Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

'Tis the season to be crazy- fa la la la la la la la la! Was that enough la's? I am lovin' this blog thing because it gives me an excuse to not send the cards that I didn't buy! I don't know if you have noticed, but I never send out cards! It's just not my thing! The truth is that I am too unorganized! So...here is my first card in years, blog style!

So, let's see, where do I start?

James still has his job. This seems to be the great accomplishment of the year! He is still working as the pharmacy manager at the hospital here. Our family is blessed to have such a good hard worker to support our family! We love and appreciate him so much! He is still the secretary of E.Q. at church which keeps him very busy too. He still play soccer when he can, and we are all looking forward to some winter sports soon. James helps me out so much! And last but not least, he is so dang cute and funny! I am constantly entertained by him.


I still have my job! As long as I have kids to take care of and clean up after, my job is pretty secure! I stay very busy herding my kids around from place to place. Since I am slightly unorganized, I tend to create extra unnecessary drama for myself on a daily basis. I love my job as a Mommy and Wife. I get to learn so many new things every day! I am actually not doing anything new to brag about at the moment. I am trying to simplify my life. I do have to brag about our basement finishing skills though. We worked so hard and we have a whole new outlook on life now.

Christian is 9 and in 4Th grade now. Christian is getting straight A's in school! He loves sports, music, reading and anything Star Wars. He is very helpful at home, and is starting to babysit for us sometimes. He is a very kind and generous boy who is very sensitive. He is also very curious, he is always asking us questions about everything.

Taylor Jo is 8 and in 2ND grade this year. She is also getting straight A's in school! She is in a Gifted and Talented program to help keep her from being bored in school. Taylor loves anything about animals! She also loves cheer leading, music, reading and socializing. She is our social butterfly! She is always happy and very generous! She is very artistic and likes to create things. She got baptized in October which was really fun for her and her dad.

Averi is in Kindergarten now. She is loving being in school every day. As always her favorite part of school is riding the bus. This year she has really gained a lot of skills. She knows her phone number, and address. She loves to spell and she really likes to have us quiz her on words and counting. She can count to 100 by 1's, 5's, and 10's. She of course loves the piano! She is still a little behind on some of her social and age appropriate stuff, but we are working on it. She is of course as sweet as ever!

We are just fat and happy here in our neck of the woods! We are actually looking forward to the new year because church starts at 11:00 instead of 9:00! We are excited to set new goals and hope that each new year brings us more success than the last!

We wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Wonderful New Year!

Here is a small glimpse of our daily life! (pause the music player)

TIMING IS EVERYTHING!!!!

So...here I go whining again! WHAT'S NEW?!? (before you read this I feel I need to mention that I just took a Lortab for my violent sore throat before writing this! Read at your own risk!)

There's nothing like having your fat rolls plastered on national television to help with the getting "healthy (aka. skinny)" motivation! I guess I know what my "resolution" will be in '09! The timing of filming Mystery Diagnosis show was perfect! I got to show off the 25 lbs. I had found that had been lost in the 12 months prior to us filming that show! Thank goodness I found them, my belly, butt and chin were feeling naked! The good news is that I think I am enjoying being a happy fat person more than I was enjoying being a "thinner mean, evil, starving, cranky woman"! I don't know if it's worth the humiliation though. I doubt that James enjoys the permanent PMS symptoms I experience when I am starving myself either-it's a "catch 22"! I always have the back up plan of eating milkshakes every meal until I'm eligible for lap band- that could be fun! I would be able to have my cake and eat it too-if you know what I mean-(wink wink)! JUST KIDDING! With my luck I would die of a sugar coma before I could get the lap band and I would be too embarrassed to attend my own funeral-how mortifying! NOT A GOOD PLAN!

Our T.V. debut tonight was overall pretty good! I was annoyed about some of the info. they changed and the weird stuff they made us say. They made me look like a cold hearted snake! Worst of all they plastered my hair to my forehead so I didn't have flyaways on film. COME ON PEOPLE! I sat in a directors chair for 6 HOURS and I could have really used a makeup person and a xanax, not a hairspray person! What ever happened to airbrushing?

HOWEVER...

I am so blessed to have spent that time with my family and it is wonderful that Averi's story is out there for other people to learn from! I thinkmy family did a great job, and I am so grateful for the time that everyone took to help with the show! I love seeing the video, and it is great family history stuff. Thanks a million to everyone again! We love ya! When I am dying, I won't remember my fat rolls, but I will cherish every second spent with my family. I AM TRULY BLESSED!

