I have been the worst blogger ever this year. In an attempt to maybe redeem myself a little, I’ve put together a “year in review” post for 2011… Enjoy!!

January

• Livie turned 5 and had a “Tangled” party

• I went back to school after a 10 year hiatus… being a mom. I took 13 hours at Texas Woman’s University- majoring in Family Studies.

February

• Seiuli was awarded OFFICER OF THE YEAR at his PD for 2010.
  

  He's mine.

  March

• Seiuli was in a major accident at work when he was t-boned by an unobservant driver. He was off work for 6 weeks…
  

  Wrapped around a pole

  

  He's alive!!

• Isabel’s basketball (coached by my dad) won 1st place for the season!! Isabel led her team in steals, points and assists.
  

  Winning!

  April

• Tristan turned 16 and got his driving permit…
  

  Driving on the road... gulp

• Isabel turned 12 and had a “Photo Scavenger Hunt” Party! So much fun!!
  

  Take a pic of entire group at a STOP sign

• Our family formed a team for the “WALK LIKE MADD” fundraiser. We earned over $1000 in honor of Kandi and Autumn, a mom and daughter killed by a drunk driver on Easter weekend 2010. Seiuli was a police officer on the scene and also testified in the murder trial.
  

  Our Walk Like MADD team minus Brad and Larissa...

  May

• I got my CHL (concealed handgun license) and a new Ruger LC9 mm. I named my gun “JET” after Jason Terry because it’s black and can shoot.
  

  JET

• The semester ended and I made straight As!!

• Tristan was in and out of the ER for over a week. The doctors finally decided he was fighting a virus. He eventually got completely better, but it was scary at the time.
  

  ER visit #2

• My Mavs WON THE NBA CHAMPIONSHIP!!!!! They swept the Lakers and killed the Heat!
  

  Dirk- MVP

  June

• I went to Houston with Nancy and Stacy to see NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK and BACKSTREET BOYS in concert!! It was so so so much fun!!!
  

  Well, hello Donnie...

• My siblings and I managed to plan and throw my parents a surprise 40th anniversary party! It went awesomely and they were so grateful.We even had relatives that came from Louisiana.
  

  My parents and the "candy bar."

  July

• We took a family vacation to Destin, Florida and had an amazing time!!
  

  My beautiful family

  August

• School started for the kids and me!!! I took 13 hours again.
• Tristan is a junior in high school.
• Alec is a freshman.
• Isabel is in 7th grade.
• Taj is in 2nd.
• LIV STARTED KINDERGARTEN!! I have NO kids at home during the day!! HUGE MILESTONE!!
  

  My big girl!!

September

• Taj turned 8 and was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
  

  8 years old!! Baptism day

• Seiuli and I celebrated our 10th anniversary on Sept. 14. We are planning a trip to Hawaii in June to celebrate.   Sooo excited!! Sooo blessed!!!!

October

• Took Isabel, my sister Ali and her friend, Maddy, to the Taylor Swift concert at Dallas Cowboys Stadium. We had a blast!!!
  

  Taylor Swift, here we come!!!

• Had a great Halloween!!!! I went as Flo from Progressive. Liv was Rapunzel, Taj as Capt. America, Isabel as a dark fairy, Ali as a psych patient, my dad was a “spider man”, my mom Minnie Mouse and Idk wth Sei is… The older boys went out with friends… wearing white masks and dark hoodies.
  

  Trunk or Treat

  November

• Alec turned 15!!! He also made the freshman A-team in basketball. SO PROUD!!!
  

  Go Wildcats!!!

• Isabel made A team for 7th grade!!!!
   
  

  #00

• Tristan played with varsity in the playoffs at Cowboy stadium!!!
  

  They lost But doesn't he look cute???

• Me, Taj and Livie went to Kansas with my parents and Ali to spend Thanksgiving with my sister’s family. Sei had to work so he stayed behind and the 3 oldest were at the ex’s house…
• Taj started pre-team gymnastics and is doing great!!

December

• Finished the semester with 4 As and a B. My Earth Science class was ridiculously hard so I was thrilled with the B!
• Tristan got his drivers license. We had to wait until after football so he had time to go take the test. He did great!!
  
• Loving being a psycho sports spectator at my kiddos games!! We have 2-4 games a week!
  
• Seiuli has Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off for the 1st time in 3 years. YAY!!

I am soooo looking forward to 2012! How was your 2011??

 

There’s obviously lots of people who have had a huge impact on my life and I’ve had life changing experiences. One thing that had a huge impact on my life was my time at Anasazi. You can read about that HERE. Even though I was still a punk up until I became a mom, I learned things “on the trail” that I could never have learned in the “real world.” It was a great experience.

A person who has had a huge impact on my life is most definitely my husband, Seiuli.

