Taiwan!! (wait, nope, not Taiwan)

I have been too intimidated by this post to begin it much earlier. If I were smart, I would have posted every night while I was there, just so I could remember what we did each day. I'm not that smart of a blogger, I guess. Because when I think back to it, I find myself just overwhelmed at the amazing, once-in-a-lifetime trip that I was so lucky/blessed/spoiled to be able to take. To see my parents so out of their comfort zone, yet so comfortable, was amazing. They are simple people, I've kind of always thought I had them figured out, but seeing them there & all the growth they've experienced individually and as a couple was nothing short of inspiring.
But before I get into that, I'd like to brag for a minute about another REEdiculously amazing person- my husband. I don't talk about Matt nearly enough on this blog. I'm not really a mushy person, but he is a pure God-send in my life on a daily basis. While I was in Taiwan, Matt was working his brains out. With the drop in mortgage rates, he gets crazy busy toward each month's end, and this month was no exception. I guess there were a couple of days where he went to work at like 3am, and 6 am on most other days, and came home at 11 pm on others. It was crazy. Well, I had a sneaking suspicion that he would get the carpet installed while I was away, but after hearing about his week, I thought there was no way it'd would happen & I was just setting myself up to be disappointed. When I finally got home though, I could smell the freshly laid carpet as soon as I walked in the door. Yummy! Sawyer and I went down to take the grand tour & were completely floored. I cried. I don't think I could have gotten as much done in a week if I had a flock of midgets to help me. He had the carpet installed, the tile laid, moved all the furniture in storage (half of the garage) into the appropriate rooms, assembled both my cute Ikea desks/shelves, assembled Sawyer's play table, organized all our holiday decorations into the closets in our guest rooms, moved the bed from the guest room upstairs into the guest room downstairs, moved the crib & baby furniture from the basement to the room that will one day be a nursery again, made a beautiful framed chalkboard on the wall in my office, drew a beautiful "welcome home" mural on that chalkboard, (that's the part that made me bawl my eyes out) cleaned out & organized the garage, had my car's brakes changed, left the house very nice & tidy, scraped out all the dead spots in our yard & arranged for our neighbor to give us some sod to replace it. That's a whole paragraph worth of stuff. He is amazing. All this while working like 70 hours. How's that for making me feel incredibly loved and spoiled while at the same time completely inefficient? Oh, and he peeled all the yucky gunk off the counter in the bathroom. (that alone would have been a week's worth of work for me.) Oh and he also got up at 1:30 am for me so he could go online & reserve me a better seat on the plane; on a day he had to get up at 3 am.
Wow, I think that's all I have juice for tonight. I'll post about Taiwan tomorrow. I love my husband. Here are some pictures of the beautiful, finally finished basement.This is the main room at the bottom of the stairs. I adore this couch. I love that I have a separate cake kitchen! Still need to get appliances & the flat screen, and some blackout curtains.
This is Sawyer's playroom under the stairs, which she is completely in love with. She's actually sleeping down there tonight, it's so cute. And don't ask me why, but I get an office. I am super excited to have a room of my own. I am experiencing zero buyer's remorse for these desks either. One will have my computer on it, and the other will host my sewing machine. I feel super cool and spoiled to have this area all to myself.In my office, I have a little desk for Sawyer to play at while I work, it's pretty much the greatest thing ever, with it's big roll of butcher paper and all. The craft organizer on the wall ain't too bad either. Thank you Pottery Barn clearance!This is the gorgeous chalkboard I wasn't expecting at all. I was just going to paint the entire wall with chalkboard paint, but Matt had this great idea to frame it, and I freaking LOVELOVELOVE it! What a babe.
This is the furnished guest room. I had a nap down there & didn't make the bed yet. Don't judge. This is the as yet unfurnished guest room. We are debating buying ourselves a king size bed & putting ours down there, but I really, really love our mattress & am scared of buying a new one. And this is the only thing I'm not in love with, the bathroom. I had a picture I'd torn out of magazine & was totally going to re-create it, but I forgot that we changed the cabinet color at the last minute. So when they called to schedule the installation, I hurried real fast & painted this green color so that I wouldn't have to do it with the cabinets installed, but I forgot that we switched up the color & the green isn't working for me with these cabinets. Boo. I'm dumb. So what color should I paint?
Anyway, there's the basement. Brought to you buy Matt. I'll do Taiwan tomorrow. 'night.

