Me, glorious me!

I had an uncharitable thought today: thanks to Facebook, MySpace, blogs, online photo albums, and the like, we have given ourselves permission, under the guise of "staying connected with friends and family," to become raging egomaniacs. Take this blog, for instance. I started a blog so that I could post pictures and updates to share, right? Nope - I already send out fairly regular emails to anybody who wants them. So maybe it's just for my own enjoyment then. Sort of. I mean, I really do take pleasure in writing, but mostly I'm thinking, "gosh, when people read my blog, I hope they're really impressed because I'm quite intelligent, not to mention funny!" See there? I just called it MY blog, even though it's supposed to be the Ames family blog. How pompous am I? So there you have it, my snooty thought for the day.

P.S. Please don't forget to post a comment so that I can feel good about myself this week. :)

Easter pics

I was having some fun playing around with our photo editing program and here are my results:










Sometimes I'm still surprised by technology and what we can do with a click of a button. I mean, who comes up with this stuff...?

Oh, the orange!

I had an epiphany yesterday as I sat at my table eating a cold, juicy orange: I like oranges. I really like them, as a matter of fact. But I haven't eaten one in quite a while and I've just figured out why. See, I had this roommate in college who could peel an orange in less than a minute; she was good. I, on the other hand, took about 25 minutes to peel an orange, as said roommate looked on in great amusement. In my defense, it was the first orange I'd ever peeled. (that's what moms are for, right?) But back to the point. My first orange peeling experience was humiliating and I've been scarred ever since. Why didn't I just cut the oranges into wedges and enjoy them that way, you may be wondering. Well, they're not very fun to eat when you still have to deal with the rind, I would answer. But now I've solved my orange mental block. I cut off the rind, cut the orange into delectable bite-sized pieces, and enjoy my little vitamin C packed treat.

2-ply, please!

I don't know if anyone else is like this, but if I buy a product and I don't really like it, I'll use it anyway out of guilt so I don't waste money. Dumb, I know, but it's a habit I can't seem to break. So a while ago I inadvertently bought 1-ply toilet paper (a 12 pack) and we're suffering through it until it gets used up. Only it's taking forever to use up! I mean seriously, it feels like years and years since we'd had decent TP and I still can't bring myself to just file 13 it. It's not like a box of not-so-great tasting crackers that you can pawn off on someone else who actually likes them. What am I gonna do, go up to someone and say, "hey, would you like some really crappy toilet paper (no pun intended) that I detest?" I might as well tell them I don't think they're good enough for 2-ply. What to do, what to do!? Woe is me!

Lots of Letters

At long last, Riley has become interested in learning letters! I know it's a competitive mom issue I have, but it seemed like every other kid I knew could identify letters and/or spell his or her own name. I kept having these flashes of Riley as junior high school student still reading "Frog and Toad" books. :) But he can now spell his name and knows quite a few letters. We've got these big foam blocks with the letters in them, so we'll jump from block to block spelling words. Sometimes we line them up in order and skip down the hall singing the alphabet song. Also, Adam uses zoophonics at Tanaina with his kids, and Riley really loves making the signs and sounds. It's fun to help and watch him learn new things!

Magical Moms

Sometimes I think that the universe has it in for me. Alright, that might be a little self-pitying, I admit. But yesterday at church, Millie did a number two and it was impressive, to say the least. Normally this wouldn't have caused undue drama, but we weren't at home, she had a white dress on, and I hadn't stashed any extra clothes in the diaper bag that morning. I wiped off the dress as best I could, gave up entirely on the onesie and chucked it in the garbage with the diaper, and wrapped the girl up in a blanket. Fortunately, she'd been wearing a sweater that day (it wasn't on during the great incident) so her top was covered. And then a lady in our ward, who has ten kids and has over the years learned how to be prepared for any and every event possible, magically pulled out a pair of pants from her bag. So the bottom half was covered, too. No matter that the pants were boys' pants, size 12 months, and made me want to break out into a lively chorus of "U Can't Touch This"- I was still impressed. Someday I hope to be a mom with a magical bag!