Hot AND Smart

Look at this guy


This guy just graduated

He looks a little dazed if you ask me.


I am so so so proud of my hottie-cakes. Besides he was wearing his robe with Chucks. Very Harry Potterish, and also very hot.

Whoopeeeee!!!!

I'm Collecting Readers

These kids love books too! Won't you join us?

Bibliophiles Unite!

Summer Reading

18 books. 18 weeks.

I'm not in school anymore, so a summer reading list might not make a ton of sense, however I do like goals, and I do like lists. So I'm giving myself till Aug 30 (Elliot's first day of Preschool). In the spirit of diversity, I put a few books on my list that I wouldn't normally pick up. I tend to gravitate towards YA, and anything fantastical, so for me Vonnegut and Cormac McCarthy are a big deal. If you're into this, make your own summer reading list, and I'll link it here!

Here are my books. (green = currently reading) (red = finito!)

1. Something Wicked this way Comes - Ray Bradbury
2. The Magicians - Lev Grossman
3. The Alchemist - Paulo Coehlo (Greenslake ward book group May book)
4. The Mysterious Benedict Society - Trenton Lee Stewart
5. Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut
6. When you are Engulfed in Flames - David Sedaris
7. The Hiding Place - Corrie Ten Boom (Greenslake ward book group June book)
8. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
9. The Princess Bride - William Goldman
10. A Passage to India - E.M. Forrester
11. Scott Pilgrim (the full series) - Brian Lee O'Malley
12. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
13. Rift - Todd Petersen
14. A Study in Scarlet - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
15. And Then There Were None - Agatha Christie
16. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
17. The Wizard of Oz - L. Frank Baum
18. Blankets - Craig Thompson

Also, I'll admit that probably half of these will be audio books. So what of it? You wanna fight about it? Anyway, It makes things like doing dishes, working on the Elliot/Astoria/Rousseau quilts, and long drives infinitely more interesting.

~Maryposa

***

So I have found myself in a new and weird spot in my life. No school. Leave it to me to be done with school . . . and then create a summer reading list. Anyway. Here are the books, in this particular order that I think I will tackle. None are re-reads (I don't think) and I am open to suggestions as replacements if there are a few that may not be as good as I hope.

1. 1984 - George Orwell
2. Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
3. The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman
4. Notes From Underground - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
5. Haroun and the Sea of Stories - Salmon Rushdie
6. Fear and Trembling - Søren Kierkegaard
7. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
8. A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway
9. The Lord of the Rings (The Fellowship of the Ring) - J.R.R. Tolkien
10. Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
11. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
12. Dune - Frank Herbert
13. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World - Bryan Lee O'Malley
14. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim - David Sedaris
15. Y: The Last Man - Brian K. Vaughan
16. Ulysses - James Joyce

Yes I know that some of these may come across to some of you as pretentious or otherwise but I spent a long time being pretty one tracked on my reading and I reserve the right to read a pretentious or especially bad book.

~Blair

add this to the list

Some things that were missing from my Shape of Things to Come list. Shame on me

Have a house with a secret room. Preferably behind a bookcase
Collect all of Mo Willems' books (and possibly meet the man himself?)
Cook something so amazing that my husband says "wow"

and most importantly,

See fireflies in person.

Photo found here

How can I have lived this long and never experiences fireflies? Guess it's time to visit the South eh?

The Good, The Bad, and The Disney.

I have had many extensive conversations with myself on how this blog post was going to go down. Lists always seem to win. But first, I want to tell a sad story. This does not go on the list because i would prefer it to be a happy list. We stayed in Phoenix for a couple nights to visit my grandparents before heading on to CA. While there my car got broken into, and my purse stolen. Lame lame LAME. I'll spare you the list of all the things that were inside, because A. what a downer, and B. it's not going to do any good. Let's just say everything was in there. And now I'm going through the ridiculous process of calling a billion people to prove that I am, in fact, myself. But just as we tried our best not to let the incident ruin our trip, i will try not to let that story ruin this blog post.

So, onward!
1. Elliot and Astoria did amazingly well, considering how completely dramatic they are. I think we only had three complete meltdowns, and it was nothing a peanut butter sandwich couldn't fix.

2. Astoria LOVED It's a Small World. Yay, at least I have someone on my team.

3. Met some characters:

Love this picture so much. Cinderella looks a little tipsy, and Elliot seems to be getting a little too comfortable there.

