Snowman pancake anyone?

Moving on up...

Last weekend we helped to move my Grandpa to his new apartment in Manhattan. He graciously offered to let us have his old "divan". SHOCKINGLY, noone else in my family wanted it....

I don't know why...Jordan and I LOVE IT!! It fits perfectly in our den!! I mean what's not to love??? It folds into a bed...

and you can hide things in it..

p.s. Don't mind that puny Christmas tree in the background...that is just or den tree...we do have a real tree in our living room...

Yes.... Yes I am...

oh what a beautiful morning.....

Living in a big kid house has allowed us to put up outdoor Christmas lights this year.

Andy is, of course, in charge of the timer for turning the lights on and off at night. I learned this morning that at some point he discovered our timer allows you to program multiple timings into it...and the lights can remain on for as little as 15 minutes increments.

He has now programmed our lights not only come on at night, but they also for 15 minutes just before 7 AM (when Andy leaves for work) and again at 7:40 (when I leave for work)...

Our poor neighbors probably think we are having some sort of electrical surges...

Andy has been campaigning to go to an instrumental Christmas music concert....I am not a fan of instrumental Christmas music...I mean maybe yes one song tucked in here and there is fine...but a whole concert of it...no thanks!

So I received this email from Andy today:

Subject: Christmas cheer tonight

Message: What better way to help us get more in the Christmas spirit by going to the KSU Jazz Ensemble concert tonight at 7:30 at the Union? Sounds pretty good to me? What do you think? Do you want to have Christmas spirit? Not going to this is basically being anti-Christmas, do you want to be anti-Christmas? Being anti-Christmas is basically rejecting Jesus. Do you want to reject Jesus? Sweet little baby Jesus? On his birthday? Sweet, little, 7lb 10oz baby Jesus? I didn’t think so. Yay! I’m glad you want to go to this concert!

pink is my favorite color...

Don't worry mom and dad...it was just the primer...

too bad we didn't do this project on Valentine's Day - - that would have been perfect!!

Wordizzle from Baby J: All I want for Christmas

Dear Santa,

let me tell you what I'd like for Christmas....

I know it's cliche...but my two front teeth would be pretty awesome...I mean I have one..but the other would really be good too...

And also, probably this paint can....

Love,

J-Dizzle

keep it clean, folks!

This photo was taken of an office down the hall (through espionage - thanks Brandi!)...

This is not meant to be a judgement on this office -- this person is very busy and has a lot of paperwork passing through their office...but please draw your attention to the can of Pledge sitting in the middle of the ..uh... stuff....

where exactly is the person planning on dusting? and at what point did they think..."you know what would help...if I dusted.."

failure.

this is supposed to be a picture of us looking excited...

Instead it looks like I'm raising my hand in class and Justine is copying me.

Go team.

I love pretty food.

hmm. interesting: from Alaska

My sister-in-law found this installment of "hmm. interesting" on craig's list..here is what she had to say...

I was just flipping thru Craigslist today and saw this in the "wanted" section. The heading was "shopping carts," and I was wondering if it was someone for our Thanksgiving Blessing (food ditribution) project coming up that needed the carts, so I clicked on the ad and it said...

" I am in need of some shopping carts so that we can modify them for our physics class demonstration. I am looking to get 2 or 3 or 4. I don't have a lot of money to spend on these, but i do have a hamster i would be willing to trade? Email me and let me know if you have some. Or call me or text me..." and then gave the phone numbers.

So, does anyone else laugh out loud at someone looking to trade a HAMSTER for 2 or 3 or 4 (not 2-4, but 2 or 3 or 4) shopping carts? There is so much to this simple 2-line posting...


Thanks, Laura, for the laugh! It's good to know that in some parts of the world hampsters can be exchanged for currency....

s'now what?

My dad texted me this morning to brag about getting snow....like I would be jealous that they are getting snow and we aren't....

I mean it's only a dusting...that's barely anything..

big deal...you got snow....

THAT IS SO UNFAIR...I WANT SNOW.

NOW. NOW. NOW.

but NOOOOOOOOO. We live in in the Sahara Desert where it is still 65 every day!!!!!

COME ON ALREADY IT'S THE MIDDLE OF NOVEMBER WE WANT SOME FREAKING SNOW.

so glad I didn't rise to his provocation....

let's get ready to rumblllllllle....

Our niece, Ella, is learned in the art of intimidation....

I'm pretty sure she is safe from bullies for the rest of her life with this mug shot....

i spy...

This morning as we were watching TV:

Andy: I'm going to watch through this glass so he has a big chin.

(as he looks through a glass sitting on the coffee-table)

Andy: Big chin, little head, big chin, little head

(as he moves his head up and down in front of the glass looking through different parts of it.)

i'm a lucky girl.....

Wordizzle from Baby J: so you had a bad day...

J-Diddley: First, my parents dressed me up as a FAT tiger and my mom ate my candy

Then Uncle Andrew played with me like I was a cat...

This is how I feel about this week....

i go to college

Today's overheard excerpt:

"saturated fat is a lot less specific than calcium."

Good to know.

Free Falling...

sandy: you should jump in the leaves.

andy: okay.

My dad standing alone in the K-State parking lot with his biscuits and gravy waiting for his tailgating friends to show up...

I had to go to work...

uh....yea....

Thursday night I went to a one hour Dreamweaver class. I could not stop thinking about this SNL skit because this is EXACTLY what the presenter was like....you can fast forward to 1 minute into the video if you want....



It was hilarious, not very useful from the Dreamweaver perspective...but funny funny stuff. I had to try so hard not to laugh

For the love....

of pumpkins!!! In memory of the K-Line pumpkin ranch today we took in some pumpkin related fun.

1) nothing says a good time like a "corn cob gun"

2) kickin' it in a corn maze (which I dominated by the way) and Andy got a little confused about what was going on...

3) Andy of course LOVES pumpkins (no seriously, for those of you who don't know check out a pic of his grooms cake:)

...so we ended up coming home with 2 big pumpkins, 2 medium pumpkins, 6 small pumpkins, and 6 gourds.

4) We also participated in the other activities at the corn maze....cuz we are cool.

Wordizzle from Baby J: That's the way I roll...

J-Diddley: "check out my wicked 'rolling into bricks move'"

J-Diddley: "What?? I'm awesome."

row row row your boat....

We started the weekend by taking in the KU vs. K-State women's rowing competition on Tuttle Creek Reservoir...

we decided that only in Kansas are you likely to see someone cheering on the rowing competition in wranglers...

The rowing was....well 6 minutes of not being able to see anything then 1 minute of watching them row....repeat x 4...slightly anti-climatic but a good experience, I suppose.

only you, dude.

This is a pumpkin with the aforementioned smokey face carved into it. Family friends back in Minnesota thoughtfully carved this faux pumpkin for us!

are you thinking, "ONLY YOU can have a smokey pumpkin."? Well you are wrong...EVERYONE CAN HAVE ONE....see the below post that references last year's halloween. :)

Free fresh baked pretzel?

Uh, yes please!

Thanks Bakery Science Club. What a yummy day to work for the College of Ag!

Yea...so what if most of my recent posts have been about food???? What's it to ya?

worthy of repeating???

Looking for a great pumpkin carving idea??? Check it out our last year's post on carving pumpkins.

AND check back tonight for a photo of our Smokey Pumpkin....

I'm loving me some pumpkin cookie season....

It's a wonderful day in the neighborhood...

Mr. Rogers' ghost eats lunch in the union!!

it's that time of year.....

The Christmas Countdown has returned. Scroll down to see the days, hours, minutes and seconds until Christmas!

it's a hard knock life...

sidenote: I get unreasonably excited about seasonal M&M colors...

Okay, mental war...when candy jar reaches this level I am always trapped between the "I should just go ahead and eat the rest because they are almost gone anyway" argument and the "that's the perfect amount to be eaten tomorrow" argument.

my life is so hard.

You've lost that loving feeling....

Conversation after dinner tonight:

(context we had a HUGE dinner tonight and Andy said his stomach was big after eating it)

Sandy: Are you pregnant?

Andy: I might be. I'm feeling very emotional.

Sandy: Whatever, you have no emotion --- you have no feelings.

Andy: That isn't true. Right now I'm feeling full.

Sandy: Feeling full is not an emotion.

Andy: Yes it is.

((silence))

i go to college

Introducing a new kleinlife blog feature "i go to college".

For anyone who has spent any time at all on a college campus it should be a well known fact that walking behind students on campus and overhearing pieces of conversation can be interesting/amusing/weird/creepy/etc.

As some of you know, I think this is one of the best and most amusing "side effects" of working on a college campus. It only seems fair to share these amusing moments with all of you...

Example: this was a text from my friend Tyler I received today...

"Following awkwardly close to two girls who are talking about one of their friends becoming a witch. Thought of you. Not because of the witch thing"

So funny.

By the way, Tyler, not sure how I feel about you finding it necessary to add that last sentence. Thanks for that. We will have words later.. Beware.

Sent from my iPhone

winner winner chicken dinner

On our way home from the state fair today we had dinner at the Brookville Hotel ... For those of you unfamiliar the Brookville Hotel is a super fab restaurant that only serves family style chicken dinners and has been since 1919....

So at the end of our meal the waitress kindly brings us a bag to take our uneaten fried chicken home in.... As we are sitting at our table finishing our ice cream two people walk by and offer us their "take home" bags of fried chicken, explaining they were on a bus tour and couldn't take it with them but didn't want it to go to waste. SCORE! Free fried chicken.

