Jeebs' Christmas present

I got Jeebs a super duper fossil baby carrier for Christmas. But, looking at our Christmas pics from last year and this year I'm thinking we need to get new sweatshirts. We don't have a huge need for warm clothes here, but this fall it has been consistently cool for a while and we love it. I just think it's funny that last year and this year we had on the same sweatshirts. I guess we really do bleed blue.

As I was cleaning up the kitchen this morning I remembered something about my D&C class at BYU. I had a pretty hard professor for that class and I never asked questions or made comments (not that that was too different from any of my other classes). In his class you could sign up to do oral reports on different topics for extra credit. One day in class a really cute guy got up to give his report and as usual after he finished our professor asked for questions. I had a pretty outspoken southern friend in there with me egging me on- so I shot up my hand. My teacher got excited that this otherwise mute student was daring to speak in class. He called on me and I immediately blurted out "Are you married?". The guy blushed and the whole class, including our teacher laughed. Only at BYU could you get away with that. Good times.

We love snow!!!!!!

Snow in the south is so much better because everything shuts down. Jeebs got out of his talk today and was completely disappointed...ummm yeah.

Out of the 4 years we've lived here church has been canceled 3 times and we've gotten out of speaking assignments 3 times. What are the odds? We're just awesome that way- not really we're huge dorks.

Happy Snowy Anniversary Day

Here's to 9 years and counting.

Jeebs has to give a talk tomorrow...

and I do not. Isn't that awesome? But- I made him these for breakfast...cinnamon rolls and kolaches. Kolaches are a sweet yeast dough wrapped around sausage and cheese- and even though some people would call them pigs in a blanket- they are not. These will make you slap yo' momma sideways. They turned out so good and we were so strutted from breakfast
we didn't even make Christmas dinner. That was postponed until tomorrow and hopefully we'll be eating it in the snow.






Last night we stayed up way too late watching Inception. I had bad dreams and woke up thinking I missed the kick and I was stuck in limbo forever. (If you've seen the movie you know what that means, if not forget it- it's freaky) Anyway- I woke up looking like this.... At least the kids were cute in their bedheads and footy pajamas- not to mention excited that Santa actually came. (there have been a lot of threats this year to make them think otherwise)

Ezra tried to jack my sugar free candy from Santa. And then he tried to jack Taylor's scooter. Open mouths means happy peeps.

A pregnant chubby girl playing DDR

I know I am so behind the times, but Jeebs got me Dance Dance Revolution for Christmas. It is so dang fun. I played for 2 hours this morning and got sweaty and gross. Cagey was begging to play his new racing game, but this game is addicting. I took a shower, got dressed tried to take a nap and then got up and played again. I asked Jeebs to take my picture so people could laugh at me. Sooooo- have fun laughing!! I got a few pics of Tates for her girl band album cover some day and I was only able to snap one quick pic of Jeebs before he finished. I love how he plays with his hands in his pockets.

Jeebs is my hero because...

1. Last night as we were heading to Target I realized buggy was poopy and had to take him back in the house to change him- Jeebs offered, but I was already headed back into the house- instead of him sitting in the driver's seat waiting for me to get Ezra loaded and in the car he was waiting by Ezra's seat, ready to load him up for me.

2. We had to go straight from my hair appointment to a baptism and Jeebs remembered my hair stuff so I could fix my hair. This is big- because apparently it is beyond all hair stylists- except one- to be able to get body into my hair and fix it. I didn't have to go into the baptism looking like a drowned rat :) He also brought Taylor a dress to change into- he remembered all of it.

3. He has listened to Christmas music on Pandora since before Thanksgiving and he knows the words to most Christmas songs.

4. He never minds rubbing away my aches and pains even though I'm pretty sure I've ruined his hand forever.

5. He takes my panic attacks seriously.

6. He found and downloaded an app for his phone so we could tune the flute in our Christmas musical number last Sunday. It is a pretty dang cool app.

7. Most of all he gave me these 3 crazy, cute kooks...
and a #4 that will get here some time in May or June.

The Amazing Brother Brown

The AMAZING Brother Brown playing an original composition- he blew us all away at the ward Christmas party and we asked him to play again today so we could get it on tape. He got the biggest applause after he played at the party. The sound isn't great, but you get the idea.

I can still stand on one leg...

and that is a Christmas miracle for me.

