I just posted Camron's birthday picture slideshow. There are about a zillion and one pictures on there and I don't expect you to look at them all - but I had a lot of fun making it and just couldn't seem to stop myself from putting more and more pictures on - he's just so gosh darn cute!

We have big plans today. We started out with an orthodontist appointment at 9 - apparently, the top braces will go on in 6 weeks - we have to wait on some teeth to come in first. Cam wants to have lunch at Szechuan - Chinese chicken is his most favorite food :) A round of mini-golf is also in our future. We'll probably go to tkd class tonight, but we'll hit Cold Stone afterwards for some birthday ice cream (since the big cake day isn't until Sunday.)

Have a good one, everybody!!

Happy Birthday, Camron!!!!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Which of my blog readers knows Dave's mind the best?????

Dave informed me this morning that he bought me something on eBay. Which of you wonderful people will be the first to correctly guess what said item might possibly be? **Lady Leslie is forbidden to play this game because she already knows the answer. Wendi is forbidden to ask Facebook Bill because he also knows the answer.**

Too Trampy????? Yay or Nay?

The story goes like this: Dave and I went shopping last Friday because I needed to get a dress to wear to his cousin's wedding. He saw this dress and wanted me to try it on - even though it's blue - so not my color! After I put it on though, I thought it was cute, but too trampy for a wedding. What say all of you? (Try to overlook the tags at my armpit :)

A. Too trampy, period. You need a scarlet letter.

B. Cute, but not for a wedding.

This morning I took Coco to Pet Smart for her second grooming appointment. She was shaking like a leaf when we went inside (not that I blame her, the other dogs were all bigger than she is - for example, a huge German shepherd and a humongous sheepdog!!!) Anyway, after I dropped her off, I shopped for treats for her Easter basket (yes, I got my dog an Easter basket, deal with it :) Dave had already bought her the blue hippo weeks ago and we picked up the mini tennis balls on a past trip to Wal-Mart, so all she needed was something edible. Mmmmm, there's nothing like beef and carrot flavored treats and Jumbone minis!

When we were at World of Values shopping for Coco's Easter basket, I scored this suh-weet deal on the next two Lord of the Rings books for Ryan - only $3.99 each!!!! I could get ONE new on Amazon for $8.76 - so, I spent less for two than one would have cost (did you catch that???? It's late, sorry.)

And, in honor of spring, I picked out two new nail polish colors today - Dave picked out three, but they're for me, not him :) We have fun colors named: Iced Merlot, Hot Tamale, Wild Thing, Jamaica Me Crazy, and Flirt Alert!

*****Yes, I realize that this was a highly uninformative, non-cohesive post.*****

The "Must Have" Desk Accessory of the Season

She's so high-maintenance; she always has to be with "her people." She started out on Dave's lap, but he needed both hands to draw a model. He plopped her up on the desk and she slept there for about 40 minutes until he got up and went into the other room........... she, of course, followed.

4 years ago..............

Check out how absolutely tiny the boys were! Ryan has chubby little cheeks!

Dwarf Planets

Nothing warms a homeschooling mother's heart so much as when her child, who she has spent countless hours instructing, understands and remembers the information taught and brings it up in casual conversation stating the facts correctly. Ryan commented that a certain individual who we know has a backside that could possibly be classified as a dwarf planet. Then he began to list the criteria and his explanations: 1) A dwarf planet must be in orbit around the sun - said individual is on earth, which orbits the sun - CHECK! 2) A dwarf planet must be nearly round in shape - no explanation needed - CHECK! 3) A dwarf planet has not "cleared the neighborhood" around its orbit - we are all still around and have not been "sucked into" or "flung out of" the area surrounding the person, so, no clearing of neighborhood - CHECK! 4) A dwarf planet is not a satellite. Now, don't get me wrong, I was impressed with his recall of the information and attention to detail - and he argued his points well; however, he WAS comparing someone's bum to a dwarf planet - I'm not so sure I'm overly proud of that................ but I did laugh :)

Where Mid-Terms Were Completed Satisfactorily and Rank Was Achieved

Everyone did a fantastic job on Wednesday evening! Forms were sharp, sparring was enthusiastic, and boards snapped with the sheer force applied by elbows, hands, and feet! Here's Cam during his first run-through of the form - you know, the one prior to "Yes Sir" asking, as always, to do the form again:

Check out that beautiful backstance!

