Friday, January 7, 2011

The month my blog stopped

I left ya'll hanging in March.  And not just any March.  But March of 2010.  But it was a blog entry.  Which in and of it self seemed to render some speechless.  Now we just need to see if I can make it a habit again.  I must tell you that it greatly depends on blogger.  The more I have to fight with blogger to get my pictures where I want them, the less I want to blog.  Do ya'll fight with blogger?

So...April follows March.  And we started our April with a visit to the girls' pediatrician.  Because I could schedule their check-ups on Spring Break and not miss any school.  We have been seeing Dr Weiss since Katie was born and I just love him.  Love him so much that I drive 45 minutes across town.  In horrid traffic.  Because he is that fabulous.  (Do your kids sing the "fabulous" song from Phineas and Ferb?  I am thinking that it's just me that has to endure it.  That and "Squirrels in my pants.")


A visit to Dr Weiss was how we started Spring Break.  Michael took the week off and we had a staycation.  Naturally, Michael's staycation involved work.  We went to Lowe's and bought flowers for him to plant in the yard.  My job was to supervise.




We couldn't staycation and not play.  So, we went out for ice cream.  Do ya'll have Bruster's where you live?  I like Bruster's.  But I just can't eat that much ice cream.  And obviously the girls can't either since it drips all over the place.  I think I still have sticky spots on my shoes.


Our big day out on our staycation was to finally venture downtown to the Coke Museum.  You start by seeing a very extended Coke commercial.  Like a 10 minute commercial.  Then you move to different "hubs" in the museum.  They have memoriabilia.  There is a theatre where you can watch commericals from over the years.  There is Coke art.  And a bottling plant.  But really the highlight was the tasting center where you can taste coke products from all over the world.  Some are rather vile.  Some are strange.  Katie had a "Holy Grail" moment when we found Eldeberry Fanta (what?  Your kids don't go around quoting the Holy Grail?  And the infamous French accented insult of "your mother is a hamster and your father smells of eldeberry!"  Why is it just me?!).


The girls found the American Idol couch, too.  And wondered whose tuchus had also been planted there.


And no outing downtown would be complete without a visit to "The Varsity."  With a side of onion rings.


Our staycation week rounded out with Easter.  And somehow this year we managed to not do the world's largest Easter Egg hunt.  With our 700something eggs left over from last year.  You know we found eggs not that long ago.  I wonder how much longer we'll be discovering those nasty candy filled eggs in the yard.  I just want to find that last gold dollar. 


Katie heard from one of her friends that Erin Hunter, one of her favorite authors was coming to speak.  Erin Hunter writes the "Warriors" series for kids - it's about cats.  And.  Ummm.  That's all I know.  I think that there are 6 series of 6 books.  So, Katie brought her hardback copies and got autographs.  After the author did the book signing, she talked about the writing process.  And oh, my, was it funny.  It turns out that she uses a pen name.  And she chose Erin Hunter because it would put her on the shelf by Brian Jacques who writes the "Redwall" series - which is a fantasy about mice.  (Yep. That's all I know about that series, too.)  She was also drafted into writing this series by her publisher.  She actually hates cats (and apparently rather awful things happen to the warrior cats in the stories).  Her stories about the contrivances in the publishing world were rather fascinating!



Madalyn's birthday falls in the middle of April.  And for her birthday, I thought it would be fun if we surprised her with a room makeover.  Here is the before picture:


Michael took the day off of work - we told Madalyn that his work took a holiday that day - and as soon as she was out the door, we took the bunkbeds down and moved them to our basement.  And we brought up the double bed from the guest room.  We had ordered a new headboard - but it had not arrived - so we stole the one out of Katie's room until the new one arrived.  I wish we had time to paint - but we completed the transformation with a new quilt, valance, and lots of framed pictures on the walls (actually, there is even more now - there is another set of collage prints, plus the pictures of Madalyn swimming with the dolphins when we were in Mexico.)  And here is the after:



When Madalyn got home from school, I met her at the door and asked her what happened to her room.  She really thought I was mad at her.  So she went up to her room to see the damage - and was sooo surprised with what she found.  It was a great birthday gift!


The next day, Madalyn had a party at the rock climbing place.  She loved climbing.  And then was totally wiped out!



Katie had a new brace made for her scoliosis.  I am thinking that I should do a whole post on scoliosis.  And the horrors of the Boston Brace.  This picture is of her being casted.  We had another brace made last month.  It was our third in a year.  My poor checking account.


We still have cookies left.  After two months.  People are very hard to track down for deliveries.  Actually, I still have 2 boxes in my dining room right now for someone that we never delievered for.  I wonder if they are any good any more?

Speaking of scouts, Madalyn and her troop went horseback riding.  This horse farm is actually less than a mile down the road from my neighborhood.  I love living in the burbs where there is still the odd juxtaposition of Target shopping centers, neighborhoods, and farms.



And we wrapped up April with Tacky Day.  Isn't that how you wrap up your Aprils?

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14 comments:

larkswing said...

My kids would have much rather have experienced your spring break staycation than ours - I made them take a trip - an international one. We went to Damascus, through Amsterdam to Havana. Ok that is in Damascus Georgia (farm town) Amsterdam Georgia and Havana Florida. Bad mom.

Y'all did a great job on the room! And it did look like you had much fun!

Shannon said...

Love the room makeover! That's such a great idea... H wants to re-do her room, so I may just have to surprise her, too! FUN!

Elena said...

So I have a trick about getting my pictures where I want them. You might already know this, but here it is regardless. I upload everything in no particular order. Then I write a quick little snippet under each one as to what it is. Then go into the HTML code and cut and paste into the order I want. (I can tell which picture is which b/c of the little snippet I previously wrote.) The image always starts with < a and always ends with slash a then the >. That's how you'll know you got the whole image. If you try this and run into questions let me know.

Finding Normal said...

Are you using Firefox? Because if you are, you can just cut and paste. If you are using Explorer. Well, that is just wrong.
Love the room makeover!

KimmyDarling said...

I love what y'all did with Madalyn's room! Such a neat surprise.

Unknown said...

2 posts... 2 days........

wow

Firefly Mom said...

OMG - when I saw that you'd updated your blog I nearly fell off my chair! Glad your back!

Anonymous said...

Hi Kat!

Good to see you're back in the blogging saddle again!

And holy hell, planting flowers in MARCH? Nothing gets planted around here (Mich.) until May.

Well, that's all for now. Best wishes for a very healthy and happy new year!

Evelyn

Angie's Spot said...

The room makeover is fabulous! My grandmother did a similar thing for me one summer while I was at camp. I remember it like it was yesterday!

And would Michael be interested in road-tripping to Chattanooga to work on a planting project in my front yard? Please?

Brandy said...

Welcome back! I'm not sure which one of your girls has the best fashion sense - Katie matching all her various activities or Madalyn with all the green & her Tacky Day outfit. It's a tie since I love them both!

John Deere Mom said...

I agree with Deb about the picture issue. IE is a witch to deal with. Firefox works much easier loading pictures. Love the update. I saw Varsity on some travel food show. Thought it looked amazing...and huge! Very cool story about the Warriors author. Could never get into the books, but love that so many of my kids do!

Janice said...

I have so missed reading your blog in the last year!! Hope you are back to stay:)
Love reading about your April and tacky day was a total hoot!! That picture is definitely a keeper.

Tonya Staab said...

I'm so happy to see updates from you. No wonder you barely find time to blog, you are always so busy. I've loved looking through all of the photos from the last couple of posts.

So don't get all frustrated with Blogger and photos, when my blog was hosted on Blogger I used Windows Live Writer to do all of my posts, it was so much easier, you can re-size photos and stick them wherever you want and it has a great watermarking feature too.

Tam said...

I have not blogged or blog stalked in a long time and I hoped over and you had updated! Missed your blog!