The holidays

I love the Holidays! We had 4 parties to go to over the weekend. When else does that happen? Yesterday was David's birthday and I will do a "David post" soon. Thanks to Ru and Meg for coming over to install his present! He's in love. We only have 2 days left of school before break. I actually had a student tell me that her mom was going to complain to the principal that kids don't need a Winter Break. It sounds like someone has to find a babysitter. I need to find her and torture some sense into her. It is crazy I always try to get stuff done early so that I won't be so rushed, but somehow, this time of year moves faster than all the others and here it is one week to Christmas and I still have so much to do. If anyone talks to Mom before I do, is it possible for me to work with you to make some beef tamales for Christmas Eve. I sort of invited Risa to come over (she said that she never gets invited anywhere for Christmas Eve. Of course, being Jewish...) and well, she and her fiancee don't eat pork. I think I can handle a "chalupa alternative" but I'm not sure about making tamales on my own. That might be frightful.
Anyway, I actually love the craziness that is involved in Christmas and allowing myself to get wrapped up in doing things for other people. I never do get everything done I want to. The addressed unstamped Christmas cards usually sit on the table until I throw them out in the middle of January. Especially lame, because I often handmade them. But hey, you just have to let some things go. Like me, now...

e-mail tag

Place an X by all the things you've done and removethe X from the ones you have not, and send it to your friends (including me).
( ) Smoked a cigarette. (Not really, but I did pick up grandma's plastic filter one time and inhale because I thought it was the end of a party horn. Ughh, it was awful!)
( ) Jumped out of plane sky diving.
( x) Had feelings for someone who didn't have themback
( ) Been arrested
( x ) Gone on a blind date
(x ) Skipped school
( ) Watched someone die
( ) Been to Canada
( x ) Been to Mexico
( ) Been to Florida
( x ) Been on a plane
( x ) Been lost
( x) Been on the opposite side of the country,
( x) Gone to Washington , DC
( ) Been to Yosemite No, but so close I could almost taste it and David wouldn't go!
( x ) Swam in the ocean
( ) Felt like dying
( x ) Cried yourself to sleep
( x) Sang karaoke
(x ) Paid for a meal with only coins
( x ) Done something you told yourself you wouldn't?
( x ) Made prank phone calls
( x ) Laughed until some kind of beverage came outof your nose
( x ) Caught a snowflake on your tongue and made snow angels too
( x ) Danced in the rain
( x ) Written a letter to Santa Claus
( x ) Been kissed under the mistletoe
( x ) Watched the sunrise with someone you careabout
( x ) Blown bubbles
( ) Made a bonfire on the beach?
( x) Crashed a party
( x) Gone ice-skating
( x) Been skinny dipping
1. Any nickname: Mo, Moses, Mojo, this list could go on and on.
2. Mother's name? Betty
3. Favorite drink? Vanilla diet coke w/extra ice from Sonic.
4. Body piercing? ears, normal two in the lobes and one more in the left that stays empty.
5. How much do you love your job? Depends on the day, love is an overstatement.
6. Birthplace: Mesa, AZ
7. Favorite vacation spot? Usually where ever I was last.
8. Ever been to Africa? No
9. Ever eaten cookies for dinner? Don't remember.
10. Ever been on TV? On the news at a BNL concert when they were giving admission for $20 for everyone you could fit on a blanket and then donate the blanket to the homeless. A couple other times too, but ...
11. Ever steal any traffic signs? No, but I've had them left in my yard for me.
12. Ever been in a car accident? yes, many, including a rollover.
13. Drive a 2-door or 4-door vehicle: 4-door
14. Favorite salad dressing? Depends on the salad. Ranch, italian, ceasar, asian...
15. Favorite pie? MMMmmm, pie. Why pick a favorite?
16. Favorite movie? 6hour Pride and Prejudice, Stranger Than Fiction, Mars Attacks,
17. Favorite holiday? The whole Thanksgiving to New Year period.
18. Favorite dessert? What's with you people and your choices. Why do I have to make all of these choices? You and Emma both!
19. Favorite food ? Really, this is getting somewhat annoying.
20. Favorite day of the week? Any day I don't have to work
21. Favorite brand of bodywash? Ginger Fish soap and my new favorite, Margarita from Philosophy.
22. Favorite smell? See previous question, plus wet dirt, rain, baking bread, apple cider, pie, curried meatballs at my mom's
23. What do you do to relax? take a bath and reading. ditto Elise, on this part anyway.
24. Do you have a message to your friends reading this? Hi!
25. How do you see yourself in 10 years? In 10 years Lauren will be 23 and Emma will be almost 19. David will be one day away from 51 and I'm not sure that I want to visualize any of that right now. Just the fact that we are 3 years away from a child with a driver's license is scary enough.
26. Furthest place you will send this message? The world wide web, but the furthest anyone will read it is probably Oregon.
27. Who will respond to this the fastest? Well, I haven't seen Mer respond yet. I laughed when I saw that I was supposed to respond to Meg fastest, did you forget that I don't read my e-mail anymore? I did respond once I saw it, just that was 10 days later.
28. Who is the least likely to respond? People I don't know.

