A brief interlude

On Monday, we drove from The Collar's parents' house to my parents' house. This is a distance of 617 miles, so it was a pretty long day. We left kind of late (it happens) and didn't arrive until late on Monday night. I showed you pictures of all of that before.

Tuesday through Thursday, we spent with family. We didn't get to see everyone (we never do), but we saw a pretty good chunk. Here's how many children were at my parents' house on Thursday:We have a lot of family. My brother's daughter wasn't there but we saw her later, and neither were the daughters of the sister that isn't even a year younger than me.

For the first time in ages, we were there when my uncle was in town:And we saw The Aunts.Some how, I didn't get any pictures of my brother and his family OR my parents. How on earth does that happen? (Probably because I'm a candid shot person and it never really occurs to me to take posed pictures!)

Why, yes,

I am still alive.

It's just been crazy busy around here.

We went to my brother's wedding in Pittsburgh, PA over Memorial Day weekend. I was able to see several family members. It was a beautiful wedding and a fun reception, even if Game Boy decided he was "in jail." We have some great footage of the Wiz boogieing down. Instead, here he is dancing with his cousin. He's finally taller than her (she's 5). I finally met my newest SIL, who is absolutely lovely, and has a father that looks like ours! Unfortunately, not everyone was able to attend. However, those that did not attend we'll see on Our Great Trek West.

Today, we had someone over to go around our house so she can give us a moving quote. Tomorrow morning at 8:00 am, is the next person. At 2:00 pm, a realtor is coming and helping us get those ducks in a row. Luckily, I have finished a huge chunk of the decluttering. I have finished the family room, playroom, and garage (the big three clutter catchers) and I've finished the Wiz's room, my side of our bedroom, the Collar's side is almost finished, (guess what! space bags actually work as the ads say they do.), and the living room. All that is left is the kitchen, the dining room, and the pit of doom, aka Game Boy's room. I think I see the end of the tunnel. (Don't mention semis or trains, please!)

I have been knitting, but not much. I'm too busy. All knitting has been during times of waiting.

School is out for the boys on Friday. I think this is good.

Time to read to Game Boy. We're reading Peter and the Secret of Rundoon now.

Eggplants and Cousins

We went up to BBFs' house and saw The Collar's cousins and their children. They have 4 boys ranging from 3 to 9 and a five month old daughter. Game Boy hadn't met all of these cousins (several weren't born when he last saw them) and The Wiz hadn't seen them for two years (they were visiting the same time as one of The Wiz's hematology appointments). We had a houseful of 6 boys--it was very active! I put up a crazy picture of the 6 boys because it was more realistic!Game Boy and his second cousin. (There's another one of him with another of his cousins in the same chair.)
The Wiz before he had a chance to pose. See, he's slowly getting over his anemia.

The baby is adorable. She has gone through a lot in her short life, but she is doing very well. Is there anything sweeter than a sleepy baby? One that sleeps in her mother's arms is pretty darn cute, too.
I have lots more pictures of all of the cousins. (The Collar's side is very boy heavy. On my side, it's very girl heavy.)
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For those of you who come for the knitting, and not the rambles:

Last Friday, I decided that I was cold and needed actual mittens. I wasn't ready to make the convertible ones yet, but I needed (wanted) some quickly. I had a some extra yarn left from my friend P's hat and mittens, so I made a pair for me. The purple isn't my favorite color, but it'll do. I think they look like eggplants, complete with green thumbs. I still have pink and green left, so maybe I'll make some fingerless gloves for the Wiz's birthday--in 15 days.

P.S. F, I'm knitting the heels on your socks. They are close to being finished!

Christmas, Part II

I left off at brunch. After brunch, we really began to open our presents. I think that once the presents are under the tree, they breed or something.

I have some where upwards of 100 pictures, but I won't subject you to that! I'll just show you a few.

There is Game Boy in his Italian soccer club jersey (a huge hit--he actually stripped off his shirt to put it on) from his Aunt E and Uncle F. He also received a huge lego set with a Star Wars transport. That took him two days to build.

