thank you

inspired by jimmy’s awesome new book (yes, first name basis. one of of my best friends, ruth, twitters with him. yeah, it counts.) i decided to say a few thank yous of my own. sadly, since i’m only .000005 percent as funny as jimmy....ill sprinkle a few of his into the post. :)

1. thank you...the word moist, for being the worst word ever. I think i speak for all americans when i say that we don’t want you as a word anymore. God, I hate you. *

2. thank you...happy buddha. for standing watch over the amazing flowers bri brought home for me friday night. it was kind of a tough week. (surgery wednesday = more pain than i expected < valium and percoset + awesome husband and kids +good wishes from friends and family)


3. thank you...15 year old teenage daughters for keeping me sharp. one minute i’m the best mom in the world, the next i suck. i never know what to expect.definitely more interesting than sudoku. when im 80...i’m going to rock.

4. thank you...ants around my kitchen sink, for allowing every day to start with murder. every day, you take the toilet paper towel express to toiletville, and yet more of you arrive the next morning. i don’t get it ants, but thank you. *

5. thank you...weather guys. for one of you telling me today will be decent but with scaaaaaaaatered showers...and the other telling me it will be SEVERE, wrapped with a tongue of heat. (i am not making this up) way to represent, guys.

6. thank you....PEZ dispensers, for being little creatures that vomit candy out of their necks. you’re awesome. *

7. thank you...tiny closet that marcus advertising stuck me into 20 years ago pretending it was an office. if i didn’t look so ridiculous sitting in there, brian might never have stopped by to make fun of me. we have been married 18 years today. he still makes fun of me, but mostly because i can’t distinguish between my left and right sides. (i love you, bri.)

8. thank you...people who give homemade jam as a gift. what are we, quakers? exactly how much jam do you think i use? you know this is going to sit in my fridge for three years until i throw it out to make room for beer, right? just checking. *

9. thank you...volleyball shorts, for leaving pretty much nothing to the imagination. really? you can’t play in large baggy sweatpants? of course, olivia looks gorgeous in anything she puts on. that’s the problem. (spire is over for the year...moving on to conditioning for fall)

10. thank you...summer, for keeping me so well groomed. am i salty? am i dirty? why does she want to lick me so much? should i be worried? are dogs mouths cleaner than ours?

bonus*** thank you...microbreweries, for making my alcoholism seem like a neat hobby.

xo.

pink is your color

way to go grandpa! love you!

the tree

honestly, i kinda wanted to go somewhere else this year. our tree last year was a bust. and a friend of a friend has a tree farm where the trees aren’t trimmed...just wild, crazy-looking frasier firs. but in was outvoted. and when i look at these pictures, i think i’m ok with that.

happy sunday

or happy easter.
i think i would have needed to hard boil 3 dozen eggs to try all the color combinations we got this year in our paas packet. does anybody really make spinners out of the circles you punch out? brian and i read a martha stewart magazine in one of the waiting rooms last month. of course...fantastic. each egg a work of art. one of the things she suggested was using electric tape to do the masking. worked on some, not on others. and the layering of the dyes didn’ t seem to work with the dyes we had. and...the kids got bored about 20 minutes in. ah, traditions. the kids celebrated the day by playing ripstick basketball. sam had a bunch of guys over yesterday playing. ill try and get a picture next time they do. as if one or the other wasn’t hard enough!thanks to aunt sheryl and uncle john for having brunch with us and sitting through an impromptu viewing of sherlock holmes. you are good sports!

(and on a side note, summer jumped in and swam in three ponds today. so much for that yummy-frito-puppy smell!)

labor day

sam and ellen’s dirty feet contest.
our friend, ashley, her favorite.

beach

at this rate, we’ll be booking next year’s vacation by the time i show you our vacation photos. still organizing.

parastuck

so...you’ll notice...i’m missing.
i am just ever so slightly claustrophobic. (my excuse for standing in the back during staff meetings!) enough to know that i really would enjoy just the boat ride more than the ride in the sky. so anyway, i watch my family go thousands of feet in the air only to have the winch on the boat break/stall/stop working. they were up there FOREVER! the captain is calling into shore...they are hitting the control panels with hammers...then taking it apart with a screwdriver and holding it up and shaking. finally, after one good slam...it started working again and they were brought back to the boat. having no idea what just went on. only that they couldn’t believe how long they were up there. and the funny thing (besides my worst fear come alive before my eyes)...all the other people on the boat, after watching this comedy of errors, STILL GO UP! would you?
(and my apologies if you’ve heard this one before!)

where we’ve been

more to come.

a postcard

from grandpa. a very happy surprise.
how cool are all those stamps...and stampings.
i’ll have to remember to send everyone a card when we go on our hiatus.

happy mother’s day

may 10th is also an anniversary for brian and i.
our first kiss.
which led to...well...mother’s day.

have a great day!

(ahsoka is my favorite clone wars character. thanks, sammy!)

zoo

the first of hopefully a couple more trips to the zoo this year. thanks to olivia, who took most of these photos. there were so many good ones it was hard to choose. i think she captured sam’s monkeyness.

we’ve been...

1. enjoying spring break with our kids.

2. painting the living room and bathroom grey...“vintage grey”. it sounds really dull.
but it’s really nice. sophisticated maybe? it was terra cotta...so this is actually a big change. and the trim hadn’t been done in like 17 years.

3. cursing how much painting prep work there is to do before getting to the fun part.

4. listening to...and loving...when our kids laugh and get along with each other.

5. managing sam’s ever increasing social schedule.
we must get three to four call a day for him.

6. missing olivia when she went to columbus overnight for a feis. (but she got to visit the columbus zoo and see a manatee...a life-long dream. thanks, ruth!)

7. worrying about brian’s mom. she is going through a rough patch right now so we keep sending her good vibes.

8. started softball and soccer practices. this week we add baseball to the mix.

9. amazed that it hadn’t happened sooner...sam fell out of a tree and gave us a good scare. (although the friend he was with was probably the most scared of all) sam is fine...just a little sore.

10. amazed at how a week with nothing to do got so busy for us.

whispering pines

or, in our case...frasier fir.
the sad face on olivia is cause she thought she broke the saw. but she figured it out.
we have been going to this same farm since olivia was a baby.
horse-drawn wagons, bonfires, hot chocolate, hot dogs...the whole deal.
and they take our picture (and everyone elses)
and put it in a photo album for us to discover the next year.
i love that.

post-halloween update

a little late, i know.
and although we didn’t get too many photos (read:none) of the actual event,
brian did take some of our display with his “real” camera.
if we get any cool ones, i’ll post them later.
a huge thank you to aunt sheryl and uncle john for passing out the candy
and manning the fog machines. couldn’t have done it without you.
i saw a lot of dorothy’s this year. which surprises me because
i think it’s such a weirdly scary movie for kids.
but hey, i walked around town with a skeleton zombie...so what do i know!

craft

this has always been one of my favorite things.
the foot ghost.
this is olivia...we have one of sam too.
what was i saying about being sentimental?

october

i guess it’s tradition now.
we have been going to a&a acres in bristolville to get our pumpkins the last 3 years.
we really overdid it this year.
but they have such a wonderful selection of heirloom pumpkins and gourds.
it’s hard to resist. the ones in the last photo are actually french baking pumpkins.