Catch Up!

The Dude has started swim classes. He rejected his first instructor and ended up with this one. Seth had to work to earns the Dude's trust and I was impressed with his commitment to get him to trust him. They did a lot of playing, which come to find out was more interesting to the Dude, if you can imagine that.

Also, the Dude has finally made friends. He likes to hang out with Jacob and it makes laugh to watch how they interact together. So much different from girls.

I have spent the better part of this week sick. And much to Phone's relief I am not contagious and can make my journey to Colorado tomorrow morning at the dreaded hour of 6 a.m. That means I have to get up at 4 a.m. Insane! I am sooooo not a morning person.

I will enjoy the visit to see my oldest grand daughter baptized on Saturday. I wish the whole family were going, but it is a good opportunity for me to be Nana for a change. I am always Miss Boo's Mommy, so this will be fun. Besides I get to spend time with my daughter for a whole weekend. It is going to be fun.

Mr. Finn will be staying home and watching our adorable offspring. I'm sure the weekend will be fun because he is the "FUN" parent. They are going to "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs", which the children have been reminding us since he told them a week ago.

This is my first year to get a flu shot since I was pregnant with Miss Boo. So, if I get the flu I am going to be majorly ticked off! I very rarely get the flu so I don't usually bother. But my doctor convinced me that sitting in a cylinder tube with hundreds of other people recycling the air they breathe could very well be my downfall. So steroids, antibiotics and a flu shot were administered in my brief visit to a most interesting doctor. He got me signed up online to their office, so I don't even have to come in the next time I have a sinus infection. I just log on, tell them what's up and they phone in the prescriptions to the pharmacy.

I AM IN HEAVEN! Anyone that knows me, knows I avoid the doctor unless I have to travel and I am sick.

I've added in a clip of the kids last play time on the slip n slide because it was too funny not too.

More colors of me

I have been asked to put on pictures of the painting I have done. Here are a few of my work.




Yardsale-ing is a passion of mine, but hasn't been a part of my summer up until this past weekend. It was they citywide sale. Could anything be more perfect?

I found 4 costumes/dress up clothes for Miss Boo and this one became her fast favorite.

Behind her is my office wall of shoreline blue. The picture above it is a plate rack I found at a yard sale last year. Never knew what I was going to do with it, but thought it was unique. See, you keep things long enough you will find a use for them.

Homermang

Mr. Finn has a friend that we call Homer. I wasn't around at the inception of that nickname, but when I started dating Mr. Finn this is how I was introduced. I find it impossible to convert to his real name. I have even taught the children to call him Uncle Homer. Can I really be blamed?
I had been dating Mr. Finn a short period of time when he asked me to go along to the airport to pick up his friend that was flying in. I was up for anything in those days. As we waited in the airport I felt that need to visit the ladies room before he got there. Wouldn't be proper to rush off the minute I said hello. I was nervous about meeting his BFF in all the world. I had heard about all the things they did together and I swear if one of them had been female they would have spent their glory years together.

When I emerged from the restroom a tall man started to approach me. Being the suspicious person I am, I started to back away. He kept advancing towards me, making me very nervous. "Is that you Robin? Don't you remember me? We went to college together?"

My mind was traversing through the back files of my brain. Who was this person? I didn't remember anyone with those features and how did he know my name? WAIT! I didn't go to college. Something was fishy, I just couldn't wrap my finger around it but he was sure I knew him or at least he "knew" me. I was doing that dodge and weave thing trying to get away from him because he was not a respecter of personal space, when...

...came my first experience with Mr. Finn and his LOVE for getting one over on me. I see him out of the corner of my eye with that sparkle in his eye that I have come to know as "triumph" practically doubled over from laughing.

Homer and his wife have an adorable little girl that took a shine to Mr. Finn on their last day here. Just wanted him to walk around with her, going no place in particular.
Thank you both for coming out for our birthday. It was a true gift and blessing to our family. We love you guys. Come back again soon.

The "Depp" of my despair

For Mr. Finn's birthday he was able to spend two glorious days basking in the lights of Kauffman Stadium with his BFF. I was included in their joy with the following texts:

When the BFF's arrived home from their baseball game, they spent the next 35 minutes convincing me that they in fact, did converse and take a picture with the one and only Johnny Depp. They even threw in a few fun facts for me to hang on to. Such as:

1. He is from these parts
2. Must be growing his hair out for a movie.
3. Those pants were actually some kind of capri.
4. They had to go to the woman that was with him to see if he would be up for a picture while he had stepped away and she was taking the picture.
5. They indeed show the above text messages to him to convince him to let them take his picture.

I wasn't convinced. The next morning while Mr. Finn was sleeping, his BFF stopped me in the hallway to tell me about the night and how the evening picked up after Mr. Finn started texting me and that J.D. really made his night. I still had my doubts. I had been down this road before with Mr. Finn. He likes to convince me of something to finally confess with tears rolling down his face from unbridled laughter.

Not even 20 minutes later I see my HFF coming down the stairs flushed and shaking. He can barely speak...is he o.k.? Then through the heaving shoulders and bursts of laughter he spills the beans.

Never to be one upped by his wife, he...PULLED THE WOOL OVER MY EYES to reclaim his superiority as the "MAN"!~

One year older and wiser too....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU...

...AND ME TOO...

It was a great day! Spent it with some pretty great people. My children made it extra special nice. Love birthday hugs from the Dude and Miss Boo's "I have a great big tooth" book she made me. What more could I ask for?

