"Smell my butt!"

A direct quote from my lovely daughter this afternoon... yet another thing to fall under "Kids say (and do) the darndest things".  That's been the theme lately in our house.  As Murphy's law would have it, just in time for me to have sent my camera off for repair.

I'm wondering if it's been since she started school, but recently Rachel has stopped making these messy scribbly pictures of essentially nothing, immediately to actually drawing full figured things (people, cars, houses, etc).  Today she decided to draw a butterfly, but she wanted to draw one like in one of our board books:


















Here is her version of it:
























She started out really really close, but then added a bunch of bobbles and extras so it is a little hard to recognize as the original picture from the book.  That actually makes me happy though, because she made it her own and added her own touch to it.

Rachel's also getting really good at recognizing her letters and now putting together sounds and how they make words.  In fact, she's trying to use letters like we do, like when Archie and I try to get something past her, we will spell it out to keep it from her.  So the other day she said to me, "Mommy, remember the p - i - t - o ?"  I said, "no, why don't you remind me", then she said something about going to the store.  Then another time she said it again, something about the "p - i - t - o".   Too funny.




While Archer has been saying and doing quite a bit lately as well.

  • He can count to at least 10 (not that he has any concept of what the numbers mean),
  • If you say "ready" to him, he quickly says "set, go".   
  • He started saying "thank you" if you give him something. 
  • He says "Hi" all the time.  Especially if you catch him doing something he shouldn't be (like emptying all of the tupperware from the cupboard), he gives you his most winning smile and says "hi".  Adorable but is going to be infuriating as he gets older... 
  • If something is particularly "cool" to him, he opens his mouth and a quick intake of air. (Dogs barking, birds singing, any surprise really).   Except, when most other people do the same thing it's kind of a smooth sound, but his intake sounds more like part of a hiccup. Sometimes he adds a "wow" in there too. This is adorable and I need to get it on camera if at all possible.  I'm sure he'll stop doing it by the time I get it back.
  • It's becoming obvious that he adores his big sister.  Anytime she is at school or napping while he's awake, or just NOT wherever he is, he will call "Ray Ray" up the stairs, as though she is just waiting for him to call her down.  
  • Whenever anyone comes downstairs, he says "morning!" no matter what time of day it is, regardless if you've been sleeping or not.  
  • When you go upstairs with him, he always heads right into the bathroom and says "TEETH!".  He loves brushing his teeth, so obviously we're hoping that trend continues throughout his childhood.  
  • We're finally getting to a point with him lately where he no longer needs to be nursed to sleep at night, and even more during the day for naptime.  At night he adorably just lays his little head down and fusses for about 5 seconds before giving in to the inevitable.  He snuggles one of his little animals and just lays flat on his back.  So cute.  

Here are a couple of cute videos of Archer:



We can rock better now that those seats are filled.

(this is pretty long and drawn out, so consider yourself warned)

A few months back, while I was in internet-free Missouri for three weeks, unbeknownst (I've said that word many times, but looking at it written out looks REALLY wrong) to me, Barenaked Ladies announced and put tickets up for sale for a concert in Primm, NV, a small settlement south of Las Vegas on the CA border.  When I arrived home and found out I had missed the sale date, I was really ticked off that I would, yet AGAIN, have seats far back or in the nosebleeds (which is where my seats at every one of their concerts I've been to, OUTSIDE their cruises, have been), so I just sucked it up and bought the best seats available.  They were off the floor in the section closest to the stage (Steve/Kevin side), two rows up, so still not too bad, but not right up front (one tends to get spoiled after being on a cruise with their favorite band).

Fast forward to Friday night, Archie and I head down to Primm, which took just about an hour from our house in NW Las Vegas.  We went to the will-call window for our tickets and ran into some familiar faces from the cruises, two nice German guys Mike and Sasha.  We got to our seats and were pleasantly surprised to find that Mike and Sasha were our neighbors for the concert.  We made niceties with them and proceeded to check out the crowds, for people watching and to look for our other BNL friends.


Our view of the stage-->


After the opening band, Thin Lizzy's song "The boys are back in town" announced Barenaked Ladies' taking the stage, who immediately went into their first song "Who needs sleep" with no opening remarks.  They played a number of songs (including one or two off their new unreleased album), a bit of banter here and there, all the while, I was catching bits of video (incognito, as the video nazis were in full effect).  The crowd was starting to slowly get into the music, but I suspected that a good number of the concertgoers were not necessarily big fans of BNL, but just happened to get tickets for the event.  Somewhere around the 3rd or 4th song, we (along with our German friends) decided to stand up and dance even though the folks in front of us (in the front row of our section), were not, nor were many people around us.  We had the attitude as is typical for a fan of BNL, if you're not up and dancing, there must be something wrong with you!

