Finalists

A few weeks ago Jared's cousin Tyler (the one that won Wipeout) emailed us about a Kodak contest, suggesting that we enter. All you had to do was make a ten second video that went along with the theme "My Family Portrait". At the last minute we decided to do it and made a quick, silly little video. We were chosen as finalists (not going to lie - not a ton of people entered this contest) and now everyone votes for a winner by choosing a thumbs up on our video. So, obviously, this post is a plea to vote for our video. If we win we get to go to LA to see Conan O'Brien and our video will be played in Times Square. We would really, really love to go to New York together since we are broke college students that consider a trip to the movies as a vacation so if you don't hate us or our video, please give us a thumbs up and maybe even spread the word...maybe...please?

Just go here: http://www.youtube.com/kodaktube and then to VOTE and ours is called "Kodak Contest" (brilliant title, right?). Just click the green thumbs up button - that's it - you don't have to register with their site or anything like that. Our video looks something like this:

Also, Jared's cousin's video made it too so give them a thumbs up while you're at it - we'd be happy if they won too! Their video is called "My Swirly-Twirly True Colors Family Portrait".

Thank you dearest friends and strangers!! We love you, whoever you are!

Twilight.

So I may or may not have gone to the premier of New Moon last night. So maybe it is more likely that I may have gone rather than may not have gone. So, yes, I stayed up until three in the morning last night watching the new Twilight movie at the University Mall theater with my good friend Aubrey and other ladies. Yes, I went and stood in a freezing cold, mile-long line for a movie that I already had a ticket for with all of the other idiots. And, yes, it was awesome.

Now I'm not going to pretend like I'm some hardcore Stephanie Meyers fan, in fact, I think that Twilight is ridiculous for too many reasons to count, but I am a sucker for movies that suck you in and inspire numerous, unsolicited whoops and hollers from the audience throughout the film. I was even stuck in a handicap seat all by myself and didn't mind. I would just turn around periodically to the rest of the audience, attempting to catch the attention of my girlfriends, and throw my arms up in disgust or intrigue or point to the screen and laugh, mostly at inappropriate moments. I'll admit, sometimes I looked like a little bit of a loser, making comments to myself and anyone who would give me half a head nod, but I brought cookies and milk and they comforted me (as they have throughout most of my adolescence and adult life).

Of all of the brilliance in that movie, though, the image of cut-off denim shorts and shirtless Native American men just keep coming back to my mind. Not because of their big biceps or rippling abs, but because I just don't understand why shirts would have gotten in the way of turning into wolves at will and denim shorts wouldn't. Denim is just so thick, cumbersome and unflexible. It seems more probable that they would've worn nice poly-cotton blend t-shirts without any pants or maybe boxers or spandex (spandex always withstands the metamorphic change in these stories) or something. Maybe not a great look for the big screen, but much more logical. I mean, jean cut-offs?? Come on...that's so...1980s greased-up, muscleman calendar?? Oh wait, I get it now: that is the point.

I also realized that another reason I enjoyed the film so much is because I have actually been a vampire before. In fact, Jared and I can really relate to Edward and Bella's story because when we first met I was a vampire and Jared was a goblin (he took off his mask to reveal his true self for this photo). Luckily, my days as a vampire were cut short so I didn't have to face the "suck-his-blood-but-not-too-much-so-he-can-be-a-vampire-with-me-but-is-that-ethically-okay-for-me-to-do" dillemma like Edward has had to stress over. Poor thing. Nonetheless, I get it, you know?

In case you are wondering, I'm for Edward. I've never been much for 1980s greasy muscleman calendars.

flannel.

Made this little jumper for Lucy a few months ago from some scrap material I had:

Pretty shocked and maybe a tincy-wincy-bit pleased when I went into babyGap yesterday to find the same material all over the store. I'm not saying I invented flannel or something and everybody knows its big this year, but I was just surprised to see it in the baby girl section...that's all.

I already feel stupid about this post...

Baby-do

Lucy has finally hit a new, fun phase: the pig-tail phase. She may not think it is too fun when I put them in each morning, but if she wants to be Miss USA one day then she is just going to have to learn that with beauty comes pain. Just kidding. No pageants for this beauty queen. Nope, only repeated mommy-blog exploitation.

Her favorite "trick" is standing up on pretty much everything. She's been doing it for a few months now, but she is still pretty impressed with herself. Every time she gets up she immediately looks over at me and smiles like she is very pleased with herself.

Bikers.

Knowing how absolutely insanely paranoid I am about bikers getting hit by cars, Jared waited for about an hour after he got home from school last night before he decided to break the news to me that he was hit by a car yesterday. Clearly, it wasn't bad or else I would've figured it out by a visibly damaged bike or body right when he arrived home, but I still stopped breathing for a few seconds. He was riding over by the school when this girl coming out of Wal-mart's parking lot (of course it would be Wal-mart - I'm half kidding), did not see my husband crossing in front of her and ran into the back end of him, but mostly his pedal. Then what did the completely irresponsible girl in her mid to late-twenties (way too old to write this off to immaturity) do?? She looked at what she'd done and drove off. Good news is that his pedal scratched all the way across the front of her car. At least he left her a little reminder of her total selfishness.

Do you want to know what is even worse?? The EXACT same thing happened to Jared's brother on his bike a month ago. Another ridiculous girl hit him pretty much dead-on and then drove away without so much as asking if he was okay. Even in my most selfish years, and anyone that knew me from age 13-17 knows that those years most assuredly existed, I would never have been so audacious to do something like that. Anyways, just had to tell somebody about this because Jared is already sick of hearing me complain.

Party Extravaganza

We attended the most over-the-top, whimsically-enchanting birthday party/tea-party last weekend for my friend Alpha Smoot. Her family lives in her ancestor's historic home here in Provo, which made all of her extensive baking and beautiful creations that much more magical. There was attention to paid to even the smallest of details. Every tea cup and pastry had a handwritten tag attached and there were beautiful vintage hats around just in case anyone felt so inclined. The party was very well attended by guests who were in full costume. The whole event was straight out of Alice in Wonderland. I told Lucy to take a good, hard look because she was never going to see a party like this again (I mean, let's be honest, I couldn't even make the frosting for sugar cookies yesterday). Did I mention she created a photobooth? This was a shin-dig not to be reckoned with. It was truly a work of art and Jared and I were quite honored to have been invited.

Here are some photographs that I took from Alpha's Facebook account:

Birthday Girl

She made these out of meringue.

Lucy totally enthralled staring at the table.

For this is Halloween.

We had a cage-free chicken for Halloween. Fittingly, she would not sit still for a photo the entire night so this is all we've got. We did, however, get some awesomely-posed pictures of my brother and his wife in their costumes that they each made that day (Project Runway-style).

Jared and I were lame and didn't dress up. This was mostly because my only idea was Barack and Michelle Obama, which we didn't know exactly how to execute and Jared's ideas were much, much worse. First he wanted to be Patrick Swayze, but he had no ideas for me. Then he wanted to be my 4th great grandmother Vashti Vann (part Native American) and "the white guy that married her", which made no sense and then he wanted to be Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, (which also made no sense) and again had no ideas for me. So...I wore a black and gray striped shirt for a little while that seemed "Halloween-ish" and then changed after about an hour. We did have a fun family part at our house, though.

Jared found this sneaky, little goblin in the trick or treat pumpkin early Sunday morning. (Luckily, she couldn't get anything unwrapped.)