Early Birthday

My birthday is Wednesday but Mark has been saying for the last month or so that he knew what he was geting me for my birthday, and it was something I hadnt thought of before and I was going to LOVE it.
Well He was right. He gave it to me today, he was going to wait but when he came home he saw that I needed it. He got me a rotary razor blade and a 2 sided cutting matt. HORAY! This may not mean much to a lot of you, but it makes cutting out patterns and fabric so much FASTER and way easier. I was just starting ot cut out the other costume I need to make for City of Joseph when he walked in. I think I did the whole thing, cutting and sewing and everything in about an hour and a half. THAT IS CRAZY FAST. Thank you Mark!

# 8 on my 100 things about me

For the City of Joseph there is a scene where we portray statues. The statue that Lydia and I are portraying is the one of the mother and the father with the child walking between them. So far we dont have a father for the statue, Mark can't do it. But they wanted all the statues to have teh same color of costumes so the bought 150 yards of fabric and gave us pictures and fabric and said, "Make it look like this". The dress was simple enough I figured I could just make it instead of searching through books to find a pattern that kinda looked like it. And when I was done I had some extra fabric so I made a working hat: (with out a pattern)


This is the dress that Lydia is going to wear. I used one fo her dresses as the pattern.
And I made bloomers: (these I did have a pattern)
This is the top of my dress. I had a t shirt pattern that I used a couple years ago so I used that to get teh right angles for the sleeves and collar, but I had to make it fitted, so I had to cut the pattern at slightly different angles in different spots so I could add darts to make the boddice fitted

The picture has the statue in puffed sleeves, My pattern was for regular sleeves
so I learned on line how to make a puff sleeve pattern.
And this is my new pattern for my puffy sleeves.
Sorry, no model for this picture. When I tried it on Mark wasnt home. And if you know me very well you know that I wont just put on a dress unless I need to, and I didnt need to put it on to take a picture of it.

So since I didnt have a pattern to tell me where to put the darts, I pinned the bodice pices together and put it on (ouch, careful not to get poked) and I pinned the darts in place, then took it off and sewed it.

If we take pictures in our statue poses I'll post the "live" statue and the picture of teh real statue, so you can see.

I still have a few more yards of fabric, and so I'm going to make a couple aprons as well. They are needed for a "work" scene.

OOPS. I just realized that I was suppose to get my costume from the place I take tap, and we didnt have class this week due to Spring Break, and the show opens on Thursday next week. Which means rehearsal on Saturday is suppose to be full dress. I guess I'm not quite done with my sewing yet. Oh well.

nakey nakey

This morning when Mark got Lydia out of bed he said HI Nakey, (which is what we say when she is just in a diaper) Did you know your mom put you to be nakey? I said No I didnt, I put her in her PJ's. As you can see, these are her PJ's:






And this is how we found her, she loves to be nakey:

Can we say "Trouble"

words words words

Well probably not many of you have noticed, but I use to have a section on the side of all the words Lydia says. I deleted it because in the last few days she has added so many new words I can't even remember them all. She is starting to say a lot of things. You have to pay attention cause sometimes it just sounds like gibberish till you realize what she is pointing at or doing, or playing with and you realize she is saying the word. And her words change. Thank you use to be day doo, but now it is Tay su. It is a little closer. She never ceases to amaze me at how quickly she learns. A month ago she could only say about 10 words, like uh-oh, ok, ya, mom, dad, and a few others, but now she is comming up with new one every day or just repeating what we say. She will be ready to give a talk in church by the time we move back to MO :)

Fold your arms

So Lydia is really good when it comes time for prayers. We say Lydia it's time for prayers, fold yoru arms, and sometimes we dont even get as far as the fold your arms part, and she is already folding her arms walking toward us.
Last night she was helping Daddy with the prayers. She was trying to say the same thing he was in the prayer. Then today after church she was trying to pray all by her self, I wanted to get a picture but she didnt do it long enough. She folded her arms and bowed her head and started to "pray" Then she paused took a few steps and squated, and continued to pray. Nothing fills my heart with as much joy as watching Lydia trying to pray. It was so fun.
And wish me luck, tonight I just put her to bed and I didnt give her pacifier to her. It's been about 10 mins and she is in there talking. If she is up for an hour I'll bring it to her. But She is content and tired, so we are gonna try it.

That's my girl!

Lydia found my tap shoes in the kitchen last night. she said "SES!" and grabbed them and tried to put them on. It took quite a while bu tonce she got them on she was still in the kitchen and she knew that they were my tap shoes and she tried to tap dance, but they were too big, they fell off. But she triedn 2 more times before she gve up and went into the living room.

She knows you can't tap dance on carpet, so she didnt try to dance in the living room she just still wanted to wear them. She played with my shoes for about 10 mins. It was so cute.

