wedding gift ideas

I need some help. We are going to a wedding on Saturday (I am excited first wedding I have been to for 3 years) but I just wanted some input on what you have found you can't live without being married or not something for the household. I wanted to get creative but this tooth has ruined my creativeness over the last few weeks. My last resort is the registry. I am talking practical objects. Yes they are LDS so those things count too. So share your thoughts on stuff you just can't live without household wise.

I ask Daniel what he wants to get the couple and he says "I don't know" all the time.

Projects

I have actually done a few little projects just for fun.

I got a little topiary tree at an estate/church sale. I went in the morning and saw it and then I came back in the afternoon when everything was 50 % off and got it for $1.50. First it looked kind of like this:

But it had cuter baubles on it. Just not to my taste so I changed it to this:

As you can see its Christmas decor. We don't have a lot. Everything Christmas fits in one medium sized Tupperware pretty much just special ornaments. So I am trying to build up the decor inexpensively.

Then I changed one of the Halloween decorations a bit:

I put them in this big glass this I got at a garage sale and it sits on top of the book shelf. I went to a garage sale and got this huge box of glass. I wanted one of the vases in it that was $1 but the lady told me I had to take the whole box for $1. SO I got this huge box of glass stuff and this was one of them. I will hopefully blog about the other stuff later...maybe.

I have also needed to get some containers for flour and kitchen supplies so I have been on the look out for old glass jars with lids and cookie jars. I found one and painted the top and bought a wooden unpainted anchor from michaels, some paint and a glue gun and made it match my kitchen. I am pretty sure its not an original top, oh well. Its a huge glass and I really like it. My goal in the next few whenevers is to find little teacups that are blue and white and cute to use as scoops.

My inspiration is this and I can't remember what blog I found it on, whoops I should have marked it.

I love it but am having a harder time finding huge glass containers with huge openings. But I am sure in a few years I will get it together.

I have done other projects too, just haven't blogged them.

Do teeth make you lazy?

On July 26th I got my first toothache in about 7 years. Thats a world record for me especially since I have had 2 children in there. It hurt but my fear of finding a good dentist helped ease the pain. In the beginning of August we went to Utah. The tooth still hurt but I took some ibuprofen whenever it got too much. We went camping and the toothache started FLARING out of control and giving me a headache too. This made me hate the camping trip. I was in pain the whole time and we forgot to bring pain killers. Then it just hurt off and on depending on my food choice. At the begining of September my teeth took on minds of their own and starting stabbing me with paint every hour. It started affecting my sleep and made me extremely cranky. For the last 3 weeks I have stopped:

Reading
blogging
doing projects
eating most foods
and many other things that I can't think of.

I have been extra tired and nervous every morning when its time to eat food. I am actually nervous for every meal because of these angry teeth. I figured the pain wasn't as bad as child birth so I could handle it. Well my oral hygiene habits really started to change. I brushed after anything came in my mouth sometimes 9 times a day. I started using listerine and just putting it in my mouth where the teeth hurt and keeping it there to burn out the pain for 6 minutes straight and I started eating a lot more ibuprofen (there is a very high percentage of pure alcohol in listerine I read the label). I also starting eating nothing that is remotely hard or has sugar in it or that is cold or hot and well having a hard time finding foods to eat.

Last week I finally gave in and called my dental insurance to check out my coverage. They told me I said ok then I went hunting for a dentist. Some dentists are horrible and some are great. Its hard to distinguish between them at first glance so I gave in again to the monster pain and emailed every women in the Relief Society for their dentists that they loved and hated. Most responded and told me Brother Allman was a dentist just opening his new practice (he was the first counselor in our ward) I felt foolish for not knowing that and called the office the next morning to see if they took my insurance. They do she set up an appointment for Oct 2nd (we can only coordinate to go to the dentist on Friday afternoons because of the kids and Daniel's work hours) it was set, I was nervous but excited to be done with the pain. That was last Friday. Then on Sunday night my teeth had had enough and starting going insane. The ibuprofen wouldn't work and it was feeling worse than labor pains so the next morning I called for an emergency appointment. He was out of the office until today at 10am.

So I went to my new dentist. I have quite bad teeth so I figured I would have at least 20 cavities (that is the usual number when I go it no joking here) I knew I would need at least one root canal, I thought maybe two. They had to take 18 xrays to see my whole work done (almost every tooth has already had work done) I was quite pleased to be told I only need one root canal! and I only have 7 other cavities. That is a record for me! an absolute record! I was so happy that thats all I have to get done (for those who never have cavities count your selves extremely lucky and don't tell me about how you don't ever get cavities and don't tell me you have never had a toothache like Daniel did last night)

Bad news is I have to have two crown replacements!! AHH those are more than root canals!


Anyway that is why I haven't been blogging or reading or anything but working, cleaning and rearing children. I go in for the start of my root canal tomorrow and I am SOOOO excited for it! (that was true excitement and not the sarcastic kind) I have had a root canal before and they aren't that bad they just take a while to do. I usually fall asleep in the dentist chair and take a nap when I can.

