Question...?

I will make this quick and painless, since politics is the last thing I want to be talking about right now. I like to talk about politics about as much as I like to talk about other peoples BM's. Seriously, people always seem to talk about how "regular" they are around me. They (you know who you are) even go into so much detail as to tell me the time they usually go. Let's just say there are a lot of irregular people out there and I have one word for you. Metamucil.

So my question to you, friend, is this;
Which is worse? An uneducated vote or not voting at all.
(Make sure to check out the poll on the side and remember, your vote can make a difference)

*UPDATE* The decisions was split almost half and half. Out of 44 votes 23 people said it is worse to vote if you were uneducated about the candidates and 21 people said it is worse to not vote at all.... hmmm, very interesting.

I'm very curious to hear your response. And as far as who I'm voting for...?
Well, I'm voting for The Hoff.

Or this guy,

He seems to have a pretty good solid campaign.

WILL. IT. DIGEST! Part 2

I thought I was done playing this game... I thought wrong.

If you were unfortunate enough to miss the first installment of the game WILL. IT. DIGEST! Make sure to go and check it out here. I'm convinced that your life will not be complete without it.

The game is a little trickier this time now since Macie is no longer in diapers and I don't love the game WILL. IT. DIGEST! enough to go fishing around through her poo to find out what is digestible and what is not. So part of the fun of the new and revised version of the game WILL. IT. DIGEST! is you decided if it will digest or not. Can you feel the excitement?

Now on to the game we all morbidly love and adore (and remember, say it with enthusiasm)

WILL. IT. DIGEST!

And it doesn't just stop there:

• Styrofoam cups
• Barbie shoes
• Paper (still)
• Hair elastics
• Crayons (still)
• Markers
• Small magnets (I know, scary)

This is just a small list of the things I'm aware of that she eats.

She is really naughty about it too. She comes up to me pretending to be all sweet and then opens up her mouth to display what she's about to swallow like a thumb tack (not really) and then she'll run off as fast as she can. Then when I finally catch up to her she hurries and swallows whatever is in her mouth to hide the evidence. I don't really think it's that fun of a game, but right now it's her favorite to play.

As far as I'm aware she is perfectly fine (aside from the fact that she finds joy in eating non-edible household items). I keep telling myself that she will grow out of it, but now I'm not so sure. The poor girl, doesn't she know that when she's 16 and eating kitty-liter the boys aren't going to want to kiss her.

So that concludes our fun little game of WILL. IT. DIGEST! Hopefully this will be the last time you will have the pleasure of playing.

Rogaine For Kids

Works wonders on the hair follicly challenged.



It's almost like she's my own personal, real life chia pet.... Ch, ch, ch, CHIA!

HOME

So this is my (and now nate's) HOME SWEET HOME. This is where I was born and raised... and as it turns out, this is where my children will be raised as well.




This is the backyard to the right...

and this is the backyard to the left. One of my favorite things about HOME is my backyard... that's probably because I never had to mow it.

This was my room. Now it's my Mom's doll collection room (she has a thing for dolls I guess). I never kept my room this clean though. In fact my Mom would check me out from school if I left it dirty and make me come home and clean it. She thought it was a punishment. I thought it was heaven. I love positive reinforcement for negative behavior. There also use to be a spot on the floor where I made home-made throw up with eggs, pieces of bread, and last nights left-overs all mixed together and then poured on the floor.

"Things that make you go hmmmm!..." This painting has been on the wall downstairs for as long as I can remember. I'm not sure what the significance of it is... just a Jew lost in contemplation I guess.

The wall of heART.

You might not think I'm special, but my Mom sure does. This is a relatively new display. I came home last year to visit and this is what I found. My Mom had saved all of my brothers and sisters artwork since before the pre-existence and decided to frame and put up her favorites. And just for the record I have 1 more picture displayed than all of my other siblings, but who's counting.

This is my Mom's baggie of collected twisty-ties. I think the oldest one dates back to the early 80's and guess what this little habit has rubbed off on me. Confession: I save my old twisty-ties too. Tell me I'm not alone.

