A Music-Related Jacob Quickie

A few months back I was trying to find Cindy some Junie B. Jones books at the Library. (Junie B. is a precocious first grader and Cindy loves the books about her many, many adventures). But alas, the library was fresh out, so I settled on a Junie B. Jones book on CD about how she goes to an Easter party. I ripped the disc to my computer so I could put it on Cindy's mP3 player for her to listen at her leisure, but for some reason, it wouldn't work right. I then tried it on out on the mP3 player that Jacob and I both use when we run, just to see if it would work. Well, it worked, but it only ended up putting three chapters on it. (Never did figure out what the problem was.) Anyway, I forgot to mention this experiment to Jacob before his next run with the player, but figured he would figure it out and just skip over those 14 minutes. I had to laugh when, later that night after he ran, he asked me rather sheepishly, "So, did Junie B. pick the purple jelly bean and get to be the Easter Bunny?" Yup, he actually listened to it. And apparently it was a real cliffhanger!

A tribute to music and the visual aid

The truth is funny, isn't it? I just checked my iTunes account and I have 7,217 songs in there. And how many different ones do I listen to on my iPod? About 27. I guess this means I should stop buying more music. Ha ha! Good one, Squidward! As a matter of fact I just downloaded 65 free songs yesterday from eMusic (including an album of classically arranged pop songs) and I also downloaded, for Luke, the theme song from the cartoon Iron Man: Armored Adventures. I have to say it's not too bad! Check it out if you wish, Luke is obsessed: (and just for the record I am now a little obsessed with the band Rooney, who did this video. Their stuff is very intriguing!)




Obviously this is an addiction that cannot be stopped. So what was YOUR last music download? Leave me a comment. Let me know I am not alone in my sickness :) Or am I???

Drumroll please....

Day 2- Songs You Absolutely Hate

And now, as promised, I will reveal to you my most hated song of all-time. ALL-TIME. Are you ready? Here it is:

What's Up? by Four Non Blondes

And do you want to know the worst part about that being my most hated song? It's that it gets played all the time on the radio on the adult contemporary stations. And every time I run into it, I die a little inside. And it absolutely does not help in the slightest that the singer looks like this:

Sheesh, I need to go brush my teeth...


And if you want to know what else gets an honorable mention in my book for worst songs ever, well here you go:

Endless Love by anyone
Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton (no disrespect to a legend, but I hate it)
You Were Meant for Me by Jewel (she is the devil)
Higher by Creed
Kiss by Prince (he is also the devil)
Old Time Rock and Roll by Bob Seger
The Macarena
Along Comes a Woman by Chicago (sorry, Jacob)
Crank That by Soulja Boy


And just to be thorough:
The Christmas Shoes by Newsong
Last Christmas by Wham
Wonderful Christmastime by Paul McCartney
Baby It's Cold Outside by anyone

And finally, here are two from Jacob:

Rock Lobster by the B-52's
Where Have All the Cowboys Gone? by Paula Cole


So am I way off-base? I would venture to say a big fat Nope! I am spot on! So tell me at least ONE of your most hated songs. You don't have to explain it, just let me know. So until tomorrow, I wish you an evening filled with love, laughter, and with absolutely anything other than Four Non Blondes.

30 Days of Music

So for the next 30 days my blog posts will be all about MUSIC! In some way, shape or form- that is the topic. Come on, my dad is like a walking jukebox and I am married to a DJ. It just makes sense, right? I am actually surprised this idea took this long to hatch. Anyway, there will be something different for each day, and you never know where it might lead my evil genius creative brain, so stay close. And I would love input from your own musical mind, so leave comments telling me your opinion on anything you see on here. (You will then be immortalized one day in print form of The Sweeneyville Saga: Volume 3. That sure sweetens the deal, eh?)

Away we go!

Day 1- Your Favorite Song

Is is really even realistic to ask me to name ONE favorite song? No way. That is like asking me to name my favorite brother- I could never doitChris. I have about a million favorite songs- all for different reasons, but I went back and made a list and at least painfully narrowed it down to about 10 or 14. I think I realized which songs are actually my favorites based on the fact that I purposely listen to them very sparingly. If they get too overplayed they lose their savor.

For now I am focusing on just regular Pop/mainstream music. We got 29 more days ahead of us, so we have more than enough time to get to everything else (like favorite movie music, dance music, guilty pleasure music, songs you can clog to, etc.) But most defnitely not every post will be a list :) I'm easing you into it...

