Chop chop

Two posts in one day! That's what happens when you only have a couple hours before bed to do anything productive!

Anyway, I cut my hair and I thought I ought to post about it before I forget.  I also went back to blonde after quite a few solid years of dark brown and then my natural color.  I always wondered what color my hair was since I had dyed it since I was 12/13ish and I finally grew it all out to the point it was all natural, but I realized my hair is naturally quite dull.  I decided to go with blonde for the summer, and shorter cut since I was tired of my long hair getting in the way.  My cousin Eric's wife Melissa did it.

I actually really love it.  Now I match my blond family!

The Sing Off

We aren't really into the other singing shows, but we have always been into "The Sing Off".  I just love the talent and sound of groups singing a capella, and we've watched every season.  This season they finally did a tour, and Andy got me tickets for Christmas.

It was at the Showbox at Pike Place which is where I went back in high school to watch my emo/post hardcore/punk bands and thought it would be a weird location for a capella.  It kind of was honestly.  If you haven't been there, it has a place to stand and has a bar wrapped around it.  It is pretty cozy and looks like this:

There were a lot of 45-60ish year olds there, and scattered among them were a few kids and people my age (I actually knew a few people there but didn't know about it until after we got back home).  I thought it was kind of funny because they sang modern songs so they all couldn't relate like us, since the groups were our age.

Anyway, the show was 3 of the top bands: Home Free (winners with a country style), Voice Play (without the girl, but with a better girl from another group "ten" instead), and Filharmonic (Filipino boys that were like a boy band).

*Sorry for the crappy phone pictures in the dark*

Highlights:
-Filharmonic was awesome and even sang old NSync. They are adorable too.

They did this song too (here is from the show)

-They showed a couple battles like on the show. Here is Filharmonic against Voice Play

-There was a beat box battle between the percussionists from each group
-They did the "I'm alright" song from Caddyshack complete with the guy from Home Free doing the gopher impression.  Here they are doing it on the TV show:


-Tim from Home Free has this amazing bass voice that sounds like Josh Turner.  Andy and I always said they should sing a Josh Turner song and they actually did!
-Home free is just an all around good group and very enjoyable to watch

Here they are on the sing off (worth it):

We had so much fun- it was an awesome Christmas present!

Financially independent

I have a problem. When Sawyer wants toys, I would buy it as long as it was under $10. I figured that's one of the perks of 2 incomes is that we could buy the kids what they want, but there is a point they are spoiled and need to learn "no" so we started having Sawyer earn his own money.

Sawyer has a wallet we got somewhere (Sounders) so we decided to have him earn dollars the past few months.  Now, whenever he asks for a toy, we tell him he can save his money and buy it.  It works perfectly because then he isn't getting too many toys, and we can say "no" without him getting angry or upset (plus value of a dollar blah blah).

He earns a dollar when he goes a whole soccer practice without touching the ball with his hands, cleaning up his toys, and other tasks we want done.  He finally saved up $17 which was enough for an angry birds roller track toy he wanted.  Andy took him yesterday to go get it, and it was on sale!  He got to get a second toy (Disney planes micro drifters)!  It is so cute and I love how he will randomly come up to me and ask me to count his money with him.

What's up

I am not keeping up so well, so here are a few things lately:

-I read the Divergent series...I read the first one in one day (I worked that day), and read the second and half of the third Sunday.  I finished the second half of the third one on Monday during breaks at work.  I liked them, they kind of reminded me of the Hunger Games.  The movie comes out this week and everyone was reading them so I hopped on the bandwagon.

-Sawyer had Lilly do tricks (she was a penguin) then fed her fish (chicken)

Meanwhile my uncle explained what he thought happened to the missing plane while busting out the manual for that particular plane (he used to be a test pilot for Boeing)

-I died my hair blonde-ish but I'm getting it done again (and probably chopped off) on Wednesday

-I learned a few new chords and the beginning of "Wonderwall" Sawyer and Kellan got some maracas and got to play the drums while I had my lesson

-We have had every single illness to pass around this year.  This house has been consistently sick for 2 months.  I even had antibiotics a while back, and the first day my throat stopped hurting, the kids had faucet noses and coughs again, which of course Andy and I have picked up

Poor Kellan can't sniff and he has always had drippy eyes that get way worse when he's sick.  His face is covered when he wakes up :( His eyes have been almost swollen shut the past few days.  At least he's in high spirits.

