Friday I ran Deadlands again. It went pretty well, even though it was a combat heavy game. I’ve got another combat heavy game planned for next time as well, so hopefully no one will burn out on it.
Saturday morning I got up with Landon, and we had a pretty good morning. We put Landon down for an early nap so that we could attend Darion’s fourth birthday party. A piratey good time was had by all! ( pictures from the party )

After that, we swung by Julia’s to steal back the loner computer we had left with her. We then grabbed some In and Out Burger for dinner. We stopped by grandma’s house again to take another look at the Great Dane ( puppy ) that Bobby wants to get. We are looking at a list of the names of Countries to decide what to name her that fits with the current theme of names. Bobby seems pretty excited about her.
We tried to watch a The Mist on Saturday night, but Landon did not want to go to sleep. He did this same thing when we tried to watch that Wil Smith zombie movie. I think maybe the scary music freaks Landon out?
So in the end, we gave up on the movie. We may try again next weekend, especially if we still fail at our attempts to actually go OUT to a movie.
Sunday morning my amazing husband and adorable Son made me breakfast in bed. I had a wonderful morning. What I asked for as far as a present goes was to do a photo shoot with Landon and Bobby so I could get some cute pictures of them.
( pictures from Mother’s day, and a couple pictures from earlier in the week )

After the pictures, we went to Paradise Bakery for lunch, which was so yummy! Then we headed back home to get Landon a nap. I got to play with pictures and upload all the pictures from this post into LJ. Bobby packed for his adventure this week.
Also, I got cool loot for Mother’s day. Bobby printed and framed one of the pictures for me, and Landon made me a ( gift ) that I totally love.

For dinner, Bobby made me one of his amazing meat pies and some to die for brownie cookies. The cookies also happened to be Landon safe and Bobby safe too! And so good.
We took a trip up to see Grandma and played with the puppies some more. Landon enjoyed seeing Grandma. We also called Grandma Sue and Great Grandma to wish them a happy mother’s day. Everyone loved the necklaces.
Mel met us at Grandma’s house so she could see the pups, and then we went back to our house. Bobby and I got Landon in bed, and then we took Mel upstairs for some Rockband. Mel really does ROCK the drums.
Landon wouldn’t drift off, so I had to go downstairs and sit with him for a bit to get him down. I think part of the problem was that his Pooh bear was in the dryer. I have to take that thing with me to IL.
Once Landon finally fell asleep, we watched one episode of the Tudors. We stopped after one, because it was so late, and we had to get up extra early this morning.

This morning I took Bobby to the airport again. He’s off to Colorado Springs, CO for the week. He should be home Friday.

Landon can say “grandma” with no issues. We taught him to say Sue, but it comes out “SSSUUUUUU.” I have failed at getting him to chain the two words together. Mom commented that we need to teach him to say “Great Grandma” also. I think “Grandma” works just as well. I can’t believe that we are going to see her next week. Where has the time gone?
I got a little nervous yesterday about the travel, as I haven’t used the cinchworm in a few weeks, but that’s how I plan to carry him at the airport and around the plane. Mom will have a stroller waiting for us when we get to IL. So yesterday we put Landon in the front carry of the cinchworm, and he was so happy and comfortable I started to worry he was going to take an early nap! So, my fears have been aliveated. Landon will sleep just fine on the flight and around the airport in the cinchworm. Also, if the stewardess gets all, “You can’t have him in a carrier for takeoff and landing” (which happened on the way home from Portland, when Landon was in his sling. We went from sleeping child in sling to screaming child on flight because of this) I can easily unbuckle Landon while he is asleep in my lap, and then buckle him back once we are in the air, all without having to move him! Woot!

Recent Landon-capades

-Landon has what we now call a “Yell of Dominance.” He seems to have developed it at daycare. When the other children are doing something not pleasing to him, he gives his “yell”

-Landon used this yell on a child at the mall, causing the child to burst into tears, and shaming me, as the mother of the child which made the other child cry. I felt even worse because my first reaction was to laugh at the wussy boy who was crying.

