Sea World!

A friend invited us to go to Sea World with her last week, because she had some free tickets. I had never been before and was so excited! E didn't really have any clue what was going on, but we still had a great time!:)

Did you know there are horses at Sea World? How about Elmo and Cookie Monster?!

These two are so funny together! E loves to play with Addison!

There's that face again!

How I dispose (kill sounds too brutal) of spiders on the ceiling...

Step 1: (The tape is stuck to the end of my broomstick)

Step 2:

Step 3: Wait for Paul to get home to take care of the tape and spider.

An email from the sunday school President

Paul sent this out to the sunday school presidency when we were expecting E to be born any day. . .

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 16:27:04 -0700

"Great work, Brandon! This looks really good. It’s interesting to note how high the attendance is in the Family & Marriage Relations class. I didn’t realize there were that many people attending that class regularly. I am interested in discussing as a pregnancy the reason that class is so highly attended."

I guess he was a little consumed with my being pregnant and the anticipation of becoming a father any day. So cute!

Last week . . .

One of our new and thoughtful neighbors brought me this amazing goodness!

We watched the BYU game with some friends.

E was able to pull some toys out of his toy box.

One of Paul's classmates from UVA came to visit for the weekend and brought E a fun surprise.

Paul's friend is from Boston, so of course his first request was to go to the beach!

I decided to add Boogie boarding to my life's to do list!

Doesn't it look like an absolute blast?!

But, you have to be prepared to crash hard!

Paul and I decided that we will be like this sweet couple someday...

"Under Construction"

Some of you may have noticed that my greeting card blog is "under construction." I have decided to take things in a bit of a different direction, that I think is more Up my alley. If you were planning on ordering one of my previously posted cards, I would still love to fill that order for you. All orders will be sent to the same email address, CCgreetingcards@gmail.com.

Below, is a sneak peak into what I am currently working on. I can't wait to share it with all of you!

"Wife Days"

Last night I was exhausted by the time Paul got home. The laundry was strewn about the apartment, dry, but waiting to be folded. There were dirty dishes all over the kitchen, the table wasn't set, the food was cold and our apartment must have been 100 degrees, after having the oven on. What was my husband's response the minute he walked through the door?

He greeted me with a kiss and said, "I love it when you have wife days!"

I inquired as to what exactly a "wife day" was... He said there are some days when he comes home and can tell that I have put all of my time and energy into making our home a better place.

I thought to myself, "Shouldn't that be everyday?!" But, I just smiled and said, "Thank you."

I am grateful for the love, gratitude and admiration he shared.

What's your filing system?

So, if you hadn't already come to the conclusion on your own, I am telling you now, I am a total nerd! I am like a little kid walking into Toys R Us, when I walk into an office supplies store. Don't ask me why, but ever since I was a kid I have been fascinated with hole punchers, writing utensils, notebooks, calendars, organizing systems, staplers, even rulers and paperclips. I just have a "thing" for office supplies!

OK, on to what this post is really supposed to focus on. As I was packing and unpacking all of my file folders and boxes I got to thinking about my filing system. (I am also kind of obsessed with organizing things.) I thought this might interest some of you. Here's how it goes:

1. Sort through mail - throw away junk and place the rest in appropriate folders. I have two folders on my desk, "to do" and "to file."


2. Sort "to file" paperwork by month. I have an accordion file with a pocket for each month. Most paper from my "to file" folder ends up in this filer under it's corresponding month.


3. Place other information in desk file drawer. This is where I save school information, work information, Addresses, User's manuals, Warranties, catalogs, information that I will need when it is time for Paul (thank goodness!) to do the taxes etc.



4. At the end of the year, but not until after Paul has done the taxes, I take all of the documents from that year out of the month to month filer, and put them in one labeled folder, and add them to our "7 year" box. This is where they will stay for 7 years and then be destroyed.

That's the process for my day to day filing, but there's more. Are you excited?! I also have...

• A file box for all of our very important information that doesn't change often, such as health insurance, renter's information, car information, etc. It is not very often that I have to get into this box.



• It is even less often that I get into our fire safe, where we keep our most important documents that we would definitely not want to lose under any circumstance.

So, that's it. Obviously, it doesn't have to be pretty. (As you can see, I am not a perfectionist and some of my files and boxes are pretty dang old!) It took me a couple of years before I really got a good system in place. I don't know if it is the best, but it works for me.

