Monday, November 30, 2009

The Hubby-Hubs

Yesterday was Bryan's b-day. Since it was Sunday, we celebrated on Saturday. Taking half of Shara's fabulous suggestion, we went to an indoor shooting range, where I realized that my husband is a VERY good shot. Good enough I would be totally comfortable in giving the "go ahead" nod if I was ever held at gunpoint and he thought about taking a shot at the guy's head just inches from my own. Because that's totally going to happen someday. But hopefully the roles would never be reversed, because I am a horrible, but consistant shot. In aiming for the chest I put 5 shots right to the neck. So I think if I ever needed to use my skills, if I just aim about 6 inches lower than where I really want to hit, then I'd be right on. Good strategy, right?
Anyway, then we went down to the Orem PF Chang's for dinner, one of Bryan's favorite places that we never go any more. Chose Orem because Bryan hates valet parking downtown in the truck. Realized that might not have been the best decision because of the BYU/Utah game (go blue, BTW). But it turned out to be a fabulous decision, because we got our meal for absolutely free. When you make an online reservation there, there's a spot to click if it's a special occasion - anniversary, b-day, etc. So when we got there the waitress asked who's birthday it was, I nodded to Bryan, who gave me the look of death. She informed us that there would be nothing embarrassing, to his great relief. So we ordered, and about halfway through eating the waitress came back and told us that we'd better be saving room for dessert because out entire meal was on them. We just sat there kind of shocked, and she said that their managers let them do that every once in a while. And sure enough, when the check came, total was $0. Of course we left her a big fat tip. So thanks PF Chang's - what an awesome unexpected surprise!

So I know you won't read this, love of my life, but Happy 30th! I want nothing more than to spend many, many more birthdays stressing over what to get you and where to take you on our date. I love you so much!

Friday, November 27, 2009

Lo's First Letter to Santa

Dear Santa,

I want the toy with the birds on it
A white doggy and a white dog house
Just a doll house for my Barbies
New Playdough
Barbie 3 Musketeers
The other Barbie 3 Musketeers, pink one and a purple one
Pink ice cream
Tinkerbell thing with a green box
Sparkly shoes

From Lauren

For the record, I have no idea what the toy with the birds on it is, but that's all she talks about. I'm sure Santa knows what she's talking about!

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

I'm Gonna Get Married

The other day, Lauren & I were enjoying a little snuggle on the couch while watching "Say Yes to the Dress". One of our very favorite shows to watch together.
This was our conversation

Lo: "I'm gonna get married, huh Mom?"
Me: "Yes, someday"
Lo: "I'm gonna wear a white dress, and a white thing on my head that's like a headband but not cuz it's upside up, and flowers in my hair."
Me: "OK"
Lo: "And I'm gonna carry flowers in my hands, huh"
Me: "Yep"
Lo: "And my daddy's gonna hold my hands"
Me: "Yes"
Lo: "And we're gonna dance"
Me: "Yes, you are"

I didn't realize that wedding planning started at 3.
To date, one of my absolute favorite conversations with my daughter.

30, Flirty, & Thriving!

In celebration of Bryan & all of his boyfriends turning 30 this year, the wives all got together and threw a little bash. Thanks again, Jennie, for doing so much work & having it at your gorgeous house!
The cake, courtesy of my awesome sister - I wish I would've gotten a better picture of it!
It's of all of them at some dance their senior year - hilarious. Bryan is wearing a sweater vest and him & Hyrum both have pipes. Why? Who knows.
But it's pretty amazing to think that after so many years they all (mostly) still hang out & keep in touch with eachother.

We tried our best to let each of the boys eat their own face. As you can tell by Bryan's expression, he thought it was super awesome I was making him do this. And pose for a picture of it.

Lamest "blowing out of birthday candles" ever. They all just stood around and looked at eachother for I think a full 90 seconds before anyone made somewhat of an effort.


The night ended with a slide show (or wedding video, as we like to call it) that Jennie (with the help of some of my pictures) put together with a bunch of pictures we found from way back in the day. Too many butt cracks, among other things.
And I know they didn't enjoy it nearly as much as us girls did, but oh well. We had fun planning it, and I thought everything turned out really well!
Oh, and you can't see it, but I did have my sister put "30, FLIRTY, & THRIVING" on the cake.
Sadly enough, the majority of the boys have no clue where that comes from :)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOYS!