He is such an amazing man. He is patient, kind, giving, trustworthy, smart, a hard worker, fun, athletic, honest, loyal … I could go on and on. He married me even though I was a poor, unemployed, bratty single mom with THREE kids. He jumped in feet first and gave his all as a husband and father. He is a wonderful example to my boys of what a man should be. He shows our daughters how a woman should be treated. And I honestly feel he saved me. I don’t deal well with… bad stuff. I usually end up on a self-destructive path. He found me before that could happen and helped lead me to a happier, healthier place.  I am forever grateful to him. I love him more than I ever thought possible. It’s been 10 years since we met and almost since we eloped (hellz yeah!) and I can wait to be with him forever. Thanks for loving me Babe.

Today’s challenge is to talk about my most treasured item. I can name things I never leave home without like my cell phone, iPod Touch, my Ruger LC9…  But those aren’t really “treasured” items. This, however, is definitely a treasured item:

If there was a fire in our home, I would save this book. This is the side view of a huge 3 ring binder I put together my 1st Valentines Day with Seiuli. Inside it holds all the emails, cards, letters, etc…. that Seiuli and I have given each other over the years. It starts with our 1st emails when we “met” online. I LOVE this binder. I love reading thru it. I love adding to it!! And obviously I’ve already started a second one because this one is overflowing. I hope to need a 3rd and a 4th and a 5th… I love this binder and I love my husband. I am blessed.

What’s your most treasured item?

If you’re my friend on Facebook you already know this, but if not, this is the story of a miracle that happened in our family this weekend.

Saturday evening before my husband left for work I grabbed him to take a picture. He just bought me a new iPod Touch and I didn’t have any pics of him on it. I took this picture:

At 12:50am my phone started vibrating. I said hello and this is what I heard on the other end of the line, “Tori? This is Sgt. Jesse Hunter from LPD…”

Yep- it was my nightmare coming true. The police department was calling me in the middle of the night to tell me something had happened to my husband. I am thankful for several things: 1) We say a family prayer every night before Sei leaves for work to pray for his safety. 2) I have run thru so many scenarios in my head over and over just in case I got “the call.” I wanted to make sure I stayed calm so I could get all the facts and information I needed. And I did.

Sgt. Hunter went on to tell me Seiuli was involved in a “pretty significant accident” but was going to be “ok.” He didn’t know his injuries yet, definitely a hurt arm and possibly a busted nose “from the airbag.” I just tried to pay attention to all he was telling me, think clearly and figure out what to do. I called my dad who called my brother. When I called my dad that was the 1st time I had to say out loud “Seiuli was in an accident…” The words caught in my throat. I think it was a mixture of being relieved that the call wasn’t that he was dead and also because I hadn’t had to speak about it yet. It was weird.

My brother came to stay with Taj and Liv (the older kids were with the ex in Galveston.) My dad drove me to the PD where another officer escorted us to the hospital in another town. It seemed to take forever to get there. When we arrived it was kind of surreal. He was in the ER and as I walked in there were probably 8 fellow officers who weren’t even on shift who had crawled out of their beds to come check on their “brother in blue.” That was awesome. One of them gave me the low down on his condition so far. He had lung contusions and his arm was in pretty bad shape. By the time the dr saw him again and all the xrays were back, etc… he was diagnosed with a concussion, 2 lung contusions, 6 stitches in his elbow, bruising all up his arm, cuts and scrapes, busted lips, bit tongue and an imprint of his computer keyboard on his head.

He had to stay in the hospital until Monday around noon for observation. He is super sore and tired. But he is ALIVE. Apparently what happened was he was running lights and sirens to catch up with a car without any tail lights. He was going about 60mph. He had a green light at an intersection. A 62 yr old woman with 2 kids with her was going the opposite direction and turned left into him. She T-boned his driver side and threw the car into a pole. This is the 1st pic I saw from the scene:

The woman and kids were not injured. She also did not to run to the aid of the unconscious police officer packed inside his squad car. She was more worried about figuring out how to make the City pay.   Anyway, 6 or 7 witnesses placed her at fault. They were all looking because they heard the sirens. Apparently she wasn’t as observant as every one else. She received a ticket and she still hasn’t made any contact to see if she killed a man that night. Nice. Some people suck.

Anyway, I knew we were blessed that he wasn’t injured extensively. But when I actually went to see the car in person… Wow. Angels were watching over my husband and our family. How he came thru this mess with only the injuries he did is nothing short of a miracle.

