White Elephant Gift Exchange

We hosted our first White Elephant gift exchange at our house last night.  I dare say it was a rousing success!

I've had many different experiences with white elephant gift exchanges over the years ... it seems that often times my first experiences end up being bad/traumatic ones, so let's get the first story out of the way.

At my first white elephant gift exchange, I received a bag of pencil shavings.  I still remember the girl who brought the present.  At my first non-school white elephant party, I had to leave early, but instead of keeping the gift I had at the time (some DVD that looked mildly interesting) they kept trading and my husband ended up coming home with the gift he brought to the exchange, and DVD of a truly HORRIBLE 1943 film.  I think I was mostly disappointed my husband came home with his own gift and didn't say anything.


Then it was followed by a few hilarious and awesome White Elephant/Ugly Sweater parties, and it restored my faith in white elephant exchanges.  Yes, Virginia, there CAN be hilarious white elephant gift exchanges that don't end in bitterness and tears!

When Carmen was a baby, some friends hosted a white elephant gift exchange and we brought a HUGE 2 gallon jar of pickled jalapenos.  We brought home a Barbie, and one of the most interesting gifts there was some warming massage lotion from the dollar store.  Hmmm ... highly suspect ... we would all know what happened when, late some night, our neighbor busts out the front door screaming, "IT BURNS, IT BURNS! OH MY ... BACK!!  MY LEGS!"


So we wanted to host a party where, generally, everyone could go home with something they didn't hate.  I'm sure it helped that our friends were more familiar with what kinds of things were appropriate white elephant gifts (ie. NOT pencil shavings) ... and we invited kids, who I think can be excited about ANYTHING if you say it's a gift. ;)

I decided we should pack some extra presents so that either people could go home with a gift if they didn't bring one, or they could take home an un-lame present along with a lame one, or whatever.

