Happy Birthday!

February is a 2 birthday month for us. Brendan turned 13 (!) and Bryce turned 3. Bryce's present was a trip to the Fox Theater to see Sesame Street Live with the whole family. The big boys were good sports about attending a show for preschoolers.

A few days later we had a very small birthday party for them. Brendan got his fav-a cookie cake, and Bryce had safe chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting



Blogger's Block.

I've taken a few weeks off from blog-writing duties. It's been no crazier than normal around here of late-two birthdays, meetings, Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, Handbells, Church Council, MathCoutns, Chemistry, school, homework, doctor appointments, SNOW, SNOW, SNOW, and the loss of our dog, Max. I've been feeling zero inspiration to write anything. Not for lack of subject matter, I have plenty of that, but lack of wanting to share anecdotes with you.

It's Max that kind of tipped the scales for me. The short story is that we adopted a 3 year old Saint Bernard named Max. He came from a shelter in the Thumb and he was gorgeous. HUGE and gorgeous. Max had a secret, though, that the folks at the shelter never bothered to find out. Max, an untrained 200 pound Saint Bernard, was NOT good with small children. He was a super dog for the big people in this house, but he growled at Bryce and (the last straw) was when he lunged at Bryce's face, unprovoked, and gave him a fat lip.

To say that we were heartbroken seems so trite. Max was so cute, so fun--but not if you're 3. I tried three different Saint Bernard rescue groups to take him. I called three different no-kill shelters. No dice. I was NOT going to take him back to the shelter that didn't bother to check his background. I spent a bit of time making a few phonecalls to Max's previous owners (yes, owners PLURAL--something the shelter didn't tell us about until we arrived) and learned that Max had been shuffled around since last summer-we were home #6-and it was due to his agression towards small children and other dogs. He should've never been allowed into our home.

As I have no idea how to re-train a dog to "unlearn" agression and we weren't willing to risk having him in our home long enough to find a trainer,  I had to take poor Max to the Humane Society. It was heartwrenching. Now, lots of folks have made comments like, "You only had him 5 days." or "You have to keep Bryce safe." and while those things are true, it doesn't mean we can't be sad about knowing what will likely happen to Max at the Humane Society. We can only dream that he passed their behavior test and found a nice retired couple with no kids who live on a farm as his forever family.

Here's some photos of Max:

Quotable Kids.

Scene:  Super Bowl Sunday. Pregame is on, pizza is in oven, kids are still scattered through the house, waiting for the signal to eat.
Brad hands me the paper to read today's Pearls Before Swine. (go read it, it's funny-I promise!) But before i show it to Brendan, I need to know if he's had some instruction on poetry meter. It's not funny if he doesn't know poetry meter.

Me: Brendan, do you know what iambic pentameter is?
Brendan: What?
Me: Iambic pentameter.
Brendan: I can't hear you.
Brett (from the living room): She said "I am a contaminator."
Brad is cracking up.
Me: (to Brad) Did Brett just say "I am a contaminator?"
Brad: Yes
Brendan (shouting from office): No, I don't know what "I am a contaminator is".

AI YAI YAI!!

Quotable Kids.

Scene: In the kitchen, after dinner. Brendan is fussing with his origami pieces. Brett comes in (unprovoked) and smacks Brendan on the fanny.

Brendan: Hey! Why'd you hit me?

Brett: Just because.

Me: Brett--you'd better be careful. Brendan outweighs you by like 50 lbs.

Brett: He might outweigh me, but I can outrun him!

Oh to be 7 again!

Brad Blows.

Here's Brad doing his snowblowing thing. If you hear him complaining about it--don't believe him for a minute! He loves his new snowblower (his parent's old one) and he did our house and 4 neighbors homes, too.

Snowmaggedon 2011, Part 2

The snow photos!

After being inside all day doing homework playing video  games, it was time for a break outside. The bummer was that the snow was not packing snow, so it made fort building and snowball making beyond difficult. The other problem is that we have easily 12" or more of snow drifts and that made the going difficult for Bryce. He couldn't even get off the deck!

(for the record, the deck stairs were not even visible there was so much snow on them!)

Bryce lastest about 10 minutes before he wiped his face with a mitten full of snow-and the crying started. He was done.

Brendan & Brett lasted about 30 minutes beforeo they were wet & cold.

I lasted about 12 minutes. I was freezing as I had my gloves off trying to take pictures and shoot video. Boy Scout training OUT THE WINDOW!

Here's some photos of the cuteness:

"Hep. Where de stairz?"

