Recently in everyday Category

I just talked to a friend of the family who received one of our "Sorry we didn't send a Christmas card" cards, and he reminded me that the card contained a promise of an online "year in review" post. Much to Alecia's dismay, I have yet to write that post. And seeing as how it's 7AM on a rainy Saturday morning and I'm only awake because our stupid dogs needed to go out, I think I'm going to go back to bed and still not write the post.

Later today, we're taking the kids to see Bolt at the Fox Theatre. The Fox is this big old theater in downtown Atlanta that's usually the home of Broadway musicals and major concerts. But they've recently started a movie series, where they'll show recent run movies complete with a pipe organ singalong, wine tasting and some retro cartoons beforehand. It's cool enough to see the films in such a beautiful theater, but the added extras make it even better. This will be the last fun thing we do with the kids before we ship them off to the in-laws' place in Alabama for a week while the redesign crew is here.

Alecia's taking them to 'Bama tomorrow, while I head into work for our live red carpet webcast of the 15th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards. I didn't go to LA for it this year, which sort of sucks. But we're using a different production crew and have changed our delivery system, so it wasn't really necessary that I be on-site. Instead, I'll be sitting with an editor in midtown, Atlanta, launching the live streams on TBS.com and TNT.tv while he cuts up the red carpet interviews to go on VOD later that night. If you're the type who watches red carpet coverage of award shows, check it out Sunday at 6pm/et on one of our sites, or watch the clips and look at the photos on either site Monday morning. We could use the traffic. :)

Anyway, I'm going to climb back into bed until the girls get up. The new year post will hopefully go up tonight or tomorrow. If you got our mailer and immediately jumped online, I apologize. But you can build your own year-in-review picture by reading the past posts on this site--and it will be a much more detailed view than I plan to give. If you want my summary, however, you'll just have to check back. Thanks!

This post is way late, but the story's still pretty funny. And Alecia's really been after me to post more, since the last 146 posts have all been from her. Yes, my wife is urging me to spend more time in front of the computer. I just wanted to put that on the public record, as I'm sure it will be worth something later.

Anyway, my 36th (!) birthday was a few weeks ago, as mentioned in the post below. It was a Tuesday, which meant the kids had soccer practice that evening, and we didn't really make any plans to celebrate or anything. Alecia and I agreed a few years ago that we would no longer buy each other birthday gifts, but would instead give each other experiences (e.g. the trip to Iceland for Alecia's 30th last June). And since we were still paying off Christmas debt and waiting for tax and bonus checks, we agreed to hold off on my "birthday experience" for a few weeks. Instead, Alecia and the girls planned to surprise me that evening with a made-from-scratch cake.

Alecia knows I'm a big Captain America fan (hey, I never try to pretend I'm not a geek), so she had the cool idea to bake me a cake in the shape of Captain America's shield. She and the girls worked all day on it, making the cake and frosting from scratch, decorating it themselves, etc. It took them long enough that Alecia was never able to start on dinner, but it turned out beautifully, as you can see here:

Click for larger version.

Because of the girls' soccer practice, I went straight to the field after work, and then we went home afterward for dinner and cake. The girls were so excited to show me what they'd been working on, and I got to see it as soon as I got home. See it, but not taste it, since we hadn't had dinner, yet. To remedy that, Alecia started whipping up some real food in the kitchen while the girls and I hovered over the cake, drooling and eager to dive in. While she was working on dinner, Alecia kept complaining that something smelled like gasoline. I normally don't smell things until people point them out to me, but I could also pick up on the odor. The entire kitchen smelled a bit like gas or some other fuel. We have an electric range, so we knew it wasn't that. We both went around the kitchen with our noses low, like bloodhounds, trying to pick up on the source of the smell.

Finally, we figured out where it was coming from. In the sink were the bowls that Alecia had used to hold the blue and red frosting for the cake. They both smelled strongly. We soon realized that the cake did, as well. Alecia pulled the cake away from the kids' reach (they'd been very good and hadn't yet stuck even a fingertip in for a taste), while we tried to figure out why the cake would smell like it did. I asked Alecia what was in the frosting, and she listed the harmless ingredients. As soon as she mentioned the red and blue food coloring, though, she got a weird look on her face. She dug into the cabinet and pulled out little red and blue bottles...of candle dye.

"Oh my god!" she shouted, reading the warning labels on the little plastic bottles that were eerily similar to the size and shape of normal food coloring. "I almost killed us all!!"

I had bought the candle dye last year when I was experimenting with making homemade lava lamps (again, I admit to my geekiness). She tried to ask me why I'd put it up in the cabinet with the safe food coloring, but quickly realized it wasn't me who did so. Both of us clearly remembered her constantly nagging me to put away the candle wax and other ingredients after my last failed experiment, and both of us remembered me not doing it. She'd put everything away, for some reason putting the dyes in the kitchen cabinet rather than in the hall closet, where I normally keep them.

