The Weekly Wrap-Up

I haven't blogged in a couple days. Sue me. It just gets busy sometimes. Kinda makes me long for the days of semi-retirement. Kinda.

So here's the weekly wrap-up from Growing Up Kaitlyn. In Pictures!

Official league sign-ups start at age 3. 

Let me give you a little more detail on this. You all know I want her to be a golfer -- plenty of scholarship opportunities, it's a sport where women can actually make a real-life wage, travel the world. But she's taken a ridiculous liking to kicking things, especially balls. Just like her mother. And it's a heck of a lot cheaper to register for soccer than buy golf clubs. So next year, we'll be spending plenty of time on the soccer fields.

In Pictures: Memorial Day 2010

You probably never knew this, but nine years and one day ago, I met Michelle for the first time. Drunk off her ass. In celebration, we ate frozen yogurt for three straight days at our new favorite place, Feeney's. And fed lots of ducks. And played in the park. That's not really in celebration of Michelle and I, but just another weekend with Kaitlyn.

I guess those days are long gone. But that's not a bad thing. I really don't miss staying out until 2 a.m. As old people always say, nothing good happens after midnight. Except sex. But even that's not always good after midnight. But it's not like bad sex is really even bad. It's sort of like pizza that way. 'Cause even bad pizza is good pizza.

Now I'm hungry. I guess it will be frozen yogurt for a fourth straight day.

We're sorta glad we found this place. Only a five-minute drive from the house. Who knew?

She now climbs up the ladder-like thingy on the playground. By herself. Without a net.

Kaitlyn is doing pull-ups! She's so strong ...

...Granted I am stronger since she weighs a ton. 

In the kiddie swing having a ball ...

...Until she realized she can swing on the big-girl swings like Mommy. Growing Up Kaitlyn is right.

Gabba Coma meets the Obamas

And I thought the Gabba Coma was limited to my house. Now Foofa, Plex, DJ Lance Rock and the rest of the bunch are headed to The House. This was what welcomed me in the inbox today:

Hello James!

On Monday, April 5th, DJ Lance and the rest of the Gabba Gang are rolling up to the White House to perform at this year's Easter Egg Roll for 30,000 attendees from all 50 states! The gang will be taking the Rock 'n' Egg Roll Stage to perform numbers from their mega-successful live tour, Yo Gabba Gabba! Live!: There's A Party In My City , which continues its run in 2010!

Following the First Lady's Let's Move! initiative to combat childhood obesity, the theme of the Easter Egg Roll is 'Ready, Set, Go!' That sounds like the perfect reason for everyone to get up, jump, and DANCE!

Happy Easter, everyone!

Your Gabba-Friends

I'm sure Sasha and Malia will enjoy themselves at this year's egg roll, which has become a celebrity event. And yeah, the Gabbas and DJ Lance know my name. We're good like that.

But on a more serious matter, The Gabba Coma invading the White House explains a lot. The healthcare debacle? Surely. The bank bailout? Most definitely. Rahm Emanuel's choice to attend a Wilco concert? Gabba Conspiracy!

In Pictures: Strange(r)s in our house for an egg hunt party!

Well, they're really not strangers, but it fit NaBloPoMo (Can you believe there are only three days left?!?! Did I just jinx myself?!?!?! How long of a break am I going to take after this whole thing ends?!?! And who's more excited for the break -- me or my readers?!?!)

It's a busy weekend for the Growing Up Kaitlyn crew. Saturday was the First Annual Easter Egg Hunt, sponsored by Midas (not really, but wouldn't it be cool to get a sponsor? Goal for 2011: Get a Sponsor for the 2011 Growing Up Kaitlyn Easter Egg Hunt). Today we head to Curious George on stage at the Coliseum after YaYa and PopPop come over the breakfast, after Michelle goes dress shopping with Aunt Shannon and after we get the house back in order.

Did I mention it's a busy weekend?

Whoever decided 25 people, plus kids, in a tiny townhome at 9 a.m. was a good idea should have a good, stern talking-to.

They're off! The first two Easter egg hunters fly out the door.

The hunt begins.

The hunt continues.

Much like Halloween, the kids decide to see what they can exchange after pouring over their loot.

If you couldn't have guessed, Kaitlyn found the most eggs.

Happy New Year. Can I go to bed now?

First, Happy New Year everyone. We ushered in 2010 snug in our bed after doing a pseudo-midnight toast at Aunt Nicole and Uncle Rich's place with the other 'rents. I'm sure we have pictures, but I can't find the camera and I'm too lazy at 6:45 a.m. to get up. Without further adieu:

Five Goals for the New Year:

• Grow an extra four inches, hoping to nab a scholarship early to help my semi-retired Daddy.
• Color within the lines ... most of the time.
• Skip past pull-ups, heading directly to big-girl underwear.
• Recognize colors and letters without prompting.
• Take over the world.