So we packed a present I've been wanting to do for YEARS - a goofy autographed self-portrait.  I had an 8x10 photo I printed of Mark earlier this year.  There is a long backstory behind this ... in short, I have a friend whose little brother went on a mission, so they made this huge blanket of his face and had the blanket with them when they took family photos of major events while he was gone.  Imagine something like, there's a wedding, and one of the wedding photos would have his face in it, or he's at a baby blessing, or whatever.  I thought it was hilarious so I copied it.  Mark was unable to come to a family reunion because he had very little vacation time from work.  I ended up never using his photograph in a real picture, but hey!  It was a funny thought!!

~~~AAAAAAANNNNYYYWAAAAAYYYYY.  I had Mark autograph the photo and wrapped it up.  My friend Kirsten opened it and was a very good sport and jealously hugged the photo all night long.  She was even upset when her stepson stole the picture from her, and after they brought it home she told me her husband wanted to display it in the bathroom.  That is probably the BEST place to display Mark's photo.

We figured if whoever took it didn't like it, they could always take out the photo and have a nice black picture frame!!  Mark would never know. ;)


Carmen also has way too many bottles of nail polish.  So I took a handful of the brightest neon-colored nail polishes and put them in a bag.  SOME little girl would LOVE to have bright neon nail polish, right?

Last Christmas, we got TWO copies of the movie "17 Miracles".  So the unopened one got wrapped up in pretty paper.

Several years ago, we went to DI and bought a whole bunch of Living Scriptures movies on VHS.  We still don't have a VHS player, and ordered DVD sets of the Living Scriptures.  As much as Mark makes fun of the movies, I LOOOOOOOOOVED the Living Scriptures movies as a kid!!!  They made me the smartest kid in my Primary class because I knew all the stories!!!

When I was in high school, I had a weird obsession with scented candles.  I have a ton of half-used scented candles stored in Carmen's closet ... so when I was at the dollar store, I saw a Skittles Cherry-scented candle and thought, "I HAVE to get one of these!  Because I always think scented candles are nice, then I take them home and go WHAT WAS I THINKING?!"  And since it was only a few dollars, I decided I had to include some kind of crazy fruity candy with it, so I found one of those fruit-flavored Twizzlers licorice things that is that nasty bright yellow color.


So that was our 5 weird presents we contributed to the gift exchange.  Here are some of the things that got passed around:

~A metal combat helmet that looked like it was from WWII.
~A 4000 piece puzzle.  It measures 98 cm x 138 cm.  It probably weighs 5 pounds.
~A multi-purpose grater (it grates cheese and stuff).  There were 5 or 6 of them all together in the bag. LOL!!!
~A set of 4 pretty sake glasses
~An abacus
~A corkscrew
~A set of pink measuring cups/spoons
~A Winnie-The-Pooh puzzle
~A checkers board




We ended up with a puzzle, the checkers board, and the Skittles candle/Twizzlers.  Carmen wanted the candle and candy SO BADLY that she hid them under a pillow on the couch and sat on them.  When one of the little boys came over and tried to steal it from her, she started crying until he decided to change his mind and take something else. ... Oh, three-year-olds, you are so funny ... At the end of the night, we traded the abacus for a 500-piece Kodak puzzle, because he would probably make better use of the abacus RIGHT NOW than we would.

I figured it would be fun to teach Carmen how to play Checkers.  And the Checkers board is perfect - all of the pieces are plastic and cheap and the board will probably disintegrate in a year or two because it looks like it just laminated card board.  Whoever brought that gift is a genius.  Actually, ALL of the gifts at the exchange were genius!  I'm so thankful for all of my friends who made this party AWESOME!!!!


Another great memory from last night is that we invited our next-door neighbors and they were gracious enough to come.  When it came time for Richard to open his present, he opened the "17 Miracles" DVD and it was kind of hilarious to watch him read the back of the DVD, which proclaimed, "THE BEST FILM YET FROM MORMON CINEMA!"

"Oh, great," our friend Jonathan chimed in, "We are setting the bar pretty low here!!"

Ultimately, some Mormon who didn't own the movie went home with it.  Phew.  Glad it's found a new home!!

And our friend Tyler opened up the nail polish.  He painted one of his nails neon green.  His girlfriend, Gretchen, took home the measuring cups.  Everyone was such good sports.  I AM SO HAPPY.  HAVE I TOLD YOU ENOUGH TIMES THAT I AM SO HAPPY OUR PARTY DIDN'T SUCK?!




But today I have a cold.  I am staying home and hoping to rest and drink enough water that I can get better soon.  Mark's sitting in with my Primary class (the other teacher is teaching today!) and I'm at home with the baby.  Mace always cries during church because he usually takes a long nap after breakfast and wakes up around 10.  (This year, church is from 8:30 to 11:30.  It was good until Mace developed a sleeping schedule that involved a nap from 9ish to 10ish.)  He just woke up from his nap and is happily playing on the floor, so I'm feeling pretty good despite my hot, scratchy throat and general exhausted-feeling-ness.

Apparently this is a post about hats

Okay, so now I really ought to start writing again.  Recording the memorable/everyday events of our family.  So I'm starting today.  Here goes!!

Yesterday was my mom's birthday.  I used to always tell people she was turning 21 again, but now that I'm 25, it's getting harder and harder to convince people of that. ;)

The important thing isn't that yesterday was Mom's birthday - it was that she flew to Austin to come visit us!!  She was going to come on Halloween and stay for a week, but at the last minute she decided she'd rather come later in the month.  It actually turned out really well, because Mace started crawling a few weeks ago. :)  I'm pretty sure that makes Mom's trip so much more exciting and fun, to have a crawling grandbaby. <3

We picked up Mom from the airport, then went to Mark's new job downtown, then ate dinner at the taco food truck by Mark's work (SO SO GOOD), then went over to 6th Street to look at hats at The Hat Box.  Mark has been asking me for weeks about getting a new hat from that place.  He has a coworker who, apparently, wears *amazing hats* and he got them all from The Hat Box.  Mark had a famous hat for a few years, but then we last it at Disneyland last year.  Funny coincidence: It was a hat we bought from the Indiana Jones store, and we lost it 3 years later on the Indiana Jones ride. :(

Old hat:

Carmen wearing Mark's hat!

New hat:

Mace wearing Mark's hat!  ... why do I not have any pictures of Mark in his own hats?!

We actually bought two new hats for Mark, but I only have a picture of this one.  The other one looks a bit more like the old hat.  Now I'm going to go on a hat tangent ... hats are big in Mark's family.  Sort of.  His brother, James, tends to wear hats and looks good in them.  We might get him a hat for Christmas (I doubt James will read this. phew.)  Mark's dad tends to wear fisherman hats.  But I don't have a picture of it.  Maybe some day!

