People

Wouldn't it be great if you could pick your neighbors?
I mean really pick them.

How would you like to find a great place to live and then fill the adjoining houses and streets with your favorite people?
Those people that you don't see enough of no matter how close/far they live from you?
The people that you bring up in conversations with other people and end up saying "I just love them" to the ones you know best?
The people you think about when you have hard decisions to make, and you try to imagine what they would do in your shoes?
The people you want to be more like?

I've got a mental list of mine - my favorites, that is - and I've been thinking a lot about how I'd love to live closer to them all.  To play and work and learn and raise my family with them.

I only just realized - that's heaven.

All Things

If this is true, then the past week has prepared me for something really awesome that's going to happen soon.

How's that for optimism?

Here are a few things that we've done since Monday:
2 visits to Urgent Care
2 positive strep tests (one negative)
2 ear infections
2 different antibiotics prescriptions
2 boxes of tissues
2 quarts of grape juice that I drank yesterday
2 days of hibernating in my humidified room, trying to get MG over her terrible cough
2 loads of laundry that flooded the basement a little
2 hundred other loads of laundry from the diarrhea and barfing and vacationing
  (well, that's a bit of an exaggeration)
2 hundred diapers changed
  (only a slight exaggeration)
6 new Disney/Pixar movies - thanks to Ebay!

and

2 showers for favorite roommates that I MISSED.

So what do you think it could be?  A new house??

Vacation

If the "best vacation ever" can consist of

• major driving delays
• sleepless nights
• sick, sick kids (not limited to: croupy cough, high fevers, diarrhea, runny nose)
• running out of gas on the 101
• storm of the season
• losing the iPod touch that I gave Slice
• backseat barf on the way home

Then yes, we just had the best vacation ever.

Pins I did

I hear that Pinterest is the new great time-waster.
Not for me!

Rather than pinning every little thing I like (thereby creating a lovely but useless "inspiration board"), I only pin things that I PLAN TO DO/BUY/MAKE/USE --- SOON.  I also routinely go through and delete pins that I don't need anymore or have realized won't help me.
It's an enriching thing, really.

Done:
Chip clips from old hangers
Funny-smelling towel trick - it worked
Silverware silhouettes - mine look like this:

Golf theme birthday cake - but mine were delicious mint brownies, and I ran out of time, so the "rough" turned into the "green" and it ended up looking like this:

And, "Best-ever chocolate chip cookies." I've made them three times, but mine end up looking like this every time:

Any pins that you recommend?

the life

Well well. Time flies when you're alternately crazy busy and crazy tired.
This week we had a photo shoot, a Park City shopping trip, two days of baby-sitting, and an electrical problem thrown into the normal schedule.

MG is still not sleeping well (waking up 2-3x a night) which makes me much less of a person than I would like.   After months of stewing about all the things I'm not getting done, I finally decided to give myself a guilt-free card.  It says "Don't feel guilty for the things you're not getting done until you are sleeping at night."
(You can have one of those cards too.)
Anyway, if you saw the current state of my house you would know what I mean.

Tuesday we took newborn pics of a sweet baby girl in our ward, and I couldn't believe how easy she was to work with.  Dude.  She put up with all the moving and uncomfortable positioning and binkie-snatching without even making a fuss. Liam & MG, did you hear that??

Speaking of photos, if you were watching the photoblog at all you may have noticed that it crashed and burned.  Yep - Slice accidentally deleted the ENTIRE WEB ALBUM that fueled the site, and I don't have the heart to go back and upload every single picture again.  Looking for other options now...

My baby turned three months old this week, which means I should probably put her in Liam's room, but I just can't do it.  I'm terrified.  The boy started opening his door and WHO KNOWS what will happen if they are in that room together?  Not sleep, that's what.
Any suggestions?

We've also been discussing big things for a few weeks, like Slice's golf goals and our Arizona trip and my piano lessons and maybe buying another house.

Did I mention our Arizona trip?
It's this week.  And it's going to be the best one ever.  Even though we're driving.
(Darn.)

fatty

MG had her 2 month check-up (a few weeks ago), at which time she weighed just under 9 pounds.

The other day I looked up how much Liam weighed at his 2 month appointment.
So guess.

Or I'll just tell you.
OVER 13.