Merry Christmas to all!

I love this boy.

Auntie sprayed his hair blue just like hers in honor of the BYU game we were all going to that night.
He insisted on washing it out 20 minutes after she left.

Just for you, Mihaila, since you asked...

Ipson Family Pictures 2011

Dal did this when Susie was sitting next to him on the couch screaming...again....

    And you can obviously see the reason we got a whole bunch of shots of Dallin and hardly any of Susannah.  Sigh.

What a year does...

Last year:

This year:

Awesome.

Well, I said I wanted to go bold...

Thanks ladies, for all the ideas.  I decided to go with......
ME.
I found a haircut on my own that I fell in love with!
I'm no Winona Ryder, but we have similar coloring and face shape, so I thought I might be able to pull it off.

My stylist cut it shorter than the pictures, unfortunately...and I'm still figuring out how to do it, so I don't love it yet.  But it's growing on me!

You guys suggested some great cuts, several of which I had bookmarked myself!  So I decided to draw three  runner-up prize winners.  And the winners, courtesy of Random.org's random number generator:
Comment numbers 10, 1 and 8.  Which, disregarding a deleted comment as well as a comment from my husband (he thinks he's funny), means the winners are:
Kristin
Christina
and
Theresa
I'll message/email you guys shortly.
Thanks for the support guys.  I really appreciate it!!!

Let's call this a search for inspiration...with a reward.

So today on Facebook, I said that I hate my hair.  It's true, I do.  I also said that I was being uncharacteristically indecisive about what I wanted to do.  I've already gotten a couple suggestions....so I thought why not make this fun.

I want your suggestions.  What do you think would look good on me?  I'm up for anything.  Here's what we have to work with:

Super flattering, I know.  That's called wet-ponytail-pulled-out-for-self-timer.  Anyway, FYI, my hair is not straight.  Not curly either.  Just wavy.  Something to consider.

Just leave me a comment with a link to your pick.  Oh, and if I don't have your email address already, leave that too. :)

So, I'm going to leave this open for a week (I want a lot of suggestions!), and then I'll go get my hair cut.  Whoever submitted the winning haircut will get a surprise prize from me.  They will even get to choose the category, i.e., jewelry, hair accessories, home decor, vinyl, handmade cards, digital design (like an announcement, collage of family pictures, wall art....please note that if you win and choose this, the prize is the design and the time it took me...you'd be responsible for getting printed however you wanted), etc.
And I'll pick one or two runner-ups also, and they will win either a pair of earrings, hair accessory, a set of handmade cards or vinyl lettering.
So help me out and make suggestions!!!!

To Hope

by John Keats


When by my solitary hearth I sit,
And hateful thoughts enwrap my soul in gloom;
When no fair dreams before my "mind's eye" flit,
And the bare heath of life presents no bloom;
Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head!

Whene'er I wander, at the fall of night,
Where woven boughs shut out the moon's bright ray,
Should sad Despondency my musings fright,
And frown, to drive fair Cheerfulness away,
Peep with the moonbeams through the leafy roof,
And keep that fiend Despondence far aloof!

Should Disappointment, parent of Despair,
Strive for her son to seize my careless heart;
When, like a cloud, he sits upon the air,
Preparing on his spell-bound prey to dart:
Chase him away, sweet Hope, with visage bright,
And fright him as the morning frightens night!

Whene'er the fate of those I hold most dear
Tells to my fearful breast a tale of sorrow,
O bright-eyed Hope, my morbidfancy cheer;
Let me awhile thy sweetest comforts borrow:
Thy heaven-born radiance around me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head!

Should e'er unhappy love my bosom pain,
From cruel parents, or relentless fair;
O let me think it is not quite in vain
To sigh out sonnets to the midnight air!
Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head!

In the long vista of the years to roll,
Let me not see our country's honour fade:
O let me see our land retain her soul,
Her pride, her freedom; and not freedom's shade.
From thy bright eyes unusual brightness shed
Beneath thy pinions canopy my head!

Let me not see the patriot's high bequest,
Great Liberty! how great in plain attire!
With the base purple of a court oppress'd,
Bowing her head, and ready to expire:
But let me see thee stoop from heaven on wings
That fill the skies with silver glitterings!

And as, in sparkling majesty, a star
Gilds the bright summit of some gloomy cloud;
Brightening the half veil'd face of heaven afar:
So, when dark thoughts my boding spirit shroud,
Sweet Hope, celestial influence round me shed,
Waving thy silver pinions o'er my head!

Your humor for the day.

Guess what we found hidden in a vent in our basement?

Makes you wonder who was hiding it, and from whom it was hidden.

An honest woman.

All my life, people have thought I was younger than I am.  I remember one summer, my sister and I were at a Girl Scout day camp.  My mom was late picking us up, so we were the only kids left, sitting and waiting with the leaders.  One of them asked if we were twins.  My little sister is 2 and a half years younger than I am.  But I was shy, quiet and scrawny.  So I guess it shouldn't be surprising.
The summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college, I cashiered at Kmart.  Customers and co-workers thought I was barely old enough to even have a job, let alone be 19 with a year of college under my belt.
When I was in Kenya with Operation Smile, most of the team thought I was one of the high school students, instead of the 23 year old married woman that I was (though, of course, they were a bit shocked that I was married at 23).
So, though I've been young, I generally haven't been as young as people think I am.  (someday this will be a good thing.)  I have always been anxious for people to know how old I am.  Just so they know I'm not quite as young and inexperienced as they think!
Which leads me to my little white lie.  I round up, I guess you can say.  A few months before my birthday, I start claiming to be a year older than I am.  Now that I'm married, and Landon is almost exactly three months older than I am, the fib usually starts at his birthday.
Well, as of today, I'm not a liar (at least for another 8 or 9 months).  I really am 28.

Have you missed me?

I know, you totally have.  I'm just sitting here at my kitchen table, singing songs to Susie and overall just wasting time.  I SHOULD be hand sanding the ridges in my cabinet doors, so I can SOMEDAY stain them, so I can someday put my kitchen back together....so I can SOMEDAY actually invite people over.  Yes, I am that silly, I don't want people to come see our new place until I have cabinet doors and drawer fronts to hide my mess.
Let me just say that after this experience, I don't think I am going to stain anything that requires stripping and sanding ever ever ever again. (but that being said, I DO like the new color of my cabinets better than the old color...it's just all the imperfections that get to me...)
So in other news, this little princess of ours won't eat chunks of fruit or vegetable.  She thinks all her fruits and veggies should be pureed and spoon fed to her.  We've made it chunkier all the time, but if it's not spoonfed to her, often with rice cereal, she won't eat it.  Or she will spit it out.  She loves crackers and chunks of cheese, but nothing else will she eat from her tray on her own.  Any ideas?  I tried to get her to eat some tiny chunks of kiwi (the world's mushiest fruit) for lunch today, and she threw a bawling red faced fit. (and she gets terribly offended when I tell her no.  like trembling lower lip, crumpling face, big crocodile tears.)
And unfortunately, even if Dallin WAS like this, I don't remember.  Wisdom from anyone? The systematic desensitization has hit a wall (yes, I know, spoken like a true behaviorist.  I can't help myself...and right now, I really wish I had kept my principles of learning text).
Moving on, I need to get Susie down for her nap, and go put another coat of stain on my solitary I'm-finished-sanding cabinet door (one down, 19 doors to go).

Wow. Again.

(But for entirely different reasons.)

Any fellow art junkies out there?  THIS IS THE COOLEST!  I hope they continue to expand their selection of museums!
Want to go see the art in the Hermitage Museum in RUSSIA?!  Try it out...that and 16 other art museums.  How cool is that.

Wow.

I mean, I know I got married kinda young and all (we were both 22), but....yeah.  Found our engagement pictures today.

I guess I'm kinda mourning my lost youth and beauty (yeah, yeah, I know, I'm only 28...almost.  But the (stressful) last 6 years have aged me!!!)

Mommy guilt and other things that give me a headache.

Today is one of those days.  I feel overwhelmed.  My kids are tornadoes, wrecking havoc everywhere they go.  They also don't want to take naps.  There are dishes in the sink, laundry that hasn't been put away, and a to do list that seems to be going nowhere.  Oh, and I look like the swamp thing.
Dallin is still in his jammies.  I plopped them down in front of a movie this morning so I could shower, since I was too exhausted to get up and get ready before they woke up.  And since then.....what have I accomplished?  Anything meaningful, like spending time interacting with my kids?  Nope.  Sigh.
I guess I'm just tired.  Need to actually go to bed on time tonight, then up early before the kids are up. Things Life seems better then.

