Trojan Spy Returns!

Remember how excited I was about five weeks ago that we got rid of that Trojan Spy that hacked into our computer? Well, I was a bit premature on that excitement. We have that darn spy out of our computer, after four weeks in repair, with a new hard drive, and new spyware and firewall that won't load on. I'm really not supposed to be online right now, because another darn hacker would be able to get into our computer because we can't load on the spyware. M has spent hours upon hours with the tech support (in India, like all the rest of them these days) and has not been able to get it done. So, I have to be fast today.

I have tons to catch up on and I won't even try now. I'l just tell you about today (sans pictures, because we're keeping our pc "clean" until we're all set up properly.) Today is a holiday for MLK, which as R describes, "was a great leader who helped civil rights. That means that all people are treated the same, no matter what.)

It will be about 10 degrees for the high today, and colder than that for the low.

R got a Star Wars cook book from his Aunt J (my sistah) for Christmas and he wanted to use it today. And used it we have! For breakfast R and I cooked Forceful Frittata and Handmaiden Hash Browns. He read the directions, got the ingredients out, mixed it up, and put it in the oven...basically, everthing except take it out of the oven. That meant peeling potatos, grating potatos, cracking eggs, measuring milk, and so on. He did a good job. I made bacon to go with it.

T was in charge of lunch. He got out his own kids cook book, looked through it, then pulled out R's Star Wars cook. He ended up making Darth Double Dogs and Sith Slush -- can you tell which book he ended up using?

As you Star Wars fans know, Darth Vader has a double light saber -- it's two sided. So, the Darth Double dogs meant that we had to take a wooden skewer, break it in half, and put a hot dog on each side of it -- double dog! Then you were supposed to take refridgerater cresent roll dough and cover the middle part to make the handle -- voila! We didn't have the cresent roll dough, but we did have refridgerator pizza dough and it worked like a charm.

THe Sith Slush ingredients included 7-Up, fruit juice, and pureed blueberries and/or blackberries. The boys loved them and said it made them feel like it was a hot day outside -- gotta love those imaginations when it was 5 degrees at the time!

That's the day so far...I'm sure Martin Luther King would be proud...we treat all Star Wars characters equally :>

Thanksgiving

Forgive me, but our computer was attacked by a Trojan spy...or something like that....and I haven't had web access for a couple of weeks. We're back up now, after many, many, computer scans and upgrading of our Norton Utilities and Spy Sweeper, and two other programs that I can't think of their names.

So, Thanksgiving, remember that holiday? Now that it's the middle of December, it seems like a long time ago. We went to M's folks house and had a lovely Thanksgiving with his family. U.D.#2 was there for Thanksgiving and U.D. #1 and J came over on Friday and spent the weekend. There was lots of good food, lots of Pegs and Jokers games and lots of fun. Here's the weekend in pictures...

R was getting pretty hungry on T-Day, but he patiently waited at the table, hoping someone would take pity on him and serve him some food. (You'd think he hadn't had breakfast, lunch, and snacks during the day!) Notice the "nice shirt" that he packed for the occasion. I told the boys to go upstairs and get a "nice shirt - one with buttons and a collar." He came downstairs with two -- one that he knew I'd approve of and his Cub Scout shirt. I surprised the beegeesess out of him when I gave the Cub Scout shirt a thumbs up. (If I had that many patches on my shirt, I'd want to show it off too -- patches can be seen better in picture below.)

The boys always have fun playing with U.D#2 whenever we see him. He's a very fun uncle for two rough-housing boys. He also teaches them things about Star Wars, architecture, history, science, and the meaning of life.

We spent some time at the park on Friday with Gram. She had a lot of fun with the boys. Here, she's playing with T on the teeter-totter, trying to make T go up really high.

Just for being so patient waiting for my next blog posting, here's a little treat for you. It's a Christmas card photo that landed on the cutting room floor, but is darn cute if I must say. (I told the boys to put on a sweater, any sweater they wanted to put on. They both came down with the home-made Irish fisherman's sweater that Great Gramma Pete made for them -- the same ones they wore in last year's Christmas card picture. I figured, what the heck? They love the sweaters and the sweaters have a lot of meaning, so they're back for an encore!)

Singing in the Car

On the way home from gymnastics today, T sang me the song that he learned in school. It's an old standard, but he was very proud of knowing the words (at least he thought he did.)

