Random Friday Five

1) I took 2 months off from blogging. It was technically 70 days as of yesterday. It was sort of an unplanned hiatus, as in, I meant to blog and then just kept forgetting. Then when I went to blog, I felt like I didn't have anything to say. So I didn't. It's all a vicious circle of rambling, I tell you.

2) I love food. And next week is Thanksgiving. Woohoo! It's my favorite holiday of the year! I mean, food, family, food, football, food, and no pretense on gift giving, major decorations, or any of that red tape. It's all about appreciating. And the food. It's a lot about the food too! What's not to love, right?

3) Speaking of football, well, more like mentioning of football ... I'm in a Fantasy Football league this season. Except I forget that's what it's called and I keep calling it Final Fantasy football. My strategy for drafting my team? Criteria #1: Do I recognize this player's name? -if yes, draft. Criteria #2: Is this player a former Ute (UofU all the way!!)? -if yes, draft. Criteria #3a: Does this player have a cool sounding name? -if yes, check picture. Criteria #3b: Does this player look like they would be a nice person in real life? -if yes, draft. Pretty scientific, right?


4) 4yo came home from preschool the other day with a crown. She'd earned the very prestigious Alphabet Crown - meaning she knows all her letters and sounds. She proceeded to wear said crown all day. To the grocery store, out to dinner, chasing the dog around. It was a big deal. It made me think that writers should get crowns too. When you get to The End - in whatever form, be it your first draft of the ms, your final revisions, even the dreaded synopsis, you should be crowned for your achievements! And not just any ol' crown. I'm talking Toddlers & Tiaras Miss Grand Supreme crown. The kind bigger than your head. I thought a gigantic sparkly crown topping the sweats and t-shirts I write in would be AWESOME. For whatever reason, she didn't seem quite as excited about the idea. Can't imagine why ...

5) I am totally NOT a Twihard, but I did brave the crowds with one of my bestie girlfriends who had tix to see Breaking Dawn Pt 2 last night. My thoughts? There were not enough SPARKLES!! For more of my thoughts, check back next week -- we have pictures!

Have a great weekend!

So A Pigeon, A Bunny, & 3 Dinosaurs Go To A Bookstore

Because a 6-author extravaganza just isn't enough in one week, I took the kiddies to another event held at the fabulous King's English Bookshop in Salt Lake City on Tuesday night! Who was signing? None other than the amazing Mo Willems!! In case you're not familiar, he's the author of the Knuffle Bunny, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, and the Elephant and Piggie series. His new book, Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs just came out.

Chickies are checking out the books in line to go in for the reading.

Here's (a not that fabulous) picture of us waiting for the reading to start.

And here are some very blurry pictures of Mo with the book. These may look like they were happening during the reading, but they weren't. Something he said really stuck with me, and that is ... we were not there to "capture the moment," we were there to "experience" it. So he actually posed for these pictures before he started reading and then had everyone put their cameras away and just listen. It was awesome.

While we waited for the actual signing part, we stopped by the Starbucks and picked up some vanilla milk and passion tea lemonade. YUM!

What a great first signing for the bug to attend (even though he won't remember). And the chickies LOVE that they now have personalized books from Mo!

I love the opportunity to keep my kids (and kids in general) excited about books and reading! What do you try to do to keep the kids in your life (your own or those you borrow ...) into all things bookish?

Random Stuff Friday

1) Advanced apologies for the possible ramblings and incoherency of this post. In the last 3 days I think I might've gotten about 6 hours of sleep. Ahhh, how it is with a sick baby...

2) I have my first deadline. Well, one that's not self-imposed anyway. I've got revisions due back to Agent by August 1. It seems like a long ways away still, but then I start thinking about things like, oh, how I have a day job, all the kiddie and RL stuff, like sick kids and family vacations, and how June's already more than half over and wow. August 1st is coming fast. Wish me luck!

3) Yesterday was the 2 older bubs' reading group (Thursday nights) at The King's English. Do you know how difficult it is to hang out in a bookstore of awesome and NOT buy anything? It totally sucks.  But since I bought 5 new books last week, I promised Husband no books this week. Why would I make such a commitment you ask? Well....

4) I have succumbed. And anti-Apple Husband has relented. I am now the proud owner of a MacBook Pro! My very first computer, ever, was an Apple Mac. Desktop. Mid-90s. Oh, how ahead of my time I was! Now to work on retraining myself from the PC stuff back to Mac. Any tricks and tips are welcome!

