Pressure

Went to my first orchestra practice tonight. Yikes! The people are great but HOLY CRAP that music! I see extreme practicing in my future…

Pitty tee! Pitty tee!

Christmas 2011's pitty tee (and the first picture I took with my new phone - booyah! What BlackBerry?).

Goodbye, BlackBerry

You took terrible pictures (actually I love this one).

But oh, how I will miss you.

Gary Larson, How I Love Thee

One of my favorite comic strips, The Far Side, once featured a drawing captioned "How fishermen blow their minds" (a fisherman in a boat thinking, "Fish or cut bait? FISH OR CUT BAIT??"). 

I would post the strip in question, but I just read that Mr. Larson, he no likey. 

(One wonders how da Vinci would feel at our using the Mona Lisa so freely and extensively without remunerating him for his work, but Father Al had not yet invented the Internet, so I guess 1. Leonardo doesn't care, 2. Leonardo doesn't understand copyright laws, 3. Leonardo does care and does understand copyright laws but is dead and can only do so much about it, therefore 4. Leonardo's stuff is free game.) 

So I won't. Just try to think back to the 80s. Remember them? Ah. I was a HUGE Far Side fan then, to the point that people gave me Far Side books as gifts or as an incentive to shut up about the Far Side for a while. 

Trying to choose a favorite Far Side strip is like trying to decide which child is my favorite - it depends on the day - but pretty much every time, I will choose the one of the lady looking out her front window at the pianos and piano benches falling from the sky, several having heavily landed and implanted themselves in the ground. "My word! I'd hate to be outside on a day like this!" 

(See, they're not funny when they're just explained, Gary.)

THE DAILY FABULOUS: This is a new feature. We'll see how "daily" it turns out to be. 

I was awake at 3:30 this morning, thinking that my youngest daughter, currently age 7, really needs to be in our annual Veterans Day parade this coming November, and I was trying to think of a way to make that happen for her. She wants to be one of those horrible warped pageant-y children - well, not so much that as she wants to ride in a convertible in a parade, wearing a tiara and a sash, waving and smiling to crowds of adoring admirers. Really, who doesn't want that?

(Her ten-year-old Cub Scout brother was just in the parade - that's what put us there in the first place. Not that I don't love veterans, parades, or Veteran's Day parades, but come on - November?) 

ANYWAY. I was thinking that if we were really serious about this one little day of her life, we could have her join Girl Scouts (no thanks), or we could start up a troop of Frontier Girls. "Ick," I thought. "I don't want to do that. If I did that, I'd have to be in charge."

"Why can't you be in charge?" my inner fabulous voice said. 

***groan***

I don't want to start up a troop of Frontier Girls - what I'd really like to see happen is our ward or stake Activity Day girls participate more in community events, but I'm not sure how or if that would work - but I have decided that my inner fabulous voice should be listened to more often. A voice of challenge, a voice of self-improvement, a voice that celebrates good and beauty, a voice that rises above fears and gripes and "what-ifs" and dares me to be - dare I say it again - FABULOUS.

So here's today's Daily Fabulous: I'm too lazy to locate my phone and take a picture, and figure out how to disengage the "where I was when I took this picture so you can find my house and stalk me" feature on my phone. That's not fabulous, but it hopefully excuses the lack of picture. 

What IS fabulous is the pair of awesome blue wool snowflake socks I'm wearing. How I love these socks. They are warm and cute and Yuppies-trying-to-be-woodsy-ish. I found them at Fred Meyer (and they weren't even on my list that day).

I'm starting small... but I am starting.

Posted On My Facebook Wall

"Nat."

Me: That's right, RUN

Jim: Run! ... or get smashed by a giant soup can! BTW, this was in today's local paper.

Me: Wow, your paper's a lot more fun than mine.

Jim: That's how we roll in Utah. Moms crushing everything.

P.S. - It was the uncanny likeness that made me choose YOUR wall for this - had nothing to do with your overbearing motherly dominance and mixed martial arts skills.

Me: Really, now. Was it my enraged expression or my scary manly meat hooks?

Shelly: The terrified looks on your children's faces. I mean I'm just guessing.

