The Funniest Commercial!

This is one of my all time favorite commercials. The best part is towards the end when the stain starts practically yelling over the guy. Hilarious!

For Abbi

As many of you know, one of my dearest friends Abbi is in the hospital right now with pneumonia and ARDS (acute respiratory distress syndrome). I was able to visit her in the ICU and talk to her a bit before she had to be put on a breathing tube. She is really fighting this battle with everything she's got but she's in bad shape. Thankfully, she's at one of the best hospitals in the nation and I know that she is receiving the very best care, but I am beside myself with worry. So if you happen to read my blog and even if you don't know Abbi, could you please include her and her family in your prayers? She needs them and I desperately need her to get better.

The Birds and the Bees

Today Ashlee asked me how she was once inside my "tummy." She has never asked me HOW before, just "Where does a baby come from?" Well, when she has asked where a baby comes from, it has been easy for me to just explain things in very general terms. The last time she asked, I said,"Well, mommies have little magic eggs inside them and daddies have magic seeds. When mommies and daddies put the magic egg together with a magic seed, it starts to grow into a baby inside the mommy's tummy." For good measure I added, "But, only people who are married are allowed to put the egg and the seed together. If you're not married first, then it makes Heavenly Father unhappy."
She must have been contemplating what I had told her because she wanted to know exactly how the egg and the seed actually get together. When I started tell her my standard answer, she said, "Yeah, I know all that, but HOW do the egg and the seed find each other?" So I took the angle of, "When mommies and daddies love each other very much . . . " But then I realized that this wasn't really answering her question. So I did the responsible thing and told her that I would explain that part when she gets a bit older. My main intent was to divert her attention long enough to change the subject, because then we were talking about WHY she needed to be older to hear HOW babies come to be. I told her that she would be able to understand better at that time. Again, I started to add that ONLY people who are married can make babies. She cut me off mid-sentence and said, "Yes. I already know that part. It's because if you aren't married first, then Heavenly Father gets really mad! But that's not what I want to know. I want to know HOW the egg and the seed get together!"
I said, "Oh! Look at the time! We really need to start getting ready for bed!" This time, the diversion worked.
If any of you have some good ideas on how to talk about this with a 6-year-old, send them my way!

Frankie Turns Two!

This is Frankie. Frankie is a weiner dog and just celebrated his second birthday! Here he is taking a sneak peek at his cake--a giant chocolate doughnut! Yummy! Frankie is SO excited!


This is his best buddy, Bruno the French Bulldog. Hi Bruno! Bruno brought gifts for Frankie's special day. Thanks Bruno! What a nice little dog!


Here's Bruno after changing into the proper birthday attire. What a fun friend. He looks so happy!


Time to open presents! Since paws are no good for opening presents, Ashlee offered her helping hands. And WOW! Frankie got a new rope toy! Yay for Frankie!


He was so excited that he played with it right away!


His next present was a brand new squeaky ball! What a great idea! Frankie LOVES squeaky balls!


But Bruno decided he liked it even more and told Frankie to take a hike. Poor Frankie. But Frankie likes to share with his friend, so that's OK. Thanks for coming Bruno! Happy Birthday Frankie! What a great day!

A Visit From Grandpa

Jere's dad recently came to visit for a weekend. In exchange for the blue skies and warmth of Arizona, he braved our freezing temps, grey skies and snow. Funny thing was that for the three days he was here, it was sunny and almost warm. The day before he came, we had gotten dumped on with snow and it was uncomfortably cold outside. The day after he left, the sun went away and we got even more snow! Talk about bringing (and taking) the nice weather with you! Well, at least we got to unthaw a little tiny bit. Maybe one day we will be able to go outside without all our snow gear . . . one day.

Lost and Found Board

Has anyone lost a shopping bag with legs? This one showed up on my front door step recently and I thought I'd see if anyone would claim it.

A Tree Came Tumbling Down

This is what the inside of a dead Ash tree looks like after it is snapped in two by the wind. It fell in our front yard (missing the house by a few feet) shortly after we got back from Christmas break.


The only casualty was our chain-link fence which you can see is smooshed beneath it (click on the pic to enlarge if you can't see it.) This tree landed on the forked tree next to it which caused the fork to crack all the way down to the ground, leaving it swaying precariously over our neighbor's front yard. I was relieved to see that the little pear tree I planted last year (left corner) had survived unscathed.


