holy jeans

so this is not a plea for charity but rather just information out there in case there are a few of you that have pants 4t-6t ready to go to DI or SAVERS or hand me downs

you see we have this problem with little saylor. she wears pants out at an extreme rate. since she became mobile this has been the case ... oh the things i have tried, different fabric types, patches, and so on and so on. difficult thing. she wears holes in them really fast because of the way she crawls, crutches around and moves. she is so mobile and we love it! but it has a few downfalls including this.

as of late this has gotten really bad. the kind of braces she wears now hit just under her knee and put that much more pressure on the fabric. not one pair of pants i got her for school this year is left now without holes in multiple quantities. the other day she wore a pair for only the 2nd time and by the end of the day they were so ruined it looked like the incredible hulk jumped out of them. many of the pants she doesnt seem to trash are capri or short type pants but its getting cold and as i gaze at whats left for her to wear for the winter i am depressed with frustration and exhausted with shopping and funds. i dont know how to stay on top this ... we simply cant afford to buy a new pair of pants for nearly every day or week.

so if there are any of you out there that know about an incredible deal somewhere on a good and decent looking pair of pants or have some that you no longer need and are ready to hand down please email or contact me.

a california adventure ...

so we have survived a week of nearly non stop fun. and here is what i have to report. its mostly based on the things you see in public, i saw so many things i did not capture in time that i would have liked to share. the vast array of souls out there provide me many smiles. i started our vacay feeling quiet ill and angry that i felt that way. luckily i wasnt to sick to enjoy things a little and no other soul in my immediate proximity joined me in this venture.

the drive was a bit comical considering our alternative sources of transportation.we shopped for a few weeks for a studio stems/travel van for better accomidations for both. we shopped to no avail. so we had to come up with another alternative to go on vacation for an entire week with 5 peeps, a wheelchair, golf clubs, medical supplies, clothes, and basic needs. so we purchased a roof rack and bag for our little scion. well nates clothes arrived in california rain soaked. fun times.

first we hit ..

where else but the most magical place on earth. it was raining and raining hard that day but it was nice ... not too hot and we were prepared thanks to my craftiness and creative packing. there was little to no lines (not that we wait in lines anyhow but it was till nice to not fight crowds!) we were so excited that saylor has finally reached the height of a regular 3 or 4 year old (you do realize she is 6 and if you didnt you do now) ... 40 inches yahoooo. this means more rides. we hit space mountain of all things first. and for the current season it aint called space mountain. it was her first time ...

she did well and was a really great sport. but professed to not go on it again .. even though she did later. we were constantly thanking saylor that we didnt have to wait in lines and for so much special treatment. how spoiled we are and have become.

we ate at ariels grotto. talk about sticker shock. before we left for the day we were getting our tickets and cash together etc.. trying to decide how much to take. i told nate we should take at least $150 for lunch. and he was like nooooo. it will be expensive but not that expensive. so we took $150 of course cause thats what i said we should take. Last time we went there not only did we get princess visits but we got a menu and a really great meal (perhaps the best that trip) but things have changed there for the worse on menu items, quality, and certainly value. while the changes have decreased elsewhere the prices have increased and dinner was more like $200 for the 5 of us. but saylor not eating her dinner at all to stare in amazement at the cess's was priceless.





snow white came equiped with a very annoying voice. sorry picture quality all throughout is so poor. i only took the mediocre point and shoot. and it was wet as well. not good.

aurora took a special interest in saylor and was very sweet. at the end they did bring out a chest of fun stuff for saylor.

california adventure was hard, there wasnt much saylor could go on but she really enjoyed soaring! it felt so real to her ... its why i love that ride myself. but to a child who doesnt feel what we do when it comes to movement i am guessing this sensation is exagerated. the other kids really wanted to ride the raft ride so while they went and did that saylor and i took some california adventure pictures ...



you can see how wet my pants are from the rain and wet ground in the car pic. saylor is really into creating bunny ears for herself in pics. its strange but ok whatev. she loved the san fran bridge ... and why wouldnt she?

so then there was splash mt. and this great face stock made ...


