Warning: Political Talk Follows

I just felt an absolute pressing need to post this. As a heads up, it's a not very pleasant look at John McCain, so if you don't want to watch it, I've given fair warning. Therefore, I respectfully request that if anyone voting for McCain gets annoyed at this post, please don't get all up in my grill about it, because I prefaced it with a warning about the content!! If you like what you see, share it as you see fit!

***Newsflash***

Justin is a dork. He's been playing this new game lately, Call of Duty 4. He borrowed it from a friend of his at work, so his logic is that he has to play it as much as possible before he has to give it back. After he played it the first couple times, he said "I bet you that's just what real war is like. You don't know where people are hiding, you don't know who's gonna shoot at you..." and I said "Well, except for the whole getting shot and dying in real life thing". Playing this game also involves Xbox Live, which means that Justin can play with guys from work, remotely. So, the other day, I walked into our room and the lights were off (at around 8pm). I turned the lights on and there's Justin, looking like this:



So of course I say "Why the hell are you wearing a headset?" and he says "So I can talk to the other players". Hysterical laughter ensues. On my part anyway. Note several things. A)The super intense gamer stare, B)The many caffeinated beverages and candy on the nightstand, C)The indubitably geeky headset, and D)The awesome shirt that his loving wife made for him. Now then. The only reason I was even able to snag this picture is because he was so enraptured with the game that he barely noticed me taking it. Also, Bethany was taking a bath later that same night while he was (still) playing and when she came out she said, "I heard Daddy cussing a lot. I heard him say the F-word twice, the SH-word twice, and Son of a B once". Ooops. The funniest thing about it was the look on Bethany's face, like "oooooooooooOOOOOOOOO, you're in troublllllllllllllllle". It looked kind of like this:



For the sake of accuracy, fine, that's Dorian when he was smaller, not Bethany. But, that's the look she had on her face.

Day Trippers!

So, yesterday we went to Rock Island for the day! I love that place! It's just unbelievably beautiful and the kids always have fun. This is the first time that it's been warm enough/not raining to go this year, so we went! Of course I have an abundance of pictures to share, so I'll get to those now!

First, some pictures of Rock Island itself, so you can see how gorgeous it is out there! (FYI, all of the pictures can be clicked on if you want to see the full-size version.)





See this rocky little island thing?



Yeah, the water was really shallow so we decided that we'd all walk out to it because Bethany had walked over to it and found a really tiny turtle that we wanted to see. See how close it is to the shore? What we didn't know (thank you, Bethany, for not telling us) was that about halfway between the shore and the rocky island, the sand changed to rocks and they were sharp. And slippery. And perilous. By the time we got there, Justin and I were giving each other that look like "Damn, now we have to walk back". The walk back was punctuated by many shouts of "OW!", "Oh, God, that one really hurt!", "Something is actually stuck IN my foot." (Justin), "This was a horrible mistake.", etc. But, we saw the tiny turtle! According to Justin, who has an encyclopedic knowledge of animals, especially marine life, it was a red-eared slider. Anyway, when we finally got back across, we were all calling that area the "rocks of death" and thanking God that nobody had a catastrophic slip and fall.



So, moving on. We saw one of those water-plane things landing. Check it out!





Now, pictures of the fam!

Justin and the kids on a fallen log on the shore:


Sebastian standing on the fallen log:



Sebastian, digging like a dog:


Bethany on the fallen log:


Bethany, swimming, and generally looking cute like nobody's business:



Dorian, about to pick up some sand toys:



Is it possible to be any cuter than this?



And, now, a picture of a random little girl, just because the kids kept saying how she looked "just like Sophia"!



So, we stayed at Rock Island for about 3 hours, then we went to the drive-in. They had a triple feature and the movies showing were Nim's Island, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Drillbit Taylor. Nim's Island was cute, if a little strange and completely unrealistic. We planned on staying for Indiana Jones, but I fell asleep about 30 minutes in, as did all of the kids. Justin woke us up to leave because, **SPOILER AHEAD**, and I quote, "I really really wanted to see that movie. But when I saw a psychic, crystal alien skull, I didn't want to see it anymore.". Still, we left the house around noon and got home around midnight, so it was a VERY full day. We all wore SPF 50 so nobody got sunburned, we got to build lots of sand castles which were subsequently destroyed by the earthquake (aka Sebastian and Dorian), we had drive-in food, the kids didn't have to be forced into their beds, and they all lived happily ever after!

Sebastian's Preschool Graduation!!!

Ok, this post is going to be massive because I have lots of pictures and a couple videos to share. First, I cried like a baby during the graduation. Justin, predictably, made fun of me and called me a basket case and said that he really "couldn't at all understand" why I was crying. After the graduation, I proceeded to ask Mrs. Brandy (Sebastian's teacher) if I was the only one crying so that I could prove to him that I was having what was in fact, a normal reaction to a milestone in my child's life. Ughhh. Men. Anyway, a few disclaimers. Sebastian fell asleep on the way to the school, so in many of the pictures before graduation he looks annoyed, but he's really just half asleep. Also, he kept saying "that's enough pictures for now" through his teeth every time I'd try to take one. Ummm, what else? Oh, my camera work was kind of crappy during the ceremony itself, but damn. Roughly a million jillion people started getting up right when I was trying to video so that they could go down to the front so they could video. You know, without people standing all in front of them!!!! Just listen though and you'll hear them call his name. I only included the clip of him actually getting his diploma because for most of the ceremony, you couldn't really see him. On a related note, there was a piece of paper in the room that had all the kids' heights written on it, which I assume they used when ordering the caps and gowns. Sebastian was the shortest one in the class! Haha! Who would have thought, right? So, without further ado, here are the pictures and videos!

