The Sunday Evening Post, issue 17

Or, a little ketchup.

I'm not sure how to respond to comments. So I'm going to "catch-up" a bit. Remember the $250 spring cleaning dollars? It's finally all spent...doing pretty much everything you all recommended minus the free brownie give away, which, Amy, happened to be my most favorite suggestion of all. It still makes me smile. Most of it went to a few free things we acquired and have fixed them up using the extra cash. This piano.

Jared's mom did a majority of the refinishing while she was here helping out after Ethan was born.

Here it in on it's back when we had to put some "stuff" into the pins before it could be properly tuned.



NJP, it is a nice sink. It was there when we moved in. It makes me smile when I clean it because it's pretty. The world needs more pretty sinks, yes?


Garage saling has very effectively whittled away a bit here and a bit there although I assure you it was all QUALITY stuff. My sister-in law Melissa was here this past week (along with Brad and Linnea which was the second time in two weeks---eat your heart out everyone) and she came with me to a couple around the block. She got to witness my infamous hemming and hawing along with talked me into a couple of deals. Thanks. I went back and got those two toy trucks. Isaac's birthday is around the corner and I'm so classy I picked up his gifts right there.

I've been cooking some.

Jared's bday cake. A pound cake and a pound of whipped cream.


Lemon Mereingue pie...this is the best pie crust ever. As a rule I use butter in baking and never buy margarine for anything but for some reason we had no butter and a cube of margarine in the fridge so there you go. I adjusted a few other things like from not having all the ingredients and a great cookie-like crust emerged.


We had some to-die-for blueberry muffins at a friends house. When pressed for the recipe he said he just combined a bunch of recipes he found off the internet. I hate that. So I did my own little search and combine and got these. YUM!


Natalie thought so too.

In case you didn't know, I make some sure good hamburgers. Jared can't always attest to this because he loads up with crazy toppings. This is a hamburgercheetoacononi not to be confused with his regular hamburgerfritoritoringaroundtheroni.




Here I am enjoying Chocolate Chip Cookies for the first time. Did this photo capture my "mmmmmmmmmmmmmm" well enough?

I didn't think so.


I must say though, it wasn't what I imagined tasting chocolate again I expected a little more died-and-gone-to-heaven reaction. But, it was instead a little more like, "hun...okay...pretty good." I meant to photograph everything I ate that day but got as far as breakfast. You probably don't need photos to know what it consisted of.


This jar of Nutella has been in my fridge for six months. Unbelievable. And no, I didn't eat the whole jar!


Jared through me a surprise death by chocolate party that night. I think I was a little dead in the morning. Everyone brought something chocolate. We had:
chocolate chip cookies (more) (and more)
french silk pie
rolos
m&m's
chocolate milk
(are you sick yet?)
chocolate dipped strawberries...minus the chocolate (?)
rocky road ice cream
brownie chunk ice cream
grasshopper cookies
peanutbutter filled chocolate cookies
(go throw up now)

Yes, Denise, it's that need for chocolate is kinda gone in me. It's no longer self-medicating. This new found self-control has spilled over into a few other areas of my life and for that I'm grateful.
So, one of my friends there cornered me later on in the week and asked if I wanted to go sugarless for two weeks with her. I (gulp) said, "Yeah, that sounds like fun!" What do I get myself into?!?! Completely sugarless, folks. Honey is okay and obviously natural sugars in fruit, etc OKAY.
I didn't realize how much sugar I was eating mindlessly. Yikes. Melissa, it is hard. How did you do it for a month? I think my cousin Dawn did it for a year as a teenager. Whoa.


Other events since turning the big @&. :)

I let my drivers license expire. Whoops. So Saturday found me practicing parallel parking over and over and over and...on the curb in front of our house. This is just one of my free comic relief shows I've put on for our neighbors since living here. I did pass. And I will tell you my judge guy (what are they called? the people who have to drive around with you and pass you or not) almost fell asleep TWICE! I wish I would have driven an automatic for the test. I so would have used arm signals instead of a blinker but trying to shift and stick one arm out the window? I'm pretty sure steering with my knees would have lost me a few points.




The kids are fine and happy. Somehow Natalie is fixated on campers and wants to know what our dream campers would be like. Yes. Campers. Here she is pretending to be a strawberry. ??? She gets that from Jared. Although my mom would probably counter by reminding me when I was a piece of toast during a game of charades. Oh, and a pile of laundry folding itself.

She brought me a bouquet from outside. Nice change from the usual dandelion bunch.


I found these sticky-note people all over the desk one day. The black ones have a circle with a dash through it to signify No Frowny Faces allowed and the green ones have no "NO" signage and just mean Happy Faces allowed. I posted them on the fridge to remind me. She also drew a crazy looking face with a "No" sign around it on my June's budget sheet. She said it meant "No Nervous faces." ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!! That speaks volumes.
Isaac is almost 2. That's all. Isaac is almost 2.

You can guess what he was doing while Natalie was being a strawberry.


Ethan. What a fun, fun baby. He's topping the growth charts in the 95th percentiles. He does everything normal like get all wiggly and cute when someone talks to him and his hands are endlessly fascinating. Very darling all around.

boys will be boys

Babies. Babies in the bath. Hardly a better photo opt. Really, we are the only ones who care to see 30 pictures of him in the sink. Perhaps there will be an opportune time to harass him in his teens with these, but mostly it is nice to know we will be WELL stocked with pictures of our kids to delight us to no end well through our golden and silver years.

So during our little shoot getting cute picts like Exhibit A...


We also caught Exhibit B...

The Sunday Evening Post, Issue 16

Or, Self Discipline what?



Tomorrow's a big day. Around the first of the year the thought came to me, "How long could I go without chocolate?" Oh, a year? No. Way too long. Six months? Yeah, six months. And then it was sort of a challenge to myself that I couldn't back away from. So, tomorrow's a big day.

Sunday Evening Post, issue 15

Or, no news is good news.

Don't you hate that saying? Great nothing is bad is happening, but still keep me updated, right? I'm falling back on it now to somehow excuse my ______. (Fill in the blank.) But really, all is well. Little Ethan is two months and although it's a rough work in progress, we've created a new normal. I made a rule for myself I would not get on the computer while my kids are awake because it was sucks too much of myself from them. The only problem is by they time they are all asleep I am too tired myself or gee, I don't know maybe I want to actually talk with Jared or something. That's the real reason. I'm trying to maintain some sort of balance and ya'll are more graceful than I. But I have to hurry and finish this post so I can go blog surfing to catch up on everyone. I'm dying to know all the going-ons I've been missing.

Three deep thoughts about having baby #3:

1. Until all my kids are 5 years old, in school, and can pretty much fend for themselves, I just need to accept that life can best be described as digging a hole. You are in a this hole, not a dark and deep place, a happy place, but a hole and constantly (even franticly) digging yourself out. You shovel as fast as you can to keep the walls from caving in and removing new dirt tossed in by outside sources. The thing is, you asked to be put in this hole and it's exactly what you want to be doing with your life and you find yourself deeply fulfilled by your task. Nevertheless, you are still digging. And digging.

Soooo deep. I know, I know. Okay, I promised three thoughts so here they are...

2. Mantra number one: "Manage Your Expectations." That's from my friend Susanna and I must say it's been wise, wise advice that has served me well not just with kids by pretty much everything. Not lower, just manage. For example: "Today we will eat." It might be cold cereal for every meal, but we will eat. Or, "Expect the remainder of this post to be a disconnected series of thoughts and reporting of events." Words, real or otherwise, will continue to appear on your screen. Yes, even pictures. End all expectations there. See? Brilliant, hun? Now all pressure to write clearly and properly have been neatly avoided and I can just write. Just clear out my brain of the overload of thoughts from the past few months and do what blogging is all about: connecting with you and sharing myself.

3. I forgot. Really. Sleep deprivation has awkwardly ended a good many conversations because I've simply forgotten what I was talking about.



I arrived home from church today about 15 minutes after Jared did. Natalie was with me and he had the two boys. I walked through the door and could hear crying as I made my way through the house to the kids room. The scene stopped me at the door. There was Jared looking more manly then any photograph in GQ. He had his white shirt sleeves rolled up (am I the only one who thinks that's so hot?) sitting on the floor cradling a crying child in each arm. He didn't look upset or harried. It was just, well, fatherhood. That's all I can think to describe the sweet scene that I wanted so badly to go scoop up. Isaac had gone too long without a nap. Sundays are rough. And poor Ethan sure couldn't get what he wanted from dad.


About Ethan:
He has curly hair. After a wash, tight tight curls everywhere. By mid day, a pile of fluff. And before bed, the curls are gone because we've rubbed his head or played with is hair all day and it just had great volume. Like a perm.
He's not big or small. Just right. I love how babies feel when they weight between 10 and 12 lbs. It's a good size. He is a happy baby and he looks like me when I was a baby. He's very cute. :)

Isaac. What a nut. I LOVE this kid. His oral vocabulary has decided to take the stage this week.
Come
God
Yummy
Clean
Smash
Jump
Bum
P-U or P-eeewww
Play
Heavy
Read
Book

His life still is all about tchoo-tchoo's. A few months ago Natalie put her hands on her hips and told Isaac, "It's not all about trains, Isaac." Well, yes, it is.

He is a chronically happy kid here at home and all the day long I hear peals of laughter and feet just running. There's plenty of crying and fighting over this or that, but for the most part he just acts so happy to be alive. Jumping and doing and being a boy.


Natalie is blossoming as a little girl. She's practically moving out of the house and off to college compared to Ethan. She is also so happy to be alive. Full of excitement and qwerky bits. Her little world has widened exponentially in the past few weeks as she's entered the world of words. She had finished reading Green Eggs and Ham by the time we were home from the library. Later that week while at the doctor's office she was standing next to me at the counter. She read while pointing at a basket with pamphlets in it "Take One" So she did. I half fell out of my chair when she was sitting at the table staring at my water bottle and asked, "Mom, what's a calorie?"


For the official record: We've had some rough spots. Natalie still talks about The Bad,
Bad Day. Ethan was about two weeks old. I think it was day three I had been completely on my own with the kids. Jared was working in the ICU (define ICU as 6-7 day work weeks, 12-16 hours a day and work defined as pulling the plug on patients). Aaaaand, as if my emotions weren't on the edge and tipping my entire Enrichment committee, leader and all were released or being released. And then while on the phone with my mom who was telling me my grandma has stage 4 breast cancer (read terminal) I look out the window and what do I see? Certainly not popcorn. Oh no no no. SNOW. Make that S. N. O. W. in May. It was a bad, bad day.

But all in all. This is exactly what I want from life. And I can't get over feeling so deeply grateful, shocked, and satisfied with the happiness that is mine.


Okay. For the photos. Couldn't sign off without them. I must say it feels good to blog. Don't think I actually wrote anything I set off to write about, but there's always next week. Or tomorrow! Whoa...whoa. Expectations...remember the expectations...

Big yawn.

Little old feet.

Thinking hard 'bout that sleep?

First jump off the diving board.

How are we really doing? A picture says it all and I can't believe I took a photo of this. She is wearing two shirts here, folks. See the strange saggy bottom? See the weird gold rope wrapped around her waist for a belt. Yup. We're raising ragamuffins. In fact we must have people worried because no joke we've probably had 10 boxes worth of clothes given to us in the past couple of months. Even a neighbor we've never met came over and asked if we wanted like hand me downs...they have one child. He's eleven. If you see Isaac this summer, you'll be swept away to 1996. These are my favorite of his new duds. He's pretty stoaked too. Train shirt. Train shorts. Train jammies.

Take two and call me in the morning.

Ethan

He's here. Happiness is oozing out everywhere and if you came for a visit it would probably be difficult to open the door. He's here!!!

A few Awards for the past week...

Best Quiet Moment (tie) :

Best Shape:

Best Reaction goes to: