The end of September already?

How'd that happen?

Work has been crazy this week but it seems to be moving along okay. We should get the new boards up and running. It's sort of too bad that they can't get a board up for the CLs to get to know the new layout and how things will work. I can understand why they're getting a little frustrated when they're told they'll be able to get in there (Wednesday morning?) and it's Thursday evening and it's still not available. I hope the boards get up and rolling close to on time!

The weather has been overcast around here but not too rainy. The boys have been able to get outside a bit. You'll never guess what they do outside...

Yep, playing with the DS... sigh... they did do some running and playing while out there at least.

Today, Patch was on a mission. He picked up all the litter he could find. He wants to save the environment so the Earth won't die. He doesn't want to go as far as cleaning up the dog's yard though ;-)

Funny boys...

I love my boys and I love what they do. They keep me entertained so often! I think I've shared a couple funnies from them in my blogs but here are their latest funnies... I hope these aren't 'you had to be there' funnies.

Patch was in the car and he and Franklin were talking about a couple things they had done in the past. One thing was sitting on their friend, Jesse's eggrolls. I'm not really sure what that was all about, I think she was cutting them out of paper or drawing them? But, all of a sudden he says "Ah, good times!" Todd and I bust out laughing and he starts in with, "What's so funny?" This was one time that I could actually describe why I was laughing, I'm usually laughing but can't explain why, but it was very easy to tell him that he sounded like an old man, reliving his childhood.

Poor Franklin on the other hand, he came downstairs last night after putting some anti-itch stuff on his bugbite and started complaining about his bottom burning. He had some bumps that he said were itching too but I think he had scratched them open - which would make that lotion burn. He's practically jumping up and down and finally says, 'it burns like (whispered) hell.' Todd and Pat were trying to contain their laughter but being the mom, I just whisk him upstairs to fix the pain. Like Todd says, sometimes, you just gotta cuss, nothing else will do. ;-)

On a side note, we got our first black eye in the family today. Franklin says that if it's not gone by Halloween, he's not going trick or treating and I'm NOT allowed to post a pic on FB - he didn't say if I could post a pic here or not - but I won't - at least not today, maybe I'll wait a day or two when it gets a little more colorful...

Hope you're having a good weekend!

Quiet week at home

Just in case you were wondering, it's been a quiet week here - well, other than too much work. But, that's becoming the norm lately :(

The boys were great at getting their school work done. Franklin is not really thrilled to be writing a paper about Lewis & Clark but, oh well. At least he gets to write it on the computer! Not like when we were growing up and had to hand write everything. ;-) Franklin's cursive writing is beautiful, Patch's is coming along. They're just learning lower case right now, soon to be moving on to upper case letters. Franklin likes being able to sign his name. (Just wait until I start making him write sentences in it! hehe)

A little over a week until the roll out on our new boards at iVillage. I'm keeping my fingers crossed on how smoothly the transition goes. Next week is suppose to be Hell Week so wish me luck!

Sunday is Todd's birthday. He gets to spend most of it working on the rental house. But, we will take some time to celebrate the day he arrived into this crazy world. We don't know what we'd do without him. He's the best husband and father I could hope for! I love you, hunny!!

Mama's taking us to the zoo tomorrow, zoo tomorrow, zoo tomorrow...

Okay, we actually hit the Riverbanks Zoo on Saturday. I had to get out of the crowd in the tundra tunnel or whatever they call it. The zoo was packed because it was an enrichment day and the animals are really active so everybody wants to go. We went with our friends, Pat & Jan and their kids and grandkids.

The babies are soooo sweet! I think the boys had a lot of fun. They even liked the Mariachi clowns :)

The boys went rock climbing for the first time and they enjoyed that. What I'd like to have happen some day is that when you take a video with your camera sideways, you could rotate the movie on your computer when it's uploaded!!

Then we went out to eat at a Fuddruckers. How big of a burger can you eat?

A 4 pounder with a smiley face on it?

The boys had a balloon artist show up at the table and had fun playing with those too.

It's good to have friends to hang out with, it's a good offset to a rough week at work.

And, this next weekend? We're working on the house! And celebrating Todd's birthday :)

Quiet week so far

and I don't mind at all. I am a little sad that I haven't gotten over to the house to paint though. Work has been crazy, busy. We're rolling out a new look to iVillage the first week of October (knock on wood.) You can see information here: http://www.ivillage.com/message-board-upgrade-faq/8-a-259829  and have a sneak peek to the new look here: http://ivillage.com/sneak-peek-upgraded-ivillage-message-boards/8-b-256690 We're spending a lot of time training on how to use the new boards and trying to make sure everything is updated and correct for the roll over - in addition to doing all of our regular work too. So, I can hardly wait for the new boards to roll out and things getting back to normal. (Whatever that is!)

Did I mention how much fun the boys had at their science class last week? Not just playing with their friends but they learned stuff too. Last week was about water quality. I think they REALLY wanted to go to the class today (because it was a repeat from a class the other kids enjoyed last year - not because they knew what it was about. ) But, "Franklin" was rather sick yesterday so I made us all stay home today so we didn't share that little pleasantness. :( They were really bummed.

