The Weekend

First up, a parade…that’s Grandpa, a Navy vet,  holding the tuba.

And my finger holding the camera phone lens.  Darnit.

And the other grandpa, an army vet, walking with fellow professors/veterans from the local college.

(He’s the one who looks like Dave, wearing the light pants).

Four (yes, 4!) trips to Wal-Mart.


Beautiful warm, golden sunshine.  Our temperatures were in the 90’s!  (It’s about time!)


We made blueberry crisp and ate it along with Dave’s homemade vanilla ice cream.  Oh. Yeah.


We played full court basketball without breaking a sweat.

Lots of kids, lots of fun.




Hmmm.  I'm thinking we may need to monitor Jack's future dates pretty closely...

photo courtesy of Wendy at Relatively Unique...thanks, Wendy!

The foxes came back!  With cute, little toddler foxes.  I wonder how that happened?  Their family was bounding through the field behind our house!

We had a great weekend.  It put me in a super duper good mood.  I stopped dreading the end of school so much and started looking forward to more sunny summer days, fun with friends, pool parties, s’mores, going barefoot most of the day, and maybe sleeping in.

Still not looking forward to shopping at Wal-Mart with three kids in tow for the next three months, but I guess you can’t have everything!

Q & A With Beth II

A long time ago I did a Q&A session for my many several  numerous smattering of fans, and it was so successful (four whole comments!  Woo hoo!) I’ve decided to do it again. 

Q:  The last day of school is drawing near.  How will you celebrate?

A:  Normally I would lock myself in my closet and yell  “Mommy’s not here!  Go back to school!  Let me know when it’s August 28! And bring me a Diet Coke and some goldfish crackers!” but this year Maddie will be “graduating” from 5th grade so I will need to personally acknowledge the day.  Seriously, I am looking forward to the end of homework, early mornings, and all the rush-rush-rush involved with the school year, and I love to take the kids fun places and do fun things, but by about mid-July I am so ready to have my blissfully quiet house back.  It’s the fighting that gets to me.  The fighting and the whining and the eye-rolling and the constant need for mom’s attention (“Mom!  Watch me do this cannonball!”) or help (“Can I have a drink/popsicle/lunch/ride to…”) or arbitration (“She’s been on the computer for an hour!  When is it my turn??”)  I know a lot of moms who are so happy when school is over, just thrilled to have their kids back 24/7.  I’m not sure if they’re not being honest with everyone or just mentally deficient in some way, but I refuse to feel badly about this.  I love my children, but I do need time away from them.  And in the summer…that just rarely happens.

Q:  Brownies or cupcakes?

A:  Oooh!  Cupcakes, definitely!  Or maybe brownies.

Q:  How are the baby bunnies?

A:  They are eating my zinnias, my black eyed susans, my petunias, and my pepper plant.  They are definitely not so cute any more. 

(bad photo taken through window and screen, bad bunny still greatly evident)

Q:  Who would play you in a movie version of your life?

A:  I have been told that I look like both Elisabeth Shue and Madeline Kahn.  Seriously, what?  I suppose if I were to choose someone who truly bears a resemblance to me and could pull off my sharp wit, smooth physical moves, and tight and fit body, it would have to be either Angelina Jolie or possibly Woody Allen.

Q:  What did you think of the last five books you read?

A:  Once Upon a Time There was You by Elizabeth Berg~  loved it!  Elizabeth Berg knows how to write characters.  Her books involve very a simple story line, but you finish with an in-depth knowledge and understanding of her characters. 

     Mini-Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella~  loved it, super funny, easy beach read…if you’ve read and loved the other Shopaholic books, you will love this one.  And if you haven’t read the other Shopaholic books, get started already!

     Mr. Darcy: Vampire by Amanda Grange~ okay, this is a weird one.  Grange continued Pride and Prejudice where Austen left off, except that…Mr. Darcy turns out to be a vampire!  Ha!  I could not read all the silly vampire literature out there every day, but it’s a funny, entertaining thing to read every once in awhile!

