52 Blessing Project Week 1 & 2

I am so excited about this project! It has made me so happy this week thinking about all the things that bless my life. It’s going to be very difficult choosing and posting just one. Here are my blessings for this week:
1. Our Birth Mothers. I am so lucky to not only have the most beautiful girls in the world but I have a wonderful and special friendship with each of my girls Birth Mothers. I love them. I am thankful for them. I appreciate them. I think of them daily and how my life as a mother is because of them and our Father in Heaven. I wouldn’t be who I am with out their ultimate sacrifice for me. They are truly a blessing in my life♥

2. Good Books to read and Book Club. What a blessing it is to get lost in a good book that inspires, takes me to a different time or a far away land. My book club has been so helpful in getting me to read so many different kinds of books I never would have even considered reading. I love meeting once a month and catching up with old friends and getting insights and thoughts that help me learn and grow. I hope my girls have a love of reading like Tom and I do. It’s a priceless gift to have.We are reading this book this month and it has sucked me in like no other! I highly recommend it.

If you are participating in the 52 Blessing project – leave a comment and I’ll add you to my list. I would also love to come read your blessing xoxo.

Book Club and Craft Night

Lets talk about some fun stuff before I get into the details of my weekend. Fun is always better and I have some cute things to play "Blog Catch-up" with.

Let's start with Book club!

This month was extra fun because we not only got to eat Mindy's YUMMY food (she really out did herself), talk about our book club selection - The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, we got to be CRAFTY too! And who doesn't love being crafty? Yep, craft night at Book club. Tons-O-Fun! And what did we make? Glitter Cups of course for the "Confessions of a Shop-a-holic Movie "!!! Monica came up with the idea and they are over the top cute! We had a lot of fun assembling them and laughing and being silly. I think we need to have craft night at Book club more often!
Some of the girls just glittered their cups and decorated them with a flower. Others made the "Shopaholic" cup with tulle, belt, Prada tags, shoes and lipstick. I don't have a picture of the finished product but when I do I'll post it. It will probably be from when we go to the movie!
Mindy's table was so pretty! We ate and ate and there was still a ton of food left. I bet her kids were happy the next day to gobble up those left overs. I would have been!
Thanks girls for the fun night. I love getting out once a month and when we can have this much fun it makes me thankful for friends like you!

**side note on the book club selection: This book is a quick read. I read it in about half a day while I was in the hospital. Although it is a sad book I liked the perspective it portrayed and loved the authors writing style. I don't like books that have a sad ending - hence why I read the end first. Since I was a little groggy from surgery I didn't read the end and was depressed for the rest of the day. Probably not a good hospital read. I would however recommend this book because it makes you think a little differently about the Holocaust.***

Book Club

Last night was book club at Aimee's. She was naughty and made her famous home made German Chocolate cake and I ate a piece. It was worth every single calorie! I even promised myself before I went to not eat anything. Oh well, I'm not feeling guilty about it since it was soooooo yummy! I also came home and wasn't tired. Does that happen to other people? I stayed up until 3:45 blogging and catching up on e-mail and such. I'm such a dummy! I think my insomnia is back. Good thing I'm off diet coke!

I love my book club girls so I thought I would list my favorite reasons on why I love book club:
(cheesy I know!)

1. We have known each other FOREVER - (o.k. more like 8 or 9 years) so it's perfectly o.k. to show up in P.J.'s, no makeup and a ponytail. Which I did by the way and it was fabulous. I mean why not get ready for bed before I go since when I come home it's late and who wants to wash a face and brush a tooth?

2. We are all so comfortable with each other that we can be ourselves. This includes honestly voicing our opinions even though some might not agree with you. We all love each other and don't judge so the conversations are always very interesting!

3. We get to read books that I would never pick out but have loved, loved, loved! Follow the River, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, The glass Castle, Goose Girl, The Hiding Place............

4. I get to have guilt free time for me. I get to hang out with my girlfriends (who unfortunately I don't get to see near as much as I would like), get advice, hear all the latest drama with our kids, learn from one another and just relax.

5. We laugh....A LOT!!! This is good for the mind, body and soul. Don't they say laughter is the best medicine? I'm going to also throw in there that laughter makes us stay young! With the rate of our laughter we will be in our teens in another 10 years!

This is why I love my book club. Thanks girls!! You made my week!

(I'll have to start saying "Old Book club" and "New Book club" since I am now in two book clubs. I guess I just can't get enough!!)

