Weekly Winners

The Tighty Whitey Avenger and his trusty sidekick.

My Dad rocking out to Lady Gaga's Bad Romance while showing off his dance moves he learned online for the song. He's a riot. Love you Dad. 

The new Nerf gun is getting some serious action......from Sean.

Morning cartoon time

Cute kid (if I do say so myself).

Swing girl

Rest in Peace Lady. Kitty passed away two weekends ago. We miss her a lot.

Dear GoatMan

Dear GoatMan,
We've had you for six years now. For six years I've been wishing and hoping you'd magically turn into a nice, happy and well adjusted goat. Last week you gored my leg with your horn. My calf is now a lovely shade of green and yellow. I am tired of you and your evilness. I'm tired of the red gleam you get in your eye when you see me enter the pen. I'm tired of your dominance you have over all of the other animals including the miniature horses that each have 150 pounds on you. It saddens me when I see you chase the goat babies around the pen trying to catch them. It gives me pleasure to see them outrun you and your overweight body. I don't know what to do with you. I'd eat you if I was that kind of person, but luckily for you I don't eat my "pets". I don't classify you as a pet though. Pets aren't normally spawns of Satan. Pets don't gore their owners. I don't normally will my pets to fall over dead. But you, I am making an exception. Every day I hope to find you deceased. What a happy and joyful barn yard it would be. Hay would be easy to eat, without you dominating every pile. Sleep would be uninterrupted without you running amok terrorizing all. I would be able to enter the pen without a whip at my side. But alas you seem to be the hardiest goat on the face of the planet. Since you try to kill me on a daily basis I find it unnecessary to worm you and trim your hooves. After all I can't even catch you without you trying to dismember me with your horns. Satan is calling you home GoatMan, listen to him.

Yours Truly,
Goat Mom

El Crappy GoatMan up on his royal perch.

The Forgotten Garden

There are people out there that garden year round. These magical beings must have more energy than I. They have spring crops such as lettuce and snap peas, summer crops like corn and zucchini and then they are out planting asparagus crowns in the fall. I am not one of these people. I put 110% into vegetable gardening in the spring and summer and once the heat of August comes and the plants start to fry in the heat, I'm done. I then recharge my batteries for the following spring. Hence my "garden" looks like a graveyard right now. I haven't even been back there in weeks, so you'll understand my surprise when I wandered back there last week to find thriving plants with fruit hanging all over. I'm swimming in peppers, up to my eye balls in sweet potatoes and even still finding the occasional forgotten onion. I planted eight bell pepper plants that are now producing in gusto. Then there's the hot peppers. What do I do with all the hot peppers? There's about 20 plants ranging from Jalapeno, to some mild salsa peppers (I forget the name) to the Cayenne peppers. The Cayenne peppers are drooping from the hundreds of peppers hanging off of them. Anyone know what to do with one of the hottest peppers on the planet? Because I'm scared to even touch them, little own bring them in the house where my unsuspecting two year old could somehow get a hold of them (and their oils). So alas they will probably rot on the plant unless I become motivated enough to go don gloves and do something with them. Any ideas?

I kid you not, there are hundreds.

What have we been up to?

Nothing much really. This is the time of year that we slow down. This summer really knocked it out of me, energy wise. Maybe it was the 53 days of 100 degree temperatures, or maybe it was something else. Sean tackled one of the biggest projects he's ever tackled, the house siding. We are so glad to knock that off the giant 'to do' list. Now that Fall is officially here we have just been wrapping up loose ends, preparing for winter.

Sean bought a new toy about a month a half ago. He's been itching for a new milling machine but they rarely come along falling into our price range. Yet one day he was surfing Craigslist and ran across a Bridgeport milling machine that was spot on. It's rough and in need of a lot of TLC, but a project is what he wanted so it was perfect. He hooked up the truck to a rented trailer and off he went to pick it up. Ever since it's been home he's been out there nearly every evening working on it. Removing rust, making gears work again. He's going to turn it into a CNC machine. The only problem he's run into is that the ceiling in the shop isn't tall enough for this machine, so he's had to make a few "modifications" to the ceiling.

And here is his new toy, in pieces due to it's size.

I've taken up a new hobby. Running! I bought a treadmill about a year ago and was jogging on it on and off and then got motivated to start using it regularly. So I started using it daily. I felt good, had more energy than ever.....something I was lacking. With two little kids running around, energy was in short supply. My goals started out small. Run one mile a day on the treadmill. After a few weeks I was able to do that. So I bumped it up to two miles a day, then three. I'm in between two and three a day right now and I feel great! I never thought I could be a runner, it's nice to prove yourself wrong. My sister told me I should try running on the road and so last weekend I ran through our little town logging five miles. It was fun but much harder on my joints. I got some new shoes and tried it again yesterday, logging 6.5 miles. It was fun and I'm motivated to get out again next weekend. Maybe a marathon will be in my future...my goal is to do a full marathon next Fall. This new hobby inspired me to make other changes as well. I hacked off 10 inches of hair and got my ears pierced while Sean and I were on our little mini vacation. I sat in the little chair at Claire's Boutique and told myself if I can have two epidurals then I can have my ears pierced....I am 32 years old after all.

That's about all that's happening around here.

Greta's Great Birthday Bash

Last weekend we celebrated Miss Greta's second birthday with a little get together. She had a blast and we were grateful to everyone that could come. She's a lucky little lady to have such wonderful people in her life.

Got the hat on her for 2.7 seconds. Still better than LAST YEAR.

Dad and Baby Bennett. He's gotten big! Bennett, not my dad. :)

Looking fabulous in her party dress.

Jessica and Josh and the reclusive Abby, stuck to Mom's side.

Presents!

Loads of little ones. All under 5.

Auntie time with BB.

It's Marmot feeding time.

Glazed over look in her eye BEFORE cake eating!

Yum!

The three amigos!

Pre-Birthday Bash

What a fun day! My sister and her family are in town and my father invited us all to go to the local amusement park this evening for his birthday. I had no idea it would be so much fun, we are so going back soon! I also didn't realize my four year old is now old enough for 90% of the rides. He had a blast, I haven't seen him that giddy in a long time (if ever). Thanks Mom and Dad for a great evening!

The gang.

Not quite big enough for much of anything. But a darn cute picture.

Tall enough for most everything! Yea Wesley!

Go carts here we come!

Way too much fun.

Betsy with Emery on the carousel.

Greta hamming it up with myself.

Giant slide also a hit! Lots of crying when we had to leave.

Helicopters that went up and down, also a big hit.

Dragging Dad to the Ferris wheel.

Dad made the cage go round and round, upside down. I thought there would be puke everywhere. Nope, just one REALLY happy kid.

He got to drive this one all by himself.

Fast asleep once we got in the car. A sign of a great evening.

A Trip Down Memory Lane

I got to join Hubby on his out of town trip to work the job fair at our college. I had six glorious hours all to myself (without kids I might add...Thanks Jessica) to roam the town seeing all the changes that have happened in the ten years since we graduated. I got to get some quality shopping in as well as a campus visit. Talk about a blast from the past!

Here is my old dorm. Oh how I don't miss ye. The ancient building was hot in the summer and cold and drafty in the winter. I did smuggle my cat in there for a full year. I likely would have been in big trouble had they found out, but they didn't. Jessica, my roommate, and I had a great system for hiding him. Anyone knocked on the door, the other would scoop up Dexter (the large white cat) and run into the closet. We lived on the wild side back then (please note the sarcasm).

He would often squeeze his fat body between the metal blinds and the window and I would spy him on my trek back from class sunning himself in this window desperately trying to get us kicked out of the dorms. Ah good times.

I spent way too much time in this building, the art building. The art department used to be shoved into the top two floors while the science department got the main floor and recognition on the sign out front. It seems in ten years the art department has taken over the whole building, shoving science somewhere else....probably a newer air conditioned building.The main floor, which used to house the giant Chemistry rooms now has been transformed into a rather nice art gallery and art department office. I was impressed.

Next stop was to the College of Education to visit my old boss. I worked tech support for four years while in college and he was a great boss. It was nice chatting with him and seeing all of the changes that have taken place since I was there oh so long ago.



While I was at it I had to visit my first apartment. It's looking more ghetto than ever these days. It was a rat hole when we lived in it. Tina and I decided on it because it was one of the few apartments in town to allow pets (everything revolves around pets for me). We ended up with a dog and three cats in there. I could never forget big Crazy Vera that lived upstairs from us. There was no wondering why that apartment was vacant.

Last but certainly not least, I couldn't visit without seeing the place I got married. Great memories here.

It was a fun and memorable trip, I've got great memories of this town. I'll have to return when I can stroll down memory lane with Sean, and definitely show the kids around town one day.....after all there's a good chance they'll attend college here.

Happy Birthday Greta!

Whew! What a day! Wesley and Greta had their very first sleepover with my pal Jessica and her kids. Hubby had the opportunity to be a representative from his company at a college job fair. It happens to be the college we both graduated from so I was more than excited to join him on his trip. Then Jessica offered to watch the kids overnight. That was last night. You can read how it went in Jessica's own words HERE. They sure had a blast. Thanks again Jessica, I owe you a million. We got back rather late and didn't even have a chance to celebrate my little girl turning two years old so we are having a small celebration this weekend. After all it is my fathers birthday too. Happy Birthday Pops! Pictures and more from both the birthday get together and the campus visit in the next few days. In the mean time, Happy Birthday Greta! You are my little angel.

Waiting

The kids had a play date with their friends Alex and Abby and decided to wait for them to pull in the driveway. I told them to go find something to sit on, notice Greta brought over her potty. It made me laugh.

Rubbing me out of the picture completely.

I believe that is their master plan. I'm ok with that.

Conversations with a four year old

We were over at Aunt Jessica's house today for a play date. Greta is in the sandbox shoveling sand into her mouth.

Me: "Greta if you put anymore sand in your mouth I'm going to kick you out of the sandbox!"


Wesley: (shocked) "Ouch! Won't that hurt her?!"


Jessica and I laughed. Wonder when they stop taking everything so literally.

First Day

Can you believe I'm sitting here at 2 o'clock in the afternoon in a perfectly quiet house? That might not seem special to you, but to me it's freaking awesome. You see today is Wesley's first day of preschool. He's now in the four year old class and he's so excited to get back to school! This year Miss Cindy is doing a morning class and an afternoon class to accommodate all the four year old kids. There seems to be a giant influx of children in preschool this year. It should make for a large kindergarten class next year.

Wesley is in the afternoon class instead of the morning class this year which makes it nice since we don't have the morning rush. The downfall is that the afternoon class is during Greta's nap. Thankfully Alex, Wesley's best bud, is in class with him and Jessica is able to bring him home for me. Thanks Jessica!

So here I sit, with one child sleeping and the other at preschool. The house is quiet and I have it all to myself. I think it's time to dive into a good new book.

This year I remembered my camera for the first day of school! Miss Cindy is such a great lady.

Hamming it up with Sis.

Wesley is so pumped to have Alex in his class this year.

Family Pictures

We didn't have any family pictures with poor Greta in them so I finally felt it was time. I'm pretty impressed with the photographer being able to get a two year old and a four year old to smile. We'll definitely go there again. Here's just a sample, if you're family you'll be getting one for Christmas...so act surprised.