birthday party, cheese cake, jelly bean, boom

I have a new nephew! You don't get to be the baby for long in this family. I hope my sister doesn't mind, because I cannot help myself but show him to you. He is Abram's new best bud, even if neither boy knows it yet.

Meet Keenan. Abram seems to like him.

We also threw our first ever kid's birthday party with friends. We've decided to have certain years where the kids can have parties, since we literally cannot afford presents AND parties for every birthday. So, turning 6 is the first party year. We had a swimming party at the Y. It was awesomeness.

Brett & I were discussing someone we mutually dislike. (Not YOU. Please! We love you!) We’ve decided to refer to this particular person as “It.” Which is enormously satisfying and I highly recommend it. I mean, I don’t highly recommend It (the person), but rather I recommend the practice of referring to people you dislike as “It.” Because it will make you feel laugh-y instead of irritated & mad (and I don’t mean It, the person, but rather “it” the practice, again). (Or forget the whole thing. It’s too confusing) (<--it, not the person). (Damn it.) (<-- both meaning appropriate there.) I think I need to lie down now.

If you’d really like to have a pick-up to your day, may I recommend filling your pockets with jelly beans? Sure fire.

Until you get to the part of the bag where you can no longer effectively avoid the black ones. And don’t EVEN TELL ME that you like the black ones. I knew someone who liked them once, and they were MENTALLY ILL. The sole purpose of black jelly beans is to remind you that life is not all sweet and beautiful, and eventually things will turn dark and bitter and then you die.

I discovered that I possess REAL, ACTUAL COURAGE. Here’s what happened: I watched my first episode of Walking Dead and I still got up to run in the dark early the next morning. COURAGE. I’m telling you. Me, throughout the whole run: "I do not believe in zombies... I do not believe in zombies..."


Nighttime walks with flashlights! Fun winter activity. Until you get eaten by a zombie.

I’ve gotten some requests for an update on Find Jesus 2011. OF COURSE we’re playing, sillies. Brett was a little slow to get in the spirit of things this year, but now we’re Finding Jesus all over the house. You know, he was just turned off by all the commercialism of Find Jesus. All the Find Jesus sponsors and ads; it really takes the Santa out of Santamas. But you can’t blame the ad industry for everything bad in the world. Without the ad industry, we wouldn’t have Mad Men or this this beautiful Lexus December To Remember.