Reflecting on Christ

Thank you Brady and Theresa for sharing this slideshow on Christmas morning. I could start everyday by watching this and maybe I will. Merry CHRISTmas everyone!!

Road Trip Recap

We loaded up the car at 4:45am on Monday morning, Ben dropped off his pager at the hospital and we were heading south by 5am.

Drive through blizzard. Stop in Portland, get chains for car (just what I wanted for Christmas!) Delays us by 2 hrs trying to find an auto parts store that wasn't sold out.

Weather eases up and we continue our trip through Oregon. The kids finally wake up at 1pm (really), we stop somewhere for lunch. The kids watch a movie then take a nap.

They wake up at 7pm, we spot our first In-N-Out in Sacramento we stop for dinner. I take a nap, the kids watch a movie. We switch at 11pm. The kids are still up and keep me company till about 1am.

We pull into Ben's parents drive at 4:36 am, nearly 24 hours later.

Total mileage - 1200.
Tanks of gas - 3.5

Road Trip

Our flight is cancelled. Christmas, however, is not, so we will be driving. Pray for us.

Destination: Southern California.

Dear Santa...

Miles has a wish list somewhere, I will post it when I find it. Basically it is a bunch of circles drawn on succession - Avery has translate that to mean he wants a ball for Christmas. She's probably right.

Christmas Comes Early

If I could have after-hours access and an unlimited shopping spree my store of choice would hands down be Sephora. I'm not even a real makeup person but I'm a sucker for serums and salves and creams and free samples. Before I go on, I have to back up to the not being a makeup person bit - I used to not be a makeup person - I always considered myself a mascara and lipgloss for special occasions type of girl. I look terrible in lipstick by the way. Terrible. Every shade.

But I'm quickly becoming a primer, concealer, creme blush, liquid eyeliner, mascara, set with powder every day type of girl. It's not that I love makeup all the sudden, it's more that it's what my face requires to look normal these days. Since turning thirty I'd say I have acne more days than not (I read recently that Kate Winslet has the same problem so phew I'm not alone) and in general things are rapidly deteriorating (hopefully I'll find that my apartment just has bad lighting...). So due to these issues I recently made a trip to Sephora to find a glycolic acid product that might solve some of my woes. After consulting with the salesgal I scored some samples and settled on the PTR Unwrinkle Peel Pads (despite the name, I wanted them mostly for the zit issue anything else is just a bonus*). I got home and after doing the dinner and bedtime routine with the kids I was excited to go have some alone time with Peter Thomas Roth. I unwrap the product and ta-da! The silver "try-me" sticker is staring right at me. I had made it home with the half empty and most certainly bacteria ridden sample container!!!!!

I thought for sure I had grabbed from the back of the aisle and couldn't believe that the gal who rang me up didn't notice that she was wrapping up an item without it's safety seal intact. Sephora is not so close so I called and told them of the mistake. They said they would send a new one right away and I could do whatever I wanted with the tester. I couldn't wait to try it so I discarded the top few pads, said a prayer that I wouldn't get infected with anything incurable and started my treatment. A few days later my new one arrived - in a box FULL of samples - some deluxe. I love Sephora and I love the guy who packed my box o' beauty up. Merry Christmas to me.


*Product update 1/08 - The PTR pads are pretty good - they burn but that just tells me it's working on something. I think it's having more of an effect on any scarring/redness I have more than the active eruptions and I've decided I prefer the DDF Glycolic Toner as an exfoliant. As for the acne. Two days of using McKay's leftover Proactive while in CA and it was all clear - my eyebrows were a shade lighter (beware - it will also bleach colored towels) but I'm sold. Proactive worked for me.

Short Cut

Time for my bi-annual hair cut and attempt at redoubling my efforts regarding appearance. Instead of continuing the constant creep toward a short-cut I just went for it this time. I had originally planned to either go darker and keep it long or blonder and shorter but I ended up with the above.

Considering that sunny days are supposedly few and far between here (I haven't felt that way...yet) and with the chance that a ray of light would actually catch my glowing streaks growing more slim - I also said aloha to highlights and opted to return to a darker hue. As hapened when I had "gone dark" once before, and despite my requests not to have it turn out red - it is very reddish at times - think Eastern-Bloc affinity for reddish dye red. In the picture it doesn't appear so and even though this was taken at the salon on the day it was cut, I think it is shorter than the picture shows also. Probably because my hair bends and shrinks in the moisture. Speaking of moisture, although I am not known for fabulous hair styles, the before picture is particularly hideous because a) it was raining outside and b) the owner or the salon gave my head a good ruffle to make it look even worse.

Snow Day

For those of you who live here you will notice that these were taken when the snow first started falling a week ago. There is much much more snow now and we are staying inside - except for when we are doing do-nuts in the parking lot.

Farewell to Fall

Leaves Leaves Falling Down

Dancing in the Wind

Falling to the Ground

The Wind Blows

Then the Children will Catch You

You will Grow Again

When Spring Comes

-Avery G. Westbrook

Age 4

---

Although we have five or six days until the first official day of winter, the Northwest welcomed in the new season early with snow and frigid temps today. Up until now it has been a blissful fall, offering reccession-proof fun and inspiration at every turn.