The Wiz is holding his Fur Berry, which turned out to be his favorite gift. It also smells nice, which led to some surreal/strange comments. G/G gave him a pot and saute pan which will last him forever. He's made himself eggs, already.

All of the adults received gifts too, but they are never as interesting as gifts for children.

When we were finished, The Collar hooked up our family Christmas gift (bigger and high definition tv--we watch lots of movies) and then everyone rested. I did so by chopping vegetables. There's something meditative about dicing, and I was able to listen to Sing You Sinners by Erin McKeown.

We ate an early dinner. The menu hasn't changed in 4 years. We had shrimp cocktail or pickled herring, pork tenderloin, swedish cabbage and apples, and roasted root vegetables. It's a very colorful meal. For dessert, we had creme brulee and then opened our crackers. The Collar's parents had to go home this year after dinner. After dinner, we went downstairs and watched A Christmas Story (our DVD, not TBS). It was a very nice day.

I hope that yours was nice too.

First Summer Weekend

First, we walked across the purple people bridge. So we could...
watch the Reds beat the Pirates. (Unfortunately, we also saw Ryan Freel get injured making a play. He caught the fly ball, though!)
Or we can watch Mommy instead.
Books were read,
and marshmallows were roasted.

It was a good weekend.
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To Elizabeth from the comments: I'd be honored for you to link to my blog! Thanks for asking!

School's Out for Summer!

We are on summer vacation. Finally! We can sleep in (well, until 7:00, maybe) if the dogs get the memo.

The Wiz is on his way to first grade, and Game Boy is on his way to fifth. Game Boy earned straight As for the quarter again, and wound up with a straight A average for the year. He won the science award for the fourth grade too. He says he would have earned the reading and math awards, but they were only allow one prize per student.

Our lettuce is germinating, so the veggies are coming along.

Only 5 more days of cast. No matter what, it's coming off. The doctor says that longer in the cast won't help, so it'll be off.

The Wiz is Unique

Yesterday was the Kindergarten graduation. Why they graduate, I do not know. They had a cute little program. He was the second speaker. He got the biggest, awww, how cute! comment of the morning. (There is one child shorter than him. But the Wiz is skinny though and is very elfin in appearance. Add to that the blond hair, blue/grey eyes and no teeth, and he'd make the crustiest grump melt.)

He did pretty well--but after 20 minutes, we could watch him getting wigglier and wigglier. The teacher kept reminding him he needed to sit still, and not talk. When he got his awards, he also nearly had them taken away, because he kept waving them around. During the video, he narrated the whole thing, making sure everyone knew who was in the pictures. I think he'll be spending first grade next to the teacher.

We play games almost every night after dinner. The big ones are Scrabble, dominoes, and Uno.
The boys were playing Uno, and The Collar put down a Draw Two card for The Wiz. The Wiz was drawing his cards, and drawing, and drawing. Finally, The Collar and Game Boy realized he was muttering with each card, "not a 2, not a 2, not a 2." Both of them started howling with laughter. They did let the Wiz put some back, but no one was sure how many cards he'd drawn.

Other Stuff:

Game Boy is going to gifted camp for two weeks. It's in the mornings, but any time the boys can't fight is good time.

I'm still boring.

The Collar is getting ready to go to Chicago with the youth (why aren't they teenagers? Youth is an adjective!).

The dogs are all insane. It's warm here, and all the kids are playing outside, and they think that they should be too.

Smile for Today

He's almost a first grader. The Wiz still has one loose tooth. His mouth is rapidly losing its residents!

Title Here

We have been chugging along doing way too much. Not much exciting, mind, but keeping pretty darn busy.

My house is very clean right now, because The Collar's parents came down and helped him clean. I've been having a lot of trouble keeping up with it, because of the thumb. My house sparkles. :) Have I mentioned how much I appreciate my in-laws?

On Friday, Game Boy went to the indoor soccer place for the finished with testing reward. He was playing soccer and jammed his pinkie. He claims it didn't hurt until he came home. Due to the amount of swelling, I took him to the urgent treatment center for X-rays. It's sprained but not badly (we aren't talking my thumb) so it's taped up and splinted. He'll be fine. However, he had to sit out both soccer games this weekend. Yesterday, he won the Scrabble tournament at Gifted & Talented at school. Our evening scrabble games are coming in handy!