-Landon used this yell on me at a restaurant last night. He was dipping his French fries into a small cup of ketchup. He then attempted to pick up the ketchup. When I told him no, he responded with the yell. This is not a good sign.

-Child Ann at daycare is going to grandma’s house today, so her mother left her car seat at daycare. Child Bee was sitting in the car seat, Child Bee also has an amazingly purple black eye from where she was hit with a swing. Landon decided he wants to sit in the car seat, and proceeds to hit Child Bee in the eye which is already black. Landon then got to spend thirty seconds in the corner.

-The other children at daycare seem to ignore the “Yell of Dominance,” so hopefully this phase will be short. I think he is just enjoying the new feat that the next level of fighter gave him. Note to self, start next child off as a scout or wizard, something less violent than a fighter.

-Landon woke in the night a couple of nights ago. I went downstairs to check on him. I panicked for a second, in my sleep filled hazy, as I got downstairs and could hear Landon crying, the sound coming from the bed, but I was unable to locate him in the bed. My mind snapped to that twilight zone episode where the kid wanders into the alternate dimension and no one can find the kid, but they can hear the kid. Then I realized the sound was coming from under the bed. Landon’s foot is sticking out from under the bed. I touched his leg and told him Mama was there, and asked him to come out. He did. He then curled up and fell asleep. How or why he was under the bed, I have no idea.

-Landon LOVES shoes. “Shoes? Shooos mama?” He will put on any shoes he can find, no matter if they are girly or tall or huge. He wants to wear his shoes all the time. The cool thing is, that if a matched set is available, he will pull and wear the matched set, rather than a mismatched pair. Mind you, is no matches are available, he will settle for the mismatched set.

-Landon now takes his toys out of the playroom and scatters them around on a regular basis. My house feels as if it is always strewn with Toys. I will pick them up, and Landon gets them right back out. It sucks. How does one keep a house clutter free with an almost two year old about?

-Landon is going to be a daredevil, I swear. Yesterday he flipped himself head first into an empty tub. He thought it was cool, so he must have been unhurt. He also loves to be flipped about.

-Landon has an ATV sized just for him. He just figured out how to drive it. Now he likes to stand up on the seat of it. I’m worried he’s going to start driving it around while standing on it.

-Landon loves animals of all sizes. He loves to go to Grandma’s house, to see Grandma and Grandpa and all the animals. Now, we have to drive by Grandma’s house to get home, and every time we drive by, he goes “Grandma’s?”

-He needs a haircut. It’ll be his first. I was going to wait until we got back from IL and visiting my mom, but now I am thinking of doing it this weekend.

-Landon is mostly well behaved and cute. I know I just mentioned a lot of odd or weird things he does, but overall, he’s a great child, very smart, very cute.

This made me LOL

more cat pictures

Okay, so now that I have gotten around to posting pictures, let me tell you about our weekend. On Saturday, we went to ( Emily's second birthday (pictures behind cut) )
We had a lot of fun. Em seemed to get some cool stuff, and it got us thinking about the fact that Landon will be turning two in just a few months! How scary is that?

After we got done, we really wanted to go see Ironman, but we were tired, and Landon had grabbed someone’s bowl of ice cream. I don’t know if he ate any, but he had a little on his face, which doesn’t bode well. So we took him home instead. He had a skin rash which appeared briefly on his face, but went away. He didn’t seem to have any other ill effects.

We had heard from Grandma (my MIL) that her Great Dane (Di) had her pups, so we decided to stop and visit Grandma and see the ( Great Dane Pups ) We spent some time looking at them. There are eight pups total. (Nine were born, but one didn’t survive.) There are three boys and five girls. Bobby is totally in love with them, and Columbia needs a friend. We are thinking about the possibility of adding one to our home. Anyone have any thoughts on Great Danes?