Ok, this is fresh out of the car. He looks sleepy, right?



Looking slightly annoyed, but still sleepy:



Now, he's just annoyed:


Now he looks like he can't even take how annoyed he is:


So cute!! His hair is getting so long. Justin wants to grow it out:


Teehee, this one's funny:


Seriously, how cute is this?


Now we're on cute overload!


On this one, he was literally saying "Would you take the picture already?!"


Sebastian with Mrs. Brandy. She's so pretty, isn't she?



Ok, now for the videos! This is one before the ceremony when Justin was getting him ready. Awwwwwww. You can tell he's not past the sleepy/annoyed stuff yet.



And here's the clip of him getting his diploma! Ignore how bad my camera skills are.



You see what I mean about how many people were getting up? By the way, after he gets his diploma and walks to the other end, he hugs somebody. That's Ms. Tish. She's Mrs. Brandy's assistant.

Well, I guess that's it for the Sebastian Preschool Graduation Extravaganza!!! Hope you guys enjoyed it since you couldn't be here in person!

See, now THIS was a good movie.

So, Justin has had a man crush on Christian Bale for a while. I'm understanding it now. What's funny is that I begged him to get There Will Be Blood when the whole No Country for Old Men travesty took place. But he wouldn't get it because "it's a Western" and apparently, he doesn't like Westerns. So, when he proposed watching this movie last night, I said "Hey, how come you wouldn't get that other movie because it was a Western, but you'll watch this Western?" and he said "That movie held no interest for me" and I said "What's the difference? This is a Western, that was a Western..." and he said "Well, but, this has CHRISTIAN BALE in it!!!". OMG. That was cracking me up. He was like a teenage girl wanting to watch a Jesse McCartney video or something. Anyway, the movie had several good (and necessary-according to me) attributes:

1) An amazingly attractive and relevant lead character/good guy
2) A plot line that can be followed by the average/non-schizophrenic person
3) A somewhat likeable bad guy that doesn't make you want to vomit
4) A good ending that isn't necessarily all sunshine and roses, but still....good

So, I highly recommend this to all you peeps. Plus, Christian Bale is CUTE. In other unrelated news, I'm knitting some washcloths as end of the year gifts for Sebastian's teacher and teacher's assistant. I'm currently working on the one for Mrs. Brandy and it's a pattern I had to type up myself from a chart I made using KnitPro, which is a program that allows you to upload a picture and it makes a chart out of it for you. Anyway, it's my first attempt at intarsia and damn, but it's a mess and a half. This is what my project currently looks like:

Yeah.......... A few rows from now, I have to add 2 more orange bobbins and one more white one. It's getting pretty hairy. Mrs. Brandy is really into UT football and her favorite color is orange, so it should eventually look like this:


but with the colors reversed, obviously. I think it's looking ok so far. I'll be posting some end result pictures in the next few days. I'm doing another one for Mrs. Brandy and then 2 for Mrs. Tish, so it shouldn't take me too long. Also, Sebastian's preschool graduation is on TUESDAY!!!! OMG, I'm going to cry like a baby. I'll take lots of pictures for all of you! Until next time...<3.

I should just start a separate blog for Sebastian's constant hilarity...

1) Yesterday afternoon, I told Sebastian that he couldn't sit on the couch because he kept spazzing out and jumping all over the place. Bethany says "Mom, why can't Sebastian get on the couch?" and I say "Because he's acting a fool" and she says "Sebastian, quit acting a fool so you can sit on the couch!" and he says "HEY!!!!!!!! Nobody calls me a fool except for Mom!". Heehee!

2) This past weekend, we had been outside and when we came back in, Sebastian sniffs and says "It smells weird in here" and I say "It does?" and he says "Yeah" and I say "What's it smell like?" and he says "Hmmmmmmmm. Dry dog food". What the..........?? The specificity of that is what cracked me up.

3) The other day, we were talking about something and Sebastian says "I'm serious, Mom" and I said "Oh really?" and he says "Yeah" and I said "How serious?" and he says "Ummmm, about 80%".

I swear, this kid is a riot.

More Funny Stuff by Sebastian

Let me preface this by saying that Justin is constantly saying that Sebastian is gonna be a "homo". Mostly because of his fascination with fairies and dressing up in Bethany's clothes. Not that we would care or love him any less or be any less involved in his life if that were the case. Anyway, today Sebastian was walking around in a pair of Bethany's dress-up high heels. He rolled his ankle (he's unfamiliar with the gait required by high heels) and fell down, grabbed his shin, and said "Ow!!!! I cramped my anus!" and I started cracking up, but still tried to be stern and said "Sebastian, don't say that!" and he said "Why?" and I said "Cause an anus is a butthole!" and he goes "Oh. Bethany's an anus!!!". HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!