Fact Friday

Fact #...uh... I'm not sure and I'm too lazy to look it up...

Brittany loves Pinterest. I have all sorts of recipes, crafts, and organizational tips that I want to try (don't we all?) but one of my favorite things about Pinterest is all of the beautiful images that you can find. Some of my recent favorites?

 Oh and by the way, EVERY time I upload pins to my blog, the format goes craaaaazy. You should be able to click on the picture and find the pin, thus find the source. Hopefully...

Happy Friday!

Fact Friday

Today's Fact Friday will be different. It won't be a Fact Friday at all. Why? I've literally been sitting here the entire time my girls have had their morning sippy cup/toast and fruit trying to think of something to write. 

 I've got nothin'. Ziltch. Nada. Zero interesting things to share. So...

Brittany Fact # 5: I am the most boring person on the planet. 

And just because I want to leave you with a cute picture, here's an oldie of the girls. So, I guess I'm still participating in a blogging trend... Flashback Friday. 

There's kind of a funny story behind this photo. I wrote a post back when it was taken (November 2010) with the caption, "These twins are so in sync with each other that they even poop together". I never posted it because I didn't know if that was too crude for the internet, but I found it yesterday and couldn't stop laughing. Maybe that should be my 'fact' Brittany has the maturity level of a 8 year old boy... Regardless, it's an adorable picture of two (pooping) babies.

Fact Friday

I had a hard time thinking of what to write about today. I'm actually a very boring person. I'm pretty average in everything, I don't do overly exciting things, and I like to blend in with the people around me. Thus, I am a very boring person. Last night though, I was painting my nails and I realized something that I already knew. I am addicted to nail polish. So, today's fact?

Brittany Fact #4: I am a nail polish addict.

I've always enjoyed my toes being painted, but it wasn't until I went to college that I really started painting my fingers. I had roommates with polish collections that filled shoe boxes, whereas I had maybe 5 or 6. I don't consider myself to be overly girly. I'm perfectly fine going without makeup, not showering and staying in sweat pants all day, but I was definitely intrigued by the rainbow of colors in their collections.

Fast forward to a spring night my Sophomore year. Josh and I were technically broken up. He still wanted to be friends, I wanted to be his girlfriend and saw him bring a girl to his apartment as part of a date (that's what falling in love with your next door neighbor will do to you. It sort of sucked when it wasn't great...) I had to get out of the apartment so I headed to the only place open in Logan Utah at 9:30 at night. Walmart. I walked to the nail polish section and sat (literally, I sat on the ground) and started to cry. A group of teenagers who were discussing the upcoming prom. They looked at me like I was crazy, but I didn't care. I ended up buying 3 or 4 nail polishes and decided to build my collection.

Fast forward to moving to Salt Lake. We moved pretty close to a Target and I quickly discovered that they sold both O.P.I. and Essie polish. Every time we'd go, I'd pick up a new one. Before we moved, I already had...20-25 polishes? but since the move, I've filled up my own Keds shoe box plus some.





According to this blogger, nail polish never goes bad, so I don't feel too bad for the money I've spent. And I don't have that many compared to people on blogs and youtube videos I've come across. However, it's gotten to the point that whenever I get the tiniest chip in my nails, all of it comes off and I put on a new color. Even if my hair is a mess and I'm still pj's, as long as my nails are pretty, I feel like a million bucks.

So I guess I've gotta thank Josh for taking that girl out so many years ago. It's what fuel my collection and everything turned out alright because now we're married. Yep, Brittany won that one! ;)

So if you ever feel like giving yourself a mani/pedi, come on over because I'm sure I've got a color or two you won't be able to resist.

Fact: It's Friday

Do I need an intro to what these posts are about? Check out my fellow twin mom and friend Becky's Friday posts. She's the brains behind them. :)

Brittany Fact #3: I like music. A whoooole lot.

I'm not really sure how to expand on this fact. I simply love music. I'm constantly singing. Constantly. If you haven't heard me sing in a casual, every day conversation then you must not be around me much, because I'm always singing. I sing to my girls, I sing in the shower, I sing when I'm in the garage and my neighbors overhear, I sing to the radio (i.e. pandora) I sing about the food I'm cooking, the diaper I'm changing, the shampoo I'm squeezing into my hand, the light that I'm stopped at... you get the picture. You'd think that since I'm singing all the time, I'd be good at it. Well, I'm an OK singer, but I'm definitely not fantastic.