Just about midway through the concert, the band's lead singer, Ed Robertson, came down off the stage saying something about correcting an injustice with the microphone in his hand so I turned the video on to record whatever he was going to do. This next part will be like a transcript of what happened on the following video.   He stopped and said hello to the arena's security folks at the end of the stage, continued down the walkway (in front of our section) and said hi in passing and gave a high-five or two on his way, then as he got closer to us, all four of us started calling his name and waving at him.  So here's where it started to get really interesting... Ed stops in front of us, turns up the stairs to our row (again, the 2nd row of the section) and says to Archie (in the end seat), "Follow me" and grabs his hand to lead him away!  Before I had time to even consider whether I should go with him or just stand there and be super jealous, Ed says "All four of you.  Just the four of you, follow me."  Meanwhile I am COMPLETELY freaking out.  He leads the four of us (JUST the four of us) back towards the stage.  He stopped at the security guard (the big guy with all the muscles this time) and says "This guy will punch you in the throat if he doesn't think you're with me," and parades us past him down the walkway between the front row of seats and the stage.  This entire time, the whole place was cheering and clapping for us/him.   He stopped and said "Hey look!  There's four empty seats RIGHT HERE!"  We freakin LOST it.  Screaming. Jumping up and down. Foul language. The band played a little ditty for us/Ed.  Kevin Hearn their 'multi-instrumentalist' (he mainly does keyboards, accordion and misc guitars) says "What a nice man." and Tyler Stewart their drummer sings the line from their new song "4 Seconds" but changed it to "4 Empty Seats".  Jim Creeggan the bass player delivered one of my favorite lines then, "We can rock better now that those seats are filled."   Ed looks down from his spot on stage and apologizes to the crowd for putting such a tall guy right in the front row (Mike from Germany has got to be about 6'5" or so) and Tyler made the comment to the people behind Mike, "Ma'am enjoy the crack of his ass", to which Kevin replies (my other favorite line of this whole experience), "Well there's four empty seats up there if you can't see." with a rimshot (Kevin usually is the one who comes out of nowhere with the zingers).  Then they went into their next song "It's all been done".

Here's the video of everything.  Once you see it you'll kind of know why I felt the need to write out what all is happening there:


Watching the video is interesting, because it seemed much longer in real life.  Similar to when you get married (if you've ever been a bride), you have to very consciously walk very very sloooooooowly or else when you watch it on video later, it looks like you're RUNNING up to the altar.

The very next song they played had an aptly fitting line in it to this situation:


I met you before the fall of Rome
and I begged you to let me take you home

You were wrong, I was right
You said goodbye, I said goodnight

It's all been done
It's all been done
It's all been done before

I knew you before the west was won
and I heard you say the past
was much more fun
You go your way, I go mine
but I'll see you next time

It's all been done
It's all been done
It's all been done before

And if I put my fingers here, and if I say
"I love you, dear"
And if I play the same three chords,
Will you just yawn and say

It's all been done
It's all been done
It's all been done before

Alone and bored on a 30th century night.
Will I see you on the price is right?
Will I cry? Will I smile?
As you run down the aisle.


It's all been done
It's all been done
It's all been done before

At this point we thought we were free to enjoy the rest of our concert-going experience.  We were dancing, singing, clapping along, smiling (right in front of Jim).  Then just as they were starting to play one of their new (unreleased) songs, a woman came up to Archie (at the edge of our small group) and said she couldn't see when we were standing up.  This left us almost completely speachless... all I could think was "uh... really?".  So Archie decided to stand in front of our very tall German friend instead!





We proceeded to REALLY enjoy the rest of the concert.  It truly was the best BNL experience we've ever had, OUTSIDE one of their cruises.  It makes me love these guys even more.






Thank you Tyler:
















Thank you Jim:























Thank you Kevin:






And the final and biggest thank you to Ed:






Guys,. we're along for whatever ride you have in store for us.  We've been here for the past 10+ years that Archie and I have been together.  We're fans for life.





One final note, it was fantastic reconnecting with our cruise buddies in person:  Michael From San Dimas, Sandra, Rena (& her fiance Felipe), Cynthia and of course Mike and Sascha.  Hope to see you all again sometime soon (maybe we should all take that camping trip we were talking about?).

Field Trip at Gilcrease Orchard

Today was Rachel's first field trip with her new preschool. When I say field trip, I don't mean the kids all get on a bus with a few chaperones, I mean it was a day for all the kids and their families to go out to Gilcrease Orchards, a local pick-your-own farm with a variety of produce available. Either way, a great day for kids and parents alike.

We started out with just a wagon heading into the pumpkin patch, where we met up with a good number of the families from her class and school. Archer kept saying "Apple! Apple!" at the pumpkins, then we had to keep him from putting them in his mouth.




