haircuts- PICTURES ADDED

(For the current haircut, see these pics)

Megan and I both got cute short haircuts from my friend Julie Thompson. It's a wedge cut of sorts and I can do my hair foofy, straight, or curly and it looks great. love it. I dont ever want my hair long again. I stuck with growing my hair out because Aaron likes long hair. I've found that I am so much happier in general with short hair. Isn't that weird? It's like long hair depresses me. weird. I think it's all self image reflected in my mood. I just look yuck with longer hair (It really wasn't even that long). Sorry Aaron! I still love you!

my birthday :o)

Whelp, today is my birthday. yup. I'm 28. I've been saying I was 28 for almost a year now.. LOL I started to believe it and so today is a bit confusing. So this means that next year I'll either be turning 29 for the first time or 28 for the third time.

My parents sent me a birthday package which arrived two days ago. On the outside it said "Do not open until January 9th." Of course I opened it as soon as I got it, sorry mom! Inside was a skein of fuzzy chenille yarn and a "teach yourself how to knit" book with two pairs of needles and a ton of other knitting hardware that mean nothing to me as of yet since I'm knignorant. har har har. I asked for knitting stuff because I have wanted to learn for a while. I've got this weird longing to know how to do everything. I don't necessarily want to be a "knitter", I just want to add it to my list of things I know how to do. So... I have about 6 square inches of a soft fuzzy scarf knitted so far. yay! I'll post a picture of me wearing it when I'm done. Thanks mom1 and dad1!

Sunday we had my birthday dinner at Aaron's parents' house. His mom and dad made breaded fried chicken in the big cast iron skillet we got for his mom for Christmas along with mashed potatoes, country gravy, peas, and homemade angel food cake with strawberries and hand-whipped cream. yummmmmmmm......... They also got me two food storage starter kits from the distribution center which is awesome! Aaron and I had decided to get some when student loan moolah came in, so the gift was both useful and insightful :o) Thanks mom2 and dad2!

Another Elf Yourself

I started out trying to do bad pictures of everyone in our family, but realized as I was searching for a bad picture of myself, that I've made a habit of deleting all bad pictures of myself as soon as they are uploaded. Oh well. So, instead I made an evil twin one for the kids. cute. My favorite one is Matthews smiley face.
http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1398609881

A few more updates

So I realized there were still more things that I hadn't posted for all y'all to read, so here goes:
Aaron has heard back from Oregon, USC (L.A), UOP (San Fransisco), and one more... I can't remember; all asking for more money for the application and some asking for more letters of recommendation and official DAT scores (which are different somehow from the DAT scores they received from the DAT testing place??).

I have a new fun musician to listen to: Jake Shimabukuro- check out a sample of his sweet ukulele skills on the playlist at the bottom of the blog. It's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" (Beatles cover). Be sure to click on the song twice.

Matthew will be going to preschool in January. Hopefully to a branch of CHIC (Center for Hearing Impaired Children) in Queen Creek. His class consists of 5 other children about his age, all of whom wear hearing aids just like him. He'll ride the short bus to school (about 8-10 miles away). Aaron is really nervous about putting a barely three year old on the bus in someone else's care. I don't know how I feel about it... I really want him to get the interaction with his peers and time with the speech therapist (he was seeing an in-home speech therapist, but those services end when he turns three in two weeks). I am just nervous about being a side-lines figure in his life. I'm used to having complete control over his environment and dealings. I was looking forward to two more years of him at home with me... I guess if it doesn't work out, I can just take him out. Please comment on this if you have an opinion, whatsoever. I'd love an outsider's perspective.

Megan is constantly saying hilarious things. The other night she told Aaron about a bad dream and how she was afraid of it being real. Aaron told her about her subconscious and how her brain just pulls things out to dream about. That seemed to appease her. A few nights later, she said her prayers and, as usual, prayed to have good dreams (as I had taught her years ago when she was scared to go to sleep for the dreams). When she was done she looked up at me and said "My brain and Heavenly Father make a GREAT TEAM! My brain and Heavenly Father make me some great dreams. My brain and Heavenly Father are good friends." I just started cracking up. I really wish I wrote down more of what she said. It's usually 3-4 things a day that she says that I should write down. I'm recommitted!