I must say that I am sick of X-rays!

The Wiz's soccer team played pretty well, but we lost. I don't care, as long as we improve, which we have. It was a nice Sunday for soccer, but Saturday was extremely hot. The Wiz is now coming home every afternoon rather than going to the Y since I'm home.

That's our news. Game Boy seems to be ready for summer and The Wiz definitely is. I think that geocaching is in our future.

News

Even not doing anything is busy around here.

I'm not teaching this summer after all (or at least right now). The class didn't have enough students. It might be put online, but I don't know yet. I hope that it is. I'm trying to not panic about money, but it's hard. There are often reasons these things happen, right? I am trying to walk the dog most days, just to have something to do.

The Collar's job search is going ahead. We both feel better. I do hate not knowing where we are going, but I'm sure that we'll know where to go. His birthday is tomorrow, so he can stop with the old jokes.

The Wiz has a GI and a Hem appointment tomorrow. We'll visit the zoo afterwards. Friday is his last day at the Y. We are going up this afternoon. I think that he'll be losing a tooth today.

Game Boy is being 9. He's mad because one of their rewards for testing is an in school dance. Why are they doing that?!? He was elected as president of their school's chapter of FCA for next year.

Here's some flowers. These are growing in the front flower beds. Pretty soon my peonies will be blooming and the larkspur. The cosmos are the red ones and the pink flowers are pinks.

Oh. My. Goodness.

We went to Cincinnati last night with The Collar's parents to see The Lion King. These tickets were a Christmas gift. It was amazing--and I wasn't all that enamoured of the movie. You could hear the indrawing of breath when the curtain went up. It was one of the best performances of anything that I have ever seen.

The puppets and costumes were beautiful and elegant. They really brought the feel of the music to life. The dancing was also something that was incredible. Game Boy spent the entire musical listening and watching. He was amazed by the puppets. He says its 10X better than the movie. The Wiz was mostly quiet (this should tell you how amazing it was), but did spend a lot of time trying to determine how they did the effects. There's nothing cuter than a six year old very seriously trying to find out how the puppets work and how the rock moves, and so on. A favorite quote: "How did they do the steam effect?" The only thing that disappointed me was that they did not change Timon and Puumba from the movie at all. They looked cartoonish, and pretty much were exactly like they are in the movie(s). Oh well.

If you ever get to see this, you should. It doesn't matter if you have children or not. It is a stunning production, and the boys are both wondering if they can go back.

Happy Barrrrrthday!

Look! Gluten free chocolate cake!

The Wiz decided that I needed a real party, complete with hats and everything.
So, he picked out a theme complete with party hats and favors. Here we are being fierce:and here we are being happy, peacenik pirates.(Why yes, that is recycling in the background. It is Earth Day, too, you know! So the pile of plastic milk jugs is a virtue, not housework that's not done.)

We had a nice day. The Wiz and the rest of the Dolphins won their first game of the season. It was 80 degrees and absolutely beautiful. The Collar made me a lovely dinner, and A at church and I decided to start our own knitting group. Both of us need to get out more!

Tomorrow I have to go back to normal. I have a ton of grading to do. It was nice while it lasted.

Eventful Day

Yesterday was quite eventful.

I have almost finished with one set of lab notebooks! HUGE relief. Today, I'll be giving one of my two exams, and I'll be grading homework while the students do so. Three things off of my list!

The Collar and I went running at the Y. He's pleased because he is back to sub 30 minute 5ks and I'm pleased because I managed to run 3 miles in sub 40 minutes (38 minutes, 16 seconds). We both lost weight over the 2 week layoff. I suspected that I had as my waist bands are even looser and my favorite running shorts are too big again. The Collar is pleased too.

