Spring Break Treat

Dylan has asked me several times recently if I would let him have a Mohawk. I never really considered letting him do it during the school year, but it happens to be spring break (and he really really needed a haircut) and he agreed to let Lex buzz it off before school next week. Here it is in the making...


I should have thought to get a picture of the woolly mammoth that was on the floor. Dylan just has so much hair! Here he is after the clean up.




And with his new glasses on too.



Ten minutes later he had already forgotten he had a Mohawk. Goofy kid.

Dylan is 11!

Hard to believe, but my boy is 11 years old. Still learning kung-fu, still getting good grades, and still behaving well. What more could I ask for? He's a great kid and I'm very proud of him. This year he chose to have his cake and presents on his birthday with his family rather than wait for the weekend and do it with his friends. So the end result is this; a picture of his cake and not much else! The pictures I took when the boys were here on the weekend are almost identical to the pictures from last year, a group of boys (practically all the same boys too) standing in front of the Wii. The thumbnail preview of the pictures just say "See last year." But at least his cake is different! I hadn't taken any decorating classes last year (yet), so luckily he had asked for something easy. This year he challenged me a bit.

Inauguration

Let the change begin!  I am happy and relieved to have a new President.  Not that I'm silly enough to think things are going to change overnight, but the feeling of optimism is contagious and many people that I know are optimistic that things will get better faster now. 

 

On thing that strikes me about the inauguration, as a mother of an elementary school child, is that all those millions of people in the audience were sitting there quietly listening to the people doing the talking.  It amazes me.  It amazes me because year after year I attend my sons school functions and every time I am so disappointed in how rude people are to the principle, the performers and their own kids, just because they won't close their mouths and pay attention to what is going on.  Parents refusing to turn off their cell phones, and even talking on them during performances, it just makes me crazy.  I know people have the ability to be respectful,  saw proof that it can happen today, and I would love to see it happen at my sons school. 

 

See, even that small change would make my life a little more pleasant. 

Winter Sunset

Rootstock had another show in Fort Bragg last weekend. On the way to the coast we watched an excellent sunset.

The ocean is visible as a thin strip between the hills and the sunset.

You can barely see Lex and Frankie soaking it in.

Happy New Year

2008 has been a wonderful year in many ways. I hope all my friends and family had a good year too. As always I have been very busy, as you will see in a moment, and haven't kept up with people as I should. My self-imposed punishment is to fill you all in on a years worth of activities, events, photos, and news. I will attempt to make it entertaining, enjoyable, and not too wordy. Here Goes:

Oh, and FYI; After the video was made, we showed it to the kids with a secret microphone on the desk behind them. Their recorded narrative of the video is what you hear while you watch the beginning. Unfortunately the audio feed got interrupted so we only got a little bit recorded initially.

So, we added their few comments to the video with some music and showed it to them, while we were recording again! Gosh, it just gets better and better. So remember as you listen to the very beginning, you are hearing 2 conversations from 2 different times - have you had your mushrooms today? After that you are only hearing the second viewing of the video, so keep up here, there are circular references to things that happened while we were watching it the first time that you won't have any recollection of because you weren't with us the first time around (or the second) and the audio feed *&$%#'ed up, but if you pay attention it all ties together….and is amusing. Soooo Spinal Tap!




Notice...Dylan is suspiciously quiet. Once he knew he was being recorded, he clammed up. While I was uploading the photos into the video program, a picture of Brandon hitch-hiked and inserted itself right into the storyboard. So, I figured if he wanted to be in the video that bad I could let him stay. When we showed the video to the kids the first time, nobody said anything about the ghost photo, but the second time around Dylan did..."Who's that?" Goofy kid.

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays everyone. I hope you all had a safe and happy Thanksgiving. We had a nice Turkey Day here at the Krauss house. Lex and I cooked for the whole brood, so we were busy all day but we had a good time in the kitchen together. I recently acquired an antique bin table from Lex's family and it gave us some added "counter space" which was very helpful. Surfaces darling, surfaces...

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The bin table is on the left with some of the early prepped food cooling. I felt very fancy for a few minutes when I realized I actually had a centerpiece for the table, and it was even in the proper fall colors. I totally lucked into that, those flowers were "treasure". Hilaire and Dylan helped us fix the food. Hilaire baked pies and got up in the morning with us to clean and stuff the turkey. They both peeled potatoes and Dylan helped with other odd chores throughout the day. I have evidence:


So here's why I only felt fancy for a few minutes with the centerpiece. My family doesn't dress up for Thanksgiving. It is definitely not a day where we feel like we need to squeeze our butts into unforgiving pants and then be uncomfortable after we eat. Which is all day, because we eat all day. Don't you? I tell you, nothing beats an elastic waist band on Turkey Day. Hellllllloooooooo Sweats! Did I mention that I'm a very sloppy cook too? The last thing I want to be wearing in the kitchen is something that I want to wear in public someday. When everyone was done filling their plates, Lex and I did a quiet high-five and sat down for the first time in hours. Ahhhh.



Haha, look at the second picture and you can see how tall we all are! After dinner we all rolled around a bit, then went back in for pie. Mmmmm, piiiiiiie.... I'll save you all some time and tell you that Christmas will be the same way except that we'll probably have ham instead of turkey and sometime before I want to be awake we will drink coffee while the kids open presents. Christmas is a bit more exciting this year because it's our first with Hilaire.

Happy Birthday Hilaire!

Yesterday was Hilaire's 17th birthday. We had a party for her at our house with some friends and family. Here are some highlights:





It was a fun evening with an interesting mix of new and old family, and new and old friends. Hilaire really enjoyed herself and she is very excited to be 17. We are happy that she was here with us to celebrate.