das sind einige gute Aussagen Lederhose!

My Dad and Susie went to Germany this summer, and guess what they brought back for us? Lederhosen!  

Kidding.  They brought us something even better - German chocolate.  (As they say in Germany, "Mmmmm.  Das ist gut.")

If you've never had European chocolate, you're really missing out.   It is WAAAAAY better than American chocolate.  (And I use the word 'chocolate' very loosely when I'm talking about the American stuff.)  It really is that good. Probably because they actually make it with cocoa, not 'chocolate flavoring' like so much of the stuff here.  Hmmm... now that I think about it, if you haven't had European chocolate then maybe you shouldn't, because anything else will just be a disappointment to you.

But I digress.  

In so many ways.

Lance and I have been enjoying the chocolate.  (What, you thought we'd share it with the kids?  You thought wrong.)  We even ate it while watching the Olympics, which made us feel uber international.

It's all been tasty, but this Kinder Riegel is my favorite.  Why?  Because it's selling point is "Fur die Extra-Portion Milch!" - "For the extra portion of milk".

That's right.  The fine makers of Kinder Riegel (literally "Children Bars") want you to buy their candy because it's good for your children.  Hey, not only does it taste good, but you can get a full portion of milk in each bar.  Awesome.

In fact, this is what it says on the back:

"kinder riegel hat eine besonders reichhaltige Milch-fullung, denn 100g enthalten die wichtigsten Bestandteile aus gut einem viertel Liter Milch.  Aufgrund des hohen Milchan-teils hat kinder riegel einen ausgepragt zarten Vollmilchgeschmack."

Oh, I mean:

"children bars has a particularly rich milk filling, because 100g contain the main ingredients from well-quarter litre of milk. Due to the high-milchan some bars children has a strong delicate taste of whole milk."

I'm sold.  No more $3.30 a gallon milk - we're switching to Kinder Riegel, baby!  Because German chocolate makers wouldn't lie to me, right?

A Few Things I Recently Caught Myself Saying...

• Stop licking your brother, Josh.
• He's shooting... with his bottom.  That's just great.
• We don't evaluate each other's poop in this family.
• No, Chuck E Cheese will not kill you, Josh.
• Stop licking your brother, Spencer.
• We leave our pants up and our shirts down in public.  Why?  Because of the rigid social mores that were put in place by our prudish Puritan forefathers, that's why...  Because I said so, that's why.
• No, I'm pretty sure on this one, Spence.  Daddies can't have babies.  Fine, ask him then.
  
• Stop licking your brother's tongue.  Stop licking his fingers.  Stop licking the cart.  STOP LICKING!!!!

Second First Day of Preschool

Today was Spencer's second first day of preschool.  

Last year he was in the three-year old class, but this year, as he so aptly put it, "I am in the big kid class because I am four years old and I will be five on my next birthday and I had a monkey birthday with a monkey cake and Joshie will be two and he will have a cake and we can swim at the outside pool but not anymore because it's over so now we go to the YMCA, right mommy, and Zach was helper of the day and I like to play the worm game with the concrete donkey and can I play computer?"

And that was one of his shorter sentences of the day.

But back to the point of this post: preschool's back.  Hooray!  Spencer's happy to be with his friends and have fun, I'm happy to have a more routine schedule and some time to go work out while he's gone, and Josh is just happy whenever I'm done working out and come to 'rescue' him from the toy room.  (Okay, wherever does Spencer get his run-on sentence habit from?)

Good job, Spencer.  We're proud of you!

Self-portrait Tuesday: Bunko Awards

I keep forgetting to do self-portrait Tuesday. I'm repenting. So here's one of me, getting ready for bonus bunko night.

Oh yeah - you read that right. Bonus bunko night, baby. We had it in honor of L-dub.com's visit to Indiana.

It was such a special night that we had 12 players instead of our usual 8. I had fun, but I think I like 8 better - you get more one-on-one time with people. But no matter, because extra people meant extra prizes and extra noise, extra trash talk, and extra gangsta talk. (Because that's how we white ladies talk when we play bunko - like gangstas. That how we do, yo.)

Anywho, I decided to give out a few extra honorary awards tonight. Here goes...

Weirdest good luck charm that didn't work: Tiffany with a plastic goat on her head. (She also goes by Go-T. Get it?)

Weirdest good luck charm that did work: Liz with plastic ducks on her head. She won the Travel prize. Why plastic ducks? If you have to ask, then you don't need to know the answer.

