Happy Halloween!!

I hope to post lots more tonight about our Halloween fun, but for now HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Crazy Marie Moment

Did anyone else just see Marie Osmond drop unconscious on the Dancing with the Stars stage?? I was cringing as I always do when Marie Osmond is dancing and talking to the judges, just because she is a complete cheese-ball, but then she stopped talking and fell to the floor. I couldn't believe it. And I felt so bad for thinking what a campy nut she was right before it happened. She may be a cheese-ball, but she's a Mormon cheese-ball and in the end there's just something that makes me want to root for her as our own home-grown celebrity of sorts. The show came back on and she's alright and everything, but wow that was a crazy live TV moment. I'm sending good vibes Marie's way and I'm actually contemplating voting for her, just to make up for my unkind thoughts right before she fainted, even if she pulled cheesy faces and got pretty close to winking at the camera a couple of times during her rumba.:)

Bloodsuckers

Much as Bella is to Edward, so am I to mosquitoes. If I lost you in that little analogy, Bella has super yummy smelling blood to her vampire boyfriend in the Twilight series of books and so do I to every darn mosquito within probably a 3 mile radius. They love me! It's horrible.

The reason I'm writing about this right now is because I'm trying to over come the intense urge I feel to scratch my SIX mosquito bites. Yesterday after coming into the house after church I felt all itchy and Adrian said, "Wait, don't move," and tried to smack a mosquito that was buzzing around me. He didn't get it and it flew away, but as I started scratching all my itches I found that I had 5 mosquito bites - 1 on my arm, 3 on my leg, and 1 above my eyebrow!! Can you believe that! It was as if I had walked through a swarm of mosquitoes, but I just walked from my car to our front door. I had taken only Sophie to church because Adrian had stayed home with sick Nina and Ben, so I asked Sophie if she had any mosquito bites and she said she didn't have any itches at all. Isn't that weird. Well no, actually to me it's not weird because I've always known I have very tasty blood to mosquitoes. Ever since I was little I have gotten the record for most mosquito bites acquired on trips to Minnesota for family reunions. Man, if I lived in Minnesota I would be in serious trouble. As it is, where I live now I hardly ever hear complaints of constant mosquito bites. It's just me, and those who are extra-specially tasty like me I guess.

Oh, and if you are wondering how I got my sixth mosquito bite I'll tell you. It was today after I had sprayed myself with Off (after yesterday I wasn't going to take chances today) and I was bringing in a couple of bags of groceries from the car. I even saw the stupid little mosquito flying drunkenly over the bushes by our front door after he had gotten me. I'm going to try to convince Adrian to chop down our front bushes, because I know that the little Cullen mosquito coven must reside in those very bushes! Either we're going to pull out the bushes or I'm going to have to start running in the door faster... Or better yet, lets hope for some really really cold nights to kill them all.

And I should also report that Adrian thinks he killed the offending mosquito from yesterday in our room this morning. Yep, it had looked all over the house and found me asleep in my bed last night. I probably have another bite on me that I haven't found yet...

It's My Blogaversary!

Today I have been blogging for one year exactly!! Isn't that crazy?!! Honestly I can't believe it's been only a year - what on earth did I do with myself before blogging?? Now everyday things happen, little things and big things, and I think to myself "oh, I should blog about this". I know that I wasn't telling myself that I should write it down in my journal, so blogging really has helped out in my journaling habits. And then there's the blogging world too - oh, how I love the little bloggin' community that I am a part of. It has been such a wonderful way to get to know friends and keep in touch with those who live far away. So,Yay for Google who makes my blogging so easy and yay for my favorite form of therapy - blogging itself!! :)

Croup

I think that croup is rearing its ugly head again and so early this year. It's so warm outside and hardly even seems fallish, but Nina just developed the barky cough this evening. I had leftover Xopenex from last croup season, so we did a nebulizer treatment and then I spent about 15 minutes with her in our steamed up bathroom, but she still sounded awful. Her little baby babbles sound all raspy and her breathing is so heavy. I am really really hoping we don't have to do a 4am run to the ER for a steroid shot. Right now I'm over at our friends babysitting for our babysitting swap, but I've called a couple of times to check on Nina and Adrian says she's doing alright. He has the baby monitor turned up so he can hear all her coughs to see if they ever get really bad.

Croup has always been a part of my life as a mom - especially during the winters, all of our kids have gotten it lots of times (I think last winter I posted about it all the time too), but that really hasn't eased my anxiety. We've just had so many horrible episodes with croup... Ugh, I am so not happy about the sick season happening again, but hopefully we'll get through this first bout okay. Wish us luck!

