Halloween

'Twas the Night before Halloween, 10/30/07, 8:50pm, just flew home from Disneyland.

Mom: "Brandon, let's go get your Darth Vader costume ready to go so in the morning you'll be all set for school."

Brandon: "But Mom, I don't want to be Darth Vader anymore, I want to be a JEDI MASTER like I was in DISNEYLAND!"

Mom: "But Brandon, it's too late. All the stores are closed and we already have your Halloween costume!"

Brandon: "Well then just call Muga (Grandma) and have her make me a Jedi Master costume!"



Well, I'm sure you know how the rest of the conversation went. A few more changes of his mind led to him wearing his brother's Karate gear the next morning. At this point, I didn't even know what I was going to be yet. And that is a carnal sin where I work. Halloween is a very, very big deal at Bonneville Radio. Primarily because it's the big bosses favorite holiday. You must show in your costume severe forethought and creativity. The past 6 years I've been everything from Daphne from Scooby Doo, Wilma Flintstone,

Avril Lavigne,

Beth the Bounty Hunter (Dog's Wife),

and a Flapper Dancer.

So of course you must out-do yourself every year but this year I just didn't have it in me. No plans with anyone else on a group theme, and just returned hours earlier from a Disney Vacation. So first thing in the morning before I entered my closet I took a big breath and crossed my fingers that as usual I can do something on the fly at the very last minute and have it turn out smashingly. Well, as luck would have it I threw on the black Ostritch cowboy boots, a leather vest, a Harley Davidson bandana, a few of my more edgy accessories and became a Harley chick.


Or Biker Mama, Biker bitch, Harley Ho, whatever you choose. It got me through the day. The hit however, was sweet baby Jane, in her butterfly costume. Pretty much the only thing I've paid full price for in my entire life because I just couldn't resist..............

What was Easton? A really scary, 13-year old boy dressed as himself. Too young to ditch trick-or-treating all together but waaaay too old (in his estimation) to actually get into a costume.

Thinking about our Children's Children

Today is Blog Action Day! Bloggers around the web are uniting to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind - the environment. The aim is to get everyone talking towards a better future. So I figured I'd join in and give just a few of my thoughts.

I frequently think about and worry about the environment. Just watch the news for 5 minutes and you'll inevitably find a news story about a huge weather disaster that can be directly linked to global warming. I get so concerned about what kind of earth we are going to leave for our children but feel helpless that I can do anything about it.

After all, I'm no Al Gore - who the Nobel committee singled out as "probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted". If you haven't seen his documentary, I HIGHLY suggest it, but it will scare the buhjezzus out of you. None of us are Al Gore. But if every person in the world daily did just a little, it would make a huge difference in turning this ship around for our precious generations to come.

The web is full of tips on how to 'go green' and ways to reduce your personal and families use. I'm just going to give a few obvious tips that don't cost anything and take very little effort.

• Turn off the water when you're brushing your teeth. (Why is it running anyway!)

• Turn OFF your automatic sprinklers! It's just as easy to keep an eye on your lawn every few days and turn the sprinklers on only water when the lawn needs it. (Water deeply and infrequently, many areas can handle less than once per week!) Many people water more on their lawns than it rains in the rain forest!! That is completely insane to me!

• Don't throw that water bottle or soda can in the garbage. Our society is so incredibly wasteful and it absolutely kills me watching someone drink a measly 16 ounces of water and chuck the plastic in the garbage can. Pleeeease recycle it. Aluminum cans take 200-500 years to decompose and plastic water bottles take 80 years! Yet if recycled they can be back on the shelf in less than 90 days!

• Plant a tree. I'm not trying to go granola on you, but it's very simple science that if every single person in the world planted just one additional tree, we could completely reverse global warming altogether.

• Bring your own bags to the grocery store - even a few help! Albertsons has awesome ones for only .99 cents and when you reuse them at some stores, you get .05 cents off per bag you reuse.
  

• When you're on a shopping spree at the mall, it's ok to have Victoria's Secret put your purchase into the huge Nordstrom bag only carrying your new pair of sexy boots.

So be kind to the earth today. Let's leave some fresh air and clean water for our precious children's children. Make one small change at a time to reduce the amount of impact you make on the environment and be concious about it. And together, it will all add up and we will make a difference.

What small change can you make?

PS. Here is a link to a fabulous article with additional ways to help save the planet from my very favorite magazine - Real Simple.

