Alex's Excederin Day

Alex rarely wakes up not feeling well, but today was his day, at least for a couple of hours. As soon as I stepped out of the shower, Alex told me he had a headache. I don’t remember him ever complaining of a headache before, so I was inclined to believe it.

I was supposed to host our Mom’s in Touch group this morning, and as soon as I made the phone calls to warn everyone that Alex was home from school with a headache, they all promptly cancelled. Every one is a little paranoid about the flu right now, and who can blame them?! Problem was a dozen fresh-out-of –the-oven, homemade chocolate chip muffins stared at me from the cooling racks. I should have run them down the garbage disposal while I still had the chance.

Oddly enough, by the time the heating guy came to clean the furnaces; Alex popped out of bed like a piece of toast and felt completely fine. Well enough to hit golf balls in the basement while the man oiled gears and changed filters. I explained to Alex that if you choose to stay home from school, you choose to spend the day in bed. I must have escorted him back to bed 100 times. I finally gave him every portable, non-messy art supply I could think of and that kept him entertained for awhile. While confined, he drew this. I promised him I would take a picture of it for Dad, and Meredith beat me to it.
Meredith was really bored and sulked most of the morning. To her, if Alex is home, they should be playing together. I finally let her watch back to back episodes of Super Why and I don’t think she could have zoned out anymore.

Great Expectations

I am excited to share some more maternity shots of my very good friend, Jennifer. Most of you know, Jennifer, or Geeg as I call her, and I started Kindergarten together and have been friends for years.

Jennifer is due with her second baby, on Alex’s 6th birthday. He has little fingers crossed they’ll share their special day, which I think is incredibly sweet for a small boy. She was a little camera shy and feared I’d drape her in satin, and put her on the hood of her Suburban. You’d think she’d know me better.

I had to convince Jennifer it was a good idea to take a few belly shots. This is the ONLY picture I have of me expecting Meredith. Knowing full well this was likely my last baby, this was the best we could do?! The picture was taken as an afterthought, seconds before I hauled myself into the hospital bed.

Now, here are a couple of shots of Jennifer…You tell me which you’d prefer to have on file. (Mine or hers?!)

I can share these with you now, because I gave them to Jennifer tonight at dinner. Twice a year, I get to have dinner with Jennifer and Mary, Jill C.’s mom and also a great friend. They do the buying for a clothing store that is an institution in Olney. These ladies are the trend spotters of South Eastern Illinois. Jenn and Mary come to a clothing show here and I so look forward to seeing them!

We can talk for hours, and usually do. (I didn’t pick up the kids from Grandma and Grandpa’s until bedtime. I’ll scrape the sucker goop off them in the morning.) I once read there is nothing to bind people together more than shared history, and between the three of us we have plenty. Mary and my mom were friends in high school, so Jill and I were forced into friendship during infancy. :) I love it that as a grown up I’m now able to have a wonderful friend in Mary too. Mary even brought me a new booklist! I will happily forgo American Idol to work my way through it.

The next time I see Geeg, she’ll likely be cuddling her new bundle of joy. After having this cutie, how could there not be a sequel?!

Unexpected gifts

My in-laws have a knack for giving us gifts we didn’t realize we needed. As a college graduation gift, they gave me (who wasn’t yet engaged to their son) a set of cookware. I was confused because I already had one pot and one pan. The pan had a lid, which made it perfect for making Rice-A-Roni® and why would I need anything else? Chances are Beckman remembers this pan, because it had a faux copper lid. Classy.

The Christmas we were expecting Alex, they gave us a carpet steamer. Our carpets seemed fine at the time, but we thought it would be nice to be able to give them a good scrub every once in awhile. Nearly six years later, we’ve finally discovered what they were really thinking…

We went to dinner with our friends the Campbells Saturday evening. We went to our favorite hole in the wall barbeque place, G.T. South’s. If you think I’m exaggerating about its ambiance; you should know the last time we went there for dinner with the Campbells a ceiling tile fell out of the ceiling and onto an old man’s head. He proceeded to put on a real show, and dialed a personal injury attorney from his booth. We keep going back because their food is amazing, it’s cheap, and they fixed the tile.

Our kids ate like farm hands. They have loads of kid friendly sides, so they can both find something they love. Meredith picked at her BBQ, but stuffed her face with mashed “btatoes,” and green beans. The kids were their usual selves, and Meredith put on one of her traditional tap demonstrations table-side before we left.

