What do we have for Dick's Party?

What do we have for Dick's party? We have ice cream!

It wouldn't be baby brother's birthday without singing "Dick's Party" from the record he had as a child. I bet we haven't missed singing that song to you in 30 years, huh? Here's my photo tribute to Richard on his 30th. By the way, Jenny's post to you says "have a nice trip". If you are going somewhere and you haven't told me I hope it's far away, for your sake, because I am going to kick you in the t'aint so hard that you'll wish it was that tick you had, instead of my foot. You will look like this:Except WAY WORSE. I've gotten over you NEVER EVER calling or coming over, but if you're having a major life change and not keeping me in the loop you're dead to me.

Here's how I picture you in my head. Clearly not old enough to dial a phone, so I usually figure that's why you don't call. Adorable little orphan child, aren't you. Your face is almost as dirty as one of my children. Almost. I love that kid. Because he would call me if he could.

Here you are at Sears Portrait Studio in Washington Square Mall. This was right before Mom let me take you downstairs to the toystore and you ran into a metal shelf and your eye was gushing blood and we were all alone and I panicked and left you with the store employees while I ran and got Mom. She wasn't happy about me leaving you there. I was just so worried about my sweet sweet baby brother who still talked to me then, I think I remember you saying, "Thank you for taking such good care of my eye. I will always, always, call you, even when I'm really old, like 30." I believed you.

Here you are in our family photo. You were the only decent looking one in the whole thing.

No, really...Here, look at your sisters. AHHH, I just scared myself a little. That boy in the upper right is me. The boy on the left is Becky. that boy in the middle is Leanna. Jenny's the only girl looking one. Weird.

Ahhh, Roll on Crimson Tide!

Me and my brother (the one who loved me and loved to hang out with me and would have called me, except he didn't have to because we lived together) at Chuck E Cheese.

Look at you all dressed up and ready for church, with your older brother Amy behind you. Always behind you, supporting you, there for you, calling you.

This one reminds me of you saying "Jennifer Cotner's dad said I could have any car in their front yard for 200 bucks." That still makes me laugh. It was when I drove you around and bought you things at Nike with my employee discount and you cried at Hank's because the lady wouldn't let you cash your check from Mrs Dennis to get some candy and I'm pretty sure I ended up buying it for you and I'm pretty sure you said "Thanks, Sissy. I love you SO MUCH. I will always be your little buddy and call you any time I have big news." Yup, pretty sure that's what you said.

Look at that, my baby brother kissing me after I drove 5 hours to be at his graduation. Later that night it was one of our cousins that I was making out with, but let's not go there right now.You and me and Andy after I drove 6 hours to be at your graduation.You and Grandma and Andy after I drove 7 hours to be at your graduation.

You and mom and dad after I drove all day to be at your graduation.

Here you are putting in sod for me so that you could make money, even though I could have done it for myself for free. I'm always there for you. My gosh, I'm awesome. Happy Birthday, brother!

OBAMA SAYS CONSTITUTION DEEP FLAW CONTINUES TODAY

Let's try that again...

That Darn Constitution just gets in his Way

We Got the Baptism Pictures Back

Our happy family...

With Elder Poll, Elder Morrill, and Elder Jones (Jonesie)...

The extended family (Back row:Jenny,Ashlynn,Josh,KaiKai,VeeVee, ME, Chris, Beck,Kiki, Mom, DuWayne, Grandma, Dad. Down front: GrantC, Morgie, Delaney, Chris, Austin, Elyssa, Bryce)With my commentary:

I love it

6th file 6th photo from the laptop

BORING!

But this isn't...

Photo Tag

Becky tagged everyone on the internets to open their 6th file and post the 6th picture in it. My files are chronological and I can't believe my amazing luck. I swear, this really is 6th picture in my 6th file. I can't wait for the big girls to come home and ask to read my blog. They're gonna be so proud. That's not VeeVee, that's my boy crawling in the tutu. Those sisters are sooo funny.