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Going Once, Going Twice

The people you may find at a storage unit auction:
One ensemble included a fanny pack, leather coat (2 sizes too small), sunglasses, beanie, sweat pants and dress shoes
A David Crosby lookalike (with a massive camouflage flashlight - and he knew how to use it)
Strange woman with a Luis Vuitton coat on, Versace sunglasses, matching Polo beanie/scarf, listening to he ipod the majority of the time
Man who enjoys stopping on random street corners to sell the contents of his car until he gets kicked out by someone
Man with very long receding hair line mullet, only a handful of teeth, but you can tell he thinks he is LL Cool J
Genuine auctioneer - fast talk & everything

Things you may find in storage units that are being auctioned off:
Junk
Rain gutters
Broken TV's
More junk
Washing machine parts
Very odd & ugly contemporary artwork
Beat up couches
Still, more junk

Happy date day, Bryan, we bought nothing (thank goodness for that), but laughed a lot.
I love our little adventures!

Monday, November 16, 2009

7 Habits

Here in our ward, we have some amazing talent. Included in that is a great woman who is licensed to teach Dr. Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
She offered to teach a condensed version to our ward for FREE - she had some left over materials and asked Franklin Covey if it would be OK for her to use them teaching the community, and they approved it.
I just have to tell you, if you ever have the chance to take this class, do it!
We had 24 hours of material smashed into about 5.5 hours, but it was so worth it, and I learned so much.
I'm hoping to become more organized, less stressed, and of course, MORE EFFECTIVE!
You just wait, next time you see me you'll think to yourself "Hey, Kiersti is SO much more effective".
So true.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Private? Hmmm....

Have recently thought about making our blog private....
Any thoughts?
I've always been of the opinion that I don't care who looks at this, but recently I'm rethinking that.
I can't decide.
Let me know what you think.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Halloween - Finally Over!

Halloween was a bit weird for us this year. Bryan was busy doing some side work for his mom's boss, and I had the joys of having to work overtime. So it was kind of hard to stay in a "festive" mood when we had so many other things going on.
And I swear, Halloween lasted for over a week. We had our ward Trunk or Treat last Friday (no pictures, I know, lame), and the celebrating just continued on from there.

Here's Lo with some kids in her class for their little Halloween party. LOVE Miss Elissa's costume -hilarious.

Lo & Sage (Glenda the Good Witch)
(Lo was supposed to look like Tinkerbell, but ended being some strange ballerina/fairy princess/Tinkerbell combination. Whatever - she loved it.)

Originally Mya's costume was a bumblebee. I made a yellow & black tutu, she had wings & antennae, adorable. But she broke her tutu at the Trunk or Treat, and I didn't want to fix it, so she got to wear Lauren's elephant costume from last year. Which was actually cuter, and really warm, so it all worked out.

And Lauren was so cute - I thought I'd have to take her up to every door & stand there with her, but she marched her little fairy self right up to the door, knocked, shouted "Trick or Treat" and then an appropriate "Thank you!" when candy was dropped into her bucket. But she did get very distracted, and a little freaked out, if people had too many scary decoration on their house.
Mya just sat happily and quietly in the wagon and talked to everyone walking by.


I opened the door to my favorite dressed up trick-or-treaters. I hope you can make the picture bigger to see the detail on Jess's awesome jacket! And yes, it did smell faintly of smoke, which made it even more awesome. And again, yes, Greg is definitely wearing guy liner.

Ty, Jennie, Makayla, Annie, Greg, & Jess all came over for some soup, cookie decorating, and pumpkin cheesecake. Mmmmm. And I have no idea why I didn't take any pictures of everyone! I'm telling you, I wasn't myself that night. But thanks guys, for making my night much more enjoyable! Lo & Makayla got to do a little more trick-or-treating with eachother - those 2 thoroughly enjoy eachother. It's so cute!
I know it's sad, but I'm quite happy to have Halloween over and done with this year. I just couldn't get into it! Let's just move on to Thanksgiving, shall we?

And here - thought I'd share this with you all. I'm probably about 7 in this picture and I have NO idea what I'm supposed to be. Little Miss Muffet maybe? Anyway, my aunt posted it on her blog, and I very much enjoyed it.