History Repeating?

I'm still sorting through all the pictures I took while we were gone in July, so bear with me. We stopped at the bottom of Salt River Canyon on our way home for a break from the car. As many of you know that canyon can make even the toughest, sick to their stomach. It reminded me of a stop we had made there almost six years ago. Bo and I were engaged and we were on our way home from Tucson, we stopped for fun but it didn't end fun. I ended up twisting my ankle and spraining it... at the bottom of the stairs. Bo, the he-man, carried me up all the stairs to the top and to my car. We had a nice lady take a picture of the momentous occasion. Notice my foot with out the shoe, that's the one I hurt, I was sore for about 2 weeks after that.

This last trip we played around a bit, took some pictures and Bo kept saying to me "Now, don't hurt yourself, I don't think I can carry you and a Boo up the stairs together!" Lucky for him, he only had to carry one of us, and she's a bit lighter than I am.

Everyone Loves Videos!

My friend Ashley posted a video of Boo that I sent to her, check it out, it's so cute!

Tan Lines

I meant to include this in the last post but I forgot and then didn't want to go back and change it all. This is her tan. Even with a good coating of sunscreen she still tans. I remember as a kid having quite the little tan, but I don't remember wearing sunscreen. Boo may just be like her dad, he tans but never burns. I on the other hand mostly just burn and then it turns to a little tan, mostly a farmers tan!

Summer Fun

Boo has enjoyed the spoils of the summer, she gets into the public pool free (score!), so we have gone a handful of times. Even with a good slathering of sunscreen, she still seems to still get a tan, at least it's not a burn. We went twice when her cousin Shannon was here, two or three times with Olivia, and a couple times by ourselves. I'm not comfortable with my bodily state at the moments, so we stick to the kiddie pool with my legs in the water.

Boo is quite the water dog, she loves it. Next year I plan to enroll her in swim lessons. The pool closes on Tuesday (that was this last Tuesday, so it's closed now), so we will probably take advantage of the last swim, and look forward to next year (she will still get in free, score! The pool here is free for age 6 and under.)

So I never finished my posts about vacation. Here is the final synopsis. After camping we went to visit the rest of the family up north, mostly Bo's family. Bo had plans to work with his dad to get some odd jobs done, it was a good time for Boo to visit with her Grandma Lee. While there, Bo's mom decided that it was time to start getting rid of her sewing stuff, she says she has moved on to bigger and better things (she makes the most awesome felt art, and does wonderful cross-stitch, I think that's what it's called), so she wants to give me all of her fabric. Since we had the means to transport it home, we said OK! We went and picked up 5 big tubs to put the fabric in to pack it in the truck. After a couple hours of digging it out, we have the bins full and more fabric to go. She had, rather has a TON of fabric. We didn't even make it to the stuff downstairs, I don't think I'm going to have room for all of it! Since getting home, I have also organized the fabric and notions we brought, so I'm ready for another load to sort through to find the treasures that are hidden in the mounds of thread. Going through all of this makes me excited for future sewing projects. Here are the tubs in our shed, anyone need fabric?

We were up north for a couple days, and we were ready to come home. We brought Bo's niece home with us to stay for a couple days. It was a rough car ride home with a little bit of car sickness, but we made it and were thankful to be out of the car. Shannon was with us for 4 days, and Boo just had a ball entertaining her. Boo just loves company! We went the pool twice with Shannon and even went the the movies. We saw Wall-E, Boo likes going to the movies, but doesn't really like sitting for more than an hour so she wandering from our aisle to the aisle in front of us quite a few times. We were sad to have Shannon go home, but since her family came to pick her up we got to see them again and they got to see where we live. They have future plans to come back and go sight-seeing. We'll see if they really do...

That week we had a lot of visitors, probably more than we've had since we've lived here. My brother Brian and his wife stopped twice, and their way to and from Texas. It was fun to have them come and see where we live and go out to lunch with they also made future plans to come and sight see. Again, we'll see...

Disney Movies

I know all parents have different takes on whether or not to let kids watch TV/movies. I am one who chooses to let my child, some days just for my sanity. I have to admit that although she has learned some good things from shows like Dora and other shows like that, those same shows tend to grate on the nerves of anyone over 4 foot tall. Lately I have come to really appreciate the fact that Boo now likes to watch Disney movies. Most of the movies have catchy music, and aren't so blantetly obnoxious that you can stand to be in the same room with them. I've been slowly introducing Boo to more and more Disney movies, one of her newest favorites is Toy Story 2, although she likes the first one she can watch TS2 over and over. Yesterday I introduced her to Hercules. She's watched it twice now; it's funny to have her explain the movie when she one seen it twice. It does have some "scary monsters" in it, but they don't seem to bother her, maybe it's my over-protective-parent-ness that thinks it would be scary. She was even attempting to sing the music in it after only the first time watching it (we've got a singer on our hands!). Anyway, Hooray for Disney movies and the fact that she will now watch them!

Fun Videos

I found this on a friends blog, and liked it so I thought I'd share. It is from a group called Insideout A Cappella.

