February 28

Sunnnday dun dun dun in the house dun dun I wish it were the fourth of July bwadada da daaaa dee dah......Okay I had Spring Fever. So I pulled out my Spring dress. I think I'm jumping the gun. I have six more months of winter. Happy Sunday!

February 27

SUPER SCIENCE SATURDAY! at the Ott Planetarium at Weber State University! I can't believe that this is the first Science Saturday that I went to.....it was so much fun. It was all completely free, and I lost track of time and was late to my rehearsal for my next show on Saint Patty's Day. The boys got to make slime, and cells out of play dough and candy. I got a kick hearing Cade try to parrot back "endoplasmic reticulum" while doing a potty dance.

We got to watch a show in the planetarium. Cade was in star heaven. David was scared silly. He sat on my lap loudly interjecting every point three seconds, "It's dark! I can't see. Hey....turn the lights on!" Oh that and every now and again he would say, "PWAAAANET!"

This is Cade being a polymer. He also learned about natural selection by putting beans in a shoe box, and he loved the class on static electricity.
This is a hovercraft that we made. For some reason, Cade wasn't particularly thrilled with this one. And mom.....David was okay. I took the balloon promptly out of his mouth. He didn't choke on it. I promise. Outside - it was a beeeautttiful day! But, we spent it inside exploring, and playing paleontologists identifying fossils and looking at minerals. I think I am now a super science saturday addict. We will be going back.

February 26

I wish I would have had my camera to take a picture of my ear wax....but you are probably grateful that I didn't. It was something else. There was enough wax that came out of my ear (on the third washing) that the nurse went and got the doctor and another nurse to come "check this out!!! Have you ever seen anything like this???" 2 weeks ago when I had pneumonia the two docs that I saw both commented on my ears: "Umm....I can't see anything. That is a lot of wax. Where IS your eardrum?" Well, I think I was too sick and so they didn't clean my ears out at those visits. Grr....because Friday I ended up in an instacare clinic. Thursday night I couldn't hear anything in my right ear. Friday morning I couldn't hear very well out of my left ear. So, after being a practically deaf mother whose children were getting terribly annoyed at being ignored, I stopped in for a doctor visit. So after three rinses, and a lot of oogling over my amazing amounts of collective cerumen, I could hear again! I've had my ears washed out by a doctor many a time. Thanks to my mother I inherited an oddly shaped ear canal, you have to look up to see my ear drum, and as a result our ear wax doesn't drain on its own very well. Hence, some of my fondest memories are going to Dr. Freshwater - truly his name- with my mom to get super dizzy while my ears were flushed out and picked at with tweezers. And now you have all the low down on my ear wax. You are welcome.

February 25

I honestly don't remember Thursday.....the perils of waiting three or four days to blog. So here is a random picture. It is inevitable that this would have to start happening sometime. When you are posting a picture about every day for a whole year....they are just bound and bound to get more boring. So....here is the pic for what must have been a dull day.

February 24

A day in Downtown Ogden. I thought I'd put a pic up of the Ogden temple before they re-do it. I know it will take them a couple of years....but at any rate here it is. We went downtown today to the gym where I managed to remain on my feet (pretty easy on a bike!) Then we went to Deseret Book where I got the new Book of Mormon Manual (yay!!!! They REALLY have needed an update) - and then we walked through Fat Cats - a bowling alley/arcade type area pretending to be skeletons (David's request) - and then we went to the Treehouse Museum. Dowtown Ogden can be a pretty fun place actually. And while the spiky ball trees aren't as great as the trees on the San Diego Bay, and the Ogden temple outside isn't like the San Diego temple outside.....the quirky Ogdeness is slowly growing on me.

February 23

I wish this is how I tripped. No instead- I just went flailing across the floor in the cardio boot camp class today. I wasn't doing anything fancy, just walking across the floor. Nothing but my pride was hurt. Thank heavens! After taking two weeks off from the gym I was ready to get back into the swing of things. I don't think my feet agreed. For a full accounting you can see my facebook profile.

February 22

Free loot. I haunt quite a few bargain websites and it seems like many of my freebie finds poured into my mailbox today. I bet my mailman hates me! So the free loot of recent days? A free freezer lined carry bag, a free Scholastic book about Hurricanes which Cade adored, a free Hallmark card, a free uniball pen, a free 4X7 flip photo book with 6 pics, and a free TIGI hair sample. All of this - 100 percent free, I didn't even pay for shipping. Yes, these are just little things, but little treats make me smile. I think I was most excited to get a pen! (I love pens.) And it was fun to give Cade a card and a book just for kicks, and Eric a photo book of the two of us. The three or four sites I visit most are: www.hip2save.com www.couponingtodisney.com www.pinchingyourpennies.com and www.freebies4mom.blogspot.com. I also love the five dollar Walgreens challenge. You see how far you can spend five dollars at Walgreens out of pocket every week. A link to that is www.kingdomfirstmom.com I have no aversion to paying for stuff...but I mut admit I think it is fun to see what is out there to score for free.

February 21

Here are the invites (totally free! even free shipping) I made for Cade's party. Cade already has every toy imaginable, so I really didn't want him to get any more, and I really want to try to teach him to share. So....instead of presents, we had a lesson. We read the letter from President Monson about giving to the people in Haiti. We looked at pictures and videos of the earthquake in Haiti, and then we asked people to donate to Haiti instead of giving birthday presents. At first Cade seemed really excited about this. I was so happy, and thought, this is easy. A few days before the party, he went to another birthday party. He came home, and then asked what presents he was going to get for his party. So....it was kind of hard from there on out. But, I'm actually glad it was somewhat of a struggle. I wanted him to learn what it was to give something that he really wanted. The day of the party, he was great about it. He made a box to put the money in, and today he was so proud when he got to give the Bishop the enevelope with all the generous donations people brought. I had a proud mama moment after church. A friend who couldn't attend his party gave him a gift. Cade asked instead if he could get money for Haiti instead of the gift. (His own idea this time!) He gave the gift back and put the money in his Haiti box. Okay, I've done my bragging for today. I was happy, and I hope this is something he will remember. It is more blessed to give than to receive.

February 20

Cade's 5th Birthday Party! I finally had it. I got invites printed for free on a photo card website before I got sick. The plan was to have the party on Feb 6th, but I got sick and never even got the invites out. So....I just scratched the date and changed it to the 20th. Thank heavens I was feeling well enough to have the party. It was a natural disaster party, of course, (Cade's latest obsession) and I think it was pretty fun if I say so myself. Cade requested a party about earthquakes and "epsunamis and flotts" so....this is what I came up with.

We made tsunamis in a bottle. We put water, oil, blue food coloring, monopoly houses, seashells, and spaghetti sticks to make a big wave in the bottle. The kids loved it. My floor loved the oil and the table loved the glitter and broken sea shells.

We made houses out of spaghetti sticks and marshmallows. Then, I pulled out the hairdryer and we had a hurricane. I got to be the big bad wolf and blow all the houses down. Yeah! Messy - but fun for me.
My low key decorations: instead of balloons punch balls one for each kid hung from my kitchen lights, and natural disaster books from the library rounded out the decor.

These are the loot bags. Brown paper bags, with pics glued on. Inside? Meteor rocks. Made from used coffee grounds, flour, and water with a hidden treasure inside.

Cade made a book about Haiti for his party. He put pictures inside about the recent Haiti earthquake, pictures of the destruction, and maps of where Haiti is.

This is the cake for the party...a volcano cake. It was right down my alley. A bundt cake and two round cakes stacked together all crumbly with two bottles of chocolate frosting. Red frosting for lava and crushed up oreo cookies for rocks. A styrofoam cup in the center of the cake filled with dry ice completed the masterpiece. The kids loved the eruption and I loved the fact that I could make a cool cake. It was SUPPOSED to look messy and crazy. I can cook this kind of stuff.

We also made individual volcanoes. We took paper cups and plates, put tinfoil over them, filled them up with baking soda, dishsoap, and red food colored vinegar. We put the volcanoes in pie tins in the sink and all the boys (since that was all that was at the party) got to erupt their own volcano. I think that was a hit, too.

We had a hailstorm. (They all hit each other with the punch balls.) I had thought a blizzard off my loft would've been fun with styrofoam peanuts would have been fun, but after the mess from everything else, it is probably better that I didn't.