I think Dave was feeling a little woozy when he took this picture - or, maybe he was just switching his bum position on those oh-so-comfy chairs:

Ry's lookin' a little intense, wouldn't you say? Another nice backstance - and weird, crazy toes! Holy cow, I could park my car in the space between his toes!

Camron made quite sure that his board would break this time. He picked two awesome holders :) and he gave an amazingly loud yell.

And here's where testing got interesting..... Kim and I were pretty much sitting in each other's laps to hold this board for Kyla. As expected, Paparazzi Dave was taking advantage of our rather risque positioning and snapped some pictures.

Here we have Ryan and Andy singing the ATA Anthem after receiving their rank stripes.

My handsome black-recommended boy with his new belt:

5 Random Things (that you don't need to know, but that you'll probably read anyway)

1. Dave and I have been invited to his cousin's wedding at the end of April. This means that I will have to do something that I loathe to do - go shopping. It's unfortunate that Levi's 524 Too Superlow Bootcut jeans and an ATA hoodie sweatshirt would not be appropriate attire for the occasion - I'm sure people would be much more comfortable if they were able to dress casually at weddings :) Would anyone like to be my personal shopper?

2. Ryan challenged Dave to a race this past weekend. Dave is freakin' fast and I thought that Ryan had NO CHANCE whatsoever; apparently, I hadn't taken his long, floppy legs into consideration. If he hadn't looked over at his dad to see where he was - he'd have beat him! As it was, Dave only beat him by one stride. Ryan will smoke him by the end of the summer!


3. I'm not quite sure that Coco is completely comfortable here with us yet.

Okay, so I lied. She's a total princess and she knows it. One night last week she decided that sleeping in her crate at night was not cool - so, now she sleeps on our bed like a little angel all night long. She has also proven to us that she is pretty smart. We shut her in the kitchen last Thursday night when we went to tkd by blocking off the two doorways with Aunt Kim and Uncle Chris's gates. Guess who met us AT THE DOOR with a wagging tail when we got home????? She chewed a perfectly engineered zig-zag pattern into the plastic gate webbing and hopped right through - she's obviously brilliant!

4. There is an after-testing-celebration being planned for "people who get squat this testing cycle". It basically started when Painter Jeff (who isn't really painting anymore - do we have to change his name??????) and I were whining about the patheticness of our paying $60 for nothing (yeah, yeah, I know, we get a score - whooo hoo!) Anyway, we decided that we'd go out after and get a drink or something along with all of our peeps who also get nothing but a score (Kim, Curt) - and those others who would like to join us :) Any ideas of where to go?

5. I got all wet running back and forth into and out of tkd numerous times today because I let someone borrow my umbrella :) Ha! It was only sprinkling and I'm not sweet enough to melt. Thanks for calling and letting me know it was safe in the mailbox - I was getting worried :) Next Thursday for the walk, right? That's the day after testing..... we'll have plenty (of people) to talk about.

The Incredible Hulk

I love that I have boys. When they were little they used to curl up on my lap and I'd read books to them. I'd spend hours down on the floor building block towers so that T-Rex could knock them down over and over and over again. Every day in the summer we would hook up the garden hose so that volcanoes could be built and then cause great destruction in the sandbox realm. The boys would swing on the rope swing and want me to throw pretzels at them while they were spinning wildly to see if I could hit them. They would want me to commentate while they did different tricks and moves on the trampoline.

These days, they don't need me for very much except procuring food for them and washing their clothes; certainly they can't curl on my lap for a story! Now that they're getting older, they've developed that sense of humor that boys seem to naturally come by. The ability to say the most amusing things and completely crack me up! I have recently heard a story that tells me that my nephew, Levi, is honing his skills for when he gets a little older. The amazing ability to screw with his little sister has already begun to form quite well at the tender age of 6:

Bannah recently re-saw (not that that's a word or anything) the Hulk movie. Apparently the whole "rage turning you into a giant green monster" thing has really struck her psyche. She was wrestling with her brother and he had her pinned. She started to FREAK OUT - not because he had her pinned, but because she could "feel herself starting to get frustrated and she didn't want to turn into the Hulk." Danielle went through the whole, "It is a pretend movie. Blah, blah, blah............ That doesn't really happen" thing that every good parent patiently goes through. Well, the next day, Levi accidentally knocked over some books that Bannah had standing up to make rooms for her "dudes" to play in. She freaked out again because she was mad and didn't want to turn into the Hulk. She was all crying and wigging out. Again, Danielle explained that "people do not turn into big, giant monsters when they're mad. Their skin does not turn green. That's a promise." So, what does that little, ornery stinker, Levi, do? He goes into the kitchen, scribbles on his skin with green marker, comes back into the room and says, "Bannah, look! Look what's happening to my arm!" Now, she's REALLY freaking, he's laughing so hard he falls over onto the chair, Steve and Danielle are trying not to laugh (because, you have to admit, that was genius) and are trying to calm Bannah down.

I wish I could've been there! I love boys :)

We Bartholomews have been a bit busy lately. Dave decided that he needed an officey/desk area where he could do his "freelance" work. He used to have a big area in the basement, but when he switched jobs, he took his fancy, schmancy desk there because they didn't have one for him. Then he put a huge chunk of gym equipment down there....... so he didn't really have a place to work - except for the dining room table - which was kind of a problem because when he was done working, he'd leave all his stuff there and it would be in the way for when we did schoolwork the next morning. I said all of that to say this............. here is his new desk (from Sam's) and his new chair (from Wal-Mart).

I don't think any "work" has taken place here yet :)

We've also rearranged the upstairs closet. I was getting tired of hauling Consuela's rather substantial butt up the stairs every time I wanted to sweep, so we made room for her in the closet. Notice that only one of the boys' shoes each fits in one of the shoe holder thingies. Apparently, they don't make those spaces large enough to accommodate the boats that these people wear on their feet!

I spent some time this morning swiffering, sweeping and dusting in preparation for my Dad's birthday party which is being held here tomorrow evening. The boys watched tv in their jammies, Dave was running around returning stuff and buying stuff, and Coco worked on her "roadkill" impression:

After that, I was a mean, mean mommy and made Frick and Frack go outside and help clean up the front yard. We picked up and raked up sticks and bagged them for trash pick-up. Afterwards, they decided to get their bikes out and cruise around the 'hood:

They can't just ride past normally. They have to make weird faces, do weird gestures, or act like they're singing...... Ding dongs :)

While all of this was going on out front, Dave was in the back cleaning and fine-tuning the grill:

Wendi told me earlier this evening at tkd that if I didn't blog tonight, she wouldn't be my friend any more. Since her friendship is very important to me, here's my thrown-together post:

Coco successfully survived her first trip to the groomer. Now, we can tell that she has eyes and I think she looks even cuter than before. The groomer people at Pet Smart wanted to put a topknot bow in her hair........... um, no way is my dog going to have a dorky bow in her hair, thank you very much!

Coco would NOT like to thank her Aunt Kim and Uncle Chris for the use of the baby gates. I, however, am loving Aunt Kim and Uncle Chris right about now since I don't have to wonder if Psy-Coco has gone upstairs and left a gift in someone's room.... or if she's chewing through a cord...... or choking on a Lego............... :)

Yesterday we went to my sister's house for Savannah's 5th birthday celebration. Lori came in from Ohio for the occasion, only to be tortured by Dave:

Savannah got a "Pretty, Pretty Princess" game for her birthday. It basically requires spinning a spinny hickey and then picking out the jewelry that the spinner landed on. Here are some shots of the game participants:

We're not at all concerned that Levi eagerly participated in the game. Nor are we concerned that he actually won and received the crown and the title of "Pretty, Pretty Princess". In fact, I think all of the bling goes very well with his "Jedi" tattoo......

