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Sunday, May 31, 2009

Overheard: The Dog Edition

I've said before that Grace doesn't merely listen to books; she devotes some serious time to memorizing them and listens closely enough to know immediately if you are paraphrasing the words. (Right, Jason?) In fact, if I sit down at any moment during the day, even if I'm in the middle of doing something, Grace will usually appear within seconds with a book in her hand.

Seriously. I have been in the middle of changing the vacuum cleaner bag when she appeared with a stack of 5 books for me to read to her.

So, it should come as no surprise that these things have been overheard recently while Josiah was reading aloud from Henry and Mudge books.

Josiah: Henry had no brothers and no... [pauses]

Grace [whispering, as though she's prompting him]: Sistas.

Josiah: ...Sisters.

~~

Josiah: He ran upstairs. He ran... [pauses]

Grace [whispering]: Down.

Josiah: ...Back down.

Well, at least we know he's not just guessing the words!



~~~~~

Josiah [waking late at night because he was thirsty, and talking as though he's in the middle of a conversation with his Daddy]: ...And a big dog is better at hide-and-seek, 'cause a big dog can just get up on something high up and see where you are.

~~~~~

Grace [looking in the window of a pet store after lunch today]: Awww! Dat puppy is sad! He wants me.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

It's been a big month for her


Jo-Lynne at Musing of a Housewife hosts a blog carnival called "What I Learned This Week."
Soooo...What have I learned this week?

I have learned that I have an extremely resilient daughter.

Within the span of two weeks, Grace has:

1. Gotten stitches.
2. Spent her first night (actually, two) without me when I went to the Women of Joy conference.
3. Potty trained.
4. Moved out of her crib and into a toddler bed.
5. Moved out of our bedroom and into her brother's room.

And those last two happened simultaneously. Poor kid!

Grace has taken it all in stride, though, with only a little extra clingyness. And she is really excited about sleeping in Josiah's room...even if she's sleeping in a blue racecar bed:

Pretending to sleep
~~~~~

I forgot to tell y'all the funniest thing Grace said at the start of potty training! The very first time she successfully used the potty, with absolutely no prompting whatsoever (aka "Do you need to go to the potty now? What about now? What about now?"), she grinned, looked up at me, and triumphantly said,

"Now I can become a Mommy."
(She was totally serious.)
~~~~~

Head on over to Musings of a Housewife to see what others have learned this week!

Click here to see what else I’ve learned in other weeks.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Wordless Wednesday: Swinging


I should state for the record that Grace was swinging herself! This was probably right after I'd already told her to sit down and slow down. I love how her hair is flying!

Visit 5 Minutes for Mom or Wordless Wednesday for more Wordless Wednesday participants.

~~~~~

Click here to see my previous Wordless Wednesday posts.


Friday, May 22, 2009

Overheard: The Potty Training Edition

Grace [breathlessly, after running inside from the back yard]: I was runnin' like a lion was chasin' me!


And, yes, she made it to the potty in time. She hasn't had an accident yet, now that she resolved to stay in underwear!


~~~~~

Robert [in disbelief]: She's going to the bathroom again? She just went five minutes ago!

~~~~~

Grace: Mommy!!! Help!!! I'm stuck!

I found her at the bathroom sink, standing on the step stool and stretched out too far to move. She had pushed herself away from the sink rather than pushing the faucet handle to turn the water on...She's that light! Sometimes she can manage to turn on the water by herself, but she still needs help often.


~~~~~

Grace [as we returned to the table at Luigi's after visiting the restroom...again]: Are dey done with da pizza already?!


No, Jason Slade and the boys hadn't eaten without us--we still had not gotten our pizza. But please remind me...how long does the phase last where we must visit every public restroom at least once?

Thursday, May 21, 2009

You Capture: Sweet

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This week’s theme of the You Capture blog carnival hosted by Beth over at I Should Be Folding Laundry is Sweet.

Easy. :)
A sweet princess holding her baby bear:

Saturday night was spent at a Casting Crowns concert at the Women of Joy conference in Charleston, South Carolina. Sweet!

Josiah reading a Henry and Mudge book to Grace (and she's ready with another one):



And my favorite picture of the week...Grace potty training herself. ;) Whoo hoo!!



I've been hearing for years that girls are easier than boys to potty train...and let me just say, I was due for an easy child to potty train. And she has been easy! I still have her in a diaper at night because I like my sleep, but she's completely dry, completely taking herself to the potty, during the day. Way to go, Grace!
Check out I Should Be Folding Laundry for more You Capture participants.

~~~~~
Click here to see my previous You Capture photos.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

You Capture: Color


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This week’s theme of the You Capture blog carnival hosted by Beth over at I Should Be Folding Laundry is Color.

Colorful sunsets from my back yard:




A beautiful glowing sky over my church:



Grace with her red, red lips after eating a red popsicle the nurse gave her at the end of her ER visit because, as the nurse said, "She deserved it!" after a total of eight stitches:


Grace's beautiful blue eyes, delicate pink lips, and peaches-and-cream complexion:




All week I had been trying to get this kind of picture from Grace. I finally succeeded when I took a picture of her with her bandage off...that's why I cropped it so closely for the blog. :)


Purple is my favorite color, especially those in-between shades that are nearly blue:


Check out I Should Be Folding Laundry for more You Capture participants.

Click here to see my previous You Capture photos.

Happy birthday, Robert!

We recently celebrated Robert's twelfth birthday.

How did he get to be twelve?! It wasn't that long ago that he looked like this:

One day old. See those feet? They're bigger than mine now...


Proud Daddy!

One year old

He requested pizza for lunch, and then refused to pose. This is the typical photo I get of him these days:


He wanted pizza again for supper (Chuck E. Cheese...groan). We successfully avoided that by suggesting that if we went to Quizno's instead, we would have time to drive over to H.H. Gregg for a touchscreen MP3 player he has been saving for several months to buy. Quizno's won!



Don't feel sorry for him--He didn't mind too much...Robert loves Quizno's. Plus, the store owner gave all three kids free cookies when he found out it was Robert's birthday.


And the birthday boy bought his touchscreen MP3 player.

The cake, with way too many candles on it:



You counted them, didn't you? :)


"Happy birthday to you!"



The gift!




He had his first guitar lesson the very next day. When he came home, he practiced in the garage for hours. :)

Happy birthday, Robert!

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Wordless Wednesday: Girls just want to have fun

...But eventually they have to sleep, too.





Visit 5 Minutes for Mom or Wordless Wednesday for more Wordless Wednesday participants.

~~~~~

Click here to see my previous Wordless Wednesday posts.

Monday, May 11, 2009

Mother's Day

Note: There are no graphic photos in this post. That assurance will make more sense once you start reading. :)


This Mother’s Day, I got a bouquet of yellow flowers from Robert,

a purple vase from Josiah, and a trip to the Emergency Room for Grace.

After church, we came home for a light lunch with plans to go to Smokey Bones for an early supper. We had barely finished lunch when Grace fell. She apparently tripped in her flip-flops and fell against the bottom part of the fireplace, hitting her forehead on the vertical tile surface (As far as we know, she did not hit the edge). She ran to me, I scooped her up, and we sat with an ice pack that one of the boys had immediately brought for her. I knew she was bleeding and checked to see how bad it was; it was a deep gash. We quickly headed to the ER…

And waited…

And waited…

And Grace was no longer crying but was pale and quiet. She stopped bleeding by the time we got to the ER, which was really good considering that she did not want the ice pack on. (Note to self: Have plenty of clean rags on hand to change out the ice pack cover. She was not freaked out at all by the blood, but absolutely despised the thought of having a bloody cloth on her…”Dirty!” Also, a small supply of gum would be handy.) She was, however, comforted with the leaves I picked for her outside the ER entrance. (She has a thing for leaves.)

We finally saw the triage nurse, whose presence somehow reenergized Grace to the point where she was her chatty self again. Her color came back, and her temperature (which was below normal when the triage nurse took it) came back up to normal. The triage nurse assured us we were on the “Fast Track” since Grace had a gaping wound.

“Fast Track” stills means waiting a total of four hours.

Once we got in a room, the nurse asked Grace why she was there. Grace, being her chatty self again, told her she had a boo boo on her forehead, “but it’s all bettah now” since it wasn’t hurting. The nurse looked at it, said, “That’s pretty deep--She’s definitely going to need stitches,” and set up the suture kit for the nurse practitioner. (Waiting.) The nurse practitioner came in, looked at Grace’s forehead, and said, “Maybe we can glue it. I’ll go get the doctor.” (Waiting.) The doctor came in, looked at Grace’s forehead, gave orders for something that would numb the area as well as stop the bleeding, and said they could glue it. (Waiting for the numbing gel to be mixed.) The doctor put the numbing gel on with a soaked cotton ball, taped it in place, and we waited for the numbness. (Waiting…)

I have never been so glad in my entire life that a child knew how to play “I Spy.” And to sing the alphabet song. And to count. And to generally be easy to keep happy and entertained.

Grace eagerly awaiting the prospect of chewing the gum I promised she could have once we were told we could go home.

