"CLAIR" and/or "SHAMELESS" GIVEAWAY!!!!!

I have been waiting many days for this post. Do you know why? Because it is post 55!!!! Five is my favorite number. I think I have mentioned this before. So that makes 55 even more super amazing. In honor of this 55th post I am going to tell you 55 things about me you may not know. AND I am hosting a give-away.:) I have thought long and hard about what to giveaway,and I have decided....not to tell you until I pick the winner on September 5th(because I still haven't quite decided, to tell you the truth.:) To have a chance at winning the amazing giveaway leave a comment at the end of this post saying something you love about me. Whahahahaha, how conceited is that?! Well, everyone needs an ego boost every now and then, don't you think? Especially when one is so tired and overwhelmed with three babies, school, hubby's school, cleaning, etc. Now that you feel awful for thinking me conceited, and now that you are feeling very sorry for me, go ahead and leave me a message. Each lovely thought counts as one entry for the giveaway, go crazy. I really don't mind.;)

55 things you may or may not know about CLAIR:
1.I have a sleeping beauty complex. I can never decide whether pink or blue is my favorite color.
2.I love doing the dishes during my children's nap time. I HATE doing dishes right after I have eaten.
3.One of my all time favorite movies and books is ENCHANTED APRIL.
4.CONVERSE Chuck Taylors and flip flops are my favorite types of footwear.
5.Besides my favorite FAVORITE pair of shoes that are chocolate brown suede, 40's retro heels. Guhguhguh.
6.BJ is my spiritual twin. Babies can be born as twins in this world of course. Before we came to this world I believe we were born spiritually. So IF there is such thing as SPIRITUAL TWINS. Then BJ is my spiritual twin for sure.
7.Pizza is my favorite food lately. Pretty much ANYTHING Italian is my favorite food.
8.And chocolate.
9.And raspberry yogurt covered pretzels(I just ate some)
10.Anthropologie is my FAVORITE STORE IN THE WHOLE WORLD!!!
11.I don't regret having three babies in three years, but I also wouldn't recommend PLANNING it that way. I ABSOLUTELY recommend following Heavenly Father's plan for your own family.:) Having three babies is HARD but it is EQUALLY rewarding.
12.I miss BYU. I miss college. I miss taking classes on campus. I miss the experiences I had while I was in college. I miss that atmosphere. I don't miss not being married while I was in college. I do wish to be back in Provo in that academic life.
13.I am an academic. I LOVE learning for the sake of learning. It brakes my heart that Liberal Arts is a fading major, and that people go to college to get a job, not just to learn and help create themselves. I am constantly reading and learning new things and expanding my knowledge of the world around me. I find it very rewarding.
14.I love herbs. I love healing through nutrition. I love learning about how bodies function and how amazingly wonderful they are at healing themselves when given the proper tools.
15.I love gardening, I love being out of doors. I love green, living things.
16.I hate snakes and spiders and scorpions.
17.I love camping in Belfair, WA at Zion's Camp. I have never camped outside of WA, but we are planning on camping in CA next summer. I am excited.:)
18.I have never traveled outside of the USA(except to Canada a few times). I feel this is a detriment to me and my outlook on the world.
19.I love baking bread. I love kneading it.
20.I love BJ more than I love anyone else in this world. Then I love my children, then my Mum and then the rest of my family and dearest friends. I can't help it, that is the order.
21.I love to create things. I feel very close to heaven when I am creating things. I feel like Heavenly Father must be so happy when He creates. It gives a whole new perspective to the Bible when it talks about Heavenly Father saying "and He saw that it was good" when He was creating the world.
22.I think grammar and spelling is important, but not worth degrading and embarrassing people in public about it. As long as we are communicating, that should be the main bit. Good grammar won't get you into heaven, but showing people love and compassion will.
23.I love my siblings SO MUCH. But I am super sucky at letting them know. It either comes out cheesy, or lame. I am really proud of the good choices they make in their lives.
