Carlee Hoopes

Birthday

2011-06-26T20:55:00.003-06:00

The boy:

The cake:

Bringin' cursive back. Or not.

Can't really think of anything he likes more than a good plug.

Maybe cake.

Father's Day

2011-06-19T09:21:00.000-06:00

The Kids

2011-06-05T14:54:00.003-06:00

Brenn:

Favorite past-time:

So basically he entertains himself whenever we go anywhere. I will weep a few tears at the conclusion of this blessed phase.

This morning before Survival of the Fittest, a.k.a. church:

We didn't survive. Bailed 25 minutes early. Clearly we're not fit.

Maggie pretending to be a horse that likes to do summersaults:

Bi-Annual Report

2011-02-16T08:00:00.003-07:00

Let's see. Since the last time I blogged, Maggie turned 3, Brenn turned like 8 months, my blog was lost, then found, and there's been roughly 18 holidays. This should be easy enough.

So Maggie's still crazy into trains. I had no choice but to make her a train cake for her birthday. We went with a Halloween theme since that's the candy Winco had. I'm nothing if not resourceful.

I cooked up some mac n' cheese and placed a bowl in front of Maggie one afternoon. She gave me the evil eye and said, "But mom, what about James? He needs to eat, too." Naturally. If this is what it would take for her to eat, I had no choice but to oblige and serve James a plate up as well. And this is how he continues to take many of his meals:

For Halloween, Maggie told me she needed to be Thomas. So, aiming to make all her wildest dreams come true, I looked to Google and decided I would set out to make it myself. I think my exact search term was, "I got suckered into making a Thomas costume. What now?" Or something like that. Here's a tip for you: If you're gonna make a Halloween costume, don't make it out of cardboard and paper. It will rain. I promise. Also, Super Glue isn't always so super.

Anyway, here's what I came up with:

And in all its glory, she was in heaven and perhaps a bit proud of me. But things only went downhill from here. Basically, she sorta lost her footing on some steps and the wheels popped off. So we did some quick reconstructive surgery and went out for round two. And then the head popped off. In the middle of the street. By this point she was traumatized and asked if we could just go back home and put her fairy wings on because "they won't fall off in the middle of the road." Her words, not mine. It was all very touching. Here's one more for good measure:

Brenn was Batman. Sort of. It's the best I could do. Regardless, I was left with no choice since, according to his father, his name should still be Batman.

Here's a few more shots of the boy. He's kinda army crawling now, which is interesting. I hear he looks like Maggie. Thoughts on this?

This is how he hung out for months 4 through 8. All day, every day. Which contributed in part to his excessive purging habits during months 4 through 8.

I wouldn't be a decent mother if I didn't include a kids-in-front-of-the-Christmas-tree photo on the blog, now would I?

Let's talk about Christmas, shall we? Maggie asked for more tracks. She threw in some dinosaurs at the last minute, and thanks to Kory's sister & mom of three boys, Santa was able to come through for her. Each of her engines asked Santa for presents as well. Luckily they all just requested candy canes this year, but apparently I have 2 kids and like 8 trains to attend to these days. It's exhausting.

Brenn got some biter biscuits and a new crib sheet, due to the fact that I change his sheets about 2-3 times a week because of the massive quantity of spit-up he ejects from his tiny person. For example:

I rest my case.

Turns out this is how you play a reindeer - "the rudolph one...the one with the red nose" - pulls a sleigh of dogs. Note the boots on both hands and feet. She takes her pretend seriously.

Also note the Grinch's dog, Max, in the sleigh. Which brings me to another item of business. The Grinch. Starting mid-November this became yet another obsession. We ate, drank, and slept the Grinch. Everything revolved around the Grinch. It's all we saw on the TV. It's all we listened to in the car. La Who Doree" a.k.a "Welcome Christmas," became "Maggie's Song" and nobody was allowed to sing it but her. And sing it she did. Even her nursery class got the privilege of hearing her rendition when the teacher announced it was singing time.

I was awoken several nights in a row with Maggie, patiently standing at my bedside, informing me that she could see the Grinch in her eyes ... Emotions were calculated by heart size, i.e. "My heart is really big, mom, so I'm really happy." Or, "That man is mean. His heart is small"... I was asked on several occasions to join hands with her and sing "La Who Doree" with our eyes closed around the Christmas tree, just like the Whos. In any event, we go all out for her obsessions.

The boy's still kickin'. Literally. It's his favorite past time and once he's kicked himself into this position, he couldn't be happier with his job well done.

Maggie told me she wanted to take her purse to Costco. Pretty girly for her I thought. But sure, why not? When she showed up at the door, I noticed it was full of dinosaurs. That's more like it.

So I'm not done talking about trains. We're never done talking about trains. Anyway, you know your kid's seen too much Thomas when she refers to ornery people as "cross" and mutters the following phrases under her breath when she's disgruntled: cinders and ashes, bust my buffers, and fizzling fireboxes.

And I'll conclude with some random pictures taken circa summer 2010. My mom took us all to Boondocks for a day o' fun. And it was.

It started raining and Maggie told me she needed to get her umbrella. I scratched my head because I wasn't aware she had one. I was right. She waltzed upstairs with this beauty:

Wonder how that worked out for her. Also check out my awesome self-portrait on the patio. Skillz. For realz.

Here's Kory riding with her in a model train at the new tracks in South Weber. Pretty cool really. Made her day. Doesn't he look jolly?

The things we do for our kids...and somehow it's always worth it.

Here's a tree with some bikes in it:

Too long to tweet.

2010-12-05T20:16:00.004-07:00

Nothin' like some good old fashioned holiday fail. Took Maggie & Brenn to the Christmas Village in Ogden last night to ride the Christmas train, which was theoretically a fantastic idea. Well, the train stopped running when we got there because of the rain. Maggie was devastated. So we somehow ended up in a blind-leading-the-blind mob of other parents trying to convince their kids that a trolley, a.k.a bus, a.k.a. public transit was the same thing as a train. We boarded. And then we spent our evening riding through Ogden, stopping to pick up drunks every few hundred feet. Nothing screams Christmas like that does. As soon as we were off the #&%^ trolley bus, Kory asked Maggie if she had fun or not so much. "Um, not so much, dad."

And that, folks, is why you stay home and just let your kids watch movies about Christmas traditions.

I don't think I mention food once...or Winco. But long live the ellipses.

2010-08-18T23:00:00.004-06:00

So the blog has ultimately turned into the family record book. It's all good though. I don't have time to have thoughts anymore, which is probably for the best. I made the mistake of reading through some of my old posts a while ago and holy heck, won't be doing that again. Bleh.

Moving on... So apparently Maggie inherited my ability to obsess. I've always taken obsessions to record-breaking heights, but somehow Maggie takes hers higher. Her current train obsession has been epic. We're totally cool with it though because we've gotten some desired results from it. Basically she's had to "work" for almost all her train stuff...you know, like using the can and staying in bed and stuff. Not only did a $4 Percy train pretty much provide all the motivation she needed to become potty trained, but some stylish Thomas & James boy underwear made it happen. Judge if you must, but she flat out refused to wear underwear until I found these babies:

Yes folks, that's indeed a Thomas skirt and matching Thomas bow. We don't take our obsessions lightly around here. And trust me, this isn't all her Thomas shehaw. She's somehow acquired pez dispensers, cups, DVDs, books, jammies, and a pillowcase (looks awesome in her pink and green room, trust me). My house is basically a shrine to Thomas now, so a special shout-out goes to all the family members who made this happen...I'm sure they're laughing themselves to sleep as we speak.

No need for tracks when you've got a newborn to drive on, eh?

Kory took her to the Union Station and was basically held hostage for over 2 hours while she obsessed over the trains.

Alright, enough with the trains. So I kid you not, this is how I found her sleeping one night (pre-Thomas pillowcase).

We somehow ended up at a few parades this year, despite Kory's hatred for them. I think he's starting to realize that they're not half bad when you've got kids. Either that or he finally realized that he automatically inherits a healthy portion of Maggie's salt water taffy if he takes her.

We've gone swimming a few times.

Overall, she's still super intense and demands a lot of attention, but she's also becoming really sweet. Every morning when she wakes up she asks, "Are you happy mom? Not sad?" and then gives me a big smile when I say yes. And if she does something naughty, she always makes sure I'm happy afterward. Then she usually won't do it again and lets me know that she doesn't do it because it "makes mom happy." She's even more intent on making Kory happy, and tells me at least twice a day that she doesn't wet her pants because it "makes dad happy, not sad." I'm trying to decide if this is a good thing or not. I love that she's cares so much about how we feel, but hopefully she can do things that make her happy as well, because I know what it's like to always be trying to please other people and I don't think it's always the best way to be...so, yeah...

Here's the little dude. He looks very two-month-oldish, don't you think?

This picture's blog-worthy because it's the only time he ever slept in the bouncer. Hates it with a passion. My kids are loyal to the swing.

Aaannnd, there goes the hair. But shortly after came the smiles, so it's a fair tradeoff.

See that? That's my mouth. Don't know how to break it to him that he's gonna have a lifelong battle with drool to overcome...

He's just so chill. Maggie had to be swinging nonstop in order to fall asleep for the first 4 months of her life. This kid will be kicking and squealing his heart out and then suddenly he'll be in a slumber. And best of all, he sleeps between 7 and 8 hours straight at night. I get teary-eyed just thinking about it. He still vomits up like 96 percent of what he eats, but he doesn't seem concerned about it, so I'm not either. I've just gotten used to carrying a bath towel around with me and looking like a hobo all day.

Brennan

2010-06-17T21:32:00.000-06:00

I was gonna write a post about all my deep thoughts, but then I remembered that I don’t have any, so I'll talk about Brennan.

Kory’s always been under the impression that if you name your son Batman, he’ll receive instant cool status without having to do anything...and that it would be extra awesome for the boy when his future teachers call attendance... “Josh, Michael, John...Batman.” I’ll admit, it sounds awesome. And since we lack the height genes, it could only help. Thus the idea of naming our first-born son Batman came to be. But as sound as the logic may have been, I thought perhaps we should go a more traditional route and name him Brennan Bruce. Luckily for Kory and his Batman dreams, my maiden name is Bruce. And Bruce Wayne was Batman. See how nicely that works? So no worries, Brenn will still be awesome.

I’m just gonna throw this out there: I hate being pregnant. The end. Oh, and three cheers for epidurals...and McKay-Dee's room service rocks my world. The end for reals.

So check it out - my kids' birthdays are 10/6/7 and 6/7/10. That’s gotta mean something, but my feeble brain can't quite figure out what. Maybe since 7/10/6 has already passed, I'm done having kids??

Brennan weighed in at 6 lbs. 12.6 oz. and was 19 3/4 inches long, although the nurse who gave us the stats either told us wrong or wrote up all the paperwork wrong, because we were both told 19 inches in the delivery room. Oh well. Somehow I doubt Brenn will care. Anyway, we brought him home last week weighing in at a whopping 6 lbs. 4 oz. and I'd guess he weighs somewhere between 6 and 16 lbs. now, give or take a few ounces.

So we didn’t really do anything to prepare Maggie for Brenn’s arrival. We figured she had no choice but to accept it and she’d have to adjust. I'm sure all the avid parenting magazine readers are gasping right now, but that’s just how we roll. And she hasn’t been an issue at all. She pretty much instantly accepted that he wasn’t going anywhere and hasn’t asked me to send him back yet. When he cries, she tries to cheer him up by showing him her trains...

Dimple in the chin = he's Kory's. Phew.

So far he seems to be super cuddly and chill. He sleeps great and eats great and that's basically all he does at the moment. Not sure how long it will last, but I have no complaints for now because he's made the adjustment (that I'd been dreading for years) pretty seamless so far.

I guess I have a lot to say tonight

2010-06-01T20:47:00.002-06:00

So it turns out Maggie couldn't care less about anything girly. She doesn't like dolls or princesses or dressing up. No, she's obsessed with trains, planes, dogs, monster trucks, and usually the villain in the Disney movies. She begs me to let her take her Thomas trains - complete with their station - on walks with us, out to get the mail, to bed with her, etc. She treats them like people and makes sure they're in their station when it gets cold. Kory caught her sleep-talking a few weeks ago saying, "It's okay, Thomas. Don't worry, I'll help you get clean."

She also loves building towers out of anything she can find, and apparently "scary ghost trains."

Her favorite books include: "Where the Wild Things Are," "The Butter Battle Book," which is a Dr. Seuss book that's basically a parable about arms races and nuclear weapons, and the one about the old lady who swallows a horse and dies. You know, the classics. Her newest tactics for trying to convince us to let her out of bed include the following: sandwiches, pancakes, cheese, and/or being happy... "Dad, I want a sandwich," "Mom, I need a pancake," "But dad, Maggie's happy." It's clever since she knows we love it when she eats, but it doesn't work. In bed she remains sans sandwich.

She would feed the ducks all day if we'd let her, but that would be a lot of bread now, wouldn't it?

See these pigtails she sported on Easter? Well, she ripped them out and handed them to me. Like, the entire pigtails, hair and all. So we are now in the process of re-growing her hair. Boo.

See what I mean? I've had nothing to work with for months now. Also, this is how we left the house for about a month. Snow boots and shorts. It's all good. I had a broken foot and didn't have the energy to fight it. Perhaps she wanted her boots on since I had one on. And in that case, I find it very endearing.

On Mother's Day, Kory asked her to say something nice about me, so her obvious response was, "Mom has big teeth." It was special.

We finally finished our basement (for the most part) last week. Hal-le-lujah. Even though it's just one room and a bathroom, it was a ton of work...and we hired some of it out! I will never understand the appeal of buying old homes and fixing them up. Never. At least it's done and now the incubating child has a place to sleep when he arrives...and all the toys now reside in a place where they don't send me into an anxiety-ridden, clutter-induced coma every day.

So this is what I realized: finishing a basement = neglecting your child(ren). Seriously, I felt like all we did for a month while we buckled down and worked on the basement and organized all the other rooms in our house was neglect Maggie and let her watch movies to keep her occupied. So on Saturday we went down to Salt Lake, got her a donut from Banbury Cross Bakery, took her to a park in the Avenues to swing and slide, and then to dinner at the Spaghetti Factory where we ate in the train. She was so excited she couldn't even eat*, and she kept saying that she couldn't wait for Thomas and Percy to come meet us at the station. I proclaim it one of our best parental decisions to date...just after the one where we decided to *feed her a donut right before going to dinner. D'oh.

Then we came home and Kory built her a tent to play in (a.k.a. watch Thomas in) before bed.

Obligatory Memorial Day pics:

So I found myself at Wal-Mart the other night at 10:00...extremely large with child, no wedding ring on, and in my painting clothes. Strangely, I felt very much at home.

Obligatory awkward end-of-pregnancy pic:

So I seem to finally be getting back to normal after a few months of crazy stuff...broken foot, respiratory infection, weird hand infection that I was convinced was flesh-eating and obviously fatal. Now onto birthing a child "any day now" so a whole new set of anxieties can settle in. Have mercy.

Maggers Mei -2.5 years

2010-04-24T21:21:00.003-06:00

I pull this picture up after I catch her biting the table, chewing up Chex and spitting them out on the newly-vacuumed floor, sucking the puddle water out of the bottom of her pants to quench her thirst, and the like. Let's just say it's saved her bacon on several occasions.

Just some pictures and stuff

2010-01-06T14:47:00.004-07:00

Here's a picture of Maggie:

And here's another one:

And this here's a picture of Kory and his baby. Not Maggie, the TV. The Rockband sessions are nightly rituals at this house. And we both feel comfortable knowing that our two-year-old is gaining a firm appreciation for hard rock.

Also, word on the street is that Maggie looks a whole lot like Kory when he was a wee lad. I initially had my doubts, but I've seen the light.

And that's all I have to say tonight.

She turned 2...

2009-10-08T14:23:00.010-06:00

So we gave her a horse. She wasn't the least bit interested in it at first - naturally - but when all her cousins fought to ride it during the party, her competitive side got the best of her and now she fully appreciates her horse. Lovely how that all works out.

She was asked to smile for the camera. This is what we got:

I completely copied Ashlee and made a rainbow cake. My kitchen was a disaster, my socks now have orange speckles on them, I'm certain a few egg shells ended up in the finished product, and I followed the instructions all wrong...but no complaints really.

Mmm...frosting. BTW, next year I'm just gonna whip out a can of Pillsbury frosting and let her go to town on it. Who needs cake really?

Her cake suddenly became completely uninteresting when she realized the cousins were all momentarily staking their claim on her gifts.

So she joined them. And despite her size, she held her own.

When the party was over, things started out great with her new shopping cart.

But all went downhill when Kory had an ingenious idea to teach her this:

...must have slipped his mind that he goes to work all day...

So of course this is now the main use for the cart.

And I'm tired.

And what's a good blog post these days without some poor quality footage? The story begins in the early morning hours on Maggie's birthday as I neglect to feed her breakfast for the sake of trying to capture her ABCs on camera, and ends with Kory blowing out her candles after a rousing rendition of the birthday song, which was perfectly overshadowed by my lovely vocals in the key of chipmunk. Enjoy.

Special thanks to all the family members who came to celebrate and provide her with the gifts she loves. And to Leapfrog of course.

Maggie workin' it

2009-09-06T20:08:00.001-06:00

Blogging intimidates me now. So much space...more than 140 characters...what to say?

2009-06-17T14:40:00.001-06:00

Thought it was about time I posted some pictures of Maggie. I think the last time I posted anything about her was when she was like barely walking and only knew how to say "no." Times have changed...well, she still prefers a good "no" to any other word, but she has added a few others to her repertoire since then.

This was after the city Easter egg hunt that lasted approximately 11 seconds. She mostly just put her loot in all the other kids' baskets, but she did manage to walk away with a few choice items...and she chose well because I quite enjoyed them.

You just can't beat a good pipe band on Memorial Day, you know?

We went to that cool splash pad in South Ogden for a combined family birthday party. The storm timely blew in as soon as everybody arrived, so we were forced to pick up and crash grandma's house. Maggie wasn't too upset we had to bail though, since the confidence she appears to have in this photo was quite fleeting once she got sprayed. (How 'bout that bikini, eh? Neighbor Sarah let her borrow it and I couldn't resist letting her don it for this wholesome family event.)

Her daily fix of Kai Lan.

It's all fine and good 'till the thunder rolls in.

I sent her out in the rain to pick some shrooms for a salad I was making. Luckily I had the foresight to freeze a ton, so whatever party we're invited to next, just go ahead and sign me up for a salad will ya?

Since I refuse to attempt the typical photo centers until she's like 8, this is the best picture I have of her actually standing still. Took it last month and haven't been able to recreate the moment since.

And of course, some footage. So there's a lot of repeated stuff, but I was too lazy to do too much of all that fancy splicing stuff, so it's loads longer than it needs to be. Oh yeah, and it turns out YouTube cut off her head! Not like literally, but... Anyway, the video I took has her entire head, so apparently I'm not a total moron...yet.

Ok, so this is pretty awesome.

2009-04-21T19:35:00.004-06:00

(And FYI fellow Twitterers, my user name is CarleeHoopes now, not Choopes12.)

Let this be a lesson to you

2009-03-25T22:03:00.002-06:00

It seems the cops are getting more ruthless these days, which can only mean one thing . . . I gotta come up with some new material. In the past, I've usually been able to talk myself out of tickets, but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. Gone are the days when I was able to get out of them by bouncing up and down and blaming my speed on "needing to go to the bathroom SOOOO bad" and my fear of public restrooms.

So on my way home from improv class Saturday night, I somehow lost track of where I was going and ended up on a road west of the airport. Once I turned around and headed due east, I finally found Legacy Parkway. Confused about Legacy Parkway? Well, let me tell you, it's definitely not a freeway, and certainly not a highway, but, as I found out, it's a byway. . . as in, by the way, you're gonna have to travel ridiculously slow on this road despite the fact that it bears an uncanny resemblance to a freeway. Turns out it's not a freeway because the stupid Sierra Club complained too much. They're good at that. So there I was, happily belting out some tunes, when I noticed those annoying flashing lights following close behind. Rubbish.

I still believe my first mistake was that I pulled off to the left side of the road . . . probably not the best way to make a good first impression. After I was instructed to relocate my car to the other side of the byway, officer unfriendly came up to greet me and I decided to go for the nice, innocent girl routine. I apologized profusely and admitted that I was unaware of the speed limit. I told him the truth . . . that I thought the speed limit was 65 mph (who really looks at speed limit signs anymore?), as it should be, and then the "travel at the speed of traffic" rule allows you to go about 5(ish) mph faster, naturally. He wasn't amused.

In the end I resorted to the tears. There they were, streaming down my cheeks, and when he handed me the stupid pink piece of paper I made sure to look at him, hoping as a last resort that he would see the tears, decide to cut me some slack, and rip it up. For heavens sake, it was late. And the dark, vacant byway scared me. What was I to do but drive a wee bit faster to calm my troubled mind and get home as quickly as possible? My hand was shaking as the tears dripped onto the $150(ish) piece of paper that I had to sign my name to. But he didn't buy it. The surly smokey still had the nerve to issue me the ticket. WAY LAME!

Kory laughed when I showed him the evidence, but I felt so bad that I told him I was gonna get a job to pay it off as my self-inflicted punishment. He raised an eyebrow and said, "no you're not." I guess I could slow down, but I feel more compelled to come up with some better excuses to use the next time around. Those county mounties aren't gonna get the best of me...(they might get the best of my bank account though. Sigh.)

Approximately 26 years

2009-03-06T13:51:00.009-07:00

That's how long it's taken me to realize that adding salt to all my dessert recipes doesn't make a bit of difference. I've had my suspicions for years, but I've always erred on the side of caution and added it anyway because google tells me that it enhances the sweetness or something crazy like that. If you ask me, that's just Morton's description of creative marketing. Whatever. It's not important. As soon as I watch U2's final performance on Letterman, I'm gonna hit the sack.

Oh yeah...

2009-02-28T22:50:00.009-07:00

I didn't hear about it either. But I saw it in person when I came home one day.

Here's a kicker...

2009-02-28T22:09:00.009-07:00

Did you hear the one about the guy who wanted to make a syrup shake so he whipped up some hot maple syrup and poured it into a blender full of ice cream, and (obviously) the syrup instantly melted the ice cream, turning the would-be shake into some sort of disgusting warm maple creamy liquid?

I don't even want to know how he found this.

2009-02-24T10:00:00.010-07:00

Kory wants one of these. And I'm 96% sure he's serious. I mean, programmers thrive on this kind of stuff. I considered making his dreams come true for about 8 seconds, but then I started imagining the soundtrack that would inevitably accompany our lives, and the thought of hearing this every night as I climbed into bed ultimately made my mind up . . . I'm definitely thinking not so much.

Forget grades. Here's how you really prepare them for their future.

2009-02-04T10:25:00.004-07:00

You know that Seinfeld where Elain agrees to take George's IQ test for him and she spills coffee all over it just before she delivers it back to him, so it basically breaks their cover? Yeah, that totally happened to me. Well, except it didn't. And I'm pretty sure I'm not doing illegal things. But, what happened to me reminded me of that episode, and any Seinfeldesque moment is worthy of a blog post. Agreed?

Anyway, so I grade student essays for one of my former college professors. I've done it for years and it's always worked out just fine. The courier delivers them to my house, I grade them, she comes back the following week to pick them up, and then they're handed back to the students with suggestions and scores. Well, yesterday I was doing the dishes and I was relieved that Maggie seemed to be entertaining herself for a while. Silence. Nice. No, silence BAD! I immediately ran upstairs and found ripped up papers strewn across my bedroom floor with pencil marks all over them. I left them on my nightstand and forgot to close the door to ensure a destruction-free zone. ARGH! So now some lucky college students are gonna get crumpled, torn, scribbled-on essays handed back to them next week. Splendid.

Let's just say that I have nothing to read, so I'm gonna blog. Apparently it's one or the other with me...

2009-01-31T23:00:00.000-07:00

Turns out I like to read. Who knew? So I'm up to like, oh I don't know, 7 books in the past 2 months. If you'd told me a year ago that I would read that many books, like, ever, I would've laughed in your face. But alas, there is hope for us all. Anyway, so today I went to get myself a library card. The process went smoothly, but shortly after making it all official they sent me on my way to fend for myself. And it didn't take long for me to realize that I've forgotten how to use a library. I literally stood in front of a computer and had no idea what to do with the results it gave me, so I ended up getting overwhelmed and leaving with nary a book (notice my new stellar vocab chops?). I just couldn't get myself to ask the desk lady to explain the library to me after I'd just confessed my age on the card application. For all she knew I was new to the area, and for my dignity's sake, I preferred to keep it that way.

I'm pretty sure the last time I used a library for finding a book was in 6th grade, or maybe 9th, when I had a thing for Amelia Bedelia. And you know, Dewey's decimal system is way more complex than it's talked up to be. But what's really sad is that there's all sorts of people in Kory's family who are in the know about libraries and Dewey's crazy system, so I really should be humiliated that I'm confessing this. But it's late, and I'm watching "The Count of Monte Cristo" and stuffing my face with banana muffins, so I'm not. . .

What am I supposed to do? Let her gnaw on a stick of butter?

2009-01-22T22:30:00.000-07:00

I took Maggie in for her 15 month check-up yesterday, and once again her weight was an issue. Apparently she hasn't gained hardly anything during the past 3 months. She was 16 lbs. 2 oz. at 12 months and she's 16 lbs. 9 oz. now. So back to McKay-Dee we went to get more blood drawn, this time to test her for celiac disease. I also have to go meet with a growth specialist to discuss her poor growth. Her height and head continue to stay right on track, but her weight has plummeted even further below the curve than is normal even for her.

So am I to assume that her daily intake of lotion and dirt aren't providing the calories she needs? Really though, she's a total food scavenger. And the other night she snuck her way into a canister of sugar. I found her with a good cup of it on the floor around her and she was literally stuffing handfuls in her mouth. So, being the completely health conscious mother that I am, I immediately picked her up and washed all the sugar out of her mouth. Then I gave her a rice krispy treat and sent her on her way.

As further proof that she does in fact eat, the following photos shed light on the fate of a certain chip of hers yesterday:

I really have accepted the fact that she's just fine, but I'm starting to believe she's not gonna face forward in her carseat until she's like 2, and that's just really unfortunate. So for her sake, I'm once again willing to see what's up.

The following is part of an actual conversation Kory had with one of his former mission companions:

2009-01-21T08:17:00.008-07:00

Drew: "Hey Kory, I'm getting married!"
Kory: "Oh wow, congratulations!"
Drew: "Thanks man. She's no trophy wife, but she'll do."

There's just something special about watching the US Airways crash coverage during your entire flight home

2009-01-18T22:17:00.005-07:00

So we cruised down to Mexico last week with my fam. Fifteen of us partied hearty for 5 days straight. If you don't believe me, let's just say that somewhere there's a video floating around of me gettin' my karaoke on to Complicated in front of quite possibly the nicest crowd ever (maybe because they were all drunk?). They embraced my awkward dance moves/bouncing and clapped anyway.

I've decided that in life you will find those who cruise to relax and those who cruise to eat. While we do take part in a few relaxing activities, we all fall mostly into the latter category. My nephew ate so much that he vomited on the final night, and Kory downed 9+ ice cream cones in one day. As far as my binging was concerned, let it be known that after eating about 6 meals throughout the day and having 3 appetizers, a main entree, some chocolate melting cake, and a cup of cocoa for dinner, I still managed to stuff down a plate of fine Mexican food at the midnight buffet one night.

I will now picture blog my praises to the best chicken tenders I've ever had.

Couples self-portrait FAIL.

Keri and Kory laying out fully clothed.

Despite their lengthy exposure to the Mexican sun, these white legs came home roughly the same shade of bright.

The whole fam. Notice how I'm the only one not standing by my spouse? The photographer thought I was one of the kids. No tip for you!

Cabo Rocks! (pun? perhaps.)

Kory finished off every evening with one of these bad boys, just because he could.

This hole in Ensenada blows!

Sack o' Churros anyone?

We implemented the first inaugural Walk of the Robes, the brainchild of my bro-in-law Brett. This event holds no purpose other than to entertain us. It basically involves donning a robe on the last night of the cruise and leisurely strolling through the buffet area and remainder of the Lido deck with a cup of cocoa in hand. Strangely, nobody seemed to notice...but trust me, it was hilarious.

Thanks mom! Once again, we had a blast!

(And thanks again Kirsten, Jaremy, and Chrissy for taking such good care of Maggie!)

Ah, you caught me. I've got some dudes hiding under my car. Sorry.

2009-01-08T14:00:00.000-07:00

So I had to go to HAFB for a party a few weeks ago. It's always such a pain to get on base. You basically have to go to the visitors center and wait like 30 minutes for no particular reason before you're even allowed to sit in a chair to be interrogated by a man in a uniform. He starts off by verifying with someone on base that you should be sponsored on, and then he makes you show him your license, registration, and proof of insurance before he'll write up the pass. Anyway, while he was filling it out, he started asking the obligatory questions to confirm that I should in fact be deemed worthy of the day pass: "Do you have any other adults in your car?"... "Do you have any weapons in your car?" ... blah, blah, blah. But then he whipped out a new one: "Do you have anybody hiding under your drive train?"

... Seriously?

It's all about the froth, if you know what I mean. (...except I don't even know what I mean)

2009-01-02T20:38:00.009-07:00

Christmas was great. Maggie loves her plastic pony, Kory's excited to get his TV, and among some other neat stuff, I was gifted one of these:

And I've decided that it's the single most important cocoa tool one can and should own. It basically kicked the Cocoa Latte off the top spot in my book. Seriously, I got like an inch of froth on my cocoa today and it stuck to my lips when I sipped. Why the heck haven't I had one of these before now?

