The Enchanted Mitten

We are in Midland, Michigan this week visiting our brand new niece, Megan Lynn Frame.



Here's a picture from the airport yesterday. Can you tell that Jackson is a little bit excited? If you have talked to me in the last couple of weeks, you probably know how nervous I was about getting to the airport in time for our 7:15am flight. We didn't get much sleep the night before and the boys went in their pajamas, but we made it.



One of the cool things about being a parent is getting to experience everything again as a "first" through your child's eyes. Imagine being 3 years old and seeing this for the first time. Pretty amazing...





Mat's sister's family (Jenny, Steve, Megan, and Ben) live here. Jenny works for Dow Chemical. This morning they took us to Dow Gardens which is a beautiful park. Here are some pictures of the kids exploring the vegetable garden.





The grounds of this place are very beautiful, and it was nice to get outside in this cool weather.



Jackson and his cousin Ben are almost exactly the same age. They always have so much fun together. We're so happy to finally come visit their home in Michigan.




More pics to come!!

A Confession

I had to share what just happened to me because it's just so absurd as to be unbelievable. I'm always complaining about how these boys are in the middle of a long process of trashing our house. We're planning to live here until it's completely ruined, and then sell it to a nice family of raccoons or something. Anyway, more often that not it is the adults in the house who are busy trashing it. Every time I see the stain where I spilled black shoe polish I think about how much cheaper and more fun it would've been to just buy new black shoes than have to replace the stupid carpet!

So tonight...I got the boys in bed and decided to indulge myself by eating the last piece of chocolate cake. I felt like this piece of cake would be even more enjoyable if it had chocolate syrup drizzled all over it. And wouldn't it be great to have a small glass of milk with it? Oh you know that sounds good. I also thought it might be nice to sit upstairs, fire up the DVR, and watch the season premier of a show that I'm too embarassed to name (starts with O and ends with H).

As I was taking my treat up the stairs it occurred to me that there really wasn't enough to share, and Jackson's teeth had already been brushed. I knew he'd see me with it, so rather than tempt him with the cake I tried to hide the plate behind my back on the way up. Almost instantly, I knew this was a big mistake. I felt something wet on my hand and then heard thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump as the cake rolled off the plate and bounced on every lower step stamping the carpet with chocolate syrup all the way down.

I set the milk down at the top of the stairs and ran down to the kitchen to get a towel. Luckily the chocolate came up, but my internal voice was very angry about having to spot clean the stairs since I have been working and cooking and cleaning all day. This was supposed to be my time to relax. Now considering it was the last piece of cake and the carpet had just recently been vacuumed and the 3 second rule was in effect, I did retrieve the cake and made my way back upstairs. Whereupon I knocked over the cup of milk spilling it all over the upper steps. Nice.

My Knight in Shining Armor

Well, it's now official. My husband really and truly is my knight in shining armor. Okay, there's no armor, but he really is a knight. As of March 7, 2007, he is a knight in Belgium. This is probably going to require a little bit of explanation. As most of you know Mat directed a documentary called Last Best Hope about the heroic actions of members of the Belgian Resistance during World War II. We went to Brussels in 2005 to screen the movie there for an audience of big-shots like Prince Phillippe and other dignitaries. Well, they all loved the movie of course because these resistance fighters were portrayed as heroes. The Belgian Resistance has never really gotten much attention in books or movies. Usually you hear about the American and the British soldiers and the Dutch and French Resistance movements. So anyway, several people in the government wanted to honor the filmmakers for telling the story, and it was mentioned that they might be knighted. We had a screening in DC last year that was hosted by the Belgian Embassy and it wasn't mentioned, so we kind of forgot about it. Walter Verstraeten (one of our producers who is Belgian) was knighted, and we were all so happy for him. Being Belgian and extremely patriotic, this was a REALLY big deal for him.

So today he gets this email from Walter. I'm just going to include the whole thing because I love the way Walter writes. (All of his emails are like this whether he's talking about what he ate for lunch or announcing that you've just been made a knight.) Today Mat asked me if I intentionally set out to marry nobility. We were joking that we're probably the poorest European nobility on the planet. It's all hilarious really. Obviously the Belgian military doesn't have much going on during peace-time. I should add, though, that while we are getting a chuckle out of this, it really is a big honor. We are so grateful to Walter and all the Belgians who have kindly helped all along the way as Ramona, David, Mat, and Wilson tried to get this film made. I guess there's going to be a ceremony at some point where he and the others get presented with their medals. I'm sure that will make the blog...