24.I think birthdays are about YOU BEING BORN INTO THE WORLD. Not HOW OLD YOU ARE. It is SOOOO wonderful to think about yourself being born into the world and the good you have done. I think about people like my friend April who has helped bring hundreds of babies into the world, that is millions of lives she has affected! Go ahead and have a George Bailey moment on your birthday instead of whining about how old you are. It is much more fun, and fulfilling.
25.I love the ocean. I am hardly ever as relaxed as I am at the beach. I am definitely a water element.
26.I am deathly afraid of sharks. This is lame since I love the ocean. I have had terrifying nightmares about them since forever.
27.I am afraid of the dark. I get the heebie geebie meemies very easily in the dark!
28.I love shock value.
29.I love slapstick.
30.I love the Marx brothers, don't really fancy the Three Stooges at all.
31.I try not to hate things or dislike things unless they are actually BAD. In my VERY opinionated youth I found that people don't like people who HATE EVERYTHING.:)
32.I love to dance. I love all kinds of dancing. I feel sooo eighty million happy when I am dancing.
33.I love to exercise. It is weird, but I love it. I love that working hard feeling. I hate being too tired to exercise.
34.I have not been myself for the last four years. I am not sure who I have been, but it has not been Clair. People call this the "Lost Woman Syndrome." I call it not being me, and not realizing it. I don't like not being me, it is uncomfortable. I am excited to be more me from now on. George Bernard Shaw said,"Life is not about finding yourself, it is about creating yourself." I absolutely believe that.
35.I LOVE sparkly things. I LOVE THEM.
36.I love to go shopping. This is very strange to me. I was never this way as a youth, but have recently found out that a Clair can spend a A WHOLE HECKOF AMOUNT OF MONEY pretty much in any store she wanders into. This is bad, but really fun.:)
37.I don't love having too many things though either. This is confusing and leads to sometimes a lot of purchasing and purging. I LOVE TO PURGE. MY HOUSE. :)
38.I love teaching people things. I don't think I know very much about any one subject, but love of teaching goes with love of learning. Let's learn together!
40.I don't believe in abusing animals just because we can talk and they can't. I believe they are in our stewardship, and that they are for our use, but that we should also take care of them.
41.I love the idea of recycling clothes, and am excited to learn how to do that. Taking something and making it into something else is AWESOME.
42.I believe in personal revelation, and think it is the most precious of all gifts Heavenly Father has given us.
43.I want to live in a place BJ and I call BEARHAVEN someday before I am not too old to enjoy it.:) I want cashmere goats and SouthdownBabydoll Sheep, and a few horses, and a pack of dogs. I want an orchard with a beautiful ballroom in the middle of it to host super lovely balls annually. I want lot of other things about BearHaven, but BearHaven is a special dream for me and BJ so I don't want to talk about it a lot.
44.I am a planner. I LOVE to make plans and goals. Planning is most of the fun for me. I think you can make any plan work IF you get a good enough plan.
45.I love cloth diapering....with BUMGENIUS diapers. Come to find out I really do not like prefold cloth diapers. I guess I like them better than disposables, but not by much.
46.I love healthy food and unhealthy food.
47.I love painting daisies on my toenails.
48.I LOVE DISNEYLAND. People who poohdidoo it don't really understand me at all.
49.I love people. I think they are fascinating. I love talking to people, and learning about why they do what they do. I LOVE books about people who do amazing things.
50.I have lived in Las Vegas for four years and never once been on the strip. I don't like it, it makes me uncomfortable. I hate the naked pix everywhere and I hate how many families have been ruined by the things it provides so easily.
51.BJ is my hero. He does more and accomplishes more in one day than anyone I know. He is FREAKING AMAZING.
52.If someone wanted to read a book to understand me better they would have to read ANNE OF GREEN GABLES and GIFTS FROM THE SEA. That is me to a tea.
53.I love wearing blue mascara.
54.Someday BJ and I are going to own a swing club and call it either:
Converse and Cufflinks
The Tower Club(after the Eiffel Tower)
Kalamazoo
Mairzy Dotes
55.The way I feel the most love is when people share their life with me, and let me share my life with them. The people who I hold closest to my heart are the people who do this.

