Necessity Is The Mother of Invention

This picture totally reminds me of the cruise we went on when Parker was a toddler. They had a 'kids club' babysitting area and I knew I would never use it. It was my first child and he was sensitive to boot so I hated to leave him - aside from him being only 2. And it was on a cruise ship for crying-out-loud! Well -- my insecurities where confirmed when I went for fun to check out the 'facilities'. I remember walking out to the play area and I about died. It was literally hanging off the back of the ship with nothing but that heavy rope netting from floor to ceiling separating the kids from a cliff dive off the back of the ship into churning water. Are you kidding me? Oh hell no. I wouldn't care if Parker was totally independent and dying to get down to play. I would have nightmares forever!

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Streets of Paris - circa 1838

Click HERE to read this fascinating article on this photo! It's a short little article so you have to read the whole thing. It's so cool! They think that the tiny person in the picture could be the first human ever photographed. Interesting.

Plans for the Playroom

I am thinking that I may get this HUGE picture from Ikea for the upstairs room that I would love to put together in the next few months. Having it as the kids playroom is not working out for me anymore. It is always an absolute disaster! As soon as I can I would like to get a new couch for our family room downstairs and move our old couches upstairs with a tv and the Wii and make it a comfy tv/game room. And I would like to do something a little different in there so it doesn't look exactly like the rest of our house. Hence -- the big, wall size photo of the Flatiron Building in Manhattan! :)

Friends

LOVE these two photos. I found them on one of my favorite blogs, The Graphics Fairy. It reminds me of my best friend and I in another life. :)

Isn't it fascinating to wonder what these women's lives where like? What did they talk about? What where their fears, concerns and/or secrets that they shared with each other? Where did they spend their time and go for fun? Where were they going on these days? So interesting to think about! One thing I know for sure is that life would suck without a best friend to share things with and confide in! Life without a best friend seems unhealthy and unbearable.

A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.

The History of Memorial Day

Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May (May 25 in 2009). Formerly known as Decoration Day, it commemorates U.S. men and women who died while in the military service. First enacted to honor Union soldiers of the American Civil War (it is celebrated near the day of reunification after the civil war), it was expanded after World War I to include American casualties of any war or military action.

Memorial Day Order

I. The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land. In this observance no form or ceremony is prescribed, but Posts and comrades will, in their own way, arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.

We are organized, Comrades, as our regulations tell us, for the purpose among other things, "of preserving and strengthening those kind and fraternal feelings which have bound together the soldiers sailors and Marines, who united to suppress the late rebellion." What can aid more to assure this result than by cherishing tenderly the memory of our heroic dead? We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. All that the consecrated wealth and taste of the nation can add to their adornment and security, is but a fitting tribute to the memory of her slain defenders. Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. Let no neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic.

If other eyes grow dull and other hands slack, and other hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remain in us.

Let us, then, at the time appointed, gather around their sacred remains, and garland the passionless mounds above them with choicest flowers of springtime; let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved; let us in this solemn presence renew our pledge to aid and assist those whom they have left among us a sacred charge upon the Nation's gratitude—the soldier's and sailor's widow and orphan.

II. It is the purpose of the Commander in Chief to inaugurate this observance with the hope that it will be kept up from year to year, while a survivor of the war remains to honor the memory of his departed comrades. He earnestly desires the public press to call attention to this Order, and lend its friendly aid in bringing it to the notice of comrades in all parts of the country in time for simultaneous compliance therewith.

III. Department commanders will use every effort to make this Order effective.

—General Orders No. 11, Grand Army of the Republic Headquarters[1].

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I am a picture klepto...

I don't know if you remember, but awhile ago I helped plan the 50th birthday party of a good family friend and I helped make a DVD of her life. I went through all her old family photos with her mom and found a couple that were the neatest photos ever! So I asked her if I could scan them... This is one of them. Isn't it the coolest picture!? I LOVE it!

(and for those of you who know what I am talking about... can you guess who the little girl on the left is? i'll give you a clue... i think she looks exactly like London...)

Auntie Lo Lo's

There are a million things I should be doing right now, like getting ready for a Spongebob party - but I can't help myself. I'm just getting started on the old Christmas pictures. I have a ton that I have been saving until the holidays to post!

I love this one. It was taken at one of my mom's favorite stores in Albuquerque in 1986. I remember that day. And I remember the rad shoes that I had on. They were black and SUPER pointy with a silver buckles. Exactly like a witch's shoes. I had them in a bright turquoise too. I loved them! I am sure those shoes had nothing to do with the toe surgery I had a couple of years later to remove part of my toenail because of my bad ingrown toenails... Yuck! Back to the delightful Christmas picture! I was 14, Carly was 9, Jim was 6, Megan was 4 and Mallory was 2 months. I wish I could go back in time to see Mallory that little again. It makes me get all teary-eyed.

