Calling all interior Decorating craftswomen!

Hi,

So as I've said before we're moving, turns out it's happening this Saturday. Friday afternoon we'll have the key so we're thinking about going in that night and doing a little painting. I know it's just a condo and it's not ours, but I'm sick of white walls and a junky looking place so we figured we'd add a little color and make it our own for the next year and a half.

I want to try one of those accent walls everyone has these days, but I don't know where to put it. We got a quart of this really pretty sage green paint for free in the mail and we'll pick some more up at home depot depending on how much we need, but I'd like to seek the advice of other people who have a good eye for this kind of stuff.

Luckily, there is a movie of our apartment on youtube that the manager put up. So I'm asking you to watch the movie and suggest a wall to paint. The person who gives the best advice will receive a very special mysterious surprise.

Here's the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGlyUG3Eqxs

Teag's Surgery

Today was a day that was causing Zac and I so much worry for a lot of weeks, but we shouldn't have worried quite so much. Teagan has had a hernia since he was a tiny newborn. Apparently it's really common and normally goes away, but since his didn't he had to have a surgery to fix it. We chose a day when Zac would be on break so that I wouldn't have to brave the hospital alone and so that Teagan could have his favorite person with him all day.

We were VERY concerned that it wasn't until 1pm and he wasn't allowed solids all day and he is an eater. I made two different types of jello, stocked up on apple juice and Popsicles and prayed for the best. He hated the jello, but ate 3 otter pops and had lots of grape juice, every kids dream right? He never even fussed about being hungry except one time when I reached into my purse and he saw a package of ritz crackers (I brought them for after the surgery). He started to whimper and beg, it was so sad, but we distracted him quick!

The wristband drove him crazy! We brought him a couple wrapped presents to give him since we'd be in the waiting room for 2 hours. His first Mr. Potato head, and some farm animals. It worked completely and we kept him distracted the whole time!

Just waiting around for the doctor to come, notice the mickey mouse stickers on his legs, he LOVES to put stickers on his legs!
Right before we handed him over to the nurse he saw his tie in the diaper bag from church and insisted on putting it on...only the best for Dr. Aligiri!

It got hard when the nurse took him and he was just screaming bloody murder the whole way down the hall. They wouldn't let us go back with him at all so that was really hard. I had hoped that they would at least let us stay with him until the anesthesia set in and he was asleep!

35 minutes later the Doctor came out and told us that the surgery was a great success. As soon as he woke up they came and got us. He was sobbing when we got in there and went crazy when he saw Zac, he cried for a good 10 minutes while Zac held him sang "Old McDonald" about 50 times trying to calm him down. Every time a nurse came near us he grabbed Zac so tight and started to cry again. I think we've just made his separation problems worse! The part that killed me was that I couldn't hold him. With Zac there, there was no way he was coming to me, I just wanted to give him a big hug and cuddle him and be his mommy, but he is a daddy's boy, how grateful I am that he has such an amazing dad, Zac's my favorite too. I'm not surprised, but it made me a little sad. Finally we got him to drink some juice and eat some crackers and he started cheering up a little.
By tonight he was completely back to normal. We were trying to force him to sit and watch a movie so that he could relax and he just wanted to play. He was well enough that I even made it to mutual! What an incredible kid.

Quick Trip to Valencia

Me and Teagan took off Thursday morning to hang out with my mom and Whitney in Valencia. Whitney is going to Ecuador early in September and I thought this would be my last chance to go down to see her before she left. Zac also has finals Monday and Tuesday so we gave him a little space to get some intense studying done. He was at the school til 9 or10 each night and studied ALL day Saturday. Poor guy, I'm excited for him to be done so that he can relax.

So the trip to my mom's started badly and ended badly, but everything in the middle was spectacular!

