i'm good with the random lately...

So we'll just roll with that. ;)


Warm banana bread just out of the oven, applesauce in the crockpot, smells so good in here. :)

******
I don't know how I had an even halfway decently cleaned house with kids home all day... cleaning this place has turned into a full-time job lately. Free time? What free time??

******
I finally got some things hung in Sawyer's room yesterday (his walls have basically been bare for this past year). I put up his storypeople print (that had to be reframed after getting peed on. don't ask.), a painting of Savannah's we framed and a Sawyer version of the collage that I finally got around to doing for him. As I was tucking him in last night he gave me an extra hug and said, "Mom, thanks for making my room look so nice."
This was from a five year old.
Boy.
Love that kid.
:)

******

Speaking of Sawyer, I overheard him telling someone at church the other day that he was allergic to lions. I asked him later why he said that and his reply?
"Well, mom, I'm allergic to cats and lions are a type of cat. I think it's much cooler to say I'm allergic to lions than to dumb little cats, so from now on I'm saying I'm allergic to lions."


******

I'm not sure how our weekends get filled up so easily. For one thing, we have soccer every Saturday morning into November, but this weekend marks the start to a few extra crazy busy ones. We're headed up to STL to keep our tradition of attending the Forest Park Balloon Race/Nightglow. The kids are so looking forward to it! And seeing friends!
The following weekend Ryan and I are attending an adoption/foster care connection conference here in Brentwood for two days. The next weekend we have a weekend thing for church. By then October will be well underway!! And I really, really, really want to go camping before it gets too cold.

Man, just thinking about all that makes me think Christmas is going to be here before we know it.

Meaning, I need to get started on planning and making my gifts... Yay!

ten things this thursday

1. Sorry it's been kind of quiet around here. I didn't even snap any of my usual Wednesday pictures. I've had a lot on my mind.
2. Had a migraine Tuesday, and am not feeling too hot again today. Just off, really.
3. Ryan's leaving tomorrow to drive solo half way across the country. On a major holiday weekend. I'm trying not to worry think about it too much, but this makes me nervous. I tend to stress out about things like this. The hardest part of living 400 miles apart last year? Was me worrying about the long drive he was making back and forth. I'm pretty much gonna be a wreck all weekend.
4. Also, anyone who knows our history knows Ryan leaving town doesn't bode well for our luck here while he's away, so keep us all in your prayers. No illness, no emergencies, no cars breaking down.
5. So I'm trying to line up lots of things to keep us busy to try and distract me from worrying about his trip this weekend. I have a few projects to keep myself busy and hopefully get some of my book list checked off after the kids are in bed each night. Also friends coming in to stay with us Sunday!
6. I had planned on doing a big picture post today recapping all of our summer fun (Hello September!) but sitting in front of the computer doesn't help my queasy feeling today, so you're getting this quick and random post instead. :)
7. Not even sure I have ten quick and random things.
8. I have been wanting to share one of the biggest things on my mind all week though; friends of ours... Sawyer went to preschool with their oldest, this family joined us for our New Years Dinner this past year, and Ryan has shared a ride to campus with the dad for the past 8 months... They have a six-year-old, two-year-old and a now two-week-old newborn. And the mom just suffered a stroke last weekend. We saw Kevin and the boys Saturday in the midst of all of it... Crazy scary with an initial misdiagnosis and three different ER trips with confusion, weakness, speech problems and eventually paralysis until finally Mindy ended up in surgery Sunday evening to relieve the pressure on her brain after they finally determined she was indeed having a stroke. She's stable as of now, but still on a ventilator and still mostly sedated so there are no real answers yet as to how much the stroke has/will affect her. Given the amount of time between her initial symptoms and treatment (Friday morning to Sunday night!) there is potential for a significant amount of brain damage. So obviously, you can pray for them please. For Kevin, for the kids and of course Mindy's health and healing. She's the same age as me.
9. On that happy note...
10. I got nothin' else.
    

{random} thoughts for thursday

>My house is finally looking presentable just in time for our guests to arrive tomorrow night. Which kicks off a calendar full of visitors; these guys this next week, possible guests the first week of April, Ryan's sis and fam the week after that, two separate families for a few different nights at the very end of April, more friends who will make an appearance two separate weekends in June, my parents in July, and Ryan's parents way out in October. Love a full house!!

>I cannot believe this is the same tree in less than two weeks time:
march 1:















march 12:
























































>Sawyer starts baseball practice tonight. He's excited to try it out. I'm not so excited about how much it all costs... the fee is outrageous (to me), we live out of district so that's an extra $40, and all the stuff you need to play that we don't have; a real bat, helmet, shoes, etc which are probably each like $20 a pop. Why oh why don't they offer spring soccer around here?? I was so looking forward to another cheaper soccer season.

>Made these strawberry donuts yesterday as a trial run for taking them this weekend away with my sister's family. Yum!

>Watching the screen while the kids play Wii Mario Kart makes me dizzy.

>I have at least ten loads worth of laundry to fold and put away today. Three loads from this week added to last week's that never made it out of the baskets... plus most of the laundry from the week before that that actually did get folded but never made it out of the piles in my bedroom, and then was rifled through and picked from all the past two weeks and basically a huge pile of mess. So basically all of the clothes all of us own are laying in avalanche proportion piles in my bedroom. I hate laundry.

