my new kickboxing gloves from my little brother. oh, look at that. they’re pink.
my new ipod. it’s not pink. but my sister has the pink one so it just wasn’t right. one can’t have a monopoly.
and my new, ruffled cake stand. all it needs is a pink, swiss dot cake to go on top. that or a really trashy barbie/ballerina cake. we’ll see what the little minion wants.
that’s right, guess whose birthday is next?
older, wiser, better looking. i’m on a roll.
delicious british breakfast with fake bacon up the yin-yang. (i celebrate in style.) after church the whole family made lemon meringue pie with me. which i think will become my birthday tradition. my mother found me another extremely useful piece of fenton glassware, much to boy’s chagrin. boy’s mother bought me a very sexy nano. and boy’s father has promised to help inspire my husband to bead-board my dining room. i call that a haul. to top it off my true love took me to barbacoa for dinner. a restaurant with such exciting things on the menu as “double cut pork chop with apples with hibachi cherry wood smoked quail and house made fig jam” – whatever that is, and i ordered french fries. i can’t help it, i’m cheap. as a further demonstration of his affections, boy make a token attempt at putting on my cupboard doors, after 4 years in the attic, and bought the bolts to attach my new bed frame, after three weeks on the floor. now that’s how you melt my heart. to another good year. *m
and whether or not you want to eat them is up to you.
they’re like little cinnamon roll elves.
highly trained professionals.
butta!
knife!
(my mother-in-law’s recipe. what are the odds she would share with you?)
i should make him a craigslist ad. and then i should have him shave. i’m sure it would all work out in the end.
i was home for a week and helped my mother clean his room. it became very clear that reuben was in need of a woman. he needs a little dusting off. …out there cold and alone, hiding under a rock, waiting for his very own honoria glossop to come and flush him out. (i’m just trying to help point her in the general direction.) besides, my brother is the coolest. at least that’s what i thought while rooting through all of his stuff and organizing it in to little piles: guns, ammo, black powder, hats, archery, woodworking, leather-working, fishing, weight lifting, rock climbing, tree climbing, camping, hiking, biographies, records, knives, vintage clothes and ties, engineering, photography, calvin and hobbes, cycling, and yoga. (if i wouldn’t have visited and tidied they all would have thought he was just a hoarder. now they will think he is a man of diverse interests and many talents. now that’s smooth. thank me later.)
while there my mother threw a new year’s party in his man cave. so i invited my friends, made bubble tea and sushi, hung christmas lights and pictures, and gave him tips for entertaining in the future. he just looked at me. fat chance sister.
the bubble tea prior to the ice.
monica objecting to ever drinking boogers through a straw. do it anyways.
the sushis.
geoffrey upon discovering that the wasabi was not in fact guacamole.
idgi thinking that’s the funniest thing she’s seen all week.
every once in a while i get to try out the 11 foot table my father made me eight years ago. which has yet to fit in any of my houses. except my dream house, of course.
jehu thinking there’s just no place like grandma’s.
he’s exactly right.
gideon played ping pong for like four hours straight. until his arm cramped up.
dad showing the wagners daddy boy’s front page pullout. ”why yes, he is cute.”
visiting with friends, including my latin instructor from high school.
playing hacky sack. (“look, i’m a ballerina!”)
jael doubling as a net, waiting for midnight. gideon still playing ping pong.
stoking the fire.
i think only reuben and his friends actually made it to the new year without passing out of old age. i heard them setting off fireworks outside my bedroom window and then laughing hysterically while trying to blow up the foreign exchange student and the dog. no one told josue that you had to let go of the bottle rocket and no one told the dog they weren’t playing “fetch.” happy 2012.
p.s. reuben, if you mess up your room again i can make you a personal ad. keep your underwear off the floor. *m
that’s daddy for you.
we made a trip north after christmas so marc could help on a job my brother was doing. we like to joke that boy made the cover of the newspaper because he’s so stinkin’ sexy and reuben likes to climb in unitard. seriously.
that and boob skipped over to q-doba for lunch, barefoot, decidedly dirty, and then wondered why he got frisked by mall security. my favorite was when jehu’s little cousin saw an elderly/bald/slightly homeless man while shopping and yelled, “it’s uncle reuben!” what was even more uncanny was when two days later jehu himself spotted a quadriplegic in an electric wheelchair and mistook him for reuben on a moped. let’s just say we have a lot of material to work with here and we do so quite often. i ♥ my little brother.
it’s hard to believe. christmas officially ended for the ottos yesterday. yes, yesterday was my first day home – with no unpacking, guests, errands, or re-packing. of course i’m having company today and tomorrow, so i guess next week would be the official end of our riotous living. that and the advent toe polish is just starting to wear off.
here is the christmas habbie. with her christmas/birthday clothes, blankie, and shoes. lub.
and the boys in the middle of their christmas rioting.
after which we jumped in the car and drove to deary for a week. here is rahab meeting the much famed young alexander.
and then catching up with leif the lucky. (the kid’s a social animal.)
then we jumped in the car and drove back to jerome. and in two hours, jerome is driving back to us. bring it.
