Purse mania! Plus, a non-purse-related giveaway!

Last fall, Ruth was her ward's enrichment leader and was in charge of Super Saturday crafts. One thing they did was to make purses out of placemats. So easy (just google placemat purses for tons of sites with instructions)! Fabric placemats are cheap, already finished and lined for you, a great shape (they make the perfect size to carry a standard size quad), and come in fancy patterns. Problematically, something about this idea really caught my fancy and I began buying placemats with abandon. They seemed to be on clearance everywhere - Target, Kohls, Walmart, Big Lots, the grocery store! I ended up with a lot of very cute, very cheap placemats. On top of that, Ruth was buying them too. We took them all to Walmart, bought great trims, and went to town. Here are some of our creations:




Speaking of getting carried away with homemade stuff, I foolishly committed myself to promising three people that I would send them a homemade gift this year. Guess what, one of those people could be you - just be one of the first three people to comment on this post (In return for posting this, I get something from Edith and I'm really excited to see what I get). Here's the kicker though - you have to pay it forward. If you don't blog, post a note on your facebook page. If you don't have a facebook page, email a bunch of people you know with the offer. Who knows what you'll get (it won't be a purse) or when in the next 365 days you'll get it - it's all part of the suspense.

I'm on TV!

OK, I admit it, the post title is a big lie. I haven't actually been on TV since high school (that I know of). But, Little Lit, the company that Ruth and I run, was featured on TV - KSL Studio5. They did a segment on stuff to keep your kids entertained while they need to be quiet (church, restaurant, doctor's office, etc.), and they featured our products. You are welcome to watch the whole segment if you want, but the interesting part (to us anyway) is about 9 minutes in where they stop telling you how to make stuff and start telling you where to buy stuff. They feature our Seek & Find toys and have our 'My Book of Mormon Quiet Book' displayed as well. I promise not to let the fame go to my head.

"Crash!"

Mui-mui has a great new favorite word - 'Crash!' (or, as she says it, 'Ash!'). This word is applicable to falling block towers, colliding toy cars, herself falling down (or into a piece of furniture), ring around the rosie, throwing food on the floor, throwing diapers in the garbage can, and even projectile vomit landing on the floor. Since it's one of only four or five words in her vocabulary (Ma, Da, Dis, and Dat being the other common ones with a very occasional 'nigh-nigh' thrown in now and then), it's a good thing it's the perfect word for so many situations.

Valentine's Day

After being gone for almost two weeks, the kids and I finally got back home on Friday night. I had a fabulous time at Michelle's wedding in Alaska (post and pictures coming soon) and the kids had fun at Ruth's house. But, I missed my Erik and it was great to get back just in time for Valentine's day.

During the day, we had lots of fun mixing up pink cookie dough, rolling it out ("It's just like Play Dough!") and cutting out heart-shaped cookies. And Go-go and Mui-mui looked perfect in the special Valentine's shirts that Grandma P. sent for them.

But the real fun happened after the kids went to bed. Erik put on his good suit (he looks SO good in it, but he almost never wears it), and I put on my red dress and we had a delicious candlelight supper. Erik made Chicken Cordon Bleu, fancy veggies, potatoes, and even homemade bread - YUM! He's such a sweetheart. Then he gave me a box of personalized M&M's ('Erik lvs Margaret'). Then I, being the mushy romantic that I am, gave him his very own pair of warm socks with Moose on them. Luckily, he loves me despite my Valentine-impairment, and we had a terrific time together on our 'date'.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Merry Christmas!

Well, it's February 1st, and we just got our tree down this week, so that must mean that it's time for a Christmas post. I got the cool Flip video camera for Christmas, so I took some footage of Christmas morning and put together this little movie. It's only 3 minutes long, but I won't be upset if you skip it - just forward to the end for the cutest shot ever of Mui-mui blowing kisses. Happy Christmas to all and to all a good Groundhog day!

