A Luke Quickie

Luke is not a fan of shoes.  Obviously, he is my son.  Every time I take him to Grandma's he always wants to go barefoot. But I have tried to start putting my foot down on this one and make him at least take some with him whenever he goes there.  This was tonight's latest shoe argument:


Me: Luke get some shoes!
Luke: I don't want any shoes!
Me: You have to wear shoes.  Get some on, now!
Luke: I am wearing shoes. They are made of skin.  See?

Once again, his Jedi mind tricks will not work on me.

Upgrade!

Re-takes success!

I Am Also a Fan of Delicious Ornaments

For Christmas ornaments this year I got Jacob the word "Soccer" (with a pair of cleats hanging from the O), Luke got a robot, Cindy got a sand dollar but I had yet to find anything for me.  Until I was out shopping last night and saw this golden pineapple.  When I saw it, I literally heard a choir of angels singing.  Maybe that was just Muzak, but I took it as a sign.  Merry Christmas to me :)

11 Awesome Grumpy Cat Memes

Unless you have been living under a rock or you are my brother Brian, you are fully aware of the newest Internet meme superstar, Grumpy Cat.  This is by far and away my mostest favoritest Internet cat in the entire world.  He is guaranteed comic gold.  No one is immune to his charm. No one!!!  I have scoured the Internet and now present to you eleven awesome memes that will make your day amazing.  Feel free to come back and visit this page often, especially when you need a good pick-me-up from the grumpiest cat alive.

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Huh?

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How can anyone not laugh at this cat??!!  Look at him, man!

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For the record, I would react the exact same way if this happened to me...  Who even made this??

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I love the mug shot effect of the height lines in the background.  Classic.  And since they are now making t-shirts of Grumpy Cat, I would like this one with a navy background, please.

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And finally....

The definition of epic:

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P.S.  My brother Dave made a hilarious Grumpy Cat meme the other day, but I can't get it to paste directly in here!  Why must technology be so discriminating?  If you didn't see it on Facebook, click here....

A Luke Quickie

Saturday night we had the kids write their letters to Santa.  Which is always fun after I have done all the Christmas shopping and they ask for absolutely nothing I got them :)  (They needed a little "reminding" of some gifts they may have forgotten they wanted.)  And in usual fashion, Luke was pretty much copying everything Cindy put in her letter.  His sheep-like qualities are sometimes incredibly frustrating.  So the first item on Luke's list is a Nintendo DS. Cindy has asked for this for three years in a row.  Which makes NO sense because we have two Ipod touches and a tablet.  Her chances of actually receiving that are about as good a snowball's chance in my microwave.  But sure as the sun comes up every morning, Luke also put a Nintendo DS as his number one choice.  I was so exasperated upon seeing this I said to him, "Why are you putting that??!  Do you even know what a DS is?"  To which he replied, "No, but I just really want to see what it looks like!"  I scolded Cindy after that for being a bad example, and then she muttered, "I hate being the oldest."  And that was the most magical Santa letter-writing session we ever had :)

Legoland

The best part about being married to a teacher is not the manual pencil sharpener that is attached to my garage workbench, doing FHE on an overhead projector or even having to raise my hand to ask what time Jacob will be home for dinner.  No, the best thing is definitely all the time off together we get around the holidays.   And Friday we made very good use of our time and hit Legoland.  Not to make anyone jealous, but the only reason we went is because we got four free ticket coupons in the mail.  ???!?!?  I was just as confused as you are probably right now.  I don't know what magical mailing list we are on or why we got them, but we aren't the "let's look a big ol' gift horse right in the grill" kinda people, so we took our coupons and had an awesome day.  A few pics...

Riding Island in the Sky together.  Cindy's favorite ride. Seriously.

Star Wars Miniland is now open!  Maggie, we finally we get our own picture with the Millennium Falcon :)

A rare photo of Jacob...

I know that Legoland is not Disney, but I was a little surprised that this was pretty much the only Christmas decoration in the entire park.  Still cool, though.



TIME OUT FOR A LEGOLAND LUKE QUICKIE

Luke went on every roller coaster or ride that he was tall enough for.   Which is still quite puzzling to me, but after Jacob took him off to ride things that were too scary for Cindy, I asked him about what his favorite ride was.  He told me about one roller coaster that was really fun and kinda scary because "at the end it was going down and made my face go like this!"  (see above photo).  But yet he never freaks out. I love it!


If you want to know what kind of rides Cindy will ride, well, this is pretty much her speed.  I can hear Luke now, "Izma, put your hands in the air!"

Jacob got to do the spinning stuff....

To the stocks!

And now, a photo ensemble of the many glorious faces of Cindy Sweeney:

Those right there are Apple Fries served with whipped cream.  Tasty!

And finally...

It takes an act of congress to get Jacob to take a picture, but I finally got the bill passed with a majority in the house and he agreed to pose with me out in front of Legoland as we were leaving.  Luke was our little photographer and after it took him almost half a century to line up the shot  and push the button, Cindy, who was hiding somewhere behind us, jumped out and ran through my picture like Pee Wee Herman on his bike through a Hollywood movie.  I was so ticked.  And am currently plotting my revenge....

Gratitude

Today I'm most thankful that I was raised like this:

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And NOT like this:

Food Stamps Of Approval

It's my favorite time of year in Sweeneyville once again!  The annual parade of food drive follies.  This year the kids and I actually helped put together the food boxes with all the collected items so I gotta give mad props to all the county employees who donated a lot of food.  I saw it all first hand and it is going to help a lot of families this year.  And a very job well done to my Dad who is in charge of the food drive every year and makes all the magic happen.  And by magic I mean "photographing of all the weird crap that gets donated for the sole purpose of entertaining my friends and family."  If you care to review past years of Food Drive awesomeness, check out 2009, 2010, and 2011.  

And may I present you with 2012

Last year it was the half-consumed 2 Liter of Coke, this year it is a used, non-winning scratch off lottery ticket.  To the givers credit, the game is named "Gingerbread Dough", so they kinda sorta get one half of a point for relating it to food.  But they also get 745 points deducted for paying $2 for a tiny square of paper.

food, noun

1. any nourishing substance that is eaten, drunk, or otherwise taken into the body to sustain life, provide energy, promote growth, etc.

Nailed it.

I can see it all now. Someone was at their desk, eating some peanut butter, (with their fingers) and they happened to look over and see the food drive donation box.  Glaring at them. Waiting to be fed.  So in a flash of brilliance they put the lid back on, put it the box and considered it a good deed done.  Actually, they probably saw the box and thought, "Oooh, I should donate that crappy off-brand peanut butter no one at my house will finish."  And this inspires a meme.... 

We love ourselves some football in this great state of ours and here is the proof.  We got noodles shaped like Gator heads and orange-colored F's.  What do you got? Sissy wagon wheels?  Pretentious bowties? Tri-colored "twirls"?  But wait, there's more! Might I call your attention to the packaging that tells you this fine item also includes "Game Day Vinaigrette Mix."  Notre Dame, you may be riding high on your rainbow of Irish luck right now, but come and talk to me when you got your own officially licensed pasta WITH vinaigrette.  Check and mate.

I had to put this one on here just for the nostalgia.  But after really looking at this product, I kinda think Hostess deserves to go out of business.  Because they obviously hate everyone.  I am reminded of the question posed by comedian Jim Gaffigan, "What is the recipe for fruitcake? Anything but fruit?"  Honestly, who looks at this on the shelf and thinks, "Oh, man that looks delicious!"? I will tell you.  Stevie Wonder.

First off, how can water become any more of a weight loss product?  It's WATER!  And secondly, when you think of the perfect picture of health and weight loss, NASCAR Legend Richard Petty is pretty much the only name that comes to your mind, am I right?  I am so confused by this.  Has Richard Petty EVER had a weight loss problem? I mean, his job is to drive a tiny car, can he even be fat? Perhaps this water is the secret to his success.  Well, that and a steady diet of chewing tobacco.

On the other hand....

This is not really a dig at people who live in Auburndale, I think it's just that I have been watching Psych too much lately and thus, using my hypersensitive powers of observation when at the Auburndale Wal-Mart and AHS football games, I have deduced that this product would go over incredibly well within in that community.  Larry the Cable Guy, powdered cheese, bacon flavor, sleeveless plaid, trucker caps- it's a dead giveaway.  And a match made in hillbilly heaven.  I mean, you put this with a Hot Pocket and RC Cola and whoooooo-eeeee! Dang son, that is some good eatin'.

I think this was donated by President Obama's Food Czar. You know, Michelle?  This little bag covers a family of 12 for 2 years.  You can't be letting people choose how many carbs they want to eat! That's madness!


And finally....

Pop Quiz time!  What should you do when someone donates at Cat Food Starter Kit?

a. Donate it to the SPCA
b. Give it to a food drive volunteer who owns a cat
c. Find a cat to give away with it

We chose C.  We went out behind the building where my dad works and found a stray to put in the food box with this kit. ('Crusty' can't WAIT for Thursday to get here, let me tell you.) Hey, it's only fair that the families be able to use what was donated.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

P.S. A word of warning for all Facebook users....

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A Cindy Quickie

Yesterday night the kids were totally bored, so I decided to have mercy on their poor little souls and let them bake something.  The truth is that I would bake all the time with the kids, but I have ZERO self-control when it comes to goodies in the house and I would weigh 8 thousand tons if started baking up stuff every day, so it is a special treat when I cave. While sitting at the computer I told Cindy, "How about we make some banana bread?  We have a nasty banana over there that we need to use, right?"  She very, very excitedly told me, "I will go check!" and then ran like the wind into the kitchen.  And then I heard her singing very happily, "We do, we do, we do!"  And then she came back and got really close to my face and in a very low, raspy Clint Eastwood-like voice she said, "It's FILTHY..."  So I guess from now on we will call it Filthy Banana Pumpkin Bread.

And in case you want the recipe, you can find it here.  Just be sure to use pumpkin pie spice (not nutmeg and cloves) and add two hefty handfuls (use Hulk-sized hands) of chocolate chips :)

Is It Just Me....

Or does detective Carlton Lassiter from the show Psych....

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Look a lot like the love child of....




                                        Mr. Bean                                     and               Robbie Rotten of Lazy Town?

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Trophy Daughter

A trophy just makes everything right with the world.

Softball is now officially over!  Cindy had her last game and got her trophy on Thursday night.  I am really, really, REALLY proud of her for giving such a good effort and making it through the season with very little drama.  I dreaded that this would become a huge mistake and halfway through she would start complaining and saying things like, "Do I have to go to softball again?"  But she never did.  And wouldn't you know that right after all this was over on Thursday night she looked at me and said, "I want to play Spring ball!"

On the outside I was like:

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But on the inside I was like:

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Okay, talk to me in March after a few weeks of spending most nights out at the ballpark and I might be singing a different tune, but still, I am just excited she doesn't hate my idea of playing softball!  This is huge :)