From there we headed towards the apple trees, but got sidetracked by a patch of tomato plants that were picked over for red tomatoes, but had a BUNCH of greens.  So while Mommy picked green tomatoes, Rachel 'helped', and Archer found the few actual mud puddles and made himself 'useful'.   After the tomatoes, I went back to get the car to grab the baby backpack to try and keep Archer out of trouble.   We made it to the apple trees on the edge of the orchard and they didn't look too promising so we headed toward the checkout tent.

Halfway back, we met up with Rachel's teacher Mrs. Cooley who had a bag of apples she had just picked.  Apparently there were a few rows with what they called "green" apples (they wound up being Granny Smiths when I checked them out... another funny thing out here, I guess people don't know much about apples beyond "red" and "green").  We picked a bag of "green" apples and continued down the end of this verrrrry long lane (with NO breaks in between anywhere to cut over to another row) to see if we could find another variety.  Unfortunately everything else seems to have already gone by.




To make a long story short (too late), we (and by 'we', I mean mostly me) wound up taking a VERY long walk around the property with Archer in the backpack, Rachel partly on food and partly riding, and a wagon full of pumpkin, green tomatoes, green apples, and a few pears we found near the end of our journey.   Mommy earned herself a good night's sleep tonight.

Blogs and a New Whitespot

Wow, new look. Now I need to figure out how to get my own pictures in the snapshots hanging from the line. As I was reconfiguring all of the other doodads on the side of the blog page, I realized that I have had this blog for almost 3 years (Dec 2006)! Hard to believe it's been that long, also it doesn't feel like I blogged as many times as I did (seems like I'm always making up for lost time). Interestingly, I started blogging when Rachel was a little younger than Archer is now, and it's funny to read things that I'd forgotten about (pretty much the point of blogging/journaling!) and compare the two kids and what they're up to at the same point.

Today was a fun day for me, not necessarily because of what I did, but because of someone else's activities today. My very good friends Jenn Codispoti and Matt White (from NH) finally came "out" today about their pregnancy, which they are about halfway through. I felt very honored that I was one of the few people they entrusted with the information very early on (around 4-5 weeks if I recall correctly). They chose to wait for a long while because they have been up against a lot of challenges not only GETTING pregnant, but with Little Mama's health since around 8-9 weeks pregnant. Well, they're still not out of the woods with some of the issues they have been dealing with, but this morning they got the excellent news that they are going to have a BOY!! How wonderful for them to have waited so long for the opportunity to expand their family and share their love with a child of their own, and with each passing day their dreams are coming true. We are all anxiously awaiting the littlest Whitespot to arrive at the end of February.

With even MORE happening with us every week, I have renewed my resolution/pact to keep up with this blog. If for no other reason than for ME to look back on in a couple of years so I can remember what in the world I was thinking and doing.

Good finds

Good finds today.

First, Archie found a great recipe for clam chowder which we had for dinner: http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/112/Clam-Chowder-New-England-Style

Second, we just happened upon a show on Nat Geo called Alone in the Wild that seems pretty cool. Kind of like Survivorman, but the guy isn't in a stranded situation like Les Stroud is on Survivorman. He is just alone and trying to make a go of it in the Northern Yukon wilderness over 3 months' time and taping it all himself.

Getting to Know You

(Martha wrote this for a segment in her MOMS Club monthly newsletter.)

Getting to Know You

Martha Gallup always felt she was born to be a mom, and her kids Rachel and Archer (3 and 8 months) are a testament to that. She was born in California but her family moved East when she was 5 years old and grew up with her 3 brothers in Central NJ. After high school Martha attended Temple University in Philadelphia, where she lived for 5 years. Martha moved to Maine in 1998 where she met her husband Archie a year later through a mutual friend.

Archie's job working in project management for a large construction company relocates them every few years. His job has brought them from Maine to Boston to Northern NY now to Michigan, and possibly another move soon! While living in Maine and Massachusetts, they became involved with an online (and off-line) group of people four-wheeling/Jeeping/off-roading (use your term of choice), and because of the wonder of the internet is able to keep those friendships strong to this day.

Growing up, Martha worked from a young age so her hobbies mostly were her part time jobs. While most of her career was spent working in the heating industry as a Service Dispatcher, her last position held in Boston was as a Facilities Coordinator for JPMorgan Chase's Boston Trading Floor. She's always felt that her jobs were subconsciously reflective of her want to be a mom (managing people while juggling lots of tasks). So she was very happy to fulfill that wish after moving away from the high cost of living Boston area and to the very laid back rural Northern New York where she and Archie started their family.

Martha's CURRENT hobbies include photography, genealogy, downhill skiing, and her latest pseudo-obsession, Facebook! While their two kids, dog and two cats keep her somewhat busy, Martha finds time to enjoy the internet, TV, music and lately has become involved with an online fan community dedicated to the Canadian rock band Barenaked Ladies. She and Archie plan to set sail on the band's third annual Carribean cruise called Ships & Dip during the first week in February (though this will only be their second time cruising with them).