BUNNY COSTUME

Andrea was doing some house browsing for South Bend and she ran across this shot in one of the listings. For real. This is not staged.

It's fuzzy, but you get the point. Sean has started coming up behind me and just resting his hand on my shoulder, in a creepy bunny kind of way. He has warned me if I ever show up behind him in a bunny costume he will divorce me. He has lingering trauma from the Spiderman vs. Evil Bunny episode on The Electric Company. He tried to find a clip of it on youtube but someone must have destroyed it to stop the spread of nightmares. But seriously, this portrait, WHAT??? Andrea, you should put an offer in on the place but insist that the portrait comes with it.

Patrick found the bunny ears in the Easter box this morning, as I was digging out an egg for a school project, and I suspect those will be used for mischief this weekend. All the grandparents are coming for the long weekend. Nana and Pops are on their way to ski in Colorado and Grandma Marjie and Grandpa Paul are migrating from Texas to Michigan. After we counted up beds and realized I'd be sleeping through some middle of the night shifts in the office, we booked a hotel. Grandpa Paul also gets cable TV this way.

Sean's coworker told him that her guests know where the linen closet and grocery store are, so she does nothing to prepare, but well, it goes against my nature to not plan. FAIL TO PLAN: PLAN TO FAIL. Can someone cross stitch that for me on a pillow already, thanks. So we are ready: menu planned, groceries brought (two trips), house cleaned (okay, only the guest room), and My Little Pony queued up. So of course I am procrastinating by blogging and drinking hot tea because it really hasn't warmed up yet, liars. It will happen soon though because I got a whiff of K-State cattle barns last time I went to the garage. Oh boy, they can tell the Keenans are going to want to enjoy their back yard, time to do whatever they do that makes it smell like "cow poop", as the kids yell when we are driving down Marlatt and haven't gotten the windows up in time.

Anyway, back to it, groceries and cookbooks everywhere... but no bunny costume.

I guess I just "like" tea

My love of tea is fairly well known and on occasion people will worry about how much they drink and thus they will ask me how much I drink. At most, a couple little tea pots a day then a cup of herbal in the evening, during the winter, so the equivalent of about ten tea bags a day. Naturally I was concerned to see this headline linked to yahoo news this morning: Too Much Tea Causes Unusual Bone Disease.
http://news.yahoo.com/too-much-tea-causes-unusual-bone-disease-222359924.html

As I was drinking my first pot! Ah, but the first line for those of you who don't want to click on it:

A 47-year-old Michigan woman developed a bone disease rarely seen in the U.S. after she drank a pitcher of tea made from at least 100 tea bags daily, for 17 years, researchers report.

Phew, at least I don't live in Michigan anymore, nothing to worry about!  Also, 100 tea bags daily?! I really hope those are 100 cheap tea bags because that would be an expensive habit if that was Harney and Sons tea. I would think the caffeine amount has meant she hasn't slept in 17 years and just how big was this pitcher? Must have been some very thick tea. Anyway, this is a good reminder of how the internet can make you feel better about your bad habits. There is always someone out there who is an extreme version of you! 

On the flip side, that means you will never be the best at anything either. Always someone better than you, and that's okay because people don't like the person who is the best. Women in particular have to be self-depricating about themselves or they will have no friends. Should I list examples from Manhattan? Ha ha, that's for my secret blog. Of course if you want an example in Hollywood it's Anne Hathaway vs the girl from the Hunger Games. Lots of articles about those two after the Oscars, no need for me to rehash. See, I can't even do the "best blog post" because everything has already been written.  Well, everything except for my own opinions and stories about my family.  

Also, has anyone else written this today: I LOVE SNOW! Nope, not hearing that today. Let's get to it though, the last day of cold temperatures and snow. I am wearing my favorite (and only?) sweater today to celebrate the last of this harsh season. So ready for my spring clothes or if we must, right to summer clothes. I got a few things in Miami back in January and a few more in DC last week, can't wait to at least try them on. Also looking forward to making my iced green tropical tea, with 10 tea bags....

