Oops! I Did it Again!

Yes, it's true. Once again, I forgot I had a blog. Today I was sitting at a red light on State Street in Orem at the intersection of 1200 North and out of the blue I thought "Crap! I have a blog! I haven't written anything in days!" So here I am, penitent again. I sure hope I can make blogging a successful habit.

Okay- summary of the last 2 weeks. Jonathan- end of term- all A's again! Loves to go to Oak Canyon home basketball games. Shovels snow a lot. Skiing- twice so far this year. Has experienced changing clothes in the locker room for PE and survived! Nolan- got glasses. playing basketball (and made a basket in today's game), making pinewood derby car (must be ready to race on Thursday). Skiing- once so far this year. Developing monster-nasty attitude! Dan- nothing new (oh wait, I lied, Dan bough 20K worth of SII stock yesterday... hope it goes up or he'll have to put off retirement to compensate for lost money). Laura- Trek kick-off meeting done! 51 bridal shower invitations handmade and delivered! Pioneer dress- in progress, but let's not blog about that now. Laundry- in progress. Mom and dad have been here. They think Utah is miserably cold. My Zurg friend played with a mushroom and is now terribly sick (events are not related).

Dan is Spaciously Gifted (in some instances)

I took down all the Christmas decorations, beginning on January 1, 2008. I did 99% of that work myself. I got them nicely boxed up (done 100% by me)... and reduced the number of boxes of holiday carp by 2! It took both Dan and I working as a team to figure out how to get the tree back in its box, but we succeeded! I inventoried the boxes so I actually know what is in them come next December. Most important is that I remember that the "December First to Christmas" countdown ribbon is in the metal popcorn tin.

Today, I convinced Dan that this was the day to get the boxes out of the living room and down to the basement to the "closet under the stairs" and to the "little room". I told Dan that I was far too much of a weakling to haul the tree down the stairs. He rose to the challenge like a man. Heave! Ho! and Down the stairs it goes! Up and down the stairs we went, hauling the 20+ boxes. Then Dan began his magic.

See, while Dan cannot efficiently or effectively pack a suitcase, or put clothes in his dresser, he does wonders when it come to a car trunk or a closet. I told him where in the "closet under the stairs" the tree went and then Dan took over. When it was all said and done, every Christmas box was stored under the stairs except for the 3 that I told him didn't go in there and the box full of Christmas books (because I told him it was too heavy to be stacked on top of boxes with fragile items inside!). Last year, I put all the boxes away. When I got out all the Christmas stuff this year, I got lots of stuff out from the "closet under the stairs" and lots of stuff from the "little room". Dan was definitely more efficient at storing all the boxes than I was because now I have more room in the "little room" to store more useless carp... unless I choose to use that newly found additional space for food storage... now that's a thought.

The Most Boring New Year's Eve Ever

Yep, December 31, 2007 will go down in the history books as the most boring New Year's Eve ever! We actually motivated the boys to get their work/stuff done by 3 p.m. We bribed them with a late lunch/early dinner at Sweet Tomatoes. We made it to Sweet Tomatoes 5 minutes before the lunch pricing ended. Jonathan ate his usual 1/2 kids tray of plain pasta, 8 pieces of pizza, and 2 huge bowls of mac and cheese (how/why he loves that stuff, I just don't know). Anyway, after lunch/dinner (lunner?) we went home for a couple of hours. Around 7 p.m., Dan announced it was time to go see his parents. Whatever. So we went. We got there and Parley and Bona were watching the "Live from Lincoln Center" broadcast of the New York Philharmonic with Joshua Bell as the violinist. We sat there in relative silence until 9 p.m. When the concert ended, we went home. What a visit. We got home and had a Mario Kart Double Dash 4 player All Cup Tournament. I'm proud to say that I came in second once and third place 15 times! Dan won one race and came in last 15 times. Jonathan was the family champion by 1 first place victory over Nolan. This, of course, enraged Nolan who took the Poor Sport title as the threw a lovely tantrum. After the tournament, we finished watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (it only took us 3 nights to watch the movie). After the move, there was still more than 20 minutes until midnight. I fell asleep. I was woken up. We watched the ball drop. By 12:02 a.m., Dan, Nolan and I were in bed Jonathan went outside to "run around". He also filled his collection of 20 ounce soda bottles with water and jumped up and down flinging the water out of the bottles. He was back inside by 12:05 a.m. and in bed shortly thereafter. And that was New Year's Eve.

Cole Ethan

Finally, Little Cole is here! Cole was born yesterday, December 27th, 2007, to Aly and Rob . I think Aly would say "It's about time!" For the past 2 weeks, Aly has been doing everything in her power to get Cole here. Finally, she succeeded in conning him out with the help of pitocin. Cole is 8 lbs. 6 oz and 20.5 inches long. He has hair! Thick, 1" long, jet black hair. Either he has no cone head, or his hair does an awesome job hiding it! So far, he's a sleeper. We'll see what happens when he get home!

I got to keep Aly's kids while she was in labor. You never would have known that Shalyn was at my house. Avery kept wanting to play the "Crab Game" with Dan. She drove him nuts. If she wasn't harassing Dan about "Crab Game", she was busy playing Nintendo or Little People. She played "Little People Amusement Park" with Jonathan's beloved Nascar model cars. He was not thrilled. Zane was impossible to ignore. He is a busy, busy 19 month old. He rearranged all my nativities for me. He played blocks with my advent calendar. He dragged around a Santa rug while telling me "ho, ho, ho". He removed "Redeemer of Israel" from the hymn book. He cleared off Nolan's bookcase for me. Zane cleaned out my kitchen cabinet with paper goods in it. He crushed all the plastic cups he could find, threw plates around, and dumped out the plastic utensils. He ate pretzels and wanted "molk" all day long. He did take an awesome 2.5 hour nap for me. He must have been exhausted from being so busy!

So now Aly has a spouse, 12 year old, a 5 year old, an 19 month old and a newborn to keep track of at home. Good luck Aly!

Our Triceratops

So we have a dinosaur computer. Really- it's about 5 years old; doesn't that qualify it to be a dinosaur? It is an HP. We have an equally ancient screen- no nice flat screen; it's a incredibly heavy, bulky monster. Anyway, our triceratops came with only 256 mb of memory (not the hard drive, but the other memory). Anyway, Dad decided that he would help give new life to our triceratops and gave us and additional 512 mb of memory to help speed things along (think of the added memory as fiber for the ol' dinosaur). Memory is easy to install and Dan was motivated today (he even started organizing the garage!). He stuck the memory in the computer and did a reboot (would that be considered CPR?). Our triceratops roared to life! It sang us the "Windows" song; the wallpaper popped up; all the icons appeared on the desktop. We were getting excited as we timed it to determine its new boot up time. Then, a meteor hit our dinosaur. In a instant the screen went black and a lovely message appeared- No Operating System Found. What? Our triceratops had been plugging along for years. Okay, limping is probably most accurate, but at least it was working. So we turned it off and tried again. Still no operating system found. We removed the new memory, but alas, extinction for our triceratops. We called in the expert- Dad says weird, reinstall your Operating System. Yes! New life for the triceratops loomed on the horizon. As quickly as a ray of light was provided, it was snuffed out. Our operating system disks were missing. I considered the Geek Squad. I thought about our old mailman David's new Computer repair business, but then I remembered Brad. Brad is a computer wiz who removed nearly 100 viruses from his in-laws computer and rebooted their OS. We put in a 911 call to Brad. 30 minutes later, Brad was here to save the day- armed with 2 boot up disks (a CD and a floppy!). He started to weave his spell on the triceratops. He wiggled the connections and did a trial boot up (without installing anything) to see if there was any hope. The triceratops roared to life! She booted and found her operating system! She rose from the dust, emerged from her demise as a phoenix rises from its ashes! Yes, the triceratops lives on. We got to keep the boot up disks; but I still plan to back up my important files before she becomes permanently extinct.

So I'm a blogging failure

Well, I guess the best thing I can say about my blog is that I am inconsistent. I have good intentions, but not the time or energy to "write it down". But, hey, I've got a few more entries on my blog-journal than I would if I was limiting myself to the use of a ball point pen and paper journal keeping. Here's what's been keeping me so busy (not in chronological order!)

Wrapping- Yuck. Yep, that sums it up. I hate wrapping Christmas presents. Buying = fun. Disguising purchase with wrapping paper = chore. Sometimes I wish I could be as tacky as Dan and think that a Walmart bag is good wrapping paper. This year, not only did I have to wrap all the carp that I bought, but I wrapped Jonathan's stuff, Nolan's stuff, Amy's stuff, and finished my Mom's stuff. Whatever... 2 rolls tape, and 3 finished up rolls of wrapping paper later, I am done! I have too much wrapping paper- This year I limited the choices of wrapping paper to stuff that was already partially used. Now I have 7 rolls of partially used paper, and 13 rolls of still cellophane sealed paper to use (and that's just the Christmas stuff).

Choir Concerts- Nolan has had 3 this month (and a Sacrament meeting musical number too). Yes, I conquered the snowman for the school performances and he was such a hit that the choir goddesses have put him away in the deep freezer to save him for another year. I don't care what happens to Mr. Snowman as long as he and his iridescent glitter stay far away from my house! (Oooooo look! I learned to upload images to my blog!) By the way, Nolan was fabulous at all his performances and did a great job with his one-line solo... "We built a slick kicker in the backcountry all the way". I don't know what that means.