The song is "Silent Night." Now, before reading his lyrics, picture this beautiful boy, with beautiful eyes, a bright smile, and a beautiful, clear, almost-soprano voice:

Holy night, silent night
All is calm all is bright.
Around the vertigo, mother and child.
Holy infant so tender and wild.
Sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace.

Isn't that great? I think it's priceless. He asked me to sing with him and corrected the order of the first line, but held on to the "around the vertigo" and the "wild." I sure love that boy!

Fall to Winter

Our weather has been getting colder these days....definitely a sign of the winter to come. According to Farmers Almanac, this will be the coldest winter here than we've had in ten years. It's been in the low 30's when I leave for work in the morning and in the mid-to-high 30's when I head home into the evenings. Hold onto your hats!

Two weeks ago, however, it was a balmy 52 degrees and the boys did some raking to get the backyard ready for winter. Pay no attention to the big shadow of myself (or that "big fuzzy thing" as T called it). I like this picture 'cause it shows how excited R is for hiding his bro in the leaves.

T had a lot of fun too, as you can see by his smile. By the way, do you see those red adirondack chairs in the background? Boy, I love those chairs!


This picture is for AJ, who always wants to see pictures of Macky. Here she is trying to dig T out of the pile.

Finally, a picture of proud R, looking oh-so-serious and tough. I guess that his rake is his weapon or something...

Dinner Conversation Tonight

T said to me: Mom, Antonia has a crush on me.

Me: Oh, you think she has a crush on you?

T: I KNOW she does. She told me.

Me: What did she say to you?

T: T, I have a crush on you.

Me: I guess she does. What did you say to her?

T: I said, Okay. Just okay. That's okay, right?

Me: Yeah, that was okay to say.

R (the older, wiser brother): Yeah, you don't want her to think you have a crush on her and you don't want to hurt her feelings, so 'okay' is good. She should be fine with that.

T: Good. 'Cause she's a nice girl

Pack Meeting at the Park

M is Den Master for the boys' pack, which means that he's in charge of the pack meetings. The pack consists of all of the dens from 1st through 5th grades -- about 25 boys or so. M took a lot of time in planning this meeting. Here is is with a den leader, going over the last minute details for a successful meeting.

After the flag ceremony, awards and songs (led by me), the boys were divided into two teams. Each team had to come up with a team name and make a flag. R's team was the "Multitaskers" and T's team was the "Porcipines." Here is T's team making their flag. Evidently T couldn't see, so he jumped on the table.

After the flags were designed and constructed, the teams were off to four different posts in this park. Two of the posts were over half a mile away, so they had to follow a map. (I only have pictures of the nearby tasks, I didn't hike two miles that day chasing after the kids.)

One of the posts had the tasks of finding big puzzle pieces and putting the puzzle together. As you can see, it has the boy scout motto on it, "Do your best."


Another task that they had to do was tie themselves into a "human knot" and then get out of it, all holding hands facing each other. The teams had a hard time with this and get frustrated. When this happened, M would get all of the adults there to get into a knot and lead us out of the knot. That was enough for the boys to get a second wind and figure it out.
When each task was complete, the team could get a bandana and put it on their flag. It was quite a badge of pride to see those different colored bandanas flying high. R is admiring the bandanas that represent his hard work while he takes a water break.

It was a great meeting and M got compliments from all the parents, even the been-there-done-that parent that is never happy!

This is my artsy-fartsy picture of the snack for the day, Boy Scout Trail Mix.

King Tut and Ben Kanobi

We have survived another Halloween and the kids had a great time. T was King Tut and R was Ben Kanobi(the young Obi Wan Kanobi from Star Wars). M and I made their costumes last weekend and they turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself. M found a patter for R's costume online, but it was for an adult. M figured that R was about two-thirds the size of an adult, so he cut all of the measurements by one-third and used a T-square to draw it out on the brown fleece that we bought. It wasn't so hard to sew, but was just a bit tricky to gather the fleece in the back of the hood. (R doesn't have the hood up in the pictures.) I designed T's costume using a glue gun and sewing a bit for the head dress. M and I tag-teamed on T's staff. M cut down a piece of pvc pipe he had. T and I spray painted it gold; M screwed in the ornament on top; and I wrapped and glued the ribbon around it. I had fun with T as he helped with all of the decorations of his costume -- lots of gold and jewels :>

I was able to scoot out of work early to help out in T's classroom for his Halloween party. Here he is sitting with his buddy, Black Spiderman

Here is R as Ben Kanobi in his school parade. Can you tell that he feels pretty good about his costume?
For the third in a row (I'd call it a tradition) we had our friends, the H's, over for dinner and trick or treating. As you remember, they live in the country on 40 acres and don't have a neighborhood to trick or treat in. Their son dressed up as a knight. Notice the very solomn poses all the boys took in this picture. I tried to get them to smile, but they were in character, so to speak.

And here are the boys checking out R's loot at the end of a profitable trick or treating night.

Autumn has Arrived

I do love the changing of the seasons. It's a nice way to mark time. We didn't really have that in southern California, where I grew up. The fall colors are beginning to show and it's just gorgeous. Here are the colors that I see every evening when I drive home on my street:

It was cool last weekend, so we had a lovely fire in the fireplace. M read to R and T (and Mackinaw) by the fire -- what a nice, warm sight to see:

My sistah gave me a nice birthday present, full of Fall baking supplies (apple cookie cutter, tiny pie cut outs of an acorn, leaf, and apple; and a leaf and apple pancake forms. This morning we tried out the pancake forms. We finally got the hang of it after a couple of tries. R was the official pancake maker. He was very serious about his job!

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What Would You Do?

While I was at that business meeting two weeks ago, I ran into a sticky situation -- one in which I had to think fast. Here it goes:

I was in the bathroom, getting up from the toilet and the toilet was about to flush (it's one of those automatic flushing ones.) I looked down in the toilet for some reason (I don't know why; I don't usually check out my pee!) and what did I see in the toilet? A pair of glasses! They were beginning to swirl around and around as the toilet was flushing.

What would you do?
.
.
.
In a split second I had these thoughts: "Are those my glasses?" "Somebody's going to miss those glasses." "Those are going to clog the toilet." "It's only pee." I also remembered that girl on the Oprah show who compared the germs in toilets to the germs in ice machines and learned that public toilets are much cleaner and safer than ice machines.

So, you guessed it.... I reached in and grabbed them. I pulled them up, dripping with water and soggy toilet paper. I took them to the sink and washed my arm up really good -- hot, hot water and lots of soap. After my arm and hand were cleaned up, I proceeded to rinse off the glasses as best I could. I decided to leave them on the counter in case the owner came in, remembering that she was in the bathroom when she lost them.

As I was doing this, some women came in the bathroom. I asked them if they recognized the glasses and nobody did. So I went back to my meeting. As I entered the room, I saw one of my colleagues (who had glasses on earlier that day) and asked her if she knew where her glasses were.

"I know right where they are," she said, "they're in the toilet in the bathroom."
I smiled and said "I'm your hero!"
She said, "Oh, I'm never wearing those again. I won't touch them. I'm a huge germophobe. I called the janitor and he's coming to fish them out."

Can you believe it? She didn't go get them. Instead, she went blind for two days, flew home and ordered another pair. I still can't believe it -- it was just pee!

Fall Harvest

We just harvested the last of our vegetable garden. T took this picture for my blog:

Catchin' Up and Regatta Remembering

Lots of things goin' on around here. The biggest thing is that M was in charge of a huge regatta at our club. He was the Race Director, which meant that he was in charge of all five races for four different fleets, with over forty boats. He did a great job! He was a bit nervous that he'd mess things up or something, but there was only one start that wasn't quite right and he did a general recall and everything was fine again. He was in charge of keeping score and awarding the prizes on the last day. I sat on the shore, talking to folks, playing with the kids, and reading a book. It was beautiful weather, making for a glorious day. Here are some pictures:

Some of the boats getting ready to leave the dock:

Some boats flying their "kites" -- what a beautiful site!


Uncle D and Cousin A drove over to race our boat. They have raced lots of boats in their lives, but never a Rebel, which is what our boat is. They didn't win or anything, but were smiling the whole time. The had a great time and want to come back next year.



Here are some other things to catch you up:

* I had a business trip to San Diego last week and I was lucky enough that my sis drove down 3 hours to see me! We went shopping, went out to dinner, and talked and talked until the wee hours of the night. I had such a great time -- I love her so much!

* R has started his fourth season of hockey and is on a new team and loves it. He has practices and/or games on Saturdays and Sundays -- nothing on weekdays, which is nice!

