It's Brandons banket

Since he was born I wanted Brandon to have some kind of lovey. My mom wanted to make him a blanket so we thought of different things that Brandon loves and recognizes and then she hand embroidered them onto squares and made it into a blankie for him. When you point to something he refers to it as Brandon's. So it isn't a picture of Nemo its, Brandon's Memo.

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Brandon cuddling his blankie in bed

Wii for dummies

Katie & her husband Casey boxing

Good punch Katie

Codi playing hard

Still playing hard

Casey being very serious at bowling

Strrrriiiikkkkeee!

Ginger watching Katie bowl

I asked Casey to smile

Cheeeese

Second before this picture Rob looked at Casey and said "are you going to smile?", Casey was like "yeah," so then they both looked and smiled

Robs in the zone

Katie thinking, I can't see Shannon but I know shes up to something

Studiously reading the directions before the big race

Run forest run.

I was pretty sad no one got a video of my awesome bowling stance...its the best!

All videos are very short but worth clicking
If these retarded videos don't work click here
Ginger and Katie playing Wii
Rob & Casey playing
Shannon & Ginger playing

CUTE

Thank God for Ramen and Vicoden

So yeah yeah I'm in Reno and there is a bunch of snow and shit. Fucking snow. Have I ever told you I HATE THE FUCKING SNOW. Move you say. No I can't move because my parents are here and don't you know the world would dissolve and crumble to shit if I moved my son away from his papa and mramaw, why he would never speak to me again. Wait a minute...that would at least buy me a few seconds of silence.

Back to the slut snow! I had to make a trip to the store today. One of my New Years resolutions is to make weekly meal plans and only make one trip to the store to save money (making extra trips to buy milk for the boy doesn't count as he would murder me in my sleep if I didn't provide endless chogglet nilp, also this ensures I cook food at least 5 nights a week and allows my husband two free nights to do as he pleases). I had a few other things I wanted to do but I was worried because of the snow. Here was my list:

• Drive clear across town to get my mom a napoleon from this special bakery for her birthday.
• Meet my cousin at Kohls and obsess over new bedding for her
• Go to grocery store
• Go to Babies R Us to buy bouncy chair, breast milk bags, and organic Elmo Noodle soup

I get Codi all ready to go, nurse him so his belly is full, pack up his little snow suit and off we go. I get in the car and POOF it starts snowing it isn't bad but it's still snowing and there was already about 4 inches on the ground. I sit in my driveway for about 8 minutes assessing the situation. I finally decide that no matter how much I want to buy my mom that Napoleon driving all the way across town was just not safe (I think she would appreciate a live child and grand child more then a pastry..I hope). I also decide to knix Kohls. I head to Babies R Us to buy this chair. I spend about 20 minutes in the chair isle looking at all the other chairs because they don't have the one I want. I'm pretty annoyed so I go around the whole store getting everything else. That is also where I stumble upon 5 new bedding sets by new brands that are all totally awesome and that were not there a short 4 months ago when I bought bedding. This pissed me off more and add that to my anger over the chair, well, lets just say I was getting feisty. I went back to the chair isle and hemmed and hawed some more before finally getting pissed and leaving. Do you know why I couldn't find the chair? Go look at it again, notice anything, anything over there on the right? Like the words ONLY AVAILABLE ONLINE! Yeah I must have eating a bowl of retard soup for breakfast. I find this extra funny because I had stared at that fucking chair no less then 8 times and I always look for the available online only thing. Again, the retard soup must have got me.

Anyway at this point I've spent too much time at the baby store and I've bought too little goodies so I am crabby. I go walking out the store to see that the little dusting of snow has turned into a Goddamn blizzard and now I'm just all around pissed the fuck off. I decide that I'm going to just drive right across the street to Albertsons (Savemart bought this out but I refuse to refer to it as Savemart because it just sounds idiotic) instead of going all the way to Smiths like normal. I was all stoked because I scored a primo front parking spot and I thought that was great since I had a baby and I didn't want him all wet. I climb in back to get Codi out of his seat and I step backwards out of the car and my foot hit some kind of curb. I guess they had build a second curb about 2 feet from the actual curb for you to park carts between. Anywho my foot hits it and slides right off. Next thing I know both of my feet are under my car, my ass is crashing into this pointy curb and my back is cracking onto the curb after my ass and my head is smacking into the second curb, all the while I'm laying in about 6 inches of snow. Codi, was all bundled into his snowsuit and lucky I had a good grip on him because he didn't even wake up in all the mess. So I stand up real quick like hoping no one saw and I turn around to see some skank whore slut bitch girl sitting in a car with her asshole piece of shit motherfucker boyfriend laughing. Yes she is laughing. She sees me look at her, covers her mouth to stifle her laugh and fumbles with her window to ask if I'm okay. I wave her off and stomp into the store. I was so shocked that the piece of shit guy didn't even have the decency to get out and check on me while I was laying there.

Anyway I finally get into Savemart, poorly named money sucking grocery store Albertsons and start shopping only to realize everything there cost almost a dollar more then Alberstsons used to and about .75 more then my beloved Smiths. Then I realize the whole reason I wanted to go to Smiths anyway was that I had a little bit of money left on a gift card and no money left in my checking account. Dammit now I was really mad. I decided fuck it I would buy the stuff and figure it out later. I went all over the store got my shit and even stuck to my list only adding 3 things that weren't on it. The only thing I didn't get was some damn Tamarind. Can someone please tell me what the fuck Tamarind is and what goddamn isle of the store you find it in. They didn't have any Napoleons and the Eclares didn't look up to par so I got my mom something else but it just isn't the same. I'm really sad because this year I was so proud of myself for thinking of the Napoleon and actually doing something I knew she would love.

I went down the soup isle and there in front of me was ramen. This may seem stupid but since I'm a vegetarian there is only one brand and one flavor of ramen I can eat. It is the Nissan Oriental flavor. The other brands all have beef broth. I can't seem to find this damn ramen anywhere so my eyes lit up. Then I thought of the Tuesday Tummy Tuck Club and I walked by the ramen. Then I thought about how my ass, back and head all simultaneously hurt and I was soaking wet from the waist down and you can bet your sweet ass I backed that cart right up and shoved about 4 bags of ramen into it.

I get up to the check stand (not before grabbing a loaf of fresh baked bread to ease my troubles) to pay and go to get my savings card and the girl was all, "oh you don't need that anymore we just automatically do it for you." Sounds like a load of hooey to me, thats what it sounds like. I pay my money and walk out. Well I try to walk out by my cart just gets stuck in the snow. So now I'm sitting here with my baby in his Moby all warm and snuggly on my chest (clearly signaling that I'm a mom with a tiny infant) trying to shove my cart across the parking lot all while a young, fit cart collector stands about ten feet away watching me. I finally force my cart across the way, get my kid in the car, nearly eating shit on the fucking curb again and open my truck only to have it dump about 5 inches of snow on my head and in my grocery bags. Now I'm mad. I load my groceries, grab the loaf of bread, pray that the Tummy Tuck gods can understand and I get in my truck. I tear off the end of the bread, dig out the soft middle and treck home going 30 goddamn miles an hour the whole way. I pull up at home and my whole entire body is hurting. I go in the house and Codi wakes up. It's time to feed him, then Brandon wants to eat breakfast (at 4:43 pm????? mmm belicous) I have to unload the groceries and I really need to pee. Then I see it, my little bag of ramen. OHHHHH YEAH I bust that shit out, fire up the oven and away we go, right. Nope not so much. I boil it to just the right texture, season it just right, put the steaming bowl on the table and go to eat it when CRASH Brandon bumps into the bassinet waking up Codi. (At this point I think I actually growled) I get Codi, stick him back on my boob and finally, oh sweet Jesus did I get to sit down and eat my ramen. Fuck me that stuff is good. All 400 and something calories of it. Nevermind it was cold by then and that right as I got my second bite in my mouth my son decided to take my raspberry fizzy water thing and shoot it across my just cleaned floors, it was still damn good.

So in the end, I still hate the fucking snow and I still love ramen and dammit the powers above better let me lose weight this week despite the ramen, bread and Hershey's kisses as a consolation for eating shit in the snow in front of people and not throwing rocks through their rude, no respect having windshield!

End transmission!

It never happened

Whatever we do, we will never ever talk about the cookies I just tried to make. We will never discuss how I dumped in a cup or more (I sooo wasn't measuring) of vegetable oil in place of shortening. We absolutely will not discuss how I was out of chocolate chips so I lovingly unwrapped over 40 Hersheys kisses and mashed them in my food processor. We will forget about how I didn't read the directions and just threw it all in one giant bowl and attempted to mix it all. And honestly we won't talk about how after I baked them they smelled sort of funny and came out with burned bottoms and tasted like rotten shit! Nope, I'm going to go clean everything out right now and light a smelly candle so that in the morning when I come in the kitchen there will be no evidence of the cookies that never were!

Random tidbits for today

I call this queer eye for the straight home invader

Clearly the gallons of coffee I'm drinking are not affecting this one.

I have to drink that much coffee not because I have a newborn, noooo but because I have a 2 year old.

Seriously if I could bottle his energy and add some tasty fruit flavors I'd be a bazillionair by now. At night he starts going bonkers and it makes my brain tired just to watch him, never mind what it does to my body trying to keep up.

After I took the first picture up there Brandon looked at me and said "try again mama".

And Codi just wants to sleep man.

I have a bunch of Hersheys kisses in my house right now. I can't stop eating them and I'm supposed to be dieting right now. So last night I got this idea that I would cut em up and bake cookies with them for the hubs to take to work. That led to me dreaming of effing cookies ALL NIGHT LONG! This led to even stranger dreams about grocery shopping, and baking with Ginger, and boy my head was going all night long.

There is something only people with kids and pets can understand. That is the paralyzing fear that goes through your body when you hear a noise in another room. Not because you are worried your kid/pet got hurt, but because you are terrified of WHAT IN THE FUCK THEY HAVE DONE NOW. For example yesterday I heard a little bit of noise and went in Brandons room to see he had climbed on his dresser and pulled down all his dvds. He then pulled all the jacket photos out of them, and all the dvds out of the cases. Then he dumped out ALL OF HIS CRAYONS (he has like 60 that he has access to right now), pulled out all of his coloring books, took all the sheets off his bed, got down all his stuffies, rearranged all his chairs, thrown all the books off his table, pulled out the pieces to his play mat and was sitting at his table like an angel when I walked in there, and all I heard was a little teeny noise.

No wonder I'm so thirsty...I'm sucking the life out of me.

I have this irrational need to hurry up and replace any milk right after it is used.

My son has an irrational need to be in every picture I take.

I swear I've brought about 5 burp rags out into the living room in the last 24 hours, so tell me why I just had to go sprinting into Codi's room to grab a rag when he spit?

Eeee haw

There is a reason I told people to stop buying my child toys. The kid would rather play with my 20 something year old toys then new ones. Seriously his most favorite toy is my old wooden shoe cobbler toy. Its got little wooden nails that you hammer through it with a tiny wooden hammer...That is his all time favorite toy and now he has the horse. So see stop buying this kid junk.

Wearing a tiny bathrobe makes two year olds cuter. (I believe this is what Em refers to as a dressing robe?)

Telling a 2 year old to stop touching his baby brother because he is sick is like telling me to stop touching Hershey's because I'm fat. IT DOESN'T WORK! That would explain why Codi has been woken up about 895869845niner times this morning.

Clearly his cheeks are taking over the world...I can't stop kissing him and saying numm numm numm, he probably thinks I'm really weird. It is so much different this time around now worrying that my child is getting enough to eat.

I'm a mission to see just how many Hersheys kisses one person can eat in ten minutes! Thats a good way to get em all out of the house right?

Bed time now involves all four of his current favorite stuffed animals. Not pictured but included in the bed are his tumbling tigger doll (Seriously full of parts so don't know how he is cuddling it because it is hard but whatever), and Elmo. Every night he gets in bed and says Mama I need Alex (this means turn on Madagascar), then he says I need Elmo, so I give him his Elmo, then he says, I need Tigger, so I run around the house and find that, then he says I need elephant, so I give him that, and then he says he needs Memo, so I give him that. Then he makes me lay down and use elephant as a pillow and then makes Memo start talking adnausium while Tigger starts doing tumbles on my head...makes for a real comfortable cuddling experience.

Doing it different this time

My kids have some very cute clothes. However if you look at pictures of Brandon you would never know. Know why? I was always "saving" clothes for special occasions. I would say oh I don't want him to wear this, we are just going to work and no one will see it. I'll save it till we go to dinner or go see family. The next thing I knew he grew out of it and the cute stuff was never worn. This time around I found myself doing the same thing. Then one day I realized I was putting away super cute newborn stuff that again wasn't worn. So this time Codi is wearing everything every day. Even if no one sees him in the clothes I can take a picture and send it out to family so they can see how cute my kids dress. So to my friends with new babies, don't do the same thing as me. You might not be lucky enough to have a baby of the same sex the second time around to use it all.

My dad is a damn genius.

So recently I was whining about how long it took my water to warm up and stuff like that. Well my mom mentioned it to my dad who happens to own a heating and air conditioning company. So when I went to San Francisco he came over to surprise me and install some kind of recirculating pump thingy magigy (yeah yeah technical terms..not so good at them). Anyway Rob ended up helping him finish it and the thing is fricking magical. I turn on a faucet and BAM hot water. It is so freaking awesome. When I need to defrost breastmilk BAM its done in the time it used to take just for my water to heat up. If I want to shower I'm already done shaving by the time the water would have warmed up. When I need to wash my breast pump parts the water is hot and I'm done washing in the time it would have taken to stand there wasting water waiting for it to heat. I'm going to save so much money on my water bill not standing there waiting for it to heat up. I think this is my favorite thing my dad has given me.

PS I whined about my duct work and stuff too (I live in a track house = shitty HVAC job) and now I'm getting a super 90% modulating holy shit batman kind of furnace with a super mega 13 SEER A/C and a whole new duct job. It's okay if you want to hate me. I won't mention how I already have a pimp electronic air cleaner and humidifier.

And yes I'm bragging and whatever but I don't care I can! It's nice to have a dad in this kind of trade considering I CAN NOT be cold and my husband CAN NOT be hot. He he I love my new water. I keep thinking of things to do with it, or getting excited to wash bottle parts.

And I won't admit it if I really do say BAM every time I turn on my water.

Look further then your nose

About 2 months ago Rob and I cleaned out the pantry. I had all these stupid tupperware lids and I got pissed cuz they didn't go to anything. I also had some little Christmas cake molds and cookie cutters that I knew I wouldn't use. I threw those in a bag too. Finally I had some drawer organizers that I didn't want any more so I tossed em in the bag with the lids. The night that Ginger and I were going to bake I got pissed because I wanted the cookie cutters. I kept asking Rob where he put em. He said where did you tell me to put em. I said I dunno I think I told you to put em above the garage for garage sale stuff. We looked and looked and searched the pantry and I finally got pissed and gave up. The other day I walked into the pantry and grabbed this paper bag that was sitting on the floor and would you believe it had all three of the things I had lost. Sitting right there in plain sight. I mean RIGHT THERE IN YOUR FACE LIKE THIS. I couldn't help but laugh because I searched high and low for that stuff. In fact I even got out my stool and looked on the top shelves, and got on my hands and knees and looked behind the bag that the stuff was in and next to it and around it but I guess I didn't look in it. I'm still laughing at my dumb ass because every single time I walk into that pantry I see that fucking bag and I clearly see what is in it and I just don't understand how in the fuck I missed it all that time before. So like my mom always told me.....LOOK FURTHER THEN YOUR NOSE SHANNON!

Brandon get dressed

OOOOOOOKAYYYYYY MOMMY

Sucking it in like a runway model