Newest most fun player: Lynette (right), who really got into it and made us all proud. :)
Player with the grouchiest/tiniest baby: Melissa (center). Poor Melissa. But don't worry - you'll live through this!
Player happiest to leave her kiddos at home: Misty (left). I think she wins this prize every bunko.

Most well-behaved bunko baby: Giles, who even slept some through all the noise. Plus, he liked me, unlike certain bunko babies whose names start with an 'E' and end with a 'li'.

Most camera happy player: Liz (Wait - can she win two prizes?... Only if she doesn't post the terrible picture she took of me.)

Player with the maddest putting-a-baby-to-sleep skills: Heather. Poor baby Lauren - she was no match for Heather! (Don't you just love her little arms hanging down?)

The bunko 'ladies'. Word.

Book Shelf

I have wanted a new book shelf since moving into this house two years ago. All we had was a beat-up old particle board one we got from Target in our newlywed days. It stuck out in our living room as the last vestigial piece of grad student furniture.

Unfortunately, I'm fairly picky about my furniture. I want it to be my style (clean and modern), well made, and not too pricey. This is apparently a lot to ask for. But I finally found one I liked at IKEA and bought it the other day on my mini vacation/trip to Chicago. (I had been eying it for quite a while but this was the first time I had room for it in my car.)

It was hard to get a picture of it, but here ya go:


I love the non-traditional squares. And they're fairly deep, so you can really fit some stuff in them. I decided to spice things up a bit and back some of the squares with the same blue fabric I have on my couch throw pillows. (Fabric + cardboard + glue gun = easy backing.) The white bulb in the top-left square is a cute little light that jumped into my cart at IKEA. It's frosted white with white flowers, and is really pretty when lit up. (Or will be, once I get the light bulb for it.)

And here's what it looks like with our books and such in it:


As you can see, I have some empty space. Guess I need to buy some more books. (What a sacrifice!) ((Imagine Lance rolling his eyes. Because he will after reading that last sentence.)) Oh, and I plan on lining the top with houseplants in cute flowerpots. (Again with the eye-rolling from Lance.)

The only thing I don't like is that it seems to crowd the room a bit. But I'm not sure if that's because we're just not used to it yet, or because it really is crowded. Oh, the problems in my life! (If only they were all this simple!)

I really like it. Happiness is a bookshelf that you like.

Happy Labor Day!

Today we celebrated Labor Day by going to Home Depot, freezing at the pool, and having a picnic with our friends at the park.

The last activity was definitely the funnest.

We got together with the Reams, the Holdaways, the Souths, and our special-back-by-popular-demand visiting friends, the Webers. It was just a simple get-together at the park, which is often the best kind of party. Totally laid back and relaxing.

I didn't get many good pictures (I was too busy gabbing) ((BIG surprise)), but here are a few:

This is my favorite. From L-R: Gigi, Liz, Misty, and Heather

Joe must have been still saying "Cheese!" when I snapped the picture. L-R: Joe, Chris, and Craig.

Spencer - before he literally ate two bite of food and declared himself full and done. Right.

Joshie, before he ate all of his dinner, most of Spencers, and half of my soda.

Emily eyes Spencer's dinner. Because we just know Liz doesn't feed her kids. (Have you seen the size of her baby? He's deliciously chubby!)

A cute father/son game of badmitton in the park.

Spencer goes for the kill shot. Because Spencer's a killer.

Great food, great weather, great friends. Who could ask for a better Labor Day? (Not I!)

Super Sensitive Spencer... or Not

Tonight Spencer had his first brush with the ol' childhood favorite "I'm not your friend!" It was said by a child who Spencer doesn't really see that much and who is at least a year younger. (So it shouldn't have really bothered him, right?)

Spencer was crushed. It broke my heart when he told me what had happened and then burst into sad little boy tears.

He's my sensitive little man.

I tried to soothe him as best I could. I talked about all his other friends who like him a lot. This helped just a little. I told him that Mommy and Daddy and Joshie were all his friends who loved him a lot. This didn't really help, because everyone knows your mom and dad have to like you. Then I asked him if he really wanted to be friends with a little boy who was so mean? This seemed to help quite a bit.

A hug, a kiss, and a Sprite later, and he was as good as new.

Later, while we were driving home, we passed a man on a bike who didn't have a shirt on. From the back seat we heard from Spencer:

"Hey! That guy is naked!"

After laughing quite a bit, we tried to explain that he just had his shirt off and was wearing shorts. Spencer didn't believe us, and insisted that the man was naked and that it was okay to ride your bike naked.

He's my sensitive little not-phased-by-public-nudity man.