Snow Pics

Toby and Landon having fun in the snow. These
were taken
about a
week ago
when we
had a
wonderful,
white and
fluffy snowfall.
It's all almost
gone today
thanks to the
40+ degree
weather we've
had over the
weekend.


Court and
Landon
posing for a
shot. Landon
didn't want
to smile for
the pictures.
I think he
just didn't
want to
take time
for pics --
the snow
was too fun,
as you can
see in the
next picture...
Landon's first sled rides! He had so much fun!

Canon Perkins

I ran across this site yesterday and have had this sweet child on my mind ever since. He's the same age as Landon but has a rare liver condition. It's a sad but hopeful story. Canon also already has a younger sibling so I can only imagine the life style his parents must have right now -- what with a sick child and a little baby. Keep them in your prayers.

On Toddlers Eating Baby Cereal

You know your kids were born close together when they're both eating baby cereal out of the same bowl.

That was my bright revelation last night when I fixed Janae a nice gooey bowl of mushy rice cereal and proceeded to feed her and Landon started asking for some. He insisted on feeding himself so I was relieved that even though he was eating baby cereal, he was acting half grown up about it.

At one point, I'd reach down to put a spoonful of goo into Janae's open mouth only to feel the bowl in the other hand kinda get bumped. I glanced at it and noticed Landon was running his finger through it.

I pulled the bowl away and looked down at the spoon going into Janae's mouth and saw that she was biting down on the end of the spoon. As I'd push the cereal into her mouth, it would all run off the handle end of the spoon and fall down on her shirt.

While trying to catch that, I set the cereal bowl back on Landon's tray, assuming he'd go back to feeding himself with the spoon. When I looked back at him, he was using the gooey substance as a dip for his "hint of lime" chips. He sat there and dipped in style until his chips were gone.

Janae would holler for more and Landon would oblige his spoon until I could pry another little glob between her rosy lips. She wanted that stuff like crazy but wouldn't open her mouth up any more than enough to just bite the end of the spoon. Her mouth was surrounded by my attempts to get the food into her mouth.

Then we ran out of one bowl so I had to make more. Both kids were worried about that but I soon set them at ease when I brought back a nice full bowl. Baby cereal was one of the best inventions: you can make it fast and you can make as much as you need and if you don't, you can throw out the leftovers because that's what the directions say. It makes for a cleaner fridge that way and less hassle. Talk about fast food.

Eventually, Landon was disinterested in the snack and Janae wouldn't crack open her lips at all -- her little jaw was so firmly set. So we cleaned everyone up and put our snack away.

When I was first mixing up the food for Janae, I had told Toby that Landon was too old for baby cereal. He can eat regular cereal now and doesn't need that gooey stuff. While I sat down at the table to feed Janae, Landon started begging for something. Come to find out, he loves that stuff and does still need it.

So, either my kids were born too close together or else one doesn't want to grow up. Or, maybe it's both. At least he can feed himself though so I guess we're on a start.

Blinkies

In case you can't tell, I'm on a blinky binge. I told Toby it's my new blog background; like a new stationery or something.

It was a valuable computer language crash-course to learn how to interpret that gibberish when inserting all those silly icons into my Template. I never knew these things "< >" could be so important. (It took me about two minutes to find them on my keyboard just now.)

My two favorite blinky sites were this one and this one. I also like this one for the variety. And this one was absolutely adorable.

Most blinkie sites will urge you not to steal their bandwidth. At first I didn't know what that meant and thought I was guilty of it until I read that if you are saving the blinkies to your hard drive (right click, save as...) and then uploading them somewhere else (like photobucket.com) before putting them on your website, message board, blog, etc., then you're doing it right. It all scared me at first but then I realized that I was already snagging them legally and had no reason to fear the internet cops. But good information to keep in mind nonetheless.

You can roll your eyes at my blinkies or enjoy them. Either way, I won't give a blink.

At least I'm more female...

It said my brain is 80.00% Female, 20.00% Male. Hmmmm....

Your Brain is 80.00% Female, 20.00% Male

Your brain leans female You think with your heart, not your head Sweet and considerate, you are a giver But you're tough enough not to let anyone take advantage of you!

What Gender Is Your Brain?

What's Your Occupation?

This evening has been quite calorie reducing for me. They should really come up with a fancy exercise name for a person who makes frequent jumps off their office chair and then jogs, sprints or runs out of the room about twenty feet to save the life of a small individual. If there was such an exercise, I could fill in the "exercise daily" section of the forms you fill out when you go to the doctor's office.

For now, I have to leave that section blank because my kids keep me too busy doing the office chair sprint exercise.

I've been sitting at my desk surfing around on the web, checking out my regular sites and writing emails. At least, I'm trying to.

