Blog Fodder

Does this freak you out? I just remembered I could capture my screen in a "screen shot". Pretty cool. What is not cool is that I was trying to re-size millions of pictures in Photoshop and it was not going well. Out of desperation I emailed my all knowing neighbor, Stephanie, the picture of my photoshop screen to see if she could help me. Steph, can you help me out? My attention span is waning because I've been scrapbooking today while the family is away. I'd likely clean out the garage if I could do it in peace and quiet and without a million questions. Nah, maybe not. It's pretty cold. I did however finish another 11 pages. Ah, I'm on to June finally.

This picture is a little difficult to see, so I'll just tell you that it is a picture of a drawing on the wall going up our stairs. Guess which one of my kids did it? I wanted to choke him. I, very casually, brought Luke halfway down the stairs and asked him about it. Brows furrowed, he says, "Well, I was looking for some paper." Um, try again. I remind him that we only draw on paper and the wall is not paper, so then he says, "I didn't like the color and I wanted it to be yellow." Strike two. Then I tell him he's going to get a spank and he says, "I'll say I'm sorry." That was a very good start. So I bent down and hugged him and while he was apologizing, he proceeds to tell me, "I forgive you mom." Oh, good! I take him by the hand and tell him we are going back upstairs for his spank and he protests by saying, "But I said I'm sorry!" He was very cute, but I spanked him anyway. No worries, it didn't bother him too much because he did it again the next day. That was very effective. Very. Glad we had that heart to heart. Kids!

And the fun keeps on rolling because yesterday I go to get Luke up from his rest and notice (how could I not?) a big glob of Brooke's toothpaste on his chin. So I inquired about it and he told me, "Well, I was hungry." I wish you could see his eyebrows when he talks because they are so very hysterical and expressive. He told me some other excuse but I can't remember. He used to eat his toothpaste until I locked it up and now I see that I am going to have to put Brooke's away too. I swear I feed him. That's why he won't leave. Did your parents ever tell you not to feed a stray animal because it won't go away? So true. And if you think kids aren't animals...well, then clearly you don't have any!

Grouchy

I should be extremely happy right now that my kitchen is no longer this horrible shade of blue. Just so you know, I heard somewhere that the one color (beside fuchsia probably) that you shouldn't paint a kitchen is blue. Now I understand. It's just plain ugly. At least at my house it was. I cringe when I look at it just as I do when I think of some of the hairstyles I used to have.

My dad loves me a lot. He came over yesterday and today to finish my kitchen. He brought donuts. That should have made me really happy but then PMS is a powerful force that is not easily overcome. I can say PMS on my blog. If that offends your sensibilities then you must have really flipped out when I mentioned vagina earlier this week. Don't worry the craziness will pass.

See the lovely shade of green which are my counter tops? That complicated the paint situation and made the blue double ugly.

These curtains have been the problem from day one, that and my cheapness. Is cheapness a word? I will be burning them as soon as it's not too cold to go outside. My mom also loves me a lot because as we speak, she's making new curtains. Isn't that right mom? She probably can't hear me over the buzz of her sewing machine. I'll check back tomorrow when I'm sure they'll be finished. :)

This is what I picked out to replace the old ones. When I brought the fabric home Mark eyed me cautiously to see if he should like this better than what we had. Smart husband. He thinks it's ugly because it's brown, but I don't care. He's a man, his opinion in this matter hardly counts.

This is Stella being annoying. Just because she's wearing a backpack and a stuffed animal in a sling my mom made doesn't make her any less offensive. She can be cute and annoying at the same time. We Glaser's are talented like that. :) My sister-in-law helped me tremendously when she suggested I unplug the TV so Stella could push the buttons without actually turning the TV on. It was genius. Pure genius. Stella has had a cold, a cough, and new teeth coming in the last few days. She has cried and fussed the last two afternoons from 4 PM until after dinner and then some. I thought I was going to lose my mind. Tomorrow's a new day and I thank God that I get a fresh start after a good night's sleep. Much like alcohol to some people, sleep fixes everything for me.

Birds and the Bees

One thing I love about Brooke being five is captured in this picture above. Brook and Luke are having breakfast by themselves. Brooke gets them breakfast if I'm not downstairs yet. Sometimes like today, I am still sleeping. I am aware that they are downstairs because of the scraping of chairs and the occasional shriek from Luke indicating that he's not happy with what Brooke is doing. But still, I can stay in bed or finish getting ready. It's a nice card to have. What they usually help themselves to is cereal bars, yogurt, and water. At least they aren't eating "Nerbs", otherwise known as the sugary little pellets of a candy that come in a box that most people call "Nerds". Thanks Stephanie!