>Toenail prettying and painting on the agenda for me and SJ today. This week of 75°+ weather definitely warrants presentable toes for flip flops!

talk about random

You should know I have absolutely no idea where this post is going or where it will end up!

I'm feeling restless tonight. Restless and a little bit whiny, just to warn you.

And I know- all I talk about is house stuff anymore.

I'm tired of doing all this house stuff. Okay, I'm not tired of it really, because I really love doing all this stuff; I love organizing and clearing out and spiffy-ing things up and updating things and getting creative and making things look new again (and buying new things!!).

I just wish I weren't doing it for other peoples' benefit.

And I wish I were done already.

I think I just need to stop.
I think the more I do, the more I want to do. Like if I make one thing look fresh and clean and perfect, it makes me want to fix every other single thing in the room so it's perfect too. And then in the next room. And the next. And I could probably keep going for a loooong time. And we frankly don't have time for that.

I just need to call it good and hope that a buyer will fall in love with this house even if it's not perfect and that this house can sell exactly when and for how much we need it to.

And save my energy to put into our new house. When we don't have any money to spend, HA!

----------
I'm just in a funk tonight. And my tailbone still hurts. And I cut my finger somewhere between putting together a pantry cabinet and installing new blinds and it has been throbbing all day like a buggar.

I think I need a drink tonight. Or a milkshake. Probably both. But my drink master/milk shaker has left for the evening to go run around with a bunch of guys on a soccer field so I'm just sitting laying here on the couch feeling sorry for myself with my sore bum and tired feet and wallowing in my restless, whiny mood.

----------
Sawyer broke down a few times in the last few days about moving. Surprisingly he's taking this a lot harder than Savannah who is the worrier and definitely more attached to friends and school here. I guess, though, that this is the only home Sawyer knows. Savannah remembers moving once or twice. Sawyer's been here for 3/4ths of his short little life and it's all he knows.

Ryan went to Nashville, just for the day yesterday to deliver some work stuff, so he was gone early (5am) and back late (9pm). Sawyer broke down the night before when Ryan told him ahead of time that he would be gone for the whole day and he wouldn't see him the next day. I thought Sawyer was crying just because he'd miss his dad, although that's an odd reaction considering Ryan's been gone plenty of times before. Well it started out as "I'll miss you so much" and quickly turned into a blubbering mess of "I don't want to move to Nashville!". Something about Ryan going down there really got Sawyer going. I think all this house stuff going on lately is distracting... Sawyer loves to help and he's actually been a part of almost every thing we've done here; pulling up leftover staples when we removed carpet, painting, tool assistant, etc. He loves tools and jobs and even cleaning stuff he'll, get right in and beg to be handed a task. And he'll talk up big these kinds of things we'll do in a new house we want to buy and what color he wants his room and so on and so forth.
But when it comes down to it... when he was reminded that Ryan is actually going to work down there... that it is so far away... that he has no idea what we're really getting ready for... he's having a hard time with that.

We talked briefly earlier this week about taking a trip down there this weekend to look around some more and get a feel for houses and such. We kind of nixed the idea because we have a few things on the calendar this weekend and want to be sure we have everything wrapped up on this house here and get this thing listed! Now I'm kind of wishing we were going... maybe Sawyer will feel a bit better looking around and actually being in Nashville. Right now it's just this unknown in his head... he hasn't been there since he was 11 months old!

*sigh*... have I mentioned I'm just ready for this all to be over??

happy june

I cannot believe it's the first day of June already.
But man am I ready for summer. I just love this time of year!! Summer makes me so happy.Yesterday was absolutely the most perfect summer day you could have ordered up. Eighty degrees and blue sky and just enough breeze to make it just right.

Random thoughts on this June 1:

• Well first of all, it seems June is here to kick off the real summer as it's supposed to bump up to 92° today (with that humidity jumping up right along with it) and only be in the 70's overnight. Yep, that sounds as if summer is really here.
  
• Last day of school for Savannah!
• Savannah's still sleeping this morning (at 7:45). I had to wake her up to get ready for school three out of four mornings last week. Looks like that will be a repeat this morning. How much you wanna bet tomorrow and the rest of the summer she'll be up by 7 on her own...
• Something about my new laptop doesn't agree with my fingers. You'd think after six weeks I'd have gotten used to whatever the difference is, but I make so many typos on this laptop it's crazy! I need to slow down or something. Letters are always coming out in the wrong order if they're not skipped altogether, the first two letters of words are always CApitalized instead of just the first, it's just frustrating.
• I have a few (or a couple hundred) pictures to go thru and edit today. We spent Saturday in Columbia holding a brand new baby and I took a lot of pictures for Mike and Kasey. I think I may have snapped a keeper or two. :)
• I found a sweet card my husband left for me this morning. Yesterday was our wedding anniversary, but today is the anniversary of the day we met eight years ago. Which is kind of an important day. :)
• I'm behind on my book distribution. (Oh My, I just realized looking back for that link that it's been since JANUARY. Wow.) I have a backlog of at least four books to pass on. I should probably get those posts written up before I read another book!
• Heather and I are taking turns watching our combined kiddos this summer and I'm looking forward to it! One day each week I'll keep the kids for a few hours so Heather can get out or make appointments or just have some time to herself and then we'll switcheroo and the kids will all be pawned off on her for a little free time for me. My kids love the idea of having a "Lucy and Norah Day" and us moms like the idea of a mini version of a Mom's Day Out. We're starting this week.
  
