Living & Laughing

My Personality Test

Your Personality Cluster is Introverted Feeling

You are: Tolerant, flexible, and open to new ideas. A stickler for integrity and authenticity. Passionate about causes, beliefs, or politics. Likely to have many "best friends" from many walks of life

What's Your Personality Cluster?

my slide show

Pictures in the Snow

From Playing in th...

Above is an album of pictures of the kids from Sunday afternoon's fun outside!

Scenes from Saturday Morning Dance

I love Saturday mornings. They are probably the busiest time of my whole week - but also they are one of the most rewarding. Today was certainly no exception. Thea and her friend Ali went to dance today and here they are just before class. They are just gems!

Really I do have another daughter.

I haven't been able to get very many pictures of our Gracie as of late. Really, its true I do have two daughters! Its just that one of them moves quick as lightening and all pictures end up just being a big blur. I will be bringing her into the studio for pictures soon - they have faster cameras! Here is a picture of our Gracie, isn't she just a doll? (I am terribly biased.)

Disney on Ice Princess Wishes : Here We Come!

Thea and I are going to see Disney on Ice Princess Wishes on March 7th. I am very excited to be going on opening night with my very own Princess. I am not sure who is more excited - Thea or me!

Gracie Has Something To Say

I think the talking switch has finally been flipped and our Gracie is now jabbering away. We cannot understand a word she is saying, as we don't speak Graceese, but she is saying something! Erick noted this weekend while feeding her some mashed potatoes that she was saying the same term consistantly when wanting to snag a bite of whatever it was that you were eating. I am absolutely thrilled to hear her talk more. Grace has been getting some molars in so she has not been the most comfortable baby on the block! This morning she's been wandering around the living room, pushing Thea's new double stroller for her babies at times.... and boy does she look like hot stuff when she is messing around with her big sister's toys!

An Ordinary Tuesday

The last time I wrote in my blog was on Friday night, and I had promised that I would write more about what I have been doing. Ok its Tuesday and I am just getting to sit down and blog. Where does the time go? There must be something about weekends that make time move especially fast.

Erick and I spent our weekend working on a consulting project we took on. It went pretty well and we enjoyed working together on a project. Erick has been suggesting for ages that we do some IT consulting on the side - as a challenge, as something to do together, for fun. So in the spirit of the new year - we decided to take a chance.

In my spare time I have worked at getting some program application and database development projects for Erick to work on. I had thought that the task would be much harder than it has been. He has several projects now to work on, and loves it. I have taken on two development projects (Blogger to WP) and have enjoyed working on that too. Once I completely get up our website I will be sure to share it. So in my spare time I have been busy with things that have been a fun challenge. ON top of parenting of course.

Where did my week go?

Its been an amazing and busy week here. Really amazing. Really busy. And those are probably the only words that could accurately describe this week.

On the kid front its been a week of great accomplishments. I brought Grace in for her check up a little late. I wanted to get through the holidays before we sat down and got more vaccinations for her. She always has struggled with them, and who wants a crabby and sick kid for the holidays? (Well I had one, but I certainly didn't want one.) Anyway I brought Grace in and this was the first appointment where the doctor told me she was doing well, there were not any concerns, and she was finally A HAPPY HEALTHY TODDLER! Yes, my Gracie is finally a happy healthy toddler! Go Gracie! Thea is back dancing in full swing - which is great for her. She certainly needs to get out and dance. She is full of so much energy I find myself telling her more than I'd like "Thea quit running." "Thea quit chasing your sister." "Thea you need to quiet down." "Thea!! Don't wake Gracie!" The dance studio has put up the girls dance recital costumes and I am SUPER excited for Thea to get her's on. Both of Thea's outfits are the traditional ballerina outfits - one has a wand and the other a crown. I am SURE she will just eat it all up. She loves that stuff more than anything. Nina will be wearing a german like outfit - literhousen? It is pretty cute. I am hoping she'll let me get a picture of her in it. The jazz dance outfit is really kind of... well I think Elvis like. (Not fat elvis - but lots of sequins just the same.)

I will update this post later today.

How Much Does It Matter

I am reading the book "Running with Scissors" and I am having a hard time putting it down! It is a great read for me. I tend to enjoy contemporary writing that has a dysfunctional flare. I just do. Last night when I got home from work I was curious as to what the writer looked like. In the book he talks a lot about what he wore, how he wore his hair, and such so it made me curious to see what he looked like. So I did a google on Augusten Burroughs - and pulled up his website, along with some articles about the book. The article that is the most detailed is from Vanity Fair magazine and its called "Ruthless with Scissors". The article details interviews with the family that is featured in the book, and lets them disbute the fabrications in the book, as well as talking about how the book has effected their lives. At the time I read the article I was 3/4 done with the book, and asked myself "How much does it matter?" in regards to the question posed "Is this true?"

Alright, after having spent time in social service I can tell you that you can sit down with someone and hear a very outrageous story of childhood from the most "normal" looking of people. (Those stuck with me more because the appearance was was deceiving.) There are a lot of people who have lived through and survived some difficult situations and some downright crazy ones. So I can really feel that this story is possible. I just finished reading the story I got at 11pm on Friday night, and after reading it all I can say with a lot of certainty that this memoir was not probable. After reading the various articles that were written about the family talked about in the book - its easy to see that there has been a lot of hurt from this book.

When reading the book I didn't keep in mind that this book was a memoir. I think from page 3 I knew it was a story and should be treated as such. I never once thought "Gee who are these people?" or "What ever happened to Natalie or Hope?" No... these characters are as fictional as Big Bird and Blue. I don't think the book should have been published as a memoir. While the story is just a story to me - it certainly wasn't to the family that took him in.