Easter Dresses

Since my last post was so long...here's a nice short post! I suppose these are a bit late, but here are the obligatory Easter dress pictures. This photo session lasted only a few minutes. Sophie and Sydney were much more interested in hunting for the neighbors kitty than taking pictures. Can't say I blame them.

This year I found their cute stuff at this store, Naartjie. Apparently, a naartjie is a small citrus fruit from Africa (at least that is what it said on the bag), and also the name of a kids boutique store. Anyway, I thought they had super cute clothes and it will definitely go on my list of favorite stores for my little girls!

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My Favorite Things

I've seen a few posts like this on friends blogs and they are so fun...so I decided to copy and do my own...My own personal favorite things that make my life so much easier! Plus Mark is in marketing this semester and I admit I find it a teeny bit interesting how marketing affects my life. My first thing is my favorite brand of jeans. I love these jeans. I own several pairs and as long as they continue to sell them, I have no reason to ever try anything else. (I am not a huge fan of shopping for jeans, obviously). So my favorite jeans are Silver Suki jeans. They don't gap in the back like other jeans do and they always fit perfectly in all the right places. Oh and they are a bit stretchy (in case you are eating at Cheesecake Factory or somewhere like that :)!

I love Tide liquid laundry detergent. I especially love the concentrated kind because then you don't have to store huge heavy containers of this stuff. Proctor and Gamble has been around a long time and they have perfected Tide to the point that I believe there are very few stains that could resist this stuff. Plus I love the way my laundry smells after going through the wash.

I am always cooking and trying out new techniques or kitchen tools! These are so useful (in my opinion)! Silicone spatulas with wooden handles can be used to cook or stir just about anything...and here's what I love about them. I can just leave them in the pot or pan on the oven I am using and they won't melt everywhere and the handles don't get hot! Plus they are also good for replacing just the plain old rubber spatulas you need to scrape the bowl. And they are definitely dishwasher safe (as in no more melted spatulas at the bottom of the dishwasher)!
I love cold cereal. Honestly, if I got stuck eating the same thing everyday for the rest of my life...I would probably be ok with cereal. And mostly the only kind of cereal I like is stuff that doesn't have much sugar in it (yes please, roll your eyes). I honestly think I was like this since I was a kid. I remember eating lots of wheaties and cheerios, and once in awhile honey-nut cheerios. My favorite cereal is Wheaties, with or without milk! I love them. I only wish they sold them in bulk at Costco or at least that they would go on sale once in awhile at one of the big grocery chains. Never mind, sometimes I just buy them as a treat for myself!

I generally find reasons to buy bags of these. I love Dove chocolates. My favorite are the milk chocolate with carmel filling...but to be fair to all the other Dove chocolate varieties, I have never had a Dove chocolate square I didn't like.

When I was about half-way through my pregnancy with Sophie, I discovered one day that every time I wore my contacts, my eyes would get very red and sting. In fact when I tried to put in a brand new pair of contacts, my eyes would hurt and sting so bad that I immedietly had to take them out. I went to the eye doctor and he informed me that I definitely could not wear contacts the rest of my pregnancy and perhaps never again. I was devastated. So I endured many months of glasses...and after Sophie was born I tried again to wear a brand new pair of my old contacts. They again hurt my eyes. So I went back to the eye doctor. He told me that there wasn't a whole lot he could do and that I would have to consider lasik eye surgery or just wear glasses. So then I went to a different eye doctor and he examined my eyes and introduced me to Focus Dailies. I am so grateful for these contacts. They are the best and will work for many more years until I decide to do lasik! Thank goodness, these are around otherwise I don't know how I would get by.

You can laugh at this one...but I am really attached to this calculator, a TI-86. You would be suprised by how much I use it for random stuff. I love math problems and figuring out stuff like that on this calculator. Of course this is a little dated but I learned how to use this calculator long ago in my calculus classes and it has been my best friend ever since. I love all the programs you can put on it (like the quadratic equation and the basic y=mx+b, and all the other equations I love...although, I suppose, I really have no use for them on a daily basis). Anyway, I have never found any reason to upgrade. Unfortunately, right now my calculator and I are on an extended break because I have allowed Mark to borrow it for school (that's how much I love him). However, I check on it once in awhile to make sure it is treated well! I am stuck using just a basic scientific calculator for now. So I have to go without graphing parabolas and hyperbolas!
I know you can't really go out and buy this at a store, but I have to admit one thing I love is fresh cut green grass...even if it sometimes makes me a bit sneezy. I love mowing the lawn and then opening all the windows to let the smell of fresh cut grass drift in. Then if I shut my eyes I can almost picture a beautiful soccer field just ready to run on and kick a ball accross. Here in Phoenix, my grass sometimes requires a lot of work though, so I guess it is a good thing I only have about 1000 square feet of it. During the summer, I deal with Bermuda grass (which is actually a type of weed from Africa). This is the only kind of grass that will stay green and alive during our hot summers. It is also persistent in growing itself underneath the curbing and sprouting up anywhere it can take root. This means that I am constantly pulling it up in the areas it is not supposed to be growing. During the winter I overseed with Rye grass and it takes awhile to come in green and thick. But once it gets growing, I have to mow it usually every 4-5 days! Good thing I like to mow lawn.

I suppose I could keep on going...but this is one of the longest posts I think I have ever done. I have been thinking of things I could add to it over the last several weeks. And really when I read back through it, I don't think this is a very interesting post, but since I already put it all together I'm going to throw it out there.

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Blogging...Facebook...Twitter

I was born in 1980! I know...I can't believe I'm posting my real age (although Sydney firmly believes I'm only 25, which sounds like a pretty good age to stay for a long time). However, I suppose most everyone knows me so they already know how old I am anyway. When I was in high school, emailing started to catch on. I think most people used it mostly for business. I vaguely remember our family having a juno account and sometimes we would send emails to people from it. Mostly I think I used the internet to download lots of music from Napster! Remember those days :) So skip ahead a few years to 2009. Everyone blogs, facebooks, and now twitters or tweets or whatever it's called.

I love my blog and that works great for me. It doesn't demand my attention everyday but I can still share some of the moments of my life while still maintaining my privacy. I recently signed up for a facebook account and I am trying to figure that whole thing out. Right now, I don't know if I'm really that into it. I guess I just don't know if I really want to/care about posting the minimal things I do. You know the little details of our lives that just pass by so quickly! The advantage to Facebook is that you can reconnect with lots of old friends easier. But other than checking out their pages maybe once in awhile to see what happened to them or where they ended up...I don't know if I would neccessarily spend any more time reconnecting.

And then there is Twitter. I am hearing all about this daily it seems on radio stations or the TV and just among friends. What, yet another networking site to have to keep up with??? I guess this shows my age. I love to be able to stay in touch better with my friends/family, BUT I am a little old school. I didn't grow up sharing all sorts of random details with my friends. So I guess I am just happy with the way things are! Although, perhaps I will change my mind in the future. I would love to hear what are your favorites (Blogs, Facebook, or Twitter) if you want to share :)

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