I don't know if I have told ANY of you this, but Sophie is my favorite daughter. Actually, she's one of my favorite children. She's just wonderful and sometimes I wish that she shared her awesomeness genes with her brothers more. I have to constantly tell her not to rub it in their faces. She just got the extra.

She fluffs her hair WAY to much, and I have to remind her not to fluff her beautiful golden locks. Sophie is also very talented. When she's bored, she can lay down on the floor and make all of the noises that you hear in a dentists' office, which is a skill I am VERY jealous of.

AND she bought me frozen yogurt once. It was really good frozen yogurt.

She's really good at skipping too. And she has a great british accent. It's wonderful, especially when she pulls it out in the store.... I love it when she does that. Sometimes when she skips in public I have to pull the "You're killing me here" card, which I try not to do as much because it worries my dearest, most wonderful daughter.

Anyway, I love my daughter and wish that I could wear red skinny jeans like her.

SOPHIE IS FREAKING AWESOME.

Read at your own risk

It is nice to have Sophie home on Fridays (no school).  Sometimes, however, I think she has too much time on her hands.  For instance, a couple of weeks ago she forwarded me the following fables.  I quite like them, and thought it was only fair to share with you.  You can thank me later.  (I resisted the strong urge to edit, by the way.)

The Naughty Salamander

Once upon a time there was a nice little salamander named Sally. Sally was usually a really good girl, but had been going through a rebellious phase. One day, she and her mom were out on the town, shopping their heads off. 

“Look Sally! There is a crazy deal over at that one store. We should go!” Sally’s mom said. 

“No. I like where I am. I am not leaving.” Sally replied. 

“Look Sally! There’s the president! Lets go shake his hand!” 

“No. I like it where I am. I am not leaving” Sally said again.

“Sally!!!!! There’s a dinosaur behind you!!!!!!!!!” Sally’s mom screeched. 

“NO. I LIKE IT WHERE I AM. I AM NOT...” Sally screamed as she was picked up, sprinkled with salt and pepper, and popped into the dinosaurs mouth.

Moral- Listen to your mom so you aren’t eaten by dinosaurs. 

The Scream

 AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Moral- Don’t scream for too long or else you take up valuable space that could be used for a fable, and don’t scream so long that you turn purple.

Smelling Like Apples

One day a nice lady was walking across the street. She smelled nice, like apples. As she walked along, a shark jumped from his tank on a hot dog cart and started following her. Then a jellyfish started hopping after her too. Then a Cobra started slithering behind, and a dog with rabies chased her too. One after one, Venomous spiders, frogs, snakes, and pretty much all bad animals were behind her. The woman, oblivious to this all, stopped to look at a map to make sure she was indeed going the right way. All of the animals saw their chance and devoured her whole.

Moral- Unless you want to be eaten alive, don’t use apple scented shampoo.

Wasting Time

One day, a poor lady was so bored that she started reading some fables that her daughter sent her. After reading all of them, the lady realized that she could have been cleaning or something in the time that she spent reading the fables. 

Moral- Don’t spend time reading HILARIOUS AND WONDERFULLY WRITTEN fables that your daughter sent you.

How to Get Happy!

Clearly, regularly updating this blog has not been a top priority for me lately.  However, sometimes it's easy to post things, like when my kids do cute things so that I don't have to. It makes blogging easy-peasy.  So, without further ado, here is Mattheus' first piano recital, including his first original composition, "Ocean Friends":

http://youtu.be/ilK4EqTArw0

And Sophie's latest time-killing endeavor, the Mood Flow Chart (created entirely in Paintbrush):

Happy Birthday . . .

Today marks the birthday of my husband, my best friend, my "happy quiet place".  Thanks for letting me share the past 21 birthdays with you, Utah Man.

Weekend in Seattle

Every once in a while, Geoff has to travel for meetings.  And every once in a while, I get to go with him.  Our kids hate it when we leave them, but we LOVE it.

Last weekend, it was Seattle.  After passing my kids off to my niece Lindsey and her husband Trevor, I flew to Seattle and Geoff found me after his meetings.  I enjoyed looking at one of my favorite gift shops, Fireworks, before Geoff tracked me down.  I talked myself out of buying anything (pat on the back), but I was seriously tempted by:

                                

It's really quite a pretty store . . . 

We enjoyed our first visit to the Seattle Temple.  With the Boise Temple closed for renovation, we knew we had to take any opportunity to do temple work.  It was worth the effort, and we finished in time to visit IKEA, ponder a kitchen remodel, and eat some Swedish meatballs for dinner.  Mmmmm.

Saturday morning, we strolled around the Pike Street Market, which was strangely un-busy, and found some great vintage photos that Geoff bought for an early birthday present.  There was no rain in Seattle that day, and the sun even broke out.  How lucky are we?

We always visit Ivar’s House of Clams when we are in Seattle, but this time we decided to shake things up a little.  We found Ivar’s Salmon House, tucked under the I-5 bridge. 

The view of Lake Union and downtown from our table was as yummy as the salmon.

We then checked in to our hotel, (which brings to mind another temptation from Fireworks) . . .

. . . and got dressed in our Blue and Green Sounders gear.  Living almost in the middle of Real Salt Lake and the Seattle Sounders makes it reasonable to support BOTH teams : )

We can't take a good picture to save our life : )

Of course, we were all dressed up with no where to go (way too early for the game), so we shopped in the team store, strolled around Pioneer Square, and joined the "March to the Match."  I've been to a lot of soccer games, and the Sounders fans are most definitely well organized.  It felt much like a Paris-Saint-Germain or PSV Eindhoven game, but these fans didn't scare me!  What other MLS team has their very own marching band??  While walking around, we found a store selling Utilikilts, but I couldn't talk Geoff into buying one.  Can you imagine?

Seattle Sounders vs. San Jose Earthquakes was also the last regular season home game and Goal Keeper Kasey Keller's last regular season home game before retirement.  Over 64,000 other soccer fans joined us for the occasion, and most stayed through the Kasey Keller Retirement festivities after the game (no BYU fans here).  The Sounders came from behind to win, which always makes for a good night.

Sunday morning, as always, we checked out mormon.org and found an LDS chapel nearby.  We drove around the beautiful Magnolia area for a while, then attended Sacrament Meeting with the Seattle First Ward.  While attending church on vacation is sometimes hard, we are always blessed for our efforts  This time (quite randomly), we ended up sitting next to the son of some good friends, met his wife, and heard a great talk by a High Councilman, both of whom grew up within two blocks of where we live.  What are the odds?  The influence of the old Boise Third Ward is EVERYwhere.


We skipped the rain in Seattle, and just missed the rain in Boise.  Back to the world of bedtimes, alarm clocks, constant interruptions, and laundry.  I'm already looking forward to our next getaway, whenever that is.

Sophie made it to TWELVE!!

To celebrate the girl who begs to be celebrated, I give you TWELVE reasons that I love my daughter:

1.  The wonderful thing about Sophie is that she's the only one -- the one daughter, the one sister.

2.  She can do anything she sets her mind to.  Write and perform a play at the school Halloween party?  Check.  Win the hoola hoop contest at the school EVERY year?  Check.

3.  She has a sharp wit.  If you have met her father, you know what I'm talkin' about.  She may look like me, but she thinks like him.

4.  She looks like me!  

5.  She has high aspirations (see #2).  At age three she asked, "Didn't you ever want to be anything besides a mommy?"

6.  She is both cute (see #4) AND smart!

7.  She has a style, a certain je ne sais quoi,  that I could never ever pull off.

8.  She is good.  Last year, her classmates told her that if a group was called back to speak with the teacher, everyone thought they were in trouble unless Sophie was in the group.  If she was called back, they all breathed a sigh of relief because Sophie is NEVER in trouble.

9.  She has taught me how to roll my eyes again.  I'd almost forgotten how.

10.  She is a wonderful sister and babysitter -- just ask her little brother.

11.  She has fantastic curly hair, just the opposite of mine.  People pay good money for hair like her's.  

12.  She is a dichotomy of sweet and sour, kind and sarcastic, serious and funny -- to know her is to love her.

  

 

SOPHIE, I LOVE YOU!!!

Ode to Andrew on his 15th Birthday!

15 things I love about Andrew:

1)    He makes me laugh.

2)    He is REALLY REALLY becoming quite useful.

3)    He mows the lawn (see #2).

4)    He takes out the garbage (see #2).

5)    He is smart and his grades show it.

6)    He is a hard worker (see #3, #4, #5).

7)    His favorite way of stalling bedtime is chatting with me : )  I pretend it’s annoying,     
       but secretly I love the time together.  Shhhh, don’t tell.

8)    When he is Captain Obvious, it makes me feel smart (see #1).

9)    He is a mini version of his dad, and I sure love his dad.

10)  He's fun to hang out with.

11)  He asks questions and listens (generally) to my explanations.

12)  He reads and watches Harry Potter with me.

13)  He respects the boundaries that I’ve set.

14)  He likes riding roller coasters!!!  (FINALLY!!)

15)  He’s really starting to get it.

In short, I really love this kid!  Happy Birthday Thing 1!