Happy Birthday Dad!

Shanty Town

Gingerbread houses. What could be more Christmasy? My mother bought gingerbread house kits for each of the kids and my sister so they could have fun building and decorating them, and then enjoy their festive aura and spicy gingerbread scent all December long. We did have fun assembling. The proof is in the pictures:

AubreyEmily
Zac
Lauren
They turned out so perfectly sweet:
So then you might be wondering what would possess me to forever ban gingerbread houses from ever entering my happy little abode again. Our fun little works of art have turned into this:

Our own little gingerbread shanty town.

And this is the kind of stuff I have been hearing on an hourly basis for the last week:

(please read the following quotes in a high pitched, whiny voice)

"MOM!!! SOMEONE KEEPS EATING CANDY OFF MY GINGERBREAD HOUSE!!!!!"

"MOM!!! NOW THERE ARE 37 PIECES OF CANDY MISSING FROM MY GINGERBREAD HOUSE!!!"

"MOM!!! EMILY HAS CANDY IN HER MOUTH!!! I THINK SHE TOOK IT OFF MY GINGERBREAD HOUSE!!!!!"

"MOM!!! NOW THERE ARE 42 PIECES OF CANDY MISSING FROM MY GINGERBREAD HOUSE!!!"

"MOM!!! ZAC IS IN THE KITCHEN PULLING CANDY OFF THE GINGERBREAD HOUSES!!!!"

"MOM!!! NOW THERE ARE 49 PIECES OF CANDY MISSING FROM MY GINGERBREAD HOUSE!!!"

It has just brought so much fun to my holiday season. I think we are about to have a free for all, sugar mania, tear down the walls, shove it in your mouth as fast as you possibly can, gingerbread house distructo session, and what's left after that is going in the trash.

Flashback Friday - Christmas 1996

Allyson and Farrah

Steve and Allyson
We had to force Steve under the tree for this picture. You can tell he looks thrilled.

It's My Birthday Too Yeah!

Today is my 34th Birthday. In keeping with the blogging tradition of Farrah, Kristy and Coren (click on their names for their B-Day posts), here are 34 fascinating and totally useless facts about yours truly:

1. I have never had a haircut I have liked

2. Aside from the people and the ice cream, the thing I miss most about Texas is the rain

3. Most scented things give me a headache so I use unscented everything

4. I know that there are more than 50 ways to eat a pancake

5. I like my hot food to be hot and my cold food to be cold and my soup to be scalding

6. One of my favorite pass times is throwing things away

7. I could eat Frosted Mini Wheat's for 3 meals a day, everyday

8. I have a thing for music, I sing all the time, and I always have a song stuck in my head

9. My favorite song is Me and Bobby McGee (which I sing to my kids as a bedtime song), my favorite band is The Beatles, my favorite singer/songwriter is Carole King

10. My most favorite place to be in the whole world is in my husbands arms

11. I think old men are cute but they make me sad

12. One of my favorite foods is fried okra

13. Sometimes I shine my kids laser pointer in my neighbors windows

14. I drink water 99.9% of the time and I prefer it at room temperature

15. Cadbury mini-eggs are my favorite candy (please don't confuse them with the big nasty creamy ones, which most people do when I disclose this info. to them)

16. I check on my kids anywhere from 5-10 times a night after I put them in bed

17. I knew my husband for less than a week before I said I would marry him

18. I took Hebrew in high school for 2 years

19. I can't stand it when people put the toilet paper roll on backwards and if I am at your house and find it that way, I will correct it

20. I throw my kids school work and art projects in the trash as soon as I look at them

21. I love cemeteries and sometimes when I am alone I stop and walk around in them

22. I have always wanted to be a funeral director

23. I know all the words to the full version of American Pie by Don McLean, and that my friends is a long song

24. It freaks me out when people leave the lid off the milk when it is at the dinner table

25. I have this belief that everything is dishwasher safe and if I find out that it actually isn't, that's OK, I didn't want it anyway

26. The last movie I watched without falling asleep - ?????

27. I can make up a song about anything at the spur of the moment

28. I love American Idol in a very serious and sometimes scary way

29. I love musicals and my favorite is Fiddler On The Roof

30. I can quote the entire movie Dirty Dancing and I can do the dance at the end (well, I like to believe I can, if you saw me try you might have a different opinion)(which will never happen so don't even ask)

31. My favorite movie is The Big Chill

32. I would love to run The Amazing Race with my husband and I think we could win

33. I can't watch anything remotely scary and if a scary commercial comes on TV I must change the channel

34. Steve and I never fight

Monday Morning Musings - Hello Clarice

Current Song Stuck In My Head:

If you put rubber bands on your face like this:

You will smell and taste rubber bands for the rest of the night. I don't recommend it.

Does anyone else find it odd that this was my lunch yesterday and today and I was excited about it on both occasions?

