A new year calls for a new game plan. And lots of chocolate. Don't ask me why the chocolate.

Well, I decided it was about time I posted my last blog of the year. To get all nostalgic and talk about how the last year went, and my 2009 New Year's resolutions and how cool I'll be next year. Then I remembered I don't like public sentimentality, and I haven't made any New Year's Resolutions. Bummer. So instead, I guess I'll just say that pretty much, this year has been all about Madeline, and probably every year from now on will be about Madeline, and you can imagine all the memories I'll miss from this past year of changing poopy diapers and not sleeping through the night and getting spit up on. And I'll keep the good memories to myself.

So much for 2008. Now it's time to move on to how cool I will be in 2009. Therefore, I am going to rapidly think of some resolutions to share with you. You can all breathe easy, knowing that these will all be accomplished one hundred percent by the end of January because of my marvelous self discipline.

I hereby resolve to use chocolate as a mood altering drug monthly in order to spare Jessie the emotional hurricane he usually endures.

I hereby resolve to learn how to make at least ten new yummy dishes to feed Jessie and ruin my diet.

I hereby resolve to let Madeline eat ice cream and chocolate more frequently than she should, even if it gives me guilt, because it will also make feel like a cool mother.

I hereby resolve to keep my stalking of people on facebook and blogs at a healthy level: in other words, I resolve to not tell people how much I know about them when I meet them in person.

I hereby resolve to read and watch a lot of movies and books that are wildly popular to the masses, despite the nervous breakdown this will probably cause me. Because Twilight really wasn't that horrible, for all my complaints.

I hereby resolve to cheat on my exercise program a few times a month. Because I'm being pretty good and I deserve a break from peppy exercise lady telling me I'm so smart when we both know I'm diving into a chocolate bar after I finish my aerobic walking, so who are we kidding.

I hereby resolve to actually use the sewing machine Jessie got me for Christmas, as a tribute to his sneakiness it making me absolutely sure he wasn't getting me a sewing machine.

I hereby resolve to be a graceful loser just once this year when Jessie beats me at Sequence or Phase 10 or Skipbo, whichever it may be. This does not applu to Settlers of Catan. I will never gracefully lose Settlers of Catan. Also, if Jessie beats me at California speed or Speed Scrabble this year, I am off the hook for ever being a graceful loser again. Or making him dinner, for that matter.

There you go. My fast track plan to making 2009 the best year ever. If any of you need help making your resolutions, don't look at me. I'll be too busy breaking half of mine.

I think vampires sabotaged my television

I just started reading the Twilight series, because I'm trying to work on my tendency to refuse to read/watch something just to avoid following the crowd. Jessie's been laughing his head off at me as I go, because I complain about how dumb they are every ten minutes, but I can't put them down. Basically, I acknowledge Meyer's writing skills and ability to create a riveting plot, but I am one hundred percent against teenage angst and sappy love stories. As in, if I hear Bella and Edward argue over who loves who more one more time, I'm going to hurl. And then egg Meyer's house. For the record, I'm totally opposed to the Romeo/Juliet concept, and I think a book about realistic true love would be exquisitely boring to everyone but the two people it detailed. Jessie challenged me to write a realistic love story that isn't boring. I'll get around to that when I have any spare time. So maybe when Madeline is fifty.

Speaking of Madeline, I think it's safe to say she got incredibly spoiled this Christmas. Basically, if she ever gets bored again, it's her own fault, because she's got enough toys to keep an army of toddlers happy. Jessie and I didn't make out too badly ourselves. In fact, we even sort of have television again, thanks to the rabbit ears my mother bought us. To celebrate the ten fuzzy channels we now receive and the return of technology from a more innocent time, our television decided to only show things in black and white. A sort of tribute to the television of yore. We're not quite sure why our television decided this was a good idea, or why our television is making decisions unilaterally that I think in all fairness should be mine and Jessie's to make, but whatever. I'll console myself with my access to FOX news and a batch of maple bells.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all, sugar cookies

I'm really excited for Christmas. I mean really excited. I've been bugging Jessie for the past week. He says I'm like a little kid in the car who asks if we're there yet every five seconds. Oh well. I can't help it-there are many very good reasons to like Christmas. I'm not normally one for making lists, but I think I'll make an exception today in order to favor you with all the things I love about Christmas. Lucky you.

