May's Links to Love

Artsy:

Stairs are one of those things you just don't think to decorate. But look at this:
















Jordan Matter's "Dancers among us" photos.

Hand-painted mural advertising documentary:




Artists' portrayals of favorite book scenes. (Picture Book Report.)

Awesome vintage wedding dresses.

Too bad this shop, Noun, is in Oregon. I think my mother would love it.

Engagement photos based on the movie "Up."

Happy Tape!

Comic Sans Destroyer. (I hate that font just as much as they do. And First Grader? Ick.)

Dreamy "Deviant Art."

My love for my bunk bed makes me want to always have a bunk bed. But unless I had stairs, it would be difficult when raising kids (waking up at all hours of the night and having to climb down would NOT BE FUN). But look at what showed up in Apartment Therapy's new book (found here):






















Music:

Why does Soko have such a lovely sound?



I already linked to Pogo's Alice remix, but the one from "Up," called "Upular," is also sweet. I just can't imagine how much work and awesomeness it would take to come up with such masterpieces:




I Love Technology:

I think some of my German friends would be jealous that the UK is getting gmail instead of googlemail.

Cool homepage design (let your mouse hover over the different options on the left).

Government requests that Google erase or give information.

The Google Job Experiment:





The Google Pac-Man Game! How to download the Google Pac-Man game.


Mormon:

LDS Humanitarian help.

Christian colleges' best Mormon blogs list.

The New Mormon.org (make a profile!).


Literary:
Lost languages found in New York.


Random:

Woolly mammoth hemoglobin (maybe this can help constantly cold people like myself?).

50 free online cooking classes.

Mariah Carey's crazy ring pop ring for her annual re-marriage.

Shi* my kids ruined.

Pimp That Snack!

Lebanese chefs set the new world record for amount of hummus. Yum!

McDonald's Playland for Grown-ups:



A video to get you ready for the World Cup.

Star Wars retold by someone who hasn't seen it (Hans?):

Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

Steuer Fertig

So, my tax forms are all filled out and in the mail! Wahoo! (Thanks, Geli!)

And tomorrow I'm going to the temple. Hallelujah!

Broken

Found here.

Kate Nash

She is lovely, her voice is lovely, her accent is lovely, this song and video are lovely (but please excuse the naughty word at 2:32).

The New Popular Pasttime

Juliane, Kenneth, Kenneth again, Michelle, Michelle again, Markus, Denise . . .



nose operations are in!

Tomatoes Try 2010

Try 2009.
Try 2008.

And happy birthday, Heidi.

Jessica's Daily Affirmation

How would your days go if you said all these things and meant them every day in front of the mirror? According to the comments on the video, Jessica is now 12 and a straight A student. I wonder if she'd had a little too much sugar at the time. So funny.

My Couch's New Look

I still have to sew zippers onto the pillows and adjust a few things next time I take off the couch cover, and it's not professional, but I'm proud of my handiwork.


Before:




After:





And I had 4 meters of fabric left, so I re-covered my chair and need to think of some other things!

The Beloved Jakobi Family

I looove my visiting teaching companion, Dani (and her family). And she does a lot for me. Since I had a free week and knew she had a lot to do (she's a lawyer), I offered to play mom while she got stuff done in her office.

I was surprised how much fun I thought it was to be domestic. I:

• went shopping
• organized family night
  
• figured out meals from food storage
• made my own hash browns since I couldn't find them in the stores (I should have gone with browning them in a pan instead of scalding them--the starch made them too sticky and dream potatoes turned into dream potato soup)
• made smoothies
• made banana bread
• made grilled cheese sandwiches
• made pancakes
• drove Elisa to seminary at 5:30 in the morning
• filled up the car
  
• brought Finn to and from Kindergarten
• drove for what seemed like a whole day
• never got lost in the city
• dropped off and picked up kids at and from school and piano lessons
• helped kids practice the piano
• helped kids do their homework
• got called "cleaning lady" by the 14-year-old who didn't want to do his homework (practically the only low point)
• jumped on the tramp (how did I use to do that for hours every summer day? Now it hurts my brain!)
• sword fought with Finn
• played this counting game with Finn and only won once out of at least 20 games
  
• petted bunnies
• went shopping again
• picked up stuff for the Young Men's bike tour to Denmark, twice
• brought Sammy to pick out biker shorts ("I don't like them. They're ugly! Especially this padded part on the front." "That's so you can have children some day.")
• washed lots of laundry
• etc.

I've been teaching Elisa to sew. So far she has a beige and blue/white striped bag and a polka-dot skirt. Here's her first skirt.




Sammy's rabbits were pregnant before the male got castrated and they now have a total of SEVENTEEN rabbits/bunnies! But the neighbors don't seem to mind . . . yet:




When I was bringing Finn to a birthday party, I saw a bunch of sheep and mentioned them to him. He hadn't seen them and said he'd never seen sheep before. So on the way back, we jumped out of the car and stared at them staring at us. They also cuddled with a tree. My bright idea was to run to the car screaming so we could laugh our heads off watching the sheep running away. Ha ha. I told them I was sorry, kind of.




Finn could not wake up long enough to get out of the car after that. Let me tell you, birthday parties and sheep-watching are tiring activities.




Elisa wanted me to take her to get some more material, and while searching for a material store, Finn, Liv, and I climbed onto a giant metal ball and took this classy picture:





But what made it the most fun was being able to help Dani. That made me really happy.

Schwarzfahrer

Please take the time to watch this old German short film by Pepe Danquart (I've provided YouTube's embedded version with English subtitles). It won an Oscar. The title is a play on words, because "Schwarzfahrer" means "black passenger," but what you don't know is that the word "black" in combination with other things in German means "illegal" or "bad," such as with the "black market."

So, enjoy. And I promise it is worth waiting for the end!:

For My Mom

Today is my mom's birthday, no joke. Happy birthday and mother's day!

Before and After Christmas

I found this treasure outside my house a while back:





Don't forget to take a look at my shop and enter the giveaway!