Baby Jane makes her on-stage and radio debut!

.....ok, so it sounds a lot bigger than it was. I've been involved lately with the Signing Time Live! Concert that was here in Utah on 10/8. Jane was able to be onstage as a Brown Turkey in Leah's Farm. Boy those brown eyes look SO adorable in brown! The cutest thing ever was during the performance, she got as excited as I've ever seen her when she looked out into the audience and saw Daddy, Brothers, Hannah, Palmer, Auntie, Abby and Ryan waving at her! (see second video below!) She squealed with so much excitement! More than when she saw Hopkins the frog onstage during the dress rehearsals! It was a fantastic show.

Her other favorite moment? Seeing Rachel, Alex and Leah backstage!

As far as her radio debut!? Once you click the link below, make sure to click 'Audio' in the middle of the page and listen to the Kid Stuff Feature that airs on my station KSL NewsRadio. Pay particular to the baby jibberjabber in the background. Take a listen!

AST Dew Tour Sick Tricks

Easton's pretty pumped right now, he got to spend the day getting his skate on at the AST Dew Tour Outdoor Festival and got to meet his skateboarding homies like:

Ryan Sheckler

...and

Bob Burnquist

...and watch sick BMX tricks.

He also got to skate away in the Interactive Skate Park and hang out with Uncle Justy who got him in.

Not to mention watch the BMX Dirt Finals from the best seat in the house, the window from my office at KSL in the 4th floor of the Triad that has a full view to the East. It's been hard for me to concentrate at work the last few days with constant loud music and BMX and FMX Motocross crazy dudes pulling stunts so high and crazy you can't believe your eyes. (ok it's been freakin awesome).

They're going back tomorrow because they've got tickets to the Skate finals. Brandon is going to love it. Sweet.

What an awesome event. It was a total throwback to the Olympics - having that parking lot East of the Triad transformed into something so awesome and the streets all around it closed for outdoor villages. Insiders tell me that it's sold more tickets already this year than ever before. Who knew there were so many BMX/FMX/Skate fans in Salt Lake.

One of these days....

Sometimes I wonder when I'll have time to do the small things. Like sit outside on the deck on a Sunday morning casually reading the paper. Or peacefully strolling through my garden snipping off the spent flowers and cutting the prime ones for an indoor boquet. Or maybe sitting outside an Einstein's Bagles chatting and relaxing with a friend. Or having friends over on a Saturday night to scrapbook family vacation photos, my main worry being which color paper I should put behind the best photo.

Sh-yeah, rrrright.

Instead, it's one thing to the next constantly, without a second to spare in between. Reminds me of yesterday. Without boring you about my crazy day at work, just know it was so intense and crazy that at one point I was running through the hall to get to my next meeting in time. The evening? Well, Brandon had a Baseball game at 6, Eric took him there because I was busy dropping off Easton to his Murray Chamber meeting at 6:30. Then I raced to Brandon's baseball game, caught the last few minutes of that. We had to pull him out early because we had to be at his Parent Teacher conference at 7pm. We met there in our separate cars and then at 7:30 Eric left to get Easton from his meeting to take him straight to his volleyball game at 7:30 of which he was 15 minutes late to. I raced with Jane to pick up everyone some dinner to eat in the car before we went in to Easton's game. Figured I'd support a client and went to Iceberg, it was the closest anyway, texted in to our text messaging system for my coupon (for yours just text ICEBERG to 57500 for 10% off!). Raced to Easton's volleyball game, we scarfed down our food in the car and ran inside to watch the remainder of his game. Home at about 8:30, barely enough time for homework, baths and all the other millions of things that have to happen in the evening. Phew. Haven't been home in over 12 hours. I'm tired and mentally exhausted but that's when it's most important to take a deep breath and get your second wind. Gotta focus on my REAL job, which is the family and keeping an organized household. I wouldn't mind the crazy evenings near as much if I wasn't completely absent from my real life at work all day.

I'll get to those vacation photos one of these days. For now they sit inside a costco envelope on my dresser and I reluctantly glare at them every time I walk by as they tug at me to say "scrapbook me! Or at least put me in an album!" Maybe I'll stay up extra late on Saturday night and do that.

Not if I want to wake up early and read the paper on Sunday morning!

