International Style Consultant

Do you ever feel tied of wearing the same old thing? Are your clothes just not looking as hot as they once did? Don't feel alone, take some pointers from our newest fashion consultant, Tyson Joshua Foote.

Watch how he shifted his shorts to his head. Giving his boring pajamas a whole new look.

What can I say, this kid has style...

Ok... so lets try to keep this Fashion show PG!

Blogging Friends

Top 5 Reasons why your comments are appreciated!

1) They are evidence you care enough, or have enough morbid curiosity, to read what I write. (Unless of course, you are Matty, who only views posts with pictures.)

2) Comments offer others, especially me, greater perspective, or a different angle. Information that I may have overlooked, in the midst of my drama.

3) They let others know what you're thinking. This is my favorite one as
So many of you are witty, sweet, kind, and flippin hilarious) I love that!

4) It's a simple way to keep in touch. No emails,paper or stamps required.

5) Comments measure the quality of people that read a blog, not the quantity!

Seriously. thanks you for your comments!
They have lifted my spirits..I always appreciate them and you!

Love, Sarah S. Foote

Mayday Mayday

My newest discovery is highly concentrated household cleaners. I love them.
The concept is, buy 1 bottle and make tons more.

So, with my cleaner finally running low, and my house looking dirty, I headed for Mayday Professional Cleaning Supplies. That is the place to get hooked up on that sort of professional strength cleaning products.

Along the way, evolved a brilliant plan. I'd clean my own carpets, rent a professional machine and save a bundle. The Professional stuff must work really wonderful for my nasty carpet.

I see this ENORMOUS cleaner in the back or the store. It's huge and a bit intimidatiing. But, bigger is better right? And..only $30.00 for Friday-Monday. Wow such a deal.

Friday Night anxious to start. It took us 2 hours to clean just our Family Room. Honestly, if I didn't sweat like a pig and have wet carpet there would have been no proof of our hard work. My carpet still looked yucky. The photo is an after shot.

Mayday Mayday this do-it-yourselfers
dreams were quickly going down in flames.

Fortunately, my Dad came and rescue me with his cleaner, products and skills. Together, we cleaned the whole house including the family room in the same 2 hours. Amazing!
Thanks Dad.

My conclusions: bigger is not always better and experience really helps when it comes to projects like this.

Foote Family Updates

Recently, Alex was frustrated with Daddy's choices of television programs. In frustration he hollered, "Your Fired"

This Tuesday morning at 6:50 am, Tyson was woken by the sound of the school bus's arrival. Afraid to miss any action, he comes running outside full speed butt naked . His new trick and purpose in life seems to be the driving desire to join a nudist colony. Go figure.

See The Art in Me

Every other week, someones mom arrived to our classroom carrying an amazing treasure.

Many pieces dated back hundreds of years while others were contemporary.
The details shared provided us with a small taste of who the creator , culture and period of the piece.

Years passed, my love for art continued to grow.

Sophomore year, with hopes for an easy A, I chose painting.
This time, with brush in hand it was far easier to appreciation the skills that were painstakingly forged in many of the pieces I'd studied.
I dreamed of the earlier depictions that had seemed to magically dance across the canvases.

For 3 years I painted, and sculpted. Brilliance never struck my paintings however, creating swans, buildings, lake houses, gardens were perhaps the happiest hours of my high school years.

When I graduated, I put away childish things. For, starving and artist had become synonymous.

If I could do it again, I would have left a small amount of time for the things that I love. Balance? Is that what it's called? Apparently, all or nothing is a quick way to burn out.
One last thought on art.

Many people have lived, and died feeling like complete failures.
And now, their works cover the walls of museums throughout the world.

Don't Sell Yourself Short!

When I think of many of you, I see masterpieces or at least amazing works in progress.
I've studied enough art to know that even flawed work can have amazing value.

Please don't wait until you die to discover it!
Love you all!

Sarah S. Foote

PS (See the Art in me is on of my favorite Jars of Clay Songs)

The Boys at Jakes

Tyson

Alex on his Favorite Coaster

"Happy"

Love

2 of a kind

Ty & Momma

HOw Do YOu kNow?

Last weekend, while home with Tyson and his lovely boogers, I decided to paint the hall bath.

The design was inspired by Alex's love for water, boredom & random paint and supplies that were lying around my house.

After, everything was put back together, still unsure of the job I'd done I said to Alex;
It's blue, and it has a waterfall. What do you think, do you like it?
He paused for a second and then stated singing, "How do you know she loves you? How do you know she's yours?

To understand the song completely, watch Enchanted. Needless to say, my Mommy Heart melted. If my entire house is someday painted in shades of blue, you'll know why.

So here are some pictures. I painted 1 wall is the light solid blue.

The Sea life is a Cross Stitch was given is from my Mom it was hung in G'Pa Shumway's Bathroom until she heard of my water theme bath idea. That's gift pushed me over the edge. Thanks Mom!

The Fountain Know by the name Tiki, purchased at Walgreen's for $4.00. This gift was never opened but never more appreciated. We are already on

The Shells and sand dollar collected by Bekah, Jacob & Nathan. They were kind enough to collect them from the Mexican Beaches for me. For only a mild bride and competition.

