Just CHECK OUT these awesome invitations that Millie made and gave to each of us for General Conference Weekend:

I love this and had to document it. It makes me feel so happy.

We had a good one. Hope you did too.

Here are some photos Jan took of the girls flying the home made kites, made by none other than the lovely and talented Millie Dawson, in between Sunday’s morning and afternoon sessions.

Love these girls, love their dad, love the church I belong to, love and am grateful for the life God has given me.

This year, for the first time ever, we celebrated St. Patrick’s Day and the luck of the Irish was NOT with me.

As we don’t drink ourselves silly we are forced to celebrate St. Pat’s the OTHER way — a.k.a turning EVERYTHING GREEN.

You with me on this one?

EVERYTHING!

As much as I have always had a fascination for the Emerald City of Wizard of Oz fame (really, I do). — I love the idea of living in a place where everything is color coordinated. I am a big fan of monochromatic color schemes, and I love green. I know, it’s weird.– Despite all this, I have, in the past, avoided celebrating St. Pat’s  because I hate to purposefully make food look unseemly. Turning things green that were not meant to be green – for example scrambled eggs – I don’t know….I have a hard time with it.

But Millie was keen so I figured, what the heck! Let’s try to have some fun and make a few new traditions.

I had to keep it simple because 1. I am pregnant (and not in that happy glowing way) 2. I don’t sleep 3. I can barely do anything these days — you see the predicament I was in, do you not?

Well, we kept it simple.

A trail of leprechaun gold lead to a box of Lucky Charms (good morning, breakfast!)

Two matching shamrock headbands

Four LOVELY green jello individual parfaits (YOW-ZA!)

followed by a bathtub filled with emerald green waters.

Are you sad you missed out on this celebration? It all sounds so delightful! It was such a well laid plan….

TOO BAD THAT:

Millie had to have her blood drawn that morning and it totally destroyed her. She was a basket case. And she let me know that she’d had both Lucky Charms and jello at Grandma’s house and she hated both. (Where was I!?!)

On the other hand, Clara loved the cereal. She kept saying over and over, “I’m eating my candy! I’m eating my candy!” No, Clara: read the box – this cereal is packed with WHOLE WHEAT and is a “guaranteed” source of calcium (after you add the milk, I guess). What the heck are they trying to sell us? Guaranteed source of calcium and packed with whole wheat, P & G must think we’re all smoking crack before we have our breakfast!

As we were drinking our green milk Millie said, “Just like Ireland! Right mom?”

What must the Irish think of us? We’re nuts! I hope when Millie visits Ireland for the first time she isn’t disappointed when she can’t find “green milk” on ANY menu.

I learned a valuable lesson – these fun moments that I occasionally try to create for my children are one part mom’s effort and five part’s Millie and Clara’s reaction. They are such enthusiasts that I take for granted that what MAKES these events wonderful isn’t so much what I have done – but how much they appreciate them. THEY make the magic. Not me.

Perhaps next year things will be better.

One thing is for sure, I’m not making any parfaits! Although, there is something so right about cold jello every once in a blue moon. You with me on this one?

We have had a lot of it this winter. I feel like if I don’t document it that I will be letting my posterity down or something.

Let’s see how similar my snow photos are to yours, shall we?

The good news is that my girls only last about 10 minutes before they are ready to come inside. So it is not long before the scene above quickly transitions into the scene below:

(Millie dressed herself in “layers” are they not awesome?? It is hard to tell but the t-shirt and the cardigan are stripes and the long sleeve shirt is polka dots. I love it!)

If Jan is outside playing with them the 10 minutes of playtime doubles, you heard me, we get 20 solid minutes of frolicking in the cold, white fluffiness.

I know my place. It is indoors. Preparing to eventually deal with:

this tangled pile of gortex  and wool.

and the inevitable tears which will flow over how cold little fingers have gotten, due to this:

(that is supposed to be a glove)

But I am a mom who has seen more than one winter. I KNOW what I am doing!

20 minutes is a long time to spend in the snow after all, so I have been preparing the “magical winter ambrosia” or “liquid happiness” in this:

The “Milk Cafe”, maker of worlds greatest hot chocolate. It even hums…

And once the contents are poured into our “family mugs” (we drink a lot of hot chocolate in the winter and I’m the kind of girl who appreciates when things are monogrammed, so sue me!)

