Ask for pink state of Texas cookies...



get pink state of Texas cookies!

I would give you one, but they're for Azina's going-away party. She's moving to my house next weekend!

the dawn of understanding

You may have heard the tales of Jared's naptime and bedtime exploits.

So I have taken to locking the door to the bathroom and putting up the gate in his doorway so that he cannot get out or relocate the bathroom accessories to his bedroom.

This afternoon, I did as usual, first locking the door to the bathroom.

"Mommy, you lock the door?"

"Yep. So you can't get in and make a mess."

I put up the gate in his doorway.

"Mommy, now I'm stuck in here!"

"Yep."

Hysterics ensue.

old fashioned sing-along

(to the tune of "Frere Jacques," emphatically and at the top of your lungs)

R-E-D red
R-E-D red
That spells red
That spells red
Fire trucks are red
Stop signs are red too
R-E-D
That spells red

(take a breath, then continue, same tune)

I am special
I am special
Look at me
You will see
Someone very special
Someone very special
It is me
It is me

Go ahead, try to get that out of your head now.

Uh-huh. That's what I thought.

You're welcome.

firsts, part ii

And the winner of the first package? A tie! Jadyn's shoes and my anniversary present arrived at the same time on Tuesday. The curriculum arrived the next day.

I love this plate! And it was engraved by the artist.

But never fear! There are more exciting firsts to report!

Last night I made the first new recipe I've tried in my new kitchen - my mom's beef and noodles (homemade noodles!), except I made it with venison. The noodles were fabulous, and I'm told the venison was good, too.

(Curious what the last new recipe I tried in the old house was? Molten chocolate lava cakes. Definitely a high note to go out on!)

The most recent first? Today, right before naptime, was the first time the girls locked everyone out of the rooms. Their bedroom and the boys' bedroom connects via a bathroom, and they locked all the doors and pulled them shut behind them. Awesome. Consequently, I took apart a doorknob for the first time for a reason besides painting! Time to take those Lois Lane lock-picking classes...

firsts

Two weeks ago, we moved into our new house. It has, logically, led to a series of firsts that we have experienced recently. It's the kind of thing that OCD nerds like me keep track of.

This house has a gas stove, which is new to me. The first thing I cooked on it was omelets, successfully, I might add.

The first dinner we had for our Friday night Bible study was tortilla soup and sopapilla cheesecake, which makes sopapilla cheesecake the first thing I baked in my shiny new oven.

Last night, to celebrate Lisa's triumph over her last exam for her master's degree, we had the chocolate fountain for the first time in the new house.

I'm waiting to see what the first package to arrive at my house will be - Jadyn's new Crocs (her feet finally grew!), our new homeschool curriculum (which I am very excited about!), or our anniversary present (which I am also very excited about!).

As for the boxes...well, there are at least a few rooms where there are no boxes. That's all I can say...

how to tell if your kid is a nerd, tip #12

If your six-year-old has ever thrown a tantrum that sounded anything like this, "I wanna write a nonfiction book!" then your kid is a nerd.

movin' to the country/gonna eat a lot of...cookies

Ever wondered what 116 decorated sugar cookies look like?

Wonder no more!


And some close-up shots.


Do you want some cookies? All you have to do is volunteer on a Creekside Christian Fellowship children's ministry team!

In other news, go to my mom's blog and help her name her business! She's giving out a prize, which you get to pick too!

spew

The children and I went to Target yesterday afternoon. Now, in order to make this a bearable experience for everyone involved, I often employ an incentive (read: bribe) in the form of an icee as a reward for good behavior.

They kept their end of the bargain, so I kept mine. I paid for the icees and distributed the cups, and then we moved down the counter to icee dispensers. As we were paying, some kids came in and stood by the icee machines as they waited for their parents/guardians/responsible parties to buy their own icee cups.

It would have been one thing had these children merely been standing there waiting for their icee cups. No big deal. Not terrific manners, but not a big deal. However, these children - I think there were 3 or 4 of them between the ages of about 4 and 10 - apparently just couldn't wait another minute for the icee goodness and were using their fingers to swipe the drips off the end of the icee nozzles. Gross.

But even this wasn't good enough for them. They then proceeded to stick their nasty little fingers INSIDE the icee nozzles.

It was on the tip of my tongue to say something. I had no idea at that point if their responsible parties were around (I later figured out that they were behind me in line), but that wouldn't have stopped me. I was honestly too shocked and appalled at their behavior to actually form the words to tell them to stop.

