A day late...

And more than a dollar short. Yesterday two of my favorite boys turned a year older...

Preston is three, and as you can see, his birthday was very much orange (and Diego). Five things you may not know about Presto-Chango:

5. Preston once said that he didn't like Uncle Josh. Why? "He's bad." What did he do? "He hit me." When? "After school." The kid is full of it on all fronts. He loves his birthdaymate Uncle Josh.

4. Even though at three years old he is a very big boy, Preston cannot go to bed without at least two pluggies and a sippy cup of warm milk.

3. Preston is only willing to eat the following: hotdogs, tater tots, and apples. It is not unusual to find, in random spots such as the refrigerator or on a chair, an abandoned apple with a few tiny bites taken out of it.

2. Preston is very smart. It is rumored that he has memorized the entire Gettysburg Address.

1. Preston's favorite response to any question is, "Sure!"

It was also Josh's 32nd birthday. Here's 10 things you may not know about Josh:

10. Josh is ambivalent about the color orange.

9. Josh has recently learned that he has a gluten intolerance. Last night he got a gluten-free cake made from wonderful things like sweet rice flour, tapioca flour, and xanthan gum.

8. Josh also has an intolerance to caffiene. He can't even drink decaf coffee. He has to buy this very expensive "coffee" made from chicory root, carob, and other fine wholesome ingredients.

7. Josh has an assortment of Star Wars action figures lined up on a bookshelf in our office. Also in our office? A life-sized Luke Skywalker cardboard cutout.

6. Josh does a dead-on impersonation of Milton Waddams.

5. Several years ago, Josh wrote and had a role in a locally-produced feature-length film. During filming, the set was swarmed by the GRPS SWAT team and he was commanded to lay on the ground with his hands over his head. No kidding.

4. Much like Preston, Josh likes to rock out.

3. Josh is surprised by how much he likes his Torts class. I may end up being the wife of an ambulance chaser.

2. Josh has been to China three times and obtained a very realistic fake Rolex Submariner during his last excursion.

1. Josh loves The West Wing. He owns all seven seasons and falls asleep watching it every night. The show even inspired him to make up his own dance, which he calls "Disc Two." Someday when I'm stealthy enough I'll film him doing it and post it on here for y'all.

Tomorrow's post? You guessed it...another birthday.

Little Lainey Lou, she's not quite two...

...but today, she's one!



Five little-known facts about our niece and goddaughter, Lainey:

5. She has quite the extensive vocabulary. Two of her favorite words are "baby" and "kitty."

4. Lainey doesn't much care for fruit. She would much rather eat a jar of squash.

3. Lainey loves kitties, especially the family cat, Nedwin. Ned is a good sport and lets Lainey poke, prod, and pull on him mercilessly.

2. Lainey LOVES Shrek and can watch the entire movie with rapt attention in a single sitting.

1. Lainey absolutely hates it when you wear a hat or other head accessory. She will start crying the minute she sees you and will shun you for hours after you've removed the offending item.

Next on the birthday docket we have Preston and Uncle Josh...both on Monday.



















Hopefully Josh is okay with having an orange birthday. (Or a Diego birthday...whatever.)


And as for the shiner on Preston's right eye...we're not sure what happened. His story was rather inconsistent. From what we can tell, it involved the kid next door, Connor, and either a car, a golf club, or a baseball bat. Yowch. Preston had a bad week in the face department, given that on Sunday morning he put a YoGo up his nose at big brother Evan's request. Moral of the story? Don't do what Evan tells you to.

Confirmation...

Photos of the evidence...purple wall, indeed.

Oh Preston.
Preston Elijah.
How silly you are.

As a little background - my nephew Preston has only been to my house once and probably doesn't remember it. Sometimes he asks me about where Uncle Josh and I live, and I tell him it's far away.

Fast forward to tonight - my mother in law (bless her) calls me as I am having dinner with my mom in Portland, MI (undeniably far away from my usual locale) and tells me that Preston wants to talk to me. Apparently while babysitting him tonight, they'd been sitting out on the front porch and he'd started listing off all the people he loves. Then he got to me "I love Aunt Laura" and decided he needed to give me a ring. Smart kid.

So he gets on the phone and is very, very insistent that I come over tonight to watch Shrek with him.

So I explain, "Oh honey, I'm sorry, I can't...I'm really far away right now and I can't come there tonight." To which he replies, "Well, when you're done at your house come over here and watch Shrek."

(This connection did not dawn on me until just a few minutes ago, mind you.)

Then I again explain that I am very, very far away and I by the time I got there, he would be in bed. He says (very earnestly), "No, I'm not going to bed yet." I hear some talking in the background, and he says, very matter-of-fact, "Grandma says I'm going to bed soon."

So apparently then I was told that I am going to come over tomorrow night to watch Shrek.

Preston will turn three later this month.
And his birthday is going to be orange. (Or so he keeps telling us.)

PS - What's the place where Shrek lives? Far Far Away? HMMMMMM...

Movin' on up....

...but not sure where yet. Josh and I have a realtor, we have a good faith estimate, and every reason to believe we'll get approved for a mortgage, for which we'll apply soon. We've been scouting out houses on GRAR. We're kinda excited. We're also prepared to possibly not find anything we want in our price range and make our apartment work for awhile longer. It hasn't been that momentous of a step yet, but it feels a lot better to have a couple of professionals in our court, understand the process a little better, and have a much better idea of what we can actually afford, y'know? We'll probably wind up with something relatively small and meager, but it will be OURS - we'll be able to get a dog. We'll be able to paint the walls purple if we want (because I certainly don't know anyone else with a purple wall in their house). We'll get a tax deduction...even if it isn't this kind just yet.

Speaking of that kind, congrats to my good friends Liz and Jeff. Liz was a good friend in college who helped get me through some...uhhh...interesting Russian Culture classes (we learned a LOT about this guy) and shared my profound affinity for fine cinema. Today they welcomed two new little he-Wierengas - Gibson Donald and Henry Daniel. Here are the official publicity photos:


Aren't they lovely? Laura might have to make a stop out in Clarksville before long to say hello. Additionally, Mama and Papa are about to celebrate their 4th anniversary on July 4 - that was one schweet wedding. We all got little pies as favors. Great theme, guys.

That's all for now...you'll know more as we know more!