Six years.

Today is mine and Ben's sixth anniversary and sadly we are about 1500 miles apart. He is in Utah and I'm in Indiana. Even though we're apart, I wanted to say, "I love you" to my cute husband on zee blog (insert French accent here).

I would ordinarily post a picture of the hubs and I on wedding day, but since I am on my parent's desktop and they don't have any pictures from my wedding on their computer (gasp!) I'll just post some stats from our marriage....

Over the past six years we have had...

-Three different residences

-Five different cars

-Seven different jobs

-One college graduation (mine)

-Five hospital visits

-Three pets (our current cats as well as a puppy for 3 weeks)

-One fabulous little boy

I love you my Benjamin!

Merry Christmas!

I hope that you all have a great Christmas! Ours is already off to a great start- we arrived in Indiana yesterday evening and have been having a great time with family. Dylan has already latched onto my dad-  he calls him Dapa. More updates to come!

All I need to know about life I learned from tv.

Ok, so the post title may be a little off the mark, but today I think that my copious amounts of tv viewing played to my advantage.

Today I had to spend the whole day in the courtroom for a trial. Big time booo. Anyway, my attorney (sounds fancy, right? My attorney? Actually, she is the State's attorney, and since I represent the State, she represents me in State matters.) and I were listening to a client testify regarding some things that had been going on. He was saying all of these things like, "I know that I can do better, I really think that I am finished with (insert various illegal activity here)" all while shaking his head "no."

Now, I'm not sure if everyone is addicted to the tv show Lie To Me, but let me tell you what I learned from the show:

If someone is saying something and shaking their head no at the same time, they do not believe what they are saying (as per Dr. Cal Lightman, lead character in the show. He's a behaviorist who studies people's facial expressions and gestures to see if they're telling the truth or not.)

I leaned over and said to my attorney, "Do you see how he's shaking his head no while saying all this? I don't think that he's telling the truth." She totally agreed and said that he was full of you-know-what.

I neglected to tell her where I had gained my knowledge... something tells me that a fictional behaviorist on tv would not be seen as a credible source in the court.

Miraculous.

I'm sure that many of you Utah County friends have already seen this picture, but I had to share.

So sad that the historic Provo Tabernacle burned down last week.

Can you believe the burn pattern of the painting of the Second Coming?

I know that it's not just coincidence.

My favorite video of 2010.

I took this video the other day during dinnertime. As you may remember, Dylan is typically the worst eater ever. I don't know what came over him that night, but he was all about the applesauce. Thank goodness for small miracles, right?

Also, my apologies for the poor video quality- it was captured with my regular camera.

Enjoy the video- I love how he tells me "bye" at the end!

Bad things come in threes.

It's true, I'm telling you.

Case in point:

 Dunzo.

Dunzo.

Dunzo.

Now, if Brangelina decides to split as well there may be some problems. Actually, not true. Remember what Chelsea Handler recently said about Angelina? I'm in Chelsea's camp. Starts with home, ends with wrecker.

Monday Confessions.

1. Today at work was a big fail for me, as I had court and completely forgot to bring copies of the court report with me. This doesn't always mean catastrophe, but in this certain case it did. For some reason no one could find the copies of the report that I faxed them last week, and I didn't have any reserves in hand. Now I'm definitely on a certain attorney's you-know-what list.

2. I've had an early morning workout bag packed every night for the past 20 or so nights. Every night I tell myself that I'm going to go to the gym early the next morning and even set my alarm for the crack of dawn. Can anyone guess how many times I've gone to the gym in the early am? The correct answer is zero.

3. Dylan is officially the world's pickiest eater, which is sure to drive me to drinking and drugs. Yesterday I set a piece of delish chocolate cake in front of him to see if he would even try it, as he refuses to try anything that doesn't look like ravioli or yogurt. And just as I expected, he wouldn't even touch the chocolate cake. This boy surely can't be mine if he refuses cake.

4. I have eaten approximately 538 peppermint Hershey kisses since last Wednesday. Take that, Weight Watchers.

5. I actually made dinner tonight (a Christmas miracle in itself) and was deeply offended when Ben said that he didn't like it. I took it as a personal attack, which means that I am still shooting him dirty looks three hours later.

6. Christmas is in less than two weeks and I have no idea what to get Ben. I refuse to get him any golf paraphernalia, as it would be like giving a drug addict a new crack pipe for Christmas.

Please share your confessions, as I want something to laugh at other than at myself...

* Sorry if this list is a little gripey and whatnot, I'm just in one of those moods. Will work on an attitude adjustment for tomorrow.

Christmas questions.

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper. It's more work, but those beautiful wrapped packages look so pretty under the tree.

2. Real tree or Artificial? I've always done real, but I'm definitely open to the possibility of a real tree in the coming years. Maybe when Dylan doesn't want to tackle the Christmas tree?

3. When do you put up the tree? Usually a day or two after Thanksgiving.

4. When do you take the tree down? Whenever we get back home after all the festivities. Usually around New Year's.

5. Do you like eggnog? Nope.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? Not sure. I remember being so excited about getting Birkenstocks when I was 12. I definitely wore them with socks all winter. Ha.

7. Hardest person to buy for? My brother in law T. Seriously, he always ends up getting random weird stuff from me cause I never know what to get him. This year he's getting UnderArmor, which I think that he'll actually like.

8. Easiest person to buy for? Dylan Danger

9. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Snail Mail, Yo.

