The Wisenheimer

Quite a few years ago (9 to 10 years) I had a tear-off page-a-day calendar of dictionary.com's 365 New Words a Year.  I took it into work, and, because I work with others who care about things like vocabulary like I do, we started to do what we called "Word of the Day".  Two of my colleagues in Support and I would gather in my cube, and we'd go over the new Word of the Day, and review the previous two, for repetition.  We went through hundreds and hundreds of words in the 2-3 years that we did it, and we learned a lot of new words, some that I still remember and use when appropriate (etiolate, imbricate, etc.).  One word that came up in 2006 was "wisenheimer", which is a smart aleck.  There are plenty of those in our office, so we turned that one page into an award.  We gave it a backing and built in a magnet.  Each time someone made a quality smart aleck comment, someone else would declare that that person had earned the Wisenheimer, and we'd then attach the award to the offending person's door jamb.  I haven't been in the office daily due to my traveling and sometimes working from home, so I've rearely had it.  But yesterday in our office farewell lunch/party (it wasn't designed to be for me, as Bruce was leaving), I made a joke and everyone immediately declared me to have earned the Wisenheimer.  So here I am, displaying my cherished award, and something that represents the fun things we've done in the office over the 12 years I've been there that have been part of the great culture we've had there, which is why I almost always came in the office when I was in town, even though it was completely optional for me once I became an SE.

Pug in a Basket

Tonight I needed to start a load of laundry. I grabbed my laundry basket from upstairs and prepared to walk downstairs. Natalie wanted to go downstairs with me, so I scooped her up and put her in the basket. I knew she wouldn't really like it, as she doesn't like being lifted up or carried or being in any place that isn't on the ground or on a piece of furniture.  But I couldn't help myself.  Once I was downstairs, I put the basket down, and she looked at me with a combination of dismay and terror.  I took her out, but not before taking a picture.

Happy Birthday to Me!

 Today was my birthday. We started the celebration in the afternoon when we did gifts. I got a few things, but the thing I was really excited about was this bag. I go to the library a lot and I check out a lot of books and videos. For the kids mainly. I am more of a kindle girl. But because I get so many all the time, I really need a bag and I was using a reusable shopping bag that was getting torn from the heavy books. So I am super excited to have this tote, mainly for the library, but also because I think a bag this size will come in handy for various things with the kids as well.

After gifts, we had cake. I had told Jason I wanted caked from "Nothing Bundt Cakes" again, just like last year. I didn't remember which flavors I liked best, unfortunately, but Jason got an assortment. I am documenting here that lemon is the winner, but all of them were good.

After cake, Halie came and Jason and I went to dinner at Capital Grille, because I like a good steak on my birthday. We really enjoyed the meal and the date night. Since it was my birthday, the waiter took a picture of us. Unfortunately I could not keep my eyes open at all and, after about five takes, this was the best we could get and I have a really weird look on my face from the strain of forcing my eyes open. It was a fun birthday.

Family Photos: Switching It Up

For the past three years we've used the same photographer for our family photos.  This year we decided to switch it up and go with someone new.  Yesterday was the day for our pictures, as we are trying to move it up a bit to avoid the chilly mornings we've had in some of our later-in-the-year sessions.  The session seemed to go well, and we were happy with the photgrapher, Christiane Branstrom.  We are excited to see how the pictures turn out.

J and A at the K

 Mom and Ron had tickets to the Royals game today that they couldn't use.  The offered them to me and Andrew to go to the game.  We're two Royals fans who love going to games at the K, but who are really busy and hardly ever get the opportunity, so we were really grateful to have the opportunity.

Andrew and I are great at making up games out of nothing.  We decided to use our tailgating time to do just that.  So we brought a bunch of different things with us, knowing we could make something up on the fly.  We had beanbags, frisbees, cardboard boxes, wastebaskets, flower pots, etc.  Basically we just wanted some things to throw, and a wide variety of things to throw them into.  After parking, we quickly devised a game using all of the supplies we had.  It was a point-based tossing game, with different points for different targets based on difficulty based on size, shape, and distance.  We had so much fun doing it, that we actually spent the first couple innings of the game continuing to play before making our way into the game.

The weather was great, and we had some good food, including the Cheesy Corn Brisket-Acho that I had which was great.  Kris Medlen did not have a good night, and the Royals ended up losing to the Indians, unfortunately.  But they already have the division wrapped up, so now they are just battling the Blue Jays for home field advantage in the playoffs, which after tonight's loss, it's not looking good for the Royals to secure that, but it's still possible.

After the game, we went back to Andrew's house, and we modified our game and created new variations, include a HORSE-based one, which works in almost any situation.  The driveway looked either like the remants of a pretty great party, or like a place that someone was storing their useless trash, but it worked great for us, and everything had a purpose.

We had a really great evening and night.  I feel really blessed to have the step-brothers and brothers-in-law that I do, as I really like every one of them.  Andrew and I get along so well and always have fun together, so it was awesome to be able to spend that much time hanging out together and getting to go to a game to see the team we both love.  We are both super busy, but we resolved to go to at least one Royals game together per season going forward, and to really make an effort to get together more often throughout the year.

Crashed on the Couch

I had to go run some errands this morning, and when I got home I found Hannah crashed on the couch.  I see pictures on Facebook all the time of people's kids asleep in various places of their houses at all times of the day.  But our kids have almost never done that.  Maybe it's because we normally have them on a nap schedule and are largely able to stick to it, I don't know.  But for whatever reason, it's rare for a kid to be asleep in our house in a place that's not their own bedroom.

Too Many Kids in the Bathtub

In the past few months, the kids have really gotten too big to happily bathe in their bathtub. There's too much jockeying for space. So my plan was just to have the girls bathe together and Joshua be on his own. I tried to really sell this as a by-product of him getting older and getting to take a bath alone as a privilege. Yeah, didn't work. All three of the kids acted like that was the worst punishment I have ever thought of. So Plan B is have them take a bath in our master bathroom. This is a much larger tub and has plenty of room for three kids. They are so excited and love it. On the plus side, it's nice to have a use for this tub other than cat-food storage, which is its main function.  So much so, that when I told the kids there was a bathtub in our master bathroom that we were going to use, they were extremely incredulous about this supposed additional bathtub I was referencing and were then totally shocked to find there actually was one and I wasn't just kidding around.

Safety First for Toothbrushing

Joshua has a few different types of dress-up outfits, but his favorite is is construction worker gear, which includes, among other things, a hard hat and goggles.  He was wearing them tonight and didn't want to take them off when it was time to brush teeth.  So here he is, prepared for any dangers that might come his way.  Toothpaste splattering in his eye?  Won't happen.  Vigorous brushing resulting in a slip with the hard toothbrush crashing against his skull?  Not a concern.  He's ready for anything and is virtually certain to finish the session with clean teeth and no injuries.

Hannah and the Balloon

Hannah really loves balloons, so when she was playing with one before church on Sunday, I thought the pinks in her balloon and dress really coordinated, so I decided to snap a quick picture.

The Interview

I've been with my company for a long time, and I've been in such a good situation that I've never really considered leaving.  But recently a recruiter contacted me about a potential new opportunity.  I was intrigued enough to listen to what he had to say, and I ended up doing a couple phone interviews.  I still liked what I heard, and I guess they did too, because they invited me to fly to Boston to do a round of in-person interviews.  So I flew here yesterday, and I had three interviews this morning, and they made me an offer on the spot.  Until today, this didn't seem real, and I wasn't sure I even wanted the job, but after meeting with them, I think this might actually be something I would do.  I'm going to pray about it and think about it and talk it over with Meghan tonight when I get home.  They want an answer tomorrow night.  There's a lot to think about, as there are a lot of implications, and this is a pretty big decision that will affect a lot of things.

Happy Belated Grandparents Day

We don't generally make a huge deal out of all the "hallmark" holidays like Sweetest Day, Boss's Day, etc. However, we do really like to use Grandparents Day as a way to thank Ron and Peg for all their help throughout the year. Of course, our kids enjoy spending time with all their grandparents and they are lucky to have many people who love spending time with them. However, because Ron and Peg are local, they really are able to help us out a lot, and not only able, but also super willing. It is so appreciated that they watch the kids once a week to give me a day off and also give us a monthly date night where they keep the kids overnight. As almost any parent of small children will attest, being able to sleep in without worrying about your house being destroyed is more precious than gold. So we invited them over for dinner as a thank you for all the ways they help us. We had hoped to do this last weekend near actual Grandparents Day, however Hannah was sick. So we did it today instead. It was nice to be able to show them how much we appreciate them and also spend some time together.