We decided to head off to the pool right when we got there. I was chasing teagan to stop him from jumping into the hot tub and lost my footing. I fell so fast that I didn't even have time to really slow the fall with my hand, my cheekbone took the brunt of things. This picture does not do it justice! It was very painful. Next time I'll just let Teagan jump into the burning hot tub! just kidding

Teagan's favorite thing besides his grandma, was playing with the hose with grandma. He played with this A LOT. He kept spraying himself so we just stripped him down. I really wanted to include this picture because his tan line is HILARIOUS...had to sensor out the bum in paint though. :)

We had so much fun! My mom brought her fisher price slide into the house (can't believe I don't have a picture!) and teagan rolled cars, bouncy balls, and himself down it whenever he wasn't playing with the hose. He LOVES my mom and her house. Instead of saying "dada" all day he was saying "gamah" all day, pretty cute. It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that she spoils him with attention and love and hugs and buttons. :) Thanks for being an awesome grandma mom!

The trip ended badly when we woke up to these lovely decorations. Apparently my mom doesn't like getting TPed, and Whitney REALLY doesn't like it. Me and Teagan had fun cleaning up together though. My mom had the brilliant idea to burn the TP that wasn't low enough to reach. She stuck a burning paper cup on the end of a rake and set the TP on fire and it just burned away...coolest trick ever!

Other Highlights of the weekend:

-My mom gave me a sewing machine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't wait to use it!

-It took me over 4 hours to get home because the traffic was so horrendous

-Zac took me on a surprise date to Chillis and Loyolla beach!

-Zac found an apartment for us to move into that has a washer and dryer!!!! We should be moved in by the first of September. I haven't actually seen the inside so I'm just trusting Zac on this one. Can I tell you how excited I am to not have to bike my laundry to the laundry mat! EXTREMELY EXCITED!!! THANK YOU ZAC!

I probably won't post for a while since I'll be busy dejunking and packing and not up to much exciting stuff in the next few weeks. See ya

Love and Logic II

Teagan: Throws cup of milk off highchair, looks at mom and says "uh oh!"

Me: Uh oh! This is so sad, lunch is over. I get him down hand him a rag and tell him "Alright, time to clean up our mess"

Whitney: Laughs the whole time and says shes turning me in for Child Labor

Teagan is actually a good little cleaner, who says 18 month olds are too young to clean?

Aren't these boys so handsome for church. Teagan looks like such a little boy instead of a baby, I can hardly stand it.

Getting my money's worth!

So I'm the kind of person that takes the words "Satisfaction Guaranteed" very seriously. If I buy something, especially if it is a special treat we don't normally get, and I am disappointed I definitely call and politely let them know.

I think I posted about Baby Bottles last year and how I got a free one. We've complained about not enough reeses cups in our reeses ice cream and gotten a free half gallon. I took my "life time warentee" Calphalon pots back to Bed, Bath, and Beyond, to trade them for new ones because the non-stick stuff was wearing off. I try to only do it when I'm honestly disappointed, not just when I want some extra ice cream, keepin it honest, right? I know it is rediculous, but I actually think it's kind of fun, and I feel like I'm keepin the company honest and not letting them sell faulty merchandise.

Here are the keys to getting a full refund or coupons, most of these were learned from siblings:
1. Always begin by saying how much you normally love and appreciate the product you're calling about. It doesn't hurt to go into detail, this is how you win them over.
2. Tell them about how this one experience has really disappointed you and that you were surprised to find any fault with such a wonderful company.
3. Ask for a refund if they don't offer it.

Here is my most recent complaint email to the Beloved Hershey's Company:

My husband and I are the biggest fans of your Reeses Whoppers you'll probably ever meet. Everytime we head out on a road trip we have made a tradition out of buying a box of the whoppers at Wal-Mart on our way out of town. We make a rule that everyone gets 1 Whopper every 10 minutes, of course we can never make it because they are SO addicting! We love these candies

I was so disappointed with the box we purchased this weekend for our big trip to the zoo. At least one in 4 or 5 whoppers was hallow!!! I don't know what happened, but it was like they forgot to put the whopper in the middle so we just had the Resees outside. No offense, but they have a really weird consistency without the whopper part and are not tasty. We checked the expiration date and it's not until March of 2010.