I am still waiting for it to “hit me.” I haven’t even cried. I think I’m afraid if I let it all sink in that I will be a mess. My defense mechanisms have taken over. I am glad I wasn’t a total loony spaz when Sgt. Hunter called. I know that is because I had prepared myself. I could tell the officers I saw and spoke with were stressin’ it. I am thankful for all their help in getting me to the hospital and checkin’ in on Sei, me and the kids. I am grateful for the paramedics and fire fighters on the scene who used the jaws of life to get my husband out of his sardine can and took good care of him.  I am thankful for the LPD Family Association setting up meals and my church setting up play dates for Taj and Liv for the entire week. We were suppose to be going to see my sister’s family this week– Taj and Liv have been counting down the days. The playdates will help make their spring break fun.  My little sister, Ali, watched Taj and Liv all day Sunday and cleaned my kitchen. That’s not an easy task. Our family has been blessed in so many ways. I know my Heavenly Father sent guardian angels to surround my husband that night. There is no real explanation as to why only the small section of the driver’s area was left unharmed. It’s like the metal was bent around him to protect him. I will be forever grateful for all the many blessings. Most of all, I am so thankful my husband is home with me tonight.

I promise I am going to do better posting. I am feeling a bit of renewed love for blogging, even though I got to the point where I loathed it. I don’t like to be on the computer all the time- it bores me. So I am attempting to limit myself a little, so when I DO post I am happy to do it!!

November has been a great month. Not that you could tell with my three whole posts… And one of those was about Halloween!

Livie, my sassy 4 year old, lost her first tooth!!! About a year ago she fell and hit her tooth on the stairs. It was slowly dying since then. So, 2 1/2 months shy of her 5th bday, Liv lost her tooth.

We celebrated Alec’s 14th birthday. He had about 1/2 a dozen stinky boys over to spend the nite. We bought NINE pizzas and not a slice was left by morning. He also had a cool cake…

Funny thing is… Alec didn’t care. He was like, “So, I do love my mom.” That’s my boy!!

Kelsea and Karlea turned 12. We miss them very much and wish some people weren’t so selfish.

Taj earned a ride in a stretch Hummer for selling 15 boxes of cookie dough! I can’t stand these types of fundraisers, but when he came home and said, “I’m going to sell 15 boxes of cookie dough so I can ride in a stretch Hummer!” Who am I to say, “No you aren’t.” He did all the work himself selling to neighbors and grandparents and uncles… He sold exactly 15! The day before the ride he came down with pink eye. I took him to the Minute Clinic at CVS. She said he needed to be on meds for 24 hours. It was 10am when I got his prescription. The Hummer ride was a 10:30am the next morning. So, even though the dr. wrote a “return to school” note for the 17th, you better believe Taj was there for his Hummer ride at 10:30am on the 16th!! They picked up him and the other winners and took them to lunch at Chick Fil A. Taj said it was the “best day of his life!” I tried to get a good pic, but he was much too excited to actually stand still…

I have more November news, but I will put it into another post. We’ve had a busy month.

***** Oh- before I forget: Seiuli is releasing a cd full of his own Christmas Music arrangements!  He should have it ready by the 1st week of December 2010. You can purchase them by clicking here – just be sure to click on “Note to Seller” at Paypal and list the cds you would like. (Hymns or Christmas or both…) You can totally Fan my Man by clicking on the box in my sidebar.  ENJOY!! *****

I apologize. It’s been a while since I’ve had a Seiuli Saturday. For those of y’all who are wondering who Seiuli is… He’s “The Badge.” You can click on the “The Badge’s Music” link at the top to learn more. He plays the piano beautifully completely by ear. He hears a song and can play it. It’s kinda disgusting, but totally HOT at the same.

So, today he’s back. This is Seiuli playing “Blurry” by Puddle Of Mudd.  Isabel has always LOVED this song, so Sei’s been playing it for years, but he was just messin’ around last week at my parents when I filmed this. So… here ya go. (And I didn’t sing during this one… Lucky you.)

When another meeting is announced at church or something he totally just goes- no complaining. Me- I whine about him going and try to talk him out of it. I am bad.

He plays the piano by freakin’ ear & sings and I… don’t. I can’t sing. I can’t dance. I can’t play the accordian. I must have gone to the bathroom or something when God handed out musical talents…

Anyway… my point is that sometimes I get so insecure and really wonder why Seiuli would pick ME of all the tens of thousands of women on Ldssingles.com (that sounds really funny, but whatev). I mean, there are people his mom would have liked immediately rather than taking 5 years to warm up to and then decide that her son must like me for some reason so I must be ok.

There are girls that are not shy and would have been fine meeting his 4000 family members and not come off as a stuck up winch.

There are girls without bumpy thumbnails. (Mine have ridges!!)

There are girls that are skinny naturally and don’t have back fat.

There are chicks who like Kobe Bryant.

There are chicks that can fix their daughter’s hair super cute.

There are women that actually iron and clean and ENJOY cooking.

The list could go on and on.

So when these thoughts come into my head I have to ask myself if all those other women in my head that I think would be better for my husband:

Yeah- I didn’t think so. I win.

