If you are in Michigan you are currently cold – for everyone else perhaps not so much (especially Australia, where it has been about 100 degrees warmer than here – Fahrenheit, of course). But you might still enjoy some of the following songs… They are new to my line up and are currently helping me stay warm by bopping around listening to them. I share them with you because I am a giver. Enjoy!
Take a Walk | Passion Pit
Mountain Sound | Of Monsters & Men
Radioactive | Imagine Dragons
Locked Out of Heaven | Bruno Mars
Carry On | fun.
not peppy, but still loved: You’re the Reason I Come Home | Ron Pope
I used the word “patootie” yesterday morning when talking to Liam and he very seriously looked at me, without a hint of impishness or impropriety and asked, “Does that word mean ‘ass’?” To my credit, I did not burst into laughter and from the way he asked, I’m pretty sure he didn’t know he was saying a swear word, but perhaps a word that was too old for him. I just said, “Patootie means bottom and don’t ever say that other word again.” What in the world? [And yes, future Liam, patootie does mean ass, in a way.]
I also forgot to ever tell you about this gem: Liam was upset to the point of tears shortly after the election and when I inquired as to why he was so upset, he sobbed, “Because I’ll never get to vote for Barack Obama in a real election!” I did not know how to deal with this particular break down.
And one last Liam story: Today, I walked him up to the school because I had to go in an retrieve his forgotten “Friday Folder” so I would know what homework he should be doing this week [my eldest is a forgetter, it drives me insane]. We didn’t even make it to the steps up to the school before he said, “Bye, mom, I’ll see you this afternoon.” And then proceeded to walk up the steps next to me, all the way to the school, as if we didn’t know each other. Stinker.
And what can be said for Jack? He’s a newly minted liar (he will lie about all manner of things, including things we know the truth about and when pressed he will point out that he wasn’t lying, but we didn’t ask him specifically enough). For example, I heard a sound that would indicate he had hit Liam so I said, “Jack, why did you hit your brother?” Jack: “I didn’t hit him.” Me: “Yes, you did, I heard it.” Jack: “No, I did not hit him.” Me: “Okay, then how did he get hurt?” Jack: “I pushed him hard.” Semantics. He will also lie about who took the food from the fridge, who drank from the now-empty cup and who got out of bed, turned on the light and/or got out the toys. We apparently have another child named, “Not me.” Not me is a real pain in the patootie.
Not ones to simply bask in the glory that was a date night last Friday, Simon and I upped the ante this weekend with TWO date nights – Friday AND Saturday! Simon had Friday off again because of an all-day training so we got to go out (Panera and “Silver Linings Playbook”) and then he said, wouldn’t it be fun to go out two nights in a row? Um, yes. So we revisited a new-to-us place with yummy burgers and brought along our friends Sarah and Brian! Fun times. Add to the fun a small group meeting last night and we didn’t have to put our kids to bed for three nights in a row – that is practically a vacation!
This week we are back to regularly scheduled nothing on Friday nights and no date night for Saturday. Alas. It was fun while it lasted.
Liam has a four-day weekend this week, mid-winter break in February and then spring break at the end of March. This seems like a little overkill on the days off school.
“Silver Linings Playbook” was superb. My kind of movie (and we’ll be honest and say that pretty much any movie with Bradley Cooper is my kind of movie) but Simon loved it, too. So well acted. True to life “dramedy.” Plus ballroom dancing. I laughed out loud a number of times and once I even snorted. Yup, I did.
We were dumb and left the restaurant we were at (post-dinner) in search of something else on Saturday night in downtown. Since we were all neither a) in our 20s or b) drunk, we were not up for waiting any place for a table or paying a cover charge. We ended up standing in the front of a bar to watch the end of the MSU basketball game and all have one more drink [we did not get carded- boo] – we were really just trying to avoid going home too early and having our kids still be awake. I wish downtown had been like this when I was in my 20s – so much fun would have been had! And we still had fun and good company, but now we are just in bed by 10:30. Alas.
