proposed itinerary for pending new year's festivities

Menu:
appetizers
fizzy drinks with grape skewers
calzones
relish tray
green salad
dessert

6:00--proposed arrival time
7:00--suspected actual arrival time
6:00 onward--calzone assembly and cooking
6:30 onward--calzone consumption
8:00-8:30--dessert consumption
9:00 onward--entertainment
games and arguing
10:00--Dave watch check to see if it's midnight yet for crying out loud
12:00--welcome the new year, FINALLY

Sistren, consider this your invitation. We welcome all of you to our humble domicile. Bring any awesome games you have--trivia-related is always good, so's John and I can school you. Or we have Connect Four, too.

picking pieces of paper out of a bowl: an essay in photos

We just did a homemade soap giveaway over at our other blog, and I thought I should show off how adept my children are at doing random selection.

mixing up the names

The Hulk selected 3rd place.

Superman chose 2nd place.

Pinga chose the grand prize winner.

And you're all, "Layne, this is just an excuse to put up pictures of your cute kids and your great new haircut!" And I'm like, "Umm, they draw names at an eighth-grade level, and the Hulk has been offered a full-ride scholarship to Raffle State University. Jealous much?"

(Also, this will be our secret, but that bowl? Is the same one we use for a puke bowl whenever anybody is sick. It's been the emesis basin for every member of our family at least once. Now you are jealous some more.)

holiday activities

Here are some of the things we've done recently: candy apples, cut trees, and grumble because John is gone all. the. freaking. time. Happy thoughts, happy thoughts . . .

The fruits (ha!) of our labors.

I tried to take a picture of the great pita chips I bought from Costco, and these yahoos kept getting in the way.

Here is Pinga with my grandpa.

Here is Pinga with my grandpa and grandma. I think you guys would have to agree that I have some pretty foxy grandparents. With the hybrid vigor of their combined genes it's easy to see why all of their offspring are really, really ridiculously goodlooking.

Here are The Hulk and Superman with my parents in a Club Car commercial.

We got a great tree this year, like ALWAYS! My dad spotted it with his eagle eyes. It's decorated as much as it's going to be, because the bottom three feet are within the Pinga Attack Plain, so we can't get breakage insurance there.

singin' John

Voice Male is doing the FM100 mini concert at lunchtime today. In case you want to go check out the groovy scene.

things I found in the dryer

Today I found . . .

paper, of course
a penny
a lego
dental floss (?)

maybe Abe had some popcorn

it's mostly because I'm a good mom, I guess

I swear I am not staging these photos.
I was cleaning up her earlier mess of puzzles and books in the parlor, and I forgot she knows how to open the fridge now.

like I said . . .

Just thought you'd like to know that Superman peed his pants last night, so as to cap the day off proper-like.

And Pinga did this:

it's like living with raccoons, only worse

This morning I woke Captain America and the Hulk for their chores--a process of tickling, poking, stage whispering their names and guilt-trippishly saying things like, "I need you to make the right choice and get up. Are you going to choose the right?"--and Superman decided that he would also get up. And I guess I should have told him that his morning chores do not include GOING OUTSIDE AND PEEING ALL OVER THE DRIVER'S SEAT OF THE CAR.

These people are going to be the death of me. Observe:

What is Pinga so happy about? Hint: it's not the fact that she looks like a dude.

Maybe it's the mess she made in the kitchen.

Or the one in the parlor.

The pillow mess--"hut," we're calling it--is pretty great, too.

Leftover mess from Friday's dinner.

Laundry washed but not folded, and linens stripped off the bed.

WHO LIVES LIKE THIS?

Pinga is a destroying angel. I just walk around cleaning her messes up all the time, except when I get too tired, and then it ends up looking like these pictures. She dirties faster than I can clean, like any proper toddler, and it gets way, way ahead of me, and then I don't even clean up my own messes. And then we have people disposing of waste in inappropriate places, and Pinga pulling my laptop off the ottoman and mashing the heck out of the power cord and its point of entry, causing me to perform elaborate yoga positions to get my computer to work . . . I hate my job some days. Right now Pinga is rolling around in the puzzles she's dumped all over the floor like a pig in slop.

At least I got the dishes done.

his default setting is happy

Superman: "That's [Pinga]'s tummy, and that's Mom's tummy, and (breaking into song) Daaaaad's tummyyyy . . . is aaaaat woooooooorrrrrrrk!"

Superman: "This liver is so good, I want to eat tons of bites of it."

halloweeeeeen!

It's a delicious braaaaaaiiiiiiinnnn!

The vampire wore tennis shoes.

A . . . monkey skeleton . . . I guess?

Indiana Jones swinging from the chandelier.

Reclining witch.

Lookin' sharp and lookin' for love.

