Out of the Mouths of Babes!!

Kids say the funniest things. Even sometimes it is something so simple but sounds so funny coming from them. Lately I have not been Daddy to Jackie, I am now John. Kristel said yesterday Jackie got out of bed went into our room woke up Kristel and asked "Where's John?" If I go upstairs to do something you can hear her down there yelling at the top of her lungs "JOHN, 'MERE." She is getting good with her animal sounds to, but those come out so funny sometimes. To her a cow says "BOOOOO." She is obsessed with animals. Anytime she sees a dog or a horse on TV she starts to go nuts. It's hillarious.

Garrett is just as funny. He was hungry and wanted a snack the other day and thought that some Ritz crackers sounded good. When he asked Kristel for some she explained to him that she had eaten the rest of them earlier that day. Now keep in mind she is pregnant and gets really sick if she doesn't eat every couple of hours. Garrett proceeded to say to her "There's no food left, Mommy. You eat all of it." Not too long after that we were sitting down for breakfast and He and I were drinking some orange juice. He asked me why orange juice was so sour sometimes. I explained that it was because it has a lot of acid in it (I don't know if that was right, but is sounded good). His response: "I hate ass, Dad. Ass makes it taste bad." Yes, son, it does.

HAPPY iPOD DAY!!!

So, last Christmas, Kristel helped me to fulfill one of my lifelong dreams by finally getting me an iPod (okay, maybe "lifelong dream" is a bit of an over statement, but I wanted one for a couple of years at least by the time we got it). It was one of the happiest days of my life. We (the iPod and I) went everywhere together and shared some super special experiences. That was until one very dark day this past winter when the thing crashed on me. I was crushed. I thought my life was over. I had lost my best friend. Eventually, I did pick myself up from the ashes of my shattered life and decided to just take things one day at a time. I saved a little each week and by my cunning convinced Kristel to cover whatever portion I didn't save by my Birthday for a new iPod. And so, here it is....

Oh what joy filled my life once again. Only this time it's even better. 120 gigs!!! That's like 13 years of music. Which only means I have to start buying CD's at a superhuman pace now. Or maybe not. (Kristel is giving me the evil eye.) Okay, so this may be a little over the top. But it really is so much easier to carry this one little electronic piece of heaven than it is to lug 500 CD's around. Hopefully this one lasts me for a long time, because I have a feeling if it doesn't I won't be getting another one. Not without selling a kidney anyway. And I probably wouldn't get much for that; who wants a diabetic's kidney?

All joking aside, things are pretty good in the Overman household. The kids have been sick lately but that doesn't seem to slow them down at all, especially our little nudist....

Jackie has gotten to the point where she is not much of a fan of clothes. We will often find her somewhere completely naked and her diaper nowhere to be found. We really have to keep a close eye on her now. And now the weather is finally warming up here, I'm sure it will even get more interesting. I'm totally excited about the weather though. All this snow in the winter is starting to drive me nuts, although this year wasn't too bad. I miss my winters with 70 degree days. I also miss being able to follow my teams in Arizona closely. Maybe that's not a bad thing though, since they seem to keep disappointing me. The Super Bowl was brutal, mostly because the Cards actually gave me some hope, only to have the dagger driven in deeper. I know that was a while ago but sometimes wounds this deep take a while to heal. And the Suns aren't helping with that at all. I think I'm starting to actually hope for the rebuilding to begin. Take a couple of bad years for some good young talent and then see them take off again. How far will ASU make it in the tourney? Who knows, but I'm excited to see them there. The last thing I really miss in AZ is my family. I'm totally bummed that I wasn't there when Carly and Brett's baby boy Kellen was born. She has sent me some pictures and that boy is adorable. I'm excited to see him in May. Anyway, I think that's good for now.

Three's Company or a Crowd?

It's been forever since I have posted anything but it seems like my life is kinda boring and nothing is worth talking about. Plus I'm not much of a picture taker which is what makes these things fun to look at. But I have to post this. Kristel is pregnant again!!! Of course, she has never been good with pregnancy, or maybe I should say it has never been good to her. She has been pretty sick, especially if she doesn't eat every couple of hours. Kristel says she is kinda hoping it's a boy so that Garrett can have a buddy. I really don't have a preference right now, just as long as it is healthy. I'll post more later with details how everything is going along but for now I just wanted to share our exciting news.

Garrett's Birthday and Halloween

Okay so this is really late, I realize, but I wanted to make sure that I got something on here for last month. First off just let me say that my last post talked about how crazy work has been with the stock market and the economy being so volatile. That was nothing. It continues to just tank and people are freaking out even more now. I can understand the older folks who are depending on this money lasting the rest of their lives worrying and bailing out, but what gets me is people who are 35 years old, already riding the market down 45% and then deciding to bail. They have 30 years to recover, they'll get their money back. Anyhow, that's boring stuff nobody really cares too much about.

Last month, on the 14th, was Garrett's birthday. I can't believe he is already six years old. I think he thinks he is sixteen. Now, if you ask him he didn't get nearly enough presents or get to celebrate enough, but he had three parties. On the Monday before his birthday (his birthday was on Tuesday) we went over to his grandma and grandpa's house and his aunt and uncle were also there and he got presents from everybody.

Then on Tuesday, his birthday we opened some more presents with just the four of us.

And then finally on the Friday after his birtday he had another party at our house with all of his friends. He didn't have school that day so Kristel had them all make their own little pizzas and they ate that for lunch, watched "Monster House" and then everbody gave Garrett MORE presents.So after all of this he still wished he could have gotten more. I guess it's tough being a kid.

Of course, Halloween was only a couple weeks later, which he was almost as excited as his birthday about. But for him I don't think he gets all excited for the same reason as most other kids, you know, the glut of candy that they are going to all get. He was excited because he got to dress up a super hero. This kid loves to pretend. This year he was Robin and Jackie was an adorable little cow. This was her first Halloween where she was actually aware that there was something going on. Last year she was only about 4 months old and so she could have cared less. But they were both adorable and had a great time.

They both made out pretty well. Jackie couldn't wait to get into though and proceeded to dump all hers all over the floor in the front room and just started opening everything she could. She didn't really eat any of it. She just wanted to open it. She's funny that way. The night ended really good for me as you can see......

Quick, Sell EVERYTHING!!

This was by far the craziest week I've ever seen since working in the financial industry. Wednesday it seems like everyone was calling to close their accounts and put everything into cash after the second day that week the market had dropped 400+ points on the Dow. We tried to tell people that the market can go up just as quickly as it drops and if that happens they are going to miss out if they are just sitting in cash. The next two days the market was up about 8%. Compared to that they got .01% sitting in money markets. Who knows whats gonna happen going forward but I know I'm glad I didn't cash out. I didn't really talk too much about Garrett's first day of school. The funniest thing about was Kristel totally stressing out about what he was gonna wear but I think he ended up looking pretty cute...

How do I look, Mom?

Watch out, ladies, here I come.

Garrett's never been shy of the camera.

Sister has to be in on the action too.

Garrett and his friend, Luke.

So after being in school for a few days I asked him what he has been learning. He said, "Nothing, the teacher just stands up and talks all day, she doesn't teach us anything." Yeah, I had a few of those too!! But he seems to be doing really well. He reads anything he can get his hands on. His teacher even says he is a very good listener. At least he listens to someone. Jackie is jabbering like crazy, it is so funny. You know she is saying something, we just have no idea what it is. She does say "mom" and "uh-oh." The latter phrase comes in handy all the time.