December updates

A few new things are happening in the Shumway household that I thought I'd write about:


1. Matthew is half-way potty trained... on his own. He says "I needa go cotty" and then goes in to the bathroom all by himself and poops on the potty. Holy Cow says I. It was totally opposite for Megan. She would go #1 on the potty but was so scared to go poop on the potty that she'd get constipated and not go for a few days... at least she didn't poop in her underware- That would NOT have been fun to clean up. I have no idea how to get Matthew to use the potty the rest of the time, but I'm sure he'll learn somehow.

2. Aaron is done with this semester (and not looking forward to one more semester of Physics) He stayed up half the night playing on xbox live to celebrate his independence (I don't know how that's different from any other night... LOL)


3. I was a little creative this winter and made cloven fruit or a pomander as some people know it- I used one of those California clementines (mini orange) and stuck cloves into the peel and tied it with ribbon. It was so much cuter than the one pictured (this is a stock photo) and smelled really good. Matthew ate it today. How sad. And no, it is not meant for consumption. Oh well, I guess he was hungry and it is non-toxic after all. I made a new one with the cloves I recovered. Not as cute, but it smells just as yummy. Wassail!

Awesome!

Megan said something funny last night in the car. We were on our way home from her grandparents house and she asked, "Mommy, does Jesus' birthday last until summer time?" I said, "Well, Jesus' birthday is actually in the spring, but we celebrate His birthday PARTY on Christmas." (She just had a birthday last month and got the concept of having your party on a different day than your actual birthday) She got really excited and said with a loud voice "Yeah, and Jesus' birthday is AWESOME!" I could just picture her doing a fisted elbow dig along with "awesome." She proceeded to tell me all about the stuff that was going to be at Jesus' birthday party; Christmas lights, yummy food, and I added "-and presents" to which she replied, "Yeah we're going to give Him presents. What should I get Him?" I almost corrected her and said "No, we get eachother presents," but I caught myself. Why the heck do we get EACHOTHER presents and not Jesus? I think I'd be a little upset at my birthday party if everyone came and gave eachother presents and I was left emptyhanded. I now have a challenge for myself and for anyone who reads this. Think about what you can get (do) for Jesus this year. What can you do for someone else in need or how can you change your own life to please Jesus? Obviously you would also benefit, so get started today!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Elf Yourself!

This is SO funny! My friend, Karen Andersen sent me this (thanks Karen!) and I had to share it with you all..... Follow the link- It might take a couple minutes to load but it's worth it!!!!
http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=9611140303

Happy Fall..... template :o)

I just discovered a great site! This woman has posted the step by step directions to change your blog design! I love it! Thanks Suzanne!
http://sjhblogdesign.blogspot.com/

daddy daughter date

Just thought I'd give a shout out to newly-weds, Lincoln and Michelle Matheson! Congratulations! I'm sorry I missed the whole day- Matthew was busy throwing up on everything he could. fun fun. Here's a pic of Meg and Daddy leaving for their date (the reception). She was so excited to go dance and eat cake!

I also had to post this picture from earlier that evening. Megan is so silly sometimes. Come on, Meg, pick ONE outfit and wear it! I guess she felt conflicted in her wardrobe choices.

Halloween Fun

Okey Dokey Artichokey... Here is an update of what's been happening in the last little while including Halloween:

I failed to mention earlier that Aaron has officially applied for dental school. I had the honor of entering his course work class by class into the ASDEA(?) website for him.... what fun!

I've been hired by my next door neighbor to make some bows for her 3 daughters. We went to the ribbon store with the outfits she wants the bows for and picked out ribbons for each of them. It was fun. I'll be making a lot of them today at Alex and Julie's (a.k.a. Rod and Norma's) house when we (Anna, Julie, Terry) get together to make bows for our girlies.

For halloween we went to our ward's trunk or treat and I worked a booth for YW. My booth was the classic bean bag toss into the pumpkin cutout. Matthew slept for 5/6 of the night and I finally had to wake him up so he could participate in at least a few of the festivities. He has been asking for "Camdy" every 5 minutes ever since because he knows we have some somewhere... bleh. The wings I made for angel Megan turned out to be very hardy, withstanding the unending race through the parking lot with all of the other costumed kids. They had a ball and nothing was ruined. phew! Aaron was a "Bad Dentist" for halloween complete with scrubs, a carpenter's drill, and a monkey wrench. Both Matthew and I were farmers with overalls, bandanas and cowboys hats. Our camera quit working in the middle of the festivities, so I had my friend take some family pictures of us in costumes which I will post on here as soon as I get her to email them to me.

Here are the kiddos and dad: