a cut above the rest

Here is a little hair background for you:

About five years ago I made a personal goal of losing a lot of weight... I even made a deal with myself to grow out my hair so that when I reached the goal I would go ahead and chop my hair so I can have a very dramatic hair cut to match the new body. Well the weight loss goal never really panned out (I got fairly close right before I got pregnant with Morgan) so my hair just kept on growing.

Fast forward five years and I have grown my hair to half way down my back. I loved my hair long and the safety I had with knowing I would never have a really bad hair day.

We got invited down to Lubbock to help celebrate a be-lated Christmas with my BFF Brooke and her family so we jumped at the chance to make a quick trip and see everyone. When I got here I was told by Brooke that she wanted to treat me to a new hair do (her mother is a hair WIZARD and owns her own salon) for my birthday. I immediately started fretting about losing my security blanket but after some encouragement I was talked into a fairly dramatic change. Honestly I LOVE it. There are so many new looks I can do with my new hair. I would call it a mid length angular bob. It has MANY layers through out it and I can wear it totally straight (this looks the most like a traditional bob), or curly (like in the pictures), or just scrunched up looking which adds lots of lift and body to it. Here are the pictures I'm sure you can scroll down to see a recent "before" picture, or if you have seen me in the past four years you will have a pretty good idea of what my hair has been looking like.


We were able to save about 10 inches of hair to send off to Locks of Love. I have always wanted to do this so I was thrilled that I had enough to donate. Riley is very jealous of my shorter "sassy" hair and really wants to follow her mom's lead. We plan on cutting her hair short soon so she can donate to Locks of Love as well.

BRRRRR....

I think it might be a stay in side, drink hot cocoa, and watch movies kind of day.

blog homework again :)

This is where I would love to insert a horribly embarrassing high school picture of myself but unfortunately I don't have a scanner. If anyone has a picture of me that would work and they would like to email it to me I would be happy to add it at a later time. Until then I leave you with this:

My friend Erin tagged me forever ago and I never even saw it (this is what happens when you go private young lady). Now I feel like it is my duty to answer the following high school questions with total honesty.

High School Tag:

1. Did you date someone from your school? No never... I was never even asked out (I'm a late bloomer)

2. What kind of car did you drive? I had some pretty sweet rides back in the day. I drove a Dodge Champ we just called it "the champ". I rode the big yellow school bus off and on all three years I was at BHS (the champ wasn't the most dependable). Emily will have to verify this one, did we have the red truck in high school or was that in college?

3. Were you a party animal? Not at all. I went to one party that might have qualified as a "party" but I never animaled it up.

4. Were you considered a flirt? No I don't think so (read number 1)

5. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir? None of the above (it was a big high school and kids tended to get a little lost in the crowd)

6. What was your most embarrassing moment of high school? This might be a little TMI but we all know I SO GO THERE... it would have to have been showing up to school in the morning taking like 14 tries to parallel park the champ just to get out of my car to a sea of people and not realizing it was my time of the month. Enough said...

7. Were you a nerd? I never thought I was, but looking back I might have been a little nerdy. By the way I think nerds are the best and I can only hope that my children will follow in their nerdy mom's footsteps.

8. Were you on any varsity teams? HAHAHAHAHA... oh wait that was a serious question. Um NO.

9. Did you get suspended/expelled? No way I mastered anonymity

10. Can you still sing the fight song? Not even sure there was one.

11. Who were your favorite teachers? I loved Mrs. DiMarco and I liked Ma Bell or course no high school tag would be complete without a shout out to Mr. Nelson my wacky chemistry teacher/lunch buddy (Ahm and I ate lunch with him most days our junior year, why didn't I see the nerd signs back then?)

12. What was your school's full name? Bakersfield High School

13. School mascot? The Drillers (we came from a proud oil town in South Central CA)

14. Did you go to homecoming, and with who? I didn't have much driller pride back in the day so that would be a NO

15. If you could go back and do it again, would you? No way I'm just glad I survived it all and came out mostly unharmed.

16. What do you remember most about graduation? My family sitting through a horribly long ceremony in the Bakersfield heat of late May. I also remember the kid in front of me was in a horrible car accident just shortly before graduation, when they called his name he struggled up to the stage and then past out. I wasn't sure if I should walk across the stage or just wait it out. Either way I must say my thunder was a little bit stolen.

17. Where did you go senior skip day? I kind of skipped a lot. I did not wait for an official school approved day for such activities.

18. Were you in a club? I was in yearbook, mock trial, and sort of in journalism (mostly just hung out with friends and wrote silly fake articles that still managed to get published).

19. Have you gained some weight since then? Honestly I'm not sure, I never weighed myself back then but I think I look better now than I did back in the day.

20. Who was your prom date? I never went to any proms (once again see number 1).

21. Are you planning on going to your 10 year reunion? 10 year?!?! It's been a bit longer than ten years and I never went to any reunions, too far.

22. Looking back, what advice would you give yourself? Work a little harder in classes and have a little more confidence in yourself because you're smart enough, nice enough and gosh darn it people like you!

I will now tag my mom, Shaunna (Erin tagged you too but I guess you didn't see it either), Aunt Laura, Papa Randy, and Monica (as in Monica Munn). Thanks for playing!!

don't be jealous

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me...

...a big fat dead deer

catch up time...

I have been gone for a while so I feel like I need to explain. I think most of you heard what my big plan was. I wanted to make my blog more anonymous and "safe" for my family. I intended on just taking the blog down for a short time and going through my posts so I can weed out any personal info. I got started and was a little overwhelmed so I quite and then just got a very bad case of blogstipation and couldn't get anything going, so I didn't post for a very long time. Sorry everyone who thought I had banned them from my blog. The truth is I was the only one who could log on durring that time. I did not go private I just set it up so only the blog author (ME) could view it. Once again I apologize (Aunt Laura, I love you so of course I was not blocking you). That all being said let's recap a little shall we?

First off I need to thank Emily, the blog fairy, for yet another blog look. The Reed family is notorious for not allowing Christmas to linger past the 25th so Emily hooked me up with a new look. Secondly my camera is pretty much unusable at this point. The screen where you look at your subject and your pictures in totally grey. I don't know what happened but I can say we have had this camera for a while now and I have used it almost everyday so I do feel like I got my money out of it. I do have a birthday coming up so I know what I would love to get (hint hint Jerm). I just wanted to throw this out because I will be posting some pictures and movies that are a little off.

Since I have been away from blogging a few things have happened in the Clement clan. Jacob and Riley both participated in a school Christmas program. I had the bum camera there with me so the pictures and footage is a little less than perfect but here are some shots from the big night (I tried to make a short movie of Riley singing but she never stood close enough to me to get a clear shot).






Jake and I took a small group of friends with us to Dallas on Sunday evening so that Jake could see his doctor and so we could have a little Dallas outing. We got back Tuesday night after a little set back with the van but even with the van trouble and VERY cold weather I think it was a huge success. Everyone seemed to have fun and I loved having the opportunity to talk and hang out with my good friend/coworker Kezia. Jake's appointment went well (have I mentioned how much we love Dr. Menter?) Jake is going to have to up his meds over the winter because of the cold dry air. The doctor is also going to start working with our insurance to see if we can get Jake switched over to a more expensive but less dangerous treatment, we hope it all works out. While in Dallas Kezia and I tried to take out sons and their little friend (three boys aged 8, 9, and 10) to Six Flags in 30 degree weather with a wind chill factor of 22 degrees. After we paid for parking and for our tickets into the park we realized that only two rides in the whole place were open so needless to say we stuck around for about an hour and then left with rain checks to come back.

We had a wonderful Christmas season with our children. We have enjoyed reading Christmas stories together, watching classic movies, singing carols, shopping for each other and participating in a live nativity put on by our ward. Jeremy and Jacob got to portray shepherds on a very cold windy west Texas night. Thankfully there was another father/son team that would relieve them every 30-45 minutes. The boys really enjoyed it and I know the people who drove by and stopped to take pictures felt the Spirit there and were reminded of the reason we celebrate this time of the year.

We hope everyone is enjoying their families today and takes time to think about Christ, his birth, his life and ministry and of course his ultimate sacrifice for each of us. Merry Christmas love the Clement Family!!

***side note*** this DOES count as your Christmas card from our family not cause we're going "green", just cause we're lazy...

do you love it?

Don't you love my new blog look? My amazing, fabulous, incredible, talented, awesome sister Emily just hooked me up with my new look. Emily can do the same thing for you too!! If you are in need of a new look and don't have time or skills (I'm lacking both really) to do that yourself then just call on the blog fairy. All your blog dreams WILL come true.

I wanted sooooo much to LOVE LOVE LOVE Twilight the movie. I loved my evening, spending time with my friends, the silliness with a midnight premiere, and all of the excitement. I really thought that Bella and Edward had great chemistry their first kiss was OH MY GOSH OFF THE HOOK. Sadly I think the script writer kind of dropped the ball though. I know it's hard to take a huge novel and whittle it down to a two hour movie. My BFF Brooke is right though. The whole magic of Twilight is the relationship between Bella and Edward. The uniqueness and intensity of their love. In my opinion the movie version did not do a good job of establishing this love for their audience. Of course pretty much everyone in the movie theater had already read the book so they already knew how much Bella and Edward loved each other. After it was all over I couldn't help but think that a person who had not read the books might question how the books are so popular. Bottom line for me was I had a wonderful time with my friends, getting all dressed up and acting like a silly teenager with hundreds of die hard fans.

I wouldn't have missed it for the world. I will also watch it again with Brooke next weekend and maybe I can focus more on the movie and a little less on the atmosphere like on opening night.

We had a great time before the movie even started, hanging out and eating at TGIFridays we couldn't hardly keep a straidght face to get a picture. Torrie and Danielle got together and made their shirts for the night. If you can't read them they say, "why am I covered in feathers?" For all you fans out there you will understand the book four reference. I thought their shirts were adorable. They even wore boas at the movie theater and brought Hope and I a feather to wear in our hair.

it's here!!!!

Tonight is the big night people. Twilight the movie is officially here and I for one am ready. I will be attending one big midnight releases and I can't wait. It is now 8:24 pm and sadly I have been dressed and ready for the big event since 6:30. I sure hope the movie doesn't disappoint, in my heart I don't think it will. Steph and I are in sync with most opinions and she really hasn't disappointed me in the past in her judgement. She has said many times that watching the filming of this movie literally took her breath away. And that the main actors, Kristen and Robert, were "channeling Bella and Edward". We shall see. I am of course am wearing my Bitten shirt and my friends all have their own homemade Twilight t-shirts. I know we will be mild in comparison to those that dress as vampires or come in prom dresses. I'll bring my camera and document later. Have a great night all!!

By the way I wore this outfit to school today and when I picked up Brooke from her after school group one of the other little twerps... I mean kiddos asked me if I was Brooke's grandma. When I mentioned this to the other kids Jake said, "you really don't look very much like a grandma mom, I wouldn't worry about it." VERY MUCH?!?!?! I guess in this neighborhood some of the kindergartner kids might have a grandma that IS in her early 30's but still I was slightly offended.

*** no offense to any of you awesome grandmas out there ***

happy anniversary

Happy anniversary to:

my sweatheart

the other half of my apple

the father of our children

my best friend

my better half

the one who keeps me calm

my comic relief

the smartest person I know

my teddy bear

I love you babe

bunk beds might have been a bad idea

A couple months ago we bought the girls bunk beds for their rooms. There was some playing in the beds for the first week or so but I think the novelty of it all has worn off and everything had been running smoothly, until last night. Around 11 I heard a huge crash and ran to the girls room where I found Riley (who went to bed on the top bunk) face down on the floor. She was crying so I picked her up and tried to comfort her. I thought she was just scared but as I moved into the hall I could see she was bleeding from her face. I called for Jeremy and ran to get some paper towels. We were trying to figure out where all the blood was coming from and found that she was bleeding from her nose and mouth. We moved her to the couch and started talking to her. We told her she fell from her bed and asked her where she was hurt. She looked at us and answered that her lip was hurting the worse. We had her open her mouth up wider and I found that one of her baby teeth (that was not loose) was hanging by a thread and two of her grown up teeth seemed to be jammed up into her gums. There also seemed to be some damage to her gums. We kept cleaning her up and talking to her when she asked us, "how did I get hurt?" We had just gone over how she got hurt but we explained to her again what happened. I called my mom to see what she had done with my sister Clare when she had some bad injuries to her teeth as a little girl. While I was on the phone Riley asked Jeremy again, "What happened to me? Why am I hurt?" We decided to take her in because her pupils were dilated huge and she seemed to be a little disoriented. After waiting at the ER for 4.5 hours and after having a CT scan her list of injuries amounted to; tooth and gum trauma, two huge goose eggs on her forehead, some bruising around her eyes and nose, a busted up lip, and a small concussion.

We were grateful that there were no facial fractures or swelling of the brain. Who would have thought that falling out of bed could have been so dangerous. Riley was a real trooper and did lots of coloring and a little napping during the whole hospital visit. We both stayed home from school today so we could catch up on sleep and to monitor Riley and make sure she was ok from her concussion. It looks like we will both be going back to school tomorrow. I am so grateful that everything worked out and that Jeremy was worthy and able to give our little girl a father's blessing before we went to the hospital. Riley often likes to comment that she's "not lucky" I would say that last night she was very lucky that her injuries were mostly cosmetic and nothing worse came from her tumble. She did however say that she does not want to sleep on the top bunk anymore... I guess she and Brooke will both have to share that bottom bunk for a while.

decisions

Everyday we get the opportunity to made decisions. These decisions range from simple to complex and sometimes even life altering. This weekend I had heard through a series of text messages that three Caprock students were involved in an accident. I heard that one of these students was killed and another one was in serious condition at the hospital. I did not have any names but once I got to work this morning it was clear to me that the young man who died was in my second period class. I was not particularly close to this student. I did see him everyday but other than an occasional smile we had little to do with each other. He was a bit of a class clown so often times he only lasted in class for about ten minutes before the teacher threw him out and sent him down to the office. I think the only real conversation we had was actually about the Rubik's Cube. I saw him working on one and I mentioned that my son loves to play with his. He then asked me if he has solved it and I said yes he can solve it but it takes him a while to finish it (this was a while back). Despite not knowing this young man very well I was still very effected by his sudden passing. Today most of the kids in my second period class were very upset. There were lots of tears and no one was able to focus on anything. The school district brought in a trauma team to help the students and staff deal with their grief and all the principals were seen comforting students. It was such an emotional day for everyone. I had several students come up to me and make comments to the effect of, "If it happened to him it could happen to anyone." I agreed with them that no one knows how much time they have on this Earth however often times tragic deaths are partly to blame to individual choices. The students involved in the accident over the weekend were racing another car at two in the morning. I don't know if alcohol was involved but regardless there were choices that lead to their horrible tragic accident. I know that many young people have the attitude that they are invincible or that nothing wrong or bad will happen to them. Many times they make decisions based on these feelings. After explaining this idea to several students through out the day I started thinking about my own decisions. Some good and some not so good. I may not have put my physical life at risk with my decisions but did I risk my eternal life? Have I put my own or my families eternal life in jeopardy? Can I do better? Can I make better decisions? Of course I can. I know a huge reason for our mortal existence is to learn and grow. I want nothing but the best for me and my family. As the mother of my family I feel much responsibility for making the best choices for all of us. I never want to assume that I am doing ok when I know I can do better. I am not invincible or immune to spiritual danger. None of us are. We need to always strive to do better. It was a sad day but I have personally been grateful for the opportunity to learn and grow from this experience and pain.

a special message from Jake

***I'm Jacob Clement and I approve of this message***