Weird things about Emma

Kas tagged Emma, so...
1.I'm the only blond haird person in my family.
2.I,m shy
3.I ate a raw mussel from a lake.
4.My favorite food is crab legs.
5.Turquoise has been my favorite color since I was old enough to talk.
6.I can't decide if I should say neither (ee) or neither (I) or either (ee) or either (I).

Strange

I seem to be at a temporary loss of things to say. I can't imagine what has gotten into me.

Hello again

Well, it has taken me 'til 11 o'clock just to read all the blogs I missed and update to Christmas music, so this won't be too long.
We had a wonderful thanksgiving. It's fun having Tom and Nat and the kids at Mom and Dad's and getting to see them more often.
We did our thankful list for home evening that week and it was so cute, the things the kids came up with and David feeding them his list. We put all of our things in a basket.
It's been so nice having rain and cool weather finally! I actually got to wear my ASU sweatshirt on the day that the Devils beat the wimpcats.
I think we just have the most awesome family in the world and my first song is for all of you spread out across the world. We miss you and wish you were here all of the time.
I will blog again soon.

6 weird things and a cute story

I'm doing this together so I don't break the double post rule.

1. I feel compelled to shut every open cupboard door or drawer that I see.

2. I like it completely dark when I go to sleep.

3. I don't like to ask for help, ever! I do occasionally, but I don't like it.

4. I will read anything. Ok, maybe not anything, but cereal boxes, signs along the road, reader's digest, strangers' blogs (when I have time), most any magazine, teen-age books, the list could go on.

5. I am obsessive-compulsively perfectionist about really weird, meaningless things, like making sure that the stripes match on a wrapped present or tearing the pages in a scrapbook, just right.

6. I love to shop, I love make-up, and all that girly stuff, but I don't really like to dress up or put on make-up. Every once in a while is cool, but not every day. I have way too many clothes and too much make-up for how much I use or wear them.

Ok, now, cute story- The other day Emma and I were driving down the street and she asked me where I got her name from. I told her it was after the title character in a novel by Jane Austen, a girl who liked helping everybody else, but sometimes forgot to make sure she was taking care of herself. (We glossed over the bossy part) She replied, "Oh, you mean she was one of those people who puts themself aside to make sure that everyone else is happy?" We went with that. She answered back, "Yeah, Nana B. is like that." Totally!

Oh yeah, I will tag, and I know I'm stealing everyone, but inconceivably, I got here first.
Merilee, Elise, Mason, Tabi, Teresa, and Chris

Family

These are some of my favorite pictures from Ty and Shanda's wedding. I don't know how to un-underline this. I realize I could have put more pics of actual Ty and Shanda, but go see them at hirdfam.com. I love to see everyone gathered together. Welcome to the crazy family Shanda, although you've already been here for a while.
It's great to have built in best friends!
And then add some to the pile! I love my little girls!
Emma followed the magician around like a lost puppy. She thought he was the coolest thing ever.

Hello Again

In answer to Darilyn - It seems like that much time has gone by, but the talk is tomorrow. It is on gratitude. I always kind of gather info and try to focus on what my talk is centered on, but don't actually put it together until the last minute. Of course, I went to read my Mom's blog and the first thing the crazy, over-active, do everything herself woman does after a crazy weekend is go online and thank everyone else for what they've done. She is such an example.

