What is it with Elsa?

I asked Miss M what she wanted to do for her birthday, and out of all the choices, she wanted to go to ToysRUs to see if we could find an Elsa doll.  If you don't have little girls, you may not know what a freakish phenomenon this show is, but EVERY little girl in America stinking LOVES Elsa from Disney's Frozen.  It's ridiculous. Silly even.  Every adult I talk to is like, "Why Elsa?  She's not even the nice one." I happen to think both girls are a little messed up and I blame terrible parenting via Disney's writing team, but that's another story altogether.  

Apparently Disney had no idea the movie (or character) was going to be popular because they have grossly under-supplied the demand.  You cannot find an Elsa doll ANYWHERE. I have been looking for at least a month for anything Elsa and have been completely unsuccessful. I found them on Amazon, but everything on there is around three times the retail price.  I don't care how much my kid wants a toy, I am not paying three times retail. 

The lady at ToysRUs told me that they get shipments on Fridays, so they occasionally will have Frozen toys before noon on Fridays.  Miss M's birthday was on Friday, so we headed over around 10:30.  They had one Elsa item.  It was a wig.  Woot. 

We went back out to the car and I called 6 different stores to see if they had anything Elsa and they all told me no.  One went so far to tell me that they had a shipping problem and wouldn't have more until the end of May.  I then called my mom to see if she could find anything online and I could drive to pick it up. I ended up driving over to Grandma and Grandpa Watts' house to look on the computer, too.  When I did, Amazon actually had an Elsa Barbie-size doll for only $16.99.  When I put it in my cart, there were 12 left.  At the same time, my mom found ONE Walmart in all of the Walmarts in Salt Lake and Utah county that had a single Elsa item in stock. It was a 6-pack of all the characters in the Polly-Pocket size for $25. I took maybe 5 minutes to decide which to get and by that time, ALL 12 of the dolls on Amazon were gone. I couldn't purchase the 6-pack from Walmart either, it told me they were sold out.  Luckily my mom had put it in her cart and was still able to purchase them or Miss M would have been without a present for her birthday.  It is craziness!

Picture book

I have been trying to slog through my third revision of my novel recently.  I REALLY REALLY REALLY want to finish it! I feel like everything is coming together in this revision, but it's been torturous to write new material for it.  I feel like my brain currents are moving through peanut butter every time I open that document.  Argh.

I think I'm just burnt out.  I've been working on this novel for three years.  It needs to go away for a while.  But how can you put something away in the middle of a revision.  It goes against every fiber of my being to stop in the middle of something.

On a somewhat different train of thought...I've been thinking about picture books for a while now.  I read them all. the. time.  With three young girls (and two English-major parents with a penchant for collecting literature) they are always lying about (or being eaten, depending on which child gets ahold of them). Some of them are just so awful it is painful to read them.  (These, of course, are the ones checked out from the library, not the ones in our collection.) And these people somehow not only convinced someone to publish them, but got libraries to buy them, too!  Every time I read a book like that, I think, "Why can't I write a picture book? I can write better than that."

But the ideas never came.

Until yesterday.  A gloriously fun idea popped into my head while pondering what my girls were doing and how that could make an interesting story.  So I wrote a picture book yesterday.  And it was so fun!

Of course, it sucks.  It will take refinement and re-writing and revamping, I'm sure, but it's 200 words.  As compared to 200 pages.  Cake walk.

I may have to change genres for a while.

Fashion Fun: My Little Ponies in Real Life -- Twilight Sparkle

Phew! Finally finished all the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fashion boards! This is Twilight Sparkle, but you can see Fluttershy, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack too.

The products used to make this style board are listed below if you're interested in emulating this version of Twilight Sparkle. ;)

P.S. I don't get anything if you click through to these items.  I just thought it might be fun to check out how the crazy (and sometimes not so crazy) prices on some of these fashions.

Jason Wu black dress
mytheresa.com

Purple top
$150 - thecorner.com

L'Wren Scott tall pants
modewalk.com

Sergio Rossi ballet flat
intermixonline.com

Mulberry leather handbag
mulberry.com

Oscar de la Renta clip on earrings
oscardelarenta.com

Bulova watch
thewatchhut.co.uk

Sorrelli pendant necklace
amazon.com

Topshop ring
topshop.com

Forever 21 bracelet
forever21.com

I.Line cat-eye glasses
nordstrom.com

L Erickson black hair care
beauty.com

Black Deep V Long Sleeve Layer Jacket
morpheusboutique.com

My Sunday morning project

Saturday I went to the Writing for Charity writing conference in Provo. That went until 4.  After chatting with my husband about it for a while and cooking dinner, I decided that since Steve had a four-day weekend, I needed to complete something. So I painted our garage door.

