WordPress put out a Year In Review for The Goon Room. It’s so fun to see all the stats and memories from the past year! Thank you for reading TGR and I hope to keep you entertained for another year. Just 8 posts to go until I hit 300 – yikes!
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 16,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 6 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Christmas has brought a lot of new words to Bay’s vocabulary and not all of them are easy to understand. The Grinch, for example. I asked her to repeat herself 16 times before I sent her to PW for interpretation.
Silly Lu Lu – Cindy Loo Hoo.
Zinsh – The Grinch. This one is hard to write because it’s really more of a sound than a word and leads me to ask “show me what you’re talking about”.
There’s me! – her greeting when she walks into a room.
Sarah – Dora the Explorer. She doesn’t watch Dora but for some reason thinks her name is Sarah. Her swim diapers have Dora on them and when I put them on she says “Hey Sarah!!”.
The Teddy Bear – Winnie the Pooh. We’re going to see the Winnie the Pooh Christmas play today so I’m guessing she’ll know his name after that.
Krishness – Christmas!
So it’s finally happened. It was bound to happen and I think most parents go through with this (well, maybe not the good parents). I’m talking about when your kiddo busts out a swear word. And even better, uses it correctly and in multiple forms.
Last week after swim lessons, we were home and getting dinner started, laundry done and catching up with our neighbor, Melissa. I was headed out the door to the grill when Baylor walked out of the office and said “Oh no. Daddy forgot his pens for work. Goddammit!”. Melissa and I both paused and asked her what she said to which she answered “Daddy forgot his goddamn pens!”.
I stopped and silently absorbed what she had just said to me. I can’t lie and say that it wasn’t funny that she used it so perfectly – but I bit my tongue and held back the giggle and explained how that was not a word we use. Ever. No matter where she heard it from (i.e. Me).
The next day we were at the grocery store. It was particularly windy and her hair was not in her now trademark pigtail “knots” on top of her head. Which meant her hair was everywhere. As I was putting her in the car she declared “my goddamn hair clip won’t stay in!!”. This time I asked her to look me in the eye where I explained that she is never, ever, ever to use that word. It wasn’t funny or ok. She then proceeded to say it 3 more times. I mustered all my strength and said nothing. I didn’t look at her, tell her to stop, nothing. I simply put the groceries away and ignored all further comments until I heard a very soft “I sorry, Mommy” from the back seat.
That was Friday so I’m crossing my fingers that we’ve at least side-stepped this one. That is until the printer wouldn’t print in anything but variations of yellow and blue…PW is responsible for that one.
Yesterday afternoon, Bay and I put on some Christmas music, lit a cinnamon candle and fired up the oven to make some Christmas cookies. B was thrilled to play in the left over dough, flour and sprinkles while the cookies cooked. It was a lovely afternoon.
That is until two cookies escaped the baking sheet and dropped into the oven where they broke into a million pieces. Crap. I decided to just close the door and let it cool before I attempted to clean them up. Until the kitchen began to fill with smoke.
“Why not let it self clean??” I thought. So I put on the self clean setting and returned to icing the trees. Until I noticed that it appeared we had a yule log in our kitchen…yup the cookies had ignited in the oven. I quickly turned off the oven and stepped back trying to decide what to do next – get the extinguisher? Call 911? As I contemplated, the fire quickly went out. Bay casually looked over from her sprinkling duties and said “Mommy, there’s a fire in the oven”. Yes, yes there is kiddo.
Despite our house smelling like a camp fire, all is well. The oven cooled and is no worse for the wear (I think). I cleaned out the chunks of cookie and it is now happily self-cleaning (I think). The windows are open, the fans are going and there are holiday scented candles burning so hopefully by this afternoon there will be no evidence of our almost fiasco.
When my cousin Will arrived last night to watch UofA and eat us out of house and home (I was prepared with 3 lbs of tacos) I told him what had happened. He responded “what’s with you guys and fire??” – referring to the grill fire of 2009. It’s nice to have family who cares about you.
On the bright side, the cookies were delicious! Chef Mini Wand does it again!
The Chef hard at work.
Check out that post nap hair.
Much like shoes, you just can’t have too many sprinkles.
