When the Virginia Lambsons and the Georgia Lambsons get together, laughter and silliness ensue!

Click HERE to see how we spent our Thanksgiving. We wish you all could have been there.

How cute is THAT?!



And THAT?!

So, SOOOOO cute, that's how cute.

Hey! What the world was TGIM thinking?! Look at these cliffs! Look at MY CHILDREN! And their COUSINS! Honestly! I CANNOT BELIEVE they did this...


...hiking in... Note use of Big Sticks to keep wild animals (and any cousins attempting to pass to the front) at bay...


...diving from big big big high rocks-- Geronimo!...


...daredeviling it up!...


(Wow. Good form, Tanner)


... and fishing (a much better use of Big Sticks I'd have to say)...

...all THIS... this... this CRAZINESS!... without ME!!!

Man. I seriously miss all the fun. And I'm the one who discovered the joys of cliff-diving at Sycamore Canyon in the first place! (except I'd actually be DIVING, but we can't all be as cool as me. I'm just saying.) Meanies.

*jealous*

... for my little Mack Attack's (not so) dearly departed tonsils and adenoids. May they be safely and hygienically disposed of in a proper medical waste incinerator in peace.

ETA: Wow. We're back already. I thought this would be an all-day thing, but here we are all tucked into bed watching SpongeBob. Well, she's tucked. I'm tucking. And fussing. And shoving meds down her throat. And fussing some more. Basically doing the Momma Thing. Plus, cartoons? BONUS.

SpongeBob? Funny stuff.



I was shocked-- shocked!-- to discover they can flavor the knock-you-out-in-two-seconds-FLAT gas. Of course, the obvious choice today was bubble gum. I checked it out, you know, for scientific purposes. VERY cool. I personally think adults get the shaft with the whole put-the-IV-in-before-they-knock-you-out thing.



Despite the fact that someone just cut overlarge masses of lymphoid tissue out of her throat, she's more concerned about the killer IV binding. "Hey... why is there BLOOD in the tube?!..."



This is Aaron "helping." Totally "paying attention." Really "being there" for his daughter. (Sudoku. It's a sickness, y'all.)

** Devote every waking moment that isn't spent hurrying through homework or re-reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to practicing magic tricks, card tricks, and sleight of hand. Then, after asking (read: forcing) me, your sisters, and TGIM to sit through The Great Tanndini's Magic Show, spend the majority of the time either threatening your sisters with imminent death if they reveal your secrets or muttering, "Wait... just a sec... let me do that over" before finally astounding us with your mad magic skillz, thus assuring us that the magic set we gave you for your tenth birthday was a stroke of absolute genius (read: utter madness).


** When asked to get your stinky, smelly, eight-year-old self in the shower after an afternoon of hardcore playground, er... playing-- because I won't have you going to school smelling like butt, that's why-- you strip down to your undies and proceed to dance in the Naughty Zone (tm mrtl), shimmying and shaking your booty all the way to the bathroom while shouting "Momma, lookit! Momma, look at me! Look!" between giggles. (What?! I sure didn't teach her that...)


** After running circles around the basketball courts like a cute little six-year-old Energizer bunny hopped up on sugar and caffeine-- eyes glued to the sky, golden-blonde curls bouncing, upper lip buttoned firmly by your lower in concentration as you maneuver your $3.99 dragon kite to find the best wind on the playground-- approach me, pink cheeked and breathing hard, dragging your kite by two yards of string strung out behind you, and beg for a "small sip" from my water bottle. After taking three greedy, unladylike gulps and exhaling loudly with satisfaction, carelessly wipe the back of your hand across your mouth, hand back the bottle, and say with a reassuring grin, "Don't worry, Momma. I didn't mouthwash."

That, coupled with your earnest belief that you will absolutely never ever be able to get that "sticky tree zap" off the bottom of your foot and-- grr! argh!-- will I please just get off the computer and help you, compels me ask myself, "Self? Can't she stay this adorable forever?"

Man. Don't you just love it when TV and reality come together?

I mean, seriously... how cool is that?! Turning on the television and seeing your life played out right on screen?! In front of God and everybody?! And you're all, "What the freak?!" And jumping up and down with excitement? But also feeling a little scared? Like Twighlight Zone scared? Because of the freakiness? But still totally excited?

Good times.

Last week, thanks to my mad TiFauxing abilities, I watched How I Met Your Mother for the first time (because... Willow?!) and experienced just such an extraordinary melding together of life and entertainment.

Okay, so I saw an episode in which Lily (Willow!) goes to her fiance Marshall's hometown of St. Cloud to meet her future in-laws and it turns out he has five or six brothers and they are practically giants! With the tallness? And the aggressiveness? And the eating of fat-laden food in mass quantities? Seriously. The family consists of several huge men who eat seven-layer salad full of gummi bears, potato chips, sixteen cups of mayo, and funyons, and who play bas-ice-ball, a dangerous combination of basketball and hockey. ("What are the rules?" "There are no rules! We just wale on each other!") Honestly. Lily looks like a Hobbit person next to these people. And of course everyone in town seems to know "those Erickson boys."

Okay, creepy. I about peed my pants laughing, I kid you not, because that? Yeah, that would Aaron's family. Exactly. Well, except the seven-layer salad thing for which I am thankful because there is just not enough ew. Biscuits with sausage gravy would be Aaron's family's poison.

To illustrate:

Live in a small, close-knit town? Check.

Eat mass quantities of fat-laden food, slapping like a red-headed stepchild anyone who dares get in the way? Check.

There are, like, a gazillion of them? Check!

Everyone in their home town knows them AND gets all up in their (and my) bidness? O. M. G. There is not enough check.

Shoot each other with paintball guns at point-blank range causing huge welts and bloody wounds, wrestle around on the floor until someone screams like a girly-girl begging for mercy, and play vicious games of tackle football on the front lawn? Ch-ch-ch-check.

Dwarf me like a little Hobbit person, even the girls? You better believe it. And check.

Just look at 'em, all big and stuff:



Keep in mind that Aaron (see his hair, in back there?) is 6'1"... and a half. Also keep in mind my youngest sister-in-law is scrunching down in front. Yeah. (I have no idea who the kid in front is. Probably a cousin who will one day be huge.)

And that is not even all of the boys! There are seven total. Yes, SEVEN.

At least my mother-in-law is not so much with the largeness. I don't feel so alone. So very, very alone... you know, what with the shortness and all? Okay, fine, in my in-laws' defense I should disclose that I am only 5'3", but still! Giants. All of them.



However, since it is apparent to me even now that in a few years my Mack and TD are going to look almost exactly like the cuties in the pictures below, I suppose I can forgive Aaron's family their freaky bigness.



(Did you know that in small towns you can carry around large shotguns while wearing an excess of camouflage-- which pretty much flatters any figure, by the way-- without anyone looking twice? It's true! I am so serious.)



PRETTY.

But I digress. The show ended with Willow-- I mean LILY-- getting arrested for public urination after going to the store to buy a pregnancy test. Honestly. How surreal is that?! Oh, not that I've ever been arrested for public urination, but it could have happened! You don't know!

I'm totally watching again this week, I tell you what, just to see if anything else resembles my life. Ooh! Maybe someone will be arrested after she finds a hotel room key (while drying off with a towel she found on a deck chair after being thrown into a fancy shmancy hotel pool fully clothed), decides to take just a quick little peek at one of the fancy rooms, gets caught "breaking and entering" by the Chief of Police whose key she happened to swipe and whose room she happened to take a peek at while he was innocently chillin' in the jacuzzi (even though he was totally drunk off his butt and confused, and she didn't even go into his room at all, and she certainly didn't steal his keg because, I mean, where would she have PUT it, right?!), then subsequently gets cuffed, escorted through a lobby of curious onlookers, and hauled off to jail! Hoo! FUH-NEE!

Not that I've ever done that either. As if.

A little background courtesy of the AP, in case you missed it:

CARACAS, Venezuela Jan 8, 2006 -- The American singer and activist Harry Belafonte called President Bush "the greatest terrorist in the world" on Sunday and said millions of Americans support the socialist revolution of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.

Belafonte led a delegation of Americans including the actor Danny Glover and the Princeton University scholar Cornel West that met the Venezuelan president for more than six hours late Saturday and attended his television and radio broadcast on Sunday.

"No matter what the greatest tyrant in the world, the greatest terrorist in the world, George W. Bush says, we're here to tell you: Not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of the American people ... support your revolution," Belafonte told Chavez during the broadcast.

Oh no he DI'NT!

UNICEF was quick to distance themselves, naturally.

Fired up, I sent several executives at UNICEF the following e-mail:

On January 9, 2006, you stated in a press release that "Comments over the weekend by Harry Belafonte in Venezuela were made as a private citizen." However, I have to wonder why UNICEF does not find a more diplomatic goodwill ambassador, one who does not require the organization's disavowal of his public statements. I am sure there are many more temperate candidates available. When your organization lets comments like Belafonte's slip by unchallenged you lend those comments credence by default. His comments have had a negative impact on UNICEF, whether he stated them as a private citizen or UNICEF goodwill ambassador.

UNICEF is a wonderful charity. I would hate to see this organization lose donations due to the outrageously stupid statements of Harry Belafonte.

That's all I have to say about that.