Say Cheese Naughty

The Fam had a great time in Park City last week. We had some rough times with the twins being a wee bit sick and some craziness about them not wanting to go to bed but over all it was a really fun vacation. The above pics are from our exploits into the land of gingerbread house makin'. The kids mostly ate the candy on the sly as we tried to help them decorate the thing.

I had plans to bake the gingerbread myself but that didn't work out so much this year, maybe another time. Ever since watching some gingerbread challenge on the Food Network a few years ago I have had a dream to make a super rad house with sugar glass windows and Necco wafer shingles on the roof. Oh the dream is not dead, there is always next year.

Park City, I ask you, Why, Why, Why?

The mysterious part of this strange marketing ploy is that this is one
of two windows enticing buyers into their shops with fur jocks on
display.

Hot Buttered Seduction on a Stick

You probably know already how I feel about Twilight. If you don't know, you probably don't want to know. So when Kgordee found this parody of Twilight on EricSnider.com and read it to me, I about died laughing!!! I knew I needed to immediately share it with you all...

MY SCREENPLAY ADAPTATION OF STEPHENIE MEYER'S "TWILIGHT"
By Eric D. Snider

Scene 1

BELLA: I'm sad to leave the hellish, uninhabitable wasteland of Phoenix to live in a rain-soaked town full of rubes. I wish everything about my comfortable and privileged life were completely different!
DAD: Hi, Bella! Welcome to Forks, Washington. I'm glad you've stopped playing mother to your own flighty, irresponsible mom and come here to be my mother instead.
BELLA: It will be my pleasure to cook and clean for you.
DAD: I bought you an old truck from an Indian in a wheelchair!
BELLA: I ... have no response for that.

* * * * *

Scene 2

BELLA: It's tough being the new kid in school! Especially when everyone is so friendly and helpful and interested in me. Why can't they just leave me alone so I can sit in the corner and cut myself?
CLASSMATE: You're awesome, Bella!
BELLA: See what I have to put up with? Hey -- who are those hot people over there?
CLASSMATE: Those are the Cullens. They avoid direct sunlight, they don't eat food, they sleep in coffins in a graveyard, and holy water burns them. I think they're Canadians.
BELLA: They sure are spectacularly gorgeous.
CLASSMATE: Yes, they are.
BELLA: I mean seriously, those people are BEAUTIFUL. Especially the one who keeps looking at me. Man alive, that guy is stunning. I mean, wow. He is hot buttered seduction on a stick. I'm not interested in him sexually, of course, because sex is dirty, but wow -- LOOK AT HIM! Yee-ikes! Hubba hubba! If you don't mind, I'd like to spend the next 75 pages talking exclusively about how attractive he is, and then bring it up again every paragraph or so for the remaining 400 pages.
CLASSMATE: Knock yourself out.

* * * * *

Scene 3

EDWARD: Hi, I'm Edward. I'm every girl's fantasy boyfriend: moody, humorless, violent, capable of snapping your spine with my bare hands, liable to do creepy things like watch you while you're sleeping, but also really cute.
BELLA: There is something strange about you.
EDWARD: (recoils at her garlic breath) I don't know what you mean.
BELLA: I just can't put my finger on what it is.
EDWARD: (lifts automobile with one hand) You're imagining things.
BELLA: I feel like you're hiding something from me.
EDWARD: (grabs passing rabbit with lightning speed; drinks rabbit's blood) Don't be silly!
BELLA: It's like you're different somehow.
EDWARD: (turns into bat; flies away)
BELLA: Hmm. I bet he's gay.

* * * * *

Scene 4

JACOB: You should be careful with those Cullens. Many moons ago, our tribe's elders, who were werewolves, made a pact with the Cullens, who were vampires. They're not allowed on our land, not even at our casinos.
BELLA: What, still? Even after all this time has passed?
JACOB: Nope.
BELLA: Since when do white people honor treaties with Indians?
JACOB: I know, right?
BELLA: Let me guess -- you're a character whose only job is to provide exposition, and you won't be useful until the next book.
JACOB: Yes. At the earliest.

* * * * *

Scene 5

BELLA: Thanks for saving me from that mob of guys who attacked me in the street! It's a good thing you obsessively stalk me while simultaneously insisting you want nothing to do with me.
EDWARD: No problem. If anyone's going to tear you limb from limb and gorge themselves on your sweet, delicious, life-giving blood, it's going to be me.
BELLA: Aw, you say the nicest things! I'm pretty sure you're a vampire, that I'm in love with you, and that part of you wants to kill me.
EDWARD: Don't be silly. It's not just part of me.
BELLA: LOL!

