More pictures in restaurants

Sunday is Family Day at one of our favorite bar/restaurants. $1.99 kid's meals aka Wild Child meals. That's right - we love Buffalo Wild Wings, which we still call BW3. When I was pregnant with David, I was sick every single day from about 3-4 weeks until 33 or 34 weeks. The only thing that calmed my nausea was spicy food. I can't explain it, but hot, spicy chicken wings made me feel much better. So I went to BW3 almost every day of that pregnancy and got the hottest wings I could stand, stuff that burned your skin to just touch it. I can't even eat them that hot anymore, but I could tolerate some nasty hot sauce back then. Hormones, maybe? We tell David that he was constructed from chicken wings and Diet Coke - virtually all I consumed while pregnant.

So we were out, we took pictures. You get to see my new, shorter haircut. Totally unstraightened (shouldn't the humidity be diminishing by now? Shouldn't I not have to work so hard to straighten it? Oh well.) Aren't you lucky?

If you look really hard, you can see Matt behind David and me, playing a video game. Some shooter thing. He's quite good at those and Sabrina loves to watch. David, as always, prefers to be with Mommy. Such stereotypical kids: a mama's boy and a daddy's girl.

Don't Call Me Mrs. K . . .

I ran into a teenager from church the other day. He greeted me by saying "Hey, Mrs. K.! How ya doin' today?" I was fine until I heard that. You see, I hate, hate, HATE being called Mrs. K. The full Mrs. K##### doesn't thrill me either, but it's better than Mrs. K.

Everyone who knows me IRL knows I am Melinda Maidenname Marriedname. (No hyphen, thank you. Like Anne Morrow Lindbergh or Hilary Rodham Clinton.) Ms. Maidenname is just fine. Ms. Maidenname Marriedname is fine too. I will even tolerate Mrs. Maidenname Marriedname and even Mrs. Marriedname (what I get most often at church from the kids). Mrs. K##### still makes me think of my mother-in-law, not me, but like I said, I tolerate it. It initially made me feel as though I was losing my own identity to be Mrs. K#####, but it is good now to have the same last name as the kids.

But for some reason, since I've had children, teens and some of the neighborhood kids have taken to calling me "Mrs. K." The teens call Matthew "Matt," not Mr. K, so they aren't getting it from that. I really hate it, but I don't know why. Perhaps it reminds me of Happy Days, the 70's TV show. I don't want to be seen as motherly and matronly like "Mrs. C," as Marion Cunningham was known. Or maybe it's just that our name is simple and easy to pronounce. If it was Szczepanek or Dyfydd or something else weird or complicated, I could see shortening it.

Maybe I just need to lighten up.

The Whole Family - in One Picture!

David was crying, so he looks weird. Sabrina was laughing, so she looks weird. I had a smile frozen on my face for a long time, waiting for the photog to get a good look from the kids. Matt just looks weird all the time (lol). jk

First Day of School - YEA!

David checks out his new classroom with Daddy and Sabrina
at last week's Open House at his new school.

School started today - finally! Waiting until after Labor Day is hard on Mommies. In a more normal family, this would be a day of great celebration and sadness as David starts kindergarten. But since David has been in school for YEARS, this isn't the big deal it might be with an NT kid. It is nice to just have Sabrina home though. I hope his first day is going well. He went to the same school from age 1.5 to age 6, so this new building will be a big transition for him. Going all day is new too.

He was anxious about waiting for the bus this morning. The bus being 30 minutes late did not help matters. He didn't want to wear his backpack and kept trying to go back in the house. Once the bus came, however, he hopped right on board and was raring to go. Still didn't want the backpack, though.

What'll Ya Have, Pal?

photo by Randy Flowerday

After having our family portrait taken by Olan Mills for the church directory (and $200+ of additional prints we ordered - arrgh!), we took the kiddos for dinner at our favorite diner. We go there at least once a week, often even more. They have great food at reasonable prices, in a really cool atmosphere.

Pal's Diner in Cascade, MI, was purchased in New Jersey by owners Sam and Barry Brown and hauled, at great trouble and expense, to its current home in Michigan. It's a family-run diner, with table or counter service. It gets overlooked by diner aficionados, who tend to focus on Rosie's Diner in Rockford (the diner used in those Bounty commercials). Pal's is smaller than Rosie's, but we feel the food and service are much superior. And the prices - oh my! Pal's is one of Grand Rapids' best bargains.

Here's us, hanging out at Pal's on a Monday night:

Mommy and David, mugging for the camera
(no, I don't know what that is on my right boob)

Matthew holding sleeping Sabrina

As you can see, Pal's has a great pink and chrome color scheme. It's really kitschy cool. We like to sit in the curved booths at either front corner. Matt is tucked into the curve here, while holding the Bee.

It's ME - in pictures!

I am almost never in the pictures I post, because I take 99/100 pictures in my family.Here's a couple that I am in, because someone else took them. They are from our day out at the zoo a few weeks ago.

Me with some of "the girls" (I'm third from the left):



Sabrina and me in the budgie pen: