how much is that doggie in the window?

we have been having a lot of discussions lately about dogs. the boys know that we are planning on getting a dog to run around with and play with them at the land when we move. they also know that the time is getting closer. our friend brought his dog over to play with the boys about two weeks ago and since then prayers and conversations have been filled with dogs. of course they now want a dog just like Hercules! so i took them to the pet store to see that there are lots of other cute dogs that we can have.

the pet store trip was odd. we walked in and all of the dogs on display were asleep. now, i've been to pet stores before and seen a dog here or there sleeping, but all of them at once? i said aloud, "what? do they drug them or something?" about 3 minutes later all the dogs woke up at the same time! coincidence? you tell me...

anyway, one of our dog conversations reminded Benson of a dream of Andy's. Andy sometimes has very real and vivid dreams. one night i woke up to barking. we don't have a dog and certainly not one that sleeps in my bed with me. it took me a minute and a few more barks to realize that it was Andy! so i shook him awake and told him what was happening. he immediately went back to sleep. the next day i reminded him of the incident and he said he was dreaming that he was a dog! (too much Shaggy DA with the kids?) He said it was really cool because his sense of smell was so strong he could see the smell. he could feel the wind through his fur as he was tracking the scent! o-k--- weird! yes, weird, but very funny. now the boys sometimes tease him and bark at him. after all, it's not too often that your pet is also your dad!

Celebrity Look-Alike! Benson

MyHeritage: Celebrity Collage - Geneology - Free family tree

Celebrity Look-Alike! Ethan

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celeb - Collage - Morph

Celebrity Look-Alikes!

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities - Collage - Morph

which Jane Austen heroine are you?

Take the Quiz here!

what's a zoon?

yes, I am a little slow with the latest and greatest. i admit that i don't always know what is going on in the technological world. is it my age? probably not. 30 is old, but not that old. saturday night we got a babysitter (i know crazy, wild us!). when we got home i asked her what she had going on right now and she mentioned that she was bidding on a zoon on ebay. yes, i pretended to know what she was talking about and my husband laughed at me when she was gone, asking if i had any idea what she was talking about. nope. so, i went to my good friend google, who referred me to my other good friend wikipedia. there i learned that i had misspelled the word. it is not a zoon, it is a zune. okay, big deal. i know that i sound like an idiot, so please don't let on to me that you think i'm ridiculously dumb. but, in case i'm not the only human that has this technology impedement, let me tell you what a zune is... basically it is Microsoft's answer to the ipod. i know what an ipod is so i needn't go searching for more info... it plays music, movies and all sorts of good stuff. so, now you know what a zune is. i wonder what a zoon is!

another great email from Josh

Think about this one: 1. Cows 2..The Constitution 3. The Ten Commandments

C O W S
Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that during the mad cow epidemic our government could track a single cow, born in Canada almost three years ago, right to the stall where she slept in the state of Washington? And, they tracked her calves to their stalls. But they are unable to locate 11 million illegal aliens wandering around our country. Maybe we should give each of them a cow.

T H E C O N S T I T U T I O N
They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq ... Why don't we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it has worked for over 200 years, plus, we're not using it anymore.

T H E 1 0 C O M M A N D M E N T S
The real reason that we can't have the Ten Commandments posted in a courthouse is this: You cannot post 'Thou Shalt Not Steal,' 'Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery,' and 'Thou Shall Not Lie' in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians...It creates a hostile work environment.

the following is a true story

with actual dialougue:

husband: "in the interest of full disclosure, there are bricks in my car!"
wife: "really?! where did you get these bricks?"
husband: "they were posted on craigslist so I picked them up on my way home."
wife: "i thought we were done picking up things for now."
husband: "they were free!"
wife: "i don't care! and in the spirit of full disclosure i am now reporting all your craigslist doings on my blog..."
husband: "uh."

seriously, seriously, i have nothing else i can say!

