Little People in Hipster Glasses

Christmas this year was fantastic! I was a little sad that it was my first Christmas away from my side of the family, BUT my mom made sure to send 342 boxes of Christmas goodness to the Sel Family Home to ensure I wasn't too sad.

Here was likely my favorite present (with the exception of the 12 pairs of tights and trillions of pairs of mismatched socks that I got)

Yup, it's a pug puppy! Wait, false, it's a keyboard with which I can now get back into piano so I can compose songs about pugs...

This was Sel's favorite present. A "gun cabinet" aka an Ikea locker for all of his nerf weapons. Genius and amazing. Sel is WAY happy about this baby. See that gun in the left hand corner? It's called the Hailfire. It is both the best and worst thing to happen to me. Best because Sel is IN LOVE with this weapon probably more than any of his others. Worst because it can shoot 40 trillion bullets in two seconds and I am usually the target. Thank goodness Dwise was wise enough to get me one too so I can shoot Sel while he is in the shower like a helpless wet kitten. Revenge is very, very sweet my friends.

Instead of being the actors in the retelling of Christ's birth, we used this adorable Little People nativity DWise (Sel's Momma) got for her grandbabies/ her adult children to play with nonstop

Sadly Joy and Roy left shortly after dinner before the real fun started.  Hence why they nor my adorable nephew are in any of these. This is the beginning of the glasses games. What are the glasses games? Read on dear reader

The Sel Family tradition is to pick out a ridiculously hilarious and fun game to all play together on Christmas Eve. This year they broke out these babies. The point of the game is to look like a complete fool. Wait...nope, I just did that naturally I believe. These fun hipster glasses can have a variety of things attached to them and then you use your head motions to "win". This lovely one I am sucking at is getting that magnet red dangling thing to hit the bulls eye on the top part of that red paddle. Ask me if it was hard.

Kit getting a plastic dolphin to jump through the hoop attachment. Please admire her fantastic Christmas shirt. All of the Sel Family Ladies got one of these lookers. I. Am. In. Love with them. I know what I will be wearing to all future Ugly Sexy Christmas Sweater Parties. Also, notice Favorite Uncle Bern being the judge in his throne behind her.

Sel looking sexy as usual wearing the shirt I happen to pack for him anytime we go anywhere. I ask him to wear this shirt every single week because, um, HELLO talk about some rugged, lumberjack stud, am I right? Of course I am.

Bri doing the pig nose one. I think this one was easily the most difficult one. Also, check out Bri's grinch shirt which all of the Sel Family boys got with their Xmas Eve pj's.  Both parts creepy and fabulous



Here's one more of me failing to do it right.

After all of the fun game time, we decided to ask the piano master extradionare DWhiz (Sel's Poptart) to play ALL of the Christmas hymns. It was beautiful and perfect and happy (even if all of us had to sing whisper the last two because our voices were shot). It left me feeling that warm Christmas glow I crave every year. This was easily my favorite part of the whole holiday.
 Gracious! I am so blessed to not only have one family of hilarious, loving, amazing humans BUT TWO!



And just so you can finish reading this with a big fat smile on your face, here is my nephew being WAY too adorable to handle. Sel was the photographer who captured this Best Photograph of the Year.

Peace Out 2012

2012. Wow! What a year! It is crazy to think back to all that happened. It feels like it flew by. I must be getting old because time keeps going by faster and faster each year. Here are some of my favorite highlights from the year the world was supposed to end.

 * Ringing in 2012 in Ohio with my wonderful family and Sel

* My first Valentines day as a Mrs.

* St. Patrick’s Day Dinner w/ Pam & Disney

* Headstart

* Our unbelievably perfect summer road trip (Camping in Central City, Visiting old friends in Topeka, Spending time with my aunts in Chicago, Seeing the Pathology Museum in Indy, My baby sister’s high school graduation and grad party, Listening to Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter on our happy road trip, Biking around Mackinac Island, Going to Frankenmuth with Sel and my freaking amazing parents, Meeting Kit’s now hubby (Kat) and visiting our favorite uncle in Missouri, Going to the top of the Arch in St. Louis, and tying it all off with camping in one of the most Podunk towns in all America)

* Both Family Reunions

* Everything about Summer Semester 

* Peoples of India Class

* Sculpting

* Hiking back to the place we first kissed in honor of my 22^nd birthday

* Graduating from BYU!!!

* Our one year anniversary at the Melting Pot and Anniversary Inn (and the sweet anniversary gift Sel gave to me- I will never get over how lucky I am to have married my perfect match)

* Spending a week in SLC dog sitting

* Kit’s Wedding and seeing her and Kat have such a happy little married life

* Sel getting 3 medical school interviews after all his hard work

* Our freaking amazing trip to Philadelphia (Reading Terminal, Independence Hall, POE’s House, The Food! Oh gracious all that delicious food!, Sel doing really well at the interview with UPenn, Everything about this trip was better than I could have ever expected)

* Bri getting engaged to one of my newest favorite people on the planet

* Doing countless fun things with my blow-your-mind away amazing best friends

* Working full time for the past 5 months and feeling very secure about our financial future because of it 

* Melting Pot and seeing the Temple Square Christmas Lights with the Sel Family

* Spending Christmas Eve singing all the Christmas hymns with the Sel family (this one will be etched into my heart for a long time I believe)

* Hearing my mom and aunt scream with delight when they opened our Christmas gifts to them (tickets to Sherlock, ahem, I mean “Shrek the Musical”)

* New Years Eve with the Milks

* Cuddling with Sel 358 days of the year. Best memory for always.

Get ready for 2013! It seriously is going to be the best year ever. Here are some things I am REALLY looking forward to

Cind having her baby (happened shortly after I wrote this post!)

Lys in Ptown again

A secret I can't tell you about yet :) 

Finding out where we will be moving for the next four years

Sel graduating from BYU

Spending my 23^rd Birthday in Rome!!!

Our two week Euro Trip with Kit, Kat and D^2

Spending Christmas 2013 with my family in the Ukraine

My Dad: The Famous Author

My Dad forwarded me a talk he gave in church a few years back and I thought I would share some snippets here. Because, wow! my dad makes me sound like an amazing person and he is a very, very talented writer (not to mention teacher, speaker, person in general). He is also hilarious and so beautifully spiritual. The talk itself was about five pages of insightfulness, but I tried to only highlight my favorite parts (which still make it quite the long post, but believe me when I tell you it is a grand read)



My cute parents at my graduation dinner



My parents being extra cute and in love on Mackinac Island



My dad trying really hard to do a good smile ;)



Without much ado, here is a bit from this gem of a human being.

"My wife and I have now been married 23 years and have been blessed with the best two daughters a couple could ever hope for (that’s not to say that we have a “less than the best” son or two, or other daughters who aren’t quite up to par, we just have the two children, and they just happen to be the best).  Our oldest, Lauren, is living in Utah, going to that “Provo based university”, working in Salt Lake this summer while she prepares for her upcoming nuptials in August.  She also, “proud dad” is happy to report, just successfully completed her first marathon yesterday with her health intact, staying “upright” throughout the whole event ... but more about that later."

 Nothing quite as good as hearing that your parent is proud of you. Here is more of the talk. I forgot to mention his talk was on adversity.

Could one argue that if a family is having trouble with a child, that this is somehow a self imposed adversity because parents know that there might be adversity when it comes to their children, and they decided to have the child in the first place, thus it is self imposed?  Truly, that I don’t know nor would I ever care to judge, but I do know that herein lies the blessings of adversity because our children ultimately become our “prosperity” and, speaking for myself, at the very least, no matter what kind of heart ache or troubles that may arise in relationship to my children, the emotional scope between utter happiness to extreme sadness that I have learned from being a father is not something I can imagine learning without having this experience.  It certainly didn’t come from just being a child of a parent, that much is for sure.

Remember that I earlier mentioned that my daughter ran a marathon yesterday.  When she was 12, I took her running with me for the first time.  Up until that point in life, she really hadn’t done any distance running. (Um, try not really run at all cause I spent most of those young years sitting on the couch all day pretending I had friends and watching Lizzie McGuire)  For me, I like to run.  Though I know I don’t look like it, I can actually run fairly far and fairly well and wanted to share that with her.  That day, there was adversity in my life.  In fairness, it was mostly self-created as she was my daughter after all, and I did take her running, but what a blessing it has ultimately turned out to be too … On that first day, she really, really struggled and didn’t like me very much. (I sat down after running barely 1/4 of a mile and told him I hated him and running cause I was one heck of an angsty pre-teen) She screamed a lot at me (when she could catch her breath that is).

For you that don’t know, the secret to being able to run long distance is learning how to breathe.  One has to learn how to slow one’s breathing to the point of almost a regular breathing pattern.  The best runners can actually have full, normal conversations while they run because they have their breathing so controlled.  For her, the first day didn’t work out so well in that category, but she did keep after it, and eventually, she started to get it.  Over time, she started to run further and faster.  In junior high and high school, she ran cross country and track being quite successful in both.  Her sophomore year in high school, she qualified for state and was part of the 6^th placed team.  The next year, her team actually took state. She, however, wasn’t running that day as she had developed a different type of adversity during that season that could have caused her to never run again.  During the summer between seasons, unbeknownst to her or us, she had started to pass out when she ran.  At first, we thought she was just tripping, but her injuries were strange in that she never had injuries to her hands that one would have by trying to catch oneself.  The first time we knew she was actually passing out was at the end of a race when she crossed the finish line and in stride feel face first to the ground.  It was horrifying. (not to mention embarrasing, yet equally sexy)

We did all the doctor things, and it was discovered that crazily, the reason for it happening was quite innocuous.  She was literally healthy, her body just didn’t always keep her blood pressure up, and she would pass out, much like someone who locks their knees and passes out while singing in the choir.  As such, she could keep running if she wished, and she really did.  For the most part, she collapsed at the end of her races with me catching her as she did it, but more than a few times, she collapsed while she was in the middle of the course … one moment running, the next dead weight, no arms catching her, falling to the ground.  More than one person assumed she had died while running when they saw this happen. This was very, very scary, and for many, probably a good enough reason to give up running. Though it was awful for her at the time, she loved running and continued working on it. (because I had great parents, teammates, and coaches who encouraged me) Over the years, she has figured out how to know when she is starting to have issues and can control it much better.  She still does pass out at times, but not nearly as much, and that she could actually complete a marathon is almost a miracle … truly she has taken adversity to prosperity!

Ultimately, there are many kinds of adversity ... some are self created by not following God’s commandments, some by not being smart in one’s decisions, but many are just because life happens.

When my wife and I attended a funeral a few years ago of one of her beloved college professors, Dr. DK Barton, Elder Neal A. Maxwell, who was still with us then, stood up to speak and told us that when he had received the call from the Dr Barton’s son that his father had passed away, Elder Maxwell had enthusiastically responded, “That is great news!  Thank you so much for letting me know!”  He explained to us that though his response caught the son by surprise, it was great news because this man had been able to make it through this life, through all the adversity and was now able to go to the other side, prepared to meet God, and that we couldn’t hope for anything better for his friend.

We left heaven to become like Him.  As such, we need to act like Him while we are here if we want to be like Him later.  Adversity will come, there is no doubt about it.  The line between prosperity and adversity is thin. If we follow His commandments, much adversity, like the kind the congressman from New York is now experiencing can be avoided, but even if we avoid that self created type of adversity, it will still come.  Just remember, this life is God both giving us and allowing us to become more like Him.  If we can keep this in mind, life should have more meaning and not feel so daunting.  There use to be a common saying out that that said something like, “Life happens and then you die” ... well, let’s make sure we do our part that the “dying” thing isn’t the kind of premature thing that Elder Holland talked about. 

Wow! Am I right in how awesome my dad is? Answer: Yes. Very much so. Hope you liked a little sneak peak into the talented life of my other X-Chromosome donater.

