what the...?

When I went grocery shopping on Wednesday night, the gas station in the parking lot listed the price for unleaded at $3.86.

When I drove by the same gas station on Thursday afternoon, the price was $4.08.

22 cent increase in less than 24 hours?! Did this happen everywhere?

For some reason, now that gas is over $4 a gallon, I feel kind of panicky. Like I don't want to drive anywhere unless I absolutely have to.

the finished product

My goal over the next few weeks is to finish a bunch of projects that have been sitting around my house unfinished (some for over eight months). I have this problem where I get all excited to start a new project and then get burnt out when I realize I can't do it perfectly the first time. I need to get over that. Thus the push to finish everything, perfect or not. I can do it...right? (I'm going to chronicle my progress here so as to add some accountability, if only to myself.)
Project #1 finished: A crochet bag for Jon's new Macbook. (I'm obviously not doing these in chronological order because I started this one most recently and finished it first- mostly because Jon needed it quickly.) I started with the idea that I would use up some cool brown and black wool yarn leftover from making hats and few months ago, instead of buying anything new. I'm really bad at trying to gauge how much yarn will make how much product. So after I did that one big brown section and saw that I was almost out, I panicked and decided to add the green wool (of which I had recently bought a bunch on clearance) in small increments with the remaining brown and black. As you can see, the green sections started to get bigger and bigger until I finally ran out of both brown and black and had to finish everything up in green. I think it turned out kind of ugly, but Jon thinks it looks cool (and has even gotten some compliments on it since) so that's all that really matters. The inside lining is just three of those craft foam sheets hot glued together to form-fit the computer. Stitched together the yarn and lining in a few place, sewed on a button and presto- a laptop bag!

rear view (this probably should have been the front, more interesting stripes)

interior view

cheese curls

Much to my astonishment, Maryn agreed to sleep in sponge curlers so she could have curly hair like Princess Giselle. I didn't think she'd go through with it and actually sleep on them. (I remember sleeping on them as a child and it was not very comfortable.)

But she did it with no complaint! When I took them out the next morning, the curls were so tight, they stayed right next to her head. She looked so adorable.

By the end of the day, the curls had relaxed a bit. I thought they might last for a whole other day, but they didn't. She has since slept on curlers 3 more nights. So cute. Having a girl is so fun!

For more pics of the cute curls and other recent pics of the boys click here.

she won!

Thanks to all of you who helped my friend Lara out and voted for her picture.  She won!

help a sister out

If there are any of you who read my blog who don't read my friend, Lara's- please take a moment and vote for a photo she has entered in a contest. Her photo is under the label "Overstuffed with Polka Dots" and is of a little girl in a yellow dress with her mommy's black and white shoes on. You can read more about the photo here.

Please please! She could win a thousand dollars! Her photo is currently neck-and-neck with one other, so she needs your vote.

Thanks.

busted and "how many sick kids does it take...?"

At the beginning of April, over conference weekend, Maryn tumbled down our basement stairs and landed on her face. A trip to urgent care and a few facial x-rays later, we were relieved to find out that she had no permanent injuries. Her face healed very quickly and was almost totally back to normal within a week.

How did she fall down the stairs? She was sitting in time-out on the top step (which was our time-out spot of choice until that day). She was obviously mad about having to sit there and in the middle of throwing a tantrum, she must have lost her balance, tumbled down our very steep stairs, and hit the cement floor below.

A few hours later, Jonas was trying to run down our concrete front walk and fell on his face too. Not a good day for baby Stone faces.

In more recent news, a trip to the doctor's office this morning revealed that all three kids have ear infections and Seth also has strep throat (not to mention the pukes over the weekend).  One dose each of amoxicillin and motrin for each child has resulted in a sleeping Maryn and much less grumpy boys.  Thank you, Alexander Fleming.

legacy

the stats

years of marriage: 30

daughters: 4

sons: 1

sons-in-law: 2

granddaughters: 2

grandsons: 2

people who love you: I can't count that high

Thank you Dad for having the faith and courage to (be the only one in your family to) join the church, go on a mission, move to BYU and find Mom.  Thank you Mom for having the faith and smarts to go to BYU, find Dad, and (be the first in your family to) graduate from college.

Most importantly, thank you both for creating a home of faith, happiness, and love for our family to grow in.

and one more stat...

daughter who lives in another state and misses you terribly and wishes she could hug you both on your special day: 1  

(actually, that answer is probably two)

so much for originality, Jonas update, and pics from grandparents' visit

As much as we tried to select uncommon, unique names for our kids, it appears our efforts have been in vain.

When we chose to name Seth, I had only known one other Seth in my life (besides the guy from SNL- but maybe he wasn't even on the show yet). A few months ago on the news, they were interviewing a soldier in Iraq. His name was- you guessed it- the same exact name as my son (first and last). Also, there is another Seth in his preschool class, so he is "Seth S". Lame! Exactly what I tried to avoid.

When we named Maryn, I had only known 2 other Maryns in my life. Last week at the playground, Maryn was playing with another cute little girl with long blonde hair. I was calling her and calling her trying to get her to come to me so we could leave. She of course could not be bothered by my request and continued to play. When I finally walked over to retrieve her, a mother standing close by asked me how I spelled Maryn's name. She said her daughter (the little blonde one) was named Marin too, but spelled differently. After chatting for a few moments, we figured out that they were born only two months apart and share a middle name too.

I'm hoping to fair better with Jonas. So far our previous ward and our current ward each have another Jonas. So we'll see. Speaking of Jonas, I want to document some new things about him. (It's been a while since I've done that- poor third child.) He has started to run and is so fast at sliding down the stairs that I can't usually catch him. He loves to play with whatever Maryn is playing with (much to her chagrin- I'm constantly hearing her say "Mommy- Jonie's buggin' me!") especially Care Bears, princesses, and Color Wonder markers. He says 5 words- "Mam!" (mom), "Da" (dad), "eyes", "bye" (with a wave), and our new favorite "uh-oh". He also nods yes or shakes his head no in response to questions- sometimes. He has taken to throwing tantrums which entails repeatedly banging his own forehead against the floor. Sweet, sweet boy.

I've posted some pics of our awesome visit with Grandma Jeanie, Grandpa and Emily here. Thank you so much for coming out to visit us! We had such a fun time and were so sad to see you leave!