Wrap your cold paws around this, Millie – and all will be well!

Awe! That collective sigh of relief. When flannel pjs are warming cold bodies, and we settle around the table with our mugs-o-love.

On this particular evening, I was just starting to congratulate myself on how well it was all going when…

Clara spilled half a mug-o-love all over the table.

I know you moms saw that one coming. You must NEVER congratulate yourself as a mother or it is OVER.

We cleaned up the mess and then played several rounds of

UNO-MOO

Which is essentially Uno for pre-school aged kids. Here is the cool thing – Clara dominates in this game (of course we have to help her a little) but this is a great one if you have got small people in your house who think they are gown-ups and want to do EVERYTHING that their big sister does.

The moral of the story?

All tears brought on by snow will melt into a mug of hot chocolate. If you don’t congratulate yourself on a “job well done” you may perhaps avoid a spill. And no matter how many times you have to wipe your toddler’s nose, you will have to wipe it again… in a matter of moments.

Long live the snow!

I have mentioned in previous posts that we are “early risers” around here. With our new schedule in place our 5:30 AM wake up call has now been pushed back to 6:20 AM.

We will take what we can get.

Jan and I take turns waking up with the girls. (Although these days it is usually Jan who gets up with them, thank you Insomnia, I don’t know what I would do without you! Actually I do know what I would do, I would sleep!)

The other day when I woke up, this is the sight which greeted me, and quite frankly, it melted me.

Clara had been busily “tucking” Jan into bed.

As you can see, she takes the job VERY seriously!

At first it appeares that she has made sure Jan wont be lonely by giving him 5 or so little critters to keep him company.

BUT WAIT,

peel back the covers and behold!  She’d given him about 10 others.

Jan’s commentary was classic, “This is actually rather comfortable.”

(I love that guy!)

The night before Valentine’s I turned to Jan and broke the bad news to him,

“I got nothing – no plans, no presents, no energy, no nothing. Sorry. No Valentine’s celebrations for us this year.”

This was not bad news for him. It was great news,

“Oh, good! I got nothing too.”

So that was that.

UNTIL

I woke up at 4:00 AM (hello, Insomnia, how nice to you to visit me every. stinking. night!)

I figured I might as well do something other than toss and turn OR read a Georgette Heyer novel.

So I got my weary bones out of bed and scraped together a Valentine’s breakfast for our little crew.

(Yes, the waffles are heart shaped…suckaz!)

It was the right thing to do.

The girls were so happy.

It felt so right to express our love to one another and celebrate together.

I usually get a little present and balloons for the girls, but this year I just wrote them each a love note, and even managed to find a card I’d bought last year for Jan but never gave him. It felt totally blessed the way everything came together.

Translation on for the Valentine Millie wrote to Clara: ” When you are sweet, you are great.” (Which about says it all!)

My Valentine sent me back to bed and did all the dishes. THAT is what I am talking about, people!

Later in the day we carried on with the Valentine theme by painting our nails red,

and after their baths I gave the girls the special “Valentine treatment”. We always put lotion on after the bath – but this time they got to pick from my collection of Anthro lotions (step aside boring, old Eucerin) and I basically applied the lotion to look like a heart, which they then smeared all over themselves.

Of course I dressed the girls in Valentine’s colors. I may have NO spunk these days but I am STILL ME!

And that was that.

Out of nothing – thin air practically – we scraped together a Valentine’s celebration.

Did I mention I never sleep, am six months pregnant and am perpetually crusty, cranky and NO FUN.

Just saying, miracles do happen!

The other morning I woke up with a sick, sinking feeling. I was remembering one of the saddest moments of my family’s history. It was Chas’ birthday. We all piled into the car, went to the movies, then out to ice-cream and at the end of it all turned to Chas and said,

“So, how was that? Did you have fun?!”

Cricket. Cricket.

“Ummmm. Where is Chas?” “Chas?” “CHAS!!!!!!”

He’d been left at home.

On his birthday.

When we got home he had puffy eyes and tear stained cheeks.

Just thinking about it KILLS ME even to this day.

