on coming next Saturday.  It'll be fun- I'm kind of glad that they're coming on a day when I can spend more time with them- that gives you all a week to think of something touristy for us to do- Start thinkin, people!  Sooooo.... we ended up going to Liberty Market for my free brunch of biscuits and gravy, a bite or two of cinnamon roll and breadpudding-french toast, nummy breakfast potatos with horseradish sauce (OMGundersnatch it was goood), and southwestern style scrambled eggs.  And Orange Juice (the best drink on the planet besides water and milk-which is why I capitalized it).  Afterward we went over to the Gilbert Farmers Market and sampled some local produce, honey, salsas, hummus (ew. mine was WAY better- tutorial coming soon, sorry), and pastas.  We drove home, I took a nap, then we dropped the kids off at their aunt Valerie's house and headed to Elements Massage for our 4:00 55-minute couples massage  :)  Aaron has never had a massage before and he was nervous- it was pretty humorous to listen to his moans and groans during the session.  The therapist told him he was pretty tight- which I've been telling him for years. She said she could probably bouce a penny off of him. HA HA!  It's impossible to pinch that man's bum!  I really liked the girl that did mine- she was really good.  I think it's the best massage I've ever had.  Word to the wise- TELL the therapist what you want. You will enjoy the massage so much more. Also, did you know that if you refer someone to Drs Goodman and Partridge and they tell them you referred when they set up their first appointment, you get a free 30 minute massage at elements?  Just thought y'all should know.  That's how we got ours and we just paid to upgrade to hour long massages.

We went to Kona Grill for dinner and I got the Roasted Asparagus Salad and Lobster Mac n Cheese and a Passion Fruit Creme Brulee for dessert. nummy :)  Then we headed to The Big Bang Dueling Piano Bar in Tempe.  It was really cool and fun.  Oh my the homeless people were collecting in droves last night- and some of them had funny signs- Two guys had boards with a number on each and then one big one that said "You've been rated" One time we passed I was an 8 and the other time I was rated a 9.  Not bad for 31, I say ;)  Another one said "Please help- zombies ate my brains and...."  Aaron didn't let me stand there long enough to read the rest, but I started busting up laughing.  There were homeless people every 15 feet or so.  not even kidding. I thought there was an anti-loitering law in Tempe that passed in 1998 or so- maybe the law lapsed and it's allowed now? I dunno.  I gave all my change to the first girl that we passed and then everyone who asked for our change after that (and we told that we'd already given away all we had) cheerfully said "it's ok, thanks for supporting the cause!"  What cause?  The cause of homelessness?  The cause of you not supporting yourself through gainful employment?  Anyway.. We rode the elevator back down to our car with a woman who was high and made our way home.  Going to Tempe always makes me appreciate our wholesome (by comparison) Gilbert home.

Anywho, today was a good birthday- after a lot of Happy Birthday wishes at church we came home and I got started on the homemade bread- I brought four loaves to dinner at Aaron's parents' house where we had scrumptious creamy potato soup (amazing) frito salad (always a favorite) and homemade angelfood cake with strawberries and whipped cream and fudge sauce for all of the chocolate lovers. Thanks Kristen and Julie for a yummy dinner!

Thank you everyone with whom I've associated this last year.  I've grown and you were unknowingly a part of it.  I hope to continue to improve my life little by little and you can see just how far I've come if you continue to read this blahhhg. For now I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful. :)  Goodnight, Blogiverse.

Birthday Weekend

 

I'm so excited about today!  My mom called me yesterday and told me that she and my dad were flying in to take me to lunch today for my birthday :)  How awesome is that?  They fly for free because my brother works for SWA.  Sooo... where should we go to lunch?  Or brunch, I should say, because we are picking them up from the airport at 9:15 and taking them back at 2:30.  At 3:00 Aaron has something planned for us to do for the whole rest of the day and it's a surprise!  I'm sure I'll tell y'all about it tomorrow.  What a fun birthday!  I really hope I have time to stop by Liberty Market to get my freebie meal-even if it is take-out and I have to eat it tomorrow.  I love that place.  Ok, I've got to get busy and get ready!  This is going to be a long day (oh yeah, our car broke down this week and we have to exchange the truck with my mother in law's tahoe so we can all ride together today- so that needs to happen by 8 at least so I can get to the airport by 9.  crazy sched.)

