Lacking Literary Inspiration

So I’ll start with this:  As we were driving past a local pet supply shop, McKade pointed out a puppy,  he then says, “I think that’s one of those “poo-dohs”!  “Honey”, I say, “Do you mean a poodle?”  And he says, “Yes a poodle!”  I have to admit, I absolutely love it when, with all innocence, the boys say things wrong!  Oh, and he also asked me not to tell Gina about this because he didn’t want her laughing at it.  He didn’t tell me that I couldn’t blog about it!  Just to be on the safe side, don’t tell him I told you guys!

It’s been a busy week, and frankly, we are at home today trying to be lazy.  We did force ourselves to run for groceries which I have been putting off all week.  But today, luckily some funds were deposited into our account thereby lifting the ban on spending money.  Nice how that happens!

The boys have had swimming lessons all week, and they are kicking ass and taking names!  (Why would anyone “take names after an ass-kicking”?)  I just don’t get it!

I just finished a painting project I did for a local fundraiser.  It’s called Benchmarks.  They provide the naked pine furniture and volunteers then paint whatever piece they choose which then goes into a silent auctions to raise money for a local women’s care center.  Here’s a few pictures of what I did:

The top is découpaged.  This was my first experience with that art form and I really enjoyed it.  The auction is some time in August and between now and then, I think my piece might be placed in a local shop to draw attention to the fund raiser.  The boys also painted some mini corn hole boards.  And I just realized I forgot to take pictures before turning them in.  One of the perks of volunteering is that the artists receive two tickets top the function.  So I’ll be able to take pictures then!  I actually one more piece to work on.  It may not get done, but I can work on it all the way through until next year’s event!  This is a total low pressure volunteer project: the best kind!

OH I ALMOST FORGOT!!  I GOT MY BOOTS!!!!  I saved up and bought a pair and I am damn proud of myself for not using credit to pay!  I shamefully admit that these boots are fucking expensive!!  Here’s another picture:

It’s Friday and I am looking forward to spending some time with Mike this weekend.  It feels like it’s a busy week which did not seem to provide much time for couple time!

Well, that’s all I got!

Listless

1. Mike leaves tonight to travel until late Tuesday night, which really isn’t that long but the Sunday night departure really does a number on me.
2. Rogan has been peeing in the potty daily…he’s still in diapers and peeing there too but this is a huge success in our lives.
3. The boys just woke Mike up with volume, I was trying to let him sleep in a little.  I don’t feel bad, he’s going out of town, and did I mention he’s leaving on a Sunday night?
4. I made a couple of watches and donated them to a silent auction for the Elkhart Mental Health Association.  (I didn’t actually “make” the watches, I made cute bands for watch faces that I buy!)
   

   I didn't make this one, but mine are similar!!

5. Just finished reading The Secret Life of Bees and it was really good.  I would recommend it!
6. No sign of Mike, maybe he just got up to pee and went back to bed!…Oh there is he is!
7. Be right back…NEED COFFEE!!
8. Before I mention #8 here, I’ll preface it by saying that Rogan still sleeps in his crib.  He’s a roller, a mover and a shaker…so we’ve been hesitant to move him to a big boy bed.  Besides that, McKade slept in a crib until he was 3+ as well, so this is typical for our boys.  Anyway, the crib Ro is in convertible and today we removing the front portion so that he can now climb in and out by himself!!  Yeah!
9. I’m very curious to know how many “adult-children” experience relatively serious conflict with their parents.  Specifically how many adult women experience difficulty with their fathers and how that has manifested itself in their other intimate relationships.  I don’t doubt for one minute that the partners I have chosen over the years were directly influenced by deep seeded issues with my Dad.
10. An unlucky bird built their nest in the kids’ swing set, right in the little clubhouse area.  Of course we thought it best to move it both for the safety of the boys and the welfare of the baby birds.  There were no eggs in the nest yet, I begged Mike to move the nest into a nearby tree in the hopes that the bird will go along with the new digs!  I know, this is not realistic!
11. Mmmmmm, good coffee!
12. Rogan just gave me a really big tight hug and he said his cousin Christopher taught him how to give a really “hard hug”.  Remind me to call and thank Christopher for teaching this wonderful hug technique!
13. Mike finished working on the benches he’s been building for several weeks months??!!  They look great!
    

    New play equipment for the boys!!

14. My tribute to I can has Cheezburger:
    

    I iz in yoor drawer, cuddling wif yoor offiss suplies!

A Photograph I Took…

…got posted on another blog…of course I did sumbit it for posting…here, go check it out!!

Holiday Traditions

I taught Rogan that if he stands under the mistletoe, we have to kiss.  He seems to be taking advantage of this little nugget of information!  This is what I see about 472 times a day!

Precious Sleeping Angel

I Vant to Suck Your Blood

Trick or Treat Part I

McKade was a real sport this year. He was more than excited to dress up and don the vampire teeth. In fact he had begged me to “wear” them so often right after purchase that I had to threaten to take them away FOREVER!! He didn’t ask again!

So last night, Mike did McKade’s face make-up and hair. I was responsible for the garb, and if you want my opinion, and even if you don’t want my opinion, you know you’re getting it anyway, I think his costume turned out quite well. Mack even practiced his little catch phrase, ” I vant to drink your blood!”

