Some Days Are Better Than Others

Ohh, Betsy!

2009-07-29T22:42:00.001-04:00

I finally have my new blog up http://ohhbetsy.wordpress.com

Add it to your reader and visit often so I'm not lonely out there.

If you want to read the story behind the name, you'll find it here.

The truth is

2009-07-24T16:22:00.004-04:00

Some days, you just have the best day as far as being a parent is concerned. You feel like you picked the perfect activity on the perfect day. You feel like you are a good teacher to your child. You feel like you are are best friends, laughing and you have no other cares. And those days are moments to really document and remember. Not just because it was such a good day but because the days that follow might make you feel the complete opposite - that you don't have enough patience, that you don't intellectually stimulate your child enough, that you both get on each others nerves. So remembering the good days helps you remember the truth - that you are a good parent and your child knows how much you love him (or her).

Private

2009-07-21T13:20:00.004-04:00

I've tried to keep some anonymity during our three-years on this blog but I'm going to take it one step further and make this blog private. As I looked back over this blog, I see it's got a little bit of a split personality. One, is the typical record of our family. I want to keep this blog doing just that - keeping a record of our family. I will feel more comfortable posting videos and even more photos when I keep it expressly for that purpose.

The second personality of this blog is a little more selfish - posts that aren't about the family and as my sister-in-law Jenna says, "of general interest". I do adore blogging about things "of general interest" so I am starting a new blog that will stay public. On my new blog, I am sure I will still include posts about our family but it won't necessarily be the prime focus. Oh, and I won't be using Grant's name. He'll be going simply by the initial G (unless one of you suggests a really good nickname).

I'm working on getting the other blog up and running but in the meantime, I'll be keeping this blog public until the end of the month. If you do want an invite to the private family blog leave a comment but I'm sure you'll be able to stay updated through the new blog.

A little taste of Victory

2009-07-17T08:12:00.005-04:00

I'm pretty sure that every parent of a three-year old has some sort of picture of their child curled up to sleep in an odd place. Grant has found his place. Under the train table. There must be some sort of freedom for a small child to go where only they can fit, snuggle up and take a midday snooze. On this day, it was good timing since we headed out to a baseball game that began near his bedtime. Fully rested, we headed downtown.

After living in Indy for two years, we finally made it to a baseball game at Victory Field. The lawn seats were perfect for us. He could run around, jump and play with a few toys he brought with him. He had absolutely no interest in the game and we were distracted as we watched him play. Which I am sure is another common occurrence in the the life of a parent of a three year old.

(All pictures by Brandon)

I'd like to use a lifeline please

2009-07-06T19:58:00.004-04:00

So, I tried out for "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" Because, really, I would like to be a millionaire. Ever since I heard that one of Brandon's classmates had been on the show, I felt like I could do it too. I could never muster the academic prowess "Jeopardy" requires (much less answer in the form of a question). "Wheel of Fortune" requires too much luck (which I do not possess). But "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" fits just right with it's trivia and tiered levels of risk. So I looked into the audition process and it was closed. Every six months, I checked back to see the same message. That was until a couple of weeks ago when I checked on a Monday afternoon and discovered that they were actually coming to Indianapolis to hold auditions two days later. It was fate. I had to go. Graciously, a friend offered to watch Grant and I headed off to secure my place in Millionaire history.

Phase one of the auditions included two timed 30-question tests. Reminiscent of school, they passed out the #2 pencils and scantrons. I felt pretty confident that I answered most of the questions correctly on the first test. As for the second test, failure was imminent since it was a movie quiz and I've never seen "Citizen Kane". And sadly, I was dismissed along with most others in the room. We took the walk of shame while the chosen few went on to get an interview with a producer. (If only I had met with a producer! Surely they could see my star potential!)

