An addition and a toll story

I was reminded today that I forgot to add someone I love to my 'N' list. That would be my brother Nathan. So I am adding to my list.



11. Nathan - The man who taught me the art of driving. He taught me the key rule when parking: "Go until you hear crunch." It works well :) The guy who bandaged my cut when I slid into third base unnecessarily. He's the one who taught me how to ride a bike, cheat at Monopoly and play Spades! He's been my friend and we've had lots of fun together through the years. He's an awesome guy who deserves a wonderful wife. Know anyone around 30 who would be a match?



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On a completely different note I went to Portland on Thursday. When we went to go through the tolls in Wells there was no one in the toll booth. For those who are familiar with Maine, you know that to get on the pike you need to pay $0.60. We used to have lines with baskets to put the money in, but recently those were replaced and are all EZ Pass Lanes. So if you want to pay cash you have to see a toll collector. Anyway, there was no toll collector there. Instead, a sign on the window read "Toll collector temporarily unavailable, please proceed with caution." I looked at the sign and was a bit puzzles, but did continue on to the pike. The guy behind me was equally puzzled and sat at the toll with his had out reading the sign. He proceeded really slowly.

As I drove down the pike I thought to myself... "I'm glad God is never temporarily unavailable."

My letter is 'N'

Val gave me the letter 'N.' I get to write a list of ten things I love that begin with this letter.

1. Nuts - I like just about all kinds. I love pecans, almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts, psittacosis... the list goes on.

2. Nutella - need I say more? It's chocolately and nutty. Good stuff!

3. Naps - I especially love it when both boys nap at the same time and I can always drift off into nap land. I love getting that little refresher in the middle of the day.

4. Nike running shoes - of all the sneakers I have ever owned, Nike running shoes are my favs. I just got a new pair last week at Kohls on sale.... the only way I purchase Nike running shoes. I don't really run, but they are great for using on the treadmill and outdoors.

5. Notting Hill - I love this movie with Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant. It's so funny and so cute.

6. New Plymouth - It's the settlement on Green Turtle Cay, Abaco, Bahamas that we visit whenever we get a chance. I love how quiet it is and how people drive around in golf carts. It's here Adam proposed to me on the beach. It's the location of my favorite beach.

7. Navy - As in the color. I hate that it's our uniform at WM, but I like to wear the color all the same. I think it looks good on me.

8. NCIS - Like I've said before, I am addicted to this show and I am unavailable at 8 p.m. on Tuesdays for this reason. I've watched every season and ever episode (thank you Netflix) and know way too much about the characters and their lives in the show. Accidentally, our son Tim is named after Timothy McGee in the show. Wonder if he'll be a computer geek?

9. Netflix - I can queue up as many movies as I like and they just show up. It's $10 a month for unlimited entertainment. It's something Adam and I enjoy doing together. He likes coming up with movies he thinks I'll like and then sits me down to watch them. He LOVES it when I say, "Oh I've never seen X movie." And it shows up in the mail and I have to watch it. Netflix, worth the money and cheaper than going to the movies every weekend (like we once did).

10. Nana - Oh, what would we do without this lovely lady? She sends my kids surprises in the mail, spoils them when she's here and listens to me babble on about being a mommy. She is my mommy and we love Nana. She spoils me too :)

That's my list. Anyone else want a letter?

Kids say the cutest things...

Sometimes the things Ryan says just make me smile. He's expanding his vocabulary every day! Here are a few of the random things that have had me laughing or smiling at him recently.

"Hello Uncle Bince, you come over to my house and play with my new tool box? Okay, see you soon." (pretending to call his Uncle Vince to come over and play with him.)


"Mom, can I have one cookie? Not two cookies, just one cookie. Thanks." (as if I would give him two at a time, espeically for breakfast!)


"This is a big problem." (when a wheel to his truck fell off...the wheels are meant to be taken off and put back on)


"Stay out of the kitchen." (just a random thing he told me one day)


"Mom, this room does not have little potty for me." (speaking of the bathroom at the library).

