HAPPY BIRTHDAY LANDON!!!

I can't believe my baby is 1!! Time has gone by a little too fast! He is just a wonderful baby, and so funny, his little personality is in bloom constantly.

Landon - Your Dad and I adore you! Leena is sure in love with you too, you bring so many laughs, smiles and happy moments to our lives, I'm SO glad we have you!




Brand new

That dark hair only lasted so long!

1 year later...
Such a sweet kid!

Is it Fall already?!

Apparently so! We've finally had some wind, rain and chill hit the Tacoma/Seattle area.

I've gone out and switched the kid's clothes form short sleeves, shorts and skirts, to khakis, long sleeves, hoodies and hats. Watch out folks, it's going to get icy and cold here really fast!

Here are some random pictures I thought were cute of the kids and what not.





Leena runs and hides and takes awful pictures now - INTENTIONALLY! What a little stinker! She always says "I don't want my picture taken!" Weird. I'm not like that at all!

A very sad realization.

Ever have a phone call, that really hits home, or just knocks some sense into you?

About a week ago, I was printing off photos at home off of my memory card...and the thought occured to me..."Boy, Grandmaleen would sure gush over these ones of the kids....Ah heck, I'll send her some". So, I did.

I guess she tried calling my old phone #, twice to thank me. My mom called me and relayed the message. So, I called today, and my grandma was so cute, she happily said "I have all those sweet babies on display! What angels!" I can ALWAYS count on her to tell me how much she loves me, how sweet they are, how wonderful I am, and how much she loved god, and her family. I couldn't have asked for it any better. As I spoke to my grandma, I kept it short. She's seemed to have lost some of her edge the past year or two. I just listened to what she had to say, and put my input when I needed to. As she was going to hang up, I heard my Grandpa Willard get on the line (these are my moms parents by the way. They live in Northern CA. They're also 87 years old) And seemed overjoyed that I had called. He is still sharp as I can recall, he always has been. He and I talked for a bit about grandma, and the new baby my cousin William had. They have a heck of a legacy, about to have 141 gradnchildren and great grandchildren come next March. That is impressive and I admire my grandma for always trying to keep tabs on me and how I was doing. Anyway, as I talked to my grandpa, I think it really hit me at teh end of the conversation, He pleaded in a sincere and loving way, that I needed to come visit...one last time.

I said "I'll make it down there when I can!", and then I felt my eyes water up pretty quickly. He then closed with "Have a good life Heidi dear, I love you!" and it was like he was signing out, for good. It was the biggest, saddest moment of my day.

I've always loved and admired both sets of my grandparents, they're both all wonderful people and I love them dearly. I've also been fortunate to have all 4 of them, in my life, all 28 years and counting. I have yet to lose a grandparent, and when I do, I know I will be locked in my room sobbing for 2 days when one does go.

As I hung up the phone, and did the dishes, the thought occured to me, "count your many blessings.." So that's what I'm doing.

Look, it's all pretty!

While Landon was napping today, I was looking at my friend Brieanne's blog, (thanks lady!)and was like hmm...I really need to change mine and spice mine up a bit. And as a teenager for fun, I used to play with HTML.

Anyway, and after having to get all the updates for IE 8, and figure out what the heck XML was and why my laptop did NOT like it, I had to strain myself to find a code that would work, and I did. AND!!! It deleted all my links, etc. Ugh!

almost 2 hours later, you now have what you're reading/seeing. I'm daring to tackle my recipe blog.

Which, I don't think I've yet to ever mention on here, but here it is, feel free to post your own favorites and so on! Make it fun!

http://heidisfavorites.blogspot.com

I've tried to do some digital photography more, but we got the blue screen of death on here the other day, and this PC is all of....10ms old. Not good. Anyway, if I get my own laptop, then I'll spend more time doing that and add it to my scrapbooking to keep me sane, list.

Moms Cancer

So, as many of you know, my mom was diagnosed with stage 2-3 melanoma cancer this past month while she was on vacation in Bermuda. All her medical stuff needs to be done while she's in the country there, so she did that, and that's when it was found. The did a biopsy, and forwarded it on to Florida, Miami, I think.

She had surgery the 15th, and it was an outpatient procedure. All in all, it went well. She's got a hell of a scar now though. But, she's seeming to do fine and well. She's even back to her old self, hehe. They got the cancer out, and now we have to wait the 6mos to see if she's cancer free. But, they doctors did say that when they removed it, there were less cancer cells than what were in the Florida biopsy, which is really good!

I'm a tad nervous because the "coming back" rates for melanoma are slim...but the next door neighbor has the same thing as my mom, and his came back after 6mos, and his is so deep, it's the deepest that the medical center has ever seen. So, needless to say, we're praying for him every night.

