He's Still My Baby...

But he did turn five!

(Grandma's got so many grandsons, it's hard to keep track of them all...)

He was so excited to get mail from his Me-ma...

And Lassie from his other grandma... (Aww, remember Lassie? "Lassie, please come home!"?)

Of course there was cake.

And presents...

He was a tad-bit excited about the transformers. At least I convinced him he only needed to sleep with the smallest one...

I gotta hurry and post this before my husband gets fed up and starts watching our show without me.

My parents are here for Thanksgiving, and I thought I'd give you all a glimpse into what an exciting time we're having!

This is the scene that usually greets you when walking into a room. Though usually mom and dad are reading solo and Olivia and Peter are wreaking some kind of havoc.

The funniest thing that prompted this photo was that not only was Olivia reading, too, but Sean-Peter was just hanging out, all docile and, well, quiet-like. Like sitting there pleasantly in the parlor was the most normal thing in the world.









Oh, wait. Here we go; now he's all ready for bed.


Aw, isn't that more like it? This was taken moments after the parlor photo. I guess he caught his 26th 2nd wind. And I guess I should finish unpacking from my trip to Chicago...

Oh, yea! I went to Chicago! For a whole two days! I stayed with my friend Amy and we quickly digressed to our junior high high school years, talking and giggling like a couple of teenagers. Teenagers with wrinkles. Not that that matters.

At the risk of repeating what you may have already read in my other blog, we had a great time. Our high school friend Nathan also joined us. Sweet, tall Nathan. Back in the day, Nathan and I were partners in our high school's mixed ensemble. As in singing group. When I was talking with him at our 20-year high school reunion this past summer, I looked up (and up and up) at him and said, "Um, you weren't this tall in high school."

He readily agreed. Apparently, he grew like another six inches after we graduated. Who knew? He also went on to study music and voice and he does all kinds of neat things like perform operas and compose music for poems written by inner-city school kids. Yea. Quite cool.

And he wasn't at all phased by our acting like we were a bunch of school kids again. Take this photo op, for instance -- originally Amy's idea, but I was the one who insisted we make the extra trip to actually get it done.
Go ahead, click on it, and think about it. Please, for me? I'll wait.

Funny, huh?


And Amy? She does stuff like this.Not that I hold it against her. But I did do a excruciatingly long very short yoga session with her and I ended up being sore for a week. You know how some people just get better and better with age? Amy's one of those people. Of course, she works at it...

We are planning on enjoying a nice, quiet Thanksgiving at home tomorrow, just the seven of us. We're having turkey and ham. My baby likes his pig. It's not a whole turkey, though: just a breast. And they're both cooking as we speak, all stealth-like in the crockpots. Is that not cool or what?

In addition to turkey and ham, the menu includes...

• Sweet potato casserole
• Green bean casserole
• Stuffing
• Mashed potatoes
• Cranberry sauce
  
• Seven-layer salad
• Rolls
  
• Pumpkin pie
  

How's your menu look?

Happy Thanksgiving!!

This is How We Get Rid of Leaves and Drag Around Kids in O-hi-yo.

This time last year...

...he was obsessed with Thomas.

Now it's Pokemon.

Sigh. Why do they have to grow up?

Now, Where Were We?

I know, I know. Poor, neglected blog. You sweet thing. Now there, mommy's back now. You miss me?

Hmm, let's see, where to begin... Let's just summarize, shall we?

• We went trick-or-treating.
• We've taken turns being sick.
  
• Sean-Peter earned another trip to the ER (with a little help from his sister).
  
• I spent a lot of time finishing an assignment for my writing class.
• The rest of my writing time has been spent posting to my other blog.
  
• I've wasted a lot of time trying to transfer my other blog over to my own domain.
  
• When I started the process I didn't realize it involved writing code.
• I don't do code.
• I've tried.
• John's feverishly reading and writing a paper for his class.
• Oh, and Olivia lost a tooth. See?

• John's on-again, off-again, on-again, off-again, on-again.... Honestly, I lost track. Anybody recall where I left off with the latest on his deployment?
• Anyway, it's off-again. Officially.
• But there's another one that might be on.
  

Isn't this fun!

Sean-Peter's fine, by the way. Turns out there's a reason Bill Cosby always told us on that one commercial that we should never stick anything in our ears, other than our elbows. And then you couldn't help but sit there and try to stick your elbow in your ear. Remember that one?

Olivia was almost as traumatized as Sean-Peter. Almost.

"I was just trying to clean his ear!"

He's been in for a follow-up once, but needs to go in for another next week. His ear drum didn't rupture, according to the ER doc, but it did bleed a lot, and the second doc wants him back after the dried blood has had a chance to clear up a bit on its own, so's she can see in there all the way right-like.

Isn't this fun!

Otherwise we're all good. "We're fine. We're all fine here now, thank you. How are you?"

(Name that movie.)

Hint: Use the Force.

I do hope you all enjoyed a wonderful Veterans Day! Kids are off of school here the next two days, so my "weekend" starts early...

Oh, and I'm going to Chicago on Sunday! Whoopee for me! A road trip. All. by. myself. What is that, anyway? Anybody have any books on tape to recommend? I'm going to visit an old, old friend -- we grew up together, for pete's sake. She never married and never had kids. She might as well live on another planet.

I might like it there...