Crocs and Zeebas

I love Peals Before Swine.   Mostly I find the whole Croc slash Zeeba thing Hilarious.  In case you were wondering, the guy who writes the comic has a blog.  In case you had doubts, it's hilarious.  Seriously.  Go. Here.

This particular Comic was cracking me up today.

Also, this blog entry about Grocery Division.
Scroll Down a little, You'll see it.

Done!

I did it!  I didn't throw up, pass out, drown, fall down, step in goose poop, throw up, pass out, hyperventilate, or any myriad of other things I was panicking about.  Getting baptized this weekend was amazing and I loved it and I'm super glad I did it.  I'm also super glad I did the video part, I was telling everyone I hope it was good enough to make the clips.  haha.  Only now that I'm sitting her thinking about it, I hope it's not.  Back and forth, always back and forth.  I am exceedingly grateful for for my amazing friends who came out to support and watch me this weekend.  It absolutely means the world to me that you took time out of your days to come and be a witness to my baptism.  How fun!

On another note check this out, it's stinkin' funny.

Note to Self

Don't ask a room full of two year old children if they want to come home with you.  They will follow you around whilst you gather up all your things and then refuse to be distracted.  They will cry.  Your co-workers will hate you.  

My class is officially too old, they know what it means to leave and what it means to want to go with you.  They are too young to understand the joke.  whoops.  

Also, Clifford the Big Red Dog (in person) is super scary if you are an emotional semi-shy two year old.  He is awesome if you are crazy.  Imagine the chaos of my life today when he came for a visit.

Baptized - Round Two

So yours truly over here is probably, most likely, maybe going to get baptized a week from now.  In a lake.  With a jillion people all around.  In a lake.  Here are my thoughts and concerns listed in no particular order about this whole thing. 

1.  Did I mention the Lake Part?
2. What do you wear to be baptized in a Lake?  All I know is, not those athletic pants that will balloon up with tons of water...thank you, Katie Nary.
3. I don't feel like the "Baptized in a Lake" kind of girl.
4. I don't feel like the "Baptized in church and make a video" kind of girl either.
5. Ack.
6. Seriously, what do I wear?

Steve and I want to join CVC, not right this very instant but its on our agenda.  In order to join, I need to be baptized.  I grew up in the Methodist church and was baptized as an infant, but need to go through the process as an adult in order to join our current church.  And I'm okay with that.  I attended a small Baptism Class today (And instantly filled out all the answers to the hand-out we received.  It was like in class when you get a fill in the blank worksheet and you get the answers as you go along, thank you Grove City for allowing me the knowledge to fill in the whole thing in about three seconds.)  Anyway, I was pretty nervous about attending the class because I already consider myself baptized.  My parents set me apart as an infant, declaring to raise me in a Christian home and raise me up in the ways of the Lord.  My fathers house was a godly one,  and my parents certainly fulfilled their promises.  

I talked to John (the elder leading the class) afterward just about my thoughts and reservations.  I, obviously, didn't want to disrespect the church and go into the whole baptism thing just because they're going to make me do it before I join anyway (which was, admittedly my initial thought several weeks ago).  I'm viewing this for what it is, an outward sign of my inward faith.  I want to publicly declare my renewed faith.  I've already been baptized, but I've also spent a pretty significant amount of time away from my faith.  A couple of years wandering the in wilderness.  But I've been listening more and more to the call of Christ in my life, and he has certainly been pursuing and calling me home since I first turned away from him.  I want this renewed life of mine to bear more and more evidences of my faith, and to me, getting baptized is just one step in a very long process of trying to Obey God's Commands.

Long story short, this weekend I guess I'm going to be a Baptized in a Lake kind of girl.  Whoa

How Far Can Your Husband Jump?

As previously mentioned, we love the Zoo.  We love the Zoo even more when we are with friends.  We love being silly at the Zoo, and just generally goofing around, laughing, and being ridiculous.  Our first Zoo trip of the season was with our amazing friends Matt, Meredith, and their son Gabe.  I love them, seriously.  In case I haven't gushed enough, Gabe is the happiest, smiliest baby I've ever met.  Adorable.

We had tons of fun walking around seeing all the animals, but seeing animals wasn't the highlight of the day.  The highlight came we when were int he Australian Outback.  There's a little set-up there depicting how far a Kangaroo can jump.  It compares how far different animals can jump and just how they stack up to the Kangaroo.  Mere and I strongly encouraged our husbands to give the whole thing a whorl.  I'll let you be the judge on how that turned out!  (Notice that they had to confer with each other and pictures to get it all worked out in there heads.  There was much discussion of approach, style, length, and just what kind of child could jump six feet...as the sign claimed.)

These are several of Matt's attempts at jumping, he took the running start, no shoes approach.

 

Steve apparently needed a bit of a break  before trying out the whole jumping thing.  He stood under the spraying water to get get his jump face on.He then proceeded to try out a few different jumping styles.  Running start versus standing jump...honestly, both were ridiculously hilarious to watch.

Two year olds talk, a lot.  About lots of crazy business.  This is what I heard today:

-Megan, I gotta booger.  (over, and over, and over again)

-Put on my Pee Pee suit!  (Translated, after much thought, to "Put on my Bathing suit"  This phrase is quite common, especially on water days.  But it is also never said correctly.  Other versions are as follows: Baby soup, fwimming suit, and dora shirt.)

-Megan!  I took my diaper off!  (Standing there, all nakie, and holding out a diaper for me to take.)

-My Daddy a Goof Ball.

-And lastly the following interchange took place outside this afternoon:

Scene: Two friends on swings.  Enter teacher with a third friend.

Teacher: Okay friends, one of you needs to get off the swing so Janey can have a turn.

Friends currently occupying the swings stare at one another.  

Finally, one takes his hand off the swing, points to the other, and says "He do it."

I love my kids.

Holiday Homelessness

Steve and I are Cleveland transplants.  Neither one of us grew up here.  We don't have any family in the area.  We mostly just fell into Cleveland living.  We've been living on the East Side of Cleveland for three years now and it's great -  most of the time.  For the first couple of years not only did we not have family in the area but we hadn't really made friends yet, we weren't attending or plugged into a church, and we pretty much just kicked it in our little world of two.  

Like I said, we didn't much mind - most of the time.  Weekdays were filled with working, weekends we filled with random enjoyments, but Holidays, well Holidays were a different story.  It's kind of boring and a bit depressing to always hear about other peoples fun-family-filled Holiday plans and then go sit in your apartment.  Enter amazingly fantastic friends.  This, our third year in Cleveland, has been significantly better than the first two, Holiday-wise. 

Let me just say that our first two Christmases in Cleveland kind of bit it.  This year was fantastic.  Our lovely friends Carl and Sondra had a bit of a party on Christmas day.  And by party I mean Carl and Sondra, Chris and Nicole, and me and Steve.  It was truly amazing to wake up on Christmas morning knowing that we had something to do and would be spending time with amazing friends.  We had an absolute blast eating great food and playing BuzzWord (Amazing game, just FYI).

This most recent Holiday (The Fourth of July, just in case you live under a rock and don't know what day/month it is) definitely took the cake for Best Cleveland Holiday.  A few other lovely friends adopted us for the day and let us totally crash an amazing family day.  Can you say swimming, tasty food, hilarious company, jokester kids, and fireworks?  Because we can, and we totally did.  We definitely had a blast rockin' out some Fourth of July partying.  Seriously amazing.

Thank you to all of our amazing Cleveland Friends who are quickly becoming more like family.  These two way-ward residents truly appreciate being given a home for the holidays.

In case anyone wants to adopt us for the next Holiday - 

keep in mind that we can contribute great food and/or BuzzWord.

Seriously, There are no words

Ummm......  So I ran across this link on one of the websites I frequent.  I honestly don't even know what to say...except that this simply had to be shared.

Enjoy...or rather...don't...

I don't even know...

Oh, Eric Carle

Whilst having Circle Time in my room this past week one of my kids said the darnedest thing.  (PS: Circle Time involves reading small children lots of stories and singing lots of songs.  Absolutely as many songs/stories as ten two year olds will stand on any given day.  It ranges from negative twelve to fifteen.  Whoa.)

Okay, so I was reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and towards the end the book reads:

"He was a Big, Fat Caterpillar!"

One of my darling girls looked up and said - "Look!  A Fatapillar!!!" 

She spent the rest of Circle TIme yelling to her friends about the Fatapillar...I'm fairly certain I'll forever read it as Fatapillar.

Down Up Down. They've got nerve!

I'm sitting here are looking at three light switches directly across the room thinking "what the heck do I have to write about on a blog". Unfortunately I don't have the answer so we'll see were that takes us on the blogging road trip. It does however bring up an irritation I have with light switches, more particularly the dual control switches (of which I'm looking at a set of three). It seems that, despite the odds, all three (or even two) always seem to be facing opposite directions. Down is off for one, or even two, but the third little bugger is always being contrary and seems to think that it's winning a war against gravity and turning off when you have the audacity to flip it in the up position. Now I feel I should apologize, for in all seriousness who actually cares about this up or down nonsense? However, the triviality of my unhappiness should not be cast aside, I believe that I have a right to have all three light switches in the up position!!! The inorganic little monsters should be obedient to my every desire, not taunting me from across the room with their lack of organization and rationality of design!!! At the height of my indignation and irritation with the goading of the three little brown (unfortunately since I haven't replaced them with the white ones yet, which really just makes matter worse) devils I turn my head away. Spotting the entertainment book lying nearby on the couch, I am quickly distracted by the possibility of money saving opportunities, restaurants to be tested, half off mini golf or discounts on dental exams (??). The many blessings of an attention span shorter than a cocker spaniels.

Longwood Gardens in April

Waaaaaaaaaay back in April Steve and I took a trip to Philly to visit (most) of his Dad's side of the family.  It was Grammy's 80th birthday and we had a ton of fun surprising and celebrating with her.  Whilst there we enjoyed a day at Longwood Gardens.  It was beautiful and I only just found the pictures.  My camera died mid-trip, and while I have a back-up battery...it was also dead.  And apparently I'm so horrible at charging my camera batteries that I only just got around to it last night.  Whoops.  The pictures and their memories made me smile so I thought I'd share.
 

My outfit for the day happened to match some flowers in the Orchid room, Steve's Mom wanted to know if I planned the matchy-matchy.  I told her that yes, in fact I had called ahead and asked them to hurry up and plant some orange and fuchsia flowers before we arrived.  Longwood happily obliged.

I was also reminded of the beautiful Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh.  All botanical gardens or conservatories remind me of Phipps.  Phipps is my happy place.  Steve and I went to college a mere forty-five minutes from Pittsburgh and we often visited for various reasons.  Mostly we went to our favorite Sushi joint (Sushi Kims if you're ever in the area...challenge: try and order enough Sushi to get your order served on a giant boat platter.  We saw it once, we accomplished it every time thereafter).  Anyway, we would go to Sushi Kims and then we would meander around Phipps (Or vice versa).  

Our Senior year we both had to go down to Pittsburgh a few times to take various tests to apply for graduate schools.  One Saturday morning we awoke in our separate, across campus dorms at 5:00am.  We met at Steve's car and headed on down to Pitt.  Steve took a test, I slept in the backseat of his car.  When he was finally done with the GMAT(I think that's what it was) we started the fun part of our day.  We went to Robinson Town Center (one of the most amazing and giant shopping complexes I've ever seen) and did a lot of walking around and a little shopping.  Sushi Kims and Phipps followed.  Have I mentioned how much we love Phipps?  Especially the Orchid room.  We spent tons of time walking around the Orchid room that Saturday.  More than normal.  We came back to the room a few more times than usual.  It was odd and Steve was acting funny.  Only months later did I find out that he had taken his test, gone shopping, eaten, and walked around all day with a certain diamond ring in his pocket.  If we weren't so people-phobic and if Phipps had been a bit less crowded that day we would have gotten engaged in the Orchid room.

Every beautiful garden reminds me of that day and our almost Orchid engagement.

Kiss Face, Fish Face

Apparently I need to watch my kids more closely.  One of them has mono.  No canoodling in Room Six.  Seriously, what kind of joint do they think we're running?

In other news, we now have a fish.  Not we "Me & Steve," but we "My Class."  Its name: Fishy Bonk.  Yes, that's right.  A bunch of two year olds named their new pet Betta Fishy Bonk.  One kid said it and the name spread like wildfire.  Hopefully Mono won't spread the same way.