Sorry about whining! Dang it! It just comes SO natural! Does anyone want to join a "biggest loser" club with me? I promise I won't make you wear spandex and put your fat rolls on national television!

What did I do to deserve this?

I HAVE TO BLOG THIS!!!!!

Here is my day today:

1) Wake up feeling like a semi-truck hit me again!

2) Followed James to take the Armada to the "shop" cuz it's not working right.

3) Drove James to work in our Intrepid and started to drive home.

4) Put the window lock on because Averi was rolling down the window and it was too cold.

5) Got Averi ready for school and was excited to rest a little cuz I'm sick!!!!!

6) Drove Averi to the end of our road to catch her bus (it was too cold to walk,cuz I was sick) !

7) Got out of the car to get Averi out to catch her bus shut my door and hear a click!

8) Discovered that the click was the EVIL Intrepid that loves to lock itself when you get out of it for no reason! This has happened to me twice this month!

9) Freaked out because Averi and the keys were locked in!

10) Called James to tell him to bring home the keys and help me-then he told me he had no car to drive home in...DUH!!!

11) Felt like my head was going to explode while I was banging it on the car window!

12) Thought "OH-I will just have Averi roll down the window from the inside" then thought "Oh s***! I locked that too!"

12) Had to wait for James to borrow a car and come home, then I had to drive Averi to school looking like "death warmed over" (more like road kill warmed over)!

13) Mad as heck came home and decided to have raisin bran for lunch and inhaled a raisin! I started choking to death with my Mom and Sister on the phone. Luckily I saved myself somehow, but unfortunately peed my pants while I was choking (not that you want to know that part, but it really added to the story-this happens to women who have had babies when they sneeze, puke, cough, jump or almost choke to death, it's not my fault).

So...tomorrow should be better right!?! Yeah, we'll see!

I'm Baaaaa-aaaaack!

Hallefreakin'lujah! Is that disrespectful? Probably huh? Sorry! But it is really how I feel inside right now! I have been running a fever all night, so if I am incoherent, it is because I am incoherent! Anyway, I said the "aforementioned" Hallelujah because our basement is finally finished (well...mostly)! It is a dream come true!

We have had such a busy and quite crappy month actually. We have all been sick (and it feels like I am sick AGAIN), I have had kids home for 2 weeks while trying to finish up our basement before Thanksgiving (which I actually enjoyed some one-on-one time with them). We had been working until all hours of the mornings painting, tiling, and whatevering we started neglected our kids REALLY BAD! Taylor said to me one day, "mom, we don't even talk to you any more" sad huh? So...now we are veggin' out and being lazy with the kids enjoying our new house.

I need to send a "shout out" to our contractor James who did a fantastic job! He is really talented. And...to my mom and dad who helped us a ton! We are so grateful for all of the help we had. I am too tired to whine about all of the crud we encountered, but overall, everything came together surprisingly well. We are now experts at laying tile, chair railing, painting, hanging cabinets, and caulking and spackling. Well...maybe not experts, but we can do it and make it look alright I guess.

So...here are the big pictures: TA-DA....

Family room


bathroom (obviously)

Kids play room (I LOVE THIS)

reading room under the stairs in playroom

Jame's startling orange exercise room

My guestroom/office

Well, toodles for now! This won't be the last you hear from me!

P.S.-If you can read this you will find out that our Mystery Diagnosis show comes on Dec. 8th. We have previewed it, and just remember that the camera adds 30 lbs., and makes my hair look really weird. Funny huh?!

I am Amber, and I am a moron!

Here are some updated pictures of my basement: I am so excited, we are finally in the home stretch.

BEFORE-ISH:

AFTER-ISH:

This is when I got locked in a bedroom in the basement. I decided to see how the door would close, and I accidentally locked myself in! I was laughing so hard I could hardly yell for help through the doorknob hole to get help from James who was upstairs. He was making fun of me while I was laughing so hard that I was crying. I am a moron! I am sure glad he was home though! How embarrassing!

This is some of my war scars-painting, and more painting! We have to paint the whole basement! I have killed many brain cells from the fumes. That is probably why I locked myself in the bedroom downstairs. I am for sure dumber now!

I have so much more to do on this blog, but I am tired and I can't go on any longer, maybe later!

