John's last day...

Today is the last day John has to toil in this world as a twenty something , tomorrow he will begin to experience how glorious the universe is from the 30 year old side of the fence, where the grass is actually greener....Congrats on lasting this long Johnny boy, and did you ever find out whether people have to pay taxes on life insurance payouts? Just curious, no reason.
No...i am not asking for myself, its not like you're that close to dying yet! It's at least, like, three years away, if you eat healthy and stuff. Why are you acting so offended? i wasn't even asking for myself, i was just curious in a general sense of things.

Big Freaking Snowstorm

The weather was so bad, they let us out of work early. Here's me, glad to be alive after one of the craziest drives home from work ever. Thankfully, I have a comically long beard to keep my face warm.

That's a nice looking little house.

We spent a cozy evening inside.

The Funniest Commercial I Have Ever Seen

Some Pictures

Jude Daniel Shaver

Welcoming to the world...
Jude Daniel Shaver

Key Stats:
Gender - male
Weight - 7lbs 9oz
Height - 20 inches
Hair - light
Overall - "Dutch" looking?
Health - yes

Dan sent me this picture...

Immediately Jim Keenan sent this follow-up (check out Ringo)...


and Chris Abraham made this comparison (Nelsons will recognize this)...
For reference, here is a picture of Jude's father, Dan Shaver...

The World's Smallest Violin

Kadence is playing her violin that she got for Christmas. It happens to be the world's smallest. Bryce and Suria got it on Ebay from some guy in Hungary, of all places, who is Guinness record holder for small violins. This one is not really the smallest, but the guy they bought it from told them that the smallest fits on a grain of rice and took two years to make. Pretty amazing.

Here, Suria is laying down some tile at the Lowes that Bryce works at. Apparently Bryce wrecked one of the little forklifts and chipped up the floor in their garden section pretty badly. Suria, who was there leading one of those home improvement seminar things volunteered to fix it on the spot if they provided the materials. Not bad! Kadence is supervising. Bryce is fine -a sprained finger.

I found my college roomate!

She is the one in the red tshirt, i am in the gray tank. I tried her old email and it worked! Here we are taping our smallest roomate to the wall after she got out of line

Snow Day

Bear had a snow day today, due to the intense rain from the night before freezing on the roads and being coated with icy snow this morning. We had a pretty good day, he's a good little buddy to have around. This morning on the cbs morning show, whatever it may be called, there was a guy talking about cool internet sites for kids, so bear was introduced to the internet today... we went to national geographic kids site and watched some animal videos, the dung beetle being the biggest hit. We also checked out Funology.com, it sounded a lot more fun than it actually was. Has a ton of cool stuff, but needs more videos to show results of experiments, i guess they count on you carrying them out to see the results, but we were too lazy. We did find some shrek recipes though, and bear decided we should make up some of our own....

We made muddy ants and worms for lunch, with hot mud and maggots (cinnamon apple sauce with raisins and cheese, with hot cocoa and marshmallows.I don't have any new pics, so i thought this might help...

Then we cleaned up and got out the clay and make some cool stuff. Bear made a mug and a couple of bionicle faces, I made a cup with a heart, another thing with a heart, a hedgehog face and a mouse. The hedgehog and the mouse are my favorites, i know this makes me a bad mom, but we're all just gonna have to deal with it, i like furry things. (willow was either napping, eating cheerios or playing duplos the whole time, for those curious souls that wnted to know what i did with the baby....right now she is crying and waiting for me to get her out of bed, she just woke up)
After this, we cleaned up the kitchen and swore to do the homework we were supposed to do yesterday, but instead, played legos on the kitchen table. (man, i hope we don't end up doing homework at breakfast again tomorrow)
And then Bear and i split, willow took a nap and bear watched a movie in his room, while i napped on the couch. The i woke up and watched Rachel Ray pound on some chicken. Tea sounds good right now, I think i'll make some...oh yeah, and get that baby.
Good thing another one i coming along so they can keep each other company.

The Priests Visited

The Priests came over for a visit and spent the night Friday. The kids played Wii the entire time and the grown ups watched some Dick Proenneke documentaries. Danielle got me a Dick Proenneke video for an early birthday present -it was, of course, fascinating. Strangely, Kevin had never seen it and we righted that wrong.


That is totally a slab of perfectly prepared, delicious, prime rib. We cooked it today then immediately ate it. It was chopped off of a cow that Cheryl and Kevin bought. I have never cooked prime rib before but it was so easy.

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Here is a picture of Dick Proenneke eating blueberries or some crap. I am sure that just about anyone who is likely to read this blog would like this guy. We first saw his documentary on PBS. He is (was) a hermit in Alaska and he films the process of building his cabin and surviving in winter.

Date Night

Danielle and Bear went on a date to see "National Treasure: Book of Secrets." Here they are stuffing their pockets with cheap home candy before heading out. I asked Bear what the movie was all about and he said, "They were tryin to find the City of Gold."


I stayed at home with Willow. She walked around the house and climbed on top of impossible things then cried for me to get her down. We had a good time. Here she is looking sassy while I fed her dinner. There is something very rewarding about feeding your baby dinner.