**no pictures from book club since I didn't bring my camera. Next time***

Monday's Ramblings

(picture credits - Sugardoodle)

I'm having so much fun lately with our Monday Night Family Home Evenings. Tonight we went over and had dinner with our friends John and Suzanne and our other friends Rick and Sherri were in town from CO with their kids. The kids swam in the pool (at 6:30pm it was freezing!) and we grilled chicken and hot dogs and had so much fun sitting around the table talking and laughing and letting the kids roam free (after they dried off and warmed up). Tomorrow we get our grill fixed so we can have people over and enjoy the beautiful spring weather! I love food cooked on the grill. It just tastes better somehow. It's also nice in the summer so our house doesn't heat up. I'm excited to grill some pizza's. I saw on The Barefoot Contessa the easiest grilled pizza recipe. I'm all about make your own pizza and out on the grill sounds even better! Check it out here on Food TV. I mainly watch her so I can get a glimpse of my dream kitchen. I would LOVE her kitchen. White cabinets, black counters, a viking gas range. I tried to find a picture of it but no luck. I guess I'll just have to watch the show and drool!

I have a list a mile long for tomorrow so I better head off to bed. My late nights are back so it's easy for me to stay up till 12 or 1am. I need to be careful. Last night I stayed up till 2am reading Gap Creek. Finally a book to peak my interest. I haven't been into any of the books lately from my two book clubs. Not that they are bad books, I just haven't felt in the reading mood I guess. This one is good and I can't wait for the discussion. Questions:

1. What are you reading and do you love it?

2. What's your favorite cooking channel show?

3. Have you ever made pizza on the grill?

Confessions of a Shopaholic

I was sitting in the hotel room reading Monica's O.K. Magazine (notice I put the blame on her for buying it but freely admit I was reading it ☺) and I came across a little article in the bottom corner kind of hidden and I have to admit......

I FREAKED OUT!!!

Yes, I had just read that they are making a movie from one of my favorite books:

Confessions of a Shopaholic

Can I just tell you how excited I am.

I think I may even be more excited for this movie than for Twilight.

Wait a minute, before you say "WHAT?!?!" I just think this movie will be funny and light and I won't be expecting as much as I will in Twilight.

So if you don't know what I'm talking about, go to the web site. I just watched a little clip of the author (who is sooo dang cute) talking about a new book that's coming out.

http://www.randomhouse.com/bantamdell/kinsella/


I might have to stop at the book store on the way home from Cassidy's Dr. appointment.

Book Club - Eclipse

Thursday night was book club at Christi's. The book - Eclipse. It was of course, the highlight of my week. Sad but true! I don't get out much. Plus, Monica had all sorts of crazy plans in the works so I knew this was going to be fun!


Wednesday Monica and I made bookmarks for everyone that matched our book signing shirts.

My heart belongs to.......(insert spouse's name here)

But my neck belongs to Edward!

We also made little cards to put in the treats we were planning on bringing to book club. Dancing Queen gave us some brilliant ideas and we used some of them. Thanks girl!

Then that night we roamed around Wal-Mart looking for pink roses to line the walkway and for the table, Hershey Kisses for our "Cold Kisses" (we froze them so they were cold - Dancing Queen's idea) and Love bites (licorice bites) and a few other random things we needed. Who doesn't love a trip to Wal-mart with a friend and no kids???!!!

Monica went all out and planned Bella's birthday party like she was Alice in New Moon. She is the detail queen and pretty much thought of every little detail making the night one not to forget. She wrapped a bunch of presents in silver wrapping paper, had pink roses all over the table and even made the BIGGEST pink birthday cake I have ever seen! Not only was it beautiful, but it was yummy! I think it was the 1st night that everyone there had a piece of dessert and ate most of it! ( we tend to be nibblers that late at night!)

Also, we discussed the book for a long time making it the 2nd longest book club discussion since Follow the River. Very interesting points were brought up and discussed. I had so much fun! Thanks girls for making my week! And just to put everyone's mind at ease......there was both Team Edward and Team Jacob present, so the discussion wasn't one sided......for Edward!!

Here are some pictures of our Bella Birthday Party.

Fun - New - Free - Music

My brother Jones told me about this fun little website. Pandora. It's free and it's fun! What you do is pick a few artists that you like and they compile a list of songs for you based on those artists. I typed in Nora Jones and wa-la! I had hours of great tunes that were soothing yet up-beat! I then typed in Nickelback and wa-la! I had a few minutes of some hard rock! (I changed that real quick like!)

Anyway, Jones said that he hasn't ever gotten anything bad from this site, no spam, pop-ups, viruses. He also listens to it everyday at work, right on his computer. So today I did too and loved it! It really helped my mood while I made 16 bookmarks for book club!

Hope you like it too! I'm also learning to like a bunch of new random artists.

Do you need an Eclipse moment????

Go look at this amazing Utube video and the book will come alive right before your eyes!!! Seriously, who ever made this is BRILLIANT!!! Way too much time on their hands, but they've got talent! I love every single character they chose. Better than what I imagined!

I don't remember where I found the link so if I snaked it off someones blog and I'm not giving credit please forgive me. My mind has turned to mush tonight.

So enjoy and let me know what you think will happen in book four. Marriage and becoming a vampire? Or, Bella choosing Jacob and having a semi-normal werewolf life. Oh the decisions one must have to make!

Eclipse Book Signing

Saturday at 2pm we were in Tempe waiting for Stephenie Meyer to come onstage and talk about the book Eclipse. We had no idea what to expect but we were excited and happy that Monica's brilliance paid off and got us tickets.

The owner of Changing Hands Bookstore came onstage and told a little about Changing Hands (it got the award- #1 bookstore in the country 2007) and did a lead into Stephenie Meyer. We all know the story.....she was a Mom, she had a dream, she wrote a book....WA-LA she's now a big time best selling author.

Anyway, she came out and stood at the podium and told us that we all know about her, what she wanted to do was answer some questions. So there were two mikes down on the floor that people took turns asking those questions. Some were good, some were bad, and one girl was a little loopy and we had no idea what she was talking about!

Here are some of the answers to the questions: (thanks Monica for the pen and paper!)
1. Her reaction when hearing people not like Jacob astounds her. The happiness in new moon is because of Jacob. He's the one that saves Bella from being so unhappy and is such a huge part of the story. She said that people who have been in love more than once or with more than one person at a time understand the relationship with Bella and Jacob.
2. Vampires can't bleed.
3. There is no new information on if there will be a movie. She does want it to be filmed in Forks, but doesn't have a say so who knows.
4. Does imprinting have the same reaction on a girl as it does for the boys? She said that Leah is the 1st werewolf in the history of werewolves so we will have to wait and see. hmmm....interesting!
5. Can a werewolf become a vampire? She wouldn't answer......another hmmmmm. I think book 4 will be very interesting!
6. She was at a youth group activity with some Indian hoop dancers and one of the boys (who was about 14) inspired the Jacob character.
7. Midnight Sun will be Edwards only book. She said after one book we will be able to know the Edward she knows and if she had to write Edwards view of New Moon and Eclipse it would be so depressing because of the misery he has to go through with Bella's human ways!
8. In the spring(May) she has and adult book coming out called The Host.
9. A thought on Bella and becoming a vampire and marriage. Bella has always avoided attention. She doesn't like it so it's hard for her to think of herself in the spotlight of a wedding. She also said the Bella's subconscious is telling her to look at the other people in her life. one last hmmmmm..............
The questions and answer's were over much too fast. We didn't want them to end. It was quite the experience. We decided that this would be something fun to do with each book we read. We need to find out when some of the past/future book authors are coming into town and go listen to their perspective on the book that they wrote.
Here's what the girls said:
Monica, "I could listen to her all day!"
Lisa, "I wanted to know why Bella is such a floozy!
"Mindy, "I wish it could have been longer. She seems like a fun person."
Aimee, "It's intriguing that she lives her everyday regular life but has Edward and Bella in her head all the time."
I agree, It would be hard to concentrate on life, homework, church callings and family needs when this story is rolling around in your brain and trying to come to life on paper.

After that we sat and waited for our letter to be called. There was a big sign up on stage that they kept changing the letter while they were playing a trivia game. I thought to myself "how am I going to know when they call letter i?" Duh!! The big sign that now had the letter F on it should have been my clue! I thought it had to do with the game they were playing. Sometimes I wonder about myself!

Anyway, we finally got in line and they wrote our name on a little sticky pad and put in in the front cover of the book. We all walked by with our books open and she signed:

To Cara, Stephenie Meyer

Monica and I were taking picture like crazy. (She will be posting them soon)

We sure did have a great time! We were interviewed by Jaimee Rose from the AZ Republic, The Lexicon Fan Club and a reporter from AOL.com for Stephenie Meyer. I think it had to do with the cute shirts Monica made for us. We got a lot of attention because of it.

