Rockin' it East Coast Style

So...

we live on the West Coast.

To bed by nine sounds good to me.

Happy New Year!

Oh, and if you're looking for a new tradition- try grapes. I totally stole this from Martha Stewart. Take twelve grapes (Martha puts hers on a skewer.) Eat twelve grapes. Each grape represents the twelve months of the following year. Sweet grapes equal sweet month. Sour grapes equal not so sweet month. Apparently it's a Spanish tradition. For us, it is the first tradition that Scrunch can actually participate in.

Can picking random traditions become a tradition?

Cold and Flu Season

The sickies have hit us.

Hard.

The sneezy, wheezy, hurts to breathe, snuffy nose, tired, achy, chills, headache, nasty sickies. I'm getting over it, Husband is in the middle of it, and we hope Scrunch misses it completely.

One of the often unlisted symptoms is being unable to concentrate. Or just being so tired of being tired, and sick of being sick you just don't care anymore.

He was tired, in a hurry, and sick of being sick. It became necessary to stop for tissue so as to not resort to sleeves, when Husband discovered something. Unfortunately, not until he got back to the car.

There is a difference between Kotex and Kleenex.

I laughed until it hurt. He just continued to hurt and went back in to get the right stuff.

Disney Princess

Working for the Mouse has its perks.

STILL too busy.

But in case you are worried that I'm not being productive you should now that I will EVENTUALLY post pictures of Christmas, we are collectively still Smarter Than a 5th Grader, have Scrunch's birthday present almost done, and still have to start the 30 Rock marathon.

In a few days we'll be home. And I will have pictures and ranting to do. Especially if some jerk in holiday traffic cuts us off.

Too Busy to Blog

That's all I wanted to say.

Thanks for listening.

Tomorrow, tomorrow.

Eat. Done.
Drink. Done.
Be Merry. How could you not?

Starting tomorrow I'm going to have to come up with a new excuse. 'But it's Christmas!' is no longer going to cut it for breaking budget, over indulging in good eats (like cheesy potato soup and chocolate carmel shortbread bars), and completely ignoring the fact that you really should get more sleep at night than you do in naps during the day.

But that is tomorrow. And I'm sure I'll have come up with something by then.

Merry Christmas!

Twas the Night Before Christmas

Not a creature was stirring. Not even a Scrunch.

The stockings we hung by the chimney with care, with lots of little morsels left to munch.

And what did my bloodshot eyes did see?

Relatives there by the bunch.

With loot stacked by the mile next to the tree.

With piles like that we wont finish the celebrating till tomorrow at three.

Not bad, eh?

Christmas Cards

How did it get to be December 23 already? In the interest of time (which at this point there is not going to be enough of), our Christmas card will be written in ten words or less. With five in the fam that averages to two words per person. Shut up Miqui. I didn't need a calculator, and dogs are people too. She's reading over my shoulder as I type. Anyway, ten words or less...

John works.
Yannette knits.
Scrunch giggles.
Jedi fetches.
Ani barks.

Next year- more of the same.
Merry Christmas!

Damn. That's twelve words.

Oh, and the cat.

Still mad at the cat.

Maybe we should make this twenty words or less.



Photo by Gloria Meredith Photography. Her pics have been the best Christmas present ever. (Endorsements don't count as part of the letter word count.)

Thinking of You

My Grandpa is a farmer and a fisherman. Both wear overalls.

So do Scrunches.

Grandpa had surgery this week. We hope he gets better real soon.

Pop, pop, pop-ular!

I'm the last person on the planet to sign up with Facebook. Actually we'll leave that to my mom. To be honest, I'm a little creeped out by the whole idea. You can watch every minute of every person you know's life, and everyone they know too. What happened to privacy. Or just plain "leave me the hell alone".

Uh, not so much.

But I have set a new lifetime record. In the last 24 hours I have made 12 friends. Well, I'm actually related to most of them. OK. Everyone but one, maybe two. But still. Not even that dance at Education Week when a certain friend and I tried to see how many RM's we could give our phone numbers to. We were 14. Can I tell you how glad I am Facebook didn't exist when I was a teen? I would have been permanently grounded and my mother doesn't believe in grounding. That being said, I'm going to watch my own daughter's every move. GPS in her cell phone is just the beginning.

Let the fun begin!

We made it to Grami's house after E-I-E-I-Oing our way here. There is a production line of cookie making, the Wii is going to overheat, and Husband is wishing he'd gone to the Metallica concert rather than DVRing the BYU game. And it's only the first day.

I smell like my dog.

