Remembering Memorial Day

Six years ago (2002 for those of you with poor math skills) we spent Memorial Day down at Waterfront Park with my parents, and Shad and Allison (Kade's bro and sis-in-law). I dug up our pictures from that day. Sorry about the poor quality, they were scanned into the computer. Two hot mamas.

Me, Allison, Eminem (or Shad), and Kade.

Now, prepare yourself for the next two pictures. Kade sent them in to get published on the cover of Playgirl Magazine. We're still waiting to hear back from them.

Kade tried to tell me that he and his brother were just goofing around, but I know that my mom was the one behind the camera. Is my family weird??

Oh, I always have a good laugh when I see those pictures. Good times.

This year (on Saturday, actually) we went across the river to the Falls of the Ohio in Indiana. I think those Hoosiers over there have it better than us here in Louisville. They get to look over everyday at downtown Louisville. We, on the other hand only get to see Indiana. Hmmmm.

On Monday, we didn't do much. I had wanted to go up to Holiday World and Splashin' Safari in Indiana, but we got a late start to the day. We drove about a half hour and broke for lunch, then decided it was too windy and rainy to enjoy the water park, so we drove back. We decided to see a movie instead. We saw "Horton Hears a Who," which turned out to be a very good movie. Maryn loved it and was entranced the whole time. After that, we came home and Maryn played outsided in this fun sprinkler thing we bought her. It was a lousy substitute for Splashin' Safari, but what does she know? She's two.

Playin' in the sprinkler!

We're still trying to teacher her how to shoot a squirt gun. What a girlie girl.

Lucky Kade found some four leaf clovers while we were sitting in the back yard. Maryn smashed our luck with her foot, laughed, then ran off.

We hope everyone else had a nice Memorial Day. We didn't do much to memorialize those who've served our country, but we certainly recognize their sacrifices--great and small. We love our country, and we're greatful to those who have made it such a free and wonderful place to live.

Just Another Day in Paradise

This isn't a terribly exciting post. It's kind of a hodge-podge of the last few days. I've been working a couple of days this week (yeah for the extra $$, boo for the fat ankles it gives me) so we haven't really done anything fun. This morning I was vacuuming my house when Maryn came in wearing my boots and sunglasses. She was very kind to let me take a quick photo, so I thought I would share her impeccable sense of fashion.After I finished my chores, we packed up our swimsuits and were heading out to the zoo. As we crossed the street in front of our house, I noticed something in the middle of the road. It turned out to be a squirrel that had been run over. I know, gross. Roadkill. But I busted out laughing when I saw that everything was squished flat, except for his fuzzy tail sticking straight up. I had to take a picture of it, just to share. I know I have a sick sense of humor, but it made me laugh, and well, this blog is all about the exciting life in the Roundy Household.
And, last, but not least, I finally worked up the courage to trim Maryn's hair. I'm glad I did, she was looking pretty scraggly. There isn't much of a difference, I just took off about an inch/inch and a half. Combing it is so much easier now.

Before...(with a beautiful smile!)

...and after. I know know it isn't dramatic, but every inch counts when you're braiding a squirmy little girl's hair.

For "The Flower"

Don't think you're going crazy--I am actually completing two posts in one week. It probably won't ever happen again, mostly because my life is pretty dull.

For Mother's Day this year I decided I wanted to do a little project for my mom. My inspiration came from my friend, Ollie, who presented this idea to me a while back at an Enrichment Activity for church. My mom always has grandkids at her house, and what little kid doesn't want to be Grandma's Helper?? So, I made an apron for my Mom, and 4 coordinating little aprons for the kiddos. The adult apron I found just at Walmart. I looked at Target, and found some cute ones that had matching towels, but the cost to do the whole project would have been much more. Since we don't have jobs in this household, I thought I should cut costs and do the work myself. I got a plain, white chefs apron for about $5 and found some really cute ribbon for $3 to embellish it with all at Walmart. I already had a D ring at home (or something similar to it), that I had taken off a pair of pants a long time ago, so I used that to make the neck adjustable. I did do a little extra work to put the ribbon on the pocket. I actually removed the pocket, sewed on the ribbon, then resewed the pocket to the apron. It was worth the effort. Here is my finished product.

