Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Happy New Year

Hope everyone has a nice new year!

So for Christmas I got a $50 iTunes gift card. What music should I buy? I need suggestions! Brian has ALL the music! I haven't purchased any music for myself since.........yeah I got nothing! So let me know your suggestions!

Saturday, December 27, 2008

All About Me!!

Me, Me, Me!

That is what I feel like talking about today.

First of all I need to tell you all how I made off like a bandit for Christmas! I got an iPod Touch from my mom plus tons and tons of accessories! Super exciting! I've been craving one ever since Brian got one and knew that I would put it to good use, but could never bring myself to ask for one because at the sametime that I knew I would put it to good use, I often wondered if I, a stay-home Mom, really needed one. But the home executive that I am does need one! So I've been happily playing with that pretty much every spare minute, and not spare minute, since Christmas. I'll be watching TV and NOT watching because I'm IMDBing everyone or facebooking or whatever. I was afraid to touch it at first. I didn't want to scratch it or drop it or get it wet. I left it in its protective pouch until all the presents were open, the Christmas dinner eaten and cleaned up after, the girls got all of their stuff opened, and everyone was finally busy with something....then I opened it! 

I also got a beautiful little Willow Tree statue from my mom. I have wanted one of those forever! They are must so pretty! 

Brian made me a titanium bracelet at work. Its really pretty! Its chunky and shiny! I love it! 

I can't forget my gorgeous green bowl from my sis-in-law Jess! It fits perfectly in with what I want my decorating "style" to be! Speaking of style, I also got a great decorating book and its teaching me all about color and texture and how to incorporate those things into a room. Very exciting to me!

Then today we went out to get some bamboo sticks or stalks to put in the corner of our apartment for decorating purposes. After we got those we stopped in to best buy because Brian wanted to check out the 1080i TVs. He chatted the guy up forever! Finally on our way out, we stopped to check out the cell phones. Brian asked the guy if we were eligible for our upgraded phones - we were!! Both of us! Now Brian has had a flip phone with a camera built in and all that jazz - me? I had one of those old old do nothing phones. I don't even know how to text people! But the free phone available there was the LG Shine worth $360! I got it for free!! I have a built in camera and it slides open. Very cool! Free gift to myself! Now if I can figure out how to use it! 

So as of today it seems that I have officially stepped into the newest era of techno-gadgetry. This is a new phase for me. Soon I'll be downloading songs and texting, maybe I'll even learn how to use some of the fun features on my phone! 

Friday, December 26, 2008

For Chanda

I was looking through some old photos and saw this one from a visit to Woolaroc, OK 5 years ago! I thought of my Sis-in-Law Chanda's...what is the word? Fascination, not so much, maybe just the comic relief she receives from the sight of chickens and ostriches, birds of that type. So an ostrich for you, Chanda!

From 2003

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Etc.

Oh Christmas Tree!
From 2008
We went way overboard!! Too many presents! 
Luckily, a lot of them were books and things 
that were easily stored somewhere out of the way.

These following pics are Naomi and Gwen 
just before we headed out to go see the SLC 
Temple Christmas lights.

From 2008
How cute is she??

From 2008
New Hair-do!

And Gwen...always twirling...

From 2008


Once there was a snowman...

From 2008
From 2008

Monday, December 22, 2008

Ravioli Lasagna

We love lasagna! But I never make it, mostly because its time consuming, and lots of steps involved. SO we always eat that awful frozen stuff. But I found a recipe and just did it. Its pretty easy.

1 24-26 oz jar marinara sauce
2 20 ounce packages refrigerated large cheese ravioli
1 20 ounce box frozen, chopped, thawed and squeezed spinach or fresh
2 cups shredded mozzarella (8oz)
1/2 cup grated parmesan

Heat oven to 375*F. Spoon a thin layer of sauce into the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish.
On top of the sauce, layer a third of the ravioli, half the spinach, half the mozzarella, and a third of the sauce; repeat.
Top with remaining third of the ravioli and sauce.
Sprinkle with the parmesan.

Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes.
Uncover and bake until bubbling, 5-10 minutes.

So I just did this in a 8x8 dish and I halved the amount of ravioli used to fit the smaller dish. That amounts to a dish with 2820 calories in total - I did all the math myself! 

Literally Trapped!

Yes, you read the title correctly, I am literally trapped within the bounds of my apartment complex. Unless I wanted to go out walking in this crap. It has NOT stopped snowing the entire day here. It let up a little bit so I thought that I would try to venture out and get the errands done. We all got dolled up AGAIN, and into the car and strapped in. I shoveled the snow off of the car. It looked like close to 6 inches since this morning. When attempting to back up, I couldn't get the car to go anywhere due to the massive amounts of snow piled up from the snow plows. I got the snow shovel to distribute the snow and hopefully back over it. After "distributing" the snow twice and still not being able to back over it, I gave up! We are inside now. I called Brian to tell him I would not able to pick him up from work later as I can't get the car out alone. (The girls have VERY low patience spans when it comes to things like this) Lucky for me now its dumping snow outside again! DUMPING! The snowflakes look like they are an inch in diameter! Evil, Awful snow that waited until Christmas break to start pummeling us! This is my first non-weekend day where I didn't have to babysit so I thought it would be great to actually get out and do stuff with just my kids as I am usually trapped in the house the entire day because I can't transport 4 kids in my nissan Altima. But noooo!!! Here I am trapped again! I'm bored, as you can tell by this being the third post of the day! Bored, Bored, Bored! If I didn't have a decent amount of self control going on right now I would most likely go into our back room and have the girls rip into all of our presents! But I like the excitement of Christmas morning so I will not do that. Instead, we sit and get irritated by each other and all the demands of having nothing to do. I would not deal well if their was some major disaster that caused me to have to stay in doors! Its odd, if I want to stay in doors I could do that indefinitely even on nice days, but since I had plans to get out I feel so trapped. I know I said trapped a lot!

Oh, a positive note: I received many packages today! Uncle Andy's present to Naomi came, a giant box of presents from my mom arrived, a present for Brian, and all of Grandma Oppelt's Christmas presents. I didn't open them either - control! They will all be nicely placed under the tree! 

Snow Day

So I was really excited to get out of the house today and get some things done that have been on my checklist of things to do for a long time, well some of them have been. We all got ready: dressed, teeth brushed, hair brushed, shoes, coats, gloves, hats. We had to take Brian to school anyway, so I figured I could easily head on to the various places I needed to go and get everything done before none. 

From 2008

But no! Its snowing like crazy out there! The drive just less than 1 mile down the street to school was ridiculously crazy and slippery. I dropped Brian off and headed for home. So sad! Our first left hand turn we started to skid - it was scary for me. The girls thought it was funny! Good job for me though, I corrected it! Yay! I stayed in my lane the hole time! 

So now we are homebound for the day. Its very very disappointing. I actually made it out with the two girls before noon! It should be one of those days where you curl up with some hot cocoa in a giant fluffy blanket and watch movies, but I don't WANT to do that today!


Some Snowy PicS

Before we went outside...
From 2008
From 2008
From 2008
From 2008
From 2008
Gwen couldn't walk because the snow was too deep.
She got cold really fast and wanted to go in.
From 2008
From 2008
From 2008
From 2008
Naomi and I stayed outside and threw snowballs at each other.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Addendum

I don't know how to make it work, but I need to invite Jeremy Piven as well!!

Friday, December 19, 2008

10 people I'd invite to Dinner

So my sis-in-law Jennifer copied this from a friend. I am understanding that it was originally supposed to be all fictional people, but I just made a list of 10 people. Well sort of 10. I left some people off of my list because I knew that Brian would invite them at a further dinner party. I also assumed I would be going to Jennifer's so left some people off for that purpose as well. And apparently couples count as one. Anyway, here is my 10, sort of, dinner party. Oh, and no one is fictional, sorry!

