Guilty Pleasures

Those of you that know me well know that I am an incredibly task-oriented person and leave myself with very little relaxing time, if any. I haven't watched a movie in what seems like years and I never really go out with friends or anything like that. Honestly though, I really do take pleasure in the everyday 'chores'...cooking, cleaning, organizing, gardening, folding darling girls clothes, you know what I mean. You've gotta do it, you may as well enjoy it! If I could be a stay-at-home mom I would be, and I would revel in every moment. I digress, back to my point. Although I don't have much playtime, I do have a few very small guilty pleasures that I treat myself with (ok, the occasional episode of Girls Next Door), but I have found a new and favorite guilty pleasure that has become a small obsession. Something I think about as I'm trying to finish up the dinner dishes as fast as I can (one-handed, still can't get my right hand wet!), something I think about as I sit in stressful meetings at work (yes, went back on Tuesday), and something I look forward to just having a few short minutes to indulge in as soon as I can sneak away and do it. It makes me feel good. It makes me feel young again (I'm still young but you know what I mean). I forget about all the stresses in life when I am with it, and it really brings out the inner rock-star in me. Yes, you guessed it, I am talking about GUITAR HERO III!

Santa Claus searched far and wide to find an elf that could make one in time to bring to the Francis boys. I am so glad he did. They have enjoyed it tremendously but their mother has fallen in love! If you have never played it, you won't understand but if you have, I have to brag that I am now on level 'HARD' and can 4-5 star every song on Medium. Metallica's 'ONE' in is in particular my favorite.

Seriously though, I stay on task and limit 'non-productive' time I can have, I really only play 1-2 songs (if that) a day at the most BUT what a great way to de-stress and forget about the world! If you don't have one, I highly recommend it. Speaking of, I think Weezer's 'My Name is Jonas' is calling me.......(hey wait, that's my maiden name!)

In Another's Eyes

My parents bought Easton a Digital Camera for Christmas! We uploaded his pictures over the weekend and I was just cracking up looking at them. I'm looking at pictures of things only a 13-year old would think of taking pictures of. There are pictures of burned hot dogs, quesadillas he made himself for lunch, his Wii box, Jane's shoes, just random things! A lot of the pictures however, turned out pretty cute and showed different sides of the person's personality. Such as:

Brandon making some sort of 'rock on' sign...

The same from their cute cousin Hannah...

Jane Crying!...

A picture of a picture of Brandon...

My personal favorite; a picture of Jane with her diaper on backwards...

Jane signing "eat!"

Pictures of other people taking pictures (cousin Katie!)...


...and of course, the signature camera-holding picture of 'self'.

I'll look forward to more pictures through this budding photographer's eyes!

It was an Egg-cident Mom!

You know the picture your mom has of you, (or you have of your child) proudly sitting on the bathroom floor with a whole toilet paper roll unwound? Or maybe it's sitting on the kitchen floor with 8 new bananas opened and smashed into the floor. (Both of which, Easton did as a toddler!) Well, everyone has those moments with their toddlers, and last night was mine with Jane. I was making lemon bars for Eric (his favorite dessert) and had just pulled out my eggs. I turned to grab a lemon, and.....CRACK! I turn around, and that's what I saw! Yep, Jane had quickly grabbed the 18 carton of Omega-3 Brown Eggs from Oakdell Farms and dumped it on the floor! My first instinct was to quickly start cleaning it up but I knew that although it wasn't funny right that second, it sure would be when she was 16. So, I raced downstairs to grab the camera and thought I'd share! And yes, I was able to salvage 3 of them - just enough for the recipe!

Special Traditions

I know the holidays are over, but I have some friends that thought I should share some of our Christmas traditions on our blog. Hopefully one of these traditions will be something that you can add to your Christmas celebrations!


