I'm sorry Buddy

As I was lying in bed last night...tossing and turning....staring at the ceiling, counting the blades of the ceiling fan...it occurred to me that I left a few movies off my list.

ELF....ELF??? How could I forget that movie? I am here to officially apologize to Buddy the Elf for my lack of mental prowess. I can't get through a month without saying...
"I just like to smile, smiling's my favorite"
"You sit on a throne of lies."
[burps loud and long] Did you hear that? "

I can see that movie a million times and I still smile at the complete dedication Will Ferrell gives that character. I love that movie and it's become one of our family's favorite Christmas classics.
Hats off to Buddy!! He's my favorite Elf.

Have you seen these toilets? They're GINORMOUS!

This flu

It's official...this is not a cold, but the danged flu. My head is killing me and I've been spiking a fever off and on for 2 days. Jake is now sick as well and he is miserable.
In my delirium I wish to chop my own head off to ward off the extreme sinus pressure (yes every single tooth in my head hurts) and the massive head ache.
If I succumb to this urge and use the nail file on my desk to saw my head off...here is my last will and testament for my beloved sisters.

1. To Janine I leave my extensive memories. You can just pull those right out of my head once it's chopped off. You will now have the privilege of remembering every little detail of our lives on Perkinswood and some of the Landsdown stuff. You will get GREAT memories like: lying in the bed of tiny purple flowers behind the well and staring at the clouds, washing our hair in the drainage pipes from the roof during a rain storm, and sitting on top of the car many summer nights searching for UFO's. However with those fine memories also come a few weird ones: Being woken up by flying bats, Glenn telling us the devil is in the driveway, fighting ghost with a plastic banana, and evil ghost living in the attic. Enjoy them!

2. To Vita I leave the job of organizing family photo's and making calendars for mom every Christmas. You seem to have the photo bug , but you have a much nicer camera than I do...so you'll be better at this than i have been. This also requires digging through piles of old photo's and scanning them into your PC to preserve them forever...and use them on the calendar once in awhile. Good luck finding head shots of everyone for the birthday squares! I've had to reuse pictures of Mark's family for the past 3 years because we never see them. Maybe you should make Mii's of them and put those pictures on instead. Hmmm....that sounds like fun! You definitely should do that!! LOL

3. Last, but not least, Allison. I think that you are destined to be the "video gal". You and I have the same taste in movies, "oh my god it's Danny Devito I love your work", " Little town it's a quite village, every day like the one before, little town full of little people", " I'm NOT Josie Grossie anymore!!", " Do you know what I'm thinking? Pokemon?!". You totally knew what I was referring to for each of those quotes. LOL You can have all my video's and my video quotes...use them wisely. With that privilege comes the task of forcing everyone you know to watch the movies I LIKE! Make sure that they sit down and watch "bringing up Baby" (Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn) when they are tired ...it's funnier when you have the sleepy giggles. If you don't see them laughing appropriately at 1930's humor, then kick them out the door and never speak to them again. You don't need friends who can't see the humor in Cary Grant jumping in the air and shouting, "I became GAY all of the sudden" while wearing a woman's bathrobe and Japanese sandals. tsk tsk. It's definitely sophisticated humor.
I've left a list of "our" favorite movies on the side...in case you forgot them. If you don't know some of them....NETFLIX those puppies NOW!

Farewell my sista's!

Wild West train ride

Grandma bought 5 tickets for a "wild west" train ride for Jake's birthday. Pam, mom , me , Jake and Haliegh drove about 45 minutes to the local of the train ride this past Sunday. When we got there he was beyond excited...hopping up and down and running all over the place. The whole parking lot was set up like an old west town and lots of people were dressed in period clothes and they never broke character. The "Marshall" asked Jake if he would help fight the train robbers if they got on the train and Jake was happy to be of service. Each ticket came with play money and fake gold that we were supposed to give the train robbers. Grandma bought him and Haliegh little six shooter guns, sheriff badges and train conductor hats for the ride. We had some time to kill before our ticket time, so we let the kids take a real stagecoach "ride". It was only 2 dollars per rider and was being pulled by 4 of the BIGGEST draft horses I've ever seen in my entire life. Jacob loved that ride and chattered the entire time about how this was the best thing in the whole wide world.
We waited in line to board the train and we were really thrilled to see that we had the "special seats" in the nice car. Jake took his seat by the window and just sat there absorbing the entire scene. Before the train left the station they put on a HILARIOUS wild west show just outside of the train for us to watch. One of the horses in the show lifted it's tail and pooped right there on the spot, which made Jake pull out his toy gun, aim and shoot at the horse saying loudly, "no pooping in the parking lot".

