Dorky Day.

I can 't believe I am posting this but reminding you of how uncool I am made me think of this Devo song, so I found it for you. I've never seen this version before and I admit it's dorky but so am I. It makes me want to have a dance party and invite all my friends :) After I realize how dorky this post is I'll probably delete it so enjoy it while it lasts!

7/2/07 Update. Oh yes, Monday's reality check! Sorry I put that video on my blog, uggggh! I can barely get thought the first few seconds myself, it's regrettable! What a silly thing for me to put you through! Besides, I really dislike the thumbnails for YouTube videos, very unattractive, unsuitable really! Anyway, I am preserving the link because I just couldn't delete the whole post in the interest of full disclosure and all...maybe I could replace it with something very intellectual...or not. Here's the link: WARNING waste of your time.

My Favorite Grey's Moment.

Even though I have four kids at home right now I found a few minutes to myself to "surf the net dude" (OK, now you know I'm old and uncool) and found this. My hands down favorite Grey's moment ever. Enjoy.

7/2/07 Update. Ok, this one I'm not really ashamed of but again, thumbnail too ugly for my blog so follow the link if you want to see it!

Happy Birthday.

Emily is 9!

This is one of my favorite pictures of Emily as a baby. She was a little over a year.

Last night I was remembering back to her first year when I worked in an office. I had a journal in Word and I would sit at the keyboard and write whenever I had a few minutes. I dated each entry and wrote a few paragraphs about what her life was like at that time. I just looked a it today, it reads a lot like my blog posts now. I stopped writing after her first birthday for whatever reason. I wish I had continued, I've really never been good about journaling or even archiving photos. Maybe that's why I like this blog, I feel like I'm preserving thoughts and memories better. After I clean up the big piles of clutter I mentioned a few posts ago, I hope to get busy sorting pictures and doing some kind of memory keeping on my older keepsakes from when the kids were little-er. Better late than never!

It wasn't until Emily was three and Sarah was born that I stopped working to stay home with my daughters. Now lookey what I'm here with! Four little people! I feel totally blessed.

We gave her a party Saturday with her girlfriends. Sunday, Tony's family came over for a BBQ and Carmen took this picture of Em and me.

Happy Birthday Sweetie!

Day at the Park.

The best times often stem from the most spontaneous, jump up and just go do it moment.

Ingredients for a fun summer day:

One 9am phone call from your sister, eight kids, one great big empty park, pb&j sandwiches, veggie chips, one cantaloupe, 7up, grape juice, bottled water, and chocolate chip cookies. Mix in a little patience, a few loud Momma screams (eg. Stop! Freeze! Come back!) and there you have it, everything you need for a perfect memorable day at the park.

Eight kids. You tell me we aren't brave.

We met at a place called Micke Grove park. It's maybe the half way point between Renee's and my home. We had been there a few times as kids. We were sitting at a picnic table and I looked at Renee and said "where did all these kids come from?"

They are all ours, the one with the spongebob shirt is our nephew Chase, Jimmy's boy.

If you zoom in on the roller coaster picture you can see how terrified the boys were, you know the girls were fearless!

Father's Day & More.

I hope you had a nice Father's day. We did. I love this picture because of Wyatt's reaction. My husband is totally the best Dad ever.

We spent the afternoon with Tony's family. I am so lucky because six of my sister's-in-law were there, and I adore every one of them. Now that the kids are getting older and also because Eva won't have Tony out of her sight for more than 10 seconds (so he gets her most of the time), I actually get to talk to them!

This is going to be another slow week for us. Other than swimming lessons, our calendar is clear. I really need to work on my clutter piles. The big projects like the new floor and all the painting sort of gave me permission to let things pile up. I think my waiver has now expired! I am so far behind on sorting, filing, labeling, you name it. I have identified and photographed seven distinct and separate groups around the house. Those photos are too ugly to share until I can also share the "after" photos. I have huge piles to donate, artwork to preserve, and millions of pieces of paper to shred. I feel sick just thinking about it. I've got to do it though...please wish me well!

Oh yes, CONGRATULATIONS my good friend Nena on becoming an Aunt again yesterday. What a beautiful Father's Day gift!

I'm a Pirate and House Things.

