Mason's basketball greatness!

We had a big night Friday. Mason scored his very first basket in an organized official ballgame, and then he followed it up with a second two-pointer a few minutes later. His team was on fire. They really acted like a team--moving the ball, passing, rebounding, the works. It was such a good game! Of course with all that mojo they won, but that wasn't the best part. The best part was the big smile he got on his face that fueled the rest of his game. He ran, worked, moved with more heart than I've ever seen. It was beautiful. I'd be lying if I denied tearing up when his first basket went in. (I tear up about the babies with regularity.) But seeing that heart--as Drew Barrymore said in Music and Lyrics--was dinner.

The journey of a 1000 miles begins with one silly step!

You know, you might say Peyton is a bit tardy in learning to walk, what with all his bible class friends doing it first. But he holds the record for Ellis babies! Mason was 15 months, Stephen was 17 months--but Peyton comes in at a speedy 13 months! Even better, he took all these steps on Grandpa Steve's birthday! Hopefully he'll soon walk places instead of being carried--I hope this walking thing isn't just a parlor trick he brings out for parties!

What!?

Orange Blossom Luna Tea Cakes. Sports Night. Pushing Daisies. Whisper Pink Mary Kay Eyeshadow. Spring Copper Glazewear. Veronica Mars. Dress it up petals rhinestone buttons. Starbucks Baked Berry Stellas.

What do these things have in common, besides the fact that you can no longer find them on the open market? Me. They were all my favorites. Favorite TV shows. Favorite make up, favorite food, favorite craft item. It's getting to be a joke of monumental proportions. Monte laughs every single time I say, "wow, I really like that" because he knows it's just a matter of time before the subject of my sentence is eliminated in all of its forms as if it never existed in the first place. Not just canceled or discontinued--expunged from the record, all traces removed like a HAZMAT team crossed with CIA spooks on a super secret covert ops elimination mission. It's bewildering. Seriously.

So, since it happens so often it can't be random, this is now an open letter to whomever or whatever is trying to eradicate everything Kristi Ellis likes. Dear evil nemesis, what gives? For real, dude, dial it down! Sorry I had to get all up in your grill. All my love, Kristi.

Since that's not likely to deter delicate baby sugar plum fairies, much less whatever ultimate evil matrix this is, look for the following things to go belly up or be removed from your lives soon: Tivo, iPhones, Scrapbooking in all it's forms, little league basketball, fruit, blue jeans and Starbucks Venti sized Black Tea Shaken Iced Tea Lemonade with three pumps of sweetener and light ice.

Meanwhile, American Idol and Major League Baseball (which I care absolutely nothing about) are still going strong. I'm just saying.

President's Day collides with Black History Month

In the van, on the way to eat, Grandma Judy said "So, has your teacher told you any more about President Rocko Bottom?" [Stephen's pronunciation of Barak Obama]
Stephen replied, "He's not the president anymore."
Grandma was perplexed and said, "Oh really? Well, who is the president now?"
Stephen said, "African Lincoln."

Later, when Grandma asked Stephen to tell Grandpa Gary who the president was, he did come up with the proper name of our 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, and then sometime even later, said George Washington was actually president, so we had three administrations in the space of an hour, two of them run by dead guys. Big day!

Who are you?