We came home and got SCIG ready. Then the plumber called, so we hung out for that. He was able to fix our outside spigot, our shower faucet, and fixed our water heater. The water heater had a pipe that was made of a substance that breaks down in hot water. Yes, there are some *brilliant* people designing equipment. The nice thing about that is we don't have to buy a new water heater. The plumber strongly reminded The Collar and me of our brother-in-law. They both spoke in very similar fashion, and when I told him that, he apologized, just like S would have.

We did the IG, Game Boy taught the new neighbor kids Maisie tag, and we had lamb curry for dinner.

Then The Wiz threw up. He's been back at school two days, and he catches the stomach bug that's going around. He spent all night throwing up, but is feeling better now. He's begging for food, which of course, we must limit. I'm glad that he's able to keep things down now, because the poor kid really doesn't need to be on an IV.

Spring is back! Maybe it'll stay permanently now.

Maybe tomorrow I'll talk about knitting. I have been doing some, but I'm just plugging away at my projects. Boring to write about, boring to take pictures of. I'd like to finish a sweater (or two) because then I can work on more interesting things.

Back to school

My spring break is over. :(

Due to last week's clean up event, I have decided that the boys in this blog need nicknames. The initials are so boring!

L is, of course, The Wiz. Eventually, we'll all forget why. Maybe.

M is GameBoy. Not because he plays his game boy constantly, but because he loves to play games of all kinds--Scrabble, Might and Magic, Pokemon, dominoes, etc. and ad infinitum.

B is The Collar. I don't think that needs any explanation.

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Anyhoo, I am back in school. We have all of 5 weeks of classes left after this week. Yesterday, only 8 people showed up to my 35 student class. Grrr. The ones that came were treated to the easiest pop quiz of all time, for extra credit. I had much better attendance at lab this morning, but how on earth do they expect to do well if they skip out after an hour?

GameBoy has a lot of good news. He came in 4th place at the Regional Governor's Cup for Science, tying with a fifth grader from our church. He also earned straight A's on his 3rd quarter report card. Soccer has started, and he's a happy camper.

The Wiz won't be happy because today is SCIG day. We haven't seen his report card yet.

Knitting has been happening. I have finished the front of GameBoy's sweater, and cast on both sleeves. The Collar's sweater back is now about 9" so only another 7.75" and it will be time for the arm holes. Yes! I made a bag from knitted gifts (no picture) and haven't worked on my socks or my shawl.

Running is going extremely well. Today I ran for 32 minutes and managed 2.7 miles. I am improving very quickly. Hopefully I'll be able to get on the bike soon, but the rain will need to stop.

That's the news. It's just boring and quiet around here right now.

Just Call Him the Wiz

Warning--gross post ahead. I've decided to save this for posterity so I can remind him later on how much FUN he was.

L, as many of you know, marches to the beat of his own guitar. (Drums are definitely too mainstream for this kid!) As parents, B and I walk a fine line between telling him certain behaviors are unacceptable, and trying NOT to put ideas in his little head. Generally, if we tell him not to do something, he won't do it, but he will find a loop hole somewhere. The letter of the law is what he's after, and most definitely not the spirit of the law.

Apparently, L decided sometime last week that the bathroom was too far from his bedroom, yet again. (He has been known to use cups, piles of dirty laundry, etc., and each time is told that it is wrong, and he has to use the toilet. It stops.) The bathroom is all of 20 feet from his bedroom. Apparently, he decided that instead of leaving his room, he'd just pee off of the end of his bed, onto the wall. This of course soaked the carpet, was on the wall, the window, and part of the bed. Lovely.

However, neither B nor I could figure out where this smell was coming from. At first, it was just a slight unpleasant smell, and we thought that Maisie had snuck one of her moles into his room for later. Then it became worse, and was obviously a urine smell. We thought maybe it was Murfy going into decline again or maybe Maisie because she's pretty stressed out due to the doughnut spare dog. We still couldn't find the source. It continued to get worse. L disclaimed all knowledge.

Finally, Sunday night I asked yet again. He denied knowing anything about it, but gave me his signal that he was lying. I told him if he didn't tell the truth right now, he was going to be grounded. So, he 'fessed up.

