This was the summer of the scooper-scooter rediscovery.  Last year it resided in the backyard and was a has-been, a leftover, a neglected toy.  Kalee brought it 'round front to sell in the garage sale last spring, and ever since there hasn't been a day that the thing hasn't been pushed, ridden, or fought over since.


We made some new friends this last year.  Grant and Lindsay Baker have two kids the same age as Marcus and Molly.  Anike (An-eh-kuh) and Marcus were climbing on the Geological Display at Schram Park.  Marcus found a dinosaur tooth that looks deceptively like a piece of broken plastic spoon.  But never the less it vehemently proved to be 100% genuine dinosaur tooth.  Good thing they are just laying around every where at state park sites.  Otherwise, we'd be hard pressed to find another one.  Lots of mini adventures were to be had, rounding out the summer of found treasures.

Pumpkin Paintin' Time

Fall is a great time of year in my book.  There's Football, the World Series, the Apple Jack Festival in Neb City, Thanksgiving and lets not forget Halloween.  Best kids event ever.  Now, I'm not into that whole Zombie Apocalypse thing but, dressing up in costumes, and begging the neighbors for candy is pretty sweet.  My favorite part is seeing all the kids and giving out the candy, so there you go, parity.



 We had a bunch of fun this year.  Last couple of years Kalee has had the kids paint their pumpkins and then dress them up with stickers and stuff.  Makes for a couple of days of fun, and the pumpkins last longer when they aren't all carved up.


Of course the kids just love a chance to get messy, especially with all the different color paints and things.  Michelangelo they aren't but maybe Picasso, we'll just have to see.  Speaking of art, Molly has been trying to teach Kalee and I the "Angel" song.  For the life of me I don't know what it is.  She says the lyrics go "Angel, angel, angel pick me up."  And then a whole bunch more angels...  Anyway, I should probably get a hold of the teachers at school (day care) and see what it is she's talking about.

Marcus and Molly were done getting their candy and came home, but they wanted to hand out candy to all the kids as they came by.  I think they like to see all the costumes as much as I do.  I wonder how long it will be before they are begging to stay out all night, and bring home two pillow cases of candy like the girls we saw just before closing up shop.  Kalee said one girl had a full pillow case, plus a backpack full of candy.  Brings tears to me old eyes.  All that candy, and none be mine!

More Summer Time Fun!!!

Here are some fun pictures from our summer.  We didn't do much out of the norm.  We got to go see Grandma and Grandpa Richter last week. Marcus and Molly both had sooo much fun, we were all exhausted when we got home.  Marcus got to go fishing on Grandpa's boat, for the first time.  He peed on a tree.  Molly went down a really fast slide in the park and wasn't sure at first, what to think of it!  We also managed to squeeze in one evening of Millard Days.  Molly got to ride some rides this year. I think she liked that.  They both enjoyed the cotton candy.

And an actual decent, not covered in food, picture of me and the kids!!! I still can not believe it! Don't look too close!

Here is Marcus after I drug him off the couch to get him to smile at the camera.  I don't know what the problem is.

 Here is Marcus and his cousin  Gracie practicing fishing out of the boat, still in the driveway.  I wanted to get a picture of them in the boat at the lake, but my mom takes WAY too long to get ready. Love you mom!!

A random trip to Runza led to a cute pic of Matt and Marcus.   Ahhh.

 I really wanted to get a decent picture of my kids. they were dressed, clean and ready to go.  Now if I could figure out how to get them to hold still.  It just doesn't look good  if you have to hold them in place!

 

Here is a picture from Millard Days... don't they just look overly excited!!! Ha!

 This is molly in her cute black dress. I just like this picture.

And another of Molly in her cute little outfit.  Girl clothes are really so cute.  I don't even like to buy the cute stuff, because Molly is so hard on clothes. She ruins everything! She hates bibs. Even when I manage to wrestle one on her, she rips it off in 2 minutes.  But she sure is cute.  Good thing!!











Here is Marcus making good use of a little sister!

Push ME!!!!

Ahhh, summer, how i love thee...

I LOVE summer. I don't care how hot it gets. I am sad that it is almost over.  I also look forward to fall though. and football parties... not so much the games.  The kids have had lots of fun this summer. We did not go anywhere. We will go to Philly again soon and will keep ya posted.  Molly is talkin up a storm. She is getting big.  I think she was 31 lbs. at the dr the other day.  Marcus is getting big too. Put a lifejacket on him at the pool and he will swim all over.  He needs some swimmin lessons, but maybe over the winter or next year for sure.  I keep putting it off.   Molly is a fish too.  as long as her head is above water!  Marcus got a new buzz cut this summer.  He looks like a different kid. Hope everyone is haveing a great summer.  The days are already getting shorter....boooooo!

 A goat checking out Molly at the zoo.  and Molly equally checking.

