9,307!

Now I know it doesn't sound like a huge deal or anything, but I'd set this little goal inside my head that Bound on Earth would dip below 10,000 on the Amazon.com list . . . and it did!

There are books all the way up into the million territory (and granted, lots of those are books that came out a long time ago and have since fallen off of anybody's radar). When my book isn't getting any action, I usually hover around 150,000 or so. The lowest it's dropped is a couple of days after it first came out, when I'd emailed practically everyone I knew to tell them about it, and that was around 12,000. I figured that might be as low as it went, but I secretly wanted to get below that 10,000 mark. Well I've been bopping around the last week or so from 35,000 then up to 150,000, then down to 60,000 or so. But then yesterday, I scored a review on the LDS blog Times & Seasons (and I'd also recently gotten some good reviews on the Segullah blog as well as on the Association for Mormon Letters message board. If you want to read any of them, there are links on my website.) Times & Seasons is one of the big daddies of the bloggernacle, and getting a good review there is a pretty cool thing, especially since it's directly reaching the audience that I think might like my book. And today I checked my Amazon site, and I was at 9,307. Whoop! So that was exciting.

I also drove a bit of traffic to Drew's Normal Mormon Husbands blog by posting on the Segullah sidebar. Then it got picked up by the "Mormon Mommy Wars" blog (a great blog if you've never checked it out) and I guess he's gotten a lot more hits. Which is cool, because he deserves it. He's a bloggin' rock star, imo. If you haven't read his most recent post, you need to. It's hilarious. Go Bishop Sweat!

Then we have Mr. Tony Sweat (artist/PhD scholar/teacher/scriptorian/carpenter/father of almost-5), who has a book coming out soon with Deseret Book called "Why?" He's co-authoring with a pretty popular Deseret Book writer and fellow CES employee, John Hilton. It's aimed at teens and is meant to help them understand the whys behind the commandments. I guess "Because I told you so!" isn't always the best answer, so Tone's gonna help us out. So lots of writing going on in the Sweat family right now.

That means that Amy and Dave, it looks like the two of you are going to have to put your heads together and co-author a math book. (I think the title should also be "Why?" Kidding!!!)

And now the kids are in the basement, yowling and bonking into things. They sound happy but slightly crazed, and I'm sure that any minute I'm going to have to go down there and take everything down a notch.

Ha! Here is the dialogue going on right now:

"Elise! Elise, get off of him!"

"I'M NOT DOING ANYTHING!"

"Get off! Get off!"

Silence.

Okay. Now they're giggling again.

"Ethan! It's an attacker. AN ATTACKER!"

"Whooa! What the?"

"Ethan, over here! Over here!"

Uggh. Groan.

"Oh. Let's stop."

Crying. It's Jonas. He's mournfully trudging up the stairs right this minute.

Me: "Come here Joe."

Jonas: "Thanks a lot Ethan!!" He's standing at the top of the steps, still crying.

Me: "Joe. I'm in the office. C'mere!"

Jonas mournfully trudges into the office. Now he is going to tell you what happened:

"We were playing this ball game and I was trying to get the ball and right when I got the ball, Ethan just stole it from me. Right when I got it!"

Now I'm asking Jonas what he wants to say about Ethan:

"Don't ever play ball with Ethan!"

(Now he's smiling.)

"Now, Mother, I must give you this quiz. It's all about your smartness. Can I have some fruit snacks? Tic, toc, tic, toc. Ooh, I'm sweaty. Mom, stop typing and answer me. You're taking 2 million five hundred and sixty two years."

"Yes, you can have some fruit snacks."

"Hooray!" He wipes some snot with the back of his hand and skips away.

And that is life at my house.

New look?

So I put the cover of my book up on the sidebar, and that led me to a complete blog redesign, purely based on the fact that the colors weren't matching. I'm kinda enjoying this new look. It's like moving the furniture around. Hope you like it too!

Candy Manager

I've decided that a big part of the job description of being a mom is simply candy management. It starts at Halloween and doesn't let up until late spring: you have your October Halloween candy nightmare, then that morphs into the Christmas candy situation, which slides into the Valentine's candy ordeal, until the cycle completes itself with the Easter candy conundrum. And each holiday has its specific candy related challenges.

Halloween: The sheer quantity. You have the class parties. The church trunk or treats. THEN you have the actual Halloween trick or treating, not to mention all the leftover candy from your own candy bucket to hand out that night. I usually end up simply throwing the remaining vestiges of Halloween candy away sometime near the end of November.

Christmas: Christmas it's not so much all the little candies (although the kids do get a few in their stocking). It's the neighbor gifts of cookies and the little tins of fudge and the boxes of See's from the mall, and the question becomes, "Where do I put all this stuff?" Throughout most of the month of January I had a big pile of Christmas candy/chocolates/etc etc sitting in the corner by the fridge. Not to mention all the cookies that went hard before we could eat them . . .

Valentines: So right now, I'm dealing with the school Valentine's Day Party detritus that descends on the house every Feb. 14th. You have each kid's Valentine's box and all the candy therein, but you also have all the little cards attached--little cards which I've found stuck to the bottom of my bare foot while walking through the kitchen TWICE, just today. The problem is, how do I consolidate all this? What is the appropriate waiting time before I junk all the little Shrek and Spiderman and Hello Kitty Valentines so carefully penned by their friends, and pull off the Hersey's Kisses and mini Snickers and dump them all in a big bowl that I can hide in the pantry? Can't do it yet, that's all I know--the kids wouldn't want me to disgrace their Valentines in such a way, but hopefully by the middle of the week they will have moved on.

Easter: Can I just say Easter Grass? I know this, technically, doesn't have to do with candy directly, but is it just me, or do you find little green Easter grass strings sucked up into your vacuum chamber for MONTHS after Easter? Not to mention all the little plastic eggs. They get put in the toy box, under the couch, everywhere, and for the longest time I meant to save them and keep them for subsequent Easters, but now I've decided that a bag of the things are like, $1.99, so now I just gather the things up and chuck 'em when I find 'em, and buy a new bag the next year. Much easier. Also, I must say that I am a sucker for the Easter candy, myself. I think it's all the pretty pastel colors. And I've already mentioned on this blog my love of the Easter delicacy Chicks and Rabbits (little marshmallowy candies--NOT Peeps--with the consistency of Circus Peanuts). They are decidedly gross and I love them so. A big no no.

