Meet the Family

These pictures have nothing to do with this post, I just liked them. (Nice work censoring your own photo, Millie!)

Over the past few weeks, we've had all of my siblings with all of their children in town. It was a blast, let me tell ya. Still, it's always kind of a funky experience spending a lot of time with siblings, as an adult.

Anyone agree?

No matter what I've done with my life or who I've become since I left my parents' home, everyone seems to fall back into their birth order when we're together.

Here they are:

"Oldest Brother": Gourmet chef who never went to culinary school; Computer genius; Great father; Dr. Who enthusiast; and don't you dare use cream of anything soup around him. It gives him the willies.

"The Doctor": Despite his many other interests and talents, his degree has become his face. Whenever this brother is in town, any ache or pain that you've ever had will somehow come to rest upon his ears, with pleas for advice. Oh yeah, and we went running together one day. He's really fast.

"Kids' Favorite": Always the entertainer, the kids especially love him; Good White-Elephant present giver; Loves reliving his childhood (Duck tales. Need I say more?); Teaches Psychology at BYU; Gluten free cooking.

Me

"Little Sister": Loves to sew; In the middle of a bunch of projects; Just got engaged; Wants to be individual and unique;

"Like a Nephew": I didn't actually see this brother much over the break. He was usually with the kids. You can't blame him, he is 10 years old.

Thinking that not everyone enjoys the family stereotype, I tried to break out of our mold a bit. I made dinner and used Cream of Mushroom Soup, didn't even mention a body part in "The Doctor's" presence, played games as adults, and...well, my sister was out of town and, like I said, I didn't see the youngest much. I really enjoyed getting to know my siblings better as individuals, and not just as my siblings.

Of Course, maybe the stereotype is more accurate...

A New Year in the Twilight Zone

Happy New Year Everyone. Sorry to be MIA, I'll explain in another post.

I have been living in the Twilight Zone.

NOT kidding.

For two Sundays in a row now, I have woken the baby up from her nap, run around like a banshee trying to get us ready for church, snarfed cereal as we're running out the door, and arrived at the church only to realize that we were early. At least today we were only 40 minutes early. Last week it was over 2 hours.

The Twilight Zone seems different than I pictured it. I still feel like I can trust my judgment, but it turns out that I need to just give up and hire a private secretary, so that I can figure out this life of mine.

Oh Tannenbaum...

As has become tradition, I present our Christmas tree:

I came into the room the other day to find Millie's addition to the tree decorating.

In other news, Millie has spoken her first word. Banana. I have yet to catch it on film, but I do have 5 witnesses, so that's g0ing to have to do for now.

And, here is the little munchkin, in all her glory.

My Thanksgiving Post

Today, I am thankful. Here are some of my favorite blessings.

Tamales. I had the best tamales yesterday. Seriously. Is there anything better?
Hands. I would sure miss them!
Agency
Nice people. Sounds cliche, I know. But it sure is nice when people are nice to you.
Kisses from Millie. Nothing like a big slobbery open-mouthed kiss to raise your spirits!
Stroller (jogging stroller, that is). Of all the things I own, this is in the top five most-used. It's right behind the next thing in my list.
Gravity. I do not own gravity, I just use it quite often.

Internet. I know, I know. I'm a nerdy addict. But if you're reading this, you may be too!
Vanilla yogurt
Indexing (Family Search Extraction Work). Another addiction that I have. Wow. This post is turning out to be more of a confession...
Nursery. Thanks to this calling, Millie has been building up her immune system like crazy!
Garage. It is so nice not to scrape off the car!!!

But mostly, I'm grateful for these two crazy kooks.

I have finally given in

I realize that I'm at the tail-end of the trend, but I still had to join the ranks of women with bangs. And not just the side swoop that I've had. These are serious.

I haven't had bangs like this since I was 3.

Are you excited yet?

Okay. Here is the before:

And, the after... or rather, the attempts at getting a good shot of the after. When you're as photogenic as I am, it's so hard to choose just one picture for the blog.

"Elementary, my dear Watson."

The slightly stoned look

The James Bond girl look

The Classic Smile. Don't you love how frizzy my hair looks here?

The Long Debated Over and Waited For Halloween Costume Outcome

Three Blind Mice

Bernard

See this dog? I named it Bernard. Millie liked it.

Millie and I picked it up (or rather, it invited itself) on our run the other morning. I tried my best to get rid of it, to no avail. It just kept on running with us, and occasionally into us. So annoying. Especially when it slimed my pants.

Except, I started feeling a little responsible for Bernard. Like the time when I yelled at it to keep it off the front bumper of a car, and the time I thought for 3 milliseconds about cleaning up it's poop on some random person's lawn.

The worst part was that people kept giving me dirty looks for having a dog on the loose. I just kept yelling, "Not my dog!" to everyone I saw.

And then, there were three.

Seriously.

We picked up 2 more little dogs following along behind.

And then, we had a regular parade when two more decided to join. I wish I had thought to pull out my camera phone at that point. Instead I just pretended I didn't hear the traffic jam or all the cars honking at our dog parade.

We finally lost Bernard when we ran into my parent's house and locked the door. I almost felt bad for running away like that. Almost.

What I want to know, is how much I'm going to get paid for taking all those dogs for a run.