     Everything Matters! by Ron Currie, Jr.~ It sounds like a self-help book, but it’s not.  This is very unique fiction.  The protagonist of the novel is (we find out) the 4th smartest person ever in the history of the universe.  And he knows that the world is going to end on a certain date.  The book counts down backwards from his time in utero until the actual day.  It was such a neat premise that I gave it to Dave to read, and he read it and liked it (though not as much as me) and we had our own little book club meeting.  This book has a lot of levels to it, but it is a mostly easy read.  The main question, how can anything really matter…studying hard in school, having children, saving for retirement, etc…. when you know the world is going to end in your lifetime, is thoroughly explored.  The book gives the reader a lot to think about!

     Fly Away Home by Jennifer Weiner~ this is Weiner’s newest novel, and she didn’t disappoint.  The topic was something that’s been in the news lately…the wife of a senator discovers he’s cheating in a very public and embarrassing way.  We follow along as she and her grown daughters deal with the fallout from his philandering.

     The Widower’s Tale by Julia Glass ~ this one was for book club, and I loved it:  a very long, detailed story line with lots of  story branches that converge eventually, witty, well-written, believable characters.  Maybe not a mindless beach read, but certainly not a difficult book to get through.

Okay, that was six books.  So sue me.

Q:  How is your diet coming along?

A:  Well, Deb and I have been pretty much neck-and-neck through this one.  Our last official day of Biggest Loser:  Blogger Edition (although neither of us is where we want to be and we’re going to continue to be Diet Buddies) is on June 8.  As of now, I have lost 7% of my body weight.  I am down a size, almost two sizes, and people have begun to notice and have even made nice comments which helps my motivation a lot.  I still have a long way to go, but I’m feeling good.  Tune in on or around June 8 for the nail-biting-cliff-hanging-edge-of-your-seat finale!  I hope Jillian doesn’t make me cry!

Q:  Were you named after anyone?

A:  Yes, I was named after both grandmothers, Elizabeth and Jessie (hence my name, Elizabeth Jessie).  I really love my name, and only wish my parents hadn’t started calling me Beth when I was little.  When I went to college I switched to Liz, and some people, knowing I like the name Elizabeth, actually do call me that, but I think I’ll pretty much be a Beth forever.  My parents almost named me Stephanie Jane, by the way.

Q:  What super power would you like to have?

A:  Hmmm.  I would like to be able to wiggle my nose like Samantha on Bewitched and clean up the house, or get my husband’s client to buy his products, or call the kooky Dr. Bombay to solve any medical questions I’d have.  Although that may not officially be a super power.  So I guess I’ll go with mind reading.  Or invisibility.  Ooh!  Flying!  No.  I have it.  I’d want supermaetabolism!  “Who can eat an entire pizza and not gain a pound?  Who can spread real butter on her roll, and then have seconds?  Who can sneak all of the KitKats out of the Halloween bag without her children noticing and still button her pants? Iiiiiiit’s SUPER DIGESTER!!!!!”

Happy Memorial Day!

Lilacs

“Well. Lilacs are Mother Nature’s way of telling us to wear more purple.” ~ Ronald Reagan

“SHOW ME THE LILACS!” ~ Tom Cruise

“Nothing could be finer than a lilac in a diner.”~ Mother Theresa

“It smells like teen spirit.  Or maybe lilacs.”  ~Kurt Cobain

“No more wire lilacs!” ~ Joan Crawford

“To prolong cut lilac flowers for arrangements and bouquets, I like to cut the stems at a 45-degree angle using a sharp knife and place them in a bucket with just enough lukewarm water to cover the cuts.  Then I pop open a bottle of champagne and toast my superior knowledge of all things good. ” ~ Martha Stewart

So many people can’t be wrong about lilacs!  My two favorite weeks of the year are just about over:  the air sweet with lilacs, my five lilac bushes teeming with the drooping, lacy blooms, a vase of gorgeous lilacs fills my kitchen with their lovely, honeyed scent. 

I found this haiku, which I think describes this particular stormy spring pretty well:

picnickers flee
a slate-gray sky –
lilacs glow

~Dagosan

Lilac time is almost over.  I hope you have some wherever you are!

For Stephanie

Because she doesn’t like guinea pigs and I know this picture will freak her out. 

Have a great day, Stephanie! 

Whoopie!