After making repeated trips to the nether regions of our house looking for a 2 1/2' male child, I'll sit down only to have to lunge across the room to retrieve a UFO (unknown foreign object) from my woman child's mouth. Then a boy with the above description will come tripping into the office with a handful of large crackers (or "car-tures" as he calls them) and will march over to the fridge to get a pop.

When he made a find behind my desk (there's about a 2" gap between the desk and wall) and pulled out a small lego, I dove my hand to grab the choking hazard from my son only to hear a choking sound coming from my girl on the other side of me. I kind of did a fast motion sway between the two of them while trying to decide who's life to save first. I can't remember who I grabbed first or if I had to use my toes and legs for that one as well as my fingers and arms.

All I know is there was a cracker and that small hazardous lego sitting on my desk when the dust cleared. There was also a collection of cracker crumbs balancing precariously on my space key that eventually slid down into the keyboard. I don't where those came from.

As we speak, both children are playing peaceable in the pop fridge rearranging cans. There's a collection of crackers and large legos on the floor behind me. Only the sound of computers can be heard right now even though there are two adventurous little people cruising around the room. Well, the sounds of moving pop cans can be heard too. As well as an occasional "whoa" by the larger child followed by a wail from the tinier person.

I'm glad pop cans are somewhat kid proof when it comes to opening them or else we'd have a mess right now. The boy is stacking and moving a collection of them and the girl is chewing on her own personal can. There have been frequent wails and exchanges of cans between the two youngsters only I think the exchanges aren't all quite completed because that baby seems to be getting the short end of the stick.

I should also be able to fill out the "occupation" part of those forms with something other than SAHM. I'm also a paramedic, child care provider, chef, wet nurse and psychiatrist.

Yes, psychiatrist.

At least a half dozen times tonight my husband has asked me what's wrong with our child that favors a tendency to wail. Either it would take an interpreter or psychiatrist to figure it out.

Since they haven't come up with a "language" that babies use, I guess it would take a psychiatrist until that interpreter comes around.

And, since the wailing child happens to be mine then automatically I should know what's wrong, right? Well, compared to the rest of her parents, I think she's crying because something didn't go her way.

I guess if I had a cool can of pop all to myself just for me to chew on, I'd cry too when my bossy big brother took it away from me. You wouldn't think it would take a professional to figure that out but maybe it does if you're the dad.

Well, I just dug some moist cracker crumbs out of the corner of my female child's left eye and with the sleepiness that has come over her, I have to assume that she's ready for bed. Since I'm the mom, I should know that at least.

The night is coming to an end and it is time for kisses and snuggles down into warm beds. Troubles and wails cease for a time and tummies are full and diapers are clean.

And moms can sleep (or sit here and type or surf) without figuring out all the problems her children come up with.

I still think I should be called a psychiatrist.

Some cute pics of our kids

Or should that be, "Some pics of our cute kids" instead? Whatever.

HERE'S SOME PICS OF OUR KIDS

There. That might sound more humble; less proud perhaps.

I've promised everyone and their mother that I would post pictures but I haven't gotten to it until now. Hope you enjoy them everyone and your mom!


Landon wasn't enjoying the leaves very much -- as you can tell by the unpleased look on his face.



Janae on the other hand, did like them. She liked them so much, I found a little piece of one in her diaper a couple days later. As you can tell from looking at her, she is a starving child and has to forage to stay alive.



What a look on that face! Landon loves driving his car and spends hours going on trips... or wherever his car takes him. Yeah, I guess you could call that a trip -- even if it's just up and down the side walk.



Janae all smiles for a picture. Just don't walk away from her or else that smile stops.



Bathtime Buddies!



Cuddly kids in their jammies (or "dimmies" as Landon calls them)





Janae all ready to get her picture taken



I have to stick this one in too so you can see some of her little pearlies. She has almost 8 now and she's not even 8 months old yet!



Landon talking to Beemoo (and Beemoo is Auntie Britt, for those of you who don't know that yet.)



And finally, Janae and her Daddy

Before and After Pics of our office

We renovated our front porch and turned half of it into an "official" office and the other side is a open/railed porch.

(sorry, not a good pic -- will update soon as now the whole front is finished.)


These are befores of the office. Actually, the office was in an entirely different room than it is now.

Our old office was a thorn in my flesh since it was well unorganized and not quite the kind of room you'd like to take a picture of. I realized now as I searched my My Pictures folder that I have no plain old pics of the office. You'll have to do with these. The little boy in one of the pics above, is my husband's little adopted brother, Jeremiah. The above pictures of the office was Toby's desk. Here's a picture from the vicinity of where mine was: (sorry, not a good pic!)


