Happy Feet

Today I took the kids to the science center to see Happy Feet at the IMAX theater. A friend of mine had warmed me that her daughter had thrown up a couple of times while seeing it because of the motion sickness and the huge screen, etc. So I brought a gallon sized ziploc bag in my purse for Emma, just in case. Kyle and I had been to movies there a few times before, so I wasn't worried about us...just Emma. So repeatedly I told her "if you feel yucky, close your eyes" Then when we got in there, we overheard an employee telling someone about how when they had Superman there, they had people puking left and right. Great.
So the movie started....which was a really cute movie BTW, and it was full of music. Emma then became Happy Feet. I was no longer worried about her throwing up, but she didn't sit still through the entire thing. She was a dancing fool. Bopping up and down on her seat, trying to tap dance in the aisle, twirling, you name it. It was damn adorable and now I'm guaranteed to buy it when it comes out on DVD.

He was delicious

I heard that Gerald Ford died yesterday and here's what it made me think of:
http://www.videosift.com/story.php?id=23031&where=

Post Christmas

Whew! That was quite a week. Christmases, here, there and everywhere. We made out like bandits too. My mom, Emma and I went shopping today, came home with bags of stuff and I still have 3 gift cards I haven't even touched yet. Gift cards are the greatest gift. I get to shop with someone else's money. What could be better? ;)
Here are some random pictures of us during our holiday festivities:

Busy Day

I was running around like a crazy woman today. Emma had her Christmas party at preschool, plus I had to go to the post office, library, and Target. Then back to her school for her music program. Then I realized I had forgotten my camera. Every other moment of her life is recorded on film, so I figured it was high time she actually had to use her memory for something. ;) Then I brought her home and had to got to Kyle's school for his "family tradition" presentation. I remembered my camera for that one.




Then after school Kyle had a doctor's appt. in Ames, so we had to get there in 20 minutes. We were only 2 minutes late, so we made some good time.

Dick in a Box

So when I heard Justin Timberlake was going to on SNL again, I was excited because his last time hosting was a good one. I was right, it was a funny ass show. My favorite was the SNL short "Dick in a Box", which was totally "Color Me Badd" circa 1991.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkKyn1tHpqs

They even had Jimmy Fallon back on to do another episode of the Barry Gibb talk show. It wasn't as funny as the first time around, but still humorous.
"Talkin' 'bout chest hair, talkin' 'bout crazy cool medallions."

Quick little book

We had our scrapbook group Christmas party on Sunday night and I got some stuff to do some football layouts. Kyle had requested that I make him a little book, as he's seen me make many of them for other people. ;) So I took that opportunity to use some of my new football themed items to make his book. It's just a simple spiral bound chipboard book, but I think he'll like it.

Santa and Jolly holiday lights

We took the kids to see Santa at Dahl's yesterday and then Jolly Holiday lights. It was holiday merriment galore! ;)

Years

I can't even remember the last time I was drunk enough to puke. It was years....maybe even before I was pregnant with Emma. But last night was apparently my night. We went to Rob's work Christmas party. They had it at the banquet room at the Comfort suites and had some really yummy food...plus free alcohol. So Rob kept bringing me more and I kept drinking it. Ugh. I'm a light weight anyway because I don't drink that often, and it was bad. Room spinning, puking, waking up at 4 am wondering how the hell I got in bed. The works. So I laid around all morning because my inlaws had the kids and now I'm feeling much better. Rob even went out and got me some ice cream because that was the only thing that sounded good this morning.
So the party was fun, but get this.....I was commenting on how much I liked the table centerpieces and while we were eating dinner they announced that the oldest person at the table could take the centerpiece home. Guess who that was? So cool that I got to keep it, but not cool that I only got it for being a hag.

ABC Family

I love this 25 days of Christmas that ABC Family does. I swear I get more excited about these shows than my children do. Last night was "Santa Claus is Coming to Town". You know, the one with the Burgermeister Miesterburger.