I don't really want to recover this past weekend. Everyone else is doing such a great job. I would love to see any pictures though, because I am an idiot and NEVER brought my camera anywhere. If anyone got any decent pics of my kids on halloween, I would be indebted.

It was so fun getting to spend so much time with my fam. I live for those times.

Now, to finish writing that talk.

Aaaahhh!

I have to talk in church in 2 weeks!

We have a ward halloween party in 20 minutes!

David's not home yet, from work!

I'm not sure how he's getting home, because the truck is in the driveway!

Merilee is awfully demanding!

Bye!

Hola

It's weird. Sometimes I could just write and write and write and other days it seems like there is nothing to say. Life is good, but nothing thrilling. I hope that all of you out in the blog world are doing well!

Just for kicks, check out this blog. If nothing else, look at the list of links that you can blog surf on a rainy afternoon.

http://poppytalk.blogspot.com/

Ocotillo

I just got off a blog that is listed on Darilyn's blog, Confessions of a Pioneer Woman, or something of the sort. It really made me think about growing up in Ocotillo. I feel so lucky to have grown up on a family farm. This photo is actually a part of the old colored school that was used before our family bought the farm. These buildings were torn down a few years ago and I felt the need to personally document them before that happened. They were back behind the Lewis' house. We never did play in these buildings when I was a kid. I kind of think that someone might have been living in them. There was one building back behind the barn though that we loved to play in. We always said it was haunted and dared each other to go in. When they tore that one down, we would still play on the foundation and claim that it was still haunted. Behind the barn was one of my very favorite places to play. I loved to climb up the cattle loading ramp and play in the shute where they would put the horses when they needed shots. We would climb up to the top of the hay pile. It was all the way to the top of the barn. My big brothers would dare eachother to jump off from higher and higher points. Once we even played with some firecrackers back there so that Mom and Dad wouldn't hear us. How stupid were we? Let's go play with firecrackers by the hay in Arizona! Luckily, nothing happened.

We really loved cotton season. For some reason, it was fun to even pick a few pieces of cotton to play with. What we really loved was to play in the cotton trailers. This was a rare treat. It apparently isn't really good for raw cotton to have children burrowing in it. More often, we would play on the piles of cotton seed. The cotton gin was across the street and the canal. The lot behind the gin would have rows of cotton seed stacked, oh gosh, I don't know, maybe 8 or 10 feet high, but I was a kid, so who knows? We loved to dig tunnels in the cotton. This was not as easy in the seed. Still possible, but tunnels were more likely to collapse. I can't even imagine when my kids would have time to do all of this! Sad. It had to have been late fall, because that is when the cotton is ready.

This leads me to playing in the canal and the ditches. We loved when Bobby would get out his blow-up raft and go from one bridge to the next in it. This was really pretty dangerous and Mom and Dad would get mad at us, but it was worth it. The ditches were not as fun, but still pretty good. The only good thing about getting up on a cold winter morning for school was those days when the ditch was frozen over. The conditions had to be perfect. Just about 3 or 4 inches of water in the bottom of the ditch, otherwise the water would run to fast to freeze for our little Arizona cold weather. The top would just freeze over and you could always break it with your shoe, so fun. These were often the foggy days, when the fog would come up off the canal. This was about as "winter" as we would ever get.

I think I'll save some memories for another day.

Tomorrow Sonny goes in for "surgery" and I have to get up early to take him in to Uncle Keith.

"Domesticated" Cattle

"Domesticated" cattle on the Savannah. I'm not sure I'd buy the domesticated bit. This ostrich sure didn't buy it. Of course, she was not very "domesticated" either. Or at least not very welcoming to her neighborhood. Her wings were even more puffed out than this as she tried to chase the monsters away.
Here is the giraffe picture I liked better.
THERE COMIN' UP THE DRAW! STAMPEDE!

zoo, zoo again

Emma calling to see if someone can get Megan out of the trees. Ok, I'll drop that now.

I love this picture of Emma who got caught just as she
popped a piece of Kettle corn into her mouth.




















This is not actually the ostrich picture I meant to post. There was a funny one where the ostrich was trying to chase some longhorn cattle out of her spot. She managed to get him to walk in about a twenty foot circle that ended up about 5 feet from where he started.











Lauren had fun trying her hand at "professional" photography. Thanks Elise!