Oh, and here's the 7th picture:

And the 8th picture:

And the 48th picture:

Ahahahaha! That was a good file. I should play this game more often

Dang that Halloween candy

Last night, in a moment of weakness, in a moment of WE'RE ALL OUT OF ICE CREAM WHAT WILL WE POSSIBLY DO WHILE WE WATCH INTERVENTION weakness, we tore into the bags of Halloween candy. I am not ashamed. I'm just proud that it has been in my pantry for WEEKS and I haven't even touched it. Before we knew it, the candy was gone. I hate when it's gone. Like any moment of naughtiness, it's only fun when it starts, not when it's over and you're looking guiltily at the surrounding pile of evidence, realizing what you've done. That's not fun.

What else isn't fun is facing your daughter when she finds the all of the empties in a pile on top of the garbage can. The worst part is finding evidence of your naughtiness while showering the next morning. It's not fun realizing that part of a candy wrapper must have fallen down the front of your shirt as you tore into those little bars of 100 Grand heaven. It's not fun realizing that the reason it didn't make it out of your shirt until this morning was because it was logged up under your saggy panacakes. Or admitting that the candy incident wasn't really last night, it was the night before, so that little wrapper was under there for two nights. It's not fun losing that much self respect in 24 hours.

If any of you were unlucky enough to miss this, you'll want to watch it

My personal favorites are the guy playing her husband and the Obama/Ayers part. My goodness, she just so HOT!

We Had a Ladybug Invasion Today

Walgreens Ideas

Click HERE to read my post of Walgreens Scenarios that I'm doing with my $5/20 coupon tomorrow.

I also posted links to some other websites with their scenarios.

Walgreens Coupon

And One More Thing

Chris is angry about the Baby Stroke line. For reals. Any joke or mention of harm to the children is never ever a laughing matter around here. He refused to discuss signing up for the dependant life insurance when we first got married. To acknowledge the chance of harm is to invite harm.

Yesterday I told him about Heidi's sister blogging about when her baby was born with Down Syndrome and they hadn't known that she had it until then. She talked about what a shock it was and the coping process of adjusting your expectations suddenly being changed. Something that has stuck in my head has been her doctor telling her that if they felt that they couldn't handle it there were couples who were waiting to adopt Down Syndrome babies. I found that amazing and wonderful. Not just the couples who are there to take that challenge on, but just that sometimes it's helpful to know that there are options available. Not that you would take them, just that it helps with that overwhelmed feeling. That's what it made me think about anyway. So, of course, just like when I heard about the abandoned baby girls in China, I felt that I should save the baby, save the world and adopt a baby with down syndrome. Chris saw this coming a mile away. Amy, I could never ever do that. Do you even remember how I reacted when kids saw Kaila's extra thumb and made fun of her? Do you realize that you'd be raising all of the children alone because I'd be in jail for murder the first time anyone said anything derogatory about my baby? It's true. I don't understand it completely, but it's true. I saw him get right in little kids faces and explain to them that his daughter was not "weird", she was "cool" because she was different and special. All, while somehow holding his temper in check. He's a little protective. I still think we could do it, though. He would just have to learn to cope and educate people. I think he'd be pretty good at that.

Some things you should know

Chris hates it when the kids wave at other drivers. Especially when they're sitting in the back of Red Wagon facing backward. You might think he's concerned about distracting the other drivers on the road. He is not. It's purely stranger danger. Don't wave at people you don't know. It's as if a big momma bear is in the other car and his sole purpose in life is to protect the children from harm. I like when they wave at people. It means they're not screaming demands at me or fighting with each other.





Another thing, I can't hear the demands being screamed from that way back seat in the wagon. I thought that would be a blessing. It is a curse. MoMo needs constant verbal interaction. Not a nod or a mumble. She must have a full verbal response indicating that you did, in fact, hear her and are acknowledging her. Telling her that you can't hear what she's saying and she'll have to wait until you get home is not an option that she's willing to live with. A piece of her dies every moment in time that she isn't actively engaged in conversation. She has a lot of words. She needs to use them all. All the time.




These are some of the reasons that I'm glad the minivan is fixed now. Jenny drove it while we were gone and called it a "huge hunk of crap". I'm glad it didn't hear her, that wasn't very nice. Now just the interior is a hunk of crap and fries and nuggets and sippy cups and garbage.