• Today starts my new resolve to make a real difference in this stuff over here. What better motivator than swimsuits summer?? June 1, fresh slate.
  

we have snow, bullets and a winner

• We finally got some around here. The snow, that is. It snowed a bit yesterday before we woke up and then we had nice off and on snow showers all day. We're supposed to get a good amount tonight too (up to 7 inches) and hopefully it won't be mixed with the sleet and freezing rain they're predicting and we can just have a nice snow play kind of day tomorrow without closures and traffic problems.

• We went to the library yesterday and besides our usual book quota, I picked up some exercise videos, the kids got another beloved Charlie Brown and I also snagged Little House on the Prairie which I'm going to make Savannah watch with me!

• I made another yummy soup this weekend.
  

• I have updates I'm supposed to be writing on a few things... namely Sawyer's appointment last week and the other cryptic news I hinted at. Both are easy answers for you... no concerns, no new news. It was all an even bust of negatives. But I have a lot of thoughts rolling around in my head regarding both of these and have still been wanting to write about them. I just haven't had the energy time. Maybe I'll get to those this week. Maybe not.

• I guess we're still recooping from being sick last week... for the past four nights Ryan and I have been in bed at insanely early hours. Like before 9 o'clock and um, on Friday? It was immediately after the kids at 7:30!! Well, we watched a movie before going to sleep, but still- it was over by 9. Crazy!

• Just five entries in the book giveaway this time. So since I had Sawyer sitting right here next to me, I thought I'd be quick and simple and random and I asked him to pick a number... one, two, three, four or five... What number do you pick? He picked... "Five! No, wait- two! No, I like three! Three! Three cuz I'm three!!" So I'm thinking I probably can't consider that very accurate or random. Heading over to random.org afterall, it picked number 2 out of my 1-5. Which means, Yay Julie! You get the book!! Now if only you had a blog so I could link to you.... hint, hint! I'll try to remember the book the next time I see you.

• Sawyer just let me know (five minutes later) that he "can't pick one, I just love all those numbers Mom..."

is it Friday yet?

I didn't get as much done yesterday as I wanted to. It was the first day with the house to myself again, the first day in awhile of being truly back in the routine without houseguests. I got (most of) my laundry done and some leaves raked and dishes done. And lots of just hang out with my baby boy time. But now today I'm wishing I would have done more because it's pressing in around me. It's just one of those days where we're all stuck inside and it's overwhelming. How does this house end up in chaos so easily???

All four of us were gone all morning; Savannah to school, Sawyer and I to bible study, and Ryan to the plastic surgeon. He had five cysts removed from his face today and is home now recuperating. We are all, in fact, home now. Which normally is a very nice thing. Not so nice today. Ryan's tired and sore and grumpy and the kids are loud and bouncy and fly back and forth between being too happy and then grumpy themselves. Let's pray nap time happens well today. For all of our sakes.

If I can just get through today, I'm looking forward to tomorrow when both kids are out of the house for a bit. Savannah's even got a date to play elsewhere all afternoon, so it's not just the morning I have "off", but practically the whole day! Woohoo! Whatever will I do with myself?!?

I have excitement planned, let me tell you! I'm going to run some errands, reorganize my linen closet, research regrouting a shower, list some stuff on Craigslist, clean out my fridge, and then hopefully get started on a few Christmas projects.

And just a warning, there will probably be a few lists showing up around here one of these days soon. I have a dozen of them floating around the house and a million of them in my head so you know there going to end up here sooner or later. Lists of ideas for all the holidays, lists of gifts, lists of things to do for school, lists of things to get out in the mail, lists of calls to make, lists of regular meals and groceries, lists of supplies I need for homemade gifts... lists of lists of lists.

As a matter of fact, here's today's list:

1. make get Sawyer to nap
2. keep husband fed and warm and drugged up
3. snuggle on the comfy couch and watch Wall*E with the kids
4. figure out dinner

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go put some effort into #1.

What's on your list today?

tomayto tomahto

Kim's coupon convo on Monday got me thinking...
I'm curious-- which do you say??

• coupon: cue-pon or coo-pon
• aunt: awnt or ant
• theater: the-ah-ter or theee-a-ter
• envelope: en-velope or on-velope
• quarter: qorter or qwarter
• caramel: care-amel or care-mel or car-mel
• mature: mature or matchure
• adult: uhdult or ahdult
• grocery: gro-shury or gro-shree or gro-sury
  
• pajamas: pajamas or pajahmas
  

and what about these?
milk: milk or melk
across: across or acrosst
wash: wash or warsh
any word with ing at the end: running or runningggg

After you answer me those in your comments ( I told you, I'm curious! Please answer!!), check out this list and maps. Interesting stuff!

super

I find myself saying 'super' all the time now. I think I have Little Einsteins to thank. I technically should say thanks to Sawyer, who got it from Little Einsteins, because as great as I think that show is, it's not on my list of shows to watch in my leisure time and therefore pick up habits from.

