A sad day

Thanks to numerous emails and phone calls, I was informed this week that on Tuesday the great Broadway star Robert Goulet had died of pulmonary fibrosis.Many know our history with Robert Goulet if you don't, you can read about it here. I am sorry for his family and friends and thought hard about whether or not it would be appropriate to discuss his passing, but I decided that a man who could do the Emerald Nuts commercial definitely had a sense of humor and may not mind forever being Bj's arch nemesis. So we will honor Robert Goulet with many more years of telling and retelling the now seemingly famous story and think of him every time Bj dons his GOULET! shirt. We will miss you Mr. Goulet and your ever so helpful grammar corrections.

Heeelllllllooooooo!

Yes, I am in fact still here. We, yet again, have been busy, busy bees. Want to see some pictures? :)
1. We went to the zoo and saw elephants
This is Lily sitting on her Daddy's shoulders signing Giraffe.
One of my favorite shots of the day.
And finally a thinking monkey :)
And that was just friday!
2. On Saturday we had Lily's final babynastics class.
She tumbled
She did donkey kicks
She jumped
She got her trophy
So the beginning of this class we all sit in a circle and "stretch" and sing some songs with our children ON OUR LAPS. My sometimes painfully shy girl pitched an absolute FIT and refused to sit on my lap. In front of all the watching parents and grandparents and the other Saturday class Lily fussed her way out of my lap and plopped herself down in the middle of the circle and did all the stuff on her own. I always knew that with me and Bj as her parents we were in trouble, but oh goodness I am going to have to sit through a lot of shows with this one I think ;)
3. What next? Lily's first hair cut. SO thought I had a few more years before this look would come...
But the final result is quite cute (although where oh where has my little baby gone?)
4. On Sunday we had Grandma and BaBa over for a barbecue and I got to play with BaBa's new lens to his beautiful new camera. Don't worry I was standing on my own porch while I took this picture of my neighbor's scary, scary dogoh and it is one of EIGHT...two of which are pit bulls. Click on the picture to see details of this guy.

so funny i have to blog it.

So have I told you all the story of Bj and his arch nemesis Robert Goulet?

For those of you who don't know, Bj and I were the leads in South Pacific when we were in High School. So when we saw that South Pacific was coming to Cleveland we of course had to go see it. What a thrill! Yes we are dorks. Anyway, Robert Goulet was starring as Emile de Becque. OK whatever-he was good, but as we had just done the musical we knew that he dropped some lines, changed some lines and sang a few things down an octave. Tisk tisk. OK so we were a bit snooty about the integrity of the characters. So after the show we decided to join the sea of blue haired ladies to meet Mr. Goulet. We got to the table. We had our programs ready to go. Cheesy smiles on our faces, and Bj spoke...

"Hello. We really enjoyed the show. Me and her just got done performing it at our high school."

And Robert Goulet said in a very sing songy voice "Well I hope you used better grammar than that!"

There it was. The sentence that sent Bj into a downward spiral of hatred and loathing for Robert Goulet. This joke has stood the test of time. Twelve years later and we still make reference to it. In fact this Christmas I gave Bj a shirt that said GOULET! He often says with fist raised, "Robert Goulet Robert Goulet I'll get you Robert Goulet!"

But thankfully I have discovered Mr. Goulet's kryptonite. Emerald Nuts. Go here for a commercial that had me laughing so hard that my stomach hurt. I guess we are going to be buying stock in these babies!

For the record...Bj is actually quite smart and rarely makes grammatical errors. It was just the "celebrity" sitting in front of him that caused the momentary lapse.

And I wonder if Robert Goulet ever "googles" his name? We may be in trouble.

babynastics, bananas, big foot, and bad lily d

Today was Lily's first class for babynastics, and I must say it was a hit. No camera today as 1. I don't quite want to be seen as the uber crazy mama who has to bring along the camera where ever we go and 2. I just didn't know if it would work while doing half double tuck flips off the balance beam. (and no, I don't know how to do that, I don't even know what that is...or if it is real ;) The teacher is just wonderful with the three girls in the class, very patient as miss Lily decided her own path through the obstacles. She loved the swing, did not enjoy the balance beam, really didn't enjoy the slide into the huge foam pit...if she doesn't want her turn can I try? And the biggest hit? Yes, you guessed it, the trampoline. All those hours jumping in her bed and now you are telling me I am ALLOWED to jump? SCORE! By the end she didn't even hold my hands to jump...with a huge grin on her face. At the end it was time for bubbles (yea!) and a stamp for hands and feet. Um, excuse me, but you are going to put that thing on my hand? I don't think so. Yes, you understood that correctly, the child whose Mama owns about a hundred stamps CRIED when she got the stamp on her foot. We are definitely going to have to work on that skill!!

