My Uncle Andy Died...

My Uncle Andy passed away late this afternoon. The family knew it was coming, he had cancer and there was no hope. It doesn't make it any easier though. My mom seems to be doing okay. From what I can gather, it was in his heart and it wasn't pleasant. I have many fond memories of Uncle Andy. Uncle Andy was a Vietnam vet, a great man and a loving person. He was loved by many and will be missed by all. Please keep my family in your thoughts during this difficult time.

I will not be able to travel back home to be with my mom. I do feel bad about that, but I know there's nothing I could do but offer hugs. I know she understands. I love you, mom. Please know that at least he's not in any pain anymore and that I wish there was more I could do.

For me and, I'm sure, for my sisters and cousins, it's hard because this is the first of this generation to die. My mother is one of 7 children, they are all very close.

Just a cute Cassie picture...

Nasty, nasty morning.... and other randomness...

I know we desperately need the rain. Really, I do... It's been NOT raining for so long that we have a sick tree in our backyard that we've been having to water heavily, it's been dropping leaves and generally looks just terrible. BUT... man... it's nasty nasty nasty out there! Dropping Jamie off at school was an exercise in patience because EVERYONE was dropping their kid off this morning. It's just gross out there. At least maybe some of those nice brown spots on my lawn will green up a little bit. If all was right in the world, I would be asleep right now, but NNNNOOOO... I have this little Kindergartener now that has to get to school at the ungodly hour of 7:45am. YUCK! It looks like it'll clear up this morning and that will be it. Too bad. What we really need is a good steady rain for a few days in a row... not this pounding all at once. But beggars can't be choosers.

Jamie apparently can't count. He goes 11, 12, 13, 14, 18, 19... so I spent about an hour last night counting with him trying to get him to relearn it. I think it worked. It said them right twice this morning. He also writes his Js backwards (actually he writes his entire name mirrored some of the time, it's freaky). So, for homework, he had to write a page full of Js - he got them all right. I know a lot of kids do this and he's left-handed, so I'm not worried about it... it's just annoying because Jamie does NOT like for me to tell him what to do.

Cassie is evil. Oh, stop looking at me like that. You know she is. For whatever reason, bedtime is "interesting" again. She got up about 20 times after we put her down... once screaming at the top of her lungs for milk... got her milk... then screaming for a banana - yes, we gave her a freaking banana because, really, you haven't heard her scream - it was like Linda Blair from the exorcist has entered her little tiny body... I kept waiting for her head to spin.

I'm supposed to be processing payrolls for clients, but really I just want to get enough caffeine into my body to function this morning...

Oh, and even though I have told the kids 37854 times to CLOSE THE TOP of the sandbox, they didn't yesterday and now it's soaking wet. Oh well, it will dry, but I'm thinking they won't get to use it a few days while it dries out... maybe there's a lesson in there somewhere.

New to Me

Ok, so some of you have probably already seen this video. All I have to say is "OMG...Why didn't you tell ME about it?!?!?!" My favorite classical piece done in my favorite style (80's lead guitar).

Link Me Saturday: Coffee Art and Jamie the sponge...

This guy either has entirely too much time on his hands or an amazing talent... I'll let you decide... Check out the video HERE. I'm oddly mesmerized by this... this one is for aka_Mer over at It's Just The Coffee Talking... just for you, lady Enjoy!! :-)

Jamie just finished his first 2 weeks of Kindergarten. He's adjusted exceptionally well. Even Cassie has been better than we expected. What I'm amazed by is how easily he seems to be soaking up stuff. Not only can he sing that cute little song (posted 2 posts ago, seriously, check it out), but he can count to 30 and backwards from 10 and is getting better at sounding out words. It's amazing really. I'm glad he has a late birthday, I think it did him good to wait. Anyway, we've all adjusted well, he's really tired by the time it's bedtime and we've got the lunch thing figured out as well as the drop off/pick up. Whew!

SPF - It's all about ME

Y0u guys know the drill by now... Kristine gives us a list, we walk aimlessly around our house and take pictures of whatever comes to mind. Sometimes we are all gifted and smart and sometimes we aren't. You be the judge.