I really liked the other giraffe picture better, too, but Lauren liked this one. I may still post the other one later, but now, I have to go.

More zoo

This is right after the kids got to help feed the elephant carrots. They talked to them about how one of the elephants doesn't get along with the other two so they can't be out on display together. They told the kids that the elephant they tossed carrots to came from a circus. You sort of got the impression that she had been "rescued". They didn't ever mention that the reason she left the circus was because she killed someone. True story.










Here is Megan, probably holding more weight than she should be at this stage in her pregnancy.
The kids always love hanging out with Meg. Even 7 months pregnant, she more fun than their moms. J/k, Elise, I'm sure you're lots of fun, it's just me that got freaking old.









Fun Megan decides to test this jungle bamboo to see if it will hold. What is a visit to the rainforest, if you

don't get to climb it.



















Deciding that it will hold just fine, she heads up.



















Still waiting for Megan to figure out how to get down from the rainforest canopy. Why did we go to Colombia? Doesn't Megan know that she shouldn't do this sort of stuff when she's pregnant? Did I mention that we're in Colombia?

The zoo and prego Mego

We went to the zoo yesterday and had a great time. Lauren, Emma and I went with Elise, Kas, Addy, Zo, and Megan. I'm sure Meg loved walking all over the zoo, preggers. In this picture, there is some sort of African bird that is showing off during a presentation. Somehow, when the African King Vulture was flying a foot or two over our heads, I forgot to take any pictures. The presentation was interesting though.


Now, I messed up the other pictures and have to start over.

Lovely Lauren

Where do I even
start with this girl who will be an official teenager this week? I guess, the beginning. This child came into the world with a vengeance. I was talking to Megan the other day about Lauren's birth, and trying not to scare her since it is too late for her to turn back on the baby path. My pregnancy with Lauren was relatively easy, no morning sickness, just some sciatica and gagging on my toothbrush. I was completely unprepared for the drama of her delivery. We did have a little trouble picking a name. We wanted cute and hip, but not trendy. David shot down Katya, we already knew a baby named Mariah, and when we heard someone else talking to their McKenzie at the movie theatres, it just didn't sound right. David also didn't think the world was ready for a little girl named Remmington, Rhett, or Austen. Lauren turned out to be the ONLY name we could agree on at the time.
Finally, the day arrived. We went to the hospital in the morning after trying to put it off as long as possible, I had woken up having contractions. When we got to the hospital, they of course sent us home, or to the park, or anywhere to walk around, just not there. I'm thinking, "How am I supposed to walk around when every five minutes I'm doubled over in pain?" When it became every 2 minutes, we went

back. Several hours later, we were moved to the operating room, because three hours of pushing labor is apparently, not normal. I really didn't want to have a c-section. Of course, I also didn't know that babies could die from being in the birth canal too long. So with oxygen for Lauren on my face, and suction, Lauren came into this world. Of course, by this time, I was completely doped up on demerol and couldn't stop shaking or even lift my arms for that matter. I lay there exhausted, wondering how blood managed to get on my face, while Karen fed my baby the bottle that the nurses brought.
When we went home, things did not get much better. Here was this beautiful baby girl, with this perfect little round face and I still could not feed her. We spent several teary sessions on the phone, both with Mom and the La Leche League. We did eventually figure it out, but not before I had one of the goofiest moments ever in my life. With all the sleepless nights, pain, and newness of the situation, I was a bit loopy. I have to add, I had spent many years babysitting and nannying. I was driving home with a crying baby and the thought suddenly popped into my head, "When are this kid's parents going to PICK HER UP?" The realization struck me right then, I was the actual Mama - forever.