Folding Laundry: oh how I hate thee, let me count the ways....

I have a nasty habit involving laundry.  When it comes out of the dryer, it gets dumped into the laundry basket, and squished down as each load is added on top of it.  Or it gets dumped out on the bed, where it stays until we are getting ready to sleep....and then often it is then just tossed back into the laundry basket to be dealt with "later."  I'm in the middle of folding such laundry, and (obviously) procrastinating it by taking a "break."
Is there anyone in the WORLD who likes folding laundry?!


(In other news, happy birthday to my brother-in-law Brett!)

Just because she's cute....

And since I'm a Mormon Mommy Blogger.

Our little thumbsucker.  Weird.  Dal was binkie boy and NEVER sucked his thumb!

P.S. if your blog needs a facelift, today is the last day to enter my blog design giveaway.

On Mormon Mommy Bloggers (prepare yourself, it's long....)

Last night, I was rocking Susie to sleep singing Goodnight My Angel (well, the parts of it I can remember at least).  I was thinking about this sweet baby.  About how someday, she'll get older and she won't think I'm the best thing in the world.  Sometimes she won't even like me!  And while she is growing up, there will be disappointments and griefs and challenges in her life.  Which make them disappointments, griefs and challenges in MY life.  There will be times this baby girl will cry (for something other than her brother squashing a tote on her head so hard it left a big red welt), and I won't be able to make it better.  And someday she will grow up and leave me.  I think motherhood (parenthood) is really almost equal parts heartbreak and joy.  Plus love like you never knew before you became a mother (parent).  I thought about the person I am becoming by experiencing such love, joy and little bits of heartbreak.  I thought about how lucky I am.


A few days ago, a friend sent me this link.  I've thought a lot about that article and what I have to say about it.  Let me be clear, at this point.  I did enjoy the article, I don't think this woman is a moron and my response is not an attack of any kind.  I just have some things to say.  (Though, Ben, I think you summed it up well in saying,"Sure, there is a slight condescension in her voice at times, but it's still mostly positive...")


First, she says, "As someone married to a former Saint (my husband left the church as a teenager), I certainly have no illusions about what life as a Mormon would be like, and I'm sure it's not for me, which makes my obsession with these blogs all the more startling."  No offense, but I don't think she has any idea what it means to be a Mormon.  I'm just sayin'.  


Then she says, "And don't even get me started on the Mommy Blogs, which make parenthood seem like a vale of judgment and anxiety, full of words like "guilt" and "chaos" and "BPA-free" and "episiotomy." Read enough of these, and you'll be ready to remove your own ovaries with a butter knife."  Fine, whatever, I've posted enough of those stories myself.  But when it is then followed up later in the article with a statement such as "Mormon bloggers like Holbrook make marriage and motherhood seem, well, fun. Easy. Joyful. These women seem relaxed and untouched by cynicism."   Or "As my friend G. says, of her fascination with Mormon lifestyle blogs, 'I'm just jealous. I want to arrange flowers all day too!' She doesn't, really. She's just tired from long days spent in the lab, from a decade of living in a tiny apartment because she's too poor from student loans to buy a house, from constant negotiations about breadwinning status with her artist husband. It's not that she or I  want to quit our jobs to bake brownies or sew kiddie Halloween costumes. It's just that for G., Mormon blogs are an escapist fantasy, a way to imagine a sweeter, simpler life."  
Okay, so the poop, puke and drool stories make you think we do nothing but arrange flowers all day?!  I guess I'm just not sure "they" have a good grasp on what our lives are really like.


And then she said this: "Some pundits see this as a sign that young women yearn to return to some kind of 1950s Ozzie and Harriet existence, that feminism has "failed," that women are realizing they can't have it all, after all.  That view is utterly nonsense..."  Okay, let me climb onto the soapbox (any other BYU graduates who remember the soapbox on Thursday in Brigham Square?), and get situated.  Okay, ready.  WE CAN'T HAVE IT ALL.  I'm just sayin'.  We can't have it all, all at the same time.  You want to try "having it all" all at once?  Okay, prepare yourself for feeling mediocre at everything and exhausted 90% of the time.  I am certainly not without other ambitions, believe me.  But at this stage of my life, I am a stay at home mother. I realize not everyone can make that choice, but I can.  And because I can, my energies and attentions can more fully go toward raising my children and making our home and family life as peaceful, loving and wonderful as possible.


