Forever dreaming of you.

It is most probably the contemplation of our soon to be departure to Disney that gives me the  nostalgia of my Laughing place. I have had many over the years and have thought in depth about them in recent days. So I have procured a list, including but not limited to:




time with my blonde haired babies,
holidays with family,
hearing the train whistle blow on my great grandpas farm,
apple picking in the fall,
time spent with grandparents,
the charge in the air at a baseball field,
the smell of spring, and fresh cut grass,
softball,
canning in the fall,
the ocean on my feet,
the clouds in the sky,
the sun on my face,


Laughing place. A place where you go when the world fails you, you fail yourself, or you want to be taken away.

You can't run away from trouble, there ain't no place that far.-Uncle Remus

Everybody's got a laughing place. A laughing place to go. Take a smile and for a while You'll find yours we know - Song of the South

On We Go.

Christmas is and Christmas was...
Martin Luther King-(I live in Utaaahhh)-Human rights day may commence.

for many a year I have felt sorrow at the ending of the "holiday" season. This year however I was 12 minutes early dropping Cooper off for preschool. I may be getting old but most assuredly I was excited for hurrying a structured life again. It may be that I am at the age where owning 12 cats would not be alarming to the neighbors, yet it may also be that I will be at one with the ocean in exactly 34 days, but really who is counting? I have decreed and will maintain that I love a city, and I love the ocean. Alas I was born in Provo, Utah. This is also tailgating on the fact that it is an extremely hard year to be a BYU fan, because I defy you to say Provo does not equal BYU. Did i mention how I love the fair weather? Fan or otherwise.

Moving on, Three years ago the fam took a trip to Disneyland, I was pregnant with Crue and pushing a stroller with Coop. It was the worst. Last year we at the behest of a non-pregnant Kelli we went again, much less "the worst", still a stroller. This year we planned a trip and decided to leave both straggler boys at home. Hello! Stevie and I have a goal of Tower of Terror 7 times in a row. It definitely won't suck. This was my favorite Christmas Present but also a preface to the fave present number two.
The Magicbox, if you don't own one I highly recommend it. It is a delightful speaker that connects to the bluetooth on your devices (if you will) Iphone (if I will) and plays your music. Loud. It has made me consider that first world problems are just that! If I never knew that I could not live without it i would never know that I cannot live without it. I am wedded to the comfort of listening to music whenever and wherever I want, loud.

Caveat.

One Direction-Night Changes
Selena Gomez-The Heart Wants what it wants
Swedish House Mafia-Don't You Worry Child

Never a ship sails out of the bay But carries my heart as a stowaway.
-Roselle Mercier Montgomery

Blog... An interesting dynamic, I feel like I am projecting myself onto all of you, I then in turn feel like a narcissistic person to have said "all of you" when it is probably two of you, maybe. That being said, we are off and running.


Stevie in fourth grade! Are you kidding me? That was my latest post, what I wouldn't give? Stevie is currently in 8th grade and will be driving this year, lame. Let us not talk of dating or boys for another few, please pretty pretty please.


The earthquake and subsequent aftershock that was Cooper was followed by a Tsunami that was Crue. That one was... Well no words. Yes he is now almost 3.


Gettie is now in fourth grade and she is just Gettie. Watch out for that one, marches to the beat of her own drum. I want to be like Gettie when I grow up.

I feel equal parts nostalgic and sad at the beginning of every new year. Those of you who know me best know that I am not a sentimental person, sometimes to a fault, but January 1 brings it out in me.


2014 was a crazy year. I want to say that it was insanely terrible and I also want to say that I was insanely blessed. Health wise it was crazy, sick I was sick, finally in July I was diagnosed with Pancreatitis due to my gall bladder being necrotic for so long. I can honestly say that it was the hardest time of my life, I still dream about it, however I feel so much better now, I have four children that I adore, my hardworking husband, my family, my friends, and on...


Thus aforementioned blogging is a caveat to the faves of 2014 that are yet to come. Wait for it... Please remember that I have a tween and a teen so as per previous blog posts Ozzie did not make the cut.
And in no particular order...


#1 (it goes without saying) Blank Spaces-Taylor Swift
#2 Amnesia-5 seconds of summer
#3 Until Then- Sully Erna
#4 Awake-Josh Groban
#5 One Directon-You and I
#6 30 Seconds to Mars-Bad Romance
#7 Ariana Grande-Love the Way You Lie Part 2
#8 Barenaked ladies-You Run Away

Happy new year all of my loves. You know who you are!

What can be said about new years rhymes,
That's not been said a thousand times?
The new years come, The old years go,
We know we dream, we dream we know.
We rise up laughing with the light,
We lie down weeping with the night.
We hug the world until it stings,
We curse it then and sigh for wings.
We live, we love, we woo, we wed,
We wreathe our prides, we sheet our dead.
We laugh, we weep, we hope we fear,
And that's the burden of a year.

-Ella Wilcox

What the...

The mystery of it is if I were to update this blog every time I say: did my taxes, made resolutions, taken a ride on the Jimmer train, won a softball tournament, celebrated a birthday, built a house, had a baby, or started a business, it would still be more often than I have done it lately. However that is a long list of busy-ness so I therefore must humbly ask your pardon for the delay (does delay do it justice?)