Happy Inauguration!

Whatever your feelings about the outcome of the recent election, I'm sure we can all agree that our new president and our nation could use our prayers and best wishes over the next four years. Here's to Hope!

Photo Montage

So, I've been tagged. Granted, Kristie put out the challenge 3 or 4 months ago, and, also granted, I don't really believe in playing tag (OK, it's more like I'm agnostic towards online games of tag), but it looked like fun and so I did it. Here is the challenge:

The rules of the game:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker. (http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/mosaic.php) Then upload or copy the completed mosiac to your blog.
d. If you're reading this, you may consider yourself tagged (but only if you think it would be fun).

The Questions:
1. What is your first name? Margaret
2. What is your favorite food? Raspberries
3. What high school did you go to? Kahuku (and, yes, I was in the marching band!)
4. What is your favorite color? Blue
5. Who is your celebrity crush? George Clooney
6. Favorite drink? Right now it's hot mint tea
7. Dream vacation? Today, I'm thinking London
8. Favorite dessert? Chocolate!
9. What you want to be when you grow up? Happy (I wish I knew what profession I wanted to be when I grew up)
10. What do you love most in life? My Family
11. One Word to describe you. Friendly
12. Your Flickr name (or other online name) Markie!



Photo credits:
1. Margaret "Wyld Meg" Ogg, Feral Child of Lochloorach, 2. Drop a Raspberry, 3. Kahuku, 4. Blue ice cave at the Jostedalsbreen glacier, 5. George Clooney, 6. Green mint tea, 7. The Day of the Storm in London Covent Garden..., 8. Put Chocolate Pudding on the Top Shelf !!, 9. don't worry be happy new year, 10. My family portrait, 11. "you've got a friend", 12. Markie Blitz Super Hero 2

What's in a name?

I don't really regret changing my name when I got married, but I have been missing my maiden name lately. My (nuclear and extended) family is really cool and I like having that visible connection to them. Of course, if I could, I'd share a name with all of my mom's side of the family too - you can see how that would get very messy, very fast. And, of course, there's the feminist side of me that says, "Why should I be the one to give up half of my identity just because I'm a woman?"

My old name was hard to spell, constantly butchered in pronunciation, and is way too close to a swear word, but it was ME. My new name (OK, not really new since we've been married for more than 11 years, but you know what I mean) is common, easy to spell, easy to say, and it actually has become me. But, I wish there was a non-clunky way to have both. Hyphenating is not for me (my signature is already 17 letters long!), and I like that we all have a common name for our family. I think the Chinese way is my favorite. In Chinese I would be 'Markie Oldname' but we would be the 'Newname' family and I would be 'Mrs. Newname'. Who's with me on adopting the Chinese way?

The bed's too small

The first year and a half of our marriage, Erik and I had a full-sized bed. It worked, but, as mattress stores love to point out, if there are two people on a full-sized bed, each one has less total acreage than a crib mattress. It can start to feel a little cramped. On the other hand, while it's great fun to stay in a hotel, the King-sized bed just feels lonely. So, we're generally pretty happy with our Queen-sized bed. It's not too big, not too small, not too hard, not too soft - even Goldilocks would approve. It's even big enough for the occasional visit from our sweet 3-year old. Until last night, that is. Go-go's best friend Becca is staying with us for a week while her mom is in Utah. Last night, Becca had a bad dream, so we brought her into bed with us to snuggle. About a half-hour later, Go-go came in to snuggle too. With his usual snuggle-spot occupied, Go-go improvised throughout the night - using my shins, stomach, feet, or hip as a pillow; lying perpendicularly across our ankles; snuggling around my head like a cat; and just lying in his regular spot despite the fact that Becca was already there underneath him. Despite all of this, the kids seemed to get plenty of sleep. The adults? Not so much. I think that we're going to be in big trouble when Mui-mui gets big enough to climb out of her bed and into ours.