blah-ging

lately, when it comes to blogging, i feel like the old lady in the lifecall commercial who calls out - i've fallen and i can't get up. for real. i have a million things to write about, at least a dozen posts floating around in my head, but when i sit down to actually write about anything, nothing sounds good. it all feels overwhelming, irritating and just plain not fun. so i'm taking a break to just lay on the proverbial bathroom floor.

quirky bits

it is a well-known fact, for those who know me best, that i wear flip-flops year round. mostly it's because of spiders - i know, i know, i need therapy, but long story short, i just really prefer an open-toed shoe. in fact, i really only own one pair of socks. besides the spider factor, my feet are rarely ever cold and a little snow on the toes really doesn't bother me at all. last monday april came over for a visit to find me shovelling the driveway in my flip-flops.she found it humorous enough to take a photo and commented about how it's just "so wende". she's right, and it's such an accurate "portait" of me and my quirky tendancies that i had to post it, you know, for posterity and all. (and yes, that's ethan's new tiny shovel - i swear it works better than the big ones for clearing those last little bits of ice). by the way, i do wear closed-toed shoes some times and i especially love slippers for around the house.

**tell me about the qurirky bits of you!**

**do you have a fear of naked toes meeting arachnid in the dark unseen spaces of your shoe?**

progress

we were pounded by a couple of mother snow storms this past week and i'm so happy because it's finally looking like christmas around here! it's probably very cliche, but i swear it just isn't that same without the fluffy white stuff. i know snow is supposed to be some kind of big pain, but i've never really minded it, it's just part of life in utah. allie suited ethan up for some snow play and i knew we had already made leaps and bounds of progress when he let her put on his snow pants and boots! last year, he strongly objected any time the snow pants made an appearance. lately, he is really into doing whatever the older kids are doing, and knowing that the big kids were going to be doing a lot of shovelling soon, i bought him his own tiny snow shovel the other day at target.it's a huge hit except that he was shovelling the snow from the grass to the side walk.oh well, that will come eventually right? allie had to bribe him to come back in the house, even after more than an hour, he was not ready to come inside. and since he loved the disneyland rides so much, i'm thinking that our next step is sledding. p.s. all of these photos are courtesy of taylor who treked out into the snow with the camera because his mother didn't want to. -thanks taylor!

let there be light

thanks to troy and karrie who spent about two hours at my house, i have finally said good bye to the last of the horrible brass lights in my house! i bought new fixtures for the entry way and dining room table about a YEAR ago because i found a good deal, but rich and i are electrically challenged so in the boxes they sat until karrie volunteered troy for the job! the old entry way fixture was a pretty big brass and glass beast and once the new one was hung karrie said, "welcome to this century" - my sentiments exactly!slowly but surely we're updating this house. although most days it feels more like "slowly" rather than "surely". one bonus of the new lighting is that my pretty yellow walls stay pretty even after the sun goes down. they used to look like a kind of gross yellow with the old lights. thanks troy and karrie, you guys made my day! now i just need to get that dang moulding painted!

that "one thing" that everyone needs

one of the reasons that saturday was a perfectly wonderful day...we decided that this was our tenth christmas recital, nineteenth over all. allie has loved every minute of it and i'm just so grateful that she has something that she loves so passionately. i think every child, and especially teenagers, need that "one thing" that they do well and love enough to work really hard at. something that builds their self-esteem on days that they feel like they're not good at anything. it is an absolute delight to watch her, at least for her mother it is! except, that i always feel genuinely shocked at how much she's grown since the last recital. like the girl on stage couldn't possibly be the same girl who lives at our house. although she resembles her a great deal, the girl on stage is just so grown up and mature and focused. it's strange and wonderful all at the same time. part of the reason these days are so special, is the lovely cheering section we always seem to have.

lovely lucky loved girl.