"This orange juice is not right." (upon getting real oj instead of orange gatorade)

"Mom, I am two and you are eight." (he's just 20 years off)

"Memere is O.L.D!" (in response to my question "if I am eight, then how old is memere?)

"Put your big bum-bum right here." (asking me to sit in a specific chair...)

And one I'm glad he said at home and not in public...

"Tim has little penis. I have BIG penis." (how do you respond to that????)

Ten year reunion, my ear and da boys

My ten year high school reunion is this year. Plans are a bit slow for the big event, but I'm hoping it all comes together so I can be there to hang out with my old friends.

In the past few weeks my classmates have been posting photos from our high school days on Facebook. Today, I scanned a bunch and put them up there too. It's been fun watching them comment on the pictures. It brings back great memories. Life was so different thing... so carefree!

Ten years seems like ages ago, but most people look the same. I'll be thrilled to post photos of the actualy reunion.

In addition to posting photos on Facebook today, I also visited my second home. For those of you who don't know, I consider my doctor's office my second home. I swear I am there multiple times every month. I was just there last week for Tim's second flu shot and then I was there today. It was a follow up on my ear and all of the infections. Since seeing the ENT, things have been fairly good. My ear hurts some days, but nothing like before.

So I'm thinking I'm all good and she says my ear is still swollen inside. So, we're trying some new allergy medicine to see if it's related to my sinuses (which we red and runny today). If it's still swollen or giving me pain in the next few months, she'll send me to a TMJ specialist. I really hope I don't have TMJ. I don't have a lot of the symptoms, but I keep reading that it's different for everyone.

The kids have been fun the last few weeks. I have photos on the other computer to post of Ryan taking a sled ride. He took one ride and then insisted on pulling the sled himself. He brought in the newspaper on the sled.

Timothy is almost crawling. Some days I can't wait for him to walk and other days I keep telling myself that he's just fine when he's little and barely moving. He's getting creative, though. He likes the speakers on the surround sound system for the TV so he rolls over a few times and scoots over until he can reach it on the low shelf and pull it down. He also likes DVDs.... not good.

More photos soon... probably later this week on an afternoon when Adam isn't here playing WoW.

100 things about me

So here's 1oo things you may or may not have known about me!

1. I love Pizzeria Combos.



2. I can eat an entire loaf of homemade white bread on my own.



3. I love fishing, especially with my Uncle Carroll.



4. I don't like it when people I don't know call me "hon" or "sweetie."



5. I am addicted to NCIS. I am unavailable on Tuesday nights from 8 -9.



6. I've always wanted to open my own restaurant and call it Mizpah's (after my grandmother).



7. Emeralds are my favorite gem.



8. I met George H. W. Bush at Walker's Point while I was a reporter.



9. We used to own six guinea pigs.



10. I miss driving my Saturn Vue.



11. I enjoy working at Wal-Mart (I just get annoyed with the customers).



12. I think everyone should have to work some sort of service job (waiter, cashier, receptionist) just so they know what it's like.


13. My big toe is mammoth.


14. I can quote many of the lines from the movie Cool Runnings.


15. My favorite scene from from Cool Runnings is where they are naming the bobsled.


16. I witnessed a car hit something on my way to deliver Ryan.


17. I consider 13 a lucky number since it's my birth date.


18. I don't like going to bed with dirty feet.


19. I consider myself an excellent cook and I am offended when someone doesn't like something I make.


20. I washed my husband's first cell phone.


21. I washed my green iPod that my husband got me as a gift. (neither the iPod nor the phone survived).


22. I once faked a sprained ankle to get out of P.E. (gym).


23. I think it's fun to play in the snow.


24. I like building snowmen.


25. I ate salt and vinegar chips with ranch dip while pregnant with Ryan.


26. I craved spoon fulls of mayo (but never ate it) while pregnant with Tim.


27. I think it's hard to pick out good boy names.


28. I hate it when I use the car and the gas light comes on (especially since I use it just twice a week).


29. I have quite a few characters on World of Warcraft. My main (character) is named after a high school classmate.


30. While trying to impress my husband on one of our first dates, I stepped on a ping-pong ball while attempting to stop it from rolling away (it didn't survive either).


31. I used to play marbles in elementary school.


32. I was the catcher on our high school girl's softball team.


33. I've never been skiing.


34. I've never been scuba diving.


35. Driving is one of my favorite pastimes.


36. My first drivers license had no photo and was laminated.


37. I've never voted in a Bahamian election.


38. I want to travel to Germany someday.


39. A friend of mine took me for a ride in a city plow when I was a reporter so I could write a story about it.


40. I enjoyed staying in the hospital after the kids were born. I was in no rush to get home either time.


41. My first car was a K car.


42. I have bad luck with cars and automatic transmissions.


43. I've started a collection of Junkanoo dolls.


44. I once bit into a piece of cracked conch and found a conch pearl.


45. I had the conch pearl set into a ring.


46. It's hard for me to keep gifts a secret.


47. My favorite pair of shoes are my Danskos.


48. I wish I had more than one pair of Danskos.


49. I drove my husband's car (we weren't married yet) off the road in a snowstorm. It took an hour to get it out of the ditch. I also almost hit a utility pole. Thanks Julie!


50. My part-time job at college required me to sort student and faculty mail.


51. Adam and I have matching wedding bands.


52. One of my favorite kids books is Mr. Popper's Penguins.


53. My favorite chocolate bar is a Cadbury's Crunchie.


54. The first CD I ever owned was Mariah Carey's Christmas Album. My brother gave it to me for a Christmas gift.


55. My high school graduation gift was a Citizen Eco Drive watch. It died last year.


56. Going to the British store in Freeport makes me feel like I'm a home.


57. The only time I've been in Chicago was on the Bible and Culture trip my freshman year of college.


58. I purchased six CDs at the HUGE Borders on that trip.


59. Six CDs is the most I've ever purchased at one time.


60. My best friend and I made up actions to the Christmas Song. It still makes me laugh.


61. I used to get dizzy after having a vaccination or blood drawn.


62. Needles don't bother me so much after my pregnancy with Ryan.


63. Fall is my favorite season.


64. I really like seafood.


65. I've eaten squid and thought it wasn't so bad. I'd eat it again.


66. I like baked stuffed lobster.


67. I think Red Lobster makes the best fried shrimp.


68. My favorite seafood is conch.


69. I like catching triggerfish when I go fishing.


70. I watched the Bone Collector the night before my wedding.


71. The smell of cigar smoke reminds me of my Uncle Ross.


72. I like the smell of pipe smoke.


73. My favorite beach is in Green Turtle Cay.


74. I can sing lots of commercial jingles.


75. I sang commercial jingles to Adam on Sunday night when he was trying to go to sleep.


76. The Real Men of Genius Budwiser commercials are some of my all time favorites.


77. I still think the Dominos commercial for free cheesy bread is funny. "You're free cheesy bread. Free!"


78. I used to play the piano.


79. I used to play the piano for our youth group at church.


80. My favorite classical music piece is Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven.


81. I think chocolate should be a food group.


82. The farthest I've been away from home is when I went to Papua New Guinea.


83. There was a massive tsunami while I was in Papua New Guinea, but we were on the other side of the island.


84. One of my editors always pronounced the tsunami, "too sommy."


85. I think it's an unwritten rule that all newspaper publishers have to be weird.


86. I love taking photos.


87. I wish I had more time to work on my photography skills.


88. One of my professors in college did some sort of test on a peanut for Jimmy Carter in 1981.


89. We still make fun of this professor because he always started his stories "Back in 1981, when I was in Atlanta..."


90. I miss living close to St. Louis.


91. I am the bookkeeper in the house.


92. I know more about the eye than I ever thought possible.


93. Our first apartment after we were married was infested with cave crickets.


94. Big Daddy's and Shain's of Maine are my favorite ice cream shops. Ted Drewes comes in third.


95. Homemade coconut ice cream is my favorite ice cream.


96. I once had a fishing "pole" made out of a length of fishing line and a half of a clothes pin.


97. I can still remember playing Raiders of the Lost Ark on our Atari.


98. I often have pajama days with the kids. We all get a bath or shower and then put on clean pjs for the day. We go nowhere and it's awesome!


