Questions, Answers, and Aunt Tera's Good Deed

A couple of questions (well 4 of them), and a couple (well, 4 of them, too) answers...
Q: Why is Miss Kylie so gussied up on a Saturday?
A: Our lucky little lady got to go to a birthday tea party (actually lemonade and homemade taffy) at the Lion House in downtown SLC and I must say that few things in life are cuter than a whole group of smily, giggly, excited, gussied up 7-year-old party-going girlies...
Q: Is that kid totally amazing or what?
A: Umm, yeah--besides amazing, Cael is a fantastic, though not necessarily "still-sitting" spectator at his big brother's basketball games...


Q: What are they staring at?
A: After 5 (and almost 1/2) years of serious dish-washing, our dishwasher completely gave out--serious bummer. Good news, though, we are all delighted with the replacement that was purchased and delivered. This is not to be confused with "delivered and installed" even though the signs all over Lowe's boldly professed their "installation guarantee" and then the round tag hanging inside of the new dishwasher also said "installation guarantee"--we took this to mean that "installation" was something they did, something they "guaranteed." Silly us! They can't install dishwashers! Something about OSHA and plumbers, it's still a little foggy. SO lucky for me, I am married to a handy handy (that's right, double handy) fella that took care of the installation part and I took care of the "keep it up, you're doing so great!!" part and now the dishes can again be stacked in a genuine dishwasher and not the genuine sink...


Q: What kind of super-fun game is being played here?
A: This is your basic "Twister" where one 3-year-old rolls up in the game mat and the other one tries to jump on him. You don't actually need the spinner for this version. Disclaimer--when played this way, "Twister" is not necessarily equal parts fun for both of the participants...




Here is Paul's sister, our cute Aunt Tera (pictured here with what may be the best birthday gift ever). On Friday, Aunt Tera and I had a great early morning at the Jordan River Temple. As we were walking back to the parking lot, this car pulls up and a very concerned lady rolls down the window to say "Fix that lady's skirt!" I'm sure we both had rather quizzical looks on our faces, so she repeated louder and more animatedly "FIX THAT LADY'S SKIRT!!" We turned around to see the nice 60-ish year-old lady that we had just said "hi" to --things were all fine when we saw her from the front--with her skirt and slip completely tucked into the backside of her waistband!! Oh dear--it was deja vu from "The Parent Trap" when Susan was leaning backwards against the rail of the deck talking to her dreamy date for the camp dance, Stafford, and Sharon and her room-mates quietly and carefully cut the back of Susan's pink party dress off, leaving her bloomers completely and embarrassingly exposed!! Aunt Tera sprang right into action and could not have been sweeter with this lady--"let's just fix your skirt here..."--the lady was gracious and shocked and possibly mortified, but with her backside covered. Nicely done, Aunt Tera, and if they ever take nominations for "Mormon of the Year" I think Tera may be a shoe-in...

Jens, Jan, and Marsha...

So my agile little bro, Jens, and my superfun/superfan mom came for a sweet little weekend adventure--Uncle Jens entertained his adoring fans with a variety of excellent skills. Jumping in the air with Kylie on his shoulders was a big hit and fortunately, no ceiling fans or heads were injured in the process!! Curtis was so blown away that he had to keep lounging on the couch while looking in the other direction...

Gramma Jan soaked in the 14-year-old boys Junior Jazz basketball scene with the Goff girlies! It was absolutely intense and Curtis' team totally pulled out the 24-23 victory-- whew!!

Zander and Cael were so pleased to be released into their natural outdoor habitat, where they were free to run, climb, slide, run, and run!! Hopefully this 55degree weather is a great sign of things to come!! You know you're not in California when 55 degrees is considered balmy...

Morgan, Kendell, and our pal, Chelby, refined their driving/looking super-cool skills--it was just that kind of a day...

The mother of this bunch continued in her quest to gather all possible infomation related to what may be one of the best shows ever created and executed, of course I speak of "The Brady Bunch!!"

I have always been a Brady fan--the reruns we watched on our 9" Sony Trinitron made coming home from school each day just that much better for me!! Oh, the groovy adventures they had in each and every episode--among my personal faves are Jan's dark and curly wig (that had to be someone's real-life experience somewhere, I'm sure all girls with long, smooth, blond hair just dream of short, permy, brunette wigs); Bobby getting his clean, startched clothing soiled while carrying out his duty as a member of the school safety patrol and deciding to wash said clothing with all of the detergent he could find--oh the wacky, bubbly mess that ensued in the casa de Brady! Cousin Oliver and the faulty hair dye/orange rabbits business; the Hawaiin adventure with the Tiki that Bobby found that caused so much trouble (no worries--it all worked out okay); the hot date of Greg's in the blue convertible at the drive-in where the frog jumped onto the pizza-eewww; Marsha and Jan working at the ice cream parlor and the best worker getting to keep the gig--in the end it was actually Jan that prevailed, leaving Marsha more time to go out with cute boys! So much quality television and awesomely (I am not sure that is an actual word, but it fits) enough, you can buy this quality show on DVD so the indoctrination can be passed on to future generations!! One of my big dreams in life is to hunt down Seasons 4 and 5--the format was switched on me after we had already purchased and thoroughly enjoyed the first 3 Seasons. Now they have the whole series available as an entire set only, which is great unless you only need Seasons 4 & 5--oh well.

Because of my adoration (that's a pretty strong word there) of the show, I feel like I need to have as much background on the people that are the Brady's. I've seen Florence Henderson sing about how much she loves cooking with Wesson Oil. I have watched every Brady-related "Biography" that A&E offers. I have read Greg's book, "Growing Up Brady" when it came out in the early 90's and while I loved the inside scoop on each and every episode, I was bummed at the "real-life" and "less-than-Brady-esque" lives that were led by my favorite Brady's. I know that they are only human (or are they dancing?), but maybe I don't really need all this info. I know Peter has had some risque reality show with his wife on TV (come on, Peter! Would he really want his mom watching? I'll have to pass on that one...) And now Marsha has her book that I need to just finish so I can move on with my life. So far on this lovely day, my not quite complete review can be summed up in two words, "uh, wow..." and as a sidenote "Mom always said don't play ball in the house!"

This just in...

Here is Cael, pumped to point out the Jenga blocks Wall-E that Morgan made for him. This extremely artistic shot was supposed to be at the end of the post below, hmmm.....eventually I'll get this figured out...

Love, Love, Love...

So since it is such a LOVEY kind of week, how about some things that are loved by someone like me, actually exactly me since my name is on the blog? Only 4 things though, because for some odd reason, I can only post 5 photos at a time and I've already used one--whatever...

New curtains!! I love them very much, and I am thrilled that they may even compensate (just a teensy bit??) for the Desitin couch...

This Amy Butler fabric is my all time fave--I love fabric, I love Amy Butler design, I love green, not to mention circles, such a lovable combination...

I had forgotten how much I love avacados!! The Pioneer Woman re-introduced me to this wonderful green delicacy, and when it is combined with fresh homemade pico de gallo, WOW!! It is true love indeed...

And hey, who doesn't love kid creativity? Cael can't get enough of this Wall-E shirt (the long-sleeved version, for those of you playing along at home) and since he has a super-nice and super-fun big sister, Morgan who will do great things for him like make a fantastic Wall-E out of Jenga blocks, it's good times a-plenty!! (My novice blogging skills have just taken a turn for the worse--where did my pic of Cael with the Jenga blocks go? It was just here, and now it is gone, so just use your own mental creativity to come up with a Jenga robot design that you love...)

Hope your week is full of roses that are red and violets that are blue...