SchlegelRock

As you’ve seen, Oliver has rather long hair.  It touches his shoulders.  I LOVE it but Scott keeps asking me to get it cut so I decided I would do it, but it had to considered a gift to Scott.  So this morning I took a picture of Oli a year ago and told the lady at Super Cuts to cut it short again.  Well, sort of short.  I couldn’t take it all off.  I think I would have died if I had done that.  So, without further ado here’s Oli with his hair cut.  It just goes to show how much I love you Scott.  Merry Christmas! (Oh, and Max got a trim too.)

This is the picture I took in.

This is how it ended up.  Pretty stinking close.  I had to be kind of a jerk though and kept saying, “I would like it shorter please,” over and over and over again.  It paid off though.  I think it looks great.

Three cute boys.  All with short hair.  Sigh.

Oh my gosh, you guys.  The weather is fabulous here right now.  When we were at the park skating there was a girl in a bikini playing sand volleyball.  A bikini!  In November!  The kids are just learning their way around skateboards right now.  Every once in a while Scott takes them out to the basketball court and just lets them play while he skates around them.  He tried to teach Max to jump and flip his skateboard over and then land on it.  He’ll get it.  But right now he’s just doing some great leaps into the air.

What did you guys do this weekend?

Tru got his cast off Tuesday.  I have to admit I was surprised by the immediate outcome.  I thought that he would get the cast off and totally be swinging his arm around and jumping up and down but that’s not what happened.  He totally cradled his arm so tenderly and it had sores from where the cast rubbed against his skin.  The skin on his elbow is completely gone.  It’s several shades lighter than the rest of his arm.  It’s Thursday now and we went to the park today and there were no complaints at all.  He did a great job playing and being a kid.  It’s nice to have a fully functioning child back.

This is a picture of Oli the other day.  I had woken him up from a spontaneous nap and he came out to the living room with me.  Next thing I know it’s silent so I went looking for him and he was totally asleep on the stairs.  Too cute so I thought I’d share.

*I wrote this post a month ago when we bought the Pilot and have been trying to get my video (like the one I did with the Mazda) processed from YouTube.  It’s not happening so here’s the post without the clever video, much to my chagrin.  Just know that my “My other car is a Horcrux” license plate is firmly affixed. Although, thanks to my mom I now want a “This car is a Portkey” one.  Christmas is coming up and a portkey has a lot less evil connotations than a horcrux.  I’d put it on Scott’s car but he’s not as devoted to Harry Potter as I am.  Silly man.

Well we did it.  We bought a new car.  That’s not entirely true.  Scott bought a new car.  After three friends telling me they loved the Honda Pilot I decided to go check one out.  We found a used one at the local Acura dealer and went Saturday morning to drive it.  I instantly fell in love.  The back seat isn’t really made for adults, but we do have three children that can fit back there no problem.  And the best thing about the car is that it has this little picture on the dash of the car and when you open a door a little door opens on the picture.  Do you know how many times I ran around opening and closing all the doors on the van trying to figure out which one had been left open.  Genius product.  I believe the Odyssey has it too.

So anyway I drive the car and am totally in love (it’s got more power than the van which is a total plus).  We decide to leave the Pilot and go home and think about it.  By the time we got home we were going to go 

back Monday evening and buy the car if it was still there.  Scott had a Church meeting Saturday night so it prevented us from going back immediately.  That night Scott got back from his meeting really late and I assumed he just got caught hanging out talking to someone but lo a behold he had a key in his hand when he walked through the door.  After his meeting he raced over to the Acura dealer and bought the Pilot for me.  The best surprise ever!!

I L-O-V-E, love, love it.  It is so much fun to drive and the kids fit really nicely.  As you can see I fit 6 kids in without any problems.  Well, except the noise!  I will admit that I have been a little intimidated by it because it’s so stinking nice.  I’m terrified that someone is going to jump out and hit me again. I guess that’s only natural considering. 

Well thanks Clisty, Summer and Julianne for suggesting the Pilot.  And thank you Scott for the awesome, super-fantastic surprise!

Why is that?  Why do I have three potty trained children that cannot keep the pee in the toilet?  At friend’s houses, at school, in the car, in the dining room, at the park!!!  Holy crap.  If they would even give me one minutes warning I could at least get them to a bush.  Just kidding.  I would at least get them off of my carpet.  I guess the one’s where there is a bathroom in the same building is the one that baffles me the most.  And yes, it is all three of them that are currently peeing in their pants.  I’m about to have a nervous breakdown.  One of them actually said to me today that he peed at school but didn’t tell anyone and is still wearing the same pants.  I guess that might be OK if it was the first time.  This happened last week also.  Is there a puddle of pee under his chair just waiting to be stepped in?  Did he only pee a tiny bit so it really wasn’t a big deal?  I don’t know the answers to these questions.  This has been going on for three weeks now.  Every time I turn around at least one of them has peed somewhere other than the toilet.  I’m baffled, I’m perplexed, I’m sick of cleaning up pee.  But I digress.  I know in a few weeks I’ll have a clean and tidy house, car, classroom, park, etc.  and I’ll forget all about this.

 I just thought you might like a change of pace from the election so I decided to throw all my garbage on you.  Thanks for letting me vent.  I mean there’s nothing I can do, right?  It’s just a passing phase, right?  I look at those angels and think “Why are they doing this?” and I have no answers.  Oh well.  Has this happened to you?

Every year since we’ve lived here we’ve gone around our condo complex to trick or treat.  There are a ton of units that give out candy.  So much so that we only did four buildings before I cut the kids off.  You see because there aren’t a ton of kids around here and candy bags are so large people give out handfuls of candy to each kid.  And we don’t want that much candy in our house so I’m the mean mom that steers my kids home when their bags are half way full.  When they get older I don’t care how much candy they bring in but as long as they are little I like to carefully guard their candy to kid ratio.  I took this picture on the stairs coming down from one of the units.  In case I forgot to tell you before Max is Indiana Jones, Tru is Captain America and Oli is Iron Man.

 Halloween is so fun!  How did your evening go?

Every year Vargas Elementary has a Halloween parade.  The kids are allowed to bring their costumes to school and then by grade they parade around in a circle on the playground.  Siblings are allowed to walk so Oli walked with Max.  The picture of Tru’s head and hand is the only one I got of him actually parading about.  Bad photographer!  Bad!  The kids of course had a great time.  The rain stayed away too.  I sure hope it stays at bay tonight too.

Yes, considering all that’s going on Pop Tarts are a rather silly thing to be blogging out but that’s exactly why I’m doing it.  I love Pop Tarts.  As far as I’m concerned a Pop Tart is good for breakfast or lunch (Or really anytime they pop into my mind.  he he he).  Now I don’t let my kids have Pop Tarts for lunch.  That privilege is reserved solely for me.  I am the main consumer of Pop Tarts in our home.  I don’t feel bad about eating them because they have vitamins sprinkled into the delectably crunchy shell and ooey gooey filling.  I like to toast my Pop Tarts until they are super crunchy and the filling will scald me.  That’s when they are at their best.  Then give me a cold glass of milk and I’m in toaster pastry heaven.

So I have two favorites that I keep stocked in the house and switch back and forth in between.  One is Frosted Chocolate Fudge and the other is Frosted Cherry.  I usually eat the fudge one with milk but I’ve had the Cherry one toasted and crumbled onto ice cream.  Ooh.  I get chills just thinking about it.

OK now.  ’Fess up.  What’s your favorite flavor and your favorite way to eat it?

We had our Church’s Halloween Party Friday  night. Max was Indiana Jones, Tru was Captain America and Oli was Iron Man.   A member of our congregation is a photographer and set up a little photo shoot.  Here are our results.

That’s right. Just this morning I ran the Marsh Madness 5k in Palo Alto. It was right off of Embarcadero on the trail through the marsh. It’s flat the whole way which is good because not only did I not train for this, I especially did not train for hills. So, phew. I’ve been running 3 miles once a week for a little while now so I knew I could finish the race. I also knew I would be near the back because I run really slow. Really slow. Like a tortoise, and I was running with a bunch of hares.
There was one lady who almost got herself shoved into the marsh by little old me because she kept run/walking around me. She would walk and I would pass her and then she would flat footed stomp up behind me like she was a monster attacking and then pass me just to stop right in front of me and start walking again. We did this for 3/4 of the race and I seriously wanted to scream at her. If only I had a different gear to switch into I would have left her in the dust. But alas, I have one speed. Tortoise.
I felt really good about myself at the halfway point because as I turned around to head back to the finish line I passed quite a few people. Then I got almost in sight of the finish line and almost every single one of those people passed me. I got so mad I started walking. Those people had been walking most of the time and then they just turned it on and easily overtook me. I was also mad because quite a few of the people who were running the 10k zoomed past me. They started 5 minutes before me and ran twice as far and were still finishing the race before me. So I walked for a little bit and had a pity party with myself then when I thought I was almost to the end I kicked it into tortoise gear again and finished the race.
It was so nice to see Scott and the boys waiting for me. Oli held out his arms to give e a hug as I ran past. They were so excited to see me running in the race. Before I started Max asked me if I was going to finish 1, 2 or 3 and I laughed and said this was just for fun and that I would be near the end. At least I told him the truth. I think there might have still been a couple of people behind me but not many. I’m just glad I ran this on my own. I would have hated to hold my friends back. Everyone seems to be avid runners and I’m just a once a week so I can justify all the junk food I eat kind of runner. I’ve heard that running is addictive but it hasn’t caught me yet.
Scott is very actively trying to get me psyched for the next time and I’m trying to buy into it. I know that running is good for my body and it is probably even good for my soul so I’m not hanging up the towel yet. I just expected some kind of adrenaline rush as I crossed the finish line and all I felt was disappointment. At least I know what to expect now, right? I know I’m slow. I know I’ll be passed by numberless concourses of people. I know now that I need to get my sensor removed from my shoe before I go to see my family so I don’t get yelled at next time. I know that I can get a sausage McMuffin with egg and and orange juice after the race so maybe that’s all that matters. A sweet reward for something I do once a week anyways. I guess I’m saying, bring on the next one!
What have your running experiences been like?