1. Food. Christmas means a lot of chocolate, cookies, especially maple bells, which are the most addictive little buggers on the face of the planet. They aren't diet friendly, but I don't care, because they are that good. There's also fudge and divinity, which is aptly named, as well as Christmas dinner. Frankly, even if there was nothing else to love about Christmas, I would celebrate it for the food. In fact, maybe I'll just invent a holiday to celebrate food. With none of this facade about gratitude you have at Thanksgiving. Just an all-out food fest.

2. Presents. And of course, I like getting presents myself, because who doesn't love free stuff? But mostly, this category is the presents I give away, because I get to think about those a lot longer and wrap them and shop for them and keep secrets from my family. Don't get the idea that I'm selfless or anything; it's purely a function of time. I open my presents in five minutes. One of these years I'm going to get Jessie something he won't be able to guess before Christmas ever gets here. The punk.

3. Family. I like to bug the heck out of them, and this is one more opportunity to do it when they can't run away because: Christmas is family time. So they have to tolerate me.

4. Christmas music. Once I get over my intense hatred for Christmas music in November, and realize around December 5th that it's actually okay to listen to Christmas music now, I remember how much I love Christmas music. And caroling.

5. Snow. For some freaky reason, there always seems to be snow on Christmas, even if there wasn't any for two months before and after. Which is how it should be. I don't think I could ever be one of those people who go celebrate Christmas in a tropical climate. It's just not natural. (Excluding the time we spent Christmas on the cruise ship a few years ago. That doesn't count. Because...I don't know why. But it doesn't count.)

6. Shopping. I don't normally like long shopping trips, because I don't have near the stamina of my mom and sister, who I am convinced could shop 24 hours a day from November 1st to New Year's and still think of some store they missed. But around Christmas, I like to be out a lot more. Maybe it's the long lines. That must be it.

7. Parties. Enough said.

8. Okay, I'll be serious for just long enough to say that I really enjoy the spirit you can feel during Christmas time. I love that everyone is thinking of other people and trying to be a little more Christlike. I love that we take some time away from all the things we have to do and focus on the important things.

Well, that about wraps things up. I hope all of you are enjoying the Christmas season as well, and gorging yourself on things that are bad for you, and having snowball fights, and driving your families up the wall. Because that's what Christmas is all about.

More escapades from the family miscreant

My daughter is a punk. We went to visit Jessie's mom yesterday, to play some games, drink some root beer, watch babies do funny things- the wild life. While we were there, I changed Madeline's diaper, but due to her excessive wiggling and general bad temper whenever you change her diaper (she howls like she's getting a tooth pulled or something), I didn't snap up the bottom of her pants. That was mistake number one. Then I let her crawl through a maze of chairs. Mistake number two. Somewhere in the crawling, she took off/lost her diaper. And, unaware of this grand feat, I snapped back up her pants so as to maintain her ladylike modesty. So Madeline got to go commando for an hour until I saw her sitting in a giant wet puddle on the floor, and said to myself, hmmm. That's not normal. Upon which, her deception was revealed, and everyone had a merry time, except Jessie, who had to clean up the pee puddle, and me, who had to clean up the wet baby. Sometimes Madeline is a little too smart for her own good.

Speaking of smart, Jessie decided to get me another present. Which presents a problem, because I still haven't figured out what the first two are. On the other hand, it now means there are three correct guesses out there, so theoretically, I have a greater chance of figuring it out. Theoretically. I think he just couldn't handle being done with the Christmas shopping either. It's a good thing there's only three days left and the stores are a mess, or I'd probably get sucked back in and spend more money on silly things like candy I don't like and unbreakable ornaments that Madeline knows how to break. That girl is SO going to be responsible for keeping her siblings away from the Christmas tree when she gets older.

Christmas is a great time to try as many ways as possible to injure yourself.

I love snowstorms when I'm at home, cuddled in a blanket, with a good movie and nowhere to go. I don't like driving in snowstorms. It's the one time I'm glad Jessie is the designated driver in our family. (Can you have a designated driver in a non-alcoholic family? Whether you can or not, we do. But I'd like to publicly state that I do not consume strong soda before driving. That would be irresponsible.) We got to drive down to Springville yesterday right before the storm hit, and on the way back we almost died. A lot. Mostly because people in Utah don't know how to drive in a snowstorm. My only theory is that they all just barely moved here. Yesterday. And thus haven't figured out that snow requires driving slowly and carefully, which is counter-intuitive, I know, but they'll figure it out in the end.

