Somewhere Out There...Nanaboat, Nanaboat

Happy birthday to the Dale! We're sorry you were out of town so we didn't get to celebrate Texas style. Of course, I happen to remember a certain birthday boy who jumped, fully clothed (including black dress socks), into the pool and he brought his lawn chair in with him, so I imagine you guys will manage to entertain yourselves out there.

Since I'm the designated sap of the family so I might as well live up to it. Dale is the greatest big brother. Growing up, he always took his responsibility as the oldest very seriously. I always loved talking to him because he was so patient, non-judgemental and sage beyond his years with his advice. I've leaned on him for countless things for all my life from tips about boys to career pointers to a place to crash when I was interning to a fantastic recipe for chocolate chip cookies. There is not a person on earth who tries harder to do the right thing. He's the epitome of honor, integrity, decency and chivalry. And his downright hilarious when he wants to be.

So Dale, I have these few things to say to you. Can you owl it? Tink tink and "it's already breaded." We love you. Party like a rock star.

This is for Kristin

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Super Step-Mom

Thanks Michelle for posting the previous pics/post, as well as letting me contribute to the blog. I also wanted to add the following. Last summer Kristin flew out for a weekend that included Stephen Rissers birthday party Friday night. Something the boys learned from her, that normally me being the sugar nazi that I am would probably not have allowed, is that its 'OK' to eat birthday cake for breakfast and lunch the following two days (or until its gone). The first pic is from Sunday morning before church and the second one is Saturday. Note that the cake wasnt actually eaten, or it was eaten just a little...apparently the boys preferred Kristin's "frosting only" approach.

PS: Note my teal leather "Bachelor" sofas that She absolutely can't stand...apparently they are not allowed in the new house. Hey they looked good back in the day!

"Yes, I let my boys play in the freeways" and BMW Reliability: As much as I love my M3, I think our family is being sworn off BMW's (or at least Kristin tells me I am not allowed to buy another one...we'll see;), this car, though only 4 years old has had more problems in the last year than you can shake a stick at (4 visits to the shop). Here the alternator decided to shut down in the middle of the arizona desert, the boys and I had an additional fun 4 hour detour in what was supposed to be a 4 hour drive, which including sitting on the side of the freeway building army bases out of rocks, hitch hiking to and from the nearest town and dancing for passing cars to my IPOD, which happily enough we had my speaker box for it. (You can see it infront of the car on the ground)




Kenz stuffing her face: I took Kenz to a science museum this summer, for lunch she asked if she could have the big chocolate brownie for sale, I was in a good mood and jokingly said, "sure but its bigger than your whole head, I bet you can't eat it all", in her classic stubborn sassy persona, she tried to prove me wrong by attempting to stuff the whole brownie in her mouth. Even though she didnt suceed, it made for a good picture.


Kristin_luvs_the_mini: Here I took a picture of Kristin driving my mini van. I know how much she tells everyone she cant stand them, and swears she would never drive one, but thats just to keep up appearances. Believe me, everytime she comes to visit Arizona, she begs to drive my Sienna...I think she secretly fashions herself as the ultimate soccer mom...she will be heart broken when I trade it in in March. :)This post is posted by Michelle at the request of Stephen...

Time for the happy dance...again

This time, everybody has to get up and do the happy dance with me. My friend Elizabeth, the mother of five fabulous boys...is having a GIRL! It is so exciting I don't even know what to do! Let the pink everything begin!!!

Girls outing?

Hey Lazerbeam Ladies! Mom asked me to find out if the girls were interested in going together to see the Twilight movie while we are in town for Christmas. I know that would require waiting a whole month to see it but I thought I'd ask. Adam said he'd be willing to help watch the kiddos and I'm hoping some of the other boys would want to as well. So, if you're in ladies...holla!!!

Carter the animal...

Carter had a soccer game yesterday...the kind that Justin would love. A wet and muddy field (I don't know why it was so mushy...it hadn't rained in quite some time) and some serious action! Carter played goalie during the second quarter and he ROCKED!!!! He dove on the ball like an animal! He had so many goal saves. I think their team ended up losing like 7-0 (or something like that) but during Carter's quarter as goalie, he only allowed one goal and that's because one of his team mates forgot which goal he was supposed to go to and kicked it in his own goal. Carter (and the rest of us) were so surprised he didn't have time to respond. But, the other team didn't score any on him! He is a great goalie because he has no fear. I think he could be really good if he keeps playing. Justin and Matty would love watching Carter at work! Now, playing forward, on the other hand, not so much. He just doesn't get it. I think that's why he's good at goalie. He has his little circle where he likes to stand and if the ball comes to him, he's all over it. If it doesn't, he just stands and watches. That strategy doesn't work so well if you're a forward....Anyway, it was a great game to watch even though they lost pretty badly...

Seriously?

