These may be the sweetest, sassiest socks ever:

And what happens when your daughter wears the sassiest socks “evah”? She gets some attitude. Especially with her dumb mom. Here she is (while wearing said sassy socks)telling me to zip it:

Because moms always say silly things to embarrass you. And in public, even. How humiliating.

Plus, moms are slow. See?

Sometimes slow, silly moms just need a good push from their cool daughters, while the cool daughters wear sassy socks and do big eye rolls.

I had no idea that the ‘tween attitude started so young…

Maybe the socks kick-started it…

Much less sassy: the boys.

Jachin (right) and his friend, Byron (my BFF Diana’s boy)

…actually, it sort of is.

Quite easy, in fact. Incidentally, my favorite color really is green in real life.

You Are a Green Crayon

Your world is colored in harmonious, peaceful, natural colors. While some may associate green with money, you are one of the least materialistic people around. Comfort is important to you. You like to feel as relaxed as possible - and you try to make others feel at ease. You’re very happy with who you are, and it certainly shows!Your color wheel opposite is red. Every time you feel grounded, a red person does their best to shake you.

What Color Crayon Are You?

(A thankful shout out to Bad Mom for throwing this little quiz up on her list blog)

So we had the mother of all storms last night. Thunder and lightning all night long. Hail, heavy rain, super-strong wind, the works. My poor exercise ball had been resting on the deck, gathering dust from weeks of inactivity. (Occasionally I like to go out on my sweet deck in the early morning light and do crunches on my ball while the sun rises over the mountain… it’s the stuff exercise videos are made of.) But once the winds kicked up last night, my poor ball didn’t have a chance. It’s long gone. I drove around the neighborhood today scanning people’s front yards, but to no avail. I watched for car accidents; specifically accidents caused by large, bouncing balls bounding down the streets.

But alas. Nothing.

If you happen to be driving in Orem, UT and come across a large, silver exercise ball with “Core Secrets” stamped on it… bring it by my place. We’ll do some crunches together on my deck.

compared to rocks and mountains?

Or pretty lakes? For Labor Day we went to Deer Creek with my mom and her husband, Jeff, and my little sister, Paige. Speaking of Paige… does this picture look familiar at all?

No? Look again:

Uncanny, is it not? Bigfoot’s gotten a little cuter (and less hairy) these last 20 years…

It was a great day. (One thing I have LOVED about Utah since moving here 11 years ago is all of the awesome recreation. Deer Creek is a mere 20 minute drive up Provo Canyon.) We took the wave runners out on the lake and BBQ’ed a picnic. We pulled tubes behind the wave runners. It was a great time. Bliss is this: riding on a wave runner across a glimmering lake with your husband and your daughter; nevermind that your daughter is shrieking “Slow down , Daddy! Slow down!”

My dumb camera battery died an hour after we got there, so pictures are sparse. There were so many scenic shots that were never taken. *sigh* Sad. But a few highlights are up on Flickr.

Labor Day is my little brother, Paul’s birthday. In my mind he is perpetually 6 years old, which, when I see him as the handsome 21 year old that he now is, makes me feel OLD! Here he is, the little cutie:

Happy Birthday, little brother!

(And yes, I totally stole the picture from your MySpace page. It’s a good one.)

Every woman (or little girl) who is blessed enough to have gorgeous, naturally curly hair will always– always — want straight hair. I had beautiful curly hair my whole life… until babies, and all of the body-changing hormones that accompany babies. Post babies, my hair went pretty dang straight. But as a young girl and a teenager I always wished for beautiful, straight hair. The grass is always greener, right?

So this morning Zoe woke up extra early for church, coming into my room and telling me that she woke up plenty early for a straight hair day. (A straight hair day requires a washing, conditioning, a proper “blow-out”, and way more hair product than I really like to put in my 5 year old’s hair. But she really wanted it, and she did wake up plenty early.)

The results were nice:

She walked around all day swishing and primping. She asked everyone she saw, “What do you think of my hair?”

She even came to me and showed me a picture of her inspiration: Sleeping Beauty. Sleeping Beauty really has some sweet, straight hair. (And a pink dress.) The likeness is striking:

Yeah, they’re practically twins.