Free Hugs

If you have been to josh's blog lately you will have noticed his infatuation with the Sick Puppies (it's not just all about Emma Anzai and how she rocks the bass and goes off on stage and how she really is a very accomplished bass player). He drove to Austin with his buddy to see them in concert (and not just take a picture with the band and then cut everybody out except for him and EA and then write Josh hearts Emma all over the dang place) and came back with a t-shirt for me sporting the "Free Hugs" sign on the front. If you're confused... I'll post a link to the video. Long story short... Sick Puppies recorded a song for a dude holding a "Free Hugs" sign. It's actually very cool.

So I went to the mall on Saturday wearing my "Free Hugs" t-shirt in public for the first time.

Hang on, first let me give you a little background. The first time I put on this shirt, Zoe splashed me with spit-up. The second time I put it on, I splashed oil on it and immediately had to take it off and hand wash it so it wouldn't stain. And the third time I put it on was Saturday. Josh said, "Be careful, you might get hugged wearing that shirt."

Lo and behold, I'm walking through the mall pushing a stroller with the three older kids in tow, and I glance up and the most unusually dressed person steps in front of me with arms spread wide. It took me a split second to realize what was happening and with a big smile I said, "Do you want a hug?" So I did! I hugged the guy with spiked hair that I wasn't sure was a guy or girl. This wasn't just a lean forward-barely-touch-and-then-lightly-tap-his-back kind of hug. I hugged him the way I would a good friend, and we held it long enough for it to be heartfelt and before it got too creepy. And then I simply continued walking without looking back. I was laughing and incredulous that someone actually got my shirt. My kids must have thought I was nuts.

Later, Zack reflected my own thoughts by saying, "Was that a guy or a girl?" Sarah said, "It was a guy! Of course it was a guy!" and Seth said, "With spikey hair." So that's all I remember about the encounter. Sarah said that he worked there because of the logo he had on the front and back of his shirt. I'll have to ask my friend Julie if the description fits anyone she knows since she works there, too.

Well, here's my picture wearing the shirt on the same day I got my first hug (because there may just be many more encounters in my future, who knows?), laugh it up, watch the vid and tell me what you think!

My girl, my girl... talkin' 'bout my girl...

Eleven years ago I was pretty much doing the same thing I am right now... taking care of a squishy, yummy girl who has my nose. Get a load of this picture which was taken on Mother's Day 1997 by my mother-in-law on the lanai at her house on the island of O'ahu in Hawaii Kai, Hawaii. (~Conjunction junction, what's your function?~) Note the dress Sarah is wearing. I still have it and am going to put it on Zoe on Mother's Day this year. Hopefully, we'll be on another island, this time in the Gulf of Mexico, introducing Zoe to her grandparents and great-grandparents. This blog post, however is dedicated to my Sarah. I realize that she deserves some praise (and because I am usually only posting stuff about Zoe) in light of recent events.

Sarah came home yesterday and casually told us that she scored 100% on the Math TAKS test. Josh praised her saying she should have been yelling that the moment she walked in the door. She has gotten that score before on a TAKS test, but not in Math. It must have been in Language Arts. She also came in the top 5 out of about 20 kids in the Math Olympiad program at her school which enabled her to be on the Math Olympiad Team representing her school in a competition between 11 schools which took place yesterday. They came in 3rd place. Woo hoo!

So we took the family to Cold Stone for some ice cream in her honor. More importantly, when Sarah wanted a chocolate-dipped waffle bowl, we let her get it. And then she shared pieces of it with her brothers. She is usually pretty generous with them (unless they're touching her stuff). I was really proud of her.

I think we'll keep her.

P.S. This is a late post... was 'sposed to go on Friday, April 25 so these events actually took place on Thursday, April 24.

Hanging with the Boss

My boss took me to lunch today. She came all the way out from California! Well, not just to see me... she's actually in the Houston area on vacation with her husband and another couple. Still, it made me feel good that she made the time to come and see me and Zoe. There were added benefits, too, because my house hasn't been this clean in weeks! I turn into a clean freak when company is coming.

As part of my need to make my boss welcome, I finally took the newspapers to the school to put in their recycling bins (with Sarah's help). The school gets credit, we feel good about saving the Earth, and everybody's happy. Only the newspapers have to take over a good portion of my kitchen before I get to that point. I'm almost de-sensitized to their presence because I hardly recognize the new space I'm living in now that they're gone and I wonder how I could have ever let it go on and on like that. Anyway, Happy Belated Earth Day.

