20% and other thoughts.

dearest friends and family members,

I have several random thoughts on the brain, and instead of taking the energy to post all of our Utah 5 Weeks of Summer fun, I thought I'd write down some of the thoughts that are floating around in my head.

1- Lately, I've been compiling all the patterns that I've created within the last while.  I'm surprised to see the sheer volume of it all.  As I was going through all my archives, I stumbled upon these files.

Remember when we did that fabric line for that big company?  Oh yeah, me too.  That was a fun time.  Perhaps we'll end up being one-hit wonders?  Like that movie, Music and Lyrics where they only had ONE hit song, "Pop Goes My Heart!" ---that might end up being us.

Anyway, did you know that the original colorway was made up of oranges, yellows, and greys?  Here are some of the patterns and colors we made that didn't make the cut, but that I still love.  In the end, they wanted greens and pinks more than oranges and greys, but my heart still gravitates to these ones.

None of them are earth shattering, by any means, but I still was a fan.  In the end, I did really like the raspberry colors they helped to choose.  Here are some other ones that I grew attached to but that never made it.

Pretty interesting to see, right?  We had created about 13 different thumbnails, but fabric takes time/money to produce, so you have to be choosey.  In the end, they took 6 different patterns and we put them in three different colorways.  Fascinating, right?  Maybe not?  Hmmm... regardless, it was on my mind.

2)  Lately, I've been really good at doing laundry.  Aaron now wears scrubs to this new office---before he wore "business casual" which meant button down shirts and slacks.  Which meant, I had to be on my "A" game and make sure they weren't a wrinkled mess.  Ahhh, the life of a domestic woman...

ANYWAY, I am thrilled that scrubs don't require such work, but I will say, when you only have 5 sets you have to make sure you get that laundry done... weekly.  (it used to be worse, he only had 2 pair, so I was running our ridiculous machine every two days!?!)  If I didn't, my husband might have to re-wear old stinky ones, or worse, go naked.  hA!  Like that would be an option!!

Anyway, the point is this:  I am getting very prompt in the actual WASHING of the clothing in our house----it's the putting AWAY that I struggle with.

Often times, I take our clean folded clothes out of the basket as we wear them.... then when it's time to do the wash again, I FINALLY empty out the basket and put away the clean clothes.  Do you do this too?  Why is it so hard for me to finish the last 20%?

3) Speaking of 20%, do you remember that awesome book I've talked about a million times called Clear the Clutter with Feng Shui ??  She talks about how we wear 20% of our clothing 80% of the time.  I'm continually amazed with how true that statement is.  As I was organizing our closets, I was tempted to get rid of the 80%, but I wimped out.  I mean, you never know when you might need to dress as a gypsy/pirate again.

Anyway, I am gearing up to go through both dressers/closets of the kids to de-clutter their clothing.  When they grow so fast, it's insane how often we have to be switching up wardrobes for them.  Tillie keeps pulling out shirts from her drawer that she wants to wear, but they are now belly shirts.  Whoops.  Yes, Melissa, it is time to go through those dressers again.

4) I've been exercising a lot this last while and I'd really be happy for the scale to tell me that I've lost 10 pounds, but alas, it still won't.  Lame.  Don't you wish that when you gave good solid effort it would be rewarded right away?  Me too.

I've even considered doing those ridiculous lemon juice cleanses---you know, the ones where they put in something crazy like cayenne pepper, lemon juice and two drops of honey?  You drink ONLY that for 10 days?  Have you heard of these things?  I mean, it sounds crazy, but I did consider it the other day.  Any experience with that?

I just feel like life is so much better when you allow yourself to eat delicious things.  I'm not saying ENGORGE, just small/normal amounts on occasion.  Do you agree?

I'm not really needing any of these questions to be answered, I'm just putting them out there b/c I have no recent photos to post.  Well, I'm sure I do, but they're all still sitting on my camera.  :)

5) One more thing, did you know that I have a talent for recognizing when people get their hair cut or bangs trimmed?  It's true.  As long as I see someone on a pretty regular basis, I can pretty much always tell if they have trimmed their hair... especially bangs.