5) One good thing about a sick baby is that it limits the plans you can commit to, especially over the weekend. All I've got on the books for now is a long overdue hair appointment. Hoping for a long quiet and restful weekend of recovery for the little bug and hangout time with the older bubs.

Have a fab weekend everyone!

Random Stuff Friday

1) A big fat happy 7th birthday to our oldest bubs today. She's helped plan the day and there will be zoo fun, froyo, shopping, and lots and lots of treats!

2) Thank you to everyone for the kind words after I announced my signing with The Gernert Company! You all are amazing and I am blessed to have such wonderful people in my life, both RL and virtual! It's been a long road, filled with success and failure, celebration and tragedy, and I am so thankful to have you to share it with!

3) Last night was the first session of this summer's Kids' Reading Groups at the indie bookstore in Salt Lake City: The King's English. The girls had so much fun! The teachers running the groups are wonderful. And even 4yo who has been having severe separation anxiety issues didn't even notice when I walked away to do some bookshop browsing! Looking forward to the coming weeks at TKE! (P.S. To you locals - they are having their semi-annual sale right now and HOLY WOW, the deals are fab! Go if you have a chance!)

4) Speaking of books ... my to read pile is HUGE. And I just picked up some Gayle Forman, Emily Wing Smith, and Kristen Chandler last night. Plus, Agent is sending me some Alyssa Sheinmel ... and I'm so excited to get back into my writerly and readerly groove! Still taking Need To Read suggestions, though, so if you've got one, toss them this way! I'm open to anything, right now!

5) Lastly, I'm having one of those laundry weeks where I just want to throw out all the clothes in the house and start over. The piles are taking over!! Gah! So instead of doing the laundry, I think I'm just gonna head out to play with the bubs today. It is a birthday afterall.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

A Pirate* Trip

And now, it's Thursday.

We're on the road. Have been for a few hours now. I'm not sure where we're at right at this moment, but I decided that I'm going to make an adventure out of this.

One can never be sure just how much writerly fodder you can get while on road trips and people watching and always trying to ensure you capture each and every valuable moment ... I've decided I'm live tweeting this whole trip. Well, most of it anyway.

I might skip on a few things tomorrow morning, and my blog post tomorrow will explain why.

Catch my updates on #APirateTrip on Twitter. You'll get to see just how fun it is to go on a road trip with 3 kids under 7 in a strategically Tetris-packed Honda Pilot.




*If you're wondering about the "A Pirate" part ... soften the "t" in the middle and toss a "th" at the end of that and that's how you pronounce my last name!

Random Stuff Friday

1) Spring is coming and we've been doing some major cleaning out of stuff at our house. Starting with closets! Seriously, we do NOT need all the clothing that ANY of us has. That being said, here's a snippet of a conversation I recently had with 3yo daughter:

3yo - What is that pile?
Me - Clothes we're going to give away.
3yo - But I like that shirt. It's my favorite! *points to the pile of shirts*
Me - Which one?
3yo - *points to the whole pile*
Me - *picks up random shirt* This is not your favorite shirt. You can't wear this. It's too small for you.
3yo - But I like it! When I lift up my arms, you can see my belly button and I look like Britney Spears!
Me - *speechless*

On the other hand, at least this is the Britney she's referring to:

And not this one:

2) I've asked a couple times on Twitter and FB, and now I'm going to throw this out to all my bloggerly friends: Nook Color Tablet or Kindle Fire? I do need to mention that we're planning on purchasing 2 of whatever we get, one for each of the girl kidlets, and before you say we're spoiling them, we've already discussed that they would receive no further gifts from us for the rest of the year AND they have to EARN their usage time. Now then ... any input would be greatly appreciated! I'm so torn!

3) So when I wrote random #1, it was Monday and the weather was nice. Then come Tuesday night, Hello Blizzard. It was like Mother nature knew I was excited to see the official coming of spring and decided to give me a big "Ha! Ha!" Now we are back to thawing out again.

4) Been trying to figure out more things that might help the baby bub with his fussiness and eczema. Read about dairy-free, gluten-free and that sparked my interest. Then I had a convo with the pediatrician about it, and he's pretty open to whatever we want to try, but won't allergy test the bub or anything, he's still too little. So I'm wondering if anyone (besides Heather ;) has tried this sort of thing in regards to eczema specifically and not ended up with the benefits because they chose the diet due to other conditions.

