Plugging

Since John and I haven't been doing so great about updating Tadpoles (the blog where John and I tell our funny childhood / teenage stories), I'm sure that you all don't follow that one too closely. If you've never read Tadpoles, you should; it's hillarious! (I think anyway.) Anyway, I've made a list of new things to post on there, and plan to update about once a week, so you should all read that. John, you should repent likewise! Tadpoles is a great thing, and you make it greater. Okay, I'll shut up. READ TADPOLES PEOPLE! (There's a link on my side line thing there--->.

(listed under "Cool Links" It says "John and Me"

The Perfect Saturday

Yes, it just might have been the perfect day yesterday. The weather gave us a wonderful break, and was totally awesome. I got up at 6 am, with the intent to meet my running group and run with them. However, I fiddled around just a bit too long, and ended up running late. I could have tracked them down in the car and still run with them, but I decided to save time and just run from home. Lydia ended up coming along, riding her bike next to me, so it ended up better than running with my friends (sorry guys, but quality time with my daughter trumps).


When I got home, we got everyone ready, and took advantage of the beautiful weather, and spent the day at the zoo as a family. We ran into my brother Todd and his wife there, which was cool (at least for us, we slowed them down quite a bit). Here are a few pics:

Mark and Lydia being goofy

Here's Lydia posing while pretending like she doesn't know I'm taking her picture.

Mark and Ross

Ross

The kids were a bit pooped on the way home.

However, they perked up once we got to my parents house for a short birthday fling for my niece, Jonni.

John's kids were their usual selves. (Sorry, I couldn't help myself!)

I missed the shot I wanted here. Bruce was taking a short snooze on the floor, and Clayton was sticking his fingers up Bruce's nose.

Next Bruce and I got to have a date. We went to the annual Team Godzilla (Metro Tri-Club) banquet, which was as always, a very good time. Someone gave me this picture there. It's Brad Wever (my piano student, and fellow Godzilla) and me together in 2008's River Road Run. I'm posting it because it is the one and only race picture of me in existence that actually looks good.
All of the others look more like this one:

Do It AGAIN!!!

Clayton actually slept ALL night long! Yay, yay, yay! Party dance! I'm not sure if this is a first or not, but it is definitely VERY rare. I can hear him up there complaining, so I know he is still alive (I was actually tempted to check when I woke up all on my own this morning, and realized that he hadn't gotten me up last night.)

Day One...

My plan is to take a picture of my children everyday for the next ... ? ... years. I have to make sure I put the camera in the same place, use about the same zoom, etc. Then eventually I put the pictures into a slide show with the pictures changing really fast. I'll be able to watch the kids grow up literally. Cool huh!

Empty Threats No More

Well I finally did it. I've been threatening for a long time, so I had to make good on it. After he lost a 2nd pair of gloves in about a 2 week time-span, I sent him to school today with the dreaded pink Barbie gloves. He probably won't wear them, but that's not the point. If he has a clue where they are (say maybe his locker, or on the bus), the missing gloves will be making their way home today. I hope so; I'll have to go out and buy more gloves otherwise. I think he'd rather get frostbite, than to wear those Barbie gloves.

Various

Happy Birthday to Lydia, who is now an unbelievably great 11 year old! We had a bunch of silly girls over for a slumber party to celebrate. My mind is still intact, somehow.

The weather was nice, so we went for a "silly walk." Lydia and I made up silly kinds of walking/skipping to do around the neighborhood. Justice fell asleep. Ain't it cute?

Thanks to Brad, we've been enjoying the Fail blog. Here is the one that I just can't stop watching over and over again:

A Couple of Ross Things That Made Me Smile

Ross is my funny boy. He makes me laugh everyday. Today I dropped him and Mark off at school, and Ross wanted to show me his Gallon Man. Everyone in the class had made a Gallon Man (a guy with a big square labeled "gallon" for a body, smaller ones for the arms and legs labeled "quart" then smaller ones labeled "pint" etc.) Anyway, I didn't need the label or Ross to tell me which one that my son had made. His was the one with the scary face, and lots of pointed teeth that were chomping up a screaming man. -So weird.

