Puppies new competition

http://www.bordercollie.org/core.html

Our pup Ace is a Border Collie.

If you didn't know, Border Collies are natural herding dogs.
They were bred to be working dogs on farms.

They have this ability to herd other animals without barking. It's really an amazing thing to witness. It is said they can "hypnotize" cattle or "mesmerize" animals with it's intense stare. We call it the Border Collie stare.

Since we don't happen to have any sheep or other livestock around our little Chicago suburb homestead, Ace tries to herd whatever he can.

He attempts to herd our cats....

kitty does not find this amusing

He attempts to herd the kids.....

Tony does find this amusing

But Ace now has some new competition at our house.

Mid December, I am going to start babysitting a set of twins.

One of the twins, Marcus (not his real name-Mac made up the twins Blog names), seems to have the mastered the border collie stare.

This is a common look on his face. Almost like he can stare you into doing his will....

Feed me now!

You will give me my Binky!

I will dominate the world....

this is Mac holding his brother, we'll call him Brogan (I know....maybe if Mac gets over these weird names now, I'll have grandchildren with normal names).

Can you guess who is who?

"Give me your toys"

It's a good thing there's two of them. The Hubby and I are absolutely baby crazy so we've managed to produce a bunch of baby obsessed offspring. We will definitely be fighting over baby holding time.

Marcus and Brogan's mom and dad are pretty understanding about my blogging addiction issues and she has generously allowed me to blog about them every once and a while.

Can't wait to see who wins the first stare down.

I don't think puppy has a chance.

and sorry for all the puppy stories.

I promise to take a break for a while.

Things my children witnessed on the Metra

I'm thinking this could become an ongoing list....

I could place it somewhere on my blog and add to it every time they see something their sweet, innocent, Kalamazoo sheltered, little eyes have never seen before...

Yesterday, Tony and I, took a train ride into the city to pick up one of his friends from Kalamazoo. His friends name is Max, and his family was vacationing in the city last week and agreed to let him come visit us for a while. Tony is so excited, he's almost giddy.

After we got on the train, and I paid for our tickets, Tony decided he was too cool to be sitting by his old, embarrassing mom. He moved down to the end of the car (still within eye shot of my protective "mom eyes") and pretended to be a "big kid, all alone, just headin into to Chi-town, meetin up with his buds, to get into some trouble" as any normal thirteen year old would do.

I had my book that I was reading, but with all the interesting people getting on and off the train (and my ADD), reading is very difficult. Pretty soon I notice this old man get on the train. He had to be in his 70's. He had on a white "wife beater" t-shirt and a pair of HOT PINK shorts that were rolled up nice and high to show off his very attractive, old hairy, bony kneecapped, legs. The ensemble was completed by a pair of black socks pulled half way up his shins and a pair of old black dress shoes. Oh! and I almost forgot the handbag he was carrying. Someone needs to tell him how to coordinate handbags....cuz he was not doing a good job!

So he sits there smilin a great big smile (I'm sure he's thinking everyone is gawking at him because he is lookin pretty fine today!). He stayed on the train for maybe one or two stops and then got off.

That's when I hear giggling....lots of uncontrollable giggling...
I look back at Tony and there is a big huge black guy sitting between us. Tony and the big guy are looking at each other laughing. I say to them "I know what you boys are laughing at! You'd better stop that right now or I'll come over there...!" I said it just to be smart, but the big guy looks at me like he's a tot who just got scolded by his mama for stealin a cookie or something and he stops giggling. I didn't expect that result so I smile and then they both start laughing again.

After Max got on the train I learned this after listening to Tony tell the story...

Things my sweet baby has seen on the Metra
1. An old cross dressing man in hot pink shorts
2. A drunk man holding a beer can who fell asleep and missed his stop
3. A coyote
4. A young couple making out like he has never witnessed before
5. A hobo
6. and that if you sit on the top tier, you can see down the tops of the girls sitting at the bottom (ok I actually noticed that one...and am not letting any of the men in my life sit up there anymore).

have a great day!

church shopping....definately not in kzoo anymore!!