craigslist

my husband has a fascination with craigslist.org. i'm not sure why, unless you take into account FREE! i guess the urge to save money is stronger than his ability to think about not needing things. every few days i will get an e-mail from him telling me what he is going to pick up tonight. it may be anything from pallets to toilets. yes, you read that right, i said toilets. used toilets! as most of you know we are building a house. it is expensive to build a house. so andy often curbs the price by finding stuff free on craigslist... One day he actually came home with used toilets! yuck! i have to admit that they were in good shape and looked clean, but come on, really. this is for our house, not a public space where total strangers use the same bathroom.

other things he has come home with include a white, rusty enamel sink. he and chris think that would be great in the kitchen, not! how about furniture for the house. i must say that chris is just as much of a craigslist junkie as andy. he has come home with various end tables or coffee tables. he has even taken to getting things and using them until he finds a better deal and then relisting them for a higher price! what a goober.

most recently one of the above mentioned junkies found free bricks. they thought it would be great to use these to build a patio at the new house. so, we all took the night off from working on the house to pick up some bricks about an hour away. (gas prices make these free bricks already start to get expensive...) we didn't know that in order to get these free bricks we had to disassemble a brick garden wall. so we pitched in and loaded up the trailer. before we could finish it was dark and we were being eaten alive by mosquitoes. once all the bricks were on we noticed that the trailer had a flat tire. the spare tire was also flat. so we unhitched the trailer and left for the night. the next day andy got the tire fixed and went back to pick up the trailer. on the way home this time he got another flat tire (the bricks were a heavy load). he fixed that one and then got another flat. at this point frustration set in and there was no place to pull to the side of the road, so he kept driving. soon there were sparks as the wheel hub was drug on the road. next thing he knows the trailer is on fire! i will leave the rest of this story up to your imagination, so i don't embarrass my husband further. needless to say, we now have no trailer and no bricks! so much for free. i asked if he had learned any kind of lesson?

three days later he is on his laptop when i notice a little twinkle in the eye and he says, someone posted more free bricks! this time i put my foot down. NO! I wonder what would happen if i posted "FREE HUSBAND" on craigslist?

my personality

I had fun with this personality test. Of course, I copied the idea from friends. But hey, who says I have to be original?...

my personality

My brother often sends me great emails. I get such a kick out of him. Of course, you may need to share our sense of humor, so if you don't think this is funny, excuse me. Today's email said:

Everyone concentrates on the problems we're having in this country lately: illegal immigration, hurricane recovery, alligators attacking people in Florida ... Not me. I concentrate on solutions for the problems. It's a win-win situation.

+ Dig a moat the length of the Mexican border.


+ Send the dirt to New Orleans to raise the level of the levies.


+ Put the Florida alligators in the moat along the Mexican border.


Any other problems you would like for me to solve today ?

He cracks me up and it always brightens my day to hear from him. Thanks Josh for being such a great "little" brother!

(this picture is of Joshua in the sunglasses and my older brother Graham in the background)

thanks Aunt Sunshine!

When we were in Kentucky visiting my sister Sunshine this spring Ethan found a batman costume in Tryston's toy box. He must have worn the thing for 2 days straight! Well, yesterday we got a package from Aunt Sunshine with the Batman costume in it for Ethan! Talk about excitement. He immediately put it on and didn't take it off until bed time. Then this morning he was up and running. He almost literally jumped out of bed and announced he was going to put on his costume. He already plans on wearing it for Halloween, so cool...
THANK YOU AUNT SUNSHINE!!!

my 3 wishes

Have you ever had anyone ask you "If you could have 3 wishes, what would you wish for?" Well I was just thinking about it as two of my 3 children barged into the bathroom with me sitting on the toilet. Yes, you can guess that one of my wishes would include something about 5 minutes peace while in th bathroom. I think another might be to truely sleep in, without the interruptions of, "he hit me!", or the TV being turned up too loud. The 3rd, I'm not quite as sure about but I'm thinking along the lines of a different budget so that I could go on a shopping spree that didn't include medicine or bandaids or "Please can I get this sugared cereal?". I guess it almost sounds like I could wrap it all up into one wish of not having kids and then I would still have two wishes left. But that really isn't my wish. Because if I didn't have kids I of course would wish for chubby arms around my neck and fingerprints to wash off the walls and lots of kisses after someone breaks into my lipstick! So, I guess I can put up with the no shopping spree and even the fake sleeping in. But please, please let me have some privacy in the bathroom, please...