4. Monster Faces!!!
5. Blair, the fantastic guy that he is wore the baby backpack about 75% of the time. What a trooper. We also made a deal that we each got to go on one "big kid ride" while the other one took the girls. Blair's pick: Tower of Terror. Mine: California Screamin' (I freaking LOVE fast roller coasters)

Blair and the Cheshire Cat. This picture was followed by an intense discussion on how Disney basically destroyed our favorite childrens books (Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan respectively). As horrible as those adaptations are, we're still total Disney kids. This is actually the 5th Disney trip Blair and I have been on in the almost 7 years of knowing each other.

6. Elliot's gastrointesntinal sensitivities scored her a free T-shirt. Um... Yay?

7. The crowds were really not bad at all. Longest we waited in any line was I think 30 minutes. Advice to anyone going this year: The BEST times to go are mid-week (we did Tues and Wed) Preferably during the school year. And we rode the teacups and the Pooh ride each about 5 times. Score.
8. CAPTAIN EO

I can hardly describe the awesomeness.

9. Dinner at the all-you-can-eat barbecue place in Frontierland. Ohhhhh so delicious.

10. Spending a week with my favorite guy and the three best kids a girl could possibly hope for.

Dear Magic 8 Ball...

I am the absolute worst at making decisions.

No seriously. My chest clenches up, and I get anxiety attacks, and I grind my teeth...

So let's just say that the past few weeks have not been my favorite.First there's Blair. He's now finished with his student teaching at PHS. He sincerely loves it there, and has some really great kids (not to mention some ridiculous talent and a potential run at the state tourney next season) Unfortunately, there are no teaching positions opening up in P-town. Lo and Behold, he gets an offer from Manti. English teacher attached to the head boys basketball coaching job. Oh, but don't worry, they asked Blair to interview the day we are supposed to be posing for pictures with Pooh bear, and riding in magic teacups. Right...

Cue The Clash here: should i stay or should i go...

We've been stewing over this for the last few weeks, but the decision needed to be made by today. And while the decision we came to may not be the most logical (which is huge to Blair) it's the one that feels right. And lets just say... those teacups better be pretty dang magical.
Now decision number 2 is not really quite as life altering, but it's still a pretty big deal to me. I have till Sunday to decide whether or not i'm going to attend the Zumba instructor training workshop in Vegas. Easy right? No brainer. Do it. However... there is the issue of having a 4 month old that doesn't exactly take bottles well. Would it really be wise to leave her to go to Vegas for an all day workshop? Or if i took someone with me that could watch her while i'm in class, and then I could feed her during my breaks... but seriously, who wants to hang around Vegas all day with someone else's infant. sigh...


In the meantime?

I'm taking this opportunity

To get caught up on LOST.

(any advice, as always, is welcome.)
:)

The Nicest Thing

My amazing little sister spend the weekend at my house. And when I say amazing, I'm completely serious. My girls absolutely adore her, and she is wonderful with them. Like unbelievably patient and willing to play, and a hundred times more fun than mom. So it's a super exiting time when Aunt Ra-Ra (Laura) comes to play.
On Saturday, I decided to be super brave and take my sister and all three girls out to breakfast. I say brave because, have you ever tried to take a three-year old to a restaurant? Let alone a three-year old, a two-year old AND an infant. Well, we had the traditional talk before we left about what it means to be on your "Best Behavior" and honestly? they were pretty great. They ate their pancakes and eggs without running around, dumping out all the sugar packets, or throwing salt shakers. It was a very proud mom moment.

But the story doesn't end there.
During our meal there was a couple sitting across from us who was the happy recipient of all of Rousseau's little smiles during the meal. As we were getting up to leave, the husband stood up and said "let me get that for you" I smiled thinking he was going to help me hoist the car seat out of the booth. Instead he grabbed the check off the table. I was totally stunned. Stuff like this doesn't happen to me. I protested of course, (but not too hard really) and gave him a big hug and thanked him profusely.
Who does things like that? Seriously!

I am absolutely determined to repay the favor by doing something nice for some complete stranger. I don't think you have to be a wealthy person to make a difference in someone's day, or their life for that matter. I mean, a breakfast for two toddlers who shared a meal and me and my little sister wasn't terribly expensive, but it was still one of the nicest things that has ever happened to me.

Now, I don't often wax religious, especially in a place as public as this. But I do feel the need to point out the incredible love and Christlike attitude these people had. This weekend was an awesome Easter/General Conference double-whammy. There were things said that I really needed to hear, and I'm glad I made the effort to listen.

So in the spirit of springtime (which should be around here... somewhere) Why don't you go do something nice for a stranger today? (I will too)