Little Ubiquitous

Christmas: Cowell Style

2008-12-30T21:22:00.000-08:00

So another marathon Christmas is over for us. Oh wait. No it's not. We still have two more Christmases to go: one on Friday night with my family again since Dave and Julie and their girls were up north for the day of, and then (I assume) another get together with all of Nathan's family since Jeff and Heather and John and Jenna and their girls were in Arizona and Texas for the holiday! And then one more....the craziest of all....with the Eatons next Friday. Phew! So, that will make a total of six Christmases for Nathan and me. Is this holiday out of control, or what? I actually like it. It was a little bit harder this year because I didn't get on the ball and buy the presents early, so I got stuck shopping in the week before, but it all worked out.

Our first celebration was on Christmas Eve with just our little family of four. This is our tradition, since it's the only time we have to be alone. We went to the Olde Ship for dinner. We love the atmosphere. I was all excited, but ended up being let down! For one thing, there was no tomato soup. And then - THEN! when I asked for some crackers the waitress brought us Saltines! We began to question how British this British pub really is. When I told her I meant Christmas crackers she apologized and said that they were only giving crackers out to people who ordered the special Christmas dinner. Usually they give them to everyone, and we were seriously disappointed. We weren't jerks about it, we just told our waitress that that was one of the reasons we go there every year, so she snuck us a couple crackers, which was nice, but still doesn't make up for the new rule. We had fun with them anyway, even though they were sans corny jokes this year.

So we took our traditional round of pictures in crowns, pretending to be wise people.

And because Blogger's being weird about the order it uploads pictures, the rest of these are out of order....

After dinner we came home and the boys opened their presents. Micah didn't care all that much, but Judah did. We got him a bike and he was so excited! He just kept saying "Thank you! Thank you so much!" over and over again. We let him take it out for a spin, even though it was late at night. How could we not? There's a picture below somewhere....

Christmas morning was spent sleeping in a little bit (the boys were worn out from the late night before) and then heading for the Cowells' for brunch with Ken and Elly and Brian and Ashlee. Ashlee made ebelskevers (I have no idea how you spell that), which are basically tiny spherical pancakes filled with whatever you feel like putting in them, and I made an egg dish and Elly provided the bacon and juice, and it was delicious! More present opening after that. Jeff and Heather left presents for the boys before they left, and Judah adored the Lightning McQueen rain boots they got him.

In the evening we went to my parents' house for a proper turkey dinner and more presents..... We stayed there for as long as we could, until Micah threatened to self-destruct with exhaustion. Then it was back home for another late bedtime for tired but happy boys.

Here is Micah with the ball that John and Jenna gave him - he loved it! Unfortunately, so did Judah, so they spend some of their time fighting over it.

Judah on his new bike.....

And, just for you, Jaysen, here is a picture of Judah imbibing. I gave him a sip of my cider, and then Nathan spent the rest of dinner telling him that no, he couldn't have another sip. One a year is quite enough. I hope I don't get arrested or disowned for this picture.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

I'm a Believer

2008-12-22T11:22:00.001-08:00

I posted this game on my Facebook page, but I wanted to do it again and get different results, so I'm posting it here, too! You should all give it a try, it's hysterical and sometimes strangely accurate...

RULES:
A. Put your music player on shuffle.
B. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
C. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!

1. IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY
"Last Dance"
The Cure

2. WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?"
"Brothers on a Hotel Bed"
Death Cab for Cutie

3. WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
"This Must Be the Place I Waited Years to Leave"
Pet Shop Boys

4. HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
"Come to Me"
Jennifer Knapp

5. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
"Secret Smile"
Semisonic

6. WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
"The Holy Hour"
The Cure

7. WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
"The Chauffeur"
Duran Duran
(HA! This was so true when I was 16...)

8.WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
"Melt!"
Siouxsie and the Banshees

9. WHAT IS 2 + 2?
"One of These Days"
Owen

10 WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
"Crooked Teeth"
Death Cab for Cutie

11.WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
"Haunting"
The Pogues

12. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
"Sweet Lullaby"
Deep Forest

13. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
"Almost Full Moon"
Enigma

14. WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
"Triple Concerto"
William Orbit

15. WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
"Folk Song"
The Sundays

16. WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
"Sexy Plexi"
Jack Johnson

17. WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
"Music for Boys"
Pet Shop Boys

18. WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
"Isobel"
Dido

19. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
"Friday I'm in Love"
The Cure

20. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
"Not Only Human"
Heather Nova

21. WHAT'S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?
"Sweet Baby"
Mike Barnet

22. HOW WILL YOU DIE?
"Brad and Suzy"
Jude
(Yikes! I'm watching my back....)

23. WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?
"Just Say Yes"
The Cure
(Barbara, didn't this come up for you for the answer to #23 too? Weird...)

24. WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?
"Summer Nights"
Christine Brown

25. WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?
"Perfect"
Smashing Pumpkins

26. WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?
"Just Like Heaven"
Rockabye Baby

27. DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?
"Disintegration"
The Cure
(Lot of Cure on this list....)

28. IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
"Death or Glory"
Social Distortion

29. WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?
"See You Soon"
Playradioplay!

30. WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
"I'm a Believer"
The Monkees

Completely discouraged

2008-12-12T09:31:00.000-08:00

First the floor under the water heater was rotted out.
And there was no earthquake strapping on it.
And it was leaning at an alarming angle.
And the property manager didn't want to do anything to fix it.
Then the ceiling fan broke.
And got "repaired."
Except now we can't use it on medium or high speeds, or it will fall out of the ceiling and possibly decapitate us all while we eat dinner.
Then we were promised new floors to replace the rotting ones in the bathroom.
And new carpet.
Those promises were made in May.
We're still waiting.
Then the kitchen faucet broke.
Then the dishwasher exploded and flooded our kitchen.
The landlord promised us a new dishwasher.
We're still waiting for that, too.
Last week our heater broke.
The electrician said it's 33 years old and if we call the gas company they will red tag it and turn it off, and the landlord will have to replace it.
Today the water heater smells disturbingly like burnt toast.
I checked the date on the water heater.
It's past due for being replaced, too.

We don't know what to do anymore. We love this condo, the location, the open feel of it, how big it is. We love the neighbors. Mostly. But every time we turn around something is broken, and our landlord is extremely slow on replacing things. A new dishwasher and new floors we can live without. But it's getting colder, and we cannot live without heat or hot water. And we also can't afford to wait until something explodes and brings this place tumbling down. I'm so totally discouraged. And I'm worried that all these repairs will cause our landlord to raise our rent, which we also can't afford. And which would be unfair, because all these repairs needing to be done right now are a result of years of neglect and cheapskate-ness on his part, and are not our fault at all. If you're the praying type, please pray for us. The economy and the season both make this a really bad time for this to happen. And at this point I'm beginning to worry about our safety and health.

Thankful

2008-11-27T22:19:00.000-08:00

We had a really great Thanksgiving this year. Usually we get to celebrate twice, with both of our families, but this year Nathan's parents are out of town, so it was just my family. Dave and Julie hosted at their house, and it was so wonderful. There were 13 adults and 11 children, and food enough for at least twice that! And the food....it was so good. We had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, creamed corn, broccoli salad, jello salad, cranberry sauce, rolls, olives, several kinds of pie, a couple kinds of ice cream, pumpkin chip cookies, and a spice cake. Decadence! After dinner several of us and all the kids took a walk around the neighborhood, then came back and stuffed ourselves with desserts, then pulled out the games. We played Apples to Apples, Sequence, and Trivial Pursuit. Our little family left a little before eight, full, happy, and ready for bed (Judah and Micah, anyway).

This Thanksgiving has seemed especially poignant to me for some reason. Maybe it's because for the first time in my adult life the future seems uncertain. I feel like we're all at the edge of something that's going to change our lives, and not in a good way. There's so much craziness going on in the world right now, and I want to cling to normalcy in a way I never have before because it seems like we won't have it for much longer. I could be wrong. I hope and pray that I am. But this year I'm more thankful than ever for the things that are constant in my life, that I can depend on.

Nathan (always, always)
Our two sons who amaze and amuse me every single day
My parents, whose love I have never ever doubted
My brothers and their beautiful, strong wives who are role models for me
Nathan's family and their many personalities and strengths
Christi, the most faithful, merciful, generous friend I've ever had
All of my other incredible friends
The blessings of shelter, enough to eat, clothes to wear
Our many freedoms

Something I swore I'd never do

2008-10-23T12:03:00.000-07:00

When I was growing up, my mom tried to teach me to cross stitch. I didn't like it, and it seemed like something that only people who were hopelessly old-fashioned did. Plus, most of the designs didn't appeal to me: I'm not a cuddly-kittens-in-a-basket, cartoon-pig-whistling-a-song kind of person. And "country" is a style I've never liked, and, to me, cross stitching great works of art just seems ridiculous (we once bought a refrigerator from a lady who had cross stitched a huge copy of the Last Supper - I kid you not. But that's another story).

Last summer I somehow came across a cross stitch of an orange crate label that my mom had started making for my uncle more than 20 years ago and never finished. I needed something new to do, so I thought I'd give it a try. I found that I really liked the process, though I still wasn't big on the finished product. But it was really calming, and actually required more discipline than I'd anticipated: I'm infamous for being a "starter" and not a "finisher." I can't tell you how many unfinished projects I have lying around! But since it was for someone else, I was motivated. I finished the orange crate label, and then found another cross stitch that I liked (a historical sampler, nothing cheesy or "precious" about it) and began that.

And then Jeff approached me with a new project. He'd found a program that converts a photo to a cross stitch pattern and wanted me to cross stitch a picture from his wedding to give to Heather for their first anniversary. I was excited because it looked really challenging. It was. Here's the pattern, based on a close-up of the picture above:

And here's a closer look:

Just the pattern itself was amazing! I took it on, almost lost my eyesight completing it :) and wound up having a lot of fun. It's all in shades of black and white: 13,300 stitches' worth. I loved doing it, even though I spent a lot of time sighing over how many times the needle had to be re-threaded, often times for just one or two stitches. And here's the end result:

The joys and pains of renting

2008-10-22T22:00:00.000-07:00

Bad news: We discover a leak and lots of mold under our kitchen sink a couple weeks ago.
Good news: We're renting, so we call our landlord and he has a guy call us and arrange to come fix it.
Bad news: He's not a plumber, he's a handyman.
Good news: We don't have to pay for it, so whatever.
Bad news: He diagnoses the problem and says he needs to get materials and pre-payment for the materials, so he'll be back in a week to fix it.
Good news: We still don't have to pay....
Bad news: The next Saturday he calls at 9:40 and says he's running "a little late." He doesn't get here til noon.
Good news: He fixes the sink!! And cleans out the mold and replaces the rotten wood.
Bad news: Soon after he leaves, we discover that the faucet's not installed correctly and the pipes are STILL leaking.
Good news: We still don't have to pay to have him come back.....
Bad news: I run the dishwasher today. Apparently, the handyman didn't hook up the new garbage disposal and the dishwasher line correctly, and all our counters, the window, the kitchen rug, the kitchen floor, and the carpet outside the kitchen get SOAKED when the lines back up and spew water all over the place. Two baskets get drenched, the toaster is wet, we have to throw away two bags of bread, a bag of tortillas, and our phone. Hopefully my heirloom sewing bag is not ruined, but it will no doubt be stained forever.
Good news: (**crickets chirp**)
Bad news: THE SAME GUY is coming back to fix the sink again. Groan.

Inflammatory topic: consider yourself warned

2008-10-17T20:41:00.000-07:00

For those of you still reading, you know that my blog is usually light, funny (I hope), somewhat self-deprecating. I don't write here to bring myself down, or others. But this issue has been on my mind for so long now, and today it totally smacked me between the eyes. So here I go.....this is your last warning to get out. It's probably gonna get pretty offensive if you don't share my views.

Reasons Slavery was an Abomination
1. It declared that one group (blacks) was less human than another (whites)
2. It stated that an entire group of people was the property of another group
3. It allowed slave owners to murder another person with no repercussions
4. It implied that a group of people was solely here for the convenience of another group, and
could be sold or killed when they became an inconvenience
5. It denied a group of people their basic rights as humans: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness
6. It left a whole group of people without a voice

These are just a (very) few of the reasons slavery was such a hideous practice, such a shameful part of our past as a nation. I think that you all would agree with this, along with most of the people in this country. Here's the part you won't get people to agree with.

Reasons Abortion is an Abomination
1. It declares that one group (unborn babies) is less human than another (grown women)
2. It states that an entire group of people is the property of another group
3. It allows pregnant women to murder another person with no repercussions
4. It implies that a group of people is solely here for the convenience of another group, and
can be killed when they become an inconvenience
5. It denies a group of people their basic rights as human: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness
6. It leaves a whole group of people without a voice

Is this comparison full of holes? I don't think so. Every part of it is true. The pro-choice contingent argues that a fetus is not alive. How do they define alive? A fetus has a heartbeat at 22 days, measurable brain waves at six weeks after conception. Most women, especially women not expecting to get pregnant, will only be beginning to suspect that they're pregnant at the 22 day mark. So: if it has a heartbeat, let alone brainwaves, it's alive, right?

So why are we denying rights to a whole group of people? Mostly, it's for the convenience of the mother. The pro-choicers can cry about rape and incest and threat to the mother's life all they want, but statistics will tell you that those situations account for less than 2% of abortions, even when you include aborting a child because of physical abnormality. And even that percentage is high, because the number of abortions with rape given as the reason don't match up to the number of rapes reported in the US each year, and the probability of pregnancy from those rapes. It's complicated, you can see the research here. So, what people are basically saying is that they want to have sex, which can always result in pregnancy no matter what kind of birth control you're using, and not have to suffer the consequences. And society has done nothing but foster this kind of irresponsibility.

I am so, so tired of hearing the pro-choice women scream, "No one has any right to tell me what to do with my genitals/womb/uterus!" I agree. But we DO have the right to tell someone what they can and can't do with someone else's life. This issue does NOT hinge on the rights of the mother at all. It hinges on the rights on an entirely separate person. If women are screaming so loudly that they're responsible for their own reproductive organs, then they should BE responsible. DON'T have sex if you're not ready to bear a child. It's not that hard of a syllogism: IF you have sex, THEN you may get pregnant. If you don't have sex, guess what? The chances of becoming pregnant are nil. If you're so opposed to getting pregnant that you'd be willing to kill another person to avoid it, take the easy way out and don't put yourself in a situation where you'll get pregnant. But that action involves self-control, something that most people in this country are sadly lacking.

Let's take it to extremes. What if I get pregnant and I'm not ready to have a child, but I want YOUR child to pay for my mistake? Would you let me kill your child? Would anyone? Would anyone even let me kill an orphan with no parents to care whether it lives or dies? No. That's where the principle comes in. You can't kill a child that's outside the womb, even one that ostensibly no one cares about. If you do, the government steps in and you're in for life. Why can you kill one that's in the womb? Here's another: Lyle and Erik Menendez (remember them?) murdered their parents because it had become inconvenient for them to have their parents living. Was that okay? Under abortion reasons, that's acceptable. So why can someone murder an unborn baby when it's inconvenient, but not an inconvenient parent/child/lover/sibling?

Talk about brainwashed. The pro-choicers call us brainwashed, religious fanatics, uncaring holier-than-thous. This is not a religious issue, in the least. It's an issue of denying human rights to what is undeniably a human. There is nothing uncaring about standing up for a group of innocent people who cannot stand up for themselves. And brainwashed? I don't think there's a better example of brainwashing than half of a country being convinced, successfully, that a baby whose heartbeat you can see and hear, whose movements you can feel, is not alive.

I heard a story today, told by a nurse who worked in a large hospital. She said that in the hospital there were many abortions performed, some of them late term, and sometimes the baby survived the abortion. If this happened, the baby was taken to the soiled utilities room, where, amidst the blood- and urine- and feces-soaked linens, the biohazard waste, and a urinal in the corner, he or she was placed on a shelf and left to breathe its last, alone in a vile place, when, with a little care (or a decent mother), he or she could have lived. Can anyone, in good conscience, tell you that that is not one of the worst atrocities they've ever heard of?

I'll leave you with one more chilling statistic: about 90% of unborn babies that are diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted, with the government's blessing. So what they're saying is that one group can be deemed inferior, less human, less deserving of life than another group. I think I've heard that idea before, from another dynamic, persuasive leader: his name was Hitler.

Camp Malabucha 2008

2008-10-02T16:38:00.000-07:00

Don't ask where the name came from, no one really knows. It's just a funny word that stuck.

Last weekend was our annual camping trip to Pismo Beach with Nathan's family. This was my eighth trip with the fam, the first one being in 1998. I missed 1999 and 2000 because Nathan and I were broken up, then joined back in for the 2001 trip and we've gone every year since except for last year, when Micah was born. Camp was awesome this year, and we had our biggest group ever. From left to right, above, we are: John, Rachel, Jenna, Naomi, Elly, Jeff, Micah, me, Heather, Judah, Nathan, Eszter, Sophia, Ashlee, Ken, Brian, and Josiah.

We finally had to resort to two campsites this year, but it worked out really well. We had so much space! And with that many kids, that was a very good thing.......
Judah and Eszter had a ton of fun together, running all over the place and telling each other what to do.
Judah spent a lot of time kicking dirt around, much to the annoyance of the family. We had to designate a dirt kicking area just for him, far away from where the rest of us hung out.
We walked over the dunes a couple of times to the beach, where we collected tons of sand dollars and clam shells. The water was freezing! But felt great, since the first two days we were there were sunny and hot.
Nathan displaying his mussels and muscles.
This may have been the only time Micah touched the ground the whole trip! He wanted to crawl, but there were just too many things he would have eaten, the worst of which would have been the hundreds of eucalyptus berries lying around.
Clam chowder in a bread bowl from Splash Cafe: the reason we go to Pismo.
Judah, acting like a little punk at Splash.
The first night in camp Ashlee and I had to make a run to Target because Nathan and I forgot to bring our pillows. While there, we explored the clearance section and found a couple of wooden puzzles for Judah and Eszter. They were a big hit and kept them entertained for quite a while.
On Friday, I experienced one of those heart-stopping moments that no mother ever wants to go through. I was on a walk with Nathan, Jeff, Judah, Eszter, and Micah, and we had stopped to sit on some logs for a minute. Judah and Eszter ran off to play with Jeff. A minute later we heard Jeff yell something and I looked over toward them and saw my child standing paralyzed in the middle of a swarm of wasps. Let me tell you, that feeling is nothing I ever want to feel again. I froze, Nathan, fortunately, didn't. None of us can quite remember the exact sequence of events, but we were all running and the wasps just kept following. Nathan wound up with Jude, Jeff had Eszter, and I had Micah. Somehow, I wound up running with Judah for a little ways, but Nathan had him most of the time and we eventually got back to camp where the kids went into the motorhome and Jeff and Nathan and I stayed outside killing wasps. Jeff got stung seven or eight times, Judah got four, I got two, and Eszter got one. Fortunately, the stings turned out not to be serious, but it was pretty traumatic. Judah and Eszter were both pretty well shaken up, and after Judah finally stopped crying he fell fast asleep on Nathan's lap, something he never ever does. It all ended well, but it was pretty scary.
I had to throw in a picture of our campfire, one of my very favorite things about camping. I loved the evenings, after the boys were in bed (they both slept great in our tent) and we all sat around laughing and telling stories.
Breakfast at the kids' table.....
.....and at the adults' table. I love camp food! There's a place in Pismo called Old West Cinnamon Rolls, and their rolls are to die for. We got them for breakfast two of the mornings we were there. I would be in serious trouble if I lived anywhere near there.
This stump formed one of the boundaries of our site, and the kids loved it. It played various roles over the weekend: car, rocket ship, fishing dock. Oh, and also it was Judah's pouting spot, as in this picture. But he looked so cute sitting there that I didn't mind the pouting so much.
Saturday and Sunday were overcast, and I loved the foggy beach. It looked endless.
Our tent city: our tent is on the far left, then Bri and Ash's, then Ken and Elly's motor home, then John and Jenna's tent, and then Jeff and Heather's.
On our way out of Pismo we went with Brian and Ashlee to the spot where we take our traditional picture every year. We hope to have a whole collection of many years someday. After this picture we jumped in the car for the long drive home.....Nathan and I have agreed that this was one of our favorite years at Pismo.

Time for a change

2008-09-23T23:45:00.001-07:00

Because it's fall, and this is what I do in the fall.

Re-discovering an old friend

2008-09-21T21:15:00.000-07:00

On the day Nathan and I got married we left the reception and headed straight for Santa Monica. Once there, we walked over to Third Street to have dinner and relax after a beautiful but somewhat stressful day. We decided on Trastavere, and as we were walking down the street to the restaurant we spotted a kiosk selling some interesting and really original jewelry. We stopped to look, and Nathan told me to pick something out for myself. I chose a moonstone bracelet that night, and every year since then we've visited the Antiqua kiosk, where Nathan buys me a piece of jewelry for our anniversary. It's a tradition that I love and look forward to every year. This year, alas, we couldn't find the kiosk. And the mall at the end of the Promenade is pretty much gutted at the moment, so Antiqua's permanent mall location wasn't available either. So a couple of weeks later we took a trip to their main store on Pico in LA. After looking at some necklaces that were surprisingly expensive (compared to the reasonable prices at the kiosk) I settled on an old looking locket on a long chain.

I decided to put a picture of Nathan in one side of the locket and a picture of Judah and Micah in the other side, but found I didn't have any pictures I'd be happy using. So to take the pictures I wanted I resurrected my old camera, the one my dad loaned (gave?) me years ago. It's a 1976 Minolta, and I haven't used it really since I got a digital camera. It's completely manual, which means that action shots are kind of out of the question, but the advantage is that when you press the button, the shutter opens immediately, not a second later, like on a digital.

I got the pictures developed yesterday and remembered instantly why I love that camera so much. The digital I have is a really good camera, though it's not professional quality, and it takes good pictures, but my old camera...... There's just something about it. I don't know if the pictures will look that special on a computer screen, but the prints are amazing. Here are some of the shots from our "photo shoot" a couple days ago.

And here's one I took of Judah at Little Corona del Mar two years ago with the same camera. It's our favorite picture of Judah ever.

Another season, another playlist

2008-09-20T20:14:00.000-07:00

More than any other season, fall inspires me to create playlists of songs that seem to fit the new feel in the air. And since we're almost to fall, here's my most recent.....

Never Meant - American Football (from an album that inspired Dave to say to me, "Do you actually like this stuff?" Yes, I do. Very much.)
Porrohman - Big Country
I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You - Black Kids (SO much fun!)
Two More Years - Bloc Party
Sunday - Bloc Party
Jesus Christ - Brand New (get past the title and check this song out, it's really interesting)
Slave to Love - Bryan Ferry & Roxy Music (I can't help it, I'm a sucker for this song)
Blue Eyes - Cary Brothers
Viva la Vida - Coldplay (after hearing a bit of this album, I'm beginning to think they MIGHT actually be the next U2)
The Last Day of Summer - The Cure (find this on iTunes and buy it immediately, you won't regret it)
Pictures of You - The Cure (many times the best part of a Cure song is the instrumental part, but in this case the lyrics are perfect as well)
#41 - Dave Matthews (from the Live at Luther College album, incredible acoustic guitar)
Lover Lay Down - Dave Matthews
Come Away to Sea - David Wilcox
Brothers on a Hotel Bed - Death Cab for Cutie
The Winds that Blow - Duncan Sheik
Some Distant Memory - Electronic (a little Smiths, a little New Order, a lot perfect)
Let Go - Frou Frou (the best part of the nearly flawless Garden State soundtrack)
Thinking About You - Ivy
Keep Moving - Ivy
Lullaby - James
Cloudbusting - Kate Bush (keep an open mind if you listen to this....)
Ride With Me - The Lemonheads
Bengali in Platforms - Morrissey
Turn - New Order
A Question of Travel - The Ocean Blue
Poor Souls - Owen (I don't think anyone expresses longing quite as well as Owen)
This Must Be the Place I Waited Years to Leave - Pet Shop Boys (left over from my college days)
High and Dry - Radiohead
Little Wonders - Rob Thomas (this song chokes me up almost every time)

Micah's Beach Bash

2008-09-09T15:26:00.000-07:00

We threw Micah his first birthday party on Sunday night. Since summer's almost over, I wanted to make it like the last beach party of the season, but I didn't actually want to throw a party at the beach, so instead I turned our backyard into a beach. It turned out to be a really fun day. Our family all came, so there were about thirty of us, which was the perfect sized crowd. I couldn't find a good way to create an ocean in our backyard, but other than that we did pretty good! Micah enjoyed the pool filled with beach balls especially....

Christi came over a couple nights before the party and helped me frost sugar cookies to look like beach balls. It was a little challenging, and some of them kind of look like the Romanian flag (and the one at the top looks A LOT like a "VOTE" button), but we did our best, and a couple hours and a powdered sugar fight later we had our beach balls! They tasted delicious, thanks to the almond flavored icing.
Ever tried to bake a half-sphere cake? I have now.... I solicited advice from a bunch of sources (thanks go out to Shayleen in particular), and in the end my friend Aimee gave me the easiest and roundest solution: you bake it in a pyrex bowl. She made a monkey head cake for her son that way last year. My mom did the frosting. Good team effort!
Micah got his own little cake to destroy, and when the time came he wanted nothing to do with it! Looks like I finally found something Micah WON'T eat. I knew he'd reject something eventually, but I never guessed it would be PURE SUGAR. Wow, that's a win, I guess....
Judah was completely overjoyed at the prospect of all these beach balls to play with.
Naomi and all the girls spent a while at the craft table filling baby food jars with colored salt, an old craft I revived from my Girl Scout days. They looked cool, plus it was a way to re-use all those baby food jars we go through on a daily basis. Yeah, we're so green around here. :)
Part of the fam hanging out on the patio.....
And Christi and Dean, who aren't technically related, but might as well be. People used to ask Christi and me if we were sisters so often that we began to wonder if we were. The sad part about that was that they'd ask us if we were sisters AFTER we told them our names.
Brian and Eszter, and.....
Sophia and Josiah munching on some dogs.
Heather and Jeff, or, as the kids call them, Uncle Teffy and Auntie Ha'er.
I bought a bunch of sand to create a beach/bonfire area. Did you know that 150 pounds of sand doesn't really go that far? Next time I'll get 300 pounds. It went just far enough, though, and the kids had a blast digging and scooping. After Nathan lit the fire we made s'mores and the smell was heavenly.
Micah rejecting the cake. Not only did he not like it, I think he was actually a little scared by the way the other kids gathered around to "encourage" him and to sneak bites of their own!
Present time! Micah totally scored! He got lots of new cool clothes that he needed for the fall and for our upcoming camping trip, plus a swing, some toy cars, a Little People garage, and a Little Einsteins "rocket." Judah was more excited than Micah, but in the days since Micah has become interested, too, and we've been having to remind Judah that not ALL the toys in the house are his, these ones are Micah's. He either doesn't get it or he's in denial.
Micah loved the musical card from Grandma Marie! He was dancing every time we opened it.
The morning after the party, hanging out on his new rocket car. Thanks, everyone, for making Micah's first birthday so fun and special!

One short year

2008-09-03T22:00:00.001-07:00

Micah is one year old today. I can hardly believe it! This year has gone by so quickly! Micah is such a joy to us, such a happy little guy almost all the time. I'm not a morning person, so I'm usually grumpy when I walk into his room each morning to get him out of bed, but I am always smiling within seconds, because I love the way he jumps up in his crib when he sees me, screeches, and starts laughing and babbling with a huge smile on his face. We love this boy so much! And we are so thankful for him.

At one year, Micah.....
weighs 20 pounds
is 28 inches tall
has 8 teeth (I think....I'm not brave enough to stick my finger in there to check)
says a couple words (Mama and uh-oh)
loves his big brother and watches him whenever he can
is sitting in a forward facing carseat and isn't sure if he likes it yet
loves the metal stars that hang from his ceiling and points to them all the time
loves bathtime
tries to eat anything he can pick up
can stand by himself for a few seconds at a time
crawls like the wind
has permanently dirty knees from crawling
loves his toy tambourine
does not like peas AT ALL
can "bonk" his head to someone else's when requested
raises both arms above his head when asked "How big is Micah?"
claps for himself
drinks milk from a bottle (FINALLY!)
has never worn shoes
has hardly ever even worn socks
loves to follow the cat around
has white-blond hair that curls above his ears
has blue eyes that make strangers stop and look
wakes up happy almost every time

What a wonderful little guy he is. Happy Birthday, Micah!

Six

2008-08-24T23:23:00.001-07:00

You know how in your high school yearbook they have all those categories like "Cutest Couple" and "Best Smile" and Most Likely to Succeed?" If they'd had a category in my yearbook for "Most Likely to Get Married in a Cemetery" I probably would have won. Yeah, I was kind of goth like that. I eventually outgrew my goth phase (but not the music), and then....I went and got married in a cemetery!

It's true. Six years ago today Nathan and I got married in the SkyRose Chapel at Rose Hills (I don't have any pictures downloaded, but check out the slide show here, it's incredible). Our pictures were taken that day in the El Portal de la Paz mausoleum, and it was all so beautiful, even though some might think it's kind of morbid.

Tonight we went to Third Street in Santa Monica for our traditional anniversary celebration. First we went to the Miramar Hotel to have our picture taken in front of the bench where we got engaged. The Miramar is also where we spent our wedding night. Then we went to Trastavere for dinner, the same place we had dinner after our wedding. After dinner we walked up to Old Navy so I could get some flip flops and a sweater (it got cold!) and Nathan got a long-sleeved shirt as well. Outside Old Navy I promptly traded my three inch heels for the flip flops and threw the heels away - there was no way they were ever going to be comfortable again, and they were old anyway. Feeling better and warmer, we stopped at Starbucks for drinks, walked down to the pier, listened to a guitarist for a while, then headed home.

We had a great anniversary. Nathan, thank you so much for six joyful, fun, interesting, growing, trying (a little), contented, hysterical years of marriage. You are the best husband I ever could have hoped for, more than I ever imagined, and I thank God for knowing exactly what I needed and then sending me you. I have loved being married to you and I'm looking forward to many, many more years together. I love you!

Easily distracted by shiny objects and stuff

2008-08-20T14:47:00.000-07:00

I think this is what all of my progress reports from grade school probably said. Yes, your daughter is a straight A student and she always seems to be able to come up with the right answer. However, to get her to pay attention in class we have to tie her arms and legs to her desk, put blinders on her, duct tape her mouth closed, and hire Mary Lou Retton to teach. Otherwise, she's talking to everyone (and everything?) in sight. I can't even count the number of times my collective teachers moved me to different table groups to get me to SHUT UP, already!

So I got distracted by a couple of things a couple weeks ago: the Olympics and an evil empire called Facebook. Which is why I haven't been blogging much. Don't worry: the Olympics only have a few days left, and I'm starting to lose interest in Facebook, since my flair board is totally full and I can't add anything else. So, soon I'll be back to my regular amount of slacking, instead of the increased amount of slacking. Until then.... go USA!

Vindicated

2008-08-04T09:08:00.000-07:00

The Cure has three singles in the top ten on Billboard this week. THREE! Who says their day is past?

Fair enough for another year

2008-08-02T21:00:00.001-07:00

On Thursday afternoon we set out for our annual trip to the Orange County Fair. Judah was so excited, he'd been talking about going on the Ferris wheel practically since last summer. And from the moment we set foot inside the fair he almost never stopped asking if it was time to go on the Ferris wheel. Now? Can we do it now? How about now? So funny. But we wanted to wait for Jeff and Heather before we went on it, so we did a bunch of other stuff first. Judah spotted these tractors and spent some time playing around on them.
He didn't necessarily want to sit on the back of this oil drum steer, but we talked him into it and he stayed there just long enough to have his picture taken.
I loved that the theme of the fair this year was cheese, because I'm a big fan of cheese. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough specialty cheese food around for my taste. Remember the year the theme was avocados and it seemed like every food booth had a different way of preparing avocados? Not so with the cheese. The only special thing I saw was funnel cake with cream cheese frosting, and I didn't notice that until (sadly) after we ordered our funnel cake with powdered sugar. My favorite thing about the fair is always the food, and this year I indulged in funnel cake, cheesecake on a stick, french fries, and a half pound hot dog that was SO good! It was even better because we got to watch a team of Peking acrobats while we ate.
Micah spent most of the day in his stroller, kicking back with his thumb in his mouth, taking it all in. I felt bad for him, just sitting there, but it didn't seem to bother him. He got out to enjoy this car for a while, until Judah came over and demanded to drive.
Judah was fascinated by all the snakes in the reptile area. They were some of the biggest snakes I've ever seen. We wanted to have his picture taken with the albino python, but they were charging $8.50 so we skipped it.

Micah loved waiting in line for the Ferris wheel......
and that's the first place we went after we met up with Jeff and Heather. Aren't they cute? :)
Finally, the Ferris wheel! Judah loved it. He's so brave, he stands up on the seats the whole time and watches all that's going on below us. From the top he spotted a roller coaster he said he'd want to go on. When the ride ended we headed for the roller coaster, only to find that Judah's not quite tall enough yet.
So we found one that was more his speed. We were betting he would bail when he was supposed to get on, but he didn't! And then he laughed all through the ride.
Judah met up with a clown who had his favorite thing: bubbles! We spent a while watching Jude chase the bubbles, then went and found the segmented bowl that Ken entered in the wood turning competition. It won first place! And a bunch of other stuff. After that we picked up our dinner, sat and ate while the acrobats bent themselves into unnatural shapes, then headed out while Judah waved goodbye to the Ferris wheel until next year.

What IS that thing?!?

2008-07-29T22:06:00.001-07:00

It's a mailbox, of course!
I'm just waiting for the note on our front door: "Sorry, but we can no longer deliver your mail to your home. Your mailbox seems to have been eaten by an extremely aggressive vine."
I really should trim this back, but it's so beautiful that I just can't! The gardeners came today and even THEY left it alone. And I've historically had a very bad time with gardeners and morning glories. The don't like them, and every time I plant them they do their best to destroy them and make it look like an accident.

Slightly (or very) rattled

2008-07-29T15:57:00.000-07:00

This is the full extent of the damage the 5.4 earthquake this morning did to my house. One fallen sippy cup. You'd think that was a pretty mild shake, wouldn't you? You'd be wrong.

Of the things that I've encountered so far in this life there are only two that really, truly terrify me: flying and earthquakes. Both of them bring on near panic attacks and I simply cannot help it. I know that flying is safer than driving on the freeway, and I know that if you survive the initial earthquake you've made it, because it's not going to get any worse. Aftershocks get smaller, not bigger, no matter what the media hype wants you to think. But still. Before I fly it's good if I can get some Ambien and a Xanax and maybe some hard liquor, and before an earthquake.... maybe that's what gets me. There's no way to be ready for them.

I was at my parents' house this morning (fairly close to the epicenter) when the earthquake hit, and it was a good thing I wasn't home alone with the boys. My mom grabbed Judah at the first small shake and headed for a doorway. As for me, all those drills in first grade paid off and I crawled for the dining room table and was under it by the time the really big jolt hit. Unfortunately, I act only on instinct and don't actually think what I'm doing, because I grabbed Micah by the arm to take him with me and ended up dragging him across the floor and possibly banging his head into the table leg. What a great mom, huh? The earthquake alone wouldn't have scared him, but my reaction totally undid him and he cried for a good long time.

After the earthquake ended Judah asked if we could do it again. He loved it!

A shout out to Africa

2008-07-18T14:43:00.001-07:00

My dad is in Africa. I know, right? That was unexpected. But the trip makes sense, if you know my dad. It's missions trip with a group from my church, and they went to Liberia to help get African Bible College (ABC) up and running again after years of war shut it down. So they're doing stuff like painting and wiring and repairing, stuff my dad's super good at. He left earlier this week and is gone for two weeks.

I took this picture hoping to send it to my dad in an email, but then bubbs went crazy and told me it was too big to send, and since I have no idea how to compress pictures I gave up and posted it here. It was harder to take this picture than expected, since I had to get Judah to take time out of his busy "plant-watering" schedule to stand still for a second. And by "plant-watering" I mean turning the backyard into a mud hole and getting soaked in the process. I tried to fight this at first, but quickly gave up. Clothes and kids are washable, thank the Lord! And hearing him talk to himself and laugh while he plays are too funny for words. Anyway, I told him Papa's in Africa and that that's very far away. He didn't understand, but sends his greetings all the same!

A little help, my artsy friends?

2008-07-12T10:02:00.001-07:00

So, I'm working on a project. I thought it would be pretty easy, but it turns out it's harder than I anticipated. For several reasons. I saw this idea in a magazine to go around and take pictures of the letters in your kids' names, then frame them for their walls. Sounds easy, right? Not if you're me, I guess. Here are my problems:

1. Most letters are up high, and if I zoom in too much I won't be able to enlarge them enough to frame.

2. The style I want is mostly extinct around here. Judah's room is vintage travel, so I'm looking for old Route 66 type stuff, like the "SH" and "WA" above. Micah's will be in black and white and I want kind of an old neon lights feel, like the "M" above. But this area has become so modernized that these cool old signs are all but gone. The few that I found were on Beach Boulevard and when I pulled in to the motel parking lot to take a picture of the M I was afraid I was about to be mugged for drug money by the "tenants" standing around.

So, for those of you who are local, any suggestions on places to look?

