Lily refuses to be grammatically objectified

One of Lily's favorite thing so do is to look at pictures of herself. So, we were looking at my blog and she was pointing out all of the pictures of herself. When we came to this picture:



I asked her, "Oh, Lily! WHO is Mommy holding?"

She looked at me like, WTH?

So I corrected myself, "I mean, who is LILY holding?"

*That* she accepted.

I don't know what to title this post. It just made me laugh so dang hard.

So, watch this video and then *you* tell me what I should have titled the post.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RN5xbWtNSU

Sometimes I talk to my kids in Spanish. (Okay, okay. Mostly I just *yell* at them in Spanish.)

So, Sam was dawdling. (what?! Sam?! heh.) We were trying to get back to our car, but he wouldn't keep up with us. He would stop at look at a flower. Wander to the left. Wander to the right. Look around. Shuffle his feet. Etc.

So, Steve turns around and yells: "Vamanos, Sam. Ahorita. VAMANOS."

Sam halts, frowns in confusion and says (half dreamily; half exhaustedly): "But, *Daddies* don't say 'Vamanos!'"

It made me laugh.

If I were more talented...

not only would I photoshop their photos so seamlessly that you wouldn't be able to tell that their arms really *weren't* around eachother, but I would have them sing a song about the "sisterhood of the travelling pants suits" in amazing, reminiscent-of-vegas-show-girl-kicking, animation that would make you pee your pants laughing.

but I'm not that talented. so this is all you get.




(At least your pants suits are safe from the pee, right?)

This is SO my favorite photo of the day

Because:
1) it bugs me that working women sometimes try so hard to be like men when, duh, motherhood is PART of womanhood and let's just end the whole "it's a man's world" crap now.

and

2) it bugs me more when people say that motherhood is the ONLY thing that women should do.

how 'bout put the baby in a sling and go rule the free world? k? k.

Hey, Miss Provo! When you grow up, maybe you can be VP!

Because being a beauty queen never hurts.

My cousin--a 911 dispatcher--just posted this amazing story

http://stevenanddania.blogspot.com/2008/08/one-of-good-ones.html

God's Alchemy

I’ve been thinking a lot about my friend Courtney—whose sister Stephanie (Nie-Nie) was in a plane crash—this week. “Friend” seems both strange and not strange to say, actually. Strange because I’ve never actually met Courtney. Not strange because I feel like I have. Intimacy can develop in unexpected ways online—in that strange combination of your private thoughts, written in the privacy of your covered-with-laundry-and-empty-bottles-of-diet-coke bedroom, reaching out to the public of the world and then coming back to you again in private.

The more I think about Courtney and that unexpected sense of intimacy, I can’t help but think about the way that our lives and experiences crisscross each other in circles that overlap just as unexpectedly.

Forty-four years ago my mother was burned in an incinerator explosion—third degree burns extending from her ankles to her elbows. It was an explosion that would have killed any other seven-year-old, if it wasn’t for another unexpected: that my mom had an identical twin. See, skin grafting technology was just in its infancy. The main hurdle to that point: donor skin was rejected and there weren’t anti-rejection drugs. But with an identical twin with identical DNA, the prognosis went from almost certain death to the possibility of recovery. It hadn’t been done before, sure, but maybe it could be done.

That my mother had an identical twin allowed doctors to pioneer burn technology that they had hitherto been unable to develop. And even though she spent months and even her eighth birthday in the hospital (see the picture with her doctor and sister at the hospital birthday party below), she did survive. It was a miracle that no one predicted.

As a little girl, I remember thinking about this bit of synchronicity. I watched my mother put on her makeup and she laughed as she pointed out a freckle on her leg that used to belong to her sister. The windowless bathroom smelled like a mixture of talcum powder and Este Lauder perfume. As the hot rollers popped as they heated up, I remember feeling in complete awe of the existentiality of it all.

I was born because my mother happened to have an identical twin. The freckle that my mom showed me meant that my very existence was linked in a direct line with the existence of my aunt—the unexpected becoming the miraculous.

Forty four years later Nie-Nie and my mother have the same kind of connection to each other. As Nie-Nie recovers in a burn unit that has come so far since my mother’s—and yet, couldn’t have gotten there without her—they have an entanglement of spirit; those ripples of meaning that connect one human to another.

So I’m connected to Nie-Nie, too. And we all end up connected to each other that way. (Never ask for whom the bell tolls, right?) Your pain is my pain is our pain is God’s pain.

