Sunday night roller derby!

This is why I love having 2k square feet of hardwood floors....





Harper cried every time I took her off of that danged zebra. Even though she can't propel herself forward yet, she still has this overwhelming desire to keep up with Frankie. Soon, child.

Struttin'

This week at Frankie's preschool, they had a costume strut. Not sure why they didn't wait until next week, but whatever, it was fun. I volunteered to help set the place up, so I arrived about an hour before it started and helped one of the other moms decorate a room in the school's basement. We had a lovely selection of Dollar Tree niceties, and we actually did a pretty good job with our limited resources (when relying on donations, you can never really expect much!) The kids didn't care and had an awesome time. Frankie came up to me and said, "Mom this is so cool!" and he ran around and danced and danced to my carefully selected playlist of Halloween music (apparently I'm the only person I know that has a Halloween playlist - figures, right?)

Harper got to come along and help decorate. Thanks to Aunt Laura for sharing the 'dem bones' pajamas, which double-up as a costume for events like this. Don't worry, this isn't her *actual* Halloween costume - it's not ready yet.

Frankie as....Superman! Go figure that one of the smallest four-year-olds you'll ever meet would want to be the 'man of steel' for Halloween.

Zero points for originality, but ten points for cuteness! (He's flexing here, if you can't tell.) Check out his washboard abs.

The Pre-K class getting ready to march. The little girl in the mermaid costume (next to the pirate next to Frankie) has a mad crush on Frankie; it's hilarious.

So strong!

Just for fun, right?

I was tagged by Sun recently, and since I feel like ignoring my kids right now, I'm going to blog just for fun. The rules are to answer 8 questions, pick 8 friends, and ask them 8 new questions. I'll start with part 1 and see how much time I have left!

So here are your questions ladies.
1. What is your favorite day of the week and why?
2. Who is your guilty pleasure musician?
3. What is your favorite thing to cook? (I need ideas!)
4. What do you tell people your favorite movie is? And what is your actual favorite movie?
5. What made today great?
6. Would you, under any circumstance, eat another person? (Go with it. It's Halloween time.)
7. What is your favorite outdoors activity?
8. What is your favorite fairy tale?

***time passes***

So I ended up having to leave right after I posted the questions. It's now 11:08 PM and I need to get to bed since I'm subbing at Frankie's preschool tomorrow and I need to be somewhat functional so that I don't unintentionally miseducate any toddlers. But here's a stab at some answers:

1. I like Mondays because they are pretty much the only day of the week that I don't have any set plans. Plus with the way my job is set up, I work my tail off on Sunday night, so I usually unwind a bit on Monday.

2. Guilty pleasure musician? Depends on who you ask...all of them? I do totally dig Peter, Paul, and Mary, but that's laced with nostalgia for family road trips as a child.

3. My favorite thing to cook is probably mashed potatoes because I *love* mashed potatoes. Boring, yes. Delicious, most definitely. :) Just make sure that you make them with cream cheese...drooling begins.... I also enjoy cooking stuff in my slow cooker - made some excellent vegetarian chili tonight. Now if you are asking what is the most *fun* to cook, you'll have to move from cooking to baking because sampling along the way is so much better when baking.

4. I tell people my favorite movie is "The Night of the Hunter", and it actually is my favorite movie. It blows me away every time. My favorite 'guilty pleasure' movie is "Josie and the Pussycats."

5. Today was great because....drumroll...someone FINALLY signed a lease for our rental house! Wahoo! Next month won't be so economically tight, thank goodness.

6. If I were in the movie "Soylent Green" and it was without my knowledge, I probably would.

7. Um, define 'outdoors' - I'm going to stretch it here and say that I most enjoy lounging on the beach with a book. That happens outdoors, right? I do enjoy taking my kids on walks with the wagon, but that's not very 'aggressive outdoors' either!

8. I don't know as that I have a favorite fairy tale anymore, so I'm going to give my favorite childhood fantasy indulgence a go here and let the world know that I was a rabid reader of L. Frank Baum's "The Wizard of Oz" books as a kid. Read all of 'em at least 3 or 4 times.

Big girl, you are beautiful.

This almost makes me tear up. Bye bye baby, hello toddler.



She got the hang of it really fast; this is one of the earlier videos I have, but the others are much longer and contain superfluous information, like me singing something that sounds like 'The Ride of the Valkyries.' Thanks to 'swimming pool Grandma' for the little shopping cart for Miss Baby's birthday. And I can't call her that anymore - she doesn't look like a baby at all. It makes me sad, knowing that I won't have a baby in my house anymore (or ever again), but I am excited to see who she's going to become. It's really bittersweet. Her upcoming birthday = big, sobbing, watching baby smash a cake, nostalgic mommy mess.

Farm!

We went to a farm. Although, I'm not really sure you can call them 'farms' these days - they are more like tourist traps with a couple of patches of vegetables growing here and there to make it feel authentic, plus the fact that you have to drive to the middle of nowhere to get to one of them. Anyway, we went to a 'farm' yesterday to visit the 'pumpkin patch.' The pumpkin patch was basically an area of pumpkin plants with pumpkins (probably bought in bulk at the farmer's market up the freeway) placed throughout it; I didn't see one on the vine. I figured I'll just pick one up at Kroger. But Frankie did have an excellent time, which generally makes such excursions worthwhile.

Harper on a mini tractor!

Frankie on the cow train!

Harper meets chooks!

Harper meets goats!

Frankie goes down the giant slide! Over and over for at least 20 minutes!

Harper and I took a hayride!

Great Pumpkin!

Pig Races! (This photo doesn't show how much Frankie got into this activity. Gotta love using future bacon as sporting equipment for children's entertainment!)

Ignore last week's optimism. The cynic is IN!

No apparent theme for this post - just rambling and a bunch of pictures, once again, of the kidlets. And let me tell you, this house thing keeps getting more and more frustrating; now we're having to replace a part of the roof because the buyer isn't happy with the patch where the tree hit shingles. Closing is pushed back to October 22nd. Let's pray that everything falls into place! This has been quite the test of my patience and ability to deal with high levels of stress when it involves a lot of money. We still don't have any tenants in the rental, either, but that should change this week. I've got another woman who wants to rent the house, and if she doesn't sign a lease this week, the other family still wants it. Whoever gets me the money first, right? I'm also having serious doubts about this running thing. I'm not running outside because it's dark in the mornings and dark in the evenings and the gym has babysitting, so I'm logging 99% of my miles on a treadmill (to be fair, I do set inclines and do speed drills.) I really hope that I can get in a few long runs outside, but I'm nervous that this is really going to bite me in the butt when it comes time to do the race in six weeks. I still haven't signed up yet, so there's always time to back out. :) Then again, I bought some skinny jeans yesterday (yes, I know - fat girl in skinny pants!) and the ladies working in the store convinced me that I needed to go *down* a size, so maybe there are other benefits to all of this running. I swore I would never wear skinny jeans; I guess that change can and does happen sometimes. Please don't make fun of me if you see me wearing them in public.

And....on to the pictures!

One stinkin' cute kiddo, if I do say so myself. His personality is far bigger than he is.


Yes, this is an attractive photo of me on my 31st birthday. I opened my present first thing in the AM, and Juston got me what I asked for via e-mail. Good job, Juston! It's a Brooklyn Industries bag - they are my favorite bags, and this one is essentially a 'way more awesome than a diaper bag' diaper bag, without actually being a diaper bag. And check that bulging calf muscle *snigger.*


Crazy boy.


I was trying to get Harper to model this sweater so I could list it on ebay. She wasn't very happy about it, and since it fit her so well, we're probably going to keep it anyway. Next time I have her model for ebay, I'll remember to put pants on her as well.


Rindlesbach girls - we like to eat!

Mercier Orchards

Last weekend we went with our friends Dan and Annie to an apple orchard in north Georgia. It was a gorgeous day and we all had an excellent time, although I was feeling that barbecue that we had in Ellijay for a couple of days afterwards.

Frankie on a tractor! I swear he sat on it for at least fifteen minutes and was a tractor hog.


And again, another self-portrait with the beast.


On the tractor ride around the orchard. We didn't actually pick any apples, but we did want to go and have a look at the schmucks who paid extra to pick their own apples. We bought the pre-picked apples, they were cheaper! (I'm just being obnoxious. It would've been fun to pick our own apples. Maybe next year.)


Frankie in front of an orchard. He was in another 'I don't want my picture taken, woman!' mood that day.)



My apple pie turned out pretty good, even if it didn't win any points for aesthetic appeal. It was my first pie with a lattice crust and let me tell you, don't think I'll be doing that again any time soon!

Yay!

Here's the press release for the big project I've been working on for the past couple of months. I did some of the research and wrote 99% of the copy for the exhibit. I'm pretty excited!