First Ever Ballet Recital

Sawyer adores ballet, and last Friday was her first ever recital. I cannot believe that just last year we were there to watch Cousin Caroline in her recital. Sawyer was mesmerized by the dancers all night on BOTH nights that we went & then & there I decided that we should try her in ballet as soon as she was old enough. The first few pictures are at the dress rehearsal, her cousin Olivia is also at the same school & she is quite an accomplished little ballerina as well. I am pretty much in love with that last picture of Matt & Sawyer. My sister Carrie & her girls came to support Sawyer, as well as our good buddies, Danny, Jessica & Max, and pretty much Jessica is the reason any of these pictures are any good at all. (Because me and no flash allowed equals tragic pictures.) I sound lame, but I just cannot believe my little girl is this big! I'm so proud of her for fighting her fear of the evil fairy and not freaking out when she came on stage. She just is such an amazing little girl, I think my favorite thing about her right now is how she is so mechanically-curious. She is her Grandpa's girl; loves to see how things work & "fix" things with tools. She is a tad bit whimpy right now when it comes to playing with the neighbor kids, she's not a big fan of jumping on the tramp when anyone else is jumping, has a hard time knowing when people are teasing or not, kind of reminds me of another brown-eyed girl....
Anyway, I'm off to Idaho tomorrow, to drop Sawyer off with her amazing Aunt Jozet & Cousin Janene who will dote on her while I am in Taiwan. I am indescribably excited to see my parents, never mind going to Taipei. I hope I'll be able to not lose anything, not miss any flights, and not kill any flight attendants or innocent passersby while I am in coach for 14 hours. Those are the main goals for the trip. A bit of beach time would be a huge bonus.

Please excuse my rant.

This is for your eyes only; you being anyone not living in Idaho. (Please bless my brother-in-law, Ron doesn't read this, because he will rip me a new one. And he is WAY smarter than me so it won't be hard.) Some of my most beloved people on the planet are Idaho-dwellers, and although is in completely incomprehensible to me, they love it there, they are happy & are raising wonderful, civilized children. Somehow. I don't understand it. I am generally a very tolerant person. Take care of your responsibilities, contribute to society, try to be kind & we will probably get along swimmingly. I am not remotely racist, but I am an Idahoist. An antiIdahite, if you will. And I'll tell you why:
...ahem....
IT'S BECAUSE EVERYFREAKING TIME I AM DRIVING ON THE FREEWAY & SOME YAY-WHO UP YONDER IS GUMMING UP THE WORKS, IT IS ALLLLLWAYS AN IDAHOAN!!!
Phew.
Yesterday I was coming home from Bountiful at 5:30 pm. Not on purpose believe me. Things have been great since the Legacy Highway completion, but I generally try to not drive at that time anyway. Well yesterday just happened to be an accident day. Just past Lagoon. Accident. It's cool though, I'm in the carpool lane. (Also known as the EXPRESS lane.) So me & my fellow high occupancy vehicles are cruising past the poor suckas going two miles an hour. Yeah! Happy driving time. Thumb your nose at other people time. Good time. Wait, what is this? Why has the carpool lane traffic started to slow? There is no reason for this. Luckily I'm in my big beautiful Land Cruiser (thank you Matt!), and can see over other tiny little cars. It appears that there is a small P.O.S. car seven cars ahead that has decided to not make the other lanes of traffic feel badly about the situation they are in. This kind soul would not like to make them jealous of our carpool status, so he's going to go the SAME PACE as the other lanes. Very good-hearted, no?
NO!
Guess where he was from?
Right! (the correct answer is Idaho)
Guess how many people were in his car?
Right! (the correct answer is one)
So yeah. I know they don't have any reason to have express lanes in Idaho, but you have heard of them, have you not? You do have the ability to READ THE SIGNS on the freeway. Perhaps follow what they say next time, mmm-kay?
GRRRRRR!
Thanks for letting me rant.
p.s. I am fully aware that there are children starving all throughout the world. There are awful things that happen to inoccent people everyday. It's a very trite thing that I am complaining about. I know this. Yet I reserve my right to complain about whatever I want. It's my blog & I'll cry if I want to. Whaaaaah!
p.p.s. I also hate that our newest license plate design so closely resembles the Idaho plate. Dumb. Make up your own design, Utah. Stick with the beautiful arches one. Make a pretty Lake Powell one. Do something cool with the Great Salt Lake. I have plenty of ideas, we don't need to steal ideas from Idaho of all places. Geez.

DANGER DANGER WILL ROGERS

uh, i just found my own personal recession. Go waste some time (and money) here.

Oh My Goodness, Can I Get Some Help Here!

So here I am being indecisive again, and the last time (deciding to go to Taiwan or not) I got some very clear feedback, so I shall resort to asking my blog-buddies again. K, so I get my own little office-land in the basement, right? A space to have my computer, digital scrapbook, sew, make little projects, store cake ideas, hide & wrap presents etc. And Matt is getting secretly getting the carpet installed while I'm in Taiwan, so I'll have to pretend to be surprised, huh? Anyway, it's almost done & we've been looking at furniture. So Ikea is amazing & I have two options that I love for desks for said office-land.

Option A:
one of these snazzy bookshelves on each side of the window with a desk attached to it as per the second picture so I could wheel my little chair to each side as needed

Pros:
-separate work areas for computer stuff & sewing machine stuff
-great amounts of little cubby storage
-you can also buy inserts for the cubbies- drawers & doors and the like for very cute organized storage
-could remove the desk part & have great bookshelves for a different use
-would make good childrens desks for later on if I wanted to do something else with that room
-this configuration would leave quite a bit of open space in the rest of the room for exercise equipment, etc.

Cons:
-not one big flat area for fabric or wrapping paper being laid out
-they'd be all in the corners, facing walls

Option B:
just this one, it's awesome, there is a glass piece on top with about 2 inches between the base tabletop.

Pros:
-I really love the double desktop, increased surface area thing
-the legs would do a great job of holding my CPC & printer
-I could put pictures or little vinyls under the glass for more personalization & cuteness
-can change the table height really easily, like for standing projects

Cons:
-I'd want it kinda in the middle of the room, but with the short side against the wall- would that take up too much room?
-if I did set it up that way, the window would be right in front of the screen causing a ton of glare issues, unless I got some hefty drapes/blinds, which I don't really want to do because I love the light. (or turned it the other way.... yeah, that'd be good. Maybe that's not an issue.)

Okay, I kinda think that this little exercise made it clear that option A is the way to go, but I really for some reason, love option B. So do I go with practical & cool, or okay & love?
oh and p.s. the more expensive one for ONCE in my life is the one Matt loves, not the one I love!! that is such a first it's not even funny.

Lately.

I've been kind of a boring blogger. This blog is really supposed to be something for me to go back & look at when in the far, far future, I have time to digital scrapbook our lives. It helps me keep track of pictures and funny things Sawyer says & fun trips we take. Because I got crap for a memory. Remember when we discussed the tapeworm? It is a permanent problem. So, after unloading my camera, here is what we have been up to lately.
Matt always comes up with the cutest ideas for FHE. In February we celebrated Sawyer advancing from nursery into Sunbeams! Even Charlie got in on that action, can you tell how much she loves wearing things? (oh and Matt looks like a robot because he is being one. It is pretty much Sawyer's favorite thing that he does.ever.)Also exciting recently is Sawyer's upcoming ballet recital. Its on March 13th at 7:00 at Bountiful High. I have tickets if you want. Her school actually puts on very entertaining & well done recitals. But just in case it sucks, her dance is in the first half hour, so you can leave. If you want tickets let me know, it's free. It's going to be a lovely rendition of Sleeping Beauty. And if we're lucky Sawyer will NOT freak out when Maleficent comes on stage. So far its pretty hit or miss when they practice. But she looks REdiculously cute in her costume & adores dancing and her teacher, Miss Kami. (p.s. this is not her costume, words cannot describe her cuteness in that thing.) Matt's nephew (and mine too) Jake got his Eagle! He is such a rad kid. When Becky & Craig go on trips we are lucky enough to be able to go be pseudo-parents to their kids, who range from Evan, who is 17 to Isaac who is 7 (?). We LOVE being able to do this. They are seriously some of my heroes. They are the cool kids who rock at sports & always look cute & have brand new cars when they turned 16, but they are also the most down to earth, funny, just purely GOOD kids. They want to do whats right without being mo-mo. They just set they example quietly & still have tons of fun & manage to get into only minimal amounts of trouble. That beauty of a scar Jake has on the back of his head was from a brain tumor removal when he was about 8 I think. Luckily he has been cancer free since then, but I know it was a huge trial & faith-building experience for both he & his whole family. Anyway, I love Jake & am so proud of him.