Sawyer loves it though. And the Little Einsteins like to make Rocket go "SUPER FAST!!!". So now Sawyer does everything SUPER FAST! (So thank you, Little Einsteins, for a great little trick to squelch three year old dawdling!)
And lots of other things spill into the SUPER realm around here. Sawyer asks me all the time, "Was that Super Fast, mom?!" "That was Super Tricky, wasn't it mom?!" "Watch me kick this Super High... I have a Super Good Plan... I did a Super Job... That was Super Fun!"

So now of course I say it. I find myself putting Super in front of almost anything I'm trying to emphasize or describe really in any way. I was actually going to read through my posts lately and count the Supers, but I think I'd be a little embarrassed. Yes, I talk like a three-year-old.

I don't really think of it as a childish word, but I feel like others do. Like, can't you think of a better word to describe something? Because it seems like such a simple word. And it is a simple word, but it's a good one. And if you listen to the way my son uses it, you know it's not a simple meaning... that simple word is packed with a lot of feeling and passion. So that's how I hear it in my head, and that's how I use it. Things are super fun, super soft, super cute, super yummy, super easy, super busy, super hot, super cold, super exciting, super, super, super! (that's kind of a weird word when you just look at it over and over and over!)

Anyway. Just thinking outloud.
And hoping you don't think I'm silly for thinking everything's super.

Have a super day!

whassap?

Just a rundown of miscellany going on around here lately:

-We got a ton of Christmas shopping done over the weekend; all great bargains and I'm quite proud of us! Almost done! Now I just need to get started on my homemade gift projects...

-Sawyer has his second night of soccer this evening and is so excited about it. I took the video camera last week. I'm going to try to get some more recorded tonight and then maybe I'll put a snip on here.

-I am so tempted to get Christmas decorations out already. Savannah's not helping; she asks twice every day if we can pull them out yet.
Instead I picked up some new fall/Thanksgiving stuff on clearance. Michael's had all their fall stuff, not just Halloween, but Thanksgiving and anything fallish, 75%off. That included tons of home decor and candles of anything close to autumnal colors and smells. I got some great soy candles that smell like cinnamon ginger and some cool metal rustic turkey figure thingies to put them in... all for $1 and $2 apiece! And this suede covered display bowl that looks awesome on my dining room table for less than $5!

-There was an explosion of sorts in our kitchen last night... the kids were finishing up dinner and I had turned on the stove for the hot chocolate to be ready to start our movie directly after dinner. Unfortunately I turned on the wrong burner on high and heated the ceramic hotplate (that I've loved and had sitting on my stove for the past six years) instead. Ryan had moved it out from under the teapot earlier when he made hot cider and set the plate on a front burner. I didn't realize I was heating the hot plate until it suddenly blew up a couple of minutes later. Luckily I had just moved away to get the milk out of the fridge, because half of the shattered red-hot plate was right where I had been standing at the counter island. I think I'm lucky to have only one burned fingertip.

-Savannah's napping again today. I'd say except for the time while my mom was here, Savannah's been napping almost everyother day for the last few weeks. It's been nice. Thank you kindergarten!

triviality

We're having a hide-out laze around do nothing kind of Sunday today.
Ryan took off all day to go to a Ram's game with a neighbor; he left at 8 this morning and won't be home till dinnertime. I'm being lazy and skipping out on church this morning; I just don't feel motivated to get the kids ready and out the door and be social on my own.

I want to enjoy a day of having nothing to do. Having to do nothing.
But at the same time, I think that'll drive me nuts all day with two bored kids by myself, so I've been half-heartedly racking my brain for what we could do today. Ideas so far:

• library
• take the kids out somewhere and attempt some sort of "photo shoot"
• finish packing away from garage sale while kids play outside
• trip to walmart for pumpkins, spray paint, I need new socks now that the weather's truly cooler
• the zoo

Who knows where we'll end up.
Right now we're sitting in front of the tv (or in my case the laptop) watching Scooby Doo while I decided on an alternative recipe for the pot roast I'm trying to get into the crock pot since I'm apparently fresh out of any french onion soup packets.

My kids are watching Scooby Doo. I never thought my kids would be watching Scooby Doo at this age. I've never cared for Scooby Doo and while I think it's fine for older kids, it's a great classic cartoon, I've just never felt comfortable with it when it comes to preschoolers. Like my almost three year old. I know it's a harmless cartoon; I know there are no real monsters, that it's just masks and costumes and the kids see that at the end; I know
But it's still monsters and scary creatures and scary situations the gang is in and even tho it always turns out at the end, I just don't think my small children need those images and situations in their minds. They make up enough bad guys and monsters in their imaginations, they don't need more prompting on that or new images planted in those heads to have bad dreams about. Savannah's quite worried about the gang and the "cyber chase monsters" as we speak.
We were at a birthday party recently (with a three year old obsessed with Scooby Doo) and Sawyer found the Scooby Doo candle, balloons, plates and such quite charming, and has been talking about Scooby-dooby-doo ever since. (And he says it so cute!!).
There is absolutely nothing else on tv this morning but I found a Scooby Doo marathon on (lots of Scooby Doo marathons for halloween!) so I thought I'd see how the kids reacted to it. Sawyer keeps telling me, "I no like dis Mom!", but he's glued to the screen. Savannah's just left to go write in her journal. So much for Scooby Doo fans in this house.

