Father's Day (by G)

Me and the boys flying a kite at dusk on the beach.

I always wondered why on Mother's Day, the mother gets a break from the kids, however, on Father's Day, the father "gets" to spend time with the kids. In my case, I did actually want to spend time with my boys.

I had to work on Saturday and when I got home, M had prepared a menu of items that I got to choose from for breakfast and lunch the following day. Dinner, she informed me, was going to be with all of her extended family. She also started Father's Day that night and got the kids already for bed before we took them over to a friends' house to hang out.

On Sunday, I got to sleep in (which M usually let's me do on Sundays anyways) and then was greeted by a bright-eyed 3-year old asking me if I wanted peppers in my breakfast burrito. I rolled myself out of bed when he told me it was time to get up and come downstairs. M had made my requested breakfast burritos with sausage, egg, cheese and peppers. I got orange juice to drink and a doughnut. It was fabulous.

After breakfast, me and the boys sat down and watched the Fantastic Mr. Fox. We all enjoyed it. When lunchtime rolled around, I was still pretty full from a late breakfast, so M made me a wonderful fruit salad. Then it was off to Church. The fathers got a bag of M&Ms. After Church we came home for a minute and then went over to M's aunt and uncle's house for burgers and dogs. We came home a few hours later, M got the kids bathed and put in bed. I spent the rest of the evening on the couch reading.

The day was low key and very nice. I feel so incredibly blessed to have such a wonderful and loving wife, and two amazing kids. I love spending time with all of them and was glad that I could focus on enjoying them. I would not be what I am today if it weren't for them. Thanks for the great day.

School is Out

In three hours.

We survived.  (barely)

Halle-freakin-lujah!

Let the sleeping in and fun begin.

I can not express how much I hate school as a parent.

It's weird, cause I actually liked it when I was a kid.

But I've always loved summer and sleep.

Easy 80s

The other night I was getting ready for bed really late.  G was downstairs finishing a movie.  It was so late that the late-night talk shows were over.  Instead of watching my Tivo'd 11:00 news, I got sucked into an infomercial for a collection of CD's of 80's music.   Maybe  I should be ashamed, but I knew and liked most of the "150 most romantic and sensual love songs of the 80's." Blame my parents, I guess.  But I was raised on that music!  I can't help but love it.

For the record, I have never in my life watched an infomercial.  And I am well acquainted with all the hottest music, so I'm not totally stuck in the stone age.  But with each consecutive song, I got more excited.  I hit "record" so I could re-watch the show later.  I called G upstairs to watch with me.  I ran calculations to determine if the $150 pricetag was worth it.  (It's not.)  And since then I've been making a list of songs we need added to our itunes, and I've been hunting down our old music we already have. 

Chicago, Kenny Rogers, Journey, Neil Diamond, Air Supply, Lionel Richie.  The Killers are cool and all, but they are no Lionel Richie. 

Happy Things

My boys on the beach at sunset last week. 

A couple things have made me extremely happy the past few days. 

I have never made dinner rolls before and my first attempt was perfection.  I hope it wasn't beginner's luck!  Then G made honey butter which I thought was a bad idea at first.  But then I changed my mind and perfect rolls became ridiculous.  In an amazing way.

We dusted off my Aerosmith greatest hits CD (Big Ones) and gave it whirl tonight.  I hadn't listened to it in probably ten years, yet it's one of my favorites.  Angel is probably my all-time favorite song.  Looooooooove it.  Now that I've been reminded of that fact, I will be listening to it all the time. 

My bathroom smells like gardenias because my gardenia plant is finally in bloom.  I've had the plant for years and it finally is blooming for the first time.  

I sealed 29 mylar bags of food for long-term food storage yesterday with a friend.  I did whole wheat macaroni, brown rice, quinoa, chocolate chips, steel cut oats, trail mix, brown sugar, and wheat germ.  I had so much fun I'm going to do white flour in a couple weeks.  I love canning in any form I've decided.

My garden is doing amazing, thanks to our new planter boxes and fancy soil.  We are doing square foot gardening this year for the first time, so the yield is yet to be determined.  But the seeds are all up and the plants look great!

Only 5.5 days of school left.  Which means only 6 more times of getting up early.  There are no words to describe the anticipation and joy to be schedule-free for a couple months.

And just so you don't think I'm too Pollyanna-ish, here's some bad news.  Buddy lost his second tooth last week and informed us that he doesn't believe in the tooth fairy "because I felt a hand under my pillow and it was more the size of a human hand than a fairy hand.  Plus a tooth fairy just makes no sense."  So we came clean.  It hurt me more than it hurt him, though.  He said he still has an imagination so he'll still get excited about "her" coming.  And we told him he could help us be the tooth fairy for Sambo one day, which softened the blow a little too, I think. 

And I had to get new fingerprints for my criminal background check today because it's time to renew our adoption homestudy.  Which means we've been waiting for baby #3 for two years.  Please share our adoption blog or our adoption profile with anyone that could help.  Sambo gets mad when I pretend like he's a baby, so please save him the trauma of being tortured by being treated like a baby and help us find another baby.  Thanks!