After we got home, the kids had baths and went to bed. At 2:00 a.m. Meredith tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Mommy, I need you help. I frowed up in my bed, and on the floor.” I made the trip to her room and soon found she was telling the truth. For whatever reason, our kids have an urge to travel while they get sick. They don’t just stay in one spot, they make a journey out of it.

NOW we know why my in-laws gave us a carpet steamer. What seemed like an odd gift to expectant parents now makes perfect sense. Our kids never eat anything like chicken noodle soup or sandwiches on white bread before getting sick. They wait until we’ve had anything with a red-based sauce. Jill C., putting hardwoods in your kids’ rooms was probably the smartest move ever made by a mom.

I slept with Meredith and a bowl for the remainer of the night. I stayed awake most of the time preparing for the dread of having whatever this was sweep through our family. To my surprise, Meredith woke up feeling fine and still seems to be. Knock on wood!

Yesterday was a very lazy day. I was like a zombie after the sleepless night and took a two hour nap with Meredith. I was afraid everyone else would get whatever Meredith had, so I spent the day offering meals of bland foods and disinfecting. Brandon and Alex played Wii the majority of the day, and while I wasn’t thrilled; I really didn’t have the energy to care.

Today I’m going to have to do some laundry aside from bed clothes, because as Alex pointed out to me this morning, he’s down to soccer socks.

As a reminder, today is the last day the blog will be accessible without an invitation, so if you want to keep reading, please let me know.

Old and Paranoid

When this blog was created, the reasons were two-fold. Primarily, it is an easy way for me to share pictures from recent photo shoots along with narrative information. With Brandon’s hectic travel schedule, it also allows him to catch a glimpse of the day to day stuff he so often has to miss. It quickly became a great way for our far flung friends to be able to check in with our family.

What did not occur to me, was so many people would be interested in our doldrums. In the few short months the blog has been up and running, it’s readership is far larger than I ever imagined it would be. This is great, and I’m thrilled that people, mom’s in particular, can relate to us!

However, I’m starting to feel a bit of uneasiness. I once heard Oprah Winfrey say if you have a gut feeling something might be wrong, it probably is.

I know most of our friends read the blog, and several of them have passed it along to their friends. This doesn’t worry me at all, and I think it’s incredibly sweet. I think I may have created this situation inadvertently by commenting on two other blogs and leaving my blog address. Those comments lead people to my blog and it snow balled from there.

Most of the people I’ve heard from are moms who also happen to love photography, and they seem like wonderful women. They’ve provided me with a peer group with whom I can exchange photography tips. I love this aspect of connecting with people I otherwise would never have met.

Lately though, I’ve been getting comments from people I a.) do not know, and b.) am unable to trace at all….no-email address, no webpage, no blog of their own, etc. The comments come to me before I publish them, and if I don’t know who they are, I don’t publish the comment. A couple of recent comments from unknown origins have mentioned how cute our kids are. Normally, flattery will get you everywhere with me, but not when it comes to strangers and our children. While I’m fairly certain these are other moms who relate to my writing and know cute kids when they see them :), I’ve watched too much Dateline to know there are wackadoos out there.

This is a long winded way to tell you that if you enjoy reading about my adventures as a mom, and want to see recent pictures; I need you to do me a favor. Please either leave a comment with your e-mail address or e-mail me and let me know you’d like to continue receiving updates from the nut house.

I’m going to make the blog invitation only and to do that, Blogger will send an invitation to those who’ve provided me with their e-mail addresses. Blogger may ask you to create an account, and if it does it’s really a painless, one time process. They do not share your e-mail address, so there isn’t much risk of spam clogging your inbox.

I hope it doesn’t make the process too cumbersome, but I’m going with Oprah on this one. I’m going to follow my gut instinct. I will not, however, be following her advice to vote for Obama under any circumstance. (I may have just eliminated half my readership with that statement alone. :) )

I will leave the blog as is until Monday evening; after that time it will be invitation only. So, if you wnat to keep reading, please let me know soon!

A Wee Little Man

Today is Thursday, but it feels like Tuesday. The trip on Monday threw me off and this week has flown by. So much so that I literally forgot to do any laundry all week. I just ignored the growing pile in my closet; thinking I’d get to it Thursday.