And I was also glad that the Arnold Swartzeneger movie was off in the waiting room and a considerably more tame movie was on in its place, since that’s where the boys were hanging out with Jason Slade.

The first time the doctor came in to see Grace, he remarked, “She is a tigress. I can just tell.” Grace indignantly replied, “I not a tiger. Tigers are yellow, and I not yellow.” He laughed.

I believe she proved his point right there.

And he was going to find out how much tiger there was in that sweet little girl. It took the nurse practitioner holding her head, a nurse holding her legs and an arm, and me holding the arm closest to me to hold her down…and she still put up quite a good fight to get loose.

I saw a side of Grace I had never seen before. She was furious. She was full of rage. Her face was red and she was screaming at us with everything she had in her.

She was like a tiny red Hulk dressed in pink.

She would have given Jack-Jack a run for his money.

She continuously yelled at us, “LET! ME! GO! EVERYBODY LET GO OF ME! I WANT YOU TO GO AWAY!”

She pulled my hair (I was so close and she couldn’t move, so it didn’t hurt). She pulled my shirt. She pulled the nurse’s shirt. And she loudly announced each of these moves with her hoarse voice.

But, really, I think I could handle the raging Grace getting stitches much better than I could have handled a sobbing Grace getting stitches.

Once the doctor put in the subcutaneous sutures, he said that she was bleeding too much (with all of her screaming and all of the blood rushing to her head) for the glue to be an option. So he finished up with the outer sutures while Grace continued to yell at us and thrash around with three adults holding her. She was a tired, sweaty mess when it was all over. She was upset that “the nurse took off my flip-flops.” (They had fallen to the floor during the suturing scuffle.) She was disgusted by the little bit of blood on the sheet of the exam table. And she was more than ready to leave.

Since Grace was doing so well, we decided to try going to Smokey Bones for supper, even though we would be hitting the evening rush at 6:00 p.m. We waited only 30 minutes, and Grace ate heartily. She ate a good bit of BBQ and broccoli, and ate nearly as many onion rings as I did.

Today, Grace is still pain-free and doing very well. I have been overly protective with her but her injury hasn’t slowed her down one bit.

Running in the back yard, helping Josiah water flowers.

We changed her bandage tonight and she was fascinated with the Steri-Strips (since she can’t see the sutures). Earlier today, she said “Dis is not a big boo boo,” and she still maintains that. I asked her what a big boo boo would be, and she said that it would be big if it were on her knee. She’s a tough kid! And I'm so thankful that it all ended as well as it did--she is pain-free, unbothered by the wound's presence, and is satisfied that "the doctor fixed me up!"

So, how was your Mother’s Day? I need to hear some good stories!

Thursday, May 7, 2009

What I learned this week


Jo-Lynne at Musing of a Housewife hosts a blog carnival called "What I Learned This Week." I occasionally join in...you know, during weeks when I've actually learn something.

Oh, I joke.

Soooo...What have I learned this week?

KJ-52 is pronounced "K J five two," and the KJ part stands for "King" and "Jonah" (Jonah is his first name, and "King" and "Jonah" refer to his previous rap moniker...like I know what I'm saying...) and the "five two" part stands for the five loaves and two fish.

I'm older than KJ-52.

I will Google strange things, even artists I'm mildly curious about after seeing them on JCTV, when I am confined to a recliner while propping my leg up for hours on end. (JCTV is a Christian music video channel that we now get thanks to the digital converter box. We may never get to watch NBC after it goes "all digital," but hey, we get this new station that is a favorite of Robert and Josiah. Clearly, it's a fair trade.)

I'm younger than Toby Mac. Oh, wait--I already knew that. I'm just trying to make myself feel a little better about being older than KJ-52.

Wait! Don't click away! How about this one...

The Herodium mountain is a man made mountain that King Herod had moved, bucket by bucket, to build his palace-fortress. (Go here and here to see photos of Herodium; go here and here to read about Herodium.) This is likely to be the mountain that Jesus referred to in Matthew 17:20, when He said, "...if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."

Bucket by bucket...not "snap your fingers and it will happen." Hmmmm...

Visit Musing of a Housewife to see what others have learned this week! I can almost guarantee no one else will mention KJ-52 or Toby Mac.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

You Capture: Expression

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This week’s theme of the You Capture blog carnival hosted by Beth over at I Should Be Folding Laundry is Expression. There is a lot of drama expression that goes on around here, so where do I begin?

There is the sweet expression of my six year old:


There is our resident Cyndi Lauper performing an interpretative dance to the music coming out of a dancing bear my Dad brought us:



And the expression of absolute joy and sillyness:



And then there's the expression of happiness on my twelve year old's face as he saw his birthday present (an electric guitar!):



But can you imagine the expression on my face when I saw this in our front yard today?

