Saturday, January 30, 2010

...I finally had that conversation...


Yep, I am finally an adult now. Today my sons were munching on a bowl of chocolate chip cookie ice cream when Andrew asks, "Mom, did they have ice cream like this when you were a kid?". I laughed at the absurdity of it, and then I realized, no they didn't! So then flashes of stories about my dad walking to school uphill in the snow, blah, blah, blah just sail through my mind. I realize that I am standing on a precipice about to jump of into the land of, "when I was a kid...". And I smiled and jump. "Well, Andrew, we actually did not have cool flavors like this. We had flavors like strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate. We thought Neapolitan was really cool because you could get all three. I remember when Cookies-N-Cream was invented. I thought it was the coolest thing - cookies and ice cream! Still remains my favorite flavor today (unless you are counting Cold Stone's 'Peanut Butter Perfection' with Cheesecake ice cream).

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

The next book writer

 
Andrew walks in from school today and declares that he needs to use the computer. To this point, the kids have only used the computers to play games and watch videos. So I ask him what he'd like to use it for and he tells me, "I am going to write a book". So I decide (because I am taking care of at least one baby and trying to make dinner) that he will have to wait (10 minutes) until dad gets home. When Jeff gets home he helps Andrew with setting up the computer. Jeff reports in that Andrew's books will be about Ninja's and Knights, will have 130 pages and happens in America involving a Prince and Princess. Fairly creative if you ask me. Andrew spent until dinner time writing his book. Andrew would ask me fun things like, "Mom, how do you spell 'ja'". Thankfully I knew it had Ninja's in it, so I could give him the answer he was looking for.

I have many a book planned in my head, a few down on paper, but nothing finished. Maybe I will race him to see who gets it done first.
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Dinner conversations at our house

 















AnnaLisa: The White house has 35 bathrooms in it. It also has 32 bedrooms.
Mommy: (Thinking maybe se could "redistribute the bathrooms across America), really?
Andrew: We could move in there.
AnnaLisa: You have to be elected to move into the White house.
Peanut Gallery (Also known as mom today) or you can buy your way in...
JJ: I want to move into the light house

such are the dinner conversations at our house
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Get out of jail free


This entry is about MaggieMae. She tries to use this card (figuratively) every day. Round about noon is her nap time. This is how she works it. In the morning the kids must stay in their beds until 6:00 am (I am sure most of you are already laughing because your kids like to sleep late, and I am stuck with the early risers, hence the stay in bed until 6:00 rule). Maggie has learned that rule. So when it is time for her to lay down for nap time, she will occasionally, more frequently in recent days, come out and play her "Get out of jail free card" commonly known as the phrase, "It is 6:00". It took me a while to realize (remember I am still very sleep deprived because of the twins) that she was announcing that it was time to get up. So now I know that, "It's six o'clock", really means "get out of jail(naptime)". And all this time I thought she was actually reading the clock in the morning.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Turbulance

 
This is our plane ride home and MaggieMae is loving the turbulance. I guess someone should love it.

You can see that Rosi was snagged by the nice lady across the aisle who put her to sleep and held her for the second half of the flight. I was tickled, usually when people offer to hold a baby, the baby gets woken up or no sleep. This was perfect. I was able to hold and calm Andrew and Maggie during the last 45 minutes of turbulance...uh plane ride. When we arrived in Arizona they were having winds at 40 mph and heavy rain - almost an inch in 24 hours. There was a tornado touchdown sighted in Scottsdale. When Jeff and I were waiting for our luggage we looked out the doors and saw rain going sideways and trees bending over. Crazy weather!
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The "Jeff's tired" pose

 
I laugh at this everytime I see one of the kids doing it. This is a pose that Jeff became famous for as a teenager (according to his sister Karilee). We noticed William doing it on our last day there. Maybe it has something to do with the house he grew up in as well as his genes.
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Grandma's gift

 
Grandma gave the kids robes. They were all delighted. She (I should say we because I was with her) found them at Goodwill and she got a great deal on them.
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This is how I try to feel/look

 
I just giggle when I look at this one.
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Story time again

 
Jeff and the older kids reading again. I think Aunt Amy was a work at this time and they are reading ahead.
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Maggie's twins

 
Well, they say that twins "run in the family". MaggieMae found these two at Grandma's and decided that they would be her twin babies. She carried them around for most of the last day or two.
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Grandma's in her element

 
Just an average afternoon with some terrific kids and an awesome mother-in-law.
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Reading with Aunt Amy

 
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It is no surprise that the two ladies that I know like books the most, end up reading on the couch together. They enjoyed several lengthy books.