Here's how it looked from the front. Doesn't seem nearly so shocking in photos, but it was scary nonetheless.


Ashlee came to the rescue with a toy chainsaw that she borrowed from the neighbor boys. She'll have it cleaned up in a jiffy!


Our neighbor from down the street, Crazy Mike (whom we named as such for various reasons), kindly spent many hours over a couple of days chopping the giant trees into smaller pieces. He really enjoyed himself and we really appreciated it. Despite all his hard work, I was able to find a tree guy to chop down the remainder of offending trees and grind out their stumps for a chunk of change, but at least we don't have to worry about being crushed to death during another wind storm.

Still Catching Up!

This is still from over Christmas break, but this is the end of it (I think). We went to the Planetarium at the Gateway Mall and the kids loved all the space displays. They got to take a walk on Mars with Grandma . . .


. . . and be the weather man (or woman/girl) on TV. Wouldn't it be nice if they could send some temperatures above 20 degrees to us poor folk stuck here in Michigan??? Oh, wait! It's a balmy 27 degrees right now, so never mind. Practically swimsuit weather! (Can you feel the sarcasm just oozing out of me right now?)


Don't the kids look sooooo happy in this shot? They love it when their mom asks them to stop for a picture real quick. I do love how Nick ended up with Australia framed around his head like a hat. I guess the globe was magnetized to his part Aussie-ness. It sensed his inner kangaroo.

Sledding with Grandpa

Grandpa was so excited to take the kids sledding that he went out and bought new sleds! (My question was "Where are the old sleds?" But I think poor Grandpa is getting older because he couldn't remember what happened to them . . .) But this is a favorite memory for me because Grandpa turned into a little boy in all the excitement!


Nick was less than thrilled so I told him to at least have one turn down the hill and then he could go inside. Six or seven tries later, he was still giving it a go. Unfortunately, the whining did not subside.


Can you believe how blue the sky was???


Ashlee and Grandpa making snow angels. This is one of my most favorite photos because it shows what a good sport Grandpa was to really get down and play with the kids. Either that or he was just so tired by this point that he couldn't get up!


Grandma came out and decided to join the fun! So did the neighbor's dog. This dog had a bad habit of standing directly in your path when you wanted to go down the hill. On top of that, it was deaf so you couldn't get it to move unless you got up off your sled, walked halfway down the hill, and physically removed the dumb mutt.

Catching Up Part 2

More pix from over Christmas break. I got to catch up with old high school friends (Trudy, Emily and Julie) while enjoying the yumminess that is Cafe Rio. It took me 3 tries to finally realize what all the hype was about--you MUST get the shredded pork, whether it's in a burrito or on a salad AND their green ranch sauce. It blows Qdoba and Chipotle right out of the water!


This was at an indoor amusement park called Jungle Jim's. It was cool because there are rides for the older kids and the younger kids and if you couldn't tell, Nick thoroughly enjoyed himself.


We had a great time there with Auntie Natalie, Uncle Aaron, adorable little cousins Braden and Tyler, Auntie Sarah and Uncle Brandon.


My sister Sarah and me after we tried to get movie tickets to Enchanted but all the seats were already sold out so we went and saw it over at that really cool outdoor Gateway mall instead. Utah has got some seriously cool destinations.


Jere's brother Josh and his wife Andrea blessed their sweet new baby Elsie while we were there. This is Ashlee meeting her new cousin for the first time. Ashlee LOVES babies!

Just Catching Up a Little

I've been such a blog slacker lately, that I have to catch up on about four months of events and such. So I'm really sorry, but all my descriptions are going to have to be extremely brief. This photo was taken at Thanksgiving and includes 3 of my sisters and their families. I couldn't believe Kelsie was as tall as I was!


Enjoying the golf cart with cousins Sammy and Kylie just after Thanksgiving. The kids LOVE riding on this thing and we all had a really fun but very short break.


Our family Christmas photo. I'm glad the picture didn't also capture all the whining and complaining the kids were doing during this session.


Nick and Ashlee with cousin Tyler after we arrived for Christmas break (this was taken just before they used the bed as a trampoline.)


Ashlee opening yet another Ponyville toy at Grandma and Grandpa's house over Christmas. She has already made her gift list for her birthday in October that includes even more Ponyville toys . . . sigh!