The backlog.

I'm starting to realize that I'm not being very consistent with this blogging thing. I've been moderately busy lately and scoping out the real world, you know? Shoot, I haven't even posted the Christmas pictures yet, which is kind of a problem. Someday. Anyway, here's a bunch of images that Juston sent me a little over a week ago, so you can stay up-to-date on our lives. Lucky you.

Every Thursday afternoon, we go to Kid's Gym at the College Park Recreation Center. I would highly recommend it - it's basically freeplay gymnastics, and the kids love it. It's also very affordable. If you live on the south side and you're looking for a fun activity, this might be it! Anyway, Juston took a personal day on a Thursday a few weeks ago so he could edit a friend's short film and came on a field trip with us.

The water fountain - always a highlight.


Sliding around on some plushy gym playthings.


Prepping for some big air onto the trampoline.


Snowmen - one of Frankie's obsessions. Juston made this play-doh version on demand.


Frankie likes to chase Bridget around and try to clasp her legs in the grip of his plastic pliers. And no, he's not wearing any pants. Whenever we're at home for an extended period of time, he goes nekkid from the waist down to encourage using the potty. It does work - he's never had an accident and when he goes he comes and gets me so I can look at his 'work' - but he can't really be half naked all the time, can he?


From our family visit to the dentist a couple of weeks ago. I was in the hygienist's chair and Juston was Frankie-tending in the waiting room.


About three weeks ago, we went out to dinner for our friend Dan's birthday at a pizza place up in Vinings. Little did we know that on Saturday nights, they had live music! Frankie and I decided to dance, and the nice musician pointed us towards his maracas. Frankie was having so much fun that he had to make his excited face.



Lastly, all bundled up for a President's Day family bike ride.

Othoscope Fun!

Juston, being the ear infection king of the family, inherited his childhood othoscope from his mom. Sometimes we pull it out for fun and look at each others's eardrums, and tonight while I was at the gym (running 5 miles - looking forward to that 10k in a few weeks), the boys had a rockin' good time.

Checking out daddy's earwax. (Note that Juston looks a little nervous, having just given a two-year-old a pointed object to poke in his ear.)


Lookin' at the shoes, magnified 10x! (or something like that.)


Next, gotta check out the digger.


Maybe he'll be a doctor instead of a financial analyst (we have high hopes, right?) Or he'll just learn to fry bugs on the sidewalk with a magnifying glass.

Happy Valentine's Day

Earlier this week, Frankie made Valentines goody bags for all of his teachers/my co-workers at drop-in. He personally selected the Yo Gabba Gabba! box of Valentines, despite the fact that he's never seen the show. Now he talks about it all the time; I think the robot on the package sealed the deal.


Juston and I always take it easy for V-day since it's kind of a silly holiday. This year, I thought I was being all generous and thoughtful because Frankie and I made him a batch of chocolate-covered strawberries. He schooled me and bought me a new bike. Yep, a bike! I've been eying bicycles for awhile now, and have put it off for various reasons. I've only ridden it up and down the street, but I love it and I'm really excited to hook up the trailer and cruise around town with the Frankster. It looks like this:



Pictures coming soon! Until then, we love you all.

New Kicks

Our tiny kid is finally getting close to outgrowing his size 5 shoes. That's right, he's still in the size that most kids a year younger wear these days. I decided that, given the state of his old shoes, which were falling apart, it was time to hit the internet and buy some new ones.


Mini skate shoes; Juston was really pulling for these toddler DCs. Frankie usually only has one or two pairs of shoes, so we try to find durable ones. He'll wear these everywhere, including church. We don't discriminate :)

All work...some play

The other day when I went to clean, Frankie decided that he was the only one capable of vacuuming. Luckily he relented shortly thereafter and allowed me to finish up.


Hangin' out, not much to do but climb onto, and then jump off of, the furniture.


It's been unseasonably warm for the past week or so, and trust me, I'm not complaining. Last Saturday, Frankie and Juston spent most of the day in the yard while I hit the streets to canvass for our charter school. I'm our neighborhood education committee chair, and they keep me plenty busy. Back to Frankie - he loves to go outside and push his trucks around the backyard. Fortunately for him, we haven't raked up our fall leaves, so there are plenty to put in the back of the dump truck.




Every time I pull out the camera, Frankie takes it from me and fills my memory card with images of the ceiling, Bridget's tail, close-ups of my gut, etc., etc., etc. Is it too early to teach him about the concept of 'head room'?

Old Skool

I've been scanning in some old photos, and since nothing is going on, I thought I'd share a couple for those who care, which is mostly my relatives.

It's true - I dye my hair red now, but the base is red and always has been red.


Laura and I in matching dresses. We're 'Irish Twins', only ten months apart. Any guesses as to our age?