Are you soooo totally over me yet?!?! 55 things about yourself is hard! Anyways, it was an interesting exercise. I have been thinking a lot about who I am lately. I am not sure how to end this post.
In the words of many famous people....THE END.


PS.Please forgive the grammar and spelling mistakes, I was in a hurry.:)

"I ain't got noBODY..."

While Changing Jane's Diaper....

Jane:What are you doing?
Dad:Cleaning your bottom.
Jane:That's right; it's mine!
Dad:Yup, it's yours.
Jane:We all got a bottom.

OHMYGATOR, I nearly peed my pants!

"We were never being BORING"-Pet Shop Boys OH YEAH

So yesterday BJ was being unnecessarily chipper. Whistling, singing...moving about. So I said, "BJ could you please stop."(It wasn't a question, but I did say it super nicely) And then I said, "BJ you are always telling me that one of the main reasons you chose me was because I am the only woman who has ever kept your attention. Because I am fascinating. I am always fascinating, and today I need to take a brake and be boring. Can you be boring too? I am really tired." He laughed heckof hard, and stopped whistling.:)

(I laughed too;).

On another note, this weekend I have been thinking about some of the things my Mum has taught me that has become an integral part of who I am.
Here are a few of them.

Sometimes being a responsible, mature adult means doing things you don't want to do. I totally believe that, and I think about it lots during my day. I don't always want to do the laundry, or clean out the sink. I hate yucky chores, but they need to be done. And that is OK. I will survive these things, and the truth is, if I don't make a big deal out of doing them, then they are quickly finished, and IT ISN'T A BIG DEAL AFTER ALL.:)

It is important to be a hard worker.This philosophy has helped me over and over again. It has made me a super valuable employee(It feels really good to know it takes a few people to replace you when you leave a job:). Working hard has also taught me a love for working hard and a job well done. I love that feeling of accomplishment, but there is so much more that you feel. It is hard to put into words unless you have felt it too.

Enjoy the time you have with your children and sweetie. My Mum and Pop went out every weekend that I can remember. And they often went out for the weekend, even if it was just at the local motel 6. I totally have a testimony of the importance of date nights with your spouse and keeping that strong relationship through activities and time together, NOT just watching TV, or things like that. But talking and interacting together. And family time was always a priority as well. We went on lots of family vacations and hikes and outings. My Mum has always taught me to take time to enjoy my sweet babies while they are small, while I still have them at home before they grow up and have their own families. This has been so important to me when things seem overwhelming. When I have the good times I really try to soak them in and enjoy them. It doesn't necessarily make the hard times loads easier, but it BALANCES my life out in a way I NEED.

Be generous and the Lord will always bless you. I remember my Mum remarking lots of times how she believed she found good babysitters to watch her kids because she was a good babysitter as a teenager. I have thought of that lots in my life and really applied it and seen the benefit. It feels good to be generous, and that is blessing enough from Heavenly Father.:) My Mum is very generous with her time and energy. And HER SMILE. She smiles all the time, and I think that is such a beautiful gift to the people who see it. Smiles can lift what words can't. She is a really good friend to everyone. I don't think I know one person who knows my Mum and doesn't love her. I think that is testimony to the kind of person and friend she is.

The last thing I will mention(I have learned too much from my Mum, it would take to long to tell you all the things!)is something my Mum has said to me millions of times, and I think about it, and it buoys me up every time..."Clair, you aren't going to starve." :)I am NOT a good poor person. I starve HORRIBLY. One time in our marriage BJ and I pretty much were starving, and I found that I become QUITE stingy with food when there is hardly any in the home. But my Mum is right, I will never starve because she will make sure we at least have some food. This has taught me a few things. First, that it is important to look out for each other and take care of each other. To be generous and to have that compassion for each other, as the Savior has compassion for us. Also, it has taught me that it is good to have faith that things will be alright. There is a long time in eternity. Keep perspective. You CAN get through ANYTHING.

My Mum is amazing. She is one of the MOST beautiful people I know. I hope my life exemplifies what she has taught me.

"MORE THAN WORDS"

For those of you who know me REALLY REALLY well you will know how much the following sentence means to me.

JANE SAID "OHMYGATOR" FOR THE FIRST TIME TODAY.

Oh that I could have had it recorded and played over and over!(Luckily two year olds repeat everything a million times, especially when you give them a good reaction.:)

Oh that I was blessed enough to live to see this day.:)
Ohmygator.:)

"I know Heavenly Father loves me..."

Ohmygator. It is 12:45 in the afternoon and all three of my children are in bed. Alice is asleep for sure, and Jane and Denny are on their merry ways. OHMYGATOR.


...And I baked bread this morning.

Yup. Heavenly Father loves me for sure. I am going to go get me some well needed rest while cuddling up with a great book.:) Cheers!

My friend Annjilla is doing a giveaway for our friend Jenny.Jenny has a fabulous etsy shop dedicated to help preschoolers learn shapes, numbers, and words in fun colorful inventive ways. All her products are sold in electronic form and emailed to you so you never pay shipping!



To go to Jenny's etsy shop click HERE:






To enter the giveaway and the chance to receive a free shape sorter game from Jenny and two free black and white korker bows from Annjilla click HERE to get to Annjilla's blog and follow the instructions on the post. (More pictures of the exciting prizes are posted on Annjilla's blog.)

"Darling Je Vous Aime Beaucoup..."

I just finished reading Julia Child's MY LIFE IN FRANCE, and I gotta tell you it was absolutely lovely. She has such a joy for life and good things. I had a lot of aha moments for my own life, and I just really loved it. So funny to find a kindred sister in Julia Child.:)