The Rocker

I highly recommend this movie. Jeff and I watched it last night and there were parts where I was laughing so hard I was crying. It actually has a really cute story and is only PG 13 so there aren’t a lot of the gross out gags or bad language that most of the new comedies have. Not that I mind those, but it was kind of nice to watch something different. If you like Rainn Wilson from the Office you will for sure love this movie but even if you aren’t an Office fan chances are you will still like this flick. Just a quick synapse, Rainn Wilson is a drummer named Fish, who got pushed out of a rock band in the 80s, and you all know how totally awesome rock stars in the 80s dressed. After they fire him the band goes on to great success. It’s 20 years later and Fish is working in a lame job that he gets fired from. He moves in with his sister and finds out that his nephew is in a band, named ADD, and has been asked to play at their senior prom. When their drummer gets grounded they beg Fish to play with them. The story goes from there.

Toddler Rules

My Mom forwarded this to me and I think it describes my toddler to a tee!

Toddler Rules

If I like it-it's mine.

If it's in my hand-it's mine.

If it looks like mine-

it's mine.

If I think it's mine-

It's mine.

Everything else is mine too!

A New Way to Exercise!

The Kline’s finally got sucked into the craze that is Wii Fit. It’s funny I’ve been thinking about getting one since we got the Wii last summer but figured it’d be a waste of money. My exercise philosophy has always pretty much sucked. Occasionally, I get on kicks where I’ll buy a new piece of exercise equipment, use it for a month, and then it’ll sit for another six months until I decide to try it out again. Exercise has always bored me and I’ve never enjoyed going to a gym and I hate running. When I lived in Missoula, Jeff and I lived across the street from the YMCA. We got memberships and went pretty religiously the first month, the second month neither of us went once and we decided to cancel our memberships. Take me on a hike or snowshoeing in the woods any day but don’t make me sit on a stationary piece of equipment in a gym, it’s like torture. Since in the winter it’s not as easy to get out into the woods, especially with Avery, I really do need some way to get a workout in. I was skeptical about the Wii Fit, however, Teresa kept telling us how much she loves it so I figured what the heck. So far I’ve done it four days in a row and I really do like it. It’s challenging and Jeff and I have a competition going which makes it fun. Today I’m actually sore from the lunges and boxing and the yoga rocks. My total weight loss is only .5 pounds, however, considering I ate an entire 8X8 pan of brownies with cream cheese frosting over the weekend, I figure the fact that I lost anything means its working. For any of you couch potatoes that don’t really have the time or desire to get to the gym I highly recommend the Wii Fit.

Helena with Nanna and Bampa

Last weekend Jeff, Avery and I drove over to Helena to do a little shopping. We met my parents and had lunch at the Macaroni Grill. Jeff's cousin Chris was working in Helena so he came along as well. Here are a couple cute pics. We stuck Avery in between my parents. At one point a family sat down in the booth behind us and Avery of course turned around to stare at the new people. She kept trying to poke this one lady's hair. It's always fun taking a toddler to a restaurant. Cell phones are a great distraction when they start acting up! We ended up hitting Costco and Lowes. Our kitchen remodel has officially begun - yeah you heard right, another home project. Jeff and I like to torture ourselves. As soon as we really start working I'll post some pictures.


Bampa trying to keep Avery entertained.

Late post

Here's a late posting of pictures. In December we had our friends the Reagor's stay with us for a night with thier two boys, Marcus and Marshall. They all used to live down the street from us until they moved on to bigger and better things. We sure do miss our neighbors but understand why they wanted to get out of Butte. Marcus is the one in the blue jammies and he's only eight months older than Avery. We're pretty sure he's going to be a football player. His older brother Marshall is in the green and he's just a riot. The kids had a great time playing together and these are a couple of pics that Sara shot and I stole off her website.