Winter Wonderland, North Carolina edition

So we made it through the night. A fissure in the Earth's crust didn't suck us into oblivion. Armageddon didn't blow us to kingdom come. Some smartass might say that Hell hath frozen over, but if this is Hell I have no problem staying for a little while.

The Nightmare Before Christmas, as the morons dopes non-journalistic pretty boys television stations are calling the latest flurry drizzle snowstorm down here in central North Carolina, is for the most part over and we didn't get sucked into the abyss like many thought would happen if more than two inches of snow fell on the Piedmont Triad.

And the good news is that there was actually snow on the ground when we woke up in the morning, which meant that Kaitlyn had some good times tossing snow around and helping Daddy shovel the walkway. Maybe later we'll build a snowman, but it was cold out and there's still a little icy glaze on everything out there.

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

Welcome to central North Carolina, home of the Wyndham Championship, the ACC Championship, some damn good barbecue and snow. Yup, good, old-fashioned snow.

When the dopes fools weathermen said earlier this week that we could expect an inch to three inches of snow Friday night, we all laughed. Then, on Friday morning, the dopes fools weathermen changed that prediction to four to six inches. We cackled. At noon, the dopes fools weathermen said six to 12 inches could fall on the Piedmont Triad. I howled.

Well, here comes the snow. And it's coming hard. The more and more I watch it, the more and more I believe we could get a good couple of inches. Do I believe we're headed for a half-foot? Heck no.

All I hope is that it sticks around until the morning so that Kaitlyn really gets to enjoy it. Otherwise, it's just going to be a big gloppy mess, which will take the fun out of this first snowfall of the season.

In Pictures: Gibsonville Christmas Parade

Kaitlyn got her first taste of stardom Saturday afternoon when she was the main attraction at the Gibsonville Christmas Parade.

Okay, okay, she was one of a dozen or so kids on a float in the parade, but it just sounds so much better saying she was the reason hundreds of people lined the streets of Gibsonville. Forget the jolly big man (who we didn't see since we were in a float ahead of Santa).

Kaitlyn waved to people, said Merry Christmas and laughed the whole way, even though it was cold and wet and windy.

The star of the Gibsonville Christmas Parade

One of our great teachers at the daycare handing out balloons during the parade

One of Kaitlyn's supporting cast members, Sophia, and her antler-ed daddy, who we like despite his affinity to that safety school in Chapel Hill

Another daycare staffer who is REALLY happy to see me. Scary, I know.

We aren't sure why the dogs were being walked during the parade. For that matter, we don't know why daycare staffers decided to dress like Austin Powers extras

View from above. Yeah, we're in the parade and you're not. I'm talking to you, antler boy

After taking this photo, I stuck my tongue out at these people because, like antler boy, they're not in the parade either

The float was a little crowded, but Kaitlyn (covered by balloon on left) had plenty of room to wave and be admired by the masses

In Pictures: Cookie-making time

After reading about our friend Gwendolyn Brown-Johnson yesterday, Michelle looked at me and said, "We just had fun this weekend baking cookies and it was cute and you write about this?"

You see, Michelle thinks this blog should be about her and Kaitlyn and the fun and beauty and hilarity that is parenting. Mostly, though, about her. I have attempted to tell her that the blog is about our family and the things we talk about, see and go through on a daily basis. But she wants more cowbell. And by cowbell, she means her.*

What she didn't know what that I was already planning a post about our cookie escapade, but hadn't yet completed it. And it's a good thing I didn't since Michelle decided to whip up a batch of cookies using Grandma Gill's recipe for chocolate chip macaroons.

At first we thought the gritty texture was due to the fact that she didn't mix the sugar into the egg whites enough, leaving the macaroons as crumbly, chocolate chip-filled sugar mounds. That's how Grandma's were, too, she said coolly. This from someone who likes to put 12 to 15 sugar packets in her non-sweetened iced tea "just to crunch the sugar at the bottom."

About an hour after chowing down a half-dozen of these pure sugar concoctions, Michelle took a second look at the recipe. Oh, she says quietly. I put three cups of sugar in the mix when it called for three-quarters of a cup sugar.

Oh? No wonder Kaitlyn didn't want to go nite-nite. So, as you read this, Michelle's entire floor at work is probably bouncing off the walls screaming for more macaroons.

Anywho, here's the rest of the cookie-making fun from this past weekend, in pictures:

We invited Aunt Kari over to bake. You remember Aunt Kari, right? Anyhow, she decided that she should bring her entire pantry to the party. Like we wouldn't let her borrow sugar or something.

This is me sifting flour for Aunt Kari, since she didn't know what "sift" meant when reading the recipes. No joke.

Aunt Kari and Michelle hard at work trying to figure out how to operate the food processor. Which led to ...