Half of a Century

Sel turned half of a century old last week! I can hardly believe it! Poor kid though. Sel's birthday is unforunately close to Chrismtas, which means it sometimes get overshadowed by the wonderfully festive season. It also, even more unfortunately so, is always smack dab in the middle of finals week. Every birthday for the past six years (minus the time he spent in Germany) has been spent taking at least one final.

That guy is a sport about it all, but it also makes me a little sad we can't spend the whole month solely celebrating just him.

If you know Sel or I pretty well, you know we go ALL OUT for celebrations. The first birthday I spent with Sel was his 23rd. I got him 23 balloons and wrote 23 reasons on them why he was spectacular. I also got him dragon footy pajamas so we could be life long pajama loving people. I also kidnapped him with Kit, Kat, Caboodle, and PAM and took him to breakfast in his new pj's. Best part= Kit made a double RAINBOW cake! Look at the grin on that boy. Melts my heart how happy he looks.

Nothin sexier than footy pajamas

What a freaking cutie!

Fast foward another year to Sel's 24th. The balloons with love notes and drawings made a reappearance plus one. A delicious cake was made and some fun presents were given. I even managed to keep one of the big presents (a nerf battle axe and nerf vest) a secret which I have found is remarkably difficult to do once you're married. The best part though was the suprise party Kit helped me throw. A nerf battle of the most epic nature occured and I don't think I have ever seen Sel happier. He was totally in his element as he weilded his thousand and two weapon collection while hunting his friends, wife, and siblings. I will admit to be ridiculously proud at how well this baby turned out. Again, Sel WAS SO HAPPY!



Riding in the campus library elevator and shooting unsuspecting students.

One of my very few baking successes!

My sexy sniper



And here are just some older pictures of Sel being adorable on his eighth birthday and EXTRA adorable just because. Our kids are going to be the most adorable humans to EVER walk/crawl the planet if they get most all of his genes.

He is the melt your heart adorable one in the red (his bro is looking cute too, of course) I want to dress all our little boys in bow ties and button up jackets and knee high socks and then suffer a heart attack from how cute they will be. At least I will die happy, right?



 This year I felt was not up to the standard of the past two. The wedding and finals and traveling kept plans from being perfectly made. Despite it not being our usual party of the century, I think Sel had a happy 25th.
The morning started with 25 ballons, a song I wrote (if you're lucky, I will post it here...maybe), and a veggie stuffed omelette in bed. Sel had to take a final (boo!) and had stayed up until 2:00AM studying. When I brought him his breakfast before work, he was a complete and utter zombie. I felt bad waking his cute self up, but I wanted to make sure he had something to eat before his final.
Sel then got to eat lunch at his all time favorite establishment, Chik-fil-A. I was lucky enough to get an extended lunch break so I could stare at him smiling while chowing down those waffle fries and complimentary birthday ice-cream sundae.
He had to take a final the next day too, so he spent the rest of his birthday hours studying. Poor chap!
I was going to make this fabulous bruschetta chicken dinner with an ultra expensive cheese tasting appetizer. Sel LOVES cheese. As I've mentioned before, my hubby has some seriously classy taste and it gets ultra class when it comes to cheese. I had discreetly asked him a month ago to list twenty things he would do if he was rich. One of his responses was to buy all the delicious, expensive cheese he could from Harmons' excellently large selection. So, for his birthday I spent an amount I am not even going to admit on five different fancy cheeses. We sadly haven't tried any of them yet, because Sel really wanted a GIANT salad for dinner instead of the meal I had planned. Which was a really good call cause we ate SOOOOO much that day. Yikes!
If you are looking for a fabulous big salad, Red Robin has one of the best in town. They brought Sel a little birthday cake/ice-cream thing, but didn't sing Happy Birthday. I started to, but then Sel asked me not to since I had already sung him Happy Birthday 5 times that day already....Bet he didn't want to make the other restaurant goers jealous that they don't have a wife that sings as beautifully as I do.
The best part of his big day happened when our wonderful siblins came over for a miniature b-day party. I made a not-as-delicious-as-last-year cake and bought some gourmet ice-cream to share. Kit & Kat got Sel a nerf gun (his third weapon for this birthday) and Rocky & Red got Sel a panda hat that I am SO obsessed with. He looks like an overgrown manchild with it on and I can't get over how much I love that.
Our siblins really made his day happy! We all laughed, ate, shot nerf guns, and watched YouTube videos for a while. It was a sacrifice for them to take time out of their finals studying to come over and I couldn't be more grateful! Yay for the best family in the WORLD!
I think Sel was happy which makes me SO happy which makes the world a really super duper happy place :)
So lucky to be with this hunk of a 25-year-old :)















