Pull up your pants!

I got this picture off the web. :) The pants suggest that it's a guy, but I think he's kind of skinny, like a girl. Anyways.

I took my kids to get their H1N1 boosters on Monday. (I was really excited to learn that I didn't need a second dose - just kids do.) They had a free clinic at our Health Department that started at four o'clock, and untypically, my kids and I showed up about ten minutes early. It was us and a bunch of elderly people. So we're sitting in the foyer, waiting for them to open the doors, and these three teenaged girls come bursting in through the front doors.

I could tell that they kind of... live harder. Does that make sense? Tattoos, pounds of makeup, skimpy clothes (even in this weather), etc. Plus, they were swearing like sailors. They were trying to figure out where to go to do something, and they were mainly just walking back and forth and bumping into each other and swearing.

One girl in particular was interesting. She was wearing one of those jogging suits - where the zip-up hoodie and pants match. I used to call them J. Lo Suits. They're kind of velvety and really comfortable. The funny thing was, I think the suit was a few sizes too small. The hoodie thing ended just at her rib cage. And then she had rolled the pants cleeeeeeear down. You could see her little bumb crack. And the thing was, she had a bit of a belly. Her belly looked comparable to what my belly looks like right now. Maybe she's pregnant - who knows?? It was like nine degrees that day; I don't know how she wasn't freezing.

So these girls are saying F this and F that and running around and yelling, and me, my kids, and the elderly people are just staring at them. The girls decided to go into this one office area. As they were walking in, the last thing we heard was the Belly Girl saying, "I don't know what the F to do!!!" Then the door slammed shut.

This 85-year-old lady muttered, "Well, first off, pull up your pants!!" We all laughed so hard. It was awesome.

Almost Like that Beer Commercial

There's some beer commercial on TV recently - I can't remember which brand is being advertised. But all of these people are in boats, and they assemble in a bay somewhere. They start throwing rocks down into the bay. They throw so many rocks into the bay that, in no time at all, they have built an island! And they drink their beer on this island and party and dance. You know beer commercials. Then they light hundreds of Brazilian-style luminaires and send them off. I tried to find it on YouTube, but couldn't. You'll just have to trust my description.



Ben saw this commercial and went berzerk. He served his mission in Brazil. He says that Brazilians make and send off luminaires into the air for almost every single occasion. Birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, you name it. He says that, often, in the evenings, if you sat on your porch, no matter what time of year, you would see a few luminaires just floating by in the sky. He decided he wanted to make a Brazilian luminaire for Christmas.



Because of my unfortunate computer incident, I only have one photo of his attempt, but pictures truly are worth a thousand words:

It didn't work out so well. It was a windy-ish night, and the wire he used to make the frame (from a hanger) was too heavy, so it wouldn't float away. He tried again on New Year's Eve - that post is coming soon. Ben is nothing if not tenacious.

Oops.

Dylan's little friend, Noah, came over to play yesterday afternoon. At one point, I loaded up Noah, Dyls, and Micah into the car and went to get Sadie at preschool (I cleared this with Noah's mommy beforehand). On the way home, this conversation ensued:

Dylan: Mom, does Heavenly Father love gay people???

Me: Yes, Dyls, Heavenly Father loves ALL of his children.

Noah: What are gay people?

[Note: At this point, I should have said, "You need to ask your mom that question." That would have been the proper response. This is where the oops comes in. I should have let his mom handle this question. And I feel badly about it.]

Me: Well, if a boy likes another boy in a romantic way, then he is gay. Or if a girl likes another girl in a romantic way.

Noah: Ewwww.

Dylan: Wait. So gay people paint trains, shoot people, AND they like other boys??

Me: Whaaa??

And then I realized. Dylan was talking about gang people this whole time. Not gay people. He had just said the wrong word.

Dyls and I had a conversation a few days earlier about gangs, because he saw gang tags on some trains downtown. He asked what the "pretty paintings" were (I actually think some gang tags are very artistic). So I had to explain the whole gang thing to him.

So, all of that deep talk about gay people, and it wasn't even necessary! I talked to Noah's mom and let her know what I had said. She didn't care at all. I still felt bad. Why can't I ever do the proper thing???

Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.

