The pitfalls of renting

Well, it’s that time of year again; time to renew our contract to rent our house that is. I don’t know about anyone else, but every time this occasion comes I begin to feel stressed out, nauseous, and just a bit crazy. You see, we rent a little 3-bedroom house that is perfect for our little family and a what we pay is a steal for this area. We feel incredibly lucky to have found it, and we plan to stay here as long as possible since it will probably be many years before we can afford to buy a home in this area. Yet, the owners will only let us sign a 6-month lease at a time, for reasons unknown to me. So every six months I begin to worry- What if they raise the rent to what this house is actually worth? What if they decide not to renew our contract? What if we have to try to find a new place to live? Sometimes it all seems just a little bit too good to be true. I guess that is why I panic just a little bit every time.

So here we are, a week and a half away from our contract expiration, and our landlords have not given us an answer yet about resigning for another six months. It’s cruel of them, really. There seems to be some financial things going on with them that we don’t entirely know all the details about. So for now, they want us to go to month-to-month.

Gah! Now I am going to have to go through this drama every month?!

I love this little house. So much so that I would offer to buy it if we had the money. I love our neighborhood, our ward, how close we are to everything. We have made this house a home and I don’t want to leave.

Such is my current state of mind. Add this one to the top of the “things that stress me out” pile.

Why a trip to the carwash can be the most exciting part of a 1-year-old’s day…

The sights:

The $0.01 pony rides:



The free popcorn and lemonade:


The fun benches to climb on:

Twilight

Many of you will remember my opinions after reading the first three books in the Twilight series. Needless to say, I was not all that excited to read the fourth book when it came out recently. But it is amazing what lack of reading material can do to you. I grudgingly gave in and read the fourth book.

I LOVED it!

I promptly went back and read all of the three prior books again, and I actually enjoyed them this time. Do I still think them a bit juvenile? Yes. But can I appreciate them despite the overkill on descriptions of how beautiful Edward is, and despite how neurotic Bella is? Absolutely. Finally, I liked them.

Of course that means I had to see the movie when it came out this last weekend. I went to the theater with reservations. In my opinion-there are very few movies that stand up to the books they are derived from. I was not hopeful that this one would be all that great. In fact, I thought it would be downright horrible. But it was a great excuse to go to the movies with a big group of women friends (sans kiddos).

My opinion? Eh.

It wasn’t as terrible as I thought it would be, it also wasn’t fantastic. Would I see it again when it comes out on DVD? Probably. Would I buy it. Nope.

I must say one thing though-the music was awesome! I really want the soundtrack!

Thanks ladies(and Sam) for a fun time at the movies.

70 Degrees in November

Yet another reason I love it here.

We got to go to the little farm at Rancho San Antonio last Friday for playgroup and I thought I would share some photos from our adventure, although there are not a whole lot of my little munchkin because she has become a bit annoyed with the camera-wielding-mommy routine lately and will not look at me when I am behind a camera.

First, I must say that this particular playgroup was made even more fun than usual by the fact that:

a) The weather was a gorgeous 70-75 degrees. So while Reese is wearing a long-sleeved shirt in these photos, I was tempted to take it off and let her run around bare-chested because I was worried she would get too hot.

b) The farm is 1-1 1/2 miles walk on trails into Rancho, so we got to combine a nice 3 mile round-trip exercise walk, letting our children socialize and see a bunch of animals, lunch in the barn at picnic tables, and 2 hours of good mommy chat time. What could be better?

I vote we go here again ladies!

This is Reese and her cousin Sophie. Sophie is 14 months, Reese is 18 months. Reese is gigantic, yes?


What is it about boys and things with wheels?

And girls for that matter, I guess:).





Can you see the family resemblance?

Thanks for a great day Kim, Sophie, Jen and Luke!

A quest for the perfect sippy cup

Yes, I know. Boring Mommy-me is about to write a post about something as mundane as sippy cups. But really? This has been plaguing me for months and I must share my triumph at having finally found what I was looking for.

