official seal

I give you the official seal of this blog.

Make your own seal here.

(this is what happens when I go to bed at 9:30 p.m., wake up at 3:30 a.m., and can't fall back to sleep)
-thank you Presurfer.

watching the emmy's vs. studying in sri lanka

My old school that closed had a get-together barbecue today. It was really nice seeing old students, families, and faculty. The kids all seemed happy to see me, lots of hugs and "I miss yous." It felt good, but I also felt short and old. All the kids grew SO much, some of them just tower over me, and I found out that several former students are currently working on getting their Master's Degrees. One is studying world religions in Sri Lanka....Sri Lanka. Not that I would prefer to be in Sri Lanka right now...But, wow.
His sister starts her first day as a TA in freshman English classes at Marquette tomorrow. Her mom did say that I was the person that inspired her to become an English teacher. That totally made my day. Gosh, she could probably teach circles around me. I have taught some of the brightest kids. I miss it. I wish I were still in the classroom part time. I really wish I were still there. It was home. I also really wish I had gotten my masters degree before I had kids. This is a very wishy post - 'least its not washy. Oh well wish, wish, wish. This is sort of a rambly post. I'm going to go watch the Emmy's now and hope Conan can make me laugh.

cinema celebration

E said that all she really wanted for her birthday this year was to have a "friend party" with kids from school. I really didn't want to have it here, so we booked a party/movie screening of Zoom, the new Tim Allen super hero flick, at the the York theater.

We had a party room for an hour before the film, so I brought paper for the kids to do a super hero mural. Here E seems to be directing/critiquing her friends' work.


Then we had tasty cupcakes and juiceboxes and played a rousing game of Heads Up 7-Up before the usher kids came to the theater.


Once they were all seated, the usher kid was like, "Who's the birthday girl?" I thought they were going to sing to her or something (like at Benihana) but instead he's like, "Okay let's go upstairs so you can start the movie." It was SO cool, E and I got to go up to the projection booth and see the machines and she pressed the button to start the movie. She was so excited!

They all got popcorn, gummy bears and lemonade, the kids were amazingly well behaved, and the movie was pretty good (for what it was)but Chevy Chase got so old, it was sad...but I digress. It was a great day and E was really happy.

8 roses

It's hard to believe E's been around for 8 years. Every year since she has been born has seemed to go faster and faster. Since her first birthday, I've bought E a rose for each year she's been around. I was going to post them all but I'm having trouble locating some, so here are the most recent ones plus other pictures from her weekend birthday celebrations. Ill try to find the others and put them up.

8 roses

7 roses

6 roses (yes I'm extremely pregnant here)

Here E shows off her snazzy Nike golf bag from Papa (and Nana). I said, "Let me take a picture of you wearing it." Everyone thought that was quite funny as, apparently one carries, not wears a golf bag.



Her theme was Wicked, as she is the embodiment of Alphaba, without the green...unless you count what the green frosting did to anyone who ate it. I will not elaborate. If you ate it...you know.



And Laura gave all of us tickets to see Wicked again in January for all of our birthdays :)!

Blogger won't let me upload anymore pictrues to this post so I must start another one to do E's friend party post.

mother of the year application essay

Dear Mother of the Year Nomination Committee,

I believe I should still be considered for the title "MOTY" even though it is 11:45 p.m. the night before the first day of school and E is up watching Kim Possible episodes... Fine, I'll withdraw my name.

*sigh* Poor little thing. She woke up around 10:00 after going to bed at 8:45. She was coughing and wanted water. I knew this was trouble. Once she wakes up like that she works herself into this crazy frenzy about being up too late, convinces herself that she won't be able to get back to sleep, and it always escalates into this tearful dramatic thing. I got her back to bed, but then at 11:30 she came in the living room half asleep and crying about her dreams(Sorry Laura, I am truly not blaming this on you)about being at Great America and being forced to go on rides she didn't want to. She was actually coughing pretty badly and had that whole lower-lip-sucking-in-cry thing going on and she wasn't fully awake. So I said, "You know what, why don't I give you some cough medicine, put on some cartoons, and you can sit up for a bit." It totally worked. While I was typing this she calmed down and decided to go back to bed on her own. (it's 11:58) I should probably get to sleep myself. I just know I'm going to have that recurring "I'm riding on a roller coaster and the car I'm in goes flying off the track" dream.

yoga-laties-go-to-sleep-alreadies

This is the yoga symbol for "deep sleep."

