Where to start? So many blog-worthy things have happened in just the last few days... Let's go chornologically.
Little history... I have really been feeling that I was supposed to start a neighborhood group of ladies getting together... I've known it since before we moved. To that end, back at Halloween, I invited all the ladies I met to my house a few days later to get to know our neighbors a bit better. Not only did no one show up, but I knew beforehand that no one would since none of the people I met were stay at home moms!! But still, I had this sense of purpose. So, I now drive around my immediate neighborhood looking for the "available" signs in the yard to change to "sold" signs. Then I watch like a hawk for moving trucks and I pounce!! Sometimes, if I'm driving home and I see the truck being unloaded, I check for kids and if it's around lunch time, I make up enough PB&Js and bag up some chips and the kids and I deliver lunch and introduce ourselves quickly. If I am unable to recon the children situation, then I just bake up a plate full of cookies and deliver them. Jeff is a great sport at going with me and the kids if it is evening when we head out. Well, I've met several moms like that over the last month or so and then last week, I met a stay-at-home mom at the playground and we chatted about how few of us there were and how we should try to get together. Fridays we usually have small group with the core of people who are helping out with the new church and this week it was cancelled on Thursday. So I called one of the moms I've met recently and invited her and her family over to dinner. She agreed and asked me to go for a walk with her and another neighbor that lived a couple houses down. An hour and a half later, we had had a nice walk and later that night, I called and invited her and her family to dinner on Friday as well.. and they said yes. Wow!! we're finally starting to get to know some neighbors. We had such a fun time and Jeff got to meet the husbands... turns out one of them bicycles and they two went for a long ride together on Sunday.
Well, with all that happening, I got the feeling that now was the time. So, I called up everyone I've taken cookies to, or met at the playground and even the mother of a boy in KJ's class who happens to live around the corner and invited them all over for coffee/ playdate. Only 2 were able to show (1 had dr appt, 1 had sick kids, 1 had Bible study and 1 I didn't hear back from) but it was a start and it was cool! I think that they enjoyed themselves and I am so excited that I can truly see God starting to use me here... PLUS, I'm making new friends!! that is pretty cool stuff!
Other things are cool and happening but I'm on the Non-ergonomic keyboard and my wrists are killing me.
TTFN.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Toys.. used for other than their intended purpose, are still fun!
Toys are fun, especially when coming up with new ways to play with them that their original designers didn't intend. I was downstairs when I heard a loud "Choo-Choo... Chugga, Chugga, Choo-Choo!" I look up and here come all four little ones with Thomas, Annie and Clarabelle raised up over their heads. The Thomas and friends set is actually a playhut /tent type of toy. However, this one has no flooring, so they had picked it up and were running around with it like a dragon in a Chinese New Year parade! What a riot!
Ask me what I did today? Go ahead.. ask. I spent SIX hours cleaning up the girls' room and the boys' room. Yes, I did say SIX hours. For those of you with either a boy or a girl, you know all about the toys now-a-days. 15 Barbie dolls plus a 6 quart tub full of clothes and another child-sized suitcase full of accessories and cars, et al. Two words- Polly Pockets! If you have "A" girl, you almost know what I'm talking about.. but to really truly understand you need TWO girls who both play with these itty-bitty 2 inch tall barbie-type dolls. And then there is all their clothes... itsy-bitsy tee-tiny plastic shoes, and dresses and etc.! We have another 8 quart container full of Pollys and then there is all the extra stuff as well. Then of course, the newest thing around here is Little Pet Shop.. These little animals with their little oversized bobble heads ... and of course all of THEIR accessories! Add into the mix all of the regular old dolls and other toys and for fun, include panties, socks, nightgowns and stockings which never quite made it into their drawers, but instead landed in the closet floor. THAT was just the girls' room.
For those of you with a boy, think Legos, Dinosaurs, Cars and Trucks and an enormous tub full of 187 Little People. Add into the mix a boy 3 years old and another one only 6 and imagine if you will what THEIR drawers look like!!! So this is how I spent my day. I started at 8:30 and around 2 was finished in their rooms. Then I had to clean up the rest of the gameroom where I had put everything that no longer was to be in their rooms! I weeded out their clothes and had to get them ready to give away, I had load after load of trash, broken toys, and items I had never seen before! Phew! What a day!
Want to know what Big Daddy did on his day off yesterday? Do ya? Huh, huh, do ya? Well, he WAS going to clean out the garage, do a little organizing. That was after he checked his email on the upstairs computer. A few minutes after heading upstairs, he headed right back down and asked me if I had been backing up the yearbook (I'm doing the yearbook -digitally- for the kids' school). I said that I had been, "Why?" To which he replied that the computer had a major league big-time virus and was about to crash.. He was able to, over the course of the next hour or so, back up all of our folders. Then he had to wipe the entire thing clean! $100 for an external hard-drive and about 9 hours later, he was finally finished rebuilding the computer! WOW!! Makes me truly appreciate having a computer guru husband!! Can you imagine if I didn't have him?!? Wow.. I don't like to, thank-you-very-much!!
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Glass half-full kind of girl
IS came home from school this week telling me that she had to do a book report on a non-fiction book, like a book about a person, she said. I told her that should be fun and then I asked if she knew about whom she would like to read. She immediately replied that she wanted to do her report on Jesus. Cool! that is just too entirely cool!
Speaking of her, IS broke her arm. for some of you this is old news.. almost a month old! Yikes! for those others, sorry.. IS fell off of the playscape in our backyard and just happened to land just right! OUCH!! She came running in the house and by the way she was hollering, I knew she was really hurt... She was wearing long sleeves and I couldn't see her arm but she was cradling her left hand and telling me that it hurt. I asked her if a bee stung her and she said, "No, I fell!"
I pulled up her sleeve and her left forearm was in a v shape (if you don't believe me, check out the X-Ray).. I told her that she had broken her arm and that we needed to go to the hospital. From that point on, as I rounded up all of my kids and the neighbor kids who were visiting, found everyone's shoes, got books for the kids to read in the ER, and finally left a note for Dad to tell him where we were... all that time, she never cried. In the hospital and 3 hours later before it was set, she never cried! When they came to put in an IV, then she freaked! but other than that, she never cried. I have to tell ya, that if I were looking down on my arm and seeing it bent like a V, I would have been freaking way out!!!
Turns out she broke both her radius and her ulna.. nice clean breaks, no wimpy fractures here!
There was a Dr on duty that night who had studied under an orthopedic surgeon and she was able to set her bones beautifully (sleeping picture is still in the hospital after bones were set)... IS has since been to the Orthopedic Surgeon 3 times getting x-rays and finally, yesterday, she got her cast! See, the Dr couldn't remove the original splint since both of her bones were broken. Her arm would have had no support and it would have been all floppy and it would have needed to be reset! She is doing great! She has never complained about it.. in fact, she has been very positive. In the car on the way to the ER she told me, "At least it's my left arm so I can still write!"
She was so excited about getting her "real" cast that counted down the days! Even her teacher knew Friday was the big day! Ha!! Now she's carrying around a marker so that everyone can sign her cast. What fun to have such a wonderful outlook on things. It will serve her well later in life.
On a more personal note, I am fighting with a bit of frustration.. I have been working my rear off, working out 2 and even 3 times a day (mainly to burn off calories, but some machines at the gym to tone up my legs). In addition to that I have cut my calories to 450-700 daily.. I mean I am eating very little but doing so very often..just like all the doctors say is the thing to do. I did it last week in an effort to shrink the size of my tummy- it's supposed to be only as large as your fist! anyway, after all that, 2 weeks later all I have to show for it .. I've GAINED 2 pounds!!! argh!! Oh well, I'm keeping on keeping on.. but I could use your prayers!
Speaking of her, IS broke her arm. for some of you this is old news.. almost a month old! Yikes! for those others, sorry.. IS fell off of the playscape in our backyard and just happened to land just right! OUCH!! She came running in the house and by the way she was hollering, I knew she was really hurt... She was wearing long sleeves and I couldn't see her arm but she was cradling her left hand and telling me that it hurt. I asked her if a bee stung her and she said, "No, I fell!"
I pulled up her sleeve and her left forearm was in a v shape (if you don't believe me, check out the X-Ray).. I told her that she had broken her arm and that we needed to go to the hospital. From that point on, as I rounded up all of my kids and the neighbor kids who were visiting, found everyone's shoes, got books for the kids to read in the ER, and finally left a note for Dad to tell him where we were... all that time, she never cried. In the hospital and 3 hours later before it was set, she never cried! When they came to put in an IV, then she freaked! but other than that, she never cried. I have to tell ya, that if I were looking down on my arm and seeing it bent like a V, I would have been freaking way out!!!
Turns out she broke both her radius and her ulna.. nice clean breaks, no wimpy fractures here!
There was a Dr on duty that night who had studied under an orthopedic surgeon and she was able to set her bones beautifully (sleeping picture is still in the hospital after bones were set)... IS has since been to the Orthopedic Surgeon 3 times getting x-rays and finally, yesterday, she got her cast! See, the Dr couldn't remove the original splint since both of her bones were broken. Her arm would have had no support and it would have been all floppy and it would have needed to be reset! She is doing great! She has never complained about it.. in fact, she has been very positive. In the car on the way to the ER she told me, "At least it's my left arm so I can still write!"
She was so excited about getting her "real" cast that counted down the days! Even her teacher knew Friday was the big day! Ha!! Now she's carrying around a marker so that everyone can sign her cast. What fun to have such a wonderful outlook on things. It will serve her well later in life.
On a more personal note, I am fighting with a bit of frustration.. I have been working my rear off, working out 2 and even 3 times a day (mainly to burn off calories, but some machines at the gym to tone up my legs). In addition to that I have cut my calories to 450-700 daily.. I mean I am eating very little but doing so very often..just like all the doctors say is the thing to do. I did it last week in an effort to shrink the size of my tummy- it's supposed to be only as large as your fist! anyway, after all that, 2 weeks later all I have to show for it .. I've GAINED 2 pounds!!! argh!! Oh well, I'm keeping on keeping on.. but I could use your prayers!
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Mine, Mine, Mine!
For those of you just joining us, welcome!!! For the rest of you, hello from a hiatus required for security...For everyone, here we go!We had to change from our old address to our new one cuz of all the wierd-o's out there who ... are perverted!!But now, we move forward....Today was a banner day for JM.. she began to do flips on the trampoline and she started to read real, live books all in the same day!! She has been doing a program where you learn to read in 100 lessons. She started in January- the same time I quit my "Part" time job and we began home-schooling... she is on lesson 21 and has been reading for a few days now, but today we picked up a book - not a lesson - and she did a splendid job of reading!! Woo-Hoo!! for my little monkey! Then, as if that wasn't enough for one day, she started doing front-flips on the trampoline!!! KJ-our little athletic superstar- was quite upset that he couldn't do them like JM... I tried to explain that she'd been in " 'nastics" for 2 years and had been practicing for that long, but that seemed of little comfort.. After a while, however, she tired of flipping and KJ was left alone to try and eventually bored of it. That night, to help boost his ego, we had a sit-up contest with IS, JM, KJ and Dad... They all tried hard, but clearly KJ and Dad were the winners.. Dad gave it all up saying that KJ wasn't competing fairly since he didn't keep his hands clasped behind his head... nevermind the 31 year difference in their ages!!!! Ha-Ha!!Well, I'll do more to update tomorrow... total down, 26lbs!
ARCHIVE: The Old Blog
Monday, December 24, 2007
Christmas Eve!
It's that time.. Christmas Eve! We've done our last minute Christmas shopping, we've made ornaments, we've eaten the best dinner we've ever had (Prime Rib with baked potatoes and Jeff-made asparagus.. mmm-mmm delicious!!) and now it's time to sing some carols and do our last devotional ornament, pull out our last advent calendar day suprise, throw out some magic reindeer dust (oatmeal and glitter.. to teampt the reindeer with the smell of oats and help them see our house with the glitter), then read the story of the birth of Christ in Luke and then read the Night Before Christmas and then put out milk and cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer.... Phew!! I thought the day was close to an end!!! :o)
Christmas Eve!
It's that time.. Christmas Eve! We've done our last minute Christmas shopping, we've made ornaments, we've eaten the best dinner we've ever had (Prime Rib with baked potatoes and Jeff-made asparagus.. mmm-mmm delicious!!) and now it's time to sing some carols and do our last devotional ornament, pull out our last advent calendar day suprise, throw out some magic reindeer dust (oatmeal and glitter.. to teampt the reindeer with the smell of oats and help them see our house with the glitter), then read the story of the birth of Christ in Luke and then read the Night Before Christmas and then put out milk and cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer.... Phew!! I thought the day was close to an end!!! :o)
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Lowe's has arrived!
When we moved recently- just 15 minutes away- we lost our very short commute to EVERYTHING! Where we were before, we were literally 5 minutes from everything.. Where we are now, most things are within 10 minutes or so, but some things, like Home Depot, are more along the lines of 15+ minutes and they FEEL a long way away. That changed today. The new Lowe's (okay, it's not quite Home Depot, but close) just opened up on Thursday and Pop (who along with Grandmommy are here visiting for Christmas) and Jeff headed out to "run some errands" (read: go to Lowe's). They took KJ with them and soon after leaving called to let us know that Lowe's was having a kids workshop. For those of you NOT in the know about kids workshops, they are absolutely free and the store provides aprons for the kids, which the kids get to customize by adding their names. Then they get to make a project-today we made race cars. The kids wear goggles and use tiny hammers and have pre-drilled nail holes and .. .well, have lots of fun! And these clinics are done once a month. At Home Depot it was the first Saturday, we'll have to figure out the day at Lowe's. But since it's the grand opening week, they're building bird houses tomorrow!
Lowe's has arrived!
When we moved recently- just 15 minutes away- we lost our very short commute to EVERYTHING! Where we were before, we were literally 5 minutes from everything.. Where we are now, most things are within 10 minutes or so, but some things, like Home Depot, are more along the lines of 15+ minutes and they FEEL a long way away. That changed today. The new Lowe's (okay, it's not quite Home Depot, but close) just opened up on Thursday and Pop (who along with Grandmommy are here visiting for Christmas) and Jeff headed out to "run some errands" (read: go to Lowe's). They took KJ with them and soon after leaving called to let us know that Lowe's was having a kids workshop. For those of you NOT in the know about kids workshops, they are absolutely free and the store provides aprons for the kids, which the kids get to customize by adding their names. Then they get to make a project-today we made race cars. The kids wear goggles and use tiny hammers and have pre-drilled nail holes and .. .well, have lots of fun! And these clinics are done once a month. At Home Depot it was the first Saturday, we'll have to figure out the day at Lowe's. But since it's the grand opening week, they're building bird houses tomorrow!
Friday, December 21, 2007
Party Animal!
That's what I feel like, a party animal! First was Breakfast with KJ's class at 8 am - OJ, muffins, the works. Then I dropped off JM at school at 9 am and then headed BACK to read The Nutcracker to IS's class and then to make nutcracker ornaments with them. After that was completed, around 10:05, I headed BACK to JM's school for my "family" day with her.. It was her birthday celebration and Travis and I got to spend the rest of the morning with her doing things in her class, including snack and singing happy birthday, etc.
I was supposed to head back to KJ's Christmas party at 1:20, but the painters showed up to fix a mess and I ended missing that.. but never fear! The next day I headed into JM's class to visit her for her Christmas party around 11 am and then I was back at the school that afternoon at 1:20 for IS's class party! phew!! What fun! exhausting, but fun!
JM's party was also good-bye for her and her friends. Since I will no longer have a job in about a week, there is no reason for her to continue at pre-school... yes, I know, the other 2 went to pre-school, but I really don't want her to go anymore.. They are growing up too fast.. So, she said good-bye and promised to stay in touch.. After Christmas, we're going to "homeschool!" preschool.. Jules was afraid that it wouldn't be any fun to stay at home, so I promised that we would do lots of things.. we'd have activities and plan out events.. after she practiced her manners, we'll go to a tea room. We are going to make cookies and valentines for Valentine's Day and take them to a nursing home. We are going to learn how to make ice cream from scratch. and we're going to have paino lessons once a week too (I don't actually play, but I've watched IS and KJ get lessons and I can teach a 5 year old how to play the scales.. and then when she's practiced a bit, we'll get their teacher to start teaching her too!) Anyway, so now JM is very excited about homeschool and for all my friends out there who kept saying that I would be a perfect homeschool mom, We'll see!!!
Posted by Tess
Party Animal!
That's what I feel like, a party animal! First was Breakfast with KJ's class at 8 am - OJ, muffins, the works. Then I dropped off JM at school at 9 am and then headed BACK to read The Nutcracker to IS's class and then to make nutcracker ornaments with them. After that was completed, around 10:05, I headed BACK to JM's school for my "family" day with her.. It was her birthday celebration and Travis and I got to spend the rest of the morning with her doing things in her class, including snack and singing happy birthday, etc.
I was supposed to head back to KJ's Christmas party at 1:20, but the painters showed up to fix a mess and I ended missing that.. but never fear! The next day I headed into JM's class to visit her for her Christmas party around 11 am and then I was back at the school that afternoon at 1:20 for IS's class party! phew!! What fun! exhausting, but fun!
JM's party was also good-bye for her and her friends. Since I will no longer have a job in about a week, there is no reason for her to continue at pre-school... yes, I know, the other 2 went to pre-school, but I really don't want her to go anymore.. They are growing up too fast.. So, she said good-bye and promised to stay in touch.. After Christmas, we're going to "homeschool!" preschool.. Jules was afraid that it wouldn't be any fun to stay at home, so I promised that we would do lots of things.. we'd have activities and plan out events.. after she practiced her manners, we'll go to a tea room. We are going to make cookies and valentines for Valentine's Day and take them to a nursing home. We are going to learn how to make ice cream from scratch. and we're going to have paino lessons once a week too (I don't actually play, but I've watched IS and KJ get lessons and I can teach a 5 year old how to play the scales.. and then when she's practiced a bit, we'll get their teacher to start teaching her too!) Anyway, so now JM is very excited about homeschool and for all my friends out there who kept saying that I would be a perfect homeschool mom, We'll see!!!
Posted by Tess
Monday, December 17, 2007
Singing Angels
Sunday at church, IS was, once again, an angel in the annual nativity production. She really had her heart set on being Mary, but it is by lottery and she wasn't selected. She was a beautiful angel and did a great job.. She was especially good at singing.. She enjoys it and sang out loud and proud.JM also got a chance to sing out loud and proud this week. She and her entire preschool class went caroling at the elementary school next to theirs. They serenaded the entire kindergarten class (6 rooms). Afterward they came back to school and sang for us. What a cutie-patootie! She did great..
Posted by Tess
Singing Angels
Sunday at church, IS was, once again, an angel in the annual nativity production. She really had her heart set on being Mary, but it is by lottery and she wasn't selected. She was a beautiful angel and did a great job.. She was especially good at singing.. She enjoys it and sang out loud and proud.JM also got a chance to sing out loud and proud this week. She and her entire preschool class went caroling at the elementary school next to theirs. They serenaded the entire kindergarten class (6 rooms). Afterward they came back to school and sang for us. What a cutie-patootie! She did great..
Posted by Tess
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Time with Friends
We have had such a full and busy schedule this month.. Literally EVERY single Friday Saturday have been booked and some Sundays as well... My mother has spent the last 3 weekends here, just to babysit our kids!! What a blessing she is.. and not just on the babysitting front!Well, this weekend was no different.. we had dinner at a friend's house-and he's a GREAT!!! cook. He made this absolutely divine pasta dish.. Oh!! Yummy!! They also gave us a super fantastic heavy duty, beautiful, VERY GRANDE spaghetti pot from Wm-Sonoma.. Evidently the last time he and she were over, we made pasta and they thought our ghetto veggie-strainer-in-the-sink wasn't quite cutting it, especially with the size of our family and the amount of pasta we eat. It was so incredibly thoughtful- I was blown away!Then last night was our Christmas party.. it was nice and not so big that we-the hosts- didn't get to visit with everyone. Then, the big one happened today...Today was Julianna's birthday party.. She will be 5 next Friday and we had our doll-making party today.. what a great party!! Mom, the sainted one, helped me make a doll for each girl attending. They had the same color hair as the child, and it was very long.. down to the feet of the doll. So the girls were given their doll, they cut out a heart and kissed it, then put it into the doll and stuffed it to just the right firmness. I quickly sewed the seam up and they selected a dress and pair of bloomers and an apron/pinafore.. While they cut their doll's hair to match their own and selected a hairstyle and ribbon, I quickly embroidered their name onto the pinafore they had selected. Next we moved into the kitchen and each girl got to use special markers to draw on their face. 3 shades of pink/red to choose from for the lips, and every eye color possible. They really did make their little dolls to be little Mini-Me's... I believe everyone had fun.. I think that they all liked making the dolls and they surely did love having them.. Hopefully it will remain special to them even as they grow up.Then it was time for cake.. I made an Ariel, the Little Mermaid cake for JM cuz that is what she wanted.. since I had dinner on Friday and party on Saturday, I made the cake on Thursday and threw it in the freezer for a couple of days. I was very careful and kept a close eye on Travis and his fingers.... if you're new to my blog, then you don't know how EVERY SINGLE CAKE I HAVE EVER MADE has had little finger prints in it from where one of the kids tastes the icing.. So, I am watching TL like a hawk.. and no fingers in the cake. However, as I was taking the foil off of the cake this morning what do you think I found in the back? beautiful little finger prints!!! what a riot!! every cake!!!I am working on the yearbook for KJ's and IS's school and it's electronic and it's all me... I am the yearbook.. I have a committee of teachers, one from each grade level, who sort of act as my liasons.. I communicate to them and they communicate to their grade level comrades. I am so very excited.. I am having a grand ole time doing this! We decided on a Dr. Suess theme and the name of the book is "Oh, The Do's That We Did!" Everything in the book is in rhyme and I've gone one farther in that I model the poems directly after a Dr. S book.. what fun I am having!!! All of the students are working on drawing pictures for use as clip art throughout the book and I also asked them to write a poem for their class's page. I am hoping to get lots and lots of nifty pictures and poems and it will really represent even more of the students.. One of my favorite ideas is the last page in the book.. It is usually reserved for an Autograph page.. well, I made it a "My Page About Me" (based on Dr. S's My Book About Me) and there are all kinds of fill in the blanks to personalize and remember... for example, "I am ___ feet, ____ inches tall. I usually eat sack lunch/hot lunch" (circle one)"My favorite subject is.. " those kinds of things so that when you look back as an adult, you'll have a little snapshot of yourself! so very exciting..
Posted by Tess
Monday, December 10, 2007
Tis the Christmas Season!
Where to start? where to start? So much happened this weekend.. First, the girls attended a cheerleader camp hosted by the High School cheerleaders and dance team. They each learned some a dance and a couple of cheers and had such a good time. It's funny, really, to see IS interested in something like cheerleading because she is so incredibly shy! (On the way into the school, I pointed out 2 cheerleaders in front of us and she hid immediately behind me!) But she got up on that stage during the "show-off" and cheered her little heart out! She did great! Of course JM had no problem being "center stage" that is where it seems she was born!This weekend both Jeff and I had our Christmas parties. Both were great.. and at both presents were exchanged.. you know, you birng a present, you get a number and then when it's your turn you either select a gift still wrapped, OR you "steal" a gift from someone who's already opened one and then they get to pick a new gift.. Anyway, last year there was a gift brought to my Christmas party that was quite hilarious and packed quite the punch.. it's called a Bundle-Eaze. No one had ever heard of it before and it was really a gag gift.. it's supposed to make carrying bundles of tree branches easy, but for some reason we all got a big laugh out of it and our pastor ended up taking it home.So, back to the present... As one of the guys at the party steps forward, Jeff points at a present and tells him, "Open that one!" Someone asks if that one is the one that Jeff brought, to which he replies, "No, I just want to see what's in that package to see if I want it." Well, the guy ends up picking that one, and lo and behold it is the Bundle-Eaze! Roars of laughter erupt as we all remember last year. Only, this time, someone notices that the Bundle-Eaze has a Starbucks gift card attached to it and decides to steal the Bundle-eaze (and gift card) from the guy. So it's now that guy's turn to select another gift. He walks up to the selection of gifts and Jeff points at a large purple box and says, "Take that one!" to which the guy says, "No way!! The last time I listened to you, I ended up with the Bundle-Eaze!" So after examing each of the remaining gifts, he finally settles on the large box wrapped in purple paper. As he unwraps the gift, he reveals to everyone in the room, inside the large plastic container is... You guessed it!!! ANOTHER BUNDLE-EAZE!! No one could breathe for quite a few minutes as everyone laughed harder than they had probably in the last year! Turns out that the one who brought the gift last year had another one and the one who received it last year saved it to regift at this Christmas party! What a riot!In other areas, we got a cold front in last night and finally, we hit temps below 70! It was around 47 today when we ventured out for gymnastics.. It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!! I remember a few years ago, my big bro was in the USAF and had requested to be stationed at like 10 bases in Texas. He wanted to stay here. Of course, he ended up far, far away! In fact, in Reykevik, Iceland!! How's that for far away? AND he hates the snow and cold!! I thought that I would show him my sympathy so I sent him a picture of me surfing on Christmas Day!! THAT's Christmas in Texas!!Well, my mother and I are putting the final touches on the party preparations for JM's birthday. Some overly ambitious mom (that would be me!!) thought it would be fun to have the girls make "Mini-Me"s -- little stuffed dolls with the same color hair and eyes as each girl and their names embroidered across the chest.. well, in order to do this, I had to actually make the dolls for the 4 and 5 year old girls to "make" if you know what I mean. I recruited my mom and she and I have been sewing like crazy for the past 2 weeks! She made the dolls (much more complicated than I had first envisioned, but destined to become keepsakes, I think) while I made the clothes for them. Each has a pair of lace trimmed pantaloons/bloomers, a lace trimmed dress and a beautiful lace-trimmed apron (which will be embroidered at the party). The girls will each get a doll with matching hair color and then they will color in the faces and make eye colors to match. They will then get to cut out a heart made of felt, write their names on it, kiss it and stuff it into the doll. Then they will get to put the filling inside- as fluffy or flat as they want them- and then Mom and I will sew them up. After this, each girl will get to pick a pair of pantaloons, a dress and an apron (most of them coordinate with each other) and dress the dolls while I embroider their names on the apron. Finally, they will get to cut the hair (which is currently down to the dolls feet) to match their own and choose a style -- down, 1 or 2 ponytails, or 1 or 2 briads. At this point they will all head off to play and Mom and Oma will collapse!!!! What was I thinking!?!? (Aww.. but it will be so much fun and Isabelle and Julianna are so very excited about it!!!)Well, bed is calling.. and since I have more hair to assemble and attach in the morning, I'd better get some sleep.
Posted by Tess
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Not a finga!
In our family, we have a tradition. On Thanksgiving night, we all settle into comfy chairs and snuggle next to each other to watch A Christmas Story. For those of you unfamiliar with this tale, you really must view it this Christmas season. There are numerous lines from the movie which are in and of themselves pretty humerous, but if you know the context, they are funnier still. One such line - "NOT A FINGA!" (as in when someone is going to touch something and you don't want them to lay a "finger" on it).Last night we had some friends' children stay at our house and spend the night. On the way to church this morning, one of the kids was trying to take a Thomas the Train book away from TL, our 3 year old choo choo train fanatic. As Dylan pulled and pulled, Travis held on tightly and said, "NO! My book! NOT A FINGA! NOT A FINGA!!" Pretty funny coming from a 3 yearold. (click this clip twice to make it work)Speaking of things said that seem a bit older than the mouths from which they come, last week, JM and I are driving in the car and talking. She asks me, "Mom, Santa Claus is not real is he?" Stunned, I hesitate to answer, not knowing what to do. I mean, my 7 year old knows that the Easter bunny is not real, but she still assures me that Santa is. And my 6 year old has yet to question anything! Here is my 4 year old skipping all the hemming and hawing and going straight for the punchline.... "Um, why do you say that?" I ask. "Because people can't fly in real life, only pretend." "Oh," I said, "you're right. People can't fly, but Santa doesn't fly. He rides in a sleigh and the reindeer pull the sleigh and fly." Without hesitation, she says, "No. Cuz animals can't fly either.. only pretend ones can." Let me tell you.. I was a bit worried.. i did manage to distract her, but not until she had seriously rocked my little Santa Claus world!
Posted by Tess
Not a finga!
In our family, we have a tradition. On Thanksgiving night, we all settle into comfy chairs and snuggle next to each other to watch A Christmas Story. For those of you unfamiliar with this tale, you really must view it this Christmas season. There are numerous lines from the movie which are in and of themselves pretty humerous, but if you know the context, they are funnier still. One such line - "NOT A FINGA!" (as in when someone is going to touch something and you don't want them to lay a "finger" on it).Last night we had some friends' children stay at our house and spend the night. On the way to church this morning, one of the kids was trying to take a Thomas the Train book away from TL, our 3 year old choo choo train fanatic. As Dylan pulled and pulled, Travis held on tightly and said, "NO! My book! NOT A FINGA! NOT A FINGA!!" Pretty funny coming from a 3 yearold. (click this clip twice to make it work)Speaking of things said that seem a bit older than the mouths from which they come, last week, JM and I are driving in the car and talking. She asks me, "Mom, Santa Claus is not real is he?" Stunned, I hesitate to answer, not knowing what to do. I mean, my 7 year old knows that the Easter bunny is not real, but she still assures me that Santa is. And my 6 year old has yet to question anything! Here is my 4 year old skipping all the hemming and hawing and going straight for the punchline.... "Um, why do you say that?" I ask. "Because people can't fly in real life, only pretend." "Oh," I said, "you're right. People can't fly, but Santa doesn't fly. He rides in a sleigh and the reindeer pull the sleigh and fly." Without hesitation, she says, "No. Cuz animals can't fly either.. only pretend ones can." Let me tell you.. I was a bit worried.. i did manage to distract her, but not until she had seriously rocked my little Santa Claus world!
Posted by Tess
Monday, November 26, 2007
Too Much Fun
Quick post today. I have finished putting up all my Christmas decorations!! WOO-HOO!!! This has been a 3 1/2 day ordeal since this is our first Christmas in our new house, with a new tree and new decorations and new rooms to adorn. However, it is now finished... I think I know how God felt after He created the world.. and on the 7th day (or in my case, the 4th), REST. Okay, not actually since He created the entire universe out of nothing and I simply put up Christmas decor in my little ole' corner of aforementioned creation, but you get the picture! I so enjoy this time of the year.. and I so enjoy just sitting and looking at the beautiful deocorations!
So, going back a couple of days to Friday night. We're at Bill's and Celia's and I was tucking the little people into bed. KJ and TL are the only ones still awake and I lean down to kiss them. (They are sleeping side by side.) KJ asks me if we're leaving in the morning. I say, "Yes." He then asked if we could stay longer or maybe move to Houston. I asked him, "What about school? We have to get back so that you can go to school!" He was ready.. He said, "You could homeschool us, Mommy!" How's that for a quick 6 year old!?!
The pictures are of Will, the cousin who instigated the whole shirtless hooplah, and KJ and TL. KJ and he were standing together posing and showing off their muscles. And notice TL bent over at the waist. Will and he were doing sit-ups.. What is this fascination with boys who must race each other in everything? what fun to be a boy!