Borders... with Children

Today Adrian was going to be coming home from work a bit later, so I decided to bide sometime with the kids by taking a trip to Borders after picking Sophie up from school. I had a lovely gift card from my birthday to spend (thanks to the ladies who gave it to me, if you're reading this!!) and had kept meaning to go some night after the kids went to bed, but had not managed to do so in a month, so I figured hey let's all just go.

I told the kids in the car that Borders was kind of like a library so everybody needed to whisper and try not to disturb all the people looking at books. Yeah, that lasted about 5 minutes, with Ben doing his loudest possible raspy whisper that entire 5 minutes. It's actually quite a funny whisper - Ben does the same thing during Nina's naps when I remind him it's quiet time, but I'm not sure why I bother because I seriously think his "whisper" is louder than his talking voice. I first went to the art book section, which by far is my favorite, but of course those art books are amazingly expensive - the one's I want anyway. It is one of my heart's desires to some day get Gardner's Art Through the Ages, but so far I've not been able to shell out the bucks for it (I think its around 150 dollars). If I ever do procure this book it will be put on my short list of things to grab if the house is burning.

So there I was in the art books and I sat the kids down in the isle of the art books (meaning Sophie and Ben, Nina was in her stroller) and gave them a Harry Potter inspired knitting pattern book that I grabbed off a nearby shelf for them to look at. That lasted a couple of minutes, enough time for me to drool over a beautiful J.W. Waterhouse book which did not fit in my budget. Once Sophie and Ben began shoving each other with laughs(Sophie) and cries(Benjamin) becoming embarrassingly loud I decided it was time to switch sections. Off I went to cookbook section. Probably my second favorite area of a bookstore. I started by briefly looking through Jerry Seinfield's wife's, Jessica, new cookbook called Deceptively Delicious. I really like the idea of this cookbook - hiding fruit and veggie purees in kid pleasing meals. I've never actually done this, but I do put shredded carrot in a lot of my tomato based pasta sauces so I thought this would be a good one to buy. Sophie and Ben again started to fight over who got to hold onto the stroller, so off we went to the music and DVD section.

Music section - this place is a minefield for kids, full of those listening stations for the kids to fight over. I told Sophie to help Ben listen to a song at one of the stations -hoping it wasn't Snoop Dog, I was a bad mom and didn't even check... I wanted to take every second of the momentary distraction to find a Muse CD. I found it - Absolution. I have bought a couple songs from this album off of itunes and have loved them so much that I figured just buying the whole CD would be worth it. It also wasn't too expensive, bonus. So I quickly checked out how sturdy the packaging for the CD was and gave it to screaming Nina who was mad that she too couldn't play with the headphones that Sophie and Ben were using. The CD quelled her screams and she turned it over and over, probably looking for any weak points in the packaging... I went back up to the top of the isle were Ben and Sophie were to stop their latest fight of course over the headphones and Sophie asked me, "Mom who are the Fall Out Boys?" Lovely, not exactly the music I would have chosen for my 8 and 3 year old, but hopefully 2 minutes of it, with the majority of that spent fighting over the headphones, won't hurt them.

Glutton for more punishment I headed over to the DVD section just to see what I could find by scanning the shelves as I walked and directed children to not run up and down the music isles. I spied Impromptu and the special music edition of Romeo + Juliet and pulled them off the shelf. I had never heard of Impromptu, but it had a younger Hugh Grant on the cover in period costume so of course I grabbed it - couldn't stop my hand really. And a DVD of Romeo + Juliet has been on my wish list for a while (I have the VHS tape). So armed with 4 possible items to buy (Deceptively Delicious, Absolution(being chewed on at that moment by Nina), Impromptu, and Romeo + Juliet) I pulled out my last "get kids to behave" card and went to the kids section to deliberate. I gave Ben a Charlie and Lola pop up book to look at and Sophie found a Halloween chapter book to read and I told them to be good so I could make my decision. (Surprisingly this really worked.) Nina had already cracked the plastic CD case of Absolution, so it looked like getting that was a given, but I wanted to get something else too - my birthday still right, since I was using a birthday gift card?!! I resisted the urge to actually buy a movie I'd never seen (as lovely and historically dressed as Hugh Grant was on the cover) and be happy with the tape I have of Romeo + Juliet for the time being, so I chose Deceptively Delicious (after their behavior in the art, cookbook, and music/DVD sections, I will feel absolutely no guilt in sneaking spinach into every possible meal from now on).

