my christmas gift to you

i'm surprised at how many people i've talked to who haven't heard about the christmas special disney released last year called "prep and landing." totally delightful for kids and adults alike! you can watch it on hulu here. its about 20 minutes long.

and here's a little stocking stuffer.... the prep and landing sequel that came out this year: "operation secret santa." complete with betty white as mrs. claus (i love her)! this is about 7 minutes long.

these shows are the perfect mix of witty hilarity and tender sweetness. ya, they both totally make me cry, but that's nothing new these days. :)

enjoy!!

sad.

the provo tabernacle burned down this morning. i totally started crying when i heard about it. i know its just a building, but its a special building in provo. i attended a lot of events in that building during my time at BYU.... stake conferences, firesides, musical productions. they're not sure if they'll have to demolish it, but i hope they can rebuild it. it wouldn't be provo without it.
















you can tell in the photo below that the whole roof is gone.

here's some fun news....

"...i can't believe we're gonna finally have a sister!"

on kadin's plate at lunch today...

sliced apples, applesauce, and apple juice. sometimes there's no reasoning with this kid... and i love him for it. what a character.

joel's 1st movie

joel and kadin are in the habit of snatching our powershot and taking all sorts of pictures and videos with it. it stresses me out a bit having them tote the camera around all the time, even though i've given them rules about how they need to treat it, but it's been really fun to look at the pictures they capture. some of them get deleted, but lots of them turn out to be great pictures that i never would have thought to take. a child's perspective. i love it.

last week ben found some videos and pictures joel had taken during an afternoon of imagination. so ben edited them into a little movie and joel picked the music. it cracks me up that kadin is sleeping in the background at the beginning.

ollie is talkin' up a storm....

need some happiness?

listen to this...
sigh. i miss singing.

Amazing radness in a balloon

This is Ben.

So, I've been fascinated recently by all of the amazing graphic designing going on these days, especially with stuff having to do with colors (see www.signalnoise.com for examples). I just saw a post about this new outdoor luminarium (totally made up word I think) exhibit on one of my favorite websites (kitsunenoir.com) and I was blown away.

Here is the link to the people who designed and implemented this unique "experience" for the public:

http://www.architects-of-air.com/the-experience.html

Take a look at the video. I seriously want to see this in person.

"dude, this thing is so awesome!"

that is what ben has said about 53 times tonight since coming home from the ward youth pool party bearing this:





















they were playing pool basketball and he was attempting a slam dunk from the edge of the pool and one of the kids pulled his feet out from under him (it was him and another leader, our good friend Ed Harman, against all the boys).


i most definitely think that this is NOT awesome.

write 750 words a day

i'm not sure why, but i signed up for this challenge after i read about it on kate's blog... she's my beautiful and amazingly talented cousin-in-law who, by the way, is an fantastic writer. i hate writing. and i, unlike kate, am not very good at it. but maybe it will help me get all the jumbled thoughts out of my head and then i won't be so cranky all the time. oh wait, maybe i'm cranky because i'm the mom of three wild boys (which is also one of the main reasons why i'm insanely happy). but i digress... if you need a good excuse to journal, you should sign up for the challenge. hopefully i can keep at it every day. if you miss a day, they put you on the "wall of shame." HAHA!!!