Hang on, there's a Lamborghini at the end, I promise!

I've been busy lately, doing many important and influential things. At least, from what I gather from the pictures I've uploaded, I've been busy. With what, you ask? Well. Let's get down to business (to defeat! The Huns!).

First, I came home from my morning run (a.k.a. "I'mgonnadieI'mgonnadieI'mgonnadie! SomeonepleaseSHOOTme!" party) the other day and found Tess all suited up for a day of critical toddler business:
Pink felt frog jammies? Check. Blue lame and tulle skirt? Check. Teal cheetah print fairy wings? Check. All right! Let's go unroll an entire roll of toilet paper and then eat some lip gloss!

Next, my husband put this tree out of its misery:

And then we brought it into our home for further humiliation and torture:

We chose this tree for many reasons. 1. We were tired of looking and looking for a cone-shaped pinion pine 2. We are tired of our kids yanking the ornaments off of the bottom half of the tree. 3. I felt bad for it. 4. Maybe Santa can fit a beach house under there? 4. I wanted to go home. Voila!

Sometime undetermined amount of time after that, I found warts on my favorite yellow cleaning gloves. I then found my camera, went to the room in my house that has the best natural lighting, and took a picture of my warty gloves:

(Do you think household cleaners that give your gloves WARTS are bad for the environment? I can think of no other plausible explanation for these glove warts. I can tell you one thing, though, I'm calling those babies my GLORTS from now on.)

And now, the grand finale. I would like a drumroll, so if you don't have a snare drum handy you're going to have to do that thing with your tongue. Ready? And, DRUMROLL!

B-D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d......

If I had any delusions about being the coolest parent at my girls' school, I don't anymore. Not since I saw this little yellow humdinger parked in the kindergarten pickup zone. Who picks their kid up from school in a Lamborghini? Cool rich people, that's who. I bet it doesn't even smell like stale French fries.

a Thanksgiving gift from me to you

I thought I'd give you guys a break from all of the sappy thankfulness blogs out there and post some funny videos, because of all of the things that I am grateful for, I am truly grateful for people who are funny, intentionally or no. (Runnnnnn onn sennnnntennnnce!)

I think they're funny, anyway. I'm guessing you'll think either A) "I saw this video back in, like, 2008," or something really judgmental like, B) "Elise needs to pray and read her scriptures more often. If she did, she would realize that this is offensive."

Both thoughts are probably true. Nevertheless, and without very much further ado, I present to you:

Two YouTube Videos For Which I Am Grateful
(Perhaps a new tradition in the making....)




Sorry, Mom.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

I am an addict.

I have been since I was a child, but I never realized it until now. And as we all know, the first step to overcoming addiction is realizing that you have a problem.

It seems like the more I use, the more I need.

There is never enough.

When I had my children I thought that I wouldn't need it as much, but it turns out that I need more. I need more now than I ever have.

Now my children are hooked, too. But I don't share mine with them like I should.

I wake up every morning with a fresh batch of it, only to discover at the end of the day that I've wasted most of it.

Sometimes it lasts forever, sometimes it goes too quickly. Usually it goes too quickly.


My drug of choice is in high demand, but there is a limited supply.


There isn't enough. I can't get enough. I will never have enough time.


Speaking of the passing of time, yesterday was my mom's 55th birthday. I threw her a Pink Princess Party with pink streamers, balloons, and excessive alliteration. (This seemed like suitable revenge for the black balloon bouquet that she gave me for my 30th birthday.) I accidentally put 57 candles on her cake(s). I was going to take the extra candles off but DJ told me, and I quote (you can tell by these: ""): "It looks better when you complete the row." So, don't tell my mom, but I think I just shortened her life by two years.

Look at all of those candles!

Each one of those candles represents an important year:
1955: The year of my mother's birth. Also the year that George McFly kissed Lorraine and Marty repaired the space-time continuum.

1955-1979: A lot of important things happened, like my parents getting married, NASA landing on the moon, Rowe v. Wade, etc.

1980: The year I was born.

1990: The year everyone learned to line dance.

1995: One word: Lowell.

1995-2010: We'll call this the Accumulation of Grandchildren period. Fifteen and counting.

Here's us celebrating 55 awesome years:We love you, Mom! Happy birthday!

Just decluttering my brain.

