I'm just being honest.

My aerobics instructor recently had breast augmentation. And I'm jealous! (In a I'm happy for her way). She looks great. Not unnatural at all, just great. Would I ever pay thousands of dollars for breast augmentation. Probably not. Would I do it if I won it in a drawing? Probably yes. I'm not entirely sure where I stand because the point is pretty much moot. If I had thousands of dollars to spend frivolously, like pocket change....hmmm....I don't know. Most likely I'd rather buy airfare to Taiwan. If I could buy all the airfare to Taiwan I wanted and still had thousands of dollars to spend frivolously, like pocket change....hm.......tempting. See? Moot.

But to be able to buy undergarments in the actual women's section like a woman and not in the 'training' section with the 10 year olds? A pleasant (and vain) dream.

An aside:
I just heard Lily ask her best friend, Eeliana, "Do you want some lemonade?" Eeliana responds suspiciously, "Is it made out of chicken blood?"

Does she know us or what?

Don't die of shock....

but I am going to post some photos.

The trampoline. Still popular, even in winter.

Rune really likes to pose with gravestones. Or Grant really likes to pose his kids with gravestones. Or I have no idea why this picture was taken or when, I just included it because I didn't have another shot of Rune.

Lily all dressed up for Chinese New Year holding her Fa Gao. She got her picture taken for the newspaper this day. That's the great thing about small town papers. You just have to dress up in Chinese New Year clothes and it's news worthy!

Taken by themselves the following three pictures seem to prove that Violet only ever wears her nightgown and that I never comb her hair.

However, if you look closely, this picture proves that I do actually dress her occasionally. Unfortunately it still proves that I never comb her hair. It also showcases Lily's fabulous optometry skills. These were big dollar glasses.

The following two photos indicate my addiction to taking close ups of Alma and his earnest blue eyes. Notice I have pretty much the same shot of him in the sidebar.

Rune found these fun sentences. Can you figure them out?

Go hang a salami, I'm a lasagna hog.

so many dynamos

Sit on a potato pan Otis.

Valentine Poetry

By Lily Smith
7 years old
(She may possibly have a future career with Hallmark)

My Little Sweetheart

I give my love a kiss,
It gave him a bliss,
I gave my love a dove,
And sparkles came from above.



My Valentine

Won't you be my Valentine?
It would be so very fine,
If you would be mine.
If you didn't I would whine.

In this season of gushy Christmas letters

I will now recap a few of the highlights of my 2010 that would not make it into a Christmas letter.

1. The day I took Lily to the wrong birthday party and left her there. With complete strangers.

Long version: Lily came home with a birthday invite to Heaven's birthday party. I put it safely in the drawer where all random papers, school notes, important things that don't have to be dealt with immediately go. Lily took it back out at some point to admire it and, of course, lost it. We were positive of the date and the place of the party, just not the time. So we bought a present and started checking the park at 10 am. Nothing. 11 am. Nothing. 1 pm. A party! I pull up and Lily immediately sees a friend. She yells, "Lizbeth!" and runs off the play. I take the present over to the present table and ask a pair of grandparents, "Is this Heaven's party?" The Grandma says, "Yes, this is the party." I ask when I should pick Lily up and she points me to another lady who is busy decorating. I ask that lady who gives me a slightly strange look and says, "An hour?" in a voice that says she's a bit confused why I would ask that. I put the look and voice down to party stress and figure it must have said on the invitation what time the party would be over and so she's wondering why I'm asking. So I go merrily on my way, amuse myself at home for a hour, then come back for Lily. As I pull up I see that there are a disproportionate number of small toddlers and adults at the party and a surprising lack of second grade girls. I sit down next to Lily who happily announces, "Heaven never came!" To her own party? Then I notice two very small children, about 3 and 1, who have special cakes with a candle in them. The mother of the kids with cakes comes to check on them and I ask, "Whose party is this?" She answers with surprise that it's Roslyn's party. I apologize profusely, she's really nice, I sort of explain the mix up but leave out the part about Grandma because I don't want to make the family feel that I'm blaming everything on poor deaf Grandma, she says she just figured Lily was Lizbeth's friend (Lizbeth happens to be cousins with Roslyn), we leave the present with Roslyn even though she's inundated with presents already and her parents are having to force her to keep opening when she really just wants to play with the first thing she opened, I try to leave discreetly, Lily loudly insists on finishing her cake, I finally manage to skulk off with Lily in tow. The end.

