Friday, November 20, 2009

Neighborhood Gals at Sips n' Strokes

I got to paint the town red... ok, I got to pain my canvass a little bit red, mixed with some other stuff... the other night when some of us girls from the neighborhood went to Sips n' Strokes! Except for Season, it was the first trip for the rest of us, so Cathryn, Tina, Cara and I were not quite sure what to expect. In preparation, I made sure I had plenty of caffeine and sugar... since the painting fun ended up going waaaaay past my bedtime! ;)

Here we are getting paint.




Here is the blank canvass.... how intimidating! ;)


Here are the works in progress.





And here are our final paintings!



We all had a lot of fun, and I think ALL our paintings turned out really well!

But... I have no idea where to put my first painting ever. It does not match the colors in my house, so it may be relegated to the stairway coming up from the garage.... that way I can paint more pictures that don't match my decor and hang them all there.... in my very own art gallery!?!?! ;)

Thursday, November 19, 2009

We're Down With Brown!

I admire my hubby a lot and am proud of him for MANY reasons. One of those reasons is his amazing martial arts skills (said in Napoleon Dynamite voice). Currently, Sean is involved with Aikido... "a Japanese art of self-defense that employs joint locks, holds and pressure points and uses the principles of nonresistance in order to debilitate the strength of the opponent." And he recently completed his test to be promoted from purple belt to brown belt. And, WOW, what a test! Sean was whirling and spinning and dodging and pinning.... (Was that too rhyme-y?!?! Too Dr. Seuss, perhaps!?!) So it was no surprise that he received his belt.

Here is the proud moment... (That's Sean on the left, of course, and Sensei Morgan on the right.)


And here is the moment of belt changing.... which is not quite as proud, since you have to quickly and discreetly remove one belt and put the other on in the back of the class! ;) (He looks kind of giddy here, doesn't he?)


Sean now will be preparing for his red belt.... then on to black (and the coveted -- and respected -- black hakama pants.... which, to me, still look like weird, poofy coolots, or gauchos... a la Hammer style)!
I, in the meantime, am still a lowly green belt. But, pregnant and all, I have been practicing a bit and hope to return one day to test for my blue belt... which is not quite as lowly as green... ;)

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Bye Bye Belly... Hello Iain!

My sister-in-law, Corinne, along with my mom, mom-in-law and friends Season, Stacie and Fran threw us a baby shower on Sunday!
It was SO much fun!

Here we are, all smiles... and, thankfully, not too much belly in the shot! ;)


Here is the baby shower cake... (made by Season; it's supposedly me -- with a much cuter pregnant figure than I'm sporting; it says "Bye bye belly... Hello Iain!"
Isn't is spectacularly adorable!?!?)


Here is the diaper cake... (made by Stacie; complete with our colors, brown and blue, and cute animals all around! It's just the cutest thing! I'd hate to dismantle it! Hopefully I don't have any diaper shortages....)


Here is the food... (made by Corinne and Susie... Deliciously YUMMY, of course! Meatballs, pigs in a blanket, bugles and dip, punch....)


Here are the gifts... (WOW! Thanks so very much to everyone! We are soooooo grateful for you and for your thoughtfulness at this exciting time!)


And here is the crazy diaper-sniffing game we played!
Yes... diaper SNIFFING game.
Thanks to Stacie, who pulled this one off quite well, we had five diapers, each with a mystery melted chocolate inside. We had to sniff the icky goo and determine which brand/kind of chocolate it was.


Yeah... talk about a MIND BLOCK when you pulled this thing up to your nose to take a whiff! ACK! I had to convince myself over and over again that it was JUST CHOCOLATE!!!

You can see that others had some issues with the "dirty diapers" as well. Here is my mother-in-law giving it a visual inspection first!


And here is my mom, diving in -- nose first! (She may look like a pro at this, but the eyes give her away!)


Sean even had a chance to try out his sniffing skills after the party. He was gung-ho about giving it a whiff. But his expression seems to say... "On second thought.... this is a little too realistic for me!" (Excuse his dirt and grime; he was working in the garage all day! He did not get "poo" from the diapers all over his clothing, face and hair!)


For a little after-party fun, we played guess the baby part....
OK. Not really. But folks did have some fun feeling Iain squirming and kicking. Could have been all the sugar I consumed!


And, no, I am not sure what I am doing/saying here.
Something like.... "Mommy eats so much chocolate, perhaps you WILL have diapers like the ones we had in our game -- all sugary-sweet, chocolatey goodness!" ;)


Yeah... right....


Tuesday, November 10, 2009

I made need counselling for this....



So... I went to the pet store yesterday to purchase some new fish. I had noticed that our little school of neon tetras was down to one. Well, schooling fish are not fond of being by their lonesomes, so I decided to pick up 6 new tetras to keep the "lonely only" company.

Well, that's where I made my first mistake. Sean usually picks out the new fish and buys them, but I was right next to the pet store, so I figured I could do it! Well, I bought some neon tetras, for sure, but, apparently I did NOT buy the correct ones: the "JUMBO neons." That was the second mistake. I'm not sure if it's a different fish altogether, or if the jumbos have just put on a bit more weight than their smaller, same-name buddies, but, it was definitely not the right fish.

How do I know!?!?

After acclimating my new little fishies to the water of our 55-gallon aquarium, I carefully scooped them up from their holding area and deposited them, one-by-one, in their new home. I threw a few fish flakes on the top of the water so the current residents -- along with their new friends -- would be distracted by a nice, tasty treat. (Maybe "tasty treat" is not the best choice of words at this point... knowing what I know now....)

At any rate, I came back about an hour later to see how the new fish were doing. I spotted the other 3 fish that I'd purchased that day, but after counting and recounting and searching and researching , I could only find 3 tetras....

There should be 7 in there!

One fish plus 6 fish equals 7. I'm sure of it!

Then I looked more closely at one of the smaller of the 3 tetras... who was struggling near the side of the tank. He didn't look so good.

SAD! What did I do to my new little fish friends?

I kept looking and looking and looking.... but I had no luck with finding any other neons.
It was at this point that I focused-in on our angelfish, Quarter. He was acting kind of weird -- like he was in some zombie-like state. I also focused in on his abnormally large stomach....

OH NO!
He didn't! Did he?
He couldn't! Could he!?!??!


Oh, yes, my friends.
He did.

Quarter devoured 4 of the new little fishies I brought home. And he probably injured the other one that was struggling. (Maybe he was just too full to gobble up that one, too.) And the other 2 surviving tetras, lucky for them, are just a bit too jumbo for Quarter to add to his horrendous meal.

Horrendous to me, anyway. I'm sure it was just delightful for Quarter. For as I sat there in shock, I looked up quickly on the Internet if angelfish would really eat tetras .... only to find one site describe neons as "the natural prey of angelfish."

SAD!!!!!
I am a horrible fish mommy!

Thursday, November 5, 2009

A Paws-i-tively Grrrrreat Fundraiser!

My neighborhood is trying to raise money to build a common area/playground… something that hass been in the works for several years now. Since it’s such a dog-gone grrrrreat cause, Rowdy and Teddy thought they would jump in and help!


Now through Friday, November 13, 25% of sales from their Shure Pets orders will go to a special fundraiser! So check out the cat-a-log, and make your purrrrchases for your pets… or for those pet lovers in your life!

We will take orders in person, via phone and through e-mail (bethiswriting@yahoo.com). Or, you can hop on the website at beth.shopshurepets.com (Just be sure to use party #1793.)

Rowdy and Teddy are also doing a raffle for a special doggy basket with some paw-some Shure Pets products and homemade doggie treats! Tickets are only $2 each (or 3 for $5), and ALL proceeds from the raffle go to the fundraiser!

Feel free to contact us for more in-fur-mation! And THANKS for your support!

Monday, November 2, 2009

Halloween FUN!

Halloween in our neighborhood was quite a treat this year! ;)

It began with a Halloween Parade, and except for the annoying drizzle on and off in the morning, everyone had a great time!


There were probably about 50 kids dressed up in their Halloween gear, marching down one of neighborhood's streets to a dead end for some crafts, snacks and a costume contest!

Jaiden chose to dress up as a "purple fairy princess." She looked cute as pie and had way too much fun decorating Halloween place mats and pumpkins, eating candy, and, well, granting wishes of course!


Sean, of course, had a blast this year, too. Mr. Halloween was at it again with scary pumpkin guys, ghouls, ghosts and jack-o-lanterns....



He also created a creepy new addition that eerily resembled, well, Sean himself... and a terribly unfortunate run-in with a lawnmower. Literally.


Thankfully it was just a pretend pumpkin-head guy, and his, uh, little accident left us with only some yucky pumpkin guts... see them sprayed out on the grass, coming out of the lawnmower chute?!? EEEK! (That's the number-one reason I put a little Halloween pumpkin bucket in the poor guy's hand.... to make it a little less realistic.... Not sure if it worked. It was still WAY creepy!)


Luckily no one was completely spooked by the silly decor. In fact, most really enjoyed it and had a good laugh at the various "scenes" Sean had set up.


Too, we ended up with more trick-or-treaters in our out-of-the-way cul-de-sac this year than ever before!
So, all his efforts were not in vain!