Kory and I went to the Body Worlds 3 exhibit a few days ago and I was blown away. I had no idea we all looked like that sans skin, and the fetal development section was incredible. All was going really well with the exhibit until I saw a cadaver who held a striking resemblance to my cousin Ben, and it creeped me out. Then we saw the dude who's like the model cadaver on all the Body Worlds 3 posters and paraphernalia and I thought to myself, hmm, how strange that this man became famous after he died. In any event, good for him.

What all other talent should be measured against

2008-12-29T12:49:00.001-07:00

I can say the alphabet backwards.

zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba

This is really awesome. Really.

2008-12-21T21:46:00.001-07:00

Holy. Heck. Dreams come true.

2008-12-20T07:59:00.000-07:00

So I'm starting to think Oprah may have been right about The Secret. You know, the book she's always annoyingly plugging on her show? During the raffle at the Icentris party on Thursday night, Kory and I were coming up unfruitful far too long and I was starting to get upset. I don't do well with competition when I'm on the losing end (which is like 90% of the time, so I should just get over it...) and I was just getting more depressed as everybody around me kept winning fabulous prizes. I then thought, what if I visualize myself screaming when our number is called? So when the Body Worlds tickets were up, I visualized how I would react if we won the tickets, which included some sort of obnoxious screaming like I'm good at. AND....it worked! And I screamed! Because I've wanted to go to that forever! Then they held up the next prize, which was a carmel apple gift package from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory that included like 10 carmel apples, and my heart literally skipped a beat...Seriously, can you imagine? I've always dreamed of trying one of those. So I visualized them calling our other raffle number. AND....they didn't, BUT they did call the number of the dude sitting next to me and he had some sort of divine inspiration that told him to share his loot with his neighbors. Bless his heart! So I got a carmel, white chocolate, and cinnamon covered apple. I thanked him incessantly and tore into it as soon as we were in the car, despite being way too full from the feast. And it was literally one of the best things I've ever tasted.

It would appear that there are so many good things in life that I have yet to experience. But I now have hope that I will, one company Christmas party at a time.

If 60's the new 40, does that mean weird's the new normal?

2008-12-16T19:13:00.014-07:00

It's no secret that Kory and I have a bit of a strange relationship. I read blogs where the couples seem so normal and I wonder where we got off track. I mean, I've always been under the impression that it's completely normal to conduct a good portion of spousal conversations via Google Chat...even when your spouse is just sitting across from you in the family room. Some of our best conversations have been courtesy of Google while we were sitting less than 8 feet away from each other.

Carlee Hoopes said: Hey, what do you want for dinner? SEND
Kory Hoopes said: Chilighetti. SEND
Carlee Hoopes said: How about a frozen pizza? SEND
Kory Hoopes said: Yes, dear. SEND

See how that works? Zero unnecessary words required. But now I'm starting to think it's not so normal. Couples actually talk on the phone during the day. And have face-to-face conversations. Bleh. Seems so 1990s.

And then the other night I was in the middle of a peaceful slumber when I was startled awake by a hand on my face. I'm pretty sure Kory wasn't coherent, but when I asked him why his hand was on my face he told me that he wanted to see if I was sleeping. Yes, that makes perfect sense. I mean, it seems so obvious to wake someone up to see if they're sleeping.

And just when I was starting to come to grips with the fact that we don't have the normalcy in our marriage that others seem to enjoy, Kory decided to add insult to injury when he told me that he wants a sword for Christmas. "And why exactly would you want a sword?" I asked. "Because then I can conceal it under my jacket and when people say anything to me, I'll flash them my sword and they'll be scared. It'll be so awesome!!!"

See what I mean?

Finally, some actual steps we can take to overcome the financial crisis. Thanks 20/20!

2008-12-13T23:30:00.006-07:00

During these tough economic times, I find myself pondering what I can do to weather the storm. Luckily for me, I just so happened to tune into 20/20 on Friday night and got some real answers for once. Common sense advice like not buying things you can't afford is so 1960s. I'm just glad I can always trust 20/20 to lead me in the right direction and not go to extremes. They interviewed a miser to to uncover some money saving techniques that he's perfected over the years. Here are some that I'm gonna implement right away.

1. When you buy grapes, take the grapes off the stem and discard the stem before making the purchase to avoid paying for the extra ounce or two that is the stem.

2. When you are finished using a paper towel, don't throw it away. Good heavens, there's still plenty of use left in it. Instead consider rinsing it out and hanging it up to dry on a clothes line strung across your kitchen. It's truly the gift that keeps on giving.

3. Separate your 2-ply toilet paper into 2 single-ply rolls to get more use out of it.

4. If you do go out to dinner, go ahead and take a look around at the other tables to see if people have left any uneaten food. If so, claim it and add it to your own doggy bag. Not only will you get two meals for the price of one, but you'll also have a restaurant meal for tomorrow night to look forward to as well. See how nicely that works?

5. If you're contemplating getting your loved one some flowers to show how much you care, consider going to a funeral home to pick up some day-old ones for free. Nothing says 'I love you' quite like some exquisite funeral flowers.

For those who wanted food posts, does this count?

2008-12-12T00:03:00.008-07:00

Okay, so tonight we ate one of the most disgusting meals I've made to date: insanely dry pork chops (why the heck can't I figure out how to use a stupid crockpot?), mashed potatoes, and turkey gravy from a pouch. Consider yourself warned to never mix pork chops with turkey gravy. Ever. It was horrific and I will have nightmares about it tonight. And maybe even tomorrow night.

Well that was fun

2008-12-10T22:26:00.005-07:00

In case you haven't noticed, I have a bit of an obsession problem. My mom swears I didn't get it from her, so she said I could blame my dad since he's not here to defend himself anymore. So I'll go with that. In any event, it's just the way I am. For the past like 10 days or so I've locked myself in my house doing nothing but reading the last 3 Twilight books (in case you didn't already gather that from my MIA status and previous 3 posts) every opportunity I had. I'm a slow reader to begin with, so I literally had to stay up until like 2 a.m. most mornings reading them so I could reach my deadline. I'm not sure what the big rush was, but I just felt the time had come to finally catch up with the rest of the world, and I didn't want to have to drag it out.

It was against my better judgment to enter into a situation like this. I mean, I know how obsessed I become with things. Apparently just being normal and having normal hobbies is to much to ask. Back in the day when I fancied Leonardo DiCaprio and Titanic, I recorded every single interview and behind-the-scenes special so I could continue to watch them an unhealthy number of times (Brynn and/or Tiff, do you remember when we were gonna go to Sundance to try to see Leo in 9th grade and profess our love to him?). And family, remember how I signed protests and wrote personal letters to Les Moonves to stop the injustice and get Dr. Quinn back on the air? And remember how I used to "skate" along with all of Michelle Kwan's performances in my bedroom from like 7th-10th grade? These are not things to be taken lightly. It's a pretty pathetic character flaw really.

Anyway, so if nothing else, reading the books helped me remember why I don't have hobbies. I'm just not cut out for them. I mean, heaven forbid I just pick up a book and read a bit to relax before bed. No, I gotta go all out and absolutely must watch every single YouTube interview, view every clip, and read every article in existence on the world wide web. Lame.

So did I like them? Um, yes. I was entertained, although the author totally got some things all wrong IMO. I hate being held captive by authors' thoughts sometimes, you know? To calm me down, several people have told me that they were her books, not mine...her vision, not mine. Well that's just unacceptable to me. I'm not a reader by any sense of the word, so actually committing myself to read 1500 pages in 10 days is a huge deal for me. I wanted them to be perfect so I wouldn't feel the need to read something else for a good 6 years or so. In the end though, I liked the series and the characters she created. And at least I should finally be done blogging about it, so life can begin again......................now.

What. The heck. Was that?

2008-12-08T22:53:00.005-07:00

Is this last book, Breaking Dawn, a joke? Honestly, I want to know. I just finished reading pg. 360 and I seriously have no desire to go on. There has to be another version out there, like a real one, because nothing in this book is consistent with any of the other 3. The characters and story line are all wrong and it went from a fantasy action-packed love story to a creepy sci-fi horror story. I honestly don't know how it can get better from here. What was the author thinking? It seems to me that she totally ruined the series with this book. Of course I'll finish, and maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. But I'm just kind of speechless at the moment...

Stupid Twilight books. Who the heck convinced me to finish this series?

2008-12-07T09:08:00.008-07:00

Jacob needs to die. And Bella's a moron.

Oh, and hey Stephenie Meyer, what happened to all the suspense? The action scenes? Why have I now wasted hours of my time reading about vampires and werewolves getting along so well and being so happy together? Is there not supposed to be a big fight a brewin' with the newborns? Ugh.

I guess this one's for those who still want to get their Twilight on...

2008-12-06T20:44:00.011-07:00

I suppose it's about time I post my favorite scenes from Twilight. I'm actually liking this Twilight stuff more than I thought I would. I read Twilight in the summer, but didn't read New Moon until earlier this week, and I'm now almost done with Eclipse. Then I'll just have one more book to go (754 pages, aye aye aye) to be caught up with the rest of the world. I do believe I've read more pages this past week than the last 8 years of my life combined. Go me. And the more I think about it, I actually really liked the movie, as cheesy as it may have been...so sue me.

I'm assuming these clips aren't legal, so actually, I take back what I said...please don't sue me. I found them on YouTube though, so I'm off the hook, right? Oh YouTube, what would my life be without you in it?

Edward and Bella in biology.

Edward and Bella at the restaurant in Port Angeles.

The Cullen's cooking Italiano for Bella.

Bella in the hospital after she was attacked by James.

And this one's hard to see, but I think they did a great job with Bella's Lullaby and this is the only clip I could find with the song in it.

Next year I'm just gonna do all my shopping online

2008-12-04T14:12:00.002-07:00

Here we are, Day 6. It has now been 6 days since the incident and our house still smells like burning. Why's that? Oh, ok, so the night before Black Friday I thought I should inform Kory what to feed Maggie for breakfast so she would get something more nutritious than goldfish crackers and pieces of bread. I even made Kory look at me while I relayed the instructions to him, because we all know how men get distracted. They were simple really. Empty one pouch of fruit 'n cream oatmeal into a microwave safe bowl, add 1/2 cup whole milk, and microwave on high for 1 minute and 5 seconds. Piece of cake. Well, it turns out he accidentally put the oatmeal in for 10 minutes and 5 seconds. I'm not sure at exactly what point the fire started, but it doesn't really matter. What does matter is that people have stopped visiting because they leave our house smelling burnt (or at least this is what I tell myself, despite the fact that we didn't get visitors beforehand), and the smell's really starting to take its toll on me as well. Every time I open the microwave I catch a whiff of the incident and it makes me cringe. The fire actually went through the bowl and stained the microwave plate beneath it, so we're not talking about some wimpy spark here. I've done all I can to get rid of it, but apparently burn dominates over all other fragrances. Let that be a lesson to you. So far I've tried stuffing oranges down the disposal, scrubbing with Clorox, spraying holiday fragrances throughout the house, lighting candles, and boiling some sort of spice mixture I concocted for the stovetop, but to no avail. I guess we're just gonna have to endure it for the time being...

While I was away I did manage to buy a pair of shoes from NY&Co., notice that my sack was missing in Macy's, curse the nasty Christmas thieves for being so heartless, and tell a whole bunch of people that my new shoes were stolen from me WHILE CHRISTMAS SHOPPING OF ALL THINGS. I couldn't believe it. Stupid thieves. I called Macy's later that day to confirm that my shoes had in fact been stolen, only to find out that they had been turned into lost and found by an honest shopper, and that apparently I had just left my sack somewhere in the store. Lovely. Oh well, I did get most of the things I went for and I'm grateful Kory took the morning off so I could go take part in the Black Friday festivities sans Maggie. But seriously, is anybody else amazed at how many companies are pushing shoppers to sign up for their credit cards this fine holiday season, despite the fact that we're in like a major credit crisis and stuff? They're relentless, too. I understand that by signing up with an account I can not only save 20% on my purchase, but also receive tremendous discounts and account benefits for years to come, but I DON'T WANT ONE! Just let me purchase in peace already.

Internet, I need some advice.

2008-12-03T10:43:00.009-07:00

Kory and I are in the market for a new TV since our current one is lame and about to die. He wants a 52" Samsung LCD flat screen. They make the TV in both 46" and 52". He of course says the 52" would be just fine, but he's a guy, so that's to be expected. So here's my question to those of you who have flat screens: Is 52" too large for a family room? It will most likely be hung on the wall, but our family room is our main room, so it's not going in a basement or anything like that. If any of you have 46" flat screens in your family rooms, have you ever wished they were bigger? I'm just worried that we'll have this huge obtrusive TV focal point in our room and I kind of like things more cozy and unobtrusive if you know what I mean. But I also don't want to order the 46" and regret not going with something bigger. We want to order it soon so we can have it before our current TV gives out, because heaven knows what we would do without TV for a few days. We might actually have to do something constructive with our free time. Bleh. Anyway, please give any advice you have because we're going to order it online and returning it is not really much of an option after all the return shipping and restocking fees are calculated into the equation.

Wanted: Experienced shrink who specializes in OCD and hoarding, among other things.

2008-11-30T15:01:00.015-07:00

BTW, I found it at Costco. Bless them.

I never thought I'd be saying this...

2008-11-26T11:40:00.007-07:00

So, I saw it last night. You know, the movie. And you know what? I actually kind of liked it. I totally shocked myself because I didn’t expect to like it. At all. I don’t generally care for excessive cheesiness, but I mean, it was a low budget film, so with that in mind I thought they did a pretty good job. Yeah, there were cheesy scenes, but no more than were in the book! And yeah, as Megan stated, Dr. Cullen’s face looked like he fell in a bucket of pancake batter...the makeup and special effects could have been kicked up a notch, and I could have done without some of the awkward long pauses and close-ups, but overall I was entertained so I'm gonna mark it as a success in my book. And you know what? Bella has the same mouth as me. Sometimes I just wanted to scream out to her, “Stop trying to keep it closed. It’s always gonna look awkward when you do that so just let it hang open like it’s made to.” Oh well. Some people are just gonna have to learn these things the hard way.

I’m like the opposite of the world's entire population in that the movies are almost always better than the books for me. But that’s not saying much since I have the imagination capacity of a turtle. So when I saw the story on the big screen I was like, “Ohhhhh, I get it now...Edward really loves her.” I also liked that I didn’t have to listen to all of Bella’s annoying thoughts that made up about 8/10 of the book, so I was able to just sit back and watch the story play out as it should. And that's really all I have to say about that.

Anyway, this is good for a laugh:

To the best dad I could have ever hoped for:

2008-11-25T23:30:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe that it's been 5 years, but I still miss you like crazy and 'love you to pieces.'