For the children's apron, I just bought a set of 4 kitchen towels that would coordinate somewhat with my ribbon on the adult apron. The best I could find were khaki color, but since these aprons would be for both boys and girls, I thought that was best. I bought ribbon in the $1 bin at Micheals in khaki, chocolate brown, and pink. The pattern I used was from the Family Fun website. It turned out to be pretty simple and the only tough part was figuring out how to embellish the aprons with ribbons to make them all different. I prewashed the towels, and some of them shrunk a little, so all the sizes ended up being a little different, which is probably best because I didn't want 4 aprons that would only fit 3 year olds. Here's how they turned out:

This one was Maryn's favorite...maybe because it had pink and bows on the back. Very girlie. I had to chase her down to take it off her.And, of course we had to get a picture of the two of use trying them out.

This is a fun little project for anyone who likes to cook and has kids that love to "help." I keep telling myself I need to make one for myself and Maryn. She had a great time trying them on.

Ode to Kade

Saturday was Kade's birthday. The old geezer turned 32 years old. Ya know, he's really let himself go--he wasn't this old when I married him. (I know, that was a lame joke)

So, I thought I would do a post on Kade. I do have some pictures of him when he was little, but, being the fifth child in a large family, you don't get a lot of pictures taken of you. It's just how life is. But, I made due, and here is my Ode to the Birthday Boy.

Here's a picture of the Birthday Boy as a newborn in his Birthday Suit. Do you see that huge cranium he has?? Fact: Kade cried so much for the first 14 months of his life that his family called him "Boober-One-Kanoober."

I had to post this because every little boy needs an embarrassing picture where his diaper is falling off and showing his goods.

Next, we have Kade in the early stages of his love for spaghetti. Fact: Kade still loves spaghetti and has memories of making spaghetti for himself as young ages.

This is when Kade was 2 years old. Do you see any resemblance to Maryn?

In this picture of Kade, we were hoping to capture the sweet 'do he had going. Fact: I think my mom had that same 'do.

Now, I'm going to fast forward a few years (mostly because I didn't have any smart comments about the few pictures in between) to those painful high school years. Don't let your daughters get a hold of this picture...they just might be smitten! Fact: Kade did cross-country, wrestling and played the violin in orchestra during high school...now that's a winning combo for the ladies.

Now, this is a little bit better. Senior year seems to be looking up for him. Watch out world, here comes Kade! Fact: Kade's favorite past time was playing "dunkball" with his friends and he states, "I was NOT a ladies man." I think I believe it.

And, I think this must be a picture of Kade just before he served his mission in Russia. Go get 'em tiger. Fact: He still had this tie for several years after we got married. Thankfully, it has been disposed of since.

And now here we are, present day. You may be asking yourself..."Just how do the Roundy's celebrate such an occasion?" Well, lets see. It goes a little something like this. We got up. I left Kade with Maryn all day (ha ha!) and ran off to downtown Louisville to attend some continuing education courses. First I had "Treatment of Head and Neck Cancer Patients," which was actually interesting for the first hour or so. Then I had a break were I got lots of free samples of toothpaste and toothbrushes. And my last class was something like, "OSHA and infection contr.....ZZzzzzzzZZZZZZzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZzzzzzZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzZZZZZZZzzzzZZZZZzzzz

Oh! I'm sorry, did I doze off there? Yes, it was just that boring!

Well, after that I rushed home and we tried our hardest to convince Maryn that she wanted to eat some dinner. After a few bites we had a Birthday Party! Yeah! Pretty exciting plain white cake, huh? At least it tasted good. It was an ice cream cake. Yumm. I think I need some soon.

