a reason to celebrate

we had a good reason to get up extra early this morning to meet as a family at the breakfast table. there were balloons and a banner, yummy breakfast, eclairs, gifts and even a goofy hat from a friend waiting for someone special...

happy birthday spencer michael!spencer turns TWELVE today and believe me, no one is more shocked by this than me. really, when did this happen? i really hope that i can pay closer attention to the next twelve years since the first twelve seemed to have been snatched from me so quickly. spencer has been looking forward to his brithday because it means a whole bunch of new and great things: decon's chorum and wednesday night mutual, camp outs with the "big scouts", and passing the sacrament. but especially, leaving primary. i've never known a kid so happy to graduate out of singing time! we are lucky to have spencer in our family, he makes us laugh - a lot, and we wouldn't be the same without him! as per tradition - here are ten things i love about spencer...

1. he is taylor's best friend, and taylor is his. i think it's so great that brothers can be such great friends.2. he is as stubborn as a mule! (yes i love this about him - mostly)

3. he finally fulfilled his life-long dream of playing the violin this summer - and we still have our ear drums!

4. spencer loves the winter time and especially the snow. he takes off at least once a week with friends to go to the local park for hours of sledding time.

5. it took a long time, but spencer finally caught the reading bug. he has been really into the fablehaven and charlie bone series this year. it's so fun to catch him reading on the couch without being forced to sit there and do his "twenty minutes".

6. he was born with a hollow leg that never seems to fill up. at least, that's the only explaination i have for where he puts all the food that he eats. spencer is tank, always eating, i can't keep him fed enough!

7. he's not afraid to march to the beat of his own drum. he gets a lot of flack from kids at school, and his family about his long hair, but he likes it, and to him, that's what counts.

8. when it's time for chores, he is a super-hard worker.

9. he loves to sing and is always at least humming some kind of tune. and he might not know the lyrics to a song, but that doesn't stop him from singing it anyway. :)

10. he loves to spend time with the family, but we all know that ethan is his favorite.

happy birthday spencer!

we love you!

the best of both worlds - this is not a hannah montana post

today ethan found a ring pop somewhere in the house - probably allie's "secret stash". his reaction when i opened the candy gem was, "ooooo" which totally cracked me up! later he came into the office where i was working and said, "look mom, a candy binky", which is great for him since it meant the merging his of his two favorite things. he must have decided that he can't live without the real binky though because later he appeared with both "binkies" in his mouth at the same time. i think that's called having your cake and eating it too?

land of the living

i love getting into the hot hot shower after days of being sick and staying in the same stinky clothes and scrubbing every last little bit of flu memory from my skin. i finally did that today, somewhere around 2pm when i decided it was time to re-join the land of the living. it felt so good to blow dry my clean hair and put some make up on. spencer's birthday is tomorrow so i ran a few errands to get ready for his birthday breakfast and it felt so good to be out in the fresh air! i even went to book club tonight, which i love - why have i never blogged about book club? next month. my stomach even feels pretty good after being served a super yummy but very rich treat, so life is good. i love being well, and some times it takes being sick to appreciate your health!

side note: it's after midnight and so i'm not looking as "fresh" in this photo as i feel. also, the flash is not my friend. i hate using a flash, but i missed my opportunity to take a self portait in day light today, so for now it has to do.

kidney bean shaped invaders

last night i was all excited to be so pepared to teach my first week of the CTR 5 class. i felt like a high schooler all ready to turn in a big project that i knew was great. you know this feeling? then, somewhere around midnight, it all went wrong. wrong as in sitting on the potty with the garbage can because you can't predict which end will blow first. sorry, there just wasn't a better way to say it. sleeping with the heating pad to try and get warm, shivering so hard you begin to wonder if it's really possible for your teeth to shatter. then you close your eye lids over your burning hot eyeballs and think - dang, the one year i miss the stupid flu shot!

needless to say, i didn't teach my class today. i had to call the primary president and bail on my very first day. i was so embarrassed - i promised her a hundred times on the phone that i really AM dependable, and really, i hardly ever get sick. she was of course fine with it, but still. hopefully i can generate the same kind of excitement for myself next week.

as a side note: i was really pleased to find this image of the influenza virus during a google search. pleased because, it shows exactly how i'm picturing my insides right now. all green and gross with little kidney bean shaped invaders swimming around. ok, i'm going back to bed now.

