Saving Easter with my peeps

Mikkena and I were walking through the Holiday section of Smiths when Mikkena told me that Easter was her favorite holiday. Since, I measure each holiday strictly by candy quality I was naturally appalled. The only holiday that has worse candy than Easter is Arbor day. As a kid I remember waking up early on Easter morning and biting off the head of a chalky, hollow, and pastel chocolate bunny. I have never been more disappointed. The only thing that saved Easter for me is low-budget black licorice jelly beans. MMMM (and I'm serious they're delicious). I hope you had your hanky near for that story.

That's why I never want to see another child suffer the same horrible fate as me. After Mikkena told me that she has always wanted a chocolate bunny for Easter I decided that I will need to find and test several chocolate bunnies to ensure that Easter remains Mikkena's favorite holiday. I won't let you down!

First off, this one.

Don't let it's packaging deceive you. Even though the bunny is labeled "yummy" and "totally delicious" I was suspicious. Methinks the bunny doth protest to much. Sure enough it was revolting. It tasted like way-too-sweet syrupy wax. Also, I can't get over how sad it is to bite into a hollow bunny. Good thing I was only out a buck.

The next one I tried was a Dove bunny. This one had some clear improvements over Mr. braggy bunny. First off it was solid chocolate. The chocolate was rich and not too sweet. In fact it was exactly like the smaller dove chocolates except larger and in the shape of a bunny. I don't know why I expected something different. It was more of an investment at $3.50, but it was superior in every way to the first test rabbit. Given how many choco bunnies I will probably go through, I have imposed a 5 dollar limit per bunny. The search must go on!

After testing bunnies we did the next logical thing, we tried to see how many Peeps we can stuff in our mouths at one time.

Our friend AJ successfully got 5 marshmallow fowls into his mouth.

I got 10. I think I had room for one or two more but the little dudes kept pushing on my gaggy ball.

Tune in next time for more bunny tests, but in the mean time, we are having Hanging With the Hill's first contest. I will find the most delicious chocolate bunny and award it to the individual who can shove the most peeps in his or her mouth. Here are the rules

1. You must have a witness.

2. You must be able to completely close your mouth.

3. I want a picture.

Just cram, snap a pic, and send it to me jaredrhill@yahoo.com . The person with the most peeps gets a choco bunny.

Goodbye to winter (I hope)

Frozen families and sharing the addiction

If you're looking for something really fun for your family to do, let me suggest something you should stay away from: ice fishing. I know what you're thinking, how can standing outside in freezing weather and dipping smelly fish bait into the water unsuccessfully for an hour not be a blast? Well, its not, despite the cheesy grin on my face.

Mikkena was excited to go. She had a vision of fish jumping out of the ice and landing on a bed of ice cream. It's too bad no matter how much you believe, ice fishing is still cold and boring.

At least Amber didn't freeze. At least I think that's Amber.



PLUS!

Recently, we had our nephew/cousin Deacon over for the night. The evening started out normally with dinner at Olive Garden. But after we stuffed him full of candy things started to get a little weird.

After the sugar wore off, we settled down for a movie and popcorn.

If any one else needs a break from a little kid and doesn't mind them coming back with a sugar addiction give us a call, we still haven't satisfied the baby hunger.

Always looking for an excuse to do something stupid (for charity)

I've done my share of stupid things. I once took Mikkena river rafting rafting on the Provo River during spring run-off. In high school I continued to drive my van for a month after the break lines were cut. But now that I've gotten a little older I confine all (most) (OK some) of my risk taking to charity. That's why I jumped at the opportunity to, um, jump into a frozen lake to support the special Olympics of Utah. I put together a plunge team of troubled youth (it seemed to fit), and raised $300 in sponsorships.

The location was the beautiful, pristine, and tropical Utah lake. I don't know many people that want to swim in Utah Lake when it's 90 degrees out, so I was surprised by the amount of people who wanted to jump into it when it was frozen. After they cut a hole in the ice I could see that it was as disgusting as ever. I don't know why I was surprised by the nastiness. I guess I expected the water to be less nasty because it was so cold. But no, there it was nasty and frozen. I was kind of hungry so my plan was to jump in with my mouth open and just see what happened.

This is a shot of the "maybe this isn't such a good idea" thought I get sometimes. But I ignored it and it went away like it always does.

I'm not breathing in this picture, that didn't start again for another minute or so.





2/3rds of my brain froze, so I think I'm missing some memories, but suddenly I had a doughnut in my hand. I wanted to meet the genius who thought it was a good idea to hand the plungers a doughnut while they were still dripping with pond scum. But after I ate the little bacteria-infested crud-soaked delicious morsel I understood. MMMMMM Good!

Thanks for everyone who sponsored me, especially Stacie for the last-minute pull-through so we could meet our goal! Without you, my stupidity wouldn't have had a cause. I think we should have more of these. I'm thinking dodging traffic for the homeless, or cliff jumping for cancer or something like that.

Evil Christmas-Hating Tomatoes

After a wonderful Christmas Eve with family, we decided to settle in for the night. Mikkena asked if she could wake us up as soon as she woke up for presents the next morning. Knowing that this was going to be a bad idea, I reluctantly agreed. She smiled and went to bed. I kissed Amber goodnight, and waited expectantly for Christmas morning. It seemed like everyone was looking forward to a nice Christmas morning, everyone except the tomatoes......