Three good hair days in a row (which NEVER happens) could only be attributed to one thing. The dog shampoo. On Tuesday it was an accident when I reached for the bottle, but every day since has been entirely on purpose. My coat, uh hair, hasn't been this shiny since, well I don't know since when. How bad could it be? It's been tested on animals. Over and over. It's got avocado oil and is all natural. Plus, it's cheaper than my salon selection.

Now the question becomes- do I pick up another bottle with the dog food this afternoon? The bottle says it helps to relieve itching and scratching. Not that I have a problem with that sort of thing, but I'd want to avoid it in the future if I could. Does your shampoo do that?

Garage Sale

I'd like to sell my ovaries. They are a pain in (this case) the back. And a garage sale seems as good a place as any. That is after all where people go to buy broken, good-for-nothin, useless junk that other people don't want anymore.

If you want em, come and get em. As is.

Eat breakfast naked.

At least almost naked.

It doesn't make sense to do it any other way.

Cutest thing.

My blogging as of late has been lacking. Either to being legitimately busy or in a legitimate bad mood. What I really meant to say yesterday was that people in Target parking lots are A-holes. And their time is not more valuable than mine so they might as well slow the hell down. Or not, and when they end up wrapped around a tree I hope I get to go their house and change their catheter. Then I'll ask them if they would prefer I take my time.

Isn't it amazing how spewing into cyberspace can make you instantly feel better?

So we can get on with more important things.

I think this might be the cutest thing I've ever made. Ever. (I don't get to take credit for my kid.) And I'm trading it away. The bow lady of a few months ago is finally being repaid- in snowflakes. There are two of them for two little girls. Her two year old has the longest hair I've ever seen on a kid, so I made matching snowflake bobby pins.


I'd be more sad than I am if I didn't already have plans (and tights) for a Valentine's Day dress for Scrunch. Making dresses in multiples almost makes me think about numero dos. Almost. We can't think about number two until we have an adequate excuse as to why we have over three thousand pictures of number one. I can't help it. She's that cute.



I wish I could take credit, but she came that way. Special order. Santa has even given me curls for Christmas. This is the kid that yesterday when I took her to Taco Bell says, "Mmmmm. Mama. Mmmmm." I'd have bought her a Happy Meal just then if she'd asked. And you know how I feel about Happy Meals.

I am a sucker for all things cute. But especially Scrunches that are starting to talk.

Short and Sweet

Target is actually a money sucking time warp which should be avoided at all costs.

Just in case you were wondering.

Sometimes you just know these things.

I know she is tired because she crawled into the wall.

I know she is teething because she then tried to bite and chew on the wall.

I know we are headed for the makings of a very long day.

No longer feeling bad for my lameness.

There are pumpkins still on our porch. And a harvest-time looking door hanger. Oh, and it's almost the middle of December. I could/should/would be ashamed of this fact did I not know that other members of my family have taken Christmas decorating to a new level.

Check out my parents place. Holy crap Dad! I had no idea. Well I had a little of an idea. The first couple of years in the house Dad built a Santa that looked like he was stuck in the chimney that kicked his legs back and forth and then there was the huge Santa sign with arrow pointing down you could practically see from the freeway. But this! This is the kind of thing that gets random weird strangers (redundant phrasing) to pack up their kids in the middle of the night and sit parked in front of your house all night.

Now I'm excited about Christmas. And I no longer feel bad for my lameness. We'll just set the homepage to my parent's house until we leave and pretend it's us. Kind of like those DVDs of the fireplace going.

Who said you could grow up so quick?

Huh? Who? I'm putting them on the naughty list.

My Not-so-baby Baby and an early Christmas present (her own little chair which may or may not get painted). And her Singapore jammies.

Dear Santa,

My mommy wants me to ask for the house from the Pottery Barn catalog.
My papa wants me to ask for a theater room and projector in Mommy's house.
Grami wants me to ask for a baby sister because she says I'm growing up too fast.
And Gramps wants me to ask for the house across the street so we can play with trains every day after work.

Me? I'm going to go with the sure thing and ask for blocks.

Blocks it is.

Why you can't help but love my husband.

While discussing yesterday's post and my apparent illiteracy Handsome Husband had this to say.

The whole list is crap. Crap.

Whoever wrote it is illiterate.

Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is one of the Chronicles of Narnia.

And who put Jane Austen on there six times?

Total crap.

More or less illiterate.

The Big Read is an NEA program designed to encourage community reading initiatives. Of their top 100 books, they estimate the average adult has read only six. According to some other bloggers, they encourage us to:

*Look at the list and bold those we have read.
*Italicize those we intend to read.
*Underline the books we LOVE.

That's too many rules for me, so I bent the rules. What a crappy copy cat I am.