One final thought: Vee is trying to wink nowadays. She gets her right eye about half way closed. It's cute, but then her eye gets stuck. She walks around for most of the day with one eye half open, like Popeye. This is how she looks at people lately. Like she has suffered from a rare baby stroke. It's sad. I googled it and I do not like it. (sorry, SNL line, it's stuck in my head).

It may be time to renew our vows

I got a camera

Thanks to JennyPenny, I have a camera! I haven't had time to play much with it, but I'm trying to read through the manual and see what stuff it can do. Here's the pictures we took to try it out. Thanks Jenny!

Happy Birthday to Chris

Our Blazers tickets came in the mail a few weeks ago and the package included a few free gifts. One was for a free nights lodging at Spirit Mountain, one was for $100 cash at Spirit Mountain, and one was for $100 at the Legends Restaurant at Spirit Mountain. I know, I couldn't believe it either. I thought there must be a catch, but there was no catch, just a whole lot of free. Today is Chris' birthday, so we took advantage of the offer and celebrated by having our first night away together since Baby Plankton was born. I had no idea that not gambling at a casino could be that much fun. We took our free cash and went to the outlet malls. We had dinner and took desert back to our room, along with a boxed lunch for the car ride home. The only thing we paid for was gas. Wait a minute, we had twenty bucks left over, so that paid for our gas. Happy Free Birthday! This morning we stopped on the beach for some self portraits. A few of those are our attempt at "sexy" poses, showing our pure excitement at being alone.

We're super grateful that Aunt Jenny would drag her AshAshBaby out here to spend the night with our turds so that we could get away. We came home to some brand new beautiful pictures of the kids by Jennifer Lynn Photography from Jenny for Chris' birthday. And this sign that they made for him. KaiKai baked a delicious cake for him. Later, the cake became a bit of a problem when SuperTurd and Plankton got in a brawl over who got to lick all of the frosting off of it. VeeVee kept yelling something that sounded like "MY YOGURT". I'm not sure what that was about. Once they skinned the poor cake of all of it's covering, they moved on to better things. Notice that they refuse to both smile at the camera at the same time. They like to coordinate their efforts and take turns ruining every photo. That's alright, it's just more proof for when they're older and don't understand why Mommy is cookoo.

Sam's Story

Hey, read Sam's hilarious work story that she put in a comment to my Flashback Friday. I wish I could have been there.

She Should Totally Appeal. Yeah, totally.

Judge dismisses blonde's lawsuit over brown dye

10/08/2008 02:19 PM MDT Associated Press Writer

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. -- A Connecticut judge has given the brush-off to a blonde woman's lawsuit claiming L'Oreal Inc. ruined her social life when she accidentally dyed her hair brunette with one of its products.

Charlotte Feeney of Stratford says she can never return to her natural blonde hue, a shock that left her so traumatized she needed anti-depressants.

She says she suffered headaches and anxiety, missed the attention that blondes receive and had to stay home and wear hats most of the time.

A Superior Court judge dismissed Feeney's 2005 lawsuit Monday, saying she never proved her allegation that L'Oreal put brown hair dye in a box labeled as blonde. The company also had disputed the claim.


Feeney referred questions on Wednesday to her attorney, David Laudano, who has declined to comment.

Top Ten Tuesdee Delay

Can't post it yet. Chasing a Momma and her cub off of the front porch. NEED A CAMERA. Super cute, want to pet them. Momma stood on her hind legs when baby ran the other way and I was somewhere in the middle. Super Protecto Dad has instructed me to:

1. Keep the children in the house
2. drive to the end of the driveway to pick up bus kids and drive them up the driveway
3. buy bullets
4. get the box of apples that they were eating off of the front porch

My Plan:

1. Find the camera and chase them down the driveway

I can't be the only person who's never heard about this practice. Can I?