Dentist BLECK

:::: Picture removed to slow down traffic to the blog::::

I have needed ot get a LOT of work done on my teeth, and I have lost count the number of times I have been to the dentist since October. Several cavaties, all wisdom teeth pulled, and a root canal. Well today I finished the last of my fillings, and they took the impression for my crown, I have a temp on right now.

So if you havent been to the dentist lately Now when they work on your teeth they put on a rubber dam to isolate your teeth. Well getting numb and putting the dam on are my least favorite part. The picture above is the rubber dam. The metel thing clamps to a tooth, and there are tiny holes that they put the teeth through. It makes it water proof so all that nasty tasteing stuff the put on your teeth dosent get in your mouth. I actually prefer it, it's jsut a pain to put on.

So as they were clamping the metel thing around my tooth (after I had been numbed) but the inside of my gums still had ALL feeling, so you can imagine how bad that hurt. So he took it off and gave me another shot...and it was in the area that wasnt numb yet, so it still hurt.

They waited for a while to let it get numb, then they checked it, and it still wasnt numb, so they decided to do my impression for my crown first. They didnt numb me for that but said if it hurt they could. I was fine till they got to the back area of my gums, that was too sensitive, so they numbed me again, that was probably the MOST painfull shot, It's STILL tender, but they gave me the shot in the same spot that my wisdom tooth was, and that tissue has not completly healed yet.

So they did all that work and got the impression, the whole thing took about 45 mins. Then they checked my gums again to see if they were num yet, adn guess what, they werent, so they gave me ANOTHER shot, and waited for a min or two. Still not totally numb. So he went ahead and put the dam on, and that hurt. HE said that it will hurt a little but the preasure should numb it. My tooth was numb, but my gums NEVER did get numb. It was tollerable, then the started ADJUSTING the clamp and it was making tears form. It hurt so BAD. The assistant noticed and had him give me more numbing crap. so I got 2 or 3 more shots directly on the gum was was hurting. it tasted terriable but ti FINALLY started getting numb. After 5 sets of shots I was finally numb. (and with every set there are 2-4 shots.)

So when I was FINALLY done I sat up and was a little tipsy, and I felt my face and almost my ENTIRE left side is numb. From right infront of my ear, clear up to my temple, down to my cheekbone and straight to my bottem lip and all the way across my bottem lip, and down to my jaw line. I've been done for an hour and I'm still totally numb everywhere. plus my tooth that needs teh crown is still sore. :( I really like my dentist he does a great job, I'm just glad I only have to go back ONE MORE TIME. HORAY!!! :)

Cute as she may be, this picture is decietfull. Weekends are hard because of the 5 hour rehearsals on Saturday and then 3 hours of church on Sunday. Durring which both she shoudl be taking a nap, but wont unless she is in a crib.
Today was pretty good though. Mark had to work so I was all by my self, but I was determined to sit through ALL of my meetings. Like the past month or so I have completly missed at least one. She wasnt too bad in sacrament till the very end and then I got away with standing up with her in the back, till she saw a ball in the hall that she really wanted to play with, then she got loud but we closed the doors and made it though.
Sunday school was good, she had a friend her age to play with. I had to get up a few times to get her out of trouble, but she did pretty good. And for RS I stuck her in the nursery, and she lasted till the last 5 mins, till she got hit in the head with a door.
But the REAL fun in today was that she learned how to say NO. And she says it quite good. I told her to be quite in sacrament and she told me NO. I told her to sit with me in RS and she told me no. No...no...no. At home she was getting into her diapers and I said Lydia no, she knows exactly what I meant. She grabbed the diaper, knowing full well she wasnt suppose to, and said in a very cute voice No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Oh and in teh car on teh way home, she was at the last stage of tiredness and was talking to keep her self awake, and guess what she was saying...NO. I know i"m in trouble, but it was actually pretty cute.

