Lucky 13

OR
La Diada de Sant Jordi....

How cute is it to find out (on your 13th wedding anniversary) that you were married on La Diada de Sant Jordi, a Catalonian holiday celebrating love?! Sweethearts gift roses (to women) and books (to men). "A rose for love and a book forever." So cute!

We celebrated our lucky day with 13 favorite things:

1) kissing

2) lunch at La Dolce Vita (first place I fell in love with Jake)

3) a walk

4) wedding cake (aka cheesecake--it was served at our reception)

5) our wedding video

6) a foreign film (The Secret World of Arrietty--LOVED)

7) dancing to a slow song (see below)

8) a list (something significant from each of our 13 years together)

9) bookstore visit (Harold and the Purple Crayon for Jake)

10) flowers (daffodils for me)

11) ice cream

12) learning something new about each other (using my favorite date book, Listography)

13) a picture of us 13 years in love

I really wanted to get something special for Jake for our anniversary. When I saw these custom portraits on Etsy, I fell in love. They are patterned after Picasso's line drawings. I found a beautiful frame for our portrait and I couldn't love it any more! Didn't the artist do a fabulous job?

 

And for all you romantics out there, here's one of our fave slow songs....

I seriously love this.

p.s. The pic is from San Diego and the quote is from a ward member!

St. Pat's

We watched this beautiful movie for St. Patrick's Day. I loved so much about it.
The religious allusions.
The animation style. (Nice to see something other than disney-esque.)
The history it was based on--some of the images in the movie are even patterned after pictures from the real Book of Kells.
It was almost too creepy for our little ones in a few spots, but it was worth the discussions we had as a family afterwards.

p.s. Bryant's fave color has always been green, so St. Patrick's day is a natural holiday for him. (He made matching origami shamrock badges for him and me.)

San Diego

Neither Jake nor I are spontaneous, so I'm caught off guard when Jake has a burst. It's happened twice in regards to San Diego (what is it about that place?).

 The first time was in 2008, when he bought us tickets to fly out for a friend's wedding. We don't travel much and we weren't exactly swimming in money, so I was more than a bit surprised. But he is  generally so cautious that I trust his gut when he does stuff like that.

The second time was this past January, when he decided he needed to be at the opening of a San Diego branch of Corporate Alliance. And I needed to be with him. :)

Corporate Alliance is a networking business with amazing programs and ideals. Jake was lucky enough to get a video project contract from them when his business was young and it has proved to be a HUGE blessing. Over half of his clients can now be traced back to connections made at Corporate Alliance events.

And of course, Corporate Alliance retreats are the only family vacations that we take (like I said, we don't travel much). At the retreats there are always auctions on the final night, and those have provided us with amazing (to us) things--a Wii, blu-ray player, Millennium Falcon, iPad, iPod touch, Christmas presents for the boys the year we couldn't afford them, and on and on.

All this to say, we are indeed indebted and grateful for our connection to Corporate Alliance. So when they opened a hub in San Diego, Jake wanted to be there to support them. We were only there for two and a half days, but it was so fun to have an extended date with Jake.  We visited The Children's Pool and saw real seals(!). We ate at some exceptional restaurants. Roppongi was an AMAZING sushi bar, and Mexican food in SD is about a trillion times better than in Utah. We also visited the Mormon Battalion Visitor's Center. I was surprised (maybe I shouldn't have been) to find it was the nicest of any of the visitor's centers in the area. Great times.

Final note: I get terribly air-sick, but the flight home was my best ever! I credit Dramamine, Listography, and Jake. Seriously, go pick up a copy of Listography and do a few pages with your sweetheart for a date sometime. It's so fun to learn new things about your best friend!

Sono Bello

FYI: It's takes an INCREDIBLE amount of time to produce videos/films. (Cost is $1000+ per finished minute.) Jake often gets requests from people to make "just a short video" for them. Not to be rude, but videos-for-favors mean I don't see my husband for a week. Not happening folks.

For this following commercial, we were only there for part of the shoot and it felt like forever to my kids. The photo of Baby Benjamin was taken about 10 seconds before he burst into tears (you are not my mother!). And Henry would not take off his hood while they were shooting him and the actress. Stinker! Luckily the actress was as sweet as pie to him. She offered some bribes to entice him to cooperate. By the end, Henry thought she was his new best friend.



We don't actually have television service, so a lot of the stuff Jake makes isn't on my radar most of the time. But it's still fun when someone comes up to me and says, "I think I saw your baby on TV!"

p.s. Jake just won a Silver Telly Award (highest honor) for this one!

We heart rocks

 

catter sunshine!

 Thank you, Cousin Jen, for this great idea! The boys and I loved finding, painting, and leaving these heart stones around town. It was fun to search out little places where someone might find them and take a little love home.

Valentine's Hearts and Crafts

I never considered myself particularly crafty. 

Even though one grandma was an avid sewer and hardcore fabric collector. 

Even though the other grandma was a crafter extraordinaire.

But now I eat my words. There is a Hobby Lobby in town, and I have fallen hard. That place is the Celestial Kingdom. Seriously. Not because it's celestial. It's because you walk around the store and there are literally millions of opportunities to learn a skill, create something that did not exist before, or share something with someone else. Add in an eternal family, and BAM!--heaven.

