A Jacob Quickie

So today is my birthday! The big 35.  And how does Jacob say Happy Birthday to me on this day? He hugs me, smiles really big and says, "I am so glad we are the same age again."  Enjoy it while it lasts ;)

Super Funny

Good eye, Maggie...

Ridiculous Country Coifs for $400

If you are ever on Jeopardy and Alex  gives you the clue "This man, without question, has the worst hair do in Country music history"- just as a public service, I am tipping you off that the answer is "Who is Reid Perry of The Band Perry".



Exhibit A

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Exhibit B

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Exhibit C

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It doesn't make sense.  He can afford any haircut in the world and he goes with the the "homeless Rachel."  Here's hoping he finds that mirror he's been looking for and all our lives will change for the better.

Box Tops for Hibernation

Way back in about November Jacob set a box of soccer uniforms in our garage on the workbench. And by box I mean "Cucuface trap." (And by workbench I mean "place where absolutely no work is done ever.") She started sleeping in the box occasionally but since the cold weather came, this thing has become her permanent home. You can find her curled up asleep in this box for 12 hours a day. And then 12 hours at night. Sometimes she barely even looks up when we open the door or go in the garage. She used to never want to get trapped in the garage all day when we were at work but now she will be sleeping in this box when I leave and will still be sleeping there when I get home with the kids after school. I am almost starting to think it is coated with some sort of magical catnip Valium or a there's a powerful magnet at the bottom that only attracts fur.  She even let me take this photo of her without looking up or moving once. She even refused food the other morning while in this box!!

Seriously, what is it with cats and boxes?!

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Let the Wild Rumpus Start

Thanks to my good friend Karin for reminding me that yesterday was the official start of my birthday week celebration!  And then I realized that it has started out quite fantastic. Yesterday at work our office manager bought everyone lunch for my birthday. Score! Then I pretty much had to go to CiCi's pizza last night to carbo-load for my 8K. (And I got to eat my favorite white trash dessert- Bavarian dessert pizza.  Mmmmm.) And that was the totally right thing to do because I placed first this morning in my age group for the 8K. Ta-da!

And tomorrow is Stake Conference so I don't have to find 7 substitutes for primary! I simply get to go to two hours of church followed by my birthday dinner at my parent's house.  That may be the best present of all! ;)

The Reason

Blogging has taken a back seat this week.  Why?  Because.......I had to register Cindy for softball and and I had to work and I am trying to not get sick while getting ready to run an 8k tomorrow and I had to watch American Idol two nights in a row because Cindy is obssessed with it and I had to make dinners and clean toilets and run errands and do 3 Jilian Michaels workouts because it's too cold to do anything more and I had to wash dishes and do laundry and invite my dad to do a 36 mile bike ride with me in March and meet a friend for ice cream and drive to Plant City to buy a softball helmet off craigslist and start watching season 7 of Psych on a probably very illegal website and fight with the kids for three days in a row about wearing jeans to school and also be convinced to let them have hot lunch so they could possibly win the lucky tray contest in the lunch room where someone has a star on the bottom of their tray and they win a pencil and hope that Jaocb's team advanced in Regionals and yet simultaneously hope they did not advance in Regionals because it would really mess up my birthday plans and make a hair appointment and check the mail and learn that I suck at making quesadillas and discover five new awesome songs on Spotify and have my birthday lunch at work and play LEGO Avengers with Luke and do Spirograph with Cindy and meet with Luke's teacher about him being tested for gifted and have crazy dreams about how Primary comes totally unglued when I show up late and last but not least I had to make copious amounts of cheese hot dogs for dinner.  Not proud of that last one, but my life is an open book.  A cookbook about hot dogs.

When The Mallow's A Flamin'...

It was Sunday afternoon.  It was kinda cold outside and we all had a day off from work and school the following day, so it was the perfect evening to have our Family Home Evening include a backyard fire with s'mores. Only I didn't have any graham crackers.  So I called Bingham's General Store and spoke with the manager, Linda.  They always let me shop for free over there when I am in a pinch, but, alas! She said they were fresh out of graham crackers.  Inconceivable!  As I was not going to break the Sabbath and go buy the crackers, this only meant one thing.  

I was going to have to MAKE my own!!!

THE HORROR!!

Desperate times call for desperate Pinterest searches.  

I found this recipe and the rest is history.

Waiting for my grahams..

With the most awesome Spock oven mitt the world has ever seen.  

Thanks to my brother, Dave for its gloriousness.  It was a Christmas present of epic proportions!

I couldn't believe it, but I actually made something that kind of resembled and tasted like graham crackers!  Mine turned out like the consistency of Gingerbread- without the horrible gingerbread flavor!!  You do have to kind of overcook them to get the crunchiness of regular crackers, which I did not do well enough because I am a burned cookie Nazi and always under cook mine every time, BUT.....

Homemade s'mores by the fire?  Not too shabby!

Bad News: Gut-wrenching agony, Good News: Cindy Quickies

I need to blog. I know. To be honest, I waited all week because this post was supposed to be about Jacob's soccer team winning the district title last night.  Unfortunately, it isn't. And I am not sure I can ever really blog about that.  Not at least until I finish a few months of therapy.  Because losing after two overtimes and a penalty kick shootout is about as painful as one can imagine.  No, strike that.  It's worse.  And I'm not even on the team! It's difficult to even type this, so I am going to move on to some Cindy Quickies and change the subject.  Because coping by avoidance is what I do best :)


Cindy Quickies

While we were out running our Saturday errands today, I remembered that I wanted to tell the kids that TODAY was the day we needed to start picking out our clothes for Sunday.  I feel like we have been doing horrible in the "getting ready in a timely manner for Church department" lately, so I said, "I need to tell you about something we need to do today. Okay, I know this is going to sound totally weird, but you kids need to pick out your clothes TODAY for what you are going to wear to church tomorrow."  Cindy looked confused and said, "Oh, when you said that it was something totally weird I thought you were going to say something like 'we need to jump rope with all the dental floss we have' or something like that."  I should preface everything I say with that phrase.  It would make Cindy's life more exciting, I think.


Today Cindy was asking me about the Winter Olympics.  It went something like this:

Cindy: What kind of things do they do? Do they do figure skating?
Me: Yes.
Cindy: Do they do skiing?
Me: Yep.
Cindy: Snowball fights?
Me: No, but holy crap that would be awesome.

Yay or Nay?

The following commercial is a finalist in the annual Super Bowl commercial contest sponsored by Doritos.  My brother-in-law Sean and I have two different opinions on whether it is funny.  Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.  Or if that is impossible, which blogger is probably going to make it, just leave it on Facebook :)

Riddle Me This

This picture proves that:

a.  I make the greatest oatmeal in the world because these are all the empty cans we went through in 2013.
b. It was actually cold enough here to wear sweats one day.
c. Cindy has been using her bow and arrow so much that her arm is permanently stuck that way.
d. Luke needs to take some major vitamins because he first wore that Iron Man costume three years ago for Halloween and it still fits.
e. All of the above

I Resolve to Become More Resolute

So if you were wondering about that number over there on the left hand side of the blog, I was making a few fitness goals for 2014 and I decided that I want to try and run/bike 500 miles over the course of the year.  Initially my goal was to run all 500 miles, but that is probably unrealistic because my knees will be very angry with me and, since we are being honest, I don't think I actually like to run that much.  I wanted to lower the overall mileage goal, but anything but 500 miles just doesn't work because it doesn't go with the song.  Is it weird that I plan my life goals according to song lyrics and popular phrases?  Have you met me?  So hopefully this counter I can update will help me keep on running and also reach my goal to get back into cycling a little more this year. As far as my other resolutions, this year I decided to set goals only by the quarter.  It seems a little daunting to predict what I will have time to be doing 8 months from now, but planning for the next 3 months seems manageable.  I won't share all my resolutions, but for those interested, here are ten.

MY TOP TEN GOALS FOR THE FIRST QUARTER

10. Mop an IHop bathroom in 6 different states
9.  Blame absolutely everything that goes wrong on the Polar Vortex
8.  Train an army of hermit crabs and finally get the secret formula for Krabby Patties
7.  Meet my childhood hero, Alfonso Ribeiro
6.  Play lots of golf, re-read Mein Kampf, finally beat level 11 in Candy Crush (Oh, wait, those are President Obama's goals for the first quarter. So sorry.)
5.  Run a three-legged 5K
4.  Translate Ke$ha's smash hit "Tik Tok" into Afrikaans
3.  Abolish Primary and make parents teach their own dang kids
2.  Ski down a mountain of garbage at the county waste station
1.  Adopt a drifter

A Cindy Quickie

My brother is looking for a new IT-related job so that he can relocate closer to family.  The other day I was talking about it with Cindy.  She didn't really have any ideas about it but suddenly got really excited and said, "Tell him to move here and work for Publix!!"  (Publix is a large grocery store chain with its headquarters here in Lakeland.)  I didn't think that suggestion was half-bad until she followed it with, "Then Luke and I could get free cookies even after we turn 12."  Well if your uncle is going to get a new job, he might as well get one that benefits you, I always say.

Is It Just Me.....

Or this is not 100% accurate?

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(For those of you who are not aware, the man on the left is a horrible white rapper and the man on the right is Toby, the HR director from the show The Office.  Sorry to insult you, Toby.)

Reason #4 Why Luke is an Awesome Child

Because when you take too long in the bathroom, he doesn't really bother you or get angry, he simply passes you a note under the door:

Majority Rules, But I'm the One Who's Suffraging...

Every time Cindy and Luke want to watch a movie I tell them they have to watch something they both agree on. Which apparently is so difficult that only a complex list and voting system can solve the matter. Seriously, Cindy makes one of these lists about twice a day and the process is so long and drawn out that it usually takes longer for them to decide on the movie than to watch the movie.  I am not even sure how the voting system works, but I do know you can argue for your choice and give the pros and cons. I try to not get roped in at all costs, for if I do, I have fallen victim to one of the classic blunders, the most notable of which is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: Never get involved with the children when movie night is on the line.

And Megamind beats out Spy Kids 4 by a circle?!!  I can't live on a planet where Megamind barely beats Spy Kids 4.  What a world, what a world!!!

A Luke Quickie

When my parents came back from spending Christmas in Maine, they brought some little souvenirs for Luke and Cindy. (And me. My moose head ornament is awesome :)  Luke's present was a duck call and last night he was alternating eating chocolate ice cream and blowing the duck call.  Finally he stopped eating his ice cream and gave me that look that said he was afraid of telling me he couldn't finish it.  He finally came over to me and I quietly asked him if he was full.  He quietly told me, "No, it's just that I can't finish the ice cream because now it kinda tastes like wood."  Uncle Si never tells you those kinda things, you know?