Jealous?

I got a bike for Christmas this year.

I got this bike:


Isn't she a beauty?  I love it.  I don't know if you can tell but my bike has a basket and the basket is wearing a belt--with a belt buckle.

Awesome, right?

However, I feel like I need to match my bike when I go out riding.  Anyone have some lime-green pants I can borrow?  I've got the belt covered--I already asked--and my bike said I could borrow her belt anytime I wanted.

Out of the mouths of precocious three-year-olds

Adell has been a chatty-child for ages now.  In fact, I cannot remember the long ago day when she did not know how to express her every thought in full sentences.  She has also developed a keen sense of obedience; she polices every member of our family and will report rule-breakers quickly but her own criminal enterprises are to be ignored at all costs.

On the day of the Miss America Party I made a pan of Carmelitas for the party.  Of course, all of the children could smell the tempting caramel-chocolate-cookie goodness and wanted to have some too.  I promised a piece for each child after the treats were cooled and they had eaten all of their lunch.  I made the treats in the morning and lunch time might as well* have been a year away in my kids minds.  When Will came out to the kitchen he spotted the pan of goodies and scooped out a bite.  Adell, watching from the floor said "Oh!  Did Momma saaaaaay you could have some of that?" in her best "your-dead-meat-sucker" voice.

One evening Adell came running into Clare saying "Clare, Clare, Clare!  I have good news and bad news!  The good news is, Uncle Alan gave me a high-five (Uncle Alan was visiting us for a couple of days).  The bad news is I lost the tea cup to this." (holding up a special doll tea set Clare got for Christmas)

Adell can be very sweet too.  Just this morning she and Clare were in the bathroom.  Some how Clare closed her finger in the door.  Adell gingerly escorted Clare into Daddy.  Daddy was busy and couldn't help Clare right away so I heard Adell say "Just run it under cool water and it will feel better."

She is a funny girl and we love her.  Even when she is throwing her daily three o'clock three-year-old tantrum.  We love her.





*Might as well have a laugh on me...or about me...  When I was a college freshman I was writing a paper in my dorm room.  I turned to my roommate and asked "How do you spell mi-taz?" She was confused "Mi-taz? What do you mean?"  "You know, mi-taz," I supplied "I mi-taz well quit while I am ahead.  Mi-taz."    She was still confused.  "Do you mean 'might as well'?"  
"Ummm, maybe.  Is 'mi-taz' not a real word?"
"I don't think so..."
Incidentally, she graduated from college.  I did not.  

Oh baby

Colter knows how to clap.  He likes to clap his hands right as I put a spoonful of soupy baby food near his lips.  The whole scene makes him very proud...and very messy.  He also likes to pat his open hand on every object in his reach.  So, if he doesn't get the spoon in a clap he will get it in a downward swipe to pat his high chair tray.

Little stinker.

Memory Lane...

My old laptop is on death's door.  There are about four years worth of pictures stored on that old thing that I need to save on disks before we send it off to live with Steve Jobs.  So far, saving all those pictures has been a ridiculously slow process.  The old laptop does not read DVDs so I can only save the pictures onto CD.  CDs do not have enough storage space to hold a whole months worth of digital photos (usually about 150-200 pictures).  So I have to split each month into two (or more) disks.  It takes the old laptop about an hour to burn a single disk.  

Please, oh please, oh please do not let my old laptop crash before I get all these pictures saved!

On the plus side, I am getting a chance to see some great photos from the last several years.  Here are a couple of Lorien and Clare in our old apartment.  

If I remember correctly, Lorien decided to put on a play about two raccons.  She dressed up herself as a gray raccoon (maybe she was a fox?) and Clare up as a brown raccoon.  She made tails and ears out of paper and busted into my make-up for--well--make-up.  

The two of them were adorable.  I don't remember if they actually ended up putting on a play.  I do know they had more fun dressing up for their parts than anything else.  

I loved stumbling onto this memory, my two little girls playing so happily together.  

We are having a bit of trouble with Lorien lately.  I just spent a chunk of my afternoon commiserating with my sister-in-law about our way-ward children.  (Thanks Erin!)  These pictures and memories help me to remember that Lorien is just a little girl who is trying to figure out her place in the world.  Most of the time she is a dream and we are so thankful for her.  Some of the time she is a monster and we wonder what unnatural universe she escaped from.  We are with her all the time so we get to witness every. single. monstrous. moment.  Some times all of those monster moments overshadow her goodness in our mind.  

And shame on us for it.  

We are going to figure this out.  Hopefully, before she hits puberty and things really get ugly.  By the way, I'll take any parenting book suggestions anyone might like to offer.

Look how adorable these little girls are!  Do not look at how trashed the home in the background is...

I SAID DO NOT LOOK AT THE BACKGROUND!

America's very own Miss

The pageantry.

The spectacle.

The competition.

The laughter and tears.

We had it all last night for the 5th annual Miss America Party.  (5 years?  Have I been doing this for 5 years?  I guess so...I might need to get a life.)

I've been debating whether or not to have this party for a couple of years.  Last year I was pregnant and did not feel super pageantee.

And then my pageant party became the platform for some non-friendly smack talk.  It was ugly and very unMiss American.  So, this year I really didn't feel up to throwing the party.

I thought a night in by myself eating double stuffed Oreos would be more fun.

But some friends kept telling me how hard they were working on their talents for the competition...I couldn't let them down.

The pageant must go on.