I think that's mostly all for now.  We're just kind of trucking along one day at a time!

Eternal Blue Forever Green

THE MLS SEASON HAS BEGUN!

Luckily we were able to get Davey to take Sawyer from the train station, and we just had Kellan.  We rode the Sounder train up (to anyone out of state, the train is not related to the team at all, it is the normal commuter train to Seattle that they often run on special events as well).  We got out of the train to find it pouring rain.  Poor Kellan :(

The game was fun as usual, but was scoreless.  At the 90 minute mark, they declared there would be 4 minutes of stoppage time.  At about 93:30, the ball bounced around by the net and we scored!!!  Kansas City was not pleased, but the crowd sure was!

Normally the way the wind goes (or something) we are right at the edge of people that don't get rained on.  We can usually see 2 or 3 rows in front of us getting poured on.  Unfortunately for this game, the wind was not in our favor.  It would be off and on that it would get on us...but at least we weren't out there for the full storm.  Poor Kel was such a good little boy and he behaved in the Ergo even though he kept getting drips on his face.  He DID fall asleep for a half hour or so, which was unfortunately the time I had planned to transfer him to Andy because of my bad shoulder/back.  Oh well, I lived :)

Waiting for the train

Train station

Kellan loved the guys behind us.  One of the guys even took a picture of him and put it on twitter (with our permission)

Going for a ride

We found those plastic sheets, excited to finally be a part of the tifo display

Boom boom clap

Holding up the sheets. The left you can't see spelled out "1974" (the year the first Sounder team started

The good tifo starts. It was kind of a timeline- the top being players and the bottom was logos of the teams

The bottom kept growing and growing

The train home

11 months

Kellan turned 11 months old.  Time is sure flying.

Not too much has changed since the last update, but here are things he does:

-He loves to push balls and drive cars (sometimes he drives them upside down)

-He shares his pacifier and bottle by shoving them in your mouth

-He can now push himself up in the middle of the floor instead of having to pull himself up on something

-He can squat/bend down to pick things up then stand back up without plopping on his butt

-His main form of transportation is walking, and doesn't crawl much anymore

-If you say hi or bye he will often wave without you doing it first

-He can clap his hands

-He dances when he hears music

-He can throw things...like his pacifier when we're in inconvenient spots like a restaurant or train

-He wears 12 month clothing mostly, but sometimes I put him in 9 still

-He needs a haircut in the back

Also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY MOM!

I got my first real six string

That blog title gave me flashbacks.  My dad used to blast that Bryan Adams song (Summer of '69) on the weekends to wake my brother and I up...either that, or Bob Marley.  I wouldn't even be mad.

Anyway, just wanted to post about my Wednesday.  My old manager/friend Chantal was selling he guitar awhile ago, and I bought it for pretty cheap.  She just wanted to get rid of it, and lowered the price when she found out I wanted it.  Andy got me lessons for my birthday, and my first one was on Wednesday at Ted Bown Music (the new Puyallup location is not as awesome as the big bronze shiny one in Tacoma, but I can't complain).

I told Andy to get me an old wise man teacher.  He said he thinks they're all that way.  I got there and found a young guy in a slouchy beanie.  I mention the slouchy beanie because Andy hates them so much for some reason that he makes an audible "yechh" sound whenever he sees someone in one, and I found it hilarious that my teacher was not only not an old guy, but wears one.

He was nice.  I expected very very basic overviews of things the first lesson, which was kind of what I got.  Luckily my prior music experience let me skip over what scales are and how an f-sharp is the same as a g-flat yada yada quarter note yada yada repeat sign etc.  He went over how to tune, what notes the strings were, and taught me a couple scales.  I figured I'd be learning individual notes and stuff for awhile but he taught me 4 chords already and my "homework" was to bring in 5-10 songs I want to learn.  It was really fun and I am really excited I got to jump right in :)

Since I don't have a picture, here is one I took of Sawyer today at dinner.  I got him cute little skinny jeans since I have a "Children's Place" problem.  He is so thin they are still baggy and I got him a couple pairs of chino shorts- they actually came in "slim" "regular" and "husky" for his age.  I got him "slim" and they were still baggy on him.  I guess they'll fit next year at least.