We love the snow...

Each morning, my good man has to get up and plow our driveway for me to go to work:



We are running out of places to "put" the snow. What does one do at this point? Bag it up and leave it out for the garbage man? I have no idea how to handle this.



Here's the mound on our patio table:


And the barbecue:


I just hope the snow isn't so bad that we can't leave the airport on Tuesday!

Christmas Review

Ally's first experience with Santa was most pleasant. She was the happiest, cutest, little bug. The entire session took 30 seconds.


2007, she was a little less happy about the situation. She might have just been tired, but she was not happy about sitting on this guy's lap. We did manage to get one good one before the meltdown.


Here's us trying to keep her happy in the line:



And the meltdown (does it make me a bad mom that I like these pictures best? They are hilarious!)





This year, she looked forward to seeing "Sansa" and practiced saying "Ho, ho" in the line. But she still didn't tell him what she wanted for Christmas, which I guess means he won't be bringing her anything. Sorry, Ally.

Andrew's Wedding Blessing

My love affair with food

Once my friend Shanna told me that after going through chemotherapy her body "talked to her." She couldn't eat certain things because they just didn't feel right and her body let her know what she should or shouldn't be eating. Well, my body has been talking to me lately. The other day all I could think about was fruit salad. All day. Nothing. But. Fruit. But by the time I vocalized this to Matt, the only grocery store in Mt. Horeb was closed. I suggested he try Kwik Trip, but he didn't think that they would have any. Finally, after my incessant talking about fruit, Matt said he would go see. What a champ! He came home with two containers of fruit salad and one of grapes. And my body talked to me then, I literally got chills eating my long-awaited fruit salad.

Photoshop

courtesy of Momma Salt - here's Andrew in my favorite picture. He just needs some feet...

Too much going on!!

It has been over a week since Thanksgiving came and went. It seems like so long ago and it definately flew by too fast. We left Madison on Wednesday morning and flew to Denver, CO to stay with my older brother and his wife Debbie for Thanksgiving. (You should have seen Matt carrying all 6 carry-on bags plus the car seat all over the Chicago/Denver airports. This old man in the Denver airport said that someone should get that workhorse "some water and some hay.") This trip was planned several months ago to have Thanksgiving there where Matthey & Debbie could show off their new home (which was really nice!!). Then my younger brother Nathan came home from his mission and decided he just couldn't wait to get married. His lady-in-waiting said yes (phew) and they decided to get married the day after Thanksgiving to save us all making another trip somewhere in December. I for one was grateful for that! But it did add a little extra stress on my sister-in-law Debbie because her once 12-person Thanksgiving meal turned into a 32 person event with all of Natalie's family and their friends from BYU. She had to do a lot of coordinating to get enough tables and chairs for everyone.
Two additional bonuses for me 1. My friend Gen and her husband Kyle happened to be in Ft. Collins for Thanksgiving and came down to visit. They were our friends in Arizona, but have since moved to Oregon. (P.S. In Wisconsin, they pronounce it Ore-gone, not Ore-gun. Weird) and 2. I get to love on my friend Laura who lives in Denver with her husband Tyler while she goes to dental school. She also informed me that she might be doing her residency in Wisconsin, which I would LOVE, and I got to meet her husband for the first time. I give him an A+. Good job Laura.
Here's Nathan & I at his wedding:


Here's the brothers (with a spot left on the end to photoshop Andrew in later):



My family:


The happy couple:



A random, out-of-order picture of Ally. (I'm really good at this blogging thing):


Ally dancing with Grandma at the luncheon:



Here are the two reasons I get up in the morning:


Sad Matt after the BYU loss to Utah. See how sad he is?

But he took it better than Hitler did:


The highlights of the trip:
1. Seeing Adam and Nathan again after 2 years
2. Spending time with Debbie, Laura, & Gen
3. Andrew sent a video from Samoa that we all watched at the luncheon (so funny. Maybe if my Mom can figure out how to upload it, I can link it up here).
4. Laughing till I cried (Papa Salt with a gun...that's all I have to say)
5. Groomsmen cake was a Texas flag..with a yellow rose on the top. Nice touch.
6. Wedding cake.
7. Fried pickles.

Can't Wait!

I can't wait for Thanksgiving. Actually, I can't wait until Wednesday, when I get to go to Denver and see Matt & Debbie's new house, show off my Ally to her grandparents (and great-grandpa Joe), play with Nathan, Adam, & Natalie, go shopping with my Mom and Debbie, see Gen & Kyle, love on Laura, and just relax. It's all I can think about. Just have to get through tomorrow. Oh yeah, and that last minute thing we call packing...can you believe they charge for luggage these days? How am I supposed to get a 2 year old and all her necesseties (car seat, stroller, pack n' play, DVD player for the flight) into one carry-on bag? What an amusing sight we will be.

I'm Alice! Hells Yeah!

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Separation of Church and State doesn't mean that the National Religion is Athiesm

I had heard that the Mormon church had been sued (or talks of litigation) for its support of Proposition 8. My immediate thoughts were to the members of the church. Don't let these onslaughts beset you. Trust in the Lord that His church will prevail. Don't take matters into your own hands or let the spirit of contention overwhelm you. This is what the adversary wants. Do not let him win.

I don't mean to be rude, but...

It's my opinion that when someone begins a sentence with "I don't mean to be rude, but..." it's their way of making themselves feel better about saying something rude. What they should really say is, "I'm about to say something rude, but I don't want to feel guilty about being a total shrew." If you have to start a sentence with that then you should KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT.

The Buffingtons

Get your own Family Sticker Maker & MySpace Layouts.

Apparently this program doesn't fit more than 4 family members. Sorry, Lola, you're out.

A party? For me?

Here is Ally at a friend's baby shower. She clearly thought the party was for her.

Books I've Read

Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls by Mary Pipher

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I thought this was a great insight to the development of adolescent girls...not to mention I always appreciate reaffirmations of what I have been taught as far as parenting styles go...According to Dr. Pipher, girls who survive adolescence best come from homes that are strict but loving. A laissez faire attitude of raising teenage girls doesn't work. Although they will fight you to make their own decisions, they aren't equipped emotionally to handle adult situations. (Not that they can't make ANY decisions, there just have to be boundaries). We need to be firm and strong and not give in to their demands just because we're tired or it's easier.


View all my reviews.

A Change of Thought

So, this blog has taken a turn in its original planned update. I decided to log in and do a little update, but my computer took so long to load and then froze and then had to be restarted and now 30 minutes later, I have forgotten the pleasant thoughts that I originally planned and all I can think about is killing my computer.
A little over a year ago, I was trying to finish up my thesis work on an older, but decent (ha) laptop from home. This saved me from having to spend late nights on the lab computer and allowed me to spend more time with my family. Then the computer went nuts. The arizona heat didn't help, but the damn thing kept overheating. Mid sentence and POOF! The screen would go black, all work was gone. And I would wait a few minutes and restart, but just as Windows finished loading..POOF! Too hot again.
Matt said that if we sold the laptop and all the accessories for it (DVD burner, etc.) we could get a new laptop and it would only cost us a couple hundred difference. I said, "Go. Now. Godspeed." And sent him off to BestBuy to get us a new laptop.
Now it's been a year, and although there is no chance in hell of overheating during a Wisconsin winter, this laptop is prooving to be just as frustrating. I have one, just ONE, open program. One teeny tiny Internet Explorer window open and my computer freaks out. Dual processor, my butt. At work I have a minimum of 5 IE windows open, at least 5 other programs up and running, and throw in a mozilla window or two. What is wrong with my computer? We've moved quite a bit of stuff onto our external hard-drive, but still no luck. I've taken everything it will allow me out of the Startup programs. Our virus/Spyware always comes back "clean." I don't know what else to do, but 45 minutes later...there is my post. Was it worth it?

