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Showing posts from October, 2008

preschool dropouts

layla and i have officially dropped out of preschool.  i say that we have, one, because it was a co-op, and two, because it wasn't working for me as much as(if not more than) it wasn't working for her.  there's a whole slew of reasons, but mainly, it was too far away, i had too many other places to be, and layla was getting totally wiped out and was VERY unpleasant to live with.  so we're quitting and we'll try to find someplace closer to home next year. (i'll try my best to be less neurotic picky then.)  she's only 3 and we've been missing our MOMS club friends a lot, so hopefully we'll open up some more time for that stuff and a little extra money every month to blow at gymboree pay bills with.

fun in chicago

on monday, which was our last night in town, we decided to stay at a hotel in chicago instead of getting up in the middle of the night (and make someone else get up too) to drive there for our 8am flight out of o'hare.  joe and mary (and hannah) drove us up and we all had some chicago style 'stuffed' pizza at giordano's.  this pizza was like 2 inches thick and there was so much cheese i don't even know where to begin.  at one point, joe drew our attention to the fact that he'd been spinning cheese around his fork for like 5 minutes and it was still coming.  i think he could have sat there all night and he never would have run out of cheese.  micah did a good job with his.  yum.     after we ate, they took us to our hotel, the aloft.  dave found a deal on priceline, so we knew nothing about this place.  when we pulled up, there was loud techno music playing and i was a little concerned that it was going to be just a big party inside, but it was actually a very ni

our trip east for hannah's baptism

last friday, we headed out (at 0darkthirty) to illinois for hannah's baptism and a big fat gathering of family.  micah came with (cause he's free), but shane and layla stayed here w/ my folks because they're not.  they were most definitely missed, but they took good care of their grandparents and layla got to paint every day so she was happy. Micah was excited to help pack.  notice the super-cute train sweater-vest in the bag.  dave came home from work that day with a gymboree bag and said, 'i got you a present'. i had been eyeing that since i first saw it and i can't find any pictures of micah actually wearing it (he wore it sunday to church), so i'm pointing it out in the suitcase.  i know, i'm a dork. tons of fun bonding with uncle matt. the 'non-lame baptism gift' we got for hannah.  this little bracelet is so tiny. it's got blue crystals on it for her september birthday, pearls and a little silver cross pendant.  i was SO happy to find

but i wanted beans!

i have discovered something amazing. until recently, layla would never eat green beans. well, she used to, and then a little more than a year or so ago, she started pulling them apart and eating the seeds out of them, leaving the rest. yeah, i know she's weird. then she quit eating them all together. she would just leave them on her plate. well, a couple fridays ago, we were having our pizza and beans and something prompted shane to pull these 'trainer' chopsticks out of the drawer. i've had them for a couple of years - i think i found them at a thrift store and thought they were cute and the kids could use them when we had chinese food. but we'd all kind of forgotten about them since we rarely eat chinese food (which makes me sad). so everyone got really excited about these and layla used them to eat every last one of her beans that night. dave and i exchanged some raised eyebrows as lightbulbs were illuminating above our heads. last night i made chicken sandwiches

and i thought layla was my climber...

this is how i found micah just now. note to self: close all drawers. although they have handles on them so it probably won't deter him any. this is what was so interesting: and now for something completely different... this is what our nightstand looked like this morning after having layla spend most of the night in our bed. can we say SNOTTY???

pictures, pictures, and more pictures...

ah, yes. how were pictures? pretty good actually. yesterday was our appointment to have EVERYONE'S pictures taken. we're about 7 months or more overdue for a new family picture. i wanted to do them every 2 years. well, layla is 8 months old in the one on our wall. so we did that. shane is 7 and layla is 18 months in the last picture we have of the kids together, so we did that too. a sibling shot including micah... novel concept considering he's a year old now. new individuals for layla and micah - way overdue on that one, he was 3 months in his last one. oops. we had shane's taken too, but didn't like any of them, so i'll make another appointment and take just him this week or next. he had this really weird fake smile going on. it's actually amazing that we did that well. shane, micah and myself all had colds, so i was afraid that we'd be red, blotchy or miserable, but everyone looked fine. layla fell apart after the shoot was over an

the book layla brought home from the library

dave and layla went to the library yesterday and layla chose a couple books and a thomas dvd. last night dave read the books to layla before she went to bed. when he came out of her room, he handed me the books and said they could go back to the library. i asked if they were lame or something, and he handed me one of them called SAM'S TEDDY BEAR . curious, i read it and couldn't decide if it was appalling or funny. i finally decided it was appalling as a book for children, but absolutely hilarious for the same reason... and therefore definite blog material. at the risk of being sued for plagiarism, i intend to present this wonderful piece of literature for your enjoyment. page 1: there is a bed with a blue and white blanket jumbled up on it, a brown dog, with it's front paws up on the bed, and an old school ceramic 'potty' on the floor. "Look, there's Doggie!" page 2: a blonde haired boy emerges from under the blanket and the dog looks excited. "L

Party time!

yesterday my baby boy turned 1. we had a fun little 'party' with some friends and my parents. noah showed up wearing his new spiderman costume, which caused shane and layla to feel the need to dress up as well. i guess noah was so excited about it that he didn't want to take it off! it made for some funny pictures. we ate pizza, opened some presents and then played in the big box. after determining that there was nothing in the world that micah actually needed, we decided to get something practical. a new car seat. the bonus was that it came in a BIG BOX and that was the big hit of the party. of course. then it was time for cake. micah really didn't know what to do with his cake. it took a long time for him to even touch it. but once he did, he thought it felt pretty cool. he ate a little too, but mostly he just squished it. but at least he was able to get himself approprately covered in frosting for the requisite 1st birthday photo opp. you can see the re

warning! vent in progress!

i am feeling the need to vent a bit. today was THE MOST ridiculous excuse for a day of preschool i've ever experienced. thursdays are my work day at layla's school, so i had to participate, even help facilitate, this mess. today was picture day. now i understand picture day. don't get me wrong. i made a little bit of an effort to make sure that layla's clothes at least matched and that her hair looked decent. but it's 'school pictures'. a head shot against a blueish-grayish background, right? boy was i wrong. so, because everyone was in their 'fancy clothes' for picture day, the kids couldn't do anything messy or go outside. okay, we've completed barely a month of school with 18 barely 3 year olds and this is a good idea? not only that, this photographer lady (whose gimmick to get the kids to smile was to sing elmo's world to them) had each kid in like 3 different poses and took about 10 minutes. but wait it gets better. the kids were no

HOLDME!HOLDME!HOLDME!!!

when i was a kid - a little kid - i was scared of helicopters. if i heard one going over, i'd run to my mom yelling, "HOLDME!HOLDME!HOLDME!" i believe that, for a while, helicopters came to be known as "hold me's" in our house. layla has developed her first irrational fear. (well, other than the imaginary lions she liked to pretend to be afraid of.) she's afraid of helicopters. i can't say it's completely unwarranted. yesterday evening, we were sitting here in the house when a helicopter went over our house. it was very low, and very loud. i thought it was pretty exciting. well, it apparently scared the crap out of her because she spent the rest of the evening very close to either dave or myself and kept repeating, "i didn't like that." she mentioned it again this morning, but i figured she'd forget about it since she's never been afraid of anything. she was fine all day, but we were out all day. as soon as we

party planning - from a 3 year old.

with micah's birthday coming up on friday, there has been a lot of discussion of party themes. for some reason, layla has become completely convinced that micah should have a princess party. this totally cracks me up because she's been talking since july about how when she turns 4, she's going to have a pirate birthday. so she brought this up again this morning while she, micah and i were all flopping around in the bed waiting for the house to warm up (coffee to finish brewing). i said that micah didn't really want a princess birthday, at which point he crawled over me and farted. so layla, in true layla fashion, said, "maybe he should have a fart party."