* * * * *

Scene 6

EDWARD: You know what vampires love? Baseball!
BELLA: Really?
EDWARD: Sure! Haven't you ever heard of vampire bats?

(Crickets.)

EDWARD: Anyhoo, these are the vampire friends I live with, the Cullens. They've been very eager to eat you.
BELLA: You mean meet me?
EDWARD: Meet you. What did I say?
ALICE: I'm Alice! I can see the future, but only when it's useful to the plot. For example, right now: Look out for those mean vampires barging in from the forest!
MEAN VAMPIRE JAMES: Fe-Fi-Fo-Fum! I smell the blood of a human!
EDWARD: Stay away from her! Bella, you'd better go. I don't want you to have to see me fight this guy for your honor, our muscles straining as we grapple, the air thick with testosterone and the sounds of our throaty snarling.
BELLA: Right! I wouldn't want to see that! Especially not if your shirts got torn off!

* * * * *

Scene 7

MEAN VAMPIRE JAMES: You puny humans are so predictable and weak. Now I've got you alone, free to toy with you and torture you and deliver lengthy explanatory monologues to you! I just hope I don't waste so much time fartin' around that when I finally do decide to kill you it's too late because Edward and the Cullens have arrived to save you!
BELLA: That would certainly be an unusual twist!
MEAN VAMPIRE JAMES: I must say, I can see why Edward likes you. Your smell is overpowering!
BELLA: Oh, you can smell that? Sorry, I thought I could sneak one out....
MEAN VAMPIRE JAMES: Never mind! At last it is time for me to--
EDWARD: Not so fast, Count Jerkula!
MEAN VAMPIRE JAMES: Edward! And the Cullens! Who could have foreseen your perfectly timed arrival?!
ALICE: I could have! Didn't, but could have!

(Fighting ensues. MEAN VAMPIRE JAMES is vanquished.)

EDWARD: Bella! Are you OK? He bit you! I've got to suck out the vampire poison!
BELLA: Edward, you don't have to make up excuses to put your mouth on me. I mean honestly, who ever heard of "vampire poison"?
EDWARD: I'm serious! It's coursing through your veins as we speak!
BELLA: Uh-huh. Whatever you say, Powder.

* * * * *

Scene 8

BELLA: Why did you bring me to the prom, Edward? You know I can't dance, and that I hate it when people tell me I'm beautiful, which happens all the time.
EDWARD: I don't want your dangerous psychological infatuation with a vampire to interfere with your regular life.
BELLA: But I want to BE a vampire! I want you to do it to me. It will strengthen our love for each other. I want to become one with you. And what better night than prom night? We can do it in the back of the limo.
EDWARD: Wait, what are we talking about?
BELLA: I don't know. All the metaphors have started to run together.
EDWARD: You're sure you want to be a vampire?
BELLA: Yes.
EDWARD: Well, how about if I press my lips against your throat in an ambiguous way, just enough to ensure that readers come back for the sequel?
BELLA: It's a deal.

(Fade to black; roll credits; send in ushers to mop up audience's tears and drool.)

It's Done!

It has been way too long since I've finished a project, and the way things are going lately with the sicky, barfy, no-body-likes-me phase I am really lucky this got done. So here is Jane's new poncho. I am so excited that it worked out since there was only a 50/50 chance that all would go well.

I really need to learn how to read patterns, I think it would make my knitting life easier. Oh well, that will have to wait until another time, right now I have to make myself a poncho. This is all part of my dream to be "crazy pregnant poncho lady".

Fairy Jane

Fun with Shrinky Dinks

The kids and I played with Shrinky Dinks this morning. The kids lost interest before I did, I love homemade Christmas stuff. Okay these aren't actually real "Shrinky Dinks" they are Grafix Shrink Films from Roberts, but they work great and they are really cheap. Apparently you can make your own shrinky dinks with recycled take out boxes, very cool and green. We will have to try this next.

You should try making these, they are so fun and my kids love running around with them singing the ginger bread man song.

Going to Hell over a Cabbage Patch Kid

Let me first just say that I don't approve of being rude to those in the service industry, they get paid jack, little to no benefits and their work is thankless. Having said that I too have worked in the industry and I always hated customers, period. It's like the driver/pedestrian dilemma, if you are driving all pedestrians are thoughtless and think they own the road, if you are a pedestrian then all drivers are impatient and maniacs.