Not much to report but I feel the need to post anyway! I'm feeling rotten today. Something is wrong with my left eye. My lower eyelid is extremely tender and a little swollen, I may need a patch 'cause I just want to close it. Did something bite me? Do I have pink-eye? I just woke up like this. Aaaaay.

OK house things now. I love this little group. I picked it up at Pier1 a few years back. It may be time to update the photos, Wyatt's practically an infant in the one of him. I think it goes well with the new paint colors.

I painted these wooden letters from Michael's and hung them in, well, Emily's room. I think they turned out pretty good. You can't really tell but her walls are a lavenderish color.


And then there are the lovely wall words I purchased from this place. I put it in the pancake room. I have had ideas about using these vinyl rub-ons in my head for some time now but was waiting until I finished painting and all. I have seen at least three different websites that print these up for you. I picked this up impulsively from a link I followed when I was browsing sk*rt.

It was on special for $10 (it ended up being $16 after shipping) and I got to pick the font and color. I wanted to order a few more but I was holding back so I could test drive it first.

I don't know what happened, but unlike the testimonials and the actual people I know who have used these, it was not easy. It took me almost two hours to apply this thing! I'm so jaded now I don't even think I like it anymore! At one point it almost went in to the trash can. Was it because of my font? It is thin and wispy, not bold and chunky like some. I had to use tweezers and it broke into so many pieces because of all the thin wisps. Patching microscopic wisps of vinyl while standing on a counter stool with tweezers was not exactly the greatest way to spend a morning. Especially when you have a bad eye. Aaaaay.

Was it the company? The quality? The font? It definitely wasn't my wall because the problem was that the letters did not "rub-on", they wouldn't even come off the backing without me peeling and plucking them off. I don't know if I will do it again, if I do I'll go for bold and chunky.

The last word: Emily just came in the room and said, "Oh Mommy, I just love the "Happiness is Homemade.""

Friday Sweets.

Happy Friday!

I have sure enjoyed this first week of "summer" vacation. I know it's not officially summer yet but when kids are out of school that's what it feels like. You'd think I'd be going nuts with all of them home all week but I am finding it very refreshing not to have to get in the car for anything! I did take them all to Costco on Monday only because we needed milk and waffles!

Clay kept the big three busy for several hours one day and I loved their fruit!





The only other thing that happened this week was Wyatt's haircut. Tony takes him to Maria. She puts blue gel in his hair so he comes home like this:



Does this kid have enough scars and scrapes on his knees or what? In this smiley photo you can see him cleaning up a bloody toe!

Have a great weekend!

Little Miss Webster.

Oh my Sarah. This kid will crack you up and blow your mind at the same time. At two years and three months she could tell you all 42 US presidents by first and last name just from looking at their faces in a book. She never attended preschool and she taught herself to read English before she started kindergarten. We did read to her a lot and of course she knew the alphabet but we never emphasized phonics knowing she would not be instructed in English at school-not really until grade 2 or so. I should have known that it would not confuse her to acquire English reading skills first.

She has a tendency to create new words that become part of our family's vocabulary.

Example: last night as I closed her bedroom door in the dark after tucking her into bed, I said "look at that pretty luga on your wall" then "close your eyes and go to sleep now."
Luga is a word she created when she was 2. She just started referring to the luga one night.

A luga is a reflection of light that originates from outside your window and becomes that thing on your wall. When it shines through a tree it it projects the leaves and branches onto the wall and becomes animated on a windy night. We know the difference between a moon luga and a street light luga. The luga is very soothing for her.

Sidebar: I remember this phenomenon as a kid sleeping in my grandmothers house. She lived on a busy street corner and my sister and Granny and I would lay in bed and watch them flying and skittering along the top of the walls from the cars that would drive by.

Sarah also has eczema. That means I spend a good deal of time applying creams, lotions, and ointments of all sorts to her skin several times a day. After her shower, she stands on a step stool in the bathroom and I "fix" her up for the night. It ends with her fully pajama-ed with socks covering her hands and feet.

Last night she decided to pen a brand new word. As I was applying all of the things I apply in a bent over position attending to her feet something came over me. Instinctively, I said "Sarah, I am down here...that wasn't nice...gross!"

To that she replied: "Mommy, that was not a f**t, it was an (get ready for this) airblow"

I said, "WHAT!"

She said: "Mommy, I know you think it was a f**t, but it was not, and it did not stink...airblows do not stink." (Mommy disagrees but did not speak it, being in awe and all.)

The funniest part about that little exchange was her matter-of-fact and most scientific tone.

So there you have it. A new word for us. It does sound better than it's synonym. And yes, I am a grown up and should be able to type a word without using replacement asterisks, but I won't. I am not scientific so you also won't find me using the scientific term for f**t. This is my blog and it's not a f**ty blog. It's sweet and fruity, not f**ty. Did I mention I was a grown up?

By the way, spellcheck picked up airblow so maybe it really is a new word! Also, the president thing only lasted about three months. She lost interest and has never to this day repeated it.

One Weekend.

We had the busiest weekend ever. Friday was graduation day for the Princess. It was lovely. 120 kinder grads sang "You Raise Me Up" nice and loud. Sarah marched up, shook hands with the principal, received her diploma from her teacher and it was done.

She is now a graduate.

When the ceremony concluded the principal announced that these little people were the 8th grade grads of 2015, the high school grads of 2019, and the college grads of 2023. That brought me to the verge of tears.

I stayed at school with Emily, through the pizza party in her class and the last day of school fanfare. I have not spent even a minute in either girls' classroom this year. With littler ones at home and no real options for childcare during the day, I didn't even attempt it and I have no guilt. I did what I had to do. When Emily was in lower grades I tried to be there as often as I could. Tony would sometimes come home during the day for a late extended lunch so I could be at the school. His schedule is tighter now and it's not really an option anymore. When Eva starts school in three more years...we'll see.

A few hours later we were off to the mountains. When we arrived at the campground and began to see other campers, Emily said this:

"Ooooh, look at those tents in the middle of those trees...how scary!"

It's funny to wonder what her expectations must have been. Emily and I went to the exact same area for Girl Scout camp last October and stayed in a cabin with 16 other scouts and scout Mom's. We gave the tent to Tony for father's day last year and have only used it one other time in our backyard.

We got in to our campsite around 6:00 p.m. and luck was definitely on our side. Young James, a Boy Scout from the site beside us came over, asked permission to enter our site and then offered his assistance in setting up our tent. Whoa, Boy Scouts to the rescue! How cool is that? There were several groups of them surrounding us!

The rest of the trip went like this: eat, make a fire, make smores, sleep, make breakfast, walk around, make lunch, go swimming, eat, make a fire, make smores, walk to the outdoor amphitheater where the seating faces the lake (so cool), watch Shrek 3, sleep, make breakfast, pack up, go home. Other than the noisy neighbors the first night, it being a tad colder than I expected (around 40 at night, but we all have extra warm sleeping bags so we stayed toasty) and me forgetting to pack Eva's other shoe, it went smoothly. I think we'll do it again.

From Pinecrest June 2007

We arrived home Sunday just in time for the Girl Scout bridging ceremony. Sarah is no longer a Daisy, she's a Brownie now. Em is now a Junior Girl Scout.

After that I took the girls home and did 196 loads of laundry and went to bed.

Friday Sweets.

Yesterday I sliced open this first little watermelon and I was pleased to find it smiling at me, go ahead look closer, it's really smiling. Mostly I was amazed because the very same thing happened last fall. I was making fruit kabobs for the school festival with another mom. I sliced the one below open and was shocked to find this little guy:

They're kind of cute don't you think? We had maybe ten watermelon to dice that day, we ended up throwing most of them in the green can because they were no good, too spongy and would not dice. Pity.

Sunday, Emily and I spent a few fun hours with my sister and my nieces. Renee wouldn't take off her sunglasses for the photo. Someone other than myself should tell her that she is so dang beautiful that it wouldn't matter if she ever touched make-up again! A while back, Renee told me that she stopped by the old house we lived in from about 1978-1983. I had a hard time believing her when she told me that our names were still on the light pole in front of the house.

Emily and I were actually in that neighborhood later that Sunday en route to a birthday party, and I couldn't resist stopping to see if my name was on that pole. Yes, we delinquently graffitied that pole almost 30 years ago and you can plainly see it, well, zoom in a little bit... it's there.

It was interesting to see Emily's reaction. She was so intrigued with that tiny piece of my history. She is starting to ask a lot of questions about mine and Tony's childhood. Sidebar: that was the longest my family lived in one place throughout my entire childhood. Enough said.

If you look at the watermelon again, he will wink at you. ;o)