Picture Tag

Ok, Megan, this sounds like my kind of challenge. Let's see...things that make me happy.

Cole's teeth right now make me smile (admit it, it's cute)...

My favorite scrapbook pages of our Honeymoon make me happy! Good memories of my favorite vacation with my favorite guy and scrapping these pages with my favorite friends.

My old poetry notebooks take me back to a long time ago (the green folder on the right was my Catcher in the Rye folder from high school). Some of the poems in these folders are 25 years old. Some are written on paper towels or receipts.

My monitor went out and we were using one that flickered until Chad bought this one for me!!!

My camera...ahhhh.

Two of my favorite things here that make me happy - surprise flowers from Chad and sparkly crosses from Mom and Dad.

I guess I have to tag Brian Certain!!!

The only way I get in the pictures

If you are the one always taking the pictures, you end up with a hard drive full of your own life without you in it. I've decided to combat this with the oh-so-flattering self shots. Or, as in the bottom picture, I'm taking a cue from my 8-year-old and jumping into pictures where I'm not the intended subject.

I have noticed that this angle isn't flattering to me. I seem to grow chins that I don't actually possess. My smile is WAY too big. My nose is WAY too close to the lens. My head is sometimes half cut off.

However! I will be chronicled!

Of course, I start this tradition the night I'm wearing a prom dress and a little girl's tiara...did you expect anything less???

Fright Fest Fiasco

So...when you take your kids to Fright Fest at Six Flags, you expect there to be some glee, right? Some appreciation? Some smiles for the camera?

I should have known better. I guess I was hoping that my kids didn't have the same fear of haunted houses that I have. Of course, I can blame it all on my huge brother terrorizing me throughout my childhood by hiding behind corners and jumping out at me. Could that fear have become so ingrained in me that it was passed on genetically to my kids???

Behold...

A letter to my Grandmommy

Dear Grandmommy,

Tuesday, when you encouraged me to throw my Psychology and Sociology books into a fire and 'just let my kids be kids', I admit that I felt a moment of panic. The emotion surprised me. I let it go to enjoy shopping at Baron's, but I lingered on it while driving home. Yesterday, I was still chewing on it and even mentioned it to a friend to gauge her reaction to the idea.
Today, I started looking at the books and, one by one, placing them into a fire. Okay, not a real fire, but a donation box. We'll just call it a metaphorical fire. With each book I placed in the box, a funny freedom took hold of me.

One book into the bonfire, I realized that I was leaning on the books as a method of putting reality into a kind of hold pattern. I realized that I was living out of a "I-don't-have-to-think-about-this-or-deal-with-it-until-I-finish-this-book" mentality.

Two books into the bonfire, I realized that the books were a source of my feelings of frustration and failure. The books never worked for all situations or all people. I looked at the book and realized that my life was no better because of it. My home no more organized, my kids no more perfect.

The third book into the bonfire felt good. It was that book that made me realize that these books had actually increased my anxiety. They pointed out new worries for me to cling to. They quoted scary statistics for me to anchor into my psyche.

With the final books (at this point, I was flinging them into the fire with wild abandon), I realized that they could not define me! They could not categorize my children! They could not stop me from being who I am nor my children who they are!

And now...with the peace of knowing that the books are safely out of reach, I can concentrate on what you said - letting my kids be kids. More importantly, letting them be the kids that they are:

Pearce is an amazing young man in the making. He matches my sarcastic wit effortlessly. I realized yesterday that he has a wonderful, gentle, but confident voice. Yes, he is too hard on himself (a mirror to my self-doubt), but he's so great and I am so proud of him.

Cole...well, Cole is Cole. A circus residing in a human body. A kaleidoscope of humor, imagination, chaos, and kindness. My only worry here is to make sure the world doesn't destroy his uniqueness, his self-esteem, his Coleness.

Stone - how did an imp get stuck inside an angel? How can those cute blue eyes under that blonde, floaty halo gleam so mischievously? How does that smile make me smile even when I should be stern? We are all in trouble. He's SO smart. So persuasive. Stone for president 2050!!!

And Cade...what can I do but make sure he knows he's loved as he cries and coos and grows into who he will be?

I can see them all in my mind's eye; each a gifted gift to me. And in spite of me, they are all pretty awesome. I must not be doing EVERYTHING wrong. :)

Thank you for your wisdom and love. Hey, maybe you should write a book! Not that I'd buy it...

Love,
Dori

The importance of proper accessories...

If you've read my posts, you know that my toddler is quite the fashionisto (is that a word?). He is always trying to come up with THE accessory that will pull his look together. He's tried gloves, hats, sunglasses, mommy's shoes, costumes, and masks. Who knew that the perfect accessory to bring out his eyes would be the couch pillow?

Bunnies!!!

Yesterday, I spied this bunny crouched as low as she could get in our front yard. It was an answer to the two patches of earth without grass we noticed the last few days. Could this rabbit's instincts be so out-of-whack that she'd create a den in my front yard? The front yard of a corner lot? Especially with our neighborhood hawk flying around...

Open the bottom picture up to see how pretty she is!!!

Puppies!

While we were at Chad's grandparents' farm, we had the great fortune of getting to see/touch a litter of German Shepherd puppies. They were at my favorite stage, kind of fumbling around - running sideways like their bottoms were trying to win a race against their heads. They were adorable. And the best part was that they were BIG puppies, so we were able to let our toddler interact with them without fear that he'd squish one inadvertently.

Here we are holding (and walking with) the first puppy.

I'm not sure how great you are with physics, but if you apply basic knowledge of a fulcrum to this picture, you can clearly imagine how the puppy ended up on it's head and my son ended up with a puzzled look on his face...