Yep, yep, yep. My title is a quote from a movie. A very famous movie. Name the movie and the character who says it. Hint: Look carefully at the syntax of the sentence.

Ma famille always puts out luminaires on Christmas Eve. It was a big deal in the neighborhood where I grew up; my folks moved about five years ago and brought the tradition with them. They're the only ones that put out luminaires in their new neighborhood, but it's all good.

We've learned through many, many years what makes for a good luminaire: a white lunch bag - not brown. Rock salt to weigh it down. We have lots of wind here in Idaho. Light them inside and carry them out. (This is also because of the wind. Trying to light them outside is a bit of a joke.) Lexi Poohead, lighting them up:

I included this random picture because I wanted you to see Sadie's cute star part in her hair:

Sades, poorly lit from the front:

Moi:

Ya know, I just cut my hair to my shoulders - I wear it in a flip now. It's cute, but I'm starting to wonder if I just look better in longer hair. Short hair kind of accentuates the chub in my face. As soon as I do it and remember to take a picture, I'll post it up here. I haven't done much with myself for the past two weeks - I feel so crappy. It's all I can do to just feed my children and clean them. I'm pretty much treading water. Anyways, I'll do my hair someday and post a pic. I'm interested to hear your opinion. I was getting REALLY sick of my hair, so it's a welcome change, but I don't know.

Micah. I can't get enough of this smile:

Dylan - he was soooo concerned about the spacing of the bags. He kept readjusting the bags that others had set down:

The finished product. Gorgeous:

Magazine Spread-Worthy

I've never really understood my mom's obsession with dishware. I think she has four different sets of dishware. When I got married, I just registered for normal corningware. I didn't see the need for fancy dishes.

However, after this last Christmas, I can really see where my mom is coming from. Having festive dishes and decorations for a party can really contribute to the whole feeling of the party.

Get a load of my mom's table on Christmas Eve - these were my great-grandma's dishes, and my other grandma's silverware:

My mom bought those chocolate raspberry thingeys to add to the decor (and to snack on later). She is so clever:

Mom found these decorations at Roberts that match her dishware perfectly:

Gorgeous:

Mom had some extra cranberries from her ward party, so she used them to kind of garnish the water:

It kind of made the water taste weird, though! We probably won't do that next year. :)

And look at my mom's gorgeous new decorations for her tree:

They're bronze and gold. So pretty.

Mom asked me to bring some kind of jello, so I brought "yule salad":

I promise it wasn't hard. Not as hard as this jello was. Only three layers. No biggie.

We had roast pork, and since my sis, Lex, is a pescatarian (yes, that is a real term), she and dad bought some shrimp and veggies and made tempura:

She warned us not to eat too much of her shrimp. Trust me, you couldn't have paid me. I HATE fish. I would never, ever be a pescatarian. I did steal a few tempura mushrooms, though. Ohhhhh. I love tempura mushrooms. It brings back memories of Dave and Buster's in San Diego. They have the best tempura mushrooms in the whole wide world.

The food was great, and the company was great. We had a good meal. Thanks for hosting, Mama!

I figured out why my hard drive ate my pictures.

It was my fault, very typically. At the beginning of December, Ben re-set the numbering system for our camera - every now and then, it starts over again at 0000. I put a bunch of pictures on the hard drive from December. Then, when I went to put a bunch more on at the beginning of January, it asked me if I wanted to replace the old numbers 0000 - 0050 or whatever, and I was busy and my kids were screaming at me, and.... I didn't even really read the question. I pushed OK. So it replaced pictures from Christmas time with pictures of New Year's time. I owe my hard drive an apology letter.


Dear Hard Drive,


I'm so sorry I blamed you for my stupid mistake. It won't happen again. I love you. And I need to back you up really soon.


Love, Kar



I had some adorable pictures from Christmas, but they're gone now. I'm trying to get over it. Nat took some good ones that she shared with me, though. This one is my fave - me feeding Ivy on Christmas Eve day:

Nat's kids all know that I will provide them food. They follow me around and request food from me, and I always deliver. Nat calls me the Food Bee-otch. And I love it.


Yep, I was unshowered, and my hair wasn't done. I had been doing a bit of cooking. For lunch on that day, we had my special turkey-on-muffins. Oh baby, was it good. Want the recipe? Well, alright. Twist my arm.