Alecia, of course, was upset about the whole thing. She was freaked out that we'd all almost been poisoned, but I think part of her was also mad that we had to throw the cake out. Once we were sure nobody had taken even a bite, however, I thought it was one of the funniest things that's happened to us in recent years. And getting my stomach pumped on my birthday, side-by-side with the rest of my family, would definitely have been a unique "birthday experience," right?

The only regret I have about the whole experience is that I still haven't had any cake and ice cream for my birthday, or blown out any candles. But I hope to remedy that soon, as we're still planning a birthday dinner with my brother and friends at some point.

By the way, this is a bit of a tangent, but I wanted to thank my mom for also contributing to my Captain America fetish by getting me a Cap bank for my birthday. It's the first actual birthday gift I've gotten in years from anyone but Alecia and the kids (though my parents and others have been very generous in sending cards and money, and my brother has often treated me to dinner or other events). It was cool to get something personal and thoughtful like that, and I really appreciated it. That, along with the near-fatal cake, made for a very memorable day.

I overheard Maddie and Josie talking this afternoon.

Maddie: Okay, Jo, I'm Clifford and you're Tivo.

For those of you that don't know, Clifford the Big Red Dog has a dog friend named T-Bone, not Tivo.

Could it be any more obvious that TV plays a big role in our lives?

We finally scanned Maddie's letter to Santa. Click on the picture to see the notes on Flickr.

Front of letter

Back of letter

A Conversation at the Grownup Table, as Imagined at the Kids' Table

MOM: Pass the wine, please. I want to become crazy.
DAD: O.K.
GRANDMOTHER: Did you see the politics? It made me angry.
DAD: Me, too. When it was over, I had sex.
UNCLE: I'm having sex right now.
DAD: We all are.
MOM: Let's talk about which kid I like the best.
DAD: (laughing) You know, but you won't tell.
MOM: If they ask me again, I might tell.
FRIEND FROM WORK: Hey, guess what! My voice is pretty loud!
DAD: (laughing) There are actual monsters in the world, but when my kids ask I pretend like there aren't.
MOM: I'm angry! I'm angry all of a sudden!
DAD: I'm angry, too! We're angry at each other!
MOM: Now everything is fine.
DAD: We just saw the PG-13 movie. It was so good.
MOM: There was a big sex.
FRIEND FROM WORK: I am the loudest! I am the loudest!
(Everybody laughs.)
MOM: I had a lot of wine, and now I'm crazy!
GRANDFATHER: Hey, do you guys know what God looks like?
ALL: Yes.
GRANDFATHER: Don't tell the kids.

by Simon Rich for The New Yorker

For my friends and family back in the South Bend/Mishawaka/Granger area:

And here's some more...

The Onion: U.S. Military Wasting All Its Victories On Notre Dame

ESPN.com: Notre Dame put Weis in this uncomfortable spot

Josie loves telling jokes lately. We've taught her a few ("why did the turtle cross the road...to get to the shell station) but she prefers to make up her own. Here's her latest:

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Banana.
Banana who?
I'm gonna eat your EYES! {she says with hands raised into little claws}

What do you think, Rob? Does she have a future in comedy?

P.S. In response to Julie's comment: Don't be so sure about the topics of their jokes! I'm not sure where or how it started, but both girls are starting to make jokes and talk about poop. "Poopy-poophead" and the like. Bill and I are constantly telling them "No poop jokes."

Of course, then the girls counter with, "It's not a poop joke. It a Winnie the POOH joke! See? It's okay."

I woke up on Saturday with Pink Eye. I haven't had it since I was a kid and I have no idea where I got it since the girls aren't in school, and neither they nor their friends have it. I went to the doc and he immediately prescribed some drops. I came home and emailed everyone I'd seen in the last couple of days to let them know. Luckily, the doc said I really hadn't been contagious at all up until this point. So far Bill doesn't have it either.

Yes, it kind of put a damper on our weekend, but there's one big reason that it was a bummer. We had a family portrait scheduled for Saturday afternoon. It was taken me over 2 years to get Bill to agree to having one. We'd put down a deposit and everything. He hates having his picture taken, and I'd finally persuaded him. Then I end up with Pink Eye! Luckily, we didn't lose our deposit and they agreed to just let us reschedule. However, if you're reading this Bill, that still means we have to go get one!

Josie was talking in the car the other day and suddenly said "Aunt Julie is my mommy." No, sweetie, I'm your mommy. Aunt Julie is your aunt. "No, I a boy and Aunt Julie my mommy." No, silly goose. You are a girl and I'm your mommy! "Nooooooo, mommy. You my mommy I a girl. Aunt Julie my mommy I a BOY!" Apprarently, Julie gives birth to all boys in the world. She must be tired! ;)

Her email read, "Take a look and see what YOUR daughters did today." Attached, was the link to this flickr photo set. Best laugh I've had all day.