Drool

She wants peaches

and bananas

and pasta

or cooked carrots

only a few months

until she can have real food.

I might as well buy her a backpack.

Battle of Will

Yesterday, the dad and I decided that it was high time for this little boy to eat some fruits and vegetables.
Yes, he is licking peanut butter off of a wrench which was plunged into the peanut butter jar. So, we let him eat breakfast and when I cut up a cantaloupe for the play group kids his age I asked him to eat a bite. He did not. He threw a fit. He threw a tantrum. He wanted crackers. Then he wanted cheese. I said "first eat a bite of cantaloupe". There was much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. I ate lunch, he didn't eat the cantaloupe. He asked for a sandwich. I said "first you have to eat the cantaloupe. He kicked and hit, and went to time out. At about 1:30 I really wanted to give in. At 3:00 I thought he would perish for want of cheese crackers. At 4:00 dad asked if he would eat the cantaloupe. He said NO. "Will you eat some pear?" said dad. The boy said okay. I turned my head so quickly that I now have torticollis. The dad cut a piece of pear and gave it to the boy and... he ate it. And then he asked for more. Did he win? He did not eat the cantaloupe after all. I don't care, today he asked for some pear.

Birthday Bash

I think this birthday party was the best one we've done yet. It was a "blue vs. pink" bash- because for the past year Sissy has been totally and completely repulsed by pink. She won't wear a spot of it. The whole party was crafts, and the girls made:

Ribbon Flip Flops

And they sprayed shirts with squirt bottles of dye. They all put numbers on the back which I thought was funny.

And, we made fabric covered button ponytail holders, which are so easy and fun. I'm definitely making more. I found the instructions at http://www.jcarolinecreative.com/. Go to the hair accessories part.I also made cupcake pops that Martha had on her show. They were fun to make, but not very tasty. Pretty much they taste like ABC cake. ewwww. I think the girls liked them, they are made of sugar after all.

I did have to make a few real cupcakes for candles, they say "11" not two. It was really fun, and I liked sending the kids home with crafts instead of a loot-bags full of candy and trash toys.

Boob Tube

I watched a bit of American Idol tonight as I cuddled with two babies. Well, I fed one and the other just sat on my other leg and ate his nightly snack of string cheese. Anyhow, the only reason I bring up my television watching is to ask if anyone else thinks that Jason Castro is John Travolta's love child. He looks just like him- with dreads. What do you think? Watch his expressions. I'm telling ya, John Travolta is his daddy.

For Grandma who asked for pics

I'm sorry, but it has to be said this face looks a little bit like she's messing the diaper.

We just happened upon a wall of blue flowers.

This baby was 7 weeks old. Now she's 4 months.

Stoned

Well, on Tuesday a kidney stone was removed from my body. I'm glad that I was not conscious for the procedure and that I do not remember a thing. It was very interesting to be put under. I've never experienced that before (that I remember). What was funny to me is how the nurse anesthetist was talking to me as if we were having a normal conversation- he was telling me about the cocktail that I drank which he claimed was for reflux and then asked me if I exercise. I wanted to say something witty but only managed a "yeah" through the waves of nausea. He said- I can tell you have a really good heart rate. I thought, at least it shows on the inside. Next thing I know the nurse is waking me up and explaining about the "basketing" procedure and how they didn't do lithotripsy and OH- we only got one. Yeah, one little stone still floating around inside me just waiting to gash at the insides of my ureter. And to the nurse anesthetist- reflux? yeah, right.

By the way, when I spell check the computer suggests "death trap" for lithotripsy. Not kidding.

Sister is 11!

This is the first page of sister's baby book. She was born 11 years ago today. I'd like to share with you a few memories:


*at two years and 8 months we were driving from Texas to relocate for school and Sissy kept asking to sing "the shirlee song" I had no idea what she meant until a few songs later I choose "If you're happy and you know it" right as I started singing it she squealed and clapped "yeah, shirlee's song!".



*at five years and 4 months the first two kids and I were in a pretty bad car accident. I'll never forget Sissy walking into my hospital room wearing a green hospital gown. It was even a child's gown but still was so long on her that it touched the floor when she walked. She looked so little and scared. We were able to go home that night. That incident did have lasting effects though. She was always scared of school and bus fire drills. In the accident the air bags made quite a bit of smoke so once while in kindergaren another child pulled the plug on the fire extinguisher and let "smoke" into the bus. The next day Sissy was so scared to get on the bus that her teacher brought her home for me. This particular Kindergarten teacher really liked Sissy and always challenged her very well. She let her read all of the worksheet instructions to the class because Sissy was (and is) such a good reader.

* I have a particular memory of Sissy that I will never forget although it is simple. We were coming home from church one day in Alvin and she wore a cute little green dress and black mary janes. She just looked so pretty bobbling into the house all by herself. She must have been only two and she used her hands to climp up the stairs into the trailer that we had there.


This is the dress:

Blog Minded

It's funny to notice the things you take pictures of when you have a blog. Like, this blue spray paint under my nail. I was at the time wondering if I would be the only mother at the pinewood derby with spray painted fingers.

And, I took this picture to tell you all about a great website we use for FHE lessons. It's www.ldssplash.com they have great lessons. Just print them out and ponder.

I think this is the best idea I wanted to share... but why didn't I use a different color of bowl for the picture? I wasn't thinking about good photos, just good food. If you can call boxed mac n cheese good food. Well, when you add butternut squash soup and your kids don't even know and eat it all up then it is. I must say I got the idea from the book Deceptively Delicious.

Kidney Stone update: it's still there, and there are actually two one is 6mm and the other is 3mm. And, since I began writing this post I've made several dashes to the bathroom (can't keep anything down) sorry if you didn't want to know. So, do I have lithotrypsy which will cost me about $2000 and maybe kidney damage or do I wait and pray for pee? Dad said kidney infection is what caused mom's memory loss, did anyone else know that? I did not.

Drugs

Well, this baby has been poisoned. Not one of my babies has suffered the taste of formula until now. The poor little dear didn't even cry or wince in pain as I thought she might. Granted, she didn't really drink the stuff either. But, because I was unable to nourish her yesterday from about 11:30 until bed time, the dad tried to feed it to her. And, she was an angel. Not a peep of complaint... she just waited patiently until she could get the good stuff.
You may wonder what I was doing yesterday. Well, after a few hours of writhing in pain I went to the hospital to confirm that the before mentioned pain was indeed from a kidney stone (and it was gosh-darn-it). The doc said it's most likely to big to pass, so I'm off to a urologist today. The ER doc said that my milk would be tainted with medications that baby should not have... In my book mom's milk with medicine is still superior to formula. However, I am still pumping "clean" milk to have for her before I take the pills, and then pumping a few hours after the pills and discarding that milk. He said the milk will be at least a little "cleaner" that way. Sorry if that is too much bodily function information for you, but there it is. My baby is a sweetheart.

Follow the Prophet

This is Willie's favorite song at the moment. And, what I did today by purchasing some food storage items. I'm sure you all know the issue about rising wheat prices. Well, for the past month I've been attempting to purchase wheat from our cannery. They haven't had ANY. GONE. NO MORE. So I called again this morning and it finally arrived! The cannery opens at 9:00 and when I got there at 9:20 there was a line about 50 people long. No, I'm not kidding. They limited wheat purchases to 100 lbs per family. Which is really not very much, and they only had hard red (white is sooo much better). I figured I should also get some other staples... but they were very sparse too. It was really very strange to go see empty shelves at the cannery. So, go buy some storage people. Follow the Prophet, he knows the way.

And, I thought you'd like to hear about Sissy's spelldown (because apparently it's not a bee anymore). She went to the school district office on Tuesday to participate in the 5th grade district spelldown. Forty students started, six were out in round one and then 10 were out in round two. They took it up a notch for round three and 18 kids were out (including sister). That only left 6 kids to go. I told her she did a fantastic job, but she was really disappointed. I told her of ALL the 5th graders in our city- only 6 spell better than you do. That seemed to make her feel better about the whole thing. The word she missed was CHASTIZE, or CHASTISE... how DO you spell it?

Onions

It's begun. Our garden that is. As of today we have onions (red and walla walla) and snow peas. What yummy stir fry we'll have. I had so many onion starts left over that I offered them to my older neighbor who also has a garden. She declined, apparently onions make her gassy.

Magically Delicious

Sister Babe (aka Sheila) informed me of the deliciousness of a salad containing pickle and avocado. This one has pumpkin seeds too. It REALLY is good, it's like a guacamole party in your mouth with out all the work of making guacamole. I think this will be my lunch every day this summer, it is getting a bit warm for butternut squash soup.



We celebrated Easter at Grammie's house and had lots of fun. Sissy dyed some eggs to look like eyeballs. I thought that was a cute idea.


I took this pic of Sister Babe and Husband while they had a nap on Easter, just wanted to share because I like it.

And this one too. I don't think Baby wants the kiss, but her cousin is just too sweet.

The End.