Wool & Secrets

I wonder where the saying "I pulled the wool over his eyes" came from. I know it means to get one over on someone, but seriously was this the only thing someone could think of to describe it?

According to a Google search this is what I could find:

The actual source is unknown, and although this expression was first recorded in America (1839), it's thought to be of older, English origin. 'Wool' here is the hair of wigs. In the 19th century, the status of men was often indicated by the size of their wigs - hence our word 'bigwig' to indicate importance. Judges often wore these poor-fitting wigs, which frequently slipped over the eyes, and it may have been that a clever lawyer who tricked a judge bragged about his deception by saying that he pulled the wool over his eyes. Such 'bigwigs' were worth robbing. Street thugs would pull the wig down over the victims eyes in order to confuse him - the 'wool had been pulled over his eyes'.

One wonders where I am going with this, but I do have a point. For several months I have been conspiring with Mr. Finn's best friend and wife to surprise him for his Birthday. It is worth noting that he is much older than I and he will be turning 46 tomorrow.

I received an email on my favorite mode of communication (Facebook) from Jenny asking to talk to me without Mr. Finn knowing. I quickly agreed because I am always up for "pulling the wool" over on my husband for his benefit. Besides he is so hard to keep a secret from so it would be a great challenge and have a great payoff for me. Mainly the satisfaction that he didn't have a clue. For those that know him, know that this is no easy feat as he will keep at you until you cave.

When it was understood that Homer would be flying in on a Thursday night, I was nervous. How was I going to get out of the house on a Thursday night? It would certainly raise and eyebrow or a question that I wouldn't be able to answer. Then...as the good Lord does, he provided a means for me to be away from the home on that night. The Young Women's activities were changed from Wednesday to Thursday nights which would usually annoy me, but I think this was one of those times when two birds were killed with one stone. The only problem that I could still foresee was that I needed to be home by 9 in order to avoid detection and Homer's flight was scheduled to arrive at 8:40. See my dilemna? Airlines are never on time. After a few weeks of my being late arriving by 9 p.m. we came to a mutual agreement that 9:30 would be the time for me to be done with my duties.

I love when a good plan comes together. I was able to save enough cash to purchase the baseball tickets without any scrutiny for a large purchase on a credit card. And, as luck would have it, the manager at the grocery store facilitated the means to get a free ticket, much reducing my costs. See how the blessings of doing something for someone come pouring in.

Not that Mr. Finn rested from his almost daily interrogations/queries into what we were doing for his Birthday. I was able to keep myself busy, exhausted and slightly edgy in order to pull of my poker face. He is difficult to withstand...much like a certain 3 & 5 year old I know.

The night arrived and I headed off to the airport on time. That certainly didn't help the airline to keep up their end of the deal and he was over 25 minutes late. I was starting to panic. I was losing my window of opportunity to surprise my husband in a good mood. Then to top of matters, Homer's luggage didn't make it on a direct flight from Denver. How does that happen? The worst part is that I realized that I had given him our home phone number and not my cell phone. I was starting to get heart palpitations. What would I do if he called the house? I could only imagine the surprise being shot down because I was so brain dead from painting my entire house.

I was able to get a call through to him as he was dialing the house. See...hand of Lord...working miracles. We met up and headed home, arriving only 5 minutes late. A major victory in my world...not so much in my husbands. I asked Mr. Finn if he would like part of his present early and headed upstairs expecting to hear the doorbell ring in the 3 minutes like we had planned. Either I was in slow motion or that was longer than 3 minutes and once again I started to get really nervous. Especially since my husband was not attired to greet company.

As the doorbell finally rang, I yelled down to Mr. Finn to get that please. (He knows I won't open the door at night...big chicken...many others things not meant for this story.) I threw him some more suitable clothes down for answering the door and snuck down with my camera. He opens the door to Homer and is excited to the best of his ability. I snapped two photos and my battery died.

See...I started getting a little too gleeful at what I had been able to pull off! Happens every time.

I am grateful for my husband. He is a good man. The Lord knew I needed someone like him. If you are reading this Mr. Finn...don't get to excited about that! I do love you...there is more truth in that than anything else.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Song Bird

Miss Boo loves to sing. Her father, Mr. Finn has helped cultivate this love of music and more specifically, SONG. He is known for making up words to songs that he likes. I don't believe this is a well known fact in the "other" world, but in our home it is most common and very much enjoyed by our offspring.

Saturday night I set my alarm for 7 a.m. which is plenty of time to get everyone up and ready for 9 o'clock church. Sunday morning my alarm went off and I had this brief thought that if I could sleep for 10 more minutes I would be able to pull it off, so I hit the snooze button confident in my decision to give my body a few more minutes to gear up for the day.

Out of my sleepy daze I hear someone singing very softly. After a few minutes it became louder. Not sure if this was because I was awake or because the song was gaining in momentum. Out of my stupor I glanced at the clock to realize that it was 9:30 and we had missed Sacrament meeting because of my indulgence in the snooze button.

I could hear Miss Boo singing from her room and somehow it all seemed o.k. She was singing this sweet little song and as I listened I realized she was making up the words to some tune that she knew. It was heartbreakingly adorable. I would have missed this moment as we are usually in a dead run to get every dressed, fed and out the door in time. Which means she doesn't have to time lie in bed singing to herself.

Miss Boo came to love making up songs during reading time with Daddy. He likes to shake up the stories and finds making up songs or just adding some of his favorites to be just what they need.

"Why won't you please take me home....Yah, Yah...Yah, Yah."