I encourage YOU to do the same, and then come back here and let me know you’ve done it so I can check out YOUR list.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien Could not get through it to save my life.
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling Read one. Didn't like it.
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I intend to read all of them before I die. Long before I finish Scrunch and I will be reading them together when she is in High School. If I didn't love the book I wont remember having read it, so bolded books have been read and loved/tolerated enough to remember. I wont tell you how many of these I've seen the movie to but have never read the book. That is a sad list.

An even sadder list is that I probably read more blogs than number of books I've actually read on the list. Ugh. Does reading patterns count? I read those too. How about e-mail? Texts? I'm really not illiterate. Even if I did have to look up how to correctly spell illiterate.

More boring than yesterday.

I was crushed when I was told that yesterday's blog was boring. What? You didn't watch it over and over chanting "I think I can, I think I can" like I did? I guess I don't have to worry much about competition-wise then.

I wasn't too hurt since it came from the same person who sat riveted at the web cam watching Scrunch play with the computer mouse for thirty minutes, and then today watched Scrunch eat her lunch of baked potato. Riveting stuff my life is.

I try to avoid the play by play of our daily activities because, well...we really are that boring. But don't get me wrong. I like it like that. The more boring the better, I say. Who needs trips to the ER, losing your job, tornadoes ripping through? The stuff you see on the news. I will take the hum drum any day.

But since you seem to be unsatisfied with my attempt at providing a little entertainment and enlightenment on a day when we were going to be as boring as you get, then I will air our dirty laundry. This is what yesterday looked like.


The highlight? Finding my FAVORITE slippers under that mountain. The same slippers that have been called "ugly" by those who called my previous post "boring". Obviously their opinions can't be trusted.

Skeelz

Baby Baluga and a Momentous Occasion

When she grows up, we want Scrunch to be just like her Auntie-M. Note: That's Auntie-M, not Auntie-em.

She has the most infectious laugh and is a sweetheart and is one of Mommy's favorite people on the planet. She's most people's favorite person. Scrunch loves her. She taught her elephant sounds, cackles at everything she does, and has built in posturpedics.

When Auntie-M was a little girl she wore a pony tail right on top of her head that we called her spout. We called her Baby Baluga. As she got older the pony tail's nickname morphed into her "palm tree". The first day of school one year she came to mom wearing her jacket (hat and all) and told her she had cut the palm tree down. Hacked it off right at the base. We still tease her about it. Now Scrunch is sporting one. See? Just like her Auntie-M.


Oh, and the best part? Auntie-M is working hard so she can go to vet school. How awesome is that! I tell you that because it is totally awesome and so I can work in the picture of Scrunch and her Papa on her very first Downtown horse-drawn carriage ride. See the relation? Whatever. Auntie-M will like it.

When?

I have a theory about raising kids (my kid) that time is a grown-up thing. We love routines. Hate schedules.

I wake up (hopefully at least three minutes before Scrunch does.) Put in one load of laundry. Make a bottle. We eat breakfast. We bath. We play. We nap. She naps, Mom blogs or cleans. Mostly blogs. Then we do lunch. Then we play/shop/knit/go to the park/whatever. Then we may or may not nap again. Then we do dinner. Then we eat dinner. We bath again. Then we play/read/cuddle. Then we go to bed.

This goes on pretty much everyday. Whether she takes her nap at 9 or 11, I don't care. I prefer 9:45, but it's up to her. I don't believe in making babies cry for things that they need so when she's hungry she eats, when she's tired she sleeps. I don't think I'm some parenting guru, but I'll tell you what, there's no feeling bad about not keeping to a schedule when there is no schedule. We have a routine. She knows her routine and it's worked. Time is a grown-up thing.

When will she take her nap today? When will she go to bed? When will she walk?

I don't know. Just know that it'll happen.

I was thinking that maybe God agrees with me. He doesn't really follow our self-imposed schedules either.

Like, have all your kids by the time you're thirty 08/06/2014.
Or buy a McMansion two point five years after graduation 06/15/09.

Stuff like,

When will we put our Adoption paperwork again? When (if ever) will I be pregnant? When will we buy a house?

Just like how my kid does not know what it means when mommy says "just a minute", God does not follow my time lines (Dangitt!!). And just like I know that at some point, the day will end and we will all be sleeping cozy in our beds, there will be a time when these things will happen for us. I've just got to remember that time is a grown-up thing.

My 'corny' post for the week.

What can I say? I like themes. Gift baskets are my forte, if I say so myself. And I say so myself.

I even had a momentary lapse of insanity one time where I thought I would make a few bucks crafting up gift baskets at one of those craft malls in Spanish Fork. You know... the ones where people don't actually buy anything, they just go to rip off other people's ideas (myself included). Because "I could make that myself Mormon mom mentality" runs rampant through those parts.