Teenagers

Well Easton being 13, is starting to get a bit 'snippy' if you'd call it that. Aaah what happened to the days when he was 6 playing racecar in a bicycle helmet and fake goggles. Suddenly he's a teenager with 'tude. Seems like the smallest thing can set them off. The most recent because I won't spend another $50 bucks on yet another set of 'trucks' for his skateboard because everyone is making fun of the ones he has. Or like last night, when I said, "Do you have homework?" "Not really," he replied. "Well, no.... sort of, well.. kind of, well... maybe." "Easton," I said, "It's either a yes, or a no. Black and white. So give me a yes, or a no. Again I ask, do you have homework?" "Sort of," he replied.
Oh, they grow so fast. All in all he's still a pretty good kid. I hear boys are way easier as teens than girls. Yikes. When I was pregnant with Jane and found out she was a girl, a coworker said, "Congratulations! At least for the next 12 years, that is!"
I suppose I deserve it, I remember giving my mom a whole load of attitude. I wasn't necessarily a bad kid, just had a lot of 'tude. So I suppose what goes around comes around. (Awesome song BTW)
For now I'll chalk it up to hormones. It must be, because last night Easton also said, "I sure hope in heaven there is a whole lot of Teriyaki sauce!" Whatever that means.

The System

Ok, I admit. I'm a little weird. I love organizing, lists, checking things off of them, etc. I have a system - or routine, whatever you'd like to call it, for almost everything. If you follow the 'system', then things don't get screwed up. If things are organized and you keep it that way, they tend to stay organized; thus less chaos. With as busy as our lives are these days, running from one thing to the next with little down time in between, systems are more important than ever to keep things functioning smoothly. So last weekend, I didn't follow my usual system. Thus, the entire next week was completely screwed up.

How did it start? Well, every Saturday, I fill up my Denali with gas (Costco) whether I need it or not. This way, during the hectic work week, I don't need to stop for gas anywhere. I'm the type of person that just doesn't have time between one place to the next to stop for gas. I cut it to the verrrry last second. I know that it takes precisely 22 minutes to get to work; from my garage at home to the parking garage at the Triad Center during morning traffic. So I leave with exactly that much time and not a minute sooner. I absorb every possible second if not getting ready, cleaning something, feeding the baby, organizing mail or papers, watering plants, whatever needs to get done. At lunchtime, it takes precisely 17 minutes from my garage at the Triad to my garage at home (I usually come home to feed Jane and get her down for her afternoon nap). Anyway, I digress, back to the Saturday routine thing. So amongst lots and lots of other things, part of my Saturday consists of getting gas, cleaning the car, and grocery shopping. Last Saturday I decided to paint Jane's room. I've been meaning to do that forever. It was one of those impulsive decisions - I walked in her room, looked around and sighed at the cream walls and wanted to make the room more 'princess'. So off to Wallpaper Warehouse I went to get the Benjamin Moore / Pottery Barn Kids purple 'Lilac Haze' color that you can only get there. Long story short, 2 nights in a row up until 2am painting, it was finished. (and so princess!) To get to my point, I didn't get to Costco to get Gas. I also didn't clean out the car. I also didn't get groceries. I didn't follow the system. I paid big time every day of the next week for that.

