Arizona

Ok, a quick post with a few pics from our trip because I know some of you want to see :)

My two favorite guys when we ate lunch at the Farm in Tempe. Great little sandwich shop in the middle of a pecan grove. They also had a great artist's studio & small farm for produce & chickens at the end of the orchard. Fun afternoon!

Who knew midgets from my family would ever be able to jump on their own to reach the monkey bars?! My boy did and he was able to swing his way all the way across!!!

The kids took turns sleeping in our room or on the floor with the Grandparents in their room. Bean insisted on moving the sleeping bag into the closet when she slept with us in our room :)

Owen playing the archeologist at the Southwest Science Museum in Mesa. He had fun brushing aside all the rubber pellets before finding several 'fossils'.

Uncle Mike with my Grandma Eloise

Home Sweet Home

We were in Arizona for a whole week and loved every minute of it with our family in the warmer/drier temps. The grandparents (Todd's folks) spoiled the kids rotten with love and daily trips to the swimming pool. Todd and I got plenty of time to rest & get our health back from the flu. We shared delicious dinners with my Uncle Mike, Aunt Gail and cousins on several different evenings. And my cousin Jesse schooled Owen in the fine art of winning at Super Mario Kart.

We (all of the girls --> moi, Chloe, Grandma Eloise, Grandma Sharon, Grandma Suzanney and Aunt Gail) went to the Great Fair in Fountain Hills yesterday where there were 400+ vendors/artists. It was a lot of fun and great weather for walking around all afternoon. Chloe picked out tie-dyed hats for Owen & herself, but I didn't find anything to buy other than Dippin Dots, Funnel Cakes and Ginormous Hot Dogs. It was a fun day! I wish I had a pic of the fountain that went off for ten minutes at the top of every hour. I'm betting it shot up a couple hundred feet into the air.

We are home now and the kids are in bed. Glad we have a day to rest & unpack before getting into the daily grind of work & school again. Although it would be nice if we had another week of vacation to spend in Arizona with our fam or just chilling on the homefront. It has been close to 3 weeks since I've been on the torch and I am suffering serious withdrawal. First on the agenda tomorrow is to change out propane tanks when I run up to the grocery store to buy milk & cereal for the kidlets.

I am determined to get a coupla hours on the torch tomorrow making beads with new/different techniques. I have long been wanting to make black beads with white dots covered by transparents. Those have been on the mental To Do list for months (ok, years) and I just haven't gotten around to it. Not a particularly difficult technique, but they look so cool. I want to make some new color combo twisties. And I want to play with more of my frit that I bought a month ago from Val Cox.

I just bought a TON of frit last night from her and I'm so excited because Sabrina said she was shipping it out today. She ships Priority USPS, so it might come Monday if I'm lucky or Tuesday at the latest. I can't wait!

After I get the camera unpacked & pics downloaded, I'll post a new blog with pics of beads made by ASGB (Arizona Society of Glass Beadmakers) artists that inspired me. :)

Raising Arizona

We made it out to Phoenix as a family, without eating our children on the plane. Todd was just too exhausted and I worked on blocking out the five screaming bebes in the surrounding rows. The girl child is back to her normal self and the boy child ditched his fever as of this morning. Both make a concerted effort to tell me their strep throat is ALL GONE, so they don't need to take any more medicine. Granted, if I was having to chew up those fowl smelling amoxycillin tablets, I'd be campaigning an end to the meds, too. Todd is still hacking & coughing and my fever disappears for only a few hours before returning. Blech. At least we are with a wonderful set of grandparents to help watch & entertain the kids while we crawl back into bed and sleep.

In spite of remaining under the weather, we have immensely enjoyed the excellent Phoenix weather and spending time with family. Sunday night we went over to my Uncle Mike & Aunt Gail's home for dinner and hung out with the cousins. Yes, that's my Aunt Gail on the very left in the green shirt & specs who taught me how to melt glass back in 2005. She was the instigator of my addiction to playing with fire and making beads....I can't thank her enough for igniting this passion! My cousins and J's girlfriend are on the left. My Grandma Eloise (she doesn't look 90, does she?) and my Mom are front/center with Uncle Mike in the middle looking over Grandma while we're holding up the squirmers on the right.

We got massages tonight which were awesome. If you live in the Mesa area, or even within a 45 minute driving radius....you should make an appointment at Simple Cure Massage Therapy. Their hour long massages were forty five bucks and the massages were really an hour long (ok, both therapists went closer to 70 minutes with both of us). It was a small shop with only two massage rooms, but the therapists delivered phenomenal massages!