I’m not someone who believes that God causes painful things to happen.

(Who would want to believe in a God who would put a 7 year old little girl in the middle of an explosion, or a mother of babies in a plane crash?!)

But I do believe in God’s alchemy.

That whatever crappy awful thing happens, God finds a way to turn it into something miraculous.

Gold from dross, again and again.

The unexpected birthing the beautiful.

One circle of human existence overlapping another’s.

Today has been declared "Nie-Nie Day" in the bloggernacle. Over 90 online auctions (with more than 300 items up for bidding) are being conducted to help raise money for medical costs. Here are two family members of mine conducting some:

http://momx4inaz.blogspot.com/2008/08/nie-nie-day.html

http://getupandplay.blogspot.com/2008/08/nie-nie-day.html

A few more wedding pictures

Sam in Daddy's coat. (It was cold in Oakland. Who knew, right?)


My new favorite picture of my mom and dad.

The pretty lady behind the flowers is my Grandmother. (My kids' Great-Grandmother)

This is my (almost) entire immediate family (brother&new wife, husband, mom and dad, my two sisters, my kids and my sisters kids). The only two not pictured are...

Joel and Ben. (sister's husband and baby)

Pictures from my brother's wedding

If you want to see some pictures that don't have my kids on them (but why would anyone?!), the photographer put some on his website: http://www.paradigmshyft.com including, yanno, a few photos of the bride and groom.

Miss Provo Started a Blog!

www.waitingwhating.blogspot.com

on with my plans to warp the world one mind at a time...

If swear words bother you, DON'T READ THIS LINK

but it made me and Miss Provo laugh really hard. and I'm really grateful because now I don't have to read Breaking Dawn!! (it's the plot told from Edward's POV)

http://community.livejournal.com/lion_lamb/1651773.html

Sam was supposed to memorize the August Primary Theme and then lead the kids in reciting it at church

And he did really great. Seriously. And, apparently, he is the only kid in the history of primary to actually memorize it. (Does this say something about his intelligence? or does it say something about the water in my neighborhood? you decide.)

Only...

the theme was: "I will show my faith in Jesus Christ by being baptized and confirmed."

and Sam's version was: "I will show my faith in Jesus Christ by being baptized and *confused.*"

duoh.

White Trash Poll!

Alright, so maybe her fashion sense isn't *that* good

Here's what Miss Provo will look like in her tomb raider costume as she walks around the block eating cheeseburgers with our auction winner!

only older. she was purty durn young in these pictures.

ALSO:
our winning bidder should send his check directly to the Miss USA pageant coordinators. Do specify on/with the check, however, that it's to go to the pageant fees of Kristin Clift (Miss Provo). Thanks to your generous donation, you'll be listed as one of Miss Provo's sponsors!

Casting Crowns Productions, Inc.
28248 N Tatum Blvd.
B-1 Suite 137
Cave Creek, AZ 85331

Anyone else that would like to sponsor Miss Provo is welcome to send a check to the same address. (Also be sure to specify that it's for Miss Provo/Kristin Clift.) Miss Provo might even kiss your cheek for it.

And the winner is...

PhillyCheese! For $210 and a stroll around the block dressed like Laura Croft from Tomb Raider! (Miss Provo dressed that way, of course. PhillyCheese can dress however he wants.)

I'll post the address to send the check to later. (It's to Casting Crowns. Anyone can send a check, actually! I'm sure Miss Provo will negotiate with all the runners up...)

(and the time stamp below is an hour off. I dunno why. ask blogger. but it's ten now.)

Ten minutes to go!

post your bids, people!!

Only ONE HOUR left!!

to bid for Miss Provo's time!

Totally random (published!) sentence of the day!

"She fell in and out of love more often than most people with full-time maids changed their monogrammed hand towels."

WTH?!

I'm not going to name the source. I don't want the author(s) to find my blog by google alert.



PS: there are only about four more hours to bid for Miss Provo's time!

Hey, Mom! It's not your fault that I'm such a liberal heretic!!

http://www.newsweek.com/id/151758


My favorite part is when they say that fussy babies respond much better to parenting than mellow babies. (My babies fussed a LOT.) Woo hoo!

Just over 10 hours left if you want to bid for Miss Provo's time!!

The bidding ends at 10PM Mountain time. See the auction here:

http://windmillwatching.blogspot.com/2008/08/miss-provo-wont-let-me-title-this-post.html