sunbeams vs. mama's boy

ethan made the big jump today from the church nursery to his sunbeam class. he is so young still, he only turned three in november and is still in diapers. i think kids should graduate into primary just like the twelve year olds graduate out, but whatever. if any of the general authorities call me wanting my opinion, there it is. because he is such a nervous nellie about being left anywhere, i knew this would be a hard adjustment for him, and i was right. i sat with him in opening exercises until it was time to start then left. it didn't last long. he was already crying and running down the isle to catch me and i'd only just gotten to the door. the boy has no shame in being a mama's boy that's for sure.

so, with the threat of loosing a finger to ethan's death grip, i attended sunbeams today too, which was fine, we had a lot of fun actually, and i think he even liked it well enough to do a little better next week. during class i had the "jesus wants me for a sunbeam" song in my head, only i kept changing the words a little so it went something like, "jesus wants me - and my mom - to be sunbeams".

chivalry please

on my way out of the church building this afternoon i almost had a near death experience. really. it's totally true. our parking lot was one big sheet of ice and in order to get to my car, i had to cross it. i had only made it about a third of the way with every step requiring the flailing arms of a high wire act in order to stay verticle. upon arriving at a section of ice that was completely hopeless, i stood still for a moment thinking to myself, "i am going to fall in front of all these people and break my neck. i hope when i'm dead someone will pull my skirt down and move me out of the middle of traffic." just then, a very nice gentleman appeard out of no where (how did he get to me so fast and why weren't his arms flailing?!) and said to me, "it looks like maybe you could use an arm", as he offered his elbow as a life line.

at this point, i wish i could tell you that i held on to his elbow with only three fingers all scarlet o'hara kind of lady-like. but i can't, because it would be a lie. i grabbed on to his elbow with both hands and held on for dear life. i did laugh though, the kind of nervous giggle that says "i feel like an idiot". he ended up walking me all the way to car and even opened my door for me, asked how my family was doing, and then wished me a nice afternoon. i of course thanked him for helping me get across the ice without breaking my neck, i was so grateful.

so i'm going to make a batch of cookies for him tomorrow to really say thank you, but i wanted to say on this blog, for the public, that chivalry is not dead and i for one, am grateful.

the mystery tenor

during a hymn at church today i found myself really enjoying the beautiful tenor voice of the dad sitting in the row behind me. i love sitting in front of people who can really sing because they help me stay in-tune and i end up enjoying the song even more. it wasn't until about the third song that i realized the people behind us didn't have a dad sitting with them. the lovely singing was coming from taylor, you know, the teenager who lives at my house? i forget sometimes that his voice has changed a lot in the last few months. sometimes i don't even recognize him when he answers the phone. i'm thinking, "who's this guy answering my phone?" and then i remember that he's sounding more like a man. the realization that the beautiful music was taylor was a little startling. but, i purposely moved past the saddness of how fast he's growing up and moved right into feeling so pleased about what a great young man, and singer, he has become. oh man i love this kid.

buenos dias!

it stunk big time to set an alarm last night. we moved to 9am church today, which, by the way, i think is cruel and unsual, but that's a soap box for another time. the point is, i haven't set an alarm for two weeks - TWO weeks! and it's been glorious. i have been relishing every minute of our two week break from school, homework, dance, piano, guitar, violin, scouts, mutual, blah blah blah. the best part is that rich has even been home from work so we've been hanging out in our pjs a lot. just enjoying board games and movies and a lot of competative wii time. we've also been very productive on a couple of house projects because nothing else is pressing for our time.

so this morning, when the alarm went off before the sun was up, i'll be honest, i felt a little ripped off. i shouldn't have to wake up early on the last day of my vacation right? to add to the confusion, the alarm was somehow set on a spanish station and for a few minutes i was dreaming about eating lunch at bajio. it's not a good thing to wake up thinking about yummy food on fast sunday.

so, the days of getting an extra hour of sleep in the morning, cleaning closests, getting caught up on the laundry, lounging in pjs and having no schedule what-so-ever are over. tomorrow morning i'll officially be back in the saddle again. and even though having a routine will feel kind of nice, i'm sure i'll be dragging my feet the whole way. especially when i send rich out the door to work and ethan looks at me as if to say, "where did everybody go?"

2008 round up

loved having participated in this little questionaire last year as a sort of yearly re-cap and was reminded of it when reading lelly's blog. some of the questions are a little superficial but entertaining, and most of them could be answered with some sort of relation to my weight but i resisted the urge to talk too much about my bottom. so here i go....again.

1. what did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before? i was girl's camp director! i have helped with girls camp before, but i've never been in charge. i did it! and it was great!

2. did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? i never make new year's resolutions but i do set goals all year long. i did finish some of the house projects that i wanted to get done, but i didn't get any skinnier.

3. did anyone close to you give birth? yup. cutie little coley boy was born!

4. did anyone close to you die? steve brown, a close friend of the moores and the man who married rich and i, died unexpectedly of a heart-attack on the first day of school. and dan pickett, our neighbor from the old cul-de-sac died in november of cancer. both men were way too young and left behind young families. i am still having a hard time making sense of any of it.

5. what countries did you visit? does la-la land count?

6. what would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008? serious yoga skills

7. what dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory? november 4th, election day. which ever way you voted, our first black president is big deal for our country. and, september 12th, my best birthday ever!

8. what was your biggest achievement of the year? i've learned to say NO more often.

9. what was your biggest failure? i really wanted to get the kitchen cabinets painted but it never happened. soon...

10. did you suffer illness or injury? no, thank goodness, but i feel like maybe i just jixed myself just by typing that.

11. what was the best thing you bought this year? the fiestaware dishes that i have been coveting for years but could never justify financially.eighty percent off was just too good to say no! and...i finally bought a vera bradley bag!

12. whose behavior merited celebration? each of my kids this year have given me reason to celebrate - i'm so proud of them all for different accompliments.

13. whose behavior appalled you? i don't know about "appalled", but i don't understand people who choose not to vote.

14. where did most of your money go? our house, always the house.

15. what did you get really, really, really excited about? it was fun knowing ethan was going to meet buzz and woody and how cool that would be for him - and it was!

16. what song will always remind you of 2008? anything from david cook and david archuletta

17. compared to this time last year, are you a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer? a) i'm struggling a little more this year with depression so i guess sadder but in general i'm a happier more focused person, b) saddly, a little fatter, and c) probably a little poorer. hmmm, this question is kind of depressing!

18. what do you wish you'd done more of? laying on the beach

19. what do you wish you'd done less of? laundry

20. did you fall in love in 2008? sure, lots of times for reasons both sentimental... ...and superficial.

21. what was your favorite tv program? chuck, myth busters and american idol. these are also the only three shows we ever watch.

22. do you hate anyone now that you didn't last year? yikes, hate is such a strong word, i can't really think of anyone that i hate. i hope i never do.

23. what was the best book you read? pillars of the earth. but. it's shamefully inappropriate, so if you choose to read it, your recommendation did NOT come from me!

24. what was your greatest musical discovery? really, i was blown away by david cook this year on AI, he was just so original, i found myself looking forward to seeing what he was going to do each week. although i really thought there was a lot of great talent this year, i'm really glad DC won, i thought he really deserved it.

25. what did you want and get? a year of health and employment and progress.

26. what did you want and not get? hard wood floors - hopefully this year.

27. what was your favorite film of this year? mama mia - especially because of the memories associated with it. plus, it's just so fun to sing along with, except pierce brosnan - what the heck is that about?

28. what did you do on your birthday and how old are you? my 34th birthday this year was probably the funnest of my whole life so far. my closest girlfriends spoiled me rotten with take out lunch, my favorite dessert - sour cream lemon pie from marie callendars - tons of new fiestaware to add to my new collection, vera bradley goodness and even table decorations and daisy wrapping paper! i felt like a million dollars and the luckiest girl in the world! later than night, rich surprised me by coming home from work (which he never did during the fall because of horrible game deadlines) and took me out to dinner - it was the best day!

29. what one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? i want to say maybe daily massages but the real answer is spending more time on my knees.

30. how would describe your personal fashion concept in 2008? basically, if it fits and doesn't look like a moo-moo, i'm wearing it. and on this subject, i have a few questions for the fashion designers of the world. one - why if i'm fat does this also mean i must be very tall? can i get some fat short people clothes. and two - can i get some cute fat clothes? i mean, just because i'm fat doesn't mean i want to dress like a freak! sorry, i'm off my soap box now.

31. what kept you sane? friends, theraputic thursdays, play group time to gab with my cute sister in laws, supportive family and creativity.

Happy 2009!

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.