Taxolas or Blogola?

I was trying to decide if I should get everything ready to do my taxes, or blog.... In my head I was just saying, "I should really get my taxolas done this weekend for sure!" And then I had to stop myself again, because why does my head always add "-ola" to words?! For Valentine's Day Rik got me some flowers, and bought a big, tall vase to put them in (because apparently he didn't know that there is a whole cupboard full of vases...) I pulled the vase out of the dishwasher and in my head said, "Where the flaming heckola am I going to put THIS?!" I've never said "some random word + ola" out loud, just in my head talking to myself..... Very strange. Very strange indeed.

Anyway... blogging it is! Taisha's last basketball game was last night. It's almost comical to watch basketball at this stage, but she had a lot of fun, and her team and coaches were awesome!


I don't know how this happened, but here's how Taisha's Wednesday schedule has been:

2:30 - Gets picked up from school
3:00-4:00 - Gymnastics
5:00-5:30 - Piano lessons
5:30-6:30 - Basketball practice
6:30-8:30 - Volleyball practice

Basketball is over now, so she has a whole extra hour that day... so she can eat or something! It's always nice when something is done though. So track and field started up today! Kayden's never done track before, but loved cross country, so he's going to give it a try.

Speaking of Kayden, he is a cleaning/organizing pro! One of our neighbors asked him to paint some doors, and since it's still too cold to do it out in the garage (I saw an ant in my kitchen the other day (not as nice as the duck from last year), so I'm sure Spring is getting close!!!), I told him to try and clean out the storage room a little, so he could paint down there. I told him he could put some things in the unfinished bathroom, and stack everything else as compact as possible. I got home last night, and he had gone through everything, organized the tools under the stairs, hauled a bunch of stuff out to the garbage, organized the camp gear, the bathroom, and there was NOT A THING in the storage room! So I thought the bathroom had to be busting at the seams and was probably going to explode with stuff when I opened the door, but instead, he had everything neatly stacked, with an isle down the middle and everything. Wow! He did tell me we have lots of junk, and we should throw stuff out. And dang, I think I might have to pay him now.... like maybe with a cell phone... cause according to recent heated comments directed my way, he might need therapy that Malia got a cell phone before him... *sigh*

Here's McKay teaching Anaya all his kindergarten skills. This is better than the "bloody lip," and "chasing with a butter knife" incidents from earlier this week (I was so happy my cell phone went dead that night!) They either get along really good, or REALLY BAD...


It's been two whole weeks since I started going to the gym, and I don't know if it's the gym or the gym buddies, but my mood has been a lot better (I'm guessing it's the gym buddies... 'cause I'm getting no love from the tread mill!) And this week, I don't feel like I'm going to die! Yayola! Oh good grief....

It's All About Moi. Moi, Moi, Moi.

Remember last year, when we were making Valentine's boxes for school, and we wanted to make Cupid, but I couldn't find a solid cream colored bag? I walked into K-Mart and they had one! It had a wedding cake on the front, but we just covered it up with a heart. Didn't he turn out cute?


Anaya had her Valentine's party on Wednesday, so Tuesday I told her we needed to write out her Valentine's. Right now her favorite word to write is MOI. She has no idea what it means (french for "me"). Those are just the letters she likes to write... and I find them all over the place... pretty much anywhere there is paper, there is the word "MOI." Which kind of cracks me up, 'cause I just keeping getting these constant reminders of her. And it is a very appropriate word for her, 'cause in her world, it's all about her. Anyway, I told Anaya she needed to write her name on her Valentine's and she said NO. She doesn't like to write her name. So she stomped out of my room, and I overheard her talking to McKay saying, "McKay, do you hate mom? I do, cause she makes me write my name all the time!" I thought "hate" was a little mean... so she didn't get to fill out her cards.

(Here are a couple of her MOI's. One is a paper that was on the fridge, and the other is my shopping list from yesterday (with MOI written backwards)... don't look at my bad hand writing... oh, and now you are probably looking at it, 'cause I told you not to...)

I was trying to get the Cupid online earlier this week, just in case anyone needed an idea, but I seem to have lost my motivation lately (like, since Christmas.) Before Christmas I was working on the basement, and moving furniture and shopping and returning things, and really busy, but since Christmas, I just haven't felt like myself. I've never had the winter blahs before. But lately I've had the motivation of a ....er.....um... well, sheesh, I don't even have the motivation to come up with an unmotivated thing for my motivation analogy. And I've been just a little glum. My normal un-glumers don't seem to be working, so I had to try something drastic... I decided to try getting off my big tookis (I pretty sure that is french for "bigger than last year's back-side".... ya, I know, we're pretty much bilingual here) and I joined a gym (your welcome Rik, (who had some post-marathon trauma, and just barely went back to the gym, and lost 6 pounds the first week and 6 pounds the next week, and I stopped listening to him after that....) Oh, and Thank You Brett and Jill, for letting me crash your um party at the gym.) So we'll see if that does the trick.

Only a couple more Valentine's parties, a talk for sacrament meeting, and sharing time, and then there is no school on Monday! Yippee!!

Wishing Spring Here

I think Anaya and McKay are looking forward to some warmer days. But since that is a little ways away (at least according to the groundhog... funny little story about that though... McKay came home from school on Groundhogs Day with a little puppet groundhog on a stick that you could poke through a hole. McKay said they made it because it was "Puppet Day" that day. I wonder how much he actually listens in school.....), anyway, they have been rollerblading in the kitchen a lot this week. They are not very good at it though, and spend most of their time just crawling or falling. I'm pretty sure the are going to crash and their roller blades are going to go right through the wall.

The older kids don't mind the snow and cold as much, and went snowboarding again today.

I still don't get it, but McKay was SO happy!

Look what I found on clearance at WalMart for $7:


McKay is wearing his Star Wars underwear, Star Wars pajamas, new storm trooper outfit and his Star Wars cloak (robe) in the picture on the left. His friend Tate gave him the light saber holder thing on his back for Christmas (his mom made it.... and it is perfect for McKay).

Today I was taking a nap, or trying to... I just fell asleep when Anaya got a round brush tangled up in her hair, so I had to undo that, and then she came in asking if she could play with Addison (our next door neighbor.) I told her no, because it was Sunday. Anaya then said, "Well, I think it's Addisunday, so I can play with her." Clever girl...

We got tickets to David Archuleta in March and the girls are so excited!

Stuff that just didn't cut it.....

I was on Naval Gazing the other day and she decided to "out" some of her half-written blogs that were sitting in the "draft" folder. I have a few of those too, so I thought I would do a little blog-cleaning. Here's some of the stuff that was in there and why they haven't been posted (mostly because I'm a dork):

Um, This Says A Lot About Me
Anaya and I have run so many errands lately, and now every time we get in the car Anaya asks if we are going to Mickle Donalds, Article Circle, or Kirby's today. *Sigh* It seems with all the shopping like a crazy person, we may have eaten out a little too much... and quite possibly I speak with a lisp... I'm not really sure where she gets her pronunciations of those fast food places... (By the way, Kirby's is Arby's.)

This was during December when I was Christmas shopping. I just couldn't seem to fit this post anywhere... and it kind of made me look like I ate out a lot...


What?! Where did THAT come from!
So here are a couple things about me: I have a high pain tolerance. I delivered all of my babies naturally, except for McKay, because I wanted to try an epidural, wasn't a fan, and went back to all natural for Anaya. I also bruise REALLY easily. Which usually means that I have massive purple and green bruises, that look like they should have hurt, and that I should have some recollection of getting them...but don't. Like this bruise that I woke up with on my thigh:

[Insert picture of my thigh with a big bruise on it, only somehow I managed to hit the "pasty white, spider-vein magnifier" setting on my camera, and no one wants to see that... trust me... The picture has been deleted from my camera, the computer, and the recycle bin, and you would have to have FBI technical skills to retrieve it]

Enough said on why that post didn't make it.

I Love My Job!
I clean an office building 3 times a week with my mom. I love this job... except for the cleaning part.... The 15 minute commute, the funny things that happen when we're cleaning and the good conversation is the best though. It takes us anywhere from an hour and 15 minutes to an hour and 45 minutes depending on how messy they were, how many dumb things we do, and how much time we spend laughing about the dumb thing we did.

I was wanting to share some of the funny things that happen while we are cleaning... like how my mom had a whole soap opera going on in her head between all the people in the office, and the story line was based off of what was in their garbage cans, and who was gone at the same time as someone else... or how I trip over the floor ALL the time... I don't know if I just don't pick up my feet or what... but I seem especially prone to tripping while walking in front of my mom, or how she's out to get me with the extension cord from the vacuum (I got her back by accidentally hitting her with the mop once), or how it doesn't seem to matter how many times we've done this, we (meaning my mom) can still miss a room (the lunchroom) every now and again..... but I'm not pointing fingers... or how the office has developed a personality and we (mostly me, I think) talk to it... or some of the nicknames we have made up for different people and their offices... But as soon as I started typing some of it, I decided you probably needed to be there....

What the Blond Hair!
I got a hair cut today. I got there, told her that I needed everything trimmed, and that the top seemed too heavy, so I needed it texturized. She asked me what side I parted my hair on, and I promptly told her THE WRONG SIDE, and didn't realize it until she was part way through my hair cut, and then I was too embarrassed to tell her that I'm a dork... so she just cut and texturized my hair on the wrong side... and now it looks like this every time I do my hair:


I have been trying to do my hair on the other side, but I can't work the blow dryer and brush on that side of my head.

Right when I was going to post this I read this on one of my favorite blogs... and she was WAY funnier than me.... so this post just sits there in drafts.

Ew! Don't Eat That!
At my house no one is an especially picky eater. Some don't eat as much as others, but everyone is pretty willing to try just about anything. They get this from Rik.... not me. I'm not a picky eater, but I'm also not an adventurous eater. Rik on the other hand, eats some of the most bizarre things (and by bizarre I mean, I don't eat them....) Every morning he has his oatmeal and a glass of blueberry/pomegranate juice with his freshly ground flax seed in it (he has a coffee grinder at home and at work to grind it up.) He takes his protein powder with him to work, to drink sometime during the day along with his favorite supplements (fish oil is among them). He loves anything pickled (asparagus and okra are his favorites). Later on in the afternoon he drinks a glass of V8 Spicy with pimento stuffed olives in it (he says he actually CRAVES this and can hardly wait to drink it.) He snacks on wasabi peanuts and grapefruit covered in salt. I could probably write a whole paragraph on the cheeses he likes, and the time he made blue cheese and salmon sandwiches in the microwave (oh man, it smelled so bad.... I can't even....)

And that's as far as I got, cause all of a sudden my stomach wasn't feeling that great.... and I didn't want to spend anymore time on his weird food habits. To his credit though, I don't know if it is his food or what, but he is never sick. He has never taken a sick day from work since we got married, and that says a lot right there. But he is no longer allowed to make melted stinky cheese fish sandwiches in the microwave.

And so there you have it.... I've cleaned out all the garbage that was in my "drafts" folder. I'm curious though, does anyone else have half-written stuff that is not worthy to be posted?

My Blog Book Review

So my blog book did end up coming today and I love it! I got mine from SharedBook.com. I honestly didn't even try any other places.... which is weird, I usually shop around, but I was on a friends blog and read their experience with Shared Book, so I just went with same place. Besides the actual book, Shared Book also had another cool thing you could do, and it was cheap. You could put your blog address in, and it made it into an e-book. It was under $3 to have them do that. That's where it looks like a book on your computer, you can zoom in and flip through the pages. He's a weird thing though, the e-book and the printed book had to be done in different transactions. I couldn't add both to my cart at the same time. When you put your blog address in, it puts together the e-book and you can preview it page by page, and that is the same way your printed book will be laid out. I didn't actually preview too many of the pages. I got to chose the front cover picture, and when it came the very first picture on my blog was the picture on the back of the book (which, incidentally is a picture of Anaya, so she thinks she owns the thing.....) You have the option of choosing a hard back book, or a paperback book. There was about a $10 difference, and I went for the hard back book. It reminds me of my high school year books as far as the size and feel of the book. I'm not too impressed with the binding though, and already it looks like it's not going to last very long..... I might end up spiral binding it.


I have the same layout for each of my blog entries: pictures centered above the text. I like the way this looks, but the format in the book is pictures on the left and text on the right, so my picture captions are all off. Makes more sense to do it that way though... less wasted space on the pages. So I might play around with my blog format this year and see how it looks next year.


All the blog comments are in the back of the book. So the last 38 pages of my blog book are comments. I started my blog the middle of February last year, and I ended up with 140 pages in all in my book, and including shipping paid a little more than $50. Cheap compared to scrapbooking, and a lot more content (just not as creative and cutesy.) The pictures were great quality and the text it easy to read.


The book has been a huge hit, and I have loved flipping through it remembering the last year. There are tons of pictures, which I like, because I take lots of pictures, but I'm not very good at getting them printed, and the blog book kind of takes care of that for me, and has them all together and dated. I really love it and wish I could go back and get the first 15 years of my marriage all printed and together like this (so don't be surprised if I do some reminiscing this year on my blog!) My pictures really don't do it justice, everything looks much better in person.

Anaya and the DoDo song

Anaya learned to play this song on the piano (read this to find out why Anaya calls it the "DoDo song) and plays it every time she walks past the piano. She usually ends up singing the rest of the song (the words are "Do dodo dodo do dodo dodo do dodo dodo do do dodo") after she plays the beginning part. I thought maybe I should start her on some beginning piano lessons, because she seems to have good finger coordination and I thought she would really like them, but here's an example of how our first lesson went:

Me: Lets start right here in your book.
Anaya: No I don't want to, it doesn't have any butterflies on it.
Me: It doesn't matter if there are butterflies on it, just look right here and....
Anaya: I'm not playing unless there are butterflies.
Me: Maybe we can get some butterfly stickers to put on the page... sheesh, or I could draw one on there....(and then think about what I just said)... but you CAN NOT color on my piano books.
Anaya: Get some stickers then.
Me: Why don't you put your fingers right here on the black keys and I'll teach you "Mary Had A Little Lamb."
Anaya: Oh, I love that song!! (Proceeds to sing whole song.....twice)
Me: Just put your hands right here.
Anaya: No, I don't want to put them right there... how about right here? (Put hands in totally wrong place)
Me: Anaya, you have to put your hands where the book tells you. Do you see the pictures on top of the page, it tells you where you need to put your hands to play the song right.
Anaya: Those are stupid pictures.
Me: Anaya how many times have I told you we don't say "stupid."
Anaya: Where are the butterfly stickers?
Me: I have to get them at the store.
Anaya: That's stupid!
Me: WE DO NOT SAY STUPID!
Anaya: Fine, I don't want to play the piano (and then proceeds to play the "Carol Bell" song 500 times starting on the wrong note.... just to make obnoxious noise.) Do I get a piano treat now?

And so we are going to wait a little while, like maybe 5 years, before we find some poor teacher to teach Anaya piano (and yes, we will find someone else to teach her and it will totally be worth every penny.)

The "Finlayson Family Blog" book was supposed to get here by January 23rd, and didn't get here yet, but hopefully today. Maybe all the snow held it up a little bit. Lots and lots of new snow, which I think is stupid great for the farmers, and for Kayden and Malia who went snowboarding Friday night and Kayden who went all day Saturday too. Kayden is stiff as a "board" from all that snowboarding though. Ha ha! What a good pun.... as in, stiff as a SNOW-BOARD.... Fine, I'll just get off the computer and go fold some laundry (*shakes head and mumbles "no sense of humor."*)