Oh what a day

Sunday was a busy, busy day. The boys woke us up even earlier than normal. Why is it that we occasionally have to threaten to wake them up on weekdays, but on days where we would actually appreciate the extra 30 minutes or significantly longer in case you are listening boys… they decide they want to get up early?? It’s the excitement of getting to spend the day with us, right? That must be it.

After running through our morning absolutions Kevin and Ryan headed out the door to go get us rodeo tickets and Connor and I headed out a few minutes later with our own to do list in hand. Connor was a champ – he patiently stuck with me as we tackled item after item on our list. By the time 9:30 rolled around we were done with our list and headed over to join Kevin and Ryan in line for tickets. Ryan was being the model child standing in line quietly enjoying some “cranbabies” when we arrived. Turns out he had already polished off the box of raisins and as many stale crackers as he could choke down.

It was actually kinda funny – Kevin had mentioned that the crackers in the blue package weren’t as good as the ones in the red package. I couldn’t imagine how animal crackers could taste that much different but didn’t think much of it. I gave Connor his box of raisins and we waited, and waited. Ryan kept eying Connor’s raisins so after I while I started prowling through the bag to see if he had more snacks before he decided to try to confiscate some of his own. And there sat the cookies. I opened the bag and gave one to Ryan and snagged one for myself. It was immediately apparent why Ryan hadn’t wanted more of them to begin with – they were stale. Not the just not quite fresh stale but the “YUCK!!! I can’t believe you ate this and fed it to your child stale!” Ryan happily gave it back. I opened up Connor’s bag and found his red bag of cookies and Ryan happily scarfed them down.

We eventually made our way to the front of the line and after going through the gauntlet of people with add-ons were finally done. 4 tickets to the rodeo. It will be the boys’ first trip to the rodeo and while I don’t harbor any delusions about them actually watching much of the rodeo I know they will thoroughly enjoy the barns full of animals.

With tickets in hand and the boys chomping at the bit to be let loose we let them run the half mile or so back to the car. By the time we got home it was time for lunch, then a long, long nap. While the boys napped I ran some more errands and got home just in time to sit down for 30 minutes or so before starting dinner. I decided to be adventurous and try a new recipe – a meatloaf. It took no time at all to get it ready and into the oven leaving us with a whole hour to play before dinner.

I had been promising the boys that we would feed the ducks “soon” for a couple of weeks. I had even been saving some bread. So we grabbed the bread and piled into the car to go feed the ducks. The front of our neighborhood has its own flock. There must be a 100 ducks. They are fed well, and often. They typically even come running anytime a car stops nearby. When we got there all the ducks were in actually in the pond. A man was standing nearby fishing. And before long it became apparent why the ducks were safely ensconced in the middle of the pond – the man’s dog soaking wet and eagerly running around the edge of the pond trying to figure out how to get to the ducks. He eventually put his dog on a leash and sent it off with his kids to the playground nearby. I took our bowl of shredded bread down to the water and tossed pieces here and there to entice the ducks back to the nearby hill where the boys were eagerly waiting. The ducks trailed after me picking up the pieces I tossed here and there along the way.

The boys were so excited to see all the ducks and did a great job grabbing giant handfuls of bread and throwing it to the waiting hoard. A far improvement from their days of dropping it on my exposed flip flop clad feet. Though perhaps they are egged on my exhortations the entire time of “Throw it! Throw it!” Because as they have now both learned they are at the perfect height for a duck too impatient to wait for them to throw it to snag it right out of their hands. It was Connor’s turn this weekend. He paused for just a moment, with a fistful of bread held aloft. One of the ducks took it as in invitation to snatch it from his hand. I think he was more startled than anything, but after a minute or so was right back to grabbing and throwing fistfuls again.

We headed back home and before long pulled the meatloaf out of the oven. I will spare you the details, but needless to say that’s one recipe we won’t be making again. It will go into the same pile as the orange marmalade pork from earlier in the week.

22 months, 2 weeks, and 4 days

The scene of the crime...

22 months, 2 weeks, and 4 days. That's how long we had gone without a "floater" in the tub. Our luck ran out on Thursday. A night like any other bath night. Nothing out of the ordinary until it was time to get out. The water was drained, towels at the ready. So imagine my surprise when I looked over and there it was...

EEWWW!! And I don't mean the letter arrangement - that was compliments of Kevin while he was "cleaning." I am not sure who the culprit was, though I have my suspicions. Kevin on the other hand has practically convicted a suspect based on a thorough investigation of the incrementing "evidence" left behind. It was the size of the turd, Dear Watson. Isn't it obvious??

Can you feel it now??

I had a dentist's appointment on Wednesday, the 13th. I suppose that alone should have made me leery. A sign perhaps? But this was the last thing left to be done on my dental list from last year. Dead tooth - check. 2 replacement fillings -check. More cleanings that I have had in longer than I can remember - double check. And with that I had reached the max of my dental benefits for the year. So I had to leave the last 2 fillings - replacements for some really old silver fillings I had until this year.

So, as usual I arrived, and after the briefest of waits was ushered back into the torture chamber. A place where I would spend the next 3 hours with a numb tongue having my poor little cheeks stretched to the limit. It started off pretty typical - an x-ray or ten (think I glow in the dark?). And then some numbing gel before the shots. For the record I hate shots. They always hurt numbing gel or not. Today was no exception. The first three knee jerking shots down he readied another round. Only to be surprised at the depth of herky jerky response as I practically bolted upright on the 2nd one because previous shot or not, that really, really hurt. 10 shots later and one more for good measure (just to be sure...) he got started.


First with a picture. This little camera was wheeled over, it's wand tip placed over the tooth, some incantations said, a small dance or two, and presto a topographical representation of my tooth appeared. The "before" picture. Then the drilling commenced - removing the old filling. Before long despite a nicely tingly tongue we discovered that I could still feel that and we moved right on to ligament numbing. And here I thought I had tried it all, but it was new even for me. The taste of stray drop was awfully bitter, but it's instantaneous numbing made up for it. After drilling half way to China removing the old filling, taking off a little decay under the filling, and taking care of a hairline crack the magic wand was back. Calculating just how much tooth I used to have and telling some magic machine hidden off-set how to recreate it we were on to side two. After a bit of deja vu with the shots, though more liberally applied the first time around - you can't say we don't learn from our past mistakes - side two was numb and tooth 2 followed the same script as before because I am clearly nothing if not a glutton for punishment.

After a short break in which we all got quite a good chuckle out of me trying to talk with an entirely numb tongue we attempted to get started putting the porcelain fillings in place. And all was going fairly well, until I realized that I could feel quite clearly the waft of the airgun not on the side he was working on, but on the opposite side. After another round of numbing which I am fairly certain even an elephant would have succumbed to the work was finished. Finally. Three.hours.later.

I was sent on my way with a strong recommendation that I pop some hospital grade pain relief from a bottle before the numbness wore off. And that it might be a "little sore" for a few days from all the shots. Wow. What an understatement. Luckily the drugs knocked me out and I spent the next 6 hours sleeping blissfully despite not having even a morsel of food all day long.

It's been 4 days and my gums are still incredibly sore. I have alternately sworn off tooth brushing (which coincidentally is not what got me in this predicament in the first place - at least according to the dentist - I just have bad enamel that never hardened) and eating all together. Neither is particularly practical so I chew carefully, and brush more so.

Let's just hope that the boys have better luck with their teeth than their mother...

Winter is finally here

Winter has finally come. For a day or two at least. Just enough to wreak a little havoc and make me grumble once again about how unfair it is that the rest of the world is covered in a blanket of white and us? Yeah. Nothing.


Absolutely nothing. Not even a good frost on the windshield. How can it be in teens and we don't even get to see just a lite sprinkling of the white stuff?

It was cold enough that we had to bundle the boys up in coats, hats, and mittens on the way to school Friday morning. And that they didn't even venture outside all day long. Poor teachers. :)

Ryan objected to the double pom pom hats and chose instead to wear a red hat with his new red mittens that he got for Christmas.

I don't know what he has against this hats. They are just so darn cute! I really love em. :) At least one baby appreciates them.

Remember that havoc I mentioned? This is it....

It's our sprinkler system backflow valve, or what's left of it anyways... On Friday we got a note from one of our co-workers about draining our sprinkler backflow valve. We didn't get around to doing it before it was far too dark outside to even attempt. And in truth I don't think we were too worried about it. It had frozen before without any dire consequences, right?? Well, we weren't quite so lucky this time. Sometime Saturday afternoon it blew a gasket and shot a geyser of water over 5 feet into the air. As the water hadn't even reached the street we don't think it ran too long before being noticed. Oops.

Better Days

I am hesitant to say school is getting better but come Friday the boys both went into their classes and were off to play without a single tear being shed. YEA!! :)

The Big Game

Texas vs. Alabama in the BCS Title Game for the National Championship.

Kevin had been looking forward to this day for a long, long time. Texas' chance at another National Championship. He (a Texas alum) and his boss (an Alabama alum) had even gone so far as to try to get tickets and were planning to road trip to the game. Unfortunately tickets were a bit hard to come by. One day at lunch a couple of weeks ago while chatting with another patron in line the guy mentioned the article in the paper he held saying it would cost $800 a ticket just to set foot inside the stadium (even for the worst nosebleed seat in the whole place!) and $2400+ for a ticket anywhere near the 40 yard line.