Return of the Adam

Adam is home! I got to talk to him for a bit yesterday. He called my cell phone while I was at work to wish me a happy birthday. We talked for a bit and then he asked if I would get in trouble for talking on my cell phone at work. I joked, "Adam I have my own office. No one knows." And Adam said, "Well SOMEbody knows." I said, "Oh Adam, you're not getting all religious with me!" and he said, "What do you expect? I just got home from a mission today." So Adam.
Welcome home, can't wait to see you later this month!

Just to Prove I Did It!!!

Dish or Direct?

When we moved from Madison to Mt. Horeb, Dish said they wouldn't move us for free (apparently you only get so many free moves). Matt thought if he threatened to cancel, they would consent, but they didn't. So we decided to go with Direct TV. So far, I'm not incredibly impressed.
* First, we are paying more and only get one DVR. This means that not only can't I record on the other TV, but I can't even watch what we've recorded.
* There are less hours of recorded TV available. We only have may be 10-15 shows recorded and we're already at 40% of our alotted time.
* Scrolling through all the channels is a huge pain because for some reason it will only move through the channels one at a time. This takes forever when you are trying to scroll through 1000 channels. Not to mention is really annoying when you hit the PPV "naughty" section.

There is one thing I love about Direct TV though. There is a channel called Fit TV and it's basically all day workouts. How fabulous. No matter what time of day I have time to workout, there's always something new to try. (See point #1 from above, though...I have to do the workouts on the main TV and not in the "workout" room. Annoying for both me and Matt).

Although I had sworn off running for the winter, the weather has all of a sudden warmed up again. Halloween was actually NICE. So yesterday morning, taking advantage of the warmer weather (why couldn't it have been warm last Saturday???) and the newer sunlight in the morning, I decided to go for a little run before work. I only went 2 miles, but apparently my muscles are still recovering. I can barely walk today! Trying to do yoga this morning on Fit TV was a joke. I would bend over and not be able to get back up.

And my friend Gen sent me a link to this blog: http://classycosmetics.blogspot.com/
For someone who grew up in an all-boy household, I need all the makeup tips I can get!!!

Naughty or Nice?

With the Christmas season vastly approaching, it's time to evaluate whether or not Ally is qualifying of the Nice List or if she will end up on the Naughty List come Christmas time. This will be a continuing evaluation. Here's what I've come up with thus far:

1. Naughty - The other day I had fed Ally a bowl of cottage cheese and went into the living room to do something. I turned back around and Ally had dumped her cottage cheese on her head and was wearing the bowl like a hat.



2. Nice - Matt spent all day Saturday working on his truck. At about 6, we got a call from Maggie letting us know that Matt was still there and alive, but his phone died and we could come over if we wanted. I deciced to pick up some root beer for him on the way and stopped at Kwik Trip with Ally (add a Nice tally to my list). Normally, a trip to the convenient store with a 2 year old is a constant battle of wills, followed by a chase scene in which a mother holding multiple heavy bags now has to chase down and pick up her 30 lb baby and carry her and her bags to the car. But each time I asked Ally to put something back, she would! It was amazing. And when I said it was time to go, she actually followed me outside and to the car. It was surreal.
3. Naughty - later that night, I was doing the dishes. I turned around and Ally had her hands in the litter box. Disgusting. (Did I mention our cats are back? Apparently, the family that took them have a daughter who had a bad allergic reaction to the cats. I was not-so-secretly relieved). I promptly picked her up, washed her hands and put her in time out.

