Michael's band instrument will be...

...trombone! Today he met with the band teacher to choose his instrument. I'm not sure exactly what went into the selection process. Guess we have to trust the instructor's judgment. We weren't rooting for any instrument in particular, but Nate would've been able to offer Michael some pointers with the trumpet, having been Mr. Jazz band in high school. Oh well - three more chances for that when kids 2, 3, & 4 get around to joining band. Michael will have lessons for the first half of summer, and officially start band next year in 5th grade. Now, to buy used or rent...hmm...

3 people who hate painting

We recently tackled a home improvement project we'd been putting off. The basement walls were pockmarked and scratched, badly in need of puttying and painting. The baseboard trim was a subpar do-it-yourself job by the previous homeowners, so we decided to replace it. As for the paint color - the selection was a little tricky. We ended up using two colors as a compromise between adding some darker color for contrast and needing to keep the room light enough to be un-dungeony.

We roped my little brother Chris into helping us paint on the day after Easter, while grandma & grandpa watched the kids. He doesn't like it when I call him my little brother, but I was born first and it's a fact. Neener neener, Chris! Oh, but thanks for painting, and all...
Below we see Nate hard at work (the flash was on in this pic, the next one is sans flash). He also did all the staining & varnishing of the new trim, which you can see behind the furniture in the last pic. As you've undoubtedly guessed, the brown hue is called "flatland," and the lighter one is called "basketweave."

Nicky's interesting choice of sleepwear

Layering seems to be the lastest nocturnal fashion preference around here. Under the Larry Boy nightshirt is a manly Optimus Prime t-shirt, and jammie bottoms.

beast of burden

Bruiser: too long have we endured the loathsome antics of this perverse creature.

Knock over he does, his full container of kitty food all over the laundry room floor.

A scavenger, he stealthily glides through the house looking for crumbs to ingest, then seeks out carpeted floor upon which to ralph up his ill-gotten gains.

This week, the wretched beast's check-up cost $65. We learned we will be relieved of another $185 next week for teeth cleaning(&*%$!). No one told me we needed cat dental insurance.

I happened upon him a few weeks ago, repeatedly dipping his paw into the toilet and licking off the water. I was disturbed, yet impressed. Such a feat requires a minimal amount of intelligence that I had heretofore not assigned to him. Later, I discovered him swishing his paw around in the water glass I leave by the sink. My water glass. That I drink out of. Not impressed, only disturbed.

He always finds his way onto my lap before I realize I'm wearing the cat hair-magnet pants.

Last on this ever-growing list of grudges is his propensity to "meow" violently, and so very often.

Happy Easter!

Holy Saturday

O happy fault,
O necessary sin of Adam,
which gained for us so great a Redeemer!"

Good Friday

Holy Thursday

Bread, wine, and dyed eggs.

double-digit birthday!

Michael turned 10 on Saturday - 10!?! He was born a week and a half early, on Easter Sunday. I had to call my mom from the hospital to say we wouldn't be able to make it out for dinner like we'd planned, because I just had the baby. Time for some old pictures!

Michael was a little peanut, only 6 lbs 4 oz, and dropped down to 5 lbs 11 oz by the time we left the hospital. I like how sweet and helpless he looks here, held up for a burp. It took quite a while for him to fill out any of his clothes.

Dr. Oz's stem cell segment on Oprah

During a Sunday 'Lent break' yesterday, I did some net surfing and saw this video clip. It's from an Oprah show with Michael J. Fox that aired on 3/31. I'm not familiar with the man who does the intro & closing bit, but he sums up what those in the pro-life community have been saying for years about embryonic vs. adult stem cells. I don't think Oprah anticipated Dr. Oz's frankness about the research thus far.

template woes

Techno-nincompoop that I am, I appreciate the general ease of blogging with these fixed templates. But the limitations are somewhat annoying. There aren't a whole lot of templates to choose from, and they're so flippin' skinny that it's tough to get my pictures in with the text just the way I want it. I'm trying out a wider 'stretch' design right now, but it makes some of my previous posts look weird. And after I publish a post, it looks different than the preview version anyway. There's really no way to control how it will look on any other computer. So, this is just an FYI that if things look goofy and misaligned sometimes, it's not for my lack of trying.