spanksgiving!

so thanksgiving was last week! it was a blast as usual.

when i was little and actually up until about 4 years ago we spent every thanksgiving with one other family. we weren't related but since my family didn't have any other relatives in state and practically their whole family lived in colorado, we would spend it with them. it was fun, but i always felt like the odd man out - they were are very close and were really each other's family. now due to some interesting circumstances, we don't do holidays with them anymore.

but now, since we still do not have any family besides our imediate family here in the big CO, we get several families together who also don't have blood-family close by. we have essentially become our own NEW family! I love it so much! we had fifteen people around two tables this year - and since we're all pretty much grown up except for my little girl ( who napped during dinner :) ) there was a mature adult table and just a plain old adult table - NO KID TABLE! we added a new adult face this year and by next year there will be one more little face to sit with eisley at the "kiddie table"! we went around the table and popped open these cheezy party poppers that each had a paper crown, joke or riddle, and a small worthless prize inside, and said something we were thankful for that started with the first letter of our first name. the mature adult table kept true to it's title and said very mature things: charlie - christ, linda - love, mark - my wife (he cheated i think), Joan - jesus.....the plain old adult table should have been renamed the imature adult table because: shane - sex...no scratch that...special ed kids (yes that is my husband :) ), mark jr. - moobs ( man boobs ), Rueben - red heads....see it was fun! we then played some silly videos made at jibjab.com HILARIOUS! and played guesstures - again hilarious! anyways, i had/have a lot to be thankful for and i love my family and adopted family sooooo much!

here's just one of the funny videos i made:

may is national pickle month

lately, i have been drawing pickles. silly i know. pickles playing the piccolo. pickles on parade. pickles can do it all apparently :) i really like my little pickle family that i am creating - it's not by any means world shaking or moving - it's purely fun and mildly entertaining...at least shane and my mom tend to laugh at them. it's interesting to see how creativity flows out of you at different times. right now - everything is pretty light-hearted and playful. in college, most everything in my portfolio held some ideas/aspirations for my life but with sadly depressing undertones.

creativity. creating. out of nothing something comes to life. it's a pretty powerful concept. little old me can pause, think of something elaborate or mundanely simple, use my hands and in some medium bring that small glint of an idea into being. sometimes it's all you held in your head and more and sometimes it doesn't come close to the perfect image you were desiring. sometimes when your hands start to move, the idea morphs into something completely different. sometimes the image you create tells you a hard truth about yourself. sometimes you don't want to know these things. sometimes you're pleasantly surprised and sometimes deeply disappointed in your lack of ability. sometimes you touch people with your art. sometimes you hurt them. sometimes your social commentary isn't appropriate. sometimes it's the only way people will listen. sometimes it's the most important thing you will ever say. sometimes you just do it to be silly.

warm and fuzzy

what does the phrase "warm and fuzzy" bring to your mind? it used to bring images of little kids holding squirming puppies or how full my heart feels when i see a man holding his baby and smiling. those seem like good illustrations of the phrase "warm and fuzzy." and until recently, i held only good ideas in mind of that phrase...

the other morning, after the baby had an uncharacteristically bad night - waking up every hour on the hour - when i finally did get to sleep i was OUT! so, when i felt shane snuggle up close to me, like he does sometimes early in the morning before his alarm goes off, almost pushing me out of the bed, i didn't mind and got that "warm and fuzzy" feeling. "awww my hubby wants to cuddle me after a long sleepless night" i naively thought to myself. now, shane normally moves some so that i can actually pull my arms from the covers, but this time, he would not budge! i pushed and pushed and even groaned "move honey!" but to no avail. he wasn't going anywhere. so i rolled over as best i could and opened my eyes to a warm and fuzzy butt. yes, lewy's butt...not shane's peaceful sleeping face but a warm and fuzzy smelly butt. i was so asleep that shane's alarm went off, he got in the shower and lewy took his place and i didn't even notice. i immediately said very loudly "GET OUT LEWY" to which he, instead of getting out, played a dangerous game of peek-a-boo with his tail and the place the most heinous gasses can emerge. and that's the reason "warm and fuzzy" doesn't always bring good things to mind for me anymore.

