compliment?

Last week after I got my hair cut, by friends played dress up with me and put me in a skirt and high heels, did my hair and make up and all the rest. When I walked out of the room Leah took one look at me and asked, "Why do you look like that?" Of course I had to ask, "Like what?" Leah answered, "...like a lady."

Gainfully Employed!!!!!

Soooo after nearly 10 years of marriage, 6 years of undergrad studies and working, 1 1/2 years of post-graduate study Lars finally got "a real job"!!!

Lincoln school district called him Friday and asked him to come if for an interview on Tuesday. So, we all went to Newport today and Lars had his interview at 3 pm. They told him they would call him at 6pm. We tried to get back by then...and might have if we didn't have a back seat barfer. (But that's another story) We walked in the door at 6:30pm and the phone rang.

It was Newport High School offering Lars a full time position teaching English! Oh, did I mention it starts tomorrow?!? Thankfully we have so many wonderful people in our lives and within an hour he had our friend's beach house to stay at and another friend's car to drive so I could keep our van here.

We really feel like this is God's will for us since our entire future came together within 4 hours. I love it when that happens.

Farmer's and Craft Market

My friend Kimber and I decided to do a booth at the local Farmer's and Craft Market. We've done it for two weeks so far. I am selling my hair bows and headbands, cards and magnets. Kimber is selling t-shirts that she air brushes. Here are a couple pictures of the girls "modeling" some headbands I just made. I'll probably post some more stuff as I make it.

SANDwiches anyone?

the beautiful scenery
friend Malea, Leah and friend Josh across the river
Heidi baby
Yaya
Naomi cramming crackers into her mouth. My little germaphobe wouldn't touch the water.


Last night I had a sleep over at my friend's house. No, one of my kids did not hijack my blog, I just refuse to relinquish the privileges of BFF's because I'm an adult. :) The three of us smashed in a bed and ate popcorn and watched Billy Madison. Actually, all three of us were asleep before the movie was over because even though I act like I'm 13, my body still knows I'm really 31 and severely sleep deprived.

In the morning, I returned to being a responsible parent and picked up my girls and brought them back over to my friend's house so we could have breakfast. Then we loaded up three families in two vans and went to the beach. It was a good idea...until we got there. The coast is always windy, but it was REALLY windy. We set up our stuff and attempted to eat lunch, but from the time we lifted our food from our plates to our mouths, the wind blew so much sand onto it that it felt like we were exfoliating our teeth. After about 20 minutes of that nonsense we decided to back track to a river that runs along the highway to the beach in Van Duzer Forrest State Park.

I forgot to bring my camera down to the beach, not that any of the photos would have been discernable through the "Sahara effect". But I did get some fun shots of the kiddos playing in the water. It was much warmer at the stream and not windy at ALL! We were also the only ones there, so that made it more relaxing as well.

When words don't work....

I told the girls I would take them swimming today but I needed to make a phone call first. As always, I got distracted with three hundred other things and didn't make the phone call as quickly as Yaya would have liked. She kept asking me again and again to make the phone call. Finally in desperation, Yaya came up to me and asked, "If I cry will you make the call?"

judge not that ye be not judged

Naomi's 200 decibel scream
Heidi and Yaya at the splash park
Leah and Yaya in the background
This morning I had a chiropractic appointment in Salem and totally last minute I remembered there was a splash park just down the street. So I grabbed four swimming suits and decided to surprise the girls with a fun outing. When I pulled into the splash park parking lot, the girls got so excited. I started handing out swimming suits when Naomi pointed out that I had brought her suit from last year. Now, with any other child and this probably wouldn't have been that big of a deal, but Naomi immediately melted down. I was compassionate and validated her feelings that it was disappointing that Mom brought the wrong suit and tried to tell her she still had other options. As I listed them off her "NO!" became louder with each suggestion.

I figured it was a risk to bring Naomi out in public like this, but I hoped she would calm down at some point. After all, I didn't want to disappoint everyone else because Naomi was pitching a fit. So I loaded Yaya and Heidi up in the stroller and we started walking towards the water. Let me rephrase that. Four of us started walking and Naomi stomped behind screaming. Somehow I still hoped she would calm down.

