Déjà vu?

So Eliza had her 5th birthday a couple days ago and I thought to myself, "something is familiar about all this."

I then thought back to two years ago--when I first came up to work for David on his phonebookin' crew. Eliza was then celebrating her 3rd birthday.

I knew I had taken some pictures on that day as well, so I went through some of my old photo files and found this little gem that I snapped just before Eliza had her Dora the Explorer cake.
Upon comparison of the two photographs, I noticed that Eliza was wearing the same shirt on both occasions.

What are the odds? Same girl, same day, same shirt--two years apart.

Then I got to thinking that a lot of things are the same as they were two years ago. And as I thought about the past two years, the word nostalgic came into my mind. Then, I suppose because it is an odd sounding word, I kept repeating it over and over in my head--and within a few moments, as it always does, the word morphed into nuh-stal-jeek.

As I sat there with that oboesque pronunciation echoing through my brain (nuh-stal-jeek, nuh-stal-jeek, nuh-stal-jeek...), I remembered it is about time for my annual belated mothers' day well wishes. Indeed, this time of year almost makes me remorseful for all the instances I jokingly told people that I never knew my Mother because she had died three months before I was born.

In hopes of making amends, I have decided to give her the thing she wants most from me. The thing that will bring her the most happiness. And the thing that gives meaning to her life in her old age. Pictures of horses.

So there you are Madre. Hopefully these pictures are enough to slake your equiniferous appetite.

Below is my Bentionary. It's got definitions for words I make up in my blog post (the underlined words).

Bentionary

o-bo-esque [oh-boh-esk] (adj.) Having the characteristics of an oboe esp. in tone.

e-quin-if-er-ous [ee-kwhayn-if-er-uhs, ek-whyan-if-er-uhs] (adj.) Having, producing, or relating to horses.

Hangin' out with the Lindseys

While we were up in Washington, Elise and I stayed with David and Jeanne's family. I got a chance to take a bunch of pictures and here are some of them. They're not really in any logical order because blogger is weird like that.

The Fam.
Tommy learning to crawl.

Sisters!

Eliza is happy to have her picture taken...

...sometimes.

Soph. Soph. Soph. Soph. Soph. Soph.

Playing Cyclo Maniacs on the laptop.

Cooper the businessman selling rocks from an ironing board. Prices range from $.25 to $1000. Be advised, he does not accept checks.

Brothers!

Cooper studying his countries and capitals.

Alice

Cooper at baseball practice.

Sophia showing off her missing tooth.

Alice eating ice cream.

Hangin' out with the Barben's

After the Favero's house, Elise and I were up in Washington. We visited the Barbens a few times. Elise had my camera a lot of the time and took several pictures of the kids so watch her blog for those. Here are a few I took after playing some baseball with the boys.

Bronson getting ready to launch a home run.
It looks like Bret Jr. knocked another one out of the park.

Jake makes a diving save.

And Bronson robs an anonymous slugger of another one.

Hangin' out with the Faveros

Again, it's been a while since I've blogged. Since y'all heard from me last I have been all over the place. Elise and I came out to Nevada after the Jensens were kind enough to let me stay at their place in Utah for quite a few weeks. We had a lot of fun and I was able to document it in pictures. Here are but a few of them:

Juliet is always smiling--even while warming the bench.
We went Geocaching with the older kids. They all love each other.

The cache was set up in a few different legs. One of which leads us by a foul-smelling waste water reclamation plant.

See, there it is.

The kids on an old tree.

...Still smiling...

In the car.

Elise is with three nieces. (That rhymes) Victor led us right to the cache.

Elise is with three nieces and victor in this picture. (Two rhymes)

Still in the tree.

Jerimiah, Colin, and Keira weren't with us on the photo shoot, but I did snap this one of them on the swing.

Look who's here

I know everyone is anxious to see Liz and Ryan's new baby, Jacob. Here are a couple of photos I snapped shortly after they got home a few minutes ago.

It's me again

Sorry I have not blogged in a while. I was unable to post pictures or videos and have just fixed the problem.

A few weeks back, Marae wrote a blog about the most annoying song in the world and posted a 20+ minute example. It was pretty rough stuff but I wouldn't go as far as to say the most annoying song in the world. Allow me to submit the following songs as examples of what may be even more annoying.

This is one that mom plays when she wants me to wake up. She knows I will have to get up to shut it off. Try to listen to the whole thing (at least until he starts singing around 40 seconds).

And this is one that some of you may remember. It was sung at my farewell.

She threatened to sing this song at my farewell for months beforehand even though I pleaded with her not to. So when I got my new camera and realized she didn't like me to take pictures of her, there was only one thing to do.

I've got dozens more but they take too long to upload so Mom lucked out.

Finally Updated

I know, I know. It's been a long time since I've blogged. It's not that I didn't want to. I was all ready to post weeks ago. It seemed all the answers to the Winner of the Week challenge had been submitted. All were way off. In fact, only one person even guessed one of the quotations correctly. That person turned out to be Jon signed in as his wife. So I spent a few weeks making this banner:

Just as I went to post it, I noticed a new comment in my comment section. It was from Marae and she had guessed them all correctly. Yes, it's true; all of those quotes belong to Elise. The fourth one was on Marae's blog and the fifth one was on Elise's. I have spent the last few weeks creating a new poster for Marae--the true Winner of the Week!

Unfortunately, she hasn't posted an unobstructed picture of her face since she's been married, so I had to make do with what I had.

Strange, I know. But not as strange as the first time I heard some of the nieces and nephews singing "I saw Uncle Ben kissing Aunt Marae..." to the tune of I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus. I guess it's still taking a while to get used to having another Uncle Ben in the family.

Well, as you know, I've been up in Washington for a couple months. David's secret dream is to have the whole family move up here. It is a really nice place and full of natural beauty. Here's a picture of Deception Pass Bridge from Whidbey Island.

And here's a picture of Cooper and Sophia sledding after it snowed a few weeks ago.

Although they love playing together, they are overjoyed to have the Barben cousins so close. In fact, Cooper started a blog to chronicle his new adventures with them (however, the title of his blog sounds more like a reality TV show that pits two people from different walks of life against each other for the chance to win big money).

Speaking of games that pit people against one another for the chance to win big money, I have some bad news. The Winner of the Week challenge will be postponed until further notice.