Buh-Bye

While Our Dumb Lives will continue until God gives us pink slips, Our Dumb Blog will be shutting its virtual doors.

We've decided that our kids may not appreciate having their childhood broadcast to the world.  I know that I personally would be horrified (and super creeped out) to know that some random dude in Russia was reading about my potty training successes and failures at age two.  But we didn't have the Internets back when I was two...  we had scrapbooks with fairly low readership rates,  and my mom's couponing/refunding club where neighborhood moms would swap stories (and $avings!)  The information was controlled and contained.  So I never had to worry about it.  But now we have the Internets, there are (in fact) random dudes in Russia (and around the world) that read this blog.  

I know, right? 

I appreciate their interest, but I am also creeped out by their interest.  

So in an effort to protect our kid's privacy and shield them from (blog-related) future embarrassment, creeped-out feelings, and random Russian dudes - Our Dumb Blog is no more.

Thank you to everyone who read along these many years.   Yeah, even you Russian dudes.  It's been fun.

Now it's time to fade to black...

The End. 

And stop reading....

NOW. 

ne·glect

tr.v. ne·glect·ed, ne·glect·ing, ne·glects

1. To pay little or no attention to; fail to heed; disregard: neglected their warnings.

2. To fail to care for or attend to properly: neglects her appearance.

3. To fail to do or carry out, as through carelessness or oversight: neglected to return the call.

n.

1. The act or an instance of neglecting something.

2. The state of being neglected.

3. Habitual lack of care.

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I know, I know, I know.  You are probably getting cobwebs in your hair just looking at this blog.  For the past two months we have completely abandoned ODB.  This started with some technical difficulties, but then that became more of a scapegoat for good old fashioned laziness.  The laziness generated some apathetic inertia which rolled into a gigantic ball of tumbleweed, which you will see blowing by here any moment now.  

As the kids get older, I am seriously beginning to think they may not want their lives (as adorable as they are) broadcast to the universe.  Yes, that is how far reaching our readership goes... the entire UNIVERSE.   However this too may just be a scapegoat for good old fashioned laziness.  And you know what that leads to...

Enjoy two extreme close ups of the kids eating ice cream while we consult the magic 8 ball on the future of ODB.

OK, here is what our consultant told us:

*sigh*... consultants....

Where's the penny?

Ava's latest joke goes a little something like this...

She holds out both of her hands, balled up into little fists.

Ava: Where's the penny?

Unsuspecting Adult (aka "the mark"): Your right hand?

Ava: No (she opens her right hand to show there is nothing there)

Unsuspecting Adult: OK, how about your left hand?

Ava: Ta-da! (she opens her left hand to reveal... nothing)  I don't have a penny!!


(end scene)

She thinks this is pretty funny.

Here she is workshopping new routines with her comedy mentor:

(PS-Yes, we are still having techno-malogical issues. These pictures were taken and sent to us by someone with fine photo skills. Thank you, Kim!)

At Least He Know's He's Three

Alexander likes the song "Proud to be an American"... except when he belts it out, he has his own take on things:

"And I’m proud to be an American,
where at least I know I’m three."




Technical issues continue. Pictures/videos someday soon. I swear it.

D'oh!!!

I'm beginning to think this is divine intervention... although, I didn't think God even read Our Dumb Blog. I mean, I followed Him on twitter for a while but His tweets were always so high and mighty. Also, He had an annoying habit of ending every tweet with "LOL", which got annoying.

But, anyway... here is the deal. Our camera is broken. Yeah, so never mind about those promised adorable pictures and video.

*sigh*

This dumb blog is officially on a dumb hiatus.

Thingie Located!

So I have finally located a thing for the deal so that I can download pictures on this here computer. Get ready to pop some popcorn and season to taste because next week we'll have lots of pictures and videos to share.

Here's a helpful tip and timesaver from ODB. If you don't have time to read the news online (or if you are are a member of the elderly or fan-of-antiquities demographic, something called a "newspaper"), you might find that reading t-shirts will keep you reasonably up-to-date on world events. Works for me!

Party Pooper

Ava and Alexander like to turn on the radio and yell "Dance Party!" while swaying/hopping/rolling around to the music.

Yesterday, Ava turned on the radio. She said "Dance party!" and started dancing. Tim started dancing too. "Nooo!" Ava said, "Daddy's too big to dance!" Tim, refusing to let the words of a not-yet-two-year-old put an end to his groove, kept dancing.

Ava was not pleased. She stopped dancing, curled her lower lip into a pout, and plopped down on the floor with her arms folded. She looked at her Daddy and said very slowly, and with great emotion, "The party is OVER."





PS- pictures coming soon. Fer real. Still haven't unpacked the cable that connects that one thing to that other deal.

Well, that's one strategy...

Alexander still has to be reminded to use the bathroom. For reasons only compelling to a 3-year-old, he sometimes REALLY doesn't want to go. Today, when reminded and guided to the bathroom he said "No! That's not a toilet. I can't use that. It's just a pretend toilet for decoration."

Why did we buy a house with toilets that are purely decorative? I'm surprised that wasn't caught during the inspection.

Fine Dining with Alexander

Tim took Alexander out to eat in a restaurant that had a lot of counter-height seating. Alexander looked around and loudly declared "All of these people are sitting in high chairs!"

So, he was initially a little put-off that all these adults were sitting in high chairs, but the situation was more than rectified when he was served his dinner and said (i.e. screamed) "This is the biggest chicken nugget EVER!"

(file photo of Alexander doing fish impression with unnamed fish)

The Highly Distracted Singer

Ava had an ear infection that had gone bad...er, badder. Yesterday was a hurlfest. Today Ava and I celebrated her surviving Barfageddon. We stayed in our PJs all day and enjoyed Ava's newly rediscovered puke-free lifestyle. It smells much better than her previous lifestyle choice.

It's been a while since I had Ava sing for the camera. Since I am now able to get videos on the computer again, today seemed like a good day to do it. At first she was reluctant:



She agreed to my second request, but it almost cost us our puke-free winning streak.



She was happy to sing the ABCs, but this ended abruptly when she realized "colors fall down! See?"


Yeah, I should just come out and acknowledge at this point that our house is a total mess. We are in the process of moving. Here is a shot of our moving crew in action:



We pack a box, they unpack it to use it for a spaceship/race car/house/anything that isn't a nicely packed box. Anyway... back to the singing.

Finally, I had Ava trapped inside the art easel. Here she sang "Twinkle Twinkle." She was *this close* to putting it on "continuous play."


I'm not a doctor, but I'm thinking she'll be just fine. She's a tough cookie, even when she's losing her cookies.