I've had quite a few Chicago burb experiences so far that have made me think "Wow! I'm definitely not in Kalamazoo anymore!" (some that I can't even blog about). But this mornings church service was probably the most dramatic of those experiences.

The fam and I went to one of those "mega churches" for the first time. I know they have mega churches all over the place, and maybe this will be a boring blog post for some of you, but we've never been to one.

Why did we pick that church out of all the hundreds around here?

*we didn't know it was a mega church....from the road it didn't seem that big.....
*we were members at the biggest church in Kalamazoo before we moved (some even teased us that it was a mega church--NOT)....we kinda like big churches.....
*a friend of ours, who used to live in a burb nearby (and worked for FCA hint-hint) recommended it...
*and they gave me a FREE coffee mug a while back (I'm a sucker for free stuff!--I still can't decide which dentist to choose cuz I got a free toothbrush from 2 different dentists in my Welcome Wagon Lady pack--oh the dilemma!)....

so why not?




We knew the minute we pulled into the parking lot that we weren't in Kansas....I mean Kalamazoo anymore! Back in kzoo we had one parking lot attendant (just for exiting)....this place reminded me of Cedar Point parking. There were people in bright orange vests with orange light sabers all over the place. They just kept waving you on to drive deeper into the depths of the parking lot where you see another attendant and another and another until they directed you into a spot. Mac says "I hope they have letters on the light posts like Meijer so we can find our car!" (they didn't)




The inside reminded me of the center of a mall....you know, kinda by the food court or something. There was a big round info desk at the center. To the right was a bookstore (kinda weird if you ask me). Moving counter-clockwise, the entrance to the auditorium was next to that. A coffee/food shop next to that....It seemed that some people just skip breakfast and come in early and eat and drink coffee and hang out....hmmm.....could be fun. Next to that was the youth center which was like nothing I've ever seen before. Another cafeteria area (much larger) was in there with separate areas for lounging, pool tables, Foosball, upright video games, TVs everywhere....that's all I could take in with the couple of minutes we stood there trying to look like we weren't gawking.....it was HUGE. We didn't even go into the childcare building....





The auditorium was big and dark with two big screens on either side of the stage and it was packed!
Funny how we sat where we always sit when we are at our church in kzoo....to the left of the center section....maybe some kind of subconscious comfort thing?
The music was a little more "rock concert" than our old church, but nothing too stunning. I will say something here though.....everyone on stage was extremely good looking.
**disclaimer alert** the author of this blog is in no way saying that the people on stage in our kzoo church were not attractive! They are some "fine" looking people up there too.....I'm just sayin....it was a little freakish how good looking these people were....Abbey, Mike and I discussed it afterward (I had to make sure I wasn't crazy). Here's an Mac quote "I don't like to mix God and people that good looking together" Hubby and I looked at each other "huh?" Mac continues "It's too distracting! DUHHHH!"
The preaching was Biblical and straight forward by an associate pastor (we'll have to go back to check out the senior pastor). They have a big community outreach program that we liked and could picture ourselves being part of.




We visited the welcome center on our way out and talked to a very friendly guy and got another free coffee mug (Score!---have I mentioned that I unpacked about 50 thousand coffee mugs and mutter to myself the entire time "who in their right mind has this many coffee mugs?"---I don't know what is wrong with me!)

The kids aren't too sure this church is the place for us. The guy at the welcome center gave us the name of another church to visit....but it's an offshoot of another mega church....He said there are a lot of them around here. Apparently, a lot of these offshoot churches don't have pastors preaching....they watch a DVD or a live simulcast of the pastor at the mega church on the big screens....I can't imagine that....I must have lived a pretty sheltered life there in kzoo.

I guess we'll just keep shopping.