Even though crafting did not lead to my becoming independently wealthy, I still like themes. Scrunch's Christmas theme this year? Monkeys and Montessori. Monkeys from Grami and Montessori from mom, uh Santa. Don't tell her but things like play silks, and a Barrel of Monkeys may or may not be found under the tree. I even heard from one of the elves that there's a monkey quilt and monkey pjs involved. I am ashamed to admit this, but the Christmas crafting will be skipping right over Scrunch this year. I have too many other people waiting in line for the goods.

So in keeping with all things theme-y. Recently it was corn. Watching "King Corn" and knitting socks with Maizy- a corn fiber.

The movie will make you consider moving to the boonies and raising your own meat. Or it wont. You'll never eat at McDonalds again. Or you will. Poor McDonalds. They are today's Marlboro Man. Our scapegoat for everything that is wrong with society. But I digress. I have lots to say about this movie actually, so ask me sometime. Like when you can't sleep. And I will tell you all about buying grass fed, antibiotic free meats and high fructose corn syrup, and diabetes.

Which brings me to my "corny" yarn. Maizy. It's nice. I like it. I want to keep the socks I'm knitting with it. What more can I say?

This post is a lot like a gift basket. Throw a bunch of random crap together, slap a bow (in this case a title) on it, and call it good.

How I combat being a Scrooge.

It's hard to be a Scrooge when my kid loves everything about Christmas. I was not in the mood for caroling last night. Come to think of it, I never have been. Thankfully our ward mission leader is a lovely middle aged grandma who bakes fudge. I don't know if you know this, but fudge is a remedy for most things, even my PMS. She even had luke warm apple cider in a sippy cup ready for Scrunch. Mmmmm. Mmmmm. Mmmmm is what Scrunch said. Picture her classic Scrunch face and it was adorable. And there was the train around the tree. Mom how come we don't have one of those? (Tree included.) We're a little slow this year.

So while I snuck pieces of fudge from plates designated for those to be afflicted with our singing, Scrunch reverted back to the baby days where lights were mesmerizing. Looking at the lights through her eyes has made the primary colored lights cool again. I've reverted back to thinking about the twinkling rather than the ginormous electric bill that will closely match July's when the air conditioner is running full blast.

Christmas hasn't been really cool since I was fourteen and we got our first Playstation and autographed poster of Ben Affleck. It's been a minute since I've really, really looked forward to Santa. The last few years Christmas has been on the lame side. Even dreaded at times. But there is something about seeing Christmas through the eyes of my own child that makes it the most wonderful time of the year. Christmas is cool again. Even caroling was almost cool.

We need a little practice since as we walked out the door Husband belted out, "Hark the herald angels sing! Tra la la la la."

Scrunch has the la la la's down. We've been working on those.

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Getting in the Spirit of things.

In trying to get in the Spirit of things, I've compiled a list. Christmas is around the corner. Lets focus on the real meaning of things. I'm totally on board with the real meaning of Christmas.

• Minimize materialism.
• Handmade presents.
• Focus on what really matters.
• Even manned the Reflections of Christ exhibit to start things off right.
• Going Christmas caroling with the missionaries tonight.

And then the Pottery Barn catalog came...

Can Santa say "gift card"?

What makes a good party?

Good food.

Good friends.

Family.

And Diet Coke.

No event is complete without the Diet Coke. Ask Grami. Or Holly. Or just about anyone. BYOC (Bring your own Coke) is implied.

Thanks to all the friends and family who made it. And thanks to all those who couldn't make it, and prayed for us from a distance.

Our Family is Forever

When you look forward to something for such a long time and it happens, it takes a few days to recover and let everything sink in. And even a few more to collect all the pictures and recharge all the camera batteries.

It was just awesome. One of these days I will write about it. And I will tell you how I woke up crying for our birthmom and how much we love her and felt it on that day. I will tell you how the darling temple matron who helped us kept saying over and over "I'm so honored to be with you today." She has three little grand daughters herself who are adopted. I will tell you how Scrunch wore a blue diaper cover during the sealing which showed through her little white tights, but no one cared. How friends and family showed up to support us. Lots and lots of them.

I get that the party doesn't matter and it didn't matter whether or not the cupcakes matched the decorations or the pineapples made perfect flowers. But as she grows up and different things start to matter; When she wonders why she was adopted, I want to be able to show her the pictures and tell her what a special day it was, how many people love her, and how our sealing on Saturday is why her birthmom placed her with us. It's why we make any hard, loving choices in life. It's because families are forever.