For his birthday, Kade got some baseball cards from Maryn and a giant beanbag chair from me. After some quick partyin', our friend, Janelle, came over to stay with Maryn (Thanks Janelle!!) while we went out. What a nice break. We first went to the Macaroni Grill where we had some good Italian food (though I don't think anything will ever be as good as the real deal from Italy, made by Italians). After that, we saw a movie. By ourselves. Without Maryn. A grownup movie, not a cartoon. Without little animals and singing. We saw "Iron Man." It was actually a pretty good movie and we would recommend it to those who have not seen it yet.

After a nice evening of not chasing a 2 year old, we came home and treated ourselves to some yummy cake while Kade tried out his new chair. I believe it gets two thumbs up and a peace sign.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KADE!!!

The Kentucky Derby and It's Festivities

I know this is very belated, but that just happens to be my life right now. Deal with it.
Last Saturday was the Kentucky Derby (that's a big horse race for you non-kentuckians). It tends to cause a bit of a stir in Louisville, probably because it is the most exciting 2 minutes in sports. Anywho, the city provides lots of events and concerts and fun stuff beginning a few weeks before the big race. There was the Air Show (which Maryn and I attended, but pretty much had to leave because it was so blazing windy and cold) followed by Thunder Over Louisville, a really big fireworks show. We didn't go to Thunder because we were still freezing from the Air Show. Then over the next few weeks there were things like hot air balloon races, marathons (I had some friends who ran the marathon...they are my heroes. Way to go Erin, Amber, and Janelle!), boat races, concerts, parades, and a whole lot of other things we didn't bother to attend.
This year was the first year in all the years that I've lived here, (that rhymed and I didn't even mean to) that we went to the Pegasus Parade. I'll admit, I was a little disappointed. With all the publicity it gets and the huge crowds it draws, it was kinda lame. But it was a way to spend an evening together. Maryn brought her cars to play with, Kade played games on his cell phone, and I ate all the snacks I brought with us. Now that's quality time. We went down early and set up our chairs right on the road so we could catch all the candy they threw...which turned out to be none. Pretty much the Pegaus Parade consists of a billion high school bands and drill teams, along with the local "celebrities" and some big balloons. I think the planning committee for the Derby Festivals must have made God angry, because we had very undesirable weather for most of the major events. Rain and cold on Thunder, really really really windy for the parade....etc.
This was my favorite picture from the parade. A big gust of wind blew Kermit the Frog over and it looks like he is about to eat his handlers. Ha ha!

Here we are "bonding" while we wait for the parade to finally start.

And, here's a little taste of Kades talented cinematography. If you can't hear it very well, Kade it trying to tell me it's a gay pride parade.

We finally left after the one millionth marching band came by. I got bored with trying to pick out the geekiest kid.
For the Derby on Saturday, we decided to be the poor suckers who hosted a "Par-tay." It was actually very fun and very easy. We cooked bratwurst on the grill and made everyone else bring the other stuff that takes time to prepare. We had prizes for the people who drew the first, second, and third place horses (no, we didn't gamble this year). You'd be surprised at how hard it was to find Derby crap this year. I really had to drive all over town, and the best I could find turned out to be at the walmart down the street. If you didn't catch the news, here are the winners from the 134th Kentucky Deby:

The winner: Big Brown

Second Place: Eight Belles (the one on the inside. The jockey is wearing the green and white hat). Unfortunately for her, she broke 2 legs immediately AFTER the race and had to be euthanized.

And I couldn't find a picture of the Third Place horse, Denis of Cork. Too bad. But, here we are with our partyin' friends (some are missing from this picture). We had everyone wear hats, and the one with the craziest hat won a prize (peanut butter m&m's), that all the little kids found sitting out later and ate.

We had a fun time. I mean, how could we not? We had an exciting race, good food, and even better friends to hang out with. We hope this is a tradition we can continue, even long after we leave Kentucky.