52 Scrapbooking Challenges #1 - make a spread using complimentary colors. I chose to use blue and orange and create a spring feeling. If you'd like to see this bigger all you need to do is click on the photo.
This is one of my favorite recipes. It's a great summer bbq vegetarian recipe. Enjoy!
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
2 tbs light mayonnaise
1/4 cup packed fresh cilantro leaves, chopped
1 tbsp plain dried bread crumbs
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp hot pepper sauce
nonstick cooking spray
1 cup loosely packed sliced lettuce
hamburger buns
1/2 cup mild salsa
Ranch Dressing
1- In a large bowl, with potato masher or fork, mash beans with mayo until almost smooth with some lumps. Stir in Cilantro, bread crumbs, cumin, and pepper sauce until combined. With Lightly floured hands, shape bean mixture into 3-inch round patties. Spray both sides of each patty lightly with nonstick cooking spray.
2- Heat 10 inch skillet over medium heat until hot. Add patties and cook until lightly browned, about 3 min. With pancake turner, turn patties over, and cook until heated through, about 3 min.
3- Eat like a hamburger with ketchup and mayo on a bun or add salsa and ranch instead. Either way these are delicious.
Just because I have an adorable alarm clock doesn't make it any easier to get up. When I was growing up my theory was that the cuter the alarm clock the easier it was to get up. Which led to things like hello kitty alarm clocks, disney princess alarm clocks and when I matured a little and when to college, the giant fluffy purple alarm clock. Well, now I have the cutest alarm clock:
Oliver has moved into his toddler bed and my alarm has been set for an early 7:45 wake up call ever since. I know that isn't very early but for my little boy who stayed in his crib until mom came rolling out of bed and finally retrieved him at 9, and hour and 15 min is a little hard to swallow.
In fact at this point it would be easier if he weren't cute. He's like a modern vampire, all cute then you let him into your house and just watch in horror as he turns into a monster. It's starts out cute, he crawls in bed, snuggles up, gives you a kiss. Then the tossing and turning begins, followed by the kicking, then the talking, then the actual requests and before you know it, I'm a monster too. Though usually just a grouchy tickle monster.
The topic is "Caring for your Family - How do you let them know you care about them? What do you do as parents to show your children they are loved? "Husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other and for their children." (Family Proclamation, paragraph 6)" Go check out what others are writing at chocolateonmycranium.blogspot.com
Hmmm, this is a tough question for me but at the same time it's not so tough. I grew up in a family that was very open about our love and caring for each other and that has transferred over into my marriage and my family. Bryan and I love to hold hands at church, we tell each other we love each other and share a kiss every time that we leave the house, and we end every phone conversation with "I love you."
I hope that every moment I spend listening to Ollie's stories, watching "Little Mermaid," or having teaching moments lets him know that I love him and care enough to take the time out of my day to share that time with him.
I try to live so that there isn't any doubt in my family's mind that I love them. I don't want to have the regret of anything happening to them and me not doing all I could to tell them how much I care or to give one last hug.
Sometimes, I just get going with life and forget that I have a to-be-read list sitting in my living room just waiting patiently. (Although sometimes it goes the other way and I read and read and read and forget that I have a toddler waiting not-so-patiently for me.) But I found this challenge and thought that it would be fun to post my spring reading list and try to get through some books that are just waiting to be read while Oliver plays in the sunshine and digs up my garden. I love to read fairy tale books in the spring, it's just the season.
I'd like to update my blog to let everyone know I'm still alive but I'd like even more to watch Angel... I'll do wordfull Wednesday later.
Okay, I have a quick 15 min to kick out a post.
1 - Tore apart my living room, painted it chocolate brown. It's lovely...but... I bought up some floating shelves to put up and they don't fit snug against my wall. So, I wood glued them to the wall and put my first knick knack on them and they leaned off the wall again. Photos to come and if you have any advice for floating shelves, it's probably too late, ya know, cause of all that wood glue and stuff.
2- Friends are out for a surprise visit so I planned to take them to the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. I ran to the library to pick up the free pass, then came home and had the kids all ready to go, lunch packed, my camera in the car and I glanced down at the hours on the museum and it stared back at me in deviance saying "Closed on Mondays." What! Don't worry we ended up going to the Peabody.