A few of Judah's favorite things

2008-07-08T14:25:00.001-07:00

It's been kind of a miserable day here at Casa de Cowell. I spent last night having nightmares that I can't remember now but which left me exhausted from the word go. Which, for Judah, was at 5:50 this morning. He woke up, his waking up woke Micah up (thankfully Micah went back to sleep), and that was how it started. I took this picture of Judah at 8:30. How tired does he look already? And yet he will not sleep later for love or money or jellybeans. Right after I took this picture he asked me to take a picture of his bench. So I did, and he thought that was funny, so for a while we walked around and I took pictures of whatever Jude told me to. It was pretty fun, a bright spot in a dull day. It was interesting for me to see what Judah deemed worthy of blog-preservation, I have no idea why he picked these things over some other toys that he plays with all the time. But that's a three-year-old for you, right?
Hand-me-down toy storage bench from Rachel and Naomi. Judah mostly stands on it to reach the light switch above it (if I'd shot higher you'd see the dozens of dirty finger prints on the wall) and flip it on and off to throw light switch raves.
The Cat. Otherwise known as Payasa (pie-YA-suh), or, as Judah says, Payasa (pie-yuh-SAW), like her name's Japanese and not Spanish.
Soccer ball, or The Most Important Object In The World.
The red Pottery Barn chair that Jude ignored for the first year and a half he owned it and now likes to turn over to make a "house."

Sunday School paper plate art. He's going through his Pollock period at the moment.
CD. ???????????
Tractor toy from Cars. I have to admit, it's pretty clever, and I probably play with it more than Judah does.
Noisiest Toy Ever Invented (thanks, mom and dad). I actually don't mind this toy, except when Judah gets fixated on the fire truck sound effect at 6:00 in the morning. The steering wheel is broken from that one time Jude threw it down the stairs.
And Baby Tad. Technically, Micah's toy. Judah took it hostage and he and Nathan have a fairly disturbing dance they do when Judah presses Tad's foot and Tad says, "Let's Salsa!" Sometimes I join in, because I love the way it makes Judah fall over with laughter.

4th of July - again!

2008-07-05T10:51:00.000-07:00

Since I was too tired to write it all up last night, here we go! We spent the early part of yesterday relaxing by ourselves, sleeping in a little (well, not Judah who woke up at his usual 6:30, but Nathan and I slept a little more while Judah watched cartoons and Micah didn't wake up until 11:30 - I'm not even kidding) and going for lunch at Taco Bell. Because nothing says America like Americanized Mexican food, right? After naps we headed for La Habra Heights and Dave and Julie's house where we hung out with the whole clan. The picture above isn't complete: besides the Little and Cowell families, Jaysen and Jessica and Jenna and Jake Humes and Jess and Joyce De La Ossa were there, and it was so much fun! Check out Jenna's blog for a picture of everyone together. Dave and Jess barbecued incredible carne asada, Joyce made refried beans to die for. Add in Spanish rice, fruit salad, homemade guacamole, vegies, and brownies and ice cream for dessert, and it was a perfect meal.

Before dinner all the kids ran around playing like crazy, spending a lot of time in the pool and on the slip and slide.
Judah had been looking forward to playing baseball in Dave's backyard all day, and he and Nathan were out there for quite a while. When Judah went off to some other amusement I took a turn as pitcher while Nathan batted. Let's just say that I'm not Dodger material, so Nathan spent a lot of time jumping around, swinging the bat in all directions to hit my very erratic pitches. It looked a little like baseball ballet!
Here's the fam at dinner on the patio.......
And one of Dave's famous "eating" shots.

After dinner the four of us left to meet up with the Cowell and Stokes families at a park in Yorba Linda for more food and fireworks. We loaded Judah up with glow sticks so we could see him more easily if he ran off. He loved them and used a couple of them as drum sticks. But the real trick to finding your child in this crowd was to NOT dress him in a red shirt. Seriously, it seemed like every boy there was wearing a red shirt and denim shorts and had blond hair. Next year Judah will wear bright yellow or something.
Micah had a great time being hauled around by Rachel and Naomi and playing with them on the blankets. He liked the glow sticks too. He liked to chew on them.
We managed to get one shot of just our family. It's not a great one, but it's the best we could hope for at the end of a long day. At least no one's screaming.
Judah is traditionally terrified of fireworks. And by terrified I mean shaking, sweating, screaming panic. This year we borrowed some of Ken's "ears" that he uses when he's working with loud machines. Judah's worn them before, to a monster truck rally, and now he kind of thinks they're magic. We hyped up the fireworks for days beforehand, gave him some ears, and hoped for the best. They totally did the trick. He was still a little afraid at first, but a few minutes in he was super excited, though he remained cuddled very close to Nathan. Micah did great, sitting in my lap, sucking his thumb (WAY past bedtime at that point), and watching, wide-eyed. At one point he took his thumb out of his mouth to laugh at all the light and noise. So cute.
And one last firework shot. What a perfect end to a perfect day!

Happy 4th of July!

2008-07-04T23:20:00.001-07:00

I love the 4th of July. It's one of my very favorite holidays: great food, family together, totally relaxed atmosphere, and lots and lots of tradition. But not stuffy tradition! It's all fun tradition, like baseball and cheesy music and FIREWORKS!! It's the one day you can wear totally, unapologetically kitschy clothes and get away with it. Got a skirt made of denim and bandanas? Wear it. A sequined Uncle Sam hat? A quilted red, white and blue vest you've had since 1968? I love it. And so does everyone else! And did I mention there are fireworks? I love fireworks. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that they make me tear up sometimes, especially when they play that really bluesy Ray Charles version of America the Beautiful in the background.

I'll post more pics and stories tomorrow, but for now I'm off to bed. I'm beat! Happy 4th, everyone! I know it's cliche, but appreciate your freedoms today.

Models in the making

2008-07-04T22:41:00.000-07:00

Two of my sisters-in-law, Ashlee and Heather, are collaborating on opening an Etsy shop. It's very exciting! Heather recently rediscovered her love of sewing and immediately started making the most adorable dresses for little girls, and Ashlee is making really really cute matching hair bows. It's fun to watch this project develop, and yesterday I got to be a part of it. We met up at Ashlee's parents' house and turned Eszter and Sophia into models. I got to be the photographer, and it was so much fun! They were naturals. :) Here are a few of the shots from the day. There were a lot more cute ones, but they wound up on Ashlee's camera since my battery died halfway through.

Anyway, check out the store for the rest of the clothes. They make me want to have a girl SO BAD!!!

Almost as bad as when I tell people Nathan's a chiroproctologist

2008-07-02T23:53:00.000-07:00

Nathan: Judah, do you know what Daddy does?

Judah: Hmmm..... (yes, he actually says this when he doesn't know, usually tapping his chin with his index finger at the same time)

N: Daddy's a chiropractor. Can you say chiropractor?

J: CHIRO-CRAP-TOR!!

N: Try again: Chiropractor.

J: CHIRO-CRAP-TORIES!!!

N: Good job, Buddy.

A survey

2008-06-27T17:27:00.000-07:00

I got this survey by email, and I'm not really an email sort of person (I apologize to those of you who have suffered from this first hand) but I wanted to respond, so I thought I'd put it here. I hope this is satisfactory, Riva, Cara, and Jenn! I'd love to see answers from the rest of you bloggers, too....

1. What is your occupation right now? Raising Kids, which means I have to mark "Unemployed" on many official documents, which angers me to no end

2. What color are your socks right now? Socks? It's JUNE!

3. What are you listening to right now? The theme song to Word World. I can justify letting Judah watch this on TV because it's SO educational. Right?

4. What was the last thing that you ate? Grilled chicken quesadilla from Tom's Place. Yum.

5. Can you drive a stick shift? Yeah.

6. Last person you spoke to on the phone? My brother-in-law.

7. Do you like the person who sent this to you? Absolutely!! Really, would someone I didn't like send this to me?

8. How old are you today? 32

9. What is your favorite sport to watch? Almost any sport live, but on TV either baseball or gymnastics. Or, dare I say it? UFC. I know, I know...

10. What is your favorite drink? Diet Coke, followed closely by java chip fraps from Starbucks.

11. Have you ever dyed your hair? Have I ever not? It all started with grape Kool-Aid (I'm looking at you, Joy, if you're reading...).

12. Favorite food? Changes almost daily, but I always love Thai food. Oh, and those garlic knots at C&O Trattoria in Venice (thanks a lot, Ashlee, I can maybe blame those five pounds on you?)

13. What is the last movie you watched? Juno.

14. Favorite day of the year? Thanksgiving. All the family and fun, none of the stress of gift-giving.

15. How do you vent anger? By driving really fast and turning up the music. I favor James and New Order when I'm angry and maybe Cowboy Mouth or Big Country, and Depeche Mode, if I'm REALLY angry.

16. What was your favorite toy as a child? My Little Pony.

17. What is your favorite season? Summer and fall tie with me.

18. Cherries or Blueberries? Blackberries. Is that an option?

19. Do you want your friends to e-mail you back? Hmmm....

20. Who is the most likely to respond? ????

21. Who is least likely to respond? ???

22. Living arrangements? Nathan, Judah, Micah, Payasa. Plus the bears that Judah swears live in his room.

23. When was the last time you cried? Wednesday? I think?

24. What is on the floor of your closet? Dirty clothes hampers.

25. Who is the friend you have known the longest that you are sending this to? That reads this blog? Cara and Riva.

26. What did you do last ? Hugged Nathan.

27. What inspires you? Nature.

28. What are you most afraid of? Bad things happening to people I love.

30. Favorite dog breed? Ug. Don't really like dogs, but if I had to pick I'd say golden or black lab.

31. Favorite day of the week? Saturday.

32. How many states have you lived in? Only one, but it's the best one. :)

My little Olympian

2008-06-27T16:28:00.001-07:00

Judah took part in his very first VBS this week. He went last year too, but spent most of his time in the nursery. This year's VBS was Olympic themed, and he was on team Great Britain (yeah!) with about 25 other three-year-olds. They started the mornings in the "big church" with the entire group of kids, all from his age to about twelve years old. Then they split off into their own chapel time, then got to do sports and crafts and story time. I wasn't around for any but the early part, but from what I hear Judah had a great time and was really good at the sports, and especially at running hurdles! Who knew? He even won a medal, as you can see above (actually they all won medals....it's like that when they're three, you know?), and displays it proudly.
He had a little bit of a hard time getting used to a new routine, but he eventually adjusted. Nathan took him yesterday morning since I was sick and followed him around with the camera a little. He took the rest of these pictures. Judah is in this one if you look hard enough....see the kid lying on the ground? Yeah, that's mine.
Yesterday was water day, and Judah loved playing in the pool and getting all wet, as all kids do.
I'm not sure what the logic was, but water day was also sidewalk chalk day. Maybe because the water was already there to clean the chalk up? I always like the mix though because the water makes the colors so much more vivid.
Every day there was some kind of craft that involved sticking sports stickers on something (big felt hand, picture frame, etc.) and usually the craft was all taken apart by the time we got home and Judah was sticking the stickers all over himself. This arrangement was particularly funny, I thought. He looks like some kind of mutant bug...

Today was the last day, and I stuck around a little bit longer to watch. At the beginning our children's leaders (Teri and Becca, who are incredible) had all the kids go up on stage to sing some songs and practice for a performance on Sunday. Going up on stage is the joy of Judah's life right now, so he ran up and got right in the front row. But he didn't sing, oh no. He jumped around like the world's littlest mosher, sat on the ground for a while, then turned around backwards and watched all the other kids sing. I sat and watched him go crazy while all the other kids in his class just stood there quietly, not singing, but not messing around either. Will it always be like this? Is my kid the one other mothers will look at and be all, "At least my kid's not as crazy as Judah"? Oh well, at least he's having a really good time.

Enneagram

2008-06-26T09:09:00.000-07:00

I love taking personality tests, just to see how close they can come to pegging my personality. I found this one on Wendy's blog, and it did pretty well with just 37 questions. I came up as a Type 2 by one question, but tied for second on types 4, 7, and 9. I read them all, and I think the type 4 was the closest. So here you go. Take the test and check your results here.

The Romantic/Artist (the Four)
Romantics have sensitive feelings and are warm and perceptive.

How to Get Along with Me

Give me plenty of compliments. They mean a lot to me.
Be a supportive friend or partner.
Help me to learn to love and value myself.
Respect me for my special gifts of intuition and vision.
Though I don't always want to be cheered up when I'm feeling melancholy, I sometimes like to have someone lighten me up a little.
Don't tell me I'm too sensitive or that I'm overreacting!

What I Like About Being a Four

My ability to find meaning in life and to experience feeling at a deep level
My ability to establish warm connections with people
Admiring what is noble, truthful, and beautiful in life
My creativity, intuition, and sense of humor
Being unique and being seen as unique by others
Having aesthetic sensibilities
Being able to easily pick up the feelings of people around me

What's Hard About Being a Four

Experiencing dark moods of emptiness and despair
Feelings of self-hatred and shame; believing I don't deserve to be loved
Feeling guilty when I disappoint people
Feeling hurt or attacked when someone misundertands me
Expecting too much from myself and life
Fearing being abandoned
Obsessing over resentments
Longing for what I don't have

Fours as Children Often

Have active imaginations: play creatively alone or organize playmates in original games
Are very sensitive
Feel that they don't fit in
Believe they are missing something that other people have
Attach themselves to idealized teachers, heroes, artists, etc.
Become antiauthoritarian or rebellious when criticized or not understood
Feel lonely or abandoned (perhaps as a result of a death or their parents' divorce)

Fours as Parents

Help their children become who they really are
Support their children's creativity and originality
Are good at helping their children get in touch with their feelings
Are sometimes overly critical or overly protective
Are usually very good with children if not too self-absorbed

Christmas in June

2008-06-20T17:18:00.000-07:00

Every year my parents give all of us kids a group Christmas present that we all use together. The tradition started sometime around 1995, and it's been really fun. The first year was Disneyland annual passes and other years have been trips to the Pageant of the Masters, family vacations in Big Bear, Mammoth, Catalina, and Solvang, and a bunch of other stuff I can't remember at the moment. This year was a day at the Huntington Library followed by dinner at Roscoe's Chicken N' Waffles in Pasadena - two of my favorite places!! We had a really great day, doing the "kid friendly" version of the Huntington, which meant lots of time in the children's garden and very little time in the galleries. Nathan and my dad and I did manage to sneak off for a little while to check out the exhibit on body and landscape in LA. It was very cool, and I could have spent hours there.

We started our day with a little picnic on the lawn outside the museum. Then we ventured in and headed for the children's garden, stopping at the iconic fountain and marble-statue-lined lawn on the north side of the house.
Judah and Papa ran around the fountain a couple times and looked at all the koi fish before we moved on....

The children's garden, thankfully, has tons of water features that kids can get into. The adults (some of us) took advantage of the cool water on an over 100 degree day and got wet too.
The kids all got into a splash war with the tiny fountains, with the girls finally just sticking their heads in the water and soaking their hair.
Even Micah joined in and had a great time. Look at how white that boy is! Whose baby is he, anyway? We slathered on the sunscreen and hoped for the best. It turned out just fine.
Zoe and Lindsay horsing around, still in the children's garden.
Our little family of four, on a bridge in the Japanese garden. We ended up spending a lot of time there toward the end of the afternoon, because there was a lot of shade and grass, and tons of fish and turtles and ducks for the kids to look at, even a family of four baby ducks.

Dad and mom, the people that made this all possible, relaxing near a pagoda. Thanks, mom and dad! We all had a blast.
We managed to get about one shot each of all the cousins together. If you zoom in on this one you can see that Micah is NOT HAPPY. This was taken seconds before he rolled backwards down the hill and almost landed in the lake. It scared him pretty good, and ended the photo session.
Lindsay in a tree being a "Lindsay apple" right before the guard told us to get all the kids (they were all in there) out of the tree.
What was left on my plate at the end of dinner. When I first heard about chicken and waffles served together I have to admit I was kind of grossed out. It just seemed wrong. But after I went there the first time, about seven or eight years ago, I realized that this combination, when done right, is just this side of heaven. It is so tasty, the perfect way to end a long day: one diet coke, one waffle, and one piece of really good fried chicken, plus bites of Nathan's omelette and Jude's buckwheat waffle and the community macaroni and cheese. So, so good.
The whole gang at the end of dinner, plus our waitress who was super nice. We all went home stuffed and tired and very happy. It was such a fun day!

My observant readers

2008-06-19T20:25:00.000-07:00

Some of you noticed that the date on my Cure ticket is October of 2007. Just to put your minds at peace, no, I didn't lie to you when I said the show was May 31st. It got re-scheduled, since the album release got postponed and wasn't released last fall, as originally planned, so all the concert dates got pushed to 2008 to accomodate a release date somewhere around the middle of April. Alas, we still haven't seen it, and it's now scheduled to come out September 13th or something like that. Which made the concert a little weird, listening to new songs that aren't out yet, but I'm pretty excited about the album from what I heard at the show.

So, all that to say, the concert really was in May, in spite of the ticket date. :)

Obsessive personality

2008-06-17T22:15:00.000-07:00

I get obsessed with stuff. Does everyone? Sometimes I feel like I'm just weird. And I can hear you all saying, "Yeah, you are." But usually my obsessions don't last that long, they burn out pretty fast. Like that one time that Nathan and I practically lived on blow pops for about six weeks in late 2001, when we were each eating five or six a day, and then we suddenly stopped and I've eaten maybe two in the last six years. I was thinking about my obsessions today, and trying to determine what this says about my personality. Do I get bored easily? Is everything just a flash in the pan with me? I don't know. Here are some of my current obsessions. Let me know what you think.

Morning glories. I plant them wherever I see dirt. I may be the only person in California that does this, since they grow like weeds here and are a total nuisance. My theory is that I'm making up for lost time, since I was never allowed to plant them where I grew up because my dad abhors anything of the vine persuasion, probably because he knows HE'S the one that will have to prune it before it swallows the house whole. I'd probably also love kudzu. Do you think I'd be arrested if I imported it here?

Freezing stuff. I've always felt that anything you're drinking can never possibly be cold enough, and for the last week or so I've been throwing water bottles and coke cups in the freezer, sometimes with disastrous results. Nathan kindly explained to me that water is the only thing that expands when frozen, and that's why I end up with ice an inch above the top of the bottle.

Salami. Not sure why, but recently in the evenings I head for the bathtub with a good book, a few slices of salami and several....

Baby Bel cheeses. They're so good! Eszter calls them chomp-chomp cheese, because of the Pac-Man like shape that the wax takes when you take it off the cheese. I could eat this stuff all day long.

Cross stitch. Never thought I'd get into it, but I suddenly love it, especially since I found some designs that aren't sickeningly sweet on this site. It calms my mind.

Owen. I found the album At Home with Owen used at Lovells the other night, snapped it up, and have listened to the songs The Sad Waltzes of Pietro Crespi and Use Your Words a hundred times each. I can't get over them.

