Ho Ho Ho!!

Just wanted to post a few pictures in case you came looking for any.

Ethan's favorite shirt that he will probably wear every day for the next month...

...hopefully without the Spongebob jammie pants.

His Sith fighter plane, or whatever the correct technical name is...

He was giving it in-flight sound effects, and the gold bow was in fact on his head, not behind it.

These were our lights. We went driving around looking for some last night and didn't really find much. Either nobody was home or it was a bad year for lights. Ours were more tame this year than last, a few things were somehow broken when we unpacked them, but we got the addition of the candy canes this year from Ken. We will need about twice as many to line the driveway all the way to the street... maybe next year. Well, not really. I think 30-something is probably enough. We'll find something else to add, though.


OK, that's all for now. I hope you all had a great Christmas!! Ho Ho Ho!!!

Hello again.

OK, so I have been VERY bad with the 'ole blog. So sorry. I also haven't taken too many photos, either, though. I'll post a few, starting with my favorite. I took this of my boys when we went to the festival of trees last weekend.

It was very cool with tons of themed trees. Ethan's favorite was made of stuffed animals.
I think we were supposed to guess how many animals it was made of, but the sign was tiny and we didn't see it.

His second favorite was the rubber duckie tree.

There was also a huge area with gingerbread houses, which was my favorite part, but it was really hard to get pictures. We're going to make one and I'll take a picture of that.

Going back in time a bit, Ethan was very proud of our "Mantle of Horror" at Halloween. It wasn't too creepy, but next year we're hoping it will be.

What else?... Ethan is student of the week this week. It's a random drawing of names and everyone gets it eventually. He does think, however, that it is very cool that he happens to get it on Aunt Jude's birthday week. He has a huge homework assignment that involves many photos I have to take, so I'll have more to post when those are done. We started today, but my battery went dead after 3 picures.

Animal updates, here's the puppy (ya, right) napping...

That dog will herd Jake around the house all day. I feel pretty bad for the cat not being able to go anywhere without Milo trying to make him go the opposite direction. For some reason the picture of Jake won't upload. Maybe next post.

I suppose that's all for now.

Hot Topics (to us, anyway...)

I'll try to keep this fairly short, but I finally downloaded a bunch of photos so it might go on for a while.
First, here's the photo of Ethan in the Steelers hat from Aunt Jude. He loves it and wears it all the time. Quite honestly, I was afraid it was going to just hang on the rack with the other hats he has, but he really loves the Steelers and wears this one. I'd just love to know why he is so into them.

Speaking of sports, here are some baseball pictures. When I came in the house and told Ethan there was mail for him, he immediatley said "Oh, Aunt Jude! Thanks!" (I did not tell him who it was from, I just said mail.) Then he saw it was a box and got even happier. I grabbed the camera in time to get this:


He still likes the A's and the Giants best for baseball. I don't see that changing anytime soon.

I believe this is third installment of the "Sleeping Jake" series... sprawled out on his back as usual.


The fence is going up this weekend. FINALLY. The posts have been in for a few weeks now, and it's been a waiting game for the guy to come and do the rest. Glen is helping so we're getting a discount. Having a big yard is great, but fencing it in sure is expensive. Especially with not being able to share the back side with the neighbor. There has to be a 10 foot easement between them. What a waste. Anyway, I was talking with the attorney at work who brings her dog in a lot and I told her how we're finally getting our fence, and I figured we'd have a dog about 2 hours after it was up. With it being so close, we started looking yesterday....

...Breaking News Bulletin... Ethan just lost his second top tooth, of course it's after 9pm and the tooth fairy is NOT prepared. Now back to the regularly scheduled blogging...

The dog... we called the place where we got Jake and told them what we're looking for. They told us about a dog that sounded good for us that is being fostered in a nearby town. Glen made arrangements for her to bring the dog by our house since a big concern of mine is about the cat and dog getting along. Of course I don't expect them to be best friends immediately, but I also don't want rip-things-apart, chasing-around-the-house fights. In addition to this dog, Glen made a bunch of other calls so we could meet a bunch of other dogs. Ethan REALLY wants a German Shepherd puppy but we explained that we want to get a dog that really needs a home, like we did with Jake. He seemed OK with that. Not happy, but OK. Glen proceeds to tell Ethan and I how we have to remember that we will see a lot of dogs and we need to take our time deciding, and not jump at the first one we see.
Fast forward to this morning. Milo comes for a quick visit. We think he's a Begian Malinois, very similar to a german Shepherd. He's about 5 months old, 35ish pounds (probably to grow 2x that, maybe more?) and to make a long story short he'll be back on Sunday for a sleep over since the fence will be up. Chances of him "not working out"? I would guess about 0%. He's great. The foster mom has been wiggling out of bringing him to adoption events, and wanted to know how we "found them." So, meet Milo:

I'll update more after the weekend and post more photos, since my battery died after taking 2 today, or I would have more now.

