Feeling One's Friendship

Lately, when Dylan is really angry at a person, he yells at them, "I'm not feeling your friendship right now!!" It's funny.

Nat's Birthday Barbecue

On Sunday, the day of Nat's actual birthday, we had a barbecue, then had Nat blow out the candles on her birthday brownies (their family gets caked out, since there are three of them with birthdays one week apart between each) and open presents. Me and Micah:

Ben took a picture of some beautiful evening clouds. There is nothing like sunset in Idaho in the summer:

Ben and Dylan had the BRILLIANT idea to go longboarding together, on the same longboard. The result:

This is how it looked a few hours later:

The guilty party, who escaped unscathed, of course:

Sadie, being wily:

Pops:

Mom:

Brock pooped in his underwear, so Pete sprayed his bare butt with cold hose water!! And then Brock had to clean out his underwear himself. Nat had brought a spare pair of pull-ups, so he hung out in them the rest of the night. I love how he's grabbing his butt in this picture:

Gramps is in the following picture. Right after I took the pic, he grumbled, "Twit...":

Gloria, Ben's mom, who has been visiting us this week:

Troy Boy (he and Brock get very flushed cheeks when it's warm):

Nat and Ivy - Nat is an expert at multitasking while bottle-feeding:

Jake, Brock, and Pete, watching Casper. I'm absolutely tickled to announce that Casper taught my son the word "bitch." He called Sadie a bitch the other day, and I said, alarmed, "Where did you hear THAT??" He goes, "Casper." I was like, "Nuh-uh. No way." As it turns out, the bad lady in that movie, when she turns into a ghost, announces, "The bitch is back." So. Happy that Dylan has added that word to his lexicon. Speaking of Casper, Ben's mom's maiden name is Casper. Just a fun fact for you:

Just Jake (kind of like "Just Jack" in Will and Grace. LOVE that show. That dude that plays Jack is hilarious):

Just Brock, pre-poop, with his flushed cheeks:

Poor Nat totally had a cough/cold on her birthday, along with a gimpy leg. Poor girl. Nice birthday presents from her body:

Mom and Dad realized they didn't have any candles, so they used long matches for Nat's brownies - Dad wrote the letter "N":

Pete was telling us that every picture he and his companions would take while on their mission was purposely mid-bite. He wanted me to give him a mid-bite shot:

Nat got a printer/copier/faxer from Mom and Dad:

Pete, ceremoniously passing his present to Nat for opening (he wanted a shot of that, too):

He got Nat So I Married an Axe Murderer, cult classic. I would love to have that for my own collection someday:

Love this girl:

"I'm Not Mommy" Day

Nat's birthday was Sunday, and on Saturday, she proposed that she and a few friends have an "I'm Not Mommy" Day - an entire day sans kids. Oh my gosh, it was awesome!! We met at my mommy's house and ate dessert, watched YouTube videos, and ate pizza. Then we went downstairs and watched Roxanne ("I thought you said, 'Earn more sessions by sleeving!'" "Why would I say that?" "I don't know! That's why I came back out!" - classic!!) while cardmaking/bowmaking/sitting there. Poor Nat twisted her knee the day before while getting out of her minivan - she is so embarrassed - she wishes she had a cool story behind the injury, but nope. Just getting out of her minivan:

Here's April:

Arin, making some bows. She does her daughter's hair sooooooo cute, and she always has bows that match her daughter's clothes. I need to buy some from her:

Me, with two of my parents' billion remotes. It took me forever to figure out their very complicated system:

Me, making a weird face while chatting:

Me, making cards:

Then we went to Mama Mia, which was so cute:

I've had Abba songs running through my head ever since. Pierce Brosnan really should steer clear of roles that require singing:

I felt embarrassed for him, and I wasn't the only one! I was sitting by Arin, and every time Pierce would sing, I would see her slowly put her hands on her cheeks, similar to "The Scream" by Edward Munch:

Meryl Streep has a decent voice, though she was a bit overdramatic in her arm movements - they were very theatrical. These movements would look good if she was onstage, but in a movie, they were a bit much. Her renditions of "The Winner Takes it All" and "Slipping Through My Fingers" brought leetle tears to my eyes:

I had fun figuring out where I had seen some of the other actors and actresses:

Obviously, Colin Firth, who is forever Mr. Darcy in my eyes (he played Mr. Darcy in the A&E version of Pride and Prejudice), was in it:

The third middle-aged man in it was Bootstrap Bill from Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3:

Meryl's tall friend was Jim Carrey's love interest in The Grinch:

And her short friend was Ron Weasley's mom in that movie... I can't remember the name... :) Just kidding:

And the main young girl played the ditzy girl from Mean Girls, the one who can tell from feeling her boobs if it's raining outside. She's on the far right in this photo:

This is one of my useless talents - recognizing people from other movies. And might I just say that my favorite Abba song is "Voulez-vous." Very catchy. I used to listen to my Abba CD a lot, but it got stolen, along with all my others, several years ago. Sigh. I really need to get an iPod.

