Foggy Morning

It was incredibly foggy yesterday morning and surprisingly warm. I think it got up the to the 50's yesterday. Now that we have our fence up, Claire can no long walk across our backyard to get on the bus. I (or Ryan, but usually me) have to help her out the gate and walk with her down the length of the fence to catch the bus. William sometimes joins us like he did this particular morning. I took a lot of pictures of the kids, but most of them show all of the mist in the air - making the picture a little blurry. Enough talk - here are the pictures:

The lost tooth, literally...

Claire has had a wiggly tooth for over a week, so I was not surprised that when she came home from school yesterday, her tooth had fallen out. It had fallen out during lunch. Now mind you, this is the first lost tooth for our children - very exciting (for Claire anyway). She quickly took the tiny tooth out of the envelope the school nurse had put it in to show it off. I told her that we had better put it someplace special so that it wouldn't get lost. I retrieved a small jewelry box of hers and laid the tooth on the little cushion inside. Claire was very upset that I wanted to put it away and insisted that she get to carry the tooth around. So, I gave it to her, warning her that it might get lost. Not two minutes later, it was lost. She was very upset and almost in tears. The minuscule tooth happen to be a same color as our carpet, making it hard to fine, but find I did. I put it back in the box insisting that we put it somewhere high so that it would be safe for the tooth fairy. Claire once again was very upset and cried that she would be more careful and keep it in the box. Being the "good" mother I am, I told her that if she holds it, she's going to loose it (where's my faith in her??) and the tooth fairy won't come to our house and give her money. Claire said she didn't care and wanted to hold the box.

Well, maybe 4 minutes passed and I heard her yelling at William. He had bumped her, she dropped the box and the tooth fell out; lost again. Of course I was upset with her because the whole thing was ridiculous and told her to not to be angry with William because he didn't do anything wrong, but to be angry with herself for not putting the tooth away. She ran to her room in tears and I could not find the tooth. After about 15 minutes, I saw it by the couch, put it back in the box and put the box up high.

If Claire really didn't care about losing the tooth, it wouldn't have been a big deal if she lost it and I really didn't care about the whole tooth fairy thing. But when the child threw two tantrums, yelled at her brother, and I had to spend close to 20 minutes looking for the stupid tooth, I was done with letting her have a decision in the tooth matter. All this in the first 30 minutes since her arrival home.

In the end, the tooth made it under the pillow, the tooth fairy came and all is well. I guess we all learned something that day - motherhood is definitely a learning experience!!

Waiting for the tooth fairy

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

There are many days when nothing happens that is blog-worthy. But when I was laying in bed last Thursday night, trying to relax and fall asleep, my mind ran over several funny things that happened that day. I just remember laughing a lot, though it was generally a rotten day. All of these things happened in the evening.

Funny thing #1: while I was working in the kitchen, William came in and seemed to be messing with something on his thumb. Thinking he had a hang nail, I took his hand to examine what it was that he was playing with. It turned out to be a booger stuck to his thumb. I quickly grabbed a napkin and wiped it off. William started yelling, "No, it's mine! It's mine!" and then he sank to the floor in tears. Ryan and I laughed and laughed. And William was right, it was his.

Funny thing #2: Actually, at the time, this wasn't very funny. I was attempting to make dinner so that I could get going to scrapbooking night at the church. I had decided to use the last few potatoes, since they were going to go bad soon, and make baked potato soup (one of my favorites that I make often in the winter). For some unknown reason, I went to boil the potatoes and then removed them thinking that I would just boil them with the soup. So I took them off, made the soup from milk and butter and put the potatoes in. Only then did the thought come into my mind "Susan, what in the world are you doing? The milk is going to burn if you try to boil the potatoes in it!" So I removed the potatoes, strained off the thick milky soup as best I could, and boiled the potatoes in water. I then tried again. In the end, the soup was OK (definitely not my best work), but it took twice as long to make and I messed up twice as many dishes trying to fix my mistake. The whole thing was just stupid.

