My, what a good husband I have

It's Monday again. That means I'm killing time while Jessie learns stuff. I feel guilty once in a while that it's not exactly a fair arrangement, but then Jessie spends Saturday nights writing papers while I try to find something interesting on television and I manage to convince myself that I'm sacrificing, too. My, what a good husband I have to do all the school work and let me take all the credit.

Easter is coming up, and I'm pretty excited. Once again, Jessie is being a party pooper when it comes to really celebrating the holidays, because he says he can't totally get behind the Easter bunny. But I informed him that the Easter bunny is absolutely cute and fun instead of ridiculous and overrated, and I think he's coming to see it my way. Mostly because I told him he'd better come to see it my way or else. So we went to the dollar store and got Easter baskets and candy and the whole shebang, and now I can't wait to use them. That's probably because Madeline's birthday is the day before Easter, so it'll pretty much be a party the whole weekend, followed by Jessie's birthday, which is just another excuse to buy stuff I want and give it to him. Again, what a great husband I have. (I say that over and over for two reasons: a) because it is true b) because then he forgives me for discussing our holiday arguments/discussions on my blog. Like the whole Christmas tree thing.)

Anyway, that's about it for tonight. Except I need it to be warm tomorrow. As I know many of you do also. So we can pretend that it is spring/almost April.

Things I am excited about today.

Life is good right now. We had a bit of hiatus from the good life when Jessie and I finished season three of West Wing, and had nothing to watch for a few weeks. We resorted to real television and red box movies. And March Madness obviously helped ease the pain. But my sister lent us seasons 4 & 5, so now we're back to being addicted and watching West Wing every day at lunch. Which reminded me that it was the best show ever. If I wasn't a mother, I would obviously have chosen to be a witty, good-looking, super intelligent White house staffer who saved the world. But this leaves little time for raising ridiculously good-looking, super intelligent, future White house staffer offspring, so I had to compromise and sacrifice for the children.

Also, I have decided to buy a tent. Mostly because I was thinking about going camping this summer and got really attached to the idea, and wanted to go now. But it's really too cold for my liking. SO instead, I have to content myself with tent shopping online as a way to concretely show my dedication to going camping this summer. I'm having trouble deciding what kind of tent to get though, because I know nothing about tents except that ours is too small for both an air mattress and a playpen. I think the tents that you set up in the back of trucks are really cool, but we don't own a truck, so we probably won't be getting one of those. I also like the ones that let you park your hatchback next to the tent to you can get all of your stuff out of the back without going outside. Again, the lack of a compatible vehicle eliminates that idea. So basically, we'll probably just go for the biggest tent we can get for the least amount of money. Jessie will probably make a spreadsheet contrasting size and cost. It'll be a fun time. But we can't buy it quite yet, or I'll have nothing to do between now and the time it gets warm enough to actually go camping. I lead a hard life.

A few tidbits from the life of a housewife

So this weekend, our neighbors were grilling on their back patio. To make a long story short, because of a defect in our house, we could smell it way too well and we thought we might have a gas leak and that we'd all die. Dying is not our list of good events. So in the midst of trying to figure out why our heater was trying to kill us, but before figuring out it was a harmless cooking incident, we somehow shut off our hot water heater. I figured it out this morning, when there was no hot water for my shower. Blast. It was cool for a while, because it gave me an excuse not to do the dishes or the laundry or get ready for the day, but I was glad when Smart Husband Jessie came home for lunch and fixed it. Because now I am a clean human being and I won't have to boil water and do dishes by hand tonight. Booyah.

On a totally unrelated note, I did Madeline's hair today. Well, I usually try to do her hair, but I mean that there was actual combing and elastics and such instead of a baby brush and a bow, because I decided her hair was long enough to be tortured into some unnatural position for the amusement and viewing pleasure of adults everywhere. She didn't really like the whole process, mostly because I was silly to think an eleven month old would consent to sit still for more than a half a second. But in the end, she has two pigtails that look reasonably decent, and my promise that I won't bug her again for a few days. Unless she pulls them out while she's napping. Then she's in for it, and I'm enlisting Jessie's help to hold her down. She will be fashionable, drat it all, if it kills her.

P.S. On a side note to all my March Madness cronies: My bracket is pretty much shot. My only consolation in life is that Utah looked just as bad, if not worse, than BYU during their game and got creamed per my request. So now I'll just sit back and enjoy some good basketball games.

