Story problems were never my strong suit...

Yesterday I ran out of embroidery floss for a project I was working on.  Which meant a trip to the craft store with all my kids in tow.  Always a good time. (I'm holding up my sarcasm sign right now, just FYI...) Anyway, Jake was helping me find the colors I needed.  He found the right shade of green and wanted me to buy two of them so that I wouldn't run out again.  I told him that one little skein would be more than enough to finish the project.  He asked, "Is it more than 10 feet of floss?"  I looked at the label and noted that one skein was 8.7 yards.  I then proceeded to try to do the math in my head for about a minute and a half, during which time I actually had to ask my 7 year old, "What is 8 times 3?"  He muttered something under his breath that sounded like "...8 less than 32..." then answered, "24."  I said, "Okay, this floss is more that 24 feet long, so I think it will be plenty." He demanded how I knew so I showed him where it said 8.7 yards and told him a yard was 3 feet, and was feeling pretty pleased with myself for that little teaching moment... for about 30 seconds or so until he said, "Actually Mom, it's 26 feet."  I stopped in my tracks and stared at him for a moment, then whipped out my phone to use the calculator.  He saw what I was doing and said in a deeply wounded tone, "Are you checking my math?"  And he was right!  I don't know how he does it, and it might make me feel bad except for the fact that I know he still needs me for lots of things.

For instance:

This awesome outfit he put together the other morning. When he came upstairs to get breakfast I said, "Um, I don't think that shirt really works with those shorts, Buddy."  He looked himself up and down and then said, "What?! They match and then they match more.  Red and red, blue and blue...."  Oh my.  I did convince him to change for a plain red shirt.  See. He still needs me, even if I can't do simple addition without counting on my fingers...

Sunday Snapshots

Getting ready for church. The girls love it when they "match"! It cracks me up when Evie checks to see if Lila has the same color that she wants to wear that day.

Jake is such a great big brother, and his sisters adore him. 

(Even if Lila did give him a bloody nose at the end of church today... that girls just has a mind of her own and woe to anyone who tries to make her do something she doesn't want to!)

Lila shows off her after church outfit, or as she calls it "waxin cose" (relaxing clothes). Today her daddy taught her to say "Go Broncos!"  It amazes me that she can say broncos clear as a bell, and yet still stumbles over the word blue. Interesting the way kids learn language, she also says "dang-it" very clearly. And usually very loudly...

Here is my cute husband being all domestic and getting the kitchen clean so I can cook lunch.

Taco salad, one of our family's favorite meals.  I find it mildly amusing that I have the weakest tolerance for spice out of this group. My kids all seem to enjoy salsa, and today Jake even tried some Tabasco! He decided to stick with salsa instead.

It was all Lila could do to finish her lunch before succumbing to the sandman.

She was irritated by the repeated flash of the camera, but not quite enough to wake up.

And last but not least a hug and a kiss for my Evers, after she gave me one and thanked me for making lunch. 

Quiet, lazy Sunday afternoons with my favorite people... it just doesn't get any better than this.

Ponies for my monkey...

Today is a notable day at our house.  At the advanced age of almost 22 months, Lila was able to sport her first set of ponies!

Up to now we've only been able to do tiny baby ponies (or whale spouts) on the top of her head. I am thrilled that we are finally getting to a point where we can choose something besides one or two tiny ponies for doing her hair. The lack of hair to do has led to some pretty frizzy bed-head days for this little one...

This feels like such a milestone for my "folliclly challenged" baby!

In other good news on the Lila front, the last two teeth we were waiting on finally made an appearance this week. Things are looking quite favorable to be "binky-free" on or shortly after her 2nd birthday!

I was also thinking about getting her ears pierced on her birthday.  That's how old Evie was when we pierced her ears, and lately Lila has been noticing when we change Evie's earrings and asking to wear them.  Today she climbed up next to Evie and gently touched the cherry earrings she had on.  Then Lila looked at me and said, "Oooo, way coot!"  (Way Cute. Way is her new favorite word. Every thing is "way" instead of very.) I asked her, "Do you want to wear earrings?"  She smiled hugely and said, "Esss!"  I told her, "Okay. When you get earrings they have a little machine that pinches your ear like this (and I pinched her ear) and then it hurts for a minute."  She frowned and backed away as quickly as she could and said, "Way hurt!"  I asked her again, "Do you want to wear earrings?"  She shook her head vehemently and ran out of the room saying, "No No No No No!"  So I am thinking we won't be piercing her ears for awhile.  I guess the stage where beauty trumps pain is different for every girl...

And that's okay.  She's adorable just the way she is.

Weekends are hard work around here...