I also got to go to Salt Lake yesterday, which was a lot better drive, and help my mom make Christmas cookies for my slacker missionary brother, who thinks he has better things to do than spend all day making cookies. The first time I tried to pack the cookies for him, they all broke, which was very tragic. Because then we had to make more and I had to eat all the broken ones to destroy the evidence. It was hard, but I managed. Plus Bryce helped me a lot. He's surprisingly adept at stealing cookies with only one arm. Because he broke the other arm. Twice. I told him to stop trying to impress the girls at school by swinging from the ceiling, but you know elementary school boys. I'm just surprised he didn't break it playing kissing tag. My brother Dale, who currently holds the record for most broken bones in the family, conceded defeat for most spectacular break on a single occasion. Jessie, on the other hand, hasn't. He broke both of his wrists jumping off the trampoline as a kid, so he's a strong contender. I'm just glad Madeline hasn't seen fit to have any major catastrophes yet, because I'm bad with blood and bones and would probably be puking in the bathroom while she's sitting there screaming because she broke her legs while trying to do gymnastics down the stairs. Then I'll call my mother.

Madeline invites you to PICTUREFEST!

So I guess it's time for the gads of pictures you've all been waiting for. Brace yourself, they are mostly of Madeline. As the cutest Warner, we have appointed her the official face of the family, and hope you will appreciate Jessie and I working quietly behind the scenes, doing everything else besides looking cute.

Here is our happy little family attempting to look Christmasy. Note that Madeline, is indeed, the cutest; and then note Jessie's awesome tie, which he won at a white elephant game in our married student ward in a hard fought battle. Everyone wanted that tie. But Jessie, being the selfless, giving person he is, stole it out from underneath all of them and kept it for himself.


Here's Madeline, not smiling. She doesn't like posing as an elf, and only smiled when we were busy doing ridiculous things in order to amuse her and not paying enough attention to actually press the button on the camera. Many thanks to Grandma for the cute Santa suit.


This is Madeline getting into places she shouldn't be, which is a routine pastime. This time it's the pantry, although I'll admit, Dad might have aided and abetted her on this one. She doesn't seem to mind though. She found our water storage fascinating.


Tada. She really can stand by herself. She even steps now and again. But mostly she's chicken and sits down at every opportunity, because crawling is obviously the stylish mode of transportation right now. Everybody's doing it. Okay, so maybe it's just Madeline. But she's not afraid to make her own style choices. As you probably noted from the lack of pants. (Her choice, not mine.) A bold choice, but I think it's working for her.


This concludes the Warner Family Picturefest for today. Madeline thanks you for your time and interest, and reminds you that donations to the "Buy Madeline Pants" fund can be made in the front lobby, by check, cash, credit card, or cookies.

Maybe Jessie can learn how to detect a sick baby.

So I'm officially almost done with Christmas shopping. Which would be cooler if it was officially all the way done, because the stores are getting scarier. Trust me, I went to a lot of them today. Madeline didn't like that at all. Mostly because I don't let her crawl around on dirty store floors because I am mean and sort of hygienic. Madeline has been mad a lot lately. I think she is either a) getting more teeth, b) getting a really bad case of separation anxiety, or c) both of the above and maybe also being sick. You'd think as a mother I would have some inner radar that would start blinking red when my baby is sick, but I think my radar is broken. Aside from sticking a thermometer in her ear, which makes her mad and confirms her suspicions that I am a mean mommy, the only way I know to tell if she's sick is if she has a visibly running nose or a lot of excess crankiness. Unfortunately, there are a lot of things that cause excess crankiness in an eight month old, so we're down to a runny nose and a thermometer that may or may not be reading the right temperature due to a wiggly baby. Probably she's had five colds and the flu and meningitis and hepatitis and tetanus and polio and the plague and I never noticed. Except the one cold where her nose was running. At least she's developing lots of good antibodies. And learning to suck it up, which will be useful later on, I'm sure.