1. Stuff that annoys the living **** out of you. -- I HATE messy counters. They drive me crazy. Seriously.

2. YOUR space. - This could have been my office, but really, laying in bed reading is my REAL "me" time...

3. Something in your life that keeps the makers of Xanax in business. - I can't stand spiders, obviously, but this particular web has been up here above my desk for a few weeks. I'm too lazy (and freaked out that I'll anger the spider and he'll come after me) to take it down.

I got 10 little fingers and 10 little toes....

This is a song Jamie learned in "specials" - (don't ask) - music. For those of you who don't understand toothless Kindergarten speak, I've included the lyrics...


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I got 10 little fingers,
And 10 little toes,
2 little eyes, and a mouth, and a nose .
You put it all together
And what have you got?
You got me, baby,
And that's a lot! Yeah!

Moblog: Dinner with friends...

Dinner with friends at Rockin' Tomato - taken and posted purely to irritate Danielle (who is beautiful!)

Run! It's the coppers!

We moved in October 2003. I changed the address on my driver's license and even did Tom's at the same time. Mine came in the mail and he got a notice that his picture was too old and he had to go down and take a new one. Since then, we'ved move 2 more times. Each time, I change my address and tell him to change his. He didn't do it.

The car registration for my car came in December... he said he'd put the sticker on. It sat in my dashboard for months until it disappeared. I called Travis County who told me that they would send another one (still waiting).

So... Tom is out with Cassie today and he gets pulled over. Why, you ask? Well, of course, it was because his license plate was "obscured". We still had the frame on it from the dealership. The top of the T in State of Texas was covered up a little bit. Apparently, 3 years ago (we got the car in January 2001) you weren't supposed to use those frames anymore. Ummmm... are you serious?

So, he got a warning for the obscured plate and address change and a citation for the expired registration. Freaking Williamson County. It could've been worse though. We give each year to the officer's fund and they send you stickers to put on the car saying you are a supporter. I am CONVINCED this has gotten me out of 2 tickets - I'm sure Tom would've gotten in deeper water if the guy really wanted to.

Apparently, we just have to show that the car does have a valid registration, pay to get a new one (why did Travis County tell me they would mail me a replacement) and they will "probably" dismiss the ticket.

ARGH!

Why don't men listen? If he had put the registration on the car and did his license when I told him to, this would not be an issue... but noooooo... he'd rather play computer games!
(heh, love ya, babe)

Little Angels...

The really are cute when they are asleep, aren't they? It was a LONG day today so I had to take this picture. Notice that neither of them are sleeping under their covers. They both are sleeping with a blanket on TOP of their comforter. They both have a little bear. Jennifer gave them to Jamie one year for (or Cassie, I can't remember) Christmas. The blue bear is PawPaw Bear and the pink bear is MiMi Bear. They both sleep with one each. LOL. It's NOT pretty if we can't find one.

More MNO Pics (that's Mom's Night Out)

So, Sunday night the girls and I went to The Cheesecake Factory - I moblogged some quick pictures, but my real camera didn't take any that were much better... oh well... I won't even say how much fun it was... read Crystal's blog - she sums it up very well...

The 9/11 tribute

If you haven't already, make sure you stop by http://www.dcroe.com/2996/

I usually don't do this kind of stuff, but I was compelled to honor someone. I will post on 9/11 with details of who I'm honoring as well as who they were, I've started some research into the person.

Movie: The Blair Witch?

Yeah, so... this is Cassie. She was originally angry because we wouldn't let her go outside and play because it was dinner time. We were eating in the dining room and she was in my office sitting at the sliding glass door screaming her head off. I, of course, did what any good mother would do and grabbed my camera...


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... and hey, at least she stopped screaming about wanting to go outside...

She kind of freaked me out with my office trash bags, so I had to make Tom take those out right away! LOL.

Moblog: MNO

Moblog: Moms night out at cheesecake factory

Moblog: this is a small salad - it's like 1/2 head of lettuce.. WTF

Link Me Saturday: Stop Stealing My Letters!

You know you want to play on the virtual refrigerator...

Check out this seriously addictive time waster:
Someone Keeps Stealing My Letters

Whatever you do, don't steal MY letters though :-)

Below is a little sampler one :-)

Lunch Success...

Dear gawd... Jamie finally "got" the whole lunch issue I think. He said that he got pepperoni pizza, chocolate milk and broccoli, but he said the broccoli was yucky and not good like what his Daddy makes but he didn't say anything to the lunch ladies because he didn't want to hurt their feelings, so he ate a little piece of it. He says the pizza was the "best ever" though. Whatever, dude, at least it looks like he figured out how to use the card or either some lunch lady took pity on him and gave him some pizza. Maybe now he'll understand that if he is gonna want milk, he'd better get his little butt in line, otherwise it's water, dude. (and I dunno who the kid is in the picture, just some random one I stole from Yahoo Clip Art - Jamie ran away next door again and wouldn't pose anyway... my kids are on camera strike).

SPF: Misc Crap & Lunch Update

Yeah, so the Odd One wants us to take pictures of stuff each week... I played this week because it was so easy :-) Did you play?



Your Supplies - without the "coffee robot", as my kids call it, I could NOT make it through the day this week. This early morning stuff sucks!

Your Bag - I'm a simple girl, I have one purse. I paid $15 for it at Target. I like it, it works and if a kid tears the strap off, it doesn't matter. The big zipper holds my Treo and the little one is perfect for my camera. The other bag I use when I visit clients or if I go to the mailbox at the post office. I just move my wallet and Treo back and forth.

Your Mailbox - nothing all that interesting, but here ya go...

... and now for the lunch saga... the teacher did call me yesterday. Apparently Jamie is not understanding. He has to tell her first thing in the morning that he is going to want his lunch card. If he takes the card, he gets one shot to get something if he wants it from the cafeteria line. If he doesn't ask for the card and get in line right away, it's too bad, so sad. So on Tuesday when he finished what we sent and then wanted an apple and some milk, he couldn't get it because he didn't ask for his card in the morning. But even if he had, he couldn't have gotten it because his class would've already gone through the line. I asked if I could have him memorize his card # (it's only 6 digits) so he could go back if he wanted something. She said no. Sounds like screwy to me, but whatever, the kid won't starve. I think he just doesn't want to deal with the line if he has his lunch with him, so he just drinks the water from the water bottle that we send and doesn't get the milk. Whatever, that's cool.

So today, I told him at least 10 times that he needed to ask for his lunch card today because we did NOT send his lunch, he wanted to get lunch today because it's pizza day. We'll see if he figures it out... *laugh*. It's parent orientation tonight, I'm interested to see if we are the only freaky new parents that is confused by this lunch thing. Don't get me wrong, he's not going to starve, but seriously if given a chance, if he's still hungry after eating and he wants an apple, I think it's crazy that he can't go get one. I'm thinking maybe I can just tuck some cash in his lunchbox to get something extra if he wants... I have to ask tonight I guess if they can pay CASH for the freaking apple.

The Lunch Chronicles

Okay, seriously... lunch should NOT be this big of a deal, right?

Jamie, in theory, has a lunch card. It has $40 on it. In theory. On Monday, I asked him if he got his card and bought his milk. He told me everything was free but he didn't want milk. Ummm... okay. I check his balance online and yes, it is showing up, he has money on his card. Good, right? So on Tuesday he told me that he really wanted an apple and milk after he ate his lunch, but no one gave him his card. So, I get my lazy arse out of my car this morning and wait in line with the kids and make sure to tell the teacher that he is confused and to please make sure he gets milk with his lunch...

So, Jamie comes home today. He tells me he got in line and got milk and then the lunch lady wouldn't let him have the milk because it wasn't his card - it was Jason's card or Jameson's card or Jehico's card. I asked him if he asked the teacher about it and he said no because he didn't want to upset the teacher. Okay, I know Jamie is a very sweet kid and really he's all about not upsetting the proverbial apple cart, but why didn't the lunch lady find out what was going on?

Heck, it may not have even happened that way. I don't know. All I know is that my kid wants an apple and milk (not junk food) and he can't figure out how to do it. I tried emailing the teacher, but she never responded to my original email to her about the play dough she wanted and she doesn't update her class website so I'm figuring she isn't a computer person. I tried to call, but I got someone else's voice mail. So I faxed her at the school, I figure they will put it in her box. Hopefully she'll call me and Jamie will get his freaking milk. LOL. If not, I'll find out when their lunch is and take him to the cafeteria on Friday and figure out what is going on. He is eating lunch from the cafeteria on Fridays because it's pizza day (d'oh).

I'm not all that concerned about the milk, I mean, he had water in his lunchbox, he's not going to die or anything, but I don't want him not to be able to get lunch on Friday when we don't send a boxed lunch. I don't want to be "that parent" but obviously something is getting lost in translation here.

Seriously, it shouldn't be this hard... They have orientation on Friday for the parents, I'm thinking they should have done this BEFORE school because us newbies are completely and utterly useless and confused as to what the heck is going on.

To complicate matters, his "in trouble" (i.e. real name) is James. We have a last name that NO one pronouces correctly (it's "bee-chum"). He doesn't recognized James as his name really. I have to wonder if the lunch lady asked him if his name was James and he said no or something (??) I dunno... I need an Advil.

In other news... Jamie came home with a "ticket" for good behavior... he got it for being so very polite. :) Yes, that's my son. He's nothing if not polite.

His First Day of School

Jamie seemed to have a pretty good day at school. This is kind of what happened from what we've been able to understand of what he's saying and evidence from his bookbag... some of this won't make any sense (welcome to my world)

• He ate all of his lunch - every bit, and Tom thought I gave him too much... :p
  
• Lunch in the cafeteria is "free" - we are still puzzled over this one because when I asked him if he bought milk with the lunch card that I faced the overly happy lunch ladies to get (see previous post this morning) he said no, but everything was free. I tried explaining the lunch card (using my debit card as an example) but obviously I'm an idiot because he told me his lunch card is for Target. Ummm... okay.
• They read a book The Kissing Hand (which now that I just looked it up on Amazon makes more sense with the rest of his day)
• They did a handprint on a card and made it into a puzzle:
• 
• The playground is too little and he and the little girl next door didn't go on the web thing because there were too many kids playing spiders and they were scared.
• They won't let him play basketball on the court next to the playground.
• A racoon came to their classroom, left footprints and cookies for them while they were at recess. (The teacher too)
  
• The racoon is really a puppet and named Chester
  
• Two kids got put in time-out. One for not listening and one for hurting his finger (?)
• He likes being #1 in line (they line up according to their numbers - we have a "B" last name, so he's first).
• When someone is acting up, instead of pointing it out the first time, the teacher says "Criss Cross Applesauce" to get their attention. (Wha?)
• If you want to go home, tell the teacher and she'll call your mommy. (don't call me lady, he's yours now)
  
• You have to be quiet in the hallway and put your hands behind your back when you walk (what?)
• He got to see the little girl next door in the music room
• He had to sit with his class at lunch and not next to the little girl next door

There is no easy way to pick up your child - you either park and walk to the front door with a million other people or you sit in line in your car, they won't be able to find your kid, the principle will come out with him and explain that usually he'd be with the teacher, but she had a kid get on a bus that wasn't supposed to (umm... so who was watching my kid? Obviously someone)... and then Jamie got upset because he couldn't find me or something. Whatever, dude, this picking up thing has got to get easier. At my neice's school, they kept the kids in the cafeteria, one of the teachers there had a walkie-talkie and another teacher would stand about 5 cars in from the line and ask you your kid's name, they'd call it over the walkie, the kid would come out, another teacher would ask which one is your mommy and the line actually MOVED. Dude, that SUCKED today.

And why does my camera take such brilliant outdoor photos and such sucky indoor photos unless I use the flash? I need one like Kami (hint hint Tom - xmas!)

Book Tagged

Heather tagged me in one of her posts... uhhh... I guess I'm supposed to answer these here, so ummm... here.

1. One book that changed your life? Keep the list short, and exclude the Bible, Koran, or any other spiritual authority:
Euphonia and the Flood by Mary Calhoun - I loved this book so much as a kid that when I was crazy and pregnant with Jamie, I paid $18 to get a copy, it was old and out of print. The key phrase here is "If A Thing's Worth Doing, It's Worth Doing Well" - kind of my mantra, really.

2. One book that you’ve read more than once:
Other than the kid's books, none really. I'm listening on my Treo to Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt (in his own voice, it's amazing!) on Audible and read the book a couple of years ago. Does that count? I've read If You Give A Mouse A Cookie by Laura Numeroff at least 300 times.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island:
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger - I want to read this one again, seems like I'd have lots of time there! Ooohh.. can I take two? Please? The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

4. One book that made you laugh:
Devil In The Details: Scenes From an Obsessive Girlhood by Jennifer Traig - this was HILARIOUS

5. One book that made you cry:
My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

6. One book you wish had been written:
Harry Potter & The Sorcer's Stone by JK Rowling - dude, you know she's set for life off of that ONE book

7. One book you wish had never been written:
Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler - I haven't read it though, I'm not sure that I "can" really or if it will just piss me off too much. I think it MIGHT be interesting just to see inside of this horrible man's mind... I'm not much for banning ANY book, but if I had to chose one, this would be it.

8. One book you’re currently reading:
Picture Perfect by Jodi Picoult and The Christ Conspiracy by Acharya S

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:
The Life of Pi by Yann Martel (sitting on my to be read stack, but I keep skipping it because it looks real literary, which I'm just not up for these days)

10. Tag 5 others: (this was very difficult to pick!)
Janelle
Dy
Morsie
Tom
Susan
... oh heck, all of you are tagged... go for it.

And for those of you who don't know what it means to be tagged.. copy this post and change the answers to be your answers and post them on your blog. Cheers!

This should be illegal...

It's 8:20am. I'm at my desk. I have on clothes. My hair is brushed. I woke up at 6:45am. YES, 6:45am. I'm SO not used to that. Seriously, I'm too lazy to mess with the coffee robot so I'm on my 2nd diet coke of the morning. Help me.

Pictures from this morning...
No, I didn't cry. Jamie didn't cry. Quite uneventful except that no one told me I had to get a lunch card or whatever so I had to wait in line and talk to some overly-perky lunchroom ladies (seriously how can anyone be that happy at that hour of the day?)... anyway, it was fine.

Did I mention that it's REALLY early?

Jamie is SO pokey in the morning. I felt like I needed a cattle prod. I told him at least 10 times to put on his shirt. He's been Mr. Slow Mo for a few months now, seriously drives me crazy. Bath time is a joke.

Anyway... Tom is taking Cassie to a playgroup this morning so I'll have a couple of hours to myself to get some actual work done!!!

(or sneak in a nap)

oh, and to top it off, Tom sent me this YouTube thing... it's way too early for that... seriously. It's just weird...

A fun day all around...

I seem to always end up working on the weekend, at least a little. Jamie starts school tomorrow... so... I decided to only work an hour on Saturday and I took the entire day of Sunday off and we made some homemade art stuff and Tom made homemade corn dogs in his new fryer thingy (bought on sale for a steal!)... the kids think we're so cool now :-) Take a look...

We made homemade bath tub paints (these were SO easy and the kids had a great time - lesson learned though, we won't do red again, it stained the grout... LOL).

We also made homemade play dough :-)

Tom made yummy homemade corn dogs - we also made JD's Anything Goes sauce for it... yum... I can feel my arties hardening as I type...

Sunday Six: Edumacation and Off-Track

You guys know the drill by now... This week Kelly is asking about higher learning, however my kids got off track a little - okay, well, I did bug them during lunch...

Tooth # 2 and more flowers...

Tooth #2 is finally out for Jamie. He drives us crazy... Tom and I both were severe wigglers... we'd wiggle our loose teeth as kids until we got those little suckers out. Jamie will leave it in there until it falls out on it's own... LOL... this one has been loose for about a month now!
Tom is sucking up again... I love these bright colors, but I wonder what he's done wrong.. ;)

Link Me Saturday: Falling Sand Game

I remember when I first found this thing online, I spent hours at a time messing with it.

The Falling Sand Game

Make sure you read the instructions and enjoy this time waster :o)

Meet The Teacher

There should seriously be laws against having meet the teacher from 8am-10am. First, those of us idiots that don't know it's just a drop-in thing, show up at 8am disoriented because we're not used to getting up and out the door that early in the morning. Second, I could have freaking slept another hour... LOL. Seriously, Tom's gonna have to do this morning school stuff with Jamie. I'm so not cut out for this and he seems to have turned into one of those annoying happy-happy-joy-joy morning type people that make you want to hurl. So yeah... here's pics.

These are actual pictures taken before 8am. The world is not right. See how puffy his eyes are? LOL! The good news is that bedtime is now 8pm (baths at 7:30) and they've been both cooperating (yes, even Cassie!)

