Happy Holidays to you and yours...

Well kids...it's the Thursday before the holidays - are you ready?? Stocking stuffers...last minute gifts??

I'm feeling a bit pressured. I thought I was so on top of things and yet I feel like I have nothing done.

I'm taking the next 12 days off...I'll try to blog from home, keep you posted on the insanity of our holiday season, but if you don't see me updating for a couple of days, it's because I don't like to log in to any computer when I'm at home.

Sooooooo...Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night...

Jibjab...

Hi all - glad to see you're enjoying the flip! I have some great footage of the big concert with Alex, but in the confusion this morning (they ended up canceling school for Owen AGAIN) I left the flip at HOME. grrrr.

So I'll give you this for your viewing pleasure...featuring me, Kev-head and the kids, plus a couple of extras from our blogging family...

Don't send a lame Holiday eCard. Try JibJab Sendables!

Enjoy

Triple shot!!!

So I'm so glad Tigger finally has SPEAKERS so she can hear this lovely video I'm about to post.

I think she threatened to kill me if I posted it.

Whoops...it just sort of slipped onto my computer and into my blog.

Fear not BBFF's - there will be more of Tigger to come, I'm sure...
Ladies and gents...
The Tigger...




Apologies all the way around for the shakiness of the vid - I was just laughing too hard...tripod where are you??

Double Post Friday

Okay - so pay attention here, kiddies...two post Friday. I just posted my short review of the flip...and then I realized Sugar Snap Pea is here...so I figured I would do my first video run of "getting to know our blogging family." Make sure you read the review post AND I changed my first video post from yesterday a little. ENJOY.

Without further ado...
The Pea...



Again - I produced this in Quicktime format as to keep it small, yet viewable. The picture quality isn't perfect, and not nearly as good as what I get in the .avi format...but blogger doesn't like my large and in charge video sizes when I start playing around.

Flippin Out...

I started responding to our new blogging friend Kristen, when I realized I was typing too much to be a comment. I decided to make it a post.

My short review of the flip...
The flip is great. Took it with me to my son's Christmas concert last night - In the dark theater sitting away from the stage, the video quality is good...probably not as good as a big handheld camera with 10x optical zoom, but for the size and portability - it's GREAT. The sound is very impressive, if you ask me.

Recommendations - get the tripod AND get a short 3' USB extension. I ordered both for myself. I worry that repeated docking of the flip to a computer would eventually wear down that arm - but if I can just set it on the desk and hook it to an extension cable, that would be better. I shake entirely too much to hold ANY video camera.

Get extended life batteries for electronics. The batteries yesterday lasted about as long as they said they would - approx. 2.5 hours of video/playback time. I was playing with it quite a bit yesterday and the batteries died by the end of the night. Cool thing? Because the flip has an adapter that hooks directly to the TV - Alex could watch the video of his show on our DVD player on the way home.

As for ease of use and everything else - it's brilliant...just BRILLIANT. Getting it out of the box and into production...2.2 seconds. It takes you longer to install the batteries than to figure it out.

I love it like I would marry it.

All by myyyyyyyyyysellllllf....

It's hard to talk to a camera when you're sitting in your office and you're supposed to be working. I make strange facial expressions. I think I do that even when I'm talking to real people, not just a camera.

I got a new toy...get one!
ETA: 12/14...I reproduced the video with some intro slides...but when I created it in .avi format it was WAY too big. So I produced it to use quicktime and it's much smaller, but a little grainier. Bear with me while I figure all of this out.

Mother of the year award...

OMG. I am perfectly willing to admit that I am not on the ball all of the time. I'm not. I miss things, forget things...my kids don't always inform me of things...

But this takes the cake.

Alex is in concert band at Andrean. It's not a huge program - nothing at Andrean outside of football would be considered a large program. 16 kids, maybe, in band. 30 kids, maybe in choir. So a couple of weeks ago I saw the Christmas Concert on the schedule and that tickets were for sale. Well, with basketball and other things happening, I wasn't sure when we'd be able to go and didn't think it horrible that I didn't buy tickets in advance. I can just pay when I go...right? It's just a little band/choir performance...right?

WRONG.

The thing is sold out. Whodawa? Sold out? Sold out for THREE STRAIGHT NIGHTS. If you don't already have a ticket the best you can hope for is to show up and pray someone else doesn't. It's not just a little band/choir deal. It's band, choir, string ensemble, pep band, pep band with soloists, pep band with full choir, jazz ensembles, the dance team ... HUGE deal with LOTS of kids involved, and lots of parents, students, grandparents and whatnot wanting to attend.

Oh boy.

And me without my tickets. So I guess we'll be going tonight and tomorrow to try and get in. The thing is 2 1/2 hours long with intermission.

What a weekend, boys and girls...

Well, we finally went and cut down our Christmas tree....the boys always love this event. It was especially fun this year since there was snow on the ground. Needless to say, snowball fights ensued and I brought home 3 cold wet boys and a tree. We got a different style of tree this year, I'm usually a short needle kind of girl, but the boys wanted a tree with long needles...you know the poofy looking kind.