I'm starting a new paragraph now for Jessie. He doesn't like when I write really long paragraphs. I think he needs to improve his reading level. Perhaps he already knows this, and that's why he's going back to school next month. So they can teach him how to read my blogs. And how to play Speed Scrabble better so that I don't smash him every time. I'm a little afraid of him going back to school, because he'll be working full-time and doing school full-time, and I'll have a lot more time to twiddle my thumbs and wonder why I'm not working on being more domestic. Maybe I'll use the extra time to learn how to write shorter paragraphs.

I dream of Jessie. And Pikachu.

Apparently I have been trying to kill Jessie while he is sleeping. As in, last night I tried to put my pillow on top of his head. And when that didn't work I covered his mouth with my hand. I don't remember any of this, but Jessie assures me it is true. I actually think Jessie is a cool person with a lot to contribute to the world and have had no real homicidal tendencies up to this point in my life. Also, at the time I was dreaming about working as a WalMart cashier and watching my dad open up a Christmas present. An electronic pacman game, to be exact, connected to a giant fluffy blue edible head. So, as you can see, that has nothing to do with trying to smother Jessie. Unless I thought he was the giant blue edible head. Which only raises more questions.

My dreams are usually cool like that. I wake up and tell Jessie my dreams, and he thinks it's better than television. Mostly because they're always completely random. Like the time I dreamed I was inside a giant castle, which strangely resembled an LDS chapel. Aliens ripped off the wall and tried to abduct us all, to replace our limbs and make us part of a giant Pokemon fighting ring. I escaped with Pikachu on a flying couch. Weird, right? Because obviously if we were in a church it should have been a flying pew or something.

(Disclaimer: The fact that I was dreaming about Pokemon can be blamed entirely on my brothers' obsession and not because I was a voluntary participant in any type of Pokemon related activity.)

Mean mommies deserve really big Christmas presents

Recently Madeline has taken to shutting me in places. Mostly the bathroom and the pantry. Unfortunately, she doesn't quite grasp the idea that shutting the door will make me inaccessible until after she's done it. Then she raises the roof because I have ABANDONED her. Which was cruel of me. Almost as cruel as refusing to let her eat toilet paper or changing her poopy diapers. Clearly, I am a sadistic mother. On a good note, she thinks I am nice when I let her drink ice water and pour it down her clothes, or when I let her have bits of chocolate when I am sneaking Kit Kat bars. So our relationship is stable for now.

In other news, Jessie bought me a present which was shipped to our house today. I keep trying to get him to tell me what it is, but he's rather reticent to spill the beans. Which I think is kind of hypocritical, considering he wanted me to tell him where I hid his presents so that he wouldn't accidentally find them. I have gotten him to reveal that he has NOT bought me a sewing machine. Which I need, but don't really want because it would force me to be domestic. He wouldn't comment on whether he had bought me a live dolphin. I think I might be on to something there.

My daughter and my husband are completely self-sufficient. Drat.

Madeline decided she can feed herself. I blame Jessie. He gave her a spoon and helped her figure out how to use it. Or rather, how to use it just enough to make a mess. So last night, when I was trying to feed her delicious ham and rice, it went something like this. Mom loads the spoon with yummy goodness. Madeline refuses to open her mouth and twists her head around farther than should be humanly possible. Mom puts the spoon in Madeline's hand, and Madeline's mouth pops open. Mom has to reload the spoon, because Madeline would rather get the food out of the jar with her hand. Mom once again tries to put the spoon into Madeline's mouth, and is thoroughly rejected because Madeline is old enough to feed herself, thank you very much. Repeat until Madeline gets so tired that her eyes are half open, and she doesn't care who is shoving the food in her mouth as long as they do it quickly so she can go back to sleep.

In other news, we made Christmas cards. For the first time in our married life. And, once again, Jessie designed them. (It's a good thing he's so manly, because he's also awfully good at creating adorable cards/scrapbook pages, as well as cooking, cleaning, interior decorating, and all other things that would stereotypically be my job. I told him that one of these days, I would learn to be the chief homemaker of the family, but in the meantime, I appreciate him filling in.) Because we are poor, pretty much only immediate family is privileged enough to get a printed version of our Christmas cards, but in the spirit of using technology and saving ourselves postage, we're sending out an e-version to any interested parties. And maybe eventually I will post it here, in order to make my blog look cute and festive and visual, because apparently I need to take more pictures. Or maybe I'll let Jessie do it and abandon all plans to retake my title as homemaker extrodinaire. It's a good thing he can't get pregnant, or I'd be completely out of a job.

