Parker Walks the Hall: 5.14.2006 from Justin Best on Vimeo.

La Leche League 50th Anniversary Video

My friend sent this link YouTube video to me. It's a great story on how and why LLL was founded.

Worst Day EVER!

Oh boy! Where do I start. Background information: my cell phone has been missing since Friday...

This morning I woke up with a pounding headache. I'm not sure why. Perhaps I drank too much coffee and not enough water yesterday? Maybe I slept weird? I dunno. But I was crabby and irritable this morning.

Both kids woke up early. Parker was extremely chatty and energetic. We convinced him to go watch cartoons in the living room. Then Kennedy wanted to go see what he was doing. I let her toddle off to the living room and then tried to lay down and wake up slow. Ha ha ha.

Next thing I know Navin (cat) was crawling on me. I threw him onto the floor. Then I heard Kennedy crying in the living room. I went to check on her and let Navin into his food (we have it behind a baby gate next to the pellet stove so the baby doesn't eat it...)

I went back to the bedroom and lay down. Two minutes later I hear Kennedy crying again. I go check on her and lay down on the couch and pull a blanket over my head.

Navin starts crawling on me again. Seriously, cat? Then he's on the back of the couch. He starts making tell-tale retching motions. Ah, great, I'm gonna get puked on! I run to the kitchen and get some paper towels, but am too late. He has thrown up all down the couch.

Off to get more paper towels to begin cleaning up the cat sick. Then the chorus of, "Mama I need a snack. Can I have juice?" begins. Just a minute. I have to clean this up...

Fast forward a couple hours. Kennedy is very clingy today. I'm trying to get us packed to go camping this weekend. Preparing food, doing laundry, packing...you know the drill.

Parker has been really good at using the potty for the past week or so. Last night he used it and it almost overflowed. I thought he had put too much paper in. This morning it DID overflow. Despite my desperate plunging efforts. Running to get towels...EW! It's still not flushing right. I'm now wondering if that's where my cell phone went?

It's only noon! I want to curl up in a ball and cry. But I still need to finish cleaning the bathroom. And I still need to Woolite the sofa when Navin got sick this morning. I'm only stopping now to nurse Kennedy to sleep. She's almost off to dreamland. I'm off to continue my Oddyssey.

Nothing to Blog About

I admit it. I've been a Slacker Blogger lately.

I'm not sure if it's just that we've been so busy...or that I haven't had anything to write about...or I've just been a little lazy. I think it's a combination of all of that.

I know lame excuses...ok one more...

The laptop computer that I use in the evenings (when I have time for things like blogging after the kids are asleep) has a lame space bar. It sticks. If I write anything more than a couple sentences long I get totally frustrated at having to go back through and add all the little spaces...That is until yesterday when my fantastic husband fixed it for me. YAY!

So what have we been up to?

We've been busy with LLL meetings, API meetings, trips to the library, reading books, playing in the backyard, gardening, watching cartoons, and planning our trip to North Dakota.

Parker's obsession with The Wizard of Oz is finally starting to fade. We've seen every version of the movie and read every version of the book that we could get our hands on. We've played with Wizard of Oz bathtub-ducks, finger-puppets, and refrigerator-magnets. We've set up a "Follow the Yellow Brick Road" obstacle course in our house more times than I can count. Parker's imaginary friends are "the Wizard of Oz guys" (Tinman, Scarecrow and Lion) and he leads them by the hand throughout the day. One night he helped them all get ready for bed. He even made sure that they all had their pull-ups and jammies on.

Kennedy is walking and dancing. She chatters a lot in her own baby-talk language. She also uses a bit of sign language when she needs something. Oh! She also gives slobbery kisses and blows kisses. So adorable!

I'm a brunette now. I totally love it!

I'm reading The Red Tent. I'm enjoying this books SO much! I'm about 100 pages in to it.

A couple summers ago, Justin and I would spend our evenings playing Sudoku and watching Simon & Simon on tivo. Our newest "thing" is drinking vanilla-scented decaf, playing Scrabulous with each other on Facebook via our laptops, and watching The OC on DVD.

I'm also working on a knitted sweater for Kennedy. I flew through the knitting portion and now am stalling because I need to sew it all together and I kinda hate the sewing part. It doesn't take long, it's just not fun... I have some gorgeous new wool that my fabulous mother-in-law picked up for me at a little yarn shop that was going-out-of-business. I'm so anxious to start making something with it, but have sworn to finish the sweater first.

A few weeks ago I finally fixed my sewing machine. It had been broken for awhile. The repair shop told us that it would be a minimum of $100 to fix it. Totally ridiculous, because that's probably what the machine cost new. So, I figured that I couldn't break it any more than it was broken already. I googled some repair manuals online for similar machines. Then I took the thing apart, adjusted the timing, oiled it up and it worked! I'm still scared to try to sew anything with it, because I'm afraid it will break again. I've started cutting up some of the kids' old baby clothes that I am going to use to make quilts for each of them.

Sorry no pics on this post...it just takes too long, and is part of why I've been a blog procrastinator. I will get some up very soon. Perhaps even tomorrow for Tackle-It Tuesday!

Our First Protest

The kids and I went to our first war protest today in downtown Everett. We met on the courthouse steps. We listened to veterans and other community members speak out against the war in Iraq. Then we all walked down the street to the offices of Rep. Rick Larsen, Sen. Patty Murray and Sen. Maria Cantwell to drop off a newly released report on the link between the Iraq War and the Recession.

We heard about this protest through moveon.org. I highly recommend this site for people looking to get involved in politics locally.

New Photos on Smashy

I have been way behind on putting pictures up on Smashy. Finally have photos up from the holidays. Here is a sneak peak. For more go to: http://www.smashy.com/bestfamily/

November

December
&
Outtakes from the Christmas Card

My Girl Loves the Rock-n-Roll

I've always cursed all kids music. I'll bend the rules somewhat if there is rock-n-roll involved. But I still cringe at the idea of it. Until recently... Kennedy's favorite artist is Justin Roberts. Especially "Willy Was a Whale" And I confess the tune is catchy and I kind of like it too. Maybe because the horns take me back to my teenage days listening to Wham! I mean ska! Listening to ska! Did I say Wham!?