i don't know about you, but i'm running right out to by this cologne

i've had a rough couple of days. hey, i'm just being honest. nothing major, in fact, saturday was a perfectly wonderful day, except that i just couldn't shake the feeling that i was going to burst into tears for no reason. i hate days like this. what is it? pms? depression? i don't know, but today was better, i was so productive today, and productivity always helps. and there was this other thing that helped too... i went out to my mail box today and among the piles of junk mail and christmas ads was a macy's ad - only in the form of a phone book - sheesh! save the trees people! anyway, there were several perfume ads and this one fell out into my lap, literally, when i sat down to thumb through the pile. i picked it up and stared at it for almost a full minute before it hit me just how hillarious this photo is. i mean, what the hell was the photographer thinking taking a picture from this angle? and in a white speedo no less! and how is the model keeping a straight face while trying to look relaxed and confident with where the photographer must be standing while he's all spread eagle! and what in the world does this have to with smelling good? this guy all oiled up and sweaty, baking in the sun doesn't really make me think of nice smells. so i had one of those belly, tears coming out of my eyes kind of laughs over the whole thing. it's so stupid, but man, i feel better. so just incase you might be experiencing some winter blues, here's a photo that might make you at least smile and think, "at least i'm not wearing a white speedo in a perfume ad". note: rich just asked me if i was putting this photo up on the blog because it must remind me of him....um, no thank goodness.

**is it just me, or is this photo totally ridiculous?**

** did you laugh or squirm?**

** do you think maybe i should see a therapist if i find this amusing?**

whip it....whip it good

after theraputic thursday at my house this week....kristy just may be the kids new favorite blogger mom in the group. she brought the dessert - some fabulous sour lemon pie - but the kids really went for something else, like, the can of whipped cream she's holding in her hand.it was impossible to get a photo of them all with whipped cream in their mouth at the same time because they kept swallowing it. but, they were having a blast, and we were getting a couple of fun laughs. funny kristy.

let's talk about crohn's baby

every three months taylor, ethan and i, make this journey to salt lake to visit dr. g at primary children's hospital. dr. g is taylor's crohn's specialist and we are so lucky to have him because he is super fantastic: friendly, personable, thorough, creative and really really smart. all the things you want in a dr. right? i chickened out on getting a photo of him with taylor, next time i'll be more courageous.

taylor decided it was time do a little documenting about crohn's disease, up until now only a small circle of friends and family really know that he has it. it's not really a secret per say, just something he wasn't keen on advertising on the world wide web. in fact, i've never taken photographs of any of our appointments or tests or anything to do with this, sort of taylor's wish although he never really asked me not to. who can blame him really? so then why now you ask? well this well-check of taylor's today, marked four years since his diagnosis and he, and me, have come a long way since that hard hard day. it's a celebration of sorts.

what is crohn's disease you ask? the short version of the answer is that it's an auto-immune disease. this means that your body has an immune system malfunction for a reason the scientists don't really know yet. it malfunctions in a way that it thinks your body is the enemy and begins to attack various things. in taylor's case, his intestines. he began complaining of belly problems, and whole host of potty symptoms that we won't get into that prompted us to head to the pediatritian post haste! poor taylor endured a lot of tests, he is really such a trooper to be so cheery after all they put him through. finally, a colonoscopy revealed the affected areas and he was finally diagnosed with crohn's disease.

basically, treatment is an immune supressant to help call off the "immune dogs" that are attacking his body. this has worked like a charm against the crohn's disease, but it also means he is prone to all the things we want our immune systems to fight off. it takes taylor a long time to get well, even just a common cold, and so we've turned into germ freaks around here. ok, ok, worse germ freaks that we already were, and when i see "we", of course, i mean "me". i'm trying really hard NOT to share my germ anxiety with taylor but that's sometimes hard to do. so far so good, he's been able to avoid being sick very often. and as far as the crohn's disease itself, in four years, taylor has only had one bad flare up, which is almost unheard of in the crohn's world. he have been very blessed to stay in a medicine enduced remission almost the entire time.

because the medicine can cause really scary side effects, taylor is monitored all the time. so every three months, we make this drive, get a check from from dr. g. and then taylor gives them a whole lot of blood for studying. but we don't mind. taylor is tough and has been through worse tests. once he had to drink barrium to get an x-ray of his upper gi. he informed me later that it tasted like elmers's glue only thicker and with baby powder it in. ehhh. but that's another story for another day.

