Just Saw This Today

Aftyn Found Something . . .

The Highlight of My Weekend

Some of you may or may not know that I currently have a nephew who is serving a mission for our church in Argentina. He is frequently in my thoughts.

Thanks to my husband whose calling at church is to work with the missionaries in our area, I get to interact with lots of young men around the same age as my oldest nephew who are doing the same thing he is. Because of my nephew who currently serves and my parents recent return from their mission, missionaries have a soft spot in my heart. They are incredible young men and women. And older men and women. :)

So on Saturday, after recovering from heat exhaustion due to garage saling ( ha ha - funny but true ) these 2 young missionaries from our area showed up at our door.

Almost the first words out of one elders mouth were "Could I please do your dishes?" You might think that strange as I did. He went on to further explain that he had only been out on his mission a few days and back home he had a sister who was married and had 2 kids and was also taking classes in college. He explained that he used to go to her house all the time and do her dishes for her because he knew what a service he was giving to her with everything else she had to do on a daily basis. After getting over my embarrassment, I allowed him and his companion to unload my dishwasher, and then the original elder went on to fill my dishwasher with the dishes in my sink. I repeatedly thanked and re-thanked him. And he did it all with a VERY happy smile on his face.

When I asked him if I could take his picture for my blog, he looked at me like I was some kind of weird-o and then said the same kind of thing to me. I convinced him though and promised him a picture in return that he could send to his sister back home.

I have thought often of that elder this weekend. What an act of love and kindness he gave to me.

It made me so relieved the rest of the day to know the dishes were done because of him and gave me the time to do so many more important things.

I want to try a little harder to be like this Elder. Don't we all?

I want a haircut!

All right ladies and gentlemen, I want a haircut!

Here are your choices, all I need is YOUR opinion.

I need some opinions - Reed is afraid of me cutting my hair too short, I just want to make sure my hair is long enough for a ponytail (it's easier to run with a ponytail dontcha know?).

This is what I look like in case you forgot. Thought you might want to see me to see what I might look like with one of the above haircuts.

(I may or may not listen to anyone's opinions, but it's still fun to get them.)

Where My Head Is . . .

That's right. I'm thinking about running.

Just a few weeks ago, thanks to the challenge of a running friend, I really started running again. And really fell in love with it again.

So I decided to go for it and do the hard thing I've always wanted to do. I am now planning on running a half marathon. I'm already halfway there.

I can hardly believe it myself.

This is what will be on my mind most nights of the week as I will be jogging along 4 nights a week, adding miles to my shoes and aches to my body.

Feel free to cheer me on from the cyber sidelines.

The Purpose of Naps in our House

Take a child full of grouchiness. Run her around until she can't stop yawning.

Mix in a good dose of blankets, loves, and a quiet place to sleep



Ta-da! Our sweet Aftyn girl !

Happy Fathers Day

What's For Dinner Tonight?

Please Feed Me!

Do your children/roommates/spouses start to look at you this way when it's time for dinner?

Then do I have the solution for YOU!

It's easy, it's fast, and it's fun to make.

Pizza!

I have in my possession the yummiest, softest pizza crust recipe I have ever had in my life.

And all you had to do was read my blog to find it, lucky you.

Luckily for me, one of my sisters clued me in to it.

Total time to make and bake it with toppings already applied so you can eat it: 35 minutes.

You could have a yummy dinner from start to finish in 35 minutes, made from scratch!

We love to have it on Fridays to celebrate the weekend, but I've been in a bit of a dinner-making funk this week, so we ate it just last night.

As you can see, I bake mine on a cookie sheet which is contrary to recipe recommendations, but I've never noticed any issues with this method.

Aftyn even loved it (notice the red ring around the mouth).

Happy Dinner Making All !!

Give me your old, your tired looking, your distressed

Hi, my name is Alysa, and I am an addict.

*chorus* "Hi Alysa"

My sister Laura was the first to really identify that I had a problem. She noticed it this last weekend when we went looking at garage sales together. I picked up 5 picture frames in a matter of 2 hours, all for a total of $3.30. After seeing my booty she informed me that I had a problem. In total denial I stood up for myself and the bargains I had found.

Last night I broke down and bought myself some *satin* black spray paint. It had been on my mind ALL DAY.

Imagine my surprise when today arrived and I surprisingly had a free day to paint!

I'm so excited to get these little beauties painted and adorning my walls. After taking this picture to share I knew I had a problem.

Which is compounded by my picture-taking sister and all the beautiful pictures I currently hold in my possession which will fill these little lovelies.

Somebody stop me. :)

Just a taste - Don't you love the different varieties?!

The surprise Reed has waiting for him when he comes home. Good thing it mows out, right?

Craigslist

This is an irritation post - skip it if you don't want to hear me going off. :) Consider yourself warned.

What the crap is up with craigslist and all the spammers?!? I have tried 3 times now to sell a few items on craigslist and the majority of the replies I have had, in spite of ads that clearly state "no spam please", have all been someone wanting me to watch a video or go to a website where I will be offered some kind of crap I don't want. I JUST WANT TO SELL SOME STUFF ON CRAIGSLIST ! ! If I were looking to get spam invites, there are plenty of sites I could visit and sign up for that would share all the spam I want and more.

Anyhow, just sayin' : what happened to the good old craigslist where you could sell things easily, and buy things without worrying that the seller thinks you're a spammer? When did it all change?

Turning in Circles

This is gonna BLOW your mind!

Front View

What's that peeking in from the back?

That's right people, 4 PONYTAILS!

There is a LOT of hair on this girl.

Is this Terrible Toddlerhood?

Good thing we have days like this, you know, days where she wants to give me hugs and loves

See those brown spots.? Yeah, think top and bottom teeth working together.

They help to make up for the day when your daughter decides to chew the heck out of her crib

while she's supposed to be taking a nap. I walked in to find her covered in white flecks - her

face, hands and clothes. What a stinker.

Wordless Wednesday

I know it says wordless, but quick question:

Is it possible to love bananas TOO much?

Tofu Tuesday

This is Reed

This is tofu

This is what Reed always told me he thought tofu tasted like

This was Reed's face last night after serving this recipe

Any questions?

Swimsuit Sunday, but actually Saturday

Don't you wish you looked this cute in YOUR swimsuit?

I know I wish I did. :)

Aftyn wanted to sit at the big kid table, and here she is,

fitting right in with her chip in hand. She loved playing with and watching all the older kids play.

Thanks to the Aldrich's for the fun, the food, and the little kiddie pool, which we somehow never managed to get a picture of Aftyn in !

Finally . . . . A Video!

Strawberry Jam

Brook,

I thought I should let you know that Aftyn loves your jam.

She was licking it off the bread.

Makes me want to make more so I can see this little face covered in it more often.

A Few Product Reviews

I thought it might be fun to do some reviews of products I have recently tried out. Here goes:

I just recently had a conversation with a friend about these diapers. She hated them. I hadn't tried them for awhile. I normally use another brand that rhymes with Muggies. :) I had no qualms with my normal brand, I just had some packages of Pampers that I needed to use. And now I know, I hate Pampers too. They don't hold much in them. Even after only 1 or 2 hours, which is nothing in the land of diaper usage, Aftyn's diaper will leak through to her pants, and I'm not talking on the sides, people. I am talking about through the front, back and very bottom of her diaper.

Talk about disappointment. I loved Pampers Swaddlers, but I will try to never use Pampers Cruisers again. I find that I end up using more diapers because of their leakiness, and thus I spend more money. No thanks.

I just needed some cocoa, saw this kind at my store and thought since dark chocolate is sweeter, this cocoa might be the same. First of all, this cocoa is not surprisingly VERY dark. When you bake with it, you need to expect your cakes, brownies and cookies to be a dark blackish color. Also, for some odd reason it does not work when you make No Bake Cookies with this. The cookies don't set up as quickly as they should. Mine seemed to need an extra 12 hours to finally firm up.
Just so I could test and see if I continued having problems, I made some brownies. They baked up just lovely and tasted good. Just kind of blackish in color, also kind of a vaguely odd aftertaste, which I didn't notice until some time had passed. Anyone else tried this?



This was a sample I got in the mail. I only had 2 sheets to experiment with. I did one batch of towels and one load of my husbands work clothes.

The towels came out fluffy, soft and smelling nice. I thought the smell was a little overpowering, but I am not one of those people who like to smell like their laundry detergent instead of themselves.

With my husbands very dirty work clothes (he works in dirt, grease, and anything else you can find in working with scales) he told me that he too found the smell a little overpowering. He didn't think the Purex did any better than our normal detergent at getting the stains out. What he may not have noticed was the softness and lack of static that there was.

Overall, would I buy them? No, probably not because of the scent issue and I prefer using liquid detergent so I can control how much I use. If you are one of those people with busy lives with little stainage happening to your clothes and if the price is right, then I would suggest these cloths for you. They require little to no extra effort to use.

Finally, what with all this rainy weather couldn't we all use a little pick-me-up? I found mine today on Hulu.com while the kiddies were napping.

Check out Wipeout:Blind Date edition if you haven't already.

Laughing out loud made my day.