First of all, 'Ebenezer the Elf' visits our home shortly after Thanksgiving. Ebenezer is very sneaky and we have never been able to catch him or see him in person! He's one of Santa's elves that creates mischief! He checks in on the kids to make sure they're being good for Santa. Ebenezer brings strange candy, writes poems about being good and remembering that Christmas isn't just about Santa and toys. This year he did several funny things. One day he lined the stairs with candy canes, (note picture!) another night he put huge candy canes on the kids beds, one morning Brandon woke up with red vine licorice all over his blankets! And on Christmas Eve was the biggest shocker of all - he moved our Christmas tree from the front room upstairs to by the fireplace downstairs! Then he left this poem under the tree:

It’s Christmas now and I’m shedding a tear
I won’t come around again until after Thanksgiving next year.
You’ve been good kids, in my heart you are dear
I made sure to put that into Santa’s ear.
I’ll be back for more mischief, more tricks and more fun,
But for this year my spying for Santa is done.
Always remember, I’m not far away,
Because the magic of Christmas can be in your hearts to stay!

(yes, I'm brilliant, I know...) I mean, Ebenezer is brilliant!

Another fun tradition is on Christmas Eve, we make 'magic' Reindeer food. It is basically a cellophane bag with oatmeal and silver, red and gold glitter! Reindeer love oatmeal, but you must add the glitter for magic, and so the reindeer can see it through the snow!

Santa Footprints - we're not sure how he does it, but Santa leaves footprints in the house that look like this! Must be powdered sugar or flour, or something! ;)

Scoping for Santa! We keep the wrapping paper tubes, and the kids decorate them on Christmas Eve and they make great telescopes to watch for Santa in the sky!

One final tradition is that instead of candy in our Advent Calendar, we have a scripture a day. Every night, the kids pull out the scripture, look for it in the Bible or Book of Mormon and we read it as a family. They are all centered around Christ and his birth. It really helps them (and us) remember what Christmas is really about...celebrating the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ!

I hope some of these traditions are something new and different that you can do to make your Christmas season even more special! If you have any fun traditions to share, please comment, I would love to hear what they are!!

The 90/10 Rule, Happy 20 and 2008!

I had (another) Dr. appointment this afternoon. Can you say ouch? Without getting too graphic, he had to pull out the surgical scissors and cut some of the old skin and stitches that are separating from the new skin that is slowly forming underneath all the injured areas. This is on my index finger; my middle finger is still too icky to touch. I wanted to be the usual tough girl, but holy cow feeling someone pry sharp metal underneath a huge sore scab and baby sensitive skin and try to separate the two does not feel good! I seriously flinched so hard Eric and the Dr. started to laugh! I started to laugh too and was like, is this REALLY necessary? I mean come ON it will come off on it's own when it's ready, right? Well turns out it really wasn't ready but it was too late so he just cut off part of it. Now on top of everything else I have a chunk of raw skin on my index finger and can see the holes where the stitches were and it's throbbing and stinging so bad I want to scream! Why am I writing all this with my tired left hand? No one wants to read the details of my personal pity party! I just get frustrated after my Dr. appointments - partly because it flares up the pain but also because it makes me face the reality of what happened. BUT...Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% what you do about it. So I'm trying my best to stay positive and do everything extra I can research and think of that speeds healing. I'm even taking these 'magic' herbs (no, not that one, never tried that for the record...) and using a 'magic' cream that supposedly is pretty amazing at how it can help regenerate tissue and stuff...if you know much about herbs you're probably thinking, "I hope it's Dr. Christopher's BF&C...) yes, it is! I'm also still searching for the meaning or message in all of this. If you have any thoughts, by all means let me know. In the meantime, Happy 20-months old to Jane today! She is such a sweet and cute princess and we are so incredibly lucky to have her!

Happy New Year!

Can you say blackmail? There's no better way to ring in the New Year than a Guitar Hero III party with your family! As we speak there's 5 minutes to go and we're all cracking up because my brother did an encore to 'My Name is Jonas' by Weezer, (his last name IS Jonas, my maiden name..) He'll probably regret this in the morning. Maybe not quite blackmail material though, because it was all his idea. Click the video below, you'll understand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahyu3m1ewUo

Pros and Cons and Props

Pros and cons to having my right hand out of commission:

Cons:
-Can't do dishes!
-Can't change Jane's poopy diapers! (easily, anyway)
-Can't give Jane a bath
-Can't DRIVE
-Can't pick up Jane with my strong arm
-Can't do my hair!
-Can't do my makeup! (Easily, that is! Try for me to put on Mascara with your left hand and good luck!)
-It takes forever to get dressed (It's impossible pulling up pants with one hand! And most of my shirts I can't wear because the sleeves are too skinny for my cast!
-Couldn't wrap my Christmas presents!
-Can't type easily and use the mouse! This is taking forever although my 5 left fingers are getting faster.
-Can't open JARS or bottles or anything that requires 2 hands and some strength!

Pros:
-Can't do dishes!
-Can't change Jane's poopy diapers!
Oh, wait - those were supposed to be cons. I guess they're a little of both.

People frequently ask me when they see my cast, "Oh, no, are you left-handed, I hope?" "I am now!" I say. I'm at about 3rd grade level with my handwriting. Pretty impressive how the mind can work things out when it has to. The first 2 weeks I was pretty useless with my left hand and now I've figured ways around certain things. Writing thank-you letters to the wonderful women in the Relief Society that joined together to make meals for us the first week of the accident was a joke - it took me all afternoon and my 7-year old could have done better! Eric offered to write them but it just didn't feel sincere to me to have someone else write my thank-you letters. I could have typed them but that too, felt insincere. (Thanks again and props to Sheila/Richelle, Ruth, Carol, Colleen/Cynthia and Becky!) My great visiting teacher Becky came and painted my good nails and sister-in law Anna brought me dinner and came to do my hair! And of course Audria, who helps me take care of the kids, what would I do without her?
Some days are better than others - I go from being very angry and upset about the situation and the pain, and then others I feel very lucky and blessed that it wasn't any worse. I feel burning, stinging pain in my fingers 24/7 but I keep telling myself to feel grateful for it because it's much better than the alternative of having no fingers or sensation at all! Phew- my fingers are tired!

Patients and Patience

Just what we wanted to do the day after Christmas.....yep! You guessed it- sit in the waiting room at the Dr's Office for 1 1/2 hours! Do you think that's why they call us 'Patients' or is it 'Patience'? Especially when all I'm going to hear is, "Yep, your fingers look like two badly charred pieces of black chicken!" Poor Eric is walking Jane up and down the hall for the 35Th time trying to keep her entertained. He's the one with patience! I hope this long appointment isn't keeping him away from his own patients at his office!

OK, after our hour and a half wait, Dr. Patten said they are healing well but still have a ways to go. Ouch - my fingers always burn and sting worse after the Dr. messes with them. I still did not look at them. Can you say denial? I do know now however that I've been having what's called 'shadow' or 'phantom' pains. The most painful area other than my fingertips is the right side of my middle finger. I did learn today to my shock that the part that is injured most is from the tip to half way down the first knuckle. The most pain I feel though, is below that. The good news is that the part I've been feeling isn't even injured but the bad news is that means the part that is injured at the top is so bad that there is no nerve sensation at all and that creates the phantom pain all around it. He prescribed physical therapy at TOSH - oh boy! More Dr. appointments and even more waiting! He needs to prescribe for me more "Patience!"


As if this appointment wasn't enough for poor Eric to sit through - he also was in the emergency room at the same hospital or 4 hours early this morning with Easton! He's had the flu and he woke us up at 6am with terrible chest pains - scared the heck out of both of us. He was having a hard time breathing and grabbing his heart in cramping pain. We had him drink another glass of water and Eric took him in. I was so nervous for him and wanted to go but the other kids were still asleep. After running every test imaginable on him it turned out to be just what we thought - plasma dehydration and the pains were his intestines and stomach. That's the kind when water won't even help - believe it or not after them giving him IV fluids they said Gatorade is the best thing for him. Eric brought him home just before 10am to turn right back around and go to his office to take care of his own patient at 10am, then to turn back around and bring me here to this appointment! You know it's been a long time waiting when I've typed this whole thing on my phone with my thumbs. 6 hours at hospitals before lunch the day after Christmas...Eric gets the 'patience' award for the day!

Christmas Eve is....

We usually spend Christmas Eve evening at my parents home in Park City. When we left today to head up there, we were in the midst of a complete blizzard! Needless to say, we headed back home and enjoyed an evening making soups, wassail, and christmas goodies. Here's a quick video with some of the fun moments! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJgeuUK_5o4

What does Santa Say?

My Christmas Angel

We woke up to quite a lot of snow this morning in Utah! What a beautiful morning! Eric took the kids to school in a hurry so didn't have time to snowshovel the driveway. I heard a strange noise a while later and to my surprise, my awesome Uncle Scott took it upon himself to do off my snowy driveway! What an awesome Uncle!!


Jane loved to watch him!

God Whispers Before He Speaks

....and next time He whispers to me, I'm gonna listen.

I've been meaning to blog about my accident for the last week, but to put it mildly, it's been an incredibly rough 8 days. And, typing with 5 left hand fingers really blows. I'll rewind to the week before this happened just to explain.

As if getting ready for Thanksgiving wasn't hectic enough, the weekend was incredibly busy (but fun! Go Cougars!). The next week at work was just as crazy; constant meetings, not a minute in between each one to catch my breath. I mean literally, not 5 minutes to spare from one thing to the next. We all experience that, right? The evenings were even booked solid; client skating party Wednesday night, (see blog below!) kids piano and visiting teaching Thursday night, Bonneville Christmas Party Friday, (see below also!) then crazy Saturday with a birthday party, Brandon's indoor soccer game, a funeral in Bountiful, and a United Way Future Leaders dinner at The Depot. Sunday with church, church again for a family baby blessing in Provo, and Easton had a Scout Court of Honor that evening at Church. During this whole time, I kept second guessing myself...feeling and knowing I had to slow down soon and that I was doing too much. I needed to look at my calendar and just start deleting things so I would slow down. Say no once in a while. These were Heavenly Father's whispers to me.

Back to the hectic work week. Don't ask how late I'd been up doing laundry, cleaning, and all the other fun responsibilities we all have to do. Monday and Tuesday were crazy as usual. The KSL Radio Sales team had a service project planned at the Happy Factory in Sandy building wooden toy cars for needy kids. It sounded really fun but I wasn't planning on going - I had reports and proposals due that afternoon as well as appointments in between and besides, I did my service project the week before at the food bank. And hey, I needed to delete things off my calendar and I was feeling like I should not go with all that I had going on. That morning I got the phone call asking if I was planning on going and would I go, and so being the obliging crazy woman I am, I rearranged things and went. I wondered why I was ignoring myself and when was I going to listen to Heavenly Father's whispers to "Slow down". I think it was Oprah I heard say, "God Whispers Before He Speaks."

At this service project, the Happy Factory employees set all of us up at different workstations (power tools) working on the wooden cars. I was put on a router saw, routing hard edges off of the cars. I was having fun and being incredibly careful and did this for 20 minutes or so. I was focused and envisioning the kids that would end up with the toys. I was pondering how much less stressful a job like that would be. (sh-yeah!). I was proud of the work I was doing and thinking I should add woodworking expert to my resume (lol). Then in a split .0005th of a second, the router caught a knot in the wood, sucked in the car and....to spare you the gory details, let's just say the middle and index fingers on my right hand lost the battle. I mean, they're still there, but will never be the same I'm told. Without being too gross, from what I know so far it took a good chunk of the right side and underpart of each finger including some bone. Ok that is gory, sorry. (you're wincing and grabbing your fingers, aren't you!)

There's lots of details in between I'll spare you, but 2 hospitals and 55+ stitches in surgery later, I don't know the extent of the lasting damage and probably won't for a while. All I could deal with at the hospital was the pain - and believe it or not after the shock wore off I stayed relatively composed and never cried. But when the Doctors were discussing details with anyone I made them talk outside the room. I just didn't want to hear the extent of the damage. At the end of the long and horrible night after the hand plastic surgeon finished piecing my fingers back together as best he could, he said to me, "You're one tough girl. I know that pretty hands are important to girls, and I'm sorry you won't have that anymore."

SCREW THAT! I'm hoping to prove him wrong over time, I just don't know how yet. And right now, I still don't wanna know exactly what's wrong. I sure as heck can feel it, though.

