I'm a Dork (but at least I realize it!)

One of the reasons I'm dorky is because I like to buy cute collars for my pets. My friends could probably give you a few other reasons : P. Most people would be satisfied with your run-of-the-mill solid colored Wal-Mart collar. Not me. If I'm spending 7 dollars or so on a collar, it might as well be cute, right? So, tonight I was looking around on Ebay and found a store that has the cutest collars ever. I wish Mr. Whiskers was a girl, because the girly ones were the cutest, but there were some good boy ones too. This is the one I picked:

They had seasonal collars too and I plan on getting some. They had black with candy corns for Halloween and blue with Christmas trees. So cute!

Then, I came across an E-Bay store that sells little bell charms for the cat collars. When I saw this one, I HAD to have it:

I think it looks like Smuckers! Since Smuckers and Mr. Whiskers are buddies, I couldn't resist getting this for Mr. Whisker's collar.

See, that's kind of dorky, huh? Oh, well. I know ya'll love me anyway!

Yesterday we spent a lot of time working in the yard. I planted a few more things, DH worked on the waterfall, and we got a patio set! YAY! We ate dinner out there tonight. We put the table in the "notch" of our house because it gets shady in that spot around 5:00 at night. I'll take some pictures of it soon so that you can see it. The yard is really coming together. Our next big job is to landscape the area against the fence. It is full of huge weeds right now. We need to lay down some landscape fabric and rocks to keep that under control.

The New Haircut

I couldn't stand the long hair anymore! So, last night I finally made the time to go in for a haircut.

DS took the picture for me. He did a good job (it's a little fuzzy, but who cares). I'm really enjoying having the kids around during the day. I feel like I'm reconnecting with them in ways that don't happen during the busy schoolyear.

This is the picture I took in when I got my haircut:

My hair had grown really long, so when the stylist looked at the picture she said "You're not messing around, are you?"

Granted, my version isn't nearly as glamorous looking as hers, but I really like it. Sometimes it's fun to do something totally different.

Mosaic of Me

My friend Kari did one of these on her blog (My Sweet Life) and I thought it looked fun. I had a good time looking through all of the photos on Flickr to pick the ones I wanted--I would love to get into photography someday.
Anyway, here are the "instructions" for making the mosaic (I totally didn't follow b--half the fun is seeing what results you get!).

The concept:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker.

Here are the questions and answers that go with the photos:

The Questions:

1. What is your first name? Tamara. Apparently this is some architectual masterpiece that shares my name.

2. What is your favorite food? I love Chinese food. Nothing too exotic though. There were plenty of pictures of really funky Chinese food--no thank you!

3. What school did you go to? BYU--one of the photos was a picture of a poster from BYU that said "How long is your hemline?" It went on to say "Leggings do not make a skirt longer or a dress the correct length." Pretty funny stuff. Brings back memories of the "Don't let yourself fall short" campaign that encouraged knee length shorts when I was there. I totally love BYU--but that stuff is still pretty funny because you wouldn't see it anywhere else!

4. What is your favorite color? Currently it's green.

5. Who is your celebrity crush? Josh Holloway (LOST). It's ok with DH--his is Kate.

6. Favorite drink? Diet Coke. I'd like to think that's my only vice.

7. Dream vacation? Ireland

8. Favorite dessert? I always love chocolate, but creme brulee is like heaven in a cup! And, if creme brulee's around, you're probably eating at a really great restaurant.

9. What you want to be when you grow up? As happy as I am right now.

10. What do you love most in life? Loving others and being loved. I just really enjoy my family and my friends.

11. One word to describe you. Creative

12. Your flickr name. OK, I messed this one up, but I didn't want to lose my whole mosaic trying to fix it (yes, I lost it once and actually started all over again!). I don't have a flickr name, so I searched "nameless". Apparently, some guy out there has a cat named "Nameless" and he takes lots of pictures of him. That's what should have been there. Oh, well.