So there's my candy rant. Now for a weekly update:

-I eked my way up to 12,000 on the Amazon.com bestseller's list, and I know it doesn't sound like much, but the rankings go all the way to a million or so, so I'll take 12,000! My publisher was really happily surprised. I know I owe a lot of it to so many of my friends and family and neighbors and other associates who have been so supportive and bought the book. Thank you all!!! I'm now back to 100,000 or so, but that's to be expected after the first big push. Hopefully as we get some press now that the book is out (we are expecting some reviews online, as well as in BYU Magazine, and the book review guy at the Des News even requested a copy . . . but it wasn't a sure thing he'd review it . . . but still hopeful!) and if there is some good word of mouth, we'll see some more sales continue. Some of you have asked about bookstores, and here's the skinny: We are "under review" for Barnes and Noble (they need to have a hard copy in hand in order to review it, and it takes about a month). We are trying to work our way into Deseret Book and Seagull, but it is very hard to do if you don't publish with them. But we're trying to be positive about it. It should be available for sure in a smattering of smallish LDS bookstores around the country (like Best Books and Gifts in MN), and we're also hoping some independent bookstores here in Utah like Sam Wellers and King's English will carry it. (They need to see a hard copy too.) It will be available in both the SL City and County libraries.

-Last Saturday was Jonas's last basketball game. The ended the season 0-6, and a humiliating 0-6 at that. But the kids were little troupers and learned a lot from the beginning of the season to the end. Here's a picture of my basketball boy:




His second front tooth is still struggling to grow in, and we've become so accustomed to calling him Mr. Can Opener Tooth that it will be kind of a shock to see him with TWO great big teeth up front.

-Ethan is doing his science fair as we speak. It's a study of how music affects concentration. Part of the experiment had to do with playing a variety of music (classical, polka, country, rock) while trying to do a times table test, and I am humiliated at how poorly I performed. Embarrassing is the only way to describe it. It gives me much sympathy for my poor Lou Lou who has to endure those stupid tests on a near daily basis. Bah on times tables, I say. He also had a class party with a Medieval theme, and he was (guess?) the Court Jester, and regaled the class with a new stand up routine. As always, he was nervous the morning of, but apparently delivered and got lots of laughs.

-Elise got the part of one of Ariel's sisters (named Madrigal) in a play that her Children's Theater group is doing. She has a few lines, so she's excited. It will be fun to see. She also created a bee-u-tiful Valentine's box--and I risked my life by going out in a super extreme blizzard to buy various doodads with which to decorate it (and yes, yes I realize that I wouldn't have been in that situation if I hadn't procrastinated buying said doodads until the day before Valentine's at 4:00 p.m., right about the exact hour that the super duper storm hit, but hey, at least I wasn't one of the half dozen or so strained looking mothers hoping to find Valentine's for their kids' classes only to discover that they were ALL SOLD OUT! Back out into the howling sleet and to Wal-Mart you go, my dear, and have a fun night talking your 1st grader into writing little teeny tiny names in pen on slippery paper 25 times.) But Elise loved the box and got many glowing compliments from friends and even strangers on the bus. Made her day.

-Forrest is looking more and more babealicious as he continues his "year of discipline." Lean and mean, that's my man. Plus he's been trimming his goatee regularly, my favorite look of his, and I think makes him look super suave, especially when he's wearing his sunglasses and leather coat. We skipped out last night after we put Wyatt down to bed (it's so awesome to put him down at 7:30 and then leave Ethan in charge and go to a movie--the theater's 5 min away and Wyatt usually zonks once we put him down, so skipping out for a movie is heavenly.) We went and saw a new romantic comedy called "Definitely, Maybe" and it was pretty good. Didn't like it as much as I liked "Juno," but it was good. We also just saw (rated R alert, sorry for all those of you who are better at that element of obedience than I am--you can just pray for me. Does it help that we are very discerning in the rated R movies we do see? Probably not) "There Will Be Blood" with Daneil Day Lewis. Very very powerful, emotionally exhausting film. Most of the movie I was wondering why in the world it was R (not a lot of swearing, no sex of any kind, very little violence throughout most of it) but then at the end somebody gets his head bashed in with a bowling pin and I figured that was the clincher. But some amazing acting, and the kind of movie you think about for a long time afterward. I do love movies. And I do love our brand new movie theater with the cushie chairs and the refillable mugs we bought (only .75 per refill, not bad for a movie drink!) and the kickin sound system. And, on a related note, can I just say how glad I am that the writers are no longer on strike, mainly so I can watch The Office and 30 Rock again???

-Finally, the Wy-Man is growing and growing and growing. He almost runs around the house now, and his vocabulary is really growing. He says, "Whassat??" "Hiya!" (so cute), "Uh-oh!" "Ow!" and "Da Da" quite regularly. He particularly likes saying "Ow" while he hits me in the face and/or pulls my hair, and then laughs maniacally. But he's cute enough that I forgive him. Plus he's sleeping better, and has moved into the one nap a day schedule, which I really like because I can count on at least a 2-3 hour block of quiet time in the middle of the day. Bliss. So, to end this way too long post, here's a video of our crazy baby with a pair of Pooh ears on his head:

An interview on Motley Vision

One of the blogs in the bloggernacle (the big gaggle of LDS themed group blogs) called A Motley Vision just did an interview with me about the book. If you want to take a look at it, it's here.

And thanks, everybody, for all your amazing support! Love you!

Bound on Earth is here!

Okay, guys--it's ready to roll. Even though I haven't seen the final version of it yet (they are being shipped to me right now), I'm up on Amazon and the Parables site can take orders. So . . . if you're interested, check out www.parablespub.com or Amazon
and thar 'tis! (The cover picture isn't up yet on Amazon, though, but it should be shortly. And all my blurbs are running together with no punctuation, but hopefully that can be fixed!)

I'm hoping to put together a little book celebration here in Utah, maybe at Barnes and Noble or another store, so I'll let you know if that's a possibility.

Whoop!

My Celebrity Look Alikes

So I just found this nifty website that does facial recognition scans and tells you what celebrity you look like, and apparently I'm way hotter than I ever imagined. I look 97% like a super sexy Slovakian model married to a famous soccer player (I googled her, and considered putting up some of the various shots I found of her in assorted swimwear, but then decided against it, since the pictures of me at Yuba lake last summer in my skirted, "tummy control" swimsuit would just reinforce that this is a FACIAL recognition program, not an abdominal recognition program.)

I'm also happy to see that I look 86% like the teen aged indestructible cheerleader from Heroes; as well as 86% like the pretty lady from that movie with Brad Pitt where he's playing death, but Claire Forlani falls in love with him anyway; 83% like Ellen DeGeneres' life partner; and 80% like a model named Nikki.

And here I am toiling away at home, making peanut butter sandwiches and grading freshman comp essays. I coulda been a stah!



Then I thought it would be fun to do Forrest's face. I've always thought he looks a little bit like Julia Roberts, and a little bit like the lead singer of Smashing Pumpkins, but no. Apparently, I married way below my station, because my husband looks most of all like Cory Feldman, failed child actor of the 80s and famous drug addict, with a smattering of gay Broadway star, hunky Dirty Dancer, well-respected African-American actor and voice over artist (Luke, I am you fatha!"), foppish British romantic comedy star, female rapper (who's lost a lot of weight!), and our favorite silent movie celebrity. Who knew he had all that in him? So now if we're wondering what Missy Elliot, Corey Feldman and Charlie Chaplin have in common, well, it's Forrest.

Hilarious.

If you want to try it, go to myheritage.com. It's fun.

The Year of Discipline

Forrest has decided that 2008 is the year of discipline, and has exercised almost every single day since Jan 1. He's even dropped to the floor to do his push-ups and sit-ups when we're exhausted and it's near midnight, so I have to give him props. And he's lost 10 pounds in just about 4 weeks. A part of me is proud of him, and a part of me is jealous. Although I have finally reached the weight I was when I first went to the Dr., pregnant with Wyatt (but that weight was probably about 5 pounds heavier than I had been, since I was about 10 weeks pregnant.) But the "official" weight gain that the doctor kept track of has all been lost. Now I just have all the unofficial weight to contend with.

So Forrest can lose 10 pounds in 4 weeks, and I lose 4 pounds in 5 months. That sounds about right :-).

For my own year of discipline, I've been trying to read my scriptures and floss consistently. So my track record has been a little spotty, but I'm doing better than last year, at least!

We've had a lot going on this week, so here's a quick rundown of the highlights:

-Elise and Forrest had a Daddy/Daughter night for her Activity Days at church. They had a little tailgate meal and wore their favorite team jerseys. (Forrest and Elise were Ute fans.) Here's a cute shot of the two of them:



-We enjoyed watching President Hinckley's funeral as a family on Saturday. I was surprised at how emotional I felt--of course, I knew that I would be sad, but I was also happy for President Hinckley, that he got to have a little rest after 97 years of hard work, and see his wife again. But all of us were emotional as we sat listening to the talks (well, okay, Jonas wandered away and started playing WebKinz on the computer after a while, but I'll give him a break since he's six.) But Forrest and Ethan and Elise and I all watched the whole thing, and it was a very spiritual experience. I'm glad I got to share it with the kids.

-Saturday night, we had a big party with some friends in the neighborhood. We had ten couples (counting Forrest and me), and even though the kitchen was a little squishy, everybody seemed to have a ball. We did some SingStar (and can I just say how talented my family is?? Twenty people, and hardly anybody broke 5,000--when my family plays it, we're all battling it out in the 8,000 and 9,000 range!!) but everybody was a really good sport, even those who were decidedly tone deaf. We also played Taboo. It's such a hilarious game, especially when you have people who are kind of clueless but are unembarassed about it, so you can all laugh while they cringe and say, "Uh, um, in the air! A parking lot!" (The answer to that one was "skydive." He misread it and thought it was "skydrive." Hilarious.) A fun night, though. And the bonus of doing a party like that is that, after spending all day on Saturday cleaning, now my house is wonderfully spic an span!

-On Sunday, we got a HUGE snowstorm. It's been snowing so much this winter, it's been unreal, but yesterday we got almost 14 inches in South Jordan. We woke up in the morning and got all ready to drive down the road to 9:00 church, but at a quarter to we got a call that church had been cancelled. That's quite a rarity, especially when the church is so close, but there were lots of people who couldn't get out of their driveways and the parking lot was a mess. So we had a nice snowy day at home, capped off by my Mom and Dad and Tony and Cindy dropping by to catch some Superbowl action. And I did watch the last 10 minutes, which were very exciting (did you see that Giants guy catch the pass with his head?).

-Wyatt has started saying, "Whassat?" and pointing everywhere. It's hilarious. I don't know if he really knows what "Whassat?" means, or if he's just copying us, but it seems like he's grown a couple of months in just a couple of weeks. Doesn't hurt that he's walking everywhere now. Big boy.

So now I've successfully avoided grading papers for long enough. Gotta get to work!

By Dose is all Sduffy

I have a cold, and I had a cold last week and got over it, and now I have another one again. I am sitting here next to Forrest while he watches a rather mournful movie with Christian Bale (from the most recent Batman--which was the only movie in recent memory where I've fallen asleep in the theater) and another guy who's usually really funny (don't know his name) and they have escaped from some horrible tropical prison and some helicopters just flew by and didn't pick them up. I hate it when that happens in movies.

Speaking of Batman, whenever I see commercials for the newest Batman and see Heath Ledger in all that Joker makeup, it makes me kind of sick to my stomach. Poor Heath Ledger.

Ah! The helicopters are back. Maybe they'll stop this time. There's a bonfire now so they'd better. Oh no! The helicopters are shooting at them! Bummer.

So I had some drama this week trying to resolve some problems with the picture quality on my book's cover, but it looks as if that's all been figured out. I also have to get all those dang Student Treasures books shipped out on Saturday, and we're having a big party on Saturday, too, where we're inviting a bunch of couples from the neighborhood. We're playing SingStar, and I think probably Taboo . . . any other suggestions for good party games?

The kids are off track and are having a great time of it. We went to the Dinosaur Museum, and the cool SL Library. We've had some wicked snowstorms, too, and some good sledding. Tuesdays I'm pretty useless right now, though, because I have two classes (8:30 and 1:00), so today the kids bopped around in their pajamas for quite a while. Wyatt's walking probably 60% of the time now, and is getting pretty confident in his ability to get wherever he wants to go. Plus he can open all our dumb doors (it's those dang lever handles!!!) so he gets into the cat food and the toilet and goes upstairs and turns on the water in the bathtub and all sorts of fun things.