AnnaLisa now has "Rapunzel's Revenge" as a goal book for the end of the school year (it is on the next level up).

12th Grade Seminary


A friend of mine(Tami E.) uploaded this picture to FaceBook. This was our group of students for Seminary which humorously she was not in the picture. We met at the Buswell's home, in the play room every school day at 6:00 in the morning. The back row shows myself, Denys Buswell and Aaron Martin. We were the seniors and had all been friends for about 10 years. That year I dated Aaron. This was probably a few months before we started dating, but as you can see, he had on his black leather jacket and owned his motorcycle by this time.

Keileen's brings her "Army of Helamen"

 
We were not able to find a van to rent, so Keileen volunteered to drive down her "Army of Helamen". We were excited to have her family down. G'ma and G'pa Park were so gracious to let her family descend upon us. Joseph who plays piano by ear, played a couple of pieces for us. G'ma Park transcribed the music and gave it to him so he could see how complex the music he had written was. We had fun with all of Keileen's kids. They are a great bunch. When we asked the kids to take a picture of us, I don't remember who was taking our picture, but they insisted that we show them our "guns".
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Bow and Arrows

 


AnnaLisa, Andrew and JJ shooting a bow with Grandpa.
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Sunday evening

 
Sunday evening at Park Place (there are three Park families that live right next to each other) was as usual with Roast Beef Dinner that Great-Grandma Park has become famous for, followed by dessert that Aunt LuAnne has also become famous for. Then the customary playing of games. Although this is a picture of the next generation playing fuzeball instead of ours that usually go for card games.

Pictured are (clock-wise) AnnaLisa, JJ, MaggieMae, Andrew, Ezra (Sherm's son and daughter) and Ava.
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Airport on the way to Grandma and Grandpa Park's house

 
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AnnaLisa is taking a picture of us at the airport. This is what you would call the "before" picture although we have already gone through security and are anxiously awaiting the gate call. The kids are anxious for their flight on the airplane. I am just anxious trying to figure out how we will do it all. I am also trying to remember how a "gettaway weekend" for Jeff and I turned into a spontaneous vacation for the whole family. I remember part of it being the fact that we were able to take the whole family for less than we expected the two of us going for. Thanks Danika for the fare alert.

We had a really terrific time all-in-all, but it is still quite a bit of work. Mom Park (and I suspect Dad Park) went out of their way to make our trip as comfortable and easy as possible including such crazy things as rounding up 5 carseats, an extra car, stocking many of our families favorite foods, diapers, and even finished it off with robes for the four older kids! They also had the week packed with fun activities like Legos, forts, shooting bows and arrows. So much fun! All we had to do was bring the kids, and luggage. See that large pile of black suitcases behind us? All carry-on bags. Thankfully we rounded up (with the help of several friends) rolling carryon bags. Even MaggieMae pulled a small personal bag that had wheels.

priceless comments

 
We, JJ(5) MaggieMae(2), RosiLee(4 months) William(4 months)and mommy(none your business) went to the store today and I got lots of comments about our cute family. As we were getting into the car, a lady near us commented. I was putting the second twin into the car when she asked if she could take the cart for me with hers over to the cart collecting spot. I smiled and said thank you (one thing I have been able to do this pregnancy was learn to accept help). JJ said to me, "That woman is a hero." I asked JJ why he said that, he responded, "She chose to serve us". I smiled and silently thanked God that some of what I am trying to teach my children is getting through. I hopped out of the car to go around to my side and mentioned it to the lady. I think we made her day!

Other comments that the kids have said recently:
MagggieMae: Mommy can we go to the airport so we can go on an airplane to Grandma's house?
JJ: (a prayer on the night before Christmas)...help us to make good choices so that we can be on Santa's nice list and not his naught one...

This picture is of JJ and William. William kept spitting up so much that he had to use his sister's sleeper and blanket.
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Mom and the twins

 

I have given up on a good picture of all three of us, so I will go for an ok one.
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