1 Don Cheadle - LOVE HIM, ALWAYS!

2 Heidi Klum and Seal

3 Duff from Ace of Cakes - obviously to make a cake for us, oh it'd be awesome!

4 Mario Batali - first to cook for us, secondly because he just looks so sweet and cuddly, third who doesn't love a guy wearing shorts with bright orange crocs with his red headed ponytail?

5 David Bromstad - I would mostly chat with him while everyone else mingled so I could pick his brain and discuss what I could do better with my house. (I have a house in this fictional party world and its decorated wonderfully- perhaps by David Bromstad)

6 Will Smith - I know he'll be at Jennifer's too, but he HAS to come to mine as well!

7 Johnny Depp

8 JJ Abrams and maybe he could bring the entire cast of Lost, I'll leave that up to him!

9 Tom Hanks

10 Kevin James

Copying Jennifer's Hubby Tag

1. He's sitting in front of the tv. What's on the screen?
ESPN, usually for Sports Center top 10, he'll watch it 4 or 5 times in a row. Or we could get HIMYM or Cash Cab. He loves trivia shows, I hate them!

2. You are out to eat. What dressing does he get on his salad?
Ranch. 

3. What's one food he doesn't like?
Tomato Soup and more recently Butternut Squash Soup, usually anything that I actually do like. 

4. You go out to a bar. What does he drink first?
Virgin Pina Colada

5. Where did he go to high school?
Terry High and Cherokee High

6. If he were to collect anything, what would it be?
Well, He has a bit of a pack rat in him that I have curbed. He wants to collect everything people ever give him ie a coconut sent to us from Hawaii by his friend Chris. Cars, Guitars, Guitar Amps and Effects, Magazines, Motorcycles, and now not so much a collection but fancy, expensive chocolates, as well as music. He gets sad because he can't buy a new CD everyday.

7. What shoe size does he wear?
10 1/2

8. What is his favorite type of sandwich?
Pizzaiola from DiFiore's in PA

9. What would he eat every day if he could?
Otis SpunkMeyer double chocolate muffins (and I'm sure he does eat them everyday!)

10. What would he never wear?
Capris for men

11. What is his favorite sports team?
Houston Rockets incidentally he hates the Jazz

12. What is something you do that he wishes you didn't do so much?
Be mean.

13. How many states has he lived in?
5 - Texas, NJ, UT, CA, PA

14. What is his heritage?
English, German.

15. You bake him a cake for his birthday. What kind of cake would it be?
Chocolate, all dark chocolate, or FunFetti

16. Did he play sports in high school?
Soccer. 1/2 a season

17. What could he spend hours doing?
CARS! reading, looking, shopping, researching, blogging about it, oh and now Motorcycles

18. I'm adding this one of my own - does he read your blog?
NO! Not often enough 

Monday, December 15, 2008

Just a funny tidbit

You know how some books have a dust jacket? Naomi likes to take those off. Then she tells us all that it is her magic book. I like it. I like that she has a disappearing book. 

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Ok, so final result for the hair-do


Pictures of my hair will follow once I get into the appointment. Finals are this week for Brian so whenever our time off (from school for Bri and babysitting for me) coincides I'll head out to get it done!

Here is what I've come up with...

Jessica Simpson Long Bob


I know that I NEED a bang of some sort. This:


Or This:


Or should I just do the above cut all together?



Friday, December 12, 2008

Need a haircut.

I need my hair cut. Any suggestions?

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Daddy Has Been Very Busy This Week

From 2008

Gwenie hasn't seen much of Daddy this week! 
Yes, she is laying on my very dirty floor 
reaching under the bathroom door to get closer 
to him! Poor thing! She was screaming at him
the entire time he was in there.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

ARGGGGHHHH!!! That is how my day went.