I guess Mark looks really good in hats.  I'm just ... not used to them.  I don't wear hats.  Dang.  He's right.  He looks good in hats.  I should stop encouraging him to dress like a bum.  I'm such a boring t-shirt and jeans-type girl.

Jorgen's wedding, February 2011

Okay, maybe he doesn't always look great in hats.  But that doesn't stop him from always trying them on.

From our Mexico cruise in February 2010.  He tried on my cousin Emery's hat.

Taken some time in ... 2007?  One of our poor newlywed dates to DI where we bought a $35 couch.

Hm, somehow this turned into an entry about hats!  Okay!  So anyway, Mark got some nice new expensive hats last night as his Christmas present.

Today, I went to the gym in the morning to let Mom have some quiet time to get ready for the day.  All week long, Mace has been clingy and has cried (loudly!) the whole time I've been gone ... Usually the people in the gym day care try to let me work out for at least an hour if my baby is fussy, but this week has been so bad they've called me back after 20 minutes. Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday.  I had an appointment with a personal trainer last week who gave me a list of things to do, and this week I learned to immediately hit the machines fast and hard, because I'd probably only have 20 minutes to work out.  Hah! But then today, he was pretty cheerful and I got a whole hour in!  I was able to do all of the lifting I wanted to do, and I even got some time on the elliptical to read my Book Club book (The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks).  When I came back to the day care to pick my kids up (I wanted to go home and keep my mom company), Mace had just fallen asleep in the swing.  Aww~ <3

Mace took a ridiculously long nap in the afternoon, and when he finally woke up we went shopping with Mom on a Christmas quest to find an elf to do the "elf on a shelf" thing.  I hadn't really heard of this until a few years ago, when a friend of a friend posted pictures on her Livejournal of this weird cute little Christmas elf.  Apparently it's like a little gnome you hide around the house at Christmas time, and the kids get excited trying to figure out where the elf is hiding.  We couldn't find an elf, so Carmen picked out a Christmas puppy.  Close enough. ;)

Then we went to the mall to ride on the carousel and walk around.  There's a little kids' play area by the carousel and Carmen likes to go play with the little kids.  Since Mace is crawling, I set him out on the floor and let him watch the bigger kids play.  He is kind of a road block, and other moms are constantly telling their kids to watch out for the baby and be careful.  I'm not sure if I'm being helpful (now they are more aware of other people when they are playing!) or if I'm being annoying (why the eff is that weirdo mom letting her baby potentially get run over by packs of 3-year-olds?!) but I don't care if a little kid runs over Mace.  It will make up for the fact that he doesn't have a whole bunch of older siblings to maul him!  He only has Carmen!

It was really funny to watch the kids play at the mall.  They ran around in circles screaming, "AAAAUUUGGGHH IT'S THE BABY MONSTER!  HE IS GOING TO GET US!" and they would run away, as Mace smiled at them and got up on his hands and knees and rocked back and forth.  He didn't really want to go anywhere, so he just spun around in circles, watching kids and smiling, then occasionally coming over to Mom or me to gnaw on our shoes.  Oh, baby Mace, how I love you.

So .... that was our day.

And here's a picture of my mom ... she and Mace were matching today!  It was not intentional!

Don't you think she looks 21?

Wow.  Writing this was fun.  I think I'll do this more often.

We think we're funny

This year, Carmen was actually old enough to appreciate stories about Santa.  I'm not exactly sure how I feel about the whole thing.  When I was 5 or 6 years old, my sister came bounding down the hall and informed me the Santa wasn't real.  Somehow, even though she was 2 years younger than me, she figured out about Santa and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy long before I did.  I guess I just never thought to question it.  I bet she asked where babies came from first, too.

Anyway!!!  Our family went up to Salt Lake this past Christmas to stay at Grandma June's house (Dad's mom).  She was actually spending Christmas in Maryland with Uncle Bart, so it was kind of funny staying at Grandma's house with her not there to spend time with the OTHER side of the family. :)

We didn't find out the gender of our baby until a few days before Christmas, so Grandma June gave her usual gift of gender-neutral baby blankets.  She also bought this gorgeous crocheted heart blanket (maybe I'll get a picture of it some day, but right now I'm lazy.)  The most precious part of this gift, though, was the note she left behind:



(Carmen had fun coloring on it before I could take it home and scan it.)
"No need to rush ..." .... It's just so Grandma!!!


We decided to start some Christmas traditions ...

When I was little, sometimes we'd leave notes to Santa or give him cookies and milk.  One year we gave him carrots and celery because he might think he's getting too fat.  This year, none of us wanted to eat any cookies so we only left him a letter.  It's kind of funny having a bunch of teenagers and a 2-year-old at Christmas time.

Mark started out by writing a sweet note to Santa about Carmen and how good she had been that year.  Then Torrey, my 13-year-old sister, wrote a more interesting, personality-filled letter that reflects our family's twisted sense of humor.  It was a whole-family effort.



None of us were sure whether or not Santa would write us back or anything, and on Christmas morning I woke up with this GREAT IDEA of how Santa could respond.  So before the rest of the family got out of bed (which was late - they're teenagers and Carmen didn't know she was supposed to wake up excited at the crack of dawn) I threw together a note (er, Santa wrote a note) and left it for the family. :)


Well, we think we're pretty clever. ;)

We're trying to figure out other Christmas traditions.  We're thinking although Santa comes with some presents, he won't necessarily give our kids the BIG COOL PRESENTS.  We want to be the awesome ones!!!  We had no idea what Santa would give Carmen this year, so we just kind of threw things together ... We gave Carmen "Rainbow Bear" before Christmas.  If you press her leg, there's a recording of Mark and me singing the beginning of "Twinkle, Twinkle."  It must've been a good present, because she still shows it off to her friends and announces that it sings!!  Anyway, Rainbow Bear helped deliver Santa's presents - an Ariel figurine, some lip gloss, a coin bank thingy, and a pretty fan.  (Ooh, fancy, I know.)  .... Santa's choice in gifts had nothing to do with our non-desire to find a way to wrap them or put them in a gift bag.  *shifty eyes*