Daniel and I went snowboarding yesterday at Alpine Valley (about 45 minutes away). AMAZING (I don't usually use this word, mostly becuase of how over-used it is on "the Bachelor" ... but in this case, it's "amazing" worthy). I haven't been snowboarding in over 4 years because of being either pregnant or nursing every winter - ridiculous, I know. But this past week we were trying to decide about date night this weekend and Daniel said, "why don't we go snowboarding?" So, on Thursday we found a babysitter for Saturday and just went - and it was gorgeous!! The weather has been sunny and in the upper 40's the past 4 days (I never thought that "in the upper 40's" would be a description of gorgeous ..... ahhhh, my how things change when you live in Michigan) and Saturday was no disapointment - it was clear blue skies and 47 degrees on the slopes.

I was pretty nervous my first run down the bunny slope because I was never that great of a snowboarder in the first place, but by the 3rd time down, I was feeling pretty confident about not falling. I could at least remember how to snowboard as good as I was when I stopped going about 4 years ago and I was impressed with myself - ha! Who knew? The old saying is totally spot on, it's like riding a bike. Don't get me wrong, I biffed it quite a bit. I probably had 4 or 5 good falls, but no "yard sales" and I stayed upright for 90% of it - ha!

Daniel was a thing of beauty to watch, not just because he's H-O-T, hot but because of how graceful he was just gliding down the hill. I was feeling pretty good about myself about the 6th or 7th time down my little bunny slope and challenged Daniel to a race down the hill, he chuckled and agreed to all the rules I created just for him. He didn't have to, but he waited until I was 3/4 of the way down the slope, then just went straight down the hill, no turns, no glides, no slowing down, just shot like an arrow down and beat me by a full 30 seconds .... suffice it to say, I was humbled. He's just good. I realize now why he likes to do this so much - he looks so relaxed and it's a good workout (not really for him, but a little I guess) and he's outside taking in nature. If I were as good as him, I'd find it relaxing and soothing too.

Daniel was pretty nice and stayed with me for most of the time. We got some pretty fun pictures of Daniel doing jumps and us sitting in the middle of the slope making faces. Just fun. Just fun to be with Daniel all day and no kids. Just fun to be outside in SUNSHINE. Just fun to do something challenging for me. Good times.

So, Daniel put up one of his snowboarding jump pictures on his facebook and his little brother Eric, who is much too hip for us old fogies just left a message that said "GNAR". Daniel had no idea what that meant and had to google it and found a definition in an urban dictionary. Eric was right ... it was definately gnar out there. :)


Before we hit the slopes.


Daniel's awesome jump.


Doesn't he just look GOOD on a snowboard??


A close up of my k2 luna snowboard - I really like it for no other reason than it has blue swirlies on it and shiny silver writing ... hee hee.


The slope (there were only 3 open, so you're seeing 1/3 of this whole place).


This picture came out pink ... probably because it was soooooo overexposed.

Francesca Snowboarding:



Daniel's Graceful Snowboarding:



Daniel's Jump:

I hate winter. So, a few days ago I thought I'd try and brighten my room a little. So, I looked at all my old pictures on my computer and printed out about 100 pictures that made me happy for one reason or another. Then I stuck them on my wall in my bedroom surrounding my mirror, color coordinated (all the blue ones are on the left, green is above and red, pink and orange ones are on the right). It turned out looking a little college dorm-room-ish rather than, cool quirky and unique, so I'll probably take it down eventually, but for now, I love waking up to the faces and sights of things and people that make me happy.

Before:


After:

So, last night Daniel and I got caught up. Daniel had a class on Tuesday nights that kept him from being able to be home to watch "Lost" on TV with me. And being the nice wife that I am, I would NOT watch Lost and wait to see it with Daniel. Last night we hooked up our laptop to the TV and watched the two episodes we missed on NBC.com.

I feel stupider after watchng this show. I feel like I have been tricked in some way. I have been watching this show for the past 5 years and got totally consumed in the storyline. For the first few years, it was a mini anxiety attack everytime I watched - sitting there on pins and needles to see what would unfold next. Not anymore. Now I just feel dooped.

Somehow I got caught up in it and now I can't NOT see the end (being that this is the last season and all). But it is so dumb! There are no answers, they continually add new characters and never finish any one storyline EVER! It's incredibly frustrating television and yet, who keeps coming back for more?? .... ME. I do! I can't believe it. I wonder how much of my life I have wasted thus far on watching Lost. So I figured it out (yet another time wasting event to add to the pile) almost 4 days of straight frustrating and meaningless television. 4 days of my life I will never get back and I have nothing to show for those 4 days ... oh man.