Sometimes I have good ideas. Tonight was one of those times. I am pleased with myself.

Roo has entered a new phase. The I-can-climb-out-of-my-crib-and-refuse-to-sleep-anymore phase. Now I must preface my lament with the fact that this child, from the time he was nine months old until a few days ago, went to sleep at seven o'clock p.m. and was usually never heard from until seven o'clock a.m. He was an awesome sleeper. Plus he took a two to three hour nap everyday. I should have appreciated that more. Now that he knows how to climb out, has tasted freedom, and discovered that the house doesn't shut down once his light goes off - he flat out refuses to obediently stay in his crib and sleep.

I remember this with the girls, though they were much harder to get to sleep than Jack, and they would stay quiet and calm so long as I was in the room. So, with the light off, their little toddler radars could detect if I were present. And if I were, they would at least lie there quietly and eventually fall asleep. I also remember when the girls went through this phase, that I would end up lying down on the floor and would inevitably fall asleep myself before trying to inch my way to the door in order to escape. Then I would wake up disoriented with a stiff neck and sore back.

Back to my good idea. So this has been happening the last few nights. Tonight I went to lie down and ended up in the yoga child's pose position. I thought to myself, this feels good. So I proceeded to silently do a bunch of yoga poses and stretches, Pilates hundreds, and two sets of 150 crunches. I heard his breathing turn from erratic to contently sleeping and was able to sneak out.

Sleeping boy - Check!
Work out done - Check!

It seems like a minor thing to be pleased with myself about, but I am nonetheless.

may i have a slice of yogurt?

ew! I've just returned home from participating in a focus group for what I was told was "snack food." I signed a confidentiality agreement, so I will not name brand names lest the suits from this corporation show up at my door with a cease and desist order and force me to take down my blog. I will say, however, that though some of the foods I tasted were quite yummy, there was one product type that still has me shakin' off the heebie jeebies.

The facilitator lady lifted the "fancy" silver lid from the plate to reveal three products wrapped in plastic. One shaped like string cheese, one like a slice of American cheese, and one like Laffy Taffy. She lifted up the string cheese shaped one and I noticed that it was a cloudy pink color with areas of dark red. It reminded me of a skinny little pimento loaf. Then she peeled it... and it began to flop and wiggle around. I was not excited about this. She then passed around a plate of one of these all sliced up. As the plate approached, I surmised that it was supposed to be some sort of fruity yogurt...but solid... sort of. To the touch it was slimy and the texture in my mouth was so creepy. My brain was screaming, "The yogurt has been left out too long! Don't eat it...DON'T EAT IT!" I know it was supposed to taste like strawberry with little strawberry pieces, but I couldn't get past the texture. Then we had to eat part of it from the "slice-of-cheese-but-its-yogurt" form. I decided to sort of let this one slide down my throat because I didn't want to chew it again. This just resulted in a whole new kind of revulsion. Needless to say, my assessment of this product was less than favorable. About 4 of the 8 people in the group disliked it (none quite as much as me) and the other half thought that their kids would love it. ack! ack! ack!

They did have us sample this cream cheese and chocolate cookie type thing that was awesome. Unfortunately, that was the first thing we tasted and the disgusting gelatinous yogurt stick was last.

I give the inventors points for thinking outside of the box on this one. But quite simply, for me, yogurt should never be eaten with a fork

the new phone books are here! the new phone books are here!

Actually, The Dells pictures are posted! The Dells pictures are posted! If you have just been waiting in dire anticipation to see the visual artistry that a disposable camera (I forgot my digital--surprise, surprise)can exhibit while documenting a trip to the Wisconsin Dells; by all means go to the menu on the right, find "da dells" under "previous posts," click, and prepare to be amazed at how much better the post is with 100% more photos. (Or just scroll down a bunch-your call)Enjoy!

it's not like i'm a rocket scientist

I lose things. I lose things a lot. Organization and a good memory (when it comes to physical objects) are not my strengths. Wedding invitations, keys, cell phones, wallets, permission slips, bills, pluggies, shoes...you get the picture, are misplaced on a daily basis. These things unearth themselves eventually, but other things are not so easy to locate. Chief among these are the video tape of my wedding and the video tape of Kailey as a baby. I know they are here somewhere.