This morning Mark took Luke for his 3 year well check to discover that he has unusually large tonsils and is only in the 25 percentile for height. Since Luke has never even had Strep throat, I'm not going to borrow tomorrow's troubles for today. With regards to his height, Mark's mom swears he'll be a lawyer. According to her, all lawyers are short. I'm going to hold off on the surgery and signing him up for law school.

While the boys were gone, Brooke and I did school work. I've mentioned before that home schooling is going well. I think that is in large part due to the curriculum we have. It is very easy to do. Like most anal people, Mark and I really love how it comes with lesson plans in boxes to check off through out the week. There is very little preparation to be done most days so after breakfast I usually pull the books and worksheets together we will need and we begin.

What I also love about our Sonlight curriculum is that we get to read so many interesting books. Chapter books, not Curious George Feeds the Animals. Real books with chapters, character development, and a more complex plot. I love books so this part of homeschooling makes my heart swoon. We just finished reading the original Dr. Doolittle. If you are thinking Eddie Murphy talking to animals, you got the wrong story. Brooke's attention span for chapter books has grown considerably. Laying in bed sometimes I think about writing all the books down that we've read, a suggestion from my friend, Christa, who does the same thing for herself. (Hi, Christa!) I think about it, but haven't actually done it. It's kind of like me and exercise. :)

One of our favorite books is this Children's Encyclopedia by Usborne books. We use it mostly to teach science and a little bit of history. The pictures are incredible and the text is simply enough that Brooke can read a lot of it, but complex enough to not be boring. One time we were finishing up our lunch at Skyline and Mark tells me that when we get home he is going to read to Brooke from the Encyclopedia and then lay Brooke down for her rest. I laughed out loud when he said that because anyone that overheard him was surely feeling sorry for our kids! If Brooke would have replied, "Wow, dad! The encyclopedia! I can't wait!", it would have been priceless. Little did I realize today as I opened that said book, that we would be learning about this...

How babies are made. Complete with pictures of sperm and eggs. After I glimpsed the topic for the day I have to say that I wasn't shocked because I have already had the pleasure of reading this page to Brooke a few months ago. She happened upon this page, thought it looked interesting, and wanted me to read it to her. That day Mark had a "better you than me" look on his face before he left to run some errands. It all went well because I read straight from the book and Brooke didn't have any questions. Thank you God!

But today as I am trying to read the part about the sperm swimming into the woman's body I am silently pleading with God to not have to go into detail. The coast was clear and I got to move on. Thankful, (once again) to not have to go there yet.

So the next page is about babies growing for 9 months and the umbilical cord delivering the nourishment the baby needs. All was going well, or so I thought, until Brooke wants to know exactly how the baby comes out. Um, yeah. Being brave, I took a deep breath and dove into an explanation of how some babies come out of a cut in their mom's belly and some babies come out of the mother's vagina. She paused, was very quiet, and then as the light came on she said, "Oh!" If I could have taken a picture of her face when she finally got exactly what I was telling her, it was hilarious! She asked to clarify, "Like pooping it out?" Yeah, something like that. Then very seriously, as only kids can, Brooke looks at me and says, "Mom, you should have told me that in 3rd grade." I had to agree. It was one of those rare times when we were seeing "eye to eye". Maybe that will teach her to ask less questions next time! Tomorrow we get to learn about staying healthy. That I can handle.

P.O.T.D.

The picture of the day is soap. Luke is a biter. He's bitten Brooke really hard about 3 times and then some more which didn't break the skin. I have employed many different disciplinary tactics, some of which I'm not at liberty to discuss on this blog. But no matter how unmentionable they are, he keeps biting. Today, he bit Stella and I wanted to kill him. Nobody bites my baby. As I am racking my brain for a different, hopefully effective consequence, the image of bar soap came into my seething mind. I told him that if he wanted to bite something, it would be soap. I didn't just make him bite it once, but multiple times. I was really mad. After the first time he told me he couldn't bite it anymore because he had something in his teeth. No kidding? It would have been more satisfying if he would have cried, but he didn't. Thankfully, he didn't break Stella's skin either, just bruised her. I think that was because I caught him as he was getting warmed up. If this soap isn't effective, I'm moving on to hot sauce. My neighbor swears by hot sauce. You better believe that will be on my grocery list ASAP. The main thing is that everyone is in bed and they're alive. Barely.

I hate computers

Last night I spent 45 minutes creating a new post for my blog. When I tried to publish it, the post totally disappeared and it's place an error message. So I sucked it up and tried to recreate it to the best of my ability to have my plans foiled again. Frustrated, I gave up and went to bed. I shouldn't have been that mad because what I wrote wasn't anything important. It basically said that nothing much is happening here. The following bit of drivel is further proof of that. :)

This is Stella trying to engage the family in another round of "Raise Your Hand If You Think This Dinner is Delicious". I'm not making that up. Brooke started that game a while ago and both she and Luke think it's hilarious. Stella apparently thinks so too.