Only we felt awkward paying and walking out with 3 bags of chicken.... So what makes us feel less awkward...shoving two bags of chicken in my purse and acting like we are only leaving with one.....

Stowing away food in my purse and we are only 27 ... The future looks bleak...

editorial correction

So for those of you that visit our blog often you might remember a certain "Hmm. Interesting" post involving Andy's ascertaining that many cats were named pickles. I graciously called this into question...and today I got this email from Andy...

------------------------------------

ANN WILLIAMSON/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL

">

ANN WILLIAMSON/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL

Pickles, a Siamese kitten, demonstrates how a live cat trap is used Wednesday at the Helping Hands Humane Society, 2625 N.W. Rochester Road. Pickles will be available for adoption in two weeks.


-----------------------------------------

Andy's email(s) read:

Ha ha ha! See!?!?!? And it is such a smart cat too! Its trained to do livetrap demonstrations! I bet it can even let itself out, reset the trap, and give a little talk about the benefits of using live traps, then they probably follow that all up with a little wine and cheese reception so that attendees have the chance to personally chat with Pickles.




Thanks Uncle Kelly, for bringing this to Andy's attention so that he could have his "ha ha I'm right" moment. I'll keep this incident in mind, when I'm thinking about what to get you for Christmas.

This would be the best day of my life: http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09/15/gilmore-girls-the-movie/

So I'm walking by "ultimate frisbee practice" ....there are not enough "hmm interesting"'s in the world to describe...

Wordizzle from baby J...

I'M GORGEOUS!!!

Hmm..interesting

Hmm..interesting. This was the guy sitting in front of us at the K-State football game yesterday...he's one of those types that listens to the game on headphones, while watching it..nothing really wrong with that...but in case you can't see it his headphones say

"OPERATES ONLY ON AIRCRAFT

PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE"

super classy, dude.

Yay for Atwood FFA's county collective booth at Kansas State Fair...do you do home office organizing and labeling...because we would totally hire you!!!

Ain't no stoppin' me now...

So I know many of you have been cursing my blogging absence (okay one person said they were bored without it and went to my head)...be careful what you wish for megan..this is my first post from my new iPhone so now there is no stoppin' me. I hope this will give a boost to the hmmm interesting column.

Stay tuned.

So long, farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, adieu...

Goodbye 26, you've been a great year! 

(seriously em, don't know what you were talking about 26 was pretty good..but for your benefit I have enclosed these comments to keep your 26 theory alive ...)

We finally said goodbye to apartment life. 

(by moving into my parent's house...okay not the one they are living in but still....)

We welcomed a new nephew.

(now people keep harassing us about having kids)

K-State basketball made the elite 8. 

(and then they lost...boo.)

Had a clean bill of health from the dentist.

(after 5 appointments where I spent enough to build them a new addition)

Andy and I both got new jobs.

(now I have to start doing housework again since we are both working)

Updated my tetanus shot. woot woot!

(cut my thumb on a rusty nail nail while scrubbing the house)

27, bring it on! you've got big shoes to fill!

fly me to the moon...

Our new combo canner and space machine...

we haven't tried it for space travel yet, but it worked excellent to can tomatoes

We also plan to hide valuables in it and bury it if we should ever be attacked by Russia...or Nebraska...

Hmm. Interesting

Today's conversation after lunch:

Me: You smell like pickles.

Andy: Pickles the cat?

Me: Who is that?

Andy: I don't know, pickles is just a common cat name.

Me: I've never heard of a cat named "Pickles"

Andy: (silence)

It's a good thing Andy ended the conversation with silence, because any other of response would have elicited a "hmm. interesting."

short bus kind of special

We were happy to play host to the 2010 Arnold family gathering in late July...

Andy and Ash (cousin) invented a new game...

in case you can't see...Andy has "loaded" the trash can lid with a piece of chex cereal...he pushed the trash can lid button, flinging the chex and Ashleigh attempts to catch it between two fly swatters.

You guys are so cool.

we all live in a yellow submarine...

A few weeks ago we finished the bedroom project....

bye bye blue and pink early 90s wall paper

see ya later turquoise carpet

hello lovely yellow walls...

J-Ro was suppose to be helping.  He's so lazy.

Let's party like its.....2007??

This is a picture of the last time Andy and I were both employed full time with benefits at the same time.... 

Yes, that is correct... IT WAS BEFORE WE WERE MARRIED.

Both of us are once again officially employed for the long term. Go us.

Wordizzle from Baby J

What up fools? Baby J was rockin' it in W. VA. yo.

Eatin' my fingers:

Eatin' other people's fingers:

Eatin' some mad rice cereal:

Gummin' my burp rag yo:

and some mad eatin' on grandpa's knee, dawgs:

Not pictured: eatin' jiggle frog, elephant, people's shoulders, various other toys, and anything else I could reach.

I'm a mad slobber warrior. Beware.