Vintonville

Like the new summery look of the site Dan!

Many times during the day I look over at Will and he has his fingers on his left hand crossed. He cant figure out how to cross the right hand, but will hold it if i do it for him. He likes to pinch with his fingers crossed too…what a funny kid.

Yummy veggies. Sadly a wonderful little beetle infested our corn over a 2 day period and we had to harvest it all and lost the top of most of them. This of course added even more work having to blanche and freeze 21 ears of corn. Oh well, least it was mostly salvagable.

Joshua had the cute factor tuned up last night. As we were reading Joshua his bedtime story (he picked his “My First Animal Board Book“) he was cracking us up! He was pulling out some crazy words and saying some funny stuff so I thought I would share.

Every time he would see a new animal or insect he would enthusiastically say “Oh my —–” or blurt “WHAT!”and then some crazy word or saying.

Here are some of his OH MY’S:

“OH MY DICKERUS!” (Ridiculous?)
“OH MY TOMATOE!” (Holy Toledo)
“OH MY PINKERUS!” (Any guesses?)

When we got to the “Climbers” page, he pointed to a picture of a stretching Orangutan and says…”I don’t like that monkey because he poops on us…” He then pointed to the monkeys hairy bum and said, “Oh look there’s a prune hole right in there” (Prune hole???? HUH?)

On seeing a Lobster…”That lobster will pinch us right in the prune hole” (“prune hole” got big laughs, so it became the word of the night, apparently).

Pic of a Killer Whale: “YAY!! Its SHAMPOOOO!“….i.e. Shamu.

“When Brownie [neighbors dog] runs his poop falls out“. (Dan Note: Friday morning, the neighbors dog had escaped– we ran into the field where she chased us, then promptly squatted for some business- in 3 year old terms, I guess this means running and poop falling out.)

Then, when I was snuggling him to sleep this was our conversation: “Mama our bones are mushy. See? When you stick them out like this [pointed his finger] and then when you squeeze them look my cheeks and my lips…my lips aren’t very hard though.”

Man aren’t kids great! I am still laughing about the pooping monkey.

So a couple weeks ago, April’s blog had a post about how terrible this new toothpaste flavor from Colgate was. Lemony Lemon Fresh Iceburg Blast or something like that. “How bad could it be?” says I. “Bad,” says April and threatens to ship it to me. “Bluff!” I call…

…but sure enough, like a Christmas in July Miracle, a little box from Santa arrives in my mailbox (Joshua is convinced it’s for him, pointing to the letters lovingly scrawled across duct tape and telling me “It’s for me- it says ‘Happy Birthday Joshua’, see?” Well, not quite my little man. It says, “Happy Birthday from Santa”– which really means “Here’s a little present for Danny to spite all the years I had to tolerate you as a teenage douchebag.”

With a few quick bounds, I’m into the bathroom and, after holding the tube upside down for a photo op, liberally applying a Vienna sausage sized dallop of lemony satisfaction to my toothbrush:

So yeah. It wasn’t gross, but it’s not what I’d want to have dessert flavored with. Or lemonade made from. Or to regularly brush my teeth with.

Nevertheless, I’ll be giving it a second chance. Maybe it’ll grown on me. Kind of like Diet Soda did. Or a planters wart.

I would like to thank “Santa” for the consolation prize however… GENUINE Florida sharks teeth! Joshua and I heartily geeked out.

Joshua was riding around on his Power Wheels 4-Wheeler tonight when the battery began to lose juice and slows to a crawl (which is a feat in and of itself– those things are slower than balls). He hops off, turns the thing over on its side and begins to examine it. Twisting the wheel cap, he looks up and says, “Ah. Here’s the problem.”

I was mowing the lawn tonight and had just finished when Joshua cruises up from the neighbors house on his scooter, ready for conversation. Despite having had the same lawn mower for the last 3 years, he excitedly shouts, “Wow, Papa! Cool lawn mower!” Straight up, young man. The coolest, even.

Joshua’s been living through a cold for the last few weeks. He’s at the tail end of it with the runny nose, but isn’t enjoying that small comfort. In his words, “Mama, my boogies sting.”

No one pass out…I know it’s shocking…my very first post! I normally leave all the posting to Dan but after seeing all the blogs I decided to join in the fun.

Joshua is finally taking his first swimming lessons (granted he is only 3). I have always been proud of Joshua, but I now know what it means to be such a proud little mom. Before we started the lessons he would barely jump to me (I may have dunked him a few too many times) and would never willingly put his face under the water. Just blowing bubbles was a challenge. After an hour with Grandpa Dunkley (I am pretty sure I learned by being chucked into the deep end and told to “start swimming”) without Mama or Papa to save him he has made huge strides. I am giddy with pride and excitement. The pics are a little hard to see and some of them are blurry (they keep the parents far away, one too many controlling parents) but they show his very first day of swimming lessons.

Since July 8th was a memory-making type birthday celebration (and we all know nothing says family memories like receiving an assault rifle), Mari-Catherine graciously opened the first half of her birthday to allow Joshua a “traditional” party with balloons, cousins, cake, presents and drowning risks.

My contribution? I baked this sweet “airplane” cake. Well, truth be told, Mari-Catherine actually did the baking… I did the cutting, molding, frosting and cussing:

I know humility is generally encouraged, but DANG– I’m pretty awesome.

After whipping up the airplane miracle, we spent the afternoon swimming at the Gerrard’s (MC’s sister’s husband’s parents house). And oh the good times that ensued: Joshua’s finally jumping into the water and letting his head go under while also navigating “the deep” without cutting off circulation to our arms. Mari-Catherine is looking FIIIIIINE and doing back flips like a Pro while me, well, not so much. It’s belly flops, uncoordinated toe-touching, and splits/family jewel crushing shenanigans. Nice.

When present time came, Joshua tore into some really cool stuff including: a Bug Vacuum (the thing suck bugs up, looks at them under a magnifying lens, then release them into a habitat– i.e., certain death), a helicopter, an addition for his train set, a “How to Draw Book” and the very next day, a very cool fighter jet from Liz and Luke which he now rocks out and sings to (it plays the Air Force theme and “Highway to the Danger zone”, which incites face scrunching and head banging– see all the action below).

Thanks to all the Dunkley crew who showed up to make the party one for the ages, and to Emily who allowed Mari-Catherine and I to steal away early for dinner and the Opera “Aida”. And you thought I was kidding about the Hanukkah minus the Minorah stuff. Not even.

I’ve got to say, the old adage of “The older you get, the more conservative you become” isn’t turning out to be the case for me. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve definitely become more conservative in some things; Like ordering a 6″ sub at Subway instead of a 12″. Beyond that, I’ve become nothing but jaded with both sides of the political spectrum, who seem to choose only party politics over sound middle ground on most issues, leaving the rest of us enjoying the fruits off a tree called “America Screwing Itself.” And, with 18 and 20 something percent approval ratings for congress and the president respectively, I’m not the only one. No, Sir!

But hey! Who threw politics all up in here? Because man, I’m tired of politics, bad news and the perpetual discontinuation of Vanilla Coke. Nevertheless, as an addition to what’s becoming an unofficial Jib-Jab blog, enjoy this equal opportunity mockument to the current (as yet officially “unannounced”) Celebredential candidates.

Thanks to Microsoft designing the most unreliable* piece of consumer electronics (CE) I’ve ever owned, combined with a total lack of exciting news from the DanCathua (… er, Mari-Joshudan… JoDaMa… yeah…. that’s not really working, is it?) clan, my secret shame of “gaming” has been exposed.

As can be expected after owning an Xbox 360 for just over a year, my poorly engineered “Media Center” buckled under the call of duty and lit up a halo-ringed mushroom cloud as it crapped its way into oblivion. For a moment, a stray thought gave me pause: “Is this really a bad thing? Your late nights could become more productive… sleep, constructively kanoodling on the interwebs, blogging, writing, inventing an engine that gets 132.5 miles to the gallon…” Luckily irrationality took over, shouting a resounding reminder that, “YES, Rational Brain! It is a bad thing!”

And thus, despite my 360’s nose dive thanks to a well-known and widespread manufacturing defect, I’m going to bend over and give Microsoft $75 of my hard earned stripping money so they can “fix” what they broke.

God bless capitalism.

In the mean time, for all you snickering at my sad plight and asking yourselves, “How old is this guy?”– I’d bet $1.23 to two dozen Hostess Old Fashioned Glazed Cake donuts that my hand/eye coordination would trounce you in a social game of thumb wrestling.

Should that fail, I’d totally pwn you in Halo.

*To the 360’s credit, it is completely reliable on one front: an uncanny knack of breaking down just after the warranty expires. Zing!