Elli's birthday

Elli turned 8 on Saturday. 8! I can't believe she's old enough to be baptized. She had a little movie party with all her friends. She was so excited to watch the movie Bolt with them.

A few days before, she drew her cake design. Here's how it turned out:

On the left is Elli's cousin Kadee. Do they look alike?

Here was Addie during the movie. She looked so uncomfortable stretched out like that but she wouldn't move any other way.

Little men

Nemo the cat, Domo the ?, and Benji the dog - oh yeah, and Ben the boy

When I was little, I thought that all boys were loud, dirty, mean and bad. Except for my brothers. But every other boy. Boy was I wrong. So wrong.

I now know that boys are soooo sweet and loving and kind.
They love their mommy and daddy.
They want to do the right thing.
They feel sad when others feel sad.
They feel proud and happy when they clean their room.
They love to make people laugh.
They are very creative with their imaginations and their Legos.
They love kitties and puppies.
They get nervous when they have to give a talk in primary.
They are smart.
And they love to sleep with their stuffed animals! So cute! Ben normally sleeps with just one stuffed animal at night. He switches them out so that they each get a turn. But this night he decided to have all three at once.


Okay, so maybe my little boy doesn't LOVE taking a bath (until he's in and then he doesn't want to get out). And he can't comprehend what the word "whisper" means... but I love my little guy to bits and pieces and I hope that I can help him grow up to be a good, kind person.

Weird dream

I know a lot of people don't like to hear about other people's dreams so I don't mind if you skip this post. I used to annoy my sister with my morning recounts of my nightly dream. I'm sure I went into way too many vague details. (And then we weren't at home anymore, but I don't know where we were... And someone else was there but I don't know who it was...) But the other night I had such a strange dream and it was so clear.

I was at a beach and I was up on a hill so I could see down into the water. A lot of people were swimming and I looked to the left in the water and I saw a shark. Right as I yelled, "SHARK!" the shark zoomed over right into the group of people. Everyone scrambled out as fast as they could but one man had his foot bitten off.

Afterward I was in a beach shack where I was staying with two other girls. We had the foot in with us. Don't ask me why. Maybe we were the beach doctors. There was no blood at all, it kind of looked like a mannequin foot. Another funny thing (funny as in strange) was that it was cut smoothly off a few inches above the ankle. The shark must have had a nice straight bite and also must not have swallowed. But I was holding the foot and as the other girls were talking I wondered what the foot would taste like. I took a bite right out of the heel. It was hard, kind of like styrofoam or rubber. So it sat in my mouth for half a second before I spit it out. Then I was nervous that the girls would see that I had taken a bite so I had to hide the foot and the piece of heel in my drawer and then try to figure out how I could get rid of them forever.

Yeah, that was my dream. Does it mean I am psychotic? Do I have a tendency for cannibalism? Will I regret posting this on the world wide web? I don't know what my crazy subconscious was thinking. I have always had such vivid dreams (except for when I didn't know where I was or who I was with). Last night I was dreaming about construction on Redwood Rd. Oooh. Don't wake me from that dream. Let it stretch on and on in dreamy happiness.

Oh no!

Just as I said goodbye to the kids as they got out of the car for school this morning, I realized that I didn't comb either of their hair. Yikes! They are going to look scary all day. This is the first time that has happened. (Of course their hair goes uncombed sometimes on Saturdays or days with no school.) Oh well. I guess their messy hair will now match their pants with holes in the knees that are getting slightly short. And it will match their faded school shirts that they wear every Friday. Little orphans. Oh, I'm so embarrassed.

My sister

clockwise from top left: Lisa, Michelle, Ari, Eric, Mom, Sinika, and Lindsey

Blurry, yes. But also very cute.

My sister Sinika is one of my most favorite people in the world. We grew up wearing our jelly shoes, playing with our My Little Ponies (Moon Dancer and Apple Jacks) and with our Cabbage Patch Dolls. On the news one year certain dolls we had were suspected of having asbestos in them. (I had the boy doll that time. :)) They were placed in a box high up in the garage so we couldn't get them while it was researched by the toy company. We would go out in the garage and cry because we wanted them down. It turned out ours weren't affected so we got them back. (I still have that little guy. I don't know why. It's really not a very cute doll. None of my 3 kids have ever pulled it out of the mass of toys in our house to play with it. Maybe I should sell it on ebay.)

We were forced to share EVERYTHING. Rooms, toys, clothes. And when we weren't forced, we did anyway. Everyone thought we were twins when we were little even though I am a year and a half older. Nobody could keep our names straight so we just learned to answer to the other's name as well as our own. We had our childhood spats but by the time we were in high school, we treated each other as friends. You know how you were a lot nicer to your friends than your family growing up? That's how we started treating each other. Super nicely. (Most of the time anyway.) She has been my best friend for 30 years now. She has been and is always there for me when I need her.

We always said that we wanted to live next door to each other when we grew up. We're not exactly that close but our houses are only about 5 minutes away from each other. And I LOVE it. I know we probably won't live this close forever so I'm soaking it in as much as I can right now.

Sinika is BEAUTIFUL, loving, accepting, helpful, friendly, pure, spiritual, sweet, fashionable, uplifting, and always generous. I love how much she loves her kids. And I love that she loves mine too. :)

Today is her birthday.

Sini and our mom

Happy birthday Sini! I love you!

How does it end?

I have a sickness. It's called, "I have to read the last page of a book before I get to the end of the book". I know, it's horrible. I try to stop but I just can't help myself. I always try to not think of it until I get to the middle of the book and I hold the two halves between my fingers and eyeball it to see if I'm at the middle of the book. But then I have to just see how many pages the book has so that I can see if I'm in the exact middle. (Who doesn't do that?) So I flip my way to the last page and I tell myself I'm not going to look at any of the words. Just the page number. So I find the last page, look at the number and then proceed to glance down at the words just a little. Then I continue to read all the while telling myself,
"Stop reading.
Stop reading.
Stop reading."
Until I reach the end of the page.
It usually let's me know, who the person is with, where they are, or who just died.
Sometimes it's relieving, sometimes shocking, and sometimes I'm just mad at myself. But it cannot be stopped. My mind has tricked myself too many times with this. I can't trust it. Maybe I should just stick to eyeballing it.

Usually after I have done this and I go back to the page that I am on, I look at the page number and realize the real reason for looking at the last page and I find that I forgot what the last page number was and so I have to look at the last page again to look at the number and divide it in half. Then I finally know if I'm in the middle. (I'm usually not quite to the middle yet.)

Getting the mail

Addie's favorite time of day is getting the mail. Maybe cause we're outside and she can run around as much as she wants. Until she starts going into the road and won't stay out and so we have to go back inside. (Seriously, what is it with babies and roads?) Lately she has to ride the scooter to get the mail. And by that, I mean I push her while she stands on the scooter and says, "Wheee!"

Oh, and she HAS to ring the bell each time right at the first and right at the end.

Apple rings

My kids love to eat their apples cut into rings. They must taste better or something cause they usually end up eating the whole apple. (The two older kids anyway.)