My family has always made bets… especially my dad.  The bets are usually on football games and they are always for a buck or two… until whatever team my dad picks for the week/game is up in points… then his bets MIRACULOUSLY become twenty bucks or something.  We have gone ahead and taught this competitive spirit to my children.  Kaiden and Kelly have been betting on football games.  Yesterday, Kaiden’s latest winnings came in the mail from Aunt Kelly in Florida.  She got the following note with a $1 bill.

They upped their bet for the Super Bowl from $1 to $5.  Ashton is not betting money yet (that comes with age and the ability to do chores and earn the money you are betting), but he has not ONCE missed out on joining in on the spirit of a good fight… so Aunt Kelly made sure to include a little note for him too…

Cracks me up… Ashton immediately started chuckling and under his breath said “in her face MORE,” then looked at me and said “Mom, write her a message on your phone right now and tell her “IN HER FACE MORE… HER TEAM IS GOING TO LOSE!”

Last Tuesday, my dad turned 65 years old.  I cannot believe he is 65, I mean just really cannot believe it.  When did that happen?  He is all hip and up with technology now rolling around town with his Blackberry and canceling newspaper subscriptions because he is reading his news from an iPad now.  Killing me…  I digress… sorry.  So anyways, I send him a message through Blackberry Messenger on his actual birthday to wish him a Happy Birthday.

His response cracked me the hell up!  Rosebud?  Where the hell did that come from?  He has NEVER called me that in my life… as a matter of fact, he has never called me any type of nickname, unless you count “shit bird” as a nickname, then in that case, he called me by a nickname all the time!

We celebrated his birthday Sunday night with dinner, presents and cake.  I started making his cake on Saturday - a Chiffon Layer Cake with Lemon Cream and Italian Meringue Buttercream Frosting.  My dad LOVES lemon, so I searched high and low for a good lemon cake recipe.

I made the cake layers and lemon cream Saturday (man that lemon cream was a pain in the ass) and then made the frosting and assembled it all on Sunday.  He loved it.  For dinner, I found a recipe for Hawaiian Beef Short Ribs (delicious) in the Crockpot, Shredded Cheddar Oven Potatoes, Sauteed Asparagus and my mom made homemade challah bread.  His birthday night was a good one!

Happy Birthday again Pop Pop, Love Rosebud

• I have been fighting a cold since the middle of last week.  When it started coming on, I immediately stocked up on Emergen-C and have been taking it like a mad woman.  Although it has not kept me from getting the cold altogether, I can definitely tell that it has lessened the severity of it.
• The Steelers won on Saturday (VERY stressful game), which makes the Scanlon Clan happy.  I watched it over at Nadine’s house while she did my hair for me.  The Jets won on Sunday… which is also good, because that means the Steelers will get to play them next week at HOME, giving us home field advantage.  They lost to the Jets back in December with home field advantage… lets hope this game is not a repeat.
• Today I am working on quitting some bad habits so that my good habits that I have worked so hard on can be better.  I am not in a great mood.  Not at all.
• Kaiden has been playing Indoor Soccer and is loving it.  They have had two games and have won them both.  She loves that they get to play off the walls.  I wish we would have started this season a week earlier so that my sister could have come and watched her play while she was here.
• Nadine’s youngest FINALLY says my name (well almost… comes out like issy… but it is MY name dammit) and she finally acts like she likes me.  This is a big deal for me, it was killing me that she would not acknowledge me.  I guess it was my payback since Ashton did the same thing to Nadine… god he wanted nothing to do with her for the longest time and it KILLED her.
• I had to get my car serviced on Saturday… the 15,000 mile service appointment.  One of the appointments that you HAVE to get or else you forfeit your free oil changes and warranty.  It was not too bad money-wise, about $88, but they kept my car all day long.  Thank god my friend Barry was visiting his parents nearby so he picked me up and I hung out with him while waiting on my car to be done.
• I eat Subway like it is my job - seriously I do.  I go through stages, I don’t get something different every time I am there to mix it up.  For EVER I ate ham and american… then one day I decided to try Buffalo Chicken.  So for like the last year I have gotten Buffalo Chicken EVERY SINGLE TIME I went to Subway… which is MULTIPLE times a week.  I am proud to announce, I have a new sandwich that I am digging… the Turkey BLT.  And GOOD NEWS… it is still one of Subway’s healthy subs, even with the bacon!  SCORE!
• This weekend, in between runs, haircuts, football games and car maintenance I got caught up on all my DVR’ed episodes of BONES.  I LOVE that show.  LOVE.

That’s all I got… but I will leave you with the SNL Digital Short from this past weekend, which cracked me up, because it starred Pee Wee Herman!  “Ohhh… Hey Anderson…”  Hahaha.

Because not only does he write the best birthday cards… he also sends the best random text messages!

The kids have been bugging me to get them all signed up for the Shamrock races in March so that they can join the Running Club at school and start training for them, so today I registered them and myself.  I am not doing the Half Marathon this time (although I am probably in WAY better shape to run one than I was for the two I have previously completed, and by completed I mean did not die in the process).  Kaiden and I will be running the 8k together and I am happy about that… happy to run with her and happy she wants to do it.  Ashton (much to my surprise) asked and begged all on his own to be a part of this as well, so I signed him up for the Final Mile and he too will participate in Running Club every week to prepare for it.  Dena and Ethan will also be running the 8k and I am excited about that as well.

Here is the route for our 8k run:

Not happy about how much of it will have to be run on that concrete boardwalk (I HATE running on concrete) but oh well, this one is for Kaiden.  Guess I am going to have to let her come running with me some to help her prepare.  Five miles is a lot for her little legs!