Heritage...

The other day I overheard Morgan telling Dane: "You know I'm half Mexican.  Everyone in my family is half Mexican!  Even JERSEY is half Mexican 'cause you know, Chihuahua."

I started laughing and Shane said, "Oh she's been on this kick for awhile now.  She told me all of this the other day."

"What did you tell her?" I asked.

"I told her that she wasn't half Mexican and that the only people in the family that are half Mexican are me and Jersey."

"Did she buy it?" I asked, knowing that Morgan isn't one to back down because she is always so certain of her stance.

Shane said, "She insisted that she likes salsa so she is half Mexican too."

It's hard to argue with logic like that. :)

Wrapping Up the Front Yard...

Want to see what my front yard used to look like yesterday?

Dumpsville.

When we got this house I HATED the front yard, if you can even call it a yard.  I've never been a huge fan of desert landscape, although it can be done well, this was definitely NOT done well.

Although you can't really tell in this picture, most of those shrubs are dead or dying, the rock is obnoxious, and well, you have eyes...it's just ugly.

It bugged me every time I drove up and when people would come inside our house they would go, "Oh! This is really nice!" Not knowing that their enthusiasm was giving away the fact that from the outside they thought it was going to be a "fixer-upper" inside.  

I don't blame them.  I had the exact same reaction when I first met my house.

But now that I know my house, I felt really bad that it was so homely.  It was in desperate need of some curb appeal...someday.

Someday came sooner than I was thinking.

Two days ago Shane told me Santa was coming to give me my Christmas gift.  Santa came in the form of Ron Ponsin...a gruff landscaper that did our backyard over a year ago.

I smiled as soon as he drove up.

I knew what was coming and Santa had never looked so good. (Neither had Shane. :) It's incredibly sexy when a guy knows just what to get you for Christmas and does it without you knowing and works extra weekends to earn the money to pay for such a large gift.)

Shane had me talk to Ron to make sure things were gonna be done the way that I'd like and work was started the next day.

Today (our Christmas Day), my front yard looks like this: 

When our tree gets bigger and actually has leaves and our bushes grow and bloom it will be even better.

I had no idea grass could make me so happy.

I had no idea you could get a front yard for Christmas.

I had no idea my house could look 3000 times better in one day.

I had no idea my husband was so brilliant...okay, actually I did have an idea about that.

For so many reasons this was the best Christmas ever, and it will always be the year I remember getting a front yard for Christmas.

Hmmmmmmm.

Last night Shane and I were having a rousing economic discussion.

He was telling me that the average salary today is $1000 less than it was in the 1980's.

Pathetic.

Olivia wanted to know why this was.  So he explained a little bit about people spending money they don't have and how this caused problems for everyone, even the people that didn't do that.  Now we all get to pay for everyone else's mistakes and there isn't any money now.

Then he said, "The US is in so much trouble and we have had to borrow tons and tons of money from China."

Immediately Olivia said, "Well that's embarrassing."

And she's right.  It is embarrassing.

How can an 8 year old understand this so well and yet most of the adults in our country can not?

It reminded me of my favorite SNL clip ever:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/1389/saturday-night-live-dont-buy-stuff

First we have to figure this out.

Then we'd better teach our kids.

And then maybe, just maybe, this country of ours might stand a chance.
 

Crafty I Am Not...

Want to see the super cute Advent Calendar I made?

Isn't it adorable?

Okay, so maybe I didn't "technically" make it, but practically.

I've been telling Lana for weeks now that we need to make an Advent Calendar.  It is essential for our children's growing up Christmas years.  They might as well not even have a childhood if they have no Advent Calendar.  I'm not really even sure how they've survived the past few years.

So we discussed some different ideas of what we wanted to do and we came up with the idea I have pictured above.  Then we set out to the store to fetch our supplies.

Well...wouldn't you know it, when we walked into JoAnn's to go get the fabric, they had already made our Advent Calendar for us!  

I thought that was nice of them.

And they just so happened to have TWO left!  It was a sign really.

We looked at each other for a second and then slowly placed them in our carts, careful not to make any sudden movements.

We didn't want to alert the crafting gods that anything had gone awry.  

Needless to say, we did feel a little sheepish going to JoAnn's for materials to make a project and just walking out with it in hand already done, so Lana decided we should make Christmas wreath's.

Who am I to kill a dream?  So I went with it.

I'm happy to say it turned out fabulously...with some help from Lana. :)

See?  Isn't that cute? 

Hopefully the crafting gods will forgive us now. :)

Wedded Bliss

If you must know, my nephew Bryson just got married yesterday.

