The Disney Question

10/12/08

If you were hoping for a relevant post, you're going to have to wait. This is just more fluff and nonsense, Yoder style.

So Mark and Madelyn were making cookies today and we turned on our Disney Princess CD to listen to. Unfortunately, Madelyn doesn't like us to sing along. Apparently we ruin it for her and she gets all upset. But when she's not around we go ahead and sing. How can we not? (I'll bet some of you have burst into song with Ariel already.)

Anyways, "A Whole New World" was playing and Mark told me that our sister-in-law Monica could totally be Jasmine. So then of course we had to sit down and figure out who everyone in the family was. We decided to narrow it down to the classic fairytale couples (because otherwise Mark would have wanted to be the pelican Nigel from Finding Nemo.) And there weren't perfect matches for everybody, but I think they share things in common--either looks, personality, situation in life, or a combination of those.

First of all, I really wanted us to be Beauty and the Beast. Belle's my favorite and I hope you'll agree that the transformed Beast is BY FAR the most breathtaking prince out there.






Am I right??

I mean, I get chills when I see that last scene every time. But Mark didn't want to be the Beast, regardless of how gorgeous he turns out in the end.

Sooo... we decided on:

Mulan and Captain Li Shang

(Tyler said I have to elaborate on why we chose everyone now.) Well, I am like Mulan because I am very determined and like to follow my own rules. Perceptive but rather impulsive, too. Mark is like Shang because he's a really cute Chinese guy. No really, he loves military stuff and is strong and gentle at the same time. And he's always being put into leadership positions.

My parents are:

Cinderella and Prince Charming

My mom is like Cinderella because she is the most kind and gentle person and I love her singing voice. She is hardworking, long-suffering and patient. My dad is very charming, so thus, Prince Charming. And you'll have to watch Cinderella III, because he is actually quite swashbuckling in that one.

Tyler and Monica are:

Aladdin and Princess Jasmine

Tyler and Monica really do look like Aladdin and Jasmine. Ask anyone. Monica is also smart, fun, beautiful and can sing! Tyler is resourceful and a fast learner. He wouldn't mind having a pile of riches, either.

Kevin and Lori are:

Hercules and Meg

Meg and Lori are two of the most independent, strong, and witty gals around. Hercules and Kevin both went through a gangly stage (OK, Kevin is still in that stage...), but he is sweet, humble and doesn't know his own strength.

Maria and Shay are:

Esmeralda and Phoebus

Maria and her boyfriend Shay also resemble their Disney characters pretty closely. Shay is tall, blond, and confident and Maria is a gorgeous dancer who has to beat boys off with a stick because she's so popular. They both like adventure and a good time.

Megan is:

Belle

Megan is a bookworm and has a big imagination. She loves to sing and dance, is smarter than all her peers and wants to see the world.

Madelyn is:

Ariel

"Headstrong" anyone? (Mark says she doesn't listen to her father very well, either.) But both girls are bright, curious, excitable and ultimately win you over with their wide-eyed innocence. Not to mention they love to swim!

And now for those of you who don't know my family and no doubt found all that very silly, I want to show you some of the "Disney Dream Portrait Series" taken by Annie Leibovitz--famous photographer for Vogue and Vanity Fair. Her work is always amazing. She had celebrities pose as Disney fairytale characters. Here are my favorites: (click to enlarge)

Gisele Bundchen as Wendy, Tina Fey as Tinkerbell and Mikhail Baryshnikov as Peter Pan

Jessica Biel as Pocahontas

Rachel Weisz as Snow White

Roger Federer as King Arthur

David Beckham as Prince Phillip

Scarlett Johanssen as Cinderella

Michael Phelps with Julianne Moore as Ariel

Gasp, I know!! I'm putting that last one up as my wallpaper on my computer. I want more! I want more!!!! Actually, I want to pose next. Can I be Belle and Ariel and Cinderella? Pleeeaaase? If you could do it, who would you want to be?

This is Lame...

10/11/08

I have like, eight different places I need to go to today. I asked Mark if he'd watch Madelyn while I'm gone. So I shoved them out the door to go watch WALL-E at the dollar theater. 15 minutes later when I couldn't find my keys, I realized it's because they're in the diaper bag, which is at the theater across town with Mark! Fantastic! I normally don't put them in there, but last night we were at a fiesta and my pockets were already full. More about that later...

Anyways, so I've just spent the past two hours cleaning the house, and they're still not back yet. But I found out I've been tagged (again!), so now is a good a time as any to do it. Thanks, Melanie! I'm going to let whoever wants to do this be tagged, because I've been doing it pretty often.

6 Quirks

1. I have a very elaborate bedtime routine. It bugs Mark, but I can't rest unless I've done the whole wash, brush, get a drink, put lotion and chapstick on, go to the bathroom twice and kiss Madelyn twice thing. He is ready in three minutes and falls asleep that fast, too. Men!

