Nora's Week with Grandma and Grandpa

Sorry it took so long to post pictures from Nora's stay at our home.  We enjoyed having her visit with us so much!  This first picture just captured the beautiful natural highlights in her hair.  Doesn't she look like an angel?
Nora just loved carrying around this pail as she worked outside with Ed.  She watered the flowers and carried around all her little Fisher-Price people.
It was very simple for Nora to push the door open and escape to the outside, but then she'd stand and the door and yell for us to let her back in.  Ed remembered having another handle down in the basement, and attached it to the back door so she could get back in ALL BY HERSELF!
Nora loved her bubble baths, and here she intelligently spells out her name with her bathtub letters.
We had the best weather the week she was with us, and she would like sitting on the back deck while Ed read the newspaper.  Of course, she would rather "conor"  ("color" to Nora).
It was so fun to hear Nora yell out, "I swimming!  I swimming!".  See her outstretched arms and legs?
Grandpa made Nora a tunnel from the couch cushions, so she could crawl through.  We put her through her paces, and she went to bed exhausted every night.

We sure had fun.  Grandchildren and grandnephews and grandnieces are ALWAYS welcome.  We are becoming very practiced, professional "spoilers".

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

So when my parents were packing up to move to Australia they found some old slides that I'd never seen before. I've spent a delightfully absurd amount of time scanning and doctoring these photos (to get rid of the dust and make sure our skin tone isn't green). For those interested here's the link to those slides. I'm still looking for my baby pictures where I look like the Michelin Man.

Anyway, I was thinking that I wanted to do the same for the Gimbel family. Being that it's a good possibility that Edward and I are moving to Kentucky, I think some of the weekends that Uschi's visiting Grandma and Grandpa, I can go through your old photos, scan them, and put them online somewhere so everyone can have a copy of them.

...just a thought.

love you all,

Meridth

Real Simple Survey

I was looking through the newest issue of the magazine entitled REAL SIMPLE and at the very beginning of the magazine there were reader responses to the question, "What is your guiltiest pleasure?"  There were the usual responses... things like designer shoes, coach purses, eating plain Nutella with a soup spoon, and it made me wonder what are the guilty pleasures of my favorite bloggers.  I'll dish if you will.

But most of you know my guiltiest pleasures, having lived with me for eighteen years.  It's obvious, just by looking at me that I will eat ice cream, anytime, anywhere, but my favorite ice cream is dutch chocolate almond.  It is just so delicious!  Other guilty pleasures are rewatching the videos Sense and Sensibilities or Notting Hill (sorry Beaches, but I finally got tired of you and had memorized your entire dialog), reading (anything--usually juvenile literature) or poring over clothing catalogs, imagining that I might look nice in that $600 Nieman Marcus dress.

So confess!  What are your guilty pleasures?  I want to hear from everybody!

Claudia

Liquid Luck

So as luck would have it I have a certain anonymous friend who has a certain anonymous brother who is a film projectionist. Which is why it is 3:43 AM and I just got back from seeing Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I have been impatient to see this movie ever since I thought it was going to be released 8 months ago. So I just about wet myself when I found out that I was going to see the movie 3 days early.

I guess what I would have to say that I was impressed against my will, as this is my favorite of the Harry Potter books and I was expecting to be thoroughly disappointed. Anyway, brace yourself for my half delusional review (mild spoilers included). The overall tone of the film was perfectly creepy. There was a point where I felt like I might have nightmares. (Hopefully that doesn't come to fruition). The acting was superb and the cast has always been a perfect fit, except for the fact that Richard Harris from the first two movies understood how to play Dumbledore much better than Michael Gambon ever did. But I have to say that he (Dumbledore #2) didn't bother me at all in this movie. Quidditch was kept to a minimum that didn't affect the pacing of the film and was a nice break from all the heavy stuff. The special effects were wonderful and the look of the film was delightfully dark. Draco Malfoy haunted the screen and gave great pacing to the film and brought an appropriate sense of uneasiness. The altered death scene with Harry perfectly capable of physically responding whilst Draco confronted Dumbledore was an excellent change of pace. The audience could visually see his trust in Snape being destroyed and I thought this added to the emotional climax of Dumbledore's death. Really, as of now in the wee hours of the morning, my only complaints are Harry's heavy make-up job when McGonagall addresses the three after the cursing of Katie Bell (Harry has on some pretty luscious lipstick and darkened eyebrows), and the scene with Ginny and Harry in the Room of Requirement was unnecessarily awkward with Ginny. (Blech).

