Flashback Monday

Ok. Ok. Seriously, I do know it's supposed to be Flashback Friday in the blog world, but I want to post this now before other things come up. At the beginning of November I went to stay with parents in PA while Miguel went on a business trip. The kids and I basically got to chill for week with my parents and my brothers. We did drive around and I got to see the Amish farmers at work, which is awesome. The Amish are ridiculously hard workers. I can not even imagine a world where you get up at 4:30am and do hard physical labor all day, go to bed and repeat the next day. It's very inspiring, since I myself have a very difficult time getting up before 8am. We also went back to an ice cream store that I haven't taken Katie to since she was 5 months old. I wish I could find the picture of her eating there way back when. Maybe a project for another day. Miguel did manage to drive down to come hang out with us for a day, which was cool since we hadn't seen him. Miguel, by the way, got to spend the day in New York City, sightseeing and drankin' with his buddies from work. I have yet to make it to sight see New York myself. A trip for another time I suppose. Hint, hint Miguel. Hint, Hint.
So anyway, I'm trying out my new little viewing feature, so if you click on the picture, you should be able to go through my favorites from the trip. So, just roll your mouse over the image and you should see a "next" or "previous" button. Very neat. No more flickr slideshows. Makes me happy. And yes, I am aware, that particularly for the portrait images, the 1200x800 size is a tad large. But I am so not resizing them now, so if you all don't mind just dealing for now. I'll keep it in mind for the future.

Testing Lightbox

So I thought it might be fun to make a new way for you guys to view my photos larger. I've been posting them as 900x600 images, but this way I can post them even larger for your viewing pleasure and I don't have the pesky problem of them not fitting into my blogger template. Cool, huh? So from now, for the most part, you'll need to click on the image to view it larger. It's really awesome what happens when you click on it. So try it. I know you'll like it. ;) I even went back and added the code to the last couple of posts too, so you can play and click on the images to view them larger. And I posted a random really big picture here too, because it's fun for me to see it work. It rocks. Totally. Oh and PS, for all of you Facebookers reading this through the feed, it won't work for you. It'll only work if you come to my actual blog (www.iammommyplussome.blogspot.com). So there.

Mr. Wiggles, sent directly from Santa himself.....

Are you all ready? THIS is Mr. Wiggles. He is our Elf on a Shelf. Santa left him last weekend and has been keeping quite a good record of Sam and Kate's misbehavior. Oh and when they're good too. He's been all over the house and he gets up to his own elfin mischief. He hasn't been destructive yet, but he has stolen an oreo and got himself stuck in the refrigerator as he was trying to get a sip of milk. Silly Mr. Wiggles. Katie is reminded often that Mr. Wiggles is watching her and that everything she says and does is reported to Santa every night. So it is her morning ritual now to look around for Mr. Wiggles. At first she thought she only had to be good where Mr. Wiggles could see her and then I promptly reminded her that Mr. Wiggles has x-ray vision. He can even see your underwear. Hopefully, Mr. Wiggles will have more things on his good list than on his naughty list by the time Christmas Eve comes around. Oh and did you know, apparently, Mr. Wiggles is watching Miguel and I too? Because we have to be good to get our presents from Santa Clause. So I guess we all have to be on our best behavior. Oh and seeing Mr. Wiggles everyday has inspired Katie to sing "Santa Clause is coming to town" all the time. She's actually pretty good with the lyrics. Her favorite line is "you better not shout, you better not pout". Figures. So anyway, we're under constant watch here, and we've had to start hiding the cookies, because Mr. Wiggles has a thing for cookies. Oh and today he stole a Dorito from Katie's stash. So, you all better watch out, you never know where your Elf is hiding, checking to see if your being naughty or nice.

Turkey, lobster, and a mullet

This is how the Behers do Thanksgiving. We are incredibly thankful for the life that we have, for our family, our friends, just generally the life we have been blessed with. So when it comes to Thanksgiving, we like to feast. Me, I like to feast on Turkey, exhibit "A". Miguel likes to feast on lobster, see exhibit "B". Oh and yes, I like to feast on dessert. I must attempt to satisfy my insatiable need for sweets. I might tell you that I am NOT the only one who has a sweet tooth in the household and we made no less than 4 desserts. Sam was up early enough to enjoy the fruits of my brownie making, spending most of the time licking the icing. We spent most of yesterday hanging out with each other and cooking. Which in our house is something we really enjoy doing. Let me give you a quick rundown of what we made, so your mouths can water jealously. Turkey, lobster salad, seafood couscous, loaded baked potato salad, bacon wrapped scallops, mashed potatoes, tiramisu, pumpkin pie, peanut butter pie, and brownies. Add to this my sister-in-law's food which included, southern dressing, mac'n'cheese, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, deviled eggs, and probably a couple of other things I am forgetting, we seriously feasted. Also let me introduce you to Miguel's cousin from the Florida Panhandle, Billy Shadow. We were happy to have him join us for our Thanksgiving, it's been quite awhile since we had the privilege of his company.
So that's how we "do" Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving '09 was a blast, can't wait for next year's feast.