Concurrent Soccer

Today Joshua's soccer game and Clara's soccer game were scheduled at the exact same time.  It was going to be a little tricky for Meghan and I both to come, but they were scheduled to be on adjacent fields, so I decided I could handle both, as I would just be in between them.  Well, it didn't work out so well, because when I got there, I saw that because one field was too soggy, they moved Joshua's game to a totally different field that was not close.  I wanted to be there for both kids, and especially for Clara, as she needs plenty of encouragement, so I would watch one kid for 10 minutes or so, and then sprint across the complex over to the other kid's game, and then after another 10 minutes, run back.  It was a lot of exercise for me, but it was fine.  Joshua played well, as he has been recently, and Clara had her best game yet.  She somewhat chased after the ball at times, which is a new thing for her.  Coach Shawn even helped her build some confidence by letting her take a goal kick.  She's still the least interested girl on the team, but I can see her confidence and interest slowly building.

Unfortunately I haven't really had much time to work with her one-on-one, but last week after her game we did spend some time together, and she was pretty excited about dribbling, and she showed some pretty decent skills.  I'm hoping by the end of the season that she'll be confident and happy enough that she'll feel like it was a good season and was worth doing.

A Second Fashionista

Clara is a lot more laid back than Hannah when it comes to clothes. She rarely has too strong of an opinion about what she wears and often is content to wear whatever I happen to pick. A big exception to that rule is footwear. She generally has very strong opinions on footwear, or lack thereof. This summer I decided I was okay with barefeet outside because I got sick of arguing about it with every kid every time and I realized that I actually had no real reason for them wearing shoes if they were just playing in the grass. However, I do have rules about what they can wear when we leave the house based on weather and safetly. One of those rules is rubber boots are just for rain. Because Clara loves her boots, she would otherwise want to wear them daily, so this is a necessary rule. Today it was slightly rainy, so she was totally pumped to wear her boots and raincoat and then decided her pink cowgirl hat would be the perfect way to complete her outfit. I like it. Good call, Clara.

Happy Birthday to Dad

Today is my birthday!  I had a really busy day at work, but I was all done with work by the evening in time to enjoy time at home with my family.  We started with cards.  Meghan made a super cool custom card from the kids.  I'm not sure why I was the only person in this picture who felt it was appropriate to wear clothes.

The pajama pants that I've loved and had forever since I got them as a Christmas gift from Grandma and Grandpa Hall many years ago finally wore out.  I found this out when I went to put them on, and while my leg was sliding down the leg hole, my toe caught on a weak area of the fabric near the knee and punched through the cloth and then proceeded to tear a giant gaping hole in the right leg of the pajama pants.  At that point they no longer served their purpose of keeping me warm.  And in fact, they specifically did the opposite, exposing a large portion of my leg to the cold air that I try to avoid by virtue of wearing the pajama pants in the first place.  Anyway, the point is I currently have no pajama pants.  But now it's "had", as Meghan recently took Joshua with her to the store to buy me some for my birthday.  Meghan gave Joshua the privilege of choosing the ones he wanted, and because he happens to currently love the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, he saw a pair and chose them for me.  While I don't have a particular affinity for the Ninja Turtles at this stage in my life (I mean, they are cool in their own way), I love these pajama pants because Joshua picked them out, and it makes me smile to think of him seeing them in the store and instantly knowing they were the perfect choice.

Here I am with my spoils and with my three mostly-naked children.  Seriously, put on some clothes!

I used to have a lot of Dairy Queen ice cream cakes in my life, but I don't so much anymore, so I've kind of missed them.  So this year I requested one, and it was delicious.  It was a great birthday overall, despite the heavy workload early in the day.  I was really glad that yet again, I didn't have to travel for work on my birthday, which is always a risk.

This picture is unrelated to anything other than that I noticed it in the pictures Meghan took.  I don't remember what Clara said or did, but apparently it earned one of the more hardcore side eyes that anyone has ever been given.  I'm pretty sure I was teasing her about something, or probably she was actually teasing me, resulting in the look, but either way, that's some serious side-eye action and should be recorded for posterity in our blog.  But it should be noted, that I only have this skill because I learned from the best.

Cutting the Big Branches

I needed to trim up the trees around the front of the house, and Joshua always wants to help with everything I do.  I sometimes will say no because it's too dangerous, or perhaps will give him a limited version of the task.  He really wanted to use my big branch clippers, which is certainly not a tool that I would ever let him use unsupervised, and realistically he can't use them very well = anyway because he's not strong enough to cut the big branches, but I did let him hold them for a minute and squeeze them as much as he could to get a branch started, even though he couldn't cut very far into the branch.  I then took over and finished the branch, but he was really proud of his contribution and that I let him take part in the process with one of my grown-up tools.

