Interior Decorating

I admit I have no decorating skills. I'm very grateful that my daughters and sister take pity on me. Anything 'classy' in my home came from them. This is the latest addition to our home decor - it was a Christmas gift.This is my next project. I'm tired of dusting the fake tree, and the cats have broken everything 'classy' that I've displayed in the armoire.

Decorating on a dime - help!!!

PS. The Most Important Sister Benefits

How could I forget the most important benefit of having sisters? They get married! Not only does Bethany have 3 big sisters, but now she has a brother to tease her - he makes comments on facebook also... Then there is this cute benefit too...
I don't know how Beth would vote, but I think the positives outweigh the negatives!

Older Sisters are Awesome - well, mostly

Bethany has mixed emotions when it comes to having older sisters. Either she loves them:

Or they annoy and smother her:

Sometimes they gang up on her - especially when it comes to boys. Bethany's response, "I'm not as dumb as my sisters..." We'll see... Beth is certain her sisters are all "facebook spies" - making comments on her wall about posts.
There are benefits to having older sisters. When Marah came home for Christmas, her first night home was "girls night" with Bethany. They made Christmas cookies - lots of them. Marah even cleaned up afterwards! I LOVE college students!

Bethany decided she wanted to paint her bedroom. Russell still certain that white walls are best, gritted his teeth and gave approval. Megan's room is still white since she left for college before the younger ones wore down their father. Kenna's bedroom is yellow: Marah's raspberry:and Bethany wanted her bedroom to be gray, purple and black - BLACK? Russell grudgingly approved, but he's certainly not willing to participate in desecrating his white walls.Gratefully, Kenna has lots of painting experience. Last Christmas she painted accent walls downstairs as my gift - with some help from Mojo... She talked Bethany into an accent wall using the most neutral color of her color scheme.So Marah (she painted her raspberry room) and Kenna helped Beth tape and paint the accent wall. A month later, Beth's room still looks like this...
Another benefit of having older sisters is that you have more than one bedroom to sleep in when your room is a disaster... Hopefully soon, she'll finish 'deep cleaning' so the room will be ready for the new bedding and drapes she wants for her birthday. Bethany blames Kenna for the pile of clothes on her floor. She says they were washed and neatly stacked until Kenna was searching for a jacket to wear on a date. Congratulations Beth! You are now old enough for your sisters to borrow/steal clothes from!!! Is that a benefit or a disadvantage???

Resolutions - My Four "S"s

WARNING: This could be boring - more for my benefit.

We borrowed a tradition many years ago. Instead of New Year resolutions, we do "Wisemen" gifts. Like the 3 Kings who bought gifts for the Christchild, we give gifts to Him also. The premise being that since we were celebrating His birth, He should get a gift. Somewhere in the chaos under the tree, the Wisemen statues stand next to a gift box containing our past goals. I'm not sure calling them "wisemen" gifts gave us any more resolve to complete our goals, but that was the idea... I do enjoy opening the gift box each year and seeing the girl's handwriting on the outside of their envelopes and how it has changed over the years.

My 'gifts' this year weren't much different than previous years. Catch up on scrapbooks... Hmmm, still stuck in December 2004. I mentioned in a previous blog about the "stop procrastinating" goal - failing already. I seem to be stuck in a "moment by moment" pattern. I woke up in the middle of the night (and no, I hadn't fallen asleep on the couch watching the news as I typically had, I was in my bed - now I watch the news standing). My mind started racing through everything I wanted to accomplish in 2009. Simplify, service, scrapbooks, and of course, and stop procrastination - or 'stop being slackers'. We have made progress in a few areas.

Thanks to friends who are better at finding service opportunities, we've adopted the "Giving Tree" - donating clothes, supplies and making dinners for the homeless. We also copied other friend's traditions - giving service gifts to each other instead of actual gifts - service and simplifying - awesome!

Simplify - as far as 'stuff' - we've had some success. It's amazing how many beanie babies are stored in the garage. Bethany and Marah donated 5 tubs of stuffed animals. The 'gently used' ones went to an orphanage in Mexico, and the 'like new' ones went to neighbors collecting for 'Toys for Tots'.

Simplify - like as our lives and activities - hmm, failing so far. For some reason, I feel like I'm waiting for some event to happen before I can move forward, but I can't seem to put a finger on what I'm waiting for - Coby to move out, getting a job??? The ward change definitely 'changed' things - and simplify isn't what happened to Russell's life... Xbox hasn't been touched for two weeks - other priorities. He is still finding time for basketball!

