Personalized message from Santa

If you have children you really need to go here

and create a personalized video message from Santa.

They were talking about this on the radio

this morning and it's really cute.

You input a few specific things about your child,

like eye color and hair color and a specific gift they've asked for.

Then it emails a message that is personalized just for them...

what kid wouldn't like that?

Here are a couple of screen shots from Devyn's video:

Have fun!

Pretty Please with a Cherry on Top

If I ask very nice and say pretty please with a cherry on top would you do something for me?

I thought this picture of my girls in their Halloween costumes turned out so cute that I entered it into a costume contest on Facebook.

If you have a Facebook account would you pretty please with a cherry on top go and vote for it?

Just click this link and vote (and then pass it along to your friends):

http://apps.facebook.com/ivillageapp/contest/entries/browse/305?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=posttoprofile&utm_campaign=halloweencontest

Along Came a Spider...

Little Miss Muffet

sat on a tuffet

Eating her curds and whey,

Along came a spider,

Who sat down beside her

And frightened Miss Muffet away

Devyn absolutely loves spiders. I mean the real things…we have all kinds of spiders that live in our neighborhood and she has to go and look at them every time we come or go. Well, a couple of months ago I was thinking about how it would be so cute for Devyn to be a spider for Halloween, I then had an epiphany that Ari should be Little Miss Muffet to carry on the theme. Unfortunately when I was looking I couldn't find any spider costumes I liked and trying to convince my eleven year old (that prefers to be something dark and scary for Halloween) that she wanted to be a fairy tale character was not looking like it was going to be in the cards. Then I had a brilliant idea. My little sister just happens to be in grad school for costume design, so I proposed my ideas to her with the stipulation that Ari’s costume couldn’t be cutesy, but maybe something more Goth. She designed, but didn’t have the time to make them (being that she is in grad school and all) so my mom stepped in and put these masterpieces together…

They turned out even better than I could have imagined and the girls had so much fun. Ari went off with her friends, but we had over a dozen people just randomly stop us and ask to take pictures of Devyn (including one mom who’s daughter complained “mom, you haven’t even taken any pictures of me yet) because she looked so adorable…now what to do next year that will come even close?

This last one is a little dark because it was outside at the trunk-or-treat...and yes that is a real hearse behind the girls...we have a mortician in our ward who goes all out for Halloween...so fun!

Bellatrix Lestrange(ish)

So as I'm talking about needing hairspray to do Ari's hair for her costume this afternoon I get told that today is actually crazy hair day. If you recall, we hcve kind of gone all out for crazy hair day in the past so for it to be sprung on me last minute was a little unnerving, not to mention who plans crazy hair day on Halloween...well I guess it's not technically Halloween, but every year our downtown does a huge trick-or-treating event and they are doing it today, not tomorrow, and our ward trunk-or-treat is tonight so it might as well be Halloween as far as I'm concerned. Don't most people finish off their costumes with hairstyles that compliment the costume? Well I do, so lucily for Ari the halloween hair we had planned is a little crazy, but looks somewhat like Bellatrix Lestrange. Here are just a couple pictures I got before she left for school (it doesn't look quite as big and ratted out like it does in real life).

Best-Kept Secret

Whenever I get asked what I do and I tell people my job title I always get a look of bewilderment in return. No one has ever heard of my job and even when I try and explain what I do I get blank stares aimed in my direction. I’ve started to pretty much just preface it with “I’m a professional snoop” because that’s how DH describes it. He didn’t actually believe that it was a real profession and swore that it must be some made up job. Well, I suppose “professional snoop” does get to the nitty gritty of what I do and it somewhat sums up my job to help others to hopefully understand it. I mean, I had never heard of a Prospect Researcher (actually here we are called Prospect Analysts) before I just happened onto the position almost 5 years ago, how can I expect others to know what I do?

Imagine my surprise when I came across this article on the Best-Kept Secret Careers and lo and behold mine is #9 on that list. Well what do you know, it is a real job after all, and according to careerbuilder.com a pretty darn good one at that!

http://www.careerbuilder.com/Article/CB-1301-Job-Search-10-Best-Kept-Secret-Careers/?ArticleID=1301&cbRecursionCnt=1&cbsid=c30d45dbd2954fac883da5b318b26655-308857144-VN-4&ns_siteid=ns_us_g_10_best_jobs_prospect_

I think their description sounds a little better than “professional snoop” but unless I carry around a copy of this it still might be the easiest description...

And, for the record, if you went to a university chances are they have at least one of me too, searching for those of you who have any indications of wealth, but on my salary I’ll never be the one searched for, just the one doing the searching…ha ha ha! (As a side note, we don’t waste our time on anyone who can’t give us at least $25,000, but usually not even until it looks like they can give at least in the $100,000 range)

Soccer has begun

Well, it actually began over a month ago, but I’m a slacker and haven’t posted about it yet.