The only thing to comfort me in my failure was my odd conversation with the little elderly lady who stood next to me in line. She overheard me ask a producer how long the auditions would take since I wanted to let my babysitter know when I would be through. "Where do you find a babysitter?" she asked with astonishment. It seemed to be a strange question considering that her need for babysitters was probably at its height more than 40 years ago. I explained how I have a lot of friends through church who watch my son and I watch their kids in return. Without even listening to my response she shook her head and said with disdain, "I don't know how you find babysitters around here. I had babysitters and they all died." And with that, an awkward silence ensued.

Add this to your list of things to do with a tarp

2009-06-30T07:42:00.005-04:00

Grant and I spend a lot of our time at the pool. But when the pool is closed for maintenance, Grant begs to play with the hose. It's all about water play during the summer. Brandon acquiesced and came up with a makeshift water park using things around the house. The tarp worked remarkably well as a slip and slide. The only thing missing is a fence in our yard to avoid perplexed looks on our neighbor's faces.

A Whale of a Time...ba-da-dum...

2009-06-21T22:09:00.010-04:00

Traveling with Grant requires us to adjust our sightseeing tours to accommodate his obsession du jour. Currently, the menu calls for sea monsters, e.g., Monstro from Pinocchio or some other "toothed"whale (since we all know that baleen is boring) or a shark that resembles Bruce. In fact, Grant's infatuation with sea monsters sometimes exudes misanthropy, almost Gulliver-like in proportion. He urges Monstro in his pursuit of Pinocchio and Gepetto, and he cried inconsolably when Roy Schneider blows up Jaws with his rifle; I told him there was sequel, that seemed to help.

In any event, Anna (who is an awesome researcher of vacation areas) heard about the St. Louis City Museum and recommended that we attend. The website showed pictures of airplanes and monkey bars (appropriately called Monstro city) and an area with sea monsters that looked like a 70's prom set. The brochure only recommended that we wear pants and closed toe shoes; it said nothing about getting lost in the mind of Tim Burton or fighting for our lives in a ball pit that was Mad Max in its appearance and lawlessness.

Most parents snapped photos of their kids coming out of enclosed slides or squeezing through tight areas. To my advantage, my petite but wiry frame granted me access to photographic opportunities in areas otherwise inaccessible to adults.

Of course, the visit was occasioned by several breakdowns that seemed to revolve around the huge ceramic whale. When I brought him close, he freaked out; when I walked away, he became upset. The safest place to observe was from above in playplace tubes that spanned the ceiling, through a small window looking down upon the whale. So, there I sat in this veritable steam room, head bowed, knees jutting into my chin as Grant pointed excitedly at Monstro and his monstrous eye, refusing to leave. A reasonable person can quickly lose his mind in such conditions.

We certainly look back to this trip and the City Museum with fondness. We may even return to the museum on another occasion, unless Grant suddenly becomes fascinated with touring breweries or high-tech baseball stadiums. Either way, St. Louis will still be our destination.

Arch Madness

2009-06-17T19:43:00.009-04:00

When my parents were planning to come out and visit, we also decided to go on a short trip to a nearby city and St. Louis was the city of choice. I was only sure of one thing. St. Louis = Gateway Arch. I thought it would be cool to see. Another item checked off my list of things to see in the grand U.S. of A.

Honestly, I was stunned. I loved it. I loved it so much, I wasn't quite sure what to do with myself. I managed not to trip over myself while I was walking, eyes fixed above. I did not, however, love it enough to go to the top. I'm not much one for heights. So this was my instant shot.

And here are Brandon's shots using his new lens (I just keep saying that because I want everyone to remember what a cool wife I am).

Had enough of the arch? Don't feel bad. Grant wasn't too interested either.

Little Trip to the Prairie

2009-06-15T22:35:00.006-04:00

Vacations for us mean loads of pictures for the blog. The reason for the vacation - my parents rolled into town. Brandon took a few days off of work, I took the week off of work and Grant took advantage of the extra attention.

First stop, prairie town. We live about 45 minutes away from Conner Prairie Park, a huge historic park. I've always wanted to go but never got up the courage to brave it alone. Not that I'm scared of people dressed in prairie garb - I was scared of going alone to a huge park with a toddler.

Grant didn't much love the historic houses. All was not lost, there was plenty to keep his attention - petting animals, making a candle, watering plants with water from the well (he could have done it all day long).

Brandon was excited to try out the new lens I got him for our anniversary. Continuing in our tradition, I was unable to keep it a surprise. But, it wasn't my fault. Amazon sent the dang thing in a box that had two open sides so you could see in and it happened to ship on the ONE day Brandon was at home before I could get the mail.

I managed to swipe the camera away from Brandon to give the new lens a try too. That's my dad, making a hook. He was a pro.

We interupt this blog for a vacation

2009-06-10T19:52:00.001-04:00

Winner, winner chicken dinner

2009-06-05T13:07:00.000-04:00

Random.org picked my winner for my first giveaway just moments ago and....drum roll please...

Chili (aka Whittney) will be recieving the bag and is now required to pay-it-forward to someone else. And according to her, since she won, I will have good luck the rest of the year. So really, it looks like I'm a winner too.

Thanks to everyone for entering. Stay tuned for giveaway #2 coming soon.

P.S. I finally started to Twitter. It's freaking me out a little. There should be a handbook on how to Tweet.

Manicured

2009-06-02T08:12:00.001-04:00

Note to self: Don't try to stuff face with delicious mini-cheesecake bites three minutes after completion of manicure.

Duh.

Three nails sustained collateral damage. In my defense, I've never had a manicure before and 90% of the time, I don't have nails to paint due to my nail-biting habit.

Lesson learned. Allow time for nails to dry before indulging in tasty finger foods.

So what was I doing getting a manicure considering my current financial status and obvious lack of manicure etiquette? I was at a Pledge party. Never heard of such a thing? Neither had I until my friend Casey who has sway in the blogging world invited me to ~~join a sorority~~ a night of pampering from the fine folks at Pledge.

Not only did I stuff my face (I intentionally picked this picture because it's all too hilarious that it was taken with my mouth full), I got a pedicure and a massage at the Villagio Day Spa. While I was being treated, my laptop was also getting a treatment with Pledge Multi-Surface. I don't know what I was more embarrassed over, my old-lady feet or my dirty laptop.

So we were sent home with bright and shiny bottles of Pledge Multi-Surface to use at home. And use at home, I will. As you may remember, dusting is number two on my list of household chores that I hate. It comes at a good time since lately I've been refining up my cleaning routine. I've been mixing it up, trying new things.

I recently ran across a blog (which shall remain nameless) that focused on cleaning tips for busy moms. It only served to make me feel like completely inadequate. Somehow the writer of the blog spends only "minutes a day" cleaning but if I added up all the minutes she spent cleaning each day, I'm pretty sure it would equal 5 hours a day. Needless to say, the cleaning tips dispensed were physically impossible for me to complete. I tried. I set the timer like she said and no, I couldn't empty, clean and restock the entire fridge in less than 15 minutes.

So here's where Pledge came to the rescue again. Their website made me feel that I'm normal and don't have to spend 5 hours a day cleaning. I actually felt like I keep a pretty clean house. So here's a big thank you to Pledge for the spa night and for validating my cleaning habits. Oh, and for the free stuff. Because I love free stuff.

Bag it (or, the first giveaway ever on this little blog)

2009-05-27T11:20:00.011-04:00

I'm not much of a purse woman. Funny, because when I was 10 years old, I spent hours looking at the Dooney and Burke and YSL purses at the department store. I couldn't wait to one day have one of my own. I loved purses until it actually came time to use one. It was then that my desire faded. I still like purses but I just think I look silly with a fancy purse (that is assuming that I could even afford a nice one).

Bags on the other hand, I still love. And the reason why is because I like my bags to have a specific purpose.

My church bag is pictured on the left. It needs to be extra roomy and have at least a few pockets because I teach primary. If I didn't have to teach primary, it would be a tiny little thing.