My mom sings for in a community choir for a few decades. She's got a rockin' alto voice, so growing up at church and things like that, that's what I heard...the alto line of music. Most of the time, I have a hard time hearing the melody because the alto notes scream out at me. I can't read music, so I can't tell what the highest note I can hit is, but I can tell you that it's not very high. I'm pretty sure there are only a few hymns at church that I can sing the melody the entire time. It just doesn't happen.

Besides singing, I love listening to music. And I love a little of everything. I'm content with Bon Iver, Celine Dion, Joshua James,  Simon and Garfunkel,  Brad Paisley,  Regina Spektor, Kimya Dawson, Nickel Creek, Angus and Julia Stone, and even a little Super Bass and the list could go on...and on...and on... My stuffed full 30 GB iPod can testify to that. I've seen 5 of the mentioned artists in concert (one of them {r.Spek} more than once) and listen to them and their musical peers on a daily basis.

I'm obsessed. I've always got a song running through my head and a lot of the time, I'm choreographing dances to the music I'm listening to (insert super dorky dance has-been here).

Music brings in the spirit of the Holidays, it gives us peace, it gives us perspective, it can make us want to dance, it can lighten the mood, it can give us the motivation to move past something, and it can simply be beautiful. Really beautiful.

So yeah, I really like music. And although right now, my Pandora to a Christmas station Ella Fitzgerald style, I really do love music. From basic guitar strumming or ivory tickling, to twangy country, to stuff like She & Him and Regina Spektor (what do you call their kind of music anyway?) to even a little Missy Elliot if I'm feeling particularly feisty. I think this world would be a sad, sad place if it weren't for music. I love it sooo much.

And in case you didn't click on the billion hyper links, here's a gem my little sister shared with me a few weeks back.



And just so you know, my girls love music just as much as I do. Their latest favorite is this one.

I cannot watch this without laughing. Her tucked in chin and sporatic arms are hilarious. I do a pretty fantastic impression of her, by the way.
Just sayin'.

And holy smokes. This blog has been pretty babyless lately. That's because it's been a while since I've taken any pictures. So... I should get on that....

Fact: It's Friday

I kinda like these and I got excited last night when I realized that it was coming today. Dorky? Yesiree.

Brittany Fact #2: I am scared terrified of the dark.

For reals. Ever since I was a little kid, I've hated the dark. I used to have to sleep with our bathroom light on and with a tape playing (either Sesame Street, Safety Kids or Scripture Scouts) to fall asleep. Often times, I would wake up in the middle of the night and find that the tape had stopped and the light had been turned off. Que screaming panic attack. My mom would come in, say a prayer with me and sometimes we'd sing a few songs. I usually calmed me down, but there were several nights that I would end up in mom and dad's bed because I was so scared.

Fast forward to becoming a teenager and moving to my parents (sort of scary) basement. I've never admitted this to anyone, but there were several nights that I slept with my closet light on because I'd wake up and convince myself that there was a murderer just feet away. Sometimes I would pop a CD in and between that and my light being on, I was able to fall asleep. We're talking 16 year old Brittany would have to do this, people. I don't think that's normal...

Fast Forward a few more years to my college days. Two out of the apartments I lived in had a long hallway back to the bedrooms. When you walked into the front door, you walked into the kitchen and the hall was connected to that. If I ever got home late (which never happened...nope, not me...Uh...) I knew exactly what I needed to do. I'd flip the kitchen light on that was right next to the door, walk to the hallway, turn the hallway light on, flip the kitchen light off, scurry to the end of the hall, take out my pathetic little cell phone, flip off the hallway light, and zip into bed with whatever light my phone gave me (ok, there was usually a bathroom trip and teeth brushing in between, but you get the idea) I couldn't stand to be in the dark.

Even now, I'm usually getting ready for bed by myself in the dark. Josh goes to bed between 7 and 8 and my nigh owl self is usually up until 10:30. I know the lights in my house like I knew the lights in my old apartment and I do the exact same thing every single night. Once I'm in my room, I run into the bathroom, flip on the light and do my nightly routine. Once that's over, I have to give myself a mental pep talk to make the 3 foot trek to bed. And if the girls ever wake up in the middle of the night after Josh has left, I can guarantee that the hallway or my bathroom light will be left on. 