Posted by Tess
Thanksgiving and such
Our annual Thanksgiving Day feast went off, as usual, without a hitch. I have to tell you that growing up, with my mother's siblings, a family event always involved someone throwing something -usually at someone else's head- and of course, the requisite yelling was involved. Basically enough drama to fuel the soaps for a week! Now, every Thanksgiving goes beautifully! Brothers all get along with each other - and like spending time with each other - sisters-in-law, the same! Jeff's mother always sets a gorgeous table that would make Martha Stewart green with envy. And the food she serves up each year, delicious!! Emeril would be proud.. I've been a part of this family for 9 years now and never a hint of dryness to the Turkey... in a word, YUMMY!This year was a bit different in a couple of ways. We sisters-in-law had a new one amoungst us. Jeff's brother Dan got married a few weeks ago. Now, Maria has been a part of our Thanksgiving for the last few years, but now it's official!! woo-hoo!! Secondly, we stayed at Jeff's other brother's house instead of with Grandmommy and Pop. That is totally radically different. Although, it was actually a lot of fun. Our little people weren't in the way as Grandmommy prepared dinner and in fact, they spent the entire morning hanging out with their cousins and playing and making messes that didn't have to be cleaned up before anyone arrived.. They really loved being around their cousins!!My favorite part was what happend afterward. The day after Thanksgiving had us all over at Bill's and Celia's (Jeff's older brother's) house. We had watched the game (and if you had to think "Which game is that?" then you should be shot as their is only ONE game played the day after Thanksgiving) and the boys were upstairs playing ping pong. One thing you need to know is that one of the cousins, Will, who is 11 now, loves to hang out without his shirt on. It's this phase he's going through. So, anyway, we look upstairs and see Will without his shirt and think nothing of it. The next thing you know, all 3 of the BIG boys have their shirts off, Jeff, Bill and Dan. They claim it started out shirts against skins, but I'm not buying it. Before I could grab my camera and document this moment for posperity's sake, I see my own son, KJ, running around now with no shirt and giggling! I grab my camera and head upstairs only to be met on the way by my youngest child who is holding up his arms and saying, "Mommy, help please!" wanting his shirt off also. Who am I to turn down this cute little guy?!? What happened next is sure to become lore in our family. Not quite understanding that the disrobing was to be limited to bare chests only, TL-who is only 3- strips down BUCK NAKED! and starts running around like Wild Mike (if you've seen Barnyard, you'll remember the little critter who danced). I gotta tell you that it was about now that Aunt Celia starts to laughing, so hard, she is having trouble breathing! It was such a hoot!!
The pix are of the entire gang watching The Christmas Story- a family tradition on Thanksgiving.
Posted by Tess
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Naughty Words
My children love to ride the school bus. My neighbor's girls don't like it as much, they say the bus driver is mean. But upon repeated interrogations, my little ones have assured me thatshe is not. I like the school bus, it means that I don't have to drive them to school, sit through 15 minutes worth of parents dropping off little, slow, kids in good and inclement weather. It also means that in te afternoon, my youngest 2 actually get to take naps instead of being waked from their peaceful slumber only a few minutes after dozing so that we can go pick up the oldest 2.What I had considered until now was waht happens on the bus! Like the words that kids hear on the bus... So, I'm downstairs in the dining room fluffing up the Christmas tree and KJ is upstairs playing on the computer when I hear this very sure-of-himself, "Aw, damn it!" I pause my decorating, look at mother to verify that I just heard what I thought I heard coming from the mouth of my precious little 6 year old, innocent son. She returns my look with one raised eyebrow in that way that only a mother can do, assuring me that, Yes, I did hear what I thought I heard coming from those 6 year old lips. I call KJ to the banister and ask him what he just said. He confirms it yet again. I excuse myself from my mom and my decorations and head upstairs to the guest room, where my husband is sitting just mere inches from where the fateful words were uttered, yet had not heard them. I update him and we proceed to tag team KJ, gently explaining to him why we don't say that word. After a few minutes, we all emerge from the room, ready to face the rest of the day, I head back downstairs, but before my foot has reached teh last riser, I hear, "Damn!" My mom glances up at me and we both bust out laughing- quietly and to ouselves- as I turn around and head back upstairs. "KJ, what did you say?" Dad had heard this time and we explained the nuances of ALL that couldn't be said and that could be said. "Oh bother! Fiddle Sticks (my mom's favorite since I was little) Fiddle Faddle, Oh Great! and Man!" That is it. Those are the acceptable words to say when we're frustrated. Off we go.About 5 minutes go by and what do I hear? "Dang it!" Now, in my house, dang it is just as bad as the original.. The Bible teaches that a man who lusts after a woman has committed adultery with her in his heart.. so using that principle, we don't substitute cuss words for closely sounded others. Once again, I traipse upstairs to explain to KJ what he can and cannot say. Once again, he assures me that he understands. This time, however, we explain there will be consequences. SOAP!Life is continuing a few minutes later only to hear KJ say "Damn it!" again. This is not funny anymore! Jeff and I ask him why he said it and he whimpers out that he can't help it. He hears it once and now it is already a fixed part of his vocabulary!!! For those of you who know us, know what happened next. SOAP... we don't just stick a bar in the mouth like the mother on "A Christmas Story" does, no, sirree... we lather up our hands, rub it all inside his mouth, along the gums, everywhere, and then put the bar into his mouth and turn it a few times, then finally rest the bar in his teeth and instruct him to stand there and think about what he's been saying. Finally we allow him to rinse and underscore the importance of what has just transpired. PHEW! Isn't it amazing how easily bad habits are adopted! I read it takes 6 weeks to make something into a habit.. that must be a GOOD habit!
Posted by Tess
Too Much Fun
Quick post today. I have finished putting up all my Christmas decorations!! WOO-HOO!!! This has been a 3 1/2 day ordeal since this is our first Christmas in our new house, with a new tree and new decorations and new rooms to adorn. However, it is now finished... I think I know how God felt after He created the world.. and on the 7th day (or in my case, the 4th), REST. Okay, not actually since He created the entire universe out of nothing and I simply put up Christmas decor in my little ole' corner of aforementioned creation, but you get the picture! I so enjoy this time of the year.. and I so enjoy just sitting and looking at the beautiful deocorations!
So, going back a couple of days to Friday night. We're at Bill's and Celia's and I was tucking the little people into bed. KJ and TL are the only ones still awake and I lean down to kiss them. (They are sleeping side by side.) KJ asks me if we're leaving in the morning. I say, "Yes." He then asked if we could stay longer or maybe move to Houston. I asked him, "What about school? We have to get back so that you can go to school!" He was ready.. He said, "You could homeschool us, Mommy!" How's that for a quick 6 year old!?!
The pictures are of Will, the cousin who instigated the whole shirtless hooplah, and KJ and TL. KJ and he were standing together posing and showing off their muscles. And notice TL bent over at the waist. Will and he were doing sit-ups.. What is this fascination with boys who must race each other in everything? what fun to be a boy!
Posted by Tess
Thanksgiving and such
Our annual Thanksgiving Day feast went off, as usual, without a hitch. I have to tell you that growing up, with my mother's siblings, a family event always involved someone throwing something -usually at someone else's head- and of course, the requisite yelling was involved. Basically enough drama to fuel the soaps for a week! Now, every Thanksgiving goes beautifully! Brothers all get along with each other - and like spending time with each other - sisters-in-law, the same! Jeff's mother always sets a gorgeous table that would make Martha Stewart green with envy. And the food she serves up each year, delicious!! Emeril would be proud.. I've been a part of this family for 9 years now and never a hint of dryness to the Turkey... in a word, YUMMY!This year was a bit different in a couple of ways. We sisters-in-law had a new one amoungst us. Jeff's brother Dan got married a few weeks ago. Now, Maria has been a part of our Thanksgiving for the last few years, but now it's official!! woo-hoo!! Secondly, we stayed at Jeff's other brother's house instead of with Grandmommy and Pop. That is totally radically different. Although, it was actually a lot of fun. Our little people weren't in the way as Grandmommy prepared dinner and in fact, they spent the entire morning hanging out with their cousins and playing and making messes that didn't have to be cleaned up before anyone arrived.. They really loved being around their cousins!!My favorite part was what happend afterward. The day after Thanksgiving had us all over at Bill's and Celia's (Jeff's older brother's) house. We had watched the game (and if you had to think "Which game is that?" then you should be shot as their is only ONE game played the day after Thanksgiving) and the boys were upstairs playing ping pong. One thing you need to know is that one of the cousins, Will, who is 11 now, loves to hang out without his shirt on. It's this phase he's going through. So, anyway, we look upstairs and see Will without his shirt and think nothing of it. The next thing you know, all 3 of the BIG boys have their shirts off, Jeff, Bill and Dan. They claim it started out shirts against skins, but I'm not buying it. Before I could grab my camera and document this moment for posperity's sake, I see my own son, KJ, running around now with no shirt and giggling! I grab my camera and head upstairs only to be met on the way by my youngest child who is holding up his arms and saying, "Mommy, help please!" wanting his shirt off also. Who am I to turn down this cute little guy?!? What happened next is sure to become lore in our family. Not quite understanding that the disrobing was to be limited to bare chests only, TL-who is only 3- strips down BUCK NAKED! and starts running around like Wild Mike (if you've seen Barnyard, you'll remember the little critter who danced). I gotta tell you that it was about now that Aunt Celia starts to laughing, so hard, she is having trouble breathing! It was such a hoot!!
The pix are of the entire gang watching The Christmas Story- a family tradition on Thanksgiving.
Posted by Tess
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Naughty Words
My children love to ride the school bus. My neighbor's girls don't like it as much, they say the bus driver is mean. But upon repeated interrogations, my little ones have assured me thatshe is not. I like the school bus, it means that I don't have to drive them to school, sit through 15 minutes worth of parents dropping off little, slow, kids in good and inclement weather. It also means that in te afternoon, my youngest 2 actually get to take naps instead of being waked from their peaceful slumber only a few minutes after dozing so that we can go pick up the oldest 2.What I had considered until now was waht happens on the bus! Like the words that kids hear on the bus... So, I'm downstairs in the dining room fluffing up the Christmas tree and KJ is upstairs playing on the computer when I hear this very sure-of-himself, "Aw, damn it!" I pause my decorating, look at mother to verify that I just heard what I thought I heard coming from the mouth of my precious little 6 year old, innocent son. She returns my look with one raised eyebrow in that way that only a mother can do, assuring me that, Yes, I did hear what I thought I heard coming from those 6 year old lips. I call KJ to the banister and ask him what he just said. He confirms it yet again. I excuse myself from my mom and my decorations and head upstairs to the guest room, where my husband is sitting just mere inches from where the fateful words were uttered, yet had not heard them. I update him and we proceed to tag team KJ, gently explaining to him why we don't say that word. After a few minutes, we all emerge from the room, ready to face the rest of the day, I head back downstairs, but before my foot has reached teh last riser, I hear, "Damn!" My mom glances up at me and we both bust out laughing- quietly and to ouselves- as I turn around and head back upstairs. "KJ, what did you say?" Dad had heard this time and we explained the nuances of ALL that couldn't be said and that could be said. "Oh bother! Fiddle Sticks (my mom's favorite since I was little) Fiddle Faddle, Oh Great! and Man!" That is it. Those are the acceptable words to say when we're frustrated. Off we go.About 5 minutes go by and what do I hear? "Dang it!" Now, in my house, dang it is just as bad as the original.. The Bible teaches that a man who lusts after a woman has committed adultery with her in his heart.. so using that principle, we don't substitute cuss words for closely sounded others. Once again, I traipse upstairs to explain to KJ what he can and cannot say. Once again, he assures me that he understands. This time, however, we explain there will be consequences. SOAP!Life is continuing a few minutes later only to hear KJ say "Damn it!" again. This is not funny anymore! Jeff and I ask him why he said it and he whimpers out that he can't help it. He hears it once and now it is already a fixed part of his vocabulary!!! For those of you who know us, know what happened next. SOAP... we don't just stick a bar in the mouth like the mother on "A Christmas Story" does, no, sirree... we lather up our hands, rub it all inside his mouth, along the gums, everywhere, and then put the bar into his mouth and turn it a few times, then finally rest the bar in his teeth and instruct him to stand there and think about what he's been saying. Finally we allow him to rinse and underscore the importance of what has just transpired. PHEW! Isn't it amazing how easily bad habits are adopted! I read it takes 6 weeks to make something into a habit.. that must be a GOOD habit!
Posted by Tess
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Bloody Toe
As I sit downstairs, working in relative peace, listening to the childish noises coming from my 4 kids playing upstairs - and getting along very well, I might add - my tranquil state is disturbed by a blood curdling scream. I navigate the many obstacles along the path to the staircase, stepping on a toy car, jumping up and over Brandy and her bed in the hallway, catching the runner in the hall and sliding just enough to appear quite comical to the onlooker (had there been one). I finally reach the stairs and bound up them, 2 and 3 at a time, all the time hearing this heart stopping screaching, and wailing... KJ and JM are yelling at me the entire time, "Mommy, Mommy, TL has blood!!" Mentally going over where the nearest hospital is- we DID just move here a few months ago and haven't, as of yet, had to use their facilities - I turn the corner and step over the landing only to climb the final few stairs and finally reach the site of the aforementioned howling. TL is coming toward me with tear after tear streaming down his face and his mouth opened into an O large enough to fit a small nation into. I quickly assess the situation, scanning from head to fingertip to leg and finally reaching the feet, and more specifically, the large toe. I notice some red and quickly pick up my son and begin to carry him and his -surely by the sounds of it, partially amputated- toe downstairs to put it on ice and ...wait, as I examine the wound more carefully, I discover the red we are all seeing is, in fact, actually lines from a red magic marker! These are the moments that make everything worthwhile!
Posted by Tess
Bloody Toe
As I sit downstairs, working in relative peace, listening to the childish noises coming from my 4 kids playing upstairs - and getting along very well, I might add - my tranquil state is disturbed by a blood curdling scream. I navigate the many obstacles along the path to the staircase, stepping on a toy car, jumping up and over Brandy and her bed in the hallway, catching the runner in the hall and sliding just enough to appear quite comical to the onlooker (had there been one). I finally reach the stairs and bound up them, 2 and 3 at a time, all the time hearing this heart stopping screaching, and wailing... KJ and JM are yelling at me the entire time, "Mommy, Mommy, TL has blood!!" Mentally going over where the nearest hospital is- we DID just move here a few months ago and haven't, as of yet, had to use their facilities - I turn the corner and step over the landing only to climb the final few stairs and finally reach the site of the aforementioned howling. TL is coming toward me with tear after tear streaming down his face and his mouth opened into an O large enough to fit a small nation into. I quickly assess the situation, scanning from head to fingertip to leg and finally reaching the feet, and more specifically, the large toe. I notice some red and quickly pick up my son and begin to carry him and his -surely by the sounds of it, partially amputated- toe downstairs to put it on ice and ...wait, as I examine the wound more carefully, I discover the red we are all seeing is, in fact, actually lines from a red magic marker! These are the moments that make everything worthwhile!
Posted by Tess
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Travis and Christmas
Poor TL was having a rough day.. I literally lost count how many times that poor little boy got in trouble this evening! He was hitting, throwing fits, NOT obeying and just having a tough go of things in general.. but the cutest thing happened after I tended to him for the umpteenth time... He came right back to me and said, "I love wu, Mommy." Now to set the scene here, TLdoesn't really say that very often.. maybe 3 or 4 times total! So that was pretty significant and pretty cool.Does anyone other than me realize how incredibly CLOSE Christmas is?!? On a positive note, I am almost completely finished with my Christmas shopping (one thing left to get on Black Friday and putting the finishing touches on one other thing).. Not too bad, I guess. However, on the other hand is TL's Christmas stocking LOOMING LARGE! See, back when IS was born, I made her a cross-stitched by hand stocking. Of course, at the time, I was thinking that I would have one more child and I could handle cross-stitching one more stocking and then Jeff's and mine eventually.. Well, for those of you new to this blog, I have FOUR children!!! I finished KJ's stocking pretty quickly, but poor JM- I started it right before she was born and this will be the first year it will hang!!! Determined to not let that be the fate of poor TL, I WAS trying to get his finished up by Christmas, but alas, it is looking less and less likely at this moment. I didn't count on IS growing an inch and a half in 3 months and not being able to find her any cute age-appropriate dresses and having to make them.. I also wasn't counting on making who-knows-how-many dolls for JM's birthday party! Oh, the struggles of a mother! :o)Speaking of that mother thing- It is official now.. a new person has been named to take my place in January. The pastor made the announcement this past Sunday at church! WOO-HOO!Well, there were 2 very cute things said by my sweet little ones today and I can't remember them right now, so expect an appendage... but for now, I'm off to finishh sewing the sleeve on a dress for IS.
Posted by Tess
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
KJ IS 6!!!
Happy Birthday to KJ!!! He is now 6, never again to be 5! and boy is he ever excited!! He has gotten to celebrate his birthday in pretty grand style... You know, I used to be a little saddened when one of the kids' birthdays fell on a weekday, since then they had to celebrate their big day on a day other than the actual birthday.. I'm not feeling sorry for them anymore! In fact, quite the contrary - I think a birthday on the weekend is a bit boring now, by comparison.. On Saturday, KJ and 9 of his friends headed out to the bowling alley for a couple hours of fun... We had a superhero birthday cake (3 flavors - chocolate, lemon and white) with Superman, Batman and of course, Spiderman. KJ is quite the bowler (it's a sport, afterall) and although he has never touched a bowling ball before in his life, he bowled a 94! Not too shabby! (yes, the bumpers were up, but still) Tess had an almost record game as well, scoring a 160-something... I don't remember exactly, I just remmber that I bowled 5 strikes and 3 or 4 spares... and that is NOT like me at all.. in fact, KJ's score is much more like what I normally bowl! Anyway, after the festivities at the bowling alley (where many of the parents bowled and got to have fun) we headed home and later that evening we enjoyed more fun and games. We invited over some of our friends whose children are not the same age as KJ and so wouldn't have been a good match to invite to the bowling party, but are still friends. It was a potluck with a theme -Mexican- and it was wonderful! Jeff and I truly love having people over. Whenever we do, we just enjoy ourselves so much.. I always get a kick out of asking people for the name of their favorite band and then plugging it into the computer (which we have hooked ot our main speakers) and throwing out music they love.. well, we took it to a different level on Saturday night.. we went back in time to high school and did a Retro night with mucis from all sorts of Big Hair and Make-up bands, like Duran Duran, Cyndi Lauper, Michael Jackson's "Thriller" era, Echo and the Bunnymen, Pet Shop Boys, Van Halen, and Rolling Stones.. I guess there's still some DJ left in me after all these years!So, anyway, back to KJ's big day.. Jeff had to go out of town this week so he kept IS and KJ home from school yesterday to hang out and play with them.. they put together some of the new toys KJ got for his birthday and they did some puzzles and they had lots of fun together and then we all drove Daddy to the airport.Last night, KJ got to sleep with Mommy since Daddy was gone and it was the last time the 5 year old KJ could ever sleep with me... Then for breakfast this morning, KJ got to pick.. He choose to have Birthday Cinnamon French Toast with powdered sugar...YUM! At lunchtime, JM and TL and I went up to the school and brought him some balloons and he got to have a hot lunch - which is pretty much the coolest thing on the planet to him!Picture note: Everyone is covering up TL's mouth because he kept blowing out the candles!
Posted by Tess
Ah, The Things Children Say
So, we're in the car the other day and JM argues with Dad. (This is something at which JM is a pro. We're working diligently on improving this area with -on the positive side of things- stickers, charts and even monetary rewards... and on the negative side of things, "x"s on her chart, loss of aforementioned monetary rewards and even washing of the oral orifice with soap). So, after JM argues, Dad informs her that upon returning to home, she will be enjoying the refreshing taste of Dial to remind her not to argue anymore... Well, our little Drama Queen, in true-to-herself form starts to howl!!! She is the best cryer in the history of crying! And she is going at it. KJ leaned over to her and whispered something to her in her ear and she quieted down rather suddenly. When Jeff asked KJ what he had said to her, there was only silence in reply. Again Jeff asked, "What did you tell her? You're not in trouble, I just want to know." To which KJ tells his father, "I told her, 'Don't worry! He'll forget about it before we get home!'" talk about laugh out loud funny!! Not now, we won't! Or ever again.. they are so smart, these little ones.Well, last night was Monday night and Monday night brings Mr. Flores over to our house for piano lessons. As IS sat down for her lesson, I told Mr. Flores about how she had been playing a song this past week that, while it sounded good musically, just didn't sound quite right to her father and me. Finally, we had discovered that what was different was that she was playing a song that she's been practicing, however, she was playing it in a different key!!! I was amazed. KJ and IS have been taking lessons once a week for just 2 months! He seemed almost non-plussed by this amazing feat... a little later, I found out why. He said that this didn't surprise him at all because she really was special. He said that over the years he has probably taught over 300 children to play the piano and that IS is in the top 3 of those 300. He said that it usually takes about 4 1/2 months to introduce all the scales to the kids and that as of last night, IS has been introduced to all of the scales! He sees in her something really special and said that next week he'll be bringing Fur Elise, by Bethovan, over for her to start working on. She's taken less than 10 lessons and is starting on that!! WOW!! That is so very cool! I know that I'm just a proud mother rambling on, but woo-hoo! It IS my blog after all!! :o)IS is doing great in school as well. She brought her report card home last week and her lowest score was a 97 in reading! and I know that is actually in comprehension.. she reads too fast! She is doing the advanced spelling list at school.. it's harder than the regular list and a lot of times has "trick" words- like due and dew- as well as others that are just more difficult.. Since she began this more difficult level of spelling, she has brought home a 105% each test... She ALWAYS gets her extra credit word correct and now, she gets all the others right too. She loves math, though and I believe she had a 100 in that area. Last night as she sat practicing her spelling words, she was doodling, "odd + odd = even odd + odd + odd = odd" She just really loves anything having to do with math!KJ is our sports fiend... anything that is athletic, he's a natural!! He just does it all and he does it all well!! and charismatic? boy is this kid just about as charismatic as they come or what! I went to see him at lunch and when parents come at lunch, the kids and parents get to sit up on stage to eat. So here we are, this kindergartener and I, sitting and eating. In come these 3rd or 4th grade boys and they see KJ and wave and say, "KJ! hey, what's up, dude?" How in the world does he know these kids and since when do older kids say hello to KINDERGARTENERS?!? Not that he's lacking in the school department either.. he seems to be doing well there, too. right on track...Phew!! 2 on the right track.... Only 2 to go!
Posted by Tess
KJ IS 6!!!
Happy Birthday to KJ!!! He is now 6, never again to be 5! and boy is he ever excited!! He has gotten to celebrate his birthday in pretty grand style... You know, I used to be a little saddened when one of the kids' birthdays fell on a weekday, since then they had to celebrate their big day on a day other than the actual birthday.. I'm not feeling sorry for them anymore! In fact, quite the contrary - I think a birthday on the weekend is a bit boring now, by comparison.. On Saturday, KJ and 9 of his friends headed out to the bowling alley for a couple hours of fun... We had a superhero birthday cake (3 flavors - chocolate, lemon and white) with Superman, Batman and of course, Spiderman. KJ is quite the bowler (it's a sport, afterall) and although he has never touched a bowling ball before in his life, he bowled a 94! Not too shabby! (yes, the bumpers were up, but still) Tess had an almost record game as well, scoring a 160-something... I don't remember exactly, I just remmber that I bowled 5 strikes and 3 or 4 spares... and that is NOT like me at all.. in fact, KJ's score is much more like what I normally bowl! Anyway, after the festivities at the bowling alley (where many of the parents bowled and got to have fun) we headed home and later that evening we enjoyed more fun and games. We invited over some of our friends whose children are not the same age as KJ and so wouldn't have been a good match to invite to the bowling party, but are still friends. It was a potluck with a theme -Mexican- and it was wonderful! Jeff and I truly love having people over. Whenever we do, we just enjoy ourselves so much.. I always get a kick out of asking people for the name of their favorite band and then plugging it into the computer (which we have hooked ot our main speakers) and throwing out music they love.. well, we took it to a different level on Saturday night.. we went back in time to high school and did a Retro night with mucis from all sorts of Big Hair and Make-up bands, like Duran Duran, Cyndi Lauper, Michael Jackson's "Thriller" era, Echo and the Bunnymen, Pet Shop Boys, Van Halen, and Rolling Stones.. I guess there's still some DJ left in me after all these years!So, anyway, back to KJ's big day.. Jeff had to go out of town this week so he kept IS and KJ home from school yesterday to hang out and play with them.. they put together some of the new toys KJ got for his birthday and they did some puzzles and they had lots of fun together and then we all drove Daddy to the airport.Last night, KJ got to sleep with Mommy since Daddy was gone and it was the last time the 5 year old KJ could ever sleep with me... Then for breakfast this morning, KJ got to pick.. He choose to have Birthday Cinnamon French Toast with powdered sugar...YUM! At lunchtime, JM and TL and I went up to the school and brought him some balloons and he got to have a hot lunch - which is pretty much the coolest thing on the planet to him!Picture note: Everyone is covering up TL's mouth because he kept blowing out the candles!
Posted by Tess
Ah, The Things Children Say
So, we're in the car the other day and JM argues with Dad. (This is something at which JM is a pro. We're working diligently on improving this area with -on the positive side of things- stickers, charts and even monetary rewards... and on the negative side of things, "x"s on her chart, loss of aforementioned monetary rewards and even washing of the oral orifice with soap). So, after JM argues, Dad informs her that upon returning to home, she will be enjoying the refreshing taste of Dial to remind her not to argue anymore... Well, our little Drama Queen, in true-to-herself form starts to howl!!! She is the best cryer in the history of crying! And she is going at it. KJ leaned over to her and whispered something to her in her ear and she quieted down rather suddenly. When Jeff asked KJ what he had said to her, there was only silence in reply. Again Jeff asked, "What did you tell her? You're not in trouble, I just want to know." To which KJ tells his father, "I told her, 'Don't worry! He'll forget about it before we get home!'" talk about laugh out loud funny!! Not now, we won't! Or ever again.. they are so smart, these little ones.Well, last night was Monday night and Monday night brings Mr. Flores over to our house for piano lessons. As IS sat down for her lesson, I told Mr. Flores about how she had been playing a song this past week that, while it sounded good musically, just didn't sound quite right to her father and me. Finally, we had discovered that what was different was that she was playing a song that she's been practicing, however, she was playing it in a different key!!! I was amazed. KJ and IS have been taking lessons once a week for just 2 months! He seemed almost non-plussed by this amazing feat... a little later, I found out why. He said that this didn't surprise him at all because she really was special. He said that over the years he has probably taught over 300 children to play the piano and that IS is in the top 3 of those 300. He said that it usually takes about 4 1/2 months to introduce all the scales to the kids and that as of last night, IS has been introduced to all of the scales! He sees in her something really special and said that next week he'll be bringing Fur Elise, by Bethovan, over for her to start working on. She's taken less than 10 lessons and is starting on that!! WOW!! That is so very cool! I know that I'm just a proud mother rambling on, but woo-hoo! It IS my blog after all!! :o)IS is doing great in school as well. She brought her report card home last week and her lowest score was a 97 in reading! and I know that is actually in comprehension.. she reads too fast! She is doing the advanced spelling list at school.. it's harder than the regular list and a lot of times has "trick" words- like due and dew- as well as others that are just more difficult.. Since she began this more difficult level of spelling, she has brought home a 105% each test... She ALWAYS gets her extra credit word correct and now, she gets all the others right too. She loves math, though and I believe she had a 100 in that area. Last night as she sat practicing her spelling words, she was doodling, "odd + odd = even odd + odd + odd = odd" She just really loves anything having to do with math!KJ is our sports fiend... anything that is athletic, he's a natural!! He just does it all and he does it all well!! and charismatic? boy is this kid just about as charismatic as they come or what! I went to see him at lunch and when parents come at lunch, the kids and parents get to sit up on stage to eat. So here we are, this kindergartener and I, sitting and eating. In come these 3rd or 4th grade boys and they see KJ and wave and say, "KJ! hey, what's up, dude?" How in the world does he know these kids and since when do older kids say hello to KINDERGARTENERS?!? Not that he's lacking in the school department either.. he seems to be doing well there, too. right on track...Phew!! 2 on the right track.... Only 2 to go!
Posted by Tess
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Our Beatiful children and our pumpkins
You know, there's a song by Marcia Ball called "The Right Tool for the Job" that Jeff and I sing often.. It's amazing how easy things can be when you have the right tool for the job. I broke down and bought some pumpkin carving tools and you would be amazed at what you can do when you have the right tool for the job. These pumpkins are examples. The face was labeled "easy" and the spider was labeled "challenging" but they both took less that 1/2 hour to carve and we got tons of compliments on them! very exciting.. I've found a new talent!!! Look out pumpkins come next year!
Posted by Tess
What a HAUL-oween!