We started off with a bang on Friday. We took an impromptu little road trip to... wait for it.... Provo! (You know you're jealous.)  My in-laws were leading a Marriage Enrichment weekend down there and my MIL had forgotten something she needed. So we loaded up the car, put a movie on the portable DVD player for the kids and hit the road.  The funniest thing to me was how excited the kids were to have a picnic and movie night in the van. Evie in particular said several times, "This is just like camping!"

Saturday started early for me and was spent mostly cleaning the house and doing laundry to get ready for house guests.  I had run down my list of must-do's with Brian that morning: 1) Clean the downstairs bathroom, Jake's room, sewing room and toy room, 2) vacuum the downstairs, 3) pull out and sort through all the clothing the girls have grown out of so that Evie's hand-me downs go to Lila and the stuff Lila has outgrown can be packed up for my cousin's little girl, 4) sweep and mop the kitchen floor.  While Brian started lunch I ran down to switch over a batch of laundry, which led to the realization that the garbage can of dryer lint was overflowing to the point of ridiculousness, so I decided to empty it. But I couldn't get to it with out moving two boxes of Christmas decorations, six empty totes, an old t.v. and about fifty more pounds of assorted crap. I ended up cleaning the laundry room too. Which irked my husband as he told me later about this conversation...

Scene: (Jake walks through the kitchen carrying an item for the D.I. out to the van.)

Brian: What is your mother doing down there?

Jake:  She is cleaning out the laundry room.

B:  What?! Why?

J: I don't know. Why are you mad at her for cleaning the laundry room?

B: I'm not mad that she is cleaning the laundry room. I just really question her timing when she has all these other things she said she wanted to get done.

J: Oh. Well, just so you know Dad, I am taking your wife's side on this one...

B: Go away Jacob. (yells as Jake leaves) And DON'T go tell your mother what I said!

I couldn't be too mad at Brian because I am just so happy that my laundry room is clean and organized. Seriously, I think the last time you could see this much of the floor was before we moved in! And I still got everything on my list done. Bonus! Although I didn't finish mopping the kitchen floor until 9 p.m....

We sat down to eat dinner and I was so tired I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be able to make it upright again. I sat there thinking that we needed to get up really early the next morning to make it to our cousin's missionary homecoming, who's church meeting starts at 9 a.m. and lives about an hour's drive away.  Really, really early. Jake finished eating and I said to him, "Honey, run downstairs and get clean underwear and jammies and then come up and shower." He started to argue with me and say that he wanted to shower in the morning so I interrupted him to say, "Jake. We have to get up at the butt-crack of dawn to get out of here on time, so everyone is showering tonight." He stopped on the top step and asked, "What part is that, Mom? Like is it the beginning or the end of the morning."  I tiredly replied, "The butt-crack of dawn," thinking that emphasizing dawn would make it clear. Jake puzzled that for another moment and then understandingly exclaimed, "Oh! So it's in the middle!" I was laughing too hard to set him straight after that.

We ended up leaving only slightly later than we meant too and still arriving pretty much on time and the rest of the day has been full of visiting with our family and getting to catch up with two cousins who are newly returned missionaries.  Well, most of us visited. Some of us napped...

My kids have been in heaven getting to hang out with all their cool, older cousins. They have especially enjoyed getting to know Matt and Andrew again.  Matt rode home with us and the first ten minutes of the drive was a serious contest to see who could talk his ear off first.  Evie had to take the prize when she proudly, if somewhat randomly, announced, "Hey! Matt! I can spell my name!"  Matt very kindly replied with, "You can, huh? Okay let's hear it."  Evie smiled hugely and said, "E-V.....  Mom! How do you spell my name?!"

We rounded off the evening with all heading over to my dad's where we watched a movie and then made breakfast for dinner. It was a whirlwind visit, but we love having Tiffany and Steven (and Matt!) to stay.  This weekend has made me start getting excited for the upcoming holiday season and spending time with our extended families.  I just need to start cleaning my house like a marathon instead of a sprint, you shouldn't need to take a muscle relaxer after mopping the floors...

Decisions are the worst....

Can I just tell you that I CANNOT wait for those last teeth to break through so we can start breaking the binky habit!

We started trying to limit the binky when she started talking more, but she started chewing on her fingers instead.  I figure it's better she sucks on a binky than her finger, since I can't take away the finger...

Sticky kisses anyone?

The difference between a first time mom and a veteran: 

When you see your baby using a glue stick as chap-stick, you think, "That's probably non-toxic... where's my camera?"

