What I'm thankful for, pt 2

I am extremely thankful for my friends.

It's rare for me to go out and do things with other people. I never pick up the phone and call. A large percentage of the time, I have no idea where my phone has landed and even if I do hear it ring, I don't jump up to answer it. Email and social sites, while incredibly convenient, I rarely write a note to anyone.

I should probably rephrase my original comment to say, I'm extremely thankful I have any friends.

Anyway, you each know who you are and whether you are the person I call when I may have been drinking and can't remember the name of a song or the one I call when I want to talk about "what-ifs" or the one I call when I just need to get away from the house or the one I talk to once a year or the one I sit next to every day at work - thank you for being the best friends a person could have!

Clearly they got their father's taste in music

Tonight, as I was on my miserable drive home from work, I decided to pop in Galore by The Cure and went to my happy place. I was so happy bopping along and then I thought, why have I not let the kids hear this yet. They would LOVE it.

When I got BB in the bus, I was giddy as I pressed play for us to listen to Why Can't I Be You on our drive to get the girl.

We didn't make it a mile down the road and he was sleeping.

Fine, maybe he's just really tired.

So, I get the girl in the bus and she starts chattering about her Christmas program cd that we have already listened to 1,000 times and she can sing it in her sleep and I'm wondering how can neither of these children pick up on the brilliance that is flowing from my mini-van sound system right now?!?!?!?!?!

I'm going to try it again in the morning. They are MUCH more receptive to new things at 6:30 a.m.

This one's for you new mommy in Chicago :)

Queen of hearts costume

I normally do not play the normal mommy blog game of entering contests or posting giveaways, but this is just too good to not mention.

First, you must understand that I love Alice in Wonderland. Specifically, the rabbit character.

Second, you must appreciate my daughter's strong willed personality to understand the "perfectness" of this costume.

Third, you need to understand my love for things that are unique.

Then you will really appreciate my link to this blog contest.



Seriously, this is the cutest costume I have ever seen. And we are borderline with having the costume size fit, so I'm hoping that we win it!



So if you are interested in winning an Alice in Wonderland costume (cuz Queen of Hearts is spoken for) head over to the Grosgrain blog and check it out!

Photo converter

In my blog perusing, I came across this really cool photo converter. It will take your photo and age it 100 years. The site is in Japanese, but there is an English option.

Original:



Aged:

Win a virtual Jeff Kapfer painting

So, I'm a kids virtual world junkie cause it's what I do for work - not because I'm creepy.

This month, on buildabearville.com you can win a Jeff Kapfer painting for your Cub Condo when you play the daily fountain game in the Town Square.



If you absolutely love, love, love Jeff's work, you can check him out here and buy the real thing.

Link Share

While I'm trying to keep the focus of this blog to life with my children, I also want to be able to share fascinating sites as I find them.

Back in June, I posted about my sister marrying Uncle Ben. One of the great things about this marriage is that we gained an awesome set of extended family members. Even though we live states apart, we have been able to spend some time getting to know his family and they are extremely kind, warm hearted folks (which is a good thing because we wouldn't have sold my sister to them if they had not been.)

Uncle Ben's sister is a commissioned artist who is amazingly talented. She's also one of the best club dancers I have ever met. Take some time to check out her new website at www.laurahalley.com.

In my spare time...

The precious commodity of free time is not something that, as a mom, I get to enjoy. However, after reading about the author Jen Lancaster on one of my favorite blogs, I have made free time for reading a priority.

I started out with her most recent book "Such a Pretty Fat." Anyone who has ever tried to lose weight should read this book. Check out the promo...



During my trip to New York, I was able to finish "Bitter is the New Black." I also highly recommend this book especially if you have ever been out of work or wondered where in the heck all of your money goes.

Check it out!

Visual DNA

Found this little ditty on a blog today. I thought the results were interesting, though I've never considered myself as much of a dreamer. It's a fun little test if you have 5 minutes to spare. If you take it, be sure to come back and comment so I can give my own personal assessment.

Humor and a very late night

The other night I came across this little diddy and it may be the funniest (but yet most accurate) depiction of parenthood. It gives those wanting to pursue parenthood a little trial run that they can complete prior to actually taking the plunge.

The parts where I absolutely lost it:

Grocery Shopping

* Go to the supermarket. Take along the nearest thing to a pre-school child: a fully grown goat. (If you plan to have more than one child, take more than one goat.)
* Buy your weekly groceries without letting the goat(s) get out of your sight.
* Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys.

Cleanliness

* Smear peanut butter on your sofa.
* Smear jam on your curtains.
* Hide a fish behind the stereo. Leave it there all summer.
* Stick your fingers in dirt. Rub them on your walls.
* Color your other walls with crayons.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did!

Wake Up with Sesame Street

Thank you Sesame Street for making me smile in the morning with this little ditty...

Farewell Olympics

Our home has been consumed by the Olympics for the past two weeks. Partially due to the fact that we are a sports family and by we I mean the three others that live with me. The other part is that we don't...now brace yourself...

We don't have cable.

Some other day, I'll post my opinions on having cable/satellite, but for now, back to the Olympics.

I have enjoyed watching the kids get excited about new sports and trying to mimic every world class performance. They have gone from wanting to be gymnasts to pro-volleyball players.

What I have not enjoyed, were the non stop Budweiser commercials. I recognize that somebody has to foot the bill, but they ran constantly. So much so, that when the commercials came on, the entire neighborhood could hear my kids belt out...

"This is BUZZ LIGHT YEAR, BUZZ LIGHT YEAR. This is BUZZ LIGHT YEAR, this is BEER"

Now, since neither A nor I are big drinkers, the kids have no idea what beer is. It's also nice that they have yet to come to me and ask why Buzz Light Year is continually getting hopped up on beer and folks are singing about it.