Birds and the Bees 101

Converstion with Ella as were having dinenr with our friends. They have a little five month old baby.
Ella: Mom, where did she get her baby from? The store? (She asks me this similar question every time I have anything...shoes, groceries etc. and usually the answer is, "the store".)
Me: No, Ella. She got her baby from her tummy. (I am not wanting to go into detials at this point in her fragile 3 year old life).
Ella: Mom, can I have a baby in my tummy?
Mom: No Ella. Not for a long time. Not until you're big.
Ella: But I am a big girl mommy. ( I assure her of this every time she goes to the bathroom in the toilet.)
Mom: Yes you are. But not big enough.

Five Years to the Day...minus one

Jason and I went to a session last night at the Atlanta temple and I couldn't help but remember and reflect upon the day, five years ago (exactly TODAY, minus one day yesterday) when we were sealed and married in that very temple. Not the most glorious temple in the eyes of the beholder...but great in my eyes. I know I have already blogged about our anniversay trip to Gatlinburg...but this on'es for my sweetie....HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! I love you.......forever.

Twilight Disappointment

I got on my sister's blog (click on Bell Fam) today and my bro-in-law has written a hilarious parody on the Twilight series. It's a must-read. I must admit I would have been a little annoyed if I had read that post several months ago, after completing (with an addiction like obsession) the reading of the first installment, "Twilight". Us Twilight fans take Bella and her vampire very seriously. Not to be made fun of. Although, when my husband finally confronted me wanting to know why I had been an absent wife/mother for two weeks due to the reading of these big black books I was admittedly embarrassed when I confided in him that the books were about vampires. Such foolishness! On I read, despite Jason's teasing. What adult reads about vampires?
Now don't get mad readers and Twilight superfans, but after reading the fourth and final installment, I am all for the parody. The fourth was a little...uh....dragging and unexciting until the last 200 pages. But for a 750 page book, that says a lot. I found myself asking the question, "Why am I reading this? It's so dumb". But I still turned the pages. Those books have some kind of power over the reader. Well, at least me. After finishing it I had a similar feeling as to that of finishing an episode of "The Hills"- wow, I am dumber for watching/reading that. Although it is a wholesome form of enteratinment, I was disappointed with the last book. Disagree all you want.

Big Trouble in Little Zebulon

Coming at ya again for another round of events from the Allred household. Mostly these are just come cute pics from the week. We had a nice evening in the comfort (right) of the lower 90's this week. We thought we'd take advantage of the limited sweating instead of the usual dripping and go outside to play a little ball. Notice Lincoln's game face. Are you intimidated? I am. He is serious about playing ball and he would growl if anyone got near the ball he was chasing, which was all of them. He was actually suprisingly good at connecting the ball and bat. I was surprised. And earlier in the week I gave him a haircut. I LOVE the "before" pic with him in the brown towel. I tell him to smile and this is what we get. This boy has SO many facial expressions. This one is our favorite. Seriously, could he be any cuter? Then the next pic is the "after". This is his "Griffin face". for all of you who have ever been to Griffin, you know what I'm talking about. He's a thug. Dr. Allred has already ordered the gold teeth and the gold chain with a dollar sign on it is coming for Christmas.


Now for the featured section of the week: "Big Trouble in Little Zebulon". When Jason and I first got married in 2003, we drove a newly purchased "flying machine" from Utah (where we were living at the time) to Georgia. I say "flying machine" because that's the only thing I have ever heard it called. My Father-in-law has this thing with names....if he gives something a nickname it's permanent. He doesn't bother with formalities or correct terms. If he thinks the title fits to the object, that shall be it's title thereforth. Anyway, so the purchase of his first "flying machine", as Bob calls it, was first in 2003. Right away he starts taking lessons to learn how to fly this. All you men out there reading this, just bear with me becasue I am going to describe this machine in ladie's terms. So, it's basically a go cart type machine with a propellor in the back and then it's connected to basically a parachute. Got the image? There's no protective casing around the driver and/or passenger. RED ALERT!!! You are flying in a go cart!!! It's the strangest contraption. So Bob buys another. He's a collector of things...mostly machines of some sort....vettes, boats, non-running vehicles, whatever. I've actually never seen him fly this "flying machine" because he usually does it in a supervised airport type place with a teacher. He decides that this weekend is the weekend when he will bring the contraption home to their compound in Zebulon, and give Jason and whomever else rides. Jason tells me I should go. Right off the bat I said, "YES!". Then I started to think about it. It was a million degrees outside and I was dripping with sweat just watching them try and start the engine. Then I see the helmet I would have to wear that looks like it might raise your body temperature 10 degrees at least. No thanks. I thought I would wait for a cooler day. Seemingly dumb reason....but I was the smart one. Jason decides he wants a ride. They strap themselves in and off they go. Right when they take off, a gust of wind comes along. Bob has to go with it and turns....heading striaght for a line of trees. He pulls up and barely clips the tops of them. Clipping the first treeline slows them down, thus taking them lower. Another treeline coming up....SMACK! They are going through a forest pretty much. The wheel ends up getting stuck right on this branch and it is 20 feet up in a tree. In the ruccus, Bob fell twenty feet to the forest floor, while Jason is still up in the tree with the propellor going. All this time we were all up at the house. A friend alerts us that the boys were stuck in a tree. I go outside to look and I hear something....is it screaming/crying or laughing? One of the two. Laughing. Yes, they were laughing. Phew....a relief. At least there was no major injury if someone's laughing. We drive up to the accident site (in their backyard) only to see Bob mangled, bloody laughing, and slightly out of sorts and Jason stuck up in the tree. To make a long story short, Bob had a few injuries (perhaps one or two cracked ribs), Jason climbed down the tree, and they retrieved the machine the next day by cutting down the life-saving branch. Apparently this was accident number two for Bob. My advice to you Bob: get your money back from your lessons! Doesn't getting into two accidents say something about your teacher? So, are you waiting for the good ending? Conclusion: Bob is selling his "flying machines" and switching hobbies to something a little less risky and more age-appropriate -- like base jumping. Just kidding. You gotta admire the man, he really lives life!









