Happy Mudder's Day! (as my children say it)

My darling girls spent the last couple of days at my parent's house and it was just wonderful! Don't get me wrong; I love having them around. But it was a nice break. When I went to pick them up they had these beautiful Mother's Day gifts they had made.

I love flowers and wish they could last longer.

Today Ethan told me that for Mother's Day I could choose something to do at a spa! I'm so excited. I've never done anything -- I didn't even get a manicure for our wedding. I don't really even know what to do. I think a massage sounds like a good idea but I may never want to move again! Anybody know of a good place to go?

Okay, as you can see I still don't know much about posting pictures. I have no idea how to rotate the one above or even remove it, so I guess it's there. One of these days (like when the kids are grown) I'll learn how to do some of this stuff!

Am I Martha Stewart?

Okay, the answer to that question is definitely NO! But, I am pleased to say that the kids and I have been somewhat crafty lately. The girls and I enjoyed making these lovely bracelets the other day. Emmie's actually does spell her name, while Allison's is more of a random jumble of letters. (She knows how to spell her name but she chose to do something different, of course.)

I've also been tired of serving the same old snacks every day after nap, so . . . .

I know these look weird. But they are bananas rolled in hot fudge, dipped in nuts and coconut, and then frozen. They taste good (if you like bananas) but the best part was in the making of them. The kids were very messy!

We need more snack ideas if anyone has some good ones. We usually just have string cheese, apples, trail mix, crackers, and so on. I know the girls are looking forward to more adventures in the kitchen!

Last night the girls and I were lucky enough to get in to see "Beauty and the Beast" at the last minute. It was free and we found out about it just a few hours before. It was awesome, but we had to leave at intermission because Allie was falling asleep. Surprisingly, Em was wide awake (and shaking her pigtails like mad to the music). The actors and actresses all were amazing vocalists.

I worried the girls might be afraid during the scene with the wolves but they seemed to do just fine. They loved Mrs. Potts and Chip and Lumiere and all the rest of the characters in the castle. I was just happy to see Be Our Guest before we left.

So my question for any readers today is . . . what plays/musicals have you been to and what was your favorite?

That's a first

Has anyone else ever heard their child say, "You're not being my mommy anymore!" ? Well, now I can join the club. That's what Allie told me yesterday after she got in trouble for locking her sister in our bedroom. She's going through a weird phase that I can't figure out. She seems to want to find something to be grumpy about. Another example; today she started playing the piano and I said, Oh, are you playing a song for me?" She just looked at me and frostily replied, "No, I'm playing a song for GOD."

Well.

On the lighter side, she did say something funny about some cute identical twins at church. We passed them in the hall tonight and she said hi. After they had passed she explained out loud, "I have so much trouble remembering J. and B.'s names because they are so twinny." What a goof.

She "just wanted it to be natural and beautiful!"

My mother-in-law shared some news with me Saturday night that I hadn't heard yet. Apparently the birthing center where I had Ryan has been in the news for a "tragic miscommunication" that resulted in a woman giving birth BY HERSELF in the driveway of the establishment. At night . . . in the cold. I feel so bad for that woman. And I am so very grateful that didn't happen to us. One thing I couldn't understand in the story was that the woman couldn't get her husband to wake up to take her. Hello! Your wife is having a baby! That guy is unbelievable.

If this had happened to us I would probably be pretty upset. The thing is, our experience was really great. I do feel bad for the lady who owns and operates the place because I know she really loves what she does and cares about the women who come in. I'm sure this was absolutely devastating for her. We didn't choose a birthing center for any other reason than the fact that we didn't have insurance, but in the end I really felt like it was a good decision.

A Day to Relax

With the weather being so dreary today I tried to lift our moods by taking the kids to the library. We had a fun surprise when we saw the only other patrons; a mom and her two girls we met at the park several weeks ago. The girls, Madelyn and Noella, are the same ages as Allison and Emily. We had swapped numbers and intended to get together soon, but with sickness and everything it hadn't happened yet. The kids played for a while and I visited with Mari, their mom.