I'm not a fan of Aldo Leopold

I'm sure the man was a nice guy, but I'm not a fan of Aldo Leopold. Hate would be too strong a word, but his half marathon is HORRIBLE. First of all, it's MORE than a half marathon. For those of you experts, you already know that a half is 13.1 miles. This one was closer to 14 miles. I mean, if you are going to make me run 14 miles instead of 13.1, at least call it what it is. I want credit for that last 0.9 mile!!
(Plus we had made shirts that said, "13.1 then I'm done" and it wasn't funny to anyone anymore. They kept asking, "are you just going to lay down at 13.1 and not finish?" Yes, that's what we're going to do, genius).
If you recall the altitude map I posted earlier, the first 2 miles were pretty much straight up, and there were significant uphill portions thereafter. I'm a bit of a running novice, maybe all runs are that way, but it was torture. At about 6 miles I wanted to quit but realizing that I had told too many people about it, I "kept truckin". My hip flexor started shooting pains down my leg on the uphill portions at about 6 miles too, so I ended up dragging my leg. People kept asking me if I was OK (NO! Do I look OK? And even if, what are you going to do? Carry me?)
Fastforward to mile 12. I haven't seen anyone in a long time...no one ahead or behind. I started thinking, "am I dead last?? How embarrassing. I don't even want to finish." This was also happening at the final uphill portion, and my leg was killing me, so I opted to sit for a minute and collect myself. By waiting for a moment, I noticed that there was a group walking behind me. I know it's horrible to compare myself to others, but knowing I wasn't dead last made me feel better, enough to get back up and finish. My mom had sent me an email the day before reminding me to tell myself that "I can do hard things." I told Sarah W. about my mom's email and she told some hikers on her way that if they saw another red head wearing the same shirt she was, to tell her, "you can do hard things." So I ran past this group of hikers and they gave their normal words of encouragement, but then one looked me right in the eye and said, "You can do hard things. You can!" It made me laugh. And shortly after that I ran into Valerie, the running guru. She had finished much, much earlier, but ran back UP the hill to finish with each of us.
As I FINALLY approached the finish line, Matt & Ally and the other ladies & their husbands started cheering. I lost it. I was overwhelmed and embarrassed by the attention and I started crying. But they were taking my picture and I was CRYING. So I covered my face with my hands and that's how I crossed the finish line...with my hands over my face and crying.
I wish I had a more uplifting story...about how running in a metaphor for life and it doesn't matter when you finish as long as you finish. I don't believe a word of that unfortunately. It was hard, painful, discouraging and disappointing. Sometimes I do catch myself thinking about how "next year I'll train more uphill" or "next year I should do some cross training, that might help." We'll see.
Fortunately, our own camera's batteries died, so I have no pictures of that embarrassing moment, but here two of the other ladies:




Sunday I spent recovering. Then Monday I flew to Boston for the day for work. On a private jet no less. I wish I could say it was more like a rap video, but it was actually a little cramped. But it was nice not to have to go through security or get to airport an hour early (although noone told me that BEFORE I got there at 7:00 am).

Thursday night we had our ward Halloween party. Ally was a BYU cheerleader and she enjoyed playing at the church and eating candy. Halloween we thought her cheerleader outfit might be too cold so we put her in the frog costume. Poor kid fell. Twice. All the way to the ground and hit her forhead on the concrete. Then of course, she wanted to be carried after that, and she gets heavy after a while. But it was cute to see her "get it" towards the end. She would walk to the door and hold out her bag. Matt said she even said trick-or-treat once or twice.





I'm sad Halloween is over. A year to go until it's socially acceptable for grown-ups to dress up again.

SYTYCD

Just so you know I'm not totally uber depressed (even if we have no money, broken cars, death-trap of a race coming up), here are some fun pictures from SYTYCD. I love Erika's turtle face x10.

Anxiety

I have been having some major anxiety recently. See the hell prepared for me on Saturday:


Also, yesterday I came home from So You Think You Can Dance, and the cats were gone. I cried. They have been re-homed and you can make fun of me if you want, but it breaks my heart. And then I think, "How am I going to survive when Ally grows up and moves away?" and Matt said, "Well, we're not going to put her on craigslist."