Ready, Set, Stimulate the Economy

So we received our stimulus payment via direct deposit last Friday. However, despite the urging of several well-intentioned advice givers, we’ve not yet run out and blown our allotment. In fact, we haven’t spent a single dime of it and it still remains untouched in our account. As much as we’d like to keep it that way, as new homeowners we do have some pressing needs that need to be addressed sooner rather than later.

And so it is that I find myself researching lawn mowers and weed-wackers online in preparation for what is sure to be a painful shopping experience this weekend. Though most of our yard is covered in moss which smothers any grass growth, nevertheless, we have several areas of our yard that are in desperate need of a good mowing/weed-wacking. So much so that our neighbor has even graciously offered us the use of her mower so we could get the job done. Not to worry, we got the hint loud and clear.

I can’t help but to wander back into the recesses of my mind to a time about 20 years ago when I, as a little kid, along with the rest of my family (Dad, Mom, big sister, and little brother) would all tackle the yard work together. Dad would come home from work and set about mowing the lawn. Mom would follow behind raking the clippings (no automatic baggers back then). And the 3 kids would bring up the rear loading the clippings into the wagon and hauling it off to the vacant lot across the street. I remember it being a lot of hard work on hot summer nights. I remember thinking that the work would never end, that our yard was just too big, it would take forever to complete! What I wouldn’t give now for a yard that size for my boys to play in. And the best part? After we were all finished, each of us received our eagerly anticipated compensation of …wait for it…$0.25. Oh how we coveted those big bright quarters. At that age you could do anything in the world with a quarter. Mine usually went for baseball cards or stickers for my Thundercats sticker book, seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkPnBRwD66Q.

Now it’s my turn to be the Dad and run the big lawn mower. But first we have to go get one.

Family Pictures

We had pictures taken back in April by our good friend Shelbi Owens. She’s terrific. Just wanted to post a few for all to see.

If you look closely you can see that it’s actually hailing on us. Poor Austin and Luke’s hands are bright red from the cold. Why no jackets? Try reading our post from April 21st for a reminder on that. Enjoy!

The Whole Family

Just the boys

Austin

Lucas

Survivor's Ready

Friday night when I got home from work I was greeted by the boys in the customary manner. Luke yells “Daaaaaaaaad!” and comes running to the top of the stairs. I always pick him up, then Austin’s right behind waiting for his hugs and asking if I brought him a surprise. Well, on this particular Friday, Austin couldn’t wait to ask me if I wanted to race him. “Sure, I replied.” So we got ready to race. We had to stand at one end of our house and would be racing to the other end of the house. But we needed Mom to start the racing.

So Austin ran to get Angie. She came out and started us racing:

“On your marks, Get set…”

“NO MOM! NO. YOU’RE NOT DOING IT RIGHT!”

“I’m sorry,” Angie replied, “what do I need to do?”

“Mom, you’re supposed to say Survivor’s Ready…Go.”

“Alright, alright. Survivor’s Ready…Go!”

And thus the racing began.

CBS must be so proud of us. So that’s how we start all races at our house now.
“Survivors Ready…Go!”

Sleep Punched

Anyone ever been sleep punched? That is to say, punched by someone who is still 100% asleep? I’m not talking about the accidental slap in the face, kicked in the ribs or whatnot that occurs while rolling over, shifting, or whatever it is you do to get comfortable. I’m talking about manifestations of actual anger resulting in a full-out punch, all while sleeping. As funny as it was, it wasn’t funny last night when I got punched for something I didn’t even do. Let me explain.

Yesterday something happened that made Austin request to watch E.T. No, not Entertainment Tonight, the actual movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, originally released in 1982. I don’t know what he saw or how he even heard about it, but he really wanted to watch it. Luckily we own it, but unluckily this request began to be repeatedly called in around American Idol time. We’ve dealt with this situation many times before, and the only solution to stop the incessant requests is to let him watch the movie in our room while we watch whatever we want downstairs. Thus sets the stage for why later that night, as Angie and I were preparing for bed, we had a 3 year-old already soundly asleep there.

Knowing he would shortly be moved into his own bed, I decided to climb in next to him and cuddle for a few minutes while Angie continued getting ready. As I did so, Austin totally freaked out, yelled “No Mom! Ugh” and proceeded to punch me square on the chin. Then he rolled over and went back to sleep, or rather that is, continued to sleep, as he never once opened his eyes during this whole episode. He was still absolutely 100% asleep.

Angie was laughing hysterically, and after a few moments of complete shock and amazement, I too joined in the laughter. I don’t know what she did to deserve to be punched, but whatever it was, it must have been serious. A few minutes later she scooped him up and deposited him into his own bed without further incident. Why I should be the recipient of the punishment clearly earned by Mom’s actions is beyond me. Whatever the reason, we got a good laugh out of it, which, I suppose, is perhaps the most important thing really.

Long Awaited Home Photos

Just a quick blurb today to show you the front of our home. Kind of weird actually, but some stranger actually took this picture and posted it to our home's profile on Zillow.com. Luckily it was after we cut down A LOT of the shrubbery out front such that you can actually see the front of our home. Believe me, before it was all cut down you wouldn't have been able to see our house at all from this view. In fact, here's a view of our yard from our front porch before the bushes were cut down:

You can't hardly tell that there's even another house on the other side of the street. Now we can see the road, the house, and everything. In fact, Austin's friend's with the little boy who lives there, Peter, and he contstantly looks out our window to see if Peter is home now.

At any rate, our inside work is almost all wrapped up. Pics of that are coming soon.

The Devious Mind of a 3 Year-Old

This is a story I’ve been sitting on for a few days, as I just haven’t had time to write it up. Perhaps a week or so ago the boys were both having a really hard night. Neither wanted to go to bed in their own bed. Austin was crying and pleading to sleep in Mom and Dad’s bed, while Luke didn’t want to go to bed at all. Both of them just too tired to sit still and pass out for the night.

I had put Luke to bed (and placed him back into bed) several times already that night. Jason had gone in and had a talk with Austin to get him calmed down. Yet Luke still was crying and getting up right after I’d walk away.

After 5 or 6 trips into their room, Austin, finally being calmed down, said to me, “I don’t know why Lukie keeps getting out of bed. I try to get him to stop crying and stay in bed, but he just won’t do it.”

“Oh, are you trying to help get Lukie to bed?” I inquired.

“I sure am!” came the excited reply.

“Thank you so much Austin. You are such a good big brother” I told him.

Finally, I got Luke down again, not asleep, but at least laying down in his bed. I walked away yet again, and immediately the crying began again. This time, however, I just snuck out into hallway, I didn’t actually leave. This is what I heard:

“Lukie. Lukie. Go find Mommy. Go find Mommy, Lukie. Get out of bed and go find Mommy.”

Sure enough, then comes the pitter patter of little feet as Luke ventures out into the hallway to find me. I was laughing too hard to be mad at either of them. Finally I gave in and laid down with both of them until they fell asleep. The little stinkers totally conned me, and I totally fell for it. Clearly I’m no match for my 3 year-old and 1 year-old.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

This past Saturday, April 19th, was, if nothing else, quite eventful for our family. We should have known better than to plan family pictures on the anniversaries of the Oklahoma City Bombing and the Branch Davidian debacle in Waco, TX. But we’ve been trying to have family pictures for about a year now, and by that I mean outside playing at a park, etc., and nothing was going to stop us this time. Here’s how our day panned out.

Friday night commenced with snowstorms throughout the greater Seattle area. Not too promising for the following day pictures. Saturday morning we were up and about and greeted with off and on hail storms. Our appointment wasn’t until 2:00 PM though so we hoped it’d clear up by then. As our time approached we were in contact with our photographer, Shelbi, a friend of ours, and she advised that she was willing to brave a few hail storms for the chance at a few intermittent sunny periods. So off we went to meet her at the park.

When we got there we were greeted with a good 10-15 minutes of hailing, easily the longest “on again” of the day. We waited it out all bundled in our coats, and even started taking some pictures huddled under an umbrella, catching the tiny hail in our hands and/or mouths. It was all still pretty fun really. I think/hope we got some good pics of the boys.

After a while, the sun did finally break through so we took advantage of the situation, lost the coats, and posed for some family pics. All the coats and some photography equipment went on the bench and we sat on a towel in the grass. Took lots of photos there, then got up again and followed the boys around as they played, sometimes coaxing some photo ops out of them. We meandered around for a while until we got back into view of where we sat and I noticed that the bench was empty. I asked Angie, “Isn’t that where all of our stuff was?”

“No,” she replied, “our stuff is on another bench around the corner.”

“I don’t think so,” I replied.

After a few minutes of debate Angie wanted to go check it out. I stayed with the boys and Shelbi while Angie went to prove me wrong. A few minutes later she returned and confirmed that there were no other benches, that that had to be the bench where our stuff was. While we were off shooting pictures someone had come along and stolen all our stuff. My jacket, Angie’s jacket, both the boy’s jackets, and some minor photography stuff. We couldn’t believe it, especially since we’d seen virtually no one at the park that day. I mean, it was hailing and all, who in their right mind would be at the park at that time? We saw one guy walking his 2 good sized dogs, he wouldn’t have been able to carry it all if he wanted to and keep his dogs in grasp. One guy was out jogging the trails, and that was it. Luckily neither of us had anything important in our pockets. Wallets and keys were all either on us or with the stroller, which we promptly went back to retrieve and kept with us the rest of the day.

Neither one of us has ever really had anything flat out stolen from us before. It was really rather shocking to say the least. I’ve had my truck broken into before, but there’s nothing in there to steal so someone was very disappointed in their efforts there. This was just right out from under our noses though. We were right there the whole time and didn’t see or hear a thing. We choose to believe at this point that some poor homeless person needed our jackets much more than we did. If that’s the case, then so be it. We’re out maybe $50. Austin lost a couple of mini-cars in the process because Dad was holding them in his pocket. He was pretty upset when we told him what happened and that his cars were gone. I think they’ve been replaced already today though with a trip to the store.

So that was our Saturday afternoon. We went from the good – family pictures, to the bad – not the best weather, to the ugly – petty crime, all in one afternoon.