Attitude

What is this face? Bruce has shown a lot of this lately.

The Snow is Melting!

The weather has warmed up slightly here. Yes, there is still snow on the ground. But yesterday we could walk outside without having to put on hats and scarves and without feeling that bitter cold wind. We celebrated by heading to the park.
This is the second time Bruce has been out of the house wearing his underpants. The first time was last week, when we ventured to the library for 1-1/2 hours. He stayed dry the whole time: success. I also introduced him to public restrooms: failure. He wouldn't tolerate being held up over a toilet (and come to think of it, neither would I!).
So here we are at the park. The park is a bit more fun than the library though - after 45 minutes I noticed a wet bottom on Bruce. Bummer.

I'm a Free Woman - and a Poor One Too

It's official: I'm unemployed. I put in my two weeks notice just that long ago and Wednesday was my last day at Reviewed.com/DigitalCameraInfo.com. I enjoyed the work, but not the amount of it (too many hours!). Add on a few moral/ethical scuffles and it was just too much. I celebrated my newfound freedom by painting my nails for the first time since college (thanks for the nail polish, Karyn!) while watching American Idol. I won't be that lazy every night though: now I'm searching for some freelance writing gigs.

Last night we had one of my former coworkers over for dinner. Bruce gets very excited when people come over. The highlights of the night included Bruce flexing his muscles and then asking to see my coworker's muscles, and Bruce swiping a steak knife and waving it in the air while yelling "WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?"

Pink Eye

The dreaded pink-eye got to Bruce. It hit real fast on Sunday: one minute he was fine and the next he was blinking boogers. Since then he's been very sensitive of his "scratchy eyes." Unfortunately we don't have eye-drops. We have the ointment form that squirts out like toothpaste. That means we have to pin Bruce down, pry his eyelids open, and get this stuff in his eye four times a day! And not have him rub his eyes...

Model Train Show No. 1

We took Bruce to a model train show this weekend. Nerdy, yes. But we actually saw friends from church there, so we aren't the only nerdy parents carting our kids to train shows.
We stayed for about an hour and a half just watching tiny trains roll by on different tracks.

Valentine's Day 2008

This is THE cheesecake I'd made for the boys. As expected, they both loved it. Strawberries for Scott and sprinkles for Bruce. Scott got me dark chocolate and a rose, I got him an Eric Whitacre CD, and we got Bruce some bubble bath.
We always make each other really good food on Valentine's Day. In return for the cheesecake, Scott made me a hot fudge sundae cake - and served it up with soy ice cream. Yum!
Before all the desserts, I made baked eggplant and had it all set up with candlelight when Scott walked in. Dinner didn't go as planned though. Scott walked in with our next-door neighbor, an elderly woman that got locked out of her apartment. We invited her to eat with us, so she did. It was a little weird though. She only speaks French. She couldn't figure out what we were eating and was gesturing at her food and saying something along the lines of "what is this?" So I pulled out my laptop, googled an image of an eggplant, and showed her. The internet is amazing.
This is Bruce at snack-time a few days later. Sometimes he insists that his animals join us at meals.

Bruce's Eyebrows

Bruce has recently discovered his eyebrows and how cool they are to move.

Worst Weekend Ever

Don't get too excited. It came and it went. I thought the first miscarriage fulfilled my statistical quota for life: some 1 in 5 pregnancies are miscarried. But two in a row? This stinks. And rotten of rottenness: it happened the day before my first miscarried baby was due. Nasty weekend.
Scott and Bruce are taking good care of me. Scott took Bruce to the store so I could get some down-time. Bruce picked out some flowers for me. He insisted on buying these daisies in a watering can and he keeps talking about when we're going to plant our garden (he loved playing in the garden last summer). For a few days, Bruce kept telling me to "Go get some rest! Go to sleep!" He doesn't really understand what's going on; I hadn't explained the baby-in-the-tummy thing yet, so he just thinks I'm "a little bit sick," as he puts it.

In happier news, tomorrow is Valentine's Day and I've got a huge cheesecake in the oven for my boys. Scott and Bruce both LOVE cheesecake. Their toppings differ though: Scott prefers fruit like strawberries or blueberries. Bruce prefers rainbow sprinkles - or "jimmies" as New Englanders call them.

Potty-training Full Speed Ahead

Bruce has been better about potty-training lately. Grandma sent him a few pairs of Thomas the Tank Engine underpants, which have worked wonders for his motivation. He really wants to keep Thomas dry.
This is Bruce having a good laugh on the couch.
This is Scott caught on camera after a hard day's work.

BU Invite Elite Mile

This was the elite mile race at the BU Valentine Invitational. Reebok runners Kim Smith and Amy Mortimer led the race and blazed through with Kim winning in 4 minutes, 24 seconds.
Our very own GBTC runner.

Go GBTC!

Bruce and I went to a track meet last Friday. I wanted to test out a camera and see all my track buddies kick some booty. And it's been awhile since I'd been to a race. Bruce was pretty much the only kid there, and he got spoiled by all the ladies.
This kid climbed up and down the bleachers for about 45 minutes straight, so after awhile he needed a little snack. He did his share of cheering too.
Go Greater Boston!

Scott the T.A.

Scott has been busy for months working with professors to design and assist with a brand new course. The class started Tuesday and today, Thursday, the class "made the cover" of the MIT web site.

In other big news, a paper from Scott's lab got published in Nature! Congrats! He said he didn't help much on this one: "only some moral support." Still, very awesome.

A Visit from the Fire Department

Scott and Bruce survived the week I was in Vegas with the help of Grandma. There was only one visit from the fire department while I was gone. Scott made a cake in a shallow pan. It spilled over and burned this nasty crusty junk on the bottom of the oven. It must have been really smoky because it activated our apartment complex's fire alarm: oops. The fire department came and had to turn it off and check out our oven (which later required 2.5 hours of scrubbing). Everything smelled like smoke for a few days.

Not the Coolest Fridge Ever

A blogaholic friend of mine requested some photos of my fridge. She's hosting some sort of Cool Fridge competition. Mine is probably not in the running, but here it is anyway.

This gets the prize as my coolest magnet. Camera convention loot.
If my brain is fried by the end of the day and I can't think of something to cook for dinner, here's a short list of our common meals.
Here is my list of possible meal choices for the week from what is in the fridge at the moment: salmon and kale, veggie burgers, black bean soup, calzones, tofu and rice, and pizza.

Lots of free magnets, a few recipes, etc.
My fridge is covered in free magnets of all kinds. We have the 2003-04 game schedules of just about all BYU sports stuck to our fridge along with these cool lawyers and oil companies that make cheapo magnets and stick them on the fronts of the Yellow Pages.
I had these word magnets put away for a long time. But now that Bruce has stopped eating small non-food items, they're out once again.
Here's my fridge complete with a mirror that graced the inside of my high school locker. And what fridge is complete without a little scribble art?

PMA Trade Show 2008

More pictures from the Photo Marketing Association trade show.

The End is Near...

The show is almost over! In a few hours, I'll be climbing aboard the plane and heading home. My laptop is ready to set on fire from all this over-time. My bags are much heavier coming home. I've got some convention loot: tote bags, pens, and even a photo puzzle starring myself in a Sesame Street scene.

While I was working, some of my coworkers made this little music video about our site.