Just another day at the office...

Note the awesome hat, and eye protection.



My bosses are awesome... ;)

Just because he is adorable...

Numero tres

Sheesh, maybe we should clean that kid's fingernails once in a while. Gross!

This is the first one without an adult tooth growing in behind it, so the first one that left a decent gap.

Ahhhhh, Saturday...

Aaaand, not ten minutes later...

I'm taking a picture of this...

He had a giant bruise. Then a giant scrape and scab on top of it. Which just fell off today. And now he wanders in out of the hallway, bleeding. Smacked the same spot again, on who knows what.


Based on the Phrenological Chart of the Faculties, that would be approximately the "suavity" section he is hammering over and over again.He'll probably be just fine. After all, he is genetically predisposed, due of course to his father's contribution, to an overabundance of "suavity." He can probably spare some loss in that faculty...

You did pick up the sarcasm there, right?


In other news, we got the golden ticket today from US Citizenship and Immigration Services. "It has been determined that you are able to furnish proper care to an orphan or orphans as defined by section 101(b)(1)(F) of the Immigration and Nationality Act."

Although based on the last two posts, I might begin to question that declaration...



PS: Bruise or not... is that a darn cute kid, or what?

One of these thumbs is not like the other

So in the last post, I mentioned that Levi is absolutely obsessed with bugs and seeds. I neglected to mention that he is also obsessed with rocks. He is constantly finding rocks he considers, by criteria unknown to us, to be fascinating. He is slowly gathering a pile around the corner of the house in our front yard...

We are continually finding rocks squirreled away next to his car seat in the van...

And he is always finding a new rock to add to his collection, and displaying it to us so that we too can express our admiration for his latest treasure...

Unfortunately for Levi, that rock above did not agree with being disturbed from it's resting place and fought back. I guess he found it at Ella's school this afternoon while picking her up, and while carrying it around like it was the Hope diamond... he tripped. Sidewalk + little boy thumb + falling rock = major ouch...

I'm guessing that fingernail is off within a day.

Remember the Family Circus comic strip?

Saturday we took the kids over to the Gilbert Riparian Park for some fun.

Is it any wonder that this kid's head is covered in bruises? He's got a big bruise on the right side, a big scrape right above the bruise, another scrape on the left side. When the clumsy little kid goes down, apparently he breaks the fall with his giant noggin! Sunday night he crashed in nursery and got a bloody nose. The workers said they weren't too concerned, since they could see the evidence that he is prone to accidents...

They happened to be having some kind of kid's fishing day, so we checked out a large catfish in a bucket.

Passed by a "simulated Martian surface." Ummm, wow. Looks pretty much like the rest of the Arizona desert...

Levi tripped on a rock, fell to the ground, and immediately exclaimed "Wow! Look Dad! A spider!" That kid is absolutely obsessed with bugs and seeds. Every bug is his "little buddy" and every seed needs to be planted to see what it will grow into.

Fed some ducks...

Examined the stream...

All tuckered out (me, not Luke...)

Possibly inspired by my T-shirt choice that morning, I decided to finish up the afternoon by creating my first Bacon Explosion. I read about it a while ago, and have been itching to make one. So I procured 2 pounds of pork sausage, 2 pounds of bacon, and some BBQ seasonings...

Wrapped them into a masterpiece and tossed it into the smoky grill...

The Bacon Explosion, well... exploding! I think this must be how it got it's name...

Mmmmmmm, bacon...

Looks might tasty...

I gotta say though... I was underwhelmed. I mean, it was good, and... bacon-y. But it wasn't like I passed out in sheer bacon ecstasy. It was basically just a ginormous spicy breakfast sausage. Now I've got 3.5 pounds of a huge bacon creation that I am not quite sure what to do with. So probably my first and last Bacon Explosion.



What does all this have to do with the Family Circus? Not much, really. But using my meager Photoshop skills, I put together the following, which reminded me of the comics where the kids wanders all over the page to accomplish (or not) one simple task.

As Noah would say... "mysterious"

Four helium balloons will just lift one glow stick. I'm thinking a set of about 10 of these, each tied to the next with a 100 yard length of fishing line, and we see how many phone calls to the local TV stations we can generate. Next night with no moon is October 17. Who's in? ;)

To whoever just Goggle'd...

"can i take my pocket knife into disney" and ended up on our blog...

The answer is no. At least, not if a small part of the pocket clip is visible, and some freakishly attentive old lady happens to notice it while you are passing through "security."

So just keep it in your pocket, and you will be fine. Along with anything else you would like to sneak into the place.

Ella's birthday party

Ella finally finished up what seemed like 3 weeks of celebrating her birthday. she had an actual birthday party with her friends from school, not just her family.

There were, of course, waterslides...


Swinging...


Good to know our kids aren't the only crazies on the waterslide...






This is a little boy if I ever saw one. He just sat there, kicking water at people, for no apparent reason...


Hot dogs for lunch...


Then some crafts...


Cotton candy. I am sure all the other parents really appreciated us renting a cotton candy machine and getting their kids high as kites on fluffy sugary goodness...


More presents than you could shake a stick at...


I caught Levi red handed. Or pink handed, in this case...


Finally, the birthday girl herself...


Happy Birthday Ella!

The whole earth groans

I am fairly sure that when Paul said the whole creation was groaning, he probably didn't have electronics in mind. But he could have.

First the camera, then the computer monitor, now the Ipod. I dropped it today at work. Not a big drop, just a little one, but the screen went white. Music still played, just no display.

Crud.

I googled it. The "white screen of death," apparently. Guess Microsoft isn't the only one. It appears to be a common problem. Lots of rebooting, resetting, reformatting ideas. But mine seemed to be functioning fine, so likely wasn't a software issue. Given the drop, my guess was that the LCD cable got jarred and came loose.



Luckily, there are plenty of instructions for how to disassemble them online. Looks like a piece of cake! (famous last words...)

And they made Step 2 sound so easy. Although it did come with a warning not to get discouraged if it takes you a few tries.

Or 1 hour, 5 minutes, and 2 seconds, based on the time stamp on the photos.

A broken chisel, broken exacto blade, broken Ipod repair tool, and several broken fingernails later, I had it open. I was about ready to throw it through the window at about 37 minutes in.

Then I just would have had to fix a window too...

See that little orange ribbon cable in the center of the part on the left? Unplug it, plug it back in, and the screen works great.

And after over an hour of prying at the case, you can't even tell it was opened.

Well, sort of...

So if you drop your Ipod in heaven, please tell me that it will work just fine? Or at least that it can be easily repaired by a small child in about 3 seconds?

And that all computer monitors will be waterproof?