Real camera

Finally downloaded a few shots from the real camera since I've had about 189 hours at home this week. Kind of caught up on most things, you should see our organized shoe closet! No, I will spare you that.

 This was from a sick afternoon of Emily. I don't mind the kind of sick where they sleep most the day...

 I read a blurb in the airline magazine about a huge art collection that was donated to some museum and it included this desk full of little trinkets and stuff that the lady had put together for when children visited her home, to keep them busy. They were saying it ended up being the hit of the art exhibit, everyone was fascinated with the little things. I thought that was so clever and then realized I had the same thing at home, a drawer that the kids can't get enough of: the junk drawer. Wow, look at this, so fascinating, they are constantly dragging a chair over to go through this. When I'm short tempered I get angry and just pull the drawer out and let them play on the floor with it. It's where I put all the random treasures that show up on my floors, and also the remotes and batteries.

 Here is Patrick napping when he was sick recently too. It seems this has been a long winter of snow and sickness, thankfully never that sick though.

Emily in Megan's bathrobe, striking her favorite pose. She is thrilled to go back to school tomorrow, as is Patrick. The big girls, not so much.

End of spring break (wheeee!)

 Okay, I need to stop being so lazy and use my big camera again because these photos are awful. It's just so easy to use my iphone one and have it automatically show up in my photo stream. Anyway, here are the butterscotch bread puddings that I made yesterday, very similar to what we had in Leesburg last weekend. It was a somewhat complicated recipe but I had all day with nothing to do (besides avoid cleaning the house) so it was my project. If you really want the recipe let me know or go check pinterest, I pinned it there (and also the brown sugar sauce that goes in it). Anyway, it was so worth it, although come swimsuit season I may wonder...

 Well, look at this... no swimsuits any time soon, how about seconds of that bread pudding...

 How many times this year have I posted this same shot?? This was in response to Timer's photo that he sent of his pork butt on his Big Green Egg this morning.

Megan has moved on from making furniture for her American Girl Dolls and is now focusing on Barbie stuff. She actually did a great job making this bed out of a cereal box, pencils and duct tape. I can't wait for her to get into making real home decor and fixing up her own room, I have lots of projects waiting to go.... I hope she loves painting walls!

Schwans Trophy

I may order excessively from Schwans but these are desperate times with all the kids on break this week and also they are not quite healthy. Taking them all to the grocery store with me would just be cruel to everyone at the store. Even the Schwans man said I probably couldn't go without leashes. Exactly. So I ordered everything except milk, only because they don't sell milk (but maybe next time I can get extra ice cream and just let it melt?), and then managed to fit $279 worth in my tiny freezer. Ice packs are thawing, I had to use up the ice cubes to make room (iced green tea anyone? goes great with this weather) and I'm debating making cranberry bread with this random bag of frozen cranberries. At least there will be dinner tonight! No more appetizers, I got veggies and lots of different fish (and salted caramel ice cream with praline cashews). Bring on the snow, we are ready (and clearly bored as this is my 3rd post today).

Random iPhone photos

I love finding the photos that Megan has been taking on her iPhone in my photo stream...

The horse is pole dancing in my loft?

Emily is kind of a ham.

 Poor Emily, no babysitter here to trace her hand so she finally learned to do it herself.

 The girls were playing wedding and Patrick wasn't about to be left out.

 Patrick designed the fastest police car ever.

 Poor Kira seems to always come over on nights when I'm cleaning out the freezer. Sean was working, the kids hate everything I cook for real, so it was leftovers and freezer night... preparing for Schwans man to arrive today (I should get dressed today I suppose).

 Yes, now a real mom blogger would post about this fabulous theme meal she made for her kids' super special sleepover party. Yes, look at all those different appetizers, I'm so creative. Eggrolls and meatball sandwiches. Maybe Megan was just sick from this food?

 To prove that Bold Rock pairs with anything, I had some on appetizer night. I didn't share onion rings with the kids and yes, that's a horseradish sauce of some sort. Sean was working of course and if he saw this photo earlier he would have slept in his office as he hates onions and probably the smell of them on me. PS I did give them veggies and dip too, I'm not the worst mom ever.

Here is Emily yesterday in her pile of cushions and pillows, sobbing to let me know that she wanted more episodes of My Little Pony, not this movie that Anna turned on. She and Patrick have been super tired and crabby, but no barfing at least. They only ate bread yesterday though. She has perked up today. Patrick just got up.... 9:49am. He is the winner!!

6 more inches?

Woke up to a dusting of snow that stuck to the ground this time and a snow prediction of 6 INCHES on Saturday night. Well, that will be a shock to everyone coming home from tropical paradises. I'm too numb and beat down from all this cold weather to even register it anymore. We also have a barf bug slowly making its way through the house. Everyone seems fine right now but that's when it usually strikes. Yesterday was a day of lethargy with nonstop TV and napping. Today I am making them clean, which Emily loves, "make my room pretty!" she says. Anna is opting out of that and reading. Turns out that is all the motivation she needs to finally pick up a book. I may have done some retail therapy yesterday to perk myself up but unfortunately the good stuff won't come for weeks and even months. Let's hope that means the random charges on the credit card don't show up until stuff ships then, spread it out...

Sean and his partner got a huge kick out of the latest Army times. Of course, they didn't buy it, not like there would be any helpful tips in it. One of Sean's commander type people asked if he was getting out this summer. Umm, is that an offer?? His army job isn't nearly as bad as so many others though, it's just that he is ready to do teleradiology full time with the company he has worked with for six years. He is working a ton for them right now, they have new clients who keep them extra busy and he gets called on for backup a lot. It is worth it though to have a job he loves waiting for him after army. One less stress on our list for the future. And the extra back-up is paying for some retail therapy and perhaps a new house (location TBD).

American Girl Doll Adventures (and more)

Caroline and Bridget arranged for us to have dinner at the American Girl Doll restaurant in Tyson's Corner. Bridget had gone once before on her first day at her current job (which I won't put in the blog but those of you that know where she works... isn't this strange??) and her coworkers brought their dolls even. Umm, what? The food is actually pretty good and the wine was delicious! Nana was missed though as this was serious girl bonding. The boys stayed home and got takeout and raced around the house. Well, Nicholas and Patrick raced around, I'm pretty sure Sean and Andy drank heavily. (Not really.)

 Sienna was able to borrow a doll for the table. I don't think they realized that Megan is a fan too, poor girl is so tall that people think she is older than she is. Megan is really into designing a whole house for her dolls up in my loft which will be another post. I think my piles and piles and piles of interior design magazines are rubbing off on her.

 Oh look, I did go on this trip! The only photo of me which is fine because I didn't take any of my hair styling products with me and my hair was horrific and flat.

 Bridget and Anna with Caroline's vintage Samantha doll which has since been discontinued and is now worth a lot more on ebay.

 I think I took this on Megan's phone which means her camera is better than mine, what the heck?

 Fancy fruit, she is not impressed.

 Emily kept trying to get me to take this flag home for her. Yes, put that in my purse after dipping it in sauces, that would be great....

 Sienna was finally happy, poor girl was sick and teething all weekend. Ice cream cures all! She has the best long curly hair, so adorable, wish I had gotten more photos of her.

Can't miss photo op...  This was before we realized the computer systems were down and we wouldn't be able to check out. They couldn't even accept cash. Really? REALLY?? What kind of store is this? Just write it down on paper and take our cash and enter it later. It's not that hard to make money, people. We had to come back the next day on our way to the airport to salvage the trip for Megan. Apple maps got us quite confused the next day though. All I remembered from the night before when I was sitting in the back between two car seats in the dark was that we walked in through Macy's to get to the store and restaurant. So the next day when the navigation lady is having us go in circles I spotted Macy's and told Sean to just go there. It was also near Cheesecake Factory so we thought we'd get lunch first. After talking about their strawberry shortcake the morning before when we had the biscuits, I had to go there. So after lunch we could not find the store. It was bizarre, not in the directory or anything. So we finally call Caroline and learn that there is another mall nearby that also has a Macy's AND the American Girl Doll store. I give up. We were cutting it close to airport time so there was a lot of running while carrying Emily and then some power shopping to pick up the few things that Megan wanted. Kind of ridiculous. But, we made it to the airport on time, all was well.