Anyway, overall a success. I can't wait to see it again. (I hope it holds up in the re-watching.)

Good night all... or should I say good morning ;)

FYI

I got an email today saying that I'm getting a coupon in the mail for free chocolate in 6 weeks!  The website worked!  I'm pretty pumped!

Cause Mom says I don't post enough...

...and because I marched in the same parade today as Code Pink.

Free Chocolate!

A friend of mine sent me this link to a website from Mars Company.  They are giving away 250,000 chocolate bars every Friday for the entire summer. You need to register on a Friday and wait 6 weeks and see if you got the chocolate!  I thought it was kind of fun 

New View from Sears (soon to be Willis) Tower.

My answer, Emily...

In Memory of MJ

I think it is incredibly sad that Michael Jackson passed away today.

So I thought I'd dedicate a post to him..

This is my absolute favorite Michael Jackson song:

PYT

It has a special place in my heart because Karl burnt it onto a CD for me my freshman year, how cheesy right?


Whats YOUR favorite MJ song?

Yeah...gotta post this.

Click here.

Click there.

BREAKING NEWS: Bath time for RADAR II: The Stinkening

RADAR got skunked tonight.

We got him in the bath in about 90 seconds and before the two-minute mark were dumping V8 all over the poor pup. We had no pure tomato juice on hand so we made due. Lets just say that RADAR wasn't a fan and I wasn't too thrilled about scraping the thick bits out of his fur, but...most importantly, it seems to have worked moderately well. I'm a little skunky, the living room has a certain degree of skunkiness and if you get up in RADAR's grill, you'll detect some skunk, but all in all a vast improvement.

We'll keep you posted.

What are you Listening to?

I'm listening to this and LOVING it.  Thanks NPR.  Another reason to love public radio.  

What are you listening to right NOW?

Happy Birthday, Edward!

Today is Edward's birthday (AKA Rusty)!  Happy Birthday Edward!  

10 Reasons why we love Edward

1.  He stood on a street corner in England wearing a sign to promote a Chinese restaurant

2.  He met and fell in love with Meridth at 5:00 a.m. while cleaning toilets.

3.  He survived boot camp 

4.  He can speak a lot of languages

5.  He has big feet

6.  He can do a mean high kick

7.  He likes to read lots of different kinds of books from books on the history of war and genocide in Rwanda to science fiction novels

8.  He can quote the Rocketeer word for word (or at least he could when he was 10)

9.  He is going to be Dad in September...a very fun, loving and gentle dad.  

10.  He is a great brother, friend, husband, and son!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EDWARD!!!!

It's June 16th; Do You Know Where Rusty Is?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EDWARD RUSSELL!

We hope your day is glorious and filled with all kinds of fun things (more than just Arabic!).  Do you and Meridth have anything interesting and fun planned?  Of course we'll have to celebrate all over again in another two and a half weeks, but you have to do something great on your birthday!

Can you believe you are twenty-eight years old today?  To me it seems like only yesterday that you were born.  I remember that Dad bought me the John D. MacDonald book, The Green Ripper to read while I was waiting for the surgery.  Because of the C-sections, I always had to go in to the hospital the night before, so the staff could do all the bloodwork and preparations for the surgery.  Knowing what was going to take place always made it impossible for me to sleep, so I would always bring a book to read.  (Betsey's book was The Empty Copper Sea, and Karl's book was The Lonely Silver Rain--same author)

I remember that you were ten pounds when you were born!  The incision wasn't big enough to get you out, so they had to cut a little extra on both sides so that you could be born.  Sorry to be so graphic in this blog, which should be all about you, and I'm making it all about me.  Anyway, we had already picked out your name, so we knew you right away!  You were always a happy baby and almost never cried--I think you must have been greatly entertained by your older siblings.

Edward, your father and I were both so grateful that you came to our family.  We love you so very much, and have always been so amazed by you.  We are proud of how hard you work, and pray that all goes well with your little family.  Happy, happy birthday