Fashion Diva

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am trying to get past some of my control issues. So on days when we don't have to go anywhere that requires us to get out of the car, I've been letting Hannah wear whatever she wants.

This past Saturday was one of those days. I told Hannah to get dressed and she said something about wearing stripes. It was one of those moments where I was doing several things at once and was half listening to her. You all will be so proud of me for not saying a word and stifling my laughter when this is what I found.

Adventures With Boof Bear

At Hannah's preschool, one child is designated as "the snack person" for the week. That child brings a snack every day for the entire class. There are only nine in her class. Last week was Hannah's lucky week. I am trying to be less of a control freak (some of you have told me I am...you know who you are) so I let her choose what she wanted to take each day. Monday she took bananas. Wednesday she took Cheese Nips and string cheese. Friday she took Cheetos. I'm giving that information because she took her job of choosing a snack very seriously and put in a lot of thought for each day.

After a child is snack person for the week, that child gets to bring Boof Bear home for the weekend. Hannah talked about this all week long. She got in the car, opened her bag and squealed with delight to find Boof Bear inside. Part of the fun with Boof Bear is recording adventures Boof Bear has while at your house. Each child does a little summary of what they did with Boof Bear. This is shared with the class and placed in a binder which travels to each home with Boof Bear. I give you...Hannah's Adventure's With Boof Bear.

Boof Bear having lunch with Hannah.

Boof Bear helping Hannah check the mail.

Hannah used a neck pillow to make Boof Bear a seat in the car.

Hannah and Boof Bear snuggled on the couch with Aaron and his friend, Teddy, to watch Space Chimps.

Boof Bear slept with Hannah in her jungle room.

Hannah fixed dinner for Boof Bear.

Boof Bear helped Hannah lick the beaters after we made St. Nicholas cookies.

Mommy helped Hannah and Boof Bear light a candle on our family Advent wreath.

Boof Bear joined us at Monkey Joe's for a bouncing good time. He loved going down this very high bouncy slide.

Weather Girl

Rachel's school does a morning "news" program that is broadcast into the classrooms. Their news announcements pertain to the school and the weather. Each week different kids are given the chance to participate. Rachel was chosen to be the weather girl last week. She had to read her lines, but they actually are put on a screen in front of them so it really looks like they are professionals. She had to ad lib for the lost and found item. P.K., Hannah and I went to watch her in action one morning. That morning the lost and found item was a red Adidas jacket. You should have seen this girl in action. She started to put her hand on her hip when she was showing the jacket as if to say, "Your gonna be in trouble when your mom finds out you lost this" but she caught herself. We are so proud of her!

The backdrop is modeled after the peacock on NBC. It was painted in rainbow colors. I guess they switched to blue for winter.

Rachel amazes me with her self confidence. She is not afraid to get out there and try something new. She does not get that from the momma.

When Harry Met Sally or P.K. and Jody at Office Max

If you haven't seen the movie When Harry Met Sally, you should. It was a late 80s flick starring Meg Ryan. F.Y.I...this is not a kid friendly movie.

If you have seen the movie, I'm referring to the worst kind of high maintenance line not the "other scene" at the restaurant. Again, if you haven't seen the movie, you'll have to see it to understand the "other" restaurant scene. This is a family blog. :)

Sally is very high maintenance. It takes her forever to order something because she wants it the way she wants it. Harry explains it this way:

Harry: There are two kinds of women: high maintenance and low maintenance.
Sally: Which one am I?
Harry: You're the worst kind. You're high maintenance but you think you're low maintenance.

P.K. and I often laugh about this. In our relationship the rolls are reversed. When I order a sandwich, I usually just order it how ever it comes. I don't like tomatoes, but I just take it off. P.K. on the other hand orders it the way he wants it and we hope for the best. I tell him he is the worst kind of high maintenance (HM) because he doesn't think he is. This leads me to our trip to Office Max.

