Attention dieters everywhere!

Yep, it's that time of year again! Cookies sales begin today in our council, which means that I will eat, sleep, and breathe Girl Scout cookies until the middle of March. Being a Brownie troop leader means that we get to have boxes and cases of cookies piled up in our living room awaiting distrubution - and tempting us incessently to buy just one more box. I swear I can hear them calling me at night. Those Thin Mints are relentless.

If you're interested in paying the shipping costs (we waive those for grandparents, by the way), we'd be more than happy to sell you some :) Otherwise, you can always check this website to find out when they go on sale in your area. All the money raised benefits the local council, and 60 cents from every box stays with the troop that sells them to you! Support your local Girl Scouts today!

Confession time

I've been keeping a dark secret from all my female friends for years, and the time has arrived for me to come clean and admit my shortcomings.

I have never read a book by Jane Austen.

Ever.

I have seen two films based on Jane Austen novels: Emma (the one with Gwyneth Paltrow) and Mansfield Park (I think that's the one). I have never seen ANY versions of Pride and Prejudice (okay, wait, I did see the LDS version that came out a few years ago, but I assume that one doesn't actually count).

I am a disgrace to womankind.

All this confession came about because my friend Nicola posted on her blog that Masterpiece Theatre on PBS has come out with several new film versions of Austen's novels and she and her sister are so excited they can hardly stand it. I want to be excited about it, too, because I'm a girl and that's what girls do, right? But I just can't seem to find it within myself to be interested at all. Maybe if I'd actually ever read any of the books I'd feel differently. I own several - Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, Emma, Sense and Sensibility - and at least two of them are very nice leather-bound editions - all purchased because I carry this belief that in order to really be a girl you have to read Jane Austen novels. But I've never even cracked the covers. I just can't bring myself to do it. I think it's because I feel like I'm supposed to read it, and I hate reading books that I'm supposed to read.

So for all this time I've felt slightly guilty because I've been harboring this deep, dark secret that I'm not a completely normal female, i.e. I have never spent 12 hours on the couch crying over the relationship between Elizabeth and Mr....ummm...whatever his name is (I love Anne of Green Gables, though, and will happily spend all day watching that! That makes me a girl, right?) But I've decided now that this is okay with me. I have daughters, and they have friends who are girls, so at some point in my life I will probably watch Pride and Prejudice. I will probably even eventually decide to read one of the books gathering dust on my shelves, and then, like so many books that I've fought stubbornly against in the past, I will probably become hooked and read every other Jane Austen book I can get my hands on.

And I will probably do it in complete secrecy because I will have too much pride to admit that I've finally cracked.

Look Ma, no teeth!

Vicki is losing teeth faster than she can regrow them. She currently has 4 teeth missing, giving her the cutest jack-o-lantern grin. I just had to share it with everyone else!

The funnest show in town!

Yesterday we took Vicki and Lexi to see Biglittlethings at the Imago Theatre. It was so much fun! It's less of a play and more a performance - there's no dialogue, just five people in a variety of scenes featuring hitchiking rabbits, psychedelic glow-in-the-dark fish, jailbird racoons on the run, acrobatic larvae, cover-hogging hippos and more. The best part was when a family of polar bears came into the audience and climbed all over and around people. One crawled down the rows and right in between Lexi and me before turning and climbing over Vicki and Chris. Vicki thought it was hilarious, but it kind of freaked Lexi out. She kept asking me throughout the rest of the show whether they were going to come back into the audience. By the time we got back to the car, though, her sister had her convinced that it was pretty cool. If any of you ever have the opportunity to see this show, or its predecessor, FROGZ, jump at the chance! We saw FROGZ last spring and loved it, too!

Christmas

I finally got our Christmas pictures uploaded! I take WAY too many pictures (although in this case Chris was responsible for about half), but I realize that most of them really make no sense unless you were there, and possibly not even then, so I narrowed it down to just a few. Like I said before, the highlight for Vicki and Lexi was getting the American Girl dolls they've been dreaming about for nearly a year. Vicki got Samantha (dressed here in her bridesmaid dress from Grandma Y., who mysteriously somehow knew that Santa was bringing the dolls!) and Lexi got Molly.

Ellie is hard to get pictures of because she doesn't hold still long enough, so most of our shots of her are of the back of her head. Her favorite thing was the candy in her stocking, but she also loved the abundance of Dora the Explorer paraphernalia she received.

Grandma and Grandpa Y. gave the girls matching nightgowns. Grandma said she couldn't resist because there were three little girls on the front and it says "best friends".

One of the highlights for me (and for all of us, really) was watching the grandparent open the quilts we made for them. It was Vicki's idea, and each girl picked out two fabric prints, and then they each decorated two squares with their handprint or fabric markers. I started putting them together at the end of August so I wouldn't be rushed right before Christmas, and of course I finished them the Sunday before we left for Utah. It was a lot of fun, though, and it was great for the girls to participate. Vicki tied them both herself, while Lexi and Ellie gave lots of suggestions and "help". It was a really fun project and worth every second I spent on them!

Everybody else seems to be able to post pictures and text...what's my problem?

I think I've finally figured out what I've been doing wrong with posting my pictures. This is a test post to see if my theory is correct.

Ellie sees nothing wrong with her choice of sticker placement




Lexi is silly (and wants very badly to be a princess)




Vicki loves being a Brownie Girl Scout




So, just from the differences between what's going on right now in the "compose your post" window and what was going on yesterday after two hours of frustration and using choice words while talking to my computer, this seems to have worked. I think the problem was that I was telling it to align my pictures left or right, rather than giving them no alignment, and that was messing with the spacing and where I could or couldn't put my text. Honestly, this should not have been this complicated! Maybe I just need to learn how to edit Html.

Chris took the camera to work again today (we threw it in his bag while we were packing so we wouldn't leave it at his parents' house, but we keep forgetting to take it out), so no Christmas pictures again. Which is actually a good thing, because maybe I'll get something done around the house today, although that's nowhere near as fun as reliving Christmas morning through pictures.

The Best of 2007

Happy New Year!!!

I promise to post some Christmas pictures, but in the meantime, here are some of our family's most memorable moments of 2007:



Arriving home to find that we would "get" to remodel

Ellie's first time playing in the snow (and snow in Portland!)

Vicki learning to ride a two-wheeler

The Reach the Beach ride (100 miles, Portland to coast)
















Lexi's self-inflicted mullett, and its adorable side effect

Going to the beach with Grandma and Grandpa Y.

Day camping with Emily, Russ, and Abbie

Playing in the sprinkler

Day camping with the Humphreys

The 1st day of school

Halloween

Getting the majority of the work FINISHED on our house!!!

I had a much longer list, but it took me nearly two hours just to do this much (don't ask...let's just say that Blogger and I are not getting along right now and leave it at that). Suffice it to say we've had a really fun year, and I take waaaaaaaayyyy too many pictures!


We're so grateful for all the fun we've had and for all our blessings this past year, and we pray the Lord may bless you all this coming year as much as He has blessed us!