Little Picasso

My lack of artistic ability is legendary. When I started kindergarten, my stick figures could hold their own, but unfortunately my talent continued to stay at that same level for the next 20 years. By the time I got to junior high, I'm pretty sure I made my art teacher question his career path on a daily basis.

So nothing thrills me more than the fact that Riley seems to have not taken after me when it comes to art. The kid is down right obsessed with drawing these days. I'm not ashamed to admit I think he might already be a better artist than me. Okay, so maybe i'm a tiny bit ashamed.

Here's a sample of some of his latest work. They are available for viewing at the McMurry Art Gallery. Price of admission is only $20 dollars-ish.

This is a duck, hovering over a pond, in case you can't tell. Not the best pic, but trust me. It's a thing of beauty.


A self-portrait of Riley getting his yogurt out of the refrigerator.
Some sort of rocket. I may possibly have taken the photo upside down but I can't be sure.

Last week when we were at the doctor's office, the doc was flipping through Riley's art book and came across this little beauty:
The following conversation ensued.

Doc: Wow, these are really good. Especially that helicopter. That's pretty amazing.
Me: Umm, well I actually drew that last one. Except for the smiley face pilot.
Doc: Hmmm... Well, the Kid must take after his dad, right?

Rub-A-Dub

I'm not totally sure Asher was enjoying his bath, but here's some pictures for the Grandma's anyway.

You did what now?

So maybe I'm just a follower, but I saw this on Natalie and Fig's blog and decided I loved it and wanted to copy it.

Dear Coma Guy: I'm sorry I stole some candy out of your hospital room when no one was looking.

Dear Sister # 1: I'm sorry I tricked you into watching the "Changling" with me and then scared you half to death by climbing under your bed and banging on your bed poles in the middle of the night.

Dear Sister #2: I'm sorry I shot you with a bb gun and then told everyone it was an accident. I'm actually pretty sure I did it on purpose.

Dear Brother: I'm sorry I kept my mouth shut that one time when mom was cutting your hair, slipped, and shaved your neckline halfway up the back of your head. It wasn't until a few weeks later, when your hair was growing back in ugly patches, that you finally discovered why everyone had been laughing at you.

Dear High School Self: I'm sorry that I had no idea how to fix your hair, your make-up, or dress you in a semi-fashionable manner. I'm also sorry I made you play the french horn in the pep band.

Dear Boyfriends #1, #2, and #3: I'm sorry I had the emotional maturity of a second-grader and decided that simply ignoring you was an acceptable method of breaking up.

Dear Trevor from BYU-Idaho: I'm so, so, so sorry that I hid in the closet when you came to pick me up from our date.

Dear Television: I'm sorry you have to work so hard. One of these days I'll give you a nice long break.

Dear Riley: I'm sorry the television is your surrogate mother.

Dear Fig: I'm sorry Riley threw fruit salad on your wall during dinner.

Dear Puerto Rico: I'm sorry I never made it to see you last summer like I promised. One of these days, I'll be there.

Dear Husband: I'm sorry I wore old lady pajamas on our wedding night.

Dear Mom: I'm sorry I bought you a book one year for Christmas about how to have successful family relationships. I have no idea why I ever thought that would be a good idea.

Dear Mother-In-Law: I'm sorry I cried to Sam that first summer after we were married and practically lived at your house that I was sick of eating PB and J and I needed some fruits and vegetables. I'm doubly sorry that Sam went to you and told you to start cooking meals for me after you got home from a long, hard day of work. I promise, I never asked him to do that.



Ahhh....I feel so much better.

It's about time

Christmas---despite my lack of enthusiasm for posting the pictures---was fabulous! We spent almost the entire break in Utah and Colorado, surrounded by friends, family, and lots and lots of snow.

I'll try to recap the whole thing in as few words as possible.



Pre-departure, there was the ugly sweater competition with friends.


At my mom and dad's house, Riley discovered puppy love. Asher was mighty relieved that big brother had someone else to poke, nuzzle, and lug around.

See, doesn't he look relieved?



Then, we drove to Colorado in a blinding blizzard to spend Christmas day at my sister's house. We dressed the kids up to re-enact the nativity scene and Joseph had a grand old time wiping his mascara beard on everything in sight.



Then, Mary and Joseph started fighting over who got to ride the donkey. Jospeh won.


Finally, after much prodding, Joseph decided it would be all right to share.


Baby Jesus took everything in stride.

Then, I made the boys pose for some Christmas photos. I love how Asher has the exact same look on his face in all the pictures.

"Gee mom, I thought we discussed this. You said you weren't going to let this guy hold me anymore."

"Ummmm, mom...."


"I really don't have a good feeling about this."

Then, we drove to a ski resort in Colorado and met up with all our Okie family and stayed in a beautiful condo, courtesy of my Grandma.

There was lots of family bonding time.

Makeovers....
Learning to ski....

And doing the "Bye, Bye, Bye" Dance while on skis (Although I have no memory of this, I can't figure out what else I would have been doing that would make me look so lurpy.)


Good times.

Intrepid Reporter

Now that my days are pretty much plumb full--what with trying only semi-successfully to keep the Riles from shoving his morning cereal into the baby's mouth--I've had to quit my part-time, work-from-home job.

You see, I am a freelance reporter. Er, was. And truth be told, I kind of miss it. (Except for the hair-pulling stress fest that happened every week because I procrastinated and had to scramble like a madwoman to meet my final deadline.) A part of me liked being able to identify myself as a working girl. When someone asked if I had a job, I liked being able to say, "I'm a correspondent for a newspaper back in Utah."

It sounded impressive enough, as long as no one asked any questions. But unfortunately, people usually did ask questions, and I either had to answer them or stare at their face for awhile and then run away. When I did answer them, the convo usually went something like this:

Q: How big is the newspaper you write for?
A: Well, we cover a middle-of-nowhere area with a handful of small towns whose population combined still wouldn't equal that of a semi-respectable metropolis.

Q: How many people read your stories?
A: Four. An editor, my mom, grandma, and on extremely special occasions, my husband.

Q: What kind of stories do you write?
A: If it's something contained in the annals of small towndem, I've covered it. Beauty pageants, county commission meetings, features on Farmer Joe Jr. winning the 4-H competition. All very exciting stuff.

And even though I never reached the Wall-Street-Journal employment status that I envisioned when I decided to be a journalist, I've still had my fair share of rewarding experiences as a small-town reporter. Those aren't very fun to talk about though, so I'll share my most shameful moments in journalism instead.


Goats Gone Wild and Other Unknowns

I still remember the first story I was assigned to write professionally. I was home from college for the summer feeling like hot stuff because I had, like, one entire journalism class under my belt. I strutted into the newspaper office that day wearing my only pair of shoes with a heel on them (Yep, it's true. I had no style. Note to self: You were supposed to work on that).

I was expecting the editor to hand me some terribly exciting crime story. Instead, I was instructed to drive to Ballard and meet Mabel something-or-the-other out in her cow pasture. You see, Mabel's goat had just given birth to quadruplets (or maybe it was quintuplets...I forget which). I was given the oh-so-important task of getting a picture.

So, I made the drive and started trekking through Mabel's muddy field in my only pair of heels. Now, at this point, you're probably asking yourself, "Self, I've never photographed goats before. I wonder if they're cooperative subjects." Let me just clear that up for you. No. No they are not.

I herded those stupid goats around that field for an hour while they ran from me and Mabel laughed. But this was my first assignment, darn it, and I was not going to mess it up. I think the end result was a picture of one of the goats looking at me and the rest of them mooning the camera.

Later that summer, I was also assigned to write a story about a dark, new trend among male teenage athletes. You see, groups of them were, ahem, shaving their legs. I had to immerse myself in this world of teen angst to get the real story.

Why were they doing this? What was their motivation?

I don't have the article in front of me for reference and, surprise surprise, it apparently wasn't deemed worthy enough to make the online archives. But, to the best of my recollection, these are some of the shocking answers I helped reveal to the world.

"Because it feels, like, so totally smooth when I climb into bed at night."

"It helped me shave like 1/980,000 thousandth of a second off my swim time."

On the plus side, at least I have a couple of stories I can add to my resume when I do decide to seek employment at the Wall Street Journal.

Drama Queen

It's good to see that four of the five readers of my old blog made it to the new site. Thanks for following us here.

I guess maybe I have some 'splainin to do about the new address. Awhile back, some weirdy with an unknown number started calling my phone and making extremely unwelcome and disturbing comments. And while I don't think this is the fault of the internet, (oh internet, you know I could never hate you) it did make me decide to be more careful.

As part of my new careful campaign, I figured a blog address that didn't include our last name might be a good idea. So if any of you out there have us on your blogroll, please identify the site as either "The Homefront" or "Sam and Lacey."

In retrospect, the whole freaky experience with my phone caller was probably just some random, sick prank. He appears to have grown bored of me not answering his calls and has found someone else to bother.

But, at the time the calls were coming, it almost pushed me over the edge. I may as well admit, I'm terrified of weirdys anyway. I hate being home alone at night when Sam is gone. I freak out at the tiniest of unknown noises. And, I may or may not be afraid of the dark.

I know, I'm kind of a freak. But at least I'm a freak who is now toting some mace. Now if I can only manage to keep the Riles from spraying himself in the face with it, life will be good.

Sweet Baby Asher,part two

Sweet baby Asher is three months old today. I'm having a really hard time facing up to the fact that my little guy is almost out of the newborn stage. Here are some things you may or may not want to know about him.

--He weighs in at about 14 pounds and has a massive double chin.
--He's a cuddler, a cooer, a sleeper, and a grunter.
-- He frequently smells like baby puke. Maybe his mom, whoever she is, should consider bathing him more than once a week.
--He hardly ever cries. When big brother's loving gets a little too hard too handle, Asher's eyes scream out, "Help me, Help me!" but his lips stay sealed. In short, the heavens seem to have recognized that another, shall we say, strong-willed child would be it for me and procreation. Asher is as mild-mannered as they come. Knock on wood.

When Asher first came home from the hospital, my multi-talented friend Fig came over with her fancy-schmancy camera and took some photos of him for me. Said photo shoot resulted in Asher peeing on five sheets, two pillows, and my blue jeans. Fig and I also about died from laughter at our extreme inaptitude of posing a newborn.

Still, she got some great shots. I know they're two months old, but I still wanted to share.





And here's Asher today, thanks to my multi-talented S-I-L Sarah and her fancy, schmancy camera.

Sweet Baby Asher, part one

We blessed little baby Asher last Sunday in church. Sam gave a beautiful blessing and the day could not have been more perfect. Asher was like, so totally the most popular baby around--lots and lots lots of family were able to travel here for his blessing. Thanks you guys! It made the day really special to be able to be surrounded by everyone we love.

The Two Grandmas

All of us

Me, my momma, and my sis. Love you guys!

Trick or Treat

We just polished off the rest of Riley's Halloween candy tonight, which reminded me I still had Halloween pictures to post.

Here's cowboy Riley...


And his faithful steed/giraffe/cow-like creature. I guess when you buy a $5 costume on clearance from Wal-mart, you run the risk of people not being able to tell what animal your child is supposed to be.

One of these days I'm going to buy myself a decent camera and some picture-taking skills and get some artsy pics of my kids in their costumes. Obviously, today is not that day but maybe there's still hope for the future.

Here's a couple more pics for your viewing pleasure.

Riley and his friend Jack, the dinosaur robot.

Pumpkin Time

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted! Things have been pretty crazy around La Casa De McMurry, what with trying to keep my house from imploding in its own vortex of filth and keeping one child from sitting on the other child's head.

We had a great Halloween. Riley was old enough this year to really "get it" and that made things pretty fun. Here are some pics of a pumpkin farm that we went to with friends last week.

Asher wasn't a fan of the little pumpkin stems poking him in the back.

It was pretty much impossible to get a decent shot of the two kiddos together. I caught Asher mid-yawn here, and that was the best I could do.

The four amigos.

Nest up: Halloween photos. I'll try to get them posted ASAP, but no promises.

The Fairest of them All

Growing up, I was never much of a fan of the fair. Why? Possibly because I lived in two of the most podunkville counties known to man--places where the main event was determining which 4-H-er grew the biggest steer that year.

Fast forward 10 years, and I'm still not a huge fan. Our little neighborhood is just too close to the fairgrounds for comfort during those two weeks when the state fair rolls around. We have to deal with crazy traffic, cars blocking our driveway, litter in our yard.

On the plus side, we do get a front row seat to our own little parade of fairgoers....I promise, you've never seen so many mullets and gigantic belt buckles in your life. It's also exciting to watch the fights that inevitably break out between the fair drunkards in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart.

Anyway, given my long history of fair animosity, I had about decided that the McMurry family would not be attending this year. But then Riley found out the fair was in town, and made this face:

And who am I to say no to a face like this? (correction---faces like these. Sam was pretty excited too.)

So, we went to the fair and ended up having a pretty smashing time.

Riley almost passed out from the thrill of having so many fun toys to ride on.




Then, we went to the petting zoo and paid an arm and a leg for a miniature-sized cup of grain. All the animals looked like they were about to pop from being feed non-stop for two weeks, and none of them wanted anything to do with us. That is, until one goat wandered over, stuck his head through the fence, and yanked the grain right out of Riley's hands and ate every last bite. And then he ate the cup.

And Riley, of course, started wailing. At the top of his lungs. I think that's the loudest I have ever heard this kid yell, and that's saying a lot. And all of a sudden, in a noisy petting zoo filled with 200 people and lots of stinky animals, everything went absolutely silent. And then everyone turned and stared at us. At least, that's how it seemed to me.

After our somewhat hasty exit from the petting zoo, I was introduced to the culinary love of my life:


State fair corn dogs. Uummmmmm.... I always thought the culinary love of my food life would be creme brule or some other sophisticated food with a fancy french name that I never know exactly how to pronounce. But, nope, turns out it's a corn dog. I'm not exactly sure what this says about me.

Want to know my favorite part of the fair? The time when Sam actually plunked down money (granted, it was only 50 cents) to take a peek at one of the freak booths. We stood by this booth for approximately 3 hours waiting in line for the rides with Riley, so I have the schpill memorized. "Come see the girl with the face of an angel and the body of a disgusting, 200 pound snake. She has traveled all around the world telling her fascinating story to thousands of people and will gladly answer all of your questions."

So Sam entered the booth only to find out that....well...I don't want to completely ruin the snake girl's chance to make a living for herself, seeing as how she probably has to buy rats for all of her snake babies to eat. But lets just say that her secret involves a table with a hole cut in it and a snake girl who inexplicably doesn't have the ability to move her own snake body.