Funny thing #3: We had just got our chimney cleaned that day, so Ryan was going to build our first fire in the fireplace. William watched on as I read my book on the couch (Claire was in bed). Ryan had a nice fire set-up and lit the newspaper. Then Ryan turned to me in panic, "Susan, is the flue open?" " I don't know, didn't you check" That's when the smoke from the catching fire started to fill our living room. "Quick, put it out! It's closed!!" Ryan, grabbed a piece of wood and started frantically stabbing the burning newspaper and cardboard, messing up his carefully laid firewood. We then looked at each other and laughed. I opened the flue and Ryan tried again. This time it worked and our living room had a nice smoky aura to it. Ridiculous.

Funny thing #4: While Ryan was fixing the fire, William had Ryan's big Maglight flashlight. William was cradling it in his arms, pointing excitedly to its light on the ceiling. William then tried to turn to his body so that he could point to the light and in doing so, he kept moving the light (since it was in his arms). The end result was William "chasing the light" as he kept turning in circles trying to point to it, chattering wildly the whole time. Ryan and I were in tears laughing at him as he was spinning in circles, tyring to figure out why the light kept moving while he was trying to point to it. He got so dizzy that he fell over, flashlight and all. He then repeated the whole process. Crazy kid - who needs pets when you have kids!!

Funny thing #5: After the fire died, we decided to go to bed. While Ryan was finishing up in the bathroom, William climbed in our bed and laid down on Ryan's pillow, hiding himself with his blanket. Ryan came in and saw William laying there, "William, it's time to go to your bed". William didn't move and lay as still as possible, hoping that Ryan wouldn't notice him. Ryan finally asked "William, can I sleep in your bed?" William responded in very distinct words "Don't sleep in my bed." Now understand that most of what William says is gibberish with a few coherent phrases here and there. He can say anything he wants to, but in the mean time, he just blabbers about who knows what. Ryan looked at me and we laughed again at the clarity in which William spoke this command.

Funny thing #6 - the last one, I promise: Now that William was in his bed, Ryan was crawling into his side of the bed, he asked me "Susan, I want to return that book to ___, where is it?" My mind started racing when I realized that that particular book was now in the home of the wrong person. I was tired of it sitting on our desk and I kept asking Ryan to take care of it. When he wouldn't, I took it upon myself to mail it to the person I thought it belonged to (he lives in St. Louis and we hadn't seen him since we moved). Turns out, I mailed it to the wrong person. Without responding, I just stated laughing and laughing at the thought of this strange man receiving a book that wasn't his with an note of apology in it for keeping it so long. I was so embarrassed with my mistake that I wouldn't tell Ryan who I had mailed it to, though he tried to tickle it out of me. Whoops.

Random Pictures

I finally uploaded the pictures from my camera onto this computer. So now that I have too many to share, I have to go through them and pick out some fun ones. It's been a quiet Monday morning full of laundry, dishes, diapers, paying bills, and more. I always spend my Monday trying to catch up from the weekend. We didn't do a whole lot this weekend; we stayed home Sat and played and after church Sunday, we took naps and played at home. Nothing exciting, but relaxing. William and I are going to the store later to pick up some eggs, milk, lunch meat, etc. Enough about my boring day, here are the pictures:

I was mowing our lawn when William came and joined me. He followed along side me for several minutes. He was pushing our spreader - it was really cute and he was very serious about it.

Claire was trying to get away from William, so she went in her room and locked the door so William couldn't get in. Well he was mad, so he threw a coat hanger at her door and then she passed a "note" to him under the door. It was funny brother/sister time.

Cute bed-head.

You know how in cartoons, there will be someone trying to play an instrument of some kind and there is a bug on the music, which makes them play wrong notes, etc? Well I thought this was kind of funny: a Mozart Sonata with a ladybug on the music - just like the cartoons (but hopefully we're not dumb enough to confuse it with a note)!!

There are two kids in this pictures, can you find them??

The kids love to play with the marble works - the only problem is that they can't set it up themselves. That's where Ryan and I come in - it can be a pain.

This is a funny picture of William. After my kids have their baths, we get them dressed in the living room (more room to move), so the kids always run in and curl into a little ball on the floor to stay warm.

Coloring on a Saturday morning - a little clip from our past Saturday.

We finished our fence a few weeks ago - here it is (most of it anyhow).

There's more laundry to do and lunch to fix. Bye!