Anyway, all in all, we're waiting the 6mos and hope she's cleared afterwards!

Something short of a nightmare.

Leena lived with my mom for a while, they're really good friends/buddies now. So, we waited for Leena to finish out the school year, then moved her down and into the new house with us.

First month, totally fine. Went to Bermuda, to see my dad, came back. Was fine...until about last week or prior, when school started.

NOW, she had constant "meltdowns" and screams and cries hysterically, for HOURS. She writes me notes, and throws them down the stairs usually when I'm making dinner, or right around the start of bed time. Never prior. I don't get it. Alot of it is (what she says at least) is "I miss grandma", but she doesn't think to pick up the phone and call my mom, to see if that will help. She has maybe once. Not the other several times.

She's totally irate and irrational when she's that inconsolable. it's trying on me because I'm so used to it, I don't really go and try to comfort her, because it literally, doesn't help. She just cries harder and harder, and the other day when I tried to, she threw a stuffed animal at me. Or my head, she missed, but it was still the fact that she'd misbehaved.

If she was fine for all that time prior, why isn't she ok now? I send Jeff to be the negotiator because I will lose my cool because I'm sick of the production she puts on, that stresses out everyone in this house.

She even fought me about going to church!! SHE NEVER does that!! I put my foot down and said "If you want to have more friends at school, and at church, you NEED to go to your Sunday school class"...she pouted on the way out to the car. We got to the church, went inside (we skipped sacrament meeting due to this meltdown) and we got to the door, and the hysteria began...I promised my mom I'd be diligent in taking her, and I have. However, Leena has pretty much told me she's not going to go anymore. What the?! What happened to my sweet little girl?!?! =(

Yay for new bathrooms! Almost...

A couple of months ago, I mentioned to Jeff that I didn't like the fact that our downtstairs powder room was so...BLAH! It had no color to it, no storage for anything, nada.

So, we looked into getting granite, and found a deal on some. We purchased it, and many hundreds of dollars later, we FINALLY had it. It took 3 months of us nagging and nagging them with measurements to cut it, and just disaster after disaster. That was just to get it cut!!!! I finally went and picked it up and it hung out here til Jeff could have the time to get around it.

Anyway, meanwhile we have absolutely NO stroage space in that bathroom. My good friend Brian builds houses for a living, I hit him up to ask how much we could get a vanity for, in a really quick and short time later, the vanity was made, delivered and in my bathroom. WOOHOO! Someone who did what I asked, and well, and didn't drag it on for months! I swear, I just need to go through him for everything, I don't know why I didn't! Anyway, it was nice to have to deal with him because he's not only a friend, he's not going to jerk me around. It even got delivered early, by accident of course, but hey! Least we got it on time!

Jeff and our friend, Dan, installed it....and we notice a problem....the measurements I gave them were 38 1/2 x 26 the 38 1/2 goes against the wall, that's the "height" of it if you will. It was too short. I about blew my lid. One detail I didn't mention was, after this company called Fine Line, they gave us a case manager, Justin...he eventually quit returning our calls and we had a new person, her name was Desiree. So, she all the sudden was the new person we were to deal with. Which, I'm glad we did because she actually got on them and got the ball rolling on things,she did her job, the other guy didn't. I talked to my friend whomade the cabinetry for us, and said we should get a new one if we call and ask etc. So, I called and left a irritated voicemail, and I immediately got a call this morning. So, after all the months of waiting...the powder room is done and it looks GREAT! BUT!!! I have gaps in my granite! If they fully refund us, then I'll setlle for keeping it and putting filler in the gaps, but, I'm not going down without a fight with all the hell they've put us through.

We did pain the powder room, "Sand Dollar" color...I got it at Sherwin Williams. And they were sneaky, they just sold me their high end paint without telling me. Yup, get this, my paint is "energy efficent", really? by sitting on my wall it's saving planet earth? And Cost between $40-50 bucks. I had no idea til I signed the reciept, and it was one of those things where my curious 10 month old was getting into everything while I was holding him, so he took advantage of a distracted mom. That makes me ticked! Anyway, I hate the paint color now...it looks pretty pink. When we tested it, it was clearly a taupe/mocha color, what we were going for...but now it's straight up pink. So, I won't be going to Sherwin Williams, I'll settle for the Behr at Home Depot (Sorry Brian! Haha) in the TeePee Brown that I really like, that's NOT pink!

Anyway, here are the before and after photos.



Before, the pedestal sink that I wanted to barf anytime I saw it, SO glad it's gone now!!!


The couch was it's home for a little while.


Dan and Jeff putting it in....before we noticed the "mistake".


New wall color, new granite, faucet, and lighting and fixtures are going in this week. Overall, gaps and all, it looks alright. The granite has alot of blue in it you can't see, so it looks cool...Just can't tell in photos.