Christmas Traditions

I've been wanting to start a christmas tradition with Maryn for a couple years now, and Meeshmellow offered to help make it happen this year.

Everyday we get to open a little present! We can only fit about 10 at a time across the mantle, but it's been a hit so far! Thanks Meeshmellow!

A new interest

Some one has been getting interested in dressing up lately...

A misunderstanding

This was M's first year trick-or-treating.... and we kept it small, only a few houses of people we knew.

M played Tinkerbell (or Stinkerbell as we call her) very well.. .fickle, demanding and cute.

This is her look of : "HEY! There's CANDY in here! MOM! CANDY in this thing!"
We did have a couple of issues though..
First.. you aren't supposed to eat all the candy as you get it. According to M, it is better to shove it all in your mouth than allow it to touch the bottom of the pail. The only thing that slowed her down was those pesky wrappers.
Second... you aren't supposed to go IN the houses after the people answer.

 "GEEZ WOMAN...You mean I have to eat all this candy OUTSIDE? whatever...next thing you'll tell me is that I have to take these wings off before I go to bed...."

After finding my long lost, beloved calculator, I sent this email to BZ..

"fell asleep with work stuff on the bed... woke up with the calculator smooshed into my face... had to take M to school before the key marks on my face went away"

His response?

"Can I post that on facebook?"

And he did... I can't even remember how many people asked me about it this weekend.

What's in a name?

This weekend the hubby, our friend Josh and I stopped by the coffee shop. The gals working there at the time had never seen me come in with anyone, so they had never met the hubby. In taking our order, the conversation went like this:

Them "Your usual, Anne?"
Me: "Yep"
Them "And.. Mr. Anne? What would you like?"

The hubby got a kick out of it.... I'm going to start referring to him as my arm candy from now on.

A word from our sponsers

This garage sale find brought to you by Feminism Weekly.

Spare Minutes

I've found myself with a few spare minutes... er HOURS in the airport so I thought I'd use the time wisely and start updating a few things. But of course, with limited resources (dirty laundry, leftover corn nuts, laptop) I am limited to writing about recent events.
I'll start with our recent trip to Salt Lake City...
We (Brian, M, Brian's dad and I) jumped on up to SLC to attend a conference and were lucky enough to get to see some family. Our cousin Michelle of outdoor stove fame, her husband and daughter wisked us away on our last night in town and took us up to Red Butte Gardens. As we drove out to the gardens we could see a thunderstorm gathering, but Michelle had packed a great picnic and after days of fast food and buffets we weren't willing to give it up.
We gathered up some tables with umbrellas and ate while it rained around us. The rain turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it kept us all close, eating and talking and then cleared up to a beautiful rainbow just as we were finishing.

Afterward we walked around the gardens. The Herb Garden:












M had a great time with Johanna and her boyfriend. The Children's Garden was great - it included giant lizards, a snake made out of a twisty tunnel of vines and of course all kinds of plants to touch and smell. It was truly beautiful after the little bit of rain.

 

 Cousin Michelle, being the awesomely cool cousin she's always been, brought Miss M a couple of treats. These included a couple a painted wooden fish. Let me narrate some photos for you to give a sense of one of the current favorite conversations:

Miss M: "Mama. MAMA. Pish Kiss."

I am supposed to kiss the fish. The "Pish" kissing does not commence fast enough.

Miss M: "PISH KISSSSSSS"
The end of the conversation varies, but it is usually something like this... 

Your pish kisses are substandard. If this is the best you can do, I'm outta here.

We were happy to see family that we'd like to see more of, happy to spend time with Papa Z and happy to be on our way home!