Monday. I had lunch with a client scheduled. Nothing unusual about that-other than I have to go home to feed Jane a tad earlier which means she probably won't go down for her nap. I figured if my lunch was at noon on 45th, I could leave about 11am and that would give me enough time to head home to feed the baby, hang out for a bit and be at lunch by noon. So, 11am as planned I'm driving home and get a call from my client. "Hey Jana, my car is in the shop and I wondered if you could swing by the store and pick me up?" (The store is on Wasatch Blvd!) "SURE! Be there at Noon!" I replied (I rarely say no to anything which is a huge problem and entirely another blog). The second I hung up the phone it all hit me. "FREAK. My car isn't clean, the inside isn't vacuumed. Shoulda done that Saturday like usual." Oh well, I thought I'm superwoman, it's no big deal to swing by the car wash quick and do a quick spray and vacuum. YA RIGHT! I drive in, (keep in mind I'm in a freshly dry cleaned business suit and high heels) throw in 2 bucks, and start spraying. 11:05am. I'm a madwoman getting it done fast, realizing that not much dirt is coming off and I need the foam brush. Switch to the foam brush. Scrub Scrub all over the car. BEEP BEEP everything turns off. $hit. My car is covered in fluorescent yellow and pink soap, do I have more MONEY!? I find a stash of quarters in my purse (phew, I'm glad I followed another system of keeping all my change inside a little coin purse in my purse for emergencies). So I put in a couple quarters hoping to spray 'er down and get out of there. Nope. Need two more freaking bucks to start it again. FREAK! So I deposit $2 in quarters and get spraying again. I have only 3 quarters left. Spray spray spray, boy I'm quick in these heels but wow does 2 minutes go by fast! I SWEAR those timers go a few seconds faster than the atomic clock. It's all a big conspiracy to rip us off. I only have 1 side left. I'm thinking, wow I'm running out of time, I gotta go feed Jane FAST or I'll be late for lunch (I can't STAND being late for anything, I think it's incredibly rude to the person who is waiting). Only 1/4 of the car left, BEEP BEEP BEEP!!! CRAP! I drop the sprayer, run over to the machine, only 2 seconds left to deposit my quarter to get 25 more seconds without having to pay $2 more dollars. PHEW! Grab the sprayer, I can crank this out in 25 seconds. BEEP BEEP! WHAT? That was like, 10 seconds! I barely got to spray ANYTHING! Crap. Open the car door, get another quarter! FAST! RUN! PHEW! 25 more seconds. This is really ticking me off at this point. Spray Spray, almost done, just the tire now. BEEP BEEP! YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME! I'M GOING TO BLOW THIS PLACE UP! My last quarter. @##$@#!! Finally. I finished, looks great. Except for my freshly dry cleaned SUIT PANTS, that now have fluorescent pink and yellow car soap streaks right on my thigh!! Freak, when did I do that? Better change clothes after I feed the baby. 11:25. No time to vacuum the car. Better just shake the mat and clear out the passenger side. How the heck am I going to get home, feed the baby, and be on time? If anyone can do it, I can! 11:30, home. Where is the baby? Where's Audria and the kids? Oh yeah, I should have TOLD HER that I was coming home earlier than normal! (differing from the system!) Oh well, I guess I'll be a triple D for my client lunch and be miserable. Mean time, perfect time to change and shake out the mats in the car. There's Audria! So somehow, I got the Baby fed and was in the car, leaving for lunch, 11:45am. Pleeenty of time to get to lunch without even being late. BEEP BEEP! What? I'm almost out of GAS!?? Freak. Just my luck today. Well, I have like maybe 2 minutes to spare if the stop lights aren't bad. I'll just pull into Maverick and put in a couple gallons real quick. In the meantime, I somehow SPILLED GAS on the pant leg of my OTHER PANTS! Would someone just shoot me now? Of course it wasn't my fault, the handle was faulty! 12:06 I pulled in to pick up my client. Thankfully my car was dry and hopefully my car and me didn't smell like GAS. The client appointment went just fine, closed a nice business deal. Had to hurry though because I had a station meeting at 1:30. The rest of the day? Pretty much a blur.

Tuesday. I'll spare you most of the details, except that I spent the evening at the grocery store. Two different ones in fact, (different story) but all because I didn't do it Saturday because I didn't follow the system.

Thursday. Heading home from work for lunch to feed the baby. Realized, oh yeah, the low fuel light has been on since this morning. Ah, I've got plenty to get me off 45th. The range low light isn't even on yet! I've got at least 15 more miles! Then suddenly....my car which was going 72 MPH suddenly quits responding. Hmmm that's wierd, couldn't be the gas, could it? No way, I've never run out of gas before! After all, every car has at least a gallon in reserve that they don't even show you on the fuel light in case of emergency, right? ;) Nope. I had to think fast because my car was dying in a hurry. Left lane was too crowded and I could tell there was no way I was going to make it to the 33rd off ramp. The best I could do was the small emergency lane by the carpool lane. Then my car wouldn't move at all! And the back end was slightly stuck out in the commuter lane. Gee I HOPE people are paying attention because if one person isn't they can clip me and send my little butt right into the median and then I'm toast. Thank goodness for OnStar. Oh wait, they can't give you GAS over a satellite! (I really knew that). Thankfully my husband to the rescue. He left work, stopped by his parents to grab a gas can, ran to the gas station, hopped on the freeway and met me on the OTHER side and hopped over the median. Phew. That was a very nerve wracking 20 minutes though, every car that passed at 80 MPH blew my car a little and came clooose.

