Its Christmas Time!

I absolutely love the pre-Christmas excitement. I am not one of those people who is annoyed by the commercialization of the holiday. I revel in it. I may be in the minority on this, but I don't believe that twinkling lights and dancing Santas and obnoxious Christmas songs take away from the spiritual nature of Christmas. I think the decorated stores and Christmas music increase good will and happy dispositions in the general public. I know they do for me. This weekend we have spent hours doing the following:

• Untangling lights
• Draping every stationary item both inside and outside in said lights
• Picking out the cheapest fake tree we could find
• Waiting in line at Old Time Pottery for 45 minutes to purchase the aforementioned tree
• Online shopping
• Perusing the Goodwill for the gaudiest, tackiest Christmas sweaters ever made
• Tearing apart the house in pursuit of my Andy Williams Christmas album (in vain)
• Taking Christmas card pictures in ugly sweaters

I will post pictures of our decorated house soon. In the meantime, here is an outtake of our Christmas card photo shoot.



In this one, Lance says he looks like the fat Baldwin brother. (Please note that he is wearing a woman's sweater!)

Thanksgiving 2007

Turkey Day this year was a blast. It was very relaxed and untraditional... and I loved it! I have never been a fan of holidays spent with crowds of distant relatives, making small talk with people you only see once a year. Since we had no parental figures around this year, we decided to do it our way.

We kicked off the day with a little exercise. I ran a 5k down at the beach with my friends. The Tampa Bay Turkey Trot has become a Thanksgiving tradition amongst me and my friends. It was my first race of the season and my time was a little slow, but we had fun. I am training for a half- marathon and will post my progress (or lack thereof).

Lance played in the ward Turkey Bowl-- a four hour event this year! He was pronounced Turkey Bowl MVP at his Elders' Quorum meeting today. (I'm so proud). As you can imagine, we have both been a little sore this weekend.

We had my sister Heidi and our good friends, Jared and Brittany Filetti (and kids), over for dinner. The Filettis deep fried the turkey and I will not ever go back to traditional turkey again. Even the leftovers are delicious! We had way too much food and even more pies (six pies for 5 adults!) It was my first time hosting Thanksgiving.

After dinner, we all lay in a food stupor watching a Dirty Jobs marathon. If you haven't seen the show, its hilarious! Nothing compliments a full stomach like watching men clean out sewage facilities.

We missed our families on Thanksgiving, but it was an awesome day. We have spent the remainder of the weekend decorating for Christmas. It doesn't get any better than this!

Poll Results

Ok, ok. By one measly vote, it has been decided that George Michael is not to be used as a ring tone. I'll change it (begrudgingly), but know that I will not be polling my so-called friends and family regarding these kinds of issues in the future!

Sincerely,

Kira the Bitter

Me and Matt? We Go WAY Back...

Indulge me, if you will. I saw this week's edition of People Magazine and it got me reminiscing...

It was a cold January night in the year 2000. I was in Park City with my roommate enjoying the Sundance Film Festival. Not able to find any non R-rated films to watch, we began our night at a local nightclub and within a few hours, we had received a personal invitation to a small gathering at a rented cabin with Ben Affleck (Sexiest Man in 2004), Casey Affleck, and of course, People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive 2007---- Matt Damon.

In all honesty, the story sounds much cooler when I am vague with the details. The truth is Ben Affleck was a disgusting drunk who spent the night propositioning my roommate, and my attempt to "hit on" Matt Damon was quickly and decidedly rebuffed. Feel free to re-tell the story with a more interesting outcome, if you'd like.

I am a little embarrassed to say that I was happy to see that Matt "won" the coveted People Magazine title this year. He is, by far, my favorite actor. I gained a little respect for him that night in Park City. While everyone else was drunkenly trying to "hook up" with Mormon girls (to no avail), he spent the evening talking to his friends and staying away from the spotlight.

Having met and mingled with two of the "Sexiest Men Alive", I can say, with some authority, that Lance beats them all. I am confident that if People had a "Sexiest Mormon Construction Worker" contest, Lance would win hands-down.

P.S. Lance would kill me if he knew what I was writing. Sometimes my cheesiness is too much for the poor guy.

Mad Gab

Zoie is just a few months shy of being a three year old. One of the funniest things about this age is that she seems so grown up at times. She can work the remote control and can help me with Tobin. She already has very definite tastes in music (prefers the theme song to the original Shrek over the theme song to Shrek 2). But every now and then she busts out the weirdest mispronunciations and reminds me that she is, in fact, only a toddler. I have included some of the most commonly used ones here:

Cinderella- "Gorilla"; As in Gorilla's castle or I want to look like Princess Gorilla.

Magazine- "Mazagine"; She gets The Friend and ZooBooks every month and loves her "mazagines".

Movie- "Woovie"; her current faves being Shrek and Shrek 2, Aladdin, and Brother Bear 2.

Spit-up/ Throw-up- "Spill-up"; a common sight in our home-- unfortunately.

Shark- Every shark anywhere is "Kenny the Shark". (Pretty sure the kid watches too much tv!)

Lotion- Pronounced "O-shlin"

Airplane- "Err-plane" (maybe buying her the latest Nelly cd wasn't such a great idea).

Lipstick- "Crips"; Yes, as in the bloods and the crips. Mind you, I do not give my 2 year old free reign with lipstick, but she gets a kick out of playing with my lip gloss on from time to time.

Popcorn- "Cop-urn"; My personal favorite.

I'm not trying to point out little Zoie's flaws to the world, but I had to record these somewhere. I have the world's worst memory and would no doubt forget these funny quirks in just a few months.

The Sincerest Form of Flattery

Before Zoie could even talk, she would put my cell phone up to her ear, throw her head back and laugh out loud. It was the cheesiest thing I have ever seen. However, when I wondered aloud where she would possibly get that weird habit from, Lance just looked at me and raised an eyebrow. I then realized that I, too, throw my head back and laugh out loud when I talk on the phone.

It scares me more than a little to realize just how much Zoie gleans from my behavior. She has become SUCH a cheese ball (I have no qualms admitting how cheesy I am).

Most mornings, I load the kids into the jogger and go running with my Ipod. Last night, Zoie put her dolls in her shopping cart, donned my headphones and proceeded to run through the house. I didn't realize how accurate she was until I went to put her in her jammies and found my Ipod shoved down her pull-ups. ( For the record, I do not keep my Ipod in my pants, but rather clipped onto my pants).

Get to Know Us!

I've always loved these things!

Create your own Friend Test here

Identity Crisis

Ok- If any of you are regular visitors to the site (um... that's just you, Mom and Dad), you are aware that I keep changing my template. I am never quite satisfied with what I have. Some would say that this is a life lesson or psychological condition manifesting itself. Rather, I think I have too much time on my hands.

If you have any suggestions, ideas, or wish to criticize-- well, bring it.

Going Bananas or Monkeying Around... I'm undecided

You know.... most females use Halloween as an excuse to dress trampy or sexy, or at the very least cute or pretty. Somehow, I have missed this concept.



Once again, Lance and I were the hit (or laughingstock) of our ward Halloween party. In a perfect world, all adults would put as much time and energy into their own costumes as they do for their children's. We have decided the only way to move toward this Halloween Utopia is to defiantly wear elaborate costumes to the ward party every year-- even when we are the only adults to do so.

FYI- when we purchased the banana suit, it was on the condition that Lance would be the one to don the outfit. I'm still not sure how I ended up in it.