We bring you, in living color: the awesome, jam-packed 100th blog post

Apparently, you're supposed to mark your 100th post as a celebrated blogger and create beautiful digitally scrap-booked montages of your life and tell about your most memorable blog posts or something. Or not. This may be the official 100th post on my blogspot blog, but I wrote quite a few on Facebook before that, so I just figure I missed the whole hundreth note to the internet universe party thing. But to pretend I'm cool, here is post 100. With a bunch of random stuff. And a lot of pictures, which you don't usually get, because I am not cool like that.

I will only take one moment to comment on March Madness, as apparently that has dominated my posts the last few days. I'm sucking it up. And BYU and USU both sucked it up, one by looking like my high school could beat them, and one by making a three about twenty seconds too late. The only thing that could make things worse is if Utah wins. Then I will puke. Because I think Utah has exceeded their glory quotient for the year, and are now just being the perfect snot down the street you want to beat up because they can play soccer AND speak Japanese AND play Rachmoninov on the piano. Boo Utes.

And now, on to other things. Madeline was being ridiculously cute the other day with her doll, and rocking it, and talking to it, and although hundreds of other children have done it before, obviously I would be offended if you insinuated that any of them were cuter than Madeline. Therefore, pictures:


Also, I will now post about St. Patrick's Day. Because posting about St. Patrick's Day ON St. Patrick's Day is so overdone. I decided at the last minute to pretend to be cool and creative and make a green dinner for my family, so they will turn green.

Jessie thought I had made moldy food. Madeline liked the green mashed potatoes and gravy, but unfortunately thought they looked better on top of her head. With her green beans.

So that was our fun, exciting, festive St. Patrick's Day. Almost no one got pinched, and there was no kissing of random people who claimed to be Irish. But we did read Madeline some of her new books, which we got from DI, because I'm not spending more than a dollar on a book if Madeline is going to rip all the pages out. And here is a picture of the reading of the book, because Jessie doesn't get enough face time on this blog. Also I think it's cute, although I am incredibly and obviously biased.


And one last grand revelation and picture for your enjoyment. I chopped off all of my hair. I don't know what possessed me. Maybe it was spring fever, maybe I was just desperate to lose a few pounds. But we've lost eight to nine inches, and my head feels wonderfully light, but I may be having major haircut remorse. And Jessie might be forever scarred, because he liked the long hair, and didn't think I'd be crazy enough to lose so much when he gave me permission to do whatever I wanted, because it was my hair.


So there you have it. To sum up: I write a lot of blogs. I hate the Utes. My baby is cute, messy, and soemtimes green. My husband is literate. I have no hair. Enjoy your weekend.

The game must go on. At least that's what I screamed at my television.

This morning, we were in crisis mode. It all boiled down to one thing: in all my excitement for the games to start, I'd forgotten that when we switched to DTV, we couldn't get CBS. Up until now, it didn't really matter We had American Idol, Lost, Heroes, The Office. Why did we need Drew Carey and his sad attempt to be a Price is Right star? But all of a sudden, this morning, it was a horrible, horrible hole in our television viewing experience. How could I have four channels of BYU reruns and slalom and cartoon ducks and alligators but no basketball? I contemplated totally unhooking our DTV setup in an attempt to gain some grainy, fuzzy basketball that may or may not let me read the score, but first I decided to fiddle with the DTV remote. And miracle of miracles, I managed to create CBS in living digital color. I think I intimidated the air waves. Just be glad I figured it out. Or it may have been your house I showed up at.

Speaking of the festivities, being the wonderful mother I am, I have decided to indocrintate my child while she is young by helping her to figure out her very own, first ever March Madness bracket. Since she really has no inkling about seeding and records and statistics, we accomplished this by writing all the teams on little pieces of paper and presenting them to her, two at a time, for her selection. The unlucky winner got a bit crumpled until we could rescue it from her grasp, and the loser was put into a pile to be submitted to whatever toddler torture she chose to put it through. At first, this was a lot of fun, but halfway through the second round, she decided her new books were a lot more fun than chewing on paper. So she may not be finished with her picks until halfway through the first round. Don't worry, I don't think that will effect the outcome. Especially since she's got three 15 seeds, three 16 seeds, and all the 14 seeds in her Sweet Sixteen. My little girl loves an upset. Apparently.

March Madness is aptly named. And I LOVE IT.

It's March again. I love March. I'm not sure why I enjoy March Madness so much. When I was young, my interest in sports was directly proportional to my desire to annoy my brother by rooting against all his teams. Every year during the Super Bowl, I'd find out which team he wanted to win, and then dress up in the opposing teams colors and ignore most of the game except the halftime show. In high school. March Madness meant the teachers had the television on while we were supposed to be doing homework in class, which meant me and my friends could play cards instead of working and not get noticed. But in college, being surrounded by many teenage boys, all of whom would rather watch the NCAA tournament than socialize, I decided to see what the hoopla was all about. And I got hooked.