Okay, now Christian bale is eating a live snake. Eww.

I know I should go to bed, but I love having a little quiet time where I can sit next to my honey and type on my laptop and glance at crazy war movies. Hey! Now the helicopter is coming to get him for real! What a relief.

Totally Awesome!

Forrest and I went to an 80s party this weekend with some friends of mine from Segullah. We were supposed to bring 80s pictures of ourselves, and then post them on the Segullah staff message board . . . but I can't figure out how to post a photo. So I'm putting it up here for you guys to enjoy too. Now THAT'S some hair!!

Playing Catch-Up

So I suppose it's okay to blog on Sunday? Is it a variant of journal writing? I'm hoping so, because this is the first chance I've had to sit down and get anything posted in a while.

It's been a fun week. The two big highlights have been, first and foremost, Wyatt Dean Hallstrom's First Birthday Party!!! His actual birthday is tomorrow, but we celebrated with our family yesterday. Here's some pics of his fun with chocolate cake:



mmm, kinda tasty!



I mean, mmm, REALLY tasty!



That was amazing! Getting messy, eating cake, now I get to take a bath in front of all these people--awesome!



See how well I clean up?

It was pretty funny watching him dig into the cake. He also loved opening his presents. For a kid who's only one, he really loves his toys. He wasn't sure about ripping open the wrapping paper, so Mom had to help him out:



He's also done something that none of my other kids have done: starting walking right on his first birthday. Ethan and Elise were both kind of late walkers, and Jonas was a crazy early walker (9 mos!). But here he is, showing off his stuff:



The other exciting thing that's happened this week is the completion of Bound on Earth. We finally got through with the last minute edits and changes, and Parables finished the cover. The book was sent to the printer a couple of days ago, and I should have a "proof" copy in hand in a week or so. (Yee haw!!). Here's the cover, which I love (thanks to Tony, who did the beautiful cover art):



As time is growing nearer to the book actually being read by actual people, I find that I'm excited, but I'm scared, too. I hope people like it, of course, but I hope people understand it, too. You know how it feels when you prepare a lesson or a talk for church, and you get up there and say everything you've prepared and think it went okay, but then when you sit back down you start second guessing yourself and thinking, "Did I say everything I meant to say? Did everyone listening to me get the gist, or did I say one thing, and they heard another?" It's kind of that feeling. For example, the first few stories/chapters in the book are kind of sad. Actually, a number of stories in the book are kind of sad. But I also think that the book is ultimately redemptive and even uplifting, but as I was doing the final final read through, I kept thinking, "I hope ________ [fill in with family member / friend / person in my neighborhood ] doesn't think this means that I'm sad, or that I think life is sad . . ." because, I don't think life is sad. Not at all. But I do think life can be hard, and that one of the purposes of fiction is to highlight that conflict (and after all, as all my writing books tell me, "only conflict is interesting") and watch, vicariously, as other people work through it. Fictional people, of course. Although my Palmers don't really seem fictional to me anymore, after all this time we've spent together.

I'm certain that people will misread the book. As a matter of fact, there was a man who read it when I'd placed it with another publisher for consideration who liked a lot of things about it . . . but his comments were that he thought the book ganged up on the men. Such a thought had never entered my mind! In fact, my character Nathan is my favorite character, and the most inherently good character, of the whole book. But that was this guy's reading. Also, the Utah Arts Council judge who read it and liked it (one of his blurbs is on the cover) thought that I was too nice to the church. I'm certain that there will be some people who will read it and think that I should have been nicer to the church. And there's a whole blog post here about how I had absolutely NO AGENDA when it came to the church, and just wanted to write a book with Mormons in it where the church was just THERE, like race or culture or gender or anything else that is just a part of the fabric of who we are. Too often, when people write about Mormonism, the authors either want to use the book as a tool to convert, or they want to use the book as a way to expose all their gripes. I didn't want to do either, primarily because I think both approaches almost always ruin your chance at telling a good story.

Anyway! It should be really interesting when it comes out, hearing what people think, seeing, through their eyes, what I wrote without knowing it :-).

And Happy Birthday, Wy-Man! Love you!

Quickies!

Oh, I've been neglecting my blog. I just started up my new semester for school, and at the last minute they asked me to take another class. Long story short, there were some tech difficulties, so I've been spending some time getting everything up and running.

So what's up here? Hmmm . . . Wyatt's taking three or four steps. He's so close to walking, and could if he'd dare to venture out. He's also saying a few more words: ow, night night, and the other day he said "Hi!" to me when I walked in the door to rescue him from his crib. He's at such a fun age.

The kids are good--back in school after Christmas, but they only have two more weeks till they're off track again. It's getting harder and harder to get them out of bed in the morning. I can see my life five years from now, dragging them all by the arm at 6:00 a.m. (high school starts SO EARLY!!). Jonas is playing basketball, and Forrest is the coach of our little neighborhood team. They got KILLED last Saturday, but we're hoping that the team full of ringers that we faced is an anomaly. Elise got a new bedspread and used her Christmas money to buy some beads to hang up like curtains and they look darling. Very teenagerish. And Ethan checked out a book from the school library yesterday (the second book in the "Lightning Theif" series--but I can't remember what it's called) and read the whole thing in one day.

Oh, and did you all watch some of the returns last night from the New Hampshire primary? It was fascinating watching the pundits trying to explain why Hillary Clinton was still ahead despite all their prognosticating and polling until, lo and behold, she DOES win! Although I think the Dems would be insane not to nominate Obama. He has so much charisma, I think he'd be reaaaaalllly hard to beat. Did you listen to his acceptance speech after Iowa? Like a mixture of JFK and Martin Luther King. And I still watch Mitt with a little catch in my heart--like he's my kid or something and I don't want him to mess up on national TV--and part of me wants him to do well, but another part of me wishes he would just lose and get it over with. I really worry if he has to go up against Obama. I actually like Obama better than Mitt and I'm (obviously) predisposed to like Mitt, but man, he can seem so robotic. Loosen up, dude! I want to take his hair and shake it. He could still win, though. The Republicans are so up in the air, I wonder if any one of them is attractive enough to a broad base to even compete nationally.