After that, Landon played with the fish at the Koi pond out front. Grandma even let him hold a fish. Landon also got to play with Max, My MIL’s parrot, who he really loves. I’m not fond of birds, but Landon seems to love all animals.

( More of Landon at Grandmas. Including the fish picture. Also, a picture of the dice table I got at IKEA )

Sunday we took Landon shopping in the morning, but he wasn’t having much fun. We ended up spending most of Sunday relaxing at home. Bobby went and got a back rub at Massage Envy, to help him relax. We watched the Tudors with Mel.

Monday rolled around and Bobby’s work is talking about sending him out of town again, perhaps this week. This makes me sad, and makes Bobby’s stressed.

Other than that, things seem to be going pretty good! I can’t believe I only have a few weeks left until my trip back to Carbondale!

One Last Picture:

Landon, Carson, Kim, and Jen Landon meets Carson, who was born at the same hospital! 5/2/08

Yesterday was a weird day.
First of all, yesterday, I FINNALY felt recovered. 100% better. Thank the gods.
Landon woke up while I was still getting ready for work, but instead of throwing a fit, he seemed to play happily in his room until I got downstairs, which was a nice change.
We got to Laura’s, and she let me know that she had religious appointment at 3pm, so her husband Dirk would be watching the kids.
Work was weird, but fun Tiff AKA tiff_az and had gone to a bar the night before. At the bar, they were having “Rockband Night.” Basically, there is some dude in the valley that gets paid to take his entire Rockband set up to various bars. He then plays the game all night using his mad skills to “save” the drunk band members who can’t play. What an awesome business idea, it’s like Karaoke, only cool!
So tiff_az and her husband had such a blast, and they got their Economic Stimulus Rebate Check thingy. So we used our lunch hour to hit a store and outfit her with an Xbox 360, Rockband, and a Spare Controller for other game play. She pretty stoked, and I’m looking forward to hearing what her hubby thought of the surprise.
We also had lunch with my coworker who is retiring. Man, I’m gonna miss her.
I left work about 2:30 to go get Landon. I ran into Mel, our friend who watches Tudors with us. We had a good chat, but I did miss seeing Laura. I didn’t feel like hanging out at Laura’s with no Laura around to chat with, so I took Landon out to Chandler Mall. We spent about 3 hours at the mall, which I think is a record for Landon. Also, I rarely go to the mall just Landon and myself, so it was an interesting experience. Landon got to play in the play place for a while. It concerns me sometimes, how many kids insist on climbing up the slide when other are sliding down, and how many were jumping off high places into piles of kids, and just the general lack of parenting going on, Also, what age is too old for those places? There were some very large, very tall, and very wide children doing so major pushing and shoving around the play place, and I just felt like they were too old for the equipment. Anyway, despite all my concerns and my hover parenting (I could not find a place to sit where I could see all of the playplace and watch Landon all the time. To keep an eye on him, I had to keep moving as he moved to a new area), Landon seemed to have a lot of fun.
After the mall, we went to Native New Yorker for dinner and met kimbee80 and her son Carson and a bunch of her friends and family. She is in town visiting from WA, and I had never met her, despite knowing her online from before Landon being born. Landon and Carson were actually born at the same hospital. It was great to meet Kim and everyone else! Kim got a nice picture of us, and when she gets home, she’ll post it and I shall steal it!
After dinner I went over to Laura’s to wait for Bobby’s flight. Laura was still MIA, her appointment apparently took a lot longer than expected. I watched TV with Landon and talked with Dirk.
Then I picked up Bobby and came home. He got me a Costa Rica stuffed turtle, and some cool wood gifts, and a journal. It was all very neat stuff!

Bobby is home!!!
*happy dance*

Helping a not game literate person figure out which Xbox 360 and Rockband game to buy for her and her husband to play?

Priceless.

What we have here is the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish. Here's the twist: add (*) beside the ones you liked and would (or did) read again or recommend. Even if you read 'em for school in the first place.