In no particular order, my all-time favorite songs:

1. Stars on the Water- George Strait
2. Cherry, Cherry- Neil Diamond
3. Disappear- INXS
4. Stolen- Dashboard Confessional
5. Learning to Fly- Tom Petty
6. The Answer to Our Lives- Backstreet Boys
7. Zero Gravity- David Archuleta
8. Happy Together- The Turtles
9. Everything- Michael Buble
10. Anything But Mine- Kenny Chesney
11. Hell on the Heart- Eric Church
12. Here with Me- Dido
13. Ever the Same- Rob Thomas
14. Forever- Chris Brown


Okay, so now that we all have the ability to comment on the blog, you can now sound off on the fact that, yes, I like a David Archuleta song that much (though I still voted for David Cook when it came down to the wire). Or more importantly, tell me at least ONE of your all-time favorite songs. Perhaps something that may surprise me. I am sure Neil Diamond took you for a loop up at no. 2, am I right? Yeah, that is all the fault of my mom.

So in the words of Pat Benetar, "Hit me with your best shot! Fire Away!" Musical humor, I love it!

And get ready for tomorrow's post, in which I will reveal my number one most hated song of all-time. (Which I am doing only because I know that no one out there will be tempted to use it against me as some sort of torture tool. Agreed? I didn't hear you agree...)

How I Know the World is Going to End Soon

My friend Maggie took this picture of her children at Sam's Club the other day. Yes, they are actually sitting in the horrifically goofy Brobdingnagian Chair I saw in SkyMall Magazine. They actually sell this at Sam's Club. I don't think I can shop there anymore. IT JUST DOESN'T MAKE SENSE! WHAT DOES THIS CHAIR ACCOMPLISH?? NOTHING! Okay, okay, I had to get that out of my system one more time. I'm done now. No more ranting about the chair. And for what it's worth, Maggie did say that there were two people after them that sat in the chair just to get their picture taken. I rest my case.

Before the 30 days begin...

I just wanted to post a few pictures on here. These are the rest of the family pictures we took before Brian and Kelly's reception. And also some pictures from the reception itself. They need to make it into the blog book, so here they are in completely random order:

Luke and Addie are a match made in heaven. Exactly the same age so they pretty much could entertain each other forever.











Me, Molly and Wy-guy


Dave just can't help it


Chris, Wyatt and my mom. Chris can't help it either.

One day Wyatt, you will have awesome fauxhawk hair just like Uncle Brian.

Sista, sista!

Oh, Brother!

Close to normal as we get

Steak and Shake would be proud to have you, Luke.

Okay, that is more like it.

Classic Luke pose. We were all laughing so hard at whatever the heck he was trying to do there.

Even Uncle Chris tried to do "the Luke".

Just had to show off the awesomely giant flower centerpiece thingy I made. Yay for trying things and hoping they work :)

I'm sure I forgot to mention a whole bunch of things about the reception, but it went great and the food was excellent. Kelly and Brian got some very generous gifts and Kelly's parents had a good first visit to Florida too. Lots of work, but good memories.

This will require everyone's help

I hear this from some of you out there from time to time: "I was reading your blog and tried to make a comment on it, but then it asked me for something weird and I didn't understand what to do." ("some of you" = my mom) Okay, we need to fix that problem. I got a pretty good 30 day blog project coming up around the corner and I need everyone to comment in order for it to not be totally lame. SO, yes, in order to leave a comment you have to have a Google ID or another ID that is from some other Internet place thingy. If you haven't got one, get one! How, you might ask? What am I? A detective? Actually, I think you just have to create a Google email account or something, but I don't think you even ever have to use it for anything else. Ok, glad I could clear that process up for you :) So let's all start practicing and leave me some comments on here like, "Roger Dodger!" or "10-4" or "Yeah buddy!" or "Why do we have to do this?" and things like that. Like I said, it will be lame without your input, so you have til Wednesday. Go Team Sweeneyville!

Backblogging 101

And now for your viewing pleasure....

Pictures I Haven't Shown You Yet!

Rosa has officially been "hudged", which means we got a hutch for the back patio so she will stop chewing everything to pieces out there. Even after we have corrected her, Cindy still calls it a "hudge" and actually, I prefer that word 2 to 1 over hutch. Try it! It's much more fun.


The week before Brian and Kelly left on their cruise, they went to a wedding reception here for a friend (one which I happened to be DJing). So for this occasion Aunt Kelly very kindly curled Cindy's hair with a curling iron- something I am completely inept at- and this was the result:



I am not sure Cindy was this happy ever in her life. Oh, Aunt Kelly you are even cooler than before! If that is even possible :)


Yay for cousins!



Okay, so finally, finally I got to see Elder Sweeney's postcard collection. They were so cool! Of all the mail he got, this was the little collection that he is going to keep forever. Awesome!




First Day of School 2010



I thought I would be the cool Mom by suggesting that Cindy could wear her high heels the first day of school. It was only a half day and I figured, why not? Because when she gets out of the car an administrator will tell me that they are not compliant with the dress code, that's why not. Good grief! She still wore them anyway ;)


And just so you know I wasn't kidding about the Star Wars infatuation...



