Anybody can be a Jack or a Jill...

It began with a conversation on Tuesday evening:
Me: "Gman, you need a nursery rhyme costume for pre-school. What do you want to be? Maybe Jack that goes up the hill to get a pail of water?"
Gman: "No, I want to be the bucket."
Me: "A bucket? I'm not sure I can make a bucket costume. How about "Hey Diddle Diddle." I could make you a cow costume! You could be the cow that jumped over the moon." (I just saw some cow print material for dirt cheap on clearance!!)
Gman: "No. I'd rather be the moon."

So I decide to let him sleep on it since he's clearly *in a mood*.

Wednesday morning:
Me: So, for your costume, I gotta go buy stuff to make it today. You want to be Jack?
Gman: No, I'd want to be the bucket.
Me: I'm really not sure I can make a bucket costume. What's your favorite nursery rhyme?
Gman: Hey Diddle Diddle.
(So I recite the rhyme, with EXTRA EMPHASIS on characters that I can easily whip up in a day)
...the CAT and the fiddle, the COW jumps over the moon, the little DOG laughs...
Gman: I know!!!! I want to be the SPOON!

Alas....it takes a pretty awesome kid to pull off being a posterboard pail in a room full of Old King Coles, cats, sheep, etc..

Chee-burger! Chee-burger! Chee-burger!

All of my kids are picky eaters. The younger two are hit-n-miss as to whether they'll try something new, but Al R-A-R-E-L-Y tries any thing new. And for the last 10 years, the only meat he likes is bacon and those that come in a tubular form--bologna, hot dogs, pepperoni. He'd eat beef if it was in an entree/casserole/etc; but only because he knew it was a losing battle; and he'd always go down complaining.

A few months ago, Craig appealed to Al's love of onions and got him to at least attempt a White Castle. Not really meat if you ask me, but it takes baby-steps, even with a 13yo. Al's opinion was that it was "ok." As we were driving back to Lexington this evening, Al informed us he was craving a cheeseburger! (SHOCK!!) We convinced him to upgrade to Wendy's.



He's declared that he *officially* likes cheeseburgers now!!!
*sniff* My baby is growing up!
Next step----Chicken!!!

Blog Give-away

My friend Melissa at Stockpiling-Moms is having a give-away of a cute thermal tote from 31. ( I mentioned her blog a few weeks ago)

To see details of the give-away, click here.

New Year's Resolution: Pointless

I pondered the first week of January what I really, truly wanted to change. Sleep. I want more sleep. I should've known better. My life is filled with way too many independent variables to ever accomplish any resolution.

Jan. 6th (aka Night 1): I average 5-6 hours on most "school nights." Got in bed a whole 10 minutes earlier than my usual "Way way toooo late." But, due to an un-warranted snow day, I got to sleep in! Hey, this is my resolution, it counts!

Night 2: Going into it, I knew Friday was a snow day but still got in bed at 11--over 30 min earlier than usual (yay me!) thinking, "Cool, I'll get to sleep in til 8 too!" That's when every. single. flippin'. independent variable conspired to sabotage me in one night.

Variable: Mother Nature. As I've been approaching the 4-0, I've sometimes suffered out-of-whack-hormones-induced insomnia. Kept me laying there for 1.5 hours.
Variable: Facebook. I'm only supposed to get FB texts up til 9pm. But for some reason, an 8:45pm text circled the stratosphere for 4+ hours and hit my cell at 1AM.
Variable: Alexander Graham Bell. A wrong-number phone call at 3AM.
Variable: Hubby. 6AM. Technically not his fault that he has to work, but he's been to blame for keeping me awake many other nights, so no extra credit.
Variable: Al. This is the kid I have to physically drag from bed at 7:20AM for school. So WHY? WHY would he intentionally set his alarm for 6:55AM when he knows it's a snow day?!? He's incapable of hearing alarms go off 2 feet from his head. I have to get up to turn of the alarm.
Variable: Princess. 7:05 wanders into my bed. Not a problem. She'll fall back to sleep. "I had a bad dream about alligators." 5 minute discussion about alligators vs. climate/living conditions.
Variable: Gman. 7:25 wanders into my bed. "I had a bad dream that I went to get a Pop-Tart and someone ate them all. Can I watch your TV?"

Countdown to Christmas 2010

Gman: How many more days til Christmas again?
Mom: hmmmm about 354.
Gman: But that will take all night and all day.

Al goes to Washington

Al and I went to see my grandfather in Washington. Had a great visit with him! He lives on the coast. I've taken a few trips there, but this was Al's first time in Washington.


We drove out to the shore on the one day that it wasn't raining there, but the wind still made it pretty cold. The tree in the background is actually GINORMOUS! It washed up on shore in a storm about 2 years ago.


Of course, with this being Al's first trip to Washington, it wouldn't be complete without spending a little time in Seattle seeing what it's most famous for (other than rain....which we saw P-L-E-N-T-Y of while at Grandpa's. We just happened to go site-seeing on the beautiful weather day.)

Pike's Place Public market. This is where a scene from Sleepless in Seattle was filmed.


The guys who are famous for throwing the fish.


The "first" Starbucks is at the Public Market. Although technically this one is not the first. The very first one was a few stores down, they had to move it because the building it was in was being torn down. So this one is really kind of the 4th Starbucks that's treated as if it were the first.
































And what's Seattle if you don't go to the Space Needle?