the point if this long long post is to say how much more positive our outlook of this disease is. originally, it felt a little like someone was taking away the dreams i had for my son, like being healthy. not a death sentence, but a miserable sickly life sentence if that makes any sense. four years later, we understand that it's not what it used to be and taylor really does have a very good chance of living out a normal life. he's proved it over the last four years, he can be healthy! he is healthy! in fact, he'll be healthier than the rest of us because preservatives seem to upset his stomach in a way that makes eating them not worth the grief. so while the rest of us are eating twinkies....just kidding, we really don't eat twinkies, but you get my point. the outlook for crohn's patients even ten years ago was not great at all, we are so grateful for skilled doctors and medicine and research that has helped taylor stay well.

everything at taylor's check up today was routine, and then we were invited to participate in a dna study for crohn's disease. it involved taylor giving a little extra blood to what he was already giving and i had to get my blood drawn too. taylor said since i took his photo while he was getting his blood drawn, it was only fair that i had to have mine taken too. smart kid. i hate needles. but then, who loves them? it's worth it though, if they can study our blood and help kids, even taylor's kids, in the future. if you made it to the end of this post, then you really must love us. if you're interested in reading more about crohn's disease, try this website, i've read it about three thousand times myself. ok, not that many.

tickle your fancy

while at costco this evening, allie decided to turn an ordinary neck massager into a bum tickler. the video does not do justice to how funny it was to see him try to balance up on those rotating balls and how surprised and amused he was by the whole thing. at one point ethan was laughing so hard that we were all wiping the laugh-tears out of our eyes. i tried SO hard not to laugh while taking the video so as not to distract from the giggling toddler, but as soon as you click the play button you'll see that i failed miserably.
oh man, i love a good belly laugh.

forced smile syndrome

if you've ever had children, then you probably know about "forced smile syndrome", otherwise known as FSS. i don't know of a little kid who hasn't experienced FSS symptoms at one time or another, it can last for a few months or even up to a year. FSS is especially common in children under four years old. i come across it in my line of work all the time, in any given family, there's usually at least one child in the group affected by it. i knew it would happen to ethan sooner or later, and today during an impromptu photoshoot after church, ethan began showing the dreaded signs: squinty eyes, raised cheek bones and lips stretched as tight as possible in an over-enthusiastic smile. i'm not one to wish away the time with my little ones, especially ethan, but i will say that FSS seems to be more painful for the mothers, including me and i look forward to the day when his naturally adorable smile returns. but for now, we are getting a good laugh out of this.

so easy, even wende can do it

"i'm sew-ing, i'm sew-ing, i found a cute craft and i'm sew-ing!" - ok, so i still have "elf" lines running through my head. i was super excited to pull out allie's sewing machine and try out this fun craft. this project was nothing but straight (sort of) lines, but when you're as lame of a sewer as i am, even the easy straight lined projects totally count as an accomplishment! one of my cute neighbors from the old neighborhood gave me a couple of these ribbon adorned burp cloths when ethan was born and it ended up being one of my favorite gifts. plain old cloth diapers make the best burp cloths because they're so absorbent and the simple ribbon stitched up the two middle seems takes them to ultra-cute status. i've been wanting to try to make these now for, well, ethan just turned three, but the sewing machine intimidates me like nothing else. but i did it! i'm embarrassed to admit it took a long time, probably an hour, to sew these six burp cloths but it was totally worth how awesome i felt about my cute homemade baby gift! i tied them together with a pretty bow and a rattle and voila! darling baby gift for less than $10! yee-ha! the best part of course is how much the mom gushed over them, and really, who doesn't love being gushed over?

favorite holiday things - first installment

there's something about thanksgiving that kicks off the start of the holiday season and it seems like over night organge and brown are replaced with green and red, pumpkins for snow flakes, candy corn for candy canes, and so on. with the holidays comes a long list of things we only seem to enjoy around this time of year. we have already begun enjoying some of our favorite things which i am going to try to do a better job of documenting this year. maybe you'll be inspired to document your favorite things too. i love sharing this kind of thing because it always leads to something new....

the movie "elf" has worked it's way into a tradition around this house, i liked it from the first time we saw it in the theater and it only gets funnier ever time i watch it. it's such a hillarious, feel good kind of movie and the sound track is fantastic. over the thanksgiving holiday, i cooked a lot of food and was stuck in the kitchen for most of the day on wednesday preparing. fortunately the living room is attached to the kitchen and rich turned on elf to help get me in the holiday spirit. it worked! i brined, beat, whipped and stirred while singing along with darling buddy the elf. there are too many funny parts to name my favorite but i do love the "i'm singing, i'm singing, i'm in a store and i'm sing-ing" part. i'm sure by the time the season is over we'll have watched it at least fifty-two more times...alright, not that often, but it will probably feel like that much so it's just the same.

this year i discovered candy cane oreo cookies just in time for the girlfriend retreat. (yes this was our junk food stash)

we took one for the team and tested them out...you know, to make sure they aren't poisonous or anything. we give them two thumbs up! just the right blend of yummy oreo goodness with candy cane flavor that was suprisingly not too overpowering - yay! of course, you have to have a tall glass of milk, and if you're ethan, you eat only the insides.

apparently i have a candy cane theme here because next on my list is peppermint ice cream.as you know, i'm very picky about my ice cream, none of the "vanilla in a tub" crap will do for me. my favorite brand for peppermint is schwan's, but since i don't like the after taste of the schwan's guy pushing frozen food at my door every other week - i settle for edy's instead. i've said before that ice cream is really love in the form of food. as much as this must say about me and how i deal with my own issues, it really is true. ice cream is love. and i would feel this way even if i were boney thin and had no issues. for real, i really would. no lying. ice cream is just that good.

so what are you enjoying so far this season? my list of favorites is looooong, so brace yourself for a second, third and maybe fourth installment of wende's holiday faves. and happy holidays ya'll!

SPT - wordless edition

"getting started"

distracted

how did i miss these? i was sorting recent photos into their proper folders and found these beauties! i can't believe i missed them, they cracked me up so hard when i first took them i remember being excited to get them posted. i guess i got distracted, which you know, happens frequently in my world, and i'm now getting them up. so these are obviously back when patsy broke her ankle. we took a ride out to our favorite store - archivers, to get her out of the house. ethan thought it was so awesome pushing her around the store, it was totally his job and he would get a little touchy if i tried to help steer, which in a store with that many shelves of little things, sometimes got kind of interesting. but patsy didn't mind, she kept him totally busy having him help push her, she is one of his favorite people because she's always so fun.

the only thing he liked better than pushing her was riding in it himself.

funny kid.

evidence

first i noticed the stool from the bar sitting right beside the counter which i thought was unusual but nothing seemed out of place so i shrugged it off. then in just the right light i caught a glimpse of a foot print on the counter - what the?! then i noticed oreo crumbs in his milk. then i found the smoking gun. he was hiding in the pantry quietly licking the frosting from the middle of his peppermint oreo cookie. can't really blame him, they're really yummy. how does he know to eat the frosting only? is this knowledge something that little kids are born with?

nutcrackin' fun

i love tradition. i also love the ballet, so going to the nutcracker with all the girls is definitely one of my favorite things. it's such a fun way to start off the christmas season, it definitely puts me in the mood for thanksgiving, shopping and everything great about this fun time of year. growing up the only girl, i waited a long time for sisters, but they were worth the wait! we definitely lucked out with this group. and if we're really lucky, ashliegh will be in this photo every year because brandon will marry this great girl! i am always in awe of the incredible strength and talent of professional ballet dancers, i have such admiration for what they do and never get tired of watching them perform. one of my favorite moments of the day was looking over at the little girls during the recital, heads huddled together, quietly (?) discussing what was happening on stage, they were just so cute together. on the way home we realized we could catch happy hour at sonic and had to stop for drinks.i discovered a new favorite thing - cherry limeade, yum-o, thanks for the recommendation ashliegh! now i'm off to paint some kitchen cupboards...busy busy busy.

it's hard to look scary and pretty at the same time...

so we went, a bunch of moms in the middle of the night with about a million people - a lot of teenagers - to see if harry potter's buddy could pull off the role of dreamy steamy edward.

