Yellow and blue make green!

And blue, green, purple, red, yellow & orange make kind of a putrid brownish color - but we only had one egg like that. The rest turned out beautifully!

The kids even got creative and tried to do stripes and double dipping - which eventually lead to the color revelation above. John cracked me up prior to our egg coloring. I was getting him some milk this morning for his breakfast when he caught a whiff of the hard boiled eggs I had prepared the night before.

"Ugh...gross! What's that smell?"

"That's probably the eggs John. They're ready for us to color after lunch. See?" I said lifting the lid of the egg carton.

"Ewww, they smell like a butt!"

Oh Baby!

IN THE MIDST OF DESPAIR CAN COME GREAT THINGS!

*picture shown is a sample only

The cleaning company hauled my old washer and dryer away last night and I could hardly contain my excitement. I've been salivating over those super capacity, frontloading, washer and dryer sets since they hit the market, but it was just never in the cards for us to get them. Well, our basement flooding really sucked, but there is a silver lining to all of this...MOMMA'S GETTING A NEW WASHER/DRYER COMBO!

I've already spent the morning researching my next big purchase!

Friday - A Good Day Gone Bad

Friday was supposed to be a day of fun. I took off work to take the kids to Columbus to see Kate's house and then spend the afternoon shopping at Polaris. We even convinced Grandma Joan, Aunt Kim & Aunt Di to come with us so we could all spend the day together. Grandma even captured a picture of us girls with Flat Stanley before we took off.

After a wonderful day, we packed up our purchases and headed home. Five minutes into the return trip, Matt calls me in a panic because there was raw sewage backing up in our basement! YUUUUCK!

I get home to find community floaters under our basement fridge and toilet paper mingling with our clothes on the floor of my laundry room. I wanted to puke and/or cry. We spent the rest of the weekend on the phone with insurance companies, professional cleaners, plumbers, etc. We were told that EVERYTHING that is not metal or a hard plastic that has come in contact with the sewage has to be disposed of. As the weekend progressed, we watched people in biohazard suits rip out the walls and carpet of the basement and even go through our dirty laundry, taking it all away in bags.

On top of it all, we learned that the city is only responsible for fixing the problem and is not liable for any damages incurred to homes! Thank goodness we have additional insurance that will hopefully cover most of this mess.

For more photos, click the link below.

Basement Disaster

Pics from the Past

Grandma Ronda sent me a whole bunch of old pictures that she scanned today. I had so much fun going through them. THANKS MOM!

I thought it was interesting to compare Mom's picture (taken 1982) to one of my own (taken 2004)...

My Little Lady

Beth got all dressed up last night for the 5th grade band concert so of course I had to get out my camera. She just looked so pretty...and so grown up. It was a delightful evening.

Who knew that Hot Cross Buns could be so riveting?

Video Game Smackdown

When the Wii gets brutally honest...

I was pretty excited to finally get a Wii Fit. I had heard good things from other adults - it would be good for the kids, the games are fun and can really get your heartrate up, blah blah blah. What they all failed to mention is that the body assessments are brutally honest. I know that I'm a big girl, I was expecting it to tell me that I was overweight. But what I WASN'T expecting is for it to tell me that I'm OBESE and change my little Mii (character created on the Wii) to go from this

To this...

SON OF A...!!

After recovering from the initial shock of it all, I set my 3 month weight loss goal to the max of 20 lbs - which will only take me to the Overweight category. Ugh. It's a great morale booster to know that your goal is to just be a "fat chick" by the beginning of bathing suit season.

Stupid game.

Little Sister Turns 30!

So my little sister, Corinne, turns 30 today. To help her see the true significance of the day’s event, I’ve created a “10 Things to Expect Now That Your 30” list.

1. No longer will people/family refer to you as “kid” or say things like “she’s an up-and-comer” or “when she finds her path.” You’ve now reached the threshold of adulthood and that crap is saved for the twenty-something crowd. You’re an old married lady now. It is what it is…and now you’re old just like me.
2. On the upside to this, you now no longer have to worry about being hit on by guys who are not even legal to buy beer. You will now be revered as the old lady at the parties of your old hangout buddies. But take heart, with age comes wisdom.
3. You will now (or will soon learn) the significance of underwires in bras.
4. 401K – these four little characters now have serious significance as every day brings you closer to reaching that fun little nursing home era.
5. Hangovers – now take a good 2 days to recover from. Gone are the days of 2 Advil and a Gatorade to make you feel new again.
6. No longer will the contents of your purse look like it’s packed for a night on the town (smokes, cash, keyes, make-up). Now, you’ll be more prone to carry tissues, binkies, extra wipes, coupons, and Pepcid for those rare occasions that you can go out and eat hotwings.
7. You are now only 10 years away from your first mammogram. Excited yet?
8. You are now old enough to appreciate that the toys we played with as little girls are considered retro and are back in style. Wish I still had my original Care Bear – that sucker would be worth some money.
9. After today, you are closer to 40 than you are 20. Isn’t that a peach!
10. And finally, I felt that my 20’s were spent trying to figure out who I was to become and my 30’s have been much more enjoyable just being happy with who I am. I hope that you too will find that same peace that comes with knowing that you’re a good, stong beautiful woman. Hopefully your 30’s will be a good decade for you.

I’m so glad that we’ve been able to stay close because it certainly wasn’t all roses growing up. We fought terribly through our teen years and I even used to play the most horrible, mean games with her when we were little. I would tickle her to get her laughing, and then tell her to whistle or I’d punch her as hard as I could. Have you ever tried to whistle when laughing? It’s impossible. WHAM! I’d haul off and deliver the biggest Charlie horse in the leg and scream again, “WHISTLE!” It would go on and on with her screaming, laughing and almost crying…still trying to whistle. Ah…good times. Who would have thought that we’d grow up to be such good friends? Well happy birthday little sister. I love you.

NOW WHISTLE!!