TeeTee to the rescue!

No wonder Bryce couldn't find the stairs! This was after I dug them out a little with my boot.

After this near-fall, I plopped him on the path Brad had snow-blown earlier.

Brett doin' his Snow Day thang.

"Come on Mom!"

The traditional snotty face & red cheeks. It was COLD!!

A psuedo snowball fight. The snow was too dry to pack, so they mostly threw snowflakes at each other.

HAM!

The other HAM.

And we're DONE!

Click to check out some Snow Day photos from February 2010 

Click here to check out Snow Day #2 from Feb 2010

Click here to check out the kids wearing no coats & building a snowman, Mar 2010 {parent of the year, here}

The Pantry.

{long sigh from me}
The pantry. It's horrible. Really, truly--it's horrible.
It's a GORGEOUS piece of woodworking. Gorgeous. And we've trashed it. Totally trashed it. People would give their eye teeth to have this amazing pantry in their kitchen. I've likened it to a sarcaphagous and wish to be buried in it.

But first---before anyone gets buried in anything---the darn thing needs a MAJOR cleaning.

Here goes. Prepare yourselves--this one is really Bad. With a capital "B".

(whispering) I've never cleaned it out before.

WHAT?! Yes. It's true. Look, here's the thing. I'm a decent housekeeper. My BFFs will tell you that my house "trashed" is cleaner than most homes "clean". (I vehemently disagree, but that is another story). But I'm only good at the major surface cleaning jobs. Vacuuming-love it. Mopping-love it. Toy pick up? Don't love it, but I try to keep things picked up. My laundry is done, my beds are made, the dishes are clean. I've even decrapified a few things recently.

But emptying out my pantry, scrubbing it down, going through things. Yeah. Not so much. 

I did it--removed 10 years' worth of crumbs, spilled sugar, and Lord knows what else.

Here's the gross "befores". Lest you mock, it's really gross this time. So close your pie-hole, Jackie. (you know who you are!)

When you first open the outside doors, there's shelving on each door, plus this set of swinging doors. Nice, right? It's total chaos as far as what goes where and it's dirty/sticky, too.

Then you open the interior right side door to see the back shelving. It's just sloppy, really. Stuff has no real dedicated spot. And the floor of the pantry is yucky.

And here's what you see when you swing open the left side interior door. It's mostly baking stuff. Not *too* messy, but definitely in need of a wipe down.

Here's the bottom of the pantry. That's a combo of onion skins, spices, sugar and icky stuff.

Here's the inside of one of the shelves. I only took one picture. Why? They all looked like this. Some were worse-you could see the outline of cans. Some were mega-sticky. But all were in need of cleaning. I got a little grossed out thinking about how dirty it was and that our FOOD goes in it. BLECH.

So after emptying the cabinet onto the counter and forcing the big boys to keep Bryce entertained (it's a Snow Day today!), I spent a good hour taking apart the shelves, scrubbing everything down and putting the cabinet back together. I pitched a bunch of stuff, stuff that I knew I hadn't used in a year. Stuff that was older than 6 years. Yep. 6 year old Xanthan Gum. Yum-o.

Here's the glorious "after" shots.

Why yes, I do believe I hear a choir singing! It's that clean, folks.

Look at all those spices, lined up nice & neat. (oh, and see the beanbag from "Beanbag Disaster" fame--it's red & in the background)

What's that? Empty shelving? Whoa.

This is all my baking supplies. The large space at the bottom is for the bread machine, which is currently humming away on the counter.

Oh and look. Onions & garlic in a BOWL. Sooo cute. AND---the bowl will collect the onion skins that always fall off. {That I ignore.} And leave on the bottom of the pantry.
And a "before", just to remind me what I'll NEVER let happen again:

And the clean and empty and orgainzed "after":

So nice to be organized! 



Smowmaggedon 2011

An unheard of event: School was cancelled by DINNER TIME yesterday for today. Whoa.

Brett and Bryce celebrating by camping in Brendan & Brett's room, in the much-loved IKEA tent. (note--don't go looking for this tent at IKEA. We purchased it 10+ years ago and the current tent is nowhere near as nice as this. Sorry!)

Brad and I were skeptical at best that Bryce would STAY in the tent, much less sleep in it. All night.

We were wrong.

The kids did GREAT! They were asleep quickly and slept until 7 this morning. Such a treat for everyone!

Happy Snow Day!!

Brett on the left, Bryce on the right. Both sharing Brett's pillow. So sweet!