Month: April 2009

Perception……..Generationally!

It was funny to watch the kids this morning…..

They were sitting at the kitchen table having breakfast. We had made a lovely bowl of hot oatmeal and the little glasses of orange juice looked so lovely and refreshing sitting on the crisp white place mats. The silverware was all polished and it was all so worth the effort that it had taken to prepare. The extra hours worth of sleep that I had given up to prepare a lovely meal for my family was SOOOOOOOO worth it.

Ha HA HA HA HA HA! That was all just a joke…..I started typing and the part about the kids at the kitchen table and even the oatmeal is true. The rest of it….well, I just got carried away with a lovely picture in my head of what it could have been….had I not slept in. Reality, people. REALITY!!!

Siah picked up a card with a picture of Jeremy that we had just bought as part of a fund raiser at the school.

Card Phone

They come around at the end of the year and take pics of the kids and then the school gets part of the proceeds of whatever sale they make….I have no idea why I told you all that. It must be the 8 THOUSAND gallons of snot that is clogging up my brain right now. I FEEL AWESOME. Like you have never felt more awesomer……I know that’s not a word, but just go with me, people.

Anyhooooo….. Siah picked up this card and pretended to punch buttons and said into the card – “Hello? Hello?” Like he was talking into a phone. Xandra reaches over and picks up a banana off the table and proceeds to have a conversation with Siah on their respective imaginary phones.

Banana Phone

It’s amazing the difference in perception that a few years brings.

To Xandra, the banana looks like a phone….she’s from the generation that had phones around where the handset looked like a banana…or at least similar to it.

For the greater part of Siah’s life, what he would equate as a phone has been a cell phone and the majority of the cell phones that he’s been allowed to hold or touch or that he sees are the small little cell phones.

I think that its really interesting to see how even within just a few short years that our perception can change. What was normal can become old or “not normal”. I wonder what we will consider normal in a few years…..It’s a weird thought.

Okay, now I have to say that I’m giving myself an out here. I am thinking that there is a good chance that this post is interesting to no one by myself. And if that’s the case, then I am totally blaming my lack of funny (or heck, even just interesting) on this cold that is threatening to ooze out of my ears. I feel like crap and am so hoping that I’ll wake up tomorrow and be over the worst of it all…..I can hope, right?

Birthday Brunch or Lunch or Whatever

Tim organized a family party for himself for his 30th Birthday. Nice, eh?

I mean, we woulda gotten around to it in about a week or so, but he jumped right on that and we all headed out to a restaurant for brunch this past Saturday morning.

It was so nice to be able to get together and even nicer that everyone was able to be there.

Waiting for Brunch

We did have to deal with a last minute venue change as the original place couldn’t accommodate all 24 of us as they were already dealing with another party of 40 – YIKES! So…..White Spot in Walnut Grove so graciously fitted us into their back party room and that was awesome as we could be our noisy selves without worrying about bothering anyone. It also meant that the kids could waltz around a little without bothering anyone and that right there was a HUGE sanity saver as it meant that I could relax a little and not stress too much about what my monkeys were doing.

Aside: It’s a little weird/fun/exciting/strange to see Angelica sitting with the adults the whole time. Even though the age difference between her and Xani is only 15 months….she’s turning into a young lady and Xan is still a little girl, and today was the first time that was really evident.

By the time we all showed up and then actually ordered….our Brunch had turned into Lunch, but really, the best part is not the food – although we love our food. The best part is just getting to spend time together.

Sleeping Boy(S)

We had a lot of fun taking pictures….

Taking Pics of taking pics

Building Card Towers…..

The Pro show how to git 'er done

We had a bit of a brawl to try and determine which is better the Blackberry or the iPhone….

Blackberry versus iPhone

It was just a really good time with the whole family.

You can click here to see the whole set….if you’d like.

A HUGE Shout out to Tim for organizing and arranging everything. Thanks for planning a great time for us to all get together. It was AMAZING, and I hope we don’t wait too long for the next one.

It’s On……

I’ve joined Weight Watchers Online……..again.

I did this once before and lost a bunch of weight and well, things have gotten outta hand again and I gotta do something.

So, here we are starting this all once again. I wish I weren’t, but the truth is…..I am.

I’ve got to lose some weight and if I just dick around, I’ll be the same weight (or more) in 3 months or 6 months from now. And so, here it goes……..

I’ve pounded down a 2 point green smoothie that consists of 2 cups of spinach, 1/2 a cup of frozen mango, 1 pear, a cup of water and some ice.

We’ve got brunch with my family to celebrate my brother’s 30th birthday and I counted that out at between 10-12 points depending on whether I have toast or not……I have a total of 30 points per day.

I know that you all are just loving all this “points” chatter, aren’t you? Don’t worry. I promise that I’ll talk about something else beside weight loss and food and points.

I’ll take a current photo today so that I can see where I’m at and then later….where I’ve come from.

Oh, the joys….this is so much fun..NOT! But, it will be worth it! Right?

Happy Birthday, Little Big Brother!

Today is the day that my little brother turns 30!

Here he is….I ripped this off of Facebook….nice of me, eh? He’s looking pretty good for an old man. And that is his lovely girlfriend, Daisy with him….ain’t she pretty? Oh…yah…this is supposed to be all about Tim, isn’t it?

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Here is a little birthday greeting from the kids for Uncle Tim on the momentous occasion of his Birthday…..

If you’re friends with him on Facebook, go and leave him a message, or if you know his number, then text him, but if you don’t have either of those options available to you and you still know him from somewhere, somehow….please feel free to leave him a birthday greeting here.

Love ya tons, little bro. You are a great man. I hope this year is the best that you’ve ever had.

Tikuitar

Siah is a music fanatic…in fact, I would go so far to say that he is obsessed with music.

Songs, Instruments, Videos, the Radio, Singing, anything that carries a tune is worthy of life grinding to a halt so that we can take a moment to groove and enjoy the music.

He’s recently become fixated on guitars…any guitar will do and if there is no guitar around, he will pick up the nearest toy and strum on it. So far, we’ve used a nerf dart gun and a lego base and a few random boxes as impromptu guitars. edited to add that the newest addition to our imaginary guitars is an iTouch.

He’s been trying desperately hard get into my guitar and has managed to drag the whole case out into the living room from our bedroom. He is a determined little one, yes he is.

Tikuitar

I decided to pull my guitar out the other day to put him out of his misery try and alleviate the pressure of the fixation and well, I was completely unprepared for the depth of emotion that came when I said that our time for the day was done.

Here he is our little tikuitar player…….

After this little clip, we played a bit more and then I handed my guitar to Jon to put away for me and Siah LOST IT. The little dude absolutely FREAKED OUT. He started chasing after Jon and pulling on his leg to try and get at the guitar. Jon tried to get away from him and he chased him around the chair that I was sitting in and well….it was brutal……and OH SO FUNNY at the same time.

Here is just a glimpse of the fury that he unleashed on us that day.

Melt Down

It was truly amazing and went on FOREVER. Literally he had a full on temper tantrum, throw yourself on the floor, get up to try and pound at the offending door that separates you from your beloved tikuitar….for over half an hour this all went on.

Even a cuddle from Daddy wasn’t enough to calm him down.

Inconsolable

I’m seeing a lot of music lessons in our future with this one….

Something’s Gotta Give

I feel this……….”shift”……about to happen.

I’m not happy with the pace that life has taken recently. I like simple things. I like a slower pace. I like to pare things back to the essentials and to not be freaking out and rushing, rushing, RUSHING!!!!!!! all the time.

I can feel this…..something….something inside of me is saying, ENOUGH!

And so I’m starting to re-think and pare things back and am working towards a mind frame where I am prepared to let something slip if they just can’t fit in.

It’s SO VERY HARD when I tend to feel responsible for things, but I have to grasp a hold of what I “can do” and “need to do”, versus what I “think I should do”.

I know this is a crappy post, but things have been in a bit of a crappy place for me….probably not even in reality, but just up in my headspace. It’s that whole mind thingy……

I am going to shut my computer and tidy up my kitchen and then I’m going to sit down with a piece of paper and think through what needs to happen for the rest of this week and into next week. Preparation….I always do so much better when I am prepared.

What do you do to handle crazy busy schedules? Do you have any tips or easy suggestions that work for you that you’d like to share?

Great Start to the Week

I’m actually serious with that there title.

I woke up this morning and totally didn’t feel like I wanted to die. (I don’t really feel like I want to die, but I dread mornings with a passion that rivals nothing I know of)

I’ve been having a really hard time waking up over the past little bit bit. See, Siah was sleeping all the way through the night for a while. It was heavenly. I actually felt like a human being for a while. Then Siah got sick and was awake in the night and then he decided to get a whole bunch of teeth, which meant that he was awake MULTIPLE times a night and well…..things got really crazy for a bit.

I laid down with Jeremy last night at 8:30pm and……..went to sleep.

I coulda got up when he finally crashed, but I figured that the extra hours couldn’t hurt and they most definitely would help.

AND IT TOTALLY DID.