From time to time I do genealogy work, as time and kids permit, and it's usually rewarding, but there also can be some serious frustruations. Take this lady for example. I look a LOT like her, which is convenient because she is my great grandmother, Josephine Goodwin Walker. The bad news? Aside from knowing her father's name was Jacob Goodwin, and her mother was a lady named Sarah who died when Josie was very young, I can't find much more on her ancestry than that. Total road block. It's a pity too, because she and I share a lot of the same facial features, which leads me to wonder if we weren't alike in other ways too. She died in 1951, and her obituary explains that once her mother died, her father left her in the care of the Finley family. We never find him again in any historical records relating to Josephine, or in any of the census records of Saline County, Missouri where Josie grew up. Where did Jacob go? What happened to him? A hundred and fifty years ago it was common to lose a spouse early on, especially a wife (childbirth was extremely hazzardous, and if the birthing didn't get you, the assorted fevers and poxes would make a stab at it.) Most people just married again when their spouses died, mainly to have someone to look after the kids. But not Jacob Goodwin. You could theorize he didn't want to be reminded of Sarah, or wasn't into fatherhood, or didn't like any of the local ladies, or thought little Josie would be better off with somebody else doing the parenting, or that maybe he took this life changing event as a sign he should start completely over somewhere else, but in the end it's all speculation, which comforts me not one bit. Maybe Jacob thought he'd get a job, make some money and come back for his little girl, and maybe he died while doing that, and that's why we never hear of him again, but Josephine's obituary doesn't mention it. It simply says her mother died, she went to live with the Finley's, and she thought highly of the Finley's all her life. Jacob seems to be less dead than just not around. So what happened to him? And more importantly, who were his parents? Who were Sarah's parents? (I don't have a confirmed maiden name--just a scribble in the marriage record of Saline county that may or may not be the same Jacob Goodwin and Sarah, that lists McAnnon, but might instead be McMahan since there were other McMahans around at that time and no McAnnons.) Was Sarah recently immigrated, perhaps from Ireland? Where did I get my face? I will probably never know. Stephen and I have a lot of the same facial features, so maybe he can keep searching for Jacob or Sarah's people once I give up . . . but the truth is, probably, that the search ends with me, and Stephen and I will just be faces in the crowd, never knowing who had this mug in the first place.

Old Time Radio

I'm a huge fan of OTR, and listen to Sirius channel 118 (Radio Classics) every day. Recently, with the merger of Sirius and XM, the programming has moved around a bit and I'm finding more and more shows to love. If you have satellite radio, check out gregbellblog.com for channel updates and the schedule, or just tune in--the shows are moved around so you hear something new in each time slot every day. My faves are Dragnet; Nick Carter Master Detective; the Shadow; the Whistler; Inner Sanctum; Suspense; and Escape. Although the shows are predictable in that they reflect the morality of the time in which they were made (right always prevails, the bad guy never gets away with it) the simplicity and earnestness of characters appeals to me--plus, every so often they throw in a surprise ending I didn't see coming a mile off. I'll admit I'm not as big a fan of the OTR comedy genre, but Fibber McGee and Molly is now, and forever will be, timeless and hilarious. That series is worth picking up at RadioSpirits.com on CD, and listening to when you people with regular radio can't get a signal somewhere. Ah, the good ol' days!

Fun things to do with fruit

We love to eat at Chevy's, and we enjoy the Lough family. So there we are Sunday, with both delicious Mexican fare AND sparkling dinner conversation provided by Andrew, Tiffany and (about) baby Austin. I like the Loughs because they treat my children as if they were their children, praising and correcting and protecting them in equal amounts . . . it's nice, because I can relax just a little tiny bit from being ever vigilant robo-mom, constantly scanning to prevent spills, stains, separation from the herd, embarrassing bathroom incidents . . . stuff like that.

So imagine my surprise when I catch Andrew teaching Mason how to make false teeth out of his Chevy's orange!


I'm going to have to pay closer attention, or figure out some trick to teach Austin. Maybe something in a "stay-up-all-night" flavor? Nah, can't do that to Tiffany :-)

