Unhistoric Acts

link love

Sitting at my computer this morning. Getting ready to uh, er, ummmm......work. But before ALL THAT, here's a few links for your own procrastination needs. Should you need them. And you know you need them.

• This video made my day. So beautiful. I originally saw it on Under the Sycamore (let's give credit where credit is due.) It's definitely Christmas-y...a trip to pick out a Christmas tree with a family who is in the process of adopting two girls out of foster care. Makes my obsessing need for brown boots seem silly. (If you read back a few months you'll see their first Halloween and when they actually bring the girls home.)
• My Mother-in law opened an Etsy shop. Check out her homemade goodness here.
• Saw this poem on Pinterest yesterday. I love it because it's cool and true. But also, it's so much what I'm trying to convey to my students about what is happening (or should be happening) in the Old Testament. Not sure they are getting it...but I'm trying my hardest. When I went to create the link I saw that the author was waiting out a snowstorm in the BYU bookstore. Wow. What a small world. Go Cougs!
• I feel the need to make these snowmen-on-a-stick. I'm not sure if it's because I love powdered donuts or food on sticks. Or both. Also, wondering who I could give these to. Maybe I'll have them ready as an after school snack for my kiddos. Because, really, is anyone EVER too old for snowmen-on-a-stick? I think not.
• I would really, really like to make this deer head. I probably won't (let's go with definitely) because I just can't make deer heads a top priority this season. However, know that I am dreaming about this deer head above my mantle.
• As I'm writing this I'm listening to the Greg Laswell station on Pandora (it's good). No link. Just letting you know.

And that's it. I've already got chili simmering in the crock pot for dinner. So...with nothing standing between me and a conference proposal that is due TOMORROW, I must go. And work. Cuz that's what I do. Happy Tuesday!

 

something for monday

Jordan loves the Target lady. Heck, I love the Target lady. Last night Jordan ran into my study (rather late) to show me this video. I've already watched it like 8 times today, and I laugh harder every time. Not sure what that says about my relation to the subject matter. Check it:

it's over...

The whole blessed holiday week is plumb gone.

I'm a tiny bit relieved that the kids are going back to school tomorrow, but really, I'd trade in a few school hours for more mornings like this:

Luckily, the first night of our trip we wandered into a book store. And fortunately, Parker had not yet read the latest Diary of a Wimpy Kid book. Which meant some quiet time in the morning -- always a good thing.

And it only got better the next morning:

With the addition of reading glasses (compliments of Hugo 3D).

I spent most of Saturday getting the Christmas decorations up. I still have a bit to go outside, but overall I'm WAY ahead of my normal schedule. I also just ordered up ye olde annual Christmas card. Now...if I could just get some gifts under the tree. Even just a few would be nice.

Now Hiring: personal shopper

 

giving thanks '11

We are back from a few days in Austin wherein we gave thanks and ate food and spent some good ole quality time together as a family. This was our third annual go-away Thanksgiving. The trip is important to Sterling and I because it gives us a block of uninterrupted family time. Also, it means we don't have to cook or clean up -- so the trip encourages the lazy. Win/win.

Seeing as how two of our children are heading for a quick exit from Texas for college, we thought it might be fun to soak up a little Texas history -- so we headed to Austin and stayed at the historic Driskill hotel. The hotel is walking distance to just about everything you need...so just park your car and start walking. Parker loved that part -- all of the walking. And no, I'm not being sarcastic.

There are lots of cool stories about the Driskill. The guy who built the Driskill lost his grand hotel in a poker game!! Boy howdy was his wife angry. Also, this is the place where Texas governors (and Texas governors who run for President) await election results. Even Rick Perry. But we stayed there anyway. The rooms were nice...except you could tell it was really historic because the bathrooms were quite tiny. As in you could have fit about 6 of our hotel bathrooms in our current master bathroom. But I'm not complaining because I'm a Texas girl through and through.

The kids thought the place was super fancy anyway.

But back to the walking. Thursday morning Sterling and Parker and I took a walk around while the girls slept in. I was testing out some spots for photos.

As it turns out...those shady trees make taking a pic in front of the capitol building quite difficult. Also, why did I cut off PJ's feet? Why?

After our Thanksgiving brunch at the hotel we went back to the capitol with the girls.

We sat on the capitol lawn.

And Parker, with his ever present football, played a game of catch with his dad.


He really wanted a diving shot. So...here ya go...

I love how his eyes are closed and his mouth is open. Still, super cute kid.

But the best thing we did on Thanksgiving day?

A Segway tour of downtown Austin. Sterling has always wanted to try out a Segway, so when I saw something online about Segway tours of downtown Austin I immediately called. The company I originally spoke with told me that participants needed to be 14 years old and weigh at least 100 pounds. When I pressed them, citing Parker's exceeding maturity and responsibility, they said they'd take as low as 80 pounds...but nothing less. I gave up on the idea because PJ is 70 pounds soaking wet. However, when I saw a Segway group at the capitol building I marched Parker up to the guide and asked his professional opinion. He said Parker was fine. I called up the office and booked us on the next tour.

Parker took to the Segway like a fish to water. He was zooming circles around us before we figured out how to stop the darn thing. In fact, after the tour Parker said that was the best two hours of his life! So there! Also, we've all put Segways at the top of our Christmas lists. Santa? SANTA?

I can't recommend this activity enough. Sterling loved it. Parker loved it. And everyone in between loved it. Now that's rare...Segways and family harmony...discuss amongst yourselves.

Some other highlights of the trip? Walking to Whole Foods (many blocks away) in the pitch dark. Getting a sous chef to make Jordan mashed potatoes when there were none on the buffet. Watching Hugo. Eating movie popcorn for dinner. Seeing the representative and senate chambers. Mormon bridge in the hotel room. Licorice during the A&M/Texas game. Getting Jordan to go on a Chiptole run when we got home.

It was a fantastic trip, and I'm a little freaked thinking Jordan won't be with us next Thanksgiving.

Unless....our Thanksgiving trip takes a little detour to Utah.

It could happen.

 

a colorful thanksgiving

I spent a great portion of yesterday baking and building this eight-layer rainbow cake (not for Thanksgiving, but for my Dad's/sister's/brother's birthday celebration). I don't have any pics of the finished slice (which looked really, really cool) because that happened well after dark, outside, and about 5 miles from my camera. There are some pics on instagram though...if you go in for that instagram thing.

We've all seen reincarnations of the rainbow cake on Pinterest. However, when it came to the nuts and bolts of putting this cake together, there was very little in the way of details on the olde world wide web. I'll try to save you some trouble and tell you what I did:

• I made eight layers from two white cake mixes. I used approximately 1.25 cups of batter per layer.
• Use the gel food coloring...the neon kind works especially well.
• I (actually Madison) cut out parchment circles for the bottom of the cake pans. These, along with a bit of cooking spray, helped the thin layers to pop out of the pans relatively unscathed.
• I only have two pans! I baked two at a time for 9 minutes at .... whatever temp the cake box said.
• After the layers cooled I wrapped them in saranwrap and put them in the freezer for a few hours. This made construction much easier.
• Icing the cake required THREE batches of buttercream frosting. That means SIX sticks of butter. Yikes! Initially, I thought two batches would be plenty. But no. I definitely wouldn't recommend using cream cheese frosting. The cake gets pretty high and you need better holding power. Buttercream seemed to do the trick.

For decoration I left the cake pretty plain. I topped it with two tall skewers that held a rainbow pennant. Resist the urge to top it with too much stuff...because the reveal upon slicing is best when starting from a plain white cake. I'm telling you...it's surprising and spectacular and the layers look a little bit like play-doh. Seriously. Should you have 3-5 hours on hand...put it towards a rainbow cake. At this moment...there is not even a crumb left.

Hope your Thanksgiving is warm and tasty. As soon as I finish the post I'm off to get the car washed and loaded for our annual Thanksgiving road trip. Destination this year? Downtown Austin. I can't wait!!

makin' it

I've been a good writer lately...trying for at least two pages a day.

Yay me.

So today, on this cloudy Saturday morning, I rewarded myself with making something.

I'm always on the lookout for easy, yet practical and USABLE, gifts. I don't want to spend my time on something that will, in all likelihood, get thrown in a drawer or the recycle bin. Plus, I'm anti-junk.I don't need superfluous stuff in my house...there's plenty of that already...believe me.

So, when I happened up this earbud keychain pouch tutorial, I was mesmerized by its usefulNESS. We have a hard time holding on to earbuds around here. Mostly, this is because there is no good place to put the buds. I put them in my purse, my desk drawer, next to my bed...but they are rarely at hand when I want them. Same with my kids. One day, when we move from this house, I envision unearthing 29 pairs of earbuds. Oh the joy.

But check this:

I know. My technical skills leave something to be desired. I'm convinced that my Bernina needs a day at the sewing machine spa. (It couldn't possibly be me.Right?)

Still I think it turned out super cute. It's even lined! And has a few pieces of thin batting to give it some body.

I'm thinking the girls and I could go into production on these babies. It's a good present for teens and adults alike.

What do you think? Would you use this? Hook it to your keys?

I'm going to test it out this week and I'll get back to you.

 

color story

I don't much like to offer advice on my blog. I don't consider myself a home decor expert, or a foodie, and my fashion sense pretty much peaked in 1991, so that's why most of my blog ink is spilled over semi-embarassing and downright tragic happenings in my daily life.

Today, however, I am going to offer up ... not so much advice...as my own observations.

I call this post COLOR STORY.

Debbie started calling it color story. And by 'it' I mean shopping for/selecting clothes for group photos, ie THE Christmas card photo. "Color story" is really fun to say and makes you feel like you are in an 80s era pyramid sales scheme. And, of course, it means selecting clothes within a particular (but not matchy) color scheme that tell some sort of story about who is wearing them, what they are doing, and whether or not they ate only butterfingers for lunch that day.

Whoops...that was me. Moving on.

In terms of credibility I will say that I've personally taken a wagonload of Christmas card pictures. And then I edited them. Which means I've looked at color and shape combinations until my eyes were dry and scratchy. I'm so thankful that we've all moved beyond the all-denim photo. Also, the jeans with white shirt phenomenon seems to have died down. The theory behind these practices was sound -- keep the clothing simple so that the faces stand out. Good enough.

However, the block of denim (or white) was in itself overpowering. That much denim in one space draws attention all on its own. Sorry denim (although I am hoping the denim vest makes a comeback.)

In keeping with the simplicity theory some folks will wear t-shirts...all the same style but in different colors. While I applaud the color blocking, this schema is rather unnatural. It's clear that these are "picture clothes." It's just not natural.

Of course, there's nothing really natural about picture clothes. The idea is to make them SEEM natural. Like, "Hey...just out on a family walk in muted but complimentary colors." And that's where the story part comes in. Mostly I want my story to say something like...hip, cool family who enjoys spending time together and never gets dressed out of cold, wrinkly laundry baskets while eating chips for breakfast. You might say I'm being fake or pretentious. I just say, "Fake it till you make it." Or..."Let me pretend, if even for a moment."

The nuts and bolts? I like to pick one piece that is interesting or colorful and then pull in other complementary pieces. In this case I started with the plaid shirt. Becca is going to wear that with the sleeves rolled up and a navy cami underneath. I picked out the wool pea coat for some added texture and interest. Different shapes = interesting and unstaged (looking). Jordan's cream sweater and Parker's striped shirt are low key and offset the bright plaid...but still keep the colors in the same family. I bought everything at Old Navy within about 15 minutes...which is my kind of shopping. I might still need to do some tweaking, but the basic structure is there.

I wanted to take the pics yesterday, but Becca is convinced she is getting her braces off on Monday. So I agreed to wait. Which means Madison will, in all likelihood, be wearing that wool coat in 80 degree weather. Yikes.

Color story. Try it. You'll like it.

 

on giving

photo: I planted pansies this fall. Suprisingly, they are still alive. I know. I'm shocked too.

I don't know about you, but I've seen this book referenced on a number of blogs lately. It's about the transformative power of giving, and various bloggers have issued a myriad of challenges and creedos and manifestos on giving. For myself, I'm still waiting on my copy of the book to arrive, but some of my seminary lessons lately have centered around sacrifice and placing trust in God over trust in the things of the world...and since I TRY to give the kids real life application, we talked about how giving can facilitate understanding sacrifice as well as helping to loosen our iron-grip on worldliness.

Plus, it's the holidays. I try to teach my own kids that the holidays should be about giving rather than getting.

Then I buy them lots of unnecessary stuff.

I'm aware that I can be the queen of mixed messages.

But I thought it might be interesting to focus on giving one thing each day until Christmas. I challenged my seminary students to do the same. It doesn't need to be a material "thing." It can be as simple as giving of your time, or attention, or kindness.

I'm not going to report on my blog everything I give...because that seems rather like the opposite of giving. However, I will share what I gave yesterday because it was fun, and Christmas-y, and downright exciting.

It was my sister's birthday -- my sister who professes to hate Christmas (and my only sister, by the way). Personally, I don't think she really hates Christmas, but I do think she hates all of the fussy details that Christmas can entail. Let's be real, it's a complicated season for the mom. In the past, for her birthday, I've given her Christmas decorations to try to put her "into the spirit."