I've heard somewhere before that the definition of stupid is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. That's me and Lost. I keep watching, thinking, "it's all gonna finally make sense THIS time", and yet here I am totally baffled, with no answers and a cast the size of a small country's inhabitants later. It's rediculous really. And you know the worst part about it all? Guess who's gonna be on the couch Tuesday night with Daniel, breathlessly waiting to see who's coming to the island?? .... me.

I was playing with Daniel's new camera tonight before Liam went to bed. I have a hard time getting pictures of Liam, so here are a few from my little experiment. I'm still trying to figure out the camera and how to take pictures of my ever-moving and boisterous boys, hopefully I'll figure it out with practice:


Poor little Liam was not quite ready to go to bed ...








This one is my favorite.



I LOVE this picture, because Daniel rubs his eyes the EXACT same way!!!









This one looks like Mark to me. Sweet eyes and cute little smile.


It's too bad the following pictures weren't in focus ... I've gotta get better at this, so I can capture these awesome moments!!

Avocados are in season! There are a "plethera" of things I can't stand about Michigan, but let's be positive - I LOVE Randazzos.

Randazzos is a fresh fruits and vegetables market. It's all indoor, but it feels like it's outdoors. You walk in and there are open faced tables piled high with pineapples, grapes, onions, bell peppers, broccoli, oranges, 12 different piles of apples, and my favorite part is the herb section.

I wheel my boys over there and pick up a bushel of dill and stick their noses in it and ask them what they think. Sometimes they even have fresh handfuls of basil - that's a special treat! And I make loads of pesto. The best thing about Randazzos is that it's cheap too. Last time I went, I think I only spent $15 and got 2 weeks worth of fruits and veggies! It's awesome.

Well, I found this awesome recipe for a creamy green salad dressing from Food Network. It's Emeril (love him) and it uses avocados. My boys are not big salad eaters, but with this dressing on salad Liam ate 3 servings of salad and was asking for more until we ran out. Even Noah ate it all up!! So, thought I'd share, cuz I keep telling my sisters about this dressing recipe and never get around to sending it out, so here it is girls!

Creamy Green Salad Dressing

1/4 c. buttermilk (I didn't have this, so I just used regular milk)
1/4 c. mayo
1/4 c. sour cream
1/2 avocado, diced
1 Tbsp. cider vinegar
2 Tbsp. green onions chopped
1 Tbsp. fresh parsley (or 1/2 Tbsp. of dried parsley)
1 Tbsp. taragon or dill (I used dill everytime ... awesome)
1 tsp. minced garlic
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper

I whisk together buttermilk, mayo, sour cream, cider vinegar, green onions and herbs. Then I add the avocado last so that I don't smear the avocado chunks.

Enjoy!

I have been addicted to Apartment Therapy recently. They have house tours and they are just quirky and awesome and colorful and I love them. They also have a site dedicated solely to kids' rooms, Ohdeedoh.

So when I found myself bored and annoyed with my boys' room, I went crazy checking these sites and decided I needed to rearrange the room. I was going to wait and do it after I bought a bunch of new furniture and stuff, but then after reading Apartment Therapy's interviews, I was inspired.

These peoples' homes are not the homes of designers. They are not the homes of people with Pottery Barn furniture. These people are regular people like you and me. They just surround themselves with things they love and make them happy. And they just rearrange what they already have to make their homes beautiful. So, I decided I could do that too. I have plenty of things, I don't need more. I just need to rearrange it so I am happy with it and it's functional for us.

Noah has been excited about rocketships, the universe and planets lately, so we re-designed the room in a space theme. I pretty much made everything from scratch or I owned it already. But I was most proud of my solar system mobile:








I bought the wires from home depot, used styrofoam balls and paper balls I bought at Michael's, paper, paint and fishing line.




The quilt hanging on the wall above the dresser was made by Liz (Daniel's mom). It is a "Where the Wild Things Are" themed quilt. Liz made it with her friend, Carolyn, for Noah when he was a baby. Liz asked Daniel what his favorite book was growing up and he said "Where the Wild Things Are" and that's why it turned out the way it is. I love it. I know it's not space themed, but it is one of my favorite parts of the room. It is so unique and was made by the boys' "Gammie", and that makes me happy.






I already had this shelf, the green alien was from McDonald's from forever ago and the picture frame I owned and painted red then put a Calvin and Hobbes picture in it. I didn't want to rip the page out of our Calvin and Hobbes book, so I scanned it, printed it out (we only had black ink) and colored it in myself with colored pencils. I already had the lamp, but it was just a white shade and that would just not do. I made the star shade by adding blue vellum that I punched star holes in.

My homemade pillows:




This universe pillow came after I was inspired by the Land of Nod's solar system bedding.


I already owned this shelf, but had to fill it. I used Daniel's little brother Jonathan's old Star Wars toys, added Emporer Zurg ( my favorite part of the room ) and made that robot on top out of old nuts and bolts we had, a tin can and an old doorknob. I wish I could've bought the originals I saw at Anthropologie, but they were over $300 a piece. I'll have to scan the picture of them I saved - they are awesome.


