This little blog/journal has been seriously neglected. But we did have an experience I've been meaning to write about for the past few months . . .
In July we went to Utah to visit my parents and Kelly's family. We flew into Las Vegas, drove to my parents' house in Cedar City, stayed the night and headed up to Salt Lake City the next morning. On our second day in Salt Lake we decided we'd get up and go to temple square. While I was excited to revisit, I wasn't that enthused to do it with my kids. I could already hear the "I'm boreds!" and "When are we going to be finished?" But we figured the kids should see temple square whether they wanted to or not. So out we headed.
After looking at the fountains and climbing on the statues the kids did start to become a bit antsy. Hoping to keep them interested by seeing something different we headed over to the Assembly Hall. We walked in to a group of Chinese sisters singing "I am a Child of God" in Mandarin. (I mean I think it was Mandarin, not being a Chinese speaker I can't say for certain :o) We sat down in one of the pews and were soon joined by two sister missionaries. I thought they might be disappointed we were members, but they didn't seem to care and invited us to see a video presentation at the visitor center. Honestly I didn't really want to go, but since they were asking and we had no other specific plans we followed them to the visitor center. We started out in a small room fixed up to look like Utah's red rock country and proceeded to watch a video about a family who's son slips and falls while hiking in the red rocks. Three more rooms followed with videos about the family's life experiences from the birth of a child to the death of a grandparent (if I'm remembering correctly). Jaded me found the videos to be sweet albeit rather saccharine and maudlin.
When they were finished one of the sister missionaries asked if anyone had any comments. Joel surprised me by raising his hand and saying, "That was so inspiring, it almost made me cry." He was, of course, one hundred percent in earnest. When we headed out into the hallway, Joel still feeling touched by the spirit, started to tear up. The hall led to the room with the Christus statue and we all sat down. Joel and Eli, both of their own volition, commented about how they really liked the feeling in the room and wanted to stay for awhile.
After a few minutes in the room, Cara had had her fill though; she turned and whispered in my ear that her Hello Kitty really wanted to sharpen her claws and needed to go out and scratch on tree bark. Not wanting to lessen the boys' spiritual experience Cara and I left to go outside and satisfy Hello Kitty's scratching compulsion.
Kelly and the boys stayed in the Christus room for almost another hour. Joel and Eli did not want to leave the warm and loving feeling they were experiencing there.
Definitely a lesson for me. My boys of short temper and attention span are completely capable of having spiritual experiences. Also cheesy Mormon movies may be more inspirational to those with open hearts and pure spirits.
Monday, October 7, 2013
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Moving
We're moving in less than two weeks. We've sold our house and bought a new one in the King.stream neighborhood. Gosh, those two transactions are so easily summed up in a simple sentence -- if only the actual process were that easy! FAR FROM IT!
First there's the fixing up the home which for us involved: regrouting all the tile in our bathrooms, refinishing our hardwood floors, repainting the whole house inside and most of the outside, replacing siding, "refreshing" our kitchen cabinets, ETC! It all took a lot of time, and we paid people to do some of the work which took a lot of moula.
Then there's putting it on the market. We did For Sale By Owner, so we had to do a lot of paperwork and stuff.
Once it's on the market you have to keep the place CLEAN since anybody can come by anytime. Not easy with kids -- although in trying to keep the house clean our kids were introduced to a new concept -- making your bed. Eli was particularly intrigued with this new phenomenon. A couple of days after the house did go under contact Eli feeling distressed asked, "Mommy are we not making the beds anymore? I liked that!"
Well if we move again, we may have another period of bed making. That'll have to satisy Eli :)
Then we went under contract. The kid (age 26) who is buying our house is pretty nice, but his parents are Mr. Beezlebub and Mrs. Mephistopheles, and since Beezle and Stophel are giving their Wittle Boy $60K for a downpayment we've had to deal with them. A. LOT. Stophel is a realtor in her home state so we've been blessed to be able to converse especially with her. A. LOT.
Stophel doesn't feel the need for pleasantries or niceness. She likes to go straight for the jugular. Por Ejemplo, the home inspector noted some soft spots in the roof decking. Wittle Boy asked to have that replaced. We told Wittle Boy that we would get quotes from three licensed, bonded and insured contractors and give him the average of their estimates back in cold hard cash at settlement.
I purposely found three contractors with stellar reputations to give estimates. When Wittle Boy initially received the quotes he was satisfied and told us the matter was settled. But after he showed the quotes to Mama Mephistopheles all hell broke loose. The three quotes were all around 1000 bucks, but apparently that wasn't enough for Mama. She wanted mo' money for Wittle boy. So she called screaming and immediately accused us of not letting the contractors see the real problems, saying that we had purposely misled them. Mama can be so cranky . . . I wanted to tell her "Sweetums, you catch more flies with honey", but Mama Stoph can't be bothered with annoyances like kindness and being polite.
Then Mama called the contractor with the highet estimate and railed on him. He called us later and said he refused to work with her. Mama Stophel has that effect on people.
Now it was Papa Beezle's turn. He decided on his own that we should give Wittle Boy 2000 dollars back at settlement for the roof decking and wrote to the title company instructing them to make that change. Uh oh Papa, yer posed to talk to the seller before you do that. We wouldn't even have known about it had the title company not written to us asking if we had agreed to those terms. No we hadn't, we had not even discussed that possibility with Papa Beezle or Mama Stophel let alone Wittle Boy -- who is the one actually buying the house.
Of course these roof issues weren't the only ones we got to talk about with Mama and Papa. They wanted to nickel and dime us to death on every little thing. You might think, well maybe money is tight for them so they're being extra careful. No Papa and Mama are loaded and live in a big mansion.
Mama Stoph saw how we live and the cars we drive, she knows we are not rolling in the dough. But Mama, bless her soul, wants to teach us the value of a dollar and fight us for every penny.
The rich are always the stingiest, ain't they?
Okay this post kinda drifted from my initial intent. I obviously have some pent up feelings about Mama and Papa.
Then there's the homeowner that we're purchasing our new home from. He's a treasure too. But I'll have to save that for another time.
First there's the fixing up the home which for us involved: regrouting all the tile in our bathrooms, refinishing our hardwood floors, repainting the whole house inside and most of the outside, replacing siding, "refreshing" our kitchen cabinets, ETC! It all took a lot of time, and we paid people to do some of the work which took a lot of moula.
Then there's putting it on the market. We did For Sale By Owner, so we had to do a lot of paperwork and stuff.
Once it's on the market you have to keep the place CLEAN since anybody can come by anytime. Not easy with kids -- although in trying to keep the house clean our kids were introduced to a new concept -- making your bed. Eli was particularly intrigued with this new phenomenon. A couple of days after the house did go under contact Eli feeling distressed asked, "Mommy are we not making the beds anymore? I liked that!"
Well if we move again, we may have another period of bed making. That'll have to satisy Eli :)
Then we went under contract. The kid (age 26) who is buying our house is pretty nice, but his parents are Mr. Beezlebub and Mrs. Mephistopheles, and since Beezle and Stophel are giving their Wittle Boy $60K for a downpayment we've had to deal with them. A. LOT. Stophel is a realtor in her home state so we've been blessed to be able to converse especially with her. A. LOT.
Stophel doesn't feel the need for pleasantries or niceness. She likes to go straight for the jugular. Por Ejemplo, the home inspector noted some soft spots in the roof decking. Wittle Boy asked to have that replaced. We told Wittle Boy that we would get quotes from three licensed, bonded and insured contractors and give him the average of their estimates back in cold hard cash at settlement.
