Where a kid can be a kid.

On her actual birthdate we celebrated with chocolate lava cakes and ice cream but what she really really really wanted to do was go to Chuck E. Cheese. I didn't know if I could do it, but I put my child first and we went. I made her a castle cake (out of boxed funfetti cake - can you believe it Chelsey? Horrifying I know.) and let her have all the tokens she wanted. Unfortunately we ordered their pizza. Ben refused to play me in air hockey - he's never beat me - but played DDR (against the kid who had been there for hours sweating up a storm - you know there is always one of them). Miles thought the fun of tokens was just putting them in the slot and moving along his merry way. I hit the lucky jackpot on a couple games and scored major tickets, which would ensure that we came home with lots of junk.

Things were really going fine until the party moved in at the table next door. The birthday girl was turning two - as evidenced by her princess sash she was wearing, that went with her princess dress and princess crown. And her balloon bouquet. And her two professional airbrushed Disney cakes. And her mound of presents. Well, looks like it was time for us to be going...I can't compete with that.

Impression of a First Lady

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I don't know where she comes up with these things, but she is a very entertaining five-year old.

Is there something you know that I don't?

Question - Do I have a Facebook account?

I just got 12 emails today saying people added me as a friend on Facebook. Which is fine...except that I didn't know that I had an account. I've been thinking about it since everyone raves about it. But unless I surf the web in my sleep I haven't signed up as of yet. I tried to get on once but found the sign up process time consuming and confusing so I never went back.

Don't you have to have a cute picture of yourself to get a Facebook account? I have to work on that first, then I'll sign up and frolic with all my newfound friends.

Bipartisan lips.

Last night I asked Avery if she knew that we had a new president*. She said "oh, who?"
I said "Barack Obama" and she said "oh yeah, the guy with the purple lips". I was a bit confused by this because I hadn't noticed, but being as observant as always, she is right, his lips are kinda purplish.

She's not the only one who noticed because when I did a search for "Obama purple lips" to see if I could find a picture that supported her claim there were thousands of queries into this issue. Some were wondering if this is a health issue - a smoking thing, poor circulation etc.

I hope it's a bipartisan thing. (Red + Blue...)


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*We didn't discuss the whole monumental, historic race issue thing because frankly, I don't want her to think that there is anything abnormal about having a president that happens to have different skin (and lip) color than she does. I don't want her to think that in 2009 we were supposedly still dealing with racial injustices - I say supposedly because I've never felt it to be an issue personally (at least not where I grew up). Hopefully now the media will feel the same.

Except that - and somebody stop me now - was anyone else horrified by Rev. Lawery's closing prayer/speech? The first 10 minutes were beautiful and had he only stopped before "Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around -- (laughter) -- when yellow will be mellow -- (laughter) -- when the red man can get ahead, man -- (laughter) -- and when white will embrace what is right (uh, what?) I thought this was a rather offensive end to a prayer. I heard it on the radio first and when I watched it later and realized how old he was I cut him a little slack considering what things he has probably lived through. Or maybe this is some poem I'm not familiar with and I missed out on the inside joke therin. But during a prayer? There are other ways to make that last statement ryhme where we could then all been left laughing.

Inauguration Rewind

No, we didn't get tickets for this years inauguration ceremony - I would have loved to - either to be there or to sell them on eBay - although you get a much better and warmer view from the comfort of your own home.

We did get to go in 2005, Avery was a year old and we went with our friends Dom and Annette. I remember having to go to many a building to find Sen. Feinsteinn's office and then on the actual day having to walk very very far to find an entrance and their being many many people on the Metro and on the mall. After all that we could barely get a glimpse of the swearing in.

So the funny thing is as I was searching for this picture, when I pulled it up I realized that I was wearing almost the EXACT same thing today, four years later. The same pink puffy vest, the same black fleece jacket and although I can't see them I'm 90% sure that I was wearing the same jeans as well (I wore the same outfit yesterday too, so I guess the probability of this occurring is pretty high). And I still have that hat and gloves. I'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing. Either way, as Erica C. pointed out, I have "an inauguration outfit". Not as beautiful as Mrs. O's inauguration day outfits but an outfit nonetheless.

A proper retirement

Yesterday we decided that, despite how much we love the holiday season, it was mid-January and the Christmas tree needed to come down. So after packing up all the ornaments (the tree was pretty anemic in the first place. One string of lights, a homemade star, about a dozen hangy balls) we threw it in the back of my truck and took it to the lot where we have a dumpster. After once again making the kids hang out in the back of our wagon well into the hours of darkness while we worked on the house I decided to reward them with a show. Instead of just tossing the tree into the dumpster I would retire it in a much more noble, Westbrook fashion. Taking advantage of our spacious and mostly saturated lot, I set her ablaze. As this little 4 foot tree threw flames 10 feet or more into the air and glowing embers another 30 feet above that, we noticed the neighbors had all come to their windows to appreciate the festivities along with our family. It was at that point that Lynn reminded, "Did you remember that our neighbor is a fire marshall?"

"No. No I didn't"

Post by Ben (I can't change it now or the comments would be erased)

Five

Welcome 2009

We made it to CA and back. I had every intention of catching up on my holiday happenings and blogging while on vacation but all I have to show for it is a handful of half written entries, just waiting to be backdated and posted as I am known to do. Annoying I know. But who wants to read about things that happened in December with a date of mid-January on it? So if you want to know more about our Christmas, new haircuts and anything else that happened in the last few weeks I'll try to catch up over the next few days. All I ask is that you take a moment to scroll down past entries you've already seen to get to them.

So 2009 huh? When your spouse has a employment contract/obligation that goes to 2020, 2009 doesn't seem all that futuristic. But then, when your spouse has an employment contract that goes till 2020 one should be grateful for the job security. So I'll start off the year in that frame of mind.

I don't usually "do" New Year's resolutions. I do make character adjustments and lifestyle changes through-out the year as I recognize problems but I prefer for things to happen organically rather than force January 1st on them. I'm more likely to stick with them that way.

Of course there are a lot of things I could resolve to change immediately:

not biting my nails, allowing myself more time to get places so I get there on time, going to bed earlier, keeping up with the laundry, not backposting blog entries ... to name a few

I'm not a fan of deprivation without a really really good reason so I'm not big on giving things up, yet I wholeheartedly welcome self-inflicted pain and stress if it makes me a better person. I do live by personally philosophies that rotate periodically. I've been stuck on "live slow" as a favorite for a while now - just ask Ben. If only he could embrace the same credo he could see the beauty of it. And, if he could choose a resolution for me I'm sure it would be to keep my cell phone with me. Actually that's a great idea! Not to keep my phone with me..but to have someone else make your resolution for you. I think next year we might have to try that.

Well, I guess it's time to officially say farewell to 2008 and usher in 2009. I should probably start by taking down the Christmas tree, still ornamented with brittle yet still fragrant needles. The wreath should come off the door, the nativity put in it's box and while I'm at it I think I'll finally toss out the pumpkins from Halloween...

Commando

It is not uncommon for one of us to forget snacks, scriptures, the binky or something for the kids to play with on Sunday. But forget to diaper a child? Yep. About 45 minutes into the service Ben discovered that Miles was going commando. I'm not sure who to blame for overlooking this important item of clothing. I'm surprised he could keep his pants up without some bulky underthings to bolster his waistband.

Luckily, we didn't find out the hard way and were able to rectify the situation before he went to nursery and before we all needed a wardrobe change.

Return Road Trip

Ben flew back because as he likes to say "someone has to work" and I got to continue my vacation in Calif. for an extra week. Originally the kids and I were going to fly back on the 7th because the kids are starting gymnastics so with a probably 3 day drive ahead of us we had to cut our trip short. Unfortunately we couldn't get reimbursed for our return trip (Alaskan Airlines did refund our cancelled flight) because we were on a different airline and it wasn't their fault we had to drive. Luckily our flights were only $76 a piece, and after the $50 per person change fee we are left with a whopping $78 credit on Jet Blue and a long drive home.

Fortunately, my mom was willing to travel back with us and we decided to make as much of a vacation of it as possible. We hit up Napa and the Redwoods (my moms old collegiate stomping grounds and current home of Amy T. - soon to be Amy W.). We saw Amy, saw some big trees, beautiful scenery, and had some delicious milkshakes along the way.

My mom drove the entire time. She says it's because I'm not old enough. It allowed me to finish Volume 4 of The Work and the Glory so it worked out for me. But the drive was long. Seemed longer than the way down. Must have been because it was uphill this time. ;)

My mom drove the entire time. She says it's because I'm not old enough. It allowed me to finish Volume 4 of The Work and the Glory so it worked out for me. But the drive was long. Seemed longer than the way down. Must have been because it was uphill this time.

(happy to be out of the car!!)

December Recap

I'll combine December and January in a recap next month. A girl can only blog so much.

Happy New Year!

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

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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...

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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.