Braggin' Wagon Wednesday: Meeting a Celebrity

Have you ever met a celebrity? Well, I have to brag that this past weekend Scott and I did! A celebrity right here in Boise, Idaho. Who'da thunk it?! This is a person who has been in the news a lot lately. He is the only good guy in a huge television scandal. He lost his job, but had an unbelievable following of supporters. He just got a new show on TBS. Are you on "Team Coco?"

That's right.......

Wait for it...........

Ladies and gentlemen........

It's Conan O'Brien!!

Admit it, I really had you going there for a second!

The End of an Era

If you read this post you are going to think I'm nuts. It sounds cheesy and crazy, but Lost is over and I'm sad. I started watching Lost back in 2006 after hanging out with my friend Dawn, who made me watch an episode on DVD with her. I still remember the episode was the one where everyone thinks Sawyer stole Shannon's asthma medication so they are torturing him and he tricks Kate into kissing him. After that day, I was hooked. I forced Scott into watching the first two seasons on DVD (although, for the record, he didn't need much forcing after an episode or two), and we watched it on tv from the third season on. We both loved it. Even when Charlie died we still watched, even when it got pretty sci-fi for the last couple of seasons we still watched. The only time I ever claimed I would stop watching was if they killed off Sawyer, who was probably my favorite character.

Now here comes the really crazy part. Lost got us through some tough times. When Ivy was born Scott and I brought all our Lost DVD's to Salt Lake with us (we have all of them), and made his parents watch the entire series up to the end of season 4. Every night when we'd get home from the hospital, visiting Ivy, or they'd get home from the hospital, visiting Stacy, we'd all sit down and watch an episode or two (or three or four), and relax. It was really comforting to have something constant and entertaining during a really tough time for all of us. I know that sounds really weird, but that's really how it felt. And now its over, at least we will always have the dvd's there if we need them, but its a little sad that there is no more mystery. Besides the questions the writers didn't feel were important enough to answer, but that's a whole other story.

So thanks, Sawyer, Hurley, Jin, Sun, Sayid, Kate, Jack, Locke, and all the rest for comforting us during a troublesome time, and entertaining us for the last several years!

Not Loving Our Crappy Genes

This is kind of an Anti-Braggin' Wagon Blog. Apparently Scott and I have crappy genes, Corbin got glasses when he was three years old because his right eye was turning in, and he also turned out to be far-sighted. Dex turned 3 in March, and wouldn't you know it that not long after his birthday we noticed he kept closing his right eye. So we took him to get his eyes checked out and sure enough his right eye was starting to turn in and he is far-sighted. That's right, exactly the same. We have crappy genes in the eye department. Our kids are cute, and smart and those are the good genes, but they are all destined to have glasses I guess. Ivy will probably only have another year or two of freedom from them before her eye starts to turn in. At least they look adorable with them on!

Braggin' Wagon Wednesday: Nothing to brag about!

This week I seriously have nothing to brag about. Its been a busy week, and therefore I noticed nothing brag-worthy. So instead of the usual stuff, I'm just going to give a few random thoughts and activities of the week.

I've spent the last three days scrubbing baseboards, light switches, and doors in my house. This is very tedious and unsatisfying work. It takes forever and when you finish a room you stand back and take a look at all your hard work and can't see a bit of difference. Its a little discouraging. Nonetheless, the work continues.

On Monday I worked on my garden out front. It was looking pretty shabby since I haven't really done anything with it...EVER. So I trimmed the HOA required bushes, cleared out the old, decaying bark that was there, added some flowers and some pretty new rubber bark-like cover and now it looks better. Still not beautiful, and far from impressive, but better and that's the key. I also put together some hanging baskets of flowers for the front porch, they aren't hanging yet due to lack of hooks, but they will be soon.

Dexter is three. Three year olds are hard. Dex is a hard child. He has trouble in the speech department, and can be very hard to understand. This does not make for a happy child. So he's three and throws temper tantrums over everything anyway, and now we have the added pressure of understanding him the first time he says something or else he goes into a massive fit. This does not make for a happy Mom. By the time 6:00pm rolls around and Scott gets home from work, I. AM. DONE. I've looked into getting him into a preschool at the local elementary school that is for kids that are a little behind (thanks Shandy for the info), I hope he gets in and they can help him with his speech and we can all be happy again. There has been one improvement in the last week though, he went from calling Corbin, "memin" to "Dorbin". Much better.