 Our swimming situation in our backyard.  We have spent aLOT of time out here.

 Cheese!!!

 Marcus's new haircut... i love it!!

Marcus lovin his little sister... not sure if she is lovin him back or not. Looks more like he is smashing her.

Happy 4th of July!!

What a nice weekend, so far!  Here is a nice picture of Matt's family that gathers here for the 4th of July.

Happy 4th of July everyone!

It's been a while...

So pretty much, if it is nice outside, we are not in the house.  I couldn't tell you what is going on in our town, let alone the rest of the world. This is why I have not blogged in quite a while.   All I know is, Molly would rather bleed to death than have a bandaid put on her ouchie.  Molly is talking a lot. most of it you can understand and she has a word for just about everything.  Marcus is an amazing Mario cart driver.  He beats me a lot and I am actually trying and therefore, mad.  I had a great trip to Napa with the girls.  We went to a CWS game.  I am working more hours.  Matt had a birthday. Next is the 4th of July!   I always love the 4th.  Always have.  I think because we have always gotten together with family.  Right now I am ready for bed!!!  Here are some fun pics...

 This is as close as I can get Molly to a sprinkler, a hose or rain for that matter.  She does like the pool, though.

 Me and the Zoltar machine from,"Big"... I got my wish!

 There were 7 of us girls that went to Napa , and here we are in the limo with our hats on!

Happy 38th Birthday to my wonderful husband and a great dad!  Hope you had a great day and many more!!!!!!

 This is how you get em really clean!

 Marcus with his Mater teeth...

 Marcus with his own teeth...  not sure which is cuter!

10,797 Strong Baby!

It's been about six years since I first released SAFMQ to the weird world web (the internetz, that series of tubs tubes that moves teh bitzez).  Today I checked in and there's been about 10,797 downloads from the SAFMQ project.  That big spike in September of 2009 was when the 0.8 version came out.  0.8... so in case you ever wondered if I'm dense or just unimaginative, the leading zero indicates that it's still a development project.  Anybody remember Z-Term?  I think the last version I ever used was like 0.9 or something.  A work in progress.

For those of you who don't know.  SAFMQ's name is derived from the store and forward message queue (I must be unimaginative...).  Queue is a thing we use every day, only we typically call it a 'line' here in the USA.  Think about when you're waiting in line at the drive through, you're waiting in a queue.  Apparently, the Angols like to use this word, although it never caught on here, except in engineering practices and billiards.  A message, in a message queue, is like a car in that line of cars waiting in the drive through.  Each is a self-contained unit of information; like your in your car waiting for your shick-un-nug-eats.  The message queue is the line, and the girl in the drive through window is the message receiver, who's going to do some work for you when you arrive at her window, one-at-a-time, and in the order you showed up at MacDarrel's.  So imagine that once your placed your order, you could never get out of the line, you were always going to get the right order when you showed up at the window (I know it never actually happens, but stay with me).  That's what the store and forward part is about.  SAFMQ receives a message and holds it for the sender until the receiver is ready to receive the message.  It's kinda like email or facespace.

SAFMQ does a bunch more than just schlep a bunch data around, but that's the general idea.  Turns out that 40% of the world downloads SAFMQ 50% of the time.  The other 50% is downloaded by like 5% of the world.  The true number of downloads is closer to 11K (no that's not Kelvin, it's thousands/mil if your from an esp speaking region).  That's not alot.  Pidgin's been downloaded 24.8 million times.  But Pidgin lets you talk to your friends through IM sessions, where SAFMQ is used by programmers to build computer systems, so there's a totally different market.  Honestly, I wish it was more popular, and I could ride that wave into some sort of celebrity book tour, but someone will have to break in and steal SAFMQ's sex tape, and then I'd have to hire a publicist.  No one really wants to do that.

Patio Musings

I'm sure Kalee will never believe it, but I had lunch on the patio at Stokes today.  I couldn't resist, it was completely sunny with a temperature of about 72 degrees.  In case you don't you don't measure air temperature using an antiquated German's notion of the coldest it could ever get, that's 22 centigrade. Just beautiful.

The patio there uses cedar poles for a roof.  I think the largest ones were about 4 inches across.  We're thinking about putting a sun shade on our deck, and I'm of the notion the poles would make a great canopy.  I wonder where I can get them.  They were really rough, like fence posts, so I'm not sure where I'd go to pick some up.  They aren't exactly on the shelf at Lowes...

So it turns out the camera on my cell phone ain't too shabby.  It's not to great either, being that it's a couple mega pixel pin-hole camera.  But for some little snapshots like these, it's not bad.  It appears that Philadelphia is pretty proud of the liberty bell, they have to have spin-off art arranged around the city to celebrate the fact.  These are on the corner of something like 36th and Chestnut, and may be on Penn's campus.