Because choosing the exact flavor I want would just complicate things

2008-11-23T22:30:00.001-07:00

So like 2 years ago I bought a box of mystery flavored JELL-O at the grocery store because it looked awesome. But I've never made it because up until a few months ago I was saving it (Hi, I'm Carlee, and I have a hoarding problem) for a special occasion or a party where others could help me solve the mystery. Finally a few months ago I submitted to the fact that the special occasion I had hoped for just wasn't gonna happen, so I decided to just use it in a recipe or something. I make a killer JELL-O mold as of late. The problem is that I can't because I don't know what flavor it is. Stupid gimmick. So now I'm willing to just make it for dinner some night so we can knock ourselves out trying to solve the mystery together, but it's to the point now that I don't dare because I might be disappointed with the results. I've anticipated the stupid mystery gelatin for so long that I can't handle the thought of getting a lame flavor. I mean, seriously, what if the mystery's solved and it ends up being lemon? Or worse...lime? I'd be ticked. Stupid unsolved mystery JELL-O.

110% Awesome

2008-11-21T07:00:00.005-07:00

Ever seen the music video for the 80's hit "Take on Me"? The song rocks, but the video doesn't make any sense. Kory showed me this version of the song (paired with the actual music video) the other night:

Here's what I think about Twitter in case you're as confused about it as I was.

2008-11-20T23:19:00.003-07:00

For dinner last night Kory and I dined on smokies and bite-sized chunks of cheddar with toothpicks. It was his birthday after all. If only I had thought to crockpot some meatballs beforehand we would have had ourselves a real party...but I guess I don't own any meatballs, so...

I finally delved into Twitter last night to figure out what the big deal is. And as much as I hate to admit it, I was actually kind of drawn into it. A few people have asked me what its purpose is. I was also confused about the whole situation up until, well, yesterday, so I'll tell you what I've gathered so far. It's basically micro-blogging. I looked to the Wiki and found this info about it. You basically have 140 characters to work with and the idea is to write whatever you happen to be doing/thinking about at any given time. If you find a cool website, tweet the link. If you're thinking about something interesting or funny, go ahead and tweet that too. The sky's the limit...er, 140 characters is the limit. It's a lot easier than having to blog about an entire subject, you know? And I like that I can get things off my chest in real time rather than having to wait to write an actual blog post and upload pictures and stuff.

To me blogs are like ongoing stories...well, unless of course the author decides to make his/hers private and doesn't invite you, then the story just ends abruptly. And that's annoying. But if you find the right blogs/tweets to follow they can be very entertaining and thought-provoking. To start my Twitter following I just kifed some of the people off Kory's Following list and added them to my own. So far so good. Like there's a guy named Merlin Mann who authors the blog 43Folders and I think his tweets are hilarious. He posted this one today: "I suspect that the CNN.com editorial staff consists of a precocious 12-year-old boy, a litter of Dalmatian puppies, and perhaps a coat rack."

Anyway, if you're interested in Twittering, look me up or send me your user name so I can follow you...as creepy as that sounds.

And then...

2008-11-19T00:52:00.006-07:00

Yesterday I went to Costco to pick up a brick of Tillamook extra sharp cheddar cheese and some Nathan’s Famous lil’ smokies for Kory’s birthday today, and I just so happened to choose the line with the nicest cashier I've ever met (see picture). He told me what a beautiful little girl I had, and he also got her to smile...multiple times...a feat not too many can accomplish off the bat. He then asked me what her name was and went on to tell me that it fit her perfectly and I did a great job. And regardless of whether or not he tells that to every single mom who goes through his line, it made a difference to me.

Following that Maggie and I headed to the mall. As we approached the doors I noticed a middle-aged woman jogging towards us. She quickly pushed one of the doors open and let me know that she was hoping to make it in time to hold the door so I wouldn't have to maneuver Maggie’s stroller through it by myself.

So as it turns out, you may lose some. But you’ll also probably win some. See how nicely that all works?

Gracias por la punta. (Michelle, how does that translate?)

2008-11-17T23:58:00.004-07:00

So last Friday Maggie and I went to Harmon’s to get some oranges. After I bagged them up and partook of some free samples, we headed up to the cash register to pay for the produce. There was a lady in front of me who commented about how cute my baby boy was. I usually just let it slide and say thanks, but the last time I did that the woman kept asking questions about my ‘boy' and I had to tread a fine line between completely embarrassing her and being a lame mom for referring to my she as a he. It's like against the rules or something.

“So how old is he?”

“10 months.”

“Is he a good baby?”

“Yep, great.”

“Oh, how lovely. . . tell me some things about him.”

“Uh, crawling, standing, eating.”

You try it. It’s hard. Anyway, to avoid a complicated situation I decided to tell the lady that she was actually a little girl. Seriously though, how many baby boys wear pink shirts with fur-collared coats?

The lady stared at her for a bit and went back to filling out her check. Then about a minute later she looked back again and said, “You know, that coat you put her in makes her look like a boy.”

So much for trying to avoid an awkward situation, eh?

The time has come to Twitter

2008-11-17T23:54:00.001-07:00

I Twitter now. Choopes12. I kinda don’t get it still, but I kinda didn’t get blogging like 2 ¾ years ago when I jumped into it either. For some reason I’ve been holding out on Twitter though. Kory’s usually into the internet phenomenon stuff for about a year before he can convince me to join, but he’s been Twittering for at least 2 years now, so I have no excuse.

Be careful or you'll miss a link!

2008-11-13T21:18:00.005-07:00

I was gonna talk about my thoughts on the whole Prop 8 situation tonight, but I just can’t. I don’t have the emotional energy to sort through everything I’m thinking about right now. In a nutshell, I’m extremely sad, but full of conviction for the things I believe in.

So instead I'll talk about something that has made me happy today. That would be Enya’s new Christmas album, And Winter Came. It’s incredible. Maggie and I danced to it all morning and she loved it...further proof that she is our child, since nobody ever knows who she looks like. I've narrowed down my 4 favorite songs (click to have a listen): White is in the Winter Night (this one's Maggie's favorite), One Toy Soldier (Maggie clicks her tongue along with the wooden clicking instrument), My! My! Time Flies! (this one’s not so much a Christmas song, but it’s awesome, and there’s an electric guitar in it...you go Enya!), and Trains and Winter Rains (this was the only one I could find on YouTube {come on YouTube, get with it...the album's been out a day already!}). Seriously, this album is awesome and it has provided a much needed sense of peace and anticipation for the upcoming holiday season. And that’s why in our house we drown out everything else by turning up the volume as high as it can go...and then we all jam to the Enya beat.

All for the sake of some butter

2008-11-12T16:59:00.009-07:00

In the Winegar’s ad this week there was a lovely little insert stating that on Wednesday night from 4-8 p.m. they would be having a Holiday Open House. I noticed there were a few good deals, like bananas for $.29/lb., eggs for $1 a dozen, real butter for $1.50/lb., etc. I was undecided about going until my sister called me up and asked me to pick up some of the cheap butter for her if I went. So I decided to go for the sake of the butter. I showed up at 4:05 and had to park by the street because the lot was full. This should have been my first clue that I should just turn around and go back home, but I didn't catch on. After Maggie and I made the trek from my car and walked inside, this is what I saw:

Complete insanity. Entire carts full of butter and cheese. Entire carts full of bananas. Who the heck needs that many bananas? And why? It got to the point where I think people were just buying items because they saw other people snatching them up and thought, THIS IS THE DEAL OF THE CENTURY...WE'RE NEVER GONNA SEE A DEAL LIKE THIS ONE AGAIN, when in fact Costco sells 2 lbs. of quality cheddar cheese for $5.99 every day of the week. I was tempted to pick up a carton of full-priced ice cream just to see how many people would follow my lead. But I didn’t.

So when I first walked in I looked for a cart, but they were completely gone. No big deal, I'll just go back outside to find one. But when I got outside I noticed there were roughly 30 other people who had the same idea. So I went back into the chaos to see what the heck was going on and realized that people were attaching themselves to already occupied carts in the checkout line and then following the cart owners to their cars so they could take their carts from them. Seriously. After about 15 minutes of patiently waiting for a cart, I realized I was just gonna have to carry what I wanted with my own one hand (not to be confused with two hands since I was carrying Maggie in one of them). Suddenly I started sacrificing things off my list. Do I really need eggs? No, the eggs can go. Four bottles of pop? I’ll just take one, thank you very much. Five frozen pizzas? Three will do. I soon found myself walking through the store with 3 frozen pizzas, a pomegranate, 2 lbs. of bananas, and a 2-liter bottle of Minute Maid Lemonade in one arm, and Maggie in the other. It was ridiculous. Seriously, what would I be saving on these items? Maybe $3 tops? But that was beside the point. So I struggled through the store with my loot only to realize that the checkout lines extended all the way down the aisles and to the back of the store like so:

I-N-S-A-N-E. At this point I had to regroup and figure out what the heck I was doing there in the first place. I debated putting all my stuff back and heading home empty-handed, but I wasn't about to let this cartless open house get the best of me. No way. So I just kept struggling on my way until I noticed that the girl at the deli counter was checking items and there were only 2 people in line. My lucky day...I only had to wait about 2 minutes! Awesome. But then I had to make the journey down the street with my bags and Maggie to get to my car. To make matters worse, there was a lady at the door who was handing out mini pumpkin pies. Should I take one? I mean, I really can't carry one more thing. But I've never been one to turn down food, so I indeed took one with the only two unoccupied fingers I had left that weren’t gripping Maggie’s legs, and about 30 seconds later Maggie stuck her entire hand in it. Ugh. I then trudged to the car with all my stuff, loaded everything up, and drove the mile back to my house. In the end I saved a meager $3 for about 40 minutes of torture. And the butter? The one item I went there to get? That was the only item that sold out within the first 5 minutes. Double ugh.

"Hey, this is Carlee. Call me back at 827-783-34" BEEP!

2008-11-11T21:11:00.017-07:00

I hear we're all gonna have to dial 10 digits when we call our neighbors come March. So is this true? What happened to just adding another area code? Regardless, I'm switching all my communications to the computer when the day comes . . . at least until Google takes over the phone system and makes it awesome. Hey Qwest, I bet Google could find a way to block all the collections phone calls for Gloria Herrera that we've been getting daily since 2005! Seriously though, 7 digits was doable. But 10? Not so much.

The best part of waking up, is holy on my toast.

2008-11-10T13:00:00.000-07:00

My holy toast press finally arrived last week and Kory and I are gonna whip up a batch tonight. So if you're lookin' to get your holy on, drop on by.

Well that was some good clean fun. Moving on...

2008-11-09T10:12:00.005-07:00

Remember back in the day when FM100 would play the 100 Hours of Christmas? Then they switched things up and started playing the Month of Christmas? And now it’s like the Quarter of Christmas? Truth be told, even though I typically proclaim this a disgrace, I could listen to good Christmas music for months ahead of time and be completely fine with it. Much to Kory's dismay, I secretly love a good Kenny G Christmas tune. Well, yesterday I had a profound realization as I sang along with the Christmas jingles playing over the Wal-Mart speaker system, and then on my way home as I sang along with FM100 . . . I'm pretty positive this Quarter of Christmas movement has just given the radio stations the go ahead to dust off all the crappy Christmas music in their archives and finally give it a whirl over the public airways. Like, lets say for example, "Christmas Shoes." This has to be the most depressing Christmas song ever written and it's not even any good. Unfortunately I've already heard it more than I can handle this year, and we've still got like a month and a half left! I have to wonder if 100 non-stop hours were all we got, if FM100 would do us the public service of ousting this one from the mix. I'm just sayin'.

I was gonna give my blog a break from politics for a while, but I won't be able to sleep unless I get this off my chest.

2008-11-08T00:03:00.010-07:00

How can people not understand what is happening here? Honestly, I want to know. As evidenced by the sound clip below, Ezra Taft Benson warned us nearly 50 years ago about what would eventually happen to our country, and yet people still don't see it coming to pass. Bit by bit our freedoms are being taken away from us and yet so many people (52% of the U.S. population to be exact) seem completely fine with it. I cannot for the life of me understand this, and it makes me physically ill.

And please read this as well.

The one time I actually stop to read what's on a grocery bag and this happens...

2008-11-06T19:40:00.005-07:00

It seemed that Target had a pretty good list going on until #3 happened. Really Target? You want me to convert this giant plastic bag into a water balloon? Really? And then what? Try to get it to maintain any sort of form and attempt to prevent it from leaking so I can struggle to throw it like 2 feet in front of me? And you want me to waste good water that we're always being told to conserve so I can make good use of this here bag? Really?

I slipped up on my fast today when Oprah showed up on my TV and I started watching.

2008-11-05T21:50:00.014-07:00

Since Kory hijacked my last post, I have to start a new one. So it seems I’ve stirred up controversy once again. I promise I don’t do this intentionally. I assumed some would feel differently than me, but I was really just asking a question about why race needs to be discussed so much in an election where it should be completely irrelevant (cue Oprah who spent an entire hour on her show today discussing how the Obama Movement is synonymous with the Civil Rights Movement, and how HOPE and CHANGE WON, and how Obama is a TRUE HERO, a MODERN-DAY MOSES {…does this seem completely insane to anybody else? He's not a prophet. He’s not a savior. He's just a man who acted on circumstance.}). Really though, I just post about what’s in my heart and how I feel about things. You may not always agree, but at least you know exactly where I stand on things and what I believe in. I have never believed in sugar-coating the things I write or not standing up for what I believe in for fear that others may disagree with me or think poorly of me. I must say though that I’m quite shocked that only Liz weighed in on the Bachelorette break-up. Seriously, what's this world coming to?

I'm gonna speak now so I can forever hold my peace

2008-11-04T21:43:00.009-07:00

Kory started a media fast yesterday. I think I'm gonna follow suit and start mine tonight (just news media, not all media...I'd go crazy). Tonight's election coverage made me physically ill, and unfortunately I don't get sick leave in my current position. I just can't bear to watch all the "historic" news coverage during the next week or so. And don't tell me it's because I'm a sore loser, because I cast my vote for a 3rd party candidate this year, so I already knew my choice wouldn't win. I'm not gonna weigh in on the outcome or anything, but I do have one question. Why was race even brought up in the election? I don't get it. Shouldn't race not be discussed in any form whatsoever if our nation truly believes that we are all the same? It seems that by making such a big deal about Obama being the first African American president (even though he is in fact half white), we are just making sure racism continues to thrive in our current society, right? Fifty years ago Obama would have lost an election because of the color of his skin, but today it seems he won, in part, because of the color of his skin. How is that any better? It seems ironic to me.

So for those who are interested, DeAnna and Jesse broke up. I know, shocking...(sort of). Read about it here. I'm not really that sad because I thought she should've chosen Jason in the first place, but I'm kind of glad she didn't pick Jason now because she would have broken his heart too. And that would have made me sad. I have high hopes for Jason as the next Bachelor though. See, this is the kind of quality television programming I long for. Election coverage, I am so over you!