Lincoln going to the bottle. It was a stressful day. He just couldn't handle the near-death experience thing.

HAPPY FIVE YEARS! WE SURVIVED!

Happy five years to us! Well, not technically yet. On August 23th. We celebrated early this year as we will be in Alaska around that time. We drive up to Gatlinburg ,TN for some good hillbilly fun. Seriously, we really stuck out in that town. At least I think/hope we did. All the stores were decked out in "redneck woman", John Deere and rebel flag paraphernalia. The scenery was beautiful and the town is so fun. There are about 5 "Ripley's" things to do. There's a Ripley's haunted adventure, Ripley's believe it or not museum, Ripley's putt-putt.....you get the idea. I swear, Ripley (whoever that is) owns that place. Personally, my favorite thing to do was to people watch. There are some redneck people there that are very interesting to look at and watch. I even found myself picking up my own dialect of "hillbilly talk".

This is at the "Ripley's" aquarium. I believed everything I saw. Ripley- you didn't fool me! This shark is just eyeing me. Probably salivating like we do when we see a good meal. I think it probably guesstimated that I had some good meat on my bones. Think: rump roast.

This is on the town trolley. Coolest thing- this trolley will take you anywhere you need to go for only fifty cents. As long as you have unlimited amount of time, no schedule, endless patience and an inclination to be squished (check out the man behind me with two kids on his lap)....it's perfect!



These two (blurry) pics are from the Ripley's Haunted adventure. This guy stands outside of the place on the sidewalk as people walk by and convinces people to come in by stalking them and dragging a shovel loudly behind him, glaring evilly. Totally in character. We rode this rickety elevator shaft type thing up to the entrance.

My other favorite thing to do (besides people watching) was playing putt-putt. We found this place called hillbilly golf. You ride this incline up the mountain and then play putt-putt on some greens placed strategically up and down the side of the mountain. It was really fun. Especially b/c I was beating Jason for the first half of the game. I lost it on a Par 2...I shot a 6. Ouch. Jason won by four. He wanted to take a pic of my stance. I know what your thinking..."with that stance how could she lose?". I was distracted by the sexy man on the tractor making eyes at me. "She thinks my tractor's sexy....". Yes, I do babe!

Thoughtless thoughts

Here are some random experiences/thoughts from this week. I couldn't get the computer to upload any pics. ENJOY!