And here, we have the birthday girl modeling her red princess dress. What I don't have is a picture of what happened next, which was when she started flirting shamelessly with my brother-in-law, Jesse. Maybe it was the bold, red color............ Perhaps pink would have been a better choice - or possibly white........

Okay, I have quite a bit of catching up to do, so here it goes:

1. Dave made it back from his trip to New York on Thursday night. I met him at the train station in Greensburg and then we had dinner at the Red Star (don't be jealous, Wendi.) Since he left on Valentine's Day, he made me this ginormous card - which he strategically placed on the washing machine - I suppose he figured there was no chance of me missing it there :)

2. Camron had two more teeth pulled last Wednesday:

Dr. Bupp looked at Cam's chart quickly and said that these were teeth numbers "9" and "10" to be pulled. "11" and "12" come out on March 2!!!

Here he is after the whole ordeal was over.

It took FOREVER for his novocaine to wear off and he was extremely grouchy for a few hours because, of course, he was starving!

3. Even though I haven't seen most of you in a few days, I HAVE heard stories. You should know that you're being watched at all times.......... and you should be on your best behavior........... and not sass my niece.............. or call my sister names in the parking lot..................

4. I used to have a friend named Kim. I haven't seen or heard from her in quite some time. She hasn't tried to kick me in the head recently - I'm feeling neglected :)

5. I saw Mr. Dreskler this evening after Wendi assaulted him. He was walking around dazed and confused............

6. This is Coco:

She's pretty much our dog now. She'll be 8 months old at the end of February and she's nothing but bones covered in fur. She previously resided with Dave's boss and his family. They decided that they should have gotten another Golden Retriever when theirs went to doggie heaven, so they were trying to find a good home for Coco. She weighs about 6 pounds and I'm pretty sure that if I attach a Swiffer sheet on her somehow, I'll never have to sweep my hardwood floors again! She loves to cuddle and just sit with you. She doesn't have the pony tail holder in her hair right now so you can't really tell that she has eyes.............. a trip to the groomer is in her immediate future! The boys think we're babysitting for a few days - we're really just seeing how the whole thing would work out - Dave and I are pretty sure that she'll be staying.

Happy Birthday, Steve!!!!!!!!!!

I would like to take this opportunity to wish a "Happy Birthday" to my wonderful brother-in-law, Steve! :)

I'll have you know, Steve-O, that I looked and looked and looked through practically every folder on my computer, and in all of the pictures I have of you, you're sticking out your tongue or making some other lovely face. See:

But, to be fair, I did find this one - in which, even I must admit, you look quite cute :)

Happy Birthday!

"Tami needs".......

Okay. So I just read Wendi's blog and started laughing hysterically over all of the things that she "needs". And, since Leslie and Wendi have commanded us all to do the "(your name) needs" thing in Google - I've succumbed to peer pressure and have done it. Here are mine:

1. Tami needs help, let us pray that she receives it. Tee hee hee! I won't argue with this one.

2. What Tami needs now: Trainers & consultants who specialize in trends, social media, and corporate social responsibility. I'm also looking for home stagers...... I don't really want someone to stage my home, someone to clean it thoroughly would be nice............

3. Tami needs geography lessons. Okay, so geography isn't my strong point. I don't think it's nearly as important as being able to use the English language properly........... and spell correctly!!!

4. Tami needs a voice actor.

5. Tami needs a job. I'm quite busy as a washer-woman extraordinaire and multiple-grade-level teacher, thank you very much!

6. Tami needs to be voted as this year's "IT girl!" Please, please, please. I aspire to being an "IT" girl now that I've already achieved "princess" status.

