Will it float?

Luke and I are playing the David Letterman game, 'Will it Float?' No, we did not order the game or the dvd version but are using our own supplies we found in out house. It all started when he wanted to take a bath with his aircraft carrier which is bigger than him to see if it would float. (it does!). Then we brought up the airplanes where we found out some float and some do not, the same thing with the toy people. We also noticed the measuring cup and the lion cup from Disney on Ice show float until we fill them with water and then they sink. He is still playing in the tub while I write this.

We had a good weekend. Breanna spent the night at a friends house for a birthday party and then on Sunday we took my mom out for a birthday lunch. We went to the Tumbleweed and it was very good.

Tonight Breanna has her rehearsal for her dance recital. She is excited because tonight they will get the costumes.

We are still waiting for the insurance company to find out if they will pay for any of Luke's dental work. I have blocked it from mind for the time being.

Wed. we are meeting with our financial person from Metlife. We keep thinking of dropping them but we are meeting with a new person who seemss really nice so we are giving her a chance. (THe last person met with us and was supposed to get back to us on questions we had and then called back six months later to see if we could 'meet and introduce ourselves'. I told her that we had already met in her office and we still waiting for questions to be answered but never mind. I heard she is no longer with company.

Pete has been happily burning dvds and they all seem to work on the dvd player including the portable one we got for Christmas. He keeps talking about doing the taxes but hasn't started on them yet...maybe this weekend. This reminds me I still need to do the art projects for Luke's Art show which is also next week. (Breanna's recital is Monday and the Art show is Thursday).

Have a good one....Lori

Who would make the cheese?

I thought I had better blog while I have a moment since it has been so crazy here and we have a busy couple of weeks coming up.

Yesterday in addition to Luke's presschool, there was a storytime at the school he will attend in the fall. While the kids were being read to, the parents met for a meeting with a teacher for tips on getting the kids ready for school and to swap ideas. Pete and I are struggling with whether to send him all day or half day. Half day would be perfect but held at a different school and he would have to take the bus there and back.

Last night we went to see 'Disney on Ice' at the Resch Center. We did not get home until after nine so the kids were ready for bed. Luke liked the monkeys the best, Breanna liked the figure skating and I thought there was too much skating going on until I remembered it was an ice skating show. (Seemed like last year there were more props and that is what I meant...that's my story and I'm sticking to it!).

Tonight both Breanna and Pete have hair cuts and then we are all going to meet my mother and her sister who is in town from Mondovi (a small town between Eau Claire and LaCrosse) to celebrate my mother's birthday. Her birthday is really Sunday but her sister, niece and her husband are leaving Friday and I thought it would be nice to have a party for mom while her sister is in town.

When I talked to mom yesterday to see how things were going with her sister (any catfights, hair-pulling or name calling????) she said, 'No, nothing like that, Lori'in a voice that says she knows I am joking but she does not think it is funny. Since I do not have a sister and I have been reading my father-in-law's blogs about his computer-hating sister I am not sure what happens when a sister comes to stay for a week.

Pete took BBQ meatballs along with cheese, crackers and eclairs for lunch at work since it was his turn to bring the Wed. lunch. He says it was a big hit and everybody liked it since it was all gone when he went to get the crockpot.

I just heard on the early show this morning about the minimum tax thing that will affect a lot of middle-class taxpayers this year and for the next several years especially if you live in a state that has high property taxes and we do. Joy. The financial analysts suggestion to avoid this in the next few years is to move to another state with lower taxes and buy a smaller house'. Hello???? This makes no sense unless one were to find the exact same job and pay. Can you imagine if everyone in the state of Wisconsin moved to another state? Who would make all the cheese?

That's all for now....Lori

24 hours stress free

It happened this week where we had about twenty-four hours without stress, where everything felt right with the world.

It started out with Breanna being sick and not being able to breathe so we took her in and found out she has bronchitis. Then we got ready for the big blizzard of '06 by purchasing food and supplies to last at least through the weekend. Wednesday was a day I was not looking forward to because we had Luke's parent teacher conference so I sent Pete because I went last time and it was the worst day of my life as a mother. But, it turns out it was a great conference and Luke is doing so much better. This is where the 24 hours of stress free time starts. I am so happy with this news that I start to weep. Pete said the teachers even made a point to say on Valentines Day, Luke was the only kid out of four classes to thank each of his classmates for the valentine cards and also wish them a Happy Valentines Day. Of course, he still needs to work on some things like helping to pick up, but otherwise this news made my year.

Fast forward to Thursday morning. Luke has a dental appointment with a new dentist that specializes in working with kids. After deciding on whether to go because the Blizzard of '06 was starting, Pete and Luke headed out. THey came back to the house three hours later and this is where the 24 hours of stress free life ends with a punch in the gut. The dentist says he needs about $6000 worth of dental work!!! He is only four years old!!! Our first reaction is probably what most people would think, "The teeth are going to fall out anyway so why bother putting the money into it ?" Well, I called our originaly dentist who first saw Luke six months ago and recommended the new dentist and he said Luke did need extensive work then and he had not even taken any x-rays which this dentist did. I asked if all of this was really necessary and he said yes because if the tooth gets infected, it could cause serious problems especially if if the infection gets into the blood stream.

So, Monday I am calling the dentist to see if any of the teeth would qualify for fillings (she wants to pull or do root canals on seven teeth, four in the front and three in the back). I do not want to put Luke though this. If we pull the front , what about speech problems? There are so many questions.

Anyway, Pete and I are going to talk to a few more people, and figure out some type of plan.

At least we had one stress free day.