I'm sure there are more, but I can't think of them at the moment...

The Old Switcheroo

2008-06-16T14:54:00.001-07:00

I know the pictures aren't that great, but do you see what happened there? I sold the Mustang! To Christi! It's the best thing that ever could have happened. I still have visitation rights, and Christi even lets me drive my old car when we go out. Isn't she awesome? :)

Because Riva wants to know

2008-06-07T20:17:00.000-07:00

1. What was I doing ten years ago today?
If I wasn't so lazy I'd go grab my journal from 1998 and tell you EXACTLY what I was doing. But I am, so I'll approximate. I had just graduated from Biola with a BA in English Literature and was freaking out about what I was going to do with my life. I was still working in graduate admissions, doing my best to fly under the radar, since technically it was a student position and I was no longer a student. I was finishing out my degree by taking a summer course of California History, which turned out to be one of my favorite classes of my college career. I had just met and was dating an extremely unsuitable guy. I was about to turn 22, and getting ready to road trip up to central California to be the maid of honor in my friend Miriam's wedding. AND after that I was going on a trip to San Carlos with my parents and Steve and Arla and Arla's family. It was a pretty busy summer.

2. Five things on my to do list today?

Day's done, but here's what I did today:

Went to Babies R Us, had lunch with my parents, helped coordinate a wedding, went grocery shopping, gave Micah a bath and put him to bed.

3. Things I would do if I were a millionaire?

Buy a private island. Buy everyone in my family neighboring islands. Buy a whole bunch of boats to go back and forth. Buy another island nearby and put up a mall where the only stores would be Borders (for me), Turners (for Nathan), Home Depot (for my dad), a Ruby's (on a pier, for my mom), Golfer's Paradise (for Dave), Williams-Sonoma (for Julie), Jack's Surf Boards (for Steve), Cost Plus (for Arla), Rockler (for Ken), Trader Joe's (for Elly), Fry's (for John), Tall Mouse (for Jenna), Tilly's (for Brian), the Orange Antique Mall (for Ashlee), Brooklyn Pizza (for Jeff, who also gets a really good internet connection for all his Craigs List stuff), and Joanne's (for Heather). 4. Snacks I enjoy?

Chips and salsa, olives, really dark chocolate, Little Debbie's oatmeal sandwich cookies, Campitelli's cookies, salami, Baby Bel cheese, ice cream, popcorn.....

5. Places I've lived?

Lots of cities in Orange County, with two brief ventures out from behind the Orange Curtain to live in La Mirada and Uptown Whittier.

Personalities in pictures

2008-06-03T22:27:00.000-07:00

I picked this up from Wendy's blog and thought it was pretty fun. Check out the concept below and create your own!

The concept:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker.

The Questions :
1. What is your first name? Kristy
2. What is your favorite food? Thai food
3. What high school did you go to? Whittier Christian
4. What is your favorite color? Aqua
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Jonathan Rhys Myers
6. Favorite drink? Diet Coke
7. Dream vacation? London
8. Favorite dessert? Roy's chocolate lava cake
9. What you want to be when you grow up? A traveler
10. What do you love most in life? Nature
11. One Word to describe you. Imagining
12. Your flickr name. London Blues

And here are Nathan's:

1. What is your first name? Nathan
2. What is your favorite food? Tom kha kai
3. What high school did you go to? El Dorado
4. What is your favorite color? Blue. No, green!!
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Catherine Zeta-Jones
6. Favorite drink? Weinhard's root beer
7. Dream vacation? Flyfishing New Zealand
8. Favorite dessert? Cheesecake
9. What you want to be when you grow up? A chiropractor
10. What do you love most in life? The outdoors
11. One Word to describe you. Honest
12. Your flickr name. All Hands

My mom was totally hoping I'd outgrow this

2008-06-02T16:04:00.000-07:00

But I just don't think I'll ever really outgrow the Cure. I've loved them since I was 14 and heard Pictures of You, and that was the beginning. I don't play them non-stop anymore, it's true, but I'd still list them as my favorite band of all time.

Saturday night I got to go to my sixth Cure concert (thanks, Jenn!), this one at the Hollywood Bowl. And it was incredible. I have to say, I think the best way to hear the Cure is outdoors while the sun is setting. The weather was perfect, warm but not hot, and it was a nice clear evening. The setlist was really good. I wouldn't say it's the best I've ever heard (that was the Greek in 2000), but it was cool. They played a lot of stuff that radio-Cure fans would like: Inbetween Days, Lovecats, Just Like Heaven, Boys Don't Cry, A Forest, Close to Me, Lullaby, Why Can't I Be You?, Friday I'm in Love, and stuff like that. But there were a couple little gems. They played To Wish Impossible Things, one of my favorites and one I've never heard live, and Prayers for Rain, and From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea. And Pictures of You, a standard, but still beautiful and somehow different every time they play it. There are a lot of songs I wanted to hear, but their library is so huge that that'll always be the case. They played for three solid hours, and did three encores. As they were walking off the stage at the end of the third one the roadies began to unplug the guitars, but then the band paused at the very edge of the stage, talked for a few seconds, and turned around and came back one more time to play Boys Don't Cry.

Here's the view from our seats. They won't let you take your camera in, but everyone has camera phones now, so what's the point? We were in section D, which is really really good. It was such a good concert!! I loved all the new stuff they played, too, especially the song they opened with, which I think is called Under the Stars, but that's really anyone's guess since the album's not out yet.

So, I guess that's it. They only really come around every four years or so, so I'll be there again in 2012, black eyeliner in hand.

Driving fast at night

2008-05-23T20:02:00.000-07:00

Did you know that you can buy books that give suggested playlists for any occasion? I think it's a fun idea, but I have a couple of problems with them. One: if you're spending money on something like this, either your musical library/experience is way too small or you don't have enough friends with good taste. Two: you're trusting someone whose tastes you don't even know and might be nothing like yours. So it's kind of a weird paradox for me: I'm attracted to the idea and I also hate it. And maybe that's just because I love making my own playlists and I have such strong opinions on what kinds of songs go together. And, as you may know, I like posting my playlists, maybe more for me than for you, dear reader. I like looking back and seeing what I was listening to at certain times. So here's my most recent, for driving fast at night.

Mr. Brightside - PlayRadioPlay! (you have GOT to check this guy out if you like Death Cab for Cutie/Postal Service, he sounds just like them)
In Your Room - Depeche Mode
The Figurehead - The Cure
All of This - Blink 182 (with Robert Smith)
Stripped - Depeche Mode
Stars - Dubstar
Shadow of the Day - Linkin Park
Liar - New Order
Rhapsody - Siouxsie and the Banshees
Acrobat - U2
Stay (Faraway, So Close!) - U2
The Last Day of Summer - The Cure
Bloodflowers - The Cure
Home - Depeche Mode

All my rebels

2008-05-23T09:01:00.001-07:00

Not much going on around here at the moment....but I wanted to post these shots. I did a little "photoshoot" a couple weeks ago because I was making photo boxes for our moms for Mother's Day. I wanted a rock and roll picture for the cover, so I dressed the kids in their rebel wear and set them up. I love how it turned out. Some people think it's morbid that I have a black skeleton onesie for an eight month old baby, but I think it's funny. Nathan's a chiropractor, after all.

Soon the most used word in my vocabulary will be "Because."

2008-05-19T16:00:00.000-07:00

A conversation with Judah in the car last night.

Judah: Is the moon full?
Me: Yep, just about.
J: It's going down.
Me: Nope, it's going up right now.
J: Why's it going up right now?
Me: Because it has to rise before it sets.
J: Why's it have to rise before it sets?
Me: Because the earth is spinning. (I try to give him accurate answers when I can.)
J: Why's the earth spinning?
Me: Because Jesus made it that way. (This is the standard answer in our family that stops all the whys)
J: Oh.
Me (to Nathan): Yes! It worked!
J (after a pause): Why's Jesus made it that way?
Me: Uhhhhh......
Nathan: For his pleasure.
J: Why for his pleasure?
Me (to Nathan): You get to take it from here.
N: You know how you like to play baseball? Well, Jesus likes to create things.
J: Oh!

And then there was silence from the backseat. Wow, I'm gonna have to try Nathan's technique.

Nearing completion

2008-05-19T15:09:00.000-07:00

A year ago today I was five months pregnant, Judah was perfecting his escape-artist techniques, and we were moving dozens and dozens of boxes into our new home. What a difference in a year. Micah's eight months old, Judah stays in bed fairly consistently, and the boxes are FINALLY all emptied.

The last part didn't come about until a few weeks ago. The picture above is what one wall of our front room looked like for months and months after we moved in, because I was waiting for a bookcase to be built. I don't know what happened, but between moving into our last place and moving into our current place, my library grew exponentially, and I discovered that I now have a completely unconscionable amount of books. I had no idea what was going on. Two bookcases used to be more than enough. Not anymore. So Nathan built me a third. Yay! He and Jeff installed it, and then the alphebetization began. It involved several days and a lot of floor space.

In process.... and please, don't anyone go thinking I'm a Nazi because of the book in the center. It's a really good book, and I thought it was hysterical that Payasa decided to park herself overlooking a book called Maus (mouse).
The three bookcases, filled and, in some places, double-decked. As I started to fill the top shelves of the third case I considered donning my bullet-proof vest, because I began to realize that we would need a fourth bookcase, and that Nathan was going to possibly murder me out of frustration. I could only fit up to Rowling on the three cases. Nathan was very kind about it, however, and just sighed and suggested that I throw out or give away some books (and I totally forgive you for saying that, Nathan). Fortunately, I have a very kind, generous brother-in-law, and Jeff knocked another bookcase together inside of a couple hours. It has yet to be installed, but when it is Edith Wharton and Oscar Wilde and John Steinbeck and Sue Townsend and all the rest can come in from their exile in the garage.

And then. Then Barbara up and moved to South Africa. And, bless her forever, she asked me if I wanted to babysit part of her library for a couple years! Nathan sighed again and agreed, and a few hundred more books (and two of her bookcases) made their way into our bedroom. I'm having so much fun with her books already! It's like Christmas every day around here.

Strawberry Fields Forever

2008-05-16T16:15:00.001-07:00

Is this one nutty looking bug, or what? It looks so menacing! But in the past couple days Jude and I have seen several of these beetles wandering around our yards, and they seem harmless, just happily going about their business, looking for places to hang out. I talked to Ashlee this morning and found out there's an actual infestation of these going on right now in Southern California and Baja. She directed me to What's That Bug? for more info. It turns out they're sort of like stink bugs, but won't hurt you and don't smell as bad as actual stink bugs. Unfortunately, they have a nasty habit of wanting to be inside, which means you may find them in your house.

But here's the best part: they eat garden pests!! So, if you see these little guys wandering around, work up your courage, fight your urge to kill them with a stiletto, and trap them somehow, then transport them to your garden! Word has it they'll eat the sow bugs right up.

I'm off to go hunting....

There's a parable here somewhere

2008-05-12T09:09:00.000-07:00

One Tuesday at MOPS our leader, Mina, brought in strawberry plants for anyone who wanted them. I bravely took one, thinking I could probably manage to at least get it in the groud before I killed it. So I took home my little baggie with its root and three leaves and planted it in the raised planter in front of our place. And lo and behold, it didn't die!! It even began to flourish a little. Soon I noticed a couple blossoms on it, and one showed signs of turning into an actual strawberry. Judah and I kept an eye on it to see what would happen and it steadily grew bigger and turned into a nice little red berry. Voila (or wah-la, if you prefer, hee hee)! I had grown something. People, I can't even keep an avocado pit alive, so this was kind of a big deal. Judah loved it too, and liked examining it, and one day we were sitting around and he said, "Should we go check out the strawberry? See what it's up to?"

So the berry was red, and we were waiting for it to ripen a little more. We were making big plans to cut it up into three pieces so we could all have a little. Then one day I picked it up to test it, turned it over, and to my shock and horror this is what I found:

The sow bogs were having a feast on MY STRAWBERRY! Judah and I were very disappointed. And I don't even know how to get rid of these bugs. Any ideas, anyone?

Farmer Kristy I am not.

A quiet morning

2008-05-08T09:03:00.000-07:00

To make up for the other day, I suppose.

It's been cloudy and almost cold the last couple days, a nice reprieve after last week's 100 degree plus days. When Micah woke up at 8:30 this morning (don't be jealous, other moms, he was also up at 2:00 and 5:30) I took him into our bed to feed him. We lay there together for quite a while, me looking out the window at the abandoned hummingbird nest in the tree outside our window (which I mistakenly thought was a tree of heaven, but is actually a Hawaiian Schefflera, or umbrella tree), Micah smiling at nothing much. Judah was on the floor playing with one of his recent favorite "toys," a silver bead garland that he ripped off our tree at Christmas. He was quietly hiding his cars in it, I think. After a while Micah sat up and began to look around, and then his discovered my belly button. He touched it with one finger and laughed. What was going on in his head? I always wonder.

Eventually we came downstairs and Judah ate his oatmeal while Micah played on the floor, then Judah and Payasa played together for a while with a long piece of bright orange embroidery thread, and then Judah and Micah settled on the floor together and explored their Little People farm. It was so nice, so peaceful. I imagine that it will only be more of this as the boys get older. Right?

Please don't tell me if I'm wrong.

Seriously?

2008-05-06T15:18:00.000-07:00

It's been one of those days. Which is kind of how almost all my days have been since that magic day Judah turned three (more on that later) and his sweet little head turned itself inside out and he forgot all his language skills except for the word NO and an inhumanly long scream. I thought two was supposed to be the hard year.

So I was having one of those days, and thank God for MOPS because I got to leave my boys in the nursery for a sizable chunk of the morning. We got home after having lunch with my mom, and I finally put both boys down for naps, and then put myself down for a nap since I was dizzy falling-over exhausted.

And then the unwritten rule kicked in. The one that says that the gardeners hired by your landlord to maintain the hideously ugly, drought-resistant shrubs in your backyard will show up ONLY during naptime, bringing a leaf blower (seriously? for a tiny backyard?), a metal rake, a hedge clipper, and a huge trash can that they will repeatedly, for some unfathomable reason, have to bang against the side of your house. Right below the kids' bedroom windows. And have you ever heard the sound a metal rake makes when applied to bricks? It eats my soul. So of course both boys woke up. And who can really blame them?

And to add insult to injury. They decided that today was the day to prune the podocarpus, Second-Ugliest Tree Known to Man, just when it was starting to leaf out and get shaggy and look halfway decent. Now it's back to the shorn, stubby look. So pitiful. We also have the First-Ugliest Tree Known to Man in our backyard: a huge sago palm that's probably worth, like, $9,000. I find it interesting that the sago palm's Latin name is cycas revoluta, which is oddly close to the word revolting. Exactly how I feel.

The most wonderful time of the year

2008-04-04T21:32:00.000-07:00

"The one constant through all the years has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is part of our past. It reminds us of all that was once good, and what could be again." (From Field of Dreams)

It's baseball time again!! I love it.

I didn't always love it. I grew up with two brothers who were both pitchers, and some of my very earliest memories involve climbing around on the wooden bleachers at the Little League field in La Habra. Steve, I think, was on the Bears, and Dave was on the Braves. I think. So I spent many, many Saturdays at baseball games, from the time I was about five up through highschool. I used to get so bored!

And then, on summer nights, the boys would have the game on TV, sound turned down, and the radio tuned to the game. Vin Scully's voice is as familiar to me as almost anyone's, and whenever I hear it I feel like everything in the world is right.

I can't remember a time when I didn't understand baseball. Sometimes I feel like I was born knowing the rules. I love the order of it, and how there's so much potential for the near-miraculous to happen on every single play. I love watching it, I love hearing a game in the background while I'm doing things around the house. I love going to games. I can't wait to take Judah and Micah to some games this summer, and start making memories for them. Judah already loves to sit with Nathan and watch the game on TV.

So it's opening week. The Dodgers and the Angels are both playing tonight. The Dodgers are just about to win, which puts them in first place in their division. Hey, it's never too early to start thinking about these things! To celebrate the beginning of the season, I read The Iowa Baseball Confederacy by Kinsella (Dave and Steve, have I made you read this yet? It's awesome), and I'm starting in on Shoeless Joe, also by Kinsella, basis of the movie Field of Dreams.

Oh, and also, I have an ENTIRE PACK of Big League Chew (grape) in my mouth as I write this. I found it at Watson's in Orange today. I used to do this when I was about eight, chew the whole pack at once, and I have no idea how I did it. My jaw is killing me! But it's so worth it. Next I'm heading for the kitchen to see if we have enough kinds of soda on hand to make a good suicide.

Right back where they started from

2008-03-27T22:21:00.001-07:00

Welcome home, Brian, Ashlee, and Eszter!! And welcome to California, Josiah and Sophia!!

Maybe his hair has nerves

2008-03-17T20:50:00.000-07:00

These pictures are a little old, but I ran across them tonight and thought I'd post them, since people keep asking me, "Has Judah had another haircut? Did he do any better?" The answers are yes and yes, sort of. Kassy came over again armed with more suckers, and Judah did pretty well for the first half of the session. But then she broke out the clippers and that was the end of it. It's better than he's ever done, though, and I have hope that some day we'll make it through a haircut without all of us ending up covered in tears and clippings.

Kassy is awesome, by the way. She brought basically a whole salon to our house and set up shop. She bleached, dyed, cut, and styled my hair, then cut Judah's hair and then Nathan's. And in between all of it we ate In-N-Out for dinner. What could be better? Here are the pics of Judah's cut. Notice the progression from smiling to screaming....

A few of my favorite things

2008-03-01T15:40:00.000-08:00

I know I haven't posted in a while, and that's because not a lot new is going on around here. Oh, and also, I've been much too busy. See, Jeff and Heather (a curse be on their mustaches) got me totally and hopelessly addicted to Toontown, an online game created for, like, eight year olds. Disney is so genius, I have to say. You can play the game free for as long as you want, but you have to pay if you want to do the higher-level stuff. And they suck you in. I was determined not to pay. But.... I did. Eventually. And now it consumes my time. You all should check it out, it's fun! And if you see Captain Banjo Bananajinks running around, that's me. Or possibly Jeff. But probably me.

Anyway. Like I said, not much is happening. So I thought I'd just post some of my favorite recent pictures. The one above is a shot of the ocean a few weeks ago, looking a lot like some tropical location. The weather was gorgeous, it had been raining for several days and then cleared up, so we went to Ruby's where we could walk on the beach and look back at the snow-covered mountains. Isn't California awesome?
Judah at Ruby's that day, clowning around in Nathan's hat. He loves hats, so we bought him one at Tilly's that's way too big for him, so far. But he looks really cute in it. I'm very very slowly turning the boys' bathroom into a sort of beach/surfer type theme, and I found these lanterns at Tall Mouse for really cheap. Best part: they're battery operated, so no ugly cords. I hung them from the ceiling in the bathroom, and now Judah won't let us turn them on ever. Whatever. They look cool.
This is one of my favorite things ever, when babies suck on their toes. Micah does it every chance he gets, and I love it! And check out those eyelashes. They seem to get longer daily, it's crazy.
Here is my dream car (one of them). I've seen it around at car shows and stuff, and one day it was parked in our complex so I had to have my pic taken with it. It's a Nash Metropolitan. One day I will have one!

