Two and a half silly guys.

Lauren likes to draw what she calls "the silly guy." I asked her to draw him for me on a sheet of paper, and sure enough, she filled it top to bottom with multiple silly guys. Her doodles actually look like a little person. Amazing!

When the weather gets warmer, we're thinking about sitting her at the end of our driveway and charging people to have their caricatures drawn. You know, just to make a little extra spending money.

Under the weather.

It's been a rather low key weekend at our place. With both Lauren and Mark are sick with colds (Mark has had his cold for going on a week.), we haven't really left the house since Friday. Mark did run to the drugstore today, but only because we were in dire need of tissues. Lauren's nose is running like a a faucet, so one of us has to follow her around the house armed with a box of Kleenex and a plastic bag for disposal. I'm still holding strong, but since I performed many a nose wipe today (Only on Lauren, of course), it's only a matter of time before I fall victim to the plague.

Naturally, we've been watching a lot of television this weekend. We've seen more episodes of Go Diego, Go! in the last couple of days than we care to count. Luckily for us adults of the Ross household, we have access to the Universal HD, channel. Universal features pretty decent movies and series in HD. I was particularly excited to see that they were going to show Battlestar Galactica (the new series, not the one from the seventies with starring Lorne Green, Dirk Benedict, and that weird robotic dog) from the beginning. I always heard great things about it, but since we are strange creatures who only pay to access twenty-some basic cable channels, we can't watch it on the Sci Fi channel. We finally got a chance to watch a couple of episodes that I had recorded, and sure enough, it is excellent.

Unlike Comanche Moon, which was not excellent. I watched the first episode live and recordedthe other two, but since Mark reported that from what he saw the rest of it wasn't worth my precious time, I ended up deleting them outright. Mark has never seen Lonesome Dove, so feeling the need to prove why Larry McMurtry's work is usually worth the time, I requested the DVD's from our library system.

Speaking of which, the Carnegie Library system never ceases to amaze me. You can borrow practically any movie / series on DVD for free. For example, there are currently 86 copies of Superbad available (Not necessarily a movie that would immediately come to mind as enlightening). Now, don't cancel your Netflix membership yet because there are also 277 people waiting to borrow those copies, which are in various states of reserved (Either checked out, in transit, on hold or the dreaded, "Missing".). Also available are several copies of the third season of Lost, Casino Royale, Jungle Book, A Man for All Seasons, Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas and all the Harry Potter movies.

For now, I requested Lonesome Dove and the Battlestar Galactica mini series (Both had just a few holds). Now we just have to wait for them to arrive at our library so that we can pick them up. I may try to request one of the crazy popular movies just to see how long it takes to get it. Goodness knows I'll need something to watch for when I catch the plague.

A view from here: January 15, 2008

Nothing marks the passage of time for me like American Idol. I've been watching since Season 2, and now it's Season 7. During that time frame, I got married, changed jobs, had a baby and moved to a new home. Wow.

I also like how American Idol begins in the dead of winter and ends at the beginning of spring. Even though you're stuck indoors listening to "bad karaoke" you know that warmer weather and outdoor activities are just around the corner.

In other news, today my co-workers and I went to Aladdin's Eatery for the first time. It was so good! The falafel was especially tasty. And be sure to ask them to hold the turnips and the pickles on your pita. Trust us.

Also, tonight has been declared Halloween in January by Lauren. She's wearing her Blue's Clues costume and making us read Halloween themed books.

And with that, I close with these parting words:

No sex allowed,
I don't want to bea part of your crowd.

Copyright Milo Turk

Edit: Corrected link!

Life's a merry-go-round.

Grandma and Grandpa Ross gave Lauren this carousel for Christmas. She has been playing with it all weekend, cramming as many of her toys as she can on the horses. At one point yesterday, a peanut butter sandwich was riding the carousel.

Yes, you read that right. A peanut butter sandwich.

