The Shoes Make the Outfit

While Nathan was at the Sweetheart’s dance two weeks ago, an invitation to Sweethearts at his old high school was dropped off. It was, for an invitation to a dance, a last-minute invite from a friend of his who had asked four other people and still did not have a date. Nathan, being the kind human being that he is, graciously accepted the invitation and yesterday was the dance. The theme was the 1920’s and that worked great because Nathan’s preferred dress shoes are very retro. His date was wearing a matching pair, which was super fun.

Unlike many of his dance (and day to day) experiences at his own school, it was a low stress event. He had a good time.

Steppin’ Out in Style

The shoes to beat all shoes have finally arrived. Nathan is totally pleased…and so dashing. 

 

Happiness is…

…tying your shoes for the very first time.

It's Easter For Peep's Sake!

My kids happened to have spring break the same weekend as Easter, so we’ve had a little extra time for our holiday activities. Thursday afternoon we colored our eggs. We only spilled one bowl of dye and only cracked one egg. That’s a pretty successful dye session if you ask me.

Everyone’s schedules were extra crazy this year, so instead of doing an extended family egg hunt we did it here at home with just our little posse. That meant that all the plastic eggs were Matthew friendly which is highly unusual. Matthew thought it was just about the best thing ever. He was so excited that he barreled out the door as soon as it opened, not allowing Malia the couple minutes head start she deserved due to her age. After a few minutes we had to tell him to slow down because he wasn’t leaving any eggs for Nathan and Malia. He was pretty bummed, but by then he had nearly all the plastic eggs in his basket and Nathan and Malia only had a couple each. We made him share.

 Remember way back at Christmas when I found some fabric that would be great for Malia’s Easter dress? The previously mentioned dress has been completed and Malia loves it. I tried it on her at various stages in its completion and the first time she tried it on after the skirt was attached, she immediately started spinning and exclaimed, “It turns!” When I took the dress off her to put in the finishing touches, she came to snuggle me and said, “I love you.” I responded with an “I love you to.” Then she had to clarify: “I love you making my dress!” That kind of appreciation makes me glad to do it. And working with a little bit of tulle is just fun and makes the dress “turn.” Plus then we had to shop for shoes that matched and Malia was in little girl heaven. And I was in big girl heaven. What can I say? I have a thing for cute shoes. And apparently it is a genetic trait that I've passed on to my daughter.

My choir sang in Sacrament Meeting, I planned a kind of rowdy activity for singing time knowing that the primary kids would be all sugared up, and since we have 9 o’clock church we even had plenty of time to make our hot cross buns after church was over. It was a nice change from the hectic pace that happens when I try to get a nice dinner ready after getting home from church at 4 o’clock. So we had a nice day. Hopefully y'all enjoyed your holiday as well.

A Girl and Her Boots

Malia has a thing about shoes. All summer she would shuck off her sandals as fast as she possibly could, but then it got cold and I started putting shoes on her so she couldn’t pull her socks off. They were cute shoes, of course. She never even tried to take them off. In fact, she prefers to have them on.

Then it got cold enough for her to wear the rockin’ boots that my sister-in-law, Danna, gave us for Malia’s baby shower. I love these boots. If they came in my size I would totally wear them. And Malia seems to have inherited my fancy for footwear. This morning I got all her clothes out and as soon as she saw her boots she started complaining. She grabbed them and held them out to me, holding her feet up as well. She complained the entire time I was changing her diaper and getting her dressed. Then we put the boots on…and she was perfectly content. She sat and admired the boots for a bit. She would not let me take them off her, even at nap time.

I’m equal parts proud and ashamed that my daughter has a thing for purses and shoes.

