Up and down

Friday -- UPPER! Unlike my sister, who has termed it Sucklight, I actually like Twilight. Maybe because I had such terribly low expectations for the thing that it had to be better than that? Or was it just the awesome company? Maybe it was that I got to sit next to Susan who had never read the books and was actually on the edge of her seat at times because she had no idea what was going to happen? But the night was definitely an upper for me. I even felt adventurous enough to try something new for dinner at Rubio's -- and I liked it.

Saturday -- DOWNER! Let's just say that after donning the white and blue, I might have a few strong words for Max Hall. Should I track down his parents house? It can't be too hard since he's from Mesa. I can't believe a football game could overshadow all the other awesomeness of the day.

Sunday -- UPPER! It was my birthday and exactly what a birthday should be. I got to sleep in, Dustin made my favorite breakfast and my favorite dinner. I got lots of fun gifts -- exercise clothes, a trip to the spa, a new coat from my sister and mom, cupcakes, cookies, hand soap, cards, a giant paper clip, a cookie sheet advent calendar, phone calls from so many awesome friends. . . heck, I even got toilet papered. Only too bad for them because our neighbors came over at 9:30 to wish me Happy Birthday and I didn't even have to de-toilet paper my own home, but as always -- there will be revenge!

So there you go. Another pictureless post. I should really dig the camera out. So tell me what you thought of Twilight! What do you order at Rubio's that I should try next? How hard to you cry after the BYU loss? What should I do with the garbage sack full of toilet paper in my front hall?

WOOT! It's Friday!

If you had asked me on Monday if I was looking forward to Friday, I probably would have thrown up all over you. As part of our training schedule, we were suppose to run 7 miles this morning. We've run 6, ran 5 a bunch, but 7 just sounded horrible. Even this morning I woke up with a pit in my stomach.

Yes, in a moment of self loathing, I agreed to run the Tempe Iron Girl which is a 15K. Actually I think I told everyone who was doing it that they were crazy, but then I started training with them anyway. And who knows, maybe London's Run in January.

Back to this morning -- The first 2.7 miles were uphill with a hurricane strength wind blowing in our faces, so the last 4.3 miles were a breeze. I guess anything would feel great after that. And so I ran 7 miles, felt great -- we all felt great -- and now I can enjoy my awesome weekend. It feels so good to have that out of the way!

TWILIGHT with some girlfriends tonight. WOO HOO!

Finally feeling the gratitude

All month I've been reading everyone's blogs and a lot of you seem to have a "thankful theme" going on. It's been so fun to read them, but I have to admit that this month I've been kind of a grinch. I just don't feel like me. Does that ever happen to you? I'm behind on everything, I can't keep anything straight and like I mentioned before -- a complete lack of motivation.

So instead of gratitude, I've been feeling stress. Although in my defense I have told my husband every night how grateful I am that he has helped out so much and put up with all my craziness lately.

OK, so enough of the whole boo hoo poor me moment because you are all going to hate me in a minute. Last night Dustin forwards me an e-mail and tells me to skip to paragraph 3 if I don't want to read the whole thing. So I read paragraph 3 and I can't figure out what he's all excited about. Apparently he's gotten some award at work and also, he can't count paragraphs because he really meant for me to read paragraph 4 where it tells him that he and guest will spend a five-day, four-night stay at The Hilton Los Cabos Resort in Los Cabos, Mexico, A vacation???

Isn't it funny how something to look forward to can just turn your whole attitude around? It was suddenly like "What stress? In a few months I'll be on the beach in Mexico!!! Without my kids!" Not that I don't love my kids and I'm not grateful for them, but Dustin and I haven't been on a vacation away from them since our anniversary when Ellie was 3 months old. ** edited ** Mer just reminded me of when we went away for our anniversary when Nate was about 10 months old. I am a LIAR! I was on a girls trip when Dustin flew up to surprise me, so I don't think that should really count as I was going to be away from the children anyway and it was Dustin who got out of his fatherly duties. Also big thanks to Molly and Gina who took our kids for a few nights when they were TINY! And Kerry and Michelle who kept the surprise!

ANYWAY in February, just picture me here:

Dirty Little Secret

I have a total lack of motivation lately. Case in point: my lack of blogging. Also piling up -- laundry and the mess in my garage. And NO! There will be no pictures in this blog entry.

Today I came home and found Dustin folding a few baskets of clothes on our bed. I guess he finally gave up on me getting around to them. I sat down and started helping him fold them when he holds up a pair of tights, "Are these doll tights or real tights?" Yes, those are Sadie's tights. "When did Sadie ever wear tights?" Halloween. EEEEEK! I haven't folded laundry since HALLOWEEN! That is some serious laundry laziness right there.

Then Dustin tackled the mass of shirts by my bed. I have a seriously bad habit of getting undressed by bed each night and then just leaving the clothes there. Usually I pick them up one or two times a week, but the pile has been pretty big lately. Dustin starts putting shirts in the dirty hamper when he picks up a shirt that still had my I VOTED sticker on it. ACK! I can't believe I am admitting this here, but I have a real problem here! TEN DAYS things just piled up.

I am happy to report that after a nice long nap, and pretty much Dustin doing all the work, I got the clothing mess tackled and the baskets are empty and closets are cleaned. Even the garage got cleaned out. Best.Husband.Ever! HOORAY!

So here's hoping that this week I find some motivation!

Ellie

This is one of those posts that is totally for Grandma's and family because I'm going to talk about my daughter as if she is the MOST brilliant, creative child in the entire world.

Like all the funny messages she leaves on my sister's phone. I believe last night she called and told her, "LOLA! Send me 3 diet cokes. And yellow flowers." I should mention that I do not drink diet coke, nor do I allow her to drink diet coke. We don't even drink juice at our house. Milk and water only!

Friday Ellie came home from school with her first "report." It was on Spiders and she got a 100% on it -- 25/25 point. So without any further ado:

Spiders

Do you know cool facts about spiders? Spiders have oily legs. Spiders have amazsing legs becas they have seven sechens --sections-- in their legs. Spiders make fantaxtec webs becas they come in different sizes. Trapdoor spiders are speshel --special-- becas they live under ground to catch insects. I know you learned lots of facts today.

So you are now a little schooled on spiders! She also wrote a book for Dustin's birthday. She locked herself in my room with some paper and crayons and came out with the best.book.ever.

The Best Dad Ever
Ellie Rogers

and then there is a picture of 3 dads and a blank face with a question mark on it

Page 1 -- Does your friend have the best dad ever? NO!
Page 2 -- Does your cousen have the best dad ever? NO!
Page 3 -- Is there a best dad ever in the world? YES!
Page 4 -- Do you know who it is? NO!
Page 5 -- The Best Dad Ever is YOU!

Ellie and the BEST DAD EVER!

On with the show

So apparently a few people have been checking my blog to see what I have to say about the election. I've been too busy whooping it up! I don't know what they were expecting -- maybe Nanny Nanny Boo Boo? I win, You lose ;p But that's not how I feel. Mainly I feel some empathy for all of y'all out there. I know how it feels to just totally disagree with over half the country -- although in 2oo4, I really agreed with over half. . . sorry, just thought I'd throw in some brevity here. I have felt the disappointment, the despair, the pit in the bottom of my stomach. But I lived. And with that I do have two links to share.

1. My sister's humorous attempt to make all the McCain supporters feel better, or at least laugh: Which I totally love
and
2. A little silver lining for all of you prop 8/1o2/2 supporters: Looks like Obama has already done something good for you

Also, one last comment, I'm no Sarah Palin lover, but man have I been disgusted by the way she has been thrown under the bus. I used to really dislike her, but with everything coming out, I feel so sorry for the poor girl.

OK, so now on to how I feel about the whole thing: WOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOO! When they called Pennsylvania I started feeling pretty confident and I was happy to say the night did not disappoint. We stayed up to watch Obama's speech and I almost cried. I know you may not believe in him yet, but I hope you can give him a chance. How cute are they?? I wish they had called and told me they were wearing red and black because we totally could have gone on stage with them! Move over Joe Biden, Maddy Rogers can stick her foot in her mouth just as well as you can.

And that was just a really lame attempt to segue to some cute pictures of my kids that I've been wanting to share in which they are in fact wearing red and black.



My really awesome, super talented friend, Lisa -- also a crazy Mormon Democrat, so lucky to know so many -- took them.

BaROCK the VOTE!

I have to admit that I actually didn't vote this morning. I voted a few weeks ago via mail in ballot. Luckily they still sent me an, "I voted early" sticker, so I have something to wear today.We've got a lot of propositions on the ballot here in AZ, so it's not just about the next President, though I am hoping for a happier election night that the previous two. I know most of you are big McCain fans, so maybe you could all just vote Obama so poor Dustin doesn't have to suffer through another election night sob fest? I know he'd appreciate it and really, I think it's my turn. Actually if you live in a solid red/blue state, you just vote for whoever. I'm mainly concerned about anyone who lives in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio ;p

I kid! I kid! Just get out and VOTE! Also -- no snarky comments please :D

Since I didn't get to vote at the polls this year, I made everyone run down to our polling station this morning so I could feel like I was part of the process. No lines or anything, so everyone head on down!! Dustin just got back and said it was GREAT!

Also, I will accept chocolate chip cookies or snickerdoodles in case I'm in a deep dark depression tomorrow. Eek! I'm nervous. Happy Election Day!

And then there was Halloween

Despite all the birthday celebrations, we managed to squeeze a few Halloween festivities in this weekend.

Thursday night we carved pumpkins at our neighbors. And by "we" I mean "the dads." The children had much more fun playing with each other. In Ellie's defense, she did help scoop the pumpkin guts out. Then we let the kids take the credit for the pumpkins. Ours is the scarecrow in the middle. See it?? Right behind Ellie's head. Oh wait, you mean Ellie's head is blocking our pumpkin?? Nate wanted a spooky one.

Friday we had "screaming" good time at Shauna's. And I do mean screaming. For some reason the kids were on one, but we still managed to squeak a good 2 hours out of them and play some games. They were possibly cranky because it was still 95 degrees on Halloween.

That night I took some really horrible pictures of the children in their Halloween costumes as they were in a hurry to get down the street to the block party. Only Ellie had any Halloween spirit at the time. We cooked hot dogs and hamburgers -- which only Sadie ate. I feel the need to captue this rare shot of Sadie actually eating. And some of the cutie pie kids. Then we split up and started trick-or-treating. Good thing we split up or else the mob at people's houses could have been scarier than this. After we were Becky and I took a few of the girls, and Nate to all the Haunted Houses in the neighborhoods. Nate LOVED them, but Ellie cried the entire time. See how she looks all brave in this picture? Well she cried the entire time through the Martin's Haunted House even though Bobby personally walked her through it and showed her where all the scary things were.

Saturday Dustin did a triathalon, I kept crazy busy -- big shout out to everyone who watched my kids for me all day -- and then we got all dressed up for the Tyler's smokin' Hollywood Halloween party. Dustin was "Joe." Average Joe, Joe six pack and Joe the Plumber all rolled into one and I had WAY too much fun as Sarah Palin. I may start speaking like her on a regular basis. There was another Palin there, but I just called her Tina Fey all night.

I didn't even think to take a picture of our costumes until we were home and Dustin was off taking the babysitter back to her house. I'll have to see if I can steal some from other people's blogs, but for now here is my awesome self portrait.