Twice today I panicked after realizing Meredith wasn’t in her car seat. Flashes of her sitting in a cart in the Target parking lot entered my mind. I had to calmly remind my rattled brain that she was at nursery school.

Maybe all this was foreshadowing. Brandon, who normally flies home on Thursday nights, just called home to tell us his flight is cancelled. We’re having a wintry mix, which gives Northwest a great reason to rest it’s pilots. So, I do have one more day to whip this house into shape after all.
Alex went with me to do the grocery shopping this week. I really, really, really do not like to grocery shop. I hate putting away the groceries even more. I’ve been known to beg the bagger to put all the cold items together, knowing full well I’ll likely throw them in the refrigerator when we get home and leave the rest for later. It’s ridiculous.

As much as I love to cook, I really wish someone else would do the shopping for me. I’ve tried sending Brandon before. It didn’t work out. He came home with most of the stuff on the list plus 42 items that were on clearance. Brandon can spot a partially-deflated, orange clearance balloon a mile away and is physically incapable of staying out of the marked aisle.

Meredith learned the story of Zacchaeus today at school along with the song that goes with it. This is a Bible story that stuck with me as a kid, probably because of the catchy song. Anyway, Meredith had a leg up going into class today. Merdi was thrilled to tell Alex all about it, and as is the story of her life, he had to tell her he already knew it and didn’t need instruction. To further annoy Meredith, Alex is changing the lyrics to things like, “Zaccehaeus, you come down. For I’m going to eat you up in one bite!” Screams ensue.

I learn something new about photography almost every day and a light bulb went off recently that I could just use something…anything…black and in the right lighting, it could serve as a black background without being too “backgroundish.” So, I threw my sweater over the couch today and Meredith flipped herself over the back of the couch, more than willing to serve as a model. This followed a session of rowdy dancing. The kids are really into Jennifer Lopez’s “Let’s Get Loud!” One of my closet obsessions is salsa dancing. I’ve never so much as stepped onto a Latin dance floor, but in my head I’m great at it! So I am more than happy to indulge the kids. That is until I caught a glimpse of my rear hind in the mirror. It quickly snapped me back into the reality that I will mostly never be a salsa dancer.

Presidential Motorcade

Yesterday, the kids and I headed “home” to Olney for a President’s Day visit. For whatever reason, I feel an obligation to do something when Alex has a free day.

Initially, I thought I’d take Alex skiing. I wasn’t much older than him when I learned to ski, and I really want him to become more adventurous. When I shared my big plan with him it was not well received. That is until the night before we were scheduled to leave for plan B, which was Olney. Suddenly, Alex had a burst of courage and decided he could, in fact, handle ski school. With any luck, he’ll save his chutzpah for another day we haven’t already scheduled out of town play dates.

Turns out, the kids had way more fun than they probably would have spending the day with a crazed mom cramming them into boots and bindings. After packing his Leapster®, several movies, his blankets, a pillow, and art supplies (the kid is like a rolling Hobby Lobby); Alex was ready for the trip. Meredith’s two concerns were if I brought enough snacks (plenty) and whether or not she could wear a ballet costume in the car (no).

The first plan of the day was to meet up with our friend Bart. Most of you know Bart, but for those of you who don’t, he’s something of a Renaissance man. He’s an attorney, a land lord, a scrap metal hauler, and a proprietor of a bar. Bart offered to take Alex to the scrap metal yard with him, which I think is a euphemism for the dump, but I was afraid Alex would want to bring half of it home. Instead, we met Bart at his bar. It was 11:00 a.m., so thankfully they were closed, otherwise it would have been a convenient walk to the county jail, which is a block away.

“Mr. Bar,” which is what the kids believe his name to be, let them have free reign of the soda fountain gun, and Meredith fixed herself a 20 ounce Diet Coke. This isn’t something that goes on in our house, so she was on cloud nine. Alex, drank his Diet Coke out of a shot glass, and asked Mr. Bar for multiple refills.

I had to pull them out of there for our lunch. I told them multiple times we needed to leave, that we were meeting everyone for pizza. Meredith yelled, “No! I don’t want to go eat pizza! I want to stay here and drink!” Maybe I should start learning the Serenity Prayer now.