Cade blew out the candles, we ate the cake, we swept, we mopped, and we slept.

February 19

So the bulk of this day was spent frantically trying to find a bedspread to match my curtains. We previously had a green bedspread - but the boys had ripped it (AGAIN! I swear we go through a bedspread every few months because the boys climb on them - grrr.) So instead of getting curtains to match the ripped bedspread, we just got curtains that we liked - and then got a new bedspread. The color was nigh impossible to find though - (well for my price range.) I was trying to redo the room for 100 dollars or less - and that had to cover the costs of a curtain rod, curtains, scarf valance, bedspread, bedskirt, and pillows. So I spent a whole ton of time shopping. The end result - I went twenty dollars over, but I still don't think it was too bad considering I finally have my bedroom as good as it gets for the next few years.

February 18

The AFTER. So here are the new curtains. They are a bit better than the garbage bags. I'm actually pretty happy with them. I don't like the tops of the curtains, but the scarf valance I put on top hides the ugly bunching. Now if I can only figure out how to get all the wrinkles out of them. How DO they do that at the store? Any ideas? Tell me - I'd love ironed curtains!

February 17

BEFORE: We have a balcony out of of our master bedroom and so we have two huge doors in our room. Since we have moved in, I have hemmed and hawed and procrastinated getting curtains up on these doors. I just wasn't sure what I wanted yet. So, as a result, I have had plastic garbage bags up on my bedroom doors since we moved here. I finally tired of the ugly bags and blue tape.....so I did something about it this week. Here is a before shot....look forward to the coming after shots, as soon as I take them......

February 16

I hesitate to put a pic of just my face up here to show you all the glory of my zits/shiny skin/black eyes....etc....etc...but I must. Tuesday was all about hair. I got a hair cut and color from my friend Marcy. I LOVE my new haircut and color. She did a great job. She doesn't have a liscense but she has been doing hair for forever. She kept telling me she'd love to play with my hair, and I really needed a haircut, so I gladly let her. She can't charge, but she can accept tips :) Works for me. She came over to my kitchen and I got to stay in my pajamas because I am still recovering, and I got pampered. It was fantastic. Haircuts make me happy. Call me shallow Sal - but they do!

February 15

So as promised, I took Eric on a date for Valentine's Day. We went to Logan to visit his Grandma Cook and finally deliver her Christmas Present!!! (Yikes we are SLOOOW.) We had a yummy lunch at Grandma's topnotch restaurant - Goulash, one of my favorites. I got a surprise visit from an old highschool friend who lives 2 doors down from Grandma! Crazy small world it is! I don't think she had told Grandma about our Shock Tart Ceremonies, or History Day Recovery Sleepovers ----those were kind of wild. We also got to see two of Eric's sisters - Mel and Andrea who are both current Aggies, and Uncle Darrin. It was such an enjoyable time. It reminded me that we need to go to Logan much much more.
After lunch we had our date. Everyone watched the boys for us, and we were supposed to go to a junior Shakespeare Theatre matinee performance. Well....I forgot the address and it was at some old mansion in Logan that I had actually never been to. So, we drove around until I got car sick and then we stopped at Bed Bath and Beyond. We plopped down in the chairs and got two long free heated massages and looked at curtains. Maybe not the most romantic thrilling date ever.....but we got to spend some quality time and I sure made a fun memory asking a random lady to snap pics of us in the middle of the store relaxing!

February 14

Valentine's Day was great! Despite spending over half of the day sleeping and trying to recover....it was still a good day. Eric gave me roses, and I gave him a photo collage card plus a promise for a date in Logan - with babysitting already arranged. I'm so happy to have such a great Valentine. We capped off the evening by watching the Olypmics and Cade made us all Olympic ring badges to wear around the house......and I'm feeling better yeah! Sleep helps you heal.

February 13

What I have wanted to do the last few days I've been sick:
A. Ride the Frontrunner to SLC - it was free on Friday, I thought my boys would've loved it.
B. Go to the Layton Family Recreation V-Day Party, they put these on monthly and I love them. Free activities, pics, etc.
C. Do my show at the Village Green - I missed it Friday and Saturday
D. Go to the Ogden Winterfest.
If I wasn't still sick with pneumonia I would have done most if not all of these things. So I have to give you more info. on the Ogden Winterfest. Ever seen Gilmore Girls? The town is plagued by all these kooky little town celebrations for every season. I live in Gilmore Girl town heaven. Literally. In the summer every town has a big heritage celebration with fireworks and races and carnivals. Any excuse for fireworks or celebration here and the people do it. I haven't decided if these events endear these places to me (I do go to most of them because it is something to do) or if they simply annoy me. Anyhow, the Ogden Winterfest really takes the cake. The picture above is of HUMAN DOG SLEDDING. Other events slated? Dog look alike contests, HUMAN SNOW BOWLING, art ice sculptures, etc. While some of the events would have been fun (in particular I would've loved running the 5K and taking my kids to the Kids Corner), some of these events just sounded wacky beyond wacky! Even though we have tons of snow - they brought in more snow and closed down historic 25th street for two days to let people dress up as chickens and Julius Ceaser and facecards and pull each other around town on sleds. Love it or hate it? I'm just not sure. I was stuck at home in bed so I can't really give you an accurate accounting.

February 12

So I went around town and snapped up some pics of bulletin boards, annyoing signs, etc. that I notice every day driving around. The purpose? To put in my blog on days when I don't have anything else to put. There are billions of these billboard signs around town. This one says: "HOUSTON" First word spoken on the moon. This billboard is part of a research campaign that wants to prove the power of billboard advertising. A research company called 300 people in Utah and asked them what the first word spoken on the moon was. Only 1.3 percent got the answer correct. 3 percent knew who the current lieutenant governor was (Greg Bell just in case you were wondering.) So this company decided to put up all these billboards around town, and in 28 days they are going to repeat the experiment and they expect to see the HOUSTON answer skyrocket, and the governor answer to remain the same. Here is a link to an article about it that I enjoyed. I think it really summed up what I have been hearing about these billboards from various sources. http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2010/01/houston_moon_utah.php
Here is the link listed on the billboard too if you are interested: http://armstrong11.com/index.html

February 11

Here is a video of Cade reading the Valentine's Day poem he wrote for me at his Preschool's Parent Day. He says: "Roses are Red Violets are Blue, You make me yummy chocolate milk, and I love you!" He is sweet. I went with Cade to parent day, and Eric went with David to the doctor. David woke up screaming with an ear infection at three in the morning. David got medicine, and I got really sick at parent day. My fever came back pretty high, and I spent the rest of the day on the couch miserable while my kids wreaked havoc on the house. (They polished my kitchen floor with wood polisher for the piano that specifically states DO NOT USE ON FLOORS!) Anyhow, I decided to go back to the doctor. It had been a week since I went and I was still sick and getting worse. Yet another chest x-ray revealed that I did indeed have pneumonia. I got a nice injection in the rump (TMI I know) that was painful but still not as bad as my fingernail draining a few months ago. They put me on two antibiotics, and I better get better. I've been sick about two weeks. I am going stir crazy! I certainly have gratitude for my health. I promise.

February 10

I spent the day teaching piano and feeling sick still!!!! I also helped Cade get together his Valentine's. I got these free - (completely free cards and envelopes and shipping) so we put mazes on them and put them in the envelopes with a push pencil to give out to his school mates. It took quite a bit of convincing Cade that he shouldn't do all the mazes first and that they were there for the kids to do. After we crossed that hurdle, we were able to label them all.

February 9

Today I got to go to Preschool for Cade's birthday celebration. I read the book I made about Cade and as party favors I made Treasure Stones (flour, salt, water, and used coffee grounds I got for free from the Starbucks drivethrough, who knew?) You mix it all together and then put a treasure, like a dinosaur in the middle. Four or five days later you wind up with a rock like coffee smelling contraption. The kids loved them. The teachers.....not so sure after they had to clean up the dirt mess :) After that we got free Grand Slams at Dennys and I taught piano. My new student is great, yeah!

February 8

So here are some flashbacks to Cade William Cannon, Sr. These are just a few of my favorite pics. I made a book about Cade to share with his preschool class. (Could've done a poster or read his favorite story, but I took the difficult road and made up my own idea about reading a book about Cade instead of doing a poster. ) It was a hit, I think. Anyhow to do it I spent a few hours getting old pics of Cade off our other computer.