I always have to have a backpack when I travel.

I am still overly excited about my grocery totes that I've had for more than a year.

I have a ginormous bag that we got free that I use exclusively for the pool. It's even water resistant. I just pretend like the giant "Ray-Ban" writing across the front is cool.

I have a really ugly bag that I use for the library. It was another free bag that I picked up at one of the University of Utah's employee appreciation days. It's the perfect size for library books. Since we go once a week, it's become one of my most used bags but it sure is ugly. I finally decided it was time to get rid of it. I had used it temporarily as my church bag but it was too small. So when I showed up with a new one, one of the kids in my class expressed her relief that the old one was gone.

Since I really liked the shape of the ugly bag for the specific purpose of the library - I set out to make one in the same shape. And here it is...

I liked the result so much that I made another one last night.

Since I won a pay-it-forward giveaway, it's now my turn to give something away. This "library bag" is going to be the first of five items I will be making and giving away. So here are the rules:

1. To enter, leave a comment and some way to contact you. Anyone can enter once.
2. If you win, you must either make something homemade (sew, bake, photograph, etc.) and give it away. If you don't want to make something homemade, you need to do some act of service (donate blood, volunteer for something, service that is not part of your normal routine, etc). In short, you need to pay it forward.
3. Once you win and receive the bag, make a post or just tell me about how you will pay it forward.

Entries must be submitted by Friday, June 5th at 12:00 PM (EST). I'll pick one random winner. Your chances will be good considering not too many people read my lil' ol' blog.

Three-dom

2009-05-24T20:27:00.010-04:00

It was the scene of an epic battle.

Compounded by the exploding volcanoes.

And when Grant saw it, he gasped, named each dinosaur and kept saying all day long, "Thank you mom, so much, for my dinosaur cake."

I can't believe that my baby Grant has gone from a baby,

to a three-year old.

We had a little party with a few dino-centric games. The first activity was decorating balloons with dinosaur stickers. It pretty much was super lame because our grass was so prickly that any time one of the kids let it fall on the the ground - it popped. Enter game #2 as a distraction over the remains of the kids' artistic work which just exploded before their eyes. We played pin the tail on the dinosaur. Grant didn't even try to pretend like he was going to keep the blindfold on. He immediately pulled it up, stepped right up and accurately placed the tail where it belonged.

Finally, it came time for the main attraction - the T-Rex pinata. Now, it took some convincing to add this into the party line-up. Grant was so attached to the pinata, he refused to go along with the idea of breaking it apart. Even when I told him the reward was candy that would come out - he wanted to cry. Then I had a stroke of mommy-genius and told him baby dinosaurs would also come out. And to that, he heartily agreed.

So, if you have a few minutes, take a look at the slide show from the party. It's worth it just to see the HILARIOUS faces of the kids when beating apart the pinata. I think first prize goes to his friend Jackson (curly, dark hair) but all the kids have such great expressions. Thankfully, my friend Erika remembered that we would probably want some documentation of the festivities (thanks, Erika!).

Thanks to everyone for all the birthday well-wishes and birthday gifts for Grant. I know he is well-loved and that makes for a mom with a happy heart.

Stupid TV...be more funny!

2009-05-20T22:19:00.004-04:00

I've noticed recently that my television habit has decreased significantly. I'm getting older and more crotchety and I find myself yelling more and more at the TV. "Lost" has continued to keep me hooked but some of the old standards are falling by the wayside.

The only thing "American Idol" convinced me of this year was that I am truly embarrassed for Paula Abdul. My forehead crinkles up, I shake my head and cover my eyes and I don't even realize I'm doing it. Oh, Paula.

I thought I would forever revel in the crazies and the unrealistic, overblown feelings of "love" brought on by "The Bachelor"/"The Bachelorette" but I believe I'm over it. I didn't watch last season apart from the finale and the official crowning of the worst bachelor ever. I even took a peek at the new Bachelorette and as adorable as she is, I physically felt my time getting sucked away from me and had to turn it off.

And just when I do get attached to "Pushing Daises", a show that is happy and cute and actually portrays a couple in love, it gets canceled. Boo. "Life", another favorite also got canceled. Double Boo.

So just when I'm ready to do something constructive rather than watch television, I develop a crush on a new show, "Glee". I had a feeling I would like it since it comes from the creator of "Popular" which maybe three people in the world besides myself watched. I can't fully endorse the show with my whole heart yet because hour-long comedies are tough for me to commit to. But I enjoyed the preview that aired last night after "American Idol".

Although some might think that I'm watching it because of Matthew Morrison's likeness to Scott Speedman...it's really not the only reason.

It thought it was charming but still sarcastic and I really liked the music. Sure, I never thought I would appreciate a show choir's rendition of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" but here I am. So come fall, since I have a slot for an hour-long comedy because "Pushing Daises" will be pushing daises, "Glee" is the front runner to keep me smiling. You can watch the premier episode here.

And even if "Glee" doesn't keep me laughing, I'm pretty sure I''m going to love this show (thanks for the heads-up Lacy).

Bringing Instant Back

2009-05-17T15:45:00.006-04:00

I had a little money stashed away from my sweet Grandma W that I held on to until I could think of how best to spend it. As much as buying clothes would be a wise investment considering my current wardrobe, I didn't want to spend the moola in such a fashion (no pun intended). I wanted to use the money for something more enduring and endearing than a new pair of yoga pants. So after six or so months of burning a hole in my wallet, I found the perfect thing to buy.

Say hello to my new, not so little friend.

It's ginormous. It's an instant camera. It's the Instax 200. I'm bringing instant back.

Young Naturalists

2009-05-15T14:51:00.007-04:00

You haven't really experienced nature until you've experienced nature using a "nature viewer". Coolest craft ever. Okay, well maybe not EVER but at least the best at keeping kids excited and entertained during a nature walk. Thanks to Miss Ashley (inventor of the "nature viewer"), the kids embarked upon a total immersion lesson in nature. It was a fantastic end to our preschool year - a field trip to our local park armed with nature viewers and plastic baggies to collect nature stuff plus games and a picnic lunch.

Singin' Sweet Songs

2009-05-13T12:54:00.007-04:00

Three little birds sit in the tree outside Grant's room. We check on them daily. They sing to us, "Don't worry 'bout a thing, 'cause every little thing gonna be all right." We love them. I feel like lately a lot of good people that I know are going through really hard times. And while they are going through hard times - they all handle it gracefully and inspire me. I like to think that they have their own little birds outside of their homes singing to them.

Walking the Mascu-line

2009-05-07T21:03:00.022-04:00

I love routine. My law school life depends upon it. I get up at 0600, I do my grown-up things, and I return at 1630. I get a few hours in with Grant before he goes to bed, then I return to my studies. As busy as my life may be, I always reserve a few minutes to maintain my machismo. I am not much of a sports guy, so I usually watch episodes of "Jurassic Fight Club", "Deadliest Warrior," 5 or 10 minutes of Ultimate Fighting, or when I am really run down, "The Rundown."

Unfortunately, I fear I have been too selfish. Recently, I uncovered evidence suggesting that Grant's masculinity is slipping. For example, instead of blue a blue bowl and fork, he requested a pink bowl and a pink spoon. Later, I discovered pictures of Grant helping Anna bake muffins while wearing a green bead necklace that even matched his wardrobe. The other day, Grant used the word "pretty" to describe tulips in our yard. This is a troubling development.

The evidence convinced me that Grant was lacking the sufficient exposure to manly influences. Instinctively, I grew a moustache - I am no Tom Selleck, but it still exudes manliness. I then considered forcing him to watch Ultimate Fighting, but I did not want him to relapse into hitting again. So I took him into the forest. It is a wide open world out there with plenty of manly things to do, like poking at dead things with a stick, pushing down old trees, and swearing.