Moving on....

Zumadent has been operational for a little over a year now. It started as a little idea which through much blood sweat and tears has turned into a profitable delightful little business. We feel like we are doing our civic duty by whitening the teeth of people all over the world. Although Europe could use a breakthrough in the industry. You know what I mean!

At the beginning of the year, yes the year 2010 we are catching up here. Jeff and I had a little well, astronomical surprise. I won't lie for the sake of this blog or the fact that it may one day become my heritage (call me noble). But it was difficult at best to get used to the idea that we were (like it or not) going to welcome a new little "bundle of joy" to our family. After the initial quake and a few subsequent aftershocks I began to approach excitement at the idea of this new tiny. In June we discovered that we were going to have a son. You can probably imagine that we were delighted with said news because of the fact that estrogen outweighed testosterone three to one in the Sheen household.

And on we went through the regular pregnancy routines and rituals, back ache, crank of which Jeff can testify, preparing the nursery etc. etc. etc. and on November 18, 2010 Cooper Jeffrey Sheen made his appearance two weeks early. What a little miracle he has been in our lives. Stevie is a life saving helper and I have never experienced someone who loves a baby as much as Gettie. Jeff of course is head over heels in love, and I could have never dreamed what an amazing blessing I would find in my little blue eyed boy.

At the risk of me trying to walk you step by step through my entire life which I imagine is neither pleasant or entertaining I will sum the rest up for you. In June we moved into our new house in Orem, Gettie started Kindergarten and Stevie fourth grade at Boneville elementary, and we have filed our taxes this year. In light of afore mentioned events softball championships seem inconsequential but in my defense of finding it newsworthy I was pregnant for the entire season.

Other than that not much has changed. I am still a bi-quarterly blogger (and that is on the scale of a decade) and I still appreciate the overuse of parenthesis and triple periods. Till next time...

Humor or Not?

Have you ever said or written something that is funny? Not just mediocre funny, I mean laugh out loud kind of humor? Like...you want to send it in to Jay Leno but you think people would treat you like a pariah when they lose money on their Eli and Lilly stock because you, single-handedly, put prozac out of business. Because the whole world is laughing FUNNY???

And so you run the words over and over in your head, as you patiently await the uncontrollable giddiness that is certain to occur as soon as your audience reaches the particular juicy morsel of hilarity.

And just when you are sure they have gotten it (dun dun dun). Nothing but Heart breaking silence. And so in your complete astonishment you begin to speak. Very quickly I might add. Sure they somehow missed the point. Explaining re-explaining. And yet the blank stare prevails, perhaps a small courtesy "yeah, yeah, I get it, It was funny already". And you just want to keep going with the explaining so they can fully understand. And then mid speed-talking sentence they awkwardly leave the room?

Has that ever happened to you??? Yeah me neither, I just wondering.

A Day With My Dad.

So I feel particularly impelled to blog about a specific tree. Of which I have nostalgic ties (ok not in real life but just for the sake of the blog).

As it turns out this morning, I was helping my mom and dad weed their yard. As my dad and I were weeding a small kidney bean shaped peice of the lawn where, may I add, two Aspen trees reside we kept finding walnuts. My dad kept exclaiming how he did not know these Aspens produced walnuts. And in return comment, I said that we should call The National Geographic immediately.

However one of the aspens is sadly dying, slowly fading away. I asked my dad if perhaps the japanese beetle had gotten to this tree and infested it with illness. He proceeded to tell me that besides developing an identity crisis it had a congenital disease, that it was surely missing chromosomes, and had been sick since conception.

Now we will not, in this blog go into the conception of a tree, but I am sure you can all imagine.

By the end of the weeding interlude the tree was more dead than ever due to my inadvertant digging up of it's roots. And my dad consistently chopping at them with a shovel.

So, we would like to share a moment of silence for the tree, who gave it's life to provide us with ten summers of (minimal) shade, and stoically bore us walnuts.

Johnny Cochran I need you....

Again from the archives...


The Jury has been in the deliberation room for hours. I can hardly stand the pressure... Could someone get me some crayons, a wheelchair, some pajamas? The trial relentlessly playing itself over and over in my otherwise barren head. And it goes something like this..

Kelli, is it true or not true that you put the flip flop's (that's what kind of shoes they were, make a mental note.) on your daughter Gettie's feet at approximately ten A.M Tuesday morning.

"yes it is true"

And is it also true that she cried immediately afterward followed by bouts of sporatic crying throughout the day.

"But only because I decided for once and for all that she absolutely HAD to learn to wear her shoes!"

So you never once over the course of the day removed her shoes?

"no sir"

Is it also true that you threatened to put her into time out if she proceeded to remove her own shoes?
Objection.... Overruled.

"UM... I plead the fifth."

So Kelli did you or did you not, at the end of the day look down, only to realize that her flip flops with elastic holding them around her ankles, toe seperaters spreading all the way across the shoe to the other side, were on the WRONG FEET???
Wait for it...

The Jury is out.... I AM A LOSER!!!