and he can sing, too!

One of my former roommates introduced me to the music of Sarah Brightman, and on the one album of her's that I bought she sings a couple duets with the male singer Andrea Bocelli. I remember this roommate and a fellow vocal-performing friend of hers discussing Andrea Bocelli, and they were just raving and gushing over him, and how amazing it is that he is such a good singer, blah blah blah, because he's BLIND. I didn't think of it too much at the time, but after David & I were married and were listening to this CD in the car (it's "nighttime" music for the kids) I thought of it again and realized how inane it was. He's blind, but he can still sing!! Amazing. Oh wait, being blind wouldn't really make it all that hard to sing now, would it. As long as you have a good memory, it seems like you could do just fine. I think I'm a bit more impressed by blind players of instruments, or deaf singers. A deaf singer would be truly amazing, but I think that's about impossible. Well, not for them to sing, but for them to be good at it. Which reminds me of poor Beethoven in his last years, trying so hard to hear the music he was composing that he cut the legs off of a piano to better feel the vibrations. I love Beethoven's music. When I was in Vienna I got to visit his former home, and also his grave. He was a neat man.

D-O-G

We were at my niece's birthday party today, and I think Noodle would have been perfectly content to spend half the time decorating cupcakes and the other half petting their basset hound, Diogi (dee-oh-gee). She did spend most of her time on those two activities, anyways, but did take breaks to watch the gift-opening and break the pinata. Diogi is a BIG boy basset hound, and as bassets are just a dwarf breed of dog, he has rather large "boy parts," too. I don't understand people who don't neuter/spay their dogs, especially neutering males. It generally makes them much more calm. That, and we certainly don't need any more randomly bred puppies in the world. I think my brother hasn't had him neutered on the chance that they might stud him out & recoup some of their "losses" in buying him. Lame.

But, on a bizarre related note, did you know that you can get prosthetic testicles for your dog? They're called neuticles.
http://www.neuticles.com/ Because you certainly don't want your dog to feel insecure about his masculinity.

Today I ordered

I've had my current Chaco Z2 sandals for four years, and while they show some wear, they are still going strong. I'm excited for the Zongs, even though I thought they were called Chongs and I think I prefer the name Chongs. All the convenience of slip-on, with the comfort and stay-on-your-feet factor of sandals.

boy with ball

Movie Review Monday

Noodle and I had a mommy-daughter date to go watch "Cars" on Saturday. I really enjoyed it, and she did, too, though I think it got a bit long for her attention span at the end. There were a lot of very laughable moments and scenes, and that alone is enough for me to recommend it. Also, we sat next to a couple who were very hearty laughers, which made it seem even funnier. I give it two thumbs up.

Photographing your own kids...

...is tougher, sometimes, than taking them to JCPenney's or Sears because they really don't see the need to pay attention to you. You aren't interesting or novel or even scary, so why look at you? I tried to take Noodle's "official" 4 year old pix today and it was a challenge. I did get this pic, though, which I do like as it captures her "essence," especially the crazy happy part, so well.



This is just a picture of Spud when the kids were playing in their under-the-stairs clubhouse earlier this week. I think he's saying, "Welcome to my kitchen!"

Sharks

Yesterday David's mom (aka Nana) and I took the kids to the Dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point. We also went to Farm Country where they got to ride the ponies, feed chickens and goats, watch baby ducklings hatch, and listen to a deranged biting donkey bray. Good times, I tell ya.


But one of the funniest things to me was when I tried to convince the kids to stand with Nana by the railing in front of this shark. They would have nothing to do with it. Nothing. In fact, they kept backing away and getting closer to the wall. I can't say that I blame them. I personally believe that sharks are in league with the devil, way more than snakes are. Sharks just have soulless eyes. Plus, how can you get all those rows of teeth except by selling your soul to satan? Huh?

Milo & Otis

I love this movie. I'm watching it right now with a non-sleeping Noodle. I've not seen it for years, but I'm a sucker for live action movies starring animals.

(But I do wish Noodle would go to sleep....darn those late afternoon car naps!)

Belated Carnival Pix

The kids, especially Noodle, had so much fun! David and I had a good time, too, and went on a couple rides as well. We were there with his folks (Nana & Pop-pop to the kids) and two of his sisters. Afterwards we all walked a few blocks and had Mexican food for lunch. YUM!



I love this pic of Spud with his Pop-pop.

RATS!

We acquired three new rats last week. Two of the boys are about 9-10 weeks old, so past the little baby stage, but the other one was a late born (surprise) rat, and he's just barely 6 weeks. My friend D. from California (we knew him in grad school) brought them out. These three boys were born to his rat named Mindy (named in my honor).

The small hooded one is named Quito. The boy with the white blaze is Orion. The solid colored one is Tully. Aren't they cute?

is this really appropriate for children?

Noodle's friend had her birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese's this afternoon. Spud & I were invited, too, and we went and had a good time on the rides and playing games (I'm great at the basketball shoot, in case you were wondering). But I must admit that watching the animatronic show is always a bit freaky for me, and has been since I was a child. Spud was completely bewitched watching the characters, especially Mr. Cheese himself. Freakier still was the fact that one of Chuck's eyelids wouldn't open all the way, so he looked like some leery mouse man who would hang out under a street light late at night in the scary part of town.

Clothes that fit

Are a very very good thing. I'm not referring to myself, or anyone else I know, though it holds true for all of us. We went to the Art City Days carnival in Springville today with David's parents, two sisters, and the kids. We rode rides, ate cotton candy, and generally had ourselves some good, lowbrow fun. But there are a couple of drawbacks that I always seem to forget about until I go to a carnival and am reminded. The first is just how many people smoke, and how stinky it is. Blech. The second is that there is a whole subculture of people who either don't care the tiniest bit what they look like, or they do care and just have some mutation in the gene that controls the ability to put together clothing combinations.

Case in point: The worst offender we saw today was a mother of two children, the youngest one only a couple months old. Now, being a mother myself I'm not about to judge any woman for not having abs of steel after having her abdominal muscles stretched beyond recognition for the better part of a year, but I do think you owe it to yourself to keep abs of unsteel tucked away nicely behind at least one layer of clothing. This woman felt differently. Her shirt was about 4 inches too short, and wasn't even styled to be a cropped shirt of any kind, and her capris were too tight, and too far down. This left what can only be called a dunlop around her midsection with no where to go. So, it just flopped around. And got sunburned. I can only imagine how tender the dunlop must be now, after its day in the sun. But I do hope it will serve as a reminder that some parts are really best kept covered, for everyone's sakes.

My 4 year old

It's weird, because in some ways it feels like Noodle has been a part of my life for so much longer than 4 years, but on the other hand, can I possibly have a 4 year old daughter? I wonder if being a parent always has this feeling of time bending and tweaking to it. They seem to grow and change so much, but I feel pretty much the same as I have. Though I guess once you enter full-on adulthood (defined in this case as married with children) the lessons you learn and the growth you experience are small compared to the growth of a child.

Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid

We watched this old movie (1969) starring Paul Newman & Robert Redford tonight. I think it’s a timeless classic, and a fun one to watch. The other day we watched the 1967 one with Redford, “Barefoot in the Park”. That is a great one, too.

I have this book of "Thumbs Up Movies" the Orem Library put out a couple of years ago that lists all the Best Picture winners and nominees. I think it'd be fun to make an effort to watch a lot of them, as I enjoy old movies anyways, so I might as well be watching the presumedly best of them. If only there were a similar ranking of foreign movies. I LOVE good foreign flicks. Maybe I'll have to start a weekly recommendation of them here, for any other foreign flick fans who might perchance happen upon this blog. (What are the chances?)

But for now, go get Butch Cassidy & the SK, and be weirded out as I always am about how similar young Robert Redford and Brad Pitt are. Yup. Never fails to weird me out. Pitt looks like a younger, slightly taller clone. Bizarr-O!

Clap if you believe in Fairies

Noodle turned 4 on Friday, and I threw her a Fairy Party. We had nine guests for a total of TEN little fairies. It was a lot of fun. Activities included: rescue a forest (plastic) animal to earn your wings, pin the horn on the Unicorn to earn your tiny jar of fairy dust, find the Tooth Fairy's lost coins to earn your wand, pink cupcakes & KoolAid, find the fairy house to get your fairy name, Fairy Ring Dance, opened gifts, then ended with a Unicorn Pinata. Everyone had a really fun time. I think the only thing lacking was unstructured time for the kids just to play together, but that would have been difficult as we were away from home and also running late from the start. But for future birthday parties I think some unstructured time might be good.