Love, Us

Merry Christmas!



I know I haven't posted in a while, so here are just a few fun things that have gone on lately:

We went to the BYU bowl game in Vegas this weekend. Although BYU lost :( , Coleby (#41) played a great game and it was still a fantastic trip! My very best friend, Ryan Wright, came with us, and we really had so much fun together. Let's see, highlights of the trip: shopping, the BYU fireside, seeing a wack-a-doo trying to direct traffic on the strip in nothing but a black women's swimsuit with yellow fishnets on over his hairy legs and an earpiece taped to his ear (there you go, girlfriend!), Ry took me out for crab--my first time ever, Rio yammied all over himself and the back seat on the way home (with NO WARNING!). Oh, man. Ry and I have some great memories together. I can tell him anything, and he always makes me laugh so hard. We always have a blast no matter what we do. I LOVE being with him!



My sister-in-law, Bre, and I doin' a little Christmas shopping...



Whitney had her baby last month! She and Isi named him Malakai Isimeeli Filimoeatu. He was born on November 15th and weighed 7 lbs. Oh man, he is so dang cute... and makes me want another one! They'll just have to share him with me for a while... :)

El Dia de las Brujas

Halloween was delightful this year! Rio told me for a month that he wanted to be a skelton, so being the wonderful mother that I am, I got him a skeleton costume. However, when we got home and tried it on him, he FREAKED OUT. I think seeing the white bones all over his body was just too much for him to handle. I had told my mom and little brother how he had freaked out when I tried it on him, and that I was going to have to take it back.

So we went to Costume Choice B: Batman. I got him a Batman costume, and it was WAY too big, so I told him we were going to have to take it back. I asked if we could try the skeleton costume on one more time. When I got it on him, he was like, "Look, Mommy! I don't freak out! I got BONES, Mom!" I just busted up laughing. He had overheard me telling my mom and brother that, and was reassuring me that he had grown up in the week since we had tried it on the first time. It was hilarious.

So he looked so DANG cute as a little skeleton, no?

This was me:
"PUT A SMILE ON THAT FACE!!"

I dressed up for our Halloween costume day at the junior high, and all my students were SO scared of me! I kept saying things that Heath Ledger had said as the Joker in the new Batman, and licking my lips and smiling like he did in the movie. I almost had one kid crying. He was like, "Please, please stop, Miss Clawson! I can't even focus when you do that!" It was pretty entertaining. I love Halloween.

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Our Halloween festivities really started last weekend with our pumpkin carving. I let Rio choose his own pumpkin. I thought for sure he would want a giant pumpkin, but he chose the smallest one he could find. I think he just wanted to be able to carry it all by himself. He told me that he wanted to make a "MEAN ONE" and he wanted me to make a "happy one." So that's just what we did! And, of course, he loved the "Pumpkin Guts."


^Rio was quite entranced when we were all finished and lit the candles inside the pumpkins and turned off all the lights! :)

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Rio LOVED Trick-or-Treating:

"EVERYONE I KNOW IS JUST GIVING AWAY CANDY?!?!"

At one point, as he skipped from one house to the next, holding my hand, plastic candy-filled pumpkin in the other, he smiled up at me and goes, "MOMMY! This is FUN!!"

Seriously, people, you don't know REAL JOY until you see your own child that happy. I love being a mom. :)


^I had to post this picture: Rio stood waiting for someone to open this door forever, and then we realized that the people had just left a bowl of candy on the porch! Rio was so confused...

It really was a LOVELY weekend!

BTW: In case you missed it, I'm soon going private with my blog. Please comment on the previous post if you would like to be able to keep up on our crazy life. Rio and I love keeping in touch with everyone! :)

Private Property!

So, this has been on my mind a lot lately, and it kinda freaks me out to think that just ANYBODY can get on my blog and see pictures and personal information about me and my son and our life.

So....
We're going private. You know what to do.

Heaven is Here

UEA weekend (I love my job!) was wonderful! Thursday, I went to the Dashboard Confessional concert with Ryan Lynn. Friday, Rio and I took the 4-wheeler up the mountain for a picnic, and Saturday, I watched UFC at Ryan's house and they taught me how to play poker. I will never become a gambler because I SUCKED.

~DASHBOARD CONFESSIONAL~
"...the glances you took, took hold of you and demanded that you stay--sunk in their teeth, bit your heart and released such a charge that you need another touch, another taste, another fix..."


The DC concert was marvelous! Chris always puts on a SENSATIONAL show--he plays with such fervor and emotion; that's why I love his music. I can't even describe how thrilled I was to see him play again! And he played my 2 favorite songs, "As Lovers Go" and "Stolen". Oh BABY--what a night! Sadly though, to my chagrin, I forgot my camera because I had moved the contents of my black purse to my brown purse with orange and yellow polka dots in order to match my orange shirt and shoes that night (seriously?! Stupid, Stupid, STUPID!!), and I forgot to put the camera back in the purse, so this cell pic is all I have to show for my night in HEAVEN:


"You've got wits, you've got looks, you've got passion, but are you brave enough to leave with me tonight?"