I purposely found three contractors with stellar reputations to give estimates. When Wittle Boy initially received the quotes he was satisfied and told us the matter was settled. But after he showed the quotes to Mama Mephistopheles all hell broke loose. The three quotes were all around 1000 bucks, but apparently that wasn't enough for Mama. She wanted mo' money for Wittle boy. So she called screaming and immediately accused us of not letting the contractors see the real problems, saying that we had purposely misled them. Mama can be so cranky . . . I wanted to tell her "Sweetums, you catch more flies with honey", but Mama Stoph can't be bothered with annoyances like kindness and being polite.
Then Mama called the contractor with the highet estimate and railed on him. He called us later and said he refused to work with her. Mama Stophel has that effect on people.
Now it was Papa Beezle's turn. He decided on his own that we should give Wittle Boy 2000 dollars back at settlement for the roof decking and wrote to the title company instructing them to make that change. Uh oh Papa, yer posed to talk to the seller before you do that. We wouldn't even have known about it had the title company not written to us asking if we had agreed to those terms. No we hadn't, we had not even discussed that possibility with Papa Beezle or Mama Stophel let alone Wittle Boy -- who is the one actually buying the house.
Of course these roof issues weren't the only ones we got to talk about with Mama and Papa. They wanted to nickel and dime us to death on every little thing. You might think, well maybe money is tight for them so they're being extra careful. No Papa and Mama are loaded and live in a big mansion.
Mama Stoph saw how we live and the cars we drive, she knows we are not rolling in the dough. But Mama, bless her soul, wants to teach us the value of a dollar and fight us for every penny.
The rich are always the stingiest, ain't they?
Okay this post kinda drifted from my initial intent. I obviously have some pent up feelings about Mama and Papa.
Then there's the homeowner that we're purchasing our new home from. He's a treasure too. But I'll have to save that for another time.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
To the Left
My kids say the funniest things! And I always think, "I should write that down." And then I don't. And then I forget what they said.
Last weekend Laurie stayed with us for a couple of days on her way back from Florida. I made my awesome slow cooker, French dip sandwiches and I was telling Laurie that the recipe called for a can of beer but that I used beef consomme instead. She said she had an awesome beef stew recipe that called for red wine and that she used the actual stuff.
Upon hearing that Eli and Cara both blurted out, "Laurie, you're not supposed to drink wine!"
Cara followed up with, "Laurie, you're supposed to choose the right, but you chose left."
The little urchins crack me up!
Last weekend Laurie stayed with us for a couple of days on her way back from Florida. I made my awesome slow cooker, French dip sandwiches and I was telling Laurie that the recipe called for a can of beer but that I used beef consomme instead. She said she had an awesome beef stew recipe that called for red wine and that she used the actual stuff.
Upon hearing that Eli and Cara both blurted out, "Laurie, you're not supposed to drink wine!"
Cara followed up with, "Laurie, you're supposed to choose the right, but you chose left."
The little urchins crack me up!
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Turning Over a New Leaf
Yesterday I was at the elementary school doing Tuesday folders for Eli's class. When I finished I realized it was almost Joel's lunch time, so I decided to wait a few minutes so I could see him and give him a squeeze. Before his class came down, I ran into Mrs. Perlot (4th grade special education assistant) who informed me that Joel had had a really rough morning.
Apparently they had done an activity where every kid in the class had to pull another classmate's name out of a hat and write something nice about that person. Joel unfortunately picked out the same of somebody he doesn't particularly like. Not having the capacity to B.S. Joel couldn't come up with anything positive to write, so he wrote his true feelings about the person which were none too kind.
His teachers told him he needed to redo the assignment and he had a meltdown and became very sad and upset.
When he spotted me near the lunchroom his eyes were red rimmed and still filled with tears. He gave me a big hug and asked, "Mom, can you help me turn over a new leaf?"
Oh my cherished little boy; that humble little statement really tugged at my heart strings.
He is so precious and sweet. It pains me that so many everyday activities are so heart wrenching for his little soul.
---------------------------------------------------
Mrs. Perlot (aforementioned special ed I.A.) has really been a gift from God. She told me yesterday how much she "love, love, loves" Joel, and I can tell she means it from the bottom of her heart. She is quiet and reserved and is totally there for Joel when he needs her.
