He's Trying

Update: A very nice technician arrived before 10 AM and took care of our woes. Seems that the installation technician on Friday knew very little about what he was doing. I shouldn't be surprised, since he was talking on his cell phone a large part of the time and when asked how things were going, he replied, "I'm trying to make you happy. I'll let you know when I am done." Nice.

The B-man has really been brainstorming how he can make himself look like his mumsie's favorite animal. But, you know, it's kinda hard to look like a portly pig when you more resemble a stringbean. So he's had to resort to facial contortions to get that porcine look:

Okay, he might have just been expressing his frustration with our sudden outage of both phone and internet yesterday. Major plus of switching to digital voice service: $$$ savings! Major downside: cutting out of service. BOO. Hopefully they'll be able to get it up and running consistently tomorrow when they come....sometime between 7 AM and 8 PM. If you're local and bored, feel free to come play since we'll be right here waiting!!

The Summer of Anne Continues

I've now seen Anne 3 times since the end of May, which is pretty impressive considering she lives on the other side of the country! This visit actually had nothing to do with the upcoming WEDDING (!!!); she had a work conference nearby and how could she turn down an all-expense-paid trip to come visit us? I mean, REALLY?!

I picked her up Saturday morning and we went to visit Cait and baby Caroline, who is already my fave since she decided to enter the world on Feb 11th as a 30th birthday present to me!

Then Anne had to move on to visiting a slightly less cuddly child. As you can see, she had no better luck trying to feed him than we do:

Reading time went a little better:

Just like teenagers, right?? (ha)

Right before I took her to the airport yesterday, she had the most wonderful idea. We've been struggling to figure out her Aunt name, since she didn't really want to be Auntie Anne. "Auntie AKH" was just proving to be too much of a mouthful, too. Suddenly, she blurted out, "Auntie Kate"! (Which I realize doesn't sound creative at all if her name were Kate, but the real nickname is Annie Kate so switching Annie to Auntie....get it?! Genuis?!) We can't wait to see AUNTIE KATE get married in just under THREE WEEKS!!!! Whoo-hoo!

Every Boy Needs a Good Leaving-the-House Ritual

And this is B's:



The really great thing about his obsession with pointing to things is that I can now entice him to come inside by saying, "Where is the gnome? Let's go see him!"...and then pushing him into the house! :-)

HAPPY FRIDAY from our gnome to yours!

When Mumsie's Away...

How I left them (awwww!):

How I found them (ugh!!):

Third Time's the Charm... or at least the Contest

UPDATE: Before posting, we discussed over here that, if we had to guess, we'd put our money on the Jeopardy champion (aka Lyman Green) to win the prize. Alas, we were correct. Of course, Geoff and Seth did share a big brother in Baylor Chamber, which does make them twins. Perhaps they have a mind meld thing going on. Nice job, brother, on getting the Whitesnake reference. And the WARM FUZZIES go to Ro, who knows me well enough to know I set the stage to honor the great Willie Nelson.

I had originally expected today's post to be full of pictures from an adventure the B-man and I were going to take yesterday to visit a friend, but a sick child (on her end) caused a postponement. So I figured I might as well instead cap off our Musical Allusion Days with one more pic...but this time it's a CONTEST! Whoo-hoo!

That being said, however, I'm not sure it's going to take very long before someone correctly guesses the song title, so it's actually a contest in two parts. Whoever guesses the song title I had in mind when I devised the picture wins a bunch of warm fuzzies. Whoever guesses the song title that the Big Guy suggested when I described my photographic idea wins a PRIZE. I will be very impressed indeed if you can get inside his crazy head. (And please note that the most recent contest winner is going to receive a big ol' bowl of banana pudding as his reward. Who knows what you could win?)

Here goes:

Get in your guesses! Early bird gets the proverbial worm with this one.