Along with twisty-ties, my Mom saves old rubber bands. And look what's holding them together... a twist-tie. My Mom's a genius. Another confession: I save old rubber bands too.

It hangs in a place of quiet reverence. You've heard the term, "Spare the rod, spoil the child" in our home it was, "Spare the BYU paddle, spoil the child". This gives a new meaning to the phrase "Do you bleed blue?" my response to that would be, only when I pour pretend throw-up on the carpet and threaten my Mom's friend with a knife (hey, I was only 5 and it was a joke. Just not a very funny one.) I think this is one of the reasons I'm U of U fan. Some of my naughtier siblings have no choice but to be BYU fans since they now have those letters permanently imprinted on their bottom's.

Above the infamous BYU paddle hangs the pictures of those who have been chastened by it. Let us now have a moment of silence for those bottoms that were spanked and the plans that were foiled to avoid getting the wrath of the paddle. My brother and I tried several times to trick my Dad. We would stuff toilet paper down our pants; we even tried to stuff books one time (not very discrete).

This picture appeared on my night stand the other day out of no where. Confused as to where it came from, I asked Abrie about it. She told me she found it and that she thought I looked so cute. So she set it out for me to look at, because naturally I would want to wake up every morning and look at my 10 year old gawky self. I think we need a closer look...

Ummmm, WOW. Too close.



So there you have it. A little glimpse into the life of me. So now when you ask yourself, who is this Ginnie girl and why is she so crazy?! you might have a little bit more understanding. Actually, you can just blame it on my parents.

Stress Free, That's Me!

Pfft! Ya right, but I can pretend... at least for tonight.

I'm speaking tonight at my church and the title that they assigned me is Stress Free, That's Me! I almost laughed when they gave me the assignment and wanted to say, "Do you know how not stress free I am?".

Tonight I will be teaching hypocrisy- the practice of claiming to have standards or beliefs that are contrary to one's real character or actual behaviour. It should be fun! My Mom keeps asking me, "Ginnie, now are you going to have a center piece" -because you know, no lesson can be complete without a floral table cloth, silk flowers in a plastic vase, and cute little tiles with vinyl lettering that say, Give your stress wings and let it fly away and In times of stress, be bold and valiant- I respond to my Mom by saying, "Mom, I'm speaking on reducing stress and I don't need to worry about a centerpiece because I'm practicing alleviating stress." Then she asks, "Are you going to do any handouts?" again my response, "Mom, remember? Alleviating stress",

"Well Ginnie, are you at least preparing a lesson?!"...
that's where the conversation ended. Let's just say I give my Mom plenty of opportunities to practice stress management.

So if I were to do a handout this would be the one I would give,

Funny, effective, and straight to the point.

If anyone is interested in being stress free just like me, just let me know and we can have a little fireside. I'll even go the extra mile and make cute handouts and a beautiful centerpiece that will put all other centerpieces to shame.

Welcome to the Choas...

-better known as my LIFE.

Where the word privacy has no meaning.



Where sillies & crazies are around every corner.



Where you can amazingly grow an extra appendage called KALEB.

Where there's never enough of YOU to go around.

Where g i g g l e s and smiles are plenty to spare.

Where wiping pee off the toilet seat, pulling gum out of clothes, and scrubbing permanent marker off the wall is a daily occurence.

Where you learn to l a u g h instead of cry, because laughing is usually the better alternative.



Where being a MOM, as tough as it is, is one of the best things to be.

This is my LIFE-
c r a z y, insanely, imperfectly, perfect.

Motivational Posters...

...The alternative to Prozac.

Just In Case You're Wondering...

- Destine does not rub on like lotion when applied to the arms, face, and hands.

- It is possible to remove crayon, marker, and highlighter drawings from the carpet. It's hard, but definitely possible.

- Pee stains can also be removed from the carpet with only a faint stench lingering behind.

