International Relater

finally found something I can do with my valuable B.S. in international relations. Enjoy

Christmas morn

So the big Christmas present this year was .........

(last year was a trampoline, next year will be a maid for me)

and other than a christmas orange........



introducing Pozole aka Po


(for people not in the exclusive Spanish club, Pozole is kind of traditional mexican soup that is the around the same color as Po's hair)

endearing pseudonyms include: poski, stink, po-licious, posker, po bo and po diddy

She's a bitch but we love her already. As an 8 month old beagle/retriever she confuses herself mostly, daily pondering which breed she is going to manifest--sleep like a beagle or run like a retriever, talk about bi-polar.








MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!--we send our love and best holiday wishes (and maybe next year we'll even send a card)

why me?

I'm running a marathon in nine hours. I'm little nervous. I just finished packing my wet wipes into my handy running belt--since it is not a question of whether I'll poop my pants, it just a question of when. I think doing embarassing things is my comfort zone. Pics and painful stories to come.

this pic is from my last running fiasco in Bryce Canyon this summer in July with good brother Grant

Happy Thanksgiving

Tess and her cute cousin Elle decided to write a Thanksgiving speech and give out Thanksgiving presents.

For all the Grandmas and Grandpas, Aunts and Uncles, cousins and friends we missed today. Happy Thanksgiving!

this is halloween, this is halloween

The girls and their makeup artist, Heiderhead. The redneck on the left is their dad...sweet mullet huh


Happy Halloween from Sally (from "nightmare before christmas") and a witch (as per request for the third year in a row)


heading to our church's halloween party


Notice the dunking booth in the background. Tess spent all night trying to dunk her friends' dads-- she succeeded twice.


This is a pic of her throwing, obviously she took this activity pretty seriously.





the trunk or treat


no losers here...that's right, that's RIGHT!
we won the spookiest halloween costumes award. Walk tall you true spirit of halloweeners, in a sea of princesses you are scary! YES!

living waters

While Tess was playing at my friend Catherine's house last week, Catherine decided to serve the kidos some soybeans. As she was dishing out the green goodness she started telling them how great they are for your body and how our bodies are like sponges--we soak up all the nutrients and good stuff and whatever we don't need, all the yucky stuff, our bodies eliminate when we pee or poop etc.....

Here's the conversation that followed.

Tess: "Does Jesus pee?"

Catherine : "I don't know...I don't think so....He has a perfect resurrected body, I don't think he eats anything, so I guess he doesn't have to pee."

Tess: "Jesus takes the sacrament, so he does eat bread and water"

Catherine: "That's true, you're right Tess he does take the sacrament...I guess he must pee."


Just in case you've never pondered the digestive tract of resurrected beings, Tess is on it--always thinking about the weightier matters of the law. This is hopefully a question that never comes up in your gospel doctrine class discussions.

I guess we are raising some super righteous kids--I don't mean to brag but apparently it's true.

hello again

so....I'm back, atleast for today. My excuse for not blogging is simple--exercise. For the first time since high schooly I've been exercising consistently for 6 weeks now, but that's only b/c my running buddy Amy is forcing me to run a marathon with her. I know millions of normal people exercise regularly and live balanced lives but running makes me really hungry and lots of food makes me happy and sleepy. So that's been my pattern for the last few weeks--run, eat, smile, sleep, eat, smile, eat, smile sleep, repeat. There are so many things I want to blog about, our summer trip, Heidi's arrival, my whole blogging fam, my funky girls etc... I'm just going to have to work my way back slowly and more consistently. Thanks to all those who have been checking while I've been out.

how to brainwash the kiddies

I think I've finally got a handle on this parenting thing.

Maybe it's a little premature to say, but ever since I started brainwashing the girls parenting has become relatively easy and stress free. I can't be certain until the girls are full-grown, but I believe my method will take care of any problems we face in the future as well. Maybe I've discovered the parenting "secret." It'd be great if I ended up making millions by writing a long-winded book and making a cheesey video about my new found tactics. I'm pretty sure Einstein, Homer Simpson, and Galileo used some of the same methods on their children. But before I hit up Simon and Schuster with my big idea I thought I'd throw out a blog to see if other parents have used brainwashing and if they find it effective.

