Cowboy Joe Bus

I promised a friend in my ward, Becca Sorensen, that I would post a pic of their cool Wyoming Cowboys bus. They bought it cheap and fixed it up (it even has a loud horn that I think plays some type of UW Cowboy tune), and now drive it around for fun, going to UW football games, and other random but fun things such as delivering Christmas treats this past December. I think it's awesome! Wouldn't that be a fun traveling vehicle? Although, I think Gil would die of embarrassment. It's a teenager thing.

I took this pic at the UW Homecoming football game we went to in Laramie last fall, October 11th. It was a great surprise to be watching the parade that morning, and to see familiar faces and a big brown bus coming up the street! I think that's their little girl Anna waving her pom poms out of the window. Do you see the building in the background on the right? That's the LDS Institute and singles ward church building, where Zen and I went when were were in college there at UW, so many years ago. Our first dance, our first date, soooo many memories!!! I wish we'd been able to go inside. We'll probably be back at UW this fall for the next Cowboys game. Should be fun!

Today was a full day. I weeded through my email, filing lots of things, still have to reply to some. Then I ordered some movies on Amazon for a family movie night, maybe this Friday. We're going to watch Better Off Dead, for sure. Gil saw it at a friend's house, and we were laughing ourselves to tears quoting lines to each other. So, here comes the dvd to relive the funnies: "I want my $2!" "Can I date Beth? {postman}" "Do you know what the street value of this mountain is?!!!" "French bread {say fronch}, french dressing, and french fries" "Sorry we blew up your Mom, Rickie" and the list goes on, and on. Some other ones I did are Bedtime Stories, Madagascar, Madagascar 2, Polar Express (Connor still talks about it from watching it at Ryan and Michelle's last December), and a series of anime films by the famous Japanese filmmaker, Hayao Miyazaki, whose films have had the highest grossing sales in Japan. We'll have to make batches of homemade popcorn, guacamole dip, and have ourselves a great time.

Then, I did some other paperwork things in my craftroom, ran to Wal-Mart, literally ran around the store getting my shopping list ready, cooked shrimp linguine in record time for Zen, who had to leave at 4:15pm for a week, and got some eBay orders ready to ship. I went out to my car to run the packages to the post office, and discovered the car battery was dead. I was so panicked, that I started grabbing bikes to find one that didn't have a flat tire, so I could ride one down to the post office, maybe a five-minute ride. But they were all flat! Just when I was about to start walking, my neighbor Carma Lee drove by on her way to run errands. I flagged her down and she helped me jumpstart my car. Kids leave a door ajar all the time, which leaves the inside lights on, which runs down the car battery. I've become really good at jumpstarting that crusty old van. So, Connor and I got the packages mailed, and went back home to a panicked Dani and a hysterical Emma.

Yesterday, Emma started a runny nose. It continued today, and developed into watery eyes and a slight temperature, and by 5pm, she was screaming her guts out, completely inconsolable. I knew what that meant: ear infection. When I got back from the post office, it was about 5:10 pm. I didn't have a lot of hope that there was anyone at the doctor's office that could see her, but I called anyway. Boy, was I lucky! They were still around, and sure enough, she has a raging ear infection. I've dosed her up on her anitibiotics, antihistamine for babies, and Tylenol, but she's been fussy all night. It's 1am now, and I don't know if I'll get any sleep. At 10:50pm I was going to go to bed, and get up early, and have a wonderfully productive day tomorrow, but she woke up, and after trying to get her back to sleep, I let her play in the tv room. I put her back in bed around 12:30am. I can hear her crying again right this minute, so I better go and get her. We'll see what happens tomorrow...

Ten Months Old

Emma is getting closer and closer to her year mark. Had to take some pics of her today, as she is now ten months old. Foofie!!!!


She's making more and more forays outside, as the number of warm days increase.



Emma's nicknames, from most recent to oldest:

1. Deet-Deet (a take-off on her baby babbling), it's like Chris' baby name Uttie. Deet-Deet, or just Deet, might stick for a while
2. Foofie, Foofie-Loo-Who, Foo-Foo
3. Baby Lovie (very brief)
3. Emma-Loo-Hoo, Sassy-Loo-Hoo (although this has been reassigned to Dani for the most part), Baby-Loo-Hoo
4. Bunny, Bunny-Loo-Hoo, Baby Bunny

A ginormous amount of posting today, it's now 2am, good night.

End Post #77, 2009

A Cookie Phase

Aahhh... sweet lusciousness. These are Peanut Butter cookies w/ Reece's Pieces, and in the back are sugar cookies with a few orange sprinkles ala Halloween. Tangent - can I just say that I think it's awesome that my B-day is in October? I have always loved having pumpkin-shaped b-day cakes. Orange, purple, yellow, and black are great color combos.

Anyway, I've been on this weird cookie-baking binge lately, where I HAVE to make a batch of cookies almost every day. Yesterday it was the peanut butter cookies and today was the sugar cookies. It's like my commitment to exercising, a daily thing. But they work at cross-purposes. What's up with that?


End Post #76, 2009

The Funny Man

Connor says the funniest things sometimes. He's got a cool vibe. This past Christmas, when I was hangin' with my fam at New Year's, and Zen and the kids were at Ryan and Michelle's house, Zen and Ryan were out shopping for a game I think, and Ryan goes to Connor, "Hey, Dude!" and Connor goes, "My name's not Dude, it's Connor." Put it in a James Dean or John Wayne tone, and you get the idea. Ryan thought it was so funny, and that's why I have the story to tell.

Well, today, we accomplished the impossible, and made it to Church 20 Minutes EARLY. Yep, hell froze over today. It was only because we came early to practice a song for a choir performance. Believe me, being early didn't happen just randomly. Anyway, we got there, nobody's in the chapel yet, and Connor looks around and says, "Hey, it's closed!" I'm STILL laughing! Gets funnier the more I think about it. This is the kid who woke up one morning and said, "My butt's all cracky." I won't tell you his observation about the other side of his body in the morning. Even I have my limitations of what I can say, or write, in public.

And for an encore this evening, I found Emma five minutes after I'd finished bathing and dressing her for bed, wet from head to toe because Connor thought it would be fun to pour water on her. I tracked him down in the bathroom, standing in front of the toilet contemplating the universe while he decided to pee or not. "Why did you get Emma all wet, I just finished getting her ready for bed!" It's the redundant sort of irritated question a parent asks, not really wanting an answer. It's meant to induce guilt, and it's why kids developed the "I don't know" answer. They know saying anything else is kind of pointless. So he says something banal like, "Because," so I gave his naked little hiney a swat so he'll take me more seriously. He rolls his eyes at me and mumbles, "That did't hurt." For a few seconds I had a Mommie Dearest moment, and thought about swatting his butt a few more times, "I'll show you pain!" But I took a deep breath, tried not to giggle, which he noticed and said, "Yeah, it's funny!" So, I breathed again, put on a serious face, and said, "No, it's not funny. Don't do that to Emma, it hurts Mommy's feelings when you do things like that." The guilt card. Yeah, I played it. Sigh. Anyway, I left him there to contemplate things some more, and changed Emma's jammies.

That kid.

Here's a pictoral illustration from a little moment yesterday:

First he wanted to see pics on my camera which he took of Gil's friend, Ty, but I'd already deleted them because they were blurry. So he was all upset about that. And I tried to mollify him with pictures of himself, which he usually loves. But he was having none of that today. "No Mom, I want to see the pictures of Ty!"

No, not pictures of me.

Yep, for some reason we all thought it was funny to keep taking his picture.

Assaulted by the paparazzi. Yep, I've got a therapy savings account for my kids.

He came back later and wanted me to take pictures of his sad face. Weird kid.

I did the old, "Don't smile, you better not smile!" gag. Works every time.

You made me smile! We did this a few more times, and he was mostly over his tears. But he did this thing he does often where he continues on with this kind of fake whimpering for the next ten minutes, having normal conversation in between whimpers. It sounds so funny. I'll have to video tape it sometime.