Okay, so that's enough political speech. I have to go eat a PB&J sandwich . . . mmmm . . .

Christmas Rundown

Christmas week! A good time has been had by all, and we've resolved almost all of the technology-related emergencies that arise when most of the people in the household are receiving presents that contain batteries and/or wi-fi connections. (BTW, does anyone have any hints about getting a handheld Nintendo DS to connect wirelessly to the Wii so Jonas can upload all his Pokemon to the Pokemon Colosseum game? No? Didn't think so! :-).

Here are the highlights:



We went to Temple Square with the Wilkeys to see the beautiful lights. A terrific snowstorm started falling just as we were heading downtown. The driving was sketchy, but the snow was beautiful. The only bad part was Mom not insisting that everybody wear snow boots, so we had some cold, wet toesies by the end of the night.



Elise and I went to go see The Nutcracker with Katie and Jane Wilkey at the Capitol Theater downtown. What a gorgeous production. The girls had a ball, dining at The Olive Garden beforehand and enjoying the ballet together.



On Christmas Eve, we went to Grandma and Grandpa Sweat's house and had our traditional yummy Christmas Eve Dinner (mmmmmm, funeral potatoes). Elise is in her PJ's because (of course!) she started getting sick that very day. She was a little feverish that morning, and complained of a headache and overall lousiness. She rallied enough to perform in the nativity play, though. She and her cousin Lauren were angels, Jonas was the tax collecter (a given, with his natural affinity for money), and Ethan was Joseph, even though he wanted to be the narrator. But he was a good sport. And Wyatt was a recalcitrant sheep.






Christmas Morning!! The kids were good and didn't wake up Mom until 7:00 a.m. (Little did they know that Dad and Wyatt had been up since a little past six!). Lots of toys, lots of happy kids, only a few minor glitches, like the Pokemon problem referred to above. Elise had rallied a bit and wasn't feeling as sick, much to her relief. Ethan was starting to fade, though. Only Jonas felt good enough to head outside with his new sled (and Mom and Dad and Wyatt.) Here's some good video:



And a cute picture of Wyatt in the snow:



We fell into bed on Christmas night, exhausted and surrounded by crumpled bits of wrapping paper and little sticky tags. We were still holding out hope that the kids would be feeling better in the morning and that Forrest and I could go on the weekend trip to Las Vegas that we'd planned (Tony & Cindy and Mindy & Pete were going to take the kids and we were planning on leaving Thurs and coming back Saturday afternoon.) But when we woke up the next morning, Ethan was even sicker. Elise seemed better, but she was complaining that she had something in her throat. Much to her horror (and mine), when she went to clear her throat, she spit out BLOOD! I called her pediatrician who told me to take her to the ER. So I loaded up Wyatt (Forrest was snowboarding with Tony at the time, lucky man, unlucky me) and headed to the hospital. I was scared, but I didn't think it could be pneumonia or anything like that because she didn't have a cough of any kind and her lungs seemed fine. So after about two hours of wrestling with Wyatt and trying (in vain) to keep him off the germy hospital floor, we discovered that Elise did NOT have tuberculosis, but did have strep throat AND a cold simultaneously. Her raw throat had gotten bloody, and she had so much mucous that when she cleared her throat it all came up. I was extremely grateful that she was okay . . . and mildly irritated that the pediatrician didn't just let me bring her to the office instead of making me hang out in the hospital all morning and pay a $75 copay. But I was mostly glad that she was okay.

Needless to say, Forrest and I did NOT go to Vegas. But, luckily, the nice people at Expedia.com refunded the money we'd paid for our hotels even though we'd passed the refund deadline. Hooray for customer service! Now I will heartily recommend Expedia for all your traveling needs. And we got the kids on their meds and all are healthy and well. Hooray again!

Finally, last night we went to the Ranquist Family Christmas party, which is getting bigger all the time with the addition of spouses and cousins. We had our traditional yummy shrimp soup (one of my favorite Christmas recipes EVER), the kids did talents (Jonas shared his Pokemon card collection, and all around Pokemon life philosophy, Ethan did an abbreviated, and impromptu, bit of standup, and Elise and I sang "Silent Night" accompanied by Dad on the guitar.) Here's some video of the whole fam-damily trying to play "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" on, well, the bells:




And to conclude, I must mention the most unexpected gift of Christmas for yours truly: Guitar Hero for the Wii. I ROCK! (Well, probably not compared to a 15 year old with no girlfriend who spends all day in his room practicing, but for your average 35 year old Mom of Four . . . I ROCK!). Although I've been tripped up, now, by Slash, the guitarist for Guns and Roses. I was kicking can on all the songs (on Medium level, for those of you familiar with the game) and moving through the levels, but then Slash challenged me to a Guitar Battle and I CAN'T BEAT HIM. Infuriating. And since it's Sunday (and Sunday is "No Video Games Day" for kids and Moms alike), I'm going to have to try and beat him tomorrow.

And that's it from here. Ho Ho Ho, and a Happy New Year!!

A link

I just posted on Segullah, a group blog for LDS women. Last month, they asked me to do a monthly series on LDS lit, and this is my latest effort. Stayed up till 1:00 last night writing it and now I'm sleepy. But I thought you might want to take a look at it here.

And just for fun, here are a couple of pictures. The first is a shot of Elise after her Christmas choir performance, looking cute as can be in her Santa hat. The other picture I've simply entitled "Six."

There's nothing better than the end of a crazy week . ..

Except maybe that moment when you wake up and look at the alarm clock and realize that you still have two more hours to sleep. Isn't that feeling the BEST!? Much better than the feeling represented above: barely concealed terror. Kids and Santa pictures . . . gotta love 'em.

My week has been crazy, it's true. I had to be at the Elementary school every day to pick up these "Student Treasure" order forms (the school can't keep money there over night). I had to read final essays and get final grades completed for SLCC. And I also had to finish my final proofread of the novel and get all the changes sent to Parables. Ethan also came down with a strange viral rash--it's going away, but rashes always give a Mom pause, don't you think? And I got my Christmas cards in the mail!!! (Much thanks to the hubby for that one--he did most of the address sticking and letter folding). But that wasn't even the crazy part. The crazy part was the Relief Society Christmas party and service project I was in charge of.