So here are my brainwashing 101 basics:

1st--SPY
Spy on your kido. Listen in on a conversation. Talk to one of their friend's parents or their teacher. Find out something that they don't know you know.

2nd--REVEAL
Hold on to your little precious nugget of info until the context is right. It's best to pick a moment when the child is happily telling you about something that has something to do with your piece of info. The goal is to get your child to say, "How did YOU know that?"

3rd--SEIZE and MOLD
Here's the crucial moment. After the, "How did YOU know that?" you have to calmly and confidently say, "sweety, your mother knows everything and she always will." I think the key is finding as many situations as possible where you get to reinforce your omniscience. So repeat steps 1 through 3 as many times as possible.

It's so easy and fun, every parent should try it.

What brainwashed children look like...

birthday fun

So, I'm terrible at b-day stuff. Not as bad as my dad, but I'm certainly a disappointment compared to my mom. She produces small off-Broadway musicals for each family member on their big day. But since my sister Dona and brother Grant share the same b-day (with a six year age difference) it's easy to remember.

Look how nice they were to me. They both really are some of my favorite people and they have always been so good to me. But for the few times they weren't so nice to me, I've decided for their birthdays, to forgive them. Dona I forgive you for shaving the sides of my head when I already an extremely awkward looking 2nd grader. Grant I forgive you for repeatedly fracturing my ribs when you thought you were just tickling me. Anyway, I hope you both have a great day! I love you!

And since Grant is soooo old today, he gets an extra birthday treat. About a month ago when I was in Utah I got to run a 1/2 marathon, mostly behind my speedy, 17 years-older-than-me, brother.

If Grants looks more energetic then me that is because he waited and rested for 25 minutes before jumping back in at the finish line to run with me for our photo opt.

So my second birthday treat to you Grant is an admission that...even at your age, you are faster than me...putting all my geriatic intestinal issues aside.


Hiking around outside of Bryce Canyon after the race. Look at those cool purple shades, you are so John Lennon. Peace brother.

happy birthday!

are you going to miss me?

School is on. This is a warm up week. Normally Roo will go to school all day and Boo in the mornings, but this week is different. Roo is going only in the mornings and Delnard is going only in the afternoons for an hour and a half. It's a nice way to let the kids adjust. Anyway last week the girls were getting ready for school by asking each other repeatedly, "are you going to miss me?" Tess has also been staging her arrival welcome..."Deli you will stand back in the kitchen and run with your arms open to me, and say 'Teeeeeeeeeeeeeessssss I missed you soooo much!' and then you will hug me and I will pick you up and tell you about my day."



one of four final hugs before Roo heads out the door on day #1
"I will wait for you right here Tess" --Deli


"Did you know that I'm 5 and a HALF!"--Tess


Delanor with her plant to take care of for her class


Deli bounced off to class as Tess cried, "I don't want to leave Deli!"

Right after Roo was done with school she decided to take a whack at her hair for the first time in her life. She cut her bangs to a stubble and then took a chunk off one side to about chin length.



When I told her she was making her beautiful hair ugly by cutting it she marched right off to her room to write me some hate mail. That's me with the x slashed across my face.

Supercuts tried to hide the hacks without removing any length (as per Tess's instruction)

So here she is in her first ever 80's rocker Tess Mullet

Tess did finally come to her senses and realized what a fabulous Madre I am. She wrote me this sweet "sorry" note to make up for the previous hate mail.


The first day of school proved to be yet another day to explore a range of emotions and dramatic endeavors. Something that I will probably strangely miss until about 3pm Monday-Friday.

outta town

oh my gosh, oh my gosh!
I just realized that two of my favorite funny people have links to my blog from their blogs. I feel so special. I mean it.

heidier head (endearing nickname from childhood bestowed by my hubby. If you happen to read the post about the sister-in-law with the excellent french accent, that's me....just in case you were wondering)
&
metal ho (endearing nickname self-bestowed by an earnest runner who will do anything to win any kind of metal from any kind of race--if it means slipping mineral oil into the other racers gatorade, so be it--she's that bad)

Anyway, I'm out of town visiting family and friends for three weeks and although I'm taking a break from blogging I will be back in force soon with excellent material from my travels.

o beautiful for spacious skies

Finally the rain has stopped! Now I can quit trying to overdose with brownies and chocolate Oreo milkshakes w/ extra Oreos. Weeks of rainy weather have convinced me that living in Seattle--or any other mostly cloudy place--would be the wrong move for me. So since the sun is out and all is right in my little world, I thought I'd catch everyone up on our 4th of July activities. We did as little as possible, which means it was a perfect holiday.