Yes Sir, Right Away Sir!

Trick or Treat Part II

Rogan actually agreed to dress up this year. You see last year, the best we could do was to get Ro into an orange tee-shirt with a pumpkin face on the front. “Army Guy” seemed appealing this year and so I forced encouraged him to follow through.

In all honesty, my day was spent listening to this little 3 year old crazy person say things like, “I don’t like Halloween”, followed by, “Maybe I do like Halloween” and “I want candy RIGHT NOW Mommy” and “I don’t want to go trick or treating” and “Maybe I do want to go trick or treating” and “I don’t want to be a [sic] army guy” as well as “Mmmm, maybe I do want to be a army guy”. As I’m sure you can imagine, I was feeling frighteningly frazzled by the time we got this one out the door.

I did his make-up and helped him with his costume, as Mike was still busy assisting Mack’s transformation into the evil vampire. Mike took the boys out while I handed out candy at the house.

Upon their, return, Ro was feeling pretty worn out. Mack still had a fire in his belly for even more candy, so Mike took him to a few more houses and Rogan sat with me while we passed out the final bits and pieces of the season. At one point, I told Rogan how proud I was that he had dressed up this year. Here’s his response: “I don’t want to dress up!”, “Rogan”, I said, “You already are dressed up”, then I pointed out his pants and his chest plate, and his make-up. “Did you forget you were already dressed up Rogan?” “Yes”, he said, “I forgot!”

Weekend in Review

The lights, the music, the dancing!!

It all came together to create an amazing show! Gina and I traveled to Chicago, by train, to see the tour of the So You Think You Can Dance dancers. And it was wonderful. Although we were disappointed to learn that Katie was unable to dance due to an injury. She did however join Joshua for one of their best performances…and it was worth it.

The rest of the weekend was enjoyable as well. We discovered a very cool little bar called the Reagle Beagle! Sound familiar anyone?!?! For those of you watched Three’s Company, you will recall that the Reagle Beagle was the little bar downstairs from Jack, Janet, and Chrisy’s apartment. We shared a great pizza and some amazing puffy little breadsticks, and it was really affordable as well. We even made it back to the hotel in time for the complimentary, yes I said complimentary happy hour!!

We headed back on Saturday, in time to catch up with Mike and the boys at the school bonfire. It was heart-warming to see all the families gathering together to celebrate the season. McKade and Rogan played their little hearts out. By the time we headed home, it was dark and the kids were wiped out.

Sunday was definitely a day to rest. I napped. Rogan napped. We watched football. And unfortunately, the Colts lost.

So here we are on Monday morning. And so far it’s going ok. I made a decision on Friday to start waking McKade up earlier so we he would have more to time to doddle without causing too much of a delay in our morning routine. We’ll see how that goes.

Mike is out of town for most of this week, which frankly, sucks! He is going to Minneapolis for some trade show! But we’ll survive!! Well, except for Wednesday when I scheduled flu shots for the boys. Uh-oh!

I’m submitting this picture: to The Blog of Unnecessary Quotation Marks!!

Celebrating the Season

Recently the boys and I had the chance to take advantage of the mild autumn season and visit a local nursery called Lintons. Now this is no ordinary nursery! As you can see in the pictures, shopping for plants is just one of the many attractions.

Have you ever seen pink “warty” pumpkins?

There's even a petting zoo!

The colors of Fall never cease to amaze and inspire!

I’ve Got Some Dirt!!!

Literally!! Here are a few shots of our McKade truly enjoying what boys like, no not that, this: ⁄

So here’s the story: Rogan and I were bike riding one day when we rode past a house with one 16″ X 16″ paver on display along with a sign that said they had about 116 more of them and they were $1.00 each. Normally this would have meant nothing to me as I do not often shop for pavers while riding bikes with Rogan.

But, several days before this discovery, Mike and I had been discussing the idea of putting in a fire pit (thanks a lot Scott D.)!! We discussed the various options for said pyromaniacal projects and determined that a patio area with a built-in pit would be the best…in another couple of years.

Cut to the bike ride and my discovery of these pavers. I snapped off a few shots, with my trusty camera/phone, and planned to call Mike as soon as I got home. I didn’t even make it in the door before Mike called, all interested in the pictures…actually I think he thought hoped I was sending him “nudey” shots, but was nonetheless pleased to hear and see my great find.

I called the woman selling the pavers and she agreed to let the lot of them go for $90.00…a deal even better than I originally had found. Then, several weeks later, Mike discovered the exact same pavers for $4.65 each!! Yeee-Haw!! We got us a deal!!

So Mike tore in to the planning phase and about 693 Auto Cad drawings later, my engineer/jewelry designer/babies’ daddy/landscaper had created us a patio!! And the digging commenced!! And McKade romped!! And the pit is now absent of dirt and awaiting the delivery of 4 freaking tons of crushed stone and 1 1/2 tons of paver sand!! Sounds expensive, I know, but trust me, rock is cheap!!

Have you ever “shopped” for crushed stone and paver sand? Yeah, well don’t! It sucks!  It took me about 9 calls before I found someone selling “crushed stone paver base”!!

So I’ll post more pictures when the fire-pit-patio is complete! By the way, have I ever mentioned how handy my husband is?!?!? Seriously, he’s awesome!