What we've been up to...

at least according to my digital camera.

Disclaimers: 1) pictures are in no particular order 2) some events/outings missing (ie; first family bike ride of the season and Lily's last day of preschool activities) 3) notice that blogging is not included...might be resolved when my shiny new laptop arrives this week.

getting to know new babies

playing on "spider webs"

hanging with friends

over-feeding fish

posing for pictures

learning the "fake smile"

testing the water

"what? I told you I'd get in!"

practicing the "fake smile" some more

swimming in what could be the best $30 ever spent

making disturbing water gun shots
(i didn't get a shot of the one where Lily had the gun pointed in her own mouth...nice!)

playing princess golf
(see that hot pink bandaid?...that would be a reminder of our little ER trip over Memorial Day weekend...can you say "allergy induced asthma attack" five times fast?)
I just hope the blood drawer dude doesn't send us the bill for his hearing aid.

serious golfing

celebrating Memmy's 97th birthday

taking care of a friend's baby while pretending to still be one

swimming, swimming, swimming

cooling off with sno-cones...it doesn't count if its not Bahama Bucks...open year round

perfecting that silly smile

playing at the "sand restaurant"

your kids play while you eat/drink on the patio...who needs a sitter?!?

admiring sandy piggies

That's all folks!

Born the year the Titanic sank

I promise to be back with a post of my own soon, but in the meantime I'm linking to a wonderful post my husband wrote last night. Click here to read what he wrote in honor of his grandmother's birthday. A woman who bore 7 1/2 pound twins in the late 40s. That would be like carrying a 15 pound singleton. Even if she wasn't the dearest woman I've yet to meet, that birth feat would be enough for her to have my respect forever!

She was known to me as Memmy until we had kids and now she is Grand Memmy.


Grand Memmy is 97 today!

This might explain why my jeans are too tight...

according to Lily...

One clarification though regarding Vanilla Coke. It is Vanilla Coke ZERO...that silly girl.

And when the scale isn't going my way, I'm just going to blame it on my orange eyeballs. I'm sure they are much heavier than the typical blue or green ones.

Tiny Talk Tuesday

Wow, I never thought I'd appreciate my computer moving at the pace of a turtle versus, let's say, a snail...there is just a small difference in their rate of speed...something I am trying to value at the moment.

Thought I'd try to get a quick Tiny Talk Tuesday post up in between computer moans.

*****
Lily (4 yrs old)-Why do space creatures have to wear a helmet?

(Mom gives a thoughtful yet vastly unappreciated explanation of various atmospheric gases.)

Lily- Oh. I think they wear helmets so when they bump their heads on the moon it doesn't hurt.

*****

Makes sense to me. Perfect sense.

Slow and Painful

A bit of moaning, periodically shutting down...maybe before or sometimes after the dreaded "blue screen".

I've spy-wared, mal-wared, defragmented, and virus scanned this thing to death apparently. It is particularly painful...for the owner of this computer.

I hit "reply" to an e-mail the other night and it was still stuck there the following morning.

I'm off to run a system diagnostic check and see what that does. Fun times.

Wishing my bloggy friends a better day than mine is looking to be...hope to check back in on ya soon!

A couple of children's books I recommend...

Hello there. I'm back...and I'm not talking about chicken. A relief, I'm sure.

I've been meaning to post for a while now about a few books that the girls are enjoying right now. I love that all those reading classes that I took for my elementary education degree aren't going to waste. We were introduced to so much great children's literature and I hope my girls can benefit from it.

I'm just mentioning two today...they are on my mind because I've recently found accompanying DVDs to them at our public library...good stuff.

Both of my girls love Dr. Seuss' My Many Colored Days. I believe it was one of his early writings, but it wasn't published until after his death. It comes in both a small board book and the larger traditional style.

The DVD follows the book pretty closely and has wonderful music by the Minnesota Orchestra. It looks like it is available at Block Buster if your library doesn't carry it.


Have any of y'all read Noah's Ark by Peter Spier? It starts out with his own translation of a 17th century Dutch poem about the famous Bible story. I challenge you to see if you know all the animals it lists! We had to head over to google. Anyway, it is basically a picture book that I think I've enjoyed as an adult as much as my four year old has. The pictures are very telling and include scenes of Noah taking care of all of the animals' poop and other humor that only adults would find funny. Or maybe just anyone who has potty trained recently.

I can't seem to find a link to the DVD, but if you live around here...it's at our library.

I'd love to hear what books your little ones are enjoying...be sure to leave me a comment. Have a great weekend!

Is KFC accepting Oprah's coupons?

758. 758! That would be the number of hits this lil ol' blog got yesterday after posting the link to the free chicken giveaway that Oprah and KFC were teaming up to do. That is, as Lily would say, about a gazillion more hits that this blog usually sees in a day. Proof of the "Oprah effect" for sure.

Why am I here posting about chicken again?

Well, it seems a ton of people had a negative experience when trying to redeem those coupons. Apparently they had to change up the way they were being printed for tracking purposes and then the site pretty much stopped working. Some people who were able to get them printed were turned away if they weren't printed in color. And others were given fried chicken instead of grilled chicken. Oh dear!