P.K. was off work yesterday so while the kids were at school and Hannah was at preschool we decided to do a few kid free errands and have lunch together. Our dates are few and far between so we both jumped at the chance.

I had received a $10.00 off a $20.00 purchase coupon for Office Max so that was one of our stops. P.K. (who claims not to be HM) said he needed some new pens. I like a ball point pen and usually stock up when the school supplies are on sale or even on clearance. If it writes, I can use it. P.K. being a lefty, prefers pens that meet his lefty technique.

Jody: Do we need anything else while we are here?
P.K.: I need some pens.
Jody: Oh, they are right over here. (motions to entire aisle of pens organized by style...ball point, gel, etc.)
P.K.: I think the pens I have been using are Pentel.
Jody: (searches the pens...I happen to be in the ball point section) Here are the Pentels.
P.K.: Cool. Oh, I wanted Pentel gel pens.
Jody: (rolls her eyes and moves to the section marked gel pens)
P.K. and Jody: (searching for Pentel GEL pens)
Jody: Here they are. Pentel gel pens. (The particular gel pens I found were retractable)
P.K.: Oh...I was looking for the Pentel gel pens with caps.
Jody: (laughing) You are the worst kind of HM just like on When Harry Met Sally and I am so blogging this moment.

Just so you know...they didn't have Pentel gel pens with caps so he decided to try the retractable.

Thanksgiving Week In Review

Monday night we let the kids stay up past their bed time. When we finally tucked them in, they all slept in Aaron's room...Lori and Rachel on an air mattress, Aaron in his bed, Noelle in the top bunk and Hannah on her Dora couch. They were understandably a bit wound up. We heard lots of laughs and voices. All of the kids were guilty. At least one child had come to tattle on the rest before Hannah and Noelle came down.

Noelle: Hannah won't stop singing.
Hannah: Saying "A-Doodley-Doo" is NOT singing

On Wednesday Shannon and I drug ourselves away from the Nertz table long enough to join the rest of the family at the park. It was nice to see daylight. Once we returned Doug was getting Hannah out of the car when he noticed her shoes were on the wrong feet.

Doug: Hannah your shoes are on the wrong feet. You need to change them.
Hannah: (Looks at Doug, looks down at her shoes, looks back at Doug) But we're just going over there (pointing to the front door).
Doug: Well, you still need to switch your shoes around. Wearing shoes on the wrong feet could make you pigeon toed (he then demonstrates what that looks like. Then he shows her that if the Dora on her shoes are on the outside, then the shoes are on the correct feet.)
Hannah: (Looks at Doug's Nikes which have the swoosh on the inside and outside) How do you know if your shoes are on the right feet?

Aaron and Noelle have been betrothed since Shannon and I found out we would have a boy and a girl. They were planning a wedding this week when Noelle decided she was finished. Here is what the kids decided to substitute.

Shannon and I continued our Black Friday shopping tradition this morning. We decided not to go quite as early as we have in the past, but we did make it to Target at 6:00 a.m. For us it is more about the experience of watching the other crazy people than it is about finding the best bargain ever. After Target, we went to Kohl's. We each found a little something and stood in line for about 30 minutes. There were about three people between us and the finish line where a friendly associate would direct us to the appropriate register. All of a sudden Shannon's face looked like she had sucked on a lemon and she said, "Ahhh." I look at her and then it hit me. A nasty smell nastier than either of us has ever encountered. I have changed a lot of dirty diapers in my day and none could match the smell around us. The smell just hung in the air. There was no escape. Gagging occurred. Apparently, whatever the lady in front of us had for Thanksgiving dinner created a very putrid smell when released as gas on the exiting end. Because we only had a couple things, we didn't have a cart. This meant we didn't have a free hand. The sight of us trying to balance our purchases and cover our noses with anything we could manage was hilarious. The thickness of the stench could not be waved away. We tried.