After Christmas? they switched Joel's classroom and it made an amazing difference. This past fall was a difficult one. Joel was belligerent and obstinate at school and at home and point blank refused to do his work. I couldn't figure out what was going on with him.
His original 4th grade teacher had what one other teacher called "a soft presence in the classroom." I called it disorganization. The lack of structure really got to Joel and made him feel uneasy and on edge. Hence the belligerence and obstinance. When he was switched into the very structured classroom of a different teacher it was like magic, his behavior immediately improved.
In addition to her organized classroom she's a great match for Joel in other ways too. She'll joke and be sarcastic with him which he LOVES. She has a very over the top and energetic personality which Joel thrives on as well. In many ways her interaction style with him is similar to my own and of course that helps Joel to feel comfortable and secure.
Eli has a fantastic teacher this year too. She's taught for eons and really has an in depth understanding of how to work with and get the most out of young children. Plus, she actually really likes the kids :)
In short, I'm feeling really blessed with my kids' teachers this year and so grateful for wonderful human beings who interact so lovingly with my children on a daily basis.
Apparently they had done an activity where every kid in the class had to pull another classmate's name out of a hat and write something nice about that person. Joel unfortunately picked out the same of somebody he doesn't particularly like. Not having the capacity to B.S. Joel couldn't come up with anything positive to write, so he wrote his true feelings about the person which were none too kind.
His teachers told him he needed to redo the assignment and he had a meltdown and became very sad and upset.
When he spotted me near the lunchroom his eyes were red rimmed and still filled with tears. He gave me a big hug and asked, "Mom, can you help me turn over a new leaf?"
Oh my cherished little boy; that humble little statement really tugged at my heart strings.
He is so precious and sweet. It pains me that so many everyday activities are so heart wrenching for his little soul.
---------------------------------------------------
Mrs. Perlot (aforementioned special ed I.A.) has really been a gift from God. She told me yesterday how much she "love, love, loves" Joel, and I can tell she means it from the bottom of her heart. She is quiet and reserved and is totally there for Joel when he needs her.
After Christmas? they switched Joel's classroom and it made an amazing difference. This past fall was a difficult one. Joel was belligerent and obstinate at school and at home and point blank refused to do his work. I couldn't figure out what was going on with him.
His original 4th grade teacher had what one other teacher called "a soft presence in the classroom." I called it disorganization. The lack of structure really got to Joel and made him feel uneasy and on edge. Hence the belligerence and obstinance. When he was switched into the very structured classroom of a different teacher it was like magic, his behavior immediately improved.
In addition to her organized classroom she's a great match for Joel in other ways too. She'll joke and be sarcastic with him which he LOVES. She has a very over the top and energetic personality which Joel thrives on as well. In many ways her interaction style with him is similar to my own and of course that helps Joel to feel comfortable and secure.
Eli has a fantastic teacher this year too. She's taught for eons and really has an in depth understanding of how to work with and get the most out of young children. Plus, she actually really likes the kids :)
In short, I'm feeling really blessed with my kids' teachers this year and so grateful for wonderful human beings who interact so lovingly with my children on a daily basis.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Cara the Character
Cara: "Mommy, heads or tails?"
Me: "Heads."
Cara: "I pick tails. So if it's tails I win, and if it's heads we both win. Got it?"
A TYPICAL PRETEND PLAY SCENARIO WITH CARA--------------------------------------------
"Mommy let's be elephants, you be the Mommy and I'll be the baby."
"Okay."
"Let's go over to the mud pit."
"Oh, baby elephant it's raining, do you want to get underneath me?"
"MOMMY, we're in a house, we're just "pretending" we're baby elephants!"
"Oh, oh now I get it."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday we were playing with mini Strawberry Shortcake dolls Cara got for Christmas. Cara was S.S. and I was Orange Blossom.
