"It's like a 'before and after'"

This time, that is exactly what Larry said when seeing this photo

Benjamin's expression is definitely one I have seen on Peter before. It is just kind of creepy. I could be on Ripley's believe it or not: "Twins: Born Eight and a Half Years Apart"

only one thing to say

And I didn't even say it:
David Gergen, presidential advisor to Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton, said it best on CNN
"you may not agree with the outcome, but you're still proud"

For Your Election Day Viewing Pleasure

Jesse just rocks! Why? BECAUSE I SAY SO

this was actually published about 5 pm eastern standard time on November 4. Blogger's time is all wonky for some reason. It also took me several tries to publish. I guess everyone has something to be said right now

Because I have given up

I had an idea earlier of posting why I wouldn't vote for Obama and how while listening to his speech in Florida this morning (obviously too early for him since he thought he was in Ohio, bless his heart) how the things he talked about fit in perfectly with the description of democratic socialism that I was reading from our World Book encyclopedia.
(What a horrific, grammar bludgeoning, run-on sentence that was)
But he's gonna win anyway. So I am posting a video instead since I am on a lovefest with Coldplay



If I could have easily found a video that had a different visual display, I would have, since, as anyone can plainly see, even Barack Obama can dance better than Chris Martin. Barring that, it is an awesome song I currently cannot get enough of.
*edit - there are only 5 pictures that cycle through this video and for some reason this guy seems to like one of them much more than the others, but at least you can hear the song again - it was the only one I found in my limited search that was the complete song and where the embedding was not disabled *

ooh, ooh, looky, looky

I found something NEW! I went stalking other people's blogs and someone mentioned scrapblog and look at what I made!!!!!!!!!!

Cool, huh?

Modified Tag

Not that anyone has tagged me, but I've been crusing around some blogs and have seen this tag: go to your my photos folder and post the 6th photo of the sixth folder. Well, I don't have photos in my "my photos" folder; they reside in an external hard drive. AND I found the 6th photo in the 6th folder and I didn't like it (it was a cake - definitely not one of my better ones) so I went to the 7th folder and here is the 7th picture:

It was taken on June 12th 2005 and it is Gabrielle with her Aunt Dorothy at my in-law's
Isn't she the very cutest?!!!

Totally Trampoline

In my "television is a 24 hour event" household, a trampoline is almost an essential home appliance if I don't want the kids to be holed up in the house zombified in front of the set indefinitely. This is why, when the boys BROKE the tramploline in March, we went ahead and bought a new one (just recently, for Tre's birthday). Generally, I would have never done that, but since television watching tripled after that event, I decided against my initial anger


Even Gabrielle got in on the fun once the baby had found his way to the trampoline

Peter, however, could not be bothered with that kid's stuff. He was way too busy helping Dad clean up the brush. BUT, he was OUTSIDE

The boys and their love for burning brush:

Thank you Bumbo

Not that I have read, nor would heed if I did, any of the webelicious accounts of how bad the bumbo seat is for your child, so I am going to praise away anyhow.

This little lovely seat that my wonderful friend Carrie procured at giant consignment sale for me has done its job

Benjamin just last Thursday completely amazed me when I set him in his baby papsan (also courtesy of Carrie, or Donelle, I can't remember which, but they are almost one in the same) and instead of reclining, he sat straight up. I was not expecting this for another few weeks. But as we all know, my memory is hazy and he could have been developmentally expected to sit upright weeks ago. But hey, I give credit to the bumbo seat anyway


Of course, we must remember that in sweet, sweet babyland, ANY piece of equipment, regardless of intended use is the perfect place to sleep

If only I could sleep like that

Because I am an unconscionable braggart

This is the front of the card that I have been planning to mail my cousin for WEEKS. It took forever to make (not to mention the fact that I recently got sucked into a series of novels that totally took up all of my time, as well).

My cousin just adopted a sweet baby boy from China!!!!!! And I am so terribly excited for them.

So I decided to send a few little things and this idea for a card popped in my head.

The front has several pics from China (the two small bottom ones my cousin took herself and the other two were snagged off the internet) and the text says: "Of all the wondrous and fantastic things in this mysterious and beautiful land"

and on the inside, there is a pic of her sweet baby that says "You get to keep the very best one!"

I can't post the inside because I don't have permission to post his beautiful face and it would be a terrible shame to fuzz it out. So just imagine a sweet chubby cheeked angel face smiling (and eating) with the words and you got the inside.

I wish the image was bigger because the black paper is actually this color infused paper with the black resting on yellow and I wet, sanded, & crumpled so that some of the yellow showed through. But it is far from "archival" because I totally used scotch tape to secure the pictures onto the frame. I was originally going to go with a red background (red, yellow and black are just the colors that scream"China" to me) but the green looked so much better with the pics.

IT TOOK FOREVER! But I think it was worth it. I can't wait to mail it

Better than baby Einstein

So earlier tonight I was looking for a particular song on the internet (which shall remain unnamed for reasons I am slightly too embarrassed to admit) and I eventually found this. Several years ago, I was watching Classic Arts Showcase (which I no longer get - quite upset about that and I plan to do something about it - later) and I saw a song performed very much like this. I never thought I would see anything like it again (you know, with the loss of my channel and all). But I sat here with Benjamin and watched it, he became mesmerized. When he would lose interest, the chords would grab it back again.

Yes, better than Baby Einstein

photoshop is the greatest but not as great as my bro!

Look what my brother did!

All my kids, Gabrielle down to the baby clockwise

He titled it: "Family Tree" - because he is AWESOME

church calls

A Moment

I couldn't find this on youtube so I couldn't imbed it
http://www.americatriumphant.com
I got it 4 years ago and it is still stashed away in my old yahoo folders.
Take a moment
My children came home talking about the twin towers. I know it has been 7 years, but it just really hit home when my 8 year old said 'It happened 7 years ago'
Gotta go pick up the other child
God Bless America

Bob the Builder, eat your heart out

CAN WE FIX IT? YES WE CAN!

why allowing my eight year old to use his father's power tools doesn't phase me at all, I will never know. But dang, isn't he so cute in that mask? Larry made him wear it. I was quite surprised since the man never wears them himself

I FINALLY DID IT

I made this cake that I have wanted to make for so long and it was so amazing. I just can't believe it!

Here is what it looked like on the web:

And here is mine:

This is a close up before I painted her hair and eyebrows on. You can barely make out the little cheeks and lips. It looked better with the food coloring on, but I didn't get a close up of the baby once I finished her. And yes, my flowers are silk, but with feeding my baby and all, I just didn't have time to make sweet pea flowers made from fondant. The gum paste I had was just not drying and it wasn't working out for me. I wish my pink would have been slightly less shocking, but IDONTCARE! I did it! Yes, I am still reeling in disbelief

just a little too late

So the boys just didn't want to go to bed, surprise, surprise and they somehow managed to be upstairs twirling this twirly thing (courtesy of my mom) in front of Benjamin. He was just squealing with laughter. And OF COURSE the camera was all the way downstairs on the other side. By the time I got back up the newness had already worn off and he wasn't laughing quite as much. I am not even sure the video is even visible. I guess I will have to post to see if you can hear anything. Okay, so you can't see a THING but the audio is still pretty cute. So here are some pics you CAN see taken earlier in the afternoon

In this one, Peter almost looks drugged, but that is the most genuine smile I have ever seen on Tre in a picture, so it stays And one of them (it is hard to say which because they are both pretty snap-happy) took the above two pics of Benjamin - you know, when Mom wasn't looking

Another Flashback Friday

Today for flashback Friday I am flashing back to 1 Whole week ago! Ah, such sweet reminiscence. Well, misleading title and all: it was the First Day of School and I actually took pictures!!!!!!

