Like Mother, Like Daughter

Self portrait by Andie

My little Andie.  I have so much to catch up on my blog but I had to post this.  We decided to take the kids out to dinner tonight.  When we got to the restaurant we found out we had an hour wait so we decided to go to the mall and kill the time.  Well, the girls favorite store in the mall is Claire's.  For those of you who don't know what it is, it's a jewelry/knick-knack/frou-frou store full of stuff the girls WANT.  Of course, Andie wanted something.  When we told her no she totally freaked out and got very mad.  

As we walked out of the store and were walking towards the car Dave and I hear Andie say, "Well, that just sucks."  Dave and I both look at each other in shock and ask her, "What did you just say, Andie?"  She kind of paused and said, "I won't say 'cause you'll be berry berry mad."  So we had a little chat about that one.  Nice.

Then later Andie kept asking how many days until her birthday which is on February 8th.  We told her, "Forty-one days." She smiled a bit, very self-satisfied, and said, "Well, Daddy, I'm sorry your birthday is in a really, really, really long time."

She's a peach.

Santa 2008

"I want a fashion puppy..."

"I want a microscope..."

"I want to get the h#%* outta here!"

Tangent

Okay – I'm a little upset. What year is it? How long have we had the internet? Is Larry Miller the only one with any sense? Seriously.  

Dave had family in town, so we decided to all grab Thai food and go see a movie. We did check the Megaplex Theaters (our favorite reserved seating movie theaters also at Jordan Commons and The District) website at Thanksgiving Point for tickets and saw that it was almost sold out, but it was too far away for everyone to drive. We got tickets on Fandango at the shiny new Cinemark at the University Mall. Never again.

We arrived 30 minutes early. We smashed up against each other in a big sweaty line, winding around a teeny tiny ticket area waiting to get into the theater. We were finally let in, frantically running around and body slamming each other to claim a seat. Don't you love entering a theater that appears to have plenty of open seating, but upon closer examination you've got five or six people saving whole rows of seats with a bunch of coats? Awesome. So guess what seats we got? Second row. Bad word. Very bad.  

This is ridiculous! Ridiculous because we could have calmly reserved our seats online at a Megaplex Theater, relaxed and had a nice dinner, and then showed up just as the movie started with our happy little seats waiting just for us.  And if someone had had the audacity to be sitting in them when we showed up, we could have proudly displayed our reserved tickets and kicked their sorry butts down to Second Row Hell. Glorious! And we pay the same amount of money to fight through the stinky masses and end up with a neck spasm even after showing up 30 minutes early? Hmmmmm.  I think I'm done with Cinemark.  "The Best Seat in Town?" I don't think so.  

All done. 

There's No Place Like Home

My dad took this beautiful picture

We just got back from a fabulous Thanksgiving in good old Arizona. So fun. We took the kids down the weekend before so we could spend more time with family and make the hideously long drive worth it. Sadly, I got sick the first five days we were there and had no voice. It was my kids best Thanksgiving ever. Why is it when I finally get a vacay I get sick?  Anyway, I was spoiled and loved every minute of it.

Usually Thanksgiving is a big production on my part and I'm cooking and baking for two days. This one was awesome! All I had to make was creamed corn. Weird. I didn't know what to do with myself. I was spoiled. Dave and Chandy cooked our turkey in the neighborhood BBQ pit the whole night before which turned out to be... interesting. Aaron stuck his gross feathery bones in my mashed potatoes while I was feasting which I think tainted the wonderful BBQ turkey experience. I still haven't decided about the BBQ turkey. . . love you Dave and Chandy. But everything was delicious. Katie even insisted on making Mom's pie crust for the pumpkin pies. Good job, Kate!  

We weren't planning on staying as long as we did but I was so glad. My Dad wanted to drive back with us and he couldn't until Friday so we decided to wait. Dave left us the day after Thanksgiving for a week so I would have had to take that drive alone. What a pair we were . . .  a seizure victim and a half blind old guy (love you, Dad). We made it!

