Lucy Goosey Takes the Stage (along with Ted)

Our Goosey (what we occasionally call our second child) played "Lucy" in "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" at her school. She was outstanding. The older boy (Ted) played a key member of the "Mean Team." He was awesome. I will post highlights here.

I'm pretty sure you will laugh. Or at least smile.

Keep in mind, this is a elementary school play--your delicate, perfectly attuned ears will be tested from time to time by some "almost on key," and some "not even close to the key" performances (in fact, I only uploaded part of one of those so you could see Lucy's part and some of the cute dancing). But persevere, my dear readers. Or, quit watching the clips.

Lucy and Schroeder

Oh, Give Me a Home
(Lucy is desperately wanting her pencil back from Linus--and you can see Ted from time to time)

Little Known Facts
(Lucy teaching her "students")


You're You
(Lucy and her "Phykeatic" help of Charlie Brown)

A Book Report on Peter Rabbit
(Lucy has some solos and you get to see a bit of Ted)

Baseball Scene
(Best chance to see Ted)

Beethoven Day
(partial)

Crabby Lucy
(Lucy finds out about herself)


Happiness Is (Finale)

5 Months!

There is no way. Where did the time go? Somebody slow it down, please. I desperately need more time to cuddle him.

P.S. You may notice how swollen the front of his bottom gum is. One tooth through, the other working hard (and making him miserable) at it.

A Hat

Every boy with a face like this one should have a hat.
Specifically, a blue plaid scally cap.
Yep.
Especially if his name is George.

P.S. Notice the drool stream...
...his tooth poked through just hours after this photo was taken.

FOURTEEN!


My sweet Eldest turned 14 yesterday. There is no way she is that old (and no way I am old enough to have one that old)! Today I am getting ready for her birthday bash tomorrow morning (therefore this will be a short post, because the house is a bit of a wreck, and I need to get supplies)...Big Ol' Breakfast, anyone?

I am so glad she is my daughter. She brings such joy to our lives. I am in awe at the wonderful young woman she is. I love you my BEAN!

NEW-NESS

As of yesterday, I have a new nephew (who looks just like my brother!) Yay! Love that baby already:


As of last week (but I couldn't tell anyone until now) I also have a new great-niece (yes, I am a great aunt, and have been since I got married--it still blows my mind):

Also, I have another great-niece as of February 15:

Also, another great-niece as of the end of December:


Which reminds me that I never posted about my new niece (because I was huge and pregnant when she was born, and I wasn't posting much), as of October:


And my other new nephew (no post because I was totally sick still) as of the end of April 2009:


Oh! And who could forget FLASH (great-nephew) a couple weeks older than George:



...and I'm just realizing I could get myself in real trouble because I've got more great-nieces and great-nephews that I didn't put up before, and if I continue to try to do a history, I will miss somebody...so I'm stopping now. Except to put up my cute baby in his new-ness form again:

In Other News (that we just found out about otherwise this would have been my first post this morning)...

So, my dad helped ring (I guess this is done by clapping over and over) the NYSE opening bell this morning. He's kind of cool like that.

From the NYSE website:
"IHOP (NYSE-Listed DIN) visits the NYSE to celebrate National Pancake Day. In honor of the occasion, IHOP President Jean Birch, joined by Scott Burt, President and CEO of Children’s Miracle Network, ring The Opening Bell^SM."

You know how else he is kind of cool? He didn't tell anybody until AFTER. How are we supposed to know when he is going to do these kinds of things? The reason I say this is because this isn't the first time he had some exciting thing going on and we didn't find out until right before or right after...sheesh.

Of course, we as his family get way more excited than he does about any of the cool things he gets to do. I LOVE this about him. My level-headed, humble dad.

Still. The New York Stock Exchange, Dad. Come on! We want to know.

At least Part-Time Politician wants to know. He kind of has a man crush on Wall Street and everything and everybody associated with it.

Maybe Dad will bring him back a souvenir.

P.S. It was free pancakes at IHOP today, plus people had the opportunity to donate to CMN. I like the Butter Pecan syrup best...


