Matt's Magic

Well I just wanted to congratulate my brother-in-law Matt Ethington on making the cover of the "2009/2010 Surface Skis Catalog"... He makes a nice poster-boy since he has such a sweet-face. The people from "Surface" came to Brighton one day and caught a picture of him in action for their catalog. Here is the "Surface" version:

Surface Catalog

Here is Matt's version:


Wait a second Matt! Why are you wearing 1999 K2 skis in a "Surface" photo shoot??

Well, would ya look at that?!

Okay, this is probably so lame to the rest of you, but SO COOL to me! I recently Googled my name. I am a nerd and have done this several times before for no reason. This time, however, I actually had a purpose. I had just created a Facebook account and wanted to make sure my privacy settings were correct. And what did I find? So apparently a paper I co-authored for my graduate studies was finally published! My name was appearing and being referenced in like pages and pages of articles! Here is a quote from an article from WebMD (for some reason I thought the WebMD one was cool because I've gone here a bazillion times to play pediatrician for my kids, he he):

July 28, 2009 -- Students headed off to college this fall beware: The infamous freshman 15 is for real.

A new study shows that nearly one in four freshmen gain at least 5% of their body weight, an average of about 10 pounds, during their first semester.

"Almost one quarter of students gained a significant amount of weight during their first semester of college,” researchers Heidi J. Wengreen and Cara Moncur of the department of nutrition and food sciences at Utah State University in Logan write in Nutrition Journal....

I think this is so cool to read my name in that context because I spent so many hours and hours researching nutrition topics and referencing authors. It's also cool because there were so many articles referencing our research which means a whole bunch of people were actually interested in it!

Well anyway, it's just nice to be so dang famous, he he. Don't worry, I'll still remember you all when I make it big!

Marin's thoughts on Santa Clause

Marin: Does Santa Clause live at the mall?
Me: No, but he visits the mall so we can go sit on his lap and tell him what we want for Christmas.
Marin: Santa Clause is really nice, huh?
Me: Yes Marin.
Marin: Just like Jesus.

Later that day...

Marin: Mom, I want 1-2-3 (counting on her fingers) princess dollies from Santa. And a Barbie castle and Sleeping Beauty dress and a Strawberry shortcake house and dolls, and a new kitchen and .... (it went on, basically naming off everything she had looked at in the Walmart Christmas thing we got in the mail).
Me: Marin if Santa brings you all the toys, then he won't have enough to bring all of the other kids and they'll be sad because they won't get toys for Christmas.
Marin: Well... I just want all of them anyway.

And lastly,

Me: Marin, Santa only brings presents to little girls who listen to their moms and talk nice.
Marin: (in a horrified voice) But mom, if I don't talk nice then Santa won't bring me that little doll that pees?

The "Parent Tax"

I keep waiting for my sister Avree to post Halloween pictures on her blog so I can steal them! In a fit of rage Marin threw our camera on the wood floor. It didn't survive. Luckily for her... it was already starting to fall apart. Now I'm holding out for the after-Thanksgiving sales to get our new camera.

So I will follow this post with a few pictures if I get them. For now I'll just say that we had a great Halloween. We had a little party with the Nelsons and the Ethingtons (what else is new...these great people are who we spend all of our special occasions with!) We had pizza and I tried my hand at caramel apples... next year I'm buying caramels. Even though unwrapping the little suckers is about the most tedious job in the world, I think I'll do it. The caramel from scratch I made was way yummy, it just didn't quite stay on the apples. Or rather, it dripped off of the apples within seconds.

Marin, of course, was Cinderella. It was only fitting since she has worn that dress every day since we got back from Disneyland. She was all about trick-or-treating. That's my girl. She doesn't care so much about her candy, she just loved the getting it part. She has actually kind of forgotten about the candy. That's not my girl. I love candy. I have decided that whenever I take my children out trick-or-treating I am going to impose a "parent tax". Because I get (notice I did not say "make" here?) the costumes and tromp around the neighborhood in the freezing cold, I will get dibs on 1/10 of the candy bars from each bag. Doesn't that sound fair? If I bring my children up thinking this is standard parent behavior, they may not know the difference. Well, until they start talking to their friends... "What?! Your parents don't steal 1/10 of your candy-bars?! My mom said that was a Halloween rule!" We'll see how this goes.

I overheard Marin asking Mitch if we could go trick-or-treating again tomorrow. If only....