May all of your brain cells last a long, long time!

What about Bob?

I have a new construction worker named Bob here today. This is how I met him: I was in my office/laundry room looking up fireplace Mantles on my computer (I was home alone). My office is currently in my "mud room" which leads into my garage. All of a sudden I can hear my garage door closing...weird! Then I hear a man talking...even more weird! I thought "James must be home for some reason" so I got up and opened the door and this very odd guy was standing there talking to himself trying to open my garage door again. He said "I thought that was your doorbell". What?!? Bob is about 60-something, sort of looks like the wizard on The Wizard of Oz, smells like cigarettes and talks like Elmer Fudd. He seems like a nice enough guy though! Just funny.

My favorite part of it all was he pulled up in a huge blue Buick boat with a cloth top. I was thinking "is this your construction vehicle"? Then he unloaded it and left and came back with an old beat-up truck with a handicap sticker, and a guy with huge earrings in his ears. My life is sure full of interesting people lately! Only a week or so and then I will have our normal contractor back (who probably thinks I'm crazy!). I can hardly wait to post new pictures of my basement, I am sooooo happy!

Hola Amigos!!!!!

We have been sooo busy! We had Taylor's baptism, birthday, and then we had to do lots of insulation in our basement. Taylor was so cute at her baptism, we are so proud of her. She knows more about the gospel than I ever did at her age! Thank you to Jessie, Ben and kids, Chris, Grandma's and Grandpa's Williams and Empey, Karen,Doug, Michelle, Grandma J., Amanda, Travis and family for coming on such a bad snowy night! We appreciate and love all of you! I promised her a birthday party this weekend so I had better get planning, I only have one day left, that's how I roll!


Finishing our basement pretty much is my dream come true, but putting up insulation was my worst nightmare! Whoever decided to make insulation out of fiberglass is a butt-head! I think I will get lung cancer and forever have itchy skin after that adventure. Why couldn't they have made it from something else, I don't have any other suggestions, but come on-was fiberglass their best option? What in the heck is fiberglass anyway? On a happy note... I have to brag about my superhero husband who carried 86 sheets of drywall down stairs by himself! He is so strong! I could NEVER have done that! He rocks! Our dry wallers are here today, and they should be done today too! Then taping and texture, and I will have real walls. We are doing the painting ourselves (yes, we are crazy) to save money! This is expensive! With the "great depression" and all, it had better be worth it!

(these are some "before" pictures)


My dry wallers are hispanic: Alfonso and Jose, they are very nice. Their Spanish is starting to rub off on me and Averi! I will be fluent soon. Averi wants to do all of her counting in Spanish, but I don't want to offend them, so I keep telling her to stop! She actually recognizes that they are speaking Spanish which is cool. Today Alfonso came in and I asked him what his name was and I didn't think he spoke English. I said my name is Am-ber like I was talking to a deaf person or little kid! As soon as I heard myself saying that I knew that I sounded like a moron! I can make the biggest fool of myself sometimes! He just looked at me with pitiful eyes and said O.K., smiled, and ran downstairs as fast as he could! How embarrassing!

And last but not least! You know you are too obsessed with politics when you turn on the t.v. to one of the candidates speaking and your blind daughter can recognize who it is by their voices! She says John McCain or Nobama (yes I taught her that-oops)! Maybe she can grow up to be the first blind woman president, I think she could do a better job than anyone who is running at the moment! OUCH! Yeah, I went there!

Adios Amigos!


P.S.-Why on October 11th did it snow 2 inches? This is some kind of cruel joke! We had from June 11th to October 11th without snow, that is so not long enough!

Oh yeah-I cut my hair off again! I feel so liberated!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TAYLOR!!!!!

Today is our sweet little Tato-Bugs birthday! She is 8 today! She is the one of the kindest, sweetest,snuggliest, silliest, smartest girls I know! We love her so much and we are so happy that she is in our family! We are so excited for her baptism too, she is such a good little girl and she has such a loving nature.

Let's smirk at my quirks!

O.K., my cute cousin-in-law Katie tagged me. I am supposed to list 6 "quirks" about myself. I know I have thousands, so it is hard to narrow them down. Here goes:

1) I hate silence in a conversation. I will talk about anything to avoid silence. I HATE the awkward silence of just sitting there looking around. Besides, I love to talk, so this isn't that hard for me.