Well, we just got finished with our annual "get dressed up and go door to door in an effort to gather up boatloads of candy from total strangers in our neighborhood only to come home and select a few pieces to consume over the next few days and throw the rest away" expedition. It was quite successful. We had some new costumes this year.. It is the first time since IS was 3 she was NOT Cinderella.. huge step! She WAS however still a princess, Belle (like the movie) and was quite beautiful in her new yellow princess ball gown. JM, also Cinderella for the last 2 years, opted for Arial this year.. Princess Arial as a human. and she too was beautiful. KJ stayed with Spiderman, a good choice for him and TL, too young to really insist on anything got to be Nacho Libre (if you haven't seen the movie, have a margarita and rent it.. it is very funny.. very clean and very silly... It is one of Jeff's fav's of all time and TL, with his big "little boy" tummy and his naivte that he should want to be some other kind of superhero was great with his costume). He wore blue tights with red socks and red underwear and a red cape. I penciled on a mustache and tousled his hair with lots of gel and hair spray and even darkened it a little with some black spray. We could always tell when someone recognized who he was cuz they would crack up and usually call someone else over to see him with, "Hey look! It's Nacho Libre!"Well, since I've not updated this site since September, I'll give everyone the Reader's Digest version... ummmmm.... Jeff's brother Dan got married and so the kids have a new Tia Maria (she speaks Spanish so that's what they've named her). IS and JM were flowergirls and KJ was the ring bearer. they all did wonderful jobs and looked fabulous!!! The wedding itself was awesome. very beautiful and very intimate. The girls were especially excited to meet their new cousins!!! they thought that was the best! We also got to spend a lot of time with their "old" cousins, Allie and Will cuz we stayed at their house this go 'round. that was nice and our "little people" as A&W call our kids, had so much fun!KJ is verY much enjoying school and is learning lots. He came home one day and told me very excitedly, "MOM!! Guess what?! Did you know that all the letters in my name are in the Alphabet?!?" I thought that was awesome! How exciting!IS has discovered American Girl books and is devouring them at a rate of.. hmmm. she's on the 3rd book and she's had them for 5 days! That girl is SUCH a reader.. and these aren't little Dr Seuss type books.. these are several chapters long 100+ pages each, 3 grade level books..JM is loving her Pre-School so much!! I got to go visit her for a few minutes today in her class and she thought that was great.. She brings home "letter bags" on Tuesdays and has to find something that starts with the letter of the week that fits in the bag and then they take it back on the next day and go through everyone's bags to discover what they brought.. this is a very exciting part of our week.TL still enjoys his 1/2 day "school" but has days that he doesn't want to go... of course, when I come to pick him up, he complains and doesn't want to leave.. but he enjoys it and is really excited about the alphabet song right now and is very possessive of it as well.. guess that they are doing it at school and he identifies it as his own. He sings it and if anyone tries to join him he says, "No! MY song."Jeff and I are doing great... My boss and I interviewed 4 candidates yesterday for my position and have recommended someone to take my place... Most likely they will shadow me for 4 half-days in the month of December and then take over in January.. I'm more and more excited about it and about the idea of getting back to being ONLY a stay-at-home mom. I've LOVED my job so much, but I want to not be so busy... and I'm really looking forward to going to church WITH my family as opposed to seeing them AT church (usually).Jeff and I have started to plan our honeymoon, that's exciting. We eloped (to Vegas, Baby!) 5 months before we were going to go to Belize to get married. No problem, we kept all our reservations and decided to honeymoon in Belilze during the time we were originally going to be there to get married. Well, after being married for only 8 weeks discovered that we were 2 weeks pregnant, and since our plans in Belize included SCUBA diving, living on a fishing boat for 3 days and hiking up mountains (all of which didn't sound like such great ideas if you're 2 1/2 months pregnant!!) we canceled the trip after receiving assurances from my mom that she would take care of IS for us so that we could go after she was born.... Fast forward 8 years and 4 kids and once again, my mom has graciously agreed to watch the kids while we go.. We haven't decided where we're going to go--someplace in the Caribbean - Jeff wants a cruise or Cozumel, and I'm not sure where... but we're excited that we're finally going to get to go!!So, I'm teaching Sunday School (every other month) for the 1st and 2nd grade class (Isabelle's class) and this Sunday the lesson plan calls for me to talk about Elijah.. I get this very strong urge to present the message of salvation, so I do. I explained it to the kids so that they could understand and 2 boys prayed with me to receive Christ into their hearts. They are both residents of Boysville (an orphanage of sorts). I spoke with their house parent when he came to pick them upa nd told him what had happened. I asked him to wait while I went to get them their very own Bibles to take home on their NEW Christian Birthday. So I gave the Bibles to them and gave them hugs and told them they needed to read their Bibles every day. So then today, I'm at my Bible study and their house parent (mom) was there and she explained that one of them was returned to his home that very same Sunday and so he no longer would have any Christian influences and probably wouldn't get to go to church anymore.. and while my heart is breaking for that, I was just so overjoyed that I had been obedient to the prompting of the Holy Spirit on Sunday to change up the curriculum and present the gospel of Christ. Now that boy is leaving with Jesus in his heart and with a Bible to read even if he doesn't get to go to church!! now THAT is awesome!! I love it when God uses me and I'm able to see how! Isn't He wonderful!Okay, that's sort of a bit of getting caught up. Dig the pictures.. I'll get some of the wedding up soon!
Posted by Tess
Our Beatiful children and our pumpkins
You know, there's a song by Marcia Ball called "The Right Tool for the Job" that Jeff and I sing often.. It's amazing how easy things can be when you have the right tool for the job. I broke down and bought some pumpkin carving tools and you would be amazed at what you can do when you have the right tool for the job. These pumpkins are examples. The face was labeled "easy" and the spider was labeled "challenging" but they both took less that 1/2 hour to carve and we got tons of compliments on them! very exciting.. I've found a new talent!!! Look out pumpkins come next year!
Posted by Tess
What a HAUL-oween!
Well, we just got finished with our annual "get dressed up and go door to door in an effort to gather up boatloads of candy from total strangers in our neighborhood only to come home and select a few pieces to consume over the next few days and throw the rest away" expedition. It was quite successful. We had some new costumes this year.. It is the first time since IS was 3 she was NOT Cinderella.. huge step! She WAS however still a princess, Belle (like the movie) and was quite beautiful in her new yellow princess ball gown. JM, also Cinderella for the last 2 years, opted for Arial this year.. Princess Arial as a human. and she too was beautiful. KJ stayed with Spiderman, a good choice for him and TL, too young to really insist on anything got to be Nacho Libre (if you haven't seen the movie, have a margarita and rent it.. it is very funny.. very clean and very silly... It is one of Jeff's fav's of all time and TL, with his big "little boy" tummy and his naivte that he should want to be some other kind of superhero was great with his costume). He wore blue tights with red socks and red underwear and a red cape. I penciled on a mustache and tousled his hair with lots of gel and hair spray and even darkened it a little with some black spray. We could always tell when someone recognized who he was cuz they would crack up and usually call someone else over to see him with, "Hey look! It's Nacho Libre!"Well, since I've not updated this site since September, I'll give everyone the Reader's Digest version... ummmmm.... Jeff's brother Dan got married and so the kids have a new Tia Maria (she speaks Spanish so that's what they've named her). IS and JM were flowergirls and KJ was the ring bearer. they all did wonderful jobs and looked fabulous!!! The wedding itself was awesome. very beautiful and very intimate. The girls were especially excited to meet their new cousins!!! they thought that was the best! We also got to spend a lot of time with their "old" cousins, Allie and Will cuz we stayed at their house this go 'round. that was nice and our "little people" as A&W call our kids, had so much fun!KJ is verY much enjoying school and is learning lots. He came home one day and told me very excitedly, "MOM!! Guess what?! Did you know that all the letters in my name are in the Alphabet?!?" I thought that was awesome! How exciting!IS has discovered American Girl books and is devouring them at a rate of.. hmmm. she's on the 3rd book and she's had them for 5 days! That girl is SUCH a reader.. and these aren't little Dr Seuss type books.. these are several chapters long 100+ pages each, 3 grade level books..JM is loving her Pre-School so much!! I got to go visit her for a few minutes today in her class and she thought that was great.. She brings home "letter bags" on Tuesdays and has to find something that starts with the letter of the week that fits in the bag and then they take it back on the next day and go through everyone's bags to discover what they brought.. this is a very exciting part of our week.TL still enjoys his 1/2 day "school" but has days that he doesn't want to go... of course, when I come to pick him up, he complains and doesn't want to leave.. but he enjoys it and is really excited about the alphabet song right now and is very possessive of it as well.. guess that they are doing it at school and he identifies it as his own. He sings it and if anyone tries to join him he says, "No! MY song."Jeff and I are doing great... My boss and I interviewed 4 candidates yesterday for my position and have recommended someone to take my place... Most likely they will shadow me for 4 half-days in the month of December and then take over in January.. I'm more and more excited about it and about the idea of getting back to being ONLY a stay-at-home mom. I've LOVED my job so much, but I want to not be so busy... and I'm really looking forward to going to church WITH my family as opposed to seeing them AT church (usually).Jeff and I have started to plan our honeymoon, that's exciting. We eloped (to Vegas, Baby!) 5 months before we were going to go to Belize to get married. No problem, we kept all our reservations and decided to honeymoon in Belilze during the time we were originally going to be there to get married. Well, after being married for only 8 weeks discovered that we were 2 weeks pregnant, and since our plans in Belize included SCUBA diving, living on a fishing boat for 3 days and hiking up mountains (all of which didn't sound like such great ideas if you're 2 1/2 months pregnant!!) we canceled the trip after receiving assurances from my mom that she would take care of IS for us so that we could go after she was born.... Fast forward 8 years and 4 kids and once again, my mom has graciously agreed to watch the kids while we go.. We haven't decided where we're going to go--someplace in the Caribbean - Jeff wants a cruise or Cozumel, and I'm not sure where... but we're excited that we're finally going to get to go!!So, I'm teaching Sunday School (every other month) for the 1st and 2nd grade class (Isabelle's class) and this Sunday the lesson plan calls for me to talk about Elijah.. I get this very strong urge to present the message of salvation, so I do. I explained it to the kids so that they could understand and 2 boys prayed with me to receive Christ into their hearts. They are both residents of Boysville (an orphanage of sorts). I spoke with their house parent when he came to pick them upa nd told him what had happened. I asked him to wait while I went to get them their very own Bibles to take home on their NEW Christian Birthday. So I gave the Bibles to them and gave them hugs and told them they needed to read their Bibles every day. So then today, I'm at my Bible study and their house parent (mom) was there and she explained that one of them was returned to his home that very same Sunday and so he no longer would have any Christian influences and probably wouldn't get to go to church anymore.. and while my heart is breaking for that, I was just so overjoyed that I had been obedient to the prompting of the Holy Spirit on Sunday to change up the curriculum and present the gospel of Christ. Now that boy is leaving with Jesus in his heart and with a Bible to read even if he doesn't get to go to church!! now THAT is awesome!! I love it when God uses me and I'm able to see how! Isn't He wonderful!Okay, that's sort of a bit of getting caught up. Dig the pictures.. I'll get some of the wedding up soon!
Posted by Tess
Monday, September 24, 2007
TL TURNS 3!
WOW!!! My youngest child is now 3! TL turned 3 Friday. That was also the same day that Dad arrived home. I got a call from Jeff saying that he would be home early, at 1125. This was at 1030, and he was sitting on the tarmac in Houston about to leave. Well, with that news JM and TL and I got in the car and headed to the airport - I thought that we'd surprise Daddy by picking him up. We were there at 1125 and I even called his cell phone to tell him NOT to leave the airport (we've missed him before)... Well, my husband arrived EARLY!!! He is the king of early arrivals.. if you need to get home sooner than planned, just travel with him.. Not only was his flight early, the baggage claim area was completely empty of all bags and people by 1125.. I could see the baggage claim from where we were standing awaiting his arrival and there was no-one there! MAN! We missed him.. bummer.However, while on that side of town, I did stop at the jewelers and pick up my class ring.. Now that is one expensive ring! First I had to pay for it, I don't remember, but probably around 5 or 6oo bucks.. then, I had to have it repaired once before because where the prongs hold up the coin/top part (it is a coin design with UT's crest in the center and it is bordered by diamonds) anyway, where the prongs hold up the coin, they got twisted and that repair cost around $100. Then a couple of years ago, it fell and again, the prongs got mangled... bad design! anyhoo, when I took it to the jewelers to get an estimate on building a new shank since that one was obviously not cutting it, I was quoted in the neighborhood of $200. Well, I didn't have that kind of money for something sort of frivolous like that, so away it went into a jewelry box. But when we sold the house, Jeff said that I could get it fixed, so I did and woo-hoo! I'm so excited... it's the little things, you know.So anyway, once everyone finally made it home, Jeff from Boston, the kids from school and us from missing Jeff at the airport, it was time to open presents! TL was so excited. 3 is a very good age.. he's so very expressive with his facial expressions and he gets so excited about each and every thing... He was ooohing and aahhhing as he opened gifts.. it was so cute. He is way into trains and so last week we rented Thomas the Train movie for him and he loved it!! Actually all of the kids did.. so, we got him a Thomas playhut, you know a tent thing in the shape of Thomas the train. He also got a new battery powered train that rides on Brio tracks.. he loves his Brio set and a couple of years ago Grandmommy and Pop bought the kids a battery powered engine which ate batteries like crazy, but we always got them new ones, cuz the kids loved that little engine, especially TL. But about 3 weeks ago, it finally died... So, now he has a new one and he is carrying it around everywhere with him. The grandparents got him some new toys for the bathtub which were a huge hit! as well as some new clothes, which they didn't realize were a very close match to something that KJ has so now they will be able to kind of match. Then came Saturday... the big day. TL' birthday party. I stayed up until 3 am decorating the cake. A 3D Thomas the Train cake .. I added Annie and a Caboose (2 more cars) and it looked pretty cool, if I do say so myself! Of course, I immediately snapped a picture because in our house, there is a long standing tradition. One of the kids will somehow, someway sneak in and put their fingers in the cake... usually smack dab in the middle. Well, it was a good thing that I did because true to form, but in its inaugural form, TL, the birthday boy poked out Thomas' eyes and scraped off his number one as well as a few other things. I was talking to my mom about it, and she said that I needed to embrace the tradition. To which I replied, that I was going to make sure that when these guys get married, I am going to stick my fingers in their wedding cake!So, off we went to the Texas Transportation Museum.. in other words, Choo-Choo train heaven! All of our friends and family showed up and were able to tour an old train and check out how everything actually was if you were traveling by rail back in the 20s. Then we got to ride on a real train and TL even got to signal the engineer that the track was all clear and we could get going. After that, we went to visit an area set up with hundreds of feet of track and several large electric trains chugging along.. they traveled through tunnels, over bridges and across mountains. One even went under the little office where the tools and things are stored. The kids went running around chasing the trains.. what a blast. Even our friend Thomas the Train was there.TL opened the rest of his presents that night at our house and boy did he clean up... He got some really neat stuff... He got a 75 piece wooden train set (Brio compatible) and now he can build a huge railroad that is big enough for 2 or 3 different kids to play at the same time. He got a new computer and an MP3 player.. well, kid versions of each... and a set of tools and a neat-o cabeat-o Thomas train that goes by itself.. He is in Train heaven..One little story about that computer and MP3 player... see I saw both of them, but I had already spent my budget.. He found the computer at Wal-Mart and fell in love.. he carried it around and did not want to put it down. then a few aisles over we saw the MP3 player... Side story... Did I mention that IS, KJ and JM WON MP3 players this summer for memorizing more Bible verses than anyone else in their class? IS and KJ did 50 and JM did 48. Anyway, TL is the only one without "earphones" as they call them and I really wanted to get that little MP3 player so bad, but I just couldn't.. I HAD to stick to my budget. Then lo and behold, the Sennas got it for us... I called her and told her that God had used her.. I think God was encouraging me.. See I kept to my budget and Travis got the toys I wanted him to have.. now I'm not saying that TL needed those toys, heaven knows he has more than enough...but God was encouraging me because I stuck to my budget.. as if to say, "See, do it My way and I will take care of you." It reminded me of that verse that says, See the birds of the air do not worry about anything because God takes care of them and aren't you much more important to God than birds... It was very cool.IS had golf tonight and learned how to putt. Jeff took her and he is as impressed with her coach as I was.. and she is still totally diggin' it... Both KJ and IS had piano lessons today also.... KJ learned about arpeggios and IS is learning about note names ... Mr Flores doesn't do the Every Good Boy Does Fine thing, he prefers to teach them a different way, and that is where she is now. She is doing so well... She really loves the piano.. she practices all the time, even more than she has to.. and she seems to be a natural. I told Jeff today that when I was watching her practice, I noticed that her fingers moved so gracefully, she had "piano fingers" and Jeff said that he had noticed it too.Oh, I have a story about JM. On Saturday at the party she was attached to her cousin Christopher all day. He was so cute with her.. he held her hand and took her wherever she wanted to go.. Well, at one point he came up and told me this story. "We were walking and I was explaining how when you walk next to the road or railroad track her parents always walk closer to the road. I told her that was to protect her.. that her parents wanted to be closer to the danger and that they put their lives in danger to protect her. And do you know what she said, Aunt Tess? She said, 'Just like Jesus protected us when He died on the cross!' " AWWW!! Is that cool or what?Phew! that was a long one.. And to all a good night.
Posted by Tess
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Baseball Fever
So, in our family, baseball fever has hit. JM and KJ are on the same team and practice Wednesday nights. IS is on a team which practices Thursdays... and since Jeff is out of town, that means that I must take all of the others with me to said practices.. JOY! IS told me after practice that she was nervous during practice.. I can totally understand why... these kids are semi-pro! They're mostly 8 and 9 and evidently have been playing for 6 years. It's amazing. The kid on first base had a ball thrown to him smack dab in the middle of his face and he calmly lifted his glove and caught it, all the while never flinching... and he did this more than once. wow.JM had a parent in her class today who is deaf and who taught them a little bit of sign language. She LOVED it! She brought home her homework papers (which illustrate the hand motions to several signs) and has been practicing a lot. Speaking of JM's school, each child was asked, "What makes you special?" To which they replied and their answers were recorded for posterity. There were lots of, "Cuz God made me" and "Cuz God made me that way"s and even 1 "Cuz I like blocks." What did my little one say? "Cuz I'm pretty."IS is still feeling kind of blach-y... the school nurse called today to get my permission to give her tylenol and then she was feeling better, but now not so much.. KJs got a pretty mean cough going on and there's nothing I can do. It's allergies.. there is something very mean and nasty in the air right now and it's knockin' my family for a loop!Well, tomorrow is the big day!! Dad should be home in time for a late lunch and TL will be 3! I got the cake made last night and pulled it out of the pan today. He's been asking ever since if he could have some of his choo-choo train cake... I'm off to the kitchen now to bake the 2 cars behind the engine and to start the long process of icing!! The good news is that I will not have to stay up all night Friday (especially since the 3 oldest all have baseball games at 9 and IS has a double header at 9 and 10! yikes!) The bad news is that I will be up all night tonight!Picture's are of TL heading to bed for the very last time ever as a 2 year old! (cue Mom's tears) The first shot is of his "happy heart" or what you get when you tell him to say cheese!
Posted by Tess
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
The Minds of Little Ones
So, TL and I are at HEB today (our grocery store) and as we walk in the lady at the door gives TL a balloon. Like any 2, almost 3 year old, he is thrilled and wears it proudly as we walk through the store. As we're about to get into the car, he tells me that he wants to let his balloon go "up, up, up into the sky." Pretty much before I can ask him if he's sure about that, he releases his balloon and it begins to drift away. Here's what he had to say. "Bye Bye, Balloon. Look, Mommy, it's going up, up, up in the sky! It's going to go higher and higher and then Jesus will get it! I want Jesus to get my balloon." What a cutie/sweetie pie!Then something IS prayed I have to mention here. I've been sick for the past week, probably allergies bringing on a sinus infection, but whatever it was, one of the results has been that my voice is scratchy.. for about 5 days or so. Then a couple of days ago, it was completely gone and that lasted for 2 days. So, IS is talking to God and here's what she asks Him. "Dear God, please help Mommy's voice come back so that we don't have to try to figure out what she is saying with her hands."We had a little drama here today. Last month, Jeff (who is responsible for the bill paying in our house) asked me to set up direct pay with the water company... so I did. They told me that the first month they would just send a test message and that we would still have to pay the old fashioned way till 2 months. I told Jeff, but I guess it got forgotten. So, I'm standing at the sink today, washing up some dishes when the water runs out! I check in the bathroom and it's not working there either. So, I head back into the kitchen and start looking for the phone to call the water company when it hit me what had happened. I checked the mail a couple of days ago and remember getting something from the water company, but I just put this note in the pile of letters/bills to give Jeff when he gets home. So I checked and it was a cut-off notice which stated that I had better pay by today at noon or off the water goes... so at 4 pm, off the water went! What a riot!!I have to admit that I found it amusing.. I mean all the circumstances that went into it..And the timing was perfect!! (Okay, when would it be CONVENIENT to have your water cut off?!?) But today is teh day that 2 of Dawn's kids come over after school to play and they had all just gotten into the pool only about 15 minutes before, and so we all had to load up to go to the bank and get cash then go to the "water store" as they were calling it. Then we got home and had only about 40 minutes to make supper and be gone cuz JM and KJ have baseball practice tonight. OH YES!! and Jeff - who is out of town - is their coach. So, I helped out be running practice... I introduced myself as Mrs Coach to the kids and that is what they called me... it was pretty cute. The team families seem pretty awesome.. 3 dads stepped up to help, and a couple of moms jumped right in and watched TL and organized all the "mom" stuff that had to be done (like snack rosters, and field maintainence, etc). This should be fun!Practice went well. We covered all the basics and everyone got to catch some ground balls, run the bases, practice sliding into home plate, practice throwing the ball to first base, and finally hitting the ball and running to 1st. Phew!!Okay, the timer just went off... that means that TL' birthday choo-choo train cake is ready to come out of the oven... starting today since the cake must sit for like 6 hours before I can ice it.. and since Friday we have small group at our house, I figured that I'd better get a day's head start on icing it. Will post a picture when it's ready.PS Pray for IS ... whatever is in the air is hitting her hard... she had a pretty bad headache all evening...
Posted by Tess
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Uneventful day...
Such is the life of the daily blogger... (which I'm NOT, but I am trying to keep Jeff up to speed while he's gone, so I'm trying to be)I did receive a phone call from the busdriver for my kids. She was letting me know that 7:00 am is evidently NOT early enough, so she'll be arriving from now on at 6:53. Yikes! I know that we can do it, we can be ready and outside waiting at 6:52, however, when do you decide that getting up that early is TOO early? I mean, school starts at 7:45 and they arrive around 7:30, so now they'll be getting there 25 minutes before school starts... I just spoke with IS to find out what they do in the morning upon arrival. They have to line up and wait for their teachers and I guess they can read and talk and stuff.. I don't know...At work today there was no staff meeting so I was able to get a lot accomplished. I started creating a storage room out of an under-used classroom. I purchased tons of clear boxes to store things in and am moving storage cabinets around to get them into this room so that I can put all of the children's ministry items together in one place.. I currently have 4 or 5 places that 1 item can be, so I never really know what I have and even if I do know that I have it, I don't know where. So, this should help out with that.I'm in the process of uploading all my pictures since IS was born into the computer and then in turn sending them to an on-line scrapbooking website in order to try to get some books done for my little people. I have been wrestling lately with how to scrapbook.. should I do each child seperatly since when they get married they might want one of their individual lives? Or do I keep doing one book with everyone in the family in it? We are, after all, a family. But come 15 years from now, they won't be able to have their own things... hmmm, so I am creating a picture album with tons of pictures of them and highlighting momentous occasions for them and all I have to do is select the pictures and order the book and no cutting, gluing or embellishing. Voila! Best of both worlds.Okay, I never did get to sew last night since I started online scrapbooking (whoops!) and today I did laundry which is laid out all over my bed, so I should get to it... come on! get up... put one foot in front of the other... make the move. It's hard to get motivated to do laundry!
Okay... picture is March 2003. What cuties!
Posted by Tess
Monday, September 17, 2007
Mr Bear gets a bath
So, we're all standing out front this afternoon, JM & TL and I, and we're talking with our next-door neighbors as well as meeting some neighbors who live around the corner... when all of a sudden, I look down and TL has his shorts down and his underwear and is getting into position!!! What's a girl to do?IS brought home today all of her classwork papers from last week... spelling test, math worksheets, etc. Out of 8 papers with grades on them, 8 had 100s!! Way to Go, IS!!! She seems to really like math a lot but is doing well in spelling also... She has read so many Accelerated Reading books that she is on a hiatus right now until she is able to catch up with her tests at school (as of Thursday of last week, she had 13 tests still outstanding.. she is trying to take 2 or 3 per day, so by the end of this week, we should be able to read AR books again)... talk about the teacher's dream student. And she is doing very well in her piano lessons as well. Mr Flores complimented her several times tonight. She started working on her F and G scales today- a bit tougher than what we've done up to now, but she's doing awesome! KJ brought home "Mr Bear" today and is supposed to write what he and Mr Bear do while Mr Bear is spending the night with us. They practiced piano together, jumped on the trampoline for a while, played some baseball, and then when KJ wasn't looking, TL decided that Mr Bear needed to go swimming and threw him into the pool! So Mom decided that Mr Bear needed a bonafide bath and fluff dry, and tossed him into the laundry that was washing. Never a dull moment around here!This morning JM had her 'nastics class and had a wonderful time participating... the hard part for her is the 3 hours between the time that IS and KJ get on the bus and the time that her class begins. She doesn't understand why we don't just leave immediately and go to class... I keep telling her that no-one would be there and that we can't go until class starts, but that is a hard concept to grasp at 4 years old.I went to visit my doctor today... I have a sinus infection - Joy, Joy! But I also had an MRI done a couple of months ago, trying to figure out why my sciatic nerve STILL hurts (enough to drop me to my knees occasionally) even 3 years after TL. He saw nothing on the X-ray... I guess that is good, I mean it rules out surgery. On the other hand, I still don't know why it hurts so badly... I guess I'll give therapy a try!For those of you counting, only 4 more days till TL is 3!
Posted by Tess
The Minds of Little Ones
So, TL and I are at HEB today (our grocery store) and as we walk in the lady at the door gives TL a balloon. Like any 2, almost 3 year old, he is thrilled and wears it proudly as we walk through the store. As we're about to get into the car, he tells me that he wants to let his balloon go "up, up, up into the sky." Pretty much before I can ask him if he's sure about that, he releases his balloon and it begins to drift away. Here's what he had to say. "Bye Bye, Balloon. Look, Mommy, it's going up, up, up in the sky! It's going to go higher and higher and then Jesus will get it! I want Jesus to get my balloon." What a cutie/sweetie pie!Then something IS prayed I have to mention here. I've been sick for the past week, probably allergies bringing on a sinus infection, but whatever it was, one of the results has been that my voice is scratchy.. for about 5 days or so. Then a couple of days ago, it was completely gone and that lasted for 2 days. So, IS is talking to God and here's what she asks Him. "Dear God, please help Mommy's voice come back so that we don't have to try to figure out what she is saying with her hands."We had a little drama here today. Last month, Jeff (who is responsible for the bill paying in our house) asked me to set up direct pay with the water company... so I did. They told me that the first month they would just send a test message and that we would still have to pay the old fashioned way till 2 months. I told Jeff, but I guess it got forgotten. So, I'm standing at the sink today, washing up some dishes when the water runs out! I check in the bathroom and it's not working there either. So, I head back into the kitchen and start looking for the phone to call the water company when it hit me what had happened. I checked the mail a couple of days ago and remember getting something from the water company, but I just put this note in the pile of letters/bills to give Jeff when he gets home. So I checked and it was a cut-off notice which stated that I had better pay by today at noon or off the water goes... so at 4 pm, off the water went! What a riot!!I have to admit that I found it amusing.. I mean all the circumstances that went into it..And the timing was perfect!! (Okay, when would it be CONVENIENT to have your water cut off?!?) But today is teh day that 2 of Dawn's kids come over after school to play and they had all just gotten into the pool only about 15 minutes before, and so we all had to load up to go to the bank and get cash then go to the "water store" as they were calling it. Then we got home and had only about 40 minutes to make supper and be gone cuz JM and KJ have baseball practice tonight. OH YES!! and Jeff - who is out of town - is their coach. So, I helped out be running practice... I introduced myself as Mrs Coach to the kids and that is what they called me... it was pretty cute. The team families seem pretty awesome.. 3 dads stepped up to help, and a couple of moms jumped right in and watched TL and organized all the "mom" stuff that had to be done (like snack rosters, and field maintainence, etc). This should be fun!Practice went well. We covered all the basics and everyone got to catch some ground balls, run the bases, practice sliding into home plate, practice throwing the ball to first base, and finally hitting the ball and running to 1st. Phew!!Okay, the timer just went off... that means that TL' birthday choo-choo train cake is ready to come out of the oven... starting today since the cake must sit for like 6 hours before I can ice it.. and since Friday we have small group at our house, I figured that I'd better get a day's head start on icing it. Will post a picture when it's ready.PS Pray for IS ... whatever is in the air is hitting her hard... she had a pretty bad headache all evening...
Posted by Tess
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Uneventful day...
Such is the life of the daily blogger... (which I'm NOT, but I am trying to keep Jeff up to speed while he's gone, so I'm trying to be)I did receive a phone call from the busdriver for my kids. She was letting me know that 7:00 am is evidently NOT early enough, so she'll be arriving from now on at 6:53. Yikes! I know that we can do it, we can be ready and outside waiting at 6:52, however, when do you decide that getting up that early is TOO early? I mean, school starts at 7:45 and they arrive around 7:30, so now they'll be getting there 25 minutes before school starts... I just spoke with IS to find out what they do in the morning upon arrival. They have to line up and wait for their teachers and I guess they can read and talk and stuff.. I don't know...At work today there was no staff meeting so I was able to get a lot accomplished. I started creating a storage room out of an under-used classroom. I purchased tons of clear boxes to store things in and am moving storage cabinets around to get them into this room so that I can put all of the children's ministry items together in one place.. I currently have 4 or 5 places that 1 item can be, so I never really know what I have and even if I do know that I have it, I don't know where. So, this should help out with that.I'm in the process of uploading all my pictures since IS was born into the computer and then in turn sending them to an on-line scrapbooking website in order to try to get some books done for my little people. I have been wrestling lately with how to scrapbook.. should I do each child seperatly since when they get married they might want one of their individual lives? Or do I keep doing one book with everyone in the family in it? We are, after all, a family. But come 15 years from now, they won't be able to have their own things... hmmm, so I am creating a picture album with tons of pictures of them and highlighting momentous occasions for them and all I have to do is select the pictures and order the book and no cutting, gluing or embellishing. Voila! Best of both worlds.Okay, I never did get to sew last night since I started online scrapbooking (whoops!) and today I did laundry which is laid out all over my bed, so I should get to it... come on! get up... put one foot in front of the other... make the move. It's hard to get motivated to do laundry!
Okay... picture is March 2003. What cuties!
Posted by Tess
Monday, September 17, 2007
Mr Bear gets a bath
So, we're all standing out front this afternoon, JM & TL and I, and we're talking with our next-door neighbors as well as meeting some neighbors who live around the corner... when all of a sudden, I look down and TL has his shorts down and his underwear and is getting into position!!! What's a girl to do?IS brought home today all of her classwork papers from last week... spelling test, math worksheets, etc. Out of 8 papers with grades on them, 8 had 100s!! Way to Go, IS!!! She seems to really like math a lot but is doing well in spelling also... She has read so many Accelerated Reading books that she is on a hiatus right now until she is able to catch up with her tests at school (as of Thursday of last week, she had 13 tests still outstanding.. she is trying to take 2 or 3 per day, so by the end of this week, we should be able to read AR books again)... talk about the teacher's dream student. And she is doing very well in her piano lessons as well. Mr Flores complimented her several times tonight. She started working on her F and G scales today- a bit tougher than what we've done up to now, but she's doing awesome! KJ brought home "Mr Bear" today and is supposed to write what he and Mr Bear do while Mr Bear is spending the night with us. They practiced piano together, jumped on the trampoline for a while, played some baseball, and then when KJ wasn't looking, TL decided that Mr Bear needed to go swimming and threw him into the pool! So Mom decided that Mr Bear needed a bonafide bath and fluff dry, and tossed him into the laundry that was washing. Never a dull moment around here!This morning JM had her 'nastics class and had a wonderful time participating... the hard part for her is the 3 hours between the time that IS and KJ get on the bus and the time that her class begins. She doesn't understand why we don't just leave immediately and go to class... I keep telling her that no-one would be there and that we can't go until class starts, but that is a hard concept to grasp at 4 years old.I went to visit my doctor today... I have a sinus infection - Joy, Joy! But I also had an MRI done a couple of months ago, trying to figure out why my sciatic nerve STILL hurts (enough to drop me to my knees occasionally) even 3 years after TL. He saw nothing on the X-ray... I guess that is good, I mean it rules out surgery. On the other hand, I still don't know why it hurts so badly... I guess I'll give therapy a try!For those of you counting, only 4 more days till TL is 3!
Posted by Tess
Sunday, September 16, 2007
My Kids!
