Playdate

I was able to have a play date today with one of my former day care kids.

Here are some pictures from our busy day...

A happy baby...even in the car!
I picked her up at FS and then we drove back to Bellflower.
(After stopping at McDonalds for breakfast, of course!)


I let her play with the "small" toy collection I have...I might
need to get a few more toys, don't ya think!?!


A typical kid, she is already fascinated by the telephone,
so we call Mommy at work to update her
about our very fun day so far!


I needed to make some cookies for a party on
Thursday night...she is the perfect assistant
in the kitchen! She adds the sugar...



...and then she adds the baking soda into the sifter
with our other dry ingredients. Good job, baby!


Lunch! She LOVES the Mac-N-Cheese! Says "Mmmm" after
every bite! She even eats her peas and shovels in her applesauce
by the handful. As for the ham...that went to the dog. Lucky you, Bruno.


She took a two hour nap from 1-3pm. Two hours!!!
I took advantage of this and baked those cookies.


After a diaper change and a snack, she had a piano lesson.
She loves the piano! This girl is ready to perform in public! She sounds GOOD!


I also took her downstairs to my scrapbook area. She colored her very own pictures. Then is was back to playing with the toys before it was time to head home to meet up with Mommy. What a terrific playdate!

Explantion of My Links...

I have wanted to add 'Links" to my blog for some time now, but I just didn't take the time to do it. And actually, I was more interested in getting the Archive set up. It was taking me forever to get that figured out! (I guess if I would have read the directions, I would have been able to do it right away, but...well....yeah.)

So the archiving was now easy and there was the link button right below it, so I added the following links to my blog. I added my sister's blog Elizabeth because I feel cool if I have more than just one or two links. She has not updated her blog in quite some time, and in fact, there may only be two entries....but it is there anyway.

I had to put Billy the Beagle's blog in my list of links because very few dogs are cool enough to actually possess his or her very own blog.

I listed St. Matthew's because this is where I go to church. And, if I want to know information quickly, or check out the bulletin on-line, then it is a quick jump over to their website as I am editing my own blog.

Baby Lucy is actually my neighbor's daughter. You see, my family and the Cole family have been neighbors for many years...maybe even 20 years. Jeremy is the second child in the Cole family, and Lucy is his beautiful daughter. I like babies, and Jeremy's wife Jessica does a great job keeping updates posted regularly. So, once again, this link is mostly for my own benefit because I can check to see what new and amazing things Lucy is doing easily.

The last blog I have listed in my Links belongs to a good friend of mine, Jeanette. In fact, she is the one that first got me started in this blogging thing, so it is only natural that I would want her blog among my very own link section. Jeanette is just a couple of months younger than me and she is the number one child of the Cole family. I took singing lessons and piano lessons from her mom and dad when I was younger, and I have been known to visit her a couple of times while she was out in DC. Now, we are neighbors once again, and whenever we have time, which isn't often enough, we get together and scrapbook. Jeanette is great. She has the most perfect reddish-blonde hair and the most beautiful voice I have ever heard in my life! If I had her voice, I would never stop singing! (Hmmm...perhaps that is why God did not give me such a beautiful voice...He knew people wouldn't want to hear me singing all of the time! Hehehehehe!)

The next link...probably the Paper Source. It is a great store that my Aunt Mary Ellen introduced me to. Hooray for scrapbooking!

the Beagle

Has there ever been a sweeter beagle?

It is doubtful.

Billy and I had an enjoyable weekend together. The best part of this weekend was that the very mean, beagle-hating neighbor BILL was not around to bother us. Bill, whom also happens to be a prof at the U of I in Leisure Studies, is very much into relaxing and "enjoying his garden" as he has put it before. Thankfully, with the temperature averaging a mere 4 degrees, Bill has not had to worry about sitting among his floppy flowers, and Billy and I have been able to maintain a peaceful three days.

Here is a picture of the very evil Bill.

(Don't let the grin fool you. He is a mad man!)

Voodoo doll coming soon!

Remembering Grandma

It is a sad day today....Grandma passed away one year ago today. We had some pizza and watched the Illini basketball game with Grandpa tonight. And the Illini finally win one!

Getting Easier...

Finally...navigating around downtown Bloomington is getting easier! I am starting to rememer some of the short cuts I took while going to ISU, and discovering new short cuts, too. And you know what they say about short cuts....."It's supposed to be a challenge, Kyle...if it was easy, it would just be 'the way'!" - Road Trip

The Dungeon

I go to the basement, or "the dungeon" as everyone else at work refers to it, on a weekly basis. It isn't a basement that you would find in your home. It is just like the rest of the building with regard to the layout, but it also happens to be below ground level.