2) Messy microwaves! I can't handle them. I think the old food particles will fall into the new food I am trying to cook up. I freak out when I hear the exploding sound of food while it's cooking, it makes me so mad.

3) I sneeze when I pluck my eyebrows. I don't know why, but it is annoying. I think I'm allergic to grooming.

4) I love to belch really loud. Is that a "quirk"? Probably just bad manners! I can out belch a lot of people.

5) I am obsessed with a neat bed. James hates it when his sheet is tucked in and I can't stand a messy unorganized bed where the sheets wrap around and strangle me. I think it is an actual hazard to have loose sheets wrapped around me at night.

6) My favorite-my weird dreams. I have been blessed to have very vivid dreams and remember them in the morning. I love telling anyone who will listen about my dreams. I would love to go to a dream analyzer, they would have me put into the loony bin for sure!

BONUS QUIRK:

7) I had to add one more because I saw it on my sister's blog and I totally have this HUGE quirk too! LISTS- I have notebooks FULL of lists about everything imaginable! If I died, it would take a year to go through all of them. And...you would laugh hysterically and make fun of me the whole time you read them. They are really weird-like me!
I tag: Jessie, Dayna,Pam, Amanda, and Kjerstin

FINALLY!!!!!

Today is the first day of the rest of my happy basement life! I am so happy because today our contractor started our basement!

We hired a new guy we know and like a lot, and he is doing an excellent job! If any of you need a handyman, call me and I will give you his number He already has closets and walls and our tub drain dug up!

On a whiny note...I feel like my head may explode soon! I have some dang sinus infection, and it is making me very mad!

1+1 = ?????

So...lately a few things have come to my attention. The first thing is that I am not very smart-well, at least at math! My first clue was having a hard time helping my kids with their math homework (how embarrassing)! I want to go back to nursing school, but as I was going over some entrance exam practice tests and got to the math, I felt like I was reading ancient Egyptian writing or something! I have definitely gotten dumber with age. I missed most of the practice questions, so it looks like I need to have Christian or Taylor tutor me a little.

The second thing I realized is that I am really a very weird and air headed person! This may not come as a surprise to most of you, but I have been in denial and now I see the light! While thinking of my kids and all of the weird ideas they have that are so funny, I remembered the weird things I thought when I was younger. I came up with a few and I will let you all be the judge:

1) When I was 7 I believed that I was a cat in a past life. I believed I could speak cat language and that my cat could understand me!

2) I believed that if I poked my belly button my legs would fall off, and that if I ate bread crust I would grow hair on my chest! (these are things my grandpa told me as a joke, and I bought into it)

3) I thought the smurfs lived in the forest behind our family cabin in Island Park and spent many hours trying to find them.

4) When I was younger I wanted to be either the President of the United States or a mortician. I am so jealous of Sarah Palin because I wanted to be a mom and President, but I know I couldn't handle that kind of stress! So now I would settle for being a nurse or a ghost hunter. Those are my dream jobs. Mortician is still on the list though, I think it is because I went to so many funerals as a child, I just figured I should get a job there! Who knows?!?

5) One of my secret desires is to be able to see dead people-only nice ones though. I would love to be able to send messages to people from the other side. I know it's weird, but it would be sooo cool!

6) The airhead stuff I don't have to explain. I make a fool of myself enough to have an experience with everyone I meet, so just remember the last time you talked to me and you will have your own example of my blondeness!

So...it is official! I am a weird blonde. What's new? I just had to confess these things that I have had bottled up for so long!

Here is a cute video of one of my brilliant children (thank goodness they got James' smart genes).

I guess agriculture ain't the only culture 'round these parts after all!!!!

This last weekend we got culturized! I done went to a symphony with James. We sat on the grass, we ate steak, salmon and cheesecake from Outback Steakhouse (them was good vittles). We also got a treat of listenin' to the best darn fiddle player in the whole US of A! Now this is somethin' I could get used to! It was free to boot! Can I just tell y'all that free dates are the best dates! I forgot my camera again! Dang it all!