Tomorrow is Corbin's last day of school. I'm a little sad. He seems okay about it. He's excited for kindergarten. I wanted to get his two teachers a gift to say thanks or whatever, so I made them some bracelets and thank you cards that matched. I felt like a dork when I gave them to them yesterday. I bet they think I'm weird. I don't care, Corbin needed to work on his social skills and come out of his shell a little bit, they really helped. He's still shy, but less shy.

Well, that's all. sorry to bore you to death. Next week I'll have something better.

Braggin' Wagon Wednesday: Dancing Queen

First here's a little update on Ivy. She had her 18 month well check last week as well as her semi-annual echo cardiogram. She now weighs 19 lbs 12 oz (still under the 3rd percentile, but actually jumped up just a touch), and she is 28 1/2 inches tall. Her echo went okay, she was "sedated" with some medicine that was supposed to make her happy and agreeable so the doctor wouldn't have such a hard time getting a look at her heart with her fighting. It didn't work and she screamed and squirmed the whole time anyway. He still got a good enough look to tell us that everything looked exactly as he had expected. We were also able to take away one of her medications, so now she just has three. She is doing so well, and we are so proud of her progress.

In other news, Ivy has discovered some new skills the last couple of weeks. She can now walk backwards, march, spin in circles and dance. She's especially fond of spinning and dancing, so we constantly find her spinning all around the house, or booty dancing when any music is playing. She's so cute and funny. Here's some video of her doing those two things.

Preschool Field Trip

This past week Corbin's preschool had a field trip to the Zoo here in Boise. They said our whole family could go, we only had to pay a discount price for one adult ticket ($2 what a bargain!). We had so much fun. Here are more pictures than you could ever ask for. Enjoy.

I Did It!

If you remember in January I set a goal to read 12 books by the end of the year. I reached that goal yesterday when I finished my 12th book (The Star Garden by Nancy E. Turner). If you count Scott's Grandma Jensen's personal history book Faces, that I also finished this year, its 13! I think that's the most books that I've read since middle school when all the R.L. Stine books came out. I'm so glad I did this, I feel so accomplished that I already made the goal. I liked nearly every book that I read, and I'm glad that so many good books exist. In case you're wondering, this isn't the end. I'm going to continue reading, but I don't think I'll do all the reviews anymore. I'm also going to take some time off to work on my kids scrapbooks because I'm almost two years behind. Thanks for all the recommendations and inspiration. Here's the complete list and their scores on the scale of 1 to 10 and the letter grade for Scott's mom, Marde.

The Face by Dean Koontz

6 1/2 or C-

Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom

10 or A

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

10 or A

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

7 or c+

The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood

7 or C

These is My Words by Nancy E. Turner

10 or A-

The History of Love by Nicole Kraus

7 or C

I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak

7 or C

What I Thought I knew by Alice Eve Cohen

0 or F (I know I said 1 to 10, but really it doesn't deserve a 1)

The Floor of the Sky by Pamela Carter Joern

9 or A

Sarah's Quilt by Nancy E Turner

10 or A

The Star Garden by Nancy E Turner

10 or A

*BONUS*

Faces by Mary White Jensen

10 or A (even though I know Marde has already read it)

I didn't review Star Garden, but it was the last in the Sarah Agnes Prine books. I loved it just like the others, if you like the first two, just assume you'd also like this one.

Braggin' Wagon Wednesday: This Guy

I am married to the best husband, father and guy in the world. I love him more than words can say. I have to drop props to Marde and Ross for raising such a wonderful person. Don't ever change babe, I love you.

And here's a geek shot in case people reading weren't jealous enough already.

May Book One: Sarah's Quilt

Sarah's Quilt (Book 2 in the Sarah Agnes Prine series)

by Nancy E. Turner

Synopsis: (from nancyeturner.net) This sequel to These Is My Words returns to Sarah's family in 1906 after three years of drought have devastated her ranch. Caught between the choice to save her land and the love of a good man, Sarah faces dark challenges of territorial life where everything hangs in the balance. It is a saga of love, connection, and the gift of family.

This is no surprise, but I loved this book. Not as much as These Is My Words though. Of course I loved Sarah and her strong disposition, but I have to admit I missed Jack. It just wasn't the same without him. Once again, the story was filled with action and kept me entertained throughout. I would fall asleep at night, and wake up in the morning thinking about it. I was on edge about what would happen next, and when I wasn't reading, I was anxious to get back to it. I'm not ashamed to say that I cried over Willie and Esther, and I swooned for Udell. I really have fallen in love with these books, and can't wait to pick up the last one from the library tomorrow so I can finish the series while its still fresh on my mind.

And just like the last book, I'll give it a 10, and an A for Marde.