Me (as Orange Blossom): I'm sad I don't have a Mommy? Will you be my Mommy?
Cara: No. You don't have a Mommy.
Me: I know that's why I'm so sad. (Choking back the tears)
Will you please be my Mommy?
Cara: Grrrrrr......... You don't have a Mommy. I've seen you on
the cartoon. No mommy!
Me: I really want a Mommy. I feel so alone, will you please
love me enough to be my Mommy?
Cara: .......................(agitated silence)
. . . . .
ARGH! YOU CAME IN A BOX!
Cracked me up. I couldn't stop laughing. I don't know why, but it really struck my funny bone.
Me: "Heads."
Cara: "I pick tails. So if it's tails I win, and if it's heads we both win. Got it?"
A TYPICAL PRETEND PLAY SCENARIO WITH CARA--------------------------------------------
"Mommy let's be elephants, you be the Mommy and I'll be the baby."
"Okay."
"Let's go over to the mud pit."
"Oh, baby elephant it's raining, do you want to get underneath me?"
"MOMMY, we're in a house, we're just "pretending" we're baby elephants!"
"Oh, oh now I get it."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday we were playing with mini Strawberry Shortcake dolls Cara got for Christmas. Cara was S.S. and I was Orange Blossom.
Me (as Orange Blossom): I'm sad I don't have a Mommy? Will you be my Mommy?
Cara: No. You don't have a Mommy.
Me: I know that's why I'm so sad. (Choking back the tears)
Will you please be my Mommy?
Cara: Grrrrrr......... You don't have a Mommy. I've seen you on
the cartoon. No mommy!
Me: I really want a Mommy. I feel so alone, will you please
love me enough to be my Mommy?
Cara: .......................(agitated silence)
. . . . .
ARGH! YOU CAME IN A BOX!
Cracked me up. I couldn't stop laughing. I don't know why, but it really struck my funny bone.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Joel's Broken Arm
I haven't written anything here forever, so here goes. . .
Joel broke his arm on Oct. 2nd. The boys were being loud in their room, so I eventually went upstairs to tell them to calm down. Joel was right outside of his bedroom door with tears running down his race. Instead of being straight from elbow to wrist, the lower half of his arm was split in the middle with the lower portion protruding away from the rest of the arm. Panic stricken when I saw it I immediately screamed, "KELLY!"
Of course this was a Sunday night, so we took Joel to the emergency room. It took them FOREVER and Joel had to have general anesthesia, but they finally got a cast on him.
While they were casting him they noticed that one of the bones had poked through the skin, so the doc told us he wanted Joel to stay in the hospital for 72 hours on an antibiotic drip.
We had arrived at the hospital at about 8 pm, but everything took so long that Joel and I didn't get to his room until 5 am.
When they x-rayed him the next day, the bones had "shortened" (overlapped each other), so the orthopedist that worked on Joel in the hospital wanted us to see a pediatric orthopedist. We did and to make a long story short Joel had to have two additional surgeries. One to reset the bones and put pins in and a final one to remove the pins. Of course the ped. orthopedist was in Annandale and one surgery was in Alexandria and another at Fairfax. All in all it was stressful, time consuming and expensive (because of our stupid insurance, but that's another story) not to mention painful for our sweet Joel. But we got through it and Joel had his final cast removed on December 9th. Needless to say I'm really crossing my fingers for no additional broken bones.
At his final surgery prep one of the nurses was working on Joel and he said, "You have really bad breath!" When an additional nurse came to help out Joel leaned in to take a whiff and declared, "Yep, halitosis." When they put a gas mask on to put him under, not liking the smell he reiterated, "Halitosis!"
By the way it really sucks to have your child put under anesthesia. There's always the fear that they won't come out of it, and that's bad enough. When Joel came to after his final surgery he was in pain, disoriented and scared. It took some time to calm him down and then he kept asking me when the pain would stop. I felt so awful that I didn't know and that I couldn't take the pain away from him.
