Whatnot

This post is for Celiac because I know how much she loves to know what is going on with all of us and she is not on Facebook (not that I am recommending that she should--I am only on it now so I can play Scrabble with Crazy--otherwise I think I would totally give it up, it's the new Spam outlet of the internet.  It replaced email as the forward all for spam...but I digress).    So these first few pictures are from Christmas (and yes, I know it is now March).  I got all the boys head lamps for their stockings and of course they all did the same thing with them....

 Notices that Spencer's is a different color and on a different eye.  Actually I won them at work and they turned out perfect as stocking stuffers because there were three of them. 

 More of the head lamp/eye patch complete with Jester hat.

 So most definitely this is not the best photos of Dennis & I, especially the slice of light from the window cutting across my head and cutting into Dennis's ear, but I include it because to me I look like this perfect juxtaposition of mom and dad on my face.  The bottom half of my face is dad (dare I say even Grandma Vadenesque--though the thought causes a shudder) and the top half, particularly the right side, is mom.  Perhaps I am imagining it, but that's what I see.

 Cooper has grown a solid inch since this picture was taken at Christmas time.  He is a whopping 5'9" and still growing.  I took him to the doctor last week and she said he is still tracking, as he has since he was a baby, in the 95th percentile for height and weight!  He is going to be a bruiser.  However, recently when I commented as his brothers were giving him a hard time that they better watch out because he would be bigger than them and could beat the crap out of them, his response was "But mom, it's just not in my nature."  Truer words were never uttered.  He is a sweet happy-go-lucky boy. In just the past couple weeks I have had several of his teachers (current & past) comment what a great kid he is.  We love our Cooper.

 Tucker considers himself quite the hunter now.  He got a shot gun for Christmas and has been pheasant hunting twice now, ergo that makes him a hunter.   It's actually quite hilarious.  To hear him you'd think he'd been doing it since he was a wee lad.   Funny kid.

 Ah Spencer.  Always the camera ham, boy with the snarky comment and the stylish sense of fashion.  He has applied for 5 colleges and been accepted into 4 of them.  He wanted to go to Marymont Manhatten in NYC which he has finally given up on due to $$$ and his mom saying it was too far away.  He is currently hoping to attend Western Washington in Bellingham in the fall.  He still has to convince his dad that he can afford it but it seems reachable.  We took a tour over the mid-winter break from school and the campus is very nice and more cozy, friendly than UW.   Final decision to be continued...

 Another cyclops man photo.  Cooper is also sporting the new comforter he got for Christmas.  Which comes in handy now that his "bedroom" has moved downstairs in the family room.  Spencer had been complaining that Cooper's snoring was keeping him awake (and he does saw some pretty loud logs...ala his two grandfathers).  He had been sleeping on the sofa in the family room periodically and then we finally just decided to make it permanent and moved his bed down there.  He has his man cave with TV/video games and Spencer finally has his own room.  Everyone is happier.

 These following pictures are the "Popeye" arm photos from Dennis' elbow surgery in February.  He had this surgery about 15 years ago because of loose cartilage floating in his elbow was making it so his elbow wouldn't been fully extend.  So he started having the same issues again recently so he went to surgeon and ended up having surgery again.  He has a little arthritis in the elbow and some bone spurs as well as cartilage floating in there.  So when it was done he sported this ACE bandage for about four days. 

 This butterscotch pie is what I made for Tucker's recent 22nd birthday.  Wrong order, the uncovered one should be first, the 2nd one is after the meringue.  Best meringue I have ever made.  Even stayed fluffy until the next day.

So that is the whatnot that has been going on at the Chandler house recently