Marianne at Work in California

I have been busy this whole week. I super-miss my family, but I am on a business trip in Anaheim. Nope, no Disneyland, though you can see the rides from my hotel room. All I do is work. In fact, this video was posted of what I do at work when I'm on a business trip. Here is me, teaching people how to color, posted by a company from the Netherlands.





However, I did get to have dinner in Downtown Disney, so I stopped by the Lego store to pick up a gift for Luke. I saw this little guy who was just waiting to quietly follow me home to help Luke defeat the evil Vader/Daddy. Too bad he wouldn't fit in my luggage.

I've been talking for 6 days straight. I'm tired, and I need clean water to drink. I am very ready to go home and get some love from my family. Have a great week!

I like markers

Brian snapped this photo Tuesday while I was at work. Of course he didn't try to stop her enjoying the markers, but he did get photos. When I got home she was covered in multicolored inks and B said she'd even eaten a few. Oh well, if you can't prevent a mess at least you can take photos of it :)

My mom is convinced that AnnaMae will be an artist just like her mama. So grandma said she's going to start hoarding every scrap of her artwork like she did with me (and still tries to).

These markers were a Christmas gift from grandma to AnnaMae. Luckily they are cheap, water-based things that are going to get ruined anyways.

It came with a bottle!

The creature from the pasta lagoon came and stalked my bathroom...

Shortly before sunset it came, cooing and gurgling, covered in dark red slime. It grabbed for me, it's jaws clenched in a hideous grimace as saliva oozed from betwixt alabaster teeth, gnashing and snarling at a milky liquid, it's precious lifeblood contained therein.

What it wanted I did not know. All I could do was react in terror at the monster looming before me.

After tense moments of frozen horror, I finally snapped (a picture) and tried to bend the creature to MY will. Gently, but with trepidation and a desire to avoid it's venomous drippings, I clutched at it's red garment, ripping forcefully the offending clothing and leveraged it into a containment device. One where I could detox the monstrosity and prepare it for eternal slumber.

I mashed a dampened rag upon it's gaping maw and cleansed the foul slime which so recently had horrified me. With narry a pause, I poured water upon it's head in a supreme effort of purification and washed away the iniquities from it's gleaming golden locks.

Much to my chagrin, dripping and snarling, the beast overcame my ministrations and forcibly removed itself from the containment area. It ran, streaking blithely through the night, emitting a mindless cackle as it escaped my attempts to subdue.

With a sigh I gave in. I had bravely fought and accomplished much, though the final battle was lost. The creature still roamed free in the night. As I lay heaving and breathing hard from my exertions I took a slight pause to think on what minor victory I had achieved: I had neutralized it's toxic venom...for now.

on bellybuttons...

I have one. Most people do. I never thought mine was all that fancy until one of my friends on the swim team long ago thought mine looked funny. I guess mine is a half-innie/half-outie, so it looks like a little deep "C" shaped wrinkle with a tiny nob. When I was little I would always try to turn it inside out (I will save some decency in this post and NOT share a photo of my stretched out skin and odd bellybutton).

Bellybuttons are hereditary and also based on when you were born. I can't remember exactly, but if you were born a premie then you have a higher likelihood of getting one style or another. I wasn't a premie, but AnnaMae looks like she is getting my bellybutton. Luke definately got daddy's (actually Luke IS daddy, it's his split personality reincarnated in child form).

My bellybutton usually doesn't play a big part of my life. I'm sure the majority of you feel the same way. HOWEVER, when I get preggers my bellybutton gets stretched all out of whack. I mean, that's a lot of stretching, and my poor skin doesn't stretch nicely. So when my belly returns to pre-baby state the bellybutton suffers.

Which brings me to today's point:

After Luke was born and my belly went back to normal I kept getting bellybutton infections. Weird, huh? I guess warmth and moisture get trapped in my little stretched wrinkle and then I get an infection. They quickly go away, just a little dab of neosporin does the trick. Now I have a minor one again. Nothing serious, but I had always thought that when a baby is born, it's the baby that's supposed to get the bellybutton infections, not the mom. Oh well, one of the unspoken joys of being a mom.

Photoshop Valentine

Every now and then I feel the urge to just goof off in Photoshop. More to hone my skill in a non-stressful way. Here is a Valentine that we'll probably e-mail to the relatives. Brian likes to send photos that have been re-touched to his dad.

David is here!

Saturday afternoon I drove up to Portland to pick up my nephew, David, who will be staying with us for Winter term. He and his sister came out at Thanksgiving for a week. They both attend BYU-I. David's a freshman and his sister, Kelly is a Junior.

My sister felt that David would get more out of hanging around Oregon for a winter than he would hanging around cold Massachusetts, so now he's sleeping on our futon for a couple months. We are excited he's here and told him he can stay as long as he wants, however, I think it will be the kids that finally drive him away. He's not used to that much energy, particularly when that energy is aimed at him. We'll see how long he lasts. He knows he can always move in with Grandma :).

I on the other hand am used to the madness and enjoy the attention. Sunday was such a nice day and the kids were SOOOO excited to have their older cousin around that they were at peak wild levels. Climbing, making messes, destroying...all the good stuff. Poor David. He doesn't get this kind of happiness at his house, especially after living on Campus for the last few months he hasn't been exposed to any kind of noise and lack of personal space.

I need to get back to my artwork, I have way too many projects that I need to complete in the next week before I leave for Anaheim. However, I'd like to leave you with this cute photo of AnnaMae looking at the temple. In the middle of her climbing she stopped and stared at the temple pictures for a good 15 minutes. They were really taking her attention.

Moments like this make you stop and think about what do little kids really know. AnnaMae is so young, yet she's figuring out things so quickly and she was in Heaven such a little time ago that although we think she's seeing something for the first time, she has probably visited the temple many times before she was born.

I love the little snippets that Luke would tell us when he was 2 or 3 yrs. old and before his thoughts got confused by things in this world. It won't be long before AM can tell us all about her experience, and the more she learns to speak, the more those experiences will slip away.

The Red Girl

When I'm at work Brian takes the strangest pictures. I don't know what he's taken until I dig back through my photos on the computer and find them. This is what I found from a couple days ago. He had given AnnaMae a strobing-light ball and somehow he captured these 3 frames red. I think they look pretty cool. No I didn't photoshop them (much) except to crop them. It makes you wonder what else happens during the day while Mom is away...

on Jolly Ranchers...

A word of advice, don't try to walk and talk and suck on a Jolly Rancher all at the same time. In 2007 I tried this very stunt. I did not succeed and I have a molar that can vouch for my failure. Now, because of my ineptitude I spent monday with a numb face and a temporary crown, just waiting for my gold crown to come in a couple weeks. I'm not one for jewelry, but this is a piece of gold I'll probably be better off having.

I hope that Jolly Rancher appreciates that it was worth about $800 in gold. At least it was watermelon, my favorite flavor.