Ari’s 4th game of the season was on Saturday. It was the first away game, it was the third game played in above 100° temperatures and it was a tie. The girls weren’t thrilled…the first three games were wins and I think they really enjoyed the feeling of being undefeated. Of course they are still “undefeated” but it’s not the same when you have a tie on your record. I think the girls are playing really well together and I’m always impressed with how Ari is improving with her soccer skills. She in U12 this year…U12 is the first division where the kids are allowed to do headers…Ari’s done three (more than anyone else on her team)! She always makes sure we were watching too…”did you see that header I did?” As a mom I’m not so sure I’m thrilled with that. I’m glad she’s not afraid of the ball. I’m glad she’s using skills that she’s learning. But, can’t kids get brain damage from doing too many headers? Maybe I need to tell her to lay off the headers for a while, oh say, 5-10 years maybe?















(I think this picture is hilarious, although Ari might not be thrilled ;-)...it just goes to show that even after playing soccer in over 100° heat for over an hour she still has enough energy to run for the snack...ha ha ha!)


I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but I’m not the type of mom to get really into the games. I go to every game and I cheer when I’m able to pay attention enough to know what’s going on (I do chase an almost two year old around for half of the games), but I don’t yell at the girls telling them where to be and what to be doing. Actually it was an interesting observation playing this away game. She doesn’t usually play away games and this was a community about 45 minutes away. I noticed that the parents there tended to be more of the yelling type. Their girls also tended to be more of the “aggressive” type (read pushing our team all over the field…Ari was literally lifted up off her feet and landed on her side…her coach told her “way to take one for the team” which just made her smile). We don’t see a whole lot of that in our community and I’m glad. I think it’s nice to let the kids learn the sport without the parents turning into raging idiots. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it hurt the girls one bit to be “roughed up” a little. It just shows them what they might come up against, but I’m glad that’s not what it’s all about around here. I’m sure it will be soon enough, but for now they are hopefully learning valuable skills and good sportsmanship.

Me like

I was looking into getting a laptop and saw this:



Isn’t it adorable? Ok, I could take or leave the Asian girl on there, but I love the color and the tattooing…but most importantly I love that it says 1973! That’s the year I was born and I’m really weird that way...I have a particular fondness for things that I can tie to myself somehow. Is that weird?

It’s like Thanksgiving…it’s my favorite holiday and I think the reason is because my birthday falls on Thanksgiving every 7 years or something like that. Does that make me narcissistic? I hope not. Am I the only one like this? Would you want a laptop just because it had your year of birth in the design???

I won’t be getting this laptop for more than one reason:

1) I was looking into this before I found out that I’ll be taking a 6% paycut starting next month in the form or furlough days…you gotta love living in California during this wonderful recession!
2) I am NOT a fan of Dell computers because I have one and we got completely screwed over by them
3) And last but certainly not least my husband thinks it’s crazy to spend an extra $85 on the computer just because of the design, even if it does include my birth year…ha ha ha!



...but it sure is cute.

Playing with Picnik

I was just playing around with some pictures of Devyn on Picnik and thought I'd share.

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind

All growing up my parents had a reel to reel tape player which my dad swore by for sound quality. Obviously the music that we had to listen to on it was a little dated, but I loved it and it's some of that music that flows through a lot of my childhood memories and are therefore intertwined in the fabric of my life.

One of those albums was a Peter Paul and Mary album and I listened to that thing countless times in my youth. Still to this day I love the songs of Peter Paul and Mary, so much so that when I saw this beautifully illustrated picture book of Puff the Magic Dragon I had to get it for Devyn. It comes with a CD, but I think it’s only Peter that sings on it at a much later date and it’s just not the same as the old recordings by all three of them. Devyn loves her “dragon” book and we were looking at it just yesterday and then I learned that Mary passed away last night of leukemia. So, this post is in honor of her and her amazing voice. These are just a few of my favorites…I hope you enjoy.

PUFF, THE MAGIC DRAGON

Puff the Magic Dragon -


BLOWIN' IN THE WIND

Blowin In The Wind (Remastered LP Version) - Peter, Paul and Mary


WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE

Where Have All The Flowers Gone (Remastered LP Version) - Peter, Paul and Mary


IF I HAD A HAMMER

If I Had A Hammer - Peter, Paul and Mary

LEAVIN ON A JET PLANE

Leaving On A Jet Plane - Peter, Paul and Mary


LEMON TREE

Lemon Tree - Peter, Paul & Mary