A Fun New Tag...

The Big 5 Tag

10 Years Ago: I was finishing up my freshman year at BYU. I was living on campus in E. Richards and had GREAT roommates! Also working in the Courgareat. So much fun...

5 Years Ago: I was living in Iowa, sharing an apartment with Britt. I had just graduated BYU the past fall and was substitute teaching, traveled the Midwest as an ACT/SAT test preparation specialist, and served at the Olive Garden. Good times, huh, Britt?

5 Months Ago: I was "with child". Okay, so it turns out I wasn't really with child (molar pregnancy), but I was puking my guts out! We were also visiting David's family in Phoenix.

5 Things on my To Do list today: Laundry, Dishes, scrubbing floors, making calls for 4th of July Celebration (Lewiston holds a BIG event every year, and I am the Park Booth Chairman), getting things ready for my Iowan visitors!

5 Snacks I enjoy: Chips and Salsa, M&Ms (okay, any and all chocolate), Ice Cream (I can't think of a flavor I don't like), Kettle Korn Popcorn, Cookies

5 Things I would do if I were suddenly a billionaire: Pay off debt, move family members closer to me, buy a house, help out friends and family, vacation(s)

5 of my Bad Habits: Eating the wrong foods in the wrong quantities, worrying about things I can't control, making excuses for not exercising, spending money I don't have, interrupting

5 Places I have lived: Iowa, Texas, Florida, Utah, Hawaii, Arizona (okay, that's 6, but didn't seem right to leave just one off)

5 Things people may not know about me: (1) I am seemingly incapable of reading "Pride and Prejudice". I have tried... I just like the A&E version of the book so much that I can't get into the book! So wrong... (2) I had skin cancer (melanoma) when I was 24. It was all removed successfully. It was on my rear. How many people can say they've had "butt" cancer? Goes to show that no good can come from tanning... (3) I have a 3 octave range. I heard that Mariah Carey's was 5 and wanted to see what mine was... how does she do that?? (4) Sometimes I think about being a newscaster... crazy, huh? (5) I check out the bathrooms whenever I eat out. You can tell a lot about a place by how clean their bathrooms are...

5 People I Tag: Any of you ladies that haven't been tagged yet...

The Wonderful World of Mata

Sorry for the posting lapse. My life has been CRAZY!! Lots of changes, lots of fun. Let's see, where to start? With the "bestest" thing.... we are getting sealed!! My David is by far the cutest, most romantic man and surprised me by scheduling our temple date without me knowing and then hiding a note in a Cracker Jack box! I had gently suggested a date and put it on a note in his lunch box. For days he didn't comment on the note and I thought that he just wasn't ready yet. And then...

The date is set for Wednesday, May 7th at the Logan Temple. It just happens to be the temple that my grandparents were sealed in. To add to the fun, my family from Iowa will be visiting that week, so my sister and mom will be able to be there!! I am beyond excited and have been waiting for this day for SO long. I am so grateful that David is just as excited as I am. Although I had to wait, I am glad that David took the time to fully understand the covenants that he is going to be making. He is incredible and I love him so much. I know that the Lord has blessed me in so many ways and I above all grateful that my family will soon be an eternal one.

Another big change is with our income. Or rather the lack of income has brought some changes. David is starting tonight at Pepperidge Farms. He will be working the graveyard shift. It's a pay increase AND has great benefits. He is also working with a recruiter and is considering the National Guard. I just returned to Olive Garden. Since David will be home, I won't need to find a sitter for Malia. As someone so delicately put it, "But don't you have a degree?" True, true. I could look for a full time teaching job. However, fundage is needed NOW, a job wouldn't be available until the fall, and as fellow teachers know, it is impossible to leave work at work when you teach. I wanted to be able to go somewhere for a few hours, make some cash, and come home and be able to give my full attention to my Malia and hubby. Plus, I like serving. I get to talk to grown ups! David and I are doing our best to dig ourselves out of the hole we've dug ourselves. May not be fun, but we are united in our efforts and know that we will be blessed for doing what we know we need to do.

We have also been having a great time working in our yard. We cleaned up our front flower beds and put in some new flowers and got some other fun plants from the Barrington's. Christina, my neighbor and friend, has become my unofficial gardening mentor. Thanks, Christina! Plus, Patrick and David like to burn stuff together. We also got the seeds for our garden and look forward to planting it soon. Turns out I like gardening. All I remember is growing up that I hated it when my parents made me work in the garden. Now it's pleasurable. It's the first time that David and I have lived in a house and have had the opportunity to do yard work. David, of course, loves to work outside. He prepped the garden, pruned the apple tree, and filled all of the holes in the yard that the previous renter's dogs had dug. Malia goes around throwing dirt OUT of the flower beds and likes to play on the little slide. Her baby even gets to go for a slide!