P.S. It turns out Heaven's party was a 4pm. And Lily has been informed that she will no longer be allowed to attend birthday parties if the invitation is lost.

2. The day I caught one of my primary students getting a drink of water out of my diva cup.

Long version: Be forewarned. If you do not know what a diva cup is then you may not want to google it because understanding this story could be very disturbing for you.

This year Eliseo has become good friends with Daniel who also happens to be one of the children in my primary class at church. Daniel comes over often. He's a cute and funny kid who has no problem making himself at home. One day, after school, as I'm puttering around the house, I wander into the bathroom on some errand and stop dead in my tracks as I see Daniel gulping water out of my diva cup which I had rinsed that morning and set on the bathroom vanity. My immediate impulse is to scream at him to stop but I perceive in the same instant the awkward situation that would result when he wants to know what is so wrong about drinking from that cup. So I stand there and cringe mightily until he is done and runs out of the bathroom then I grab the cup and put it on the highest shelf I can find. The end.

3. The day I tried to imitate my children and fell on my bottom.

Long version: We arrive at church. Late, probably. The kids, on their way to the doors, all decide to stomp on a green plastic cover thing embedded into the grass. I'm guessing it's covering some sort of lawn sprinkling controls or something. I decide it would be cute and funny if I, also, stomp on it on my way into church. So I do. And my church shoe slides right over the green plastic and I ungracefully land flat on my bottom. I would like to say that no one saw me, but I can't. Although the plus side to being late to church is that there are not AS MANY people in the parking lot to see you when you do something ridiculous.

4. The day I fell on my bottom during choir practice.

Long version: I decide that joining the ward choir would be a good bonding experience for Lily and I. It's the first day we attend. I'm at the end of the row of altos. The choir director tells us to scooch over a tad. We scooch and scooch until I scooch myself right off the small step that leads down to the piano and I fall ungracefully onto my bottom. Lily looks at me like all daughters would look at their mother when she falls on her bottom in front of the choir on the first day.

I can't wait to see what new mortifications 2011 will bring.

The Winger's slogan "Just Wing It" irritates the heck out of me. I love plays on words just as much as the next advertising slogan sucker but I believe that these plays on words should at least make a modicum of sense in the multiple contexts to which they are referring. Otherwise it is not "play" it is just silly.

I have to pass a large Wingers billboard every time I go into town. And every time it irritates me. In one context Just Wing It obviously refers to "just eat a lot of wings." So far so good. But the other context should make sense with the real meaning of the phrase which is to try something even though you are not properly sure how to carry out the action. And the action referenced to must be the action of eating the wings? I suppose you could have some sort of esoteric conversation as to the proper way to eat wings, but really, eating chicken is not something you have to wing. Most everyone has been doing it since chicken was domesticated around 100,000 years ago (Note: that is not a real fact, I made it up since Grant the archaeologist is not around to ask). This slogan really only makes sense if it is targeting babies with newly erupted teeth or long time vegetarians. People who don't have any recent experience in chicken eating and who may actually not have an idea how to properly execute the action. However, I don't think this is Wingers target audience. In which case the slogan is irritating.

And just as soon as I forget that I'm annoyed at their slogan I make the turn off into town and.... there it is: the actual restaurant. And I'm irritated all over again.

For the love of Pete can someone else please rent that billboard!

It's that time of year again

In which I begin to hate my life because it's winter.

Ode to Winter Hatred
by Sally

Snow. I hate you.
Cold. I hate you.
Frost. I hate you.
Hot Chocolate. I hate the necessity of you.
Sledding. I hate you.
Snowmen. I hate you.
Ice. I hate you.
Winter Wonderland. I think there is absolutely nothing wonderful about you at all. And I hate you.
Eileen. I hate you because it is 90 degrees where you live and I mistake extreme jealousy for hatred.
People who live between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. I hate all of you for the same above reason.
Late October. I hate you.
November. I hate you.
December. If it wasn't for Christmas I would hate you. I almost hate you anyway.
January. I loathe you.
February. I hate and loathe you.
March. I hate you because you NEVER go out like a lamb. You are lion through and through.
Any temperature below 65 F. I hate you.
Winter. Apparently some people like you, but I don't.
I hate you.