Leaving On a Jet Plane.....well, maybe

our bags aren't packed and laundry has yet to be completed. This is typical the night before leaving on vacation.

But Todd caught the flu, spiked a 104+ fever on Monday, got rid of it on Tuesday, it came back to 103+ on Wednesday leading to a trip to the doctor for a shot in the butt and a 5 day supply of Tami-Flu. Last night, the girl child revved up a little fever and earned herself to a trip to the doctor's office this morning and a positive Strep Throat test. Tonight, the boy child sported a temperature climbing over 100 and a sore throat. I have felt like crap since Monday, with sporadic fevers and negative energy, which surprisingly returned today (perhaps from drinking all of Mary's highly touted Hot Lemony Pledge...aka TheraFlu). All of the above health issues one on top of another....not so typical. Vacation or not. None of it typical. Todd NEVER gets sick. Never.

How on earth are we going to all make it to the airport tomorrow evening to fly out to Phoenix for a week??? That remains up in the air. In the meantime, please think good thoughts for us with better health and safe travels.

Counting Down the Days

Just eight more days until we head to Phoenix for a WHOLE WEEK with family and I am so excited! I can't decide if I'm more thrilled about the warmer temps (in the 70-80s!!!) or seeing our fam....I'm leaning toward the latter, but the 80s are a close runner up if you know how I freeze, dress in layers and blast my space heater every year when Atlanta weather drops into the 50s or below. I'm such a wimp.

Here is my Bean child from last weekend when she wasn't sporting hives. Which is to say, she hadn't been at school that day because it was Sunday. The hives have reappeared every day after being in her classroom for a few hours. Every day since Jan 26th, the girl child has popped unbelievable hives from eating pineapple in her fruit cocktail (school didn't realize the new brand had pineapple in it). She got a double whammy that day because her teacher brought in a fresh pineapple, chopped the top off it and stuck it in a petri dish on one of the kids tables. Anyone who knows four year olds think that they would be inclined to touch something new? Didn't think so. Four year olds just don't touch new items. I didn't see that until Tuesday night, so she had a good two school days to soak it in and play in it. Gah!I think all of the kids rolled in it & then touched EVERYTHING in the classroom. Kudos go to the assistant teachers for cleaning EVERY surface in the classroom to help get rid of the pineapple & stop her hives. Tomorrow I take her to my doctor who eliminated ALL of my food and animal allergies through accupressure. Yep. All of them. They haven't come back in over four years.

Crazy Kidlet Hair

I had to share my kids and their crazy hair. Or what is attempting to pass as hair. Owen has been involved in raising money for a fundraiser at school the past two weeks. Each day as he has brought in more pledges and donations, he has accordingly brought home special prizes. The best so far was this blue, rubber helmet with red spikes sticking out.


Pay no attention to the Christmas wreath still hanging on the window behind my boy. Or better yet, let's pretend these pics were taken before Christmas!

And here is my Beanarina. Home from a birthday party where the Special Attention-Getter was a woman who used pipe cleaners, colored hair spray and ribbons to doll up each of the little girls. Chloe's hair-do was a good ten inches above her head, twisted up with pipe cleaners, flowers, and other gift-wrapping accessories. She thought she was the bomb.

Merry Christmas Everyone and a Happy New Year

Here is Owen smiling ear to ear. He woke me up at 5:10am on Christmas morning "MOMMA!!!! This is the BEST DAY OF MY LIFE! Come see what Santa brought me!"
And here is the Bean, sporting 3 of the 4 things Santa brought her....Dora umbrella, princess helmet, pink scooter & furry crocs which got cut off by the photographer (thinking I need to fire that photographer!)

And here are the kids scarfing down a package of Pop Rocks that my Dad gave them for Christmas. They had fun listening to and feeling the popping & crackling in their mouths.


I had a wonderful Christmas with both my Mom and Dad, my Grandma (who turned 90 yro last year!), Todd's Mom and his sister with Todd, Owen and Chloe. We were missing another set of Grandparents who stayed up in Minnesota this Christmas. But the house was filled with love, laughter, good food and an abundance of gratitude as we share the holiday and each other's company.

New Year's came and went quietly. We stayed at home and relaxed with the kids, rather than braving the roads with crazy drivers.

Out of the Mouth of Babes

Out of the mouth of babes
Current mood: amused

So this week (and last), Owen has been out of school during the two week holiday Cherokee County schools are taking. Since Todd and I have had to work, we've sent him back to the preschool where he went up through pre-Kindergarten last year and where Chloe still attends. Tonight, during bedtime...Todd found out what Owen (our beloved 6 year old) has learned from the 4 year olds at preschool....

Todd was being silly with Owen and said "Wouldn't it be funny if your mouth was up here (pointing to his forehead) and your eyes were down here (pointing to his chin)? Then you might drip milk into your eyes when eating your cereal!" And they laugh.

Then Owen says, "Daddy, wouldn't it be funny if your nuts were up here (pointing to his forehead)?"

Todd lost it. Owen asked him what was so funny, but Todd could barely breathe. Then Owen asked "Daddy, do you know what nuts are? They're your tenders (a wonderful term he learned from watching Kung Fu Panda)."

Wow. They learn so young

Merry Christmas Eve!

Check out Chloe attired in her Christmas spirit. You may be able to tell she dressed herself and was completely thrilled with her Santa hat, Christmas shirt under the denim jumper, plaid skirt and argyle tights combination. Always a treat and a surprise to see how she dresses herself :)

This is before going to an Ugly Christmas Sweater Party. Todd picked up the sweaters from Goodwill, but his needed to be modified into a neck-less, sleeveless atrocity. My Dad was over that day and he saw nothing wrong with either sweater....he thought mine was very nice.

I am LOVING these beads and had fun stringing them into a floating necklace. The base bead is made out of a dark Elphaba green (which I just got and absolutely LOVE) and then is swirled in Smoke Rings. LOVE LOVE LOVE these and will probably make more! Taking a chance the recipient won't be on the internet today, but I just had to share a pic of this

It was two days ago when I got the frantic call from a good friend with his daughter asking "Can you please please please make my Mommy a necklace with green, blue and purple beads for Christmas?" I really like how the colors swirled together and there is great veining going on in the greens that I used in each bead. And the purple was fun because it reacted great with the other colors to form different shades and separations. I hope Mommy loves it :)

Oh, the Smell!

In our downstairs bathroom after Thanksgiving was just awful. Awful, I tell you. Had no idea what was causing it, but it progressively got worse each day. Until the 3rd day of December, I just couldn't stand it anymore. I was down on my hands and knees, looking in the cabinets under the sink and it smelled even worse. But I didn't see ANYTHING. So I wondered if a small animal had crawled into our walls or under the cabinet and died. It was so heinous. But I had a conference call starting in a few minutes, so the search needed to end for the time, but not before I emptied the trash can.

The trash can is about a foot and a half tall and ten inches wide at the top. Ceramic. Kinda heavy duty. Lined with a trash bag, which appeared to be empty other than a coke can (which I knew was empty, because I drank it all before dropping it in there), an empty roll of toilet paper and a coupla tissues. But the bag felt heavy as I lifted it up out of the trash can. And then I see brownish/yellowish liquid pouring out the bottom of the bag into the trash can. The trash can was filled up HALF WAY with urine.

Oh. My. Gosh.

That's not a little experiment. That's a friggin project for a child's bladder. I'm sure it was around a GALLON of liquid. ewwwwwwww

So all day, Todd and I are debating which child was the contributer. Todd thought definitely Owen because that is a boy thing to do. And I felt certain it was Chloe because she's our little sneaky sneak who will head upstairs to cut herself a mullet unbeknownst to the parental units or sneak downstairs while the house is still sleeping so she can eat food under a table or behind curtains that she KNOWS she's not allowed to eat for breakfast, lunch or dinner, or even a snack unless she's been super good.

And we debate the punishment. Do we deliver red bottoms or draw a picture of a big X over a trashcan or a smiley face with an arrow pointing at the trashcan. We waffle.

Fast forward to the evening. I'm making dinner. Kids are in the midst of art projects at the kitchen table with my Mom. I bring the offensive trash can over to the table (which after multiple all-day soaks & scrubs has finally lost its odor) and ask "Kids. What's this?" And they both answer that it's a trash can in the "Duh" tone of voice.

"Kids. What do we put in trash cans?"

Chloe answers tissue paper. And Owen says trash.

"That's right! Kids. What do we NOT put in trash cans?"

And Chloe says "Stickers!" God love my bizarre little daughter, as stickers are far too valuable to trash. At this point, Owen is looking down in his lap. I ask him directly, "Owen? What do we not put in trash cans?"

He slowly looks up at me and then very quickly looks back in his lap for the answer. Very. Quietly. Owen says "pee pee."

"That's right. Owen, where do we put pee pee?"

"In the toilet," says my very embarrassed & busted six year old, still in a whisper. But I'm impressed by his honesty.

I left it at that.