We descended on Pizza Hut for lunch with Jennifer and Caroline, and Michelle, and her girls, Maci and Marni. We thought this would be the easiest and most forgiving option. Between the three moms and five kids, I think we made 27 trips to the buffet. Either it was a slow lunch day, or the other diners left in fear, but either way we pretty much had run of the place; which was good because we were far from a quiet group in the corner booth.

Jennifer was kind enough to let us come back to their house for a play date. The kids had so much fun and it makes me sad we live far enough away that they won’t grow up being every day friends. Aunt Jenn bribed them with chocolate and we tried in earnest to get a good group shot. This is better than some we’ve attempted in the past!
While I had the camera out, I took a couple of belly shots of the camera shy mom-to-be. I don’t want to post everything, because I want to be able to save a few surprises just for Geeg. I couldn’t help but share this one.

We also visited our friend Jamie and her cute family. Jamie and her husband Mike have a beautiful new little boy, Bo. Bo was such a trouper. We were late getting there, which delayed his nap. You wouldn’t have known it. He hung out happily while Meredith chattered at him in a high-pitched voice two inches from his face. What a sweet boy!
We called Aunt Kelly from the road and told her we were going to stop in for a quick “hello,” on our way home. 30 minutes later, we were sitting down to vegetable soup and grilled cheese with the Burgins. It was so nice to see them and to feed the kids something aside from McDonald’s eaten out of a wrapper while whizzing down the interstate.

Our kids haven’t seen each other in a few months, so they were w-i-l-d with excitement. Mason and Mitchell ran around and put on some great shows as we were leaving. I apologized for getting them so wound up and I worried they’d be up until all hours. Exactly ten minutes after we left, Kelly called to tell me the boys were already snoring in their beds.

We pulled into our driveway at 9:15 p.m. At any given time, Alex will jump out of our van and leave a bushel of personal belongings behind. Oh no, not last night, when I wanted him to leave it all behind. He insisted on getting every scrap of everything that ever belonged to him out of the van before going to bed.

I think we'll need awhile to recover before our next day-out-of-school trip.

Come and knock on our door...

The playhouse Meredith got for her birthday made it's way into our sunroom today. It's an outdoor playhouse, but we measured and knew it would fit in our sunroom, so we threw caution to the wind. It might not have been the best plan, becausse it's apparently treated with some sort of stuff that probably wouldn't sting your eyes if you were outside. I don't know how long we're going to keep Meredith's house in our house.

Nevertheless, Meredith was very excited to have her house built and ready for play. She kept yelling over the banister to Brandon asking him what was taking so long. Meredith inherited her patience. Once it was up, she asked Brandon to get out, so she could "start fixing it up." Acting as her own moving crew, Meredith quickly crammed her house full of furniture--mostly of the collapsible variety.

She entertained right away, and invited Alex into her new place. M's registered at Pottery Barn for all house-warming gifts.

Then inexplicably, they started to do yoga in front of the house. I really have no idea what prompted this. The last time Alex watched me do yoga, I'm fairly certain it was pre-natal. Irregardless, I can't make this stuff up.

One last shot of Meredith's zany neighbor, Mr. Roper...

My justification for a Mac

Our computer, which Brandon and Alex periodically "upgrade" themselves, is fussy. The last few days it's been in full tantrum mode and refuses turn on at will. So, I've not been able to post and while I'm sure all of you are lost without updates about my thrilling life, I've missed being able to write! I'm posting from Brandon's laptop, without access to pictures, so this will be a little text heavy.

Valentine's Day was a bigger deal this year at our house than it's ever been. Both kiddos are old enough to realize what the day is all about...c-a-n-d-y. They have eaten a steady diet of Hershey's kisses and Sour Patch Kids for two days. Not that it matters to me this evening as they are staying all night with Grandpa and Grandma.

Alex is a by the rules kind of guy. I bought Sweet-tarts to stick in his valentines, knowing full well his principal works part time as a food cop. The man is wonderful, but he has a beef with fun food. Alex loves the morning announcments at school, which are made by his principal. He plays really close attention to them, and often recreates them over his little tape recorder with a microphone when he gets home. Of course, the principal had to mention the day before Valentine's day that no one was allowed to bring candy. I told Alex maybe we would just go ahead and send it anyway. What followed was a tongue lashing like I haven't had in years. "MOM!!! Our school motto is 'Make Good Choices! Do the Right Thing!' I can't just take candy! It's against the rules!!! It was in the announcements!!!" I'm sorry, but pencils and erasers are not fun no matter how you package them.