Back to the subject of my boss... she is one of the most generous people I know. She treats her employees like family (in which case, I could have left the house alone because when you're family, you're not company, therefore, my clean-freak switch is not flipped to full capacity). The bonuses at Christmas and birthdays and sometimes just because have always seemed to me to come at just the right time. I love that she has been an instrument in the hands of God and an answer to my prayers countless times--whether she knows it or not. I appreciate her as a woman in the world today who owns her own company, but family has always come first. She is also very laid back. Her company keeps growing, but she never stresses anybody out with demands or expectations. She leaves people to their work and it all gets done. And if it's less than perfect? Well, there's always next month to do better. Once, I asked for a raise--it took me ten minutes to get the words out and a split second for her to say yes. My boss is everyone's fantasy boss.

Oh, and I know she doesn't read my blog, so this isn't a kiss up... she never read any of my reviews that I wrote for her company, so why start? She said she knew I was doing a good job because when I was writing the reviews she didn't hear any complaints about the reviews which was not the case before I got the job. October will be my 10 year anniversary with them. It has been the best temporal job ever.

(The best job ever is motherhood.)

Zack the Photographer

On Saturday, April 12, Zack and I went to a baptism together. I let him be in charge of the camera and he took a lot of shots of everything, but I wanted to post my favorites he took of Zoe. She is everybody's muse.

Stress Management

Got this in an email from a friend. I thought it would make a good post. If you don't want to read all of this, just look at the picture of Zoe. She takes stress away very nicely... just by looking at her.

This was excellent description of stress, and then wisdom to cope with it.
A lecturer, when explaining stress management to an audience, raised a glass of water and asked ‘How heavy is this glass of water?’

Answers called out ranged from 8 oz. to 20 oz.

The lecturer replied, ‘The absolute weight doesn’t matter. It depends on how long you try to hold it. If I hold it for a minute, that’s not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I’ll have an ache in my right arm. If I hold it for a day, you’ll have to call an ambulance. In each case it’s the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes.’

He continued, ‘And that’s the way it is with stress management. ‘If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, as the burden becomes increasingly heavy, we won’t be able to carry on. As with the glass of water, you have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again. When we’re refreshed, we can carry on with the burden. So, before you return home tonight, put the burden of work/life down. Don’t carry it home. You can pick it up tomorrow. Whatever burdens you’re carrying now, let them down for a moment if you can. Relax; pick them up later after you’ve rested.’

Life is short. Enjoy!

And then he shared some ways of dealing with the burdens of life:
1. Accept that some days you’re the pigeon, and some days you’re the statue
2. Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.
3. Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
4. Drive carefully. It’s not only cars that can be recalled by their Maker.
5. If you can’t be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.
6. If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.
7. It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.
8. Never buy a car you can’t push.
9. Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you won’t have a leg to stand on.
10. Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance.
11. Since it’s the early worm that gets eaten by the bird, sleep late.
12. The second mouse gets the cheese.
13. When everything’s coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.
14. Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.
15. You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.
16. Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once.
17. We could learn a lot from crayons. Some are sharp,some are pretty and some are dull. Some have weird names and all are different colors, but they al l have to live in the same box.
18. A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.

Jumping Jumperoo

Zoe inherited a Jumperoo from Susie! Life is made a little bit easier with this dealy. You can pop baby in there for a break from holding her and that gives you about 10-15 minutes before she starts to squawk. It has come in handy a lot in the few days that we've had it. In the mornings, when she's extra happy, she smiles at the toys like they're her long lost friends. She can't actually grab them yet, but she goes cross-eyed trying to.

She is really concentrating hard on her hands lately. She's at the age when she's starting to realize that their hers and she controls them. She hasn't mastered them yet and she will not untuck the thumb. The kids crack up watching her suck on her wrist, arms, and untucked thumb (with the other four fingers covering her nose and poking her eyes). I have started to put a bib on her because of all the slobber she produces. If she weren't a baby it'd be really gross.

I'm patiently waiting for the day when she finds her thumb because she will not take a pacifier. She gets this look like, "Oh, no, you didn't." She tries to push it out and if you persist, she gets really mad. I've given up because the little rubber things do not live up to their name in Zoe's case.