Football!!!

so last night at 10, we got a pleasant surprise. a coworker texted dave and asked if he wanted 4 tickets to the seahawks game. after some quick thinking about who and where and how and all that, we got it sorted out and definitely accepted. so today after church, shane,my dad, myself and micah all experienced our first professional football game. (it was dave's second). if you're doing the math there, micah doesn't require a ticket which is why he got to go. layla was happily deposited with my mother for a nap and some 'school'. the first half of the game was great, but the second half got boring because the packers were the only ones doing anything exciting. micah napped through the whole second half - dave did too. well, not the whole second half, but parts for sure. shane decided that seahawks games weren't quite as exciting as he thought they were going to be (he's been lobbying to go to one for a while now), but it was a pretty good deal because he got

does home ec even exist anymore?

my last post got me thinking about how i somehow missed 'learning' all of those things which are essential in running a successful home. i'm wondering who dropped the ball on this (because, i can't possibly take responsibility for my own shortcomings here). i guess traditionally, one learns these things from their parents. i suppose i did learn a lot of my domestic skills at home. for example, the husband is supposed to eat the leftovers in the fridge. when making a bed, the 'top' of the top sheet goes down so that when you fold the edge over the blanket, the 'top' side is then up. why this matters when you are just going to cover the whole thing with a pillow and comforter is totally beyond me. but that's how you do it. so yes, my mother taught me how to iron, do laundry, clean a toilet, etc. my dad taught me how to plant a garden, mow a lawn, appreciate baseball, etc. and then there's home ec. do people still take home ec? i took it

homemaking 101... ponderings, ramblings... the usual.

so i've been analyzing lately (because that's what i do) why i get so frustrated with myself, my shortcomings in the areas of housekeeping and organization, creativity, cooking, etc. it would seem that i'm trying to live up to the expectations of june cleaver, or my grandmother, or something equally unrealistic. no, i don't expect to push the vacuum and baste a turkey in heels and pearls, (besides, i have the roomba , remember?), but i do expect more of myself than i have been giving currently. why? i've been doing what i usually do when i have an issue i want to know more about; i check out every book the library has on the subject (organization problems anyone?). there are a LOT of books out there written by homemakers, for homemakers with a lot of different slants on the whole subject. interestingly enough, the view that disturbs me the most is not the one that suggests that God has decreed it so that women have no other calling than to be wives and mothers (alt

did these people go to school? ever?

sometimes i am just totally flabbergasted by how horribly some people write. i'm not sure if it's just that spelling and grammatical issues come easily for me, or if other people are just really BAD! i find it to be the worst in product reviews online. this morning i was reading some reviews of a chest freezer i'm thinking of getting. one went on and on about the poor quality of the 'unite'. repeatedly using the word 'unite'. seriously, people!!! here's another thing i've noticed. it's always the negative reviews too. what's with that? are people just so pissed off about the bad product they just got screwed on that they feel the need to rant (without pausing for breath or editing) in a negative product review? or is it just that people with bad writing skills are more likely to be compelled to leave a negative review? or are people with bad writing skills more likely to get screwed with the bad product? i don't get it. but

a blue period...

i'm feeling really lazy lately. well, some might think i'm lazy all the time, but it's worse right now. i always get really down on myself when i'm having trouble keeping things organized, when my house is a mess, when we eat mac and cheese for dinner, etc. usually that's appropriate motivation to get me off my butt and make me keep things in some sort of relative order. but night now it's really bad. i don't feel like doing anything. there are toys all over, and i purposely make myself not see them because i just don't want to pick them up. same with the dirt behind the door in the bathroom. the pile of clothes that need to be ironed, the mess in my bedroom, the crap falling out of the drawers in my bathroom, the garage. i don't want to go grocery shopping. i don't want to cook. the floor needs to be swept and mopped in the kitchen and dining room and the sink is dirty. the backyard is a total disaster and i just don't feel like