Midnight musing

It is after midnight here and I am awake with my toddler. He hasn't been taking naps lately, but has instead has been falling asleep around 6pm only to wake up around 10:30pm. He wakes up confused and hungry. Tonight he ate some of the cold cereal I was having for a late-night snack, some popcorn from our popcorn tin, and a bowl of what we call mush (baby cereal - yes, he still likes it). Now Ryan is passed out on the couch and I am working hard to keep my eyes focused. My contacts are barely working. William is watching Blue's Clues - one of his favorites - on On Demand. And here we have to get up at 7:30 for church at 9am. Crazy kid.

I have neglected my blog and I was starting to feel a bit guilty. I have been busy and not up to snuff health-wise. Things are getting better since I've had this week to recover. Too bad it all has to start back up tomorrow.

I have a lot of pictures to share, but I'm exhausted. Goodnight!!

Fence Frenzy and Music

Two men and the power tools that help them bond.

Though I have piles of laundry waiting, I have decided it was time to post something. Claire just came to me asking me to read a book to her. I guess this should be a short post. Ryan and I have been working like crazy to finish putting up our wood fence. We have one little section by the house and the gate to finish. In order to finish those last three feet or so, we have to tear out a fully grown Japanese Yew bush that is not wanting to be torn out. I gave up and Ryan is now going to have to work some of his magic to get it out. Then we have to figure out how to build a gate. Other than that - it's done! It's almost 200 ft of fence - we had to measure and cut every single board (almost 400 of them) in order to keep with the city building code. The fence couldn't be taller than 4 1/2 ft because we're right on the road. Anyhow, we worked for several entire Saturdays and other full days here and there. We finished Monday night in the dark and cold (thirty-something degrees outside) - my body is still trying to recover from that - I can only turn my head to the left a couple of inches. To put part of the fence in, we had to tear out part of out lovely "deck". That alone took several hours one day - no one got hurt but we did break a sledge hammer in the process.



I just made a few purchases the other day. In my single days, I would occasionally buys CDs and books. I honestly can't remember the last CD I bought for myself until two days ago. I bought the soundtrack to "Garden State" - it is a compilation of rock and folk - a lot of it indi rock. It is a fabulous CD and I am listening to it any chance I get. It's funny that I am the classically trained musician in the family, but Ryan has more classical CDs than I do. I have way more "pop" music than him. And when I write "pop", I by no means mean Brittney Spears or Celine Dion. A lot of the music I have is either classic rock (The Beatles, etc) , indi rock or indi folk rock. The classical I do have is either clarinet repertoire or romantic/modern symphonic music (Beethoven, Brahms, Copland). Ryan has mostly piano and a lot of classical and baroque symphonic music (Vivaldi, Mozart, etc). In the end, we both like each other's music. I am learning a lot of Chopin and Ryan is learning a lot about The Beatles and HEM. Good stuff.

The other purchase I made was of a DVD that was just released two days ago - the move HELP!. It's a Beatles movie made in the 60s. It's a lot of fun and has great music - I've been waiting for years for this one. It's one the kids can watch too. Can you believe I actually bought a CD and DVD in the same week??? It's rare I buy both in the same year! I never buy a CD, DVD, or book unless I absolutely love it.

Well, laundry calls. At least I have some great new music to listen to as I work!

Halloween Pictures

Here are some pictures of the kids in their costumes. The first three were taken at the ward Trunk-or-treat party last Friday night. Claire chose to be a mummy. It proved to be quite difficult to pull a mummy costumer together. Sure it would have been easy to just wrap her up on the spot and use safety pins, but her costume had to be removable so that she could put it on at school for her class Halloween party. That's what made it difficult: it had to able to come apart and easily put on.

At this point, William was very tired. He needs his "Bee" (blanket) and he starts sucking on his bottom lip

This is Claire and her class doing the Beanie Baby/Bean bag dance. It was cute.

Happy Halloween!

I have a few minutes before I have to get ready to leave for a day full of teaching and I wanted to write a quick post since it's been awhile. I have a bunch of pictures to share, but I have yet to do it. Now about my last post, I tried something new where I have Picasa upload the pictures onto my blog (Picasa and Blogspot are both google programs), but it didn't work. I'm not sure why, but I won't do that again. I might try to re-post those pictures, but I may not. Anyhow, I hope you are all having a fun Halloween. Here are our plans:

9:30: take William to babysitters
10-1:30: teach lessons
2-3: help with Claire's class Halloween party
3-4: carve our Jack-o-lantern
5:00: pick up missionaries for dinner with friends
5:30: have dinner with friends
6:30: possibly take kids out for a little trick-or-treating
8:00: read a scary Halloween book, baths and bed for the kids

That's roughly our day. It should all be a lot of fun, but I'm going to be running around all over the place. I still have to make some repairs to Claire's costumer this morning before I leave. She is going to be a mummy, but some of the bandages fell off at the church Trunk-or-treat last week.

Happy Halloween!

Conference Pictures

Ryan asleep during the Sat. morning session.


I tried to do some scrapbooking during the Sat morning session,
but the kids' rolling around under my work table made it a bit difficult.

We had to get the kids out of the house between session, they were driving us crazy.
Due to the fact that I had already put the pool away for the year,
we used the sandbox lid as an improptu pool.
We all ended up in a water fight - the neighbors think we're crazy

William was helping Ryan in the front flower bed (which we have had to totally re-do)
- I'll let the pictures explain the rest.

Conference Weekend

Two weeks ago was conference weekend. For those of you who are unfamiliar with what conference weekend is, I will quickly explain. There are two a year (April and Oct) and we don't have to go to church - if you have cable or satellite. That way, you can watch it in the comfort of your own home and pajamas. Now there are those poor souls who dress up in church clothes and drive to the church and watch there - but all four sessions together are 8 hours!! That's a long time for anyone, let alone small children! Being a "Mormon", going to church every week is not optional. You go rain or shine, except conference weekend. Secretly, it's every one's favorite weekend because either they don't have to go to church and have an excuse to sleep in and/or because of the wonderful talks and inspirational music. Either way - we had a good weekend.

Sick Ward and Crazes

It's a little after 1pm and both of my kids are asleep in bed. Claire is home from school again today. She had a fever yesterday and went to the doctor - nothing but a virus. She went to school today, but had to come home after a couple of hours. William is fighting a cold, but has had no fever so far. We all have swollen throats - you know how it goes. So the house is dark and quiet today. I stayed home from work to take care of the kiddies, and I'm using this time to get a few things done around the house (laundry, paperwork, bills, etc.). This is the first day I've been on the internet is about a week. I go through cycles where I'm great about checking and responding to emails, I write in my blog every day, post lots of pictures, etc. Well, as you guessed, I'm on a "I don't want to deal with it or think about it" cycle. I dealt with a very stressful insurance fiasco a few weeks ago and it made me not want to take care of any "business" for awhile. I finally looked at my pile of bills today - saw the due dates - and had to jump back into the business side of life, emails and all.

I don't know if it's just me, but I go through all sorts of crazes when dealing with life. I go through the "let's fix up the house and repair, repaint, and re-do" craze, the "let's eat healthy and cut out all junk" craze, the "lets be very careful about our money and not buy anything unless we NEED it" craze, the "I'm going to write in my journal, read my scriptures, do everything right spiritually all the time" craze, the "I'm going to totally re-vamp my parenting style and read tons of parenting books" craze, the "I'm going back to college" craze, the "lets socialize and have everyone over all of the time" craze, the "I'm going to go the library every week and read at least a book a week" craze, and the "I'm going to keep my house spotless and throw everything away that we don't need/use" craze (to Ryan's annoyance, this one happens a lot) etc. I try these thing (among many others) for a few day/weeks (I don't usually go longer than a few weeks) whole-heartedly and then I get burned out or something goes wrong or someone gets sick and then it's over. I usually slip back into eating badly, watching too much TV, letting the house go to pot phase between crazes. These slips may last a few days or a few weeks (or in the case of fixing up the house, a few months). Now don't get me wrong, I don't get depressed or anything, I just get lazy and tired.

Does this happen to anyone else or am I the only crazy person that does this here? Just thinking - I'm on a couple of crazes right now (eating healthy and trying to fabulous every day - cute clothes, make-up, hair, and accessories etc.). Looking at myself today - I think the looking fabulous every day craze is out the window. Illness can do that to you.

I had better take advantage of having two sleeping kids in the middle of the afternoon and either get a few things done, or take a nap. Hmm...I think you know which will win out.

Columbus Day

So today being a holiday - Ryan and Claire had the day off. Technically, Ryan never gets a day off (everyone is his lab works all hours, all days), but he didn't work today. Instead we stayed very busy doing things around the house. I made more salsa with the tomatoes from our garden, cleaned the kitchen, swept, wiped, took out trash, organized toys, folded clothes, washed dishes, made beds, etc. Ryan worked hard in the yard planting some bushes that were a steal at Lowe's. Fall is the time to buy plants (perennials anyway); you can get some good deals. We also made two trips to the hardware store and a trip to the lumber yard. Our next major project is putting up a wood fence. We're going to get the planning and buying done this week and build it next week. Hopefully the weather holds for us. I made fried chicken and cornbread for dinner and then we were back outside, aerating and tilling the lawn for reseeding. It got dark, so we'll have to finish in the morning. I then replaced the toilet handle with broke this afternoon and re-caulked part of the kids' shower while Ryan attached a hook in Claire's ceiling for her bed-net thingy. Now Ryan is trying the re-caulk around the base of the bathtub.

Needless to say, there is a lot to do and we have been working hard. We have a huge list of things that need to be done to the house. It's more than I want to think about. Owning a home has opened our eyes and clarified what we want one day. We used to think it would be fun to fix up a historic home. Well, that ain't happenin'!!! We have now decided to buy a piece of wild, wooded land and then have a modern, modular home built. They are very "green", easy to maintain, very sleek and clean, and we would buy a small one. The bigger the home, the more to maintain and pay for. So that's our plan; now actually being able to do it is another thing. We can dream, can't we??

I want to write about or conference weekend and post some pictures, but I'll have to do that another day. I'm off to bed!

Night Owl

So it's after midnight and I'm wide awake. I thought I would take this time to write a quick post. There are several reasons I'm awake right now: long, late nap, 16 oz Dr. Pepper and lots of chocolate. I can only blame myself. However I would not have needed that nap if William had been a good boy during the previous night instead of crawling in and out of my bed, whining, etc. So here I am, the house is dark, everyone is asleep, our eccentric neighbor is out working in his yard, and the toilet keeps running (don't you hate that??). I decided to quit trying sleep and to do a little online browsing. I have browsed IKEA (I'm looking for end tables for the living room), read a little news on CNN and checked my email since I didn't get a chance earlier today. After I'm done here, I think I'll curl up on the couch and watch some reruns on the TV.

Tonight we went to Target to pick up a few things. I love Target, but there isn't one anywhere near my house. There is a KMart fairly close, but it's incredibly trashy and most of the employees there seem lacking in the intelligence department. Don't get me wrong, they're friendly, but "off" somehow. So then the next closet place is Wal-Mart: a little less trashy, but always crowded, loud, and sometimes smelly. There always seem to be a lot of mothers yelling threats at their children as they try to get them to behave at midnight. Who in their right mind expects small children, after being in day care all day, to behave when their cranky parents drag them to Wal-Mart for a shopping trip at 10:30 at night? Screaming at them to get their "butts" over here is not the solution - try "bed" people or give them a break!! Anyhow, so then there's Target two cities over. I made the extra effort to go to my favorite store and it paid off big time. While we were walking up to the store, to my surprise and delight, there were two little girls calling out the sweet words "Girl Scout Cookies!!". Twelve dollars later, we are enjoying some Thin Mints and other cookie treats (enter the chocolate). We found everything we needed and more (enter the Dr. Pepper to wash down the Girl Scout cookies) and left in good spirits despite the kids running around the lighting isle with lamp shades on their heads. I think Ryan took a picture - I'll have to post it later.

Well, time to hit the couch, maybe with a box of cookies. I hope you all slept well and I hope I get to sleep soon; I have a lot to do tomorrow. Goodnight, or should I say good morning?!

Photos- Trip to Maeystown, IL

We were searching for a run-away frog in the Maeystown creek.

Papa with Claire and Willam

Group photo

William was unhappy about having this photo taken.

Who says playgrounds are just for kids?

Beautiful children.

Lots to Share

Our family has had a busy few weeks. Ryan's parents flew in to help us paint some of the interior of our home. They were kind enough to purchase paint, prep and paint the living room, dining room, and kitchen. We could not have done it without their help - as it was, we barely got it done with their help. Previous owners mangled the walls by not removing old wallpaper glue and then doing who knows what to it so that paint would not stick to the wall!! It was truly amazing.

While they were here, we took trips to two historic towns in the area. One was called Mayestown and the other Lebanon.; both are beautiful and very old. It was wonderful having them here and it was sad to see them go. Who knows the next time we'll see them - we average about once a year - SAD!!

I had to get back into the swing of things today. I spent the entire morning doing laundry and ironing clothes. Then I spent the entire afternoon on the phone with insurance companies and paying bills. Then when Claire got home, we made a trip to Sam's Club for some much needed items (one of which was diapers - I forgot them and Ryan had to go back tonight). Then it was dinner, baths, a book and bed. No nap for either of them, so by 6pm, I had had enough of them. Some kids get grumpy when they get tired, mine get psycho. They were literally running around, screaming and running into each other; and that was just the beginning.

So now that the kids are asleep, the dishes are clean and Ryan is home, I'm going to call it a night. I have a ton of pictures to share (thanks to my mother-in-law), but Ryan updated our virus protection/firewall and now I can't upload photos or use my laptop. Good times.

Absent...again.

Once again, I have been missing from the virtual world. This time, I have a better excuse than reading books all day (see previous post). My in-laws are in town and we have been busy painting the interior of my house. They have been here a week now and will leave tomorrow afternoon. We have had a wonderful time with them here and they have been fabulous sports with the painting. Seeing as how it's already late and I'm exhausted from teaching and from the evening festivities, I'm going to make this short and crawl into bed. I promise to be back tomorrow with pictures of the newly painted living room, dining room and kitchen. I still have to paint my bedroom, William's, both bathrooms, the garage and the pantry and hall closet. Then there is all of the trim in the whole house to be painted white. I don't even want to think about that right now. The kitchen was so horrible (I'll explain tomorrow) that it makes me never want to paint again.

I have enjoyed reading all of your blogs and emails. Once again, sorry I have been absent and antisocial. Things will start to slow down this weekend - I hope. Goodnight.

Book Worm

So I get to playgroup last Thursday, and a friend of mine brought a book that she had just finished and was wondering if anyone wanted to read it. I was up for it since I was currently looking for a fun, fast book. I took it home Thursday, thinking I would read it here and there over the next several days. Well, that didn't quite happen. I read a few pages Thursday afternoon thinking it was OK. But when I began reading again that evening - I was up until 3am. Ryan came looking for me around 2am and then again at 3am. I figured he wasn't sleeping well with me out here, so I went to bed and I'm glad I did. I had to teach Friday and I was very tired.

I finished the book Friday and had a day of "rest" on Saturday. I ended up having to work at a marching band festival during the afternoon with my band - they did very well and I was proud of them. I didn't stay for the next festival because Ryan had to chaperon a church dance and both of the kids weren't feeling well. So Ryan brings book 2 in the series home Sunday from my giving friend. I finished it this afternoon and I just got back from her house, picking up book three. I did spend the afternoon (after finishing book 2), cleaning and getting my house ready to paint before I picked up the third book.

But now that I have book three, I should warn you that I will be out of commission for the next day and half. I promise to be better about writing once I'm finished with these books. They are very good and a lot of fun to read. I think Ryan is cursing my friend under his breath for exposing me to these books - but I'm loving it! When life gets dull, discouraging, or a little depressing, there's nothing like a good book to take you out of your world and into another. If you're curious about the books I'm reading, drop me a comment!

Home Office and William's day

It's already late as I start this. I have to teach in the morning, so going to bed is next on my 'to do' list. I wanted to document a little of a typical day for William while Claire is at school. Here he is taking a break with his goldfish.

Playing with cars is what William does most mornings.

A little play-doh

And a little play-doh on the couch.

Claire's "office"

Playing in the rain Sat.

I had more to write, but it's after 11pm, the kids are asleep, and I'm going to bed. Goodnight.