I will never, ever, ever understand people who love to shop on Black Friday.
As an employee of the retail world on several levels and for many years, I have worked more BF’s than I care to mention. I have seen the hordes of crazy shoppers and tried to meet their requests all while having sales numbers pounded over my head by corporate. It is, in fact, horrible.
I know, I know. Good deals, blah blah blah, great bargains, blah blah blah, amazing prices, blah blah blah. None of those reasons are good enough for me. I was thinking about it…and the only way I would go shop at midnight – on Black Friday (or any day at midnight for that matter) -would be if ALL of my Christmas gifts were at one store and they were all 50% + off retail price. That’s it. I’m not getting out of my warm, cozy bed to go browse items that I may or may not want on the 20% off rack.
It’s going to take some pretty tough convincing. But if you have any amazing reasons why shopping on BF is worth it, then let me hear it. Otherwise, I stay cynical, bitter and with online shopping…
Because our sweet girl has a language all her own:
“Frog” – Bay has a humidifier that looks like a frog. Therefore all humidifiers are called Frogs.
“Hopsitle” – or hospital to you and me
“Gubs” – gloves
“Cookie” – her cousin Quincy
“Nahma and Nampa” – grandma and grandpa
“Poppynoni” – the fast way to say Pop and Noni
“NumNums” – her favorite stuffed rabbit – Peter taught her that rabbits say “num num num” when their little noses twitch
“Loga” – yoga
“Busssssss” – when she was just starting to speak, she would only say Buh for bus. I would accentuate the S sound and now bus has a super long s!
“Baylor lock” – the lock on the door that she can’t reach and therefore keeps her inside. When Peter comes home, I hear “Mommy!! I can’t open door because the BAYLOR lock!!”
Ever since we’ve become friends with our neighbor, Melissa, Bay has had an eye on her house. B was hooked with the first high-five “Missa” gave her and now she is constantly on the look out. I know when Missa has left her patio light on. I’m told when her kitchen blinds are open and if her car is there all because the Littlest Block Watch is filling me in. I know when Missa is cutting her grass and when she’s missed a spot. I know if Missa has gotten her mail or if it’s still in the mail box.
The funniest part is what Missa is allegedly doing when she is or isn’t home – if the blinds are closed, I’m told that Missa is very tired and still sleeping. If her car is gone, then she’s probably at “Loga” – or yoga to you and me. And when Bay’s door is open with the baby gate and Missa’s windows are open, there is a constant stream of “HIII MISSAAAAA!!!” being shouted out the door until I explain that she probably can’t hear her – or that Missa probably thinks there is some kind of wild animal making crazy sounds.
I finally broke down and told Melissa a few months ago that there is little that she does that goes unnoticed at our house. I was expecting her to freak out and decide to put up a privacy fence or something (and rightly so). Instead she responded “Oh good, I’m glad someone’s got an eye on the place!”. And now I get a text once in awhile asking the LBW to keep a close eye while she’s away.
This will be a great story when Bay is a detective or a FBI agent some day….or as evidence against her in a stalker trial. Either way, it’s cute.
We spent this past weekend in Colorado visiting friends from law school and going to the UofA v CU Boulder game. In a word, it was awesome.
When the PAC 10 became the PAC 12, PW began dreaming of snowy football games in CO. And when this season’s schedule was announced, he began putting together plans for a road trip. We get a double bonus for trips to Denver because our friends, Brian and Jeanne are now Denver-ites which means we got to see and catch up with them too. And catch up we did.
Friday night was spent laughing, reminising and filling each other in on life, jobs and the kiddo. We talked over the most amazing meal ever at Osteria Marco. We also walked around Larimer Square – it felt like the perfect holiday location; strings of lights, chilly weather and a warm coat!
After a delicious, greasy spoon cafe breakfast, we headed West to Boulder for the game. Colorado is spectacularly beautiful and getting to go to a small college town made me think of Tucson. We arrived to join the UofA tailgate hosted by a group of friends and PW’s fraternity brothers. It’s always nice to know that some things don’t change.