Side note. On Sunday night when the teeth got extremely angry Daniel was shocked. He said he had no idea I had been having tooth aches ( I have been telling him I need to go to the dentist about once a day but also telling him I refuse to go, depending on the pain in my teeth during the moment). I told him I have since July. He said I must hide it well. I asked him why he thought I had become so lazy and grouchy. He decided to no comment on that part. I let him know that it was in fact the angry teeth attacking me and that I will be better as soon as they are.

Another side note. My dentist said "Have you had braces" I said "no" and he told me how lucky I was to have such straight teeth and that people pay a lot for straight teeth. The fact that I have such bad teeth makes me rather unlucky in my opinion but he said I don't have that bad of teeth if I did I would have dentures. hmmmm dentures I wonder what those are like.

Autumn has Arrived

It is officially here in New Mexico. Yesterday it poured and rained and thundered all day long and it was lovely. I was giddy with Autumn feelings. On Monday and wanted Autumn so badly that I wanted to decorate. We were in Guam last fall so we had no more autumn decorations. We cleansed them away two years ago. I decided to check savers and a dollar tree. It was my lucky day.

I have been trying to figure out what Alexander will be for Halloween so that I can prepare if I need to sew. Well they had the answers at the dollar store. They had all kinds of costume parts there. I guess I go to late because I have never seen costume parts at the dollar store before but look what I found for $1 each:

Yep a matching knight outfit. So I got them. He has already gotten his $3 out of them but he really loves them. The helmet fits his head perfectly too so it was GREAT.

I am so excited now. I was going to make Eva a sheep this year but then I found this lion costume in the closet. I rememberd I got it from Juliane with a bunch of girls clothes. Then I tried it on Eva (I thought it wouldn't fit this year) but it was perfect and she kept bringing it to me to put on her.

I will show more complete costumes when Halloween comes. I am so excited to have 2 little trick or treaters!

Oh and I found a few decorations. Just a little clear pumpkin jar and a little round glass thing that I put Halloween candy in.

As you can see by the half empty jar Daniel and the lil ones love candy corn.

Then I got some skulls.

Don't you just love Autumn and the Holidays?

New Mexico State Fair

We went to the state fair yesterday sick and all. It was a lot of fun and huge! We got our annual funnel cake and they has so much free stuff for the kids. Little workshops and everything. There was a Mcdonald farm that they could help harvest and this is a picture from that.

Alexander loved the mini tractors. So did Eva although she refused to hang on (you can see her in the back)

sickies

All of us are sick except Alexander. I don't know how he did it but he hasn't been sick. Daniel has been off and on sick since we camped. I have been sick since last Saturday and its really been getting to me and Eva has been sick for 3 days now. She got two new teeth up top on the sides. I haven't felt this bad since right after I had Eva and had a cold. Its lasting forever too. I have been passing out (falling asleep without control) every night at 9 or ten. I just go in there and brush my teeth and fall down. I haven't been very proactive this week because of it. If you have any home remedies I would like them thanks. I have finally started taking cough syrup it is so disgusting but it makes sleeping easier. I accidentally bought the licorice flavor kind last night. I love black licorice but the syrup is horrible. Anyway here are some pictures of Eva yesterday morning. She slept until 10am!!! Just like her dad and she woke up refreshed but looking like this:

Just waking up

These two are after she realized Alexander was a wake, trying to figure out what he was doing.

El Jefe Grande

Yesterday (this is a random one) Daniel came home from work in a good mood and gave me a card that someone at work had written him (it had the headsup logo's on the front and everything). He was pretty happy about it so I read it and it said something like "thanks for taking care of that one tree over at that one place so quickly and taking care of T.E.C (I am not a fan of all the acronyms in the world) and you aren't going un-noticed and more details and such and such. I tried to be supportive and said "wow thats nice" I didn't really get what any of the fuss was about so I said "who is this card from?" He responded "El Jefe Grande" Now I am not sure if I am just sick or thick but I just though some guy he worked with was named El Jefe with the last name Grande.

For the rest of the night my thoughts kept going back to "why did that card make him happy?" Then when we were brushing teeth getting ready for bed I saw the card again and asked, "so do you guys just have some strange love note thing at Headsup? Where they have Headsup logo cards in a basket and you are supposed to write love notes to one another?" He looked at me like What are you talking about? I said "well some random guy named Jefe writes you a random card it just seems a little weird"

He started laughing and said "I forgot you don't speak spanish, El Jefe Grande means the big boss. OHHHH clarity. It all makes sense now. I felt dumb but laughed pretty hard. I am ashamed to admit I took 2 years of Spanish and that still didn't click until 6 hours later and some explaining. I guess I can blame it on the head cold.

My coffee table

My mother wanted to see a picture of this closer so here it is. My coffee table. I love it. Don't know how to fix the dinks on it. I guess it goes into the distressed pile.

It is currently in my living Room here. I know I should put things on the coffee table to get rid of the empty space but one of Eva's hobbies at the moment is to throw everything off of the coffee table as fast as she can.

The picture in the middle is supposed to say Miriam Toutai in Chinese, I got a man to do it for me in China town San Fransisco.