The closer we got to the water, the louder Naomi got. I stopped under a tree to put sun screen on the girls and Naomi turned into "that" kid. The kind of kid you see in public and immediately come to the conclusion that those parents must not discipline their child because MY kid would never do something like that! Naomi came up to me and hit me as hard as she could, then she ran to the stroller and tried to push it over and then smacked Leah on her bare back. I made her sit and calm down and told her when we got home she would be spending the rest of the day in her room. Still, my desire to not punish the other girls for Naomi's actions won out over reason and I continued on to the water.

The three girls started playing in the water and I told Naomi to sit under the tree with the stroller. Of course she didn't and came running over screaming. I tried to pick her up and bring her back but it's a bit difficult to carry a 60 pound flailing child. I put her down and tried to hold her hand but she jerked away and fell on the ground, all the while screaming as if I was beating her. When all of a sudden, a little boy who was riding past on his bike burst into tears and started yelling, "Don't drag her! You're hurting her! STOP!!!"

At that point I burst into tears of my own. Here I am trying to provide my kids with a nice, fun experience and I know everyone around me is secretly wishing I would take my obnoxious kid home and learn some parenting skills. They don't know that I offered Naomi three hundred different options so she could still play in the water and have fun but instead she's acting like a crazed lunatic and now some kid is screaming at me to stop abusing my kid! It was just more than I could handle. Thankfully, his mom came over and apologized and said he's just super sensitive and offered to help. After I explained the whole situation (which I'm sure she REALLY didn't care to hear) she offered me best wishes and good luck. After that I decided to call it a day. I was just waiting for everyone to start applauding as we left.

Naomi continued to scream the entire way back to the car and ram into the stroller and hit her sisters and throw grass at me. Then once we got loaded into the car she refused to get in a seat belt and kept opening the automatic side door. I just started driving HOPING that a cop would pull me over and yell at Naomi to get her seat belt on. No such luck. Instead, she just kicked the back of my seat for the 20 minute ride home. The second we got home, Naomi stopped her fit, skipped up to the door and was acting like nothing had happened. Is my child bi-polar? What is wrong with this picture? What would you have done in this situation? I'm having PTSD every time I think about this afternoon! It was a nightmare!

Almost 2!

My baby is almost 2! She is growing up in so many ways. Leah took the side off of Heidi's crib. My general philosophy is keep the kid contained as long as possible, but Heidi did just fine with it. After I closed the door for her first nap with free reign, I heard a bit of shuffling around before it became quiet. When I went in to check on miss Heidi baby, I found her, sleeping with her "car".
Anytime Heidi gets a hold of a marker, she colors herself. Recently, she's been "painting" her toes and fingernails.
She also decided to color mine :)
One day I couldn't find Heidi anywhere. This toy baby play pen was in the living room and I probably walked by it twenty times before I realized it was her in there rather than a doll. She was lying so still and we have a baby doll that's practically the same size as her.
These are a couple of pictures of Heidi yesterday morning before church. Look at how much hair she has! It is by far the most hair any of my kids have had at 2.

Hair Cut

BEFORE-Naomi is on the right
AFTER-side view with a little bed head action
back view
front
Naomi FINALLY let me give her a hair cut. All summer she has been growing it out and wouldn't even let me trim her bangs. Basically she looked homeless. She very rarely poses for a picture, so I just had to snap random picts to give you an idea.

Morning Stroll

Yesterday was a beautiful Sunday morning, so I suggested that we walk to church. Everyone thought it was a great idea. And like most things with kids, it's always much better in theory! Before we were even half way down the first street Yaya was jumping in and out of the stroller, trying to run ahead of Naomi and screaming when Naomi ran faster than she did (all in her Sunday dress). Leah kept asking me, "Are you sure we're going the right way? I don't remember this." It's about a mile walk and it took us 40 minutes to get there. When we finally reached the church, Leah dramatically fell to her knees and then to her face and kissed the ground. I'm not gonna' lie, I wanted to do the same thing.

