Superman Returns

Once upon a time, I blogged about our family.  Then, I decided it would be super cool to make a boatload of cash blogging online, and pay off all our school loans and buy a farm in Montana.  Then I realized that it doesn't really work that way (ha!) unless you want to sell your soul to your blog, and I kind of hated blogging when I felt like I had to do it, and while the money-making blog can be super fun and a great way to connect with lots of people with similar ideas and hobbies, I occasionally want to blog about something that has to do with our family, and I don't want to blog about my kids on the other blog, because it is Google-searchable and not very private.  You're welcome for the run-on sentence of the century.

So yeah, this is awkward, but... I'm back.  Kind of.  We'll see.  I am still kind of bad at blogging regularly.

I mostly want to be able to talk about our family again, and actually post pictures of the kids that have their faces in them, and use their real names instead of their super nerdy other-blog names, and talk about stuff that nobody wants to read on my other blog.  Because really, while the other blog is a fantastic way to find out "seven ways to render organic chicken fat," it is not a great place to say, "Hey, look at this darling picture of my baby," and have anyone respond favorably.

Which leads us to...

We had colds last week.  Emma's nose ran so much that the skin underneath got all raw and red.  So I told her I was putting lotion on it, but really used Butt Paste.  I was afraid she would object if she knew it was for "Baby's Bottom, " so I didn't tell her.  Then I wanted to take a picture, because she was just so cute and oblivious, but I didn't want to tell her that, so I pretended I was taking pictures of her tape measure skills.  It worked.

In case you were wondering, the Butt Paste worked SO well.  And it was totally not organic, and probably had scary-sounding chemicals in it, so I won't say anything about it on my other blog...

Ethan wanted me to take a picture of him being a robot.  It's hard to explain that to the camera, it just looks like a pile of boxes, when he is pretty sure he looks like Optimus Prime.  Oh, what's that?  He's in a Costco diaper box, with a wipes box on his head?  Oh, whoops, this one can't go on the other blog either, because I might lose my cloth-diapering street cred.  I swear, we really do cloth diaper.  Just not all the time.  And Costco wipes are THE BEST.

So, sorry to dump the worst of our home on you, but, hey, we're keeping it real here.  And!  Does anybody know how to change my Google ID from "Levi and Danielle plus two" to "Levi and Danielle plus three"?  I can't figure it out...

Snow in May?

We have gotten so much snow the last few days... can it really be May 12th? We all went out after dinner yesterday for a little snowman building (while my dad took pictures). Yes, Joel is wearing shorts.

The snow was pretty wet for here, but not wet enough to roll well. So the snowman was a little lumpy.

Samson thought the arms were the perfect size and placed at a perfect height for him to chew on...how thoughtful of us! Ethan got upset every time Samson attacked the snowman's arms though.

So Levi pushed over a dead aspen in the yard for Samson to chew on.

Thankful

I'm thankful....

• That Levi works right across the street.
• That his work is flexible enough that he can come home quickly if we need him.
• That he has tools at home.
• That he is strong enough to force a locked doorknob to turn.
• That Ethan is not stuck in our bedroom anymore!

Ethan's response? "Daddy save me!"

Enunciation

We learned about Zacchaeus in Sunday School today.

We sang the song.

Ethan loves the song.

He asks for it repeatedly.

He calls Zacchaeus "Tortillas."

Beware the Groooove...

Isn't it crazy how little changes can totally throw off your household groove?

We were doing so well, actually getting things done around the house and having potty-training success. The living room had been vacuumed 3 times in one week (this is half as often as it needs it), and I had found the bottom of the laundry basket!

And then, I decided life was progressing so smoothly that I could add something new. So I started a new blog. I kind of wanted to see if I could make some money at it, and I didn't want to plaster this one up with ads. It's been fun! Too fun. Too "I'll do this instead of the laundry" fun.

So I am getting serious about my time-management and being disciplined around the house. No blogging until morning chores are done. The children will benefit from the less-chaotic house, and Levi will benefit from the caught-up laundry (all though he is really sweet about it..."Hey, hon, where would I look if I wanted some clean underwear?").

Most importantly, we will benefit from my being intentional about putting first things first. "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." Whoo boy, have I needed to hear that lately.

