Merry Freaking Christmas

Look at how Utah-y my Christmas card is this year.

Las Vegas - November 2015

So this one time, Husband and I thought it would be cool to go on a little road trip to Vegas with our kids.

Then it sucked and we came home early.

Holy crap, kids ruin everything.

 I only look happy here because we had just decided to go home the next day.

We watched the water fountain show at the Bellagio. Jared was unimpressed.

The boys liked it... even though it was midnight.
But this trip wasn't about making them happy.

I don't care if it's a dumb idea to frollick down Las Vegas Blvd. in the middle of the night with kids.
And I didn't need all the dirty looks we got from everyone as I wheeled the kids past them in our jogging stroller.

I didn't even take that many pictures. Not because I wanted to be in the moment, but because I didn't want to remember this disaster. 

Not even the buffet at Treasure Island made this trip worth it. We were too early for the cotton candy to be made, which is the only reason I went.

The best part of the whole trip was while we were walking the strip at midnight, I saw 3 cool looking hipster Black kids, probs in their 20's. They were playing with a hoverboard. They let me try it and it was magical.


By the way, I got all crafty and had a bunch of stuff to entertain the kids on the 5 hour ride down. We stopped every hour or two and had tons of fun snacks.............. but it still sucked.


Traveling with kids is a bad idea.

Which is why two weeks later we took them to Hawaii. We are dumb.

Gross Things I Did In Hawaii

I openly admit to my daily disgusting-ness.
But every time I travel I am reminded of how foul I really am.

Last week's trip to Hawaii with my parents facilitated my nastiest behavior yet.

• I forgot the kid's toothbrush and kept forgetting to buy one, so the kids and I shared one the entire time. 

• Swam in the ocean and let the water make my hair crusty. I didn't want to use cheap hotel shampoo so I just left it crusty till I found my Sephora stash.

• I wore the same sweaty, filthy shorts for 4 days.

• Tyler puked on me in the plane so I wiped what I could off with a blanket, and marinated in his rotten-milk vomit for the remaining 6 hours of our flight. He also exploaded all over Ryan's face and shirt.

• Accidentally used the same washcloth on my face that I previously used to wipe down the tub.

• Ate sand covered starburst because it was $4 to buy more.

• Went to the beach, I was sweaty and sandy, didn't shower because I wanted to read a book instead, then went to dinner looking like a churro.

• Ate beef jerky that had been baking in the rental car for days.

• Listened to Air Supply and Kurt Bestor while driving with my Dad to the Volcano.

• Snorkeled with nasty Manta Rays in the ocean AT NIGHT. Those things are freaking creepy. They have tentacle arm things at the front of their slimy bodies. I'm scared of open water anyway and couldn't stop thinking about all the freaky animals that come out in the ocean at night. Luckily Jared and my Dad came to protect me. 

• Let my boys wear these matching outfits to a Luau:

• Fooled around with Husband in the bushes behind the time share sales building. 

• Ate a disturbing amount of the best ice cream I have ever tasted at Tropical Dreams. 

• Walked on the condo carpet with my bare feet. 

Gross. 

Bachelorette Party: Part II

Part I  here.

After horrifying Sara and Kama with the What's in Yo' Mouth game, we played a couple nicer games.

Then it was time to open presents!

Sara's friends are way too nice to her and got her some awesome sex outfits.

Who would have guessed that newly returned LDS missionaries would be so adept at picking out lingerie?  NOT ME.

That's why my aggressive cucumber-wielding sister Rachel and I gave her a bunch of super cute undies from Victoria's Secret and an extra special surprise.

Look at how nervous but pleasantly surprised she was opening it.

 She was not grateful that I wrapped up Jared's Lobster Pants along with them. Which I thought was really rude because those lobster underpants are awesome.

Don't worry, I didn't let her keep my family heirloom. I just wanted to gross her out since she gave me used lingerie from Salvation Army when I got married.

Sara paid her friends back by trying all the lingerie on and prancing around in front of everyone like a happy elf.

I felt it was good exchange for both parties.
Plus, I always wanted to know what color my sister's pubes were, and now I know.


Part of me REALLLLLLY wanted to hire a stripper, but a bigger part of me didn't want to clean my carpets again.
And I wasn't about to spend money on a stripper when I happen to be married to a perfectly good specimen of a man.

While I knew it would be awful for Sara to have a stripper, I knew it would be even worse if it was her brother-in-law. Which is why that's exactly what I did.