The train finally left the station and we went through some very pretty farm land, but Jake kept his eyes peeled for robbers. About 5 minutes into the train ride we saw them on their horses in the woods. He was so freaking excited and he and his cousin squealed and counted their money. Several of the cast from the wild west show kept coming up and down the aisles and chatting with the kids ...asking if they had their gold "safe". Suddenly, the train slowed down and came to a stop and the sheriff came running down the aisle shouting, "the bank robbers are on board, hide your money!". Jake and Haleigh were eating pop corn, so they both hid their money in their pop corn bags. The "robbers" got to our car and asked our group if we had any money. Haliegh smiled and said, "nooooooo", but Jake instantly got his money out of his bag and handed it right over. LOL He's so easy to rob!! They wandered up and down the aisle and finally came back to our group and found Haliegh's money. Then they all went outside and did another big show where the robbers were caught and all that fun stuff. They took a bow and we clapped for them and then the train went back to the station. Jake shot at every leaf and tree the rest of the way back, until he nearly fell asleep staring out that window.
We got back and he asked Grandma for one more stage coach ride, which she happily obliged. He LOVED those horses.
It was really fun and not scary at all. I was worried that it would scare him, but it was done very cleverly and was pretty funny most of the time. The only thing that Jake didn't like was the loud sound their cap guns made. I wasn't thrilled about letting him have a gun allowing him to pretend shoot people, but we talked a lot about it at the beginning and he actually hasn't touched the gun since the train ride.
If you ever get a chance to take an old train ride...do it!

A 5 year old birthday

Jake had a very precise idea of what his birthday should be like and since it WAS his birthday , after all....I did everything he wanted. Here is the list as told to me at least 20 times:

1. Get a cake with "fat mouth Jacob" on it.

- You really have to understand this one. Jake just loves the Wii and there is a character on the Mii channel that is actually from South Park, but Jake saw it and decided that it was HIM. He owns at least 20 "fat mouth Jacob's" and he's completely enthralled with those Mii characters. I got a picture of the Mii from the Internet and gave it to Caleb's friend who just so happens to work at the Dairy Queen. She did a lovely job!

2. Hit a pinata....a dog pinata

- He had this dog pinata picked out at least a month before his birthday. He picked out what would go into the pinata and helped fill it up. What I didn't count on was the fact that this was HIS pinata. He didn't want anyone else to hit it , but graciously gave in under parental pressure. However, once Micah knocked the poor dogs head off and we got the candy flowing Jake yelled, "don't touch that stuff, it's MINE"! LOL Yeah, we took care of that too.

3. Eat at Cracker Barrel.

-Yes, that really was his idea! Grandpa even got him a Cracker Barrel gift card that he could use in the store. He bought a beannie baby and a WebKinz stuffed animal and then ate chicken tenders. The waitress surprised him with a little chocolate Sunday and they all sang "Happy Birthday" to him. He was beaming from ear to ear.

4. Go bowling

- He loves Wii bowling and has begged me for months to take him bowling. I told him that it was different and the balls were heavy, but he didn't care one bit. Haliegh and Eric met us at the bowling alley and we had bumpers put on one of the lanes for Jake and Haliegh. Jake never got tired of bowling. He bowled 3 games straight and everyone else just bowled one or two. LOL He LOVED it and has been begging to go back ever since.

There you have it....a perfect birthday when you are 5! :)

Rock and Roll hall of fame

Okay...so I was about to go to the grocery store and a fierce August storm broke out. Remember those crazy Ohio thunderstorms? I decided to wait a few minutes and let it pass. Before I continue with my final vacation installment :) I wanted to let you know that I added new photo albums to my photo site and a new video to youtube. (it's chalk on the walk stuff) Anyhow, both are accessible on the sidebars of this blog.

First impressions of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:

- It looks bigger than it actually is...

- NOT kid friendly

- Pretty cool if you like looking at memorabilia (which I do)

- Rock stars are very small people. I couldn't believe how utterly tiny the costumes from nearly every person in there were.

- The most interesting stuff in that museum is in the dark....so if you can't see well in the dark...you loose! Seriously, your eyes adjust :)

It was a gorgeous day and we parked next to the Browns stadium and walked over the to the Hall of Fame. I was snapping pictures of the architectually confusing building and having a lovely time, but when we got inside I was shocked to find out that you can't take pictures in there at all. In fact, they actually confiscate your camera and there are guards and staff in every single nook and cranny watching for camera smugglers!! LOL Therefor, I only have pictures that I could take in the lobby and from the outside of the building.

We were all split up through most of the museum because we all moved at our own pace and found different things interesting. Tilden was deep into the 70's bands and information while I was fascinated by the 80's and the very early stuff. I loved listening on headphones to the early era disc jockey's. I think that I was most interested to see Michael Jackson's red leather coat from his Thriller video as well as one of the Grammy's he won for that album. I thought a Grammy would be a lot more fancy and detailed. They also had his jewel studded glove in an air tight chamber..revolving slowly. I found THAT to be funny! LOL

Jake just ran from car to car. They have a purple Cadillac from Elvis, Roy Orbison's corvette, and Janis Joplin's phychodelic Porsche just to name a few. I think that Micah was most interested in the props from music video's. I was able to get this picture of a giant hot dog from a Phish video because it was visible from the lobby. I got a picture of Tilden and Jake coming up the escalator in front of it...heeheee. They have the actual wall and giant scary dude from the Pink Floyd "The Wall" video. It was HUGE and actually kind of scary!