Photos from 10/28/2008

Santa Shuffle -10 oops 5K

I signed up for the Santa Shuffle 10K even though I have yet to even re-lace my sneakers after washing them from the last race. I waited till the last minute to decide if I was actually going to participate since the weather was supposed to be cold and nasty. That morning I awoke to chilly but clear conditions, perfect for a couple laps around the golf course. Make that one lap around the golf course. I wimped out at the 5K mark and called it a day. I saw more than one person wipe out in the mud and just in general wasn't feeling up to it. After kicking it in at a disappointing on any other day 27 minutes (four minutes more than my last, planned 5K in Honolulu) I went home and helped Ben work on our fence.

Bonus - the hot chocolate and post race snacks
Bummer - They were giving out long-sleeved shirts (my favorite) and I got there too late to get one :(

G-Y-Z...

I had cut up some soda cans into small squares of aluminum for an activity I did with my primary boys (having them try to engrave words with a nail into the metal to show how difficult it would be to keep a record in this manner - bits of raw-edged aluminum, nails and 10 year old boys...yeah, safe I know). I had a few pieces left over and Avery wanted to use it to make a mini Book of Mormon. She folded it in half and cut out some pieces of paper that would fit inside (she's lucky I let her use scissors considering that she has trimmed both her own bangs and her brothers cowlicks in recent weeks with less than stellar results but that's beside the point) she called me in because she needed some help writing her cover page.

She said, "Mom, can you help me spell 'Jesus'? I only got the first letters: G-Y-Z...

------

This reminds me of my favorite card that Miles got for his birthday. It was a handmade gem from Aubrey A., it reads To Miols. Which is exactly how it sounds. English might be a really hard language to learn considering what little sense our alphabet makes phonetically.

Since the people have spoken, I have allowed Ben to post his first entry - as seen below. As for those of you who gave him glowing reviews, you may one day find that in a jealous rage I have blocked your access to the site. Leaving John Emmit as my sole reader. And yes, I can block access at will, in four keystrokes to be exact.

So we'll see how many more he decides to offer up, I guess that will give me a clearer indicator of how busy he really is at work. If he gets up to more than two per month, we might just have to start a new site. I've reserved lynjamin.blogspot.com just in case.

My only problem is how to distinguish between authors. I would like to change the color of the title for each but can't figure out how and altering the font color for the body of the post just doesn't look right. I know that it has our name at the bottom but it doesn't give enough warning. I'll keep working on a solution but am taking suggestions.

The Highs and Lows of Parenting

My 2 year old son Miles continues to give us fits with his refusal to eat anything off of his short dietary list which includes Dora yogurt, cheese sticks, fruit snacks and cinnamon toast. He causes his father further consternation with his consistent refusal of all things meat leading me to question my stance on the controversial subject of whether someone is born vegetarian or if is it a conscious decision they make later in life. I was elated tonight when a shirtless boy, standing on his chair at the dinner table yells, “look Mom!” as he ferociously tears into a barbeque pork rib using his incisors for their God-intended purpose. I was further delighted as he threw it down, asked for more while wiping barbeque sauce across his bare chest and letting out a valiant primal roar. As a reward I let him drink long and hard from my Safeway brand root beer that he and his sister only get when they eat until Lynn and I think they have had enough. As he tilted his head back and two-fisted the brew, in my minds eye I saw him sprouting hair from his chest like the amazing, true clinical trial testing the manliness of Old Spice deodorant as depicted HERE.

I was silently gleaming as I finished my delicious meal only to have my thoughts interrupted as he put his leg high on the back of the chair, bracing himself with his hands on the table and proclaimed, “Look Dad, I’m a ballerina!”

Ben wants to join in the fun.

Maybe because of the contributions on the house build blog that I have forced him to be a part of, Ben has come to realize the theraputic nature of blogging. I know he enjoys lurking around the blog rolls. Often times he gets important info before I do. For instance when dear friends and MD neighbors the Jones' found out they were expecting another little boy, Ben read about it first and failed to tell me. When I went to break the news to him he just said, "I know". When I challenged him as to why he didn't let me know something so important he said "You didn't tell me about the water feature that Jones built".

So anyway, yesterday he presents me with his thoughts that he had jotted down and tells me to post them. Not on the house build site but on my blog. My blog.

I had noticed that his yearnings to publicly journal ran deeper than just house stuff, when he ventured off about his feelings with his brother leaving on a 2-yr misssion when he was supposed to be writing about foundations and backfill. Not so much the fact that it is public but I think that we have all found how great a tool the blog is for keeping track and keeping in touch. With each other, with ourselves.

I am thrilled to have him jot down anything at anytime. The chance to have his take on lifes happenings, especially when we don't get a chance to talk that much, is priceless. That our kids might one day have a two-sided memoir is awesome. But do I want his musings on my turf? I already have to compete with him in person for jokes. Do I willingly let someone smarter, funnier, nicer and better looking to post a thought here and there? Or do I make him get his own URL?

I think it's time for a poll.