You don't? Well then, clickity,click, click here.

Like A Bowl Full Of Jelly

The NIght The Lights Went Out In Georgia

OK, so I don't live in Georgia. And the lights actually went out in the day time. But this song has been going through my head all day long. It has been snowing since yesterday evening and it pretty much hasn't stopped. We have had a few brief pauses today, but not many. And it is coming down again as we speak. Or as I type and you read. This morning the power went out around 9 AM and didn't come on until 1 PM. So, what did we do to stay entertained while the lights were out????

• I showered by candlelight.

• The kids put on their snow suits, gloves, hats, coats, and snow boots and went outside for 2 minutes. Came back inside and took off their snow boots, coats, hats, gloves and snow suits.

• We repeated the above sequence several times until I said they could NOT go outside again.

• We had to smell our stinky gas fireplace that is in the basement. It still stinks in here. But I am VERY grateful we have it. It came in handy.

• We drove remote control cars in the house and chased the baby with them.

• We took great delight in knowing that our outside Christmas lights were actually off for the first time in 3 days and we didn't have to put forth any effort to make them that way.

• The girls got 500 games out and made a big fun to clean up mess.

• I added "can opener" to my grocery list. The electric one just wasn't doing the job.

• Steve, Keven (our juvenile delinquent neighbor) and I had push up contests. Steve won by a long shot. I tied with Keven.

Nut-Rageous

Ahhhh....It just wouldn't be Christmas without seeing the Nutcracker every day for a week. Well, OK. I'm exaggerating. A little. Emily and Aubrey take dance from Miss Margene, who we LOVE. This year was her 20th year to put on the Nutcracker. This was Emily's 3rd year to be in the Nutcracker and Aubrey's 2nd. They had practice Monday and Tuesday night and performances Wednesday and Thursday. And they do the whole show, no condensing. All 3+ hours. But it truly is magical to see. It is very well done and the costumes are beautiful. And so are the 2 dancers shown above. A special thanks goes out to my dear mother who took the girls to one practice and one performance so I didn't have to be there all 4 nights. We love the Nutcracker, but I am so thankful it has come and now it has gone. The girls did a wonderful job. They are such good little dancers. And they loved every minute of it.

Flashback Friday - Oh, Oh, Oh, It's Magic

Sorry Kristy

Allyson, Steve, Dustin (I spit in your general direction), Kristy, Farrah

Our server, Fred, and Kristy

I had a hard time finding a picture for Flashback Friday today. I looked and looked and nothing excited me. Then I came across these. I was thinking about this just the other day, so I chose this as my Flashback. It was December 1996. Steve and I were in Dallas for Christmas, Farrah was home from BYU for Christmas. We all went to the Magic Time Machine to eat. We had a good time dining on our "Roman Orgy". That's really what it was called. Don't believe me? Click on it and see.

Man Boobs, Britney Spears, and Nuts...They've All Got Me Thinking

My children are growing up. They have all gone up a size in clothes and shoes recently. But it is more than that. They are GROWING UP. They are not little kids anymore. Zac is so close to being a teenager, it freaks me out. And Emily might as well be a teenager by the way she acts sometimes. It is taking some getting used to. Like the other day when Zac and his friends were playing in the front yard and I heard one of them say, "Ouch! He hit me in the _____." I don't even want to say it because it sounds so vulgar to me. I don't talk that way, Steve doesn't talk that way, I don't want my kids to talk that way. At first I started to go into freakout mode, not an uncommon thing for me. Then I took a deep breath and calmed down. I thought to myself, "You know, he isn't a little baby anymore. I am sure he hears that all the time at school." It is hard for me because I have tried to protect my children from the influences of the world going on 11 years now. There is so much yucky in the world. But they are getting to the age where they are going to be going out into the world and I just have to have faith that I have done a good job in raising them and teaching them. I hope I have prepared them enough so that they can go into the world and make good choices and decisions without having me looking over their shoulders all the time. It makes me very grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ which plays such a prevalent part in my life and the lives of my children. I can't imagine life without it. I can't imagine what kind of mother and person I would be without it. I can't imagine how I would teach my children without it.

Wow. That got deeper than I planned. On a lighter note.....

Yesterday Zac brought home a book order flier and he showed the girls a book he thought they might like. It was entitled, "Oops, I Did It Again". So naturally I break into song, right? The thing that shocked the heck out of me was that Zac and Emily broke into song too. Right after I sang the first line, "Oops, I did it again", they finished it by singing, "I played with your heart, got lost in the game, oh baby baby". My jaw dropped open and I said, "HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT SONG???" Apparently it is on some computer game they play. Interesting. So you see what I mean? They are growing up and I am just going to have to get used to it.

Speaking of growing up, here is Emily's Christmas list she gave me (just in case any of you need to know what to get her):

i-pod

cat or bird

flat screen tv

candy

new clothes

new cell phone