Watching this reminds me of one of those moments in life when my love for my husband grew exponentially. We were at our first Doctor's appointment during our very Surprise pregnancy with VeeVee. The doctor pointed out that I'm super old and the risks involved in being pregnant and super old. Then he gave us brochures telling us about all of the genetic testing that we might want to do. On our way home I asked Chris what he thought, whether we should do the extra testing or not. His answer was perfect "No, it wouldn't matter to us, we know that we would keep the baby and love it either way, so why worry about it?" I did point out the benefits of being prepared if there was any issues, but I still loved knowing that he felt that way.

Friday Flashback

I don't miss having a job very often. Sometimes I miss the not so secret admirers. JennyPenny and I had some great times during our single days working at the bank.

I found this picture from my manager days at the Headquarters of Keep Portland Weird 39th and Salmon branch. That was the best place to work. The proximity to a home for mentally disturbed people kept things exciting. So did waking up Jose in our bushes every morning so he didn't scare any customers. He had to move his hang over nap some where else during business hours. One day Jose wasn't there and we never knew what happened to him. Jose, are you out there?

Then there was the really really really unbalanced lady who screamed at me, with her spitting speech impediment, that she would "get me", because we couldn't cash her check. I really believe that she wanted to kill me. She was real mad. Even in the face of danger it was hard not to laugh, and I don't blame my employees for doing so. Something about a 75 year old lady screaming at me You piece of S!%, I'll get you, I'll get you AMY BERG, I'll get you, you piece of ... was funny. Poor woman. I hope she got her Social Security checks all worked out. And I hope she's not still plotting my death.

Is This Something We Can Ignore?

More on Ayers/Obama

Having Worked at a Bank During the Clinton Admin. I HATE the CRA and the problems it has caused

From about 6:50 minutes it gets really interesting.

Obama's is way too connected to this whole mess. The CRA changes in 1995, forcing us to lend to unqualified buyers under the liberal bleeding hearts usual "everyone deserves to own a home" rhetoric, started this whole downward spiral. I hated dealing with it when I was pushing Home Equity Loans at the bank and I really hate it now that Clinton and Carter's Socialist ideas are ruining our economy during Bush's presidency. Just as our country's security was ruined by Clinton, forcing Bush to clean up after him. Of course, the liberals will blame the "current administration" at every turn and not take responsibility for their part in it. Not even when Fannie and Freddie were big money makers for many members of the Democratic party.

I don't believe that everyone deserves to own a home. I believe that those who have proven that they will make their payments, through their credit history, and those that make a verifiable income in an amount that would enable them to make their payments, DESERVE to own a home. And guess what...I'm one of those people who were only able to buy because of Fannie Mae. Guess what else, we COULDN'T AFFORD OUR HOME. We were blessed to increase our income greatly before we lost it, but if we hadn't, we would have lost everything. All because the credit and income restrictions were so ridiculously low. I hope that someway someone can clean up this mess. That we can offer affordable housing options with realistic lending guidelines. That we aren't going backward with the passing of this bail out. I'm sure I'm not the only one who is praying several times a day for a change that will get us where we need to be.

I hope this shows up...

Beck just sent this very timely email to me. It's a humorous look at the current financial fiasco. It's good to be able to laugh through my tears.

Boys Room

Look at this gal's decorating skills. I'm loving this bedroom. She did it all. The sewing and everything. Click on the picture to see the rest of her post.

Life is good and I still don't have a camera, but I have a laptop with a camera

Sarah Palin was all that I could hope for and more. Not only that, but Joe Biden wasn't scary at all. I've never seen such a pleasant couple of debaters.

AND I got to visit my sweet, sweet Brandie and get my hair fixed. It was sad that she couldn't totally fix the color after all that I've done to it in her absence, but it feels so much better. It's a lot darker than it looks in these pictures and Chris isn't happy about how short it is. Hey, if I hadn't done so much home coloring, she wouldn't have needed to cut so much off.

By the way, if you look over my shoulder you can see two interesting things. One is my pig collection. My pig collection that was recently unearthed from it's 8 year exile to a box. It's not in my room because I want it to be there. It's in my room to protect in from small children. It should probably stay in the box. For lots of reasons. The second thing you can see is the top of my open suitcase that still hasn't been unpacked. It only recently got moved upstairs. It was sitting right in the front entry way, wide open, until Tuesdee. Maybe I'll take care of that tomorrow.

