Impromptu Recital

I am ignoring my filthy living room (and hoping you are too) and even subjecting you to my "singing" so that I can show you all how stinking cute Natalie can be. Like you needed video to know that.

Her first song is "I know a Chicken, her laid and egg" and that is all of the lyrics that Natalie is interesting in learning. The next song is their prayer before lunch at preschool. The lyrics for "God our Father" are: God our Father, God our Father, we give thanks, we give thanks, for our many blessings, for our many blessings, Amen, Amen. Natalie's version: God our Fodder, God our Fodder, we gives makes, we gives makes, la la la la la laaa, la la la la la laaa, Allah men, Allah men. (she didn't get her lyrics quite right on the video). And the last song is my favorite. Notice how the hand movements are opposite? "Give a little Crap, Crap, Crap!" Natalie, I love your little speech idiosyncrasies.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Swim Lessons

Brady doesn't do well in team sports, and Natalie... well Natalie is more of a spectator, maybe she'll hold pom-poms some day, I'm still hoping for a volleyball player. So I'm always looking for activites that both of them enjoy.
We started swim lessons again this week (with friends Sam and Zoe). Tuesday was a nightmare: Zoe nearly drowned (her dad jumped in fully clothed to rescue her, thank you life guards), Natalie became petrified of the big pool and wouldn't jump in, Brady refused to participate at all stating that:
a. he couldn't touch (he can touch, but my boy believes that everyone is a liar)
b. he forgot his goggles (this was slightly resolved when I purchased a pair of lost & found goggles for $1) and
c. the big pool is c-o-l-d (it is, and he's always had lessons in the nice warm kiddie pool before).

So Brady got threatened by his dad today about his participation, and I went and bought him a rash guard (one of those swim-suit t-shirt things) and we remembered his goggles. Success! He did awesome tonight, and the only hiccup was when the coach (pervy mom alert!) had the kids jump off the diving board. Brady sidelined himself. Next time, maybe.

Natalie and Zoe had a super time in the little pool, lots of girly squeals and bouncing, with a little technique mixed in too.
Dinner and a Dos Equis with the Rankin family made for a wonderful end to a long day!

Natalie and Zoe playing "What time is it, Mr. Fox?"
Brady and his coach discussing technique.

Brady practicing his form for the back kicks. Tuesday he did nothing but sit on the side of the pool and sulk.

I'm no Bakerella

So tonight I decided that I would make cake pops from Bakerella for Natalie's Easter party tomorrow at school (a huge perk about sending your kids to a Christian preschool, the actually celebrate the holidays! Now if I could just get them to stop teaching my children about how Jesus saved them... oh stop).

I also decided that the chick cake pops looked simple. For the most part they were. It's just my artistry skills that suck. So here are Bakerella's chicks:




And here are mine:

She's also got me beat in photography of said chicks. Oh well, I don't think 24 4-year-olds will really be disappointed in my crappy chick skills; I mean come on, it's cake dipped in candy!

Bad ass in spandex

Being a cyclist means you get yelled names like "Faggot" a lot and have bottles of liquid tossed at you from time to time. You always hope it's only water. Larry takes all this in stride, especially when the people usually taunting you (or trying to purposely run you off the road, a little thing I like to call attempted murder) are big red necks in logging trucks or white trash in their POS cars, and have no hope of ever being athletic or earth-friendly and feel the need to cut down others that are both.

I hear about confrontations from time to time, but mostly I only hear the stories of "some jerk..." without any resolve.

Today Larry was on his way home from his ride and was cruising down Woburn (downhill). Larry was doing the speed limit and some guy decided to make a left hand turn into his lane. Then the guy stopped. So Larry had to slam on his brakes. The guy yells something incoherently and drives off. Problem is, there is a stop light at the bottom of the hill. And guy's dirty girlfriend has the window rolled down smoking (with small children in the back seat). So Larry pulls up and stops at their window. "Is there something you'd like to say to my face?" he asks. The guy replies that "there is a effing sidewalk there", like that's where Larry should have been riding his bike at 35mph. Larry informed him that it is illegal for him to ride his bike on the sidewalk, and by the way, my bike is worth more than your entire car, so I'd use a little more common sense the next time he tries to pull a stunt like that. The guy didn't say another word.

tee-hee. I love it when Larry tells me stories of catching people being assholes and calling them on it.

DARE

It's a dictionary I would l-0-v-e to have. It is a record of regional vocabulary. I love that stuff. I loved Linguistics in college, I shoulda been a social anthropologist. The dictionary has stuff like what people call things like: Soda, or Pop, or Soda pop, or Coke (regardless what it is). Or we might have a Bar-B-Que here on the west coast, but where my b/f/f lives in Minnesota, they have Grill-Outs. Or if you need to get to the diagonal corner of an intersection, I would say "it's kitty-corner", but apparently others may say "catty-corner", or "cater-corner". But the dictionary is like $100, so for now I'll just have to do with what's available online, or make more friends across the country to listen to.

I could just buy the book in my sons scholastic book order, it's about the power of punctuation called Eats, Shoots & Leaves. Looks like it could be a fun book. It also reminds me of one of my favorite movie lines (from a movie I've never seen)called View from the Top. Mike Meyers is a flight attendant or something and says " You put the wrong emPHAsis on the wrong syLLABle."

Our view from I-5 heading home from Mt. Vernon Saturday (after an afternoon at Jungle Playland with Erin, and an unexpected family reunion for me, I ran into my Aunt and cousin who were also there).

Utterly boring week...

A reminder that I have a double chin (or no chin). But I'm posting this picture anyway because the essence is sweet. Mom and son going for a stroll (or... mom herding toddler away from street while making it appear that she's not "controlling" him)

The boys having a very manly chat while tossing rocks.

I haven't posted because I have done nothing. That's not true. I went to Boulevard park with Erin and wondered why we thought that was a good idea (though the big boys thought it was a fine choice, they climbed in trees and threw rocks. What else did they need/want?)

I played bunco last night. Came close to most wins, but lost by one.

Today? Laundry and dog hair. Now that Katie lives in the house, I have to learn how to either clean up dog hair or learn to live with it. I have a feeling I'll live in constant purgatory of living with it while hating it. I cannot embrace having dog hair on all my clothes. But the other solution is to kick Katie out of the house and get her another dog. Uh, no. I'm looking forward to having a poo-free, hole-free back yard again.

Norman the Saint

Tonight I got a glimpse of just how sweet Norman really was all these years.

Katie is taking his absence a little hard, she is pretty forlorn, and sat at the edge of the deck tonight looking away while the kids and I were in the hot tub. Usually she is there eagerly giving us kisses while we are at her mercy.

Katie was laying at my feet tonight as I was watching The Biggest Loser. Any late-night cravings I might have had were killed by this dogs non-stop farting. Hands down the gassiest dog I've ever had the misfortune to be near for an extended period of time. But I couldn't exactly chase her off while she is in mourning. It also got me to thinking... sweet old Norm cuddled up and slept with her in close quarters for 10 breath-holding years. Now that's love.