Meredith's school on the other hand, is a free for all. If you want to bring a three layered cake personalized for each child, have at it. Meredith hauled home more candy than the Trading Post and asked if it could be Valentine's Day for 'one more ittsy bitsy day?!"

Don't feel badly for Alex. Between me and his over indulgent grandparents his teeth are sure to suffer.

Brandon sent flowers the day before Valentine's day, and after spotting the box on the porch, (You didn't think he ordered them any other way than on-line did you?) Meredith announced she was sure they were for her wedding. She's really into all things bridal lately. I explained to her that the flowers were sent to me from Daddy, Alex, and her, according to the card. Meredith looked at me and said, "You're welcome."

Brandon surprised me with dinner out this evening, which is why the kids are overnighting at G&G's. We had a great dinner at McCormick and Schmick's downtown, and I have to get on a Weight Watchers scale tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. I'm off to run around our neighborhood wearing a weight belt and coveralls.

Hello Kitty, Good-Bye crib

I'm wearing pajamas...it's 6:30 p.m. My nails are sparkly, and my lips taste like stale bubblegum. All selected for me by my stylist...

I think she's mocking me.

Once again, we were supposed to have a measurable amount of snow last night, but instead we just have roads that are difficult to drive on, and gray slush clinging to the van I'm very glad I didn't wash yesterday.

Meredith had her day with Grandpa and Grandma today, and if you can believe this, was most excited to go over and take a nap. They finally pulled her out of their crib and switched her to a big girl bed. (I think they were clinging to the hope there might be a reason to leave up the crib.) They covered the bed in Hello Kitty bedding, and Meredith was insanely excited. I'm just excited she gets to live out her fantasy of having a Hello Kitty bed in someone else's home.

Scary Jack and Meredith

This is Jack. He and Meredith have what you might call an adversarial relationship. Jack was my Jack in the Box, and before it belonged to me, it was my cousin Monte's. Monte is several years older than me, so it's safe to say this toy is laden with lead paint. I keep it on a high shelf in my closet which contributes to Jack's reputation as a man of mystery.

Alex loved "Scary Jack" when he was little and Meredith is fascinated by him. She loves him like a scary movie. This video may seem cruel, but I swear Meredith begs me to let Jack out of his box over and over and over again. Each time, her reacation is the same. This one is a bit more subdued, but by the time I thought to video it, some of the thrill was gone. Still, you'll get the idea and hopefully, Meredith will get the laugh.

***BEFORE you watch the video, double click on the sound symbol on the slideshow to disable the music. Unless you really love competing noises.***

Guess what Wii got?!

I am not one for video games. I don’t like that they encourage you to sit in front of them for hours while your brain atrophies. I don’t like how many hours they can chew before you even realize it. I think this may all stem from the time I couldn’t find Brandon for hours one day when we were in college. After a semi-exhaustive search, (I asked two people.), I found him sitting in someone else’s room “playing” Laura Croft Tomb Raider. They were playing the game 20% of the time and watching Laura swim the other 80%.

My opinion started to change a few months ago after I heard friends chattering about how much fun their families were having with the Wii. Just as I was convinced in the fourth grade that I must have flowered jeans from Kid’s Stuff because everyone else had them, I decided we needed a Wii. I’m very easily influenced. It took me seven seconds to get the rest of the family on board. Of course this decision was made around Christmas time when everyone had the same idea. As luck would have it, we found one on Friday and this has turned into a lost weekend.

It was a great weekend for it because the wind has blown so hard, it sounds like we live on the prairie and the wind is as cold as it is brisk. The only time we’ve ventured out all weekend was to pick up the van from it’s scheduled maintenance.

That is not to say we sat on the couch playing some ridiculous treasure seeking game. We’ve bowled, played several rounds of golf, I punched out Alex and he returned the favor, and Brandon and Alex played a tennis match or two. We tried to play baseball, and sadly we’re just as bad virtually as we are in reality.

If you're in the neighborhood, come by and challenge us, because you have a good chance of winning.

Brandon is not chopping wood. He's bowling.

The look of a determined bowler.We're hopeful it will help with coordination...