Warning: The information contained in this post could be considered too personal and perhaps inappropriate. But I'm posting it anyway.

2008-11-03T11:53:00.020-07:00

In an effort to place an online order for some upper-body unmentionables last night, I needed to know my correct size. I was having a hard time understanding the store's measuring system so I decided to ask Google. I quickly found a website that would let me enter in my measurements and it would calculate the correct size for me. So I got out the measuring tape, followed the instructions, entered my measurements, checked them twice for accuracy, and clicked calculate. And this is what showed up:

Like, seriously? Can they say that? I had to read it 5 times to make sure it was in fact insulting me. And now I'm depressed. I mean, it's not like I thought I was even slightly blessed in that area, but I'm 26, not 9! I can't go without! Stupid insensitive website.

One thing that does cheer me up though is the fact that this is now our new answering machine message:

(But, you know, with the Hoopes' instead of George). I've been asking Kory to record a message for a while because I sound lame. I wonder how long it will take him to record a message now. :)

Finally, a Halloween costume success

2008-10-31T09:08:00.007-06:00

I completely forgot to register to vote this year. So I called the courts on Monday and told them my situation...how I used to live in Weber County but moved to Davis County a few years ago, blah, blah, blah. The court lady told me I would need to go to a library and ask for a provisional ballot. I asked if I could go to the Roy Library and she said that would be fine. So yesterday I packed up Maggie and we headed to the Roy Library. We waited in line for about an hour, only to make it to the front and have the lady tell me that I needed to fill out my provisional ballot in Davis County. Grrr. So last night I headed out again sans Maggie and waited another 1.5 hours in line at the Clearfield Library to fulfil my civic duty. Whatever. At least I finally got my sticker.

Here's a good fail. Hmm...really? Do you think this guy's for real? Because I thought Darwin's theory was supposed to take care of people like this.

And finally, my vote for the best Halloween Costume this year...maybe ever.

I'm starting to think I should have just stayed home on Monday night.

2008-10-28T21:18:00.010-06:00

My husband doesn’t understand coupons. He has no problem with them as long as I’m the one who takes care of actually using them. I’m not certain, but I’m guessing he gets embarrassed. Not me man. I take my coupons very seriously. So the other night when we were getting his much-anticipated burgers, he was finally forced to use a coupon all by himself. I was in the back seat feeding Maggie an awesome dinner of pineapple-glazed ham, Gerber style, when we pulled up to the Pace’s drive-thru speaker. We had a coupon for a free menu item, so we decided to each get a Country Burger with cheese (they’re really good in case you’re wondering…2 patties!). After Kory placed our order and the dude in the microphone asked if that would be all, I reminded Kory to inform him about the coupon. And right about then the situation tanked. Because Kory just sat there. He shot me a confused glance and then we had the following conversation while the poor man in the microphone waited for a response…

Kory: “What do I say?”

Me: “Tell him that you have a coupon.”

Kory: “When?”

Me: “Like, right about now.”

Kory: “How do I say it?”

Me: “Um, we’ve been through this. Tell him that you are going to use a coupon.”

He then continued to sit there in front of the speaker for 20 seconds, I kid you not, without uttering a word. I honestly couldn’t believe that using a coupon could cause someone so much inner turmoil. And I don’t think Kory even knew that he was so incapable of such a task. We then both started laughing. It was inevitable. And thus the man in the microphone became even more frustrated with us and most likely thought we were trying to play some lame high school drive-thru prank on him. (And because of this I'm certain the burgers we ended up getting had a little "special sauce" on them, if you know what I mean.)

Kory: “I can’t do it. You’re gonna have to yell to him from the back seat to let him know we have a coupon.”

Me: “Um, you can’t be serious.”

Kory: “Yes, I’m very serious. I can’t say it. I don’t know how to bring it up.”

Me: “What do you mean you don’t know how to bring it up? Kory, listen, just repeat these words to the man in the microphone right now: WE HAVE A COUPON FOR A FREE MENU ITEM.”

After a minute or so of coaching he finally repeated what I said, and the man in the microphone replied (overly annoyed at this point seeing as how there were like 7 cars waiting behind us), “Ok, next window please.”

And then a few minutes later, while we were waiting at the window for our food, Kory started telling me how he saw a lot of gray hairs fall to the floor during his haircut and how he’s certain I’m the one who caused all of them, along with his ongoing gut pains, because I’m so difficult...Um, excuse me? He thinks I'm difficult? But I was too tired at that point to discuss the situation we just lived through. In the meantime, I think a healthy dose of Valium would suit the pair of us nicely.

Decent Person and Friend Fail (One of these days I'll get off this fail kick, but for now it's just how I roll.)

2008-10-28T08:00:00.006-06:00

Can someone please teach me how to be a decent person? Like, seriously. So last night Kory wanted burgers for dinner and he needed haircut. He'd been asking for a burger nonstop for 3 days straight, so for my sanity's sake, we were gonna get some burgers. We decided that the 3 of us should all pile into the car, go get his haircut, and then pick up the burgers on our way home. However, Maggie decided to take care of business right when we pulled into the parking lot of the hair place, and I, of course, didn't pack anything to take care of her business. So I took one for the team and ended up standing outside with her to spare the innocent people inside.

While we were standing outside, something happened that I can't seem to stop thinking about. An old man pulled into the parking lot in a beat up blue van and walked into and then immediately out of a few of the stores in the strip mall. He came up to me on the sidewalk and started talking. He was really nice and polite. He had on a polo shirt and worn jeans and he was quite elderly. He seemed decent enough. After talking for a bit he showed me a box with some paring knives in it. He told me he didn't want me to think he was just asking me for my money, but that he sells the knives to get a little money for he and his wife, and that they were really handy to have around the house. He then told me they only cost $5. I've never cared much for solicitors. I hate the obligation. So I told him I really didn't have a need for the knife. He told me he understood and thanked me for my time. He then slowly walked back to his van and drove away.

It only took about 30 seconds for the situation to hit me. I mean, come on, a guy his age shouldn't have to be selling things to live comfortably. Could I not give the man a break? It's people like this that I should be willing to help. I swear I've gotten so calloused towards strangers asking for money because I always hear about how they just use it to buy drugs and alcohol. But why couldn't I be a decent person for once and help the nice man out? He should be enjoying life, not driving around town selling knives. I think about my grandpas and how it would have broken my heart if I knew they were out selling things to earn extra money when they were older. Do I not have an ounce of compassionate blood in my body? I wish I could find that man and buy some knives from him. I seriously feel horrible.

Maybe this is also the reason I fail at being a good friend. First of all, I’m not very thoughtful. I’ve never been one to remember birthdays or other important events, but all my friends and family members ARE that kind. And it makes me feel bad. I'm pretty sure I'm also the worst gift-giver ever. Not because I have a problem buying the gift, but because I get embarrassed about actually giving the gift. I get all anxious and weird about it and usually say something ridiculous to try to ease my inner tension. It makes no sense to me. And don’t ask me why I have no problem letting the internet know that I asked my sister’s boyfriend to watch porn with me, but giving someone a gift embarrasses the crap out of me . . . LAME! When I watch others open my gifts, I spend the entire time worrying about whether they’ll think it’s a lame gift or that I cheated them out of a good gift. Same with hosting things at my house. I pretty much have a panic attack just thinking about hosting anything, so I rarely do it. I worry that I won’t have the right toys to entertain the kids, or that I won't have food that they like to eat, or that they’ll all leave and be ticked that they wasted their night at my house doing lame things.

Basically,

Decent person + Good friend = Not me

And it bugs me. I wanna be thoughtful, but apparently it’s not like a natural thing for me. I worry that I’ll eventually ruin all my relationships because of my inability to understand how to be a good friend and a decent person. :( I just hope I can figure it all out someday.

It turns out that happiness is attained by eating Dutch treats and being handcuffed to briefcases

2008-10-26T20:39:00.015-06:00

A few people have asked me what that thing is at the top of my blog. That would be a Stroopwafel. Ashlee introduced them to me back in high school and I get a hankering for one a few times a year. They're amazing, but they're Dutch, and I've only been able to find one little Dutch shop in SLC that sells them. So I basically have to rely on Kory to hook me up when I need my fix.

Kory and I were discussing carseats on our drive home tonight since it's probably about time we move Maggie into a convertible one. Anyway, mid-conversation he said to me, "I wanna be a private courier like where they handcuff a briefcase to your arm and you travel internationally with it." . . . O-kay . . . I'm wondering, does anybody else's spouse have lofty goals like mine? Nothin' like a web developer turned private courier . . . or even human calendar. He makes me so proud. I guess I've always wanted to be a waitress though, so perhaps when the kids are grown and out of the house, together we can fulfill our lifelong courier and waitress dreams and live happily ever after. The End.

Nothin' like a healthy dose of perspective every now and again

2008-10-24T21:51:00.007-06:00

Ok, so maybe I should have been practicing my yoga breathing instead of writing my last post. It was a little dramatic. I'm still sad about everything, but I watched an episode of Supernanny and an episode of Dateline, and suddenly my life seems A-ok. I mean, at least Maggie goes to sleep without me having to sit in her room and put her back in her crib 63 TIMES during a 2-hour period! And at least I'm not sittin' in jail because I poisoned my child with salt by making her ingest 27 tablespoons of Zatarans Creole Seasoning. Geez.

I'm crying too hard to even proofread this, so please don't judge my errors.

2008-10-24T19:41:00.008-06:00

I sit here and write this in the middle of an emotional breakdown. I am just SO frustrated with the night I’ve had and more than anything else, myself. I, for like the first time in my life, felt I actually had a pretty good costume idea this year for our ward Halloween party (that is going on as I speak). But then I doubted myself. I worried that it wouldn’t work out like I had envisioned or that nobody would think it was any good. So, I waited to make my final decision until last night when Kory finally made me decide if I wanted to go ahead with it. I decided that, yes, I did in fact want to go ahead with it. I was so excited about it. I spent all day today getting everything ready for the costumes. I even made 2 separate trips into Riverdale. I first went to Michael’s to get white shirts and then had to go to Robert’s to get transfer paper, but they didn’t have it, so I ventured back to Riverdale to get it at Jo-Ann's.

The costumes included some Photoshopping that had to be done by Kory. As soon as he got home from work he planned to work on them, which would give him a good 2.5 hours before the party. This didn’t worry me so much though because the rough draft he did a few days ago took him about 15 minutes. Well, things just weren’t working out. He tried everything and couldn’t figure out what he was doing wrong. It just wasn’t looking right and I didn’t want to waste expensive transfer paper and the T-shirts if they didn’t look perfect. Well, 6:30 (the time the party was supposed to start) came and went. Then at 7:00 he finally got them looking right. During this entire time, Maggie was screaming at the top of her lungs because she either wanted to rip up papers that I kept taking from her, or she just wanted to be held. She was so ornery. But I couldn’t hold her because I was trying to get things ready and I didn’t even realize what time it was. Kory finally got them printed out and all I had to do was iron them onto the shirts. Well, it turns out I fail at iron-ons. I forgot to cut out the one for my shirt beforehand and only half of it transferred. At this point, we were 45 minutes late, our costumes had turned into a giant failure, and Maggie was a complete mess. I just started sobbing. I knew it would be pointless to go so I just put Maggie to bed without putting her in her jammies or reading her stories or anything. One more thing to feel bad about tonight.

Right now I just feel so sad and devastated. I've been looking forward to this party for the past month because it’s the first one we’ve ever been invited to. All our ward friends were going and it was going to be a blast. I was so excited to get Maggie dressed in her cute monkey costume. But, I was sobbing too hard to bring myself to go nearly an hour late. I am still so frustrated with myself that I want to scream. And as it stands, Maggie has nowhere to wear her Halloween costume, the idea I was so excited about will not come to pass, I wasted money on expensive transfer paper and T-shirts, and I have a cake with a stenciled candy corn on it that I made for the cake walk that is sitting on my counter and will most likely go uneaten. So will somebody please come take it from me? Because just looking at it makes me cry. I used to love Holidays, but it seems like in recent years, nothing seems to pan out how I imagine and I just end up completely disappointed and utterly depressed. :(

You know how Maggie's always sportin' the stoic look in all her pics?

2008-10-22T20:45:00.006-06:00

Well she apparently sports this one now too.

Liz mentioned on her blog that you can get a free 8x10 at Kiddie Kandids for your child's first birthday. So, I thought I'd help myself to a free portrait of Maggie today. Hmm . . . it didn't quite go as I expected. Maggie threw a tantrum. But at least she made it easy for me to decline all the other picture packages they try to sell you on. They actually didn't even try. They printed the only picture that they were able to get during Maggie's rather impressive breakdown and sent me on my merry way.

WARNING: POLITICS DISCUSSED IN THIS POST. PLEASE DON'T HARM YOURSELVES.

2008-10-22T09:41:00.002-06:00

I think the majority of Americans would probably be willing to scratch their eyeballs with a fork if it meant they didn't have to hear one more thing about politics right now. Believe me, I've definitely solidified a spot among those who are completely and utterly politic'd out and just want to get this $&%$ election over with. But there are a few bloggers who bring me peace of mind and make me realize that I'm not the only one who feels the way I do about the situation we're in.

I started reading Kirk's blog when my high school friend (his wife) Carin linked to it on her blog. I pretty much agree with him on everything he's said concerning politics, which is rare. People always seem to be either Republican or Democrat . . . he's neither, and I like that. This post is worth meandering over there to read though. Seriously, it made my day.
Kory and I talk about politics quite a bit. We generally see eye to eye on most of it and once in a while, he'll finally break down on his blog and state it how it is. Like here and here.
Ryan posted this last night and I laughed out loud. I wish him luck with the gagging. I wouldn't wish that on anybody.

So thanks for helping me feel better amid the overabundance of political propaganda that the media's been dishing out to us.

Créme Brulee, Sonora Grill, she's not a ninja, a lot of ellipses, and giving thanks

2008-10-20T15:12:00.011-06:00

Last Friday Kory and I headed to the Gateway to buy a black pencil skirt, wander, and eat at Biaggi's. I received a coupon for a free birthday dessert, and this is what I chose:

The Créme Brulee Trio. It was awesome. It came with a sampling of the Tahitian vanilla, raspberry, and rich chocolate. Ever since our cruise 2 years ago, Kory and I have held utmost respect for Créme Brulee, and we seem to have placed it on some sort of dessert pedestal. Luckily this did not disappoint. I always think going to the Gateway is a good time, but shopping on a Friday night made me realize how glad I am to be 26 and well out of my teenage years. All the teenagers roaming about aimlessly seemed way too giddy yippy for my comfort level. Was I really like that at one time? . . . Sigh. Overall, the birthday date was a success . . . I left satisfied with my meal, my free dessert, and my new age.