~WHERE THE DEER AND THE ANTELOPE PLAY~
Rio and I packed a picnic lunch and drove the 4-wheeler all the way to the top of Wales Canyon on Friday. We could even see Yuba and Nebo from where we stopped and ate! We had a blast. Between teaching, working on my master's, my church calling, dating (haha), and everything else in our crazy life, sometimes it feels like there's not much time for just US. President Monson's conference talk really spoke to me: he admonished me to really make the most of TODAY because I can never get it back once it's gone. So I have been focusing on making the time Rio and I do have together QUALITY time. And this was such a perfect day! Just me and him. :)






^I ripped my pants and cut my leg crossing a barbed wire fence, and when Rio saw it, he goes (in a sad, sappy voice), "OH! Darn-it Sakes, Mommy! Are you okay??" It was THE cutest dang thing ever. Oh man, I love that kid.

HEAVEN IS HERE.

Simon Says:

Ha! Bre tagged me with this random picture post.

1. Go to your pictures
2. Upload 4th picture in the 4th folder
3. Post (explain?)
4. Tag four friends



So, this picture was taken almost 2 years ago. It was *Idol Time* and Rio insisted that we watch it. Okay, we both wanted to watch it. Or maybe just me.

And you know exactly what Simon is saying, right? (in his sexy British accent)

"Let me put this into perspective: A-POLL-ing. With a capital "A". You just better hope America was watching that with the volume turned ahwff."

OR

"That was AHP-solutely, 100%, THE most Harrifying.... No, No, No."

OR

"All I'm doing is telling people who don't have a chawnce in hell that they don't have a chawnce in hell!"

OR

"My advice to you would be: if you want to pursue a career in the music business, don't."

Oh, Simon. Where have you been all my life?

Now I tag...

Amberlie, Aubrey, Brianne, Krystle, and Candace

The Kid's Brilliant!!

So this is how Rio eats cereal:



I think he's mastered the concept of the spoon...

Oh, wow. Rio is the most entertaining little person. He says and does the funniest things. The other day, my dad did something that surprised Rio, and he said, "Hey, Papa! You startled me!!" 'Startled.' From a 2-year-old. I love it. He learns so fast and has an amazing (to-the-point-of-being-scary) memory. He can even spell his name already! This really is the best time of my life--just watching him grow and learn.

Who stole the COOKIES from the cookie jar?

Tonight, Rio and I made yummy sugar cookies together for Whitney's baby shower this week. Too many cooks spoil the broth, right? When we make treats together, we end up with only about a half-batch because, between the two of us, about half the dough is gone before it actually makes it to the "cookie stage"!

As you can see, he was VERY helpful! :)

By the way, I made the apron! Got a little carried away with the rick-rack, I know--it's my first one. Maybe the next one won't look like I just had lunch with the gingerbread man...

AKA Martha Stewart

SO, remember a few posts ago when I said I was procrastinating finishing that crazy star-heart quilt??? Well......

IT'S DONE!!!

I saw the quilt hanging on the wall at a fabric shop in Payson, and asked the lady if it was too hard for a complete BEGINNER. And I explained to her that as in "BEGINNER," I meant like NO. Quilting. Experience. What. So. Ever.

Are there nuances of this word that I am unaware of?


1. I bought 25 different coordinating fat quarters, stacked them, and then cut & "shuffled" them, so they made the background, the heart, and the star. Each block is made up of 20 different pieces.

2. I sewed each block back together and then trimmed the blocks to one consistent size. Each block took me over 1/2 hour to finish!

3. After finishing all the individual blocks, I arranged them in the order I wanted them, pinned them together & sewed them into rows. I finished it off with a border. So technically, the quilt isn't completely finished, but the top layer is. Now I'm going to take it somewhere to have it quilted and bound. (I AM a beginner! Like a Martha Stewart mini-me. Maybe someday I'll be amazing like her. ....Plus a personality, minus the prison time. :)




Anyway, DO YOU SEE WHY I WAS PROCRASTINATING THIS PROJECT??? I finished it at like 2:00 this morning, and I was so elated (and delirious) that I almost posted right then, but I was seriously already a cross-eyed hunchback from sewing so long that my weekend was just a blur with the drone of a sewing machine as a soundtrack (wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh), so I decided to call it a night. Although my mom did get a pix msg at 2:00...

So I've come to realize how addicting this hobby is. Like last week, before I even finished this quilt, I was already looking for my next pattern and fabric! And it's sort of a love-hate hobby. It can get pret-ty monotonous (20 pieces/block x 25 blocks = 500!!), and for quite a while you feel like you're getting NOWHERE, but it is so fulfilling and satisfying to see what you've accomplished when it all comes together. I'm proud of me. :)