And now, here's the new office:

(my desk above and Toby's desk below)

decor detail below

This is what it looks like from the doorway

Before and After Pics of our bedroom

Here's a picture of our room before I did the redecorating:







And here it is after:

Power Of Suggestion

Yesterday, Toby came home for lunch with a look in his eyes that said I'm-ready-to-conquer-the-world-if-my-finances-are-okay as he punched away at his calculator wrist watch. He didn't seem too interested in lunch as he wandered around the house with a tape measure and pencil and a much too small stocking cap on his head.

After making his food, I searched the house looking for him and found him measuring our room.

"Are you ready to get new carpet, Hun?" was his greeting as he scrawled another number on his little stick-it pad.

"Carpet?" I asked.

He looked at me with a pleased grin and with a note of triumph in his voice said, "Yep."

My only wise response was, "Are you sure we can afford it?" As soon as I said it I wanted to suck the words out of the air and into my stomach, even if they would've given me a stomach ache to eat them.

I should know that before Toby even puts gas in the car, he makes sure our budget can accommodate it. And to put carpet in our house would give him even more reason to analyze and critique our finances.

He overlooked my question and informed me of the allotted allowance he had set aside for this new project and where exactly the money was coming from and how it would be handled.

I raised my eyebrows in shock and excitement and went back downstairs to stir the soup, trying to adjust to this new idea.

Eventually he came down stairs and I could hear him counting the steps as he made his way down. As he went to the table, he jotted down another number and ate his dinner while he read a book.

In no time, he was done and standing at the door with the pencil and paper and stocking cap and telling me to get the baby so we could run to the carpet store and pick out carpet.

I should know by now that when Toby sets his mind to do something, he goes all the way. But, for some reason when he was measuring the rooms, I inwardly assumed I'd have a couple days to digest the plans. He wasn't even giving me an hour to think about it.

I was thrilled to go pick out the carpet right then. I love picking out carpet and other such house hold items and to be kept waiting in order to digest an idea, well, sometimes that can be annoying. We went and picked out a few samples and came home.

Later that night, I knew the time had to come to finalize our choices. I washed my hair and showered, put on a pleasant night gown and arranged the sample boards across our bedroom floor. Of course, I would've washed me and made me clean had we not been deciding on carpet but since we were doing both that night, I made sure to plan them together. Adds to the effect somehow.

Toby sauntered in and informed me right up front that whatever I chose would be fine with him.

I assured him I knew that but would really appreciate his suggestions. I don't like making such life changing choices by myself -- like picking out carpet that we'll have to live with for the next 25 years.

He put his chin in his hands and intently peered at the samples for our room. I pointed at one and he agreed. We moved to the hall's carpet choices.

We both pointed to the same one at the same time and deemed that one chosen for the hall and steps. We moved on.

As we picked the final choices for the other two rooms, he'd say one choice; I'd say another. We'd discuss differences and details and then make a choice. Then I'd pick another one and then he'd point out yet another one. Finally, we were moving to actual colors (like blue, green, etc.) even though from the beginning we had both agreed that staying neutral (like tan, grey, etc.) would be best.

Just out of the blue, I pointed to a pleasant blue Frieze. He immediately liked it and said to go with that for what will be Landon's room. I said something to the effect of what if our next child is a boy; then Janae would get that room. (It's the smallest room and would suit one child better than two.)

"What if the next one is a girl?" Was the response I got -- as if there could be another sex besides boy or girl.

And then he said, "That's a nice color; it would work for a girl... it's kind of a grey blue color."

It was a nice color and I was half tempted. But what he said next only confused me.

"It really isn't blue anyway; it looks grey. Yeah, it's a grey color," he finished with.

I blinked my eyes and searched the very fibers of the carpet for some obvious strand of grey.

"That's as blue as you can get, Hun... sorta a grey blue shade but everybit of it is blue." I couldn't see how he didn't get it.

"Fine," he said as he shrugged his shoulders. "You pick out the carpet... this is why you should just do it yourself because you don't like my suggestions." And he went back to his book, as if the fact that I didn't agree with his all his choices made it so the previous agreeable choices were obsolete.

"Well, my dear Hun, remember I said I wanted your suggestions?" and I really did mean it. "I didn't tell you that you had to pick out the carpet -- I just wanted your suggestions."

He kind of nodded his head and agreed and was relieved the weight of the carpet was off his shoulders. He pointed at another color with his toe and then suggested we should just go to bed and look at them in the morning. The light would be different and would make the colors more obvious.

I agreed on that suggested choice and we headed to bed.

Sometimes power of suggestion is the most effective; other times, well, a suggestion is just another choice. If only some people would realize that.