On the front they had a small heart that said:

"Book Bunch Beauties" and on the back they said,
"My heart belongs to Thomas,
(each of us had our husbands name on it)
But my neck belongs to Edward."

They were by far the cutest shirts there! Stephenie even said they were cool! Although we did see a group of ladies with black shirts that they had sewn red ribbon on the front and wrote Eclipse in white. It looked like a 3D version of the book cover and those were nice.
Of course we can have fun anywhere we go but today was extra fun because we got to do something we have never done before and meet Stephenie Meyer!

(sorry if you are reading this twice - I posted it on the book club blog too)

Done with...............

Eclipse...............I didn't want it to end!!!!!

I loved, loved, loved it! I savored every chapter. Yes, I am still loyal to Edward. I did not make the switch and fall in love with Jacob. Even though my heart is sad for him. Funny how I have been in situations like that in the past. It's always so hard to choose and know for sure you are choosing the right one.

I'm excited for Saturday's book signing. I have never been to one before and I can't wait to see if we are the only "old ladies" there! (wink) Although I highly doubt it! I'll be sure and take lots of pictures and blog about all of it.

For now, anyone have a good book to read?

Last Day of Summer

Today was the day. The very last day of summer. School starts bright and early in the morning! Cassidy is more excited than nervous and that's a first! I'm so proud of her. She is really growing up and learning to overcome her fears. We went and met her teacher on Monday night. This was a little scary because we are going to a brand new school this year. We only know about a handful of people (from our ward) and none of the teachers (so we don't know what we are missing I guess!).


She has her first man teacher this year. It was so funny when I told her who her teacher was going to be.
She said, "He's a Mr.?"
I said, "Yes, he's a Mr."
Cassidy: "I never had a Mr. before."
Me: "I had a Mr. for 3 years in grade school and he was great!"
Cassidy: "I think that's weird that he's a Mr."

Funny little soon to be 3rd grader! I thought she sounded a bit like Junie B Jones! Don't ya think? She's a little hung up on the Mr. thing but hey, that's not so bad. I could think of a lot of other things that are worse to be upset about. He seems nice and I heard he was funny so there you go. We will be looking on the bright side of this one.


Today, being the last day of summer we decided to make a day of it. Here goes the adventures of the three musketeers and the little chickens.


Here are the girls in the car heading out for the day. Don't you love Abby's glasses?

We started the day by hopping in the car and heading for Mindy's to meet Monica and Michelle (yes, my 3 best friends are all M names) to go to the bookstore to pick up our copies of...............

Eclipse! Monica had pre-ordered so we could get the tickets to go to the book signing. So looking forward to that! I have never been to a book signing before and with the group we are going with it can't be anything but fun!


Then we had lunch at Wildflower Bread Company. It was yummy and the kids entertained themselves with some packages of rubber lizards we got at the bookstore. Who new that little lizards could provide so much entertainment?
Here is Bree and Cass having lunch at their own table. They felt so grown up! (Even though they played with their lizards the whole time!)









Then we headed to Shumway's to swim. Or should I say bask in the resort like feel of the beautiful environment around us!? Man is that a fun pool. Hours, and I mean hours of enjoyment was had! How could you not, it's like a resort! Then, all 11 of us got in my car - yes, 11 in my car that holds 7 - (how's that for a fun party!) and headed back to Mindy's to drop her and the kids off. When we got there, oops! She was locked out. No key, no garage door opener. So we all piled back into the car and headed to Monica's. Long story short - the kids swam some more at Monica's while Mindy stayed and tried to get someone to come break into her house. (which she did btw) Monica and I headed out to go pick up her car from the car wash and came back for some more never ending fun. These kids have such great Mom's! We even came back with Del Taco for their starving little bodies! (Taco Tuesday is the best!) How's that for a super fun last day of summer? Could have it have been any better? (well, maybe the locked out part could have been better!)

I had such a great day! I have been needing a fun day after the stresses of getting everything ready for school to start. I think it was the perfect day to end the summer.

What did you do today to celebrate the end of summer?

Book Club

O.K. I'm a little behind in commenting on book club since it was Wed. AND Thurs. but I had so much fun I'm going to post anyway.