Back to our story. I have been looking for a Cabbage Patch Kid with red hair for Jane for Xmas for the last few weeks, I have been to a few stores with no success. I was in Target last Tuesday and asked one of the roaming sales associates if they had anymore dolls anywhere. The answer came back as yes but they were up on the risers and not to be rifled through. I'm sorry what?? So she went on the explain that her manager told the sales staff that they can not get any dolls down off the risers because it wouldn't be fair to other customers. Okay, again, what???

It's not like the dolls that were out of reach were a special price or were being released on a special day. There is even a sign on the top shelf that says if you need help with anything on that shelf to get an employees help. I told her that it didn't make any sense and that I did understand that it wasn't her fault as it was the stores policy. So I left thinking that Target is super lame but maybe they were saving the stupid dolls for Black Friday or something, whatever.

So Saturday I happened to be at Target again looking for maternity clothes and went to see if there were any dolls left over from Fridays bedlam (I didn't go out on Friday so that can't be confirmed). There were no red head little dolls until I saw some on the risers again. So I paged an employee and sure enough it was no-helpy-mc-helperson for the other day. She started on the same spiel as last time and I told her that was ridiculous and I wanted to see her manager. The protest came back that her manager is the one who told her that they are not allowed to get them down.

Blah blah blah her manager comes over and basically tells me that they can't get them down without checking in back first and then if they didn't have any then a person from the back would get them down for me. Nice, okay so couldn't helpy-mc-helperson have explained that one to me? That one is still a mystery. So the manager made it sound like getting something off the top shelf would be akin to Def-Con 4, keys would have to simultaneously be turned for this feat.

She ended up paging a back room dude to help me who was more than helpful and made it clear that he had nothing better to do then to help me find the right doll.

So what have I learned, not much other then Target hides most of their nice employees in the back room or behind a counter and I'm glad I don't work in retail so I don't have to deal with customers like me.

Chestnut Stuffing

Just picked up my chestnuts for my yummy stuffing at the new Sunflower
Farmers Market in Orem. Let the festivities begin!

I guess it does still fit

Josh remembered his Nacho Libre costume from two Halloweens ago and insisted on wearing it. He wore it around the house all day while he chased after Jane. Good times.

inquiring minds

Me: Jane you need to talk like a big girl, you aren't a baby anymore.

Jane: There's a baby in your tummy.

Me: Yep.

Jane: The baby can't poop in his* diaper.

Me: Nope he can't, he doesn't wear a diaper.

Jane: What does he wear?

Me: Nothing, he is naked.

Jane: Oh he wears little tiny** clothes.



*Five and a half-ish weeks until we know if it is a boy or a girl.

**Jane demonstrates how tiny the clothes are with her fingers (about the size of a bean).

Mamma needs a Drink

I'm going to be the first one to admit that I don't know beans about whiskey. I needed some Bourbon for a pie recipe so I headed down to my local State Liquor Store. I was directed to the Bourbon by a helpful store employee but once there I still didn't know what I was really looking for. So this could be the entirely wrong kind of Bourbon to use in a pecan pie, but I'm going to give it a whirl.

Going into a State Liquor store knowing that I don't drink liquor is a really strange thing. It's not that I'm worried someone will see me and think I'm a sinner (if they are judging, they have committed the greater sin, suckers). I just wonder what other people in the store are thinking about the crazy lady trying to ask questions about booze while they are trying to make eye contact to tell me to move it so they can reach their hooch. I must be like some yahoo tourist with the big map, camera and no sense of self awareness.

Maybe I should hit the tanning beds next.

Gas

How is this possible?

must be mormon?

Only a Mormon would have eighteen boxes of food storage in the back of their mini van.

My parents checked out the canner from the Spanish Fork Cannery and we had a cannin' party at their house last week. How many ways can I use can in one sentence?

I never really thought I would be a "food storage" kind of person, but who does? I grew up with a garage full of fifty-five gallon barrels of wheat, rice and who knows what. We used to play hide and seek around them or at least hide behind them with some swiped treats.

I loved those barrels, though I might have thought differently had I known if the worst happened I would be expected to eat out of them. I think all of that food is now in a better place, which is really a good thing considering it was getting on in years by the time I came into this world.

