The Death of Pretty I Love You

Remember Addie's fish, Pretty I Love You? After 2 1/2 blissful years, she kicked the bucket. It was rather pathetic. She started swimming upside-down and laying on the rocks while glub-glubbing all sad-like. I was worried about Addie, based on her reaction the last time we had a fish die. Fortunately, this time we had a few days to prepare.

I told Addie that Pretty I Love You was probably going to die soon, so she suggested that we take her to the vet. When I broke it to her that the vet probably couldn't do much for the fish, she said, "Maybe we can donate her to the Bean Museum!"

We came home from church a couple Sundays ago, and Pretty I Love You had stopped glub-glubbing. She never floated; she just laid on the rocks. We flushed her, and not a tear was shed!

Thanks for the memories, Pretty. Or as I used to call her, PILY. Just kidding, I never called her that.

Why I'm not vacuuming out the van anymore.

I think it started when I saw someone else's van, and it was really clean. Like freakishly clean on the inside, and I was like, "WHY is your van so clean?" And the owner was like, "UGH, it's not clean, it's DISGUSTING!" And I was like, "Honey, come look at my van and you will see what disgusting is..." Etc. etc. So I went home inspired, and proceeded to clean out my van. And it truly was disgusting. I got all the garbage out and vacuumed, and I was shocked and dismayed to realize that we don't need food storage. If ever we're starving, we just need to head out to the ol' van and have us a smorgasbord of crushed Cheez-its and petrified chicken nuggets. And it irritated me that my precious children treat our vehicle as if it is a trash can.

On Valentine's Day, the kids came home from school and dumped their loot out on the living room floor. Along with their coats, backpacks, homework and shoes. And blankets. (Oh, curse those wretched blankets that plague my life. They are everywhere always.) I asked them approximately 47 times to pick up their stuff, while I was busy getting our special V-Day dinner and dessert ready. I had envisioned a Valentine's dinner by candlelight with our little darlings, expressing how much each of them mean to me, saying loving things and whatnot. I was so annoyed by their slobbishness and apparent inability to hear and heed my requests, and by 7:30 I was hiding in my bed and I just wanted to be left the heck alone.

I was a slob when I was kid. My mom would make me clean my room, and I would literally sit for an entire Saturday in the middle of my messy room looking through old stuff, reminiscing about the good old days, and not accomplish a thing. I think I'd end up stuffing everything under my bed just so my mom wouldn't kill me, but I didn't care that my room was a disaster. It didn't bother me then. Obviously, even now I can go a couple of months driving around a cesspool van, but once I realize what has happened, I can't believe it. Anyway, whatever. I don't know what my point is. I like clean, and they do too, they just don't know it yet.

Tonight Addie was given the job of sweeping the kitchen floor, and she sobbed and sobbed that it was too hard, and would sort of toss the broom forward with one hand and cry about it being so difficult, and I thought I was going to wring her neck. I lost my cool and told her she was stubborn, then defined stubborn for her so she would know what I meant, then felt like crap, then showed her how to effectively use the broom and dustpan, then picked her up and held her while she cried and rubbed her back and told her I was sorry for getting mad and that I love her. She held my hand and walked me to her bed to tuck her in, all splotchy-faced. And I just think sometimes, I have no idea what I'm doing, and where is the line between showing your kids that you're serious, and giving them a break because they're just kids for crying out loud?

So yeah, I'm going to have Nils vacuum out the van from now on. Serenity now.

January Birthday Madness

The days of January 6th, 12th and 14th are birthdays here in our house, but the mania really starts the day after Christmas, and doesn't end until the night of the 14th. Anders and Addie plot and plan the details of their birthdays for the entire year, but they really get serious about it after Christmas. We've basically stuck to the every other year friend birthday party dealio, and this is the off year- so family celebrations abounded. 

Wow. Friend parties are way easier. Since their birthdays are six days apart, what you do for one, you have to do for the other. We let them choose all of their meals and what kind of cake they wanted. They both wanted animal cakes this year, so we slapped together what we could without any fancy equipment or know-how. They also get to pick a fun family outing. AND, we decided to have lunch with each of them at school with the whole fam. Addie got checked out of school to eat with Anders, and vice-versa, since they're at different schools now. Between all of this, it was some serious birthday shiznit, ya'll.

