Sorry I've been so quiet...

A bunch of things have kept me away from blogging these past couple of weeks, and I feel guilty about it but wanted to say that I am alive and well and planning to blog again soon. The kids have been sick 5 or 6 times since school started (that's 5 or 6 times EACH in about 7 weeks... no fun) and Justin has gotten sick at least a couple of times and I finally got sick this past weekend. We were also out of town for about 5 days visiting my family in Oregon, and also our babysitter has been on vacation for a few weeks so it feels like there is just never time to sit down and write! She is back "on the job" this Friday and I am ready.

The other day, Brooke announced to me: "Did you know I'm the Cat's Meow?" I almost lost it. I asked her who told her that and she told me that Mimi did (my mom). Hilarious. And true!

Justin and I are celebrating our fifth wedding anniversary on Saturday! My mom has offered to take care of the kids so we can get away for the evening and we are really looking forward to it.

I saw a hearbreaking story about overwhelmed moms on Oprah the other day (saved on my TiVo from maybe a couple of weeks ago) that has made me take a deep breath. I found myself stopping in a frantic rush this morning and taking a moment to slow down as I remembered what happened in this sad story.

That's about it for me tonight, and I promise to write more and post pics very soon!

Sharing

Last night I was reading a book called Flutter By to Brooke at bedtime. The essence of the story is that if you don't share, you will one day realize that others won't want to share with you and that life is better when you learn to share. At the end, there is a page where the (wise) worm says "Sharing is fun!" As I read that part, Brooke sat up and pointed to the page and said emphatically, "Sharing is NOT fun!" I almost choked I laughed so hard. I said, "why not?" Brooke said "When you share, people take your stuff." I said, "who takes your stuff?" And of course, the answer was: "Jack!"

Oh my.

Check it out

This is from a new online tool called Animoto. Fun, huh?

Shallow Humor

This made me spit out my water.



see more pwn and owned pictures

My latest guilty pleasure

This show is absolutely stupid and it's cracking me up - it's basically Human Tetris. Have you seen it? Fox at 8:00 on Thursdays. It's so dumb you can't help but laugh.

Redeeming myself

OK, so we got Brooke to swimming lessons on time today. I aimed to leave at 3:15 for 4:00 class (20 minute drive - figured that was decent padding to get me there on time.) It worked! We pulled in to the driveway at 3:42 and had time to get her undressed and into the pool area and even sat for a bit before the teacher showed up. Much less stressful. And she did pay better attention this time. Not perfect by any means, but I impressed upon her that last time she played with the toys too much and since we had missed two classes, she REALLY needed to pay attention to the teacher so she could get caught up. I give her credit, she really made an effort. Yay Brooke! And yay me for not having a pseudo anuerysm at the pool.

Several of you have commented that you wanted to see pictures of our paint. The reason I haven't posted is that it just looks white in the pictures - not very interesting - but oh well, here goes nothing. It's a nice cream with the vaguest hint of yellow.


This is the transition from old (left) to new (right) paint. We had to stop somewhere -- our house has rooms that just blend one into another so it was hard to find a stopping point.

In other news, we had a nice sunny day yesterday (probably our last for 10 months) and I took my good camera to the park with me and got some nice pictures of Jack while Brooke was in school. Here are a couple of them. Is he not adorable? No wonder I can't stop kissing his face.

Thankful Thursday

Having just accidentally stabbed myself in the foot with a falling point-down knife while doing the dishes, it's a little challenging for me to do this right now but that's the point, right? (ah, that was NOT intended as a knife joke - "point", get it?) I'm typing with my foot propped up on the table to try and get the bleeding to stop. Lovely.

In random order, today I am thankful for...

• Justin. He raves about the dinners I make every night, even when I've slapped something really average together (like frozen salmon burgers and store-bought macaroni salad the other night), and it's awfully sweet of him. He also does the dishes every night which I really appreciate after wrangling the two little ones all afternoon.
  
• My 24" iMac. This machine is the best computer I have ever owned (and I've owned quite a few) and I adore it. The big, bright display inspires me to work on pictures, blog, and do all kinds of things. And like all Macs, it's great because it just works. It's true what they say, "once you go Mac, you'll never go back..."
• Our library. I am a big library patron these days. I get all the books I need - fun books for me, stacks of books for my voracious reader Brooke, my latest book club book, and even the occasional non-fiction book. Right now I'm working on a whole stack of library books and I just love that I can enjoy them and not have to buy them or store them long-term. They have an awesome online system for searching and reserving books, and whenever I hear of a book that I want to grab for myself or the kids, I just log on and request it. Then a few days later, I get an email that it's waiting for me. Easy squeezy. They even have an underground parking garage that has spaces big enough for my mom-mobile and a stroller-friendly elevator. What's not to love?

What are you thankful for?