Check out Grizzly Adams back there…
To sum up the game…it was horrible. The wind was blowing at a steady 40mph and gusting up to 70mph. Worse, UofA was crushed by Boulder (maybe the only team that was worse than the Cats). But the scenery and the company made up for all of it. Not to mention the super cute cowboys on the field that were incharge of running Ralphie the Buffalo down the field.
Seriously, check out my hair in the wind!
Beautiful Boulder
Who runs a real buffalo around??
Saturday night we ordered pizza and opened several bottles of wine and warmed up at Brian and Jeanne’s house. After several sips, Brian agreed to break out the guitar and play. He can literally play anything. He has a huge book of lyrics so that everyone can accurately sing along – and it’s something we did often when we were all broke law school students (or just broke because we were married to a student). It reminded of one of my favorite memories – it was maybe a week before we were moving home to AZ. I had cut out of work early to meet PW, Brian, Jeanne and our other friends James and Tess (Brian and James were roommates at the time). I found them all sitting on the “patio” of the row “house”James and Brian rented (I say “house” because their slum lord probably had the house condemned the minute the tenants moved out), drinking and singing Toto’s “Africa” with total seriousness on their faces. There was no making fun of Toto, it was serious music to be taken seriously. The weather was finally warm, the beer was cold and we sat and sang and drank until it was time to catch the last metro home. It was the perfect way to say goodbye to the city, our friends and to being a student.
Flash forward 4 years, weddings, kids, jobs and many miles traveled later and we were right back to that point. We sat and sang until we realized that we had to get up in just a few hours to catch our plane. And much like I am an amazing dancer after several cocktails, I am also an amazing singer. Sadly for you, WordPress won’t let me upload the voice memo I took of the Billy Bragg and Wilco California Stars jam session. You’ll just have to imagine the awesomeness in your mind.
A thousand thank you’s to Brian and Jeanne for being such sweet hosts and amazing friends. I see reunion 2012: Spring Training in our future!
I have been on the hunt for a photographer that fit into our budget to take family pictures for us. I love pictures and I like when I get to be in them, which doesn’t often happen when I’m the one taking all the pictures! Plus, I love the candid shots and retouching of professional work.
Awhile ago I “liked” a friend from high school’s photography page – 2 Comforts Photography. I thought she did mostly wedding work but recently saw some family pics pop up. So I reached out to Meredith for a quote and it turned out that not only were her rates increadibly reasonable, they were having a special AND had openings! Jackpot!
So we met a few weekends ago at Civic Center Park and spent an hour snapping pics. I have to say that Bay was quite cooperative. She did start to loose it towards the end of the hour, but Meredith and her husband Travis were able to catch some great shots during that phase. Needless to say, I am thrilled with pictures and I can’t wait to get them up on the wall!
Here are a few of my favorites:
This is the epitome of our relationship – we just follow her lead!
Act surprised when you get our Christmas card, ok?
I love this one
This was when we started entering the uncooperative phase. Thankfully she looks cute when she’s being defiant.
Thank you again Meredith and Travis for the gorgeous family treasures!
This year for Halloween, Baylor has been passed down a great (and might I add very well accessorized) costume from her cousin Madi. She is new to Minnie, but she’s becoming a big time fan. The costume has everything, except for the ears. No biggie, right? I’ll just cruise on over to the Disney store at the mall and pick up a pair.
As I stroll into the store, there in the very front are Minnie ears. Except they have a pink bow instead of a red one. Bummer. So I ask the woman behind the desk…here’s how it played out:
“Excuse me. Do you have any Minnie ears with the re-”
“No! We are totally and completely sold out. Totally.”
“Oh. Ok. Thank yo-”
“And every store is sold out too!”
At this point, I’m pissed. I was sad that they didn’t have what I wanted, but to go and really shove it down my throat that they didn’t have it is a little much. And that’s when I get a little snarky..
“Oh. Do you think you could check to see if another store has it?”
“No. I just said that everyone is out.”
“Everyone? Even online? Like there are no more anywhere?? ANYWHERE??”
And that’s when she turned and helped another customer. So much for being the happiest place on earth. And the joke’s on her because I did find them at Party City for $6.99 rather than the $16.00 they charged at the Disney Store!!
This much excitement may mean that it’s time for some vacation….
The Goon Room 