Fresh Valentine Sap

Dear John,

Listening to this song always makes me think of you. Happy Valentine's Day, to the man who holds my heart in the palm of his hand.

Love,
Lisa

P.S. Sorry I can't write more. Megan is nagging me to play some Justin Bieber :)

Costs of Parenthood

Mommy, mommy, mommy I wanna take dance lessons. Please, can I take dance lessons? Puh-leeeeeeze I want to take dance lessons sooooooooo bad. Alright, I gues

Dance lessons: $50 non-refundable class fee

Ballet shoes: $20

Leotard, tights, tutu: $22

Look on my face when Megan said, "I don't want to dance. I want to play soccer instead."-

PRICELESS

Can I Get an Amen?

Read this on facebook today . . . I am not the author . . . but seriously . . . I could have been . . .

For those thinking they want children, follow this 12 step program.

Lesson 1
1. Go to the grocery store.
2. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office.
3. Go home.
4. Pick up the paper.
5. Read it for the last time.

Lesson 2
Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who already are parents and berate them about their...
1. Methods of discipline.
2. Lack of patience.
3. Appallingly low tolerance levels.
4. Allowing their children to run wild.
5. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's breastfeeding, sleep habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall behavior.
Enjoy it because it will be the last time in your life you will have all the answers.

Lesson 3
A really good way to discover how the nights might feel...
1. Get home from work and immediately begin walking around the living room from 5PM to 10PM carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 pounds, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly. (Eat cold food with one hand for dinner)
2. At 10PM, put the bag gently down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep.
3. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag, until 1AM.
4. Set the alarm for 3AM.
5. As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2AM and make a drink and watch an infomercial.
6. Go to bed at 2:45AM.
7. Get up at 3AM when the alarm goes off.
8. Sing songs quietly in the dark until 4AM.
9. Get up. Make breakfast. Get ready for work and go to work (work hard and be productive)

Repeat steps 1-9 each night. Keep this up for 3-5 years. Look cheerful and together.

Lesson 4
Can you stand the mess children make? T o find out...
1. Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains.
2. Hide a piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.
3. Stick your fingers in the flower bed.
4. Then rub them on the clean walls.
5. Take your favorite book, photo album, etc. Wreck it.
6. Spill milk on your new pillows. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?

Lesson 5
Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems.
1. Buy an octopus and a small bag made out of loose mesh.
2. Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hang out.

Time allowed for this - all morning.

Lesson 6
Forget the BMW and buy a mini-van. And don't think that you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don't look like that.
1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment.
Leave it there.
2. Get a dime. Stick it in the CD player.
3. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Sprinkle cheerios all over the floor, then smash them with your foot.
4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.

Lesson 7
Go to the local grocery store. Take with you the closest thing you can find to a pre-school child. (A full-grown goat is an excellent choice). If you intend to have more than one child, then definitely take more than one goat. Buy your week's groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys. Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

Lesson 8
1. Hollow out a melon.
2. Make a small hole in the side.
3. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side.
4. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane.
5. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone.
6. Tip half into your lap. The other half, just throw up in the air.

You are now ready to feed a nine- month-old baby.

Lesson 9
Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street , Barney, Disney, the Teletubbies, and Pokemon. Watch nothing else on TV but PBS, the Disney channel or Noggin for at least five years. (I know, you're thinking What's 'Noggin'?) Exactly the point.

Lesson 10
Make a recording of Fran Drescher saying 'mommy' repeatedly. (Important: no more than a four second delay between each 'mommy'; occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet is required). Play this tape in your car everywhere you go for the next four years. You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.

Lesson 11
Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else continually tug on your skirt hem, shirt- sleeve, or elbow while playing the 'mommy' tape made from Lesson 10 above. You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

Can I get an Amen?

Bull in a China Shop

Every year we get together with John's side of the family for a holiday get together and gift exchange before Christmas. This year, the extravaganza was at Laura's house. I'm pretty disappointed I don't have more pictures to show you. Instead of taking pictures, I was chasing Brendan around and saying things like . . .

Brendan, put that ornament back on the tree.
Brendan! *oh my gosh* That wasn't sentimental or anything, was it?

I promise I'll buy you a new one.

Brendan, stop pulling all the books off the shelves.

Brendan, stop chewing your food and spitting it out on the *new* carpet.

Brendan, that bottle of beer is not yours.

You get the idea.

If Laura's house was the china shop, our dear Brendan was certainly the bull.

Brendan did spend some of his time (.93873740283475 of a second) relaxing with Grandpa,

posing for a photo with Megan

and conning Aunt Kathy into sharing her water.
Heck, it is better than the beer he had tried to swipe earlier!
Ho, ho, ho.

Next year, I'm offering to host the K family extravaganza.
Brendan has already broken everything here :)

Santa Trauma

In an attempt to avoid the long lines at the mall, this year we arranged a "private meeting" with Santa Claus himself at my friend Kasey's house. I dressed the kids, packed my camera, and hoped for the perfect ho-ho-ho-photo of smiling children sitting on the lap of Santa. I even had the scrapbook page all planned out in my head. It was going to be absolute magic!

Magic . . . until Brendan actually saw Santa Clause.

His perfect ho-ho-ho-scrapbookable-smile turned into this . . .

This is his totally-terrified-but-not-too-terrified-to-stop-eating-this-cookie smile.

It reminds me of when Megan sat on Santa's lap when she was about his age.

Let's take a walk down memory lane here . . .

Megan 2007

And now back to good old, terrifying 2010.

Megan didn't seem too happy about sitting on Santa's lap either. I think she forced herself, afraid of what he might bring if she didn't give him her detailed list.

She was very business-like and described exactly what she was hoping for this year.

Maybe one of these year's I'll get a scrapbookable photo of my kids on Santa's lap, but I doubt it.

CAKEcakeCAKEcakeCAKE

Will you please go here and vote for my cake.

I entered a cake contest and I don't really care about winning.

I just want to beat this weird looking frog cake that someone entered.

It is really burning me up that the frog cake is beating me.

Here is a pic I stole off the website of the frog cake I'm talking about.

See how much I need your votes.

Please.

And now, some other cakes I've made recently.

This one was for a blog reader of mine who happened to live here in Central Ohio.

It was for her sister's baby shower.

This one was for an Ohio State football fan turning the big 3-0.

This ole guy was for a family Christmas party.
We cut him up into little pieces and ate him.
And he was good!

That's all for today, folks.
Tune back tomorrow when I share some pictures of my children screaming on Santa's lap.
Good times.
Good times.

Now go vote for me please!
That frog cake must go down!!!!!!!!!!

Will You Do Me a Favor?

Remember this cake I made for Brendan's first birthday party?

I entered it in a cake contest and I need your help.

Will you go here and vote for my cake?

Pretty please with sugar on top?

Then do it again every day until December 27????

(You can vote once a day, every day until Dec 27)

Ask all your friends to do it too.

You can have a lets-all-vote-for-Lisa's-cake-so-she-shuts-up-about-it-party.

You can even blog about it yourself.

C'mon!

Doesn't that sound fun???