For my birthday I want one thing from y'all.  comment!  I see that the blog is getting a lot of traffic and people talk to me about things they read here but, alas, no love.  Come on peepolas! Give me some blog sugar!

Resolutions

Hey howdy hey, y'all. Goals are such an important part of life.  Without setting goals you're kind of a wanderer not knowing where you're headed exactly and not striving to improve.  It's customary to set goals and resolve to do things better each New Years Day to last throughout the coming year.  I know, I know, it's already the 6th and I'm just barely telling you about my year's resolutions.  Well, that doesn't mean I haven't started, it just means I procrastinated the day I have to be accountable for any of it. :)  So... drum roll please.... 

STEPHANIE's RESOLUTIONS for 2011

1. Be a hugger.
Yes, I know. that's a little strange.  Especially since I'm a self-proclaimed non-hugger.  no-touchy. wow. that was a lot of hyphenated words just then.  Anywho, I was at my friend, Shelly's house three weeks ago and we were leaving and she said oh wait- hang on!  I need to give you a hug! and she came up and hugged me- She said "We (she and her husband) decided that we are going to be huggers."  I really liked the idea.  Just avoid the awkward to hug or not to hug Macbethian conundrum altogether and just know that you're gonna hug.  I tried it out on my sister in law,  She was leaving our house and I said "Oh, wait Val!  I need to hug you!" She gave me the eyebrow- "You- a hugger? Wow!"  I surprised my mother in law the other night by hugging her.  She's been my mother in law for 11 years now and I've maybe hugged her 3 times.  When we leave every Sunday night she hugs my kids and my husband and I don't get one because I've made it known that I just don't hug.  It felt good.  And now writing about it I'm getting all teary cause it really did just feel good.  I love my in-laws.  why not just hug 'em?

2. Do one act of kindness every day.
This can be as simple as a phone call or email "just because," or babysitting or taking someone a treat or out to lunch.  Today I'm cleaning my husband's long overdue closet out. :) and hopefully I'll get to the rest of the room, but if not, at least his closet will be nice and organized.  I'm really excited about this goal because there is no quicker way to happiness than through service. and I really want to be happy all the time. I hate being sad. Hey- I can probably work the hugger thing in to this goal as well.... look out world!

3. Be able to play the piano proficiently by the end of the year. 
I can read music and play the piano, but very jointedly and slowly.  I'm a much better vocal sight reader because that's only one note! not 4 or 6 notes at a time!  Anyway, I have a piano and a synthesizer but the piano is 150 years old and is missing  some hammers and some of the hammers are miss-aligned so one key plays two notes, besides which it is out of tune enough to make a deaf person cringe. Oh, and I can't find the AC cord for my synthesizer. So I've been practicing on a mute synthesizer for the last three days. HA HA!  Hopefully when I clean and organize our room today I'll find that dang cord!
BTW- I'm glad to announce that I haven't missed a single note- at least none that I can hear. dont laugh. ;)

4. Play a gig somewhere.
I know I know. what?!?!?!  I just have really wanted to do this all my life and I decided that this is the year.  I don't even care what kind of music it is or where I am.  I'm not even in a band. LOL I'm gonna have to pull a few strings, but I'm gonna do it. 


Two weeks ago we had a family home evening lesson on setting goals and the kids paid attention the entire time! wha?! so I thought I'd share the lesson with you all. Click here for the scribd file
Good luck with your goals!  Comment and let me know what your resolutions are!  I'd love to hear!

HAIKU WEDNESDAY

Made me some hummus

Blender painted walls Chickpea

Yummy Redesign

(It is so scrumptious!

I'll post the tute tomorrow)

Blog Explosion....

