My perfect nose

I have a complex about my nose. When I was growing up, everyone admired my "perfect Precious Moments" nose. It was the perfect shape, slope, slant and size. When I was 13 (or 11 or somewhere around there), my head collided with someone else's at a pool party and my perfect nose ended up on the other side of my face. It was shattered so completely that the x-ray at the ER showed it as a whole and complete, unbroken nose. Never mind that anyone with 2 working eyes could see that it was swollen, in 2 pieces and on the other side of my face. Anyway, 3 days later at the doctor, they determined that yes, it was broken, but had begun healing back together. This was BAD. So, now reconstructive surgery was needed. I now have my perfect nose back and yes, I suppose you could say that I've had plastic surgery. Long story short: lightning struck again. I mean, HOW RANDOM IS THAT?

I was putting Phoenix down for a nap today. He had already been outta bed once and was not happy that I was putting him back in bed. (This was out of character for him, but this is how it went down. He's been "off" the last 2 days. We won't even mention the bruised bite mark on my hand courtesy of his little vampire teeth. That's a different story.) Anyway, I was readjusting his narrow little behind to put the covers on him. While doing so, he decided to rear up and clobber me with his giant cranium right on the perfectly reconstructed bone part of my perfect nose.

I fought blacking out, shed a few tears and fought the nausea all the way to my room. No blood, which was good. I think the swelling is only as minimal as it is because hubby rushed home form work with one of those old-fashioned ice bags and took care of me. It's broken, broken, broken! Though hubby begged me to go to the hospital, I didn't. I mean, seriously - it's in one piece, it's straight and it's still where it should be on my face. All the hospital will do is take an x-ray to confirm what I already know ( we know how well the x-ray turned out the last time!), give me pain meds and tell me to keep ice on it. See, I just saved us $3000!

Out of respect, let's have a moment of silence for my dearly departed and heretofor no longer, perfect nose.

Unicef Photo of 2008

The beauty in the juxtaposition of this photo is truly breath taking and so close to my heart as the adoptive mom of two kids from Haiti. This photo won first place as the Unicef photo of 2008 taken by 21-year-old Belgian photographer Alice Smeets, the youngest person ever to win the competition. The place: Cite Soliel, Haiti.If this image encourages you to get involved and help in relief efforts or even goes so far as to make you think about adoption, please visit For HIS Glory's website. They are a non-profit organization that has an orphanage in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and also helps fund and provide relief efforts for the surrounding area. If you have any questions about adoption, they currently have available children and I would be happy to answer any questions you might have.

An anti-climatic Flip Experience

I ordered the Flip HD Cam for Christmas, courtesy of my in-laws (Thank you very much!) and it just came today. It took a little while longer than normal because with the Flip, you can have them customized for your personal tastes. This is ours:
I was SOOOOO excited for this thing, until I realized I hadn't researched as well as I normally do and found out that Kodak makes a far superior "Flip killer" for nearly 1/2 the price. Plus, unlike the Flip, Kodak's comes with recahrgebale, replaceable batteries and an expansion slot for SDHC cards. So, I will be rigorously testing out the Flip during my 90 day return window, but will probably exchange it for the Kodak - which, oh by the way, is weather resistant too! Just smarter all the way around. I got suckered by the customization option of the Flip. Truly. I mean, how COULD one resist the panda? It really is the perfect size, but already I'm seeing that the back is a definite fingerprint magnet!
Below are 2 completely non-sense 30 second videos I took today to test the resolution in bright and low light situations. Both of these are indoor as I have yet to test outdoor. If you have either the Kodak version or the new FlipHD, chime in and let me know what you think of yours.

Food Pron

Yes, the title is a typo. But seriously, nothing gets more more excited than food and beautiful pictures of food. No one does beautiful food pictures like Kayotic Kitchen, but I digress. I made buffalo hot wings with ranch dressing, bacon wrapped jalapeño poppers, roasted garlic bread and Tequiza to wash it down with. Mmmmmm - New Year's food. We watched Tropic Thunder (most retarded movie EVER, but very funny watching Robert Downey Jr. trying to play a black man), watched the ball drop and a very anti-climatic volcano jump by Robbie Knieval. A subdued, but delicious New Year's Eve!

My OCD kicked in again....

Here are Remy and Gusteau. Yes, Gerbils. You can take the girl off the farm, but you take away her animals and she gets all shades of depressed....So, they're like my medicine. Lasst year at this time I was milking goats, cursing the freezing weather while I installed heat lamps into each stall in the barn. I was enjoying fresh eggs everyday and looking into the crystal blue eyes of my horse while I groomed her. Yeah, I miss my farm. I guess these'll do.

A beautiful sight....

I love Cai's heart. It's so big and so compassionate. I see great things for him in the future....

By the Hammer of Thor!

I will contest that there is nary a taste bud anywhere, on the planet, that is popping with more happiness than mine is right now! My hubby today took our aged family recipe for stuffing to new heights! I mean, this stuffing is so good I wanna take it out behind the high school and get it pregnant! (I will give mad respect to whoever gets that genius reference!) And the turkey! Don't get me started! Usually, we throw the bird into a Reynolds roasting bag and let nature take its course. This morning, however, we realized that we (I) had neglected to buy said bags. IKEA dutch oven to the rescue! We roasted that bird for 2 hours, all the while sucking up the drippings with a poultry syringe and re-injecting said goodness into the breasts. Did I mentioned we shoved a beautiful poultry arrangement of fresh herbs under his skin? O-M-G! Seriously! After 2 hours we tented it for another hour and half and let him alone. Then, Jeremy sliced that bird open like a TonTon and we feated like it was Festivus! (Too many pop culture references?) Picture the most succulent, flavorful, RIDICULOUS bird you have E-V-E-R tasted. THIS was our bird. Mixed with the aforementioned RIDONKULOUS stuffing and the combination was pure O pleasure for food ho's and casual foodies alike! All I gots to say is: secret family recipe! You can look....you can drool.....but you will NEVER know!

Christmas Morning....so far

Christmas Morning thus far has been surprisingly peaceful and low key. We got up at 5:45 to try to beat the kids, but as soon as we walked out, Logan and Phoenix came strolling out. Moise came out 1/2 hour later and we finally had to wake up Cai shortly after that. Each boy had 1 unwrapped present under the tree and were allowed to play with those as well as whatever was in their stockings while Jeremy made breakfast. During breakfast, Jeremy read the Christmas story and then it was present time! Each boy opened one present at a time so mommy could get good pics. Fab idea as it created this calm instead of feeding frenzy! Now, everyone is playing happily and the turkey is about ready to come out. We'll post more pics at the end of the day. Merry Christmas EVERYONE!