My heart isn't in Valentine's Day

I haven't had time to make a lot of cards in the last couple of weeks, what with the big "V" looming on the horizon. Being Stephen's room parent takes very little work except around the two public school approved holidays of Halloween and Valentine's Day. I really look forward to Halloween because usually we party at school and then go directly from there to getting lots of loot and having our costumes complimented. But Valentine's is another story. I guess its partly because early on I never had a boyfriend on Valentine's, so the only flowers I got were from my mom--how lame is that--and partly because now that I've been married nearly 18 years, it feels like a lot of social pressure to buy something for a guy who is already cool with just getting me to make dinner for once. Maybe my shoes are too tight, or my heart is two sizes too small, but I just plain don't like Valentine's Day. But it doesn't matter, whatever the reason, my heart or my shoes, there's a party to be planned so I'm doing my best to get my Valentine's game face on, and get red and pink supplies together for some Kindergarten food, craft and game time. Luckily, I have my card making to cheer me up, and even luckier still, Peyton took a couple of really good long naps Thursday and Friday. The card you see before you is the result. I scrap-lifted the general idea from a magazine and added the "Thank You" and the flowers in the background (which are pretty hard to see in the picture, but they're there). It went together pretty fast, and not a single heart or Valentine's Day sentiment on it! The stamp set I used is from Stampin' Up, although I forget the name--it was very popular last year and in one of their special mini-catalogs, which is about all the description I can come up with. I used SU Chocolate Chip ink for the tree; Close To My Heart green inks in Juniper, Key Lime, Olive, Citrus Leaf and Clover Meadow for the leaves; the large scallop circle die from SU for the frame, and an SU jumbo wheel called Everyday Blossoms, in CTMH Vanilla ink, for the background. Now that I'm done making cards, I think I'm ready to face Valentine's Day. See you all Friday, (Kindergarten celebrates a day early!) when my heart will have the opportunity to grow three sizes in one day, and I'll be the smiley mom in the corner decorating cookies and shouting "a happy Valentine's Day to all, and to all a good night!!!"

Peyton's Birthday

Peyton turned one on January 23rd and mom made him a little cake. It was a red velvet cake with mint green icing, so asthetically it was a bit, uh, interesting. Maroon-red cake and light green icing . . . Monte said it looked like we were killing a stuffed animal. We sent the video to my sister in Phoenix, and she called and said before she knew it was a red velvet cake, she thought something was wrong with the color on her TV. As it turned out, Peyton had eaten so much chicken and fries at his birthday dinner at Bandana's Bar-be-que, dessert wasn't high on his to do list when he got home. He did smile for the camera though, which is more than I can say for his brothers on their respective first birthdays. In fact Peyton is showing many many signs of being nothing like Mason and Stephen. On their first birthdays they each demolished a little cake, had to be hosed down in the bathtub once the cake was pronouced dead, and finally, they were NOT NOT NOT interested in the photoshoot portion of the event. Peyton is his own person, and will probably be bewildered by his family for the rest of his life.

It's still all about the comedy

Dad to 4 year old Stephen, in the Red Lobster Men's Room, while washing hands in the sink: Wow, this bathroom is COLD! They could hang meat in here!
Stephen to Mom, after returning to the table: Mom! That bathroom water was cold! There was bacon in it!

It's all about the comedy

Night of January 20, 2009
MOM: Stephen, how was Kindergarten today? Did Miss Shrum read you a story in circle time?
STEPHEN: Yeah, she telled us about Rocko Bottom.
MOM: Rocko Bottom? Is that some kind of super hero squirrel or badger or something? Do you mean Rocky and Bullwinkle maybe?
STEPHEN: No. She telled . . . We wrote him letters.
MOM: Letters? Why would you write Rocko Bottom letters?
STEPHEN: Because. We writed him letters because he's the President.
MOM: Ohhhh! You mean Barak Obama?
STEPHEN: Yeah. That's what I said. Rocko Bottom.

Go Yellow Jackets!

