What happens if you don't blog in forever

My friend Amie noticed that I needed some blog help-so she tagged me. So here are some deep thoughts/answers from Emily:

Q1. If you blog anonymously, are you happy doing this? If you aren't anonymous, do you wish you started out anonymously so that you could be anonymous now?

A. I don't blog anonymously. I don't put my last name on there or mention my city name (if you've been 1 of like 3 or 4 people I've rejected comments for-I did it because it mentioned our city/identifying info). I don't think it makes a lot of difference but I suppose it's just one little step to make it harder for these nefarious people who might be wanting to do something dark and sinister. I don't know what those things would be-just that people seem to worry about it, and thus I worry about it :)

Q2. Describe an incident that shows your inner stubborn side.

My stubborn side isn't inner-it's entirely outer. But...I feel like being a mom has made me a whole lot less stubborn, I've learned that there are only a few things that are really worth the fight (gospel principles and safety issues come to mind-whether they have one cookie or two....not so much).

That didn't answer the question-I just can't think of something....yeah, I really can't think of anything. I guess I'll have to steal from Amie and say I haven't joined facebook yet. But the thing is-I can see the value in it, I just know myself and that I would find myself being distracted and time-wasting with it. Does that even count as being stubborn or just knowing my limitations?

Q3. What do you really see when you look at yourself in the mirror?

Aren't these blog tags supposed to ask what my favorite food is and what 8 TV shows I have in my DVR queue? Why the deep questions?

Someone with pregnancy-induced acne. Um, if the roots are 8 inches long do they count as roots anymore? Someone whose baby must be taking residence in her BOTTOM because that's where I keep getting bigger. OH and a daughter of God :).

Q4. What is your favorite summer cold drink?

This is more like it....I LOVE ice cold water

Too boring? Lemonade? Ohhhhh-frozen lemonade from Disneyland

Q5. When you take time for yourself, what do you do?

Read or scrapbook. Sometimes I still take teenage 30 minute showers because my kids have learned to leave me alone.

Q6. Is there something you still want to accomplish in your life?

There are SO many things I want to do.

I want to be rich (so do you-just admit it).

I want to go to graduate school...nursing, librarian, something

I want to go on a cruise

I want to run a marathon

I want to go on a mission with Tom

I want to swing on one of those rope things that swing over a lake

I REALLY want to go to all my kids weddings in the temple.

I'm sure there's more.

Q7. When you attended school, were you the class clown, the class overachiever, the shy person, or always ditching?

Oh I was so the overachiever. It makes me laugh when I think now I am SO proud of myself for going to the grocery store with all three kids. I would study for hours, I was upset with anything less than an A. I remember I would do homework until 11 or 12 every day and then wake up at 5:00 for seminary. I can't imagine any of that now :)

Q8. If you close your eyes and want to visualize a very poignant moment in your life, what would you see?

Well, there's the obvious answers of the birth of my children. One recent one was finding out my house was finally selling. I was so excited to find out that I was having a boy this time, that was poignant.

Q9. Is it easy for you to share your true self in your blog, or are you more comfortable writing posts about other people or events?

I'm more of the event writer. I don't do a lot of journaling/deep thoughts on my blog. I admit to being a little worried about things like that. I don't want things to come off wrong and I'm hyper-aware of once things are on the internet-they're their forever!

Q10. If you had the choice to sit down and read a book or talk on the phone, which would you do and why?

No question-I would read. I hate talking on the phone, it's always stressed me out.

Now you know more than you wanted to :).

*Emily* Get your gun

This past weekend we took the young women/young men to a shooting range. First they were taught about gun safety and then we let them loose (not really). I have only been shooting once before, with a pistol. This time I got to shoot a pistol and two other big guns that I'm not cool or savvy enough to know what they're called. Rifles? Sure, but I don't know what kind.

One of my young women took this picture of me. Are you afraid?