"Enter the Mormon bloggers, with their picture-perfect catalog lives. It is possible to be happy, they seem to whisper. We love our homes. We love our husbands."  Makes us sound like the Stepford Wives, No?  Anyway, of course, as expected, the author then brings up the question, but are they REALLY happy?  It's valid question, definitely.  And maybe I'm just feeling incredibly secure these days, but I think by and large the answer is YES.  I won't deny the reality of depression.  I've been there myself, and it felt dark and hopeless.  And I won't argue that there aren't pressures placed upon us as Mormon women.  But those are often of our own making, or even imagining.    I think overall, Mormon women are forgiving of each other's faults, understanding of each other's situations and supportive of each other's dreams.  We're not perfect.  But we're not hateful, competitive Stepford wives either.


This article also made me think about who I am as a Mormon Mommy Blogger, what I blog about and what I hope to accomplish by blogging.  Admittedly, for most of my blogging history, I was determined that this blog was about ME.  Not my kids. ME.  Well, now I have another blog for that.  Did you notice my header no longer says "The Ipson family, Landon, Heather, Dallin & Susie...but mostly just Heather"?  When I revamped my blog (oh, by the way, on that blog I was talking about that IS about me, I'm going a blog design giveaway.  Go enter.), I just didn't feel it applied anymore.  I guess I really am a Mormon Mommy Blogger.


And so I like crafts!  Is there something wrong with that?!  Does that make me inferior in some way?! It gives me a great sense of fulfillment, creating something beautiful that wasn't there before.  I don't do it to show off (though I guess having a blog about all my projects might make it seem like that), or to make someone else feel un-talented or whatever.  I do it because I love it.  (And I really love reading other craft blogs....it's so fun and interesting to see what people come up with!!!)


The biggest question that this article raised for me was what I hope to accomplish by my blogging.  Well......not much!  I have no lofty goals.  I hope to keep interested parties abreast of the happenings of our lives.  I hope to share my ideas with others.  I hope to have a place to be honest about life.  Mostly, I just want an outlet to tell people (those who care, anyway) what I am thinking.  Like right now.  But I do hope that my blog(s) will be one of those that does "help women like me envision a life in which marriage and motherhood could potentially be something other than a miserable, soul-destroying trap..."  Because this woman didn't get to rock her sweet baby to sleep last night, pondering the heartbreaks and joys of being the mommy.  She doesn't know what it is like to love a child so much it feels like part of your heart beats with theirs.  She doesn't know the beauty and consecration of sacrifice for those babies.  I hope that the take-home message of my blog will be that "family is wonderful, life is meant to be enjoyed, [and to] celebrate the small things." 

Under Contract!!!!

Wanna relive your adolescence?

Yeah, me neither.  But I am at the moment, since I'm working on the never ending project of scanning all my parent's old negatives.
Here's the gems for today:

still have those velcro rollers...

why didn't anybody TELL me what I looked like?!

modeling the apron I made in home ec...still have that too!

On Raising my Voice, among other things...

Yeah, yeah, I know, it's been awhile.  We've been "sooo busy,"  blah blah blah.  I'll get to that later.

What I really want to talk about today is being a mom.

It's one of those days when you tell your 3 year old not to yell, and then you turn and yell at the dog.
One of those days when you wake from rocking your teething baby to sleep to realize you've only succeeded in rocking yourself to sleep.
Wet ponytail hair.  No makeup.  Old long sleeve tee that is too short, especially when paired with those too big old jeans that slide down (since every other pair of pants you own is dirty).
A big wet spot on your chest and shoulder from your baby's bottle and subsequent spit-up.
A day when your son goes down for his afternoon nap still in his pajamas (the worn out footed jammies with a huge hole in the toe) and under those jammies, he's going commando since you never put him in underwear after removing his "sleep diaper," as you so euphemistically call it whilst talking to him.
One of those days when the only thing you can get done is being a mom.
(though you're hoping the laundry will somehow get done too....)


Anyone else having one of those days?