First, my brother and sister in law didn’t get their dogs fixed in time, and so there were 3 adorable 2 week old puppies in the house. Second, my sister in law’s entire family (almost) came- her niece, her parents, her brother and his wife and their son, her aunt, two cousins, and the cousins’ nephew and niece, and her brother brought his two dogs (so there were 4 adult lap dogs and 3 puppies whose eyes haven’t opened yet) (this is in addition to their 3 kids and my parents). Her family is awesome and fun, but what really, really made my day was watching one of her cousins playing with my 5 year old playa nephew. Please note that he’s 5 years old and has a 6 year old girlfriend. And makes a point of introducing himself to every pretty girl no matter her age.

Now, my SIL’s very pretty cousin who is probably around my age seems to be as taken with my nephew as he is with her. They danced together, she listened to his philosophy on life, and even took the time to figure out what on earth a “white thunder suit” is (turns out they’re police car themed shoes with blinky lights on the front). In fact, at one point, he had my SIL’s SIL packing his vitamins in a ziploc bag, and when we asked him why, he said “Because I have to take my vitamins every day, and I’m going with her.” as he pointed at SIL’s cousin.

So, at the end of the evening, I’m sitting and chatting with my brother as my nephew continued to woo a woman approximately 5-6 times his age… I forget what he did or said, but my brother laughed at him and said “You’re incorrigible.” My nephew paused for a moment, then said “No, I’m lucky!”.

I hope everyone had a Thanksgiving as good as mine.

While I only got to spend one day with them all, it was so funny to see them doing things that we did at their age.

It started with the middle child (the youngest is absolutely adorable, but not yet into this stuff). Remember doing the special handslap tricks? When I was in school it was something like “when Billy was 8, he learned to roller skate, skate Billy, skate Billy, half past 8, cross down and…”. Well, she and my niece got along soooo well, and all day that’s all they did. No chanting, just the hand slap thing, but all day.

Next thing you know, one of the oldest (twins- boy and girl) starts with the “Johnny, Johhny, Johnny, Johnny, whoops, Johnny, whoops, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny”. Tapping each finger as he goes and sliding between thumb and forefinger. I definitely remember that.

This gets his sister (the other 12 year old) to get me to say “Owha tagoo sam-I”. Say it quickly now!

And then “If this is a pencil, and this is a pencil, is this a pencil?” Um, yes? “Okay, if this is a pencil, and this is a pencil, is this a pencil?”

Then on to:

M R Ducks

M R Not

O S A R

C M Wangs

L I B

M R Ducks

What a trip! Some things just never change I guess.

Friday night (our grocery night) my husband decided that he wanted breaded veal as a treat. I however, didn’t feel like cooking. I suggested that we save that for another week, and he agreed and returned the veal to the refridgerated case that it had come from. Or so I thought. A few minutes later he returned with a smaller piece of veal, plopped it into the cart, and declared that he would make it himself. Now, this did not bother me as A. he’d been making Better ‘n Egg omelettes every morning for several years- and only burned them twice. To be fair it was generally due to an inopportune phone call, or something unexpectedly compelling on TV. And B. he’d actually made breaded veal before- quite well.

I’m not entirely certain what happened Friday. I, secure in my knowlege that he knows how to not burn things, sat upstairs undergoing the horror that is known as publicizing your blog (Technorati and such). After a while I smelled something burning. However, since I could hear him moving around in the kitchen and not screaming, I decided to leave well enough alone. After all, he was using his own pan (I’ve banned him from using mine). Sad to say, I have no wonderfully horrific ending to spring on you, but I did find the situation rather amusing.

He’d put the breaded veal in the pan and decided that it didn’t have enough breading on it. Instead of re-dipping the veal in the breading, sprinkling a little breading with his hands or a spoon over top, or even shaking a bit out of the cannister, my husband decided to pour it out from the bowl. The very wide mouthed bowl. Breading went everywhere, into the pan, out of the pan….. on a gas stove. Luckily there was no fire aside from the one that was supposed to be there (burner), but it took a long time to get the burned smell out. The veal was good though.

As for my nephew… My niece and both of my nephews are quite possibly the cutest kids on the planet. I’m not biased. Really. But my youngest nephew has always been a bit precocious. Today I was at my brother’s house for Easter lunch, and my husband was going to his parents’ to watch the Masters. Wrangling my niece and nephews to the dinner table is a trial in itself, and there was about a half hour of “everyone shorter than 5′, sit now!”. Ten minutes into lunch my husband called. To keep from interupting the dinner conversation, I walked over to the living room to talk to my husband who had just called to say that he loved me, and that he was heading over to his parents’ house. Aww….

Anyway, before I could barely get “I love you too” out of my mouth, my just-turned-three-in-February nephew comes trotting over to me, right hand on his hip and left hand shaking a finger, and saying (quite firmly) “TiTi Lori, Come. Sit!” I giggled, said a few more words to my husband, and my sweet little nephew kept repeating “Come. Sit!” over, and over, and over, until I closed the phone and sat. Ach, but he’s cute.

And now onto the strange best man. My husband and I have a mutual best friend- he and my mother were the only invitees to our J.P. wedding (yes, we love everyone else, but once you invite more than two or three people, you have to invite everyone). Apparently we (strange best man and myself) have now begun a “who can find the weirdest link” war.

A few days ago I sent him to this link. The next day, he responded with this link and the comment “Top This!”. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to top that… It’s just too weird. Anyone have any suggestions? (Gross and Graphic are out. Weird or hilarous only please.)