I have to say, I now understand the expression "I want to pull my hair out!". It probably won't mean anything to you but pull up a chair (or a stump or a rock) and listen to my little pity party story. This tale begins in a quiet town full of quiet people and a very annoying mayor. The poor woman that this story is about naively goes about her business and works VERY hard to make life a little more comfortable for her little family. What does she do, you ask? Countless things, innumerable things, things that most people would scoff at and say they quit after being required to do them more than twice. But does this woman complain? No! Of course not........ OK, she complains sometimes. There, are you happy!? Anyway, she goes about, working hard and doing things that her family doesn't really even notice. One day she cleans from morning to evening, sweeping and mopping sticky, muddy floors, vacuuming carpet that a two year old so callously spit celery and carrot chunks onto, decluttering papers that have been strewn about by thoughtless fingers, cleaning the typhoid ridden childrens bedrooms that have been quarenteened for the protection of the public and doing dishes because the last clean cup was just used to drown Thomas the Train. She doesn't mind the work, it gives her time to think. And besides that, she likes the end result of her labors...... a clean, warm, comfortable home that the family can enjoy without threat of stepping on a stray lego, or bruising a toe from kicking a matchbox car. So she finishes her routine and that evening has an appointment that takes her away from the home. No problem, her responsible and caring husband is there to care for the little ones. As she returns home, a little later than she thought she would be, she is overtaken in the driveway by 2 superheroes who were screaming MOMMY!!!!!!! She is surprised that her children could become superheroes because she had hidden the superhero costumes on a high shelf, waiting to be pulled out next halloween when they would actually fit. She keeps a smile on her face and plays along with the excited power rangers, who are on a mission to show their strength by flexing their arms, which were bulging from the cotton that was stuffed into the outfits. She enters the, surprisingly, clean home and brushes off that the kids should have been in bed a half hour ago, once again, she has a smile on her face. As she ushers her children upstairs to prepare to retire for the evening, the superheroes request that they be allowed to sleep in their superhero outfits. Sure! No problem! She says positively, keeping the smile on her face. As she enters the childrens rooms, the smile melts into a face that can best be described with a scene of a movie. The movie is Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. They have found the HolyGrail and the bad guys have to show their stupidity by opening the grail and looking at it and as a result, all their faces melt off. That's right, MELT OFF! So now you can imagine what happened to the poor woman from the story. As her face melted away, revealing the devil inside, she entered the war zone. Books spewn on the floor, wanting so badly to be on their empty shelves where they belong, all the bedding torn off the beds, every toy bin emptied and turned over upside down to create a haphazard drum set, toys flung about, unplayed with but still moved from their rightful place, clothes scattered to the wind, shelves emptied of their contents. No pebble left unturned, no item left undisturbed. The woman found a voice in her that, honestly, belongs in a grown, robust lumberjack. She baratoned her disgust with the unfairness of the world and her anger about the messy rooms and messy toys and messy kids and messy this and messy that and messy blah blah blah. Finally she stormed downstairs and pouted in the messy computer room. And do you know what she came to realize, after way too much time? She is a stupid, silly, onery woman who ruined a very good evening and a potentially good bedtime. The woman learned a simple lesson that evening. The lesson being, messes don't mean anything, they don't mean that you are a dirty person, or that you live a chaotic lifestyle. Messes are what they are. Nothing more, nothing less. Messes had no right to make a child upset, or sad, and neither did the woman. She blew it. She completely blew it. She put the cleanliness of the home over her children and husbands feelings. She realized her mistake and vowed to change. Luckily, her children and husband are forgiving and quickly helped her escort the lumberjack voice back to the reccesses of her mind, hopefully, to be locked away for a very long time. Then they expertly duct taped her melted face back onto her skull, showing only a hint of the devil inside through her expressive eyes. Next time, maybe the woman SHOULD just pull her hair out, I imagine it is easier to wear a wig than it is to reattach a face.

So I thought that I would put some pictures of the kids on this entry. The pictures I chose are some super cute ones. They are doing one of my very favorite things that kids do..... they are sleeping. Kids look so serene and peaceful when they sleep. I love sleepy pictures. Sometimes we catch the kids sleeping in wierd places or in odd positions and that is the jackpot. So enjoy the kid sleeping pictures.

I must say, this weather has been very odd lately. First, a huge snow storm that left everything under a beautiful blanket of white, quickly to be sledded over by little 2 and 6 year olds. My 4 year old refuses to sled down anything but our driveway and uses his tiny red snow shovel to cover a path of the driveway so that he can sled with everyone else (it is only a little annoying that he is putting snow ONTO our driveway, especially when he does it directly after I plow the whole thing). Second comes the nice, springtime jacket weather that melts the snowbanks on the sides of the roads down to little snowhills on the sides of the roads. The weather gave me spring fever and I think the only cure for my illness is April (I guess more cowbell could cure me too..... inside joke). The kids played outside on their bikes, wearing boots and jackets. Because of the melting snow there were MAJOR mud puddles, which my nephew Liam discovered when he was riding a little too quickly down the driveway on a razorscooter, Lucky for him, his superman flight was ended in a puddle of mucky slime instead of the bumper of our car or the asphalt. He was no more worse for the wear, other than that he looked like Arnold Swartzenhagger in Predator (you know the scene; the one where he hides from the predator by basically bathing in mud in order to have the advantage he needs to kill the monster). Anyway, just as we were becoming accustomed to the nice semi-warm-not-freezing-tolerable weather.........In comes number Three, the slush storm. It's the kind of weather that you look out the window and say "WOW!! That looks so freaking cool!" but then you go outside and you say "WOW!! This weather bites!!" and then you run back in the house, too late to salvage your hair or your socks. The slush stays on the roads and in the trees and on the sidewalks and on the grass and that night, the world freezes, leading the way to a frightful drive to church in the morning. A beautiful drive, save the horrified looks from the people within the car, as we realize that we are going to die if we press the breaks too hard. The funny thing is that within the 3 hour block of church, the world warmed up and the drive home was completely fine. Sometimes god blesses the terrified, I guess. Fourth, the fluffy stuff comes again and hides all the ugly slush under yet another blanket of snow. It is kind of cool though because the ground is still hard enough from the frozen slush that you can walk on top of it without falling through. So, all is pretty again. I have learned something positive in all this. There are things worse than freezing snow. It is called SLUSH!!!!

Ok. So Tom has taught me many things about the computer like how to turn it on, how to navigate the internet, how to turn the volume up AND down and how to write an email. He has not, however, taught me how to move a picture around so that I can write a blog without taking up a TON of space, but oh well. So I expect that Tom will look at this blog, sigh in resignation, and then fix the pictures himself. All of these pictures were taken by the kids with their new Kids cameras. They have both (Quyn and Cole) taken more than 300 pictures apiece, since christmas.

We have had a fun couple of weeks. I was able to sell the 59 BelAir last week, and MAN!!!! Does it feel good to have a 2 car garage again!. I am a happy camper, and I got exactly what I wanted for the car, even though the guy called me a head strong pitbull. We will be using the money to landscape the rest of the front lawn (even though we are half tempted to say screw you Cedar Hills and do nothing and get a 50 buck fine forever!! It's almost worth it except then I would have an ugly lawn forever). Anyway, So now mom has a place to park her car in the winter. And another good thing happened when we sold the car. When they moved it we found our missing green sled underneath it. So the kids were VERY happy about that. Who knows when, or if, we ever would have found it had we not sold the car. So, go us!! Another thing completed from the list of things to do.

We are gearing up to start the basement. We have enough to get a really good headstart on the framing. I am looking forward to slowly finishing over this year. Hopefully, there won't be too many problems and my goal through the whole thing is to do my best not to disagree with Tom too much..... ok, maybe I'll disagree but I will try to communicate with him about my disagreements. How about that? Better? I thought so.

The kids had their cousin Liam sleep over the other night and they slept in a tent up in the loft. They had a really good time and we (the haggard parents) finally got them to go to sleep at 11:30 pm. But I guess that is ok, they didn't have school the next day and everyone was playing well with each other, they were just REALLY noisy. But they did have a really good time and nobody was onery the next day.

Anyway, all is well in the Salmond home. We have been busy doing the type of things that nobody can remember the next day, we only remember that we were busy. It's all good though. Have a good day and a pleasant tomorow.

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Hey all you Rock Band enthusiests!! Wazzup!! I just wanted to tell ya'll that Tom and I have started a small band (consisting of me and Tom). We are excited about it and know that soon, all you cybergeeks will be talking about Penz n Payper at the water coolers during break time at work (do they even HAVE water coolers in offices anymore?). The name was really up in the air for a while there. We were considering The silver screens, with names like Katherine Hepburn and such but I didn't want to pigeon hole our band like that, so what did we end up with? Penz n Payper. I am Penelope Penz and Tom is Peter Payper (it sounds a lot like like Peter Piper doesn't it?ha ha ha). Our motto is Nine to five?.... I think not... How about dusk to dawn!! Anyway. Tom plays the drums (of course) and I am switching between the bass and lead guitar (because I am crazy like that). We started our little band in an attempt to have more hangout time with each other which doesn't include lounging on the couch, watching the tv and being lazy..... oh, wait...... that it exactly what playing rock band is!!!!!!!!!!! My plans have been foiled once again. Oh well.

We have had a great week. It seems to have flown by. I don't know why, but ever since our christmas break our little family has been getting along really well. Aside from my kids eating like birds and Coley constantly having accidents, our little family is doing fantastic. I guess it takes the perfect combination of patience, strictness and medication (ever heard of valium for children, all you Saturday Night Live fans?). Just kidding. OK. Let's do the run down. Ready?

Tom- Man who works hard and plays hard. Favorite past time (besides the obvious hanging out with his freaking awesome wife) is playing computer games over Hamachi with, usually, his daddy, and occasionally other friends and family members. He recently had some (potentially) bad moles removed from his back and is looking more and more like Frankenstein every year, with all his scars and stitch marks. He does not like the cold weather and does what he can to stay warm, except the obvious wearing a coat. He is a fantastic Sunday School teacher and I get the feeling that the 11 year old kids that are in his class actually like him as a person and not just as a teacher. He recently attended a city council meeting and fought Cedar Hills over a fine that they were giving us and we won. He stuck it to the man!! Go Tom!! He is a distractable, lovable, easily discouraged, teaser who hates to stop a movie half way through, even if it is REALLY late. Tom thinks exercise is typing really fast or taking the garbage to the curb (which is why he is so overweight). Tom loves his family and as long as there is respect for each other, he stays in a happy mood, usually. We love Tom more than dog poop (inside joke).

QuynhAnh- Girl who is a born leader but doesn't understand the finesse it requires to be a GOOD leader. She has moments of pure sugar and moments of pure acid. She plays very well with friends and sometimes well with brothers. Favorite past time is..... I would say.... definitely doing arts and crafts. She is always creating something or cooking something or drawing something. She loves animals and wants to be a horse rider when she grows up. She can get the next door neighbors furry four legged friends to come to her and often walks the fat little pygmy goat around on a leash (the perfect pet... someone elses). She enjoys school but not school lunch and doesn't like to walk home (but does anyway, if it good weather). When she is tired she becomes a diva, demanding things a certain way, refusing to let anyone touch her and demanding everything she wants..... then she goes to bed, because I will not have a diva in this house. Quynh loves us. She loves her little brothers and often is the one who solves the problems when they arise while they are all playing together. Her favorite color is pink. She started piano recently and seems to be catching on as fast as I did. Her favorite toys are Lovsey (a faded white plush dog with pink ears) and Little cutie pie (a little white dog who barks and moves around when you pet her). We love Q more than eggs.

Coltrane- Boy who is shy to strangers and very boisterous when he is comfortable. He has been known to whisper to me for an entire evening if there are people over that he doesn't know. Cole almost always asks permission to do things or have a snack. He won't touch the Xbox because I told him 1 time that he wasn't allowed to. Coltrane has a hot temper and if you hear "Isss not faaaa!!!" (It's not fair), it will always be Cole. He goes to his room often and has yet to learn that throwing fits makes things worse not better. Cole like to play trains with Keenan and will line up every car, train, and plane in the house, end on end and makes long snakes of vehicles all over the upstairs. Cole doesn't like to brush his teeth and will only let me do it is I sing the Star wars theme song. He will play the Xbox all day long if you let him. He is struggling with potty training and until recently was having 5-7 accidents a day. What changed, ask you? I told him that if he has an accident during the day then the next day he can't play the Xbox at all. It seems to be working. Coltrane sings star wars about 9 hours a day. He is nervous around animals and won't pet small dogs (they intimidate him more than big dogs, for some reason). We love Cole more than skunk stink.

Keenan- Boy who is entering his terrible 2's with a vengeance. He has a temper sometimes, too, and I can't help but chuckle when I hear him screaming non-sensicle words at people. Needless to say, he goes to the corner a few times a day. But he will stay in the corner all day if you don't go and take him out... sitting there, tears rolling down his cheeks and his bottom lip out. Keenan LOVES to play outside, rain, snow or shine. He plays in the dirt all summer and the snow all winter. Keenan loves carnation instant breakfast and would probably drink that every meal if I let him. He goes to sleep when we tell him to and sleeps with a Dr Seuss bear that he names Tiger. He likes to roll in the rugs and seems to get pleasure from destroying tidy rooms for no reason. He likes to be tickled and hugged and kissed. He also likes getting his hair cut. Keenan makes a lot of messes and is a very curious little guy. He still has a big head but it isn't half the size of his heart. He is quick to apologize and quick to hug. His favorite book is the little caterpillar book that turns into a butterfly in the end. He likes that it eats holes in all the food. We love Keenan more than rotten rotten food.

Julie (me)- Woman who shows her emotions on her sleeve, usually. She doesn't want to lose her identity by doing the same old thing every day so she and Tom try new things and have fun dates often. Julie cleans, cooks, gardens (sort of), takes care of children, and tries to get it all done before Tom gets home from work so that they can relax in the evening. Julie is discovering that her relationship with god is a lot stronger than she had feared it to be. She exercises 5 days a week and that seems to keep her mostly sane. She loves her family. She enjoys having her mom living with them and is not looking forward to when her mom moves away. Julie has finally learned that the most important thing in her life is her little family and so she tries very hard to keep them all loving and close to each other. She has a few New Years resolutions but only uplifting ones this year. She plays the ukulele somewhat, and is trying out shotokan to see if she likes it or not. She recently got a kickbutt haircut that she LOVES!! She likes to paint her toe nails black. Julie always has dry cracky skin in the winter and she hates it and wants to do something about it but absolutely loathes having lotion on her hands so she is at a loss as to what to do about the dilemma. Oh well. We love Julie more than Keenan poo.

So that is our little family in a nut shell. We are doing really well and are having a good time with each other. We are excited about church this year (11 AM!!! Sweet!), we are planning our trips, planning on how to finish the basement and the landscaping, planning, planning, planning! Anyway, I feel like we are finally getting everything put back together after a couple of years of struggle and tension. So this is what peace feels like, huh? I think I like it.

I must say, I wasn't incredibly optimistic, before the game, about the outcome of the Sugar Bowl. But because I am a true fan or I was afraid of jinxing the game (which one, I don't really know), I guessed that Utah would win over Alabama by 3-5 points. In my mind I was saying "It could happen.......Shaw! And monkeys could fly out of my butt" (Wayne's World plug), but I never would have admitted that I didn't really believe that they could pull it off. I think that Tom was much the same as me, only he predicted that the Utes would win by 3 million points then later revised that statement to 10-13 points. We had family over, which was super fun, and we all watched as Utah schooled Alabama. They came out in the first quarter like they were on fire! The scored really quickly 2 times and caused mass coronary failures across the country, including one in our living room. After being resessitated, Tom kept his emotions in check by yelling for the next 2 1/2 hours, randomly screaming insults at the referees, jumping up and down at every first down (and Utah had a lot of those) and punching and slapping siblings on the back after the good plays. So Tom pretty much behaved as if he was in the stadium with the rest of the screaming Ute fans. It was a phenominal game, with a lot of ups and a lot of downs. The score at the end of the game was Utah 31, Oklahoma 17. At the end of the game sportscasters across the nation were eating their words that they had said prior to the slaughter. We earned our win and we earned the right to say that the BCS is a screwed up system. I must say that the referees were amazing........... amazingly blind. I wonder how much they were paid by the BCS to throw that game. However much it was, they still couldn't stop the Utes. I mean, how could they? I'm not much of a Brian Johnson fan but he could throw a football over the mountains if he wanted to (Napoleon Dynomite plug). How about another one? Run! Asiata! Run!! (Forrest Gump plug). Anyway, it was a fantastic end to an even more fantastic season. I mean, it is so cool that this was our first year to get season tickets. We can't help but believe that we did our small part to help them have such a good season. You know what I mean....... our subconscious minds were hard at work telling the offensive coodinator to call an intelligent play once in a while, our mindless screaming and yelling to support our team in hopes to keep their spirits up, our outcries at the refs bad calls, our heckling and teasing of other fans just for the fun of it, our occasional prayers and pleads for a little heavenly assistance (I'm pretty sure that God is a sports fan)...... all these things add the ambiance and nature of football. We were a part of that and it was very fun. Will I speak ill of Alabama? No way! They were a good team, but they just couldn'at handle our crushing defense. Besides that, I'm afraid of jinxing the Utes by speaking ill of their opponents. Karma, man, karma. Karma reined supreme at the Sugar Bowl. So will we get season tickets next year? Need you ask? We have been hooked on the idea of season tickets. Now if only the season tickets came with babysitters on game day.

Hello, everyone! I hope everyone's holiday was as fun as ours. We have had a BLAST (surprisingly) having the entire family home for 2 weeks. It has come as a shock to me that our kids have been so happy with each other and with their annoying parents. We had a great christmas day. Fun day, the breakfast casserole turned out AWESOME!, the kids were happy with their gifts, as were we, we were able to visit with extended family, we hung out in out jammies all day and we were able to talk to our brother, Jeff, on the phone for a couple hours. He is on a mission in Ghana, Africa. It was cool to hear that he is doing well. In the past week I have spoken with him 4 times. He called to set up the time for christmas day, then on christmas morning he called and said he was having trouble with his calling cards, then we spoke to him for about an hour, then the next day he called again because he had 10 minutes left on his card and wanted to use it up. He is doing well, teasing companions as always. He told me that he had thrown an exploding firecracker under his companions bed when he was talking to his family. Same old Jeff. We love him.
We have gone sledding a couple times. It isn't hard to go sledding when you live in Cedar Hills. We basically just have to walk outside. There is a great hill in the field just past our back yard. Quynie and Keen love to play in the snow. Coley, on the other hand, has no use for the cold weather and would just as well play Lego Starwars on the xbox 360. But anyhoo, Keen has a great time "shoveling" the driveway with his miniature snow shovel. Basically he pushes the snow back and forth on the sidewalk and driveway.
I have felt the after christmas hangover and now feel like I am in the yearly winter lull. What is there to look forward to now? Valentines day? Nah.... We aren't super into that holiday. I guess I am looking forward to spring........ If that ever comes.
Tom has enjoyed being home for this holiday, and we have really taken a break from life. It has been nice to just hang out and do whatever, not cleaning much, and the house shows it, we only started doing the laundry today and I have to say that I am glad that Tom is around to help because otherwise, I think I would drown in the sea of smelly clothes (and I do mean smelly.... Coley is still working on the no accident thing). You know when you need to do laundry when the four year old has no pants, shorts, pajama pants or underwear left. He wore a pair of Keenans pajama pants yesterday. Oh well.
All in all, life is really fun right now. We are having a good time. I will post pictures that the kids have taken with the new kid cameras that my mom gave them for christmas. I have to say, I have lost the magic of taking pictures of every little randomn thing that I see. The kids love to take pictures, of what, it doesn't really matter. The kid cameras don't have super high quality but the kids don't care. Now, if only I can figure out how to download them off of the cameras onto the computer....... I am going to have to get my computer whiz to do it for me.......(Coley). Just kidding, he is the computer whiz apprentice to Tom.