I liked these other song by them too:

Squirrels

The Stalker Song

SnowMen Continued

Boo the Bookworm

If anyone of you know my daughter well, you would know how much she likes reading. She loves to read! She went through a naughty spell a couple months back where she was riping up her books, but she has learned to treat her books nice, or she gets them taken away. She likes to read before she goes to bed; really I think this is just a ploy to get to stay up later. She usually meanders into the hallway and reads with the hall light and eventually falls asleep on the floor. We've had problems finding proper lighting for her bedside. While at Wally-world this weekend, we found a lamp that clips to her headboard that is really easy for 2-year old fingers to turn on, and she is just as happy as a clam now. Tonight she lined up all her dollies and was reading them to sleep. The only problem, as it seems, her dollies were alseep but she was not. After an hour and some stern talking to, she went to bed a little unhappy that I had turned off her light. This might be a little bit of a fight mixed with a good way to get her to loving reading.

*Since I wrote this, last week, she has ripped up 3 books and has gotten them taken away again. Anyone know how to get a child to stop ripping up books??

Cleaning & the Killer Bush

So as a catcher-upper, here are a couple things that have gone on lately. As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, we bought our house, so we are starting to make it our own by changing things. My first goal was to start going through the remaining boxes we still haven't unpacked and either repack with good labeling or for a better idea, get rid of the stuff! We have a shed in our backyard that housed a lot of our unpacked boxes, so we started there. We spent some time before Bo's back problem cleaning it out and pulling out all the boxes and replacing them with repacked plastic bins. Before we took on the shed, I emptied Boo's closet and went through all of the boxes with baby clothes and sorted them, packed them by size in plastic tubs and labeled the tops of them with what exactly them contained. Those got packed in the shed which opened up room in her closet to move toys in there. I took off her closet doors to make it easier to go in and out of her closet, I have a project to make curtains for a cover (thanks to Jordan for the idea). Having this stuff organized will make it easier to maneuver around to paint when we are ready. Since emptying these boxes we've have an accumulative DI pile, so this past Saturday, we loaded in into Bo's truck and trekked over to Benson to take it to the DI pod. Yeah! More free space! My next project is to de-junk our spare room (we have company coming this week, Bo's brother is coming for a visit so I'm in a crunch to get it livable). When I organized our DVD's last month, it was a nice start to getting it organized. About 4 or the boxes we took out of the shed had books in them, so those will find a home on the remaining shelves, that will free up more space. It feels good to be getting a little more organized, once I feel organized we will move onto the kitchen. We have plans to paint, re-tile and replace appliances. One step at a time.

I know I've previously showed a picture of the bush we have in our front yard, it's a beast!

So yeah, there it is... That picture it back from January. I don't find it attractive in the least bit, no offence to those whose like them. My issue with it is the fact that it houses the neighborhood cat, so it smells of cat... and I have issues with that. Besides, it's pokey and not kid friendly. So long story short, we are slowly butchering it.

Aside from what we cut, can you see how much it's grown. Again, before Bo's back problem, we cut part of one side and loaded and filled the whole back of his truck with trimmings. Slowly we'll cut it all out and start landscaping. I know we are getting to the end of the season, but we have some plans for brick work that can be done on the off season, even the edging in the back yard can be done during the winter. I am really looking for to watching the transformation. I've got a vision...

I've got more to post, but that's enough boredom for one day.

Dr. Horrible... Again...

When I posted about Dr. Horrible back in July a few of you mentioned that you missed out on seeing it, but you can now go back and watch it. Click here and then click the button that says "watch it right now" and it will show you all 3 acts in one. So cool! Although, I will mention, there's a tiny bit or risque humor in it, so watch at your own risk. But know, that we love it!

Dr. Horrible: "Destroying the status quo. Because the status is not quo. The world is a mess and I just need to rule it!" Classic!

Life

*Side note to this, I wrote this Sunday night in bed and am just getting around to posting it today. So keep that in mind while reading.

**Another side note, I went to post this last night and a really bad lightning storm rolled into town and before I could finish posting, Bo came in and told me to turn off the computer. So lets try this again...

I've been on a blogging hiatus for a while now that I truly can't explain the reason for doing so. I just haven't really wanted to put the time into it to upload pictures and write some boring story about how wonderful my life is.. not, so I've taken a small break. One big reason I have taken a break is that Boo doesn't appreciate me spending all day face to face with the computer. And even when she is entertained by her daddy, she still wants attention from her mommy. Then evenings are spent in family time, and after, Bo usually goes to bed early (those 4:00 mornings are tough!) after he goes to bed, I usually spend the rest of the night wrestling Boo until she crashes, then I spend an hour or more cleaning up the mess that my house always is; it's exhausting. And although I've had a nasty battle with insomnia lately, I've still not wanted to really spend more time sitting in front of the computer. And until just lately I've realized that I can take my laptop to bed and blog... sorta. We are still in the stone age and don't have wireless Internet, so I have to type it and post it the next day. In the past few weeks, I've really been trying to catch up on my movie blog, so that's where most of my blogging time has been spent.

Another reason I haven't had time was that I was playing nurse maid for the past week (last week) and it's been time consuming. A week and a half ago Bo injured his back and has spent the whole week home, resting and having me waiting on him hand and foot... and back. After a couple trips to the doctor, they decided that he sprained his back and put him on meds to try to alleviate the pain. He really has had a pretty good week of resting, most every day he took a nap and slept in every morning. Nice, huh? He goes back to work tomorrow(this past Monday, and it was hard, and he was so so sore), so we'll see how he handles. He has had problems with his back for about 2 years now, but I thought we finally had it under control and then this happens. Can the poor guy ever just catch a break?! He works so hard for our family that he doesn't need more grief from his back to add on.

I have much more to post, but I will set them to post each day instead of overwhelming the system all at once. ...I meant your systems, not the computer, I don't really want to be boring you to death.