* Don’t be jealous, but in my hands I hold the VERY FIRST COPY of Sei’s new cd!!! He gave it to me and even autographed it for me. Don’t be jealous of my nails either. They cost less than $5 at Walmart. (Thanks Sister!!) And the red hair? It’s a hair flair from this site. And the sweet corn shirt? It’s from Nobody. And the big bags under my eyes? Thank you kids! To get the over all facial expression just pull your head in and say “heeeeee.”
Anyway… Sei’s cd is out and ready to ship so head on over to www.seiuliplays.blogspot.com!!
* This week has gone so fast. Kelsea and Karlea go back to freakin’ Saskatchewan tomorrow morning. Being the cool parents Sei and I are, we let Isabel skip school 3 times this week and Alec skipped twice. Tristan didn’t want to “get behind in his classes.” Nerd. (Seriously- where did he get that from?) It’s been a great visit and we sure miss them when they aren’t here. Our family doesn’t feel complete.

* We have 4 bedrooms. Ideally it’s suppose to be Isabel in her own room, Alec & Tristan share, Taj & Liv share and Sei & I obviously share. And when Kelsea and Karlea are here they are suppose to bunk in Isabel’s room. (She has a bunk with a full and twin.) Last nite these were our sleeping arrangements and this is pretty much the norm: Karlea and Livie on the bottom full size bunk in Isabel’s room until 5am when Liv came to my bed, Alec, Kelsea and Taj sprawled out on the hide-a-bed in the living room, Tristan in his bed, Izzy in Alec’s bed and then Sei & me in our bed. No one is Taj/Liv’s room. Why the kids like to sleep on the hide-a-bed is beyond me?!?

* Sometimes I feel like everyone sucks and then I remember what great friends I have and I remind myself it’s not EVERYONE that sucks, just a select few.

* Random? Why, yes I am.

To save time and space, the following post has been copied from this article (clickety to biggify the controversial story):

Teh Internet Times was first to report about the Omar Triplet Rejection conspiracy.

It seems the conspiracy goes even deeper than originally believed. Omar, not only produced fake photographs of Tori:) and No Cool Story, as his campaign of lies, deceit and wrath against Teh Internet Wonder Twins continued. He went as far as to involve the family of one the teh twins. It has been revealed by sources who would only speak under the condition of anonymity that Seiuli, Tori:)’s husband, is not only involved in the smear campaign, he also involved the couple’s children. “It’s just disgusting. I am so… ugh.” said Tori:) as she prepared the doghouse for Seiuli to sleep in.

It was easy for Omar to contact Seiuli as it appears that Sei and Omar are secret friends. Calling themselves “Teh Guy Wonder Twins” they have traveled together to attend various conventions including: “The Nerd Convention,” “Closet Lovers Of Napoleon Dynamite”, “Crocs Rule Convention” and many, many more. In fact, Seiuli recently left his wife home alone with 5 children for 5 days to take a surf vacation to Hawaii with “a friend.” Sources and photos reveal that the “friend” was Omar and the “surfing” was on the computer at The Nerdvention. “Tori:) was so sad to see her husband gone. And to find this out… it’s just devastating.” NCS is quoted as saying.

Omar and Sei at “Nerdvention 2008″

Omar, Sei and Rick A at “Closet Lovers Of Napoleon Dynamite”

Sei and Omar in Hawaii

Emails have surfaced as well as videos that show the planning behind the conspiracy. One email written by Omar to Sei reveals that Omar planned a video to destroy Teh Wonder Twins forever:
“I did the CNN article, then Tori and NCS one-upped me with the video. I have this master plan to make a video that cannot possibly be one-upped, but I can only pull it off with your help. It would involve you recording a video of yourself, saying as little as one sentence (possibly more, I could do it a couple of different ways). And of course, it would also involve Tori not finding out about it first!”

Seiuli, an obvious male, answered:
“I’m not worried about making Tori mad. She knows i’m the boss… when she’s not around. I like options 1 & 2. I’ll try #1 first and get a kid in it. I’ll send it to you as soon as I can. I just have to find the right time to do it w/o getting caught.”

The video that “cannot possibly be one-upped” has now been proven false. Tori:) is not a port-a-potty lover. NCS is not a tree killer. However, nothing has disproven Omar’s love of Croc nor the fact that Omar and Seiuli are not above paying 11 year olds to smear their mother. A video of young Alec revealing the plot and the fact that he was paid to say his mom loves port-a-potties more than him has recently surfaced and will be aired with the release of this article.

“It’s just really sad that men have not learned they CANNOT hide things from their wives. Even when a man’s wife trusts him completely she will know when he’s up to something. She will discover things and will hide the fact that she knows better than the man ever could. This is proven by the fact that Sei wrote “Tori has no clue…” in one of his emails to Omar.” States the anonymous source.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
**Seiuli Saturday has been canceled indefinitely.