Evie's 1st day of preschool

Today Evie started preschool and she did great! The teachers are waiting when you pull up and help the kids get out of the cars and into the school so that there aren't any long, drawn out, teary good-byes.  As we were waiting for our turn some other children were crying and others looking very nervous, which made me wonder how Evie would react when it was her turn.  She jumped out the second the door slid open and casually tossed a "Bye Mom!" over her shoulder and was off on her new adventure!  

When I picked her up two hours later she was beaming and very excited to show me the apple picture she colored.  She couldn't remember her teachers' names so she said she would just call them Miss Sun, Miss Sunshine, and Miss Car. I hope she doesn't really... that could be very confusing.  She also told me as I tucked her in bed tonight that, "In two more days I get to go back to preschool!"  I think she really likes it. 

A Short Story

Today my dad surprised me with a gift of food storage, because nothing says "I love you" like canned goods. (I'm not being sarcastic, I think groceries make a great gift for a married child...)

I have this great deep pantry cupboard in my kitchen which is wonderful for food storage. The only problem is trying to reach the back of the cupboard when it is only slightly less deep then I am tall...

Well, that and the fact that being somewhat... ahem... "busty" makes it even harder to squeeze into a small space.

Fortunately my little sister was on hand to help me...

Even though she isn't any taller than me, she is younger and more nimble.

This job wouldn't have taken us so long if we weren't giggling so hard while hanging out of the pantry.

The End.

Well shoot... it must be genetic....

Can you see what the problem is here?

hint: Look closer at the pants...

sigh...

The Great Homemade Marshmallow Fiasco...

Last Thursday was time for another cooking lesson from the Great-One.  She suggested that it might be fun to make homemade marshmallows. My kids love marshmallows, so I agreed that it sounded like fun.  Grandma came over armed with a bag of coconut for us to toast and a recipe by Alton Brown.  I started pulling the other ingredients out of the cupboard only to realize that I didn't have either confectioner's sugar or light corn syrup.  Fortunately the grocery store is a thirty second drive from my house.  Unfortunately, I took a phone call on the way to the store, completely lost my train of thought, only bought the corn syrup and didn't realize it until I pulled back into my driveway.... fortunately the grocery store was still only thirty seconds away when I went back for the sugar. Grrr.

We boiled and toasted and mixed and coated a pan with cornstarch and confectioner's sugar and then we were ready to pour in the marshmallow mixture....

Yeah. I don't know if we didn't something wrong or if Alton Brown is just full of crap... but this recipe did NOT work! It came out so stiff we couldn't get it out of the bowl! Seemed to taste okay though...

Both of the older kids gave it a "thumbs up!"

...but that could just be because they couldn't pry their jaws open!

Lila watched the entire procedure rather dubiously from the kitchen counter, and she wasn't having any of it!

The finished product:  The World's Saddest Marshmallow

I told Grandma that next time we should just make sugar cookies the kids can cut out and frost...

A Fashion Show for the Grandparents

Two weeks ago while school shopping for Jacob I was feeling very smug about the fact that my girls were all set for the fall with plenty of clothing.

One week ago Evie decided to grow 3 or 4 inches overnight.

Today we went "preschool" shopping for Evie. Thanks to Pa Dave's generosity in supplementing our clothing budget! And while we were showing off the great deals we found today, we also wanted to show the cute back-to-school outfit that Grandma and Grandpa T. gave Evie a couple of weeks ago. Boy, does this girl love to "dress up" in her new clothes!

Organization and Chocolate Dipped Strawberries...

A week or so ago Caitlin was hanging out with me on her day off. I was cleaning my room and while putting away the clean laundry I was complaining about my sock drawer...

Which led us to a discussion about IKEA and all the wonderful closet and drawer organizers they carry, and the apparently shocking fact that I had never been there.  Caitlin decided that was something that needed to be remedied with alacrity, so today I went to IKEA for the first time and I purchased a set of drawer organizers so now my sock drawer looks like this...

 I am sold! I am especially happy with the fact that now I have a designated spot for my hand knit socks where they can be nicely folded so as to not stretch out the ribbing. And as an added bonus I thought that I was down to one pair of nylons and was about to go purchase some more before this Sunday. Surprise! I actually had over ten pairs that were hidden in the messy drawer.  So being organized can actually save you money. Nice.

After IKEA we went to lunch at Cafe Zupas. YUM! If you've already tried eating here you know, if you haven't you should. They serve soups, salads and sandwiches and with every meal they give you a chocolate dipped strawberry. 

Lila quite enjoyed Caitlin's Mushroom Bisque.

Evie had grilled cheese and Wisconsin Cauliflower soup. 

Another first for my girls today, chocolate dipped strawberries!

They were a hit!

Thanks for a fun day of firsts Caite and Patrick! I have a feeling I'll be heading back to both IKEA and Cafe Zupas sooner rather than later...