Well, this precious little girl had personality plus from the day that she was born. She loved attention! One of our favorite memories is the time that she climbed up on a chair at Elmer's Tacos and sang Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer for the entire restaurant. She has become a regular at Elmer's. Every time we go, she asks to clean their tables or sweep their floor. Occasionally, they will let her, and sometimes they give her a soda or a frybread as a thankyou. I think she loves it more than a bean and cheese burrito. For a while, she asked for a job application at just about every restaurant that we went to. This was at about age 10. It was fun watching people try to figure out what to tell the little girl about why they could not hire her.
Lauren would sing for anyone at anytime. She sang Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam as a solo at a stake music festival and always seemed to have a singing part in the ward primary program. She was so excited to find that Orangewood Elementary, where she went to 5th and 6th grade had a drama department and put on a play each year. She is above as the feather bedecked Lily St. Regis in Annie during 5th grade and she played Zanita, the mayor's daughter, in The Music Man during 6th grade. She was great and we loved watching her performances. She also always participated in choir and got to go to California to a choir festival.
It's sometimes easy to only see this top, over-the-top side of Lauren. However, inside is the biggest heart that anyone could imagine. Once, we were driving down the road and she told me that her heart was full of love for the whole world. I couldn't do anything but smile and believe her. She never ceases to amaze me with the power and sense of self that she has. Of course, she has her moments of humanity and self doubt, but she often has to remind me that being herself includes liking things that her mom may not like.
I think that so many things that are wrong with the world stem from people who do not understand that they are sons and daughters of their Heavenly Father. This girl KNOWS that! I am so glad that I get to be the mom of this young lady. I look forward and am terrified at the same time of watching her mature as a young woman. I love her so much!

Templates

I found the link to this while blogstalking. (again) I haven't checked it out, but the couples page was cute.
http://shabbytulips.blogspot.com/

If you're interested. I'll be checking it out when I'm more awake.

Weird dream

okay, I had this really weird dream last night. I was so realistic and yet not. I've actually looked for some of the dream meanings, which I don't think I really believe, because it was such an interesting dream.

First, we (whoever we were) were at Nana B's house have a goodbye party for me because I was going away to school. Only problem, I was who I am now, a married woman with 2 kids. We walked outside and there were fireworks shooting off from behind the Chapman's house. Uncle Pete used to shoot fireworks sometimes when he lived there. We admired the pretty fireworks and got in the car to leave, my car, Natalie was driving, and Nana B. was in the passenger seat. I was in back with all of my stuff, headed off for BYU, the place I first started college. I thought that it was nice that I didn't have to go to school until after Thanksgiving and luckily my family would be able to visit for Christmas. Wouldn't it be nice if a semester of school was only one month long, however, I still would have a major problem leaving my family for that long. So, we're driving along in that weird dream way where only the important stuff shows up when we get to a beautiful lake in a red rock canyon. It was like rocks in Sedona, but with a lake. Sorry Em, not Lake Powell. As we drive, we see a beaver dam built by the side of the road that created a pond in a dip in the road. I told Natalie that we should stop and test the depth because I wasn't sure that my car would make it through. She just kept right on going and made it through just fine. I asked her to slow down or stop while I found my camera and took pictures of this beaver dam in the road. She just kept right on going. As I turned around, I saw these skydivers coming down over the lake. I realized, in that weird dream way that isn't actually true, that I had seen the divers jump out of their plane before the beaver dam. Now, they were almost to the lake and it looked so cool. I asked Natalie to stop so I could take a picture. Do we sense a recurring theme here? She kept right on going as the sky divers were landing in the lake. Then my alarm went off and I woke up.

Now I have to rag tie Emma's hair for pictures tomorrow.

New template

A quick shout out to the awesome chick who is so willing to share her adorable templates.
http://www.matiekay.blogspot.com/

Beautiful Emma

I was inspired by multiple people today. First, thanks to Natalie for posting one of my favorite photos of Emma. Next, thanks to Merilee for always having such great post ideas and sharing so much about her kids. Finally, thanks to Emma for being such an incredible person.

Emma has always been an unusual person. From before she was born, I have sensed her stubborn streak. She would wedge some body part up above my ribs where babies aren't really designed to fit. Then of course, came her birth. She was pretty good sized and based on Lauren's birth weight (9lb. 6oz.), the doctor suggested we induce labor 2 weeks early. Sonograms showed that she was over 7lbs already and an amnio showed that her lungs and such were completely developed. So, December 29th we headed to the hospital to welcome
Emma to the world. She, on the other hand was not quite ready to
arrive. The doctors did all of their work and we started to wait. Nothing happened. They finally decided on the 30th that we should do another sonogram and see what was up. The little booger had flipped over. So, now that we know that she is breach, I go into labor, more meds now to stop the labor and then, the most excruciating pain of manually turning the child by PUSHING ON MY STOMACH. They did turn her over and immediately strapped a girdle around my stomach to hold her still. Then, more medicine to restart the labor, and voila 5:30 am December 31st, there is little Emma.