12:30 AM Christmas morning the tomatoes attacked, and they brought with them their dear friend Eddie, the Christmas puke.

This picture location is merely coincidental.


From 12:30 Am until 10:00 AM Amber was back and forth from the bathroom throwing up. I tried my best to support her, I got her ice-chips, went to the gas station to buy Sprite and crackers, but mostly all I could do is say "Oh Honey", or "I'm so sorry you're sick" after every puke. The saddest part of the story happened at 6:30 Am when Mikkena woke me up beaming, "Can we open presents now, Daddy?" "Wait, what's that sound?"


HUUUGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!


"Dad, what's going on in the bathroom?"


HUUUGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!


"Its nothing sweety we'll come get you when mommy's done"

The ironic part of this wonderful Christmas story is that Amber is an extremely picky eater. She won't eat or drink any food that is even nearing its expiration date. Amber decided recently to try to waste less food. Instead of throwing the evil, Christmas-hating tomatoes away, she scraped the mold off and ate them anyway.

Christmas 2008 took another bad turn when I went to work at 3:00 for a swing shift followed by the grave-yard shift. Between my "Oh, honeys" and getting ice chips, I probably landed 2 hours of sleep (which was two hours longer than Amber). I tried to sleep, but guilt is powerful when your wife is puking her guts out.

For those of you that have never gone 48 hours without sleep, I suggest you try it at least once. I got to a point during my grave shift (around 5:30 AM) when I stopped being able to perform routine tasks. It took me almost three minutes to open a door, and at another point I got up and walked out on a conversation I was having with another employee in mid-sentence.





Well that's the poor-us wrap up! I hope your Christmas went better than ours. What was your worst holiday experience?

Why cats hate Thanksgiving, Plus... photo lessons, by Mikkena.

Ahh Thanksgiving....... good eats, and good time with the fam.... unless you're a cat, then Thanksgiving is pure hell.

First you get locked in a room for hours with no toilet eating dry crumbly kibbles while everyone else is pigging out on turkey, and the rest of the time you're getting beat up by small children. That's why Tally decided it was time to strike back, Ninja style.

I decided that my niece Erin needed some training.

Lesson number one involved a grapefruit, but in the end, despite extensive training, the score was:

Tally 1-Miniature people 0

Congratulations Tally! You've won a complementary de-clawing. What's that? You want to see what's behind the mystery door? Maybe it's some spam.

This is our lone family Thanksgiving photo. I don't know what I was doing. It was time to be silly and all I could think of was to pick up a stupid roll. I'm going back to "how to look cool in a photo" school. At least Amber got in bunny ears and Mikkena got a cute head tilt. Roll.........lame.

I think that we could all use some lessons on how to look our best while being photographed. And since we all know I am not qualified to teach this lesson, I will let Mikkena do it.

Lesson #1. Don't participate when other people are trying to ruin a good photo. The expression on Mikkena's face clearly states: "I don't know this moron behind me", or "it's hard being a moose".

Lesson #2. Commit! Go big or go home. Follow this rule or you'll end up picking up a roll.

Lesson # 3. Stay hydrated. As a side lesson, it's very important to properly locate your straw with your tongue before you drink. Straw inflicted stab wounds do not make for good photos.

Lesson complete!

The "Hangin with the Hills" costume of the year award

I showed up to my daughter's Halloween party to find out that either she was held back for a few years without my knowing, or I have inadvertently sent her to a school for Oompa Loompas (not that I have anything against Oompa Loompas). Apparently all of the mini people running up to hug her when I drop her off in the mornings are her classmates. I just thought she was really nice to kindergartners. Maybe we should scale back her morning dose of human growth hormone.


Now to highlight some interesting costumes!


First off, This guy!



This costume was so spot on and so common in Eagle Mountain, that it took me a second to realize that it was an actual costume. I think the giant pumpkin baby tipped me off. I also realized it was a costume because he was wearing a shirt under his ripped up wife-beater. Who does that?

My nephew Tagan. The only way to make this kid more squeezable and lovable is to put him in a furry Elmo suit and crocks.

Sherine's 30$ D.I. "find" was certainly creative. It got even better when her husband joined her in his D.I. tux. I am personally glad that the 'ol puffy sleeved dress got one last night on the town.

And the "I can't believe they had the guts to go out in public wearing that" award goes to this fine couple. I certainly thought "shotgun wedding" was going to get the Hanging with the Hills "costume of the year" award, but that was until I saw this little guy at Mikkena's school.

He's going for "eighties nerd". Kudos for the half-tucked-in shirt, high-water pants and mullet. This was genius in a sea of transformers and punk-cheerleaders.

Candy-wise, Mikkena had her most successful Halloween ever. We went to a neighborhood trunk-or-treat, a ward trunk-or-treat, and Halloween night we went trick-or-treating with Amber's brother and his family. The sheer amount a candy that we hauled in certainly tested our no-sugar resolve. I wanted to thank all of you commenters who supported me through this. Here is a snippet "you will never be able to completely give up sugar. I just thought I'd let you know so you won't be disappointed when you lose your will power". Thanks Mom.

I decided that because it was Halloween, I would take a break from my otherwise successful no-sugar goal. Let's just say I found out first hand how people OD. Even though my new tolerance was 5 pieces of candy, I ate 50. I paid for it today, but I got back on track by chewing three packs of sugar-free gum, drinking a 44 oz diet coke with lime, and chewing all of my fingernails off. We gave the rest of Mikkena's candy to charity.