2. I wear makeup every single day. Even if I'm not going anywhere.

3. I despise calling people on the phone! Especially if I don't know them, but even if I do, I don't like to do it.

4. Since I was a kid, I've loved to watch cooking shows on PBS on Saturdays. I still do. I also like to veg out and watch HSN and QVC, which also bugs Mark. He thinks it's the most boring thing ever. On the plus side, Madelyn also thinks it's so boring that sometimes I turn it on and she falls asleep watching it.

5. If someone is coming over, I have to clean the whole house. People think I always live in pristine conditions, but that is just because I want them to THINK that. You'll recall that I live with a small human cyclone, and the fact is that my house is messy most of the time.

6. I like to be prepared when we go anywhere, so I bring along everything we could possibly need (plus stuff that we won't), just in case. In fact, the fear of not being prepared is so great that when I have nightmares, they're always about either being at school and not having completed a major project or studied for a test, or being onstage and not knowing my dance, not having my costume, or not being warmed up.

So there you go. I am even more obsessive than you probably realized.

Well, Mark is back! Now I can finally go run my errands. Don't let me forget to buy milk.

Sigh...

frosting face

10/9/08

How many different things do you suppose one three-year-old can make messes with in 48 hours? Let me see...

Milk (inside a plastic Halloween pumpkin no less, which was also filled with toys)
Bubble solution
Sidewalk chalk
Noodles
Frosting
Dry cereal
Popcorn
Jenga blocks
Leaky diapers (Two of them! Oh, the joys! If you go back another day, we can count the additional two times that she was wearing panties and wet all over my nightstand and kitchen floor..)
Tri-color Jell-O
Water (from the bath, which as you can see was quite necessary, playing with a tea set, sloshing around in the sink, and pouring from a cup to a bowl on the table)
Dandelion fluff (in the car)
Sprinkles
Discarded Oreo cookie (if you're wondering, baby wipes will get almost anything out of carpet...)
Three decks of playing cards
Cheeseburger (-- in her car seat-- took the whole thing apart and ate just the cheese)
Raspberries
Apple juice
Hard-boiled egg
Toys (thrown across the room in a tantrum)
Pillows
Kleenex (in tiny shreds, of course)
Pizza
Dress-up clothes and jewelry
Newly finished SCRAPBOOK PAGES and page protectors
Band-aid wrappers
Empty juice boxes
Clothes that had been soiled by most of the aforementioned things

You know...if I had a nickel for every time I had to clean up after this girl--forget it. Let's factor in inflation and pay me five bucks for each mess. I think I'll just add it up mentally and give myself the go-ahead to book a five-day vacation to Hawaii.

Back in 1968...

10/7/08

I can't believe this is my first Beatles post. Do you know what I wish? That the Internet and MTV had been around during their heyday, because then they'd probably have music videos to all their songs, and I could watch "Back in the USSR." It freaking ROCKS!!!!! It's my favorite song by Paul McCartney. Dig this: he plays the piano, lead guitar, bass guitar, drums and percussion on this song, besides writing it and singing it. (No wonder the man is a gazillionaire. He's the most talented person on the planet. And an English knight. Now he's known as "Sir Paul".) Despite all of his ballads, he can really belt it out if he wants to. Go grab your copy of The White Album and give it a listen. George is my favorite Beatle, but I have to admit Paul sang the most songs that I like. Who is your favorite Beatle?

OK, I just put that one up there because George looks good.

Someone give Hanes a call...

10/4/08

"I rock these panties!!"

I think we've just found their new spokesmodel.

No, Madelyn's still not using the potty. She just wanted to give her new Tinkerbell panties a try. We were kind of relieved when she stopped strutting around and agreed to put a Pull-Up on, because otherwise I'm sure I would have spent the afternoon shampooing the carpets and upholstery...

I know it's only been like, two days since I posted last. We haven't been doing anything particularly exciting (do we ever?), but this is like my journal, so deal.

Last night we all stayed up till 2am. Really. Even Madelyn. She was transfixed with a Dora the Explorer DVD we had rented for her from Redbox. (Confession: sometimes we park her in front of the TV so we can get stuff done. OK, we do it all the time. Otherwise we get interrupted every two seconds.) I was working on my ever-present pile of projects in my craft room. I honestly didn't know it was so late. yaaawwn~

Mark was up playing Final Fantasy XI, which for the uninitiated is a role-playing online game that is hugely popular and has overtaken the lives of many a young Yoder.

Madelyn likes to watch him play and boss him around as to what to attack.

He has seriously been playing it all weekend. (Over 28 hours logged in thus far...) He stopped just long enough to go buy a new pair of shoes at a specialty store down the road. He's been standing so much in the operating room and needed more comfy shoes. As it tuns out, he wears a size 10, 2E width! (Wide feet run in his family.) He's rather pleased to finally have shoes that fit him properly. Cost a whopping $117, though. Of course, now we're always going to have to get him those "appropriate yet outlandishly costly" shoes unless it's flip-flops or something. Sheesh, Mark. You and your special needs.

Anyways, I got a haircut today. Here's the before and after. I noticed a hair salon by Target called Antonio's and decided to give it a try. I got the most FABULOUS guy and he spent over an hour on my hair. I think he was excited to have someone come in with long hair and get the go-ahead to do whatever he wanted with it. He looked me over and said, "I know what I'm going to do with you." So he razor cut it and I think he did a great job. Since I'm moving back to Utah in a couple months, I'm going to have to schedule my visits to Albuquerque with my haircut needs. I've never had someone work so hard to give me a perfect haircut. Victor, I'm coming back!!

He was loving my hair's natural tendency to curl under and then out, but I actually like it better when it's straighter. Then I won't look so much like Rachel from Friends. It looks better in person anyway.

So that's our weekend so far. Oh, I forgot to mention that it was my G-ma Murset's 91st birthday yesterday. If I live to be 91, I hope I've still got as much spunk as she does. I think Madelyn inherited a good deal of it from her:

She might be picking up pointers from America's Next Top Model as well.

Memo: Buy more flour

10-2-08

So tell me, do you think making homemade playdough is a brilliant idea when you're babysitting not only your child but two others--sisters aged 2 and 4?.. But what if they're going to be there for over 4 hours and you need to do something other than watch Alice in Wonderland for the 25th time? Then is it a good idea? Even if the (poorly written) recipe calls for "three to four pounds of flour"?

(the aftermath after the aftermath)

The answer is apparently yes! If you are one of the children, not the mother who has to do all the work and subsequent flour extraction from every crevice of the kitchen. If you are a child, you can have fun playing in a mountain of flour (oh, yeah-- and the dough) and then go ahead and climb on top of the table and wallow in it.

I have heard rumor of children who do not like getting dirty. My friend Summer claims that her two-year-old son Noah is like that, and didn't even want to touch the new fingerpaints he got for his birthday. Do you suppose I could arrange for that specific, non-dirty gene to be present in my next child? (Seeing that it is too late for Madelyn..) Is there government funding for such research? Who can I contact about this?

Deluge

10-1-08

As promised, here's the first crop of pictures from my forays with my new digital camera. I was thinking that they wouldn't overwhelm as much if I put them in a collage format. So of course what's happened is that I've spent half the morning and afternoon, and now the night (with a pause to watch Iron Man. Now Madelyn says I'm Iron Man and not Wolverine. We watched X-Men last night and apparently she wasn't that impressed. But, ahem, I still like Wolverine better...) trying to find and install Picasa 3--not to be confused with Picasa Web Albums, which doesn't do collages (%#@!). So I had given up and tried to do them in Photoshop ($#%^&@#!), and that was even worse. You know, for all it's great features, it sure isn't user-friendly. I've been spoiled by iPhoto, which I wish I still had.

ANYWAYS....you know the drill. You go bumbling around trying to figure out new software and applications, and since I am decidedly right-brained and computers are not (at least not PC's), I spend an inordinate amount of time gritting my teeth and wanting to hurl the whole danged thing out the window.

OH! And then in the meantime, I was letting Madelyn paint to distract her for a while (since this should have only taken 10-15 minutes, right?..) and when I finally went to go check on her, she had covered herself head-to-toe in blackish paint sludge water. And the floor. And the chair cushions. And her diaper. And the wall. Luckily I'd had enough sense to take her clothes off before she started painting. Thank goodness for washable watercolors, is all I have to say. So here she is in all her glory:


Sigh. And now without further ado, the rest of the pictures from the week! Here's Madelyn dancing in the living room, having donned a tutu and squished her feet into her ballet slippers, which are too small. (She's not having anything to do with the new pair I got her. They aren't silver.)


Then she decided to go all-out and put on a dancing dress, tiara (she calls it her "crowned"), jewelry and again, the tiny slippers. I get a kick out of watching her twirl. She does a big wind-up with her arms and then lets loose. I'm going to have to teach her the proper technique one of these days.


We're just having beautiful weather, can you tell? I had Mark come out and pose with Madelyn and our pumpkins. She was tossing those small ones around like they were a bunch of softballs.


And last but not least, here's our little witch!

"I'm cute!"

I love this picture!! Look how big that hat is! Ha, ha!! She has been begging to go trick-or-treating every night for at least two weeks already. She has also been caught with a butter knife trying to carve the big pumpkin. She watches It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown year-round, so she knows all about Halloween. It has been hard for her to not get every costume that catches her eye (she really wants to be Bat Girl, too), because every day is a dress-up day if you're a 3 1/2-year-old little girl!