Continuing Our Musical Allusion Theme

The big guy--who knows 100x more about music than I do--claims to have no memory of Kris Kross. Apparently they were popular in only a very small window of time...?? Whatever. So B had to be a little more creative to come up with a reference to a band from his pappy's repertoire:

Yes, indeed, Pink Floyd fans-- there IS another brick in the wall. (And so symmetrically organized, don't you think?)

The result of telling him to knock down the wall:

And the ensuing celebration for honoring a musical great:

PS-- Happy Birthday, Aunt Sari/Sarah!

Warm it Up!

(How many of you mentally inserted the word "Kris" at the end of that title? No? Just me? Well, you're "about to"!)

ANYWAY....

Saturday night, we went here:

To help these people "warm it up": (Get it? It was a HOUSEWARMING party!)

I have already written about David and Alison's new house, and it was great to return this many months later to see all the amazing work they've done. It is beautiful! It had some competition in the house department, however, with the inflatable bounce house brought in for the occasion. A certain little guy tried to "Jump, Jump" but hasn't quite figured out how to get off his feet:

Maybe he just needs to turn his clothes around.

Thank Goodness for Fathers

Because to whom else would one roll eyes when the maternal unit makes a crazy sound? (In my defense, I only turned on the camera in the first place because B was dying of laughter each time I'd say "bar" after he'd say "baa" regarding the fig bar he's eating. He pretty much stopped the performance when I started the video, and even I was surprised by the weirdness of my exclamation halfway through. Big Guy is sitting off to B's front-left and clearly gets a look like, "who is this crazy woman?")



The little guy has now watched this video a few times and after each viewing, looks up and says "aggeh"! And again we watch it.

Happy Father's Day to all the big guys out there!!

Ah, That's So Much Better!

"Ohhhhh.....my belly is so big. This onesie is so tight. Why do they dress me like this?"

"Ahhhhh.....sweet relief!"

"Okay, I still have a big belly, but look at how much more room I have!"

"Thanks, onesie-extenders! I wish my mumsie had bought you last year!"

New Shoes. Old Times.

You might remember that I have been known to have a soft spot in my heart for certain athletic shoes. My newest pair is no different. I was lacing them up yesterday when it dawned on me that perhaps the unexpected departure from my usual color scheme signaled a subconscious nostalgia for days gone by. Many of you should recognize immediately what I'm talking about. (Do you hear me calling?):

I mean, come on! Give me a bowl of strawberries and a five-point crown, and call me Themis! How did I not see the turquoise blue and steel gray shining through?? These are clearly shoes fit for a Zeta Tau Alpha queen.

Obviously, I couldn't just leave it there. That would be no fun. Instead, I decided to go through all my pictures, have the mother of all scanning sessions, and honor the many, many loyal readers out there who shared the Zeta experience with me. I was feeling SO good that I'd found all my blogging (or blog-commenting) buddies but then realized I'm missing photographic evidence of a few of you. Boo!

In any case, I hope you'll lace up your own sneakers and run down memory lane with me (in chronological order, of course). I threw in some bonus pictures for entertainment value for the rest of you who think sorority life is crazy/weird/bizarre. Because it kinda was. We wore funny outfits and smiled a lot!

My first night as a Zeta. Fun trivia--the girl two rows directly above me was the Big Guy's serious college girlfriend:

Getting ready for our pledge dance and yes, those are costumes. We weren't that weird, although I'm a little frightened of your tough act here, Jennifer!

This lovely lady just joined the ranks of motherhood this week with the birth of baby Madison! (I don't think she wore this particular get-up to the hospital):

Ah, family bonding. Why WOULDN'T you go to Stein-Mart and buy matching shirts and shoes?

They made us work in a French bakery as a service project:

Part of a group that were assigned together at retreat due to certain personality traits <cough, perfectionist list-makers, cough>.

How the residents of #3210 got clean:

Members of Pledge Class '98 (and if you think this looks like a lot of people, there were actually 67 of us in the pledge class!):

A young Big Guy makes a function appearance:

Officers acting all tough. (BTW, I cracked up when I saw the note that I'd written on the back of this pic: "Exec minus Kidwell who didn't show up"!!! HA!):

Hard at work on the WINNING Homecoming float:

Seniors enjoying some Ninfaritas before graduation: (And in case you're wondering, those are definitely not my brewskis...)

Yeah, I got all that from a pair of shoes! Way cooler than traveling pants.

Why Dustbusters Were Invented

Hey, whatever keeps him entertained, right? I'm telling you-- it's way easier to keep a messy house than a clean one!

Things have been pretty dull on our end, but we hope they're about to get more fun with today being the big guy's last day of school. While I know he will miss so many aspects of his professional home for almost 7 years, I also know he's looking forward to a new adventure-- after some well-deserved downtime!

When's the Next Party?

Because someone loves balloons and (chocolate) cake!

3rd Annual Field Day

It's hard to believe it's already been a year since the 2nd annual festivities.

B wasn't cool enough to score an event shirt like this guy:

But he managed to have a good time anyway. There were lots of his favorite things...

Balls:

Escape paths:

Watermelon:

Toilet lids:

And so many fun fake aunties and uncles to entertain:





But the winner of the CUTEST pic o' the day goes to these gents! What great smiles!

Little B loves his fake uncle Joel because he's long and lean just like him! AND it's good practice for Joel to hang with the B-man since (KENTOBEAN EXCLUSIVE!!) he and Kathy are expecting their own little one in December!! WHOO-HOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There's A Place Called Kokomo

And apparently the B-man wants to go!

Opa and Grammie brought this fabulous fish with them last week to entertain the wee one. As you can see, he may not actively demonstrate how much he loves it, but it is clear that he wants the beautiful singing to go on forever!

Tasty Escape

Last December at the annual Baylor alum event I always attend (the Christmas cookie exchange), I had offered to help with the selection of a scholarship recipient when the chapter had gathered enough funds to award one. I had forgotten about that conversation until a few weeks ago when I received an invitation to come to a meeting to discuss the scholarship criteria. It's generally hard for me to do anything with the alum group because the events tend to be inconveniently located and/or scheduled, but all the stars aligned and I was able to get away for a little female bonding last night in the city!

It was amazing-- NO traffic on my drive into town and I scored a FREE parking space on the street. Then, to make it really just all-around awesome, I found out our dear alma mater was footing the bill for the goodies (no drinks, of course)!! Did I mention we were at a Chocolate Lounge?? Um, yeah. So after we all scarfed down 2 small-plate tidbits apiece (goat cheese & beet salad, and shrimp mac & cheese for me!), we filled our stomachs with amazing sweet treats. Three of the girls got the 3-course chocolate "experiences"-- 2 got the Aztec and 1, the Italian. (Each of the courses had 2-4 samplings of delectable goodness.) The other 2 of us sampled some gelato flavors plus the "Chef's Selection of Petits Fours", which I'm pretty sure had 8 pastry/dessert bites plus 3 gourmet chocolates. Each. We weren't even close to eating everything we were served. Then I rolled myself home.

I do love to fling my green and gold afar....especially when it's as delightful an evening as last night was! And I'm so excited that we'll be awarding scholarship money to a deserving student from these parts!

PS-- Jessica J, if you're reading this: the scholarship chair is Stacy Davis who lived on your hall in Collins! She asked me if I knew you, Julie, and "Alexis from Alaska"!

PPS-- HAPPY BIRTHDAY, FAKE UNCLE ERIC!!!!!!!!!!

Shorties and a Smile

There are few things cuter than a good pair of shorty pajamas:

But the little guy wearing them ranks right up there:

Negotiations

J: "Psst...give me some of those goldfish!"
B: "WHAT?"

J: "I'll give you a dollar!"
B: "Please...I can't even look at you."

B in an aside to the audience: "Who does this joker think he is?"

J: "Okay, man, how about 20 bucks?"
B: "That's more like it. Lemme look in my wallet and see if that's enough for me to get some new threads."