Jason made us all scarves and fish hats. Quite possibly the coolest gift ever?
who knew something so tremendously awesome could be crocheted in 3 hours
(He made necklaces too)
Christmas baby
baby cousins have mysteriously tranformed into teenagers...
ANTICIPATION FACES
"Never going out into the snow evar again" face (after sledding/drowning)
Being tossed (from pretty high up, might I add) into the snow
barking at snow plows, of course
Taking a crap in the middle of the street, of course
Humble beginnings of an awesome igloo
Kale + sweet potater stewThis past Sunday, my mom and I brought Moose to a dog park for the first time in his life. Seeing as how his canine-interactions are limited to those between him and my cousin's dog (who Moose completely and totally dominates/humps all the time), this was a kind of an awkward and eye-opening experience for everyone. Upon entering the park, it felt like a scene taken straight out of the dog WEEEEsperer...you know, where Cesar throws that poorly-socialized/dominant dog into his pack's pen, all the well-behaved dogs come up and sniff the new guy, and the look on the problem-dog's face (as he's getting sniffed and violated) just screams, "WTF IS HAPPENING". Yeah, that was totally Moose. He had never been around so many other dogs in his entire life and was clearly freakin out a bit. It was sorta cute watching all the other small dogs come up and sniff him out, and I felt like one of those over-protective mama's dropping their kid off to pre-school and just wanting to babysit him and make sure he gets along well with the other kids. But observing him from a distance, I quickly realized how socially awkward Moose truly is. First thought: hey, kinda like me. Second thought: damn. Instead of chasing tennis balls or playing tag and running around, Moose just wanted to find something to mount. One track mind for 40 minutes straight. That sort of behavior is definitely shunned upon at the dog park....because when it happens, all the dog owners standing around are clearly appalled. Before Sunday, I thought I had a pretty decent dog. But bringing him to that dog park just unveiled a whole host of behavioral/social problems.....which translates into one thing: I'm not watching enough Dog Whisperer. So I am resolved to bring Moose to the dog park more often with hopes that he will eventually stop being such a domineering pervert and that we won't come across anymore unfixed females.
All the children were told to go wash their hands after giving me high-fives. Ouch.
Avery: SAY HELLO TO MY JUICEBOX!
Me: hello juicebox!
Avery: SAY HELLO TO MY JELLO! SAY HELLO TO MY FRUITSNACKS! SAY HELLO TO MY TRASH!
Joey: SAY HELLO TO MY APPLE!
Me: hello apple!
Joey: SAY HELLO TO MY PEANUTS!
Me: Hello peanuts!
Joey: say goodbye to my peanuts...*stuffs handful of peanuts into mouth*
Avery: OH MAN. BYE PEANUTS
Joey: say goodbye to my apples...
Me: GOODBYE APPLES
Joey: No. You need to look sad.
Me: PLEASE STOP! DON'T DO IT...
Joey: hehehe...*chomps on apple*
Me: goodbye apple :(
The ups and downs of this football season correlate very nicely with my own personal life. I would go into detail...except I won't. I'll just talk about football instead. The season started out pretty rough. I was super excited/pumped to be playing with the girls again, but it definitely didn't feel like the same team I had played with 2 years ago. When we were practicing, it was SERIOUS-BUS TIME. No more dancing/singing/shadow-fighting/goofing around in the field. I felt I had to prove myself to the coaches more so than the week before, which in itself made practices progressively suckier. It wasn't until the Sunday before tourney when the team went out to Lighthouse Tofu (which is totally delicious btw) and Mary shared her life story/testimony. Listening to how amazing and huge of a change God has made in Mary's life was a huge reminder to me of how much He has been moving and growing me this past year.
Day before the tourney, my sore throat had evolved into a raging fever + uber-congestion. My little brother wanted to go to best buy to experience the chaos and confusion that is Black Friday. Instead, I ended up dragging him to Giant so I could buy meds + coughdrops. I felt bad, so I bought him a box of cereal (He's such a good little egg, that one). During the Chesed get together later that day, I shared how thankful I am for improved relations among my family members, especially Matt. My attempts to emotionally scar and corrupt him at a young age have clearly failed. He's seriously a perfect kid. But the one thing that makes me so proud of him more than anything is that he seriously loves God. This past summer, we spent an entire night in Les Issambres staring at the Milky Way, counting shooting stars, and just saying over and over again, "God, you are awesome". You can't really say much else when you're looking at a freaking galaxy in the sky and a TRILLION more stars than you've ever seen at once.
Day of Turkey Bowl. By the grace of God and a buttload of vitamin C, I was able to play. But everything just felt so completely different this year than it did 2 years ago. It was about praising God for every single good thing that happened that day and not praising myself or anyone else.
I heard Matisyahu's "One Day" on NBC's Vancouver Olympics commercial. Sounds like he was raised in Jamaica, but was actually born in Pennsylvania. Looks homeless, but he's actually just Jewish. This man makes no sense but I like this song.
