All dressed up and no where to go

Well, my baby is 6 months old now. I can't believe it's been that long already. So my sister and I put a pretty dress on her and took her into the backyard to get some pics and wouldn't you know it she was tired and not in a very modely (not a word, I know) mood. But here's what we got anyway cause she's cute enough even when being uncooperative. I think I'm starting to see a trend with my kids, hmm.

(Wow, so this is what it's like outside)


(Boooring, I'll just suck my thumb)


(Whoa, dad you need to cut the grass, oh and water it too it's looking a bit dry and yellow :P )


(I'm going to sleep. On this darn prickly grass)


(Oh for the love of Pete, just pick me up already)


(Finally someone picked me up off that scratchy grass)


She was born 6 months ago on Oct. 28, 2007. She was 4 weeks early and weighed 5lbs 15 oz. and was 19 inches long. Now, at 6 months old she weighs 15lbs 8 oz. and is 27 inches long. She's grown beautifully and is my best baby so far. She is such a joy to have and is so patient with me when I'm having to deal with any one of the hundreds of messes the twins get into. I love you Elli!!

And it's only 9:40am so far...

Wannabe Swingers

Hmm, what do you think they are trying to tell us? Maybe that we need to put up their swings that we've had for oh, around a year and a half! Yeah, we are procrastinators. We're so good at it we could teach a class but then we wouldn't even start to prepare for the class until like 10 minutes after it is supposed to start and it would be postponed and we wouldn't get around to actually teaching for like 3 months. True blue procrastinators I tell ya. So, I guess we might have a project this weekend so they can actually use the swings before they outgrow them.

Mmm, does a body good in a fat kind of way

Total calories consumed today: 38,475

Oh but the banana bread was sooo yummy. No, I didn't make it myself it was given to me by my lovely visiting teachers which makes it even better because I didn't have to do the dishes afterwards, ha!

I haven't eaten the whole loaf (yet) and I'm already having the hangover and guilt (that would be my belly hanging over my pants). Anyway, I'm sure I'll finish the loaf sometime today and sorry Carlos, if you are reading this and get home and it's gone, I'll try to save you some crumbs. Oh and that earthquake tremor that was just felt over in California, yeah, that was me walking across the house to get another piece :0 No shame, no shame at all!!

P.S. I am sharing the banana bread (or banana cake as they are calling it) with CJ and Lexi, so there, I'm not being a completely selfish glutton.

I've Got Crabs!!!

Okay, not those kind of crabs (you pervs), these kinds of crabs:

(Oscar climbing the branch)

(Spidey climbing the branch)

(Oscar and Spidey)

(Oscar hiding in the half-log hidey)

(The Crabitat)

(Spidey and Oscar)

They were an impulse buy two weeks ago. We were at the mall and they were selling hermit crabs at this little kiosk so I let CJ and Lexi each pic one out. CJ picked one with the spiderman shell (Spidey) and Lexi picked one with a butterfly painted on the shell (Oscar).

Well, we get them home and I started reading up on how to care for them and discovered I needed a much bigger tank, more sand, salt and fresh water, several shells for them to change if they want, etc. So my mom and I went to the nearest Petco and loaded up on all the supplies we needed. We set up their "crabitat" and put them in and they went crazy exploring. They loved their new home! Almost immediately Oscar changed out of the painted shell into the natural one you see in the pics and then he buried himself. I named him Oscar because he seems like a grouch and not very friendly. We named the other one Spidey for obvious reasons. He's also a little more social and curious.

I got them for the kids but I think I'm enjoying them more than they are and I can't wait to buy some more to add to the tank. Maybe I can use the excuse that Elli needs one too :P I'm going to wait a while though and make sure I don't kill them before getting more. Anyway, just wanted to show off our very first family pets!!

This is not a "Jellyfish" Bad Day

Next time you have a bad day at work, think of this guy. Rob is a commercial saturation diver for Global Divers in Louisiana. He performs underwater repairs on offshore drilling rigs. Below is an e-mail he sent to his sister. She then sent it to radio station 103.2 FM in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, which was sponsoring a "worst job experience"contest. Needless to say, she won.



"Hi Sue:
Just another note from your bottom-dwelling brother. Last week I had a bad day at the office. I know you've been feeling down lately at work, so I thought I would share my dilemma with you to make you realize it's not so bad after all.


Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore you with a few technicalities of my job. As you know, my office lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to the office. It's a wetsuit. This time of year the water is quite cool. So what we do to keep warm is this: We have a diesel powered industrial water heater. This $20,000 piece of equipment sucks the water out of the sea. It heats it to a delightful temperature. It then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose, which is taped to the air hose. Now this sounds like a darn good plan, and I've used it several times with no complaints.

