Thanks to my employer, Mike and I had the opportunity to attend the MSU football game today, as well as a stupendous tailgate party. I had volunteered to bring coffee to the tailgate, and I successfully did, but not without sacrifice. We were driving to my coworker’s house to pick her up for the tailgate and we came very close to missing the turn onto her street. Mike slammed on the brakes just in time to make the turn, in the process causing the two carafes of piping hot coffee that were safely nestled around my feet to tip over. Onto my feet. Piping hot coffee - I do not know what piping means, just know it was VERY HOT - spilled through my shoe, through my socks, and onto my toes. In nanoseconds.

I wish you could have been there. It was truly an experience I will not soon forget. Not quite Saturday Night Live material, but hilarious nonetheless. Here is how it went:

As I was coping with the seething pain of the hot coffee on my flesh, I had just enough mental capacity left to know that I must remove the shoe, then sock, now no now oh dear God the pain the relentless pain. Shoot. Hot. Oh. Hot. Shoot. Make it stop. Get the shoe off, Mindy. Haaah, eeeeh, oooh. Shoot. Oh, this is her house. That’s crazy, you stopped at the right house.. oh shoot… haaah… can you go knock on the door? Ohma, ohma. Gaaaa… haaa.

Yeah. That’s pretty close to how it went. Replace the shoots with the real four letter word and that’s about verbatim. And I totally have the blisters to prove that I am not kidding about the hotness of this coffee.

Thankfully, the coffee incident was the worst of the day. The rest of the day was fantastic. It was a beautiful day for a football game. We had delicious food, good people, perhaps a little bit of beer, and MSU beat Iowa 16 to 13! All in all the day was pretty stinkin’ cool. Mike ended up snagging a security gig to fill in for a friend so he didn’t watch the game from the stands with me and my coworkers. No, he watched it from behind the goal post. Here was his view of the game, followed by mine.

Mike’s View:

My View:

Yes, his view was better for watching the game, but my view was the best for watching the marching band at halftime. So there!

Mike also got a few shots of some MSU football people that he would want me to post (he’s seriously loving these football gigs).

Javon Ringer:

Mark Dantonio:

Ringer is one of the players and Dantonio is the head coach. Mike says they’re kind of a big deal. I don’t know. Football is clearly not my sport. I’m just in it for the food!

I keep forgetting what I wanted to blog about.

Maybe it was the thing about me finally discovering the cause for my acne breakouts that come around about oh, every 28 days or so. Can you guess? Can ya?

Or was it about my new spiffy phone with which I can now text people messages even though it would be much faster to just call?

Or maybe it was about the 7 pounds I lost and that I had to buy new pants cuz the old ones are falling off. See, I had to do some creative pleating:

No, I think I was going to blog about how I went to church yesterday, finally, and I was really glad I did. Luke did not have a mental breakdown from lack of morning nap, and it was fantastic to see some people I hadn’t seen in a really long time. I love my church.

I could blog about how much fun I’ve been having with my one and only 16 month old son but I’m too busy having fun with my 16 month old son! He’s turning into quite the ham. Would you expect any different from Griddle Bandits offspring? Okay, I have to go, I’m missing out on all the fun…

This boy, my boy, is OBSESSED with shoes. And that’s all he’s been talking about for the past week. The only words he utters lately are shoes and socks, socks and shoes. He has a shoe in particular, the one pictured below, that he has declared his BFF. He points to the shoe, he carries the shoe around the house, he brings the shoe to dinner. I even caught him holding his shoe like a blankie while sucking his thumb. He dreams about the shoe at night and he wakes up talking about the shoe. He even went to bed tonight wearing the shoe.

“Seriously, Mom. I don’t know why you insist on keeping all these toys around. All I need is a cardboard box and a shoe and I’m happy.”

I’ve had this post saved on my computer for awhile now and today is as good a day as any to finally post it. It’s a guest post from my 15-month old son, Luke. I’m starting him on blogging early, though I think Daddy would rather we spend more time working on his fast ball. Here’s what he had to say (hopefully it doesn’t stir up too much controversy):

Luke’s cat bite is fine. No infection!

The Tigers lost today.

But… the boys had a riot anyway!

*Just pretend there are pictures right here… I can’t seem to upload them right now and I’ve really got to get to folding the laundry. Seriously. I really do. I’ll try to post them later.

My mom and stepdad run a website for the Mid-American Conference called MAC Report Online. It’s college sports. They do news coverage for all the schools in the conference and often attend the games. It’s kind of a big deal (if you’re into sports, which I’m not, but I can appreciate those who are). My stepdad, Dave, had press passes for the Michigan State vs. Eastern Michigan football game today. My mom would normally go with him but she was working at the Western Michigan vs. Northern Illinois game, so Dave invited Mike to go along with him. Mike answered with an emphatic, “Hell to the yes” because of course he loves football and he loves Michigan State University. Oh and he gets along real well with Dave too.

So today was Bring Your Kid To Work Day! Mike had a blast. He got to go down on the field and take pictures. It was kinda funny because he was down there with his press pass and he’s taking pictures with a regular old snapshot camera, but he had a lot of fun and the pictures didn’t turn out so bad. Hopefully Dave can use them for the website. He had a good time hangin’ in the press box too. He got to talk football with other guys who know football, and that is always fun for a Football Guy. They were calling the plays like the experts do. Good times.

Here he is just after arriving home. He wasn’t wearing the press pass so I made him put it back on… he was happy to comply. Can you see that giddy glow in his face?

I’m glad he had a good day, and I hope Dave takes him up on the offer to help at more games. Maybe his next career will be in sports. He says photography but I think he would make a great announcer. When we watch baseball games he’s always saying stuff that 3 seconds after he says it, the announcers say, just in a different way. Yup. He could be the next Rod Allen or Mario Impemba!

Luke got a package in the mail today from his Oma. See, my dad and stepmom live two hours away so they don’t get to see Luke much. Apparently Oma just can’t contain herself when it comes to lovin’ on her grandson because this is the second special delivery he’s received. The first time it was a cool little monster truck which he loves. Today it was a nifty racing shirt. I think the sunglasses add a nice touch (I still can’t believe he left them on long enough for me to snap the picture).

I have a new nephew!

Zion Alexander
Born 7/3/08, 8 lb. 11 oz.

I can’t believe my little brother, Josh, is a daddy now. He’s only 17 years young. He’s had a rough go of it for the last few years, but I’m hoping this will mark a new chapter in his life. You can see in this picture how proud he is of his little boy. I pray that God will use Zion to breathe a new sense of hope into Josh’s life.

Psalm 50:2 - “From Zion, perfect in beauty, God shines forth.”

Luke is 1 - count it, 1 - year old now. We are having so much fun with him now that he is starting to do stuff like:

• He dances and sings along to music. He’s a big fan of 70’s rock and he miraculously seems to know all the words.
• He loves to play with balls. He loves to bounce balls and throw balls and put balls in boxes. Give him a ball and he is occupied for dozens of minutes. And I promise, Mike did not force him into this obsession. It’s genetic, obviously.
• He also loves anything with wheels. The walker, the stroller, the wagon, the vacuum. Again, Mike had nothing to do with this other than Luke being the fruit of his loins and all.
• He is starting to cuddle. When he’s sleepy, before or after a nap, I’ll pick him up and he’ll lay his head on my shoulder and drop his arms to the side. Of course my heart turns to mush when he does this and I cannot be expected to put him down. Ever.
• He has learned to give kisses. I’ll say, “Luke, give Momma kisses” and he will lean in, steady his head, hold his mouth open, and look to the side and wait for you to kiss him. Picture it. It’s the sweetest thing ever.
• Oh, and he is becoming more self-sufficient which makes us so proud and also relieved because it’s just less we have to do. He feeds himself most of the time. He usually just uses his fingers but we let him practice with a spoon when we are in the mood for the clean-up.

We are still waiting for certain milestones, such as:

• He still has not uttered my name. He says “Da-da” constantly but not the M-word. I don’t think it’s so much that he can’t, rather he realizes it’s just not necessary. He knows his Momma is always here for him, he doesn’t need to bother with requesting my presence. Besides, my mother’s intuition lets me know when I’m needed.
• He still has no teeth to speak of. His doctor says if none come in within the next three months we should get him in to see a dentist and get x-rays. Seriously? What could be the matter? Crooked teeth? No teeth at all? Have you ever heard of that? We’re not really concerned. We figure he’ll get them eventually. Until then it’s just the running joke at our house every time he’s fussy or drooly or not sleeping well. “Oh, he’s teething.” Uh-huh, sure. I’ll believe it when I see it.

All in all, Luke has been a dream of a child if I ever saw one!