Home At Last

We are so excited! We finally found a rental home. It's the top unit of a duplex that's been totally remodeled and it's even within our ward boundaries! I am really looking forward to having a nice, big yard for the girls to play in this summer, three bedrooms, and a kitchen with some real counter space! It even has a gas fireplace. The beginning of April will find us happily living in a our new home. After three years in a two-bedroom apartment, I am ready to move on. And hooray for a good, personable landlord that actually appreciates good renters! I'm so sick of corporate company management.

Lots of Love

They're Playing Our Song

Here's our Valentine Playlist. Some of these songs have a special story, and some we just like a lot.


Dance With You is "our" song. Our first kiss happened while dancing to this song. It was a total set-up by Mike. :) We also danced to it at our wedding.


Wish I, Come Home, and Only An Ocean Away are all songs that I listen to when Mike is gone. When he was gone for 6 months, I listened to some of these a lot. When your husband has to be gone a lot, songs like these really hit home. I tried not to listen to Letters From Home by John Michael Montgomery, however, because it would make me cry like a baby.


The Luckiest is such a sweet song and I played this for Mike on our honeymoon. The line where he talks about the guy passing away and then his wife only staying for a couple of days makes me tear up every time.



You're My #1 is special because the version that Enrique Iglesias sang with Sandy and Junior(Brazilian pop singers) has a part sung in Portuguese. I put this on our wedding video because it's a good love song, and because the Portuguese is special since we met in Brazil.


The rest are just good love songs! I've put this playlist on the sidebar to the right too- except You're My #1 because they didn't have the song -boo! What is your special song? Or what would be on your Valentine playlist?

Award Show Outfit

Well, it's award season in Hollywood again. I never really sit down and watch any award show in its entirety, but I am always interested to watch a little bit of the Grammy's and the Oscar's. We caught about 10-15 minutes of the Grammy's last Sunday. Here's my brief review:

There's a lot of musical talent out there, but the musical numbers really made me laugh. It seemed like they just drew names out of a hat to decide who would perform together. "Let's see here, we've got Al Green....and Boyz to Men....and Justin Timberlake....oh, and um, it look like the last name is Keith Urban. Next names out of the hat....Chris Martin, and oh! JayZ, that should be interesting." So random. Jennifer Hudson's speech was sweet, but her stylist should be fired - it looked like her dinner napkin was still stuck to the front of her dress. And I don't know who MIA is, but her dress was downright awful. I almost don't want to post such an ugly thing on my blog, but I just have to show it so you can see what I mean. Seriously, ugliest "maternity" dress ever. And that's saying a lot. And Whitney Houston, who presented the first award of the evening, talked like she was drugged, which, let's be honest, she very well could have been. That is all I have to say about that.

But, moving right along...if I ever attended an awards show, I would want to wear this outfit. I ripped the picture of Diane Kruger in this dress out of my Instyle magazine and am keeping it just so I can gaze at it every now and then. I love the cut of the dress, and the red shoes are perfect! Red shoes are always the perfect accessory.

So, in review, bad idea dresses:

Good idea dress:

As a sidenote, I love Jordan's idea for an Oscar Party here. I am totally throwing one of these someday. Maybe next year....

What a Week I'm Having!

I, for one, am really glad it's a new week. Last week felt like we were living an ongoing episode of a television sitcom. Everyone but me has had a cold for about two weeks now, and Katie's cold caused a double ear infection. So she has about three different medications she's on. Then, Olivia started throwing up everywhere - huge mess.

But Saturday was the real crown jewel in a week of nastiness. Mike was at work, and I got the girls in the bath. At the end of bath time, the girls were splashing and playing as the water drained out of the tub. Olivia stood up and then sat down. Katie stood up and then sat down. I told them to stop standing up in the tub or they'd get hurt. They both did it again with impish grins on their faces. I warned them again, and right after I said it, Katie slipped and hit her chin on the edge of the tub and bit her tongue. It started bleeding. Then, as I got Katie out of the tub, Olivia stood up, slipped, and fell on her shoulder. I got both girls out of the tub and then held Katie while trying to figure out how bad her tongue was. Meanwhile, Olivia escaped to wander around the house naked. I finally got Katie settled down, and then went to find Olivia to get her dressed. I picked her up and immediately felt something wet on my hand. I looked down, and freaked out when I saw it was brown. I lifted her off my arm to see a huge brown patch on my white (it had to be white!) sleeve. I ran to the girl's bedroom to grab wet wipes and a diaper, and oh, the sight that met my eyes. Apparently, Olivia had a lot of fun while she was naked and had left mushy brown presents for me in various places all over the floor. As if scrubbing out throw up wasn't enough this week! I couldn't believe it. I am officially a one-woman sanitation department. Luckily, Mike came home not too long after to help me out. Katie's tongue is recovering nicely, Olivia stopped throwing up, and the ear infection is going away thanks to antibiotics. All I can say is, I hope this week is really quiet around here.

Valentine Cards

Here are some free printable Valentine cards:

Zebra cards

Sweetheart cards

Little bird

And I think these cards by Marta are so cute! It has the names Romeo, Mr. Darcy, and Edward all crossed out with You left, and then it says"True love is way better than fiction" at the bottom.

myJones

Just the other day, I finally got around to steaming the labels off of the Jones soda bottles from Olivia's blessing day so I can save them. It's been almost a year since her blessing, so I put it off long enough huh? But, as I was doing it, I thought these would make a great Valentine's gift. Personalized Jones soda with your own picture on there. It might be too late for this year since there's only 10 days left until V-day. But, it's a good idea to store away. They're located here in Seattle, so I got mine pretty fast - I think it might have been less than 10 days....Anyway, I checked and they even have a red soda flavor in the mix right now too. You can put your own message on there and everything. Albertson's was also running a deal where if you buy 3 Jones 4-packs, you get a code for a free personalized 4-pack too. If that's still going on, that would be fun too - they have Love Potion #6 soda. :)

"Love is a part of me, love is the heart of me, love is the best thing we do..."

Happy love month! I love Valentine's Day. I think it makes February such a fun month. I think I've pretty much got my Valentine's shopping wrapped up for Michael and the girls. Here are some fun Valentine's things that I've seen around.

I already got one thing for Mike, but I think I still want to get him this as a fun little side gift. I Like You is such a cute book and perfect for Valentine's Day.

This looks like fun too:

This is a fun freebie and I really want to try making these...maybe for next Valentine's day to go on our bed starting February 1st!

Making a delicious Valentine's dessert would be fun whether you have a sweetheart or not. I know I just posted about these, but they would be perfect.

There are lots of cute cards on Etsy. I think these are fun.


I also really want to watch a fun Valentine's movie. Something with a killer love story like Big Fish. I love their love story.


This is random, but I have these in pink, but I still really love the red ones too. I don't need two pairs of the same shoe, but I want them! Wouldn't it be fun to have all your favorite shoes in every color? I've gotten a lot of compliments on these shoes.

And I really really want this book. Are you allowed to get Valentine's gifts for yourself?