Matt was in St. George last weekend to recover from his crazy month at work. You gotta make hay while the sun shines, but I cannot believe how much he's been working, I think I would have poked my eyeballs out by now if I were him. Matt's boyfriend Danny was also out of town, so Jessica & I attempted to do something fun, but we are old and married boring people now, so fun consisted of me trying to put Sawyer to bed (to no avail) while Jess and Max had Cafe Rio in the kitchen. Max made great strides in his love of dogs, and Sawyer was more than happy to get out of bed and show him how fun it is to have a dog. I love the little friendship that is developing between them. Max calls Sawyer "oy-yer" and Sawyer loves to steal his toys from him. They see each other at the gym all the time & Sawyer kinda hunkers down to talk to him because she is, let's face it, ginormous compared to a little preemie two year old.

Exhibit A

Also, I have renewed my infatuation and amazement at the little thing known as the "magic eraser." It strikes me as very blog-worthy. The amount of crap that you can get off your "clean" walls is dumbfounding. I used one up the other day in a matter of a hallway & an entryway. It was awe-inspiring. No chemicals, yet so much cleaning power. How is it done? Does anyone know? Is it truly magic? I am beginning to think that it is.

Oh, and another thing. I have spent most of my life trying to fight my natural "not-modest-ness". I love bikinis. I think they are like the cutest things on the planet. I would LOVE to design them, with their cute little prints & girly details and fun little pointless strings and embellishments. I would love have been a bikini model, or at least have the body to go along with it. Of course if I did have the body then I probably would have done it & that may have started me down a whole other path that we should not get into. It's hard for me on that first day that Target busts them out for the season, I want to buy every one of them. They're just so fun and stupid. Also the fact that I have a freakishly long torso (they don't call me Thorax for nothing.) makes it way too hard to find a one piece that doesn't give me "four-butt." Thank the Lord for the tankini. Those are cute too, but I have recently found that picking out swimming suits for my daughter provides the same fun and cuteness as bikini-shopping! This is wonderful news, people. I know that was way too long of an intro, but here it is..... drum roll please.... Sawyer's 2009 swimming suit! And also, Sawyer would like to show you her Pinocchio cleavage tattoo.This will no doubt be the first of many, just don't tell Matt. (clarification: first of many 2009 swimsuits, not cleavage tattoos.)

Everything is fine, thank you.

Well I made it through the day, and with the exception of the hour where I thought that for sure Matt was lying dead in a gutter somewhere, no one is dead, no one broke up with me, no one wanted to kill me (that I know of), and Sawyer & I had a really fun time together. And I had some birthday cake ice cream. Bonus. My throat is feeling better and I was able to go to the gym today and American Idol was entertaining and Jillian is the new Bachelorette, so it was a good day. Thanks for the crossed fingers and all, ya'll.

D-Day

Tomorrow is my bad day. March 3rd has started to make me a bit anxious each year. When major things happen, there is a huge chance that it will be on March 3rd. Take for example:
* 1997 - found out that my high school boyfriend was cheating on me. Not just any old run of the mill cheating, no sir, sleeping-with-his-boss-at-Hollywood-Video cheating. Classy, huh?
* 1998 - I was just reading in my journal from that day & let's just say that I was a smidge depressed. Very self destructive thought patterns. Its amazing how long I've actually been dealing with that crap without realizing it.
*1999 - Somehow made it through with no major drama.
*2000 - Had to call off my first wedding to Jared a week away from the date. Moral issues. Sucky. He was sooo mad at me for being honest with my bishop. Nice. Any other person with a brain in their head would have realized at that point that perhaps this person is not who I would like to be married to. Not me. Nope, we rescheduled for June.
*2001 - Kicked Jared out, began divorce proceedings.
*2005 - Found out I was pregnant with Sawyer, but that's a good one.
Geez, nasty March 3rd drama has decreased significantly since meeting & marrying Matt. Three cheers for Matt! Perhaps I should drop the stupid March 3rd superstition. At any rate keep your fingers crossed for me tomorrow, k?

The Greatest Picture of the (second) Greatest Dog Ever.

Warning: Do not click on this link if your throat is really, really sore and you want to die every time you cough, laugh, breath or talk. (Like me today.) Its the laughing that will be problematic. This is my brother & sister-in-law's huge great white Pyrenees dog, Lando (yes, named after a Star Wars character) and he is hilarious. Oh, and their baby, Hanne is pretty cute too. Just don't misuse appostrophes in your comments because Stacey will kill you.