Faux Cheesecake Was On the Menu

Yesterday was my birthday.  As seems like the norm lately, Matthew was home sick all day.  But to be honest, it just gave me a really fabulous excuse to sit around in front of the t.v. all day.  We’ve had some expensive purchases in the last few months (a new car, a new camera, and a new ipod) so I wasn’t expecting anything extravagant for my birthday.  However, Kev likes to have something for me to open, so he picked up a little something during a trip to Staples:

For those of you who are aware of my love of red shoes and my office supply fetish, you will understand how awesomely perfect (and perfectly funny!) this gift is!  There is also a wonderful bouquet of flowers gracing my dining table.

So I’m officially thirty-eight years old and to be honest, I don’t feel that old.  When I was a teenager, I scoffed when I heard adults say such things.  Of course, at sixteen 18 is tantalizing, 21 is grown up, 25 is old and 30 is nearly dead.  My perspective has changed somewhat since those years.  Now I find that while parts of my body are beginning to show their age, inside I feel basically the same as I did twenty years ago.  I would certainly hope that I’m wiser, I feel more confident and secure, I’m much more content, maybe even more level headed, but basically I don’t feel all that different.  And now that I’m standing nearly at the gate of 40, I really understand how a person can honestly not feel as old as the years may declare.

In other news, Malia rolled over for the first time yesterday.  I didn’t see it, but Nathan says she looked mightily surprised.  She has been unable to duplicate the rolling so I’m pretty sure it was a mistake, but it won’t be long before it isn’t a mistake which means it is time to start playing bad cop where the Lego is concerned.  I just hope my aging-before-my-very-eyes-body has enough get-up-and-go to keep up with her as she starts to become a mover and shaker.  

These Boots Were Made For . . . Me?

Way back in September I got an e-mail from DSW featuring these boots:

I immediately fell in love with those boots but couldn’t justify running out and buying them because 1) it wasn’t in my budget right then since I had just purchased a new pair of dress boots and 2) I already have a pair of snow boots.  But I did go try them on because I wear a 6 ½ wide and have large calves which means I have a fairly hard time finding boots that fit.  I figured that if they didn’t fit, buying them would be a moot point and I wouldn’t want them so much anymore.  But to my chagrin, they fit perfectly.  Slid right on my short, fat feet and zipped right up over my calf.  So I put them on my hope-to-be-able-to-afford-in-the-future list because the previously aforementioned snow boots have several flaws including (not in the order of importance, of course) the fact that when I wear them they grab onto my socks and end up yanking them off my feet and also they are pretty darn ugly.  But they were what I could cram my feet into and could afford when I needed some snow boots with no heels during my pregnancy with Matthew.

When I got my birthday coupon from DSW earlier this month, I set it aside hoping that maybe those boots would go on sale as winter clearance sales started.  But they didn’t go on sale-it seems like that one item you are watching never does.  My coupon was expiring today so this morning I headed on over to DSW to peruse the clearance rack.  On my way to the clearance rack I walked past the boots to drool a bit and happened to notice that there were none left smaller than a size 9.  So I figured that was that.  None left in my size, I would have to wait until next season.

Imagine my glee when I walked back to the 6 ½ section of the clearance rack and spotted these:

 They were not the color I had originally wanted and wouldn’t match my wardrobe as well, but who cares?  They’re snow boots and as long as my feet are dry, warm, and cute, so what if the boots match my coat?!  When I asked the sales associate why this particular pair was on clearance when none of the others in the same style were, she told me that it was because they were the very last pair in that size.

So yay for me and my short, fat feet!  And you know, I almost think they are cuter with the contrasting colors anyway.

Pride

On the last Sunday of each month, the Young Women join us in Relief Society for opening exercises before adjourning to their own classes. Today, when I stood up to lead the opening hymn, I saw several of the young women put their heads together and heard, “{whisper, whisper) cute shoes!” It was good to know that even at my advanced age (36 was ancient when I was fourteen!) my taste in footwear has not been relegated to the realm of grandma shoes.

Gobble, Gobble Baby!

