Budding Photographers

My kids like nothing better than getting ahold of the camera and taking hundreds of pictures. Every time I download pics from my camera, there are inevitably way more than I remember taking. That would be because Sean has gone on a photo shoot. Sometimes the other kids take a few, but Sean is the main culprit.    Thank goodness for digital!  Here is a smattering of their work:

Daphne's favorite subjects are her brothers.  She calls this one, "Monkey Face"

Daphne- "Cutie Hayden"

Daphne-- "Sean being a bad guy."

Sean- "It's Me!" (this boy is really into self-portraits.  I think he takes after his Aunt Melanie.  We love you Aunt Mel!  and all your beautiful self portraits!)

Dallin- "Friends"

Dallin- "Indiana Jones & the Dangerous Nazis"

"The Nazi's are "incriminal" with Japan."

 I asked Dallin what "incriminal" means and he told me it means that they are bad guys who are friends.

Sean--"A tree"

Sean- "Car"

Sean- "Daphne"

Sean- "Uncle Monkey"

Sean- "Bassa Ball"

Happy Valentine's Day

It worked out perfectly to have Valentine's Day on a Saturday this year because I did an awesome Valentine's breakfast for my family. My mom started doing a special Valentine breakfast when I was in Jr. High, I think. I'm not positive on the timing, but I do remember that I had already formed the opinion that Valentine's Day might have been one of the stupidest holidays I could think of. I got so annoyed with the girls at school who's "boyfriends" brought them presents or whatever. I was partly jealous that no boys liked me, and partly annoyed that anybody in Jr. High had "boyfriends." Pah-lease.

Anyway, my mom changed my outlook on Valentine's day when she came up with the idea of having a Valentine's Breakfast. I remember she made special heart-shaped place mats, set the table with nice dishes, and I think we had heart-shaped french toast with strawberries and whipped cream. She also made each of us a Valentine telling us she loved us and put it by our place at the table.  I went to school that day feeling loved instead of like a reject.  

So this is a tradition that is near and dear to my heart.  I made french toast with raspberry/chocolate/cream cheese.  Very decadent, but not a hit with the kids.  (Guess I'll stick with traditional next year.)   I also did a yummy Amish breakfast casserole, that I cut into heart shapes.  It was soooo tasty!  And we had strawberry smoothies.  My family loved it, which made all the work worth it.   

Hayden pulling down the decorations--nothing better than that.

I just love these guys!!!  

My honey and I were still in our jammies, so lucky for you, no pics of us. 

But I'd just like to say that 

I LOVE YOU ARTHUR!!!

Happy Valentine's Day.

Confession

Today, being the 13th day of February, I finally put my decorations away.  Which decorations, you ask?  That would be the Christmas decorations.  Yes, the Christmas decorations. In fact, my tree would probably still be up if it weren't for my Visiting Teachers who helped me take all the ornaments and lights off during their January visit.  (Hurray for Visiting Teachers!)  

So I've been taking the other decorations down gradually, and collecting them in the dining room, with all the storage boxes.  But for some reason actually putting them in the boxes and taking them out to the garage just never made it to top priority.  It has been looming on my to-do list for a month and a half and today I finally did it!  They are all tucked away in their boxes and waiting blissfully for next December.  I feel like a great burden has been lifted.  In fact, with all the boxes moved out of the dining room, I feel inspired to paint!  

Open-mouth surgery

I was told it wouldn't be a very big deal--they do these all the time, they don't even put you to sleep, and I'd be able to drive myself home. What they meant is it isn't a very big deal TO THEM!

On Friday I went in for surgery at Dr. Williams, the Peridontist.  I had a frenectomy and a gum tissue graft because my frenem (frenom? frenam?  however you spell that--Jenny & Brian could tell me) was pulling down the gum tissue around one of my lower front teeth.  They gave me some nitrous oxide to breathe and numbed the area to be operated on.  It is the weirdest feeling laying under the knife, being able to see the cutting motions, and blood on the latex gloves and be okay with it. (Thanks to the nitrous oxide.) 

But the happy feeling and the numbing medication wore off before I even got home and my mouth was throbbing!  I couldn't wait to take some of my pain killers that make you very drowsy.   

So here's the deal with a frenectomy--they don't just snip the frenom.  They cut all along the bottom inside of your lip and stitch it up.  I'd post a picture, but I can't even extend my lip out far enough to look at it myself.  Plus it would probably gross you out.  It's a big pain. Eating is a pain, talking is a pain, and smiling is a pain.  And those are three of my FAVORITE THINGS! 

