Time flies!

I had really good intentions at the beginning of the year to do this "Photo a Day" challenge, where you (duh) take one photo a day. Doesn't have to be the kids-it can be anything to document what you're daily life is like. Needless to say, that hasn't happened. If anything, the camera has rarely been out of the bag in the last few months. But we've been busy!

First off, the house has SOLD. We are so so happy. We haven't put anything on the blog b/c we were worried about "jinxing" ourselves (I know, what a stupid concept "jinxing" is, but yet we all fall for it). But now the major hurdles have passed and we close on Tuesday. It all happened really fast. The house was put on the market on Feb. 9th, they saw it on the 14th, then made an offer the following week. At first we were going to have to be out of the house by today (since we go out of town Monday), but when they found out we weren't ready to move yet they offered to let us rent back from them. Thank goodness-I was NOT looking forward to moving twice within a few months. But we would have done it if it meant the house sold. We were ready to take anything! We feel really lucky and are excited to know that at least this part of our life is taken care of. Now we need to work on actually finding a job!

I wrote in a post in January that we were interviewing in Kansas. Well, we went. And felt like we should NOT take the position. It was offered and they wanted Dave (who wouldn't??!!), but we just felt like it wasn't the right road for us. Funny b/c we went into it with the intention of taking the job. We thought it was what we wanted to do. But I'm glad we went there to get the full picture and meet everyone so that we don't have any regrets. But that leaves us jobless. So off to California we go to find a job! We're looking at some specific areas that have just kind of peaked our interest. Neither of us knew anyone in those areas. I was just trying to research into areas that had all the "ideal" things we wanted out of a home and came across a few things that mentioned these parts of California. So I researched some more, mentioned it to a few people, and now we have some connections! Things really have fallen into place and we've got some good leads, so hopefully this will pan out for us. We're going in with a lot of faith!

And now, for your viewing pleasure, here are some pictures we took when the camera finally came out of its resting place.

We went to an awesome park today-it was 60 degrees...of course we were going outside!

Emma's hair is getting pretty long. She keeps telling me that she wants it long so she can have braids. Today she said she needs it "longer and longer and longer and longer and longer like Elizabeth's" It's still not quite long enough for braids. But I have a feeling that the braids she's thinking of are more like the ones her friends at school have. Most of the girls in her class are black. And they have the cool braids all over with the fun little "ball" rubberbands. I just don't think she'll ever get her dream fulfilled.
Of all the pictures Dave took of the 3 of us, this one was the best-yep, a finger in Bree's nose and Emma making a weird face.

Look at those adorable faces!

Emma dancing like a princess in front of the castle!

Our fearless daughter.

A view of her SUPER CUTE HAIRCUT! I chopped off her mullet, and got this adorable curly bob!

A typical Bree "look"

One of Bree's favorite pastimes (much to my dismay and sanity) is getting into the sinks and the toilets. The girl loves water. I should just stick her in the tub all day.

We made a fort and stuck the girls inside with the DVD player. Stroke of genius. We just kept throwing cookies and ice cream in there and got a few hours of uninterrupted adult talk time (and maybe Mariokart time).

This is the remains of Emma's little accident. You can't see the color very well in this picture. She was running in our room and came around the end of the bed, tripped over the pillows on the floor and went head first into my nightstand. Her face broke her fall. And somehow she ended up hitting it on the side (what you see) AND on her forehead. Instantly there were 2 big goose eggs and bruising. And the one on her forehead was also a big scratch. The coloring got better and better each day! I love the process of a bruise! It even gave her a black eye. We're just glad nobody called social services on us! That one was a doozy.

And this is Bree, pretending to be me. She LOVES to flip through and "read" my magazines like she's a big girl. When she's not flooding the bathroom with the sink faucet or playing in the toilets or throwing all her crackers on the recently vacuumed floor or pulling ALL the baby wipes out of the package or opening the bag of bread and taking a bite out of each piece or rubbing her yogurt in her hair or pulling all the toilet paper off the roll or throwing all the rock salt meant for the front porch onto the carpet or pounding on the keyboard and freezing my computer or putting videos into the VCR the wrong way she really is AWESOME! Haha. She's my little spazzy girl and even though I get exasperated (quite frequently), I really just want to squeeze her and kiss her all over and tickle her. She can make me laugh at the drop of a hat.

Wish us luck in California!! SUNSHINE, HERE WE COME!!!

Food for Thought

I loved this in an email my friend sent me today. It's what Audrey Hepburn wrote when asked to share her "beauty tips:"

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness. For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people. For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry. For beautiful hair, let a child run his/her fingers through it once a day. For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone. People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of each of your arms. As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands; one for helping yourself, and the other for helping others.

25 Random Things

I did the tag on facebook and here it is for non-facebookers. And since I refer to it a lot, my "status" on facebook is "Loralee Packard Latham has a lot of life-altering decisions to make. I should go to bed first."

Everybody's doing it. I held off for SOOOO long, but it's really late at night and I should be going to bed, so OF COURSE I'm doing this!

1. I hate being cold. Hate Hate Hate it.

2. I like to talk about myself, but not because I think I'm so great. It's because I'm waiting for the person I'm talking to to say "me too!!" and make a connection with them. I'm all about connections.

3. I love love love color. My house right now doesn't quite reflect that b/c we knew we would be selling it eventually so I had to tone it down. Dave and I might end up having words about this b/c I want a bright colorful house and he wants a log cabin.

4. I secretly wish I could be a more eclectic dresser, kind of like my sis Juju (when she worked at Tight Assets-hee). I coud dress all sorts of ways if I had her cute little bod. But alas, babies have not been kind to me. I'm workin' on it people.

5. Like the other sis Kimmy, when I find a song I like I listen to it over and over and belt it in the car and at home while I'm making dinner. Emma got mad at me the other day for singing too loudly.

6. I'm easily influenced by the things I read, hear, see on tv, etc. But ultimately, I'm extremely opinionated.

7. I read a lot. Books and magazines and internet. If you need to know anything, I've probably read about it somewhere at some point in my life. Don't test me on this, though. As you can see in my "status" I have too many life-altering decisions to make to be thinking about what I've read in the past. :)

8. I know this is more about Dave than me, but holy cow that man can make me laugh, and I love it. The other day we were watching tv and the ads for the upcoming news segment kept coming up, and they kept trying to lure us in with "find out what the BIGGEST turn off is when dating!" (ya, slow news day). So I turned to Dave and jokingly said, what's your biggest turn off on our dates. Not kidding, completely straight faced he says, "when you talk." I know he feels good about his one liners when he starts laughing too. And maybe that doesn't make you laugh, but if you know dave, you can just picture how it all played out, and I KNOW you're laughing too.

9. Even when Bree and Emma exasperate me during the day sometimes, I can't go to bed without peeking in on them and giving them a kiss (and possibly waking them up).

10. I wish I could "let go" more often-like do things out of the ordinary or be more spontaneous. It's not that I'm not willing, it's just that we haven't ever had the "resources" ; ie, babysitters, money, babysitters, money, you know-babysitters and money-you usually need both in our situation.It doesn't do you any good to have one without the other. And by "not willing" I mean anything that doesn't involve extreme heights.

11. I have a super good memory when it comes to people and names, so I'm always worried that people think I'm a stalker. I'm not.

12. I'm not very girly. I've had 2 manicures and 1 pedicure in my life. I just recently got my first massage and that was okay. I don't paint my nails or wear a lot of jewelry. I'm most comfortable in jeans and a sweatshirt (okay, I'll be honest SWEATPANTS and a sweatshirt). And if my hair wasn't so thick, I wouldn't spend a lot of time on it. But I still like girly things and getting dressed up and looking nice. sometimes.

13. I secretly wish I was a dancer. More specifically a ballroom dancer. Even more specifically, that Dave liked it and we would go dancing together. Sigh.

14. I blog in my head. If I don't "turn off" my brain by reading something meaningless before going to bed, I wouldn't be able to sleep b/c I would be blogging in my head. Or writing mean letters to people who hurt me. Or having conversations with the lady who flipped me off on the freeway. All in my head.

15. I really wish I was a morning person who could wake up at 6 and workout and get going for the day. But then I wouldn't be able to write 25 random things about me at 11pm on facebook!!

16. When the kids are grown I think I'll go to culinary school.

17. I have a dream. It is to own a Viking stove. Hopefully I'll attain that dream before going to culinary school. But owning a Viking stove is all dependent on one of those "life altering decisions" mentioned in above "status".

18. I really wish I could take back some of those times I followed a crowd and made fun of a kid or said something I didn't mean back in the day. As I've gotten older and wiser (haha) I've realized how much words can affect people. And now, as a parent and as someone who sees abuse on a regular basis (I live in Cleveland-just can't avoid it!), it breaks my heart to think of some of the kids we knew growing up who were most likely being abused physically or verbally. I wish I could change that.

19. I love St. Judes. Do you ever hear the marathons they do on radio stations to raise money? When we are totally rich one day I will be donating to my church and St. Judes.

20. I love my family. Dave and the girls are my life. Dave is my "dream guy." And I love seeing that Emma is exactly like him and Bree is exactly like me. I like knowing that even though we have family fights and drama, we have a strong foundation and we're doing really well. There's nothing we can't handle as a family.