What I do, when I get to the bottom and start working, is take the hose and stuff it down the back of my wetsuit. This floods my whole suit with warm water. It's like working in a Jacuzzi.
Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my butt started to itch. So, of course, I scratched it. This only made things worse. Within a few seconds my butt started to burn. I pulled the hose out from my back, but the damage was done. In agony I realized what had happened. The hot water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit. Now, since I don't have any hair on my back, the jellyfish couldn't stick to it. However, the crack of my butt was not as fortunate. When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the jellyfish into the crack of my butt. I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the communicator.


His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he, along with five other divers, were all laughing hysterically. Needless to say I aborted the dive. I was instructed to make three agonizing in-water decompression stops totaling thirty-five minutes before I could reach the surface to begin my chamber dry decompression. When I arrived at the surface, I was wearing nothing but my brass helmet. As I climbed out of the water, the medic, with tears of laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to rub it on my butt as soon as I got in the chamber. The cream put the fire out, but I couldn't poop for two days because my butt was swollen shut. So, next time you're having a bad day at work, think about how much worse it would be if you had a jellyfish shoved up your butt.



Now repeat to yourself, "I love my job, I love my job, I love my job."
And whenever you have a bad day, ask yourself: Is this a "Jellyfish" bad day?

Who feeds crap to preschoolers?!?

Yes, at the beginning of the video they are saying they had crap for their snack at school. No, we don't use that word.

This is why you should listen to mom, Episode 2

I almost managed to maim all three of my kids in about a 25 minute timespan last night. It was horrible!! And no it was NOT on purpose, if it had been there wouldn't be any almost to it. I kid, I kid. Anyway, it happened something like this. The details may be a bit hazy because I think I have some brain damage from the high levels of stress hormones I experienced in such a short time.
So, Elli is on the floor on a blanket playing and CJ and Lexi are in the backyard. CJ comes in and sees Elli's little play mirror and starts to take it outside. I stop him because it's the baby's toy and so he puts it down on the blanket with Elli. Well, I didn't see that he had somehow managed to prop it standing up between her neck and the floor. She's laying on her tummy doing the mini push-up thingy that babies do so when she tries to lay her head down the toy jabs her in the throat. Now if you've ever been hit in the windpipe, you know it hurts like the dickens. She starts screaming which if you know Elli she doesn't scream or hardly cry anyway so I knew she was hurt. I start nursing her and get her calmed down.

(Elli with the offending mirror)


Fast forward about 5 minutes and I hear this strange noise coming from outside. I get up and look and it is Lexi throwing a rock the size of a grapefruit (she must be freakishly strong, that's a big rock for a 3 year old!) on the slide and it's bouncing/sliding down the slide and CJ is at the top of the slide. I yell at them to stop playing with rocks, that they are going to get hurt, blah blah blah. They stop and then almost immediately after Lexi picks up a rock the size of a lime and starts chasing CJ with it. I yell at them to stop, CJ stops but Lexi doesn't and runs right into CJ. They smacked heads and CJ gets a bloody nose. Oh wonderful. I get him in the house and cleaned up and the bleeding stopped. They go back outside.

(CJ pointing to where he got hurt, thankfully there isn't any blood in this picture, yuck)



I check on them after a few minutes and notice they have their shoes off. I tell them to put their shoes on or come inside. They put their shoes on and I go inside. I go in my room and can hear that they are over on the side of the yard where the big garbage cans are. I tell them through the window to get away from the trash cans and immediately hear a crash and Lexi screaming. I run outside and she is already halfway to the door. We have a few gardening bricks stacked on that side and that is what fell. Well, Lexi of course did NOT listen to me and had taken her shoes back off and yep, you guessed it, the brick landed on her foot. Her big toe is pretty black and a little swollen. I was afraid she had broken the toe but she can move it and walk on it so hopefully we are okay, but I'm sure her nail will come off.

(Lexi's toe, ouch that looks like it hurts. The toe actually looks worse in person than it does in these pictures.)





So, once again, the point is Listen to your Mom!!! Keep your shoes on outside and don't play with rocks/bricks!

Videos of the Day

These clips made me smile so I thought I'd share.

Here is Elli laughing at CJ. She gets the biggest kick out of him, she's constantly giggling at him.

Here is CJ this morning. My kids tend to get themselves in these funny predicaments sometimes. And isn't it interesting that my immediate reaction was to get the camera rather than help him.