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.