I brought up the idea with Husband who immediately jumped (or pelvic thrusted) on board.
He said he did this kind of stuff all the time in college and I nodded my head in deep understanding.

He may or may not have had a cop uniform already altered into a stripper's outfit that he surprised me with on our anniversary.....

I told Sara we were going to play a special game and made her sit in the middle. The doorbell rang and this happened:

Sara acted like she hated it, but I know she loved it. 
I am the best sister ever.

And we have the best neighbors ever for watching the kids, even after Jared explained what it was for.

Oh yeah, Sara's BFF Assley, made amazing chili and Megan/Feg brought awesome rolls. It was way better than the candy I bought for dessert. 

Also, yes, you read that right. My sister Megan/Feg was at my house and we had fun and got along. I may even start referring to her as just "Megan" now.

Sorry Sara.
And I'm even more sorry for what we are going to do at your wedding. 

Bachelorette Party: Part I

Last Saturday I wove a tapestry of classiness that blanketed almost all of Utah.

My little sis Sara is getting married so I knew I had to throw her a Super Classy Bachelorette Party.

It's not often I crawl/creep out of my cave and actively socialize, so Sara felt my really awkward love for her. 

Sara and all her friends are recently returned Mormon missionaries and I wanted to keep the party slightly appropriate. 
I'm wayyyyy too classy to be putting penis memorabilia everywhere like usual bachelorette parties.
Instead I made my own party decorations with the word "Sex" placed randomly throughout my house.  

Even the prizes for winning my messed up games were beautifully crafted with just the word "Sex", as demonstrated here by Sis-in-law Erika.

 The decorations actually turned out really cute, but I'm too dumb to take more pictures. The food table looked awesome too but out of hate/principle I wasn't about to take a pinterest/instagram-esque picture of it.

All the party games I found online were either really lame or extra nasty.
I was forced to think of some on my own.

My favorite game was called:

What's In Yo' Mouth?

The Bride-to-be is blindfolded and then tries to guess what you put in her mouth. Every item is edible and reminiscent of male body parts. 

Sara's friend Kama is also getting married soon so I made her play too. Mostly because I didn't think Sara would actually play by herself.

Kama is a super-cute, super-returned missionary and super-good at getting things in her mouth. She was totally down to play.

Sis-in-Law Stephanie helped me prepare while we were laughing so hard I almost did pee my pants. 

We didn't anticipate how dirty we would feel shoving penis shaped things into other girls mouth's. For real though. I repented at church the next day and scheduled a confession.

The first item was a peeled cucumber. 
Sara was nervous and didn't trust us, and Stephanie was too timid about forcing it in.

Luckily my aggressive sister Rachel grabbed the cucumber, hit Sara in the face with it and jammed it in her mouth. 

I felt like I had just witnessed a classic example of date rape.

 Since I know a bunch of people are going to steal this awesome game for their next party, we also used:

• Limp carrots

• Room temperature, uncooked Hot Dogs

• Peanuts (hahaha! get it?)

• Long, hard lollipops

• Raw potatoes 

• Vienna sausages

• Whole mushrooms (courtesy of my gross brother Matthew)

• Peeled Banana

The best part was the final item.... white goopy cookie icing.

Neither girl appreciated my idea.

I would also like to add that my bladder control is completely ruined by giving birth to 2 kids. I almost peed my pants all night because we were laughing so hard. 
Half the time I had to hold my crotch and sit on the ground so I wouldn't wet myself.


I did not expect to party to be that funny or I would have worn my Depends underpants or a super-long maxi pad.

Part two soon! And by that I mean as soon as I stop being too lazy to type words.

Judging Judgers

I like to think I'm an open-minded person.
I have to be. My life/kids/family is a mess.
And by mess, I mean awesome.

But seriously, I definitely admit I have faults. A lot.

I really try not judge people. I've lived outside of Utah and traveled all over the United States and 15 other countries and feel like I accept other cultures.

Even the ones that have thong underwear in their candy machines. Yes, I'm talking about you small town in Italy.

Throughout my life I have never experienced anything like Salt Lake County, Utah.
I lived in Salt Lake from the time I was 10 years old to 21 years old, so I have never lived here a real adult.

 Utah has a lot of Judgers.

I don't know why I feel there is a lot of judgement going on around here. Maybe it's the large amount of Super-Religious people, maybe because being Mormon in another state is an entirely different experience, maybe it's because I'm socially retarded.
Probably the last one.