99. My dad used to tickle my feet to get me to go to sleep at night.


100. I still like it when someone touches my feet.

It keeps me up late

I haven't stayed up late on purpose for a long time. I have two boys who insist on getting up at the crack of dawn. I need my sleep. I like to sleep. I like lots of sleep.

But the Twilight Series by Stephanie Meyers is keeping me up well into the early morning. The kids bedtime and nap time are really my only times to read. I've devoured the first three books in record time for me.

Here's the thing you need to know. I wasn't interested in reading these books. I thought it was silly, just like I thought the whole Harry Potter craze was silly. When Adam and I saw the preview for the movie, we looked at each other and said, "nope." We do this with all previews. We either say "yes" or some version of "no" to determine if we will see a movie. We often disagree...

Just two months after the movie's release and here I am impatiently waiting for my friend Jenni to finish Breaking Dawn so I can read it too. (Jenni was the one to lend me Twilight and convince me to read the books). I also want to rent Twilight when it's available on Netflix.... March 22 according to the Stephanie Meyer website. I'm curious about how Bella's Lullaby sounds. I'm curious how certain aspects of the book play out in the movie.

I am also excited there will be other movies. I'm excited to see what Meyers writes next.

So this morning I typed Twilight into the search bar on Facebook and discovered there are some funny groups like "I wanna be a Cullen," "Because I read Twilight I have unrealistic expectations in Men," and "After reading Twilight human boys seems lacking." Jenni and I can't stop talking about it. I sense a girls night of lots of Twilight Saga talk.

And though I stayed up till well past my bedtime (giving me just 5ish hours of sleep last night) I am feeling okay. I know the boys will nap later and I can nap too... if there's time (there's laundry to do, a cake to bake, dinner to make.... you know the usual). Because Jenni is probably not done with the last book, I can go to bed early.

Breaking Dawn will probably keep me up late the night it comes home in Adam's work bag!

Smiles

Tim loves to smile. I can't believe how big he's getting.

He's so good at sitting up by himself and recently started army crawling. He also gets up on his hands and knees, but isn't sure what to do next. Crawling is on the way.

Ryan loves Winnie the Pooh too!

Pooh and my two boys. Ryan really wanted his photo taken too and I had to agree to it. This is the first time he's sat next to him without getting upset that he'll be in the photo too. We're making progress!

And our New Year's photo at my brother-in-law's house.

Gnomes

I hate it when the gnomes come to our house and take things we need. Like today I was going to vacuum the floors and there's a part of the vacuum missing. I asked Ryan if he knew where it was, but he had no clue. I searched through toys and under things.... things that are all cluttered up because we have no space. It doesn't help that I am already grry. I ended up borrowing the vacuum from upstairs. I don't even know if you can replace the part that's missing. I wish the gnomes would just leave me alone and that our little space in the basement would just magically clean itself!

Tim's growing up

Timothy is growing quickly. He's getting better at sitting up on his own and no longer needs something behind him incase he falls over. He even scoots around these days. He is good at going backward, turning around and has figured out do a tiny bit of army crawling. I'm not ready for full out crawling yet. I kind of just want him to stay little.

The funniest thing is that he really, really wants to eat our food. He has zero teeth, which makes it so funny to watch. We've always known he's wanted to eat our food since the day he stole my bacon at breakfast with my parents. The other day Ryan left his banana in Timothy's reach and he ate quite a bit of it. And this week Timothy ate some bread, turkey and bacon from my turkey club sandwich.

At his last visit with the doctor Tim was 17 lbs 5oz and just about 28 inches long. He's tall and easily fits into 12 month clothes. I fear it won't be long before we get into 18 month stuff. We've even had to dig out bigger socks from Ryan's old stuff. He's only got one more inch and then he can transition to the big car seat.

It's lots of fun watching him grow, but I wouldn't mind it if he stayed little for awhile.