An Extra Day, A Pretty Girl and A Houseguest

Leap Day
What do you do with a whole extra day that only comes along once every four years? Well, if you're lucky, your cousin Zoe will call you up and ask you to play. Henners, Reese, Cousins Zoe and Isabella and Aunt Kimberly decided that an extra day makes them hungry. So we took the kids to Arctic Circle. The folks that own this restaurant claim "it's where the good stuff is". Henry claims it's where the indoor slippery slide is.

Here's the kiddies eating and surprisingly behaving. Maybe that "good stuff" is some sort of sedative to relax the kids.


Turns out, there is no sedative in Arctic Circle's food. After the kids finished their meals and Henry got over his corn dog envy (don't get me started) they still had enough energy to run around and play on the indoor play equipment for over an hour. I didn't document this playtime, but it DID happen. Oh yeah, they also saved room for ice cream.


After all the fun had been had and there wasn't any more to have, it was time for the cousins to say goodbye. Zoe wanted a hug. Henner's thought he'd make her want it a little more.


So Very Pretty
Thursday nights, Reesie and I spend about an hour or so alone together before the boys get home. Sometimes we play, sometimes we read. This Thursday, we posed for pretty pictures. I didn't caption them because I can only think of so many ways to say how very, very pretty Reese is. The little bear she is playing with is so special to us. Keely gave it to Reese the last time we saw her. We call the bear Teely (for Tim and Keely).


The Uninvited House Guest
Also on Leap Day, I decided it was time to do a headcount to make sure all of our family was accounted for. I began counting the four of us, I added two extra for the cats, plus two more for the dogs. I even counted Master-P (Henry's fish). The crickets were dead so no need to count them. Just then, I noticed one more thing lurking about.


Wait. That wasn't a very good look at him. Let me zoom in a little closer.


A spider! A spider? Yes, a spider! Well, this would not do. I didn't have nearly enough fresh sheets and towels for the little guy and the crickets were long gone so I had nothing to feed him. Just then, Jeremy sprung into action. He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a handful of rubber bands. He began shooting.

And shooting.

Still shooting. The spider was getting wise to him now and began almost taunting my husband. Even Henry was getting impatient. Here he is saying, "Get 'em, Dad," or shouting, "Let me do it!"

Reese and I were nervous and a little embarrassed for Jeremy.

Eventually the menacing spider was extracted from his perch near the ceiling. Good. Jeremy would like me to let you all know that he successfully shot the spider down. I would like you to all know the truth. Jeremy had to resort to snapping a twin sized blanked up and down the wall to broadly sweep the thing down.

Here's the two men of the house inspecting the spider.

Here's me and Reesie so happy that this whole ordeal is over.

Pandas and Fun Food

Politically Correct
This is one of Reesie's favorite stuffed animals. It is a panda bear from Ikea. Jeremy calls him Pedro the Panda. I mentioned to him that most pandas have Chinese names like, Ling Ling or Sing Ling.

Jeremy told me that he didn't want to perpetuate unnecessary stereotypes in front of the children. (BTW: has anyone seen the South Park episode that has the panda bear in it as a mascot? I won't tell you what his name or cause is, but as you can imagine, it's hilarious.)


Pudding Etiquette
Remember an earlier post about what happens when Jeremy is out of town and it's bedtime for Henry? Remember the tongs? Huddle up, I have a similar story for you all. Monday Jeremy had to stay late at work to finish up a deadline. After figuring out that Dad would be home late, well after bedtime, Henry decided he would celebrate by eating pudding in our bed.

I'm happy to report that all the pudding remained either in the pudding cup or in and/or around Henry's mouth. The previous time Henry talked us into having pudding in bed we ended up with chocolately delicious stains on the sheets.


More Food Stories
The other day at work I noticed my dear friend Sara had a huge bag of dried apricots from Trader Joes and a box of frozen edimame at her desk. She kindly offered to share her treats with me. Upon closer inspection of the bag of fruit I noticed that these were no ordinary apricots, they were choice CHOICE apricots. Wow.


I asked her if the same was true for the edimame. Sadly, no. Just ordinary protein.


Just then, hearing us conversating about edimame, our friend and co-worker CJ walked over an announced he had an awesome edimame story. Thinking this was funny, I told him that I had never heard a bad edimame story, but I was waiting in anticipation for his "awesome edimame" story.


CJ then sarcastically said, "Alright, I'll tell you my awesome edimame story, but I must warn you, it involves your Mom."

Roast. On me. And, I guess, my Mom.

Birthdays and Broken Closets

Birthday Girl
Wednesday we got together to celebrate Grandma Jo's birthday at one of our favorite steak houses, The Timbermine. You're probably all thinking to yourselves, "Wow, a steak house in Utah. Where would I ever find one of those?" Well, hold on. The Timbermine is fun. The inside is set up to look like the inside of a mine shaft. There's kooky displays of stuffed mannequins mining and ore cars everywhere. Henry loves to go to there not so much for the food, but for the atmosphere (see photos below) and because each booth has it's own light dimmer knob that is independently controlled by whoever sits there. So if you guessed that during most of the dinner we sit in total darkness at our table, you'd be right.

This was Reesie's second time at the restaurant, and both times she received plenty of compliments. She still plays naive though, pretending not to notice how cute everyone thinks she is.

Besides Henry controlling the mood lighting during much of the dinner, he also asked multiple times and in multiple ways if he could go home with Grandma and Grandpa. (This portion of the story becomes important later)

Here's the birthday girl enjoying some ice cream.


We gave Grandma Jo a digital picture frame for her birthday. We uploaded plenty of pictures for her on a scandisk so she could enjoy pictures of her grandchildren and us at work. (Of course, she'll enjoy the grandkids more) Grandpa Brent got Grandma Jo a new closet for her birthday. (long story - but the gist of it is: My Mom is a clothes horse and basically broke her closet rod last weekend due to the incredible weight of all her clothes hanging on only one side of her expansive walk-in closet) Sorry there, Mom. I outed you, but I needed it for the plot line.

Here's Henry during dinner thinking he's going home with my Mom and Dad.

Here's Henry starting to realize he may not be going home with my Mom and Dad.

Oh no. He's now knows that he's going home with us.

Especially For Ju-Lee

Alternative Lifestyles
Sometimes, as a parent, all you can do for your children is to love them and teach them right from wrong. There comes a point in their lives that they begin making decisions for themselves. As parents we may not fully understand or support these decisions ourselves, but we will always love our children unconditionally. Now, with that being said, you can imagine as a mother and also as a Yankee fan what heartbreak I was going through when I walked into Reesie's room and found this...



Yes, at the tender age of 4 months plus one week, Reese has gone out on her own and chosen the life of a Cubbies fan. All I can say to her is that this choice may bring her a life full of disappointment and frustration. Also false hope. Did I mention that already, a life of false hope?

As always, Jeremy and I will be here waiting with open arms when she decides to join us on the Yankee bandwagon once more. We've got plenty of room - lots of people left with Torre. We will love her equally either way. If it's a Cubbies hat she wants, a Cubbies hat she'll get. If it's a Cubbies championship she wants....let's not go there. (For the record, Jeremy and I suspect Henry might be a Boston fan due to his tendencies for cheering for teams wearing red)

Wait a minute. Maybe I should have titled this entry "Bad Influences!" No matter. What's done is done. Thank you, Lee for putting up with my Yankee talk. We love ya!

More on Ju-Lee
Many of yourselves may be asking the question, "Who the hell is Ju-Lee?" Here's the short of it. Ju-Lee is a hybrid of two of our friends, Julee and Lee. (They can thank Jeremy for the celebrity hook-up name melter, "Ju-Lee")

Julee is one of my dearest friends. She and I first bonded 11 years ago over television, radio and other media. She always has the best nails and jewelry. She's kind and so very, very smart. She also has one of the most pleasant phone voices I've ever heard.

Lee is Julee's fiance, thus by the transitive properties of friendship, now has become our friend too. He's a great guy, avid skier and has a big important desk job that involves concrete. He has whisked my friend away to such exotic locations such as Reno and LA to visit parking structures (more concrete). He is a Cubs fan and a Denver Broncos fan as well.

There you have it. For all the people that read this blog and may never meet you two, sadly, I've boiled you down to a girl that loves television and jewelry and a guy who takes said girl on trips to Reno.

Headbands, Sharing and...Wrestling?

Ummm...
There are no words. There are even fewer reasons.


Another Ummm...
You might think this rarely happens...
But then you'd be way wrong.


A Lesson for Mom Over the weekend, Henry crawled into our bed and sweetly asked me to go downstairs to his playroom and play with him. I obliged. He began playing with his trains.


I picked up some drumsticks and started playing his drums. He promptly dropped what he was doing, came over and took my sticks away. I pretended to cry. He then came over and patted my shoulder asking me what was the matter. I explained that he had taken my drumsticks. He then gave me this...

He then began playing with the good drumsticks, leaving me with one pathetic knock-off of a drum stick. Oh yeah, he also told me "See Mom, this is sharing".


Hornswaggling and Bippy Betting
Lately, something strange has been going on with Jeremy. He's been using very different vocabulary around me and the kids. For example, the other day I asked Jeremy if we would do me a favor. His response? "You bet yer bippy I can." What? What's a bippy? Should he be betting it? Should I be betting it? Do I even have one? I'm not going to waste my time looking this word up on urbandictionary.com because it's probably too tame for that site.

Also, recently, Jeremy has proudly declared that he "hornswaggled" something from Henry. He claims it's an old-timer expression meaning to barter or deal. Whatever. What sort of crowd is Jeremy hanging with these days? Well, I did a little search on hornswaggling. Apparently, I misspelled it. It is spelled Hornswoggle. Also, it is a person. Here he is...


Dylan Postl, better known by his ring names Hornswoggle, Hornswoggle McMahon or Little Bastard, is an American professional wrestler who so happens to dress as a leprichaun. He is currently signed to World Westling Entertainment appearing on its Raw and Smack Down! brands as an occasional wrestler.

Maybe Jeremy's been wrestling Henry?