End Post #75, 2009

Fun USA Widget

Came across this on a friend's blog. Thought you might want to get one for yourself:


visited 12 states (24%)
Create your own visited map of The United States

Yep, I edited mine a little in Photoshop, to show where we currently live. I can do one for you, if you wish.

My Retraction

I feel so humbled today. Humbled not in a "I am a lowly worm" kind of way, but in a grateful, heart-overflowing-with-gratitude kind of way. I think it's obvious from the last few posts that I have been having a case of the blahs, and not really been up to my best. Kind of being crude, lackadaisical, sit-down-in-the-middle-of-the-road-because-I-just-don't-feel-like-walking-anymore kind of attitude. Having not so great thoughts, struggling a lot through some sludge, and wanting to get on top of it, and get back to being useful.

But I was standing in sacrament meeting today, singing in the choir between speakers. And as the song had just finished, and I was putting down my music, I looked over at our choir director, Sister Riddle, and I thought about how she had hesitantly asked us, in our brief practice before church, to change something in the last few measures of the song. She is always saying how inadequate she feels as a director. And standing there, I just had this moment of love for her as our performance was over, knowing that I was willing, without question, to do as she asked. I had submitted myself to her direction with love, and would do so gladly again, and always feel that way. I felt warmth from the Spirit break through the general mess in my head, and I felt so grateful that the Spirit would give something to me, anything, after the last few days. I just felt grateful for the rest of the meetings, grateful that even though I'm kind of a putz sometimes, that I have so many issues to overcome, but that Heavenly Father is still mindful of me, still willing to bless me, even with something so small.

I can keep going, keep allowing for the possibility of progression, still grateful instead of discouraged that the bar is higher, excited about a higher place to reach to instead of slown down by my own mediocrity. I seriously could use some improvement in some areas, and some things probably flat-out need an intervention, but despite my weaknesses and stubbornness, I know that I love Heavenly Father and the Savior, and just want to be useful to them, to love and serve their children, as they have given so much to us, to me personally. I find it hard to comprehend at times, in the billions, trillions, of people that have lived on just this planet, not even counting any others, how they could love me personally, and how to comprehend having a personal relationship with them in the eternities, but I just know I want to please them, to be fundamentally good, and to partake in the joy that I have been fortunate enough to experience at times here, and hope to partake of in even greater measure in the eternities.

End Post #73, 2009

Because The Man Upstairs Is Just Not That Stupid

Yep, I was maudlin at 2am last night. But it hasn't gone away quite yet. Just more thoughts on heaven/hell. For some reason, I found myself on Dug's blog this afternoon completely wasting time, and laughing myself to tears. And it occurred to me that when it's all said and done, I'll probably wind up in some level of heaven/hell with the people who appreciate fart jokes. I mean, after being a parent for nearly 15 years now, I just can't see The Man Upstairs giving me dominion over an endless number of children and worlds without end. Yes, we go to church every Sunday, we read our scriptures about 50% of the time, say prayers on the food, get our visting teaching/home teaching done (most of the time), kiss and hug the kids (sometimes more than they want, sometimes less), I am "friendly" to my husband way more often than I am naturally inclined, I send lots of loving thoughts out into the universe, am kind to animals, etc., but really, I boss those kids around at bedtime like their drill sergeant (Sue can play witness for that, gave her bad flashbacks to our childhood), I let the house go to crap a good part of the time, I have about a 5 minute attetion span when it comes to playing with my kids, I teach them fart jokes (but is that such a bad thing?), I backslap the teenagers' heads when they are being mouthy or just stupid, and the Bad-Mother-List goes on... and on... and on... And, besides the idea of that much repsonsibility in the eternities kind of makes my head hurt. All I ask is that He give me something useful and constructive to do, so that I can make a decent contribution. Please, that's all I want. Oh, and to be with people who appreciate potty humor. We'll be the ones cackling three levels down, and only slightly miserable most of the time.

Another thing I've concluded from my useless blog reading today, is that I need a better camera phone, for impromptu pics when I'm not lugging around the digital SLR. How many times have I wished for a camera, and not had one? But I almost always have a cell phone with me. Tiny cameras are good for sneaky/goofy little pics, like this one from Gil at Easter: