All Aboard..

...for the potty train. (Imagine a cool loop with my amazing voice and unmatched rhythm for that little ditty there.)

That's right. Two hours down, a lifetime to go. Not sure if there's a honeymoon period on the potty train but so far everything has gone where it's supposed to. Why wouldn't it when Spiderman's on your toosh!?

No pictures. Sorry. Some things are not for the mass public. =)

And while I'm at it...

I added a section off to the right way down low of blogs I follow in my reader of peeps I don't actually know. Normally I'm not that kind of person but these are good. Real good. And funny.

And in other NEWS. NEWS!!!!!! Click here. And leave a comment, peeps. There, not here. And then dance a jig behind closed doors and then another one in the streets. And then realize that I found out before you. And then realize that there's pee involved in that blog.

Blog Makeover-ish

I happen to know a guy that does some graphic design. While I appreciate his mad skills, I didn't want to take too much of his 'should be making money' time but asked him for a new blog header anyway. Check it out! (My efficient friends will need to actually leave the comfort of your google reader to see it) He used my favorite subject, too. Weird, huh?

Also, his website is up and running! Click here to view Art in Stereo Tell all your friends, friends that need graphics and have money, that is...

Snow Day!

Yep, it's snowing and has been since yesterday afternoon. We bundled our bundle (verb and noun again, anyone? Woot woot!) and went out to play!


Some things haven't changed from last year. Eliot joins Daisy in the theory that snow is only there to be an afternoon snack.


What's better than hot cocoa after playing out in the snow?! I mean...


A hot chocolate hangover?

And apparently we've been inside for too long since Eliot's new idea of fun involves carrying trash around in the trunk of his bike.

Happy Birthday, Katie

Well, it's January 23rd, which means it's Katie Mohr's birthday. I just wanted to take a quick minute to publicly declare my birthday sentiments to my wonderful bride.



I'm love you, Katie Mohr. You're not only a wonderful wife, but you're the best mom in the whole world. You amaze me with your mama skills. Eliot loves you so much, and I'm right there with him. I'm still learning more about you and finding more things to appreciate - like your amazing talent for writing! Seriously, who are you???? I love it. You're more beautiful today than you've ever been. You're just downright hot! You'd say it's the Arbonne, but I know there's more to it than that. And I hate to say it, but you've gotten funnier, too. I'm so entertained by you and have loved falling in love with you all over again each year.



I've seen you come through so many things, especially in recent years and you're coming out on top. I know we've had our share of ups and downs in life but I couldn't think of a better person to walk through life with - "for better and for worse." I'm so excited to see where it all leads. The Lord is with you, and I am so proud of you, and so proud to be your husband. So proud. I could go on and on and on about how inspiring a person you've been, what a wonderful friend you are to me and others, and how my life would literally fall apart without you, but I'll spare you the embarrassment with all the details for now - at least here on the "interweb." Let's face it, I'll probably be in trouble just for posting this much.




Happy Birthday, sweetheart. I love you and I hope this is going to be your best year yet!

-Russ

Brilliant.

Those ladies in St. Louis were brilliant. Whatever made them think of creating Build-a-bear was nothing short of genius.

For the combined reasons of crazy cold temps, gift certificate from baby shower 2 years ago, and looking for something fun to do while fam was in town a few weeks ago, we found our way to one of the many St. Louis locations.

Eliot loved it. As usual, he was hesitant to jump right in and just took it all in on his time. He chose a dog (big shock) and gave it a kiss, a heart, a bath and a name. A special name.

Without further ado, meet "Puppy".


Puppy getting somewhat offensively stuffed. Eliot is right to look away. Who wants to see that? Yikes, people.




He's in love. With dragging it around with Daisy's leash. It never gets old. I'm beginning to think that was a gift for Daisy, not Eliot. She finally gets a break.



Maybe Puppy can hang out with Jerry sometime soon?

An elaborate way to meet neighbors, vol.2

Oh crap. Literally. We're less than 48 hours from our first embarrassing adventure in our new place and we're onto number 2. Again, literally.

**This will be a deleted post before Eliot's old enough to read**

Saturday evening Eliot 'dropped a deuce' and we put it where those go. And haven't been able to use the toilet since. We don't have a plunger so this afternoon R went to our corner market to buy one. They apparently don't sell them but offered to let us borrow theirs if we promised to bring it back.

We are all about building community, folks, no matter the cost of dignity. We're not just going to say hello and introduce ourselves, oh no, we're going to doodoo whatever it takes to create unique bonds that make the Mohr's the #1 memorable new family in the neighborhood.

An elaborate way to meet neighbors, vol.1

Hopefully this will break the conventional rules of volumes and leave this as a 1 volume set. Although this could also be filed under the Mother of the Year heading...

Anyway, here's my step-by-step instructions:

1. Don't make an extra set of keys when you move into a new place.
2. Turn the oven on to preheat for dinner (and by 'dinner' I mean a frozen pizza)
3. Decide to take a few boxes to the basement.
4. ***Most important direction*** When trying to make sure your adorable toddler doesn't follow you down the winding staircase to the basement, accidently shut the door the whole way until you hear the dead-bolt latch, leaving your toddler locked into the condo by himself, with the oven on, your keys and phone inside.
5. Sidenote: make sure your landlords live 45 minutes away and it's a snowy, icy night and make sure they're almost out of gas so it will probably take much longer than 45 minutes to come rescue you.


I will not tell you how within just 15-20 of the longest minutes of my life my new neighbor figured out how to get in. Then you would all know how to get into my house and you would come steal our 90,000 matchbox cars and oodles of train tracks. Just know everything was fine and Eliot is now deathly afraid of said neighbor.

And for those that need to know what a 2 1/2 year-old did in his 20 minutes as Macaulay Culkin, he knocked on the door and yelled "mommy?" and when I didn't keep answering it changed to "Katie? Where are you?", which turned into him thinking he was pretty funny. Big surprise.

Trip to Hawaii for $50?

During Guate-time in my pity party of "I've been here so long and my case is so screwed up" I met a beautiful adoptive mom named Shelly who's case made mine look easy. On top of having an adorable daughter the same age as Eliot, she had cute hair and her sports-loving husband was also there for a visit trip. We became friends and made plans to find a TV showing football games on New Years Day. We spent the day with Shelly and Paul and another couple in Antigua's version of a sports bar. It made for a great memory.


Shelly and Paul brought A home a few months before we came home. The details are foggy to me but within the year of being home, Paul was diagnosed with Stage IV metastatic cancer of his liver, bones and bile duct. Since then he's tried different treatments. Here's an excerpt from an email from Shelly:

Paul has been treated with Chemotherapy with some success and has completed some radiation- the chemotherapy helped what it could but then we were told that the cancer was spreading and it would not help any further. Paul has enrolled in a cancer trial at MD Anderson Houston and it requires us to travel to Houston every 21 days for treatment. This trial is in Phase II and so far is the only trial that is viable for conventional treatment today. We have our really good days and some bad days but are certainly enjoying time as a family. This fundraiser has been put together to help us with the costs that we are facing involving this treatment.

Some clarification: "traveling to Houston" is from MN. Not such a quick trip, especially with a 2 year old and when you're not feeling well.

They have a fundraiser going on this month that I think is pretty great so I wanted to post the details in case 1 or 12 or 200 of your are interested in helping out a great family in a tricky situation. Here's the details that I copied off their website, it's a raffle:

1) Raffle Tickets. 1 Ticket for $50 or 3 Tickets for $100.
The tickets are available for immediate purchase by contacting jenny.schlundt@verizon.net and indicating how many tickets you would like to purchase - she will mail you the stubs. If you are willing to sell tickets on our behalf, Jenny will send you packs in increments of 10 to sell to others. The raffle tickets are available for purchase up until drawing time at the close of the benefit. No need to be present to win.

The prizes for the raffle are:

*Grand Prize – Your choice of the following:

-7-day stay in condo off Ocean Drive in South Beach Miami plus $1000 cash.

-10-day stay in condo in Maui, Hawaii plus $1000 cash.

*2nd prize -$500

*3rd Prize -$250

Support the Trust Fund

2) There is a Paul Kassis Benefit Trust Fund set up at Antigo CoVantage Credit Union. Donations can be made directly to this account at:

Antigo CoVantage Credit Union

Attn: Paul Kassis Benefit

723 6th Ave.

Antigo, WI 54409

Check Payable: Paul Kassis Benefit Trust Account

Telephone – 715 627 4336

The fundraiser starts at 5:00pm Friday, January 30 at the Antigo Knights of Columbus Hall. Dinner will be provided with no admittance fee.

5:00 pm Start
7:00 – 11:00pm. Music, dancing and socializing with MLC Jazz Band providing the live entertainment.

Silent auctions with a variety of items to be bid on with kid games and other activities during the evening.

People, let's blow this family away! Post this on your blog, tell your family and friends and most importantly, email jenny.schlundt@verizon.net to buy your tickets!!

Leave a comment or shoot me an email when you buy yours and I'll add your name to a drawing for $100 of Arbonne products for free!!

Rockin' this recession

***Disclaimer*** If financial chitchat offends you or goes onto your 'taboo' list, move on!

First of all, when you live on very little $$, a recession doesn't really affect you so much, especially when my income is from a recession proof business. But this week was a huge one in the life of the Mohrs. Like Mt. Kilimanjaro huge. Like Mt. Rushmore huge. Like Mt. RussMohr huge. (It never gets old.)

Within 24 hours we paid off the house(signed all the papers to finish the sale, that is), accidently paid off the car and the best one? We paid off Eliot's adoption.

I don't even know what this means.

It's nice to not have a mortgage but we still have rent. The rent is lower, of course, but it's still a chunk.

And yes, I accidently paid the car off. We still had a few payments left for 2009 but we were close. Then I got a call from a different biller saying I was 10 days past due on our December payment. That couldn't be right, I paid everything online before the holidays. Then I got the car statement showing I'd paid them several times in December. Oops. We only owed less than $20, so we went ahead and paid that this week. =)

And the adoption. It's done, financially speaking. There's only a few of you out there that really get what that is, how big that debt is/was. Don't hear me complaining, we knew what we were getting in to and we'd do it all over again, but oh my, I can't wait to not make that payment each month, not to have that ugliness attached to the favorite part of our world. We're done!! We decided Jan 8th might be a new holiday for us!

All of these point toward our new goal: Debt free by 2010. It's possible but will take some serious commitment. If we could just have more days like Thursday...

(He's a tad obsessed with himself. He's the only one more happy than me to see more than one Eliot)

The new "cheese".

I'm here!

Don't worry, we're still around!! It's been the most insane season but the fog is lifting! We are in our new place! All is signed, sealed and delivered! That is huge, friends. Monday morning our 'new normal' begins and one of the first things on the list is to fill you in on The Mohrs. Have a great weekend and I'll see you Monday!

Saddest thing I've ever heard.

Eliot had a play date this morning while we packed and took a couple of trips of stuff to the new condo. When I brought him home to take a nap, all that was left in his room was one empty tower (that previously held toys), his mattress and his dresser. Upon seeing his empty room, he started crying and said, "No play? No play? Want to play!" in the saddest voice I've ever heard. Then he walked over to his dresser and started opening each drawer, making sure his stuff was still there. Poor thing. Good thing this will all be over soon!