Pretty frustrating stuff when Mama didn't put the hamburger out to thaw and was thinking she had the night off cooking and dish duty.

Anyway, I couldn't find any info on KFC's website, but Oprah's website shared this:

*****************************

Questions About Redeeming Your Coupon?
If you downloaded coupons and they were not accepted at a KFC restaurant:

• Please call 1-800-CALL-KFC.
• A KFC Customer Service representative will assist you and also take the information about your experience and follow up with the restaurant.

If you have concerns about using multiple coupons with the same code number:

• All the PDF coupons downloaded from Oprah.com on the evening of May 5 have the same bar code.
• Subject to the terms and conditions of the coupon and instructions on Oprah.com, these coupons will be accepted by participating KFC restaurants in the U.S.
  

For all other questions:

• Please email KFC.PublicRelations@KFC.com with any problems concerning your KFC coupon.

*****************************
My personal advice would be to wait until the end of the promotion when they've got all this figured out. Good luck!

Oprah and KFC Feed America

It happened today. I watched an entire episode of Oprah.

I used to be a die hard Oprah watcher, but I honestly don't think I have caught an episode...even part of one...in maybe 18 months or more. I'm not an Oprah hater nor do I agree with all of her views, but my lack of watching centers more around the viewing preferences of a certain four year old whom I've grown to love. One who no longer naps and ranks Oprah way below Word Girl, Clifford, or even Barney for that matter.

Anyhow, this afternoon around 4PM all the stars aligned (that would be Oprah's view, not mine ;)), and I was in a clean quiet house and actually thought to turn it on. Jade was taking a long nap and Lily was playing at a neighbor's house, so it was just me and Oprah.

And right away I was glad I tuned in. She is partnering up with KFC to give everyone in America a free meal. Just go to this page on her website to print your coupons for their new grilled chicken, two sides and a biscuit...enough for a family of four. You have to download the coupons by 10 PM Wednesday, May 6th and use them by Wednesday, May 19th.

They aren't valid on Mother's Day though...as Oprah said, "on that day, you gotta buy your own mama's meal!"

Works for me! This week was the "frugal" edition on Works For Me Wednesday, and I can't think of anything that is more frugal than free food.

To see what is working for everyone else, click over to WFMW headquarters at We Are THAT Family.

Honey-Do BBQ Invaded by Pirate

Ahoy, mates!

We didn't float away...although it rained so hard Saturday that we could have used a boat. Even now (Monday evening), our backyard still has some standing water. Speaking of honey-dos, time for that french drain, honey?

A blogging friend of mine captured a little video of the flooded streets in her neighborhood in this post...so after all that we quickly made plans to have everything indoors. We nixed the garage idea and instead moved a bunch of furniture from the house to the garage in order to make room for tables and people.

Although very different from what my over planning brain had envisioned, it worked out wonderfully.

Here is the happy couple!


The eye patch is not part of his costume...I would have switched to a pirate theme had I only known he would be scratching his cornea a few days before the shower. Arrrgh! (a little view into my inner nerdiness, I just googled "what do pirates say?" and found out about the "international talk like a pirate day" holiday...just 137 days away--are you counting down? There is also a whole "piratical language curriculum" for all your pirate talking needs. Who knew? Google...that's who.)

And here is my lazy way of sharing pictures...slide show style. Move your mouse over the pictures if you are interested in captions.

It was a great night...good food (I can say that because it was catered!), fun people, and silly games...hopefully Mike and Jessica left here feeling encouraged and blessed.

Arrgh! See Ya Chums! Imagine that said in my best raspy piratey voice...I started losing my voice right as the shower started...and it still ain't back. Shiver me timbers!

Rain, I'm trying to plan an outdoor shower.

Rain. We desperately need it. Lakes are low and we are inches behind any way you try to average it. Blah, blah, blah.

We had a huge storm Monday and another one yesterday. My yard takes forever to dry out and it currently sits with puddles.

I'm not trying to take this blog in a new weather related direction...I'm just here venting because I have another sort of shower on the brain right now. A wedding sort of shower for a precious couple and their precious 40 guests.

We can and will make it work, but it would be oh so nice to be able to use our backyard to spread out a bit. Even if it is just for the 8 children that will be in our presence to be able to run and play. It would make a great gathering place as we torture the couple with all sorts of embarrassing games. Not really. But you get my drift.

The back yard would be much preferred over let's say...the garage. I'm cringing at the thought of buying those scene setter type things from the party store to make our garage a wild west scene for the honey-do shower and bbq.

My husband is cringing at the thought of finding a new home for every stroller (jogging, umbrella, double, single, etc), wagon, bicycle and bicycle accessory that currently hang not only from every square inch of the garage walls, but also from the garage ceiling.

As I type this, the forecast is predicting a 30% chance of rain on Saturday and a 60% chance of severe thunderstorms on Sunday. The event is set for Sunday night...and truth be told I'm not sure our yard would be dried out enough even if we didn't see anymore rain until that moment.

So in the midst of swine flu, a crazy economy, joblessness and drought...whisper a prayer of drying winds or no more rain in order for this little bbq shin dig to be a bit more enjoyable.

Although galoshes and umbrellas might just be a fun theme too.