3- (This one is my Personal Favorite.) This week was my turn to send out postcards for the Swap and I didn't do it until the absolute last minute. Monday night at 8:30 I ran to Walgreens and picked up 51 postcards. They didn't have 51 all the same so I actually have about 4 different cards that went out... then I ran to Staples and picked up some sticker paper thinking that would be the easiest to put my facts and labels on. I'm running through the door as the manager is yelling at me about closing in 10 min. So I grab the sticker paper, run home and make my labels. I open the paper and realize that it isn't sticker paper at all. It's window cling printer paper! So I print out my labels on the regular paper and gluestick it to my 51 postcards. GLUESTICK! Hope everyone gets my postcards with all their labels attached.
This will be quick because I have to get back to James Bond but unity is very important. Right now in our little family it has become increasingly more important to make sure that we are consistent. It's been awful to watch our little baby start to twist things between us to get his way. He knows that Dad doesn't like to take his loveys when we go out but mom's a sucker and will let him sneak giraffe into the car.
The best way to stay united is through communication. We live in a time where we can constantly be in contact with our spouses and I am with mine. My husband has a pretty good grasp on what me and Ollie are up to because he gets constant facebook messages, text messages, photos, and he can get on my blog and read up on our activities. It has helped to have Bryan always support and know what is going on. He's fully aware of what is expected and how to deal with things.
Unity hard to break down and talk about because it is marriage. You are united in everything you do - forever. Your decisions will always affect your marriage. It's like plucking a string. When the string is short and the ends are close together if you pluck it then it's a small short ripple but the longer the string the bigger the waves from plucking it will be. No matter what plucks our string as long as we stay close together the effects won't be to big.
Creating things brings me a lot of joy and confidence as I am working to create a home all on my own. It's harder than I thought it would be. This isn't another "I wish I had payed more attention to my mom" post but I sure do miss having her around. But Third to my mom and all my wonderful friends out here is the internet, more specifically the blogging nation. I just love that I can find normal people like me trying to be thrifty, crafty, cute, and organized. There are so many beautiful ideas out there and now they are being shared all over the world. It's simply amazing.
This morning I was reading in "Small and Simple Things" and Sister Hinckley said," We all have a responsibility-a responsibility to make a difference, to be an influence, to lift someone. We are all in this together to work out our salvation, to reach our potential, and to be our brother's keeper-to help each other."
That's how I've felt about blogging lately. If I can do my little part to help someone else than I am doing something great and I want to thank all the other people out there posting the things that they are doing. I'm probably using your ideas to help my home and family keep on track. Thanks!
Okay, this is small bit of fudging. This actually happened on the 13th but it was part of my birthday/valentine's day so I'm claiming it happened on Valentine's day.
Bryan surprised me with two tickets to Lion King on Broadway. It was certainly a surprise. I had been asking for them every time he asked what I wanted but I didn't really think that would be what I would get. I thought I was getting a mixer but this was so much better.
It was so amazing! The costumes were just beautiful. The music was a good mix of my cartoon favorites and real African feeling music. I was in shock just being there. In fact it's still hard for me to wrap my head around. It was such a wonderful gift and I truly loved it.
Thank you, Bryan!
This is like beating a dead horse but this is all that I did that entire week. But I'm still proud of it.
Today my husband asked "How much is this postcard swap thing going to cost me? I don't want to spend $70.00* on postage and $100.00* on the actual postcards."
This is where I calmly said, "Honey, 3 months ago when I asked if you thought this would be a fun idea and if we could participate I laid out the cost before you and estimated about $35-40*. You said okay." Really, this was very calm, you can ask him.
Once again Husband replied,"okay."
Phew, now that that was over I could continue with blogging about how great it's been to be receiving postcards in the mail. When Husband says, "Should we start buying these bit by bit so that the cost doesn't take a big chunk out of our budget? When is it our turn to send them out anyway?"
Again I reply in a level tone,"They are in alphabetical order meaning that we are sometime in midmarch and what kind of state is our budget in if we can't take a $40* hit for one month?
Husband replies,"$40*, that's not bad. Okay, that's fine."
