Old faves

These are two of my fave pix of the kids. Look at how chubby both of them were!

I Scream

See the family resemblence between the kid in the front and the Mom in the background?

Do you want the good news or the bad news first?

***Good news***--Luke is not allergic to bees.

***Bad news***--Luke got stung by a bee.

We've always been fearfully waiting for the day that one of the kids are stung by a bee. Aron is severely allergic to bees. When he was younger, he had anaphalactic shock from a sting from a bee. He took shots of bee venom for years to build up his tolerance.

Anyone who has watched the kids for me has been warned of the possibility that this trait may have been passed on to the kids. Yesterday, Luke got stung while at the pool. Our babysitter immediately took him out of the pool and watched him closely for signs of problems. He ended up being just fine (other than the fact that the bee sting hurt) and was able to eat cookies and chew gum the rest of the afternoon (to soothe the pain, of course).

Whew! It's a good thing our beloved babysitter (aka Katie-sitter) was on her toes!

Playing favorites

Tiger is my favorite. I admit it. I know as a parent you're not supposed to choose a favorite but I can't help it. She's soooooo cute and soooooo sweet. I hear that her new name will be Ellie so I've been trying to call her that. Ella and Luke have caught onto it and think it's a great name.


Yes, I've be reinforcing that Tiger/Ellie will not be able to stay with us much longer. I have Jane...what more could I possibly ask for?? I *heart* Jane.

Our house is a very, very, very fine house

Ella has a doll house that she likes to play with. Today, I let her bring the kittens inside (they're normally in our laundry room off our attached garage) and play house with them. These poor kittens will be so glad to go to their new homes in a couple weeks to get away from the overzealous "love" from my children.

Yes we are the winning team!

We went to a local festival over the weekend. I randomly signed up for a prize given by all of the county libraries. Guess who won? (No, my Mom did not fix the contest. She wasn't even there when they drew my name). It was a cornucopia of food related prizes.

Winning team! Winning team!

Aron update

Aron has been feeling better the last couple days and has even been voluntarily eating (you know, I'm not having to stand over him screaming at him to eat). He got his test results back and they were all negative. I'm still crossing my fingers that this is just some sort of crazy virus (I've heard of other people having this happen too) and will eventually work it's way out of his system.

Spitter and Whiner are taken!

I repeat, Spitter and Whiner are taken!

A coworker of Aron's decided that Spitter and Whiner would make a nice addition to their family (yeah!). The kittens should be ready for placement in a few short weeks. I talked to the vet on Weds and asked when they could move to their new families. He said he usually recommends 8 weeks but it could be sooner as long as they are weaned from the Mom and are on solid food.

Thanks to all who told their friends, their friend's friends, gave out the blog address, etc, etc!

A special thanks to Jeanne, of course, who told everyone she saw about the kittens. She's not even an animal lover. Or even an animal liker. Heck, I don't even think she likes goldfish very well.

P.S. You're now off the hook, Uncle K!

Kitten update!

Just an FYI--I took the kittens to the vet today to get checked out and he said that the kittens are.........(drum roll, please):

Whiner: boy
Spitter: boy
Tiger: girl

Huh?

This guy loves to craft. Until recently, he was unable to sit still long enough to craft but he's starting to get the hand of it thanks to Miss Lori's story hour. The other night, he and Ella decided they wanted to get out our giant craft bag (think glitter, gel pens, markers, paints, stickers, scissors, construction paper, etc) and make stuff. Sounds harmless, right?



Luke's just started to use scissors (yes, they're safety scissors). He likes to just randomly cut construction paper. Somehow he ended up with a rocket shaped one (see also above photo). He then took a crayon and colored it (he did a good job, right?). While he was coloring it, I decided to run upstairs and change my clothes. I came back down and heard "Mommy! Mommy! Look at my rocket tatoo!" I turned and looked at Luke and saw that he had his rocket on his arm. I told him it looked nice but couldn't see how it was attached. He said "Glued it!"



He glued his rocket on his arm.



You just don't get these fun kinds of adventures with girls. This kid tests my sanity. See also previous post OH SH#T!*

Long overdue but worth the wait

Whiner
Tiger (she's taken)
Spitter

Here are the updated pictures of the kittens. Who wants one? Who wants one? C'mon. Somebody's gotta want one. Uncle Kevin?

Clarification

Just to clarify, Aron and I were not stealing cable. We paid every month for "basic service" which is like 26 or so channels. Somehow, in addition to these 26 channels, we got about 5 extra channels that we weren't supposed to get. Yes, I never called the cable people to have these removed but in my mind, it wasn't a big deal. We have now upgraded our cable to the "standard service" which includes the precious Noggin.