Multimedia Family Update

So what have we been up to since "Last date posted September 22, 2010?" Well, I will tell you. Obviously this post will be long but I tried to keep my "talking" to a minimum so you can just enjoy these pictures of our family. And I would like to post more often-so I can hope for that.

Tom:

He's in like 1 or two of these pictures. Where was he? Work I suppose. If he wasn't at work he was at church. We love him but he's a busy guy...moving on

Me:

I've been really sick. Because I'm pregnant. See...so there's a reason for my bad, bad, bad posting. I am 22 weeks along. And I'm having a....(more on that later)

I've been really busy with YW (this isn't me). But one of the things we did for class activities was to make scripture totes. I used cloth place mats and then we embellished them. The girls have been using them so that's good

And then we did lots of things but I was sick for all of them. So I was probably too ugly or just laying on the couch for pictures. So this is New Years Eve. My family came to visit-yay!

Ringing in the New Years with Tom

Samantha:

She has the most pictures because she's a busy girl. Like with homework:

We went to CA in early Oct. My mom took care of the kids while I laid on the couch. This is at her town's heritage day. I've always wanted to do the trampoline thing so I lived vicariously through my kids-I was impressed she could do the flips. Not everyone could.

She was Wendy Darling for Halloween (it's sad that's the only picture of her but I was too busy running the cake walk booth)

We went to New Mexico for Thanksgiving. Everyone descended on Tom's sister Maria. Samantha absolutely loved every minute with her cousins as usual.

For our city party in early Dec we did a lot of rides-like the train ride.

Seeing Santa at our ward party.

Christmas Eve in Mesa at Tom's extended e-x-t-e-n-d-e-d family. I don't think we'll ever go again or see those people.

Samantha learned to ride without training wheels. Maybe I took a long time as a kid but she learned SO fast I thought. If you want to actually see her riding a bike then this video is useless. But if you want to hear Tom's angry voice and see Tommy being a stinker then it's a funny 37 seconds. She really is good-too bad we don't have proof.

We used Christmas money from Grandparents to buy year passes to the Children's Museum in Phoenix. We've been three times already in just a month so I think we'll make it worth it.

Samantha started basketball. Don't watch this whole video, I don't even want to watch it. But if you watch for about 5 second from 1:15 then you can see the way Samantha leaps and prances across the court instead of running. I wouldn't say she's *good* at basketball by any stretch of the imagination, but she enjoys it.

Finally: she got to ride a horse -by herself!!!!- for a friend's birthday party. I wasn't there so I don't have pictures. There are two of her at this link (but not riding a horse)

Tommy:

Tommy on the trampoline in CA. He had more fun then his face would indicate. He was nervous at first but got used to it.

He was Peter Pan for Halloween

Thanksgiving: He actually got along with Matthew. But I think he drove my brother-in-law Jon crazy. He's a terror, what can I say?!?

Elephant ride!

Christmas Eve in Mesa. He took off to the backyard and stayed there-I think he was the smart one.

Tommy at the Children's Museum.

Eliza:

She used to be sweet but now she's awful. But I still love her despite the combined 2 hours worth of tantrums every day.

She didn't go on the trampoline in CA. She sat on the ground and ate (I'm not exaggerating) an entire HUGE carnival sized bag of carmel corn. That's my girl. So this was the other things we did-my Mom's children's museum-pretend city.

Eliza was Tinkerbell for Halloween (sense a theme?)

Thanksgiving in Albuquerque-This is Tom's cousin Brookie. Eliza had a lot of fun with cousins. She got to see Tangled and loved it!! (So did the other kids, but that was to be expected).

Eliza got to ride a camel at our city Christmas party

Seeing Santa-no screaming-which is great

Christmas Eve-PJ's!

Eliza at the Children's museum.

Andrew (probably):

Is a boy! (Obviously or we would come up with something other than Andrew). I don't know how to use the scanner so there are no pictures of him. But he has all his parts and he's ruining my life. I can't wait to meet him.