Anyhow.... "Franklin" & "Patch"  - I've decided to rename the boys for the world wide web. I'm stealing the idea from a g/f just to keep us all a little safer out there. I will eventually go back and change their real names off of this blog and use them on FB and other places. Franklin is for Ben Franklin a jack of all trades and master of many - this would be for the 11yo. Patch is for Patch Adams who (if you haven't seen the Robin Williams movie) is a funny doctor and the 8yo is rather silly and has great caregiving instincts.

So, hopefully, I'll get some painting done at the rental tomorrow & Friday - wish me luck!

Birthday Weekend

Yep, I turned another year older yesterday. I'm not counting anymore ;-)

I spent some time last week looking at pictures of 9/11/01 and remembering all the people we lost that day from either being in the wrong place or those trying to be helpful - all of them heroes. I understand that we are still losing Americans who helped that day from conditions they acquired that day. :(

I wonder what happened to that feeling of comradery we Americans had that day and a long time afterwards. We didn't care about each others beliefs or race or political stance. We lost a lot of Americans that day - of different colors, of different religions, of different politics and of different monetary class. We wanted justice, we wanted to feel safe in our homes, our cars and our airways again. We soon found out that we couldn't go after all Muslims because even though it seems that the Muslim faith was involved in the attack, Muslims in general were not to blame. Will we be able to defeat the Al Qaeda? It would be nice to think that some day we can convince them to not attack us ever again. It would be nice to think that all Americans were thinking this same way. It's rather sad to hear Americans against this fight - we blew up our own buildings, we shouldn't be going after the Al Qaeda, etc.

I don't want to start a debate on the topic, it's my blog and these are my feelings. My main point being, I don't like to share my birthday with this tragedy - but that's old news to most of you. ;-)

On the bright side, I did have a very nice birthday. We had our friends Pat & Jan over and Todd made me an awesome Fruit Basket Cake!

He must love me an awful lot to make this cake - he had to back two 8" rounds and cut them in half and put layers of fruit in between. It wasn't the prettiest thing (but I think before it was cut, it was beautiful!) but it tastes yummy!!

Thank you to all my friends and family for the birthday wishes. They were each appreciated :) You all mean so much to me!

Another little update...

I didn't get as much done on the house today as I had hoped. I had forgotten that the downstairs rooms needed to be prepped for painting. DYK that taping is the most boring task on the planet? I did take some tape off some of the rooms that I finished yesterday and put some face plates back up. So, tomorrow, I can go work on painting! Hopefully, I'll get the two downstairs bedrooms done and maybe get some of the misses in the stairwell that I noticed today. Maybe I can find that longer stick and get all the way up to the ceiling in the stairwell too!

This Labor Day weekend is really turning into a lot of labor... I did sleep in until almost 8am today! WooHoo!

Anyone know where we can find a cheap replacement range, just let me know!

I'm enjoying finding things on this Mother Earth News website. The boys and I might tackle this giant bubble blowing thing :)

Another house update...

I know these updates thrill you all to death but I'm keeping track of progress so please bear with me. ;-)

We're hoping to get this ready for rental or sale soon! But, there's probably more work that I haven't thought of yet that needs to be done. Todd's been working on some migration thing for work which is taking a lot of his time and he still has school work to do every week. So, he hasn't been able to get over there much this week.

The boys and I got over there a couple of times but I didn't feel like I got a lot done - cleaning mostly. But, yesterday, Franklin & I loaded the mower in the van and headed over in the morning. Between the two of us we were able to get it in and out of the van. :) Franklin is so excited to start his own lawn mowing services and if you have a yard that doesn't have any thick grass, he might be able to do it. He was so tickled to get the mower started on his own. But, that thick grass defeated him. :(

Heck, it's hard for Todd and me to do it! And, I have to get Todd over to do the edging and weed whacking because those tools hate me.

After lunch, I went back over to do some painting. The upstairs is now DONE! I painted a lot of the stairwell but couldn't reach some because I need a bigger stick on the end of the handle. I also painted the dining room! So, now with the egg shell paint, we still have the two downstairs bedrooms, two small hallways downstairs and the living room. In the semi-gloss, we have the two bathrooms (oops - one of those is upstairs but the egg shell painting is done up there!), the kitchen and the laundry room to do. So.... we're making progress.

The boys are doing good. They refound their friends from the other house - Hannah and Harrison,  so they like going over there again. And, Franklin is being a HUGE help! Patch is such a card these days. His favorite game to play at the house is 'you'll never see me again' - where he runs away and then tries to sneak back near you without you seeing him. Not only do I keep seeing him, he expects me to keep feeding him too. ;-)

Oh! The boys are enjoying spelling quizzes on Fridays - Patch wanted to be quizzed almost all day Thursday so that he could get an A++ on Friday after his B last week. Franklin got all of his words right both weeks. Maybe I should go find a 7th grade list for him ;-)

Signatures... (a/k/a sigs or siggys)

For those of you who don't know (and I can't believe any of you don't), I work for http://www.ivillage.com/ We have the ability to put graphics in our signatures but I have no talent for making them. Thankfully, we have some great talent out there willing to make the rest of us look good. :D I thought I'd share some of mine with you...

Two I got just today:








A few favorites from the past:

Okay, they're not all sigs, some are blinkies or tags (I'm not sure what the difference between a tag and a blinkie is but it doesn't have anybody's name on it.) But, I love all of these! I have a ton more I love too. Thank you to all of you who've made me a sig over the years. I wish I had a little bit of your talent!