I've also been busy with my calling. We are in the middle of attending ward conferences. It's fun to go to all of the different wards and see what the primaries are doing. On Thursday, we had our Stake Auxiliary Meeting. I think it went pretty well. I put together a children's choir that sang prelude before the meeting. They were great and really set the tone for the meeting. The kids also sang today for our ward sacrament meeting. They sang "My Heavenly Father Loves Me" and it was really cute. It was funny, a couple of random kids joined our little choir. I guess their parents must have seen the kids getting up and figured they must have missed the memo and thought the whole primary was singing!

So other than the upcoming sealing, new jobs, yard work, and callings... life is pretty normal. We love to go bike riding as often as we can. The other day we went out and flew kites. It was fun. The wind was kind of spastic and the fun didn't last for long. Malia got bored quickly. Oh, well.

So that's the Matas as of late. I am very excited for my family to come visit. I only wish they were staying longer! I also wish David's family would come visit!! I wish everyone could come visit. Who wouldn't want to visit the illustrious town of Lewiston??

My Malia

So I realize that I pretty much only blog about my Malia, but dang! I love my little girl. Not to mention I spend 24/7 with her, so it's pretty much all I've got to write about! In addition, the girl is FANTASTIC and amuzes me so much everyday. She's 20 months right now and is doing very well at practicing for the terrible twos! Nonetheless, I love her tons and am amazed at how fast she is growing!

She has been obsessed with doll playing since she turned one. These last few weeks though, she has kicked it up a notch. My favorite is when she reads to her babies. Notice how she makes the doll pet the bunny! Not sure why she was licking her baby, probably spilled juice on it's head and didn't want it to go to waste! Her vocabulary is astounding me also. It is especially fun to watch her learn Spanish. She understands everything David says to her! I only wish I did. Although, one could argue that she is trilingual. When answering yes she says, "Da" (Russian for yes). Not that I actually taught her that, it's just what it sounds like. We can get her to say "si" (it sounds absolutely adorable), but just can't get her to answer the affirmative with "si". Another one of her new tricks is getting into her pack and play on her own. We haven't been using the pack and play for naps because it became her new time out spot. For awhile there it was working great. She hated time out in the pack and play. However, now she loves it! She pulls over her little chair and well... just watch.

As you can see, she hasn't figured out the getting out part yet. Fun, huh?

Sobrinos y Primos

I just got some pictures of my nephews from my SIL Jocy (David's younger sister) and thought I'd share them with you all. I've posted pics of the nephews and niece (go Nora!) on my side and thought it only fair to show off the other side. Plus, they are adorable! Not to mention I am amazed at Jocy's stamina. Gabielito is the same age as Malia and the twins are now 9 months! For a few days there, Jocy had 3 boys under the age of one! And I get overwhelmed at times with my little Mali!?!? We miss them all tons and wish we could visit more often. Hopefully we can get them to visit us up here. It's warming up, I promise!!


Little Gabriel, Tony and Alex (just guessing on the order. I know Alex has a mole on his forehead but can't tell from the pictures).

My New Calling

So I posted the other day that I got the calling of Stake Primary Music Chorister. Well, after my Stake Primary meeting, I've been informed that is not really my calling. Silly me, I took the Stake President's word! Turns out that the official calling is Stake Primary Music Specialist. Umm.. okay. It was pointed out in the meeting that my calling was "made-up". I prefer "unofficial". This girl of faith believes it to be a calling of the Lord, despite it's unorthodox status. I guide the ward primary choristers if they need assistance and am in charge of the music for all stake primary activities (auxiliary training meetings, Priesthood Preview, Great to be Eight, etc.). I am super excited for it. We have an auxiliary training meeting next Thursday. I put together a children's choir from my ward to sing at it. Should be lots of fun. I am going to generate a resource list for the choristers. So if any of you have served as the ward primary chorister and have a favorite website that you used for ideas, do share. I was also thinking of getting together an email list of the choristers in the stake so they can share their ideas. I toyed with a blog for them, but am not sure if they are bloggers. I may be making it more complicated than it needs to be. All I know is that when I was the primary chorister, it would have been nice to share and get ideas from others. Especially since they are all preparing to teach the same songs. If you have any other suggestions, pass them along! So there you have it.. the duties of the Stake Primary Music Specialist!

Baby Animal Days

On Saturday we went to the American West Heritage Center for their Baby Animal Days. We went with my brother, Bart, and his wife, Lori, and their two boys, Max and Caleb. It was a great time and we loved spending time with them.

Here is Malia petting (yuck!) a Madagascar Hissing Cockroach. She also pet a millipede.