This is a clip of the Upward Basketball game Mason played today (Upward.org). Upward is a recreational basketball league for school age kids centered around good sportsmanship, Christian themes and making sure each child feels their contribution is appreciated. There are memory verses the kids learn for each practice, they have short devotional times during practice and games, and best of all, Mason is learning the fundamentals of the sport in a very positive atmosphere. Most of you know I'm not a sports fan, (I briefly thought the Cardinals playing in tomorrow's Superbowl were from St. Louis) but I really do enjoy watching a live basketball game. My theory is that it's the action that draws me in--the turnovers, the rebounds, the nearly missed or nearly hit shots that make for edge of your seat drama. It's not the same during Baseball season, when Mason plays in the parks and recreation league. I take my chair, my snacks, and my baby, and usually by the bottom half of the first inning I'm listening to old time radio podcasts on my iPhone to cut the monotony. I cheer for Mason when he's up at bat but I find myself reflexively looking at my watch to see how much longer it's going to be, because I see the entire sport as painfully light on action. Monte says the truth is I enjoy live Basketball only because Baseball is played outside in the cold spring or hot summer, but I assert that he is wrong and surely it's the gripping drama of ten guys running after one ball, where anything can and does happen. I mean it's a lot more impressive than one or two guys running after a ball while the rest of them defend their positions by standing in place. C'mon, how riveting can Baseball really be by design? (No offense, Mr. Pujols.) Of course, Monte tends to follow his "You're just in it for the indoor temperature regulation and the concession stand" argument with "Well, then, if it's really about the excitement of many people after one ball and non-stop action, why don't you like live football?" If I answer truthfully, it's because live football is usually played in the hot fall or cold winter and those bleachers are made of metal so your rear end is alternately asleep, on fire, or frozen, but that explanation seems to play into his hands, so I typically turn to him and say he can't possibly understand the nuances of live Basketball because of his clear preexisting prejudice against the game, and that we are and forever will be at an impasse on the subject. I then excuse myself to another part of the climate controlled house--usually with a TV remote and a box of chocolates.

Crazy word(s) of the day

Monte got me a MacBook Pro laptop for Christmas, and it's got this crazy screen saver that picks random words out of the dictonary, scoots them around the screen, and then picks one, defines it, scoots them around, defines another, and so on. At first I recognized most of the words, but here lately ol' MacBook has found new and increasingly obscure words to throw up there. I thought I would share a few with you now:

• dystopia [dis'topea] noun. an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one. The opposite of Utopia.
• sere [si(e)r] adjective. dry; arid, especially of plants, withered.
• clamant ['klament] adjective. forcing itself urgently on the attention.
• patisserie [pe'tisere] noun. a shop where French pastries and cakes are sold. French pastries and cakes collectively.

I mean, really MacBook? You can't be cool enough without making me feel like you're smarter than me too? Well played, MacBook, well played.

Going digital is sweet, but not my true love

Lately I’ve been a bit back into digital scrapbooking. When I came across digital scrabooking a few years ago, I was impressed at first, and then as I got more into it, underwhelmed with the results. I missed all the dimension—even with Photoshop and layers, it all still felt like just a picture of a scrapbook page. But a while back my friend Tiffany asked me to give her a five minute tutorial on digital scrapbooking, and I found myself admitting that there are some pretty cool DS advantages. No huge mess to manage and clean up, nothing stuck in the wrong spot (I can move anything anywhere, even months later), everything lays flat (obviously, but you’d be surprised how often warping occurs in a regular scrapbook page and how much that really affects the look of the layout), and when you have to make a quick layout of your child for their special “star” week at school like I did at left for Stephen, you can print out your design, send it to school, and not worry about it ever returning because you can print another anytime you like (I could never be that cavalier with my real "one of a kind" pages). I doubt I'll ever go completely digital—I still like the feel and look of real elements on a page—but I think I’m less of a purist and more open at least to a hybrid approach than I previously thought. Sometimes I even surprise myself.

(Click on the pages I made for Stephen to see them larger.)

Are you watching JellyTelly?

This a bit arbitrary, in that my blog chatter (all two posts of it) has mainly been my thoughts at the time of each post, and not product endorsement, but I have got to say out loud once and for all that I LOVE JellyTelly. L-O-V-E IT. Can’t possibly say enough good things about it. What is JellyTelly, you ask? It’s a web-based children’s video “channel” that is sort of Sesame Street meets Sunday Morning Bible Class, crossed with the learning features of places like PBS and the Discovery channel, written by somebody from Monty Python. It’s really great. My kids love it, and often ask to watch JellyTelly on our computer over something they are allowed to watch on TV. It’s great because along with bible school stuff, JellyTelly adds in science and history tidbits, stories with morals, a special movie of the week(end), and best of all, Pirate Etiquette (who knew there were so many rules about how you should choose your pirate name?)