1)KRISPIE KREME DREAMS
In my normal pre-challenge life Krispie Kremes were a treat- one that I indulged in every once in a while. Not THAT often. I will say I have eaten more Krispie Kremes in the past few weeks of this challenge than in the past several years of my life. I don't know why but I feel a magnetic pull towards them when I am in the grocery store on Saturday night, planning my Sunday fix. So in the past couple weeks I have just bought a half dozen on those Saturday sweet shopping sprees. But as I walked into Walmart on this particular Saturday the Griffin Bears football team was selling a box of a dozen. There's a young man in the ward there on the team, begging me to buy the dozen. UGH! What am I to do? I really only NEED six...not 12. But then again, I can just throw away the ones I don't eat. Waste all in the name of support for my alma mater. So I bought them. I petitioned for Saturday to be a free day because of it being fast Sunday on our regular free day. I gotta have a full day of sweets. I won't say how many my family ate and how many I ate because it's really quite embarrassing. I will say there were two left on Sunday. It was NOT a free day. I had had quite my fill the night before, eating Krispie Kremes until 11pm. We are laying down for our usual Sunday afternoon naps and I am awakened by Cooper, whom we had been watching for the weekend while Em and Jake went to TN for their anniversary. I tried to smother the sound of his cries by putting the pillow over me ears. He hadn't been sleeping long enough. Only an HOUR!!! COOPER- GO BACK TO SLEEP! So I was in and out of consciousness and all I remember was this; smelling and tasting Krispie Kremes. They were melting in my mouth. I had been fasting all day. This really could be considered a type of torture. It wakes me up out of my sleep. All I can think of is Krispie Kremes. There were two left. Should I lose a point? I started thinking about the fact that I am not going to win (Jordan has a perfect score). Then for some reason I started thinking about the monetary value I would put on some Krispie Kremes at that very moment. I decided that I would pay $25 for some. So I hurriedly got up and downed the last two. I was defenseless. After dreaming about them what was I supposed to do. Hey, maybe I was sleep eating/walking. I had no control! :)

2) BOTTOM FEEDERS
Here are two funny tales from the Griffin Ward. A lot of people have said this of our ward: "The Griffin Ward is like the island of misfits. They are round pegs trying to fit in a square hole". You got the idea. And I might just add that I feel totally comfortable blogging about this as only one other person in my ward has a blog and she totally supports me and the hillarity ( I know that's not a word)of these stories! Story one happened two weeks ago. Anyway....so I am the first counselor in our Relief Society presidency. The president and I were discussing some last minute announcements in whispered tones as presidencies often have to do during the opening hymn. I won't go into details but we have a very special person who plays the piano in our ward. She's very intense...let's put it that way. So we are whispering very quietly and this pianist, in the middle of the second verse of the opening hymn, stops playing and stands up and says the following bold, out-of-place statement while glaring and pointing at us, "Do you think we could start the second verse over and do you think you two could be quiet?". WOW! What do you say to that? So we said, "yes", committing to ourselves to talk to her about her disruptive behavior after class. I won't even go into that even more out-of-place conversation.
Story number two happened this past Sunday. It's my turn to give the Relief Society presidency message since it's fast Sunday. I was teaching the lesson on the article in this month's Ensign entitled "Cultivating Righteousness". There's a section in the article that says, "touch not the unclean thing" and then it gives specific examples like the media. Wanting participation, I ask the class, "What are some other unclean things we should 'touch not'?". They give me the answers I am fishing for like TV, people that are bad influences, etc. Then one lady raises her hand and this is how our conversation goes: (L for lady, M for me)
L: There are some things that are unclean that we should keep out of our diet.
M: OH! Like the word of wisdom, thank you! I didn't even think about that! (I'm excited. Someones into my lesson and thinking outside the box.)
L: No. Not the word of wisdom. Things like pork. (At this point everyone shifts in their seat to get a good look at who's talking.) Bottom feeders. A lot of seafood are considered bottom feeders too.
M: Bottom feeders? (I am thinking aloud. I ask without really wanting an answer...I should've just said thank you and moved on)
L: Yes, they are things that feed off of waste or feces. (UGH...IN RELIEF SOCIETY!!)
M: Oh. OK. Well, I don't eat seafood so I guess I don't have to worry about eating any bottom feeders. ( I don't really know what to say...AWKWARD!)

We were talking about righteous/unrighteous type things. Not personal opinions on food. I make a mental note to ask Jason what he thinks when I get home. So I talk to Jason. We agree. Ridiculous. PIGS! They don't eat poo. Yeah, slop, sure. Hasn't she seen the Lion King? The animals poop and it fertilizes the grass and the cow (or whatever animal) eats it. So, does she eat beef????

3) TRIX ARE FOR KIDS....REALLY, THEY ARE
I bought a brand new box of Trix for the kids to enjoy. I don't buy it often but I got a really good deal. They love it dry, with milk, whatever. The first morning I am pouring some for Ella and I clumsily knock the box on it's side and because it was so full there were trix all over my kitchen floor. I get out my little shark vacuum and seemingly get up all the runaway Trix. Now fast forward to two days later. Lincoln is just puttering around and i guess his point of view is such that he can see everything under the oven. (It's not a very big space but things get under there inevitably) So Lincoln spots something and I see him excitedly run over the the oven and reach his chubby little fingers just under the corner and pull out a green trix. I say, "Ew Lincoln, that's dirty. Let's throw it away". Lincoln says, "No mommy". He pops it in his mouth before I can even blink. He knew I was coming to get it from him. Then the classic part is this. He looks at me with this darling mischievous smile and says, "mmmm....mommy. Yummy". I laughed so hard.