ian's escapades

ian has been up to his old tricks again--acting like the rambunctious boy that he is. he's had an incident or two here recently, and before i can write about them, he does something else.

the other night in the bathtub he went on a splashfest and had the entire bathroom floor covered in standing water. i knew this was going on, but it was one of those things i wasn't in the mood to stop and wasn't sure i wanted to enforce. so i just let him keep it up. after all, what can you expect when you're using your hands as shovels?

another time he took two of our fancy goblets into the bedroom and climbed up on the bed to "do cheers with them", only to have them shatter all over the covers. all over. that was fun to clean up.

we've had the vaseline out quite a bit recently, with cold weather and colds, for dry hands, chapped cheeks, and irritated noses. ian had other ideas for it. he smeared about a third of a cup all through his hair. what a mess!!!!! you'd be surprised how many washings it takes to get it all out.

he's also done what i consider minor things--like stripping down my freshly made bed to the mattress. i have a foam mattress pad on the bed and he pulled chunks of foam out of it just "bee-tause". he spit a kool-aid drink out all over the deck, so the whole thing was sticky and blue. he tried to be helpful and fix his own supper--by eating half of an uncooked hot dog. he helped me do laundry, by pouring the rest of my fabric softener into the washer. (luckily it was less than a quarter of the bottle. thank goodness for small miracles, right?) and i can't even begin to count the number of shampoos, conditioners, shaving creams and body washes that have become vicitms to ian's bath escapdes.

and these are just the first things that popped into my head. i know if i sat here and thought about it for a moment, 30 others would come to mind. lucky for him he's very cute and hilarious. it helps him out tremendously in times of trouble!

religion and politics

while out running errands yesterday i heard an interesting topic being discussed on talk radio. the topic was, "how does a presidential candidate's religion (or lack thereof) influence your vote?" they brought up the issue of mitt romney's candidacy, and how he was having to address questions about his religion. they also brought up the situation that happened out here with john edwards' campaign. two of his paid employees wrote negative and derogatory statements about religion and specifically catholics on their personal blogs. john edwards refused to fire them, although they later resigned. there were many in this area who felt he should have taken stronger action against them, arguing that he would never have tolerated them making racially derogatory comments, so why did he allow the religiously derogatory ones. with those being their talking points, they opened the phone lines. the calls were pretty much all over the map, however most seemed to feel that it was important for a person to be religious and/or have a strong faith in God. there were also many who felt it was important, yet their main concern was that they had a strong moral code which they lived by. several were disgusted that it was an issue at all. one lady, using romney as the example, said she was frustrated that she knew that mitt romney was a mormon, yet had no idea where any of the main candidates stood on border security, homeland security, social security reform or education, and she felt that the media was largely to blame for the hype of the religion issue. others, as you can imagine, had strong feelings about a person's specific religious affiliation, stating that they would not vote for a candidate belonging to certain religious sects. other points brought up were about the difference between someone who was was truly religious, and someone who did it purely for political gain or just the appearance thereof. another one was the difference between being religious and spiritual. it was a very interesting discussion and debate. so what are your thoughts? where do you come down on the issue?

that's not where i usually keep the sugar

i've been baking tons of brownies the last two days for a ward activity tonight, so i've had flour, sugar, cocoa and the like out over the counters. just now i was doing some laundry, and as i got down to the last items in the basket, i came across the open bag of sugar, sitting there in the bottom. i'm pretty sure while i was baking in the kitchen, ian snuck into the laundry room and helped himself to some sugar. he's a big fan of it when i'm baking. sneaky little rascal. the funny thing is, if he'd just put it back where he'd found it, i probably would never had known what happened. lucky for me, he hasn't figured that out yet.