She is a really good baby and I don't have much to complain about. During the day her feedings can be at 1-, 2-, 3-, or 4-hour intervals, but at night, once she goes down... she's pretty much zonked until morning. Sometimes she throws me for a loop and wakes up at 4am, but I just nurse her in the bed and she goes back to sleep. It does make daytime work on my computer a challenge, especially since my desk is right in the room with her, but so far, I've had miracles happen each month... I don't know how it all gets done, but it does.

Speaking of work... I should go get some done. One relief of the to-do list that I have to mention in parting is that Josh and I finished our taxes this past weekend. Oh, yeah! It was the first time doing it together and we nearly failed before we began, but we did it -- all pau, done, finished -- and we are still married.

'Sup Peeps!

Wow... sorry to make you wait a whole month for another post. People were starting to get on me about it--you know who you are--but now I have lots to write about!

First off, Josh tapped a gas line. Not in the way you would think (for those of you who know Josh) but an actual gas line to our house. He had help and motivation from his friend John Kendrick. John lives down the street and is always outside in his garage making something. (His latest: a canoe. Seriously.) They dug a trench, accidentally cut the internet cable (which Josh totally fixed, upping his sexy geek image in my eyes), and even welded copper pipe. I'm sure Josh will blog about it, but just so you know, it's good to have a John... he wants to tackle changing the joints on Josh's truck next. It's like over $1000 to get it done at our local automotive place, but John thinks all you need is a manual, tools, and some parts for a few hundred bucks. Go for it, John!

Now we have a natural gas grill in our backyard. We bought it for way cheap, already assembled from Lowe's without knowing that it was a natural gas grill. It was funny when we brought it home, dropped our jaws when we realized this, did some reasearch and discovered that our really great deal was going to cost another $800 in order to get used. I'm really glad that it never came to that since we have a John... and now we are able to grill dinner at least once a week. Woo hoo! I like carcinogens.

Next on my list of things to tell you, the boys finally got haircuts. I took them to Walmart after Sarah insisted that there was a salon there. Sometimes our brains can be so selective in what they remember, and I just couldn't picture it. So we went... and there it was, at the front entrance like always and the boys were stoked. It's not Snip-Its, but it will work. Zack is particularly vain about his hair and he really liked the short back and sides when he was done. Seth liked it, too, and kept getting called baby. The funny thing about getting their hair done there was listening to the hairstylists--all black ladies--tell their stories. I felt like we were in an Eddie Murphy movie. When we first got there they were yelling back and forth to each other, "What's the baby's name?" "Seth!" "What's the baby's name?" "SETH!" I had written my name with a two on the waiting list and they were trying to write in the boys' actual names. And when they started to cut hair, one lady would stop cutting to put her two cents into the conversation. Man, it took us a while to get out of there!

So the boys looked good on my birthday week. I got new nursing bras on my birthday. I went to the mall because JC Penney's has the best selection and I was happy to see that there was a bra sale going on. All of my kids (except sleeping Zoe in her stroller) were beside themselves when they found that I had dragged them to the lingerie department. The groans were felt before they erupted from their mouths, but I had a helpful girl that helped me get what I wanted and checked out in record timing. We were out of there quickly and headed for Bath and Body Works for some anti-bacterial hand sanitizer, and there was a sale there, too! Lucky me! I was born on St. Patrick's Day, afterall. I got Coconut Lime Verbena and Tropical Passionfruit--both are green! Josh met up with us and we hit Target before making it home for him to make dinner for me... what else? Corned beef and cabbage. It was a nice way to end my actual birthday, but my birthday week didn't stop there. I also got surprised with a rootbeer/cream soda float dessert night, time shopping for clothes by myself (and sleeping Zoe in her stroller), and a virus on my computer.

The virus on my computer was a blessing in disguise. Josh helped me kill it by reformatting my c drive. Then he painstakingly reinstalled all the programs that I need for work. It's so nice to have a geek husband. I highly recommend them.

Speaking of marriage... Josh gave a great talk last Sunday. He quoted his mom, he got choked up several times, and he talked about when he first resonated with me. All good stuff. I love my husband.

Last Sunday we also said goodbye to Nana 'Nita and Auntie Chole (pronounced cole-ee, short for Nichole). Nana 'Nita was able to come from Wednesday to Sunday. She brought her famous empanadas for Josh, made Chamorro Corn Soup (made with chicken and coconut milk and, of course, corn), Beef Cudo (included swiss chard that Sarah brought home from the fifth grade garden at school), and was constantly doing the dishes. She even swept and mopped the bathroom floors and cleaned the toilets. I kept telling her to stop, but she was determined to help me since she says that I do too much. I even got a massage sitting at my computer trying to finish my work. This all in addition to taking care of baby. Zoe is the main reason she came in the first place. She did spend time getting to know the bigger kids, too. We love Nana 'Nita!