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Not sure. Ben's grandpa died on Christmas Eve 5 years ago and that really sucked. Does that count?

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? Elf!

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Right around Thanksgiving

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? No.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? An insane amount of cookies, of course.

16. Lights on the tree (colored or clear)? White lights!

17. Favorite Christmas song? O Holy Night.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Travel home to Indiana this year- hooray!

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's? Yes, simply because of the song.

20. Angel, star or ribbon on top of tree? A crooked star- my tree is too tall for my living room, so the star is smushed between the tree and the ceiling and is all tilted over. Keep it classy, Mrs. Harris.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? New pajamas on Christmas eve, the rest of the gifts on Christmas morning.

22. Favorite children's Christmas song? Not really sure. The only one that comes to mind is Jingle Bells.

23. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? How all of my clients at work seem to have some crazy crisis that desperately needs my attention right before Christmas. I'm such a scrooge, right?

24. Favorite ornament theme or color? Oh goodness, I don't know. My favorite ornaments are the ones from my childhood though.

25. Turkey or ham on Christmas day? Turkey.

26. What do you want for Christmas this year? All sorts of things... Tory Burch Revas are at the top of the list, but I think that they may be a little too pricey to justify for a Christmas gift. 

27. Does anyone in your family dress up as Santa? No.

28. Age you discovered who Santa was? Sometime in elementary school... it was a gradual understanding I think.

29. Eggnog, hot chocolate, or apple cider? Mmmmm hot chocolate. Or a peppermint steamer from Starbucks.

30. Traditional colors (red and green) or other colors? Mainly red and green, but I love turquise and silver too.

31. Do you have any Christmas decorations on your roof? Not yet... although Benjamin has promised to put our lights up on Saturday.

32. How does Santa get into your house? Chimney or magic key? magic key

33. Do you prefer gifts or gift cards? Gifts, but please know that I'd never turn away a gift card!

34. Favorite children's Christmas Cartoon? The Polar Express... the book and movie both seemed to magical to me!

YOUR TURN!!

A little late jumping on the bandwagon...

At the risk of sounding like a cougar (and not the BYU kind), have you all seen Zac Efron?

Can you say dreamy? And I'm pretty sure that he's legal too, right?

I am aware that many ladies have come to this conclusion awhile back, but since I've never seen more than 10 minutes of High School Musical, I never got to watch a feature-length Zac Efron-fest. Wait, scratch that... I did see Seventeen Again. Wonder why he didn't captivate me then... maybe because he was playing a 17 year old in the movie and was therefore still jailbait? Yes, that's definitely it.

Sorry Dad, you're probably cringing at this post. And my husband too. Don't worry Benjamin, Zac's no match for you.

Anyway, I just had to let you all know that after watching Charlie St. Cloud (thank you Netflix) I am no longer a member of Team Edward or Team Jacob... I'm on Team Zac.

And yes, I know that I'm {cringe} 26 years old and Z. Efron is probably like 22.

No longer 25.

It's only 8 am and my birthday has already been great. Thank you to my lovely husband and my great friends!

Feeling like I belong in Oz...

And no, it's not because I'm on the shorter side and feel like a munchkin.

Today I decided to step out of my normal pink/red/berry nail polish box and try something out of the ordinary.

I picked up a bottle of Essie nail polish in "Going Incognito" and decided to try having emerald colored nails.

I definitely don't not like it, but I feel a little bit like the Wicked Witch of the West or Elpheba or whatever she's called. Maybe I'm just not used to having nails outside of my typical polish color palate.

Thoughts?

On the definite upside, I can say that I'm a fan of Essie polish and like how it goes on and covers. Two green thumbs up.

Decking the halls.

On Sunday night we got started on all our Christmas celebrating. We put the Carpenter's Christmas cd on- a Bartnett family tradition- and started to put up all of our Christmas decorations.

Last year Dylan was just a few months old, so he didn't care about decorating, but this year he was all about it! The minute that Ben dragged the tree up from the basement he wanted in on the action.

We quickly realized that the tree would not be able to be set up in the enormous empty space in our living room (more on that empty space later. What the heck should we do with it?).

Behold, the empty space (and Dylan with my blowdryer. He loves that thing. This was two days prior to the Chi murder--- which btw, Ben fixed it! Yay! Resurrected Chi!)

I think that Dylan is telling the paparazzi (me) to go away.

We had to put the tree back into a little corner between our couches, since it was easy to see that Dylan was not one of those kids who could just look at the tree. Nope, he wants to climb up the tree, and take off every ornament in the process. See, he's already trying to use Ben as a stepping stool to get to the tree.

We ended up having to scoot the couches even closer since Dylan was so sneaky and had wedged himself between them and grabbed onto the tree. Who is this kid?

The finished product. Hooray!!!

Here are the other bits of Christmas decor around the house:



Let's all shed a tear.

My beloved Chi has died. Scratch that, my beloved Chi has been murdered. The culprit?

This guy

My seemingly innocent little boy grabbed my Chi (which was apparently too close to the edge of the bathroom counter- and it was turned off, thank goodness) and dropped it right on the hard tile floor. The result? Chi will no longer turn on. Anyone know a Chi repair person?

Thank heaven that my birthday is in one week- I have a feeling that a  new Chi will be my birthday present to myself.

The Score:

Mom's expensive things- 0

Dylan-1