Our school’s carnival was over the weekend.  The PTO does a terrific job of setting up teacher- and parent-run game booths, craft stands, and snack stands.  We thought the afternoon had hit the heights of excitement when Jack won us a cake in the Cake Walk on his first try! 

We thought the day could not get any better.  But we were wrong.  Because right after that, all three kids won Whoopie Cushions!

As you can imagine, the car was filled with the melodious tones of three busy whoopie cushions the entire way home. The joy those pink rubber balloons brought to our family cannot be described with mere words.  So I tried taking pictures, but that didn’t really work either.

Because neither words nor pictures can accurately portray the farty awesomeness that comes from a properly inflated whoopie cushion.  Even Herbie got in on the action.

He just loved it.

Dave snuck upstairs and took a nap and while he was gone, Maddie dressed up as him and the kids made a video portraying him returning from Germany, sitting on his whoopie-cushioned chair and cutting a big old slice of cheese. 

Maddie ends the video by saying, “Oh my, I seem to have eaten too much sauerkraut while I was in Germany…excuuuse me.” 






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Good times.

Besides the rip-roaring hilarity created every time a whoopie cushion was deflated, there were many, many, many, many attempts at whoopie cushion deception throughout the evening.  They got me twice.  Three times if you count the one hidden on my car seat when I got in the car for church this morning.  It was obvious where one was hidden at bedtime when all three children asked if I was going to bed soon and Jack even asked if I could come get him when I got into bed.  Just because.  Unfortunately, my head wasn’t heavy enough to set the one under my pillow off. 

  Oh, the glee, the mirth, the ecstatic, tooty pleasure those 3 whoopie cushions have given us!  Thank you PTO!

Backyard Jungle

What is Jack looking at?

Let’s look a little bit closer.

A baby bunny!  A lettuce-eater-in-training right under my lavender plant!

Make that two baby bunnies!

This nest is right under our living room window.  We can watch the babies from the comfort of our sofa.

We also have ducks.  I hate ducks.  Ducks poop a lot:  big, numerous, dirty piles of it.  There are two males and a female who have been hanging around my pool for the last week or so.

(And doesn’t that mulch look awesome??)

When we spot them, the person closest to the pool runs out and scares them away.  The kids love to do this.  Often, I am the only one home.  My strategy is to walk outside and clap my hands.  If that doesn’t work, I chase them and yell, “Scoot! Scoot!”  I’m sure it’s real entertainment for the neighbors.  Here is Jack on Duck Patrol:

Finally, the snake:

I hate snakes.  But this one’s name is Darth Snaker, and he’s been our beloved Bunny WatchSnake for 3 years running.  He’s a rubber snake, people, and I put him in with the lettuce in an effort to keep the bunnies at bay, but I am telling you, every time I go out to check my garden’s progress, I see him and jump, squeak, and nearly poop my pants until I remember it’s just Darth Snaker.

Every time.

There are also a bunch of moles running around but thankfully I have no pictures for you.

Lately we’ve been seeing a bald eagle hanging around the field behind our houses, which is very unusual and very cool!  I hope he’s keeping a sharp lookout for those creepy moles, but leaves the baby bunnies and Darth Snaker alone.

We’ve also got a monkey.

He’s curious, bouncy, loves to swing, and sometimes he smells pretty bad. 

Gesundheit!

I only know a few words in German.  Gesundheit is one of them.  I also know hasenpfeffer (thank you Bugs Bunny), dummkopf, Volkswagon, dachshund, kindergarten, and O Tannenbaum.

So I had to look this one up: Wilkommen zuhause!

(Um…I also know Auf wiedersehen.)

Welcome home!
Dave has been gone for 12 long, long, long, long, days.  We’re used to his work travels, but this is the longest he’s ever been away and it was way too long but he’s coming home today!  He was in England and Germany, apparently riding around on a Segway and having a ball the whole darn time.  He probably didn’t do a lick of work the whole time he was there, just rode around the autobahn on his segway, ate the local bratwurst and streusel, while out and about in his lederhosen, enjoying all the Fahrvergnügen he could handle (Ich bin ein Berliner!  I totally know more German words than I thought!)

We skyped him every day and he sent lots of emails and pictures of things like double decker buses and boats and tiny little cars and him riding on a Segway that made all of us very jealous and miss him even more.