I wanted you to be aware of the problem and we'd like to get our box replaced. We love you Hershey!

Sincerely,
A Disappointed Eater

I just sent it tonight, do you think I'll get a coupon? I could have been more positive there at the end. I really was disappointed though, why the heck were so many of our whoppers whopperless? The waiting might kill me!

My Gene Pool is a Good one!

I had such a fun weekend last weekend, and my pictures were being difficult so I'm barely getting to blog about it. My mom graduated from BYU-I and my little sister Whitney got the idea to throw her a surprise party. I got to jump on the wagon and Zac, Teag, and I drove up and surprised her at the party.



I got completely out of control with the food. I made tons of cake balls and a yummy chocolate cake. Here is the link to the post I put on my food blog about it. Festive Food

Whitney told my mom that she was going to hang out with friends that night and my mom was at a wedding reception so she took her sweet time chatting with everyone in the room while we stared at the food waiting for her. It was fun getting worked up every time the door opened with a new guest arrival. Me and Whit had a BLAST planning everything. Of course I don't have any good pictures of the actual party because it was so wild there was no time. :)



After party crew.

Mom- You are awesome, we are so proud of you. Thanks for graduating so that we could have fun planning and being sneaky. I appreciate the excuse to have fun with cake balls! Love you!

Teagan started favoring aunt Whitney the minute he found out she had a long board.

Whitney came back down South with us Sunday afternoon so we could relax at the beach and I could help her with her online math class. I loved having her here. Having a hilarious adult around to chat with all day is a dream come true for me. (Zac is also a hilarious adult, he just doesn't happen to be home for very many waking hours of the day).

Teagan loves his Aunt Whitney. He liked sitting on her lap helping with her math homework. The whole time she was here he would try to find her special math pencil and big eraser and bring them to her. It was funny, maybe you should have been there.

We got a little wild with the timer on my camera. I tried holding Teagan while jumping off the ground, but my muscles just couldn't handle it, I could never get off the ground. After this picture Whitney exclaimed "I think I got off the ground on that one!" Turns out, Teagan is rather heavy.

Can I just say that I love my family! We have so much fun together and I just feel like I can be myself around them. Life is so much better when you're surrounded by family!

Random Cute Pictures

So I have a bunch of random pictures of Teagan that show his cute personlity. He is always trying to make everyone around him laugh and he has the silliest ideas!

We were taking turns pretending to drink out of this spoon and saying "ouch! it's TOO HOT!" Teagan was laughing so hard he was having a hard time breathing. Me too.
Today we went to the beach and took a HUGE beach pail. He wanted to sit in it and I would use the smaller cup to put sand on his toes, this was also hilarious. My favorite part of the day was when we went to the water. He insisted on carrying two of the normal sized buckets with him into the water. He did okay with the first couple small waves, but then a pretty big wave crashed right on the sand where he was. He was trying to stand still, but the wave filled up the buckets and was dragging them up to the sand. He wouldn't let go of the buckets so he was getting dragged to land by the waves. It was so funny! I grabbed him pretty quick and tryed to pry the two buckets FULL of water from him, but he had a death grip. This child has a strong will!

Whenever I'm baking bread or cakes or whatever, Teagan LOVES to play with flour so he feels like part of the party. A half a cup of flour, 2 tuperwares and a spoon entertain him for 30 min at least! I just vacuum all the flour off of everything when I'm done with what I'm cooking. I love how determined he gets! Today I found about 4 scoops of flour on the chair on the otherside of the counter where Teagan was sitting, oops... I guess that's why I have a vacuum!

Teagan secretly wants to be Jewish. He has a toy that has a turtle shell that he always puts on his head and wears around the house. He also LOVES helmets and gets SO excited when he gets to wear them.

We went to the beach twice this week which has been SO fun. The terrible part is the sand. After he gets in the water he likes to go roll around in the sand and just CAKE it all over. Luckily my friend gave me a great tip about using baby powder to get the sticky sand off. Baby powder is a miracle, I use it constantly while we're at the beach.