Last night my mom took us to Sonora Grill for my birthday dinner. I really enjoyed the place. I always hope restaurants like this (you know, the locally owned and operated ones) can stay in business. It was kind of empty and it made me sad. They have a real chef and the food was both flavorful and fresh-tasting. AND, if you go between 3-6 p.m. every day you can get the Early Bird Special, which includes 2 meals and 2 drinks for $20. I must say that the prickly pear lemonade was awesome, and the chile verde was top notch. Thanks again mom!

Also, I think I may have come up with a Halloween costume for us to wear on Friday night. I don't know if it will all pan out though . . . that will depend on Kory's Photoshopping skills I guess . . . and, well, if anybody gets it. I seem to have a tendency to come up with lame things. Perhaps I am just a lame person . . . I guess lame is as lame does. And the fact that I just said that proves my point. Consider this paragraph finished now.

And lookey here . . .

Thank you all for your support in this matter. Although, tell me, are the feet backwards? I haven't studied up on the anatomy of a monkey as of late, but I believe those side appendages are like our thumbs, and that would mean they need to be switched. It's not like she keeps them on anyway, but it might be good information to tuck away in my brain for the future, or for a rousing game of trivia, or something like that.

Thanks again Chelsea for watching Maggie on Friday night. And thank you Jaremy and Kirsten for watching Maggie so we could go out and enjoy a peaceful dinner with my mom. And thank you Sarah for letting me borrow the cute monkey costume so Maggie didn't have to be a ninja. Once Kory saw it on her, he decided a monkey wasn't so bad afterall, and I succeeded in postponing the ninja talk for yet another year.

Another one bites the dust

2008-10-17T21:25:00.014-06:00

Man, what is this world coming to? First Mother's Cookies and now Mervyn's? So where am I supposed to get my bath towels and Kory's dress pants now? Not to mention the fact that the day after Thanksgiving sales are just never gonna be the same again. Dang. Now I'm sad again. I hate change . . . and the fact that our economy is made of fail.

No balance + No coordination + No flexibility + Inability to follow instructions = Yoga FAIL!

2008-10-16T08:00:00.008-06:00

I fail at yoga. And it makes me sad because I always thought yoga was a pretend sport . . . something all the yuppies made up so they could think they were exercising. But let me tell ya, I’ve been humbled, because it kicks my butt! And to make matters worse, I think I REALLY upset the chi at class last night. I’ve had my suspicions during the past 2 classes, but last night when I fell over a few times and then tried to apologize to the instructor each time, I was certain of it. I’m pretty sure the chi likes his yoga classes to be all serene and Enya-esque, but there I was flailing my limbs about, causing a scene. Then to top it all off, I shrieked in pain mid-stretch after I was informed that I was doing it wrong and tried to re-adjust. I seem to do a lot of things wrong in yoga. My brain just doesn’t work the yoga way. It's probably cause I have the wrong mindset going into it. The instructor always starts off by calmly telling us to “breathe in acceptance; breathe out negative feelings; breathe in happy thoughts; breathe out what you were doing before you came.” I mean, seriously, how do you really breathe this kind of stuff? When she starts into her speech, all I can think about is how ridiculous it sounds. Last I checked we breathed in oxygen. I don't know how to breathe feelings! Anyway, I get that it's symbolic and stuff, but I find the instructions difficult to follow seriously.

And last night we did some face exercises near the end of class. Finally, something easy that I couldn't fail at. Except I did. The instructions were to close your lips, press your tongue against your cheek, and then swirl it all around, from side to side, and top to bottom inside your mouth. Unfortunately my lovely mouth structure made it impossible to keep my lips sealed together, so my tongue kept popping out my mouth hole whenever it would try to switch sides. Lame!

Also last night I noticed the instructor was catering to me. It's beginner yoga and there’s like 60-year-olds in the class, but the instructor always looked right at me when she would say “Not too much longer. If you need to get into an easier position, that’s just fine too.” I looked around to notice that the old folks were all doing just fine with the material. What's wrong with my body? Why have I never been able to touch my toes? And why can’t I balance for more than 1.5 seconds without tipping over? After one exercise last night I informed the the instructor that I don’t drink. She just stared at me. Why did I even say that?

Anyway, it seems that while I'm always forced to do the easy versions of the poses, all my peers are climbing the yoga ladder to success. And as it stands, the teacher finds me strange, the chi hates my guts, and my classmates find me uncoordinated and disruptive. So I think I'm gonna call in sick next time. :(

Namastè.

I'd like to propose a moment of silence

2008-10-15T20:33:00.005-06:00

I received some devastating news today. Mother's Cookies, the maker of Iced Oatmeal cookies and Iced Circus Animal cookies (my favorite!), has shut down after 92 years. They declared bankruptcy last Friday and shut down operations on Monday. And that was that. No more cookies were made, and Iced Circus Animal cookies will forever occupy a sacred spot in my memory. Oh how I will mourn over this tragic turn of events. And tomorrow I suppose I will have to venture to the store to snatch up some Iced Circus Animal cookies before they are no more. This truly is a sad, sad day.

Suze Orman's gonna hunt me down on Oprah for what I'm about to say...

2008-10-15T07:40:00.003-06:00

Is being cheap and frugal always a good thing? I used to think so. Now I’m not so sure. I mean, it’s obviously good to save your money and not spend what you do or don’t have on worthless crap. That’s just good sense. But, I think sometimes you can save and save and one day you will end up with a big account full of saved up money that you will look at . . . and that’s about it, because you’ll always be saving for “someday,” and probably never think you’ve saved enough. Don’t we work to earn money so we can take care of ourselves AND enjoy life?

I come from a long line of cheapskates. I honestly believe it’s hereditary. And I'm starting to realize that it’s a very strange breed. We often seem to have a REALLY hard time purchasing things because it involves parting with our own money. I know for me I get major anxiety about buying things. I don’t like to shop to buy, just to look. For some reason actually taking the plunge to buy something is really hard for me to do. I often talk myself out of stupid things like hamburgers or fries because I convince myself that I don’t need them. And when I do buy something, I most likely have a coupon for it. I’m just always looking for a good deal with everything . . . which is usually a good thing, but sometimes when we get caught up in doing whatever is in our best interest, we often end up putting others out, which is not a good thing.

I have a constant worry that I’ll get old and look back on my life and realize that I never did anything that I truly enjoyed because I was always saving for “someday.” I really hope I don’t end up like that. I’ve been working really hard lately to not care so much about every little penny and to just try to be more generous about things, and I’ve noticed that I’m a lot less stressed. I just feel better. So what if my dinner cost $3 more than what I would normally get at a restaurant? I enjoyed it! A LOT! . . . I still regret not getting that hot fudge sundae in Ghirardelli Square. I mean, heck, it was expensive! $6.95 for a sundae is INSANE, but so what? In the grand scheme of things, if $6.95 is going to make me or break me, I’ve got bigger problems to worry about. And I’m pretty sure the memories I would have made from tasting that delightful sundae would have far outlived the $6.95 that I saved.

Anyway, this is random and scattered. I still think it’s good to save your money, just as long as you don’t take it too far like those of us in the Breed o' Cheapskates tend to do. I just don’t want to end up an old miser like Mr. Scrooge . . . before, you know, all his dreams and stuff. That is all.

This is so when my kids ask me about my first year of marriage, I can just print this off and say, "read this!"

2008-10-13T21:35:00.008-06:00

The other day Kory and I started talking about our first year of marriage. Looking back, I'm pretty sure that was the strangest year of my life so far. I mean, that first year of marriage is just weird anyway cause you gotta learn to accept the fact that your husband doesn't actually put his dirty dishes in the sink, but rather to the side of the sink in an effort to keep the sink clean. And he has to accept the fact that you have to wake up on an even number to avoid the inevitable bad luck that would come from waking up on an odd number.

But we also had Lisa to deal with. We lived in a basement apartment in Washington Terrace and Lisa was our upstairs neighbor. She looked like Shrek. And I don't really feel bad about saying that anymore because it's true. She was about 35 years old and crazy. We spent many nights with our ears pressed against the door to the upstairs, listening to the strange conversations she had with her husband, who sometimes lived there and sometimes didn't. But that didn't even seem very strange to us after a while. Like, one day Kory had to take her our half of the electricity bill. He knocked on the front door and she answered it . . . completely naked. Picture Shrek . . . I'm pretty sure Kory's never been the same since.

Oh, and one night we heard Lisa speaking her crazy talk upstairs to someone on the phone. A few minutes later an ambulance showed up. Apparently this wasn't the first time she'd pulled a stunt with the paramedics because they checked her over and said she was again just fine. She was basically trying to fake a heart attack. After checking all her vitals and confirming that they were in fact completely normal, they told her there was no reason for her to ride in the ambulance and that they had to go. It was at about that point that she upped her crazy and started scolding them, being sure to let them know that if she died it would be all their fault, and that she couldn't believe they were just leaving her there to die . . . turns out she didn't die.

Oh yeah, and almost every night she would leave her TV on Animal Planet while she slept. She didn't like silence in the night. But we did! And it was too loud for us to get any shut eye. As fate would have it, the breaker box just so happened to be in our half of the house, so finally one night Kory went to the box and flipped the breaker so her TV shut off. She started screaming and talking to the TV as though it was possessed. A few minutes later she turned it back on, so of course Kory did what he had to do and flipped the breaker again. But that’s not even the best part. That came the next day when Kory and I both got home from work and a Catholic priest was at the house performing an exorcism. (...and, um, she was LDS.)

So we finally thought we were free from crazy neighbors when we moved here, but then the Clampetts showed up.

She's a genius...seriously.

2008-10-10T22:38:00.009-06:00

I'm secretly hoping the McCain/Palin campaign wins this (insert adjective) election just so we can continue to see Tina Fey impersonate Sarah Palin. It'd be a cryin' shame to see this kind of talent wasted!

Fail Blog

2008-10-10T20:15:00.005-06:00

Ever been to Fail Blog? Kory and I spent our entire night going through it last night and it's pretty much hilarious. I love Home Shopping Fail, Geography Fail, Bargain Fail, and Conspiracy Fail. Oh but there are so many good ones! If nothing else, the dudes who came up with it deserve credit for a brilliant idea. Their site could use some cleanin' up though.

Thanks for the recommendation Tori.

If you have $5 and Chuck Norris has $5, he has more money than you.

2008-10-09T08:14:00.003-06:00

I had an epiphany in the wee hours of the morning. Why didn't the gov't recruit our man Chuck to solve the financial crisis? Instead of an insane $850 billion bailout, he'd just roundhouse kick Wall Street into shape. No tax breaks for wool research or wooden arrows in his method. No sir. I think I'm gonna write him in for pres.

And this is what happened when Halloween threw up in my neighborhood

2008-10-08T08:00:00.007-06:00

A post about the parties

2008-10-06T14:17:00.016-06:00

We ended up having 2 parties for Maggie because our combined families are now too big to fit into one space comfortably (at least in our house). . . it seems we've outgrown each other. So on Friday night we met at Stacie's house to celebrate 3 birthdays (Stacie's, Maggie's, and mine). We made homemade pizzas (which got us all excited for the 24-hour pizza bar on our upcoming cruise) and then Maggie opened her presents. She received a baby doll named Maggie, a stroller, a wooden puzzle, Teddy Grahams, a book, and a wooden rainbow stacker.

See those farm animal blocks she's holding? Well they're missing! That's what Kory and I gave to her and they're nowhere to be found. Sad! UPDATE: Scratch that. They've now been found. Turns out I'm just a moron. So, where do you want to go to lunch Stace as payback for the 12 hours you spent scouring your house for them?

Here's the cake I made her. So the design I chose (slash stole from Megan's blog) wasn't very 1-year-old-with-only-2-teeth friendly, so we opted to remove the Skittles and Fruit by the Foot pre-cake-destruction.

She cake-destructed like a champ.

Party #2 was on Sunday at the Hoopes'. Again Maggie loved all her gifts, which included a Little People Noah's Ark set, a stuffed puppy, some books, and her first laptop. Hopefully the toy version will somewhat satisfy Kory's desire for her to have her own laptop ASAP.

Then we headed over to Grandma and Grandpa Ivie's for Costco cake and ice cream to again celebrate 3 birthdays (Maggie's, Grandpa Pete's, and Stephanie's). One of these days I'm gonna write a song about my love for Costco cake.

And since yesterday was her real birthday, I started feeling guilty that we had nothing planned, so I whipped up some homemade ice cream (from a mix), and Kory's parents dropped by to see the birthday girl. We all ate our ice cream and witnessed a classic sugar high at its best. I figure we may as well get her body used to sugar from the get-go, right?

Thank you again family for all the nice gifts you gave to Maggie. She loves them all!
And thank you Grandma and Grandpa for the Costco cake. I think you know how I feel about it.
Oh, and thanks Allie for the birthday cupcake bow you made for Maggie to wear.
And I'd also like to thank the Motion Picture Association.

The Year of Maggie

2008-10-06T08:21:00.005-06:00

It’s hard for me to believe that in just one year, my baby went from this:

to this:
A spirited little girl who's as passionate about her food and Costco samples as I am. Unless of course she doesn't like what I give her . . . then she spits it out and chucks it as far away from her as she can.

A little girl who's tiny, yet determined. And even though most of her pants that should fit her according to the tags end up drowning her for a while, she always finds a way to walk in them anyway, even if that usually means just walking right out of them.

A little girl who silently rebels . . . like when she threw a pumpkin across the room just before I shot this picture.

A little girl whose sense of adventure often involves petting the dogs through the fence and sticking her hands in their mouths to feel their teeth. Luckily they appear to be nice dogs who don't seem to mind that she mauls their snouts.

A little girl who likes to throw things (if you haven't already noticed . . . at least we've finally got her to stop tormenting the pumpkins), including a nightly ritual of chucking each of her stuffed animals, one at a time, out of her crib and as far across her room as she can, and then laughing about it before finally going to sleep. Apparently having them in there with her would mean sharing her crib with something else, so in that case she'd rather just sleep alone.

And a little girl who has recently decided that if she wants (or doesn't want) something, throwing a fit is often the best option. About a month ago while grocery shopping at Wal-Mart, a lady happened to look at her the wrong way and Maggie didn’t like it. All of a sudden her bottom lip curled under and within a matter of seconds she was screaming at the top of her lungs. And then the tears came. The lady started apologizing profusely, saying she didn’t look at her any differently than she looks at other babies. Finally when Maggie wouldn't settle down, we had to leave that aisle and go to the next one to get out of the innocent lady's presence. Maggie stopped crying immediately and the lady continued to apologize from across the aisle . . . have mercy.

It's amazing what a difference a year makes. So it's true, she can be a little bit feisty and dramatic at times, but mostly she's a very content baby (who's just begun sleeping about 12.5 hours a night, bless her heart). I wouldn't change a thing about her and I'm hoping that I'll be praising her strong will when the teenage years hit.

Happy Birthday Maggie! I love you!

Update - One Year Stats:

Weight: 15 lbs. 14 oz. (<5th Percentile). (Her weight was actually somewhere between 15 lbs. 14 oz. and just over 16 lbs. She threw a fit and wanted to climb off the scale, so the nurse and I had to try to contain her on the scale and it was fluctuating in this range. We ended up just having to make a good guess based on the number that registered the longest. Regardless, she's still not on a growth curve, but her doctor said all is well. She also called her "feisty," to which I replied, "I'm well aware.")