Spring Fever

2008-02-15T14:43:00.001-08:00

I know. It's still the middle of winter. And what am I doing planting a garden in February? But I couldn't help it. The weather's been so completely beautiful for the last week or so, and we're all walking around in short sleeves, and Jack Johnson is on the playlist again, and it just seemed like flowers were a great idea. Besides, this is southern California. We're not even sure what the word "frost" means. So I went ahead and did it. And my flowers are so gorgeous! I love them. My grandma Kimber had a green thumb like you wouldn't believe: she grew the most amazing orchids in huge tubs on her patio, and loved spending afternoons among her plants, watering and digging and planting. Unfortunately, I didn't inherit the green thumb, just her love of beauty, so these plants will probably be dead in a few weeks. So I thought I'd take pictures and post them so they'll at least live on somewhere.

Here's what I planted, besides the blue hydrangea above:
Pink jasmine on our back patio, which smells SO good. This one's actually going to make it, because I've had it over a year and it's doing great. Jasmine's easy.
Impatien, also on our back patio. This one is a volunteer. It's growing in a hanging basket that originally had fuchsias in it, and I have no idea how it got there.

This is an anemone, something I always thought you only found in tidepools. Turns out it's a flower too, and this is my favorite among the flowers I bought. It's so big and floaty.
Pink ranuncula.......
......and white ranuncula, otherwise known as "the most beautiful flower with the ugliest imaginable name." The name makes them sound like they should weigh 50 pounds each and be very clumsy.
Snapdragon. So much fun. I'm afraid to show Judah what you can do with snapdragons, because he'd probably destroy them in his excitement.
Sweet alyssum. This is one of my favorite flowers. They're so tiny but they have so much fragrance, but it's not overwhelming. And if you let them, they'll spread out and take over large areas, which is what I'm hoping for.

Nasturtiums. These grew wild at my grandparents' place and I can't wait for them to bloom. The flowers are bright orange and red and yellow, and grow kind of under the leaves, and have a bitter, earthy smell.
Cosmos. Like daisies, but better.
Spanish lavender, another one that I'm hoping will get really big and take over a lot of space, and also smell good. I'm going to learn how to dry it and use it in sachets.
Primrose, which looks nothing like what I thought it would. I love how bright it is.
And hibiscus, which I've had since July. This plant did really really well over the summer, but is not looking so hot now. The leaves are yellowing and the flowers are opening up looking a little ragged. I don't know if it's just the wrong season for it or if I'm over-watering or what, but I'm hoping it'll come back in the spring. Any tips from any of you?

Besides all these, I planted thousands of seeds: bachelor buttons, bells of Ireland, Mexican primrose, and morning glory. I am seriously addicted to morning glories, and found a variety this year I'd never seen. They're bright red, so I planted them behind the nasturtiums. My dad's making me an arch for our backyard, and I'm planning to grow a moonflower vine over it, and blue morning glories beside it. Hopefully it will all grow...I'll keep you updated!

SOLD! To the lowest bidder.

2008-02-11T19:58:00.001-08:00

Yes, it's true. We are one car less in this household. And while we still have more cars than we have legal drivers, this is a vast improvement. A person who was serious about the Impala finally turned up, drove down from Agoura, and bought the thing for his 15-year-old son. Which means that within a year it will be nothing more than a twisted pile of metal at the edge of some freeway, but whatever. I'm not sure what that guy's thinking giving a new driver this kind of horsepower. But I guess he knows his kid, and it's his call, and we're glad to be rid of the car. He gave us $6,000 for it, and Nathan pointed out to me that he spent more than that just in repairs on the car within the first year he owned it. Yikes. So, farewell, Sasha the Impala! It was fun (most of the time) and also expensive (all the time). The only part I'm sad about is that this is the car we brought Judah home from the hospital in and it was a little hard to see that go.
It turned out the the Impala hadn't been smogged in the last 90 days, so Nathan and the two guys that came to get it went to a local smog check station. Before they went, Nathan called the place to see exactly where it was located, since he'd never been before. Here's how the conversation went:

Nathan: Where are you guys located?
Smog dude: Between Prospect and Bastanchury on Imperial.
Nathan: And are you on the north or south side?
Smog dude: Well, I don't know which way you're coming from.
Nathan: ......... Umm, okay. I'll find you.

Think about that one for a while. Genius.

The Ninth Anniversary.....

2008-01-28T19:20:00.000-08:00

....of our breakup. Nine years ago today I cold-heartedly (says Nathan) broke up with Nathan. I contend that it's one of the smartest things I ever did, because the timing just wasn't right. Nathan says, "How could that be smart?" but he knows it was, too.

Anyway, everything turned out just fine in the end (obviously), but Nathan still gives me a hard time about it. Every year.

The Pajama Game

2008-01-19T20:29:00.001-08:00

Judah gets up around 7:00 every morning, and this is a little bit early for my taste, especially since Micah is still waking up to eat twice a night, or sometimes three times. So I usually open the gate at the top of the stairs when Judah gets up and he goes downstairs and plays with his toys for a while. He generally stays in the front room, and I can hear him through my sleep fog, playing with his race track, or with his Lightning McQueen car that says "Speed! I am speed!" or with his car that plays Heard It Through the Grapevine. Or with any of his approximately eight thousand Matchbox cars. A few weeks ago he learned (or was taught) that he could put his cars down the neck of his footy pajamas and they'd wind up down around his ankles, trapped by the feet. So now, every couple mornings, he thinks it's the funniest thing in the world and comes clanking into our room at 7:30, asking me to "Get the cars out, Mommy?" The picture above is a sample of what all I pull out of there. A week ago I pulled out a grand total of seventeen cars (a record, I think). Yesterday he came into our room and I found around his ankles all of his "sparkly" cars, the ones with metallic paint. The kid's got style, at least.

A post I will surely regret later

2008-01-12T14:44:00.001-08:00

This is what it looks like around my house today. Except it's not just Judah, it's Micah too. Micah, who is almost never grouchy, has been throwing fits all day, and Judah is being a total pill. I woke up this morning with no patience for anything, and now I have even less. I'm not sure if it's them or me or both, but today I keep thinking, What was so wrong with just being a family of two?

I need some Roy's molten chocolate cake. Preferably in Kaua'i.

Post-Christmas cookies

2008-01-10T16:52:00.000-08:00

Yes, I know Christmas is over. And I meant to get around to making Christmas cookies before Christmas. But it just didn't happen this year. We got a little busy. Besides all the usual Christmas activities (parties, choir events, etc.), there are seven people in our family with birthdays in December. So the month gets crazy, and the non-essentials (cookies) get thrown out. And I've always been sort of a procrastinator anyway. It just worked out for me. I'm that person you hated in college, who wrote the papers the night (or hour) before they were due, and studied for tests when the person next to me said, "Hey, did you study for the test today?" at which point I realized there was a test that day, and pulled out my notes for the minute and a half it took the teacher to take attendance. And I managed fairly decent grades, and usually did better by cramming than I did if I worked ahead of schedule.

What was I talking about? Oh, cookies. So I decided to make cookies, because Wendy linked to a really good recipe on her blog and because I thought Judah would have fun helping. I baked them in the morning and Judah decorated them in the afternoon, and we had a blast.
Here's Judah holding up one of his masterpieces and wearing that funny smile he gets because he can't really manage to keep his eyes all the way open when the flash goes off. And yes, that is a star of David shape. My cookie cutter set, which has like 100 shapes, only has one five-pointed star, and it's big and the points are rounded, and I don't really like that. So we ended up with a bunch of the Jewish version.
The completed collection. I liked the blue ones best, because I got a little happy with the almond extract when I was making the icing and added (read: spilled) too much in, but they ended up tasting so good!
The last three cookies. Instead of dumping on more decorations, I had Judah just turn them upside down in the extra stuff on his decorating plate, and we both ended up loving them. I call them the uglies, like the leftover doughnuts in some book I read (I think it was The Vision of Emma Blau by Hegi, any help here Barbara? My books are still in boxes, too). These were the only ones Judah ended up liking to eat, probably because he could fit the whole thing in his mouth at once.

From then til now - already

2008-01-07T21:57:00.001-08:00

Minutes old, and I was already totally in love with him.
It seems like Micah's life has already gone so fast. He was four months old last week, and I can hardly believe it! It seems like he was just born, and already he's so big and old. A few weeks ago he began sleeping through the night. And by through the night I don't mean how the books define it, which I think is like five hours. Sorry, but that is NO ONE'S through the night. Micah was going literally all the way through, from 8:00 to 8:00, and then going back for a nap from about 8:30 to 10:00. It was like heaven. Or Iowa. He's only done that a few times so far, but even the other nights he's done really well, waking up anywhere between 3:00 and 5:30 to eat once, then going back down until about 7:30. I think he even would have done this sooner, but I was scared to try putting him in his own crib and still had him sleeping in our bed (I swore I'd never do that, but then I discovered that I could actually get enough sleep to allow me to function if I did it that way). I thought if we moved him to the crib he'd be up every two hours. Instead, it seems like he was almost relieved to be on his own.

The day he turned four months old he rolled over from his back to his front, and now he does it all the time and it's so cute. He props himself up on his elbows and looks around and smiles at everyone. And this week we're supposed to start him on solid food already! I just can't believe it's gone so fast. I feel like I'm going to turn away for a second and when I look back he'll be in first grade.

Here's a short visual history of his short/long life.

Less than an hour old, Labor Day (in more ways than one) 2007.

With Gramma Cowell for the first time, looking very wise already.

A few days old and mad at the world. Or possibly screaming at the paparazzi that he's NOT anorexic, so KNOCK IT OFF.

Tummy time! Also known as faceplant time. Which is what happened shortly after this picture was taken.

Sporting his bling a couple weeks ago. Napkin rings aren't just for napkins anymore, not at our house, anyway.

Best buds. Judah "read" that book to Micah several times and Micah loved it.

Float on

2008-01-04T15:51:00.000-08:00

Last year (the end of 2006) my parents and Heather and I signed up to help decorate Rose Parade floats. We had such a good time that we decided to do it again for this year's parade. It's really a lot of fun. We got to work on the Lutheran Hour float again this year, which is a small but beautiful one. The first part of the day was a lot of sitting around cutting the petals off of dried flowers, which was pretty boring. Then, because there was nothing going on at the Lutheran float, we got moved over to work on the Long Beach float for a while. But soon we went back to our original float and, due to Heather's persistence (go Heather!) we got to do a little work up on the scaffolding, putting pink carnations on. We spent most of the rest of the day doing that, and finally moved to the Farmers Insurance float (the really tall Indian, if you watched the parade) to help them out for the last 45 minutes.

It was, once again, a really fun experience, even if we did get half high off the glue that was everywhere and our fingers were sore from forcing toothpicks into foam on the carnations. We'll definitely do it again for the 2009 parade, but we think that waiting one more day and going on the 30th instead of the 29th would be better, since then we'd probably get to work more with the fresh flowers rather then the dried flowers.

This is what the warehouse looked like when we got there. Our float is on the left. By the time we left, the lion next to it had the most beautiful mane.

Our float before we started working on it.

Heather and me up on the scaffolding, our favorite part of the day.

Our float toward the end of the day. That's our handy work on the pink and yellow carnations. Very artistic, yes?

I spent 45 minutes pinning these pine branches to the Farmers float, which was quite enough. They were a pain to work with.

Buckets of seeds and flower petals used for the details on various floats.

Heather and me with Jack, the donkey on our float. Isn't he cute? He had a sign on him that said DO NOT TOUCH JACK! Apparently, being touched was not in his contract.

Tagger

2008-01-03T09:53:00.000-08:00

Guess who found the Sharpie?

My fault totally. I left it at toddler-level, and of course the toddler took advantage of it, as any self-respecting toddler would. So now Lightning, Mater, a storage box, and the chair in Micah's room have permanent tattoos. I'm actually pretty glad that it wasn't worse. Looks like Lightning needed a new coat of paint anyway. There's a lot of wear on the old one.

A little while after the Sharpie incident there was another incident, though. Again, my fault. Somehow the words "only draw on paper" don't compute with Judah. We (I) gave him a dry erase board in his stocking with a dry erase pen. While my back was turned he used the pen to tag up: the desk top, four miniature cars, the couch, his booster seat, the top of our beautiful table that Nathan made, Nathan's leather briefcase, and a large section of the wall which is, of course, painted with flat white paint, which violates that commandment that every parent knows: Never Use Flat Paint, For It Is Flat And Hard To Clean and Thou Shalt Spend Hours On Thy Knees Cleaning It If a Marker Should Mar It. Which I did. Okay, not hours. It totally could have been worse. But I spent quite a while, cleaning in shame. Nathan, bless his heart, helped me, even though he could have rightfully sat back and watched, since the marker was all my (horrible) idea in the first place. Lesson learned.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

2008-01-01T15:08:00.000-08:00

Christmas is finally over for us, ended last night. It was quite a marathon this year. It started on Christmas Eve, which is when our little family has our time together. One of our favorite traditions is having Christmas Eve dinner at The Olde Ship in Fullerton. I don't remember how this started, but we've done it every year since we got married. The atmosphere is a lot of fun, and they pass out Christmas crackers, so there are usually a lot of people hanging out with paper crowns on, some of them totally drunk. Fun. The food is so good, I always get the lamb, and this year I decided to try the bread and butter pudding for dessert. It's traditional English pudding, which means it was more like really moist cake, and it was served with hot custard on top, and it was one of the best desserts I've ever had. After our dinner there we came home and opened our presents to each other.

On Christmas morning we woke up and opened our stockings, then went to Nathan's parents' for brunch and presents there, then went to my parents' for dinner and still more presents. And since Steve and Arla and Dave and Julie and all the girls were out of town for Christmas this year, we all got together last night to celebrate, and the entire family was almost lost forever in the enormous mountain of presents there. It was all really fun and I loved it, but I'm pretty glad it's over and we can relax and enjoy the cooler weather.

In the midst of all this, we're trying to teach Judah what the real meaning of Christmas is, but I'm not sure he's getting it yet. He wakes up every morning now thinking we're going to open more presents, and he's convinced that the baby in the manger is not Jesus, it's Micah. Maybe next year it will click....

Here are a bunch of pictures from our various celebrations. Unfortunately, the camera got left at home both times we were at my parents'. So, no pictures from there.

Judah and me at The Olde Ship, waiting (impatiently, on Judah's part) for our food.

Judah downing his traditional Christmas pint. Just kidding, Mom. The glass was empty. Almost.

The Christmas cracker. One of our favorite parts of Christmas Eve.

Nathan Cowell: Magi or rapper?

Judah playing with one of his favorite gifts, a harmonica. He was so excited about it, and now he walks around playing it like the world's littlest hobo.

Micah, before he totally ripped into that present. With some help.

Micah hanging out with Auntie Jenna. Doesn't he look benevolent and jolly?

Judah and a few of the several thousand cars he got for Christmas. He was in car heaven.

And Micah as Saint Nick. Merry Christmas!

Christmas Cat

2007-12-28T18:01:00.000-08:00

Payasa really got into the Christmas spirit this year. I mean, like, really. She loved hanging out under the tree and especially enjoyed drinking all the tree water.

And then a few days before Christmas Jeff and Heather came over for dinner. Paya and Jeff have a love/hate relationship, where Jeff loves Paya and she HATES him. Hates him with the fires of a thousand burning suns. She was trying to escape from him, and wound up jumping into the fireplace. But when I looked in I couldn't see her, could only hear her growling. We concluded that she must be up the chimney, so we took a picture aiming up, and that's exactly where she was. I can only assume that she was looking for Santa.

Micah Cowell Superstar

2007-12-19T14:08:00.000-08:00

This year Micah got to play the lead role of Jesus in a living nativity scene at Biola's Christmas tree lighting. He was onstage for only about 15 minutes, but did very well and seemed to like his manger bed, which was a lot more cushy than the original probably was. His parents and all the wisemen and shepherds were played by fifth graders, and it was really interesting to see them react to having a real baby in the manger. Instead of standing there looking bored and poking each other, they all leaned over to watch Micah and play with him, which made it seem very true to the actual event. Mary would have been just barely older than the girl playing her that night, and most likely all the visitors weren't standing around shooting the breeze, they were looking at the child. I loved watching that happen on the stage.

But I think the real highlight was when one of the shepherds went to the director and told her, "I think Jesus smells kind of poopy."

Yet another form of torture

2007-12-12T15:30:00.000-08:00

There are certain things in life that Judah considers torture. The list includes hideous things like having his hair washed, staying in bed, eating chicken or really any meat, drinking milk without a straw, being put in his carseat instead of climbing in himself, and having to go anywhere without Lightning McQueen.

Also on the list is getting a haircut. Judah just got his first professional haircut. Usually we just shave his head every few months, but one of Nathan's patients offered to come over and cut both Nathan's and Judah's hair. She used to work at a salon that specialized in kids' haircuts, so I was all excited. She started out on the right foot with Judah by playing with his toys with him for a while, and then offering him a sucker. She sat him in a chair in our kitchen with his sucker, and all was well until he saw the cut pieces of hair on his sleeve. "What's that?" he asked Nathan. "Your hair," Nathan replied, and the screaming commenced. Within seconds Judah was a red ball of snot, tears, sweat, and hair, and the sucker was covered with hair as well. There was hair everywhere, in fact. It got on Judah's hands, and then he rubbed his eyes and it got all over his wet face and.....well, it just got worse from there. The minute he was done I rushed him up to the bathtub to de-itchify him and get all the snot off his face and hands. The bath cheered him up, and by the time Kassy left Judah loved her again, and was performing for her and showing off his dinosaur pajamas. He agreed that she could come over and play again sometime, but not cut his hair.

But he would not eat the sucker after we washed it off. It had forever lost its charm.

About as crafty as I get

2007-12-11T14:41:00.000-08:00

I finally finished the project that I was supposed to do last summer. When we moved into our place I noticed that right outside our back gate were four stepping stones, but they were that plain pink stone stuff. I decided I wanted to make some of my own to personalize our path. So I bought the huge bag of cement last summer, but that was as far as I got because I was so miserably pregnant. When I actually got around to doing the project it was a lot of fun and way easier than I'd anticipated.

The turquoise tiles I used in three of the stones are really special to me. Back in the 1960s my church installed a mosaic window with about 14 panels of tiny tiles. In the center was a cross. The tiles all came seperately, and the women of the church spent hours and hours gluing them onto large glass panels. Both of my grandmothers worked on the project. In the 1980s, when the sanctuary was remodeled, the design crew decided to take about eight panels out of the cross window to make it narrower. The extra panels were then stored away, and I later spent years looking for them off and on. Then one day I happened to mention to my friend H.K. that I was looking for them. He disappeared for a few minutes and eventually came back carrying one of the panels wrapped in a sheet. I was so excited! I took the panel to Nathan's parents' house and my father-in-law took a blow torch to it, melted the glue, and peeled all the tiles off the glass backing, which shattered under the heat. I took the tiles home in a paper bag and then spent days hunched over the sink, peeling the glue from each tile and washing them all. I didn't know what I was going to do with them, and I was saving them for some special project some day, but then I thought it would be much nicer to work them into a lot of little projects, so that I can see them all the time. I know that my grandma Kimber would be proud. I love looking at my stepping stones and knowing that they represent a little bit of family history.

I made one stone for each person in our family. The fish is for Judah, because he loves the movie Finding Nemo, and loves fish in general. He likes to eat at The Whole Enchilada because of their amazing fish tank. The river is for Nathan because he loves fly fishing in peaceful places. The blue flower is for me and has to do with C. S. Lewis's discussion of the blue flower, which I've always identified with. And the star is for Micah, because he's my little star (and it didn't stay that dirty, I had just finished it when I took the picture and the cement was still wet).

Busted.

2007-12-10T08:51:00.000-08:00

On Saturday morning I woke up with a burning thirst. Micah and Nathan were sound asleep, but Judah was up and running around in his pajamas, so I got up and Judah and I made a run to Del Taco. As usual, he said, "We need diet coke!" when I pulled in. I got my drink, and then we drove around for a while enjoying the beutiful day and the many trains passing by (5 within about 15 minutes!). When we got home Nathan and Micah were still asleep, didn't even know we'd gone.

Later in the day all four of us were out running errands and decided to stop at the same Del Taco for a quick lunch. As we pulled in Judah yelled out, "We need MORE diet coke!" Little rat.

Early morning conversation

2007-12-09T10:23:00.000-08:00

"Hey Nathan. Are you awake?"

"Yeah. But I'm disappointed."

"Why?"

"Because we didn't win 20 million dollars."

"???"

"In my dream. I was flying a really crappy spaceship with some guys from Star Trek and I won 20 million dollars and I was excited because I could afford to fix my spaceship."

"Ah. Have you ever actually watched Star Trek?"

"Not in the last 20 years. I don't even like sci-fi."

"Very good. Go on."

"And I was going to repair my parents' water tower, because it got all shot up by some guys with rifles. But then I decided to put in running water for them."

"How nice of you."

"But then I woke up and was like, Darn, we don't have 20 million dollars. I guess I can't buy that motorcycle. Or repair my spaceship."

Probably wishes she hadn't decided to play in the fireplace

2007-11-28T14:35:00.001-08:00

Payasa, after the bath. She wandered into our room the other morning, and for a second I thought we'd gotten a second cat, one that was grey instead of calico. But no, it was Payasa. Covered in soot. I only wish I'd gotten a "before" picture.

Snow in La Mirada

2007-11-27T14:44:00.000-08:00

A couple of weekends ago we had our nieces, Rachel and Naomi, over to spend the night. Judah was overjoyed, as they're two of his favorite people in the whole world. They came over around dinner time and we all had pizza (mmm, Top Class), and then they wore Judah out for a while, and then we all sat down to watch Monsters Inc. Judah was so tired by 9:00 that he hardly even protested when we told him it was time for bed before the movie was over.

The next morning after breakfast we headed for our church, which was hosting Chili Snow Day, a combination of an old Granada tradition, the Chili Cook Off, and a new institution, Snow Day. They brought in something like 20 tons of snow and set up a couple of sled runs and two roped off areas for kids to have snowball fights or whatever. Rachel and Naomi loved it and had a great time pelting Nathan with snow. Judah, however, wanted nothing to do with the snow and spent the whole time begging to play on the playground nearby. We let him, and he loved it. Toward the end of the day Rachel and Naomi went to get their faces painted, and Micah agreed to have his painted too. Judah, of course, wouldn't do it.

Here are a bunch of pictures from our sleepover and snow play. Sorry they're out of order, Blogger was being stubborn and not letting me do things the way I wanted to. The picture above is Nathan going down a sled run holding Micah, which completely horrified all the older people.

Filler meme

2007-11-24T15:32:00.001-08:00

Some random information, along with a random picture that I really like, though I'm not sure why I like it. Maybe it's the memories it brings back. Meme stolen from Wendy.

1. Name one person who made you laugh last night.
Judah

2.What were you doing at 0800?
Making oatmeal and drinking diet coke (duh).

3. What were you doing 30 minutes ago?
Reading about the latest fire.

4. What happened to you in 2006?
I completed the third decade of my life
I discovered a love for San Francisco
I camped with a toddler several times (NOT the best idea ever)
I got pregnant

5. What was the last thing you said out loud?
"I don't know." In response to Nathan asking if the pounding upstairs was Judah getting out of bed again.

6. How many beverages did you have today?
Four that I can remember. You know what they were.

7. What color is your hairbrush
Neon green

8. What was the last thing you paid for?
A Christmas present for someone...

9. Where were you last night?
Home

10. What color is your front door?
Standard issue condo tan.

11. Where do you keep your change?
In one of our dresser's small drawers.

12.What’s the weather like today?
Warm and a little bit Santa Ana-y (hence the fire in #3).

13. What’s the best ice-cream flavor?
Vanilla bean (I know, so boring! But I love simplicity).

14. What excites you?
Lots of things: good music, vintage table cloths and dish towels, arts and crafts architecture and decorating, theories of time travel, the inscriptions in the front of old books, geneaology, travel, taking pictures, thunder storms...I could go on forever.

15. Do you want to cut your hair?
Constantly. But I also want it to grow out really long, so I'm always fighting with my temptation to cut it all off. I'll probably give in pretty soon.

16. Are you over the age of 25?
Yes.

17. Do you talk a lot?
Sometimes.

19. Do you know anyone named Steven?
Yep, my brother.

20. Do you make up your own words?
Not usually. But I have been known to tell people that Nathan practices chiropracty. And also that he's a chirproctologist.

21. Are you a jealous person?
Not on the whole, but more than I'd like to be.

22. Name a friend whose name starts with the letter ‘A’.
Ashlee

23. Name a friend whose name starts with the letter ‘K’.
Christi, if she would just give in already and spell her name RIGHT.

24. Who’s the first person on your received call list?
Probably Nathan, but I'm too lazy to get up and find my phone.

25. What does the last text message you received say?
No idea. I erase them as I get them.

26. Do you chew on your straw?
No.

27. Do you have curly hair?
No. But it's not straight, either. Annoying.

28. Where’s the next place you’re going to?
Hopefully to Ruby's for dinner. It's that kind of day.

29. Who’s the rudest person in your life?
Nathan, but only to people who deserve it. Like telemarketers.

30. What was the last thing you ate?
French fries.

31. Will you get married in the future?
Only if I decide to take up polygamy.

32. What’s the best movie you’ve seen in the past 2 weeks?
I think I've seen two in the last two weeks, and they were both not that good. One was "Daughter from Danang," and the other was "Elephant." Both pretty disappointing. But we recently saw "The Last King of Scotland" and that was really really good.

33. Is there anyone you like right now?
I like a lot of people. Most people, in fact.

36. Did you cry today?
No.

37. Why did you answer and post this?
Because I wanted to update but didn't feel creative enough to come up with something original.

38. Tag 5 people who would do this survey.
I'd love to see it on all your blogs, but I'm not into demanding. :)

From Whom All Blessings Flow

2007-11-23T09:11:00.000-08:00

Nathan
Judah
Micah
My parents
Our huge family
Good books
Sunshine
Enough food
Friends
Our church
Safety
Memories
Traditions
Shelter
Autumn leaves
Freedom
Our country
A new day

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Confessions of an American Diet Coke Drinker

2007-11-22T12:45:00.001-08:00

Hey Barbara, remember how I said that I wouldn't go to the kitchen to get a diet coke in the morning if it meant that I had to actually walk from one building where I was sleeping to another building where the kitchen was? How I said that involved too much effort?

I take it back. This morning I got up and realized there was no more diet coke in the house, and I freaked. So I got both kids dressed (though Judah had no shoes on), got myself dressed (if you count yoga pants and an old fleece shirt that double as pajamas as "dressed"), strapped both boys into their carseats, loaded up the car, and drove two miles to the nearest Del Taco and ordered a 32 ouncer of my favorite poison (as Jeff calls it). When Judah saw where we were going he said "We need diet coke!" Too right. How addicted am I? Is there a twelve step program for this? I might need it.

Little posers

2007-11-16T10:03:00.000-08:00

I have to admit, I'm not into football at all, professional or otherwise. The only time I cared about football was when I was in highschool and my friends were on the team and I was a water girl.

But then Jeff married Heather, who is a bona fide Buckeye. She and her family love everything Ohio State, and they love their football team with a love that is pure and holy. At Jeff and Heather's wedding I adopted Heather's grandparents as my own, and they agreed to adopt me, too. And the boys! So Grandma Ruby and Grandpa Leo sent Buckeye wear for Judah and Micah so that they would be "raised right." So here they are, in all their glory. And I'm just waiting for the day when a true Buckeye fan stops me and comments on their clothes, and I will have to admit that I know less than nothing about how Ohio State's doing this season. And then I will go directly to the mortuary and pick out my tombstone, because the Wrath of the Buckeyes will surely descend on me and end my pathetic, non-football-loving existence.

Bug off!

2007-11-12T15:57:00.000-08:00

We've recently had an invasion of paper wasps (I think) in our backyard. We noticed them swarming about a month ago so we had an exterminator come out and take down a couple of nests we'd seen, and it seemed to solve the problem. But then today I was about to go outside and I saw that there were dozens of them flying around again. We don't know of any other nests, and they don't seem to be hanging around in any one place, so I have no idea what they're after. Have any of you had this happen? How do you get rid of them? It's a bummer to not be able to go outside.

Let the corruption begin

2007-11-11T19:24:00.000-08:00

Here is Judah enjoying an outdoor jazz concert in Mammoth a few months ago.

He's quite the music lover, which makes me extremely happy. He loves listening to music while we drive. And it all started out innocently enough. We introduced him to Jack Johnson at a very young age (like, a month) and found that no matter how loud he was screaming if we put in the In Between Dreams album he'd stop at the very first note of Better Together and then sit quietly and listen. It didn't work with any other album.

Jack Johnson is still his favorite, but he's happy to hear any music at all and sometimes gets impatient when one song ends and we have to wait more than a nanosecond before the next song begins. One day I turned the music down so I could make a phone call. Judah said, "Listen to music!" I pointed out that he could still hear it, to which he replied, "Listen LOUD!" That's my boy. He loves Young Folks by Peter, Bjorn, and John, and recently he's really into Cake. I love hearing him walking around singing No Phone. I can't wait until he's older and I can start taking him to concerts with me. Nathan has flatly refused to ever go to a Cure concert, so it'll have to be Judah.

I'll leave you with a few lines from another Cake song Judah loves. The words are insane, but they're REALLY fun to sing along with.

In a seedy karaoke bar by the banks of the mighty Bosphorus there's a Japanese man in a business suit singing Smoke Gets In Your Eyes. And the muscular German cyborg dudes dance with sexy French Canadians while the overweight Americans wear their patriotic jumpsuits.

Free (almost) to a good owner....

2007-11-10T17:08:00.000-08:00

Isn't she pretty? And yet, STILL no one wants to buy her! She's sitting sadly in the parking lot at Nathan's office with a sign on her windshield, waiting....

A lady called me last night to ask about the Mustang. I talked to her for a long time, and we arranged to meet this afternoon so she could look at it. When we got there she looked at the car a little, then wanted to drive it. That was fine, so we climbed in, and immediately encountered problems. I could have told her she would, but I'm too polite. What it boiled down to was: if you're five feet tall, and you weigh close to 300 pounds, a two door Mustang is probably not going to be the most comfortable car for you. The steering wheel was too low, the seat was too far back, and the seat back was too tilted. All fixable, but she was so heavy that the automatic seat controls wouldn't work while she was sitting in the seat.

It took a while, but she finally got all the things adjusted, and of course it was the car's design that was bad, because "It's fine if you have long arms." Obviously, the Ford people discriminate against the short-armed people. She got the car started and we began to drive, and I discovered that she didn't have the first clue about how to drive a car that's meant to perform. She currently drives a Civic, which is a workhorse and nothing showy, and she drove my car like a Civic. Or something. She said all this stuff about liking stick shift and liking a powerful motor, and then she spent the whole drive making disparaging comments about my car and how it didn't have any pickup. I wanted to smack her. Because OF COURSE it felt like it had no power. It won't, if you insist on shifting into second at 15 mph and third at 20 mph, and never getting it up to a decent speed. I told her she had to be a little rougher with it, because you could demand a lot of it and it would give it to you, and she said "I don't like to be rough with my cars." At that point, I knew she wasn't going to buy it, and I don't think I would have sold it to her anyway. She had no idea what I was talking about. Lady, go buy yourself another Civic.

So I still have this Mustang for sale. I'll sell it pretty cheap, but only to someone who actually knows how to drive it.

Poor stripey ball

2007-11-09T15:37:00.000-08:00

Micah had his two months doctor's appointment yesterday. Everything looked great. He now weighs twelve pounds twelve ounces - almost double his birth weight! And he's 23 inches long. He did really well while Dr. May examined him, didn't cry at all. But he had to have four shots, poor little guy. And he SERIOUSLY disliked that. I can sympathize. He screamed and turned tomato red, and after he calmed down he slept for the rest of the day. He was so asleep that when Nathan picked him up out of his swing he just curled up into a little ball and kept on sleeping. Poor baby.

Judah went with us to the appointment and had a fabulous time because Dr. May spoils him ROTTEN! He gave Judah a sucker last time we were there, and he's talked about it ever since. So yesterday morning when I told Judah we were going to see Dr. May he started talking about it again. So I practiced with Judah so that he could ask nicely: "Please may I have a sucker, Dr. May?" And he had it down. But when Dr. May came into the room yesterday Judah hurled himself at him, laughed when Dr. May scooped him up, and shouted, "Gimme my sucker!" Holy cats, Judah, you make your parents look like mannerless slobs! Fortunately, Dr. May thought it was funny (it really was), and gave him not only one sucker, but one for Micah as well, telling Judah he had to eat it since Micah has no teeth yet. No arguments there.

Here's my current favorite picture of our sweet baby.

Some updates

2007-11-05T15:25:00.000-08:00

I haven't been too inspired to write lately, but it's time I put SOMETHING here, to keep things going. So here are some random notes on things that have been happening lately.

We haven't heard anything else from the SWAT teams in the area. I assume they're convinced I'm not Jessica. I'm also thinking that Placentia's Finest owes us a rather large gift basket from Harry and David's as an apology of sorts, but I doubt that'll happen. So I threw away the letter I got from them today asking for donations to the PD. Sorry, not inclined to support a department that doesn't do its homework properly before practically battering the wrong door down.

Several weeks ago Dave and Julie got married! The wedding was gorgeous and the weather hardly could have been better for an outdoor wedding, even though it rained the night before and the morning of. It was clear and beautiful by 5:00. Every detail was perfect and everyone I've talked to said it was one of the most enjoyable weddings and receptions they'd ever been to. We all had so much fun, and it was so special that it all took place in Dave and Julie's backyard. So homey, and so elegant all at once.

And then we went to Bakersfield two weeks later for my cousin's wedding, which felt a little bit like going to the prom, since my cousin and his new wife are both 18 and all their friends are still in high school. Judah and Micah went with us, so we spent the wedding in the crying room at the church and the reception listening to Judah beg endlessly for the M & Ms that were in the favors. Oy.

Speaking of Judah....he is currently at an age that is so simultaneously wonderful and frustrating. We can't seem to make him obey us consistently at all, he asks the same questions over and over again (especially when he wants something and we're saying no), and the littlest things tend to become huge tragedies. I had a tantrum on my hands the other day because I took away a catalog (Hammacher Schlemmer, of all things) that Judah had been looking at because it was nap time. But at the same time, there is so much that's great about this age. He's learning so quickly and talking in full, long sentences, and saying ridiculous things, and being really loving toward us most of the time. He loves to read and can quote sections of his favorite books. And just yesterday I told him not to do something and he said, "Why not?" for the first time. So I think we're getting to the part where it's "Why why why?" all the time. Sigh. It's gotten pretty tough. We find ourselves shaking with rage and then laughing hysterically, sometimes within the same minute.

Micah, on the other hand, is so much easier than I'd even dared to hope for. He's pretty laid back, and when he's not, he's easily comforted by his pacifier and by being held. He'll sit in his swing happily for long periods of time and will eventually fall asleep there. This is all so new to me, after Jude, who had to be held almost constantly at this age. I never knew this was possible, this having a baby that we can put down without it screaming. It's amazing. He's starting to be awake kind of a lot during the day and is beginning to smile at us and laugh a little bit. It's so much fun.

Oh, and Judah had his movie debut the other night! Two years ago a couple at our church, Rick and Heidi Garside, asked if Judah would be willing to be one of a set of triplets in a movie they were filming. Judah was about three months old and I accepted for him. So on a sunny afternoon in June we filmed a crowd scene at La Mirada Regional Park with Judah and two other little boys from our church. The movie is finally completed, is called Faith Happens, and was premiered at our church last Sunday night. It was really really good. They're looking to put it in wide release in theaters, hopefully soon. It's a movie with a bunch of different story lines, all true, and all taken from the lives of people at our church. It's really amazing. Check out the trailers here. Judah performed exceptionally well, for a three month old. :)

Micah also gets to be an actor soon. My cousin is organizing the Christmas tree lighting at Biola, and asked me if they could use Micah as Baby Jesus in a nativity scene. I hope he becomes an actor someday, because how impressive would it be on a resume if you could list that your first role ever was playing Jesus Christ?

That's about it for now.....

Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?

2007-10-18T10:06:00.000-07:00

So we're lying in bed this morning at 7:00. Nathan had just come back to bed from unlocking Judah's door, Micah was asleep on my arm, and I was talking to Judah, who had come in to hang out. All peaceful.

And then we hear someone pounding on our front door and yelling, "Police! We have a search warrant! Open the door!" Nathan and I jumped out of bed and I grabbed my bathrobe. Nathan had the misfortune to only be able to find a hoodie of mine and wrap it around his waist before we both ran downstairs, where the pounding and yelling was continuing, only now they were saying they were going to break the door down. Nathan started shouting, "We're coming! Don't break down the door!" Someone shined a light in our front window and I heard him yell to the others, "A woman and a man are coming. There's a baby on the stairs."

Nathan managed to unlock the door, and as the door was opening we heard, "Put your hands up where we can see them!" and I saw the barrel of a gun coming straight at me. We moved back and six or seven SWAT guys and a woman, guns pulled, raced into the house and started firing questions at us, backing us over into a corner, asking who else was in the house, asking if I was Jessica. I said no, and that we didn't know who she was, and that we were the only adults in the house. I yelled to them that there was an infant on our bed as five of them were marching up the stairs. I was terrified that they wouldn't see him and would hurt him. We could hear them upstairs and downstairs going from room to room, shouting "Police! Search warrant!" as they opened doors. Meanwhile, the woman was patting me down and a man pulled out a pair of handcuffs and was about to cuff Nathan until they realized they'd probably made a mistake, and that if they cuffed Nathan they were going to see a lot more of him than they wanted to. So they made him sit down in a chair while they continued to search our house, and someone kept assuring me that they'd explain and that they'd get it all cleared up "real fast."

Finally they finished their search, someone carried Judah downstairs to us, and asked if they should bring me the baby. I said yes, but then they sent Nathan upstairs to get him and to get dressed, and he went, giving them all a full moon view on the way. When they all came back down and in from the garage and the backyard they explained that they were helping Placentia PD with a series of busts on gang members, and they'd been given our address as the last known address for one of them who, apparently, looks like me. We told them we'd just moved in a few months before and didn't know who was here before us, at which point one of them said, "Welcome to Placentia!" and kind of laughed. They brought in a document to prove it to us, and apologized a lot before they left. The whole time we were talking Judah was running around between our legs, thinking there was a party going on. One of the guys said, "Gosh, I wish we had some stickers to give him." And another one answered, very gruffly, "We don't carry stickers."

We went outside to see them go, and saw that there were a lot more of them who'd been outside the whole time. When they were gone a neighbor across the way opened her door and stuck her head out to ask if we were okay. I walked over and explained it all to her, and she told me that before they pounded on our door they'd surrounded our house with their guns all out.

It was so weird, it was just like on TV. We're just thankful we all got out of it safely. There were so many ways it could have gone bad, and I'm more scared now that I've realized that than I was when they were pointing their guns at me. What a way to wake up, huh?

The best season of all

2007-09-13T15:39:00.000-07:00

It's not oficially fall yet, but here in Southern California it might as well be. Around here, fall begins when the tourists go home and the heat breaks. From what I hear, I spent one of the hottest days of the summer, Labor Day, in the hospital and I should thank my lucky stars for that. Everyone kept telling me how miserable it was outside. When we took Micah home the next day it was a little cooler, and by the end of the week it felt positively fall-ish outside. And it's been like that since, just a little warmer on some days. The evenings are even a little cool.

But here's the real proof of fall: we went to Ruby's on the Balboa Pier for lunch today and there was hardly anyone there. Yes! I love it when school starts and everyone goes back to the midwest or wherever they came from and we can reclaim the beach. The weather was perfect, just a little breezy and sunny and clear, and the ocean was pretty calm. We sat at a table near the open door while we ate. It was Micah's first trip to Ruby's! He slept through the whole thing in his carseat, propped up by the window with the sun on his toes. The rest of us ate delicious food and played with Judah's menu, which was in the shape of a vintage Corvette. After lunch Nathan took Judah to the playground to play on the slide for a while, and then we headed home. It was so nice and relaxing and quiet. The beach is definitely the best in the fall.

Presenting

2007-09-05T11:39:00.001-07:00

Micah Kenneth Cowell was born on September 3 at 12:56 am. He weighed 6 lbs 10 ozs and was 19.5 inches long.

I guess he thought it would be funny to come on Labor Day.

Micah's doing really well, and the rest of us are too, so far. Nathan and I are really tired... but I guess that's what you expect. Judah's doing great and loves his new baby brother and is very gentle and caring with him. He celebrated by wandering out the front door of our condo yesterday evening when no one was looking and taking a walk around the complex. We sent out a little search party and found him before he got too far, fortunately. Then he was awesome and went to bed after getting up only once, and actually slept until 6:45 this morning. It was wonderful.

More pictures and updates later, it's feeding time again and Judah's begging to watch a funny cats video on You Tube. Ha!

Waving goodbye to my sanity.....again....

2007-09-01T20:38:00.000-07:00

I thought I would at least have until the baby was born before I started existing in a fog for a while again. But that's turned out not to be the case. Judah is totally putting us through it right now.

The sleep issues seem to be never ending. I've talked to my friends. Most of them are like, "No, we didn't really have any problems switching to a bed. We had to spank him a few times and then he got the picture and has stayed in bed ever since." I've heard of only two other kids that are as strong willed as Judah in this area, and in both cases their parents ended up locking their child's bedroom door from the outside and letting the kid cry for hours until they're exhausted and fall asleep on the floor. This sounds totally cruel, I know, but I also know that to some kids (Judah) there is simply nothing else that makes sense. Rewards don't matter, punishment doesn't matter, the loss of privileges doesn't matter, pain doesn't matter. The only thing that seems to matter to him is total separation from us. Any attention at all, even us standing silently in the doorway and pointing to the bed until he climbs back in, is enough to make him get up for more. So I'm almost at the door locking point.

That being said, he's improved a lot from the nights he was getting up 65 times in a row. He usually goes down now pretty easily for Nathan, only getting up three or four times, but he won't really do it for me. Naptimes are a battle when Nathan's not home. But the real kicker is the morning wake-up time. For whatever reason, since he's moved to a bed, Judah is up at 5:15 every morning without fail. And won't go back to sleep. Before, when he was in the crib, his normal time was between 7:30 and 8. Then for a little bit after the great move it was about 6:30 or 6:45 and I complained and whined. And now I'd give years off my life to have him sleep until 6:30. 5:15 is a hideous time to be awake. And then there was last night, when he woke up at 3:50 and never went back to sleep at all.

Do you know what it does to a parent's mind to start the day, against your will, before 4 am? I spent the day fighting a series of nervous breakdowns. There's a reason prisoners of war are sometimes tortured with sleep deprivation. It will totally break you.

And now Judah has croup. Croup. Seriously. I thought that went out with the 1800s. At least now I know why he was up so early this morning. He's got a high fever and a barking cough and a sore throat, poor little guy. It's truly pathetic. He actually consented to sit still on my lap for like ten minutes this afternoon. He was so worn out. Tonight when we put him to bed he was literally begging for sleep. For the first time in weeks, maybe months, we put him down, left the room, and haven't heard from him since. I'm hoping this sickness is a blessing in disguise that will re-set his sleeping habits, back to something a little more acceptable to everyone.

So, anyone out there have any suggestions? Did your kids do this? Know any kids that did? Is there any hope that I'll stop being perpetually tired in the next five years?

World domination

2007-08-30T18:20:00.000-07:00

Steve told me about this video on You Tube, so I thought I'd check it out. I think it's pretty funny, Nathan thinks it's dumb. But I also think it's part of a clever attempt by the Germans to dominate the world through our children. Zoe is addicted to it, and Judah is now too. He's seen it a couple times and loves it. And a few minutes ago he was walking around saying "We are ze monkeys" with the German accent and everything. Nice.

Five Years

2007-08-24T23:08:00.000-07:00

It's been a great five years. I love you, Nathan!

Holding on

2007-08-14T20:57:00.000-07:00

I read this poem for the first time the other day, and it was exactly what I needed at the time. It's kind of long, but if you stick with it it's totally worth it. Enjoy.

The Eternal Goodness

O friends! with whom my feet have trod
The quiet aisles of prayer,
Glad witness to your zeal for God
And love of man I bear.

I trace your lines of argument;
Your logic linked and strong
I weigh as one who dreads dissent,
And fears a doubt as wrong.

But still my human hands are weak
To hold your iron creeds;
Against the words ye bid me speak
My heart within me pleads.

Who fathoms the Eternal Thought?
Who talks of scheme and plan?
The Lord is God! He needeth not
The poor device of man.

I walk with bare, hushed feet the ground
Ye tread with boldness shod;
I dare not fix with mete and bound
The love and power of God.

Ye praise His justice; even such
His pitying love I deem:
Ye seek a king; I fain would touch
The robe that hath no seam.

Ye see the curse which overbroods
A world of pain and loss;
I hear our Lord's beatitudes
And prayer upon the cross.

More than your schoolmen teach, within
Myself, alas! I know;
Too dark ye cannot paint the sin,
Too small the merit show.

I bow my forehead to the dust,
I veil mine eyes for shame,
And urge, in trembling self-distrust,
A prayer without a claim.

I see the wrong that round me lies,
I feel the guilt within;
I hear, with groan and travail-cries,
The world confess its sin.

Yet, in the maddening maze of things,
And tossed by storm and flood,
To one fixed stake my spirit clings:
I know that God is good!

Not mine to look where cherubim
And seraphs may not see,
But nothing can be good in Him
Which evil is in me.

The wrong that pains my soul below
I dare not throne above:
I know not of His hate, - I know
His goodness and His love.

I dimly guess from blessings known
Of greater out of sight,
And, with the chastened Psalmist, own
His judgments too are right.

I long for household voices gone,
For vanished smiles I long,
But God hath led my dear ones on,
And He can do no wrong.

I know not what the future hath
Of marvel or surprise,
Assured alone that life and death
His mercy underlies.

And if my heart and flesh are weak
To bear an untried pain,
The bruised reed He will not break,
But strengthen and sustain.

No offering of my own I have,
Nor works my faith to prove;
I can but give the gifts He gave,
And plead His love for love.

And so beside the Silent Sea
I wait with muffled oar;
No harm from Him can come to me
On ocean or on shore.

I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded palms in air;
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care.

O brothers! if my faith is vain,
If hopes like these betray,
Pray for me that my feet may gain
The sure and safer way.

And Thou, O Lord! by whom are seen
Thy creatures as they be,
Forgive me if too close I lean
My human heart on Thee!

~John Greenleaf Whittier

The Big Boy Bed

2007-08-11T17:48:00.000-07:00

Here is a shot for you of Judah in his Big Boy Bed, also known as The Torture Chamber from Which He Escapes at Every Opportunity.

My life revolves around sleep

2007-08-10T22:04:00.000-07:00

When I was in college I used to head out with my friends around midnight, get back to the dorm by four or five, sleep for a couple hours, and then go to my 7:30 aerobics class in my pajamas, work out for an hour, eat a quick breakfast, suffer an hour of statistics for behavioral sciences, sit through an hour of chapel, and then handle a full day of classes and work. And then around midnight we'd head out again. So in any given 24 hour period, I was getting an average of four hours of sleep. And I did it pretty consistently.

Maybe this is why, throughout the history of the world until the last 150 years or so, women had babies when they were teenagers instead of in their mid to late 20s. You just have more stamina when you're younger.
If I was 18, would Judah's recent sleep patterns tear my world apart like they are right now?

Two weeks ago we put Judah in a twin bed because we had to. It was not our choice. It was either that or risk him breaking both arms climbing out of his pack and play. The bed has, so far, been a total nightmare for us. Every night when we put him down he would wait for us to close the door, then get up and open the door and come out. Repeatedly. Like, 52 times in a row repeatedly. We tried telling him from another room to go back to bed. We tried ignoring him completely as we put him back to bed. Finally we tried spanking him. That worked pretty well, but we felt awful about it, and then came the night we had to spank him eleven times. And then I had a nervous breakdown. Because you just can't keep doing that to a kid.

I researched on the web, I talked to my friends, and I told my Bible study group. Some of the women there (God bless them forever) suggested that I call Focus on the Family because they have counselors there you can talk to for free. So I called and fully expected to have them tell me to just keep spanking. But my counselor told me to stop. He very wisely pointed out that even negative attention is still attention, which is exactly what Judah's looking for. He suggested going back to the ignoring idea. And he was so very very nice about it.

So for the last four nights we've been standing outside Jude's door at bedtime and every time he gets up one of us goes in his room, waits for him to climb back in bed, covers him up with his blanket, and leaves the room. No talking, no eye contact, no touch that's not necessary. It's total boot camp for us. The first night he got up 52 times, the second night it was about 65. Last night was only three (super long day), and tonight was 21. So I think we're getting there.....slowly.

Tonight was my night to do the routine. On the twentieth round Judah tried to push past my legs and get through the door. I caught his arm and turned him around, and in the process his head just barely bumped the door jamb. He grabbed his head with both hands and I felt bad, so I leaned down and whispered, "I'm sorry. Are you okay?" He didn't answer, just went and climbed in bed. I covered him up and left, he was up a minute later. I went back in and watched as he then DELIBERATELY turned and banged his head against the wall, trying to get a reaction out of me again. I didn't know whether to laugh or yell at him. In the end I did neither, just followed him back to bed again, and after that he gave up and went to sleep. I can't believe the lengths that a two-year-old will go to to drive you crazy.

Think they're not watching? They are.

2007-08-01T22:00:00.000-07:00

Approximately 48 things made me cry today, and most of them began with Judah. I'm simultaneously in the throes of pregnancy hormones, sleep deprivation, and encountering the iron will of a two-year-old. The results are getting uglier by the second. But one of the things that made me cry today was actually good.

Judah and I went to Nathan's office to meet him for lunch, as we often do. A lot of times there are other people with us like one or more of our parents or various other family members, but today it happened to be just the three of us. We locked up the office and began to walk toward the restaurant next door. Between the office and the restaurant there's a pretty long stretch of sidewalk, and then there's a parking lot we have to cross. Judah knows to stop at the curb before the parking lot and wait for someone to catch up and hold his hand, but a lot of times he'll hold our hands the whole way. So when he turned to us outside the door of the office and said, "Hold hands!" we both reached for his hands, thinking that's what he wanted. But he wouldn't take our hands and kept insisting, "Hold hands!" Finally we realized that he wanted us to hold hands with each other. So we grabbed hands, Judah smiled at us, and moved to Nathan's other side to take his free hand. A few seconds later he leaned forward to make sure we were still holding hands.

If you think your kids aren't paying attention to how you're interacting with your spouse or that they don't care, think again. Judah's only two. And already he looks for proof that everything's good, that his world is secure. How wonderful and how scary to be trusted like that!

The most boring blog on the internet

2007-07-26T20:53:00.000-07:00

I know! It's been almost a month since I posted. In that month, I've either:
a) been too tired out to post
b) had nothing to post about
c) only had material that would be unwise to post about here.
So tonight I'll try to come up with some reader-friendly content, and let you know what's been going on for the last month.

Jeff and Heather got married on Sunday! And that's where a major part of my time and energy went. There were so many events leading up to the day, it seemed like we did nothing but run from place to place for a week. But it was all worth it. The wedding was beautiful and we all had a good time, and the bride and groom are happily off in Aruba, hopefully relaxing on a beach somewhere.

We also took a five day vacation to Mammoth with my entire family, and it was so much fun. Except for that one night where Judah was up virtually the entire night. But he did better after that and did great during the day. He loved being constantly surrounded by his cousins and having people to play with at all times. AND having Papa and Grammy on hand for five solid days. We stayed at a condo belonging to a family in our church and it was the perfect place for all of us to be. PLUS, they had an old-school, arcade-style tabletop Centipede game that we all spent hours playing, even the little girls. They were really good at it.

The baby's a boy. Did I tell you? I'm pretty sure I did. He's doing well, extremely active. I don't remember Judah moving around this much before he was born. I went to the doctor's today and he said everything looks pretty good, except that there's a very slight chance that I have gestational diabetes. I have to go take the test again (yuck) sometime next week. I'm not too worried. I only have eight weeks to go, how much of a difference can it really make at this point anyway? I'm also far more uncomfortable this time around than I was last time. Part of it's definitely the heat. I've never minded the heat, but being this pregnant makes it really miserable.

Judah has definitely become a two-year-old. He's discovered the words "no," "mine," and "lemme have it!" All words I don't like hearing. And he's developed the infuriating habit of disobeying me while he looks me straight in the eye. All of this I could handle if his sleep habits hadn't gone totally haywire at the same time. He is now climbing out of the pack and play easily, and does so at every opportunity. The last few nights we've spent large amounts of time putting him back in bed. Last night it took an hour, today at his nap it took an hour. Other times have varied. And then suddenly tonight we put him down, he got up once, Nathan went up and put him back down without a word and without making eye contact, and we haven't heard from him again. We don't dare to hope that the war is over, but it's nice to have a night of peace. We just got my old twin bed back from my brother, so we're planning on moving him to a "big boy bed" in a couple of days. Wish us luck....

I think that's about it for now, at least the major things. I will try to be a better blogger from now on, but no promises.

The Little Family Big News

2007-06-27T16:49:00.000-07:00

My big brother Dave is Engaged!

Yes, with a capital E. Dave asked Julie to marry him on Saturday, just before they went to the Police concert at Dodger Stadium. And I'm so excited for them! The wedding will be on October 13th in the evening. And I get to be a bridesmaid! Or matron, I guess. I feel so honored to get to be a part of the wedding in that way, it's gonna be great.

Congratulations, you guys, and welcome to the family, Julie! Are you still sure you wanna be part of it after the dinnertime conversation on Sunday? :)

In honor of the newly affianced couple, here is their list of the five best restaurants in the area, which Julie emailed me quite a while ago and I never got around to posting.

Del Taco
Lomeli's
Las Brisas
El Cholo
The Melting Pot

I'm it

2007-06-03T20:48:00.001-07:00

Barbara tagged me for this one, and I'm a sucker for these, so here we go. This is a little bit hard for me, though, because there are so many good places to eat around here!

1. Add a direct link to your post below the name of the person who tagged you. Include the city/state and country you’re in.

Barbara (Pretoria North, South Africa)
Kristy (Placentia, California, USA)

2. List your top 5 local eating places.

Roy's (Newport Beach): I know it's a chain, and I somehow feel like I shouldn't include chain restaurants, but I have to anyway. Nathan and I go there every Valentine's Day. Their food is delicious (it's all in the sauces), and the best part is the flourless chocolate lava cake dessert.

Trastavere (Third Street Promenade, Santa Monica): This one's a lot about atmosphere, because it's fun to sit at the tables outside and watch the crowd go by. But the food's good too, especially the oil and garlic dip stuff they give you with bread as an appetizer. Yum.

Roman Cucina (Sunset Beach): We owe Christi big time for introducing us to Roman. It has, hands down, the BEST chicken parmagiana I've ever eaten, plus kitschy Italian atmosphere. Also, a lot of the time they play a video on the TVs of a fireplace, and it makes it feel cozy. Although Dean and I sometimes get fixated on watching for the hand with the poker to poke the logs in the fire.

Star of Siam (Long Beach): I love Thai food, and this is really good Thai food. Everything I've ordered there I've liked: they have especially good satay with peanut sauce, and the spring rolls are great and the chicken curry...and all of it. Oh, and their mango sticky rice is awesome. If you get the chance to go there, insist on sitting outside on the patio. So much better that way.

Stubriks (Fullerton): I've discovered that it's nearly impossible to get a really good steak outside of an actual steakhouse, so I just don't order steak anymore unless we're at Stubriks (or possibly the North Woods Inn, but that's another story). I love their filet mignon, and I've recently discovered their black and blue steak, which is incredible. Oh, and they have really good squaw bread too.

3. Tag 5 other people and let them know they’ve been tagged.

This one is hard, because a lot of the people who I know read my blog don't actually have blogs of their own. I'm gonna tag them anyway! :) Email me your picks and I'll post them, okay?

Ashlee (you can talk about either Phoenix or Orange County...)
Dave and Julie
Steve and Arla
Cara
Riva

So much more manipulative than asking for a glass of water

2007-05-28T20:36:00.000-07:00

Judah's sleeping issues seem to be evening out a little, in that he goes down for his naps and the night now without crying. He's still waking up really early, like 6:00. And it's messing with my head pretty bad, but I suppose I just need to learn to live with it, since I hear from friends and family that when he was getting up at 7:30 or 8:00, THAT was the unusual part. If I was ambitious, I'd use that early morning time to head over to the park and take a long walk with Judah, but honestly, I can hardly see straight at that hour. I'd surely walk right into the lake.

Anyway. The other day Judah was refusing to take a nap and Nathan and I took turns going in and being stern with him. And Nathan discovered that Judah has developed a stalling technique. While he was lying on his back, he looked up at Nathan, tears running down his cheeks, folded his hands and said, "Let's pray." How can you not melt at that? So Nathan said, "Okay, what do you want to pray about?" And Judah responded, "Jesus loves me." As in, Even though you and Mommy have turned against me, Jesus still loves me. Nathan said, "Yes, that's right, Judah." And then Judah goes, "Jesus loves you." As in, even though you do horrible things to babies, like making them take naps, Jesus still loves you. I'm glad he's got down the basics, but couldn't he just ask for a snack or something? It just feels so wrong to finally tell him, "No. No more praying."

Some notes on Judah

2007-05-26T21:04:00.000-07:00

I've been realizing that the main thing I do with my life is raise Judah, and yet I hardly ever talk about him here: how he's doing, what he's up to, the things he's learning. Here's what's been going on recently.

Judah initially handled the move the best of all of us (I think I'm handling it the worst). He loves the new place and enjoys exploring it and likes the big backyard where he can ride his trike and "play golf" and throw his ball around. The first couple of nights and days here he slept really well, as he always has. But he had begun to climb out of his crib and fall to the floor and hurt himself a couple days before we moved, and the climbing and falling continued here even though we lowered the crib mattress as far as it would go. So about the third night here we took his mattress out of the crib, shoved it into a corner on the floor, and pushed boxes up against the edge of it so he wouldn't roll off. And that arrangement worked really well until we got our hands on a toddler bed. Because Judah's room is near the top of the stairs and he's not quite used to the setup, I was worried that he'd get up in the night and fall down them. So we bought child safety handles and put one on the inside of his door. BIG mistake. Huge. The first morning he discovered he couldn't get out of his room he freaked out and hasn't slept well since. He's always been really reliable about going to sleep right when we put him down without crying, and getting up at a decent hour. For the last few days now he's been taking horrible naps, crying for a long time at night and getting out of bed, and then waking up for the day at 5:30. It's thrown us all for a pretty bad loop. My parents took pity on us last night and kept Judah overnight so that we could get some sleep, and that was so great. We decided today that the toddler bed is being set aside for a while, and Judah is sleeping in his pack and play, which he can't get out of. I think he just got too many changes at once. So we'll let him get used to the new place, get back into a routine for a while, and then try the bed again in a month or so. I know it's going to be hard no matter when we do it, but right now we all just need time to settle in.

Judah amazes me every single day. He's talking so much, putting words together into three and four word phrases, and he speaks pretty clearly. One thing he says all the time is, "Watch the fish movie?" which is Finding Nemo, and if we say no he immediately says, "Watch Cars?" And it's just so cute! He loves all his cousins and talks about them, and gets along especially well with Leah, who is only three months older than he is. They're having a blast lately, since they're both at the phase where they're starting to actually play WITH each other instead of just NEAR each other. They had fun this morning at my parents' pretending to sleep on a blanket on the floor. Judah has known all his numbers for a long time now, and loves to identify them wherever he sees them. He can count to twelve perfectly, but after that it gets a little shaky. And, thanks to Nathan's mom, he knows all his letters by sight and can tell you what sounds they all make.

But my favorite is his newest trick: when we're riding in the car sometimes he pulls off his shoes. Then he sticks one leg straight up in front of him with the bottom of his foot flat toward the ceiling, and then he balances a shoe on the bottom of his foot. While we're driving. And then he says, "Look at that! That's amazing!" And I have to agree, no matter how many times I see it.

Feeling Guilty

2007-05-25T21:09:00.000-07:00

The Loudest Bird in Placentia has abandoned her nest outside our window. Was it something I said? Or maybe something Payasa said?

Movin' on up/The Money Pit

2007-05-22T21:10:00.000-07:00

I debated on what to title this post. I could've gone either way.

I don't even know if I mentioned our move here. And I'm too tired to go back and look. So, about a month ago we found a new place to live. We moved in Saturday, and for the most part we're happy here. The condo is in a really nice community, it's huge, and the rent is incredible for the square footage we're getting (which means that if I mentioned the amount everyone in Orange County would turn green with envy, and everyone outside of California would gasp and go into immediate cardiac arrest, because you could buy 300 acres and an old, quaint farm house in Wisconsin for what we are now dropping in one month in rent).

So, the condo has some really great attributes. It's about 2,000 square feet, has three bedrooms, two fireplaces, a great patio and backyard, and a vaulted ceiling in the front room. Also, it has an attached two car garage, laundry hookups, and TONS of storage space (three linen closets so far, and I keep finding more). So the major selling points are all in place. It's everything we wanted.

But it's the little things that will kill you, right? Before we moved in, I thought that the trains would be our biggest problem. The train tracks (you know, the busy ones along Orangethorpe) are about a quarter mile from our new place. So far, that's the least of our worries. The big problem is that the condo owner lives in Texas, and the property manager is probably managing this place for him as a favor and wants to do as little work for us as possible. So when I called the gas company today to check out a gas leak in our kitchen and they shut off the gas to our stove and told me we couldn't use it until the gas line connecter had been replaced and I called the property manager to tell her about it and see what could be done she said "I'll send my husband to fix it Saturday." SATURDAY??!! We've been eating out almost exclusively for a week already because our kitchen was packed, and she's telling me now that we have to keep it up for almost another week. Seriously, we can't afford this. And it will probably be longer than that, because her husband's not really a repair man, just a guy who owns some tools, so he'll look at it one day, buy the parts the next, "fix" it the next, we'll call the gas company to come check it again the next day, and they'll tell us it wasn't done right. Then probably the guy will try it all again before admitting that we actually need to hire a professional.

Our other major concern is that we discovered last night that the water heater is leaning way over to the front, owing to the fact that the floor underneath it has collapsed. And it has no earthquake strapping on it, which we're thinking is illegal in a rental property. Worst case: the water heater falls over, breaks the gas line, and the place burns down. Or it falls over and falls on someone and seriously injures them. So Nathan talked to our handy "repairman" about what needs to be done (the floor needs to be replaced) and the guy goes, "Do you know how much work that would require?" You have got to be kidding me. So basically, who cares about the law or about safety, how much work am I actually gonna have to do, and how little can I get away with? We're dealing with schmucks. The owner seems cool, but the property manager is driving us crazy.

And those are just the two major things. Aside from those, the plug apparatus is broken on both bathtubs (a bad thing when you have a two year old), the carpet is seriously stained, the linoleum is peeling up in the bathrooms, one toilet doesn't work right.....and it goes on. And to top it all off, The Loudest Bird in Placentia likes to sit in the tree outside our window (5 feet from my head) at five in the morning and yell at our cat.

I know I'm complaining so much, but I'm really just getting it out of my system. We're so discouraged right now, but we know that once this all gets taken care of, this is gonna be a great place to live. But it's hard right now to get past the rocky start.

My Grandfather's Great-Grandson

2007-05-09T10:46:00.000-07:00

My Grandpa Kimber was famous (and still is, I suppose) in our family for many reasons. Not so much for the reasons you'd think: because he was a kind and loving father, a good provider, a wonderful conversationalist, a man of God. He was all of those things, and we loved him for them. But I'd have to say that the things that come to mind most strongly are his sense of humor and his sense of adventure. Oh, and his bad table manners. He used to do the grossest thing at the table: to get someone's attention, he'd take his fork and press the tines very lightly into their arm. AFTER HE'D EATEN OFF IT. It got our attention for sure, so I guess mission accomplished.

And then there was The Throwing of the Food. Not to start a food fight or anything, but because he couldn't be bothered to pass food through regular channels. Like, say, handing it to the person next to you so they could send it down the table. He didn't throw everything, it was mostly just bread, usually toast, since the toaster was at his end of the table. You'd think he was born and raised in the backwoods of Tennessee, right? But no. He came from a wealthy family and grew up in Newport, Rhode Island. Posh. And still there was the bread throwing. It got to the point that he'd throw you the bread or whatever even if you were only a seat away from him.

This morning Judah pulled the bookmark out of my book (again). It's metal and kind of special to me, so I asked him to please bring it to me. He looked at me from five feet away, smiled, and, instead of taking the three steps, threw it to me. At that moment he looked just like my grandpa. Toast will never be safe around here again.

The Cowell Carpet Cleaning Magic Trick

2007-05-03T19:56:00.000-07:00

People on Wendy's blog are talking about cleaning/baby care solutions that are much simpler and more basic than the complicated products on the market today, so I thought I'd post my favorite trick here.

I spent 25 years of my life using a rag to clean up spills on carpet. You know, rub and rub, and then maybe use some carpet cleaning product, and then watch the dirty spot appear a few weeks later. And then my sister-in-law taught me this magic trick: when you spill something, get a full glass of water and spill it over whatever you spilled. Then get a towel, put it over the whole mess, and walk around on it for a while. It's that easy! The liquid will come right up - all of it. I've used this trick to take red wine out of white carpet. I swear by it.

Am I becoming quite the little housewife, or what?

Just when I thought the teen angst was over

2007-05-02T15:42:00.000-07:00

Lately I've really been loving the song "Young Folks" by Peter Bjorn & John. They've been playing it pretty frequently on KROQ and it's such a refreshing change from their steady diet of Killers, Peppers, and Nirvana. I realize that this song probably isn't typical of the group, since the female singer isn't in the group, so I can't say anything about the rest of their material, but this song just does it for me. A little Morrissey, a little Bjork, and a little Mazzy Star. It's angsty yet fun and very unlike anything else we're hearing today. I would have loved it in college and immediately run to Lovells and bought everything they'd ever recorded.

My music choices have evolved a lot in the last couple of years, but I'm finding that at the core my taste is fairly unchanged, I'm just more into a different side of it than I was years ago. I hardly ever listen to the Cure anymore, but I'd still list them as my favorite band and jump over large buildings to see one of their shows. U2 is one of my constants. They're just always good. The Smiths now tend to make me laugh where they used to make me smile cynically (because they were so RIGHT! Life SUCKED!) and feel sorry for myself, and Depeche Mode is like super dark chocolate these days: amazingly good, but only in small doses. Recently most of my music sounds like variations on Toad the Wet Sprocket. A little more sparse, a little bit introspective, but with a light side and a bit more fun to it. Even Owen can be a little comical in the midst of anguish.

I've been going through my CD collection in the last couple of weeks, downloading most of it to iTunes and preparing to **GASP** sell the CDs to Lovells where they will be thrown back into the sea of used music where someone like my college-aged self will spend hours excavating gems for a good price. I'm a little sad to see it all go, but really, it's just 500 CDs sitting in my closet, collecting dust and taking up space. So I'm sorting through it all, and have you ever noticed how songs evoke memories? There's the Flashback Cafe CD that introduced me to the Art of Noise. I bought it on a road trip to Idaho (don't ask) and spent much of my time playing "Moments in Love" over and over. The Starseeds album that I stumbled on at Borders. My guy friends all burned it for their collections because they thought it would be good make out music. The Brian Ferry album that I bought for the songs "More Than This" and "Slave to Love," which now remind me of working at Maternite that one summer. The Glove album that I bought in London. The Church album Starfish, which had "Under the Milky Way" on it, and for that reason made its way around Sigma at Biola because it was one of those songs that everyone loved but no one could remember the artist. And so many more.

They're worth so much more to me than the dollar the guy at Lovells will give me for each one. But it'll be worth it. Perhaps some new Cure fan will stumble across my old albums and it will be their own little piece of heaven: a ready-made complete collection. Too bad Lovells won't buy all my bootlegs too.

A little bit of sunshine

2007-04-28T10:38:00.000-07:00

Phoenix! Here we are. We got here at 10:00 on Wednesday night, and it was 85 degrees. I think that's the coolest it's been since we got here. Yesterday we walked, like, half a mile and I thought I was going to die. It was probably 100 out. Summer in California during the third trimester is going to be rough.

Anyway, we're having a blast here and loving hanging out with Brian and Ashlee and Eszter and the babies, getting to know Josiah and Sophia better. They are absolutely adorable and I love them. We're about to take Judah and Eszter to the YMCA for some swimming, so I'll update more later, but here are the things about Phoenix that we love:

1. QuickTrip! Seriously, who would have thought a gas station convenience store would be something I hope they have in heaven? 69 cent 32 ounce drinks? Are you serious? AND caffeine free diet Coke on tap? No way. Also, orange creme and white cherry slurpees and tons of other flavors. My goal is to make it there every day of our visit. I'm doing good so far.

2. The splash park in Tempe. Ashlee and I took all four kids on Thursday and there were foutains and waterfalls and tiny rivers and spray toys. So much fun. If only there were something like that back home! Maybe there is, and I just need to look for it.

3. Downtown Tempe. One part Denver, one part Third Street. It's such a great area. I would have loved it in college, and I'd love it now, anytime I didn't have a small child with me.

4. Watching Judah interact with babies. It's a good little preview of how he'll be as a big brother, although I realize that it'll probably be different once it's our baby and he realizes that it's permanent. But he doesn't seem to be jealous when I holding the babies or I tell him I can't do something because I have to change a diaper or whatever. He's really careful of them, and his eyes light up when he sees them and he goes, "OH, BABIES!!" Also, I love hearing him say their names: JOE-see-uh and Soapy.

Gotta run, more later.....

All the news worth telling

2007-04-25T15:40:00.000-07:00

I'm squeezing this post in during the few minutes of down time I'll have today, because there are some things that must be announced.

First of all: It's a BOY! Another one! We found out this morning during my ultrasound, and we couldn't be happier. And it couldn't have been clearer. I was a little bit sad at first, not necessarily about having a boy, but about not having a girl. Does that make sense at all? But the more I get used to it, the more I'm loving the idea of having two little boys running around playing together. They'll be the best of friends, I hope. And together they may stand some chance against their legions of girl cousins. This new little one makes the score almost even on the Cowell side of the family. We got to watch the baby for a while on the screen, and he was extremely active, waving his arms around and sucking on his hands and all. It was weird watching him move so much and not feeling it at all. I think I still feel very little of what he's doing, at this point. The tech said he's healthy, he has lenses in his eyes and four chambers in his heart, and no cleft lip or palate. And Nathan says his spine looks great! Now if we could just come up with a cool name. Judah has told me it should be Lightning, after Lightning McQueen, of course.

In other news: we found a new place to live. We're moving May 19th, when I'll be about 24 weeks pregnant. That's much better than last time, when I was 36 weeks along, and due in less than a month from the move date. The new place is a treasure. It's a condo in Placentia and it has just about everything we could have asked for: 2 car attached garage, laundry hookups, three bedrooms, large backyard. We're ecstatic. And it's HUGE! It's 2000 square feet, almost twice the size of our current apartment. We don't even know what we're going to do with all the space, there's a whole room that we don't have any furniture for. We're thinking of making it a playroom/library. It will be so nice to spread out some, and to be able to store things where it makes sense, rather than having our crystal in the linen closet, say. Or our tools in the heater cabinet. There are a couple of things we're not thrilled about, but they're minor. The decor is pretty 70s: the bathroom sinks are faux marble, yellow with red streaks, and the kitchen counters are white tile with dark yellow flecks. Ug. But it's worth it. We can't wait to be moved and settled in.

So that's what's going on around here. We're flying out tonight for Phoenix to visit Brian and Ashlee and Eszter and Josiah and Sophia, and I'm having about three heart attacks an hour thinking about having Judah on an airplane. There was a story in the news a couple months ago about a couple that got kicked off a plane because their child was being so noisy. I'm afraid we're the next newsmakers. I guess if nothing else, Judah and I can hang out in the bathroom for the hour flight. I can't really imagine anything more miserable than spending an hour in an airplane bathroom with a screaming two-year-old, though, can you? We're armed for the flight with new toy cars, a banana, goldfish crackers, teddy grahams, and a ton of books. So that all should keep him busy for at least the first forty-five seconds. Pray for us!

My new hero!

2007-04-21T10:15:00.000-07:00

Isn't this template AWESOME!? I love it to death, and I have Wendy to thank for it. Wendy, who I wrote to last night begging for help and referencing this template, which I though was beyond hope. Lo and behold, I checked out my blog this morning and there it was! Flowers! And vines! And something that's not generic! I love it love it. Wendy, thank you so much for your help and being willing to share your talents. Now if only I can manage to not mess it up when I add the links back in.... Seems easy enough. But you know me.

Blog apathy

2007-04-09T14:52:00.000-07:00

I've fallen very behind on my blogging. And the reason, as you may have noticed, is that I hate my template. I'm tired of all the templates Blogger offers, so I've been looking around for templates on other sites. I found some cool ones here, but all the ones I've tried have some kind of corruption so they won't work, and I don't know enough html to find the errors and fix them. And I found some really great ones on another site (which I can't find anymore) but couldn't figure out how to make them work. I'm not computer savy enough to figure out anything that doesn't have specific, step-by-step instructions. So I'm kind of stuck at the moment, bored with the old, unable to find new. I'll figure it out soon, hopefully.

If only I'd known!

2007-03-20T17:56:00.000-07:00

If only I'd known about this contest when I was in high school! I totally would have won. I had this pair of shoes that I bought at Payless that I LOVED. They were fake Converse low tops, white and green and blue plaid. They were made of flannel. I wore them everywhere, and I'm not sure I ever wore them with socks. For a while they were acceptable for school and being in public, but then they started getting holes in them that frayed around the edges and those little plastic things came off the laces and they started unravelling. So then they became my tide pool shoes. I wore them to Little Corona all the time and waded around and got them full of salt water and who knows what kind of animals. And let me tell you, they STUNK. My mom made me keep them in the backyard like a bad pet.

I would have won that contest with them hands down. I finally had to throw them away when the material separated from the soles completely. I've missed them ever since, and I've never stopped looking for a replacement pair. Let me know if you ever see some....