Me: Yes, they do get that look on their faces when I throw cans of soup at them.

H seizures

 Face only: Jan, June, July 2010

Tonic-clonic: July, November (2) 2010; Sept 2011; Dec 19, 27 & 28 2011

This Christmas

There's something in the wind today that's good for everyone
Yes faith is in our hearts today, we're shining like the sun
And everyone can feel it, the feeling's running deep
After all, there's only one more sleep till Christmas

This morning, Christmas Eve morning, I went to Walmart, the mall, and Winco, and lived to tell the tale. But just barely. *twitch twitch*

We helped a family in need today. It felt amazing. I would share more details but I'm worried this family may recognize themselves (like they even read this blog, but you never know).

Later: Ha! Brennan and Bella took off for a walk with Brennan wearing the Santa suit, and one of our neighbors saw him through the window and came outside to ask "Santa" to come inside and visit his granddaughter - even offered to pay him $10. Funny!

The Beauty of Parenthood

Unnamed child: "I had a dream last night that I was punched by a squid. And then I threw up."

At Finnegan's

Only the best toy store ever.

Giraffe: B

Cat: H

Lizard: M

Bunny: R

Donkey: C

The Illness Report

We have two sick kiddos home from school today, and B is sick too. Hopefully we'll get it all over with by Christmas. It's just a bad cold, fortunately.

Festival of Nativities Primary Choir

But First: I dunno, she said she had an earache.

(She was grinning and I told her to look sad, and that's what she did)

C and R were asked to perform with other children in our stake in a Primary choir for the Festival of Nativities. They've been practicing for about a month. We invited Carrie N, R's kindergarten teacher, to come and watch the performance.

Carrie is an absolute sweetheart and the kindergarten teacher we wish all five of our children would have had! If only we'd found her sooner!

The Robot Unicorns

Sweet H with his robotics club

 

Random pic of the living room

 

The Nativities are at the church.

I repeat.  The Nativities are at the church.

(Getting them into the car, then into the church from the parking lot, then unpacked and onto the tables, was an extremely stressful experience.)

Two Peas in a Pod

Dada and Carter boy shopping for groceries

Happy Thanksgiving

... from our Fancy Feast children.

This beautiful child

...was convinced that getting his hair cut would make him the subject of ridicule.

So I told him I would pay him a dime for every insult he received about his hair.

I only paid him 20 cents.

Creative Parenting Tip #196

Next time I find the scissors on the living room floor, I'm lopping off a lock of kid hair.

They have plates just for those? Ooooooh

So Mamma and Pappa took Brian and me out to dinner last night.  We went to Jake's Famous Crawfish Seafood Restaurant, which is always lovely.

Now keep in mind, this is a SEAFOOD restaurant.

I didn't notice this the first time we ate there, but on the walls are mounted several collections of plates in glass cases.  The plates looked much like these: 

...which look very much like this:

Mamma and I first noticed one such collection on a wall close to our table - "Look at all those neat old deviled egg plates," she said.  We discovered others on a trip to the ladies' room.

"Wow, they just really love those deviled egg plates here," I observed.

Enter the snooty Alec Baldwin-esque waiter.

"I love all your deviled egg plates!" I gushed.

"Those are oyster plates."

......

Oh.

Hmmmm

As I sit here looking out my front window, breaking my own rule by eating a bowl of homemade French onion soup in my living room - what the hey, it's my living room - 

I am prone to wonder a few things.

Like, how awesome is it that my awesome child knows how to cook such awesomeness?  Awesome, awesome, and awesome some more?

How many days will it be before the family stops smelling of roasted onion?  I just dropped off a reeking little Cub Scout at our church building for an activity, and you know how kind and understanding other children are.  Especially about someone who smells weird.  He'll be OK, right?

After attending my two elementary school children's parent-teacher conferences later this week, how bad will I feel - chocolate-bad, vodka-bad or Valium-bad?  (They're only tardy at least once a week.)

And lastly - I don't think this one needs explaining - are Oreos secretly made of laxatives?

I guess that's it for now.  If any more wonderings cross my little pea brain, you'll be the first to know.