And the other night was "The year without Santa Claus", the one with Snow Miser and Heat Miser. I still knew all the words!
"I'm mister snow miser, I'm mister snow. I'm mister white Christmas, I'm mister 10 below"....you know you were singing along! ;)

Funny things my son has said

Out of context of course, because that makes them even funnier:

1. I've got a beaver and I'm not afraid to use it!

2. Spaghetti (in an Italian accent)

3. Oooo, baby....she is hot for me to kiss.

4. She's pretty like someone who isn't a mom(and I replied "actually she is a mom") Well, she's prettier than my mom, then.

5. That must be how Grandpa got his mustache, by drinking too much beer.

6. I don't want to be hit by lightening because then everyone will see my skeleton.

7. Ewwwww, you're going to poop her out?!

8. Tasfer!

9. (While driving past the local strip club) That's the place that Grandpa took me to get some coffee and talk.

10. That must be how they make soap, by melting down poisonous snakes.

Holiday stuff

Last night we had our Mom's group Christmas party. Rob was disappointed that I didn't come home more drunk and frisky...but too bad for him. ;) It was a good time. We got all gussied up, ate some awesome food, drank a little and played that game Catch Phrase for hours. It's fun when you have that many people. Plus my team won.....again!
Today we took advantage of the cold weather.....like 10 degrees....and just stayed home. Rob got us some movies. The kids watched Ice Age, the Meltdown and we watched the DaVinci Code. And I did some crafting. I decided, just today that I wanted to make an altered clip board to use as a countdown until Christmas. So I went through all my stuff and here is what I came up with:




I was pleased. Especially because it was just stuff I had on hand and nothing I bought just to use for this purpose. I get satisfaction from that. The idea is that you make cards with 24 numbers and each day the kids pull off a number so they know how many days until Santa comes. Emma couldn't have cared less, but Kyle thought it was cool.

Get this!

So when we got back from MN after Thanksgiving we had a ton of messages on our answering machine from people wanting to get estimates on roofing. We had no idea what the hell wsa up with that, but then the calls kept coming. Finally I found out from some guy that this roofing company in town had our number on their yellow pages ad. The new phone books came out last week and sure enough in bold type is our number in the ad. I looked them up under the business section and their real number is only one digit off from ours. I called them to let them know what had happened and the lady was like "you've got to be kidding?!....do you know how much we had to pay for that ad?". I didn't know what the phone company could do, but I figured these people should still call and bitch. I was not very excited about the prospect of answering all of this company's calls for the next year. So today a guy called from some law office representing "Dex"...aka, the phone book". I was thinking that the roofing company must have really given them hell if it had already been sent to litigation. Anyway, so the guy said that the phone company "is prepared to offer us $300 to change our number". Holy shit! He gave us the weekend to "think it over" so I'm going to act really put out by it and see if they'll give us more. ;)

Pubs, peanut butter and napkins

Pubs....with a long "u" as in crotch hair, not a bar. I don't really remember getting pubic hair......one day I didn't have it and then, I did. I don't think it was elementary school, but maybe. Anyway, tonight Kyle started basketball practice. So we went to one of the other elementary schools in town. In the middle of practice, I went to look for a restroom. I didn't know my way around, so I just started walking and found one down a dark hallway. I found the light and entered the closest stall, which was were I found the monstrous black curly pub on the toilet seat. I'm sure it's possible that another adult had used that toilet, but usually a grown woman would turn to flush the toilet and see it sitting there, right? Leaving something gnarly and massive would be something a kid would do, wouldn't it? But if so....how fucking amazon is this grade schooler with giant pubic hair?! I mean, that thing didn't grow overnight.....it had been cultivated. So needless to say, I used the other stall.
Today Emma and I went to the mall. There was a dude who had brought his own lunch and was eating it on a bench. Why he couldn't have eaten in the food court is beyond me......anyway, his lunch consisted of an apple, a jar of peanut butter and a spoon. So, of course, I watched him for awhile. He ate the apple, then ate what appeared to be at least a half jar of peanut butter with a spoon. Alrighty.
I picked up my pottery that I had painted a couple weekends ago at Glazed Expressions. It is a snowman napkin holder and I have to say, it looks pretty good.

Post Thanksgiving talk

We got back from Minnesota yesterday after our long weekend of eating and shopping. I didn't eat or buy as much as I could have, but it was still enough. My BIL works for Target and because of the nice weather they had made more money at his store on "Black Friday" than anticipated....something like $600,000 that day. Can you imagine? My mom and I waited in line at Kohl's for about a half hour. The kids stayed with Rob at my sister's house, so I was perfectly fine waiting in line worrying only about myself. While in line we heard people talking about when they had gotten there, so much they had bought, etc. and this woman was saying that she had gotten there at 5 am and then left because the line was so long. Then she came back at 9....when we were there.....and the line was even longer. Duh, dipshit, what did she expect? The nice thing about going later, was that by 1:00 in the afternoon all the early birds had gone home. Here are some pictures of my mom, me, my sister and Emma on Thanksgiving.

Shots and Thanksgiving

Yesterday Emma had her 4 year check up. She had to get 5 shots including a flu shot and she was a champ. She normally doesn't give too much of a fuss about shots, or blood draws or anything because she has a high pain tolerance, but with the 5 shots.....and they save the one that stings the most until last.....she was getting pretty fed up. Finally she said to the nurse "stop pinching me!". What a gal!
So in about an hour or so we are heading out for our Thanksgiving weekend in Mankato, MN at my sister's house. I made some stuffing to take along and whole house smells of sage and sausage....mmmmmmm. I hope to do some massive shopping on Friday, but we'll see what I end up with. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Decorating for Christmas

Yesterday at the Hobbs household was spent taking down fall decorations and putting up Christmas ones. I also made cookies and Kyle helped me decorate them.

Peppermint Patty

I took an online quiz "What gay childhood icon are you?" and found out that I am the Very Gay Peppermint Patty.......yeah I guess I can see that. ;)



http://www.blogthings.com/whatgaychildhoodiconareyouquiz/

Am I missing something?

This whack-ass upside down Christmas tree is being advertised at Sears for $800. They were toting it as a "conversation piece". Yeah, if you want the conversation to start out with "You paid $800 for that?"

Happy Birthday Emma!

Today is officially Emma's 4th birthday. At this time 4 years ago, I was in the tail end of labor and cursing the anesthesiologists for not letting me have an epidural. Emma was born at 5:14 pm, and was the nail in the coffin of "I'm never doing this again".
Yesterday was her birthday party. We had it at CiCi's pizza, which she loves, but doesn't eat the pizza. She is partial to the noodles and sauce, instead. She had a ball, eating, running around with her friends, having cake and opening gifts. I can't believe that in a little over a month she is going to be receiving even more toys. UGH! Here are a few photos of the day:



She had a Strawberry Shortcake party......can you tell? ;)

Nicknames of old

Something got me thinking of nicknames this morning and I thought it would be fun to list some of the random nicknames I've either had, given, or used on a regular basis throughout my life. If you are reading this and remember any of these, feel free to comment on their origins, or just to make fun of yesteryear.

Shoulders
Watermelon Head
The Nader-nator
Red Pants Jason
Stumpy
Junior
Larry, Curly and Ho
Lunatic Fringe
Madame Crossaint
Josh-wa
A
The whornado
Schactermunch
Nay Nay
Ketchup Pants

Emma's 4 year picture

Here is little miss Emma in her 4 year photo. Damn, she's cute!