5) Over the past few months I've learned a lot about friends vs acquaintances and how often those two get confused. I've also learned that just because you don't share blood doesn't mean you're not family. With that in mind, just because you do share blood doesn't make you family either. I read something the other day that basically said "Some people ask how you are because they care. Others simply ask because they're curious. Don't confuse the two."

I leave you with that little bit of food for thought and hope your weekend looks to be as bright and sunshiney as ours does out here (thank goodness the blizzard is gone!).

The Voices Are My Friends...

*Waves*

Hello? Is anyone out there? I'm not sure anyone is, seeing as it's 5 A.M. on a Sunday morning and honestly I'm amazed I'm up. Not only that, but I'm coherent and WRITING! And I don't just mean this blog post, but like for reals writing. Well, rewriting, anyway, while I also jot down some thoughts on a new project. What is so amazing about this, you ask?

I'm NOT a morning person. Generally, it takes until about 10 A.M. or so for me to be fully functional. I can be awake, yes. But that's just going through the motions. So it would seem the whole thing people have been telling me that having your third kid really changes this is true: looks like baby boy's plot to convert me from night owl to morning bird just might be working. Although, as I type that, he's sleeping peacefully in his bed. It's like he woke up the voices in my head or something.

I suppose that's something I should be grateful for. It's been several weeks since I've worked on anything writerly. So maybe I shouldn't complain about the voices in my head? Nope, no complaints here. Those voices make being awake by myself since 3 A.M. less lonely.

So that's what's going on with me this morning.

What are you guys up to?

Legitimate Distractions

I haven't posted for a while. Since October 4, to be exact. I double-checked to make sure.

I apologize to all of you for my lack of frequency and regularity in posting. There was a recent Nathan Bransford post regarding the whole blogging burnout thing, and I think I may be one of the many who fell victim to that. Plus, I've been a bit distracted.

Distractions come in all shapes and sizes and, well, this one had a very specific shape and size.

While I've been very honest about the fact that I have a general ADD affliction *oh look, shiny!!!* where was I? ... oh yes, I am easily distracted, but this was different kind of distraction. If you follow me on Twitter or we're friends on Facebook, you've already gotten the news, but the reason for my distraction?

Let me introduce you to the newest little Aphayrath.

The last few months have been anything but routine for us around here, and The Boy's sudden appearance last Wednesday, 3 weeks before his official due date, was, well, unexpected to say the least. (Traumatic would be a much better word for it, I think, but without any of the negative connotations...)

Anyway, we are all doing well and I hope you'll forgive me for my continued lack of regularity on the blog for the next few weeks as we adjust from being a family of 4 to being a family of 5.

Sometimes distractions are not a great thing, in this case, I don't think I could have asked for a better reason to be distracted :)

Random Stuff Friday

1) I recently (as in, this past Monday) just moved into a new position at the day job (yay me!). More responsibility, more travel, a little more $ (we all like that!), and a lot more of me going "omg, what have I gotten myself into." So please bear with me if I seem a bit more scatterbrained than normal. Like this is possible or something, right? I'm just trying to figure out the new balance of things as they are, things to come and how all of this is going to land around me.

2) It's still September right? Like, until tomorrow? Yeah, I thought so too. So what the what is up with the stores already having CHRISTMAS stuff out? I mean, for reals? Like it's not bad enough that every store every where kicks up the carols and all that the day after Thanksgiving, but seriously? Husband hasn't even let me put up our Halloween decorations yet because "let's have a little respect for September" so I have to wait until Saturday, but big plastic Santa Claus is hanging out at Walmart with Rudolph and Frosty already? Are you kidding me? *steps off soapbox* 

3) I've been terrible at commenting on blogs recently. For this, I apologize. However, in my defense, I have been reading, I just don't always comment because, sometimes what I was going to say has already been said. Multiple times. Or, I just don't have anything pithy and insightful to add to your otherwise profound and intellectually stimulating shared thoughts.

4) Kidlets and I went (with my dear friend Christine) to the Taylor Swift concert on Wednesday night and it was a great show. We've got some cute pictures that I can't seem to find right now, so I'll have to post those next week sometime. My friend Simon (aka Christine's boyfriend) was kind enough to chauffeur us to and from the show, so we didn't have to pay for parking OR fight the crazy traffic. This is the only way to do a concert at ESA, SLC people. Just saying.