Also, I'm very intrigued by Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir. Has anyone who reads this (and I only have one or two people in mind that might be able to answer) participated in it? http://www.youtube.com/user/EricWhitacresVrtlChr

Uncanny.

Her hair did that of its own accord; I only wish she would've cooperated better so that you could see both sides of her head and how well it perfectly mirrors Mr. Kewpie's hair.

Back on track!

Life is back on, folks! The big job is done and the invoice submitted (hooray! cue cheering!) This means that soon I'll be able to replace my laptop, which has been broken for several months. (Anyone need a 2008 macbook for parts?) Repair begins tomorrow on the Willard house, with a new closing date of October 15th. (more cheering!) We are meeting our future tenants on Thursday to get a deposit and sign a lease (cheering commences Thursday!) And...it's FALL. Today we all wore sweaters when we left the house this morning, and it didn't even break 70 degrees. Oh boy, life is so good right now. I may not feel the same way tomorrow, but we genuinely had a good day today, with Harper managing to take a nap (she's been on a nap strike for a week) and Frankie's whining was to a minimum. I also went splurge-y and got some new running shoes, but I think I'm gonna take them back and replace them with another pair of my beloved Brooks Adreneline GTS shoes (extra wide for square feet!) Tried and true, right? And you care because....I dunno, I'm just in a good mood tonight, so I'm rambling. On to pictures!

Nice weather = obligatory trip to do some sort of outdoor activity. Today, it was the park. When we first got to the park, there were no kids there. When we left an hour later, it was a toddler and preschooler wonderland. I don't think that these pictures really need much explanation; I'm just glad that I happened to have my camera in my bag when I thought I'd forgotten it. Kismet.











(P.S. Frankie picked out his own shirt. It's like seven sizes too big, but that kid is borderline obsessed with Superman, to the point that he told his preschool teachers that he wants to be Superman when he grows up. I hope that this doesn't set him up for a lifetime full of unmet expectations that can only be undone by years of intensive therapy.)

And I forgot one more reason that life is only getting better....I can eat them this year! TAKE THAT, gestational diabetes! <3

Nature. Hates Us.

So we were all set to close on the house on Thursday. Buyer under contract, buyer happy, good inspection, good appraisal, house about to be in the past. And then - BAM - a tree falls on the house. Luckily it wasn't as bad as it could've been - when we first found out, Juston and I had visions of giant holes in the roof and rainwater pouring in and ruining everything. There was no interior damage, thank goodness. And the buyers are still on board, pending repairs. Now we just have to light a fire under the collective butts of everyone at the insurance company so we can get things moving and finally get this whole process behind us. I'm ready to have an uneventful fall!

I'll try to get over there today and take a few pictures of it. Tree on house. Awesome, right?

Bacon

I must admit, every time I make bacon (which is like once every 2-3 months), I post about it on Facebook. Why? Because bacon is amazing. And because people seem to be very passionate about bacon. I get more comments and validations when I mention bacon than when I mention any other topic. Plus, it makes me feel better; seriously, my kids are both having trouble going to sleep tonight, but for some reason, the blt I had for dinner makes it okay somehow. Bacon is delicious.



(Yes, I really did just blog about bacon. I've hit a new all-time low.)

Dragon*con 2010

So here's the annual generic post about the Dragon*con parade. We put on our nerdiest shirts and schlepped the kids downtown to stand with thousands of other people to watch cosplay in action. It was awesome, as usual, but call me shocked that there were no Na'vi people for me to heckle. The entire parade seemed smaller this year; perhaps the economy is hitting people in the 'convention funds?' Anyway, here's an abbreviated greatest hits of what we saw this year:

To the MARTA train! It's experiencing delays! Why are we not surprised!


This is documentation of Harper's first experience with chain mail. Yes. The kind of hairy guy next to us was wearing chain mail. Ya get that sometimes.


Fans for Christ! Because there's no better time to proclaim your religion than when you are dressed up like Harry Potter.


Frankie was in full-on turd mode and spent about half of the parade like this; luckily he realized it was fun and started acting like a four-year-old at a superhero parade should act. (And there's our new friend again with the chain mail.)


Kevin Sorbo!


I wish I knew a clever quote from BACK TO THE FUTURE to insert here, but I got nothin'.


This was my favorite, and most appropriate, storm trooper sighting.


Heading back to the train, no better time for some self-portraiture!