ARGHHHHHHH!!!!

Blogging is wonderful...I love connecting with old and new friends on a daily basis. E-mail is also a wonderous and beautiful thing. It's so great to take care of all sorts of stuff without voice mail and long, lengthy telephone calls. Storing my pictures on our computer...SUPER!  I love having all my pics just a click away. You Tube...this can entertain my children forever. 

However....I HATE COMPUTERS!!!!!!!  We have honestly had the worst luck with ALL computers we have ever owned. The latest one, the one we have only had for 2 years, has had every issue possible. It's already been sent back (under warranty) to replace the motherboard, it has had every hard drive issue possible. So, once again, for the last 2 months we have dealt with "blue-screening" (aka,  the "blue screen of death"...look at the lingo I know now...I could join Geek Squad"). I limped it along as long as possible. So, a couple of hundred dollars later, we thought we had it fixed....NOPE. Messed up again yesterday. So, Bill and I made the jump to a Mac box...because who doesn't want to throw down a wad of cash after Christmas? We get to keep the monitor and keyboard, but we are essentially Mac people now. Ten years ago, Bill made me switch from Mac to PC, which I was resistant, but I did. For the last 2-3 years, he has regretted it. So, I must re-learn all this stuff. The biggest pain will be trying to put all my Quick books stuff into a different format, but I will survive. I did get an i-phone for Christmas (woo hoo), so that will be nice to have a Mac at home as well.

So what I'm really trying to say is; I can't post any pics of Christmas as I don't know what I am doing on this thing yet!

Happy New Year....here's to new things. 

The curse of the blue poinsettia

Well, once again, I don't have pics because of my computer issues. This is probably good...there were a lot of incriminating pictures that I could have shown.

I had 4 parties of various variety last week. All great and fun in their own way, but Friday's party with some good friends was hilarious as always. We eat great food and chat the night away, but the white elephant giving is so much fun. Bill and I received a gigantic 44DD flower bra (to me...the flattest woman in the room) and a lovely blue poinsettia plant. You can just imagine this beautiful plastic wonder...gorgeous! Well, Bill ended up trying to hide it in our host's beautifully decorated home, hoping she wouldn't notice, and we wanted to share this beautiful plant with her. Well, I guess we weren't the only one hiding our presents...(sorry, Shelly, I'm sure you didn't want a huge ceramic snowman in your shower).

Saturday night, I went to my doorstep to find the blue plant had found it's way home. Aahh, thanks! Emi thinks it is gorgeous....yesterday, she wanted to use it for a table decoration for my party with Bill's sister. I told her it would look wonderful in HER room. She's happy with that, but it did make an appearance for our festive tortellini dinner tonight. I guess I can always re gift it at next year's party.

10 Years with the Ball and Chain....

Well, because of my computer dealing with some drama this week, I can't post a picture of us. Maybe that's better...after 10 years of marriage, we may not want to see pics of us when we were young and beautiful. You know, before the years of diapers, bills, kid-puke, home reconstruction, and mini-vans have taken a toll on us. I sometimes look at our wedding portrait on the wall of our living room and laugh. We were so naive and had no idea what we were in for.

But, I can honestly say that marrying Bill on December 18th, 1998 was the smartest thing I ever did. Well....I should have waited until spring. My only regret. December should only be for Christmas...no anniversaries and birthdays (you can see how planned Emi was...j/k). But Bill has made me laugh almost every day of our marriage, and that is so important to me. It really gets me through the rough days. He works so hard to make our life fun, sweet, and happy. I love that he is his own man with all sorts of his own interests. Bill is passionate about many things and he gets things done. He has no fear in taking charge when necessary and is an obvious leader. That's just a few short reasons why I love him. It's nice to say that I love him more now than the day I married him. Gosh...I barely knew him when we got married! Seriously, if my daughter ever does what I did...I'll kill her. But luckily, it worked out for me.

Happy Anniversary, Bill. I love you!

p.s. for the MANY people who have begged to know the answer to the previous post....it's Bill's new FJ cruiser. Some of you saw me try to gracefully (not) climb into it after the cookie party.