Aaaaaaaand now I officially sound crazy. Maybe I should go see a psychologist or something for this childish fear I have. I think it all stems from the pathetic number of scary movies I've seen. By pathetic I mean probably 3. The Halloween that Josh and I were engaged, we opted to stay home and watch a scary movie instead of going to the school Halloween party. We watched The Strangers and I ended up having to sleep on his floor because I REFUSED to go home to an empty apartment. To this day I still psych myself out that there are hooded murderers roaming around my house. It was really had in our first apartment after we were married because our laundry room had accordion doors. If you've seen the movie, you know what I mean.

Maybe this is why I hate Halloween so much. I can't stand being scared and I get scared soooooo easily. I mean, I had to sleep with a night light in high school! And let's just say that it's no mistake that my iPod dock with it's blue glowing light is a foot from my head every night.

Edited to Add: My former coworker reminded me of the scariest dark place on the planet. I can't believe I forgot!! I worked at this place called BRASC that serviced teens and adults with disabilities. Every Friday, we would take the participants out around Logan somewhere and do an activity (bowling, swimming, to a movie, out to dinner etc). We would drive the company van or bus, drive around Cache Valley to pick them up, do the activity, drop them off and then head back to the scaaaaariest dark and spooky building ever. Seriously, have you guys seen The Shining? You know the long, dark halls of the Hotel? Well, that's what BRASC looked like. By the time we'd get there, it was pitch black outside and we had to punch in a code on the side of the building to get in. EVERYONE thought it was creepy. Even my adult male boss admitted to being spooked a time or two. Some of my coworkers claimed that they would hear door slamming up stairs or water running when there was nobody else in the building. Creeeeeepy. Apparently the building was an old fraternity and one of the rival brotherhood (or whatever you call them) slaughtered a pig and a horse in/around the building. So, we became convinced that the ghost of the animals were guarding the building. I think they did a pretty good job.

Most of the time, unless I had someone with me, I wouldn't even return the keys at the end of the night (Shh...don't tell, that was a big no no!). I especially didn't if I was working Saturday morning. I'd drop off the van or bus (yes, I drove a bus and it was sweet), stick the keys in my purse and jet home as soon as I could. Seriously ladies and gentlemen, that place was haunted and so SO scary at night. 

So there's my fact for the week. Anyone else have a debilitating, ridiculous fear? I hope so because I just made a fool out of myself... :)

Happy Friday!

Fact: It's Friday

So, you know my friend Becky? (You know, the girl who is friends with my former roommate and when I was on that roommate's blog I saw some comment about being pregnant with twins, so I linked back to pregnant girl's blog and sort of started stalking her? Then I went to her baby shower and then I've hung out with her and her adorable boys several times? Oh and also remember how the girl who we both know is now pregnant with twins herself? And how in about a month, all 3 of us will have twins? That's crazy talk, people! But yeah, that Becky)  Well, she does posts every Friday called "Fact: It's Friday" where she talks about thing unrelated to babies. She talks about herself, or relays a story from her childhood. She's invited her readers to join in, but for some reason, I never have until now. I really like the idea though. I mean, once upon a time, this blog was around before babies. Before I was shoved into the parenting world with two kids. It was just me and Josh and our poor college student adventures. I've gone back recently and looked at some of those posts and I realized how much I loved life back then (not to say I don't love life now, you just forget what your reality was like before you have two children sometimes...) I also realized how funny I used to be. So while I get that only about 3 people read my blog before we had the babies, I'd like to talk about non baby things every now and again. I don't know if I'll have every 'fact' be about me, but Fridays are definitely going to be a day where I talk about thin that don't relate to not getting sleep, or poop, anything twin related. Capiche? Alrighty tanhen. Here's my first addition to Friday Facts.

Brittany Fact #1:  In a past life, I was a dancer.