So now, I'm the one bugging my husband about watching games and making my mom promise to do a family pool (since the brother is currently on a mission and is NOT even paying attention to the tournament...yeah.) I'm reading articles on who's going dancing every day and acting like I know something. Go me. I have yet to fill out my bracket, because for me, it's a long and detailed process, full of statistics, records, professional advice, and in the end...utter randomness. It'll be finalized right before the games start. So let me now urge you all to go fill out a bracket yourselves. Even if you don't know a thing about college basketball. You'll be glad you did. And you can tell me how much joy I brought into your life by encouraging you to devote your life to basketball for the next three weeks. Only wait until after the game to tell me. I don't want to be interrupted.

Field trip to the temple

We finally went through the new Draper temple yesterday with Jessie's parents and sister. It was absolutely gorgeous, as temples always are. I was glad we got to go, and it turns out I saw some areas of the temple I'd never seen before. Having been to no other weddings in the temple except my own, I'd never thought about where they kept the wedding guests before they take them to sealing rooms. So I was surprised to see a Marriage Waiting Room. Brilliant, Cami. It just goes to show that brides are not thinking about anybody else on their big day, I guess. Madeline enjoyed the temple too, especially all the beautiful paintings. She got mad we wouldn't let her take off on her own though. I don't think the ushers would have appreciated that. She also kept trying to eat all the beautiful walls and railings and such, which are obviously not designed to be child friendly. At least someday I'll be able to tell her about it and how she was there.

So the houses around the temple are crazy. They're all huge, including several that looked big enough to be castles, and they all have exercise rooms and theaters and twenty bedrooms and four garages. They're also all for sale. I swear I saw what had to be a $750,000 home with a huge marble staircase out front going for $349,000. A steal, if you happen to have a couple hundred thousand dollars sitting around. Which I don't. Drat it all. I just kept wondering what you would do with all that space. We had an extra family room in our old house and it drove me nuts, because three people could not physically use all the extra space we had. Anyway. They're probably all feeling silly now, because the temple is definitely now the coolest building in the neighborhood and the rest are all wannabes.

I went to a Relief Society activity. No one died.

Breaking news: I went to relief society enrichment last night. Please hold in your astonishment. I've never been a huge fan of enrichment. In fact, I think the only time I'd ever gone before was when my mom needed help with crafts back when I was in Young Women's. I made a couple of "Be" boards and never went back. The only other enrichment I ever went to was in college, right before I got engaged. And it wasn't even my ward. So showing up last night was a big step for me. Jessie claims I only went because they were serving food. He may have been right. Turns out it's not so bad hanging out with a bunch of women. I survived, and may even go again next month. But maybe I'll check and see if there are refreshments first.

Speaking of food, pretty much the most exciting thing in my life this week is that I reorganized my pantry. Only because I went grocery shopping and had nowhere to put the food, since half my closet was full of empty cereal bags and the like. Now, my pantry looks beautiful. And if I never cook again, it will continue to look beautiful indefinitely. It's a tempting game plan. But Jessie and Madeline like to eat food, so it probably won't happen. My family can be so demanding that way.

My kid is the one in sacrament making you feel good about your kid's behavior.

Madeline has a problem sitting through church. Even for an eleven month old. Today made me want to hide under a rock. Mostly because if Madeline isn't allowed to do what she wants to do, a tantrum ensues, at full Madeline lung capacity. Which is enough to ensure everyone in the county is looking at us. We went in and out of sacrament about five times, because when Madeline was in the hallway running around, she was happy and quiet. So after about ten minutes, you start to make yourself believe she'd behave inside the chapel. And then discover, anywhere from 30 seconds to three minutes later, that you were sadly mistaken. She behaved herself in Sunday school because she was sleeping. Anyone who invents a three hour sleeping pill for children would be my undying hero. Relief Society meant more fun running around the room, stealing other people's toys and crackers, or scriptures and pens if she could get them. I think I sat in five different seats as I followed her around trying to keep her out of trouble. All the while, of course, noticing the five other kids between 6-18 months who were playing quietly in a two foot radius around their mothers. With their own toys.

Maybe if everyone else was getting after Madeline, she'd behave better. But everyone else is bewitched by her cuteness, and she charms her way through the women of the ward, taking whatever she wants from them. They'd whisper to me, "she is so cute!!!!" as I crept past, frazzled, to keep her from poking out another baby's eyes or stealing the centerpiece. The woman sitting next to me (at the start of the meeting) told me she was "just a miracle" who "broke all the rules". You said it, sister.