The day started out as planned. Grant immediately found a stick and started hitting things. But in the end, we did not see any dead things to poke at with said stick (though Grant still found plenty of things to poke), we did not use nearly enough foul language, and I spent most of the time snapping pictures of the fresh forest greenery and Grant, admiring the Rhododendrons, and considering the water lilies. Maybe I will have more success Miller Lite Carb Day at the race track.

All Quiet on the Blog Front

2009-05-06T10:59:00.012-04:00

My brother-in-law says that NaBloPoMo ruined me because I don't blog anymore. I'll admit that since NaBloPoMo in November, I have slacked with respect to my blog. Somehow my useless tidbits and randomness over the last few months didn't feel post-worthy. Imagine that.

It may have something to do with the multiple projects I've had during the past several months. When I say "projects", it's not as big as it sounds, it's more like something small that normal, everyday people have to do. It's just that thinking about them took up too much room in my magic brain to leave room for blogging. I've already confessed my lack of creativity and my creativity-envy.

Take for instance a small project for my activity day girls. I found the recipe on Moda's Bake Shop (Moda, how I love thee...). It looked simple enough and ended up costing only about $5 per necklace. However, getting the supplies for the necklaces took nearly a dozen trips to various craft stores. 10 trips to Michaels/JoAnns/Hobby Lobby with Grant. I'd like to thank Dum Dum suckers for enabling me to make 10 trips to the craft store with a toddler.

But the big project was the Quiet Book Group. Everyone in the group makes one page of a quiet book 17 times and we all exchange pages. Remember how I have serious issues regarding my creativity? Okay, yeah, just checking. So I took on the puzzle page and started from scratch with no pattern. Sewing, putting it all together wasn't the hard part. The hard part was that I'm a huge procrastinator. Instead of working on it, I just thought about working on it and stressed out because I wasn't working on it. But, I work well under pressure which obviously makes up for the procrastinating part, right? They were all finished in time thanks to of my rock star of a husband. Click on the picture to see the angel Moroni he drew because it's all kinds of awesome.

So, was it all worth it - almost slicing off the tip of my finger with a rotary cutter, nearly rubbing off the skin of my fingers trying to keep the glue off, callused finger from lifting the presser foot lever on my sewing machine? Oh, heavens yes (with emphasis!)! Didn't I already say how I was surrounded by amazing women who overflow with creativity? Well, I am. And their pages were amazing. What's even better is how Grant is completely enthralled with these pages and there isn't even a dinosaur among them.

Ink Blots by Tots

2009-04-27T10:14:00.004-04:00

I realize that I find this infinitely more hilarious than everyone else, but I thought it was at least worthy of a laugh or two from those who love Mr. Grant. I was thinking we could play this cool game and have everyone leave a comment with a guess as to what the object is in the picture. So, pretend for a minute you don't know what my child is obsessed with and tell me what you think this picture is supposed to be. Or, even better - tell me what you think it looks like.

If you couldn't tell (ha!), this is Grant's drawing of a dinosaur. I know it looks eerily like a scary yellow pepper monster but maybe if I break it down, you'll be able to see the dinosaur. You can see the two eyes on the left (he loves drawing googly eyes). A pointy nose below that looks like a "v" and a bunch of straight lines that represent ferocious teeth. The long line that that curves down from the mouth and around over the head is the really long tail. And the straight line at the bottom is his leg. So, there we have it...a dinosaur.

Good, Clean Fun

2009-04-21T08:41:00.001-04:00

Grant finds that there are some perks to my cleaning days. A prime example is jumping on the bed without the hassle of all the pillows, blankets and sheets. Truthfully, I've been especially grateful lately for getting to spend my days cooking, cleaning and most importantly playing with Grant.

I can't stop laughing when I look at this last picture. It's such a cheesy picture. I was taking a bunch of pictures while Grant was playing and I happened to catch this one. I had no idea it would turn out to look like he was posing in studio portrait picture.