Here's a poem that he wrote in school a few days ago:

I Can't Write A Poem

I gave my desk to a whale,

My chair is Ross proofed,

I ate my pencil,

My face is glued to the floor,

and I'm bored.

The Kitchen Remodel is Back On

I stalled out big time on the kitchen project, and I didn't post any pictures because I wasn't liking the paint that I picked out. I'm terrible at interior decorating! Notoriously awful! I can't tell what a thing is going to look like before I put it up at all. Once it's up, I can tell you if I like it or not, but I have to mess up a few times to find something I even think is acceptable. I always have to paint rooms at least twice, because the first time is usually bad. Once I spent a few days making new curtains for my kitchen (which, like the rest of my house has lots of big windows) only to put them up and realize that I had created the singularly most ugly curtains in creation. If only you knew. They were SERIOUSLY Delores Jane Umbridge UGLY UGLY UGLY. I had no clue until I put them on my windows and then realize that I had committed a huge travesty!

So anyway, I did it again with my paint. It wasn't as bad as those horrid curtains, but I didn't like it. So I lost all interest in my new kitchen, and I stalled out big time. Well I just repainted, and I think I like it this time. Now we just have to put up a new ceiling, new lighting, trim, and a couple of small filler cabinets (You'll understand when you see the gaps in the pic). Here's how it's looking. What do you think? Really I want to know. You are talking to the design challenged, so any input would be greatly appreciated.

I painted this one small wall around the cabinets, and the door to my basement this dark blue to give it a punch and to pull out the color in my back splash.

I painted the rest of the room this gold. It's the same color that's in my living room and piano room. I figured it was safe because I already knew I liked that color. Plus it goes well with my floor, I think.

My Funny Kids

Ross and Mark were both Students of the Month in December, hence they got their pictures in the district newspaper. Just about every kid in the world gets to be Student of the Month at sometime or another, but what makes me post this is the pictures in the paper. Can you guess which are my kids?

Hint mine are the ones in the top left hand corners with the psycho looks on their faces.

It reminds me of this caption that was written on the back of a picture of me and my cousins. I was of course pulling a weird face. I still don't know who wrote the caption.

It also reminds me of this picture that I took of Ross in his kindergarten Christmas program. He's the one rolling his eyes, sticking out his tongue and waving his arms around.

More Justice

I'm breaking my semi-vow-to-myself. I've been repressing the urge to report all of the Justice things that go on around here. For one, it sounds like complaining (though usually by the time it makes it to the blog, I just think it's funny) for another thing, I think maybe I'm creating a monster. I quit pulling out the camera to take a picture of every disaster. (I think it gives him the idea that it's funny (even if I think it is sometimes-we don't want Justice to think it's funny). The Sprayer Prank has had a bad influence on Justice. He loves to watch that video over and over. The problem is that now he has discovered the sprayer. I came in the kitchen the other day to find him standing in the sink giving the entire kitchen a shower and a bath in one. There was a puddle literally all the way across the entire kitchen - LOTS of water!

Last week, our heater quit working. After some inspection, Bruce figured out that it had something to do with a pressure thing, so it must be a broken switch thing. (He could tell you more accurately than I can.) He found a way to circumnavigate the switch, and make the heater come on, so we spent a couple of days going down to the basement to manually turn on the heater every couple of hours. When the new part came in, Bruce installed it. The heater still didn't work. More investigation followed. The problem? Well, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the heater, or the switch at all. Justice had put a big rock in the exhaust pipe outside, partially blocking the airflow. I know it was Justice, because I've caught him doing it before; those decorative rocks right there are so tempting, and fit so nicely in that pipe right there at his height. I'm just glad we didn't call out a repairman, and have to pay him $100 or so for him to take a rock out of our exhaust pipe!