For example, last night while we were watching The Sing Off (which, hello, is a great show on NBC.  It's a singing a'cappella competition, and we're big fans over here. And, one of the main contributers of the show is Ben Folds---who we both are Ga-Ga over.  It's a great show.  But I'm SUPER sad that Vocal Point (BYU's a'cappella group) just got voted off.  BOO.  It's nothing like that show I had high hopes for, but were quickly dashed on the first episode.  Yeah, you know what show I'm talking about---Glee.  It is/was bad news bears.)  ----------WOW, I have digressed.

Anyway, two of the singers in two different groups both got haircuts, and I noticed first thing. Aaron didn't really notice/care.  But, it was right then and there that I decided I have gift for that sort of thing.

Isn't it amazing the talents we are blessed with?

So, there are the random thoughts for the day.
Take them or leave them.
love, melis

Pretty cool music video.

Okay, just saw this very cool music video and I had to share.  Kina Grannis is her name and she has a pretty great voice too.

Take special note that each frame is made up of JELLYBEANS.  Amazing?!  



To appreciate it even more, watch this "Making of" video.  Kind of crazy, I'd say.



Found this video via Design Mom.  Pretty cool stuff.
Just thought I'd spread the love.

Good Hair Night

Does this happen to you or is it only me?  Whenever I think, "Wow, my hair looks pretty good right now..." It happens just as I'm going to bed.  And, I think, "Darn. That isn't really fair.  Why couldn't this have happened earlier in the day so someone else can see that on occasion it looks presentable?"

I thought about taking a picture of myself right now so you could all see that, in fact, this is a Good Hair Night for me.  But, then I thought that would be super vain.  It would be like fishing for compliments and you might feel OBLIGATED to say, "Wow, you're right, it looks great!"  And really, I don't need your validation tonight, b/c I can see that really, it does look good.

halloweenie goodness.

Yee-hAw!  

Yes, it's finally time. 
After prodding from both of the grandmas, I thought I should go ahead and get these photos posted. 

Oh, before we get started, did you like the title?  "halloweenie goodness"?  hA ha.  A little joke.  I laugh every time I say that.  Never gets old.

I knew that Tillie had a ton of princess dress-ups and that it could be an easy route for a costume this year.  But, for a few reasons, I don't love to FEED the princess obsession.  I am totally happy for her to be a princess in her normal life, but thought we might be able to switch it up for Halloween.
Luckily, her little brother is IN LOVE with Woody from Toy Story.  So, Tillie was Jessie from Toy Story--Not to be confused with her UNCLE JESSE, who is a BOY (he used to get so annoyed when people would say, "What? Your name is Jessie?  That's a girl's name..."  No.  He is definitely a boy. And he spells it like a boy JESSE.  Tillie would talk about it a lot.)

When we were at Target and looking through costumes, I was like, "$30 for one Woody costume?! No way! Why would anyone pay that price for a little kid costume?"  And, then after it took me a lot longer than I'd like to admit to make a pair of chaps and a little cow vest (which, by the way, is LINED and has double red stitching)-----I now know why people fork over the cash for a pre-made costume.
I think our little Cowboy Duo turned out pretty cute, in the end.  Becca even volunteered to do the embroidery on Tillie's little blouse.  Too fun.

These first few were taken two days before Halloween.  We went to a little city's celebration (kind of like Alpine Days for my home-town friends), and if you dressed up in your costumes you could get candy.  Nice.  We dressed up the kiddos.  And, of course, took some photos.  (We forgot Tillie's little sleeve cuffs in these shots.  Notice, this is a 2T blouse and she currently wears 4 & 5T shirts.  Hence, the reason I made cuffs to lengthen it out a bit.  Oh well, you'll see it in a bit...)

fake smile!

Cal hadn't taken a nap this day... so he was kind of a grumpy-sad-face when I wanted him to take photos with his sister.  I love that when I told him, "Cal, don't smile. Please, no smiling!"  he then decided to do a little grin in hiding.

When we told him he could mess with the pumpkins, he perked right up.

This is a CLAAASIC Cal face.  Too bad his eyes are closed, but check out his eyebrows. 

Flashback?  Yes. Same child.  Same eyebrows.  So funny.

 Back to Present Day at the celebration!  Aaron really was in a happy mood today, but it seems all the photos he is glaring.  Weird. 

Eventually, Cal just started putting his candy in Tillie's bag---which she didn't mind ONE bit!

Pretty fun that they made a replica Mater and Luigi from Cars.  Too bad they did weird green and hazel EYES for the cars---I don't know why they didn't just do WHITE?  Weird.  But, the kids didn't seem to mind.  :)

They had a ton of flying kites.  Pretty cool.  Apparently, they even did some hot air balloons later!?!

So, this next part felt a little bit like the show on TLC "Toddlers & Tiaras"---which I SOO do not support.  I've actually never really seen the show, just commercials for it, and it's disgusting to me.  ANYWAY, since they were doing a costume contest, we opted to enter the kids.  Why not?  It was a little crazy how often I kept adjusting the kids costumes while we were in line.  Aaron reminded me of the tv show and I was like, "Oh yeah... I'm not one of THOSE moms..."  Oops. 

Anyway, they had to go up on stage and hold their little numbers up.  Tillie did great!  Even waved to the crowd!  Cal looked like he was going to cry or yell.
In the end, they didn't win.  Oh well, we wouldn't want one of those lame medals anyway. 

::: Next up, Aaron and I dressed up.  I know.  Shocker.  I'm not really into the whole costume thing, but alas, Aaron had a work party and they told him, "You'll feel lame if you're NOT dressed up, b/c everyone goes all out."  So, alas, we were pirates.
People kept commenting that they liked my gypsy costume.  Whoops.  Oh well.  I care about this  (---) much.
Here we are posing it up while Becca took our pictures.
Best part of the night: watching Aaron act like he had long hair.  He kept messing with his scarf and flipping it over his shoulder.  It made me chuckle every time.

::: Next up, Halloween DAY.  We'd been in countdown mode for SO long that Tillie was in disbelief when I told her today was Halloween for REAL.  They were super pumped to see the little table cloth out for breakfast that Nana sent.  Cal is especially excited.  

Later in the day we went to a little playgroup.  They did fake trick or treating in the house with different doors.  It was pretty cute.

Okay, wow.  We're getting there.  Remember how many photos I took?  And remember how many photos I decided to post?  SHEESH.  Last round.  Ready to REALLY Trick or Treat.  Cal was MUCH happier for this round.  Can you tell?

Love this next face of Tillie's especially.  Aaron took this on our point and shoot at the same time I was taking shots on our big camera.  So funny.  (yes, it was like we had two shooters for a wedding or something.  Apparently Halloween is a big deal around here for us.)

  Tillie is such a little "care taker" for Calvin.  It is so funny.  Here she is adjusting something.

Here she is fetching him his bag...

This pose of Tillie makes her look like her little cloth Jessie doll.

Our neighbors are pretty sweet.  Here they are helping the kids figure out where to go to get CANDY!

 

Tillie kept getting stressed that a "scary witch" would open the door.  She saw one at the city festival a few days earlier and it kind of wigged her out.  She was pretty tentative at each door b/c of this.

Cal, on the other hand, would run up to each door and just say, "Treat!"  

p.s. check out that horrible creature in the bottom right of this pic.  Honestly, Halloween stuff like this makes me sick!  I hate this kind of craziness!

In the end, it was a success, I'd say.  "Thumbs up!" says Tillie.

Hope you had a Happy Halloween yourself!

THE END!