We put the kids books away, with many cries and whines, but that Charlie and Lola pop up book was 18.99 and Sophie has SO many chapter books at home, so I was not to be persuaded into buying them. They had calmed down by the time we got to the check out line, but much like the grocery stores have candy in the check out lines so do Borders stores - curse them!! So then began the whines for Harry Potter jelly slugs and Lindt chocolate truffles (but to be honest I couldn't blame them for that one because I was inwardly having my own struggle with wanting them too:)). I hushed them and told them no candy was to be had and thankfully the line was very short. I didn't get a look at the cashier when I gave the chewed on Muse CD to her, but I am assuming she was thoroughly grossed out because she exclaimed, "Did you know this CD is wet?!!" Oops... I guess I should have wiped it off, but I really wasn't thinking about the drool involved in Nina chewing on a CD for a half and hour, sorry Border's cashier! She was pretty unfriendly for the rest of the transaction. Oh well, I bet they have hand-sanitizer and I was pretty much home free at that point and was just happy to be minutes away from leaving the store and the annoyed looks from childless shoppers. In the car I immediately, before even starting the car, flipped up the DVD screen and told the kids I was going to listen to my new CD and they just needed to deal with it - after all the cries, whines and screams at Borders their whines about watching Harry Potter in the car were almost white noise. Muse was the perfect mood stabilizer and every one calmed down to their dulcet tones (Ruled by Secrecy is especially soothing).

So was it worth it to take all the kids to Borders to use my bday gift card on a lovely cookbook and a wonderful CD?? I think so. I'm pretty good about blocking out the unpleasantness and I'm sure I'll be back again sometime for that Hugh Grant movie and possibly another cookbook too. Maybe next time I'll buy some Lindt truffles first and pop one in every time a kid fight starts to help remain positive.

Our a Little Bit Scary Date

Adrian and I had a fun date tonight - yay for our babysitting swap! In honor of Halloween we went on a haunted history tour of a neat historic district near us. It was very interesting and a fun way to spend a date night rather than our usual dinner and a movie. From the web site on this particular ghost tour I totally thought it was going to be a scary, but it really wasn't at all. It was more a fun little history walk with a slant towards the odd and unusual. The funniest part was after the tour guide had told a long story about a how a confederate soldier had been killed and fell down a narrow staired alleyway and how he supposedly now haunted this particular alley; she said that people's cameras do not seem to work when they try to take pictures of the spot where he fell. So I whispered to Adrian, "Oh, I'm going to take a picture." Well I took out my cel phone and flipped it open and what did I see but "camera on standby" across my cel screen. Ooooh scary!! Ha! In reality I probably pushed the camera button on the side as a took it out of my pocket (it's a new phone because Nina sucked on my old one and ruined it, so I'm still figuring out how this one works). A second later I did take a pic and it turned out just fine. But you must admit that that was a pretty funny moment to have had my cel camera momentarily not work. :)

The tour was about an hour and a half and it was good to be out walking in the brisk fall air with my hubby. I am not a big fan of cold cold, but the crispy fall mornings and evenings are so lovely now. After the tour we had wonderfully delicious cheesecake at the Cheesecake factory. No matter how I try (and I probably shouldn't) I just can't finish a whole piece, so I am looking forward to my leftover Godiva chocolate cheesecake breakfast tomorrow morning. Another Halloweeny thing that we're looking forward to is the 3D release of Nightmare Before Christmas in the theaters, I think it will be awesome in 3D! Oh, how I love Halloween.

So You Think You Can Dance!!!!

I can't believe I still have my voice today because I spent all of last night screaming like a crazy teenager at the So You Think You Can Dance concert!! It was AWESOME!! I really don't think I've had more fun at a concert. I got to go with my good friends - Corinne, Jann, Cami and Jake, Jeri and Christie. I tried to convince Adrian to go when we got the tickets, but he didn't think it would be his kind of thing. (Now that I've told him how much fun it was I think he just might be game for next year.)

