A Giveaway for Maya's Birthday!

Today was Maya's birthday party!  On Wednesday she'll be 4 years old.  She had a great time at the party and was totally exhausted by the time everyone left.  More party pictures will come some other day, but check out this cute one (she's got an animal cracker in her mouth):

She's just so adorable, I can't stand it.

Check out her birthday shirt!  It's a little blurry in that picture, but it says her name, has a big 4, and (of course) an alligator.  She loves it.

I found the shirt on Etsy, and once I received it (and thought the quality was great) I emailed the shop owner, Jill,  to see if she was interested in giving away a discount to one lucky blog reader.  She happily agreed to give away 50% off any one personalized shirt in her store, lil sha-bebe. 

Fine print: I paid full price for Maya's shirt.  I am not getting anything in return for this giveaway.  I just liked her shirt and thought it was worth a shot to ask about getting a discount to give away to one of you folks.

I took 2 closer-up pictures, but I took them after the party, so ignore the spots:

Jill's store has over 200 shirts listed---I can basically guarantee that if you spend some time browsing over there you'll see something adorable, either for your child or to give as a gift to some other lucky little one.

Here are the details:

Prize: 50% off any one personalized shirt from this Etsy store. 

Giveaway Details: Entries start tonight and will end Thursday at 3pm (NYC time).  Winning comment number will be chosen using random.org, and if I don't hear from the winner after 24 hours I will pick a new winner.

Entry Details:

• You enter this giveaway by commenting on this blog post (not on the blog's Facebook page).
• You can enter up to 6 times, and each entry must be a separate entry.  If you put them all in one entry, it's only going to count once.
• It's generally best (but not necessary) if your entries include your email address.  If they don't, I won't be able to contact you if you win, and if you miss your 24-hour winner window you'll be out of luck. (So if your email address isn't there, be sure to check the blog on Thursday night, 5/31!)

How to Enter:
1. Leave a comment on this post.  (Any comment will do)
2. Like us on Facebook, and leave a comment that says "I like you on Facebook!" (if you already like us on Facebook just leave a comment saying so.)
3. Follow us on Twitter and leave a comment that says "I follow you on Twitter!" (if you already follow us on Twitter just leave a comment saying so.)
4. Go check out Jill's etsy store and leave a comment letting me know which shirt catches your eye.
5. Share the link to this blog post on Facebook and leave a comment letting me know that you did.
6. Tweet the link to this blog post and leave a comment letting me know that you did.

 
Good luck!

News in brief & new giveaway winner

-Maya loves school.  LOVES.  I picked her up yesterday (and will every Weds, to go to after school feeding/speech therapy) and got to see her so excited, running around and pointing to show off the classroom, hugging her teachers, etc.  It's too cute.  The teacher even asked her "Where's Adam?" and she toddled over to bulletin board with the kids' pictures and pointed to the right kid!  (She doesn't know everyone, but she's learning.)

-Maya does not love the bus.  I don't think she hates it, but she doesn't love it.  On the FB page (which you should like) and Twitter (where you should follow) I've mentioned that there have been some tears (yesterday from Maya and then me, today just from Maya).  Today was a better ride, though, with less crying, and the bus people seem nice.  We're hoping that it will get easier.

-Maya's made some great art (pictures in my Twitter feed) and so did I!  The teacher sent home a leaf to decorate with some family pictures.  Maya was a fan :)

-Parker is not having a good week.  He spends a lot of time moping in his crate.  But also, he gets to run in the baseball field on some mornings (I couldn't take him with Maya, because the field isn't fenced in---I worried that he would bolt after something and I would be stuck with the jogging stroller).  He loves the running, but doesn't like the quiet apartment.

-We have a new giveaway winner!  The previous winner never claimed the Leapfrog DVD, so we have a new winner, care of random.org:  Comment #22!!

"Queen Amy said...

I know my letters and my daughters know their letters, but I love coming here and I would really like to win your giveaway and give it away to one of the children I work with who hasn't learned their letters. That sentence had a lot of letters!

August 22, 2011 11:05 PM "

 

Congratulations, Amy!   Email me to claim your prize!

Maya picked this ****giveaway*****

In the past I've talked about Maya's love for letters and how amazed I've been as she seems to be learning them through osmosis.  This is due partially to her natural interest in letters (she's always been interested in the writing on T-shirts, bags, etc) and partially to one really great video:

When I saw Maya starting to recognize letters, I asked for alphabet exposure ideas from one of my message boards, and several of the moms replied "Teaching letters?  All I did was put on Leapfrog Letter Factory and my kids magically learned them."   So I picked up the video, put it on, and a few short days later Maya was already copying the letter sounds (check her out in this video).