Day 2 was another day at disney. but much sunnier. saw lots and lots of utahns and finished up the ride fix. its also when it suddenly occured to me that i should be documenting all the peeps that brought a smile and laughter to my soul. too bad that i didnt think of this sooner and to bad its hard to discretely take pictures of strangers ... but here is 2 from day 2.


hot pink damaged frizzy hair IS cool! and where can i get me some of these?
at the end of day 2 we drove thanks to our yahoo map on 3 freeways to go see my great aunt becky for dinner. we met my dad, glen, randy (beckys daughter), and becky. it was well worth the old people food we had at pollys to see becky cry with a smile. oh how i love her. turns out that yahoo maps sucks because my aunt becky lives on katella just 6 miles down the street from disney. no freeways needed. took us 20 min to get there and 5 to get back. silly yahoo.

day 3 we woke up and drove to san diego. gorgeous drive and SD is my new fav place. we ventured over to sea world to visit my beloved beluga whales. the kids and visited this world of the sea once before but this was nates first trip. i had to beg him to go. he had some weird idea of what it would be. of course he loved it!!! i couldnt get him away from the dolphins and he loved the shamu show.

my own terrible picture hardly does the beauty of these animals justice!
we had a great time and i really appreciate the child disability discount that this great park has to offer. and for your entertainment ... the best find of the day ..

the only way i could discretely snag this was when she walked away but the front was so much better then the back cause that shirt was holy and see through! doesnt get better then that!

nate and i both aquired mind numbing headaches by the end of this fun day and it was nice that the park closed early evening so we went back to our hotel and crashed for a few hours while kids watched TV and eventually fell asleep themselves. that evening brought pei wei for dinner ... consistent and good. it also brought a sign near our hotel elevators that read

"only 6 players on the elevator at one time please"

this is when we realized that there was some type of team staying at our hotel. and because we also were in SD for the BYU vs SD game we got excited. well it was SD football team. we got to ride the elevators with them ironically enough. and they actually liked our team spirit and enjoyed stocktons Y hawk. nice guys. but big!!!

Day 4 started with a little bit of a sleep in .. it was delightful. we packed up and headed to the temple. along with every other family visiting SD from utah.



then we ventured to la jolla and the beach. this would be the bel air of SD. but a family like bel air. i didnt want to leave. either did nate. darn ....

then onto the game. it was hooooot. and turns out the tickets we had were assigned to seats that did not really even exist in the stadium. good thing its a huge stadium and no where near sold out! a nice manager showed us to a section that would work for us and saylor. it was a good game. SD played well, better then anyone expected i think. then we drove out to palm springs and got there kind of late.

palm springs was nice and relaxing i love visiting my dad and glen and spending quiet good old family time away from the chaos of our regular life. saylor was doing well and we had no hiccups with her health, cathing, or treatments. my illness was still lingering and my ears had been full of fluid the entire trip and it was beginning to wear on me. i spent much of my time in PS resting and reading a great book. kids played with grandparents, watched the nightmare before xmas over and over, and swam swam swam. nate golfed. if i wasnt sick it would have been much harder to come home because it was already hard. i love california.

home brings reality of much that needs to be done around the house. much that needs to be done with studio stems. school, groceries, laundry and just over all catching up. work work work. and i dont even think i wrote everything i planned to ... are you as exhausted as me?

oh yeah

its not often

i dont usually mix to much studio stems stuff into this family blog. but for some reason i thought i would today. maybe its because so many of my peeps (family included) have no idea what i do or what my co is about. so i thought i would share.

today some of my work was featured on ...


you can see the feature here. i have done a bit of work for them lately and expect to see some studio stems art in their upcoming mag publication as well as more on their site. kind of fun to read what someone else thinks about your co.

also ...

i write and co-own this blog with one of my BFF's megan. so my work is on here on occasion. like yesterdays wedding feature that you can see here. i write flower tip friday every week and usually help out with at least one other post during the week.

another place that sometimes my work can be seen at ...

