The last two and a half weeks

The last two and a half weeks have been busy ones. Here are just a few things that happened:

• I sent my CEO and President on a business trip and one of them forgot to take their cell phone.
• Drove to Bountiful to celebrate Caleb’s birthday and had dinner with my family
• Babysat Lauren and Emily while their parents went to the theater (Emily was in pretty good spirits considering she had an ear infection.)
• Drove to K-town for a wedding reception
• Spent 6 hours weeding and planting for a Mother’s Day present (I was sore but it was totally worth it)
• Manned the information booth during a two day conference put on by my company (7am is not a good time for me to be in charge of giving others information)
• Set up 30+ meetings for my two bosses
• Painted (and mailed) a bowl for my newest niece
• Organized personal correspondence from my great, great grandfather to my great grandfather (Binder #2 of family history is underway)
• Printed off some new wallet size pictures of my nieces and nephews for my purse (I love that my dad and siblings have blogs so I can find recent pictures of high quality)
• Began organizing two more business trips for my boss (Germany and Scotland anyone?)
• Had a cold along with allergies (a whole box of tissue was used)
• Deep cleaned my kitchen, bathroom, and living room
• Wrote a letter to a sibling
• Bought a set of Oneida silverware for myself (a woman my age should have real silverware)
• Listened to three books on tape while driving and organizing letters (Sarah Vowell and David Sedaris are awesome)
  
• Planted flowers in my small patch of ground by my townhouse (the soil was like concrete so we’ll see how they do)
• Went out to dinner with friends
• Did all the things I regularly do each day (sleep, eat, work, drive, etc)
  

Three new bowls

So, as you scanned this post, you may have noticed that there are only pictures of two bowls, despite the title clearly saying that there are three. This is because I forgot to take a picture of Lauren's bowl before I gave it to her. As you may know, dear reader, I have decided to make a gift for each of my darling nieces and nephews. I made Sidney and Wyatt cups, for which I received a great phone call this morning. (Sidney and I talked for ten minutes before I realized that I was going to be late for church. She is so funny and smart.) Anyway, back to the whole three bowl vs two bowl situation. Yesterday morning Lauren called me. She was staying with her Nana and Poppy while her parents went on a date. Due to the weather, and her extreme love of me (the aunt said humbly,) they had decided to come down to Orem to visit. After they arrived we went straight to the library, which is the hottest place in town for my nieces and nephews. It turns out they were having a Cinco de Mayo celebration with dancers, so we stayed to watch. Afterwards we wandered around while Mom called Aunt Diane and Uncle Larry to see if they wanted to join us for lunch. We ended up at Mama Chu's, a mexican restaurant. Lauren ate the chips and salsa, which were actually pretty spicy. She said that she liked it, despite her runny nose and eyes. She then ate a good amount of rice and beans.
After lunch we stopped by Jeff and Heathers to see the home improvements. Heather is such an amazing designer. I then thought it would be nice to stop by Color Me Mine to see if my newest creations were done, which they were. One was a bowl for Tanner and the other was a bowl for Lauren. A picture of Tanner's is in this post but I was not able to get a picture of Lauren's yellow and orange bowl before it was sent home with her. The third bowl, pictured below, is from a Family Home Evening activity we had last week. Our singles ward invaded Color Me Mine and we all painted on the ward's dime.
After picking up the bowls with Lauren and my parents, we strolled through the Riverwoods were Mom proceeded to have a pretty bad allergic reaction to the Juniper Trees. I had no idea she was so allergic to them. We made it down the the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, where Poppy bought us all some chocolate. We returned to my house and I received some good gardening advice from my parents and Lauren got her diaper changed. All in all, it was a great way to spend a Saturday.

(As a postscript to this blog entry, it is important to note that the order of my creation does not in any way show a preference towards one niece or nephew in comparrison to another. Also, it's important that all my siblings know that these dishes are microwave and dishwasher safe.)

Babysitting Lauren

On Thursday I went up to babysit Lauren. We had a great time. Lauren helped me take a picture of her mommy and I managed to get a pretty good picture of John, Lauren, and Dad. After wonderful meal made by Jennifer, all the other grown-ups left for the theater. Lauren and I took a walk around the block. We saw a dog, at which Lauren barked, and stopped to look at some rocks. Even though it was kind of cold, she wouldn't keep her mittens and hat on. Every time she ran, she said "fast." It started to get really cold so we went back home. Lauren and I then ate some bread, sang, played the piano, read books, and I chased her around. After a very messy diaper, I got her ready for bed. She now brushes her teeth (sort of.) She helped me read Goodnight Moon, Goodnight Gorilla, and The Going to Bed Book. She was pretty tired so it only took her about five minutes to fall asleep. I then had a hard time staying away. It was another wonderful night.