Ok, after this, I was prepared for a VERY DIFFICULT baby. Lauren had been such a binky baby and so I just assumed Emma would be too. We were at church one Sunday and I was trying to get the little stinker to keep that binky in her mouth when I suddenly realized that she was only fussing when the binky was in her mouth. We put it away and never used it again. This was an insight into this adorable little baby. She would do things in her own way, and that way might be better than mine.

Emma was a really good baby. From an early age, however, I could still see that stubborn streak. She was always pleasant with her immediate family, but in public she would not socialize with women. She would go into hyper shy mode and hide her face in Mommy's shoulder. I thought at first that she was just really shy. But, then (you know how sometimes at the store you can end up standing really close to a stranger, but because you're facing opposite ways, you don't notice) she started reaching out and touching men - crazy girl! Of course, they would then turn around and start to laugh and ooh and aah about what an
adorable child. I need to scan a baby picture, of course most of you know what she looked like as a baby, but what a face! People would stop us every where we went to tell me how beautiful she was. Lauren (who of course is gorgeous herself) started to get jealous of all of the attention that Emma was getting. Meanwhile, Emma was snubbing all of the women and flirting with all of the men.

Little Emma did not grow out of this insane shyness (or coyness) as we thought she would. She did survive starting kindergarten, loved her class and teacher and made some fabulous friends. In about the third quarter of school (I was in school at the time myself) we had "student-led" conferences. Mrs. Rullifson had helped the kids create adorable little folders focusing on their work and what they had been learning in class. Emma started telling me about hers while Mrs. Rullifson talked with some other parents. While she was reading, Mrs. R. walked up behind us and listened in. When Emma finished, she was shocked and said, "I didn't know Emma could read! She won't talk in class." I had to lecture Emma on the importance of talking at school and participating in class.

To this day, (8 years old, in third grade) Emma is very shy. She makes friends quickly at school, but she still doesn't really like to volunteer in class. There are people that she opens up to quickly, not always men anymore. My entire 6th grade class adores her and they are always trying to get her to talk to them. She hides. However, there is one girl in my class who has a little brother in Emma's class that she loves. She asks me about her all of the time.

Strangely, this quiet little girl can be LOUD, especially about 7 o'clock on a Saturday morning when she climbs up in my bed and starts asking questions. "What are we doing today? What's your favorite color? When is Daddy going to wake up?" She will share this loud side of herself with her extended family (just ask Elise) but rarely any further.

I have to talk about this girl's sense of right and wrong. Boy, is it strong, just ask Lauren.
The other day she told me about her school class. She said that she sits by the 2 worst boys in the class. They want to talk and play all day long. Then she said, "But when they get really bad, I just have to give them the look, and they know they better stop." Already with the mom look. She does not break rules. She does break other things sometimes. There is a sign on the teacher's workroom that says No Children Allowed. She will not go in. You have to drag her to cross on a "Don't Walk". She does have some faults, but if knows what the rules are, it's rare for her to break them. Maybe I need to write down, Do Your Homework. Really, she usually does, but sometimes she forgets. I blame this on her adorably sweet 1st grade teacher who would tell her that it was ok if she didn't always finish her homework, because she already knew how to do it anyway. That was not ok with me.

Speaking of intelligence, Emma has a bunch. She is part of the gifted program at school, but the real demo of Emma is a conversation with her. Several years ago, her Aunt Karen commented after a conversation, "So your just going to skip her right from kindergarten to 7th grade, right?" Her vocabulary is impressive. I think her favorite word is "basically". She would be glad to tell you, basically what her favorite animals are, and everything else that she basically knows about them.

Finally, this sweet little snuggle bunkins is full of love for her family and Heavenly Father and Jesus. One of the rare times she will get mad at David or me is if we shop on Sunday. She does not approve! She often reminds us when it is time for family prayer so that she can go to bed. Occasionally, she asks me if I say my personal prayers too, "Just like you taught me." She loves church and really misses her old class that she grew up with.
The other day, she told me, "Mommy, the only thing that I don't like about you teaching, is that we don't have enough snuggle time."

Well, this is one long post and I have to get on with my day. Lauren's next.