Last November we were at the Richtos Demense for the celebration of giving thanks for a bountiful harvest (which none of us actually contributed to, as none of us actually work the land to create for those who labor on trivial things not really required for basic human survival).  Anyway, we still decided to celebrate, with over eating, afternoon snoozing, and general sophomoric behavior.  Regardless the sunset was sure dramatic that evening!

This Trip to Philly

So, we got back late last night form Philly.  Weather delayed us in Chicago, and we were on a flying roller-coaster on the way home.  We were there for just one night.  We had planned on a quick trip out to see the Ophthalmologist and Oncologist, but things ran long at Wills Eye Institute and we didn't make it out to see the Oncologist.  In general, Molly's doing very well.  Like past reports, there were no new seed sites, and they ophthalmologists were impressed with her visual capabilities.

She had a small re-occurrence on one of the seed sites in her right eye.  Dr. Shields was able to treat it with cryotherapy (freezing the tumor to kill it).  Carol (Dr. Shields) said that in a recent paper they published they found that there's a 18% chance for central tumors to re-occur after chemotherapy, and a 50% chance for a seed site to re-occur.  Molly has about 6 or so seed sites, so the chance that one would re-occur is increased.  Overall, good, but instead of being on a 6 month checkup period, we'll be back in August.

I like Dr. Shields.  Her patients are very important to her.  I think that's one of the reason she sees so many children.  She wants to make sure they are all going to be OK.  We learned that there's a lot in common with Western Pennsylvania and the rest of the Mid-West, as anyone who grew up swimming in muck-lined ponds can only know.

We spent some time after Molly's surgery at the park in the in the bottom right of the map I linked.  Lots of grass and great paths for walking.  Go there if you get a chance, Washington Square's near the Liberty Bell Monument.  The park was so peaceful that I think angels stop by every now and then.  Turns out it was part of the original plan laid down by William Penn himself, though I don't think it's original name was Washington Square.  A marker there stated that there were to be five spaces dedicated to public use.  The one at the center was for town meetings (and is were City Hall is now) and  the other four were to be green spaces for enjoying the outdoors.  Apparently the British used it for a mass grave of revolutionaries during the Revolutionary War.  Beautiful place with a monument to the unknown soldier.  I suggest stopping by for a walk if you get the chance.  The surrounding architecture is cool too.

Happy Birthday to Marcus and Molly...

Molly turned 2 last week and Marcus turned 4 on Sunday.  They are getting so big.  We did not really have a party.  Just us on Molly's and we went to Grandma and Grandpa's for Marcus's because it was also on Mother's day.  And my brother graduated college. Congrats Colby!! and it was Cory's birthday. This was a full weekend. I think we had every occasion possible.  Here are a couple snapshots of the last week...

 This is kinda blurry, but I can't get the blog to turn my horizontal pics, so this is the one ya get!

Molly and Marcus sit in one chair, alot.  Molly likes this more than Marcus.  But both would rather have a birthday hat on their face than their head.

 Marcus gonna blow out his candles.... Oh wait! Grandma Lala beat him to it! Sorry let's try it again.  We don't want any hair on fire!!!

Then Marcus and Grandpa went out side to fly a kite!  It was pretty windy though.  They did a good job!!

Happy Birthday Molly!!!  You big 2 year old!!!

Happy Marcus!!

So today is Molly's second birthday. She is taking a nap right now. We will do cake later. Pictures to follow.  But I found this cute picture of Marcus.  His eyes are shut, but he is so funny.  I like this one.

Look at that big ol cheesy smile! I love it.  He is sleeping too.  Somehow I love them most when they are sleeping!!!

I want to jump!!!

Molly is getting to where we can understand most of what she says, and she usually wants something.  One of the first things she could say was "I want".  Everyday she wakes up and says,"I want Boo Boo." which is what she calls Marcus.  And the day after Easter, all day long, I thought she was asking for Daddy, but she was asking for jelly, as in jelly bean! Really. All DAY.  She is getting so big and in 2 days, Molly will be 2.  We will also go to Philly in May.  I pray everyday that this trip will be good news.   The other thing Molly loves to do is jump!  Here are some pics of jumping on the bed with Marcus.

 This is like classic Marcus and Molly.  Molly taking a break to suck her thumb and Marcus trying to know down the thing in the ceiling.

Who's that big kid in the middle????

I know I haven't been able to blog much lately.  It seems like I have a lot going on, though I can't claim we have done anything.  Here is a fun picture of Great Grandpa Richter with only a handful of his great grandchildren.  I think he has like 21 and one more on the way (Isaac and Maria's). Good job Grandpa!

We couldn't get to my mom and dad's for Easter this year, so the kids and I ran home last week.  We dyed easter eggs and this is how its done at Grandma Micki's house....

 ....without clothes and ice cream when your done!

 Marcus is checking out his candy after he dumped the basket...

And I don't know why, but I cannot get these cute little pics to turn sideways, so turn your head!!!