But the Christmas party went well. We had almost SIXTY women there, which is a great turnout for a Relief Society event. Everyone who was supposed to help helped (although I did have one woman who was supposed to do a table setting call me, sick, a couple of hours before the event, so I ended up doing a table setting, too); the food turned out well (yes, the Baked Ziti was a hit, except for one table who, I found out after the fact, thought theirs was way too salty. The recipe called for 2 TBS of Lowry's Seasoning Salt, and I'm wondering if one of the ziti-bakers didn't have that and instead used regular salt??? Hmmm . . .); the musical entertainment was excellent (a woman in my ward is part of a female barbershop quartet that competes and performs all over the state, and they were awesome.) Other than a slight debacle over a woman in the ward who got her feelings hurt (and I'm not going into it here), the night was a success. Here's some pictures of some of our pretty tables:




(Neither of these is mine--mine wasn't nearly as pretty, since I threw it together in about 20 minutes! Luckily I had a pretty tablecloth and napkins I bought for last Thanksgiving that work just as well as Christmas plates, and some Christmas decorations for a centerpiece). What the heck--here's a pic of my table:



The best part of the whole night, though, was the turnout for the service project. Our ward adopted an Spanish speaking branch from SLC and we did an "Angel Tree" for them. (An Angel Tree is a Christmas tree covered with ornaments that have the name and age of a person for whom you can purchase a gift). So, the night of the party, I packed my car with gifts and came home with:

-82 presents
-$670 in gift cards
-$180 in cash to buy Turkeys and Hams

What an amazing total! I'm so glad we decided to do it . . . even though all 81 gifts are sitting in my office as we speak. I had to sort all of them and check and double check to make sure that everyone who was supposed to get presents got some, and that one child in a family didn't get four presents when another one got two. So it's been a lot of work (Forrest will agree, spending the last two days stepping over me and piles of presents all over the family room floor). But I hope that the families are surprised and that it helps them have a happier Christmas.

So as of today I have my grades in, my manuscript edits emailed, the last of the Student Treasures order forms in a "secure location," and an office full of Christmas presents waiting to be distributed. AND Forrest and I even took advantage of a little Ethan babysitting and put Wyatt to bed and went to a movie last night ("I Am Legend" with Will Smith--waaaaaay freakier than I thought it would be--and some people had SIX YEAR OLDS in the theater. I suppose they thought raging zombie mutants were something their first grader could handle???? It was PG-13, yes, but C'MON PEOPLE!).

So, to end this week's post, a few pictures and one funny tidbit for your reading pleasure:

-My sister-in-law Andi, who is a wonderful blogger and an even more wonderful mother, does an "Out of the Mouths of Babes" entry every month. She keeps track of all the darling things her kids say, which is something I always mean to do but don't do it, and then I kick myself for it later. So here's a funny one from this morning. The kids were playing a game called "Last Word" where you pick a card with a letter of the alphabet and another card with a "topic" (so, like, the letter "A" and the topic "Things you'd find in a restaurant"). Sometimes, though, the topics are too hard or too grown up, so the kids have to pass and get a new card. Here's what was overheard:

Elise: "Letter: D. Topic: Cocktails."
Jonas: "Cocktails??"
Ethan: "That category's way too hard, guys. It's all about shrimp."

Ha!

And finally, here's a smattering of some good pictures from the last little while:





And there's only 10 days till Christmas . . . !!!

Elfed

My Grandpa sent me a hilarious one of these, so I thought I'd do one of the kids. Enjoy!

Elf Yourself!

Six Truths or Habits

My friend Delise tagged me to do six truths or habits, so here's the unvarnished reality of being Angie:

1. Sometimes, when we have little miniature Hershey's candy bars (Halloween, or because it's Valentine's or Easter and I'm a sucker for the pretty colored wrappers), I dip the chocolate bars directly into peanut butter and eat it that way. One time one of my kids caught me and I was very ashamed.

2. I haven't painted my toenails for over a month, and they're all chipped and sad looking.

3. I get really excited when it's time to vote. This last voting cycle all we had to vote on was a referendum about school vouchers (no city council people, no school board, even) and I still woke up in the morning with a little excited thrill in my stomach and thought, "What am I excited about again?" Then I thought, "Oh yeah! I get to vote!"

4. I have to have reading material in every single bathroom in the house. That or handheld Yahtzee.

5. If I could have any talent that I don't have, I would love to be a dancer. The idea of being able to move my body effortlessly to music and not feel like I look like a dork (but instead, look graceful/elegant/powerful/etc etc) is very appealing.

6. I've been watching "The Biggest Loser" this season, and it never fails to make me cry. I was trying to explain to Forrest the difference between "mean" reality shows and "nice" reality shows ("The Biggest Loser" being a nice one, despite its mean title--"They shouldn't call it that!" Elise said) and said that with the nice ones, there are people who are struggling against great odds or trying to achieve something difficult or great, and it's watching the successes that I love. Plus I cry ALL THE TIME now.

Now I'm supposed to tag people, so here goes: Grandpa Hiatt (respond in the comments section!), Andi, Amy, and my cousin Julia (also respond in the comments section--Julia, you need a blog, if only so I can show people pictures of how beautiful you are.)

I know I haven't given lots of updates on actual life at the Hallstrom house, so here are a few small tidbits:

-Went to a live nativity that was super cool. Awesome costumes, live camels, and a real live baby Jesus under a spotlight that was so beautiful it took my breath away. And made me cry. (See above).

-Forrest got a new HD television and, I must admit, it is pretty sweet. That's something coming from a girl who claims not to care about TV sets.

-I think I need to go to the dentist but I'm putting it off because I'm approaching an actual Dentist-phobia. I think about calling him and my heart starts beating fast. Why do I hate the dentist so much? I would rather be in labor, truly.

-Wyatt says "Uh Oh!!" all the time (dropping things and saying "Uh Oh!" until I pick it back up is his favorite new game) and he'd decided he likes Forrest better than me. I told Forrest that when we get old, we'll be the only people I know whose kids say, "Were going to Dad and Mom's" instead of the other way around.

That's it for now! Gotta run to the Wilkey family Christmas party. I also have baked ziti in the oven--we're trying it out on Forrest's parents, to see if the recipe will work for the Enrichment Christmas party on Tues.

Crazy week coming up. We'll see how much I'm able to update . . .

