In honor of said holidays, the blog will be on hiatus until further notice. If you miss me so much, you can leave some comments. Otherwise, I’ll see you in the New Year.

Oh laptop, how I hate thee! Let me count the ways:

1. The way the “t” fell off your front cover, making you a “Gaeway” laptop
2. The way some of your keys don’t work every now and again, forcing me to hit them a few times to get them to work
3. The way  you somehow ruined not one, but two mice, which no no longer work in any computer
4. The way you were not Windows Vista compatible when I bought you, even though you came pre-installed with Vista
5. The way you always used to get blue screens (though, to be fair, this seems to be fixed now, after a year or so)
6. The way you occasionally randomly shut down for no reason when you are left alone
7. The way you take 48+ hours for virus scan
8. The way you are unable to do anything while virus scanning
9. The way you take ten minutes to start up or shut down
10. The way I had to re-flash your bios that one time, just to make you work like a regular computer (see #5)
11. The way your tiny hard drive is 98% full
12. The way you somehow destroyed your own power cord

Between #3 and #12, I’m kind of worried the poor thing has Lupus. In regards to #6, and maybe the whole list in general, I think that the little devil just wants attention. Hey laptop! That’s not the kind of attention you want, buddy!

We took Evie to see Santa last night at the zoo, and I have to say, everything went better than I could have expected.

The big question of course, was what she would do when it came time to see Santa. She had been excited in theory, but when we got to the line, she seemed a little quiet. I was worried that would translate into not wanting to talk to Santa, but I was way off on that one. She had no issues whatsoever, and after I told her to speak up so Santa could hear her, she shouted the rest of her answers to him. In fact, if anything, Santa was more afraid of her than she was of him. She expected to climb right up on his lap, but he was talking to her a little bit first, probably feeling her out to see if she was going to cry or something, and she was a little miffed that she didn’t get to sit right away.

She seemed a little dazed by the whole experience, but happy to chomp away at the green candy cane Santa gave her. All and all it was a pretty pleasant experience, with a really small line and no professional photographers. We much prefer to to take our own pictures, and sometimes they don’t let you do that if they want you to pay for a picture (see last year).

After that we wandered around the zoo for awhile to look at the Christmas lights. They have a couple of displays set to music, and Evie really dug that. Especially since she got to hear her two favorites, Jingle Bells and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. We’ve been listening to the Christmas radio station in the car, but they never, ever play Jingle Bells. So Evie usually spends the whole time demanding I play Jingle Bells on the radio. Therefore, I was extremely relieved to hear it (4 times) at the zoo. We also got to see a few animals (really just a jaguar and some monkies) and drank some hot cider in the member’s lounge, because that’s how we roll (zoo membership paying off!)

As a side note, remember how you used to see groups of smokers huddled around an ashtray in the cold? Texters are the new smokers. I don’t know what kind of herd instinct makes them huddle together to text (maybe for warmth?) but at every exhibit there were a little group of people off to the side silently texting. It was really kind of creepy.

This morning when Evie woke up she was in a super mood, jumping up and down and making up Christmas songs in her crib. I felt really bad when she revealed this was because she thought that Santa had brought her presents last night. I could see how that would be a little confusing, so I felt really bad for her. She took it in stride though, and didn’t get too upset when we told her she had a few more days to wait.

One last story. We were looking at the monkeys and some random lady started talking to Evie, but in a really condescending way, as if Evie were like 6 months old. “Do you see the monKEY? The baby monKEY? Oh, she’s just loving this!” Evie responded with something like, “Actually my dear woman, I daresay you are mistaken! Note the concentric rings of color on its tail, which denote that this is in fact an adolescent of the species, not a baby at all. Not to mention that this is not technically a monkey as denoted by the genus…” Well, I don’t remember the quote exactly, but something to that effect. Somehow the lady fixated on one word, ignoring all the rest and started gushing, “Baby! Yes! It’s a BABY monkey!” At this point Evie pretty much just ignored her. I was pretty annoyed, but then I heard the lady turn to her maybe 10 year old and say, “The monkey is drinking his wa-wa!” and I realized that talking down to kids just must be her thing. Lady, if your kid doesn’t say “water” instead of “wa-wa” by the time he’s 10, god help him.

I used to put quotes up on Mondays, because I spent so much time with Evie on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, that I had a lot of quotes to talk about. It sort of became a regular feature of the blog. Lately though it has been skipping around a little bit. I make no promises for the future, but for today its back to Monday!

Nala: meowing like crazy outside Evie’s door
Me: wishing death in every possible way on the cat
Evie: “Nala! Be quiet!”
Nala: falls silent

Who knew that after all this time, Evie has the power to command the cat?! And here I always worried Nala would wake her up, it turns out that would be the best thing for all of us!

Evie and I went to see a Christmas play at a church the other day. She was following along with the action, but at one point, she got really upset. She understood that Mary and Joseph were looking for a place to sleep. What she couldn’t understand was why that was a problem, when there were so many unused benches at the back of the church. She was really upset about it, I had to shush her a couple of times as her insistence got louder and louder. She would point toward the back of the church and say, “But there’s benches! Right there!” I got the impression that she was about to run up to the front and make the suggestion, but the play had moved on by that point. She didn’t let it go for the rest of the play, asking about every 5 minutes, “Is someone going to come sleep on these benches?”

::singing “Hey Diddle Diddle” about 20 times in a row::
“Mommy, can we sing Row Row Row Your Boat? I am sooo tired of Cat and the Fiddle.”

“I can comb your hair and then you can comb my hair, daddy.”
“Okay, that’s fine.”
::combing big circles around the outside of my head::
“I’ll comb the outside because there’s no hair in the middle.”