Merry Christmas, Bill

Well....Bill just bought himself his Christmas/Birthday/Valentine's Day/Easter/Arbor Day present for the next 3 years. And, just so you know, plan on Bill dying when he is 74, as he has apparently reached his midlife crisis. If you want to know what it is, just take a look in our garage. It's big, a tad ridiculous if you want my opinion (he doesn't =-) ), and smurf blue. I haven't liked this color ever since my BYU cheerleader days. I cheered there back in the day when our uniforms were the color of a bright blueberry. So glad they went navy....
Anyways, I'm really happy for him. The cool thing about our relationship is that we can allow each other these type of things every so often...no questions asked. I think this is impractical, but I'm sure he thinks I'm frivilous on some things.

He's really, really happy. He's dreamed of this for 3 years. And, he's feeling the need to suck up a little, which is nice. Yesterday, he washed my dirty pans/pots and took out trash without being asked. How long can I make this last?

My own personal hell...

Well....I had a sad loss recently. The pack and ship postal store that was so, so conveniant for me went and unexpectedly shut down. I loved it....a salty little former New Yorker ran the store and she was quick and down to business. Great little shop, rarely any lines, with funny quotes on the wall that dissed George Bush. I loved it. Well, she's gone and I really miss her.

Here's why: I found myself having to go to the post office twice this week to stand in a mother of a line both times. Yea, I know...lines should be expected during the holidays. The first time wasn't so bad, but today...arghhh. While I stood in the snail-paced line, somebodies car alarm was blarring the whole time, there was a skip on the CD being played, so I had to hear Bruce Springsteen say, "Coming to town-Coming to town-Coming to town-over and over again. The man in front of me was on some mission to collect bizarre and very hard to find stamps....DO THAT IN JANUARY!!!!!! It sucked. Ho ho ho...sorry. I'll cheer up.

My little girl is all grown up....

Happy Birthday to my little monkey. I can't believe Emi is 6. She had a super day..



Daddy brought her a dozen red roses after his morning bike ride (ignore the awful spandex beanie that he wears....SEXY). She was so happy to have her own flowers.



Then she had her first non-house party at her gymnastics gym....I seriously will never do a party at home again. It's so great to just show up and the kids LOVE it. They all wanted to sleep there. It was all we could do to get them home. She scored on Ponies, Pet Shop stuff, Webkinz, and all sorts of great things.

The "gramp" tramp...hee hee hee

All the kids in the pit....I hope we didn't lose one in there. But then, I guess we lost a kid at Parker's 6th birthday.(Sorry, Monika....couldn't resist)

In other happenings this weekend, we had a ball at the Bishopric party. Learned some cool games with Costco cups and a game called Tip It. And to our fellow ward members, look for the new and improved "Free Range Nursery" coming soon. (By the way, Karen, I can't get the Star Wars Acapella guy out of my head, either)

I love my tree....

As I said in my last post, I would brag about my tree in another post. I think it deserves it's own post. I LOVE my Santa tree. My mom has collected Santa ornaments for about 20+ years, and before I was married, I started collecting. They come from everywhere...I love the trip down memory lane everytime I open the box. It's great, because whenever I travel to a new place, I don't have to buy some tacky shotglass. They usually have a Santa to match the location. Once I had kids, I started a new tradition with them. Every year, I give them a Santa that corresponds with something they have done that year. I write the name and year on the back and then, when they get married, I will give them all the ornaments for their tree (if they want them...it may be hard for me to part with them). I know I shouldn't be over-Santa-ing my kids, but we have many nativities around as well. My kids totally love decorating it. They love the tree, too!

Some of my favorite Santa's( not all pictured): Santa moon, Santa monkey, Mr. Potato Head Santa, Santa doing crunches, Bungee Santa, Santa dancing with a reindeer, Santa spoon, starfish Santa, Tinkerbell Santa, Sandy Claws, Helicopter Santa, and Millenium Santa. Yes, they make about every kind. So fun.

(this pic doesn't really do it justice...it's a 9 foot tall majestic shrine to Santa)

As for this picture....I do not have the story on it. I found it in the camera. Must have happened while I was teaching and Dad was in charge. I think Quinn looks especially cute in my glasses.
Have a 'cool Yule'