* T's sport is gymnastics and he loves it. After his first lesson (in a class with 9 other boys his age) he said, "I bet R is going to be jealous that he didn't pick this sport!" He works hard and has a grin from ear to ear after his hour long class is over.

Eye Spy 2

I saw a grey hair in my eyebrow this morning. That's just not right!

Marshmallows Coming Your Way

M is the Den Master for our Cub Scout pack and we had our first meeting last week. The big activity for the meeting (besides me leading a song for thirty boys and thier parents!) was to make marshmallow shooters. Never heard of them? Well, take a look at these nifty little things. M cut the pvc pipes and together we sorted them and put them into kits for each boy.

Here is T testing out is shooter at the work-table before we headed outside.

Here is R shooting the other team outside.

The boys that were left in the end decided to all attack M (in the middle) :>

That's What I like To Read

I opened my email this morning to see this wonderful note from R's teacher:

Mr. & Mrs. Smith,

I just wanted to send you a quick email before I head out the door about R. He is SUCH a wonderful listener. Whenever I have asked the students something from the previous day(s) he knows the "exact"
words that I have used. He is by far one of the best listeners/rule followers in the classroom. Also, he is a very hard worker!

It has been a great two weeks in class. I am very glad that R is in this classroom.

Sincerely,
Miss S

Ya gotta love that, right! What a nice teacher, to send a little note like that! (It's nice to see that his wonderful photographic memory is alive and well in the classroom too!)

School Days, School Days

Two boys all ready for the first day of school... T is in first grade and going to all-day school for the first time (taking a lunch and everything.) R is in third grade and in "upper hall" for the first time. I took the morning off to take them to school on the first day. R said, "See ya later mom, I can do this on my own" and took off towards upper hall. My heart broke a tiny bit knowing that he's so big and doesn't need me as much as he used to. I asked T if he wanted me to walk him to his class room or did he want to go by himself. "You can take me there and hold my hand too, it's crowded in here." My heart soared --- yay, I still have one that needs his mommy! I have a feeling that next year, both boys will proudly and bravely walk to their classrooms without me. I guess it's just another step towards their independence, of which there will be many in their lives.

Shady Shores 2007

Remember two years ago when we had a great time on Labor Day weekend at our friend's cottage at Shady Shores?(see link below:)http://keepingupwiththesmiths.blogspot.com/2005/09/cottage-life.html
Well, we got to do it again and it was great! My friend who used to work for me at my old job was there (his cousin owns the eight adorable little cottages all in a row) and we got to see his sister and cousins and their kids, just like we did last time. Here's our cute little cottage. It's about 400 square feet, with two small bedrooms, bathroom, tiny kitchen and sitting area. Isn't is so cute?

We all had a great time -- kayaking, swimming, sand castle building, and boogie boarding (M and the boys did this one, not me). Oh, we also collected Petosky stones -- a cool stone native to the area.

Below is a picture of T catching a wave with the kayak. The waves were about 2-3 feet and the boys were thrilled. When there were no waves, T would paddle way out far (it was pretty shallow) saying that he was going to go all the way to Canada!

All of the boys had fun body surfing or boogie boarding. I love M's face in this picture and I love how R is looking at M with a big smile on his face too.

Cowabunga, Dude!

All of the kids at Shady Shores (there were six kids) helped make the breakfast and deliver it to each of the cabins. They used the tips that they got to buy ice cream on Sunday afternoon. R was very proud that he flipped the pancakes all by himself and said that he'll make pancakes any time I need them at home! (Thanks to KS for the photo below, which he emailed to me at the office today.)

T was one of the official dish washers. I hear that he only broke one glass in the process of washing dishes for 25 people over two days.

At night we would watch the moon-rise and then have a bonfire. In the mornings, M and R watched the sunrises. The weather was perfect -- sunny and 80 degrees the whole time. We always had the entire beach to ourselves. It was such a wonderful, beautiful, relaxing vacation for all of us!

Life With Boys

T was standing right in front of me, gave me a goodnight kiss, then walked away.

Me: T, did you just toot in my face?
T: (giggling) Yeah, was it stinky?
Me: Yeah it was!
R: (from upstairs) Dude! That was awesome! Give me five!