Well what a disaster THAT decision turned out to be.

Ummmm, those branches? Barely hold LIGHTS let alone ornaments...Oh my. And then, last night, for some reason...the thing fell over. Right now my living room is a hot mess of water, pine needles and broken bulbs. Oy.

Friday night I was cooking dinner with the boys and asking them general questions about school and whatnot when Alex pipes up that his friends think he has a girlfriend. Ummmmm, why would they think this? Because a girl has apparently laid claim to my boy informing him that he's taking her to the winter formal.

Ummmm, what?

First of all, who is this girl? And secondly...YOU'RE GOING TO THE WINTER FORMAL? When is it? A: I have no idea. Whodawa? You have no idea? Is it after Christmas? A: Maybe. Well great. A quick hop out to the school website tells me it's on January 26th. Tickets are $50 per couple. Does that include dinner? A: I have no idea. Do you want to take this girl to the dance? A: Sure, I guess, yeah.

OMG.

Is there anyone else you were thinking of taking? A: No, not really. Well, do you like her, like her or is she just a friend? A: I don't know...she's fine, she's cool, whatever. Oh seriously, like pulling teeth, this conversation. So I still have no idea if this is a friend thing, or a girlfriend thing, or what. But I CAN tell you that I will be going into the homework room the next time I pick him up so I can potentially get a visual on this chick. Her mom works in the office so she's always around...that's what his friends told me this weekend. I'll be able to tell everything about what he thinks about her just by seeing how he acts when I'm around.

So my son is going to his first high school dance.

I.am.old.

I miss me some ze frank...

What? You don't know who ze frank is?? Shame on you. Have I not posted about him before? I think Scottish is the one who originally got me hooked, due to the fact that his wife was infatuated with ze frank. Is that how it went. Anyway, I've been busy and haven't had much time to be funny, but my office actually looks almost presentable. In that "stacks of crap" kind of way I've perfected in my 36 years.

So I'm leaving you with this episode of the show...

Snow Plow? We don' t need no stinking snow plow...

So Big Poppa is laid up - and definitely not shoveling any snow...and because he didn't plan ahead, and neither did my mom....and neither did I...my MOTHER shoveled the driveway yesterday. My mother who just had knee surgery herself not that long ago and has a horrible back problem (sciatic nerve deal??) is SHOVELING THE DRIVEWAY. Because what? They lost my phone number? They forget that while I can't personally plow the driveway, I am people who knows people, dammit! I've got friends in snow places! I know people with plows, able bodied men who live close-by who could shovel for them. For the love. My mother. Shoveling. "well, I just kind of pushed the snow, Bek, I didn't really lift anything. And I felt fine. And I'm doing my stretches." Seriously - let me say what you're all already thinking. This will totally be me someday. Little fixer that I am. Little "make it happen" girl. I come by it honestly!! See?? It's not my fault. God love her, but I could kill her sometimes.

I've already put the call in to my dad today that if more snow comes tonight and they can't find someone to call me. I'm thinking of firing off warning shots now.

19 days until Christmas.

Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got...

My boys are at such interesting ages...

Alex, at 14, is really becoming more and more independent - I got to meet some of his friends over the weekend (they came to my house for a school project) and they fit him so well...it was fun to see them interact, talk about their school crap, teachers, assignments. The disdain in their voices, the laughter over teachers and what they wear and say, the snide comments about girls...ah yes...teenagerdom. I remember it well. Apparently Alex is quite the ladies man. If you ask his friends, anyway. He gets hugged...a lot...by various chicks. And they like writing on his hand - whatever that means. Did I ever write on a boys hand? Probably. I know I doodled on folders and left notes in lockers. Foolish, foolish girl. NEVER put it in WRITING. Oy.

His big "garage band 101" concert is Sunday, December 16th, 4pm at Front Porch Music for any of you interested in attending.

Owen, at 10, is looking for his place in the universe. "I typed in 'who is Owen Crum' in ask.com," he says to me yesterday. (He LOVES ask.com) Really...what did it say? "Not much." Well, you're still young...you haven't had time to make an impact yet. So we googled his name and didn't come up with much there either. But we did stumble onto a site that listed all known first names with the last name Crum...and how popular it is as a last name. We started clicking on the name combinations, and then we saw the origin and meanings of various first names. Owen found this FASCINATING. He was clicking on all the names of his friends, our names, other family names...he was hooked. Then we went out to other sites to see what they said the names mean. "This is so cool" he kept saying.

He wanted to print stuff so he could take it to school and show his friends. But well, the printer is in the other room and I haven't been a good enough geek to enable the samba print sharing on the mac in there...and we were watching the Pats-Ravens game (don't even talk about it) - and yeah, no printing. (yes I've already found documentation on how to do this and I now realize I was making it too hard)

He was so taken in with the history of names and their meanings...his means "well-bred" or "well born" and "warrior." Well CLEARLY! He was terribly pleased to find this out, once I explained to him what well-bred meant. With those eyelashes and that demeanor - um, yeah, honey...you are definitely well-bred.

21 days til Christmas...