- Downing almost 20 Prevacid in a 30 second time span does not cause any side effects- unless you consider tantrums and not listening a side effect.

- Smearing a gallon (slight exaggeration) of your Mom's new anti-wrinkle cream on a two year old face does not prevent wrinkles. In fact, I think it added more to my Mom's face. (Sorry Mom, I'll buy you more)

- Reading Twilight effects the psyche. Now my dreams are filled with vampires, werewolves, and halfbreed vampire babies.

- While we're on the subject. I'm protesting the moving because they got Edward all wrong. Isn't Edward supposed to be drop dead vampire beautiful? The Edward in the movie... Can we say UGLY? Not a fan folks.

- I promised myself that I would never admit to reading the Twilight series in public. I failed.

- The more your child walks around naked, the less laundry you'll have to do.

- Leaving sacrament meeting after just being peed on with grace and style is extremely difficult to pull off, but can be done. You just have to make sure you sit through a good 10 minutes of church to let the pee soak into the front and back of your skirt, wipe off your legs from the waterfall of pee remnants, and wipe out your new, now full of pee puddle shoes to ensure you don't slip on the way out as you make your graceful escape. Oh, and just make sure that you cover you child's mouth before she announces, "Momma, you got pee-pee in your pants".

Homeless

I need to preface this with the fact that I'm aware that I should be building up my child's self esteem instead of cutting them down. With that said,

Abrie walks into the room with her crazy messy hair and she was wearing last years way too small clothes. I took one look at her and thought, "EEEEK!". Then the conversation went as follows,

Me: "Oh, Abrie honey. You look like you don't have a home" another way to say she looks a little homeless.

Abrie: "But Mom, we don't have a home"

Me, amused with Abrie's comment: "Ummmm, I guess you're right. Keep dressing homeless then, but be aware that when we have a home this will have to stop"

Abrie, confused: "OK, Mom"

Our home status:

No home, not yet. Hopefully a home will become a reality in the next 10 years or so. Until then I get to enjoy telling people that we live in my parents basement, which is totally awesome because who wouldn't want to live in their parents house. I give it two enthusiastic thumbs up!!Owning a home is so overrated.... right?

Now this is the part where you reassure me, "Ya, ginnie. Owning your own home is terrible. It's so hard to have all that extra space and privacy. Really, you're better off without one".

Wow, I'm feeling better already!

Birthday Girl

It's hard to imagine that 6 years ago my world was rocked in a major way... the best way that is imaginably possible. I became a Mom.

There became a point in my little married life that the realization hit me; there's so much more to life then just living. I was going through the motions of life content and happy, but there was always a constant little tugging that something was missing. A little piece of the puzzle that was not yet complete... Well, that little something happened to be the best little something that could have ever happened to me. The birth of our beautiful baby girl.

I laid in bed tonight with Abrie telling her all about her birth- sparing her from the gory details and leaving out the I-thought-my-body-was-going-to-rip-in-two part. Her eyes were wide with anticipation, "Mom, did it hurt when you had me?!"... "No, not at all hun" I lied, "The doctor gave me this itty-bitty shot...." another lie, "and I couldn't feel a thing" that part was kind of the truth. Then she asks, "Mom, was I cute when I was a baby?" I couldn't have given a more honest response, "Sweetie, you were the most beautiful baby I had ever seen" and then my heart skipped a beat as I silently remembered those precious raw feelings I had the moment the doctor laid her on my chest, and the scent of newness filling the air. She had a certain calmness about her. It was almost as if, for that one moment, time was frozen still and nothing else seemed to matter. All fears and anxieties had left me and were soon replaced with a flood of gratitude and love for this new little infant. I looked up at Nate and then back down to this brand new piece of perfection that laid in my arms and thought, "Now this is life!".

Abrie, if by chance you're reading this 15 years from now (and assuming that you haven't disowned me). I just want you to know that I love you, love you, love you! You are one of the best and sweetest little things that has ever happened to me.

Love you loads! Mom