We (Russell, Bethany and I) definitely fell into slackerness. 2009 brings a return to what we call the "Megan rules" for Bethany - she gets to cook once a week, clean dishes once a week, work on her YW personal progress on Sundays... (The oldest three all lived by the "Megan rules".) Nothing like have three older daughters to remind me that I've become a slacker mom. You'd think with just one child left at home it would be easier, but I've decided that was a false assumption. The girls used to 'police' themselves. If someone wasn't doing their chores or was watching TV before homework was done, another sister would correct the situation. Now it's just me, and if I'm busy in another room, distracted or not home... She (and Marah) both counted on my old-age forgetfulness to get them out of chores and other responsibilities.

Four "S"s = service, simplify, scrapbooks and slackerness.

I'm hoping that by blogging failures, successes and goals, it will give me added incentive to keep trying! If nothing else, this blog has reminded me that Bethany hasn't cooked this week - except for a 'southern dish' for a school project...

What I'll miss...

Ward divisions/realignments... Can you ever be prepared? This is our fourth since we moved to Tucson almost 12 years ago, and it was just as painful as previous ones. Do we ever get used to goodbyes? These are some of the faces that I'll miss most:And these are some of the faces that Bethany misses the most:

And these are some of the faces that Russell will miss most:

Funny/sad how meeting at different times (and this time different buildings) changes so much. This realignment put families back with us that I cried about losing 3 years ago and 9 years ago. It's been a bittersweet experience.

Oops! Correction...

UNEXPECTED not unexcited... It was my biggest 'unexpected' Christmas surprise!

Thanks Kenna for pointing out my error!

Aunt Lori - Event Planner Extraordinaire

If there is a cousin gathering, a Carnahan family event or a great vacation adventure, Aunt Lori has usually organized it.

Whether it was bringing Cam & Leighton to AZ after Christmas,
Taking Kenna, Marah and I to San Francisco in June,
Flying to UT in November and gathering the cousins for Grandma Jan's 71st birthday (the birthday girl opted out of the mud masks),

Or hosting gatherings at her home in CA, we are VERY appreciative! Aunt Lori is awesome!!!

Odds & Ends

Favorite birthday gag gift - Lori found it. In case you have 'old eyes' like me, it says, "In dog years, I'm dead."I was very spoiled this Christmas - lots of decorating/scrapbook surprises, but this was the most unexpected!

Favorite picture of the new 2nd counselor after his 1st Sunday...

Bittersweet reminder that children grow quickly! High school best friends 'the Megans' both home for Thanksgiving.

Favorite Christmas card - if you have cats, you'll understand:

Reminder that a new year has begun and once again, I'm already behind... Yes, this was taken Jan. 10th and it took another 3 days to successfully pack it all into the boxes it came out of - never fits - even though we only got half out this year.

More bittersweet reminders that I'm too close to empty-nester years...

Marah & Kenna are back in Provo for another fun-filled semester!

In Maryland, 'Serious' Seth got a haircut - and his mean parents took away his binkie... Now he really looks serious!

And my baby doesn't look like a little girl any more... Bethany's wearing one of Marah's formals - had to dress 'formally' for a 8th grade field trip to a play.

This is my happy face! I am remembering that New Year resolution, "Don't procrastinate" Haha! Company is coming for dinner in less than five hours, and what am I doing? Cleaning, showering, cooking - of course not. Blogging. Great way to procrastinate - also easy to rationalize as 'journal keeping'.

Cousins!

Aunt Lori, Cam and Leighton came to visit after Christmas. First stop, Macayos. Strange that my high school hangout in Las Vegas would become a Tucson family tradition... Except at the Tucson restaurants, TCTs are 'cheese crisps'.We explored a part of So. Arizona that we hadn't experienced yet - Bisbee. And took a tour of one of the old mines - by mine train... Marah continuously reminds us that she has never stepped over the border into Mexico, so the next stop was a small border town called Naco. Those of us (Lori, Kenna & I) without proper ID - passport, birth certificate - stayed on the USA side of the border. Russell called Naco, "the cleanest, prettiest bordertown he's seen". Whew! We knew to avoid Nogales because of the current drug wars. Uncle Mike was a bit anxious about where we were taking his boys... View through the fence as they approached the border...
Back on the US side without any delay.A quick stop in Tombstone ended the day's adventures for Lori and the cousins.While Russell and I drove to the Stake Center and changed into Sunday clothes. Russell wished he had been shot at the "OK Corral" when he heard what was wanted of him...Day 2 of cousin time began with a tram ride to the top of Sabino Canyon. Lori and the cousins hiked down through the canyon, rocks and water. While Russell and enjoyed a leisurely walk down the main road...

Then home for NEW YEARS EVE!Ended with the traditional midnight kiss! The final cousin day, they chose to hike again. This time at Honeybee Canyon. Dancing saguaro imitations...Scaling the half unburied bridge (mudslide/flood of 2006 covered it):

Farewell Leighton & Cam!