Good Mommy, Bad Mommy

As I have been very barfy and yucky lately there has been a lot of knittin' going on. I am working on a little poncho for Jane, though I guess if I really wanted to keep her warm I could just put a zipper in the freakin' sweater that I already made her. Whatever, I can't help myself this is new yummy green yarn and it was begging to be knit into a poncho.

I have ulterior motives for making this for Jane however. If it works out I am going to knit myself one in this rad burnt orange color, or maybe a steely gray, well we will see if that ever happens. I had to include a picture of the yarn in all it's soft and fluffy hanky-ness too, though it is a pain to wind into a ball because I don't have a swift.

There was a bit of sadness as well, Josh sliced his finger on a rotary cutter, (how he found it, I don't know) it wasn't a big cut, only about 1/3rd of an inch but it looked deep. It was very sad, though Josh didn't cry until we put pressure on the cut. Needless to say there was a lot of blood and this picture shows my sweet sweet wrapping skills.

We ended up taking him to the doctor because it wouldn't stop bleeding and I didn't know how deep it was. Of course by the time we got there it had stopped, so naughty mommy that I am, I signed us up for flu shots too and Josh had his finger glued shut.

New Do

These pictures are a bit of randomness from the last few days, but in the last two pictures you can see the kids new hair cuts. I know Jane's hair turned out way too short, but I love it. I really should just take them to have their hair cut by someone who knows what they are doing, but I don't think any childhood is complete with out a few "mom cuts". I know I had a few years that were ruined due to the bowl cut. Oh well.





PS What is up with Jane's stink eye, I know she likes her hair because she keeps telling me so, (not that she knows anything, sucker) but now she is such a teen. New hair, new tude.

I must be missing something here

I will be the first to say that I love musicals, Thoroughly Modern Millie happens to be my favorite, so I'm not sure what happened here. Last night Kgordee and I had free tickets to a theater opening and we had a choice of about six movies, and the ones we hadn't already seen did not look interesting except Mamma Mia. As I had been wanting to see Mamma Mia, Kgordee was gracious enough to indulge me.

It's not that I completely regret seeing the movie, but I don't see the attraction it holds for so many. Maybe it would have been different if I had seen it with my sisters as I had intended to do, but this not being the case the experience was painful and awkward.

I think the most difficult part was the singing as you might imagine, but not every one's singing was hideous, when the younger set of actors broke out in random song it seemed a little more natural then say when Pierce Brosnan belted out what ever it was he sang. I am wondering what some of the actors and actresses were thinking when they signed up for this, "why yes, I can and I should sing ABBA* with smoldering eyes and yearning arms. "

I actually heard a few people say that Colin Firth was another person who should never dance in public, or at least for the public, but there wasn't a lot of that. However no one seemed to think it necessary to warn me that Meryl Streep would sing The Winner Takes It All (I am guessing this was suppose to be the bearing of her soul to the one she loved) with a lot of frustrating jazz hands and wacky head/body movements.

There were a lot of these moments that made me look over at Kgordee and give him the "I'm so sorry face". Like all the crotch grabbing, why, why, why with the crotch grabbing? Is that somehow the "rock n' roll" thing to do or a symbol of ones sexual Independence. Maybe someone else can explain this one to me.

I did like the set designs, the clothes the women wore and the extras were really great. In fact the extras were one of my favorite things about the show, as in most musicals they showed up at the right moment for zany antics and chorus lines. I do also have to admit that Meryl was very scrappy in her overalls and worn out tennis shoes.

I think a lot of people liked the movie, so what am I missing**?


*I have to say that I love ABBA, the songs were not the problem it was the delivery.

**Besides a soul.

Get out and Vote!

................even if you vote for the other guy!

Voting lines

This is after already turning a corner. It's ok though. It seems to be
moving pretty fast. I'm just glad to see such a great turnout.

story time

This morning Jane told Josh and I a story while we were cuddling in my bed. Usually Kgordee and I do the storytelling and it's at night and it always involves a dragon. So here is Jane's Story.

There was a boy and a girl and a mommy and a daddy and a whale and the whale ate all their friends, and they were scared. The whale looked up at the sky and there were no clouds and there was a big huge dragon and they were scared. And they all rode bikes.

The End

Another Free T-Shirt Opportunity!

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Thanks!