Sigh. None of this would have even happened, if I would have stuck to the system. So needless to say, I will be recommiting myself to my systems. No running out of gas next week, no 5 minute stops at gas stations, no spilled soap and gas on expensive suit pants, no near death experiences on the side of I-15.

At least Jane's room got painted!

Signing Time at the Zoo!

Jane and Brandon had so much fun watching Signing Time live at the Zoo! Baby Jane was enamored seeing Rachel from afar and even tried finger spelling her name. When Alex and Leah jumped on stage she really got excited! Brandon, Hannah and Palmer were so focused on the performance and were signing and singing everything along with Rachel. We wanted to make sure to get a picture of Jane with Rachel and Hopkins, and were so excited to do that! We stood in the meet and greet line and the closer we got to Rachel the more Jane started to realize she wasn't watching a video. The moment we had been waiting for, Rachel picked up Jane for the picture and what did Jane decide to do?

BE SCARED OF HOPKINS! REALLY SCARED! She cried bloody murder. The only other time I've seen her that scared was the Hippo at Harmon's. I should have known.

Brandon however, thinks Alex is the coolest. All I've heard about since is that Alex new his name (Eric saw Alex and told him Brandon's name and asked for this picture) & how cool his hair was. And if he lives close can he just come over and play someday soon.

The final thought from Brandon tonight, (other than that Llamas are Camels that are flat) was that Lucy is the luckiest girl in the world, because she doesn't need to walk anywhere, and has the coolest wheelchair. He said she is going into 2nd grade too, and said he wishes she was in his class, so they can be friends. He finished by saying it was the most special day of his life today!

"Sign" of the Times

Little Baby Jane is only 15 months old but has been communicating with us for some time now, using ASL or American Sign Language. She can hear just fine, and I'm sure she's right on track with her speaking skills. But we almost always know what she is thinking if she can't verbalize it yet. When she wants the ball, she signs 'ball'. When she wants more, she signs 'more'. When she is sleepy, she signs it. When she's 'freezing', she signs it (so cute).When she wants water, her bear, the dog, a cracker, cookie, banana, or 'ba-ba' (milk), we know it because she signs it. We've been doing simple signs with her since about 4 months old, saying the word and the sign simultaneously for whatever we're giving her. You feel pretty silly doing it to a baby that can't do anything but smile back at you. Then the next thing you know, they lift their tiny arm and squeeze their hand a few times, and you know they want 'milk'. It's pretty unbelievable.

We started partially because Eric's sister Emily graduated in ASL and started teaching it to our other kids here and there. It was fun for them to sign 'Dog' (slap your hand on your thigh and snap) and a few other signs. My neighbor at the same time asked if I wanted to borrow a sign language video for the day that she checked out from the library. She has a baby the same age and said she wanted to learn a few simple signs to make it easier to communicate with her baby. It was called "Signing Time" and we threw it in as we prepared dinner. As we watched it we were amazed that this mysterious language that looks so incredibly hard is actually quite simple word by word and many of the signs are so obvious! My mom noticed my kids interest in it and for Christmas bought baby Jane a Signing Time video called "Playtime Signs". Wow. Well, you know the result. Since then we have pretty much every video and not just Jane is signing now. Easton (13) and Brandon (7) are now signing and know almost every word I can even think of testing them on. Brandon will proudly show you every zoo animal there is and the accompanying sign. There is a deaf teenager in our ward and Easton can now proudly communicate with him, at least a little bit! We even can silently communicate with each other at Church - what a kick that is. So now Signing Time is played at least 2-3 times per day in the Francis household. If I need 15-20 minutes to clean the dishes or get some dinner started, Signing Time is just the thing for Jane. She kicks her little legs with excitement as soon as she sees the host Rachel pop up on the screen. And when she wants to watch the videos, she proudly makes an 'L' with her right hand by her chin and signs "Leah", the name of the girl in the video.

To our excitement, Signing Time and Rachel will be at the Hogle Zoo next Monday. Brandon and his cousins are so excited they can't hardly wait. I caught a little bit of them showing off their signs and talking about their excitement! In fact I'm taking the morning off of work to be there, and even flaking out of a very important meeting because I won't miss seeing little Jane's face when she sees Rachel in person for the world!

Although Jane's verbal communication is limited to the two words "Dad" and "Dog", her form of communication is so vast and rich, thanks to ASL and Signing Time! Thanks Rachel, Alex and Leah!