No Theme Required: Randomness in Poogieville

Here's the answer to the question: "What we do on a Friday night?"

More random pictures below.

Caroline (photo by Josie, 2009)

Erica (photo by Erica, 2009)

[Editor's Note: Makeup by Caroline]

Anti-Gravity Josie (photo by Caroline, 2009)

Happy Henry (photo by Caroline, 2009)

And lastly, the Two Peg.

More on that in a minute...

Me. (photo by Caroline, 2009)

Bye-Kea in Words

Bye-Kea weekend.

Our annual trip to Ikea during the Browns bye week.

If you need visuals, Billy Brew has a couple of pictures posted on Holmanium and a nice write-up on the trip.

We used the Browns bye week to extend Caroline's birthday and to erase the horror that has become the Cleveland Browns football season. As a wrinkle, we made the trip into an overnight with a stop at Great Wolf Lodge in Mason, Ohio and a picnic at Loveland Castle.

We managed to not take a single picture during the trip, which is a shame because there were plenty of moments that were blogworthy.

Bill's depiction is accurate, though.

Indoor waterparks have an over-abundance of the following:

1. Tattoos - I reached my lifetime quota of "tramp-stamps" and armband "barbed wire" tattoos during the visit to GWL.

For those who want to see what funny looks like, I found this on the web. [Note the heavy use of skinny-boy flex with the tricep...this dude was a master at his craft.]

2. Body hair - I thought I was at a Joseph Enterprises convention. I kept looking for the guy below to make an appearance:

3. Unhealthy lack of friendly advice - if you are wearing a bathing suit that makes someone around you throw up in their own mouth, you should not come to the waterpark.

See below:

4. Spooky animatronics. GWL provides its guests with a twice-daily rendition of some song that is a total knock-off of Lion King's "Circle of Life". Freaky-looking animatronic animals and a mannequin-esque Native American girl move around and sing a song to the same tune but with lyrics that caution children that "there's nothing to be afraid of at GWL."

It was creepy. We didn't stick around for the end.

Overall, though, everyone had a ball.

Good times.

Caroline: They Say It's Your Birthday!

Caroline celebrated her 4th birthday on November 4th. For those who don't know, she was born a middle child two and one half years before Josie arrived.

We almost named her Bill.

Anyway, poor Caroline. Her birthday started out rough. Her 4 year checkup resulted in a flu misting AND a shot. Not the best planning, but thankfully I pulled the long straw.

I feel bad for Mom, though. I heard it was fairly traumatic.

If I were the doctor, I'd strongly consider witness protection. As a warning to the unwary, Caroline's DEFCON 1 is calling someone a "maniac". If she throws that at you, she considers you dead to her.

Think of Caroline's logo as follows:


I think her pediatrician made the "maniac" list.

I worry about the next appointment.

But let's cut back to the birthday.

Apparently, shots, flu mists and birthday drama lead to drowsiness. This is CP2 shortly before her birthday party.

Despite her rough morning and her late nap, Caroline rallied nicely for the big show. Here's the birthday girl opening gifts.

And the group of cousins who joined the celebration.

When it came to the cake, Caroline surprised her old man by hanging in for the full Happy Birthday song without tears. In fact, she almost blew out her candles before remembering how un-Holman North it is to enjoy birthday singing and candle blowouts.

There's always next year, kiddo!

Seriously though, CP2 is the apple of her dad's eye and there's nothing we wouldn't do to get a slew of smiles on her special day.

Or at least that's what I will continue to tell her so she doesn't put me on the "maniac" list.

Happy Birthday, Caroline!

The Earnestness of Caroline Paige

Vintage Caroline. Serious, solemn and unabashedly deserving of a hug.

Stay with this video to see why.

When asked, Caroline said the reason she cried was because she wanted to go to Mommy.

I thought she was crying because of the Ninja. That kid was selling it.

Halloween 2009: Poogie Style

This year, October was a blur. No pumpkin patches. No fighting off bees at the kettle corn stand. No corn mazes. Nothing.

Weird.

Nevertheless, the family did manage to run the gauntlet of pre-Halloween parties.

There was the Hudson Preschool Parents throwdown where our niece's kindergarten teacher was the entertainment.

[Editor's Note: Dude does magic AND wears rainbow suspenders! Anyone know of anything more courageous than that? Me neither.]

Here are the girls at the HPP function:

Then there was the Penn State v. Michigan neighborhood party where I went in as an IU fan sporting a 25 point lead on the road at Northwestern and left a one point loser.

Insert your prophetic statements concerning my life here.

Actually, it was fun to watch people actually concerned about Saturday afternoon college football. It was strange.

And did I mention that I drank the sting of the IU loss to excess?

Well, if not, there's only one way to challenge me under those circumstances...put a knife in my hand and let me carve a $6.00 rotten pumpkin!

Yep. They wheeled a despondent and partially loaded dad over to Uncle Bill's house for pumpkin carving after the first party.

Here's the result:


A couple of notes on the carving this year.

1. Carving a rotten gourd is depressing, especially when you know you paid top dollar for it.
2. Henry actually designed his own pumpkin this year. Erica performed the knife work.
3. Don't drink and carve.

Anyway, in case you were wondering. Caroline was Belle from Beauty and the Beast. Henry was Iron Man. Josephine was Minnie Mouse.


Uncle Bill? He was a pirate. It made everything he said on Halloween easier to put into context.

We'll leave you with an ear-to-ear smile from our little Joey who thinks fallen leaves are cool to crush under her tiny-sized shoes.

Next up, Caroline's birthday on November 4th.