Troy was Iron Man, with a glowing heart even.

My dad was Santa Claus.

Pinga was in her bee suit for about five seconds before she went to bed. John dressed up as trash.

Left to right: Claire, Troy, Justine, me, Aleece.
(ZZ Top, Iron Man, Egyptian Something-or-other, Witch, Violet Beauregarde)

We didn't get a picture of Dave as Willy Wonka or my mom as a scarecrow, but they looked good. We ate soup in pumpkin-shaped bread bowls, salad with all kinds of TERRIFYING accoutrements like witch noses and ogre warts, brain melon, brain cupcakes--lots of brain stuff. We had a pumpkin hunt with eggs decorated like pumpkins, ate donuts off of strings, pinned the nose on the jack-o-lantern (I won, WOO!) and watched The Nightmare Before Christmas. The kids did a little bit of trick-or-treating and got just enough candy to make them sick.

with six you get alumni

John's illustrious singing career has garnered him a major award--Voice Male was honored as the "Young Alumni of the Year" at USU. The 'young' part is being contested. They were fed and coddled and made obeisance to, and it was tremendous fun. John's membership in the group has brought him so much joy, and they have had such unique and rewarding experiences. When we got married ten years ago (that's the sound of my joints creaking with age) I said to John, "You're not going to still be doing this in five years, are you? Because I don't like the idea of a bunch of old men up on stage singing "Five Long Years."" Well, we learn to compromise in a marriage, right? Because Voice Male has kept John sane (at least more than it's made him insane), and has made my life pretty darn comfortable. I didn't realize how much I would feel like these people are our family. And I've met people and done things I would never have had an opportunity to do otherwise. So thanks, fellas, for being such great regular guys.

Enough sincerity--here are some pictures!

John took this picture of either the tables or Richard. Maybe both!

My handsome father and beautiful mother were our guests.

"No, YOU'RE schmoopy!"

Here is a shot of the whole dress and the rad shoes I got from Smith's Marketplace (the shoes are from Smith's, the dress is not). They are very old-timey.

John also had a CD release concert on Saturday night, so it was quite the Voice Male weekend. Thanks to our awesome babysitters who do a much better job of raising our children than we do.

planting a tree, healing a face, squishing a poo

John is digging a hole, the boys are throwing dirt clods at each other--excuse me, I meant "aerating the soil."

We had to get on Pinga's case, because she was TOTALLY compacting the soil!

This is a few days after Superman's accident.

Look how quickly he heals! You should see his scar now--it looks great. Big enough to be a chick magnet, but not big enough to make him a circus freak.

Pinga was finally able to play in the toilet today. She's had her heart set on it for a while, and luckily Superman hadn't flushed after his twosie! SCORE. So that was sick.

more about my awesome husband's equally awesome CD

I was listening to Kid Stuff again this morning, and it started me to thinking. I sort of a-cappellad myself out about eight years ago, after listening through the Rockapella library, the BOCA collections, and all the other assorted a cappella CDs that John brought to the relationship (which is a full crap-ton). I see Voice Male in concert often enough that I don't usually listen to their CDs, see above, re: a-cappellad out. Keep in mind that I listened to ONLY a cappella with occasional Frank Sinatra for about two or three years. It gives you aural fatigue--even the Beatles will do that after a while.

Anyhoodle, justifications aside, I wanted to say that I love this CD. Voice Male has, for the first time, equalled Mariah Carey in the sick, sick right hemisphere of my brain. They've given me chills before ("O Come, O Come, Emmanuel"), but "Sing, Sing a Song" makes me cry. It's like listening to all four seasons at once. John and Mike have a fun little scat in "Do Re Mi," When I "See An Elephant Fly" is right in John's wheelhouse, I love "Noodles On My Back," "Circle Of Life" is not only tolerable, but great--Mike has this whole monsters-of-rock-power-ballad thing going on--and I'm telling you, Kid Stuff is some of their best work. They're in great voice, and they sound so happy. I'm not often sincere, but I can say that I don't lie to make people feel better, and this is currently my favorite CD. You won't know what I'm talking about until you hear it yourself, but it captures their personalities wonderfully.

Sorry about the mush. But it's such good mush!

ward party chili--like normal chili, but with all the enjoyable side effects of olestra

So we got food poisoning from the ward party. There have been theories floated as to the legitimacy of the blessing on the food, but my money is on the fact that there were a bunch of slow cookers filled with lukewarm chili. The only one of us who didn't experience gastrointestinal distress of any kind is the Hulk, and naturally he had not eaten any chili. John's was not too severe, but he also ate out of a different pot than the rest of us. Within hours of the meal Captain America had emptied the entire contents of his stomach with the volume, force and velocity of a firehose--the kind of firehose that would be used if, say, the Christmas tree from Rockefeller Plaza were ablaze inside the Smithsonian. Pinga is still suffering from the ill-effects, and from the smell of the hallway, I can only surmise that she metamorphosed sometime during the night into a feces-based organism.

if you don't buy a CD, the greedy bankers win

I'm going to take this time to do some pimping of the new Voice Male CD, Kid Stuff. It is the best kids' music CD released by an a cappella group this fall! They do an especially good job on Pecos Bill. You know how every cover you've heard of that song is offensive blasphemy of the glorious Sons of the Pioneers version? Well, this cover is thoroughly enjoyable and doesn't even make you wish you were listening to the Sons of the Pioneers instead. Which, from me, is saying a lot. And there are so many other great songs! I'm so proud of these little buddies. It's just a great, great CD. I can't even name a favorite song, because it changes by the day. Good jorb, Voice Male!

And yes, the world economy is tanking, and soon we will have dissolved into inter-tribal warfare, but wouldn't it be nice to have something good to listen to while you wait for the armies of intelligent robots to advance and destroy you?

superman vs. the vanity

At 6:00 yesterday morning, in the pitch-black of our room we had this exchange . . .

Superman: "Why isn't it breakfast time?"
The Dad: "Because breakfast time comes after chores."
Superman: "Breakfast time comes after chores?"
The Dad: "Yep."
Superman: "Well, get out of bed and start making breakfast RIGHT NOW."

Here are the pictures of Superman's sad face.
*************************************************************************************

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!
JOHN SAYS THAT THESE PICTURES WILL MAKE YOU SICK!

*************************************************************************************

at our first hospital

poor little fella

he napped for a while while we were waiting to find out if his brain was squished

in the second hospital waiting for the plastic surgeon, holding the raddest balloon ever

iodine all over his face

sorry it's so washed out, but for some reason the surgeon had this super bright light shining on his work area--selfish!

stitching up his mouth

all done, but still woozy from the drugs

waiting to wake up so he can eat a popsicle

The nurse, who was very sweet and reassuring, brought Superman the grape popsicle he asked for. They wanted to make sure he could keep food down before they discharged us.

Superman: (eats tiny piece of popsicle)
The Mom: "Do you want some more popsicle?"
Superman: "Get a bowl."
The Mom: (frantically looks around for a receptacle, finds none, and hurriedly shoves the styrofoam cup holding the popsicle under his chin)
Superman: "Bllllluuuuuuurrrrrgh!" (barfs and fills the styrofoam cup with the piece of popsicle and all the blood he had swallowed since the sink fell on him)

wrecking faces and visiting

I have lost the cord that tells my computer how to steal pictures from my camera, so I haven't been able to download any of the glorious photos I've taken recently, including but not limited to the shots of Superman in the hospital from having a huge marble vanity top fall on his head, splitting his nose open from stem to stern and filleting the inside of his upper lip. It was one of those great moments when you realize that you're too stupid to be a parent. I was fairly certain that he was going to die from a brain hemorrhage. But all is well, amazingly enough, and the plastic surgeon who did his stitches was fantastic (Dr. Casey Isom, if any of you have open wounds you need sewn shut), and he should have minimal scarring. And, bonus, maybe it has cured him of sucking his thumb, since it's been too painful for over a week now. Score!

Yesterday we visited Owen and Ava, and I have library envy of the North Logan library. The children's section is amazingly huge. I've been a little disappointed in our library. Maybe they're trying to force us to pass the bond by having a teeny picture book section.

so here's the thing

After monitoring the traffic for this blog for a while I've decided not to go private. And, when it came right down to it and I starting thinking about all the email addresses I'd have to collect, I decided that I wasn't really about that kind of effort. Especially considering that there isn't a whole lot of interest on this blog to anyone, including family and friends. So Sehr Laut is going to remain a public blog. At least until the weirdos show up!

starting home

We stayed right across the street from Disneyland. It's a little divey, but not too scary, and you can't beat the commute.

Pinga is the cutest baby in the world.

Our room in St. George.

We didn't think we'd feel up to driving the whole way home, so we planned a stopover in St. George. I did some useless shopping while everyone else played in the pool at the motel. It was another Comfort Suites, because their breakfast is that good. We met a lovely couple from Germany who have been touring the U.S. during the summer. Nice work if you can get it, EUROPE. Here in the States we're a little busy for that. Hey, this economy's not going to destroy itself!

last day in california

Next to fightin', they like TV best.

In this picture Pinga's diaper is causing the universe to implode.

The Mr. Men show! We watched it a lot on our vacation. It's hilarious.

We went to Seal Beach, and John buried Captain America while I took Pinga and Superman and The Hulk with me to Whole Foods because it was windy and cold and we are wusses.