Tonight we rented a movie for the kids and let them eat leftovers and popcorn in the family room. Shannon and I had returned to playing Nertz in the dining room. Rachel comes in and says, "Aaron is sitting on his bowl of unpopped kernels to see if he can make them warm enough to pop." As a mom, this is not something I thought I would ever hear. Once I can contain my laughter (no thanks to Shannon who is laughing uncontrollably across from me, really had she been drinking anything her nose would have been a fountain)I call him to the dining room and ask him if he really did sit on his bowl of unpopped kernels hoping they would pop. And did he really think it would work? Yes, he sat on the bowl. No, he did not expect it to work. And some of you may have been wondering why Noelle backed out of the wedding.

Hello, this is the husband (P.K.) making a guest post.

A friend and I took our kids to an outdoor nature center and park. Aren't the kids cute?

Anyway, after a picnic lunch and some hiking, we arrived at the park. The main attraction for the kids was the tire swing.

The kids all cried, "Faster, faster!" The dads responded... (Notice the shoe on the ground and the hat flying off of Hannah's head.)

One child said it was better than the roller coasters at Bush Gardens. Another exclaimed that the tire swing surpassed rides at Six Flags. When the tire swing ride ended, this was the result...

All the girls said, "We feel sick."

The boy, however, couldn't understand what all the drama was about...

I especially like their post ride expressions...

This concludes my first post!

It's In the Air

The kids are off school all week. P.K. is off of work until Friday. Our friends left their home just before 5:30 this morning (They were going to leave at 5:00, but Caribou Coffee doesn't open until 5:30...priorities here) to travel to our home. We are making some last minute "company is coming" house preparations. I have 15 Bean Soup cooking in the crock pot so dinner will be waiting when our friends arrive. The house smells yummy! There is that certain feeling of excitement looming in the air and I love it!

As I often mention, I am big on traditions. One of ours is sharing Thanksgiving with Doug and Shannon and their two beautiful girls (also our Goddaughters) Lori and Noelle. We swap years. This year they are coming to us. We have been counting down for quite a while. We have no special plans. There will be lots of Nertz played. We may break it up now and then and play some Rummy. We will cook like crazy on Thanksgiving day and Shannon and I will be up before the sun on Friday morning to watch the crazy people fight for their prized sale items. The kids will put together a show. It is always worth it to watch them try to direct one another. All too soon it will be Saturday and we will have to tell them good bye as they head back home, but we will not dwell on that. We will make some memories and enjoy being together.

I have to share one unrelated thing. Yesterday I was going through a couple boxes in the basement I still had not unpacked. The boxes were full of stuff I had put off unpacking because I didn't know what to do with it. At the bottom of one of the boxes was Aaron's Bibleman Bible. If you are not familiar with Bibleman, he is a Bible super hero. My kids have several of the DVDs and love them. They teach great lessons using scripture. Aaron also has a couple of the action figures and his own Bibleman costume complete with the sword of the spirit. At some point he asked for the Bibleman Bible. It is just a kids' version of the Bible. He wasn't quite old enough to read it so last year while the kids ate breakfast I would read to them. Because I kept it in the kitchen I guess it got packed with all the last minute stuff. When I pulled it out yesterday I realized that Aaron's reading skills had improved greatly over the summer. I gave it to him and told him he was probably old enough to read it on his own. I almost cried when I walked up the stairs and heard him call P.K. to his room. He had been reading and found a scripture he wanted to memorize. He read it to P.K. and then proceeded to tell P.K. what it meant. Blessed my heart! Last night when we got ready for our night time routine, Aaron asked me if we could add something to the routine. We already do "nice thing" which means everyone goes around the circle and says one nice thing to everyone else. Then we sing a song, do prayers and tuck each child in their own individual bed. So I was thinking we really need to add one more thing. :) He asked if he could read the scripture he had read to Daddy and we could all try to memorize it. Then next Sunday he would give us a new one. Almost to tears, again!

So today as we finish our preparations for our Thanksgiving week, I am thankful that my son has a heart for God's word. I pray that the Lord will continue to grow that in him.