Halloween 1999

This costume got me 3rd place at the Nu Skin costume contest when I worked there in 1999. It had working blinkers, a horn and a car stereo that played the Carpenters. Thanks to Lori for sending me this picture. I miss my VWs!

it's all in the avocado

I love that Josh and Jane both love avocados, well they like fresh guacamole anyway, which if made right is 98% fresh avocado. I think that some people don't understand avocados or at least they don't get why others are so into them.

As some might know there are few things I like better then a veggie avocado sandwich. However many things can go wrong with the avocado in that equation. Between the kind of avocado used*, portion control to the very ripeness of the fruit there are so many bad sandwiches waiting to happen. I have had just about every kind of avocado related disaster out there.

The latest and greatest being back east in PA, at a little bakery with amazing looking food (to be fair the sandwich minus the avo was great). I ordered a turkey bacon sandwich on a baguette with avocado. Side note, most places charge between 50 cents and dollar to add it to a sandwich. When I ordered the sandwich the girl behind the register had to ask what to charge for avo, never a good sign, it means they don't put it on sandwiches often enough to know what they are doing. I should have known, but I went forward with the order and got my sandwich, which looked perfect.

I was fairly horrified to bite into it and find that the avocado was rock hard, not sort of hard but "use a hatchet to open it hard". The fact that the slices were 3/4's of an inch thick should have tipped me off as well, however I foolishly thought I had scored and that all of my years of suffering with sub-par sandwiches was coming to an end. Nope. It was disgusting, I should look at the bright side, diamond hard avocado is super easy to pick off a sandwich.

Oh well, I will keep trying until one day I find a place that knows their avocado and consistently doles it out with generosity and ripeness.


*I really can't even bring "avo spreads" into the conversation because they don't count, no, no, no they don't, face it, it's goo, not an avocado.

A few things

Yesterday the twins and I fed the ducks at this rad park off of 2000 N in Provo, or is it 2000 S in Orem? Whatever. There were these sweet little baby ducks with little black webbed feet that kept getting rebuffed by the adults when they went for the food. Josh was really torn between throwing the corn bread to the ducks and throwing it at the ducks. This is our new favorite outing.
My new favorite is making homemade bread. In the two week before we left for PA I think I made bread or rolls about half a dozen times, I could not get enough. So I am back at it again, it is so comforting to smell hot bread in the oven. I still can remember coming home from school on a rainy day and smelling Mom's fresh baked bread. Thanks Mom for the bread making skills.
Lastly we had Tyler's kids over today for play time. The babies are so cute they toddle every where and Adriel ran around with the twins seeing who can be the loudest. The twins had a great time and I think Tyler's girls did too. I love that our kids have cousins to play with that are so close by.

Celebrating seven years together in the Big Apple

We started our trip into NYC by driving through time square to get to our hotel which was a block and a half away. I haven't been in NYC for over seven years and Kgordee has never been so it was fun to experience it for the first time with each other.

We checked into our hotel and then walked around before dinner, we saw were Letterman films and waited around to see if we could catch a glimpse of his guests, Michael Sera and Julia Louis Dreyfus, but no luck. We had a dog from a street vendor and I have to say that it was really lame, it might be that I'm just pg and weird right now, but I highly doubt it.




After dinner we went to see Phantom at the Mystic theater and we had great seats. Kgordee had never seen it before and the only time I had was about sixteen years ago. I really love musicals, and though it isn't my favorite musical by far, seeing it with Kgordee makes it one of the coolest theater going experiences I have ever had.


After the show we went up to the top of the Empire State Building for a look see, it was midnight and very cool (also very cold) and the lights from the city were amazing.

The next morning we went and waved at the Today show cameras and watched Ann and Matt chat up the crowd. We took a tour of the NBC studios, where we saw the set for Conan and SNL, which were both ridiculously small. I gave Kgordee a little bit of crap over the tour, but it was actually so rad. It was cool to see where everything is filmed and all the random pictures of SNL over the years hanging in the halls.


We ended our trip with a picnic lunch and wee little stroll around Central Park. We only had twenty four hours in NYC but we packed a lot in and really enjoyed ourselves.

Thanks, Kgordee for the best seven years of my life, you rocked this trip.

Visiting the Fam in PA

We had such a rad time visiting with Kitti, Justin and Grace a few weeks ago in State College, PA. It was the perfect place for a visit and to vacation from the every day. We did all of our favorite things, we hung out with friends, (who happen to be fam too) sampled many, many yummy things from Wegmans, with a lot of sleeping, reading and knitting in there too. Thanks, we love you guys.