Forty-Two and FIERCE.

My hubby turned 42 yesterday. He wasn't feeling too well, and it was raining all day, so we pretty much stayed home and had a day in. It was a nice day, though.

For about a year he's been searching for a CD by The Cars. Apparently, The Cars are no longer in high demand - - don't these stores know that some of us are still living in the 80s? Musically speaking, of course. Well thank goodness for the internet. I got him The Cars Greatest Hits on Amazon and a little portable speaker system to play his Ipod on.

We also made Chicken Cordon Bleu and baked potatoes for dinner and my mom's oatmeal cinnamon nutmeg cake w/ brown sugar coconut frosting for dinner. So even though we didn't do anything too exciting, it was still a good birthday for homebodies like us.

And I know it's kind of yicky to say so, but I think my man is the sexiest 42 year old I've ever seen. He's still totally hot. Case in point:



Not to mention, he's an exceptional human being. Fierce, I'm telling ya.

Luke-isms

Luke says the funniest things, and I really should write them down more often. He said something the other day that totally CRACKED. ME. UP.

As Marty was heading out the door to help chaperon a church young women's activity, Luke wanted to know where he was going.

Luke:  DAD! WHERE ARE YOU GOING?!   (he shouts about 73% of everything he says.)

Dad:  I'm going to Young Women's.

Luke: Why are you going to young wimins?  You're not young OR a wimin!

Dad: Because I need to go with Bishop.

Luke: Well Bishop's not young or a wimin either!

I don't know how you can argue with that logic, frankly.

Dallin and the Bubbles

My good friend and best photo client, Jenna, has two cute little kids. Her baby just turned 18 months and we had a fun photo session with her the other day:



 ....but Allison wasn't too sure she wanted to cooperate. At one point, her older brother Dallin stepped into the picture and was being so cute that I took a bunch of photos of him - I think, because the shoot wasn't about him and there was absolutely no pressure, he really turned on the charm.

 We borrowed a bubble machine for Allison's shoot, but my favorite bubble pic is this one:

 I wish I could have gotten one a half second sooner, too. That bubble was HUGE. I'm sure it didn't taste too good, but Dallin didn't care. He was in the moment, being a child, having a great time.

It's so fun to watch Jenna's kids grow, and having them around - they're like family.

Smell Like a Monster

HA!

and the original - so great. 

A Little Bit of (strange) Nostalgia

I probably saw this clip on Sesame Street during the mid to late 70s and have never forgotten it. I give lessons to a gal who has alpacas and every time I see her alpacas, I sing this little song in my head. The other day I decided to look it up on YouTube and see if I could find it - and sure enough, there it was! 



So here are the questions that come to mind as I watch this again after 30 years have gone by:

1. How did this girl come to have a pet llama in the city of Manhattan?
2. Why wasn't she accompanied by a parent?
3. Why do she and the llama have the same teeth?
4. Why, being Sesame Street, did they compose the song with incorrect grammar: "Me and My LLama"?

I'm tellin' ya, you just never know what's going to show up on my blog. 

Sometimes, I Just Don't Understand Her

This girl of mine, she's a caution. She came in yesterday and told me that she wanted me to cut off most of her hair. Now, the last time I cut her hair, she told me that she never wanted to cut it again and that she was going to grow it down to her waist. At least! But that was so many months ago and of course, she's completely changed her mind by now.

She wanted it "this short", she told me as she held it between her fingers. And the length kept getting shorter every time I told her how much I didn't want her to cut it. That's what I get. Always before - we've done this about three times before - I haven't said a thing, I've just cut it. But this time I was really feeling strongly about her keeping it long. And then I get, "But Mom, it's my hair!" And I figure, there might come a time when she want it purple, or heaven forbid, blond, and that's when I'll really have to make my stand.

So for now, I just gave in and cut it - and it's SO SHORT. Shorter than it's ever been before.


But even though I'm not too happy about it, I still had to take pictures to document. And of course, with a face like this, she's not exactly hideous.



But man, sometimes I just don't understand her. And I'm sure the feeling's mutual. Good thing we kinda like each other. Our mantra: We're the only girls in the whole family.

(This last photo was a special request by Brynn - don't mind the grubby crocs, she wanted to wear her Sunday shoes, but I told her they wouldn't show in hair photos.)

The Most BEAUTIFUL Photos I've Ever Seen

'nuff said.

Back in the Day

Before digital photography, before I even had a decent film camera, I took lots of snapshots of my kids that were um... of less than stellar quality.

Nowadays, I am able to take pictures that look like this:


But today, while I was watching Conference, I started going through a bunch of old family photos to put them in albums, and I found pictures like this:


And my heart melted......

How sweet! My two little munchkins tormenting our new - already half-feral kitty, Taffy.

I love the jammies and the rumpled bed, and even the Vaseline jar sitting by the ancient clock radio that I bought with my babysitting money when I was 10 and used until I was about 34. (Back in the days before I knew that petroleum jelly was pure evil.)

And then I found the next one in the series:


That HAIR! And those blue jammies that were once her big brother's - soft little terry cloth sleepers with snaps up the leg. I can practically feel how snuggly she was in those. And my cute Jaxon with his perpetually red cheeks and sweet smile.

I love these! I'm so glad I have them and that I took so many crappy pictures. And I realized that photos don't have to be perfectly lit and properly exposed to be heirlooms, and in fact, usually the everyday-messy hair-moments are the most treasured.

So here's to all our crappy photos and the beautiful memories they keep.