Amazing!  And since she's nonverbal, really amazing.

She can't say "A" (like the long A sound in plate), but she can say "ah"   . . . and quickly I could show her an A and say "What letter is that?" and she would say "Ah!".  I would never have thought to teach her to tell me the letters with their sounds, but it worked.  Suddenly she was able to tell us how much she was understanding.  (Similarly, she can say "ba" and "da" but not B or D.)  I couldn't believe how interested she was in the video, or how quickly she starting picking up the new information.  I'm a big fan. 

So when Maya grabbed the video off of the store shelf the other day (she recognized the box, sneaky girl) and I saw that it was on sale, I decided to get one for a giveaway :)

This video is my favorite.

You guys are going to love it!

(FYI: I am not affiliated with Leapfrog in any way.  I'm not receiving any sort of compensation from the Leapfrog folks.  Maya just loves this video, and I've been impressed with how much it has taught her, so I thought I'd pay it forward.)

Here's how to enter the giveaway:  Pay attention, because you can enter up to 5 times! 

 

1. Leave a comment on this post. Any comment will do . . "Hey, I want to win!" "Giveaways rule" "Maya is awesome", etc :)

 

2. Like our page on Facebook ("Uncommon Sense Blog") if you don't already. Then, leave a comment here that says "I'm a Facebook follower!" (If you're already a Facebook follower, you can leave this comment too, of course.)

 

3.  Follow us on Twitter!  (This is new! See the twitter feed on the top right corner of the blog?)  Our Twitter name is "UncommonBlogger". Then, leave a comment here that says "I'm following you on Twitter!" 

 

4. Share the link to the giveaway on Facebook. Then, leave a comment here that says "I shared the giveaway on FB!"

 

5. Retweet the link to the giveaway on Twitter (once you follow me on Twitter, you can just retweet my giveaway post).  Then, leave a comment here that says "I retweeted the giveaway!"

 

Remember to leave a separate comment for each entry!

 

Winner will be chosen the evening of Tuesday, August 30th.  The latest that an entry will be accepted is 5pm (EST) on Tues, 8/30, via random number generator.  The winner will be announced the same evening and have 2 days to contact me before I pick a different winner. 

Time out

This blog will resume after a brief beach-y hiatus.

(A few pics may appear on the Facebook page if I can swing it from the iPad.)

:)

You've got questions, I've got (some) answers . . .

A little while ago I welcomed any questions that you all might have, and I got a bunch.  Since I've been spending all of my "free" time this week cleaning and decluttering (which is paying off big time) answering some questions seems like an easy post :)

(Edited to add that I made it halfway through the question list I have---so this will be part one of two.  Or, if I get more questions then I'll make this an occasionally regular thing.)

1. How did you pick Maya's name?

This is an easy one :)  Way back when I was pregnant I belonged to a "due date club" message board (all ladies due in May 2008).  Someone joked that one of us should name our baby girl Maya, since the word "May" was right there in the name . . . and I kind of chuckled and then thought "Wait.  I like that name!".   It  seemed easy to read (and pronounce, cross-culturally).  It fit everywhere---I could imagine Mayas of many ethnicities, and it had many diverse and lovely meanings, with different cultures all laying claim to it.

I mentioned it to Dave, he liked it too, and it quickly became our top girl name, back when I was only a few months along.  Her middle name, Grace, was just something that I liked . . . plus it made her first 2 initials "MG" which happen to be my mom & dad's initials, and I like that too.

As a funny side note, our second place girl's name was Harper.  We went into the hospital thinking that if she was a girl she would probably be Maya, unless she seemed more like a Harper (I don't really know what that means, but I felt it was important to have a choice).  After the birth, Maya was taken into another room in the hospital to be suctioned and Dave followed her.  As my midwife was fixing me up she said to me "Does she have a name?", to which I replied "I think so, but I need to double check with Dave."  About a second later a nurse came in and said "Maya looks great!" and I laughed and said "Yeah, I guess she's got a name" :)

2. Do you miss teaching?

I do.  I miss sharing my science nerdy enthusiam, and my general love of learning.  I miss getting to interact with so many kids, and hopefully encouraging them to enjoy learning academic stuff and character stuff, too.  I also selfishly miss it because I thought I was pretty good at it, and there's that level of satisfaction that comes with a job well done . . . but I just don't have the time to do it well, not any time soon.  At least Dave sometimes lets me help him brainstorm lesson stuff.

3. What do you do for YOU time?

You time?  What's that? :)

I have a support group that I go to (once or twice a month).  I belong to a fun book club :)  Dave is an amazing husband and dad and loves spending time with Maya, so sometimes he'll just take her to the playground while I do come cleaning (really, I love getting things organized and away) or read a book.  I play Scrabble on Facebook.  This blog actually takes a fair amount of time, so I think it counts as my #1 "hobby" . . . although I still can't bring myself to say "I'm a blogger".  That sounds so official!  I sometimes say "I have a blog", which sounds more casual, I think.  Like the difference between "I am a seamstress" and "I sew some stuff".

4.  I follow you on Facebook as well.  Are you able to see the profiles of people who follow you on Facebook?  And, if so, do you ever check out our profiles?

This question literally made me laugh out loud, so thanks for that!  I just envisioned myself in a dark room, late at night, lit up only by the glow of the laptop as I cyberstalked my Facebook followers :)

Ok, seriously now, first of all---thanks for following on Facebook!  It gives me an idea of how many people are out there reading, and that's really nice to see.  Second, no, I can't see anything about your profile.  Following my blog on FB is just "liking" the blog page----since you're not actually befriending me, I only have the same access to your page as any other stranger (so if your page was public, I would theoretically be able to see it, but if you have any privacy settings on, I wouldn't).     Sometimes if people comment on my blog and their comment links to their own (public) blog I'll go and check it out, but that's as far as I go in terms of hunting down readers :)

5. What about a diagnosis?

I received several questions about the whole lack-of-diagnosis issue.  "How do you handle not having a clear diagnosis?"  "Are you making any progress towards getting a diagnosis?"  "Do you have any additional thoughts on not having a diagnosis, and therefore a clearer prognosis?" etc.

Really, I haven't been thinking about it much at all lately.  There's only so much space in my mind, and since this issue will likely be around for a while I've just kind of stuck it on a back shelf, to be pulled out later.  I'm sure that it will be pulled out later.  But not now . . . now, with steps being taken and sounds being made, a birthday on the horizon and a summer of running (speed walking?  speed hobbling?) in the grass and sprinklers . . .well, it just seems like, who cares?  You know?


Thanks for the questions :)

Only 3 days until the big birthday bash!  (Or small birthday open house.  Potato po-tah-to.)

Kristi Yamaguchi strikes again, again

I'm sitting here, staring at the computer screen, thinking that I can't believe I'm about to write another blog post about Kristi Yamaguchi.  What a strange turn of events. 

Yesterday afternoon I received an email alert about a new comment on Kristi Yamaguchi Strikes Again.  I opened the email and read "Hey, you really made an impression on Kristi! She tweeted about you today!"

Wait, what?

So I thought, "Ok, a tweet = twitter.  Where's Twitter?  How do I find Twitter?" 

I googled "Kristi Yamaguchi Twitter" and found it. 

What?!

That blue hyperlink takes you directly to the "Kristi Yamaguchi Strikes Again" post.  It's a "heartwarming story"!  The "sweet girl"  is Maya!  The "mom" is me!  (Really, no adjectives?  I would have preferred "awesome mom" or "hilarious mom".  I think tweets have a limited number of characters, so I'm going to assume that an adjective just wouldn't fit.  Yeah, that's probably it.)

And then, later last night, it showed up on her Facebook, too!

This image is more difficult to see---but that's Maya's picture, right in the first status update!  Kind of trippy to be on Kristi Yamaguchi's facebook page and see Maya's smiley picture looking back at me.

:)

In non-Kristi-Yamaguchi-related news, I'm working on some household labels, another DIY project that I think will be pretty easy.  I'm also going to a workshop tonight on using the iPad with kids with special needs, so I'll be sure to update on that when I get a chance, too.

New pictures

are up on the Facebook page (which is set to public, so you can go and check them out even if you're not on Facebook).  It's just easier to quickly upload there :)

Pics include highlights of the week (literally and figuratively)---a few from Maya's first time walking outside, then first time walking at the playground, then my first time back in the salon since this little debacle.  Yeah, that was almost a year ago . . . don't most people get highlights once a year?

Published!

(and unaware that reflections make words appear all, you know, reflected.)

A few more pictures are on the Facebook page :)

Our day in cell phone video clips

(As always, if you see blank areas with play arrows under them, just click the play arrow and the video will pop in.)