pink blossom list ... a national floral blog run by the ever so talented nancy liu chin. i write here on occasion and this is also the great team that i will be participating in floral workshop with come november.

there are a few other randoms ... but for now i wont try to celebratize myself. jk. you can always check out my co blog or site as well.

hows that for a plug in?

and the adventure continues .... my brothers keeper keeps me

I dont update you near enough. i know this because i feel like i have so much to write from just a mere weekend that my mind cant return to the days prior to remember any events that may have occured.

the trinkets above remind me of me! they represent the smile beaming on my face since my arrival home last night. they came from my beloved friend SS and from there i think they came from salem ...oh salem how you intrigue me. oh S how i adore you. she knows the way straight to my heart though we know each other little. sisters in souls. she thought these things were a bit me and was kind enough to send them in a package and brighten my life. she included candy and myusic. can i get any better? not for me. oh SS how i love you how you have made me feel special and loved and supported. thank you.

let me tell you when i opened this package to create impact..... please read thoroughly for the impact.....

this is storie & mattea. they were born on the same day, in the same hospital, delivered by the same doc to two best friends. More connected then this? likely not. Jamie and i (the moms of course) were the closest of friends in our younger years. life has taken us apart and recently back together again. so we decided a girl trip was in order for some more reconnection. for some odd reason jamie was surprised by the natural connected storie and mattea felt ... but i was not at all surprised! how could they not just be buds? they wanted these shirts so bad. they say "I am with my BFF" with arrows pointing to each other. We stayed overnight in park city, went out to din, the kids swam and swam, then talked and talked (and yes we did too!) and i felt young again, filled with nostalgia. had a rough night, saylors bladder wasnt holding up well and brought me some serious concern in the morn, of which i tried to ignore so we could all continue the fun. shopping and cloudy with a chance of meatballs took us into the afternoon when i realized i could not ignore the bladder situation at hand. such is my life, the roller coaster i ride. so we parted ways sadly and i headed to the cabin to conveen with the hub about the apparent bladder situation.

my arrival to the good old cabin was greated with a great move .. more work. you see a lot of our stuff that wouldnt fit in our house we felt could make do at the cabin better then the 100 year old furniture encrusted in spiders could. and though i love the creatures i dont like to sleep with them. so a cathing of saylor and a calming down took me to the moving of furniture and the quick discovery of the culprit to saylors woes ... the poool! swimming. that was the common factor. hours came and went and we realized she was leveling out and would be fine. how we will address this prob i have no idea. i would hate to take yet another human luxery from her. a really great nights sleep on new cabin mattress felt sooo good. morning brought

CONFERENCE! a great revival of spirit. and i realized i am my brothers keeper and i am a missionary. not very good at either but i see that i try ... perhaps in the wrong sort of ways. but the path is a tad clearer now. for the first time maybe ever i didnt want to leave the cabin. the rain and the snow were falling, the cabin is finally nice and real life awaited me at home .... sigh. so we clean and load up. nate high centers the scion and messes up one of the tires. my fearful ride home begins and continues when 15 min out we realize we have forgotten crutches so a turn around and half hour delay later we are back on the road with crutches. a few min later a disgusting mattress comes flying off the trailer with a few other disgusting incidentals to hit my car. lovely. thankfully traffic on this rural road is sparce and we in the scion are unscathed. but the truck and trailer that so gracefully tried to kill us kept moving down the road. i would have called the cops ... except that trailer and truck also belong to me with a few other incidentals inside. car is still covered in mattress materials of various natures. exciting. when i finally catch the trailer and the man driving it. i scream at him. then we put a tarp on. that only a few miles down the road loosens and throws bungeeees at the scion and goes a flapping in the wind. could it be funner .... likely not. rain is coming down, tire light is on. oh so much fun. we are all dirty, and smelly.

then cabin filth hits my laundry room floor while saylor waits for treatment, kids shower, nate unloads and i open this package ... and suddenly all is right again! and i realize that SS is keeping me her brother ... am i keeping her or anyone for that matter? i need to. but oh how good it felt to be kept.