Freaky Crazy Songs of Yore

So my friend Delise recently posted on her blog about her son and how he just got glasses. She quoted the lyrics "My eyes are dim, I cannot see, I did not bring my specs with me" and asked us all to name the song from which this marvelous lyric hails. I started thinking and I was just CONVINCED that it came from this song that (I thought) went "A ram tam tam, a ram tam tam, guley guley guley guley guley ram tam tam." It was sung in a round. Now where and when and how I ever learned this song has long evaporated into the ether of my childhood, but the lyrics are there, persistent as ever.

Problem is, I was WRONG!!! The song about the lost glasses has NOTHING to do with the song about rams and tams and guleys. The spectacles song (I soon learned from wonderful google) is officially called "The Quartermaster's Song" and has lyrics like this:

There are lice, lice, lice, lice
living on the mice
at the store!
at the store!
There are lice, lice, lice, lice
living on the mice
at the Quartermaster's store!

Then the chorus goes on to sing about blindness and missing glasses, which probably makes it really GROSS to run into the lice on the mice in the store! There are also rats as big as alley cats and roaches as big as football coaches and, get this, BEAVERS WITH LITTLE MEAT CLEAVERS at the Quartermaster's store--but our poor hero can't even see them because he is BLIND. What horrors abound at the Quartermaster's store!!!

And these are the songs we teach our Scouts. Little eight year old boys sitting around campfires singing about homicidal beavers.

But here's the funniest thing. I decided I would google MY lyrics and found that the song I thought Delise had posted about was in fact called A Ram Sam Sam (not Tam Tam, silly me!) and I found this absolutely delightful YouTube video of the musical gem. I think this particular version is from Brazil. Enjoy:



I've watched this a few times and it makes me belly laugh every time.

Okay, now I'm coming back to edit this because I found another funny one. I think it's some kind of Central American preschool (where two out of every 24 children are randomly chosen to wear masks made out of--what?? paper plates?? note the kids in the middle of the row). And they sing it soo sloooooow. And they say "bugi bugi" instead of "guli guli". What country is this?? What is going on? And why is this on Youtube?? Truly bizarre.



Okay, now I'm coming back to edit AGAIN because, you know how YouTube does that annoying new function where other videos pop up on the bottom of the video you just watched? Well when I finished watching the Central American Masked Preschoolers version of my Guli Guli song, for some reason, YouTube thought this next little gem from (I think) Germany would be an appropriate counterpart.

All I can say is this is one of the freakiest things I've ever seen. Crazy European guitar playing guy in casual wear, then in a suit (and what is he holding?), then in casual wear again; childish cartoon drawings of freaky looking animals, including beavers (beavers again! maybe inspired by the beaver from the Spectacles song, who knows!!) and strange gun wielding robbers popping out from behind trees. And I think this is supposed to be a children's video. I really do. You must see to believe:



The human race. We're hilarious.

Are there any bizarre songs from your childhood you'd like to share?? Any Youtube videos of people from other countries singing those songs? Please share, if only to brighten our day!

And now, I promise, I am done.

Thanksgiving!

So we piled the family in the Tahoe and set out over the river and through the woods to Amy and Dave's for Thanksgiving. We went with Tony & Cindy and their kids and my mom and dad too. A great time was had by all. Selected highlights:

-Although Wyatt wasn't the happiest camper in the car, he officially reached the 20 pound mark at the pediatrician's and can now face forward in his big boy seat. It helped. He did throw up and spent some time bucking around against his straps and screaming--but he spent less time doing that than I thought he would, which I count as a success!

-We drove on I-70 on the way there and saw some beautiful sights. The traffic got kind of backed up as we reached Denver, though, and at the end I felt like I was on one of those Disneyland rides where you think you're near the front of the line, but then you turn and notice 14,000 people still ahead of you. We finally staggered into the Chick-Fil-A near Dave and Amy's house, starving and racing to the restroom . . . but once we made it to our destination it was worth it.

-Amy and Dave have a beautiful home. I love their neighborhood, and Amy has done such a good job decorating. And it's so CLEAN. I noticed that even all the jeans and t-shirts in her closet were nicely folded and stacked in neat rows. She always was the most organized sister in the family.



-Wyatt and his cousin Jack were old enough to actually interact, although I wouldn't call it playing on Wyatt's part. Maybe next year for that. But it will be fun for those boys to have each other as cousins. And don't they both have the most beautiful eyes? Brownie Brown and Bluie Blue?

-For a 25 year old hosting her first Thanksgiving for a TON of people, Amy did an awesome job orchestrating everything and fitting us all and having enough pots and pans and plates and forks to go around. Here are some shots of all the hullaballo:




-Thanksgiving dinner was delicioso. Also, it was one of the only Thanksgivings in the last 8 years that I haven't been in charge of, so it was mucho delicioso for me!! Since Amy and Dave aren't big turkey eaters, they have a tradition of eating Chinese takeout from Panda Express, so we were able to enjoy some orange chicken along with our yams and stuffing and potatoes. Mmmmm!

-Thursday night we went bowling. I am a terrible bowler, and no matter what advice anyone gives me ("turn your arm this way!" "aim at this arrow!" "tuck your leg in!") I guttered one ball of the two EVERY SINGLE FRAME. The weird thing is that I only guttered one. I never guttered both. Isn't that strange? Probably psychological on my part. But it was fun to watch everyone else bowl, and the kids absolutely loved it. We had bumpers on the kids' lane and they had a riot. Good times.

-One of my only hesitancies about going to CO for Thanksgiving was that I would miss Black Friday shopping. (I know people think I'm crazy, but I think it's fun). But it turns out that Amy likes Black Friday, too, so she came and picked me up from the hotel on Friday morning at 5:45 and we hit the Target and the outlet stores. There was a line wrapped around Target and I didn't get EVERYTHING I was looking for, but almost everything. When we got home at 8:00, I'd expected to see all the cousins up and running around, but everyone at Amy's house was still completely zonked. Here's a pic of the kids, sleeping underneath Amy's ginormous Christmas tree:



-Later on that morning, we went to a fun indoor community water park. The kids had a BALL. Here are some more pics:




-After the water park, we dried the kids off, fed them peanut butter sandwiches, and were on the road back home by 12:30. We decided to come home on Fri. instead of Sat. because we had so much to do this weekend and Forrest was heading out of town on Monday. The ride home was pretty easy, except for occasional Wyatt screaming episodes, but those were to be expected--and we made good time, pulling into our garage by 8:30 without any negative incidents to report.