Eli loves books!

Our Eli loves to read books. He also loves having books read to him, but doesn't mind reading them on his own. Each night when he is tucked into bed he gets a story and then can look at books for a while. He usually falls asleep with a book fallen over his face! One night last week Auntie Karen spied him in his room reading and thought it was too cute not to document...

It is fun to watch him read as he pretends to be in the story. He often talks to himself or the characters in the books. So cute!

Suddenly he discovered Auntie Karen taking his picture. He just looked at her and went back to reading!

busy life...

Man, I have been so busy. Too busy to clean, too busy to play, too busy to cook, and too busy to blog! (gasp) We have had Nana and Grampa here to visit and have been working at the house each day. This week Ethan and Eli were also both sick. Ethan worse than Eli. It turns out that they had hand, foot and mouth disease! Not to be mistaken as hoof and mouth disease, which only animals get... So, throughout the weekend we are stuck at home so that the boys don't spread the yuckiness. No sun, but we will survive...

Confessions of a Slacker Mom, part 2

I was at Home Depot, happily looking at paint colors and tile options. I had Ethan and Eli in the shopping cart with strict instructions to stay put while I made some decisions. Benson was taking turns pushing the cart and Karen and I were browsing. Before long I realized that both younger boys were out of the cart, running around, laughing and taking paint chips off the shelf. Benson was pushing the cart all over the place and often in circles, enjoying the freedom of not having any precious cargo. What could Mom say if his younger brothers weren't inside to get hurt? I was proud of myself for not looking around to see who was watching and wondering about my slacker Momship. What did I do you ask? Nothing. I did not follow through on my threats about what would happen if they got wild at the store. I was enjoying myself and having fun dreaming about my home. No more keeping the children quiet and in place. No more bribing them for good behavior. No more caring what other customers might think. And mostly just having fun watching them have fun. As they started to rifle through each drawer and cupboard in the kitchen section, it got louder and louder. What did I do? Walked away. That's right, I didn't have the energy to wrestle them in, so I walked away. We were almost done with our shopping excursion, so I went to the next isle and pretended they weren't mine. Bad Mommy! Oh well, it's not as if they couldn't be heard. One day I think it would be fun to play the part of shocked bystander. "Who's children are those?", "Can you believe she's not even paying attention to them?", "Well, I never!", "If I had kids, I would never let them do that!", etc... Maybe, some day. Nah, I think I will always be the one laughing in the background, saying to the Mom, "they sure are having fun."

So, until next time, all you slacker Mom's, hang in there...

My name is Mindy West and I am a Slacker Mom!

This is Cranberry Zing, the color we chose for the exterior of our house. The color doesn't translate real well on computer screens, you'll just have to come visit to see the real color.

Yesterday I traveled 5 hours away with all three of my children. The goal? Nana's house in New York. Our main reason was picking up some cherry wood that was being stored at their house, we needed it to start building kitchen cabinets for our house. The extra bonus reason was dropping off Ethan and Eli! They get to stay at Nana's house for the week. On Sunday afternoon Nana and Grampa will bring them home. I must admit that I was greatly looking forward to the much needed break. I enjoy getting away by myself about once and sometimes twice a year. This opportunity presented itself and I said yes. I like chances to fill my cup and reenergize. Besides, who doesn't like occasionally pretending to have zero reponsibilities? But I was surprised at how torn I was when it was time to leave them and drive away. I have gone away before. I have even left them at Nana's before. But this time was different. I know I will still enjoy that sleeping in time and the getting ready without someone interuppting my shower. But half my heart is in New York tied to two adorable little boys. I keep telling myself that, as Eli would put it, "That just doesn't make sense!" (You have to say it in his cute little sing song voice that doesn't pronounce every letter.) I know that they love Nana and will have a great time with her and I will have a great time here with Benson. But, still I look forward to Sunday afternoon when little sticky arms will wrap around my neck.