April 2006 Archives

We spent some family time together this morning down at the nearest duck pond. The weather was beautiful and the ducks were hungry. What more could you ask for? Check out the pics here:

As Josh has already mentioned, we started our big Easter weekend off with a picnic put together by my moms' group. Let me tell you, Tarrant County Area Moms put together a great celebration. Actually, anytime we get together is a big celebration. Getting out of the house, having other kids around to keep our kids entertained and having adult conversation is a BIG DEAL for any stay-at-home-mom. We had food, games, prizes, kite flying and, of course, food.

Josh has worked his movie magic again. He's made a short highlights video showing just a bit of the memories made at this great Easter Picnic.

To view the video, click here.

We've finally gotten around to creating an Easter album. We didn't take pictures at every event. However, where there's no pictures, there's video. Josh will be posting those (yes, that means there's more than one) later ... to fill in the gaps. Enjoy!

Click here to view the album or go to our Photo Gallery.

Somebody's Watching ME....

If you remember the old Rockwell song (with Michael Jackson singing backup), you should run that song through your head while you read this post. With the release of Google Earth, virtual sightseeing has become a reality. You can visit Niagra Falls or the Grand Canyon from the comfort of your desk, and that's a good thing. Because those places are far away and full of tourists. You can get a similar experience--although not quite as cool--using Google Maps. I'll admit, I've wasted an hour or two checking out areial photos of downtown Manhatten, the Golden Gate Bridge and of course any cool Air Force Bases I could find.

I'd heard that Microsoft had a similar service called Windows Live Local but I was sure it couldn't be as good as Google's. So I checked it out today and for the most part I was right, Google is better, except there is one REALLY cool feature on the MS site. It's called Bird's Eye View and it's not availabe in all areas but it IS available directly above my house! Where Google uses old images from before we moved into our current house, the birds eye view feature on Live Local uses a fairly recent oblique angle shot of our neighborhood.

It's spooky how much you can see in this picture. It was probably taken while I was at work one morning, because you can see only the black Saturn in the drive and the lighting is pretty soft. Down the street is the street sweeper which comes by before noon. I'm guessing it was in the last 8-10 months because I can see the white gravel I added to the end of the drive less than a year ago. My bet is that is from early fall of last year because I can see brown patches where the St Augustine grass grows but green on the Bermuda. The bluish-grey truck in the street near the house is the neighbor's Ford Ranger, and if you dig around in some of the other nearby bird's eye pics, you can see why it is parked going the wrong way. They are backing it out to allow their big, ugly brown suburban out of the car port. In our back yard, I am baffled by the white specks, but the blue speck in the middle of the yard is the kids' slide. You can even see my grill directly behind the back door.

I'm astounded by the detail in that picture. As the years go by, I know that the picture quality will just get better and better. I guess this means I won't be able to run around naked in the backyard anymore. Too bad.

Noah and Hannah team up to form the Wonderful Whistling Whipper-snappers. Headache-inducing whistle-fest or music to your ears? You decide.

So we watched Mary Poppins about a month ago and of course, Myra loved it. I had taught her the songs "Supercalifragilistic Expialidocious" and "Let's Go Fly a Kite" before she saw the movie and she was thrilled to see them being sung in the movie although she informed me that Mary Poppins sings it the wrong way--turns out I didn't know the words as well as I thought. On countless occasions, she's asked to get a kite because of this movie and last weekend we even helped the neighbor girl fly hers. It was a lot of fun! This is surprising because A: I thought Myra would get bored with it quick and B: I NEVER enjoy spending time around the neighbor girl, but this time was pretty fun. Anyway, that sealed the deal for me, we had to get Myra a kite. Thanks to the great Easter Egg Hunt thrown by Christina's Mom's Club, we didn't even have to buy one.

At the Hunt, Myra found a prize egg and she chose a cute little Strawberry Shortcake kite as her prize. It turns out it was a perfect day for kite flying. The wind was blowing HARD all day long. In fact, one of the dads at the picnic tied a kite to a pole and it stayed up for more than an hour. She found a kite-eating tree in about 5 minutes but luckily, I was able to snatch life from the jaws of death. Later, one of the kids stepped on the string and disconnected the hook from the kite and you'd have thought that Myra had broken her arm. The tears flowed fast and furious until we were able to reattach the kite in emergency surgery. We had so much fun that later that day we headed up to Inspiration Point (the cool hill that overlooks Carswell) and flew it again.

Seeing Myra running around like mad trying to keep her kite aloft really brought back the memories. I remember making a kite from paper, string, and dowel rods in Cub Scouts that looked just like a Charlie Brown kite. Predictably, I crashed it into the massive cedar tree by my house 5 minutes after launch. It turns out that I'm MUCH better at flying kites now.

Daddy teaching Myra the ins and outs of kite flying ...

GO GO GO!

Hmmmm ....

That's what I'm talkin' about ...

Josh had to work late today so I had to go pick Myra up from school (Aunt DooDoo met us there to get Hannah). On the way out of the parking lot, Myra told me her sad story.

MYRA: Chandler never gives me a hug.
MOMMY: A lot of boys don't like hugging girls at your age. Maybe Chandler just doesn't like to hug girls.
MYRA: He always hugs Avery and he NEVER hugs me.

She sounded like she was about to break down and cry. Is she really that .... in love? She's only four!! Should I be worried about her teenage years?

We don't know who her teacher is yet but as of 5pm this afternoon,

Myra Lynnette is enrolled in Kindergarten!

She will be attending Chisholm Ridge Elementary (where Aunt DooDoo teaches) for the 2006-2007 school year. She was so excited to be there at "Kindergarten Round-Up". Mommy and Daddy filled out all the required paperwork while Myra talked with several of the Kindergarten teachers. Afterwards, we waited (Myra was a bit impatient) to take the hearing and eye tests. When we were finished with those, the school nurse said "Congratulations! You've past your first Kindergarten test." Myra got one of the biggest smiles I've ever seen. She then ran over to me and gave me a great big hug saying "Mommy, did you hear that? I'm ready for Kindergarten!" I have a feeling it's going to be a long summer for our little Wrangler.

Look who's 29-years-old today!

A thumbnail just wouldn't do this picture justice so I blew it up. Isn't he cute? Now we know where Noah gets all his good looks. HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY! WE LOVE YOU!

When I was little, I remember having to have my "Blanky" before I could go to sleep. Blanky wasn't just your average baby blanket. She was magical. She could turn me invisible like Harry Potter's cloak to hide me from the monsters that crept out of my closet to the foot of my bed. Those monsters would look for me. They'd crawl under my bed and pop out on the side hoping to catch me off guard. They never did because my Blanky was the BEST.

All kids have their security blankets whether it's a blanket, bear, baby doll (like Myra) or even a train (like Noah). We always check on the babies before heading to bed and last night, this is what we saw.

Myra and Dolly. Who's protecting who?
Myra REALLY loves Dolly.
Just for laughs ...
Right: what Dolly used to look like.
Left: what Dolly looks like now.

Here's Noah with Thomas, Henry, his Blanky and Wormy.
Notice the train station and semi-truck all in bed with him. It's all there to fight of ... BORDOM!

I'm so excited! Myra's first class picture is finally here. Tonight, Myra and I sat down to write all the names of her classmates so that when she looks back at this umpteen years from now ... well, she may not really remember them all but at least she'll have their names. I'm glad she's having fun with them and I hope she's not too dissapointed when she starts school next year and realizes that most of her classmates now aren't there. Who knows? She might meet up with them again in high school.

Notice the boy (third child from the left in the middle row) with the brightly colored striped shirt. Myra told me as we were listing the names "That's Chandler. I like Chandler! I'm going to marry him when we grow up." Sorry Angel but a girl has the right to change her mind.

I wouldn't get any rest! I'm glad to be back at school this morning because: I. AM. BEAT. This weekend, I fought the Battle of the Stumps which started as a botanical blitzkrieg and has bogged down into a bitter siege. We had a sickly, half-dead peach tree that was barely clinging to life in the backyard. The Boss said it had to go, so I got out the bow-saw and gave it the Paul Bunyan treatment but when it came to getting the stump out...well, it turned ugly. After about 2 hours of digging, cutting, and beating--as well as a healthy dose of the type of talk that is normally reserved for seafaring men--the chunk of wood FINALLY came out of the ground.

I tossed the lifeless tree carcass into the creek and went inside to find out that it was time to do some landscaping in the front yard. The remains of those massive hedges from last week were needing to hit the road and there were 4 stumps that were about as big as the one I'd just spent all evening fighting. Bright and early the next morning I attacked. With my trusty lieutenant Myra at my side and Seargent Noah roaming the yard in an obvious show of force, we assailed the smallest stump of the four with a fury of garden emplements. After 2 hours, I had sore arms and hands to match my sore back and one, yes one, stump out of the ground. The remaining three stared up at me smugly. Rather than embarass myself further, we headed to Lowe's to get some chemical weapons. We returned with a drill and a bottle of magic stuff. The three holdouts our now stuffed full of stump-rotting chemicals whose label assures us that in just a few weeks, these persistent buggers will be as brittle as an old lady's bones. Next weekend is a three day weekend. I'm afraid to see what Chris has in store for me.

This weekend, we worked some more on our front garden. We needed to remove the stumps left over from the moster bushes. After two hours of digging, chopping and pulling ... well, Josh finally got one out of four up. Like any good wife, I offered to help by getting on the handy dandy internet and doing a little research about stubborn stumps. I discovered that there is a product on the market called Stump Remover (go figure) by Spectracide that basicly poinsons the stumps and helps speed up the whole decomposition proccess. In about 4 to 6 weeks, we should be able to just pull those puppies up with little to no effort. The best part about this stuff, since it goes right inside the stump, it doesn't effect any of the surrounding vegetation. That means, we can plant ... stuff!

After looking at numerous shrubs, we decided on one called Wheeler's Dwarf Mock Orange. The mature plant hight on it is only 3 feet so we can keep Myra's window! I can't wait for them to grow.

Here's one of our beautiful new shrubs.

Yes, they are kind of small ...
... but they'll grow. As long as I didn't inherit my mother's brown ... (Who am I kidding?) ... black thumb, they'll grow.

At 1:02 and 3 seconds this morning, it was

01:02:03 on 04/05/06

Yeah, I didn't think about it either until I saw the news crew on Chanel 5 making such a big deal about it. I must admit, it is kinda cool.

Background:
Usually, we wait for the kids to go to bed before sitting down to watch our shows. As I mentioned yesterday, our veiwing list consist mainly of decorating shows.

Story:
Noah was wanting to go out back to play for a bit. Myra was kind enough to open the door for him. While standing with the door wide open, she says "When this door is open, it's so pretty in here. It really lights up the room!" Apparently, Myra's been learning a thing or two without our knowledge.

Josh and I have been talking about selling the house for several months now. In that discussion, we started making a list of all the things that need to be fixed up. We've enlisted the help of Clive Pearse and his disigner friend Lisa LaPorta so that we may get the most out of this old house ... they just don't know it. Clive is the host of HGTV's Designed to Sell while Lisa is exactly what I said ... the designer. We've set the TiVo up to record every episode and as we watch, our list keeps getting longer and longer. We need to clean the carpets and have them stretched again, fix a few cracks and a hole in the wall, redo our bathroom and somehow make our house look bigger than it is. Oh, we can't forget the all important curb appeal. "If the outside is unkept, what's the inside going to look like?" is a question asked by many "real estate experts" on the show. It's okay though, after doing some research, we've discovered that most of this stuff is small and costs little to no money. So, where am I going with this? I'll tell you.

Josh took the day off thinking he needed a break. I, on the other hand, had other plans for him. Can you say "Honey-Do List"? We started by playing a heavy game of Musical Dressers. First we cleaned out our closet and disassembled Josh's built-ins. Next, we moved Noah's dresser into our closet, Myra's dresser into Noah's room and my dresser (with mirror) into Myra's room. All this work so that we may MAXIMIZE the square footage (advice from our friend Lisa). After attacking the dressers, we moved outside. I "worked" on the garage, mainly separating the garage sale stuff from the keep stuff, and Josh worked on giving Myra a view.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

After playing in the dirt, it was back inside to clean up the mess created as a result of our fun game. Noah's room looks great. Myra's room still needs a little work. Her closet is currently overflowing into the rest of her room. OUr room ... well, let's just say the couches look quite comfortable. These are just the first of many projects we will be tackling but already I'm feeling better. Maybe someone will want our house afterall.

Josh, I just want you (and eveybody else) to know I'm very proud of you and I appreciate all the hard work you've done today. Way to go Daddy! So ... when's your next day off?

Everyone that has children understands how we, as adults, take many many MANY things for granted. For example, when your child says her first word or when he takes his very first step. Adults do these things everyday so we forget just how important these skills really are. Well, here's our BIG GIRL reminding us of one more everyday task we just don't think about anymore .... tying a shoe.

This morning we were eating at Denny's for breakfast and Myra had a pancake with whipped cream and cherries on it. She used to hate cherries but since they ate them once at school, she now loves them. She took a big bite of cherries and said excitedly, "Daddy this stuff is GOOD! It tastes just like strawberry medicine!" If that's what her medicine tastes like, I might have to give it a try the next time I get a cold.