Confessions

Yesterday while Rainier went from this....

To this.... and worse, much worse.

I did this...


Well if only it was that quick.

Confession: Those puppies took me two days, a decent investment in Styrofoam, fondant cutters, lollipop sticks, meltable candies and dyes.

But totally worth it don't you think?

Thanks Emily (of the Foley Family Blog) for punishing me with this cuteness.

You were the source of my confessions this week.

Phone Message

I had the pleasure of leaving a phone message for a friend last night, it went a little something like this.

"Hi, so and so. This is Jolene. When your family gets home can you please call us back? Claire needs to apologize to each of your children for calling them butt heads after school yesterday. Thanks so much."

Oh the pleasures of parenting.

F-U-N for ME & U2

I once met this hot boy that I liked a lot, and he would actually sing me a few tunes occasionally. Its true, I know you don't believe me, and he probably wouldn't admit it to you, but he did. Back in the days when he was trying to "woo" me.

Apparently the "woo-ing" worked, and now he's so cool he talks on the phone while taking pictures outside the Cardinals Football Stadium in Glendale.

He now woo's me by taking me to hear other people sing.


Floor tickets and all.


What an absolute stud muffin.

Oh I am so enamored by him...can't you tell? Or wait I think this is a pic of me smelling something "funny" in the crowd.

Anyways Fergilicious of the Black Eyed Peas sang away and we were close enough to see her daisy dukes shaking away.

Then the hot boy convinced me we should go and talk to his friends from work during the break in between shows, we did, which also meant we gave up our nice spots, about 5 people out from the outer stage. The things I do for that guy.

Anyhow the break being over, and his friends not moving up. We started trying to finagle our way back into the sea of people.

It took us the whole concert but we risked our lives and got closer...

and closer to Bono, and survived almost being knocked out by drunk people, almost being burnt alive, and almost being pushed around. But boy was it fun, and boy, was it worth it.

It was a fantastic night. Thanks for "woo-ing" me Tommy!

Halloween Party 2009

There are a few good things about living in Arizona.

One, you can have an outside Halloween party in the middle of October and worry it's going to be too hot.

Two, you can always find plenty of weeds to spray paint black and grey.

And three, we have some pretty great friends who live here, and ofcourse some crazy cute kids too.


At our Halloween Party we had a whole host of characters. Some included the following.

Princess Leah and Hans Solo.
I was a bit worried she was going to shoot me with her gun, she was serious about her business.


These two fabulous Greek gods showed up.
They were quite the fitting image of Greek for sure.

Reno 911 cop showed off his hot legs while his date was here to save our lives.

Some white trash showed up at my door and I didn't have the heart to turn away a pregnant lady, especially one with a black eye.

Motocross racers sped into the house ready to dare anyone to do a sweet trick.

And then all of these Crazy red hat ladies from Sun City somehow got my address and invited themselves in.

This one cougar brought her young softball playing beau.

This hot cougar was on the prowl, I believe later making her catch at a local race track here in town.

Some pirates showed up looking to steal some loot.

And these two dorks, Captain Up-Chuck and his date obviously just went to Good Will the night before and only could come up with these get-ups. Although I am a sucker for red flowy hair.

Thanks to everyone who dressed up and everyone else who came and made it such a fun night!

Photo Journey:Rainier.

A few glorious minutes in the life of Rainier.

Show Stoppers

A few weeks ago the girls were in a local High School Production of Alice in Wonderland.

A young woman in our ward was directing it and had an ingenious idea of putting kids in the chorus line. Ingenious I tell you because I think that performance was the most tickets they have ever sold in that high school's history.



The girls had two practices every week for a few weeks. But for them, it was just a great big party, all their good friends from the ward were there, plus singing and dancing. What on earth could possibly be better than that?

They were so excited the day of the performance because I actually let them wear makeup, mascara and all. (I didn't like how much it aged my little beauties.)

Yes I was the mom who was using flash photography after they specifically asked the audience not to.

There's sweet Ainsley in the middle looking so enthralled.

Alli doing...well I'm not sure. but whatever she's doing, she is doing it perfectly.


And pretty Claire, looking for her cue to take a bow.

Our good friends the Mikos' were nice enough to cough up the dough to see the girls. I have no doubt that it was totally worth it.

Dad was smart enough to buy his girlie's flowers for their performance. They were so excited about it and I must say there was a tear or two in my eyes when I saw them on that stage, man have I turned into a mom or what?