Harvest Mania

Can you believe this harvest? This picture is from yesterday and doesn't even count the 5 ripe big and 23 cherry tomatoes that we got today. (Yes, that's Mackinaw sniffing at the harvest in the bottom right of the picture.) Now I need to make some more zucchini bread to go in the freezer for winter. Also, what can you do with more cucumbers than you can handle? I know, I should pickle them, but they're huge. What else can you do with them?

It's just me and the boys this weekend 'cause M is sailing in a three-day race. We went and saw the movie, Underdog, yesterday. It was cute. T and R laughed their patooties off during most of the movie. Today we went to the farmer's market. I had read in the paper that there was going to be an arts and crafts show and a car show at the farmer's market. T was soo excited about those extras. Alas, I read the date wrong and it's over Labor Day weekend. But, he handled the disappointment well. After they played in the park, we went grocery shopping. Then out for the most delicious garlic cheesy bread ever for lunch. Then we drove a half an hour to the next town to go paint pottery (which I have been promising T that we'd do all summer long.) I checked the times online last night and knew that they would be open from 1--5. We got there at 2:00 and the place was closed with a sign saying they were on vacation for four days. Poor T! A second disappointment (he says that it's a third disappointment because the arts and craft show was number one, the car show number two, and the pottery place number three.

We went home and I asked him if he wanted to do a craft with me, so he looked in my "ten minute craft book" (yeah, it's a cool book) and chose to do the paper-mache-on-a-paper-plate craft. We did the paper mache part today and will paint it tomorrow. By the way, I had a big brush to paint the paste mixture on and he asked if he could do it the way he learned how to do it -- which was to drag the paper through the paste and then push the excess off with his fingers. He had such a smile on his face as his hands got all messy! What a cutie.

Then, we made our own pizzas for dinner. We included bell peppers, tomatoes, and basil all from our garden. The boys had a little of the aforementioned veggies, but mainly put on cheese and little pieces of sliced ham (we forgot pepperoni when we were at the store.)

I let them stay up late to watch the National Women's Gymnastic competition ("Holy Cow! Look what she just did! R said over and over) and now they're tucked in bed and I'm headed for a nice long bath.

Birthday Weekend Number Two

Well, I didn't realilze that this picture was so dark when I took it, but you get the idea. It's M and his folks. We were so lucky that they came to visit for his birthday weekend last weekend. Here's what we did...

Friday

They arrived just in time for a great dinner of grilled tri-tip (the meat was part of my father's day present to M), grilled asparagus, a great salad with feta dressing, corn on the cob (picked that day), and blue berry cobbler (my contribution to the dinner.) After cobbler, M opened his presents and we played Pegs and Jokers.

Saturday

M made a tasty crustless quiche that was really tasty. After breakfast we took off for the club. M's folks took the kids in their car and I'm sure had an earful on the one hour drive. Speaking of the drive, about twenty minutes into it, M asked me if I turned off the coffee maker. Nope. We called his folks in their car to see if they turned it off. Nope. M and I turned around and made the trip home to turn off the very-hot-coffee-maker-that-would-have-burned-down-the-house while the kids and grandparents hung out at one of those really big truck stops and had a nice time waiting for us.

At the club, we had a really wonderful time - swimming, sailing, sunning, and catching frogs. We had a picnic lunch of sandwiches, watermelon, cherries, and carrots at around 2 pm. At about 6pm we left the club and checked into this awesome two bedroom condo that we had rented for the night. It had a spectacular lake view from every room. (This condo is just minutes from our Club.) We went out to dinner and headed back to the condo just in time to see the sun set. Nice.

Sunday

Brunch was at 10:00 at the club and it was great. Made to order omelets and breakfast sweet breads. Everybody was in heaven. M and his dad headed out to race the first race. Something went wrong on a jibe and they ended up capsizing, took on too much water, and had to be towed in! I was standing on the beach, when I heard some friends yell, "Hey S, isn't that M being towed in. What a bummer!" Then I looked and saw the poor sailboat with its stern completely underwater and M's dad half in the water and half out, trying to put weight on the stern so the bow wouldn't go under too. M and his dad bailed and bailed in time to get out there for the second race. The boys, gramma and I swam and played all day. We went out to dinner at the little place on the lake and then went our separate ways. It was a nice weekend.

For those of you who were curious about the frog on T's head...this is the day that he caught that particular frog and decided to carry it around on his head for awhile. "He likes it there, Mom. It's kinda cozy for him." is what I was told when I suggested he put it back in the creek.

I Spy With My Little Eye