I'd love to know who are you...

This post has been on my mind for quite some time now. So bear with me and cooperate, if you would.

If you scroll down the blog and look on the right side, you'll see two companies that offer tracking blog visitors (Sitemeter and Map Loco). Through those, I am able to view the locations of people who look at this blog. Fascinating, I tell you, absolutely fascinating where some people are viewing this blog from. And most of the time, I can see how they arrived at this blog. Some people go straight to the website, i.e. it is bookmarked, and some people arrive at this blog by happenstance, either by visiting someone else's blog that is following me, or by keyword entries in search engines that pick up on the text in this blog.

Nonetheless, my feeble attempt at being technical regarding this blog isn't what's important.

Most of the visitors are a mystery to me and I'd love to know: How did you stumble upon this blog (Charlotte, NC)? Why do you keep coming back (Mountain View, CA)? Do I know who you are and just don't remember mentioning the blog to you (Scranton, PA)?

Here's where I'd like some cooperation. I would love to know who is visiting this blog. Who am I reaching (Dunellon, FL)? Who's my audience (Pensacola, FL)? I started this because frankly, I don't develop pictures and turning this into a book each year was my solution. I do have minor concerns about posting pictures and personal info about our family on the www for the world to see, so I have considered putting a password protect on the blog.

Do this if you would, email me or leave a comment with your name and location (and any other comments you might have). I'm very interested to see who responds and see how the first 2 years of blogging have gone.

Why didn't I think of this sooner?

I feel so outdated, yet so up-to-date, all at the same time. Strange, I know.

I'm sitting in my bed, blogging. I've been catching up on some other blogs, updating some software, creating a recovery disk, etc. on my new laptop. While sitting in my bed. Did you get that part? Sitting in my bed. Yep, you heard me right, and on my new laptop.

Have we switched to the new millennium yet?

Uh, can someone say, Why in the world didn't you do that sooner, Kel? I love this thing. It's my new best friend, at night, when I have some alone time. It's causing me to stay up late and not get very much sleep.

I'm outdated because my last computer purchase, 6 years ago, should have been a laptop. But it wasn't. And I'm so up-to-date because I've finally caught on to what everybody else has found so appealing about these electronic toys. Upgrading to a mobile phone with a qwerty keyboard was big news 'round here, also.

I'm having so much fun customizing toolbars, choosing wallpaper backgrounds, and personalizing this 4 pound thin, flat, black plastic and metal object. I've even found a special usage for the box it came in. Believe it or not, it's a perfect lap pad for sitting in bed. :)

I admit it, I'm a nerd at heart. I still carry around a paper planner and I love computer stuff. Oh well, it takes all kinds, right? In defense of my nerdiness and particular-ness, I've always said,

"Would you want someone who wasn't detailed and precise building your skyscrapers or bridges?" I think not.

I'm still working out some kinks re: transferring info from the desktop to the laptop, but irregardless, I'm having a blast with this thing.

(I'm starting to see why my mom was so uncool by my teenage years.)

New buddy

Nathan has been spending a little too much time with the spanking spoon.

A short update

I've been pretty good about still taking pictures with 3 little ones running around, but posting them is another story. So, here goes. The short version of some cute pics I've taken...

Somebody enjoys his baths and is a natural-born wiggle worm.

Sometimes, it's easy to feel like a dog-eat-dog world out there. (Brandon with court-side tickets to the dog wash show).
Learnin' from the pros how to handle breakfast and color-time.


They adore each other. I wish I could spend a whole post explaining how these two interact because it's precious. His face lights up when she's around.
Through just observing me, she's picked up on soothing him with her soft voice and caressing him gently.
She is such a big helper with him. Whether it's fetching something I've forgotten, calming him down when he's gotten fussy (which isn't that often), holding him on the couch and trying to burp him or picking out his play clothes for the day, she is eager to help with whatever he needs.

I hope and pray that their relationship stays this special. He does too. :)

Crash & Splash

So I just read a blog from one of my friends and realized I had something relatively important to say.

My computer is toast.It keeps "looping" (official computer guy lingo) at startup and won't stay on.

I'm rather bummed and will blame lack of blogging on that.

I'm extremely thankful it got me through my year as Co-Coordinator, but still bummed.

There was some planning on my part though. I bought an external hard drive and have been backing everything up since last year about this time. Whoo hoo! So, not all is lost. Just the cost of replacing the hunk of metal.

It was a good computer, no, a great computer. It was assembled tailored to my requirements, showed up pre-kids and lasted over 6 years. There were times I was aware that my love for my children might be questioned when compared to my computer. I'M JUST KIDDING! Although, they were told MANY times to stop pushing the computer's buttons or to stop pulling the cords. Normal, "stop trying to destroy the half-way nice things we have in this house" conversations most families have.

So Connie, which by the way sounds like a good name for a computer, has bitten the dust. I was preparing for it, anxiously readying for her demise.

Connie gave me a great 6 years. She was reliable and let me change the Desktop pictures of our children more times than I can count. She trudged through me installing AutoCAD 3, 4, 5 or maybe 10 times. (That is one hard program to install correctly). She took on the tremendous load of installing the Adobe Suite, so I could attempt learning PhotoShop. Ha! There's a reason classes are offered for that! She also was patient enough for me to learn how to edit my blog page's design.

So now, in our time of being so flush with money (I say in jest, you understand?), we're faced with the age-old dilemma of which will cost less? Putting another $100 in to try to get Connie back up and running or cut our repairman costs/losses and buy another one.

Who knows. Thankfully, our neighbors have let me borrow their laptop (which is now my most favorite toy in the whole wide world and has allowed me to continue blogging from my BED, HA!), so my normal daily activities may resume. I'm down to receiving about 3-5 emails per day, so checking emails isn't priority, but being without the internet about half of this week made me realize how much we as a society have put our well-being in the world wide web. The antiquated phone book (yes I still have the smaller version that shows up on our doorstep) didn't have the latest phone number in it for the computer repair shop I was hoping to call, so my second choice was called. Preparing for vacation was/is difficult because I couldn't search for cheaper tickets nor did I have the phone number of the resort. Who writes that stuff down?

Which brings me to my final comment and the connection to my friend's blog I mentioned earlier. She discussed her Life Planner, the paper version, getting some wear and tear on it, so she tried for over a month to switch all planning over to her phone and "go paperless." Her next comment is one I whole-heartedly agree with and forever will be marked as an old person because of it. She said, "If you aren't a paper calendar person, you just won't get it."

Go ahead and throw me in the "getting old group" because I refuse to go paperless. I tried switching to solely digital also, and it just didn't work. I started carrying around a smaller version of a planner in high school and haven't let go since. I would carry around my large leather planner so much when Jim and I were dating, he finally asked why I had to bring it into restaurants or movie theaters. Well duh! Just in case I have to plan something, of course. When we played the ice-breaker game of "What's in your purse?", I failed miserably because I didn't have my purse but I sure did have my planner. It even sits next to my purse in church. See, my planner is spiritual also.

Sadly, I'm afraid the love affair with my planner has been in jeopardy. The enemy of all paper planners, Water, tried to overtake my beloved jewel 4 times in the last 2 months. Each time, accidentally (or so they say), at the hands of my moreso-loved family members. But thankfully, responding quickly, CPR and an air-dry brought the paper back to life, unharmed and legible.

I will say this. It took having a family to appreciate the wear and tear that comes from water marks on my planner. Back in college, my planner pages were flawless. The writing was all in the same ink and uniform, no page corners were creased, the punched holes were not stressed from pulling and Water never knew my planner existed. But my planner now shows "character." Each little mark has a story, and when I glance at it, not only do I know that important stuff is written down in there (like the resort's phone number), but I also know important events happened around it. Events that are way more important than the paper itself or the events it chronicles. Like the time Nathan insisted on reaching beyond his toddler arms could span for my cup of water on the counter, even though his was well within reach, and water spilled on The Planner. I wish I could say my reaction was appropriate, but I do have the where-with-all now to know that the paper dries fine and all it did was push supper back about 10 minutes. Or the time it got wet in the rain because I was holding a little one and they were more important than The Planner.

I'm a nerd at heart and I'll probably enjoy finding ways to embarass our children with my planner. The paper version is way more my style. So bring on the new laptop computer (if that's what you want me to have, Lord?!?!?!?!?), new software and new tasks like setting up my POP3 email server (SNAP! I just learned that tonight), but leave my planner alone. Some things are better just left alone. I'm just sayin'.

Typical suppertime conversation...

I'm pretty sure me and the kids were inadvertently attempting to set a world record tonight during supper. It was also one of those times when I started laughing because I never would have imagined I'd ever be saying the things I was saying.

The world record we were attempting to break, and possibly smash, was me saying the following phrases too many times to count:

Sit down
Do not lay on the table
Will you sit down?
You're going to fall
Quit hovering over me
Siiiiiiiiiiit dooooooowwwwwwnnnnnn
Eat, eat, eeeeaaaatttt
Put the food in your mouth
If I hear you talking, you're not eating
Be quiet
Sit down
That's enough talking
There's food on your fork, eat it
Take a bite please
Quit saying the word poop
We do not talk about poop at the table
Sit down
Poop is not a nice word
I don't care if ___________ says poop or not, I don't want you to say it
No, Nathan, we do not eat poop
Do you have to poop?
DO NOT get off the toilet until I make sure you're wiped good

And then I started laughing. And then the kids started laughing. But they didn't know why. And then they asked what was so funny, and I said, "You two make me laugh."

And they were pleased with that.

3am Shuffle

Do you ever wonder if what is "normal" for your household is considered really weird to the rest of the world? Well, I do. There are some things we've accomplished in parenting that I'm pretty proud of, and others, I'm not so proud of. But thankfully, there are TV shows out there that highlight the idiosyncrasies of parenting and enable me to feel a little more normal.

ABC has a show called The Middle. Ever heard of it? Well, I happened to be channel surfing the other night, watched 5 minutes of this show and immediately felt "normal."

The mom, played by Patrician Heaton, narrates the show and for this particular one explains the 3am Shuffle. Paraphrased, she says: "The 3am Shuffle. You know, all you parents out there who do it but don't admit it to anyone. It's the time of night when at least one child sleepily makes his way to the side of your bed, begs to get in, and one parent decides to sleep elsewhere." Then it showed their youngest child, a 3rd grader, standing next to the bed and the dad getting up to go lie on the couch.

I immediately felt justified because a fictional TV show family has the same problem. Except our problem is more like the 1am Cramp that soon leads to the 3am Shuffle. Our kids start heading to our room around 1am, and because we have a King-size bed (and I'm insulated by pillows), the first one who makes it there usually stays. By 3am one of us is having to move the first invader back to his/her room to make room for the 2nd invader because our bed is NOT big enough for 4 of us to sleep comfortably.

Now Jim, will tell you that my pillows cross over the mid-point of the bed and cause him to be cramped with whichever child has claimed our bed for their own. WHATEVER, is what I have to say. Thankfully, my pillows do insulate me from the bicyclist (Katherine) and the acrobat (Nathan) causing me to loose any sleep. I first needed the "wall of pillows" around my body when pregnant, now it's a requirement for the Princess and the Pea to sleep. I am still nursing all hours of the night also, so they are also doubling as protection for the baby.

One night after a late night of blogging, I came back to find this...
We can't seem to convince him to use the pillows for his head. He'd rather them cushion his feet. Go figure.

Deadliest Catch Die-hards

They had the best of intentions to stay up and watch his favorite show, Deadliest Catch. Unfortunately, a hard day's work, play and no naps got the best of them both. I think they made it into about 10 minutes of the show.

Last minute Father's Day getaway

Jim very casually mentioned something the Friday evening before Father's Day, about going to St. Augustine for the weekend. I've learned that the casual part of his "mentioning" is really and truly his way of trying to let me know he's got something in mind that he'd really like to do, although it doesn't come across as a strong desire. You see, this is bad because I'm a "Here's Your Sign" kinda gal. I don't get innuendo, or beating around the bush. I've gotta have black and white, just come right out and say it because my nearsightedness doesn't allow me to read in between the lines you're holding up 20 feet away.

Another version of him being so "forthright" is when he will ask, "What were you planning on accomplishing this weekend?"

Translation: I'm going to ask you what you were planning on doing to feel you out and then casually mention what I was hoping to do myself just to see if you'd be cooperative enough and know that I won't be able to watch the kids very much.

I'm just now figuring this out and it will be 10 years this August, and I've known him for 13 years. That's how much of a learning curve I'm dealing with people.

So, I've learned to cast the lure back into his waters and search out more information. Turns out, he was serious about going to St. Augustine, staying the night and celebrating Father's Day there. I figured this out Saturday morning.

The good-deal-search machine kicked into high gear. I banned children from the office so I could check out all the websites and make all the phone calls I needed to find the best deal. The room was booked at 9am, we planned to be packed and out the door by 11, didn't make it until 12, but we were on our way.

It might have taken so long to pack because there was a feeding in the middle of all the packing and we have a 2 year old that likes to unpack quicker than I can pack. We also have a 5 year old that is determined to ask every question under the sun and bottom line is this: my brain doesn't function well with distractions. It should have been the part of the test I failed when I applied to become a mommy. I'm pretty sure I packed each bag 3-4 times and went over the contents in my mind about a dozen times each.

We made a quick stop by McDonald's, and ate it in the car on the way there.

There's about 1/2 hour of wooded area that's pretty boring right out of town, so out came the camera and some silliness.
It's hard to get some z's with two older siblings flanking him.
I love this view.
Thinking about life, I'm sure.
Trying to avoid thinking about life for the weekend.
Thinking about heavy equipment.
Thinking about what outfit she's going to change into next.
Both of them took quick naps and by the time we got to the "helltel" (as Katherine used to call them), both kiddos were raring to go swimming. It was still nap time and soon to be feeding time for little guy, so I stayed back in the room.
That evening, we made a trip to our favorite place to eat, The Columbia, and stopped for some ice cream also. Thankfully, it doesn't get dark until later so we enjoyed some walking along the beach.Happy Father's Day Jim. You are the hardest working man I know, and you do it all for us. You show your love for us every day with your big hugs, zerbert kisses, loud exclamations, calm demeanor and trips to work everyday. We are so blessed to be able to call you Daddy and Husband. We love you thiiiiiiiiiis much (arms stretched wide).

Buzz LightYear bride...

This is just what happens when you have an older sister that is obsessed with dressing up and weddings.
I don't ever worry about him dressing up too much, because what the camera doesn't capture is right after the click, the veil is quickly turned into a whip he chases her with. And once he gets within arms distance, he realizes that the veil doesn't do enough damage so he reaches for something bigger, like the 18" plastic Buzz LightYear figurine, and commences to bonking her on the head with it.

She does cross on over to the "other" side and plays with Monster Trucks, but usually it's directing him on where, when and how to drive them on the way to the Monster Jam show they're going to watch.