I Was REALLY Trying To Hold On To This One, BUT.....

Ta Dah!  No, it's not Tommy we're looking at, look a little bit further to the left and you will see none other than "Mr. Tennis" himself, John McEnroe!  We had an 80's Halloween party (halloweiner if Kim's reading this.  I always try to sneak that word in whenever I can.  It freaks her out) about 8 years ago. (I know, I know, my Tommy looks like he's all but 10 years old in this picture.  He was 24 AND smokin' hot in those acid washed jeans, might I add.)

Well, you see, the reason why I'm posting this picture is because we all know Brother Burkinshaw loves little "shout-outs" every once in a while, and I just could NOT resist.  Before the party, we all went over to Goodwill to find our outfits, and Tommy came across a pair of rainbow underwear.  I mean, seriously guys, come on, who in their right freaking mind would buy used underwear??  Well, that's where our John McEnroe comes in.  We didn't know it, but Ryan actually BOUGHT and WORE them (stuffed, yes, you'll have to enlarge the picture and squint really tight to get a good look) under those short green shorts of his to the party!!

I'm guessing it won't take but about 30 minutes after making this post public, that I'll be getting a phone call or some crazy anonymous comment from our Ryan.  Should I call him and give him a head's up?  Nah!  (He's my #1 blog fan, checks it ALL the time).  I'm so busted, but we all know he is secretly loving it!  So Ryan, I really wanted to save this one for your birthday, but I just couldn't resist.

See Tommy, you're not the only one I pick on!

Case In Point...

So, speaking of bribery i.e., Swayze's shiny new purple metallic shoes, I decided to write about how I fully endorse this concept.  Let me just say, it has gotten me many things in life:

• My first tutu.  I think this one was for not sucking my thumb.  Although it was short-lived, (the thumb-sucking that is.)  My mom used to put this liquid stuff on my thumb called "STOP" or something to that affect.  I got used to the taste and started actually asking her to put it on.  Now, looking back, I bet I just asked her for it to make her mad. :)
• My first pair of roller skates.  Again, probably for the thumb-sucking, or to get me to stop wetting my pants.  And yes, I was probably about 6 by the time I officially quit.  And darn proud of it, too, thank you very much.
• Sticker book loaded with stickers.  This one was to get me to stop biting my fingernails.  My dad once told me that he was dating some gorgeous chick and when he finally got a good look at her hands, they were practically bitten down to the bone (so he broke up with her, supposedly).  He told me boys aren't as attracted to girls that bite their nails.  Well, I scored Tommy, didn't I?!
• My first pair of "bike shorts" with hot pink stripes down the side.  Not the bike shorts we're used to seeing on bikes, but you know, 90's MC Hammer style.  I got them for memorizing the 13th Article of Faith.  Yeah, I was lookin' a little "Too Legit To Quit."
• My mom used to let me watch "Beverly Hills, 90210" IF I read my Seminary Scripture assignment each week.
• My dad promised me the "car of my dreams" if I could get straight A's my senior year of high school.  Let's just say that one DID NOT happen.  Not even remotely close. 

So you see, bribery can be a beautiful thing.  If all it's going to take is a pair of shoes to get Swayze weaned (no Kim, I didn't say weiner) from the bottle, I'm down with it. 

Poor Thing...

So we're going on day 4.  She came to me crying this morning and simply said, "Mom, I just need a ba-ba."  I feel like the meanest mom, ever.  So I bought her a pair of shoes today, thinking they might cheer her up.  (somehow, it always works for me.)  Worked like a charm. :)

"Hi, I'm Swayze, And I'm a Milkaholic."

(Everyone, in unison...) "Hi Swayze!"  Yada - yada - yada.  As of yesterday, my little Swayze has been forced into ba-ba rehab.  She's currently detoxing as we speak.  Poor Swazzle-Nazzle.  She's probably thinking her little world is coming to an end.   

When she was at the sitter's house today, every time she walked past someone's bottle on the counter, she'd tell the sitter, "Mommy says no more ba-ba."  We're down to just one for naptime and bedtime.  (that's pretty good, if you ask me.)  So send lots of love her way this week.  And mine too.  For my sanity.

This Is What Happens...

When you mix a little one o' clock church + no nap + a cold bottle of milk.  The kids are all in agreement that we need to buy Swayze her own cow.  That way, she can just go out to the backyard, and squeeze a little cow teet and have her very own, self-serve ba-ba. (yeah, yeah.  I haven't taken it away yet.  Remember the whole "Mama bear and her cub" thing?)

Happy Birthday "Windy Doodle!"

Just wanted to give a little "Woop! Woop!" to my mom today.  She's one heckuva lady.  She and I have had our "moments," but I love her so much and don't feel like I've told her enough how great of a mother she's been to me.  I have a hard time writing sappy junk, as you've all seen in the past (well, all of my) posts.  I get my smart-a@#%ness from her.  And I think I like that quality, to be quite honest with you.

Let me just share a few tidbits about this chick:

• she can shoot a gun like it's no one's business.  I think we had a gun in every bedroom growing up on the ranch.  She even had one under the seat of our car.  I can't tell you how many times the car came to a screeching halt when she saw a fat, juicy squirrel and blow it's head off.
• she taught our parrot, Kermit to say, "I'm a Mormon, I'm a Mormon."  The guy that bought him from us (not LDS) wasn't too pleased.
• she absolutely rocked the wife-beater/no bra thing back in the day.  My mom had a killer body, still does.  (all my guy friends in high school had the biggest crush on her)
• she's always made the yummiest meals.  EVER.  She even paid her accountant by making steak dinners for him each year.
• she's the best nurse in the whole wide world.  I'm telling you, when you're on your death-bed, you want this chica around, fo sho!  Just don't expect her to clean up any throw-up.  She'll turn around and run the other way.  (I wonder wear I get it from?)
• she's intimidating as all get out.  I personally think it's a good thing.  You don't want to screw with her.  She's one tough mutha' and knows how to give a good "Chinese Torture."  DONT. MESS. WITH. HER. (and just as a heads-up, don't ever mention immunizing issues, EVER)

One of my favorite "Mom" stories goes a little somethin' like this:

So we're on our way home from school one day, and we had full-time cowboys living  in a trailer next to our house.  We came to be good friends with one in particular, Richard Selander.  Richard had just bought a really nice dirt bike, motorcycle thing, and as we're pulling up to the house, we saw that he had just washed it.  So my mom makes us all get out and get all the horse poop and mud we could possibly find and throw it onto the bike.  We were practically massaging that baby with mud!  She always loves to get a rise out of people.

Happy birthday Mom, your present's gonna be a little late as well, so I figured I'd better butter you up a little before it comes.  Thanks for being the best wife, mother, daughter and friend.  Love you.

Ok, enough sap.  Birthday week is officially over.  Tommy says it's been nice because I haven't ripped on him in my posts the past few days.  Ooooohh, you just wait, my little Tommicita!

This Month Is Such A Special One...

Today is my sister, Kim's birthday too.  I could tell you her age, but she might get a little miffed.  Oh well!  She's a whopping 3 -6!  Ha! Ha! Kim, that's what you get for not having your own blog.  It makes it kind of fun for me because I have some pretty good "Kimmie" stories (and pictures) up my sleeve!  Can I say, "Cabbage Patch Ceremony?!"  Just kidding, I wouldn't do that to you.  You better thank your lucky stars that video is on VHS, Missy!

I could list all the reasons why she's the bestest, most wonderful big sis in the world, but that would take waaay too long to post.  But I want you to know (even if you end up reading this next week because you think you're too busy to read my blog daily, you're forgivin) I love you so much.  More than you know.  You've been the best example of a big sister,  (even when you pushed me into the glass jars downstairs in the laundry room and I got blamed for it, AND got spanked AND cried even harder for you because I just KNEW you were gonna get spanked harder because it really was your fault, but you didn't get spanked harder because Dad's hand was too cold!  Yeah, right.)  I'm sure your version of the story is different, Kim, but remember - this is my blog and I can tell the story the way I remember it.

Your present is going to be a little late this year - what's new?  And it won't be generic or anything.  We've got to think of something better than Target gift cards next year!  Hey, it's better than Eric's Caesar Salad kit!

Love you Kimbo!!

Happy Birthday Doody Bug!

My baby is 10 today.  Double digits!  (Well, not until 3:45 pm to be exact.)  I felt like I was a baby myself when I had him.  I really have the best little boy a mom could ask for.  He is the most kind, tender-hearted kid ever.  I was jacking around with him the other day and told him, "Dude, we don't have enough money this year for presents, is that gonna be ok?"  His answer?!  "That's ok Mom." For 'rizzle?  What kid says that?  I would have had had some serious panties in a wad if my mom told me that.  But that's just how he is.  I don't know where he gets it.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from my little tootles:  

• "I see you have a sword - I have one too!"  (age 2)
• "Hey, you gave me loaded dice!"  (age 3)
• "Hey, you splashed me!"  (age 3, when he went poop for the first time)
• "Me Me no like that!"  (age 3, when we would swing him around and make him dizzy)
• "Bow to me!"  (age 3, he was really into Mulan and swords back then)
• "I'm too many crinkley."  (age 4, and I can't even tell you what he meant, I think he was tired)

This little guy of ours also keeps me very humble.  Any time I'm out shopping with him, if I even attempt to buy something cool for myself, he says, "Mom, are you sure you should be buying that?  Dad might get mad."  Uh huh.  That's when I tell him it's gonna be our little secret.  I can usually get him to keep it on the "down low" with a Webkinz.  Hee! Hee!

I know we need to chill out with all our nicknames for him, but Doody, Tootles-McNoodles, Doodyton, Skid (yes, you read that right, he would rather be called Skid (as in skidmark) than be called Doody) Taggles, I love you so so sooooooooooo much.  Happy Birthday Dude!

More Halloween Pictures Past

I love this one.  I can laugh about it now.  We had just moved back to Utah and our ward was having a Halloween party.  And because I hate dressing up, I didn't want to go, but Tommy suckered me into going, so we were trying to find costumes at the last minute.  We couldn't come up with anything, so I decided to just be a cat (I'm thinking maybe the "pleather" pants weren't such a great idea.  Not a great way to introduce yourself in a new ward.)  So Tommy gets this bright idea that he's gonna be Don King.  (Again, maybe not such a great idea, either.)  We got quite the stares, and a few days later I was telling my mom what we had dressed up as, and all she said was, "Hmmmm...... I'm pretty sure it's against church policy to cross-race at a church party."  Oops.

Keagan, '06

Buddy the Elf, '07

Nacho Libre, '06

Keagan, '07

Swayze, '07

And People Ask Why I Don't Like To Dress Up...

Well, here is my #1 all-time reason why I don't like dressing up for Halloween.  I must have been about 5 or 6 here, and money was scarce, so my mom "hand-made" these costumes for us.  Now, my mom can whip just about anything imaginable up, but I swear, something went drastically wrong this particular year!  I think Kim and I were matching aliens or something.  (You can tell by the look on my face, it wasn't exactly what I wanted to be.  I was thinking something more along the lines of Wonder Woman.)

So we get to the school carnival, and 'lo and behold, there's my best friend, Lauren dressed up as Wonder Woman, go figure.  She even had the shiny red boots and lasso AND the gold cuffs to boot!  Man, was I one heckuva pissy little alien!

Now, let me remind everyone that Kim and I were wearing tin foil, and we can all imagine how quickly it tears.  Soooo, needless to say it started falling off, and all we had on underneath was a turleneck and tights and panties.  

I think it was safe to say we didn't win the "Best Costume Award" that year.

Drum Roll Please!

And the winner of the best comment on "I Came THIS Close!" goes to.......

My sister, Kim.  Lucky girl!  She gets an all-expense (on her dime) weekend with my Keagan!!  No really, I couldn't do that to her.  She has 5 kids and 1 husband that acts like one, too.  (Eric, you know I love you sometimes!)

This was her bestest advice:

"Here's an idea...why don't you let her spank YOU and tell her that you need to be punished for your failings as a mother?  That seemed to work well for Mom!  Hee! Hee!  I'll never forget that day when Mom handed you the wooden spoon and you got that crazy-happy look in your eyes and tore into her bum!  She told me that idea didn't work out quite like she had planned."

Ok, so here's the story.  It's an oldy but a goody.   It usually just so happened that when one of us sister's got in trouble, the other ones were involved, and I can't even remember what we had done to make my mom fly off the handle, but she decided to do a little "reverse-psychology" on us.  She told us how she was such an awful mom, and that it must be her fault why we were always so naughty.  Now, when we got spanked, it was quite the routine.  My parents would make us line up kneeling against the couch and we would all get the same amount of spankings.  I swear, I think I always got an extra few.  And did I mention the notoriously famous "wooden spoon?!?!"  That damn spoon, yes that's right, I said damn.  I HATED that thing!!  It was sort of oval shaped and had little slits in it.  I think my parents started using it because it started hurting their hands too much.  They tried a few different spoons, one was more paddly and wide and didn't hurt as bad, and I should've just kept my fat mouth shut and cried anyway, but they figured out that it wasn't doing the trick, so they moved on to the (damn) oval slitted one!

Anyhoo, back to my story.  So my mom tells us that WE should spank HER for our punishment, and of course my sisters were the being the biggest weenies EVER and were crying gigantor crocodile tears and said, "We cccaannnn'tt ddoo iitt!"  They barely even tapped her.  So it was FINALLY my turn, and boy almighty, I took full advantage of the situation.  I spanked her butt SOOOOO hard (and maybe a few too many times), but I knew this was gonna be my one and only chance, so I repeat, FULL ADVANTAGE.  I think she learned her lesson.  Turned out her bright idea came back and bit her in the butt.  (I mean spanked her in the butt.)  

Now I can't say I would try the same thing with Keags, because she has some of my demon child attributes as well, and I think we can all guess what she'd do!

Thanks for the great advice everyone!  We can all breathe a big sigh of relief.  I haven't listed her on Ebay - yet.  (It probably doesn't help that Tommy changed the Ebay password, so my shopping privileges have been revoked, go figure.)