Sunday, November 30, 2008

The Things We Do

Okay, so I was bored with my hair, so I decided to dye it dark brown. But no, why stop there when you can do so many exciting things these days. So yesterday, my sister-in-law (who is a licensed hair-stylist) did this:



Yep. Red. "So Red" to be exact! I love it! It's so totally me.

Later that night, our town had a little Christmas shindig. We went to the town's Christmas tree lighting ceremony and electric parade. It was so tiny. But the kids had fun. Here's some pictures I took. They aren't very good because it was night and in order to see the lights, you had to turn the flash off, so sorry they suck.


Yep, that's the tree! The pine tree in the background behind the jr. high choir.


Businesses decorated trucks and trailers with lights and drove down main street. They were pretty cool. The whole parade lasted about fifteen or twenty minutes.


The Volkswagens were my favorite. They were just so fun.


Happy Christmas, Santa! Santa's on the back, but this is the only "good" shot of him I got. The other one was just way too blurry. The girls in front of him are the town's royalty. Gotta love those beauty queens!

So, I've decided I live in a cheesy, small town. But it's all in the name of fun and keeping the kids off drugs. (See, I'm very funny.) The kids had fun, though. They got the last of the free hot chocolate. It wasn't very cold, though. Our weather has been quite mild. We'll see how long that lasts. After the parade, we went to dinner at a chain burger joint (cough, burger king, cough). I didn't say it out loud. I ordered the breaded chicken burger which probably has like 10,000 calories in it. But since I don't normally eat things like that any more (I usually get the salad or the jr. burger), I got sick. I wanted to puke, but Kurtis told me I shouldn't make myself throw up. Oh, well. I felt better this morning, so I guess it wasn't really necessary after all. I guess I will just have to keep up my work out routine (which was kind of shot down last week). Darn vacation. The kids go back to school tomorrow! Yay!

Friday, November 28, 2008

Autumn Elation


A week or two ago, I made the kids dress in the cute outfits they are wearing here (No, I don't normally dress my children alike.), and took pictures for this year's Christmas card. I raked up all the leaves in the front yard and told the kids to lay down (like in the picture above), and the sun was in Kaleb's eyes, so he wouldn't open them. Now, I don't really consider myself to be all that kid-friendly a person. I just don't really know what to do with them. I wanted to get the "serious" pictures first and then shots of them playing in the leaves so the pile could be destroyed and not have to be raked up again. Well, thank the Lord that I have Kurtis, because, he took over the part of getting the kids to be happy. I was just getting frustrated with Kaleb because he wouldn't do anything but cover his eyes. So we decided the best route would be to let them play in the leaves first. Which is what they really wanted to do any way. I got some really great shots! I took like a thousand and forty-nine pictures (nooo, I don't exaggerate at all!), so you would think that I would get something. The Christmas card picture will not be posted here. You will just have to wait and see it when our card arrives! But here are a few that I love and just have to share with everyone. And since it was Thanksgiving yesterday (okay, technically it was two days ago, but I haven't gone to bed yet, so my day hasn't really ended, has it? (I just have to say...) These are some really great pictures of the some of the things I am grateful for. Enjoy!













Happy Thanksgiving!

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Twilight is Coming!

Well, I found this background and just couldn't resist. I've read all the Twilight books and love them. I am excited to see the movie, but I do not want to go this weekend! It will be nuts. So in honor of the movie, I am putting up this background temporarily (well, we'll see ;)) just for the fun of it. When they first announced who was going to play Edward I didn't like it, but he's grown on me and now, I think he's hot. Enjoy!

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Bad Things Come in Threes (I Guess!)

