Marriage Movie Grace

I went to see 'Nights in Rodanthe' today, alone. Most of the theatre was filled with middle age women (not that I fit in that category) or younger women with their dates/husbands. Kevin would have gone with me if I had asked him, but I love him enough not to subject him to a movie I know he wouldn't appreciate--marriage movie grace.

Oh, and the movie? Since I had read the book, I knew about the shocker ending that sent sniffling sounds throughout the theater. If you're wanting to see a romantic comedy, skip it. If you're wanting a reason to use a whole box of tissues, go! Nights in Rodanthe is an intense, emotional drama, but I'm not sure how much I can like a movie where......................



Spoiler warning




Richard Gere dies in the end.

Meet Jude and Noah

Yesterday, we had the privilege of babysitting for my new friend, Cassie, while she went to the dr. to check on baby #3. Noah is 2 1/2, Jude is 7 months, and baby #3 will show up in May. This brings back so many memories of the beginning years of our family. Alyssa had her 3rd birthday party one day and the next day, we found out Kevin had gotten a job in Texas that would allow him to attend seminary. The day after that I found out I was 10 weeks pregnant with Katie. Zac was only 6 months old at the time so I think I responded appropriately when I sat in a chair for 2 hours, alternating between crying and a semi-catatonic state. We adjusted to the surprise quickly and wouldn't change a thing about our family. I may want to amend that statement when they are all in college at the same time.

Back to the cuties playing at my house....Nathan wasn't happy about the little guys coming over. Being the typical baby of the family, he didn't want anybody getting in his stuff and stayed upstairs away from everybody else for the first hour they were here. Then on the way to get a snack, he got caught up in the cuteness and was doing everything he could to make Jude smile.

Here's Noah.. He was too busy watching veggie tales and leading Alyssa by the hand around the house to pose for any pictures. Somehow, his mom manages to take amazing pictures of both boys which you can see over on her blog. She has the same camera I do but her pictures are way better than mine. I think I'll tell myself it's because she has photoshop and I don't.

Give us this day our wheat-free bread

I really do feel bad about not blogging more often lately. It's not that I don't want to--I think about my readers all the time and what I can share with you that would brighten your day; I just don't seem to have a lot of time for slackinoff my mom duties lately. What's really aggravating though is when I spend time attempting to accomplish something and then something happens to erase anything gained.

For example, the other night I needed to make Zac some bread. (He's allergic to wheat and a slue of other stuff present in almost every normal food offered at the grocery store.) I was tired but knew he needed some so he would quit eating the regular bread. I'd feel really bad if he had an intense reaction all because I was blogging instead of baking, so I dragged myself to the kitchen and mixed up the dough. It didn't look right and after half an hour of it sitting in the bread pans, not rising, it hit me that I hadn't added yeast. So I scraped it back into the kitchen aid bowl, added yeast, then put it back in the bread pans to rise. I got busy doing some other things, went to the kitchen to turn out the lights for the night, and realized I never actually baked the bread which meant I had to stay up another 30 minutes.

The next morning, I hear Zac yell, "Mom, you're not going to believe what the dog did!" Usually it's throw up in the carpet that precedes this statement so that's what I was expecting. Instead, I see the loaf of bread with half of its side missing and crumbs all around the dog's mouth. AAAAAGH! All that time, wasted for nothing! Reason #56 why I cannot like the dog. At least now I am absolved of guilt if Zac has an allergic reaction since the dog ate my homework.

The Closets

Another thing I love about our new house are the closets. For one thing, there are closets everywhere. I still have one rather large closet with nothing in it and I have two linen closets that aren't even close to being full. This is my closet:

No, your eyes are not deceiving you--it is the color of crest toothpaste as is/was the rest of the master suite, including the ceilings. I painted the bedroom before we moved in but haven't done anything with the bathroom or closet yet. Anyway, love my closet. It's 18 ft. long x 6 ft. wide. I have room for everything, including my sewing desk, all of my scrapbooking supplies, and the ironing board which had become an unwelcome permanent fixture in my bedroom in every other house we've lived in. This is Alyssa's closet:

Hers is almost as big as mine and as you can see, she got more than her share of the 'type A' gene. I have it bad, but I'm wondering if my abnormally organized teen girl got a double dose. One of her favorite flairs says something along the lines of 'I wouldn't have to be OCD if everyone else would do things right the first time'. Ahhh, a child after my own heart. You see how everything is color coordinated within each clothing category? If you borrow something(which I often do), you must return it to the exact spot you removed it from and hang it on the exact hanger. She also spread everything out so it would look like the closet was full, but I know her secret goal in life is to fill it to capacity with cute stuff from Forever 21 and Fossil.

Just for you Mom

My mother called yesterday and reminded me I haven't put any pictures of the inside of the house on the blog yet. And if your mom calls and tells you you need to put something on your blog, I recommend you follow through rather quickly. Keep in mind that we pretty much plopped our stuff into the new house--no decorating or painting have occurred yet with the exception of my room. We still have the previous owner's window treatments. I'll change them whenever I decorate the rest of the room.

Obviously this is the dining room. It's on the left as you come through the front door.

Looking into the entry way from the living room. You can see the archway into the dining room there on the right.

This is the living room. The archway on the right leads to the girls' rooms, their bathroom, the garage, and the stairway that takes you to the gameroom and the boys' rooms and bathroom. The archway on the left leads to the master suite area which you are not going to get to see tonight for two reasons: 1)There are no sheets on my bed. 2)I am currently doing an embroidery job for our church preschool and there are 58 scrub tops in various stages of completion in stacks all over my room.