Needless to say, I've slowed down. Actually, I've come to a complete STOP! I haven't left the house in 8 days except to go back to the hospital for the Dr. appointments. I have no idea yet how long my recovery will be. All I know is, God Whispers Before He Speaks. So I'm listening from now on. I'm just sayin!

PS. Just to clarify. I'm not trying to say God wanted my fingers hacked up to slow me down and teach me a lesson. I'm just saying things happen for a reason and you need to find the lessons in them. After the last 8 miserable days, that's the only logical one I can think of.

Hanging Sweaters 101 with Rachel Coleman

You won't understand most of this post unless you're a Signing Time fan and laughed like crazy with us in the weekly chat tonight (Wednesdays from 7-9pm).

But, I will teach you what we all learned from Rachel tonight.....how to hang a sweater!

1.) Take your sweater and fold it in half so it looks like half a sweater
2.) Turn it so the arm pit is facing you, you are looking at an upside down V
3.) Now drape the arm and the body on one side of the hanger while the neck hangs on the back side
4.) The hook of the hanger is in the armpit V

5.) Sweater perfection!

HERE is how it's SUPPOSED to look:

How to hang a sweater

This is a great tip from her wardrobe expert Marcus!
Anyway- I was trying to figure it out during the chat and quickly posted a pic to see if I was right...

First try: NOT RIGHT (go easy, i'm disabled!)

2nd try: NOT QUITE

THIS IS RIGHT!! (Thanks, Rachel!)

Ok, I think i finally got it. The 3rd time is a charm!Thanks Brandon (7 years old) for taking the pictures and thanks Rachel for the tip! Now, if I could just use my hand I'd go hang all my sweaters this new way!

It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

At KSL Radio, FM 100, and 103.5 The Arrow, we have a Client Christmas Family Skating party every year in downtown Salt Lake City at The Gallivan Center. We enjoy an evening with our coworkers, clients, and their families for a night of all things Christmas...Santa and Mrs. Claus, Hot Cocoa, Chicken Soup, Christmas cookies, Ice Skating, Christmas lights, and Christmas music (on FM100 of course!) This was my 6th year at the party, and it has become a Christmas tradition and memory for the boys. Brandon's first time ice skating was at this party 6 years ago and this year's party was Jane's first time ice skating!

Jane absolutely loved ice skating! She cried and cried when daddy's back couldn't take it anymore and it was time to stop! (sorry, the video is sideways)

Brandon has only ice skated once a year at this party and is so good!

It's fun to look at pictures of the past with the kids at this party to see how they've grown. Here's last year:

...and the year before that (2005) Same Santa and Mrs. Claus, pregnant with Jane, same glasses, and I was wearing the same sweater as this year. How tacky - I hope no one noticed...lol.

...and the year before that! (2004).

Another Christmas tradition for us is Bonneville International's (KSL's parent company) Christmas party. It was last Friday night at Little America. We especially love it because President Hinckley attends and speaks to us during dinner...what a treat! There is also a musical performance and I've been able to discover my favorite Christmas artists like Peter Breinholt and Ryan Schupe that way!

It's officially December....

What's my favorite Season? All of them. Today was positively the most beautiful snowstorm I've seen since I lived in Park City. The snow fell straight and blanketed everything so perfectly. The Christmas lights look so beautiful sparkling light and colors through the snow! I was amazed at how perfectly draped everything was, and took some pictures when Brandon and I went out to build a snowman!

Changing seasons in Utah is amazing. These pictures show you the difference in seasons with just my front porch!

December

April (tree not quite leafed out yet)

Backyard - December

Backyard - May!
We ran out of light before we could get a snowman finished. We got a late start because we had a crazy day...a birthday party, soccer game, a funeral, and a United Way Future Leaders benefit dinner downtown. Hopefully tomorow sometime after church, driving to Provo for Eric's cousin's baby blessing, visit teaching and Easton's Code of Honor for Scouts, we'll work on finishing the snowman. Somehow I think I should be in bed instead of sitting at the computer. I need sleep!