On the way home from church today, JM asked me how long it was until Easter. I told her that it was a very long time away... After TL' and KJ's and her birthdays and after Christmas.. very very long, I said. She replied, "Maybe we can take an airplane to Easter." How cute is that!?!And let's spend a moment talking about the most incredibly articulate little 2 year old you've ever met... TL talks non-stop, nothing new there, he has babbled since birth. But he tells whole stories using correct grammar and complete sentences. He uses people's names and just talks like a 7 year old. Anyway, today I was watching all the kids in the pool (we got a great deal on this 18 foot in diameter, 4 foot deep pool.. it takes up about 1/2 the backyard, but the kids love it!) and TL had to go tinkle.. so he climbs out of the pool, pulls down his swimsuit, bends his knees slightly, puts one hand on the back of his hip, arches his back and with a grin the size of Texas lets it rip! Pleased as punch with himself, he proceeds to start pulling up his swim trunks, but is having a very hard time of it since they are wet and he is, after all, still just 2. I offered to help my little independent man and he of course refuses any of my help... his answer went something like this... "NO! I can do it! I can pull up my bathing suit. Help me, Mommy... No!! No!! Don't help me! I can do it by myself!!" What a riot!! He is something else, let me tell you!! And I could just eat him up!Jeff is out of town for a couple of days and this morning as we were leaving for church, he had a talk with KJ about how KJ needs to be the man of the house while he is gone. So at church, KJ was telling his Sunday School teachers about how he is now the man of the house. very cool!! My little man.. still can't believe he is just a couple of months away from being six!!Then there's my little mother hen... I am not worried about how these guys would get along if something were to happen to me... IS would just step right up and take over ... she is such an amazing little helper.. she does whatever is asked of her,usually without any complaint.. and often times, she'll see something that needs to be done and just do it without being asked. What a heart of gold!Well, I have curtains to sew.. I'm going to try to get them finished tonight and then I will start working on IS's and JM's new Mexican Folklorico dresses... they have lots of gathers and tons of ribbons and twirl like you've never seen. I made the girls each one a couple of years ago for Isabelle's Mexican themed birthday party and they are about worn out, so I'm making them new ones for Christmas. And since Jeff hates having the sewing machine set up in our room, I'm going to try to get them completed before he returns.. we'll see how that goes!The pictures are from a few weeks ago when we went to the Children's Museum in New Braunfels with some friends. The only one which really needs any explanation is the one of girls. It uses some very cool technology ... A projector projected an ongoing movie image onto the wall, in this case it was butterflies fluttering around. The girls stood in between the projected image and the wall casting a shadow on the wall.. After a few moments of being very still, the butterflies (keep in mind this is a movie) the butterflies would land on their arms and heads, at least they would land on the shadows of their arms and heads! Way Cool!!Oh yeah!! Someone at church today asked me if there was something different about me... haircut or something... Then she said that she could tell I have lost some weight, she said she could see it in my face!! Woo-Hoo!! Making progress!! It's tough going sometimes, but it's worth it when others start noticing.. which with me is tough.. see I'm really blessed (and cursed) because if I gain weight, I gain it all over pretty evenly distributed, so you can't tell.. in fact, I once gained 20 pounds and never knew it till then cuz my clothes still fit and everything.. on the flip side of that is that it sure takes loosing a lot before anyone (including me!) notices, so that someone noticed is pretty exciting! (And any little ego booster helps, eh?)Okay, going to sew!
Posted by Tess
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Busy Busy Day!
So, today is the day we've been aiming for.. I started working out again a few weeks ago and today was the day that I was supposed to run the 5k.. Bad news is that I've had a cold for the past 5 days,... Good news is that I ran it anyway!! There was only one other guy who as running and he and I stayed pretty much neck in neck for the entire WALK, which means that he is a pretty lousy runner as well, but I finished 2nd place out of all the walkers for the race for the cure!! Woo-Hoo!! I know that everyone else was walking, but it feels pretty good to say that I finished in 2nd place and the winner, only a minute or so ahead of me was an 18 year old boy.... Whooop it up for the 37 year old mom of 4!!!I really did enjoy myself and I enjoyed the fact that I felt like I was supporting my friend Scott who is currently in Iraq, supporting our country.And Jeff was a great sport in the whole thing. He really doesn't like to walk slowly, it sort of drives him crazy, however, he walked with all of the kids and our friends while I "ran" but I did manage to "jog" for most of the way, while walking only long enough to catch my breath... so Even Brandy joined in our walk.. we all wore stickers that said "I'm walking for Scott" and we even put a sticker on Brandy's leash.. and she did great! Especially considering that our sweetheart is 11 years old!!So, all in all, it was a lot of fun, and with another family joining us, a little encouraging to us... plus we also had another couple who donated to our team and Jeff's parents donated as well.. I was a bit discouraged but considering how late in the game I started my team, I think we did pretty well!..Then after the walk, we headed home and the kiddos rest for a bit and then headed off for a birthday party from 2 to 4 at a friend of JM's house. She and Violet were friends from chruch then JM' started preschool and Viloet was in her class and that changed everything.. now they are buds!! so we couldn't miss her party.. After that we were scheduled to head next door to our neighbors house for a get together.. we assumed that it would start around 6 or 7, but it actually started at 4 pm and so that means that at 4 so we pretty much got home, changed clothes and headed next door.. we got home around 8:45 and of course, the kids immediately went to be and Jeff and I got ready to collapse!! phew!! what a day, but I'm very excited about the walk and can't wait until next year's walk when I will think about it before 3 weeks before the race and can perhaps recruit a few more friends.finally in closing for tonight,I would like to say that I am up to 20 pounds!! Woo-Hoo!! and double Woo-Hoo!~!
Posted by Tess
Friday, September 14, 2007
Golf, Anyone? Horseback Riding, Anyone? Gymnastics again..
Remember that blog where I wrote that I felt like a "real" mother? Well, it happened again. KJ has been wanting to learn to ride horses since he was 2 and IS has been talking about learning how to play golf since last summer... So, this was the week everyone got started. JM started her gymnastics class at a new gym, but she seemed to enjoy herself. She stepped right up like she hadn't been out of it for the last few months. I'm really glad that she has started 'nastics again.. JM has been feeling a bit out of sorts these last few weeks. In the course of just a couple of weeks, she moved to a new house, quit 'nastics and "school" (her 1/2 day program where she and 4 others got to go to class with Miss Brenda, the mother of a co-worker at church) and then went to the mountains ... with all that change, she was feeling pretty sad, but now she is back on top of the world!So IS got to start her golf lessons this week. She is so incredibly shy and it's very difficult for her to try new things... normally! Not so with this! Coach Joseph introduced himself and off they went together in the golf cart. They headed out to the driving range and that was that. The lesson started at 4:30 and it just so happened to be about 92. Normally, with that kind of heat, IS would have been complaining after just a few minutes. An hour later and she had never even so much as looked like she might be tired. She paid close attention to everything he said and did everything he asked. When she finally got to make contact with a ball, the first hit was perfect !!! Not the case with the ones that followed, but what a way to start! She came back from the putting green with a huge smile on her little red face. She LOVED it!! She also got her very own set of clubs (Coach was able to purchase them for about 1/2 of what I could have gotten them for). As she is taking the wrappers off of them, she noticed that the shafts are blue, her favorite color. And the bag, well, let's just say that dad doesn't care for the color, but mom loves it! Out of all the colors in the world, the bag just happens to be burnt orange!! IS thought that was neat as well.Then last night it was finally KJ's turn. For his second birthday, we went out to some stables and got to meet some horses. By our last house was a stables and as a baby and toddler, every time we would drive by, he would yell, "Neigh Neighs!!" and I would feel compelled to pull over, put on my hazards and sit for a couple minutes. He has always loved any kind of animal, but especially horses. He still asks when he is going to get to be a cowboy. Yesterday was a dream come true for this little guy! He was in horse heaven. He carried a huge smile on his face the whole time. He paid careful attention to how to clean out the dirt from the horse's hooves and did a great job at it, too! What a grand old time.This week was important for Theresa as well. I have been planning on quitting my job as Children's Ministry Director pretty much the Sunday before our team leaves Grace to go to our new church. A couple of weeks ago, Jeff came home from a meeting with Kelly (the one who will be pastor at the new church) and was all excited about how he's going to be helping to get the wheels moving on the church plant. It dawned on me that as long as I have this job at Grace that I won't be able to help out with the church plant. That got me to thinking and praying. I talked with Jeff and we both prayed about it and we both feel that it is the right time to let the pastors know that I'm ready to leave. So, I told Kelly that I would like them to start trying to find my replacement. In my mind, I would like to stay until around Christmastime, then the new person could start in the new year. I think that I would probably be willing to stay a little past the new year if needed, but we'll see. So, the pastors are running an ad in the church bulletin this weekend that lets everyone know that I'm leaving and that the position is available and they are taking applications. It will be an interesting process. I am pretty excited about not having this responsibility anymore. Don't get me wrong, I love this job, but I miss being a total stay-at-home mom. I mean it's only Tuesdays and JM is in school now on Tuesday mornings anyway, but there's always something more.. something to do at home, calls to make, people to talk to and it does cut into my home time. If my kids were all in school, like kindergarten and up, this would be a perfect job for me!! I love the creative aspects of it and I would be willing to volunteer the extra hours that this job really needs in order to do it well... wow! that would be a whole other story... but for now, I'm ready to move on.One of the things which I will be doing this year for KJ's and IS's school is working on the yearbook. I offered to help out and as I did, I found out that the sponsor who puts everything together was ready to move out of her role with the yearbook completely. So here I am. There are a few teachers who have volunteered to help out with it and I got the big ole honkin' set of "schtuff" that I will need to create the yearbook last week. I've looked at it and now I'm thinking, "what did I get myself into!?!?" But I am looking forward to doing it!! What fun!!Looming large for tomorrow is the annual PKD Walk for the Cure. A friend's husband has this disease and we walked with that family a couple of years ago. I thought that it would be fun to get together a team and walk together again this year. My friend has moved away to New York and her husband, who is in the Army, is now in Iraq. I thought it would be a great way to thank him for his service as well as help out with raising money to help find a cure for his disease. So, I signed up and sent emails to most of my friends explaining about the walk. It's just $15 to participate or you could simply donate a little money to the cause. I'm really kind of bummed, because until 2 days ago, no-one had donated one single penny (a friend from our small group donated $50 2 days ago.. that was awesome!) and no-one other than my immediate family had signed up. Although, I did convince a couple people from our small group to come with us (even though they haven't signed up at the website, for those of you keeping track). I am doubly bummed because I was going to try to run it.. for those of you who don't know - I HATE RUNNING !! HATE IT!! I don't do it well, even when I'm in great shape, like when I was in the Air Force, and I don't enjoy it.. however, I have started back at the gym in an attempt to get back in shape and of course to loose a few pounds... I am succeeding in both, have lost 17 pounds to date and am doing a decent job at running.. so my goal was to run this whole 5k... Then 2 days ago I got sick!! Until about 4 years ago, I had never ever ever in my entire life ever had a cold, now I get them about 2 or 3 times a year and they STINK!!! They're horrible!! I can't believe that no-one has ever found a cure for these blasted things! So, that is where my double frustration comes in.. I have a whopper of a cold.. congested, headachey, icky... bleach! But I will be out there at least walking it!! Along with my awesome husband who immediately jumped in when I mentioned what I wanted to do. He is fantastic. Wonderful! Amazing! I think he rocks!
Posted by Tess
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
JuJuBee and Travis Go to School
Well, the big day finally arrived, Julianna got to go to school! She put away her lunch box and headed into class and didn't look back!!! I called her name, TWICE, before she finally turned around and said good-bye. She was ready!!! I peeked into the window and there she sat, enthralled. Evidently she had a great day, she didn't even blink when it was time to go home.TL also enjoyed himself. And I had to actually get on to him to get him to leave... he was having too good a time! And the teacher said that he was teaching the other little boys how to tinkle in the urinal!! He loves to go tinkle in the potty now! Every time he finishes, he smiles so big and says, "I'm a big boy now!!"PS Did you know you can enlarge these pix by clicking on them?One final note: did you happen to notice IS's clothes on her first day of school? Now notice JM's on her first day of school... I let the girls pick out what they wanted to wear and each of them, independently of each other chose the same outfit (well, not literally the same, they have outfits which match)... I found it interesting.
Posted by Tess
FIESTA, TX
Did you know that Fiesta, TX is not a popular destination on Labor Day? Last year, a friend of Jeff's gave us free tickets to Fiesta, TX and we went on Labor Day. ... there were so few people that we decided to give it a try again this year, and guess what? There were even fewer folks - which probably had something to do with the threatening skies all day, mixed with the occasional raindrop. So, here we went, from one ride to another and never stood in line for more than 2 or 3 minutes. AND it wasn't even hot, either! WOW!! We couldn't have asked for a more perfect day.We were going to leave TL at my mom's house and she was going to hang out with him for the day. We thought that he would be bored and wouldn't be able to ride very many rides... but at the last minute we decided to take him. He is, afterall, about the most laid back kid ever! Not only was he laid back and didn't fuss at all, but he was able to ride on lots of the rides... in fact, all of the ones in the kiddie part. He especially loved driving the big rigs, that was probably his very favorite (ok, maybe tied with the carousel). KJ on the other hand, was so excited to get to ride on some of the big kid rides, until he went on one. It was a medium sized coaster and IS loved it, JM thought it was okay... Actually, she rode in the back and it was a bit intense for her, so she decided to try agian, this time in the front! She ultimately decided that she didn't like the first part, you know, the part that goes around and up and down. She said that she liked the part at the end best, you know the part where the ride is over and the coaster is waiting to unload its occupants! *smile* she is so cute!! She did enjoy all the kiddie rides, especially the shoe roller coaster and driving the cars...KJ liked every ride that involved water... He even enjoyed it when he wasn't on it, you know where he got splashed as others came by! He just squealed with delight as he stood dripping wet! Now let's talk about IS, the roller coaster addict!! She is now big enough to ride every ride in the park and she discovered the biggest one, Superman. She rode it FOUR times!! 2 with mom and 2 times with dad.We did the ghetto lunch, you know, eating a picnic lunch in the back of our truck. The kids thought it was neat. And since lunch was over $50 last year, we thought the cost this year was pretty neat. We did eventually decide to leave, but it was 5, and for us, that is impressive... No naps, and 7, 5, 4, and 2 year olds.
Posted by aTess
JuJuBee and Travis Go to School
Well, the big day finally arrived, Julianna got to go to school! She put away her lunch box and headed into class and didn't look back!!! I called her name, TWICE, before she finally turned around and said good-bye. She was ready!!! I peeked into the window and there she sat, enthralled. Evidently she had a great day, she didn't even blink when it was time to go home.TL also enjoyed himself. And I had to actually get on to him to get him to leave... he was having too good a time! And the teacher said that he was teaching the other little boys how to tinkle in the urinal!! He loves to go tinkle in the potty now! Every time he finishes, he smiles so big and says, "I'm a big boy now!!"PS Did you know you can enlarge these pix by clicking on them?One final note: did you happen to notice IS's clothes on her first day of school? Now notice JM's on her first day of school... I let the girls pick out what they wanted to wear and each of them, independently of each other chose the same outfit (well, not literally the same, they have outfits which match)... I found it interesting.
Posted by Tess
FIESTA, TX
Did you know that Fiesta, TX is not a popular destination on Labor Day? Last year, a friend of Jeff's gave us free tickets to Fiesta, TX and we went on Labor Day. ... there were so few people that we decided to give it a try again this year, and guess what? There were even fewer folks - which probably had something to do with the threatening skies all day, mixed with the occasional raindrop. So, here we went, from one ride to another and never stood in line for more than 2 or 3 minutes. AND it wasn't even hot, either! WOW!! We couldn't have asked for a more perfect day.We were going to leave TL at my mom's house and she was going to hang out with him for the day. We thought that he would be bored and wouldn't be able to ride very many rides... but at the last minute we decided to take him. He is, afterall, about the most laid back kid ever! Not only was he laid back and didn't fuss at all, but he was able to ride on lots of the rides... in fact, all of the ones in the kiddie part. He especially loved driving the big rigs, that was probably his very favorite (ok, maybe tied with the carousel). KJ on the other hand, was so excited to get to ride on some of the big kid rides, until he went on one. It was a medium sized coaster and IS loved it, JM thought it was okay... Actually, she rode in the back and it was a bit intense for her, so she decided to try agian, this time in the front! She ultimately decided that she didn't like the first part, you know, the part that goes around and up and down. She said that she liked the part at the end best, you know the part where the ride is over and the coaster is waiting to unload its occupants! *smile* she is so cute!! She did enjoy all the kiddie rides, especially the shoe roller coaster and driving the cars...KJ liked every ride that involved water... He even enjoyed it when he wasn't on it, you know where he got splashed as others came by! He just squealed with delight as he stood dripping wet! Now let's talk about IS, the roller coaster addict!! She is now big enough to ride every ride in the park and she discovered the biggest one, Superman. She rode it FOUR times!! 2 with mom and 2 times with dad.We did the ghetto lunch, you know, eating a picnic lunch in the back of our truck. The kids thought it was neat. And since lunch was over $50 last year, we thought the cost this year was pretty neat. We did eventually decide to leave, but it was 5, and for us, that is impressive... No naps, and 7, 5, 4, and 2 year olds.
Posted by aTess
We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo.. How about you, you, you?
And then there were two. I'm down from 4 kiddos to 2, so we went to the zoo! And my what a manageable day it was. We headed out very early and arrived at 9 (after sitting in rush hour traffic for an hour and 15 minutes). We got to go where JM wanted to go, she was sort of in charge. With 2, I could afford Lory nectar (okay, we can always afford THAT) but we also went to the Butterfly house (which we've only done once before) and the kids got to get wax animals... We had such a good time. Since we were so early, there was NO-ONE else in the zoo and I didn't even have to hold onto TL' hand! He and JM just sauntered about at their own pace and did their own thing. and it was nice to get to spend the time with just the 2 of them.And we had a stellar adventure at the zoo for over 4 hours! JM and TL both got the birds to land on them while at the Lory Landing. TL even experienced what it was like to take the nectar away from a Lory while he's eating (he bit TL! who quickly decided that watching the birds from afar was just fine with him.) Then off to the butterfly house. JM stood very still and waited for a butterfly to land on her. Eventually she gave up on that idea and moved close to some butterflies and carefully put her finger under the butterfly's legs. He hopped on her and stayed for quite a while... until the TL came over and tried to get the butterfly to light on him! the joys of family! Later in the week, we decided that we should do it again. Okay, truth be told, I had lost my cell phone on a previous trip to the zoo and someone called and we had to be there to pick it up, so we went in again (ah! the joy of season passes). We stayed only about an hour this time (as opposed to the four hours we spent there earlier in the week) but JM and TL had a grand ole time. We were on a mission to see the elephants.. that was all that TL said... Elephants, elephants, elephants! The middle of our zoo is being re-vamped (has been going on for over a year and is supposed to be open, well, any moment now) so we had to trudge up the other side of the hill and then go all the way around to the front again and then hike down a bit to get to the elephants... only to discover that they were "in school!" yep!! they were inside being taught manners and tricks and getting baths.. minor meltdown, but we managed.At home, we all played a bit more together and headed out to the library to check out books. We ran into some friends from church and discovered yet another child who will be attending Julianna's school!Oh yes, let's not forget that! We attended a Meet the Teacher and introduction to the classroom. JM likes her teacher very much cuz she has short hair like JM does now. (She got it cut, about 6 inches off, a few weeks ago.) I thumbed through a scrapbook while they chatted and discovered that JM is going to LOVE this place!! What fun they are going to have this year! And while we were there, we discovered that a friend of hers from Sunday School will be attending with her in the morning class! How very cool! Now, if school would just start already!!!
Posted by Theresa at 6:19 PM 0 comments
More Firsts!!
KJ is now "school age" and my darling, sweet, LITTLE girl is now a second grader! Life is moving way too fast! But enough of me. KJ and IS started school last week (I'm a wee bit behind, imagine that! but I promise to catch you up with everything that's been happening!) I was a bit concerned about IS's FIRST YEAR teacher at first, but I have heard good things about her and she seems very organized and so far, I'm impressed. IS has already read 5 Accelerated Reader books and she took her first 3 quizzes today. (For those of you who don't know, AR is a voluntary program where kids read certain books and then take quizzes on them for points and the points accumulate all year and the kids earn prizes at different point levels.. Isabelle has been involved since 1st grade and LOVES it!!)KJs teacher evidently walks on water! Everyone who hears who KJ has cannot sing her praises enough! And he seems to like her and love school. His favorite thing is recess and riding on the school bus. Gotta keep those priorities straight! He loves school and is working very hard to earn 10 smiley faces (you get a smiley face in your conduct journal if you had a good day at school) because at 10 smiley faces you get to pick a prize out of the treasure box! He's up to 6 and this is the first thing he shows me each day! He's doing well, but I do think that it is a bit tiring for him. He has been very moody at home and he is falling asleep very quickly (this is almost miraculous as this boy doesn't need sleep.. he's in bed by 745, but doesn't fall asleep until 10 and is up before 7).Upon arriving home from their first day of school, they ate and got ready for their first piano lesson!! woo-hoo!! We got our "new" piano tuned last week and it turns out that it hadn't been tuned "in decades" most likely...was 64% out of pitch and had to be double tuned... literally! But we got it done and now it sounds BEAUTIFUL! So, Mr. Flores, our piano teacher came by and first instructed KJ for 25 minutes and then IS for 30. He numbered their fingers 1-5 and then gave them sheet music with C labeled 1 and so forth... It is very easy and makes intuitive sense. By the end of her time with him, IS was on the 3rd song, Ode to Joy, and was playing with BOTH hands!! She and KJ practice for 20 minutes every day, right after school (it works out perfectly since they both have to spend 20 minutes reading every day.. one reads while the other plays and vice versa). I had this total "Mommy" moment on Wednesday... I was preparing supper at the island, IS was reading out loud to me and I was helping her not skip over the big words, and KJ was in the grown-up room practicing the piano. He made a mistake (had his fingers improperly positioned) and I looked up and mentioned to him that he needed to try again...That was the Mommy Moment.. It was way cool!!! I felt like the quintessential mommy at that moment in time...I will mention this... KJ couldn't care less about the piano. Every day after school, he gets this pained look on his face when I mention that he needs to practice. IS however has finally found her thing!!! She is a natural!!! She loves it!!! She is doing great and is cruising along! She even went upstairs and found a book that has a lullaby at the end and after I translated the notes into 1-6, she uses that to practice.JM in the meantime can't wait for HER school to start.. she keeps asking everyday ,"How many days til I go to school?"
Posted by Tess
Sunday, August 19, 2007
TL got a call from Spiderman today
We have been potty training and he's been doing a smash-up job.. the only thing is he doesn't seem to get the concept of going poopy in the potty.. he must go tinkle in that thing at leat 2 dozen or so times per day (most of those are during nap time... hmmm.. are you seeing a trend?! Pretty clever for a 2 year old). Well, I had left for church already (I'm the Children's Ministry Director, so I have to be there for all 3 services) anyway, I was at my desk when I get a call from IS who proceeds to tell me that TL had gone poopy in the potty!! I was so excited that I let out a big ole' WOO-HOO right then and there.. unfortunately, my office is on the other side of the back wall of the sanctuary!! I hope I wasnt' too disruptive!!Well, we've been telling TL that if he goes poopy in the potty, we could call Spiderman and tell him all about it.. However, I was really counting on it happening while Daddy was at work... But true to my word, Spiderman had to call.What fun!! I deepened my voice and made the call. TL told Spiderman all about how he went poopy in the potty and even how he had gone tinkle in the potty, too. Not a shy bone in that kid's body!On another note, IS has discovered High School Musical. Technically, all of the kids have discovered it and they all love it, but IS is over the top for it. In fact, after we watched it together last week for the first time, I asked her if she liked it and she said, "YYYEEESSSSSS!" with a deep gutteral answer. She told me how awesome it was. I asked her if she liked it better than Mulan (her 2nd favorite movie right now.. after Cinderella which has been her very favorite movie since she was 3)... To which she replied, "yes and I like it even better than Cinderella!!" OUCH!! The end of the little princess girl era has begun.. (Man this has been one tough summer with all my little ones turning big on me!!) Anyway, we have rented in twice now and I reckon that I really ought to buy it soon since it's going to pay for itself soon enough at this rate... So, they were watching it tonight and Jeff and I were watching her watch the movie. She had enabled the sing along part of the DVD which plays the words on the bottom of the screen, Karaoke style, along with all the songs. She has fashioned herself a "miker" (what the kids call a microphone) out of the large toggle switch from a race car track and she had that and was standing in front of the tv singing along with every song. Then as the finale was playing, she was up front, next to the tv, singing the words as well as doing every dance move that the kids in the movie were doing.You know, HSM 2 debuted 2 days ago on Disney.. she called up Oma and asked her to record it for us and then called her today and asked her to mail it to us so that we wouldn't have to wait till the next time Oma came over in order to see it!! What a riot!! And this is at age 7!
Posted by Tess
Thursday, August 16, 2007
House full of big boys
Well, it's happened...KJ has lost his first baby tooth! He came downstairs yesterday showing me how loose it was and I reached over to feel it, gave it a quick little yank, but it still wasn't quite ready to come out. About 10 minutes later, he comes running down the stairs, yelling, "It came out!!! My tooth is out!!!" and lo and behold, it was in his little fingers. While I am happy for him, this means tooth fairy time and getting grown up teeth in, I am sad for me. My little boy starts kindergarten in a week and a half, and he has lost his first baby tooth. ... I, on the other hand, and loosing my second baby... all this on the heels of TL getting potty trained last week. Oh yeah, did I mention that?We started out this blog with the idea of TL potty training. Well, it was not the time for it. I gave it the best I had all day long and he was in no way, shape or form interested. Since we were about to move and then go on a vacation which involved a 24 hour drive cross-country, I decided not to push the issue. However, we have returned from vacation and we are settled in to the new house, so it was time. We talked about it for the 3 days prior, then did it last Wednesday. I caught him tinkling the first time, put him on the potty and told him to go in there. The second time he tinkled, he stopped himself and finished on the potty. And that, is as they say, THAT. He has gone tinkle in the potty every time since then (except for once while outside playing in the sand). We went to the zoo last Friday and to the park all day on Saturday and no accidents. Even on Sunday at church, for 2 services, no accidents. (And we're talking real underwear... he gets pull-ups only in bed) Now, going poopy is a whole other story.. I can't seem to get him to do that in the potty. We are at one week and still haven't had one yet. But we will!!!We have had a house full of kiddos for the last few days. JM's best friend, Josie, and she haven't been seeing much of each other recently. We were gone for 3 Sundays from church and then they were gone the 1st Sunday we were home... so we called to invite Josie over. Her dad is one of the pastors at our church and her mom just took a job outside the home- as a school teacher. I mention this cuz mom had to go to work to get her class ready and dad was working from home so he could watch the kids, so nobody could bring Josie over. I suggested that he bring all three of the kids over and let them hang out all day - we get to have fun, they both get to work. Then they came over again yesterday and 2 of them spent the night (Cal is 8, close enough to play with KJ...Addie, the 11 year old likes playing with IS, but didn't want to spend the night as she had spent the night with a friend the night before).. anyway, with a house full of kiddos, Addie stayed till 9:30, we had a blast. We played Webkinz, played dress-up, played Polly Pockets and Barbies, played Little People and even colored a little bit...Then we watched a movie and stayed up LATE.. we created a tent with blankets and couches and everyone slept on/under/around the tent when they finally fell asleep, which was around 10! (except for JM and JoJo who crashed a bit earlier)...Bright and early this morning, everyone was up and moving.. what energy they have!! I wish you could bottle it up and sell it.... I'd buy some for sure, if for no other reason than to keep up with them!! Anyway, Addie came back over this morning and the girls are playing dress-up. I pulled out the little bitty curling irons and put in ringlets!! What fun! Now they have beautiful ringlet hair... Also note in the picture that JM and Josie match ...IS outgrew her dress and JM outgrew her dress, so IS gave her dress to Jules and Jules gave her dress to Jos and now they "are twins" (same dress, same hair, and we did fingernails and toenails this morning and of course, they match, too!!)
Posted by Tess
House full of big boys
Well, it's happened...KJ has lost his first baby tooth! He came downstairs yesterday showing me how loose it was and I reached over to feel it, gave it a quick little yank, but it still wasn't quite ready to come out. About 10 minutes later, he comes running down the stairs, yelling, "It came out!!! My tooth is out!!!" and lo and behold, it was in his little fingers. While I am happy for him, this means tooth fairy time and getting grown up teeth in, I am sad for me. My little boy starts kindergarten in a week and a half, and he has lost his first baby tooth. ... I, on the other hand, and loosing my second baby... all this on the heels of TL getting potty trained last week. Oh yeah, did I mention that?We started out this blog with the idea of TL potty training. Well, it was not the time for it. I gave it the best I had all day long and he was in no way, shape or form interested. Since we were about to move and then go on a vacation which involved a 24 hour drive cross-country, I decided not to push the issue. However, we have returned from vacation and we are settled in to the new house, so it was time. We talked about it for the 3 days prior, then did it last Wednesday. I caught him tinkling the first time, put him on the potty and told him to go in there. The second time he tinkled, he stopped himself and finished on the potty. And that, is as they say, THAT. He has gone tinkle in the potty every time since then (except for once while outside playing in the sand). We went to the zoo last Friday and to the park all day on Saturday and no accidents. Even on Sunday at church, for 2 services, no accidents. (And we're talking real underwear... he gets pull-ups only in bed) Now, going poopy is a whole other story.. I can't seem to get him to do that in the potty. We are at one week and still haven't had one yet. But we will!!!We have had a house full of kiddos for the last few days. JM's best friend, Josie, and she haven't been seeing much of each other recently. We were gone for 3 Sundays from church and then they were gone the 1st Sunday we were home... so we called to invite Josie over. Her dad is one of the pastors at our church and her mom just took a job outside the home- as a school teacher. I mention this cuz mom had to go to work to get her class ready and dad was working from home so he could watch the kids, so nobody could bring Josie over. I suggested that he bring all three of the kids over and let them hang out all day - we get to have fun, they both get to work. Then they came over again yesterday and 2 of them spent the night (Cal is 8, close enough to play with KJ...Addie, the 11 year old likes playing with IS, but didn't want to spend the night as she had spent the night with a friend the night before).. anyway, with a house full of kiddos, Addie stayed till 9:30, we had a blast. We played Webkinz, played dress-up, played Polly Pockets and Barbies, played Little People and even colored a little bit...Then we watched a movie and stayed up LATE.. we created a tent with blankets and couches and everyone slept on/under/around the tent when they finally fell asleep, which was around 10! (except for JM and JoJo who crashed a bit earlier)...Bright and early this morning, everyone was up and moving.. what energy they have!! I wish you could bottle it up and sell it.... I'd buy some for sure, if for no other reason than to keep up with them!! Anyway, Addie came back over this morning and the girls are playing dress-up. I pulled out the little bitty curling irons and put in ringlets!! What fun! Now they have beautiful ringlet hair... Also note in the picture that JM and Josie match ...IS outgrew her dress and JM outgrew her dress, so IS gave her dress to Jules and Jules gave her dress to Jos and now they "are twins" (same dress, same hair, and we did fingernails and toenails this morning and of course, they match, too!!)
Posted by Tess
Monday, August 13, 2007
Ah, to be 5...