Joel broke his arm on Oct. 2nd. The boys were being loud in their room, so I eventually went upstairs to tell them to calm down. Joel was right outside of his bedroom door with tears running down his race. Instead of being straight from elbow to wrist, the lower half of his arm was split in the middle with the lower portion protruding away from the rest of the arm. Panic stricken when I saw it I immediately screamed, "KELLY!"
Of course this was a Sunday night, so we took Joel to the emergency room. It took them FOREVER and Joel had to have general anesthesia, but they finally got a cast on him.
While they were casting him they noticed that one of the bones had poked through the skin, so the doc told us he wanted Joel to stay in the hospital for 72 hours on an antibiotic drip.
We had arrived at the hospital at about 8 pm, but everything took so long that Joel and I didn't get to his room until 5 am.
When they x-rayed him the next day, the bones had "shortened" (overlapped each other), so the orthopedist that worked on Joel in the hospital wanted us to see a pediatric orthopedist. We did and to make a long story short Joel had to have two additional surgeries. One to reset the bones and put pins in and a final one to remove the pins. Of course the ped. orthopedist was in Annandale and one surgery was in Alexandria and another at Fairfax. All in all it was stressful, time consuming and expensive (because of our stupid insurance, but that's another story) not to mention painful for our sweet Joel. But we got through it and Joel had his final cast removed on December 9th. Needless to say I'm really crossing my fingers for no additional broken bones.
At his final surgery prep one of the nurses was working on Joel and he said, "You have really bad breath!" When an additional nurse came to help out Joel leaned in to take a whiff and declared, "Yep, halitosis." When they put a gas mask on to put him under, not liking the smell he reiterated, "Halitosis!"
By the way it really sucks to have your child put under anesthesia. There's always the fear that they won't come out of it, and that's bad enough. When Joel came to after his final surgery he was in pain, disoriented and scared. It took some time to calm him down and then he kept asking me when the pain would stop. I felt so awful that I didn't know and that I couldn't take the pain away from him.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Evil Times and Cornfused
Driving home from the corn maze today I happened to notice a home along the road that looked like a castle. I pointed it out to the kids and said, "Wouldn't you like to live in a castle?" "Yes!" squealed Cara. "No!" proclaimed Eli. "Yes you would Eli," continued Cara, "Then you would get to meet the king!" "Cara," said Eli in his all knowing voice, "Castles don't have kings any more, only in Evil times." "No," chimed Cara, "Castles have kings in Evil times and nice times."
The corn maze kicked us in the butt. We could not find our way outta the thing. Never-Say-Die-Kelly wanted to continue until we conquered it, but the kids were hot and whiny and eventually I convinced Kelly to wave our flag and surrender for assistance so we could be led out of the F.S.I. (Farm Scene Investigation). We were definitely mazed and cornfused.
We also went on a hay ride and the kids played on the many play structures and tried their hands at the games.
Very tired and thirsty by the time we left, we bought a gallon of the local apple juice and a bag of kettle corn and headed home.
Decided to go to the maze this year instead of Cox Farms because Joel broke his arm last Sunday (long story) and he wouldn't have been able to participate in the rope swing and other attractions at Cox Farms. Corn maze was also cheaper -- bonus!
The corn maze kicked us in the butt. We could not find our way outta the thing. Never-Say-Die-Kelly wanted to continue until we conquered it, but the kids were hot and whiny and eventually I convinced Kelly to wave our flag and surrender for assistance so we could be led out of the F.S.I. (Farm Scene Investigation). We were definitely mazed and cornfused.
We also went on a hay ride and the kids played on the many play structures and tried their hands at the games.
Very tired and thirsty by the time we left, we bought a gallon of the local apple juice and a bag of kettle corn and headed home.
Decided to go to the maze this year instead of Cox Farms because Joel broke his arm last Sunday (long story) and he wouldn't have been able to participate in the rope swing and other attractions at Cox Farms. Corn maze was also cheaper -- bonus!
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