My sisters keep asking how I have all of these neat old pictures... And the answer is that I steal them from mom! And then she gets mad when I post them and she realizes that I have them and then I have to collect them all in a ziplock baggie to take back to her. Just wait until I get back from Utah this time! I am gonna have awesome pictures to post for months! :)

Santa Baby

I LOVE this picture. It's my mom and I with Santa at Bullock's Department store in Santa Ana, California. I was 19 months old. Doesn't my mom look so cute? I love that dress and the cherries! It is funny to think that she was just getting ready to turn 20. Wow!

The world would be a much happier place if everyone had a hat like this...

First Impressions

I went through all my old photos again several weeks ago and set aside a 2-inch stack of pics that I want to scan and post. It will take awhile... but here is a start.

I love this photo of my friend Adrienne and the kids. It cracks me up! Ade looks so cute and 90's and the kids are so little! Mallory reminds me of Parker. And Carly... I'm sorry but you look like a poodle! Who perms their kids hair anyway? And Megan just looks cute as ever!

A couple of months ago Adrienne and I were taking a stroll down memory lane like we always do and she told me the funniest story... It was the first time that she had come over to my house to pick me up. Our friend Tom, Ade and I were going to Bryan, Texas for a Klein High football game. She came to pick me up in her little blue Nissan Sentra and pulled up to the house and saw this young mom walk out holding a baby with a bunch of little kids around her. She said she just about died and thought it was the weirdest thing she had ever seen! I can imagine. My mom was younger then I am now and had 5 kids in ages ranging from high school to infant. It didn't seem weird at the time - but now I can appreciate more how unusual it is in the 'normal' world! :) That's just the way it was for me - and most Mormon families for that matter... but for her it was the strangest thing ever! (I hope I am getting the story right. Let me know if I'm not!)

Good times. Good times. Now, 20 years later, she has hundreds of other hilarious, and I am sure sometimes disturbing Wilson stories to go with that one! :)

Geneology

I have been looking for this picture for ever and just found it! Yea! My grandma made a copy for me a few years ago. I love it. And now I can't remember who it is! It is either my grandma or great-grandma. So I will get the story and re-post!

It reminds me why I love blogs and makes me think about 50 or 100 years from now. What will it be like to look back at all these entries and pictures! It is just another form of geneology. One that I can get excited about! We are so lucky to have the technology that we live with in this day and age! I know it comes with its problems but I still wouldn't change it for anything!

Like right now, Carson is running around the house behind me in a green super-hero cape looking for his sword. He is yelling, "Light saber! Where are you? Come out, come out wherever you are!" I am a horrible journal writer and I know that I would not get out a pen and paper and write that down. But I am sitting here typing it! Whatever works and motivates me!! One day it will be priceless!

Too Cute! If I do say so myself... :)

I'd like to say I look like my own kids... but I think I look like my niece Monet. :) And why don't people make costumes like this anymore? My grandma always made my costumes and they were so darling!

(Grandma - you have to find a picture of me in the Princess Leia costume you made and one with Stephanie and I in our blue and white cheerleader costumes. I can't believe I don't have copies of those!)

Love this photo! Love this post!

From The Year in Pictures...

Paul Newman was a unique celebrity in that the notion of celebrity seemed so removed from him. He loved acting but more for the craft than the rewards. His loved race cars, good food and wine, liberal causes, and according to one newspaper he gave more to charity in comparison to his own wealth than anyone has ever done.

Photographically speaking, he was never one for posing and so there are few iconic pictures of him outside of movie stills, with the exception of this one great photograph by Eve Arnold.

Photographed in 1955 at an Actor's Studio class, it was taken the year before Newman was to make a mark in “Somebody Up There Likes Me” and three years before his first Academy Award Nomination for “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”. When I asked Arnold how she happened to focus on him while doing a story on the famous acting school she had a simple answer, “He just glowed.”

The tributes to Newman are many and profound, but perhaps my favorite line about Newman came from Adam Sandler in his “Chanukah Song”:

Paul Newman's half-Jewish, Goldie Hawn too.
Put them together, what a fine-lookin' Jew!

{source}

Old Photos of Robert...

I swiped some old photos of Robert from when he was little. I am on a quest to now get more! :)

Here is Robert and his 2 brothers - Jimmy & Jason. Robert is the youngest in both. Wasn't he a cutie patootie...Robert and his sister Tiffany...Aaawwww... Tiffany... You're cute as a button also! :)

Economics Class - Fall of '89

Yep. This pretty much sums up my whole high school experience! I always say the only thing I really learned from high school was how to type! :) "Bueller?......... Bueller?"

Oh to be young and skinny again!

Oh to be young and skinny again! Wow! This is a picture of Robert and I when we were dating. Exactly 9 years ago this month. Where has the time gone?

Old School Picnic

This photo is great. I love it! Who knew that Martha Stewart types lived in 'the olden days'! Hope you all had a 4th of July picnic as memorable as this one!

* Click to zoom in and get the details of the photo!

{via pictureyear.blogspot.com}

Cutest Picture Ever!

My grandma just emailed me this photo of my sister Carly and I. So cute! I love to see photos that I have never seen before! I was 6 and Carly was about 18 months. Keep them coming grandma!! :)