****I had a talk with Chas after this post went live. He told me he had a different memory of this day. He said he doesn’t remember being that ticked off that we’d left him or even crying. When he realized we were gone and would probably not be coming back he shrugged his shoulders and took a nap! CLASSIC CHAS! He just doesn’t get mad or offended (except when someone isn’t nice to his wife — he is NOT okay with that).*****

How could this happen? How could this darling boy be left behind on his birthday? Well, you have to KNOW Chas to understand how something like this could happen.

Chas is a gentle, quiet soul in a family full of boisterous, out-spoken, opinionated so and sos. When he was in first or second grade his teacher was one who had also taught his hilarious older brother Ian and dramatic sister Brynn. The teacher asked each person in the class to write a letter describing themselves and Chas wrote this:

“I am not shy. I am quiet.”

He wanted to let his teacher know that he didn’t live in the shadow of his older siblings. He knew who he was and how he was and he had the confidence to be himself. To be Chas.

And he was right!  there is a difference. Chas is not shy – Chas is quiet. He is gentle. He is meek. Chas listens. And Chas is strong.

He also has a knack for going to the bathroom when we are all about to leave. This is a dangerous combination -in a family of nine children, even on your birthday. Sadly, it wasn’t the first time that he’d been left behind – but it was DEFINITELY the saddest!

Anyway, today is his birthday and I for one would like to celebrate him. Last year he was on his honeymoon during his birthday and as I had posted many, many, many, many, many, many times about him in the weeks which approached and followed his birthday so, I held off until this year to honor him. Of all my sibs I think I have blogged about Chas the most. Furthermore, his wife has a blog almost entirely devoted to him. So, if you are feeling, at the end of this post, that you still need more on Chas just go and visit Sam’s blog and I do believe your needs will be satisfied. For instance, I have learned many new and cool things about him, apparently giggles in his sleep. Man, do I love this guy!

Chas is, without a doubt, one of the finest men I know. But he is not flashy or showy — he never, ever calls attention to himself.

He is also one of the funniest guys around – but herein again, even when telling jokes you have to be listening carefully or you might miss it. Ian refers to Chas’ jokes as “the still small joke”. The brothers will be cracking jokes and cracking each other up – then Chas will quietly say something and have all the brothers rolling with laughter. It’s awesome. Cameron, who was always considered the king of comedy at our house, can only be reduced to a puddle of laughter by Chas. I still remember a time when Cam was recounting something funny Chas had said and he had to pull the car over because he was laughing so hard it was impeding his driving. (I think it had something to do with “Mr. Poo”, right Cam?)

Chas has real depth. He is a person of integrity and faith. He loves the gospel, he serves humbly and diligently. He is patient and kind. He works hard and he really, really loves his wife.

He is a dedicated husband and friend to his lovely wife. The summer before he got married he lived with us while he worked in NYC. I got to spend a lot of time with him and one of the things I thought was, “Chas is going to make such a swell husband.” He is such a good listener and gives such great advice. I remember laying out a perplexing personal problem that I was having and he listened and then gave the best advice.  I was right about him making a swell husband. His wife can’t come up with a single bad thing to say about them after a whole year of marriage. They are in LURVE, people.

He served an LDS mission in bella Italia. So, this means he has a discerning palate for fine gelato,  enjoys a mean plate of pasta (as well as being able to make it himself) and he speaks Italian. And let’s just get this straight – that is a pretty awesome skill set!

He is a true and devoted friend. He is trustworthy. You know he has your best interest at heart.

He is a wonderful uncle to his nieces and nephews. You can feel how much these little people matter to him.

He is patient and willing to work hard and wait for the good stuff to come.

He is pure. I just never worry about him. I know where his heart is and it is fixed upon goodness.

He is an observer. He always seems to notice things that nobody else can see.

He is a peace maker. Once, when we was tiny he told all of us to “BE NICE!” he could barely talk – but there he was helping us to be better.

He is a talented film maker and editor.

He cares deeply about the people around him and seeks out ways to help and strengthen them.

He is kind. So kind. I just love his sweetness. But he is no pushover. His kindness does not make him a person you can walk all over. He is strong. His strength comes from his core, and at his core is such goodness.

I love him so very much and would like to raise my glass to him and wish him the happiest of birthdays! I hope this year will be full of all kinds of joy and fulfillment!

P.S. As I was gathering photos for this post and linking to previous post about dear old Chas I was reminded of this post, which I think may be one of the best posts on this here blog — and it was completely inspired by Chas!

Happy Birthday, little bro! I sure do love ya!!

I hear that “blagging” is the term for a blog post where you just brag your head off.

Prepare yourself for such a post!

This weekend was the LDS Film Festival (which, celebrated it’s 10th anniversary, way to go Christian!).  Last year my brother Chas’ film “Clean Break” won 3rd prize and an audience choice award.

This year my other brother Ian, I have many and they all do film, wrote and produced a film called, “Kofi” which won 2nd place in the festival and an audience choice award.

Just saying, that is pretty stinking cool.

Also, my dad had a film in the festival called, “The History of Homefront” which is a documentary about the creation of the LDS church’s award winning campaign from the 70’s and 80’s of which my dad was a part of.

So MANY awards, so MANY Mormons, SO LITTLE TIME.

While I was writing this post I got an email from yet another film brother, Cameron, sending me a script for a short film he’s just written. Which is very timely as I think next year he needs to win first place in the festival — no, pressure, Bro – but there is a pattern here which I think we should try to maintain.

On a side note:

This morning Clara was playing with a few barbies and such.

I asked her,

“Would you like a snuggle from your mom?”

She replied, “No.”

So I asked her, “Would you like to poke your mom in the eye?” (I was curious, I have a curious nature, you see.)

At which point Clara’s face LIT UP and she came right over to me and poked me in the eye. TWICE.

Some people get awards for the work they do and some people get poked in the eye.

To each their own!

That is what the girls call it, our “livling room” and I like it. It has a nice ring to it.

I also like decorating. But I work at a snail’s pace. If turtles are destined to be the ultimate winners in the race we call “life” then perhaps, there is hope for a person like me — who AGONIZES over every decision, tries to find a bargain and never can, takes months to hang a picture….etc, etc.

ANYWAY

I feel like our living room (or livling room) has finally reached a state where I can show it to you with the feeling that, although never “finished,” it at least feels complete.

BUT

before I do, will you pretend like you really care and take a walk with me down old memory lane, you know, just to see how far these four walls have come? It might even be fun?

Maybe.

Here is what the room looked like before it even belonged to us. (check out the poster of the monkey downing rum – that is something special!)

I don’t want to slam the other owner’s style. They took beautiful care of the house and they are really great people. But every room in the house was painted a different color (the bathroom was bubble gum pink, the nursery neon yellow, the entry way was black wallpaper…you get the idea)

It was just too much for us.

So when we moved in we painted everything in different shades of taupe (with a little blue green thrown in the mix). Call it boring or call it a reaction to the color overload.

Me, I likes me some flow in a house.

Okay, so here is the living room with our furniture from our Boston dwelling.

Eh.

It is much calmer, but not even CLOSE to being there.  This furniture looked so good in our other place, but here it just looked blah!

So,

fast-forward three and a half years

and

here

it

is

today….

(All the furniture is from Alice Lane – except the coffee table and the ottoman)

Now, if you will indulge me further let me show you some of the “details”.

Pillows: Zebra pillow, fabric from Alice Lane – but made by my sweet mommy)

This I bought from the Pottery Barn clearance section – originally it was white twill fabric. Suzanne at Alice Lane suggested this awesome Annie Selke fabric – and then my mom worked her fingers to the bone to re-cover it.

(My mom ROCKS!)

This tray deal I got at Thomas O’Brien’s shop in Soho. It was one of the only things I could afford.

Putting sconces on either side of the sofa was a genius idea from Suzanne – she showed me some knock out lamps that were $600.00 bucks a pop, but instead I went with these MUCH cheaper Pottery Barn alternatives.

The curtains were a labor of pure love from Liesa Card. Decorator (and wonderful human) extraordinaire. She spent hours with me figuring these suckers out. I love you, Liese! And I love these curtains. (with a shout out to the talented Julie in SLC who made them).

Ah, yes! This is an oldie but such a goody! This is what we lovingly call our “Ming Dynasty Throw”. Mom made this for us 7 years ago and it is still going strong. The girls refer to it as their “fluffy covers” and many a morning is spent snuggling under it while we watch Nick Jr. (so romantic!)

The Art in the room – still working on this, but you know, what we have put together so far makes me pretty happy.

This is a photo copy of a painting by an artist friend of ours named Elise Delong. Jan bought me the original for Valentine’s day a few years ago. But it is really small. It just got lost in the shuffle and so we took it to Staples, enlarged it, made this photo copy of it and framed it in this Pottery Barn frame. I think it looks pretty cool.

Here is the original.

Then, this summer we discovered an artist we just loved named Dave Hall. Who is a fly fisherman and a self taught painter. We just love his stuff so much!

This is the art on the floor. This rug makes my heart sing. And we couldn’t have gotten it save Adam and Jessica’s generosity at Alice Lane. They made practically zero commission off of it, just to take the price down to a more affordable place for us. It is the Thomas O’Brien “Julia” rug.

It takes a village to make a “livling” room, so they say. And I for one would like to thank everyone who has pitched in and made it possible.

And I’m especially grateful to the man of the house who paid for and put up with all of this. He was perfectly content with the original furniture. He is a good egg.

And just so that we keep this post grounded to the planet earth I wanted to show you what my bedroom desk currently looks like.

I bought this desk from a consignment store months ago with the intention of painting it and transforming it. But all I have done to date is buy two cans of little paint samples, and it has become what I call a “crap catcher”. You read enough of those DIY decorating blogs and you start to actually believe you CAN do it yourself.  Shocking, really.

The living room took three plus years so perhaps we should take bets on how long this desk will take me.

At the rate I’m going I am giving myself to 2012…at the very earliest!

P.S. “I am ashamed” you may have noticed that I have succumb to the “Karate-chop”

but only kinda sorta.

I usually love New Year’s resolution time. But not this year. Pregnancy is hard on me and I think it makes me feel detached from myself. Too weird to go into and who really wants to hear me psychoanalyze myself?

Jan showed me this TED talk at the start of January. It made me weep and I knew that if I could work up some kind of drive to actually make a few resolutions that they would have something to do with what I learned from this talk:

So I don’t have my “go-fight-win” special January feeling right now, but I’ll tell you what I would like to see happen in 2011:

1. Sleep. I want to sleep. I want to sleep more than four hours a night.

2. Be happier (I think number 1 will have a big impact on number 2.)

3. Live life more “wholeheartedly” and with more gratitude.

4. Give birth to a healthy baby

5. Too close to my heart to publicize, but Heavenly Father knows what number 5 is.

Good luck to me, and you and anyone who wants to be a better person in the new year!

Dear Mr. Jobs,

I am really sorry to hear that you are sick. I thought of you yesterday morning as my daughters sat nestled together on the sofa doing puzzles – one on the i-Pad the other on an i-phone. As I thought of you, gosh dang it, I got teary! I am sad that you are sick. I really am.

You are a genius person. You have a bazillion dollars. You only wear a black half turtle neck, blue jeans and sneakers (if we were friends and I had guts I might ask you what this is all about), you have come up with some amazing gadgets that have revolutionized the world we live in, you bought Pixar and helped make it what it is.

AND

You are a man. A human being with a soul. In some amazing, miraculous way we belong to each other, because like me, we are both God’s children. I think as I watched my daughters I thought of you as my brother who is sick. And in my heart I wished the following things for you:

that you will get better, that while you are sick someone who really loves you will take good care of you, and that you can be brave and strong.

Love,

Liza

P.S. When you get better and come up with lots of other groovy stuff we promise to buy it and keep on crushing on it. (How about that for an incentive to get well!?)

I leave you with a photo of Millie holding the i-Phone pinata that she and I made for her dad for Father’s day.  As she was coming up with the perfect thing to give her Apple loving dad for father’s day she came up with this…. Totally her idea!

If you get bored in the hospital, let us know and we’ll send you one! Sometimes when it seems as though life is beating you up it can feel good to hit something really hard, repeatedly. Furthermore, it is even better when, after hitting said object, your favorite treats fall out of it. It is genius. And being one yourself, I am sure you can appreciate genius when you encounter it.