For a while the site was subscription based ($2.99 per month--affordable even in today's economy), but they’ve removed the subscription requirement and now everybody anywhere can watch for free, which rocks. Plus, there are cute little games to play and other features. It’s a really amazing site, and honestly, where else can you learn who all the judges were in the book of Judges? (I suppose one could learn them by reading the actual book of Judges and compiling a list, but the little song they came up with is soooo catchy . . . ) Anyway, if you have kids that are (or will be) TV watchin’ age, check out JellyTelly. Hey, if nothing else, nobody gets called “stupid” during some random cartoon—I swear if I have to explain why we don’t use that word in our house, but it’s okay for the cartoon guy to say it, I’ll go utterly completely certifiably mad. I’m just sayin’.

Zzzzzzz!

Wow--I didn't realize how long it had been since I had written something. It was a charming look back to see my May 2007 self, not realizing yet that she is pregnant with her third boy, or that things would get so hectic between Mason's basketball, cub scouts, church, vacations, school events, baseball, and so forth and so on . . . ah yes, May 2007 was a simpler time. The good ol' days, as it were. Ever notice, everyone talks about the good ol' days as if they were so wonderful, when in fact, I spent most of my childhood lost in malls and theme parks (before cell phones), eating terrible food (before really good restaurants) and wearing the worst clothing imaginable (it was the 70s and 80s after all). No VCR, no DVD player, no internet. NO INTERNET. Think about that. No Wikipedia, no eBay, no E-MAIL. Digest that for a second. Nobody knew anything! Ack. I wouldn't go back for a zillion dollars. Well maybe a zillion dollars, because then I'd just hire some smart people to start the internet. Or Al Gore. Or something. But I couldn't do it for less than a billion-five. That's my bottom line.

Peyton does not want me to blog! He likes to take everything out of my computer desk drawers while I type. I think he's trying to teach me a lesson. The lesson is either "stop typing and pay attention to me" or "your printer ink looks better on the floor."

Here it goes again

I borrowed the title from an OK Go song. I've tried my hand at this blogging stuff once before and failed miserably. I think I made two posts. I have this very real concern that my life is actually too boring to write about. It's boring by design, so I'm okay with that, but the fact that it doesn't lend itself to gripping prose makes me a little skittish about putting keystroke to computer (as opposed to "pen to paper" which I don't suppose anybody does now).

Let's see, to bring you up to speed, I'm a woman who has been married to a pretty decent guy for 16 years, and we have two boys together. I spend my days taking them to and from school and looking after my niece, who is just a little over a year old. She has hearing loss (from birth) so there are hearning aids and a cochlear implant to deal with, but her hardware is worth it, because she seems to hear pretty well (we'll know more as she gets older).

My family just moved to a new house about six weeks ago, and we are still settling into it. It doesn't quite feel like home yet, but I'm sure that will come with time. We were in our last house for nine years, and this one is in the same neighborhood, which isn't helping us let go. It's not that the move wasn't voluntary or that this house isn't bigger or that the other one was built on a gold mine or anything. In fact, we really were out of space and needed to move, and this house is really great and in the same school district and so on and so forth . . . it's just that, after nine years and two babies, there are memories there. We drive by it occasionally and notice the new owners have taken out the clematis vine we put in by the mailbox, and that bums us out. I mean, it's their house, they bought it, why shouldn't they tear out a clematis vine, says my logic side . . . because the thing was taking off and it looks spectacular in the spring and I put it there, says my emotional side . . . you see where this is going. I suppose this house thing is sort of like breaking up with somebody and marrying somebody else, but still seeing the old boyfriend around town. You only remember the good times and not the issues that prompted you to get out in the first place. Good grief, that's a little too much emotional investment in a house, isn't it.

Besides moving and raising kids, I like to scrapbook, make cards, take pictures, and so on, but I haven't really done much of it recently, since all that stuff is still in boxes. It's slowly coming out though, so maybe I'll get some pictures up on the site!

That's all for now. Place your bets now, to see if I keep this up. :-)