Woo hoo! Another way to waste time on the computer...

Got a face shot of yourself? Then try Yearbook Yourself. This is me circa 1964 and 1966. Sometimes the face doesn't line up right, but sometimes the results are pretty hilarious.



Other times the results are just plain creepy. Dex circa 1956:


And Joel looking fabulous in 1984...

We just got back from a few days on the lake. Dex loved it. I had a lot of time to read, so I am going to do something crazy and spend a minute talking about books. (Well, kind of...they are books, but they're written for teens.)

Several of my teacher friends, a few of my students, and Joel's niece have recently been obsessed with a vampire series written for adolescent young women called Twilight. I started reading them though and am a little perplexed. I don't love them. The stories are really engaging, so I am hooked and will read all four. But it is, as LaSirena put it, "literary crack". (Yes, you read it, but it leaves you pretty unsatisfied.) I have real issues with the main character. I don't understand the things that she does and I think she is a horrible role model for young women. My co-workers argue that we all read VC Andrews and that was certainly pretty messed up. I'll concede that point. Joel says it just sounds like the author stuck to the conventions of gothic storytelling with a fainting heroine and a controlling man. That might be true, but still...I hate to think of dozens of teenage girls reading this and thinking that the relationship between the main characters, Bella and Edward, is the kind of relationship to aspire to. Anyway, that's what I have been reading, and if you haven't heard of the series yet, you will soon. The movie comes out in November.

Squeezing Every bit of fun out of the back yard...

Somewhere there are dancing penguins and fuzzy little kitties weeping little tiny tears because their cuteness crown has been usurped. Dexter and our neighbor, Lenny are just too funny in the yard. They were fighting over Lenny's bicycle helmet until we dug out Dexter's (which he normally won't touch without a battle). They ran around the yard giggling the rest of the evening playing two man Ring Around the Rosey and sharing "posicles". I am definitely one of those moms who thinks that everything my kid does is THE MOST ADORABLE THING EVER! (I promise I won't show off his dirty diapers if you come and visit though.)

Dexter at the Bean...

Wow have we been having a great summer! In my totally biased opinion, Little Man gets cuter every day. Of course, he becomes more independent every day, no longer humoring me with my frequent requests for kisses for Mama. The best reward though is that, once in a while, I surprise him with something he thinks is just so funny or awesome that he gives me a giant hug and a kiss, totally unbidden. Something tells me those will be harder to come by the older he gets.

He looks like an angel...

But he's the devil in disguise.

Mama's Hyundai is not how I roll. Let's see if I can find me a sweet new ride. Seriously I am not creative enough to have staged that. He just climbed up and started flipping through. Later we went to the Museum of Science and Industry.

Science is awesome.

So are his big-kid friends.

Later Dex flipped his hat backwards and started climbing everything that was stationary in the back yard. I had to bribe him with a popsicle to get him to sit still.


But all he did was taunt me.