Tag, you're it!

My friend Shannon tagged me on her blog. I tag everyone who reads mine!

1. Three biggest fears? Space (as in outer), being in the middle of nowhere, something happening to my children

2. When was the last time you danced? A week or two ago. Grant grabbed me in the kitchen and danced with me for like two seconds the other day. He's kinda sweet like that!

3. Do you creep on stranger's blogs? Not very often. I don't know how blog stalkers find the time.

4. If you could go back to be any age for a day, what age would you be and why? Probably 16. I LOVED high school, but I'd prefer to go back when I could date!

5. Are you a good liar? I can be, but I have to have a very real motivation to lie. Otherwise, I can't - I get panicky about people not knowing the truth.

6. Do you judge someone when you can tell they've had elective cosmetic surgery? I did until I had kids. Now I know what it feels like to have a saggy tummy and saggy breasts! If money ever becomes a non-issue, I might do it myself!

7. If you have children, what's one thing that you always told yourself you'd never do when you had kids? If you don't have children, what's one thing you tell yourself you'll never do. (Psst! You. Yeah, you. The one without kids. Guess what? You'll probably do it.) Smell their rears to see if they're poopy.

8. What's something that totally grosses you out? Raw meat - yes, I have a hard time cooking!

9. Do you ever delete forwards without reading them? All the time.

10. Do you ever lie to get out of obligations? I try hard not to. I used to when I was desperate, but now I try hard to be a strong enough person to say the truth without apologizing for it.

11. Consider your body weight and your yearly income at their present states. Would you rather be 200 pounds heavier and $200,000 richer or stay at your present states?
Stay at my present states.

12. When was the last time you bought a pair of shoes and what were they? I just bought some cute brown leather Mary Janes from Kohls last month.

13. The Olympics. Take them or leave them? I LOVE the Olympics! I go through withdrawals when they're over!

14. What's your favorite accent? Duh! French!

15. What's your favorite scent? Rain on pavement

16. Gum or breath mints? Gum

17. If you could look like any celebrity, who would it be? Hmmm, maybe Jennifer Aniston? She has the best hair in the entire world.

19. Do you religiously wear sun screen? When I'll be out in the sun all day. Not everyday, though.

20. Do you generally trust people/their motives or doubt people/their motives? Trust - sometimes too much so.

21. Would you describe yourself as a complicated person or is what you see what you get? A little of both.

22. Do you watch what you eat? Usually no, but I feel guilty about it every few months or so and try to eat well for a couple weeks before I give up again.

23. Do you watch what other people eat? I'm not really sure what this question is even asking, so I guess no.

24. Do you judge how other people raise their kids? I try not to, because I've been judged as a parent before and nothing INFURIATES ME MORE!!!!!!

25. Do you judge people who dress poorly? Usually not, but sometimes it's hard not to!

26. Do you judge people who are homely? I don't think so.

27. Do you judge people who are overweight? I hope not.

28. Your interest in politics: High, Medium-High, Medium, Medium-Low, Low, Obsolete? Medium. I get too riled up if I pay too much attention, so I purposely don't get overly involved or it would ruin my life!

29. Favorite song of all time? I don't think I can answer that. There's waaaaay too many in so many different genres for me.

30. Acoustic or electric? Acoustic

31. If you were a hermit, would you shave? Yes, it'd gross me out after a while.

32. If you could shave your head without your significant other throwing a complete hissy, would you? Never in a million years.

33. What was your least favorite age? 22 - that was a really hard year for me.

34. How many times a day do you check your email? Probably around 5 or so.

35. Are you in a tiff with anyone right now? That depends - who's asking? :)

I heart Jane Austen

Take the Quiz here!

So, this was no surprise to me, and probably to few of you! If you take the quiz, tell me who you are!

All the Leaves Are Brown...

We took family pictures a few weeks ago, which we usually do in the fall since it's my favorite time of year and, of course, since Christmas cards are coming up. Kara took them for us. We went with her family to a nearby pumpkin patch and after the pics we went and picked pumpkins and apples with them. It was, of course, very fun, as is almost any fall tradition in my opinion! I'm not going to post our main family picture, since it will be on our Christmas card this year and how BORING would that be for everyone to have already seen it (although, it won't be much of a surprise after you see these - it looks pretty similar!) but I will post some other fun ones we took. Here's some of Grant and me:

Kara told us to kiss, and of course, Grant tried to oh-so-romantically suck my face off. This is the picture where I'm saying EWWW, GROSS!

Here's some of the kids and me:

My handsome little man:

And here's all three of my sweeties:

Here's Hallie (the Pothiers' daughter) and Cole, who usually fight like cats and dogs, actually sharing a cute moment together.

After our little photo session, we drove maybe 100 yards to the pumpkin patch. Since it was so close, we didn't buckle any of the kids. So, of course, Ava stood up and turned around while we were driving. She thought she was so hilarious! She kept laughing at herself and how funny she was standing up in her car seat! It was adorable.

When we got to the pumpkin field we all were walking around looking for a good pumpkin when suddenly, we heard an amazing whooshing (yes, that's the technical term) sound and saw hundreds of birds rise from the field and take off into the sky. We hadn't even seen them there. It was the coolest sight - the picture doesn't do it justice.