This is the first photo in a collection in which Luke falls asleep with different Star Wars action figures. I already have more than this :)

Seriously?

Yesterday morning I discovered a giant dead mouse with a tail as long as a jump rope in my garage. Funny thing was I could not tell why it was dead. Its eyes were open and it only looked like something had jumped out and scared it to death. A cautionary tale for my family concerning my mother, I have to say. But I digress. So the thing laid there all day long. I was waiting for Jacob to come home and see it and then dispose of it. (Secretly I was hoping that it might be alive after all and it would disappear at some point.) I was on the laptop in the other room when I heard Jacob get home. He came in and said, "Ummmm, Jessica?" I didn't even look the other way and just said, "The mouse? I know!" and then I heard a giant squeal and thought he had brought it in because it was really alive!!! But then I realized he brought home a kitten! In a basket! And I was completely baffled! He said it was homeless, some kids had found it all the school all alone and they needed someone to take it or find it a home. And Jacob volunteered. I was stunned! So now I guess we have another cat.



It's a girl, we know this because Cindy looked at its face and said, "yeah, it's definitely a girl." Thank you, doctor. Anyway, it has got to be very young, or very runty. Yes, that's a word, I checked it myself. It cries like a maniac. We introduced it to Yoshi, who seemed mildly interested but only for about 20 seconds. At least there was no hissing!





We also gave the cat a bath, and unless we knew better, this cat LOVED the bath. It didn't make a sound. It didn't even shake or try to get away. It sat there with a dreamy look on its face that said, "Oh, yeah, make sure you get that spot on the back of my head. This is the life!" Strange! The kids are 100% obsessed kitten robots now. Up at 6:15am to play with it. And Cindy just showered and dressed for school and it is 7:10am. Utter awesomeness! Her working name is Cookie, but it may not stick.

So here are the...

TOP TEN REJECTED NAMES FOR OUR NEW KITTEN:

(All except number ten were written by Cindy completely by herself! And number one just makes me die with laughter. I think her top ten future is bright, my friends :)

10. SpongeCat Whiskerpants (I was really pulling for this one)
9. Princess Leia
8. Prizm
7. Queen Amidala
6. Belle
5. Fifi
4. Mary Poppins
3. Lenny
2. Stormtrooper
1. Lickers

Say Uncle!

So much to blog about, so little time! We will start here:

So last week on Wednesday, the infamous Elder Sweeney returned from his mission! And last Saturday I started to feel like Sean needed some sort of welcome home festivities. I was pretty sure he would not be expecting anything and we would definitely have the element of surprise on our side if we could pull somethng together. Plus, I realized he would be arriving home at about the exact same time as mutual was happening for the youth in our ward- SO adding all this up I came to the conclusion that Sean needed a Welcome Home brigade along Lakeland Highlands Road and then through his neighborhood. Then we could all meet back at the house for an instant Open House and Sean would just love all the attention. Right, Sean? Anyway, we have such wonderful ward members and youth and leaders who completely helped out and volunteered willingly to stand on the side of the road and wave signs at Sean. I have some video and I am making a really sweet montage for Sean, and one day you will see that on Facebook. But for now, here are a few pictures:

I made a whole bunch of signs and had volunteers strategically placed all along the road home. My parents were first to meet him on the Lakeland Highlands exit off 570. He was surprised all right! I burned the theme music from The Rocketeer and had them put that in the CD player as well. Music just makes everything better, in my opinion.


Here are the Bailey's at the corner of Clubhouse and Lakeland Highlands. I also had the help of Trevor Salisbury, Jarred Weggeland, Scott Miller, Shane Nelson, Sheryl Weldon and kids, The Williams family and then also...


Tammy Holmes and children too. Again, THANK YOU!!!

Cindy made this sign herself, Super Sean- she was sooooo excited! This was at the front gate to the neighborhood. The entire youth group (boys and girls) were lined up all the way to his house. It was perfect :)


A happy reunion!


Luke needed a little more convincing ;)


I thought of what to write on his cake at about 4 in the morning. I can't just write, "Welcome Home" on it, this is ME we're talking about here...


There were actually a TON of people waiting to have cake and say hello to the latest RM. It was so great!

Cindy thought of this herself! I couldn't think of just what to have the signs say and she told me, "Mission Accomplished". I was so impressed until she told me she got the idea from Call of Duty on Xbox where "they say that all the time." Oh, brother!

Anyway, it was so fun to have Sean come home, his homecoming talk was fantastic and I know he will have a rockin' time out at BYU. We will miss him! Cindy is counting the days until Christmas :)