Fake trees do not a fake christmas make. Because my husband said so.

I have written many a facebook status since that blessed institution has been introduced, mostly out of boredom. And most went unnoticed by the public eye. So I was surprised when my decision about whether to buy a real or a fake tree incited quite a few comments, most with decided opinions. I had never really realized before how passionate people are about this, um, "issue". For lack of a better term. Jessie and I didn't quite see eye to eye on it either.

I had grown up with a real tree, and had lots of quality memories of going to pick out a tree. We'd bundle up, sing carols on our way to the store, and then run amuck through the tree lot, searching out the perfect tree. And invariably argue, since there were four of us kids with opinions that never matched. But that was part of the fun. And eventually we would somehow agree, and drag the tree home on the top of the car. And eventually get around to decorating it. We all got a new ornament every year, so we each had our own bag of ornaments to put on the tree. And mine were all the coolest, obviously.

Jessie's family always did a fake tree. I would tell you the wonderful memories associated with that, but I have none.

Actually, I don't think Jessie has any sort of special attachment to a fake tree because of his childhood. It just meant he didn't see the tree as a particularly sentimental investment, but an economical one. And there are a zillion practical reasons to get a fake tree. In short, it's cheaper, cleaner, and less of a hassle. Jessie's a smart man. He thinks with his head. He saw no reason we should get an expensive, messy, hard to transport tree that will probably burn down our home.
I tried to explain to him that it was a memory making experience our kids had to have. He was probably thinking our kids would rather have the money we saved in their nice sensible college funds.

Eventually, since our marriage is apparently stronger than a small disagreement about Christmas trees, we compromised. We currently have a deal involving using our cool fake tree that I got at a 50% off sale for some years, and getting a real tree some years (complete with memories and dry needles.) I have to admit, our tree doesn't look too shabby. And it's fun having the festive holiday atmosphere. But I'm looking forward to taking Madeline to a tree lot some day to fight with her siblings over which tree is the coolest. And Jessie will probably think I'm crazy, but since he's a good husband, he'll suck it up and let me have my bug infested tree and maybe even agree to take turns watering it.

P.S. I changed my blog colors to appear Christmasy, because apparently this is a cool thing to do and everyone is making their blogs festive nowadays. I did not add pretty Christmas pictures or themed borders and such because this seems too much like scrapbooking, which we all know is beyond my grasp. Enjoy the holiday spirit.

From Thanksgiving to Christmas

We survived Thanksgiving, with only a little too much pie eating. As in, putting it all together, I never consumed a whole pie by myself, which is laudable. We had a good time, too, hanging out with Jessie's family on Thankgiving day, and my whole extended family on Friday as we celebrated my Grandma's birthday (which is actually this Thursday), and then my immediate family on Sunday, to celebrate my sister's birthday, which was actually on Friday. Did you catch all that? There are long, complicated reasons why we can't celebrate people's birthdays on the actual day of their birth. But if I told you I'd have to kill you.

We even went shopping on...gasp...Black Friday. Not in the morning, because I value my sleep and my sanity, and I didn't want to get crushed by mad crowds who value a new Wii over human life. We went in the afternoon, when everything was nice and calm. True, all the doorbusters were gone, but they were all out of my budget anyway. It's great when a $1000 TV is on sale for only $400, but I still don't have $400. So it might as well be a million. Whoopdee do. Instead I got lots of nice, affordable presents. Yay for me. And Jessie. Because he helped buy them too. And for my sister. Who also bought stuff. We are all officially cool. Even Bryce got some little fuzzy worm thingy attached to an invisible string for like three dollars, so he's now officially cool. Which, by the way, it's really hard to tie invisible string to a fuzzy little worm thing. Mostly because it's INVISIBLE. Go figure.

Jessie and I also decorated our house for Christmas. Which was really hard, because I have a tiny little box of Christmas stuff, but it got us in a festive mood. I set up my tiny tree my mother got me to celebrate Christmas in the dorms, and the Christmas candle I got from my coworker last year, and my kitchen angel that I got for my wedding two years ago and never opened, and which isn't actually super Christmasy. Because she is holding a pot. But I'm sure while all the other angels were singing in the fields and admiring the star and stuff, some faithful soul was doing the heavenly dishes. So they get proper recognition at my house. Merry Christmas to people doing dishes everywhere. You are all my heroes.