Today I made stuffed cabbage for the first time. I followed the recipe exactly, but it seemed to taste kind of bland. I looked up some other recipes, and sure enough, they were pretty much the same as the one that I used. Maybe it's just one of those things that taste better when someone else makes it.

So ends another weekend. At least there's a lot of good television to look forward to this week. Comanche Moon, The Complete Jane Austin on Masterpiece Theater, and the start of American Idol.

Referencing American Idol and Masterpiece Theater in the same sentence just doesn't seem right. Anyway, here's hoping the DVR can handle all this.

The view from here: January 8, 2008.

We've officially transitioned back into our usual daily life.

To the left: Fresh milk. When Lauren ask for a drink, she always refers to it as "fresh milk," never just "milk." We have yet to break the news to her that fresh milk comes out of a cow, and not out of a Kenmore.

In the middle: Play-doh. We play with Playdoh almost everyday. Sometimes when I come home from work, I don't even have my shoes off before I'm sitting on the floor, fingernails deep in Play-doh.

To the right: Lita. Or "brown Dita" as she's called by her friends. Almost nightly, I'm awakened from sweet slumber by cries of "Where's my Dita?!" or the ever popular, "Fix Dita's blanket!" When Lauren goes off to college, I'm going to call her dorm room every night and yell "Fix Dita's blanket!" into her voicemail and hang up.

May the days of fresh milk, Play-doh and Lita never fade from our memory.

Doctor, doctor, give me the news.

AM Edition:

Pond Inexplicably Drained: No Signs of Life Found

Two Year Old Throws Up in Car a Block From Grandma's House: Clean up Prevents Man From Going to Work

PM Edition:

Fish Survive in Dangerously Low Level Water - Could These Be Miracle Pets?

Two Year Old Makes Amazing Recovery: Mother Claims Healing Power of Spinach and Feta Pizza

New year, same old everything else.

For the third year running, I'm making a calendar from still life photos taken during the previous year. I look forward to doing this little project as it's easy and requires little thought. Actually, I was really looking forward to working on various scrapbooking projects during my vacation, but I was lucky to eke out just this calendar. Now that the holidays have come to a close, maybe I can use what little free time I have to catch up on those projects.

Back to regular life tomorrow. I went into work yesterday, but since I was off today, it really doesn't count. New Year's Eve activities included the following:

--cleaning the bathroom (Me)
--cleaning out the bedroom closets (Mark)
--making a stable out of Lincoln Logs for My Little Pony (Lauren)

Also for the third year running, Mark and I went to sleep before midnight. New Year's always bums me out, and the feeling dread of is especially keen this year. I think it's because I now have to follow through on all those things that I was putting off until next year (now this year).

Like potty training, for example.

Storytime.

Green Eggs and Ham, by Dr. Seuss (Please ignore the creepy stalker at the top of the screen.):



Sally's Christmas Miracle, by Charles Schulz (Unfortunately, the camera battery ran out in the middle of this one):

Best gift ever.

Finally got a chance to try out the remote that Mark gave me for Christmas. In addition to self portraits, I can now easily take family portraits, action shots, covert photos of unsuspecting victims, er, I mean subjects - the possibilities are endless. And no more fooling with the self timer!

Oh, and it's much easier to take a decent photo of yourself when you're in control of the camera. I got this one on the first try. Everyone should have one recent photo of themselves that they like.



Or at least one that everyone can laugh at.

Santa came through.

This Christmas brought us more food, photos and toys than we know what to do with. I spent a good part of today just organizing the 200 plus photos that we took. I whittled it down to about a hundred fit to print. Then I picked around 25 to share online.

I won't elaborate on all the details of the holiday (As the majority of those who read this blog experienced it first hand.) I will instead let the photos do the talking.

Christmas Eve:



Christmas morning:



Christmas night:



As always, more photos (with captions) can be seen on Flickr.

P.S. I asked Mike why he was wearing pink pajamas in the photo posted below. He explained that he was an early supporter of breast cancer awareness.