The Worst Possible Scenario

... What do you think would be the worst possible scenario for new carpet. urine? marker? Ok, ok, fire. I grant you that would probably be the worst thing that could happen to new carpet ... well, we were lucky enough to be spared from fire but not from a 1 gallon bucket of paint! Ahhhh! "Mommy, I spilled paint in my playroom." "Paint?" I'm thinking to myself, that's not possible ... Jeff moved all the cans. Jeff and I hurriedly look in the playroom and low and behold, a giant mound of paint was dumping onto our new carpet. Ahhhh! Jeff: "Where I don't see it." ... oh Jeffrey ... Quick as a cricket (I enjoy that book, it's a good children book if anyone's interested) I turn the paint can over, dash to find the old towels, and start scooping up the mess. Jeff is getting hot water, and paper towels. ... And I had so many plans tonight .... finishing the playroom, organizing our bedroom ... I know I live an exciting life. So we missed the gallon while cleaning up from painting last night (how on earth did we miss that!) And poor Sethy, he's just kind'of stunned and muttering to himself "I made a big mess," "I spilled paint all over, didn't I?" -- Well hopefully he wont feel so bad in the morning, now that we have finally cleaned it up! That's right. I have a new, very high opinion of the wonderful cleaner "oxiclean" and will now rank it up there with Windex. After three hours of elbow grease, two trips to the grocery store, 9 rolls of paper towels, 3 loads of laundry, and two trash bags later we are done. Hopefully. There is this miracle substance that can remove paint from carpet ... but unfortunately for us all the hardware stores were closed, and Shopko? -- didn't even bother calling them. Wal*Mart? Jeff asks the sales clerk, "Do you have any Goof-off?" (It's the paint remover for carpet that was recommended on the internet and Jeff's dad) Sales Clerk: "No, but we have Goo-gone." -- Ah! Imbecile! We don't want to remove stickers! We are so grateful Seth is an honest child, and told us immediately when this occurred. It spared us from more cleaning than necessary. And even better, I'm grateful Seth is such a mature child and didn't put his hands and feet in the paint and start playing instead of immediately informing us. And, random, here's some cute pictures :) Boys at Aidan's birthday party: Sporting dinosaur feet, and doing the dinosaur "egg" toss. Daddy time always makes the boys happy:

Grrrr.... Strong man ... rrrrr

Yes, this is my husband. Ok, little background info for yah. Jeff grew up in a family of all boys, 4 to be exact, with a spacing of no greater than 21 months between them. Like 4 kids in 7 years or something to effect. That being said: VERY COMPETITIVE. It's only natural that they would create the very, very, very (very, very) elaborate Strong man competition to prove their worth! Their Masculinity! Their Superiority! (k, I'm being dramatic, but you get the idea) ---- side note: In reflection I feel very lucky that Jeff is the middle child and deflects all competitive tendencies due to his brothers ... anyways that's another story. The real story: STRONGMAN 2009! I really had no expectations, clue, thoughts ... how Jeff would due in this competition. WAIT -- before I go any further. Do you see the dog that joined the men in their initiatory group photo of the competition. So fitting. There was 10 of them at the competition (!!!) .. but that once again is another story... back to Jeff. Jeff didn't train (yes some of these men did train for months before this family and friends event) or really give thought to this competition except for his hair. Soo... I was slightly surprised when he ran the 1 mile run in 5 minutes 10 seconds getting second place. (Beaten by the skinny track guy in the front of the group photo) Here he is after the run, taking a breather before the next event -- the log toss. --- I can't help it, isn't Levi cute? Jeff puked after this event. He didn't have enough time to cool down from running. The next event was bench press (no pictures) then the dead lift shown here: Jeff got up to 275 on the dead lift. I guess moving all those boxes and furniture for the last three weeks helped in this event! Next event was pull-ups ... then the tree hug. Here's Seth showing the men how it's done: And here's Jeff, he held on for 3 minutes something and took 2nd, I was impressed. Although, he was once again beaten by the skinny track guy. I don't have pictures of the other competitors, but the ones that didn't put on pants and a long sleeve shirt were fairly bruised and cut. No pain no gain! Next event was the 40 yard dash and Jeff won that event ... and here is a picture of grandma with her oh-so-smug helpers steering the suburban for the car-push. The last competition was pretty hilarious, it was the obstacle course ... running, biking, paint balling through the trails in their back woods. ... the hilarity is the enormous Costco cupcake that they had to devour in the middle of these athletic feats. Everyone agreed it was the hardest part of the competition. The frosting was as tall as the cake! I really should have taken a picture of the beast. Well there you have it the biased annual report of strong man competition 2009. And the results: Jeff finished 4th of 10 -- and it was overall a lot of fun for the participant and for the peanut gallery. I believe there is a website ... with profiles of each competitor and records of times of the events if anyone is interested beyond this blog post (I told you they took this thing seriously!) Another note... Jeff did shave off his beard and mohawk after the competition. whew!

Let the good times roll

We are FINALLY out of our old house. It took forever. I have now lived in 7 different places in Pullman. Considering I moved to Pullman for school in the fall of 2002, I think that is impressive, or disgusting, whatever. As I drove out of the driveway today of that old house for the last time the radio was very fittingly playing "Let the good times roll."

Steve Austin is angry!

We went to my parents over the weekend and someone found an old inflatable punching balloon belonging to one of my brothers (the kind with sand at the bottom so it will snap back up after you knock it down). Its a Stone Cold Steve Austin bag so it bears his picture; someone bought it for my brother as a joke, my bro isn't a wrestling nut. Anyway, the boys loved it. They were constantly attacking it and falling all over it. Seth had several memorable quotes from this toy. Seth: "Steve Austin is an angry man who likes to eat people! I cover his mouth so he can't eat people." Me: "Why is Steve Austin angry?" Seth: "He is angry because he doesn't like being carried and I like carrying him." Also he at one point said: "Steve Austin is angry because his underwear are tight." Seth also impressed one of my neighbors this last weekend by asking if his pheasants were cold-blooded. Neighbor: "No...they are birds so they are warm-blooded." Seth: "And we are mammals and we are warm-blooded too!" It really shows that he is thinking these things out and making the proper connections. Now if only I can convince him that female lions don't have manes!

Famous brother?!

So my brother is getting married and being that he is a Ritter, it is newsworthy. http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/whidbey/wnt/news/46489992.html#storyComments Thats not all. After the Whidbey News Times ran this story King 5 news decided they wanted to do a piece on the young couple as well: http://www.king5.com/video/featured-index.html?nvid=366761 If that wasn't enough, last night my bro told me that he has since been contacted by Kiro 7 (another local news affiliate) and then even Good Morning America. I think they'll hold out for Oprah.