Sushi

Our friends had a SUPER COOL PARTY this past Friday. It was a SUSHI PARTY! They were learning and teaching us how to make sushi rolls.



Mine wasn't pretty, but it's a start. L was eating sliced 'ava ka dough' (avocado) and T ate apart of a California roll.


Dude and I agree that we want to host one sometime. AFTER Farrell's, when we can eat as many carbs as we want (oh carbs how I miss you).

(Photos courtesy of jensennrf)

My Something Creative - St Patty's Day

I missed last week. Dude was out of town, so between WORK, KIDS and FARRELLS I didn't have a lot of time for anything other than life, so nothing creative. I was able to pull a shirt together for L this week, but no huge brownie points for orginality. Just the same, it is always neat to see her wear something I made her.

This is me

A few weeks ago I got 'tagged' on a Facebook (FB) note. My FB friend (and FXB cohort) said something like how she admired how I seemed to have it all together. To be CLEAR - FAR FAR FROM IT! Just to prove it, below is an edited snippet of an email I sent to a friend today:

"OMG! I FORGOT I WAS GOING TO GET YOUR LUNCH TODAY!!!! I AM PUTTING A CHECK IN THE MAIL TONIGHT!!!!!!!! THANKS AGAIN FOR COVERING L's REGISTRATION FEE FOR PRESCHOOL WHEN I FORGOT MY CHECKBOOK FOR PRESCHOOL REGISTRATION!

[it is so not like me to be a basket case or crazy or witchy or indecisive about life in general (okay maybe witchy, but just once a month, for a few days)...... I am WORKING on getting over all of these things and trying to get back more to being ME and to be more POSTIVE, not focusing on the negative! I too enjoyed lunch today – sorry I was just a debbie DOWNER. I PROMISE I will do my VERY BEST to not be like that next time – I am so glad that you want to get together again for lunch]"

File under "Things I don't want to forget"

For those of you that have children you know that they say and do things that you laugh at and think to yourself "I don't ever want to forget that". From there I do a REALLY great job of forgetting. I have done a pretty good job of capturing pictures.




BUT it is the words/actions that I want to capture. In an ATTEMPT to remember, every so often I am going to do a post where I list things that "I don't want to forget".

For instance:

• L calls soup "SLOOOup"


• That my son dances like a chicken. There doesn't even have to be music, you just have to ask him to dance and he bops up and down like a chicken eating chicken feed.


• Everytime it snows overnight when L wakes up and sees it, she shouts "Yeah! It is Christmas Day!"


• EVERY man with a beard L gets SUPER excited and says "There is Ho-Ho! Even to Dude's uncle. And the grouchy construction worker at the cafe, and the random man at the store. EVERY man with a beard


• my little guy, T, CHOOSES to wear ONE shoe or boot at ALL TIMES. He'll bring me his boot and grunt at me until I put it on, then happily walks away and plays, for hours (well not hours, but hours in 14 month old time)
  
  

Wild Animals

The hearth room in our house looks like this:

(notice the chairs on top of the table and the footstool on top of the chair)


All becase of this:




I guess the next step is to completely eradicate my house of ALL furniture.

Lessons Learned

When your manager tells you about his/her threesome with his/her crack dealer, RUN! run FAST! Find a NEW JOB!

Please folks, learn from the mistakes of others that are not smart enough to figure it out themselves.

What Cool People do on Saturday Nights

Zero style points. They were all sitting down! The drummer I can understand, but the guitars COME ON- let me see you ROCK!

Sorry Mr. Man.

Drama, makeup, bathroom hog, PMS, sassiness (and bossiness), dolls, dress up. Just a few of the pitfalls of having an older sister. Sorry Mr Man.



Don't worry son, I am sure someday you will get her back. When she is 13 pull a tampon out in front of her boyfriend, throw it at her and tell her stop leaving them lay around. She'll be mortified, I promise.

wait no boyfriends when you are 13, how about 18.

Please Bare With Me...

It is embarrassing that I have an MIS degree and for many years did web-based application development. When setting up this blog I took the easy route and used a free template. It is driving me nuts. Over the next few days (maybe weeks!) I am going to do my best to do a few enhancements, so bare with me as I am sure there will be several versions and lots of bugs.

Creative Juices....

Being creative makes me happy. I need to do it more often. Anything creative - plan a party (baby showers are my favorite!), make treats, wrap presents, sewing - anything creative, I am not picky. I have resolved to try and do 1 creative thing a week. If it turns out, I'll share it on here and if not, you’ll never know.

This week it was a shirt for L.




I got the tutorial here. You should check out this woman’s Etsy Shop – she has lots of cute things, my favorite being the messy butterfly pin. Even more admirable is that she is donating 100% of the proceeds to the Cora Paige Playground fund. I must warn you, if you click on the story be prepared to cry and be touched in ways you can’t imagine being touched by strangers. I have thought about this family everyday since I learned of their story almost a month ago. Maybe because my son is only 14 months old and I can’t even imagine. Or maybe because having children has made me a softy. Or maybe just because. Either way, I am sure your heart will ache for them as well.

Missing?

Looks like I have been missing from the blog world. I would create a missing persons poster, however it seems not only am I missing from the blog world, but I am also missing any pictures of me. I am always behind the camera and I didn't realize to what degree until I went to find a picture for my facebook profile.

Happy Monday.

Wordless

Yellow Snow

I double checked, the snow wasn't yellow.

Ready. Set. Go.

There is something sweet about a little girl dressed in light pink and piggy tails - in this case L was ready for gymnastics. I tried to capture the 'sweetness'. This is what I got:








Not so sweet looking. She takes after her father :)

do you think he will have curly hair like his sister?

I often get asked if wingman will have curly hair like his sister. I'll let you be the judge.

noon years eve.

Happy Noon Years Eve! The kids and I celebrated it 'young child' style with our good friends, the Lobis's, at the Science Center of Iowa.


There were a ton of balloons and even more confetti.





We only had one episode of documented all out sassy-ness

(her shirt reads "sweet" a little irony anyone?)

Happy New Years to Everyone!

Ten Minutes by Herself, That is All It Takes....

INSIDE I am laughing so hard that I had to post before I even clean up...



Notice the 6 or so Oreos that she has cleverly cleaned the frosting out of, with a spoon (heaven forbid she gets her fingers dirty). And, if you could see inside each of the cups you could see that each is filled with M&M's.


Seriously she was alone downstairs by herself for 10 minutes. Fair to say she is almost self-sufficient, if left alone and hungry she will find food, even if it is just M&M's, Oreo cookies and a previously unopened bag of sugar.

(she is looking over my shoulder looking at the pictures saying "L made just a little mess on the couch).

UPDATEDED
It gets even better, as I am cleaning up, I pick up the sugar and ask her:

Me: "Why did you open this? Did it taste good?"
L: "I didn't open it"
Me: "You didn't? Who did?"
L: "Brother did"

Of note - brother was upstairs, in his bed napping like she was supposed to be doing.

(also of note, I was in the house with the kids - I was upstairs, she down)

The Worlds Best!

I was lucky enough to stumble across the worlds' best photographer when L was 6 months old. We have made many repeat visits to see her I am super excited to go back in a few weeks for T's 1 year pictures, hopefully she is looking forward to seeing us as well!

As a preview (or rewind?), here is a picture of T from his 6 month's session: http://amydoerring.com/blog/. Makes me want the day to hurry up so I can see my chubbers again!

Just for Ed

"Move your hips in big round circles"

Why we don't travel thru airports...

L's favorite song is Laurie Berkner's Three Little Pigs. In fact it has become her favorite story to recite back. Except she has ONE little line wrong, as L tells it: "I'll blow your house up".