You know you need a Moutain Dew when...

You know you need a Mountain Dew when you look all over for it and later find it in the medicine cabinet....isn't that where Mountain Dew should be kept?? :) I'm sure my coffee-loving/needing friend can appreciate this.

it happened to me this morning

Six minutes too soon!

Well, the power came on just minutes ago....at 3 p.m. to be exact. If AEP could have waited just six more mintues, we would have been out of power for exactly 8 days. Close enough....

More love, more power, more of You in my life

I keep thinking of this song as I pine away for the electricity to come back on! :) It's weird what the brain will associate together, even when it's totally out of context.

Anyway, we are still without power this morning. It has been 65 hours as I write this post. Honestly I wouldn't care if we were the last family in Ohio to get our power back on. We're hardly roughing it, with the generator and my friendly neighbor Carol who has graciously let me use her washer/dryer.

I mostly wanted to post an update. We heard the AEP crew in the woods behind our house last night. It would have been hard to ignore the chainsaws....there are some (at least one) trees down in the woods and one is on the power line. By the time it was dark, we didn't see any flashlights and the sounds of chainsaws had disappeared....still no electricity. Hopefully they got the manual labor completed last evening and they can get to the technical difficulty part today.

I'm NOT an artist

I post these pictures with a plea---Please don't judge me! You can add "not an artist" to my list of non-talents. Jared wanted me to trace him on some cardboard (from an old Barney episode), so I traced the two of them this afternoon. They had a blast with the sidewalk chalk (another thing I detest...along with wet grass).

More s'mores, please

We hung out in Mark's backyard last night and roasted marshmallows over his lovely burn pit. The kids had a blast.


Madison enjoyed her first Hershey's bar....too bad I only gave her one little rectangle.

Watching Evie eat is interesting, at best. What she does to food should be against the law. First she disects it (no matter what it is) and then she picks it apart and digs around in it. The s'mores were no different. If watching her demolish a s'more wasn't bad enough, she had to keep sitting down in the wet grass and getting up again. It was unsightly. It made me think of my dear out-of-state friend who also detests grass. :)

This was the best part of the evening for me. Jared was over the moon to roast marshmallows with his daddy. It was so dang sweet to watch!
Oh, yeah, more disturbing pictures of Evie destroying her yummy dessert before putting grass all over it and eating it. Disgusting, but I let it go. I felt myself reaching the next level of mommy-hood....you know, a little grass won't really hurt anyone (I hope Mark's yard stuff is non-toxic!). Oh right, I'm supposed to be letting it go....

A hurricane in central Ohio??

Yes, Ike came for a visit yesterday. We didn't get any rain (Praise the Lord!), but we sure got the wind. Here are a few pictures from our neighborhood this morning.




















This tree belonged to our next door neighbor, Mark. For those of you who haven't been here, his yard is amazingly beautiful, full of ponds, trees and rock work. Down below you can see pics of Scott and Mark taking down the remainder of the tree.

We only lost some small limbs, one shingle and one piece of siding near the attic vent at the top of the house. Interesting fact: the wind came in through the attic vent and pulled up our attic access panel that's in the master closet. Very weird.

The kids ate lunch outside today, so they could watch the tree cutting next door. We lost our power yesterday afternoon a little after 3 p.m., and it's still not on yet. Our neighbors lost the power last night and they have it again. You can see a kitchen light on behind the kids because we thankfully have a generator that runs on natural gas. We're not exactly roughing it, but we're anxious to have the electricity back and be able to turn on all the lights!

We spent the morning outside cleaning up the yard, alongside our neighbors. I have to give kudos to Carol (who lives on the other side of Mark)--she mowed our front yard, (using the bagger to collect the remaining leaves) while Scott and Mark were cutting down Mark's tree. They say the people in Texas are friendlier than the northerners, but that hasn't been our experience. We have fantastic neighbors!

Saturday night at Krispy Kreme

This is my favorite recent picture of Jared. He should be in the next Krispy Kreme ad campaign.

All is well at Madison's well-check

Madison had her one-year well-check and all went well. I thought I'd share her stats: she weighs 22 lbs., 4 oz., and is 29 inches tall.

I referenced Evie's well-check info from two years ago. Turns out Madison weighs 5 pounds more and is 2 inches taller than Evie at the same age!

Lost....the show, my time, sleep

Yes, I've lost time watching Lost. Watching wouldn't be so bad, but the reading is getting intense, too. I've been spending lots of time reading about my new favorite mystery. After I watch an episode, I get online and start reading about it and following all the rabbit trails. It's addictive, to say the least. Reading online has ruined much of the suspense for me, but I like it better this way. I'm the person who likes to watch suspense movies, but on mute....the music creeps me out and makes me nervous.

Another bad side effect of this new addiction?? Lost sleep. Right now it's 2:15 a.m. and I'm blogging because I just finished watching the first four episodes of season three (who could sleep now wondering about "the others?"). I hit a new low tonight and was reading about the show WHILE I was watching it. I just couldn't wait 15 minutes to find out that Eddie was an undercover cop, trying to bust a "farming" community.

I'm reminded of a message delivered at student camp in 2002 by David Nasser. I was a counselor that year, and he challenged all of us to fast from something for 40 days. During his message, he spoke about instant gratification and how our society advocates waiting for nothing. Everything is at our fingertips. Boy, was he right. What did I fast from that summer, you ask? The TV, of course. Maybe I should try that again.

Madison playing in the grass

This top photo is my favorite of the day. She's looking up at my neighbor, Mark... who happened to notice my difficulty in getting Madison's attention (the lion was way more interesting) and started calling her while standing behind me. Thanks, Mark!

We headed outside this past weekend. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to take some candid pictures of Madison playing in the front yard.

The Long-Awaited Cupcake

Well, she was a little bashful around the cupcake at first...

Then she got the hang of things...
"Wee doggies, this cupcake sure is tasty!"

"I was NOT finished. I really wanted to eat the whole cupcake by myself. Bring it back, NOW!"

Since there is no sound to go with this photo, feel free to watch the previously posted video clip. You get the idea.

Singing "Happy Birthday"

It wasn't that Madison didn't enjoy the singing, but she was extremely mad that I was holding her cupcake.

Listener beware: turn down the volume! :)

More to follow later today.

This can happen to you if you take your child shopping too much!

I was talking to Granny today and said, "we haven't decided what to get Jared for his birthday yet." Jared chimed in, "let's get something that doesn't cost much dollars." WHAT??

So, I get off the phone and ask Jared what he wants...

Jared, "I know, Mommy. Let's go to the store. I'll pick something out and you say, 'no.' Then I'll pick out something less 'spensive and you can say, 'yes,' and that's what we'll buy."

Are you kidding me?? :)