The Aeneid
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
American Gods
Anansi Boys
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
Angels & Demons
Anna Karenina
Atlas Shrugged
Beloved
The Blind Assassin
Brave New World
The Brothers Karamazov
The Canterbury Tales
The Catcher in the Rye
Catch-22
A Clockwork Orange
Cloud Atlas
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
A Confederacy of Dunces
The Confusion
The Corrections
The Count of Monte Cristo
Crime and Punishment
Cryptonomicon
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
David Copperfield
Don Quixote
Dracula
Dubliners
Dune*
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
Emma
Foucault’s Pendulum
The Fountainhead
Frankenstein
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything* 
The God of Small Things
The Grapes of Wrath
Gravity’s Rainbow
Great Expectations
Gulliver’s Travels
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
The Historian : a novel
The Hobbit
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Iliad
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise)
Jane Eyre
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (ugh)
The Kite Runner
Les Misérables
Life of Pi : a novel
Lolita
Love in the Time of Cholera
Madame Bovary
Mansfield Park
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlemarch
Middlesex
Mrs. Dalloway
The Mists of Avalon
Moby Dick
The Name of the Rose
Neverwhere*
1984
Northanger Abbey
The Odyssey
Oliver Twist
The Once and Future King
One Hundred Years of Solitude
On the Road
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Oryx and Crake : a novel *
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Persuasion
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Pride and Prejudice
The Prince
Quicksilver
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
The Satanic Verses
The Scarlet Letter
Sense and Sensibility
A Short History of Nearly Everything *
The Silmarillion
Slaughterhouse-five
The Sound and the Fury
A Tale of Two Cities
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
The Time Traveler’s Wife *
To the Lighthouse
Treasure Island
The Three Musketeers
Ulysses
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Vanity Fair
War and Peace
Watership Down
White Teeth
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West *
Wuthering Heights
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values 

But the pictures are cute, so feel free to look for yourself!
( Pictures of Landon )

Blargh!
Back at work today.
I’m not sure if I’m nauseas because I am hungry or nauseas because eating would be a bad thing.

My son, he takes after me. He is BOSSY!
Yesterday, he ate like a pig. He normally doesn’t care about food too much, and is happy to eat when I give him food. Yesterday he ate all his cereal (unusual). Then he came to me and asked for a “nanana,” and lead me to the fridge (yes, we keep bananas in the fridge). So I got him one. Then he asked me for another one, and lead me to the fridge. I gave him half of the last banana, and set the other half on the table on his plate. He must have missed that bit, because he came and asked me a third time for a “nanana,” and I gave him the other half.
For lunch, he ate a ton of applesauce, but only 3 of the 6 chicken nuggets. That would be the only thing he didn’t eat all day. He had some snacks after nap. Then I started boiling pasta for dinner. With about three minutes left until the pasta was ready, Landon took my hand and lead me to the fridge to ask for a “dot dawg.” So dinner was noodles and a hot dog. He ate the entire plate, then asked me for another “dot dawg.” I got him a second plate of noodles and hot dog, and he ate almost all of it.

My boy, he is getting ready to grow.

He asked for Dada about ten times yesterday. He was bossy about wanting to go “outside” all day. He brought me his shoes (matched sets, each time, even though they are all in a bin together) and would demand I put them on “shoos! Mama shoos! Outside?” 
And lets not forget how often he asked for "TV? Cars?"  or to read a "boo."
At nap time, he went and got into bed all by himself. He didn’t lay down, but he did climb in bed. That’s progress, right?
We went up to Grandmas, which he enjoyed, but we only stayed for a few minutes.
We used Skype to talk to Bobby in Costa Rica. Landon told Dada goodnight.

When we went to head to Laura’s this morning, Landon was very upset that I didn’t put shoes on him before we left.

Once we got to Laura’s, Landon told us he wanted “seral.”

Bossy child of mine. 


Courtney is going to babysit Landon for an hour or two tonight so that some of my mom (non-lj) friends and I can go have a kid free meal.  Should be fun!