Musings

Disclaimer: I realize this is a touchy subject for about 98% of the human population, so rather than taking offense to my opinion, just stop reading and still be my friend. :)

I've been thinking a lot lately about how much time we, as human beings, WASTE worrying about our self image. In 7th grade health class my teacher handed out a paper with a long list of subjects such as world peace, disease, hunger in third world countries, etc. including our self image. Then he told us to re-write the list with the most important issues were at the top. So of course we all put the traumas of the world at the top of our list and at the very bottom we listed "self image." At that point, my health teacher called us all liars and asked us what the first thing was that we thought about when we woke up that morning. Did we really think about world peace, or were we thinking about what we were going to wear, or how to do our hair? It's a sad truth. We are all self absorbed.

Fast forward 15 years (it's so weird to say that) and I've still got friends who will only eat 18 frosted mini wheats for breakfast trying to get back to their weight in High School. Really? When I look at the kids in High School now I think they look like babies! Half of the kids are still growing, only about eight guys can grow facial hair and most of the girls are still wearing training bras. That was a completely different time of life. Why do we care so much about being thin, or looking like a model when we have a functioning, healthy body? Let's be honest, even super models probably wish they could actually eat food, rather than chewing on parsley leaves for lunch.

While we are here on earth we have a body. And what is the purpose of having a body? I don't think it's to be the thinnest or the prettiest. I'm pretty sure we are here on earth to love and to serve and to be happy. While it is important to be healthy, I think it would do our bodies much more good to adopt a diet of helping and loving others rather than using all our energy OBSESSING over fitting into a size 2!

My family and friends are the most beautiful people I know. Will you ever see any of us on the cover of Vogue magazine? Probably not, but guess what? I don't care!

Commercialism

We don't have TV. Well, we own a TV, but we don't pay for any stations. I love it and if I have it my way, we will never have TV in our home. So, yesterday I brought Naomi with me to a friend's house and Naomi was watching TV while we chatted.

This morning at breakfast Naomi said to me, "Mom, I want a pillow pet." Of course I didn't know what this was, so she described it in detail. "It's a pillow that looks like a pet. You can go anywhere with it and it's perfect for a trip up to Grandmas! Just one hug, and you fall in love! All ages."

A bit of clarification

This was probably the best conversation I've overheard from the driver's seat of my car. Naomi had mis-used the word "used", like "I'm used to eating that." Leah, being the older and wiser sister, gave Naomi a grammar lesson.

L- That's not the right way to use that word Naomi. If you are used to something it's like this. I am used to being around white people. I am not used to being around black people. So I am comfortable around white people and I get a little nervous around black people.

What?!?! I think this quaint little town needs a bit of diversity!

laundry options

Laundry is one arena that I enthusiatically agree with my brother-in-law Norm. Why do kids even have clothes? A burlap bag with two holes for arms and one for a head is much more practical. Then when the kid gets dirty, you can just hose them down and get bathing and laundry done at the same time.

Unfortunately, my vanity won't allow me to act practically and therefore my punishment is laundry. I suppose if I were to do a load of laundry each day, I could easily stay on top of it. But I'm just not that kind of gal. I would much rather close the laundry room door and ignore it until everyone is complaining that they don't have any clean underwear. Only then do I tackle the inevitable.

Recently I have adopted a new way of doing things. Since I usually find my beautiful piles of meticulously folded laundry scattered all over the floor and occassionally back in the dirty laundry bin...still folded...I have decided to relinquish my obsessive need for perfectly folded laundry and let the girls do it themselves. (Applause please.)

Not only have I decided to let them fold their own clothes, I even give them the option to not fold it and just cram it in their drawers (because that's how it all ends up anyway). So now after the laundry comes out of the dryer, I make four piles on the floor and each girl just has to get them out of my sight.

The other day Leah and Naomi took care of their clothes while Yaya, of course, was writhing on the ground in tears that I asked her to do something. Naomi came out and said to Yaya very matter of factly, "Yaya, just pick up all your clothes and chuck 'em in your drawer. That's what I did!"