Beyond seeing her avatar on screen, Meredith has little interest in playing, so she worked on learning to write her name. She's convinced she needs to know this for Jr. Pre-School, next year!

Closest I'll ever be to Oprah

This is going to be a really quick post, because our family got a very exciting new toy tonight, and I want to play too. That will likely be an entire post in and of itself. But...I wanted to share something pretty exciting!

Most of you know I attended an incredible photography workshop conducted by the wonderful and talented MeRa Koh, and her amazing husband Brian. Aside from having God-given talent, these two are about the sweetest people anyone could ever meet. You are instantly drawn to them. They've both endrued a great deal in their lives, and I think that's what has given them huge hearts! MeRa and Brian held a contest for moms who felt they were "running on empty" and the winner was invited to attend the worshop free of cost. A wonderful woman named Kari was the winner. Kari was so deserving! I won't tell you her story here, because if you tune in Monday's Oprah Show, you'll be able to see it for yourself. Sara, don't miss this one, it's a Nate Berkus episode!

How to waste hours a day!

I am so annoyed! For some strange reason, Blogger is refusing to acknowledge paragraphical (Is that a word?!) spacing. I apologize for any eye strain reading this post may cause. Blurgh!

The only remotely interesting thing that went on at our house today was a temper tantrum I don't care to re-hash. Alex threw a fit while leaving Grandma and Grandpa's and like any sane, mature, mother completely in control of her emotions; I waited until we were in the van before I threw mine.

So as a public service, I thought I would show you a great photo editing site instead of airing the sorid details of trying to raise productive citizens.

I'm not great about sitting down to learn new software. I don't read manuals, and the only way I learn is by watching someone else and taking serious notes. I have a scaled down version of Adobe Photoshop, which is the photo editing software most respectable photographers use. My version is called Photoshop Elements, and no one in North America (or the Carribean for that matter...believe me, I checked) offers classroom training for Elements.

Brandon, however is great about all the stuff I'm not, and he's shown me a few things. Mainly, I just get frustrated and leave 90% of my images as they are, SOOC (Straight Out Of the Camera). I make every effort to make sure my lighting is great and my camera settings are correct so I don't have spend several frustrating hours editing, but this site allows you to do fun stuff.

MeRa Koh, the amazing photographer I trained with and adore, posted a link on her blog one day to picnik and I was hooked! This site allows you to make simple and somewhat advanced edits to your images, entirely free. They also offer additional advanced editing options, for the very affordable price of $24.95 a year. I swear I do not serve as a rep for them, but I could. I love this site and it's become my go-to option for editing lately.

I know most of you have kids, and all of you take sweet pictures of them. I wanted to share this site with you, along with some of the images I've recently edited so you can see what you can do to your photos after you shoot them.

Do me a favor, and let me know if this post annoyed you and you only want to hear about my family ad nauseum, or if you like this kind of stuff because I've got lots more where this came from. Ha! So please, commment away!

This is SOOC (and somewhat embarrassing.)

The same picture, after editing in picnik. (still embarrassing, but with cool effects.)

My happy little snapper, SOOC (he's cute, but...)
Picnik made the image, much cuter!

Ah! The smell of vinegar!

I cleaned all the tile in our house today. Well, not all the tile. I can't find it in the sunroom. It's burried underneath a tent and other toys. Meredith was napping and Alex sat, like Humpty Dumpty, on the half wall that divides our kitchen from our living room, and chatted the entire time.

I was listening to Rush while I scrubbed individual tiles, and Alex was annoyed with the poor reception I was getting. He dissapeared and came back with a shower radio, that miraculously worked better than what I was using. Ever the fixer.

I'm not really sure why I spent time cleaning our floors, because it rained cats and dogs the last few days. We live with someone who makes several trips outside during the day, barefoot. Did I mention his feet are like cotton and soak up unbelievable amounts of dirt, water, and general slop? Ugh!

His fur is like VELCRO, for added fun!

That's why I find my job so defeating some days. I clean a room after breakfast and it's a big mess by the afternoon. I finish the laundry and there is more to be done the minute the last load is put away. I feel very lucky to be home doing all the never-ending chores, don't get me wrong, but if feels like Ground Hog Day around here. (The movie with Bill Murray, not the weather-predicting holiday, which happens to be my friend Nancy's birthday!)

