This one's for the boys...

This post is for my bros-in-law and any other dudes who care. I'm not going to spend a lot of time explaining things, because it's really all about the pictures, and if I have to explain to you why these pictures are unique you probably won't appreciate them.

OK I lied. I have to explain them (briefly) or you might not appreciate them, dang it!

Boone and his dad went to Augusta National for Wednesday's practice round for the Masters Tournament this year. It also happened to be the par 3 tournament that day, as well as the last day cameras are allowed on the "sacred greens at Augusta". I'll tell you what, they are gigantic snobs over here about this golf tourney, but it appears they have reason to be that way. The guys said the walking paths at Augusta are nicer than most greens they've seen at other courses. It's just stunningly beautiful, but the only way you'll ever see it in person is to 1) be one of 300 members of the club, 2) be lucky enough to have scored hard tickets to the tourney in the 1970's or 3) sell your soul (or cutest child) to buy tickets from the lucky ones who scored them in the 1970's.

There is no gift shop that you can visit except during Master's week as a ticketed guest, and they will not even allow you to take a picture by the sign at the main entrance "in case a member is trying to come in to play". Whatever. And let's all remember that this hallowed spot is located directly across the street from an abandoned strip mall. It's really bizarre.

Anyway, here are some pictures from the father/son outing of the year...enjoy!



Guess who that is practicing his putting? I'll give you a hint -- it rhymes with "Liger Hoods".

And this threesome was quite the spectacle of the day -- from left to right, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, and (swinging the club) Arnold Palmer. Pretty cool stuff.

I think they had fun and I'm hoping Boone will score some tickets for next year so I can go pretend to be filthy rich for a day and applaud men as they hit balls with sticks. Yippee!

Strange things in my kitchen

Will somebody please explain to me why there are always crumbs in the silverware holder drawer? It is across the room from the food prep area of our kitchen and the only thing that goes in there is CLEAN SILVERWARE. So what the heck is that all about? It makes me crazy!

And while we're on the subject of weird things happening in my kitchen, let's all take a look at what I did with the literal fruits of our family's labor last week, shall we?


That's right, I actually MADE strawberry and triple berry jam all by myself like a real wife and mother! Are you as shocked as I am that I did something that domestic in the kitchen? You should be (if you aren't, you probably don't know me well enough to be reading my blog, stalker). I still startle a little when I look in the pantry and see 24 jars of homemade jam that I am responsible for. It's like the twilight zone or something.

Anyway, we had a lot of fun picking the strawberries last week...


Branik was a super helper and did his part as the quality control inspector...

He was totally covered in berry juice by the time we left and diapers were a blast (pun intended) the next day, but he was happy!


Keaton didn't actually pick anything -- he just used Harold (the helicopter) as a cropduster -- but we were totally thrilled that he basically stuck by us and hung out.

Rylan ate twice as many as she picked, but she eventually got about half a bucket full and for that we thank her. What's awesome is that she will eat 23 pounds of fresh berries, but once I mushed them up and added sugar, she told me she doesn't like all the "berry chunks" in the jam. Whatever. More for me and Boone.

*side note -- I still can't get over that strawberry season in Georgia arrives in mid-April -- what's up with that?

Rylan's Milestone

We are proud to announce that Miss Rylan Terry lost her first tooth today! Yep, good old tooth letter "O" has left the building, with a little help from a dentally fixated daddy and a piece of floss. She is totally thrilled and showed everyone who looked in her general direction at church today. As fantastic as this news is, Boone and I were a little alarmed at what we overheard during Rylan's conversation with her Aunt Cilka this afternoon:

"Cilka, guess what?!?!?! I LOST MY TOOTH!.....Yep!.....today before church.....my daddy yanked it out with floss but it only hurt for a second.....uh-huh!.........yeah, she is coming tonight and she brings coins, and candy, and toys to leave under your pillow......uh-huh!"

Um, excuse me? Coins and candy and toys? This is the tooth fairy we are talking about, not Santa! When I was a kid I got a quarter, and even when you account for inflation that should be 50 cents, tops. Maybe I am just way out of touch, but I think having a mountain of prizes under the pillow 20 times in the next few years seems a little excessive. So listen up Tooth Fairy: we like our standards and expectations low around here, and we don't need you to mess with our system. Consider yourself warned.

In other news, it's still good to be a kid, when the most important thing on your agenda involves finding caterpillars in your backyard after dinner...


...sharing them with your unusually-gentle-to-animals brother...



...and playing on the one thing that is legal to climb on at your address (not that you stay off the "illegals" anyway)...


And this isn't really "news" to anyone, but just a better illustration of how totally INFATUATED Branik is with Thomas and company. This is all day, every day, all over the house.



P.S. Did I mention my kids are adorable? They are (at least for tonight).

Happy Birthday Branik!

So my baby turned 2 today which is just completely unbelievable to me. He has been a little sicko for about a week now, but since Boone's parents were here visiting we did a little family "party" on Saturday that involved watching Branik cry at dinner and during cake time. He perked up after his bath and did much better when the presents came out, but seriously, how pathetic is this?


You can see how empathetic Rylan and Keaton were to their sick little brother...



All they really cared about was eating scary Elmo cake -- especially since this relatively small cake had 2 whole cans of frosting on it. I usually do better than this, but since a) Boone hacked this shape out of a 9 x 13 cake, b) I was exhausted after painting the huge front area of my house and re-doing our flower beds in the front yard, and c) we'd had sick boys all week which meant Boone and I were SEVERELY sleep deprived, this is what Branik got.


He readily identified it as Elmo when he saw it, so whatever. (Chrysta -- I totally kicked your trash in the "lame-cake-for- son's-birthday-department!)