The Bad Stingray

my kids have a funny game they play. elise & ian pretend that merry grace is "a bad stingray". they will squeal when she gets close to them and take off running. merry grace has no idea what this game is about--just that the big kids want to play with her. so she takes off crawling as fast as she can after them. elise and ian wait until she gets close again and yell, "ahhhhhh! the bad stingray is going to get us!" and run away again. if she loses interest or gets sidetracked, the kids will get down close to her and in a singsong voice say, "bad stingray.....come heeeeeerrrrreeee...." its one of the funniest things and chock full of imagination. i mean, a stingray? where did that come from? a tiger or a bear or a monster i would expect--but a stingray?

as i speak, elise and ian are hiding in the laundry room, peeking out to see if the "bad stingray" is coming to get them. she's not. she was sidetracked by a few snack crackers. give her just a minute....

so much to say...

so much has happened the last couple of weeks that blogging has taken a back burner. actually, its just a little daunting to do justice to all the fun activities in a few short sentences. so here's the long and the short of it...or maybe just the short.

my youngest brother, logan, & i took a trip out to utah to see our other brothers who live out there while they're going to school. we were gone for five days and had so much fun. we didn't do anything particularly spectacular--hung out at the hotel, swam in the pool, worked out in the "fitness center" (otherwise known as a small room with an exercise bike & a treadmill), went out to eat, watched arrested development, and just enjoyed being together. it was the first time that my siblings & i have been together without our parents. it was an interesting experience, but it was fun. we decided we want to have a "siblings weekend" every couple of years. we also got to spend some time with my aunt, uncle & cousins, which was so nice. we don't get to see them as often as we'd like, so we enjoyed hanging out with them. it was hard for me to be away from my family, even for 5 days, but i think it was worth it. "a fun time was had by all."

the week i came home, my baby, merry grace, turned one year old. i can't believe she's that old. not that its "old", but i can't believe its been a whole year since i gave birth to her. its flown by. but she 's cute as a button and as sweet as ever. her personality is growing and developing and we're just loving her more and more each day.

then there have been the usual activities of elise's school, getting ready for the ward activity this weekend, choir, and a million other odds and ends. so its been busy, its been fun and we're ready for more!

My life in Pictures

Here are a BUNCH of pictures I've been meaning to post of life in our neck of the woods. Hope you enjoy catching up on what we've been going on around our place....
I think this is so cute. Max is licking Elise's face. She loves him & he does the same. Her nickname for him is "Maxadoodle".
I'm so excited that Merry Grace can actually keep a bow in her hair now. I love it. And she pretty much always has a smile on her face. How lucky are we?
ian and merry grace playing. i think my kids play so well and happily together. its so nice to see them love each other so much.
We fingerpainted this afternoon. Elise got a book from her book order about fingerpainting and it included paints and paper. So we tried them out. Elise painted a peacock.
Here is Ian's fingerpainting. He's an artist in the making. I think he liked painting his body afterward almost as good. ;)
Elise is playing basketball this winter. Its so cute to watch them play. Elise is number 2.

Elise received the 'kindness' award at school last week. We were very proud, but not a bit surprised because Elise is so kind around our house and with her brother & sister. Her teacher said she had "definitely earned it!"
Last night we discovered that Elise has not one but two loose teeth. She was ecstatic and her excitement is just contagious. I can't imagine how wonderful it will be when the tooth fairy comes!
Here is a picture of Ian's new boots. This picture doesn't do justice to how truly horrendous they actually are. There are these gigantic spidermen on each side and are quite bulky. Its even better when he wears them with pants. Most pants won't fit over the boots so they're just bunched up around his knees. Lovely. But that smile makes it worth it! =)
With kids around, the bathtubs are always a surprise. Even still, every morning I get a little start when I see this plastic fly lying there. There are some things I could just do without....

Several weeks ago, we had a little bit of snow. It only lasted half a day, but it was fun for the kids to actually get to see some of the white stuff. And of course, Elise got to miss a day of school and have a two hour delay the next day. I didn't realize how much I'd missed seeing some, until we woke up to a white yard.