7. Tami NEEDS a southern accent. Which she would quite easily pick up if she were to stay in the South for any length of time...

8. Tami needs to talk to people fairly often which can be a problem if nobody else is around... at that point, she just talks to herself!!!! :)

9. Tami needs to know everyone's name who will be attending....... Attending WHAT, I'm not sure, but you're all invited!

10. Tami needs to learn to accept things as they are. Ahhhh, Google is very wise. Dave will never throw his dirty underwear into the dirty clothes bag, there will always be clothes to wash, people will always get on my nerves, my chest will always be flat...................

11. Tami needs a friend. I know we were supposed to stop at 10, but I added this one anyway. It used to be true - until I met all of you and deemed you "worthy" :)

Wendi's Fill-In-The-Blank-Easy-Blog-Post-Thingymadoodle

This I can do. Filling in blanks only slightly freaks me out. As long as I don't overthink my answers, I'll be okay :)

Outside my window ....... It's dark, but I know that the neighbors' sleds are lying in the yard between our houses and their recycling trash can is up against the bushes on the side of my house thanks to the gale force winds we experienced the other night.

I am thinking ..... about how I don't want to get all of our tax information together to take to our CPA because it's a giant pain in the butt.

I am thankful for ...... hot showers.

From the kitchen ..... comes the sound of Big Bertha making ice cubes!

I am wearing ..... my comfy, worn out jeans and my tkd hoodie with the weird spacing on the back :)

I am creating ...... this highly informative blog post.

I am going ...... to curl up on the couch and watch something on tv with Dave as soon as the boys go to bed. Some sort of snack and wine will follow.

I am hoping ...... that the next several days pass quickly because I'll miss Dave while he's gone :(

Around the house ...... the boys are watching "Clone Wars" in their jammie pants and t-shirts. Ry's eating his regular evening snack of popcorn. Dave's looking for movies to take with him on his trip. (He picked "Dodge Ball", "Schindler's List", "Napoleon Dynamite", "True Lies", and "Robin Hood, Men In Tights" - he's got quite a mix there, wouldn't you say????)

One of my favorite things ..... is reading a good book. My sister, Lori, will think that's a boring answer. She's just jealous 'cause she can't read. :)

A few plans for the rest of the week ....... I'll be stopping by Wendilouwho's house tomorrow to pick up some books to keep me occupied while BS is in New York. Benjy asked if I'd bring my boys with me :) My mom and dad are having us over for lunch on Sunday. Cam has an orthodontist appointment on Monday morning. Other than that, we'll be doing schoolwork and I'll be washing the never-ending, always-growing mound of clothes!

Look at the happy, smiling face of Big Sexy in this picture! Doesn't he look carefree, at peace and rested? This is NOT how he looks right now because Big Sexy is sick. This is rather shocking because he never gets sick. The flow pattern of illness in our house usually progresses like this: Ryan always seems to get whatever first, he also gets over it the quickest - Cam usually starts showing the effects of Ry's "sharing" a couple of days later - and then, by the time the two of them have pretty much recovered, I succumb to whatever nasty bug they have spread to me via their sneezing, coughing and incessant nose-wiping. Dave never gets whatever it is we have all passed around. And, he can still say that.... because whatever he has now, he did not get here at home! We were at his sister's house this past Saturday for a birthday party and a vast majority of the people there were sick (gee, woulda been nice to know that before we showed up, eh?) Anyway, last night, while we were at tkd, he said his throat started bothering him. By the time he went to bed, he was miserable. He spent the night tossing and turning and sucking on throat lozenges. Why is it when I'm sick, I go downstairs, make tea, read a book or watch tv, and suffer my misery in silence letting others get their rest, but when others are not feeling up to snuff, it's okay to get up repeatedly to go into the bathroom to spit (of course the spitting is preceded by the lovely throat clearing/bringing it up sound) and then flop back into bed only to open the crinkly wrap on a new throat lozenge every couple of minutes and then munch the remaining bit of lozenge when it gets too small and thin to suck on anymore???? Why? Why? Why? (That was an amazingly long run-on. You'll have to excuse me; I'm VERY tired.... I didn't get much rest last night :) Anyway, he actually took a sick day and stayed home from work today! I think the last time he did that was when he had hernia surgery and couldn't walk. He worked all day anyway on his laptop from the dining room table, but he got to do it in his fancy "Ford" jammie pants that I bought him on our last all-girls' night out.