Here's Walter's email:

__________________________

Dearest friends,

By Royal Decree of March 7, 2007 and upon instigation of André Flahaut,
Belgian Minister of Defense, the following lady and gentlemen have been
attributed the Order of Knight of the Crown (Chevalier de l’Ordre de la
Couronne, Ridder in de Kroonorde) and shall forthwith be allowed to add
the superlative “knight”, “chevalier” or “ridder” to their name:

Ramona chevalier Kelly
Robert David chevalier Grosvenor
Chevalier Hames
Wilson chevalier Waggoner

They shall forthwith be addressed as chevalier.

By the by, Ramona, there is no female version of chevalier. Ladies
therefore are also being addressed as “chevalier”.

If all this be true then why haven’t you guys heard about it? Don’t ask
me! I started my investigation by addressing myself to one
capitaine-commandant by the name of Prum, who at the time asked for your resumes to be sent to him. I inquired whom I should address at the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs to find out about the radio silence
surrounding the attribution of a Belgian medal to my four very special
friends. I thereupon wrote a nice letter with a lot of addenda to one Mr.
José Cleereman at the MFA, who called me this afternoon sounding utterly
surprised since the dossiers had been favorably concluded by him on April
16, 2007 and forwarded, medals and charters included, to Michel Jaupart at the Ministry of Defense. So I called Jaupart, who turned out to have
vanished from his former trusted position with Flahaut and who in the
meantime had been promoted to a new posting with the Institute of Veterans and moved to a new location. Jaupart told me to contact one
Capitaine-Commandant Marcia, which I promptly did and who told me that still in April he had forwarded the medals etc. to the Belgian Military
Attaché in Washington, one Rear-Admiral Willy Temmerman, who, if my
recollections are correct, was one of our guests at our Washington viewing
last November. So, my dear chevaliers, the medals are at your side of
the pond awaiting the proper moment to be attached to your dress and/or
jackets.

I shall send an e-mail to Admiral Temmerman still today asking him about
the exact status and shall keep you informed of any new findings.

I humbly bow my head to the four new chevaliers de la Couronne and bid you welcome to the family of Belgian nobility.

Walter chevalier Verstraeten

____________________________

Labor Day at the Lakehouse

We spent Labor Day at Mat's Mom's lakehouse in East Texas. I think we took about 150 pictures or something crazy like that, so it was hard to narrow it down. Here's my favs plus a little video or two.

Sunset boatride on Friday night.







On Saturday morning Jackson would have no part of swimming in the lake. So we took a paddleboat ride and hung out in the boathouse.





Finally Mat coaxed him in, but he was holding on very tight. Within about 30 minutes, though, he was fearless. He had a lot of fun jumping off the dock and the boat.





In case you can't understand him, he's saying, "Daddy I've been dreaming about swimming in the lake all day and all night!" Hahaha. This was literally about five minutes after he was digging his claws into Mat's shoulders to make sure he didn't let go of him in the water.

Another boatride. I wonder why Mister Baby was so sleepy? Hmmm. Maybe because he didn't sleep the entire time we were gone except for the five seconds when I was taking this picture.



This is a beautiful new barn and vineyard on the lake. The property was so large that the house and the rest of the grounds wouldn't fit in the shot. It was gorgeous, though.






Sunday we went to church in Mt. Vernon and heard Nana sing in the choir, McCurdy's for lunch, then more swimming. We went over to Randy and Charlotte's cabin for BBQ, Star Wars, and poker on Sunday night.






We spent some more time in the lake on Monday morning.





And finally we stopped in Rockwall to see my parents on the way home. My brother and sister prepared a huge feast - yum! It was great to catch up with everyone and play with the cousins. I guess we were too worn out at that point to take anymore pictures, though. It was a great family weekend!

Location Scouting with the Boys

Farmer's Market and Children's Museum

First Impressions

Here's a picture of the boys this morning on the first day of preschool. When we got there, I took Jackson to the potty where I discovered that he wasn't wearing any underwear. Note to parents: Old enough for preschool does not always mean old enough to get dressed by oneself.