I made this a long time ago, out of a piece of wood I sawed and put together and a piece of sheet metal from Home Depot.




Daniel told me the other night that he still remembers putting this Pinewood Derby car together with his Dad in the Botts' garage. I love that this room has so much of our family in it.


So, if you notice, the lamp cord is nailed to the wall and goes behind the bed. I had to do this because the boys knocked the lamp off that shelf so many times that they broke the shade (which no longer is actually connected to the lamp - it's just perched there) and they broke the light bulb twice. So I had to secure the lamp to the wall. What's funny is that I also secured the picture frame to the wall by nailing it into the wall with a nail at every corner. Daniel saw that and said, "I think that's great that we have to put pictures on our walls like they are in TGI Fridays".


These ginormous pictures of my boys are my very favorites. I also made that quilt out of pieces of fabric I had.

I feel pretty thrifty and happy about the outcome. I know you can see the holes in the walls that I still need to fill because I moved everything around, but I can do that another day. Today, I feel good about the spaceroom.

Sooooo, I never go to Relief Society. I have been teaching Primary Music since, I dunno, the beginning of time ... so I have rarely been able to attend another church meeting with adults. But I guess they want to try and include me and I appreciate that. I got asked to answer some questions about myself so they could "highlight" me in the next Relief Society newsletter or something. I thought the questions were amusing and I enjoyed writing some key thoughts down, so here's what I wrote:

1. Your full name
Francesca Teresa (Damiano) Forsyth

2. Where were you born?
Walnut Creek, California.
Where did you grow up?
Pleasant Hill and Concord, California

3. How many brothers and sisters do you have? Where do you fit in oldest / youngest?
4 sisters, 0 brothers. I am second oldest

4. If you have children, how many?
2 boys - Noah Daniel, 4 years and Liam Ezra, 20 months.

5. What are some of the different places you have lived? Your favorite place? Why?
I have lived in: Pleasant Hill and Concord CA, Eugene OR, Provo and Orem UT, Pheonix AZ, Hackettstown NJ, Perrysburg OH and Westland MI. My favorite place is home - Concord CA. I love it because it is sunny, people are healthy, happy and generally kind, it has gorgeous beaches, San Francisco is near enough to go into just for dinner and Tahoe is a short drive away to some of the best snow anywhere. I also love it because my parents live there and two out of my 4 sisters are there too. Daniel and I both grew up in Concord and I love it for that reason as well - I dated Daniel there. Good memories. By tyhe way - the air just smells better there. I don't know how to explain it - it's more fragrant. I imagine it to be the same smell the Garden of Eden probably had.

6. Your favorite color?
red

7. Your favorite food?
donuts

8. What are some things that you enjoy doing? (hobbies, crafts, reading, sewing, cooking, singing, etc.)
a little bit of everything really. I enjoy sewing, reading outloud to Daniel, cooking, crafts, home improvement projects, working out, being outside, singing, doing just about anything with Daniel and writing in my journal (aka blogging).

9. Share one of your most embarrassing moments.
That's easy - I have them constantly - here's an oldie but a goodie: When I was dating Daniel at BYU, I was sitting on his lap one night and talking to other people and I accidently passed gas. I was mortified - mostly because I was on his lap when I did it, but his response was, "I guess that's where we are in our relationship, huh? You feel comfortable enough to pass gas in front of me now?"

10. Share something about you that no one would know about.
I played the violin until I was about 14 (mostly because my mom was a violin performance major at BYU and wanted all of her girls to try it out)

11. Share a dream that you have, something you would like to do or see some day.
Moving to California and living on the same block as all my sisters and my parents. They are my best and closest friends. I want my kids to play with theirs.

12. Name a movie or book that best describes you or your life.
Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary - I totally related to that girl ... and still do.

13. What are some of the callings you have had in the church? Which was your favorite? Why?
choir director, primary chorister, ward activity committee, and gospel doctrine teacher. My favorite is the one I hold now - Primary Chorister. I love it because it's easy and kids are the funnest, most honest, most enthusiastic, most open and non-judgemental people in the church. They are the best people to hang out with at church.

14. Who is your favorite Latter-day Prophet and why?
I don't really have a favorite. They have all said and done things that touched me individually at the time and have guided me through some pretty rough stuff.

15. What kind of weird talents do you have?
I can make a sound like a duck with the side of my tongue and my cheek. I also have freakishly long arms.

16. What is your favorite superhero or what kind of super power would you want?
Good question ... when I was younger I remember loving Sherah because she was just as awesome and tough as He-man and I liked that fact - that girls could be just as tough as boys. I would want my super power to be strength, even when I grew old. I think it would be so cool to be like 85 and helping grown men move a piano.