Lukemuffs

Santa brought Lindy the cutest coat that he apparently got at Old Navy. It is no surprise to me that Santa and Old Navy have some sort of connection. I have long suspected that only magical elves could make such wonderful and cheap clothing. Everytime I go into the Nave (so I don't really call it that, but I thought it would look like we were really close friends if I had a nickname for it, did it work?) I am afraid the alarms will go off because at least half of what I or my children are wearing comes from there. When we hit a 50% off all clearance sale... ahh. good times, good times. OH, was I talking about something? RIGHT. The coat that Santa brought Lindy. Exactly. Well he also tucked in some fluffy earmuffs to go with it. Fuzzy earmuffs are really cute. Babies are really cute. It doesn't take a logic wiz to fill in where this is going. We put the fluffy, fuzzy earmuffs on the sweet, squishy baby.

At first he was all, "What the What are you people doing to me? FREAKS AND WEIRDOS!"

Then he decided he liked being Lukemuffs.

But then Lukemuffs had too much eggnog and got a little tipsy. It's the holidays, right?

Be responsible out there, kids. Stay classy. Love, Lukemuffs xoxo

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!

December has been awesome. Birthdays and parties galore. Hank turned three. Matt and I had birthdays. It has been a great month and a busy one. The other day I came into the front room to find Hank and Lindy cleaning all the Christmas ornaments with hand sanitizer. I could tell you that I watch my kids and that this was all supervised, but I'm pretty sure I was in the kitchen sneaking truffles when this occurred. What!?! It's Christmas and I had a big birthday. I think I'm allowed a couple of truffles and to ignore my kids while they sanitize the Christmas tree. Besides, safety and cleanliness are important issues this time of year.

I am happy to announce that we have the cleanest tree in Idaho, possibly even the world.

Luke might be a little guy, but he goes for the punchout every time. Nice one Luke, nice one.

Here's wishing you and your family a very fun, clean and sanitized, and slightly insane Christmas.

Wednesdays are the Turd.

Here is some music to put a smile on your soul.

This one first because Feist is one of my favorites and this is one of my favorites of hers. It is full of joy and sparkles and who wouldn't want to be whisked away by magic toast to your own magical fairy tale? And the words to this song are pretty much my life anthem. love, napolean.

And this one because this band is a recent discovery and already I am in love love love. And who wouldn't want to look like Rashida Jones and be courted by a puppet?



Have a fun day. May your puppets/ magic toast make all your dreams come true.

Squash, Teethies, and other Shenanigans

In honor of Halloween Luke tried squash. Here are his thoughts (courtesy of me making up stuff for him to say that go along with his pictures).
P.S. The pictures are a terrible quality. It takes a special skill to feed the kid and take pictures at the same time-- a skill I sadly do not have.

Hmmmm.... what is this new taste sensation??

Uh, not sure I like it.

Ew Yech, definitely don't like it.

But I like you! The End.

Luke also cut his front two teeth recently. Can you see them in this picture? That may seem like a joke, because you probably can't see them in this tiny picture. But I promise they are there and they are rad. He went from the 50% in weight to the 14% at his last appointment and will switch permanently to formula soon due to being a lightweight. He's fun. We like him. We should have named him Whistling Pete (as in everyone's favorite firework) though because the kid loves to scream. Constantly. It's funnnnnn.

Hank and Lindy had scads of good times the entire week of Halloween. Here they are posing for a JC Penney ad. I think Hank could make us some real cash with his male modeling. We call this one the Magnum and it's no where near ready. I shouldn't even be talking about it (name the show, it's so hot right now)!

This is the cape I made for Hank to dress up as Super Why, With the Power to Read! That's what he wanted to be. Funny though, he looks a little more like a gangsta version of Hamburgler to me.

The Map

Lindy has a new friend at school and has really wanted to invite her over. I told her if she got the little girl's last name or her phone number then we would call her. Lindy got off the bus all excited a couple of weeks ago.

"I asked my friend her last name." she said with a grin.
"Oh good, what is it?" I ask.
"Hm.." she thought as she tapped her chin, "I know it started with Mmm or Rrr -- or Gu. Ghoster? Coasten? Roaster? Rover? Monster? Yeah. Monster. So can we call her?"

Hmm. I can see now how well that conversation would go.
Me: "Hello? Mrs. Monster? My daughter would like to invite your daughter to play. Where do you live and we will come pick her up."
Barbra Monster: "Oh, how delightful. She would love to come. Here are the directions to us: we live in some kid's closet. Just go past the bathroom and then turn right at the open door. But we are only there at night. OH, and if it's this weekend, we will be at our vacation home under some other kid's bed. So when were you planning?"

I told Lindy she was going to have to get the little girl's real last name, like write it down, or better yet get her phone number.

Well I think the problem is solved. The other day Lindy came home with a map. Now it is no secret that I love maps. I can spend several hours googlemapping my way all over the world. Ever since they added the street-view feature...oh my, I can't quite profess my love of googlemaps enough. I would do a commercial for them. So I figured we were in business when Lindy told me that the friend had drawn a map and it was in her backpack for me to look at. Because with all of my googlemap prowless I felt prepared for any cartography challenge.



Oh yes. That is helpful. Let's go pick her up. I'll just get my bag.

Killin' Is My Business- And business is Gooood.

*If you can name the movie my title comes from you get a really big cyber high-five and extra points for watching hilarious movies.

It started on a Monday night. Matt and I were sitting in the kitchen debating politics and religion, as we do most every night (ha), and I noticed the garage door into the house had been left ajar since we got home...a couple of hours. No big deal, I closed the door. A few minutes later, just as our Hulu streaming of The Office was getting good --- oh, I mean our conversation on politics was getting very deep--- Matt said "Oh MY HECK!! There is a mouse in here."

"What the WHAT?" I shouted, and paused our Office episode (no use pretending anymore. We don't talk about politics. We watch t.v. Do you hate us now?)

It was in the laundry room. We saw it run under the washer. Oh. IT WAS ON!

I have never really understood the drive behind hunting. I don't like to eat wild game (I don't even like cow meat, and it's pretty easy to come by), although once, at Ricks, our friend Macee bought some ostrich jerky off a guy going door to door. Guess what? It tasted exactly like beef jerky. Only Macee paid like 20 bucks for it. Some dude at Ricks unwrapped a Slim Jim and sold it to girls who thought he was cute for a 2,000% profit (check my math, pretty sure it's wrong). Genius. But I digress... I've never really understood the love of hunting. The walking around for hours to find the perfect spot, the wearing of the camo, the waiting for hours eating nothing but beef jerky (or ostrich if you're Macee), only to shoot and miss your elk/deer/bear/lion and start the entire process over, it just isn't for me. Until that fateful Monday night.

Matt and I figured we had the little wretch. We decided we needed to empty the laundry room of all contents but the washer and dryer so that if he ran he wouldn't have anywhere to go. It was a foolproof plan. It took us a while to throw everything into the kitchen, but this was going to be worth it. That little rat would be sorry it ever came in here. HAHAHA. My brain was already transforming into that of a hunter, how to trap it, how to kill it...it was all I could think about.

We got out some melon and some peanut butter and put it on a new-style mouse trap Matt had out in the garage. I went in the kitchen and closed the adjoining door. Matt sat on a bucket in the garage and we waited. And waited. I felt just as authentic as if I had been crouched beside a tree waiting for my big buck. Finally the mouse took the bait. Hazaa...wait, no. He literally took the bait. Without setting off the trap. Took the melon and was flitting off, carefree. Matt attacked all combat style, sometimes you've gotta go hand to hand out in the wild (I really don't think that's true). He grabbed his broom and all I could hear was tens of dollars of damage being done to the walls and my broom. It sounded like the inside of a dryer in there. Whack! Slam! Explative! I grabbed my Clorox Ready Mop as to be...well, Ready. And I was glad I did. The little bugger scurried under the kitchen door. "OH NO SUCKER. NOT ON MY WATCH." Slamm-O! went the Clorox Mop. I squished/ swished him back under the door for my tag-team to finish off. But just like a real buck in the real wilderness, somehow he escaped our clever snare of an empty laundry room and retreated back under the washer. BULLOCKS! Time to restrategize, grab some ostrich jerky and start again.

We figured we had him this time. Matt resumed his place on the bucket in the garage. The "mousetrap" (read peice of crap) was reloaded with 4 TBS of peanut butter and an entire slice of honeydew, probably the tastiest melon in the land. The difference was that this time I did not wait in the kitchen. I stealthily perched myself atop our LG front load washer with my Clorox Ready Mop in hand. The plan was simple. The mouse would smell the delicious melon, long for the sticky yummy peanut butter and venture out for a snack. All we had to do was wait. We were good for it. It was only 11:00 pm and we were all hopped up on adrenaline and ostrich jerky (okay, no jerky, but I have a hard time dropping things...it's a little OCD.). We couldn't be more authentic hunters if we were wearing all camo drenched in deer urine, squatting in the night with nothing but our gun and scope to keep us company. Riiigghht. We waited. and waited. and waited. We didn't dare move an inch, didn't want to spook him. Time ticked. My legs started to go to sleep...and then went fully to sleep. My back started to hurt. The Ready Mop got heavier, a lot heavier. Still we sat. At some point the adrenaline must have tapered off because my eyelids began to get heavy. I glanced at Matt out in the garage on his tipped-over orange Home Depot bucket. Was he asleep? My blurry eyes couldn't tell. I gestured that we should have a pow-wow. Getting off of the washer was a trick in itself with my sleepy legs and my weak arms from holding that 400 pound mop for so long. It had been over an hour. It was after midnight. Have I mentioned Matt gets up before 5 for work? And I was supposed to be on game to teach 10 preschoolers in the morning? The thrill of hunting was wearing down. Way, way down.

We devised a contraption that would make it so the mouse couldn't get out of the laundry room into the house. It consisted of a pvc pipe placed in the crack of the door and wood stacked in front of that. The tasty treats of peanut butter and melon were replaced with De-con.Foolproof. No worries. All we had to do was wait for him to eat some De-con and die. By the time all was said and done, we went to bed at 1:30. I felt like a total failure. I wanted to do it myself. But I guessed the De-con was just as good.

I avoided the laundry room as long as possible. Two days went by and then my want for clean undies overpowered the stench of failure and I had to go in the laundry room. I did my wash with a clenched jaw.

Then on Thursday morning I was getting Hank some yogurt and saw a little something out of the corner of my eye near the huge pile of crap that had been thrown from the laundry room, but mysteriously not been cleaned up. "Ha," I thought to myself, "wouldn't it be funny if that was the .....MOUUUUUUSSSEE!" He was in my kitchen! He scurried into the pantry. And all of my hunter instincts returned. "Gotcha." I said with a sick sneer on my face. I grabbed my Clorox Ready Mop that was now as light as air. I spun it around a few times like a baton or some nunchucks (not really, but that would have been rad) and I was ready for my short game. Our pantry has boxes lining the floor with such treasures as cans of beans, cans of spaghetti sauce, cans of corn. I knew he was hiding behind one. This mouse was about to die. I scooted the boxes out one at a time. I had him. I knew I had him. Until I had scooted all the boxes and he wasn't there. What the WHAT? He had to be there.

"I want more yogurt." Hank said.

"SHHHHH. Mama's killin'. Just a minute. Stay where you are, things is gonna get ugly." I replied.

I didn't hear what he said back. Too focused. I realized it was possible that the mouse was in one of the boxes. I lifted a pan that was sitting on top of one and wallla! There he was. He lept out of that box and into another. The Ready Mop slammed the box. I was not under my own power anymore. Instinct or the mop or both had taken over. He ran out of that box and into the middle of the floor. I think I heard myself snicker as I brought the Ready Mop down with all my strength. BAM. Congratulations to me, I graduated from hunter to killer. I shook. I nearly threw up. I had to clean up the mess. I nearly threw up again.

My friend Carrie's husband went bear hunting. I asked what he would do with the bear if he caught it and Carrie told me that he mainly wanted it for a rug and that they also make good sausage. So a word of advice for my friends: Don't eat the sausage at my house, but you should definitely check out the new mouse-skin rug in Lindy's Barbie house.

A Curious Way To Spend an Afternoon or The Mysterious Turd.

Last Friday Lindy had kindergarten and Matt had the day off. We decided to take advantage of being one kid down and went to town. As is customary and usual, we stopped off at my Mom and Dad's (although, so many of my stories are starting off this way, I may have to quit). The baby needed feeding and Hank needed to be reminded to go potty.

A while into the visiting, after both the baby and Hank had their needs addressed, Matt came into the front room from the kitchen with a napkin. The napkin held up what looked like a tiny claud of dirt, about the height of a quarter and the appearance of a chewed-up tootsie roll.

"Do you know how this got on the middle of the kitchen floor?" He asked, looking at me with a slight suggestion of hysteria in his voice.

"What is it?" I answered his question with a question, I'm good at that.

"It's poop." We all stared at Hank. He was the obvious answer.

"Hank," I decided a direct approach was best, "did you poop on Grandma's floor?"

"No." said Hank, and I have to tell you, the kid is usually pretty honest. When he poops his pants at home, he tells me. So I was inclined to believe him.

"Did you poop your pants?" I asked him again, this time I checked his underwear while I asked. Clean. Not even the hint of a skidmark. I turned back to Matt.

"Are you sure it's poop?" I asked him, getting confused. Maybe it really was a tootsie roll, I didn't know. Matt carefully opened the napkin that he had folded the lump into. Hesitantly, disdainfully, he sniffed the air.

"It's poop." He coughed, with a surly scowl sent my way.

We examined the situation. Clearly Hank was not in the kitchen by himself long enough to pull his pants down, drop the "tootsie," pull his pants up (all while not leaving a mark in his undies), pick up his sweet sucker (which he would have had to set down), and return to the front room looking like nothing had happened. He didn't have the time for one, he doesn't have the control for two.


"Could it have come in from outside on someone's shoe?" I questioned. Matt carefully squeezed in order to gauge the probability by the viscosity of the, uh, turd.

"It's. too. fresh." Matt whispered, looking like a beaten man, again sending a look my way.

"Maybe it's not Hank's..." I was totally baffled. My Mom sent a suspicious look toward my Dad.

"You are accusing me of pooping my pants?!?" My Father retorted back incredulously, obviously offended.

"Well, you are the one who says you're getting too old to trust a fart..." She said, then trailed off, perhaps realizing the gravity of thing she was accusing her husband of over 40 years of.

"Well, maybe it fell out of Hank's shorts?" She offered an alternate theory. Hmm. Could be. I mean he was wearing loose shorts, and his itty bitty buttocks doesn't quite fill up his Tow-Mater undies....but how do we explain there being no trace of it in the undies? And no urge to finish the job (pun intended)?

The debate went on all afternoon. The question still remains. Obviously it had to have come from Hank...but how? And when? And did it really come from him? I took him to the bathroom right before the incident and there were no tell-tale signs of an impending, ahem, job. I guess it will forever remain an enigma. I feel like I am on an episode of "The X-Files," only instead of aliens, a mysterious turd is being investigated. I wish that old show, "Unsolved Mysteries" with Robert Stack was still on. I'm sure they would take the case. Then we could set up a hotline and anonymous tipsters could call in with their theories. And how about you? Iiif you (said like Robert Stack from "Unsolved Mysteries") have the link in this puzzle, please step forward. Do you know who left the turd in the middle of my mother's kitchen? Do you have any equally heartwarming and lovely pottytraining stories (because this story is nothing if not heartwarming and lovely)? Let's hear it!

Hmmm. Come to think of it, he doesn't look quite so innocent, does he?

I thought if I ignored it, it would go away.

Lindy went to kindergarten. Have you ever been reading a really intense book and flipped to the end to see what characters names are still there to make sure they all live through the drama? Well, I will inform you now that everyone lived in this tale of school starting. And Lindy had a great time. This all day kindergarten is not good for my bones, but she loved it despite some sort of getting lost at lunch and having to have a teacher help her find her class....details are fuzzy. But she had a great time and can't wait to go back.


There goes the neighborhood. It helped me (and probably her too... what, this isn't about me? Oh. I'll note that, really I will.) to have some people there to support her. Sweet Piper took her hand and sat with her on the bus and, I am told, helped her find her classroom on the other end. I could buy that girl a pony (well, if I had the money for a pony and didn't think her mom would kill me dead). These kids are all from our end of the street and boy howdy do they all have a good time together.


And here she is, home safe and sound. Overall it was fine.( sniff, sob, bawl). It was fiiiiine. Let's talk about something else.

Here is someone else. I will cry when he starts school too. But for now, he is just losing a little cushy on his tushy.


I'm not sure I've ever seen such a skinny boy look so happy over a pair of Mack underwear.

Oh, and just personal word of advice, you know, because if there is one thing I love it is to give unsolicited advice. I would not recommend starting potty training the week your older baby goes to kindergarten. It is almost too much for a lady to handle.


I think these pictures of Luke sum up how I felt most of the week.

I cried.


And I slept.
Although, unlike Luke I did not sit on the freezer in the garage to do it. But whatever, it's pretty much the same.

So there you have it, babies getting on busses, teachers, getting lost at lunch, poop &pee, crying, weeping, gnashing of teeth...but here it is the back page and we all survived the drama.

The Day Matt and I Almost Died.

A few days ago, our little family headed to town. As is usually the custom with our trips to town, we stopped at my mom and dad's house. These stops are for a variety of reasons: someone needing to go to the bathroom, someone is hungry (like the baby...or me, either one), or sometimes we try to con my mom into babysitting while we go to Walmart for a hot date of grocery shopping. This trip started out as no different. Then Lindy found the strawberry patch. She was instantly in love. She got a bowl and she and Hank tenaciously picked all the small red berries. After about a half hour they had a dish of berries to be envied. Always the hostess with the mostess, Lindy went around offering us all a berry or two.
"Oh, these are divine." My father offered after eating his sweet berry.
"MMM! I could eat these all day!" exclaimed my mom upon devouring her lovely seeded song.
"Yummm!" "OOOOHHH" "AHHH," were the cries of different members of the family at different times. Then Lindy circled back to me. I was putting Luke in his carseat. Lindy looked thoughtful. "I bet Luke wants a strawberry." She paused, then continued, "Actually, I bet Luke is like, 'What the Hell's a strawberry?!'"
My mom swooned from the shock.
My dad hung his head in disbelieve.
Matt and I hid our faces and nearly died from laughing.

ps. she goes to kindergarten tomorrow. what will i do??!!??

The Power of Prayer

The other night, Lindy was asked to give the blessing on the food. We were having breakfast burritos, not that it matters, but I just got thinking about the whole situation and remembered that I love breakfast burritos. We're probably having them tonight too. But I digress. There is nothing like a good burrito to get me off topic. Unless it is a sandwich, now a good sandwich I could talk about for hours. Maybe we'll have sandwiches for dinner. Anyway, back to the matter at hand. Here is her prayer in it's entirety.

I'm going to write it like a letter because I started writing it as a gigantic run-on sentence, but it just seemed wrong, so here it is...Lindy's letter prayer (like how I use a gigantic run-on to say I'm not going to use a run-on? Nothing but the finest grammar here, people.).

"Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for this day. Please bless Luke that he will grow up to be handsome. Please bless Hank that he will be handsome. Please bless me to always be cute. Please help us to, whenever we go somewhere, look our best and be cute.
Oh, and please bless the food... Amen."

So when you see us and notice how strikingly handsome and cute we all are, don't be surprised. It's just the power of prayer at work.

I think Lindy has cute down, even if she does kind of look like a pink gangsta. Instead of the bloods or the crypts her gang would be called the marshmallows or the powder puffs. Either way, she looks pretty tough and cute simultaneously, which I have heard is pretty hard to pull off.

And this one? He smiles now. Pretty handsome if you ask me.

And Hank. Well, take away the barbie shoes, the baby swing, and the pajamas at 4:25 in the afternoon, and this dude is pretty handsome too.

Oh, and please bless the food. Amen.

A special day indeed.

Hooray! It's photo shoot day! And you are lucky enough to get commentary on each picture from Luke. Psst... it's actually me, but there's nothin' I like better than talking for babies. I'm pretty sure I'm right on the money for this series of photos too. Not to brag, but it was pretty obvious to me what Luke was thinking throughout the process. Just call me the baby whisperer.

1. Now? You want to do a photo shoot now? Fine. Let me see if I can get my eyes open. I'm pretty tired. Napping really takes it out of me, you know.

2. OH BARF. A kissy one? I don't have great control of my arms, how am I supposed to wipe off these kisses in disgust? Blech.

3. For reals, I'm bored now. You guys totally bore me. Seriously. Bored. You too, Hank?

4. Who let one!? I'm trying to work here! So disrespectful. Hank...I know it was you.

5. Yeah. Badda-bing, baby! I work alone.

In other news, this man and I were married 9 years ago today. Best thing I ever done did. I love him for more reasons than there are stars to wish on. What a lucky girl I am that 3 kids, 3 dogs, 4 homes and 9 jobs later, we still get along famously. Love ya babe, xoxoxo.

But to be fair, he got a pretty good deal too. I mean, you don't find this amount of awesomeness and attractiveness very often. Am I right? Oh, the eyelashes? Jealous? I thought so.

Happy anniversary Matt. You R-O-C-K in the U-S-A.

Marseilles Dress SHABBY APPLE GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Marseilles Dress SHABBY APPLE GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Um... yes please. Thanks again to my cousin Janet for finding this giveaway. I would almost feel guilty if I won it and she didn't since she did all the leg work. Yep. Almost. I have quite the wishlist over at the Shabby Apple and this would make me a very happy girl indeed. Good luck Janet, good luck -said with gritted teeth while secretly wishing her no luck at all, secretly wishing me all the luck. Because that is the type of person I really am. Selfish to the core. TO THE CORE hehehe (that's my evil witch laugh)! Oh I kid, good luck Janet. No really. I mean it. Good luck. Nope- don't mean it- I want the dress.

Gettin' Her Hair Did.

Strike a pose: VOGUE. I think Lindy gets it. Hank was working on copying her....Derik Zoolander need not worry.

Also Lindy decided that she wanted her hair cut for kindergarten. She chose how she wanted it and we called Connie. Connie lives across the street from my momma and has a salon in her basement. She cut my hair when I was Lindy's age and now she cuts Lindy's. We are huge Connie fans at our house. When my parents were in the Philippines and we lived in their house, Connie took Lindy under her wing and Lindy loves her. So there really was no choice. Lindy wouldn't trust a hair cut of this importance to just anyone. It had to be Connie. I mean this is her kindergarten haircut we're talking about here. We were lucky that she could squeeze Lindy in today.

BEFORE

THE WASH


THE CUT
(with Connie's darling granddaughter & Lindy's good friend Audi).


AFTER: FRONT & BACK

I think it's adorable. I do think just about everything she does is adorable...but still. And more importantly, she loves it. She has some extra sass in her step today, boy howdy.

And on a personal note, I apologize if there are words out of order or random sentences that don't fit in this post. I haven't been getting a lot of sleep lately. Oh, what's been keeping me up? This boy. Luke. Perhaps you remember him from the past two posts. He's new. He's almost two weeks old. WHAT? That was two weeks ago? Hm. It feels like it was earlier today and 100 years ago all at once. He didn't want to be left out of all the beauty going on here (Actually, he probably did want to be left out of it all. He probably wanted to eat or sleep or cry...possibly even poop. But his hair was getting a little greezy.), so he got his hair washed. I was all prepared for a screaming fest- because he is a screamer- but he loved it. And by loved it, I mean loved it (it seems like that may be one of the sentences that makes no sense...of course by loved it I mean loved it....but I'm not going to fix it. Why spend the two seconds it would take to erase the end of that when I can take a full 60 seconds writing a long and boring explanation of it? Yes. Much easier this way.) Anyway, a picture of the hair wash that he so clearly loved. Oh, did I mention he loved it? And did I mention he is almost two weeks old? Madness. Sheer madness.

Even Cuter on Day 2

What? You demand to see more pictures? Okay. Fine. Talked me into it. I personally am smitten. Totally gone. Totally in love. But I guess maybe I am biased? Nah, he's just that cute.



Please just look at Luke and disregard the sleepy pale-faced looking lady. But oh, that baby!!!

And on a lunch note, I opened my fancy plastic dinner server to find this. A plate of beets. Who do I look like, Dwight Shrute? BEARS. BEETS. BATTLESTAR GALLACTICA. Somebody get Bajio on the line, quick!

Welcome Luke!!

He came, he came, he really came. It's just like Christmas.


He's a husky feller. 9 lbs 1 oz. We're so glad he's here!!