When Bryson was born I was 9 and, being the youngest, I was SO excited to have a baby around.  Plus I felt ridiculously cool being an "aunt" at age 9.  I totally bragged about it at recess.

I don't think I let Bryson out of my sight until he was about 4.  I LOVED him so much!

I remember worrying that he might try drugs some day (I had strong mothering instincts in me from a very young age) and I just wanted to protect him from all the bad things in the world.

As it turns out, I didn't need to worry.  Bryson turned out fabulous and made many great choices, like just saying no to drugs.  But yesterday he made the best choice yet.  He married Tierra Jean and she is so freaking cool.

See what I mean?  She's just so fun.

A few years ago Bryson and I were talking and he was thinking about his future and said to me, "I'm so afraid that I might just 'settle' for someone when I get married and I really don't want to do that."

"Then you won't," I assured him.

And he most definitely didn't.

Congratulations to a beautiful couple. :)

Oh Justice...

On Saturday I took the kids to the mall.

Olivia had $20 burning a hole in her pocket and she wanted some new earrings and an outfit. (but for mall prices that means new earrings and a shirt).

So after getting the earrings she saw the store Justice for Girls which she LOVES and had to go in there.  After MUCH perusing, trying on, and perusing some more she finally decided on a shirt.

She bought the shirt which was $3 more than she had and I told her she'd owe me $3 when we got home.

As we were walking out of the store she decided she wanted to return the shirt and get a cheaper one instead.

So back we went.

There is no such thing as a quick return anymore.

The girl needed my driver's license and a background check to return the shirt we just bought with cash.

Geez.

So as she goes to hand me the difference in change, which was $1.96, I said, "Oh, can I just give you 4 pennies so you can just give me $2 instead?"

She looked at me like I was asking her to give me free $100 bills.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I can't," she stammered, "I've already run the transaction."

"Um, okay.  It's just cash right?  So this should be fine.  You know 96 cents plus 4 cents equals a dollar, soooo...."

"Oh, yeah, I just don't think we're allowed to do that."

"What do you mean 'allowed to do that'?  I just want a dollar instead of 96 cents and here is the 4 cents so that it is all good."

"Ummm, yeah, I just, I'm not sure how they count the drawers at night and I don't want to get in trouble and I just don't think we're allowed.  Let me just check."

Oh. My. Gosh.  This was now like a 5 minute ordeal and when I was telling Shane the story later I realized I should have taken the 96 cents from her, added my 4 cents and said, "Hey, can you give me a dollar for all this change?"  But I was just so baffled by the whole thing I didn't know what to do.  She was acting like they wanted an exact count of every quarter dime and nickel people pay with.  And the whole "allowed to" thing was really throwing me off.

I assured her I had done drawers before and that all that matters is the amount needs to add up and that this would add up just fine.

She wouldn't take it.

So she asked the girl next to her, "Um, Kaitlyn, are we allowed to do this [explains story]?"

Kaitlyn, while looking up and thinking really hard: "Um, I don't know.  I mean, it makes sense, I think, but I'm just not sure if like that is something we are allowed to do."

WHAT DO YOU MEAN ALLOWED TO DO?!?!?!?!?!?  You can't give somebody a dollar bill for a dollar's worth of change?  Somebody just shoot me now.

Finally they called the manager over.

"Um, Cami (aka: the manager) can we...[explains story]?"

Cami looks at her and says, "Yeah. Of course."

Thank you Cami, I was really starting to wonder if I had gone crazy.

Let this be a lesson to all you young girls out there--Pay attention in 3rd grade math class.

You'll need it someday.

Disgusting!

Last night we had shish-kabobs for dinner.

They were pretty tasty but some of the meat was a little too big for me to eat.  I kind of want to barf at large pieces of meat that take longer than 10 seconds to chew.  So after about 15 seconds of chewing a certain piece of meat I took it out of my mouth and placed it on the side of my plate.

Can you see where this is going?

A little while later Owen came picking around on my plate.  I shooed him off and turned to talk to Shane for a second.  Moments later Shane said, "Owen just stole more food off your plate."

I looked back and to my horror you know what he had eaten.

Ugh, my stomach turned but I just started laughing and said, "You don't even want to know what just happened."

Well, then of course everyone wanted to know.

So I looked at Owen and said, "That meat you just ate off my plate was meat I had chewed up and spit out."

He just looked at me, smiled real big and said, "Well that's okay, I still really liked it!"

It's hard to phase a boy that is this awesome. :)