About Laurie

Hair Evolution

Laurie11 Comments

Since I need a “pick me up” post – I decided to make fun of myself and do a quick post on the evolution of my hair. I love to talk hair! I had my hair done yesterday and it got me thinking what will be my next new do?

Elementary, 1986: Perm. Here I am with my baby brother Scott, who just returned from his mission. I’m 11 years old. Notice the butterfly clips in my hair.


Jr. High: My 8th grade dance picture. My mom made this dress for me in my favorite color. Notice the “puff sleeves”. Can you tell I was a huge Anne of Green Gables fan?


High School: long hair, curled at ends, no bangs, a little “poof” in the front


Single Adult – long hair w/ bangs to the side


Mom: 2001 – short w/ bangs pinned w/ a bobby pin. This is cutie pie, Dylan.


2002 – Short and choppy cut with a flip and criss-crossed part


2003 -Blonde


2004 – A-line w/ bangs and choppy highlights


2005 – Still a-line w/ bangs but a more natural highlight. (Here’s when my flower hair clip obsession started.)


2006 – Bangs and shooting for long hair


2007 – Finally long hair for pony tails!

Present: long, natural highlights and low lights for a darker look, layers with very thin ends to make styling easier.

Your turn! If you post your hair evolution – be sure to comment so I can check it out!

Mother of Boys

Snow Day!

Laurie2 Comments

We have had the most beautiful winter. It’s been warm, sunny, and so enjoyable – until yesterday.

I sent a picture via camera phone to my friend Melissa in Utah. She’s been grumbling about their constant cold weather and snow. I thought it might cheer her up a bit. It did. 😉



The kids loved it and had a great time playing in the snow.

I, however, felt like I was visiting another state. Yesterday is was beautiful and like 65 degrees. It’s been so warm I’ve been considering short sleeved Easter shirts for my boys. This was so out of the blue and strange to me.

Blogger

Blogapalooza 2008 – Let’s Party!

Laurie3 Comments

This is your official invitation to join me and other fellow bloggers for a night of fun at a blog party!

When: May 1, 2008

Where: Provo, UT (I’ll be attending a church women’s conference at BYU both Thursday and Friday and would love for you to join me, or you can just come to the blog party Thursday night!)

Who: any friendly blogger that would like to come and meet other fellow bloggers! All are welcome!

What: We will have a room on campus and will have a catered dinner, plus games and my famous mint brownies! Ticket price will probably be around $15-20…. exact price to be announced in February.

If you are interested in coming, let Denae know!

After the success of the last Blogger Lunch I attended, I’m definitely going to this one. I hope you’ll be able to join us!

Genuine

Karma Hates Me

Laurie23 Comments

Tonight was supposed to be our ‘Emma’s Garden Party’ that I’ve spent way too much time planning and preparing for. Contrary to popular belief, I’m not an organically creative person. I have to achieve step 1 before my creative brain opens up to other possibilities. Therefore, after seeing the church gym on Wednesday morning, I was finally able to finalize the decor plans in my head.

That of course meant cutting out this paper fence, and since I couldn’t find any microphone stands, making and painting stands out of wood. Needless to say I was up until the wee hours preparing for what would have been an amazingly spiritual “girl power” evening full of beauty and grace.

This picture doesn’t do it justice, but basically we cut sage green plastic (from a roll) as the “charger” and placed a paper doily at each place setting. The flowers are pen flowers that each guest will be able to take home with them. What’s missing are the quote bookmarks from past Relief Society Presidents that will go at the top of each place setting to finish the look.

Thanks Jen and Carrie for all your help!

Here’s the stage that’s made of trees, flowers, my wood stands with tulle fabric and lights. We also swagged lights around the gym and added smaller plants to warm it up.

Remember those desert spoons I glued flowers on?

Well, because of my constant battle with Karma the party was cancelled. (Seriously she hates me).

My man and the boys helped me clean it all up and this is what the gym looks like now. Thanks Honey! I appreciate all your help. He even took us to Starbucks for hot chocolate to help wash away my woes.

It really is a bummer that the night was cancelled but what’s worse is all the time I took preparing for an evening that didn’t happen. I hate wasted time.

Blogger

What Finger Are You?

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You Are the Index Finger


You are ambitious, driven, and capable.

You aren’t afraid to take responsibility for your actions – or place the blame on whoever deserves it.

You are honest, free thinking, and objective. You see things in your own way – and you aren’t afraid to let everyone know about it.

You get along well with: The Thumb

Stay away from: The Ring Finger

Home Decorator

Closet Organization

Laurie10 Comments

Recently, I’ve read several blog posts about people struggling with getting their homes organized. I think “up keep” is the most difficult task in having a home.

One day I’ll have to sit down and figure out my philosophies in organizing. But quickly for this post it’s:

1) It should be a no-brainer
2.) Everything needs a home
3.) If you don’t use it in 2 years, toss it! No exceptions. Scan it and include it in your digital scrapbook if you have to, but then throw it away.

I’m all about systems, and I love a good one. But it has to be so easy that it becomes automatic and I can go into “robot” mode and talk on the phone as I’m putting everything away. 🙂

The past year I have been focusing a lot on my closets. In keeping with #2 Everything needs a home, sometimes you have to create a home for it. I also think it should look pretty and have easy access. 🙂

I’ve quickly gone through my home and taken pictures of all the shelves my man has built for me to accommodate my compulsion for order.

Davis LOVES Lego’s. I’ve tried to get him into other things to no avail. So Jason made these shelves down low for all his Lego’s and Knex. I have picture labels on the clear bins so he can clean them up himself.