Another view of the living room... the opening on the left is to the breakfast room. You can't see her but Katie is laying on the couch watching 'Say Yes to the dress'. And even though those curtains match my living room furniture, they're not mine and are coming down as soon as I figure out what to replace them with. (I'm taking suggestions if you have any ideas.)

Standing in the breakfast room, looking through the kitchen towards the dining room. There's a small hallway between the kitchen and dining room that has a wonderful pantry on the left and a laundry room on the right that does not lead to a garage which was one of the non-negotiable requirements. Yes, that's Belle, the dog that throws up in my carpet, peeking around the cabinets.

Looking into the breakfast room---Katie has relocated here because she decided she needed some chocolate chip pancakes for a bedtime snack. More rooms later. How soon will depend on how well the boys do with their project of cleaning the upstairs tomorrow morning.

Recital pictures......from May

After waiting 4 long months, Alyssa's recital picture cd was finally delivered today. Everyone else got their pictures in June, but not us. I'm still debating if all the emails and waiting and getting the studio owner to call the photographer was worth the extra 5 images he threw in for free. I think at this point, I'm just glad to have them and I'm feeling a little better about the check that he promptly cashed in May. Enjoy my 'little' ballerina.....

The Bully's in the Mail

I've spent the last hour attempting to scan a revolting piece of mail into my new laptop so I could share it with you. But, my printer from 2003 refuses to be friends with the new Windows Vista so I have given up. I've resolved to giving the kids my printer/scanner along with my old computer and I'll have to upgrade to a newer, friendlier printer.

Now to that revolting piece of mail--you'll just have to imagine it with me. It's a rather large envelope, very thick, and in a black box right on the front, are these words: The American Community Survey Form Enclosed. YOUR RESPONSE IS REQUIRED BY LAW I'm not yelling at you; that's how it was written. Remember? I'm trying to help you visualize.

So my immediate response is, "I don't want to". If they sent me a nice letter, explaining how they needed me to complete it, I probably would have been happy to comply. But, since the government has ordered me to complete this 28 page form, I have reverted to the side of me that resembles a 5 yr. old refusing to clean her room. I was briefly tempted to not do it just to see what would happen, but I decided provoking a government agency was probably not a good plan.

My other big problem with this form, other than it taking 45 minutes to complete, is I had to answer all kinds of questions about everyone in my house--including the kids. Don't I have a right to privacy? Apparently not since I was asked to reveal everything about us...how much money we make, how long we drive to work, when we leave for work, where we work, what we do, where the kids go to school, and on and on and on. See what a little fear of a $500 fine can make you reveal?

So anyway, hopefully I'll have all my technological capabilities converted over to the new laptop soon which I had to purchase for a multitude of reasons that I won't go into. Just know that at the top of the list was a phone chord draped from my kitchen across the entry way into the living room to my desk that was going to eventually cause a broken appendage, probably mine, and a strong temptation to slam my desk top against the wall every time I used it because it is 5 years old and that's like 100 in computer years. Now if I could only win a copy of Photoshop Elements from one of Pioneer Woman's giveaways, my conversion to modern technology would be complete.

Dear Gustav

I do not like you. You are a mean hurricane. You are wreaking havoc on my life today even though I don't live any where near the coast. My dog is scared of you and has not peed all day. I'm afraid she is going to feel the need to take care of business in my new house on the new carpet, or worse, on my expensive wool rug. Thanks to you and the people here who do not know how to drive in the rain, I suffered 10 mini heart attacks and near collisions while driving to the dance studio and back. (Is it really that difficult to turn your headlights on and not slam on your brakes?)

I'm wondering though if it's not you're fault. Maybe they shouldn't have named you Gustav which brings to mind images of German soldiers like this guy.

Maybe if they had named you 'Gus' after one of my favorite Disney characters you wouldn't blow the rain sideways so that no umbrella would serve a purpose or confuse the sensors on my garage door so that it won't close which leaves me standing in the rain, trying to make it work so that I can take my children to church.

If I give you some of these guys to play with, would you please go away and bother someone else for awhile? Because I don't live close to the ocean, I really shouldn't have to deal with you.

The Tale of Nathan's Tail

We finally started home school year #10 this week. I always begin our day with a devotion or missionary story or something along those lines, then we pray for our day. We keep a running prayer request list on the dry erase board. I'm trying to teach the kids to turn to God for the big and little things in their lives, to watch for Him to work in the situation, then praise Him when he takes care of it. So our first day of school we listed these...

Except, I wrote "Nathan--grow tall", not "grow tail". Nathan recently had an appt. with an endocrinologist to check his growth since he's had another year with no increase in height or weight. He is the size of a kindergartner despite being 8 1/2. He has another growth check in February and if he still hasn't grown, we'll have to consider the possibility of daily HGH shots for several years. So, I'm determined to pray that boy tall, tall enough that he'll amaze his Dr. and I'll get to say "God did it!" Tuesday morning I go upstairs to start the school day and this is what I see:

(Just in case you can't read it--Q:Why are we praying for Nathan to grow a tail? A: Cause he needs one that's why!
Nathan admitted growing a tail might be kind of cool because he could whack people with it. I think I'll stick to praying for him to grow in "stature and wisdom".