Calling All Princesses! (Giveaway)

EDITED: I need to close this giveaway earlier than planned, because the sponsor who is providing the tickets needs the winner's information earlier. I'm sorry if that messes you up, dear readers!

Bronwen and I have a girls' night out planned later this month with one of her bosom buddies. We are headed to Disney on Ice Princess Classics at Arco Arena.

I've got 4 tickets to give away to one lucky reader! The winner can choose the Thursday or Friday night show (October 29th or 30th) at 7:00 pm. The timing is perfect if your little girl is going to be a princess for Halloween--she can wear her costume to the show.

If you'd like to enter the giveaway, just leave me a comment telling me why you want to go. I'll enter you again if you tweet or blog about my giveaway (with a link to this post). My twitter handle is @relishingmother. Just be sure to include it in your tweet so that I can note it and give you another entry. You can get an additional entry if you follow me on this blog or on twitter. Leave a comment mentioning that you follow me.

This giveaway ends Wednesday, October 22nd, 2009 at 5:00 pm PDT. Winner will be announced by Thursday, October 23rd.

Those of you who aren't willing to take the risk that your little princess might miss the show, I can also offer you a discount code to get a pack of 4 tickets for $44. Just log onto TicketMaster.com and enter the code MOM at checkout. Additional tickets will be $11 each. The show runs Wednesday, October 28th- Sunday, November 1st with matinees Friday-Sunday in addition to the 7:00 pm show.

May the Force Be With You

We are big time Star Wars nerds in this family. We rarely shell out for concerts, but when we heard that Star Wars in Concert was coming to town, we knew we had to go and take the boys. What could be cooler than the music of John Williams performed by a large symphony orchestra with a live choir, lasers, smoke and flames, and a huge screen with clips from the movies?

The show did not disappoint. Here are a few shots I took as we looked at the gallery of SW paraphernalia in the concourse. We were glad that we let our kids dress up because Arco Arena was teeming with kids from a galaxy far, far away.


Here's Henry doing his best impression of moody Anakin. Actually, he was a bit hesitant when it came time for a photo op with the Dark Lord--and he wasn't happy when I pushed him into the picture anyway! Mothers--sheesh!


Still making me pay for taking pictures when he doesn't want them. But come on-- Han Solo! Frozen in carbonite! We had to have a shot of this.

It looks like I caught Henry having fun after all! He tried to fool me, but I'm too smart for him.

I have to confess that I got tears in my eyes when the show started and Ian's face just lit up with excitement. Great music always makes me a little emotional anyway, but seeing that look on your son's face is just priceless.

Now Jared and I have a hankering to watch the entire six-episode saga. As often as we watch movies, that may take us months. Movie marathons were much, much easier in our college days.

Fun, fun, fun!

I'm still here. It's been a busy past few months and I've really fallen out of the habit of blogging. Something about having a new baby and then starting the school year-- I haven't had much time to call my own. But I miss you, dear readers. I miss interacting with you and I miss following you on your blogs. I finally just cleared out my Google Reader to start fresh this morning because I had over 600 unread posts and every time I opened it I felt too overwhelmed to read. I have been busy with important things, but I feel that as long as I don't let it consume me, blogging is important, too. We need each other, don't you think?

It has been hard to get my momentum up, too, because I have so much I can write about and yet nothing seems good enough after letting myself get rusty. So I'll just catch you up on some of what we've been doing without trying to cover everything. And hopefully tomorrow I'll feel like blogging again!:)

One of the lines from The Family: A Proclamation to the World that we have studied and memorized as a family is this one:

Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.

We had a summer without many of the "wholesome recreational activities," due to having a new baby and a c-section.

If it hadn't been for the amazing grandparents, our kids would have probably done nothing all summer but watch television. So we have been making up for lost time in the past month or so.

We took an amazing family reunion vacation to Lake Tahoe in mid-September. The weather was perfect, it felt like we had the lake to ourselves, and the kids had a blast with all their cousins from Jared's side of the family.


We had a family outing last week with grandparents to Apple Hill, a favorite destination in the Sierra foothills. We tried out a few new farms there this year, including one with a pond and paddleboat and a big U-pick orchard; a "fudge farm" where we got to do a little tour and see where they grow the nuts and berries that they use in their candy, as well as decorate our own fudge-covered apples; and a visit to our favorite farm for fresh-pressed cider and apple donuts.


Ian and I also went to the pumpkin farm with his kindergarten class this week. The kids whose parents had come got to choose a buddy from the class for the field trip--Ian chose Julian, and I knew why immediately. That's the name of a royal lemur on his favorite cartoon, so Ian thinks Julian is pretty cool.:)


And here is where we are headed with the boys tomorrow afternoon. It should pretty much be a nerd fest. We can't wait!

What "wholesome recreational activities" is your family doing this fall?

Wordless Wednesday-- Neighborhood Ice Cream Party

Remember how we won a party for our neighborhood from Dreyers? Here's the report.







All in all we had about 65 people including neighbors, nearly neighbors, and family. Not bad for a little Labor Day shin dig! Thanks, Dreyers!

We Love the FedEx Man!

A few minutes ago, as we were busy with Saxon Math and shaping bread loaves (two different subjects:), a knock came at the door. When opened, we saw the FedEx man driving away and this box on our front step.


It took three of us (two of us being small) to heft it inside. We opened it up to find a pair of gloves and warning note about dry ice. (I wish I had thought to grab my camera at this point. I'm too rusty on my blogging.)

Inside, we found something wonderful. I quickly went to my inadequate freezer and began clearing out anything that had been there for a year or more! Miraculously, we were able to clear out the bottom basket of everything except for the baby's milk, which doesn't take up much space . . .