Anyway, with a little discipline, the emperor will be getting his groove back. I hope.

If you're interested, the new blog is mindofthemother.blogspot.com and I am really bad at putting ads in places that are not unattractive.

Also, this post has made me want to watch The Emperors New Groove.

Herding Toms and Tabbies (Cats, That Is)

We had a great adventure today in Sunday School.

The morning started innocently enough as we headed off to church 15 minutes early. I was scheduled as the "helper" in children's church and wanted to get the kids settled in their classes well beforehand. A missing carseat (arrgh) and toddler accident (whoops!) set us back a little, and we dashed into church barely on time.

I slipped into the children's church room looking forward to a fun day of observing the elementary schoolers' lesson, supervising bathroom breaks, and helping pass out crayons. Imagine my surprise when I learned that I was actually teaching the preschool class, and the lady who was supposed to bring the materials for the lesson had forgotten them! Um, that lady might have been me. Whoops.

Anyway, lots of chaos followed, including one 4-year-old who screamed bloody murder for 10 minutes straight, lots of fire-breathing dragons being colored on our pictures of Jesus, and a constant chorus of "can we play now?" during the lesson (they have only had actual lessons for the last 3 weeks. Before that they played the whole time).

I was pretty satisfied when a 2-year-old's mom came to pick him up and he proudly told her that they colored "Jesus and the fishies." today. Success!

What to Do When It's -20 (Again!)

As has the rest of the country, we have been experiencing some pretty extreme winter weather the last few weeks. Our winding road, which is typically well-plowed and dry, is now coated in packed snow and ice. The driving conditions don't really matter though, since everything we would normally go to has been cancelled the last 2 weeks!

Anyway, we have been stuck inside the house. A lot. We have been trying to come up with exciting things to do:

• Continued potty training! Hey, when there's nowhere to go, there are no excuses to not work on it! We are now starting to run out of stickers, and Ethan totally knows what to do. Does he always do it? Of course not. Am I getting tired of cleaning up after him like a puppy? Oh yes. By the way, it seems like 13-week-old Samson was 100 times easier to train than 2-year-old Ethan. I guess he didn't have to worry about potties and undies, though.
• Consuming ridiculous amounts of food for the Super Bowl. Ethan is getting to be pretty good at eating dip with a tortilla chip. Emma tries hard. The Super Bowl was particularly enjoyable this year, because Kathy was here, and both kids stuck to her like glue basically the whole time. I actually got to watch the game (I mean, the commercials)!
• Unburying Samson's food bowl, which was covered in snow that he apparently can't find his food through. Then doing it again, 5 or 6 more times. He is convinced we never feed him, but he has layers and layers of petrified food frozen solid in his bowl. I guess he'll find it in the spring.
• Wrapping up in blankets. Ethan's new phrase is "nice, warm, snuggly, " which describes all blankets, pillows, and warm couches. He always says the whole phrase.
• Playing on the bed. Both kids think our bed is the ultimate awesome playground/wrestling mat. It is also, as Ethan pointed out, "nice, warm, snuggly."
• Going "grocery shopping" with the laundry basket, picking up random items from the floor. I LOVED this game! It made cleaning up stray toys really easy! It is also fun to hear Ethan narrate the shopping trip to Emma as she follows behind him. "Gonna get one more thing." "You can't eat it 'til we pay for it!"
• Eating oatmeal. It is sticky enough for Emma to do herself! Awesome!

Slacking

Ethan is very proud of his Thomas Undies. Here he is having a pizza party with his teddy bears.

So much for 3-day potty training. I guess 3 weeks...3 months...3 years old sounds a little more realistic.
Oh well.
In the defense of the lady who wrote the method we used, we might have been able to figure things out in the last 3 days if I had a nanny, a cook, and a maid to take care of everything else in our home while I followed Ethan around waiting for "teachable moments."
This was a good start though, I think. Our formerly bare sticker chart now has 5 stickers on it. Progress!

Relief

Ahhh...Levi is home! His 10-day trip only ended up being 9, because he and David (Pillers...coworker, neighbor, and fellow camp recruiter) drove through the night last night to get home. Hooray! They arrived home at 5 this morning and both went straight to bed. So, really, our day hasn't been a whole lot different than when he was gone, because he's been sleeping most of the time. But isn't it funny how everything just feels right when everybody's home? It's just like a big sigh of relief.