Anyway, since this is my journal of sorts, hopefully generations to come will enjoy these little tidbits about me--maybe not, but it was fun anyway!

Super Busy Weekend!

Too bad I forgot to take my camera anywhere! I could have had some great pictures to share--oh, well. On Friday, my two oldest finished their Level 1 swimming lessons. They totally loved it--even though we froze most days. I think we only had 3 days of good weather out of the 10 days of lessons. They can both float now and are very proud of themselves. We're taking a couple of weeks off and then they will do another 2 weeks of lessons. At that point, they should actually be able to swim. Fun stuff!

Anyway, I knew that the last day of lessons was just a free swim day. However, no one told me that the free swim was for family members too. I also had no idea that the free swim was from 9 to 12. So, poor DD#2 and I sat at the edge of the pool in the hot, hot sun waving to the other two playing in the water. The pool is too far from home to just run back, so I ended up getting the wet kids in the car, racing up the street to Shopko, buying a suit for me and DD#2 in record time, and heading back down to the pool. We ended up having a great time playing together--totally worth the hassle. AND, what a bonus, I actually really like the suit I bought. Totally cute.

DH wanted to head down to Fairview for a visit with his parents and some jeeping up in the mountains. He drove his jeep, I took the van, and we headed down. We haven't spent the night there in ages because the kids just can't settle down for a good nights sleep when they're all wound up. Last time we tried, DS kept tickling DD#1 and we kept telling them to calm down or we'd head back home. Finally, DD#1 yelled down to us "He wouldn't stop tickling me and I peed a little on the bed!". Ugh. We drove home at 10:30 that time. This time they were really good. DH and I went in there to supervise until they fell asleep. I think they were totally exhausted from the jeep rides. We all came home sunburned and tired.

DH's parents rent out part of their land to farmers who need to keep livestock somewhere. Right now they have horses. I rode out on the four wheeler with Uncle Jon to feed them some carrots. There was one that really, really enjoyed our company. If we would move away from it to look at something else he would slowly work his way over to us again. He liked to be so close that he was almost touching us. It was really cute--wish I had a picture of that!

Cousins (of another sort)

Well, my parents all got back from Ireland safe and sound. They all had a great time. My Dad and Stepmom said that whenever they told someone their last name was "Mundy", people would say "Oh, have you heard of the singer by that name?". Turns out he sings his own version of an Irish folktune called "Galway Girl". It is a totally fun and catchy song. Give it a listen!

http://www.bebo.com/FlashBox.jsp?FlashBoxId=1583608575&FlashViewType=Personal&MemberId=450618348

Anyway, turns out that while my parents were gone, I rented P.S. I Love You to watch. DH has been swamped with freelance work, so I took the opportunity to watch some chick flicks while he was busy on the computer. When I listened to "Galway Girl" I immediately recognized it from the movie. It was kind of one of those wierd ironic connections. Interesting.

When my parents got home, they received a call from my little brother's widow. She told them that it was getting really crowded in the house she's in and as much as she hated to, she needed to get rid of one of the dogs (one was my little brother's, one was hers). My parents said they would love to have Bridgett. It's kind of like having a little piece of Dan back. Bridgett is a corgi just like my Smuckers. Don't they make cute cousins? This one's Bridgett:

And this one's my Smuckers:

My love of corgis all began with this book by Tasha Tudor that I had when I was growing up:

Notice the corgi in the lower left corner. They were all through the book, and I always thought they were so cute. Many years later, when my little brother got married, he called to say they had bought some dogs. He told me that he had driven many hours to get a Corgi. I thought it was pretty cool that we were both drawn to the same breed because we had never discussed it before. So, after his accident, I saw corgi puppies in the paper and convinced DH to drive me down to Nephi to "at least take a look". Well, how can you pass up utter cuteness? I was a little nervous when we first brought him home, but now I couldn't imagine not having him. He's the perfect little dog (except for the shedding!)