For the record, all Willis girls do not eat the tip of a banana as that is where the spiders are. Ridiculous? Yes. But that is what our Mama taught us. I thought I would try to end this outrageous fear and start giving the tip of the banana to Lily, but alas, Grandma RIPPED it from my hungry child's tray and said "NO! That's where the spider is!"

And now, Lily's ginormous size six foot.and for the record, I think this girl needs these. soon.

Remember the hat fun Lily has been having? Here's Lily as Bad Lily D, the Northeastern Ohio Rapper.

Traditions

My family has different traditions, rules, and well, ways of doing things than many families I know. Like selling Girl Scout cookies to dead relatives, setting the timer on the microwave during the winter for 15 minutes of outside snow time, not being allowed to say the word "b*tt" (which Bj quipped when he found out about that one, "Are you allowed to say any articles? An? The?" and one of my favorites, my parents always celebrate President's Day, namely George Washington's birthday, by bringing me a cherry pie. Yum.

and just because, for no reason except your own enjoyment, even though for some odd reason blogger refuses to put the picture in correctly so you all will have to turn your heads to the right...

Rest in peace diaper bag, rest in peace

So. Why is this my title? I will tell you.

I got home from church yesterday a little late as I had to do a quick grocery shop and walked into a sheepish faced husband. After some "I have to tell you something you aren't going to like" hemming and hawing, I got the story out. Our diaper bag had been unceremoniously killed. Bj put the diaper bag on top of the car and drove off with it. I would like to say this is the first time this has ever happened, but alas we have also mourned the loss of numerous cans of pop over the years. He almost immediately realized that it had fallen and he stopped the car and got out, waiting for traffic to ease so he could walk to the middle of the road and get it.

The first two cars passed slowed down and drove around the large black bag with two straps and silver accents.

Then the third car.

Keep in mind, our Jeep was at the side of the road, blinkers flashing, large man standing at the side of the road.

The car kept coming.
The car did not slow down.
Large man starts waving his arms.
Car kept coming.
Large man waving arms and yelling.
Car is not slowing down, not veering.
Car runs over my poor sweet bag. FINALLY slows down, after dragging the bag for about 100 feet.
"Oh I thought it was some black snow!" she said.

YEAH, OK.

The bag is done, ripped to shreds; along with a bowl for snacks that was torn in half, a magna doodle, and some other various little things. *sigh*

I do not even want to know what in the world this woman was thinking about and desperately hope that she was at least watching the road. I'm just glad that it was only a diaper bag...poor diaper bag, rest in peace.

Dreams interrupted

While waking up this morning
Bj: *snicker*
Me: what?
Bj: I just had a dream that I was typing a letter with an old manual typewriter and now I know why
Lily: tapping her toys through the monitor

purging, cleaning, reorganizing

That is how I spent my day. I am on an organizing kick. An obsessive organizational kick you could say. The 2007 is starting off with a bang as I am going to get all those little projects that you put off because they are just no fun yet need to be done anyway. I have least 20 pairs of shoes and five bags of clothes ready for the lovely people of Amvets (and Melanie :) to inherit. I also FINALLY threw out some undies that I have had since high school. Yup. It really needed to be done. My closet is now organized by color AND by length of sleeve. Yes this is perhaps a bit OCD, but I figure if everything really has its place it will be easier to be put back in its place. Next up is my endless stacks of sheet music. Tomorrow is going to be a long, long day.

So how did I spend last night? You know the biggest party night of the year? Although we were invited to three different locations, Bj and I opted for a quiet night at home. I made some chicken fettucini alfredo (sauce from scratch :) and some bruschetta and after a lovely dinner we watched Scoop-a new Woody Allen movie. Wouldn't you know that I would fall asleep on the couch before 10:00? Bj let me sleep a bit longer and woke me up right before midnight. We celebrated in bed, watching Dick Clark, and with a kiss and a Happy New Year, lights off and we were in dreamland. We are the most exciting couple ever. We didn't even open our champagne. Oh well, maybe next year! Anyway, Happy New Year all!!

Still want to know

what I know? Here is a clue.