Luke has been trying a lot of new foods lately. It doesn't bother me that half of those new foods are dipped in ketchup. Whatever works. Personally, I wouldn't think tilapia would be very tasty with ketchup, but he ate it so that's what matters to me. He's also growing. Perhaps that's from eating something besides dairy and carbs? Some of his 24 month pants are getting short...finally.

The days seem long. By that I don't mean the sun is setting later (which it is) but that being in the house is so boring. My dining room is in a constant state of mess. There are various art projects laying about because that's one of their favorite past times. To drum up some excitement I am currently trying to persuade my dad to repaint our kitchen for a FOURTH time. In my defense, I chose two of the paint colors when I was pregnant with Luke. Not a good idea. The second stupid mistake I made was choosing paint colors that coordinated with the window treatments the former homeowners left that I really don't care for. I thought I was saving money at the time, but now at least 6 gallons of paint have already been purchased for the kitchen (not including the ones I hope to be buying soon!). I am going to right all wrongs and have my mom make some new curtains. None of this will change the cabinets and counter tops that I hate, but it should hold me over another 2 years until we save enough money to renovate the kitchen totally. I let you know how that goes.

The Weekend

This weekend was lovely. Mark came home in the wee hours of Saturday morning and we ran errands and had lunch out somewhere besides Skyline (gasp!). We had some family time and then just like last Sunday, Mark took the kids to his parents for the WHOLE day. I was alone in the house with no one to question me about ANYTHING. Mark took the kids so that I could begin to catch up on my scrapbook. He's off every Sunday this month and I get another free day this next week to do it all over again.

In the past two Sundays I've finished 18 pages. I'm not a year behind anymore, just 9 months. The addition of Stella and my lack of testosterone, has made keeping current impossible. I will not give up and with 6 months of Sundays to myself I might get caught up. Might.

If I could stop time or stop taking pictures, I would have no worries. Luckily, Mark deems scrapbooking a top priority, "Scrapbooking is more important than blogging" said The Pilot. He just loves the progress. It's all about the progress. Thankfully, I'm finally making some.

One Day at a Time

The sun was shining and the temperature was above freezing. Enough said. I wish my garage door was as excited to see the mercury rising. It seems to be unable to operate at full capacity when the temperature's below freezing. You should see the spoiler on my minivan. Spoiler, on a minivan...that just doesn't even sound right. I stupidly opened the garage door while I was sitting in the drivers seat, checked my rear view mirror (all clear! or so I thought), and crack... $350 worth of damage because the garage door was 1 foot shy of being open all the way.

Is it summer yet? We walked to our neighborhood pool and gazed longingly at the pool cover. I asked Brooke if she brought her bathing suit. She didn't. Better luck next time.

Stella's pimp ride.

Stella trying to steal Luke's bike. It didn't work, she's too short to reach the pedals. Wait a minute! There are no pedals. Silly me. Still the coordination to scoot is not there.

Yesterday, I thought I was going to lose my mind trying to teach Brooke and keep Stella out of trouble. When she wasn't getting into things she's not supposed to, she was terrorizing Brooke by pulling her chair while she was trying to read and write. She'd laugh like a maniac when I intervened.

We are starting the 3rd quarter of kindergarten with Brooke. When we started in September I wasn't really sure how things would go. Everything is going fairly smoothly and I find myself continually amazed at all that Brooke has learned. I've taught kids before so it shouldn't be so awe inspiring, but this is so much more intimate. Teaching your off spring is a whole different ballgame that takes you to new levels of frustration I never knew existed in public school. But when my girl reads or counts by 5's, my heart melts with pride. Don't get me wrong, I'm certain it's not my teaching, my daughter is just brilliant. :) That's another thing I learned teaching public school, all parents have the right to think their child is "gifted" and are apparently at liberty to tell the teacher so. Since I'm the parent and the teacher, we're always on the same page. :)

Stella's masterpiece that kept her entertained for a good 20 minutes so I didn't have to be a participant in the "Let's Terrorize Brooke While She's Trying to Learn" game.

This was the fun we had after Brooke's school work was finished. We did this same thing last winter with boxes. This one happens to be a bus except according to Brooke I didn't do the door right. Brooke also told me at dinner that I am "mad with kids". She means my sense of humor is waning and so is my patience. It happens when you're trying to be the ring leader of this 3 ring circus half the week by yourself. When she's older, I'll be able to tell her that she should be glad she's still alive.

It's fun for the whole family, except when they were all fighting because 3 kids cannot comfortably fit into this size box.

Luke was trying to "help Stella drive". Then while I'm making lunch I hear him announce "I killed our baby." That might sound alarming to you, but I attribute the pretend violence to the Bible. Damn sinners, always murdering someone. He sure didn't learn that from watching Max and Ruby. Both he and Brooke have taken to picking Stella up and carting her around where they please. This morning I walk into Stella's room to see that Brooke had put Stella in her crib. I was impressed, but felt obligated to give her the safety speech anyway.

A Sad Day in Haiti

It's obvious I didn't take this picture because I'm not in Haiti, thankfully. All day on the radio I heard reports about the earthquake and the devastation that followed. Even looking at the pictures, it is hard to understand what has happened there.

I learned a little about Haiti this past year because the church where I attend MOPs and our home school co-op had a drive to collect items for a baby orphanage there. Some of the women from this church actually went to Haiti and saw first hand the extreme poverty that has a hold on most people that live there.

In addition to being very poor, Haiti is also largely a voodoo nation. It is said their religion is Roman Catholicism, but that practicing voodoo and "serving the spirits" goes along with Catholicism. Yikes! This kind of voodoo is complete with spells and animal sacrifices.

I mention all of this because if you didn't already know that Haitians are down and out from an economical stand point, they clearly don't have God either. Please pray not only for the people of Haiti, but the thousands of missionaries that are residing there too. It is my hope and prayer that in the midst of this terrible tragedy, many will see the hope that we have in God. That could be the helping hands of rescue workers or financial aid, God will be there among them because He is always with us, even in tragedy. I've heard it said that a miracle always starts with a problem. Well, Houston, Haiti has a problem. I can't wait to hear the stories of God working there. You can log on to K LOVE, a nationally syndicated Christian radio station for updates or ways to help.

Snow Days

Even though it's shivery cold outside, I'm so glad January is under way. I'm so glad to be starting a new month, one in which Mark will be home a lot more. He's now in the middle of a week long stretch of days off and I couldn't be happier.

Pictured above are some of the kids' Christmas gifts. A blender that blends and a coffee maker that percolates. It's been so cold that we've been doing what we can to stay entertained inside. Even if that means making coffee when we don't drink coffee. :)

Can you say trouble? Stella is trouble on two legs. Cute as anything, but into everything.

After dinner Mark's first night home he breaks out the Kitchen Aid mixer and makes a batch of cookies. I've been eating a lot less cookies since my testosterone pellets have given me energy to get through my day without eating cookies. Here you see our children consuming cookie dough by the gross, raw eggs and all. Notice Stella's mouth? She's hinting (subtly) for Luke to give her another lick from the beater.

This is what you call "double dipping". Stella played her cards right and convinced Brooke to share her cookie dough too.

I'm seeing hair in 2010! Might Stella also be able to wear hair accessories?

This girl is so banged up these days. She's walking really well, but you wouldn't know it by the bruises on her face!

We've had a few days of snow. Nothing major, just a few inches to cover the grass completely. It's a nice light snow which made shoveling the driveway not too back breaking. I say that as if I would know. Mark's home, so I don't need to concern myself with those details. :)

Yesterday, before dinner we went outside to play. Mark tried to leave Luke and Stella with me inside but they wouldn't have it. After 15 minutes of suiting up, we enjoyed every minute of the twenty we spent playing in the snow.

Awww! Two sweet girls. I love little toddling/walking babies. They are so darn cute. Stella's started talking with a lisp. I see speech therapy in her future. She's not saying much, but she understands most everything we say and can follow simple directions we give her like throwing something in the trash or putting her clothes away. Maybe she can teach Luke a thing or two. ;)

Once you look past Stella's bruise, you can see her eyes are closed. I wanted her to smile at me, but the snow was coming down and she couldn't look up.

If Stella could say more than 5 words, she would have said at this moment, "Put me down, dad! I don't care if mom wants to take our picture. I know she's got skills and it really means a lot to her, but I'm tired of pictures and I don't care if I ever smile for another picture again. Could you put me down? Pretty please?" What a baby!

Why every time we go outside do the kids feel compelled to get their bikes out no matter what the weather? I'm clueless.

Speaking of clueless, since I cannot for the life of me delete all the blank space at the bottom of this post I'll just tell you that since we've been "snowed in" I've hardly been out of my pajamas. I should probably be ashamed to admit that, but I've been doing some really important stuff lately. That's a joke. I've been organizing to scrapbook, cleaning out the kitchen cabinets, reading the "sequel" to Pride and Prejudice, trying to finalize my lesson plans to teach 3/4 graders about the 1920's and 1930's for our home school co-op next Friday, and "sleeping in" past 8:00 AM. It's the sleeping in part that is the reason I've not been getting out of my pj's in the morning... or by noon...or some days dinner. When the kids are awake, it's non-stop action and taking the time to shower, dress, and dry my hair is not something I can commit to right now. I promise I'm still showering, just not in the morning. I swear. It's 3:45, I think I'll go shower. :)