We're experiencing a little developmental boom over here.  I've seen it before---a bunch of new skills suddenly show up.  Sometimes they stick (like signing) and sometimes they disappear again only to come back later (remember when she first pulled to stand for a few days, and then quit and didn't do it again until like 4 months later?).   But I'm soaking it all up while it lasts. 

Besides the walking-with-the-stroller development (which is huge, huge, huge and appears to be sticking around for real), she's starting to chatter away a lot more.  She spend half the day babbling to me, Parker, her toys . . . I can hear her now talking to something in her crib (no joke).  Here we are, talking in the laundry room:


0:02-0:05 She signs "more"  (her version of it, anyway.  Kids who sign modify their signs, the same way a toddler might say "lello" instead of "yellow".  They get more refined over time).  Then she just is chatting away :)


She's a champion block stacker:



At 0:34 when I say "knock it over" I initially didn't know why she turned away from the table.  Watching it again, I just realized that she turned to knock on the wooden hutch.  If you rewatch it, you can see her starting at me, possibly thinking "Knock?  I thought we were doing blocks.  But, ok, I'll knock . . ."  
She's such a clever little thing, I worry that others won't be able to see the wheels turning in her brain.  Then she goes rogue and tries to hurl all of the blocks on the floor behind the table.

She might not know shapes or colors, but she knows the important things, like farm animals:


And she loves books.  And cows.  And books that have cows in them.  And she does a big celebration when she finds the cow page in a book. (This video has a surprise ending).



Also, if you don't "like" us (that sounds weird) on Facebook, you might not be aware that "Amsterdam International" has now been shared by 493 people (or organizations) on Facebook.  If you have a FB page and you haven't shared the link yet, feel free :)

What clean looks like

No, wait---I'm thinking about what cleanING looks like.  It looks like a gigantic mess.  Things are pulled out, spread out, shuffled around, divided into piles, etc.  We are slowly but surely plodding through the apartment, one section at a time, leaving empty drawers and closet shelves in our wake.

We've broken our clean-out-the-clutter project into phases.  Phase 1 is simply "Do we want this in our apartment or not?"  If not, the item gets moved to the guest bed*.  And that's that---no "should we move it into storage? should we sell it?  should we give it to so-and-so?" etc---that's too complicated and a barrier to getting rid of things.  So the bed has rapidly filled up, and 6 bags (!!!) of stuff has already been donated (clothes are easy to donate). (In all fairness, a lot of baby toys/clothes/etc are all just moving down into storage, but at least they won't be right in our space.)

On Monday, a box of eletronics is getting shipped to Gazelle---they'll pay you (not a lot, but we're not in this for the money right now---we just want to see junk go) for your old electronics, or recycle them for you even if they're not worth anything.  (We're cleaning out responsibly---no filling up landfills with old crap.)

I'm starting an album on the Facebook fan page with pictures-in-progress of the cleaning project.    I don't want to clutter up the blog (ha ha) with the junky pictures, and waste my storage space on them---but if you're nosy interested (like me) it's fun to watch other people move through their junk.

*By the way, I say "guest bed" because it is the bed in the room that is theoretically our guest room. One of the giant goals of this project is to have a usable guest room. Right now, as you will see in the pictures, the guest room is really just our stroller parking/miscellaneous room for things-that-don't-have-a-home.

Food, glorious food! (Cooking, Freezing & Eating 101)*

I've been busy the past few days cooking &; freezing, stocking up the freezer a bit.  Cooking a whole meal at dinner time is difficult, since I'd rather spend the time with Dave & Maya once he gets home from work . . . cooking & freezing lets us have whole meals, or meal components, prepped ahead of time so that the nightly hands-on time is minimized.  (Note to my fellow apartment dwellers:  we have a chest freezer on our terrace, which gives us substantial freezer room.  But I bet that if you cleaned out some old random stuff and organized your freezer you could fit a lot of meals in there, as well.)

Below you will find a few recipes & pics of stuff that I like to keep on hand in the freezer.  Once we get some ground beef (we haven't had any for a few months, we've been waiting to order it from a local farm----which should happen this weekend!) I'll add in some pre-cooked taco meat (in ziploc bags), meatballs, and meatloaf slices.  My "recipes" are often done to taste, and tend to be kind of "throw in poultry seasoning until it tastes good"ish, but they're a start, I guess.   The freezer techniques are helpful if you want to freeze stuff but you've been unsure how to start.

And sometimes, we just go out to eat :)  Like this afternoon, when we went for seafood at City Island (pictures on the blog's Facebook page) or this evening, when we headed out for yummy Italian food in NYC's real Little Italy (aka Arthur Avenue, in the Bronx).  Here are Maya & I, all dolled up and ready to go out to dinner:

Ok, the food.  Here we go . . . easy things to make and freeze:

1. Pesto/Other Sauces (lower right bag) :  The real trick with soups & sauces is to freeze them in ice cube trays.  It takes longer to freeze, but then you can defrost however many cubes you need, instead of trying to sloppily defrost a whole ziploc bag of sauce & wasting some.  

Ingredients: basil (2-3 bunches), spinach (one bag), pine nuts (aka pignoli nuts), olive oil, grated parmesan cheese (freshly grated is best)

Method: In a food processor, process the basil & spinach.  Drizzle in olive oil until it looks nice and smooth.  Add in pine nuts & cheese, a bit at a time, and keep tasting it until it tastes the way that you want it to :)  Warning: The cheese can make the pesto very salty, so add it slowly.

Freezing: Freeze in ice cube trays, then pop the cubes into Ziploc freezer bags.

2. Chicken pot pie (lower left bag): A fantastic way to use leftover chicken/turkey, and you probably already have a lot of this stuff laying around anyway.

Ingredients: 1 onion (chopped), 3 carrots (chopped), 2 stalks celery (chopped), 2 potatoes (peeled & chopped), 2 tbs parsley, 2 cups cooked chicken/turkey (cut into small chunks), 4 tbs flour (whatever type you have), 4 cups chicken stock (or 4 bouillon cubes + 4 cups of water), 1 cup of frozen peas (or half a cup--I love peas), a chunk of butter, seasonings

Method: Melt butter in pan, add onion, saute a few minutes.  Add carrot & celery, saute a bit more.  Stir in flour and (you guessed it) saute a few more minutes.  Add whatever seasonings you like (I like poultry seasoning, salt & pepper, maybe some sage).  Add the broth, bring to a boil.  Add potatoes, simmer until they're tender.  Then stir in the chicken, peas & parsley.  You're done!

Freezing: Let it cool (probably in the fridge).  Dump into a gallon size ziploc bag and freeze it flat.

Eating: When you're ready to eat it, defrost and dump it into a 9 x 13 glass pan (or whatever you have).  Top it with pie crust (I used frozen, don't use the graham cracker kind-obviously)---it takes me 2 frozen crusts to top it, broken into pieces, don't worry if it doesn't look pretty . . . it will taste great.  Bake at 350 until the crust looks cooked (maybe 25 mins?).  Yum!

3. Lasagna  (top bag):  Frankly, I'm tired of typing recipes, but you can see that I cut the lasagna into chunks before freezing.  If you want to freeze a tray of anything, the best way to do it is to cut into slices or chunks, and freeze those first.  An hour or two in the freezer and they won't be freezer burned, they'll just be independently frozen.  Then you put those into a big ziploc bag and ----viola!---you can easily defrost a slice or two for dinner anytime.   

(I'll continue my "Cooking & Freezing" series with more recipes & tricks if people are interested.  For now, I'm done.  If YOU have any ideas for ME as for things to do with 6 lbs of tomatoes, please post on Facebook, or here, or email me at: uncommonfeedback@gmail.com .  We got a lot of tomatoes from the CSA this week!)

We've returned

After a longggg day in the car, I'm not uploading and recapping now :)

But I have to throw something up to say:

1. We're back, and beat, but happy :)

2. WE HIT 200 FACEBOOK FANS!  Pretty cool stuff.

Maya and Parker want to say"Thanks for tuning in!":

Wait, that was Parker saying "Something here smells yummy" and Maya saying "Parker get your nose away from my tushie!"   Let me try again.

Hmm, this is Maya saying "Parker, you eat this grass now.  You're allowed to, I promise (wink)" and Parker saying "Maya, you are always trying to get me in trouble . . . but this does smell good."  Back to the drawing board.

Parker: Are we done yet?

Maya: Parker, look!  Now I'm a doggie, too!

(sigh)

There we go :)

Video plug. I mean, a video, and a plug.

1.  Maya's blueberry picking (and smushing) video has been uploaded to our Facebook page.  If you're not a fan already, you can get there by clicking the icon to the right, or searching "Uncommon Sense Blog" on Facebook.  (You DON'T even have to be on Facebook to see our page---because it's set to "public", so feel free to check it out even if Facebook scares you!)