So, to go along with all that relief, we are adding a little chaos to our lives. Potty training. Oh, horror! I have been nervous about it and putting it off for quite a while, but Kara recommended a method that she's been using with Aydin, and it seems like a good time to do it. We'll see. If we all totally fall apart, I will give up and try again when he's...oh, maybe 7 or so. Just kidding.

And with that, here I go to dust off the potty chair.

Losing It

The kids and I are staying with my parents while Levi is on his annual recruiting trip. It is hard to have him gone, and ten days seems like a really long time to us! Neither one of us is really wild about talking on the phone for extended periods of time, but we are good about catching up and saying goodnight every night. Or so I thought.
I put the kids to bed last night and fell asleep with them for a while. Around 11, I woke up, looked at my phone, and realized that I hadn't called Levi. And he hadn't called me! Panicking, thinking that something must be really wrong, I ran upstairs to call him (we sleep in the basement, and I didn't want to wake the kids up).
He sounded a little confused when he answered. After a minute, he said, "You do know that you just called me an hour ago, right? We talked some and even prayed together."
I have no memory of our conversation. After thinking really, really hard, I vaguely remember sitting on the couch with a phone, and saying "Amen" at one point. But I have no idea what we talked about. I don't even remember going back down to bed.
I usually pride myself on being fairly lucid at night when I am up with the kids. Looks like I am not as with-it as I thought.

Teeny Tiny

Emmaline got her first ever pair of snow boots yesterday. They are size 3. Wow. She is so tiny.

Quinoa?

I'm sorry that every post this year has involved food. But that is kind of my only creative outlet right now, and it is easy to get excited about. Anyway...

Could I have found the perfect food? I am terrible at planning side-dishes, and Levi hates frozen vegetables, which were always my mom's quick-and-easy sides. So I often find myself standing in the kitchen 20 minutes before mealtime, with two hungry, grumpy kids clinging to my legs and two hungry, tired gentlemen on their way home, with a lovely pan of chicken in the oven, and nothing else. Now, if I had double the chicken, I am pretty sure the hungry gentlemen would not object to an all-meat dinner. But that's expensive. And not very good for us.

Salad? Oops...forgot to get lettuce. Or the lettuce is frozen (my fridge is a little finicky). Better check the cupboards. Hmm, rice? Nope, that takes an hour to cook here, if it ever cooks all the way. Potatoes? Basically the same story.

But there it is, in all of its shelf-stable glory. Quinoa!

It's apparently super-good for you. It's ready in 25 minutes. And the real test? Last night, Levi said, "Man, this quinoa stuff looks really funny, but it's fantastic!"

I'm sold.

Pie

Oh, this mountain weather. I love it. I hate it.

Yesterday, Levi went to see True Grit (a new Western) with some friends. Our little Woodland Park movie theater only shows 2 movies at a time, and that was not one of them, so the guys had to go down to the Springs to see it. It was a glorious day, and if it's 40 degrees here, it's usually 60 down the hill, so we had a big afternoon planned for the kids: a trip to the park in the Springs, maybe go and play around at Garden of the Gods for a few minutes, and then dinner at IHOP (does any kid not like pancakes?) before the guys went to their movie and I brought the kiddos back home for bed.

But then about 10 minutes before our scheduled departure from home, it started snowing. Like crazy. Dumping. This was NOT in the forecast! I decided I didn't want to drive the kids back up the pass by myself in the dark and in the raging snow, so we stayed home (The guys don't care what the weather's like, so they went).

This probably sounds ridiculous, but after a weekend of planning for an evening of glorious fun in town, the prospect of staying home alone with the kids was a bit depressing. To make it worse, we didn't have a shred of junk food in the whole house. Not one bit. Aww, man...

30 minutes later, I went outside to feed the dog, and lo and behold, it wasn't even snow, it was just some hail, it was a freak storm, and the sky was now blue. Sigh. Oh well, too late now.

So we made pumpkin pie.

Heaven on a Bagel

My parents got some smoked salmon from my uncle for Christmas and let us take it home. Bagels and cream cheese have met their perfect companion. It is glorious. That's all.