Before the show we picked up yummy Qdoba taco salads and watched our favorite dances from the show at Cami's house which she thankfully had on her DVR. My favorite dance from this season was "Night of the Dancing Flame" with Neil and Lauren, though my favorite all time SYTYCD fave is still "Ramalama Bang Bang" which was a group dance from last season. Funny thing that both are songs by Roisin Murphy and choreographed by Wade. I guess I appreciate his particular brand of freakishness! After the fun recap of favorites, we all set off in Cami and Jakes' van to the show. We ran into traffic, but were able to make it to our seats right before the show started. And they were GREAT seats - thanks to our fabulous ticket procurer Corinne!! As soon as the lights went down, the crazy screaming and clapping on my part began and continued all through out the show. It was so fun to sit next to Corinne and Jann! I hadn't been to a concert in such a long long time and it was so great to be able to experience all the hipe with friends who were clapping and screaming right along with me.

It was just so much fun and amazing really to see the dancers and dances in real life. I loved Pasha's cape solo! It was so great and done to the hard hitting opening music to Baz Lurman's Romeo and Juliet. At least that was what I heard, if it wasn't actually the music from Romeo and Juliet that just tells you how much I loved that Pasha dance for my mind to project my favorite orchestral music onto it!! The Princes dance with Danny and Neil was awesome... Oh, oh, and the Pasa Doble with Sabra and Neil was so so great too! I was never a big Jamie fan during the show, but in real life up close - wow she is a stunning dancer and I'm so glad she and Hawk were there to do the "Flower and the Hummingbird". They all were great, but of course I'd have to say "Night of the Dancing Flame" was still my fave!


After the show we tried very hard to get pictures with the dancers, stood in pouring rain, but alas it was not meant to be. The pouring rain as annoying as it was probably made the end of the night even more memorable. We had someone take our picture in the parking garage after and as you can see we were drenched! All and all it was a totally splendid night and I look forward to screaming my guts out for the next season of fabulous dancers at the show next year!

More Meme Fun

This is a meme that went around a little while ago and I thought it was really fun to read about other people so here it is about me:

Jobs I've gotten paid for:

1. Carillon Square movie theater employee - this was my first job and I loved it!!
2. Golden Coral Buffet - this was short lived, but while it lasted I got to ring a bell every time I took hot rolls out of the oven.
3. Kohler's bakery - this was an okay job, but kind of lonely cause all the bakers left around 10am and I was by myself for the rest of the day behind the bakery counter.
4. Auto Meter - I was an assembly line worker. I put little computer chips and registers into circuit boards for race car and race boat tachometers. Sounds like a lot of fun doesn't it?? *said in a very sarcastic tone*
5. Janitor at the BYU Art Museum - I actually really loved this job. I got to spend lots of alone time with great art while I cleaned!
6. Burlington Coat Factory - I worked with a couple of friends from my movie theater days so this was a fun job for me.
7. Kencraft candy factory - I was again an assembly line worker, but this time I made little gum ball caterpillars day after day...after day....after day...
8. Carillon Square Movie Theater assistant manager - this was a very brief stint. I had agreed to do this to help out my friend, Bill, who had gone from being a bellman at the theater when I worked there to becoming the general manager and he needed a temporary assistant manager so he called me up. Thank goodness it was temporary - it was my second job during the time that Adrian and I were engaged and it really cut into our blissfully engaged cuddle time.
9. First Security Bank Teller - I really enjoyed this job. I love the smell of money! And I got to teach a lot of BYU freshmen how to balance their checkbooks, which was challenging at times, but I had fun with it.

My Guilty Pleasures:

1. Americas Next Top Model and a slew of other lovely reality shows (Top Chef, Project Runway, Top Gear...)
   
2. Edward...uh I mean, vampire novels/movies/TV shows (thanks Julia for the heads up on Moonlight - I love it!)
3. Chocolate - especially Lindt Lindor Truffles
4. Sleep in days

What were likely the 1st things you thought when you saw your significant other for the first time:

1. He's cute and he's such a nice guy! (1st time I saw Adrian was when he home-taught me for the first time - we were in the same Heritage Halls ward at BYU and he was my home teacher.)
2. I'd like to marry someone like him. (It's funny because that night I actually wrote in my journal that I would love to marry a man like Adrian someday because I thought he "glowed" and just exuded love and goodness. Ahhh... I was smitten right from the beginning. :))

Places I've been on vacation in the US: (I almost think I should just write the states I haven't been to because I went on quite a few road trips with my parents as a youngster)

1. California - I've gone back to Disney and Huntington beach a few times and we went to San Francisco on our honeymoon
   
2. Utah - this was when I lived in CA and went to Park City for Christmas vacations, and also we go back there on vacation now a lot
   