Picture it...Friday night. I drove out to Reedley (like 1/2 hour away) to do my speech for my speech class. I got back at around 8:00, in time to pick up the kids from "movie night" at their school. I brought them all home...hyped up from eating junk at the movie night and running around wild with their friends. Keep in mind, it is well past the 7:00 magic hour where I turn from regular mom into Monster Mom. I was tired and ready for the kids to be in bed. It took awhile since they were so riled up. I finally got them in bed. I came downstairs to clean up the kitchen and within 5 minutes, Jake appeared in front of me with a bloody nose. He and Carter were wrestling (when they should have been sleeping) and Carter landed right on his nose. Now, he could have gone into the bathroom right NEXT to his bedroom. He could've grabbed some kleenex or toilet paper. But instead, he decided to use his hands. So, he drips all the way down the hall, down the stairs down the hall again to the kitchen. Seriously? I'm already monster mom and now I have to clean up all the drips from his bedroom to the kitchen. I was not happy. Then, for my further enjoyment, Bella got up to go to the bathroom and said her stomach hurt. I felt her and she had a fever. Of course we were out of medicine except for some chewables that she hates. She took them anyway after some coaxing along with A LOT of water. After chewing the second one, she kind of got the "this is absolutely repulsive shivers". I was standing in front of her and she turned to look at me and projectile vomited all the water she had just drank. Seriously? So after cleaning drops of blood throughout the whole house, I am now covered in vomit. Is this some kind of joke???

Burn Baby Burn!

So this is what our morning looks like. I tried for nearly an hour to get to work this morning. All the freeways are shut down, the 5, 405, 14, 210, 126... the old road, sierra highway... You get the picture. The San Fernando Valley is officially on fire... AGAIN!! Mark couldn't get to work either. Bummer. This picture doesn't do it any justice, we can see flames on the hill from the house. The view out my bedroom is spectacular. It's a toasty nearly 90 degrees with very strong winds. Here's hoping you guys are breathing better air.

Picture this in your mind folks...

me, doing the happy dance at the gas station because I just filled up my empty tank (the van) for $32. That, my friends, is cause for a celebration. I'm going to get myself a diet Coke to celebrate. I've already had a few today, but I must celebrate...

You know it's going to be a long day when...

you find that pile at the end of your bed in the morning. Yesterday, I found time to wash all the laundry but no time to put it away. The good news is all of that is clean laundry. The bad news is I have to fold it all and put it away. Oh boy. Isn't motherhood glamorous???

Aurora

Don't you just want to eat her up???? Mackenzie filmed this one.

Camille = Tactful

So, Justin and I took Brandon, Emma and Camille to the park on Saturday. Everybody played around for a while. Close to the time that we were getting ready to leave, Camille yells from across the field, "Uncle Baldie ...." I forgot the rest of what she said because I went into shock. The shock turned into cardiac arrest when I looked around and realized there was nobody else near me she could be talking about - for reasons obvious to everyone. That was a really nice surprise. Dad, I guess this is one more example of payback.

I got an idea.

Since Michelle is sick of looking at Obama, let's play a game to help her out. Everybody** post the MOST RECENT picture you have taken of ANY ONE of your kids. So, no cheating. Pull off the very last picture you took featuring one or more of your children and post away.



See? Don't we feel better already? I know I do. Ready? GO!

**Coach and Brett, you can post pics of you with any of the kiddos and Nana/Papas, you can pick if you want to post a child or grandchild.

P.S. This includes all of Michelle's NON-lazerbeam readers, too. And Judy, you're family so you're OBLIGATED to post, but try not to show us all up. :)

No more Obama

I am in some kind of mood and I can't stand looking at Obama with sun rays coming out of his head so I'm posting this picture instead because I'd rather look at this than Obama...I know, he'll be a fine president, blah blah blah, I just don't want to see or hear from him til January. Then we'll get to see him for the next 8 years...

Don't tell mama the country voted for Obama...

Because I probably stay up the latest (aside from Tamms who also doesn't sleep but is probably preoccupied with that time suck of a baby she calls Ellie) I get the privilege of introducing to the blog the newly elected President of the United States. Lets hear it for Obama! Or not...

My roommates are really opinionated when it comes to politics and especially Obama, and I really enjoy it. We got into a discussion following the announcement of his victory and some interesting topics were brought up. One roommate, her sister, and her sister's roommate are convinced we are starting the second coming. I personally took a more skeptical approach to those rumors that have been floating around, remembering all the chaos associated with Y2K. My other roommate is convinced that if there was a limit for the minimum IQ a person must have to vote that McCain would be in office instead. I thought that was a bit ridiculous except, as you will see in the following YouTube video, some people really are confused as to what they're being promised.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P36x8rTb3jI

I've spent the last few hours researching Obama's platform (yes I realize I should have started this research prior to his election, but better late than never, right?) Anyway, some things were concerning but not hardly as shocking as I had perceived them to be from the descriptions of others (death penalty, immigration, and even health care), other things were more bothersome (abortion, gay marriages, TAXES). Anyway, as of now I stand disappointed with the election results but not entirely hopeless about our country's future. I'm glad we live in a democracy and Obama is our president as apposed to our King.