Anders: Pop-tarts for breakfast, McDonald's for lunch, In-N-Out for dinner, and a turtle cake for dessert. We went to Jump On It for the activity.

Addie: Chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, Little Caesar's for lunch, Hawaiian haystacks for dinner, panda cake for dessert. We saw "Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked" for the activity. Not gonna lie, that was pretty brutal.

As a funny aside, we went to a 4:00 matinee, and there were only two other people in the theater besides us. The kids were SO weirded out by that. They kept saying, "The movie can't start, no one is here! Why is no one here?! Why are we the only ones here?!" We could have given them explanations as to why no one wants to go to a crappy kids' movie at 4 in the afternoon on a Wednesday, but we didn't because we're trying to be goodish parents.

Nils made Anders' turtle cake. Of COURSE he did.

I made Addie's panda cake. It was mediocre, but she didn't seem to notice. It was very important to her to have the candy letters on her cake.

One of Addie's presents was going to Build-a-Bear. The other kids each got a stuffed animal with their own money. They had a lot of fun, and Addie got to ring the birthday bell and everythang. 

My birthday is the last in all of this, and I'm pretty much over it by the time it rolls around. That, and the fact that I'm friggin' old now, so birthdays lost their thrill many moons ago. Nils and I went to lunch, did a bit of shopping, and went bowling. We don't have a good history of bowling together. We went shortly after we were married, and Nils, whose strategy is to chuck the ball as hard as he can, thought it would be good to give me pointers. This angered me, since I am sort of competitive, and since his ball-flinging strategy ended in a better score than my calculated, aim-at-the-arrow technique. ANYhoo, we decided that we might be a little more mature now, so we bowled one game and clapped politely for each other and really behaved quite nicely.

He beat me by 9 points, but only because I lovingly suggested, toward the end of his game, that he try aiming at the middle arrow. Oh, how I regret that loving suggestion.

BIRTHDAYS OUT! (til June.)

Sayonara, 2011

Lookie, me no fall!

I'm home from the festivities with two sickies, while Nils is partying it up at his brother's house with the two un-sickies. Nils and I went ice skating today. It was pretty fun. We were a little spastic at first, but got into the groove after awhile. I only ate it once, if you don't count the time I slammed into a guy who cut me off. He embraced me to keep from falling, and it was weird. Love a good, super awkward hug from a stranger. Yeah.

So, 2011, huh? Well, this is a year that I'm happy to say goodbye to. It's been a little craptastic. We've had to do a lot of soul-searching, but sometimes the ol' soul doesn't like to be messed with, ya know? I'm hopeful that the next year will be a little better.

Far be it for me to be a Negative Nancy, though! Amid the craptastic, we have been blessed in many ways.

• Happy, healthy, smart and funny kids.
• Nils' job is going well, and he's a happy dude.
• I became best friends with the dentist, and I only have 4 more payments before we're square. (Provided I don't have to have anymore root canals between now and then.)
• Our Friday night babysitting swap came into our lives this year, and wow. I'm a fan. We love our little group.
• New callings to learn and grow from. Nils is teaching Gospel Doctrine (best calling in the Church, I tell ya), and I'm a counselor in RS (still trying to figure out what the heck I'm doing).
• We ran a half-marathon and didn't die! More importantly, I have had minimal running-related injuries, which gives me tremendous joy.
• Ava has turned into a generally happy child. She's stopped all of that screaming for the most part, and is now the life of the party, cracking all of us up with her silly cuteness. And to think, it was one year ago today that all of that screaming gave me shingles.... ah the mem'ries.
• It was 15 years ago this month that Nils and I met and became BFFs, and lookit us now! We've got us a house, 4 kids, an apparently immortal goldfish, and we still love being together more than anything. 

Who knows? Maybe 2012 will bring a successful camping trip! So many things to look forward to. Happy New Year, peeps!

Thank you notes to S.C.

I had the kids write thank you letters to Santa last night for Family Home Evening. Anders is hip to the whole Santa thing, if ya know what I mean, wink wink, but still drew a Santa portrait and everything. Nice. Allow me to translate:

Anders

 "Dear Santa, I really like the presents you gave me. My favorite is the art case,  my second is the helicopter, my third are the Wii games and last is the car thing. Sincerely, Anders"

Addie

"Dear Santa, thanks for the presents. Next year can I have some more Barbie stuff? Well bye bye love Addie" The illustrations are of Santa, his little elves, and the big elf is Buddy from the movie "Elf". 