5) This weekend is IT! I've been saying it for a little while now and timing just has not worked out. But this weekend is IT. I am planting my tulips this weekend or I'm just not going to let Monday come. *thought lightbulb flash* Hmm, not letting Monday come around. Maybe I won't plant the tulips and we'll just not have Monday. I'm sure most of you wouldn't mind that right? A super extended weekend to last, oh, say a week or something?

Well, have a great weekend - however long it turns out to be.

Sleep Deprivation

I've not slept much the last several days. Sick kidlet will do that to you.

In the mean time, I've tried to be productive. I read-through my backstory and sent it off to a CP to see if I missed any details we'd discussed. I started my draft 1 of a previously drafted story, the last version of which should've been called something like, draft -237. And I've been very careful NOT to start typing any plot bunnies up because, well, I have writerly ADD and then my revisions and new drafts of existing projects and all that stuff would NEVER get done.

Oh, and I discovered a new show on Netflix: Life Unexpected. Yes, I know, to most of you it's NOT technically a "new" show, but I *gasp* don't watch much television aside from the news, and even that I catch sporadically (most news I get online). So imagine my sadness when I realized I discovered this angsty new show only for it to have already been canceled and there's only 13 episodes, total. Sad day *sigh*. At least that means I don't have to wait forever for the next season to come onto Netflix, I guess.

Why does this always happen to me? Well, probably because we have no cable at our house, no dish. We have very lacking basic television with Watch Instantly Netflix. I know, that's like a cardinal sin for a writer, right? No wonder half the time I feel so out of the loop when people talk pop culture. I really need to try to keep up better ... 

So that was my weekend: sick kid, Life Unexpected, random writerly stuff. How was yours?

MIA ... Time for some Vacay!

I've been meaning to blog for the last week and clearly I've been terribly remiss.

Few things going on. Firstly, a sort of impromptu work trip to Mexico City that left me scrambling to plan my presentations, followed by me being completely exhausted from the trip. That led to a weekend full of family events and then FINALLY, the family summer vacation we've been waiting for for over a year!

So I will catch up with all of you on the flip side of the vacation because seriously, if you were waking up to this view every morning, I don't think you'd be all that interested in blogging either.

Peace out, yo! Just kidding, hold down the forts and don't have too much fun without me!

Popcorn and Pots and Pens

It feels late to be blogging - well late in the day for me. I mean, it's nearing lunch time and . . . well, the whole food thing might be why I felt like blogging right now. You'll get where I'm going in a sec, I swear!

Firstly, I took yesterday off because the big kidlet turned 6. And what did the officially 6yo want to do? Go see Kung Fu Panda 2.

And eat an entire large tub of buttery popcorn, washed down with orange soda. Yeah. It was a good day.

Now secondly, since I started with lunch, went off on buttery movie theater popcorn . . . this leads me to some Pots. And some Pens.

The fabulous Cole Gibsen and several other blogging writers (yours truly included) are looking to launch a fun new blog stop called:

The blog's going to have writerly stuff, and foodie stuff, including things like our favorite recipes, what our characters are eating, author / agent / editor interviews involving their favorite foods and recipes and . . . well, if it involves food, I'm sure one of us will throw it up there.

We're still looking for contributors, so if you write and you like food and you like to write about food, well have I got blog for you! So if you're interested in participating, you're welcome to shoot me an email at windy (dot) aphayrath (at) gmail (dot) com . . . OR you can email Cole directly at cole (at) colegibsen (dot) com!

Random Stuff Friday

1) I really need to capture a vid of my kid brother jamming out that horrendous "It's Friday" song, seeing as that's the first thing I thought of when I started this post. Every time I say something about Friday, he busts out in the chorus of that and it's hilarious! Regardless, it IS Friday and I'm so glad. It feels like it has been a long, long week. Even if I had yesterday off ;)

2) So every year, between Mother's Day and Father's Day, well, things at this Aphayrath house are jam-packed! We've got 3 birthdays (the 2 kidlets & mine, the parents' days, our wedding anniversary), and then this year we had to add to that 4 graduations (1 college, 3 high school), a family wedding and, of course, a lovely friend's HUGE book release & launch party (*ahem* Have YOU picked up your copy of Elana Johnson's POSSESSION yet?? Well, have you??).. and well, yeah, it's been a busy 6 weeks or so. Just listing it out makes me want to crawl back to bed and take a nap.