Does anyone else feel that I'm talking to myself? Anyways, back to how much fun it has been to receive actual mail in our mailbox. You know, instead of those dang credit card offers (is there a do not mail list?) I search through our mail and pull out that glorious postcard, show Ollie the picture then turn it over and read about the fun facts on the back to him then it is swiftly posted on the fridge.
We now have 3 on our refrigerator and I'm proud of them but the time has come for us to create a place to put them. So right now I'm looking for any ideas on book formats to keep postcard collections for say 50 or so postcards.
And I'd like to say proudly
I have a lot to update on but here is a quick list of a few "Mom Mishaps" that have gone down in our lovely home in the last month:
1- Tried to make cute valentine suckers from Peppermint candy canes - melted them all over my cookie sheet (twice) and had to go buy those store valentine's instead. Bryan voted for the WWF kind but I shot that down quicker than a starving rattle snake and we went with Cars instead.
2- Tried, without success, to keep my house clean. Why I even bother is still a mystery to me.
3- Baked super soft chunky chocolate chips and burned the first batch. Bless my husband, he ate them and said they were wonderful. There is an art to cookie baking that I just plain don't understand. I think I'll just stick with what I know; Tannies.
4- Racked up a $6 library fine then had to use our toll money to pay for it.
5- Over reacted to my husband twice in the last 48 hours.
6- Fell asleep on the couch and woke up to Oliver crying for Giraffe, who never even made it into bed... whoops.
7- Was so busy this month that I forgot to take the time to enjoy those little moments with Oliver. There is going to be some new prioritizing for this month.
I just love this video. I love that it is very simple. I've found that the secret to success is not in some complicated formula but usually in remembering the basics.
I've changed my blog title, not my address, that will remain the same. I've put a lot of thought into it and let me tell you why.
Do you remember when all of the sudden it became cool to be uncool? You know, when it became cool to listen to weird twangy indie music, to wear dorky plastic black glasses, to wear clothes that don't fit right, and to say awkward things at awkward moments. Oh yeah, I remember. It happened my senior year. I'd finally given up on trying to be cool and popular.
No one wants to admit that, but I will. I wanted to be cool, I wanted to be liked, I wanted to be beautiful, and I wanted to be considered popular.
But middle of Jr. year I gave up on that idea. I was not cool, I liked cartoons, pirates, and fantasy novels. I was liked but in the she's a nice girl, gets along with others type. I wasn't beautiful, I was awkward and teenagery, my hair was cut shorter on the left side. I sure as heck wasn't popular...
Then I came back my senior year and something changed. I know that this is all sounding very much like a good tween novel where I magically changed over the summer to come back and find that boys liked me and what-not but the truth is I didn't change, not an ounce. But the world changed and all the sudden my dorky black plastic glasses were fashionable and cartoons were awesome and entertaining, huh, who would have guessed?
What had really changed was I had never reached the level of maturiosity that most people do in their early high school years. So I was the weird one because I just wasn't on their level and then senior year they came back down and met with me in the middle and the I was acceptable.
Which brings me to my Maturiosity scale. (Inspired by my friend Shane, Who is always making awesome charts.)
See we are on varying levels of Maturiosity and looking back through my blog posts I've come to realize that all of you are watching me grow in maturiosity. I don't know if I'm truly a misfit again or if I'm just in the wrong location for my particular brand of misfitness. See I'm in my early 20s. But I'm not still in college and I'm not still shirking responsibilities. In face I'm a 20 something living like a 30 yr. old. I have a husband, a child, a mortgage... While I'm still trying to mesh in funky ska music and wear my beat up plastic rim glasses.
I hope I didn't just weird anyone out with my awkwardness...
I don't believe that Bryan and I have a song (who knows, maybe we do and later today Bryan will let me know what that song is.) But I would say that we have a genre; ska. The chaos that ensues when a ska song comes on brings nothing but giggles and fun to our house.
See when you move your body to a ska song it's called skanking. It's generally a mad dance in a circle. (Not American mad but the British kind) You swing your arms around wildly and kick your legs out and spin while circling around something, people, poles, chairs, whatever central point you can find. It's mad fun.