Want to hear something weird, and not in the least bit preachy like last time? Let's discuss pumpkin pie. I am compelled to hoard pumpkin pie at this time of year. I get all panicky because I know that $5.99 Costco pies are a limited-time-only item (right? I never even look at other times of the year). So, I buy pie. And then I eat it for breakfast even though I told Chancho that he couldn't. So in addition to being a glutton, I'm a hypocrite. But you already knew that.

Now, let's discuss The Lift.
I just watched the video of The Lift (you know-- "I had the tiiiime of my liiiiife!") from Dirty Dancing on YouTube. Sometimes I watch it when I'm feeling down. It perks me right up. Anyway, one of the commenters said this: "THIS IS HOW REAL LIFE SHOULD REALLY BE. I WISH FOR THIS MOMENT." In all caps. I have only one thing to say about that: Amen. Life should be like having a sweaty man lift us over his head so that we can fly. Like a bird. And why not bring perms back, while we're at it?

Let's discuss Flecks of Gold, by Alicia Buck. I bought this book (along with a pie) the other night at Costco when the author was signing them. I read it last night and this morning when I should have been scrubbing the toilets. Go find a copy and read it. It's a really fun story. I'm serious. Go.





You're still here? Then let's discuss Tiffany, because I'm in an 80's kind of mood.


This song reminds me of being nine. I loved this song when I was nine. Now I listen to it on my iPod when I run. Tiffany has inspired me to flirtatiously play with my hair more than I already do. (I told you you should've left after Flecks of Gold.)

Awkward Silence

So, I got my hair cut the other month. Does any one else dread the obligatory haircut conversation?
“So, where’d you go to hair school?”
“Evan’s.”
“Huh.”
(awkward silence)
“Are you from around here?”
“Yeah.”
“Where’d you go to high school?”
“Snow Canyon. I graduated in 2005.”
“Huh. I don’t know anyone your age.”
(more awkward silence)
As my hairdresser applied goop and foil to my tresses, we discovered that we have a mutual acquaintance who is an in-law of mine, who shall remain nameless.
Always thrilled to have something to talk about besides hair, I said, “Yeah…I’m married to her [handsome male relative]. Small world!”
After more awkward conversation about this tiny thread of a connection between us there was an awkward pause and the hairdresser said, “So, wasn’t your husband’s dad kind of a…creep?”
In defense of the hairdresser, I could tell she didn’t want to say it--that my father-in-law was a creep. But apparently they don’t teach vocabulary in hair school. It was the only word her hairdresser brain had access to.
I was taken off guard by this perfect stranger’s one-word assessment of my father-in-law. I’ve never met my father-in-law; he passed away when my husband was eleven years old. He had weaknesses and flaws like most mortals I’ve met. My husband loves his father despite his faults--which is a key component of the gospel of Jesus Christ, I think. (I’d like for everyone to love me, despite my glaring flaws. And I love my father-in-law, too, despite the fact that I’ve never met him. I like to think that he thinks I’m awesome.) Everyone has imperfections, some are just more obvious than others. One thing I’m sure of, though, is that the Atonement covers everyone. Even people who are tactless.
I gave the hairdresser a condensed version of the previous paragraph and told her that I was completely surprised that our mutual acquaintance felt that way about my father-in-law. She sort of apologized and changed the subject to something that was more in her depth--pomade? I don’t remember. The point is, I learned a valuable lesson that day. Here’s the epiphany I had when my head was covered in foil and I looked like a doofus:
Awkward silence is the fertile ground in which crappy gossip seeds thrive.
Put that on your wall in vinyl, ladies.
(I’m not saying that I’m not guilty of this; in fact, I’m probably the worst offender. It was just a realization I had. Something to chew on. Something I’m going to work on. I'll be back to my usual buffoonery tomorrow.)

Well, dat was easy!

So...Halloween. Tess carried on the Haynes family tradition of being Stitch and having everyone think she's both Eeyore and a boy. This has been going on since 2006, with Olivia and DJ preceding her. Sadly, I don't think anyone will fit in the Stitch costume next year. I suppose it's time to return it to Lisa, since I promised her I'd "give it right back" when I borrowed it back in '06. (Has everyone made a mental note to never loan me anything?) Tess got really tired.

We posed on the hood of our car.

Now we're down to the Smarties and Pixie Sticks and sucked-on Tootsie Pops stuck to the side of the bag, and I've had it with the whole institution.