3. Wyoming - Yellowstone
   
4. Montana
5. North Dakota
6. South Dakota
7. Minnesota - usually reunions
   
8. Nebraska
9. Iowa
10. Missouri
11. Illinois - Nauvoo!!
    
12. Wisconsin
13. Indiana
14. Ohio
15. Pennsylvania - we love Lancaster!
    
16. New York
17. New Jersey - Cape May is gorgeous!
18. Maryland
19. DC
    
20. Virginia - Williamsburg is very cool.
    
21. Kentucky
22. Tennessee - pilgrimage to Graceland with my Dad and Mom :)
    
23. Kansas
24. Colorado
25. Arizona
26. Nevada
27. Idaho - Rexburg to drop off my brother at Ricks way back when
    
28. West Virginia

Places I've been (out of US) - these were on a backpacking excursion when I was 17

1. France
2. Germany
3. Italy
4. Austria
5. Switzerland
6. Denmark
7. The Netherlands
8. England

Favorite Foods

1. Beef with Snow Peas - I love Chinese food.
2. Ben and Jerry's Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream - Mmmmm...
3. Strawberries -especially strawberry crepes
   
4. Asparagus - steamed with butter and salt - Yum!

Websites I Visit Daily:

1. Lots-o-blogs

Nicknames I've been called:

1. Jenni-Furry - this was when I was a baby because I had lots of dark hair and I liked to have my head rubbed:)
2. All the Jennifer nicknames - Jenni, Jen, with Jenni being my name of choice (but seminary teachers always called me Jen and I really didn't like it)
   
3. Elmer Fudd
4. Glue
5. Indie - this was during my Indiana Jones obsession in middle school, I really wanted to become an archaeologist
   
6. Iggie - a weird mixture of Indie and Glue which made sense in middle school, but no longer does
7. Fence Post - long story which I can't remember, but my best friend Nikki was Corn Cob and they went together for some long-forgotten reason
8. Jeniper - my nephew James called me this when he was little and it was very cute
   
9. Daedre - this was my HS vampire name (my boyfriend was Ambrose, yep I was a bit artsy-gothic-fartsy)
   
10. Shinabur - weird yes, am I going to tell you the story? nope
11. Jenni Dear - this is when Adrian is trying to kiss up and it's a nice nickname:)

If you haven't done this one yet, it's fun! Give it a try. :)

Dinner Conversation

We had Subway sandwiches for dinner tonight, Adrian picked them up on his way home from work and this is the very funny conversation that happened during dinner:

Ben: Daddy go to mall.

Mommy: No, Daddy didn't get these sandwiches at the mall, but there is a Subway at the mall.

Ben: Daddy work in the mall.

Mommy: No, Daddy doesn't work in the mall Ben.

Ben: Daddy DO work in the mall Mommy!

Daddy: No, Ben I don't work in the mall.

Ben: Yes you do, you work in the store in the mall.

Sophie: No, Daddy doesn't work at a store in the mall, but he does kind of work at a store.

Mommy: Daddy doesn't work at a store Sophie.

Sophie: Yes he does, a computer store right?

(Adrian almost spits out the bite of sandwich he is chewing.)

Daddy: What? I don't work at a computer store Sophie, don't you remember the day I took you to work on "Bring Your Daughter to Work Day"?

Sophie: Oh, yeah.

Mommy: (stunned by this conversation, I turn to Adrian and say) I think you should tell them what you do all day, I think Ben thinks you work at Wetzel's Pretzels and Sophie thinks you work at Best Buy.

Daddy: (also stunned and almost at a loss for words Adrian says to Ben and Sophie) I work in an office and tell computers what to do, I'm a computer programmer.

Sophie: Oh, yeah I knew that.

Ben: Daddy you work in the mall.

This was followed by Adrian and I both trying to convince Ben that Daddy works with computers all day, not in the mall. We're not sure he's convinced. But now I know why Ben wants to go to the mall everyday - he's hoping to see Daddy!! I think this conversation is going to take a while for Adrian to get over. And I'm pretty sure that Adrian is going to make sure that Sophie goes on take your child to work day again this year. :)

October's Art Pic

I love this picture and since I live in a place were I really get to see the seasons change, the harvest in action, this picture is more significant for me now. When I was growing up in SoCal, the only thing that really let you know the seasons were changing were the different holiday decorations in department stores.:)

Grandma Moses is also such an interesting figure in art. First she is a woman, but she was also quite a bit older than your average artist at the height of her fame. So way to go Grandma Moses and thank you for the beautiful soul-filled folk art you are famous for!