Now a story... Before Bryan and I were married we went on a date to a local concert at the Westwood Theatre. This was a fairly common date for us, especially going to see one of our favorite local ska bands "The Opskamatrists." We met my brother there and he challenged us to a Skank-Off. (Did I mention that ska runs in the family.) This was a true test of strength, love, and physical endurance. It was a test to see who could go the longest. We skanked through the first song intensely, the second song we hit just as hard, but 4 or 5 songs into the set I was looking tired and those comfy theatre seats were looking pretty good but Bryan pulled me up and encouraged me to continue on with the dream. I was like a marathon runner that had only trained to mile 24 but still had 2 more to go. I was fading fast but Bryan pulled me along. Insert short story about how this relates to enduring to the end. Eventually the set ended and I collapsed, too tired to even walk out to the water fountain. We'd done it, we'd taken gold, though if my brother ever reads this he'll definitely debate me on this point.
The Opskamatrists - ICUN Music Video
The Opskamatrists | MySpace Music Videos
So today I'm sharing one of my favorite songs from "The Opskamatrists" Thanks for listening to me share my memories.
This week has been a flurry of tape, rollers, and paint! I've been working on getting Ollie's room put together how I've been planning since me and Bryan were engaged. I've always loved the idea of planning and creating beautiful living spaces. But...we've always rented apartments. Which means don't put too many holes in the wall, don't paint, and don't have any fun. Now that we have our own house I've been very surprised that it has taken me this long to break out the paint.I've always wanted to paint a cool design on my kids bedroom wall. It started as polka dots, then changed to stripes, checkered, diamonds, and finally evolved into a full form idea of argyle. Then I saw what Cocoa had done to her girls room and knew that that is what I wanted; with a little variation.This is what the wall looked like originally. Pretty lame, I know.
I started by painting the whole wall a light flat orange. 2 coats.
I didn't want to have an overwhelming wall with lots of different colors. Especially since it was Orange. Orange can get overwhelming. Hence the only one wall and the 2 different shades of orange. I measured three feet across the top and the bottom of both walls, leaving small pencils marks in my wake. Then I took a string and connected all the lines diagonally and taped INSIDE each of the diamonds and painted the triangles a darker semigloss orange. The different textures of paint just gives the wall a little bit of dimension. 
I peeled the tape away and it looked like this. And let me tell you at this point I was done. I thought it looked good and could be left this way and I could love the wall just as much as if it had actually been argyle but Bryan convinced me that I needed to continue on. 
So I cracked open a can of brown paint and continued on by measuring 3 feet on the wall again but opposite of what I'd done previously. Laying my tape and then putting another piece really really close to the first then marking every 2 inches. I painted every other 2 inch block all the way down the wall. Let it dry, paint a second coat, then remove the tape.
TADA!! An orange Argyle wall.
This is my disclaimer before I start posting my crafting projects up on my blog. I'm not a neat crafter, in fact some would call it just plain sloppy. So if you are offended by misaligned edges, unmeasured squares, and fingerprints in paint then these are probably sections that should be skipped. Well, with that said, let me explain: I'm trying to keep up on my scripture study this year and follow the church curriculum. So to help me to keep up in the Old Testament I made these book marks:
You are welcome to download this. Just save it to your computer but make sure you click on it first so that you can get the larger file.
Then I decided to make a bookmark for Relief Society:
Both of these have been awesome for keeping me on track. I really like to mark them off and show that I'm keeping up. The problem happened when I crawled into bed one evening, looked down at my list and realized that it was a Teaching For Our Times section. Oh, crap, here I am all cozy in bed and I have to read a talk from General Conference. So I pull out my trusty iphone and read the talk on there. But that got me thinking; what if my iphone hadn't been available, or if one of our 3 computers wasn't available, or possibly if a ninja broke into our home and pilfered our copy of the ensign (excuse my last one, it was in the heat of the moment and I fully realize that Ninjas don't pilfer, pirates do. Just roll with it.) To make sure that the talks and the book are all in the same easy to reach place I decided that I would print them all out, fold them in half, and stick them in between the pages of my book. Simple right, wrong, I have a toddler and nothing slid into a book stays "slid" in. So I spiral bound my book and actually bound the talks inside the book in chronological order so that I could just open up and start reading where ever I left off. Awesome, huh?
The sad part is that as cool as my book is...I am not in RS. I'm in the YW and no one will ever see it or hear my awesome answers to the questions because I came prepared.