I was glad it only took me about 80 minutes because that was about all the time I had before my light ran out.  And it turned out so good! I'm excited to show you once we get the shutters up.  Maybe we'll finally get around to it next weekend. Cross your fingers for me.

I also had to get our house cleaned Saturday night because we were hosting the birthday dinner for my family today.  This morning before church, I busted out some pizza sauce,  baked sugar and double chocolate chunk cookies, and frosted the sugar cookies, including a large one with a picture of Elsa from Disney's Frozen on it. I'm a little crazy, I know.

Not a culinary masterpiece, but pretty good for me!

I have cute, crazy, funny, stubborn, sweet, sleepy kids

The Mr. and I went to a play Friday night.  When we went to pick the girls up from Grandpa and Grandma's house we had an adventure.

When we get there, Baby C is still awake.  It is 10:30 and she has been up since around 4.  She is so-o-o exhausted.  But that's been her MO lately.  She just does not want to sleep. So, I put her in her car seat and rock her for a little while until she calms down. I then go to get the girls' shoes and coats on, while Steve took our stuff and Baby C out to the car.  Grandpa and Grandma have two twin beds in one of the downstairs rooms, which is where the girls are sleeping.  I decide to do Miss E first, because she will usually get her own stuff on and walk herself out to the car, but I knew I would need to carry Miss M. I try to wake Miss E up, but she is pretty far under.  She opens her eyes and I tell her, "We need to get your coat on.  We're going to go home." She shies away from me and tries to talk, but can't really, and it comes out sounding like either she is crazy, or she thinks I am and she doesn't want to catch it.  "Uhh.hhhhh.....Ummmmm...Ehhhhhhh...."  I tell her again,  "It's okay, Sweetie.  It's just Mommy, we need to go.  Let's get your coat on."  "Ehhhhhhh..." Shying away.  So I sit her up, and start putting one of her arms in the coat.  She starts making this noise like there is a snake trying to eat her arm off.  She's whimpering.  I feel bad. But at the same time, it's a little humorous.  I'm trying to put her coat on, she has her eyes open and can see me (I think), but she's acting like I'm a cannibal or a snake who has it in for her.  I start giggling.  This makes her even more nervous.  More, "Uhhhhhhh....Ehhhhhh...." while sort of trying to lay back down and go to sleep.  I giggle more, she whimpers more.  This is terrible.  I go get Steve.  Hopefully she won't think he is trying to eat her.  Steve is on his way, so I decide to get Miss M's coat on. I go to get her sitting up and realize that she is not wearing any clothes.  Not a stitch! She is cuddled up to her blankie, half way under the covers, her naked little bum sticking out for all to see.  I start giggling again and go to find out what happened to her clothes.  "Did you know Miss M was naked?" I ask Grandma.  "No!" "Yep, she's naked as a jaybird."  I go downstairs and find her pajamas and panties in front of the toilet all wet from an accident.  She had tried to get to the toilet, missed, taken all her clothes off and crawled back in bed.  No reason to tell anyone, right? Nakedness is the new PJs. Steve has already taken everything out to the car, so I have to make him go get her clothes that she came in, so I can dress her and get her out to the car.  She wakes up pretty easily and gets dressed without a problem until I tell her that we have to get her shoes on so we can go out to the car.  Apparently, she didn't realize she wasn't staying all night. I finally got her clothed, coated, shoed, and carried out to the car, but by this time she is hysterically screaming, "NO! I WANT NANA! I WANT TO SLEEP AT NANAS! TURN AROUND.  I SLEEP AT NANA'S. GO BACK, MOMMA! I WANT TO SLEEP THERE!" This ridiculously high-pitched screaming goes on for our entire drive home--which Baby C somehow sleeps through--and continues until after we take everyone and everything else inside.  At which point, she finally realizes that we are not going back and manages to calm down and talk to me.  She cuddles up to me and talks sweetly about how much she loves me.  Ah, that child. We now have a date for them to sleep over at Grandma’s house for her birthday.  And somehow, nobody seems to be scarred for life.  Phew