In related news, DJ and I have started running together. For exercise. This feat is made possible thanks to our double jogging stroller and the fact that my older girls are in school in the morning. Normally, I love my jogging stroller. However, when the tires are nearly flat it's kind of like pushing a 100 pound sack of potatoes down the trail. And then when Tess starts crying halfway through it's like pushing a 100 pound sack of really loud potatoes.

When we pulled up to the porch on our first day DJ and I were both huffing and puffing and glistening with WWF wrestler-esque sweat. It was very attractive. Tess was screaming her guts out, presumably because the sun was in her eyes. (I'm sorry, Tess. I can give you milk. Bundle you up in layers. But there's nothing I can do about the sun. You're a bat.) Chancho slid out of the stroller and declared, "Well, dat was easy," and sauntered into the house ahead of us.

I cannot wait to pull that one out and reuse it on him. When he graduates from college--well, dat was easy! When he comes home from his mission--well, dat was easy! You get the idea.

Chocolate Cake, Costumes, and a Wubbie

Macey wrote a story for me the other night. I was lounging on the couch reading and she brought it to me, smiling proudly behind her new spectacles. It's a mystery called My Secrit Cake, by Macey Bella Haynes. It reads: "My secrit cake. I love IT! But Mom says no. The cake is All gone. The End."

Here are my thoughts after reading her story: First, there is no arc. There wasn't any time spent developing the main character. And I was left with so many questions, namely, where did the cake go? What became of the cake between the time that the main character declared her love for it and its disappearance?

Reading her story also reminded me that I still had one piece of my leftover birthday cake wrapped in saran wrap, hidden on the top shelf of my fridge. I opened the fridge to get my cake, but it was mysteriously missing. There was an empty plate, which had frosting-smeared saran wrap twisted off to the sides. There were chocolate crumbs on the shelves of the fridge, as though someone snuck into the fridge to eat it. But no cake. It was mysterious, just like Macey's story.

Speaking of children and the lengths they will go to in their quest for sugar, lookie here:

This was my kids' school Halloween parade. Three things about Halloween: 1. I love free candy. 2. I love that children really get into character. 3. I loathe the entire costume-selling industry. How is it possible that one can purchase a decently-made t-shirt and shorts at Target for $9 and it will last an entire season, barring unforeseen scissor mishaps, but a Halloween costume costing seventeen dollars (which is made of Velcro and felt, by the way) shreds in the first ten minutes of wear? How do you justify yourselves, costume makers?!

This is part of why I love my nephew Casey's costume. He really sticks it to the costume selling industry. If you can't tell, he's Indiana Jones. What do you need for an Indie costume? Church pants? Church shirt? Fedora? You're all set. Surely he would've had his whip, if it wasn't for the school ban on weaponry. I move that next year we're all Indiana Jones for Halloween.

Finally, here's a picture of Tess with her wubbie. She likes to chew on it when she's stressed out. I need a wubbie.

The Glasses

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Elise, why haven't you ever posted a picture of Lisa Loeb, one hit wonder of the early nineties?"
Well, today is your lucky day. "You say...I only hear what I want to...." (This will be the soundtrack for today's post, since it's stuck in my head now.) Macey got glasses yesterday. She only had to fail three eye exams for us to break down and get them. We were like, "All right kid, we get it. You're blind. What do you want, glasses?!" We took her to the Walmart Vision Center for her fourth eye exam (which she failed). I'll be honest, I had reservations about receiving health care from Walmart. Then I figured, I eat the food that Walmart sells. Is this that much different? And it's good practice for when Obama's healthcare plan gets underway. Anyway, it turns out that Macey is far-sighted in one eye and near-sighted in the other. And she has astigmatism. Whatever that means. I think she looks a little bit like Lisa Loeb, except that she's blonde and a child.

(In other news, DJ got called back on one of the jobs he applied for in Tennessee. The other job. The job that we said we'd definitely take if it was offered to us. He's flying out there to interview for it next week. We got the call the morning after I unpacked the last box, so, joke's on me.)

Important Discoveries

I turned thirty on Friday. Last year I shared Gumwads of Wisdom in honor of my birthday. This year I will share my Important Discoveries, because I'm a lot like Christopher Columbus in that I make Important Discoveries and people celebrate me once a year.

Here they are, my Important Discoveries:

1. Illegal fireworks make an excellent substitute if you forget to buy birthday candles. Anyone catch the illegal firework action around 7:30 on Friday night? Happy birthday to me.