Buddy, the neighborhood dog,ever faithful was estatic when the kids came out that morning

Everyone is all smiles ready to go back to school

When I got home I realized that I didn't get any pics of the bus. So I went out when they got home and I even went back into to the house to get the camera and when I got to the stop, the stinking batteries were dead in the camera! AKK! But I did get the three, so that is more than usual

Flashback Friday

See Kristy, I told you I would steal it.
Anyway, I thought I would post some pics of when the kids and I went to Seattle. There are LOTS. So I am sure this won't be the last post about them

Most of these will be of the mountains on the Olympic Pennisula, as is this one

Wildflowers; aren't they pretty?

I am not sure why I took this picture. I must have been enamored with the tree

And last but certainly not least, this is my favorite picture in the mountains. I have it as the background on my laptop. If I knew my way around html, I would have it as the background on my blog, but I am nowhere near that elevated level of intelligence. Do not be surprised if it shows up again

Well, that's it for this week's edition of Flashback Friday. I must do something productive now, like make dinner

It's like Barney, only I don't like it

Yes, that is what she said when she saw this:


And then she said: "You do not do hip hop for a BABY show, it is just WRONG." And she said she would get mad at me if I put it in my blog, but I told her I just had to. Sorry, Gabrielle, some things are just too funny to be left alone

PS, I would be wary about clicking any of the videos listed at the end of the clip, for some youtube members thought it would be funny to use hip hop harry clips with some rather innapropriate music

The messages on my phone

So my cell phone has two messages in the inbox one of which has lingered for quite some time because I keep pressing 9 since it is so funny and the other one which I just received today which will probably endure the same fate. Keep in mind, these two messages are from the same person. So as I laugh, my kids want to know what is so funny so I let them listen to my messages. One starts out "What kind of a best friend are you if you don't answer your phone...", which is fair since I rarely answer my cell phone because I never hear it. The kids, knowing the speaker ask, is she your best friend? And of course I say yes. My daughter then says "You have a lot of best friends." but then Peter says: "Is it your BFF?" (Yes, exactly that way - with the letters) and I just about fell out of my chair, which would have been bad since I was driving. I said "Yes, she is my BFF" it was so funny!

Another Post about Benjamin

Well, it's not just MY fault. The kids take pictures of Benjamin, too. Here is Peter's latest and I think it just looks sooooo funny.

Gabrielle made the card next to Benjamin and Peter decided that it and "pengi" would be good props. Yes, those are his toes in the bottom of the picture, so my other kids ARE being visually represented.

The kids have decided that Benjamin looks 'mad' in this picture. Well, I just can't stop laughing.

The questions we love to hear

One of the very best things about being a mom is you get to listen to those darndest things children say. Yesterday, my "not the youngest anymore" nonchalantly walked into the kitchen and as he was breezing by just happened to ask: "Hey, Mom, when is the end of time?" just like asking what we were going to have for dinner and expecting an answer in the same manner. It took all my willpower not to drop to the floor and curl up in fits of laughter.

Peter has also become quite the stager when it comes to pictures.

Just a few days ago he said:"If I close my eyes and then you took a picture, that'd be cute, right?

Times like these are totally the best reasons for being a mom

My back yard

One of the nice things about not living in a subdivision is the noticeable difference in the amount of trees. Sure we had trees in our back yard, but now there are trees all around us!

Above is the view from the boys' room. Yes, they have a door that leads straight to the deck. I was a little apprehensive about putting them in a room with direct access to the outside, but it hasn't been a problem yet.

Even though we own only up to the driveway you see in the bottom of the photo, it is wonderful to sit on the deck, talk on the phone, and look at the trees.

(This one is for you, Becky!!! ;-)

My Favorite Commercial

Why I am publishing a post about a commercial is beyond logical thought, but I'm doing it anyway. I have seen this only once. Because we have a DVR, I watched it several times. I finally found it on youtube


Not that I will ever be one of the moms to "get myself back" but I love it anyway. And now that I have figured out how to embed youtube videos into my blogs: WATCH OUT!

