Mother's Day

I know we are way past Mother's Day. But I wanted to say a couple things about motherhood.
1. I love being a Mom it has made me into a stronger person. I do things I never would have done from fear or low self-esteem simply because I want my children to believe they are capable of anything.

2. I love "my people" I stole that phrase from my Mom because I seriously love being called one of "her people." My people are unique and interesting people and sometimes ( I admit this is not always the case) I really just enjoy their company and not just because they are my kids -- they really have cool personalities.

3. I truly believe that motherhood is a gift that our Heavenly Father gave his daughters. He gave us all the potential to be mothers, co creators, and nurturers because he knew our potential as his daughters. He knew we were up to the task. Yes sometimes we fail. That is why there is tomorrow so we can start over again. And that is why there is forgiveness. Because as mothers we sometimes need to plead for it.

I love being a Mom and I love my Mom. She is amazing. Sometimes, when I am missing her I imagine how she starts giggling as soon as she sees me. She is genuinely pleased to have me as a daughter and it is awesome to hear her giggle. Which is why I bought her a huge haul of her favorite hard to find candy from her childhood. I knew she would giggle when she got it. That and every Mom deserves chocolate.

I was well taken care of by my cute hubby on mother's day. He got me these awesome flowers from my favorite floral arranger. Her stuff is always so unique. He also got me a Wii fit to share with the kids. It is our family goal to get more fit as a family and the Wii fit really helps us track our fitness and work out in a fun way. I was up at 6:30 this morning doing yoga with it. I need to lose weight and get healthy if I ever want to get off the stupid blood pressure meds. They make me feel wierd. I am already on my fouth kind. So, the Wii fit was a really thoughtful gift from a husband who has seen how ill I have been lately.

I also got a cute stuff from my kids. Isaac drew me a picture. I rarely get pics from him anymore. Lia gave me a fancy rose pen and pad of paper -- which is frankly an awesome gift for a person who is always writing stuff down. Becca gave me sweet homemade cards. Becca also brought me breakfast in bed. Yogurt and a piece of toast with raspberry jam. This was also perfect because I knew there was hardly any mess and it was a guilt free diet friendly treat in bed.

I hope your Mother's Day was awesome too.

By the way. Alive! Utah has extended the Mommy Makeover Giveaway to the end of the month. We had some technical difficulties with our registration. So go enter it. The prize is over $100 of salon services. http://aliveutah.com/ If you still have problems logging in let me know and I will personally fix your problem.

A Mommy Makeover Giveaway

Yes, I have been buried in work stuff. I neglected to tell you about this incredible giveaway at Alive! for Moms. There are three days left to enter so you have to HURRY! The Deadline is May 9th at 10 a.m.

OK here is what you get
A day at the Salon (Salon Vision in Cedar) But who cares if you live in St. George this is still an awesome day of pampering.

A Haircut and Color & A Manicure and Pedicure.

You have to be a mom or entering for your own mom. I can't enter. I own the site. So I think it would be awesome if all my SILs registered at Alive and then entered. If they win and they don't want it they can give it to their Mom. Hello that is over a $100 worth of salon services. And I can vouch for the salon. My girls and I love Salon Vision.

I also think it would be awesome if all my bloggy girls had a chance to win. Because I can't think of a way to give a better gift to at least one of you.

So Hurry go enter:   http://aliveutah.com/content/mothers-day-giveaway-salon-makeover
Of course I will use a totally unbiased web site to pick a winner.

Oh and the May issue is out. You can take a look around at all our great stuff this month after you enter the giveaway. Alive! Utah

Chocolate Math

I got this in my e-mail and because I rarely forward such stuff and this was cool enough to share I am posting it on my blog. You may have already got this  in your email. Oh well, this is for those of you who didn't.

So give it a try.
I hate math but I love chocolate and I am Mom and it's fun to get my kids to do math. I give you the Chocolate Math problem.

YOUR AGE BY CHOCOLATE MATH


Don't tell me your age; you'd probably lie anyway-but the Hershey Man will know!

YOUR AGE BY CHOCOLATE MATH
This is pretty neat.
DON'T CHEAT BY SCROLLING DOWN FIRST!
It takes less than a minute .
Work this out as you read .
Be sure you don't read the bottom until you've worked it out!
This is not one of those waste of time things, it's fun.


1. First of all, pick the number of times a week that you would like to have chocolate (more than once but less than 10)




2. Multiply this number by 2 (just to be bold)


3. Add 5


4. Multiply it by 50 -- I'll wait while you get the calculator


5. If you have already had your birthday this year add 1760 ..


If you haven't, add 1759..


6... Now subtract the four digit year that you were born.


You should have a three digit number


The first digit of this was your original number


(i.e., how many times you want to have chocolate each week).
The next two numbers are


YOUR AGE! (Oh YES, it is!!!!!)


THIS IS THE ONLY YEAR (2010) IT WILL EVER WORK, SO SPREAD IT AROUND WHILE IT LASTS.


Chocolate Calculator.

An Interview with Nana Ora -- A Pickle of a Story.

The Nanas.

Tom's grandma Nana Ora is somewhere in her late nineties. I honestly can't remember how old she is. She is currently staying with Tom's parents. Every once in a while I get the chance to go sit with Nana Ora for part of the day. These experiences are an amazing blessing. The past two times I have spent the day with Nana I have been able to interview her about her life. I am doing this at the request of Tom's Mom. The first time I recorded 2 1/2 hours of Nana talking and her first comment to me was "I don't know how much I will remember." This woman is still pretty sharp. Her memories are still vivid and there is not a trace of dementia or alzheimers, unlike her husband who had both before he died. Although Papa Joe had an amazing memory he forgot much at the end. Nana told me the other day that he would sometimes say to her. "I am sorry my wife is not here. She should be back soon. I don't know what is taking her so long." What an amazing blessing to have Nana here with us and so completely lucid. My children adore her and I have learned so much from her. This past interview session was especially illuminating. At one point she completely opened up about her relationship with her mother, her father and one of her daughters. It explained a lot about Nana Ora and some of the things I have heard over the years from Tom's family.

Some of this interview was absolutely heart wrenching. But I am so grateful I shared these moments with her. I can't wait until we are finished interviewing her and I can get all this written down and recorded for Tom's family. I say we because Isaac is going to do some of the interviews for his Genealogy merit badge. My children actually enjoy listening to Nana Ora's stories. Of course they ask her crazy things like "Do you have any ghost stories?" Which she did by the way. I hate ghost stories. Whose children are these? They can't be mine. There is so much I want to share with Tom's family but honestly some of the more intimate stories need to be shared in person or on paper with them. I will share this little random and funny tidbit that actually became an instant bonding moment for Lia and Nana.

A Pickle of a Story
"Every month we would get a nickle to go buy something at the grocery store. (Nana got very few treats at home as a child) I always bought a big dill pickle and my brother always bought an ice cream." This fact just tickled me because how funny is it that her favorite treat was a dill pickle? What is even more wierd is that Lia has an absolute addiction to dill pickles. Almost every single day she asks for a pickle for lunch. I grow pickling cucumbers and pickle them just to keep that girl happily supplied with pickles. I told Lia, who was with me that day, that Nana loved dill pickles too. Then they just sat there and talked about pickles and Nana explained in vivid detail how she would go pick out her pickle at the store. Today Tom and I went out to lunch with Tom's parents and Nana. We were all ordering at the register while Nana Ora and Lia sat at the table. Tom looked back and said. "Look at them over there just talking." I told him they were best friends now because they had bonded over pickles. What a silly little story that somehow bonded generations together.

There are so many interesting things I have discovered from Nana. Nana was an expert piano player and actually was playing for her elementary school band by the time she was in third grade. She was teaching piano to other kids by the time she was in middle school. However, she had a hard time memorizing piano pieces. On the other hand, her brother was able to hear a song and play it. Once he played the song he had it memorized. My husband and my son can both pick out a song on the piano after they have heard it a couple times. It is plain wierd. Apparently there are other grandsons of Nana Ora that have this same gift. How interesting to see these family traits randomly passed on. What a revelation interviewing Nana Ora has been. The funny part is once she starts talking she just keeps on going. I am usually exhausted before she is.

I only ever had one grandparent that I knew growing up. All my other grandparents died when my parents were still kids. I was able to interview her a couple times before she died of heart disease. I wish I was able to interview her more. I know she had more to tell me, more recipes to share, more stories to pass on. I implore you to interview your grandparents, your older aunts and uncles. You too will understand the blessing of sitting with a "Nana Ora."

A recap

Life is a rollercoaster and I am just along for the ride. It has been pretty amazing and bumpy at the same time lately. So, I have neglected by blog.

A few highlights:
My new website absorbs most of my day right now. I get  a lot of fulfillment from this project but I also get  a lot of stress. Plus the past few weeks were the big tax crunch and we are kind of in recovery mode right now. Tom still seems totally exhausted. But hopefully he will perk up soon.

We had a delightful Easter. Tom did find time to play the Easter Bunny and hid Isaac's basket so well that it took him a half hour to find it. Tom giggling during this stressful time of the year was the best. We had two Easter egg hunts, one of them at Nana's house after a tasty dinner with family.

The kids had their spring break -- which frankly could not be at a worse time. April 15th falls smack dab in the middle of their break and their Dad is basically unavailable. We did make it to St. George one day to go to go swimming with some friends and meet up with Tom for an awesome dinner at Texas Roadhouse. This was the end of tax season dinner. It was delish and definitely did nothing for my diet plans.

I bought myself real running shoes. I am in earnest to get into shape. My blood pressure is through the roof and I have a good 40 pounds to lose. There I said it. It was hard to admit that I have gained so much weight. So Monday I planned to start using those new running wonders when I fell and twisted my ankle. Grrr. But I will go walking tomorrow.

Yesterday I spent hooked up to a nest of wires monitoring my heart. We will see what they say. My guess is nothing of momentous importance -- just Lose Weight.

Today I was happy to see hummingbirds at my feeders and peach blossoms on my peach tree. Spring is here and that means new start and new hope.

Oops

Those were supposed to go on my foodblog. But don't those cupcakes look tasty?

Cupcake Recipes

I am totally cheating, AGAIN! Whoo I have been busy getting my April online magazine ready. But what I did cook up were some cupcakes. I needed pics of these yummy recipes contributed by my writer, who also happens to be a professional cake bake/decorator. Somehow we didn't get her  cupcakes photographed so I ended up making 48 cupcakes one morning. Let me just say that I do not usually make cupcakes. Until now I didn't really get it. But now I so get it. They are fun, they are adorable, they are even more fun and adorable to give away and when you have an easy delicious recipe they are extremely tasty. So here it is the link to Carie Homer's cupcake cooking tips and recipes for double fudge cupcakes, coconut cream and her mmmm mmmm! cream cheese frosting. Cupcakes Not Just For Kids .

Now I will be happy when the last cupcake is gone so I can actually start my after Easter diet.