First the kids missed the neighborhood parade, we slept right through it. As any good parent would, we foresaw the likelihood of our sleeping late and we purposely didn't tell the girls about the parade. If anyone tried to bring up the subject around Tess and Adelle we broke out in show tunes, thereby avoiding any possible disappointment. Quality parenting, what can I say.


when going to the pool seemed too taxing we whipped out the white-trash of water sports, the slip-n-slide.






we had two options for the fireworks...

#1 We could drive 10 miles to a free firework and symphony show. Then, because of parking, be forced to walk a mile with two tired-from-the-slip-n-slide-fest kids. Then stand in line for the over used up-johns at least 4 times due to watermelon consumption.
OR
#2 We could walk two houses down from us, sit on out neighbor's lawn chairs, eat our neighbor's watermelon and fresh picked blueberries, watch our girls play with our neighbor's sparklers, and enjoy the fireworks in peace while our girls sit on our neighbor's laps.
I'm sure you can guess what we did.


By the way, we have a new addition to the family. Above is our sweet 10 year old neighbor who is Tess and Adelle's new big sister. She has been staying with us every Tuesday this summer while her parents--who are some of my favorite people in the world--are at work. We've loved it!

At about 11 pm that night I realized I hadn't made or cooked anything for the 4th. I should have made an apple pie. Then I remembered, I had made cookies on Monday and that should count, although I was too lazy to attempt icing or sprinkles.

Even if my festive domesticity turned out more Napoleon Dynamite than Martha Stewart, the semi-festive cookies did get gobbled up and I even let Tom and the girls have some too.

the end is nigh

We spent the weekend tearing down the garage so we could use the wood to build an ark. Not really, but I thought about it. It dumped all last week and this week is supposed to be a little of the same.

Atleast Tess knows how to dress for a flood.

good brother Gerry

I'm happy to say that we have been graced with another sibling visit from my side of the family. My brother Gerry flew into town to take us out to eat before he had to drive to Oklahoma City for some business. It was a short visit but we'll count it. Unfortunately I'm short on pics from the visit which really works out better for everyone because I can use some old photos of Gerry to illustrate this post. And I'm happy to take this opportunity to make fun of him like he has so lovingly made fun of me my whole life.

oouuuuuuhhhhhh! Check it out! This is back in the glory days, Gerry could barely keep the women at bay. I mean seriously who wouldn't want to make out with a guy in tight jeans and a rainbow sweater, riding a sexy black motorcycle. Way to work it Gerry! hot.

You can't really see it in this picture, but my left arm is in a cast from a break that occurred when I fell out of a tree. Unfortunately, going to the doctor conflicted with Gerry's intramural football playoff game. Since he was in charge of me at the time I was forced to go to the game, watch, learn and "be a man" about my pain. Although it was difficult as an 8 year old to appreciate this learning moment, I'm glad I toughed it out. I can now thank Gerry for the character I was able to develop as I tried to sleep that night with my un-casted broken arm. Thanks good brother.

Here's another good one. Gerry's wearing a nice flannel, not-as-tight jeans, and some cowboy boots even though he is not...

living on a farm/ranch,

visiting a farm/ranch,

country dancing, or cow tipping

once again....hot.

Not to much to make fun of here. Gerry really has been an attentive, sweet, involved and caring brother. Oh, I thought of one...here is a photo back when Gerry was taller then me (okay, we're the same height). Love through sarcasm, one of many good things you've taught me.

I love you!

The girls loved getting to play the piano and dance with uncle Gerry!

Thanks for the visit!