For those of you who have children of a certain age, you will understand the difficulties of finding certain items that work best for you. Finding the right highchair, the right shoes, and the right sippy cup can become an ordeal.

It pains me to admit this, but Reese still drinks out of a bottle before each nap and before bed. The rest of the day I attempt to give her liquids via a sippy cup, but she usually enjoys playing with the cup rather than drinking from it, whereas she will drink 6 oz of soy milk in 5 minutes if it’s in a bottle. Our pediatrician assured me that there was no huge hurry to break her of the bottle, as long as she was getting the liquids she needed that way, it’s not a big deal. I, however, was embarrassed that my now  1 1/2 year-old daughter still needed a bottle. Something had to be done.

I have now purchased a total of 7 sippy cups, each one slightly different, hoping that each one would hold the secret to making Reese drink and therefore making the bottle days a thing of the past. Alas, Reese could not be wooed by fancy handles, fun straws, colorful designs; and so the bottle won for a time. Until I finally found the winner! Reese’s friend Luke has a set of sippy cups that are amazing- straw, leak-proof, just the right size, good shape for tiny hands to hold onto, comes in a set of two. I found out that Target was the place to find them. And so (after 6 or 7 times of checking Target and them not having the ones I was looking for, go Target!) I finally own the holy grail of sippy cups.

And Reese loves them.

Whew! Check that off my list of things to do. Tonight… I’m taking out the bottle.

Dodging a bullet

I suspected something like this may happen, though I didn’t expect it quite this soon. I am so incredibly happy that Sarah Palin will not be a heartbeat away from the Presidency.

Fox News is commonly known as being a very, very pro-Republican news source, just as NBC is very pro-Democratic. It’s a shame because both stations insist on calling themselves fair and balanced, but consistently report in just one direction.

But I have to hand it to Fox News.  When presented with these juicy tales of Sarah Palin and the bullet we as a nation dodged, they decided to actually air them.  I don’t want to spoil anything, but…. Sarah Palin didn’t know the nations involved in NAFTA and thought Africa was a single country rather than a continent. No joke.

And remember, this is the woman who, while running for VP, thought the VP’s role was to be in charge of the US Senate.

As I said before, I used to be a McCain fan.  But picking her and then running his campaign the way he did lost my vote.  And now we have to clean up the mess that McCain’s attacks made of the confidence in our new President.  There are some people I know that actually believe Obama is a terrorist.  Incredible.

Casting My Vote

Those of you who know me, know that I rarely (if ever) get involved in politics. I have always felt ill-qualified to judge the ability of a person to rule our country. In the past I always figured that my one little vote didn’t matter that much, so why bother?

Today was my first time voting. Ever. I’ve never even been registered to vote. Sad right? I’m 25 years old and I’ve never acted on my right to vote in this wonderful democracy that we live in. That all changed today. I won’t go into the details and I won’t talk about the candidates that I voted for or the issues I supported. I will only say that today it feels good to be an American.

I feel good about the issues and candidates I supported and I know that the person I voted for to be our president will be an amazing president if elected.  For the first time in my life I feel inspired by a presidential candidate. I feel that he has the real power and drive to make changes for our country for the better. I feel that he will be the best president that we have had in a long time. And maybe my one little vote didn’t make a whole lot of difference, but it made a difference in me.

Edit: This is now Mark writing.  I voted Obama and am proud of it.  McCain is not the same McCain he once was.  It’s like he sold his soul to get some more votes (and thankfully it backfired).  Palin was a terrible choice and is in no way prepared to be President.

But even without them being a poor choice, I think Obama will be a truly great President.  He’s intelligent, well-spoken, a great family man, and has long been involved in community service.  I don’t share his views on all issues, but I can say the same for McCain. Four years ago the vote was between the village idiot (Bush) and a scumbag (Kerry).  Thankfully, I’m excited about a candidate this time.

It’s a long video, but watch it with an open mind and be prepared for things to improve over the mess our country has been in for the last 8 years.