Cub Scouts

When we moved into our new branch, the first thing I asked the Branch President was whether or not there was a cub scout program because my boys were quite involved in the old ward seeing as how I had been a scout leader for 3 years. Well, there wasn't a troop at first, but there was one formed about a month after we moved in. They sure are having lots of fun. These pictures are from their scout leader. The pics were taken at home depot and Burger King. They go to Home Depot every month for the young carpenter's program or whatever they call it. I couldn't get my old troop out for a field trip to save my life. Well, once, but only because it fulfilled a wolf achievement.

I am not sure why Jonathan looked like this since I wasn't there, but I just think he looks six sideways to funny. Not sure what that means, but I like it, so I'm sayin' it. Jonathan and his sister were visiting us for a week.

This of course, is my favorite. Of all my kids, Tre is usually the most likely one to be compared to an animal. Yes, he DOES look like a human trapped in a hamster maze. That's my Tre

Okay, I got tagged

yeah, yeah I am slow but here it is

got tagged by KRIS

Four things you may not know about me:

1. I love science fiction and am a huge Star Trek: The Next Generation fan. I have the opening sequence memorized (“Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise….) and I know the differences between its opening sequence and that of the original Star Trek

2. 3 years ago, my baby sister-in-law introduced me to manga. Since then, it has become an invasive addiction and has branched off into an addiction to anime and Asian drama through which I now am able to visually know the difference between written Chinese, Japanese and Korean. I also now know a handful of Chinese and Japanese words. “Thank you” and “I am sorry” are the easiest to pick up since they seem to be said the most

3. When I was a teenager I went to Universal Studios and was picked from the audience to be an “extra” on their onstage version of one of the Indiana Jones movies

4. I love to drive and one time in college, I drove from West Lafayette, In to Chicago (about a two hour drive) just because I was depressed. The drive did make me feel better

Four places I go over and over again:

1. Church

2. Piggly Wiggly

3. the Library

4. Wal-Mart

Four people who email me:

1. Kristy

2. Becky

3. Erica

4. My Aunt Suzy

My four favorite foods:

1. Crab legs with lots and lots of butter

2. Corn with lots and lots of butter

3. Walnuts

4. CHOCOLATE (that I can’t have because it keeps Benjamin awake)

Four places I'd rather be:

1. Texas (yes, Texas, I miss Corpus Christi)

2. Seattle

3. Tennessee

4. In a swimming pool

Four movies I could watch over and over again:

1. The Princess Bride

2. Labyrinth

3. Fruits Basket (it’s actually a series – Anime of course)

4. Samurai Champloo (more Anime)

Four people I am tagging:

since the only one I know who blogs tagged me I am kind of tagless

If Walls Could Talk

Several years ago, HGTV had a series called "If Walls Could Talk" and they would feature older homes and some of the discoveries that the homeowners would find. Some were real treasures like old letters or photos holed up in the walls or floors. It has been quite some time since I have seen an episode, so nothing really pops into my memory other than remembering that I would think: "Gosh, I wish I had a home old enough to have treasures hidden inside"

Well, guess what, we may not have treasures, but our house sure is old enough now. It was built in 1895. It has been added to, painted and plastered over, but that just gives Larry an opportunity to do his favorite thing: DEMOLITION. Don't all guys like to blow up things and rip whatever they can find apart? He bought a heat gun and has decided to take off the ugly non-descript white paint from the window sills in the old part of the house and then decided to take off the sill itself and this is what he found. That wood next to the dry wall is quite possibly over 100 years old. The iron weight on the string is what was used to counterbalance the window when it was raised to the open position rather than the modern day springs that are used now. So now Larry is thinking of ripping off the dry wall to expose the wood that is peeking out. He SAYS that doing such would not pose an insulation problem. I don't know. It is all kind of over my head anyway. It is still kind of neat, though.

