People Magazine's Dirtiest Upper Lips 2008

Happy New Year!

Such a Sweet Girl

Here is our newest niece Alyvia who is about 2 weeks old now. I love her!

The Mystery Injury

#1 - We Netflixed the movie "Willow."
#2 - We let Stella watch it without first viewing ourselves to remember details that might be a little scary for 4-year-olds. Didn't I watch it when I was little?
#3 - Stella got scared of some sort of two-headed monkey with fire something or other spewing out of it's neck. I don't know, I didn't see it.
#4 - Stella would NOT sleep that night.
#5 - Stella would NOT sleep the next night.
#6 - Somehow the two-headed monkey snuck into Stella's room and punched her in the eye last night even though no monsters can get into our house because Daddy built our house out of strong bricks just like the third pig in the Big Bad Wolf story.
#7 - Adam A., did you know that you named your daughter after Willow's wife?

Beth's Birthday Dinner and Naked Bums

We ate dinner at Buca de Beppo to help celebrate Beth's #24 birthday the day after Christmas. The walls are covered in pictures, quite a few which are inappropriate. One of the said pictures was right behind (no pun intended) Mother Dibble who was cuddling with Claire over her shoulder. Towards the end of the dinner, Claire whispered in Mother Dibble's ear, "Naked bum." I'm glad she didn't turn around to look at the other pictures.

Christmas

MERRY CHRISTMAS

FROM OUR FAMILY!

My favorite pictures of the day:

Stella's reaction to seeing her new baby pack-n-play

Stella making Elder Jeffrey babysit her baby during our Christmas morning breakfast.

"Oh what a beautiful morning! Oh what a beautiful day! I've got a beautiful feeling, everythings going my way!"

This picture frame was a wedding gift over 9 years ago. Elliot and I had it hung in our old condo, but we never got around to putting pictures into it. It's been hanging in our home now WITHOUT PICTURES for 3 years. I filled it with pictures of Stella at ages 1, 2, 3, and 4 and wrapped it up and hung it back on the wall for Elliot to open.

Who can resist a grateful child?

An original David Dibble painting. Mother Dibble commissioned this piece of art from Elliot's cousin depicting a sunset at the Dibble Farm in Layton, Utah. We love it. The only problem is that we want the other paintings that Adam and Kent got as well.

Elliot telling me that he'd eaten too much food.

Adam and Xan with Raymond, Anabelle, Claire, and George. Ray was a little grumpy.

Elliot carrying Raymond out to the car and his arms are still folded. See, I told you Dibbles were stubborn!

Bethany and a possessed Samantha. I wonder if she got anything for Christmas. Sammy, not Beth.

Father and Mother Dibble ready for a long winter's nap. Mother Dibble got a blog for Christmas. Adam and Beth set the whole thing up complete with an instruction manual made by Adam. My favorite bit of information in the manual says something like, "If you blog several times a day, you may have a problem." Well don't we all Adam . . . don't we all.

Thank you for remembering us this Christmas! We think of you too, only not in an I-think-I'll-send-Christmas-cards-this-year sort of way. You're all scanned onto our computer if that makes you feel better. Keep us on your list!

Baby Drew Roberts

I don't actually have a list written out of things I want to see or do in my lifetime, but if I did, SEEING SOMEONE GO INTO LABOR would be one of them. Thank you Liz!

I must also apologize to Liz because I totally thought she was faking! We were all at Book Club 2 weeks ago eating, discussing, having a good time when we all noticed Liz's face start to tense up. Discussion of the book went out the window as everyone's hands went directly to her belly to feel her contracting while Emily tested out her midwife skills of relaxation.

Now I thought Liz was faking because the next contraction came awfully fast and since I've never experienced going into labor and have never seen anyone in labor, I thought for sure that it couldn't happen like that. Once again for 2008, I was wrong! I was home by 10:00 and sweet baby Drew was born at 12:40 a.m.! If we only could have discussed that book a little longer I could have checked off another item on my list . . . WATCH A BIRTH!

Drew was born on Wednesday, December 17, 2008 to my friends Liz and Adam Roberts and his big brother Michael! He was 6 pounds 14 ounces. Congratulations!

Bourne vs. Bond

I heard someone compare the new James Bond movie with the Bourne movies. Who would win if they fought each other?

Jason Bourne = 25 votes (78%)
James Bond = 7 votes (21%)

Thanks for participating in my most recent poll. I agree.

Office Desk for Sale

I'm selling my office desk. It's never been used . . . by me at least. It's really sturdy and I can testify that it can hold at least 8 piles 3 feet high of whatever you put on it for at least 4 years. It has 2 files drawers and 2 smaller drawers. Call me if you're interested.

It's moving out so that Elliot can have a chair.

The Haircut

It's been over a year since THIS happened.

And now that Stella's hair has grown back (and then some), the sweet little ringlets are gone and it's all stringy and ratty and there is quite a bit of crying involved when brushing it out. She's also trying to become independent in fixing her hair, something I'm not willing to give up until she can wield the flat-iron by herself.

Those of you who know me, know that I'm an advocate of prudent haircuts on little girls, which is why this is so out of the ordinary. I even called my sister to see if she'd talk me out of it . . . she didn't. So here it goes.

BEFORE


AFTER

(8 1/2 inches off)

We both really, really like it! Stella can't stop looking at herself in the mirror and flipping it around. Thanks Candice!

Christmas at Preschool

Stella's Christmas vacation started yesterday after her singing performance at preschool.

Sweet Baby Alyvia!

Speaking of adorable nieces . . . my brand new niece Alyvia Lucille Anderson was born yesterday afternoon (December 16, 2008)!

Alyvia was 5 pounds 15 ounces and was 19 inches long. Congratulations Jenny, Adam, Brennan, Kaiah, and Kimbal! I love you!

P.S. Mom is going to be so flustered with the spelling of her name.

How did I get so many cute nieces?

Look how cute this little Tater Tot is!

TATEM JANE

Photograph by Brittni Schroeder (Pockets Full of Poses)

Ward Christmas Party

Our Ward Christmas Party didn't have as much swearing as Lindsay's did, but it was still a great time.

Thanks to Brooke for the picture. I stole it from her blog.

Stella was an angel for the program. The kids were getting in their costumes in the Primary room and it was just absolutely chaotic! Kids are yelling, running around, laughing, shoving each other and such while the adults are yelling for them to be quiet, "shepherds over here, Mary and Joseph over there, angels here . . ."

As I was trying to wrestle a white sheet onto Stella she yells above everyone's voices, "WHO AM I?" It reminded me of Johnny the Tackling Alzheimers Patient on Scrubs, because that's exactly how she yelled it.

Family Home Evening

Elliot's FHE lesson sent us on a 1-minute race to gather all of the things in the house we could that we were thankful for.

Stella is thankful for her Christmas basket to hold her other things, blanket to keep her baby warm, her baby, her "kitty" (which is actually a dog), the magnadoodle because Dad wrote our FHE agenda on it, and the fan that Sister Haynes made for her in Primary.

Elliot is thankful for his scriptures, journal, camera, back scratcher, phone, his wallet with money, and his airplanes.

Whitney is thankful for pillow (this is a stretch) because it means that we have a safe home to sleep in, books to read, toilet paper, anti-bacterial wipes, and root boost.

Wipe your own bum!

Stella and I are having a little difficulty. She doesn't want to wipe her own bum because she thinks it's a waste of time to wash her hands. I've been wiping her poo bum because I do a better job, but I still want her to try to wipe herself. This morning Stella was helping me clean the bathrooms when she suddenly needed to go pee. I was gloved and couldn't (didn't want to) leave in the middle of cleaning the other bathroom, so I told her she could wipe herself or wait. STUBBORN DIBBLE! She waited. And waited. Whined. Waited.

After I was finally done cleaning, I removed my gloves and helped her. She ran into her bedroom and came back out quickly. This is how the rest of our conversation went:

S: "Look Mom!" she said with a VERY angry face as she turned around to point at her naked bum that had ring around the booty.
M: "Uh oh."
S: "This means you should come sooner. You take forever!"

Now she's mad at me.

Ray & George

Stella and I got to go to Raymond's last softball game and George's last basketball games on Saturday. They are awesome!

What do I have to do to get some lunch around here?

I told Stella and Clarkie that they couldn't have lunch until they crossed their eyes. This is what we got:

"I Want My Two Dollars!"

Does this remind you of the food that the mother makes on the movie "Better Off Dead?" Yeah, Stella and Elliot didn't want to eat it either. It's broccoli and potato soup. At least it's supposed to be. I quit. I'll stick to baking.

I tried to find the clip with the comparable food item, but it wasn't on youtube. I watched part of the movie and Stella kept saying that John Cusack was Daddy. I also thought that Elliot looked like him when I first met him.

My Cute Husband

We made the first official move on our adoption journey. We had our fingerprints done on Friday, December 5, 2008. Elliot has perfect little patterns for fingerprints whereas mine, of course, have no pattern and may delay us for a while. Nothing huge, I'll probably just have to get them done again to compare.

Last time Elliot took Stella to the library, he brought back this book. It's an adoption story about a King and Queen who have this painful tugging at their heart. With special glasses, they can see that it's a red thread that leads them to a far away land. The red thread is tied to the ankles of a baby girl and when they ask who the baby belongs to, an elderly lady sees the thread and says, "She belongs to you." So cute. Elliot and the story.

Preparing for Christmas!

We got our Christmas tree on December 1st. It's a little dry, so don't look at it wrong or it's needles will shiver off.

Stella had the Adventure Frog from preschool, so he got to go on a tree-hunting adventure with our family.

We let Stella put the ornaments on our tree and she decided that they'd look best in the same general area.

Thanksgiving

Hum, I'm a little behind. Thanksgiving Day was a little whirlwind and don't even remember seeing Elliot or Stella the whole day. Dinner was at the Dibbles in the afternoon, then Beth and I quickly jetted off to take some family pictures (The Cole Family on my photog blog). Upon our return home, Elliot's cousins Ciera and Josie and Aunt Ellen wanted to go see Twilight and I was more than happy to be their guide. Ciera and Josie, who both thought they should have chosen a different Edward, had to catch their breath after the movie was over and have now totally changed their mind about Edward. Beth hasn't read the books yet, but it didn't even take 5 minutes before I leaned over to her in the theater and asked her if she was in love, to which she replied a giddy little "yes."
Aunt Ellen, Ciera, Beth, and Josie

One night we met the family at Organ Stop Pizza. It's always crowded, but I've never seen it that crowded. There were people lurking about our table just waiting for us to be done.

There's Uncle Tyler and cousin Jensen in there too.

The family came back to our house for some cookies and the Ball Challenge. They were all a little hesitant, but they loved it. Everyone loves it.

Ciera
Jensen
Josie
Elliot
Mother Dibble
Uncle Tyler
Aunt Ellen
Stella