2. If you're not already a Facebook fan, become one!  Just click "like"!   We're currently at 190 fans, and it would make my day week year to hit 200 fans :)  Do you know someone with a child with special needs?  Someone who likes poodles?  Someone who is losing hair?  Forward us along :)

Vermont bound :)

Tomorrow we head out for a fabulous week-ish in Vermont  :)  We are excited to unplug (slightly, less time online), unwind, and enjoy life at a slightly slower pace. 

Highlights will likely be: my favorite sandwich at the Red Onion in Burlington, Ben & Jerry's factory, Magic Hat factory, Shelburne Farm (where Maya will love the animals), watering (and eating) from my SIL's (that's sister-in-law's, for all of you non message board folks) garden, playing Scrabble, letting Parker run in the field, and enjoying general sillyness.  Possible bonuses include free time to nap, read, and maybe finish writing my little essay.

Any friends in the Burlington area?  Great suggestions of things that we shouldn't miss?

Hopefully I'll post at least one update from the road :)  I imagine that the Facebook page will get more frequent updates/uploads from my phone----so if you're not already a fan, become one now!

Date night & change of (email) address

Last night my wonderful husband set up a date night for us!  (Thanks to his parents for babysitting Miss Maya & making it possible.)  We headed out to the Melting Pot, which is an old favorite of mine (I first encountered it when I was living down in Baltimore).  I love interactive food, I love long, multi-course meals, I love being out and relaxed :)

(FYI, that's a wine flight in front of me---3 smaller tasting glasses of wine.  Although I like to cut loose, I don't sit down for dinner and order wine 3 glasses at a time.)

Also, I changed our contact information . . . we now have a brand new fancy blog email address.  You can contact us at:  uncommonfeedback@gmail.com :)  Please contact us.  Let me know your thoughts, comments, questions, etc.  Some bloggers do occasional posts where they answer reader's questions, but I have no questions to answer.  I know you people are out there, feel free to shout us out.

Oh, and there are also all of these buttons underneath the posts.  They're supposed to make it easier to spread the word and share posts that you enjoyed.  Do you have friends with a child with special needs, or someone losing their hair, or you just think we're so fab you want the world to know?  Then use one of the buttons and spread the love.

(I think the buttons would be particularly helpful to share a post that you found to be amusing, like this one, which is the blog's most popular page to date!)

You know you're a fan. Let's make if Facebook official :)

Alright, everybody, LISTEN UP!

We've started a "Fan Page" on Facebook for the blog.  It's called "Uncommon Sense Blog" and you can become a fan just by clicking on that little button on the upper right side of this page.

Why become a fan?  Here's the thing . . .  it takes some time to put a blog post together.  I have to upload pictures, weed through them, upload them to blogger and move them around.  Then type something up, hopefully something entertaining, and post.

Facebook updates?  They take no time at all.  A few seconds, maybe.  The storage space for pictures is unlimited, so I can upload a lot more stuff (and faster, too!).  Random silly stuff happens to us all the time, and Dave says "You should blog about that!" but I never have time, or it wouldn't make for a full posting . . . this is the stuff that I'll throw up on the fan page.

Examples: 
-There is a mockingbird a few blocks away who sings a car alarm, like the full sequence.  It's awesome.
-Dave wore his shorts inside out to the park today, and then took 7 minutes to fold (and refold, and refold) our picnic blanket that zips up, causing me to laugh so hard that I fell over (literally)
-We may have broken up a marriage by misdialing a phone number 2 days ago (longish story)

Plus, maybe we'll have some heated debates about things----I'm going to start collecting cans and bottles from around the 'dale to start cashing in for $?  Any feelings about that?  Think I'm turning into a bag lady (or a genius?)?   All this and more will be on the FB fan page.

Dave says that I can't get out of the blogging cage until I get some serious fans, so please start "liking" us.  You know, officially. 

In other news, Parker has added this chair to his repetoire of favorite places to sit.  I can't wait until he starts falling out of it . . . which, from the looks of things, should be any day now:

Oh, Maya's making such great progress in feeding therapy that we're now having her eat dog food:

(Actually, the pic on the left was a training excerise to have Parker learn that if Maya wasnts to play with his food that's too bad for him, and he needs to back off and wait.  And the pic on the right?  Well, what can I say.  (Ok, for real, the bag was closed---it was just a funny picture---don't send hate mail!))