Happy Birthday Lacey!

One years old today! We did some fun things! This afternoon we had a little photo shoot. Ill post the other things she did today later.

Our friend Jen made Lacey this tutu and took some pictures of her. They look so good, Jen! Thanks!

An Unfortunate Event

"What happened here? Well, Mama got a little distracted and trapped me in my pants!"

She looks a little pensive here.

Another day I took this picture to record this cute sweater from Jeanne Mason and also to document Lacey's weird hair.

And today I took this one. Look! No more sticky-straighty-uppy hair!! It's getting longer. Now I'm nostalgic for it. My baby's growing up, man!

Need an Interesting V-day date idea?

Why not install a bath tub? What's not romantic about that? You can shimmy it up onto a dolly. Then gather your friends and family to wheel the 500 pound tub through your house. Maybe you could sneak a wink at your significant other, or perhaps a smile. When he gets tired from the strain, pat him on the back and say, "Good job!"

This bath tub date can last for hours. You can start around 7 pm and it can go all the way until 12:15 am! Must be a great date to last that long! Between 11 and midnight, you work on lowering the tub down onto the floor using a special hook with a ratchet chain to lower it. This is a way to bond with those you love! The adrenalin is pumping, and when that porcelin hits the floor without cracking, boy do you feel satisfied!

Tub installation = romance!!!!!!!!!

Ok, so this really did happen on our Valentine date night. For those of you who know my dad, you know he will work as long as it takes and ask for the help of whoever is around. Thanks needs to go out to my cousin Kara for letting her husband and son work for many an hour on Saturday!

Also, a big thanks goes out to Cameron for being a good sport!!!! He had helped our home teacher with some drywall for a few hours that day. He was pooped from a long week of school and work too. And then the bathtub thing was pretty much he and my dad crouching down and sawing wood and pipes in a hole for 5 hours. So Cameron's dedication has to be applauded.

As a side note, we did go out to eat at one of my favorite places.


I had a grilled chicken quesadilla and it was the best quesadilla of my llife! But the crowning moment was: I poured water from the water pitcher right onto my lap so my lap was soaked all through dinner. That was the actual fun /semi-romantic part of the date night.

Oh well. If we rank V-day activities on uniqueness, this one will for sure take the cake!

Two Outstanding Women

I borrowed this pic from another blog (Thanks, Jenny!). This is what we're reading for one of my book clubs. This book has been named one of the 100 most important books of all time. If you want to see someone with a positive attitude, read about Helen! She was blind and deaf and still learned to read, went to college, and wrote beautiful words full of figurative language and vivid description. She lived life to its fullest! I still have NO idea how you could learn to write that way and learn French, Latin, history, etc. by having it finger-spelled into your hand! I'm flabbergasted! Anyway, there are a couple of slow parts but this story is only about 115 pages and it's worth it!

The second book I've read recently is Sarah Palin's autobiography. Now, for those of us who began to think, "Maybe she isn't very smart." We were dead wrong. I was absolutely blown away by her vocabulary, her knowledge of the oil and renewable energy industry, her knowledge about how to get laws passed. The media did a good job of sensationalizing her, isolating her bad moments, etc.

Every scandal about her has been mistold. Her interview with Charlie Gibson had a bad moment, but he was ticked at her 'cause most people in Alaska didn't know who he was. The Katie Couric interview was 4 or 5 hours long but cut into 10 minutes and only the 10 when Katie was condescending and trying to make Sarah look bad. Of course Sarah reads! She had had op-eds published in the NY Times prior to that as well as had her words published in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes Magazine and others. Thanks Katie Couric, for interrupting Sarah when she was trying to explain that Alaska's geographic location near Russia has caused many dealings with their government. Not only Russia but she has worked extensively with the governments of Japan and Canada.

She was being asked , "How do we make our state budget so well managed (With a surplus!) and how do we create clean energy and get the private sector to drill and make pipelines that benefit the American people like you did? " This woman accomplished more in 2 years than almost any governor ever has.

Got corruption? Sarah will waltz in, with Republicans fighting against her, and get several lawmakers charged with crimes and thrown in jail. Need to reign in greedy oil companies? Sarah told them to shape up or leave. And they shaped up!

She didn't ban books. She didn't fire the Police Commisioner b/c of her brother-in-law. The guy was insubordinate --said "no" to her so she legally could fire someone in her cabinet. (Besides, her ex-borther-in-law threatened to kill her dad and did taser a little kid)

Finally, why did she resign as governor and why do I think she shouldn't run anymore for anything? She resigned because several Alaskans were paid by millionares to make it their full time job to destroy Sarah and her staff and her family. Each bogus charge had to be investigated, which took 10,000 sheets of paper each case and thousands of dollars in lawyer fees. Her staff and family were going broke and so was she. She literally could not do her job. She didn't want to see her family and friends finances destroyed. She was seen as a threat, and some powerful people in this country would never have stopped harassing them.

She was destroyed using tactics described in a book called "Political Warfare." Attack the person, not the ideas. It's been done before to people like Newt Gingrich. All charges against Sarah have been dropped, as they were against Newt. But these 2 politicians are onto new careers. ( I thnk) So Sarah shouldn't run for anything because of the way she's been painted, but she's still one of my American heroes!!!!