Btw, my time for the 5k was 48 minutes.  Goooooo me!

I’m probably behind the times here but my cousin had this video on her blog and I was really impressed with it.  Instead of being photos of paintings put to music it is live photos.  The photographers did a really fabulous job capturing the message of their photos from the life of Christ.  There were a couple of shots, like Christ on the cross, that looked like paintings to me but I don’t know.  This really caught me off guard.  I enjoyed it a lot.

Have you seen this before?

but this one I can do.  Take the fourth photo from your fourth album, no matter what it is, and post it.  This is Truman at Scott’s graduation from Cogswell (not the sprockets from the Jetsons, it’s a college in Sunnyvale).  He’s only a month old if I’m doing my math right.  That’s right, we had two kids when Scott graduated.  I promise you there was no one else like us there at the graduation.  What a fun time to remember.  Tag, you’re it.

Scott and I attended the funeral today for our friend Zach Cox.  It has been several years since we’ve talked to Zach and we only met his wife at their wedding reception so we’re a little removed but it was still hard to see his wife grieving and know he was the same age as us.  It was so hard to remember what a great guy he was and mourn over the time that we lost being caught up in our own dramas.  He was a ray of sunshine.  Really outgoing and very fun to be around.  Everything was fun with Zach.  I’m sad we didn’t spend more time with him when we had the chance.

Zach had some kind of rare heart disease that his wife Asia says could have only been detected if a relative of his had died of the same thing.  He was being treated for asthma but it turned out that one of his heart valves was 90 percent blocked and there would have been no way to treat him even if he had gone to the hospital.  Apparently it was just his time to go.

As you can imagine this has really started Scott and I to thinking.  We really need to seize the day.  Zach’s motto was, “Live life to the fullest, it’s all about the ride.  If not now, when?”  So to celebrate Zach’s life Scott has gone to the skate park.  

Every kiss and hug and touch just feels so important right now.  There was a point today when they were bringing in the coffin and it was silent except for Asia’s sobs.  I thought my heart would tear right out of me and I just held on tight to Scott.  I’m going to hold on as tight as I can.

Zach was a good kid will be missed.  I wish the best for all of his family especially Asia.  All of my best wishes go to Asia.

Obituary

My friend Clisty posted a challenge on her blog to get real with your mess and post some pictures of your own.  Scott keeps our house clean so there aren’t too many places where I’m actually able to make a mess but I found two that I could show you.

The first is of my shoes.  I like to kick my shoes off when I’m done with them.  I personally like them in a pile on the floor. It just feels good to me but in light of this challenge I’m showing you how nice my shoes can look if I just organize them.  

They do look nice and tidy.  I’ve actually kept them this way for about two weeks now.  Yeah, me.

Then we have one cupboard in our bathroom that I am in charge of.  As you can see bottles are falling on top of bottles and there are pads falling out all over.  I can even see the underwear they gave me at the hospital when Oli was born.  What are those even doing in there?

Here’s our beautiful cupboard sans underwear and all nice and neat.  I will admit I like it better this way.  Although I could find whatever I wanted before I will do my best to keep my cupboard well organized.

Then I don’t have any before pictures for you but this is what our kids room looked like when we were going through our closets.  We had all sorts of baby stuff that we were storing plus all of my big clothes that I was too afraid to give away.  We had to lay down the seats in the back of the car and just filled it full of bags and bags of stuff we didn’t need but hope someone else can use.

So there it is Clisty.  Those are my messes.  Not the everyday trash the house messes but the staring me in the face for years messes.  Btw, Scott sends a big “Thank you.”

Sorry it’s taken so long to post.   The kids had Monday and Tuesday off so that really meant no blogging time.  I took Truman in to get his cast on Tuesday and he did great.  Everyone we saw that day was super nice and it was obvious that they were used to dealing with kids.  Truman decided to go for a glow in the dark cast.  I tried to get some pictures of it glowing for you but the camera just wouldn’t pick it up.  Oh well.

The cool thing about the cast is it has a little plastic cylinder woven into it and the sling just hooks through the cylinder rather then trying to keep an actual sling on the cast.  Or the cast in the sling, I guess.  Truman took it off yesterday though and says he doesn’t need it.  It’s his arm so I’m going to trust his judgement on this one.  It is amazing how fast he has recovered.  Now that he has the cast on I don’t worry about him hurting his arm more.  He seems to know his limits pretty well.