The REAL History behind Beauty Pageants

Last night Sel and I were driving home from Idaho, when we somehow got to talking about beauty pageants. (Probably cause one of us said one of our favorite Honey Boo Boo Chil' phrases)

Sel turned to me and asked, "Have you ever thought how beauty pageants even came to be?"

I had thought about it before, but never came up with as concrete and historically accurate version that Sel did after that question. Without much ado, here is Sel's take on how beauty pageants came to be.

A bunch of old dudes running the town were sitting in a meeting when one of them said,

"I have an idea for how to get young girls to get almost completely naked in front of us! For free!"

Of course all the old men folk were interested as their previous attempts had disatrously failed and they were tired of spending money on strip clubs.  

"We will hold a contest to see who is the fairest in the land and the whole criteria is they have to walk around in front of us in bathing suits!"

"Well, I really like when young girls dress up all fancy like. We should have that be part of it too!" chimed in another old man.

"Oh! I love it when girls do gymnastics or twirl batons! We should have a talent show in the contest too!"

Finally, the wisest of all the town leaders, gave his two cents.

"Gentleman, no one is ever going to let their daughters do something like this so we can all oogle them. We need a better plan than this. In order to mask our original intent of making girls do the things we think make them beautiful, we will have a speaking portion. We will ask them random questions that seem really important to make sure no one catches on that this is just a way for us to fufill our desires."

All the townsmen cheered!

"I think we should be extra careful and call it a scholarship program! No one will be able to say anything negative if it is all in the name of education"

No one cheered this time. There was a moment of silence as all the men in the room looked at one another with tears in their eyes. The fantasies they had entertained for years were about to become a reality.

No longer would they be creepy, slightly perverted old men. Now, they would be respected for their ability to judge the beauty of young women.

Who would have thought such an insignificant moment would become such a hallowed event? An event that has brought us the ever real, ever impressive entertainment of Honey Boo Boo. So grateful for my historian of a husband :)

Sandy Hook

When I first heard the news today about the Sandy Hook shooting, I sobbed. I pictured my precious nephew, my sweet cousins, my future perfect children going to school like those little ones did and meeting the same fate. I can't stop crying.

This feels so much darker and more terrible than anything America has experienced. The Twin Towers were different. The Okalahoma bombings was different.The men who did those bombings didn't have to look into the faces of each and everyone of their victims and make the concious choice to end another person's life. But this?

Children. Tiny. Precious. Innocent.

None of the children who were shot were over ten. The majority that died were in kindergarten. The age of my little headstarters.

I can't seem to remove my heart from this situation nor do I want to nor should anyone be able to look away from something like this unscathed.

The twenty year old man (and his potential accomplice) have more darkness in them than I could even begin to comprehend.

This wasn't a high school shooting. This kid hadn't been bullied by those little ones. From what I have read, his anger was directed toward his mother who was a kindergarten teacher.

To me, this man is one of the most evil and twisted and unforgivable people to ever live.

We talk of the evils of past and present dicatators who killed thousands. Most of these men did not actually do the deed. They gave the command and their weak and miserable followers obeyed.

This man had to look each and everyone of those 20 children and 6 teachers in the face and pull the trigger.

I don't care what anyone will say to try and lessen his hideous actions.

Maybe he was molested or raped. Inexsuable. Thousands upon thousands of people have been victims to rape and molestation and yet, those thousands have not allowed their pain to justify acts as horrendous as this.

Maybe he was beaten as a child? Maybe he was bullied by kids when he was growing up? Maybe his mom made him feel terrible about himself every single day?

