Guest Blogger

Hi all. This is Karen. I've stolen my mother's login and password so that I could post these pictures of Caleb since she wanted them on her blog. And for some silly reason she thinks a person can only blog once a day. HA! Doubt she remembered that law the day after Halloween when she kept begging me to post Caleb's turtle pictures!

Anyway, if you didn't already read my blog, here's the story. Mom came down to Provo to hang out with Caleb today (not me, just Caleb) since we're leaving for California in a little over a week and she needed some quality time with her only (till June) grandson.

Kiddie Kandids has a milestones club and at a year, you get a free 8x10 without having to purchase anything else. Since I really like free pictures, I was going to take Caleb today. The photo shoot went fine, although Caleb wasn't his usual super smiley self. Then came time to "buy" the photos. I already knew my answer was a big fat no on that one. After all, I was only in it for the freebie.

The girl showing us the photos starts adding all these different borders and what not, showing us the millions of possibilities for our six little photos. She came across this one border that the preset type on it said "Daddy's Girl." Well, as the girl starts to change it, my mom suggests writing "Nana's Boy," so the girl changed it to that. It was a really cute photo of Caleb and with the words "Nana's Boy" written across the bottom of it, my mom suddenly starts to bawl.

This is where having her write this blog might be more insightful, since I have no idea why she's crying. I mean, the baby is sitting in her lap at that very moment, but yet looking at the picture (which was taken only ten or twenty minutes earlier) has her erupting in tears. I don't know. You'll have to beg her to blog about it tomorrow.

Anyway, she's totally crying, and at that point, I think the saleswoman took one look at my mother's red nose and knew that she was going to get a rather good commission off of us. Needless to say, my "take the free photo and run" plan was thrown out the window.

But look how cute the baby is!

"Emma Smith: My Story"

Last night we went to see this movie. We got to go to the premiere showing because of the elite circle I belong to. Well, not so much ME, it's Bud that's got the elite blue blood and I just tagged along. Because he is a Smith and Joseph was his great great uncle, we got free tickets. I invited Cheryl and Kim to come with us. I tried to watch the movie through eyes of a 'gentile' and if I did that, the movie at times presupposed you already were familiar with story and could therefore feel a little disjointed. However, Bud and I both felt that they did as good a job as could have been done with taking a huge storyline and condensing it and still make you feel connected with what was happening, and more importantly, the feelings that Joseph and Emma had for each other. I learned some new things that I had not known before, such as Emma taking in her second husband's illegitimate child when the child's mother could not care for him, and then hired the boy's mother as a maid so she could spend time with the boy as much as possible, but Emma raised the boy as if he were her own. Before the movie was shown, they asked us all to remain seated after the credits had rolled so they could make an announcement (code word for ask for donations). It was cool to see everyone still sitting there through the end of the movie and end of the credits. Granted, they'd asked us to do it, but somehow it was a reverent moment. It was a touching story, and I would give it a thumbs up. And, in the credits it named Ben Cummins. Karen, would that be OUR Ben Cummins?
As for the winner of yesterday's post...drum roll please!
Amy! She's the only one who listed all the people (even if it was a guess on Laura with Grandpa Bill, she guessed right). My own children probably knew who everyone was, but sadly, they didn't make a list, so Amy wins. Next time I see you, I'll give you your prize (I just might be able to give away that Trisha CD yet!). Hmmm...perhaps you'd rather a home-cooked meal instead? And thanks for the cool comment Amy. I'll look into modeling for my next career.

Guess Who

Yesterday I was chatting with Amy. As a result of that conversation, I was looking for a specific photo which turns out I don't have. Sorry, Amy. In the course of looking, however, I thought it would be fun to see how many of you can name every person in the following photos. This, of course, will be no fun for anyone who is unrelated, but I'm not sure I have any readers who fall in that category!
If you know the people in the photos, leave a comment with their names. The winner will get a prize. I won't tell you what the prize is, because last time I did that, the winner DIDN'T WANT THE PRIZE, and I'm still stuck with it in possession of it.
Here we go...we'll start with some easy ones. But, maybe they're ALL easy, because I know who they all are! Really, there's probably only 2 hard ones, unless that picture is of you or your sib or your kid!
1OK, time out. What was the woman in this photo thinking with that hair and those clothes? Holy guacamole. Time in.
2
3
4
5Check out that wallpaper!

6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
Wasn't that fun? Sorry if your picture wasn't posted. Maybe we'll play again someday.

Gadgets

Q. How many Relief Society sisters does it take to change a light bulb?
A. Three. One to spread out the tablecloth, one to change the bulb and one to bring refreshments.

Q. How many Floridians does it take to change a light bulb?
A. Don't know for sure, they're still counting.

Q: How many Psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Only one, but the bulb has got to really WANT to change.

OK, that's probably enough to give you the idea. Last night I had to change a light bulb. I couldn't ask Bud to do it- he was on the phone. I could have waited, but I'm not a waiter (a waitress maybe, but never a waiter). The problem was that the light bulb was twenty-something feet from my reach.

So it was time to try out the handy-dandy-light-bulb-changing pole.


I wasn't sure if it was going to work. But then the light bulb-changing pole would have no purpose in life! I was glad that it worked. Both for me and the pole. How many poles does it take...never mind.

The other gadget I want to show you is this cool little guy.


My mom gave it to me several weeks ago. This thing sucks the air out of a resealable bag. It keeps food fresh for much longer than a normal baggie.


But that's not the real reason I love it so much. I love it because it is so fun to watch while it's working its magic and see how the baggie shrinks around the food. Cheese is the most fun of all to watch.

And to answer yesterday's question regarding the bread pan...my winner is the glass pan. Now, I can't say for sure that it is the best, because it may have just risen best because it had a little more dough than the two metal pans. Clearly it will take more super scientific research before I can conclusively make a decision. However, my vote is actually FOR the glass pan because doesn't everyone have one? And aren't they the least expensive? So, go buy a bread mixer for several hundred dollars but not to worry- you can save money on the cheap glass bread pan! I'll revisit this topic after said scientific experimentation has concluded.

What's new

Last week we bought an accent chair for the living room (why does spell check dislike that as one word?) because that's where accent chairs normally reside, at least they do in the furniture stores. We got to pick it up yesterday and here's how it looks.


And up really close...it reminds me of a shirt I used to have when I was a teenager. It was my favorite shirt. I loved to wear it, and probably did several times a week. There's a story behind the shirt. I shouldn't tell it because it breaks my heart to remember how it came to its demise. Sort of like a story of organ donation, sort of.


Maybe I could tell the story because I don't think Tom reads this blog.

Months ago, I bought this little bear.

Did you ever wonder if they really worked? Do they really keep brown sugar soft? Or, more importantly, can they soften hard brown sugar? The brown sugar from my Santa Clara kitchen was turning into a soft rock. No, not elevator soft rock, but the garden-style soft rock. Hit it with a hammer soft rock. Gotta go buy new brown sugar soft rock. I decided to try out the little bear. Did he get the job done? YES! You rock brown sugar bear- you rock, softly.

Last week I told you the Kitchen Aid was not sufficient for kneading bread dough.


Last night I tried my new Blendtec mixer. Tomorrow we'll find out if it made a difference. I'm also curious to see which bread pan does the best job.


And-
Way to go Kansas for winning the National Championship in NCAA college basketball. Although, I don't know anyone that lives in Kansas. Not even Dorothy lives in Kansas anymore.
Or Toto (and no, you can't really look inside like the picture says- and who knew Toto had written a book?!).

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

We were in St. George for the weekend.
The Good: I took my friend Katye with me to ladies night out at Deseret Bookstore on Saturday night. We got some free stuff. I got more free stuff for finally upgrading my account to platinum. Free is always good. In fact, while they were giving away free stuff all night, we kept thinking we would just leave early. Something kept us there though. The last freebie of the evening was this picture by Simon Dewey.

They called Katye's name! She won it! I was so excited for her!
Some of my purchases that night included the following:

A new scripture tote since my old one can't fit my two "sticks" AND the R.S. manual. Besides, this one is cute.

This fabric was 85% off. Bonus is that it matches my bedroom. I'll add it to the rest of the fabric that is waiting to be cut (story on that to be told in a moment).
These cute little guys were begging to come home with me. How could I say no?

The GOOD: Conference. Just way way good. I wish it could be more often than twice a year.
The BAD: I took 3 quilting projects with me thinking I could get them all cut out while I watched conference. Right. In my defense, I DID take one project out of the bag and look at it for awhile before putting it back in the bag.
More bad: We went to Costco and I found something I really really really want. It's $200 worth of want.

I want this so I can keep it in my purse and when I need to take a picture of something that I hadn't planned on taking a picture of, and therefore didn't bring my "big" camera, I'll still be ready for picture-taking. Because, we all know cellphone pictures are cruddy, but better than nothing.
Warning: Next comes The UGLY.
Several months (a year?) ago, Cheryl and Kim came with us to St. George. Cheryl was sitting on the couch when she turned into Little Miss Muffett. She screamed and jumped up and never returned to the couch for the rest of the trip. I found this guy hanging around outside. I'm betting the friend Cheryl made last year was probably related to this guy. It was the biggest ugliest spider I've ever seen.

It was the size of a silver dollar. Here it is trying to "hide" in the crevice of the driveway.

It's not doing too good a job of hiding. Could that be due to its enormously huge body? But then, I completely understand that problem. I gained 3 lbs while we were there so it just must be something in the water that makes everything get large down there.