We've been having family movie nights on Sunday evenings the last few weeks. We have an airmattress blown up on the floor of the "family room" in the basement and we all snuggle in on the bed and/or comfy couch and watch a good old movie together. Recent movies have been Muppets Wizard of Oz, Hans Christian Andersen, and last week was Annie., which both kids absolutely loved. Sawyer was dancing around for days after that singing "tomorrow, tomorrow".
I don't have a movie in mind yet for tonight... any suggestions?

Boy am I rambling aimlessly today or what?

Here's a more focused point for a post. Anyone who knows me knows how incredibly indecisive I can be. Well, I finally bought something for the wall space above our bed. Remember how I couldn't decide what to do with that wall?? Well, I found online something at Pier 1 that I loved and I used some garage sale money to go get it. Only when I got to the store I realized what I wanted was too small for that space. So I found a different something. And then I found this other thing that I fell in love with. It's a-- well, I'll just show you:



































It has the black, the yellows, and the greens in our room, as well as red which is a color Ryan's been trying to convince me to throw in there. He wanted deep red pillows on the bed rather than yellow. Plus it's more along the bold and "artsy" lines like the story people prints we have rather than being "pretty" and feminine. Here is the other more closer to my original idea option for above the bed:






















I've hung them both up and I can't completely decide which one I like.
What do you think? Is the word dream too cheesy to have hanging above your bed? Does it need to be hung lower? Would the bigger flower thingie be better? Which do you like?

Oh, and one more completely random thought to add to this completely trivial post while I'm at it:
I One really should not buy Halloween candy to hand out -or at least a kind that I one likes- two weeks before Halloween. I One needs only buy it the day of. Otherwise I One just might be buying more on the day of anyway!

monday, monday

I've been running through all the blogs I read and the topic of it being Monday is what stood out to me as being a popular topic of comment today. And what really caught my attention was that I couldn't help but notice the stark contrast between people's view on Monday... according to whether or not they have children at home!

Students, singles, career women without kids, anyone without kids at home, more often than not utter a sigh of disappointment that it's Monday. Back to the grind, back to the work/school week, goodbye leisurely weekend. So sad.

However, us moms, working moms or not, seem to heave a collective sigh of relief that the weekend's over. Sure, I love me a weekend and by the time Friday's here you can bet I'm celebrating with the best of them; a change of pace, another parent at home all day, prospects of fun weekend stuff ahead!
But weekends also mean more people at home to make messes, more running around, more things on the social calendar, more time to drive each other crazy.
By the time Monday dawns bright and early I'm usually ready to get back in the routine of the week, ready to have the house to myself (well, myself and the two kids I have to share with) during the day, ready for kids to be in school or occupied with playdates. Weekdays seem quieter in a way... busy, yes, but predictable and consistent.

What are your thoughts when Monday morning rolls around?

blah-blah-blogging

Is it better to have blogged and bored, than to never have blogged at all??

That is to say, if I'm boring and I have nothing to blog about, is it better to babble on about having nothing blogworthy to mention and at least have a presence in blogland, or is it better to shut up and sit quiet until something falls in my lap?
Hmmm...

I have nothing to say if you hadn't guessed that by now.
We had a perfectly relaxing holiday weekend, a pretty mellow week thus far, and not a whole heckuva lot to relay on this here blog.
Sawyer's once again not napping, I've been busy with some baking, Savannah's still loving school, Ryan's back in the swing of things at work, blah blah blah. That's pretty much the extent of our days lately.

Oh, I guess I should mention Sawyer's starting a faux preschool this week.
He is so stinkin' excited about it, it almost makes me feel guilty about not putting him in a real preschool. I know he's ready for some regular socialization and some routine outside of our house without me, but with the way his birthday falls, since he's not quite three yet, that gives him three more years till he starts kindergarten and I just didn't think three years of preschool were necessary. So what we're doing this year is joining a MOPS group, which meets twice a month and gives him a total classroom setting away from me for the whole morning there, and then we're also taking advantage of a Mother's Day Out program that lots of churches around here offer, which is basically just a day of preschool/daycare for him weekly.
We went in yesterday to meet his teachers and see his classroom for the MDO and he was just in heaven. He talked all day long about his "school" and his teachers. He's in a young threes class of about 10 kids and he'll go from 9 to 3 every Friday. Which means he gets to eat lunch there (my first experience of my nut allergic child being fed on a regular basis away from home!!) and have rest time there so we've been getting ready all week, decorating his lunch box and making him a blanket and pillow to take. He really is so excited, asking me at least four times a day, "Go to MY school now mom? Me ready!!" Not till Friday, buddy!
He can't wait. And I can't say I'm not looking forward to a little time off too! :)

In other news, I'm beginning to get antsy for Fall.
I'm usually lamenting the end of summer, but now that our pool is closed for the season and we've had unusually cool and wet weather the past few days with the remnants of hurricane Gustav, along with some good homecooked hot meals and from-scratch baking (that I usually don't like to do in the heat of the summer) around here lately and I'm kind of craving those cool fall days. Ryan brought me back some of my favorite Roasted Milk Tea from Oregon and I can't wait till it's actually cool enough to sit out at the bus stop with Savannah in the morning sipping some of that steamy stuff from a hot cup! I got a super cute jean jacket off of Ebay for Savannah I'm dying for her to be able to wear too. I'm ready for Fall to mosey on in I think.

fixed, finished and friday questions

Ah, I can type two-handed on my couch again!
The hinges on my laptop were broken and I had to either hold the screen up with one hand or prop it up at the table. Got old. My lovely husband ordered up some new parts (which involved not only hinges, but the whole back part of the "lid" and a partial transplant of the whole screen)(which, as he's delicately moving a thin little naked screen around our kitchen table he oh so casually mentions, is the most expensive part of the computer) and finally fixed it right up for me last night. No more droopy screen! No more slamming shut on my typing fingers!!

Also I finally got the rest of our vacation pictures edited and I'll try and get them up this weekend. We got one really good family one on the beach... not nearly the photo shoot I had imagined as the kids were mostly completely uncooperative AND I had forgotten the tripod that I had on my DO NOT FORGET list, but at least we got one good one. I wish I knew the ropes in Photoshop better so I could make my other good shots into awesome images. Either that or I need to learn some actual photography.... haha!
Anyway, some of those coming later.

First and foremost, it's been way too long since we've had any Friday Questions around here...
Da-da-da-dah......!!
Tell Me:
What are you listening to right now, what was the last peice of "fun" non-bill mail you received in your mailbox, what is the best way to eat pancakes, and what is the worst movie you've ever seen.

I'm listening to Sesame Street on the tv while my kids are fighting over the sleeping bags they have laid out in front of the tv and the garbage man is making his way down our street.
The best thing I got in the mail lately was Savannah's class assignment and kindergarten orientation info, and I like plain ol' buttermilk pancakes with butter and syrup.
The worst movie I've ever seen would have to be Mulholland Drive. Or maybe Requiem for a Dream. Or The Squid and The Whale. Or Eyes Wide Shut. Or -oh, you wanted just one??

What are your answers today?

monday bulletin

bul·le·tin
(bool- i- tin)
1. A brief report, especially an official statement on a matter of public interest issued for immediate publication or broadcast.

I don't know about an official statement or how much this matters in public interest, but it is a brief report and it is for immediate publication and broadcast....

• It's 95 degrees outside right now. The heat index is currently 107 with the humidity nice and high. And we've still got a whole afternoon ahead of us.
• I think I've finally (finally!!) decided on a paint color for our bedroom. It's only taken me what- a whole year?! And I think I found curtains too.
• Savannah starts school two weeks from today. TWO WEEKS! And SUMMER'S OVER!!
  
• Sawyer wore underwear most of the weekend and only had one accident. He's been dry all of today as well.
  
• I have been watching way too much HGTV.
• We're getting ready to go to Indiana this weekend to see the Robertsons and their new house before the craziness that is Three Kids Under The Age Of Three settles into that residence. Is it wrong of me to secretly be keeping my fingers crossed that Amie goes into labor two weeks early so that we can be there to meet that new little boy??
  
• I cannot eat just one Reese's Peanut Butter cup.
• I'm having a spa party for my friend Katie's Arbonne business on Wednesday and so far no one is coming. Go me!
• This morning I managed to wash all of our sheets, weed out the kids' closets and make room for the deals we scored on a new season of clothes (yay for tax free weekend!!), and cleaned both kids' bedrooms and their bathroom.
  
• Also baked some Strawberry Banana Muffins.
• And packed a lunch and made a trip to the pool before it got too unbearably hot.
• All before noon.
• I'm tired.

two for one

I'm pulling a two birds with one stone thing here and combining a Thoughts for Thursday with my regular Friday Questions... I couldn't decide which one this would fall under and I have nothing else to ramble on about, so here you go.

Give me two baby names, one for each sex, that you think would be absolutely very last on your list ever. Like you would call your baby plain old Baby before using those names. Like you can't even begin to imagine how anyone in their right mind would think that name would be cute on an infant, or how they picture a toddler walking around with that name.
AND tell me your closet favorite name. The one that you would love to use if either a) your husband would allow it, or 2) you weren't afraid everyone would look at you like you were crazy...

Mine are:
Boy Worst name: Humphrey
Girl Worst name: Myrtle
and
My favorite name that I've never had anyone else agree with me on...

Jemima

I think it's adorable. Reminds me of that cute little blond girly on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I think the name is sweet. With a nickname of Jem. I'd do it in a minute if Ryan ever agreed to it. But no... his only response was we aren't giving birth to a bottle of syrup.

What are your names??

what day is today?

I can't believe I'm even typing this, but my kids are both still asleep.
There. Now I'm sure I've gone and jinxed myself and they'll both come wandering down the stairs any moment. My, it's been a long time since one, let alone both of them have slept in till a decent hour in the morning. I heard this is International Sleep-in Week. I'm glad my kids take international holidays seriously.
And just so you know, it's also National Carpenter Ant Awareness week... so be aware!
Geez- is there anything that is not acknowledged/celebrated in this country anymore?!!