Eternal Perspective

I recently came across this old poem from 1988. I wrote it during the 4th grade after moving to a new school.

A Dream, a wish, a want, a hope
Will settle upon a striving goal.
One day you wonder, where you are.
Is your glory
The sun, the moon
or a star?
As a child, you may often wonder,
Will your life be filled will thunder?
Or will the sun shine through the clouds? When things go wrong,
There is a doubt, but with a dream, a wish a want or even a hope,
Your life can be filled with love I know.

It's funny, while 20 years have passed, my perspective has changed very little.
There have been many sunny seasons and others times, like James Taylor's song says, when I thought the rain would never end.
With the small amount of perspective I've gain, it's easy to say,what a blessing the ride is.

6th Time's Sublime

For anyone who has read more then one of my blogs entries, it is simple to grasp that I was not an English major. Spelling and the finer points of grammar/ punctuations are not my fine points. Memorization gets you through spelling tests in elementary school then life happens.

Before mainstream computer days, my rough drafts for essays were a train wreck of red disgracefulness marks. Wanting my papers to look pretty, I could barely walk back to my seat. And every time my Mom corrected my paper, I would say, but beside all that, is itOK?

Final Semester senor year, ceramics was my most challenging class . Imagine that... the instructor actually expected my pieces to be functional. Believe me, that took a lot of lunch hours for this artist.
While graduating with a 3.8, I was slightly ill prepared for College. You know the place, I headed off to Mesa Community College commonly referred to as high school with ashtrays.

Truth be known, I took English 102 a total of 6 times, generally dropping before the HUGE FINAL paper was due.

I loved to research and was very passionate about multiple topics. Still the compilation of the "perfect paper" was overwhelming and beyond my grasps. There was so much information out there. And to choose some, deject others, there were just so many great things to be said on every topic and research data charts pictures there was no end to it all.
Understandably, my final English 102 Professor took a bit of special internist in me. I believe he was intrigued as he'd never known of a student who had dropped so many times times only to return the following semester. I had taken his class 3 of the 6 times from him as he was the most entertaining and easy going of options.
Finally, on the 6th go round completion was achieved. The best thing I learned from that process was this idea.
"Whoever says the most in the least number of words wins."
I'm thankful to that man who because he taught me that lesson and believe that even after 5 incomplete semesters I could achieve goal.

And Finally Gotta Say it....

Thank you, Thank you, thank you spell check
And whoever invented it. Seriously, you might not even understand much of what I write had it not been invented.

Christmas Tidbits

Alex was so psyched about finding his long lost Lion King picture behind his bed on Christmas morning. Perhaps he believed Santa returned it to him.

Tyson enjoyed digging through his stocking . Note the bald spot on his head.
He did that all by himself
(just what every mom wants for Christmas photos)

Once the boys opened their 1st present, there hands were full and they were finished.
Of course that item was something Matthew got for free from the Boeing Store.
(Mini Space Ships) Why do we buy presents????
Here's the water table Santa Claus (Papa Foote)
designed this just for Alex as you can see it's a big hit.

Pirate Al was tired of waiting for the Chocolate Creme Christmas pie.
He decided to take matters into his own hands.
I was just glad to have one thing off my list of things to do.

All and all, most of my day was spent running around trying to make to make my boys open their gifts, sit on Shanta's lap and do other "things" that would make Christmas wonderful.

At in the end, the highlight of all the doings, was sitting with Alex and once again, just enjoying my boys, watching them take it all in there own way, playing with a few toys and loving those who stopped by.

When I chose to be a parent I thought that I would teach my children many things.
Through this process, I am constantly reminded that I am the one that was really needs to learn.

Resolutions

Everywhere I turn, people are training and gearing up for Triathlons.
The physical and emotional triumph over insurmountable feats of physical strength and stamina.
Some even travel to New Zealand and other exotic places and accomplish what to me seems like ultimate physical torture.
These events are all the craze these days.
As far as I can gather, the real motive behind this madness is to obtain the sexy, I mean healthy body.
I have been told that there is an amazing natural high and joy associated with accomplishing extremely challenging physical challenges.
Personally, I have zero experience with any of these concepts.
Primarily because I have very little coordination, best displayed by my special skill of falling off treadmills. Usually near insanely hot guys while focusing more on them or what is on my ipod then my feet.
Aside from that, I have a few other whack ideas preventing me from becoming a triathlete .
1) The only good reason to run is if you are being chased.
2) If you've stolen something, or someone has taken something from you. OR
3) If you're playing a game or sport.
Please don't me wrong, I have great respect those who swim like Olympians and run like track stars and spin like Spinners? Where did that term come from anyway? Was bikers was already associated with leather and Harley's?

As for my own resolutions, I'm planning on rediscovering my gym membership, elliptical machine and reacquaint myself with my favorite senor citizens in water aerobics.
Aside from that, I really do want to be a little kinder, a little less neurotic and hopefully a little more easy going.
I want to make it a point to take the time to enjoy what is good about life. Strive to enjoy the things that are beautiful and free.
And most importantly, do much less complaining!!! As that seem to be all I ever do... ASK Matty.