Just a few reasons why we love our crazy Cade :)
1. He makes the best lid soup ever

2. He made a great SUMO wrester as a babe

3. He was a milk guzzler and a mini Michilen Man

4. His first sentence, "I GOT MONEY!!!!"

5. His complete intoxication with Napolean Dynamite and Star Wars at AGE TWO - no not even two and a half, at age two those were his two favorite shows - who Cares about Barney!
6. His Diaper Piles and Ding Beep Blladdaaadadaaadaaa ritual before changing every blasted diaper!
7. His thirst for learning

8. His imagination.....(Really WHO are these Bilburtson people that wear suitcoats and go and fight at the circus? He talks of them nonstop.)

I forgot I was going to stop at five since he is five....oopps I could go on and on! We love CADE!

February 7

CADE CANNON IS NOW FIVE YEARS OLD!!!! Wholllly Guacamolle....I simply cannot believe it. I was miserably sick all day long, but we managed. David's ever flowing nose kept him home with me during church. Thank heavens for DVD players! Cade got a chocolate cake with a verrry interesting frosting job (compliments of chef Debby), and he got his two presents wrapped in.......well I couldn't find paper, and he didn't just want a bag (I have gobs of those) and I wasn't about to mutilate the unread treasured Sunday Paper, so we wrapped his presents in blankets. Since it was Cade's idea he was quite happy with it. I loved the clean-up. Do I hear tradition calling? Possibly. Cade is such a great little man and we are so happy to have him in our family. I'll probably be writing more about Cade....so stay tuned. Here's some birthday pics.

February 6

Today was supposed to be Cade's birthday party....but since I was still too sick (and the fact that I never got the invitations out) made it so that we moved the party. To make sure Cade was okay with no party on his supposed to be party day, we tried to make the day fun for him. We spent the morning together as a fam at the Home Depot. Build and Grow Clinic number two was a racecar shelf. It went MUCH smoother than clinic number one where I had both boys by myself.....although.....Eric did drop the hammer on David :) He's just fine. I raced from the Home Depot to accompany my friend Catherine who was asked to sing at a Daughters of the Utah Pioneers luncheon. I had a fantastic lunch with a bunch of spunky old ladies who ate like birds and took eight times as long as me, but I honestly savored the conversation. I truly enjoy conversing with the lucid elderly (and the non lucid if I can laugh and not get too caught up in the sadness of it.....) Then, I took Cade to Toys R Us. He got a free 3 dollar birthday card from there, and I had a free 5 dollar coupon. Our mission......get the best stuff for 8 dollars or less. That is not exactly an easy thing to do though. Toys R Us is miserably overpriced. However, we did find a Wii game on clearance for 5 bucks (some maraca Latin theme game where you can whack the guts out of a pinata) and we found a G Force toy for 3 fifty. So....I had to fork out a dollar, but I don't care about the dollar, we spent TWO hours in the toy store. Why? I'm a complete pushover. It's his birthday, and I would never let him spend that long in a toy store....but he has waited much longer for me in places like Target or the grocery store while I coupon, so I figured I owed it to him. After the long toy browsing trip, I had another show, and then I came home fevered AGAIN and slept.

February 5

AnnaLyn and Me - Back at the Village Green again tonight. Tonight we opened up a show "A Cabaret of Love Songs." A little Weird Al, a touch of classical, a little pop, a little broadway, and a lot of fun. My friend AnnaLyn directed this one. This is the first show she's directed, and she did great. I was supposed to sing Baritone on this concert for a few songs (I'm not kidding) but I lost my voice thanks to my bronchitis.....so even though I offered to sing bass, they put me on the keyboard (much more in my comfort zone anyways!) I managed to rip part of the entrance curtain on my way in, and almost coughed up a lung back stage, but I made it through. Now I am in need of lots of sleep.

February 4

A winter walk. It was soooo warm outside - our high was 38, and it felt warmer than it has for months to me! (Either that my fever was still talking.) Whatever the case we went for a short winter walk to the Jensen Nature Park behind our house. David slept, I enjoyed breathing the cold air that felt heavenly on my lungs, and Cade ran over bridges. It was a great little stroll, but it makes me miss warmer weather and walking. I've got Spring Fever waayyyy to early.