Before my head explodes...

Today was a stressful day. I sort of feel like this little hampster.


Or, this kid... Those are my National Boards in dinosaur form. Rude, I know.


This kind of encapsulates my feelings towards lots of people, things, and weather conditions lately.


As does this:


This is how I am now responding to any and every thing.


Plus, how cute is brand new Zu? Yay, I love this pup!

@ the Matt Deighton's

I had a great time in Provo/Orem with Randi and the little family in the basement. Skyping with Grandpa is so much fun...

Unless you can't see.

Best Costco purchase ever!

After some intense moose wrestling:

Terry when she was at BYU!

I love my hair...and other crayon art!

We found crayon art on the internet. Neat. I tried it with a hot glue gun, but there wasn't a lot of control and too much focus of specific streaks. Then I tried using an embossing gun. I really like the results! Check it out:





First attempt at a rainbow. It is a little arty, and by arty I do mean drippy, but I think it works.

I made this for 2.0's nursery. I used an actual picture of Heather when she was pregnant with Kendall. She isn't showing this much yet! It is blue for a boy.

There are still cakes to be made...

In honor of the birth and departure of one W. Matthew Critchley. Rise and Shout!!!

If you look at the pictures backwards, you can see the cougar leap around the cake.






My mom was responsible for the genius that was melting chocolate to make the cougars. I thank Bing image search for the cougar pictures in various stages of jumping. I was only disapointed with this cake inasmuch as Matt didn't know what it meant to "Rise and Shout" or that BYU is the Cougars.

On a side note, the cake was four layers of two blue and two "white" funfetti cakes.

Local walkers nearly mauled by pack of dogs

Well, okay, mauled is a bit strong. Though, the little jerk did bite a hole in the roo pocket of my Tahoma sweatshirt. I love that sweatshirt. It has my name on the back!

Set the scene:
Renae and I are walking three miles round trip to the river and back to our parents' house. We take Zu since she is a small dog that rarely goes on big walks. We are dressed in regular clothes and grouchy attitudes. We are traveling at a nice clip and admiring the swans in the field to our left on our return route. We perhaps just shared a witty bit of banter (that happens to us a lot, as you can imagine).


The action:
Suddenly, I look to the right to see four smallish dogs CHARGING us! Yeah, two were long haired chihuahua freaky guys, but still. The two JR terrier mix looking fellows were clearly the leaders and most aggressive. I turn back to Zuzu, who is now cowering behind us at the end of her leash (because I am a responsible pet owner and keep my smallette on a leash!). The dogs have come around Renae and myself to surround Zu and are growling and gnashing their teeth, not unlike unhappy spirits in the Book of Mormon. I reached down and scooped Zu up to hold her between Renae and myself. Since they can't get at her form the back, the bravest of the bunch comes around the front to try again. We, of course, have started walking again because we are first: serious walkers, and second: not interested in being harassed by many mini canines. This little jerk, however, is determined to get at Zu, so he jumps up teeth bared and gets a nip of me instead. He didn't make it past my pocket, luckily for both of us. Unluckily for him, my foot was waiting for his face when he landed. Renae kept yelling at his cohorts "No! No! No!" I turned to see one coming towards me again and yelled "Are you kidding me!?!" I then proceeded to shake my foot at him until I noticed a lady on the far side of the yard we were walking past.

The resolution:
She started calling her mutt pack back to her yard in very stern tones. They reluctantly went. Renae and I kept walking. Zuzu held very still and kept a very nervous demeanor tucked away under my arm.

Misadventure indeed.

Don't watch t.v. in the dark

This picture makes me glad I've never watched that show. Though, I do have to admit that I watched maybe three episodes of Jersey Floor, which is a spoof on the Late Late Late Late, come on Jimmy Falon, really? Show. It was hillarious, and stupid...much like I imagine the real Jersey Shore to be. The show, not the coastline.



Seriously though, I have not read a good book lately. Mostly because I have not read a book lately. I spend all of my spare time playing Free Cell and watching television online. I watch a lot of television. I play a lot of Free Cell.

Today, my colleugue asked me what I was doing for class. I said "I don't know. I haven't really decided yet." That was at 8:07 and class starts at 8:25. I could have told her all about the episode of Castle I watched, no problem. Blah. Don't worry though, I stole a great idea from her that worked well with what I wanted my kiddos to do, and it is fun! That is a novel idea, huh?

Patty's old, like a skeleton.

I made the bottom one from just a pan of brownies. Patty's was actually a cupcake cake that pulled apart. I didn't like the result as much, that's why I did a solid base the next time. That also allowed me to move the bones around to look more like they were crawling out. I used crushed up no bake cookies for the grave dirt the second time rather than just frosting. I thought the red eyes were a nice touch (winky face!). When I do this again, I'll make the graves longer too!