It's too bad no one ever sleeps in this house.

I'm pretty excited for Monday. That's the day our new mattress is coming. After two years of using the mattress my parents donated to us at our wedding, we decided to spoil ourselves in the interest of making whatever sleep Madeline allows us to get to be quality. It's amazing how uncomfortable your old mattress gets in between buying a new mattress and getting it delivered. So Jessie and I are both ready for the fluffy luxury we'll be dozing on next week. To make it even sweeter, we decided to treat ourselves to new sheets and pillows. If you're going to be comfortable, get comfortable, right? And we found an amazing deal on a complete queen set at Walmart, so we went the whole hog and now have matching sheets, bed skirt, comforter, pillowcases, sham covers, decorative pillows, morning chocolates on the pillow, etc. So we're going to be sleeping in style, and our room will look something like this:


Well, not exactly like that. Obviously there will be a chandelier and fresh flowers, but our room will be pink and yellow and feminine. Jessie will tell you it's because that was the only pattern that was on the amazing deal. I'd tell you Jessie picked it out specially because he loves flowery pink and yellow decor. You can choose who to believe. Meanwhile, we'll be trying to figure out how you fit two people in a bed with that many pillows.

My thoughts for the day. Enjoy.

I love to watch the news and look for stories about people being stupid. One of my favorites recently was the woman who called 911 when McDonalds ran out of chicken nuggets. Come on, that's got to make you a little nervous about the average IQ in this country, because she's dragging it down. Even more reassuring is a poll I saw on the news this morning that found a quarter of Americans asked about the bailout don't realized it's funded by the taxpayers. They seem to think that the federal government just has a bunch of money laying around somewhere that they get from Santa Claus. Now whether you're for or against the bailout, please tell me you know that the federal government runs off of taxes. It'll make me feel better.

Speaking of stupid, it turns out Jessie and I can't follow directions properly. We went to our monthly dinner with his side of the family last night at a steakhouse in Murray. Instead of following the google directions, which were very simple and would have taken us straight there, we drove around in circles through a bunch of parking lots for fifteen minutes before realizing our primary mistake was not knowing the difference between north and south. Whoops. Good thing one of us in school. I blame him for not sharing his knowledge with his poor sad wife, who used to be a genius but lost all sense of logic and brainpower when her bain cells were fried giving brith to his child.

Speaking of the child, I think her crankiness was indeed due to some bug or teething issue, and not a permanent personality defect, because she's much more cheerful now. Hallelujah. Now instead of yelling at me randomly, she's busy walking around carrying socks, wet wipes, rags, shoes, slinkies, croquet mallets, and anything else she can get her hands on. Perferably in her mouth if she can handle it. She's also figured out that you can talk into phones and sing into microphones. Unfortunately, she hasn't figured out that you don't need to stick a microphone all the way into your mouth to make it work. So fair warning. If you come to our house, and Madeline offers you her microphone to sing into, don't take it unless you like digesting other people's saliva.

I blame my lack of sewing abilities on a sick baby.

I haven't had much time for blogging the last few days, because Madeline decided to enter the terrible twos. A lady at church warned me this might happen once she learned to walk. She'd be perfectly happy one minute and then start screaming bloody murder until you pick her up and hold her. And then want to be held constantly for a few hours. And woe to you if you try to set her down because this means you obviously hate her and are trying to ruin her life. Then she'll be okay to get back down and play, but only if you sit and do nothing and watch her because she is the center of the universe. So no computer, no reading, no doing laundry, and definitely no dishes. I'm hoping she's just sick and this is a temporary thing, because she's also had diarrhea and been sleeping badly the past few nights, which is out of character for her. Is that bad to hope your kid is sick? Probably. Oh, what a horrid mother I am.

Anyway, while Jessie was home this weekend to perform the holding and comforting of Madeline, I attempted to sew on my new scout badges that I've had for a month. Turns out I was right to procrastinate, because apparently I'm about as good at it as oragami. It took me an hour to get on my numbers, during which time Jessie had moved half of his badges to his boys cout sash, cleaned his study, hung up all of Madeline's pictures, and sewed a few new shirts from scratch. Okay. Maybe he didn't make new shirts. Maybe it was a figment of my imagination, as a result of getting totally one-upped by my husband at having cool mother skills. Jessie ended up finishing my Webelos Assistant badge, because it pained him to watch me suffer. Also because I think he was reveling in his superiority. (Just kidding, Jessie. Please don't stop doing my sewing for me.)