I have to jot this down quickly before I lose it. Okay, today we have some friends over playing. One is a boy named Cal who is about 8. He and KJ were outside playing and here comes KJ, running inside, rubbing his posterior. Cal peeks in the door and says, "I'm sorry." I ask both to come and tell me what happened. KJ, with just the saddest face ever, says, "He pushed me down" while he continues to caress his damaged backside. I ask Cal, "Why did you push him down?" Cal replies that KJ wanted to play Mario Brothers, so Cal said that KJ was Donkey Kong and he had to push him out of the ring... KJ sniffles and rubs... I ask Cal if he had explained the rules so that KJ knew what he was committing to and he looks sheepishly away (and no, Cal was not trying to be mean, he was just playing a game at an 8 year old level that 5 year old KJ wasn't expecting). Suddenly, he looks back to KJ and says, "If you don't want to get pushed out of the ring, you can't be Donkey Kong, maybe you can be Luigi." To which a JOYFUL KJ replies, "Yeah! I have an idea!" grabs Cal's arm and runs outside... I actually laughed as I watched the door close. I tell you what!! 2 seconds ago you would have thought that Cal was Judas and that KJ was missing an ear by his antics... then BAM!! all is forgotten and a new game is created! I just had to write this down.. I can't express properly the hilarious nature of the above tale..
Posted by Tess
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Now you see our vacation, Now you don't..
Well, for the 3rd year in a row we trekked across country to the Blue Ridge mountains in beautiful North Carolina. This year was 2 weeks instead of 3, but it still was a wonderful break in our routine and we all came away refreshed.We all went on a hike.. for real! everyone included.. this may not sound like not a big deal, but when you're talking about 4 kids, with the oldest 7 and the youngest just 2, it is a major feat!! It was a mile in and a mile out and when we arrived at our destination, we were greeted with an amazing view... a spectacular 100+ foot waterfall.On one particular night, we headed down to the village to listen to a 5 piece bluegrass band. While we listened, KJ made S'Mores for EVERYONE.. not just everyone in our family, I mean EVERYONE! what a sweetheart! IS spent most of the evening organizing and then playing soccer with some new friends. JM and TL played a little hoops with Mom and Dad, while TL wasn't off wandering and exploring and enjoying his new found freedom...And speaking of freedom, IS really enjoyed a lot of freedom.. Since the mountain is privately owned and there is a gate with guards on duty always, we allowed her to wander around (but still close enough) with a walkie talkie. She LOVED it!! She would head down to the library, stay down there and peruse the books, and finally choose some to bring home, but at her own pace. She sure has a lot of her Oma in her.. It makes me understand my Mom a bit better. She has always been a take-your-time kind of person and IS is like that. They both can spend hours in a book store or library... so, raising my daughter is helping me understand my Mom ... Isn't life interesting?!The end of the vacation was pretty neat. Jeff's parents came up the last 3 days and so the kids got to spend time with them at the cabin. They LOVED it. Additionally, we took the time to rip up carpet in the entire downstairs and install hardwood floors. It was a bit challenging at first, since the floors locked together in a different way from the floors we've installed before. But we really enjoyed ourselves and the floor looks amazing. It took a bit longer than anticipated, which was fine for everyone, except IS who waited, not so patiently, for Grandmommy to finish so that she and G could a) go pick flowers, b) color, c) go play tennis, and d) play a game she got. IS kept Grandmommy very busy.We finally headed home and it was nice to get back. Especially after stopping in a hotel. We had thought that it would be nice to break up the drive, you know, sleep in a real bed and then get a fresh start in the morning. What we hadn't counted on was the fact that we have done this trip the same LONG way for 3 years, so around 10 am on the second day, we were ready to be at home. And we didn't make it home until 5:30. that was rough. But we made it. It was nice to finally be home. Afterall, we have been in our new home only 2 months and we were ready to get back and do some things. Jeff has cleaned out and completely organized the garage... it is awesome!! Lots of storage and lots of shelves up high. And I have more than enough room to pull my beast into the garage and the kids can disembark from either side.Well, it's late and I have a scrapbook to update.The picture of the kiddos sleeping is how we managed in a hotel room with only 2 queen beds and 4 little kids. We tucked in the sheet alongside the long side and everyone fit perfectly nice and cozy! What fun to be little!
Posted by Tess at 6:33 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
4th of July
Wow! What a great day! We enjoyed a day with Daddy home in the middle of the week.. Then we went to the theater to see a FREE movie (for those of you not in the know, Regal Cinemas has a dealio in the summer where they show a G movie on Tuesday and a PG movie on Wednesday mornings for the kids).. So we went to see Barnyard.. What fun!! And what a joy when you don't have to worry about spending $896 just for the 6 of us to walk in the door.. we got popcorn and a coke to share and came in at $10!!!Afterward, we came home and got a ton of little piddlin' things accomplished. I borrowed our neighbors staple gun and finally got the valance part of the under-the-loft-beds curtains stapled up.. Then I put the curtains that go under the bed that can close to hide the clutter that lives under their beds...Next we got a picture that belongs in our "grown-up" room re-matted to match the new colors in the room... also I painted 4 pictures for the kids' bathroom. It is now a monkey theme and the pictures I painted are of 4 monkeys, each one represents one of the kiddos. Very cute.. I'm diggin' it! So, those are the kind of things we got finished today ... Woo-Hoo!!!Then around 4:30, we had a 4th of July/housewarming party and what a great time.. Everyone seems to have really enjoyed themselves and we enjoyed hosting it... The kids got glow in the dark necklaces and some poppers (you know, you throw them on the ground and they pop, like firecrackers). Finally, we headed out and saw the fireworks in our new hometown of Little Town USA!!!Oh, did I mention that Gina Balina fo Feena is here?! She arrived a couple of days ago and is hangin' with us for about a month. She has managed to work it out so that she is housesitting every single day of her month long visit at one of 4 or 5 different peoples' houses.. How cool is that!? Hello!! Does God rock or what?
Posted by Tess at 9:34 PM 1 comments
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Braggin' On My Boys
"I want to give my money to the poor so they don't have to go potty in the river." KJ has been saving his nickels and dimes and pennies (okay, not actually HIS, but every one he finds anywhere is fair game). He has been asking for a bird bath for our yard, but Dad is afraid it will attract squirrels, so we've never gotten one. So, KJ decided one day to start saving his money and then he could buy one himself! Pretty smart kid! So, he's been saving for about 2 months now and has amassed quite a few coins. Last week in VBS, he even made a treasure box to keep it all in. Then something happened. We were talking about our sponsered child, Priyanka, making her pictures and getting ready to send her a package, when JM started asking questions about where poor people go potty (the mind of a 4 year old!) So, I explained that they might go in the river, which is also where they bathe and where they get their drinking water. All of my children were very upset.. but KJ piped up immediately and offered up all of his savings to send to her so she and her family could buy a potty, instead of him buying a bird bath!!! What a heart! TL, very cute little boy and VERY OPINIONATED!!! (that would be bolded too except I don't know how to do that!) Anyway, the kids have all been working on certain behavioral modifications, IS to get off of her tippy-toes, KJ to not argue, and JM to not suck her thumb. When they have reached their goals of x number of days without the afore-mentioned behavior, they get a Webkinz. For those of you without small, internet-saavy kids, these are the latest craze. Think Beanie Babies with their own website. JM is hitting her mark tonight, so we went on a search to purchase their babies.... EIGHT sold-out stores later, we hit the jackpot and everyone picked out the exact baby they had wanted. Not to be left out, TL - only 2 and a little young to comprehend delayed gratification - also got a pet. He chose a bullfrog. When we got home, it was time for a nap so we laid down together to talk a bit before he went to sleep and to name his new bull frog. The conversation went something like this (I am omitting the quotation marks cuz I'm not that great a typist and they slow me down) What do you want to name your frog? --Me
How about Freddie?
-- No.
How about Herbert?
-- NO!
What about Bob? Bob is a nice name...
-- NO!How about Gribbit?
-- silence...
Okay, Gribbit!!
-- NO!
What do you want to name him then? What about Filmore?
-- NO!What about George?
--NO!
What about... hmmm, let's name him Billy... -
- NO!
(at this point I pick up the frog and pretend to be talking) Hi! My name is Freddie the Frog... Gribbit, gribbit...
-- NO! not Freddie!So, we lay next to each other for a few more minutes, me trying to think like TL... Then suddenly it hits me!! There are 2 things that TL ADORES!! Choo-Choo trains and Monster Trucks.. (in fact, when he has a dirty diaper he will even tell me that he has a monster poopie).. So, I say, TL, what about Monster Frog?
to which he replies with an enormous grin, very slowly, "wwessss" (that is yes in case you don't speak TL-ease) ... What fun!!
Finally, one more story about one more of my boys.. The big manly one! He spent the day outside in the heat assembling the kids' playscape. Normally this is quite a chore in and of itself, but you see, our playscape is a few years old and when he took it apart to move it, he noticed that several of the boards needed to be replaced. Additionally, since we have no trees to attach a mondo-swing to, he has developed plans to create one without a tree and he is using 1/2 of the playscape to create this new one.. so, in the heat, he adapted, and built and rearranged the existing structure to fit our new smaller yard... The swing is not yet together due to a miscalculation, but the rest of the scape is.. What a man, what a man, what a mighty good man!
Posted by Tess at 6:51 PM 0 comments
Sunday, June 17, 2007
"Painting the Roses Red"
If you've ever read Lewis Carroll's book or seen Disney's movie "Alice in Wonderland" you'll understand the title of today's blog. If not, read on. Alice happens into the Queen's kingdom and meets a few "cards!" (forgive the pun) who are busy painting the roses red. When Alice asks why they are doing this, they explain that they accidentally planted white roses and the queen wanted red roses and if she finds out about their blunder, "OFF with their heads!" Well, I've spent the last two days painting the kids' rooms. And since this is a brand spankin' new house, with brand spankin' new paint, I feel like I am being a bit silly painting what doesn't need painting... oh well, as in the story, it doesn't matter that white roses are perfectly lovely, it matters that they aren't the color they are supposed to be.. now my "roses" are painted the right colors.
We had our first company last night, my mom, brother and sister-in-law and their kids. This is a good house to entertain in.. It passed the test with flying colors! And we all had a good time.
The kids are just amazing!! At church, we are running a contest. Whoever memorizes (from a specific list so that everyone is on equal ground) the most Bible Verses during the 13 weeks of summer will win an MP-3 player.. oh, yes, there will be one winner from each grade level!! The kids at church are stoked! Today is week 3 of the contest and a 6th grader completed 25 verses today. IS, KJ and JM are all practicing like crazy to win their prizes and IS is leading the first graders with 20 verses. KJ also has the lead in his class with 20 verses.. JM is younger and having a bit harder time.. she has recited only 14 verses. ONLY!! That is in 2 1/2 weeks!! That is how long these kiddos have been working on these, only a total of 3 weeks (and we got a late start cuz Mom forgot to get started for an extra 4 days!) In case you're not good at math, that is right at a verse a day, everyday, and they're 7, 5 and 4!!! Kind of makes you feel inadequate when the little ones can memorize a verse a day, but you struggle with a verse a week!! :o)
Well, I'm off to bed. I'm supposed to be getting up early in the a.m. to plant some flowers before the sun and heat get up!
PS the picture is of TL getting his teeth cleaned for the very first time.. He did great! a real pro!
Posted by TESS
Posted by Tess at 6:51 PM 0 comments
Sunday, June 17, 2007
"Painting the Roses Red"
If you've ever read Lewis Carroll's book or seen Disney's movie "Alice in Wonderland" you'll understand the title of today's blog. If not, read on. Alice happens into the Queen's kingdom and meets a few "cards!" (forgive the pun) who are busy painting the roses red. When Alice asks why they are doing this, they explain that they accidentally planted white roses and the queen wanted red roses and if she finds out about their blunder, "OFF with their heads!" Well, I've spent the last two days painting the kids' rooms. And since this is a brand spankin' new house, with brand spankin' new paint, I feel like I am being a bit silly painting what doesn't need painting... oh well, as in the story, it doesn't matter that white roses are perfectly lovely, it matters that they aren't the color they are supposed to be.. now my "roses" are painted the right colors.
We had our first company last night, my mom, brother and sister-in-law and their kids. This is a good house to entertain in.. It passed the test with flying colors! And we all had a good time.
The kids are just amazing!! At church, we are running a contest. Whoever memorizes (from a specific list so that everyone is on equal ground) the most Bible Verses during the 13 weeks of summer will win an MP-3 player.. oh, yes, there will be one winner from each grade level!! The kids at church are stoked! Today is week 3 of the contest and a 6th grader completed 25 verses today. IS, KJ and JM are all practicing like crazy to win their prizes and IS is leading the first graders with 20 verses. KJ also has the lead in his class with 20 verses.. JM is younger and having a bit harder time.. she has recited only 14 verses. ONLY!! That is in 2 1/2 weeks!! That is how long these kiddos have been working on these, only a total of 3 weeks (and we got a late start cuz Mom forgot to get started for an extra 4 days!) In case you're not good at math, that is right at a verse a day, everyday, and they're 7, 5 and 4!!! Kind of makes you feel inadequate when the little ones can memorize a verse a day, but you struggle with a verse a week!! :o)
Well, I'm off to bed. I'm supposed to be getting up early in the a.m. to plant some flowers before the sun and heat get up!
PS the picture is of TL getting his teeth cleaned for the very first time.. He did great! a real pro!
Posted by TESS
Thursday, June 14, 2007
I'm officially a Soccer Mom!
IS and KJ are living the high life this week. Not only are they attending a great VBS each morning this week, but each evening they are happy campers at a soccer camp. TL and JM are also going to VBS in the morning, but they are too young for the soccer camp. If you look carefully, you should be able to easily pick out KJ, however you may have a more difficult time picking out IS. She is directly behind KJ on the right... you might have a hard time because she got her hair cut short! She insisted she wanted it and after a mandatory 3 week waiting period, she was adament that she wanted it short, so we got it cut! It actually looks very good on her face and, boo hoo, makes her look older! JM now says that she wants to cut her long beautiful hair off, too. UGH!! I don't know if I can handle 2 daughters getting all their hair cut inside of a month!! But she has been saying it for 2 weeks, so I guess that means next week it comes off. What's a mother to do?
Well, there is a very good excuse for my 2 week absence from blogging... we've been moving in to the new house and until four days ago didn't have internet. I can't seem to find the doo-hickey that downloads pictures from my camera to the computer so I can't upload any pictures yet, but I'm sure that it will turn up or I'll break down and buy a new one.. We are also still missing a box of goodies. In that box are our kitchen rugs, the cutlery tray (a nice wooden one, too) and a few other miscellaneous items. On a bright note, We FOUND a ton of clothes we had lost. Specifically there were a couple of sweatshirts, one Longhorn and one Aggie, and a specific sweater that Sara Pecina owns an exact duplicate of and wears often... Evidently this entire box never got unpacked from our move to our last house! BONUS!! Anyway, the move itself is almost history. All boxes that were brought into the house have been unpacked (there are still a few boxes in the garage but that is Jeff's domain). All pictures are on the walls!! WOo-HoOO!! I did realize yesterday that I should have probably painted BEFORE I hung 800 Spiderman pictures on the walls in the "Superhero Sanctum." (otherwise known as KJ's and TL's room).. alas, I have bought the paint and will hopefully get them painted in the next few days.. Also in the works is painting the "Princess Palace" (I'll bet you can guess who sleeps there!!) The Sanctum will be a nice shade of blue (called Denim) and the Palace will be "fairytale pink" and "tinkerbell green."
So, we have all our new furniture in place! Yay!! We lost our kitchen table since it was part of a built-in banquette and we have an entire new room we didn't have before, so we had to furnish it. This process has taken only 2 weeks since we moved in.. a long hot 2 weeks of driving around town, walking across parking lots in glaring summer sun, but it's all good since we finally have everything. The last thing will be the blinds. They have been ordered and should be in within the next 2 weeks. In the meantime, we'll have some curtains for a bit of privacy - assuming of course, that I get the rooms painted that I want to paint. we'll see.
OK, enough for now. I have the last 4 pictures to hang and a desk to go through to rid ourselves of all extraneous junk! TTFN!
Posted by Tess
I'm officially a Soccer Mom!
IS and KJ are living the high life this week. Not only are they attending a great VBS each morning this week, but each evening they are happy campers at a soccer camp. TL and JM are also going to VBS in the morning, but they are too young for the soccer camp. If you look carefully, you should be able to easily pick out KJ, however you may have a more difficult time picking out IS. She is directly behind KJ on the right... you might have a hard time because she got her hair cut short! She insisted she wanted it and after a mandatory 3 week waiting period, she was adament that she wanted it short, so we got it cut! It actually looks very good on her face and, boo hoo, makes her look older! JM now says that she wants to cut her long beautiful hair off, too. UGH!! I don't know if I can handle 2 daughters getting all their hair cut inside of a month!! But she has been saying it for 2 weeks, so I guess that means next week it comes off. What's a mother to do?
Well, there is a very good excuse for my 2 week absence from blogging... we've been moving in to the new house and until four days ago didn't have internet. I can't seem to find the doo-hickey that downloads pictures from my camera to the computer so I can't upload any pictures yet, but I'm sure that it will turn up or I'll break down and buy a new one.. We are also still missing a box of goodies. In that box are our kitchen rugs, the cutlery tray (a nice wooden one, too) and a few other miscellaneous items. On a bright note, We FOUND a ton of clothes we had lost. Specifically there were a couple of sweatshirts, one Longhorn and one Aggie, and a specific sweater that Sara Pecina owns an exact duplicate of and wears often... Evidently this entire box never got unpacked from our move to our last house! BONUS!! Anyway, the move itself is almost history. All boxes that were brought into the house have been unpacked (there are still a few boxes in the garage but that is Jeff's domain). All pictures are on the walls!! WOo-HoOO!! I did realize yesterday that I should have probably painted BEFORE I hung 800 Spiderman pictures on the walls in the "Superhero Sanctum." (otherwise known as KJ's and TL's room).. alas, I have bought the paint and will hopefully get them painted in the next few days.. Also in the works is painting the "Princess Palace" (I'll bet you can guess who sleeps there!!) The Sanctum will be a nice shade of blue (called Denim) and the Palace will be "fairytale pink" and "tinkerbell green."
So, we have all our new furniture in place! Yay!! We lost our kitchen table since it was part of a built-in banquette and we have an entire new room we didn't have before, so we had to furnish it. This process has taken only 2 weeks since we moved in.. a long hot 2 weeks of driving around town, walking across parking lots in glaring summer sun, but it's all good since we finally have everything. The last thing will be the blinds. They have been ordered and should be in within the next 2 weeks. In the meantime, we'll have some curtains for a bit of privacy - assuming of course, that I get the rooms painted that I want to paint. we'll see.
OK, enough for now. I have the last 4 pictures to hang and a desk to go through to rid ourselves of all extraneous junk! TTFN!
Posted by Tess
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
We're Homeless!
It will be official today at noon, we have sold our house. We spent all most of Sunday loading the truck with the help of six of the most awesome men who volunteered to move us on one of their afternoons off!!! Then we spent yesterday packing up the last little bit of stuff - trampoline, last bit of clothes, garage, etc. and then finally cleaned the house. When we moved into this house, it was disgusting! There were literally stalagtites of grease hanging from the ceiling (btw - painting a popcorn ceiling is a pain in the neck!) and they didn't even pick up garbage from the floor. It was a mess! We were determined not to leave it that way for the new owners. Everything got cleaned very well. In fact, Jeff even ran a quick mop over the floors -again - this morning as we left. I'm a little sad... we had the world's best neighbors, and I am going to miss them. They had 3 kids near our kids' ages and they loved playing together... We could call on them for help at any time of the day or night and they were there... I will miss them. I have been praying for the new owners to be even better neighbors than we were so hopefully that will be the case! :o(But on a brighter note - we're one step closer to our new house! And we'll be almost completely debt-free in a few hours!!! (I still have my student loans, but other than that) That will be very cool! Short-lived, as we are set to close on our new house on Thursday (still trying to get it for tomorrow, but that is not looking very likely at this point).Anyhoo, that's where we stand for now. Be praying for me... I have about 12 hours worth of work to do today at church and I have only 3 hours (minus the "staff infection meeting") to get it done since I have to leave around 11 to go to sign away the papers on our house!Thanks to all of you who have been praying for us as we make this move. I was thinking on the way in this morning, that this is for real now... we are moving to plant a church... How cool is that!?!?!By the way... see that little ad in the upper left hand corner of my blog? If you click on it, I just may eventually get a little check in the mail.. cool, huh?
Posted by Tess
We're Homeless!
It will be official today at noon, we have sold our house. We spent all most of Sunday loading the truck with the help of six of the most awesome men who volunteered to move us on one of their afternoons off!!! Then we spent yesterday packing up the last little bit of stuff - trampoline, last bit of clothes, garage, etc. and then finally cleaned the house. When we moved into this house, it was disgusting! There were literally stalagtites of grease hanging from the ceiling (btw - painting a popcorn ceiling is a pain in the neck!) and they didn't even pick up garbage from the floor. It was a mess! We were determined not to leave it that way for the new owners. Everything got cleaned very well. In fact, Jeff even ran a quick mop over the floors -again - this morning as we left. I'm a little sad... we had the world's best neighbors, and I am going to miss them. They had 3 kids near our kids' ages and they loved playing together... We could call on them for help at any time of the day or night and they were there... I will miss them. I have been praying for the new owners to be even better neighbors than we were so hopefully that will be the case! :o(But on a brighter note - we're one step closer to our new house! And we'll be almost completely debt-free in a few hours!!! (I still have my student loans, but other than that) That will be very cool! Short-lived, as we are set to close on our new house on Thursday (still trying to get it for tomorrow, but that is not looking very likely at this point).Anyhoo, that's where we stand for now. Be praying for me... I have about 12 hours worth of work to do today at church and I have only 3 hours (minus the "staff infection meeting") to get it done since I have to leave around 11 to go to sign away the papers on our house!Thanks to all of you who have been praying for us as we make this move. I was thinking on the way in this morning, that this is for real now... we are moving to plant a church... How cool is that!?!?!By the way... see that little ad in the upper left hand corner of my blog? If you click on it, I just may eventually get a little check in the mail.. cool, huh?
Posted by Tess
Saturday, May 26, 2007
T-2 Days
We are down to the wire. Jeff is outside taking apart the playscape and trampoline as we speak. We were able to get a trailer so he won't have to take either completely apart as we did when we moved this last time. Instead, he can just take them apart in sections, which means easier re-assembly! The house is an absolute disaster - and I know that it should be - but it still drives me crazy! Jeff's spent this morning going around and fixing all the picture holes and touching up paint. When we first moved into this house, it was so incredibly dirty... it was disgusting.. There were literally 2 inch stalagtites of grease hanging from the ceiling in the kitchen... they didn't even sweep or vaccuum.. there was trash left all over the house... it was not a pleasant experience to walk into to that. So, Jeff has decided that he is going to leave it looking great. We were going to get someone to clean it from top to bottom, but there are so many things that I want for the new house, I decided that we could clean it a little as we have packed things up and then finish it up on Memorial Day (our last day in the house) and then we can use that money for something else...
Speaking of saving money, we had a garage sale last weekend to get rid of some things. We are pretty good at giving stuff away, so there wasn't a lot to sell. But I was insistant because I wanted to buy some new dishes. We have 3 or 4 mismatched sets now, none of them complete. It is totally a frivolous thing and not in the budget, but I thought that if we sold some stuff, we could get new dishes - that was my goal. And we did.. we didn't make a ton of money, but we made a couple of hundred dollars and that is enough for new dishes. Woo-Hoo!
My kitchen is currently a beautiful shade of blue (I add the word beautiful, cuz every paint in my house currently is OOPS paint.. you know, someone else got the paint tinted and then didn't buy it so you can get it for $5 a gallon instead of $25.. EXCEPT my kitchen.. It took 8 trips to Home Depot before I actually got the paint tinted.. and I love the color). Anyway, I also have all these blue and white decorations that go in it. So, the new plates need to be blue. But, I want everything downstairs to coordinate, and I love the dusty blue and brown combo that is popular right now, so I'm looking that direction. I started looking for and pricing out dishes and boy are they expensive.. no wonder my dishes don't match! But I'm sure that I will find something.. And it's interesting, cuz the new dishes have determined the color scheme for the entire downstairs! It will be fun to finally stop all the window shopping and finally get the tings I've found all over town (I'm the queen of Due Diligence - you know, checking out every possibility before committing. So, I have 3 pages of lists that tell me where to go to buy everything... Pier 1, World Market, Linens N Things, Bombay, Ashley Furniture, Star Furniture... you name it, I've been there!)
Finally, the picture is of KJ at his pre-school graduation. He attended only 2 days per week at a Christian school around the corner. Jeff thought it was ridiculous to have a graduation for PRESCHOOL, but we attended like good parents and it was fun watching him perform. At Christmas, they performed a program and KJ sang all the songs, but stood perfectly still and did none of the hand motions. AND Jeff was out of town.. This time, he performed like a Pro! He did all the hand motions, sang well and had a great time... so did we.
Posted by Tess
T-2 Days
We are down to the wire. Jeff is outside taking apart the playscape and trampoline as we speak. We were able to get a trailer so he won't have to take either completely apart as we did when we moved this last time. Instead, he can just take them apart in sections, which means easier re-assembly! The house is an absolute disaster - and I know that it should be - but it still drives me crazy! Jeff's spent this morning going around and fixing all the picture holes and touching up paint. When we first moved into this house, it was so incredibly dirty... it was disgusting.. There were literally 2 inch stalagtites of grease hanging from the ceiling in the kitchen... they didn't even sweep or vaccuum.. there was trash left all over the house... it was not a pleasant experience to walk into to that. So, Jeff has decided that he is going to leave it looking great. We were going to get someone to clean it from top to bottom, but there are so many things that I want for the new house, I decided that we could clean it a little as we have packed things up and then finish it up on Memorial Day (our last day in the house) and then we can use that money for something else...
Speaking of saving money, we had a garage sale last weekend to get rid of some things. We are pretty good at giving stuff away, so there wasn't a lot to sell. But I was insistant because I wanted to buy some new dishes. We have 3 or 4 mismatched sets now, none of them complete. It is totally a frivolous thing and not in the budget, but I thought that if we sold some stuff, we could get new dishes - that was my goal. And we did.. we didn't make a ton of money, but we made a couple of hundred dollars and that is enough for new dishes. Woo-Hoo!
My kitchen is currently a beautiful shade of blue (I add the word beautiful, cuz every paint in my house currently is OOPS paint.. you know, someone else got the paint tinted and then didn't buy it so you can get it for $5 a gallon instead of $25.. EXCEPT my kitchen.. It took 8 trips to Home Depot before I actually got the paint tinted.. and I love the color). Anyway, I also have all these blue and white decorations that go in it. So, the new plates need to be blue. But, I want everything downstairs to coordinate, and I love the dusty blue and brown combo that is popular right now, so I'm looking that direction. I started looking for and pricing out dishes and boy are they expensive.. no wonder my dishes don't match! But I'm sure that I will find something.. And it's interesting, cuz the new dishes have determined the color scheme for the entire downstairs! It will be fun to finally stop all the window shopping and finally get the tings I've found all over town (I'm the queen of Due Diligence - you know, checking out every possibility before committing. So, I have 3 pages of lists that tell me where to go to buy everything... Pier 1, World Market, Linens N Things, Bombay, Ashley Furniture, Star Furniture... you name it, I've been there!)
Finally, the picture is of KJ at his pre-school graduation. He attended only 2 days per week at a Christian school around the corner. Jeff thought it was ridiculous to have a graduation for PRESCHOOL, but we attended like good parents and it was fun watching him perform. At Christmas, they performed a program and KJ sang all the songs, but stood perfectly still and did none of the hand motions. AND Jeff was out of town.. This time, he performed like a Pro! He did all the hand motions, sang well and had a great time... so did we.
Posted by Tess
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
"I Guess He Has An Outie!"
When the doctor cut the cord on TL, I immediately notice how "long" his belly button was and I made the comment, "I guess he has an outie!" To which the pediatrician laughed and replied that no, it was a little swollen maybe, but to keep an eye on it.. When it hadn't lost any of its size by the 3 month check-up, we revisited the question and were told that he might have a "hyrneated belly button" and that we needed to keep a close eye on it and if it was indeed said hyrneated BB that he might need to have surgery to close the hole.. Well, TL is 2 1/2 now and it still protrudes quite a bit, so we visited the pediatric surgeon... After an examination, he informed us that it is NOT hyrneated. It could have spontaneously healed itself, which happens sometimes, he said. Or he could have an outie.. The pictures above were taken after supper as we were bathing TL tonight.. What do YOU think!?! ( Personally I think he looks like a pregnant lady, wait, revise that... a VERY late in her pregancy, pregnant lady!)
Well, on a different note, we did our walk-through yesterday and let me tell you - I think that I could start my own business. I would do your walk-through for you and could gurantee you no fewer than 560 dots! See, in new construction, you walk through the house and put a dot on anything that doesn't look right. Maybe a spot they missed while painting, or they got paint on the window frame, or the carpet is loose in a spot, or there is a chip in the bathtub or a nick in a cabinet.. You get the picture. Additionally, the inspector is there to make sure everything is the way it is supposed to be. For starters, he found 2 places where code requires attic access that we didn't have attic access points. There were some other things, like vents that were painted shut, etc. and he wrote them up and the builder has to fix those as well. When he left, he gave us about 8 sheets of dot stickers (28 per page) then we bought 560 more. We used every single one of them and I actually tore a few of mine in half cuz I needed more! Jeff told me that I was being ridiculous. I reminded him of how much we're paying. Besides, I am borderline compulsive about things, so I was in heaven.. Do you know how much it drives me crazy that our outlet covers are crocked!?!? I HATE that ! So, I was a sticker machine.. they fix it if it has a dot on it, so why not be meticulous and put dots on things!?!
So, Jeff and KL are having a discussion upstairs about being a good steward of things. Jeff is giving him real-life examples and KL is really hanging on his every word. "If you don't take care of your things, they could be taken away. Or they could get broken," Jeff tells him. A bit later, KL comes downstairs and starts talking to me. He informs me that it is very important to take care of your toys and things, "because if you don't take care of them, YOU will get taken away." And he continues, "Or if they get broken, you could get your head chopped off!" Have I mentioned before that our little KL has a very vivid, very creative imagination? Now when he says things like this, it is easy to realize that he's being imaginative, but it makes me wonder exactly how much of normal stuff he he tells me is really true. What fun! (Yes, I corrected him!) Oh, and then JM adds a few hours later that we need to be good stewarts, like Stewart Little, she said! Kids are the best!
Speaking of how kids hear things differently, JM has always said "epercise" instead of excercise and we think it is so cute, Jeff and I have started saying it too. Is brought home her journal from school. In it she ahd written, "I like to eprsis. Eprsising is fun" (They are told to sound things out -EP- R (the sound it makes) - SIS (with a long I). That is a page to add to the scrapbook! Too cute!
Today was a very busy day.. I packed pretty much non-stop from 11 until 3 and from 330 until 630. IS grabbed Daddy by the hand when he got home and very excitedly drug him into our closet and said, "Look Daddy! It's so empty and clean!" And that it is! As they were talking about things, school and moving and such, Jeff asked Is if she was excited about moving. She thought for a moment and replied, "Yes, but I am more sad than I am excited." AWWW. That is enough to break your heart. We both stopped everything we were doing and asked why. She said that she would miss her friends and her school. We explained that our new hood has way more kids than this one and how we saw 2 little girls about her age playing on the porch of a house across the street as we were leaving yesterday... It seemed to encourage her a bit, but it reminds me of the fragility of children.. and how this move could affect them. It also reminded me that I felt the exact same way - until yesterday!
It's funny. We have been praying about this church plant and this move for over a year. We are so very sure that we are supposed to be doing this. We feel incredibly priviledged to be called to do this! Most people question how God is involved with them, but we can truly see the hand of God at work in all of this! Yet, I still have this sadness. Our current yard is HUGE!! It's a third of an acre, according to some documents I discovered recently. Our new yard is TINY! It is 60 by 120... We spend an awful lot of time outside in the backyard and so I've been very disappointed about that. Also, we LOVE the area of town where we are now. I realized when my brother was staying with us that we are literally "5 minutes away" from everything. He would ask me where something was and that was my response, "It's about 5 minutes away, in that direction." Our schools are great (even if they are public!) And so many other little things, like all the work we've done in our current house - wood laminate flooring, silestone kitchen countertops, granite sink, hidden in the cabinets garbage can, etc. For these and various other reasons, I was "more sad than excited" about the new house - just like IS. Until yesterday. I had just dropped off my kids at a friends' house (they just moved for the church plant 3 weeks ago) and was driving the 8 minutes that it took to get to our new house and I got really excited!! That I am now excited about the new digs is, in itself, exciting to me since I've been a little cold to the move until now. So now, boy oh boy!! Am I ever ready to get this move on!
Thank You, God for encouraging us in the little things and the big things. Thank You, Lord that you love us enough to make plans for our lives and then to lay out those plans in such a clear way - even when we are little pouty gusses about how it is not exactly the way that we wanted!!! As I visited tonight with my girlfriends, the topic turned to this - being obedient to God's calling and grateful even if it's not exactly what we wanted.. I believe the phrase we used was "throwing a fit like a 2 year old who stomps his foot" and since I have one of those, I can honestly say that is a great word picture of me the last few days.. stomping my foot and pouting because the yard is smaller than ours is now, and because I have laminate countertops instead of silestone.. Well, Theresa, did you stop to think that you now have a gameroom, a seperate dining room, and 400 square feet more, ya little ingrate!..
One final note, I have been praying for a friend for a while now, and she emailed me today to say that even though there is no way she could have seen a short 3 months ago the outcome we've been praying for to actually happen (even though it is the "right" thing), not only could she now see it, but she is currently reveling in the answer to our prayers!!! Isn't that awesome! Isn't God awesome! That was such an encouragement to me - that God is a God who cares about us personally and that He is literally working a miracle in her life and the lives of those around her! Praise You, Jesus! Like I said, thank You, Lord that You are You, that You are sovereign and that You love us, in spite of ourselves.
Posted by Tess
Monday, May 21, 2007
A Few More Details
Isn't it an interesting day in which we live? I just got an email from a girlfriend who used to live here in Texas, but has moved up to New York. Her husband is deployed in Irag (and yes, he got extended... be praying for him, his ministry over there and for her and their 2 little girls.. he was supposed to be home in just 3 months, but now it is SIX and that is quite a jump!) Anyway, when he left, she started blogging EVERY DAY so that he would be able to log in anytime and see what was happening. You know, all the everyday, little minutiae that she would never think to remember to tell him.. that way, it would not be so hard for him to miss all those little things. Well, she was part of the inspiration for my taking up blogging. Anyway, it's funny cuz I go read her blog every few days and feel like I know what's going on in her life and I know that she reads mine, so I know that she's keeping up with what's going on in my life (even if it's not everyday :o) )... Interestingly, we find ourselves not actually emailing or even calling each other very often, and I think that it is because, well, we know what is happening. Only I still have this sense of distance... I mean if she wrote me directly to tell me word for word what she wrote that day in her blog and I replied with word for word what I had written in my blog, we would have exchanged the same information, but I think that I would feel much closer to her than I do right now... now, I'm just another anonymous reader of her very popular (at least around these parts) blog. So, she actually put her fingers on the keyboard and addressed a direct email to me today and asked me many questions about the house.. since I am trying to keep everyone updated, I thought that I would post the answers to her questions here and hmmm... see how these blogs tend to de-personalize things... Anyhoo... We are at T-7 days now. We are renting a large U-Haul (and probably a tiny one just in case) on Saturday night. Jeff is preaching on Sunday morning and then on Sunday afternoon we're packing it up. On Monday we'll clean up the house a bit and head over to the house of some of our friends. They will be out of town and have graciously offered their house to us (and our four kids... what are they? insane!?!) We close on our current house at noon on Tuesday the 29th and currently, we are set to close on our brand spanking NEW house on Thursday, the 31st. We have, however, requested that the bank move-up closing to early morning on Wednesday. That would save us a bit of money on the truck rental and would be nice to get into the new house.Another point which I have been remiss upon posting is the neighborhood, building vs built, etc. Well, we are buying a brand spanking new house, as mentioned (which in and of itself is pretty intertesting because just 4 short years ago when we moved into this house, we didn't even look at new construction.. not interested, we said. And this time around, while we did look at pre-existing homes, they never really had a chance ... Every time that I walked into a pre-existing home, all I could think was about all the work we were going to have to do!) So, we bought in a new neighborhood. There is a pool in the neighborhood, which was very inportant to Jeff and the hood is all 3 sides brick, also very important to Jeff. I got the master down and a seperate dining room and living room (I prefer them seperate as opposed to LR/DR combos). Additionally, the guest bath is not a) in the kitchen and b) not a door in the or near the living room (little details, but important to me). The kitchen has an island that has room for two stools for eating and there is a bar over the sink as well, for a couple of barstools. We're diggin' that. It was rather interesting how we got this particular house. We had narrowed it down to 3 hoods and one of them was 1 side brick with on pool -obviously Jeff's last choice, so we nixed that one. Next up was his favorite one, but as we were driving up - seriously expecting to sign the papers - we noticed that not all the houses were 3 sides brick, so we asked about that. We were told that only the houses on the Blvd - the main street into and out of the hood - were required to be 3 sides brick. It gave the illusion of being a 3 side brick hood.. well, couple that with the fact that they had increased their prices by almost a full ten grand since our previous visit just 3 weeks prior, and you get one Jeff, highly annoyed and saying that he hates that builder now! :o) So, the final hood it was. The 2 floorplans that we liked best were actually my brother's and our pastor's. Jeff said it would be too wierd to live in their houses, so we needed to look at others.. Only one problem, I didn't like any of the others. But we stopped. We asked if any spec homes were available for May and they said they had one available on the exact date that we had set for closing on our current home (we didn't tell them the date, just the month). It was the only one that would be ready, so we went to check it out. It is not a very common plan and we hadn't really seen it before. We looked at it and loved the floorplan. We even loved the upgrades that had been done. They were the same ones for the most part that we would have done. Tall kitchen cabinets, banisters on the stairs rather than half walls, upgraded carpet, cool rocker panel light switches that I wouldn't have actually paid for, but I like a lot... So, you see, it was literally the ONLY house available for us. Please take note for future reference... we had asked God to make it abundantly clear which house he wanted us to have... Do you think He could've been any clearer?! Isn't God cool?!! So, we got a brand new home, no-one has ever lived in, and we don't have to live in an apartment at all! Woo-Hoo!! One more little interesting tid-bit.. Our backyard will share a fence with the new elmentary school which began construction last week and is slated to open in the fall of 2008... We will literally be able to open the gate to our fence and the kids will be at school! How cool is that!And on that note, I will sign-off. I have to go to work in the morning and we have our walk-through at 4:30 in the afternoon, so it will be a long day.
Posted by Tess
"I Guess He Has An Outie!"
When the doctor cut the cord on TL, I immediately notice how "long" his belly button was and I made the comment, "I guess he has an outie!" To which the pediatrician laughed and replied that no, it was a little swollen maybe, but to keep an eye on it.. When it hadn't lost any of its size by the 3 month check-up, we revisited the question and were told that he might have a "hyrneated belly button" and that we needed to keep a close eye on it and if it was indeed said hyrneated BB that he might need to have surgery to close the hole.. Well, TL is 2 1/2 now and it still protrudes quite a bit, so we visited the pediatric surgeon... After an examination, he informed us that it is NOT hyrneated. It could have spontaneously healed itself, which happens sometimes, he said. Or he could have an outie.. The pictures above were taken after supper as we were bathing TL tonight.. What do YOU think!?! ( Personally I think he looks like a pregnant lady, wait, revise that... a VERY late in her pregancy, pregnant lady!)
Well, on a different note, we did our walk-through yesterday and let me tell you - I think that I could start my own business. I would do your walk-through for you and could gurantee you no fewer than 560 dots! See, in new construction, you walk through the house and put a dot on anything that doesn't look right. Maybe a spot they missed while painting, or they got paint on the window frame, or the carpet is loose in a spot, or there is a chip in the bathtub or a nick in a cabinet.. You get the picture. Additionally, the inspector is there to make sure everything is the way it is supposed to be. For starters, he found 2 places where code requires attic access that we didn't have attic access points. There were some other things, like vents that were painted shut, etc. and he wrote them up and the builder has to fix those as well. When he left, he gave us about 8 sheets of dot stickers (28 per page) then we bought 560 more. We used every single one of them and I actually tore a few of mine in half cuz I needed more! Jeff told me that I was being ridiculous. I reminded him of how much we're paying. Besides, I am borderline compulsive about things, so I was in heaven.. Do you know how much it drives me crazy that our outlet covers are crocked!?!? I HATE that ! So, I was a sticker machine.. they fix it if it has a dot on it, so why not be meticulous and put dots on things!?!
So, Jeff and KL are having a discussion upstairs about being a good steward of things. Jeff is giving him real-life examples and KL is really hanging on his every word. "If you don't take care of your things, they could be taken away. Or they could get broken," Jeff tells him. A bit later, KL comes downstairs and starts talking to me. He informs me that it is very important to take care of your toys and things, "because if you don't take care of them, YOU will get taken away." And he continues, "Or if they get broken, you could get your head chopped off!" Have I mentioned before that our little KL has a very vivid, very creative imagination? Now when he says things like this, it is easy to realize that he's being imaginative, but it makes me wonder exactly how much of normal stuff he he tells me is really true. What fun! (Yes, I corrected him!) Oh, and then JM adds a few hours later that we need to be good stewarts, like Stewart Little, she said! Kids are the best!
Speaking of how kids hear things differently, JM has always said "epercise" instead of excercise and we think it is so cute, Jeff and I have started saying it too. Is brought home her journal from school. In it she ahd written, "I like to eprsis. Eprsising is fun" (They are told to sound things out -EP- R (the sound it makes) - SIS (with a long I). That is a page to add to the scrapbook! Too cute!
Today was a very busy day.. I packed pretty much non-stop from 11 until 3 and from 330 until 630. IS grabbed Daddy by the hand when he got home and very excitedly drug him into our closet and said, "Look Daddy! It's so empty and clean!" And that it is! As they were talking about things, school and moving and such, Jeff asked Is if she was excited about moving. She thought for a moment and replied, "Yes, but I am more sad than I am excited." AWWW. That is enough to break your heart. We both stopped everything we were doing and asked why. She said that she would miss her friends and her school. We explained that our new hood has way more kids than this one and how we saw 2 little girls about her age playing on the porch of a house across the street as we were leaving yesterday... It seemed to encourage her a bit, but it reminds me of the fragility of children.. and how this move could affect them. It also reminded me that I felt the exact same way - until yesterday!
It's funny. We have been praying about this church plant and this move for over a year. We are so very sure that we are supposed to be doing this. We feel incredibly priviledged to be called to do this! Most people question how God is involved with them, but we can truly see the hand of God at work in all of this! Yet, I still have this sadness. Our current yard is HUGE!! It's a third of an acre, according to some documents I discovered recently. Our new yard is TINY! It is 60 by 120... We spend an awful lot of time outside in the backyard and so I've been very disappointed about that. Also, we LOVE the area of town where we are now. I realized when my brother was staying with us that we are literally "5 minutes away" from everything. He would ask me where something was and that was my response, "It's about 5 minutes away, in that direction." Our schools are great (even if they are public!) And so many other little things, like all the work we've done in our current house - wood laminate flooring, silestone kitchen countertops, granite sink, hidden in the cabinets garbage can, etc. For these and various other reasons, I was "more sad than excited" about the new house - just like IS. Until yesterday. I had just dropped off my kids at a friends' house (they just moved for the church plant 3 weeks ago) and was driving the 8 minutes that it took to get to our new house and I got really excited!! That I am now excited about the new digs is, in itself, exciting to me since I've been a little cold to the move until now. So now, boy oh boy!! Am I ever ready to get this move on!
Thank You, God for encouraging us in the little things and the big things. Thank You, Lord that you love us enough to make plans for our lives and then to lay out those plans in such a clear way - even when we are little pouty gusses about how it is not exactly the way that we wanted!!! As I visited tonight with my girlfriends, the topic turned to this - being obedient to God's calling and grateful even if it's not exactly what we wanted.. I believe the phrase we used was "throwing a fit like a 2 year old who stomps his foot" and since I have one of those, I can honestly say that is a great word picture of me the last few days.. stomping my foot and pouting because the yard is smaller than ours is now, and because I have laminate countertops instead of silestone.. Well, Theresa, did you stop to think that you now have a gameroom, a seperate dining room, and 400 square feet more, ya little ingrate!..
One final note, I have been praying for a friend for a while now, and she emailed me today to say that even though there is no way she could have seen a short 3 months ago the outcome we've been praying for to actually happen (even though it is the "right" thing), not only could she now see it, but she is currently reveling in the answer to our prayers!!! Isn't that awesome! Isn't God awesome! That was such an encouragement to me - that God is a God who cares about us personally and that He is literally working a miracle in her life and the lives of those around her! Praise You, Jesus! Like I said, thank You, Lord that You are You, that You are sovereign and that You love us, in spite of ourselves.
Posted by Tess
Monday, May 21, 2007
A Few More Details
Isn't it an interesting day in which we live? I just got an email from a girlfriend who used to live here in Texas, but has moved up to New York. Her husband is deployed in Irag (and yes, he got extended... be praying for him, his ministry over there and for her and their 2 little girls.. he was supposed to be home in just 3 months, but now it is SIX and that is quite a jump!) Anyway, when he left, she started blogging EVERY DAY so that he would be able to log in anytime and see what was happening. You know, all the everyday, little minutiae that she would never think to remember to tell him.. that way, it would not be so hard for him to miss all those little things. Well, she was part of the inspiration for my taking up blogging. Anyway, it's funny cuz I go read her blog every few days and feel like I know what's going on in her life and I know that she reads mine, so I know that she's keeping up with what's going on in my life (even if it's not everyday :o) )... Interestingly, we find ourselves not actually emailing or even calling each other very often, and I think that it is because, well, we know what is happening. Only I still have this sense of distance... I mean if she wrote me directly to tell me word for word what she wrote that day in her blog and I replied with word for word what I had written in my blog, we would have exchanged the same information, but I think that I would feel much closer to her than I do right now... now, I'm just another anonymous reader of her very popular (at least around these parts) blog. So, she actually put her fingers on the keyboard and addressed a direct email to me today and asked me many questions about the house.. since I am trying to keep everyone updated, I thought that I would post the answers to her questions here and hmmm... see how these blogs tend to de-personalize things... Anyhoo... We are at T-7 days now. We are renting a large U-Haul (and probably a tiny one just in case) on Saturday night. Jeff is preaching on Sunday morning and then on Sunday afternoon we're packing it up. On Monday we'll clean up the house a bit and head over to the house of some of our friends. They will be out of town and have graciously offered their house to us (and our four kids... what are they? insane!?!) We close on our current house at noon on Tuesday the 29th and currently, we are set to close on our brand spanking NEW house on Thursday, the 31st. We have, however, requested that the bank move-up closing to early morning on Wednesday. That would save us a bit of money on the truck rental and would be nice to get into the new house.Another point which I have been remiss upon posting is the neighborhood, building vs built, etc. Well, we are buying a brand spanking new house, as mentioned (which in and of itself is pretty intertesting because just 4 short years ago when we moved into this house, we didn't even look at new construction.. not interested, we said. And this time around, while we did look at pre-existing homes, they never really had a chance ... Every time that I walked into a pre-existing home, all I could think was about all the work we were going to have to do!) So, we bought in a new neighborhood. There is a pool in the neighborhood, which was very inportant to Jeff and the hood is all 3 sides brick, also very important to Jeff. I got the master down and a seperate dining room and living room (I prefer them seperate as opposed to LR/DR combos). Additionally, the guest bath is not a) in the kitchen and b) not a door in the or near the living room (little details, but important to me). The kitchen has an island that has room for two stools for eating and there is a bar over the sink as well, for a couple of barstools. We're diggin' that. It was rather interesting how we got this particular house. We had narrowed it down to 3 hoods and one of them was 1 side brick with on pool -obviously Jeff's last choice, so we nixed that one. Next up was his favorite one, but as we were driving up - seriously expecting to sign the papers - we noticed that not all the houses were 3 sides brick, so we asked about that. We were told that only the houses on the Blvd - the main street into and out of the hood - were required to be 3 sides brick. It gave the illusion of being a 3 side brick hood.. well, couple that with the fact that they had increased their prices by almost a full ten grand since our previous visit just 3 weeks prior, and you get one Jeff, highly annoyed and saying that he hates that builder now! :o) So, the final hood it was. The 2 floorplans that we liked best were actually my brother's and our pastor's. Jeff said it would be too wierd to live in their houses, so we needed to look at others.. Only one problem, I didn't like any of the others. But we stopped. We asked if any spec homes were available for May and they said they had one available on the exact date that we had set for closing on our current home (we didn't tell them the date, just the month). It was the only one that would be ready, so we went to check it out. It is not a very common plan and we hadn't really seen it before. We looked at it and loved the floorplan. We even loved the upgrades that had been done. They were the same ones for the most part that we would have done. Tall kitchen cabinets, banisters on the stairs rather than half walls, upgraded carpet, cool rocker panel light switches that I wouldn't have actually paid for, but I like a lot... So, you see, it was literally the ONLY house available for us. Please take note for future reference... we had asked God to make it abundantly clear which house he wanted us to have... Do you think He could've been any clearer?! Isn't God cool?!! So, we got a brand new home, no-one has ever lived in, and we don't have to live in an apartment at all! Woo-Hoo!! One more little interesting tid-bit.. Our backyard will share a fence with the new elmentary school which began construction last week and is slated to open in the fall of 2008... We will literally be able to open the gate to our fence and the kids will be at school! How cool is that!And on that note, I will sign-off. I have to go to work in the morning and we have our walk-through at 4:30 in the afternoon, so it will be a long day.
Posted by Tess
Sunday, May 20, 2007
A Day of Firsts
JM started to learn to ride a two-wheeler today. She has been asking to learn, but Jeff's been putting it off since it is a real killer on the back. However, today, that good ole Aggie Engineering kicked in and he figured out a way to do it without killing his back. He took the handle of of a trike the kids have and installed it onto JM's bike and VOILA! no more aching back. It was a bit short-lived, as the installation was too good (due to the lack of nuts and bolts-they've already been packed). But none-the-less, it was a first for her.TL is sleeping, even as I type, in a big boy bed for the first time. Jeff has been asking about putting him into one, but I was concerned about him wandering - afterall, KJ took over a year to break of the habit of getting out of bed multiple times per night. Additionally, we ARE moving in one week and that is supposed to be pretty traumatic... no potty training within 6 months of moving, so I really didn't think it would be a good idea to take away the security of his very own bed while moving as well.. that was until tonight, as we went to check on him and found the top cross-bar of his bed on the floor! This is after he has shaken loose a crucial screw (that holds up one side of the non-movable rail- we have since taped it [duct-tape can fix anything]) and he also managed to actually shake loose one side of the side of the crib that comes down, so it has been a bit wobbly for teh last few days. As I called this newest feat to Jeff's attention, he remarked, "These things just aren't designed for little boys." and then proceeded to remind me of the fact that KJ is the one who started this crib's destruction. So, we grabbed up a very happy little 2 1/2 year old and put him in the big boy bed. We explained that he couldn't get out and to our surprise, he only got out once! Amazing. He's sleeping now and I can see him and he's so cute.. but I do feel a little bit of sadness as my last little baby leaves the crib! I guess that really means no more babies! So, news on the moving process... well, we started packing this week and have managed to pack up about 90% of the upstairs. Everything from every closet has been packed, except for a few items of clothing and some toys that are stored in large plastic bins. That includes the hall closets and the bathroom closet. Actually, the upstairs bath is packed completely as well. I took down the shower curtain just tonight. (Isabelle is taking showers in our bathroom now). The dining room and the kitchen are empty except for furniture. And all pictures are off of the walls and in boxes. All that is left ot do is our bathroom, our closet, our room and the family room. Long and tedious, but it's getting there. I'm hoping to be completely finished by Wednesday and maybe even get to take the kids to the zoo this week. We'll see.We actually load the moving truck next Sunday, just one more week. It is Memorial Day and - get this - Jeff is giving a sermon at church that morning!! That has to be pretty hilarious!!! Although, I did mention that while he's up there teaching, he could mention our address and tell everyone to meet at our house for pizza and moving after church!! Speaking of church, as we were getting ready for church this morning JM said something pretty cute.. Jeff was in the other room and was telling someone that everything in this house belonged to him. I think this was in response to him telling someone to put soemthing away and the child replied something about "It's my toy..." so Jeff said, "NO, it's my toy. In fact,e verything in this house is mine. I let you play with things, but they are all mine." It was at this moment that Jules told me, "No it's not daddy's. Everything belongs to God." It brought a huge smile to my face and I told her to go tell Daddy what she'd told me. We both laughed about that several times today.
Posted by Tess
Monday, May 7, 2007
I've gotta do this more often!!!
Okay... I started this blog to incent myself to keep track of things at least once weekly and am having a hard time of it... but I will keep trying. Things are a little crazy around here. The house selling is a bit stressful... OUR realtor seems to call us with every little detail (usually to let us know that the buyers "are stressed out" about something) which is causing Jeff to "stress out." It's interesting. Usually he's the calm, cool and collected, laid-back, water-off-a-duck's-back guy and I'm the Type AAA, high-strung, wound-tighter-than-a-watch, stressed-out chic, but during this whole selling the house ordeal, our roles have been reversed. Which has caused us both to be stressed out because neither one of us knows how to handle the other one who's responding out of character. UGH!! anyway, the OTHER realtor told his clients (the buyers) something that is turning out to not be true (short version, we're in a 100 year flood plain because we've never hired the surveyors to come and have us taken out of the flood plain like both of our direct neighbors have had done, so we know we're never going to get flooded and our required-by-bank-flood insurance covers the house only and no contents with a $5000 deductible... the buyers got a quote for normal coverages - home plus contents with a much lower deductible- and received a much higher quote than what we said we paid so they wanted to have our policy transfer to them.. their realtor said the law requires insurance to be transferable, but it looks as if he is mistaken and now the buyers are "freaking out" at having to pay so much for flood insurance... ) anyway, I finally told our realtor to stop calling us until he was ready to schedule our closing time and to figure out the details himself. So far, so good. That was last week. Jeff's stress level seems to be much better.Got some bad news...KJ tested to get into an "enrichment" program in our new school district, he would be learning Spanish in a Dual Language Program. He had to score a 90 out of a 100 possible points. The test covered all kinds of things like letter & number recognition, counting, numbers, shapes, body parts.. you know, basically things he should know by the END of Kindergarten. (Since it's an "enrichment" program, it will be more difficult than normal kindergarten so they want the kids coming in to be ahead of things.) anyway, we got the call today to say that he didn't score a 90.. it was a message, so I don't know what his score was. I can't imagine it too far off since he knows pretty much everything mentioned except about 6 or so letters... This was a big disappointment for me. I really wanted him to get in. It's always been my desire to have my kids be bilingual and when I found out about this program, I was so excited. I've been praying about it and praying about it and I was so sure that this was something we were supposed to be doing.. Oh well, I've been praying about a lot of things and struggling with what to do in many areas. It seems that I'm in a time of not getting my way about anything. God must be having a really tough time getting through to me, too, since I am having so many struggles in so many areas. One of those areas has been getting the pastors to allow me to change up the curriculum in our Sudnay School program. I've been considering and praying about going with a media-driven program for a while now. All of a sudden, quite a bit of money in my budget was freed-up (which I thought surely must mean that I should use it for TVs, which are integral if we are to go to a media-driven program). But then, I started getting push-back from the pastors. I was told when I was brought on that I could change curriculum if I wanted to.. so I wanted to and informed the pastors that I would be doing so. Then I was told that I couldn't just yet.. they wanted to talk about it. Evidently this was more than a curriculum change, it was a paradigm shift in the way that we teach Sunday School. I didn't see it as that at all, I saw it as a new tool we can use. But anyway, they are much wiser than I am in this area.. I mean, I am all about changing it up and that is not always a good thing in a church. So, after much consideration, we are going to give it a shot - in 2 of the classes, the oldest 2, 3rd & 4th graders and 5th & 6th graders. That is good. It's a start. I'm convinced that everyone will love it and that as soon as we start using it, all fears & thoughts that we're letting a DVD teach the class will be assuaged. Okay, I've got lots more to say, but don't want this to become cumbersome to read.. will post again soon.
Posted by Tess
I've gotta do this more often!!!
Okay... I started this blog to incent myself to keep track of things at least once weekly and am having a hard time of it... but I will keep trying. Things are a little crazy around here. The house selling is a bit stressful... OUR realtor seems to call us with every little detail (usually to let us know that the buyers "are stressed out" about something) which is causing Jeff to "stress out." It's interesting. Usually he's the calm, cool and collected, laid-back, water-off-a-duck's-back guy and I'm the Type AAA, high-strung, wound-tighter-than-a-watch, stressed-out chic, but during this whole selling the house ordeal, our roles have been reversed. Which has caused us both to be stressed out because neither one of us knows how to handle the other one who's responding out of character. UGH!! anyway, the OTHER realtor told his clients (the buyers) something that is turning out to not be true (short version, we're in a 100 year flood plain because we've never hired the surveyors to come and have us taken out of the flood plain like both of our direct neighbors have had done, so we know we're never going to get flooded and our required-by-bank-flood insurance covers the house only and no contents with a $5000 deductible... the buyers got a quote for normal coverages - home plus contents with a much lower deductible- and received a much higher quote than what we said we paid so they wanted to have our policy transfer to them.. their realtor said the law requires insurance to be transferable, but it looks as if he is mistaken and now the buyers are "freaking out" at having to pay so much for flood insurance... ) anyway, I finally told our realtor to stop calling us until he was ready to schedule our closing time and to figure out the details himself. So far, so good. That was last week. Jeff's stress level seems to be much better.Got some bad news...KJ tested to get into an "enrichment" program in our new school district, he would be learning Spanish in a Dual Language Program. He had to score a 90 out of a 100 possible points. The test covered all kinds of things like letter & number recognition, counting, numbers, shapes, body parts.. you know, basically things he should know by the END of Kindergarten. (Since it's an "enrichment" program, it will be more difficult than normal kindergarten so they want the kids coming in to be ahead of things.) anyway, we got the call today to say that he didn't score a 90.. it was a message, so I don't know what his score was. I can't imagine it too far off since he knows pretty much everything mentioned except about 6 or so letters... This was a big disappointment for me. I really wanted him to get in. It's always been my desire to have my kids be bilingual and when I found out about this program, I was so excited. I've been praying about it and praying about it and I was so sure that this was something we were supposed to be doing.. Oh well, I've been praying about a lot of things and struggling with what to do in many areas. It seems that I'm in a time of not getting my way about anything. God must be having a really tough time getting through to me, too, since I am having so many struggles in so many areas. One of those areas has been getting the pastors to allow me to change up the curriculum in our Sudnay School program. I've been considering and praying about going with a media-driven program for a while now. All of a sudden, quite a bit of money in my budget was freed-up (which I thought surely must mean that I should use it for TVs, which are integral if we are to go to a media-driven program). But then, I started getting push-back from the pastors. I was told when I was brought on that I could change curriculum if I wanted to.. so I wanted to and informed the pastors that I would be doing so. Then I was told that I couldn't just yet.. they wanted to talk about it. Evidently this was more than a curriculum change, it was a paradigm shift in the way that we teach Sunday School. I didn't see it as that at all, I saw it as a new tool we can use. But anyway, they are much wiser than I am in this area.. I mean, I am all about changing it up and that is not always a good thing in a church. So, after much consideration, we are going to give it a shot - in 2 of the classes, the oldest 2, 3rd & 4th graders and 5th & 6th graders. That is good. It's a start. I'm convinced that everyone will love it and that as soon as we start using it, all fears & thoughts that we're letting a DVD teach the class will be assuaged. Okay, I've got lots more to say, but don't want this to become cumbersome to read.. will post again soon.
Posted by Tess
Sunday, April 29, 2007
"Sure enough to have surgery!"
So, I finished up the last post with a tease of something that happened as we were buying our new house. Well, we're just finished up and the salesman is trying to print us our own copy of the papers, when KJ comes in from outside, SOBBING... WAILING. Obviously not hurt, but very upset. When we finally get him calmed down, we ask him what happened. All he can say is, "I'm very sorry, Daddy" We ask him why he's sorry and he says cuz he broke Daddy's window in "he car." "What do you mean, you broke Daddy's window? You aren't near Daddy's car.." "Come see" he says. We go to see, and yes indeed, he had broken out Daddy's window.. the rear passenger side window. "I was throwing rocks and it hit it and broke it." What fun!! So, Jeff goes out to clean u pthe mess out of the street and when he comes back in, the salesman is just finishing copying the papers, so Jeff sits down to wait. Jeff, with a smile on his face and a chuckle, says, "Hey, since that is going to cost me a couple hundred dollars, maybe y'all could give me a $200 discount." The salesman replies, in a very nasty tone of voice, "We've given you enough discounts already!!" I tell you what!! It's a good thing that this salesman doesn't come with the neighborhood or else we might not want to move in!! WOW!So, then we started to look AT furniture to sort of get an idea of how much it will cost. In our current house, the kitchen furniture is built in and we don't have a game room, so we'll need to furnish those two rooms. Well, all the kids were being kids and wanting to touch everything and sit on everything and I was constantly telling them, "No, don't touch that. No, don't touch that." and finally about 5 stores into the hunt, they were finally getting it. You may sit if you don't put your feet on the furniture, you may not skip, hop, bounce or run. You may touch the sofas and chairs, but not the tables or anything on tables. Even TL was doing GREAT! So, we're in a pretty high-end store and we're just about to leave - 8 feet from the door and TL decides to sit down on an area run next to a chair. He doesn't touch a thing. . . He does lean back to rest upon something though, and that something is a large, expensive vase... yep, you guessed it! It tumped and I wasn't fast enough! it broke. not quite as dramatic as the shattering of the car window, but as expensive, to say the least. The saleslady comes running and was very gracious - which was good, cuz he was being VERY obedient at the time... He is 2 and it was on the floor... we apologized and she explained that it happened probably 10 times a week.. goodness!! now I know why all the salespeople give me dirty looks when I walk into a store! Cuz of all the OTHER kids who aren't as well-behaved as mine.So last Friday night, Jeff and I got to head up to Dallas for a conference on volunteers. I was supposed to attend with my assistant from the children's ministry, but she has 2 disintigrating discs in her back and is unable to ride in a car that long, so Jeff came instead. The conference was good but Firday night was great. He and I both learned things that we can utilize in our ministries on Saturday. but Friday night was great! We got to hang out with each other and no kids and it was great!This weekend was busy... I was able to take half a dozen Sunday School teachers to a conference in Houston. Of course, we had to leave the church at 5am, but it was a good time. The conference went well, everyone learned some great stuff- and at least one teacher utilized something she learned yesterday in her class today... it's called a prayer walk and what you do is walk and pray for things as you walk.. so she took her class around the church and went into offices and by classrooms and into the tech area and prayed for the people and each of their ministries... I heard them at the janitor's closet and it was way cool.. and the kids were getting into it!! Anyway, we also had a good time together as a team. It was a real joy. We stopped on the way home and ate dinner together and when it was time to get back on the road, no-one wanted to leave. Good stuff.