My friend Jill C.'s mom, Mary, is an avid reader. Mary gave me a great list of authors last summer and I'm working my way through them. At her suggestion, I'm reading some of Cassandra King's work. I just finished one of her books titled, The Same Sweet Girls.

It's about an old group of friends with years of history between them. They have biannual reunions, and reading it made me long to see my Olney Girls! I cannot wait for our girls' weekend. These ladies are a bit more seasoned than us, but that's why the story touched me. It was a little glimpse into the future, and if you've read it, like I know Jenn has, that glimpse was a little bitter sweet. Just made me think of all of you and how much I appreciate and love every one of you.

I'm sure Brandon is rolling his eyes by now, and the rest of you are probably wondering if I'm hormonally balanced. I assure you I am, but I am pretty tired. I'm off to bed with no election cover to keep me up developing ulcers tonight.

Believe it or not, no wind machine was used in shooting this photo.

This picture has little to do with anything. Come to think of it, very little has gone on in our house the past couple of days. Alex loves the music from High School Musical 2. He's never actually watched the entire movie, but claims to know all about it. The music, though he does know. Alex was playing bits of the soundtrack he found on-line and Meredith was more than happy to be a part of his show.

We had more storms last night and at 4:00 am, I woke up startled to see Alex standing next to me. The storm was loud and had gone on for what seemed like hours. It's very rare that either of our kids asks to climb into bed with us, but Alex did. He curled up right next to me, and there he slept, so I knew he was truly afraid.

Meredith made an appearance an hour later, and I started to hoist her into bed too. She said, "No Mommy! I don't want a boost! I have my own bed! I'm just inside out and need your help." "Inside out" means her blanket sleeper is askew after a trip to the bathroom. I helped her get reconfigured and she trotted back to bed, oblivious to the storms.

Before the storms hit last night, we were eating dinner. Our conversation turned to Alex's future. He's really interested in jobs, and making money. He can't believe I gave up a salary to stay home, and can't understand why it's more important to me to be home with him instead of driving an Escalade. (We had an Escalade as a rental in Florida, and we created a monster. It's all Alex talks about!)

Anyway, Alex was babbling on about when he's old enough to have a job he's going to buy an Escalade and give me any ancillary money. I told him I was fine, and that he'd likely want to save his money or he might even spend it taking girls to dinner and to the movies. (Then, I said a prayer and ate a few Tums.) He looked at me and said, "Oh Mom, I might, but I'm going to take you out to dinner and the movies more than all my other girls." I wish I could make him sign a contract.

Super "Ball of Fun"

I would not recommend you invite these two to your Super Bowl Party.

After the Colts lost to the Chargers a few weeks ago, we lost interest in the Super Bowl. We didn't have any plans and really didn't give the day much thought. It occured to Alex while we were in the middle of Costco surrounded by people buying "party food," that the Super Bowl was this weekend and we weren't having a party. Alex LOVES to be the host--of anything, so he was completely bummed. To cheer him up, I put out a spread and let them eat upstairs while watching the game. Coupled with the fact that Brandon let him have a Vanilla Diet Coke, he was completely satisfied.

We put them to bed after the half time show. We had had enough of this...

and this...

Sure, it looks cute, but when you're desperately hoping Eli can put a lid on the most arrogant team in football, it looses some of it's charm.

During the half time show, Meredith was thrilled when Tom Petty sang "Free Fallin'," because she believes with all her little heart he's signing about being three. She belted out, "Yea, I'm free!," with three fingers held high during the entire song.

Right before Alex went to bed, he said, "Hey, this little party turned out to be a 'Ball of Fun!" Officially the easiest party I've ever thrown together. Not to mention the outcome of the game couldn't have been any sweeter! I think we were almost as excited as we were last year!

Saturday night Brandon and I went to a Mardi Gras fundraiser with our friends Jill and Scott. It was for their church, and if I'd known how much more fun Catholic fundraisers are than Presbyterian fundraisers, I would have converted years ago. I moved a little slower Sunday morning, but it was completely worth it. I haven't laughed that much (or loudly, most likely) in a long time. And we came home with these, which thrilled these yahoos.

A couple of disclaimers: 1.) Spell check isn't functioning for whatever reason, so kindly ignore my likely errors. 2.) The spacing looks fine when I edit, but once I post it's all running together, so just read slowly, and trust I do know how to form a proper paragraph.