Super fun weekend!

I had such a good time with my family over the weekend!

Friday, we watched a movie and the boys made a mess of the living room while I tried to unwind from a busy week. Who couldn't unwind, though, when looking at this:

(Crummy quality from my phone - I was too tired to find the camera.)

Saturday, we came into town to go ice skating. Yes. Ice skating. My employer won an award for clean air initiatives, and so some of us were able to skate for free. (Free! Big deal for us right now.) I haven't skated since I was about ten, and Bub? Really? What was I thinking? Bless her heart, but she is NOT the most graceful person in the world. To her credit, she inched around the rink one time before she swore off skates for the rest of her life. This is what she looks like when she is happy to be rid of those dangerous (for her) contraptions:

Peanut loved it; Meatball hated it. Figures.
I still suck at skating, and I held onto the rail the entire time. By the fourth lap, I was getting the hang of it, but my arm was getting so tired that I wasn't having fun. No - not the arm holding the rail - the arm that had to keep getting the boys back on their feet! My bicep is still sore. I held onto their coat collars and just kept hoisting them up. The four of us are awful skaters. However, I am willing to buy a pair of roller blades so that I can learn how to do it and teach Peanut. I don't want him to not have fun just because I'm awful. Overall, we had fun (after Bub took her skates off), and the pizza was good. Yes. That's pizza on Peanut's face.

Then, on Sunday, we met folks from the G/L parents group at Mountain D*ll golf course for sledding. The hill was about a block long and not particularly steep - perfect! I may not skate, but I can sit on my back-side and scream as I go down a hill. It was a blast! The hike to the top was long, and by the end the boys were getting tired, but we had so much fun! Bub was more interested in the chance to have some adult conversation, so I just had to keep going down the hill. GREAT! Here are the boys after sledding enjoying some hot chocolate and donuts:

It was a shame that I had to come back to work. I easily could have played for another day.


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Reality check

As I was leaving work yesterday, a co-worker let me know that she might miss some work soon since her friend's daughter, a sweet little three year old (just like my boys), is dying. Cancer. She's losing her battle really quickly. My stomach dropped and my heart jumped into my throat and I couldn't swallow for a few minutes. I couldn't wait to get home and hug, hug, HUG my little guys. (Why did I ride the bus? Damn my social responsible-ness! I can never get home QUICKLY!) I didn't exactly feel guilty for having healthy boys, but just a little bit. It was more along the lines of grateful, but if you know me, it's hard to ascertain exactly who/what I'm grateful to. Whatever. Those little boys - who don't want to sit still for dinner (or any meal, actually), who rarely want to eat what we have prepared, who refuse to settle down at night and GO TO SLEEP, who have taken to pulling hair/pushing/cluncking on heads to get their point across, who talk incessantly, who race around the house at TOP volume - yes, those little boys are the greatest and most wonderful little beings on the planet. I can't imagine my life without them. Hugs and my version of prayers to the friend of my friend. I can't - or maybe won't - even let myself pretend that I could know the measure of her sadness as she watches her daughter slip from this life.

Then, as the bus stopped to pick up new passengers, I found myself pitying a blind man who was boarding. How difficult his life must be! The bus driver said "How are you today?" as he had for each of us as we boarded. As he was very ably finding his seat, the man said "I'm just great, thankyouverymuch! Why wouldn't I be? It's all just a matter of attitude!" Really? Who was I to pity this man? He should be pitying me. Me, with my oh-so-very-busy-life. Me, dragging around my stinky running clothes and my laptop. Me, worried that I won't get all of my assignments completed in a timely manner this semester. Me, with my scowl-y face and 40-year old attitude. Me, who has to fight for equal rights. Who is pitiful in this scenario? Again with the grateful-ness: I have the strength to run and lug my laptop around. I have an employer who allows me some time during the day to go for a run. I have a brain that enables me to pursue my MBA. I live in a country that allows me to speak up for what is right (even if it is slow in coming). I just need to change my perspective and attitude!

And, then there was the FRONT PAGE of the Salt Lake Trib which featured ME AND MY FAMILY! Speaking of those equal rights..... You can read the article and see the GREAT pictures here. This is our reality, and although it stinks, at the end of the day we still have two happy, rambunctious, healthy, smart, handsome, and polite little boys who make our lives complete. Oh, and KRCL wants to interview us on the radio because of this story!

Reality check, indeed.

hysterical!

Meatball: Mommy, I need more shampoo.
Me: Why do you need more shampoo?
Meatball: Because it's creamy, gentle, and effective.
(What 3-year old says this? Ours!)


Mom: What do you want on the pizza?
Peanut: Berries and popcorn. Can I have pickle juice to drink?
(To clarify - it's sweet, not dill - pickle juice.)


Most photographers tell you to say "cheese."
Not Meatball. He tells you to say "cucumber Larry."
I have no idea why.....

Movie Review: The Kids are All Right

I don't usually do movie reviews because I don't usually have time to watch a movie until it's been out for a year or so. OK, this movie has been out for a while, but whatever.

We just watched this movie last night, and I was not entirely impressed. I kept looking at Bub and saying "This won an award for comedy?"

I saw a lot of us in the two characters and their relationships with the kids. I was furious when Juliane Moore's character slept with Mark Ruffalo. I had been warned about this, but I thought that I could deal with it better than I did. I was under the assumption that it was once, not many times, so I just got angrier!

I actually liked the way that Annette Bening played her character. She just looked so tired and torn up to me. And, I like the way Mark Ruffalo played his role. So many of us probably don't even consider what goes through the donor's mind 18 years later. Known donor or anonymous, have we considered all the implications? Probably not.

Personally, I was really taken back when the daughter snapped at the moms about showing the world a "perfect lesbian family" because I often catch myself trying to do everything just a bit better than I think straight parents would. I don't do this because I want to be the best but because I feel like I have to over-compensate so that others can clearly see that we are great parents and have every right to be considered parents. I think that it's a trap that a lot of us fall into but not a lot of us talk about.

Overall, it was a good movie, but it certainly wasn't a comedy, and it pissed me off. So, I was impressed, but not in the way that I had hoped to be. Frankly, I'm pissed off any time ANYONE cheats on their spouse/partner/significant other, so that wasn't unique to this movie. I am pissed that a LOT of straight people will look at the movie and say "See? Lesbians are women who just haven't met the right guy...."

First big boy movie!

We took the boys to their first-ever-movie-in-a-theater on Saturday. We hit up the $1 movies just in case they were stinkers. That way, we wouldn't be out a lot of money (or so we thought) if we needed to leave before the end of the movie.

Turns out, the $1 movies are only $1 on Tuesdays. On all other days, it's $1.50-$2.50 plus the cost of 3-D glasses. (Of course, we were going to a 3-D. The regular version was sold-out.) So, our $4 movie ended up costing $14 just to get in, not to mention the popcorn, licorice, and drink. I'm rather irritated by this since the newspaper says NOTHING of these additional fees.

Anyway, the boys were ANGELS! They were SOOOOOOOOOOOOO good for the ENTIRE movie, and they had even missed naptime. They had to sit on our laps because the seat backs were too high for them to see over, but they were outstanding. They had a great time, too. I'm so proud of them! We're going to make movie-night a monthly thing (on Tuesdays, of course) now that we know they are capable of being good in public for that long.

Movie night with mommy

Momma Bub was sick, and it was cold outside, so the boys and Mommy enjoyed some Wallace & Gromit and Shaun the Sheep. We had a blast cuddling up on the couch and eating popcorn!

Lucky 13!

Next semester looks to be very interesting and completely writing intensive. I've estimated high because I usually have more to say than most people, and it looks like I will be writing about 180 pages total. This is fine with me because I don't mind writing at all. If I set my goal as the end of April to be complete (24th, to be exact), I will need to write 13 pages per week. This doesn't seem daunting, and 13 has always been my lucky number. (It also reminds me of my mom.) The readings for the semester are numerous and range in size from 3-60-ish pages each. This is going to be the sticking point for me since I don't have a lot of time to read AND write. I plan to get a headstart on the reading right away so that I'm not stuck in the same boat as the last two semesters.

2010 highlights

It was quite a year in 2010:

I started the MBA program at Westminster and unofficially decided to do the Can Jam which resulted in some seriously yummy creations like maple apple, orange marmalade, citrus marmalade, carrot, onion rosemary, apricot, apricot kiwi, cherry, cherry peach, peach, peach sage, lemon balm, apple butter, key lime pie martini, jalapeno, and orange chardonnay.

2010 was full of cookies - usually shape cookies with frosting and lots of sprinkles. It started in February and culminated in December with the 12 Days of Cookies.

At her own peril, Bub rushed into traffic and saved a little boy who had wandered out of his yard!

I learned to get up at 3am to do my homework. I also learned what it really means to cram in the last two weeks of a semester.

We went to Las Vegas where we learned that it is definitely not suited for people under the age of 18. We woke everyone up each day.

We learned to correctly body parts like penises and chi-chis. These were the topic of many, many, many conversations.

I ran the two hardest races I've ever done: Sapper Joe 30K and Mid Mountain Marathon. Holy cats! I'm proud that I did them, but they really tested me and my (lack of) fitness. They made Ragnar seem like a walk in the park!

We found that we LOVE Wheeler Farm and visited often. The boys finally potty trained!!! Chitty Chitty Bang Bang played non-stop in our house for about three months. Oh, joy.

The boys went to their first baseball game and learned what difference is when they realized that their friend, E*, is not the same color as them.

I celebrated 20 years of employment with my wonderful company. We met Karlo's super sweet fiance, Miss Rydeen. I like her a LOT more than his horrible ex.

I spent a week in Canada for work and realized that I could easily live there. It's beautiful and the people are great and I quite like their marriage/adoption laws.

We discovered The Upside Down Show which is so good that it cracks us all up.

The boys were horribly spoiled at Christmas, but they seem to have learned that giving is fun since they wrap presents and give them to me all night long.

To cap off a pretty darn good year, I won the ugly holiday sweater contest. I'm quite proud...