Anyway, Branik likes two things right now -- Elmo and Thomas. Since Keaton likes the same things minus Elmo, I went with our furry red friend here to avoid WWIII over Branik having a Thomas cake. "Melmo" also made several non-frightening appearances during gift time which helped put a little grin on our little buddy's face (thanks Mom!)...


As much as he loved his Elmo stuff, he went beserk when the Thomas things came out. My boys were totally fine with generic trains until recently, but now I have had two separate friends tell me that when Branik comes to their house, he beelines for the Thomas trains, scoops as many as he can hold into his arms, and cries hysterically when anyone (Keaton) comes near him. So we finally caved and got some real Thomas stuff for him so he won't act like a starving kid at a buffet when he goes to play dates.

You can see behind the big train in the foreground that he has several new engines lined up -- this was moments before it occurred to him that Keaton could also see the new trains, at which point he promptly picked them all up and shoved them under the couch so only he could see them. I somehow missed a picture of that, but it was so precious to see how totally unwilling to share Branik is becoming. Awwww.

So that was Saturday, but today, on his real birthday, he thoroughly convinced me that he did indeed turn two.



Sorry for the unbelievably awful photo, but we were in crisis mode. (Note the bloody left nostril, which has become Branik's signature look since he decided that shoving his finger up his nose to the second knuckle is a great idea). Let's have a little quiz here, shall we? Is this child crying:

1. Because Keaton took his new trains away?
2. Because he can't reach his sippy cup of apple juice?
3. Because his mostly naked Mommy just hauled his behind into the house after Keaton came into the bathroom while she was showering, said, "Mommy, Branik is in the car", which made Mommy dash out of the shower all lathered up only to discover that said two year old is NOT in fact in the car, but has pushed a dining room chair through the laundry room and out into the garage so he could reach the garage door opener and is now standing barefoot at the top of the driveway by the street?

Anyone? Anyone?

EUREKA!!!......er.......BISSELL!!!

Okay, so I can't believe I have waited over a week to write about this because it is life changing for me people, and I am not exaggerating, because I don't do that. Ever.

Some of you may remember my last post in which I spent an insane amount of time talking about a juice induced sticky spot on my floor. Well no more! Thanks to the good people at Bissell, I now have a floor so clean that I would happily lick up any spills like a dog (again, no exaggeration).

I give you (drumroll please)...the BISSELL STEAM MOP!!!




Before we proceed, let me just say that I am not being compensated by the Bissell people for what I am about to write, although I totally should be since I am pretty sure I am directly responsible for the purchase of 4 of these since I bought my own.

This thing rocks. It has changed bare floor cleaning for me like my Dyson changed vacuuming. Seriously. I love it 98% as much as I love my Dyson which is 95% as much as I love Target. Are we clear? Good.

I have been using a Swiffer Wet Jet for about 4 years and I will admit that I was nearly as reverent about the Swiffy when I first got one. I always thought sponge mops soaked in a bucket of dirty water was a gross way to get something clean, so the idea of a ready-to-go mop with disposable "yuck pads" was super appealing. In Texas we had fairly smooth ceramic tile and the SWJ worked pretty well, but here I have a very textured kitchen floor and the Swiffer solution gets all sudsy when I mop and leaves a dull film behind. Also, I have grown a conscience about how much waste is produced with disposable pads and empty plastic bottles, and I'm starting to be more than a little concerned about all the chemicals we inhale/ingest. What's a suds-loathing, tree-hugging, slightly paranoid girl to do?

Enter the Bissell.

So here's the deal -- the new mop uses plain water and machine washable terry pads to steam all the crud out of my textured floors -- it heats the water in about 20 seconds and then produces copious amounts of steam, kind of like an iron (so I'm told -- couldn't pick an iron out of a lineup -- that's what wet washcloths and your dryer are for).

Anyway, after 2 months of searching online and in stores, I finally found one in stock and ordered it. The day that it arrived I unpacked and assembled it in my entryway, but managed to rein in my excitement long enough to make a rational decision: I decided to use the SWJ one last time to "clean" the floor, after which I would break in the new member of my family to see what she could do.

The result floored me (I can't even believe I am using that -- I must be really tired).



Let's all remember that I used my old mop immediately before using the Bissell -- this is not a week's worth of grime here. Boone had our camera in Washington D.C. so I snapped this picture with my phone because I knew immediately that this was blog-worthy. This was what my SWJ was leaving behind?!? Holy freaking cow! How is my family alive?!?

So by the time I had steamed my floors enough that the pads were coming up relatively clean, Rylan's bus was on it's way. I knew the other bus stop moms would freak like I was freaking, so I actually brought the dirtiest pad out and showed it off like a proud parent. They were appropriately grossed out (who knows what they are saying about me between my floors and the yard seizures a few weeks ago) and both swore to me they were going in to buy one for themselves. Since then I have been making a concerted effort to work hard floor cleaning into every conversation possible so I can give my sales pitch for a product I am not paid to sell. Sometimes I really have to stretch to get it there (pizza delivery guy commenting on high temperature of pizza which I segue into how hot steam is and would he like to see me clean my floors?), but it's great for those "Support the police force" fund raising calls we get 19 times a week:

"How do you like making cold calls? Don't you think your efforts would yield better results and be more effective if you were making steaming hot calls? (not that kind -- get your mind out of the gutter, Mom) Well then, have I got a mop for you!...."

The bottom line is that I love my new steam mop -- it's quick, it's chemical and waste free, and it works WAY better than what I was using before. And I'm pretty sure that I am going to try to give myself a facial with it at some point, because have you seen my pores? Yikes.