Quick post before work...

Just a quick post to put up Ethan's baseball photo. He bats left handed and they had him stand backwards so his stance is all funky - whatever. Is it just me or does he look about 10 years old? Maybe it's his serious look.
He lost his front top tooth last night at 10:30. Luckily the Tooth Fairy was able to get him on her route with such late notice.
OK, I gotta go to work now. More later.

Long time, no blog...

(Ya, ya, bad me. So sorry.)
So, Happy 5th of July. Yesterday was a very action-packed and fun-filled day. Since we're in between two sub-divisions, we went to 2 block parties. The first with inflatable slides and tons of food, the second with sparklers and scooters and more food, ending with fireworks, in the cul-de-sac.

I didn't get a lot of photos, Ethan was running around far too much, so we just socialized with the neighbors.

I never did post a picture from Ethan's Tiger Scout camping trip in late May. He is now a Wolf, but they pretty much take the summer off and don't do much. This was at the camping trip where he "bridged over" from Tiger to Wolf. First they had to put up the tent...

then when he graduated, he had to go across the rope bridge.

It was all pretty exciting for him. The night ended with s'mores, a night hike and an astronomy lesson. The weather was perfect, which can be hit or miss around here.

My second installment of "Sleeping Jake" follows...

Now, this looks like I caught him in a stretch, right? Well, his is just one of the many ways he sprawls out when he takes a snooze.

That's about all for now. OK, Jude, I updated. Now where are the pictures of the safari??? We had a deal, right?

We found one!!

We found one of the R2D2 mailboxes!! It turns out that I have driven past it almost every day for the past few weeks and never even noticed it! I thought it would be funny for Ethan to wear a little Star Wars gear when visiting it, so here I present Darth Vader versus R2D2...

It is in a business part of town and we went on a weekend day, so there was hardly anyone there. I guess that's a good thing, because as we were going back to the car, Ethan says "That wasn't so embarrassing after all!" He thought people would think we were odd attacking a mailbox with a light saber.

What else... we got a basketball hoop. The backboard is broken (more like non-existant) so it's a bit harder to shoot hoops without losing the ball to the yard, but it's easily fixable and it was going to be thrown away. Ethan loves it, and our runway of a driveway is a good court for it.

I'll call this next photo the first of a series I'd like to title "Sleeping Jake" - I thought cats like to sleep all curled up in a ball. Not this cat. He likes to sprawl out. He especially likes to sleep on his back. It can be on the floor, the couch, the bed, wherever... this is on the couch. It is an odd angle, but you get the idea. More to come.

That's all for now. Thanks for stopping by!!

Ethan & Bear

Let's try uploading a video clip from a while ago. This was sometime last year...

Welcome Spring??

Is Spring finally here? I thought it was a few weeks ago, but then it SNOWED (even though it was just some flurries) in April. Hmmm, last year it was so humid and hot that the Easter Bunny had to hide Ethan's basket in the house. This year, it was so cold and windy, he did the same. (Plus we still have no bushes or trees or anything to hide eggs in, around or behind...)
OK, Aunt Jude, you can't get mad for me posting pictures of you on the 'ole blog, Ethan wants me to. He had such a great visit with you. How long has it been, 2 weeks already, and all I still hear is "Aunt Jude this" and "Aunt Jude that."
May I present the goofballs... oh, the drama.

I wish I could figure out how to post the video clip of you guys rocking out singing your ACDC song ("I wanna rock and roll all night... and party every day!"). Maybe that will show here up at some point, I know it can be done.

This is the picture we got in trouble for taking at the airport. You know, they really should post signs saying you can't take photos. I still think that's weird.



Ethan got his Bobcat Trail badge at his pack meeting this week. Glen got to draw on his face, each mark means something.

They used to hold the kid upside down and attach a pin right side up, and when the Scout does his first "good turn" he gets to flip the pin right-side up. Now, they get a patch and don't get hung upside down. They consider that "hazing."