Grant, helped the kids find just the right pumpkin:

Claire and Cole each got to pick one:

Ava was bundled and snuggled during the whole adventure, thanks to Dad:

There was a spooky tree nearby that I just had to take some pictures of. Doesn't it look like the perfect Halloween tree?

Then, we went apple picking. While the kids and Grant struggled with the ladders, I stole Ava to take some fall shots:

All in all it was a great time. Afterwards we stopped in the little store there and the kids played with some fruit long enough for me to get a picture:

Kara and me:

When we got home, the kids decorated their pumpkins:

Then, we made carmel apples with the apples we picked. It made us miss Kerstin and Wade!

Yes, they were a little messy:

Fall is such a fun time!!!!!

Pushing Daisies - My Famous Friends

Ok, so I keep forgetting to brag about my famous friends. First of all, if you haven't seen ABC's "Pushing Daisies" yet, you have to! It's awesome! And, Lee Pace (the guy who plays Ned, the lead role) is my friend from high school! Yes, I'm serious! We were in some plays together. He is doing such an awesome job. It's so weird for me to see him all grown up!

Here's a picture from our high school production of "South Pacific." It's not the best picture, I know, but he is the first guy in a sailor hat from the left (I'm the one on the front row in the khaki "uniform" in between the guy in the camo and the girl in the redish shirt).


Also, my really good friend Matt Bomer was on this summer's show "Traveler" (also ABC - I guess they like guys from Houston). He played Jay Berchel, the lawyer.


I was really good friends with him. We were Standleaders together and in choir and plays together. Over the summer Grant LOVED to tell everyone at work that my "old boyfriend" was on t.v. and that I record his show every week so I can watch him over and over every night before I go to bed so I can dream of him. His only reasoning for calling him my boyfriend was that I went to football banquet with him and kissed him in a play. Still, this is enough for Grant to run with when he wants to tell a good story! His colleagues, of course, loved to egg it on and made up lists of qualities that Grant had that were better than Matt's to "convince me that Id picked the right guy." MEN! They obviously had too much time on their hands at work! Here's some pictures of Matt and me. The first one if us when we went to football banquet and the second one is at a pep rally our senior year when we were Standleaders. He's supposed to be Michael Jackson (the skit was to Thriller) and I was the wicked witch from some rival high school (remember, it doesn't have to make a lot of sense to be a legit pep rally skit!).

Matt's also in the "South Pacific" picture from above. 100 points to anyone who can tell which one he is.

Lastly, Lynn Collins (she was Mark Ruffolo's fiancee in "13 Going on Thirty," Keanu Reeve's secretary in "The Lake House," and Ophelia in "The Merchent of Venice" with Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons) also went to my high school. We were in a summer school class together and also in a play together. This picture is of her with Keanu Reeves. They dated for a few months in 2005.

So, anyway, those are my famous friends! Does that make me famous by association? :)

Wake me up when September ends...

(Any Green Day fans out there?)

So, this is my catch-up post. Since September was so insane for me I'm just going to sum up the highlights in one whirlwind post. I really am trying to catch up people! By the end of the year, you'll all vote me as the world's BEST blogger, as opposed to the worst! :)

So, on Sept 6 my Grandpa Jones passed away. My family was great enough to fly me (and Ava since she was free!) out to his funeral. It was such a wonderful funeral - so inspiring and touching. He was such a wonderful man and so committed to the gospel. It really made me want to be a better person. And, of course, since it was my mom's family, there was lots of beautiful music. In fact, at the internement, the funeral director said he'd never heard a family sing a hymn so beautifully! Here's Ava with my grandma's sister, Aunt Maxine, at the internment.


Here's my grandma and all of the siblings at the internment (my mom's the second from the left), each holding a rose from my grandpa's casket.

Next, is a picture of Cole in a Nacho-Libre-inspired Spiderman costume.

And, here's an action shot...

Next, I got a chance to go to Oprah again. Bonnie (on the left) called me the night before and I managed to get babysitters for everyone and took a trip down to Chicago with Kara for the day. It was great!

September also was the month for Grant's first 5K. He came in 3rd place! I was so proud of him!

Lastly, Claire started her first day of all-day kindergarten (which I already posted) and Cole started two different pre-schools! One is twice a week at a lady's home and one is kind of a "rotating" preschool. There's six of us who rotate teaching and having it at our home. So, here's Cole on the first day of the "rotating" preschool:

And here's Cole on the first day of his other preschool:

What a cutie!

The Summer Sun is Slipping Away...

So, I'm still catching up with my posts. This my last summer one.

We went to the splash park near our home one day in August, but it was closed because it looked like it was going to rain. No! Summer is not over! So, trying to fight the inevitable, we hung around hoping the clouds would go away. The kids played on the swings for a while...

LuLu fell asleep...

But then, uh oh! Was that a drop?...

Yep. It started to rain...

So, we came home, facing the fact that the sunny, lazy days of summer were coming to an end. I turned on the t.v. for the kids while I was feeding Ava. When I came back in the room, this is what I saw:

I guess they could still make this summer day lazy even if it wasn't sunny!