Driving Freshmen to the Airport- Yes, of course this was horribly time consuming, but alas, a necessary evil! I got to assume taxi service for Amy and Leslie to the SLC airport so they could return to California for Christmas and defrost. Not a big deal, right? Well, Amy knew someone who needed a ride to the airport as well so we took him too. I warned Amy and Leslie to pack light because, #1, their closets and dressers in Livermore are still full of clothes, and #2, I have a very small Prizm or a very uncomfortable to ride in pick-up truck to use as a taxi. We didn't warn Taylor to pack light because he is a boy and by nature, boys think that for a 2 week break, they only need two outfits- one to wear and one to pack. So I figured thing would be aquishy, but no problem. Amy brought 1 suitcase and a duffel bag, Leslie brought 1 suitcase, Taylor brought 2 monster sized, turbo loaded suitcases. Good thing I brought the truck. Unfortunately, Amy and Leslie ended up in the back seat (or back half-seat) with the front seats jammed into their knees. Sorry girls, but it was free transportation.

Homework- Yes, Jonathan is still organizationally challenged. He lost an entire term's worth of journal entries for drama. It took days to track down the assigned subjects and hours to motivate him to re-create the entries that took him less than an hour to write. For some reason, grades aren't too important to Jonathan this term. It's like he is thinking, Straight A's... been there, done that. Grrrr! He's doing awesome in all his academic subjects, but lousy (for him) in the wienie classes.

Vacations- Vacations are a necessity. We spent 4 days in Midway, Utah doing absolutely nothing scheduled. The boys swam at least 2x per day. We went sledding. We cross-country skied twice. We watched Elf twice. I watched "What Not to Wear" about 6 times. We watched the U of U and BYU bowl games. We ate candy. We played ping pong. We slept in (everyone but Nolan, that is). I took a nap at 9 a.m. one day! Sounds like a perfect trip.

My final excuse- I was at Walmart before 7 a.m this morning. I know, what a great excuse for not maintaining my blog. Last night, at 10:52 p.m. when I thought I had finished all the wrapping, I realized that I had given the gift I bought for my friend's bnirthday (whose birthday is tomorrow on Christmas) away to someone as a Christmas gift. Ahhhh! Off to Walmart I ran today. Not only did I have to buy her a birthday gift, but I had to finish Amy's shopping for her. Smooth and slick Amy! I bought Shauna a book, handheld Yahtzee for Dan from Amy (and Leslie the shopping procrastinator), batteries for all the new carp that the boys are getting tomorrow (17 AA, 4 AAA, 4 D), milk, and bananas for the stocking.

So there, you have a few of my lack of blogging excuses. I'm sure my inactivity has cost me my entire blog following, but oh, well- maybe I can bribe them back. Here's to good intentions!

Snowmen Should Be Made Out of Snow.

That's right (see title), hence the name "snowman". I guess I am a little slow at the concept of the main ingredient of a snowman being snow. On Friday I started making the biggest snowman of my life. His bottom is 36" diameter. His tummy is about 30", and his head is 16". It's all made out of paper mache and is sitting in pieces in my kitchen. Why? Well, somehow I got volunteered to be the set designer and creator for Nolan's school choir (sounds like something my mom would have volunteered for). Seriously, I was asked if I would help with the decorating, I said I'd help, then boom! it's all mine with no one helping me!

The director wants a sign that says "Snow Biz", a bunch of snowflakes, and this monster snowman. Sign- easy. Snowflakes- it got really monotonous, but not a problem. Mr. Snowman- well, so far he is winning. I blew up balloons for his body forms and got 2 coats of newspaper and starch on him on Friday morning/early afternoon. Amy and I got coat #3 on him Friday night. Saturday came around and I was so anxious to pop the balloons inside of him that I couldn't wait any longer. I popped the balloons and that's when the troubles began.

First, the deflating balloons pulled the snowman's sides inward with the deflating balloon. Not a big deal- I just blew the sides out and he was round again. Next, I cut part of the bottom off so Mr. Snowman could sit on a flat surface and not roll around. Fine. Then I cut a piece of the top of the bottom level of the snowman off so his tummy could sit securely on his bottom. Worked fine. Same procedure for the head- no problem. Then I put a scarf on him and he collapsed. The weight of the scarf was too much for the flimsy body of Mr. Snowman. So I reshaped him and am solving that problem by using a piece of fleece that is lighter weight than my scarf. Now I decide it's time to paint Mr. Snowman white. The edges where I cut Mr. Snowman got too wet from the paint and have started to tear. That's where I got frustrated and left Mr. Snowman to stay in pieces all over the kitchen. He's really annoying me and and I wish he would come together as I envisioned. Time for more creative thinking.

Maybe I could use him unassembled and he can be a knocked over snowman. Or better yet, maybe I can convince the choir director to make it Christmas in Tuscan and there can be a giant Saguaro instead of a snowman.