Reading this story made me feel less scatter-brained (or at least as if I'm in good company).

in-box psychoanalysis

I found this on Presurfer and it absolutely applies to me.

WHAT YOUR INBOX SAYS ABOUT YOU

According to psychologist Dave Greenfield, who founded the Center for Internet Behavior in West Hartford, Connecticut, USA, the makeup and tidiness of your inbox is a reflection of your habits, your mental health and, yes, even the way Mom and Dad raised you.

If you keep your inbox full rather than empty, it may mean you keep your life cluttered in other ways. You probably cling to the past and have a lot of unfinished business in your life. On the other hand, if you obsessively clean your inbox every 10 minutes, you may be so quick to move on that you miss opportunities and ignore nuances. (Entire article here)

Reader Poll: Post a comment. What does your in-box say about you?

news stories of the day

"Scariest Story of the Day"

"Least Newsworthy Story of the Day"

"Oh-poor-you-you-have-to-wear-khaki-shirts-and-pants-gimme-a-break
Story of the Day"

"Laura Would About Care This, But I Don't Story of the Day"

"A Loaf of Bread, a Container of Milk, and a...HOLY COW Story of the day"

biblio-who-mancy?

I subscribe to the "A Word a Day" email list, because I'm a nerd like that. One of the words this week was:

bibliomancy (BIB-lee-o-man-see) noun

Divination by interpreting a passage picked at random from a book,
especially from a religious book such as the Bible.
[From Greek biblio- (book) + -mancy (divination).]

My friend Kaz and I used to do this all the time when we were bored. (We also used to play "Do You Want this Trip or Not?" which was kind of like a travel game show where one of use would say yes or no to that question, spin the globe and see where our finger landed...but I digress.) We usually used our literature text books as we were not exactly bible chicks. I forgot all about that until today, so in honor of AWAD and Kaz, I am going to do a blogger version of it right now with a random book from my shelf.

Okay, I have returned with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (because I am a nerd like that as well). I will now ask it a question, flip open the book, close my eyes, and point to a random passage for the answer.

"Will I find a job that will pay me more than $36 a week sometime this month?"

Harry Potter says: "They now joined Katie, Demelza, and Ginny in the stands to watch the selection of their last team member."

Ah Ha! I will take that as a YES!...Team member...Huh? Huh? That's telling, no? And maybe I'll work for some one named Demelza, that would be cool.

So there you have it, bibliomancy at its best.

making a memory

K, who has the propensity to be of the, let's say, obstinate and difficult persuasion was amazingly well behaved and a downright joy to have around on our trip to the Dells. She seems to have just grown up and matured overnight. She used to be this loose cannon with a flash temper and everything was on the surface. Emma has been deep and introspective since, I don't know, birth. But one moment on this trip with K just floored me.

It was sunset on our last night, the weather was beautiful, the water was still and the almost full moon was bright over Lake Delton. She was sitting on the pier, fishing. I walked over and said, "So, whatcha doin'?" I was expecting a "Fishing, what's it look like?" Instead, she replied, "Making a memory." I asked her what she meant, and she said that she was watching the sunset and the beautiful lake and she wanted to remember it. I asked if I could be part of her memory and she said yes, but I had to sit down with her. So, I did and said, "This is really nice Kailey." She said, "No, wait." Then she told me to come closer, she put her head on my shoulder, and directed me to lean my head on hers. We sat there for a few seconds and then she said, "Now, this is the memory." I really hope she does keep that memory, I know I will.

da dells

I've decided to just edit this post with all Dells related info. It may not be exciting reading, but it will serve as a documentation of this trip, I'll put the pictures in here too when I get them. (Scroll Down for pictures!!!!!)

August 4th

The kids and I are in Wisconsin with my sister and parents. Things are going relatively well. Roo being, well, TWO, is probably my biggest challenge. He's either awesome or a nightmare...running around like he's hopped up on gop or sleeping. Speaking of sleeping. I'm sleepy. I will continue this post in the morning.

August 5th

Okay, It's morning. I'm still sleepy.