My Husband Sent This to Me. I'm Not Sure Why.

The Return of the Passion

Top Ten Tuesday - Self Love Edition

Here's my post as I had prepared it last night at 11:35:

I'm frankly surprised that Beck will agree to play along at all, since the word that is commonly used to describe loving oneself causes her great anxiety. The M word will instantly send her into the ear-covered-screaming-dry-heaving state that I experience when I hear anything from my husband about hot Asians. But, since she and Sam want to know here are my...

Top Ten Reasons to Love Myself:

1 thru 10 Michael Buble' music and a nice hairy chest.


I realized before I posted it that I should probably sleep on it. Sometimes the posts that I prepare in the late hours of the night are the ones that cause me to sit straight up in bed in the morning and run in terror to the computer. It's the same fatigue induced brain fog that used to prompt me to write angry letters to boyfriends that I would tear up in the morning. I'm so glad I thought twice about this post. It's just so tacky. Here's my for reals list:

1. I don't take things too seriously. Except any form of lying. My reaction to lying is so extreme that you'd think I've been lied to by every man that I ever dated in my whole life, causing me to suffer from sever trust issues, and causing me to be a huge pain in the arse. Oh, wait, I have and I am. But other than lying, I'm super easy going and I have a lot of faith and I can laugh at myself easily. I'm glad I got that.

2. Speaking of faith, I tend to look for the silver lining pretty quickly. Like the current impending doom that we are facing in the great country. We're all going to die of starvation, but I'm able to believe that everything happens for a reason. Starvation? I need to lose weight somehow. See what I mean?

3. I am glad that I have naturally not crooked teeth. They used to be straight, now they've got a few weird spots, but still they're pretty good and I love good teeth.

4. I think I'm usually a good listening ear. Unless it has to do with someone lying to you. Don't EVER come to me for advice about that. Leanna knows what I'm talking about. Unless you want me following the suspected liar around with a telephoto lens, you should probably go to someone else for that kind of problem. Otherwise, I'm here for you.

5. I would be willing to buckle my kids into their car seats and follow your cheating man around with that telephoto lens. I'm a giver. This one time I had a GREAT idea for a business. I had been watching The Devil Show (Oprah) and she had these people on who run a website specifically for married people who want to cheat. It's like Match.com except it's DirtyFilthyCheatingPigs.com, or something like that. It's a dating service for married people who are just looking for that innocent fling with no strings attached. None of that pesky love stuff to interfere with their fun. I got a little fired up. I decided that I would make a profile on that sight and lure married guys into a date. Then I would sit in the parking lot of the prearranged meeting spot and take pictures of them with that telephoto lens. Then I would send their wives pictures and copies of their emails. There was no actual financial benefit, so technically it would be a non-profit business, but, again, I'm a giver. I encountered two problems: I don't own a telephoto lens and Chris FREAKED out on me and said NO WAY, CRAZY PANTS, I WILL NEVER EVER ALLOW YOU TO DO THAT. Then I asked him if he didn't want me to do it because he was afraid I might find out about something that he didn't want me to know about. He totally didn't see that one coming.

6. I'm pretty smart. IQ wise, not always common sense wise.

7. I like that I can type. It's a nice skill to have, even if your keyboard doesn't work.

8. I like that it's not terribly hard for me to lose weight. Physically it's not hard, commitment to do it is the real hold up.

9. I like that I got curly hair. Finally. I have hated it many times and for all of my childhood, but now I like it.

10. I'm a great driver. It's true. I know to brake before a curve and accelerate into the curve. I'm a good merger and a very gradual stopper and starter.

Top Ten Tuesday Topic

"Top Ten Topic for tomorrow...Top Ten Reasons I Love Myself...compliments of Sam. Compliments...get it? hahahahaha."

Selection compliments of Sam, humor compliments of Beck.

Glenn Beck's Point Tonight

"You can't cure Capitalism with Socialism."

Amen to that, Glenn. Let's do the hard thing and face our problems instead of always saving ourselves from our mistakes.

He's Scary

Bubbles