I struggle to even have the smallest twinge of sympathy for him. For whatever horrible things happened to him that turned him into a deranged, heartless creature, there are hundreds out there who have gone through so much worse.

Here is a worse situation one might have gone through than him-

A parent who dropped their world off at school only to recieve a call later everything they lived for no longer existed. A tiny piece of metal destroyed their everything. Now that parent has to wake up every single day knowing the world will never look as beautiful because the most beautiful thing there ever was was stolen in a moment of unexplicable violence.

There is a belief that no one dies before they are supposed to. That everything happens for a reason.

I can't help in my moment of sadness but ask were these little ones really sent to Earth with the purpose of being murdered at the age of six? What reason, may I ask, as to why?

Maybe it will cause parents to hug their healthy, living children a little tighter tonight.
Maybe it will unite the tiny town of Newton in love and support of those who have lost these tiny angels.

Maybe people everywhere will have some sort of insight about the purpose of life and death.
Maybe someday I will be able to comprehend the purpose to such a horrific act. 

 But not tonight.

Tonight all I will be able to think about are those parents who have an empty child's bed that will never again be filled

Tonight all I will be able to do is pray that someday those parents will find comfort and still find things about the world that are beautiful.

The Roller Coaster

Yesterday started off as one of the worst days of my young adult life. I was running on fumes from a mostly sleepless weekend which , of course, made everything seem horrible anyway. I then found out the terrible news that Santa had been murdered by Aragog on his way to deliver presents to Middle Earth which meant Christmas was cancelled for those of us not living in Middle Earth. Contributing to the cancelling of Christmas, I found out I had to work Christmas Eve and New Years Eve. I was heartbroken since this meant our plan of traveling to Twin Falls on the 23^rd then hopping over to Idaho Falls after was not going to happen. It also meant most of our plans for the break were more or less not going to happen.  What made it infinitely worse was when someone I thought most of all would show sympathy told me to suck it up. I felt pressured from all ends and angry that the people I was hoping to lean on most were the least willing to let me.  I was hurt and wrote a post about “How to Kick Someone When They are Down”. You are lucky it didn’t make it up here it was snarky and biting and oozing with sarcasm. I was even more emotionally compromised after meeting Sel at the gym and spending it frustrated, hurt, and crying a tinsy bit as we discussed everything which then put him in a terrible mood too. There is nothing that makes me feel worse than making Sel feel bad L Let me clarify so you don’t think I am quite as much as a pansy. This year is likely one of the last that all of Sel’s and my siblins will be together and it will be the first ever that all of his parents four children and their spouses will be there. We rarely get to see Roy and Joy and my sweet little nephew and I miss them way too much to spend such a little amount of time with them. Also, one of my best friends is getting back from her mission and I have been looking forward to seeing her for sooooo long and it was looking like I was going have to wait almost a month longer to see her. In the post you didn’t get to see, I talked about how often I see people who are genuinely hurting get told their feelings aren’t valid OR there are people in much worse circumstances so they should stop complaining. How does that every make the world a happier place? Did the person we celebrate Christmas in honor of ever do something like that to someone? Never. Nor would He ever.  Sorry…getting away from the fact that I was NOT planning on posting that tid bit. Now on to the happiness that is happening. After our miserable workout, we came home to the half-hearted newly invented stew I had thrown together the night before and guess what? It ended up being AMAZING and making us feel a bit happier about life. Then Sel, being the stud of a husband that he is, decided we should do something ultra-cheerful for FHE by making gingerbread houses, finishing our Christmas decorations, listening to Christmas music, and counting our blessings. It helped me realize that no matter what happens and no matter how small or big my problems feel, Sel will always be there cause he is as close to perfect as a person can be. Now that you read all about the anger, frustration and sadness, get ready for HAPPINESS!!!! Today I was able to get work off!!!!! Whew, I feel like I just got off one helluva emotional roller coaster and now get to enjoy that post adrenaline tingle. Here is a link to something that will make you smile whether you are having a good or bad day!
http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/people-who-are-having-a-worse-day-than-you