Trains and not that Girlie stuff...

Maren often gets the short end of the stick when it comes to having friends over.  Marissa's best bud lives two blocks away and when they get bored at one house they traipse on over to the other's house to see what they can do about that.  Maren often gets left in the dust, unfortunately.  Luckily, Mr. Eyelashes Tyeson concedes to making a visit to girlie-land every now and then.  He always lets us know quite adamantly,"I'm not gonna play with those Barbies".



So, that usually means we bust out the trains.  Now when Marissa was Maren's age, she could play with trains all the live long day, and love every minute of it.  Maren would rather stick with the girlie-girl stuff, which as previoulsy indicated, Mr. Eyelashes Tyeson, being from a family of three boys, will have nothing to do with. It makes for an interesting dialogue. 

Maren: "Let's say that Lady had a baby train and they were going to go to school."

Tyeson: "OK", as he violently crashes two trains together on the drawbridge.

Maren: "And then let's say both of the parents died." (Do you ever notice how the parents are always dead in kids' stories, or um, is that just my kids? Yikes.)

Tyeson:  "Hold that story.  I have to go take a pee."

And he runs off to the bathroom and proceeds to accomplish this ( is Maren would indicate to me later) without even closing the door.

All gender stereotypes aside, they have a great time together.  It was actually our first snow day (or should we call it ice day) here this winter.  What a nice way to spend an afternoon.  Someday I'll have to tell you their "china" story.  Oh dear.

Oh Brother...

This is me and my brother Don.  It's Don's birthday today.  We are five days shy of being exactly two years apart. Guess Mom and Dad really believed in "celebrating" Valentine's Day, back then.  Wink. Wink. So yes, if you're doing the math, I just turned 40 so that makes him 42.  You guys are sharp.

I'll have to say I think this is a pretty darn cute picture.  It's one of my favorites of us.  Pretty sure it made the Christmas card insert that year.  When I look at that picture (once I get past the paneling and the linoleum) I can't help but think it sort of sums up our relationship in a lot of ways.  We definitely fall into the whole birth order thing.  Don is the first born - driven, determined, 4.0 student, who always had more discipline in his little finger than I have in my entire body. Of course he would hold the pig.  I am forever the middle child - peace-maker, a little goofier, a little sillier, and not much of a competitor at all. I want to make peace with the pig and that may not include me holding it. 

 I think I would have always been a little more hesitant in life if I hadn't seen Don go there first. Don led. I followed. Obviously,this could have good or bad consequences.  Not so good when he decided to light a fire under the county bridge down the gravel road from our farmplace.  My parents were not so impressed with our resourcefulness.  It was cold that day. We needed to kill keep ourselves and our cousins dead warm. 

But, I did chose to go to a four year college and get my Bachelor's Degree in Nursing, and boy am I glad I did.  Don went to college, so I did too.  Ever the over acheiver, Don went to a four year private college, got his chemistry degree, and then went to the University of Iowa another three years to become a pharmacist.  He was a RD, started up his own student care package delivery business, and probably had his schooling all paid for by the time he graduated, all while maintaining a 4.0 GPA.  What's a girl to do?

I guess just be happy to have such a good example ever present in my life since the day I was born. He was my first playmate, my chauffer in our high school years, my guidance couselor when considering college and career paths.  He threw me an excellent party when I turned 21. He drove cross country and killed his transmission to come visit me in Tulsa. He has been a wonderful uncle to our girls.  As far as older brother go, I couldn't ask for better.  Love you Donnie!   Happy Birthday!!

If You Give a Girl a Birthday...

...she may want some homemade pancakes lovingly, yet messily,(darn they were good!) prepared by her husband for her birthday breakfast...

 ....along with a nice dose of  public embarassment to go with it.

 If you give a girl a birthday...

 ...she might get some awesome birthday presents that might make her think turning 40 really isn't so bad after all.

She might want to hold her new nephew...

...or go out to a swanky restaurant with her swankier family.

She might even get a really cool hand-drawn card of her ride from her talented Father-in-law. 

Not that I would know anything about any of this. 

She might have had such a great 40th birthday that she thought it was all a wonderful dream....

until she saw this, and she understood it was all for real.

Even the BIG 4-0.

Perfect Pairings Ecclesiastes 3:1

3:1 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

Halloweening 2010

What a weekend. Busy. Good. Fun. Spoooky. All the above. Here's a re-cap. 

Marissa and Her Pumpkin:

Marissa's 5th grade class had a pumpkin decorating contest and Marissa won one of the 10 or so prizes awarded.  She was high on pumpkin love, let me tell you.  I'd like to tell you we were creative enough to think this one up, but we did a Google image search.  She looked for "cool" and I looked for easy.  Have to say it worked for both of us.

Halloween costumes:

Were pretty stress free this year.  Maren used the pumpkin costume I hand-labored over with blood, sweat, and tears for Marissa one year.  Marissa was the "like 80's girl". Like totally.  Like, I had no input whatsoever into the makings of that costume.  You know you're old when your high school years are "retro" and become cool again.

A mighty fine time was had by all.  The candy overfloweth. As did the sugar high and the giggling that accompanies such states.  Lucky Sue and Dennis were around to keep things sane. 

 The Two Bennets:

One of the highlights of our trick-or-treating adventures was hitting the care facility where my Dad, Bennet, is living.  One of the residents was even dressed as a witch and gave the girls a pretty good scare. We also got lucky and Baby Bennet was there too.  Love this shot.  What a perfect ending to a fun weekend.  Hope yours was a good one too!