I let the girls each pick out a movie before we left. Allie picked a My Little Pony movie and Emmie picked one call "Woof" or something like that. I guess it's about a boy that turns into a dog. She loves dogs so her choice wasn't surprising.

We were supposed to have carpet installed in our bedroom today and I was REALLY looking forward to it, but apparently they rolled out the carpet and discovered they were a few inches short. They actually noticed after they laid down the pad, so now we have a living room full of furniture that we don't want to move back into the bedroom. It will be another week before the right sized carpet is in.

Just when I think my little girl is starting to become a lady she does something that completely takes me by surprise. After we came home from the library today she asked me if I noticed that she had a different shirt on. "No," I replied, "why's that?"
"Well, I wiped a booger on my last shirt and didn't want to wear it to the library".

Gross. (I guess I can at least be grateful that she changed!)

We went to discipleship this afternoon, but other than that it was just a good day for coloring, reading, and hanging out.

And the winner is...THE CAVE!!!

There’s no cool way to sprain your ankle. A few years ago I did it playing street hockey. Really nasty sprain. I was on crutches for a week and out of the hockey business for almost a year. At least I was doing something…manly.

Last Friday night I was with some friends in Mountain Home to tackle the treacherous Smith’s Crack, an underground adventure similar to a cave except more vertical. Lots of climbing. Ok, it is a cave. Whatever. In any case, I’d like to skip ahead and tell you that the net result of Friday evening was a re-sprain of that hockey ankle. That way you could assume I once again achieved injury through acts of manliness. But alas, I must be truthful and admit that the sprain happened as I was jogging across the field to take a picture of the cave opening. That’s right, laugh it up chuckleheads. There was no rock to trip over, no hidden hole to catch my wayward foot, no obstacle or hindrance of any kind. Just me, tripping over nothing.

As I lay there on the cold Mountain Home dirt, wiggling like a drowning earthworm and squealing like an angry toddler, it occurred to me that this development might somewhat hinder my ability to navigate the cave. But just then the second car full of eager would-be spelunkers arrived cheerily honking their horn and waving. Uh oh. Brandon brought his girlfriend and her sister. That’s right, a couple of teenage girls were about to brave the cave while I sat in the car nursing my little boo-boo.

So now I have a dilemma. Should I play it smart and take care of my injury, or be a man and do the most idiotic thing imaginable by attempting the cave with a badly sprained ankle? Are you kidding? Have you met me? You really think I’d do the smart thing? I was going into that cave if it killed me! Now where did I put that bottle of Extra-Strength Tylenol…

There are few pains 2000 mg of Extra-Strength Tylenol can’t cure. With my combination of a near-deadly dose of acetaminophen and a very tightly knotted pair of climbing boots, I put all my tough-guy acting skills in action and began picking my way down the first few drops.

Fast forward about an hour, and we had reached the turn-around point. It didn’t used to be the turn-around point. A few years and 35 pounds ago, it was just a tight spot to crawl through. Now it’s a turn-around point. Any obstacle nicknamed the “birth canal” is an obstacle not meant for those approaching or in excess of 30 years of age. A few of the under-100-pound club decided to try squeezing through before starting the climb back up. They made it, and wondered why we fat old men made it sound so hard.

With my first overdose of Tylenol wearing off and my second and incredibly more dangerous overdose beginning to take effect, I bid farewell to the group and started the return climb alone. As luck would have it, once separated by about 30 feet of rock I was acoustically isolated from the rest of the group. That meant I couldn’t hear them, no matter how loud they yelled. That also meant they couldn’t hear me. Not that I had any reason to yell. I was simply conversing with the cave. I was telling the cave how angry I was with it, you know, a sort of scream-fest for the solo climber. After all, the cave was inflicting a great deal of pain on my ankle, so I figured the cave had it coming.

Aside from the predictable overreactions from both wife and mother, my ankle is already well on its way to once again supporting my weight. I will spare you all periodic wellness updates because, well, I’m quite positive nobody cares. But I’ll be sure to let you know the next time I do something incredibly stupid. Should be any time now…