he did eventually get out of the bed - but only with lots of brute force and threats of never seeing his kong toy again.

addictive behavior

i have an addiction. they say that the first step to overcoming an addiction is acknowledgement. so here i am, acknowledging it.

i am addicted to starbucks.

shhhhh....don't tell anyone though - i am only telling you - that is acknowledgement enough for now.

i wake up, i think of how delicious a tall soy one-pump carmel macchiato sounds. i get ready, i think how delightful a iced grande soy latte with one perfect splenda would be. i drive to work, i think of the way half-and-half looks like swirling smoke when you pour it into a venti iced coffee and how i might do anything to get one. inevitably i cave. i try and spend less than $5 when i go. and for the most part, i can somehow resist those little fluted cakey cookies so unprecociously named madeleines.

every friday i go to coffee club with loo-loo. we sit outside under green umbrellas talking and joking and in general just enjoying eachothers company. i love friday coffee club and am almost depressed when it doesn't happen for one reason or another. every sunday (almost) the crew we roll with goes to lunch (usually chipotle - i am not personally addicted to it - but i know three boys who are - YOU KNOW WHO ARE - acknowledgement is the first step to recovery!!!!) and then it's on to starbucks. we sit for a long long time talking and playing with the babies, in general just getting to know this new hodge podge family that god has created for us (strangely enough, this new family has mostly been brought together by starbucks. that is another blog in and of itself, but let's just say starbucks weaves in and out of all our lives!) My mom is also a fan of the "bucks" and orders with flare! she rollllllllllls her R's in "grrrrrrrrande" and sounds strangely italian or at least foreign when she says "tall cafe vanilla frappuccino light!" you might say she is my "enabler." she all too often buys me one of those enslaving beverages. i love my mom - for more reasons than just that, but that is high up on the list.

there are a few things i don't particularly like about starbucks 1.) can be habit forming - obvisouly 2.) a little high in price at times 3.) and it seems like they might be taking over the world.

But there are far more things i do like... it's a warm inviting place to meet friends, coworkers, or family, read a book, spend time writing, meet new people...etc. it's always full of holiday cheer :) and it's truly great coffee.

truthfully, i don't wanna get over it - i want to bathe in its warm, robust aroma

...just one more time...

blood on the ice

last night i went to my first ever hockey game. it was so much fun and we won!

i don't know what it is, but lately i have just been wanting to do stuff that is totally off from what i normally like to do. going to a sports game is definitely out of character for me. watching grown men fight like school boys over a poor call and getting paid way too much money for it usually doesn't sound fun. but, lately, it has...i got completely drawn into the world series - i even painted my fingernails and eisley's toenails purple to support the rockies...although it didn't seem to help them at all :( shane and i stayed up late watching the games and even went out to buffalo wild wings to watch the first game with a group of friends!

so at shane's work they drew names for four tickets and a parking pass to last night's avalanche game against the calgary flames (i know absolutely nothing about hockey, but i had actually heard of the flames before, so i felt pretty good about that). shane didn't win them, but our good friend emily did and invited us to go with her and her hubby chris. so we got a babysitter and had a mighty fine double date! the parking pass was for the VIP lot - sounds way cooler than it was, but it was very close - and the tickets were amazing!

row 13 (our heads were just above the glass) and just off to the side of the goalie - perfect for watching all four of the goals the avs made last night. there was a bloody fist fight and shane caught a pretty lame t-shirt! all in all, it was a great game, even though i didn't have a clue what was going on half the time.

it was a great night with people i love. i like trying new things and stepping out from my norm every once in a while. i am gonna start doing that more often!

fairy tales really do come true

once upon a time

a girl fell in love with a boy

they got a dog

they had a baby

their life is splendid.

the end.