Ach du Sauerkraut!  We can’t wait to see him!

Bits and Pieces

(I can’t write a title like that without thinking of Mike Myers on SNL playing Simon in the bathtub, asking us if we’re looking at his bits and pieces, calling us cheeky monkeys and bum lookers…)

The bits and pieces I’m referring to, however, are just a general rounding up of what’s going on around here.  Nothing enough to make an entire post, but in putting them all together, maybe it will be enough.

Although, speaking of bits and pieces…when you’re 6 years old and just starting to figure out the world, sometimes you say things wrong.  Jack, who’s always interested in cars and their names, has a friend whose mom drives a Volvo.  Only Jack doesn’t pronounce it Volvo.  And although I’ve gently tried to prod him into pronouncing it VolvO without really explaining why it is not pronounced his way, he has gotten stubborn on the subject, and steadfastly and loudly points out all the Volvos we see while driving or walking through parking lots. 

“Yes, honey, that is a very nice VolvO,” I answer cringingly.

Hmm, while we’re on the subject of Jack and bits and pieces…we went to Red Robin over the weekend where he got a lovely green balloon.  I tied a nice handle in the bottom of it so that he wouldn’t lose it on the way to the car.  When we got home, I opened the van door for him, and which body part do you think he had that handle hooked onto?  Yessir, that one.  He wasn’t being weird.  He told me he just got tired of holding it and didn’t want the wind to blow it out the window so that’s where he hooked it.  You know… you couldn’t do that with a volvo.  It’s good to be a boy.

So what else is going on that isn’t literally bits and pieces related?

I finished the mulch!  It took me about 8 hours (spread through the weekend—ha! pun!) and I was pretty grumpy and miserable the whole time, but it’s finished now and it looks bee-yu-tee-ful.  Wouldn’t you think all that work would make the scale budge downward just a tiny bit?  But NO, it did NOT, which is completely unfair.

Yesterday was field day at our elementary school.  Our field day is called Jelly Bean Day, and isn’t as competitive as the field days of my youth, as the kids are all visiting parent-run stations and completing physical activities (most fun, some not as much), but at the end of the day it is time for TUG O’ WAR!  The fifth grade classes all compete with each other and then compete against the teachers.  Maddie, who is a fifth grader, was so excited to finally be in the tug o’war this year.  Her class lost every single match.  But my gosh, look how much fun they had!

The teachers had fun too.

I really worry that fun days like this will soon be a thing of the past.  Schools are so worried about their PSSA scores that classroom parties, craft times, and field days are being phased out to concentrate on getting these kids to pass those darn tests.  But seriously, don’t get me started…

Ben’s class did a really cool research activity.  Each student chose an animal to research, then they had to write up the information on the computer, arrange it all on a presentation board, and tell visitors to their “zoo” all about their animal.  Here is Ben telling us about the coyote:

I love both the research component and the fact that these kids had to present their animals orally to visitors over and over, giving them a chance to practice public speaking.  That is something that is not going to show up on a test, but will prove to be a valuable experience for each of them!  Ben did a great job, as did all of the other zookeepers we visited that day.  We learned a lot too.

Tomorrow is Be Extra Nice to Maddie Day.  If you see her, be extra nice! 

Well, look at that, I think I filled up an entire post with bits and pieces and only a tiny bit of naughtiness. Have a great day!

Instagram!

P-Dub (aka Pioneer Woman---look over there on the right at the blogs I follow) recently introduced  her readers to Instagram.  I downloaded it a few weeks ago and I love it!  Instagram is a FREE app for the iPhone.   I’m not sure if it’s available for other phones, but if you have an iPhone, you have got to get yourself this app.
 
iPhone pictures are usually not the best, at least mine aren’t.  It’s a camera phone, for heaven’s sake, we can’t expect much.  But with Instagram you can make ordinary pictures pretty darn cool.
Before:                                                                                                       After:

Unfortunately, they don’t blow up on the computer really well.  They are camera photos, after all.




And I really don’t know if you could upload them to a photo processing center, they’re the wrong size.


So I guess really, what’s the point?


Well, I guess there isn’t really a point at all.  Just fun.

But that’s okay. 

I am definitely having fun with Instagram.