If my memory serves me (which it probably doesn't), this was part of some costume contest at a local public pool. I won something like $1 for my Annie costume, but I think Becky's Princess Leia hair was the real winner that day.



P.S. Frankie got into our first choice preschool, so now I can put all of that nonsense behind me and focus on coming up with the tuition! Hooray! (It did involve getting up at 5 AM to 'take a number,' but if I never have to do this again, it was totally worth it.)

My heart just melted.

January means redecorating because there sure isn't much else to do!

I've already lamented about January. The weather here can't decide between warm and frigid, wet and dry. The outdoors are far too volatile, so we spend most of our time inside. Frankie spends about three-quarters of his days at home riding around on his truck:


We're also mostly ignoring the outdoors for the inside of our house. Since Christmas just passed, we had a bit of cash, and boy, did we ever spend it! Behold our new couch:


The fireplace visible below still screams desperately, "refinish me!" But alas, it is not high on the list. We've also got to put some sort of leather guard on that couch or Bridget is going to rip it all up with her little puggy claws. She's not allowed on it right now, and she might never get those permissions.


Our 'retro metro' backsplash is finished! It looks fantastic with our cabinets and countertops (Silestone Stellar Snow, for those who wonder.) Now to put on the cabinet hardware and finish the trim (ahem, Juston.) :)


The guest bath still isn't complete, but we did buy a deeply-discounted wine cabinet that doubles as towel storage, pictured to the right of the tub.


My Christmas present, the one and only change to the outside of the house:



January's been gray, but certainly not dull. I've completed two freelance jobs and my classes are already a bit overwhelming - I have some very smart students that are going to put me through the ringer if I'm not careful! (This is probably a good thing.) We've closed on our house, been to the zoo a few times, played with Abe & Jay, and I've started working out with one of my neighbors and she's going to whip me into shape! Oh, and preschool registration is this Saturday at 9 AM. I'll be in line starting at 5 AM, and I'm sure I won't be alone. We're going with the hippies-in-training program at The Children's Garden, that is, if we can get him in. It's first come, first served. Keep your fingers crossed!

Save your $10.

For all of the haters out there, here's a little video about the complete lack of originality in this year's snooze-fest, failed epic The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

The Curious Case of Forrest Gump - watch more funny videos

Thirteen Oscar nominations? Seriously?

Underwear and Outerwear

Today while I was getting ready to go to the gym, Frankie slipped out of my room (he usually likes to hang out within close visual range of myself.) When I left the room and went to find him, I was greeted by this:

Yes. He had stolen my bra and placed it on the dog. I don't normally post pictures of my underwear on the internet, but he was just so darn pleased with himself (and it's pretty standard underwear, anyway.) I even made myself late for my aerobics class because I had to snap some pictures.



And Grandma Chrys, we're finally getting good use out of your knitted hats because brrrrr it's cold outside!

Hardcore Excitement!

This is all about a whole bunch of nothing.
Frankie loves cooking. He constantly asks to bake things. Here we are, in action, making the most delectable of all food delicacies....pigs in a blanket.


Bridget in foreground, child in background playing with the Play-doh.

House Before & After

I created a photo album on Facebook of the house from before, during, and after the renovations. It's not complete, but if you're curious, you can head over and check out the way things are shaping up around here.

Atlanta preschools - let the madness begin.

Have any of you navigated the wild, wild world of preschools in intown Atlanta? Wow. I've done two tours and I'm scheduled for two more. Most people start their children in preschool at the age of one in order to guarantee them a spot when they get older. I've found two with openings, but one of them wants $600 up front to enroll Frankie, along with tuition. Oh, and it's a co-op, so it requires parent work days. Um, I get paid to do that now. I'm not against parental involvement in the schools, but for that price, you can hire a classroom assistant and I can go work at home on my other job. (Plus I only want him in school three half-days a week, so it's not like I won't be spending time with him anymore.) But if I don't enroll him now, I run the risk of not getting him in anywhere for the fall. One other preschool (with no openings right now, but probably about five new spaces in the fall for the three-year-old class) usually has a long line on registration morning and is first-come, first served. I only know people that have been wait listed there, but most of them also get their kids into the school after waiting awhile. Oh, and you register in January - nine months in advance. Does anyone else think all of this is a bit crazy? Has anyone else successfully registered their kid in an affordable, in-town preschool that isn't five days a week and pretentious as hell? And been happy with the result?

Big Time Splurge!

I bought one of these today. :) Am I officially an adult now?


P.S. I'm sure we'll update you when it arrives, in approximately two to three weeks.

Excited Face

This is self-explanatory. You had to be there.