Today Jeff left for Boston. It kind of bites when he travels, although I feel bad complaining about my husband being absent for a week when my friend's husband has just been informend that his tour of duty in Iraq has been extended from 12 months to 15 months and he had only 3 months of that tour left and now he has SIX!! (Be praying for him and for her - Scott & Gina Carow). But anyway, the kids, especially KJ, are really beginning to be bothered by his traveling. KJ was so mopey today at church that his Sunday School teacher mentioned it to me! :o(
The rest of us got to visit some friends that we've only seen a couple of times since we moved and it was a good visit (This is the first time we've seen their now 14 month old son.. Tre and Angela and Wesley). It makes me realize just how busy our lives are and how busy they shouldn't be. I hate that we are so busy that we don't have time for old friends. Life is about relationships and we're so crazy busy running from one place to the next we don't have time to cultivate relationships anymore. I told Angela to email me and that we need to set up a time and date to have some time together.. all of us from Austin and the 2 of us from SA need to just do it!! Just get together and catch up. I think I will plan it and see what happens.. maybe a day out on the lake!
TL is getting to be such a big boy. He's really not a baby anymore. He's a full blown bonafide toddler... Yes, yes, I know.. he has not been a baby for a while but he still had baby-like qualities.. you know, just those cute baby things.. and I watch him now and he's growing out of those things.. there are still a couple left, like the crib and naps and the high-chair... but he's growing up.. and he's our last little baby. I asked Jeff a few weeks ago if he was sure that we really didn't want anymore babies... He answered, "Sure enough to have surgery!"
To explain the picture- For KJ's 5th birthday, he had a super-hero training camp and all teh kids wore their superhero costumes.. well, it was the last minute when I realized that TL didn't have a superhero costume.. So, I dyed a pair of tights blue, put a pair of KJ's red underwear on top of that, then took JM's red socks and a Snow White cape from the dress-up chest... to finish the look, I penciled in a mustache- VOILA!!! NACHO LIBRE!! This is Jeff's very favorite movie, fyi.. and he quotes from it all the time. So, to that end, here is the caption for the picture.. "Yes, it is true! I am Nacho.. Nacho Libre."
Posted by Tess
Saturday, April 21, 2007
"We did It!"
I feel like Dora... "We sold our house and passed the inspection, yeah we did it.. We found a spec house we like and made a low-ball offer that was accepted, yeah we did it, WE DID IT!!.. " What a week! Here goes. Our home was inspected on Monday, but we have waited all week, sometimes patiently, sometimes not so patiently, but we did finally hear back and they want only like 4 things fixed.. so we're good. Fix screens and replace missing ones was one of the items, put lubricant on some electric something-something was another. Fix the "Roof Jacks" - the seals around all those things that stick out of the roof - and finally, a sink has a valve that sticks which means that if it ever has to be loosened and then tightened it most likely will start to leak, so they want it lubed.. Okay.. sounds good to us! We still haven't seen the whole list, but at this point - who cares! we have what they want us to fix and that is all we need. In the meantime....
We made an offer on a spec home... well, let me just start by saying that according to the sales folks at several new home sales offices and our very own realtor, you just don't make offers on new homes. You pay what they tell you to pay. That is just how it works. Well, we went to anotherneighborhood and saw a floorplan that we both really like (DR Horton - the Arden) and we loved the neighborhood (has all the things Jeff really wanted like a pool and 3 sides brick standard and even some bonuses like lots of wooded areas and walking trails). Anyway, the spec home we saw was slated to be ready to close on May 31st, which is our closing date. Now we don't get to choose all the options, however, all the options we would've chosen(and then some) were included. So, as we walk into the sales office, the sales lady informs us that if we finance through their mortgage company, they will give us a $17,000 discount. Well, we've done our homework and we know that while the housing market in the San Antonio is doing well, in the rest of the country the housing market is in a slowdown. Specifically DR Horton -across the board - lost something like 17 % (or points or something, I dunno) in the first quarter AND they've even experienced some lay-offs. So armed with this knowledge, Jeff and I decide to ask for MORE!! We asked them to knock off a total of $21,500. It took a while to recieve their response, and they did counter, but they came back with a total discount of $20,500!! In the words of a friend of ours (Kelly Craighead), "Sweet Action!" What a testimony to what God can do.. I mean even as we were writing up the offer, the sales guy was telling us- and asking our realtor to verify it- that they just don't negotiate.. they don't take "offers" on new homes.. "don't get your hopes up!" he said. In fact, he didn't even ask us for ernest money, our realtor pointed out! So, it's times like this when you have to say, "Check out what God can do!"
Very exciting stuff for us. We took the kids with us to close and ... well, I'd better save something for tomorrow's post.
To explain the pictures...the first is at the front door, looking up from the dining room to the upstairs - I just love the banisters!! I think they're so pretty. Next is from the top of the stairs-in the gameroom- looking down at the dining room and front door and entryway. Third picture is of the kids rolling around on the floor in the game room.. they were so excited, they were going crazy! Finally is a snapshot of the kitchen. These are just to give you an idea.
Posted by Tess
"We did It!"
I feel like Dora... "We sold our house and passed the inspection, yeah we did it.. We found a spec house we like and made a low-ball offer that was accepted, yeah we did it, WE DID IT!!.. " What a week! Here goes. Our home was inspected on Monday, but we have waited all week, sometimes patiently, sometimes not so patiently, but we did finally hear back and they want only like 4 things fixed.. so we're good. Fix screens and replace missing ones was one of the items, put lubricant on some electric something-something was another. Fix the "Roof Jacks" - the seals around all those things that stick out of the roof - and finally, a sink has a valve that sticks which means that if it ever has to be loosened and then tightened it most likely will start to leak, so they want it lubed.. Okay.. sounds good to us! We still haven't seen the whole list, but at this point - who cares! we have what they want us to fix and that is all we need. In the meantime....
We made an offer on a spec home... well, let me just start by saying that according to the sales folks at several new home sales offices and our very own realtor, you just don't make offers on new homes. You pay what they tell you to pay. That is just how it works. Well, we went to anotherneighborhood and saw a floorplan that we both really like (DR Horton - the Arden) and we loved the neighborhood (has all the things Jeff really wanted like a pool and 3 sides brick standard and even some bonuses like lots of wooded areas and walking trails). Anyway, the spec home we saw was slated to be ready to close on May 31st, which is our closing date. Now we don't get to choose all the options, however, all the options we would've chosen(and then some) were included. So, as we walk into the sales office, the sales lady informs us that if we finance through their mortgage company, they will give us a $17,000 discount. Well, we've done our homework and we know that while the housing market in the San Antonio is doing well, in the rest of the country the housing market is in a slowdown. Specifically DR Horton -across the board - lost something like 17 % (or points or something, I dunno) in the first quarter AND they've even experienced some lay-offs. So armed with this knowledge, Jeff and I decide to ask for MORE!! We asked them to knock off a total of $21,500. It took a while to recieve their response, and they did counter, but they came back with a total discount of $20,500!! In the words of a friend of ours (Kelly Craighead), "Sweet Action!" What a testimony to what God can do.. I mean even as we were writing up the offer, the sales guy was telling us- and asking our realtor to verify it- that they just don't negotiate.. they don't take "offers" on new homes.. "don't get your hopes up!" he said. In fact, he didn't even ask us for ernest money, our realtor pointed out! So, it's times like this when you have to say, "Check out what God can do!"
Very exciting stuff for us. We took the kids with us to close and ... well, I'd better save something for tomorrow's post.
To explain the pictures...the first is at the front door, looking up from the dining room to the upstairs - I just love the banisters!! I think they're so pretty. Next is from the top of the stairs-in the gameroom- looking down at the dining room and front door and entryway. Third picture is of the kids rolling around on the floor in the game room.. they were so excited, they were going crazy! Finally is a snapshot of the kitchen. These are just to give you an idea.
Posted by Tess
Home Sweet Home
So, our house has been on the market since the 2nd week in March. In that period of time, we have had over FORTY showings!!! In fact, we had so many that I actually lost count. Over and over, people came to see our house and over and over they left without making an offer on it. This has the potential to bum one out! Last weekend (as in a week ago), Jeff returned from his trip to DC and asked if we'd had any showings, any news.. well, I told him that while yes we had had some showings, still no offer and that I was feeling more and more distraught, thinking, "Is our home really so undesirable?" and "Why is it that we have so many people interested in walking through it, but not interested in making an offer on it?" (I know someone who had 4 showings in 4 months! and I'm told that is sort of the norm...) so what is the dealio? I asked Jeff. He said that while he was in DC he had really been praying about that, too. And then he offered up something he had thought of.
Out of the 40+ showings, probably 1/3 of those offered some sort of feedback and it was always the same - the master bath is too small, or they didn't like the fact that the entire downstairs would share the master bath. But every one of the realtors who commented said that they loved the house, that is shows well and they don't expect it to stay on the market for long... So, God, what's up? we're both thinking... Here's what Jeff said. For us to have so many realtors say that it wouldn't last and have so many people look without making an offer, God must be reaching out His hand and keeping people from making an offer. He must be shielding us from the wrong offer. You know, it's amazing what the proper perspective can do for you.. I mean, I have faith. I know that God is in control of this and all situations, but it can still be frustrating as you deal with the flesh.. But when you take a look at it from a different perspective, it looks so different. When I think of it that way, I get so very excited!! I think, once again, the God of the universe, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, the God who walked with Adam and Eve in the garden, the God who led the Isrealites out of Egypt and held back the Red Sea -- that same God is holding back the wrong buyers and all He is asking of us is to have the faith to wait for HIS timing.. Wow! that is so incredible.. and so very humbling at the same time.. I mean that I didn't have the patience to wait on Him. blaechhh. I've written it before and I'm sure it will become a major theme as I keep this updated, but man, stumbling sure is humbling! Hey that is pretty catchy. It makes me realize how far to go I still have in my walk with Christ. and it makes me realize how patient God is that He never gets tired of teaching me the same thing over and over. Thank you, Lord!
So, we did get an offer (not too bad), we countered (even better) and they accepted. The buyers are from out of state and are leaving today and they wanted to have the inspection done before they left, so it was done last night. We haven't heard the results yet, but are told by our realtor that if there had been anything major we probably would have already heard something... so that looks great. There is a possibility that the buyers will shorten the option period which means that there will be less than 10 days for them to pull out for any reason what-so-ever (which is excellent for us). We have requested that they then get an appraiser out here immediately upon the end of the option period so that we can be sure that they will be able to buy our house for what we have agreed upon. Evidentally, with the housing market the way it is right now, there are 2 FBI agents in town investigating appraisers to see if they are artificially inflating prices in our area.. This means that the appraisers may be a bit on the cautious side. And our sales price is a bit higher than most around us (of course, we've updated the kitchen with Silestone countertops and a granite sink and new cabinets facings, as well as installed laminate flooring in the entire downstairs area - and that was spendy!.. additionally, our backyard is a bit larger than any around us and we back a greenbelt and have only 1 neighbor we share fence with...)
Anyway, all of this to say that my worrier husband is still a bit nervous... but we have already headed out to see what houses are available in our time frame (we're closing on May 31st). We've pretty much exhausted the market of pre-owned homes.. we keep looking at them and thinking to ourselves, "we could pay that much and get a brand new home that we wouldn't have to replace anything or paint anywhere" so we're really considering new construction.. of course, that means living in an apartment for several months. UNLESS we find a spec home that we love. We did find one yesterday that we both like and that has all the upgrades that we would have chosen (except for the countertops) however, the dining room seems a bit on the small side.. but still doable. I do believe that we are heading out again this afternoon to visit 2 more neighborhoods and see what they have available for move-in on May 31st. So, be praying... I really love 3 floorplans in one neighborhood and we would be one of the 1st families which could be very strategic for our church plant, however, Jeff really doesn't like the neighborhood (although he agrees that their floorplans rock and he likes them the best) ... anyway.. we'll see where it all leads. And I will keep you posted.
For those of you reading, but having never visited my home, here are a couple of the pix taken by the realtor.
Posted by Tess
Monday, April 16, 2007
Camping Fun? Hail Yes!!
Let me start by saying that Jeff and I are new to the world of camping. We've been before but only a time or two.. Let me add to that by saying I was in the US Air Force where I did weather for 4 years, including 2 years in Germany. Now let me tell you about our weekend camping adventure.
We arrived early and spent over an hour in line to check in (Kelly and Dawn had already paid for our camp site, we just needed a sticker for the window). There were not that many people ahead of us, maybe 9 - 12 sets of folks. Eventually we did get through this and get to our site. Lovely site, lots of shade, lots of room. Kelly and Dawn have already set up their tent and a second tent with 3 sections connected together. They figured that the girls could sleep on one side, the boys on the other and one adult couple would sleep in the middle. We quickly set up our large tent and a tiny one to put our clothes in.
Earlier in the week we had checked the weather and it was supposed to be around 82 all weekend. Last minute on Friday morning, Jeff heard it was supposed to be "a bit chilly" and so we exchanged our shorts for jeans and a couple lightweight long sleeved shirts. Jeff and I grabbed a sweatshirt each for the evenings around the campfire. That was it. Wait, TL ended up with a coat somehow. So, after the tents are pitched, we have supper and head off to go swimming. Then the weather shifted. We felt the temperature drop about 10-15 degrees in about as many minutes. Then came the rain. Then came the hail. and not just any hail, we're talking huge hail!! This stuff was bigger than golf balls!! I would have to say about the size of large lemons or tangerines. It was amazing. The kids huddled into the kid tent with Dawn and watched a movie while the rest of the adults headed to their cars. Man is hail ever loud when it's hitting your car. I honestly thought that our windshield was going to crack. But it didn't and everything calmed down after about 15 minutes or so. Eventually the rain stopped as well.
So, we check out our tent... there was a small leak, but big enough to saturate all of the bedding! and the kids tent, turns out the 3 sections are connected, but there is mud in between each section and therefore mud inside, and it is very late by now, so everyone opts to keep the kids with their own parents in an effort to get everyone to sleep more quickly. But what are we going to do? Our tent is wet and our bedding is wet... and the little tent isn't big enough for 3 kids (TL is sleeping in our tent cuz he's too little not to.) We solve the problem in a fun way... Jeff gets our medium tent set up, which is just a little too small to put the queen size mattress in.. but then he fears that it may rain again and he's unsure whether this tent will weather the weather.. he's not used it since college.. so, his solution? I wish I had a picture of this... He takes the medium tent, sets it up inside the large tent and then puts the queen mattress that doesn't actually fit into the medium tent - INSIDE the medium tent which is now inside the large tent. Then ALL SIX of us lie down and sleep together on this queen size mattress in this tent that is too small... What a riot we must have looked! Jeff's feet and mine hanging out of the opening, all of us squished in there like sardines!! But we survived.. and the kids of course loved it!! Jeff, on the other hand... not so much.. he has a hard time sleeping anywhere other than his own bed under the best conditions, and this wasn't the best of conditions!
The next morning we all get up and it's like 40 degrees outside... As I mentioned, TL is the only one with a jacket... So, he's good to go.. the rest of us.. well, I had on 2 pairs of capris and IS ended up with 2 turtlenecks and then a long sleeved shirt on top of that.. JM had a turtleneck, then a longsleeved shirt and then a cute little velour sweatshirt and pants, and KJ, well he had a hoodie and some "loud pants" (you know the ones that swish when you walk and make a lot of noise, but they're kind of wind resistant) and another longsleeved shirt... Not once did the kids complain about the cold, although at one point JM was walking to the car (which we ran for a while with the heater on), hands straight down beside her, saying, "Brrrr, Brrrr, Brrrr, Brrrr, Brrrr." It was pretty cute. She hung out inside for a while and then was off to find her best friend, Josie to play.
We hung a pinata and cracked it open in celebration of IS's birthday - which was Friday. The kids loved that. Afterwards some of the kids played baseball with Snow White's head and eventually Josie (4 years old) grabbed it and gently carried it around for a while.. For an afternoon snack, we all enjoyed birthday cake. It had 4 princesses on it and IS, in her typical generous, sweet, self offered each girl there 1 princess ( there were 4 girls total).. I was so proud of her. It was her idea, not mine.
That day we played kickball... what a hoot. All the adults had to use their "bad" feet to kick and then either hop or walk to the bases.. and the kids .. they were all crying!!! One little 2 year old could not understand why he couldn't just hold the ball or kick it around by himself... IS didn't want to be in the outfield, she wanted only to kick.. KJ did good - he's so naturally gifted athletically.. JM kept missing the ball when she kicked but eventually would get it and giggle. What about TL you ask? Well, he spent the entire game walking in, jumping in, and eventually lying down in puddles around the perimeter of the field! Keep in mind, this is in maybe 55 degree weather!! What a blast.
Later that afternoon, all the big kids and the men went off on a hike which lasted 2 hours and took them to the top of a very steep hill and into "Crystal Cave" which, as the name suggests, had crystals in it. Jeff said he was amazed at how well KJ did and IS, too. and no complaining!! WOW! They're getting so big!
As we awoke on Sunday morning, I went to warm up in the truck and checked the thermastat - 38 degrees at 730, which means we were probably around 36 degrees right before sunrise which is when the night is at its coldest... that is cold to be sleeping on the ground outside (even if that outside is inside a tent!) But the kids didn't mind - again! In fact, Dawn thought ahead and brought worship music for them and we held our own little worship service which included jumping up and down and running around and praising the Lord! Jeff and I joined in- it was a lot of fun! Then I promptly dropped my engagement ring onto the ground amidst all these leaves which had been blown to the ground in the storm on Friday night... There were several long minutes of searching and not moving until Addie finally found it... Phew! That would have been one very expensive camping trip had it been lost!
We packed up and prepared to leave, only to find that KJ had decided to take another hike! He and the other boys sweet-talked one of the dads into taking them up the mountain (this dad had arrived after the hike the day before and didn't realize what he was committing himself to). Jeff set out after them and eventually caught up to them but they had made quite a bit of ground. Eventually, we were able to take off, just a little later than we had wanted... What fun!! If we were spur of the moment, impulse shoppers, we probably would have hit Academy (Sports and Outdoors store) and purchased every bit of camping gear they had.. We had such a good time!! and the kids had a blast, too.
As if that weren't enough, (keep in mind, Jeff didn't sleep either night) when we arrived home, we had a message saying that we had an offer on the house, but they needed to move quickly!! ..... More to come.....
Posted by Tess
Camping Fun? Hail Yes!!
Let me start by saying that Jeff and I are new to the world of camping. We've been before but only a time or two.. Let me add to that by saying I was in the US Air Force where I did weather for 4 years, including 2 years in Germany. Now let me tell you about our weekend camping adventure.
We arrived early and spent over an hour in line to check in (Kelly and Dawn had already paid for our camp site, we just needed a sticker for the window). There were not that many people ahead of us, maybe 9 - 12 sets of folks. Eventually we did get through this and get to our site. Lovely site, lots of shade, lots of room. Kelly and Dawn have already set up their tent and a second tent with 3 sections connected together. They figured that the girls could sleep on one side, the boys on the other and one adult couple would sleep in the middle. We quickly set up our large tent and a tiny one to put our clothes in.
Earlier in the week we had checked the weather and it was supposed to be around 82 all weekend. Last minute on Friday morning, Jeff heard it was supposed to be "a bit chilly" and so we exchanged our shorts for jeans and a couple lightweight long sleeved shirts. Jeff and I grabbed a sweatshirt each for the evenings around the campfire. That was it. Wait, TL ended up with a coat somehow. So, after the tents are pitched, we have supper and head off to go swimming. Then the weather shifted. We felt the temperature drop about 10-15 degrees in about as many minutes. Then came the rain. Then came the hail. and not just any hail, we're talking huge hail!! This stuff was bigger than golf balls!! I would have to say about the size of large lemons or tangerines. It was amazing. The kids huddled into the kid tent with Dawn and watched a movie while the rest of the adults headed to their cars. Man is hail ever loud when it's hitting your car. I honestly thought that our windshield was going to crack. But it didn't and everything calmed down after about 15 minutes or so. Eventually the rain stopped as well.
So, we check out our tent... there was a small leak, but big enough to saturate all of the bedding! and the kids tent, turns out the 3 sections are connected, but there is mud in between each section and therefore mud inside, and it is very late by now, so everyone opts to keep the kids with their own parents in an effort to get everyone to sleep more quickly. But what are we going to do? Our tent is wet and our bedding is wet... and the little tent isn't big enough for 3 kids (TL is sleeping in our tent cuz he's too little not to.) We solve the problem in a fun way... Jeff gets our medium tent set up, which is just a little too small to put the queen size mattress in.. but then he fears that it may rain again and he's unsure whether this tent will weather the weather.. he's not used it since college.. so, his solution? I wish I had a picture of this... He takes the medium tent, sets it up inside the large tent and then puts the queen mattress that doesn't actually fit into the medium tent - INSIDE the medium tent which is now inside the large tent. Then ALL SIX of us lie down and sleep together on this queen size mattress in this tent that is too small... What a riot we must have looked! Jeff's feet and mine hanging out of the opening, all of us squished in there like sardines!! But we survived.. and the kids of course loved it!! Jeff, on the other hand... not so much.. he has a hard time sleeping anywhere other than his own bed under the best conditions, and this wasn't the best of conditions!
The next morning we all get up and it's like 40 degrees outside... As I mentioned, TL is the only one with a jacket... So, he's good to go.. the rest of us.. well, I had on 2 pairs of capris and IS ended up with 2 turtlenecks and then a long sleeved shirt on top of that.. JM had a turtleneck, then a longsleeved shirt and then a cute little velour sweatshirt and pants, and KJ, well he had a hoodie and some "loud pants" (you know the ones that swish when you walk and make a lot of noise, but they're kind of wind resistant) and another longsleeved shirt... Not once did the kids complain about the cold, although at one point JM was walking to the car (which we ran for a while with the heater on), hands straight down beside her, saying, "Brrrr, Brrrr, Brrrr, Brrrr, Brrrr." It was pretty cute. She hung out inside for a while and then was off to find her best friend, Josie to play.
We hung a pinata and cracked it open in celebration of IS's birthday - which was Friday. The kids loved that. Afterwards some of the kids played baseball with Snow White's head and eventually Josie (4 years old) grabbed it and gently carried it around for a while.. For an afternoon snack, we all enjoyed birthday cake. It had 4 princesses on it and IS, in her typical generous, sweet, self offered each girl there 1 princess ( there were 4 girls total).. I was so proud of her. It was her idea, not mine.
That day we played kickball... what a hoot. All the adults had to use their "bad" feet to kick and then either hop or walk to the bases.. and the kids .. they were all crying!!! One little 2 year old could not understand why he couldn't just hold the ball or kick it around by himself... IS didn't want to be in the outfield, she wanted only to kick.. KJ did good - he's so naturally gifted athletically.. JM kept missing the ball when she kicked but eventually would get it and giggle. What about TL you ask? Well, he spent the entire game walking in, jumping in, and eventually lying down in puddles around the perimeter of the field! Keep in mind, this is in maybe 55 degree weather!! What a blast.
Later that afternoon, all the big kids and the men went off on a hike which lasted 2 hours and took them to the top of a very steep hill and into "Crystal Cave" which, as the name suggests, had crystals in it. Jeff said he was amazed at how well KJ did and IS, too. and no complaining!! WOW! They're getting so big!
As we awoke on Sunday morning, I went to warm up in the truck and checked the thermastat - 38 degrees at 730, which means we were probably around 36 degrees right before sunrise which is when the night is at its coldest... that is cold to be sleeping on the ground outside (even if that outside is inside a tent!) But the kids didn't mind - again! In fact, Dawn thought ahead and brought worship music for them and we held our own little worship service which included jumping up and down and running around and praising the Lord! Jeff and I joined in- it was a lot of fun! Then I promptly dropped my engagement ring onto the ground amidst all these leaves which had been blown to the ground in the storm on Friday night... There were several long minutes of searching and not moving until Addie finally found it... Phew! That would have been one very expensive camping trip had it been lost!
We packed up and prepared to leave, only to find that KJ had decided to take another hike! He and the other boys sweet-talked one of the dads into taking them up the mountain (this dad had arrived after the hike the day before and didn't realize what he was committing himself to). Jeff set out after them and eventually caught up to them but they had made quite a bit of ground. Eventually, we were able to take off, just a little later than we had wanted... What fun!! If we were spur of the moment, impulse shoppers, we probably would have hit Academy (Sports and Outdoors store) and purchased every bit of camping gear they had.. We had such a good time!! and the kids had a blast, too.
As if that weren't enough, (keep in mind, Jeff didn't sleep either night) when we arrived home, we had a message saying that we had an offer on the house, but they needed to move quickly!! ..... More to come.....
Posted by Tess
Saturday, April 7, 2007
Good Friday is good indeed.
When IS turned 3, we had a tea party with full dress up and make-up - a perfect Princess party. For her 4th birthday, she wanted a princess party and got one, complete with a princess cake which was a barbie doll in a cake skirt. When she turned 5, she got a bit diverted and wanted a Mexican party, but when she turned 6, it was back to princesses.. We sent out royal invitations to her ball - Come in formal ball attire - and we did it up Cinderella style. The fairy godmother arrived with glass slippers for each little girl in attendance and the cake was something out of a fairy tale. To end the afternoon, IS, KJ and JM got to go downtown and go for a carriage ride - in their ball gowns of course. It was the beginning of FIESTA and the new king for FIESTA 2006 had just been announced, so as we rode around in the horse drawn carriage, everyone downtown pointed to the princesses and oohhed and ahhed, which made them feel regal. How do you follow that!? Well, how about with a little help from Disney!! Princesses on Ice is in town and I talked to Belley and explained how she coudl go to see the show OR have a big ole honkin birthday party... She opted for the show and away we went! and What a show! This was my first Disney experience and it was well worth the money. We got the 3rd most expensive seats (out of 4 price ranges) but we still had wonderful seats. We could see great and it was a blast.
There were 6 Disney princesses featured and Cinderella was last which meant a long wait for IS, but for JM, Tinkerbell was the one who changed scenes and Arial's sequence was early and significant and so she was in heaven. What a hoot to watch her sit on the edge of her seat and yell at the top of her lungs, "Tinkerbell!!" (see picture) every time tink came out. And then for Arial's part, there were 2 songs before she actually took the ice... During the second song, all of Arial's sisters were introduced and as each one came out, JM yelled, "Where's the REAL Arial?" Once Arial did come out, she remained in her mermaid form only for a brief time before losing her fins and sprouting legs. Now, keeping in mind that her tail was simply a pair of pants with <> pointy things sticky out around the ankles to give the illusion of fins, Arial lost the fins and grew legs. Poor JM (who has never actually watched the movie and doesn't realize that Arial gets legs), She kept asking me what happened to her tail and when was she going to get it back.. very upsetting, but it didn't keep her from enjoying the rest of the show.
Finally, Cinderella arrived in royal fashion, in an incredible carriage all aglow.. At the dance both Anastasia and Druscella kept tripping and falling and IS just giggled and laughed and laughed (see picture)..
Oma, Aunt Kelly and cousin Liz came with us and Aunt Kelly insisted on buying the girls each a crown (light up, of course) and IS a wonderful light up, color-changing, song-singing wand as well! Wow, what a way to celebrate your 7th birthday if you're a pretty little girly princess!
And as an added bonus, Daddy returned to us. Although he was gone only a week, it certainly seemed much longer this time around. He thought so, too. We were all ready to head out to the airport to greet his "AIRPORK!!!!!" (which is what TL calls airplanes- airporks and always is said at the very top of his lungs in quick repetition!) anyway, he was due to arrive at 4:56. He calls around 3:45 and informs us that although he had run from one terminal to another and had arrived five minutes early for his flight, Continental decided that it should leave 5 minutes early!! and Jeff was not the only one left behind... there were two other men who got left as well... now these men weren't late, they were on time, early in fact... but the plane took off early. HMMM... I asked Jeff if he threw a fit in the terminal, (you know, like I would have- truly setting a wonderful example of Christ) and he - of course - said, "No." Good thing he was flying not me... what a bust of a Christian I feel like sometimes!! Good thing God is in charge!! or I'd be in serious trouble! Anyway, so he did finally arrive, at 7:24 and we were there to greet him. Each child had their very own Welcome Home, or Our Daddy Rocks or We Missed You or We Love You sign that they were holding. (There were 3 little kids next to us with a big poster welcoming home their parents from their honeymoon!) We missed the Good Friday service, but we had a good time at home enjoying our Daddy and husband's company, so it was a good friday after all.
Posted by Tess
Good Friday is good indeed.
When IS turned 3, we had a tea party with full dress up and make-up - a perfect Princess party. For her 4th birthday, she wanted a princess party and got one, complete with a princess cake which was a barbie doll in a cake skirt. When she turned 5, she got a bit diverted and wanted a Mexican party, but when she turned 6, it was back to princesses.. We sent out royal invitations to her ball - Come in formal ball attire - and we did it up Cinderella style. The fairy godmother arrived with glass slippers for each little girl in attendance and the cake was something out of a fairy tale. To end the afternoon, IS, KJ and JM got to go downtown and go for a carriage ride - in their ball gowns of course. It was the beginning of FIESTA and the new king for FIESTA 2006 had just been announced, so as we rode around in the horse drawn carriage, everyone downtown pointed to the princesses and oohhed and ahhed, which made them feel regal. How do you follow that!? Well, how about with a little help from Disney!! Princesses on Ice is in town and I talked to Belley and explained how she coudl go to see the show OR have a big ole honkin birthday party... She opted for the show and away we went! and What a show! This was my first Disney experience and it was well worth the money. We got the 3rd most expensive seats (out of 4 price ranges) but we still had wonderful seats. We could see great and it was a blast.
There were 6 Disney princesses featured and Cinderella was last which meant a long wait for IS, but for JM, Tinkerbell was the one who changed scenes and Arial's sequence was early and significant and so she was in heaven. What a hoot to watch her sit on the edge of her seat and yell at the top of her lungs, "Tinkerbell!!" (see picture) every time tink came out. And then for Arial's part, there were 2 songs before she actually took the ice... During the second song, all of Arial's sisters were introduced and as each one came out, JM yelled, "Where's the REAL Arial?" Once Arial did come out, she remained in her mermaid form only for a brief time before losing her fins and sprouting legs. Now, keeping in mind that her tail was simply a pair of pants with <> pointy things sticky out around the ankles to give the illusion of fins, Arial lost the fins and grew legs. Poor JM (who has never actually watched the movie and doesn't realize that Arial gets legs), She kept asking me what happened to her tail and when was she going to get it back.. very upsetting, but it didn't keep her from enjoying the rest of the show.
Finally, Cinderella arrived in royal fashion, in an incredible carriage all aglow.. At the dance both Anastasia and Druscella kept tripping and falling and IS just giggled and laughed and laughed (see picture)..
Oma, Aunt Kelly and cousin Liz came with us and Aunt Kelly insisted on buying the girls each a crown (light up, of course) and IS a wonderful light up, color-changing, song-singing wand as well! Wow, what a way to celebrate your 7th birthday if you're a pretty little girly princess!