3) I'm writing again. Woohoo! After a long and unexpected hiatus, it feels so good to get new, albeit crappy, words down again. Love this feeling and have missed it so, but the break was good, I think.

4) We've lived in our house for 4 years now and finally, FINALLY, we've gotten to some MAJOR yard work. In the last couple of weeks, Husband and a couple of his buddies rented a chainsaw from Home Depot and chopped down 2 obnoxious trees that I've totally hated since the first summer after we moved in. One was a nasty tasting purple plum tree with a mean ol' robin that would dive bomb you if you got too close, and the other was a tall flowering shade tree that while the flowers were pretty, they smelled sort of like dog poop. And we have a dog, so I know that smell. GROSS! So yay! Every time I look at our yard now I feel a bit more Zen.

5) And lastly, if you're a local Utah blogger (reader / writer / general supporter of all things wordish) I've still got a few spots open on the locals ARC tour of Brodi Ashton's EVERNEATH (Winter, Balthazar & Bray). Email me at windy (dot) aphayrath (at) gmail (dot) com if you're interested. Spots are filling up fast! - to those of you outside of Utah, I know Brodi's going to have ARCs out with some of the other tours, so keep an eye out!

Have a fabulous weekend everyone!

Random Stuff Friday

1. Okay, hi. I meant to write this yesterday after I'd collected a week's worth of random stuff, but then ... well, Husband was home and we watched Sons of Anarchy on Netflix instead.

2. Speaking of Sons of Anarchy ... it's an HBO series (I think), so with it comes all the HBO-ness of the show, but that aside, (and one of my dear friends told me this way before I watched it) holy Samcro, this show has fantastic writing, an amazing cast of dynamic characters ... and Jax ... well, isn't he just one of the hottest bad boys with a heart of gold out there?

3. Now then, moving on. I have this kidlet birthday party dilemma. We have a 2yo and 5yo, who will - in the next 45 days - both be turning into 3yo and 6yo respectively. That's not the dilemma (though with the tantrums, sometimes I think it is). The dilemma is the type of birthday party to throw. At home birthday parties are fun and can be low key and your guest list doesn't have to be too limited. Location birthday parties (i.e. Chuck E. Cheese, anyone? ... etc) are easy - no stress over house cleaning, decorating etc. The problem? Well, my family is chock full of kidlets in the same age bracket as ours, but Husband's family has only 1 kidlet under the age of 10, the rest of them are in high school and older. If we do a kidlet party, then Husband's family is virtually excluded. If we do an at home family party, well that's just exhausting and a million people to feed ... because we are both really close to both our extended families so they would all be invited. So what's a girl to do?

4. On a completely separate note ... Sarah Dessen is going to be in Salt Lake City next week. Can I just say she is amongst the several proverbial yardsticks by which I measure myself? She's so kickass and I've been reading her books for years and am uber-excited to meet her! Anyone else in the area planning on going?

5. I have really white legs. Like, they do not tan, they do not burn, they're just a not so healthy looking, very very pasty white. Year round. This is why if you've ever met me, you'll notice everything I wear - even in the summer - is at least mid-calf in length. It's not because I'm that modest. And yes, I know tanning, tanning. I'm sort of paranoid about sun exposure, so, yeah. Tanning has never really been for me. But! Yes there's a but here ... this year I've already seen so many super cute little sundresses that I've caved. No, I'm not laying out or going into the tanning beds or spray tan booths. I've started using the not as harsh Jergens Natural Glow. It's only been a week, but wow, I'm not nearly as pasty as I was. Plus, it's a nice moisturizer and I can just sunblock over it - again with the sun exposure paranoia.

I'm off to do some sundress shopping this weekend, in the hopes that it will help keep the weather warm and chase away the lingering bits of winter that seem to be clinging on. Have a great weekend everyone!

Random Stuff Friday

1) Being sick totally sucks.

2) It was starting to warm up and feel like spring around here and suddenly... BAM! Wednesday night into Thursday the wind picked up something fierce and the snow swirled around so much you could barely see. And now, it's all nice and sunny again. Ahh, to live in a place where Mother Nature is a bit schizophrenic. Always interesting.

