What's On My Happy List?

FIELDTRIP- Meeting Kyleigh's fifth grade class on the second leg of their field trip at the park for lunch. Little Miss Brie Olivia has been dubbed the nickname of "Mini-Cooper" by Kyleigh's teacher and some of her classmates. Here she is pictured at the outing, with her purse and also applying her lip gloss which she rarely leaves home without. She is just a tad bit like her mom in that regard. And btw, wouldn't it be rather fitting for us to have a mini Cooper car one day?

FASHION CONSULTANT- With my in laws leaving on a Book of Mormon Cruise to Mexico this week my mother-in-law in listed me as her fashion consultant in trying to get her outfitted for her vacation. For someone who does very well shopping for others, she struggles when having to shop for herself. In fact she hates it and doesn't even like clothes in general and only wears them because well, it would be against the law not to! Since she only owns one pair of earrings (what???) we went accessory shopping this week. I was admiring the coolest chain necklace... which in my mind was WAY more my style than it would ever be hers BUT the funny thing was, she actually liked it and said that she was a hippie once in her younger years. She ended up buying it (LOL) and said I could borrow it. (Will be pictured at a later date) After several other finds I was glad to see that in a small way I had had SOME fashion influence on her. Although much to my dismay, she ended up leaving her cutest outfit behind because she said she would have had to pack another pair of shoes. (Obviously I need to work a little more with her.) She is totally into packing light for trips and I guess I could learn a lesson or two from her in regards to that concept but I'm not sure I really want to. Call me crazy but half the fun of traveling for me is the planning and choosing of the daily color coordinated clothes everyone is going to wear on the trip etc. etc. So the bottom line is that I'm not sure I'll ever comprehend my mother-in-law's plight with her clothes issues but I was happy to see that the TWO of them were packed and ready to go when the time arrived. (My poor father-in-law was being so brave, he's not into these cruises and confided in me that he would rather stay home and work. WHAT???) That man needs some lessons on how to relax! Anyhow, I got a kick out of being their designated driver to the airport. (I love going to that place whether I'm the one going on the trip or not.) We went and picked up the couple who are traveling with my in-laws and I'm not sure what I found so humorous with this situation that I felt the need to capture the moment but I wanted to take a picture so bad of the four of them but my mother-in-law outright refused. She HATES her picture taken and would have only shown me her backside if I had gotten my way. Despite our differences in fashion and capturing life's moments thru photography we actually do get along quite beautifully.

HERE IS A FUN IDEA.....When family or friends go cruising I like to take them a four pack of Yo plait Smoothies. Add some foo foo (ribbon and card etc... that says "HOPE YOUR CRUIZE IS SMOOTH SAIL'IN") It's just my way of sharing my excitement with them for their upcoming cruise.

COOKIES I bought these cookies on a whim at the grocery store this week. Holy yummy! The actual cookie is a little more crunchy than I prefer but the Belgian chocolate chunks are to die for. If you like chocolate, you gotta try them.
C.H.A.O.S- Did you know chaos stands for CANT HAVE ANYONE OVER SYNDROME? We had a funny lady come to our enrichment night this week and talk about how she won the "messiest house in Utah" award several years back. She was taught by some experts on how to go about decluttering her home. She in turn gave us some great tips on how to keep an organized home. Although its more in my nature to have things clean and orderly I'm amazed (especially after my fourth child) at how fast things get messy and out of control when you don't stay on top of things. I love getting organizational tips because I like to be organized!!!! In fact my organizational project this week (not that I have one every week or anything...LOL) was to get the girl's winter clothes packed away into storage. This is a twice yearly project done in latter Spring and mid Fall, just depending on when the unpredictable weather for that season subsides. It is quite the undertaking but was accomplished quite efficiently this time around since I had the right size storage bins to hold everything!! Now I've been told that you should be able to keep all of your clothes for all seasons in your closet and if you can't then you have too many clothes. First off, I follow that rule for myself, believe it or not, but apparently I'm breaking this rule in regards to my kid's clothes. I just blame it on their smaller closets!!!! I have found that www.FlyLady.net and www.houseoforder.com are great websites for help in organizing your homes.