(the lobby of the gateway movie theater )

the movie was more entertaining with a theater full of screaming girls, it was seriously so funny how nuts people were over this whole thing. the girl sitting behind us kept saying, "oh no way, nuh-uh, oh my gosh!" every time one of the cullens came on screen. so i will say this, the movie was better than i thought it would be, maybe because my expectations of it were so low. i liked how they cut through the crap and got to the story, stefanie meyer tends to ramble. but, i missed hearing edwards thoughts and i wanted to see the cullen family more. i hated "book" bella but liked the "movie" bella fine, maybe because i couldn't hear her inner whining dialogue. there were plenty of parts that i laughed out loud because it was so sappy and wondered how the actors kept straight faces for some of those scenes. and really, what's up with jasper? did someone forget to tell that actor that he had been cast as a vampire and not a zombie? he looks like a stoner with bad hair for the entire movie. however, the cheese, the lack of cullens, the stoner, emmitt's crushed velvet purple track suit, all of it was worth watching to see this hottie on the big screen. (i'm not talking about the girl either) i never really knew that i liked robert pattinson so much, but man he really melted my butter in this movie. he's definitely not what i pictured in my head as edward but he did a good job i thought. i saw him on the today show this morning, someone asked him "what was the hardest part about playing edward". he answered in his cute little british accent, "it was really hard being scary and pretty at the same time". ya, ok, that pretty much sums up the whole movie for me. still, if i had a locker, his picture, would be in it.

SPT - not so wordless edition

our SPTs for november are supposed to be wordless...photos that tell the stories themselves. however, this one needs a little explaining...same pipe as last month, different place, lots of leaks - SIX - and counting. now i have THREE giant holes in my ceiling, and a repair man coming on friday to replace the entire pipe this time. his genius assessment was, "well girl, i think you gotta bad pipe" - NO KIDDING! i'm not really looking forward to more dry wall dust and paint, but i don't think the ceiling gaps will really go with thanksgiving dinner. so i just keep telling myself... i love my house. i love my house. i love my house....

mystery photo

i have no idea who took this photo...i'm sure it was one of the teenagers although allie swears it wasn't her. i found it while emptying my sd card yesterday, and it made laugh so hard i had to post it. i wish i knew the story behind the toddler mohawk, but the smile on his face tells me at least he wasn't being tortured by his hair stylist. apparently spencer is not the only one who enjoys a crazy do.

the big break

girlfriend weekend get away

in a nut shell-

chick flicks

amazing food

gumballs

see's chocolate

hot tamales

amazing cabin

paper crafts

late nights

board games

no make up

pajamas

scenic walk

deer and wild turkeys

sleeping in

lounging around

best friends

plenty of laughter

much needed break

and a NO photo truce!

(until the last five minutes to take one self-portait)

i love these girls!!

hair goo isn't just for girls

since his decision to grow his hair out, spencer has looked forward to red ribbon week every year because inevitably there is always "crazy hair day". before the long hair he always complained that his hair was too short to really do anything the counted as "crazy". he's making up for lost time i guess because the last two years in a row he really got into it. in fact, i'll admit i was a little embarassed for him to leave the house, but what can you do? spencer is my kid who doesn't really love school, so i say, if a little hair goo (ok A LOT of hair goo) makes him excited to go, i'm on board. for the record, he was totally disappointed that i didn't let him spray his hair BYU blue. i really am the meanest mom ever you know. **NOTE added 11/9 - the reason i said no to the blue hair spray is because spencer told me at 9:45pm the night before crazy hair day. he wanted me to drop what i was doing and take him to target to the spray. i was too busy and told him no. if he had asked me earlier in the day i would have gladly let him spray it blue! i just wanted to clarify...

three old years

we celebrated ethan's birthday during our trip to disneyland. really we went for halloween but since his birthday is the very next day, his birthday kind of got crammed in at the same time. we started with a great breakfast at the rain forest cafe.ethan didn't mind waiting for a table because it gave him time to check out the giant aquarium - he was especially excited to see dory in there. we have been celebrating a lot of birthdays lately and he loves singing the birthday song. he totally got that it was his special day and even sang along with us "hap birday to ME!" when the ice cream came - always a good after breakfast snack! he loved getting balloons from the hotel staff and wearing a pin with his name on it. ya, disneyland is a pretty good way to spend a birthday - especially when you're "three old years", which is what he tells you when you ask him how old he is. love this little guy.