So anyway, Valentine's Day this year was full of heavenly-ness.

And trips to Hobby Lobby. Indulge me for a minute here. For some reason V-Day is such a favorite for me. I LOVE thinking up valentines!

Behold:

Bryant's Valentine's (still cracking me up!)

 and his origami box (stiffened fabric)

Michael's (I got a wood burner out of this!)

 and box (an ode to his new fave sport)

Henry's shrinky-dink Valentine's

 and his look-alike "box" (can you tell which one is the REAL Henry?)

For my boys (embossed felt! locks & skeleton keys!)

For a billion other people (chocolate is better wrapped in hounds tooth, am I right?)

For my sweetie (Rifle Paper, I love you.)--

Also for my sweetie....

I wrote our (abbreviated) love story on two mini film reels. 

  
I'm not gonna lie. Crafting up these with the boys was a lot of work. Am I crazy that I loved every minute?!

p.s. thanks, sweetie--

Dallas Clayton

Have you heard about this guy yet? I pretty much love and respect him in every way. From writing and self-publishing a book for his son (that ended up taking the world by storm)....to living his dream of being a writer and an artist....to living by his own rules (no furniture!)....to letting his books be viewed for free on his website....he's living proof that you can live your dreams, be imaginative, be wildly generous, make a living, and change the world for better.

Check out this great interview that Design Mom did with Dallas Clayton. Check out his books. Check out his blog. I subscribe to it and I love getting the frequent reminders to be more like a child in all the best ways.

It's because of Dallas Clayton that I've stopped being afraid to draw for my kids....or anyone else in fact. I won't pretend that everyone is going to like my style. But you know what? Some of Dallas' unicorns look like something from the 6th grade (no offense D.C.). He drew them anyway. He draws to make people happy, to make them think. He isn't afraid of critics. He does what he loves for the people he loves. And you know what? I love drawing. So if I can make my kids happy by drawing my version of a horse or a dragon or whatever, I won't say "I don't know how." I'll figure it out. I'll show them how to throw their own fear away. Life is too short for fear.

Dallas, you rock. Thanks for the life lesson. Love, Tiff

How the Science Fair and a Virus Tried to Kill Me

Or, The Worst Night Ever.

So, the boys have been sick since January 14th. That was when the vomiting began. Also stomach pains and diarrhea. And while it has waxed and waned over the past three weeks, it has never died. Just when I think it has left the building, it starts again.

January was supposed to be dedicated to churning out a science fair project for Bryant. But since I was otherwise occupied (laundry and carpet cleaning--see above), and getting Bryant to take on a project is like forcing tar to move uphill backwards (as Mom says).....it didn't happen.

With only a few days to go, we tackled it hardcore this week. Jake helped him with his paper. Praise the heavens that his teacher let us type and Bryant dictate. (Something about a keyboard shuts that boy up for reals.) Wednesday night we performed his experiment on 20 different neighbors. (Thank you friendly townspeople!) By 8 pm, all we had to do was finish the paper, create the board, and come up with a presentation. Ha. We finally sent Bryant to bed around 10 or 11.

By 2:30 am, Thursday morning, Jake and I called it quits. My darling friend had offered me her Cricut for the labeling the board, and we had finished the last of what we thought we could do without doing the board for Bryant.

2:45 am--Lay down.

2:48 am--Hear noises. Investigate. Benjamin has thrown up. Change sheets. Shower boy. Take out garbage. Put boy to bed.

3:00 am--Lay down.

3:02 am--Hear noises. Investigate. Benjamin has filled his diaper. Lay him down to change. Realize that this is the virus-bug again when diarrhea spills out all. over. the. carpet. Change sheets. Shower boy. Clean up carpet. Take out garbage. Put boy (fully awake at this point) to bed.

3:45 am--Lay down. Oh blessed sleep, how I've missed you!!

5:30 am--Benjamin wakes me up signing for bread (he doesn't talk much). Listen, kid, I realize that your entire digestive tract has been emptied, but SERIOUSLY?!
Put boy to bed. Sleep!!! (for three hours anyway.)


8:45 am--"Mom, can you take me to school? I don't want to be late!" That was Michael. Bryant still had another two hours of work on the science fair project and Henry refused to go to school because he couldn't eat breakfast at the bar (where the science fair board was resting). Whatever. At this point I can't feel much worse about my mothering skills (my kids' procrastination and bad health all trace back to me, I'm sure). Even though the past night has proven that I AM A SAINT.

DO YOU HEAR ME WORLD? I AM A SAINT!!! (Jake is a saint too, I should point out. It was like one elongated date all night long.)

Take that Science Fair! Take that Virus-bug. You got me, but not good enough. (Go away now!!)

Two

He loves horses especially, animals in general, books and trucks. He can sign a million words, but the only one he verbalizes on a regular basis is "udts" (meaning whatever he needs it to mean). He is the most coordinated baby I've ever had--he throws and kicks like a champ and has done it since he was eight months old. He loves to wrestle and he loves to laugh. Love you, Beni!