I call these "mine," but they're really Mary Giuliani's. She's a "caterer-to-the-stars!!!!" They featured this recipe in People Magazine in November, and I tried it out. I LOVE it. In fact, I'm making them again this week. They are perfect for leftover turkey. Ben bought us two turkeys at Thanksgiving, and we just barely cooked up the second one, so I have like ten pounds of turkey to use up again.


Turkey with Cranberry on Pumpkin Muffins

3 1/2 cups flour
1 cup brown sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 1/2 cup canned pumpkin
1 1/3 cup milk
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
turkey (it can be deli turkey or leftover cooked turkey)
a can of cranberry sauce


1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put 27 muffin cups in a muffin tin. (I do 18 in the first cooking batch, and then 9 in the second cooking batch.)
2. In a bowl, stir flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
3. In a seperate bowl, stir pumpkin, milk, oil, and eggs until blended.
4. Stir flour into pumpkin mixture.
5. Fill muffin tins 3/4 full.
6. Bake for 30 minutes.
7. Once cool, cut muffins in half horizontally. Place sliced turkey and cranberry sauce on bottom half. Replace muffin top.


It sounds like it's going to be bland, but oh mama. I was dying when I first ate them. I ate like twenty. They're perfect. Amazing. I'm excited to have these again this week.

Oh, I almost forgot! My mom got some toys at the dollar store for the kids to play with while we were getting food ready and playing games, and the kids LOVED them. Thanks, Ma.


So anywho, we ate, and then we played spoons, but not nearly long enough. The kids were getting cranky, and we needed to break for naptime. Sigh. Kids kind of cramp one's style. We did get together again that evening for dinner and luminaires, which I'll probably post about tomorrow.


Slides from Christmas Eve day:

Basically Running Through the Nativity Display

My mom, my cousin and her kids, and Ben and I and our kids went to the Nativity Display at the Museum in Idaho Falls. Oh, what a crazy night it was.



And this is the only visual I have for you of that evening:

Because the museum prohobits photography. And gum. Are we kindergarteners??



My kids (and Kort's kids) really couldn't have cared less about the nativity displays there. They wanted to see the normal children's section of the museum - it has teepees and a pretend log cabin and stuff. And then they wanted to go see the animal part that is always on display. So we basically speedwalked through all the neat nativities from around the world, antique santas, a huge nutcracker display, and a gingerbread house display. From the glimpses I caught, it was really neat. :)



One highlight for me was as we were walking from the stuffed animals back to the main nativity part. There's this big room that talks about our city's newspaper through the years. There, we found a picture of my grandpa. He was a business manager for the paper during the fifties and sixties, I think. (Maybe the seventies??) He died when I was four, so I don't have any memories of him, really. It was so fun to see a picture of him right there in the museum.



I ran into THREE people from high school while I was there!! That was pretty nutty. But fun.

Next year, I'm all for going with just adults. For sure.

Baby-Sat

I asked my friend Megan if she would watch my kidlets while Ben and I went to the temple last month. I'm soooo glad we went. Sometimes it's really hard to get to the temple often enough. We're really shooting for once a month. Which means we'd better get our butts in gear before January is gone.

Megs whipped out her camera and took some amazing pictures of my kids, as usual. I chose my five faves to put on here.

Sades, playing with Megan's hubs, Mark:

And I love these pictures with Micah and Mark interacting. They are ADORABLE. Mark teasing Micah with his Precious:

I have never had a kid who has been so obsessed with binkies before. It will be really hard to break him of it. I wonder when I'm supposed to do that... probably pretty soon. I'm worried it's getting in the way of proper speech development.

I love this:

Micah is super ticklish. He'll back up to you and offer up his neck to get the tickles, though:

And practicing his climbing skillz:

Dylan WAS there, but I have a feeling he was having way too much fun in Jonas and Brynnan's room to hang out with the adults in the living room.

Thanks for watching the kids, Megs!

Dear Principal C,

I have some ideas to make the annual Christmas program run a little more smoothly next year.

1. Put salt on your sidewalks. I fell on black ice that was covered with snow while walking to the building from my parking spot. Micah fell right on top of me, which was fortunate. THE SAME EXACT THING HAPPENED LAST YEAR. I kid you not. Salt, dude. Salt.