I woke up this morning and felt like I was actually ready to get up and out of bed. Got the kids ready without feeling like I was wearing a 50lb bag of sand attached to my back. It was amazing.

I actually did start this post this morning, but then the baby needed me and I had to get dressed (can you imagine that?) and then I ran out grocery shopping while the baby napped.

Got home, put everything away, and now I’m cooking some brown rice to have on hand for quick prep for the rest of the week as well as I got a huge hunk of ground beef that needed to be browned and separated into ready to use containers…they are happily cooking away on the stove and so I thought that I should probably finish this post..and let you know that I’ve got some pics up – if you wanna peek at them.

We went to the park last weekend and I’ve finally got the pictures up.

In the move from my PC to the Mac – I lost Adobe Creative Suite and it will be just a bit before we can buy another license. Jon’s got one on his computer, but I don’t feel like transfering all my photos over there and then tweaking them and then posting them because it’s just too much stinkin’ work.

I tried iPhoto and well, I don’t find that it’s quite the same and so I guess that I’ll just complain and moan until we get some new software.

Well, here are the pics….just click to go through to see them.

Sweet Boy

I hope you’re enjoying the sun today (if you’re local) and if not, well then I hope it’s sunny where you are? What is the weather doing where you are?

Quick Connect

dsc_0817HEY! How’re you doing?

Don’tcha hate it when life gets in the way of blogging?

Things are okay over here, but really freakin’ busy and I’ve just not had any “extra” time. I’ll be back soon….with pictures and stories and updates. Here’s a teaser until then…..

Talk to ya’ll soon.

One or the Other

So, we had Geli’s 12 Year Sleep Over Birthday Party last night. I was a bit apprehensive as she had initially invited 10 girls and last we had heard 6-8 were going to show up. I was expecting CHAOS and NOISE to rule in our house last night.

Instead, 3 little girls showed up and only one was “allowed” to sleep over as the other had to be at a family function early the next morning and the other little girl had been grounded. So, Geli and her friend were in bed and asleep by midnight and then woke up at 6:30am.

Jon and I have been geeking out and setting up our new 13 inch Macbook Pros. He’s geeking and I’m just along for the ride….right?

We went to bed shortly after midnight and it was then, that all the fun started.

Jeremy came crying and stumbling into our room, moaning that he was barfing. He vomited on the carpet, on the bathroom floor and then finally made it to the sink where he continued along his merry barfing ways. In between heaves, he managed to inform us that he had also christened the main bathroom sink as well.

OH JOY!!!!!

I hate barf. With everything in me…..I would rather wash the toilet than deal with barf, and if you know me at all – you will know that the germaphobe in me despises the toilet and all it’s germ infested bits. So, seeing as Jon was dealing with the “bulk” of the mess in our room – I headed to the main bathroom to clean out the sink. Serious nastiness as I had to scoop the crap out with my hands……and well….I’ll just stop there. It was awful.

We got everything cleaned up – it took a while – and got Jerermy back in his own bed. I really didn’t want him in mine if he was going to barf again, and I was sure that he was going to have another go at it all. I was wired at this point and sent a quick text off to twitter about it all….I was seriously awake. I lay in bed for a while and then Siah woke up……he nursed and nursed and nursed and all the while popping off and on as…..he has a runny nose and can’t breathe. OH SO MUCH FUN!!!!

After who knows how long, Jon finally took him to try and settle him down and well….lets just say that it didn’t go over too well. Then Jeremy woke up again with more barf and then Siah woke up again, and between the two of them they tag teamed the night away.

The most amazing part is that they were both actually asleep from about 6:30am until 8am. That was SOOOOO nice. Who’da ever thought that I’d be grateful for an hour and a half of sleep, eh?

And then….when we finally crawled our tired bodies outta bed – we realized that we had NO COFFEE. Isn’t that horrid? We did find enough for one cup of coffee each in the back of the freezer, but Jon had to make a quick Starbucks run….mmmmmm, Heavenly!

We were supposed to go and have a nice family brunch with my family today and I was really looking forward o being together with everyone, but didn’t feel that it was fair to take my sick kid and expose everyone else to his germy goodness. So, we stayed at home.

This was both a HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT and a MAJOR BLESSING.

I really wanted to see my family, and we’ve been crazy busy. The forced down day today has been awesome. We just stayed in our jammies ALL DAY LONG. We’ve done absolutely nothing today. Watched a little hockey. Played on some computers. Fed the kids. And now, Jon is making dinner and then we are sending them all to bed.

I’m hoping that no one is sick tonight. I need a few straight hours of sleep. Mmmmmmmm, SLEEEEEEEEEP!