3) I'm hoping this weekend's weather is nice, though. We've got an old overgrown plum tree we want to get cut down before the mama robin who uses it as her summer cabin returns and sets up her nest. I don't know where she'll take her summer vacations once the tree is gone, but honestly, I'll be happy to be rid of her. She is MEAN! Like, dive bomb you because you got too close to her tree even though your car is parked beneath it mean. It's scary.

4) Saturday is my grandma's birthday. We're not really sure how old she is. And we're not really sure what day in February her birthday actually is. This isn't because she's one of those old women who have fibbed about her age until no one remembers the number. This is because she was born in Laos a long long time ago. And in Laos a long long time ago they weren't so great at record keeping. According to our guess of her age, I think she's going to be 74. My mom just turned 50. And has 2 older sisters. So really, I'm not sure if that's an acc

urate age for my grandmother to be. But we'll just go with it. It's not like anyone can tell us we're wrong, right?

5) So remember two Fridays ago when I posted about 5yo's "accidental" drawing on her pants? I thought that was a little funny. Well, I do you one better today. When I went to pick her and her sister up from my parents' house (where they stay on my parents' days off), I saw this:

And no, I'm not laughing. That's right. That is 5yo's arm with what looks to either be the first part of a phone number (of possibly some super-hot 6yo?), or the entirety of some kind of inmate number. Apparently, when my child is bored, she's decided that giving herself something akin to prison tattoos - with a Sharpie, no less - is acceptable. Let's just say, there will be a great deal of long sleeve wearing for the new inmate at the Aphayrath Correctional Facility.

I'm off to figure out how to scrub permanent marker off her arm. Open to any suggestions! Hope everyone has a happy weekend!

Random Stuff Friday

1) I don't drink much soda. A couple times a week if that. But the other day Husband bought me a 2-liter of Pepsi (the hard stuff - full-fat!) and a bottle of Rose's Grenadine. Put them together and you get the BEST cherry Pepsi EVER. Top it with a little maraschino cherry and wow. Deeeeeee-lish!

2) Going through the wash this is what I discovered in 5yo's hamper:

She said she "accidentally" drew on her leggings. I guess the marker also "accidentally" drew the arms and legs and heads on the square little bodies too.

3) I'm waiting waiting waiting. And I decided to give myself a bunch of self-imposed deadlines to distract me. Then I talked to one of my friends who showed me the error of my ways. Not that self-imposed deadlines were bad. Just that I was giving myself deadlines to things that maybe weren't what should be deadlined. *opens dayplanner* I must regroup now.

4) This week was our team meeting at the day job. Normally we're a pretty virtual team. About 20 of us work together, sprinkled across eight locations all over the world. It's nice to see everyone, but at the same time, it is freaking exhausting to manage all my regular day job stuff on TOP of the info-dump that comes with a week of all day meetings. My brain feels like mush.

5) On a completely separate note, I just needed to see this again.

*deep breath, crosses fingers and waits* (Because I TOTALLY believe in the power of the FB cookie. Don't you?)

Have a great weekend everyone!

Random Stuff Fri... er Wednesday - Christmas Edition

Things have been crazy for the last week and a half. I apologize for my incommunicado-ness. We recently suffered a death in the family, followed by a death in the family of some close friends and needless to say, I've been pretty tied up.

That being said, I have decided that despite how much I love hearing from you guys via blog comments and getting those emails in my inbox letting me know you find my randomness even a little bit amusing, I just have too much to catch up on for the holidays and also too much to just keep up with for the next couple weeks after having spent the last week and half on other things, so I am bowing out of blogging for the remainder of the year today with these last bits of randomness. (And omg, that is a holy mother long sentence, but I can't even think enough to fix it, so please forgive me that too, okay? It is the holidays, the season of giving and forgiving right? Okay, cool. Thanks!)

So anyway, where was I? Oh, yes. The randomness. Here goes!

1) My holiday from work started as soon as I was done with my work on Thursday afternoon. It was about 4:00 PM. And I was totally on vacation, I swear. You know, even though I was working on Friday morning. And Monday afternoon. I was still, totally on vacation. However, my boss rocks and so he said that I could carry my time I ended up not using this year to next year, so woohoo! I get extra vacation next year.