What are your thoughts? You all probably have a much more thorough understanding of the whole situation and I'd love to hear your perspectives...enlighten me!

PS I loved McCain's concession speech, he did it with as much grace and dignity as a person could in that circumstance.

Halloween 2008

Those of you who remember my last Halloween know that I had about 4 different costumes. Given my hectic schedule this year, I only found time to put 2 of the 4 I had put together to use. The first was used for my ward Halloween party.

Smash and I went as super heroes. Yes, my entire outfit was purchased from the little boys section of Wal Mart. This is our crime fighting pose...very intimidating, I know.




I was pretty proud of how it all came together. It was my first party since the opening social and I did it without my co-chair and still without a committee. If it wasn't for my roommate Kort I probably would have had a mental breakdown in the process... Alright, you got me, I had one anyway. But it would have been far more severe had I not had her help!

The second costume was used for Halloween night. Ashley and I dressed up together again, this time as Stepford wives. This first picture was taken at about 11pm when we had still not made our way to any parties due to some wardrobe malfunctions of some of my friends.

We eventually did manage to get out. Ryan Mckell went as Ryan Gardiner, Ash a Stepford wife, Annette and her boyfriend went as characters from Hairspray, and Ryan Gardner as superman.

This picture was one of about 50 taken during a fun little photo shoot we did back at my place around 4 am after we had our fill of parties.

One last thing...

I voted to day, have you????? And I haven't turned on the news or read news reports yet about how things are going. But, in about an hour, we're headed off to an election party where we can watch it on a bunch of t.v.'s and have maps to look at etc. That's my kind of party....

Who's hungry?

I came into the family room tonight to find THIS all over my couches. I asked malia what she was doing and she said, "Mom, I have to feed the kids." See that pot in the middle with her blankie in it? She said it's blankie soup. Guess that's what we're having tonight since all my pots are now on the couch!!!

My son...the forger

Yes folks, like mother, like son. At Jake's teacher conference last week, she showed me a card that he was supposed to have me sign. He forgot about it and was panicked the next morning. He was so afraid he would get in trouble that he signed it for me. Of course it looked nothing like my signature, so the teacher asked him about it and he said, "My mom was too busy to sign it so she said for me to sign it for her." I could not even hide my laughter. I thought it was so funny. What a crack up. We, of course, discussed it when I got home, but still, pretty funny, huh??? The other VERY SURPRISING element of his teacher conference was that she said she had to place him at the front of the room because when she moved him back, he was too chatty. She said he would even try and slump down in his desk and read a book or play or whatever, thinking she couldn't see him. Ha ha! That kid has some nerve! I wonder where he got it from!

Halloween

Here are the Edwardson children all dressed up for Halloween. It was really fun this year. Thursday night there was a ward Halloween party which was mediocre, but I took Malia around trunk or treating and she kept saying, "This is so fun Mom!" all excited at ever single trunk! It was so cute. On Halloween Day, the kids had the day off. We spent the day carving pumpkins and eating roasted pumpkin seeds. They were so tasty! The kids wanted to trick-or-treat with their friends, so we headed over to the Ward/Christopherson neighborhood where there were about a zillion kids. Since it wasn't dark yet, we dined on fabulous homemade soups and bread before heading out to the streets. The kids had a great time and got way too much candy. We let them eat whatever they wanted on Halloween, quite a bit on Saturday and Sunday and then last night, when the kids were sleeping, the Great Pumpkin came and took all their candy to other boys and girls who needed it. (Jake actually picked four pieces out of his pumpkin and then told me I could do whatever I wanted with the rest of it on Halloween). What is wrong with that kid???? Carter and Bella were sorely disappointed but when I wouldn't budge with my Great Pumpkin story, they dropped it...Bella even told our friend that she saw the "Great Pumpkin." He he.

The Holidays are upon us

As you all know, with November already here I am thinking and planning and anticipating all the fun we will have sooooo I could use a few bits of info like ....guesstimated dates of arrival in Cali, how long you can stay and play with us and when, if we are unable to tie you up and keep you, you must return to your own homes. Would it be helpful at all for me to get maps from the Auto Club to get from pt a to pt b and back. They are free and often helpful to tell where they anticipate road construction or bad weather etc. we have used them often and would be glad to get them and send them to you. They include maps and places to stay etc etc. We have many things planned = none expensive but all fun so...any special requests for dinner or playtimes are cheerfully accepted. We love you and are thrilled to anticipate seeing you all soon

Thanks Nana!