Hangin' w/ My Girls

I've been spending lots of time with the Sister Missionaries lately, so since everything else in life is kind of dull, I'll share.

Tuesday night is exchanges. (I'm not going tonight :( ) This picture is about 3 weeks old, back when Sis. Behrends was with us (we had a dritt).
Top row l to r: My awesome friend Beth, who's only been a member a year, Sis. Behrends, Aly
Bottom row: me, Sis. Nichols, Sis. Hafen
Shortly after that we had them over for dinner. Since Sis. Behrends is from Germany (we first met her last year when she was here w/ Sis. Grasser, also from Germany) we enjoyed a German feast of Nurenberg wuerst, knoedel, roet kohl & cucumber salad with fruit tea and german chocolate for dessert. Here I am last week on exchanges again. It was raining buckets and Sis. Hafen and I had to stop for gas. There was literally a river of water under the car, so I was pumping the gas like so.

Here we are again last week. I've been on so many joint teaches & exchanges lately, that I'm feeling like a missionary again. I even dream about it...

So, totally changing directions of where this post was going. Here's some pictures of Sariah watching Curious George this afternoon.
Yes, those are Doug's socks on her arms, I'm trying to get a mountain of laundry folded, and she took this oppertunity to "help."
She's so cute. My mother-in-law sent me this shirt she's wearing.I'm in the mood to try and upload the videos I recently took of Sariah, so stay tuned & cross your fingers that the lap top is in a good mood.

Random Quandries

1. I just bought a Sansa clip 2GB MP3 player at Target. It was on sale (so I saved like $3, woo hoo), and I wanted something small for music when I take walks outside now that its getting warmer. (I need a beat to keep moving fast.) But I haven't removed it from the packaging yet because I wanted to check the reviews online, just to make sure. Well I noticed that I can get it for like $10 cheaper on amazon (and I bought red, but I kinda wanted blue). So do I return it to Target and buy it on amazon to save a bit of money but have to wait around till it ships to me, or do I just keep the one I've got now and not worry about the hassle.

Also, would it make a difference if I could get the 4GB one from amazon for exactly what I paid for the 2GB? I don't really think I need all that extra space, but I guess it wouldn't hurt?

2. Why do pillows have to be so difficult to buy? They're a nessasary elemant to sleeping, so I'm picky about them. And I've always slept with 2 because my head has to be at a certain angle or I can't sleep. But after awhile they go all flat, and I hate that. Here's whey my quest for the perfect pillow meets me frugality. I don't want to pay a lot for a stinkin' pillow! I've always wanted to try one of those memory foam pillows, but spend $35 for one pillow? No thank you. Target has pillows on sale right now, but if I only spend $8 for a pillow, is it going to be unusable after 6 months? Sigh...

3. Speaking of Target (can you tell I was just there?) They always have the cutest things. Like their dishes, so cute! But their sets are either really heavy so Sariah wouldn't be able to use them, or they're those plastic ones that you can't microwave or stick in the dishwasher unless its the top rack (& my top rack isn't that big!) I hate non-microwavable dishes! What about leftovers!! I wish they'd just make some non-breakable, microwavable, dishwasherable, light-weight, cute dishes... is that so much to ask? (For the record, I have a set of dishes that are just that, that we got at Wal-mart, and I do like them for now.)

4.Pants. Seriously folks, I don't want to spend $60 on them, but I wish they'd fit right. Right now I'm in between sizes, so the larger size is falling off, but the smaller size is too small. And everything seems baggy in the hips/thighs. I've been searching for new Summer capris; its not going well. Maybe I'll just have to wait a couple of months and see what size I am then. But seriously, why do they think that I want to pay and arm and a leg for an article of clothing? And I can't stand to pay more than $4 a piece of kids clothing. That's why Sariah has 2 closets, one for things that fit now and one for things that'll fit later but I bought seriously cheap.

5. Why do they make it so hard to figure out which software works with Vista? (I shake my fist at you microsoft!) And why is Sony so stupid? When Sariah was born, my mom gave us an awesome Sony Handycam so we could take pics & videos and post them here for all to enjoy. Well, when our laptop got very sick, we bought a new desktop and set it up and behold! our Handycam softare (nero 6) doesn't work with Vista. (I shake my fist at you microsoft!) So we waited for the upgrade we could get free, and when the time came I went to download said upgrade and behold! you need your serial number (which had scratched off the camrea, why is it on the bottom?!?!?) and other obscure info for the camera (which we didn't have.) Okay so I gave up. Every once and awhile I try to resusatate our laptop and post video, but its a big hassle, so does anyone know if there is software I can just buy to make my handycam download video with Vista? I'm desperate here!

6. Not really a quandry, but I got new glasses (the first time in almost 7 years) so here ya go. And yes, our blog has gone monkey, I love it!

Do you see the difference?

Here I am on my birthday last year, 2 Oct 2008
This is me today 16 March 2009
Can you see the 25 lb difference? I kinda do, but not really, that's why I put the same outfit on (its faded a little, it was new on my birthday...)

On a side note, my hair was pretty cute back then, I wonder if I should cut it...

Biker Babe

It was warm enough today that we were able to go outside for awhile and watch Sariah "ride" her bike. Her feet reach the peddles, but she has a hard time reaching at the very end of the push down. This kind of makes her go forward a bit and then roll backwards. She's content for now to sit on her bike & check out the scenery. I imagine in a couple of months it'll be hard to keep up with her. :)

Awesome

Sariah and I went to Half Price Books yesterday to look for some Curious George books and some other things. I'm looking into taking some music theory/composition courses either online or some where around town. (If you have any good ideas let me know!) So I though I'd just check and see if they had any theory books I could study on my own. That's when I picked up The Music Kit by Tom Manoff. It was reasonably priced, and hey, its a computer assisted version, which I thought was sweet, since I have a computer program for the writing of the music. I felt something hard at the back of the book & I thought, great! free softwear, so I flip to the back & check it out...
Awesome, right? I think the last time I saw a floppy this big was 1993....