Things that don't belong

In honor of my SIL's "Things that are supposed to work" post, I thought that I would do my own rendition of "Things that..." In this case, it is in regards to things that in their own right, are okay, but in a different situation or used for the wrong purpose can be bad.

1. Mice in trashcans. This one is fairly obvious. Mice are okay, but in cages. Trashcans are okay, for holding trash. It is not okay for a dead mouse to be in a trashcan. Nope, sure isn't. I was empyting my laudry room basket which is downstairs, fairly large, and mostly holds all the lint that I throw away from the dryer. It also doesn't have a bag in it. Upon emptying into the outside trashcan, I found a dead little mouse snuggled up amongst the lint. I tried banging the laudry room can against the larger trashcan, but the mouse just won't come out. I was therefore forced to get some paper towels (alot of paper towels) and scoop it up. Blech. I don't know why it was stuck there, but it was. I can only imagine at one time the lint was warm and the little critter climbed in thinking he had found the eureka of all warm places to be. Little did he know more and more would be piled on top of him, resulting in his untimely death.

2. Ants in brown sugar. I was going to make cookies today, and when it came time in the recipe to add the brown sugar, I realized that my little air tight container was all out. I went into the cupboard to get my half-empty bag of b. sugar to fill up the container. As I was dumping it all in, two ants fell out of the bag in a little sugar avalanche. Disgusted, I threw out all the brown sugar and postponed the cookie making until later. I have since bought some more and was able to finish my batch. This situation could explain why we have been finding so many ants in the kitchen lately. They had found a pretty good stash! May I point out that these are not your run of the mill "cute, little" ants. No, these are the mean older, larger cousins of those ants. And they suck.

3. Clothes in the bathtub. This is never a good idea, especially if you are a three year old boy. Clothes, are good. They keep us from being naked. Baths are good, they keep us from being dirty. Combined, they can create a grumpy momma. I explained this a bit in my last post, but here are some pictures to prove it:

I couldn't really be mad, could I?

Caught in the act...

4. Girls on pans. Girls are always wonderful, pans can be useful. What is not really helpful is a girl on a pan, but it is awfully cute.

She was doing this while I was trying attempt #2 of the day for making cookies. I'm totally biased, but she's just the sweetest thing I have ever seen. Here's a bonus picture just for fun....

This is the first time that I have said "Smile" and she actually did something that resembled a smile. Big girl!

5. Things that do belong together:

James and Clara. Milk and Cookies.



Home Again.

I don't know why I clean up my house and make sure everything is in order before I leave. The moment I walk in the door from a trip and unload the car, the house looks just the same if not worse than when I cleaned it up before we all left. I just don't know why. I guess it would be doubly worse if I didn't clean it the first place. Oh well. That has to be some cosmic law of the universe that a once cleaned house will be quadruple-y worse upon your return. (Other cosmic laws include when you leave your son clothed in the bathroom and presume he will take off his clothes and then step into the bathtub, he will confuse a couple of steps and leave the clothes on while entering the tub. This however, is just a cosmic law and by no means not something that happened in my house tonight. Except I do have photo evidence and I do have some 4T clothing items hanging to dry in my bathroom right now).

We're back from a wonderful trip down south. It's always nice visiting Corie and her family. It's like a vacation. Nice place, good meals, great conversation. I couldn't ask for more. Dave was away coaching football camp for four days (on a military base, no less. I found out what a cadence run was. Well, I knew what it was, I just didn't know that the thing that it was had a name), so rather than be home by my lonesome, the kids and I endured the long drive in the heat with an un-air conditioned car and made it safe and sound. James is really fond of his cousins, Lily and Tessa. Clara is really fond of her cousin, Faith, more affectionately known as "Bee-be.....Bee-be...." The three of them are growing into quite the little group. They all play together so nicely, and seem to really enjoy hanging out together. The night before we left when I was telling James we were leaving the next day, he got really sad. I told him, "Aren't you excited to see Dada again?" In a purely heart wrenchingly sad James face he said something along the lines of, "Can't Lily and Tessa come too?" And continued to go on and describe how he wished that Dada, Lily and Tessa could all be together-then he'd be perfectly happy. To console his little heart, I offered that we go on a walk before bed. I asked, "Would that make your heart happy?" "Yes, but it will be a little happy to walk, but a little sad to miss Lily and Tessa." He also threw in something about his heart glistening. My dear boy.

I'm glad to be back with my hubby though. I think the four of us function much better when we are all together. We're heading into a busy season though, football is in full swing, Dave goes back to work at the school next week, and I start back teaching my girls in about three weeks! Eeek! We'll be some busy beavers, for sure.

California Gurls

You're thinking of Katy Perry now, right? If you're not, something's wrong with you. Just kidding...Or not.

If you don't know (but I am guessing you do), I am oringinally from California. Not even the cool NorCal part of California, but L.A. Even as I type this, some of you (including my husband who is reading over my shoulder which I don't mind at allllll...ahem....) maybe thinking that the L.A. part is way cooler. Well trust me, I grew up there. I'd trade my collection of wicker baskets to live in the northern part than the southern part any day (that is if I still lived there). It is probably cool to live in L.A. if you are a movie star with lots of money and can shop at cool stores where they only make size 0 and you happen to be size 0, but unfortunately, I am not nor will ever be any of those things. Or it can be cool if you like the beach. I don't.