He was running out of projects with the old house, so we needed to find new opportunties for him and his passion for renovation. Boy, it will be a LONG time before he runs out of projects now. By the way, notice his tool of choice in hand: the crowbar and hammer.

Danielle

That is my baby sister-in-law, Danielle, (that you can now see, thank you Kris!)who just graduated from high school. She was co-saludatorian of her class and because of this she was asked to address the audience.
In her speech, she chose to use pieces of art to illustrate her point. (Ha Ha illustrate - art; oh well, the joke is lost in translation, or something like that).

I totally can't do her speech justice because I don't have a copy of it, but she first used a picture of DaVinci's Last Supper that we all know and love:And then she showed us a picture of Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain" which is:

a urinal that he signed and submitted to the Society of Independent Artists for their 1917 exhibition, which, it had been proclaimed, would exhibit all work submitted. Duchamp was a board member of the Society of Independent Artists and submitted the piece under the name R. Mutt, presumably to hide his involvement with the piece. After much debate by the board members (most of whom did not know Duchamp had submitted it) about whether the piece was or was not art, Fountain was hidden from view during the show.

Basically, Danielle's point was that we should, as Duchamp did, think out of the box and not find beauty or artistic expression only in areas deemed by worldly values as beautiful or artistic. Or, as The Art of Noise said "a work of art, or an effort to create beauty, was always regarded by some people as a personal attack."

Again, no justice is served by my meager and disjointed explanation, but I was really proud of her. For someone who is not going to major in arts, I was really surprised how much she used it in her speech. I just guess she's really well rounded.

Danielle was assigned, as all recent seniors of her high school (for my brother-in-law Andrew who is two years her senior completed one, too) are required to make a scrapbook including family, friends, early years and school life. And of course, this was on display during her graduation party. I didn't expect to have a large part dedicated to me in her scrapbook and I didn't, but she wrote some great things about me. I almost cried. She wrote about how she introduced me to manga and how she really liked to spend time with me. And I really like to spend time with her, also. She just really loves life and is very sure of herself and knows where she is going. She is so smart! I am so glad my husband has a great family I can be a part of.

Look! There's more than just Benjamin

I have been reminded that while in my bio where I clearly list that I am the mother of FOUR wonderful children, my blog is blatantly missing pictures of anyone who is not the baby.

Yes I fell into the 'new baby trap' where all of my current pictures consist mainly of just him. In fact, I had to delve to find pictures of all the kids. These are from almost 3 years ago and they include ALL SORTS of kids. Well, mine and my best friend's kids. Since she blogs about them all of the time and posts fantastic pics of them, I figured I wouldn't get in too much trouble for posting them

Yes, that is LARRY serving the bacon or whatever it was in the background, not me; for he is the better cook when it comes to breakfast

Great Grandma

I don't know how long this post will be because Benjamin is seriously not in the mood for me to post, but anyway. We just got back from Indiana where we visited Larry's family. During one of the days, we decided to go to his grandmother's house so that the kids could fish at her pond. I brought the camera thinking I could get some cute pics of the kids fishing. Well, the only two pictures I took were of Great Grandma holding Benjamin. But that is totally okay. I do remember one photo that my mother took of me and my great grandmother on her mother's side and that is the only memory I have of her. So for posterity's sake, I guess these two photos were the most important ones I could have taken.

I never even made it outside. I just stayed inside and talked with Grandma while I fed Benjamin. I love her so much. She is so wonderful to talk to. She will be 88 soon (on July the 5th or 7th) and she is still with it. I saw alzheimer's take over my father's mother and I know how much Larry's grandmother is still mentally there in comparison. I hope Larry's family realizes how lucky they are not to go through watching that disease slowly pick your loved one apart.

Grandma will talk about everything from when she had her first baby (which was a funny story) to her daughter's ex-boyfriend to when she went to Japan with another of her daughters. She is just so great! I am just so glad that we got to take these pictures of her with Benjamin.