The Fankhausers

Booyah

2011-12-21T14:26:00.000-08:00

Let me just start off by saying I mentally punched myself in the kidney for the title of this post so there is no need to mention it. I am going to try my hand at this whole blog thing again now that I have some things to write about, you know since I haven't blogged in so long that I went through an entire pregnancy, turned 24, met my medical deductible for the fifth year in a row, and neglected this blog long enough to come full circle and not need an updated background. I am going to say that I was so lazy that I decided I wouldn't blog until the background was acceptable because then no one would know how lazy I really am. But since this came along, I will have to change the family picture... Yes, she is so adorable. So why have I neglected this blog? Simple, another case of writers block. I have a theory that while Addison, the child that I had while neglecting this blog, was blocking my kidney from draining, she was also blocking blood flow to my brain. How do I explain the disappearance for the past 4 months after I had her and relieved my kidney of its squashable duties? The newly acquired rolls and squish of having a child have pushed back and blocked that blood flow, only letting enough blood to get by to allow me to get out of bed, remember how to piece together 1 of the 4 outfits that fit me, and power my extremities so I have enough strength in my hand to take the 1,089th picture of Addison... you can bump that number to at least 1,096 by the end of tonight. Stand by, more blogging coming soon!

New Year's Resolutions

2011-01-20T12:47:00.000-08:00

Did you make any resolutions? I sure didn't, you know why? Because I never carry them out. Not to mention they always have something ridiculous on the list, replenishing my entire shoe collection with updated footwear is costly and in no way a realistic option. I found that after 4 years of making it my New Years Resolution to get my first kiss and then finding out how unexciting fulfilling a resolution actually was, I no longer had the drive to compile a list of goals. If you are a great "goal keeper" then I am not trying to put you down, just simply saying that they are not for me. The more I think about it, I can't even keep goals that I set that morning for something to do that night. This is what Nick is for, a very routine guy that is on top of everything. I wonder if he secretly made New Year's resolutions and didn't tell me because he was afraid that I would be my usual crabby self and say something rude, which I would never do to Nick you know... He might beg to differ. But you know what, I have just decided to make a New Year resolution to never make another New Year resolution from this point on. I just might succeed.

Happy 4 Year Anniversary To Us +

2011-01-04T09:04:00.000-08:00

Nick and I have now been married for four years. Four years ago today I was in a short sleeved beautiful white dress, made by my very talented mother, shivering to the bone because it was snowing (I was wearing the most adorable red shoes might I add). Not to mention that the snow was flattening my carefully curled hair that took my sister hours to do. I didn't care though because I was standing next to the most handsome man in his nice warm tux that smiled for a million pictures even though his face was probably just frozen like that. Today I am sitting at my desk missing my handsome Nick but really snuggling up to my heater and loving the fact that I am not outside in the cold. But I can't wait to get home to him and go on our date night. Last year we hiked up the hill right outside our backdoor and sled down it a couple times before it resulted in; a face covered in ice smashed into the snow, a double roll over, a rock to the ribs, a twenty foot launch off of an invisible jump, a sore tail bone and a bruised butt. I think I will opt out of the bruised body this year and just cuddle up to Nick while watching a movie. Happy 4 year anniversary babe, only 55,465,465,432,432,489,798,465,324,865,434,862 and more to go!

Getting ahead of myself.

2010-12-22T12:23:00.000-08:00

Since I know that the next 3 days will be spent doing my Christmas shopping because the title Master Procrastinator Slacker doesn't even begin to describe me, I decided to prep my blog for January. This way when my blog says "Happy New Year" it is acceptable for a three month neglect. For some reason I don't find Halloween ghosts appropriate for Christmas yuletide cheer but better luck next time. I have always been the queen of procrastination, my 15 page school papers were never written until the night before/the morning of whichever way you want to consider it when you are up writing until your carpool gets there and you hit print. I wonder if my friends ever noticed me wearing the same outfit two days in a row? I figured since we didn't have the same classes the next day it wasn't terribly noticeable. Then I graduated and vowed I would be better at turning my assignments in now that I was paying a million dollars for my own schooling and you have to add books and supplies onto that, but no, I would always find myself finishing my art project on my lunch break since I had class in two hours. How do you grade a "self portrait" that looks somewhat like a monkey, I tried to tell my teacher that I looked that on purpose and I was trying to capture some inner artist coolness... once again, better luck next time. I can name hundreds of other incidents wherein I procrastinate to the point that it is not even funny but I will spare you the visions of what you might get when I talk about what happens when I procrastinate getting out of bed on time. Anyway, the point of this long rant is to inform you that I have outsmarted my procrastinating self by updating my blog to something appropriate for the next three months. There is a way to win.

Happy Birthday To My Main Squeeze +

2010-12-17T14:44:00.000-08:00

Today is Nick's 24th birthday and he already received the only gift that I had gotten for him for his birthday so I feel like a complete failure. Nick's birthday always gets shoved into the back of the closet behind some large jeans I had when I went through my fat stage as a sophmore and also a sweater with fur on it that I can't bear to wear because I feel a little too Ed Hardy in it. I think that the cute Christmas background and header that should be on my blog instead of Halloween ghosts is back there too... It is because it is around crazy ThanksChristmasNewYear time where you spend the last two months of the year going through 30 tanks of gas, 5 pies, 2 sheets of brownies, 4 cartons of eggnog, 2 family houses, 100+ barrels of that tin canned cheesy/normal/caramel popcorn, two scales that crushed under your insanely disgusting increase in body weight and you haven't even reached New Years Eve yet. See, now all of the sudden we are talking about a triple holiday disaster and this is supposed to be an ode to Nick. Time to get back on track. So I give you 24 reasons my husband is better than yours.

1. He made me breakfast in bed, blueberry muffins and milk I should say, my Sunday favorite.
2. Even though he probably fears for his life that I am going to give him some awful haircut that resembles that of someone that cuts their own hair with a flobee, he lets me do it.
3. He lays on the floor to be by Shelbie when she is whiney even though it cakes his black slacks in 4 inches of dog hair that has to be vacuumed off by a vacuum with the sucking power of a supernatural black hole.
4. He always smells good. Always.
5. No matter how annoying my shrill voice that sounds like the guinea pig on G force gets, he says it's adorable.
6. He hasn't said a word about hearing me practice my weekly piano songs two hundred times before church on Sundays.
7. He is dead sexy. Booyahhh.
8. Even though they last for about 22.1 seconds, he gives wonderful back rubs.
9. He hasn't banned me from the kitchen even though any time I cook something on the stove top our entire house fills with smoke and permeates it with the scent of fajita chicken.
10. He asked me for a Christmas list even though he knew exactly what would be on it.
11. He may not admire the messes I make, but he always admires what comes out of those messes.
12. He is ok with the thousands of headbands and ribbons that assault him any time he tries to pick something up off of the bathroom counter.
13. He is a very hard worker and said this to me today, "Work is what we live for right?" I told him I had a list of better things in mind.
14. He is very dedicated and loyal. If anyone has any doubts in trusting anyone in this world, they need to meet Nick.
15. He never gives up on me, and tries to cheer me on despite the stresses he himself is under.
16. He is the best at Black Ops and will whoop you if ever given the chance.
17. He changed his shield on Xbox to pink because I told him he should to resemble me.
18. He is very clean and organized, a trait not common among the typical man.
19. He always puts the toilet seat down. Winner right here, I know. Envy me.
20. He is into staying healthy. I am into this because it means that if I play my cards right, he will outlive me by at least an hour which I am really counting on.
21. He always makes sure that I have the things I need, and even things I don't need.
22. He always protects me from the things that go bump in the night, even though it takes me ten minutes and 100 shakes to wake him up.
23. He can always come up with a random name for you on the spot like his mind has a roladex of silly words that he pieces together.
24. He loves me and Shelbie more than anything in the world even though we are a mess maker and a hair doner.

I love you babe! I hope you have a good birthday! You know in six months I will give you more gifts. xoxo.

1500+ Times Ironing and I'm Back

2010-12-07T19:24:00.000-08:00

**Disclaimer: The title could mislead the two of you that might read this to believe that I actually did the 1500+ irons, that is not true**
I haven't blogged in what, two months? I call it a case of massive writers block as in it could almost be a joke like 'Your writers block is so fat when it sits around the house, it sits AROUND the house.' Or this one which was always my personal favorite, 'Your writers block is so fat when it saw a schoolbus it yelled "CATCH THAT TWINKIE!"' Well I am here to tell you that something finally happened to break the cycles of the 'I honestly have nothing to write about' syndrome. Are the two of you interested in knowing what finally broke the cycle? An iron. As in an iron that you iron your clothes with. Yep, this post is all about the fact that my iron died and went to iron Heaven this morning. I know, what a boring thing to blog about huh? Wrong, you know why? Because if I were to tell you that my husbands hands are on an iron as much as a fourteen year old girls are on her cellphone, I would still be light years off. Nick's iron is his constant companion, always there to smooth away the problems... in other words: cheap therapy. When I heard him yell from the hallway where he does his ironing that our iron has bit the dust, the inside of me panicked. Thoughts just flew through my head: What is he going to finish his ironing with? I should go give him a comforting hug and tell him it's in a better place. I wonder if it has run into our first ironing board yet, you know the one with the squeak that the upstairs neighbors loved. What flowers should I get for the funeral? He broke my train of thought by reminding me that we did indeed have a backup. I sighed a giant sigh of relief. Shockingly enough, we only received two irons for our wedding. I am sure this next one is going to phase out quicker than the Backstreet Boys big comeback but it was nice to know that he had a backup plan. I should more appropriately refer to it as a rebound, it's hard to get over that first true love of your iron. There is only one problem, according to Nick it smells like an old person. First my gluten free cookies taste like an old person and now the iron smells like an old person, I am beginning to see a trend. Oh well, he has his new lady iron now that fits the perfect description of a rebound; inconvenient, wired, twice the size of your old one, looks like it's straight out of the 80's, and it smells. He's going to turn out just fine.

Environmentally Friendly Vs. Sanity Friendly

2010-09-15T13:42:00.000-07:00

Question for the three of you that still read this blog, have you bought a bag of Sun Chips recently? Ok, question number two, the second you touched it did it sound like your TV when you accidentally end up on the snowy screen with the volume full blast? You know the one that makes your heart fly out of your throat and for some reason you're scared? Yes, that was a confession that I find that completely terrifying. I can't stand how the second there is a slight movement against the bag I find myself running to Nick's gun case for a pair of earplugs it is so loud. I honestly think that bag might be louder than the following: a shotgun, my brother Mitchell, when Sarah used to blast No Doubt in her room, the lawn mower after I just ran over a tree, the loudest thunder you have ever heard, a five year old bearing their testimony in church, and that Mary lady that used to judge So You Think You Can Dance. That bag may be environmentally friendly but the only thing it makes me want to do is leave it there, sitting on the shelf, un-purchased, untouched, and uneaten. Do they really have to make it that loud? I bet there were two workers trying to develop the most annoying chip bag in the world because they wanted to find yet another way to annoy their wife, in the mean time the boss walks in and proceeds to question them wasting company time. They pull out a Twix, chew it over, and say "It's environmentally friendly?" And boom, it is now on the shelves, out of production, and the main reason why I try to avoid my pantry at all costs.

My Favorite Brother

2010-09-01T09:57:00.000-07:00

This is Mitchell, or hellMitch as I like to refer to him. Some exciting things have happened to him lately, he turned 19, got his mission call, and managed to go more than six months without being in a dress of some sort. Mitchell is going to Taiwan, am I ok with this? Absolutely not. It is too far away, but I do believe that God knew if he put him too close, our family would find a way to "accidentally" bump into him. If I had to describe Mitch in five words, I would use: hilarious, chivalrous, loud, thoughtful, diva. Yes, men can also be referred to as divas. Here is a list of 19 things I love about Mitchell.

1- Even when he is being completely annoying, you always know that you are going to laugh at some point.

2- He never gives up. (Meaning, he never gives up trying to get attention. Even if it is negative attention.)

3- He is smart, and the only child to succeed in making mother Kat not want to take them to the store.

4- He can tell you what kind of plane is flying overhead, with his eyes closed.

5- He can do the splits

6- He is the only person that comes close to beating me in a headstand competition.

7- He is a pogo stick master.

8- He didn't care that the stick on the Nintendo64 paddle was wearing giant holes into his palm while trying to beat Bowser in a tug-a-war. He was determined to win.

9- He always goes along with his sisters ideas, no matter how terrible they are.

10- He survived growing up with 4 sisters, a crazed female dog, and our mom.

11- He will sit in front of the computer for hours on his flight simulator. You can speed up the time, but he wants his flights to be realistic.

12- He wanted to purchase the Jet Blue fly anywhere pass just to be on an airplane everyday.

13- He can walk in heels.

14- He can walk in heels better than me.

15- He was in student government a few times which is no surprise because he is so outgoing.

16- He is a redhead that doesn't have a temper.

17- He has some seriously dancing skills.

18- He always asks me to go shopping with him even though I know he would be fine buying clothes on his own.

19- He does stuff like this...He titled it "The Perfect World"

And for a bonus...
(while I am at the gym)
Text from Mitch: Call me ASAP. It's an emergency. (This was after my gma just tried to call me.)
*I panic thinking that something was wrong with my grandma or grandpa so I call.*
Mitchell: "Can I wear purple with khaki?"

Love you Meech.

Wow.

2010-08-24T12:20:00.000-07:00

Have I neglected this blog or what? I can now add this to the list of things I have forgotten about. The list now stands at; shaving my legs, the goals of not drinking soda, finishing decorating my house BEFORE we have been in it for a year, and any new year resolutions I have made for the passed 23 years. A lot has happened since I have updated this thing, I had my 23 birthday (Which was the best birthday ever), we have been on some small vacations, and I have kissed this face over a thousand times. Your eyes are not tricking you, that is indeed my 5 month old nephew swimming. And speaking of babies, I just found out that I am going to have another nephew or niece to smother in kisses. Well enough with the happy stuff, I actually remembered I had a blog when I got into a parking lot altercation with a grown woman last night and thought about how I couldn't wait to slam her over the Internet. So mature I know. Here we go...
I have this thing with people leaving their cart in the middle of the parking lot, I know I have mentioned it a million times before. In fact, this annoyance is placed above the radio playing the same song on three stations at once, the band Nickleback, and when my gum runs out of flavor. I had to stop by Wal-mart on my way home, this automatically puts me in a bad mood. While I was going through the parking lot, I saw a space right next to the cart return, score! When I go to pull into it, there is a cart sitting in it with a small child screaming because her mom is on her cell phone and wont take her out of the cart. No big deal, I move to the space on the other side of the cart return. To my annoyance, the woman takes the kid out of the cart and proceeds to get into her giant black SUV without taking ten steps, if that, to put the cart in the return. I have had it at this point so I go grab the cart and push it not so gently into the return and give her the look of, "really lady?" While on her cell phone, she lifts up her arms and her face twists into all sorts of disgust and she says, "Ugh, what do you want me to do!?" There were a million things I thought of saying but I refrained and I will tell you why later. I just shook my head and kept walking and then heard her tell her phone buddy that some dumb girl in the parking lot was giving her grief. When I got home I told Nick what had happened and this is why I didn't verbally abuse her right then and there...
Me to Nick: "I really wanted to tell her what to do but now I have dark hair and that would be expected because people with dark hair are mean."

I am still adjusting from this...To this...

Breaking Up With Chevy

2010-07-22T09:28:00.000-07:00

Dear Cobalt of mine, Chevy (and you Chevy service department),
I am writing you this letter to let you know that we are most likely never going to make this work. I know I can't blame you for the tire of death or the fact that every time I get into my car and touch the steering wheel it grills my fingers like hot dogs it is so blasted hot but there are a few things that I can blame you for. I find it very inconvenient that every time I set my treble/bass levels to get just the right bump, you automatically set it back to the boring snoozefest levels it was at before whenever I change the station. I also blame you for the annoyance you cause me when you decide that shifting from one gear to the next doesn't need to be a smooth transition but a good hard jolt to make sure I am still awake. Well guess what Chevy, I am awake. The latest issue has just slammed the last nail into the coffin, why is it that you feel like every window in my car, besides the one window I need to roll down, should roll down smoothly? I know you are five years old but cars don't work in dog years or else that Corolla in the most recent Toyota commercial is immortal because they passed it down to their two, TWO, sixteen year old daughters. Even if you were to count in dog years, you would only be 35. 35 years old isn't even middle aged yet so I think you should take that into consideration before you start acting like you are going through car menopause with all your hot flashes and achy joints. I know this isn't all your fault car. I know the service department is the cause of most of these problems seeing that every time I take you in I receive you back in a lesser condition. See this time. But I can't really handle it anymore and will probably be jumping ship soon.

Sorry.

P.S. If you are doing all of this to get back at me for this time when I managed to scarily maneuver you through a fence and a pole, it wasn't my fault, not to mention you didn't even received a single scratch.

3 Weeks?

2010-07-09T08:15:00.000-07:00

According to blogger I haven't blogged in 3 weeks. I could just say that I wanted to give everyone time to read Nick's half birthday post but I won't. Where have I been? Most people disappear from their blog when they are pregnant and can't hold anything down long enough to type out a single sentence, however this is not the case with me. I am not with child, I am with stuff to do. When the weather is nice outside, I am sucked outside like a moth to the light. The Summer time is my favorite time, no more depressing mornings, no more roads covered in snow to worry about, no more wondering if when I open my garage it will be blocked by 5 feet of snow. But there are things to worry about, so here is what you get for waiting those three whole weeks to read another lame post by me...

Friday, June 18, my great grandma Lewis passed away. Now before anyone writes that they are sorry in the comments, you should know that she was 95 and had definitely served her time here. She was ready to go and we were ready for her to go. However I have the feeling that televangelists will see quite the drop in their monthly revenues and her Bible will miss being opened every day. Well I decided that I was going to go visit my grandma DeLange and take her some flowers because those make everyone feel better. I am driving on the freeway and talking to Sarah when I here this strange noise in front of me followed by a giant black flying saucer coming straight for my car. Did I swerve? Absolutely not. I didn't have much time to do anything before it smashed into my car and my heart started beating so fast I couldn't breathe. I would also like to point out that I didn't curse, almost, but didn't. When I got to Costco I got out of my car to look at the roof of it for any damage, nothing too bad, just some black skid marks from the almost tire of death. I walked into costco and before I bought flowers I took my blood pressure which informed me that I should seek medical attention immediately. Not really. I proceeded to buy flowers and headed over to grandma's. On my way out of grandma's house my mom was informing me that I probably should have gotten a license plate number but I tried to reassure her that no damage was done and besides that I had to get off the road as soon as possible because driving 65 while in cardiac arrest is not safe. The sun was hitting the windshield just right and I saw it, a big HUGE crack. I believe this is the point when I cursed. Now I am driving my car around with a broken windshield and I hate it but hey, at least I didn't eat tire for breakfast that morning.

Happy Half Birthday

2010-06-17T09:10:00.000-07:00

That is right, I celebrate half birthdays in my house. Why? Simply because I want to. Plus, Nick has his birthday dreadfully close to Christmas and a part of me feels bad that he doesn't get way awesome gifts twice because his wife isn't smart enough to stash money away and he is too kind and spends to much on me for Christmas, sucking any funds for me to use on him dry. Basically what you can get out of that way long sentence is that I feel bad that I get all the good stuff. Just another thing to add to the list of why Nick is so awesome. Since it is his half birthday I am going to list 11 (and a half) reasons why Nick is better than Edward Cullen, Almond Joy ice cream, and new socks.

1- Nick knows how to shop for gifts. (As you see above.) Since day 1 of being together he has always been very thoughtful. This means that I didn't have to hint or buy my own gifts. A quality desired by every woman.

2- Nick is extremely talented and I enjoy having a husband that doesn't suck at anything. Put something in front of him and he will figure it out. Show him how to do something and he will do it on his first try. Pure talent.

3- Nick ALWAYS smells good. You could consider this a talent if you wish.

4- Nick let me paint a wall orange, something that I thought was sure to give him a stroke when I asked. The best part, he picked the orange. I think I am rubbing off on him.

5- Nick puts his mind to something and sticks to it.

6- Nick likes peanut butter. You might find it lame, but it is a quality extremely desired by me.

7- On the way home from our vacation, Nick shielded my sunburned body and squinty eyes from the sun by sliding his chair forward and back. He has his chair where he wants it and finds it very comfortable, so for him to take it out of this position really showed me how much he values my skins condition.

8- Nick surfed behind a boat on his first try. Enough said.

9- Nick can pick you the best fruit with his eyes closed.

10- Nick is always willing to do whatever I need him to do. Whether it be me needing a pair of socks or the New Moon DVD from my parents.

11- Nick is very smart. I won't put what he got in school last semester because I posted it on facebook and the humble boy wasn't too pleased. Let's just say he is perfect.

1/2- Nick is the best

I Refuse.

2010-06-08T15:10:00.001-07:00

My life runs on a schedule, like clockwork. Has it always run this way? Absolutely not. Randomness just runs its course through my veins, constantly giving me weird ideas to skip across all the cracks in the sidewalks to prove it doesn't break my mom's back. I refuse to let myself fall into the group of people that have the same daily grind week after week. I am here to tell you ways that you can shake things up a bit when you feel like your life is becoming too much of a robotic motion. I leave the house at the same time every morning, walking the same path, so to distract my body from the monotonous task of walking down the same steps as I have the past five months, I skip one or two... or five. Whatever I see fit. Oh and if you are wondering about an exciting way to get up the stairs, there is no walking necessary. Just place your head on the next step up and somersault your way to the top. Warning, this may leave you temporarily blind due to a massive black out. Aside from this totally freaking Shelbie out, it is awesome. I hadn't really noticed how much I do these weird things until a couple things happened recently. One, someone noticed that I always jump off the last step, in heels. Asking what would posses me to do such a stupid thing when I am already so awkwardly clumsy, I gave them the true and honest Amanda answer of, "I don't know. Cheap entertainment?" But I realized it is just another way to break up the boring stair stepping at work. Second, I recently ran into something that usually isn't there. I can break up my schedule and every day path because it is my choice, but when someone or should I say something messes it up, it scares the living heck out of me. After work I walk out the same door, look down at my phone and dial the same number and step off the same wheelchair ramp at the small 8 inch drop, this is my little thrill for the day. Well, the other day when I walked out that same door, looked down to dial the same number and stepped off of the same wheelchair ramp, my ribs and elbow were met with a thud and my body jerked back and I might have peed my pants. I thought that the UPS truck had backed into me and I had just been run over by it, when in fact, my work decided that instead of repairing the railing inside that almost caused an EMT to tumble down the stairs while carrying out a co-worker at a highly stressful and life threatening time, they would install this beauty. A railing to the wheelchair ramp. I see this as yet another thing that is going to be an obstacle in my life. I am ready.

I Do Pick Favorites.

2010-06-07T13:19:00.000-07:00

This is my favorite person. If I compared people to food, Nick would be my Oreo's. He is the ultimate treat and I sure do love this boy. Nick is a very good husband, he is always keeping track of everything, I mean EVERYTHING. I think the only time I have seen a bill is when it somehow ended up being mailed to my parents house and I had to transport it safely to Nick's bill holder, which sometimes doesn't happen due to the mess in my car and my lack of responsibility. If I had to rate our responsibility on a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate mine at a -2 and Nicks at a solid 1,000,000,000. It is like he has this planner in his head that is perfectly color coded and dated and has a timer that goes off five minutes before the time the event is scheduled. Nick is a life saver, whether it be me needing him to pop me a bag of popcorn because my sunburned skin is making my body go into a state of temporary paralysis or if he is just supposed to hold me and let me cry, he doesn't care because that is who he is. Nick is a strong comforter and I love that. There is one thing that Nick has had to put up with a lot lately and I don't know how he can stand it. After I fall asleep, it seems like my brain falls into this black hole where everyone and everything is out to get me, I have a child, and there are constant swarms of balloons on my ceiling being sucked into my ceiling fan. I have the most wild night terrors that end up with me freaking out in my half sleep. I will be sitting up, wild hair and all, telling Nick not to squish the baby or telling him that Shelbie is wearing a gold medal (you can blame the hours and hours of Olympic watching on that one.)But Nick is very good at explaining to me that there is nothing there, nothing to be afraid of, and helping me realize that the two albino king of hearts that I saw coming at me last night were not really there. I am glad I get to sleep next to this boy every night. Especially now that Shelbie and her giant tufts of hair, that I could mistake for a teddy bear, have been exiled from our bed, which is another story for later. Love you Nick.

Well Then...

2010-05-21T13:07:00.001-07:00

Up until recently I wasn't a fan or user of predictor text or T9 or whatever kids are calling it these days. With my old phone it had the little QWERTY keyboard so I had to type out each word individually and I was perfectly fine with that since I was typing at a killer rate of one billion WPM. With my new phone, the keyboard is bigger an awkwardly uncomfortable so I was forced to go back to my roots of predictor text on the touch screen. At first I was texting slower than my grandma on a bad day, but now I am back to cruise mode. However, since my fingers are moving at the speed of lighting and I hit send faster than Bob Ross can paint a happy little stream, I don't get to proof read my messages. I have begun to notice a trend in my replies, people are usually writing back stuff like "oreo?", "choco?", and "coke?" just to name a few. I wont continue for the sake of this blog remaining at the steady rating of PG-13 1/2. Apparently I type oreo more than the word open, crave Coke more times than I am cold, and say the word chocolate more than any other word in the dictionary of my texts. How I manage to stay under 500 pounds is a question I ask myself every time I eat a candy bar for lunch. I have a problem that needs to be addressed. Until then, I am going to finish up the frozen yogurt I bought for lunch.

ABC's of Me & Nick

2010-05-17T12:21:00.000-07:00

Because nothing has happened to me since the last post that I could exaggerate to the point of entertainment. Mine are the top, Nick's are the bottom. I should also let you all know that I answered for Nick...

A - Age: 22... But the new thing lately is for people to come to my front door and kindly ask for my parents.
A - Age: 23... He doesn't have any problems looking his age.

B - Bed Size: California King :)
B - Bed Size: The 4 inches on the right side of the bed.

C - Chore you hate: All of them.
C - Chore you hate: Laundry and cleaning up after Amanda's "Chores"

D - Dog's name: Shelbie bunny bear
D - Dog's name: Shelbie scoopy scout bean buddy sprinkle bottom

E - Essential start your day item: Hair brush, definitely the hair brush.
E - Essential start your day item: Contacts (So he can see what stuff of mine he just tripped over.)

F- Favorite Color: Pink
F- Favorite Color: Red

G - Gold or Silver: White gold.
G - Gold or Silver: Platinum. <-- I answered that for him. He has expensive taste.

H - Height: 5'3" I am a huge lurp
H - Height: 5'10"

I - Instruments you play(ed): piano
I - Instruments you play(ed): Does the flute in Zelda count? <-- I answered that as well.

J - Job title: Purchasing Assistant, mess maker, wife.
J - Job title: 401K administration assistant, mess cleaner, husband.

K - Kid(s): Shelbie 2 1/2
K - Kid(s): Shelbie 2 1/2, Amanda 22

L - Living arrangements: I own a humble abode.
L - Living arrangements: A home that is being taken over by Amanda's mess.

M - Mom's name: Kathleen Venus.
M - Mom's name: Kay

N - Nicknames: Mandy, ameanda, mand, buddy, Megan.
N - Nicknames: Babe, schweetie, lovey, bub, Adam.

O - Overnight hospital stay other than birth: Uhh. Pass.
O - Overnight hospital stay other than birth: See above.

P - Pet Peeve: Watered down soap... shudder.
P - Pet Peeve: Messes, and the spot of paint that is a small shade darker than the rest.

Q - Quote from a movie: Oh you guys made me ink.
Q - Quote from a movie: Hmm, I am going to go ahead and say he would say his favorite quote from a video game instead, "Headshot."

R - Right or left handed: righty tighty.
R - Right or left handed: righty

S - Siblings: Four. Sister sister brother sister.
S - Siblings: Four. Brother brother sister sister.

T - Time you wake up: 5:30 physically. 9:00 mentally.
T - Time you wake up: 5:29 (internal alarm clock, lucky guy huh.)

U- Underwear: You know it.
U- Underwear: None... <-- Once again I answered that for him. Is it true? Probably not.

V-Vacation favorite? Ohhh Mexico. anddd SEAWORLD! and we can't forget about Lake Powell.
V - Vacation favorite? Anywhere.

Y-Year Married? 2007
Y - Year Married? 2007

Z - Zoo favorite: Penguins or giraffes <3
Z - Zoo favorite: Interesting, I don't know this :( Help me out Nick.

Little Man Bo

2010-05-07T10:26:00.000-07:00

No I haven't forgotten that my sister gave birth to the most adorable baby boy. It is a little hard to forget that after 1- making a paper chain that counted down from 207 days left, and 2- sitting in the hospital waiting area for a good 5 hours. Oh and the fact that my sister had one heck of a recovery and a birth that didn't happen the way anyone was planning on makes it a little hard to look past. I was so sure that she would deliver in heels while cutting someones hair. Bo was in there for so long that we all expected him to come out and walk straight to kindergarten. In true Sorensen fashion, Bo was late. However, he was well worth the wait, just look at this face. Oh yeah, he was born March 3 and was 8 lbs 10 oz.

Obvious Depth Perception Issues.

2010-04-27T08:11:00.000-07:00

I know for a fact that I am not the only person that does this, but I manage to do it so gracefully that it is now an art. For some reason my body loves to think that it is on the last step of the stairs and for some strange reason when it realizes that it isn't, it decides that falling flat on the floor is the best possible solution. I used to do this all of the time going down the stairs to my apartment because there were only four steps, it is easy to confuse yourself on a short flight of stairs. Luckily for me, it would just end with me slamming into the back door and receiving a decent sized bruise. Nothing too dramatic. I think that there was only one time that it ended in me being face to face with the cement and dried leaves that had blown into the little landing. I was wearing four inch heels and had no chance of catching my unexpected body weight on my left foot. As a matter of fact, there is only one person that I would ever guess could do that and it is because she lives in heels. Yes, I am convinced Sarah could have stayed standing. Anyway, on Sunday I had the worst stair missing experience, I was taking Shelbie downstairs to go to the bathroom and out of no where went tumbling into the unknown, hitting the bottom step and ending on the cold hard tile. How I didn't break something I don't know. I was trying to figure out what happened besides the obvious of a grown woman falling down the stairs for no reason other than she just wasn't paying attention. I realized that I remembered seeing the window fly past me as I was swan diving into the tile so I went into CSI mode and found what step had strange markings to show exactly what step I was on when I thought I was at the bottom. No big deal, just four steps up. I have officially just crossed over into the poor depth perception club.

The Newest Member of the Fankhauser Family

2010-04-13T08:05:00.000-07:00

This is Bosch, she hails from Orem, was sired by Bosch Kitchen Center and has an extremely impressive pedigree. That is right, this baby is pure bread. Ok I am done talking about my mixer like it is a pure bread dog sired from nothing but the finest of the breed. However there are some people that believe that about a Bosch, yes you gma D and Mrs. Kay. I can see it now, like a scene out of The West Side Story, the Kitchen-Aid crew facing off with the Bosch crew, snapping and creeping toward each other wielding spatulas and cookie paddles, rattling off the best bread recipes in their frilly flour covered aprons. I have a feeling that I will spend most of my time after work standing over this mixer and trying to come up with the best bread substitutions known to man. Will this new addition bring neglect to Nick? The answer is no, he is busy slaving away in college, packing his brain with information about Utah's diversity and criminal studies. What about Shelbie? Shelbie doesn't have anything to worry about, she isn't being replaced. However, I would almost a mixer share the bed with Nick and I seeing that it doesn't have four spasmatic limbs that whack us in the face like 2X4's all night long, long hair to inhale during a peaceful nights sleep, or an undying need for your undivided constant attention in the middle of a good dream. But who can resist this face?

Thievery

2010-04-06T14:03:00.000-07:00

When I didn't want to blog about the things I have to blog about because the usual stretched truth might turn into something stretched so far that the National Enquirer beats down my door asking about Shelbie and her ability to speak ten sentences in pig Latin, I decided to steal a quick blogging idea off of Megan and BreeAnn's blog. It is a list of 100 things that one loves so I give you 25 things that I love in no particular order because 100 is just too many for me to think about...

1- Nick. Always surprising me lately and I love it. And he plays a mean Joseph if anyone would like to borrow him for your ward's nativity.

2- Shelbie Patricia Dawn Scooter Boots with the Fur Sprinkle Bottom Baggy Sweat Pants Reebok's with the Straps Toaster Strudel Dragon Chest Friendship Head Chocolate Pudding Cup Graham Cracker Skeeter Scooter Bear... Fankhauser.

3- New socks. I would almost do anything for new socks, even eat a plate of broccoli and iron my clothes.

4- Chapstick. Couldn't live without it. Literally. I tried and my lips all but fell off.

5- My pink Christmas tree. It helps get me excited for Christmas before December 24th.

6- My Dad and all of his silly little sounds and dad humor jokes. Also, that he quotes inappropriate lines from the Nutty Professor and Throw Mama From the Train at random times.

7- My Mom and all of her generosity. Also, she is always up for doing things that us kids come up with, except for the time Mitchell tried to convince her to go for a ride in the garbage can.

8- New shoes. There is just something about having yet another pair of shoes to lay around the house and trip over that I love. (If Nick had a dislike list, this would be almost at the top. It would sit under "When Amanda doesn't clean off the stove.")

9- My sisters and sister-in-laws. They are all so different and I love that, our family has such a wide range of personality, talent and humor. My sisters are always so much fun.

10- My brother and brother-in-laws. I just saw a photo album of Mitch on facebook that had him in his white undershirt and a pair of one of his girlfriends zebra striped spankies. I laughed after I threw up.

11- The movie The Labyrinth. No explanation needed.

12- When I go a day without completely smashing some part of my body on a railing, door frame or random object reaching out to grab me. These days are rare.

13- Pumpkin pie. My mouth is watering at the thought of it. Up until I was 12, I only ate chocolate satin pie because everything else looked repulsive. I remember thinking how gross pumpkin pie sounded but once I tasted it, by force, I couldn't get enough.

14- Cereal. There is nothing better than a bowl full of cereal. Maybe a bowl full of Winger's sticky fingers, but not likely.

15- Singing as loudly and annoyingly as I want in the car while dancing around so terribly that everyone stares. Nick might think he has seen it all but he hasn't. I wouldn't embarrass him like that. Just imagine a fish being tased while trying to drive the car.

16- Harmon's Grocery store. I no longer feel like I am in the Grocery Cart Indie 500 and everyone is throwing elbows and trampling me after I try to help up a set of triplets and their grandma after I so rudely ran them over when I was rear-ended by an aggressive child driven cart.

17- Bubble gum, I am a sucker for tasty gum.

18- Making music videos. Especially when they include Mitchell in drag doing a mean Lady Gaga.

19- Dipping a junior bacon cheeseburger in my frosty because it makes eating it without the bun that much better.

20- Being able to run more than one lap around the track. I used to run around once, lay on the ground, put up a speed bump sign and die.

21- My mother-in-law and her gift of making the most delicious cinnamon rolls in the universe.

22- My father-in-law and his patience to cut thousands of wood blocks so that his daughters can craft. Also, his talent of installing a water softener so that his sad dry skinned flake of a daughter in law no longer has to peel away into a pile of whiny dry skin cells.

23- A water softener. See above. Without a water softener it is like someone hooks up a vacuum that molds to my body and sucks ever drop of moisture right out before stomping on my toe and telling me to catch it if I can.

24- Pens that don't die on me in the middle of filling out a bank drive through slip. Also, days that I remember to put the little transporter tube back in the slot where it belongs. There is nothing worse than being late, two blocks away from the bank and realizing that tube number five is sitting nice and cozy in your passenger seat. Oh wait there is, it is the moment when you have to walk into the bank and give it back.

25- Having the life I have.

New Blog For All You Gluten Free Followers!

2010-03-31T12:06:00.000-07:00

I was starting to get some fellow celiac followers on here, which is fine with me, however I thought it would be so much more fun if I had a gluten free blog (found here) so I don't have to bombard everyone with my gluten free recipes and dramas of trying to substitute flours and such. I have decided it would be so much more fun if I dragged the husband into the middle of it so that there is an honest opinion from someone that's taste buds have seen the likes of gluten recently. I know that it is rare for both partners to have this problem and it is no fun cooking two separate meals so Nick and I, mostly his poor taste buds and I, are on a quest to find the best of the best to ease the pain and frustration of trying to find a compromising meal. In other words, if I wasn't forcing this on Nick he would be eating his usual sandwich, frozen pizza or burrito for dinner every night and I would sit happily over a bowl of gluten free chex. I will still be posting on this blog just like I do now, I will just be throwing out recipes and tales of failure and success of g-free cooking elsewhere. A lot of the recipes are converted to be g-free so everyone else feel free to stop by and find something for you too!

Surprise Cake!

2010-03-30T08:32:00.001-07:00

I keep meaning to post this but all these other things I have to complain about keep getting in the way. If you are wondering, I am still dreaming about having a mixer. I need one. NEED. Anyway, back to the cake. My mom loves rainbows, as do I. My grandma Sorensen always makes this amazing rainbow jello that takes hours and looks so awesome when it is finished, I have always loved it. As a matter of fact, I wasn't a huge fan of jello until grandma's rainbow jello. In November, I stumbled upon a website with a rainbow layered cake. Watterfalls of drool poured from my mouth as I tried to come up with a reason to make this. I knew better than to make it for Nick's birthday. I instantly thought of my mom but could hardly stand to wait that long to try it, but I did. I had to recruit a set of extra hands and of course it would be the Ace of Cakes, Alisha. We went and picked up all the ingredients the night before my mom's birthday, which happened to be a Saturday night. We did all sorts of things wrong so I will just start from the beginning, which happened to be at the convenient time of 10 PM. First we mixed all the cake mix together and separated it into six different bowls, then we colored each cake mix until we got the perfect colors. The purple somehow got cut off from the picture. How could I? Once we did this, we were ready to bake! How easy I thought... First problem, I only bought one round cake pan to make a "supposed to be six" layered cake, making it so that we could only cook one layer at a time. I banged my head twice on the granite counter top. Oh well, in went the first layer. We decided to play some guitar in between layers so we weren't just sitting there drooling over bowls full of colorful cake mix. The red layer was complete so we popped it out and poured in the orange mix, here is the second mistake, we forgot to spray the pan... twenty minutes later when we went to pop it out, half fell out and the other half crumbled into a sad heap on the plate. I slammed my head in the oven door. Here is the third mistake, I was so mad that I decided we should eat all the orange cake since we couldn't just throw it away. The flour in my stomach reacted like a monkey banging cymbals while rollerblading to Vanilla Ice's Ice Ice Baby. We continued on with the rest of the colors flawlessly. I figured the hard part was over once we had them all finished and in the refrigerator for the night. It was a little after 2 AM so we had to call it quits. I have the dreaded late church so that gave us plenty of time to frost the cake in the morning, so I thought... We had frosted in between all of the layers without very many crumbles to spoil the surprise, I had gone around the outside and the top and we were beaming at the sight of the finished product. I was going around the cake and giving it a little texture and just when I did the very last swirl... the cake tipped over off the cake stand and went rolling across the table. Yes, I did cuss. Loudly. Lucky for us, none of the cake broke so I picked it up and put it back on the plate and off we went to break the sabbath for three more tubs of frosting. I think this was justifiable, don't judge me. This is my mother's birthday cake we are talking about. After we got back, I frosted it even more carefully and threatened anyone that even thought of breathing within twenty feet of the cake. It was finished, finally. Transporting the cake was horrifying but we made it, and it paid off. My mom had no idea and that in itself was worth it.

...

2010-03-29T12:48:00.000-07:00

There just isn't a title for this post. My Nick who used to never ever drink soda now occasionally drinks soda when I tempt him. It all started when we were on the airplane to California for our honeymoon. He asked the flight attendant for a Coke, I swear my eyes fell out of my head and the attendant asked if she could put them in my carry on. His reasoning is that airplanes make him sick and the Coke would help. I, being the nice wife, let it slide. How come I can drink gallons of soda in any way shape or form and he can't? Because, Nick doesn't sit in the same bracket us people that can't control ourselves do. Nick is in his own bracket titled the 'I can restrain myself from ingesting anything if I want bracket.' I know I have mentioned before about him being vegetarian because he wanted, not eating any of my sweets because he wanted and NOT DRINKING ANY SODA BECAUSE HE WANTED. Are you all jealous? I know I am. After much reflection I realized that these things could be the reason why over the three years we have been married his medical expenses have been sitting at a constant zero dollars. Well I decided that I was going to stop drinking soda because it was becoming a need, not just a want. I got to the point where every time I drove past del taco I just had to stop for a cherry coke because they have the best cherry coke. So there, I am just going to stop drinking soda cold turkey because I say so. It works for Nick so I will make sure it works for me. Oh and you know what else, this makes me feel better... yesterday Nick ate peanut butter chocolate kiss cookies so he does crack on occasion. This is how it all went down...

Scene: We just walked into my parents house

Me: I halt to a dead stop like I just slammed into a cinder block wall... "Oh.my.gosh. I smell peanut butter, in that kitchen there is peanut butter cookies." My head hangs low.

Nick: "What? No, I don't smell anything."

Me: "Yes Nick I swear to you there is peanut butter something in there. Either peanut butter no bakes or just peanut butter cookies."

The debate continues until we walk in and see that I am indeed correct.

Shanna: "Have a cookie Nick."

Nick: "No Thank you."

I was so so impressed because I know that Nick loves peanut butter cookies.

5 minutes later...

Nick: "Ok, I will eat just one for Amanda."

10 minutes later he has consumed more cookies than just one. If anyone ever wants to get past Nick, make him peanut butter cookies.

Good Riddance

2010-03-24T09:03:00.000-07:00

Today is the last full day that I will spend with this awful front tooth. It has been with me through so many memories and will I miss it? Hmmm, no. Ok, maybe a little because I am a terribly sentimental person and I keep everything and anything that has a story tied to it. From a plastic pink lemonade bottle all the way down to a single gum wrapper at one point in my life. I eventually got rid of the lemonade bottle but they sat on my shelf for quite some time. It wasn't that bad getting rid of that because the story didn't mean too much to me anymore but I will hold on to that gum wrapper because it will always remind me of dating Nick and arguing over sluffing weights because I just really didn't want to go. I was such a bad influence... The straight A student meets the average C, fortunately my grades went up and his stayed the same. My "strong tooth," as someone once called it, could possibly be missed. Will I keep it if they ask if I want too? Creepy, but maybe. It might end up in the top ten strangest things I have in my special book. It might even top the list... I'll let you decide.

In no particular order

1- A pill cam from a test that is supposed to track your digestion and take pictures all along the way to make sure you are functioning as you should, well we all know I don't and that little pill of technology that cost an entire paycheck got stuck in my stomach and had to be thrown up. Results of the test are obviously pending, I don't think I will ever try this again.

2- A broken heart pendant from a necklace that cost about $2.00. Nick and I were on one of our first dates downtown and running across the street when the pendant fell off and broke. I stopped in the middle of downtown traffic to pick it up. I have had it ever since.

3- A plastic one cent giraffe straw that I won from arcade tickets and gave to Nick so technically this should go in his book but we all know how much he loves clutter and useless junk :)

4- A plastic baggy with a couple of Shelbie's puppy teeth. This freaks me out to even type this because that is really weird. Maybe I could start a tooth collection. Just call me the tooth fairy.

5- A picture made in the middle of a downpour when I was about 10. I put my paper on the wet sidewalk and waited until it was soaked, then drew on it with chalk. I picked it up carefully and carried it inside where it took a couple days to dry.

6- A broken flower beaded necklace and turquoise frog earring from the first year our family started the yearly trips to Lake Powell. When jumping on the tramp I lost the other earring so I put the one in my special book so when I went back I could get another. I know that earrings come in pairs but I said that I would keep the old and get rid of one of the new. Told you I was weirdly sentimental.

7- A rusty washer found on the construction sight while building our house.

8- A drawing I did of a lion in colored pencil when I was 7 that I thought was the best drawing ever.

9- Pipe cleaner figurines I did of Nick and I while sitting at my kitchen table at home when we were dating. They sat on top of my bed until I got married and have been in my special book since.

10- 50 or so hospital bands. I keep every single one. Nick never understood it, neither do I, but I keep them anyway.

What's the weirdest thing you have?

Houston, We Have a Problem

2010-03-23T14:53:00.000-07:00

Big problem, MASSIVE problem. I am going to clear this up right now before I write the next sentence and everyone blows up my phone with texts and calls, I am NOT pregnant. However, I am craving and dreaming about food like a pregnant woman. I am on this cleanse/weed out your allergies/ diet thing and it is kicking my butt. It is harder for most people because you have to go without breads and grains for six weeks but luckily I am used to that part so that tips success a little bit more in my favor. However this tips it back so far it does a complete circle and lands back on the fail side, no sugar or dairy for eight weeks. EIGHT WEEKS. That knocks out the two meals of cereal I eat every day. I have been ok so far, I have only had to pop one vile of Zip Fizz to get me back on my feet. My body isn't used to a lack of sugar in the slightest bit. I will tell you however I feel much better. I sleep through the whole night and wake up pretty refreshed and ready to go. That in itself is worth it. Anyway, that isn't what this post is about, it is about the fact that I have gone from not caring much for food, to cooking a little bit, to dying to cook and obsessing over gluten free recipes that I can't wait to try. Obsessed I am telling you. I have already compiled a word document full of breads, crackers, dinners, lunches, breakfasts and most importantly, desserts and it is burning a hole in my computer and all but printing itself, begging to be used. I am counting down the weeks until the diet ends and I can attempt these things. However, I ran into another problem/obsession, I am now obsessed with the thought of owning a mixer since to make a successful loaf of bread, that doesn't taste like a kitchen sponge, you need one. Until I get one I am going to be dreaming about a mixer serenading a box of donuts in a window balcony while I shed a tear from the box I reserved to the Opera called "Crumbdonio and Wheatbreadet."

Happy Birthday Baby Sister

2010-03-22T14:58:00.001-07:00

Today is my baby sisters birthday. Most people know her by the name that is printed on her birth certificate but to me she is "Squid." Why squid? I don't know, it just had a nice ring to it. Squid is such an amazing little musician and artist it is hard to believe she is only 15. She wanted a guitar so bad so my parents bought her the learning musician (piece of wood with strings) from Target and told her that if she wrote some of her own songs by Christmas, they would buy her a new one. She not only wrote a couple, I believe she wrote around 13. She is such a natural and has the most beautiful strong voice, next time you see her with her guitar in tow, remember to ask to hear a song. Squid and I have lots of fun together and love to get together and "jam" on our guitars and I love that. So here are 15 little interesting facts about her...

1- From age 1-3 she believed she was a lion... Scar from Lion King to be exact. She would hide under the table in nursery, clawing and growling at helpless toddlers saying, "Me am Scaw (Scar)."

2- From age 3- hmm 11 she believed she was a horse, she had a beautiful trot and canter. It was so funny to see her on her hands and knees trotting around the living room.

3- She would always come up with the funniest facial expressions/phrases, like this one, "eat your heart out paper boy."

4- She drew/draws so many horse pictures, she could wall paper the white house.

5- When she laughs, she wheezes like an old man. The only way to describe it is a silent cackle.

6- She makes a mean peanut butter and chocolate chip soup in the microwave.

7- She is an ace of cakes. We stayed up until 2 AM making my mom's special bday cake and she had done such a good job before my idioticness destroyed it the next morning (post coming soon.)

8- She is a very good writer. Her small little stories that she began writing years ago surpass regular children's.

9- She is musically talented, her amazing piano skills, guitar skills and singing skills are all self taught.

10- She has a very contagious smile, and can hunt out the best commercials/YouTube videos.

11- She is also a softball player and this is a direct quote from her after hitting a home run, "Can't I just wave to the crowd and sit down? It isn't fair I have to run all the way around the bases."

12- She and I spent two hours doing nothing but making stupid cell phone videos and sending them to Mitchell after eating an entire asphalt pie. My kind of sleepover.

13- She has seen Spirit, Stallion of the Cimmaron more times than the video editors.

14- She has seen Phantom of the Opera more times than the video editors.

15- She would probably stake outside of Edward Cullen's house until she died if he were real.

Love you Squid! Squidly! Squidiot!

Super Husband

2010-03-16T13:11:00.000-07:00

The longer I am married to Nick, the more I realize how good I have it. Last night I called Nick to see if he would like to accompany me to the grocery store and he was tired so I decided I would be brave and go it alone. Why is this bravery? Because I wasn't just buying two or three things that are clearly labeled. I was buying produce. This requires me to venture into more than two isles and I am getting anxiety thinking about it. Not only do I have to go on a mad hunt for things, I am talking about you stupid salad supreme, I have to actually pick my own produce. You all just rolled your eyes and vowed to throw a tomato at me next time you see me but you don't understand. On top of the fact that I never eat the stuff, Nick worked in produce and can pick you the best produce out of a pile of trash. He could win a gold medal if it was an Olympic sport. It took me a good hour to pick out the five produce items I needed and I will not name them for the sake of everyones last straw that is sure to be broken if you know the lameness that is my dillema. So what should have been a simple half hour trip to the store for a normal person, and a ten minute trip for Nick, was an hour+ of agony and rolling my ankle over with the cart when I realized it was easier to pull it backwards than to continue turning the cart around and going back and forth again because I couldn't spot the romaine. This just became another reason why I absolutely have to keep Nick around. Here is some of my list so far...

-Nick, unlike most men, includes vacuuming in his hobbies. He loves it.

-Nick not only loves his clothes to be freshly ironed, he irons his own. That is right ladies, read it and weep. The only time I touch an iron is on Sundays if I absolutely have to.

-Nick is super clean, he could be home all day while I am at work and I would never know it. He leaves everything looking untouched, unused and sparkly clean. (On a side note, Nick is so stealthy he doesn't even move dust particles in his path. It is a big joke in the family, he is always disappearing and reappearing like his existence is hooked to a strobe light.)

-Nick takes care of all the finances and pays the bills. Need I say more.

-Nick always does the grocery shopping (Except for in cases like last night. Number of times I have been grocery shopping by myself, 2.)

-Nick says stuff like this, "I wish you wouldn't cook at all. It tastes good, you just make a mess."

A Letter To The Tooth Fairy

2010-03-10T09:55:00.001-08:00

Dear tooth fairy,
Remember that summer, the summer of '02, when my tooth had a run in with some trouble? No? Ok let me remind you. For sympathy purposes keep in mind that this was the summer before high school, I believe it was the Saturday before I started school to be exact. I was good all summer long, only took about 4 hits to the face via softball and 1 hit to the face via Shanna. I managed to avoid permanent damage both times and went to bed smiling and you were up in tooth heaven or wherever you were (most likely the room below me) wiping the sweat off your brow and fist bumping your husband. On that fateful last day of Summer before my life ended and I began high school I decided to go out bowling with some friends. I can't even tell you how many times I have been bowling but I can tell you that the only bad thing that had ever happened to me up until that point was stepping over the line into the lane grease and tearing my groin muscle all while having the wind knocked out of me. Therefore I considered bowling to be harmless. I am walking back from the bathroom to my lane with my friends when I hear this strange thud/smack/did a pumpkin just fall out of the sky onto my head sound and the power went out... in my brain. When I opened my eyes I was greeted by what seemed to be a wet t-shirt contest in my face, but I knew it was all wrong because his shirt was red. Then I could taste it, blood running out of my mouth and down my throat. I pushed him off of me and punched him so hard in the stomach I think I hit his spine. What kind of idiot stands on the carpeted pedestrian area practicing his swing? One of my friends. (Don't worry we aren't friends anymore. Totally different story.) He caught the side of my face with a bowling ball and so nicely knocked my front tooth all out besides a teenie tiny piece. Long story short I am now left with a porcelain tooth that cost more than most nice sets of china. Another long story short, it feels like someone is stabbing the inside of it with a ball point pen. Point of this letter made short, I was never paid for that tooth and I charge interest so I will have the dentist forward you my bill and we will call it even.

Sincerely,
the girl you never paid for her precious lateral incisor

If Only Nails Had The Nutritional Value Of Broccoli

2010-03-04T12:16:00.000-08:00

Not only is Nick getting really sick of the fact that I am constantly biting my nails, but I am. On top of it being really gross, it is really really gross. You would think since I hate germs and go into panic attacks if I don't wash my hands within five minutes of eating dinner, I wouldn't have this problem. I swear I was born biting my nails. Well it is time to try and kick this habit again. I posted a while back that I had broken my first ever real nail, I just went down hill from there and started munching on them again like they were cheese sticks. I would like to make a little side note that right now they have the smallest sliver of white on them. This is huge for me because my nails are generally bleeding they are so short. <-- I wrote that part of this post yesterday, I am now two slivers of white down... Anyway, I don't just do it when I am nervous, I do it while driving, working, reading, watching TV, laying in bed trying to sleep. I had a doctor that suggested I wear gloves ALL. THE. TIME. Who wants to bet me twenty bucks that I would chew right through them? Well I now have a motivator and it is really surprising what it is. After years of chipping off nasty nail polish so I could get to my nails without a bitter taste, my mom threatening to rub them in dog poop, and Nick being the nail police, I am going to make a better effort. You know why? Because Nick told me once I grow out my nails, I can paint walls in my house. Why is this such a motivator? Because I absolutely loathe white walls. I hate them more than wet jeans, cupcakes without frosting, and reading that something contains wheat, combined. Not only do they not feel welcoming or home-y but it is so bright. After three years in a basement apartment and three in an office with no windows, you become accustomed to the dark. I now get terrible headaches when it is bright out because my eyes haven't seen the light of day in months, this is also the cause of my albino like appearance. Back to the point, the light just bounces right off all the white walls and straight into my retinas and this and my hatred for white walls combined are just the motivator I need. So look out white walls, me and my nail-less nasty man hands are about to become your worst nightmare. Someone get me some gloves.

It Really Isn't Funny.

2010-02-23T14:44:00.000-08:00

I know this question has been asked by a million people but I am still going to ask, why is a funny bone called a funny bone? Anything I can possible smash, ding or full on destroy with my elbow is always pulling them in like a giant magnet. And you know what else? When I hit it, I don't laugh, I don't even giggle, as a matter of fact it happens so often now I don't do much of anything besides letting out a possible little sigh. I used to wheeze and curl up into the fetal position on the floor while screaming that my hand is on fire and for Nick to grab a bowl of ice and the chocolate chips while he is at it. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, is either at the perfect inconvenient height or swings out at just the most awful position. The doorknobs for example, my elbow matches up with them with such perfectness that I swear they were made to torment me like my middle school gym teacher. Always nagging and reaching out telling me to get over there this instant and my elbows happily oblige. Then there are chairs, the backs of mine, my inlaws and my parents just suck my elbows in like two middle schoolers that just discovered making out for the first time, and hitting my elbow on them is pretty much just as enjoyable as my first time making out so that was a very good analogy. My elbows now have a new best friend, the banister in my house. I hit it so often and so hard that I considered unscrewing it from the wall, puttying the holes, painting over them and putting the banister up a few feet higher all while Nick was at school. I think it was within the first few days of moving into our house that the banister and I met. I remember that I came down on it so hard that my teeth hit together and my shoulder dislocated, I have never seen Nick's head snap up so fast. This is how the rest went...

Me: (Huddled over grabbing onto my elbow and trying to tell Nick where my will is in the pile of a hundred boxes.)
Nick: (Clearly distraught and quickly running over.) Geez, is the rail ok?
Me: (Standing up like I am totally fine and clearly pissed off.) Thanks for being so concerned with the rail.

After I stomped downstairs and sulked over a bowl of cereal I realized how ridiculous that was of me. Poor Nick has seen me hit my elbows thousands of times and now he assumes that I will just shake my head and continue on with my business. I guess he didn't realize that I had never been subjected to the physical abuse of a banister so it was an all new angle to my bone. I am happy to announce that after a couple of months it is just another crappy elbow to railing make out session waiting to happen.

I Learn A Little More Each Time

2010-02-19T12:25:00.001-08:00

I have been cooking lately. Huge shock I know, but when your food is super limited because of a certain annoying allergy you don't have much of a choice unless you want to starve. I know, I know, the drama. Well when your favorite food like chicken fingers, cereal, peanut butter and jelly, macaroni and cheese and basically everything in this entire universe contains wheat and it is off limits you have the right to be dramatic. I am just hoping they have food in heaven so I can swim in a pool of sticky fingers from Wingers... with extra ranch. I bought a gluten free cook book on Amazon and can I just say it is the third best investments I ever made? The second would be Shelbie and the first would be my first pair of heels that had Nick hooked. I know I have mentioned that Nick does the grocery shopping so before you reached through the screen and punch me, hear me out. I have done some recently. A very small amount, but still. So I have now learned where the spices are located in the grocery store, how to not pick a potato, and that Harmon's has their own cheese man. I thought that was a lot of learning but other things I have learned are these...
-1/2 C. of grated Parmesan cheese does not have to be from the cheese man (even though I swear it tastes better.)
-Potato's are not supposed to be green.
-If it takes more than three pans, pick a new recipe.
-A flat top stove is completely awesome. (All you electric stove haters are crazy. I am now a gas stove hater for life.)
-Dog's don't like Rosemary.
-Never put your face in the oven right after you open it. The heat escapes and melts your mascara, rendering you blind when your top and bottom lashes glue together.
-Oil gets EVERYWHERE.
And lastly...
-When your recipe says to put the rice crispies in a food processor to grind them up finely don't worry because it isn't necessary. Putting them in a gallon sized bag and stomping on them in boots works perfectly.

Just When You Think It Can't Get Any Better...

2010-02-16T14:08:00.000-08:00

My family loves to hunt for hilarious videos that usually entail ice skaters colliding, random groin shots, and moms flipping end over end on a motorcycle. Mitchell reminded me of this little gem last night and I laughed so hard that my stomach cringes every time I move.

For My Best Friend

2010-02-09T09:35:00.000-08:00

Today is Sarah's birthday so I thought I would give a small shout out in the form of a way awesome story to her since all I got her for her birthday was baby stuff. Necessary baby stuff that probably sucks to buy with your own money, but still, baby stuff. I have always looked up to Sarah and always wanted to be just like her. I was the shy tom boy and she was miss fun and popular and always knew/knows the latest fashions. When Nick and I got married we moved into Sarah and Kyle's basement apartment. A lot of people thought this was crazy and doubted that it was a good thing or if it was even going to work. This bothered me because for one it was none of their business and for two, we knew it would work. We always had so much fun together and it was nice that our best friends were only a flight of stairs away. We loved it so much we tried to figure out a way to build a duplex together so we would be neighbors forever. I miss Sarah so much. When we were younger I was her little side-kick partner in crime and I loved it because it meant that I wasn't just a sister, I was a friend. Unfortunately we got in some trouble. When I was in second grade and Sarah was in fourth, we had just built and moved into our new house so this was a new school for me and Sarah. The closest school was Westvale Elementary and it is approximately 2.3 miles away from my parents house. One day after school Sarah decided it would be fun to "miss" the bus and walk home. Did I protest? No. I just said ok and went to swing on the swings until our bus would drive out of site. One boy from our neighborhood came running at us, like I do when it is free hot dog day at RC Willey, he was gasping for air and trying to tell us frantically that the bus was leaving right that second. Sarah was calm and explained to him that we wouldn't be taking the bus today. He turned back to the bus, hopped on it and away it went. I don't think we could believe that it actually worked. So we began our trek home. 2.3 Miles is a long way for little legs. It was getting darker and darker but no matter how dark it would have gotten we still would have been able to spot the speeding bus of a van that was angrily coming for us. My mom had one of those giant Ford vans that could fit up to 50 large humans and boy was it intimidating. As she came to a stop, my mind said all sorts of words a small child shouldn't be thinking. Mother Kat rolled down the window and let us know that we should probably get in the van right. this. second. Did it matter she was yelling at us? No, because we had successfully made it to 90th south and probably would have gotten home in the next 20 minutes. It was worth it to me to be with my big sister and I would walk the 2.3 miles home from school again if I could. Love you Sar. Love, Mandy

Update On the Work Out

2010-02-03T10:46:00.000-08:00

I believe Nick and I are on week 6 of working out six days a week and as you can all see I am still alive. As a matter of fact, I feel great minus the lack of sleep and steamrolled legs. I no longer feel like putting the vacuum on the reverse setting in my mouth to manually give myself oxygen after running a mile. Oh and number of times I have tripped, number of collisions, and number of times I have dropped a weight on my face still stand at zero. I would say that this is successful overall. Every week I get a tiny bit stronger, I am now to the ten pound setting and add a one hundredth of a pound every week. Ok obviously that isn't true, I bet if you took all the CD's Clay Aiken sold and put them on a bar, I could bench press them. You know what really shocks me? There is a couple at the gym that somehow manages to get their three kids to go to the gym with them. Do they work out? No. Do they sit on the last available piece of work out equipment and do nothing? Yes. Another question I want to ask is how the heck they even get them out of bed that early. I pretty much have to have my head pryed off my pillow by a crowbar and I know at that age the only thing getting me out of bed that early in the morning was cake for breakfast. All complaining aside, I have so far survived the gym. Something I never thought possible in a trillion years. Now I want cake. My least favorite part of my work out is the elliptical machine, that is death on plastic. I set it to ten minutes and when I hit the one minute mark I am begging for it to fall apart so that I have an excuse to stop all while my legs are shrieking that they should be resting peacefully in the giant king size bed that is placed in my room for the sole purpose of being used. I have missed that extra hour of sleeping to a point, it generally goes by really fast anyway so I try to tell myself that that one extra hour isn't worth the wheezing and small heart attacks after a flight of five stairs. Plus I enjoy not feeling like I ate two hundred bologna sandwiches and washed them down with a pure fat milkshake for breakfast every day. The best part of my work out is that it is an hour that I get to spend with Nick in the morning, I am usually breathing to heavy to say anything but it is nice knowing he is there and we are supporting each other. I wouldn't be going to the gym if it weren't for Nick's strange obsession with feeling good, I mean what is that all about? But I go to support him because if it were me I would want the same. So all and all I would give this work out thing ten bowls of cookie crisp out of ten.

Priceless

2010-02-02T14:49:00.001-08:00

I just got this picture in an email and I have to post it here. If only I could have a picture with the Easter Bunny like this... notice the suspicious leg on the floor on the left hand side.

For My Mama

2010-02-01T13:10:00.000-08:00

Today is my moms birthday and I just wanted to take some time to talk about what a wonderful person she is. My mom has been through a lot of tough times and she still manages to be our "Yellow" person. My mom is sunshine. I have always loved my mom, I haven't ever thought for a second about how a different mom would have been. My mom can never be replaced. My mom was the mom that all the carpool kids loved, all my best friends loved, and the mom I loved to go to the mall with. My mom loves to have fun and always wants everyone around her to be having fun too. My mom is so talented and I have always looked up to that, especially her musical talents. She has such a beautiful singing voice and it has always been one of my favorite things to listen to. My poor mom has been tortured by us kids her whole life. Never eating what she cooked (that might have been just me), always ruining our hair she so nicely combed, and running around the house screaming for hours like our hair was on fire (Which in some cases it was) while she was trying to take a Sunday nap. There is one thing that I will never forget we did to my mom and it is going to make it so that I never trust my own kids, karma. The DeLange side used to take a yearly trip up to the family cabin to hunt for Christmas trees. One night us kids decided to go sledding down the road, eventually that got boring so we decided to make a massive jump to go off of and this baby was huge. Also keep in mind that it was night so on top of being extremely dark out, the road was deadly with slick ice. After lots of arguing and threats of cutting off each others Barbie heads we all agreed that none of us would be the first to try. Fortunately for us we knew the perfect person to ask because she was always up for anything so unfortunately for my mom it was her that was suckered in. Let me take the time to point out again that it was dark and we may have accidentally on purpose forgotten to tell her that there was a jump at the bottom of the hill. We put her on the saucer and four tiny little kids started her down the hill while one of the older cousins sat at the bottom with a flashlight. She was flying, and laughing, that was until she got close enough to the jump when we knew she couldn't bail, the flashlight was flipped on just in time for her to see the jump and have her eyes open the size of her face before she took off. I don't think I have ever seen anyone fly so far, or have the rings of the saucer bruised into their butt. Thanks for all the fun mama, and always being such a good sport. Love you!

Chef Boyardon't

2010-01-28T08:05:00.000-08:00

Nick has started school again and that always sends me in a downward spiral to the pit of extra laziness doom. How can lazy get more lazy? Believe me, it is possible. On Tuesday I decided that I was going to use my gluten free cook book that I just had to have, which has been sitting on my shelf unused since I bought it. I was hungry, really hungry so I started thumbing through the recipes trying to find something that my Nick would approve of. So I found fettuccine carbonara, sounded amazing. This recipe had more than three ingredients so I knew I was in for a real treat. Oh and did I mention it called for actual, more than usual, expensive cheese that I had to buy from the cheese Cono Sur at Harmons? Yes, serious business here people. I decided I only needed a small push cart and I should have seen this as a bad omen right away. The bars along the bottom were in the most inconvenient, awkward place and I stopped counting after fourteen times of my shins taking an abusive beating by this terribly placed bar. Well unfortunately what should have been a short trip meaning less shin fractures turned into an unusually long amount of time in the grocery store. You see, when me and Nick go grocery shopping it is more Nick shopping and me pushing the cart drooling over oreos and grandma sycamores bread so I am not much help. Therefore, I know where nothing is. I befriended five associates and the cheese man. The best part was when I got to the last ingredient I couldn't find, dry white wine. I couldn't find a single associate because they were all strategically hiding from me so I asked the meat man if he knew where I would find such a thing. He looked straight at me, smiled and said, "the liquor store." Not wanting to look like a total idiot I smiled back and said, "Well it was worth a try, thank you, I will go there." Did I? No. Should I have? After this next half of the story I would say yes. After an hour shopping for six ingredients I returned home only to discover that this means I have to use the stove top, and three pans at the same time. I placed the fire department on speed dial, put on my sassy apron and Enrique Iglesias then fist bumped Shelbie. I had the bacon splattering, the pasta water boiling over and the eggs in the sauce heating to much and almost beginning to scramble. I felt like I was on the Food Network challenge, or Worlds Worst Cook. But I was determined. My phone buzzed and it was Nick texting me and asking if I would start him some pasta. This was like a second wind, knowing that somehow our brains communicated and I picked the perfect recipe out of three hundred. I cracked it out like Martha Stewart on speed, and after that I even had time to make him a desert with pears, cinnamon and half and half. I wish I would have video taped the whole thing. Especially because after I was finished I loaded all the dishes into the dish washer that would fit, wiped off the table, and tried to get my heart rate down to a normal level before Nick came in because after he did and we finished eating he looked at the pile of dishes still in the sink, the spill over marks on the stove and the bread crumbs and informed me that I know how to make a mess. Then part of my memory that seemed to have still been missing came back and reminded me that I don't cook and its not because I can't, it's because it makes a mess and that makes Nick's life miserable. It is back to frozen pizza's and cereal. Now off to the liquor store.

We All Have Our Match

2010-01-06T12:00:00.000-08:00

When they say you know a lot about a person when you look at their underwear drawer I laugh. I laugh even harder when they say you know a lot about a person when you look at their sock drawer because with Nick and I, it is terribly true.

Exhibit A

Nick's sock drawer. Not only organized by color, but by type AND brand. So what does this say about Nick? Cleanly, organized, mature, he sets goals and he is 5'10". I might start hiring him out ladies, look at his good work and I will make sure the price is fair. (Nick, I know you are reading this via email and I haven't cleared that with you yet but you have a talent.)

Exhibit B

Mine are all shoved into a tiny little compartment. What does this say about me? Lazy, careless and oh my gosh is that a pair of nasty hospital socks? I know it definitely doesn't scream goal setter but I wasn't allowed another bowl of peanut butter crunch until my socks were paired. However, nobody said anything about them being paired to their match.

Nick has now allowed me to have the whole closet and has bought himself a dresser because every time he had to go into the closet we have the same conversation...

Nick: You know...

Me: Don't say it, I know.

Nick: It is so easy to put your clothes in the drawers so they fit.

Me: Yeah I know, I will do it later.

Nick: You are so weird.

Me: Not weird, just lazy.

Somehow the Word Idiot Doesn't Cover It

2010-01-05T09:55:00.000-08:00

Mitchell and I went out shopping last week and bonded over Tai Pan soup bowls and honestly the most lame vanity plates we have ever seen. Ever going on a vanity plate scavenger hunt? Go to Tai Pan, it is the parking lot of vanity plates and escalades parked on snowbanks because they can. On the way back we laughed, sang and talked about how much we hate the weather. Upon turning into my parents neighborhood, we were met with about three inches of ice with a little layer of snow on top. My parents have a curve in the road that is about 90 degrees and typically when you go around it you can spin your back tires a little bit and fishtale for some fun. (This is how you have fun in Utah and everyone knows it so keep that in mind before you judge me.) Well I decided that I was going to do that however it was completely unsuccessful, like most of my diet plans. I flew straight forward like my tires were on the asphalt and no snow at all. I saw a brick fence and a light post right in front of me and I was quickly trying to decide which I would rather hit. We flew up over the curb and somehow miraculously wedged right in between the two which meant that somehow my car hit the sidewalk and did an 80 degree turn and ended up on the neighbors grass/sidewalk. There were no centimeters to spare on either side. I don't think I could drive through that going 2 mph intentionally trying to get through it. Observe for yourself and let this be a lesson to everyone to make sure there isn't a brick fence staring you in the face when you decide to be reckless.

Happy Anniversary #3

2010-01-04T09:28:00.000-08:00

2007
2008

2009

2010

Today is mine and Nick's 3rd anniversary and boy has time flown. I know it is so annoying that everyone says that but I just did so there. The other day I was going through Nick's special book and reading letters and notes that I had written him and remembering all of the fun things we did together and it just reminded me of how much I honestly love him. I am sure there are times when he thinks that I don't becuase I am acting like a T-Rex who hasn't had anything to eat but a pudding cup and a slice of cheese but he should just know that I do. I remember the day Nick told me that he loved me and I am grateful for remembering that. I am not going to go into detail but just know that it was extremely late at night and I was on a little plug in headset telephone in my sisters room where I would sit and we would talk for hours ever night while I held a little wire into place until my hand fell asleep because if I didn't, it would sound like someone crinkling bubble wrap into the speaker. I am really glad that I don't have to do that any more but we still have our late night conversations. It is my favorite time of the day, we are so busy after work that we hardly get any talking in so it is nice to just relax and laugh or vent or exaggerate, whatever I see fit. A lot has happened in three years and we were both saying the other day that if anyone told us that we would be where we are in three years we wouldn't believe it. We are so blessed to have what we have and I am so blessed to have Nick. Oh and on a side note to make Nick feel really good I will mention that Nick told me happy anniversary first with no reminder, he really is one of a kind.

A Couple Things I Have Learned Today

2009-12-22T08:49:00.000-08:00

1- I do not have very much upper body strength (Minus the weirdness that is my right bicep.) Try setting all of the weight machine limits to the lowest of ten (on the left side) and one hundred on your right, I struggled with the left while most people would have punched a hole through the ceiling it is so light. After finishing up, I felt like I was a head, and feet. No body in between. When I attempted to wash my hair, I most likely resembled a humble little squirrel with the way I was ducking down and pawing at my head. Drying my hair is impossible after weight lifting, and getting dressed is even worse. So besides feeling like I bench pressed Kirstie Alley all day, had my abs shredded by a cheese grater, and like a steam roller went directly over my legs, I feel great.

2- Trail mix would taste so much better if it was just M&M's. If I am feeling a little generous I would say to add some raisins in. The nuts have got to go, unless they are inside the M&M's.

3- I don't even have to work out to get the butt everyone dreams of. Problem solved with the booty pop.

Reminder To Self

2009-12-21T09:40:00.001-08:00

This morning was the first of many miserable mornings to come. I woke up at 5:30 to go to the gym with Nick. We have already started off bad with the 5:30 part, it is like trying to wake up a five hundred pound walrus that has been hibernating for a thousand years. As I was walking up the stairs to work, my eyes were spilling over from the pain and when someone asked if I was ok, I quickly covered it up with "I'm feeling the Christmas spirit," because if I had told them that I worked out for approximately a half hour, he would have laughed and pushed me down the stairs. I remembered that I had once blogged of a previous work out conquest and thought I would go back and re-read it. After reading it again, I believe that the only way you could convince me to work out is if I am rewarded with a chocolate cake the size of Mount Kilimanjaro at the end...

(Re-Post)
So everyone is well aware of my husbands undying need to exercise 25 hours a day. I really appreciate this for the most part because it is nice knowing that I wont have to outlive him and be the lonely cat lady that lives off of easy mac and cereal and crochets booties for the gnomes on my front lawn. However, it is bad because after I have three children and eat my life away only feeding on Starbursts, Oreos and Cookie Crisp cereal, people will begin to ask my husband, who looks like he belongs on baywatch, how long he is planning on living with his mother. That is when I use a new weight loss method by turning on Michael Bolton, and spin with my forehead on a bat until I puke. This has gone on way to long... After seeing what my future would hold if I didn't do something about my unhealthy diet, I have decided to do something about it so that I can keep fit with Nick. I figure if I publicly mention it, I might actually stick to it. Anyway I have been trying a little bit at a time up to now, I went running with Sarah a couple times, I gave up when she mentioned that tomorrow we would run 100 times around the track instead of 2, I need stuff like Turbo Jam to keep me entertained. I wanted to tell you all a story about the last time I went out for a little exercise...

It was a nice day out, not too hot. Sarah was running from our house in Sandy to my parents... that is approximately 6.3 miles. If you know me, that translates into; a collapsed lung, a shattered knee cap, and a severed right foot. So I opted for the easy aka beach cruiser. So while Sarah ran, I cruised next to her. At one point I thought it would be really fun to ride in the bike lane, the next thing I know I get passed by a serious biker in ugly spandex shaking his fist and yelling obscenities in German. I didn't realize that you had to be going 40MPH to be in that thing. So I got onto the sidewalk and drafted off of Sarah for a while, I might have skinned her ankles a little... sorry Sar. About 3 miles later we came upon Mt. Everest of 9800 South. Sarah gave me the coaching instructions of "right when the light turns green, peddle as fast as you can down the hill." Obviously we both thought that would give me enough push to get back up to the top. So once the light turned, I was off. I was going so fast down the hill that my feet couldn't keep up because I was in 1st gear. Well that pushed me about 10 feet up the hill so I peddled my little heart out to the Rocky soundtrack on my ipod. I was in the zone, then my muscles separated from my body and ran away screeching into the bushes because I kid you not, I started going backwards. So I hoped off of my bike and decided to walk it up. Humiliating. I was stopped twice by bikers wondering if I had a flat. I replied, no I just promised I would take my bike on a walk today, she has been in the garage for a while. When I got to the top I went into cardiac arrest and immediately pondered how I was going to carry Sarah's lifeless body up the hill. Pacing back and forth did no good because I was again questioned by an entourage of bikers. So I peddled up and down the street then thought, I better go make sure the ants haven't carried her off yet. Then, like it does in the movies, she started to appear above the horizon of asphalt like a sunset. AHH she is alive, breathing, moving! So we continued on to the destination. So while we went the rest of the way, I started noticing everyone looking like, "Ok bike rider, why don't you stop being lazy and jog like her." I looked back at them like, "because whenever I jog, a small piece of me dies and I am slammed with a stack of hospital bills." An hour and a half later... we made it. Mission accomplished. How Nick exercises every day and how Sarah runs, I will never know. But I will try my hand at the exercise and if you never receive a post from me again, ask Nick about my funeral.

Happy Two to the Three Nicholas

2009-12-17T10:18:00.000-08:00

It is Nick's 23rd birthday today. It is crazy how fast the last year has gone, I remember writing his twenty second birthday post like it was yesterday, but yesterday I was actually out shopping for his birthday presents because that is how I am. I am an overachiever and don't procrastinate until his birthday to buy them. So here it goes, 23 weird things about Nick.

1- He has an amazing shower voice and could probably compose an opera every morning if either of us were smart enough to write the music.

2- He watches HGTV because he chooses to, not because I ask him to.

3- He stays with me even though he wakes up to a wet haystack for a wife every morning. He always smiles when he sees what I look like and on certain occasions tries to take a picture.

4- He is good at EVERYTHING. Besides Rock Band, I have yet to find something he can't do. I only say he can't because since he couldn't do it on the first try like everything else, he stopped playing.

5- He would eat frozen burritos for every meal and not complain about it.

6- He has the cutest high pitched voice that he uses to get Shelbie to come in. I can here it now, "Come on buddy! Come on!"

7- He has an amazing ability to tell when something on the wall is the slightest bit crooked or off... No joke, I swear he can sense an eight of an inch. Now I measure one hundred and one times instead of just one hundred.

8- He is obsessed with the ring tone on his cellphone and even made me call him once so he could hear it.

9- He could win an ironing competition with his beautiful ironing work. His ability to spot a wrinkle is impressive.

10- He lint rolls the bathroom floor a few times a week after he lint rolls his clothes. I am assuming that it is my hair because I shed more than Shelbie.

11- If his trouser socks are the exact same and both black but one is a little bit more faded than the other, he wont wear them. They must find their perfect match.

12- He loves to go to the store with people when they make a big purchase and occasionally is the person that talks them into making the big purchase.

13- He can make up a silly song on the spot. Hidden talent people.

14- If Shelbie could be with Nick all day she would. Nick knows it, and loves it, but will never say anything about it to me because he knows I am jealous.

15- If you challenge Nick at a handstand competition, you will lose.

16- Nick liked the movie Twilight more than New Moon.

17- Nick brushes his teeth so much, he goes through tooth brushes like me and gluten free donuts.

18- Nick vacuums the house two times a week on average.

19- Nick has an amazing memory. To test this theory I just had a crazy idea to play him at that kids game Memory, he would probably dominate.

20- Nick can resist just about any goodie you put in front of him. His weakness, cookies and cream.

21- Nick can eat more than a 600 pound man but can maintain his physique because of his crazy dedication to working out.

22- Nick has at least five random outbursts a day of a random song or dance, usually about Xbox or the Utah Jazz.

23- Nick's hair is always perfect and he trusts me to cut it. He still has his head and allows me to cut it so I must be doing something right.

Happy birthday Nick, love you trungle donut sprinkle wheel with carmel! I snapped this picture of him and Shelbie and I love it. Two little buddies :)

Thievery

2009-12-09T12:50:00.000-08:00

You Rotten Kids

2009-12-02T08:07:00.001-08:00

Unfortunately my mom forgot to log off her facebook account, and unfortunatley we discovered that. For some reason there is just something irresistable about not logging off and CTR'ing. So we did a few innocent things like changing her status and commenting on some photos... oh and we also created a group about parents spying through facebook. Moral of the story parents, ALWAYS log off because you guys aren't the only ones running directly to the computer after your child is on facebook and hoping that someone is still logged on.

Freaky Friday

2009-11-13T13:39:00.001-08:00

It is after all Friday the 13th so a Freaky Friday is totally appropriate. When we were younger we would watch the movie Hocus Pocus all.the.time. The VCR tape is probably on it's last leg actually because I would normally say we have watched it 500 times but without any exaggeration I could probably safely say 300. We were all a character, Sarah was of course the pretty hot witch Sarah, Mitchell was Whinny, Shanna was Mary and I of course was the tom boy trouble causing little sister or the rat tail they find in their cottage. Oh and Alisha was the little girl Emily in the beginning that the witches kill within the first five minutes or Binx the cat. We pretty much became these people. One Summer day we were out front messing around and keeping out of my mom's hair, in other words letting her put the house back together before hurricane Sorensen Kids ripped it up like a helpless trailer park. Our mailbox hadn't been bricked around yet so it just sat on top of a big wood post inside of a five gallon bucket of cement. Sarah decided that she wanted to mount the mailbox like it was a broom and start singing the song Sarah the witch sings to enchant the children. We were enchanted alright but Father Brian sure wasn't, it sucked him away from fixing the dent in the wall (from my head) and straight to the front yard where he did his classic whistle and said his famous "What are you doin?" I don't think I have ever seen Sarah jump so high or anyone dismount a mailbox that fast but you can be sure none of us ever got on it again. We moved on to more stable, unnoticeable things like the pitch of the roof.

I Almost Forgot

2009-11-11T15:03:00.000-08:00

Can anyone guess who Shelbie was for Halloween?

No, I Haven't Died

2009-11-10T07:34:00.000-08:00

I am back from my vacation to the distant planet of who knows where. It was like my brain forgot to remind me that I had a blog to write all the annoying things that happen on, how rude. Maybe it is because I am trying to be nice and I have nothing nice to say? Just kidding... sort of. I think I need another vacation because Disneyland twice within a year isn't enough. Life has been so crazy the past few months, I feel like walking on stilts with my hands having babies strapped to my feel all while trying to memorize Michael Jackson's medical records might be an easier task. Now that my life is about to slow down, I feel like I will have more to write about that doesn't include me giving away information that could lead to some Internet predator to my front porch with a plate full of gluten free cookies and a pan of mashed potato's, hot dogs and cheese. *Take note predators, those are my favorite. With the snow coming on I am sure you are to hear of all the idiots that can't drive, park or scrape their windows so they can see. Oh and good news, this year I will not be forced to ice pick off a few inches of ice or dig my car out from the gutter. You are right, Nick has done that for me the last couple of years. Other news, Nick won't have to do that either so we all win. Life is good. On the other hand, when I logged on to my mom's computer the other day I saw this. On the FM100 website with inspirational quotes and sacred pictures, there is Avril Lavigne. There was so much I could say about this but then one of you might end up on my porch.

Just Call Me Anti-Social

2009-10-02T14:04:00.000-07:00

Does it bother anyone else that when they go to the bank now they are forced to talk to a person via video screen? I don't know about you but I go to the drive up so that I don't have to be seen. Call me cold but if I wanted to have a nice conversation with someone let alone see them, I would have parked my car and went inside. The reason most of us go to the drive up is because we aren't dressed or our hair looks like it was brushed with a pair of beaters set on high or maybe because we didn't feel like wearing make up and looking like an actual human. I know I have used it on all three of these occasions. The first time I pulled up I laughed thinking how crazy it is that they installed tiny televisions to keep us entertained and then it happened, the screen flipped on and there was a newly manicured, perfectly put together woman trying to not act startled that Medusa has actually just pulled in to make a deposit. When I realized that if I could see her and she could definitely see me, I slid my chair back to hide half of my face and try to hold on to the small bit of dignity I had left after falling in a public toilet. Then she had the nerve to tell me that she needed me to see me so she could make sure I could withdraw my money and I wanted to say, "Don't bother, I don't look anything like I do in my license because I wasn't going for the homeless sheik look I am now and yes, I did my hair like this on purpose." But I didn't, I looked at the camera just in time to see her startled face before she turned it off and said very quickly, "Your money will be right out Tina Turner."

Because We Are Of Great Value

2009-09-29T09:37:00.000-07:00

Do you remember when razor scooters first came out and they were all the rage and every cool kid had them? You know the one with the commercial of an 11 year old boy bunny hopping over a furbie then giving his friend that kicked one around in a 360 a high five? Yeah those ones. We begged and begged my parents for one, hanging on their ankles while they walked around Wal-Mart. The answer was no every time. I am sure they could see us riding around the house on one, damaging more walls then we already had. (PS mom and dad, Mitchell and Alisha rammed Alisha's wheelchair into the wall and took quite the chunk with them. So there are worse things than a scooter.) Finally my dad caved and bought us a couple scooters, when he backed into the backyard (Because my dad backs in more then he pulls forward.) we all ran outside to attack his trunk, fighting over who got to ride them first. When he opened the trunk, our eyes watered up and spilled over, but not with tears of happiness. We had some other brand of scooter, it was not a razor, it would not automatically induct us into the hall of cool. This was sure to send us packing to the janitorial closet every day after school so that no one knew the "Wolverine" scooters from 7-11 (Yes the gas station) were ours. We rode them around the backyard on makeshift ramps and roads made with chalk for an hour before we started to hear a loud scraping noise, we checked underneath to find that since the handlebars wouldn't lock straight up, the bottom of the scooter was dragging on the ground, carving lines into the pavement. We rolled our eyes and continued trying to bunny hop over Shanna's furbie. Ten minutes later we broke off a piece of the base where you place your feet, it wasn't made of shiny metal with a radical design like the razor's, it was a plastic base that could only support twenty pounds and we were far beyond that limit. Being sick of trying to attempt to ride that, we went inside and did something way more productive called hide and seek blindfolded and in a full sprint. Moral of the story, if you happen to be at a gas station and see the knock off brand of something your kids are begging for, don't buy it. Spend the extra ten dollars on the real brand because if not, a kid slamming into a giant cabinet door while playing hide and go seek in the dark is actually going to cost you a little bit more... especially when they try to hot glue it back together...

**Disclaimer** My parents have bought us LOTS of nice things, razor scooters and Nintendo64 just didn't fit into the category of things they wanted to spend their money on.

Mehhh

2009-09-23T12:12:00.000-07:00

I stole this from BreeAnn's blog because I realized I had only blogged once this month.

I often. . . eat cereal for every meal possible.
I have . . . too many shoes and five email accounts dedicated to junk mail.
I fear . . . being eaten by a giant T-Rex because I can't escape fast enough in my moon boots.
I feel . . . Like eating another five hundred hand fulls of Swedish Fish
I hear . . . OK GO
I smell . . . Swedish fish and cheap perfume
I hate. . . meetings and sadhappy movies.
I think. . . I might get a contractors licence and become an architect.
I want. . . to go to Disneyland and a pair of pink chucks.
I always. . . pretend I am talking to Shelbie when I am subliminally asking Nick to do something.
I am not. . . Captain Underpants
I am like . . . an annoying midget that runs circles around your legs while kicking you in the shins.
I believe. . . that weiner dog Paul is a human trapped inside of a dogs body.
I don't always. . . exaggerate... :)
I am happy that. . . I beat Mitchell at a headstand competition AGAIN. Undefeated.
I win. . . at any and every headstand competition and knee war.
I lose. . . EVERYTHING. Keys, phone, important documents, you name it I lose it.
I never. . . want to cut my hair.
I need. . . a navy blue Yankees hat.
I listen. . . but pretend not to. Selective hearing is such a good gift to have.
I am scared of. . . Dinosaurs, Tornados, and Volcanoes. I wouldn't have survived in the stone age.
I read. . .all.the.time. Bookworm? Guilty.
I am . . . Stressed/Hungry/peeved that I blogged twice this month/excited to be an aunt to baby Bo.

Because a piece of my heart is in Logan

2009-09-03T10:56:00.001-07:00

Apologies for the scarcity of posts, my favorite brother has left the nest to live it up in Logan for school. Even though the past few weeks I have seen him just as much as I usually do, it isn't the same. He threatens to "go home" just to feel that Mizz Independent feeling knowing that his home is now an hour and a half away and he also loves to hear us all beg for him to stay. Mitchell is one funny guy, I am not going to lie. Out of respect for my father, I wont post the most recent act of hilarity that involved water, a beach and a size XL bikini top, that deeply disturbed my family members and sent a shock wave through the Facebook world. However, me being the photographer, I find them to be completely hilarious and all out of fun. Mitchell always loves to be the center of attention and you are constantly finding him yelling out crude phrases or inappropriate remarks about David Bowie in spandex just to give that small shock factor. I have got to hand it to Mitchell though, he survived a house full of 4 sisters, a mom AND a female dog and with my dad out of town for work, he was forced to be the only male. So there Mitchell is, trying to keep afloat in the estrogen pool, fighting against the tide of drama. He has always been such a good sport, we love making music videos at our house and Mitchell has always had to play the part of a female, even if there is a male in the song. Why you ask? Have any of you ever seen Mitchell's dance moves, let alone what he looks like in a spandex bodysuit?

I Need a Medicine Man

2009-08-20T13:09:00.000-07:00

So... Does anyone have any home remedies for a sinus infection? Besides that weird Neddie pot or whatever it is called because Sarah used one of those and acted like a blow torch was shoved up her nose and turned on full blast. And can someone answer me why your teeth feel like you have been chewing on rocks all day when you have one? The doctor was trying to explain it to me but my eardrums felt like they were going to burst so I was cupping my hands over my ears to silence all noise. They come on so sneakily too, one minute I was saying that my cheekbone felt bruised and the next minute I feel like a giant salami hit me in the face. I have had surgery TWICE before to fix this but apparently my nose is setting wrong? And having it done again is definitely not an option for me at this time. Or ever again for that matter. I would rather be forced to watch an entire program of the Wiggles than go through those five days of darkness so help me out. Oh and I would also like to fix it so that I don't need to return to the doctor to have this happen again...

Look closely... did you notice what is wrong with this picture. Yes, me and that man had the same shoes. But on a happier note, meet Chalese, my new office pet.

Kill.Them.All.

2009-08-13T14:00:00.000-07:00

Question, have you ever seen a june bug? Question number two, did it put you into cardiac arrest? I was babysitting Paul and Penny (Sarah and Kyles doxies) the other day when Penny started dry heaving. I ran to the back door and started making all kinds of high pitch noises to get her attention because nothing brings that dog running like a high pitched squeal that sounds like one of those fireworks that are so high pitched they burst your eardrums and you spend weeks watching your TV with captions. So there I am slapping my legs and trying to get my voice to go higher and higher until all the sudden I burst my own eardrums and here she comes running. Just when I thought she was going to make it, she threw up but kept running outside where my annoying squeal was echoing off the mountains. I go and grab the 409, a rag and a plastic bag to clean it up with and Nick comes over and offers to help. I hand him the garbage bag and right as he goes to step outside, he decides to run the other way like someone was screaming FREE IRONING BOARDS FOR LIFE! in the spare bedroom (another story for another day) and before I could finish my sentence of "What the...." I hear a helicopter coming straight for my back door and behind me Nick is yelling for me to SHUT THE DOOR! Well, I was too late and that june bug flew right in like a rabid bat. In fact, the whole time it was flying around my kitchen and Nick and I were running down the hall I kept screaming "What is that thing!? WHAT IS THAT THING!? IS THAT A BABY BAT?!" After Nick could breathe he filled me in that it is a june bug. I crept back down the hallway to see if it really was a baby bat or not and I see the bugs creepy little self stuck on his back with his feet almost hitting my ceiling. He was just that big. I charged like a viking after a piece of meat and kept spraying that 409 bottle at him until my hand could squeeze no more. I thought defeat but then Nick informed me from around the corner that they play dead. Yeah totally freaky right? So I blow on it, because that is how I test the spiders life status in my house, and it doesn't move. After a ten minute argument of who gets to dispose of it, I decide to just fling it with my broom out the back door, screaming the whole time. I thought that was my first and last time to see one of those, but just last night there were three more flying around probably trying to launch an attack on us. Until I am sure they are gone, I am arming myself with a shotgun and mace.

22.

2009-07-30T11:32:00.000-07:00

So I turned the big double 2 last Thursday (July 30) and I realized how old I was actually getting and that the more time that goes by, the less acceptable it is for me run screaming to something any time it has one of my favorite Care bears on it. I was asked quite a few times by people if I was sad because 21 was their favorite year of their life, but to be honest, I don't remember much of 20 or 21 sticking out and grabbing me, begging me to cling to that year for the rest of my life and bribing me with a thousand pans of brownies if I pick them. 20 and 21 were maturing years for me more than anything else I would say. But don't worry, I don't mean mature as in I will never quote "The Emperor's New Groove" again kind of way, but as in the making big decisions for myself and actually filling out a real check kind of way (Even though it took me two tries.) I have always coasted through life on my own planet, riding a saddled up toaster and expecting someone to always be there to make decisions and I would just follow their lead. As a matter of fact, I think the only decisions that I made up until recently were what shoes I was going to wear and what cereal I wanted for dinner and even that one is pushing it. But I have a feeling that 22 will be such a good year for me, lots of big decisions and even though some of them are so hard and stressful, in the end it is all worth it. I was very inspired the other day by an electronic billboard when I saw in neon green letters the words, "Living life in the fast lane?" and I thought to myself, yes right now I am, I am so busy I can't even remember the last time I forced Shelbie to wear a bow that matches mine. So I was very intrigued and begging for it to tell me the solution before I passed it, then it changes and says "Slow things down with an automatically closing toilet seat." So much for inspiration. Bet you can't guess what I asked for for my birthday.

Why I am so boring.

2009-07-29T11:13:00.000-07:00

My blog has gotten no attention at all and this is actually really sad to me because I love writing stories on some random Internet page that anyone can read and say to themselves at the end of the day, wow I am so glad that my spouse is not like her. Well first I was super busy with real life stuff like color coordinating my headbands and making sure that Nick has the bills in check so I can buy some more so I had zero time to write and now I have absolutely nothing to write about because all I do is go to work and then come home and watch HGTV until it is time for bed. There is cereal crumbs and a permanent dent of my body on the couch where I have spent the past month doing nothing but watching hours and hours of House Hunters and yelling at the TV to let them know that anything can be painted over and a light fixture isn't permanent. I can't believe how productive my life is. But the other day Yahoo's front page had the best worst article I have ever seen. Here is my absolute favorite clip, I am going to vinyl this for my entry way.

"Last week, when President Obama threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the All-Star Game in St. Louis, he was probably more concerned with getting the ball over the plate than with his choice of attire. Call it a rookie mistake. The president's baggy pants were mocked as being... brace yourselves... "mom jeans." Now, the leader of the free world has responded to his fashion critics."

Because we all know that the most important thing that the president needs to be worrying about is his choice of jeans. I love the way that the author made sure that the readers were all braced to hear "mom jeans." Like when you read those two words, a fist would come out of your screen and punch you in the forehead. Why should America be worrying about all the small things like health care, the economy and soldiers when there are bigger things to worry about, like the Presidents jeans having a nine inch zipper and the fact that if he doesn't get the ball over the home plate he will be the next George Bush? The nerve of some people. Now I am really curious how he prefers his milk because if it is 2% I might have to move to Mexico.

Sing Annoying Lagoon Theme Song Here

2009-07-21T14:42:00.000-07:00

My family just had a fun little day out at Lagoon last Friday. The two husbands didn't come up until about 6:30 so they are missing from a lot of the pictures... Plus, Nick tends to stay at least fifteen feet behind the nearest camera. Why? I have no idea. It doesn't help that my family is constantly taking pictures either. Remember back in April when my family minus Kyle took a trip to Cali? You know, the time when we bought every single picture possible from every theme park we went to? Well it just so happens that Lagoon has a photo place too and since Kyle was missing from all the Cali ones, my parents thought that they would pay for a nice family portrait to put in a five foot by seven foot frame over our fireplace. This one was the winner. It shows how are family puts the fun in dysfunctional.And this one came in a close second. Kyle and Nick were way into this if you couldn't tell. I think this was the most fun they had all day.Here are some other pictures from through out the day...On our way to Lagoooooooooooon in Madame Mim!
Laguna Beach :)

This was us all ready to go on the sky coaster. Sarah, Kyle and Mitch went together as well. Poor Nick wasn't feeling too well after drinking a huge icee and riding Wicked the brain scrambling ride after so I guess I will have to force him to go next time.

The most intense moment in my life (Minus the time that Gma D threatened to take Tasha to the pound when she was babysitting us) Beware when you are considering doing this, you are screaming/laughing so hard that you drool everywhere so I wouldn't recommend this for a first date...

What is so wrong about hiring a receptionist?

2009-07-15T13:06:00.000-07:00

Okay something that has really bothered me ever since it came out. You would think after years it would be a little bit more advanced and accurate but it isn't. I am talking about automated phone answering systems. I hate when I call a place and a robot greets me and tells me that I have all these options and to say a word depending on which department I need. For example, I called Sears to ask them about a replacement cabinet and after it goes through about ten options it says to me, "for repairs, scheduling repairs, or inquiry on a warranty, say repairs." I say repairs and the stupid thing says, "I'm sorry, I didn't understand you," then says the lists all over again so I say repair again but a little bit more annoyed, and apparently if you say it in an emotion other than how she says it or you speak in a voice lower than hers, she doesn't understand. So I mimic her voice and she says, "You have requested repairs is this correct? Say yes or no." I say yes and she comes back with this, "Okay I am sorry, I will redirect you back to the main options." THEN STARTS FROM THE BEGINNING. Since when do yes and no sound the same? (besides when we would ask father Brian if we could take his truck for a spin... sorry dad.) After that I started asking her for a bologna sandwich, gluten free pizza and the best of's Olivia Newton John CD, but she didn't understand because she sent me to gardening. Is having an actual breathing person to answer your phone such a problem? Because from now on when an automated machine comes on, I am going to hang up and call someone else UNLESS the first option is "If you would like to be directed to an actual person and not my annoying self, please say real person in any voice or tone you would like." But knowing my luck, I would say real person only for her to reply with "suck it." and then a disconnection.

Since We Are Half Way Through

2009-07-09T07:31:00.000-07:00

I realized that we are halfway through the year and this totally took me by surprise because it seems like just yesterday I was crying my eyes out at turning the old disgusting age of 21 while scooping the icing off my My Little Pony cake with my finger and eating it. Here is to hoping that this birthday can be a lot better than the last. Since I noticed that we are halfway through I wondered what I had wrote my New Years Resolutions were and if I had completed even one so I am going to fill you all in on where I am at with them.

One, I will not, absolutely not, meet my medical deductible this year. So far I believe that I have done a very good job with this one. I am over half way to meeting but you can blame that on ecoli.

Two, I will learn how to make at least 5 edible, healthy meals for Nick and I (Nothing will include nasty broccoli, it kills braincells you know.) I don't even know if I have cooked ONE edible, healthy meal. Nick basically cooks his own dinner every night and I pour me a nice big bowl of rice crispies. I would say I am the best wife, no questions asked.

Three, I will actually attempt *don't laugh* to train for a half marathon with Sarah and my mom. I actually said that? You can go ahead and laugh now, I know I am. No I actually started up Slim in 6 and went to the gym once with Sarah. I ran about six miles on the treadmill which ended in my hobbling around for weeks, taking a half an hour to walk down a flight of stairs, and swearing off any type of physical activity.

Four, I will finish my wedding scrapbook that has collected five inches of dust. That number has just been bumped up to about eight...

Five, I will dust my house. I actually think I did this once or twice, I don't remember because it was probably at eleven o clock at night when Nick decided since we bought a new vacuum we should clean the house entirely.

Six, I will successfully make a batch of cookies where I don't have to blog about the horrors of it all. Finally, something I have accomplished... somewhat. I made no bake cookies and didn't blog about it because when I took a piece out of the pan to eat, the four thousand degree chocolate burned my fingertips so bad I couldn't type.

Seven, I will be a better wife to my husband and do my best at not publicly humiliating him at times when I am experiencing giant urges to dance in the car. This one was a big giant fail. Better wife, mostly. Not publicly humiliating him, impossible.

Eight, actually remembering that I wrote these. It took me six months to remember but I am still counting it. I should have added a ninth that said "Actually doing them."

Since when is busy a word in my life?

2009-07-01T08:27:00.000-07:00

I have been so busy lately! It is so weird to do something other than waking up, going to work and then coming home and watching hours of Hannah Montana or Parental Control. My house has turned into a disaster for real, the fish tank needs help, I have thirty pairs of shoes on the floor and massive amounts of clothes in every corner. Of course nothing of Nicks is sitting out besides the dishes he ate on and DIDN'T rinse off. But what is more fun then A-smelling the nasty old food and B- getting the pleasure of scraping it off the plate with a box cutter? Nothing, absolutely nothing. I have been trying not to vent on my blog or talk about how much I hate things or how I have threatened someones life at the grocery store for leaving their cart in the lot while I was looking BUT this is it, something has just driven me over the edge. Someone near my office has fruit somewhere because while I am trying to do my job... and blog... I am being pestered by fruit flies. What is worse than a fruit fly? TWO. They just taunt me by flying within two inches of my face and they just go back and forth then back and forth again. I am sure that after every safe pass they make they high five, snicker and offer the other another round of banana beer if they do it again. Well I hope the thought of that banana beer was worth it because on the last pass I got him with a two inch folder and haven't seen his friend since.

Just My Luck

2009-06-18T14:51:00.000-07:00

I have this awesome talent of killing things almost immediately after I get them. Mostly electronic things suffer at the grasp of my hands. On our way down to Lake Powell, we made a quick stop at the Beaver Chevron that has the GIANT chair out front. I went in to use their luxurious bathrooms (that was not sarcasm, they are hotel bathrooms inside of a gas station.) Well I had my digital camera strapped around my wrist so that I could try and force Nick to take a picture on the giant chair. I was nervous to take it into the bathroom knowing my history of electronics and water but there was just no time to waste. I go into my stall and carefully hang my purse up on the door hook, check my camera to make sure it is safely strapped and start to pull down my pants. In the process of this I hear something land in the toilet and automatically check the camera on my wrist. I turned to see what it was and there was my cell phone, in the mercy of the public bathroom toilet. To make matters worse it was an automatically flushing toilet and you know how unpredictable those are, you blink and they flush. So there I am, trying not to breathe or make any sudden movements but I knew I had to move fast or it would die by drowning. So there I am playing peek-a-boo with the toilet hoping that it doesn't swallow my phone whole. I reached in at the speed of lighting and yanked it out, so far it was safe. Now the only thing I had to hope for is that the water didn't fry its insides. Now my next dilemma, telling Nick. I have quite the record of killing phones by water so it was funny to me but I wasn't sure how it was going to be for Nick. Here is how it went down...

Me: Uhh, I sorta did something.

Nick: What? And do you want anything? We have to hurry.

Me: I uhh, I dropped my phone in the toilet. (Sad eyes looking totally sorry.)

Nick: Alright, are you going to get anything?

I guess this means he wasn't too concerned about it... Oh and I never got my picture on the big chair.

Oh good gracious

2009-06-17T12:35:00.000-07:00

I have neglected my blog like that time I neglected our poor guinea pig for so long that flies took over his cage. It was so disturbing coming home to a ceiling covered in flies so I did what I knew how to do, scrame for my mom. She did the only thing she could think of and sucked them off the ceiling with the vacuum. My dreams were filled with nightmares of swarms of flies coming out of the vacuum at night and eating me alive. I just got back from an awesome vacation to Lake Powell with my family. This year was much better, I didn't get a single blister and Nick managed to avoid JD Perkins and his ticket writing need. I don't have the pictures to upload so I will do that tomorrow but I wanted to post a few things that I learned this trip.

One - Sunscreen really does work. After years and years of receiving a third degree burn the first day of Lake Powell, I decided to put some on. Heavenly. My legs did get burned but only 1/1000 of the usual. For a brief moment I considered getting SPF85 tattooed all the way around my ankle in thanks.

Two - Every family needs a chiropractor and a Dr. on hand during boating trips. Sitting in the front bow during a four hour sight seeing excursion really does a number on your spine. I think we all went into temporary spouts of paralysis. A doctor could also be useful for all those back breaking, head slamming, face kicking that goes on.

Three - When someone tells you to touch the window while passing a semi, don't do it. Why you ask? I will play it out for you.

Nick - When we pass this semi, put your hand on the window.

Me - Uh why?

Nick - Just do it.

Me - WHY?

Nick - You'll feel the pain. Hurry just do it!

Me - Okayyyy.

I hesitantly reach up and put my hand on the window expecting to feel a thousand watts of electricity to shoot through my body. We pass and nothing happens.

Nick - Did you feel it?

Me - No, what was I supposed to feel?

Nick - You didn't feel the window pane?

Liar liar.

2009-06-01T13:45:00.000-07:00

Sorry. I said that I was going to post a Freaky Friday last Friday and I didn't. Apparently my work missed the memo requesting some time off through out the day to do nothing but inform the cyber world of mishaps and memories of my dysfunctional childhood. No worries though, I put in for a ten minute break labeled, outward release of happenings on the mind to free up space on the hard drive of my brain so that I can fill it with more useful things like, work memos and nursery rhymes I tweak with mine and Nick's name. I wont elaborate. Anyway the Freaky Friday I am going to post doesn't involve us destroying any part of my parents house or end with the cops saying they received a call from this number. It ends with a very upset pre-teen girl who just wanted to fit in.

Sarah always had her own agenda. She had her whole life planned out and was her own boss and ready to start traveling to New York on her own at the age of 3. I am pretty sure she could have figured out the subway quicker than anyone else then too. Well as she grew up, she had the misfortune of being the oldest. Therefore she was the "Test Child." The one that parents use trial and error with to find out what works, and where they should be more or less strict. One day Sarah decided that it was time to use her temporary tattoo. This wasn't a rose or a Chinese symbol of any sort, this was a Calvin Kline tattoo that probably came with her over sized white CK sweatshirt. She followed the proper instructions and ended up with a nice little tat. Well that didn't fly so well with father Brian. It was a time that he began to question what was next, a temporary tattoo of barbed wire, a magnetic earring in the nose, purple hair!? (The purple hair is another story for another day.) I am sure he sweat this more than anything else in his life at that point. Poor guy had no idea that one day when he took his wife on a nice vacation, his kids were at home seeing how many piercings they could fit on each ear with an un-sterile cork board pin.

The real creepy crawlies are out!

2009-05-28T08:36:00.000-07:00

Oh.My.Goodness. Every where I turn there is either a pack of mosquitoes waiting to attack or a giant eight legged spider ready to pounce. Oh and the worst part is, even if I don't see them, they are there. Watching me with all their creepy multiple eyes. After the run in with the black widow with one hundred lives I have been scared to death for the warm weather to bring the spiders out. They always find me. It's like in my sleep they snuck in and planted a tracking device so they knew the exact moment I would step out of my house and they could commence operation dive bomb Amanda. The spiders usually get me when I am in heels because they know I cant run fast enough. The bricks in our backyard are just far enough apart that if I don't carefully walk across them, my heel slips right through the crack and I break my ankle. I am seeing a broken ankle post in the near future. I also see a freaky Friday post in the future of tomorrow. If you will excuse me, I need to head to Costco to buy an industrial sized crate of bug spray and a thousand tubes of neosporin to treat the massive bites on my legs.

Is this really necessary?

2009-05-18T12:30:00.000-07:00

Lately I have had this little pest in my life known as heartburn. When I was younger I had heartburn a lot and I was diagnosed with that annoying thing called acid reflux. After popping Tums like candy and eating Zantac 75 in a bowl of milk for breakfast, my parents took me to the doctor. He prescribed lots of different anti-acids for me to take and NONE of them worked. So I just lived my life with heartburn and dealt with the fact that I was choking on acid every morning when I woke up. Sometime in high school a miraculous thing happened and I no longer had acid reflux. It was heaven, I was convinced that some sort of miracle elf was forced to live inside of my throat with a plunger and every time the acid arose, he fought it back while singing Whistle While You Work. Well apparently I swallowed him or they surgically removed him with my gallbladder because it is back and it is on. Last night I was half expecting flames to come out of my throat. I probably only got one hour of sleep because if I wasn't throwing up in my mouth, I was swallowing that nasty acid and giving myself a stomach ache. This was making Shelbie extremely uneasy and she would paw at me and my blanket until I pet her and let her know that even though smoke is coming out of my mouth and I am clawing at my throat, mama is going to be alright. So does anyone have a good medicine they use? (besides alka celtzer because that causes my heart to race and when I was 12 and took one, I thought I was going to die.) If you don't come up with anything it is ok, I will either buy a fire extinguisher and keep by my bedside or one of those sink plugs and shove it down my throat.

A Few of My Favorite Things

2009-05-15T09:46:00.001-07:00

My familyTrips to Lake Powell

My adorable Hannah Montana loving neice that only likes when I talk with a British accent while playing barbies.

This picture of Kaili and Karson. Karson is going to be a Ute fan... Sorry Tyler...

My beautiful niece Emery who loves to burp in Nick's face

My sweet nephew Karson and his pretty blue eyes.

My wonderful husband who despises my black polkadot purse and half of my shoes but still loves me.

Supising Nick with concert tickets.

Nick said "I was in love with a man for a night."

Suprising the boys with NFL tickets to see their favorite teams face off.This picture of Nick. I took it when we were dating and it has always been my favorite.

Sweet Shelbie letting me torture her with silly dress ups.Shelbie's hairbows and her cute puppy fuzz

Burning my finger on gma's grilled cheese maker and turning around to accept the offered band-aid, and being handed this.
The three amigo's. These dogs all love to snuggle up together on my lap.
My two best friends no matter whatAnd finally, this.

I know the reason

2009-05-14T09:51:00.000-07:00

Sarah and I were watching the season finale of Lost last night and before you all start thinking that I am an avid fan, I am just going to let you know that no, not yet. Sarah Netflixed the seasons for me so that I can be sucked into that black hole known as the Lost superfan club who prays that their plane crashes on an island with Jack Shepard. But back to the actual point of this post, during every commercial brake the news commercial came on showing microwaves that had unexpectedly exploded or caught on fire. Sarah and I couldn't help but laugh at the same time as be concerned but while I was laying in my bed trying to find that shape on my ceiling that looks like Barbra Streisand's profile, something came to me. One year Sarah went away to EFY, we all missed her terribly and couldn't wait for her return. When that horrible week of waiting was finally over, she returned home in a skirt with a future missionary tag and went straight up to her room... ok she wasn't wearing the skirt. We all followed her in a long line up to her room to see what she was up to. Sarah pulled out her massive CD collection and started thumbing through them and when she was finished, the only CD's in there that were left were the Ace of Base CD and the Especially for Youth Soundtrack. Finally one of us asked what she was doing and she let us know that she was getting rid of all these CD's because it wasn't good music to listen too. (Isn't she so cute? I love her) Immediately, light bulbs popped up over our heads and we remembered that time that someone had told us about microwaving CD's. We thought this was perfect because it would help get rid of them forever because we feared if we didn't completely destroy them, Sarah would be dumpster diving at two in the morning and be carted away with the morning trash. So we began. It was so intriguing watching those lightning bolts jump off the CD and then when it was finished it looked so cool and crackled. To test to see if they were now unlistenable, we put Snoop Dogg into the 6 disk changer and pushed play. Nothing. Since we knew we were doing the right thing we continued... until daddy Brian woke up from his nap. He tried to nicely let us know that if we continued doing this, we would end up with an exploding microwave so we told him we were finished but then nuked one more because we couldn't listen to Boyz II Men any longer. So while the news thinks that microwaves are mysteriously exploding, I am thinking it as more to do with curious children who never got the Wii they have been begging for. Here is a video so that none of you are tempted to go out and buy the new Eminem CD just to burn it while sacrificing your microwave. I love the ding at the end.

Mothers Day from Shelbie

2009-05-12T12:58:00.000-07:00

Dear Mom,

Thanks for the dog treat this morning, I know you gave me an extra one but I was still hungry so I am sorry for eating more of your bar stool. Even though you lock me in the kitchen for eight hours every day I still love you because you buy me lots of toys to destroy and eat the cotton. I love you even more because when I throw up that cotton and try to clean it up by eating it again so you don't have you, you always chase me away and clean it up yourself. I will never forget that time that I threw up in yours and dad's bed after dad cleaned the sheets a whole week before and you had finally got off the couch to put them on the bed. That night was the best night of my life, having both of my parents squished in a little two foot space hugging me. Even though you torture me by putting bows in my hair I secretly like them because it gives Penny something else to rip out on top of my chest hair. I am sorry for all the whining I do when I want to go outside or upstairs to play with Paul and Penny, I am just trying to give you alone time before I shove myself to sleep in between you and dad so that you guys are always four feet apart, I bet dad is grateful anyway because between you and me, I have the better morning breath. I know I run away when you get the brush out and you end up having to chase me for five minutes before yelling for dad to catch me and bring me over but it is only because I am trying to avoid you having to vacuum it all up after you brush it out. With all the hair I shed, you and dad could make friendship bracelets... for the whole neighborhood. Love you and I am sorry for chewing up your purse (that dad hates).

Love,

Shelbie

Happy Late Mother's Day

2009-05-12T08:08:00.000-07:00

I have a billion things to blog about lately so be prepared to be bombarded with thousands of posts of me hating on things. But as for right now I want to post about something or should I say someone I love, my mom. My mom has been so good to stick out all of the horrid things her kids have put her through, seeing those few freaky Friday posts sent mothers hugging their children and thanking them for not being the Sorensen kids. My mom has been through a lot, from the Barbie finger incident, the destroying of her precious collection of walmart sacks, and the weeks of scrubbing purple hair dye out of her tub to the scary pranks, softballs to the shins, and years of trying to break up fist fights that started with someone eating the last Oreo and leaving the package in the pantry. My mom is one tough cookie and has been through more than necessary with us kids and I am so grateful that she never gave up and sold us on KSL. On top of chasing us around to try and get us to wear socks with seams, she had to balance her life as a mom, wife and business owner (of two businesses) How she did it, I will never know. I am always sorry for the fights that I started with my mom that included unnecessary screams and insults and I wish I could take them all back but I can't. Unfortunately we make mistakes in life or it would be way to easy. The best thing about my mom is that through all of the fights and bad decisions of us kids, she loves us the same. I am so glad that I am in the family I am with the Mom that I have, I wouldn't trade her for a thousand new pairs of socks. Love you mama.

Oh and if you are wondering where the Mothers day post to me is, Shelbie is working one up right now so stay patient.

Ugh.

2009-05-06T13:49:00.001-07:00

How pessimistic is this? I complain about the Winter and then when the beginning of the few precious months we have of decent warmth comes I find something on my things that suck list. I just want to talk about the top thing right now or I might find that my head explodes into a hundred pieces and I just ran out of glue. The top thing barely beating out having to wash my car is the bugs. If any of you remember me having to deal with the Criss Angel of spiders you would understand my resentment. But lately there is a new bug in town that has captured all of my hatred and literally sucked the sweetness out of me. Mosquito's. Would somebody please answer me why mosquito bites itch so bad? I have lost about two hundred layers of my skin by itching my leg with my shoe. I bite my nails so it is the only effective way to scratch. I know I could easily google it but then giant pictures of those creepy blood sucking bugs of death come up and my nightmares go from living in a world where I have to grocery shop to living in a world where I grocery shop in a mosquito infested supermarket that doesn't have candy at the check stands. I just had a panic attack thinking about the no candy part. Unfortunately for me I have that blood type that taste like Grandma D's hot fudge to those pesky things and last night somewhere I missed the memo that it was happy hour on Amanda's right leg. Maybe it was written on the same post it note as my grocery list.

Because my purse requires at least two feet.

2009-05-01T09:00:00.000-07:00

You know, right after I post that I have nothing to blog about since people aren't driving like they have never seen snow or keeping their hair in check, something like this was bound to happen. You can all thank the man upstairs for giving me something to write about, he knows how hard you have been praying for it. I walked outside after work and to my pleasant suprise someones brain had melted away with the snow.
Keep in mind the camera adds ten inches. Apparantly the car on the other side of him was to close so he felt the need to make it so that I couldn't get in so he could get out. Its not like there werent FIVE other spaces he could have parked in. I guess he was so concerned with making sure he had enough room to get out on the other side, he didn't consider I would have to eat nothing but cottonballs for weeks to be able to squeeze into the small sliver of a gap I was given to open my door. Now is the time that Richard Simmons jogs by in his mini shorts and scoop neck tank and screams that I didnt listen and I didn't disco the dirty calories away and if I had I might be able to squeeze those little buns into the car.

I don't know what has gotten into me

2009-04-28T07:47:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the scarcity of the posts. I don't know what has happened. I am positive that it isn't due to lack of things that bother me, I think that the Spring has just been filling my life with sunshine that melts my frozen heart. Who knows, I might even cook Nick his first real meal in a whole year. By me cooking I just mean I will microwave his food for him. I will have to work on the actual "meal" part. The end of the semester is coming up and I am proud of Nick for hanging in there and doing unnecessary homework assignments on anxiety and mood swings for hours. But I think he has more of an understanding about us women and how we can turn 180 degrees in a split second. For us it is natural, but if a man does it we call them crazy and talk about how nuts they are while eating massive amounts of chocolate and complaining that we don't have enough shoes. I would just like to thank Nick for hanging in there all those times that I went from being completely happy to him finding me in the fetal position in the empty tub because the Winter had sucked every ounce of joy out of my soul when it would decide to drop bombs in the form of snowflakes on our cars. Also, Nick deserves an award for diligently scraping my windows every morning. I only had to do it once this Winter and it brought me to tears my hands were so frozen. Plus, he knew if I ever had to do it I would never make it to work on time because I would go in, call my mom and cry to her for a half an hour about it before actually doing it. I would rather eat broccoli than scrape my windows. That is bad. But with the Spring coming I am sure I will have lots more things to blog about even though I wont have slow snow days and men with giant afros shifting into my lane. Until then, I am going to eat peanut M&M's and go shoe shopping.

Sorensen = Lazy

2009-04-21T08:08:00.000-07:00

(Just so you know, I started this post three days ago. Now you know what I mean by lazy) While we were on vacation, we had two rooms. My parents, Shanna and Sarah stayed in one and then Nick, Mitch, and Alisha and I stayed in the other. One night the movie Flubber was on and in my family we all race to be the first asleep once the credits start rolling so that you don't have to turn it off. (*if you just thought, umm wow you are lazy, please re-read the title) Seeing that unless you are holding your eyes open at the very end because you are so tired, it is impossible. So you know what we do? Pretend to sleep, because we are all to lazy to be the one to find the remote or get up and turn off the TV. It reminded me of being at home and sleeping in the TV room on the weekends. We would all have our little spot in there and we would have a thirty minute debate session on which movie to watch. The debates began to get longer as Mitchell and Alisha refused to vote on anything other than Sister Act or Spirit: Stallion of the Cimmeron. Putting the choices in a hat and drawing one out wouldn't work either because knowing Mitchell he would write either Sister Act or Hocus Pocus on every single one in his attempts to fulfill his goal of watching each one of them ten times a week. So after an hour of arguing and my dad threatening to shut us up by sucking the plunger to our face we would finally settle on a movie. When the movie was nearing the end we would all peek out of the corners of our eyes to see who was still awake and then we would slowly drift off to "sleep." Eventually someone would cave and shut it off because it was back when we only had a VCR and at the end when it ran out of tape that scary loud noise would come on when the TV went to the white snowy channel. This noise made my heart leap out of my chest and haunted my dreams so I was usually the first one to shut it off. Eventually we caught a break when the DVD players came out because when they were finished playing, they would return to the menu and play the little snippet of music or talking. At first we were ok with that and would eventually really fall asleep only to be woken up by an annoyed mother or father trying to figure out how to turn the darn thing off because if they had to hear the same fifteen seconds of the Mean Girls DVD one more time they just might plug in every kitchen appliance and turn them on high to torture us with the annoying noise and once we start to complain they would yell "you try and figure out how to turn something off that you have never used." then they would high five and return back to bed while we tried to find the off switches. Don't worry, we would find our own methods. For example, winding Mitchell's night shirt up in the beaters shut it off really quick. Later it got to the point where the menu noise drove us to shove massive amounts of blanket in our ears, the most annoying DVD menu was the Emperor's New Groove. All of us begging for silence but we were all still to lazy to get up and turn it off. We began bribing each other, if you turn it off I will do your laundry for five weeks, if you turn it off I will do your homework until 2012, if you turn it off I will never tell dad about the time you voluntarily wore lipstick, if you turn it off I will take you to the horse stable and not bash on the horse with one eye. This just goes to show you how lazy we are. Oh and if you are wondering why we didn't use a remote it is simply because we had broken about ten over the span of one year by throwing them at each other when we were mad and so my dad stopped buying new ones. We learned our lesson and quit though because we could no longer take the insanity of Friday night movies. So if you are wondering if my remote that was the best wedding perk I could ask for is still intact, yes, and when I get home I am going to send the kids a picture text message of it that has the caption of "neiner neiner neinerrrr"

Now you can never say that I don't give you anything

2009-04-17T10:13:00.000-07:00

This is Mitchell (Mitch the Witch) 24/7 when he was younger. It was shortly after his small Mitchell sized red broom "mysteriously" vanished. Dad I know it was you, I saw it in the back of your truck with all the DI stuff. You are so welcome.

Part 1 of 2000 posts of Cali

2009-04-15T09:57:00.000-07:00

My family has now given Disneyland, SeaWorld and Universal Studios enough money to keep their park running for five more years. How did we do this? Simple, the fact that a hamburger costs $6, Cotton Candy $5, Frozen Lemonade $4.50, Chimmychunga $5.50, Ice cream $5.97, Panda $9.00, Pizza $7.00, Coke $3.50, Churro $3.50, Carnival Games $20.00, and last but not least, pictures... a grand total of somewhere around $200.00 (Just for the pictures). But memories are priceless. Oh and the food up there was per item so when you take into account that we probably ate the entire park out of cotton candy, popcorn and ice cream, we are thinking somewhere in the millions. I am just going to post all of our purchased pictures with zoom ins on some of my favorite faces. Enjoiiiii.

This picture is in front of the House of Horrors at Universal Studios. It was completely terrifying for me but luckily I had Sarah and Mitch in front of me to take all of the horrors. When we were finished, I was searching for the nearest defibrillator so that I could restart my heart... and I may have peed a little, but I'll never tell...

This one is from the ride in SeaWorld known as Journey to Atlantis. This ride was "Da Bomb" and now if you look closely to the right side of this picture you will become obsessed with it.
See I told you so and don't worry, I am totally ok with the fact that you just made it your desktop background because I did too.

This one is from Jurassic Park, and don't let my face fool you... I was just as scared as when I went through the house of horrors, I have dinosaur phobia, they are the base of my nightmares. And yes, that yellow poncho was whipping us all in the face. However, the back seat seemed to be enjoying themselves.
Oh, you want to see a little bit closer? This is by far my favorite picture of Sarah in the existence of pictures of Sarah.
Yes I just changed my desktop again.

This picture and the Journey to Atlantis picture are the only two that aren't staged, so in this you get to see what we all look like completely surprised. Nick is definitely my favorite. He is famous in our family for saying "wooooooooooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah" and it is demonstrated here.
Space mountain... and here is the close up, it says it all...
These last ones are my personal favorites because they all have stories behind them. As you will notice, we started getting creative with the plotting of our poses.In this one, we thought it would be really funny to all go down straight faced and to not make a peep at all because there is a gigantic crowd sitting at the bottom, watching and waiting to hear all the girly screams from grown men. It worked out beautifully. We left everyone completely confused.
Here is the close up. That is me in the hood, I wanted to be extra dazzling. Plus I knew that there was no way that I could hold in a scream unless I suffocated myself. You notice tiny little smiles on some people, but that was only because it was so quiet it was hilarious.

You notice how are family is the only family in this one? (Besides Shanna who decided to sleep in.) That is because our family was selected to be the "first family" We got to open up the park and be the first to ride the ride and be the only ones in the elevator. Then we were given two fast passes for our entire family to return to it any time during the day. Sheer royalty now so bow to me. Here is my favorite in this picture...

I am going to frame this poster size and place it above our garage outside of the house. That should keep the neighbor kid that insists on feeding the dogs chocolate away.

I have saved the best for last. We decided to get ultra creative and pose for a cheesy family photo. This is actually quiet difficult when you are free-falling in an elevator.
We will photo shop Kyles face onto that little girls face in the back. The one wearing the green shirt, it should fit nicely. Come Christmas time don't be surprised if this photo or any of the other hundred are on it.

Hello Everyone!

2009-04-14T12:05:00.000-07:00

Ok so I am back and I was totally going to post a way awesome long post about Cali and how much fun it was all and the warmth that I felt besides the guilt of spending Easter Sunday in Disneyland, BUT I don't have my camera with the pictures and after work today it is the concert of Nicks life so I wont be home. I will have to do it tomorrow and you really don't want to miss it. To give you a taste of how we survived the very LONG drive to California, I will give you this conversation. First you need to know that Madame Mim is the name that Mitchell has given to the suburban that we all piled in for this vacation.

Mitchell: Don't you just love Madame Mim?

Amanda: Yes, and did you know that she is a lesbian?

Mitchell: My car is NOT a lesbian.

Alisha: (In between laughs) Yes, she is.

Amanda: Why are you not accepting of your cars sexual orientation?

Mitchell: Because she is NOT a lesbian.

Amanda: Nick, what do you think?

Nick: She is a little butch.

Doesn't my family have the most productive conversations?

I am not dead

2009-04-13T19:37:00.000-07:00

Ok so I forgot to blog and say that I would be gone away to sunny California for a week so sorry. I will post tomorrow when I get all the pics ready!! And happy late Easter!

Wow its already Friday.

2009-04-03T08:11:00.000-07:00

Well I sure blew that one. You know, the one where I said that I would blog more with out Freaky Friday's... I do have an excuse though. I have spent all week drained of all energy and intelligence. All this week right when I got home from work I have slipped into my two piece dalmatian pajamas, crashed on the couch and watched hours of UFC fighting while eating four bags of popcorn. Taking random naps periodically only to be woken up by a worried husband because his wife hasn't made a peep in an hour or so. As much as this sounds like Heaven for Nick because he doesn't have to hear about me talk about the consistency of play dough or that my friends hate broccoli too so there is no reason why I have to like it, it makes him nervous. Why would this make him nervous? Because if I am not around, there is no one to ensure that his life is full of challenges and if his life was an easy bliss, he would be taken from this Earth and put into a beautiful heaven where he never had to kill a black widow, watch my little ponies, or wrestle a grown adult woman out of the pet store because Shelbie REALLY.NEEDS.THAT.DRESS. And he just isn't ready for that because Heaven doesn't pick up the jazz games or have me jumping on his freshly clean couch singing some Beyonce song at the top of my lungs (which he secretly loves). If you are all wondering why I am so tired and expecting a baby announcement on here sometime soon I am going to tell you right now that you will be waiting patiently until about 2012, I believe that I have come down with that dreaded medical black hole of darkness known as mono. So I am sorry that you haven't heard from me all this week but I am spending most of my spare time sleeping and dreaming of all the things I can annoy Nick with when I wake up. Blowing bubblegum bubbles in his ear is now on the top of my list. On another note, I bedazzled for the first time last night. See below.

Freaky Friday

2009-03-27T11:50:00.001-07:00

Why are things always so much more fun when your parents tell you not to do it? I am so terrified at this point of what karma is going to bring to me with my children that I am considering building a house made entirely out of steel. I know that in a previous post I talked a little bit about us going down the stairs in the laundry basket but I think it would be a lot more fun to talk about it in detail.

My mom was always wondering where her laundry baskets were and why they were never around when she needed them the most, sometimes it was because we were to lazy to put our clothes away so we would let them sit in the laundry basket and go to it instead of to our closets. It only makes sense because if I wasn't wearing my fourth of July overalls that my grandma adorably embroidered with my name, I was wearing my looney toones overalls so therefore they either were worn strait out of the dryer or the next day so it was a waste of time and energy to even consider putting them where they should go. But I am going to go ahead and say that most of the time the reason why my mom couldn't find them is because we had either broken them or because we were finding a way to enhance its quickness with my old roller blade wheels. We had such a good set up, we would put a Living Scriptures VCR tape in and sit angelically on the couch until our parents bid us farewell to go to dinner and a movie. Once we heard the garage close we would stop the tape and collect every pillow we had in the house. Lucky for us we had four gigantic pillows so we would put two of them at the bottom surrounded by my parents bed pillows and then two against the wall. Not because we were worried about damaging it but because during a previous run we discovered that those walls feel like someone hitting you in the face with a pillowcase stuffed full of concrete. So there we were taking turns and about halfway down the stairs we would hear a strange dragging noise. When we stopped long enough to stop throwing each other down the stairs and look for the problem, we discovered the carpet was being pulled off the stairs. Oops. We looked at each other, kicked it back in place and continued to see who could push someone fast enough to do some real damage to their bones. One day the saddest thing happened, we were too heavy to go down the stairs so the front of the basket would catch and we would flip forward over the top. But don't worry, the perfect idea came to me after someone slapped me in the back of the head with a foot long summer sausage. If we rode backwards with our legs out of the basket and held our weight to the back it still works. This also made it much more fun because the person going down had no idea what was about to meet them and I will tell you what, there is nothing funnier than holding a broom across at head height and watching their face as they are clothes lined and flip down four stairs.

I have some sad news... I have to start only posting a Freaky Friday once a month. But this way I will post more posts in between :) I have found that I blog less for some reason but don't worry, I have some great things to blog about!

I'll take a milk chocolate and some sugar wafers.

2009-03-24T09:16:00.000-07:00

Last week my dad introduced me to something that will bring rays of sunshine into my life at this time of Spring still acting like Winter. Bleck. Not only is the weather effecting my emotions but my hair has been a non stop battle of static that has made it so that I am forced to carry a dryer sheet around in my pocket to run through my hair when it gets to looking like I just put a fork in a socket. It is pretty bad when you are now known as the dryer sheet lady because in one sitting you found three in random places within your reach. So there is this truck that drives by my work every day and has a musical horn, yeah it honks a song. I need it. Imagine what I could do if I had one of those. My dad calls up and tells me to come downstairs quick, little did I know that this truck was actually an ice cream truck for adults. Except for that it doesn't have all ice cream, it has everything you can imagine from cookies and pop to pancakes and steak. When the man opened up the doors I wanted to burst into song like on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when they go into the giant edible room. If you are wondering, I would be Agustus in the scenario. None of you can tell me that you wouldn't want to dive naked into a river of chocolate. This truck is comfort on wheels, I considered going to get a prescription of Prozac but after seeing that the treat truck has the same effect I am going to go with this option. The only difference is that Prozac doesn't go straight to your hips.

Sooo I have a correction.

2009-03-22T20:30:00.001-07:00

So Sarah informed me that Jais actually pushed Sarah into the river. Sorry for the misleading but regardless, the rosebush story remains true. I will try to make my stories a tad bit more accurate... or not. But to make this worth your while, I have attached the best ab work out ever. You are welcome.

Freaky Friday

2009-03-20T11:27:00.000-07:00

When people see my scars, they usually come to their own conclusion that they are softball battle wounds or from my xxxHaRdCoRexxx days of blading. (Rollerblading for all of you that don't know what that sweet sport on wheels is. Plus, I didn't want my grandma to read this and tell me about the time she saw the report on KSL about the Emo generation and cutting.) But now the real story of them will unfold.

There is a rumor in our family that once when we were camping with our cousins as small children, Sarah pushed Jais into the river. To this day it is still denied, but now I am reminiscing a lot of memories that lead me to think it true. The Shook's were our neighbors that lived down the street from us. They have two daughters that our mine and Sarah's same age and we were always playing together. I am sure when we announced we were headed over there, our mom was delighted because she could now have two hours displaying her breakable Precious Moments before we returned home and they were re layered in bubble wrap and put back in the child/fireproof safe. Well back in the days when it was safe to let your children roam around outside, Sarah and I walked out of the house and headed off down the street. I usually chose to drive my big wheel but due to some complications it was in the shop. We were carefully trying to keep about six inches in front of each other because it was always a race to see who would get to ring the doorbell, and with my six cylinder being replaced by twelve inch legs, I hardly stood a chance. That was such a treat for us, for some reason when you are little, pushing buttons that made high pitched dinging noises was almost as entertaining as "accidentally" putting a spoon in the microwave just to watch it explode. And you know that you never hit the doorbell just once when you were little. You would push it once and if the door didn't open by the time the bell was done chiming you would hurry and hit it again because it should just never take longer than one and a half seconds to answer the door. My parents eventually wised up and put in a door bell that chimed the Battle Hymn of the Republic. We lost patience after the first two minutes. Anyway, to get up to the door, you had to walk along their deadly front walk that was lined with rosebushes that we imagined opening up to the center of the Earth and swallowing us. We half ran to the front door and I was half a step ahead of Sarah, it was such a rush to feel for once, my little finger hitting that golden doorbell button before her. When I turned to do a victory dance, it was quickly ended by a hipcheck that sent me sailing into the rose bushes. Rosebushes are like quicksand, the more you squirm to get out, the worse it is. I thought that I had never experienced anything worse than the time that I broke a big wheel peddle but believe me, this was definitely topping that. I learned a couple valuable lessons from this: one - never have rosebushes that close to your front door, 2- if you are ever needed to bandage up a small child that has just encountered a rose bush you will need a Costco sized band aid box, and 3- never EVER beat Sarah to the doorbell. I will eventually be posting dates and whereabouts of Jaislyn and I's book tour to promote our new auto-biography, "Living With "Accidentally" Being Pushed"

As I run screaming.

2009-03-17T07:47:00.001-07:00

So while you are all decked out in your green clothes, St. Patties day socks, and Clover head bobbles, I am hiding in my office and trying to avoid that annoying little thing known as pinching. I forgot it was St. Patrick's day. I usually don't dress up for holidays because I am a fun sucker. A sucker of fun ideas and fun celebrations that have to do with me walking around in a shirt that has some cheesy holiday saying on it. Unless it has "If you pinch me, I punch you" written in green sequins on the front, then I am totally not interested. Who even thought of the idea that it is ok to pinch someone for not wearing green? Do I punch people for not wearing pink? I mean, I totally give them props for thinking of something so stupid that is now a huge phenomenon but I blame them for all those days that I was tortured because my mom "forgot" to send me to school wearing green, and when I was caught I tried to use the excuse that I had green on my underwear, and then when I was pantsed (spelling?) to prove it, my secret was exposed that I wasn't a total tomboy because my panties had hearts! HEARTS! I know there are a few of you out there that are saying, "well yeah, if you did all those things to me like you did to your parents, I would send you in a shirt that said, 'give me a noogie because I am not wearing green' in ugly brown sequins" But its ok, so far today my avoidance of being pinched is simple, every time I pass someone, before they say anything I say "Green underwear." and it follows with a grown person kicking the wall because it was one less person they could pinch.

Freaky Friday

2009-03-13T13:03:00.000-07:00

Because my parents didn't feel it necessary to sign us kids up in ice skating, we treated them to hours of us and our imaginations going to infinite and beyond.

I am pretty sure the reason why our parents didn't want us to have ice skates is because it is just another sharp object they would have to worry about us kids hurling at each other or Mitchell using them to cut the cupboards some more. We were allowed two things to cut our meat with, butter knifes or safety scissors because we were the kids that would pay each other off in pokemon cards to see who could run faster while cutting out a paper snowflake with moms sewing scissors. So we invented our own type of ice skating. It is called carpet skating and it really is a big deal. When we came up with it, it was around Christmas time when we had our wooden shoes set out in hopes of getting something from Sinterklaas the Dutch Santa Claus because we knew that the American one had heard ALLLLL about us. So the carpet became our rink and the wooden shoes became our skates, we were almost unstoppable. We would fight over who got to wear the ones with the windmills and who had to wear the boring pink ones because whoever had the pink ones was always the crappy skating pair (Jenny and Steven). We now needed the perfect tunes, since my dad knew to hide Janet Jackson's Rythm Nation album because if my parents had to listen to Black Cat one more time they might ship us to Neverland, we had to settle. So there we were, doing triple lutz's and back flips, spins and twists to Radio Disney's pop rendition of "A Whole New World" This is probably one of the more safe things that we came up with so my parents didn't seem to mind. As a matter of fact, last year we even had our mom try to do a sit spin, if you are wearing the right socks it amazing. You should try it. Nick tried it once and said he was done but the swivel marks in my carpet and the wooden shoes under the bed lead me to think otherwise.

It's begun.

2009-03-09T08:46:00.000-07:00

The sleep deprivation is beginning to detach my brain from my spine causing my IQ to drop 56.5 points and me to fall into daydreaming spells that end in me waking up after being shocked by my keyboard because I have drooled a lake into it. I know that it is just one hour and that the solution for MOST people is that you are also going to bed an hour earlier. Well reality check guys, I had a hard time going to bed at 10 before the dreaded daylight savings and would usually end up telling Nick stories about lawn gnomes that stole my rollerblades while I was selling bead lizards down the street until midnight. Well now he gets a whole extra hour of that because my body refuses to rest until ONE. Its weird, ask Nick, I could be quiet almost all day but as soon as my head hits the pillow and Nick is trying to fall asleep, my mouth starts jabbering like someone was winding me up all day and didn't release the key until Nick wasn't wanting to hear me speak. The only way I can get you guys to feel what he feels every night is if I tell you to imagine that right when you lay down to go to sleep, someone puts one of those wind up monkeys on your bed that bang the cymbals together and foam at the mouth, oh and that's not all, because at the same time he is jumping up and down and singing "This is the song that never ends." Now don't you all feel sorry for Nick. So if someone would like to offer him a place to sleep until daylight savings time ends, feel free to email him at his personal email, savemefromamanda@yahoo.com.

Freaky Friday

2009-03-06T08:44:00.000-08:00

Do you remember Xena Warrior Princess? Of course not because your parents let you watch stuff like Power Rangers. Well guess what? We weren't allowed to because it was violent. Our parent's knew the kind of ideas we would get. Trying to turn the dishwasher into a robotic dinosaur, beating kids up at school because we just know they are spy ninjas from Antarctica, and talking to our watches in hopes of coordinating a surprise attack against our church teachers. Xena was on Sundays after church when our parents would lock themselves in their room for a nap because wrestling us in sacrament meeting was exhausting. I know Xena was also violent but our mom and dad had no idea we watched it because we would sneak watch it while they were in a peaceful slumber... Until one Sunday we were caught.

EYEYEYEYEEEEEEYYYYYYYYEYEYEYYYYYY! Sarah (Xena) flew off the couch and nailed me with a roundhouse kick to the head. This didn't phase me because I (Ares) was busy clubbing Mitchell (Joxer) over the head with a turkey leg while he was biting Shanna's (Gabrielle) calf. Things were getting heated and we were starting to hit more aggressively, land harder and use real knives. I was in the middle of a barrel roll split when we heard the noise we didn't want to hear, mom and dads door flew WIDE open. Alisha missed her cue to change the channel to Sunday videos. That was her only job and she failed, and we suffered dearly. "YOU AND YOU AND YOU GET TO YOUR ROOM!" Her bangs were sticking straight up so we started to snicker and she silenced us with her dagger gaze, and you, she pointed at me, "You come with me, I want you to show me how to do that spin thing..." Ok that part didn't happen. We were all sent to our rooms to spend the afternoon until we were called down for supper. So we marched upstairs, attempted to wash off our permanent marker tattoo's and battle wounds and sulked. After a while we started to hear some noise downstairs so we decided to sneak a peak. We caught my mom in the middle of body slamming my dad from the couch wearing Sarah's Xena outfit.

Representing the 801

2009-03-02T14:33:00.000-08:00

Did anyone even announce that we had to start dialing 801 now? It took me by total surprise. Just like that time that my stairs tricked me into thinking there was one less than there actually was and I missed it. I tried to call my parents at home and hear, "Welcome to Verizon Wireless..." I didn't listen to the rest because that was clearly not my house... Unless my mom picked up a robotic accent and renamed our house from "Beware upon entering" to "Verizon Wireless." But knowing my little brother and sisters ability to change their voice to trick you, I called again. When "she" answered and said "Welcome to Verizon Wireless," I fired back with, "I know its you, you annoying little freaks, now give mom the phone." But the robot proceeded to tell me that she is now charging me an additional 200.00 for the month for disorderly conduct towards a machine. I asked my fellow housemates what was going on and one of them was smart enough to know that we are now required to dial the full ten digits. Doesn't the phone company know it is hard enough for peoples normal sized fingers to dial just seven numbers on their tiny telephones that have buttons the size of grains of sand. I know my fingers usually dial 235 when I am just trying to push 2. So now I have to waste another precious 1.62 seconds of my life dialing the extra 3 numbers. Doesn't sound like that much right? Well I place about thirty calls a week, so that is 48.6 seconds a week, 2527.2 seconds a year and if I live until I am 70, 123832.8 seconds are wasted on dialing an extra 3 numbers every time I make a phone call. That is 2,063.88 hours of my life WASTED on your extra 3 numbers. Do you realize that that is two thousand plus hours that I could be using to learn to play the oboe?

Freaky Friday

2009-02-27T07:43:00.001-08:00

When we were off track our cousins CJ and Angie would come over and my mom would do little activities with us or take us on a little fieldtrip. Sounds really educational and fun right?

Shanna:"Only a couple more and she should be finished"

CJ:"Alright, scissors."

... Silence...Snip...Snip...Snip...

**DOOR FLIES OPEN AND HITS THE WALL**

Angry Mother Kat:"AND WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU GUYS DOING!?"

As she looks down and sees that Shanna's my size Barbie is now my size Barbie with no fingers. Angry mother Kat asks for the fingers and CJ's tiny little hand that is balled up in a fist releases them to her. In the mean time, me and Angie were scared stiff and sitting on the stairs making paper turkey's. This is probably one of the only times when I wasn't involved in whatever it was that was making my mom go prematurely gray and call my dad that was thousands of miles away telling him that we would be in a cardboard box outside of walmart that said, "free kiddies, have all their shots but no returns or guarantees your house will still be standing tomorrow." I think what she was so upset about is the fact that Shanna cried when she didn't get My Size Barbie for Christmas when she actually did. She was hiding in a box behind the Christmas tree. My dad was hesitant in buying it because he saw that tutu outfit that she came with that you could also wear and the only kid he could imagine wearing it was Mitchell. My parents were never afraid of Mitchell being one of those pervy boys that took Barbies clothes off to see what was underneath because they were too concerned that he was trying to figure out a way to wear them. PS I blame Barbie and Ken for giving us ideas of what the other sex looks like without clothes because when I saw Nick it was like, "uhumm my Ken doll did not have one of those..." Anyway... .... ... We have now figured out the reason why we first thought of fixing the broken cupboard with a glue gun after Roni slammed into it. It is because that is what my mom did with my size Barbie. She laid her out on the ironing board, asked for liquid stitches and put her fingers back on.

Because I know how much you all want a handmade fruitloop necklace from me...

2009-02-27T07:38:00.001-08:00

One of my fellow blogging friends had this on her blog and I thought it would be fun. I never do these kind of things so here I am now. The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! I promise it wont be a plastic bag kite named Ed Sulivan. My choice specifically for you. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:1- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make! 2- What I create will be just for you. 3- It'll be done this year. 4- You have no clue what it's going to be. 5- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange. The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must repost this on your blog (or facebook, etc.) and offer the same to the first 5 people who do the same on your blog. The first 5 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they did win a suprise homemade gift by me. Oh, and be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it! Good luck!

Thats my name, don't wear it out.

2009-02-23T12:47:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I played a part in my grandmas musical number for church. Jo Anne De Lange played the organ, Kathleen Sorenson sang, and Frank Hauser played the piano. Can you tell which one I am supposed to be? That's right my friends read it and see for yourself...
So while most of you know me as Amanda, you never knew that I had an alias. The number went really well, aside from the fact that the entire time my mom was being dive bombed by flies and my heels kept getting stuck in the carpet loops and all I could think was, geez Frank had you not worn these today you probably wouldn't have messed up a hundred times and almost ate it on the stairs. But I couldn't resist. Now would you please excuse me, I need to go make a small name change to my driver's license.

Freaky Friday

2009-02-20T07:45:00.000-08:00

So while all of you had parents that bought you video game systems for Christmas, birthdays, or just because you whined enough about not having one and that everyone in your class was raving about the new Mario Kart 64 and how you were a nobody because you didn't have one and were forced to sit at the lunch table with the kid who still eats his boogers, we had nothing. I bought the first video game system we had from Toys R Us. The Nintendo64 happened to be out but I saw a special on the Super Nintendo so after scraping and saving, couch cushion diving, and conning small children into buying my creepy crawlies, I bought one. We LOVED that thing. We would all sit in front of the TV and contribute. Most of the time each of us would excel in a certain category, the water worlds, the jungle worlds, the animal worlds and the dreaded boss at the end. The TV already consumed our lives before the video games so my parents didn't seem to mind too much. So let me tell you a story because the Nintendo seems to be the thing that bonded us the most, using team work and rooting for each other.

This story is mainly for Kyle. Sarah hasn't always hated video games as much as crocs, she was actually a huge fan of the classics like Disney's Magic Kingdom and Paperboy. We had a game for the Super Nintendo called Porky Pigs Adventure and it was her life. She would come home from school and play it and you couldn't save so when we were forced to go to bed, she would leave the Nintendo on all night so she could start back up again. It became a big thing after school, we would race home to watch Sarah beat the next level. One night Sarah had finally made it to the very last level with the very last boss and we were so excited. Along came my parents to ruin our glory by telling us it was time for bed and that it wasn't healthy sitting in front of the TV for 7 hours. We complained that it was only 11:30 and we weren't going to bed until she finished. Our parents knew our weakness. Our mom went right over the the Nintendo and put her finger one inch away from the reset button and we all shrieked followed by little voices saying "ooh mommy you wouldn't" "Please don't mama you know this took us forever" and "If you do that, I am moving out." My dads way was a little bit more effective, he knew nothing got us up to bed faster than him chasing us with the plunger and telling us our head would fit perfectly inside. So that night we all dreamt of Porky Pig and the Evil Daffy Duck that awaited. School finally ended and we raced home only to remember that Sarah had her janitorial job to do at the elementary so we would just have to wait. It seemed like ages so Mitchell called the neighbor kids over to play. Nobody noticed anything had gone horribly wrong until Sarah got home, she turned the TV on only to be greeted by the opening screen. All of our hearts fell out of our chests and we wept and clung to each other. During our gigantic pillow fight someone hit the reset button and our hopes and dreams of seeing the end were shattered. We all tried to comfort Sarah but she needed a moment to herself so she went and colored her hair. We encouraged her to try again because it would be easier the second time but she snapped. She vowed to hate video games from that day forward. She has done that faithfully for the most part but she has begun to crack. Whenever she hears the electronic melody of paperboy, she can't help but want to play. She has had some peace though, about a year ago I pulled out the dusty Nintendo and defeated porky pig in a matter of 4 hours while she watched some and at then end of the game a tear rolled down her cheek while she said "That ending was beautiful."

*Disclaimer: Sarah is not a Nintendo hater too much anymore after countless hours of playing Viva Pinata and Dr. Mario.

Cause you had a bad day.

2009-02-18T11:37:00.000-08:00

Have you ever had a horrible day where nothing is going right and you find that you would rather be stranded in the middle of the ocean covered in raw bacon, next to Richard Simmons telling you that you are fat, while all at the same time the Reba theme song is playing in your head? I had one of those days, THREE times this week. After slamming my fingers in my drawers five million times, deciphering bids that might has well been written in German, and receiving not one, not two but three paper cuts during horrid filing, I considered calling Richard Simmons up and giving him the exact coordinates where I would land after being shoved out of a plane by someone who told me this wouldn't have happened had I followed my dream to be a My Little Pony, or a more realistic American Gladiator. Well unfortunately I am neither of those things, I am in accounts receivable where if I am not being yelled at by someone who doesn't feel like they owe us money, I am being asked how old I am because I don't sound 21. So from now on when people decide that it is completely ok to ask how old I am I will respond with this, I am 13 year old who is currently working against child labor laws because I have been dying to have that Hannah Montana mini backpack I saw at Payless, dont tell my parents that making collection calls isn't in the 7th grade curriculum. To take a break from collection calls, I found that filing should be harmless. Wrong. Those manila filing folders have it out for my cuticles. The only thing that would have made it worse is if there was a llama sitting there squirting lemon juice on my lacerations and head butting me at any chance he got. Another thing, why does your stapler have to inconveniently jam on the very last paper you need stapled? And when you unjam it and attempt to staple it again it thinks it would just be hilarious if it did it twice in a row. But it wasn't laughing after I backed over it with the forklift while repeatedly saying "Jam on this." Make note office tools, this is one A/R assistant you do not want to mess with.

Can someone say best wife ever?

2009-02-17T08:51:00.000-08:00

How can you be this when you do nothing but watch reality TV and sing annoying songs about your dog? Simple. Buy the gift that tops anything else in the entire world. Yes, even more gift topping then the time Sarah and I sent our husbands to the Bronco's vs. Dolphins football game, well maybe it is close. I think the only way I could have topped this gift is if I gave Nick a clone of me that never sang anything, and didn't insist that she had muffin top. But seeing that I don't have $300,000.00 sitting around to do so I made due. Nick LOVES the band "Travis" and since they are from Scotland, they NEVER come here. Well they are, and I found out and managed to keep my mouth shut for six whole days. It was really hard so I kept it occupied with sugar cookies and chocolate. So I am just going to go ahead and say this, these tickets make up for all the times that I forced Nick to eat frozen burritos, watch all the Carebear episodes from the second season, and listen to me belt out Katy Perry's "I kissed a girl" in the car.... twice.

I am so lucky.

2009-02-13T10:34:00.000-08:00

So today I get a call from a guy downstairs saying that he has something for me. I figured he had cookies or donuts he wanted to share so I go down and see these : )No they were not from the guy downstairs, they were from my cute husband. He sent two dozen of the most beautiful roses, a teddy bear, chocolates, a balloon and a cute little message. I am so lucky to have Nick : ) Love you big spoon!

Freaky Friday

2009-02-13T07:57:00.001-08:00

As you all saw in the random 25 things about me post, I tried to break the world record for somersaults. Do I even know what it is? No. I just figured it would be fun to see how long I could go. I wasn't going through out my house either, I was in the TV room going round and round, my dad started getting annoyed after he realized that we now have a permanent ring in our carpet. I started it on a Sunday after early morning church. At first my family would make comments of how I was going to be sick, how I probably should be careful that my foot doesn't go through the fireplace glass, and how annoying I was being but after six hours they continued on with their business. I started smelling smoke from the friction but did I care? No, because I was on number 657,485 and I wasn't stopping. The doorbell rang and my mom looked at me with pleading eyes like she always did when someone came to the door. It was the "children could you please act like nice normal kids for just five minutes? And then after I promise you can continue terrorizing one another with that giant fork." I didn't stop. It ended up being my Gma and Gpa D anyway and those two were very aware of our always having to do stupid things. Gma D stepped into the TV room and I ran over her foot mid-sault and she jump back clutching her chest and saying a cuss word. She told me to stop doing kill overs because eventually it would take a toll on my neurological system. She had no idea. It was dinner time and they began trying to sway me away from rolling to eat but I wasn't stopping. So a broken entertainment center door, a kick to Mitchell's face and a foot through the fireplace glass later I was finished. But all those things didn't stop me, it was the fact that now all I could see was black and the only senses I was relying on were sound and when all of the sudden I was hearing the strange crunch of a tarp underneath me, I stopped and waited for my sight to return. In the mean time my mom had dragged me out to the backyard by tarp to roll.

Random things

2009-02-09T15:04:00.000-08:00

I have been tagged. I generally don't do these Steph but I will because it is random things about me and I know everyone wants to know what I do besides watch Carebear DVDs and annoy the H out of Nick so here you go.

1- I hate lemon flavored candy, it is gross and burns my taste buds off.
2- I once shoved as many red tamale candies in my mouth as I could and stained my carpet red when I spit them out onto it. What? they were hot...
3- I used to only travel by way of somersaults and skipped two whole meals on Sunday trying to break the record.
4- Somersaulting up the stairs was great, but down wasn't so successful.
5- I knocked out my own two front baby teeth on purpose with barbie furniture before we went on vacation to Disneyland because the $150.00 I had saved wouldn't cover the tax.
6- I had a permanent front tooth knocked out by a bowling ball.
7- I used to work at Arctic Circle and gained about 30 pounds off of cookie dough bites.
8- I always give money to homeless people and the people that stand outside of stores because if I don't I go home and cry and tell Nick how awful I am and how bad I feel.
9- I can secretly cook, it always tastes yummy but the disaster I create in the process makes it not worth it.
10- I didn't have my first kiss until I was 16 and I regret the kiss so I claim that Nick was my first kiss.
11- I have broken my nose at LEAST three times and had surgery on it twice.
12- I used to absolutely hate girl things including, pink, shoes, purses, jewelry and now they are my obsession.
13- Nick's mom bought me my first purse when I was 17 and it was smaller than my make up bad now.
14- Rollerblading used to be my life. I used to chalk "Sk8 or Die" on my parents driveway.
15- I called the cops once on my mom for her not letting me go to gma D's and it took about 17 years to convince her it was me and not Sarah.
16- I peed my pants in 5th grade playing four square because a girl "high towered" herself in the face.
17- If I take Excedrin my brain shuts off COMPLETELY.
18- I have probably been to the ER more times than anyone you know.
19- I am not proud of number 18 at all.
20- I am a headstand champion, no one can defeat me.
21- I used to watch TV on the floor with my legs behind my head.
22- I sleep curled up into a tiny ball so when I shower I look like a hunchback.
23- I have a teddy bear named Twinkie that I will NEVER get rid of.
24- I love ribbon to the point of obsession.
25- I don't go a day without hitting my funny bone at least once. My house is a booby trap for my elbows.

Freaky Friday

2009-02-06T07:35:00.000-08:00

When we were younger we absolutely loved the library. Our mom would take us there and we would max out our cards with PC games, books and our personal favorite, Shelley Duvall VCR tapes. Occasionally our mom would be so occupied with keeping the house in at least 5 pieces that she forgot the books were due. Then Conan the librarian (the name we gave the recording that would call) would let us know they were late, this was only effective when my mom answered because if we did, we would snicker and ask him if his refrigerator was running or repeatedly say the word poop. Eventually he started threatning our lives and then just stoped calling. Well the fines started piling up little bits at a time and finally the library had had it.

I was first in line to check out my stack, we had us four kids lined up with our giant stacks and cards, divided just right so that we could check out the entire library. The lady asked how we were doing and beeped my card. Metal shudders came down over the doors, the SWAT team ran in and we heard words we never wanted to hear, "I'm sorry mam but you cannot check out any books on this card, it has an outstanding fine. And on a side note, I think that you should leave at least two of the thirty Shelley Duvall tapes here for the other children." My mom rolled her eyes and pulled out a twenty dollar bill. The lady looked at it and turned the computer screen. My fine was a measly $85. So she said, "ok, we will put some of the books back and check everything out on the other three cards. Next card beeps, fine. Next two cards, same thing. The line was starting to grow behind us which was causing my mom more grief then necessary so she ripped out her checkbook and wrote a check that probably could have payed for a car. Mitchell happens to be the next in line and he has a stack of music CD's. Keep in mind he is probably in fifth grade or something. She beeps the first one and I notice that it is the "You've Got Mail" soundtrack. I try to tell the librarian that this is a mistake, he must not know what it is. The whole library is looking at Mitch waiting for him to say something. Then small Mitchell looks up with a big smile on his face and says, "I love the Cranberries." Us girls start to laugh and tell him how stupid he is and how much he bugs us so the librarian feels the need to interject and let us know that her young daughter loves Beetle Juice (and she had a lisp.) Now I am not making fun of anyone but just like Ed Sullivan, the words Beetle Juice have a warm place in our hearts. But now anytime my mom hears the word Library, her eyes bulge and she nervously clutches her wallet so tight that you can hear it begging for air. I know, the library is free. Well not to us Sorensen's that is for sure.

And then the chicken noodle soup I ate for dinner came out my throat.

2009-02-04T12:10:00.000-08:00

When we were little, our dad would do "walkie walkie" to us before we had to go to bed. What is this you ask? I will give you a hint, I put shoe marks on his ceiling. Observe...

Freaky Friday

2009-01-30T09:35:00.001-08:00

Ed Sullivan. Hmm, the funny thing is, I don't even know who that is, what he does, or anything else. All I know is that anytime we hear the name Ed Sullivan, us Sorensen kids laugh so hard people wonder if we are falling apart into hysterics. The funny thing is how close to the truth they are. It also doesn't help that anytime we see a plastic bag blowing around the sky in the wind we all point at it, burst into tears and sing, "Ed Sullivaaaaaaaaan" at the same time. To us, hilarious, to onlookers, not so much because they crane their neck to the sky expecting to see something other than a piece of trash causing us to shriek in delight. After they roll their eyes, they quickly push their kids along saying, "No honey they are ok, some people are different. They can't control that." Why do we do this you ask?

I am sure you have noticed that my family brings destruction to things we are around. My mom bought us all kites for Easter and we were ecstatic. We went right out to the roof and tried to fly off. When that didn't work, we decided to actually fly them. After losing one, and getting two tangled so we had to cut them apart, we only had one left. We quickly discovered that when you pull the strings a certain way, it became a weapon of mass destruction as it would cut down out of the wind and nearly decapitate us. However, when you were the one in control it was hilarious to watch it fly down and punch someone in the Achilles tendon. After a thousand nose dives into the cement, it finally became demolished. We ran inside and tried to come up with new ideas to build a kite. In the movie The Halloween Tree, they used clothes and sticks to make a gigantic kite. After we sawed down two healthy branches of my moms baby trees, we hooked it to a carefully cut out piece of my church dress. What? It still had the tags on, therefore it was never to be worn by me. However I was very resourceful, I used the scraps for a party dress for our depressed guinea pig Cathy. May she rest in peace. Something about velvet makes it very hard to fly. So we all sat around, gazing out the window with the musical "Bye Bye Birdie" in the background. It was to the part where they start singing a song about the Ed Sullivan show and right when they sang "Ed Sullivannnnn" a plastic grocery bag floated by the window. We laughed uncontrollably and took the box full of grocery bags my mom had saved over the YEARS and launched them into the sky while singing "Ed Sullivannnnn." Now you can see why my mom would start yelling out of the kitchen window when she caught sight of this. She was yelling something about litter, hard months of saving, and crazy children before stomping out into the yard with a ball of yarn. Let me tell you, there is nothing prettier than the sight of a grocery bag in the sky being flown by a piece of yarn and five kids singing "Ed Sullivannnnnn."

I love these little people

2009-01-29T15:44:00.001-08:00

I am obsessed with digital scrapbooking now : ) I am so lucky to have all these cute babies to keep me from desperately needing one. If you want to know the sight where you can make these it is www.scrapblog.com. It is seriously so awesome : )

The Fankhausers

Booyah

New Year's Resolutions

Happy 4 Year Anniversary To Us +

Getting ahead of myself.

Happy Birthday To My Main Squeeze +

1500+ Times Ironing and I'm Back

Environmentally Friendly Vs. Sanity Friendly

My Favorite Brother

Wow.

Breaking Up With Chevy

3 Weeks?

Happy Half Birthday

I Refuse.

I Do Pick Favorites.

Well Then...

ABC's of Me & Nick

Little Man Bo

Obvious Depth Perception Issues.

The Newest Member of the Fankhauser Family

Thievery

New Blog For All You Gluten Free Followers!

Surprise Cake!

...

Good Riddance

Houston, We Have a Problem

Happy Birthday Baby Sister

Super Husband

A Letter To The Tooth Fairy

If Only Nails Had The Nutritional Value Of Broccoli

It Really Isn't Funny.

I Learn A Little More Each Time

Just When You Think It Can't Get Any Better...

For My Best Friend

Update On the Work Out

Priceless

For My Mama

Chef Boyardon't

We All Have Our Match

Somehow the Word Idiot Doesn't Cover It

Happy Anniversary #3

A Couple Things I Have Learned Today

Reminder To Self

Happy Two to the Three Nicholas

Thievery

You Rotten Kids

Freaky Friday

I Almost Forgot

No, I Haven't Died

Just Call Me Anti-Social

Because We Are Of Great Value

Mehhh

Because a piece of my heart is in Logan

I Need a Medicine Man

Kill.Them.All.

22.

Why I am so boring.

*Sing Annoying Lagoon Theme Song Here*

What is so wrong about hiring a receptionist?

Since We Are Half Way Through

Since when is busy a word in my life?

Just My Luck

Oh good gracious

Liar liar.

The real creepy crawlies are out!

Is this really necessary?

A Few of My Favorite Things

I know the reason

Mothers Day from Shelbie

Happy Late Mother's Day

Ugh.

Because my purse requires at least two feet.

I don't know what has gotten into me

Sorensen = Lazy

Now you can never say that I don't give you anything

Part 1 of 2000 posts of Cali

Hello Everyone!

I am not dead

Wow its already Friday.

Freaky Friday

Sing Annoying Lagoon Theme Song Here