25 Random Things About Me

My friend tagged me on face book. That's a whole new adventure that I'm trying to figure out. Anyway, I thought I'd post them here if anyone is interested in doing the tag too.

1. I have a fettish for striped socks. It must be my inner Pippi Longstocking coming out.
2. I kissed the Blarney Stone when I was a teenager. I'm glad I did it then because I'd never do it now. Serious germ issues.
3. Everytime I go to McDonalds I order a 2 cheeseburger value meal with a Hi-C orange drink. Love their fries!
4. I love to stay home when it rains and read a good book, or watch a good movie.
5. I always judge books by their cover. If a book has been published with more than one cover, I'll check out, or buy the one I like.
6. I love movies that are set in England.
7. I love going to Primary because it's hard for me to sit in one place too long. I love the 'wiggle' songs!
8. I don't like to spend much money on clothes, but I'll spend a lot on shoes if I find a pair I really like.
9. I love to watch educational shows....PBS, History Channel, Discovery Channel, etc....
10. I hate when you get an email that says you have to forward it to 'X' number of people. I hate chain mail!
11. I love to look at the moon and stars at night....they facinate me.
12. My favorite Disney "princess" is Mulan because she's tough. She doesn't have to wait around for the prince to come save her. She takes matters into her own hands.
13. I love graphic prints.
14. I shop at Wal-Mart. Shocking, isn't it?
15. I believe that makeup, bras and nylons are torture devices created for women. Yes, I wear them all.
16. I cried when my mom's chickens were wiped out by a dog. I was shocked by the empty chicken yard.
17. I love to listen to bluegrass music. (I recommend Ryan Shupe & the Rubberband)
18. I love how honest kids are.
19. I have so many different interests, that I'm not really good at one thing.
20. I'm not sure if I'm allergic, but I can't eat seafood of any kind. My stomach has a quick adverse reaction to it.
21. I can't stand to watch people get embarrassed or made to look like a fool. That look they get on their face.....it kills me.
22. I think Bagpipe music is heavenly!
23. I like to watch foreign movies with English subtitles. I even like to watch movies that are in English with the subtitles. I think I'm deaf sometimes.
24. I'm convinced that dirty laundry reproduces in the basket.
25. I definately know that prayers are answered.

Flashback Friday

I've been going through old boxes of clothes and toys that my mom saved for me. I remembered seeing this outfit in a couple of pictures that my dad had taken when I was a baby. Sorry about the quality of the old photos. I had prints made from slides and they didn't turn out too well. I'm so grateful to have a couple of pictures taken with my Grandparents though. I have this one and then one when I was around two years old. We were sitting outside during our annual Easter egg hunt.

Grandma & Grandpa Gregson

Nick, me & Tad

Kaci holding Tad, Kevin, Jared, Adam, Olivia holding me

Chad, Karen, Paul holding Nick, Craig

LeeAnn, Clint, Melodie, Jason

10 Things I Appreciate Even More

I appreciate these things even more now that I'm pregnant....

1. a comfortable bed
2. knee highs - it really bugs me when the waistband on your nylons starts to roll down your belly
3. pajama bottoms with super stretchy waistbands
4. overalls - I know they're out of style...it just feels so good not to have anything tight on your waist
5. dresses - same reason as above
6. pickle juice - cures my heartburn
7. any long sleeved shirt I can wear without having to wear a shirt under it - I usually don't like to wear layers, but especially not now
8. McDonald's french fries - it's such a weakness
9. when Brook does the dishes - our dishwasher doesn't clean the dishes very well so we've been washing them by hand. With a big belly, you can only stand at the sink so long
10. neopolitan icecream - 3 for one...can't go wrong with that one

Getting Ready for Baby

I made a trip to Sew-N-Save to find blanket material for the baby. (I hate calling him that, but we haven't decided on a name yet.) They have THE best minky fabric that I have found. I've seen it at Wal-Mart & Joann's, but it just isn't as soft. Auburn went with me to help pick it out. I thought about doing blue with brown, but she liked the green and brown. The blanket is sooooo soft. I love it.....I want one just like it. The girls wanted me to sew them mini blanket from the rest of the scraps. They love the minky fabric too. (the green is a little darker....the flash washed it out)

I had extra blocks so I decided to make a matching pillow case for when he gets older.

This wasn't bought to match, but Mel's friend sells nursing covers and they were on sale so I got this one. It doesn't look boyish, but I figure that I'm the one that's going to have to wear it. (I sure use 'but' a lot when I write) It didn't have a band in the top so you can see the baby so I put in an old flexible headband that Mel gave me. (Sorry, I forgot to turn the picture)

I'm getting excited....this is making it more real. (is that even grammatically correct?)

I'm Feeling Old

Lauren was invited to New Beginnings last week. When they brought the invitation I sat there for a minute just to let it sink in. They probably thought I was weird, but I forgot about New Beginnings...I was just hanging on until September. Anyway, I went with her on Wednesday night. It was really nice...they did a spotlight on her which made her feel special, (she was wondering how they knew all that stuff about her :) and gave her a really pretty orange gerber daisy. She was really excited and took notes during the meeting. That made me smile....she wanted to know what all the values were and the colors for each one. I think she was surprised that I remember everything. Everyone was really nice. I'm excited for her, I remember being that age and being ready to move up to Young Women's. I still can't believe that I'm going to be the mom of a Beehive this year though.

Draper Temple Open House

We went to the Draper Temple Open House on Tuesday since the kids were out of school. We went and parked at a nearby church, watched an introductory video and then got on the bus. The girls were so excited to ride the bus....who knew?

Lauren was looking forward to going to the temple because she didn't remember much about the Nauvoo temple. The room she really wanted to see was the sealing room. I showed her some pictures of different temples in the Ensign's special Temple edition. She thought the padding on the altar looked "cooshy". When we drove up I thought the temple looked a little plain on the outside. Inside it is so beautiful!! They have sego lilies thoughout the temple.....on the ceilings, carpets, stained glass windows, etc... The wood work is amazing, and the periwinkle blue & sage green look so nice. As beautiful as everything is, the spirit is the best part. You can really feel that this is The House of the Lord, especially in the Celestial Room. We had a nice visit and the weather was nice too. They had huge tent covered walkways for when the weather is bad.

I can see where that would be really nice on days like today. It rained all through the night and a lot this morning. They may be getting snow at the temple since it's pretty high on the bench. If you get a chance to go, please take the time to do it. I've thought of going again.....I guess we'll see.

Laure looks so happy, doesn't she?

At least Grandma & Grandpa are happy

More From Shannon Hale

Upcoming book releases

May 2009 - the actor and the housewife, a novel for grownups
September 2009 - book of a thousand days in paperback
October 2009 - forest born, book 4 in the Books of Bayern series

Yeah!!!!!! This is mostly for Mel.....since we have read everything else that Shannon has written. When I finished Book of a Thousand Days, I was sad because there weren't any more of her books left for me to read. If The Actor and the Housewife is as good as Austenland....well, I just don't really know what to say. It will be something good to read while I sit and rock and nurse. Hopefully I'll be coordinated enough to do that. :)

Some Awesome Teenagers

I know you always here bad stories about teenagers and their attitudes, but I wanted to share a good story. I mentioned this back in December....the night we had our ward Christmas party, Lauren had been drawing Donald Duck like usual. She is always so critical of her own drawings, and was really down on herself that night. Brook and I were trying to build her up because she really is great at drawing. We tried to tell her that even though we were her parents, and they usually say that you're good at everything, we really thought she was a great artist. She wouldn't listen to us. We ended up going to the party and Lauren wasn't too thrilled about it so she ended up in the Primary room to draw on the chalk board. There were some teenagers from our ward in the room playing the piano with a friend. Lauren had drawn Donald Duck on the chalk board. I think the friend made a comment about how good it was and they asked her how old she was. She told them and they made a big deal out of it and started snapping pictures with their cell phones. It MADE her day!!! She told me about it afterward and said something like, "I came here thinking I was the worst Disney artist, and now I feel like a great Disney artist.

How cool is that! There are some great teenagers out there that are doing great things. I was so grateful that they took the time to make a compliment and make someone younger than them feel amazing. When she told me about it she said, "They were teenagers!" Sometimes you don't know the impact for good that you can have on someone's life. Something so simple to them, made a huge difference to her.

Boy Names

As requested....here are some boy names that I wrote down. The baby name book I have has 30,000 names in it. Sometimes too many choices are not a good thing. Brook didn't like any of these. SURPRISE!!!!! The girls can't think of anything either. Lauren would probably be happy with Donald, Huey, Dewey, or Louie. Before we had Lauren we wanted to name a boy Hyrum Michael. Hyrum after Hyrum Smith since he's my 3rd Great-Grandpa and Michael after Brook's friend that brought him into the church. After watching The Single's Ward, it made the name Hyrum sound cliche. Earlier in the pregnancy, while I was looking through the baby name book, I had the feeling that we should use Matthew in his name. I would use it as his first name, but Williams is such a common name. Mel's husband gets so many phone calls for other Richard Moore's, so I didn't want to do that. Mom had a stocking made for a Hyrum way back in the day, so Auburn thought it might be good to keep it that name. I don't know what to do. I liked Spencer, but Jared used that. I liked Glade, but Mel used that. Anyway, here's the list.....they're just the names that sounded good while I was looking through the book one day.

Andrew, Brody, Logan, Luke, Jacob, Grant, Grayson, Graham, Morgan, Oliver, Wesley

Brook's suggested the other day that we name him Brian or a B name. I wasn't sure why until he said, "Then his initials could be BMW." What a German!!! :) I can't ever get a straight answer from him when I ask about names.

Mom called the other day to suggest Fielding, which is another family name. Most of the other family names were pretty common or I didn't like them. How about I name him after my Grandpa Glade...then his name could be William Williams? ;)

Why does this have to be so hard?????

So far his name is ______ Matthew Williams. What do you guys think? Any more suggestions to consider?

3 More Months

The countdown has begun! Today I have 3 more months until my official due date. I'm hoping that I can hang on until April because no one in our family has a birthday in April. I'm also hoping to have the baby during the girl's Spring Break. They will have 9 days off in a row, and it would be nice to not worry about carpool, homework, etc... Here's hoping!!!

A Good Book

Don't you love the satisfaction you get after reading a good book? It's been a few weeks, but the last book I finished was 'Book of A Thousand Days' by Shannon Hale. I never thought I would like reading fantasy, but I love her books! Sometimes you just need to get away, and her books do that for me.

Right now I'm reading 'Saboteur' by Dean Hughes, another one of my favorite authors. Historic fiction is something I love to read.....especially WWII history. I can't seem to get enough of it. It's been a pretty interesting read so far.

Auburn started reading her first Junie B. Jones book tonight. They're pretty funny. They kind of remind me of the Ramona Quimby books I used to love when I was younger. Junie B. seems to get into a little more trouble though. I think Lauren liked them so much when she read them because she could relate to Junie B.

Anyone else read a good book lately? How about a favorite from childhood? I liked to read Beverly Cleary books and Judy Blume books. One book I really liked was The Cybil War. The main character was in love with a red haired girl that was kind of quirky, but confident. Fun times...it's amazing what kind of memories can be stirred up with the thought of a good book.