2. Skinny jeans aren't so bad. Yes, I once felt as you do: skinny jeans make the wearer look like a Seuss character and there is no possible way that they are comfortable. Skinny jeans are a silly trend like pegged pants, organic food, and Barack Obama. I tried some on during my birthday shopping, mostly as a joke, but partly because I like to torture myself.
"Ha ha," I thought to myself, "this is going to be a hoot."
I chose a pair two sizes larger than I normally wear, just to be safe. (Safety first when trying on skinny jeans, that's my motto.)
After trying them on, I made three sub-discoveries:
a) The importance of removing your shoes before putting on skinny jeans cannot be emphasized enough.
b) Skinny jeans don't flop around your ankles and get wet in puddles, two attributes of normal pants that I can't stand.
c) Skinny jeans are super comfortable (if you wear them two sizes too large).

3. Nutella. On toast. On bagels. On tortillas. On a butterknife. On your finger. In a box. With a fox. On a train. In the rain. When I die I want to be buried with a tub of Nutella.

4. I'd rather spend the $6 that it costs to eat at Panda Express than spend an hour deep frying chicken chunks, coating them in sauce, and making fried rice from scratch. Another lesson learned the hard way.

5. An easy way to become fluent in conversational Japanese is to watch the entire first season of Heroes in one week.

6. I guess I'm going through an Asian phase, because I also read a book called Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet and really enjoyed it. It's about a little Chinese American boy who falls in love with a little Japanese American girl and then she gets sent to an internment camp because it was World War II and in times of war the Constitution can be thrown out the window. Wait...what?!

7. According to my calculations, I go through an Asian phase once every ten years.

8. Thirty is over the hill. At least, according to the bouquet of black balloons my loving mother brought to me it is.

8. Being thirty isn't that different from being twenty-nine, except that you feel really old and you start to see crow's feet and your kids start shopping around for rest homes, despite the fact that you are obviously wearing skinny jeans and there is no possible way that you are in your thirties.

Well, that's it. Those are my discoveries. Maybe I'll think up some more tomorrow.

I love you guys! Thanks for thirty awesome years!

Did you miss me?

I tried to write the nutshell version of what we've been up to for the last month and it almost put me in a coma. And comas are no laughing matter. So, here's the abridged, condensed, pulp-free, nutshell version, which I also ran through a cheesecloth:

1. We drove from Tennessee to Utah. This required us to load our van onto this fancy U-haul dolly. Here's the only picture that I got of our rig. This was a pit stop in New Mexico, whose motto is "New Mexico: You'll like it more than you think."

2. We got to St. George and saw this guy on the freeway:
(I apologize if he is your friend/brother/cousin/husband. I feel the need to repent for taking this picture. Sometimes when I see people, my mind immediately begins to wonder why they do the things that they do. Like this guy. Is it chaffage? Is he trying to get rid of his farmer's tan? Is he just enjoying the breeze? I hate not knowing. I think if you're going to ride your motorcycle like that, at least have the decency to wear a sandwich board with a full explanation painted on it.)

3. Like three minutes after we pulled into St. George the fuel pump on my Tahoe broke. I would like to talk for a minute about God. I don't talk a lot of religion on my blog, but I would like to point out how my car made it from Utah to Minnesota to Utah to Minnesota to Tennessee and back to Utah this summer before this $300 car part went kaput--a half a mile from my awesome mechanic uncle Bill's house. Coincidence? I think not. You know that quote about coincidences being miracles wherein God has chosen to remain anonymous? Well. Thank you, Father in Heaven. I know it was you.

4. Macey is going through the Mandatory Horse Loving Phase, which, if you couldn't tell from the title, is mandatory for little girls age five through twelve. We listened to General Conference on some AM radio station, went for a drive, and stumbled across this farm:

5. Speaking of Macey, she gave Olivia a haircut with my kitchen scissors. I had to cut off seven inches to even it out. Macey may one day make a full recovery.

6. We moved into a new house. I unpacked things that have been in storage for five months and I haven't thought about them once, including:

• half a bag of Frosted Mini Spooners.
• a broken bowl
• really ugly clothes that I haven't worn since 2005
• a stack of Dan Brown books that my sister-in-law loaned me two years ago
  

7. Crow's feet. Crap. When did that happen?! Judging by the picture, sometime before New Mexico.