What really pisses me off is that the judgers judge everyone then I judge them for judging. It's a vicious cycle.

I don't like to judge people for realsies. I hate it. It takes too much energy that I could be spending on other things like:

• Watching Barney
• Cleaning the goldfish crackers stomped in my carpet
• Washing my sheets since I drooled chocolate on them last night
• Writing smart-a*$ comments to my sister, Megan's, friends on Facebook
• Taking my monthly shower
• Pretending to cook by buying pre-made food at the store
• Making creepy mini-donuts with Cryin' Ryan

I like to make fun of people while generally accepting them.

Freaking Utah.

I need to figure out a way to stop judging all the judgers.
I think I will use my Mormon Girl Super Powers and make them some rice krispie squares and jello salad.

I could also put some homemade crafts everywhere in my house and get some spiritual vinyl quotes to put on my walls.

Sorry for judging you judgers.


I'm glad I live in the suburb city of Herriman. I think people out here are cooler than other places. I actually like the people I know here. Not that I hang out with them that much due to my anti-social-ness.

I like it here even though we went swimming at the Rec Center last night and a kid pooped in the pool.

Dumb Ryan

Kids are so dumb.

And it terrifies me.

I try not to be an over-controlling, over-protective, helicopter parent, but I am starting to rethink my strategy.

I feel boys in particular are especially dumb. Ryan and Tyler are fearless and not aware of their surroundings.

We were playing on the swing set at my parents house. It is in the worst place imaginable.
My friend Christie prophesied that one day a kid is going to die there.

I don't know whose idea it was to put it there. The slide is literally 2 feet away from a cliff. It's a solid 8 foot drop onto hard ground and rocks. I watch them like a hawk when I let them use it, which is rarely.

I watch Ryan like a hawk when I let him play on it and stand in front of the slide the entire time. Yesterday, we were about to leave and started walking to the car and Ryan decided it would be a  great idea to race back to the swing set and rush down the slide before I got mad.

Well, he almost flew head first over the cliff. I had to sprint and grab the hood of his jacket.

I freaked the eff out. I think my heart stopped beating for a few seconds.
Dumb Ryan.

I banned him from the swing set and taped the area off like a crime scene.

Ryan has also almost drowned a number of times. Luckily I'm there or Sis-in-law Stephanie is there to rescue him.

A couple of weeks ago we were at City Creek Mall in downtown Salt Lake City. We were feeding the fish when the security guards weren't looking.

Dumb Ryan leaned over too far and before I knew it, he fell on a pile of hungry fish and was thrashing around in the water. The water is only a few feet deep but kids don't think to stand up, they just panic. His head was under water and he wasn't coming up.


I hurried and put Tyler down then jumped in and grabbed Ryan.
Ryan was freaking out.

That water is so foul. I was pissed I had to get in and save him.

I was even more mad because we have driven 45 minutes to get there and I still needed some unnecessary things from Sephora.

Luckily I am awesome and keep extra clothes for the kids in my trunk. Ryan had wet hair and was sniffling as I bought conditioner and makeup. The sales girls felt so bad for him they gave him a bunch of free samples.
When we got in the car I promptly took them.

I don't know how most kids survive to adulthood.

Pumpkin Penis

Look at how happy Ryan is about this skull:

Halloween is his obsession. He likes it more than Christmas.
That means we do all sorts of dumb stuff during October to make it fun for him.

My favorite sibling Jake even stopped by to show us his costume.

I took the kids to a Pumpkin Patch so they could make memories and have fun.... or because it was free.

There was no way I was paying $15 a person to get into the more popular pumpkin patches.
Especially when there was such amazing-ness to be had at this Riverton City one.

Who gets to sit on old tractors?! Oh wait, everyone ever. But the kids still liked it.

We were shopping for small pumpkins to paint (since we had already stole the ones we would carve). When out of nowhere I hear a squeaky voice yell,

"HEY MOM! LOOK AT MY PENIS PUMPKIN!!!"

I was laughing until I turned around and saw that the squeaky voice belonged to MY kid. He was also posing with one of the penis pumpkins.

Everyone at the conservative Mormon pumpkin patch heard. Since the damage was already done, I went ahead and took a picture, much to the horror of most other parents.


To be fair, they do look a little phallic.

We finished up our night in the corn kernel pit with Ryan getting golden showers from other kids..... and liking it.