Interior Decorating

Besides providing much needed additional light in every room, you know
what else new lighting does for you?

It accentuates your bare walls (or in some cases, how inadequate our
current artwork is).

So now I get to find all kinds of beautiful things to dress up our
walls - nothing extravagant (because good lord it's all very
expensive!) but so much fun! ;-)

Burying our dinosaurs

Sadly, some of our shrinky dink dinosaurs didn't make it thru the
baking process, so we made a dinosaur graveyard for them instead.

Racetrack!

Our electricians left behind a roll of their tape (they finished
yesterday and everything looks fantastic!) so Logan and I created our
own little racetrack this evening. He's pretty taken by it. ;-)

Blooming blossoms!

On my walk with the dogs this morning. :)

Happy Birthday Jenn!

Last night, we had a great (adults-only) night out celebrating Jenn's
birthday. We first had a yummy dinner with great conversation, then
headed to the comedy club where I laughed more than a few times until
I cried, and THEN, we headed to a nearby club where we were
immediately waved in without ID checks (we joked, the bouncers were
probably trying to rush us in as fast as they could so the young kids
wouldn't see us and find another hipper younger club instead). ;-)

We sat around talking for a bit until a few of us finally headed
upstairs to the dance floor and danced our butts off. It was great fun
but oh man did it remind me how old and out of shape I now am!! :)

Happy birthday Jenn! Hope you had a great time!

Shrinky Dinks!

I loved doing these as a kid. Only now, they're pirate themed instead
of Barbie themed. ;-)

From Jon

My Valentine's gift arrived today. Jon picked out the stone and
setting on his own - made by the same company who made my engagement
ring.

Well worth the wait. :)

Tucked away

The first thing Callum does when we get home is yank his shoes and
socks off. And then stuff his socks into his shoes. :)

I don't mind that Tobey has taken to napping on our bed

But I do mind when there's no room left for me to sleep! ;-)

Pink's take on Cirque.

Pink!

Jon and I are at the Pink concert. Pretty good show so far!

Living Room Done!

The guys finished the Living Room today. They didn't get to the Den,
so that'll be next Saturday. But it's all looking really great so far!

Last night, Logan had another really bad bloody nose incident and man
oh man, having nicer lights in the hallway and linen closet to help us
see better as we pulled out new bedding in the middle of the night was
fantastic!

It's little things like that that make us super happy and thankful we
decided to do this project at all. ;-)

Balanced Smoothie

I grabbed Callum's smoothie when I saw he fell asleep because I didn't
want it to spill in the car. The minute I grabbed it he woke up and
yelled out "my juice!", so I gave it back and then looked back and
here he was again... :)

New lighting!

We're getting more (recessed) lighting installed in the house since
some areas are really dark and it bugs the shit out of me. ;-)

The guys worked all day, finishing most of the dining room, hallway
and linen closet. On Monday they'll be back to work on the den and
living room. Yeah!

SAP Open

It's that time of year again!

Since Zane works at SAP, he gets discount tickets to the SAP Open,
which we love to take advantage of. ;-) So, Zane, my Dad, Callum and I
(you can see the three of them waving to me on the escalator - super
small! - in the second pic) headed out to catch the semi-finals this
afternoon. I had actually intended on taking Logan but he had no
interest in going, meanwhile Callum was begging to go see Zabuton, so
Callum it was! I was a little worried he would be bored out of his
mind and super loud and disruptive but he did great! Of course, Uncle
Zane keeping him distracted with chips and cookies from the SAP (free)
food bar didn't hurt. ;-)

The first match went by super quick, about an hour. Sadly, the
favorite (Isner) wasn't on his A-game today and lost pretty bad (to
Haas). We hung out for a little bit after it was over and then headed
home. Zane and my Dad went back for the second semi-final match, but
decided to stay home and hang out with Logan while Callum napped.

What a fun way to spend a Saturday! :)

The wonderful world of scarves

I've been getting into scarves lately, wearing them more often, partly
because of the cold weather, and partly as a way to accessorize my
boring clothes. ;-)

This one is a recent purchase that was very "Valentine's-appropriate" yesterday.

Friday Night

We're just hanging out watching some TV before bedtime (and before
Daddy gets home).

Looking forward to the weekend!

My favorite Valentine of all

Not the best angle, but we're happy, with two wonderful boys and a loving home.

And that's all that matters. ;-)

Happy Valentine's Day!

I surprised the boys with these little "Valentine Ninja" plush dolls
this morning. Love these boys with all my heart!

And, we're done!

75 of these babies, ready to ship off to school tomorrow. Phew!

A cowboy birthday party!

Logan's friend Paul turned 5 recently and invited us and a few other
friends over for his cowboy themed birthday party. This pic is
actually of Logan and his other good friend Jackson...Paul was out
running with the other kids playing "good guy/bad guys" at the time so
I couldn't get them all together.

Paul's family has a nice house with a terrific (and huge) backyard
that they made feel very "campy", renting hay bales covered with
blankets and saddles to sit on, long ropes for the kids to practice
their ropin', and hats and handkerchiefs pictured here. They had one
of those huge playground sets plus a little fort built into one of
their trees which Logan and the other boys were madly in love with. :)

A funny short story about Paul...Logan has known him for many years
since he's gone to the same school as Logan, for probably as long as
we have. The teachers tend to give the kids nicknames, which the kids
sometimes latch onto (Logan was called "Logey" for awhile). So,
similarly, Paul was called (and is still called by most) Paulie.

At some point, a couple of months ago, Paul's name came up. I think
because Logan was telling me to invite him to his birthday party...
And when Jon saw my list, he asked, who's Paul?

I said c'mon, you know Paul, Logan's best-friend-forever Paul?

Nope, never heard of him.

Logan corrected me and said Daddy, it's *Paulie*!

Jon looked at me and said, Oh, is Paulie a boy?

I looked confused and said yes of course. What did you think?

Apparently all of these years, Jon had assumed Logan had a really good
friend named Polly. A girl. :)

I couldn't resist

Yesterday I woke up to several Facebook comments on a picture I had
posted a few weeks ago of Callum in a tutu.

An old friend from high school, commented that the best thing I could
do was destroy the picture, but now that I can't take back posting it,
the damage has been done and I will have a lifetime of "tortured
concern about sexuality" as a result.

A few other of my old high school friends (one who is gay by the way)
immediately jumped in and told him he was being ignorant, why would he
post something like that on my wall, get a life, leave all of us
alone, I'm a wonderful loving parent, Callum is clearly just having
fun, there's no proof any of this would ever cause gender confusion or
a sexual identity crisis anyway, blah blah blah. :)

You know how many times you can change someone's opinion of things on
Facebook? Exactly zero.

I deleted the comments and blocked the friend who had made the
"tortured sexuality" comments (I've actually noticed, from his posts
for the last few months, that he's probably not a friend for me, but
since he never had bothered me directly with his extremist views, I
didn't bother unfriending him). Clearly, he doesn't know me or our
family well if he thinks any of that is going to bother me.

So, I thought it was particularly funny, and fitting, that when I
picked Callum up from school yesterday, he had all these crazy little
ponytails in his hair.

How could I not take another pic? ;-)

All I want to do is pee in peace.

Throwback to the 80's

What a great game! (At least, the second half)

We had a fun time watching the Super Bowl with a bunch of Jon's rugby
friends - I think everyone but Jon was rooting for the Niners to win.
I even pulled out my old starter jacket to wear - bought in the late
80's, so totally ancient now, but still fits! ;-)

Hotel Transylvania

Hotel Transylvania just arrived in the mail last night, so the boys
and I stayed up late watching it (funny movie if you haven't seen it
yet!).

Callum first started out with the blanket pulled up to his chin. Later
he was covering his eyes (but peeking thru his fingers).

Pretty cute. :)

Corner "office"

I can already tell the sun coming in from the windows on the right
hand side will make things pretty toasty in the morning. But overall,
I love my workspace!

Things are picking up now at work and I'm starting to get very busy.
But, busy is (usually, mostly) good! :)

Blackmail

I figure this might be good to have in my back pocket ~10 years from now. ;-)

Callum is doing FANTASTIC with his potty training! We are well on our way!

Loganism at the dinner table

He's just tricking you so that he can get your attention. [speaking of
his brother]