Oh--and here is the rest of the article from the NYSE website:

NATIONAL PANCAKE DAY 2010
This year’s event will mark IHOP’s fifth year celebrating National Pancake Day and the company is flipping for its “five in five” goal to bring the total amount of monies raised for local charities to $5 million in five years. Once again, IHOP has partnered with Children’s Miracle Network and will give away a free short stack of its signature buttermilk pancakes to each guest on February 23 from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. In return, IHOP asks that guests consider making a donation to Children’s Miracle Network, a non-profit dedicated to improving children's hospitals nationwide, or other local charities. More than 1,400 IHOP restaurants throughout the United States will again participate in the free pancake fundraiser with a goal to raise $1.75 million for Children’s Miracle Network and other charities. Offering guests another way to show their support of Children’s Miracle Network and contribute to the National Pancake Day fundraising effort, “Miracle Balloons”, which can be personalized and displayed at participating IHOP restaurants, will be sold for $1and $5 each from February 1 through February 23, 2010.

About the Name

So Big Brother, who is 8, wanted to name our baby something extremely awesome: George Washington. Really, who wouldn't want to be named "George Washington," after one of the coolest people of all time?

The reason this name even came up is the fact that I have an ancestor named George Washington Taggart (whose parents, George Washington Taggart and I Can't Remember, also knew about the cool-ness of being named after the good President).

Big Brother thought it would be perfect on both counts--after an amazing ancestor (who GW Taggart truly was) AND an amazing President! He lobbied and lobbied for the name. He told other people of his wishes and told them that his parents weren't listening to him, and that we didn't believe he was serious (actually, we DID believe he was serious...).

We had a few reservations (besides the obvious).

One of which was that if the whole name, "George Washington," is not used when written, it may be written "George W." We did not wish people to think that he was named after "President Before Obama-Care." Not that we want to get into political talk on this blog--that is for PTP's blog which can be found HERE. I'm just saying that for various reasons, we didn't want our baby's name origin to be linked to anyone but GW Taggart or GWashington himself.

But now that we have named him something other than George Washington, two things have happened:
1) He still gets called "George."
2) I'm starting to think Big Brother may have been right--Seriously, when you can be called "Gee Dub?" Who wouldn't want the name? Yeah!

There is nothing cuter

than the back of a sleeping baby's tiny head.

...except for maybe the front of a sleeping baby's tiny head.

Now that George is no longer being a "hard" baby, I will (hopefully) be able to catch up and post some older photos/events. The above pics are from when he was a month old.

New Post

I need something on here so that we don't all have to keep looking at my hair over and over again.

Apparently,

I now have a bunch of "hair followers." Because of this, I have been encouraged by multiple people to place the "new 'do" on the blog.

By the time all of the comments, emails, and calls came in, the vote (not that I was calling for one, but you know how humans are) was more split than I thought it was going to be. It was about 1/3 for keeping the hairstyle, and 2/3 for changing it. I couldn't believe that some people liked it on me.

Here is the weird thing: I watched the Miss America pageant, and guess what? NUMEROUS girls had my weird "C" haircut. WHAT? Little did I know, the look was coming back. (Brooke: hat's off to you for knowing this before I did-you fashionista, you. No wonder you always look like a million bucks.)

The main difference between these girls and me was that their hair is a lot longer. The length makes a huge difference, in my mind. The cut didn't look as strange on them. The other difference between them and me? They are all young, and have non-wrinkly faces. Oh, and they don't have "mommy bodies." ...And they all own evening gowns. O.K., so there are many, many differences. Whatever.

Alright, enough stalling! Drumroll please...

Can I just mention that Photobooth takes the most flattering pictures! If there is a wrinkle, blemish, spot, or weird angle to be seen, Photobooth will be sure to enhance those features for you. I'm beginning to think Photobooth was a huge part of my hair problem...

One more thing. It feels strange, sitting in my house, taking photos of myself.

Here is the new cut. (And if I happen to look drunk or weird in the photos, and also really, really old, what can I say? I'm totally sleep deprived these days...not that that explains the old-ness):

Still wet...


Dry with a clippie:

I Think I'm in Love





I get to wake up to this face every morning (And anywhere from 2 to 4 times a night as well)!

Sher's Hair Part 2
(No pun intended)

Today my aunt helped me "find my identity." I think she googled "Sher's Hair."

I am the Flying Tomato.

How unfortunate. For both of us.

Except that he wins gold medals, so he can have whatever hair he wants.

So, the AWESOME thing about today...

...was that I woke up with the same totally RAD hair I went to bed with. It is totally sweet, baby.

First I must say, that I have NEVER had a bad cut from my hairdresser. She is wonderful and always does a great job. However, I triggered some sort of experiment yesterday...

"I need a haircut where I don't have to do anything to it," I said, "something that I can just get wet and let dry." "Cut it all off," I said, "I need to go short again."

"But it is so long," she said, "are you sure?" "I'm not sure what your hair would do cut short these days," she said, "your hair comes out of your head without much curl, and then curls farther down." "Do you want to try something to keep the length?" she said, "we can take a bunch of hair off." "We can put in tons of layers," she said, "so that it has some shape, without going short."

"I don't know," I said, "O.K. let's try it and we'll see what it looks like."

So we put some color in it to go back to my "natural" ugly brownish color, because I am no longer blond, and haven't been for some time (read: years and years). Having little babies does weird things to hair--with the color and with the curl. Anyway, I wanted to make it so that my roots aren't so obvious--so that I can go longer between color appointments. To do this meant going to my natural color.

Then she started cutting.

The first red flag happened when she was working on the sides "to get the hair to fall naturally off of my face:" She said, "I don't know what they call this now, but back in the '80's it was called a "C" cut. See how the hair falls like a "C"?"

back in the '80s..back in the '80s..back in the '80s. back in the '80s..back in the '80s..back in the '80s. back in the '80s...back in the '80s...back in the '80s.

O.K., so I admit, when I heard her say "back in the '80s," I cringed a little inside because maybe the fact that she doesn't know "what they call it now" means that "people don't use it now," so it doesn't need a name for the current era.

But I have always trusted her, and I just thought to myself, "she knows what she is doing, and people probably DO still use this technique; it will be fine--cute even."

She finished, and we both kept looking and looking at it. Debating whether there was enough long hair in the back to justify leaving it there. Or was one of us going to finally admit that it looked strangely like a mullet?

R: I had a cancellation next week, do you want me to save it for you, in case you decide you don't like it? How long to you want me to hold it for you?

Me: I'll be able to tell you in two days. I'll give it two days, just to see what it does.

R (not convincingly): It looks cute. See how the "C" cut is keeping the hair off your face?

Me: I'll be able to tell you in two days. We will see what it does.

R: It is probably in "hair shock" right now...

Me: Yeah. People don't believe that hair shock really is a thing. But it is. It is probably in shock.

R: Do you want me to style it for you before you go?

Me: No, I need to see what it does when it dries without doing anything to it.

The hair dried. It didn't get any better. I pulled it up--it looked darling up--little curls hanging down around my neck and around my face. "Maybe this will be ok," I thought.

I let it down to go to bed. It didn't get any better then, either. "Maybe this is NOT going to be ok," I thought.

I woke up this morning. Sigh.


As I was leaving the salon, I kept thinking, "I know I have an eighties hair cut, but who do I look like?" I couldn't remember. Which girls had their hair like this? Hopefully good looking, famous ones.

Paul keeps trying not to laugh. Not really. He laughs.

We'll see how he laughs when I come home bald next week...

He was helping me figure out who I look like. "The girl on Family Ties?"

"Mallory?" Maybe that was it. Nope. Turns out it is Jennifer in this particular photo. Nice bangs, Jennifer. Also, nice perm gone bad.


As I was looking for photos, I suddenly realized something. I didn't so much look like famous GIRLS of the '80s, as I did the following types of people:

Exhibit A: Notice the MAN on the back row, middle.
Now observe my cut again, paying special attention to the bang, and the fact that the hair on top and sides is way bigger than the scraggly, smaller amount of hair at the bottom (and no, I'm not on drugs. I'm trying to look "cool" like they did in the eighties):


Exhibit B: I am a combination of all of the hairstyles shown here.

Now me again:So, basically, I am a men's '80s hair band throwback.

Maybe in the '80s, people's hair was in perpetual "hair shock."

I even look a little like this famous 80's guy. At least the bang does.


After I took the above flattering photos of myself, I decided to get cleaned up, wash the hair, and "see what it does." Just like I promised my hairdresser I would do.



Not much better, although make up helps my look tremendously.

...Too bad '80s hair band guys wore make up too.


I guess the good news is, I really don't have to do anything other than get my hair wet to get this look. Good to know.

Grin

What is your favorite Christmas Carol?

And who performs your favorite version?

A wonderful gift

Smile!

My baby smiled at me shortly after he was born. Eyes open and everything. This is a hard thing to prove, because it doesn't generally happen--and, I have to say, I wasn't sure it was "real"--you know newborns--other things can cause a "smile." But then he did it a few more times, just for me, the past couple of days, and I started to think he knew what he was doing. Still, no other witnesses, so no proof.

Today, however, he decided to show a few other people. New Dad grabbed the camera. Without further ado, weighing in currently at 6 lbs. 2 oz., and not quite 3 full days old....BABY! (who doesn't have a full name yet):

I think he is happy to be here (and, I hope, happy that I'm his mommy).



Oh, how I love that baby!