The kids and I are all living in the same room, the same room where the sun comes streaming, I'm sorry screaming in at six a.m. Roo refuses to stay in bed or in our room (I know this because I tried at least containing him in our room but he screamed bloody murder). So I get to wander, sleep starved, around the condo preventing him from doing such things as twisting my sister's glasses in to a tangle of glass and wire, climbing on top of the entertainment center, and waking everybody else up. I just suggested to Laura(because he woke her up) that I wanted to put Roo in some sort of sensory deprivation tank so he will sleep until a decent hour. (I've got that mother of the year thing sewn up this year).

Quick highlights of the trip so far:

*Circus World Museum was cool. In the children's circus where kids are chosen from the audience to play different parts, E was chosen to be the ring master, she was so super excited because that was exactly what she wanted to do (Who IS this kid? At her age, I hid behind my parents at stuff like that- plus every kid she meets she introduces her self and makes friends- soooooo not me at her age- or now). She was awesome too, by the way. She got to dress up in the whole ringmaster outfit and say "Ladies and gentlemen, Boys and Girls..." and all that good stuff. She's such a performer. K got to be what she wanted too... a prancing pony complete with white horsey head and tail. We also saw these amazing Chinese acrobats. Oh, and we saw an Elephant poop what E described as bowling balls.



Now I know the picture quality isn't the best...but K is actually airborn in the above pic!


The above pic was taken just before the "bowling balls"

*We accidentally,okay it was my suggestion, went to a vegetarian restaurant that did not serve alcohol. We didn't realize this until we were seated and scanned the menu. I thought, Oh no this is not going to fly, but it was a really good dining experience. It was called the Cheese Factory Restaurant Laura and I split veggie lasagna and an eggplant parmesan sandwich, my mom and Jack split a four cheese pizza, K and E split spaghetti and grilled cheese, and my dad got the eggplant sandwich as well. The service was really good, they had this old-time juke with songs from my parents hey-day which my mom loved, and the kids all got pinwheels.

*The girls, Laura, Dad and I went fishing. It was slow going at first,
and then as soon as Laura started singing, "There are no fish in Lake Delton!" She caught a fish right below the pier. Then it was ridiculous. All we had to do was drop our lines right at the edge of the pier and we would catch blue gills....only blue gills. I completely lost count of how many we caught because it was just that easy.





*I beat everyone at Scrabble - I rarely beat this crowd, they're extremely good(and my Dad even had a 7 letter 67 pt word)yea me.

Okay, well the rest of the family is waking up. Time to go on a boat tour of the Upper Dells. Can't wait to see how Roo is going to attempt to go overboard.

August 6th

Well yesterday's boat ride was good. Roo stayed on board, though he was very wiggly and needed constant wrangling. It was a perfect day for it, though. Pretty overcast and not too hot. This was a tour of the Upper Dells where we were able to get off the boat and do two mini hikes to see some beautiful scenery with all these amazing sandstone formations, some waterfalls, and the dog jump at stand rock.



Laura and I took the girls to Wizard Quest. It was kind of confusing and we needed more time. Sadly, we only freed one wizard. But I did get to jump into a ball-pit. Then we had a late dinner at Paul Bunyon's Cook Shanty. Yes, I said cook shanty. It's fun to say...Try it. See?

Today (Sunday) we went to the Dells Mining Company where Laura treated the girls to the "better buckets." For my readers unfamiliar with the Dells mining experience, one purchases a bucket of sand and rocks with gemstones mixed in. There are "good" buckets with your standard unpolished gemstones, "better" buckets with the same but a guaranteed polished gemstone in a handy dandy little zip lock so you don't lose it, and "best" buckets with guaranteed diamonds and the deed to a lake front condo. (Okay, Laura couldn't remember what was in the "best" bucket, but it was supposedly very impressive in the gemological world. Also the "good" "better" "best" terminology was made up by me.)Then you sit at troughs of running water with box-like sifters, pour in your sand/gem mixture and let the water flow through to reveal your "finds."

The girls really dig doing this, and it really is quite cool. Once all of your sand is sifted, you bring in your baggie-o-gems to a room where a nice gem dude, who was just a liiiiitle to excited about the gems, tells you what you've found and tries to sell you their gem polishing and jewelry setting services.
It was interesting. K actually got her birthstone, garnet, as her gar-on-teed gem in a baggie, and E got a pretty blue topaz. The gem guy would tell E what one of her gems was and before he would get the chance, K would pick the exact same one out from her stash. She was extremely good at it.

We also headed down to Wollersheim Winery where Roo put the whine in the winery tour. It's pretty much what I expected him to do, so no big deal. I hope the other tour people didn't mind. I try not to make eye contact with people when we're in public and Roo is doing his thang. I removed him during the wine tasting portion. It is a beautiful place and learning about the process and history of the place was very interesting.



Then we went fishing again for our endless supply of blue gills...or so it would seem! K caught what I thought at first was a skinny little blue gill but it was in fact a small small small-mouthed bass. Then Laura, a little later, caught his slightly bigger brother. It was fun and added some variety to the night.(addendum: Laura now thinks they may have been trout)

We rounded out the night with Laura and the girls and I going to Cold Stone (yum) where the girls learned that marshmallows get hard in ice cream, and I discovered that cakebatter and chocolate chips is the best combination in the history of ice cream combinations.

August 7

After packing and forgetting E was in the condo bathroom and locking her in there, we were on our way! What? Oh, you want me to explain that? Fine. Like I said, "Mother of the Year" here I come. We didn't actually forget her...at least we didn't drive away without her. See, E was in the bathroom, Laura and my mom were getting together last minute stuff, and Roo was raring to go so I said, "Okay, I'm taking K and J down." I failed to mention that E wasn't with me. I thought they knew where she was because I thought they'd be a few more minutes. So I'm wrestling Roo into his seat and everyone else (or so I thought) was milling around the van when I hear a little voice from above, "Hey guys! You forgot me!" Laura and I put two and two together and were like OOPS! She was fine and thought it was funny (thankfully) or she's playing it off and planning on making a secret call to DCFS.

We went to the Tommy Bartlett Exploratory place. It's pretty fun, lots of hands on interactive type things to do. Laura and I both rode on the tightrope bicycle thingie.


Then we drove home with no major incidents. It was a very good trip.

Fini

are we there yeti?

(1)You are in the market for a diversion for your children, ages seven and ten to watch on a *shudder* seven hour car trip. You find yourself in the DVD aisle. A wall of fictional faces stare at you from beneath shrinkwrap. You've got your Harry Potter Series, your Pixar films, your Toon Disney compilations, your Choose Your Own Adventure. Wait, Choose Your own Adventure? Like the books that you checked out of your elementary school library over and over again because you were the main character, and there was a different plot and ending every time you read it? The books where you were in charge of making decisions about what to do at every exciting turn of events? You fondly recall frantically flipping pages to discover the outcomes of your decisions. There it is in DVD format.

You have a decision to make:

(2)If you decide to Purchase the DVD of Choose Your Own Adventure, skip down to paragraph 6 of this post.

(3)If you decide not purchase any DVDs because you're going to go old school (hey, if you had to deal with playing the license plate game, road sign bingo, and thumb wrestling so should your kids...it'll build character)then skip down to paragraph 5 of this post.


(4)Goldhil Entertainment released it's first in a series of Choose Your Own Adventure interactive DVDs on July 25th. The first installment is The Abominable Snowman in which three siblings venture to Nepal in search of their uncle who went missing while on a Yeti hunt. The kids need to contend with airplane mechanical difficulties, avalanches, and tigers. Steering them through these obstacles is the viewer. During climactic moments in the plot, the DVD prompts the viewer to choose a course of action by clicking on one choice or another with the remote. There are eleven possible outcomes to this story. Bonus features include a thirty minute film about the people and culture of Nepal, a music video, some behind-the-scene clips, and an insert which is a mini travel journal.

(5)You find yourself white knuckling the steering wheel two hours into your trip, trying unsuccessfully to block out the whining, moaning, the shrieks of, "She's touching me" and the laments of, "How much looooonger?" You may want to consider reading paragraph 4 of this post.

(6)You have reached your destination. The journey was peaceful and quiet because your children have been so engrossed by this DVD throwback to your favorite childhood pastime, and they still have five more possible endings to watch on your return trip. But why not read paragraph four of this post anyway?