21. I like to do anything crafty. Well, not knitting. I just can't seem to get into that. I've tried. Oh, and maybe candle or soap making. And if that makes me a typical mormon mom, then so be it. I'm okay with that. When I'm creating, whether it be food or clothes or scrapbooks or cards or whatever, I feel fulfilled.

22. I like to listen to really intense, complicated piano pieces and envision myself playing them. I just don't think my short stubby fingers lend themselves to that type of playing. But I'm practicing!

23. Sometimes when it's really cold here I'll drive down the street while looking up (I'll check out the road every once in a while!) and picture myself looking at the sky in someplace warm. Sure I could STAND outside and do that instead of driving, but that would require me to be OUT in the cold. For further explanation, see #1. This works best on a sunny day.

24. I'm addicted to sugar. If anyone knows a cure, I'm all ears. And a cure cannot involve never eating sugar again.

25. I'm a pretty hopeful person. Sure, I get down every now and then and need to cry. But for the most part, I'm optimistic.

woowee. I'm surprised I came up with all of that. this took a LONG time! and congrats if you read it all the way through :)

"Happy Valentime's Day"

No, that's not a typo, that's how Emma says it. I love the little incorrect things kids say. I used to correct Emma all the time, but then Dave pointed out that she'll get it when she gets older and it matters, but enjoy those little things now. So I do. :)

The girls woke up to Valentine's plates and presents. I wanted the girls to open their presents first. Bree didn't want to have anything to do with that. She screamed until she got her food. You might notice red eyes or tears in her pictures :) But they've been carting around their gift bags with their little treats in them all day. Emma loves Valentine's Day, for some reason. I can't quite figure it out. But all year long she anticipates it. Every day this week was a countdown for Valentine's Day. She's so sweet.

I was most proud of Dave's present. Growing up he was in love with Princess Leia and Wonder Woman. He had a Star Wars pillowcase and would make sure to give Princess Leia a goodnight kiss every night. We got the Pottery Barn catalog and while I was looking at it, he noticed their new Star Wars bedding and flipped out b/c it was the exact same as his childhood. So I got him the pillowcase. I know. I'm awesome. Add that to the Wonder Woman mousepad I found for him in NYC and I'm the BEST. WIFE. EVER.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Manly wounds

Every once in a while a man has to prove to himself that he's still alive. He needs to test himself against nature and his body. When you push yourself to the limits and conquer your challenges you show that age has no power over you and that death is still a distant threat.

But then sometimes you decide to test yourself and you lose in glorious fashion. You get so defeated by your challenges that you just sit and shake your head and wonder what the heck happened to you. And on that note I would like to offer into evidence two bodily injuries I have recently suffered.


Notice first if you will the strange mark on my finger. I was helping the doctors in the Oral Surgery department open some vials of medicine. As I prepared to break the top off a vial one of the doctors joked that no one had ever cut themselves on these before. I looked up at him to laugh at his witty remark just in time for the vial I was holding to explode in my hand sending lots of tiny shards of sharp goodness into my finger.

This could have been the end of the story, but I wasn't about to be defeated by a little piece of glass. I'm almost a doctor after all so why shouldn't I be able to give my self a numbing injection into my finger, slice it open with a scalpel, and dig around in the now gaping wound with a spoon excavator? For those who don't know what that is imagine a tiny shovel, and then imagine digging that around your bloody finger while one of your friends sits over your shoulder telling you you're not going deep enough. I don't think I'll have any lasting damage beyond not being able to effectively pick my nose with my injured finger for a while.


Now I would like to draw your attention to the bluish tint found on my foot. Some of my other friends have been trying to get me to go skiing with them for a while now and I finally went out. We made a few runs with no problems and then decided to go off some of the bigger jumps. I made a run with no trouble other than a glorious crash, but then I made the mistake of jumping very high in the air and not landing on the downward slope but the very flat, very icy, very hard transition area. There was a resounding smack from the sound of my skis hitting the ground followed immediately by the sound of me screaming in manly agony. I tried to tough it out for a few more hours pretending that the tears in my eyes were from the cold wind and not by desire to curl up in a ball on the slopes and cry like a little baby. Eventually I announced that I had nothing else to prove and that I would now go hang out with all the teenagers in the cafeteria.

I now have 2 bruised heal pads which means I can't walk like a normal person. I have to walk on my toes all the time which looks, well, awesome. I've been prancing around the dental clinic for the past few days to some confused looks. But on the bright side my calves are getting an excellent workout.

So the lessons here are two fold. The first more subtle lesson is don't let your friends pressure you into slicing your finger open with a scalpel. The second and more obvious lesson: walking around on your toes all day is sexy, which is why girls wear high heels. I'm going to invent guy high heels. I'm going to call them guy heels and I'm going to make a lot of money. Lessons learned. Take that death!!

High School Tag

1. DID YOU DATE SOMEONE FROM YOUR SCHOOL? nope never. I was only allowed to date mormons. And the majority of them were my cousins. I really had to branch out in order to date anyone.

2.WHAT KIND OF CAR DID YOU DRIVE? I was an EXCELLENT passenger in lindsey's honda civic and Shawna's honda accord :) I didn't get my license until a month before going to BYU.

3. DID YOU PASS YOUR DRIVER'S LICENSE TEST YOUR FIRST TRY? yep

4. WERE YOU A PARTY ANIMAL? ha. I like to think I was fun to be around at the parties I was allowed to go to. But no, I didn't attend "parties" if you know what I mean.

5. WERE YOU CONSIDERED A FLIRT? ya

6. WERE YOU IN BAND, ORCHESTRA, OR CHOIR? yep

7. WERE YOU A NERD? I hope not. If you knew me then and I was, don't tell me.

8. WERE YOU ON ANY VARSITY TEAMS? haha-we got a varsity letter for our show choir

9. DID YOU EVER GET SUSPENDED/EXPELLED? No

10. CAN YOU STILL SING THE FIGHT SONG? I think I only ever knew the last line "Lancers hail to you!"

11. WHO WERE YOUR FAVORITE TEACHERS? probably Mr. Pool, Mr. Miller and Mrs. Elliott. Mr. Pool was an old short bald man who wore a huge cowboy hat-totally funny. Mr. Miller was an old surfer dude-he taught my dad! And Mrs. Elliott just was a fun teacher.

12. WHERE DID YOU SIT FOR LUNCH? In a car, in Carls Jr., at Lindsey/Shawna/or my house. LOVE off campus lunch!

13. WHAT IS YOUR SCHOOL'S FULL NAME? Carlsbad High School

14. WHAT IS YOUR SCHOOL'S MASCOT AND COLORS? Lancers, purple and gold

15. WHO WAS HOMECOMING ROYALTY? Albert and Yolanda.

16. IF YOU COULD GO BACK AND DO IT AGAIN WOULD YOU? I think if I went back I'd like to be a less judgemental person

17. WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER MOST ABOUT GRADUATION? Shawna giving me a lei, hugging everyone after, my family all smiles and happy, Uncle Mark giving me my diploma, grad night

18. WHERE DID YOU GO SENIOR SKIP DAY? I don't remember. I know that I DIDN'T go to Magic Mountain where everyone else went. But I remember having a lot of "senior skip days" ;)

19. WERE YOU IN ANY CLUBS? I might have been-guess I wasn't too involved in them if I don't remember which ones!

20. HAVE YOU GAINED SOME WEIGHT SINCE THEN? do we really need to talk about this? YES, okay???? I'm working on it.

21. WHO WAS YOUR PROM DATE? Cory Williams

22. ARE YOU PLANNING ON GOING TO YOUR HIGH SCHOOL REUNION? It was last year. And I didn't go.

23. DID YOU HAVE A JOB IN HIGH SCHOOL? oh ya. I started out at the California Yogurt Company, then went to a data entry job, and I worked at Gap Outlet and In-N-Out. I think that's all of them.

24. WERE YOU AN HONOR STUDENT? yes

25. DID YOU TAKE SEMINARY? yes, at the CRACK OF DAWN. I am totally not responsible for sleeping through the majority of my high school academics.

26. WHAT WOULD YOU CONSIDER YOUR MOST FUN TIME? Just being with my friends-mostly Shawna and Lindsey. We had fun with the day to day things. Sure there was drama, but such is the life of teenage girls :)

27. WERE YOU CONSIDERED SHY OR OUTGOING? I think outgoing.

28. ANY LAST MEMORIES YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE? ummm, nope.

k-I tag EVERYONE who hasn't done this-I know SOME things about most of my friends, but certainly not everything!

So sad when...

...37 degrees feels SO SO SO WARM! I threw off my coat and wanted to go frolicking around outside! My car's temperature gauge ended up at 53 when I was done with my errands. WOOHOO!