I felt a little better, had a cracker. Also have had 24 oz of Gatorade at this point and some water. I’m still having bouts of nausea, but not so bad that I actually have to head to the toilet.

Bobby called me, he’s changing flights in TX, so he let me know he landed safe in TX.

Landon has been mostly good and happy. He really wants to go play outside, but I don’t feel up to it yet. Maybe tonight, if I can keep food down.
Bobby has a special ring on my phone (the superman theme) so when he called, I told Landon as we went to get the phone that it was Dada. He was pretty happy and he even talked to Bobby on the phone. Thankfully my cell phone has a speakerphone.
Later, when Grandma called to check on us, Landon heard the phone ring (different ring) and said, “Dada?” He was sad when I told him no.
He also has asked me for a banana, and lead me to the kitchen so I could get him one. He doesn’t usually ask for food, let alone specific food, so that was a nice step forward.

We are watching the Cars movie for the second time today. I’m hoping that when we both nap this afternoon, that I will wake up and be cured.

Blargh.

Yesterday, around 3:30pm, I started feeling not great. My tummy was just weird.
I decided around 4:30 to have dinner.
That was a mistake of epic proportions.
So I spent last night puking my guts out.
Bobby was pretty worried about leaving, but I told him I’d be okay. He headed to the airport around 2AM last night/this morning.
I haven’t tossed my cookies since about 1AM.
I have had one 12 oz thing of Gatorade so far this morning, and have kept it down.

Needless, Screw work, I’m staying home. Landon is probably going to end up watching the cars movie five times today at this rate.

I want to feel better now please. More importantly, please don’t let Landon or Bobby catch this. Please let it just be something I ate.

Landon got up at 5:45 AM. I went downstairs to him and the first thing he asked me was “Where’s Dada?”

It just might be a rather long week.

ETA: We picked up Mario Cart for the Wii, and I've been to sick to play.

At daycare, there are a couple of other children. Let’s call one Ann. Ann is about nine-ten months older than Landon, and she is the most eloquent of the children at daycare.
According to Laura, Ann found a die while she was playing at daycare. Laura has some large dice for the kids to mess with, non choking hazards.
Ann comes from a pretty normal family, and she was very confused to find the Die.
She held the die up to Laura and said, “What’s this? Is it a Lego?”
Landon looked over from where he was playing, and said in a very scornful tone, “No! Dice!!!”

I had to laugh when I heard this story.

Last night’s Deadlands game seemed to go very well. Everyone pretty much seemed to have fun with the game, which was nice. I sometimes worry I’m neglecting someone with chips or XP, but at the same time, I worry that I’ve given out too much XP. I have no idea how to balance it. Now, we are playing Classic Deadlands, and bobby says I shouldn’t worry to much about over XPing people, as Deadlands isn’t a balanced game. The randomness of the card deal to create characters makes it so some PCs are significantly more powerful than others. While I agree with this, I am a little concerned that the most powerful run the risk of becoming too powerful for the bad guys, or so powerful that they begin to be the only one having fun in combat.

On the brighter side, almost all my players spent some entertaining time in character, and I do declare that it what makes the game fun. I do my best to reward it. Last night I even tried a vote system to see who the players thought did the best job. I’m not sure how well that worked out, or if it’s something I should do again. Normally I prefer to give a set number of XP at the end of a game. I like everyone to get the same number, but with the fate chips in play, different people are going to have different XP at the end of every game no matter what. I’m also not used to having to worry about the long term effects of XP. I don’t usually run games that go more than two or three sessions, but I’ve been given the impression that my players would like to continue this game past my normal bounds.

What about character death? Should I present it as an option? I normally don’t like to kill characters, although I know some people have more fun when they actually feel that their character might die. Also, this is Deadlands, and the chance to come back harrowed also exists.

Any other thoughts or advice for running deadlands? How about general long term campaign thoughts?

I am not suprised.
I admit, I mostly took this because I want Firesion to take it too.

Your results:
You are Mystique

Mystique 95% Magneto 77% Catwoman 74% Poison Ivy 74% Lex Luthor 73% Apocalypse 72% Dr. Doom 72% Dark Phoenix 70% Venom 60% Juggernaut 59% The Joker 50% Kingpin 49% Mr. Freeze 43% Riddler 43% Green Goblin 43% Two-Face 39%

Sometimes motherly, sometimes a beautiful companion, but most of the time a deceiving vixen.

Click here to take the Super Villain Personality Test

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/04/23/gender.diet/index.html

Story Highlights
-Study of 740 pregnant women seems to show diet can influence baby's gender
-Of women who ate cereals daily, 59 percent had boys
-Researchers linked high sodium and potassium intake to male birth


Note to self. No More bananas. Skip cereal. oh yeah, and apparently start a diet!

weird.

So I’m at Fry’s today.
And they are having a sale. A Half gallon of milk it $1.
A whole gallon of milk is $3.
I explain to Landon that we are going to buy three half gallons for the price of the one gallon of milk I was going to buy, because it was cheaper.
A man is perusing the milk while I am saying this, and seems to be listening to me.

But I guess either he wasn’t listening, or he failed math, because he still bought the $3 gallon of milk.

Seriously, WTF?

I just heard from firesion He passed his PMP on the first try!

Congrads Bobby!! YOU ROCK!!!!!

This weekend was lame.
It wasn’t all bad. I had a lot of fun with some of the things we did. Bookman’s was a lot of fun. I got Landon a bunch of little critter books, because he enjoys reading them at Laura’s. I also got me some books, because I can’t resist.
We finally watched Juno, which was a pretty good movie. We had some good food. We got to have some Landon free time as well.
But Bobby was major stressed over the PMP test thing, which he is taking today.
And I have a cold, so my head hurts.

Friday night we gamed. I finished off my WOD game, which made me happy. Landon watched Cars while we gamed, and then fell asleep on the floor, which was nice. Bobby is going to run a Vampire Requiem game in place of my WOD game, so I am trying to decide what to play.
Saturday morning Landon started crying at 6amish. I went downstairs and discovered he had locked himself and Columbia (the dog) in his room. I couldn’t get it unlocked, so I had to wake up Bobby to save the day. I have no idea how he managed to lock himself in the room with the dog.
Anyway, the way we used to put Landon down was to put him to bed, turn on his music, and leave the hall door open with the hall light on until he went to sleep. Then I’d close his door after he went down, and then let the dog in for the night. The problem is that Saturday night, he woke up in the night, and freaked out. I think it was because the door was closed. Anyway, I had to put poor Columbia outside at 1am Sunday so that Landon could go back to sleep. I ended up leaving the door open and the hall light on for the rest of the night. Every time I tried to close Lan’s door, he would wake up and scream.
Last night I used both baby gates to make Landon a small space in front of his door that Columbia can’t get too, also while trapping in a small area so in the morning Landon can’t wander about the house unattended.

Bobby's been saying this is often the smart move in certain situations. What do you think? What would it take for you to just walk away?

( More homeowners mailing keys to lenders instead of payments )

carylerg has actually tagged me for a meme about books!
Here are ze rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people and post a comment to carylerg blog (your tagees will post to mine, etc.) once you've posted your three sentences.

My nearest book is my backup book, which sits in my work bag. I haven’t read it yet, I carry for a day where I forget to bring a book to work. Well, actually, the nearest book to me is “Bloody Ol’Muddy,” which is the next Deadlands adventure I am going to run, but it doesn’t have 123 pages, so I moved onto my next closest book.

So here's my quote:

“I suppose you need to ask me all sorts of questions.” The slight slur of his s’s told me he was well on his way to being smashed. I had to wonder why.


So I’m going to tag cyberwuzzle , tiff_az , noonle , revmamacrystal , and aliyna