Lori

I just got done reading John's blog about dumb dogs and thought it was very funny. It got me thinking( as a good blog should) and I have a belief that some dogs feign (sp?) dumbness. You know how some (notice I did not say all) guys do a really bad job at laundry so the wife will think he is totally incompetent and do the laundry herself? I can also say I know I should learn how to change the printer ink on my printer but I think Pete can do it so much faster than I can so I pretend I cannot possibly learn how to do it. I think dogs do the same thing. My dog Maya knows how to sit on command and will only do so for food but when I tried to show my mother how well Maya obeys this one command she knows, she absolutely refused to sit. I had the feeling she was thinking, "See, you cannot make me sit!" This is the same dog the pretends to be asleep so when I leave to room just for a second, somehow she opens the gate and eats a whole cake before I get back. This is the same dog who will act like she has arthritis an cannot possibly make it upstairs to go to bed but if the doorbell rings she is the first one there and jumps on the poor person at the door. I think she ate the toy for the same reason kids act out....for ATTENTION! She got to go to the doctor and see all her friends, she got to eat special meals which I had to cook for her for three weeks...yeah, she is no dummy...we are the dummies for allowing her to train us instead of the other way around! Sometime I will write about our dog, Rush, and comment about how dumb he was.

We had a nice weekend. In a nutshell , we spent some time at Pennie's house, I finally bought a pair of jeans that fit (I have five pair at home but they do not fit so what good is it to have five pair when I cannot wear them?) and we watched a little of the Olympics. Pete, Pennie, and Luke went to see a movie while Breanna was at a friends house and I bought my one pair of pants. I consider this a good weekend.

Happy Valentines Day to everyone. The kids got cute cards from Pete's parents and my mother as well.

Have a good one....Lori

A Luke Story

We were watching the Super Bowl commercials and after seeing the one with Jessica Simpson delivering pizza about twenty times I asked Pete, "Wouldn't it be nice if she would deliver pizza to our house?" Before Pete could respond Luke said, "yeeeahhhhh".

We had a good weekend. We went to church Sunday where there was a guest pastor since the current one is on vacation. The last time we went there was a guest pastor for the same reason. I am assuming the current pastor goes to church more often than we do but so far I am not so sure.

After church we went grocery shopping and then home to watch the Super Bowl. I really wanted the Steelers to win for three reasons;1. I did not like the way Holmgren left Green Bay 2. I saw an earlier program that showed the coach of the Steelers ten years ago consoling his young daughters when they lost the Super Bowl saying "You cannot win them all" and 3. I wanted the Bus to get his ring.

Last night I went to watch Breanna at dance class and then I had to go to a meeting at Luke's school because they are having an Art Show where they show artwork the students have done this year. I signed up to make two things which I am excited about. The next time we meet we will be setting up for the show and it sounds like it is a lot of work but the kids really like it.

Pete is all happy because he got some money for his birthday and decided to get a dvd recorder(burner) which he purchased yesterday. Last night he burned a dvd from the dvr where Breanna had recorded a musical from Disney. Sure enough this morning I got up and she is watching it on the dvd player her granparents gave us for Christmas rather than watching it on the regular tv. Everytime she had to leave to go change or put the dog out or whatever, she paused the player. Times sure have changed since I was a kid getting ready for school.

Luke came into our room this morning wearing his batman cape and his pirate hat demanding something (always a blur when I first wake up). I always thought Breanna wore a lot of costumes, but Luke wears something different several times a day. At least he stopped wearing Breanna's dresses which Pete is happy about.

Have a good one...Lori

Pink Elephants

We celebrated Pete's birthday yesterday and I think he had a nice day. Luke brought home a worksheet from school with an elephant on it so I suggested he color it pink and give it to his dad for his birthday since he is fond of saying "Pink Elephants!". Luke thought that was a good idea so he colored it (it is amazing we found a pink crayon but we did), wrapped it and gave it to him after we sang "Happy Birthday". (glad we did not videotape this because it was the worse rendition ever).

Before we had cake, we went to eat at Pete's favorite restaurant called Pasquale's. It is one of those old buildings and it used to be a bar so it has a long bar on one side and tables on the other. It has high ceilings with old hanging lamps, black and white checkered floor tiles and chrome bar stools and chairs. The walls are covered with war memorbilia from WWII. We sat by the big picture window which looks out onto the street and we could see the bridge with all the traffic. In the middle of the street is an old fashion lamp post with a clock on it which lit up. We had a great meal but it was very filling. We were stuffed!

From there we went to the mall. Pete gave Breanna a list of things he would like so she and I headed to the computer game store where we found two of the games he wanted. We then stopped at Radio Shack for a small screwdriver set that is nice for working on computers and toys (probably trains, too).

After we had cake, he called his parents to thank them for the card and they started talking politics which is always fun for him so I think that was Pete's dad gift to him. My brother called to wish him "Happy Birthday" late at night which is the norm for him. My mother also dropped off a gift which he really liked as well.

While Breanna and I were shopping, Pete and Luke bought Maya a bone to chew on since it was her birthday, too. She is eight years old!

Luke is confused about Regis and Kelly calling me. He thinks because they are on the tv, they cannot call so I explained to him how it works. He wanted to know why they would call(good question) and I said so we could win a trip and stay in a nice hotel with a pool. He reminded me he cannot swim yet but he will watch me swim so then we got into a discussion about him taking swimming lessons which he says he is not ready for yet. He says he is like Grandpa Linna and likes to sit in the hot tub. (I wonder if he would like saunas?)

That's all for now....Lori