Now it's your turn to share. How do you manage all of your paperwork?

Does your tube of toothpaste say anything about your personality?

If so, I think I am in trouble. Who's tube of toothpaste does your toothpaste most closely resemble? (Please note new poll in sidebar)

I would like to introduce you to my "Michelle shelf"

I have a great friend that I met when we were living up north of LA. You guessed it, her name is Michelle. Michelle is one of the most creative people I know! Every time you walk into her home it is decked out in all sorts of seasonal decor. I loved going to her house each week to teach her daughter piano lessons. I was always taking mental notes of the things I would like to incorporate in my home decorating someday... Well that someday has come. Now that we are in a bigger apartment I finally have the space to make my "house" feel more like a home. Michelle told me that when she started collecting her holiday decor she started out small by simply decorating her bathroom for the various seasons. Then as she accumulated more decorations and moved into bigger spaces, she was able to expand the decor throughout her home. I have decided to start out with our dining area.

Now on to the shelf. You may be asking yourself, "What exactly is a Michelle shelf?" Well, when you walk into Michelle's family room she has an awesome tall black shelf (I believe it has 3 shelves and a cupboard on the bottom), I think it is from pottery barn. This shelf is always filled with seasonal decor, cute picture frames, jars full of different candy, figurines, and other objects.

I have been telling her that someday I would create a "Michelle shelf," and here is the proof. Now, my shelf is about half the size and I bought it at Target three years ago, but I think it is a good start. I took it apart and spray painted it with some left over paint I had from another project. (I wanted to paint it a different color, but couldn't settle on one, so I just used what I had.)

Please ignore the fact that my picture frames still have random strangers in them. I am still trying to get everything in order around here.

(Emmett has been such a good sport this past week. He practically lived in his pack n play aka cage as I was getting all of the unpacking done. I think he enjoyed being outside with me as I worked on this project. Don't worry grandmas, he wasn't outside while I was painting.:)

Today is one of those days...

I woke up this morning to feed E around 7am. He went back down for a nap at 8:30. I was still feeling pretty tired, but I thought my shower would do the trick of waking me up, wrong. I got out of the shower, put my PJ's back on and climbed right back into bed. I am not tired enough to go back to sleep, but just tired enough to not want to get out of bed. So, I declare today an official pajama day! It is a brisk 68 degrees outside;) and there is no place I would rather be than snuggled up in bed blogging. (After all of the stress of packing, moving, unpacking, organizing, etc. I think I deserve a day like today!)

I entered a photo contest!

The winner of this contest gets a Canon xsi, which is the DSLR I have been eyeing since it came out in April. If you have a spare second click on "vote" below and vote for my picture. Thanks!

Vote for my photo!vote

Who done it?

Murder mystery character #4. Looks like he fooled all of you too!:)

New post topic

Below is a post from Paul's friends blog...

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Preemptive Strike

I was talking with my friend back and forth through emails and he sent me his family's blog http://cookiesheets.blogspot.com/. He mentioned that their blog was getting a little "girly," but what can you expect with a name "cookiesheets" for your blog? Are these guys avid bakers?

My wife and I have refused to blog for about two years now while the rest of the people in our collective world have gotten mixed up in the blogging craze. Some people may call this oposition to blog as "rebellious," I think it is probably better described as "laziness." So in order to head off the inevitability of blogging down the road and end up with a blog name like the aforementioned, or some other blog name that lends itself to anything less than awesomeness that it should be, I decided to be a proactive and beat my wife to the punch.

I'm not promising daily (or weekly) posts about the random happenings in our lives, nor rainbows and sugar cookie dreams, but I do promise to be honest while adding a little humor to everyone's routine life (who doesn't like a routine?).

All I have to say is... I am grateful that I was able to inspire someone to start a blog.

The End!

Uncle Larry visit = Beach day!

Can I just say that I am in love with this picture?! that's all.

This was our setup...Paul is THE biggest BYU football fan. So, what does he do? He wraps his laptop in seran wrap and brings it to the beach with us so that he can listen to the game! Pretty creative right? Well, I thought so, until his computer overheated because the fan was covered with seran wrap.:( I hope you all learned a very valuable lesson...

I wasn't planning on this, but E touched the sand for the first time.

...and one more for your viewing pleasure.:)