Today is the day my baby boy turns 12 years old. (The exact time of his birth was at 9:35 pm, so he has a few hours to go before he really is 12.) I know he has been the subject of many blog posts, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to make him the focus of this birthday blog. Here are just a few of his witty sayings that I can remember:
*"I love hard, manual labor." (Yah, right!)
*"Mom, I'm going to really miss you when you're dead and visit your grave every day."
*"Did the Holy Ghost tell you who started it?"
*"It wasn't me!"
*"I love you more than the white hot intensity of a thousand suns." (quoting SpongeBob)
*"I have a tenderloin, too."
*"I will not go to first grade if my teacher is ugly."
*"My mom already said a prayer for me and it didn't work."
*"Do you want to be a horrifying mother or a normal mother?"
*"Please bless me and make hair grow in my armpits." (in a prayer at age 6)
*"Please give my compliments to the chef." (to a waitress at age 7)
Happy, happy birthday, Mark!!!
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Saturday, April 25, 2009
A Tender Mercy
I try to be grateful for the "little" things in my life and to notice "tender mercies." I try to instill in my children that same sense of gratitude for those little things and tender mercies. Last evening as he was heading for bed, Mark noted (with a smile on his face as he spoke): "Well, today passed without incident." Yes, it was "incident" free--at least where Mark was concerned. It has not always been the case, but today it was. And I'm grateful.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
This Week in 25 Words or Less
Kids ill
Lance traveled
Sunshine, warmth
Dog escaped
WASL testing
Rachelle resumed college
Mark's "dog" report
Amazing chocolate coconut gluten-free cupcakes
Must plant garden!
Lance traveled
Sunshine, warmth
Dog escaped
WASL testing
Rachelle resumed college
Mark's "dog" report
Amazing chocolate coconut gluten-free cupcakes
Must plant garden!
Friday, April 17, 2009
Bad Eggs, Dirty Water and Inventive Son
BAD EGGS:
Sara noticed an unpleasant odor emanating from a certain spot at the end of her bed. Since she has a difficult time maintaining a spotlessly clean room, I suggested that she look for some uneaten food she may have left in a lunch bag. Then I went to bed. Shortly after midnight I heard gagging and coughing noises coming from downstairs. It seems that the ever-curious Sara "sniffed out" the problem and discovered it to be Ukranian eggs she designed at January's Art Day at her school. Her curiosity got the best of her, so she cracked open the eggs and "black goo" oozed out. The smell was "the most awful smell" she'd ever experienced which sent her into fits of gagging and coughing. She couldn't re-enter her room, so she spent the night downstairs in the vacant bedroom. Maybe her room will get a cleaning after all.
DIRTY WATER:
Did you know that if you call the Public Works Department in our city after hours you get to chat with a police dispatcher? That's what happened last night. I noticed that our toilet water was dirty even after I flushed it several times. We compared the tap water to the toilet water and there was little or no difference. Disgusting!!! I checked the water in our other toilet and it was the same brownish-yellow color. I called our next-door neighbors and their water was similar to ours. My next call was to Public Works/Police. The dispatcher paged the someone from Public Works and we got a call from a city worker a few minutes later. They'd received a similar call from another resident one street up from us. The worker couldn't explain our problem and said he'd come out to investigate this morning. He also said that he thought our water was probably safe to drink and that some sediment may have gotten into the water supply. I hope our water returns to its "normal" state and color today.
INVENTIVE SON:
Two days ago Mark got a sudden-onset sore throat. He told me he couldn't talk--at all. So, as necessity is the mother of invention, Mark navigated to his new favorite website (www.expressivo.com) and let the computer talk to me. It nearly drove me nuts. When I asked Mark a question or tried to get him to respond to something I said, a few seconds elapsed (while he was typing his response) and I heard a computer-generated reply. Sore throat or not, Mark's dad put an end to that form of communication when he arrived home from work.
Sara noticed an unpleasant odor emanating from a certain spot at the end of her bed. Since she has a difficult time maintaining a spotlessly clean room, I suggested that she look for some uneaten food she may have left in a lunch bag. Then I went to bed. Shortly after midnight I heard gagging and coughing noises coming from downstairs. It seems that the ever-curious Sara "sniffed out" the problem and discovered it to be Ukranian eggs she designed at January's Art Day at her school. Her curiosity got the best of her, so she cracked open the eggs and "black goo" oozed out. The smell was "the most awful smell" she'd ever experienced which sent her into fits of gagging and coughing. She couldn't re-enter her room, so she spent the night downstairs in the vacant bedroom. Maybe her room will get a cleaning after all.
DIRTY WATER:
Did you know that if you call the Public Works Department in our city after hours you get to chat with a police dispatcher? That's what happened last night. I noticed that our toilet water was dirty even after I flushed it several times. We compared the tap water to the toilet water and there was little or no difference. Disgusting!!! I checked the water in our other toilet and it was the same brownish-yellow color. I called our next-door neighbors and their water was similar to ours. My next call was to Public Works/Police. The dispatcher paged the someone from Public Works and we got a call from a city worker a few minutes later. They'd received a similar call from another resident one street up from us. The worker couldn't explain our problem and said he'd come out to investigate this morning. He also said that he thought our water was probably safe to drink and that some sediment may have gotten into the water supply. I hope our water returns to its "normal" state and color today.
INVENTIVE SON:
Two days ago Mark got a sudden-onset sore throat. He told me he couldn't talk--at all. So, as necessity is the mother of invention, Mark navigated to his new favorite website (www.expressivo.com) and let the computer talk to me. It nearly drove me nuts. When I asked Mark a question or tried to get him to respond to something I said, a few seconds elapsed (while he was typing his response) and I heard a computer-generated reply. Sore throat or not, Mark's dad put an end to that form of communication when he arrived home from work.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
The Latest Rage at Our House
Sara and Mark recently discovered the following website and are nuts about it. You might become hooked yourself:
www.expressivo.com
Express yourself!
www.expressivo.com
Express yourself!
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Princess of the Nut Tree Farm
Our "baby" girl is 19 today! It seems like just a few months ago when we welcomed our dark-haired, brown-eyed (or hazel-eyed as she claims), beautiful Sara into the world. After being the parents to two very colicky girls, we were ready for a calmer baby, and we got her. Sara has spent the last 19 years amazing and amusing us. Here are a few of our favorite Sara anecdotes.
*When Lance noticed spider legs protruding from Sara's 18-month-old mouth, he ordered, "Spit!" She produced the spider in her dad's palm and proudly claimed, "I eat the itsy, itsy 'pider, Daddy!"
*Not content to go through life with no middle name, she created her own--or series of them: Nightingale Captain Rose Amelia Isabella Lance Myrna Teddy Roosevelt Franklin Roosevelt. Her 2nd grade teacher actually believed that we had given Sara all of those nicknames.
*One day when she was about 4 years old, Sara bolted out of the house and took off running down the street. She didn't stop when I called to her; in fact, she picked up speed. Still I called after her. She stopped at the stop sign at the end of the street and returned home. When I asked her why she hadn't obeyed me, she replied, "I was just having a race with myself to see which foot would finish first."
*A "stranger" rang our doorbell one evening. Rather than answering the door, I opened the living room window and asked the man what he wanted. He answered, "I'm employed by the County, and I'm here to license your pets." I assured him that we had no pets, and he started to walk away. Sara called out to him, "She says she doesn't have any pets, but she does!" We had 2 goldfish.
*When her younger brother Zachary was born, three-year-old Sara started acting up and bugging the baby and me at every turn. Grandma was here to help and she tried to distract and dissuade Sara to no avail. On one particularly trying afternoon, Grandma again tried to stop Sara's antics and announced, "I'm going to win this battle." Sara emphatically retorted, "No, you're not! I'M going to win this battle!" Despite a rocky start to their relationship, Sara and Zachary are the best of friends.
*Sara is multi-talented, very intelligent and uber-creative. She excels in learning languages (Spanish, Japanese), art, singing, sewing, test-taking, writing, cartooning--just to name a few of her talents. She's also quite perceptive.
Happy, happy birthday, my ladybug!!!
*When Lance noticed spider legs protruding from Sara's 18-month-old mouth, he ordered, "Spit!" She produced the spider in her dad's palm and proudly claimed, "I eat the itsy, itsy 'pider, Daddy!"
*Not content to go through life with no middle name, she created her own--or series of them: Nightingale Captain Rose Amelia Isabella Lance Myrna Teddy Roosevelt Franklin Roosevelt. Her 2nd grade teacher actually believed that we had given Sara all of those nicknames.
*One day when she was about 4 years old, Sara bolted out of the house and took off running down the street. She didn't stop when I called to her; in fact, she picked up speed. Still I called after her. She stopped at the stop sign at the end of the street and returned home. When I asked her why she hadn't obeyed me, she replied, "I was just having a race with myself to see which foot would finish first."
*A "stranger" rang our doorbell one evening. Rather than answering the door, I opened the living room window and asked the man what he wanted. He answered, "I'm employed by the County, and I'm here to license your pets." I assured him that we had no pets, and he started to walk away. Sara called out to him, "She says she doesn't have any pets, but she does!" We had 2 goldfish.
*When her younger brother Zachary was born, three-year-old Sara started acting up and bugging the baby and me at every turn. Grandma was here to help and she tried to distract and dissuade Sara to no avail. On one particularly trying afternoon, Grandma again tried to stop Sara's antics and announced, "I'm going to win this battle." Sara emphatically retorted, "No, you're not! I'M going to win this battle!" Despite a rocky start to their relationship, Sara and Zachary are the best of friends.
*Sara is multi-talented, very intelligent and uber-creative. She excels in learning languages (Spanish, Japanese), art, singing, sewing, test-taking, writing, cartooning--just to name a few of her talents. She's also quite perceptive.
Happy, happy birthday, my ladybug!!!
Monday, April 6, 2009
I Must Be Insane
Some famous person defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result." Well, I must be insane then. I keep employing the same strategies (even multiple strategies, mind you) in the hopes of getting Mark to do his homework willingly, but to little or no avail. I'd have better luck getting the dog to do her homework. So here I sit at the computer trying to distract myself from getting involved in yet another homework battle. I hope to go to bed relaxed and ready for a good night's sleep.
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