MoonCake

This year we have chosen a really play-based preschool, which I think is best for my kids. However, I also really want Joshua to be ready for kindergarten, so we are doing some schoolwork at home to supplement preschool. We are keeping it really light and just learning letters and sounds and a little science. This week we learned about the letter 'M' and the moon. We made moon cake and Jason cut it to show them different phases of the moon. The kids were totally onboard, not only because anything involving cake is a winner, but Joshua especially is really interested in learning about the world around him.

A Self-Propelled Swinger

Clara learned how to make herself go on the swings awhile back, but Joshua hasn't been able to get it. He has wanted to, but he had a hard time syncing his movements correctly. But today, it just clicked and he has spent every spare moment out back perfecting his new skill. He is so proud, and I am proud of him for working so hard to get this. Sometimes it's hard with him because he is a major perfectionist so when he can't do something right away, he wants to give up. So I am glad he was able to see some success after working to get something that didn't come right away.

Solar Oven S'Mores

 Meghan suggested that a good science project to do with the kids would be to make a solar oven.  Somehow I hadn't really ever done or seen one before, but we decided s'mores would be a good first effort.  It seemed to take forever to cook, so I gave them an extra hour, but when I went out to check on them, they were gone.  The whole oven was gone.  I looked around and found the whole thing turned upside down on the deck, as the wind had blown it off the picnic table.  But at least the chocolate and the marshmallows were a little soft at that point, so I was able to salvage them from the oven and somewhat re-create the s'more structure.

Everyone got to eat one.  The kids enjoyed theirs, but we made them take off their shirts because of all the chocolate and stickiness.  Hannah was crying about something right before this, so she still has tears in her eyes, but the s'mores certainly helped her feel better quickly.

Apple Orchard Trip

The kids' school has monthly outdoor events for families who attend the school to foster nature appreciation. This month's activity was going to the apple orchard. We had a fun time picking apples and going on a "hayride" (a very short hayride from the parking lot to the apple area). Joshua especially enjoyed this because he just loves apples. We had a really fun time and I hope we will be able to attend more of these outings over the coming months.

Cicada Show and Tell

Joshua and Clara's new school has show and tell.  For Joshua, it was an easy choice, as we recently found two dead cicadas.  He loves cicadas and has is really interested in them.  So I knew I wanted to have him bring a cicada, but I wasn't sure how to go about doing that.  Some quick internet research indicated that hand sanitizer is a good preservative, so I bought a tube of glitter at Walmart, dumped it out, filled it with the cicada and hand sanitizer, carefully removed the bubbles, and in the end I had a cicada display case.  Joshua and I talked on the way to school about the cicada's lifecycle so he could share it with the class at the right time.  He was really excited about it.  I talked to him after school, and he said it went well.  I'm not sure what we'll do for the next one, but this first one was certainly successful.

Old Settlers Days

For my date day with Joshua, I decided to take him to Olathe Old Settlers Days.  It started tonight and goes through the weekend, so I thought it would be fun for us to go to the carnival to ride some rides and eat some food.  Joshua was just barely tall enough to ride most of the rides (there were a couple that he was too short to ride, and he was easily tall enough for the kid rides).  I wasn't sure if he would be too scared to try some of the faster ones, or would be scared once he got on them, but neither was the case.  It was supposed to storm later in the evening, so we rode the tall Ferris wheel first in case the lightning came.  That was the only ride that he showed some trepidation about getting on, but once he was on, he thought it was great.  After that we rode a lot of the typical other carnival ride, including the classic teacups and some or the more spinning and aerial ones.  Joshua wanted to do the Ferris wheel a second time, so we got on, but before everyone was loaded, they announced the lightning was getting close, so they had to close the ride, and so we all disembarked.  We then got in line to do another ride, but then they closed that ride and all rides.  So we then went to the food trucks to get in line for our late dinner, and they then closed the food trucks just before we were served, but the guy inside decided to serve us anyway since we were right there.

Joshua and I enjoyed our corn dogs and nachos at a nearby picnic bench shelter since the entire fair had closed at that point due to the coming storm.  After eating, we ran to the car in the pouring rain and came home.  We had a really fun time, and I was really proud of Joshua for being so brave and really happy that he was able to enjoy so many of the rides.