It’s A Mad Mad Squirel’s World

NKOB

May 16th 2008madsquirrelLife

5 Boston-area singers Donnie Wahlberg, Jordan Knight, Jon Knight, Danny Wood, and Joe McIntyre, the New Kids were awkward and enthusiastic on their 1986 debut, which wasn’t surprising considering that the oldest members were barely 16 years old.

1988 Hangin’ Tough hit the charts!

1990 Step By Step hit the charts!

I remember being in middle school and going absolutely crazy when I heard New Kids on the Block for the first time. I remember trying my hardest to get the dance steps down. I remember having the hugest crush on Joe McIntyre. :wink: As I sit here watching my normal Today Show on NBC, they show the line of people waiting to see the NKOB preform. 3 BLOCKS! 3 freakin’ blocks long of people just to see NKOB! As I watch the TV I notice that the crowd is mostly women MY AGE! I find this funny and a bit scary. :???:

Funny because after all these years, 20 years to be exact, there are still women who will act like crazed teenage girls. I think we all still have a teenager hiding inside of us. Funny because the women have posters and are screaming like crazy, just like they did 20 years ago. Funny because in the mix are some men, probably closet NKOB fans, that are there to see them too. Funny because I am actually watching and waiting for them to preform. :grin:

Scary because 20 years ago I was 12 years old and it can’t possible have been that long ago. Scary because they are not so NEW KIDS on the Block, more like Middle Aged Men on the Block. Scary because they still have the right stuff baby! Scary because they women for 3 blocks are standing in rain, pouring rain in order to see NKOB! Scary because they probably these grown women probably have been there all night to get such great spots. Scary because I know the facts at the top of this post! :sad:

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Wordless Wednesday

May 14th 2008madsquirrelWordless Wednesday

Grandpa 20

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Grandpa

May 14th 2008madsquirrelLife

OMSH want to hear stories of our Grandpas. I was lucky to have two growing up. Both worked for most of my childhood. They were both strict at times but had a gentle way about them. They had childhoods raised in the country. That is were the similarities end.

Grandpa Barnard is where I’ll start. This was a good man, hard working, strong, and gentle. I always remember him being tall, I could be wrong but in the eyes of a child he was. Grandpa was a plumber, an electrician, and an all around handy-man, He had a blue truck that was his work truck and I remember going out there and cleaning out the back of his truck. Grandpa was missing two fingers, from the center knuckle up, on one hand from an accident involving a plainer. I was young and don’t remember much about the accident but I remember rubbing his “nubs” and saying “poor papa”. I remember him yelling at me for being in the deep freeze. Grandpa smoked a pipe and I remember cleaning it out for him. Grandpa didn’t have much hair on the top and he had a comb over for a long long time. Once on a snow day, in the 6th grade, Grandpa came and got me from the house and drove me out to the farm. We sat in the open field on a blanket with our heads back and caught the snow flakes on our tongues. I have a tattoo of snowflakes for him on my right ankle. Grandpa died June 20, 1994, in the end he had Alzheimer. He was a the highest degree Mason you can be before a Shriner and was buried with the honors and ceremony. He was survived at the time by his wife, two daughters, two grandsons, one granddaughter, and two great-grandsons.

Grandpa 20 is my other grandpa and he is still alive. Grandpa is full blooded Dutch, but was born right here in Missouri. He grew up speaking Dutch/German but now can’t speak a word of it. Grandpa owned a cleaners for most of childhood. I remember playing in the Delivery Truck and going to visit him at the store. I remember want to drop my baby brother down the shoot and see if he made the basket below. Grandpa has a weird tan and I remember asking him about it. When he was a child he had shingles and the lights caused his upper half to be very tan/dark and his lower half is very white! Grandpa has had a bad hip for most of his life. In my lifetime he has had two hip replacements. He walks with a limp but there is no reason except it is habit. Grandpa baptized my mother, myself, and two of my children. Grandpa loves to mow lawns and most summer days he can be found on a John Deer at the church or house mowing the lawn. Grandpa also loves his cars, loves him so much he can be found waxing and washing and detailing the cars until it is sickening just like new. Grandpa loves his chocolate and can be found most days dunking Grandma’s famous chocolate ships cookies into milk for a snack. Grandpa is a bit forgetful but that is just his age starting to show. He loves my oldest and thinks Westley is as good as gold. Westley loves Grandpa too, so much that he spent his Spring Break with Grandpa. Grandpa has four children, 8 grandchildren, 13 great-grandchildren.

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Tackle It Tuesday

May 13th 2008madsquirrelTackle It Tuesday

Hey, it’s that time again… time to share what you have tackled this week at home from your to-do list.

My tackle for this week is Bradley’s room. When we found out 5 years ago we were actually going to have another child and that I was going to carry to term, close to, we needed another room built. We built a room in part of our unfinished basement, it is a split foyer with 2 bedrooms up and two down. Bradley came 4 weeks early and the floor was not down. Tile was decided on and my father installed and finished the floor while Bradley was in the NICU. Bradley had his little yellow and blue room for 6 months and than a pipe busted and flooded his room. The pipe was installed wrong and it burst inside the wall and barely missed him when the ceiling fell in. We had the room redone and we moved Westley downstairs and gave him a bigger room. We moved Bradley into Westley’s old room and never changed the paint from the original blue. Bradley is getting his own room after 4 years in it. We went and he helped pick out the colors. I had the idea and he made the final choice, I would have ended up with a black and blue room otherwise!

So today I cleaned his room up and cleaned up the closet. I than tackled the dreaded toy box! Now I didn’t take a before shot but I can fit all the toys and some that are suppose to be in there. Bradley thinks he has all these new toys!

Look at all that room!

Than I tackled the bookcase and his desk! And yes we have more Elmos than is possibly needed by one 4 years old.

Here are the toys that I am Freecycling! Yep instead of sending these toys to the trash they are going to a new home. Plus I am giving 4 Duplo buckets to my mom’s girlfriend for her grandkids!

Here are the glorious colors that we will be painting Bradley’s room in tomorrow. Blue Danube and Asparagus. Than we are running a metal rail between the colors and it will be a magnetic strip that he can put up his drawings on. We are also adding some black as accent. I think it is a good color combo that can grow with him.

The ceiling is staying! I put in soooooo much hard work on this. At night there are the constellations on the ceiling. And they are placed as they would be in the night sky if you laid outside. It is very cool! The clouds on the walls go though! :shock: