What's that on your shirt? - Amazing Race Valentine's Edition - yes MORE...

So... the shirts. The infamous shirts. My husbands shirt has "magically" disappeared. Though as my husband is quick to point out to me, it's likely in this pile of clean clothes next to our bed... but I digress.

The shirts we made our hunky husbands wear on their Amazing Race were handmade - as in, I designed 'em, printed them onto iron-on paper, and all the girls worked together to iron them on their shirts. We also made shirts for ourselves... 'cause we had to look cute too... too bad NONE of us thought to take a group picture with them on. Guess we were having too much fun?

So here are the original graphics for our shirts...

on the front:

on our backs:

Can anyone guess which back-of-the-shirt quote belongs to who?
(no fair 'guessing' if you were there!)

Is she worth it? - Amazing Race Valentine's Edition - Part 2

Carlee girl, don't hate me for this - but I just had to post this. You've got to be the luckiest woman in the world... 'cause obviously, YOU WERE WORTH IT!

Our Amazing Race - Valentine's Edition!

This year for Valentine's Day I wanted to do something creative and special for my Honey Bunches of Oats.

Kendra, a friend of mine from AZ did this awesome Amazing Race for her hubby with about a half-dozen of her friends and was my inspiration for our first ever

AMAZING RACE -GEOCACHE
VALENTINE'S EDITION!

We recruited a "host" to lure our boys to a "service project" at our church and once everyone arrived and the 15 minute project was done...BAA-ZINGA!!! He confiscated their wallets and $ and sent them on their way with their first clue, a gps, video cameras, totally sexy t-shirts and a bag of coins (mostly pennies) totaling five bucks... oh, and the

RULES:
1. You must wear your uniform at all times
2. You must make a video of the events and each member of the team must be in the video.
3. You must have completed all the clues and the following tasks in order to win:
* purchase a gift for your wife using only the funds provided
* acquire a bouquet of flowers for your wife, without spending any money.

They were given a clue with GPS coordinates to their first location... the public library.




They each had to buy a book from the Friends of the Library cart...
a book that they believed their wife would enjoy.

The coordinates for the next location were taped to the donation box.

{favorite quote taken from the video...}
Kris, while holding up this book says,
" How to end your marriage by giving your wife this book!"


The next stop was the park, for the swinging contest.
The loser was required to run through the park
declaring his love for his wife.
coordinates to the next location were included

Paul nearly falls off!



and the loser is...

Next stop was an ice cream shop where the guys had to
SING FOR THEIR ICE CREAM.




They sang, "I'm a Little Teapot"
H.I.L.A.R.I.O.U.S.!


and then the car battery died.
4 large men and 1 small man
shoved into a Hyundai Elantra - is it any wonder?

The ice cream scooper lady had to help them jump start the car.
sweet.


They waited till the end to figure out how to make a bouquet of flowers and ended up cutting up their clues into flowers and sticking them to tootsie pops that Kris had at his house. Michael managed to cut himself in the process. Kris avoided the scissors all together and used cupcake liners instead.

Our gracious "host" met the guys just outside my house and verified that they had completed all their tasks:

Congratulations! You have completed the Amazing Valentine's Day Race! You are the first team to arrive! (albeit, the ONLY team... but whatever!) As winner of the race you each get the grand prize! A dream date with your lovely, adoring, beautiful, smart, sexy and talented wives.
Congratulations!


We were wearing coordinating t-shirts that said:
"I love my husband" on the front,
with personalized messages on the back.


We had a Salad Bar and Lasagna Dinner
Texas Sheet Cake, Soft Serve Vanilla Ice Cream and Eclairs for Dessert.

And of course we all gathered to watch the video.

We had games to play but never got to them
- the video was entertainment enough!

It was a lot of work, especially keeping it secret, but sooo worth it!
We all had such a great time!

The guys have made many comments about paybacks and retribution
- I can't wait!

Come back later for video clips and the recipe for the Texas Sheet Cake
... if Sara Lyn let's me have it! LOL!


ps. for those unfamiliar with what geocaching is, go to geocaching.com.
We used this term very loosely, but you'll get the idea.

Coming Soon!

Our "Amazing Race Geocache Valentine Edition"!
--including video excerpts
--where the inspiration for this came from
--photos
--recipes for the yummy dinner and desserts we had
--the t-shirts

... and so much more!

Will you be my Valentine? x2

This years Valentines Day cards for Amanda and Hayden -
Amanda's turned out so cute last year that we just had to do it again this year!

I had intended to send Hayden to church with his Valentines
to give to his teacher and classmates but we ran out the door without them :(

Birds, Birds, Birds

{catching up on some unfinished posts from the past several weeks}


Looked out our window at the tail end of a rainstorm and saw this:

they were everywhere and chatting it up like they were attending
a stake Relief Society meeting!