The other two are of Heidelberg Germany. Daniel and I visited Heidelberg in 2003 when we were visiting Allison and Chris and the girls. One picture is of the castle in Heidelberg without the town when we were there. The other is an old postcard I found in Seattle at that famous market with the tower there.

Roar

She can say a few words. Mamma (usually yelling as loud as she can) Bubba (when he is running off at the store) Dadda (when she hears him come in the door from work) and now she says ROAR. Except she says WROAR. All day long quiet and loud. Is that something little girls usually do? Alexander didn't so I don't know.

Alexander's new obsession is Legos. Not the tiny kind but the middle size kind. Drags them around the house all day and takes them to bed. He has started helping me clean up all his toys at night so its pretty great around here.



They love playing together and arguing together. Its fun to watch them play and fight (although the fighting is more funny to watch and I break it up pretty quickly)

Mamma went nuts

Tomorrow is my birthday. Daniel and I have sort of started a tradition that on my birthday (and sadly not his) he lets me go shopping (usually all by myself) and I can buy whatever I want. This is to avoid the whole 'what do you want for your birthday' question and it just seems to be easier for us to do it this way and not worry about the whole surprise its your birthday (that happened my first married birthday and I was a little terrified)

Thus I got to go shopping today. I wasn't really going to do much I was just going to go to savers and find some furniture I wanted to fix. That was the plan. I went to savers and found some lovely necklaces that I liked and some earrings.


I LOVED them. I wanted to find a hot purse too but nothing stuck out to me. I was all done and still had an entire hour to kill until I was due home. I put my stuff in the car and then saw Burlington was right next to Savers. I figured I would step in and see if I could find some black stilettos that I have been dying to get for a year and a half now ( I do no have a single pair of black shoes and that makes Sundays crazy when it's shoe time) before we left for Guam I probably had 20 or so (maybe more I don't remember) pairs of shoes. I down sized to 5 pairs and 5 pairs of flip flops (those don't count as shoes to me) Then we left Guam and I only took 5 pairs (I had added 4 pairs while in Guam) I haven't bought any shoes since then ANY (that's a total lie I just remembered I bought two pairs of mommy slip on walk around shoes)

I went into Burlington and they were having an 85% off lots of stuff everywhere sale. I figured I would try on some shirts and see how it went. I tried on 20 PIECES OF CLOTHING! I haven't been so excited about clothes shopping in a long while. I didn't end up liking anything (don't you hate that) so I moved onto shoes and I LOVED THEM ALL! I bought 3 pairs of shoes in one go.


I feel like I went nuts. The feeling I had trying on all the clothes and shoes and being totally alone was amazing. It was like drugs or something. It kind of scared me (I have read the shopaholic series).

I came home and told Daniel (he was still asleep) and he said HAPPY BIRTHDAY and went back to sleep. I have been out of retail clothing shopping for so long and now I plan to continue to stay away from it. If you have a hard time with shopping and do it too much just have a newly walking daughter and 3 year old son with you.

Do you ever feel that way when shopping for shoes and such. I looked down the purse aisle and got giddy. What was that all about? Hence Mamma went nuts today and bought more shoes than she has all year.

P.S don't worry I only spent $25 on everything

I am reading this right now. This was a suggestion from Laura. I started a bunch of new things this week and decided to get social in my ward so I haven't had ANY extra reading time this week (just 10 minutes here and there). Last night I couldn't sleep (I probably could have if I tried) so I was finally able to get deeper into the book and I must say I love it. I was a little worried it would get all Angela's Ashes on me but it hasn't and its a great read. I am not done yet (I still have 130 pages left) and I sacrificed a lot of sleep last night but its still a wonderful book. I find myself just reading and enjoying it. Its not a book that I feel I have to read as fast as I can so I can get it over with and know the ending. I just read, enjoy and contemplate. It goes through many emotions and makes you look into your own life quite a bit. Thank You Laura for a great suggestion! (I took all the suggestions and they are waiting on my little table in my bedroom to be enjoyed next)

Cheese and Pearls

Eva wanted me to take a picture of her in her pearls. I put them on her the other day while I was reorganizing our closet and she loves them now. She hides them somewhere and randomly comes out with them on. I pulled the camera out and she ran to me saying "Cheese" every few seconds (can you tell thats what she just said in the picture?).
Then there is Bubba. He strips off his clothes in the day now and just hangs out (It's still pretty warm here). All but his under roos
I got him some flash cards today (Alphabet) and put his name in block letters on the wall in his room. He sings parts of the Alphabet song so I figure I need to start teaching him all the school stuff so he is ready when its time ( I am still not sure when he goes to school, its something like turns 5 before September 1st of that year) I still don't get it. Anyway so I need to teach him how to write his name and use scissors and read (maybe the reading part isn't right yet, I haven't exactly researched it)

Eva Running

Eva went on a slide

Eva went on her first slide by herself. First she went with Alexander which didn't go so well even though she enjoyed it. Then she went on the smaller one. She had figured out that she can crawl right up onto the play ground. She loved it. I am not loving it so much but I guess that's irrelevant.

By herself