Welcome to my life..my family..my world..unedited.

Messing around with my blog again.  Apparently, the 9,235 other things I want/need to do aren’t as important as this!

If you’ve ever seen Inside The Actors Studio on Bravo, then you’re familiar with the questions that James Lipton uses.  My favorite question of his is actually What is your favorite curse word? because I think it’s awesome that these highly acclaimed actors/actresses favor the F word.
James Lipton starts at the beginning…where were you born…what is your mom’s name …what is your dad’s name…any brothers or sisters.  He asks about school, how they got started, etc.  The stories are always enjoyable… I really like learning about celebs and knowing that they all come from the same place as us regular folk.
Answering these questions has taken me a long time… I think I was looking for some magic, life-long answers, but then it occurred to me, these answers will change, probably a lot over the years, so I might as well go with my first instincts and then redo this post yearly!
1) What is your favorite word? Mommy! (said with excitement and happiness)

2) What is your least favorite word? MOMMY (said with whining or crying)

3) What turns you on? Laughter
4) What turns you off? Distraction
5) What sound/noise do you love? my boys laughing
6) What sound/noise do you hate? my …

My friend, Sunshine, and I, go out to dinner once a month to catch up and get out. Yesterday, she called and we decided to go out tonight – but before dinner, we were going to go donate blood at our local Red Cross center. It had been the requisite 56 days for her; I can’t remember the last time I gave. Appointments were made. I was looking forward to finally giving – my mom {sheepish} works for the Red Cross and always gives me a hard time for not donating {/sheepish} and it’s truly such an easy thing to do to help.
We got there early and read the warnings and laminated booklet with all of the questions – have you been out of the country? have you taken any of these medications? did you ever live in any of the 34 countries? Then signed our names and went to wait.
So there are blood services people who check people in – they take them into little rooms, check their temperatures, verify identity, check iron levels, blood pressure and re-ask all the questions. The rooms are stark; the blood services person I got? …

Playing with the camera a lot lately…

Like most kids, my boys have their favorite books that they want us to read to them {over and over and over and over….}.  Matt has been getting into chapter books lately, which is truly a nice change of pace. We started with Phineas & Ferb, but have since moved on to Captain Underpants.  I always rolled my eyes at those underpants books, but they really are quite silly and fun. The best part is that when he starts reading chapter books himself, he can read those (well, he could probably read most of it now, but by the time he’s really able, he’ll get more of the jokes).
There have been many wonderful books over the years, as well as some that I simply hide try to avoid.  By far, my favorite board books have always been Sandra Boynton’s.  Her latest addition to the group is Fifteen Animals and Preston laughs hysterically at the end, every. single. time. (Me too). 
Some of my other favorites are by Amy Krouse Rosenthal – we recently added Duck! Rabbit! to our collection, and she is the author of my beloved littles: Little Pea, Little Hoot and Little Oink.  Cute …