Rain gutter

Dad drove up this morning and we put up a rain gutter for the back of our house. We used white aluminum for it. It took us a while to do being novices at it but it was a fun project. We tested it with the garden hose and it seemed to work. That's been a project I've been wanting to get done for a long time.

Elena and I watched Friday Night Lights last night. Its a movie about high school Texas football and how it can be all consuming. Billy Bob Thorton stars as the 2nd year coach of a senior class that has state championship potential. I liked it but I'm glad we watched it a home. Elena hooked us up with Blockbuster online so they send us three movies and we mail them back and they send us more. We looked at Netflix a long time ago and that wasn't for us but this seems like a good deal so far.

We watched Garden State a bit ago too. I really like that movie. Zach Braff wrote, directed and starred with Natalie Portman in this one. It was his first time with all this responsibility and he did really well. It was however a fairly safe movie. It didn't really try to push any social agenda or anything. It was kinda bland, but I gave it thumbs up.

Major Disappointment

Well that house we went to look at was not what we were looking for. There was a big barn but it was in bad shape. The house in the country all by itself this was not. There were 3 houses including one that was a plant nursery business in about 100ft square. Not so good. The trout stream was promising but the rest just wasn't what we had in mind. It had 11 acres of open land that probably would have had to be for horses or something like that. A lot of it was too hilly for crops. Which was fine but as a whole we're still looking.

Lost in Translation

Elena and I have been celebrating our anniversary today. The kids woke us up around 8 or so and Elena took them over to daycare. When she came back we watched Lost in Translation. I had high hopes for this movie because of Bill Murray and all the talk about it with the Oscars. These were dashed unfortunately because both of us did not like it. At all. One could get all, "Look at the relationships and the deep meanings going on. How could you not appreciate the fine acting and photography? I mean it was directed by Sofia Coppola so it has to be good." Yea yea, I see all that. Dumbo had a lot of deep relationships too and was lots more enjoyable and shorter. Bleh. We're watching a DVD of the highlights of Mr. Bean. He's like a British Jim Carrey with lots of facial expressions and physical comedy.

We went to Salad Brothers for lunch today. Mmm Mmm good. I had the baked potato with cottage cheese and salsa and a bowl of beer cheese soup. Elena had a sandwich of some sort. We've been looking on the internet at houses for the longest time. We're wanting to move here by the next few years before the kids go to school. Our house now is awesome for location by schools but its just not the best for us. So this afternoon we're going to drive by a house we've been looking at by Chatfield to see if we want to pursue it further.

Birds, lots of them

Past weekend was pretty good. Went to Wykoff on Saturday for some grilling, chasing the kitties and playing in the small firepit. Parents came up here on Sunday. We went to Menards for some stuff. Needed to get a new screen door, rain gutter stuff and lots of bird food. We have lots of birds. I don't know what many of them are. A few chickadees, bluejays, lots of grackles (sp), and other things. They empty a suet block each day. We have two of them and I put up different flavors each time. In our other feeder we put in a mixture of corn and sunflower seeds that they really like. We put up a squirrel guard and I hope that helps. Olivia really likes to help feed them. She reaches into the bag of seed with her greedy little hands and tosses the seeds all over the grass. Then we go inside and they just swarm the place. It's kinda neat.

Zach has been a grump. This morning he was his usual jovial self and that was nice. He ate right up from a bottle I gave and was all happy. He hasn't been liking the bottles though which just makes the days go long with all the whining. But, he was all smiles and babbles today so knock on wood.

Eulogy

Watched the movie Eulogy yesterday. It was a comedy sortof with a disfuctional family and a dead grandfather and how the rest of the nutjobs dealt with it. I was entertained but could have been doing other things and been just as happy.

Livi has been really good recently. She hasn't been napping during the day but still keeping a fairly good attitude. She stays up til around 10 still but just wants a few books read to her then she crawls into bed and goes to sleep. Sometimes she isn't so sleepy and will just flip pages in her books until she just keels over.

Zach on the other hand is a happy baby except when he is hungry. Then if Mommy isn't around all is not well. He has gotten it into his head that the bottle is not for him. This is not good for me or any daycare provider. He is a loud little boy. Hopefully soon he'll get over that but for now it's what we deal with.

Napoleon Dynamite

We watched Napoleon Dynamite last night. I thought that it was hilarious. Elena wasn't' so sure. It was about the daily problems of a high school kid with no social skills, a 32 year old brother with similar qualities who was hooked on internet chatrooms, an "Uncle Rico," a 40 year old who lived in illusions of grandeur of his high school days as a football bench warmer, and a new kid named Pedro who befriends Napoleon. Yea, it ruled. There was a guy I knew at Luther who acted exactly like him.

We had a neighborhood girl babysit for the kids yesterday. She came highly motivated and raring to go. She called Elena asking how to open the microwave for Zach's bottle right off. Zach was a mess for the poor girl. He just cried and cried. He doesn't really like taking a bottle. Fortunately Elena was on her way home from working overnight and could take Zach to bed. Olivia and the babysitter played the rest of the day out in the sandbox and read books and things.

stuff

We've been busy the past bit with work and sick kids. Zach has a double ear infection but that's under medication now so he's feeling tons better. Olivia is up to her usual mischief. She still when eating if something else catches her eye, she spits out her current mouthful and stuffs her face with the new thing. Its kinda gross.

Zach pukes a lot. He doesn't mean to, but he does. We get used to it.

Other than that, we're just doing our thing.

Past week

I've been on vacation since last Sunday and we came down to Decorah on Tuesday to meet with the parents and GG Watson. The kids like it down here, but the dog especially likes it. He can run around w/o a leash and go sniffing wherever he wants.

One time at lunch Olivia was acting up because we wouldn't let her have her pacifier then and told her she could have it if she went to her room to rest. Well, she was ok wih that and quietly went to her room and curled up with her blanket and toy kitten. After about 5 minutes she was ready to come back out and be a good girl. I went to get her and carried her with her blanket to her chair. She had a pacifier in her mouth and told her she would have to give that up and she was good with that and handed it right over. Everyone went back to their lunches and we thought all was well. Unbeknownst to us, but this precious little angel had smuggled a second pacifier in with her blanket. She innocently fished it out and popped it in her mouth.

She was done with lunch.

Zachary on the Factory

Zachary
Zachary
Sitting on the Factory
What's he do there? I can't say
But he goes there every day

Zachary
Zachary
Eating his lunch on the factory
I'm so hungry. Think he'll share?
Do you think he even cares?

Zachary
Zachary
Playing with his toys on the factory
Big balloons and "MegaSaucer" too!
Here comes Livi to play with you

Zachary
Zachary
Chasing the doggie on the factory
Running and darting and spinning around
No way is Speckles going to wear you down

*to the tune of Zachary on the Factory