"Mom, seriously, I'm dressed and hair brushed and stuff and it's not noon... WHAT is going on?!?!?

All smiles after meeting his teacher. Funny story - the teacher had "James" written on everything already and called him James. He was like "No! That's my in trouble name!!" He wasn't too happy with that... LOL. He doesn't even know how to write his "real" name. The teacher thought the "in trouble name" thing was hilarious.

We took them to this new Village Inn that opened near us here. Is my kid the only freak that eats pancakes without syrup (never mind that he eats them off the plate like that)

I have a meeting at 3pm. I'm so totally dying already. I want to just climb in the bed and sleep... SLEEP!!!!

SPF: The Title Company

Kristine over at Random and Odd has these photo challenges each week. This week she's making my brain hurt. Dude, tell me to take a picture of my trash can again. I can DO that... so here are my weird ideas (okay, the book one I am pretty proud of, if I do say so myself, but still...)

1. Book Title "The Foot Book" - Duh

2. Song Title "She Drives Me Crazy" - just in general ;)

3. Movie Title - "Hollow Man" - I was just taking random shots and this one came up and I immediate thought of that movie, so this is what you get.

Lunches...

So, last month I picked Jamie up something called a Laptop Lunchbox. It's basically an Americanized bento box... really kind of neat and he loves it of course. Tom was asking what kinds of stuff to put in there so I told him "ya know, whatever, leftovers, same stuff you'd put in a regular lunchbox, as long as it can be refrigerated." But I went online figuring I'd find some cute/different ideas...

There are people seriously obsessed with their lunches... who'd have thunk it? I actually think it would be cool to do a random moblog of something each day... I guess your lunch is as good as anything else, eh?

Check out some of these links for fun:

http://mmmbento.livejournal.com/ (this lady doesn't make food, she makes art... don't miss the rocket ship... wow)

http://dailytiffin.blogspot.com/

http://ss-biggie.livejournal.com/

http://mito.typepad.com/photos/bento/photo_91.html

http://phreshp0rk.wordpress.com/

Waste of Space Monday.... Helen the Evil

A friend of mine sent this to me... I think this qualifies as a Waste OfSpace...

Sorry, but my children bore me to death!

Why have children if you don't enjoy spending time with them? How sad that the kids tell her to not bother playing with them, that she'll just be bored. How sad that she doesn't even want to read books to them. Reading books with my kids is one of the highlights of our days. I love to watch their little minds work and the big smiles when the pig in the story does something silly. On her deathbed is she going to want to say "wow, I got a good deal at the mall" or "wow, I was a really involved mother". What a freakshow.

I will admit that there are certain things I don't do. I don't play with play-doh. I will set it up for them to play with, but I'm not going to do it. I don't like it. We all have things like this... but this lady... it's just sad, really.

============
You get a bonus one this week... to the lady that approached me at the POOL while I was in my SWIMSUIT and tried to sell me diet products... yes, you, the lady with a 10 month old and about 5 months pregnant... how would YOU like ME to sell YOU some condoms? There's a cure for all those babies, ya know. Bee-atch, waste of space, indeed. We all got problems, lady... go fix yours and leave me the heck alone.

Crabby Bath Time

We have Hermit Crabs. Yes, I know we are weird. We had six, but we lost one since our major tank clean in April (it appears it was a bad molt). So we have 5 now... we gave them all a dip in water to clean 'em up and let them dry off while Tom put the tank back together. The kids LOVE it when we do this... I took some pics... these guys are getting big! 2 of these we got when they were little micro-crabs. The big one was small when we got him, he's now HUGE. The one I didn't get a close up is named Skitzo because he's insane. When you pick him up he leans so far out of his shell you think he's either going to pinch you or fall out. I pick him up only when absolutely necessary. I don't really like messing with them, to be honest, but they are the perfect pet for us... don't need a lot of attention, don't make a mess... and the kids think they are cool. Right after we put them back into the tank, the kids were watching them move around and came running into the room I was in... Shy Guy finally changed his shell (this is an exciting thing in the crab world, second only to a sucessful molt!)

Freshly bathed and climbing around.

This is Giganto - he's always been the biggest one, he's getting huge

This is Shy Guy. I'm so excited I got him to come out for a picture. This one is hilarious. I like to do it to tortue him - when you walk by the tank, he immediately pulls into his shell, it doesn't matter if he's climbing on something or not, he will fall rather than you see him. LOL.

This is Baby Crab - this one was a very small micro when we got it.

This is Momma Crab... so named because she/he/it protected Baby Crab from Skitzo (who killed a crab late last year over a shell fight, and then got put into isolation for 2 months).

Spicy Sunday Six

Here are this weeks answers from the kids. All about one of my favorite topics: Spicy things!

http://missingjtsnow.blogspot.com/




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Family Reunion

The family reunion for Tom's family was this weekend at Blanco State Park (or, as I like to refer to it as, the "let's all go sit in 110 degree heat in the middle of nowhere in early August and eat hot chili weekend"). Ummm... yeah. I fully realize that my family is completely nuts - insane really (love ya, mom). I easily admit it, but at least they have the sense to have the reunions in October and if it's going to be hot, they rent out a huge building. Yes, I'm a wimp. I think all of us younger people in the family should revolt and demand they move it to late June and have it Schlitterbahn. Yes, I'm serious. Some of these fools even camp out all weekend. I don't camp out anyway, but it's too freaking hot, man. I wonder if I brought up the Schlitterbahn in June thing at the next family meeting, would they all throw stuff at me?

Yes, this is my yearly rant. Get used to it. I don't *hate* Texas and frankly, I'm sick of everyone saying that I do. Yes, I would rather be living in Hawaii, but hell, most anyone who has lived there would rather be living there. It's hot here. July/August/September is ALWAYS hot. Most of my go Texas friends even admit it it's too freaking hot. Get over it. The rest of the year is tolerable - heck, Austin is kind of a neat place to live, I mean where else in the world are there the Leslie's and Kinky's of the world?

So, without further ado (or complaining)... here's the pics... :-)

When we first got there, Jamie saw a lama in the field (or whatever) across from us and was pretty excited. I took his picture standing in front of it... you have to look for it (it's over his head) but it's there.

Cassie just hanging around....

They got prizes for playing Bingo...

Great Grandma playing with them and a second cousin - I think, I can never figure that out, it's Tom's cousin's son... (notice Cassie's stonehenge design) ;)



The kiddos were pretty exhausted when we finally got home, but they're never too tired for push-ups in the tub!

Link Me Saturday

So, I thought I would try doing this each Saturday. I always find interesting links on the web and like to share them, so I picked Saturday, which is kind of my down day, made a little icon to go with it and will post them here and share with the world. In that vein, for my first week....

I'm sharing with you a way to send a message out into the world. The idea of sending a message in a bottle has always intrigued me (yes, I can be a sap!)... Now, you can send your own oceangram out into the 'net. If you sit there long enough, you will even catch one of your own! I caught one that had been through 15 people! Wow!

Check it out at http://www.oceangram.com/

So, what kind of interesting links do YOU have to share with the blog world? Huh? Huh? Huh?

Friday Fill In

This is a new one for me... I was browsing blogs and saw this and thought it looked fun - I got this from Divine Reality

These were kind of hard for me because I kept wanting to put in the song lyrics! LOL!

1. It's a nice day for a ... margarita, baby!
   
2. Might as well face it, I'm addicted to ... recipezaar (even though Tom does all the cooking!)
   
3. If I had a ... millon dollars I would ... move back to Hawaii
   
4. I need someone, somebody to help me ... stop playing around in blog-land and get back to work!
   
5. I was thinking about ... photos I was hoping ... I could use part of that million dollars to get a top of the line awesome camera to play with.
6. And all the roads we have to walk along are .... paved with gold? LOL! full of potholes in some places and nice and smooth in others... :)

Didya play?

SPF: Spice It Up!

Newlywed Kristine is telling us to spice it up this week... :-) I felt like playing, so I did... enjoy!!!





1. Your Spices - Tom does a lot of cooking and we use a lot of spices... yum!


2. Salt and Pepper - Tom's goatee (heh, I'm so evil)



3. Add a little spice to your picture - A favorite picture of Cassie I goth-ed up a bit and I messed around with Jamie's eyes and lips, I almost didn't post Jamie's because it looks odd, but well, Kristine's site *IS* called random and ODD, so there ya go...


Link to original Cassie Picture
Link to original Jamie Picture

Didja Play???