City of Joseph

Well today is saturday and that means it was time for the once a week 5 hour rehearsal for City of Joseph. It started off hopefull when Lydia REFUSED to take a nap this morning. She is usually a great nap taker but not today. She FINALY went to sleep at 12:15...gee thanks Lydia, rehearsal starts at 1. So I decided I was going to be a few mins late adn at least let her sleep till 1. So I packed the car (which takes a couple trips cause of props I need to bring, along with my banjo) and I woke her up. She was SOO tired, and probably would have taken a 3 hour nap had I not woken her up. She had droopy eyes the entire 5 hours, but her energy level was right up where it usually is cause of all the comotion there. She LOVES rehearsals. Lots of kids, lots of stuff to get into, and lots of space to run around in. So fun.
So as we were driving there it had started to snow. It was sticking ot the grass a little bit, but the roads were clear, it was a light pleasant snow.
We did good at rehearsal for the first couple hours, but going on hour four she desperately needed a nap. She started whineing, and being a pill. But not too much of a pill cause ther was so many fun distractions.
Lydia has stages of tired, Stage #1 she gets a little cranky, and dosent reallyt know what she wants. Stage #2 she gets cuddly. She needs to find her blankie and she carries it around or she cuddles it and walks up to me as if she were to say "ok, I'm ready, you may pick me up now" Stage #3 Hyper. Oh man she can get hyper. All you do it look at her and she will giggle her head off. Sometimes she gets sever hyperness, she really is fun to play with at that stage. Stage #4 MUST STAY AWAKE!!! she will get up and walk around (or try to, sh elooses balance when she is tired) if she falls she usually dosent have the energy to stand right back up so she will sit there and stare for a moment and then start shaking her head, gotta keep moving. If sh eis confined to a seat she will talk, which dosent always sound like talking, sometimes it sounds like singing, yelling, or moaning.
Well durring hour 4 of rehearsal she was inbetween stage 3 and 4. She wanted attention, she wanted people to watch her and laugh at her, get her self riled up. IT was really funny acutally. She would walk around and then intentionaly fall on her knees, look around to see if anyone noticed, then flop to her belly, and kinda roll till someone saw here. She was actually directing all this activity to the guy who is playing Joseph Smith, she was flirting with him, he was not on stage at the time. Well if no one noticed her on her belly then she proceeded to slide backward pushing her self with her hands, still on her tummy, across teh gym floor. I had to go retrive her a few times, she was running into the actors. I woudl bring her back to me adn it woudl all start over again. It was funny for a while, then she started to get cranky at teh same time so I took her out...she was at the screaming stage and we had moved on to a different scene, she was being way too loud.
I got her to calm down and I sat and held her on my lap and sung the songs when I needed to sing but we wernt on stage we were just sitting in a chair in the gym. (by the way we arent really on a stage, we are just on the gym floor)
Then I had a friend from my ward show up who just LOVES lydia so he asked if he could go play with her in the hall while he waited for his wife to show up, so I go tot participate for a little while. By the time he brought her back rehearsal was almost over, we had one more scene to do adn we were done.
As we were finishing Bro Bench (our director) got on the mic and told everyone that the roads were really slick and they were going to close down I-15. ...WHAT?!?! What happened to the pleasant snow? Oh wait I know what happened IDAHO HAPPENED. While we were all at rehearsal the clouds decided to dump 6 INCHES of SNOW. Holy cow. I had some help carrying all my stuff out to my car, and was trying to find other peoples foot prints to step in cause I was wearing my low top converse, so not good snow shoes. (I was glad I was wearing them though, I had thought abotu just wearing my slippers)
I cleared 6 inches of snow off my car, it took forever. And there was so much snow on teh roads that as I was driving home the snow inbetween the tire tracks was so high it was scraping the bottem of my car! I think my max speed was 20 MPH. ... I avoided I 15.
But now that I've been home for 30 mins, it has stopped snowing and if you couldnt see the ground you would think we had the most pleasant day... But with the exception of the snow it was pretty good.

Whiney Girl

So Lydia is getting to the todler stage and shedding the whole baby thing. In doing so she has learned how to whine. And that is FUN. But she isnt very good at it, as a matter of fact, she is so bad at it it's almost funny. Like today I left the room to go to the bathroom (which you just don't do) and as soon as she realized I was gone (porabably when she heard the bathroom door) I could hear her walking toward the door whineing. She didnt really want me though. Cause she got there and whined for a little bit but then I guess got distracted cause her whineing slowly morphed into singing. Now that was funny to listen to.