I'm also positive we're going to have a cold Christmas. We've had 4 Christmases and they've all been gross weather. This year will be different- I know it. Lastly, all I want for Christmas is to sell my dang house.

ps another Cageyism:
Apparently we watch way too much Sandra Lee. Cagey knew what a tablescape was when he was 4. A couple of days ago Sandra made a chocolate non-alcoholic cocktail for her cocktail time. Cagey perked up when he saw the chocolate syrup and asked me, "Mommy, do you like that cotton tail?"

Cagey has gotten in the habit of needing to wash his hands a few minutes after he gets in bed. Jeebs had just tucked him in and 2 minutes later we hear, "I need to wash my hands." Jeebs told him to get up and quit scratching his bum. Taylor pipes up and says, "I need to go to the bathroom." So as they were both in there Cagey says he was just scratching his ear and Taylor innocently asked, "You're scratching your bum to get to your ear?" Apparently when Cagey scratches any part of his body he feels the need to wash his hands. Oh well- at least he'll have clean hands which is way better than the alternative.

A Question for my fellow homeschoolers...

I homeschooled Tater's up until this school year. We live in a terrible school district and I had always wanted to homeschool. After getting so tired of the constant battle of doing school I gave up. I was able to get her in another school that was half a step up from the district we actually live in so I didn't feel too bad about sending her. I am now homeschooling my Cagey and he will pretty much do anything as long as he knows he's earning time towards playing the PS3. But, Ezra just doesn't cooperate for anything. This was the problem when I was doing Taylor's school. The boys were constantly interrupting or distracting Taylor from getting her work done. Now, Ezra will not be entertained on his own. He either wants me to take him outside or he wants to play on Jeebs' lap with Jeebs' keyboard. So, my question is- how do you do it? How do you deal with your younger children? I know they need attention too, I just don't know how to divide my time and get it all done. It is driving me batty!! I love having my kids at home and the longer I can keep them out of the hands of indoctrinating public school officials- the better. But, I do not like doing school. I didn't like school when I was in it and I guess I just have a bad attitude. I was always a self motivated student- my mom never had to push me. I hate having to push Taylor to do her work. It is so wearing. Maybe this just takes far more patience than I have. Any thoughts at all would be appreciated- even if I don't know you :)

A ghetto How To: from me to you

Merry Christmas (don't say I never gave you anything)!

I saw a cool little swag online somewhere which I could never find again so I just winged it. I wanted to make a door hanging, but I didn't want to spend too much money on it. So- in my backyard are these lovely pine trees that I didn't think would work, but I decided to give it a try. You can decide for yourself whether or not it worked.

Step 1: Go cut off some branches of pine trees- don't worry you tree huggers they're evergreens that means they're always happy. (as if tree huggers read this blog)

Step 2:
Start wiring your branches onto a wire hanger
I got one side done and one to go- start at the bottom of your hanger and work your way up to the center.

Step 3:
Get a cute little model to hold it up for you after you wired all the branches on.
don't judge the state of my house- I can either clean or I can make junk- both I cannot do. I'm cool like that.

Step 4: Go around town looking for just the right color ribbon or fabric for a flower and settle for something that is not what you wanted, but maybe it'll do and you're sick of this project, you just want it on the door and off the counter- make it into a ghetto looking bow and hot glue it in the middle.
Step 5:

Add a glittered initial- that you just knocked off onto the floor and knocked half the glitter off. Add random little rhinestones for a little extra sparkle.

Step 6:Hang it on your door and hope nobody thinks it looks like a lopsided mustache for your front door.

Do you lie?

I really try to not to lie. I remember the first time I told a lie- I had taken a donut without asking and I felt so bad about it. I think I later confessed or maybe I dreamed the whole thing, I donno. Anyway, last night we went to Paula's Pizza- it's a little pizza/pasta joint in New Bern. The first time we went it took an hour and a half to get our food. We tried again and last night our food came out in a reasonable amount of time, but it was so blagh. Then the question comes- "how is your dinner?" Truthfully the answer would've been "blagh- it's gross you need to introduce your chef to garlic and where is the parmesan cheese? does anything in this joint have flavor?" But, as always we replied with the usual, "it's really good." So, am I lying? Am I just being polite or really does the waitress really care how your food tastes? She probably just wants to make sure you don't have bugs crawling in your food or something- and ya know- maybe bugs would've given the food more flavor. Do you lie like this?

IT'S SNOWING!