Okay, I think my complainy rant is over. I'm going to get a quick bite to eat and then go to bed. If he crinkles a wrapper in my ear this evening, I can't be responsible for my actions...............

I hope you feel better soon, Dave! :)

I hope that all of you survived today's blizzard! How crazy was that? I had read on The Weather Channel earlier in the morning that "an inch" of snow would be falling out of a storm that was leaving Pittsburgh - I'd say we got a tad bit more than an inch!

We decided to get Chinese for dinner this evening. We all plodded through the snow drifts to the car and drove to Szechuan Garden. Mmmm, it was so yummy. Dave, Ryan and I had chicken with assorted vegetables ("wegetables" is what our waitress called them) in spicy brown sauce. Cam had his usual, chicken in brown sauce, no veggies/weggies :) Here's Dave's fortune:

We thought it was pretty funny that his fortune had "a happy ending". Very grown up of us, I know.

Thanks to my pal, State Champ, I spent most of last night (after I got home from tkd) and all spare moments that I managed to have today reading this book.

Actually, I FINISHED this book - in less than 24 hours. It's a sickness, I can't help it. "My name is Tami, and I love to read." (Everyone responds, "Hi, Tami.") Anyway, it was VERY good, and I'm not usually a mystery type of book reader. Apparently I haven't been reading the right mystery books! Thanks, SC!

Oh, here's a shot I just downloaded off my camera of my beauteous friend, Wendi, and her "special" companion. She is very nice to "special" people.

Tonight was a GREAT taekwondo night. Eaglescout taught and we sparred the whole time! You should have seen the totally bummed look on Ryan's face when I gave him that bit of info! There was no way he could have gone anyway, even if we had known - as he was voicing his displeasure over missing out on all of the fun, his left lung landed on the floor in a fit of coughing!

And now, since we all know how I feel about winter and cold and snow and ice and piercing subzero winds, I leave you with thoughts of summer. The hot sun sizzling the skin, blinding the eyes, sweat running down your back, swimming pools, splashing, and these lovely pictures that I came across:

Wendi was experiencing a "sot" moment the other night at the "Curt & Kim Black Belt Celebration Bash". She was trying to be so nice and helpful by putting some beverages on the porch to stay cold, and instead made a mess and got poor Emma the dog trashed on a Raspberry Smirnoff. And, I think I may have glass in my foot................

And here we have the yummy chocolate cake made by Lady Leslie. Check out that Songham Star! I still have some in my fridge. I think it's the part that says "him & Lurt" - you know, after Kim played with the icing for so long that she ripped off part of her "K", so, being the grown-up that she is, mutilated Curt's "C"!

My children are slowly recovering from whatever creeping crud that they managed to contract. They still aren't eating very much at all, but no one has a fever anymore. Now they are basically spending their time hacking up a lung.

For Kim - who is not one :)

SOT:

noun -

a chronic drinker (syn: drunkard)

a person stupefied by excessive drinking; an habitual drunkard

My foot is hurting like crazy today. I suppose all of the jumping around and standing on it over the past two days has attributed to that somewhat. I wanted to post a couple of pictures of Painter Jeff, Ryan, Camron and moi doing some synchronized taekwondo.

Look at the intense concentration/don't mess with me look on SC's face. I DARE you to try to take her State Champ patches Wendi!!!! :)

This picture had Big Sexy laughing hysterically last night when we downloaded the pics off of the camera. He wanted to know what, exactly, Kim was doing in this photo. We've come up with a few captions, in all of our maturity or incredible lack thereof. What say all of you?????