I won't completely bag on it, however, because I grew up with good friends, went to good private schools (Eww. Doesn't that make me sound awful? I apologize), and met my husband at college there. I have lots of fun, awesome memories growing up in those suburbs. And Pasadena is really cool....so there are good things. But for me, I didn't want to end up there my whole life. Or raise a family in all that concrete. I do like to visit.

This whole big, long California Rant was to say that my dear dear friends from California are out in Michigan, and I was able to see them today. It was so great and wonderful and fun and excellent to spend time with these three ladies. The one down side to moving 2,000 miles away from your family and friends after you graduate college is not getting to see my dear friends and family regularly. I really miss those people in my life who were so pivotal during my early years. I'm always trying to get people come out and visit me, so whenever it does happen, it's exciting. I'm also so glad they get to see and hang out with my kids.

Though Rebecca, Sara, and Julie were out here for some sad reasons, it was nonetheless good to see them and catch up on life. We met at the Cracker Barrel, which I guess you have to do if you are visiting the midwest. Just like if you go to L.A., you must, MUST go to In-n-Out. It just has to happen.

James and Rebecca

Cracker Barrel Rocking Chair and Checkers. And Sara.

My Sweet Delby

All the hot ladies. And James.

Thanks you ladies for making the trip to see us, we so appreciate it!



An adult's lullaby

  A while back, Dave asked if I had ever watched the show "Dr. Katz." I said no, I hadn't. He showed me the show, and at first, I am going to admit, I wasn't impressed. It's a cartoon that was on Comedy Central during the early thousands. (Is that how you say it? If it was on air during the years 1999-2000ish? Thousands? Or turn of the century? I don't know, either one makes me feel old, because 2001 doesn't seem that long ago. However, it is ten years, which is a long time. But I disgress....) After that one epidsode, I tried another and got hooked. The show is about Dr. Katz, a professional therapist, and his son Ben. There are also segments of him interviewing his clients, which happen to be famous comics like Dave Chapelle, Sarah Silvermen, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ray Ramano, etc. Now at night, once the kids are in bed and the house is picked up (because let's be honest, I'm like Monica and God forbid a shoe be out of place before I go to sleep...) we bring our little laptop in our room, YouTube Dr. Katz, and fall alseep to those sweet comedic stylings.
   I don't think we ever really make it through one episode on any given night. It's the kind of show that doesn't really have a long plotline that you have to follow through to the end of the episode, just a series of jokes weaved into different scenes. It's become something that I look forward to in my day. When the house is quite and the world is still, there's nothing better than cuddlin' with your honey and falling asleep to the calming voices of Dr. Katz and Ben.
   So check it out! I do think it helps you fall asleep faster, because my husband who notoriously can't fall alseep at night, is out within minutes once these guys come on. I might need to market this method of medication for insomniacs....


Dr. Katz - 307 - Day Planner by limblessjudo


What do you think?

Through her eyes

It's not really a mystery that James gets most of the attention in our house. I mean, for starters, he's the first born. He's got a couple of years on her, which obviously means he's got a little more life under his belt and a lot more things to say. If you've spent any time with him, you know he likes to talk. Alot. Also, about 87% of the toys in our house are "James' toys," or things that aren't really good for an 18 month old to play with. That being said, a lot of time what Clara wants to do, or what Clara wants to watch, or what Clara thinks comes after what James wants to do, see, or think. (We are currently watching "Batman" right now, which surprising, Clara is laughing at. I don't gets what is funny, but she sure does). Realizing this, we've been trying to get Clara more toys that she likes to play with, or let Clara "pick" what we do, or take her on dates with just Dada or Momma. It's done a lot of good, I think. We've recently found that she loves babies, so we got her a baby and stroller. She's gotten into Elmo, which is really sweet and dear. (Though "Elmo" and "Momma" sound a lot alike in Clara-ese). She also loves any sort of animal, particularly ducks, fishes, horses, and dogs. So in honor of Clara, I am doing a day-in-the-life post about my sweet little Delby.

I realize James is in this picture, but it was sort of sweet seeing them play together with one of Clara's things. Here they are using Q-tips to clean up the baby. James might have "painted" her nails pink.

She really loves this baby. It's so darlin' to see.

"See Momma? Baby."

She takes good care of her baby too. She wipes her nose, cleans out her ears, changes her diaper,

then leaves her face down on the floor admist a sea of diapers.

She likes James' books. More accurately, she likes throwing James' books on the floor.

The Delbster likes to blow her nose. Alot. I buy tissue boxes all the time, since we got through them like water.

She's also very devious. It was very quite in my house, for a long time. As a mom, you know too much quite normally isn't a good thing.  I think she liked the candy, though.

It's hard to be mad at this face.

Poor candy bar didn't see what was coming. Also, for not having a complete set of teeth, my daughter can do alot of damage.

That's it. I love you little Clara Dell!

P.S. Since I named this post "Through her eyes," that song "In your eyes," was going through my head on repeat. I was lame and actually had to look up who sang this song, because apparently I am not hip on cool 80's trivia. It was Peter Gabriel, if your wondering. Which, I bet your not, since you are cool and hip and know things like this.