I haven't yet found out what kind of snake that is...Should we be worried about this little guy? I'm hoping he's a garter snake...and that he leaves our yard quickly! :)
Check out I Should Be Folding Laundry for more You Capture participants.

Wordless Wednesday: Fiery Sunset

The progression of a sunset...





Visit 5 Minutes for Mom or Wordless Wednesday for more Wordless Wednesday participants.

~~~~~

Click here to see my previous Wordless Wednesday posts!

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

And now Chicken and Waffles makes a little sense to me

We have a Chicken & Waffles restaurant near the mall and, nearly every time, we poke fun at this strange combination as we drive by it.

But I have now eaten chicken and waffles in the same meal. Why? Desperation. There was nothing else I could come up with for breakfast besides toast last Thursday morning. We were out of cereal, eggs, and even the oatmeal that the kids like that I can’t stand the smell of. But we did have some leftover Zaxby’s chicken fingers and some frozen waffles. (Thank you, Jay and Byron! I betcha didn’t think you’d be feeding us breakfast, too!) It was tasty, even as it was a bit strange to have it all on the same plate.

I was mighty glad to eat cereal the next morning.

And I will be mighty glad when I can totally leave the Ace bandage behind and stay on my feet all day.

Yeah, I’m totally joking about the last part…but it would be nice to be able to do that. Especially considering that I’m less than two weeks away from going to my very first women’s conference, Women of Joy, in Charleston, S.C. A group of 11 women from my church will be going, and a former church member who moved to S.C will be meeting us there. It will be the first time I have ever stayed away from the kids overnight without dressing in a hospital gown and bringing home a new baby. It would be icing on the cake to be able to get around comfortably.


Wanna see what the cake is?

Kirk Cameron (Speaker: Friday p.m.)
Nancy Leigh DeMoss (Speaker: Saturday a.m.)
Chonda Pierce (Speaker: Saturday a.m.)
Casting Crowns (Concert: Saturday p.m.)
Angela Thomas (Speaker: Sunday a.m.)
Charles Billingsley (Worship Leader)


When Jason Slade heard that Casting Crowns was going to be there, he offered to be my roommate and wear a wig. ;) I don't think the other ladies would go for it, though...

I can't wait!!

Monday, May 4, 2009

Our Littlest Bookworm

When Uncle Tom and Aunt Ellen came to visit last week, Aunt Ellen found out what happens these days if a woman sits down in our living room.

Grace chose a stack of books, sat down beside Aunt Ellen, and plopped them in Aunt Ellen’s lap. Sweet little Grace then demanded that Aunt Ellen read every book to her.



And I read the exact same stack of books the next morning after eating my cereal for breakfast. (Well, at least Grace let me finish my breakfast, right?)

When she gets a new book from the library, she sits down with me and asks me to read it to her. At the end of the book, she flips back to the first page and says, "Read it 'gain. I don't know it yet."

She's completely serious. She doesn't merely enjoy books; she absorbs them. She loves the words, and she loves the illustrations.

And you'd better read all of the words, because if you don't, she knows. And she will correct you. Just ask Jason Slade.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Overheard

Josiah: Daddy, do you know what I really want for my birthday?

Jason Slade: A Little Mermaid bike.

Josiah [pauses to stare at his father and remains surprisingly calm]: No.

Jason Slade: A Barbie skateboard.

Josiah [crosses his arms over his chest, still surprisingly calm, and deadpans]: You’ve lived with me for 6 years and you don’t know me at all.

~~~~~

Grace [happily]: Robert and Josiah are my fav’rite brudders!

Jason Slade: Am I your favorite Daddy?

Grace [hesitates uncertainly]: Who’s da udder Daddy?

~~~~~

Most mornings, I let Grace have her “TV time” while I take a shower. Her brothers usually watch with her and, therefore, try to steer her away from picking something like a Little Mermaid DVD. This time, however, Robert was apparently on auto-pilot and mistakenly said what he always says when someone asks “What‘s for supper?”

Me: Grace, what do you want to watch while I’m in the shower?

Robert [fake sneezes]: Quizno’s! [stammering as he realizes his error] Wait--no--

Grace [completely serious]: No, I don’t wanna watch Quizno’s. I want to watch Pooh.

~~~~~

What do you get when you pretend to play soccer with a volleyball?

Tennis leg.

Along with an estimated recovery time of 2-3 weeks for a minor tear. I'm guessing it'll be closer to the 3 week mark since either Josiah or Grace accidentally hurt me somehow every day. :(