So let this serve as fair warning. If I ever see anything like that again, rest assured that I won't suffer the same vocal paralysis. I will be making my objections known because seriously, that's just disgusting.

I turned on Pandora on my laptop.

Jadyn: Can we hear a fourth of July song?

Me: (a little bewildered) Like what?

Alaina: Like this. "Saturday, in the park, I think it was the fourth of July..."

guess what time it is?

Game time!

We're going to play a little game called "put a caption to this picture." I'll post pictures from our trip to Omaha, and you can think of an amusing caption for each one. It'll be great!











Aren't they cute?!?

where were you while we were getting high?

No time to blog...too much painting. And if I'm not painting, there are about a million other things I should be doing. What was I thinking?!?

My house smells like paint.

Don't believe any allegations that I have committed appliancecide. They are untrue. (But I will post a picture when my new dryer gets here!)

yesterday

We had church in our brand new building yesterday. I've never been part of a church that has built a new building. The church I grew up in bought their building, but I don't remember the first Sunday in that building. I'm sure it was great, but those kinds of things just don't impact children like they do adults.

The funny part is that our building isn't done. Apparently it's about 70% done. But there's something kinda cool about having church there, while it's still being finished. I guess it feels more like being part of the process.

Yesterday morning, I was sitting on the edge of Jadyn's bed to do Alaina's hair.

Me: Alaina, could you sit on the floor please?

Alaina: Yeah, I'm too big.

Me: You are tall.

Alaina: I get that a lot.


And now for the completely nerdy part of yesterday. Don't judge me because I'm very excited about this. My very first fanfic was uploaded to the Lois & Clark Fanfic Archive yesterday! I've only written two, and this is actually the second one I wrote, it just got uploaded before the first one. I just had to share because it's a big deal to me! Okay, I'm done now. :)

out of the box

Some of you may not believe it, but sometimes I just have to let the nerdiness out.

See, I hear the disbelieving sounds you're making. You can't believe that it's ever hidden away. Well, it is.

Joe and I went to see Star Trek on Sunday afternoon. It was fabulous! I really, really loved it.

If I can get away with it, I'm going to try and escape and go see it again. (Anyone out there up for a late night nerdfest with me?)

Here's a fun quiz to test your nerdiness. I missed one.

Have you seen Star Trek yet? If not, why not? If you have, what did you think?

Happy May Day!

I couldn't find a picture of a basket with popcorn and jelly beans, but that's what you'd be getting if you were anywhere in my vicinity on May Day.

But Happy May Day anyway!

Yes, I know it's probably some made-over pagan festival. Yes, I know that basically no one outside of the midwest has any idea what May Day is or has even heard of it.

But I have these great memories of one of my best friends and her sibs (who lived two houses from us if you went through the backyards but three if you went through the front yards) leaving styrofoam cups filled with jelly beans and popcorn on our doorstep, ringing the doorbell, and running away. Then we'd reciprocate. We always found each other, but we never made anybody kiss anybody else because "ew."

So Happy May Day to you, and if you should come to my house, I'm still not gonna kiss you. Jared probably would, though.

hmmm...

I'm not sure how this fits into the conspiracy, but I went to HEB tonight for lunchables for our play date at the water park tomorrow. And when I checked out, the dude asked me if I wanted some reusable bags...for free. So I said, "Sure." And now I have 3 reusable grocery bags. Which is cool, I'm all for reusing stuff, but I wasn't about to actually buy the bags myself.

I'll let you know when I work this into the conspiracy theory.

walks like a duck

I'm beginning to suspect an Earth Day conspiracy.

I haven't quite worked out the specifics, but something is going on.

Last night, sometime after midnight, the power blinked. Not unusual by itself, but the first in a series of troubles.

All morning, the cable has been erratic, as has the internet.

Then my brother called me, on my cell phone, and the connection was terrible - kept breaking up - which is unusual.

I think the environmentalist wackos found me.

They're welcome to come find me. They'll be getting my carbon footprint on the rear.

Disclaimer: I'm all about environmental stewardship. But there is nothing on this planet more important than people. Oh, and once/if the environmentalist wacko "scientists" start applying the scientific method in their experiments, magically most of our "problems" will disappear. Have you heard the ice is actually getting thicker in Antarctica? Global warming my big fat toe.

I will not be outstubborned.

Some miscellaneous thoughts that have not yet made it to my blog:

We went to the UH vs. UCF softball game today. It was a lot of fun! We lost that game, but we won the first game of the doubleheader, so we came out even. I think the kids had fun, but sometimes it's hard to tell. Joe almost caught a foul ball. He would've caught it had he not been holding the baby. As it was, he made sure it didn't hit any of our small children, which is what really matters. He and Alaina took it to the concession stand, where she traded it in for a blow pop. Good times.