Off Topic: The boxes on his top shelf are a project that I still need to get to. I like to cut out the pictures on the boxes and then include them in the correlating bin. That way Davis has lots of pictures to be inspired from and can remember what pieces go to what. (Also, he can see how many dadblasted he has and be grateful – can you say spoiled. Thanks Grandparents!)

Davis doesn’t use the instruction packet so I keep it nice and pretty in a my Lego file for the younger boys when they’re ready to play with them.

Dylan couldn’t reach his hanging clothes – so Jason made him a lower bar. We also built it so a dresser could fit in there if we needed it to. He then added a shelf on top for Dylan’s exclusive toys, one he doesn’t like to share. Just because there was waisted space – he made me an extra shelf up high for things like diapers and toys I want to hide from the boys. {{ha ha}}

Off Topic: I love toys! It’s sad that my two oldest are getting out of that phase and would rather be on the computer on the PS3. Since we have several sets of Grandparents we tend to accumulate lots of toys around birthdays and Christmas.

So to keep everything clean and fun, I rotate toys. I buy those cheap bins at Wal-mart and make a picture label. It makes clean up easy and I keep a bunch of them high in a closet so I can control how many bins are out at one time.

I hope this post has helped at least one of you! “Make it Work!” {{giggle}}

Business Owner · Home Decorator

Week in Review

Laurie8 Comments

Life has been so crazy busy that I haven’t been able to blog about it. So here’s a recap of what I’ve been up to the lately.


Before Picture

Last week Lisa and I painted this desk blue to go into Davis’ room.

Before Picture

With the holidays and birthdays now behind me, I finally repainted the mirrors and small table that I purchased at a garage sale last fall. It’s about time, geez. They went in my guest room.

Last Satuday, After I did my pantry makeover the boys decided they wanted to start taking their lunch to school. What?!? I don’t have room for school lunch stuff in my pantry. That always happens to me, once I get a good system down, things change and spoil my plans.

Thankfully, here comes Jason to the rescue and he added more shelves to my master closet to accomodate the school lunch stuff I have to hide so it won’t get eaten, as well as some food storage items I want to keep handy.

As I was painting the shelves, Drake came in and put his ‘Mommy and Me’ gymnastic lessons to practice by hanging on the bar. He was seriously so proud of himself. Great job, baby!

I still need to get some bins and decide what goes where and what I want to keep stocked, but here’s the final product in the meantime.

Monday, I stained the roof and the floor of the boys play ground. There’s still a little more to do inside but that won’t take me long. After being on a ladder from 10am to 6 pm painting, my body is still so sore. ouch!

I met a couple of my neighbors that live behind us while I was up on that ladder. Can you say awkward. Here I am holding on for dear life, praying that I don’t fall and live out my days paralyzed due to my obsession with completed projects, and strangers want to make conversation. At least they liked it. One guy said, “it was a work of art”. Thanks neighbor.

Tuesday, I had a minor panic attack when I realized that our “Emma’s Garden Party” for church is next week and I haven’t done a thing for it. {{oops}} So I spent the day making flower pens for the center pieces. Each guest will be able to take one home at the end of the evening.

I’m “OTT! Yeah you know me!” so I also hot glued flowers onto green spoons for the use for dessert. Lisa gave me the hardest time when I told her what I was doing. However, once she saw how insanely amazing they were – she changed her tune. She even helped me finish the last couple dozen. Thanks Sis!

I can’t remember where I was, but I felt so loved and girly when I used a spoon with a flower on it to eat my dessert. I want the Ladies at church to feel the same way on such a spiritual “girl power” evening.

Wednesday, Drake and I drove 4 hours (picked up Lisa and Billy on the way) to Houston. My brother Scott came home from his mission for our church.

I’ll let you read all the details over on Lisa’s blog. She’s so much funnier than I am!

Thursday, we spent the day hanging out with the family, driving around town to see how our home town has changed, and shopping for new clothes for Scott. Scott has changed a lot and I am so impressed with the man that he has become.

Friday, was a Par-Tay! Drake and I got home at midnight Friday morning and once I woke up I got busy preparing for my good friend Lisa’s birthday party. She was born on Leap Year, so since she only gets an actual birth “day” once every 4 years – we made it a big celebration.

Front of Box – I decorated the top and bottom of the game box

We played a “Celebrate Lisa” game that I made out of a game that I bought for a $1 at the Goodwill. You can go to Executive Homemaker for more details on how to make the game.


Board


Game pieces – I hot glued buttons onto the pieces that came with the board game.

I didn’t get any other pictures of the party, I was too busy hosting. {{drat!}} Lisa got lots of pictures with her camera – I’ll have to have her e-mail me some.

I can’t believe how long this post turned out. I’m now realizing that you didn’t need a play-by-play of my week. I guess this post was more for my anyway, I hope it excuses the absolute exhaustion I feel today. My body aches to the core, but seeing all that I’ve accomplished and served I can see it was worth it. Hopefully I can get a nap on Sunday. {{yawn}}

Girly Girl

Welcome!

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Finally, Liesl gave in to peer pressure and made her blog public for us all to enjoy! She’s a hairdresser in Orem, Utah and such a fun girl. Lisa and I met her when we made an impromptu appointment to get Lisa’s hair done. We all hit if off immediately.

I’m hoping that she’ll put lots of pictures of her clients new hair cuts on her blog so I can keep my locks up on the latest trends. {{giggle}} I love to talk hair!! I’m currently looking for a new style. {{hint hint}}

Be sure to head over to Liesl’s blog and say hello! Let’s make sure we welcome her properly. K!