When we got to Chicago for our flight into Manhattan we knew we had a short layover. We were in the back of the big plane and people were taking forever to get their bags out of the overhead bins. We had checked our bags (for free, the one perk to being army that I will miss) and thus didn't have to deal with that. I will also point out that it was such a full flight that they were checking anyone's bags for free at the gate. So when the large group of high school students coming home from some posh spring break tour were taking extra long to get their bags down I finally had enough. I knew they were used to being bossed around by adults all week on their tour so I told them to all go back in their seats so we could rush off the plane to make our connection as we didn't have bags to grab. They actually did it and we didn't get a single dirty look. It's a spring break miracle!

When we got to Manhattan we realized that we hadn't changed Emily's pull-up all day, no time in Chicago. She was soaked through by the time we landed (and we wiped down her seat with wipes, no worries future travelers). I changed her and waited for our luggage to find other pants for her to wear. So here she is in just her jacket, boots and new pull-up, we were laughing so hard. This is a family blog so Anna had to put her jacket over her, sorry. We had an amazing trip and now we are using the final 7 days of spring break to recover...

Museum Day

 On Saturday we decided to culture the children and hit the National Geographic Museum for the pirate exhibit, which forbade photos so we have none. Emily was freaked out by the whole thing so I went through it quickly with her. Highlights were actual pirate treasure coins. Their other exhibit was about birds of paradise? Is that right, does anyone care/remember? These are shots from Megan:

 That's right, photo of a photo. I tried to stop her but then thought, why not? It's not real film that I have to pay to develop. I have lots more like this one...

 Some actual dead birds. Good stuff.

 This was a birds of paradise version of dance, dance revolution. Highlight of the morning.

 Anthony vs. Nicholas.  You can see Anna preparing to tap on the buttons to vote for who did the best. Apparently our group was a little too enthusiastic about this part and we were told to do it quieter. One of the kids noticed that was a polite way of kicking us out. Then we dropped some cash in the gift shop where I somehow got the member discount, no doubt because the guy felt sorry for me with all those kids in tow (and I didn't let any of them break or steal anything!).

 The Shake Shack for lunch, notice the thumbs up from Emily. It was fabulous and packed with marathoners. Do I need to run for 4+ hours to earn a fried portabella mushroom burger stuffed with cheese?  Nope. How about to get some of those Irish fries with horseradish sauce, green onions and bacon on top? Nope. I even split with Sean some custard filled with marshmallow, chocolate and peanut butter chunks. This is how I do vacation obviously.

 This was a sculpture garden on the way to the Natural History Museum. The metal tree was a favorite.

 Side angle of the shot below. Megan loved this optical illusion.

 Megan is looking so tall here. Only 2 years apart?

 Creepy turtle!

 I got this shot for one of the kids and somehow it turned out. It's easier to realize this is the biggest animal on Earth when you've walked under it, amazing.

 Thumbs up, museum! Double thumbs up!

 The Hope Diamond, Megan fought the crowds to get this shot which of course doesn't do it justice.

Hey look, kids, bloody dinosaur!

 Patrick loved the dinosaur bones of course.

There you go, all the culture we could handle, yawn.

More DC: food

On Friday night Caroline arranged for a brave babysitter to watch all the kids so we could go out to dinner with just the adults to a great little place in historic Leesburg. This is the only photo from the whole night, not sure why I didn't get any of the people at the table but we had some wine and forgot. I will never forget these fried green tomatoes though, unbelievable. Wish I had a photo of the butterscotch bread pudding as it was equally delicious. No wait, I wish I had the recipe for it.

The next morning Nana had many helpers with her biscuits from scratch. The story is that Nana and Pops have been getting up at 6am this winter to make these for bacon and egg sandwiches to send with Leo up the mountain where he teaches snow boarding. I'm not sure why he would ever move out.

After this nutritious breakfast, the kids had cake for Sienna's 2nd birthday.

The iPhone camera cannot possibly capture Patrick's energy level. Emily wore that hat to dinner later, a big fan.

A rare moment of Patrick not racing around with Nicholas on the scooters. Up next are the boring museum photos, go take a break.

Thumbs up: DC. Thumbs down: the photos

We only used our iPhones for photos on this trip because my big camera is just too heavy. It was a good call because this was our first trip without a stroller for Emily and while it was easier to not deal with it, we did end up carrying her quite a bit. She is the master at picking up her pace a bit, making you think that you're going to catch up with the rest of the group finally, but then she jumps right in front of you yelling, "carry me". I am the master at running in boots while carrying her. I'm sure it looked ridiculous but we had places to go and people to catch up with. Ah, the joy of going to a big anonymous city, I knew I wouldn't run into anyone I knew so who cares.

Looking through the photo stream now it is interesting to see what each person thought was photo worthy. I took a lot of shots of things I found ridiculous, like the people at the car rental place holding up the line with their flirting.  Oh my word, shut up and give me my bare bones minivan so we can get out of this place before I give in and buy the kids a stupid gum ball.

Finally we got it and Emily flashed her first of many thumbs up signs. I did see some thumbs downs later in the trip, she is quite versatile with her thumbs.

Hoping this is our last trip having to take her enormously heavy car seat with us, a booster is so much easier. One thing that made this trip easier was electronics. Every part of the trip was more pleasant with things to keep the kids busy.

Patrick was sitting next to me using his Leapster. Flying out of Manhattan also made this trip much easier, after blocking the cost from my memory. I did pick the most convenient times though to maximize time in DC so that added to the bill. We left at 7am on Thursday and stayed until 5pm on Sunday, back to our house by 9:30pm. Love the 11 minute drive from the airport, especially since KC was starting to get snow. Glad to skip that step. Why bother having Sean work excessive hours if that money can't make our lives easier???

We stayed at Caroline's house and the kids loved all the toys to play with, oh and also their cousins! Emily was obsessed with this princess chair and thankfully Sienna didn't care.

She insisted that I come take this photo, which I tried to lighten but didn't work. She has lined up her toys that she brought with her on it: her puppy and her "cab". Before we left she kept telling me to get her "cab". Cab? I said, what is cab? She kept telling me, "ka-ka-ka-kab", in case I missed what the first letter was. Then she held up her hands and made pinching motions with her fingers and thumbs, oh CRAB.  Yes, of course we can bring the stuffed crab, so cuddly...

On Friday morning we all went to meet up with Bridget at a coffee shop/bar/concert venue for The Grandsons, Jr. (I think that's right. They are just the Grandsons when they play non-children music, Bridget's old boss's husband is in the band and they have won a Whammy. I am wondering if they only use the Hello Kitty guitar for the kid band?) Anyway, we had some hot drinks, half of which spilled, and some of the kids danced a little. Emily was far too shy and reserved and I'm certain we embarrassed her when we tried to clap along. Oh, we will have some fun years ahead with her, wait until she learns how embarrassing parents are when she's a teen!!

After the concert we went to this fabulous park Caroline found over in rich people town (Langley?). Miles after miles of houses that we can't figure out how anyone can afford. I feel like we're living the high life so these people blow my mind. Perspective goes a long ways. Anyway, the park was great but chilly, not quite the 87 degree temps that we were missing back in Kansas (sob! by the way, it is snowing here now, ARGH).

Yes, that's a carousel in the background but it was to cold to be open. Side note: we saw another carousel down by the mall that was operating but managed to keep the kids from noticing it. Okay, enough for one post, more later for the 16 people who care.