Baby Laith Needs a New Heart

I cannot imagine what this family is feeling. As a mother I am convinced I would do ANYTHING to get the money they need for their baby, therefore I am trying to get word out to people to please help them. If you are thinking of donating to a charity or know of an organization that can help them financially please take the time to donate or contact others. I fully believe that in this situation no amount is too small or too large. This family needs our help and our prayers.
Please click on the link below to learn more about their situation:

http://laithdougherty.info/

Giant Babies Everywhere

This is Lars looking quite huge and balancing in Tor's hands. Tor is actually sweating under the weight of his giant baby.

Unsolicited Advice

The cable guy came to hook up our new cable yesterday and informed me that our house is messy but clean. He then stated he was sure it was because we were moving in and not due to the fact that I am a bad housekeeper, because I look, in his words, "like a clean person".

Note: said cable guy had only two teeth and twenty tattoo's. Not that I'm against either loosing your teeth or gaining some "body art" but just stick to the task at hand... giving me my cable. If I want to know if my house is clean I'll call Merry Maids, and when THEY say no, pay them to clean it for me :)

Coming Out of the Closet

I thought that might get your attention. Currently, Lars lives in the closet. Before you pity him, it is a rather large closet, and while he is super fat, he is still a rather small person, generally speaking. However, our apartment complex is offering a killer deal on 2 bedroom apartments-- so-- we can afford to move. Lars will soon have a room with a window and a closet, Tor will have his balcony, I will have... more to clean. Including a second bathroom. For those of you who would like to come visit you will now have your own room and bathroom, it will be like a regular bed and breakfast. We even have rates for the different seasons and a friends & family discount (not too much mind you, momma still needs a new pair of shoes).

On a different note entirely, Lars and I went on a walk the other day and I saw these cute dresses in a store window. Not having treated myself for a while, I decided to enter this cute little boutique and see what they had to offer. Nice and expensive dresses is what they had to offer. Somehow the sales lady convinced me to try them on. Now, this boutique has one of those irritating dressing rooms thrown up in the middle of the store with four curtains that don't quite meet on each side and no mirror. Therefore you must parade your not quite Angelina Jolie post-baby physique out of the curtain room and show it to the multitudes. Not as daunting as anticipated since they've already seen your granny-panty wearing, nursing-bra clad, unshaven legged self thru the 4 inch gap in the curtain. I, having not tried on fancy clothes for a while, didn't know there was a zipper on the dress and dashed on out to take a view. The sales lady kindly zipped me up (oh yeah did I mention that I hadn't planned on anyone getting close to me and therefore hadn't showered or deodorized yet that morning). The dress was a miserable failure, but I decided to add a little icing to the humiliation cake I was baking and started taking the dress off right there, in front of the guy whose wife had just dragged him into the store to look at clothes. At the last minute I realized what I was doing and dashed back into the curtain room so that he would at least have to work a little to see me in all my glory. This made me realize what I have become... That horrible suave commercial where the woman with the children starts looking more terrible thru each scene until suave shampoo rescues her and turns her into a mom with good clothes, great makeup and enough time to shower and do her hair. So, long story short I skipped on the dress and bought a bottle of suave at the Rite Aid downstairs. I can already notice a difference.

On another note:
This is my Grandma and Grandpa. My Grandma has end stage Alzheimer's and I would like everyone to say a prayer for her, and my gramps. They are really good grandparents and I love them both.

Aloha Oi

We have returned from the land of Pele unscathed. The big island was magnificent! We had such a marvelous time. This was Lars' 6th trip by air and he held up like a champ... We have a natural born traveler. Lars loved the ocean and the sand, especially the way they taste. The big island is so relaxing and low key. We woke early and snorkeled every day, Tor boogie boarded and we enjoyed some amazing sunsets. We even took in the volcano, in its distant glory. I am attaching a bagillion pictures, because sometimes words don't work.

Unconditional Love

I was going to write this really mushy post about unconditional love and then nixed it. I'm just too private of a person to put those thoughts on here for all (I know... not as many people care as I think) to read. However, I do want to say that watching my little son sleep in my arms makes me understand a lot more about it then I used to. At this point my little boy loves me like no other. He doesn't care if I'm pretty or fat, if I've brushed my teeth or showered. He is unaware of my body odor when I forget deodorant and thinks the sounds my farts (sorry, it's the best word for them) make are funny. He doesn't know that I have two bachelor degrees or that I no longer make one single cent. His world is filled with cuddles and eating and wriggling little body parts. His joys are mirrors and being thrown in the air and the terrifyingly exciting tickle monster. Some day when the world gets to him he will care about all the silly things we all care too much about, but until then, I will snuggle my sleeping baby and bask in his unconditional love.

Petey the Bird

I'm sorry I have been absent from the blogging scene. I don't really have much of interest to talk about. I refuse to be one of those mommy mush brains (as my friend Jeanne describes them) who only talks about her kid, and their poops and pees and eating habits... So I find that I have less than nothing to blog about.
I do need to post a little obit for my parents bird that died recently. Here it goes:

Petey Rubottom died early Sunday morning of old-age. He was found sleeping peacefully at the bottom of his cage. He had a long life (20+ years) for a cockatiel. Petey was adopted when he was 5 and had unfortunately had his wings clipped before that. While he could not enjoy flying around he enjoyed many bird related activities. He would chirp in sync with the television-- to which curse words would be hurled at him-- and one of his favorite pasttimes was calling the imaginary dog over. In later years Petey enjoyed taunting the cat (inhereted from me) and gazing out his cage at a world he was unfortunately unable to explore. He will be sorely missed. He is survived by his adopted parents Tom & Debbie Rubottom, and two siblings that never really liked him.
In lieu of flowers please send donations to Leah Sandven who will use them to set up a foundation in his name that will be used for various non-bird related activities (most likely Starbucks).

I don't have any pictures of Petey so here is a mommy mush brain moment:

Lars eating cereal for the third time. He likes to do it himself.

Tor, Lars and Monkey

Three Norwegians

Me and Lars dressed in our ugly sweaters for the ugly sweater party :)

Our Christmas tree