Our days were filled with eating, lounging, playing in the sandbox, swinging, swimming, eating, setting up Katie's Facebook, eating, visiting, playing with cousins, shopping, eating, helping Katie set up her blog, chasing dogs, playing cards and eating. Not every family wants to spend time together but thankfully mine does. I am spoiled. Aaron always gives me guilt for living so far away and I always roll my eyes and say leave me alone. But it's nice to know I'm loved. I love my family. And there's not a whole lot of time left to be able to drop everything and leave for two weeks so I'm glad this time we did. It was so worth it.

The Sibs, minus one

Avery wasn't interested in getting in the picture

My dad the pirate

Our attempt at the nativity with five toddlers. Not bad.

Fun at the park

All the cousins

Andie's absolute favorite thing. . . next to swimming

Three adult men. . .

My little brother Aaron.  Isn't he precious?

Andie in an underwater photo

Alex's turn

Yay, for Arizona in December!  Thanks ,Dad.

Bite Me Please

Okay, peeps.  I saw it!  I don't know who talked me into this, (Emily) but I got home at 3:00 in the morning from our midnight viewing of Twilght. Besides all my crazy friends in celebration of Shauna's birthday, we were in a sold out theater of out of control screaming females and 2 screaming men.  I counted.  Hilarious.  I went in with low expectations and came out pleasantly surprised.  This is my review...

It was better than expected!  Yay!  I was a little worried from the trailers because it looked like it might be  a little cheesy in some parts but I think they pulled it off.   I am now looking forward to the next one.  For one,  it will partly be filmed in Italy and second because the budget will hopefully allow for them to hire a real hair and make-up person.  That aspect of it was a little disappointing.  Jasper had way cute curly permed hair with lots and lots of hair gel.  I know they're supposed to be pale but they also need to be beautiful.  And Rosalie was another disappointment.  Poor thing.  I guess who do you choose to be the most beautiful woman in the world?  That's a lot of pressure.  

On to the good stuff.  Edward was excellent.  EXCELLENT!  And Bella was good too.   There was hot chemistry between them.  Edward is delicious.  My favorite line is, "You don't know how long I've waited for you."  Are you kidding?  Ditto. (Love you, Dave.)  Edward was so lonely.  I was happy for him.  And our little Shark Boy, Jacob, was precious.  They'll have to do some CGI in the next movies to make him a little taller because he looked 4 feet.  But what a great smile.  

The bad guys were good.  The shirtless black vampire with dreadlocks was cut.  That was fun.  Victoria is beautiful,  (maybe she should have played Rosalie?)  James was a good bad guy.  

So to sum up, I liked it.  It was fun.  I give it 41/2 stars.  

She's a Turkey

So the other day I was putting Halloween stuff away and pulling out my Thanksgiving decorations.  I pulled out these two turkeys and set them on my kitchen table and then left the room for a minute.  When I came back I walked into the family room and noticed Avery sitting on a chair snuggling and kissing these turkeys.  Hilarious.  Stroking the turkeys and kissing their beaks.

A Mullet Party

Dave started it.  Hideous.  We had a little get together to celebrate Avers birthday and it got a little out of hand.  The rule was you had to make an ugly face.  In our family an ugly face isn't hard to produce.  Rock on.

Happy Birthday Avery

My baby is two years old today.  She has grown in leaps and bounds and now when we tell someone her age hopefully there won't be a gasp of, "She's so big for her age!". . . hopefully.

Avery is our little parrot.  She repeats the last word of almost everything we say especially if we're asking a question.  She speaks her own form of Japanese.  She loves to sing "God Bless America" and "I Am a Child of God" with her big sis Andie - half Japanese half English.  She LOVES balloons and yells very loudly "boon" every time we see one.  She still loves her bottle, which is bad and is all my fault because I'm a lazy parent. . . we're working on it.  She loves to toot and announce it after every one.  (Blame that one on Daddy.)  She loves her baby dolls and makes sure none of them are clothed.  She says, "off off" when she can't quite get the clothes off herself, I have to do it.  She loves shoes especially if she can put them on all by herself.  She loves to pat my chest and say "boob."  She loves to be outside at the park and go down the slide over and over again.  She loves her "binty" binky and her "bankit" blanket.  (I probably need to work on those too.)  

Best of all,  Avers loves to snuggle.  If I could all day she would love for me to sit with her and read her a book or watch "toons" with my arm around her.   She is my baby.  She was my best c-section,  my worst sleeper,  my least photogenic, and my most mischievous.  She's hilarious.  I am so lucky to have her.  Snaggle tooth and all.

