Law of Percentages

In previous posts I've shared some the Bear's more entertaining comments and observations.  Even though before parenthood people tell you how funny kids are, one does not fully understand the extent of the hilarity until they give birth to their own little comic.

So these days we are dealing with the normal 2nd grader angst: who is friends with whom, whose birthday is next, why are girls so weird, stuff he wants to do after school, etc.

But lately when we ask him what he wants to eat, does he want to play baseball, does he like his new teacher, the Bear is answering in percentages.

Me: "So you think you want chicken or pizza for dinner?"

Him: "Weeeeelllllllllll, I want chicken 30% and pizza 70%."

Me: "Okay.  So that's a yes on the pizza?"

Him: "No. I think it's 60% chicken and 40% pizza."

Me: "So you want chicken?"

Him: "No I want pizza."

Or this exchange yesterday-

Me: "It's getting closer to time to sign up for baseball.  Are you thinking you want to play again this year?"

Him: "Right now I'm about 85% that I want to play. How much weeks do I have to decide?"

Me: "Probably about three weeks."

Him: "Okay.  I should be at 100% by then."

We have no idea where the percentages came in but I guess it's a good thing that he takes time to consider his options.  Shows some type of patience, right?

Historically Significant

At least in our house it is.

For the first time in the twelve years since we first met, me and Big Daddy are fans of the same team.

Keep in mind we still root for different NASCAR drivers. We have our limits, y'know.

I've been a Patriots fan for about 16 years.  I was a Bledsoe girl before it was cool.  Big Daddy has been a Cowboys (blech) fan his whole life and about 10 years ago he started liking the Colts.  Peyton Manning is his all time favorite player.

But this past season has been a lot of fun for more than one reason.  I enjoyed watching the Detroit Lions make somewhat of a comeback.  I'm an underdog kind of fan.  I want the guy who is expected to lose to overcome and make everybody's pulse rate quicken.  While I was unhappy with Schwartz's (coach) inability to enforce better sportsmanship of his team, I still enjoyed see Matthew Stafford and the rest of the Lions play like they meant it.

The other reason this season was so much fun is because of Tim Tebow.  And if you are an anti-bandwagon kind of person, you may as well stop reading now.  Because we whole-heartedly jumped onto the Tebow Express bandwagon!  And it's not just because of his plays on the field.  It's because of who he is as a human being.

Praise God we finally have a crazy popular athlete that chooses humility and kindness instead of smack talk and poor fashion choices.

I'm a parent to a 7 year old boy who, like 99% of all young kids, watches how adults act and interact with each other.  I see how what he witnesses reflects in how he interacts with others.  And to top it off, the kid is a Broncos fan.  We bought him a jersey and helmet for Christmas about 3 years ago but the only one in his size was Broncos.  We went ahead and got it because, hey! one of Big Daddy's best friends is the son of a former Broncos coach.

So this year found me and Big Daddy both squarely in the Broncos fan base.  It's been pretty great and a lot of fun.  Big Daddy wants a Tebow jersey and so does the Bear.  I'm looking to get hooked up with a Dumervil jersey - due to my maiden name I'm pretty sure we're related some how. ;o)

Since Ellway's straightened up his attitude (or be run out of Denver on a rail!) and given Tebow the props he so rightly deserves, I'm excited to see how next season kicks off.

But for now . . . . GO CARL EDWARDS!!

Crapbooking, er . . . SCRAPbooking

I started scrapbooking about 12 years ago when I fell in love with Big Daddy.  I mean, isn't that what normal people usually do when they fall in love?  Start a new expensive, time-consuming hobby to memorialize their budding relationship?

Actually it started with the wedding and the fact that the scrapbooking craze was in high gear.  We both kind of wanted to do the scrapbook because we loved taking photos of ourselves.  Ok, me not so much.  But Big Daddy loves the camera and the camera is somewhat fond of him with good lighting.

So anyways, I started the scrapbook with our first date - my firm's annual Christmas party - and continued through the next year or so to our wedding and subsequent move to the country.

Then I opened my own store.  Plus got knocked up.

Needless to say, the scrapbooking fell to the wayside.  And anyone familiar with scrapbooking knows that once you fall behind, you will NEVER catch up.  Eight years later and I have a LARGE plastic lidded bin full of pictures and ticket stubs and newsclippings and Bear artwork to keep me busy through a summer of unemployment. But hopefully it won't come to that.

I was pawing through the bin this weekend when I found a couple of small "pre-templated" scrapbooks I snagged at a clearance sale.  One is labeled "Family" and the other is labeled "Travel."  I think these two little boogers may help me get a little jumpstart on clearing out that bin.

Plus I have an almost 8 year old assistant to help me!

Roadtrip to Ruidoso, NM

For the past several years, Big Daddy and I have had good intentions of spending at least part of our Christmas vacation in the mountains of New Mexico.  Since we're down here in southern central Texas, we don't get much of the white Christmas that I love so much.

I grew up in the Panhandle of Texas where the wind blows more than in Chicago and the snows can fall up to 20 inches deep.  Some of my most favorite memories as a kid are those including fun times playing in the snow.  Nevermind that my extremities were numb and my lips were blue.  I loved it.

So this year I was determined to make it happen for us.  I mean, for crying out loud.  My kid is 7 years old and has yet to actually experience enough snow to make a snowball, much less snowboard or go sledding.  With that motivation in mind, we made our plans to travel to Ruidoso for the week between Christmas and New Years.

Despite the 9 hour long travel, we enjoyed every minute of it.  We only had one bad restaurant experience - the food sucked - and lots of fun activities.  We went sledding, snowboarding and tubing.  The Bear is a NATURAL on the snowboard.  I think he only fell over twice and once was because Big Daddy knocked him over by accident.  Big Daddy's snowboarding experience was not quite so positive.  But hey! He tried and I'm proud of that.  Me? I was running the camera.

We also went on a sleigh ride through the Upper Canyon.  The pair of big Persheron (?) Mules that pulled the sleigh were Judy and Jane.  Big sweet beautiful girls.  It was so very cool riding along with the only sound being their clop clop clopping hooves and the jingle of the bells on their harness.  Loved it!

But we did make the decision that we will travel the extra distance next Christmas to have our winter fun in Red River, NM.  It's our home away from home and we really like the way Red River is laid out.  It's very small and everything is within walking distance.  Literally.  Nothing is more than 10 blocks away.

Ruidoso is very spread out and despite our centrally located hotel, we had to travel by auto to almost every place we went.  Not to mention the ski area is about 16 miles outside of town.  We like to park our truck and not get back in it til time to pack up and come back to Texas.

Still. Mountains are mountains and they were beautiful and white and we had a wonderful time.