I’ve been showing Zoe how to write her name in cursive and she’s been practicing on the family’s white board in the kitchen. There are several examples of swirly, twirly “Zoe”s written at all times, done in several colors of dry erase markers.

Last night Zoe’s friend, Ashlynn, came over to play. Zoe was proudly showing off her cursive to her friend. Ashlynn was impressed, and wanted to jump on the cursive bandwagon. She sighed. “I wish I could curse.”

Jon wasted no time. “Zoe’s mom can teach you how to curse.”

And yeah, I totally could.

We had family pictures taken yesterday morning… and I would have blogged about it yesterday, but the picture-taking process completely drained me. I am so excited though because it was the first time we had ever gotten family pictures taken. In our whole nine years of marriage. Sure, I’ve taken the kids to Kiddie Kandids a few times and had theirs done; and sure, we had some fellow tourist take a picture of the four of us standing in front of the Mickey Mouse flower beds in front of Disneyland; and Jon did a mean job of doing a Christmas picture last year with the tripod all set up in the entry way while we perched ourselves precariously on the piano bench… But yesterday was the first time the four of us all walked into a real picture studio and sat down together and had a bona fide family photo taken.

The kids did well, considering… We bribed them with lunch at Red Robin if they sat still and smiled nicely. Jachin was worried that he didn’t brush well enough before we left the house to warrant a huge, cheesy grin. But the photographer’s assistant got a few out of him with the help of a chipmunk puppet (which Jon thought was a badger puppet, and that made me laugh). I felt myself blink about 20 times, but the photographer took about 100 pictures. So — fingers crossed — at least a few of them turned out.

And while we were there and looking spiffy, Jon and I had a few taken of just us. With any luck, we’ll finally have something to hang on the huge, empty wall over our bed.

I love cheese and chocolate. And yes, I even love them together. For me, it’s really tough to find something yummier than a grilled cheese sandwich dipped in chocolate milk. And no, I’m not kidding. It’s delicious. I’ve eaten grilled cheese that way since I was a kid, and I’ve converted my kids to the dark side as well (much to my husband’s chagrin… he’s a “grilled cheese dipped in ketchup” kind of guy). The most awesome part — when the melted cheese drips from your sandwich into the glass, and mingles at the bottom with the residual chocolate power. Yum. Don’t believe me? Try it now. Go.

Has no one else ever heard of this crazy cuisine? Did my mom make it up?

By the way, I also love peanut butter and seafood… and if I can ever figure out how to meld all of those flavors together, you better believe I’ll do it. Maybe I could pull it off with fondue…

I was tagged by Bad Mom for this fun little meme. First, some rules: you have to tag 7 other people with blogs (I’ll have to try really hard to think of 7 people); leave a post on their blog letting them know that they are tagged; and… something else. I’m not good at remembering — or following — rules.

1) When my friend, Carrie, and I were 18, we wanted to get tatoo’s, but we couldn’t talk her tatoo-artist-uncle into giving us one (he was wise enough to tell us to come back when we were 21 and if we still wanted one, he’d do it for free). So that night, Carrie and I decided to try to brand ourselves with boiling Crisco, a heart-shaped watch back, and a pair of tweezers. I bravely went first. Carrie had a not-so-steady hand, and — long story short — I ended up with a fish shaped scar on my upper arm for the next decade.

2 ) When we were 8, my friend, Susie, and I rehearsed a sweet dance routine to Mr. Mister’s “All I Need is a Miracle”, complete with leotards and striped leg-warmers. We fully intended to take it on Star Search… our parents told us to keep working on it. We’re still working on it…

3) I have always secretly wanted to be in a martial arts movie; think “Mortal Kombat”.

4) When I was 20, I went to the Delta Center to try out for the Utah Jazz dancers. When I saw the number of girls there, I chickened out.

5) When I was 14, I lit a gym sock on fire in the back of the school bus, forever debunking Nicole Prorock’s theory that sweaty gym socks wouldn’t burn.

6) I love to have my back scratched. More than anything in the world.

7) I barely graduated high-school. My cumulative GPA was a 1.6. I am the quintessential underachiever. The circumstances surrounding my teenage years and home-life is a meme in itself. Nay… it’s a blog in itself.

I’m tagging Leslie, Sam, Jachin, The Artist Formerly Known as Little, and my hubby… and… anyone else who would like to participate.

Wow. It has been a very whiny day. Zoe has pretty much cried and whined since I picked her up from school an hour and a half ago.

Here is a list of the things she has cried about so far today:

* I was talking on my cell phone in the car.

* While in the running store, I hung the running jacket back up on the rack after she clearly stated that she wanted to put it back on the rack. (During this same time period she also slapped my butt, stomped on my foot, and screeched at me about hanging up the jacket while I tried to talk to someone in the store.)

*We had to go to Costco to get laundry detergent and toilet paper.

* I stopped in the frozen food aisle to pick up some salmon after I specifically told her that we were only going in for laundry detergent and toilet paper.

* They didn’t have any treats at the snack bar that we suitable for cold weather consumption except hot dogs… and their hot dogs are too big.

* I told her that there was no way in h-e-double-hockey-sticks I was going to buy her a treat anyway because her behavior was not up to snuff.

* It was windy outside while we walked to the car.

* I came home and burned her grilled cheese sandwich while trying to put away the frozen salmon that I was never supposed to buy in the first place.

Heaven help me — it’s only 1:30 in the afternoon.

Ok, I have several things I want to post about (one of them, a meme from Bad Mom just waiting to be completed), but I don’t feel so hot, the network card in my laptop isn’t functioning properly, and I’m a little short on time. So for this post, I will just focus on my feelings and confusion about the movie “The Mist”… and I’ll even try to hold back on the spoilers, no matter how much I’d like to warn you.

Saturday night, my bother, Paul, my sis, Sam, and I hit the late showing of “The Mist”. I had previously posted about how I’d read the book (about 17 or 18 years ago, while away from home, camping in the pitch black woods of girls’ camp) and how it was great and scary, blah blah blah, and yay! movie.

All I can say is wow, folks. Maybe I only dreamed that I read the story.  I mean, sure there was a mist. Huge, creepy spiders: check. Unstable religious zealot: check. Lots of blood and gore, including torn torsos: check. But where. the. crap. did the ending come from? When the screen went black and the credits rolled, my brother and sister looked over at me and said, “Why didn’t you tell us that was coming?”, and their faces looked like they might like to dismember me for making them sit through the entirety of the movie. All I could say was, “That WAS NOT how the story ended.” But then I tried to think, and I seriously couldn’t remember how the book ended… only that it wasn’t same as the movie ending. We then left the theater –  by then it was well after midnight — to look for something cheery to do before we went home to hang ourselves. Disneyland was out, because it closes at 10pm and it’s 800 miles away. Vegas was out, because it was every bit as loathsome and depressing the last time I went. So we reluctantly drove home slowly, making jokes about the movie… whatever shred of hilarity we could find.

See the movie if you like — which was creepy and alright — but wow… don’t say I didn’t warn you about the depressing alternate ending.

Jachin is addicted to video games. If we let him, he would play from the time he woke up until his body finally crashed 36 hours later. Because of this, I told him flat out several years ago that he would never have a Nintendo DS, or any other hand held computer gaming system that he could hide in his closet with and secretly play until his heart gave out.

However, this doesn’t stop him from asking over and over for one anyway.

This morning there was a commercial on (strategically placed between stupid Saturday morning cartoons) portraying children sitting outside together on a bright, sunshiny day, all holding their Nintendo DSes, their glazed over faces each playing a game on a tiny screen. This commercial drives me crazy; I want to yell to the children in TV “The sun is shining! Have your idiot parents buy you a ball!” But  no, the children just sit there, oblivious of the other children around them, each playing their own game on their own tiny screen. And this, of course, is marketed as fun.

“Mom, I really want one of those!” Jachin says.

“I know you do,” I say.

“Please? For Christmas?”

“Jachin, if you had one of those, you would be just like those kids sitting there in a gaming coma. You would never do anything else.”

He formed a plan in his mind. “I would take a nice break every time the batteries died.”

Zoe jumped in with an assist for her brother. “Yeah, and since he would be playing it all of the time, the batteries would die pretty often.”

“Hmm, that’s true…” I agreed. “Hey, wait! I mean… no, you are not getting a DS!”

“Crap, Zoe,” Jachin whispered to his sister. “We tried.”

They are two diabolical masterminds, I’m telling ya.

I wanted to post about how nice the day was with Jon’s sisters and their families… but really I just feel like barfing from overeating. Every part of me feels bloated and — somehow — filled with turkey and pie. Mostly pie.

Coherent post tomorrow.

Wednesday my sister, Sam, came over to make caramels and hang out. My mother-in-law taught me a couple of years ago how to make awesome caramels, and I’m passing the knowledge on to my sis. The key: there is lots and lots of stirring involved.

Before you even begin the cooking process, though, you have to caffeine up on lots of Diet Coke.

And then you have to receive a visit from the Yankee Fairy, who blesses your kitchen with warm, caramel blessings.

And then you have the Yankee Fairy take really attractive pictures of you and your sister.

And then you are finally ready to make caramels.

(Pics of the finished product will be posted later… assuming I don’t eat them all.)

Tonight Zoe and I had a girls’ night at the Jazz game while the boys went Christmas shopping.

Zoe is a crazy fan. She actually pays close attention. She clacks her noise-maker to the beat of the loud speakers. She chants “De-Fense” at the appropriate times. She does the low voice “Boooooo-zer” when Carlos Boozer scores. She is a real fan. It’s precious… and makes me proud.