So with tickets to the game not forthcoming several other ideas including a trip to Austin, or a movie theater stadium event came and went. He ended up at a local restaurant/sports bar with several friends. As they had to be there over 2 hours before the game to get a table I thought it might be fun for the kids and I stop by for dinner before the game. It was a bright and noisy place with a boisterous, decidedly Texas crowd. Throughout the pregame as the crowd clapped and cheered at the sight of their team and players the boys got really excited - jumping up down, smiling, and clapping along. It was adorable.



At one point the Alabama faithful were cheering and the boys shouted and clapped along, too. Kevin, trying to discourage the cheering for Alabama had Ryan booing though still clapping at the same time. And I had Connor yelling "Roll Tide!" much to Kevin's disappointment.'



With the boys having such a good time with the crowd I decided to stay for the kick off and watch a series or two despite the fact that kick-off was later than I thought and would put us home well past the boys' bedtime. About the time Colt McCoy was headed to the locker room the boys' high was wearing off and sleepiness was setting in so we called it a night.

Moving News

Got a pleasant surprise from school today. It was a "Moving up" letter for Connor. Apparently he will be joining Ryan in the big kid class starting in February. I didn't expect him to move until at least March, so it was quite a surprise. I am sure the boys will be happy to be back together again.

Ryan is still not thrilled about the new class, but he has been a little chatterbox since Day 1. He's the youngest child in the class so I suspect with all the older kids talking all day he is picking up on it. He has started singing more and more words of songs like "The Wheels on the Bus" and "Old McDonald." Old MacDonald used to have cows, and lots of them on his farm. Now he has a whole slew of vehicles like yellow buses to help him, too. :)

The new class also went cold turkey on sippy cups and straight to plastic cups. Ryan is probably dehydrating given he seems to be spilling more on himself that he is likely drinking. I am sure he will get the hang of it before too long, but it was quite a surprise when I dropped by a little early the first day to pick him to up and walked in during snack time where they had set a cup of water down in front of him.

They are also working on getting him to try out the potty. He has had a "T" for try on his sheet at least once a day. Though they have commented that he definitely still prefers to be changed instead of going to the potty. I am hoping that seeing other kids going potty will encourage him to want to try more, too. I am not in any hurry, but he was getting pretty good at telling us when he had to potty before he went a while back.

Connor has shown us some new little quirks of his own in recent days, too. He has started to say "No" to everything and shakes his head while doing so. The funny part is that he also peeks out under his lashes and grins when he says it. It's really cute.

Connor seems to be taking the changes at school mostly in stride. I don't think he really understands what is happening, but he just seems curious, not really upset about it all. He has been quite a trooper. I hope he holds up as well when it is his time to join the new class.

Back to school

It was a rough, rough morning. For better or worse the boys are now in different classrooms at school. They weren't particularly thrilled with this new turn of events. Ryan especially who is now in the big kid classroom (with far fewer cool toys...) with new teachers and new classmates. I am sure it will just take a little time to adjust and we will all survive, but I really hope tomorrow will be better day than today.

Lots of family

Every year Kevin's family gets together just after the holidays to eat, and catch up. The kids really enjoy getting to play with their cousins.

Connor hanging out with the big kids.

And realizing a little belatedly that all that brown stuff was mud. The whole rear of his pants were covered from zipping off the end of the slide onto the still muddy ground.

Ryan played with his bus and discovered some sweet gums balls.

And of course we had to swing on the big kid swings just like everyone else.

The kids also enjoyed a wild sea-saw ride - one anchored on each wing as they plane hit turbulence, battled dinosaurs and all manner of foreign enemies to be fired upon and blown out of the sky.

Bon Appetite

Just call me Martha. :)

I have turned baking maven overnight. Okay, perhaps I exaggerate just a tad. But I did spend most of the day slaving away in the kitchen making goodies.

I tried a new recipe for silky smooth apricot cakes. Mmmm... don't they look good?

And see!! I did use the oven. I do know how it works! :)

I also made another batch of the chocolate covered oreo truffles. My chocolate dipping skills could use some work. But after just one bite you will forget all about what they look like. Trust me. They are that good.

I also made another batch of the peanut butter flakes. Only this time I won't put them in the refrigerator and turn them into peanut butter bricks. Like concrete.

Mmmm, mmmm, good!

And for the record I also tried out my new slider press and cooked us some sliders though apparently I forgot to get any photographic proof of it.

So what were the boys doing while I was cooking away? Helping of course.

Or at least Ryan was.

Connor on the other hand was helping to make a mess of the mail.

They really were good helpers. They helped me replenish the cokes and Dr. Pepper's in the fridge and had quite a good time doing it until they got to the very bottom of box. Then they couldn't quite reach them anymore and couldn't figure out how to get them out. They both ended up practically crawling in the box while I choked backed gales of laughter.

They also helped pick up the aftermath of Christmas today. Or at least 90% of it. We found spots for most of the new stuff and got it safely stowed in its home before bedtime.