Aani

"Dear Santa, I love you. You're my favorite Christmas man. I love you because you give me presents, and I love the presents that you gave me. I'll give you a present. Love, Aani"

We had a great Christmas. The kids were very pleased with the gifts they received. Addie kept saying, "This is the best Christmas ever!", which, coming from her, is a pretty big deal. Boo-yah! 

Merriest of Christmaseseses!

Well, here's our Christmas card, ya'll. We were missing a few addresses from last year- unfortunately this was a one shot deal, and if we didn't get it mailed in the first batch, it didn't get mailed. I am so soooorrrry. I apolllllogiiiiize.

The kids have been out of school since last Friday, and I have loved it. We've been good and lazy, waking up whenever the heck we want, getting dressed whenever the heck we want, brushing our hair whenever the heck we want. Addie and Aani play ponies and Barbies all day long. I'm amazed at how long they can keep a game going. They "pause" their game for lunch and dinner, but I hardly see them in between mandatory meals.

Aside from a couple of last minute, extended family gifts, we're all done. We're simplifying big time this year. We've been shopping since before Halloween, selecting just a few things that we think the kids will really like. Last year we felt like Christmas was big bust. The kids weren't overly thrilled with anything they received, and all of the stupid little filler things, like cheap board games and stocking stuffers ended up strewn about almost immediately. It made me realize that they need very little, and that volume doesn't do anything but overwhelm them and make them bratty.

I heard Addie say to Aani the other day (probably during a paused portion of pony mania), "Aani, the whole reason we have Christmas is because of Jesus being born. Did you know that?" Then Aani said something like, "We have SANTA because of JESUS?" I'm so thankful for our Savior, His birth, His life and ultimately His Atonement, which has the power to heal our hearts and make us whole. I've felt it in my life and know it's real.

Merry Christmas, my friends! May yours be merry and bright!

We continue to live!

Hello! And thank you for coming! I've been trying to write a post for about 3 days, giving a philosophical explanation for making the blog private, but everything I wrote was crap, so I just gave up. I don't know why I felt the need to privatize, and it's probably going to be temporary until I can figure myself out, but thank you for joining me. 

On to pictures! This first picture illustrates the wonder that is Aani's hair. Did you know that Aani is 4 1/2 years old and is now just starting to get enough hair on the top of her head that I don't have to trim her mullet? She's still a little Carol Brady-esque, but she thinks she looks like Rapunzel and I don't have the heart to ruin that for her. 

Behold! Enough hair to braid!

As I've mentioned before, Aani is in a neighborhood preschool where the moms take turns being the teacher. It's been a fun adventure so far. Honestly, all of these kids are great. They get along, they're well-behaved and funny as all get out. One of our fall field trips was going to Hee Haws. Here are the highlights of  Hee Haws, just in case you haven't been there: They have a ginormous male pig with huge nuts. They're obviously proud of this fact, based on the t-shirts they sell that say things like, "We're NUTS about Hee Haw Farms!" When Aani noticed this pig, she laughed and said, "I see his bum!" Yeah....that's his bum. The other highlight about the place is the corn maze. After we walked around that stupid corn maze for 45 minutes trying to find our way out, my hatred for corn mazes was solidified. What is fun about being lost in corn? Nothing, I tell you. Nothing at all. 

Nils and I got to go on a real live date a few weeks ago! We went to dinner and a movie. DINNER AND A MOVIE! We were trying to remember the last time we went to a movie that wasn't animated and couldn't remember. Anyhoo, Los Hermanos in P-town moved a couple of blocks down into what used to be an Italian restaurant. I couldn't stop staring at David, all covered up with his Mexican garb. I can't decide if they covered him to be funny or if they covered him for modesty's sake. Whatever. It made my day.

Oh, David, you naughty thing.

We went to Dairy Queen and got the world's biggest ice cream cone. Mmm, waxy.

So, things have been normal schnormal lately. Ava likes to take off her pants and diaper about 7 times a day. Anders has been reading lots of books, like the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, and the Gregor the Overlander series. Addie's best friend moved out of the cul-de-sac a couple of months ago, so she's been like a lost little kitty. She and Aani spend a lot time together playing ponies, and Aani loves preschool with every fiber of her being. They're all right, those kids.