Cross-Eyed

On the days I have to proof pictures, I nearly go blind staring at the computer.

But at the end of the day, I just wanted to play a bit - so I played with my fav picture from DC:

I'm not sure this is the best edit, but I just wanted to fiddle.

I know that picture above is far from anyone else's favorite, but it's what I like to take. And photography is subjective so if you don't like it, I'm going to be ok with that. Because I might not like something you like! :)

And honestly, there was a picture I was REALLY trying to take, but it just didn't happen. Maybe another year. I wanted a picture of him in the middle of THIS:

THAT was the money shot I was trying to take. The angle just leads you into the picture and it would have been great if Michael was standing right there in the middle of that. I've been working on pulling out more on my composition. I usually crop in tight, but I want to push myself to do different things.

My Michael has been extra funny the last couple of days.

I showed him a picture of Brian holding his old dog from Arlington, a black poodle named BoBo Palace (at least to Brian). And I asked Michael, "What's Daddy holding?" And Michael said, "A blanket!"

And tonight, while we were driving home from McDonalds for his school fundraiser, Brian asked Michael in French, "Do you want to go home?" And Michael said, "CHECK!" Then, we arrived home, he said, "Game Over!"

What is going on in that head of his?

Apparently it is opening day in baseball. Brian watched 2 pitches, took care of Michael, and fell asleep in his bed next to him.

It is interesting how as Michael grows up, I still see little glimpses of the baby I once knew. Lately, he's been waking up about 45 minutes into his nap and wants to be held for the rest of his nap. And I am a sucker so I do it. But he used to do this as a baby, and I look down now and can't believe that in place of the little 5-6 month old baby, I'm holding a 4.5 year old boy. And I'm happy to do it because before I know it, he'll be gone and grown.

On the Record

So it goes down:

I've got to blog about our trip to the Philadelphia Please Touch Museum, which is a children's museum that is awesome but far away.

And

Our visit with Brian's parents in DC and PA. The cherry blossoms were out and I can't wait to post process those pictures!! Fun!

Money Saving Mom Strikes AGAIN!

She has an excellent link on her website right now for preschool packs. They are GREAT!

She has all sorts of different themes and different exercises to go with them. Some of them are a little easy for Michael, but some are really fun and cover a bit of science. For example, the gardening one has a page that covers the parts of a flower (root, stem, petals, etc).

So check it out! I have been printing out a TON and Michael stands at the printer waiting for them to come out!

This is her preschool packet home page:

http://homeschoolcreations.com/preschoolpacks.html

We are currently doing her gardening preschool pack since Michael and Brian are sowing seeds for the garden:

http://homeschoolcreations.com/gardenpreschoolpack.html

I asked Michael one time what he thought was something special just Mommy and Michael do - special Mommy/Michael time and he told me, "DO WORKBOOKS!"

CHECK!

And go eat at Suki-hana. It's amazing.

Love,

P

Great weekend!

We had a great weekend with the Bowmans in town! I have no pictures because my camera has a dirt speck on the sensor. This results in a little black speck on all my pictures. NOT GOOD.

Luckily, Amy took pictures! So here's a quick recap of us doing a lot of nothin' !

Charlie LOVED the piano. Here's Michael pouting because he did not get to play first. Even though he rarely ever gets on the piano:

Saturday morning - Charlie and Michael started the day like this:
Too cute. Brian drafted his Fantasy Baseball team extraordinaire. Here's to hoping for a good year!

In the afternoon, we ran over to the Longwood Gardens:
The kids loved the Children's indoor water garden:

After this, B decided we needed to grill steaks for dinner, which was great! Here are Andy and B manning the grill:
They are REALLY happy to have a picture taken of them.

We got our butts reamed by Andy in Carcassonne that evening. He beat us by nearly 100 points. It was his 2nd time playing the game. It's not something competitive people like Brian and I sit on very well. :)

Sunday morning, we went to church. The gals (Amy, SJ, and I) had naps in the afternoon while the boys explored in the woods. They played in the creek, made fire, made smores, and cut down wood. It was a manly day!

Michael and Charlie are definitely friends - but very interesting friends. They fight with each and trash talk with one another but they get along when left in the wilderness.

Here's one fight they had in the car:

Michael: Charlie, quit kicking the back of my dad's seat.

Charlie: Don't tell me what to do. You just worry about yourself.

Michael: I don't need to worry about myself. I'm just fine. Stop kicking the back of my dad's seat.

BRIAN: Charlie, please stop kicking the back of my seat.

Charlie: See, I only listen to adults. I don't have to listen to other kids.

Another morning, they had a back and forth about who was going to beat who on baseball. Both went over their respective strategies and about how one was going to beat the other.

But when you ask them about their weekend:

P: Michael, is Charlie your friend? Do you like him?

Michael: Yes!

P: What was your favorite part about this weekend?

Michael: Charlie's piano concert.

Charlie gave us a mini piano concert. It was SO cute. The video is on Amy Bowman's facebook page.

Charlie told Andy that he liked Michael too and that they were friends.

But they fight like cats and dogs when they are here. It is so funny! Well, when they are confined and have to behave.

When they were in the woods - they had a great time together! And during lunch on Saturday, they played outside and dug in the dirt together while we ate. No fights or anything. It was great!

Us grownups had a fun time catching up, trading stories, and going to bed at early hours.

One thing our house is good for is R&R. Don't come here expecting a jam-packed vacation full of sights and sounds. Come here to play in nature, rest, sleep, and do a whole lotta nothing.

So glad to see our Texas friends on the East Coast. Really sad that they are moving back in June - and us Besancons are back to being alone on this side of the world.

Tokyo

I have really enjoyed this post, written by an American photographer in Tokyo:

http://www.mcpactions.com/blog/2011/03/16/inside-tokyo-one-photographers-view/

Interesting recap of what the city is like after the earthquake.

It's crazy to me to see this, especially since Brian was just in Tokyo 3 weeks ago. It could have been him there, stuck far from us. And I am really glad he's safe at home.

One other thought I'd like to throw out there.

I'm really irritated at Apple's recent introduction of the iPad2. Seriously? The iPad just came out around when we got back from France. So that was less than a year and a half ago.

Do Americans REALLY need another NEW version of this thing? I know it's cool - but honestly?

After living in France - it is SO glaringly apparent how the American society is driven on the "I want it now, " and "Ooo!! New tech toy - I HAVE TO HAVE IT!"

And I find it incredibly embarrassing. When I'm in my French teacher's apartment where they don't own an oven or a bed frame for their mattress. When I'm staring at all those images of people in Tokyo. It's a humbling thing to see.

Am I saying that I am morally better than everyone else in America? Hardly. I am guilty of it too. We have a flat screen TV. I have a mac computer. We own smartphones.

When we got back from France - well, we had a little catching up to do right? We actually needed a TV, reinstated cell phone plans, and a new computer. Anyone who visited us in Paris knew our laptop screen died and we just hooked it up to a borrowed monitor (or the TV) instead of buying a new computer. For 1.5 years.

However, we ARE different because we won't be replacing our gadgets with the newest or "must have" items. We'll have our items until it dies. We'll use our cell phones until they die - not until the next best thing comes out.

Sorry, I had to rant and rave a bit. It just seems to me - to read in the headlines about the debut of ipad2 alongside the devastation in Japan - that something just didn't line up for me.

Mommy Memory

To be engraved in my Mommy Memory:

Friday night, Michael and I were sitting on the couch after dinner. Me, with my apfel schoerla. I have no idea how to spell that by the way. It's just German for a drink that's half apple juice and half bubbly water. I love it.

Michael, with his warm apple juice in a gluhwein mug that Brian bought in the '90s when he lived in Dresden.

And he climbed up not quite next to me on the couch. He sat about 2 feet away from me. And he said,

"Mommy, will you tell me a story?"

So I told him 2 pretty silly, off the cuff stories. We do it Mad Libs style where I'll start it and let him interject things like a name for the main character or what color he was, etc. Michael decided he wanted a story about a microwave named Dora. So I told him about Dora the Microwave and how she didn't like to heat the food. She would just eat it. Until one day, someone put a Thomas the Tank engine in there and she burned it up.

I never said my stories were super awesome.

My second story was about Luigi and how he kept falling into huge vats of food (lasagna, then spaghetti, and then a bowl of soup). He had to eat himself out of these vats of things. Mario helped him with the lasagna. Toad give him a twizzler and pulled him out of the spaghetti. And he saved himself out of the soup by finding a cheerio and using it as a floatie. He laughed and laughed when Mario was too busy to help Luigi get out of the spaghetti because he had to poop.

Boys love the word poop for some reason.

I will always remember Michael curled up on the couch, with his apple juice in his lap, just staring at me with his big eyes, laughing and chuckling until the juice spilled from his cup all over his Mater t-shirt. We did this for about an hour.

And Brian cleaned up our whole kitchen - did the dishes, swept the floor, wiped the counters down, and the table.

It was a great Friday night.

Actions on the Pity Party

While I am one to have pity parties as seen in my previous post, I do actually DO things about it.

I decided on the fabric for my cornice in the piano room:

It's a bit squatty looking in this picture, but it's not this squatty in real life. The beige-ish part of the design matches my wall color. And the grey is a nice compliment (without being matchy) to my framed prints which have a navy blue mat.

PLUS - I found it at The Interior Alternative, which is a huge fabric warehouse with aisles and aisles of bolts of fabric (think HGTV). AND their regular prices are usually cheaper than Joann's 60% off sales. AND they have lots of different fabrics that are fancy.

What sealed the deal? I got the end of the bolt discount so I got 50% off their already discounted price. AND a worker had purchased a 3.5 yd remnant that she didn't end up using so I got that for 50% off too.

DONE.

Just need some ready made light grey linen curtains to be my side panels.

Once that chest gets in that room, I'll be getting this lamp from Target that has a glass base with a navy blue lamp shade with cream accent ribbon. And a mother of pearl mirror to go above it. Both of which I cannot find pictures of on the web.

As far as Brian's jet lag, I've been making him stay up to talk to me and play games - which tires him out enough to sleep through the night. CHECK.

Last night, we showed up to our neighbor's Mardi Gras party with Michael - only to find out it was an adult's only party. Oops. Luckily, our other neighbors who Michael plays with were home and so we sent him there to play with their 12, 9, and 7 year old. They played Wii and watched TV and we had a totally impromptu date.

It was a neighborhood party and we met a lot of our neighbors for the first time so it was really neat. We'll be planning a Texas BBQ party in the summer and hanging our HUGE TX flag over our garage for that WHOOP.

Today, it's raining. And I will be organizing said laundry room and cleaning a bit. We have house guests in 2 weeks and then 3 weeks! YEA! We love house guests.

Love,

P

One day

One day, I will post again on this blog.

One day, I will actually finish organizing my laundry room - I can't live with my supply of toilet paper and paper towels in my kitchen for much longer

One day, I will finish designing all my brochures for my business.

One day, I will make some final decisions on the curtains in my piano room.

One day, I will purchase this chest for my piano room that I have been coveting - for I don't know - 10 months:

One day, I am going to actually watch TV. Like sit down and watch it. And not feel guilty.

One day, Brian's going to not be awake from 1am-4am due to jet lag. I'd like my non-grouchy/non-sleepy husband back please.

One day, it will stop being cold up here. ANY DAY PLEASE.

One day, my house might magically appear perfectly decorated the way I would like for free and with minimal effort from me.

This is not a pity party. I swear.