... me pounding cookies by hand because the darn thing wouldn't start. 

One of the cookie recipes that Aunt Kari used called for a glaze. This is how Aunt Kari's "glaze" turned out. On a side note, this is eerily similar to how Michelle's macaroons looked and, based on the amount of sugar in each, tasted, as well.

* I love you, honey. 

Most Dangerous Toys 2009, aka "Ruining Christmas for Everyone, Part II"

I thought World Against Toys Causing Harm, Inc.. was the only group of Godless quacks consumer watchdog group we had to worry about this holiday season.

But thanks, GoodGuide.com, for being the hippie tree huggers most of the world has come to hate. You see, the people of GoodGuide.com are set to tell consumers everywhere about how the products in their homes cause the Earth to die. Or, according to their PR spin, "GoodGuide provides the world's largest and most reliable source of information on the health, environmental, and social impacts of the products in your home."

And, like the unholy despicable happiness-deprived watchdog group WATCH, these guys want to make sure you and your children are safe from evil toymakers who are out to destroy the world.

And while WATCH targeted such items as a book of numbers and an infant drum set, GoodGuide is going after the biggest of the big boys this holiday season: Zhu-Zhu Pets.

If you're not familiar with these furry little hamsters, they're, well, furry little hamsters. Just mechanical furry little hamsters. And they're going for $10 if you can find them. On eBay, they're five times that amount. One guy's giving you a deal with three for $100. I'm pretty sure you can find a real hamster for, like eight cents. But I digress.

So the people at GoodGuide are now saying that these fake hamsters contain tin and antimony, which causes cancer. According to head tree hugger and hippie GoodGuide co-founder Dara O'Rourke:

"We found levels of about 93 to 106 parts per million," O'Rourke said. "The new federal standard is about 60 parts per million."

I don't know what all that means, and I even tried to Google it. Everything reads like Latin. So either it's really way beyond me, or it really doesn't matter. If this was way beyond me, I don't think you'd ever put it in a children's toy. Unless your from China. Oh wait, Zhu Zhu Pets are made in China. Ouch.

Kaitlyn's Holiday Wish List

With the holidays now upon us, I figured I'd help the Growing Up Kaitlyn contingent with their Christmas shopping.

You see, the Growing Up Kaitlyn family has settled here in this small tiny space-prohibitive quaint townhouse that doesn't have a lot of storage. Sure, we've got YaYa and Pop-Pop's place, but we can't expect to put all our stuff in their house forever. I'm sure if we asked we could, but that would just be abusing a privilege they've extended and I'm not about to get on YaYa's bad side. Again.

So Michelle and I have come up with a parent-approved Wish List that doesn't include noisy toys is sure to make Kaitlyn happy come Christmas morning. As an added bonus, if there are any of you out there who might have Michelle or myself in a Secret Santa, we've included some of our requests, as well.

Kaitlyn's Wish List
Tinker Bell. Not items related to Tinker Bell, but the actual pixie
A membership to The N.C. Zoo, The Natural Science Center of Greensboro and Weight Watchers
Handcuffs to make sure that damn Swiper stops swiping
DJ Lance Rock's fuzzy hat
A pass to the Hershey factory that allows her to swim in chocolate syrup
Google stock

Michelle's Wish List
A second husband who has any combination of wealth, looks and/or fame
An Old Navy puffy vest stuffed with $100 bills.
Immortality, especially for Boo

James' Wish List
A winning Powerball ticket so to remove "semi-" from his official title of "semi-retired"
In lieu of Powerball ticket, full-time job paying over $45,000 would suffice
Odyssey's Vegas headcover for blade putter and matching grip so that he looks cool while playing like crap
Mother's Cure (nsfw)

In Pictures: Failed Christmas Card Photos

Failed attempt #1: Almost got it on the first try

Failed attempt #4: Michelle showing Kaitlyn how to smile for future attempts

Failed attempt #11: Kaitlyn still thinking it was Halloween, doing her best Frankenstein impression

Failed attempt #13: Michelle showing Kaitlyn how to smile for future attempts (Part II)

Failed attempt #16: Moving from Mickey to ornaments as distraction tactic

Failed attempt #21: Kaitlyn grabs camera. Again. 

Failed attempt #26: Just when we thought we had it, Kaitlyn stands up in the middle of shot

Failed attempt #32: Kaitlyn drops ornament. On a side note, running out of ornaments.

Failed attempt #45: If only she smiled. 

Failed attempt #51: Kaitlyn grabs camera. Again.

Failed attempt #58: Michelle tries a new angle. Unfortunately makes Kaitlyn look like she's a squirrel

Failed attempt #60: Kaitlyn grabs camera. Again

Failed attempt #66: Don't ask

Failed attempt #73: I think we're fighting a losing battle at this point

Failed attempt #78: Screw it. Off the shelf cards it is.