And by past life, I mean that the last dance class I took was 4 years ago. I started taking dance classes when I was 3. My mom signed my sister and I up for BYU Children's Dance Program and I took dance from them for an hour a week until I was 12. I then made the "company" and got bumped to more advanced classes which consisted of taking classes for 2 1/2 hours a week. The program focused primarily on modern dance. Modern dance is kind of a funny thing. It's almost a cross between contemporary dance and... interpretive? There are times where we'd would leap and spin like ballerinas and other times that we would ask like ocean waves for 3 minutes on the stage. Although Martha Graham (a very, very famous dancer) is known to be the "mother" of Modern Dance, it's usually not a popular style in the world of dance competitions and studio classes. However, I stayed with the program until I reached high school, when I tried out for the school Dance Company and failed. I decided to stop taking dance at BYU and sign up for the intermediate class and try out for the school's team until I made it.

My high school dance teacher/coach was actually someone who I had taken classes with at BYU my last year with their children's program. She had also taught my older sister when she was on the high school dance team and I think she even taught her with BYU's program too. On one of the first few days of school, she called me in her office for a chat. She said that I was an amazing modern dancer, but I was up against girls who had much more than a modern dance background. I knew girls danced at studios, but I didn't really know what that meant. Come to find out, that usually meant 3-4 hours of dance several times a week, competitions, and private lessons/workshops. That equaled really, REALLY good dancers. Karen encouraged me to try out for dance company every chance I had until I made the team and she promised that I would eventually make the team. The timing all depended on how hard I worked at it. So, at the semester try outs a few months later, I tried again. I failed again. But at least this time I knew a little bit better what I was up against and I at least had a semester of 'other' dance experience behind my belt. Over the next semester, I continued to be in the intermediate class and spent all my time perfecting my skills because I was determined to make the team at the next try outs.

So April rolled around and I once again, put on my ridiculously tight, stretchy dance pants and tried out. I didn't expect to make it, but guess what? I did! That summer, I attended a few random dance workshops, worked out for hours each week and about a month before school started, I attended dance camp with the team.

In my intermediate classes I had taken, I was always one of the best. I don't say that to brag, but I was. I had been dancing since I was 3, so by the time I was 14, I was pretty good. Pretty good, I soon discovered, wasn't going to cut it to keep up with the girls on my team. I was definitely at the bottom of the food chain. I remember picking out 2 or 3 girls in particular to try to emulate and copy. I watched how they held their fingers, how they pointed their chin, how straight their extensions looked, and I tried to dance just like them. It was exhausting. I certainly got better, but I still had a different style and you could definitely tell I had a different dance background. I often talked to my coach, Karen, about feeling out of place because I trusted her and knew that she was in my exact spot on her high school's team. She grew up with BYU's program and had to try to keep up with the girls on her high school's team in Orem, the city just north of us. She made sure I understood that I wasn't 'worse' then they were, but different. They had jazz and ballet training and I had modern training. I needed to stop comparing my leaps and pirouettes to theirs because I didn't grow up with that. There were  things that I could do better than them, and I was contributing something to the team that nobody else could have.

I took that and ran with it. I ended up becoming an Officer for the team at the beginning of my junior year. It was sort of by default because there weren't enough seniors on the team to fulfill the positions in the dance company 'government' but I was still chosen to be a leader of the group. That included choreographing, helping decide who made the team, helping decide which dances we would preform in our concerts, etc. I'm proud to say that I held my own. I found my niche with that group of girls and ended up choreographing or co-choreographing a dance for practically every concert we put on. One of my dances was even chosen to be showcased in a regional performance at UVSC (now UVU). I had found my place in a sea of remarkable talent.

I'm not really sure what my point is all of this is. I pretty much gave up dance when I went to college because USU only had a handful of dance classes. I took them all my freshman year and that was that. Dance career over.  I'm ok with it though, because dance wasn't who I was. It was a hat that I wore. It had its purpose, taught me a LOT, provided me with wonderful memories, let me travel to New York, and made me realize that I can hold my own with a group of people who have amazing talent. Really, the girls on my team were winning national competitions and getting scholarships to dance schools and making college teams. And there I was, a girl with a decent background in a "weird" genre of dance that was able to sort of keep up with them. I just had to stop trying to be exactly like them. I had to find my place among them and excel from there.

It's a lesson I carried with me to college and even have tapped into it with parenting.

Oh and by the way, few days ago I tried busted out a pirouette in the kitchen just to see what happened and I was able to stick a double. It wasn't the triple I used to be able to do, but for a mother of two that hasn't danced in four years, I didn't think that was too shabby.

This mama's still got it... sort of... ;)