TTT: Season 3, Episode 31

1. I now interrupt my incessant viewing of Olympic events to bring you my weekly blog post. I'll be brief. Thankfully, my DVR is on pause, and really, let's be honest, if my DVR was nonexistent, I'd probably be skipping this week's post and rolling it in to next. How did I manage to watch the summer games four years ago with a newborn and no DVR!?! Sheesh. Shamelessly addicted to modern technology. Anyhow, I'll admit that I have managed to keep the TV off most of the day and have strictly used the DVR to record the events I want to watch, but I'm not kidding when I say that I've stayed up till at least midnight every night since Friday watching all of the events. So yes, I'm a bit tired. But it's well worth it! I only have two complaints: 1) I don't like not being able to watch live. (Yes, I know it's available on the internet, but let's get real people.) They leave things out when it's not live. Like if the Americans are doing horrible, they just cut to another country. I still want to see USA, misses and all. 2) The USA's gray podium jackets are ug-ly. Perfect Dr. Evil Halloween costume attire. Couldn't they have at least gone with white? Or navy? Heck, it doesn't have to be blaring red or have stars and stripes all over it, but at least something that might even come close to saying, "Hey, those might be Americans." I've loved all the swimming and of course the gymnastics, but I'm ready to start seeing some track now. Go Team USA!

2. Amidst my jumbled mix of life, work, and Olympics, we managed to get to spend some time this week with my brother, Mike, his wife, Casey, and their babes, Jackson and Kennedy. They were passing back through from Alabama on their way home to Mountain Home, Idaho and got to stay for several nights. Since they live so far away, the times we get to see them are few and far between so we feel bless that we got to see them not just once, but twice this summer, and they'll be back for Christmas this year too! Jackson is the cutest little fella and follows along great with the big cousins, Kolbe and Rudy. And Kennedy and Grant were so cute babbling back and forth at each other. Okay, I'll be honest...Grant would screech to get attention and then Kennedy would echo him in response. Ha! We sure wish they lived closer! And I'm pretty sure that with their visit, our summer "events" are pretty much over. Back to normal life for now.

3. It's August. Just five more months left in 2012. Starting to have thoughts of Oh yeah, remember that bucket list you created? Are you going to be one of those people that tries to get it all done in the month of December? No, not you. Get off your butt...okay, after the Olympics....get off your butt and get some of these done! So have I made any progress? The water drinking (#1) is still hit and miss, though I have a great old friend who sends me email reminders from time to time. An accountability partner of sorts! But I've discovered that part of my hatred of drinking tons of water is having to go to the bathroom all the time. I don't like to be interrupted for such trivial things. Ha! I did try some sushi that Mark brought home a few weeks ago so the trying new foods (#2) thing is going alright. As for the sushi, it was just eh. Not bad, not great. Needed salt. Blog more often (#7) is slipping. I'm behind all the way back to Grant's first birthday. And a lot has happened since then! Maybe I'll make that my mission this week. Or when the Olympics are over. One horn that I can definitely toot and check off my list is #21-meet my yearly business goal for my shop. Seriously. It's August 2nd and I've already met it. Never in a million years did I think my business would become so legit, but it did. And it's kind of cool. Keeps me living in a constant state of action and semi-stress but I've determined that that's just how I like to operate. If I didn't have it, I'd find a way to create it. I don't sit still easily.

Kind of short on pictures this week. ...What? You wanted a shot of me sitting on the couch with a large ice water watch gymnastics? I'll save that for next week.

We did another pinterest activity this week--glowsticks in the bath! Rudy stumbled into the Target dollar/junk area at the front of the store while I was strapping Grant in to the cart and came out with a $1 package of 15 glowsticks. He asked what they were and I immediately remembered the pin from Pinterest and tossed them in the cart. They had a blast with their illuminated bath water and stayed in long after if was no longer warm.

At night I love to lay in bed with the boy and tell them stories or chit chat and Kolbe has been asking a lot about heaven and Jesus lately. The older they get, the more we tell them about how Jesus died and why and what happened when he was on the cross. A few days ago I was sprawled out on the carpet just wrestling around with the boys and Kolbe asked me to hold out my arms. After I did, he took his American flag stick and started tapping it into my arm and said, "So you can be like Jesus." Sweet boy. Simple, but also so symbolic.

We had dinner down at the waterway on Monday night and fed the fish in the water afterwards with Jackson. While there were tons of little fish as always, there was also several huge catfish. Like 4-5 pounders! If you had a line and a hook, you could have dinner!

My baby. His eyes get bluer, his hair gets blonder, his tan gets darker (for real, he's dark!), and his screech gets louder. Any tips for a screamer!?! It wasn't that bad until the summer and now it has become his sole way of getting attention. And there's only so long you can do the just-pretend-you-don't-hear-it-because-if-you-acknowledge-it-he'll-keep-doing-it. Especially in public. Ugh!