In the week leading up to the party I kept having the same doubts.  What was I going to do for my talent?  What was I going to wear?  Would people come and party or be party-poopers?  Why was I doing all this work (trying uselessly to keep my house clean) again?  I was a mental disaster.  (I was probably a physical disaster too but no one bothered to tell me to my face...)



The night of the party came and to no one's surprise the evening was so much fun.  Everyone came to participate (which is all I ask, just goodhearted participation).


Miss Georgia put on a dance routine.  A full bodied, fully facially expressed, 70's disco dance without a single second of hesitation.  She was brilliant and we all knew the bar had been set impossibly high.



Miss Small Town played the William Tell Overture...on her teeth.  Brilliant!  (Here is a little vain side note, Miss Small Town and I have similar hair cuts.  I copied her.  Sometimes people get the two of us confused and I am flattered every time.)



This is Miss Placed Confidence (best. character. ever.) she came already wearing the crown.  She read a poem about princesses in fairy tales and how the princesses should be round.  Miss Placed Confidence was dramatic in all the right ways.



Miss Maryland came in a wedding gown...how could we compete with that?  She did some yoga warm up moves followed by spectacular head stand tricks.  Totally Awesome.



Miss Allergy (she kept a box of tissues nearby) put on a thumb pointin', hip shakin', leg kickin' dance routine.  We all bowed to her grace...


Miss Mainely did that Minute-to-win-it trick where she put an Oreo cookie on her forehead and moved the cookie to her mouth...using her facial muscles.  Miss Mainely got the Oreo down her face to her cheek twice and dropped the cookie.  On the third try I looked down the row of women, they were all leaning hard to the right in subconscious support of Miss Mainely.  I tried to snap a picture but Miss Mainely got the cookie in her mouth right as I took the picture--sending the supporting-spectators into riotous cheers.

While everyone else was preforming their talents Miss Mainely kept laughing and saying: "I don't think I read the evite very well!  I thought we were just going to dress up and watch the Miss America Pageant!"

We were all laughing too hard.



Miss Sparkles and I put on a hula dance.  We were very, very good...I'd say first-grade good.  (I am Miss-Modest-is-the-Hottest Utah, by the way...)


Miss Les Miz was so amazing it was scary.  She was a lovely lady indeed!  No one could figure out her talent and she kept a great secret.  She started doing some fantastic warm-up moves and then produced a can of Reddi-whip out of nowhere.  She sprayed a pile of whip topping on the back of her down turned hand.  Then she knocked the Reddi-whip off of her down turned hand, sending it flying into the air and down into her mouth.  I don't know if I described the scene adequately...I don't know if anyone could.  The crowd thundered for an encore.  Epic.



Miss Georgia won the crown with Miss Les Miz taking second and Miss Sparkles taking third. (Darn it, I forgot to take a picture of the three of them!)  Miss America's winner last year came in her high-heels and pajamas to crown this years winner.

Bravo ladies!  What a night it was.  Thanks for making everything so much fun and rekindling my love for the Miss America Party.  I will do it again...next year.  

Yo hair be crazy

Crazy Hair Day for school is a big deal at our house.  This year the kids asked if we could dye their hair a crazy color.  I did not want to buy any hair dye (costume or real) so we gave kool-laid a try.  No luck, apparently Kool-laid is not as dye heavy as it was when I was a kid.  The kids had to settle for hair styled in a crazy way.



Clare and Adell opted for the classic Pippi Longstocking wire braids.  Lorien let me put a plastic bottle under all her hair making a cone-head-of-hair and Wyatt got spiked hair...super crazy!

Adell kept calling her hair "iron braids".

He's a standing man...

Up on the dishwasher, up on the coffee table, on the ironing board, walls, dressers, windows, legs, couches, surfaces steady and not-so-steady.

He is very proud of his accomplishments...

Let them eat snow

We made the drive to snow for part of the kids winter break.  My kids love snow.  They think we are the meanest parents ever because we wont pack up and move to a place where it snows all winter long.  Every once in a while, we try and take a trip to find some snow.

Daddy, showing some amazing feats of strength.

The scenery was beautiful.  The face of the snowy earth just fell away into pine forest.  The snow was powder waist deep.  On our first outing we all kept on sinking up to our hips and thighs as we explored the area. The big kids were fearless and kept making their way further and further down the mountain.



The kids got to engage in a real snowball fight with Daddy--instead of just a paper snowball fight.  The results were similar: Kids zero, Daddy a million.






Some sledding happened, but most of the time we just played in the snow.

Will is making his way up the sledding hill--toeing Adell and wearing Colter in the Bjorn.

This is Wyatt, wiping-out.

Colter and I were there too...Colter with a boogery nose, me with hat head.  

Daddy climbed up on this big rock and tried to get the kids to do the same thing.  They were all successful until Wyatt fell through the snow between the rocks...  Turns out the snow piled up between the rocks was piled up on a tree--not solid ground.  So when Wyatt was trying to climb the rock the snow below gave way and down he went.  Daddy was lightening fast and got Wyatt pulled up to safety...it was exciting.





The kids were so excited about going to find the snow.  In the days leading up to our departure, as we rounded up all of our snow clothes, Adell kept layering on each found article of clothing and keeping it on.  She wore the snow boots for two days...

Hey, great job making it through all those pictures.  I thought about trying to cut the post down to just a handful of pictures (five maybe) but I loved too many of them.

Good bye Christmas,

You've been good to us.  See you next year!

Ringing in the New Year...

5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Happy New Year!