100 things about me

1. Being with my family makes me happier than anything else in the world.
2. I LOVE tap dancing
3. I don't like long term babysitting for other people
4. I can snap my toes
5. I don't spell very well
6. when I hear or say a word that I don't know how to spell I try to spell it out in my head
7. I'm border line dislexic, but have learned how to work with it
8. I like a challenge, espically a creative challenge (that's why i got into duct tape)
9. I have always wanted to learn how to sculpt
10. I have always wanted to learn how to weld
11. I love helping people
12. I give banjo lessons
13. I have always wanted to leave the mail man a candy bar, but have never done it
14. I miss preforming
15. when I get stressed, or frustraited, or angry, or sometimes even sad, playing my banjo for an hour usually help me get back up to speed, or calm down.
16. Next I want to learn to play fiddle
17. I want to learn how to make puppets
18. I hate missing church
19. I try not to repeat things I have already said
20. I love a good prank
21. I like cooking, but not in a dirty kitchen
22. I am overly critical of my cooking
23. I'm not as good at reading my scriptures as I should be
24. I woudl like to learn how to shoot a bow so I can shoot with Mark when it's nice out side
25. I don't like doing the dishes with out gloves on
26. sometimes I pretend like I'm still asleep when Lydia crys in the morning when I dont want to get up yet
27. I love getting flowers
28. I know my Heavenly Father loves me
29. Someday I want my own wood shop
30. Someday I want a dance studio
31. Someday I want a stage or a space where I can produce or direct plays
32. I miss the smell of rain
33. I'll go out of my way to crunch a leaf
34. I like shopping even if I don't buy anything
35. I can't buy anything unless I have shopped for it and seen it and know it's the best possiable deal, or that it is something that I really want.
36. I think people need to use their imagination more
37. I dont' under stand politics
38. I love staying up way to late talking to Mark cause we can't seem to be able to shut up :)
39. I like road trips...but they are better when you dont have to bring little kids
40. I like to keep in touch with old friends
41. I use to really love driving in my car with the radio up, but now it annoys me
42. I like writing songs
43. I always want everyone to feel welcome in my home
44. I think I'm funny
45. I watch too much tv, but I'm cutting back
46. I don't think I could live with out sugar
47. I know I can't live with out strawberries
48. I don't like being scared
49. I really don't like scary movies
50. sometimes after I watch something scary I freak my self out and I have to tell my self it's just my imagination
51. Sometimes I think I relate to children a little too well
52. I like doing random things
53. I am easily distracted
54. I try not to repeat things I have already said
55. I have a reocuring dream that I chew gum and it grows in my mouth and sticks to my teeth, so I can't talk and I have to pull it all out with my fingers.
56. I played the scarecrow in the Wiz
57. When I watch videos of me on stage I am very critical
58. I love the peace I feel when I'm at the Temple
59. I'm glad Mark plays guitar
60. I love watching Gene Kelly tap dance
61. I want to learn to tap dance on roller skates
62. I played Mike TV in Charlie and the Chocolate factory
63. I carried the cap guns I used in it around in my car for a couple years till I lost them
64. I got really good at spinning cap guns
65. I have been married for 4 years
66. I can't decide what my favorite color is, it depends on the day, or my mood...I'm like a mood human
67. I have gone skinny dipping
68. I still like climbing trees
69. I love watching Mark play with Lydia
70. Sometimes I do things or say things that I think are normal, then I get really weird reactions from people and realize that it's really odd
71. Mark was my only boy friend
72. I wrote a play 2 years ago
73. I have never done my play and I really want to
74. I love laughing
75. I love hearing other people laugh
76. I have always wanted to redord a bunch of different laughs in a row so I could listen to it when ever I wanted
77. I have a lot in common with my Grandpa Willis
78. I'm looking foward to spending more time with my grand parents
79. Being away from my family for 2 1/2 years has made me really appricate them
80. I think I could change a flat tire if I had to, but I have never done it before
81. I don't worry about finances because no matter what happens I trust the Lord and know everything will be fine
82. I have a lot of patience
83. sometimes I don't speak my mind cause I want to avoid and argument
84. I like going bare foot
85. When I put my shoes on in the morning I am a better worker, I'm more inclined to get things done.
86. I wish I coudl live close to all my siblings so my kids would know all their cousins and aunts and uncles
87. I really like getting new shoes
88. I still like getting love notes
89. I want to learn how to skate board
90. I wish I was more dareing
91. I love being around my cousins and acting rediculous
92. when I am in a new place with new people I am shy, but I dont want to be
93. I want Lydia to be best friends with Rachel
94. Video games dont hold my attention, they never have
95. I love roller blading
96. When I try to organize my house something usually distracts me in the middle of it and it never gets finished
97. When I start something I don't want to be intrupted till I'm finished with it
98. I like going on dates
99. I LOVE Schlotzky's
100. I dont like taking naps, I always feel grogy after

Cereal Prize

I remember being a kid and getting excited when mom brouth home a box of cereal that had a prize in it. Course, the chances of me getting it were slim, although I think one time I got the glow in teh dark "soggies" from the Captin Crunch box. I hadnt seen prizes in the box for a long tiem and I thought they stopped doing that. Till I realized the reason why I stopped seeing them was cause we weret buying the kind of cereal that gave otu prizes any more, we got the cheap cereal. Well on a whim yesterday I got some name brand cereal casue it was on sale and guess what I found this morning when I poured my bowl of breakfast munchies, A Pink Barbie watch of my very own! I'm thinking, well that's great and all, but there is not even anyone in my house that woudl care about this. Then another thought poped into my head...Oh wait, I have a Lydia! When I told her I had a toy from the cereal for her she perked up and came over and waited for me to get it unwraped. When I gave it to her SHE was sooo EXCITED. She LOVED it!