I’ve been doing modified push ups on the kitchen counter (so not at all real push ups) and today my shoulders are killing me. I love the burn of sore muscles.
The first week of the blogging weight loss competition I had the biggest percentage loss… hopefully it’s not the only time I’m in the lead, but I’ll celebrate while I’m there! Whoot! Go me!
I cannot “do” Twitter… at least not that and be able to keep up with reading blogs, Facebook, Instagram and, you know, real life like my kids and my job.
I’ve been having cold flashes (like hot flashes but, you know, freezing instead). Does this mean I have circulatory issues or other problems? My hands are currently freezing to the touch.
We re-arranged the boys’ room a little this weekend and both boys thanked me profusely and told me how much they liked the new look. They will make good husbands someday.
Our small group hosts made faux Mexican Ice Cream last night (blocks of ice cream rolled in crushed corn flakes and cinnamon sugar, drizzled with chocolate sauce). That was delicious. So good. Still thinking about it. Thanks, Steph.
It finally really snowed here so now the heat wave can come back and we can be done with winter, right? Side note: Where Simon’s sister lives, it was about 111° F last week. It was 11° F this morning. Awesome. I believe we’d both happily meet in the middle.
Two months until our road trip to Texas – cannot wait! Honestly. I love road trips and having grown up driving for every vacation with my parents, I’m excited to give those memories to the boys!
If you are interested, you should totally join me on MyFitnessPal, I’m ememby there, too! It’s like Facebook for healthy living!
So apparently I can’t keep up with my Instagram posting in a timely fashion, but instead, you get a month’s worth of images (with witty descriptions). You are so lucky.
Jack hurt his finger. The 12 year old boy in me kept asking him to show which finger got hurt.
Same downtown drive, different church at sunset. It still amazes me how much the position of the sun shifts throughout the year… science, it’s so amazing.
Just sitting in a bucket.
Liam got this No Stress Chess set last year and we still love to play it and it is pretty angst free. Though I do coach him into beating me the first time we play, which then makes him say, “I won because I am awesome at this.” Yes, that is it.
Our New Year’s Eve included a DVR’ed episode of Grey’s Anatomy, wine, slippers and yoga pants, plus a whole lot of making fun of Ryan Seacrest, Carson Daly and Jenny McCarthy.
Happy New Year from the Bennett family.
Just hanging out, laughing with Jack’s foot in the photo.
Tiny hearts were lighting up my kitchen wall.
I love soft black licorice (without salt, I might be part Dutch but I cannot stomach salty black licorice). This stuff is special because it is Australian and therefore adds an extra “u.” Sadly, it was purchased at Target and the company that makes it went out of business in Oz.
Jack has super fancy dance moves. This was an outtake from this video:
Yet another jampile, Simon always wonders why this happens when he gets on the floor.
Sledding at my old sledding hill. It seems so much smaller now.
Self-photo in Simon’s sunglasses. I am wearing my mom’s crocheted/knit hat – Simon was not a fan.
My sidekick and I waiting for Liam to get out of school.
Despite the photo being focused on the side mirror, this is probably my favorite photo of Jack.
The boys played so nicely last weekend… it had to be documented and I didn’t even jinx it.
Jack lined up Squinkies with his little hand. So someone so wild and crazy, he sure can calm down and concentrate when he wants to.
And winter finally came to Michigan, and while the cold temps have remained, the snow has all but melted. I am not complaining, but I am baffled by our lack of snow.
A year ago we were in Australia, celebrating Simon’s mum’s birthday. She was in hospital (Australians leave out the “the” between “in” and “hospital” so it seems only right to do it here) and we stood around her bed, singing quietly with our kids and Sandra, Joel and Jacob. Slices of chocolate cake were handed out, the sweetness welcome in the midst of all that was bittersweet.
It was her last birthday here on earth and now she gets the joy of celebrating in heaven with her husband and son who welcomed her there in July. What a difference a year makes, right? That’s what they say. But what a difference a person makes.
The Dorothy I knew was quiet and unassuming but she knew her mind and she stood her ground when it mattered – often much to her children’s chagrin. She raised a pack of strong-willed, opinionated and loyal children (much like herself), teaching them, by example, how to make their way in the world on their own terms. I’m so glad those terms led Simon to me here in the States, and so thankful she was able to let him spread his wings to come here and stay (I don’t know that I could do the same for my own two boys – but we are, after all, two different people and God equips us with what we need for our own lives).
While it’s hard to get to know someone from thousands of miles and an ocean away, but it’s not hard to love them, especially when they raised your husband. I’m lucky to have spent the time with her that I did and so blessed that my boys remember their last visit with her – they talk about her often with some much love in their voices. I am a better person for knowing her as I did, a better wife for loving her son and a better parent for witnessing her quiet, warm smile as she watched her family around her. We don’t get to celebrate together this year, I know she is having a blessed day where she is. Happy birthday, Dorothy.
Monday Musings, which is really an alliterrific way to say “Monday Randoms.” And alliterrific is totally a word, at least in my book and I am a professional “word” person so I know what I’m talking about. [Here’s a funny, marginally related story (or marginally funny, related story, whatevs). Whenever there is something going on with the kids – healthwise or physical injury-wise – Simon will say, in response to my opinion about what we should do, “That’s right, you took a semester of premed in college… you do know what you are talking about.” It’s a long-running joke for us that, all typed out, sounds rather punkish of him, but it’s not and every time we laugh because we have no more new material after nearly 8 years of marriage (not true… the new material part, not the 8 years; we have almost made it out of the 7-year itch year, whatever that means). Sorry, long parenthetical sidebar is now done.] I made a pretty graphic for Monday Musings but then I thought it was pretentious and dumb and decided not to upload it but now I really want to anyway because I have told you about it. So here it is… and it in no way locks me into doing a random list every Monday or not doing a random list any other day of the week… non-committal is how I roll (can’t you just imagine what a joy I am to be married to given this entire paragraph?).
So… where was I? Oh yes, a random list of stuff for Monday… Happy Monday to you! Hope yours is going well!
Simon and I got to go out on Friday night, which I’m not sure has happened in over three years… Yes, we have fairly regular date nights but since February 2010, he has worked pretty much every Friday night (unless we were on vacation) so we usually go out on Saturday or Sunday evenings. Going out on a Friday night was a special treat and pretty much the best way I can imagine kicking off a weekend.
The Friday night date made the rest of the weekend seem like a full weekend… we could sleep in the next morning (well, let’s be honest, I could sleep in because Simon woke up early and the boys were up at the b-u-t-t crack of dawn) and enjoy family togetherness without feeling like we needed to escape for some grown up conversation.
While I did document this on Instagram, the boys played together most of Saturday WITHOUT fighting with each other. I really don’t know how this happened or if it will happen again anytime soon (they were fairly good on Sunday too… knock on the biggest piece of wood ever), but it was lovely and what I always hoped for in having two boys/children.
And to top off an already pretty great weekend, after we got home from church/shopping/lunch on Sunday, Simon told me not to take my coat off and to just leave with a book and go have coffee somewhere and maybe pick up some milk while I was out. (I think he might read my blog.) It was lovely. It was more than lovely, it was glorious. I love my family, but I also love to decompress and spend time in silence (or, relative silence).
I read at Panera and eavesdropped in on a conversation between too college-aged people, a guy and a girl, who were perhaps on a date – they had mixed body language and the boy was a total tool. So much of a tool that I jotted down the following: “Why has this guy never learned that talking about how awesome you are never impresses a girl?” Unless of course you are George Clooney, or Bradley Cooper (which, BTW, Simon says I can totally have a pass for if ever he should call… he is still considering who his pass will be, I insisted that whoever it is, that along with be gorgeous, she also needed to have a sparkling personality like my own so I would know he wasn’t just into her for her looks as I have long loved Bradley Cooper since his days on Alias) but if you are one of those actors, you don’t need to talk about how awesome you are because the ladies will already know. This guy had no business discussing his awesomeness because it included: being picked as the high school marching band major when most of the people in the band had no clue who he was, reading all the time as a younger person (including first reading the Lord of the Rings books in 4th grade) and reading so much because he was so smart in school that he often finished assignments in 3 minutes when his classmates took 30 minutes (I’m guessing this was an exaggeration, but he could, indeed, be brilliant) and in the middle of lunch, he burped and never excused himself.
I realize that I just made fun of someone who is significantly younger than me and in a mean spirited way, for that I am sorry, but if that person ever reads my blog and knows it is he who I am talking about, I would gladly talk to him about improving his approach with the ladies. Though I gathered he has enough confidence in himself to not be bothered by my commentary. For the record, I am not a dating expert, but I was a geeky, popularish girl in high school and I knew enough to not flaunt the fact that I was the yearbook co-editor as a means of attracting someone to me once I got to college. Also, for the record, I didn’t date a whole lot in college… but that is neither here nor there. And now I’m done with that subject, to recap, bragging about how proficient you were at reading as a youth and burping while out with a member of the opposite sex is not advised if you would like to move things into the romantic category.
Today is my two year blogging anniversary, happy anniversary to me!
My first week of revisiting healthy living was a HUGE success! Here’s hoping I can keep up with it and stay motivated. Not sure why I suddenly have discipline and self control (though as I type this, I am thinking how much I would love a slice of french bread with butter on it.) But I did have a small handful of jelly beans on Saturday and immediately regretted it, they did not make me feel good.
I still miss sugar but I miss boatloads of carbs way more.
Jack learned to spell a word recently: b-u-t-t spells butt, he told me and pointed to his rear end. Awesome.
One night last week, Liam’s nightly reading book was over very quickly which made me realize it was missing a significant chunk out of the middle of the book. He had missed a couple words so I marked him as “Just Right” (he has to read a book until he is marked “Fluent” on it and then he can get a new one) and noted that the book was missing pages in the middle. The next night the same book came home so we marked it as “Fluent” when he finished it and sent it back – is that cheating? I mean, I did my part, right?
I did talk to Jack’s teacher about what was said to him about his hand and apparently there is one child (who Jack had named in particular) who often says surprisingly mean things to his other classmates so it did not surprise the teacher that this had happened (sadly). How do you make a kid be nice when they are four? I don’t know. We will keep loving our guy and working with him to know what to say in those situations and as he grows up, hopefully he’ll be able to discern the people who are worth his time.
I so love the Golden Globes – it really is my version of sports. I was commenting on people’s outfits all night and Simon would murmur nothingness back to me and I said to him, “Now you know how I feel when you talk to me while you are watching sports. I know you don’t care but I am talking anyway.” True enough.
I hope 2013 is filled with dozens of weekends like the one I just had… it will be very good indeed is that is the case.
I also hope I am not putting too many expectations on 2013, but I feel like it has the potential for great things, or at least big changes. Here’s hoping (and praying) that what we want, does indeed become what we have – though God will see us through, either way.
I just went back and reread that list and my goodness, aren’t I just Little Mary Sunshine? I assure you that there is enough unpleasant to balance out all that sickening good. I did manage to remove all the skin from one of my toes while walking around downtown in my cute date shoes. And Liam might have an ear infection (only his second ever and he might have a future as a man cold haver, given the drama he is putting on).
Hi, I'm Michelle, married mother of two active boys (plus one 9-pound poodle). I'm a proud Michigander, having lived here all my life (besides the 10 months I lived in Chicago during/after college). I love family, friends, God, food, enjoying life and continually striving for improvement.
ememby 