It actually reminds me of walking through the hallways of grade school.
Anyways...there are three rooms where we have files stored. One room is actually where the files from the Traffic department are kept, but we use two of their shelves due to lack of space. There is "the big room," which I personally prefer because there are file cabinets rather than bankers boxes in this room. It is easy to get the files you need and to put them away when you are finished with them. And generally speaking, the basement is a fun place for me to go to because no one is with me to tell me if I do something differently than how she would do it (her way equals the correct way...and the ONLY way) - there are good acoustics for singing, and the temperature of the basement is quite a bit cooler than the stuffy, hot office.

I typically go to the basement for no more than one hour. Friday was an unusual day because I over-estimated the amount of files I have brought down with me to be put away. I ended up spending two hours in the basement.
Everything was going well until I decided I didn't need to use the ladder. I thought..."Hmmm, that box is slightly higher than my head, but I think I can reach it." And rather than go across the room, pull the ladder over, climb the ladder, bring the box down, and then shove the file in, only to repeat the process all over to put the box away...I decided I would skip some steps and just pull the box out, set it on top of my cart, slide the file in, then shove the box back onto the shelf. It was good in theory, but something went awry during the execution of this plan.
I pulled the box down with no trouble. However, I forgot to take into account the weight of a full box of files. It sort of "fell" right down onto the cart. I am relieved it landed on the cart. But oops, this cart has wheels on it! I am now holding onto the heavy box that is full of files, but I cannot let go of the box to stop the cart from rolling. So I begin to walk along with the cart. As the cart moves faster, I begin to jog...and before you know it, the cart and I are running while I am holding onto this box...that is full of files...which will spill everywhere if I drop it.
Now the problem becomes the wall straight ahead of us with even more boxes of files on it. What will happen if we crash? Will I be covered with forty boxes of scattered files? And who will find me....and how long will it take before they come looking for me...the office does not close for another three hours!
Somehow, I managed to balance the box of files in my arms on the runaway cart. With my right arm, I was able to reach out, grab onto the cart and stop it. Whew! Just in the nick of time, too. We (the cart and I) were less than three feet from the wall.
I had to go find a water fountain after that ordeal. I was hot, my mouth was dry and even my eyes were dry (probably because they were WIDE open while I was dealing with the cart)!

Visiting FS

I headed out to my former place of employment to pick up my W-2 forms...it is great to be a visitor at day care. I get to see all of the kids again, yet I am not bogged down with everything that goes with caring for them (or at least with all of the C-R-A-P that has been known to occur at said day care, which some of you other former - and yes, I suppose even current, employees are all too familiar with).
A few years ago, Grandma Mildred gave me a child-sized guitar. She had hoped that I would play it for some of the kids. Well, the only time I played the guitar was for my proficiency exam in one of my music classes at Illinois State. While working in the Kindergarten classroom at FS during the first two weeks of November, the kids would use markers, paper and quite a bit of scotch tape and staples to make "guitars" so that they could sing while strumming. One kid, J even made a microphone for his guitar. Then C had a strap on his guitar that went around his shoulder. These little rock stars were really gettin' down on a daily basis.
Hence today, as I came across the heavily dusty guitar in the living room closet that Grandma Mildred gave to me those years ago, I decided to donate this guitar to the Kindergarten classroom rock stars. When I first entered the classroom with the guitar, the kids were happy to see me and expecting some fine entertainment. They were slightly disappointed that I have long ago lost the musical ability to play the guitar (or rather, never really had the ability to play the guitar) but, when I told them I was giving the guitar to the classroom, there was nothing but excitement.
Following some short solos and some group effort to figure out this real guitar, the head teacher decided that there had been enough noise, so the guitar had to be put away. No worries...there is always tomorrow!
Rock on, friends....Rock. On!

Happy New Year

We're beginning the new year with quite a bit of snow! If I wasn't so lazy, I would go outside and take a photo of our snow-covered house. However, I do not wish to disappoint, so here is an older picture (circa 1986) of myself and my younger sister Molly on top of a small hill made of snow. The top of this hill-o-snow is as high as the bottom of the roof to our house, so you can get somewhat of an idea about just how much snow there can be out here in the sticks!