This one shows how the puppy is more than a formidable challenge to carry.

Here's my boy yelling 'Cheeeeeese" at me.

And here's my boy commanding the puppy to say cheese, "Tsay tcheeze puppy!!!!"

A Centering Moment

This was a hard week. We had to leave the baby for the first time for three days. And it wasn't so we could go on a fun vacation, but because Chad's grandad passed away so we made the drive to Arkansas for the services. There were other stresses this week that took me to a place of emotional anxiety and uncertainty.

That's why I was so surprised when God threw me a happy, shiny moment - and gifted me with an actual photograph of it.

We went to a park after my son's soccer game. My parents were still in town from caring for the baby, so they joined us before they had to check out of the state park and go home. Mom and Dad pulled out baseball gloves to play with my oldest and I pulled out the camera.

Let me defend my mom before continuing. She was voted Most Athletic in high school. I've seen the proof in her yearbook - so the fact that she was having some trouble getting warmed up is not an indicator of her potential!!! However, it was hilarious to her grandson - and to her.

My heart leapt as I watched them banter and laugh and play - and look at what the camera caught...


Aren't they beautiful?

I'm Twilit

I have a friend (who will remain nameless KT!!!!!) who is a very bad influence on me. Because of her, I watched nothing but Scrubs for a week (and I'm still not through, merely stuck without season 4).

This friend suggested that I read Twilight - and even loaned her copy to me. This week, I had to make an emergency trip to Arkansas, so I took the book with me on the long drive. I also took my current bible study, a parenting book, and a book about being a godly wife.

I decided to just peek at the preface of Twilight - because I had no idea what it was about. At page 48, I decided to write this blog. That was Tuesday. The next three days were a blur. How could I let a book come between me and my life so much? It became a fixture to my hand. I almost tried to figure out a way to shower with it. I feigned having to use the restroom (not number one, if you know what I mean) to sneak away with it. I felt irritation at having to stop reading for meals. I was baby free for two nights and woke up at 4:30 AM to READ instead of enjoying another uninterrupted 3 hours of sleep.

Thursday, I was happy that the book was over - happy to get my life back. Happy to give the cursed book back to KT - oops - I said no names, right?

There are three more books in this series - I might not be out here in the blog site for awhile. If I don't show up at church on Sunday, please come rescue my family from my showerless, starved, sleepless state. My children will need feeding. My plants watering...

IT'S ALIVE!!!! ALIVE!!!!!!

You may or may not remember that several posts back I wrote that I find the first few weeks of my babies' lives kind of boring. I know, I'm a bad mom, whatever...

ANYWAY!!! Tonight, my youngest woke up!!! You know what I mean by 'woke up', right? It's like a light came on inside and he decided to join us socially. He has a great crooked grin (looks just like Han Solo) and when he gets excited, he pants and sort of resembles Elaine dancing (a full body dry heave). Every once in awhile, he accidentally hits himself in the face and looks at me like, "What the heck, lady?"

Not that it's all about me, but I'm so glad we are getting a personality!

Zoo faces

When you take about 1000 pictures per event, you are bound to get a few good shots (especially when your kids are spectacularly cute). However, for those few good pictures, you have about 994 photos of the unexpected variety. What I've found is that with that number of pictures, you can usually find one or two funny themes (wide-open mouths is a favorite in my family). This week, my good friend, Megan, and I took our boys to the zoo. When going through the pictures, I saw a really, really funny 'facial expression' theme. What else are boys going to do when they are around so many animals but imitate them?

You can click on the collage and make it bigger:

And, of course, there were the cute pictures:

Why my husband is going to sleep on the couch tonight

I have a really awesome friend who brought my family spaghetti tonight for dinner. With the delicious dinner, she brought a bag of cookies. These cookies are amazing. They are in a swirl shape and they are orange, green, and purple. Fall colors - if cookies can be beautiful, these are.

So, what does this have to do with Chad being in the doghouse??? I turned to him with an amazed look on my face and I gave my friend a compliment. I said, "She's better at this stay-at-home-mom thing than I am."

What he SHOULD have said was, "Babe, you just had a baby - don't be too hard on yourself."

What he ACTUALLY said was, "Well, she only has one child and she's in her 20's."

How do you spell the sound that screeching tires make??? She's in her 20's??? Did my husband just call me old?

He backpedaled by saying, "Hey, I have less energy than I did when I was in my 20's." How do you spell the sound that a bus has running over someone???

I love him, I really, really do. That's why I'm going to miss him after I strangle him!

***No Chads were harmed in the making of this blog. Or after***

Why I love our trampoline

Nuff said...

Piece of cake

I started this blog with promises about how funny my kids are. My 8-year-old does not like to disappoint...

Small background - this has been a difficult school year for him. He's having a hard time focusing in class or completing (and sometimes even starting) his schoolwork. I know it isn't funny to his teacher, and there have been many not-so-fun days at the house because of it, but there are always some shiny moments with him that should be shared.

When I first confronted him about his conduct, he explained that he was 'being distracted in class'. OK - this is something Mom can deal with. I just needed to find out which of his fellow students was the culprit and have him moved away. When I asked who was distracting him, he responded, "My fingers are distracting me." Now, you tell me...how do I keep his fingers from distracting him?

Then, this morning, we had a heart-to-heart about his conduct and how I'd have to start enforcing some unpleasant consequences if it didn't get better. He promised to do better. As I was driving him to class, I asked, "So we are going to do better?" He replied, "Piece of cake." I said, "Great." He responded, "No, seriously, do I get a piece of cake?" I looked over at him incredulously and he was waiting with a huge grin on his face.

I love that kid.