My first Christmas gift this week.

Sometimes, the tv irritates me. Now, sometimes it is a godsend so don't be thinking I am one of "those people". Sometimes tv is a great baby sitter when you stayed out way too late playing beer pong with a golf ball and driving around with a chick in a prom dress in the back of a truck. But I digress, this is about the present I got this week. I shut off the tv after dinner, it was irritating me. My children were VERY sad, they did not appreciate this. They were upset. I figured they would get over it; however, when I went to bed that night I found a gift on my pillow. It was a sock, and in the sock was a rock, and folded note. I unfolded the note, thinking that my child had left me a love note since I had saved her from the evils of television earlier.
The note read:
Dear Mom and Dad,
You are meen. I don't like them. Just meen.
From,
Gracie Smith

Helping others....It's my thing

My baby was so proud of herself for helping kids who might not get presents for Christmas, get presents for Christmas. She picked out 4 things, 2 girl presents and 2 boy presents. Then, she made a video about it......that just happens to be an entry in the PingGadget "Ping Your Thing" contest. PingGadget is a cool next generation micro blogging service. Check it out here: http://pinggadget.tumblr.com/




If you like my baby and her video, help her out by clicking like on the Facebook contest page of PingGadget~ http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=206745656371&oid=135752659709

Toast

This is my favorite ornament, toast. When I was in kindergarten I made this in class. I took a holiday napkin, put it on a piece of toast, and shalaqued the whole thing. I effing loved that toast. Then, when I was about 21, my mother thought she would be clever and stick the toast in my suitcase so when I got home to Boise I would have my favorite toast ornament. Well, it took me a while after I got home to figure out what the crumbled toasty mass was in my suitcase pocket. Her stupid plan destroyed my toasty buddy. So, about 6 years later, my mom and my sister got together one year and made me a new toast. They presented it to me for Christmas. This is it...not the original, but not bad:






This is the new ornament my mom gave the girls this year. They love it. I, love magical mushrooms. Now don't go getting any psychedelic ideas. I just think they are romantic and cute.

Genetics......they are amazing, aren't they?

Friday morning my youngest child got up before everybody else, unannounced to us. When my husband got up to let out the dogs, he found her in our living room...with her blanket, and with the television on. She was mesmerized. This conversation did ensue:
Trev: Emma. What are you doing?
Emma: Watching these people clean. Daddy, come see this. Come watch these people clean with me!
Trev: I'm confused. What?
Emma: Look dad (points to tv) these people are cleaning. We should buy this!

My husband looks at the tv. It's an infomercial for one of those yellow steam cleaner devices. He looks at my daughter. She nods.
Here comes Grace, who has woken up by now.

Grace: Why are you guys watching commercials? You are so weird.

Is it wrong to go work out and then eat taco bell and a bag of your 4 year old's halloween candy?

The answer to that is no, it's not. Now that we have that cleared up, let's address the fact that I have not updated this blog for a month! Well, we are busy. I think I have said 10 times today, this year just needs to be over. Sometimes you know, there are just years when the whole year is bad. If I had a fast forward button I would use it. I remember the last year that was a "bad" year: It was 2004. That was the year that Zack was killed and Bob went to prison. It was a bad year. This is the year that my husband will lose his dad. At 58. To cancer. So, what have we done in one month? Well, I went to the ladies wedding. It was lovely. I hung out with some fun boys afterward and got drunk and threw up in a hotel room. That's what all 32 year old mothers of 2 do, isn't it?



Then, we flew to Boise for Trevor's brothers wedding. The Halloween wedding. It was cool, it was a beautiful wedding. It was also an emotional black hole of emotional-ness. Yup folks, that's as eloquent as I get. Well, it is what it is. We are so lucky to have family and friends who care about us, a roof over our heads, jobs...and...as my Daddy always says, "we're rich in love". Thanks Dad.

My lady friend is going to marry her lady friend

In Seattle this weekend. And I am going. Alone. On Friday I will drive to DIA and get on a plane by myself (which I never do anymore)and meet my college roommate April in the Seattle airport. We then get to go downtown, and stay in a hotel--a fancy one by my standards (hey, I live in BFE here!). The reception is at a place called Purr, which I understand is a pretty cool bar. I will be kid-less and husband-less! Lucky me!! I can't wait to take pictures of my highfalutin city adventure and post them all for you to see here. Happy Trails!

**perhaps I should sneak some barbies into the suitcase so they can test out the pool**

Ineptedness and loserdom (yes, those are both words, I promise)

So, I have just spent an inordinate amount of time on Blogher. It is a website where women who blog can congregate (that is the simplest description). I thought to myself, Self! You have a blog! You should join this Blogher thing. So I did. Then I became entangled in a web of blogs which were very pretty and nicely set up. The owners were crafty, and they were selling their crafts. Or they were photographers or artists selling their art. The owners were pretty. They did not have blogs about naked barbies, douchebags or setting corn dogs on fire.
It was intimidating. I mean, here I am thinking this was a great place for REAL women to list blogs and such as. However, it seemed at first like a place for women who have way more talent and skills than I do to list their blogs.
So, I did it. I submitted this naked barbie loving snuggie wearing corndog inferno blog for listing on Blogher. We shall see if they will have me. On a positive note, those fancy pretty blogs with photography and great layouts are fun to read and look at. They are also fun to aspire to. I suggest if you are bored to check it out (blogher, that is) and thumb through the list of blogs they have listed. It's better than bad, it's good!