So, in summary:
Us--not criminals.

Who knew I raised such a comedienne?

Sometimes I joke around with the kids and use my dumb sense of humor with them. Sometimes I'll have a tasty piece of fruit or something and say "Mmm..I love me a tasty banana!" I know, goofy but I gotta amuse myself somehow, right? So the other day during lunch, Ella said "I love me some applesauce" to Luke. Feeling bad about my poor grammatical choices in front of the kids, I told her "I know sometimes Mommy says that but it's really not grammatically correct. You shouldn't say it just I'm just because I'm a goofball and say it. I'm just joking around." She said to me (and yes, this is a direct quote) "Yeah, I know. That's what makes it funny." and then looked at me like I was a moron.

Ah! Who knew my humor was not lost on my four year old?

Aron update

Aron sleeping with Chase at our family picnic a couple weeks ago.
The poor guy still isn't feeling very well. He's been able to gain back 3 of the 10# he lost but still doesn't really have an appetite (VERY unusual for those who know him) and doesn't even think coffee sounds good (again VERY unusual). The doctor is having him do a bunch more tests. So far this week he went for bloodwork twice, a urine test, and a chest x-ray. Next week's fun will be a CT scan.

Off the market: 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon edition

I am happy to report that Tiger is off the market. I repeat. Tiger is off the market.

I have spoke to a woman who would like to have Tiger for her very own. She got my name from (are you ready for this?) :
She's my friend Jeanne's child's (Natalie) physical therapist's friend's friend. Holy cow. I'm not even sure I can follow that. Who knows how it happened but it did. Let's keep working on good homes for the other two kitties. If you can help out, there may be a "finder's fee" involved like a cake or some other sort of baked good.

I'll try to get updated pictures on the blog sometime over the weekend. I'm too tired to go in the laundry room and get them right now so it'll have to wait.

Mommy's little patriots!

Surprise! Fireworks go boom!
A tasty pre-fireworks snack never hurt anybody.
We went and watched fireworks a couple times over the 4th of July. Aron didn't quite feel up to going to the local fairgrounds with the kids so we watched it from the back of our car in a nearby parking lot. Here are the kids in their jammies in the back of the CR-V waiting for the festivities.

Thefts, lies, and the cable guy

Ok, so I totally got blackmailed by the cable guy. Last Monday, the kids and I were hanging out at home when the doorbell rang. Despite the fact that I let my hair airdry and had no makeup on, I answered the door. I opened the door and saw a big, unfamiliar guy standing there. He introduced himself as Tim from the cable company (the company shall remain nameless). He said that he had my name down on a list of people that he believed to be getting additional channels such as Noggin and the Spanish channel for free. He wanted to know if we had been viewing any channels beyond the 26 channels that we had been paying for. I hesitated because I wasn't sure what to say. Do I go with "No, I don't know what you're talking about" or "Really?? Those aren't channels I've been paying for?" or "It was your error, you losers, and I'm not paying for your mistake."

What to do...what to do...

Before I could decide my approach, Mr Cable Guy felt the need to point out that he could see my children through the crack of my front door and that they watching Noggin aka one of the alleged extra free channels. Crap. Busted. At that point, I decided to go with humor and said "Ok, you busted me." He then offered to let me upgrade my basic cable to standard cable which would be like 75 channels including Noggin, the Disney Channel, and Nick Jr at a reduced rate. I asked what would happen if I didn't. He said he could not guarantee the safe return of my Noggin.

WHAT?! You could take the Noggin away from these two??

I told him "I think I'm being blackmailed." He said "Blackmails a harsh term but again, I cannot guarantee the safe return of Noggin.

So now I've got 10, 000 extra channels on my TV just so the kids can have their precious Noggin.

Damn you, cable guy.

Here's Luke spelling his name to the YMCA. Yeah, it's corny but it works. Here are the words if you want to sing along

L-U-K-E! L-U-K-EEEEE!

That spells Luke, yeah it does!

I love to spell my na-me!

By popular demand

Tiger
Whiner
Spitter
Still photos of the kids...I mean, kittens.
I know they're not the best photos but it was the best I could do. They kept trying to run away.

Introducing...Tiger, Whiner, and Spitter!!

No, these names are not permanent. Luke named all three of them according to their most prominent features (at least in his mind). He thinks Whiner is pretty whiny (he would be a very good judge of that, thank you very much). Spitter got mad and spit at him the one day (I think that was based on too much over-zealous love on Luke's part if you catch my drift). And Tiger, well, she's just Tiger. I'm not 100% sure of the gender of the kitties yet. I'll try to get Aron to take a peek sometime soon.