Oh and check this shit out....the scariest fucking kid's toy ever created:

New Layouts

I went scrapbooking this afternoon/evening with my scrapbook group buddies and I got quite a few layouts done. I had delusions of using some new ideas or techniques, but that didn't really pan out. So they look kind of typically Trish, but cute none the less. Some are from the apple orchard, but mostly Halloween and the pumpkin patch. Here are a few examples:

Thanksgiving gets the shaft

Yesterday while Emma was in preschool, I went walking at Valley West Mall. They must have had overtime employees galore the night before because the whole place was decked out in Christmas decorations. Von Maur was the most. They even had the Christmas muzak going. It was crazy......apparently in the mall November is the new December? ;) Off topic, here is a picture that I took last week of Emma at tap dancing class:

Tricks or Treats

Last night was Beggar's night here in Ankeny. Which I still think is stupid....that we can't call it trick or treating and have in on Halloween. Ugh. Anyhoo.....so it was windy as hell and me, Kyle and Emma were out for about 45 minutes before calling it a night. They scored lots of good loot, but Emma was bitching the whole time about her hat blowing off. Rob took Kyle out again a little later by themselves, but they still were only out for about 30 minutes. It was 55 degrees, but the wind was 30 mph, so it felt a lot colder. I bought a ton of candy because our neighborhood has millions of kids and I didn't want to run out, but because of the weather we only had kids for about the first hour and then it dwindled off. So now we are stuck with 2 huge bags of red licorice. I'm sure Rob will take care of that, but I can't stand the stuff. Here are some photos:

Race for the Cure and Living History Farms

Yesterday was a busy day and I woke up with a runny nose, cough, sore throat and thoughout the course of the day, got a headache. Yippee! I still went through the motions and even got to take a nap yesterday afternoon. The race was good, but chilly and overcast. Luckily by evening it was warm enough that the kids could trick or treat at Living History Farms without wearing their coats the whole time. They had fun roasting marshmallows and riding on the horse drawn cart.....but the storyteller was lame. We sat in the tent listening to this guy with a microphone that you could still barely hear and the story wasn't scary in the slightest. Needless to say, we'll be skipping that part next time. Oh and since when did they have microphones in the 19th century? ;)

The finger

For some reason whenever someone wants to take a picture of me, my first reaction is to give them the finger. Not sure why that's my first reaction.....but it always is. So quite a few people have pictures of me giving the finger. As a matter of fact, here are a few of me in my costume at the Halloween party and one has my favorite pose. ;)

Post Halloween Party

It was a really good time. I dressed up and got to scare some of the kids as they were coming in the house. ;) My kids had a great time. It was kind of a chore cleaning it all up the next day, though. Old stale popcorn all over the floor, decorations that were halfway ripped down, kool aid spills, etc. It was worth all the trouble as look at how happy these kids are:

Getting ready for Halloween

Tomorrow we are having our mom's group Halloween party here. I've cleaned out the garage and set up a haunted house of sorts. Nothing too scary as there will be little kids Emma's age here, but black lights, a fog machine and some scary music ought to do the trick. Today I made caramel apples, which I've never done before. What a mess! I had visions of using a double boiler and somehow they'd come out picture perfect. Whatever. I wound up just melting the caramel in a glass measuring cup in the microwave and dunking each apple individually. They aren't pretty, but I'm sure they'll taste good. I also planned on having the kids bob for apples. A friend suggessted that instead of using water, that I use popcorn so it woud easier and less wet for the little kids. So today I popped, and I popped and I popped popcorn....like a 64 oz bag of kernels. The house completely smells like caramel and popcorn. Not a bad combo. :)
Kyle is going to be a vampire, so today Emma and I headed over to the theatrical shop in Valley Junction to get some vampire teeth. I had thought that maybe Emma might be scared in there as there are monsters and all kinds of scary props/costumes. So we get there and start looking around. She is completely unaffected by the giant skeletons, severed heads, aliens, coffins, ect. There was even one of the employees dressed up like the devil and she didn't even flinch. Then another employee dressed as a Wizard walks by and she freaks. A fucking wizard! Just a damn robe and pointy hat and she was crawling up my leg, yelling "NO!". That child is nuts.

Gentlemen prefer skeletons

Check out these hilarious pictures of photo-shopped celebs. I guess that anorexic look is still in, huh? ;)