2) The whole month of December, 5yo's kindergarten class had Holiday Readers come in to read to their class. Different parent and grandparent volunteers read all sorts of winter and holiday stories to the kids and one of the kids in the class (w/teacher's & other parent's help) was even able to get her Dad, in the military and currently stationed in the Middle East, to read them a story via Skype one day! I think it's an awesome program and as soon as I'd worked out when my "vacation" was supposed to be, I totally signed up. So on Monday (before going into work) I read a cute little book called A WISH TO BE A CHRISTMAS TREE to 5yo's kindergarten class. It was super fun and I wish I had the opportunity to volunteer more at the school, but it doesn't work so well when you're a full-time working mom whose hours overlap school hours. *Steam roller of guilt drives by and smushes me*

3) That being said, I also volunteered for the 5yo's Christmas party at school. Yes, they had a Christmas party, not a pc "holiday" party. The over-PCness of everything sort of irritates me. I mean, most holidays nowadays are so commercial that unless you go overboard stressing the religious parts of things, kids aren't going to notice anything if they aren't a part of a particular religion. At least not until they are older. And making a big deal out of things just confuses kids more in most cases, I think. Okay, that's my 2-cents on that subject. I actually meant to use this point to talk about the Christmas party. It was fun. I love getting to be a part of the class activities and it's amusing just to watch 5yo's awesome teacher have this perfectly organized chaos. She's amazing and I am so glad she is 5yo's teacher!

4) So speaking of yesterday, 5yo had her first experience of the alarm clock not going off on time. Well, that would be because someone (*raises hand* yes, me) forgot to turn my alarm clock on - hey, I'm technically on vacation! - and we ended up runningrunningrunning and got her to school just in time. Barely. But for once, she was up and dressed and eaten and everything without any whining or dawdling. I'm thinking I might fake the alarm being turned off thing just to get her going this smoothly every morning. Is that mean? Probably. That doesn't mean I won't do it. #iamameanmomsometimes

5) This is sort of a poll question. Currently, all the presents under the tree are for other people. Same thing as what happened last year. Last year it was because we got the kids one big present: a play house to share. Some assembly required on Christmas Eve. This year, they each got separate presents, but they are also "some assembly required" gifts. Which means we will be up on Friday night putting things together. That being said, when do you think we need to start making sure gifts are under the tree from us separate from Santa so they don't start to put 2 & 2 together that we just might be Santa because all the gifts show up at the same time? That's not to say we are Santa, of course. Because, dude, he's totally real and if you stop believing, I'm telling you now, you're not getting any presents. Oh, yeah, kidlets are 5 & 2 right now. Let me know what you think.

All right kiddies. I want to wish you and yours happy and safe holidays filled with good food, good friends/family and lots of good times. Happy Christmas and New Year and I will see you back here in January.

xoxo!

Random Stuff Friday

Did you miss me last week? You don't have to lie, I know you were out there, huddled in the freezing cold with the masses a week ago, trying to buy that digital doohickey and what not. I'm not judging. Personally, I was sleeping.

Anyway, so there was a lot of random stuff that happened in the last couple weeks.

1) Britney Spears. 5yo and 2yo have recently discovered the wonders of old school Britney Spears. I'm talking, the ". . . Baby One More Time" days. After careful consideration, I've decided, you know, it's all right. Britney Spears to my girls is sort of like Madonna was to me. Though, I think I may have to limit how much of her later stuff they have access to. Lol!

2) Utah vs. BYU. I bleed red. 'nuff said. Las Vegas Bowl, here we come!

3) It's been so cold lately, I want to bring back the warmth of summer. But keep the snow. I like the snow. Is that weird? Yeah, probably. So instead, I'm going to make funnel cake. Yes, that's exactly what I'm going to do. Well, not right this second, but this weekend.

4) Kidlets and I have a little manicure ritual that we do about once a week where I paint their nails and then they help me pick a color for mine. Because the girls are 2 and 5, I'm not really down with spending buckets of money on the "good" nail polish, so I buy the $1 or less kind. So the other day I had this awesome midnight blue color on - barely did my nails the night before. I did some dishes one morning, then went to take a shower and my polish was already chipped! Then I looked closer and the polish was coming off in sheets! I could PEEL off my nail polish. Yuck. Husband saw this and told me I was no longer allowed to buy the cheap polish. I had to spend at least $2 a bottle. I'm not sure what to make of it if he thinks the $2 kind is the "expensive" nail polish. I just thought that was funny.