This year I thought it would be fun to decorate her living room...set up the tree, pull out the stockings, and add in a few surprises along the way. I enlisted the help of my local partner-in-crime, Debbie, and we got busy.

In the midst of our planning for the room we began to wonder about her tree. My memory of her tree was of a very sad and out-of-order tree. Also, I didn't know where she kept it. So, I sent her a text designed to find out her tree status. I wrote:

"Just saw a great deal on pre-lit trees. Do you need one this year?"

Mostly, I wanted to know if she had a working tree. I had not actually seen a great deal. Turns out I'm a liar AND a giver.

She texted back, "Absolutely, where are the trees and how much?"

Oops. Now, in addition to decorating, we had to research trees.

Best deal? Costco.

I texted her the details and offered to pick up the tree for her. She was totally on board.

So, Debbie and I crafted a few new items, combed our houses for home decor, and arrived yesterday morning ready to reinvent her living room. I had asked her to leave her back door unlocked so we could "drop off the tree."

I don't have any 'before' pics...but I did manage to snap two 'after' shots with my iphone:

We added the stuff in the bookshelves, framed the Christmas subway art from eighteen25, and made the banner and glitter cone trees. See all the details here.

The throw pillows are Debbie's and the stockings and Christmas pillows we found upstairs. After we snapped this pic we ran to Hobby Lobby and bought two green wreaths to hang in the two big windows behind the tree. The tree skirt? One of the first things I ever sewed. Made that in a church homemaking meeting.

After we finished decorating we met Jenny for lunch further into town. It was all we could do to not spill the beans about our surprise.We had to  wait until she was home from work...she said the kids ran around exclaiming over everything just like they'd been in Extreme Home Makeover. Let's just call this Tiny Christmas Makeover.

And now? I've gotten the Christmas decorating out of my system. Not sure what my kids will think of that...

 

 

tuesday already

At the very beginning of the school year I paid real money for a senior ad in Jordan's yearbook. This meant I could submit 3 pictures and 50 words in honor of our dear firstborn and they would publish them...my baby in print.

Except the deadline was sometime in September and I totally forgot. Super flaky=me.

But then I got a reprieve in the form of an e-mail. It was my last chance. They would give me one last chance to meet a new deadline. Then they were moving on without me.

As a big believer in second chances I jumped on the bandwagon, meaning I waited until the very last minute to put my pics together. And why shouldn't I? I have hundreds of very good, edited, tweaked, stylized pictures of Miss J. I would round up JUST THREE and be on my merry way.

I called Jordan to the computer and asked her opinion.

This one?

No.

This one?

No.

Ooh. This one is good.

Double no.

I couldn't really follow her reasoning for not liking any of the pictures, which made offering a solution every MORE difficult. So we raced outside in the failing light to snap a few more.

And then she proceeded to hate those pictures. So...outside one more time...and she tried just a teeny bit harder and voila! acceptable pictures. But just barely.

This exchange between us is typical. I offer options. She turns down every one (even when some of them are GOOD). At first I try to understand her wants. But then I can't, so I quit trying so hard. And I leave it up to her. And she makes it work.

It's a complicated process...a back and forth that is, at times, FRUSTRATING.

And in the face of such frustration, I thought...

But she's leaving me. In all caps. BUT SHE'S LEAVING ME!

Look at me...anxiety over empty nest syndrome in full bloom.

Awesome.

weekending

One of my favorite weekend activities?

Friday night football.

It's not just the game -- though that's fun too. I like the sights and the smells and the bubbling of excitement. I love seeing our little community together -- some people from school, some from church, some from the neighborhood, business customers. The whole family goes. We sample many, MANY of the concessions. Last night's concessions? No bueno.

As a result, we found ourselves at Whataburger after the game where I may or may not have eaten a hot apple pie. So bad for the body. But so good for the soul. This particular Whataburger excursion allowed me to catch 11:11 pm (since I blanked 11:11 AM). We even counted 11 seconds before snapping this pic. Not sure why.

And a final reason why I love Friday night football?

Because the sleeping in on Saturday morning is exquisite.

We all slept in, and then, in the quiet of a sleeping house I happened upon this recipe. And, knowing that I had a can of pumpkin just wasting away in my pantry, I rolled up my pajama sleeves and got to work.

And then, once the fam had awakened, we ate them all. While standing. Every one of us with bed head.

Happy Saturday! Feeling quite lazy around here.