I like gummy bear | i love gummy bear | gummy bear song english

Just so you know in plenty of time before the Royal Wedding. Which I will be setting the alarm to watch. Preferably with my 8-year-old daughter so I can pass along my unnatural obsession with the Royal Family.

I miss him already...

When we bought our house almost four years ago, I was six months pregnant with our twin boys. We closed on the house in September and did a few months work to it before moving in at the beginning of December. The boys were born at the beginning of January. Before they were born, we had the whole interior of the house painted including cabinets and some trimwork. We had carpet replaced with hardwood floors. We changed light fixtures. We pulled carpet from kids' bathrooms and put down tile. Tons of progress. After the babies were born, we did just a bit more work to the house - the biggest effort was replacing all of the front landscaping. The previous design was a mish-mosh of poorly placed shrubs and not-thought-out plantings. Trees were removed. Beds were made larger and replanted. We didn't take out one bothersome tree at the time - and that finally happened today. I gave J the green light and he wasted no time. It was a pretty tree - but it totally blocked the front of the

I hear through the grapevine (Twitter) that this new blog just got a book deal. Dammit. I totally could have created this one, using only my twins as subjects. I give you: Shit My Kids Ruined

In honor of Valentine's Day (a holiday, I am convinced, was created to make mothers of elementary schoolers crazy), a few things I love: my baby's wild hair and strong chin the way my other baby winks my girl's enormous eyes my oldest son's labrador-thick hair and crazy big-boy-teeth my husband Coke the smell of hazelnut coffee chocolate Necco wafers roasted garlic hummus sushi history museums movies made from Jane Austen novels And bad reality TV Have a love-ly weekend.

For most of the summer of 1988, I was in the Netherlands, living with a Dutch family. It was some kind of exchange program - I can't even remember the organization that arranged the trip. It was the summer between my junior and senior years of high school. Fast forward 22 years, my sister announced that she has a job interview in the Netherlands later this month and asked, via Facebook, if anyone had any Dutch language CDs she could borrow. I didn't but I did have my trusty Berlitz Dutch for Travellers still packed in a box in the basement. So, I dug it out to send. Published in 1980, it was kind of old by the time I bought it in '88. But, I figured, it's not like the language has changed. So, big deal. And then I leafed through the book. Page 22 revealed the first major change. Marked "Arrival", it starts with the helpful phrase "Here is my passport" (or "Hier is mijn paspoort"). Things get a little dicey further down the page though. In t

My children have been at home, with me, in my presence, every day since December 18th (except this past Tuesday, which was the worst kind of tease). It is now January 8th. Everything - school, sports, lessons - canceled "due to extreme weather conditions". I'm going a teensy bit insane. Which may explain why I find this so funny. Call the Nestle Crunch Hot line at 1-800-295-0051. When you are asked if you want to continue in English or Spanish, just wait quietly for about 10 seconds and you will smile. Promise! Keep going and press 4. Listen to the options, then press 7 (then press 9 and go back to hear others). Seriously. Do it. And then tell me what you think!

For the last two years, on December 31st, I have written in a family journal about our year. Our ages, our visitors, our trips, the kids' teachers' names, their activities, our jobs, our cars, our favorite restaurants and the like. I'll do it again tonight. And everyone will sign their name to our little family history. So, I wasn't going to recap the year here - but then I saw all the other blogs doing it. And recapping the decade while they were at it. So, of course, I couldn't resist. 2009 was, well, interesting. I wouldn't call it great. Parts of it really sucked. But I think, when we look back at it in a year or two, we might identify it as the start of good times. I hope so at least. The year: * J's company shut the doors and he took about four months off of work. Which means he was home with us all day, every day for four months. And we're still married. Win! * He started with a brand spankin' new company at the end of July in a huge leap of f

You know, on Facebook, the relationship setting "It's Complicated"? I generally see people use it for comic effect. A few use it as an earnest description of their situation. I'm not sure exactly why, when you can choose to not list a relationship status entirely. Whatever. "It's Complicated" is an apt description of where I'm "from" though. I generally describe myself as "from" Kansas City. My father was born and raised here. My mother was born and raised just about an hour north of here. I lived in the Kansas City metro (or in Atchison, the aforementioned hometown of my mom) from infancy until nursery school, then again from first grade to second grade and then from ninth grade until now (with seven years of college and law school thrown in there somewhere). Most of my family is here in Kansas City. Even when my family lived elsewhere during my childhood, we visited Kansas City. My childhood summer memories are of the Kansas Cit

I was at Staples today. Shopping for report covers. And then I browsed the label aisle because I like labels. I spied this gem in the label display. (Sorry for the crappy pics - the camera on my phone sucks.) A closer look, in case you couldn't see the sample address on the packaging: Don't know who Tyler Durden is? Don't be ashamed. Apparently, the supervisors at Avery don't either. Tyler Durden is a character in Chuck Palahniuk's novel Fight Club. Not ringing a bell? Brad Pitt in the movie Fight Club . Wikipedia describes the character as "[a] charismatic but nihilistic neo-Luddite and anarcho-primitivist with a strong hatred for consumer culture." Just the right sample name for your mailing label packaging, right? Heh. I scoured the other label packages and didn't find any other pop culture references. Not a one. I love it.