Ravi was the color commentator for the radio broadcast of the Omaha Beef game last night. He was really good. I actually listened to 3 hours of an indoor football game on the radio and enjoyed it. The Beef won.

I discovered something depressing the week before last. When I was growing up in Omaha, I always said that when I had a house of my own, I wasn't going to live so far out that I'd have to drive by cornfields to get there. (The cornfields across from my parents' neighborhood don't count because they are owned by Boys Town.) When Joe was looking for our first apartment the summer before we got married, he kindly took a picture of the fields he drove by to get there. But that didn't really count because those fields aren't there anymore.

So a few weeks back, I decided that the equivalent of the cornfield rule around here was Buc-ee's. For the uninitiated, Buc-ee's is a gas station chain with a near-cult following. I don't know, I don't really understand it. I suspect the beaver mascot has brainwashed people or something. ("The moon and stars..." Sorry, better now.) Anyway, the new rule was that if you had to drive past a Buc-ee's to get to your house, you lived too far out. To my dismay, the week before last I discovered that there is a Buc-ee's on the other side of the freeway from my neighborhood.

Apparently my rules are a cosmic joke.

Last Tuesday, as I was changing Jared's third dirty diaper of the day, I asked, in what I thought to be a rhetorical fashion, "Jared, what did you eat?" To which he responded, without missing a beat, "Dirt. Eat dirt, Mama." (That wasn't a command, he just skipped the sentence subject of "I.")

In case you were curious, I won the stubborn contest. I knew when Jared napped until 7 the day was not going to end well...(it's 2am right now).

Eat something other than sopapilla cheesecake for breakfast?

The idea was briefly considered and quickly rejected.

After all, it's raining. I'm tired. It will go well with the coffee I made. The children ate all of the bagels. And Jared's antibiotics have already given him diarrhea after only one day.

See? You would have made the same decision.

how I spent my Easter vacation

When I was in Los Angeles (for Sibling Fest West Coast 2009!) over the weekend, I kept a running commentary of the things I wanted to blog about when I got home. So now I'm home.

Seen at IAH (on the way to L.A.):
-Dude wearing a hiking backpack and a "kill your TV" shirt flying to L.A.

It's like raiaiaiain on your wedding day! Sorry, better now.
And I had just been wishing for some fanfic to read on the plane...

Seen at the ballgame (Red Sox vs. Angels, Saturday afternoon):
-Apparently people in L.A. have a hard time with the concept of ticketed seating. People would sit, and when the people who actually had tickets for those seats would come, the seat switchers would just move over or down or what have you. And inevitably the people with those seats would come, and the seat switchers would migrate again. It was bizarre.

Seen at LAX (on the way back to Houston):
-zappos.com shoe advertisements in the bottom of the loose articles bins at security.

Capitalism at work!

-Baggage handler dude riding the conveyor into the cargo hold.

Kooky.

Not seen in L.A.:
-Postcards.

Sorry Jadyn. (That's what she requested when I asked the girls what they wanted me to bring them back from California. Of course, she doesn't remember that she asked for that, but I did try.)

By the way, consider this official notice. If you happen to sit in front of me and my baby in an airplane and decide it'd be a good idea to recline your seat, I'm not going to feel bad when the baby hits your seat. In fact, I might encourage it. I think if we all agreed that no one will recline their seats on an airplane, we'd all be happier. It's not like reclining those seats makes them any more comfortable anyway.

So back home now. And Joe was very sweet and went to the grocery store this morning at an unholy hour so that there would be breakfast for the children. And he brought me donuts.

I vote for an annual Sibling Fest, and I think we need to institute Childhood Movie Night as part of the schedule of events. Next year, Ferngully!

aluminum linoleum

Go outside. Seriously.

Okay, I don't know what the weather is like where you are, but it is amazing here today. It's so amazing, in fact, that you might think you're in the midwest in May.

But you're not.

But that doesn't change the fact that it's beautiful today.

It's one of those days that, upon exiting the house, the first thing that enters your head is, "it is a beautiful day" . . . to the tune of a scale. But of course you can't stop there, so you proceed to sing "it is a beautiful day" on a scale for an entire octave. Thank you, Nancy.

Come on, choir peeps. I know you're with me. Bel Canto forever!

For the record, I am blogging from the backyard.