It totally reminds me of my all time favorite kid picture of Brandon. The only thing Brandon remembers about this picture is how far the lady tilted his head. He was a little bitter about it but I'm glad she did because it's just so adorable.

Your Bunny is No Good Here

2009-04-14T19:40:00.013-04:00

The night before Easter, I read my friend Jo's blog. She confessed that she refuses to convince her kids that the Easter Bunny is real because it's freaky. I laughed to myself and then realized that Grant didn't even know about the Easter Bunny. I remember consciously thinking about it earlier in the month. I briefly thought, "Should I tell Grant about the Easter Bunny?" Without too much internal debate and no solid rationale, I thought, "nahhh" and it was done. No mention of the Easter Bunny. I didn't even tell Brandon about my decision but he never mentioned it to Grant.

It wasn't as if we skipped all the festivity surrounding the holiday. Our traditional Czech eggs were hung. The Cadbury Mini Eggs were purchased (and all eaten a week and a half before Easter). He learned about the Resurrection or as Grant would describe it - when Jesus was in a cave. We hid candy-filled plastic eggs for him - both the traditional pastels and new camouflage eggs. To top it all off, he got the Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs in his Easter basket. We were only missing the build-up of a large, mysterious, and generous bunny. Well, that and peeps because those things are not welcome in our home.

On Easter, we had several people ask Grant whether the Easter Bunny visited. Grant was left with no words and gave a blank stare. When my dad asked Grant if he knew what the Easter Bunny was, Grant just blurted out, "Yeah, a big dinosaur book." Blame it on me. Like I said, I wasn't trying to be a loser and I don't have any really strong feelings about the issue but I just didn't want to tell him about the Easter Bunny. It seemed like a lot of work. And now I feel like a lame mom.

And so ends my Easter post which really just makes it look like I'm a holiday pooper. And the only picture I have from the entire holiday is one my friend took for me at our playgroup Easter egg hunt (it really is him, I promise).

Don't Hit Me, Baby, One More Time

2009-04-07T22:12:00.006-04:00

Grant has enjoyed a spree of hitting lately. It leaves me questioning my mothering skills. Thankfully he has shown improvement over the past few days. He has been so well-behaved since I yanked him out of playgroup last Friday for hitting 2 kids within 15 minutes of arrival. I don't believe he's completely over it yet but at least he's given me a few days of reprieve to remind me that yes, he can be a good boy.

Grant is also well into his second year of soccer. He is no longer a part of the "Bunnies". He is now a "Cottontail" (equally "cute", right?). Oh, how he's grown. They no longer play games with the parachute and stomp on bubbles. This year, it's much more skill-oriented. For example, last week we played a game where the kids would pretend to plant cheese, get in a spaceship and find space rocks to knock over the cheese that is now somehow growing on the moon. If there is any game that had to be conceived under the influence of drugs, I would have to say it would be the cheese-space rocks game.

He enjoys all the make-believe games though. He takes the instructions of his coach very literally. When they pretend to swim, they are just supposed to walk around while motioning their arms as if swimming. Almost every time they play this game, he gets down on the ground and fully attempts to swim. He gets extra points for effort.

Sweet peppers

2009-03-31T07:48:00.004-04:00

There are many joys that come along with Spring. And as one who enjoys taking pictures, I am particularly delighted with the natural light Spring brings. I generally take HORRIBLE pictures of food. I'm quite embarrassed about most of my food pictures to be honest but do it when I post my recipes on my recipe blog, Linoleum Dynamite. After all, I always like to see what the recipe should look like. The problem with my picture taking of food is that I never plan to do it ahead of time. I just make something and think, "I should post this." And by that time it's 7:00 PM in the middle of winter. Not good light. Anyway, I kind of loved how these pictures turned out for my latest post. For a split second, I felt like the Pioneer Woman but quickly came back to reality when I thought of how my food pictures usually turn out (and the fact that I don't live on a ranch, and the fact that I can't cook nearly as well, etc., etc.). Bah! Oh well.