Halloween '08

Alex was a "Pretty Witch";  Andie, a Beautiful Princess;  Avery, another Beautiful Princess;  Daddy, an "Ugly" Redneck Joe Dirt F-Dude;  Mommy. . . Bah Humbug.  I got everybody ready.  Happy Halloween.

Such a pretty "Pretty Witch."

So ugly. . . not you, Alex.

Avery is officially the hardest person to take a picture of.

Andie's so sweet.

My Girls.

Pumpkin Carving

Dave decided to carve pumpkins with the girls.  His most favorite thing to do.  (not)  He's a complainer about Halloween.  Not his favorite.  Here are some pics to prove it.  Unfortunately, I went to my primary meeting and no one took pics of the finished product.  Oh well, cute pictures anyway.

Choosing

Enjoying the slimy pumpkin seeds

Spiders

I am deathly afraid of spiders.  I couldn't even post a picture of a real spider because I start shaking and yelling swear words.  So I thought Spiderman would have to take the place.  Thank you Spiderman.

Today as I was making my bed and picking up the room I notice a GINORMOUS spider on the ottoman at the foot of my bed.  Holy ____!!!!  What do I do?  Dave of course isn't home.  Alex is at school so she can't save me, dang it.  I'm on the phone with my sis who tells me, "Go get the Raid!"  I have no Raid.  But would have been good to have in a situation like this.  (Note to self.)  I run and get the vacuum and decide that it is too big to be sucked into the vacuum and who wants a huge spider in their vacuum that will come and kill you later?

In the mean time I hang up with my sis and continue to have a staring contest with the GINORMOUS spider.  I've been holding the vacuum going through my options while Avery is comforting me saying, "Scary, scary!"  (Good mom.)  Then it moves.  I swear it was coming straight for us so I grab Avery fumbling with the vacuum with bad words flying. (Again, good mom.)  So while I'm saying bad words and saving me and my baby it crawls underneath the ottoman where I can't see it.  This is worse.  Will I ever sleep in my bedroom again?  No.  So I have been calling Dave hoping he'll drop everything at work and come save me.  No.  He tells me to flip the ottoman over and put a bowl over it so when he gets home he'll kill it.  Thanks, Dave.  Good idea.  (Bad word.)

Still going over my options, I now have a bowl, the vacuum, my crying baby and a stick to move it off the ottoman and onto the floor so I can put a bowl over it.  I'm thinking at this point, "I'm tough!  I can do this!"  So I flip the ottoman over!  (More swear words eek out. Sorry.)  And no spider running for cover.  But then I spot it!  Hiding next to one of the legs.  So I spend another 10 minutes with the vacuum pointed at it, sweating and going over my options.  

Then it came to me!  I decide to drag the ottoman out the front door.  Brilliant.  

Everything went beautifully.  I dragged the ottoman to the door, opened the door very wide and carefully threw my ottoman outside into nature.  But don't think I didn't make sure that thing was off that ottoman and out of my life!  Yay for me!  

Dave says I have a problem.  I thought he'd be proud of his proactive wife gettin' things done and facing her fears!  Thanks for the support, babe!  Can you tell I can't drive and have way too much time on my hands?  44 days and counting.  I need a widget!

Good Morning

Guess what our little monkey did this morning.  A little good morning strip tease.  I walked in and found her naked, laying in bed with her feet crossed, singing, clothes and diaper strewn to the floor, happy as can be.  Ahh, the life.

The Tree House

Dave's had a fun project he's been working on in his spare time.  Building a tree house for the girls.  They have loved it and it's been a hit in the neighborhood.  He says he's not done because he wants to add another level and possibly a roof.  Go Dave!  It looks like that will have to wait until spring.  This is what we have so far and we think it's great.  And I think maybe it was more for him than the girls.  

I also need to thank Sean Dickson for leaving his family and wearing his tool belt and helping Dave out for a couple of nights.  Good for them getting that testosterone going.  Thanks guys.

Cornbelly's Craziness

Here are some pictures of our fun day at Cornbelly's at Thanksgiving Point.