What's your favorite bad movies everyone?

This is mine, best cheese ever. What can I say, I love musicals! It's even cheesier than Grease which I didn't think was possible. I saw it for free in a theatre, bought it in the $5 Walmart bin later. It was worth every penny and not one cent more! Especially since I've watched it repeatedly when I need a laugh.

So what's your favorite show that's 'so bad it's so so good?'

You need to leave a comment, don't be embarrassed this is not a place of judgment. How could I judge you at this point after posting that picture?

oh I forgot to mention I'm doing this because I watched it a few nights ago. Lincoln sat on the floor and watched it in mild disinterest and at the end actually sighed in exasperation and yelled at me,"Mama! That was bad!" and insisted I turn on A Bug's Life, which is the continuous repeat of his choice for now. He's a smart boy, that one. :)

Flummoxed! Well maybe that's not the right term exactly...

I wanted to post quick about how I love my ward, and I'll put pictures of the new basement on too.

I guess me and Mike would be happy anywhere as long as we are together with our sons and all doing well. We have lived in 5 wards since we've been married, 6 different residences (thats a big part of why I don't want to move again for a long LONG time) and have really liked all the wards we've attended, just because we decided the church is true everywhere and you can either choose to enjoy the people you live by and be happy or you can nitpick and be a grouchy neighbor. We've had some neighbor problems and landlord problems in those places, but the spirit of any congregation is the same in our experience. And in our current home.... well, I just love it more every day. If we ever move I might be tempted to just lift this house off the foundation and drag it to a new location and simply build a few more rooms on the back of it as needed because I don't want to repaint a new place in the colors I like and then there's carpet and drapes and everything and spend endless hours deciding where to put things AGAIN. Yep, I realize a bunch of my attachment is to the people living here with me but still....

This house is where we've lived the longest and became a family, 4 years of our almost 7 year marriage. Where we went from 'Mike and very pregnant Juliet' to Lincoln, Grant and parents, and a few pets have come and gone in the meantime as well. Lincoln has spent endless hours with the 8-10 kids from next door and 2 doors down, they all just filter into each others homes and yards all summer long and they are welcome almost all day long in any of those 3 places.

We've both done church callings given talks and tried to be good neighbors. Still I am shocked by how sweet our fellow ward members can be sometimes when it seems we don't do as much to help them.
I have a friend a few blocks away with breast cancer. If anyone in this world is gonna beat it, it's her. Not only because of her strength and optimism through this, but because she really really needs to.

She has 4 sweet little boys. The oldest is ten.

On Wed. she had another round of chemo, her..... 4th of her every other week treatment I think she said. The side affects of the chemo affect her pretty mildly compared to how it does to others, so she just lays low at home with family and rests through the weekend after a "chemo Wednesday week". But this morning she called me to check on me and make sure my eye operation last week went well and I wasn't in pain. I was just bowled over that she would think of me at this time! What an angel.

For people like that (and actually there are lots of other ward members who'd do the same. Great people.) we can put up with the graffiti periodically put on fences around the corner from us, and the crimes sometimes on the news that are within a few miles. Wouldn't you put up with a lot too? I mean my goodness that left me flabbergasted.

After that beautiful story, here's my beautiful home. The Before and After pictures.

Before we moved in, some pictures Mike's mom took of the house. It was a rental property before it was sold to us.







Many improvements and decoratings were done with my Aunt Hollie's help right after we bought it, and then some improvements over the years including the recent putting up a wall in the basement downstairs so Linc has his own room, and here it is now.

I vow today....

... I'm gonna participate in facebook only with my Blackberry. Because its much slower and dosen't show all the features, and I'm more inclined to say,"Eh, why bother?"

I will get Grant's closet reorganized.

And I'll find a place for Linc to take swim lessons and get him signed up if possible.

Oh and I'll do a blogger post about something.

It's my last day of being a non driver, and I want to get lots done.
The to-do-list makes it more likely these things will actually happen.

Be back!

Look at these pictures!

In case you haven't noticed, I don't like pictures really I hardly ever post them.... or take them actually. But this time, here's some pictures! From the family party a while back, so relatives have already seen these.

Oh and surgery went fine. Painful but getting better. And most importantly, my eyes are pretty much lined up now! Success! I'm gonna spare you all a picture of it though because my right eye is gonna be all swollen and red for about a month or 2. It is aligned, but does not look pretty or normal yet. So I'm going to try to avoid pictures for a few months of myself. :)

Which pretty much chinches the decision we'd already made to not go to the reunion this Friday. No way I'd go like this! I'm doin the Facebook thing instead.

bye! Juliet

Surgery today

I have my blogspot (office) back together! And the downstairs is completed, Lincoln loves his new room! Pictures soon really because it turns out for the next week I'll have nothing but time here at home or within walking (strollering) distances. I'm going in for eye surgery today and can't drive for a week afterwards. Hopefully me and the little boys don't go too stir crazy here at home.

