...the Bird Couch

May, in photos

2009-05-31T20:30:00.000-07:00

Here's some of the highlights of the past month. I love May-- the weather is finally getting nicer, there's a lot of fun things going on, more outside time, more SUN!! These are just a few pictures of what we've been up to lately:

Mom's 60th birthday party, in our backyard

Playing ball with daddyJoe and I at the Reds game

Quinn loves to sit on the front steps and watch the cars go by.Memorial Day parade

Donuts for breakfast at the parade
watching the parade

Skating rink birthday party for our friend, Parker. It was Quinn's first skating experience. He was unsure at first, but ended up having a good time!

Time Warp Prom pictures

2009-05-20T13:41:00.001-07:00

Prom was, once again, a blast! I think it gets better every year.
The pictures are pretty self-explanatory. We got ready at the salon, had some pizza there, then left for the prom. (And yes, Brandy- the blonde girl in the black with the flower in her hair- is pregnant. That's not just a big pot-belly. haha)
The theme this year was "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun", so there were a LOT more Cyndi Lauper type outfits this time, rather than the prom formals we've seen in the past, which was a nice change of pace. The ban was decent-- same band every year, they're in need of some new material-- but the DJ was awesome. We danced all night, never went back to the table to sit down. What a great kick-off to spring and summer!
(if you click on the picture to enlarge it, you can really see the 80's details in the hair and clothes!)

bye bye bird couch!

2009-04-30T18:36:00.000-07:00

The bird couch has left the building. I know, I know....it's a legendary couch and all, but it was literally falling apart. The fabric was ripping, the buttons were ripped off, the cushions don't stay on it anymore, which makes it not very comfortable to sit on.... we've been debating getting rid of it for a while now and yesterday was the day.
Not to worry though, we still have the bird love seat. =)

and the sickness continues...

2009-04-22T10:25:00.001-07:00

...Quinn has another ear infection.

sicky sick sick

2009-04-20T15:12:00.000-07:00

Seriously, enough of the sickness around here! First Joe had whatever ickyness is going around, then Quinn had an ear infection, followed by 4 new teeth (lots of crying and drool.Ugh.) And now I have the never ending cold/sinus/allergy/whatever. So tired of it. I'm ready for summer and a lot less boxes of tissues around the house.

In the mean time, here's our little man on Easter, on the big-kid chair, drinking a CapriSun. He's so grown up!!

My very grown-up little boy

2009-04-01T17:47:00.000-07:00

Quinn is feeling a lot better, pretty much back to his usual crazy self. He seems so grown up though! Just today, he's started answering "yeah" (he's been saying "no" forever, and nodding his head yes. Today's the first time he's said it though.)

He's decided he's outgrown his high chair; for the past few days he's thrown a complete fit at every meal, and I blamed it on the sickness, but then I thought maybe it was more than that...so I put his little booster chair on the big dining chair and he looked at it and said "yeah". Go figure. He ate all three meals in that chair, pushed right up to the big table with me, happy as ever.

Then this afternoon, while we were playing, first he walked over to me wearing my tennis shoes--such a big kid move!-- and then a little while later, he got up on his own, got a kleenex, and brought it to me so I could wipe his nose for him.

He just seems so grown up today.
Yeah.

sick day

2009-03-30T19:43:00.000-07:00

So little Q got hit with all the ailments this weekend: major teething, croup, and an ear infection. Yesterday and last night were pretty miserable, but by this morning I think the antibiotics and cough medicine were starting to kick in and he was feeling considerably better. However, not well enough for clothes, apparantly....so he spent the day as diaper-baby. Here he is, hanging on the "big chair", watching Imagination Movers and eating graham crackers. Can he get any cuter??!

Salon re-do

2009-03-10T18:56:00.000-07:00

Spring is finally here....which means spring cleaning and projects! The major project to be done this spring was to repaint the salon. It started with the need for some new styling chairs. Four years of wear and tear on the original chairs has made them worn down to the point of armrests held on with duct tape. Seriously.
So I bought the chairs, which led to the idea of repainting the walls. I decided on a shade of taupe-ish brown called "hitching post"; it's quite a bit darker than what we originally had on the walls.
With the new walls and chairs, I updated lots of other little things: a new clock, a magazine rack, new table and chairs for the "coffee area" (the back hallway where we always sit with our coffee when we're not busy), a little stool/bench that I found in the local antique shop, to use as an extra seat in the coffee room (it reminds me of the one in my Grandma L's bathroom! I wish I had one just like hers, but this is a close second.)

The weekend was a blur of cleaning. I spent Friday running around getting the last minute things for the salon, and hauling some of it to Springfield. After work Saturday Joe met me at the salon and we took everything off the walls, pushed all the furniture to the middle of the room, and took the old styling chairs home. We were there until about 8:30 Saturday night.
Then Sunday morning (after losing an hour of sleep due to the time change!) I drove down to the salon to let the painter in at 7:30 (real time, 6:30!) -- Yeah, I hired out the painting. It was SO worth it!!! And I'm doing my part to stimulate the economy. :)

Then, after a quick stop at Tim Hortons to get donuts for breakfast (Quinn loved his first TimBits!) I went for a walk and went back home...I watched Xanadu online and waited for the painter to call me so I could go BACK to Springfield to lock up the salon when he was done.

Finally, I spent yesterday, along with 2 of the girls from work, cleaning every last inch of the salon. We cleaned, dusted, swept and mopped everything in the building. Then I went home, got Joe after school, and we went back to load up the new chairs and put all the furniture back, mirrors back on the walls, change lightbulbs, etc etc etc. We got home around 11:30 last night.

Quinn got the easy job of playing at Grandma's and at our friend Tracie's while we cleaned.

I'm exhausted (got up and worked for 10 hours today) but it was worth it. The salon looks great and I'm glad it's done. I took a picture with my cell phone of the finished paint, but it doesn't do it justice at ALL. It's darker in person and just all around better than you can see on the phone.

?

2009-02-22T17:38:00.000-08:00

I haven't blogged lately because:
1. it's winter and we are hermits in the winter so there's nothing much to update
2. my computer time is consumed by my facebook tetris addiction. I got my all-time high score tonight. Yay, me! :)
Happy winter, y'all!

haircut

2009-02-08T19:05:00.000-08:00

Here's Quinn, getting a haircut. I was so impressed how he sat on his little stool and got his haircut like a big kid!

just checking in

2009-01-29T20:59:00.000-08:00

Nothing to blog about. It's January, it's snowing, it's cold. I intend to add to this blog as soon as I have something semi-intelligent to write.

Sledding!

2009-01-14T17:53:00.000-08:00

We finally got some snow here in our part of the world, so we took Quinn out to play in his new sled. I think he had fun, but the blank stare behind the scarf and hat didn't tell us much. I did hear him squeal a little bit one time, and I think it was a happy sound, but again, who knows.
I think he was unsure about the whole experience actually.
But it was fun, and if it wasn't going to be arctic temperatures the rest of the week, we could go again with the inches of fresh snow we got today. But that won't be happening so instead we'll stay inside where it's warm and watch the snow through the window and venture out again once the temps are back "up" in the 30's.

Another picture of Q in his high chair...

2009-01-11T20:47:00.000-08:00

...here he is eating his "egg-free" waffle for breakfast, made in our new waffle iron. (Thanks Nancy!) In case you are wondering, I substituted 1/3 cup of applesauce for an egg and they turned out great. They actually tasted the same as a 'normal' waffle would. YUM. We'll definitely be having more waffles in the future.
By the way, do you like how he uses the waffle squares as finger holes?

Q's first corn on the cob experience

2009-01-06T18:24:00.000-08:00

Who needs a fancy New Year's Eve party??

2009-01-02T18:53:00.000-08:00

We opted to stay in for the big night, and this is what we did:
Quinn went to bed at 8-ish, and we made dinner (english muffin pizzas. nope, not kidding.) We ate our meal on the bird couch watching a stupid movie on Comedy Central; I fell asleep half way through it (the movie, not the pizza) and Joe woke me up at 11:51.
I brushed my teeth, went to bed, and turned on the tv in the bedroom at 11:58, where I watched the ball drop and ol' what's-his-face mumble his way through a countdown through his too-big, ill-fitting dentures....and I was asleep again by 12:03.
See ya, 2008.

The After-Christmas lazies

2008-12-29T08:34:00.000-08:00

Here's the rest of the holiday wrap-up.....first off, Christmas Eve. Joe went to do his last-minute shopping, so Quinn and I went up to Bluffton with Dad, Mom, Grandma Davis, Kara and her girls to Aunt Becky's new house. We squeezed 30-some people in for soup and sandwiches and lots of desserts. It was a lot of fun, especially getting to see my cousins that I don't get to see very often.
Here we are, playing a very entertaining game that Amy brought with her:
And Quinn with his Grandma and Great-Grandmas:
Christmas morning, all three of us slept in late, then Quinn found his toys under the tree, so we let him play with those for a while before packing things up and going out to dad and mom's house for gifts and vegetable soup, our traditional Christmas lunch. That was a lot of fun, and Quinn pretty much just ran circles around the house all day.

Waiting to open gifts

Christmas night, about 30 minutes after I got home from mom and dad's, I got the "sickness". I don't know what it was, but it was very reminiscent of the year of the oyster dressing (I know, I know, it wasn't the dressing!)
I was only sick for a quick 24 hours, but I was completely down and out for that 24 hours....I slept most of it away. When I woke up, Joe had put most of the Christmas gifts away, washed all of Quinn's new clothes, and cleaned up a lot of the after-Christmas mess! (Thanks Joe!)
His family arrived on Saturday- they were going to come Friday, but the weather was too "icky" up north, so they waited until Saturday morning- and we had our Christmas dinner (taco pizza from Sparky's-- due to me being sick the day before I never did make it to the grocery for the dinner we were going to have, so pizza it was.) Jer and Trish had to get back on the road Saturday night so Jer could make it back to his basketball practice...the rest of us hung out at home and played Guitar Hero and bowling on the Wii until bedtime.
Yesterday, Joe worked around the house doing some fix-it stuff, and Q and I played all day in the newly renamed "toy room" (what used to be a family room, but is now all-consumed by toddler toys!) The highlight of last night was Quinn's new haircut- I cut his hair with the clippers this time, so it's pretty short. We got tired of the baby-mullett...his hair doesn't grow much on the sides, but it gets really long and thick in the back, so it's borderline Joe Dirt....but not anymore. Now it's more G.I. Joe.
I have to go back to work tomorrow, which will be an adjustment after a week of sleeping in! I hope I make it in time.
As far as New Year's Eve, we were invited to go to a party and we've planned on it, but Quinn's got a tooth about to cut through, and he is NOT fun to be around when that happens--not only is he super cranky (as he should be, I would be too!) but he tends to get a pretty high fever with each new tooth, so we may end up just staying home with him and perpetuating the laziness. Who knows. :) It will probably be a last minute decision, based on him and, of course, the unpredictable Ohio weather.

Christmas Party, Take 1.

2008-12-22T19:01:00.000-08:00

Sunday was the kickoff of the holiday season, the Davis/Lehman/Gordon party...we missed Kyle and the Coveys this year (and the Texans, of course!) The white elephant exchange was fun, especially once people got into the stealing of gifts; my favorite part was when Rylee stole a game from her own mother! She really got into the "spirit" of the game! Thanks to everyone for driving down to our house for the afternoon-- we had a lot of fun.
Joe and I have one more day of work tomorrow, then we're both home for the rest of the week, and we can't wait for the much-needed break.
Here's Jessica and I and her OSU gift from the exchange:Quinn, looking less than happy with the bow on his head
Joe, first to open a gift in the exchange (it's a waffle maker; we plan on using it quite a bit over break. YUM!)
The "cookers".

Highlights of the past week:

2008-12-17T21:23:00.000-08:00

1. Quinn got a new winter hat and actually keeps it on his head, which is a new development for him. I guess his ears finally got cold enough to not throw the hat on the ground.
2. I made my first ever batch of buckeyes. Yummy!

3. Joe graduated. OK, technically he already graduated back in the summer when he was in Switzerland, but he wanted to walk in the formal ceremony at U of M....he was the only one out of his global program to participate in the festivities, but even so, he was still glad he went.
4. Snow day today for Joe, and it's my day off, so the 3 of us got to hang out at home together all day. We all slept in and enjoyed our lazy day!

5. Not really a highlight, but we got the results back from Quinn's allergy tests (he had a reaction to something last week and had to spend a couple hours of monitoring in the ER, then blood tests later in the week. Ugh.) Turns out he's allergic to eggs, which limits a lot of what he can eat. I'm quickly becoming educated on food allergies and how to deal with and cook for it.

Other than that, I'm trying to get ready for Christmas...I (finally) started Christmas cards today, and we did some shopping over the weekend, but there's still more to do. Hopefully Friday is the day to get that finished...I'm looking forward to our family get together on Sunday- and am still in search of a white elephant exchange gift!

Check out my craftiness.

2008-12-08T17:25:00.000-08:00

Holiday grocery store find!

2008-12-01T10:16:00.000-08:00

Did you know that Jell-O makes a Pumpkin Spice pudding for the holidays!? I love any and everything pumpkin, so I grabbed 3 boxes right away...I think I'll need more because I made 2 of them last night and I'm already on my second bowl of it today. I'm enjoying it right now with a Vanilla cappuccino....YUM. Perfect snowy-day snack.

early morning blogger

2008-11-30T02:25:00.001-08:00

Why am I blogging at 5:25 am? Because it's better than internet shopping and there's nothing on TV. Quinn apparently likes to wake up at 3 am every single night for no real reason....usually he goes back to bed pretty fast, but not tonight...so i've been up for 2+ hours and now that he's finallly sleepy.....I'm not. And I figure at this point, why go to sleep, i'll just stay up and get some things done when the sun comes up!
In all honesty I think I did fall asleep on the couch somewhere around 8 last night anyway, so it's not like I'm lacking sleep that much.
So I've spent the past hour or so perusing the internet. I've looked up the "official" white elephant gift exchange rules, checked my email, wasted time on facebook, looked up new recipes on the food network website (i found a yummy pumpkin version of paula deen's gooey butter cake that i think i'll be trying soon!); i learned how to make turducken....and pumpkin soup...
I did do a little "shopping" online, but stopped myself before hitting "purchase" on anything. Window shopping, I guess you could call it. I checked out the cool lantern candle warmer that Aunt Nancy had; I looked into the holiday specials at Sephora; I've read everyone's blogs and I still am not tired and I have an hour of battery power left on the laptop, so, I figured why not blog?
Aren't you glad I did?

ONE

2008-11-11T21:59:00.000-08:00

Happy first birthday to Quinn!
I can't believe he's a year old already- this past year really has gone by fast. It's been so awesome to watch him grow and learn new things; he's especially learned a lot this past couple of months. He's running through the house, pushing whatever he can find as a walker- his prime choice is a laundry basket.
Quinn's also learned to climb. He's able to climb up onto the couch and our bed, up the stairs (but we keep the door closed to the stairway because he's too quick!) and on anything else he can find to climb on...he's a little monkey.
He's not walking on his own-- yet-- but I feel that's just around the corner too. He's saying quite a few words these days and responds to our questions with "yes" and "no" head nods. And he's learned to point: he'll point in the direction he's going to go, or to the person he wants to go to.
There's still just two teeth in Q's mouth, but that's not stopping him from eating lots of new foods. It's fun to let him try things off our plate and see his reaction to different tastes.

Today I'm off work so our plan is to just hang around the house and enjoy his birthday together, and when Joe gets home from work the three of us will have dinner together. Sunday is the great cake-smashing party day. I'll be sure to take lots of photos!

un.be.lieve.a.ble.

2008-11-02T15:11:00.001-08:00

I had to take a picture with my phone for proof: they were practically giving gas away at MotoMart Saturday afternoon!
And also, I realized I forgot to post our Halloween costume with all of the Quinn pics, so here we are: Red Hat Society member and the Burger King!

Happy Halloween!

2008-11-01T14:42:00.000-07:00

We took Quinn out for his first trick-or-treat night Thursday night; we only went to four houses, which was plenty for a kid who doesn't even eat candy. He did well- I don't think he quite knew what was going on and why he was in the monkey costume. He didn't act like himself until we took the ears off of his head, then he was back to his usual self.
I tried to get some pictures of him with his cousins, but that's not the easiest group to get to hold still for a picture....here's the best of the three of them:

Kinley's first Halloween:

Quinn, Rylee, and the pumpkins they carved last weekend at Grandma and Grandpa's house:

Hugs for Great-Grandma

And just for fun, another 'bitter juice face' picture. Apparantly, he still hates the taste of apple juice.

We're Baaaack!

2008-10-26T18:22:00.000-07:00

The 3 of us spent the past week on a cruise ship in the Bahamas- it was such a nice break from school and work here in Ohio....for five days, we did nothing but eat, sit in the sun, walk around the ship, take naps, eat some more, and relaxxxxxx. I read a book, watched some shows in the ship's theater, including a very talented juggler on a very rocky night at sea. It was kind of cool to be cut off from reality, with no cell phones, not much TV to speak of (the only news on the ship was from Colorado, so we didn't bother much with that).
Quinn did great on vacation- he didn't seem bothered by the motion of the boat, even on the couple nights that we were really rocking! We didn't swim in the pools at all- it was a little cloudy and chilly for that- but the day we stopped at Half Moon Cay, the weather was warm and sunny, and the 3 of us got in the ocean. The purpose of the trip was to go to my friend Chantel's wedding- they were supposed to get married on the beach in Nassau, but it was too windy and the waves were coming up too high on the beach, so they moved the ceremony to the patio of the resort-- which I think turned out even prettier.
After the wedding, we wandered around Nassau, enjoyed the straw markets, bought some fun things (watches for Joe and I, a purse for me, a t-shirt for Quinn) and then headed back to the ship for dinner...after dinner, they had a wedding reception in the piano bar on the ship. Quinn fell asleep in his stroller and slept throuh the whole evening. All in all, the week was great; it was our first time going on a cruise, and we'd definitely go again.

Quinn and I at dinnerWelcome to the Bahamas!

the newlyweds

Joe and Quinn in the ocean

our ship, the Carnival Fascination

us on the small boat, waiting to ride over to Half Moon Cay

Chantel and John's wedding

just hanging out on the ship

we all loved the frozen yogurt!

Quinn and I after breakfast on the back deck

Q loved watching the water go by

the 3 of us

after our beach day at Half Moon Cay; we got caught in a rain storm on the boat ride back to the ship.

say "cheese!"

Chantel and John cutting the cake

11 months old

2008-10-16T21:20:00.001-07:00

In no particular order...

2008-10-07T20:20:00.001-07:00

Photos from the past week:

Rylee making s'mores in our backyard while Kara was at the hospital having Kinley.
Joe and Quinn at Dave's wedding this past weekend
Joe and Grandma F. at lunch on Sunday in Flint The boys at lunch; they're both sitting on the table.
Q and Rylee watching the homecoming parade. Joe drove his car in it, but my camera battery had died by that point, so no photo.
Me, enjoying the Vera Bradley outlet sale. I'm sitting in my "discard" pile....that's all the stuff I didn't buy....
And here's me dragging all the things I DID buy! Vera's living the good life, thanks to shoppers like me.

Welcome, Baby!

2008-10-01T03:42:00.000-07:00

My niece Kinley Julianne was born Monday night!
She's 7 lb. 9 oz, 21 inches long; Kara and Kinley are doing great and are both getting lots of sleep in the hospital. Kara says "hi" and I'm sure I will have more pictures of the baby as the week goes on.

Quinn's new 'do

2008-09-28T09:04:00.001-07:00

Where have i been?!

2008-09-26T05:38:00.000-07:00

What have I been doing, other than blogging? Mostly watching Backyardigans and Blues Clues, playing with baby toys on the floor, and chasing Q around the house....but when I'm not doing that, I'm catching up on dishes and laundry, working extra nights at work to get all of my clients in, taking walks in this awesome fall weather, and catching an occasional high school football game.
And trying to catch up on sleep during the day, since Quinn has taken to waking up in the night, fo no apparent reason other than to hang out with me for an hour or so.....EVERY night. Don't get me wrong, the attention is sweet and I appreciate that he wants to hang out with me so much, but really....at 3 a.m.???

I gave him a 'real' haircut this weekend. After last week's 'starter' haircut, we saw how well he'd sit for it, so I cut the rest. He's got a cute little boy haircut now. I have pictures, but that would mean I'd have to get them from my camera to the computer, and that's going to have to wait.

Also, in my "free time" (haha!) I've been reading the Twilight series. It's a 4-book series of a high school girl caught in a love triangle between a vampire and a werewolf... it's technically a young adult book, but it's good so I don't care that it's made for 8th graders! Anyway, we have all 4 books between us girls at work, so we've been passing them around the salon. I'm on book #3, and I have two girls who have finished 1 and 2, and are waiting on me to finish the 3rd book....so I have to finish it tonight.
I did get some reading in this morning, early, after Quinn finally went back to bed at 4:30, at which point I was wide awake, so I decided to read a few chapters.

And how do I stay awake during the days after my middle of the night playdates? Aside from my usual coffee, I've found a new yummy drink: the Burger King Mocha Joe iced coffee. It's soooo good. It's like a milkshake for breakfast. It's similar to the Tim Horton's iced capp's, but it's not frozen. So good.

Time to go read.

Bye-Bye to the Baby-Mullet!

2008-09-15T08:14:00.000-07:00

Before: Q had hair-wings over his ears and a weird mullety-tail in the back.

After: Baby's first haircut! I think it made him faster, kind of like how new shoes make you jump higher, because this is the best photo of 20-some that I took. Also, we bought his Halloween costume yesterday, but you'll have to wait and see what it is.

We almost got blown away by the superman-force winds here yesterday evening, but we survived; most of the trees in town did not.

I think we need to buy him some more toys...

2008-09-08T07:13:00.000-07:00

Weekend Update

2008-08-31T16:19:00.000-07:00

More pictures from our trip to Michigan last weekend; Here's the boys, playing on the floor.

Grandma Featherstone, Kathy, Jer Trish, Joe and I and 2 squirmy boys. On our way home we stopped in Ypsilanti to have lunch with my friend Marci- we were roommates in college- and we walked around the campus after lunch to see the old places...a lot has changed, a lot has stayed the same! Here we are on the steps of our old apartment.
And the 3 of us, with our family EMU t-shirts we bought while we were there.
We took Q to his first high school football game Friday night, but it never got started due to lightning so we went to WalMart instead. The game was rescheduled for Saturday, so we tried again, this time with Lisa an John, and had a good time.
Quinn stayed awake for the whole game and seemed to like it. I think he liked it Friday night better, when the band was there (they didn't bother to come to the re-do) and he enjoyed the music....and hey, lets be honest, I enjoy the game more with the band too!
No big plans for the Labor Day weekend, except I guess to pack away all of my white shoes.

The Crim, and Robert

2008-08-25T10:16:00.000-07:00

Lots to blog about, not so much time. I'll start with Saturday: we went to Flint so Joe could run in the Crim race with his Swiss friends. They're really his UM friends, but I call them Swiss....anyway, 5 of the 7 made it to the race this year.
On the way up Friday night we saw one of the members of the group, Robert, on 75 in the lane next to us, so we pulled over at a rest stop to say hi.....

And then we followed him to the next exit to his favorite place on this Earth, Tim Hortons... which I didn't realize there was one in Bowling Green, so it's a good thing we ran into him, because now I have a coffee-stop on our way north!

Saturday morning, bright and early, we made our way to Flint for the race. Joe was registered for the 8k, but ended up running the 5k, but in the end got a medal for the 10 mile. Long story, involves new running shoes for Joe and a diaper change (for Quinn, of course, just to avoid any confusion there...)
Anyway, we all met up after the running was done for some refreshments in the party tent and entertainment from a cheesy cover band.
And hey! We ran into Robert at the Crim!

Quinn and I did what we do best- we watched everyone else run.

Hi from Here

2008-08-17T18:32:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy week for us -mainly for Joe- between unpacking, moving out of his old classroom, getting his new classroom ready (he's switching from teaching social studies to technology), and coaching football....between all that, he's still managed to spend time with Q and I.
Work has been busy for me with back to school time, so I haven't had a lot of down time this week. Things should slow down and settle in once school starts.

In the mean time, here's a couple of cute pictures from last weekend when Joe got home.

Congratulations, Joe

2008-08-09T16:48:00.000-07:00

As I said in the previous post, Joe graduated from his Masters' program at U of M yesterday. It's been a long, very busy 15 months, but very worth it. Not only did he get his degree, he got to travel Europe two summers in a row, and made a great group of friends in the process.
I was able to watch the graduation ceremony, held in Geneva, Switzerland, on the UM website. I'm really proud of him for going through the program and accomplishing so much this past year and a half, while juggling school, work, coaching, and still being an awesome husband and dad!

Here's some pictures from yesterday- they aren't the best quality, because they are photos of the computer screen, but you get the idea.

Some of the class of 2008:Taking a picture of Joe taking a picture..... The caps with the 7:11 on top belong to the members of the running group Joe is part of; because they meet to run at 7:11 every morning.Joe's friend Robert (or if he goes by his French name, "Robear"), giving one of the speeches, which I enjoyed. Thanks to Joe's stories, I got most of his references, too!And most importantly, Joe graduating:

One more day.

2008-08-08T06:00:00.000-07:00

One more day until Joe comes back from his 4-week stay in Europe and I can't wait. He's been all over the place, Paris, Nice, Swiss mountainy places....he claims they do some studying while they are there, but I don't know. All the pictures I've seen look more like fun, less like schoolwork.
Doesn't matter, either way as of noon today he will have graduated and no more grad school. YAY!!!!!
Because they are so techy there (as well they should be seeing as how its a technology program) I can watch the graduation in Switzerland right here from the comfort of my own laptop. How very cool is that???
He's got a thousand or so pictures, I'm sure I'll put some up here when he gets home, but in the mean time, I'll post some totally unrelated pictures from our family cookout last weekend:

(edited to add: for more pictures and to read about the cookout, see amy's blog, "snapshots of us"; link at right.)

I went to the animal fair.

2008-08-03T20:34:00.001-07:00

Saturday night, big night out, where do we go?? The county fair! Yes, it's the highlight of the year, if you have a mullet and a severe lack of teeth. I have all my teeth, and am not sporting a mullet, yet I still couldn't resist the lure of the greasy food and the animals. Dad, Mom, Lisa, Quinn and I spent a good portion of two hours checking out the fairgrounds. None of us had been there for years, but it sounded like a good idea this year...for lack of anything better to do, and the need for some fair fries.
We were "fairly" (haha) amused by the 4H projects, checked out the merchant's building--mainly because it was air conditioned-- shared some fries and mushrooms (yum and yum) and then before we hit the barns (very briefly) we went for the best thing of all: SUGAR WAFFLES!
It's not a fair without sugar waffles, and I can't go there without eating one. Good stuff.
Here's dad at the sugar waffle trailer:
And me, enjoying my waffle:Dad, Mom, a bucket of fair fries, and two really happy girls in the background. I didn't see them at the time, but noticed them in the picture today and they make me laugh.
Quinn, petting the sheep.
Lisa and I, self portrait on the camera phone. Pretty good, huh?And Q's highlight of the evening: the free balloon he got in the merchants building. After this point, he lost interest in the fair altogether and was transfixed by the balloon. Go figure.

july in photos

2008-07-30T09:21:00.001-07:00

I finally figured out how to get my photos on this computer, so here's a random scattering of the past few weeks, in pictures.

Dad and Rylee, with the remote-control boat/pool skimmer:
Rylee checking out the frog Lisa found in the backyard. I like how the ring compliments the colors of the frog....How many people (and giraffes!) can we fit on Grandma's swing???
Quinn and I on our birthdays: his 8-month, my 30th.Rylee and Q watching a dvd on the portable dvd player, on the bird couch:
Our friend (and Quinn's former babysitter) Jill, and her family stopped by last weekend while they were in town. They moved across the state, back to their hometown, at the end of the school year, and we really miss them. We loved seeing them again and Q had a great time with the kids!This past Sunday all the girls went with our friend Brandy to watch her get her first tattoo. There were 13 of us there, then we went out for Mexican for lunch.....
...and yes, 5 of the 13 were kids. OK, now don't judge me. It's a kid-friendly tattoo establishment. And anyway, it's not like I let Q get inked.....this time........ :)
Here he is with Brandy's son, Preston.And finally, this is what I call the "Blues Clues Trance". I don't know what it is about that blue dog, but he just loves it. He recently discovered Blue, at Grandma and Grandpa's house, and now we watch it in the morning while I get ready for work. He's totally into it and it keeps him happy while I blow dry my hair. It's funny though, it's only Blues Clues that he likes. When it's over and the next show comes on, he's uninterested, and back to his toys.
I wonder if Blue is voiced by Raffi?????

Beach Bums

2008-07-27T15:17:00.000-07:00

Friday was "lake day", our annual summertime trip to Lake Erie for a day on the beach. The weather was lovely, the food was great, Quinn and Rylee had a fun time playing in the sand, and we finished the evening off with some cake to celebrate Bill & Jenni's anniversary. The ride up was fun-filled...first Rylee sang "Old McDonald" to Quinn with every animal she could think of, then she sang quietly to herself while he took a nap; next, we made a pit-stop at Bob's (Evans, that is) and then the rest of the way there, we played I Spy...which isn't easy to keep going when you're traveling with grass and trees and fields on both sides of the road.
Quinn even played I Spy, via Rylee. She would play 'for' him, in her funny little Quinn voice.

The ride home was a lot less eventful- both Q and R slept the entire way home. Lisa and I were sufficiently sunburned, mostly on our backs; mom and the little ones seemed to escape sun damage. I thought I put sunscreen on my back, but.... I guess not enough.

As always, my camera was affixed to my face, so there's plenty of beach photos to share.

Cutie Q

2008-07-26T19:07:00.000-07:00

Dear Switzerland,

2008-07-23T07:34:00.000-07:00

I know you are super-extra busy over there. However, please take two seconds out of your schedule to e-mail me the answer to the password protection question so I can get on with my day.
Much love,
L

i need my tech teacher.

2008-07-22T19:19:00.000-07:00

Funny story...I have a couple hundred pictures to unload from both of my digital cameras...but I can't because I am using an Apple laptop while our computer is touring Europe--and I can't figure out how to use the Apple!
And before you say "hey, I know you've already put photos on your computer this week, because you put new pics on this very blog just yesterday!", those pictures were on my phone and I emailed them to the laptop.
What's so hard to figure out?
I can't figure out where to put the memory card.
Go ahead. Laugh at me.

How fun is this swing!?!

2008-07-20T19:59:00.000-07:00

just some pictures

2008-07-19T18:42:00.000-07:00

Because I know that you care what's on my iPod

2008-07-17T19:33:00.000-07:00

What music am I listening to these days? Well, I'm glad you asked. My iPod is actually touring Europe, so I'm sure it's filled with what I call "I'm going to scream and ride on my skateboard" music (aka Panic at the Disco, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Emo-screamo, jr. high punky spiky haired jump up and down 'music') which is not anywhere near my taste in music, but whatever. I know that my iPod will be returned in it's original musical state when it returns to its original United State, so no worries here.

But since my beloved iPod is across the pond, I have to resort to CD's in my jeep. Up until six weeks ago, this was no big deal. But then soon after I got my jeep, my dad pointed out the "AUX" port, in which I can plug in my iPod. The result? Endless music selection AND no more CD clutter. It's a win-win. And now that I'm going without the iPod, I really miss it.

So in order to reduce the disc collection on my front passenger seat, I have limited myself to only a few CDs that will fit into the little side compartment on the door. This means CD rotation and trying to predict the mood of my music for the day: not an easy task. I might want to hear Metallica on my way TO work, and KC and the Sunshine band on the way HOME. And who knows when a random country music bug might bite?! The obvious answer: the mixed tape. Little bit of everything all wrapped up in one tidy little disc. (Mixed tape sounds better than mixed CD, right?)

I have to say, I pride myself on my mix tape abilities. I've been mixing for years. And there's a science to making the perfect mix tape, and I've got it down. Just the other day, Joe found an ancient mix that I made (an actual cassette tape!) called the "412-6 party mix". After a minute I deciphered the title --it's really cryptic-- my first apartment was 412 Perrin St., Apartment 6. And it was a tape made for a party. What can I say, I waste all my creative energy on the music, not the title.

And I even remember the actual party the tape was created for...complete with "Brass Monkey" and some random hip hop that I'm sure I got from my roommate.

Where was I....oh yeah, you want to know what's in my car. This week's selection? Aside from the couple of mixed Cd's I burned (one called "summer 2008". Brilliant, no?) There's the new Kid Rock album- if you like his new song, buy the album. It's awesome. And then there's the new Jason Mraz-- also awesome. And a band I discovered buried deep inside iTunes, called the Submarines. And last, but definitely not least-- in fact probably most important-- is the Raffi CD, featuring "Baby Beluga". I don't know what it is about Raffi, but his voice and that stupid song about a whale can calm my baby in 2 seconds flat, from a complete screaming fit to total peacefulness. I adore Raffi. His CD has a permanent place in my jeep. I wonder if he's available for part time babysitting in the fall????

Yes, I judge books by their covers...

2008-07-11T19:17:00.000-07:00

I'm a big-time reader, always have been. I recently (finally!) finished a book by one of my favorite authors, Jodi Picoult, called Second Glance. Thank goodness I bought it, rather than borrowed it from the library like I usually do, otherwise I would have a HUGE late fee on this one. It took me almost 4 months to finish! Yes, months. Usually if it takes me that long to get through a book, it's because it's not very good so I give up on it and find another. (Yes, I'm one of those people who can quit reading a book halfway through just because it's not gripping enough. I know.)
I will say, Second Glance is probably, in my opinion of course, J.P.'s second worst novel. The Tenth Circle was by far my least favorite of hers....I just watched the Lifetime Movie adaptation of the book last week and I think it's one of the only times when a movie was actually better than the book.
Second Glance just didn't grab my attention, but I finished it anyway, despite my lack of interest and time, and usual give-upedness on less-than-enthralling reading material. But because I'm a big J.P. fan, I did finish it. Usually when I finish one of her books, they give the reader something to think about. This time I was just glad to finally be done with it. I still can't believe it took me 4 months to read. And now that I really think about it, I think this one may have bumped The Tenth Circle for the title of my least favorite J.P. book.
Anyway, I returned Second Glance to my bookshelf and picked another one to start. (I always pick a new book as soon as I finish another...and as a side note, I have another J.P. book I've purchased, 19 minutes, and I've heard good things about it, but I like to give myself a break between her books, so that one will have to wait a little while...)
I have a habit of buying a lot of books on clearance...from the five dollar bargain bin, or when they are 3 for the price of 2, or even when the library clears out the shelves and sells the oldies for a quarter. So I've built up quite a library of unread books. This time, I went for one simply because it had a book review quote on the back from Sarah Jessica Parker. And thanks for the recommendation, SJP!!
I started reading Love Walked In (by Marisa de los Santos) on Monday and I'm already halfway through it. In fact, as soon as I finish this blog, I think I will read some more. It's a simple story, about a 30-something single girl who works in a coffee shop and the guy she meets (sounds familiar so far...) but then it seems like the book is evolving more into a story about the coffee shop girl and the 11 year old estranged daughter of the boyfriend, and the friendship developing between 2 girls. Good stuff. So far I recommend it.
Another recommended read: I borrowed Magic Hour from the library; my Grandma D says it's a must-read. So when I finish this one, I'll start that. I also checked out Summer Island by the same author of Magic Hour (Kristin Hannah), based only on the fact that I like summer and I like islands, so it can't be all that bad, right??? (Yes, I also am one of those people who picks books based on cover art and/or title. )

Happy 4th!

2008-07-07T08:45:00.000-07:00

We went up to Michigan last weekend to celebrate Joe's mom's birthday. It was a nice relaxing weekend; the little boys got to play together, and the big guys (Joe, Jer, and Bob) all got remote control helecopters. Good times had by all. We had a really yummy brunch Sunday with all-you-can-eat crepes (so good!) and corn fritters, which I'd never had before, but now that I have, I think I need to find a place around here that makes them. They're like little cornbread donuts!

This weekend was great as well. We went to mom and dad's house for an early birthday party for me (I'll be twenty-ten next week.) Again, the food was great: John was the grillmaster yet again--I'm pretty sure he's earned that permanent title-- and mom made chocolate chip pie, my favorite.

Along with the great food, we've had a good crowd to celebrate with. Grandma D is in town visiting for a few days, which is fun. I haven't seen her in a while and it's been great to have a relaxing weekend to hang out with her, and for her to see Quinn too, even in all his teething glory.

And I got to see Grandma L for a little bit Saturday; she and my aunts Becky and Nancy stopped in to see dad for a while and were still at the house when I got there.

Yesterday we spent the afternoon in the pool and eating leftovers from Saturday; I got a nice hot-pink sunburn that will be keeping me out of the sun today, so instead of swimming I think I'll head to the outlet malls to see what I can find.

These are some pictures from last weekend of Quinn and Trey. These are just a few; I took a ridiculous amount of photos of the two of them, but I can't help it- they're so cute!! I have no pictures from this weekend, because I was being lazy and I was too busy eating, swimming, and taking naps.

Here they are, taking turns vandalizing Grandma's flower beds....

What I'm Watching:

2008-07-02T17:00:00.000-07:00

Summer is here, and along with that comes summer TV programming. I love summer TV shows, because they are always just a little more lame than the stuff we watch during the rest of the year.

For example, last night I watched the first episode of "The Secret Life of the American Teenager". Catchy title, Molly Ringwald plays the mom, I thought I'd give it a try. I will say this: abc family definitely tried to please everyone in this one.

First off, there's the scandal in the very beginning of episode 1: the main teenage character is pregnant. I guess they figured that Juno was such a big hit, might as well see if it translates to TV. Then there's the two best friends, the perfect sidekicks. One smart, one smarty-pants. One white, one black. One skinny, one chunky. Kind of a tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum effect, but it works. I think so far they're my favorite part of the show, actually.

Then there's the boy who loves the preggers girl...he looks, acts, and speaks just like Stephen Colbert...coincidence? Doubtful.

Next comes the fast-speaking, quit witted Asian girl, a la Gilmore Girls. And the...I'll call her "friendly" majorette. (Did I mention these are a bunch of band kids? Yet another reason to love the show!)

And then there's the pretty blonde girl, and her jock boyfriend, but the catch here is that they are the only two people in school who don't seem to be, uh...."friendly"....that is, until the end of episode 1, when jock boyfriend hooks up with skanky majorette. The blonde girl is the seemingly only religious person in a high school of partiers; and she's awfully reminiscent of Lucy Camden from 7th Heaven.....and the dialoge is kind of the same....and- wait a minute-- halfway through the show I notice that the football coach is the same guy who plays the police chief on 7th Heaven! Yes, sure enough, this show is produced by none other than Brenda Hampton, executive producer of 7th Heaven. Go figure. I'll watch it anyway.

On to other shows, the anti-Brenda-Hampton show of the summer: Swingtown. A nice wholesome (OK, maybe not) show set in 1976 about a family who moves on up to the nice neighborhood and befriends Tom and Trina, a couple who convinces them to....well, the title kind of gives it away. It's got the scandalous smutty factor that we're missing from Desperate Housewives. However, the best part of this show is the soundtrack! They play the best of the best of the 70's hits.

Another great (yes, I'm using the term "great" very loosely here) one is the SoapNet series "MVP". It's basically a show about a hockey team and the drama that surrounds it: a dead team captain and his widow left penniless....her daughter falling for the new rookie, who has a trailer-trash girlfriend back home to send money to....a coke-snorting womanizer...and the new captian who has fallen for the random girl next door preschool teacher. Yes, all very realistic. But hey, it's SoapNet, what can we expect? Still, entertaining nonetheless.

And I'm waiting for the second installment of The Starter Wife to begin. Yes, I actually watched this trainwreck of a miniseries last summer, in all it's horrible acting, editing, and even worse storyline. And yes, I'll watch it again this summer.

So what I'm basically saying in all of this is when you are flipping channels and you come across some lame Lifetime movie or an even worse series and you think "Who watches this crap?" The answer: I do.

song lyric quiz,(updated with answers) and of course, more photos.

2008-06-27T17:12:00.000-07:00

OK, I saw this on another blog and ripped it off for my own fun. Here's the game: put your iPod on 'random', and list the first lyrics to each song from the first 20 songs, no matter what they are. That's the point of the whole random thing...it's fun not only to guess the songs, but to laugh at the random music people listen to on their iPods!
So here's mine, we'll see who gets them right. Try to name the song and the artist.

1. Anthony works in the grocery store, saving his pennies for someday.

2. Well my heart knows me better than I know myself so I'm gonna let it do all the talking.

3. Oh don't it hurt deep inside to see someone do something to her?

4. I don't want to go another day So I'm telling you exactly what is on my mind. Seems like everybody's breaking up and throwing their love away

5. Love. Devotion. Feeling. Emotion. Don't be afraid to be weak...

6. It's been a mystery, But still they try to see why something good can hurt so bad

7. Needed a shelter of someone's arms, and there you were. Needed someone to understand my ups and downs, and there you were.

8. People living their lives for you on TV, they say they're better than you and you agree

9. I know I don't get there often enough, but God knows I surely try. It's a magic kind of medicine that no doctor can prescribe.

10. Somewhere there's a stolen halo. I used to watch her wear it well.

11. Here have a dollar, in fact no, brother, man, here have two.

12. She take my money!

13. Here I go, here I go, here I go again, girls what's my weakness?

14. Sayin' I love you is not the words I want to hear from you It's not that I want you not to say it but if you only knew

15. On the first part of the journey I was looking at all the life. There were plants and birds and rocks and things

16. Secret heart, what are you made of? What are you so afraid of?

17. Who's that lady comin' down the road? Who's that lady? Who's that woman walking through my door?

18. I can feel it coming in the air tonight

19. As I walk along I wonder what went wrong with our love

20. Out in the country past the city limit sign there's a honkey tonk near the county line

(answers listed below the photos)

1. Movin' Out- Billy Joel
2. Black Horse and Cherry Tree- KT Tunstall
3.Silence is Golden- The Four Seasons
4.Stickwitu- the Pussycat Dolls
5.Return to Innocende- Enigma
6.Who's Crying Now- Journey
7. How Sweet it Is- Michael Buble'
8.Who Will Save Your Soul- Jewel
9.One Particular Harbor- Jimmy Buffett
10.Holy Water - Big and Rich
11.Mr. Wendal- Arrested Development
12.Gold Digger- Kanye West
13.Shoop- Salt N Pepa
14.More Than Words- Extreme
15.A Horse With No Name- America
16.Secret Heart- Feist
17.Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car- Billy Ocean
18.In The Air Tonight- Phil Collins
19.Runaway- Del Shannon
20.Boot Scoot Boogie- Brooks & Dunn

Beating the Heat

2008-06-24T08:59:00.000-07:00

Lisa has a new work schedule....which, if she ever wrote on her blog, she'd probably tell you about it herself...but anyway, she's doing 4 ten-hour days as a gas conservation kind of deal. So that leaves her with a three day weekend (Fridays off!). I don't work Fridays, Joe's off for the summer, and John's school schedule is online so it's all flexible. So the four of us, plus Quinn, all spent our free Friday together and went ice skating in Columbus, followed by lunch at Chili's and back to Lisa and John's house for a couple hours of Wii games. (that's a video game system, just in case you didn't know....and it's awesome.) Even Quinn played the snowboarding and I'm pretty sure he wasn't the lowest score on that one. I won't say who was, but it wasn't me or Lisa or John...

The skating was fun; I haven't been since high school, so the first trip around the ice was slowwwww.....but after one round I got faster each lap, and if I just told myself I was rollerblading, I did fine. No one fell down, so it was a successful trip. And to add to the entertainment, there were 3 guys there, who obviously come in for the Friday open skate every week--but not together--all of various skill levels. They each brought their own figure skates and showed off their moves. OK, only one of the three had actual moves- he did some pretty impressive jumps and twirls and ice dancing (it looked like the River Dance, but on ice). The other two were no where near his skill level, but still funny---er, fun--- to watch.

Here's a couple photos from the rink. The lighting was crappy so the pictures didn't turn out very well, but I don't really care.

Here's Lisa and Quinn in the waiting area. She and I took turns skating/sitting with him.

Lisa, John, and Joe on the ice. You can see one of the "figure skaters" in the background.

And John helping Quinn with his first video game experience. I have a feeling I'll be seeing the two of them in front of the TV like this a lot in the future....

In other news, I've got this weird summer sickness going on. I don't know what it is. In fact, the doctor at Urgent Care said (and you have to imagine this in his Indian accent, it just makes it funnier): "I don't know what's wrong with you. Here's a Z-pack, hope you feel better. Goodbye." Awesome, no? So while I'm definitely feeling somewhat better each day, it's hanging on longer than I'd like. I have dubbed it "mini mono". I imagine that if you took what I have and multiplied it by 6 weeks or so, it must be somewhat similar to what dad's feeling. No...Probably not. But I have some serious sympathy for him right now- three days of being couch-bound and watching TV and not doing anything else has fried my brain. I can't imagine how much cabin fever he must have right now!!!

Quinn and his Uncle John

2008-06-17T19:39:00.000-07:00

a day in the life of a 7 month old

2008-06-13T14:55:00.000-07:00

first time in the shopping cart...wearing his hawaiian shirt, just like grandpa!

Upside down baby, in his favorite "outfit".

Now that he's mobile, Quinn loves to roll over to the couch and look under it.

waving 'hello'

Q loves his blanket...even in 90 degree weather.
play 'til you drop: falling asleep in the exersaucer

watching tv with dad; ESPN, I'm sure.
hmm....
The 'bitter juice face': Apparently watered-down white grape juice tastes as bad as it sounds.
Just hanging out, showing off his sitting up skills.
First time in the pool- he was a little unsure at first, but ended up loving it!

2008-06-08T18:28:00.000-07:00

Hey all you bloggers: send my dad some get-well thoughts please. He's in the hospital with mono and pneumonia. He's actually supposed to be able to come home tomorrow, which is awesome (He's been in there since Thursday night)-- but he's still going to need some at-home recovery and rest while he continues to get better. Dad's definitely on the mend though; he looks, acts, and sounds a ton better than he has in the past couple of weeks, and I know he's excited to get out of the hospital and back to the house. It's good to see him feeling better each day.

------
Updated Monday evening: Dad got released from the hospital this afternoon and is at home resting up. :)

as promised, a happier post.

2008-06-06T16:03:00.000-07:00

Check out my new "I'm a mom so I need a bigger vehicle" jeep patriot. The photo is not my actual jeep, seeing as how it's parked in my driveway where it's 91 and humid, instead of in the snow in front of my (make-believe) cabin....but it looks just like this.

warning: sad story up ahead.

2008-06-04T20:05:00.000-07:00

Well, Cissi the Wonder Dog had a good 15 year run, but that came to an end Monday evening. We miss her and I still haven't gotten used to her not being in the house, but it was time for her to go. She was down to 9 pounds (she's usually about 14 lbs or so) and was just shutting down, so we took her to the vet Monday and said goodbye.
She was pretty awesome and I know I'll never find another dog as cool and smart as she was.

I promise a happier post next time.

Memorial Weekend photos

2008-05-31T18:36:00.000-07:00

Here's the photos to accompany the post below. This is Trey and Quinn with Grandma. on the living room floor: Trey sleeping, Quinn playing
playing games in the yard on Sunday

Quinn on the swing with Grandma; he loves to swing, but he prefers his own seat, rather than sitting on someone's lap. He's so independant. :)
Me, Joe, Quinn

Holiday weekend

2008-05-28T05:45:00.001-07:00

Happy belated Memorial Day. Our weekend was so nice and relaxing; I took Saturday off, so I had a long 4-day weekend and enjoyed every second of it! Friday and Saturday Joe's parents and Jer, Trish and Trey came to visit for Joe's birthday. We went to dinner at Young's Dairy- did the batting cages and driving range...we never did make it to the ice cream though. :( Saturday we stayed here, had lunch, watched Grey's Anatomy that I had saved on my DVR (holy callie-and-her-new-girlfriend! whoa! OK, saw it coming, but still...!!!).
Trey and Quinn played together all day Saturday; now that they're getting older, they are playing more, and they're a lot of fun to watch them interact.

Sunday we went to mom and dad's for more b-day shenanigans. Dad wasn't feeling all that great, so Lisa and I became the grill-masters....OK, 'masters' is probably taking it too far, because I'm pretty sure a grill "Master" wouldn't cook the ribs beyond the point of being able to chew them, but hey...I warned him I didn't know how long to cook them! Anyway, lunch was still yum-O and we had some great cake with about 75 different flavors of ice cream. We played yard games all afternoon (cornhole, horseshoes, and something-or-other golf-- it was fun.) Kara, Mom, Lisa and I played cornhole, and Mom beat the socks off of all of us. She's apparantly got mad bean-bag skillz.

Later in the evening, Lisa, John, Joe, and I went into the basement with every intention to play a pool tournament, but Lisa and I got sidetracked by the stacks of rubbermaid containers in the closet with all of our old stuff in it. So we spent the next few hours "treasure hunting" and sorting through all the good stuff (translate: CRAP). We did manage to throw a lot out and clean up mom's basement which I'm sure she appreciates. We had some good laughs, especially at my senior scrapbook and Lisa's 4th grade writing journal. Good stuff.

Monday, Joe and some other coworkers went to Detroit to watch the Pistons game, and Quinn, Lisa, John, mom and I went to Alaina's graduation open house. She wins, hands down, for the best graduation party food! Arby's roast beef, pitas and hummus, stuffed mushrooms, Grandma's chocolate 'stuff'' (I can't remember what it's called, but I had 2 bowls of it!), taco salad, taco dip, noodles, potatoes, fruit, and of course cake were some of the items on the table (and my plate). It's really all about the food for me.

Baby talk

2008-05-24T19:44:00.000-07:00

Need a laugh?

2008-05-21T07:35:00.001-07:00

Try this: Go to Google.com and type in "find Chuck Norris", except instead of 'search', click on 'I'm feeling lucky'.

6 months old!

2008-05-14T07:25:00.000-07:00

Quinn turned six months old on Monday. It's hard to believe half of his first year has already gone by! He really is growing up quickly and doing new things all the time. He's sitting up on his own, rolling over, playing with more toys, scooting around the floor, and discovering new things around our house on a daily basis. His personality is really coming through too, and it seems like he's pretty ornery. I wonder where that comes from????

Here's a few pictures from this week:

I just want to bang on the drum all day!

2008-05-04T13:17:00.000-07:00

Prom-a-palooza!

2008-04-30T20:22:00.000-07:00

And here are a few more prom pictures for your viewing pleasure. If you're really bored and you want the full prom-viewing experience, there's a good 500 photos on the radio station's website at www.wmmx.com if you have a half hour to kill....

Botched self-portrait, but I like it anyway because it's just lots of big hair and blue eyeshadow.
The classic 'prom girls on a stairwell' pose. There are definitely too many of us to pull this off correctly.
Us, on the dance floor, at the end of the night.

Margie, Brandy, Heather
Brandy, singing with the band.
Our stage dancers: Brandy, Nicole, Carissa, Heather.
Just us; more blue eye shadow.
You can really see the size of the crowd here & what a huge event it is.

Prom night, '08

2008-04-27T21:15:00.000-07:00

The Time Warp Prom was last night, and just as fun as it was last year. Here's a few pictures of our pre-prom party/dinner at Tracie's house. The guy with the beard is Tracie's husband, Brian; we rented a Prom Shuttle Bus (a.k.a. 12-passenger van) and Brian chauffered us there and back. Isn't he nice???

Some pictures in the kitchen:

1. Tina and me.

2. (l-r) me, Nicole, Carissa, Tina, Brandy, Heather

3. Tracie and me

Here we are, getting the party started (as usual) by being the first group out on the dance floor.

Within 2 songs time, the party was in full swing- yes, that's Heather and Brandy leading the "train" through the room.

That's Nicole and Carissa up on the stage with the band; Nicole is singing backup!

Group photo (I don't know where Nicole and Carissa are...possibly still onstage?)

2008-04-25T05:43:00.000-07:00

I bought a new cell phone this week. Joe and I bought a Motorola Q phone for each of us when they first came out, and they were fun for a while...Joe still likes his, and most people I know who have them enjoy them, but mine was a reject phone. The internet connection was crappy, my e-mails wouldn't forward to my phone anymore, I never could send e-mail, and then other smaller things went haywire, such as the screen going white and not coming back for a while, the keys would freeze up at random times, I'd set it to "silent" and it would still ring...etc etc etc.

That phone had been on my very last nerve, and last week I'd had enough.

So I went to our Verizon store and with the help of the oh-so-friendly Verizon workers (haha) I got a "Chocolate" phone. It doesn't have a full 'qwerty' keyboard, it doesn't do internet or e-mail, it's just a phone that will call and text and take pictures, and I love it. And it's half the size of my Q phone, which I enjoy. And, another bonus, it holds a charge for days, unlike the Q which held its charge for, oh, I don't know, eight hours?

mmm, peas.

2008-04-19T17:13:00.000-07:00

Quinn had his first solid food this week: peas. Notice that in the presence of food, Cissi is alive and well, and all too willing to catch any dropped bites!

Tea Time

2008-04-18T19:24:00.000-07:00

I took Jessica's recommendation and bought some Red Tea. This was not an easy purchase- my two main shopping venues, WalMart and Kroger, don't have a big supply of red tea. In fact, WalMart has none, Kroger has one kind, their own 'Private Selection' brand. So I got it, and as Rachel Ray would say "YUM-O!"
The actual taste isn't that different...actually it kind of just tastes like hot water...but it smells so good! It's got a spice-y scent, in a chai kind of way, but not the overpowering taste of chai.
Thanks for the tip, Jessica!!

Let's see, what else, what else.....it's spring, so I'm a blonde again.

Prom is one week away, and I totally scrapped both dresses and started all over with my outfit. The one dress was going to be way too hot, and I gave the other one to one of the other girls who needed something to wear.
I found some fabric upstairs in my "craft" room (a.k.a. the 'big fat messy room") and fashioned a shirt out of it. It's very Madonna meets Flashdance with a hint of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.
It's not very prom-y at all, but more like 1980-something "high school girl sneaks out of the house through her bedroom window to go to a party in the city".

I think between us all we have every aspect of the 80's covered; we've got the 80's bridesmaid, the early 80's (as in Footloose) kind of dress, one girl we call the 'Easter Sunday in the 80's', there's the 80's prom queen, my 80's party wear....add in some big bangs, some crimps, a side ponytail, and some jelly bracelets and I think we've got it all.

No plans this weekend, other than cleaning up the house. I hear it's going to be a rainy weekend, so maybe I'll get some reading in. I did finally start my Jodi Picoult book (Second Glance). I gave up on the other book I was reading; it was Danielle Steele "Sisters" and if I had to sum it up in one word: SUCKS. Don't read it. I got halfway through and couldn't take it anymore, so I skipped and read the last 3 pages and gave it away to be sold in a garage sale. Good riddance, bad book.

More faves...

2008-04-14T06:45:00.000-07:00

While I'm on the topic of makeup, I'm going to share my other current favorites. I use these every day, no fail. First up, Burt's Bees pomegranite lip balm. I am a HUGE Burt's Bees original lip balm fan...no, make that "addict"...so I tried this one. It doesn't tingle like the original does, but it has a teensy bit of pink color to it. Since Quinn's been born I don't wear lipstick like I used to, for his sake- otherwise he'd be covered in lipstick kisses all day. So this product gives me just enough color so I don't look like the un-dead, and it doesn't rub off on Q's face.
Now, having said that...when I DO wear lipstick, I wear this:
I own it in 6 shades, and I'm sure I'll get more. (Every now and then CVS sells them 2 for 1!) It's a gloss, but it stays on all day without being sticky, and it comes in colors and sheers. I have some of each, but my favorite is the "sheer nude".

My newest find, for all you Bare Minerals lovers out there.......EVERYDAY MINERALS! It's Bare Minerals on a budget. :) I've tried every mineral makeup there is out there, and this is the closest to BM; possibly even better, because it is gentler on the skin.
What I really love about it though, is if you go to the website, www.everydayminerals.com , for the price of shipping ($5.00, I believe) you can customize a free sample kit for yourself, in which you get 3 foundation colors, a blush, and a concealer. It's one sample kit per order, but there's no limit to how many times you can order samples, and no purchase required.
Try it. You will love it.
I have the foundation, a couple blushes, some concealers (multitasking is my favorite) and some eyeshadows. The only thing I don't love is the eyeliner....unlike Bare Minerals, this doesn't translate well to wet-use as an eyeliner. But the shadows are terrific - my current top pick is "pressed olive".

My name is Lori...

2008-04-10T19:17:00.000-07:00

...and I am a makeup junkie. I have no problems admitting to that. I'm on Sephora's mailing list, I will buy anything to get the Clinique bonus gift, I own more eyeshadow in various shades of plum than any one girl should own...
And yet I still want more.
I discovered a new store. It's not 'new' or 'hip' even, but new to me. It's so old-school that it's just too fun! It's the Merle Norman store right here in Springfield! I went there, to buy a lipstick that one of my clients wore and she got it there. How very cool that when I went in I forgot the name of the shade, but I gave the lady my client's name, she looked her up in the system and told me what shade she bought!
So I bought the lip pencil.
I'm an official makeup stalker now.

While I was there, I tried on a few shades on my hand...and used this awesome cream cleanser to wipe it off...so I bought the cleanser. (It's fabulous for removing eye makeup, without getting the oily eye-makeup-remover in your eyes!)
And also, my newest favorite product, I bought eyeshadow primer. It's awesome! I've never used an eyeshadow primer, but for some reason (namely the fact that I can't keep shadow on my lids all day) I decided I needed it. And I love it. I have squinty eyes and I keep saying someday I'll get an eyelid lift so I can see my eyeshadow better, but until then I've found the $11.00 solution.

Other recent purchases: today I bought black leggings with silver studded stars on them and a silver scrunchie. Both are for prom.
And yes, I said scrunchie.
And yes, it was for sale- for real- in a clothing store. (Dots, if you must know).
Scary, isn't it??????
Not only did they have silver scrunchies, they had gold, hot pink, lime green, and orange.

Other news, Cissi is wasting away and is all skin and bones now. I keep thinking she's near-death and then she bounces back (we figured out today that she's at least 15 years old). Just when I think she's a goner, I came home tonight and she's jumping for marshmallows and looking more 'chipper' than she has in days. I really think she's indestructable. She has, however, been permanently relocated to the laundry room due to her lack of bladder control.

Tomorrow: day off. Lunch with a friend, Quinn's getting his picture taken, dinner w/ another friend...maybe I'll clean up the house in between all of our outings. Maybe not. Maybe I'll just watch more 90210 reruns and take a nap. :)

Weekend Update

2008-04-07T06:46:00.000-07:00

We spent this past weekend in Cleveland for our friend Andrew's wedding. Joe was a groomsman, so we were there for the entire weekend of festivities. Friday afternoon, we checked into our hotel, did a quick-change and headed to the rehearsal and dinner. The dinner was at the Elyria Country Club (been there Nan?) and was very yummy. Andrew's mom really went all-out, with a fabulous dinner and cake, and homemade chocolates.

Here's Joe with Andrew, at the rehearsal dinner.

And Quinn with his new friend "Nona". I think she really may have taken him home with her if I had given her the chance!

The guys in their groomsmen gifts. Andrew got them all personalized jerseys (he had their names stitched on the back.)

Quinn stayed awake through the whole rehearsal dinner party so he crashed as soon as we left......and he slept through breakfast the next morning.

The wedding was great- Andrew and Jen are a very cute couple. She was smiley and giggly through the ceremony. It was adorable. We hadn't met Jen until this weekend, and I think she and Andrew are a good match, and she's great for him.

Joe, Dan, and Steve enjoying their dinner

Joe and I, at the reception
Joe with the bride.

Joe's parents were SO nice to come meet us at the hotel Saturday night to babysit while we went to the wedding. Here's Quinn and his Grandma at breakfast Sunday morning.Then on the way home, we stopped at the outlet mall in Lodi and did a little shopping. It was so nice to walk around and enjoy the sun! And Quinn loved it- he kicked his feet in the stroller the whole time.

Cereal!

2008-04-02T17:47:00.000-07:00

Quinn started into the cereal this week...the word "cereal" is kind of a stretch, however. Rice flakes diluted in water isn't anywhere near a bowl of Lucky Charms, but if Gerber can call it cereal, then I can too.

As predicted, most of it didn't actually stay inside his mouth, but rather ended up back on the bib. It's been messy but gets better each time he tries it. Here he is, with his first attempt at eating from a spoon. Not sure of the taste.....
mmm.....good ol' similac!

More Easter Photos

2008-03-29T20:59:00.001-07:00

Happy Easter

2008-03-27T18:56:00.001-07:00

Easter was a lot of fun- we spent the weekend with Joe's family and got to get the babies together. They were very cute together, but liked to pull on each other's hair and ears. I took a ton of pictures, but have yet to load them onto the computer, so in the mean time, here's two I "borrowed" from Trish's snapfish. Thanks Trish! :)

Quinn has been on cold medicine this week for his rattly cough...it's working, but it's made him super hyper, and not wanting to sleep very much. As a result, he's learned to "sing" (scream/laugh/squeal combo) VERY loudly, and for long periods of time, and has kept us awake for the past two nights, wanting to do anything but go to bed. So this weekend, afterI get some more sleep, I'll put more pictures up.

Oh, and I've cut my hair again, since the above picture. It's shorter in back, and slightly longer on one side, since it's all about the asymmetry this season.

Random Thursday morning thoughts.

2008-03-20T04:43:00.000-07:00

I woke up today to SUNSHINE! Can you believe it? I thought spring would never get here. And I'm completely enjoying it, and procrastinating my morning away,blogging instead of getting ready for work. I've watched the View (taped, from yesterday), fed Quinn, made some coffee, looked out the back windows to enjoy the sun, and killed a good chunk of time online. Still in my p.j.'s...have to leave for work in 40 minutes. Uh oh.

I get to see the world's best nephew this weekend, so I'm sure there will be a new batch of pictures of the boys after Easter. Can't wait!

I finally cut my hair this week. Quinn was pulling on it way too much and it was taking too long to dry in the morning, (taking away from blogging, apparantly) so I did the total 'mom' thing and cut it off. It's in a cute little bob now, a la Katie Holmes. Or since I have bangs, it's possible I look more like Suri. Oh well.

Speaking of cute little girls with bob haircuts, my neice, Rylee, is complete entertainment on any given day. Here she is watching her new favorite movie, The Music Man. Do you think she spends some time with my mom??? :) (pause the music on the playlist to the right, to hear the music on the video.) By the way, there's an even better one of her doing the Chicken Fat workout with her uncle John, but since I want John to still be my friend, I won't put that one on here.

4 months old

2008-03-17T07:22:00.000-07:00

Here's our little man with his new fashionable eyewear from Aunt Trish, on his 4 month b-day.

Ready for another trip to the mall. (And ready for baseball season to start!)

Asleep in the swing with his stuffed monkey and tag blanket.

beware the ides of march!

2008-03-14T11:14:00.000-07:00

It's been sickness, round 2. First I got it, then Quinn, now Joe. One last cough, sneeze, and sore throat before spring gets here- which is hopefully soon!

Quinn is four months old now and is doing all kinds of new tricks: rolling from front to back, pulling his pacifier out of his mouth and playing with it, kicking his socks off at record speed, and sleeping through the night (yay!). Joe and I have not learned any new tricks, nor has Cissi, unless you count chronic 'death-breath' as a trick, if so, then Cissi can count that one for herself.

We survived the big blizzard of '08...we were snowed in for all of 17 hours or so, then the sun came out and melted it all away, leaving the backyard a big muddy pile of mush. I just love March weather.

For the upcoming St. Patty's day we've planned a trip to Marie's Candies with my Monday lunch group of girls. We're like the red-hats for the 25 to 35 crowd, but we're all hairstylists, so instead of hats, we just change our haircolor. During the summer months we do "pool Mondays" but with the cold weather, we've started doing lunch once a month, somewhere fabulous and exciting. So this month is the tour of Champaign county food (we really sound like a bunch of old ladies, don't we!?) with lunch at Mumford's deli and dessert at Marie's. Most of the girls have never experienced Marie's....it's something every chocoholic should do at least once.
Next month it'll hopefully be warmer, and we'll go to the 'new' outdoor mall in Dayton, the Green, and shop and eat at Cheesecake Factory. YUM.

one last note: the Ohio IKEA is open!!!

Drove my Chevy to the Levy

2008-03-05T18:54:00.000-08:00

Actually, I drive a Saturn and I didn't vote for the levy, or the presidential hopefuls either. I had good intentions for voting... yes I know, how very un-American of me to so carelessly toss aside my right to vote, but when it came down to it Tuesday morning, I either had time to vote or buy supplies for work (mainly replenishing the color we were in desperate need of!)
Obviously my means of earning money won out in that battle, so I skipped out on voting and the nifty sticker that comes along with it.
I found out last night- after the polls had closed, of course- that now you can go in early, at your convenience- for example, on Monday afternoon- and vote....would have been good to know. I would have done just that.

Our school levy still finally passed (BARELY!) without my vote: 2454 to 2452. Joe says that it was his vote that saved the football season. However, it just has passed "for now" because since it's so close they have to count the provisional ballots.....lets hope my one vote doesn't blow it for the school. But really, they should make public this whole 'voting ahead of time' thing (which is different from absentee ballots, FYI).

And yes, I know that in American Pie when he sings about driving his Chevy, he's not talking about a school levy. But it's a catchy title, no?

what's so funny?

2008-03-02T14:20:00.000-08:00

Fashion Isn't a Luxury.

2008-02-25T15:16:00.000-08:00

Quinn and I went to the mall today. It was his first time in the stroller. Come to think of it, today was my first real shopping trip since he's been born. I've hit the mall a couple times here and there, but usually I just run into one store. But today we made two laps around the mall (which isn't as much as it sounds- calling it the "mall" is kind of a stretch!) But he loved it, and fell asleep on the second time around.

I managed to find quite a few good deals- a couple shirts at Charlotte Russe, a t-shirt from SJP's clothing line at Steve & Barry's- grey with pink writing that says "fashion isn't a luxury"- a new knife from the kitchen store, new shoes for Quinn from Old Navy, some Bath & Body works soaps (I always grab a few of those when I'm at the mall- we use them at home and at the salon).

The deal of the day was at JCPenney. All of their formal/semi-formal dresses were on huge clearance. I found a black cocktail dress to wear to one of the many weddings I have coming up AND another prom dress. Yes, another prom dress. I couldn't pass it up. This one is teal and very 80's and would look really great with my white scrunchy boots- and both dresses were $6.97! It couldn't NOT buy them!

The other highlight of the trip was the vanilla latte and blondie brownie I had for a snack from the coffee kiosk. YUM!

Here's a picture of Quinn about halfway through our shopping day:

And here he is in the car when we got home. I think I wore the little guy out!

I can't stop taking his picture.

2008-02-23T19:32:00.001-08:00

Snow Day

2008-02-22T06:17:00.000-08:00

There's another snow day today, which doesn't affect me, (it's my day off anyway), but it did make a long weekend for Joe, so he's happy. I'm so ready for the cold weather to be done and spring to get here. I'd really like to go outside and take Quinn for a walk (and probably the dog would like that too-- poor neglected Cissi).

What's new here.....big news of the week: I bought my prom dress. It's so amazing, I can't even show pictures ahead of time. If you thought last year was good, wait until you see this year! All I'll say is this: Karen Carpenter meets Marsha Brady in YELLOW! Hideous. Perfectly hideous. I'm really trying to get up in the on-stage 'best' dressed contest this year. I am having a slight shoe dilemma though....I'll have to cruise back through the goodwill again for footwear.

And as an added bonus, I found a roll-top desk at the goodwill in decent condition. I've been looking for one for a while and they're hard to come by, unless you want to pay a few hundred for one, which I don't. So anyway, I have a new desk which I will pick up this weekend, which means I don't have to use a TV tray as a desk anymore!

A few photos from the past week:

Quinn helping me get ready to go to dinner at Los Mariachi's, my new favorite Mexican place

trying out the bumbo seat for the first time

and totally abandoning any sort of boundaries the back positioner is supposed to give him

cousins

2008-02-15T14:45:00.001-08:00

Here's my little baby Gap model in his new onesie from aunt Trish:
And this is the Valentines Day card we got from world's cutest nephew, Trey, and his dog Ozzie!

Week in Review

2008-02-15T07:34:00.000-08:00

You know, with this whole 'going back to work' thing, I have a lot less free time to blog. I'm going to have to reevaluate the situation.
Anyway, it's been a good week in U-town. School was cancelled Tuesday, so Joe had a nice day off... I gave us a 2 hour salon delay, which sounded like a good idea at the time, but it really threw our internal work schedules off and we were off-kilter all day. (Some would say that we're that way every day at work!)
Wednesday I went to work at noon, and Joe had a delay, so he and Quinn and I got to be bums all morning together. After work Wednesday, Quinn and I went to Joe's girls' basketball game, then to dinner at Cracker Barrel afterwards. (There's slim pickings for dinner in Piqua!)

Yesterday, V-day, I worked all day. Between the Marie's chocolates I brought, the bag of hugs and kisses another girl brought, and the chocolate covered strawberries one of our clients brought, we worked on a sugar buzz all day. Good times, lots of laughs as usual.
After work, Joe came home from practice with a necklace/earring set for me for Valentines day. I'm already planning my oufit for work tomorrow around it.

Today- day off! I love Fridays. So far it's been an extremely productive (hah!) day. Quinn and i both slept until 9, I fed him, we watched One Tree Hill together, and now Q's taking his typical 'after-breakfast-nap'. I have the cutest sleeping-baby pictures of him too, but for some reason my camera (and it's the "good" camera, too!) won't upload the photos to the computer. Not good.

So now I'm catching up on my blog reading, having my coffee, and finding new music online. So far, today's new favorites are Elsa Chapman and Alexa Ray Joel (Billy's daughter!?). I have a new iTunes card that I'm itching to use up but I need to figure out what I 'need' and narrow it down to 15 songs.
My plans for today include to stay in my p.j.'s until some ridiculous time this afternoon, give Q-baby a bath, watch more recorded tv, and I guess I need to hit WalMart for diapers.

check it out

2008-02-11T17:15:00.001-08:00

The Zebra Lounge has re-opened, hopefully for good this time. (link at the right)

Saturday

2008-02-09T14:22:00.000-08:00

It's naptime for Quinn, and I need one too, but first I'm doing some catch up on blogs and emails and pictures, and possibly some new iTunes. But first, here's a semi-OK hair picture. This is at the end of the day, so it's all un-done and all, but you get the general idea. There's not a whole lot of pictures of me, since I'm usually behind the camera, so this will have to do for now.

In this picture, I'm laughing at Quinn, who has Cissi's tail in his hand. He's been grabbing things lately, and Cissi's tail is one of the new favorites, along with my hair, necklace, earrings, and glasses.

BANG[s]

2008-02-05T19:54:00.000-08:00

I'm in a hair rut. This is not a good thing for a hairstylist, but it's true. I've had the same style and color, with minor variations, for the past year, and I just keep letting it get longer and longer. I thought about cutting it off, but winter boredom is not a good enough reason for me to lose the length just yet. I know I need some new 'snazzy' color (I penciled myself in for an appointment next week) but that's not enough.
So this evening after I got home, in a bathroom-beautician moment, I cut my bangs. I've had various lengths of bangs on and off most of my life, and I've been in the 'swoopy' bangs mode for the past few years, and I'm bored with it. I now have new bangs, a la Reese Witherspoon. Who knows how I'll feel about this when I wake up in the morning, but tonight I feel pretty dang sassy with my new bangs, and I think it's enough to carry me through this hair rut.
Aren't you glad you tuned in to my blog today, for this fascinating update?! :)

Um...I did NOT get bangs like this:

Oh, how I wish someone would come into the salon requesting this monstrosity! How much fun would that be to cut!?

on the mend.

2008-02-04T12:08:00.000-08:00

The three of us are getting better now. The attempt to keep Quinn away from the sickness was apparantly too little, too late. However, it did provide me with a full 10 hours of sleep, which on top of my antibiotics, helped me feel a TON better Saturday morning...just in time for mom to call and say "Quinn doesn't feel well". Super. (I was glad though that mom and dad kept him overnight. Joe and I both really needed the sleep. Thanks!)
So we took him to the doctor, and after he was poked and prodded WAY more than he would have liked, the doctor determined Quinn had the flu and therefore, there was nothing we could do for it, except baby Tylenol and sleep. It worked, he's feeling much better today. He's back to his smiley self. We're all actually feeling better today- I hope everyone else out there is too!

Not a lot going on today, catching up on sleep and TV, and now that I'm feeling better I'm telling myself I'm getting back to my excersizing. I haven't actually done it yet, but I'm thinking about it. That's a step, right? :) We have a wedding to go to in 8 weeks, and that's my goal of when to be gut-less. I. Can. Do. It.

As for the rest of the day, I'm going to catch up on my blog reading, watch one or two Lifetime movies on my DVR, do some laundry and make some dinner. Oh, and exercise. See- I already forgot!

Prom update: they've posted the date for the time warp prom 2008. It's April 26, so it's time to start dress shopping!

Sick and Sicker

2008-02-01T12:16:00.001-08:00

The sickness is going around U-town. Watch out. Joe caught it, one of my co-workers had it, and now I have it. So I'm sitting in the dining room, killing time (aka 'staying awake') until mom gets off work, and she's coming to rescue Quinn from the sick-house for the night. Hopefully he hasn't caught the bug yet. Joe's had it all week, so he's been quarantined to the bedroom, and Quinn and I dubbed the family room and that bathroom the 'healthy wing' of the house. But apparantly the sickness is airborn, because now the healthy wing also needs to be disinfected. I felt fine until 11:00 today, then all of a sudden I had a sore throat, chills, and was super-tired. What the hey?!
So until Grandma comes to the rescue, I'm washing my hands like I'm scrubbing in for surgery when I have to get close to Quinn, and breathing through my nose...when I can't hold my breath any longer around him. He's got a well-check next Friday though, so hopefully he'll stay healthy, and then they can give him the once-over to make sure he's good, along with his shots.
In the mean time, the doctor's office is so over booked they can't get me in until Monday, which is no good, so I'm waiting for them to call me back with another alternative. And then I'll go to sleep for a long time. Probably until sometime tomorrow evening. :)

Aside from that, the jeep has a flat tire and the bird couch has a rip in the "upholstery" (if we can call it that.)
Ugh.

New Pictures of Quinn

2008-01-26T13:59:00.000-08:00

news and updates

2008-01-22T19:02:00.000-08:00

1. heath ledger died? what the heck. i thought britney would be the next celeb to kick it.
heath apparently won't be (but should have been) on season 2 of Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew. anyone else watching this show and oddly intrigued by it?

2. typing one-handed, as i am holding a sleeping quinn, who got his first cold and is doing alright, as long as he is being held...

3. cold weather = dried/cracking shampoo-hands. OUCH. My fingers are on fire. Good thing dad (or santa?) stocked me up with the good industrial strength hand cream for christmas!

4. eat a heath bar in mourning of cracked-out celebs tomorrow.

and a joke, to lighten the mood:
One night a burglar is trying to break into a house. He's sneaking across the lawn when he hears a voice - "Jesus is watching you!" He jumps, turns around, but he doesn't see anything. So he starts creeping across the lawn again. "Jesus is watching you!" He hears it again. So now the burglar is really looking around, and he sees a parrot in a cage by the side of the house. He says to the parrot, "Did you say that?" The parrot answers "Yes I did." So the burglar asks, "What's your name?" The parrot says "Clarence." The burglar says "What kind of stupid idiot would name his parrot Clarence?" The parrot laughs and says, "The same stupid idiot that named his Rottweiler 'Jesus' "

Because it's winter and I'm a hermit, therefore nothing to blog about, so instead I'll tell jokes.

2008-01-20T18:17:00.001-08:00

A neutron walks into a bar. "I'd like a beer" he says.
The bartender promptly serves up a beer.
"How much will that be?" asks the neutron.
"For you?" replies the bartender, "no charge"

Yes, folks, there's plenty more where that came from. Check back soon. :)

fungus humor

2008-01-19T21:24:00.000-08:00

A mushroom walks into a bar.
The bartender refuses to serve him and tells him to leave.
The mushroom says "Aw, come on, let me stay...I'm a fun guy!"

New Years Eve

2008-01-13T16:14:00.000-08:00

We had a good time celebrating the arrival of 2008. You saw a snippet of the celebration in the video earlier. Joe, Quinn, and I went to Lima to rock out with Joe's 7:11 club (those are his Swiss friends, who really aren't Swiss at all, but midwestern Americans, but I call them Swiss because he met them in Geneva.)
Robert and his wife, (and his 2 cutie-pie girls) were nice enough to share their house with us overnight. The rest of them went skiing during the day- where Joe's super-awesome ski jump took place- and then Quinn and I met them back at Robert and Heather's for dinner, drinks, cookies, and a full evening of Rock Band, featuring the Skype Outs-- who apparantly originated in Green Gables.

I assumed my position of drummer for a few songs, and yes, closed out the night with a riveting version of Black Hole Sun, then we watched the New Years Rockin' Eve in Times Square and counted down to 2008.

New Years Day, Heather made pancakes for us, Robert supplied Tim Horton's coffee and was nice enough to let us be bums for the first half of the day and take our sweet time leaving his house to come back home....

We should have stayed at the party, because we came home to a frozen/ burst pipe under the kitchen sink, so we had to call the plumber to come fix that on Wednesday. Then Thursday I went to work, and we had no heat, so the heat guy had to come fix the furnace (apparantly we were supposed to have been periodically cleaning out the furnace filter for the past 3 years?! Who knew????) And then this Saturday, we had a minor issue with a lack of hot water at the salon- but super dad/handyman came to the rescue and fixed it ASAP.

Quinn turned 2 months old yesterday- he is doing great at the babysitter's (and of course at grandma's!). i'm back to my regular schedule at work and BUSY! It's good to be back.

Today, Joe caught up on his grades, while Quinn and I slept. We both took naps from noon to 3, then we had lunch/dinner from our favorite sub places (Subway for me, Our Hero for Joe.....Similac for Quinn.) And now I'm blogging and having some toffee coffee.

That should catch us up on 2008 so far. Congrats to both Nicole Ritchie and Christina Aguilara on their new babies. Thank goodness for E! News Weekend for keeping me updated.

ha ha.

2008-01-09T20:24:00.000-08:00

G, B-flat, and D walk into a bar.
The bartender looks at the group and says "Sorry, you'll have to leave. We don't serve minors here!"

Christmas in Michigan

2008-01-09T07:10:00.000-08:00

Here they are: the rest of the Christmas 2007 pictures. We spent Christmas eve, day, and day after in Michigan. We got to visit Joe's parents, where Quinn got lots of quality snuggle time with his Grandma LaValley, we saw 'grandma Featherstone, Dick & Joann, and we got to meet our new nephew, Trey.
Quinn and Trey were cute together; they weren't quite sure what to think of each other. Or maybe they just weren't quite sure why we stuffed them into a ginormous Christmas stocking....either way, it was fun and I can't wait to hang out with Trey again!
Quinn also had his first college visit, when we made a quick side trip to buy textbooks for Joe.

responses to the comments of the post below:

2008-01-06T16:59:00.000-08:00

jh- sounds like you need me to come up and drum for the skype outs! oh- and the orange bar at the top of my blog links to the awesome layouts.

nancy- 'black hole sun' is in my top 10 all time fav songs- it'sa 90's grunge-rock song. (And as for dad and i with the hats-- the drummers always get the coolest hats!)

trish- the hat is joe's, but i like to wear it.

jill- rock band is always better with hats. wait until you see the new year's pics!

Back to Christmas

2008-01-06T05:38:00.001-08:00

The Thursday before Christmas we finally got a chance to take Quinn to see his Great-Grandma Lehman- she got to hold him for hours, we got to eat Grandma's caramels, butterscotch cookies, sour cream cookies, Boston fudge cake, and cheeseball. Good stuff. When we got home that night I had some quality time on the bird couch with my two babies.

The rest of these pictures are from Christmas day, at mom and dad's house. We had a lot of fun- breakfast was great, everyone got lots of nice presents, (lots of new hats!), and then we played Rock Band for a few hours. We're definitely not up to Partridge family status yet, but we sure did rock it out. Let me tell you, mom can sing a mean "Black Hole Sun!" I'm hoping for another rock band night in Columbus soon.

My very first video blog

2008-01-02T16:32:00.000-08:00

I am not a 'type A' kind of person (that's my sister, for those of you who know us!), but there are two things I get totally anal about organizing and those are the color tubes at work, and photos. The first doesn't affect anyone here, so I'll skip that, but the photo thing....I MUST have photos organized in chronological order or it just drives me nuts.
I've been known to disassemble entire photo albums to insert ONE photo in the beginning of a book, so it views as it happens in real life. And my blog photos are always listed in order of how they occured (in case anyone was wondering), same with order of posts.

Having said that....at Joe's request, I will post a video of New Year's Eve countdown, even though I am still in Christmas posting mode, (see post below) and it will drive me nuts to do so...but I'll do it. Because Joe doesn't give a rat's hind end about blogging, so the fact that he actually asked me to put this on here means something.

He was inspired by our friend Jennie's blog video of Joe's super-awesome ski jump- which you all should definitely check out on her blog, Tivo Changed My Life. (See link to the right). It's well worth the blog-walk over there to see it.

After thoroughly enjoying her video MANY times, he suggested I put my video of the countdown to midnight on here.

Anyway, all this build up for nothing...kind of like the video.

"Christmas at the Lake"

2008-01-02T04:37:00.000-08:00

Our beachfront Christmas was great, as usual. It was extra nice, because Jessica was home from Poland, John is back from Kosovo, and we had Quinn added to our family. And the cheese potatoes were pretty fantastic too!
This year, I had the 'fun' idea of taking a group family picture, via self-timers....which was such a laugh, I think we should do it every year!!! It turned out fairly well- my batteries died at the most inopportune time, but I am pretty sure Amy got the good shots on her camera. I especially enjoy this one, where Amy and I obviously didn't make it back to the group in time.

Kyle, Jessica, and Chuck Norris. What are the odds we can get Chuck to join us for dinner next year?

Nancy, the supermodel....

...apparantly on the same runway as Quinn and I.

Joe, showing off his mad juggling skills

Celebrate Good Times, Come On!

2007-12-31T13:23:00.000-08:00

Happy 2008! I have many Christmas pictures to share, and hopefully I'll get around to putting some of them on here soon. We're headed to Lima overnight to celebrate the new year with Joe's 7:11 group, then I have tomorrow and Wednesday to rest.....then it's back to work. It's been a great 8 weeks or so off work, but I'm ready to go back. I think.

So everyone, enjoy your New Years Eve, have fun, be safe, watch the ball drop, etc etc. Did you make a resolution?? Last year I resolved to learn to like shrimp, and I think I've done well at it. I still can't eat shrimp coctail, but I do enjoy a nice seasoned grilled shrimp now and then... I know, not a very exciting resolution, but a very attainable one.

This year? Not sure yet, I have 7.5 hours to think of one. I'll let y'all know what I decide on.

I really hope that the Hollywood writers resolve to eh....resolve the writers' strike. I'm really missing my friends at Seattle Grace, on Wisteria Lane, and all the rest, too many to mention. I'm going to have to stoop to watching reality TV, which I'm really not happy about, but I'll do it. If I must. :)

Happy New Year!

I am now going to go enjoy my Cadbury Ornamet, courtesy of Aunt Jenni. =) THANKS!!!