And as an added bonus, Daddy returned to us. Although he was gone only a week, it certainly seemed much longer this time around. He thought so, too. We were all ready to head out to the airport to greet his "AIRPORK!!!!!" (which is what TL calls airplanes- airporks and always is said at the very top of his lungs in quick repetition!) anyway, he was due to arrive at 4:56. He calls around 3:45 and informs us that although he had run from one terminal to another and had arrived five minutes early for his flight, Continental decided that it should leave 5 minutes early!! and Jeff was not the only one left behind... there were two other men who got left as well... now these men weren't late, they were on time, early in fact... but the plane took off early. HMMM... I asked Jeff if he threw a fit in the terminal, (you know, like I would have- truly setting a wonderful example of Christ) and he - of course - said, "No." Good thing he was flying not me... what a bust of a Christian I feel like sometimes!! Good thing God is in charge!! or I'd be in serious trouble! Anyway, so he did finally arrive, at 7:24 and we were there to greet him. Each child had their very own Welcome Home, or Our Daddy Rocks or We Missed You or We Love You sign that they were holding. (There were 3 little kids next to us with a big poster welcoming home their parents from their honeymoon!) We missed the Good Friday service, but we had a good time at home enjoying our Daddy and husband's company, so it was a good friday after all.
Posted by Tess
Thursday, April 5, 2007
It's the Little Things that Matter Most
like hearing your husband's voice when he's out of town, even if it's not clearly understood, . like snuggling with your children. like anticipating a big event. like riding bikes...All of these things happened today and today was a good day. It started out not so good as I awoke with a scratchy, sore throat & a very mild fever and spent the entire morning napping. Finally up for good, the rest of the day was great. KJ had his Easter egg hunt today at school and came home with lots o' booty. On the car ride home, he gave each other child an egg filled with candy - with absolutley no prompting!! He was being generous all on his own.Our neighbor across the street brought each child a baggie filled with Easter goodies and $1. so we went to the Dollar Tree and the little ones were in hog heaven! As soon as we walked in, KJ saw a Spider Man poster and there was no turning back! IS and JM wanted wands to take to the show tomorrow, but we couldn't find any, so I told them we would make some when we got home. IS then decided upon a princess caddy of lipstick and nail polish. JM, armed with 2 dollars (one extra from her teacher) picked a "strawberry CUPcake" coloring book and a mermaid... pink, with a tail that lights up. TL didn't really understand that he got to buy something, but no problem. He immediately found a big "stick" and began carrying it around the store. What fun! Just a dollar a kid and they had a ball.Upon returning home, the girls did indeed make wands. We cut out stars from cardboard and stuck them on the end of skewers. I tied curling ribbon around the skewers and the girls put glitter on the stars... voila!! instant wands!The rest of the evening was spent on wheels... TL scooting along on his tippy-toes on his tricycle (and falling smack dab onto his face no fewer than 3 times from the sidewalk to the street), KJ speeding along on his bicycle telling me what fun this is and how this girl was chasing him and he hit the curb (another story of his... in full detail)... JM rode for a while in a car, then opted to give the old pogo stick a whirl, okay, she asked me to hold it upright and then she stood on it. IS is a "wheel-wind" of activity... she goes from her big bike to her scooter to a skateboard and all the while smiling and giggling away.Then Daddy called and although it was a bad connection, we all enjoyed it. KJ told Daddy that he was "epercising" by riding his bike and JM said "we miss you, Daddy, soooo much." IS told about what all they had been doing and TL did, too... although his went something like this, "da, an den we on wide an I fel on my bicycle."And upon bedtime, it's the kisses. In our house, we don't just have goodnight kisses, we have all kinds of kisses. There's the "fish face" kiss (with cheecks pulled in), the "butterfly" kiss (with eyelashes on the cheek), the "eskimo" kiss (with noses), the "lion" or ""dinosaur" kiss (with lots of little kisses in between lots of roaring), the "puppy dog" kiss (a big juicy wet kiss)... and more! So after all these cute little faces come parading past me ready for their own special kisses it's time for bed. and we all know how sweet and cute and special a sleeping child is... Well, I've got FOUR!! :o)Like I said, it's the little things.
Posted by Tess
It's the Little Things that Matter Most
like hearing your husband's voice when he's out of town, even if it's not clearly understood, . like snuggling with your children. like anticipating a big event. like riding bikes...All of these things happened today and today was a good day. It started out not so good as I awoke with a scratchy, sore throat & a very mild fever and spent the entire morning napping. Finally up for good, the rest of the day was great. KJ had his Easter egg hunt today at school and came home with lots o' booty. On the car ride home, he gave each other child an egg filled with candy - with absolutley no prompting!! He was being generous all on his own.Our neighbor across the street brought each child a baggie filled with Easter goodies and $1. so we went to the Dollar Tree and the little ones were in hog heaven! As soon as we walked in, KJ saw a Spider Man poster and there was no turning back! IS and JM wanted wands to take to the show tomorrow, but we couldn't find any, so I told them we would make some when we got home. IS then decided upon a princess caddy of lipstick and nail polish. JM, armed with 2 dollars (one extra from her teacher) picked a "strawberry CUPcake" coloring book and a mermaid... pink, with a tail that lights up. TL didn't really understand that he got to buy something, but no problem. He immediately found a big "stick" and began carrying it around the store. What fun! Just a dollar a kid and they had a ball.Upon returning home, the girls did indeed make wands. We cut out stars from cardboard and stuck them on the end of skewers. I tied curling ribbon around the skewers and the girls put glitter on the stars... voila!! instant wands!The rest of the evening was spent on wheels... TL scooting along on his tippy-toes on his tricycle (and falling smack dab onto his face no fewer than 3 times from the sidewalk to the street), KJ speeding along on his bicycle telling me what fun this is and how this girl was chasing him and he hit the curb (another story of his... in full detail)... JM rode for a while in a car, then opted to give the old pogo stick a whirl, okay, she asked me to hold it upright and then she stood on it. IS is a "wheel-wind" of activity... she goes from her big bike to her scooter to a skateboard and all the while smiling and giggling away.Then Daddy called and although it was a bad connection, we all enjoyed it. KJ told Daddy that he was "epercising" by riding his bike and JM said "we miss you, Daddy, soooo much." IS told about what all they had been doing and TL did, too... although his went something like this, "da, an den we on wide an I fel on my bicycle."And upon bedtime, it's the kisses. In our house, we don't just have goodnight kisses, we have all kinds of kisses. There's the "fish face" kiss (with cheecks pulled in), the "butterfly" kiss (with eyelashes on the cheek), the "eskimo" kiss (with noses), the "lion" or ""dinosaur" kiss (with lots of little kisses in between lots of roaring), the "puppy dog" kiss (a big juicy wet kiss)... and more! So after all these cute little faces come parading past me ready for their own special kisses it's time for bed. and we all know how sweet and cute and special a sleeping child is... Well, I've got FOUR!! :o)Like I said, it's the little things.
Posted by Tess
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
I get frustrated more times before 8:30 am than most people do all day.
A week of frustrations is what this is.. Where to start? Well, let me explain the picture first of all. IS has always walked on her tippy-toes, in fact, ever since she COULD walk, she did. One of her nicknames is "Tippy-Toe Girl." Well, we discovered that this is not a good habit when it is as pervasive as it is with her. So, the specialist we saw encouraged us to do "whatever it takes" to get her off of her toes and onto her heels. **Yeah! Easy for him to say!** One key thing did happen while we were there, however. He made her wear a pair of hospital shorts in order to be able to see her feet and legs while she was walking. She hated these!! She cried the whole time she had them on and cried and cried until we took them off. **IDEA** We started a sticker chart with one sticker on each day she didn't walk on her toes at all, an X if she had to be told once to walk on her heels, no movies if she was told twice in one day & the third offense would be the wearing of the shorts for the remainder of the day. It was incredible!! For the next 2 weeks, she didn't walk on her toes EVEN ONCE!! This from the girl who couldn't take 3 consecutive steps on her heels just the day before!! Talk about an incentive!! Woo-Hoo! We thought we were in the clear... and then she started getting lazy.. Today, she walked on her tippy-toes twice in 30 minutes, so we changed the rule! I lovingly explained to her that if she wore them for the remainder of the day, she wouldn't like it so much that she wouldn't ever walk on her toes again. She believed me, that it was for her own good, but that didn't keep her from hiding in her room crying for the first half-hour or so. Finally she ventured down in a t-shirt so long it almost covered them up.. Good Try!! I tied up the edge so we could see the shorts and then snapped a picture for posterity... I told her that if she ever walked on her toes again, we'll look at the picture and she'll remember how embarrasing it is to her to wear the shorts, and that will help her... Frustration #1.
This morning, I spent a good amount of time curling my hair in an effort to get ready for work. I got everyone dressed and fed and we were doing great on time. I even had time to fix my own breakfast and eat it. Then I put the kids in the car and pulled down the ladder to the attic in order to run up quickly to get three Easter Baskets. (I had to have the Easter Eggs and basket turned in today for KJ's hunt on Thursday and JM & TL were having an egg hunt at school today as well.) Side Note: Last year, I couldn't find a couple of Easter baskets so I bought new ones.. I paid a little more for good quality ones that would last for the next several years. After Easter, the baskets went up to the attic and I've seen them a dozen times over the past year, including the past month or so. So I climbed the ladder this morning in 99% humidity to find the baskets. Well, it was too dark to see anything, so I went inside to find the flashlight. After searching in both of the junk drawers, where it is SUPPOSED to be, I couldn't find it. So, I head back out to the garage and rummage around to find a light. I find one, plug it in and it doesn't work. So I have to find another light which I do, but it is huge and bulky and ... anyway, I finally get this thing up the pull down-stairs and into the attic. I look around our very neat and very organized attic- and don't see them!!! I walk around, carefully, so as to not put my foot through the sheetrock... I lift things up, I look behind things, I look in every nook and cranny.. but to no avail! NO Easter Baskets!! So, I climb down and get into the car. It is now 9 minutes after 8... this quest for the holy grail has consumed over 20 minutes. Isabelle is officially late to school... and then I notice my hair in the rear-view mirror. Curls? What curls? It is nothing but frizz!! Frustration #2!
So we head off to drop of KJ (I emptied an Easter basket that the kids use to keep their crayons in for him to take to school.) Since the parking lot of his school is shared by our bank, I quickly (well, I thought it would be quick) go to cash a check as I need cash to pay for the women's retreat when I get to work. At the last minute, I change the amount on the check, initial it, and send in my driver's license. The gal asks me to send in a new check since there are 2 colors of ink. Not a happy camper, and in not a very nice voice I start to hassle her asking her why it's not good enough since I have initialed it... okay, okay.. I get out my checkbook and rewrite the check. I try to send it in but she still has the little tube thingee.. About now, a voice I recognize attached to a vague form I sort of recognize (we were 4 lanes away), asks me something. I reply that I need the tube and hold up the new check to show I've already written a new one. In my head I'm thinking, tick-tock! tick-tock! Let me stop for just a moment and explain something... Just last week, I pulled into the lane nearest the window, put the kids window in the back seat down so the tellers could see them. (They aren't allowed to ask for lollipops, but may have them if the tellers send them.) Anyway, as I was waiting, I noticed that they have a fish in a fish bowl. I point the fish out to the kids and they of course want to know its name. So, I push teller call and let them ask what his name is. The very nice young man (uh-oh) looks puzzled? "Name?" He and the other 2 gals all laugh and talk a bit amongst themselves and finally answer, "He doesn't have a name." So, I encourage the kids to come up with a name for their fish. In the meantime, I'm thinking what a great opportunity this will be to maybe make an impact for Christ. You know, it will give us something to talk about - the fish - that is unique to only me (& my kids, of course) and this will enable us to get a little bit personal, even if I am in the drive-through lane. "Pete" the kids say and so I push the button again. JuJu tells them that they should name the fish Pete. Everyone laughs and they agree. I get my money envelope and in it is a candy for everyone!! So, let's skip back to this morning.. the shape I vaguely recognized along with the voice? that guy!! (of course!!) What a wonderful witness I am for Jesus Christ!!! UGH!!! Frustration #3!!! It is at this moment I push the teller call button and apologize for my stinky attitude and how my morning was starting out rough, but I had no call to take it out on them and I asked them to forgive me. then I thanked them for trying to ensure that no-one was trying to rip me off by stealing money out of my account.. I also ensured them that Yes, I was a putz! I waited a moment and then relayed the question posed by JM, "So, How is Pete?" After a moment, it clicked and they all smiled and assured us that he was doing well, although he was probably hungry since they hadn't fed him yet. Thanks Lord that you can use us IN SPITE OF OURSELVES!
So, that was my morning... it sort of reminded me of that old Army commercial... We do more before 6 am than most people do all day... only my version this morning would have been, I get frustrated more times before 8:30 am than most people do all day.
Just to let you know, the rest of the day. Fine! You know, it's amazing what God can do when you spend the drive into work telling Him that you can't handle this kind of day and that you want to be His servant and not your own boss... It sure is a good thing that we are supposed to strive to be Christ-like, cuz it sure does serve to give you hope!
Posted by Tess
Sunday, April 1, 2007
The Language of Kids: Ah-la-la, God made HeSelf, My friend - "Nobody", & one of our pastors in a skirt
What fun children are!! There are so many things about them that are so fun and funny.. especially precious to me is how they speak. When they're little and trying to learn words (and grammar, for that matter) it cracks me up to hear what they come up with. Here are a few things heard around my house.TL (2 1/2 years old) "Ah-la-la" for JM, "Apple" for IS, "Wes" for yes, "Na-na" for any piece of fruit EXCEPT bananas - those he calls "apple"... Oh, one that we have tons of fun with is juice and shoes. He says them exactly the same way and he's fun to mess with. "May I have shuuss, pwease?" You want me to put your shoes on? No, not in the house. "NO!! Want SHUUSSS, Mom, SHUUUSSS" ! "Oh! You want JuJuBee! JuJu, Where are you? "NOOOO!!! SHUUSS!" at which point he tells me, "Hol' han' " (hold hand) and walks me to the fridge, pulls on the handle, climbs inside onto the ledge on the bottom and points to the MILK and says, "No want SHUUSS, please!" He's so incredibly polite, too. It's amazing. I still have to remind my 4, 5, & 6 year olds to say thank you and they never say "God bless you" when someone sneezes, however, Travis is all over it! and he's very proper about it, too... not just "thank you" but "Thank you for my shuus, Mom," "Thank you for my nana, Mom," and unsolicited "God bless you, Mom" when I sneeze or even cough. JM (4 years old) "dwess" for dress, "crowns" for crayons, "oh, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha" (used correctly and always in groups of three)... However pronouns elude her comprehension completely. She never gets them correct. "Where is HIM going?" "Her wants a toy." Recently, we were talking and she asked me, "Mommy, if God made everything, who made God?" I replied that God has always been around and that no-one made Him. To which she replied, "Oh! God made HESELF" Cute observation made even cuter! And do NOT call her "Ah-la-la" (which I absolutely adore!! How cute is that!?) Not her, she tells TL, "No! Not Ah-la-la! My name is JuJuBee. Say it. Say JU (he answers, 'shuuu'), JU ('shuuu'), BEE" ('bee').. And it seems to be working, ho only calls her Ah-la-la on occasion. Now for the most part, it is "ShuuuuShuuuuBee."KJ (5 years old) His grammar is pretty good and most of his language is pretty good, too. But he still says some funny things. For example, the other day, up and out of the blue he says to me, "Mommy, I have 3 daddies." I said "3? How do you figure?" He answered, "God is my Daddy, Daddy is my daddy and the policeman is my daddy." Now exactly which policeman that is, I don't know! I questioned him thoroughly to try to understand where this thought had come from, but to no avail. You know, he got up from nap one day with a big ole' honkin' scratch on his face. I asked him where it came from, how he got it. To this day (& this was several months ago), all I know from him is that a mean lion came into his room and tackled him, but KJ grabbed him and "threw him out the window." Recently, he told Jeff and me about a new child in his class at school. Her name is "Nobody" and she is 7 years old (in his preschool of 4 & 5 year olds) and she has long curly brown hair and she was his very good friend who pushed him on the swing. What imagination!!!IS (6 years old and 11.5 months old) When she was little, she called broccoli "broc-broc" and to this day, we still call it that as well. Hot Dogs were "Uh-Ohs" and KJ was "Tah-Doe". Altough her speech is much improved, she still makes me smile with language. This one cracks herself up! She and KJ do "silly jokes" back and forth where they will tell jokes or act silly. Today, we went to some friends' house for an egg hunt and cake and ice cream to celebrate a birthday. (our friend, Mr. Kelly was born on April Fool's Day and it shows! He tells punny jokes and thinks that he is hilarious!) So, on the way home from taking Daddy to the airport, IS tells me that it is 3 things - Mr. Kelly's birthday, the 1st day of April and the day daddy is leaving. I tell her that it is also a holiday. I explain how you can play "silly jokes" on people on this holiday and that Mr Kelly LOVES silly jokes. So we get home and all the kids make Mr. Kelly birthday cards. IS is giggling like crazy and the other kids are laughing as well. I go to see what is so funny and this is what she has written on Mr. Kelly's card. "Mr. Kelly, I hope you have a Happy Birthday. You are wearing lipstick and have spiky hair and curly too. You are wearing a skirt." Along next to the lettering, she had drawn a picture of Mr. Kelly in all of his glory with spiky & curly hair, in a skirt, with bright red lips!! As I mentioned, Jeff has flown the coup! He is off to DC, our nation's capitol, for training. I hate it when he is gone.. there are the obvious reasons, but especially because I have a very difficult time falling to sleep without him here. On the upside, though, whenever he's gone, I pick a different chitlin each night to sleep with me. I haven't decided which one tonight, yet.. I must select from the Wiggle Worm, the NOISY thumbsucker, the early bird who wakes at 5:45 or the heater. Hmmmm. Decisions, decisions.
Posted by Tess
Monday, March 26, 2007
God Answers Prayer in RealTime
A marathon starts with a 1st step. Then the runner continues to put one step in front of the next one. Even if they stumble, they continue.Life is so much more important than a race, although Paul likens it to one. So many people want something more of their life. How any people will do anything about it? Some may try only to stumble and not get up. This is it... we've got one and only one chance. 80 or so years on this planet. 80 or so years to make the most of what God has given us.I blew my first 29 years! And boy how! What a waste. I lived as far away from God as I could. All the while I was fleeing Him, His Holy Spirit was inside of me, holding on tightly. When God brought Jeff into my life, that all changed. God may have used me to bring Jeff to salvation, but he used Jeff to save me from myself.When Jeff asked Christ to take charge of his life, he meant it and he quickly began to change. With Jeff's help, so did I. We sought after God's face together, and the prodigal daughter's return home began.Although I have returned home to my heavenly Father's tender embrace (and He has forgiven me for everything I did while I was away- the Bible says He's removed those sins from me as far as the East is from the West), my time back has been mediocre. For a while, it was incredible! Ironically it was best when we were, as a family, at our worst. We were living in Jeff's parents beach house because we had sold our home and then Jeff lost his job. Unable to find another job in all of Austin - home of "Silicon Hills" and more computer jobs than anywhere!! - we decided not to buy another home there. I was pregnant with JM and it was labeled a high risk pregnancy and I was told to stay off my feet as much as possible (pretty much bed rest) or else I oculd go into labor at any time ... I was 3 months along. It was in the midst of this that my walk with the Lord was strongest. I delighted in His word, I took comfort in His arms. I never doubted His will for our lives. I have likenend this period of my life and the relationship I had with Jesus as the "cadillac" of relationships.Now, here we have a great house, Jeff's got a great job and my releationship with Him is mediocre. Where is my desperation? Where is my cadillac?I began this by saying a marathon runner starts his race with a single step and even if he stumbles, he keeps going. That's me.. starting a marathon today and I will trip and stumble many times, but I will get back on the track and continue the race to excellence. I will NOT settle for mediocrity. Life is what you make it. I don't want to look back and say that I had an "okay" life, I want to look back and say I had a GREAT life. I will make it great!PS. I wrote this as I sat down this morning to have my quiet time with the Lord. Sort of a promise to Him. As I studied my lesson for today, God showed me some pretty cool stuff. First was this passage in Jeremiah. " 'For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, 'plans for welfare adn not for calamity' " (here's where it got good) " ' to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come pray to Me and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart."Isn't God just so rockin' awesome!!! I decide to make today the first day of the rest of my life, to seek Him with all my heart and He gives me that verse!! He let me know that I will find Him - He promises! Thank-You, Lord, thank-You.Further along in my study, the author wrote a story about how we sometimes walk seperated from God. Here's a quote, "But Father, we ended up okay even if I didn't walk with You everyday, didn't we?" [a woman who is looking at her past asks the Lord] "Yes, child, we ended up okay, but okay was never what I had in mind for you." That was a direct answer to my cry - I don't want my life to be okay! LOL. And people say God isn't personal enough.One last quote from today's study, "Remember, walking consistantly doesn't mean walking perfectly. It means we may stumble, but we will never fall!" Thanks, God for loving me so much and taking the time to show me.
Posted by Tess
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Tarzan, the Fearless
What fun it is to be a kid!! Have you ever stopped to evaluate exactly how much fun it is to be a 4 year old? or a 5 year old? or a 6 year old? or even a 2 year old -- well, that one has to be fun.. anything named "terrible 2s" has to be fun for the 2 year old...
The other day, Jeff and I decided to emulate JM. We spent the next 3 1/2 minutes running from one place to the next. We ran to the bathroom to brush our hair, then ran to the kitchen to get something to drink, then ran to the family room to pick up her nightgown, then ran to Pooh Corner to put away the nightgown, then ran to the backyard. JM rarely walks anywhere... she skips, hops, jumps, runs and crawls but rarely does she walk. I'll tell ya, that takes quite a bit of energy, but you can't help but gigle as you do it... hey! Maybe she's onto something there.. she does giggle quite a bit.
And KJ.. what fun to be 5 AND a boy!! You have boundless energy AND are fearless to boot!! KJ is forever creating new and better ways to swing in the big swing in the backyard. You know the type - 2 12 foot-long ropes tied to a tree limb that when you're in the backswing, your feet can touch the rooftop. Yes, that's the one. Well, a few months ago, he discovered a whole new thrill by jumping off the trampoline onto the swing. Since then, he's been trying bigger and better things until yesterday. He moved the little toddler slide/house over to the swing area, climbed up on top and then LEAPT from the top screaming the Tarzan yell, "Aahhhh-aahh aahh -- aahh aahh aaahhhhhh! At one point, he even beat his chest before taking the leap.
Ah, to be full of energy AND fearless - yes, I think that I would yell like Tarzan, too.
Posted by Tess
Tarzan, the Fearless
What fun it is to be a kid!! Have you ever stopped to evaluate exactly how much fun it is to be a 4 year old? or a 5 year old? or a 6 year old? or even a 2 year old -- well, that one has to be fun.. anything named "terrible 2s" has to be fun for the 2 year old...
The other day, Jeff and I decided to emulate JM. We spent the next 3 1/2 minutes running from one place to the next. We ran to the bathroom to brush our hair, then ran to the kitchen to get something to drink, then ran to the family room to pick up her nightgown, then ran to Pooh Corner to put away the nightgown, then ran to the backyard. JM rarely walks anywhere... she skips, hops, jumps, runs and crawls but rarely does she walk. I'll tell ya, that takes quite a bit of energy, but you can't help but gigle as you do it... hey! Maybe she's onto something there.. she does giggle quite a bit.
And KJ.. what fun to be 5 AND a boy!! You have boundless energy AND are fearless to boot!! KJ is forever creating new and better ways to swing in the big swing in the backyard. You know the type - 2 12 foot-long ropes tied to a tree limb that when you're in the backswing, your feet can touch the rooftop. Yes, that's the one. Well, a few months ago, he discovered a whole new thrill by jumping off the trampoline onto the swing. Since then, he's been trying bigger and better things until yesterday. He moved the little toddler slide/house over to the swing area, climbed up on top and then LEAPT from the top screaming the Tarzan yell, "Aahhhh-aahh aahh -- aahh aahh aaahhhhhh! At one point, he even beat his chest before taking the leap.
Ah, to be full of energy AND fearless - yes, I think that I would yell like Tarzan, too.
Posted by Tess
Herding Cats
Ever tried herding cats? I can now say that I have successfully herded cats... I have a few scratches, but I got them where they needed to go.
In my role as Sunday School Director I wear many hats and today the one I had on was that of a Choo-Choo Train Engineer... okay, I wasn't wearing one, but all of the 2s & 3s classes, preschool classes and kindergarten classes were.
A few months ago, I decided that we (the church) needed to SEE our little ones more and so I mentioned it to the pastors and it was decided that the kidz would perform once per quarter. Today was the first performance. We started with the littlest ones. We've been practicing 2 songs for 7 weeks. The first was a simple a capella version of Jesus Loves Me (This I Know) with hand motions. The second was a song called I Wanna Be Like Jesus, but the music has train sounds and the hand motions are as if the kidz are themselves, trains. "chugga-chugga choo choo" very cute stuff... Anyway, we've been calling this the choo-choo train song. So today was the day -- performance day.
What a blast!! TL, who surprised all of us by knowing the hand motions and doing them repeatedly in the car and around the house, singing "be, be, be, be" (I wanna be, be, be like Jesus) and rolling his little fists in circles then hollering "choo-choo" walked onto the stage, across the stage and directly down the steps in the front of the stage straight to Mommy. Everyone in the audience go a chuckle out of that one. JM and KJ both were consummate performers, hitting their marks, singing their songs and doing their hand motions... the others... well, let's just think about our "herding cats" analogy... and smile.
As they were exiting the stage, the music team returned to continue with the non-choo-choo songs and one of the singers commented on how he had turned around and watched the adults as they were watching the kidz... He said that their faces were "glowing with joy" as they were entertained by the tiny tots. All in all, I think that is worth the scratches I incurred while herding my cats.
In the bottom of the bottom picture, you can see TL as he walks down the steps towards Mommy. In the first one, check out KJ (red and blue checked shirt) who is scoping the little boy who thought it would be more fun to lie down on the middle of the stage and giggle while waving to his mom & dad. and finally, notice JM (purple dress) dancing away. (You know, her "Indian" name IS Drama Queen.)
Posted by Tess
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Potty Training 104 - The Fall of Diaper Era
"NO! Wanna wear diaper!" The words of a very determined, very opinionated 2 year old still ring in my ears. We've started potty training, TL and I. I say both of us because it is for both of us. I'm training him in how to use the potty, how not to argue with me when I tell him something and how to wear big boy underwear... He's training me in patience. While there are various books dealing with the subject of potty training, I've yet to see one entitled "Potty Training the Strong-Willed Child." Perhaps I'll write to Dr. Dobson and suggest it.
We got a new doll yesterday that goes tinkle in the potty. His name is Pete (check him out sitting on his own potty on the floor). I spent most of the morning showing TL how Pete can go tinkle in the potty and how afterwards Pete gets all sorts of priase and loving and gets to flush the potty (which TL loves to do). It was all for naught until I added that Pete gets to eat a cookie every time he goes tinkle in the potty. Now THAT got his attention. TL took Pete by the hand and instructed him in using the potty, flushing the toilet and of course, gave Pete a cookie. Now it's time for TL to get a cookie.
I poured at least 4 cups of juice into that little man yesterday and then waited... and waited... and followed him around... and waited some more... every couple of minutes asking him if he needed to go tinkle in the potty and get a cookie. The answer each time, a resounding and almost beligerent, "NO!" He left my sight for a couple of minutes and then came back to me reporting a "mess, Mommy" and showing me his wet big boy underwear. Kicking myself for missing the opportunity, more juice went in and the watch began anew. This time I was not going to let him out of my sight. So the questioning renewed... "Do you need to go tinkle in the potty?" and the lying began anew!!! He stood at the window and told me, "No" while tinkling onto the floor! Since he was wearing socks, he got them soaked and thought it would be fun to scoot his feet around the house leaving tracks behind him!! I didn't think it was so fun to clean it up.
Finally, Dad arrived on the scene. It was his turn to potty watch. By now, TL is beginning to figure this out. He asked for some juice and then went into the bathroom, sat on the potty and started to drink it. He remained on the potty and around the bathroom for the next 15 minutes, eyeballing that cookie.. Finally, the moment arrived and he TINKLED IN THE POTTY!!! We were all so excited! We praised and hugged and kissed and patted ... TL was so excited that he literally didn't know what to do.. he began to run around the house squealing with delight!!! It was quite hilarious. Eventually, he did let us catch him and he did remember his cookie!
The lesson we learned yesterday... Keep your eye on the prize. For TL that was a vanilla wafer cookie. For Jeff and me, it is being diaper free for the first time in almost SEVEN YEARS!! Did you catch that? We've been paying for and changing diapers since April 13th, 2000!! and we're ready for the end of the era.
Potty Training 104 - The Fall of Diaper Era
"NO! Wanna wear diaper!" The words of a very determined, very opinionated 2 year old still ring in my ears. We've started potty training, TL and I. I say both of us because it is for both of us. I'm training him in how to use the potty, how not to argue with me when I tell him something and how to wear big boy underwear... He's training me in patience. While there are various books dealing with the subject of potty training, I've yet to see one entitled "Potty Training the Strong-Willed Child." Perhaps I'll write to Dr. Dobson and suggest it.
We got a new doll yesterday that goes tinkle in the potty. His name is Pete (check him out sitting on his own potty on the floor). I spent most of the morning showing TL how Pete can go tinkle in the potty and how afterwards Pete gets all sorts of priase and loving and gets to flush the potty (which TL loves to do). It was all for naught until I added that Pete gets to eat a cookie every time he goes tinkle in the potty. Now THAT got his attention. TL took Pete by the hand and instructed him in using the potty, flushing the toilet and of course, gave Pete a cookie. Now it's time for TL to get a cookie.
I poured at least 4 cups of juice into that little man yesterday and then waited... and waited... and followed him around... and waited some more... every couple of minutes asking him if he needed to go tinkle in the potty and get a cookie. The answer each time, a resounding and almost beligerent, "NO!" He left my sight for a couple of minutes and then came back to me reporting a "mess, Mommy" and showing me his wet big boy underwear. Kicking myself for missing the opportunity, more juice went in and the watch began anew. This time I was not going to let him out of my sight. So the questioning renewed... "Do you need to go tinkle in the potty?" and the lying began anew!!! He stood at the window and told me, "No" while tinkling onto the floor! Since he was wearing socks, he got them soaked and thought it would be fun to scoot his feet around the house leaving tracks behind him!! I didn't think it was so fun to clean it up.
Finally, Dad arrived on the scene. It was his turn to potty watch. By now, TL is beginning to figure this out. He asked for some juice and then went into the bathroom, sat on the potty and started to drink it. He remained on the potty and around the bathroom for the next 15 minutes, eyeballing that cookie.. Finally, the moment arrived and he TINKLED IN THE POTTY!!! We were all so excited! We praised and hugged and kissed and patted ... TL was so excited that he literally didn't know what to do.. he began to run around the house squealing with delight!!! It was quite hilarious. Eventually, he did let us catch him and he did remember his cookie!
The lesson we learned yesterday... Keep your eye on the prize. For TL that was a vanilla wafer cookie. For Jeff and me, it is being diaper free for the first time in almost SEVEN YEARS!! Did you catch that? We've been paying for and changing diapers since April 13th, 2000!! and we're ready for the end of the era.
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