Height: 29.25 in. (42nd Percentile)

Head: 44.5 cm. (50th Percentile)

Happy Birthday Dad!

2008-10-02T21:03:00.006-06:00

She's not gonna be a ninja!

2008-10-01T16:26:00.013-06:00

I'm excited for Halloween this year. Kory and I have never been cool enough to be invited to Halloween parties in the past (I think in the 8 years I've known him we've only been invited to 1!). Don't get me wrong, we're still not cool, but this year our ward is having one. So whether they want us there or not, we're gonna go ... just because we can ... and it's against the rules to not invite us. It'll be awesome. I've always wanted to attend a rockin' costume party! I am, however, pretty low on creative juices and I can't seem to come up with anything for us to dress up as. I asked Kory what he dressed up as when he was a kid to see if it would spark any ideas and he said "an IRS agent." So, uh, that didn't help me out. I'm also not the kind to spend a lot of money on a costume, so we're pretty limited. Kory has a sweet mailman hat. Not like a Karl Malone hat, but a real mailman hat. It was given to him by a mailman on his mission and he thinks it's awesome. He wears it whenever we go out to breakfast because he wants to fit in with the men wearing leisure suits at the snack bar. Also, a few years ago we found some really short old school mailman shorts at Savers. So the first idea was to have Kory dress up as a mailman, I would then dress up as a house wife (tough one!), and Maggie would wear a shirt that said "My Daddy Delivers." But I'm thinking this is: (1) Not appropriate for a church function, (2) Hard to understand if Maggie's not always attached to us and facing forward, and (3) Even if she is always facing forward, people still might not get it, and a failed Halloween costume/joke is almost as bad as a failed joke in sacrament meeting. You know what I mean? So do you have any suggestions?

Besides, I also wanted Maggie to be a monkey this year, despite the fact that Kory's been insistent that she will be a ninja for the past year. A NINJA! We have a cute little girl to dress up and he wants her to be a ninja?! I'm thinking not so much. I don't want to be overbearing with my opinion and all, but come on! There's probably some lady out there who had 8 boys and no girls and if she found out we were gonna dress our baby girl as a ninja she might just vomit all over us. Last week my neighbor Sarah lent me a really cute monkey costume and I knew that once Kory saw it on Maggie his heart would melt and he'd be all over the monkey idea. Well, I showed him the costume and he was all, "yeah, that would go really well under a ninja suit." I give up.

Let us all listen to Rep. McCotter

2008-09-30T22:36:00.004-06:00

Amen.

How to manage your time wisely

2008-09-30T14:39:00.006-06:00

Instead of wasting my time reading the news today, I wasted my time here. I feel a lot better now. Oh, and guess what else? I've never owned a rolling pin! After 4 years of marriage I finally found a need for one tonight, but I had to just use a cup. Anyway, here are some of my favorite yearbook pictures from the site.

1952 - Just your classic Betty Crocker wannabe.

1966 - Mom is this what you looked like in high school, minus the giant teeth?

1966 - Kory would have been an awesome lobbyist...or maybe the pope.

1970 - So am I to assume that in 1970, big teeth and crooked glasses were the thing?

1980 - This is just sad.

1988 - Kory looks like a natural child of the 80's sportin' that mullet!

Too much to worry about

2008-09-29T14:52:00.005-06:00

Dang. I hate this. Today I'm feeling all uneasy and I have a sick feeling in my stomach. I know people keep telling us not to worry about the economy, and I understand that the markets are cyclical so there are times of a booming economy and times of a more depressed economy and in the end things eventually even out, but it just seems like banks are failing left and right and I can't help but worry about the direction our economy is headed. I know that the worst thing we could possibly do right now is panic and go withdraw all our savings and sell off all our stocks. If there's one thing I learned from all my finance classes it's that we need to invest for the long run and just trust that things will all even out in the end. It's really hard not to be concerned though. I'm a very conservative person. I don't like risk. I hate thinking that everything we've saved for and invested in for so long will be all for naught. I realize that Kory and I are young enough that there's plenty of time for the economy to rebound, but I know a lot of people who are close to retiring and have all their retirement invested in stocks. I really hope they'll all be okay. Kory keeps telling me that we just need to be prepared and not panic, because panic doesn't facilitate anything. But, dang, I worry about whether or not I'll be satisfied with what I order at Applebee's. What makes him think I won't worry about this?

The Dow fell nearly 800 points today! Holy crap! This was mostly because the House rejected the President's Bailout Package. Part of me wanted it to be approved because it was supposed to help the economy rebound and that would make me feel better. But, then what? The government isn't supposed to keep rescuing us. Right now Wells Fargo owns our house. If the government keeps bailing out banks, then the government would own our house, right? And if the government keeps rescuing and taking control of banks and other entities, isn't that the first step towards communism? So the Bailout Package would have ultimately resulted in a loss of freedom...but what now? What will help our economy now?

Am I missing something? Is my thinking flawed? I'm not claiming to know all that's going on right now and I know a few people who read my blog know a lot more about this than I do. So, will someone please tell me something that will help me feel better right now? Because MSNBC sure isn't doing it for me.

What ever happened to a good old fashioned phone call?

2008-09-25T21:20:00.008-06:00

I'm not a texter. Not in the slightest. I'm sure I've offended a few people in the past by not responding to their texts, but I probably check my messages about 3 times a year and I'm certain the invitation to come to a cookout doesn't still apply in January. So if any of you reading this are one of the offended, I apologize. I meant no harm. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I'm the youngest in my family so I don't have younger siblings to keep me in the know about all the popular stuff. At least that's my excuse. When I was in high school, only a few people had their own cell phones. They usually wore them on their belt buckles to show off how cool they were. But most people just made fun of them because it looked so lame. Cell phones resembled a brick of cheese back then. Nowdays everybody has a cell phone (I speak like I'm 45...I know it's only been 7 years since I graduated, but it seems like things are so different now!). There's even a few 8-year-old girls in my neighborhood who have them. What in the world would an 8-year-old need a cell phone for? I don't get it.

Anyway, I swear I'm the only 20-something person alive who doesn't text. It's really annoying. I always try to stay up on the techy stuff, but this one's slipped under my radar for so long that I've just recently begun to realize how behind the times I am. Some super texter will probably toilet paper my house for saying this, but I think it's rude when I'm eating dinner or trying to socialize with someone who can't seem to make any sort of eye contact with me because he/she is texting someone else. It's just wrong! ...Tangent...

So anyway, I learned from Ryan's blog that my alma mater, Weber High, won a texting contest by sending 571,795 texts to a local radio station and the prize was Jessica Simpson. WHA?!? Since when did principals and teachers condone texting during school hours to get some sleezy Hollywood star to come speak to the students? It's all very strange to me. Here kids, be sure to do your calculus homework if you wanna provide a fair living for your future family. But if you really wanna be rich, hire your creepy dad as your agent, assume that chickens live in the sea, and then divorce your husband after exposing your marriage to the world on a reality cable t.v. show. Read this article about it. I especially like the PTSA president's remarks in the last paragraph. My dad would have been so proud...

For those of you who don't know, my dad was the principal of Weber High for several years. And I'm thinking he's shaking his head up in heaven right now.

He used to be the sane one

2008-09-25T08:20:00.007-06:00

A few nights ago Kory approached me with an idea that he and one of his co-workers had discussed in great detail. He was all, “I wanna be a human calendar for all my co-workers. It'll be AWESOME!” This of course sparked my attention so I inquired further. And about mid-explanation I wished I hadn’t. He went on to tell me that he was basically gonna need to get 12 different hats, 31 different shirts, and 7 different pairs of suspenders for his plan to work. He would then wear a different hat for every month, a different shirt for every day of the month, and a different pair of suspenders for every day of the week. So every day when he would walk into work, everyone would look at the combination of clothes he was wearing, think about the month/day each item represented, and then instantly know what day it was. ?!? My jaw dropped. For the first time in my life I was speechless, and I wasn't even sure where to begin... So I basically asked him if he honestly thought his co-workers would want to put forth that much effort just to determine what day it was, considering there are much easier ways to get that information (i.e. computers, cell phones, Daily Dilbert desk calendars...the options are endless really). And that was that. He had nothing more to say. My logic made sense to him and we finished eating our soup in silence.

And she's off...

2008-09-24T16:16:00.003-06:00

Let us all be unlike Dolores Aguilar...and her kids.

2008-09-23T08:09:00.002-06:00

I may have more problems than I thought

2008-09-22T14:40:00.001-06:00

Whenever I hit my head on something or get hit on the head with something, I immediately begin doing random math problems in my head to ensure that I didn’t lose any of my brain function. I have always feared the following:

3*3 = 9
6*5*2 = 60
7*8-2+9 = 63
9*11+8-4 = ... Doh!

So now that I've been sitting here for 5 minutes pondering my method of choice, I have to wonder if I did lose any brain function, would I know my answers were wrong or would they seem right to me regardless of whether they were in fact right or wrong? I'm beginning to believe my method is flawed. Now what am I gonna do?

I tried it

2008-09-21T14:39:00.004-06:00

Okay, so I made some French toast today. Instead of going with just one of the recipes ya’ll suggested, I took the tips that sounded good to me and mixed them all together. And it was by far the best version I've made. I still have a few things to tweak, but Kory and Maggie LOVED it. I’ve decided that I’m just not a big fan of the breakfast. Any breakfast. I don’t care for cereal, milk, eggs, yogurt, granola, omelets, German pancakes, waffles, or crepes much. If I go to breakfast, I always just order pancakes because I do like those, but only restaurant ones. If I make them they’re sick. Anyway, so things like French toast have to be AMAZING for me to enjoy them.

So here’s what I did. First of all, I took Ashley’s suggestion and used French bread (this made sense to me since it is in fact French toast). It was really good and I cut it really thick to avoid the flat, soggy French toast dilemma. I think we’ve already been over the fact that soggy French toast makes me gag. I still want to try some Brioche sometime to see what the difference would be. I believe it’s a harder bread, so I think I would like that...or maybe I’ll just let my bread sit out and go stale. Then I added brown sugar to my mixture like the recipe Jaidi linked to told me to do, along with milk, butter, eggs, cinnamon, and vanilla. I cooked it FOREVER to get all the moisture out and then I topped it with more cinnamon, powdered sugar, butter, and syrup. I think the brown sugar in the mix helped a lot! I actually think I’ll add more next time. And I’ll probably give the pumpkin a shot next time as well since it's pretty much pumpkin season now. Anyway, thanks for your suggestions. They made all the difference. And I’m very open to invitations if someone wants me to try out their “World’s Best French Toast.”

I gotta have more cowbell...I mean french toast

2008-09-20T10:26:00.006-06:00

I really wanna make some french toast. As a kid I hated the stuff, but I've had it twice since I've been married and it was amazing. I thought maybe it was one of those special foods that your taste buds have to grow into...like shrimp and mushrooms (still waiting...), but I've tried to make some for myself three times now and basically wanted to vomit every time. I think it's the bread I used. Normal bread is too thin. I've seen Giada use Brioche, but where the heck would I get something like that? I don't have a local baker who I can go to with all my bread questions :(. Anyway, I don't have time to search online through the thousands of "World's Best French Toast" recipes in an attempt to decipher which one truly is the best. So does anybody have a winner? Here's my criteria:

1. NOT SOGGY - Soggy, eggy bread = vomit.
2. FLAVORFUL - My sis-in-law uses pumpkin in her mix. Sounds intriguing. Got any other ideas to make it taste good?
3. REALLY GOOD - I've wasted my time on 3 failed attempts now, and I really don't want to do that again. Please only share good recipes. You know, the kind that I would find if I googled "World's Best French Toast."

I'm hoping to make this tomorrow, or maybe some night next week. So if anybody can give me any tips or point me to a good recipe, that would be super.

Please? This picture makes me so hungry....

An anxiety-induced stupid human trick

2008-09-17T21:31:00.010-06:00

Those who know me know that I'm a classic case of anxiety with a torso and some legs. Stand in my presence for no more than 10 minutes and you too will become fidgety and uncomfortable. I'm convinced there's something wrong with me, but I'm not sure what to tell the doctor. Maybe I should make an appt. with him when Kory's late from work and just sit there. For 10 minutes. And not say anything. He'd understand within about 4 minutes that it's no picnic to be around me when I'm anxious. Add that to the fact that I'm already uncharacteristically awkward, and I'd walk out of there with the biggest prescription for Valium Walgreen's has ever seen.

Want proof? Okay, what 9-year-old freaks out when her parents are 5 minutes late getting home from dinner because she assumes they're dead in a ditch and SHE NEEDS TO GO FIND THEM!? My anxiety has now found its way to Kory because he commutes to Salt Lake every day. If he's even 3 minutes late I start pacing and calling my family members to let them know that he's late and most likely dead in a ditch and that I'm not ready to be a widow and a single parent at such a young age. Oh and my house. I always think it's going to burn down. I went on a walk the other night and at the first sight of smoke off in the distance I automatically assumed my house was in flames. So I sprinted the entire way back home behind an umbrella stroller only to find out that the smoke was indeed not coming from my home, or anywhere near my home really. If nothing else it was a lesson in depth-perception...

When I was about 7 years old I started playing with my ears. I have weird ears. I've tried to play with others' ears, but they're just not the same. They don't bend like mine. Mine really bend. I play with them when I'm 1. bored 2. worried 3. cold, but mostly when I'm worried about something ridiculous. When I was younger my siblings used to tell me that if I didn't stop playing with my ears by the time I was old enough to date, no boys would want to date and/or marry me. That was like the worst threat a young Mormon girl could ever hear. And I really worried about it. To the point that I would get anxiety and play with my ears because I was worried about being single my entire life. I wasn't cut out to be an old maid. I've never cared much for sewing or eating alone. And thus the never-ending circle of anxiety began. But even with that threat hanging over my head, I wasn't able to break the habit. And miraculously I still ended up hitched. Kory thought it was cute at the time. Just like he thought it was cute that I would drink vinegar for enjoyment. His views have undoubtedly changed since then. Now he just thinks I'm crazy. So here I am today. My ears are so bendable that I can tuck my outer ear into my ear canal and then blink hard to untuck it. And I've finally accepted the fact that I'm just one of those people you see on Letterman who can do creepy stupid human tricks. So I've decided to post a clip of it for the internet to see, with the hope that I can officially close this chapter of my life. The one where I perform anxiety-induced stupid human tricks for people.

Here's my advice

2008-09-16T20:31:00.007-06:00

Before I had Maggie and I had all those showers where the ladies were asked to write down a profound piece of advice on a fancy 3X5 note card for me, the mom-to-be, so I could keep them in a book in my closet for those days when I'm looking for some advice, no one ever told me half the stuff I now realize every new mom should be aware of ... Like, don't wear your favorite necklace within a 2-ft. radius of your baby because it will be torn off you and the beads will fly across the floor and you'll be sad that your favorite necklace is now ruined AND you'll have to clean up a huge mess. Or if you plan to go someplace where you need to look nice, be sure to keep yourself and your baby in a t-shirt and a onesie, respectively, up until about 3 minutes before the start of the event, because somehow the Spaghettios you fed your baby 4 hours earlier will miraculously reappear on whatever you both happen to be wearing. Or what happens when you have to quit nursing your baby at 9-months, but your baby absolutely refuses to drink formula so your only option is to go against what you were brainwashed to believe from the time you were 7-years-old, that BABIES SHOULD DRINK ONLY BREAST MILK OR INFANT FORMULA UNTIL THEIR FIRST BIRTHDAY BECAUSE THEIR SYSTEMS CAN'T HANDLE COWS MILK UNTIL THEN, and you go ahead and feed your baby whole milk anyway and feel guilty about it for a few days until you realize that she'll probably be just fine because your mom fed all of her kids cows milk from the time they were like 6-months-old and they're all fine. (Or are we?) Or that if your baby crawls around church and steals all the other kids' toys and binkies and hoards them in one central location and then hits the other kids on their eyeballs if they try to take THEIR toys back, it really IS that humiliating and you start to wonder what you've already done wrong in the short 10-months since your baby's birth, despite your every intention to have the most well-behaved kids in church because you watch SuperNanny! Or more importantly, like how long you need to wait before you make that first call to poison control because your 11.5-month-old just emptied 1/2 the bottle of Target-brand Head-to-Toe baby wash on the floor to play in, even though the lid was securely fastened a few minutes beforehand, and then downed about 1/8 of the bottle while you were doing your hair and proceeded to blow bubbles every time she opened her mouth until you were able to wash it all out. Yeah, those things would have been nice to know. And I think I'm gonna write a book. I'll call it, "This is REALLY what you've gotten yourself into."

And the miraculous part about the book will be that despite everything I tell you, you'll still be absolutely in love with your kids at the end of the day when you read them stories and tuck them into bed.

The real Wii

2008-09-15T16:03:00.006-06:00

My 3-year-old nephew Garrett (G) called me up last week to see if he could borrow our Wii to play some Wii Sports. He had been having a rough day in terms of a 3-year-old and needed something to cheer him up. When he and Allie showed up to get it I noticed he had cleats on, and I quickly realized that the boy takes his Wii Sports seriously. So then Allie called me today to see if I could tend G and Dylan for a few hours. I agreed and G again showed up with his cleats on, and he brought along the Wii to play as well. After he had played some baseball and golf, he came upstairs to talk to me to me while I was feeding Maggie.

G: “Carlee, I wanna play some tennis.”

Me: “Ok, I’ll come get it set up for you on the Wii in just a second.”

G: “No, I wanna play it on the real Wii.”

So he donned his cleats and we went outside to play some real tennis on the real Wii with a real ball and real rackets. And to think I’ve had a real Wii accessible to me forever, but just found out about it after getting a fake Wii. Dang.

Secret Crush

2008-09-14T10:27:00.004-06:00

"Kory, I have a confession."
"What's that?"
"I have a secret crush on Chris Martin."
"Oh, good. So do I."
"Uh....come again?"
"He's my man crush."

So now the internet knows our secret crush...and that it's the same person...which may or may not be disturbing. For me, I don't find him attractive, but I think he's a musical genius. And he has an accent. For Kory, Chris Martin is everything he's ever wanted to be...an amazing singer-songwriter, pianist, and guitarist for an awesome band. And after listening to Viva la Vida about 64 times over the past few weeks, I'm finally admitting that I'm obsessed. I'm definitely not in love with the music video because I don't get it, but the song gives me goose bumps. Especially when they start singing "oh-oh-oh-oh-oh oh, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh oh." Watch this if for some reason you haven't heard it or if you haven't found it in your heart to appreciate it yet.

Kory and I are usually on the same page with music (except for his crazy techno fettish), and we're also both currently obsessed with Priscilla Ahn. Click here to listen to one of our favorites, Lullaby. It's just some random video someone put up on YouTube, but I can't find a music video so just listen to it and don't complain about the visuals. And if you like that, you gotta hear Dream. And that's all I ask of you.

It's in the genes

2008-09-12T07:51:00.005-06:00

Kory has always hated wearing long sleeves. He wears them all the time, but rolls them up a few times because he can't stand having anything touch his wrists. The past few days we've dressed Maggie in long sleeve shirts and this is what we commonly find:

So in case you were wondering, sleeve-hating is hereditary.
.

On being sympathetic

2008-09-11T21:21:00.002-06:00

So I've been sick for the past 2 days...fever, achy everything, chills, sweating, sore throat. I was convinced I was gonna die yesterday, and quite frankly the thought didn't scare me as badly as it usually does. Probably because I remembered there's ice cream in heaven. And not being able to enjoy eating is a foodie's worst nightmare. So off to the doc I went this morning. He diagnosed me with pharyngitis. Sounds made up to me...like he didn't want to make me feel like a moron for coming in so he pulled out a piece of anatomy from his brain and attached "gitis" to the end. Well it worked. But of course I still googled it when I got home, and it's for real! Fancy that. Luckily I finally feel like I'm on the road to recovery tonight, even though my pharynx could still use some major TLC (have you reached your daily limit of drama yet?).

The symptoms began to set in on Tuesday evening, so Kory took Maggie out for the night. They went to Guitar Center and he played some guitars for her (she loves that!), and then he took her to the mall and they came home with 2 new shirts for me. Apparently he held a few in front of her and went with the first one she touched. And amazingly, I love them, which is rare for me because I'm quite picky about what I wear. THEN he took work off yesterday to take care of Maggie so I could sleep. AND THEN he went into work at like 9:30 last night (to avoid taking off another sick day) and worked through the night so he could be here to help take care of her today as well. So tonight I can't help but think about what a great husband I have. He's so much more sympathetic than I am. And I'm gonna work on that...because when you're sick, it's really nice to have someone take care of you.

On being sad

2008-09-09T22:10:00.008-06:00

When my dad died, I didn’t think I would ever recover from it. Not only did I have to find a way to erase those horrible memories of his death from my memory, but I had to figure out how I was going to ever live the rest of my life without him. I honestly went through a stage where I hoped I wouldn’t live to be old so I could see him sooner. It’s a strange thing, death. The man who taught me so much and who loved me and cheered me on for 21 years of my life died, and I’m supposed to just move on. I understand all the reasons why we are expected to continue on with life. I understand that I will see him again. I understand that it’s part of life and everybody goes through it at one time or another. I totally understand all that. But for some reason it’s still so hard sometimes. I often feel guilty that I don’t think about him enough, but I think my method of coping has been to just try to think about other things so I don’t bring up those emotions.

I do feel that I’ve moved on quite well and I can honestly say that I am happy with my life. But every once in a while something will remind me of my dad and I have no choice but to think about how much I really do miss him. A few weeks ago at my ice cream party, I was really sad that he wasn't there. Like me, he was pretty much obsessed with ice cream. He had eaten it so much that he had devised a method on how to eat it properly in order to obtain the most intense flavor. This included letting the ice cream melt a bit before diving in, and then pushing it to the top of your mouth with your tongue so your taste buds could work their magic with the creamy flavors. So an all-you-can-eat ice cream bar would have been a dream come true for him. I had a dream shortly after he died where I was talking to him about some things and he told me that he had to get back to heaven because it was time for ice cream and he didn’t want to miss out on the good flavors. I guess heaven's scoopers must have been serving Burnt Almond Fudge or Green Pineapple that day. (I must say that it was comforting to know that there is ice cream in heaven though. Makes me not fear death quite so much.)

Then my brother wrote a blog post yesterday about the skill of juggling, and my thoughts went back to my childhood when my sister Michelle and I would always ask my dad to juggle for us. He was amazing. And again, I couldn’t help but be sad. I'm still sad. There, I said it. I’m still sad. I’m sad that my dad didn’t get to see me graduate from college or get married. I’m sad he didn’t get to see Kory and me move into our first house and put in our first yard by ourselves. I’m sad that he’s not here to kiss Maggie and that she didn’t get to meet her grandpa, who I know she would have adored. I’m sad that he won’t be able to help my kids with their science projects. I’m sad that I don’t get to celebrate Christmas and Thanksgiving with him anymore. I’m sad that I no longer get to go out with him on a windy day to fly one of his many stunt kites. I'm sad that I can't set up the Christmas villages with him anymore. I’m sad that I no longer get to watch the George C. Scott version of "A Christmas Carol" with him on Christmas Eve and that I no longer have a secret admirer to bring me balloons and candy on Valentine’s Day. I’m sad that I don't have a daddy-daughter date at a nice restaurant to look forward to on my birthday. I’m sad that he’s not here to go Christmas shopping, to the Never Ending Pasta Bowl, and to the Mo Tab Christmas Concert with anymore. I’m sad that my passion for holidays seems to have dwindled since he died. I’m sad that I can’t ring in the New Year by watching him shoot off illegal bottle rockets from the deck with all the boys, and that I can’t watch the many firework displays from the deck with him on the 4th of July. I'm sad that I didn’t get to learn more from him while he was here. And among so many other things, I'm just sad that he's not here to talk to. Part of me wants my heart to not hurt anymore, but part of me is glad it still does.

This one's for the Apple lovers

2008-09-08T13:33:00.010-06:00

I almost made it an entire week without doing something completely stupid. But, naturally I took care of that on Saturday night. It all started when I finally decided to take the stickers off my laptop. You know, the ones they stick next to the touch pad to tell you what you just spent your life savings on? The first three came off nicely. Then I started working on the stupid AMD Turion Processor sticker. And it didn't take me long to realize that this was all a giant mistake. I worked at it for a while and when I finally got it off, it left all the annoying sticky stuff behind.

I was frustrated with myself already, so I decided to just leave it. But then I put my hand on the keypad and realized that every time I typed, my palm would stick. This wasn't gonna fly with me. So I started rubbing the sticky stuff with my finger to try to get it off. That didn’t work. So I grabbed a wet towel and started to rub it some more. That didn't work either. So I found some sanitizing stuff and put that on there, thinking that if it's good enough to combat tough germs, surely it could get rid of some glue. False! At this point the blasted glue was starting to turn black and my blood pressure was beginning to elevate. Then I had a brilliant idea. A knife! A knife would take it off indeed! So I ran and got a butter knife out of the drawer and began to scrape it off.

Why don't I ever think before I act? I'm sure you all know what happened next, and I only wish I had that kind of foresight. After scraping for a bit, I noticed that it was leaving big scratches where the knife was cutting into the plastic. At that point I wanted to cry. The glue was still very much on my nice laptop, but now I had bigger problems...very noticeable scratches that would always be there to mock me. Kory sort of just sat on the couch and watched my meltdown. I asked him why he didn't stop me and he was all, "I didn't know what you were going to do with the knife, and I certainly didn't assume you would use it to scrape the glue off your PLASTIC laptop." I was feeling physically ill at this point. My dad always taught us to take good care of our stuff and this seemed like such a stupid thing to do to my stuff. I was literally on the verge of tears when Kory informed me that he had an idea. He ran upstairs and came back down with 2 stickers, which he apparently always keeps on hand. One was an Apple sticker, and the other was this bumper sticker:

(If you don't get it, click here and scroll down. If you still don't get it, I don't know what to tell you. It's just another one of Kory's favorite jokes.)

Clearly this one wouldn't work. For one it was too big. For two it wouldn't make any sense. So the Apple sticker it was. An Apple sticker on a PC? Can you do that? Hmmm....I debated this in my head for a few minutes and came to the conclusion that I do like Apple products. And just because I'm too cheap to buy them doesn't mean I can't show my support for them. So I accepted the Apple sticker and put it on my laptop to cover up my self-inflicted mess. I'm thinking there's some symbolism in all of this. And of course it had to be placed in such a manner that it appears to be eating the Windows Vista logo. Needless to say, Kory loves the new look and thinks it's quite fitting.

Chili Dog

2008-09-06T10:32:00.001-06:00

When I first started hanging out with Kory, it didn't take long for me to realize that the Hoopes' are serious about their James Taylor. I hadn't the slightest idea who he was before I met Kory (shocking, I know), but I have since acquired quite a liking for the man and his music. He's just got one of those voices that makes you feel fuzzy inside. And it was lucky for me that I really did like his music, because I'm pretty sure you can't become a Hoopes without liking the big JT. It's like in the family code of conduct or something. Some of my favorite memories from our first years of marriage include Jaremy getting out his Martin guitar and playing some James Taylor tunes for us on Sunday evenings. And then I heard this:

And JT's ranking on my favorite musician list launched to the top. Because frankly, any man who writes a song about a chili dog, and a Pink's chili dog at that, has got my vote. Keep on truckin' JT!

If you're like I was and don't know much about JT, please, for the love of all that's good and holy, go here and here to hear two of my favorites. And I will tell you the latter does a great job of getting a spirited 11-month old to calm down before bed time. But only when it's sung by her dad. Heaven forbid her mother try to chime in. Because she won't stand for it.

People like to rant!

2008-09-05T16:14:00.002-06:00

Wow. Who knew people liked to rant so much? I must say that I’m very curious about a lot of the comments and who wrote them. Wish I knew. Probably never will. For a while there I thought there were gonna be a few wars break out on my blog. I didn’t quite know what to do about it since that was not quite what I had in mind when I invited people to use my blog as an outlet to rant. But I just let the ranters rant on. Who knew ranters would start ranting about other rants and ranters? I think my favorite rant was this one:

If a woman wears pants to church, there is something horribly wrong with her. Like she was involved in a gruesome weasel accident and her legs were gnawed off and now she has to walk around with sticks for legs because she doesn't have good medical insurance and can't afford fancy plastic prosthetic legs.

Funny. And for the record, I've seen people wear pants to LDS services. If wearing a dress/skirt is keeping you from going to church, by all means, wear pants. And if people judge you for it, that's their problem. But if you're refusing to go to church because you just don't wanna wear a dress/skirt, perhaps you should re-evaluate your priorities. And that's all I have to say about that.

Perhaps I should host a ranting session once a month, since clearly people wanna rant! It’ll be my little way of taking it for the team. If you rant on my blog, your spouse/friend/dog/counselor/turtle/other personalities/blog readers won’t have to hear it every day. Just save up your rants for when I open the flood gates again. Maybe I’ll come up with a prize for the best rant. Or possibly the most entertaining rant. Who knows. Wait, the rant’s are anonymous. How would that work? Any ideas? Rant’s a funny word.

Go Sarah. Go Sarah.

2008-09-03T22:21:00.007-06:00

So I really like Sarah Palin. A lot! And I love this interview she did with Glenn Beck a while ago.

Way to stand up to those dirty dog environmentalists Sarah! Finally someone who's willing to actually get things done! I say Sarah for president! :)