My single, jet-setter sister, Nichole, didn't come until late Friday night from New York City. We took the kids to pick her up from the airport and take her to the car rental place. Then we had a short panic drive through the woods around Bush Airport before finally making it to her hotel. She insisted on staying in a hotel and getting a car since it came in a package. Nana 'Nita stayed with her. And while we normally would have loved to go in to jump on the beds in their room, the kids were all crashed out.

We met up the next day for a reconnaissance* trip to the Galleria (an underground mall near downtown Houston complete with ice skating rink). There are lots of upscale shops at the Galleria and walking into Neiman-Marcus from the parking lot was like going through an incredible shrinking machine. I felt really intimidated by my surroundings at first, and then I remembered who I was and that the place was a living example of Lehi's dream of the great and spacious building with no foundation. Then it became comical... walking through the make-up and fragrance department to get out and into the mall... there were more employees than customers dressed up in striking suits and flawless make-up... I even saw a GUY with about a pound of make up on. He wore a black suit with a black shirt and black tie. It all worked in that setting, but taken out of context to say, the real world, it was just funny.

*Before I ramble on and forget to tell you why we were there... let me explain my sister's job. She works for J. Crew's art department as an assistant to a fashion designer. Everything in the store now she has seen a year before it came out. Her boss, an ex-model, circles stuff out of high fashion magazines and tells Nichole to go buy them. Thousands of dollars later and having visited all the top fashion stores in New York City, my sis completes the mission. This is my wide-eyed view of what she does, and if I'm wrong, please correct me in a comment! Lately, however, she has been entrusted with choosing the music for the J. Crew stores. This is HUGE. So we were there to listen to what stores were playing what and visit the J. Crew store at the Galleria. Josh bought a J. Crew bracelet for Sarah while we were there. Zoe decided she wasn't interested in sleeping in the stroller and wanted to nurse (and she usually gets what she wants). Seth heely-ed all over the place and Zack did back rolls over a cushioned bench.

And then we were done. It went so fast... we hardly ever go to the Galleria unless we have out-of-town visitors, and there really isn't much point in hanging out there when the thought of spending $8000 on a hand bag makes you want to cough up a lung. So we did the one thing Nichole wanted to do while in Texas... we went out for Texas BBQ. Completely satiated, we went home with leftovers and spent the rest of the day playing Wii. We discovered that Nana 'Nita really likes to bowl, Auntie Chole digs Guitar Hero, and that we are not the only ones that think the racing cow game on Wii Play is hilarious. We also nailed Nana 'Nita's Mii. It looks just like her.

We were sad to see them go, but it was a really great visit. Thanks for coming Nana 'Nita and Auntie Chole! We'll have to see if we can make it to California to see Tata and Uncle Rob's new baby, Devon. I like to call him Little Devo... like the band.

That leaves this last week for me to catch you up on... let's see... my allergies have really brought me down. I am coughing so much that I was unable to go on Seth's field trip on Friday. It would have been nice to go with him to the Children's Museum of Houston, but I prefer to hack away in private. When I'm up on my meds it's not so bad except for the occasional episode, and it only takes one of those in public to make you wish you had stayed home. So I did. Seth was mostly bummed that Zoe wouldn't be there. He got over it, though.

Yesterday we watched General Conference. It's the first one since President Hinckley died, so we tried to instill in the children the excitement of having a whole new prophet and presidency of the Church. Thomas S. Monson is the new president of the Church and prophet. His counselors are favorites with me already. I saw Henry B. Eyering at a stake meeting in CA back when we lived there. He is an especially tender hearted man when he speaks and very powerful with words. Dieter F. Uchtdorf is new to the Quorum of the Twelve, but memorable and very charismatic. How I am able to love these three men can only be explained by the way the Spirit touches my heart when I hear them speak. I will probably blog more on my impressions of Conference later after hearing the rest of the sessions today.

Before I close, I have to make mention of Subway. We've recently moved from Whataburger to Subway in our Saturday outings/slam tournaments. Right now any footlong sub is $5. We were there for a couple of hours last night drinking unlimited soda and playing slam. Sarah ended Daddy's winning streak--go Sarah, go Sarah, it's your birthday!

And Zoe slept in her stroller.