Ethan Flees from Baby Jesus

The kids at church had their Christmas musical this morning. Very cute. Ethan had his first nativity scene appearance as a reluctant, headless cow. Oh well. We will try again next year. By the way, having tired, teething Emmaline clinging to me the whole morning did not make it easier to get 5 semi-grumpy toddlers into their animal costumes. But we did it! A little creative persuasion was necessary: "Only kids in costumes get to go see the Mommies and Daddies." And "Your Mommy told me it was okay to put your costume on."

If anyone needs interpretation, those pitiful sounds coming from Ethan are "My no like dat!"

After this video, while the other animals stood quietly and respectfully around the manger, Ethan spotted Levi and ran to him. He came back to me after a little while. Then, when the nativity scene was done and we were all going back to the children's department to play, Ethan's desperate screams echoed through the sanctuary. "Daddy! Daddy!"

While Mom's Away...

Our church is doing a drive-through Christmas lights display this year for the community. Last night, I went down to help direct traffic and wave people through the display. It was 3 hours outside in the parking lot (and 16 degrees) so the kids stayed home with Levi. And Joel. And our friend Joel Bannister. No problem, there are 3 adults, only 2 kids, right?

Well...apparently Ethan realized that with mommy gone, slightly less attention would be payed to his whereabouts, and much of the adult attention in the house would be geared toward the basketball game on TV. He seized the opportunity.

Offense 1: Yogurt was swiped from the fridge, fed to the dog, smeared on the dog's head and back, and globbed all over the kitchen floor.
Aftermath: Adults were laughing too hard to dole out appropriate punishment.

Offense 2: Parmesan cheese was swiped from the fridge, carried through the house, and sprinkled liberally in Ethan's bed.
Aftermath: Appropriate discipline was administered. Offender spent the next 30 minutes crying for Mommy. I would not have been sympathetic.

But Emmaline went to sleep for Levi with slightly less screaming than usual, and the Christmas light display was a success! No frostbite, nobody run over in the parking lot (there were some near misses), and about 80 cars came through!

You can still feel the crusty yogurt spots on the dog's back. It may be time for a bath.

Reflections

I caught Emmaline today standing by the shiny oven door, smiling, cooing sweetly, and giving her reflected self slobbery kisses.

She Walks!

It's official! Steps have been taken! If you are thinking, "Aww, I wish I could have seen those precious first teetering steps in person," well, me too! I was doing the dishes and Levi was dishing up some ice cream when Joel called from the living room, "Dude...she's walking."

In other news, we got our first ever Christmas tree on Saturday morning! We packed up the van to bursting (the dog did not fit very comfortably), and headed out to the national forest. Ethan got his picture taken with Smokey the Bear when we stopped to get our permit. When we got to the national forest, Levi and Joel hunted for a tree while Ethan, Emmaline (on my back), and I stomped around in the snow and tried to keep Samson from eating a partially-decayed deer head that some hunters had apparently left behind. Yeah. Gross. Anyway, the tree hunt was a success. It is a little too big for our house (funny how they grow when you get them inside), but it looks nice. Ethan runs straight for it every morning. "Pretty Christmas tree! Mommy turn lights on!"

Baby, It's Cold Outside

It is currently 5 degrees outside, but it feels like -12. Brr! I am thinking about starting to wear long johns under my clothes...inside. We had talked about going to get our Christmas tree this afternoon, but I think maybe we will wait 'til a warmer day!

We had about 6 inches of snow the last few days, so Ethan got to get all dressed up in his winter gear and play in it yesterday. I didn't take any pictures because I couldn't find his gloves and he was wearing Emmaline's purple mittens. Whoops. She did not miss them, because the sleeves of her snowsuit are about 4 inches longer than her arms. So she sat on the back steps and flapped her little sleeves around, watching Ethan play in the snow. I think she'll enjoy the snow a little more when she can walk in it. She's so close, and quite eager, using anything she can find to hold onto and walk, including her little rocking chair and Shadow the dog.

Speaking of Emmaline, we had a 1st Birthday party on Thanksgiving day!

Double X

Oh, what a difference a chromosome makes.

Ethan used to scream every time I tried to hold him still and put his shoes on.

Emmaline recently spent the better part of half an hour sitting on my lap by the coat closet, handing me shoes to put on her feet and fussing if I was too slow at switching them.