Wed. night I forgot it was my wards book club until 8:30. When I called to get directions Lizzy answered the phone saying "speak of the devil!" So I headed over there and had so much fun! It was my 1st time at this book club and since they picked one of my selections I thought I should go. I'm so glad I did! Lizzy, Erin and I all tried to convince everyone else there to start a blog. The book was Follow the River by James Alexander Thom. I told everyone that it wasn't my favorite book, but it was a life changing book. It haunts me. It makes me appreciate my life and if something bad did happen I would definitely keep my kids with me! I am upset however because I brought my camera and didn't take a picture. Maybe I forgot because subconsciously I didn't want all these girls finding out what a weirdo I am. Ha, Ha! You can see a picture of Lizzy's table filled with treats here.


Thursday night was my regular book club and it was at Lori's. I didn't take any pictures of that either! What a dope I am. She out did herself with the food! Usually no one eats because it's so late but who could resist the feast that was presented to us? There was homemade guac and salsa, candy galore, a fruit salsa thing that we ate on cinnamon crisp-as that was SO YUM! (I'll have to get the recipe and post it) We also had pina coladas & strawberry daiquiris w/ umbrellas! We sat around eating and drinking and laughing so hard you would have thought there was something in those daiquiris! The book we discussed was of course Twilight. We have only been discussing this book since we went on the cruise. You would think we had nothing more to discuss but we did and we did it until 1am! I'm so glad to have such great friends that even when life gets so busy we still have one night that is just ours. It boosts my spirits and makes the rest of the week so much better. Thanks girls!


I forgot.......I did take 2 whole pictures at book club (I am a dope!) My favorite was Monica's shirt. Check it out! It says on the front: Bite Me

and on the back (look down) isn't that the best? See our cruise pictures here!!!

Fun in the sun!

Lee, Aimee, Mindy, Lori, Me, Monica, Traci, Michelle, Angie

O.K. no one guessed. I suppose I should have given clues. That wasn't very fair of me. However, shame on you - those that read this blog and didn't comment. I know you have been reading because my counter is going up everyday. Where's the comments? Where's the love??? JK

I had a fabulous trip with the girls from book club. We went on a 4 day cruise to Ensenada Mexico. I did relax, I did eat food that I didn't prepare(a lot of food!), I danced the night away every night, I did read-however there were still interruptions(I didn't mind) and I had a blast. I think I laughed the whole entire time. A smile never left my face. My favorite was when we would tell people(when they asked)that we were with our book club and we had 35 kids between the 9 of us. Their faces were priceless! Loved it!!!

One of my favorite things we did was look at every single person on that ship as we tried to decide what character he/she (mostly he) would be in our book. (Twilight) "Is that Edward?" "Could that be Jasper?" "The werewolf is following us again!" "How about her for Esme, Rosalie, Alice and Bella?" (we didn't find any of them but we did find a few Edwards, and one Jasper). Seriously, we checked out every guy there and it was perfectly legal because we were doing it for our "casting session!" We were obsessed! If you haven't read that book, go get it right now. Barnes and Nobel is open till 11pm. Go....go.....I'll be here when you get back! I don't think the cruise would have been as fun if we hadn't involved that book so much. Well........o.k. it would have but still that book was the highlight.

So I think the cruise was such a hit we will be doing it next year. Tom and the girls came to the airport to pick me up and Tom asked us if we were glad to be back and did we miss our families..............I think he got a few half hearted yah's and kind of's. Poor guy. It was very nice to not have to worry about anyone but yourself. However, it was an eye opener because we had to do a lot of thinking on this trip. Usually our husbands do the thinking, the tipping, the planning, the protecting. We didn't have that and it made us realize how grateful we are for our men who take such good care of us.

I'm going to need help remembering some of our favorite quotes that were said on the trip. So if you can post those favorite comments - the ones we laughed so hard over - please do so.

Here's some of my favorite pictures. These are not edited sorry!

Here we are the night of the midnight buffet and dancing out on the pool deck. It was SOOOO cold we had to grab towels and use them as blankets.

Monica and I doing a self portrait at the airport.

Getting ready for the boat sinking drill. Don't we look pretty?

Below is our guardian angel Ignacio (our tour guide who took us under his wing)

That story is being saved for it's very own post!

However, this is also a picture of the yummiest mexican food ever!

Having fun dancing. I think that will be my new form of exercise.

Here we are dancing the night away. I Loved dancing with Aimee!

I was picking up a few new moves! Sorry Aimee - don't kill me!