electric field?

The computer bit the dust.  Yes, again.  This time it is really gone - even my tech support sister, who can fix anything, couldn't fix it.  Of course, all my information was saved on a backup drive, which is why all the information was even still on the hard drive, because you only lose the information on the hard drive if you DON't have it backed up, right?   The old desktop computer is going to have to be our main computer again, which is sad, because that computer sort of reminds me of that Best Buy commercial where the thief breaks in and steals everything but their computer, because its not worth stealing.  It beats no computer at all, though, right?  Also, both of my main cameras are broken.  Its a rough time at the Tyler house for electronics (or appliances, as the water heater also went out - picture taken from water heater fiasco, prior to camera breaking-ness)

Do NOT, I repeat, Do NOT bring anything electronic that you care for over here or my crazy electrical field will destroy it.   

chocolate strawberries can fix that, right?

Let's just suppose for a moment that one of my children (Brooke) called to come home from school the other day.  Then let's suppose that Brooke got home and seemed to feel better just a few hours later (a little rest does wonders, huh?)  Anyway, then let's suppose that Brooke had Activity Days and soccer practice later that night and her mom let her go to both of those things, even though she came home sick.  After that, in our completely hypothetical story, Brooke would get kicked in the ankle, which would hurt really badly. She would then be convinced it is broken and convince her mom to take her to the dr, even though her mom KNOWs there is nothing wrong with it, by using phrases like, "Oh, because it is all about the money - you just don't want to have to pay for me to go see the dr."  Of course, in this hypothetical story, that daughter would then go to the dr, get an x-ray, nothing would be wrong with her ankle and then she would return to school and her teacher would be majorly peeved that she got injured at sports after leaving school sick and would make snide comments about how she is glad that sports are the top priority in said child's life.  Said child's parent should not go the "I told you so.." route though, right?  Especially since that parent is busy making treats to send in to said child's teacher to apologize for letting her child get away with murder.  Hope the teacher is a forgiving sort.  All hypothetical of course.
Um yeah, that story was not hypothetical, but guess how it ends?  Brooke took a nice note in to her teacher on Friday just to let her know how much she appreciates her teacher and how her teacher is there every day to help her learn.  Chocolate covered strawberries accompanied the note.  Too bad her teacher wasn't there on Friday.  Irony anyone?

Let's go fly a kite

Robie had to go to a photo shoot at the beach yesterday.  Rough job!   He assured me it was beautiful, but I have to admit, I was still a little doubtful because it wasn't even that warm at our house.  He was right - it really was a nice day.   He was down at Mission Beach, where apparently I have not been in a long time.  Long enough that the girls (even Brooke who is 10) were like, "hey, how come they have all this down here and we've never been here?).  We were on the Bay side, which was totally deserted and mellow.  We even took the kite and, for the first time, my kids experienced true kite flying.  Brooke even asked if the kite staying in the air and flying for an extended period of time was what was supposed to happen (as opposed to the "running and dragging the kite behind you hoping it will at least stay in the air until you get to the end of the street" method previously used). 

Not all about me..

Brooke went on a field trip today.  They went to the middle school she will be attending next year and she was SO nervous.  In fact, I had a really cute picture that I was going to post with this - it was basically her hand covering the lens as I tried to take a picture as she was like, "stop taking my picture."  Just for that she gets her "Goofy" picture posted.  I guess she was a little embarrassed that I would tell someone that she was nervous about their little visit to the school.  It was actually quite funny, I even had to paint her toenails since she knew the sandals she wanted to wear and her toes looked "horrid."  When I asked her what made her nervous, she said something like, "well I don't even know what kind of fashion they like."  I guess she just wants to look good!    Sidenote:  I have to admit that the daylight savings time is definitely taking some getting used to.  I love having the extra light in the evening, but not only does it make it hard to get to bed on time, but just trying to get used to waking up at the right time is certainly a challenge.  The funny part is that I let the kids sleep in a little bit today so we were cutting it close to being late to school (rest assured, we made it on time - whew), anyway, I said something like, "well, we should make it but it is probably really busy this morning, so it might be close."  Of course, i was referring to all the other Daylight Savings adjustment problem people, but Brooke immediately said, "Yeah, everyone probably late trying to get ready for the field trip today."  um, probably not on that one.  It did make me think of how many times I think something is all about me when most likely it is something that has absolutely nothing to do with me :)

Maybe next week

Ok, the tickets worked for a couple of days then the novelty wore off.  I'm not totally giving up yet, though.   Robie's been in China, so my consistency is probably not where it needed to be to really institute a new program, so I'm giving it another week.

I went to court this week.  No, I wasn't fighting a ticket. I was watching a friend of mine who is an attorney working on one of his big cases (I was with his wife, so it's not weird - well, it's not as weird, anyway).  Seriously, though, he said we could come and I was all over the idea.   For future reference, you should check your purse before you go to the federal courthouse because if you have a point and shoot camera with you that you always carry in your purse and didn't even remember was in there, then you are going to wait in a line, and then they are going to tell you that you are not allowed to bring it in, and, OH, they have NO PLACE to put it, OH and you need to back out of the building quickly and may not discuss the situation with your friend who had already gone through security successfully.  And also, they have no way of making you feel less retarded.  (although if I were the arguing kind of person - ok, I am- and they were not armed - they were, I might have argued that I had just seen no fewer than 12 people go in with some sort of advanced smartphone device that arguable takes better pictures than said point and shoot).  ANYWHO, I didn't have the keys to the car and didn't want my friends to miss any of the action, so I started aimlessly wandering around downtown.  I finally decided to turn in the camera at the mall as a "lost" camera and then had Laura retrieve it later.  It probably wasn't totally honest, but I tried the "hey, I just need some help storing this for a couple of hours" at the Westin and they gave me the old, "I don't think so."  The rest of the day was full of the excitement of witness questioning, cross examinations, bad people, good people, "Objection, Your Honors" and the like.  I'll be practicing for my LSA T's.  My favorite objection of John's was, "Asked and Answered, Your Honor" (as in, the defense attorney has already asked that question and gotten an answer so he needs to stop asking this witness the same question in a different way because we are all getting bored and also he is trying to prove some weird theory that is totally lame).  I think I"m going to use that with my kids next time they are asking me for the 400th time, "Now can I go play even though I haven't cleaned my room or finished my homework?".  Asked, and Answered!!

New Policy

We've instituted a new policy.  It's all about kindness to our siblings.  I wouldn't say the girls are ALWAYS mean to each other, but we have recently seen an upturn in the negative comments/rude responses from one girl to the other.  SO Monday night I decided to start a ticket system. 

My children have always been very motivated by earning things, so they really like the idea so far (clearly, they're not even that picky about the looks of this thing).  The great thing is that it relies on one of the other kids to tell me about something nice that was done for them (no self-reporting here), of course, Ashley is always offering up ways that Brooke and Lauren deserve tickets (that's the kind of girl she is), but Brooke has even chimed in with ways that her sisters have been kind to her.  Ashley does tend to be negative (think Eeyore) though, and you can lose a ticket for negative energy.. we'll see how this goes for the rest of the week.

Solid ticket earning for Brooke this afternoon, though, mostly because I didn't even ask her to keep an eye on Fox, I just stumbled upon them like this.. so cute.

jumping fun..

Thursday night Fox was up from midnight until 3 in the morning.  Um, yeah, that doesn't really work for me.  I was so tired, I was just turning on Mickey Mouse after Mickey Mouse so I could drift in and out.   When I took him into the dr on Friday she pointed out that I brought him in at this same time last year AND the year before that, also with ear infections - the only ones he has had.  Weird coincidence?   
In other Fox news, I was looking through my recent pictures and found this one. 

I had taken this one afternoon last week when I thought that Fox was taking a nap.  All of a sudden I heard the springs creaking on his crib and I sneaked up to his door and saw him jumping.  He was totally cracking himself up - not really conducive to sleeping, in case you didn't guess! 

We took him in for his cardiology followup this week.  We've been following an "innocent" heart murmur for about a year.  This time the pediatric cardiologist said it was about time we figured out what was going on, since the murmur was pretty loud for an innocent heart murmur (followed of course by the obligatory, "I'm sure everything is just great, so just as a precaution, of course").  Anyway, clearly it isn't urgent since they want us to wait 3 more months before we get the echocardiogram (theoretically so he will have grown and developed even more).   I really hate the waiting game, so I would definitely prefer to just do it tomorrow, but I guess that's not in the cards. 

While I worked on my marathon yardwork day on Saturday Fox had a field day with his buddy, David.  I'll admit the calm sitting didn't last that long for either Fox or David, but it sure was cute while it lasted!

Notice his awesomely cute curly hair.  It was looking a little mangy in the back, so Robie gave it a quick cut while I was in the shower.  Brooke came in to warn me, "mom, I think I should warn you that Fox is bald."  I was down there snapping pictures for the first little bit, so I figured it wasn't that different.   I thought he was almost done when I took this picture (see the cute waves in there?)

I was wrong.  Robie loves it, but I'm still missing the quantity and the luxuriousness his little head used to offer.  (or maybe it's just cuz I think he even looks a little older.. ?)

it'll grow back... I hope.