2. Stop putting a screen picture projected from a computer above the kids that are singing. You have the lights low, you have this "picture" of snow falling on a pretend cartoon background, and nobody can see their kids.

3. The gym is waywaywayway too small for everyone's parents to fit. It always ends in parents getting into fights because they can't see their kids when someone is standing in front of them. And can you say fire code? Parents standing in all of the getaway aisles is not a good thing. Do as other schools do - divide it up. Kindergartners and first graders perform Monday. Second and third graders perform Tuesday. Etc.

4. When you send a letter home that assures parents that they can check their kids out of school right after their part of the program, FOLLOW THROUGH ON THAT PLAN. All of the parents went to their kids' classrooms after their part was over, only to find that the kids would be participating in a big singing finale in the gym. So we all sat in the hallway to wait, and the kids didn't get done with the finale until the actual school bell rang. I had to entertain two teeny kids for like an hour in the hall. But I had told Dylan not to take the bus home, that I was checking him out, so I couldn't just leave and hope that he figured it out. That was special.

Cordially,

Dylan's Mom

Here is a really poor video of Dylan singing. Boy, is he getting into it. Not:

While I'm writing letters, indulge me in a few more.

Dear Stomach,

Thanks for barfing up my Papa Kelsey's sandwich today. It gave me great peace of mind. Maybe this will be a normal pregnancy after all.

Sincerely,

Kar

Dear Mom,

Sorry I barfed up the sandwich you paid for. :)

Love, Kar

Dear Hands,

Why do you smell like peanut butter? I have not touched one thing involving peanut butter today. You are weird.

Sincerely,

Kar

Dear Hard Drive,

Why did you steal like ten of my pictures from December? I can't find them. Where did you hide them??? I'm mad at you. Grr, baby. Very grr.

Sincerely,

Kar

Badda-Bing

Dylan learned some Christmas jokes at school that are actually clean and w-word free! I love his little face when he tells them:

His Own Little Candy Holder

Nat made me an awesome advent calendar a couple of years ago - I usually buy Hershey's Kisses to put in each little pocket, one per kid per day.

Micah discovered it this year for the first time (last year, he couldn't even sit up by himself yet!!), and he went to town. So the advent countdown didn't really work out for us this year. Catching him red-handed:

He really is such a tall boy. Look at his cute smile in this shot:

On a totally unrelated note, I had to get out my maternity pants today. I'm seven weeks along. Toldja I had a hyperactive uterus. I barfed Saturday morning, and I was so excited. I woke Ben up to tell him. But no barf since then. Disappointing. Please be okay, baby.

Fall on your knees. NOW.

I found this on my table in the dining room one day:

The nutcracker, pointing menacingly at the poor baby Jesus. I laughed. The kids play with my Christmas decorations more than they play with their toys. Dyls:

Micah added a My Little Pony decoration to our tree (I believe her name is Toola Roola):

Rigging Up The Lights, 2009 Edition

Ben truly couldn't care less about putting lights up outside our house at Christmas time. Though I finally persuaded him to put some up on the trim of our house. I have an issue with heights.

So Dyls and I did the bushes and the railing of our porch. And Sadie came out to watch. (But not to help.):

Not sure what's up with the frown in this pic of Dyl:

These pictures make me giggle, because he detached the hood of his parka and wore it by itself with his jacket. Like a bonnet. Hilarious. I should just call him Nellie. Or Laura.

Unfortunately, my lights are really old, and only half of some strings work, etc., so it was like a three-day process to get it all working. I really just need to break down and get new lights one of these days. My portion has now been taken down, but guess whose portion is still stapled to the trim of our house? Yep. I ask Ben to take them down every single day, and every single day, he doesn't. I would do it, except for the whole heights thing.

Setting Up the Dang Christmas Tree

Every year, when we set up the tree, I just get angrier and angrier about my decorations. They look like a piece of crap. We've had the same decorations for eight years now. Our kids have broken about 3/4 of our bulb ornaments. And the wire ribbon has just had it. It looks like I put chicken wire up on my tree. Ugh. I really, really want to get new decor someday. Pats and I went to Roberts to drool at the jewelery section one day, and we stopped in the tree decorations section. Oh mama. Gorgeous. I want to get something really unconventional. Like lime green. Or pink. Or turquoise. That is my dream, folks. But my holiday money was meant for Santa toys that my kids now don't play with. Sigh.

Ben was a doll and put the tree up for me. Here he is, making like the Haynes Sisters:

If you can name the movie that the fictional Haynes Sisters are on, you will get ten points and a mental high-fiiiiiive.

It took him a looooong time to set up the tree, because kept pausing to watch T.V.:

Whatever was on T.V. must have been really compelling, because Dylan was "helping" Ben, and the same thing was happening with him:

Sadie was there:

And Micah-rooney:

Still with the runny nose. He has had a continual bout of teeth-cutting for the past month. He's working on some molars right now. He's not terribly pleasant lately. Poor kid.

I put the ribbon on the best I could, and then, against my better judgement, I let the kids decorate (Sadie had bathed at this point):

These kinds of things happen when you let your kids decorate:

All the bows in a row, on the very bottom branches. It was funny. During the next couple of weeks, the kids kept playing with the ornaments. I would find them all over the house, and hurriedly stick them up toward the top of the tree. It really started looking awful:

Jeez. Look at that:

Finally, I had enough. I took everything off and put it back on again, Mom-style:

I felt a lot better about it after that. But I still want new decorations.

As far as work parties go...

...Ben's work Christmas party actually wasn't so bad. He only works with like three of the dudes there, so even he didn't know everybody. But the secretary who threw the party really worked hard to make it special. She had tons of get-to-know-you games lined up. She had a game where you look at this great big poster board of baby pictures and try to match the baby with the person who works there. In another game, she had given each of the employees a questionnaire, with questions on it like, "If you were a superhero, what would you want your power to be?" Silly things like that. So we had to match the quote to the person. Ben did horribly on both of those games.

My favorite game was this - she assigned each table a part for the 12 Days of Christmas Song. Then we sang the whole song, pausing for the assigned table to sing their part, and it was actually really hilarious. My least favorite game - we were organized into groups, and each group had to organize itself, without talking, based on the parameters the lady set up. So she would say, "Organize yourself from tallest to shortest." Or, "Organize yourselves according to birth year." So we had to try to use our hands to communicate. Basically, every group but ours cheated, so our group lost.

My favorite part of the party was the food, of course. I'm in the white shirt with the jean jacket in this shot:

Me and the girl with the cowel-neck grey sweater bonded pretty well. It was nice to find a kindred spirit there. I know Ben took a picture of me, and then had someone take a picture of both of us, but I can't find them anywhere. Ben transferred them from the camera to the computer, which means that they are lost. Frown. Oh well.

Oh, and the party was at The Loft in Rigby, which brought back good memories - that's where Ben's and my wedding reception was. :) When we had our reception, the logs were stained very dark. They have since been stained white.

Thank you, India; Thank you terror; Thank you disillusionment.

Yep, yep, yep, my title is from a song. Name the song and singer. She's one of my faves.

And yep, yep, yep, I'm actually posting about Thanksgiving in January. I'm fun.

We went to my seester's house for Thanksgiving. We're both tired moms, so we cut a few corners. Nat decided to do paper plates:

I was in charge of the punch (And a few other things - don't worry - we split up the meal evenly. I didn't make Nat slave in the kitchen all day long, I promise), so in the spirit of low-keyness, I decided to forego using my mom's pretty punch bowl, using her pretty thermos thingey instead:

And you know what? These shortcuts made for a very laid-back Thanksgiving, indeed.

Pete passed The Mother of All Industrial Hygeinist Tests like a week before Thanksgiving, so to celebrate, he got himself a new TV:

The TV is hooked up to Pete's computer. Now, when he wants to show me all of his random YouTube videos or downloaded episodes of Glee, he can show me on this beautiful big screen, instead of on his computer screen.

Pete also bought Up, and we all watched it together the day after Thanksgiving. And ate yummy leftovers. I love how the kids are all piled up on the couch:

Up is cute, cute, cute. I loved watching it. And I loved our low-key Thanksgiving. Thanks for hosting, Nattles!

Slides, anyone?