So here's what it looks like now.


Here we are choosing our favorite flavors. We can't wait for our neighborhood ice cream party on Monday. Thanks, Dreyers!


If you live in our neighborhood (or close enough to crash it without feeling too guilty,) come on by Monday evening from 6:30-8:00.

The Greatest Show on Earth

The circus is in town!

Our family went to Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus last night. It's only here for a few more days, and if you're in the area, you've got to go. My children had a great time (okay, the 2 year old pretty much made us all miserable after 8:00, but it was past her bedtime. Next time I'll bring a change of clothes for her in case she dumps her entire snow cone out on her dress and tinkles in her panties.) There were clowns, elephants, tigers, acrobats, people shooting out of cannons and walking upside down . . . and lots of magic tricks. The theme this year is magic, which was just up my boys' alley.

We had dinner first with a clown (Bronwen was fascinated), then went down on the floor for the preshow. Anyone with general admission tickets can go down onto the floor before the circus show begins and mingle with the cast. Kimball was chosen to help with a magic trick and won a souvenir DVD for participating. Ian's favorite part was when the acrobats shot out of the cannon. Henry liked the live band and all the dance music. Bronwen loved the "ephalants" and my favorite was the tiger tamer and his entertaining Spanglish. He actually kissed a tiger right on the nose!

If you and your family would like to go to the circus this weekend, here's a deal for you. There are shows at 11:00 am, 3:00 pm, and 7:00 pm thru Sunday. If you buy your tickets on ticketmaster or at the arena, use the code: MOM (on ticketmaster.com enter it in the box marked MC Promotion Box). Or you can call 1-800-745-3000. You can get a package of 4 tickets for $44, and each additional ticket is only $11.

My Wordles

I just created this wordle over at Wordle.net (Thanks, Macy, for the link!)Go create yours now! I typed in words that were important to me and this is what it created. You can also paste in your blog address and it will use words from your last several posts. The wordle below is done that way. It had more funny things in it (like mentions of Clubea, for instance,) but also picked words to emphasize that I wouldn't have (like my nephew's name is twice the size of my own kids'). Wander on over and create one of your own. It would be fun for a Christmas card.

Five Minute Fun

I don't have long to spend on a post (today was our first day of school and I have a lot I want to get done before I fall into bed in one hour,) but I saw this over at Melissa's blog and thought it was fun.

Go to this blog to find out which song was #1 on the day you were born.

For me, it was "My Love" by Paul McCartney & Wings

I also looked up Jared's: "Philadelphia Freedom" by The Elton John Band

My mom's: "Mañana (Is Soon Enough for Me)" by Peggy Lee

And my firstborn's: "Say My Name" by Destiny's Child

I must say that I couldn't sing any one of those for you.

What's yours? Leave me a comment and share.

More Reasons to Adore My Husband

(Not that you should adore him. These are reasons for me to adore him.)

Saturday, I had the chance to go to San Francisco for the day with a few friends and sisters (my SIL, Lindsee was visiting from Salt Lake City) to have a Mom's Day Off. This trip was facilitated by my husband in two ways:

1. He kept the kids all day. (And cleaned the house, to boot!)
   
2. He convinced a friend who owns a limo service to take us at no charge. Hazatah!
   

We spent the day in the Union Square shopping district. We all bought a little, but no one went crazy. We had a great time being together, looking for the perfect purchase, soaking up the city and the great architecture (especially at Neiman Marcus and Williams-Sonoma), and enjoying fabulous food. Here are a few of the highlights, although I confess that the camera stayed in my purse for much of the day. It was a completely frivolous day, which feels good once in a while.

Chuck William's personal table, which was on the third floor of the four-story Williams-Sonoma flagship store. Or should I just call it paradise? What I should have captured with my camera was the long wall of linens. Breathtaking is not too strong a word.

The foyer of Neiman Marcus, which holds all the cosmetic counters. Although our group spent 45 minutes in this store, I never got past the Laura Mercier counter, where I got a little make-over. I splurged on the best tinted moisturizer I've ever found and a new lipstick. Happy birthday to me!:) Heard rumors that the others fell in love with a pair of $4,000 shoes. Yikes!


Here is the dome above the cosmetic counters. It came piece by piece from the Paris store.


We had lunch at Max's on the Square (the Max's near us closed it's doors two years ago and we've never forgotten how much we loved it); and dinner at Lupa, one of my favorite restaurants ever. Somehow I mostly got pictures of Isaac, our only male and baby, enjoying his food. He had the waiters at Lupa wrapped around his finger. At one point they even picked him up and showed him the cooking area!


A little girl's apron we loved in Anthropologie; there wasn't much we didn't love in that store. Unfortunately it was our last store of the day and didn't get the time it really deserved. (Confession-- we took a picture hoping that someone could duplicate this for less than the $24 price tag. That's so very Mormon of me:)

Other highlights which deserved a photo but didn't get one include: a group of women doing what can only be described as synchronized swimming on bars in the square; finding H&M, which is often featured on What Not to Wear--and discovering it to be very affordable; the two story Talbot's, with huge comfy chairs to take a quick break on; the lemon white chocolate tart at Lupa's; and not having to drive home when we were exhausted, full, and a bit drowsy.

Better yet, when I got home my house was spotless and my children fast asleep. I hope the other girls can say the same!

Thanks, honey! You're the best.

Which Austen Heroine Are YOU?

Thanks to my sister, Allison, for finding this quiz on line. Take the quiz by clicking on the picture and get back to me with your results!

Take the Quiz here!