Oh my I think I'm about to have a blog explosion...... yuppp.....  I'm about to make EASY homemade cream cheese, ricotta, hummus, and sun dried tomatoes.... I can't even tell you how excited I am... Oh yeah, and there'll be a new refashion tshirt tutorial... Oh, and I'll be planting my garden in the next week. hooo-ee! I need a real camera!  This is gonna be big... dare I say.... epic?  Keep in touch for all the recipes and tutorials :D  Gotta get it all done before I go back to school......and clean my house.

Christmas and other Decembery stuff

Helloha y'all  Just thought I'd catch up with some pictures before my life gets crshmazy again.

First is the pic they took of us at Aaron's work party-

Aaron has since trimmed up his scraggly beard and gotten a hair cut and I have gotten squishy with all of this holiday food plus no exercise (I'll tell you about that later)! boooo!  I'm ready to start eating fresh again.  I love it.

Here are the kids and their cousins at their school Christmas Concert

awwww..what dolls.

Like Meg's tights?  We attacked a pair of white tights with a red permanent marker ;)

This next pic was Matt's attempt at taking a picture with my phone.... he moves it so it's more blurry than usual.  You should've seen Meg try it- LOL She is like a 90 yr old woman when it comes to my camera- we didn't save any of those.

Here are the kids at their Christmas Parade. They got to march with their school

I took the kids to the temple lights early in December- bad quality pic, but oh well!  I'm pretty sure that for half of the month I had someting on the right side of the lens so all the pics are blurry.

Christmas!!!  I'll get more pics from Aaron- I know he has some he hasn't given me yet so I'll add later

This is what we did during the day:

and

Fun stuff!

Then Matthew's birthday 3 days later...

He's 6!! holy shrimp! (that's his favorite expression)

And lunch at Joe's of course!

TWEETY

Matt: (growling) MEGAN!! I DONT look like TOAST!
Meg: Noooo- I said I have 11 toes.
Matt: oh.
Both: ha ha ha ha

-I live a weird life.

12 K's of Christmas

As you know (if you've been reading) Aaron and I have been Caroling this season with the Copperstar Carolers.  This last Saturday 9 of us caroled at the 6k marker at Gilbert's 12 K's of Christmas race.  It was fun even though I almost fainted a few times- we had to sing from 9:45-11:30 in the full 80⁰ weather with our Dickens Caroling garb on.  I saw friends Jen, Adria, and Erin before the race started and got a picture taken with them

Fun Stuff!

Ha ha!  Jess Leonard saw this post and it turns out she was the photographer for the whole event!  Here are some of her pics.....

OM Gundersnatch I look funky!  Oh well.  It was a fun day- besides almost fainting in my getup..

ketchup

I'm sitting here sipping my hot water with lemon and honey (surprisingly soothing) and a corn bag on my throat thinking that I really need to catch up (ketchup) since it's december and the last time you heard from me was mid november... I'm catching up on a ton of homework that I delayed doing since I was oober busy this sememster (so now I'm double oober busy-that's fun to say)! Aaron and I are part of Copperstar Carolers- so if you need awesome dressed up carolers to come entertain at a party, let us know.  We are having a lot of fun with that.  I am SUPPOSED to be auditioning for my vocal music scholarship tomorrow at CGCC but I'm going to have to delay it once more because I'm as sick as a dog. welll... not really anymore, but my voice hasn't healed yet so I can sing maybe three notes.  Matthew's kindergarten concert was tonight and he was SO cute up there and was so proud and beaming.  Anywho, that's a quick catch up. I've got more to say but no time to say it- I'll do another ketchup soon.  Here is something cute my mom sent me today in email and I thought y'all would appreciate it.

STREAMLINE YOUR HOLIDAY DECORATING:

Talk to y'all soon! Keep the holidays real!  Oh, BTW, I cooked a thanksgiving meal for the family tonight (we bought a turkey after the fact and I cooked it up with homemade from scratch mashed potatoes, stuffings, and gravy. SOOO good!  I haven't had homemade stuffing since I lived at home. it was amazing.  I better pace myself on that cause as Scott Pilgram would say... "bread makes you FAT?!?!"  mmm love it.

Haiku Wednesday

Evil coffee mug

Spill in crotch and clank on teeth

Mug-2, Steph-0