A $65 Piece of Advice

For all you moms out there who have crazy toddlers running around throwing random items down your toilet, here's an insider tip on how to remove said item without having to pay a plumber. Shop-Vac. Apparently, you can shop-vac the blockage out of your toilet (assuming you have access to a shop-vac) as long as it hasn't gone past the bend in your pipes, thus avoiding the $65 fee (or however much it is for you) to hire a rooter man.

How do I know this, you ask? Because for the second time since having toddlers roam my home, I have had to call out a plumber to unclog our toilet (which he did with a shop-vac). The first time around, it was a dinosaur (the jury's still out on whether it was Bella or Jason who sent T-Rex for a swim). This time, the culprit was Jonah and his toilet-clogging item of choice was a pencil.

Gotta love surprises in your toilet.

Star Artist

Every year the Natural History Museum of Santa Barbara puts on an "Art Walk" showcasing all the local artist as a fundraiser. The museum sets aside a certain section of the show for children's art. Apparently, it's a pretty big deal.

Of course, when Jason came home from school last year and mentioned that his art teacher was going to put his art in a little show, we assumed this was for everyone at his school. That was in May, and we hadn't heard anything again until he brought home a V.I.P. pass to the Art Walk. So off we went to the Natural History Museum with our special pass in hand fully expecting an extensive display of art from the art classes at Roosevelt Elementary School.

Um ... we were wrong.

It turns out that each school in the city only gets to submit 10 pieces of art to represent their school at the Art Walk. Kind of AWESOME that Jason was picked. There was his still life, all mounted and labeled, amongst the other "Star Artists" showing at the museum.

Like I said before, it was a pretty big deal.

Mommy Wow! I'm a Big Kid Now.

JONAH HAS TURNED 1!!!! Don't you worry, we celebrated his big day in style -- nana's house, Thomas the Train balloons, presents, and snickerdoodle pie.

The highlight, however, had to be the adoption of his new pet manatee "Philip".

Jonah was so excited to be turning one that he even decided to start walking last week.

Needless to say, I'm sure he'll remember it forever. Happy Birthday, Babes.

And thus it begins ...

So here we are. We have crossed over to the dark side entering the deep abyss known as "blogging". Heaven knows (and some of you too) that I resisted the gravitational pull of the bloggers. Yet they were always there, forwarding me their happy little lives all so concisely and sweetly put together in one little happy blog. While I tried my best to resist (because let's be honest, who really cares about witty quips of my kid's every little poop - or big poop if it's Bella we're talking about), my husband was not strong enough. Last night, at 10:15 pm, he officially entered our family into the voyeuristic blogging world. So, I say again, here we are. Read, laugh, cry, or don't. I don't really care.

Although ... I'm sure I eventually will.