Fri + Sat

For the sake of blogging, I'm going to narrow the weekend down to Friday starting at noon and ending Saturday evening. This weekend, we became homeowners twice over as we *finally* closed on our loan for the West End house! Thanks, Ken, for all of your help up to this point. And a note to anyone who wants to get a loan out there - make sure you have at least 20% down or no one will give you the time of day. It's a sad market reality and it took us awhile to finally accept that we'd have to part with almost two times the cash we initially wanted to put down. Now we're broke and it's time to start building up the savings, once again, so we can go out in a few years and get another house to renovate, or in Juston's mind, an industrial building to convert into a loft.

This week, I looked at my house and decided I was ready to be an adult and actually have some furniture in my living room. Thanks to some Christmas disbursements, we're in the market for a couch. I've had no luck with Craigslist thus far, but I did find a great pair of vintage chairs that I bought on Friday.


After the chair buying frenzy, we went to the zoo and met up with our friends for some animal gazin'. Frankie absolutely *loves* going to the zoo and asks me several times a day to go and see the animals. (On a sidenote, if we're related to you, he might call you up sometime to talk about the animals. And if you live here and want to go to the zoo, we have a pass so give me a call!) No trip to the zoo is complete without a ride on the train and carousel (which means we make many incomplete trips to the zoo.) This time, I splurged.


William, Anna, and Frankie.


Frankie picked out the peacock.


Since I haven't found any used couches that are both cheap and attractive, we're probably going to splurge on a new one. It will be a first for both of us and be yet one more piece of furniture tying us down. We went to Ikea to check out their options on Friday night, but Frankie was so done. We ended up testing out the beds, since our plan is to get Frankie a low-to-the-ground double bed this year so that we can kick him out of his room and give his bed to visitors (initially we wanted a sofa bed, but we think this is a more practical option.) He was ready to nap on the spot.


I think he's ready for the big boy bed - we haven't been very quick to get him out of his crib.


On Saturday, Juston went all "Weekend Warrior" and put up our tile backsplash. We got this fantastic glass tile from Susan Jablon Mosaics and once it's done, it's going to make the kitchen really classy. It's definitely a 'mod' look and I love it. Go, Juston, go!


We'll have more photos after grouting and sealing later this week. It was a busy weekend and we even passed up the chance to go to a movie last night because we were exhausted. On to more work during the week!

The Speedway

This is a video of Juston and Frankie cruising through the house and it probably lacks appeal for those not directly related to us. Chrys, Juston says to make sure that Ken sees it because he's supposed to shake his head in disdain at his grown son's behavior.

On a more positive note...

Yes! The pedestals are finally out of my living room and into my laundry room! And as an added bonus, the pedestals make the washer and dryer tall enough so that Frankie can't randomly push buttons and dry my clothes four times in a row.

How do you deal?

The past few days I've been struggling with what I call the 'January slump.' Christmas is over, there's no vacation in sight, it's all back to business and work, and the weather is gross, at least in Atlanta where it's been in the 60s and constantly rainy for several days. What do you do to get through this time of year? Last year it wasn't as much of an issue because we went to Hawaii in January, but this year? Bleccchhh. I'm trying to keep my eyes on the prize: a couple of good movies are coming out soon, the Monster Truck Jam is this weekend (yep, I said that), but I'm struggling. I need some motivation; I'm pretty sure I can't just wallow in Super Mario Galaxy and ignore the real world much longer. How do you deal?

P.S. The rest of the pictures are coming up soon. When I get to it.
P.S.S I'm not complaining about the warm weather (you snowed in people, you) - it's more like a warm, yucky, humid and foggy soup here, which is just kinda gross in general. If it's going to be unseasonably warm, at least we should be able to go out and play!

Juston in Happy Land

Juston's favorite place in the whole world - Hot Dog on a Stick. Yeah. I don't get the fascination either. He went there three times while we were in Utah.


And for fun, nice snowsuit!

Cute Toddlers + Heavy Machinery = Bliss

I know I'm doing the holidays all out of order and that I haven't even done Christmas day yet, but that's just the way things are this year. I've gotten way too spoiled not working or doing anything all that productive since getting home and I've spent too much time playing Super Mario Galaxy. I also apologize to those of you who've seen these photos on Facebook - Juston's ahead of me on uploading things to the internet.

Frankie absolutely loved Grandpa's heavy machinery. Ken owns a construction business and keeps all of his diggers and plows at the farm, so there were lots of things to attract Frankie's attention. Every morning he would wake up and first thing he would say, "I wanna ride the digger now, please!" Luckily it snowed every day, so there was plenty to plow and many opportunities to ride machines. Frankie still asks for diggers now that we're back in Atlanta - he sure misses Grandma and Grandpa's farm!
Getting ready to go outside...



Waiting impatiently...


Let the fun begin!