This hasn't been my favorite tree in our yard...
until today.
It's actually a pretty interesting tree to
investigate up close. And I love the rain drops
clinging to the berries.

Something quite revealing

So Amanda informed me this week that she just wants to use the same valentine idea as last year... I said "GREAT! -- what do you want to wear this year? How should we do your hair?" She tells me that she just wants to use the same picture as last year. Weird.

I did some more digging and with all the forthrightness of a 9 year old girl she told me that she *hates* doing photo shoots with me because I am picky and mean and I stress her out. Say wha?? At this point I should have taken a gulp and nodded my head and retreated. But no, I dug deeper... cause I like the punishment. Apparently I am a perfectionist with no patience... and I suck all the fun out it. Nice.

So I am flashing back to all the times I've tried to arrange the kids for photos and remember how much of a fight it has always seemed. I've always figured Amanda was just being difficult because she was hungry or tired or just didn't take direction well. Has it always been me all along? Am I just a bad director of photography? I feel like such a tyrant now.

So the question is: Do I attempt to convince Amanda to take a new picture and do everything I can to treat her like one of my paying clients and have all the patience in the world for her? Or do I just let it go - and reprint last years photo... or (GASP!) do I buy those cheapo grocery store valentines?

Christmas 2009 (the lost photo's edition)

So I thought I had lost all these photographs from Christmas but today when I was "cleaning house" I found these at the tail end of a photo shoot I did around the same time! How cool is that? These were taken when Poppy George and Grammy Jess came by later that afternoon. We had a wonderful meal of ham and some other stuff and some really yummy apple cobbler and baked apples and oh, did I mention it was all so yummy!?

Christmas 2009

It's taken me a while to post this because I've been busy... living life, instead of documenting it. Ya know what I mean? Sometimes it's just so peaceful to sit back and not worry about taking pictures of everything or writing about everything, or thinking about how you might write about something... you know - just living in the moment and holding it all in and keeping it for yourself.

But then sometimes you gotta just let it all bust out onto your blog... like this:

This would be the fantastic train set that Santa found 3 months ago and took completely apart so it could be stored in the attic at our house and then set up with Daddy on Christmas Eve. Notice the great attention to detail in creating a perfect scene... notice how large and hard to miss this beautiful train set is...

now please take notice that this is what Hayden totally flipped out with pure Christmas joy about.
Not to worry - the train table and trains grew on him... a few days later. {{{grrrrr!!!!}}}

Amanda's top gifts were a box of about 25 chapter books donated by Santa's elves, a mp3 player that mommy stood in line for 3.5 hours for on Black Friday. Yes I did.

Santa also brought her a FurReal pet that she now thinks is a little creepy, and a Taylor Swift Karaoke CD. She loves her figurine from her Aunt Pam and found time to clean her dresser off just so she would have a proper place to display her.


I do believe this was Samantha's favorite part of the Christmas season. The lifespan of the gingerbread house that Amanda built was exactly 23.4 seconds... and then it became a gingerbread tent city... and then Samantha dug in.


Samantha received a baby doll from her Grandma Lee that she took to immediately. We have about a dozen pictures at different times and on different days just like this one:


She also received some fun toys and much appreciated warm clothes for these crazy cold days we've been having here in Florida.







On Christmas Eve we took the kids out for a walk around city hall. It was nice to get out and walk with the kids as a family. Sadly, we don't do this enough. Perhaps we will do it more now.



p.s. the kids receive a ridiculously large gift card for a bookstore from their great Aunt Laura. We're still wondering if it's a mistake. If it's not, I see a huge bookstore shopping spree in their future... or several smaller sprees spread throughout the year. What do you think? Should we let 'em blow it all at once or spread it out over the year?

Amanda's 9th Birthday!

Amanda couldn't bear to leave any of her friends off her party list and I our bank account couldn't bear to pay for a full-on birthday party, so we compromised and had a birthday playdate at the park! It went well and she had a great time with her friends! Unfortunately I ran out of room on my camera to take very many any pictures. :(



After the party we took Amanda to Build-A-Bear Workshop to pick out her birthday present. She picked out this cute puppy. She's totally in love with it and can't wait to get a real puppy...



The birthday gift that totally sent her into squeal-mode was from her Grandpa Lee --- her very first camera! She's loving being the other photographer in the family and has already taken over 300 pictures. She's started her own blog and will be posting her photos soon!

Amanda also received some birthday money and gift cards that I am hoping she will use to buy a camera case. Though I have a feeling Toys R Us is calling her name... sigh :)