I have a case of adult strabismus. I've had it for who knows how long, a couple years I think. It's actually leftover from trying to surgically correct it in my early years, but I suppose it came back at some point. It does not really effect my vision, and I think it fluctuates and gets worse when I'm really tired or stressed. My left eye looks straight forward as it's supposed to, and my right eye looks outward. They do move together but don't point the same direction, it's called extropia strabismus. Like 1% of the adult population has it and can usually correct it with prism glasses or sometimes injections into the eye. I am sure glad that's not an option for me, can you imagine a needle going straight into your eye??!! (That would still be lots more minor than what my poor baby Grant has been through. Little sweetheart.)

This is a good recent photo example of me facing the camera. Remember I am stressed and tired here because I hurriedly took the boys to this ward Halloween party, and I'd just been on our 1st trip out to California that week. So it's pretty obvious in this one.


The only option for me is a surgery wherein the dr. will look at the muscles around and under the eyelids while I am sedated and either make them a little bigger or a little smaller. The Dr doing it has been Lincoln's pediatric ophthalmologist since he was an infant, and he also specializes in this surgery which is not really very complex. I go in a couple hours and will be home by tonight, it's outpatient and recovery shouldn't be so bad.

Compared to Grant's cornea transplant this is absolutely a cake walk. I had an eye exam in early December where the pediatric ophthalmologist told me the only way to fix it would be him doing this surgery, and he said I should either get it done in the next few days when he had some OR times free, or wait until Grant is much more stable post-op. And Grant is doing awesome!

Doing this right before Christmas would have been stupid. I still might be crazy to get this non urgent surgery done while I have a baby in diapers and a loud 3 year old. But I have a awesome husband, and he said he can handle the 10x a day eyedrops and the boys and all that for 3 days to a week, so he encouraged me to get it done now. So that's the plan for today. Wish us luck.

Grant talks too!

I almost forgot to mention that Grant has been talking too! About a month ago his baby cooing and babbles were distinctly more 'ah-ma ah-ma' when I was holding him. Then on mothers day while mike was handing me a baby very eager to be fed, grant clearly said "Mama!". It was awesome. Between that and mike giving me some gifts and lincolns talk, I think nobody ever had such a superb mothers day! I am quite blessed. Since than, grant now calls out "mamamamamamama" when he wants me. I love it that linc was such a daddy's boy but grant is clearly mine.

Lincoln's Talk!

Sunday Lincoln gave a talk in Primary and he was so so so cute! He was so excited to get picked to do this. His daddy gave a sacrament meeting talk a few weeks ago and Lincoln had a hard time listening to it (even more than normally for a 3 year old in sacrament meeting) because as soon as Mike got up Lincoln started telling me,"Hey, that's Daddy. Daddy talking in church. I wanna talk in church! Me talk in church now. I talk in church..." So I told him if they ask me he can take my turn. hee hee. Maybe in the next few months I'll help him "bear his testimony" sometime. Anyway, so when he was picked for Primary he was excited, showed me the card after church and said,"I'm gonna talk about prayers!" When asked what he wants to say about prayers, he'd start saying one.

So Lincoln and I that week(I did it mostly) wrote down what he was gonna say, and in sharing time he got to sit at the front, then I whispered in his ear what to say and he repeated it into the mic. He talked loud enough to be heard and did very very well!

Linc's talk

I am learning at home to say my prayers. You say a prayer before you eat, before you go to bed, at church, or just any time you want to talk to Heavenly Father. Prayers should start with 'Dear Heavenly Father....', then I say thank you for my food and family and toys and other things. Then I ask for things like help being a good boy, to sleep good all night, and sometimes I ask for more toys. I like to say my prayers sometimes by myself, with no help from anybody. I like to say prayers! In the name of Jesus Christ Amen.

I am so proud of my cute little boy.

My downstairs is coming back together after an extended perioud of drywalling, baseboards, painting and carpeting. This weekend I should have the office room put back as it should be, and once I have my 'blogspot' (Desk and computer and chair) back to normal I can do more to this blogspot.
(Oh yeah Joy no fair doing a giveaway when my computer is in a closet!)

Bye! Juliet