I have used Simple Green, pet enzyme cleaners, and vinegar on his carpet at this point. It's much better, but I need to work on it a bit more today. His room smells like coleslaw.

What is he going to come up with next?

Being boring

Not much to report.

Soccer starts in a couple of weeks. L & M are both playing. I am coaching L's team.

I'm still chugging away on the swap socks--I am on the foot of one sock and have finished the gusset of the other. Maybe by the end of this week they'll be ready to go.

My bicycles are tuned and ready to go. Tomorrow the plan is to do my half commute, as it will be 60 degrees. Maybe on Friday I can try out the new pedals on the Dolce.

Spring break for me is in less than two weeks. Hooray!

The Palestinian and the Israeli (Maisie and Patti) are sort of getting along. If you define getting along to mean only snapping at each other when I am in the room. If I'm not around, they get along just fine.

The Sun

is out today! I am happy to see it. Of course, on Tuesday and Wednesday, the temperatures were warming (we reached the 60s), but it rained. It should hit all of 45 degrees today, but that's not so bad. Too cool for me to ride my bicycle (I haven't bought a jacket yet). Next week, the plan is to have both bikes tuned so I can start going out more. Spring really is coming. Just ask the male robins!

I'm feeling pretty cheerful, even considering that B is at Diocesan Convention. I haven't gone in 3 years, which is too bad, because it's the only time I am able to see some of my friends. I will be dragging the boys down tomorrow, though, because I'm running for office. Some how I will need to juggle them, dressing appropriately, and taking the boys out for a hike. Um, okay.

I've been knitting on the knee socks. I'm ready to turn the heels! The end is in sight, even if I might not finish them on time. Sorry, Sarah.

L had a great birthday. On the actual day, he and Daddy made brownies, because a second cake is just ridiculous, and the three of them never finish cake. While he was waiting, I snapped this picture:
I suppose we are entering the goofy years. ; )

I don't like Tuesdays.

Most people don't like Mondays (tell me why!), but around here, it's Tuesday. None of us like them. M doesn't because we don't let him go play with friends, because it's unfair to L. It also isn't fair to M, but what else can we do? The rest of us hate it because it's SCIG day. L's doing very well on it (we haven't visited the ped since he started it), and it's going much better since we started using his thigh for the infusion. (See the picture--that lump is the IG. He refers to that as his Incredible Hulk leg. And yes, that's his upper thigh, not his knee!)

I hate that we have to do this with him, but I do think that it's worth it. L's not as upset about it since a couple of brothers who also have to do it, but it is still really hard for a not-quite 6 year old. We let him watch TV and he gets a sucker for the actual stick. It all works, but it's just not a normal way to do things.

On the bright side, he eats like a pig afterwards. We're pretty sure that he's the only child in Madison County that asked for 2 helpings of curry for dinner tonight. Tonight, we'll have B&Js after the boys go to bed (they are having dessert now), and relax for a week. (Only 3 more months and then we're off for the summer. Yeah!)

January in Kentucky

Today was the last Saturday in January. We were going to use the gift certificate B's sister E and her husband F gave us for the movies to try and see Charlotte's Web (which is, of course, not showing here anyway), but I went outside at 10:00 am and discovered that it was warm. As in upper 50's, lower 60s warm. Yes, early spring like temperatures. We couldn't waste a day like that at the movies!

So we went down the highway to Indian Fort Theater and went hiking/geochaching. We hiked up to the East Pinnacle, which is pretty high up. All of us made it with no real problems, including L. He also kept up a running commentary about everything he saw. Of course, he saw quite a lot. Plants, rocks, dogs, trees, beautiful views (his words), the river, boats...

The hike is amazing. There are lots of overlooks (similar to the Gorge), which of course I won't go out and look because I do not like heights. At all. But the three boys did go out and look, and no one fell off. I did take a lot of pictures. We didn't find the cache at the top, but we did find the Consolation one. Actually, B did find the cache, he just couldn't get to it. (NO, I am not telling where it is.) There were lots of people out today too. It's nice to know that we aren't all lazy in this county.

Then we went home and I made homemade spring rolls. Yum. I'm leaving with my favorite shot of today.