Here are Caleb and Mali riding on some Bouncing Burros. That's really not their name, but I can't remember what they are really called. All I know is that they cost $25! Too bad, Mali would have loved one.

Here are some pretty lambs. This one's for you Grandma!

As you can see, Malia loved the lambs, too!

Here she is petting a little goat. She kept trying to stick her finger in it's eyes and ears.

Here she is with the chickens. These chickens were okay, but we saw some later that nipped at Malia and she freaked out. Of course that happened right after a boy came running by and plowed Malia and Caleb over! Rough moment. We recovered by petting baby ducks.

I'm not even sure what Mali was looking at, but I just thought it was cute how intently she was peering.

Here is Malia walking with Papa. David had just gotten off work, thus the uniform.

Here she is petting a HUGE bunny.

Caleb and Malia petting a baby Beefalo. He was very dirty. Kids didn't mind, though. Thankfully there were several hand sanitizer dispensers!

Checking out the llama.

"David for Sale"- hee! hee! And Malia's shoe.

Here is a video of Malia and Caleb on the Bouncing Burros. Fun for all!

Who would have thought?

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 61 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

There are 613,779 people in the U.S. with the first name Amanda.

Statistically the 80th most popular first name.

There are 30,385 people in the U.S. with the last name Mata.

Statistically the 1170th most popular last name.

One Word Tag

This one is kind of fun because you have to try and say it all in one word. I'm going to try really hard to be a rule follower... Here goes.

1. Where is your cell phone? pocket

2. Significant other? David

3. Worst bad habit? spending

4. Hair? brown

5. Favorite food? mexican

6. Your Favorite thing? love

7. Your dream last night? hair

8. Favorite drink? Water

9. Dream/Goal? Happiness

10. Room you are in? living

11. Your ex? none

12. Your fear? finances

13. Where do you want to be in six years? Iowa

14. Where were you last night? home

15. What you're not? patient

16. Muffins? Annie's

17. Wish list item? vacation

18. Where did you grow up? Iowa

19. Last thing you do? list

20. What are you wearing? jeans

21. Your TV? on

22. Your pets? fish

23. Your computer? laptop

24. Your life? challenging

25. Your mood? irritated

26. Missing someone? Iowans

27. Your car? dead

28. Something you are not wearing? makeup

29. Favorite store? Walmart

30. Your summer? eventful

31. Love someone? David

32. Last time you laughed? today

33. Last time you cried? yesterday

I did it! May not all make sense, but there it is. Do share ladies.

Word Verification

So just spent a too large chunk of my time checking all the blogs and leaving my stunning comments. I admit, I may be addicted to blogging. Yet the ability to communicate with all of my friends and family is a highlight of my day. However, there is one sore spot- WORD VERIFICATION. Maybe I am taking this too personally but, who fails this little test? Me, of course! Twice today I had to try again because I had typed in the wrong letters. It really trips a girl up when they put the v and w together. How sad is it that this is one of my challenges? Tell me I'm not alone in failing the WORD VERIFICATION!

Random Cell Phone Pictures

I needed to clear the pictures off of my cell phone and thought I'd share a few. Not always the best quality of picture. The cell phone is just so handy. These first 4 pics are of Malia playing with her cousin Caleb (Bart's oldest boy). Lori and I hung out last Friday night while Bart and David went to the Jazz game. It was good to hang out with her and let the kids play together. Don't be too concerned with the first pic. I happened to catch the one time Caleb was playing a little rough and pulled Malia's hair. Believe me, it's usually Malia being the bully and shoving! They have lots of fun playing together. Caleb had Malia laughing so hard. I don't even remember what he was doing, but she was seriously laughing. I'm glad they get to hang out.



Here's Malia painting her face with yogurt. She was also practicing her sad and happy faces. This was SO last week. This week she won't even eat yogurt. Wish I could keep up with her food preferences! Gotta love the bed head, too!

Here she is "helping" me with dishes. It takes three times as long to get them done and everything is soaked by the time we are done, but she has a good time. If I even turn on the sink, she pulls over the chair to "help".

I decided to try those little pink sponge rollers on Malia's hair. The results were.... strange. The ones all along the hair line fell out and the hair was bone straight. The ones in the middle got crazy curly and looked scary. Oh, well.

"Uht-oh, Mama". She brought me this baby this morning. I couldn't fix it because the plastic piece was broken. She was devastated. This was our first experience with Mama not being able to fix it. Not to mention I'm sure it was a little tramatic to have her baby's head come off in her hands!

So there you have it. All the excitement we've got here. I'm off to Salt Lake City today to go to a training session. I just got called as the Stake Primary Chorister. Fun, huh?