Pittsburgh's Goin' to the Superbowl!

Most Pittsburgh Steeler fans know that you are BORN a Steelers fan.  I was born a Steelers fan and I am raising my children to be Steelers fans.  My affinity for the Steelers comes from my Papa.  He's one of the lucky ones at the Superbowl today!

Thanks, Papa, for creating this legacy for us.  Forever in my heart, the Pittsburgh Steelers will be synonymous with Papa.  We love you!

Erik and Walker at their first Steelers game in 2004.

Walker gets his first Steelers Jersey in 2005.

 I said the day of the playoff game that if the Steelers won, we'd have a Superbowl birthday party for Walker.  They won, we had the party and the Steelers won the Superbowl.

Maggie May in her first Steelers cheerleader uniform.

Our dear friends, Steph and Jeff.  They were moving to Illinois in a few weeks and as a goodbye gift, Steph and I were in cahoots and I managed to score tickets to the game from my Papa.  One of the reasons we got tickets was because the game an 8:00 start on a weeknight AND the temperature was forecasted to be in the teens.  It was freezing cold and it was AWESOME!

Erik and I at that freezing Steelers game!

The first four Steeler grandchildren - me and my sisters.  (Sorry, I couldn't get it flipped).

Walker, Maggie & Will cheering on the Steelers in 2008.

Papa and his great niece in Tampa, where they live, on a little visit prior to him going to the Superbowl.

 Papa, my Uncle Mike (right) and Ron and his daughter and son in Tampa.  Ron is the son of my Grammie (Papa's wife) brother, and they had a nice little visit before Mike & Papa got to go to the Superbowl.

Our little hometown newspaper even did a story on him:

7th Steelers Superbowl

So did a local television station:

Steelers Super Fan

We held our second Superbowl Party to cheer on the Steelers and Woo-hoo, we won the one for the thumb!

Will wasn't too excited about the noise : )

Some of the kids in attendance.

 Erik and I got to go to the season opener last year - what an amazing experience.  The entrance:

 The Jumbotron showing live feed of the Tim McGraw and Black Eyed Peas concert going on at Point State Park.

Heinz Field from the Clipper shuttle on the river.

 Just over a year ago, we did a Steelers portrait of all the grandkids in their Steelers gear.
Livy Lu getting her picture taken.

Papa with all grandkids and great grandkids.  In all, Papa can lay claim being the cause of 4 children, 12 grandchildren and 6 (and one on the way) great-grandchildren becoming fans of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

We're hosting our third Steelers Superbowl Party in just a few minutes hoping that, like the playoff beard, hosting a party once again will lead to another Steelers SUPERBOWL VICTORY!


Willie predicts several TOUCHDOWNS!

Walker shows the fierceness of the defense!

Maggie cheers, V-I-C-T-O-R-Y That's the Steelers Battle CRY!

And Whitaker is taking a nap in preparation for the long game.

Here we go, Steelers, Here we go!  PITTSBURGH'S GONNA WIN THE SUPERBOWL!

Aching

We learned today that a neighbor and friend had passed away after a valiant fight with cancer.  

We had the privilege of getting to know his family when we were going to the same church.  Erik and I had the privilege of really getting to know his youngest son through the youth group.

My heart just aches for his family - I know they were expecting his passing, but I know the hurt is not lessened by the knowing.

My heart aches for his wife - a lovely woman who is just so caring and kind.  His oldest son, with Downs Syndrome, who vacuums houses for ladies from the church.  His daughter who will have to finish this semester of college grieving her father.  And his youngest son, a senior in high school, who is such a wonderful young man that I hope my boys grow up to be half as wonderful as him, and who now has to finish this most special year of high school without his dad.  I know that it provides some comfort to his family that he was a faithful believer and has no doubt been welcomed to Heaven.  As someone who has lost a loved one, however, I know it provides comfort knowing that He is in a better place, but that fact will not lessen the despair they feel with him gone from their everyday human lives.  I struggle with what exactly to pray for his family.  So I turned to scripture and found:

"The Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express."

Romans 8:26

So I am relying on the Holy Spirit tonight, to intercede for me, to offer the prayers that are needed, to touch the souls of those in despair, to provide whatever comfort is needed.

I admired the parenting skills of this couple for years.  Going to the same church, we got to watch their interaction with their children, much older than our own, and we'd often talk about how we hoped we would be able to handle the dramas, traumas, joys and sorrows of parenting with as much confidence, love and FAITH as they did.

In my former career, I dealt a lot with troubled youth, and I always said to myself that when I encountered parents doing a great job, I would tell them what a great job they were doing because the kids were a reflection of that.  It was only natural then, that one day I got to talking to our friend and told him he and his wife should write a parenting book because I just adored their kids and it was my sincerest hope that my children would grow up to be such kind and responsible teens.  I asked him what advice he had for us and his reply was "you just got to stay on them, Jen.  Be strict with them about the important stuff and maybe they won't like it, but it will let them know they are loved.  When you're hard on them when they are young, they know better than to try anything when they're older and you can have a great relationship."  I think about that a lot as I'm parenting when I wonder if I'm being too hard on my kids.  But then I remember his advice, I see how his kids are turning into productive, interesting young adults, and I heed his advice.  I picture his family, as they interacted in church and how they so obviously love each other and I know that love will sustain them as they grieve.

"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.  Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day - and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing."

2 Timothy 4:7-8

Love one another.

It's One Of Those Days

Today is another snow day here in Western PA.  We didn't actually have any snow, just lots and lots of ice.  Of course, this meant that everyone was awake by 7 AM.  Erik left at 4 AM, which meant I slept fitfully for the three hours between his leaving and the kids waking.  I never sleep well when he leaves because I worry about him out there on the treacherous roads with crazy people who don't want to believe the roads are treacherous.

To top that off, I'm not so much a morning person, so when we have the opportunity to sleep in, I sneak into bedrooms, close the curtains even tighter and turn off night lights to preserve the sanctity of the dark.  Unfortunately, about 7, Maggie came into my room.  Which was okay because I can usually turn on PBS Kids and she will lie in bed with me until hunger distracts her closer to 8:00.  About 7:15, I hear the opening and slamming of dresser drawers.  I knew then Williebeast was awake.  He wants to get dressed right away in the morning and his three year old brain cannot be troubled to remember the order of his drawers.  His dresser from top drawer to bottom goes:

Top Drawer:  Underwear and socks
Second Drawer:  Pajamas
Third Drawer: Play Shirts
Fourth Drawer: Play Pants
He doesn't even have to factor in his "good" clothes because they are all hung in the closet.  He has to open drawers one, three and four, in that order, and he can be dressed.  Unfortunately, his brian works like this.

Time to get dressed.
I need pants.
Open top drawer.  Pants are not in there.  Slam drawer shut.
Open second drawer.  Pants not in there.  Slam drawer shut. 
Open third drawer.  Pants are not in there.  Slam drawer shut.
Open fourth drawer.  Pants are there.  Grab first pair of pants.
Oh!  Before I put on my pants I need underwear.  
Repeat drawer opening and closing in reverse until all items of clothing have been located.

Which leads to about 16 counts of drawer slamming.  Which leads to the awakening of Walker, who upon being told "you have a snow day!  Go back to sleep and enjoy it!" decides he cannot sleep one minute longer and has to wake up.

Insert three separate trips to the bathroom with three separate flushings and you have now woken up the baby.

Did I mention that mornings are not my favorite?

When you are up at 7 with three active kids who have torn the house apart from one end to the other by 9:15, spilled three bowls of cereal, fed the baby fruit loops, shot you three times in the face "axidwentawy" with a nerf dart gun, and then demand to go outside, it became the kind of day where you need some stupid laughs.

So, I found a link to this website a while back and it has brought me great joy.  I've posted a link to it several times on facebook, but thought today I'd share it with my faithful followers.

If you're familiar with The Far Side comics/books/calendars, you will "get" this site.

Here's a review that gives a pretty good description of what the site is about:

Uncle Orson Reviews Everything

September 19, 2010

Every Day Is Special

Catalog Living, Wife of the Gods

Some things are so common we don't notice how absurd they are. For instance, catalogs display pictures that are meant to be "homey." But whose home is it, anyway?
Who actually lives this way?
Nobody, of course. But what if they did? What would their lives and relationships be like? Actor/writer/comedian Molly Erdman provides us with her answer at a website called Catalog Living(http://catalogliving.net/page/1).
The pictures are all gorgeous -- the way catalog pictures tend to be. Serious money was spent on making these photos lush and deep and full-colored. But what are they shooting?
The entry for 21 September shows two throw pillows shaped and painted like curled-up kittycats. Erdman's caption? "Well, Elaine, if they're just pillows then why do we have a litter box? And, more importantly, who is using it?"
With most of them, however, you have to be looking at the picture as you read the caption. Otherwise it makes no sense. So all I can suggest is that you go to the site and see for yourself! It will change forever the way you look at catalogs forever.


Some of my favorites:

You're Fired

space-is-at-a-premium

There are lots more that are just as fun.

Also, my sister got me hooked on this site too: 

When Parents Text

Some recent favorites:

Church Guilt

New Topic

Pasta recipes

7th Momiversary

Today is my 7th Momiversary.

This fellow is 7.

That's ridiculous!

Just yesterday this is what he looked like!

Now he's seven and he wants to have his birthday dinner at Texas Roadhouse.

So he can get lots of cute college girls to sing him a happy birthday song after they give him a super-cool plastic cowboy hat.

Next thing you know, this hoodlum is going to be seven.

And so will this one:

Not this girl, though.  She promises she won't grow up and leave me.  Except maybe she will because she wants to grow up and be a Mommy.

Her dad has strictly forbidden this dream though.

Back to the seven year old . . .

Friday night, he had his first "official" sleep over.  Waker invited a friend over and they watched movies and played and had a blast.  Saturday,we had a sled riding/birthday party.  We invited almost everyone we knew to come over and sled ride at our house and have lunch with us.  It was awesome!

 Friends prepping to head down the hill.

My nephew hits the "slopes."

 
A group shot - look at that line up!

Whit gets in on the action.

Walker and his classmate - the one person he DEFINITELY wanted at his party.

Daddy sneaked Whitaker some cake.

Hmmm - who instructed these kids to pose so prettily?

Maggie enjoys the moment too!

Walker helped design his cake - we were hoping to put farm animals on sleds and skis on the cake, but the local cake decorating store only had ski figures available.  I don't know why one figure was GIANT in comparison to the other skiers, and I'm not sure what the deal is with the "ski lodge" with the paddle wheel, but Walker liked it so it made the cake.  

After all, aren't birthdays for doing just what the birthday boy wants?

Brace Face & the Sibs

Walker got his expander and four braces put on today.  He needed the braces to pull some teeth together because he had two baby molars pulled (there are no adult teeth to replace them -which is a good thing given his extremely small mouth) and to straighten out the front teeth.  We have to turn the expander every other day for 20 times. 

He tells me he LOVES them.  

We'll see how he feels when he's not allowed to have gum, gummy bears, gummy worms, fruit snacks, lollipops, popcorn, etc!

He just ate a granola bar as an after school snack.  When he was finished, he wanted some wax on his braces and I told him to go brush his teeth.  He says, "Mom -mmmmmma!  The girl said I only need to brush after lu-unch!

He's tickled with the fact that he got to pick out the colors for his expander.  

As for the sibs, this one wants to be a dancer so very badly.  And she tries to pose like one all of the time.  Unfortunately, it doesn't come off as graceful as she imagines.

This one - well, he's on his way to being disowned.  He says he "wikes" the stuff in the red can.  Yuck!

Get out of town, kid.  This here's a Pepsi drinking household.  And as long as you're living under my roof, you'll be drinking what I say you will drink.  

PEPSI

This kid, well, he's a Tigga.   I like to pronounce Tigger like my niece, Liv does.  Those of you who know Liv, know she has some speech issues (which she will undoubtedly grow out of, ufortunately).  One of them, besides pronouncing the word, "Grandfather" as "DAM FODDER" (and yes, I do frequently ask her to pronounce that word) is that she sounds like she's from "New Yahk."

One day, we were watching a Pooh movie and she told me about "Tigga.  Aunt Den, him's a Tiga."  So now I always ask her about that cat in the Pooh movie that bounces.  

Hence, how I got to the fact that this boy is a "Tigga."

Bouncy Whit

Where's the Hair?

People often assume this little fella is bald.  

It would be a good assumption since he's so fair skinned and has big blue eyes. (No, we do not know where this came from other than we both have blue eyed grandparents).

However, this guy has plenty of hair.  It's just lighter than my other kids' hair so people just assume he's bald.  (and not my kid)

But he's not bald.  As evidenced by these photos from this morning.

Did you ever see a bald kid with such messy hair??

Let's not even get into the fact that this bugger is 8 months old now too.  And I caught him getting up on all fours today trying to crawl.  I nipped that in the bud.  Scooped him up, set him on his bum and told him to "SIT STILL!"  

If he thinks he's going to crawl or walk or talk, he's sorely mistaken.  He is THE baby and he will do as I tell him.  

PA Farm Show 2011

If you ever have the chance, I highly recommend taking the opportunity to visit the PA State Farm Show in Harrisburg.  There is so much to do, so much to learn.

Various High School FFA participants put together amazing exhibits highlighting advancements in agriculture.  From Organic Chicken Farming - this display showcased the cleanliness of the cage free facilities to demonstrate that corporate farming can be clean and conscientious.

 

Whitaker even enjoyed learning about all the technological advancements in farming!

 The children had the opportunity to try to "milk" a cow.  But we got there too early in the morning - the "milking" station hadn't been set up yet.

You can see neat farm toys.  This was like a pedal tractor/go cart hybrid.  With a seat behind the driver.  Very cool - but way too expensive for our farm.

Willie demonstrates how big a tractor tire is.

Not to be outdone, Walker climbs inside too!

 The kids can participate in the Farm Detective program where they visit various stations around the farm show and learn about each subject.  From apples to wood, the kids are exposed to all aspects of farming.

A kid area sponsored by the Beef Council.

Did you know . . .

 They even had exhibits to encourage an active lifestyle.  This was an exercise event where the kids danced and did some exercises.  At the end, they got to select a low fat chocolate milk for a treat.

The farm show also has beautiful displays.

And a large play area in the family living section.  Here the kids get to dress scarecrows and play in "corn" boxes.

For some reason, my kids loved dressing these scarecrows.  I suggested to Erik that I'm going to put scarecrow heads on all our clothes hangars and give the kids their laundry baskets and tell them to go dress the scarecrows!

It really a wonderful event and as a Pennsylvanian, you really should go see the amazing things Pennsylvania Farmers are doing for us.

The "Hoopty Cough"

We've got the Post-Farm Show Hoopty Cough at our house.

For those of you that don't know, the Hoopty Cough is that deep, chest rattling, bone jarring, head pounding, voice hoarsing seal-like bark that affects many people this time of year.  

I made the colossal mistake of saying to Erik, "You know, here it is mid-January and no one has been sick!"

The next day I noticed a weight depositing on my chest.  It got heavier and heavier throughout  Monday but I kept fighting it off because I had a Kindergarten meet and greet to attend with Maggie, and a double date with new friends Monday night.  It got so bad I even dragged our new friends to Target Pharmacy for some Mucinex DM!

Despite my best efforts to avoid it,  I woke up Tuesday morning still fighting, but by mid afternoon, I had developed the full-fledged syndrome along with a fever, chills, body aches - well, you probably know what it is like.    

No one else seemed to have any symptoms, so I thought I had avoided spreading it but late yesterday afternoon, right about the time I was feeling better, the rest of the house started showing symptoms.  

This little guy is sick, but you'd never know it.  The poor fella even vomited all over me last night then looked up at me with that big four tooth grin!  

This gal told me she was worried because her voice sounded different.  And it did.  It sounds a lot like mine - like there's something stuck in her throat.  I told her that we had frogs struck in our throat.  Now she wants to know how frogs got into our throats.

 This boy may or may not be sick.  He won't sit still, so I can't tell if his too-warm-to-the-touch face and body is from that or from an actual fever.  He keeps telling me that various parts of his body hurt so I will give him cough drops.  The boys knees hurt "reawry bad, Momma.  Serioiuswy!"

I feel the worst for this boy.  When he is sick, it shows.  He gets pasty white, he gets dark circle under his eyes, and he truly just lays around.  Usually when given the opportunity to watch TV, I often find him wiggling and jiggling and playing with other things while he watches.  Today, I hooked up the TV in his room for him so he could stay in his bed, and he was still.  Poor guy.  

Everyone has been appropriately dosed with acetaminophen and is resting quietly watching the TV shows they aren't usually able to watch during the day. 

I'll be catching up on everything I didn't feel well enough to get to the last few days.

And spraying the house down with Lysol.