Happy Valentines Day!

Today is February 29th, 2016, technically an "extra" day so with this extra day I will write a post which belonged on here a few weeks ago.

My good mother-in-law loves to send the kids little fun "I'm thinking of you" mementos on holidays. She comes up with original items and always includes a loving note.

This year she came up with what I think is the perfect, manly valentine for my almost-man son :-). This thing freaked me out a number of times while sitting on my counter, so that's a win too.

You can see the fur right?

Wouldn't this spell L-O-V-E for you?

Update 09-24-2026  - the image has gone away. It was of a furry big foot type monster with real-looking hair. It was a Grandma Moss classic.

Belarus

This morning I helped elementary kids learn geography. One of my college memories flashed into my mind, I'll share it first then go back to the "funny" of today :-).

Old Main, Logan UT

When I was at USU , there was a war happening in Kosovo (Feb 1998 - Jun 1999). I know

  war is no laughing matter, but you see, I was in college. It was funnier for my friend Jenni and I to laugh about mispronouncing Kosovo than to consider the real implications of what we were laughing. 

She would jokingly walk up to me and say (purposely mispronouncing Kosovo, as, "koh-SOV-oh"), "Oh, did you hear about the war in Kosovo? 

We would laugh and laugh at our own ridiculousness.

Fast forward to today. While testing the elementary kids, one of the countries, whose location they were learning was "Belarus". Well, I spent an hour and a half pronouncing it as, "Buh-LAIR-us". My daughter was one of the last groups to be tested and she corrected me saying, "Mom, it is supposed to be "Bell-a-roos", the pronunciation guide is on the back."

Heavenly Spinach Cookies

On a pretty regular basis, I make a delicious "whole wheat blender" waffle where I blend the wheat kernals fresh-from-my-food-storage. In fact, you need the recipe: Whole Wheat Blender Waffles. When you make this recipe, add handfuls of spinach leaves to the kernel-blending stage. Your family will never know ;-), well except for the fact that the waffles will be green.

Oh well about that.

They'll get used to green waffles, I promise.

Last Saturday, when my children were making cookies, I joked with them that they should try to make the cookies healthy (I did get them to use one cup of wheat flour instead of white). I didn't realize they took me seriously. At some point they added a few spinach leaves to the cookie dough!

I didn't discover the leaves until after they delivered two plates-full to neighbors. This is what I saw:

Isn't that a nasty surprise? It did make me laugh. I quickly texted the two families that received plates from us and explained how the "joke was on me -- ha haha" and to try and not be bothered by the spinach leaves interspersed with cookie.

YIKES!

I delivered three more cookies to one other person. Hopefully, he thought it was funny. He said the cookies could win an award, so I think we are OK. BTW, this recipe, "Heavenly Chocolate Chip Cookies" hasn't won me any awards, but I do like to think it won me a husband.

I don't like your scent

Melissa turned 40 on November 20th, isn't that crazy? She doesn't age. Melissa has the most energy of anyone I know. She is fun and always thinking of new ideas to try. She's a great life coach.

Back in August, Jessie came up to Seattle for a short visit. As we were talking about everything, she started telling me how much she wished Melissa could see her house. I suggested we try and rig up a surprise trip to Portland for her 40th. Nathan was on board immediately. Thus began our conniving and planning to surprise the un-surprise-able.

We had fun planning it, Nathan went the extra mile. He scheduled his parents to come and stay for an extended visit (without Melissa knowing it). When the flight purchase showed up on the credit card, he gave every indication he had a work obligation (either that or Melissa just figured that was the reason for the purchase).

I thought we might need Savannah on board so I got her contact information. I also told Melissa's friend Mandy about our plans. I tried to randomly ask Melissa about her teaching schedule (thinking I would try and switch her out of her regular teaching week).

Everything was in order, however there was just one glitch. Nathan took Melissa to Ohio for five days or so right before the Portland trip for a work/interview/check-out-the-area trip! Sheesh, talk about cutting it close. However, she never suspected anything. The great "reveal" was orchestrated perfectly. Nathan nonchalantly looked up his flight information email and then made a big deal about how it was in the wrong name. 

Slowly, Melissa got it. The flight was purchased under her name. After Ohio, Melissa and Nathan flew into Boise, stayed the night there and then she flew over to Portland.

So, off she traveled to Portland.

I rode the bus down to Portland and excitedly picked up some balloons for Melissa. Those balloons were in high demand the entire weekend by the Mattson children. Maybe next time, I should purchase three fancy balloons instead of just one.

When Melissa walked in the door, we bombarded her with love and birthday wishes:

Thursday night, we met Jessie's eclectic volleyball group. We played for 3 1/2 hours or something obscene like that. Jessie's friends are nice and genuine. It is easy to see why she is devoted to playing so much volleyball. Having the three of us show up was kind of a fun grand entrance-type thing.

Look very closely at the Yellow guy's left leg - do you think it is a sock?

Jessie planned a fun Friday of hiking the 4T trail in Portland which had us hiking, riding the tram across the city, taking the trolley downtown, and then bussing back to our cars. We had a grand time and didn't even get e-coli from Chipotle.

Jess and Double-Bombshell Melissa

We stayed up super late talking and laughing our guts out.

Tax-Free, Yes I WILL

The next morning, the two of us power-walked Jessie out, so she bailed and Melissa and I continued. Jess has a fun neighborhood. I then rode the bus downtown (with my holy shoes, I needed more time to replace them) and picked up the bus to Seattle. When I tried to get gussied up, I put on a special scent that was made just from perfumes my hairstylist had me sniff (and pick out my favorites). Well, Jess was not afraid to let me know she didn't like my scent.

Melissa and Jess did some home décor shopping for quite some time Saturday evening. Besides a life coach, Melissa is a home décor connoisseur. She has an eye for those types of things.

Happy 40th Melissa!! And many more . . .

Pink Eye for the Pink One

Pink eye probably ranks up there near lice and molluscum as "parenting-nightmares" (so far I am 2 our of three on these listed and I'd take pink eye over molluscum any day. period). So, a few nights ago, when Daughter #2 complained of burning eyes, I knew I had to put on my parenting muscles to power through what could be three rounds of school absences, medication, and general complaining.

No pink-eye in this picture, just a brace-less smile from a few weeks ago :-)

Darren, ever-ready for wit, consoled her yesterday morning with these words: "Sorry your favorite color is in your eye."

BTW - so far so good, hopefully we caught it early on, before the other kids (or their parents!) catch it.