Just the other day I was shoveling another foot of snow. During my "shoveling snow musings" I was somewhat angry at said snow. Honestly, you can only lift snow so high. And the piles in our driveway were about my height. I was wondering what big joke Heavenly Father thought He was playing on us, giving us so much snow that there wasn't any more space to put it. You know how one thought leads to another? Well, at that point I really had no hope that the snow would ever stop coming and was planning out how I would use my food storage during that time that we would be snowed in because THERE WASN'T ANY MORE SPACE TO SHOVEL THE SNOW. Heavenly Father must have felt my hopelessness and gave us a little warm-up here. Now the piles are only FOUR feet high. Our sidewalk in the front and the walkway up to the front door still aren't shovelable, though. Those are solid ice-it'll take a while before we see that concrete again. Not such a good thing for having open houses. We shoveled a path from the driveway across the grass to the front steps-hopefully people are down with that.

But I'll take 53 degrees!!! Now, if only it was 53 degrees AND sunshine...

EVERYONE should read this book!!

I'm a member of the Goodreads website, and when a "friend" updates what they've read and rated, it sends an email letting you know. So my friend Debbie had updated and I took a look at the books she read. There was one that caught my eye, and she gave it a high rating, so I thought I'd check it out from the library.

Holy cow, am I glad I did!! Folks, I introduce you to...

If you can't read what it says, it's "The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work" by John Gottman.

Now, just so you understand, I wasn't interested in this because I thought mine and Dave's marriage was in trouble. I'm just always interested in how to make things better. And with Dave's history in human development and stuff, this intrigued me.

As members of the Church, we're taught to seek out the best books. I've read books that were great, good, and downright horrible. I've noticed when authors have a gift for writing. I really believe that Heavenly Father gives people different gifts and talents for the greater good. I really believe that He wants us to enjoy life and so He blesses people with talents to entertain us. Sorry if that sounds weird. But what I mean is that there are fictional books out there that are great and uplifting or teach us lessons or bring us happiness, and I feel like those authors were blessed with the gift of writing. I don't think it's just happenstance that authors, entertainers, and musicians are so incredibly talented. They were blessed with those gifts by Heavenly Father, and then they were given agency to choose how they use those gifts. Some have chosen to use them for good, and some not.


So, back to the reason for my post. I love it when I'm reading a book and I FEEL that the author was inspired with the topic. I love feeling uplifted and knowing that what I'm reading would receive God's approval 100%. And that is what happened with this book. This book is for EVERYONE. It's for the couple who is happy with their marriage, the couple who is struggling, the couple who doesn't know that they're struggling, the couple that just wants a little revitalization. The principles taught in this book are applicable. He gives guidance and exercises that, though they are hard and take time, are WORTH IT.


People crowd their lives with so many unnecessaries. We waste a LOT of time. Some spend their time on worthwhile things, but not on the things that are of the MOST WORTH. Your marriage is of the most worth. If you take the time necessary to read this book and do the exercises, you will have made one of the most important investments of time in your life. I haven't even finished the book and I am already so much more aware of how I contribute to the happiness AND the unhappiness of our marriage, and I know how to make things better. I don't feel hopeless about the things I'm failing in because I'm given tools to fix them. This book can give a lot of hope to a couple who really might be on the road to divorce or who are experiencing severe problems and issues. It cleared up a lot of misconceptions about what a "successful" marriage is. A lot of times we (women in particular!) have this idea of what marriage (or even romance) should be. And when our relationships aren't that way, we think there's something wrong. This book helps you see what you are doing right and helps you feel better about the successes in your marriage. I just really love what I've been reading.


So, there's my plug. And if sometime in your life you receive this book as a gift from me, it's not because I think your marriage is failing :) I just think everyone should own a copy of this book!

Paso Robles, CA?

Does anyone know someone from or someone that lives in Paso Robles, CA? (or Templeton, Atascadero and San Luis Obispo)

Let us know if you do :)

Mia Mia!

The other day Bree and I were home alone so I broke out the Mamma Mia soundtrack and we danced and sang to the song Mamma Mia. Bree was having a blast. Starting the next day I am no longer "mommy", I am "mommia" and Dave is "dadia" and snack is "snackia." She pronounces hungry "honky" and now it's "honkia." It's pretty hilarious. Right now she's saying "it's yuckia!" But when she sings the song, it's "mia mia...uh uh...again, my my..uh...."

And a couple nights ago Emma was staring in the mirror with her mouth wide open, then exclaims "Mommy! I don't have any cabinets!" Cabinets??????? "Ya mom, cabinets are holes in your teeth." I love Sid the Science kid. She informed me yesterday that she made sure to eat her hard carrots with her back teeth and not her pointy teeth.

And since I haven't taken any pictures of the girls in about a month, here's one from a year ago. This is SO indicative of their relationship. Bree beating up Emma and saying "no TOUCHIE!" while Emma isn't doing a thing to provoke it. Nice.