My advice to any of you out there who are contemplating a frenectomy is this:  Make sure you really need one before getting one of these things done.  I'm wondering if a receding gum line wouldn't have been so bad . . . 

One Voice

I just wanted to say that this morning I wrote three emails: One to each of my senators and one to my President. A lot of times when I think about the public officials who represent me, I think, "What do they know? They have NO idea what's important to me!" Well, this morning, I emailed them, and let them know what is important to me with regards to couple of different issues. So whether or not they agree with or follow my sage advice, at least my opinions are now sitting in their inboxes, and not just swimming around in my head.  It feels pretty good.  I think I'll do it more often.  

Just FYI

• If you want to email President Obama, to congratulate him, let him know what's important to you, or both, click here.  
• If you're a New Mexican click on the Senators names for a link to their contact page.

Tom Udall

Jeff Bingaman

• If you are in another state, you can do a google search for your senators and find their website with their contact information.  It's quick, easy, and painless!  And you'll feel really good about doing your democratic duty.  After all, how can a democracy work, if the representatives don't hear from their constituents?

A little concerned . . .

We recently saw a Glenn Beck show in which he illustrated the amount of money that is being printed and put into our system right now and how that compares to other times in history (Great Depression, WWII, 9/11 etc.)   This clip is just under 4 minutes long, but worth your time!

Glenn Beck "Inconvienent Debt" Video

Regardless of political party, this is something we should all be a little concerned about. In fact, when I saw it, I yelled right out loud, "HOLY COW!" We have yet to feel the effects of printing so much money, but in the next few years, we are in for a dramatic rise in inflation!

Unfortunately, printing money is controlled by the U.S. Department of Treasury and the Federal Reserve.  I don't know how accountable they are to the people, or if there is really anything we can do to influence this.   Maybe we could write to the Treasury Secretary and just tell him how concerned we are about the rate of infusion of cash into the supply and the inevitable rise in inflation.  (Hopefully we all have our food storage ready because we are about to see the dollar turn into the peso.)

That being said, there is something we CAN contact our representatives about:  

President Obama has just introduced his stimulus plan to the congress, which is currently up for debate in the Senate.  And in my humble opinion (if any of my opinions are humble): This plan will NOT stimulate the economy.  The plan entails borrowing $819 BILLION (essentially doubling our trillion dollar deficit)  from other countries.  (If the government was borrowing this amount of money from its own citizens, each American Household would be required to fork over $10,000!)   Recessions are never solved by borrowing more money.  They are solved by getting money back into the hands of the tax-payers through tax-cuts.  (And that doesn't mean handing out "tax refunds" to people who don't even pay taxes, as nice as it sounds.)   

So, what will the money be used for?  Here are just a few things included in the bill that  I think are questionable:

• $200-300 billion to go toward bailing out state governments that have overspent their budgets.  So the taxpayers in Indiana whose government was responsible and lived within their means will be bailing out Californians whose government has overspent like crazy.  As my kids would say, "That's not fair!"
• $650 million for digital TV coupons. . . . Really?  (When did TV access become a civil right?)
• $50 million endowment to the National Endowment for the Arts (I'm all for the arts, but  we've got to distinguish between needs and wants here.)
• $400 million to study global climate change
• Hundreds of millions for contraceptives  
• $20 million to re-sod the National Mall
• $620 million for new government vehicles
• $136 billion goes toward 32 NEW federal government programs 

Now, there are some good things in there too.  It does include $275 billion in tax cuts, which is good.  It also includes $43 billion for infrastructure (bridges, roads, interstates, etc.) which is something that government should be paying for.  But that $43 billion is only 5% of the entire bill!  And, it won't even be spent for a couple of years, which doesn't do anything for the economy right now.  

On January 28, the House of Representatives passed the bill.  If it passes the Senate, we will be saddling our children and grandchildren with an impossible load of debt and suffocatingly exorbitant tax rates.   Sooner or later the countries lending us money are going to figure out that we aren't good for it, and cut off their funds.  

So what can we do about any of this?  We can be heard. 

This bill is up for debate in the Senate NOW.  (Februrary 4th, 2009).   Please contact your U.S. senators in the next day or two, and let them know where you stand on the bill.  Plead with them to find other solutions that will be fiscally responsible.  If they're calling it a Stimulus plan, let's ask them to create a bill that will eliminate the things that aren't necessary, and pass the things that actually WILL stimulate the economy.  We need to encourage our representatives to make good choices for our country!  

For more  information regarding the stimulus package you can check out these  websites  & articles:

www.heritage.org

The President's American Recovery & Reinvestment Plan (whitehouse.gov)

Gop Refusing to back Obama's Stimulus Plan

Economic Stimulus (NYTimes)