One Handsome Boy, One Beautiful Girl

The kids dressed up for Thanksgiving dinner. I attempted to get some decent pictures of them since they looked so awesome. They were not entirely cooperative.

Wordless Wednesday

The Hardworking Amish

Mr. L, Sneak peak for Sharyn

Congrats on your precious baby boy!

"Mom, let's celebrate because we have the best dog ever"

I love all the crazy things Katie says, unprompted, mind you. The title of this post was one of her many many statements to me today about Joanie. I think Kate is just a little bit smitten. As are we all, I think. Joanie is just fun. She likes to snuggle, play, run, and has really generally been a pleasant puppy. I am hoping that the trend continues and she doesn't have some sudden personality shift. Overall, she's been a truly lovable puppy with very few potty accidents. You might ask if I have any complaints? Not yet. Well, ok, only that she likes to chew on pens. This is a problem, especially if you are like Miguel and put said pen in your pocket and it proceeds to leak all over your pants, wallet, and cell phone. Oh and it gets on your hands which you proceed to place on the steering wheel. Yeah......but in any case we are already unalterably attached. She has been a wonderful addition to our family so far and I can only hope and keep my fingers crossed that it continues as happily as it has this week. I keep it in my mind at all times that she is a puppy and can at any moment exceed our expectations for disaster. In that sense, it's like a having a baby that suddenly becomes mobile and you search the ground endlessly for anything they can chew, swallow, destroy, etc, etc. I suppose in many ways, it's like having a baby in the house. I mean really, she is a baby, cause after all a puppy is just a baby dog. ;)
On other news about Joanie, we did take her to the park for the first time today. Which surprisingly she wasn't all that thrilled to see. Something about the number of cars going and coming and the numerous little miniature humans (aka children) running around, I think had her a little rattled. Probably not to mention, 15 billion different smells and the left over scents of 10,000 different dogs.

Oh and P.S.
Did you notice how I gushed about her more than a couple of times? Yeah, it's totally the honeymoon phase.

Wordless Wednesday

"Joanie, my sidekick"

This is ya'll's introduction to the newest baby in our family, Joanie. We saw her this morning on petfinder.com and couldn't help ourselves, so we hopped in the car drove and up to the GA SPCA to see if she was a good fit for us. We even took Molly, our little 6lb chihuahua to make sure they'd be ok together. We got there to find the sweetest little big puppy ever. She is totally cute and cuddly. We were told she's a short hair golden/Labrador retriever mix. At the moment she is 11 weeks old and about 15lbs? probably. Exactly, a big little puppy, I think we can expect her to be in the 40-60lb range. She is a sweetheart and seems to be mostly already housebroken. The kids love her. Katie is already calling her "her sidekick". Not sure what trouble they will get into, but I'm sure that in the future it will make for interesting blog posts. For now, you'll be seeing lots of pictures of her because unlike Molly, Joanie really seems to enjoy getting her picture taken. Oh and for all you Mad Men fans out there, we named her Joanie because she reminds me of Joan. But we went with Joanie, as Roger calls her, because, come on, it's a totally cute name for puppy.

Sneak Peak for Ana

Wordless Wednesday

Sneak peaks for Michelle and Melody

So I always post the sneak peaks on my business blog, but I post them here too just in case anyone who doesn't check that blog gets to enjoy the sneaks too. I just thought I would let you all know that. You know, just an fyi.

Ok on to the sneak peaks. Enjoy!

i <3 fall

Halloween 2009

Sigh....I'm a little late posting these. It wasn't the most exciting Halloween ever, but Katie got to enjoy herself. Sam, on the other hand, was tired and fell asleep on Grandpa well before we went trick-or-treating. I did get the chance to dress him up, my little lion. Katie was Thumbelina, the Barbie version, which apparently has wings. I can not remember Thumbelina getting wings in the Hans Christian Anderson version, but so be it. Anyway it was drizzling, wet and cold. Hindsight is 20/20, but I guess we should have done one of the church trick-or-treats. There's always next year.....