Multiple Postings

Well, apparentlyBlogger is having a little case of the hiccoughs. Yes, those videos are all the same. As hard as I have tried, I cannot delete them. As a matter of fact, they are not real. When I check my posts they are not listed. So I ask you - how do you get rid of something that is not really there?

The Making of a Family Photo

We went to Jim's Dad's house to visit Grandma Miller, who is in from Las Vegas. At 93, she is sprightly and has a twinkle in her eye. She has never met Emma or Mary, so the girls got all gussied up to go visit. At some point the inevitable family photo had to happen, so Karen and her kids piled around with Jim and our girls. Poor Grandma probably will be glad to get back to her own house!

Skirts!

These are wonderful skirts that Lydia made for my girls. Hooray for skirts! Nicest thanks to Lydia for clothing my children in such cute clothes. And an extra Hip! Hip! for a little display of sisterly love momentarily shared happily. The only problem is that I didn't have any long sleeve shirts that matched the skirts, so they look a bit summery and knocked kneed. Very knock kneed. I hope that is not permanent, or a side effect of new skirts. Ha!

This is definitely a scrapbook-worthy picture.

Video Attempt

I tried to upload to You Tube. This is from 2 weeks ago when we brought home a baby chick from preschool to keep over night.

I hope it worked!

Halloween Costumes!

Well, the two Tinkerbells did not really work out. I could not find the shoes in Mary's size, nor could I find a second set of wings. So, there, in the middle of Disney Mania, I said to Mary, "You can pick any costume you want instead of Tinkerbell". Or something like that. Then I immediately followed that up with, "AND LOOK AT MINNIE MOUSE!!!!!". And there you have it. We now have 2 complete Halloween costumes, and Mary LOVES the gloves that come with the Minnie Mouse set. She is only slightly jealous of Emma's wings. I let the girls play in their costumes for a while and Emma has already ripped the wings, so no more frolicking in full garb. But honestly, I am just glad to have that done with. I do love the little shoes for both costumes. I think I will let them use them at Christmas, too. It is a good use of $6 shoes and they are wicked cute.

Boo!

My mom bought this CUTE dress for Mary. It is reversible and has Candy Cane appliques on the other side. Thankfully, I had the perfect model to put in it!

Emma is at school today, so after a trip to work out, Mary and I bumped around Meijer for a while, looking at shampoo and what-not. Amazingly, there are no pumpkin pies at Meijer. I may have to make one myself - UGH.

Antebellum Dress

This dress was worn by Leona Denning (Peaslee) in 1863 in Atlanta. It's been in our family (as well as the name) since.

***Addendum: I photoshop edited the girls into one picture, and not very well, I might add. There is only one dress of great antiquity and heritage in that picture!

Musings

I am still plugging away t the Triathlon workout. There is one in May (yes I KNOW that is far away, but you can't really DO a triathlon in Michigan in the winter) nearby that I am contemplating. I have had another person offer to do one with me (that makes 2). Yikes! Who are all of these people who do these things??? And Jim is right there with me, swimming and running and biking as though it were HIS surprise to the world Triathlon training. That is true love, I tell you. You can keep up with all of my training minutiae by clicking the Tri to be Fit link on the right side of this page under Blogs of Interest.

Today is another day of Emma at preschool. Mary and I have settled down to a comfortable routine together. Mostly, the routine involves Mary happily following me to anything at all while she sings about how she loves Mama. Seriously - that is what happens. So last week we went to the mall and bumped around for a while (spending too much money - at Gymboree in particular) and shared a cookie from Mrs. Fields. Later we read books for a VERY long time and she translated them all for her new stuffed Nemo doll. Today we went tot he mall again, this time to get tinkerbell costumes for both of the girls. Yes, they are both going to be the same thing. It was not my idea, but Ithink it is wonderfully cute. The only problem is that they are out of wings. Mary had her heart set on wings. We have tinkerbell shoes and dresses, but no wings. One would just not believe the sadness that descends on a two year old when she was expecting tinkerbell wings and did not get them. She's napping now, so I am hoping she is over that for the moment.

This past weekend I went to an all day crop with my mother-in-law which was wonderful and productive. You would think that 12 hours straight of scrapbooking would satisfy some corner of crafty neediness, but it does not. Much like an addiction, that only makes me want to do it more. I am having a hard time focusing on things like laundry and meals because I only want to scrapbook. That's all there is to say about that - I am trying to avoid a good portion of the draw to craft right now.

One more thing - I am saddened by a recent event. Two of my regular blogs have closed up shop in the last month. One is a good friend of mine (actually, my Nemesis). He closed up with no explanation except that he was done with blogging. Imagine! I cannot believe that he would leave he blogosphere hanging like that. I really did enjoy reading his witty posts. I am hoping this is a temporary thing or he is planning on sending me long, descriptive emails about his daily life. The other blog is Fluid Pudding, which always makes me laugh out loud. *SADNESS*. Just thought I'd share.

It's All About Me

I know this is cheating, but I was reading away on one of my favorite blogs and she referenced this post, which made me laugh out loud in a way that is unfitting.

Other news that is unnecessary and totally about me:

I am reading Eats, Shoots and Leaves. Amazingly enjoyable!

I have now completed 4 full weeks of training, 2 of them completely swimming. (This means 5 or more days a week of working out). I am almost enjoying swimming. Almost.

I am cooking Lemon Pepper Pork Roast for dinner. YUM. With homemade applesauce. And Caesar Salad (homemade dressing and croutons, and Parmesan we shredded ourselves).

I am aggressively learning how to use Access Database - this week. Anyone have a pile of data sitting around?

We painted the railings on our patio yesterday since snow is supposed to fly by Friday.

I am looking for Halloween costumes for the girls - a white dog and an orange cat. Krypto and Streaky. Any ideas of where I can get those?

Going to work out again tonight, but I may NOT swim. HUH!

I got up at 4:30 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep. YAWN.

I'm doing an all day crop this Saturday with my mother-in-law : now THAT'S bonding!



That's all she wrote, folks. I just couldn't think of anything else today!

The Best Quote from Today

Emma: "I'm quite out of little hugs now, it is awfully late. I can only give you big hugs now."

Friday Night

It's Friday night at 9:00 and the girls are in bed (mostly) and Jim is off at a poker tournament (I'm not kidding, but I'm not going into details). I only want to sit and watch TV in my (mostly) quiet house. What to watch? Traditionally, Friday nights are bust for programming, even though we have hundreds of channels. Tonight, I've got 3 Martha Stewart's TiVo'd. Not the right mood.... Let's see... Battlestar Galactica! No, not quite. OOOOOOoooooooo American Idol- Back to the Beginning! Doesn't THAT sound like fun? Hm.... $40 a Day, Larry King, That 70's Show, every CSI ever invented, Law and Order.... and I settle on Most Haunted. THAT should be a good show to watch all by myself and go to bed until somebody creeps home at ungodly hours. Oh- ***TWO*** EPISODES! HOORAY!!!!!!

Triathlon Blog

For any one who CARES to see all of the hours of cold, wet swimming and not so much of the other two sports, you can try this link. I started training the wek of September 11th, so you can go back on the little calendar and see all of the things I have been doing for 4 weeks. If you don't care about the exact numbers, the jist of it goes like this:

I am so bad at swimming I couldn't even swim far enough non-stop to do the fancy drills the book wanted me to push through. So I stopped following the book - a break, if you will -and just swam. That's all. I'm on week 2 of only swimming, 4 or 5 days a week. Things are going well, especially since I figured out how to zone train using heart rate information. Ugh, it all sounds so technical. It's not, really - I swim. I think next week I will try the training book again, I'm feeling a little soggy.

Mary, Genius Artist Extraordinaire

Yesterday, Mary watched a video. It was a nice little work my brother-in-law put together with images from the Monterey Aquarium set to nice, classical music. Jim was bumping around on the computer and she was watching him, so she asked him 100 times what the little creatures on the screen were, and he answered (100 times): jellyfish. Later that evening, she was doodling on her magnadoodle and drew this:

To do this, she had to take the little kitty shaped magnet and turn it upside down, then draw the lines, AND to make a SET of jellyfish. I was thoroughly impressed. If those don't look like a jellyfish, I don't know what 2 year old drawing would. That's it. I've nothing more to display to prove my daughter's genius status. You'll have to take me at my word.