-And it was a good thing we came home when we did. We were awakened at 2:00 a.m. by Elise throwing up, and later on that morning, Jonas, Wyatt and I were all pukey and crampy and miserable. Can you imagine what it would have been like driving across the country in such a state? Count your many blessings indeed. I bet Elise alone threw up 5 times. We heard that Amy's Jack was sick, too--but luckily, Tony and Cindy's family and my Mom and Dad were able to make it home without any ickiness. I was glad to hear it.

-And now I'm home, surrounded by piles of Christmas boxes and a half-decorated tree and mounds of paper for this PTA thing I'm doing (I had to staple over 1,000 packets, which is very tedious to describe but much more tedious to do). Forrest was a gem and did ALL the laundry in the house on Saturday while I was sick, though. He is a good man.

And that's it for now. I've got to get to the Christmas decorations! So thanks, Amy and Dave, for a GREAT time!!!

Wyatt the Walker (kinda) and Wyatt the Talker

So Wyatt has two new feats to show off on the blog. One he's been perfecting for a few weeks now, but I'm just getting around to posting it. Here's Wyatt the Walker (kinda) And please excuse the bad mommy singing:




But even better than that, today Wyatt officially said his first word. Although he's been saying lots of Da Da Da's and Ma Ma Ma's (and he also loves "Wow!" and "Hey!"), he hasn't said anything purposeful until today. I was mopping the floor and he crawled over to the Swiffer Wet Jet and knocked it over. I said "Uh oh!" and looked right up at me and said "Uh oh!" too! For the rest of the day, he's been performing his new skill. He even said it to Grandma Sweat on the phone. So here he is, Wyatt the Talker (and please excuse the less than G rated bath footage):




As far as other news goes, we went to the kids' Reflections Contest awards ceremony last night, and both Ethan and Jonas won first place! Elise was up against some stiff competition and didn't win a medal--but I told her that she got 1st place in Best Attitude of All as she was complementary of both her brothers and gave a friend who won a hug and didn't get upset even once. Good kid. So here are all three of my good kids:




So this is a good Proud Mama post.

In other news, I've been asked to post once a month on the Segullah blog. If you want to visit, you can see my first post about LDS lit (the niche I was asked to blog about) here. Much different writing for a "public" blog like that rather than my little family and friends blog here. But fun, too.

And last but not least, we had Mindy and Pete's girls for a couple of days and they went home last night. Mindy and Peter were visiting their old homestead in Seattle. Such cute kids. (Bella and Ayva, not Mindy and Pete--although they are both very attractive as well.) But I'm also glad I don't have six kids every day of my life!! It is fun to be an aunt, though. I have THREE pregnant sisters in law who are all due within a month of each other (Mindy's first, then Cindy, then Andi--all in May). What a fun month that will be! I get to visit new babies and not be the one giving birth and nursing in the middle of the night!!!

That's about it from here. The weeks keep rushing by so quickly that I go to check my blog and I'm amazed it's been 7 days. Life.

Tonight I Am Tired

I realize that I should probably be going to bed. But I haven't posted in over a week, and I know from my experience reading others' blogs that you get about a one week grace period without a new post before loved ones start getting irritable. (I assume that only loved ones care enough to get irritable. The random guy from Venezuela who did a blog search on "sumo costumes" and ended up here probably doesn't care so much.)

This week has been another busy one. The last week off track. The kids went fishing with Forrest on Monday, so that was a highlight for them, and I took them to the skate park and swimming lessons and they had a sleep over and went to Thanksgiving Point with Grandma--and I know that sounds like a lot but it really wasn't that much. But I still feel like I've been rushing from the proverbial pillar to the proverbial post and I'm not entirely sure why. I can say that having a house full of kids and husband (Forrest hasn't traveled much the last couple of weeks) has given me a hankering for peace-and-quiet. Not that I don't love them. Of course I love them. But I also love my peace and quiet--my ability to decide what I want to do for the day and then do it without being pulled in 10 different directions. (Okay, now I know Ethan is probably reading this, and Ethan suffers from Oldest Child Parent Pleasing Syndrome--OCPPS--and I recognize the symptoms because I had it too. I would like to officially assure Ethan that I love him dearly and that of all the children that could be rampaging through my house all day long, I would pick the four I have out of a lineup, because they truly are good kids. So no guilt, Ethan. This is just your ol' Mom who likes a little alone time, just like you do.)

Anything else exciting? Hmmm. Some neighbors of ours turned in some other neighbors of ours (the family of Ethan's friend, whose mother happens to be the District Attorney) to all the major news outlets, writing an email with the heading "Please Help!" that went on to describe how Ethan's friend's family had wild parties and unruly teenagers. Although these things are probably true, the news organizations ran like dogs to vomit to the completely un-newsworthy story, only because the mom is the D.A., of course (what neighborhood doesn't have unruly teenagers???) and parked out in front of their house all day doing foreboding "breaking news" segments about beer bottles found in the gutter. It was all disgusting, and I felt particularly embarrassed that our neighborhood and some members of the church would stoop to such a level. Ethan's friend came to our door the night of the incident, crying (Ethan was fishing) and told me, "Some people in the neighborhood called the news to tell them that we're a bad family, so now we have to move," and I gave him a hug on the porch and thought about the parable of the woman taken in adultery and casting stones and all that. The poor kid. The poor family. But then I also realized that I had been guilty of some gossip about this family myself (although I didn't call the news) and needed to repent, too. It's so easy to be judgmental, though. Righteous indignation is one of the easiest--and most potentially destructive--emotions we humans can fall prey to. So easy to be prideful, and offended, and call for justice. So easy to forget the eleven year old boy who's had every news station in SLC aiming their cameras at his front door to let Utah taxpayers know that the D.A. has a "bad family."

Sorry. That story was kind of a downer.

So I'll finish on an up note. I went to the AML Writers Conference today--for a little while at least--and enjoyed it. In between AML conference sessions, I headed back up Redwood Road and went to the boys' karate tournament. They both did particularly well in board breaking and came home with second place trophies in that event. (Sorry no pictures!!) Also, Tony came by and dropped off the gorgeous cover he's created for my book and I love it. Can't wait to see it on the book in real life.

And now I've done my duty and updated the blog and can go to bed in peace!!