Here is Max's puppy cage. As you can see, he's not the only one who enjoys it. Fortunately for us, she learning how to share! ;)

my date with ian

ian & i had our special date tonight. we went to eat at cici's pizza, known by the barnett kids as "the pizza place". ian was so excited by the aspect of being in a restaurant that it took him a while to settle down and eat anything. basically his meal consisted of once slice of pizza, hi-c, and a packet of sweet-n-low. he also likes to lick the powdered sugar off the brownies. he took a swipe at the first one, and as the sugar came off he goes, "oh! its brown under here. i not like brown." then he turned to me and said, "you can have the brown." surprisingly, i wasn't interested in his generous offer. =) after he ate, we played a few games in their arcade and then walked next door to shoe show. ian's foot has grown in the last little bit and only has one pair of shoes that fits. so we were hoping to get a bargain on a new pair. what we ended up with was a bargain alright. but not on the nice pair of tennis shoes i was thinking of. after ian spotted what had to be the ugliest pair of black spiderman boots i have ever laid eyes on, it was all over. so $9 later, we walked out with them. and he is in love. he put them on in the car and wouldn't even walk in the house in them because he was afraid he might get them dirty. i'll post pictures soon. anyway, we had a great time together. he told me he was glad he'd come so i didn't have to go on a date "all alone". then he told me that he and lisy would never leave me all alone. what more could you ask for?

quick recovery

elise was out of school yesterday for a snow day. (aren't they the best?) anyway, this morning she had a two hour delay, but even as the morning progressed, it became apparent that she was not interested in going to school today. she kept trying to talk her way out of it, and ended up expressing her concerns over her health. she had a "runny nose, a cough, and my voice is going away." she was not even close to being too sick to go to school--and i told her as much. when she insisted, i told her that she must immediately go to her room, hop in the bed, and be done for the day. anyone that sick had no business being up and about. she followed my instructions, but after about 15 minutes came back out and began playing. when i told her she must go back to her room, she replied, "oh, i'm feeling better. resting in my bed must have really worked!"

will wonders never cease?

kidstuff

i love listening to the kids have conversations. on monday we went to the dollar tree and the kids each got to pick out a prize. elise decided on a new barbie outfit, which she immediately began putting on her barbie once she got out to the car. as we were driving off i heard the kids have this conversation:

ian: that barbie not lut (look) bery (very) dood (good).
elise: ian! why would you say that?!
ian: well, she's nay-ted. (naked)
elise: oh. yeah. no one looks good when they're naked.

there are just so many places i could go with that, i don't know where to start. suffice it to say that kids are funny folks!

merry grace amazes me

merry grace loves to pretend to get dressed. if i'm doing laundry, she takes the shirts and pants and puts them around her neck--which is her attempt at pulling it over her head. i didn't realize how observant she was until doing laundry just now. i had a pile of clothes, with a pair of ian's underwear amongst them. i watched her pick up the pair of ian's underwear and instead of putting them around her neck, tried to put them over her foot. during the whole time, she never once tried to put them over her head or around her neck. i was amazed that she knew the difference. who knew?

irony

this morning we were in various stages of eating breakfast and i was packing elise's lunch and snack for school. i got a chocolate pudding cup out of the fridge to put in her lunch box when ian spotted it and wanted one too--only for breakfast. my first reaction was, "no, you need to eat something healthy first." and even as the words were leaving my mouth, i looked over at elise and saw her eating a chocolate chip cookie dough poptart. somehow it had not even phased me to hand her that for breakfast, but the pudding caused me to pause. needless to say, ian ate chocolate pudding for breakfast this morning--after all, its high in calcium. ;)

my elise

elise just said a couple of things that cracked me up, so i wanted to post them before i forgot.

first, she and ian were playing with this big exercise ball i have. elise had done some kind of trick on it and then ian said, "let me show you lisy. let me show you something even cooler." elise responded, "no, ian. its not even cooler. they're just the same amount of cool!"

then a few minute later ian came running up to her and goes, "lisy, lisy, lisy.." she cut him off and said, "no. call me superwoman."

that's my girl!

of toothbrushes, cookies, baths, nicknames, naps and typos....

one of my favorite christmas presents this year was a stocking stuffer. its a crest spinbrush, a battery operated toothbrush. this is my first one ever, as far as i can remember, and i am in love. i don't know if it actually cleans my teeth any better than my ordinary toothbrush did, but this much i do know: its a lot more fun! its just a different toothbrushing experience, and i think because its so much fun, i'm a better, longer, more thorough toothbrusher than before. so while the product itself might not be any better, the operator sure is!

i love cookies. but they have to be done just right. hard cookies just don't do it for me. i like them soft, chewy and almost not even cooked. last night i started cooking some chocolate chunk cookies and then left to go see to merry grace. i left cory and elise in charge and they got the cookies too done. they weren't burnt, just solidly done. that's when i realized how much distaste i have for hard, crunchy cookies. i may have even said as much to my trusty assistants. (yes, it was juvenile, and yes, i apologized.) the discovery was this: even with my sweet tooth--and it is a very big sweet tooth--i won't eat "done" cookies. so while it may encourage me to eat healthier, it isn't very much fun. so for lunch today, i got around that little problem--i just ate the cookie dough right out of the container. perfect!

merry grace took her first real tub bath tonight. it was so cute. and the other kids thought it was really neat. they all had fun entertaining her and helping wash her. elise even washed merry grace's hair all by herself. and she did a great job. of course it helps that merry grace loves baths, showers, and just being washed in general. even with getting a couple of cupfuls of water dumped on her head, she didn't make a fuss. what a good baby!

cory has decided to give us all nicknames. so far the only one that i thought was perfect, was the one he picked out for elise: "boss". unfortunately, she hates it, so its not going to stick....which once again brings into focus why the name is perfect.

is there anything better than a nap when you're completely exhausted? snuggled up under a warm blanket and letting the world fade out while you drift into a nice peaceful slumber...i took a rare nap today, and it was wonderful. ian and merry grace snuggled up with me and it was heavenly. i realized as i rested with them that i don't do that nearly often enough. i used to rest with elise when she was little, and while i rarely napped, the quite peacefulness has been missed.

i love typos. not in something important, but when i'm just typing along and hit a wrong key, it just give me the giggles. in the last paragraph i was typing "snuggled", but hit the 'i' key instead, and ended up with "sniggled" instead. that's infinitely funnier than "snuggled." =)

review of the holidays

this is always a hard post, because i can never sum up all the fun we had into one neat little paragraph. but here's my attempt.

the friday before christmas was our kids christmas morning. this was the most fun christmas yet, as the kids were really into the presents and santa claus and just the magic of the moment. it was wonderful.

on saturday, we headed down to cory's folks. six of the seven siblings spent the night that night, so there was a house FULL. i think we added it up that there were 13 adults and 11 children (under the age of 6), so you can imagine how that was. but it was so fun. all the grown-ups had fun talking and catching up and the kids had a ball. his parents arranged for a surpise visit from santa claus, who came in and held each child on his knee and put on a really great show. the next day we ate, opened presents, and just enjoyed one another's company.

late that night we headed up the highway to my folks. we did some last minute wrapping and stocking stuffing, but mostly enjoyed more catching up with my brothers. christmas morning dawned bright and early. and yes, there was MORE present opening. every gift was very thoughtful and personal. great job by everyone. that night we made and decorated gingerbread houses. elise caught the vision, decorating one she & cory made and two that papa made for her. each one had various success and drama, but in the end they looked wonderful. the week continued with lots of games nights, family time, and visits.

yesterday we packed up and came home, along with my family, to start the new years celebrations. so here we are. we packed everything we could into each activity. i don't think we could have gotten anything more done than what we did. a fun time was had by all....

whirlwind

i guess it started tuesday with getting ready for ethan to come in. he and i had collaborated and switched his plane ticket to come in earlier than planned and surprise mama and daddy. i picked him up late that night and finally crashed into bed sometime after 12:30. the next morning continued the craziness with adam flying in around 10am. i picked him up--late--but picked him up nonetheless. we spent a few hours doing some last minute shopping and ended up back at my house around 1pm to wait for mama, daddy and logan to show up. they pulled in roughly an hour later and after hugs and tears from mama, we were standing around visiting when ethan just casually walked into the room. ethan said mama's face registered surprise, confusion, and then shock. and then she screamed--loud! we had a fun day talking, reminiscing, laughing, catching up, relaxing, and telling a good poop story or two for good measure. this morning started off early again, as we are hosting a caroling party with the barnetts tonight. so the kids and i spent the morning baking cookies for tonight, the afternoon cleaning and straightening up. we're also doing "our" christmas tomorrow morning, which the kids don't know yet. so i've been trying to make sure all the presents were wrapped and organized. i'm so excited i can hardly wait. i think the kids will love the things we got for them, i just can't wait to see their faces. its so hard not to say anything to them. but i am sooooooo excited.

in other odds and ends, elise has been a super duper helper today. she has cheerfully and tirelessly helped me with whatever job i was doing. she helped cook, clean, organize--the whole bit. she's really good at it too. she amazes me. when she gets a little bigger she'll be unstoppable. its a good thing she got her cleaning genes from her daddy! she's so sweet and good.

ian says this funny thing that i've been meaning to write down. i'm pretty sure it got started by cory and i asking him "if his tummy was hungry" or "is your tummy telling you its full..." and so on. but its progressed to where his tummy tells him all kinds of things. like his tummy tells him he wants to watch "go, diego, go" on tv or his tummy tells him he wants to go pick up lisy, or his tummy tells him he wants to sleep in my bed. its so funny. this morning he said, "my tummy says it wants to open a present. and my tummy's telling me to do that. so i need to do that."

well, i've taken a long enough break writing the post. so i'd better jump back in the whirlwind!

random thoughts

i was out really early this morning and caught a little segment on the radio about christmas music and it got me thinking: what are the best and worst christmas songs out there? i have a short list--a couple of my favorites are "o holy night" and "rocking around the christmas tree". two that i absolutely hate are "simply having a wonderful christmas time" and "the christmas shoes". do you guys have any others?

cory and i subbed in nursery yesterday. there are aproximately 15 kids, 12 of them being boys. it was fast, loud, rough, and crazy. the testosterone in the room was almost overwhelming. but we enjoyed it. ian has only a couple of weeks left before moving up to sunbeams. YIKES!

i've been doing laundry today. a lot of laundry. while laundry is not one of my all-time favorite things to do, i love, no, make that adore, getting stains out of clothes. i'm not always great at it, but i love working on it. ian has this white shirt with a daschsand on it. i've gotten ketchup, macaroni and cheese, dirt, spaghetti, and other various and assorted grout and grime from it and as i look at it on him now, it looks as good as new.

there you have it. random.

merry christmas

You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch
Author: Dr. Seuss

You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch.
You really are a heel.
You're as cuddly as a cactus,
You're as charming as an eel,Mr. Grinch.

You're a bad banana
With a greasy black peel.

You're a monster, Mr. Grinch.
Your heart's an empty hole.
Your brain is full of spiders,
You've got garlic in your soul, Mr. Grinch.

I wouldn't touch you,
with a thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole.

You're a vile one, Mr. Grinch.
You have termites in your smile.
You have all the tender sweetness
Of a seasick crocodile, Mr. Grinch.

Given the choice between the two of you
I'd take the seasick crockodile.

You're a foul one, Mr. Grinch.
You're a nasty, wasty skunk.
Your heart is full of unwashed socks
Your soul is full of gunk, Mr. Grinch.

The three words that best describe you,
are as follows, and I quote: "Stink. Stank. Stunk."

You're a rotter, Mr. Grinch.
You're the king of sinful sots.
Your heart's a dead tomato splot
With moldy purple spots, Mr. Grinch.

Your soul is an apalling dump heap
overflowingwith the most disgraceful assortment
of deplorablerubbish imaginable,
Mangled up in tangled up knots.

You nauseate me, Mr. Grinch,
With a nauseaus super-naus.
You're a crooked jerky jockey
And you drive a crooked horse, Mr. Grinch.

You're a three decker saurkraut and toadstool sandwich
With arsenic sauce.


are there any better poems that this one? my favorite stanza is, "you nauseate me, Mr. Grinch, With a nauseaus, super-naus. You're a crooked jerky jockey and you drive a crooked horse, Mr. Grinch." Anytime you can include these lines in a poem, its a good one! Dr. Seuss rocks.

christmas party

last night we had cory's office christmas party. it had been sort of a lot of work getting the time, place, and baby-sitting worked out, but by last night at 6:30 cory's mom and dad were baby-sitting seven of their grandchildren and we were sitting in the Outback.

there are only three people at his office: cory, neal (his brother), and jacob (his brother-in-law), and then us wives who also do side work for them as well. so it was almost more a family dinner, than an office dinner, but either way, we had a lot of fun. cory, surprisingly, kept us entertained throughout the night with his "awards" and "bonuses". for example, amanda and i won the "big spender" awards. it was hilarious. however, they did actually surprise us with gift certificates to our favorite spa and nail salon. there was such a feeling of kinship and friendship throughout the night as we talked, laughed, shared memories, and hopes for the future. it was such a fun, relaxing, companionable night, it was hard to see it end. it made me happy to be a part of such a great family and such a great company.

boys are made of...

a few days ago the kids and i were in the car. out of the blue ian said, "when i ate that chicken, i thought i was going to throw up. but i not throw up." a little confused about what chicken or when he ate it, i asked him a couple of questions, first: "when did you eat some chicken?", to which he replied, "right now." this is where i start to become alarmed, because i know we have not gotten chicken nuggets today, and honestly can't remember the last time we might have had chicken nuggets in the car. so my next question was, "where did you find it?" apparently, he found an old chicken nugget hiding in some crevice in the car or his booster seat and ate it. the very thought of it makes my stomach turn. so then i wonder if i need to take some kind of action--i mean, what happens to you if you eat an ancient chicken nugget? that can't be good for you. the upshot is, he ate the nugget on monday, and all is still well. i noticed no ill effects at all, much to my relief. so we can add a new catchphrase to the old saying, "boys are made of snakes and snails and puppy dog tails." they're also made of old chicken nuggets. ;)

self-esteem....

elise was so funny this morning. she picked out one of her sunday dresses to wear to school, her shoes, a wide pink headband, and a white blazer for her jacket. i was helping ian with something in the bathroom when elise walked in, climbed up on the stool and looked at herself in the mirror and says, "Wow!!! I look adorable! This is the cutest outfit ever!". She continued to grin and admire herself for a couple more minutes. She knew she looked good!

it reminds me of a story i heard growing up about a couple in our ward. when they were teenagers, he had come to her house to pick her up for one of their first dates. as he was walking to the bathroom, he realized she was in there, getting ready. he waited outside the door for just a moment when he heard her look at herself in the mirror and say, "Jenny Bowman*, you beautiful thing, don't you ever die!!!" He said that was the moment he fell in love.

I love it that elise can think she looks beautiful when she looks in the mirror. I certainly think she is. However, there is such a culture of looks, beauty, and physical appearance in our society, that I don't want her to get sucked into the trap of never feeling 'enough'--whether its her face, her size, her shape, her feet, her bellybutton, or whatever else there might be. I hope that she can feel good about who she is and realize that that is enough. There is a wonderful story told by President Monson that sums up my feelings very well. He says, "Many years ago, at a Church magazine awards banquet, we sat with President and Sister Harold B. Lee. President Lee said to our teenage daughter, Ann: “The Lord has blessed you with a beautiful face and body. Keep the inside just as beautiful as the outside, and you will be blessed with true happiness.” This master teacher left with Ann an inspired guide to the celestial kingdom of our Heavenly Father."

That is the message of beauty I want to instill in Elise.

*name has been changed.