Ah, on cue. Here comes Sawyer now. :)
Sure glad he got those extra 12 minutes of sleeping-in!

I'll have to get back to blogging later today. I feel like I've been out of the loop lately in the blogging world. We've been busy keeping Ryan's mom busy, and we saw her off last night, so things should be getting back to normal. Also the weather's heating up so we'll be inside more and you can guess where my butt will parked. I'm so behind on blogs and emails... I have a handful of phone calls to return, I have 127 unread posts in my reader and I have about 250 emails waiting for me in my inbox. Granted, many of those are junk, but many are also from you all, flagged for a reply or waiting to be read in the first place! To top it off, I found myself with kind of my regular weekend computer/blogging break mindset because Ryan took yesterday off work to hang with all of us and his mom. Felt like Saturday all day! So now is today Sunday? Or Monday morning?
Regardless, I guess we're back to finishing off our week.
We'll see if I can get a Thoughts for Thursday post up today.

And here's Savannah, up and at 'em too.
Man, I can't wait till they're teenagers and want to sleep till noon.

still boring

I don't know what is with me and this non-blogging lately. I'm totally in the habit of writing every day, and I still feel the urge to pull up a new post everyday... but I got nothin'.
Maybe it's because we've been busy almost every morning and every evening and those are my prime computer times. Maybe it's because we've been busy with a whole lot of nothing that I feel would be of any interest to anyone -even me. Maybe it's because my kids just aren't so entertaining and amusing anymore... we're all rather boring around here these days I'm afraid.
*sigh*

I ate three sweet rolls for breakfast today. Our neighbors brought a plate of them by last night and they were sitting in the kitchen taunting me this morning. Three big ones. I'm regretting that big time.

We're having some other neighbors over for dinner tonight. This will be the third evening of dinner guests for us in the past 7 evenings. Love it!! I have no idea what we're eating today though. It's almost noon... I suppose I should take inventory of our fridge and figure that out.
Also, it just dawned on me that Ryan's mom is coming in tonight and I haven't even given a second's thought to meals for the next week while she's here. I should probably get on that.
And clean the bathrooms. ugh.

Friday Questions!!
Tell me... What are you up to this weekend, what's the last movie you saw, and what are all the things you can hear right now?

As I said earlier, Ryan's mom is flying in late tonight to visit for a few days. I think we'll just lay kind of low around the house for most of tomorrow catching up with Gramma and then we have tickets to see the Circus Flora in St Louis tomorrow evening. I'm excited about that! Sunday I have no idea what will be on the agenda.
I think the last movie I saw was We Own the Night. Meh.
Right now as I sit here I am listening to my fingers hitting the keyboard on my laptop, Word World on the tv (and Sawyer's singing along), a boy playing basketball out in the street and an airplane just flew overhead.
Your turn!

can you say pms?

No real Thoughts for Thursday today.
Instead here's a random list of things that have made me cry tear up in the past week:

:: My hair. I officially hate it. I think I'm going to chop it again this summer. And why does it cost such a ridiculous amount to get a nice professional cut and color? I wish that was something I could prioritize for myself. I mean like more than once (or twice, if it's a good year) a year. Something I could make a priority and not feel guilty about.

:: Reading Savannah's "diary". Shhh... don't tell her! Really, it's okay... she doesn't really get that a diary is supposed to be private yet. She just loves writing. And I love reading it. I know I'm going to have to wean myself of it soon. It's just so unreal to be reading her "stories". Everything from jibberish about the cats, to her favorite things, to lists, to her five year old feelings. And the fact that I "locked" her in her room when she was in trouble the other day.
Just that she's writing these things... that my baby girl actually forms sentences and writes them... legibly enough that I can read what she's trying to say. Amazing.

:: Listening to Sawyer sing God is so Good before bed with me each night. He loves that song and giggles his way through it, asking to sing it over and over again before bed. God... Good! God... Good! God... good, gooood toooo meeee!

:: Savannah's recital. Nope, not just when my little girl tumbled her heart out, not missing a beat with a beautiful smile on her face in front of hundreds of people. I also teared up during the performance of strangers... the class of three girls with special needs. I teared up both during their performance and during their standing ovation afterwards. They did awesome.

:: This song. I have teared up each of the four times I've heard this song on the radio this week... it totally reminds me for some reason of the Audrey Caroline story. Which in and of itself can bring me to tears even just thinking about. (If you haven't heard of this amazing story of faith involving a family from the group Selah... go read Angie's blog. She is an incredible woman of God who shares the incredible journey her family has been on with the birth and death of their youngest daughter, Audrey. Bring a box of kleenex if you go there.) Anyway, this song for some reason reminds me of that story... the song just hits me with the reality of the world and the things that our kids may face and go through and how I so want to be those safe arms for them. But more so, I absolutely love picturing our Heavenly Father singing this... that even if we can't always hold and protect our children, that they're forever safe in His arms... and that we as His grown children are safe as well... storms crash around us, dreams may not come true, but just as we long to protect and comfort our children, so the Lord desires that for us in Him. Love that song.

:: Savannah's high dive. Okay, so she didn't dive, but she jumped off of the diving board at swimming lessons last night. And how absurd does it sound that I totally and completely had to wipe tears out of my eyes afterward! I was just so dang proud of her. If you know Savannah, you might get what I'm saying... this girl is (sorry Savannah, but I gotta say it) kind of a baby. She's not one to step out of her comfort zone when it comes to physical activities. It has taken her almost these two whole weeks to warm up to her swimming lessons in the first place. Oh she talks big; and she does love to go, it's just once she's there she's horribly timid and afraid to try new things. One of these new things was the diving board. This second week at the end of class, everyone gets to jump off the diving board if they want to. They have a couple of the instructors out in the water to catch them and help them back to the side and the kids are absolutely thrilled to be so grown up and going off the board. Except for Savannah. Heck, she takes a lot of coaxing to even just jump in from the side in the three foot end. And at playgrounds and such, she's pretty fearful of heights. She crawls on the big high climbers instead of walking or running around; standing up that high up makes her nervous. She's always been like that. So I thought there was no way on earth she'd ever go off the diving board. She was content to just practice her jumping in from the wall, thankyouverymuch.
And then all of a sudden last night, we looked over and she was in line for the diving board. I really didn't think she'd go through with it. But pretty soon she was next. And then she walked right out there (her teacher walked out to the end of the board with her). And she jumped. Well, technically you could say she was dropped (she needed a little lot of prompting to actually take the plunge), but she did it! And when she climbed out of the pool she went right back and got in line to do it again!! I was amazed! And teary eyed. So proud of you Savannah!!
I'm taking my camera tonight!

back to our regularly scheduled week

I'm reading all these posts this morning about the great long weekend everyone had... seems much of the country had great weather to get out and enjoy the weekend with outings and bbq's.

Meanwhile, we did nothing. The weather was kind of a downer, although it turned out mostly nice on Monday, finally getting the hot weather we were promised, although it was a little too muggy for this early in the summer for my taste.
I mentioned before how off the weather forecasters were for the holiday weekend... all forecasts pointed to a mostly sunny weekend of 80 degrees. Perfect Memorial Day weekend weather for lakes and bbq's and being outside. Instead we had pretty much two full days of cool weather and rain and lots of thunderstorms. Two huge storms moved through Saturday night... actually huge enough that we slept in our basement. Tornado warnings to our west, inch-and-a-half sized hail in the next town over, a couple of house fires from lightning strikes and five inches of rain here. Yeah, perfect Memorial Day weekend weather!
Anyway, I was watching the news yesterday and I saw two separate meteorologists apologize for the "monumental bust of a holiday forecast". I thought that was pretty funny and I'd never seen anything like it before. They actually took a couple minutes and gave an absolute apology to their viewers for such an off forecast. They acknowledged that a lot of plans were ruined and it was all around a stinky forecast. haha!

Anyway, we did absolutely nothing with our weekend. We had the surprise party for Kasey on Saturday, but our Sunday and Monday were just bleh. We lounged around for most of Sunday and then made our way out to go out for ice cream and then wandered through Target. We needed diapers pull-ups and a couple other random things. Savannah was set on spending a birthday gift card, we got Sawyer his own soccerball, and ended up getting a new game for the Playstation. After playing Buzz with the Laughlins we decided (actually the rainy weather all weekend decided for us) to get one for ourselves. The Buzz game they have is the Mega Quiz one which is basically like you're all contestants on a game show. The cool part about the Buzz games is that you can play with so many people... four game show type buzzers actually plug into where one controller would normally go. So with the Laughlins we've mostly played with 8 people. That gets so fun and crazy!! There are a few different versions of the Buzz game; the quiz show, a hollywood one, a music one, and a couple of kid/family versions; Buzz Junior Jungle Party and Robo Jam. So in our Target wanderings smack dab in the middle of a rainy holiday weekend, we splurged and bought controllers and the Jungle Party game. And we love it! The kids have never played video games before (except for a few tries on Ryan's ancient antique original Nintendo) and they had a blast. The games are hilarious and they (even Sawyer) can manage a good amount of them. We played twice on Sunday and twice on Monday. (It'll be super fun for us grown ups too, because while some are easy and fun for the kids, there are quite a few games that are a bit trickier or need strategy or you can gang up on each other type things that I picture being hilariously competitive with a bunch of adults!)

Like I said, the weather did mostly hold out for us on Monday and we did get outside a bit. We walked down to the pool and Ryan and Sawyer played tennis for awhile. We grilled and spent some time in the yard. But overall, it was just a lazy indoor kind of weekend.

I'd say our biggest accomplishment was on the potty training front... Sawyer is mostly potty trained house trained now. And when I say house trained, I mean house trained... when he's playing outside he forgets. And when we leave the house and are in public (stores, restaurants, etc) I'm not brave enough to keep him in underwear yet. But at home he spends most of his days dry in underwear now! Yay!!

I keep forgetting today is Tuesday... not Monday. I've gotta get my butt in gear and get us together to get to dance class this morning! Ta-ta!