After the movie, we went to Wingers (holla to Lexi, who used to waitress at Wingers in Cedar City), which was fabulous, of course:

Ah, what a wonderful, wonderful day. I might have to do something like that for my birthday next year.

My Latest Cards

These are the three most recent sets of cards I've made. This is one of my baby announcements for Micah - I'm waiting for my next paycheck to buy stamps to send them out:

Here is one of the thank-you notes I just finished:

And here is one of the cards I made for a card exchange I'm in:

Tag from Ash

I know many of you have seen this tag before - heck, I may have actually posted this tag before. But many of the questions deal with the here-and-now - I'm pretty sure that, if I posted this tag before, many of my answers were different than they are today. This here-and-now idea is one of my favorite aspects about Facebook - people can write at the top of their profile what they're doing at that moment, and it's the first thing I look at when I log on - what people are doing and feeling right now! So here are my answers, here and now:

Two names you go by:
1. Kar
2. Mommy

Two things you are wearing right now:
1. hand-me-down capris from a lady in my ward - they are super-cute!
2. an old shirt that Brianna bought me from Shade - one of the kinds that aren't so terribly clingy! (The clingy ones show my fat rolls. And I sweat in the clingy ones. I've been so sweaty this summer. Hormones??)

Two things you want very badly at the moment
1. Dude, I want Lasik, too, Ash. My eyes are always dry and blurry, and when I pull my contacts out of my eyes at night, they stick to my eyeballs like glue. Ouch.
2. To be at home, gardening. (I'm doing this while I'm scanning at work.) I really need to dead-head my dianthas.

Two people who will most likely do this tag, if I ask very nicely:
Ummm... Em? Nitz? Autumn? Beads?

Two things you did last night:
1. Had a barbecue/birthday party for Nat at my parents' house
2. Took the "late feeding" of Micah so that Ben would agree to do the middle-of-the-night feeding. :)

Two things you ate today:
1. leftover pizza
2. pulled pork sandwich

Two people you last talked to:
1. Sadie
2. Ben

Two things I did today:
1. Changed my sheets - I'm very proud of myself.
2. I actually did my hair. Again, I'm very proud of myself!

Two longest Car rides:
1. San Diego
2. Lake Tahoe

Two favorite beverages:
1. Coke.
2. Snow cones from the Sno Shack - my new addiction: peaches and cream WITH REAL CREAM!! Yummmm...

Kay. I'm tagging Lex, Nat, Beads, Autumn, Em, Nitz, Apes, and Arin... I'm trying to think of people that haven't basically told me to STOP TAGGING THEM!! Actually, Lex has kind of hinted that to me, but I'm tagging her "just for spite." :) Lex's beef with most tags is that she thinks that they don't really, truly help you to get to know that person. You know, like the ones that ask what your favorite color is, etc. But I'd like to put forth the opinion that this tag helps one to get to know a person better - I mean, for instance, if you read up above that I'm proud of myself for doing my hair today, you can infer many things: 1) I'm so busy that I don't usually have time to do my hair, 2) Hair isn't as important to me as, say, cleaning my house, 3) I hate my hair right now, because I can't afford to get it trimmed, and it has many, many split ends, 4) I'm not a very high-maintenance person, and on and on.

Quiz question - on what show did the main character want to return a suit coat he bought, just "for spite"? If you answer this, I'm very, very impressed.

Swimmin'

These pictures are from July 5th. That's how far behind I am in posting! Sorry... We went swimming as a family that day. These pictures are so precious to me, because this was the last time that my entire family will have been together, every single one of us, for a long time. Moose and Jake:

Brock and Brianna are in the picture below. They were having fun attacking people with one of those water noodles, calling it a "snake":

Pete:

Sadie and Ben are below. Sadie just likes hanging out by the stairs:

Nat and Ivy:

Dad, Micah, and Mom are below. This was Micah's first time ever swimming! He really, really liked it:

Lexi and Troy are below. I love this picture:

And below, Dylan, the fish. He is a really good swimmer. I need to sign him up for swimming lessons again this summer. Gotta wait until I get paid... Being poor is the BEST: