a few thoughts....

1. Why are the people who are not paying their bills ie: mortgages; and creating more debt being rewarded with help from the president?

2. What is the point of Reality TV? We always talk about how deplorable celebrities are but what about all these freaks that turn up on reality tv shows, survior, rock of love, big brother, etc...liars and sexual deviants. Is this how we are evolving as humans?

3. Did anyone like the movie "The Village" besides me and michael?

I have drastically changed my hair. What do you think? Do I look like Cleopatra or Cher?

Moto Moto - Big And Chunky (WHOLE SONG!)

we saw this song in madagascar 2 and we are obsessed with it. it is so hilareous. it is about a hippo that likes another hippo. it is just funny.

Evan?

Does anyone think this guy looks like Evan? What are your thoughts? I would post of picture of Evan to compare but I don't have a normal looking one of him. This is Riley's favorite soccer player and one of the best soccer players in the world.

Christmas in Kennewick

We had a lot of fun over the holidays! It always goes by so fast. I just wanted to show you some of the pictures I captured with my new hi-tech camera. Thanks again mom and dad for the great presents and for having us home for the holidays!

Love, Amy and Riley

new years 2009

any new years resolutions for anybody?

Janelle's

1. lose 15 pounds
2. have a baby
3. paint 10 more pictures

why havent the brethern come out against plastic surgery?

here are some thoughts about plastic surgery by Jeff Holland ...here is the link to his talk found in the Liahona,
http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=f318118dd536c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=0c996169b62fe010VgnVCM100000176f620a____&hideNav=1

i am so tired of this becoming normalized...am i crazy to think that this is extreme and terribly unnecissary? but more and more common.? i think plastic surgery is wrong. in our faith, the body is a temple. tattoos, piercings, etc. are wrong and have been blatently spoken about by our prophets. mutilating our body, adding things to our body, putting our life on the operating table for cosmetic/vanity purposes is completely wrong. i feel like i am the only woman that feels this way. everyone has physical concerns and things that they want to change, but plastic surgery seems too extreme, dangerous, and completely against the "our bodies are a temple" DOCTRINE.

here is an interesting part Holland's address that concerns this issue...

"In this same vein may I address an even more sensitive subject. I plead with you young women to please be more accepting of yourselves, including your body shape and style, with a little less longing to look like someone else. We are all different. Some are tall, and some are short. Some are round, and some are thin. And almost everyone at some time or other wants to be something they are not! But as one adviser to teenage girls said: “You can’t live your life worrying that the world is staring at you. When you let people’s opinions make you self-conscious you give away your power. … The key to feeling [confident] is to always listen to your inner self—[the real you.]” 8 And in the kingdom of God, the real you is “more precious than rubies.” 9 Every young woman is a child of destiny and every adult woman a powerful force for good. I mention adult women because, sisters, you are our greatest examples and resource for these young women. And if you are obsessing over being a size 2, you won’t be very surprised when your daughter or the Mia Maid in your class does the same and makes herself physically ill trying to accomplish it. We should all be as fit as we can be—that’s good Word of Wisdom doctrine. That means eating right and exercising and helping our bodies function at their optimum strength. We could probably all do better in that regard. But I speak here of optimum health; there is no universal optimum size.
Frankly, the world has been brutal with you in this regard. You are bombarded in movies, television, fashion magazines, and advertisements with the message that looks are everything! The pitch is, “If your looks are good enough, your life will be glamorous and you will be happy and popular.” That kind of pressure is immense in the teenage years, to say nothing of later womanhood. In too many cases too much is being done to the human body to meet just such a fictional (to say nothing of superficial) standard. As one Hollywood actress is reported to have said recently: “We’ve become obsessed with beauty and the fountain of youth. … I’m really saddened by the way women mutilate [themselves] in search of that. I see women [including young women] … pulling this up and tucking that back. It’s like a slippery slope. [You can’t get off of it.] … It’s really insane … what society is doing to women.” 10
In terms of preoccupation with self and a fixation on the physical, this is more than social insanity; it is spiritually destructive, and it accounts for much of the unhappiness women, including young women, face in the modern world. And if adults are preoccupied with appearance—tucking and nipping and implanting and remodeling everything that can be remodeled—those pressures and anxieties will certainly seep through to children. At some point the problem becomes what the Book of Mormon called “vain imaginations.” 11 And in secular society both vanity and imagination run wild. One would truly need a great and spacious makeup kit to compete with beauty as portrayed in media all around us. Yet at the end of the day there would still be those “in the attitude of mocking and pointing their fingers” as Lehi saw, 12 because however much one tries in the world of glamour and fashion, it will never be glamorous enough."