I was looking through some pictures from a month or so ago, and I saw something I had missed the first time! Sara was taking some fall pictures of Evie while Evie and I were playing in the leaves outside. In these particular pictures, Evie and I were playing hide and seek. What I didn’t realize the first time I looked at the pictures, is that I am in them!

The first time through I was focused on Evie and I didn’t really notice the background. Either that, or I am such a master hider, that I even fooled myself!

I have long appreciated the missions of Improve Everywhere (who runs the Urban Prankster network, see link over there –>) However, I feel like their earlier, smaller stuff was better. Just a few people showing up, causing a scene, and then melting away. Lately however, their missions have grown along with their popularity, such as the annual No Pants Subway Ride which boasts 2,500 people and 22 cities.

That’s why I really appreciated their latest mission, the Guerrilla Handbell Strikeforce. Basically a handbell choir just showed up to help out a local Salvation Army bell ringer, and then disappeared when the song was finished, without ever saying a word to the guy. I think his reaction is the best. He’s obviously confused, but he just rolls with it and doesn’t ask any questions.

So anyway, enjoy!

J&D’s, the makers of bacon salt, continue to make good on their promise “Everything should taste like bacon”. Including, apparently, the adhesive on the flap of envelopes. I give you, Mmmvelopes.

Proclaiming it as a radical change in 4,000 year-old envelope-flavor technology, they write: “No longer will envelopes taste like the underside of your car. You can enjoy the taste of delicious bacon instead.”

I strongly support this cause and the general overall philosophy that everything should taste like bacon. I approve of this message.

(I think the link was sent by both Jackie and Meg…I forget who sent it first. Just goes to show you I should blog these things sooner.)

Calling all Harry Potter fans!

How awesome is this? It’s a universal remote that looks like a magic wand! Basically, you train it from your regular remote and assign button functions to various movements of the wand. Then you can literally change the channel with a flick of your wrist!

I would totally buy one, but I don’t think I need a $90 remote…

Now I go on and on about ThinkGeek on here and all the great products they have, but I have finally found one that seems a little silly to me. They have a flashlight that is so powerful, you can literally cook an egg with the beam! According to the website, you can actually set fire to paper with this thing. What purpose could there possibly be for such a flashlight?

Evie has been using baby toothpaste, which is pretty expensive, given how small the tube is. So instead we went out and bought some semi-expensive (though still waay cheaper than the baby toothpaste) toothpaste with out any chemicals or fluoride in it, that she could use. Now, we’ve learned long ago that you don’t just go changing something like that, or you’re going to have a fit on your hands. So for probably a month, we’ve been talking up this new toothpaste and how exciting it’s going to be. Finally the big day arrived; time to use the new “big girl” toothpaste.

Evie was so excited about this toothpaste. We’ve gotten pretty good about talking things up. She was practically dancing to get a hold of this stuff. So I put some toothpaste on the brush and handed it to her. As soon as it hit her mouth, she got a really sad look on her face, and tears sprung into her eyes. She shouted, “This toothpaste is hot! I need some water!” She looked so miserable.

I didn’t really think about the fact that she’s never tasted peppermint before. Peppermint does do something strange in your mouth, where it kind of feels hot and cold at the same time, or maybe a little numb or something. You know what I mean? I expect that would be a little shocking if you had never experienced it before and you didn’t expect it. She was so sad that she didn’t like the toothpaste and I felt so bad for her.

Eventually we got some new, berry flavored big girl toothpaste and all is fine. Skip ahead a few weeks. My mom sent an advent calendar, containing a few of those tiny candy canes. Of course she picked one and of course it was too “hot” and she didn’t like it. Now the strange thing was that she proceeded to pick a candy cane every single day after that, until they were gone. Each time she would be really excited, unwrap it, lick it once, and then say, “I don’t like this!” and throw it in the trash. It’s not like she didn’t know what she was getting. One time, after I had helped her unwrap the thing, she told me, “I’m going to need some water, I don’t like these.” Then she popped it in her mouth.

She is a strange girl.

Evie: “I am not impressed by this diaper!” (She’s getting sick of wearing them to bed)

Evie likes you to make up stories and tell them to her. She likes it so much that after you do it once, you’re forced to do it again and again for all eternity. Lately, she has discovered a way to force me to keep telling her a story after I’m done. It goes like this: I tell her I’m only going to tell her one more story. After some hemming and hawing, she agrees. Finally I finish the story, but rather than being content with the story, she asks, “Does this story have an epilogue?” I obviously can’t resist that, and end up telling a little more story than I intended to. I think I’m winning the war though, because now I always save a little bit of story in case she asks.

Well, for those of you that we don’t see very often, we have some big news…baby #2 is on the way!

It’s a boy! Sara is 21 weeks. Evie has periods of more and less excitement. She wants to buy her “baby brudder” everything. She just walks through the story saying he’ll need socks, mittens, dresses, boots for in the rain, toys…she even wanted to buy scissors to cut her baby brudder’s tags off his new pajamas.

Sara hasn’t been as sick as last time, but she’s been plenty of sick. The most traumatizing thing of the pregnancy so far is when Sara threw up in Evie’s sand bucket. Evie was inconsolable.

We asked Evie what she would name the baby, and she decided on “Refrigerator Baby”. Since then we’ve asked her a few times, and she’s always stuck with it.

So far, Nathan had the worst reaction – when I told him, the first thing he said was “Oh no!” (I told you I wouldn’t let you forget that)

I really can’t conceive of how we will have the time for 2 kids. It seems like we barely have time for 1! But people manage it I guess, so I guess it all works out.

By the way, anybody that was previously under instructions not to tell anybody, the ban is now officially lifted.