Today, I have a lot to blog about. They are all old news, but I have been waiting until I had all the pictures to show you. I will start with all the crazy stuff that's happened. On Tuesday, October 21st, Riley got bit by the neighbor's dog. The neighbor's twelve-year-old daughter and her friend brought him home and said their dog bit him and he had a scratch under the band aid. So, since Riley cries all the time about how Neji bites him (when Neji bites him, he doesn't leave a mark), I didn't even lift up the band aid. I told them he would be fine and not to worry. Kurtis came home about an hour later and I told him Riley got bit by a dog and I was sure he was just fine. He hugged the dog a little too tight, or something. He's not very nice to Neji, so the dog probably did this in self defense. Then Kurtis took off the band aid. He did not just have a scratch! The side of his face next to his ear was sliced open! We took him to the Wee Care Pediatrics (open 24/7) and he got 13 stitches (11 on the slice and 2 on the puncture wound) and because he had a puncture wound, he had to go on antibiotics to prevent infection as well. The doctor and his assistants were great. They treated him so kindly and he got 13 suckers at the end of his boring doctor visit (we were there 3 hours). Oh, my gosh, it was so nasty to look at. He got his stitches out a week later on the 28th.
With stitches
After stitches


The next day (October 22nd), Kurtis stood up after fixing the gap in the fence so the dogs couldn't get out and smashed his head on the metal handle of the fence door. He refused to go to the hospital to have it checked out, but it looked nasty, too. I had an audition that night, so I asked him if he still wanted me to go. He said he would be fine. He's going to have a nasty scar when he's bald. After that, everything was going fine. Riley got his stitches out, we can put all this stuff behind us, and not need to go to the doctor's office until Kaleb needs his well child visit in December. (I hate the going to the doctor, can you tell?)
Then, on October 30th, the elementary school my children attend had a Halloween costume parade. I didn't go, but Riley went to morning kindergarten instead of afternoon so he could participate (yes, all the afternoon kindergartners went to morning that day). I buckled Kaleb into his car seat and since all the car seats are jammed into the back our our Honda Civic, you have to shut the door on that side pretty hard so it will shut. That's exactly what I did. Right on my thumb! Oh, my holy heck! (Yes, I am from Utah. We say heck here instead of hell. Besides, Hell isn't very holy.) It hurt! I had shut the door on my thumb. I had to open it to get my thumb out. The thumbnail turned black. I didn't want to go to the doctor, so I waited until the next day to go. The doctor burned a hole in my fingernail and suddenly, it felt so much better. I knew my thumb wasn't broken, but we went to the hospital to get an x-ray anyway. Better safe than sorry. My doctor told me that I would have to go on antibiotics if it was broken. So, yippee. But for the day before Halloween, I was left-handed. It wasn't as hard for me as it could have been because I am kind of ambidextrous. I can use both hands pretty well, but because over the years, I have just let my right hand be dominant, it wasn't all that easy either. Pants manufacturers need to make left-handed pants. I don't know how you guys zip your pants up. And, we never really pay attention to just how much we use our thumbs. I hate not having use of it. Today, it is much better, but also, today, it feels a little bit worse than yesterday. I am in slightly more pain. Dr. Hibbard said I would probably loose my fingernail. So this is going to be interesting. I have never had this happen to me before. I did not take pictures of it, though. The blackness of my thumbnail is mostly gone, so it's not as gross looking as it was before. I just have a hole in my fingernail. Kind of cool looking, and yet it's not at the same time.

The Monday before Halloween, we did something fun, though. Instead of carving pumpkins, we made caramel apples! Oooh, so yummy and not nearly as messy as pumpkins.

On Halloween, the kids had the day off because it was the end of the semester. We spent it going to the doctor and the hospital. Since we were all there at the doctor's office and she asked me, we all got flu shots! Yay! Then, they went trick-or-treating after dinner. I stayed home and passed out candy. But the kids had loads of fun. Zach was a warlock, Riley was his voidwalker, and Kaleb was Spiderman! I need to find a picture of an actual voiwalker so you know what that is. I'll look and post it with the pictures of the kids in their costumes. So that was my boring last half of October.




That is the actual voidwalker. Well, I tried. Riley's hair gel was supposed to dye (temporarily) his hair blue (I thought that's what the ad said) and glow-in-the-dark, but all it did was glow-in-the-dark blue. And not very brightly, but that may be because I put too much in. Oh, well. Next time, we'll do better.