There were 3 or 4 movies to watch, but we didn't end up seeing any of them. One was not suggested for children and the other 2 were over an hour long each. They have nice big theaters built to show those movies, but because Jake and Micah were with us we opted not to try to see them. I don't think Jake would have sat through even ONE of those movies. The only one that we watched was about the filming of the Beatles movie, "Help". You would have to be there for a minimum of 4 hours to see all the movies plus the museum stuff. Most people get their wristband and come back during show times.

The lobby is decorated with a lot of guitar statues made by local artist. They were pretty fascinating. Here are a few of them:

We enjoyed ourselves :)

super shy

I was so frustrated with Jake last night, but there isn't much I can do to change his behavior. He had his first soccer practice last night and he didn't know any of the kids or the coach. In classic Jacob style he simply "shut down". He went out on the field with the kids, but he was like a statue. He stood there and held onto his soccer ball and never flinched. His coach would ask him questions and Jake just stared at him wide eyed and lips glued shut. All the kids sat down to stretch and he stood there...they ran a lap around the field and he stood there....they kicked the ball back and forth to each other and he stood there. They took a water break and he walked back over to me. I said, "what is wrong with you?" and he simply shrugged his shoulders and fought back tears. Then I said, "get back out there and I want to see you run and show the coach how good you are". He walked back out to the field, but took extremely tiny baby steps and to0k 5 minutes to get back on the field. They did a mini scrimmage at the end and I was surprised to see that he actually ran back and forth on the field with the rest of the kids, but he never tried to kick the ball. About half way through their scrimmage he went up to his coach and BURST into tears and said, "I can't breathe". He came back to me and sat down and cried. I told him that he couldn't breathe because he never opened his mouth to get some air. He refused to go back into the game. I whispered into his ear, "if you go on the field and kick the ball just ONE time, I will take you to Wal-Mart and buy you any car you want". He baby stepped to the line , but never went on the field. When we got into the van he said, "can we go to Wal-Mart now?" and I was like "you never even went on the field!! NO we can't go to Wal-Mart." So we get home and he is all chipper and bouncy and I was NOT thrilled with him. We got out of the car and went into the back yard where I made him do all the drills that he wouldn't do at practice. I made him run back and forth in the yard and kick the ball to me. Then I asked him why he didn't do what the coach told him to do and he said, "I don't like him". HOW in the world can you not like him when you never saw him before in your life? I sent him to his room while I made dinner and told him that he could come back down when he was going to listen to his coach. He stayed up there for 20 minutes and finally wandered into the kitchen and said, "don't tell dad about my practice, okay?". LOL

I went to bed last night and I felt HORRIBLE for punishing him. He is just sooooooo shy in new situation that he can't function. I have run out of ideas on how to deal with him in those situations because he is completely unreachable when he shuts down. I don't want to play into his fears and allow him to quit or not participate. I guess that I will find out on Saturday (his next practice) if this "mean" technique worked. I've already tried bribery and super niceness - - those didn't work at all.
The sad thing is that he couldn't wait to play soccer. He was so excited about practice and being on a team. I am sure that his coach thought we were forcing him to play against his will. Poor Jake :(

More vacation stuff...

I finally have a chance to sneak back on here and write a little more about our trip to Cleveland. There is a new video on the YouTube link...it contains some still shots mixed in with some videos from that day.


Where did I leave off? Ohhhh yes, we had watched the Indians win at my last report....

After we checked into the hotel we walked about a mile into downtown Cleveland and ate dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. Jake was fascinated by the pigeons in Tower City Center and he tried to catch one. There are quite a few guitar statues inside Tower City as you are walking towards the Hard Rock. Alex and I felt this one was the most interesting and we just HAD to get a picture of it...isn't it neat and weird at the same time?


Here is a picture Micah took to PROVE we were at the Hard Rock....he basically just wanted a picture of the sign behind my head. LOL






We were in no big hurry to get back to our hotel, so we took a little self guided tour of all the monuments around downtown Cleveland. Most of the time that we are in town we are in a car. It's amazing how much you miss out on if you are just "flying" through town. There are several HUGE war memorials downtown. However; Alex and I were most fascinated by the Federal Reserve building. The architecture and statues surrounding that building are really intricate and elaborate. Plus, Alex got to share some of her "college knowledge" with me reguarding Federal Reserve's. There is also a very large statue of Abraham Lincoln next to the Freedom fountain that rivals the Lincoln Memorial. You could spend hours downtown just reading the plaques and absorbing the history. I really love history...but not reading about it...I love going to the locals and seeing it for myself. Here is a nice shot of the Freedom fountain and the "fam" chillin in the area surrounding that fountain as the sun was setting.












After all of our sight seeing we arrived back at the hotel. The boys found a way to play baseball and soccer with none of the proper equipment. They used the drum sticks Jake got at Hard rock and stuffed animals. LOL They had tons of fun -BOYS!! I will share the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame adventures next time :)