One of Matthew's favorite pastimes is kicking of his shoes. This is the way (to my perpetual irritation) that he passes the time while we are shopping. I usually notice, but have on occasion had to go back down a few aisles to find his missing footwear. Today I was not as alert as usual and missed the kicking off of one shoe. As I was leaving Office Depot (our fourth stop of the morning), I realized that his shoe was gone. So I went back into the store and walked all the aisles hoping to find it. I didn't, of course. So I headed back out to the car to see if he kicked it off in the car without me noticing. No dice. So it was back into the store to stand in line and leave my phone number with the manager in case a toddler sized Elmo shoe showed up somewhere. After that, knowing that I would need to revisit the three other stores I had already been to, I took a minute to change a very unsavory diaper so that I wouldn't have to wash the car seat cover when we got home. While I was up to my elbows in poop (not literally, but it kind of felt like it), the Office Depot manager came running out of the store holding the lost shoe. While losing your child's shoe is not necessarily something to be embarrassed about, it would have been nice to get it back in a situation that allowed us all a bit more dignity. Seriously, I'm sure it did not make the managers day to see that diaper business. He seemed a bit embarrassed and high tailed it back into the store before I could even say thank you. But I was very grateful that he came to catch me rather than just leaving a message for me to come back and get it.

So here's to my youngest child: Gobble, gobble baby! You are an enormous turkey!

Red: The Color Of Happiness

After spending the summer discovering the emotional perks that accompany the ownership of a very cute pair of red, strappy sandals, I decided I needed a pair of red shoes that are a bit more cold weather friendly. I have spent the past several months looking with no success. This lack of success was not because cute red shoes are hard to come by, but because my feet are so wide I have trouble finding dress shoes that fit. But today I finally found a pair of winter-pick-me-ups. They are not quite as bright red as I would have liked, but it's okay because 1) they are cute, 2) they are still red, and 3) they fit my fat little toes. So when the snow flies, I will still have access to that red shoe mood lift!

Please Pass the Advil!!!!!

I woke up on Saturday morning with a headache. Not a My-head-is-a-bit-achey-I-think-I'll-take-a-couple-Tylenol headache. A Holy-cow-when-I-move-anything-the-whole- world-spins headache. For those of you who are lucky enough not to be afflicted with migraines or other such heinous types of headaches, let me describe what it is like. First, take a railroad spike (the bigger and rustier the better) and shove it through your head. Location doesn't matter much, although my personal favorites are the temples and right behind my ears. Now, tune your radio to whatever kind of music you absolutely abhor. Whether it is country or hip hop, rap or hard rock, make it really loathsome. And then turn it up as loud as you can. Loud enough that your teeth vibrate. Next, look directly into the sun. Then add in some dizziness, nausea, and vomiting and you've got a pretty good idea of what a really gruesome headache feels like. I know that people look forward to being resurrected and being restored to their perfect bodies for a variety of reasons, everything from anxiously awaiting the return of the thin, svelte pre-baby body to welcoming a full, lush landscape of hair. But me, the things I look forward to the most are not having to endure any more skull crushing headaches and being able to see farther than three inches without my glasses. Seriously, I would happily be fat for eternity if it meant I never had to spend another day vomiting due to the enormously sharp pain in my temporal lobe.

As a result of this mind numbing experience, I missed the opera and dinner with my mom and my sisters. I was totally bummed. It was PF Chang's and Don Giovanni for heaven's sake! Mozart! So to make myself feel better (a little bit anyway), I used the money I had set aside for dinner and bought a pair of shoes. They are red. And cute. And they were on sale. And the 6 1/2 actually fit even though I usually can't cram my short, fat little feet into a regular width shoe. And I was lucky enough to get the last pair in my size in the store. And there was a teeny tiny ding on one shoe so they gave me an additional 10% off. And when my change came out as 98 cents, the guy just gave me $1. So I missed dinner and the opera (dang it!), but I got a really cute pair of shoes at 56% off the regular price. And they are red. My favorite color.