What else...
baseball is going well. He loves being pitched to so this is better than t-ball last year. He hits pretty good considering how out of practice he is. Now that the weather is nice we are going to go back to practicing the bicycle. He just hates that he can't "get it" instantly. I think it's one of the first things he has struggled with and he's just not used to that.
That's all for now. I don't have much else.

Can I please have that hour back?

I like the fact that it stays lighter later, but I really hate losing an hour of sleep. I guess if I went to bed before 2 am it might help, but that's unlikely. Actually, walking around for 2 hours in the hilly, un-sidewalked areas that the Tiger Cubs were assigned to pass out the Food Drive fliers helped, I was asleep by 12:30. Thankfully it didn't rain. I'd love to know why they assigned the youngest boys the largest and most unsafe areas. It's kinda weird, the same weekend the time change happens, the weather is all of a sudden incredibly Spring-like. We've been playing with the kite and other assorted outside toys for the past few days. I guess we need to start getting bids on the much-anticipated fence. We also need to get a really long leash for the cat. I feel bad leaving him in the house while we venture out into the nice weather. He loves to lay in the window and look outside, so I'd like to let him run around for a while.
OK, more birthday pictures. I didn't get any real great ones. It's hard to lead games and activities and be the photographer.


This was their favorite game. We had some black balloons ("dirty bubbles" from Spongebob) taped to the edge of a table and they had to hit one with the Nerf dart. They would have done that the whole time if we had done it first.


"Spongebob Says" (laugh like Patrick, meow like Gary, do karate like Sandy, etc.) lasted for about 2 minutes. Nobody paid attention to the Spongebob Says part. This is them doing muscles like Larry the Lobster.


While Ethan opened his gifts, some of the boys decided to put the balloons under their shirts.


This was Pass the Sponge, whoever was holding it when the music stopped was out. I had the theme song playing on the DVD and just hit pause every now and then. No, I wasn't looking, so Ethan did get out. In fact, I don't think he won once.

OK, I think that's it for the birthday. It seems like forever ago, even though it was just a week ago today. I have a few more pictures of Jake. He likes to sleep in enclosed places. I was looking all over for him and couldn't find him. He was here:

Can't see him? Neither could I. Try this:

If at all possible, he really would just prefer to just plop on top of a person and make himself comfortable.

When we're in the office, he likes to sleep here, in a box I was about to throw out. I guess we'll be keeping it.

OK, enough for now. I smell popcorn.

Happy Birthday Boys!

Well, technically yesterday was their birthday, but today was the party. Anytime anyone would ask how old Ethan is turning, he'd tell them "7, but Dad's 44!" Glen just loved that. It was supposed to be a Spongebob party, but the boys pretty much just wanted to shoot the Nerf darts and play with swords and light sabers. We did make Spongebob sponges with google eyes, pipe cleaner limbs and felt shorts. The problem was the sponge sucked up all the glue! God bless the hot glue gun.

We tried to play "Spongebob Says" (like Simon Says) but they weren't paying any attention at all and it lasted about 3 rounds. It was a very energy filled 2 hours. The cat did really well. He stayed out of the way as to not get squished, but wasn't the slightest bit afraid. Ethan specifically wanted a vanilla cake with vanilla frosting - for some unknown reason MY kid doesn't like chocolate - and then didn't eat a single bite. Now he says he just doesn't like cake. I give up. When Glen had a second piece after the kids left, Ethan warned him that if he wasn't careful, he'd get diabetes. Ethan has a friend who has it, so he knows all about too much sugar. But the way he said it was really funny. I guess it was one of those things where you just had to hear it to get the full effect.

Glen and Ethan drew a fantastic sidewalk chalk Spongebob on the front porch to greet the guests. It will be sad when it gets rained away. It snowed yesterday, but today was clear as a bell (but cold).

Of course we had Spongebob playing for ambiance the whole time (thanks again for Season 1, Aunt Jude!). We used the theme song for Pass the Sponge (like Hot Potato), passing a sponge around a circle and whoever is stuck with it when the music stops is out. We had streamers hanging from the ceiling fan for seaweed, which was pretty cool when the fan was on.

I have lots more photos but am not in the mood to Photoshop out the faces right now. I will pick a few more for later. I suppose I shoud go clean up the smashed cake on the kitchen floor before it becomes permanent, but I wanted to post a few pictures for Jude. Most of them have Ethan with a bunch of other kids, though, so they'll have to wait. I don't want to publish their faces, some people get freaked about that kind of thing.