Dude. Seriously? Maybe you've already seen this video. Apparently, these young girls performed at the halftime of an Army-Navy basketball game in February. Amazing. I smiled. I laughed. I gasped. I said "holy crap" out loud. I cried (I'll admit, I'm a total sap. But the sight of those cadets and midshipmen cheering like maniacs for little girls jumping rope? Verklempt over here.) And, I ultimately felt like an uncoordinated, out-of-shape mom of four whose pelvic floor muscles are too compromised after multiple pregnancies to even think about jumping rope for eight minutes without Depends (Did I just say that out loud? Moms of three and four kids, I know you know what I'm talking about though...) Enough about my bladder. Here they are:

I know I don't usually write here about non-family-related stuff but I just read an article that made my blood boil. I've been casually following the Roman Polanski arrest story in the news. For the uninitiated, Polanski had sex with a 13-year-old girl after plying her with champagne and drugs. He took topless pictures of her at Jack Nicholson's house before taking her first to a hot tub and then to Nicholson's bedroom. Why the child was there at Nicholson's home is rather inconsequential to the story but apologists surely point out that she was a young teen willing to drink, take pills and pose topless for a much-older man, that she was likely promiscuous, blah blah blah. Yes, she was clearly troubled or, at least, poorly parented. Polanski ended up pleading guilty to the crime of unlawful sexual intercourse - the elements of which are basically the same as what we call "statutory rape". Unlike a charge of forcible rape, statutory rape doesn't require

I dare you to NOT start tapping your toes while listening to this little gem.

You that pesky health care reform debate going on right now? The one I successfully managed to avoid reading about, hearing about or even thinking about. Until today. Yeah. That one. And today it got personal, bitches. Mama's pissed off. My husband changed jobs this summer. Our old health insurance was pretty good. Provided through mega-national-corporation. Our portion of the premium was reasonable. Coverage was good. The insurance available at the new place is, well, less than optimum. With pricey premiums. And we'll just leave it at that. So, I decided to investigate individual coverage plans. I applied for coverage for the family through our existing insurance company because I knew that we could still see all of our same doctors and because I figured they could see (via their history with us) that we don't cost them a whole lot of money - even though there are six of us. I spent about three hours completing their application which forced me to try to recall five years

If, on the other hand, you really like swearing, then by all means...

Hello there. You. Yes, you. The one who reached my blog by searching via Google. The one whose search term was "is having four children crazy?". Yes. Good luck with that.

Just saw this over at Stephanie's blog, Adventures in Babywearing . Made me laugh out loud. Thought I'd share.

People all over town are bitching about the cooler temps we've had so far this summer. "It's June, I'm tired of the rain, It should be hot, blah, blah, whine, whine, bitch, bitch, blergh." Talk to me in mid-July, jerks. It'll be so fucking hot on the baseball diamond bleachers that the sweat will be running down your back and into your butt crack like Niagara Falls. And then you'll be bitching about the heat and the electric bill and your hair and the humidity. So, bite me. I like this mild weather. It enables us to live outside and enjoy our yard without changing clothes three times a day due to sweat. The little boys love to eat out on the deck. A very nutritious lunch of hot dogs (with ketchup, yum!), pretzel sticks and apple sauce. A stalker in the trees below the deck: Oh hi! It's just Dad, pruning dead branches off the redbud. This is why I like a mild June after a very rainy spring. This is my backyard, people! It's heavenly. Except for the

I just realized that I started this blog two years ago this week! June 2, 2007. This blog started on a whim, to serve as a diary of the funny things my children do and say. I barely knew how blogs worked when I started. And now, two years later, I write (much of it, blogging) for a (part-time) living. Okay, "living" might be stretching it - let's leave it at supplemental income... I'm blessed to be able to do this from home with the flexibility to be with my kids. I'm blessed by a husband who thinks that my total web-geekiness is kinda cool. (Who knew HTML and CSS were sexy?) Thanks to those who read my thoughts here and elsewhere. I hope I've entertained you in some small way and I hope you'll stick around for another year. (As my toddlers start talking more and more, the material for this blog will be bountiful...stay tuned.)

...like Journey and Bonnie Tyler videos and this bottle opener . Genius. Available at Delight.com , $20.83 Seriously, this is brilliant! I wish my fridge didn't have custom wood panels on the front or I would buy this. I would buy one for my garage fridge or my basement fridge but I'm not sure how much use it would get in those places. Wow. I sound ridiculous, talking about my "custom wood panels" and my multiple fridges. I'm SOOOO fancy and important with all of my large appliances. What an asshole. Actually, the garage fridge came with our first house. Very bottom of the line. No ice-maker - but an excellent holder of extra milk, beer and frozen pizzas. The basement fridge was the fridge purchased for our second house because the first fridge didn't match any appliances and didn't have an ice-maker. And God knows, my husband couldn't function much longer without an ice-maker. (In fact, he's just the gadget-king of the midwest.) The "custom