Bummer of a Day

I generally like my job, however, on days like today I really wish I didn’t have a job period. It’s MLK day and Jeff and Avery are home together watching movies and having fun while I’m stuck at work. Our store is short on Mondays and no one else here really knows how to run a sales deal, thus since I started working I’ve tried to not take Mondays off and actually I don’t think I ever have taken one off. Yet today Jeff talked me into just trying to see if I could take a vacation day even though it’s a Monday. So I called and asked and got shut down, like I suspected, but it still pissed –er um - ticked me off. I’m pretty sure when I got hired I wasn’t ever told that I could NEVER take a Monday off. Now I’m disgruntled and cursing my job and am having a bad attitude day. The thing that really sucks is that at any of my old jobs I would have had today off paid. Note to readers – try not to get a job in retail – you get screwed on holidays! It’s days like this I try to remind myself that I’m lucky to have a job with the economy going the way it’s going. I just need to keep repeating that to myself so that I don’t go postal on my fellow workers. For those of you off and enjoying a long weekend – I hate you – ok just kidding, but enjoy it because not all of us are as lucky! I better get back to my LAME-O job!

Piss off and Mine

Avery is talking like crazy. She picks up new words every day and likes to chatter non stop. She’s even saying full sentences, she just leaves out some words here and there. Last weekend she came up with another dozey of a word, “piss off”. She kept saying it to her Dad and I and I think we were in shock because I’m pretty sure I’ve never told anyone to piss off. It made me a little nervous and I instantly blamed the kids at daycare. She was saying it so often that we began to think our policy of ignoring the “bad” words wasn’t working out this time. So we sat the small one down and proceeded to explain to her that saying “piss off” was not nice and that it was actually a bad word. She broke down crying, which broke my heart but she hasn’t said it since. Then yesterday her Daddy did something annoying and I said, “don’t piss me off.” Then went oh crap, she learned it from me. In trying to thwart my swearing around my child I’ve been focusing on the big words, the F-bomb and such, yet to me saying piss never really occurred to me as a bad word, until my kid started telling people to “piss off.” So once again I had to check myself and have decided to try really hard to not say damn or piss or shit around my child because obviously these are the words that stick and since she has no clue what a “bad word” is, Mommy really needs to get her shit together and stop saying them. Wish me luck.

We’ve also entered the MINE stage. I’m not sure when this new phenomenon occurred to the child. It must have been sometime last week but all the sudden, everything is MINE. We had our friends the Pierson’s over last weekend with their seven month old Jake. Avery really liked Jake unless he was playing with “her” toys. I say “her” toys because we brought down some of her baby toys like the exer-saucer for Jake to use. The kid hasn't shown interest in that thing in months but she kept telling Jake mine. We let her sit in it for awhile and she acted like it was the coolest toy ever. Weird kid! Then yesterday our friends Teresa and Jeff bought their little guy Lucas over to play. Lucas is three and a lot bigger than Avery but she doesn’t care. She grabbed the box of teddy grahams away from him, held onto them for dear life and kept saying, “mine.” She did offer him a few but there was no way she was giving up “her” box of teddy grahams. So along with the swearing we are working on sharing. Man does it ever end with kids.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

I just got back to work after five glorious days of laziness that I’ll admit I needed. Jeff and I ushered in the New Year by ourselves with appetizers and wine and then proceeded to do basically nothing for the next few days. It was heaven; let me tell you I needed the break. Right after the holidays I think everyone gets a sense of being let down. All the hubbub of getting ready for Christmas and then just like that, it’s over. We really need to come up with a cool holiday in like early February to transition us out of Christmas and into the bleak winter months. Our house was undecorated and cleaned on Saturday. Avery asked a couple of times where the “tree go.” She loved all of her Christmas loot and we spent lots of time laying with her in the new princess tent and watching her new movies, especially Dora. On a side note, I’m actually starting to dislike Dora. Don’t get me wrong it’s a fairly educational show yet when your child wants to watch it over and over again and the songs start going through your head when you’re sitting at work, you’ve had too much Dora.

We had a great Christmas and it was so fun that Avery actually got into it this year. She really liked talking about Santa and even thinks that the picture in her room of the Seven Dwarfs is a picture of Seven Santa’s. When I look back at how little she was last year I have to laugh. It’s amazing how much she’s grown in one year and how every day I see hints of the little girl she’s becoming and miss the little baby that keeps getting further and further away. I guess that’s the bittersweet part of welcoming in a New Year, saying goodbye to the old one. Usually Jeff and I don’t do resolutions since we pretty much never stick with them and this year is really no exception, however, we have decided that we both need to get our butts up and exercise more so I guess that’s a resolution. Where oh were will 2009 take the Kline family. I guess you’ll just need to keep checking the blog to find out! Have a wonderful New Year everyone. Here's a little comparison picture 2007 versus 2008.