Adie and Ella Faces

I have the cutest nieces on the planet, who also happen to be absolutely hilarious.

The end.

Michele's Favorite Things

I'm pretty sure I've said this before, but my sister-in-law Michele's weekly letters inspire me and simply make me happy. This week she focused on some favorite things the kids love. I loved reading it, so I'm going to share, especially the parts that make me laugh.


"Joanne’s journals cracked me up because she wrote a lot about our journeys this year in our family motor home. No we don’t have a motor home but apparently she really wants us to have one."


"Rebecca: Loves [...] playing with my Tupperware. She loves to put her arms up in the air and throw herself on the floor while she kicks and cries. She loves to be out of the house and run after Dad and the kids on the way to the car in the morning. She practices laughing in the car. She loves to just sit by mom or dad and have us all to herself.

"Michael: loves cereal and LOTS of it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He also loves red bell pepper and cries for his red pepper sandwiches. [...] He loves his sword and will only try to get dressed in the morning if I promise to get his sword out of time-out. [...] His favorite whiney phrases: “It takes too long!”, “I can’t!”, and “Ugh!”. 

"Katherine: Loves to change her mind, (so all this changes minute-by-minute). She loves oatmeal—sometimes, and rice—sometimes, and chicken nuggets—sometimes, and crepes--all the time. She loves to help mom cook, and loves to clean the baseboards. 

[...]

"Joanne: loves pink and fashion. [...] She loves to put on shows and sing silly songs.  She loves [...] the smell of garlic, dill pickle sandwiches, peanut butter on pancakes, and “diamond cheese” sandwiches. Her favorite phrase at dinner time is “I’ll make something else”. [...] She loves going to the temple. 

"Ben: Loves computer games.  [...] He loves to read before bed. [...] He loves to make mom happy. [...] He loves getting a drink before bed, and he always wants to stay up and watch movies with mom and dad."

I hope you don't mind, Michele! It's just because I love you.

Jenny's Baby Girl eCard

My niece Jenny sent me this a couple days after we announced that I'm pregnant. I just remembered it. 

My nieces make me happy.

Dirty Toes

I apologize if the following picture makes you puke. 

It just makes me happy. 

To me, this is the epitome of childhood.

Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration. 

Shoes are an encumbrance to the joys of running and playing. 

They were the first things rid of when I came home.

What is structure and protection when you can feel the cool of freshly watered grass

or the squish of mud

or the softness of new carpet?

Then again, children don't think about all that.

Perhaps I should stop romanticizing and just admit it.

I love my taking pictures of my niece Ella, and I think everything about her is cute.

And there is just something about those dang toes.

And her fingers...

Oh wait, maybe I'm just thrilled to see what I would have looked like as a baby, with "tiny little snakes reaching out of the blanket" (real quote from my sister-in-law about the first time she saw me)

I am a Horrible Aunt.

So, on facebook earlier this week this happened:

So...this is interesting because I am also friends with this person:

And so when the first Jennifer requested my facebook friendship, I was confused. I figured it was the second Jennifer, but I was already friends with her. She is my sister-in-law's sister. She's a handful of years short of being old enough to be my mother and she's just the type of person you don't see running around making multiple facebook pages -- or even spending all that much time on the one she already has. So the back of my mind was confused, but I overlooked it. Especially that cute but cheesy picture of the wolves.

Then this happened:

Which is weird because this was into the ""Lynn Nelson Family" group, defined as:

Lynn is my Daddy.
So my brother adding my sister-in-law's sister made no sense.

Then it hit me.

...

But it's okay. I just never refer to my darling Jenny Ann as "Jennifer Christensen."
That's awkward.
So it's natural that that combination would not make me realize that my Jenny Ann got a facebook account the day she turned 13.

Also it's okay, because John said that when he saw

He thought of

Whose name is not nor ever has been "Jennifer." (at least we're pretty sure)

Day 1 – Me and My Day

Day 1 – A photo of yourself and a description of how your day was.

I feel...I'm not sure how I feel about it. But I had to search forEVER to get to this picture. My Bridals are the best pictures of me, which should be a good thing, except I feel like I should have a recent everyday picture of myself that I simply like...but, sadly, I do not. Anyway, the fact that I had to settle for pictures that are a year old (can you believe it!) is...unsettling? strange? not the topic I'm supposed to be focusing on right now, at least :)


My Day. 
Simple, ordinary Saturday. I woke up this morning snuggled up comfortably to my favorite person: my dog Silk. Haha, just kidding. I was snuggling with John. Silk was snuggling into his bum. And she's not a person, anyway. I love waking up next to him, especially on Saturdays when we can enjoy the laziness of waking up. We like to kid ourselves that our kids will be perfectly content watching cartoons on Saturday mornings so that we can still have those times. Hmmm...one can dream of perfect parenthood before it comes, right? =D (P.S. I have tangent thoughts on Saturday cartoons, too...we can get to those another time)  We got up eventually. Banks close early on Saturdays (and every other convenient time of the year) and we needed some loan info. Ran a few errands, cleaned house, played with the cutest puppy in the world. Typical Saturday.


Ooh, except when I went to the store I went to the Wonder Hostess Bakery Thrift Shop. Say we're weird, but John and I have been so excited to go to that store since we found out it was close. Unfortunately its hours are about as convenient as banks' so we haven't gone. I love discount sugar! Um and bread...though their loaves are not the too-big-for-toasters yumminess we love so much. I got heart-stopping live-forever Zingers and Ding-dongs. Heart stopping literally, not lovey-dovey, and the treats live forever, not you. Yay! :P


We had my family over for game night. Only Kaleb, Sarah, Joel, Joy, and Athena came. Only. :)  And the babies. I love my babies! My nieces, anyway. They're the newest ones on my side, and they're irresistible! Julia is 7 1/2 months old, and Adielyn is a month and a half. Ella was also there, and she's darn tootin cute too, if not quite a baby. Anyway, Phase 10 is really long with seven people playing. But we want family game night to happen more often so we'll have plenty of chance to get to more interesting games another time =D yay. 


Now John and I are hooked into the glowing rectangles. He's playing GTA2...wow what a crude game, and this one is the mild one of the series! But he rarely plays video games and he needs to unwind after a party. The puppy naps...wow being a dog must be so boring!!


Hmmm...bedtime!