No Friday Funny....again.

Sorry - no Friday Funny here.

Katie's fish Betty died yesterday. (Well, yesterday was the first I noticed it....thinking it had happened earlier.)

Anyway, she was understandably very upset. We've talked about it and today we got Betty out of the water and cleaned her tank for the last time. (Katie wanted to leave Betty in the water for one more day.)

There's been no talk of more pets just yet. I don't think Katie is interested in another fish, and I'm not up for a turtle, which is what she wants. For now, house training Will is taking up enough time.

YAY! Someone is reading me!
The blog world is full of 'awards' for different blogs. This is my first, and I'd like to thank all the little people that make my blog what it is. (That'd be the ACTUAL little people themselves...my kids.) Anyway, thanks to Shelley Bakes for passing this to me. If you have a moment, check her out...she's yummy.

This award comes with instructions, which are as follows:

1. Post the award on your blog. Present this award to seven others whose blogs you find brilliant in content and/or design, or those who have encouraged you.
2. Tell those seven people they've been awarded HONEST SCRAP, inform them of these guidelines, and ask that they link back to you.
3. Share TEN HONEST THINGS about yourself.

Hmmm...10 honest things, ok. I'll give it a go...gonna try and make them ones not everyone knows.

1. I color my hair. I do. Can't deny it. It's not a drastic change from my natural, just a something with a bit more kick. I've colored my hair on and off for the past 14 years and don't have any reason to stop.

2. The only reason I attend church is because of my aunt Carol. She is my Dad's sister and passed away last May. She was very big into the church and took me every Sunday when I was younger, sometimes kicking and screaming. So now, I don't go to church to feel closer to God, I go to feel closer to Carol, which I do.

3. I don't like chocolate. I can eat a candy bar, but that's about it. I don't want cake, ice cream, brownies, etc. This weekend I got peanut butter bars with chocolate frosting on them. I cut off the frosting and just eat the peanut butter part. Some consider that blasphemy.

4. If I had a million dollars and there was no risk and no recovery time, I'd get a boob job. Sorry, I just would....probably. When it comes right down to it, I spose I would chicken out. However, I like to imagine a boob job.

5. I'm a stay-at-home mom right now, but when Will is old enough to go to school I'd like at least a part-time job and that scares the hell out of me. I'm scared that after 7-8 years of being a full-time mommy I no longer have the traits employers are looking for. I'm not 'in demand'. So these days I'm trying to buff up my resume with volunteer work when I can.

6. My husband and I are in agreement that we are done having kids. Two is a great number. But....we have both admitted that there are days when we could be talking into another. (For the record, he admitted this before I did.)

7. I used to smoke. It's hands-down the stupidest decision I ever made, but at the time I was too young and invincible to care. I smoked for about 7 years and quit once we decided we wanted to have kids. There are days I wish I had a cigarette. About once a year I'll get the opportunity to have a couple puffs and they almost take me down. Can't comprehend how I used to do that every day.

8. I was in a bad relationship when I was much younger, not very healthy, not gonna go into details. Over the last year I've really been able to let go of the anger I carried around because of that. No longer holding grudges against that person and it's a very nice feeling.

9. I can wiggle my eyes. I don't know how else to explain it. I'll show you sometime if you're interested. People used to get weirded out.

10. I love summertime...I'll even take springtime. Round about this time of year I start to get itchy for spring...but really longing for summer. It's never long enough, I never get everything done I want to do, never get to the park enough, etc. But I wouldn't want to live in a place where the seasons don't really change at all. I think I would take things for granted. It's good to lose summertime too so that you'll notice when it comes back.

I don't read a LOT of blogs, so I can't pass this on to 7 other people because I just don't have that many....so I'm just doing one.
I'm passing this award and instructions on to....

Heather and Drew Just 4 Alicia

Will's Gym Class

Last week Will started attending a child gym class. Katie used to attend these classes when she was younger. I won 4 free weeks of classes for Will in a drawing held last year and I've finally made time for it. (I also won 4 weeks of kickboxing classes for myself...we'll see if I ever make time for that!)

Anyway, on Thursday morning now Will goes to "Gym Class". Last week as we were going to class he said that Grandma Mary would be there too. What?? If finally dawned on me that he is thinking "Jim Class" as in Uncle Jim. After the initial disappointment, he recovered and had a good time.

I started taking Katie to this class when she was about 10 months so that she could play with other kids her age. She really had a hard time adjusting to other kids. Usually she was afraid of them. By the time we stopped going she was over 3 and could have taught the class herself. Will doesn't need the socialization, he gets enough of that through our other commitments. I'm hoping that these classes will help him with listening and following directions. (I can hope.) I plan on continuing these classes probably through the next 3-4 months. Once it gets warm outside I think we can find other stuff to do. Hopefully I'll get some pictures of Will in class soon.

Our own Frosty

John and Katie were very busy Sunday afternoon. (Prior to the Vikings game) Katie and John built a snowman on our back patio. And while he scares me every time I open the blinds, he is a very cute snowman.

We also bought a new TV over the weekend. It only took 18 months to finally break down and get one. Unfortunately it wasn't enough to help the Vikings pull out a victory last night. Oh well. I'm ready for baseball to start anyway. It's fun to hear the kids cheering for the Vikings. Every time a touchdown was scored, Will got upset because he thinks it should be called a "touchUP". Probably since we were raising our hands in the air as we shouted it.

7 Years

Today isn't a Friday Funny post, instead it's our anniversary. And while I could use this time to crack a joke or make a funny comment about marriage, I won't. Today we celebrate 7 years of marriage, and to me, that's a big number.

Some of you readers may have been married 20+ years and you laugh at the thought that 7 years is a long time. Well, you gotta start somewhere, every year is important. And I know in my soul that we'll be celebrating 20+ years as well, just not yet. :)

These days it seems that 7 years of marriage isn't as common as it used to be so I'm proud of us and our family. We've both had great examples to follow in our families.

So today we'll probably break out the wedding video and wish that we were on the beach in Key West again. We'll have crab legs for supper and I'll make Key Lime Pie for dessert. And it will be the perfect way to celebrate 7 wonderful years. I couldn't imagine spending it with anyone else.

Fort Zachary in Key West

Outside Kelly's (restaurant) - after supper

BTW...I'm so proud of my $200 dress. It was a steal!

Happy Birthday!

There's a few birthdays this week I wanted to acknowledge....

Happy Birthday to my sister Denise, my BIL Jim, and our friend Joe! They all celebrate their birthday's this week and weekend...have a good one!

Day 2

Day 2 on the "Extra Time" snow pants front...

It went VERY well and extremely smooth. Good morning.


Disclaimer: Past performance is not an indication of future results.

(I knew my time in the investment field would come in handy.)

F@#king snow pants

I've always hated the winter season...cold, dangerous, etc. This year I have a new reason for my contempt of this time of year: snow pants. Oh yeah, and lets add boots to this list too.

4 out of 5 of the mornings that Katie gets ready for school she throws a fit when she gets her snow pants and boots on. This fit usually lasts only a few minutes, but it's long enough that we are hurrying and yelling at each other because the bus is a-comin' on down the road, and it seems to spiral out of control. I add gas to the fire, she explodes. She pushes my buttons, I yell. And we both have a rotten start to our day, which should be spent enjoying time with each other.

Here's her issue (and I really can't blame her because I think I would feel the same way. Probably the reason why I chose to NEVER wear snow pants to school.) Once she gets her snow pants on...she's still fine. I pull her pant legs down on the inside so they aren't scrunched up inside. She's doing ok. Then we move onto the boots. Here's where things get hairy. As she steps into the boots, they push up her jeans inside her snow pants. There goes hell, breaking loose.

I've tried to pull her pant legs down and tuck them into her boots, but then her boots won't close.
I've tried pulling her pant legs down OVER her boots, but her pant legs are too small for that.

I've tried rolling up her jeans before we put on the snow pants, but that just makes getting the snow pants on impossible. And the school requests that she wear snowpants to school because they spend the first 15 minutes of school playing outside.

My solution? Start getting her ready 10 minutes early so she has time to throw her fits. Just work them into our morning routine. Oh yeah, and add brandy to my coffee.

The bus comes at about 8:10. I like to be out there by 8:08. We start getting ready at 8:00. Nope, not going to work anymore. So today I had her start getting ready at 7:50. I thought, well now she's going to be mad because we're going to be standing around and she's going to get hot. No way. She was a perfect angel getting ready this morning. Everything went ok...she still complained that her pants didn't feel good, but she used a calm voice and explained the problem, which we decided we couldn't fix. We headed out the door at 8:07 and the bus came right on time.

Do you know what this means!??? Yes, Deb, you've found a solution to your problem.

No - silly readers. It means tomorrow morning is going to be hell.

One afternoon a few weeks ago, Katie decided she wanted to play outside. She got all dressed, threw a MAJOR tantrum (which I walked away from) only to find her 15 minutes later...asleep....on the floor...in all her gear.

Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street

On Saturday the four of us went to Sesame Street Live. Katie and I had been to these shows before, but it was the first time for the boys. As you can see, everyone was excited.

Once the show started, Will was pretty enthralled. His interest started to wander towards the end, but we never had to get up from our seats. He didn't get scared either, even though it was pretty loud.

It's fun to watch the faces on the kids, and sometimes even more fun to watch the faces on the adults. Seems everyone knows at least one character on Sesame Street.

Friday Funny

This is kinda fuzzy...hope you can still read it! It helps to click on it...will open in a new window.

A day in kindergarten

This morning I volunteered at Katie's kindergarten building. A few days each month they have 'stations'. These are small group activities that parents volunteer to lead. This was my first day and holy cow it was stressful. Those kindergartner's take a lot out of you.

Katie had already asked me not to tell everyone that I was her mom. She said it would be way too embarrassing. Too bad! The teacher who introduced me made sure to point out that fact. :) So in the first group I lead (I lead 2), Katie sat in back and didn't raise her hand for anything. I had to call on her. But she did say I could come and volunteer again.

The good thing is that they already have all the supplies and activities lined up for you. I was assigned to teach a couple card games to the kids. We read a story about winter, talked about outside activities, inside activities and some fun things to pass the time in the winter...hence the card games. They were pretty simple games - war and old maid. (Of course you can't call them that...the PC names for the games were Top One and All But One. Yeah, I threw those out the window and went with War and Old Maid.)

After school I asked Katie if she thought I did a good job.
"Well, it went a LOT better than I thought it would go." said Katie.

"Well thanks. I was pretty nervous!" I answered back.

"Yeah. Me too. I thought for sure you'd mess it up."

Name that tune

So....can you name that tune?

January Thaw

It's above zero today for the first time in quite awhile. This week is actually supposed to get close to 30 so maybe it's time to break out the shorts.

It was a pretty quiet weekend here. Didn't do much or get much accomplished, but that can be good too. Will wore underwear yesterday for awhile...I think we made it 30-40 minutes before he wet himself this time. Last time we tried them he only went about 15 minutes. It's clear to me that he isn't ready yet; completely lacking the muscle control to 'hold it in'. Hopefully we'll get somewhere with it this spring/summer. ( I offered him a little garbage can to pee into and he was totally against that idea. )

Katie is in school today. I'm volunteering with her class on Thursday. I told Katie I was excited to meet her friends. She said that she'd rather I didn't tell anyone I was her mom cuz that would be too embarrassing. Yes, she's still only 5.

So I figure I'm gonna give her a big old kiss in front of everyone.

Friday Funny

I just couldn't help myself. I laughed OUT LOUD at this one.

I DO have friends. I swear.

Adios Holidays

We've taken down our Christmas tree and all the other decorations. Today I took down the Christmas cards that adorned our wall. We got about 40 this year. That's if your count the cards from our colleges and our insurance salesman. Oh, plus Katie and Will each got one from their dentist.

I thought I'd share one that made me laugh.




Thanks Wade and Donna Hogen. (For those of you that know them...you're saying to yourself, 'Yep. They'd send something like that.' :) )

Happy Birthday!

A happy birthday goes out to my brother-in-law, Jeff Mezera! Hope you get a good dinner out.

Kennedy Center Honors

Last week we were able to catch the Kennedy Center Honors on tv. Each year are awarded to a handful of people for exemplary lifetime achievement in the performing arts. It's always a good show with a wide variety of attendees.

For 2009, they honored Robert DeNiro, pianist and composer Dave Brubeck, singer Grace Bumbry, Mel Brooks and Bruce Springsteen. It was quite a good show and I thought I would share a couple of my favorite clips. The first clip shows Jon Stewart talking about Springsteen and a song sung by Sting. (This is about 8 minutes long.) The second is Eddie Vedder doing a Springsteen song. (About 2 1/2 minutes) Both worth your time. :)

Sandbakkels

On Sunday I took a crack at making sandbakkels for the first time. I got tins from my mother-in-law for Christmas. These are a Norwegian cookie that's a bit of a tradition in our family. My aunt Carol used to make these every so often, and so far no one has been able to replicate her perfect form. That is, til now. I think I've come pretty darn close. Another family tradition I revived while making these? Arthritis. It's HARD to press dough with your fingers for 2+ hours.

Press the dough paper thin...

...and out they pop 15 minutes later.

c'mon, this is darn near perfect.

A little history....Sandbakkels were one of many cookies prepared during the Advent season. Norwegians would serve cookies with a glass of wine at midday or with after-dinner coffee. Cookies such as sandbakkels became popular among the professional class, and were adopted by the peasant class much later in the 19th century. Some websites have suggested putting jelly or other filling in the middle, but that's pure blasphemy as far as I'm concerned. :)

I'll take a crack at lefse too...sometime this year maybe. I found a cute story about that too...

This version of Lefs's history was submitted by Jim Berg from Albert Lea, MN.

Now Den, vot you know bout dat....
Did you know that lefsa was invented by the norweigen Vikings...
Von day, dey vent and was going to raid Ireland.....
Vell they got over der, but they couldn't suprise dem
Irish people cause they were making too much noise coming across
the Nort Sea from Norway.
When they got to the shores of Ireland, they tried to land
But couldn't. You see the Irish heard them coming and began
throwing their potatoes at
them darn vikings so dat the cud not land. Vel by golly,
do you know vat. They load that ship with all the potatoes
dat got trowed at dem, pulled out their oars and finally got back
to Norway. When they got there they played aroung with those
potatoes and came up with a bread, and called it LEFSA.
They had a big party that night, day got out that old foul smelling
fish and put it on Lefsa and that is where the Lutefisk Supper vas
born...........My Grate, Grate, Grate, Grate, Granfodder was on that
ship that raided Ireland.
I'm sure glad they brought it to America other wise we would not have
Lutefisk Suppers Today.

My Lena makes the best darn lefsa in Minnesota. Corse I have to help
otherwise she'd eat it all up while she was cooking it and we would not have
any for supper that evening....

I'm sure glad they have Lutefisk Suppers around Thanksgiving and Christmas every year.
My mother Palma, made all the lefsa by herself. They wern't very round,
but then she always said you could not taste the round......
Your Friend.......... Ole

CEDAR RAPIDS — The buzzer rang, and the Waukon Indians stripped.

Off came the black uniform tops. Revealed were white tank tops. (Which they had made to surprise Coach Klinge)

On the front: “939 WINS.”

On the back: “CONGRATS COACH.”

Gene Klinge became the winningest girls’ basketball coach in state history after Waukon defeated MFL MarMac, 48-38, last night as part of Rivalry Saturday at the U.S. Cellular Center.



Congratulations to Gene Klinge and ALL the girls on Waukon's basketball team. (Especially Sarah!)

A visit with the Sorums

Over Christmas the Sorum family from Washington state came back for a visit. John and Scot have known each other since elementary school and were roommates in college. I'm still hearing new crazy stories from their Iowa State days. We've been out to see them a few times and whenever Scot comes back to Iowa to visit his family we try to hook up. Now we all have kids so it's fun to see them interact.

Last Wednesday night we all went to the Mall of America, ate supper and walked around a bit. The kids all got along well and had to say goodbye too soon.

From left to right: Will, Katie, Madison, Mackenzie and Deb (Scot's wife).

Madison, Scot, Will and Katie

Happy 2010!

Hey everyone - Happy New Year!

So did you stay up til midnight last night? Funny, but those new year's have a way of showing up whether you ring them in or not. I offered Katie the option of drinking some juice out of a champagne glass, but she was not into it so we didn't even do a countdown at 8:00. Fine with me...last year she was running around the house for a good 2 days shouting "HAPPY NEW YEAR!"

John and I stayed up til midnight, if you can believe it. This was our 11th New Year's Eve together. We've only gone out 1 year, otherwise we're parked in front of the tv. We got a couple invitations to people's houses last night, but staying home is just fine too.

I wouldn't have been able to stay up, but we watched the new Star Trek movie. I am far from a 'trekie', but that movie was freaking awesome! If you are even remotely interested in the original Star Trek, I advise you to see this movie.

Hmmm...2010...what do I want to accomplish this year? What are my resolutions? I honestly don't know. Make it to 2011 seems like a good start. Get Will in a big boy bed....hopefully potty trained...cut Katie some slack...be a more flexible person. (Not literally...I can touch my toes, that's good enough for me.)

So now it's your turn....what are your resolutions? What do you hope 2011 brings for you?