Oh my gosh! I almost forgot to mention our visit to the Eastern Idaho State Fair in Blackfoot Idaho! This a cultural experience that would turn even the strongest stomachs! Man...why do all of the freaks come out to the fair (what if I am a freak and I am in freak denial-this is a lot to think about)? We saw more back and neck hair on some people than we saw in the animal barns. However, the animals appeared to have better dental plans. I taught the kids my secret weapon of pretending that the "Carnies" are invisible so they don't get duped into the money wastin' games! I was so proud, they didn't even make eye contact once! I am an expert by the way, I grew up going to the fair dodging many freaks! Overall, I learned that I am a germophobe, and I have a touch of social anxiety! I do love the scary rides though, and I had nobody brave enough to go on them with me! Wimps! Maybe next year!

May your week be filled with culturization!

WHY ME??

So...Some of you have heard this story, but I had to blog about it! On Sunday at church Averi was being very naughty , she was in an obnoxious mood. ( ie: In Sacrament meeting she decided that it would be really funny to "toot" as loud as possible several times and laugh about it-very loudly. I got some dirty looks too! She was also yelling out who she loved-Pam she said your name in there!)

Primary rolled around she had no teachers so I decided to spare the sub. and just sit with her! She did pretty good singing and sitting on my lap until the very end. Then came sharing time and scripture and prayer. Well, she was listening to all of the talking and getting every idea jumbled up in her head because she has no context to understand what they were saying. She was sitting on my lap facing me and first of all she kept "tooting" (a little problem she has) and I thought everyone around me was thinking I was over there "tooting". I kept getting out my hand sanitizer rubbing it on my hands and waving it around to dry to try to cover up the smell-I hoped it worked!

She then decided while I wasn't paying attention to use my breasts as punching bags. I told her to stop and she thought that was a funny game. She decided that it would be even funnier to lift my shirt up over my face, and she grabbed the bottom and just flipped it up out of nowhere! I had no time to defend my honor! There were only a few men in the room, so hopefully they didn't go home and vomit! I was wearing my girdle too, so all of my fat was pouring out of the top of it and everything! Then, she decided to copy what everyone was saying and she shouted "The Lord" and then she said "The Lord is pretend" and then "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is pretend". No, I do not teach her these things, she just got all of the the words jumbled up and said whatever she figured they were talking about.

I did the most logical thing and got up and ran out as fast as I could! So, now when I say I sluff church, you can understand why-to save my dignity! I am going to get kicked out sooner or later! What a little stinker-literally!

In this video she thinks she is talking to "Alvin and the Chipmunks". She has some really funny imaginary conversations, that's for sure. We love it!

BACK TO WORK!

Have I actually gone this long without blogging? Wow! Well...obviously my vacation was so busy I couldn't blog, that is a good thing! Here is what we did for the rest of our vacation:

1) James and I went to Brian Regan show (he is a comedian) at Thanksgiving Point in Utah, it was funny(duh)! Then we stayed at the Little America hotel in a HUGE corner tower room! It was so much fun. Of course I forgot my camera (because that's my trademark) for the show, but I got great room pictures. Oh, and I did get my apples from the Rocky Mtn. Chocolate Factory! It was also our 12Th Anniversary! I just have to say that I love being married to James... he's the bomb!

2) It was my birthday! I turned thirty something and had such a fun time with my family! I got a Kitchen Aid! Yahoo! Now maybe I can try to cook something, or at least mix something to cook. I asked for a butler or chef but they were too expensive, so I got the tools to do it myself. I have wanted a Kitchen Aid for a long time, so it was really sweet of James and the kids to get me one! I love them!

3) Went river swimming to the St. Anthony Sand bar with Travis and Amanda (James' brother) and their kids. We all had tons of fun. What kind of Idaho hicks would we be if we didn't teach our kids to swim in the river or canal? This is no ordinary river swimming though, it has a water slide and everything. It's nothin' like the canal with a dead cow floating by that I grew up with! What a little gem! I thought it was cool. There were little fish swimming all around the kids feet, it was funny! The kids were all so cute!

4) We ate and ate and ate and ate and ate! We ate our body weight in ice cream alone. Needless to say I am on a strict diet and exercise regimen now! This makes me postal too, so watch out!

5) THE KIDS WENT BACK TO SCHOOL!!!! This has brought back a little peace and friendliness to our home! The good thing is they are at a free babysitter and they aren't getting any dumber (I hope)! They are happy too-well, sort of! Here are their reactions to returning to school! My reaction was cartwheels and fireworks!

Oh yeah, we watched the Olympics a lot too. I know rules to swimming and gymnastics scoring now, what the heck? I mostly liked it though, and not because of the guys in tights or speedos either!

Hasta La Vista Baby!