Oliver really loves trains. He plays with them at friends houses, at the library, at Grandpa's house. But the truly great place he plays trains is at our house; where we don't actually have a train set. Instead he PRETENDS by placing all his cars in a row and saying Choo Choo he pushes them from behind and of course they all jumble up but he patiently puts them all back in their place and starts again. I love to watch him play trains. It reminds of so many things that I feel have been lost in a lot of children today. First: Oliver pretends. I love to watch his imagination grow. It's amazing to see the connections he makes. I know that I wouldn't look at a car and think train even though they are very similar I know that a train is a train and a car is a car. Second: Sorting. It's so good to see him sort. We have a couple different sets of cars. A set that we got him for Christmas last year, a set that we got him for Christmas this year, and a set from Grandma and Grandpa Williams. With all these cars he puts them all in the correct line and the Grandma and Grandpa set doesn't get mixed in with the last year christmas set. and Third: Patience, even though the cars crumple up on each other he still puts them back in the correct place and tries it again. He'll play all afternoon if I don't have anything else going on. 
I love playing "Trains."
Since I wrote about marriage yesterday, it reminded me of our honeymoon. I've had a request to see the before and after of our backpacking. Just to catch everyone up for our honeymoon we went and spent 4 weeks backpacking in Guatemala. In that time we didn't shave and never took a warm shower.
Before:
After:
I was introduced to wordfull Wednesdays by a wonderful woman in my ward. Meg has been involved in this for a while and I found it when I was reading her blog. I followed the link to find more about it and was introduced to this lovely blog. I've been faithfully reading both blogs and have especially enjoyed the wordfull Wednesday activities. So here is my contribution to wordfull Wednesday.
Assignment: What are the three most important things in marriage?
1- Growth
This is my number 1 important thing. If you grow together, you won't grow apart. This is why Bryan and I are religious about our New Year's resolutions. Every year we sit down and talk over our goals for the year and how we are going to achieve them. This isn't a list that gets shoved into a corner somewhere and forgotten. We take all the steps necessary to try and fulfill that. Everything from posting our goals on our blog, to putting them on the calendar, a list goes in our scriptures and another on the wall in our entryway. They are around as a constant reminder and at the end of the year it isn't how many things we've checked off, it's the journey of getting there. In fact; I'll admit that a lot of that list is left undone and many things are moved over to be the next year. But it has been a year where I have known what Bryan wants to achieve and more importantly I've known how to support him and he supports me. We have things to talk about, we show our love through encouragement, and we celebrate together when a goal is reached.
2- Unity
There are many more ways to word this and many ways to break into smaller categories. Among them are fidelity, trust, and communication. I always want to stand as a united front. When raising our children I want to make sure we are on the same page about policies, education, and scripture study. If we don't agree on something then taking the time work it out and find out how we can come to a resolution is worth a lot to a marriage. We are raising a family together and I know that I couldn't do it on my own so it's nice to know that someone has my back and I want to keep him there.
3- Tithing
Nothing has blessed our lives more than paying our tithing. There is seriously a tangible difference in our lives when we pay a full tithe. All of our finances fall into place and things just seem to work out a lot better. If we don't have financial problems than we don't argue or get angry with each other and I'm willing to do anything to keep it that way.
If I could add a fourth it would be humor, but that isn't the assignment so forget I said anything about it.
Bryan and I have only been married for 2 1/2 years but it's been a doozy. Through that short time we have been through a lot. Already, Bryan has graduated from college, we had a beautiful baby, we moved across the country from our parents, started a new job, and bought a house. Just to name a few of the big ones. Among our smaller achievements have been to make new friends, go to Germany, get a YMCA membership, and host our first Thanksgiving where I cooked my own turkey. But what I'm trying to say is that I'm no expert in marriage and my most important things are still in the honeymoon stages of our wonderful life together but I still feel they are important because, well, doesn't everyone want those honeymoon years back.
Oliver received an entire box of dress up clothes from his Grandma and Grandpa Blacker. He has loved having them. We have played dress up multiple times and in many different outfits. Everything from a dr. to a monkey. But his favorite is the firefighter. I think he likes it for the hat. Thank you Grandma and Grandpa, your costumes are getting plenty of use!