5) Have you ever seen River Monsters on the Discovery Channel? It's basically a fishing show, but it's about all the different kinds of crazy fish that live in fresh water and have been known or rumored to attack / eat people. So we went to the aquarium last Sunday and saw some of these fish there! It was wicked cool. Besides the arahpaima and piranha, we saw a giant anaconda, an octopus, jelly fish, touched sting rays, had birthday cake and went home with two new (stuffed animal) pets ... a baby penguin now named " ", and a baby turtle named "Tuck" like the little turtle on Wonder Pets. What? You haven't seen that show either? Ah, well, that will have to be its own point on another random list.

Anyway, hope everyone had an awesome week and an even more awesome weekend to come!

I'm heading up to Salt Lake City with some writerly peeps for Ally Condie's MATCHED launch party tomorrow, so if you're going too, let me know so I can keep an eye out for you!

Farming for Time

I have a confession.

A few months ago I quit playing all the Facebook games. Cold turkey.

And now. With a nice hot and juicy turkey heading toward me, I felt like I needed to confess something: I fell off the wagon.

Yes, that's right. I'm playing those time-sucking games again. And then some. But here's the thing. You expected the "but" right? Because when have I not had a very valid and legitimate reason behind anything?

Well, there was some time over the course of this last year that I was not in the best of health. During this time, I worked 100% from home when I could even work and I did 0 traveling. Which we all loved.

In the last month or so I've started traveling again and kidlets are none too pleased with my going MIA after 7 straight months at home. So the remedy?

Facebook games. You see, I play these games with my two little chickadees.

Petville is all 5yo and Happy Aquarium is 2yo's "pet fish"

Farmville, though, is where we have the most value and I'll tell you why. Each kidlet has a pet dog on the farm. They help me manage and decorate and all that. When I have to leave for a trip, we count out how many days I will be gone and we plant crops accordingly. The kids pick out what plant and where on the farm we plant it. And then while I'm gone, they go "take care" of the farm via my sister's / husband's / brother's FB accounts.

And then, the reward for being patient and as good as possible while I'm gone? We get to harvest crops when I get home! It's an easy, free and fun way of spending some extra quality time with the kids right after I get home and it doesn't take very long nor is it difficult.

It has really helped our little family sort out the time thing, because most little kids have a hard time defining the time concept anyway.

So yeah. That's my confession. Quality time with some Facebook games on the side.

Do you guys have creative ways of helping your kids cope with different things? I'd love to hear them!

When I leave for a trip,

Fallen Apple

We've been going through some daycare issues because of the Husband's work schedule being a bit erratic lately, so last week found me dropping off and picking up the 5yo.

Well, she came running out of class ecstatic. As we walk to the car, she's flustered with excitement, telling me about a party. The first thing I wonder: oh, crap. Did I miss a holiday?

Then she tells me that it's a BOOK party.

My ears perk up. There were a lot of different kinds of book parties that I attended in elementary school. Ones where you got to wear pajamas to school and you spent the day reading under a table or a desk or wherever in the classroom. Book parties where you got to surprise someone else with a wrapped book exchange. Endless possibilities, I tell you.

But no. This was not one of those parties. It was a book party "for a man who wrote a book and he invited everyone from school!" Here's how the rest of our conversation went:

Me: "What's his name?"

5yo: "I don't know."

Me: "What book did he write?"

5yo: "I don't know."

Me: "Are you sure it's a book party?"

5yo: random rambling that I couldn't completely understand as she digs out papers in her backpack.

Me: *takes papers from kid and shuffles through newsletters* "Oh, Frank L. Cole came to your school today."

5yo: "Who?"

Me: *turns papers around to show her book covers*

5yo: "That's the books he had!"

Me: "You want to go to his book launch party next week?"

5yo: "pleasepleasepleaseplease."

Can you see where this conversation's going?

So yes, I will be taking the 5yo and possibly her younger sister also, to Frank's book launch party for his 3rd Hashbrown Winters book release tonight, Thursday, November 11. It's at the Barnes & Noble South Towne down in Sandy, UT if anyone's in the area and was also interested in coming.

Honestly, it sort of surprised me how excited she was about the book party. She's always loved books, but I had no idea that the idea of going to a party for a book would be so high on her list of things she had to do.

Clearly, 5yo is an obvious exhibit of the apple not falling far from the tree. And I couldn't be more happy about it!