That K girl

Please reference all past blogs regarding K being naked:

It has been cold here during the day and very cold at night. At night we let the temperature go down to about 60 degrees. My kids have already been wearing warm winter pj's to bed. The other night I tried something new with K. I put socks on her first before putting on her warm footed jammies. I should have known better. For as much as she likes shoes, she hates socks (like her mommy). Around 11 pm, I snuck into each of the kiddies rooms to make sure they were covered up (I do this every night and Daddy thinks I'm crazy. It's a mom thing.) When I went in K's room--you guessed it--she had her jammies off and her onesie undone. Thankfully she still had her diaper on. She also had taken the socks off; I'm sure they were bugging her. When I touched her to start re-dressing her, she was freezing cold! I'm not sure how she even fell asleep being that cold! She didn't even have a blanket on top of her. Of course, in trying to get her jammies back on, she woke up. After she got dressed, she wanted rocked and then wanted to snuggle in bed with me for a few minutes. It was about 30 minutes later when she finally got back in her bed, all warm and cozy in her jammies. Crazy girl.

Even though it has been cold, thankfully we have not had any snow. My sister in NJ has had snow already. I think it is going to be a hard winter. That is my unofficial prediction.

C's cooking school

My poor kiddies are going to grow up not knowing how to cook or especially bake (I'm not good at either and don't like to do either). My idea of chocolate chip cookies is to buy the place and bake kind. Once C asked if he could help me make cookies. I said "sure." He said "I want to put them on the pan!" Poor guy.

Funny story about my cookies though. About 5 years ago, I cleaned house for a lady that worked with Daddy. Back then it was just C and me. We would go one day a month and C would spend a few hours in his pack and play while I cleaned. We usually brought a lunch and took a break around noon. One lunch, I brought some of these famous cookies and accidentally left one there. Next day Daddy got "grilled" on how I make my cookies. The husband had found that one cookie and ranted and raved about how good it was. He declared it as good as his grandma's. The wife wasn't too happy when she found out that they were just plain old place and bake cookies. Too funny.

The other day C helped me make brownies--you guessed it--out of the box. We did have to mix in a few ingredients. After we were done he, licked the spoons. Thought you would enjoy the results. Maybe someone will take pity on me and my kiddies and show them how chocolate chip cookies are truly made.

Taste of Home Cooking School

Saturday I went to a Taste of Home Cooking School with some friends. I was not impressed. I'm thankful the tickets only cost $10. I got there a few minutes early to look around. They had a few, and I mean a few, booths set up to look at. Then for the actual presentation. It was nothing but watching a lady (who had an awful sense of humor) make a few dishes. I can do that at home on the Food Network Channel! They did give out some nice prizes, but of course I didn't win anything. We didn't even get to taste the food! You would think that would be one of the things that you did at something like this. Or maybe there should be stations where we can try out different techniques or gadgets. I did come home with a gift bag (actually 3 of them thanks to a friend who kept going to get more--she was funnier than the Taste of Home lady). The gift bag had some recipes and coupons and 3 exclusive TOH magazines. Oh and a very small sample of Mrs. Dash. And one of my bags had a cheese cutter and a cheese knife in it. Oh and I did get a box of rice. Oh well. Lesson learned.

K's shoes

Sunday morning a friend gave me some clothes and shoes for the kiddies. She is wonderful! There was one very big bag of clothes, one Wal-Mart bag of pull-ups (nice!), and 2 Wal-Mart bags of shoes for K. She loved it! She is just like her Daddy when it comes to shoes. There were 13 pairs of shoes and she tried every single pair on at least once. Then the funny thing--there was one sandal-not a pair-a single sandal. Boy did that bug her (OCD maybe?). We saw my friend at church that night and K told her about the missing sandal. She said she would look for it. Hopefully it will be found or K will forget about it (wishful thinking).

Missions Conference

We had missions conference over the weekend. Friday night was a service, Saturday night was an International Banquet and a service, and Sunday was regular services. We had a good speaker and several missionaries to give presentations. For Sunday School we had a missionary speak. His name is Tim Smith and he is a missionary to Turkmenistan. Boy, does he have some interesting stories to tell. For about 3 years worth, he got thrown out of the country every 3 months and was told never to come back. Each time God worked and he was able to return. Very interesting to listen to. Daddy actually got to help him put together his presentation for Sunday night.

The international banquet was not as well attended as past years. I'm not sure why. I made meatballs (buy them at Wal-Mart and throw them in spaghetti sauce and "viola" Italian meatballs). Someone made a taco ring that was really good and looked easy. (Check out the next few days post to find this recipe and one other)

It was a good conference, just long. The services tend to be longer and it makes it seem like we didn't have a weekend. But college football was on Saturday and FSU played and won and so did PSU, so it was a good football weekend.

On a side note, I was in 2 year olds for Friday night's service. Those of you with kids will understand this. It is so hard to be in nursery with your own child. They are always worse when you are there. My K girl was very badly behaved. I was very close to paging Daddy to come deal with her. She did get dealt with when we got home, but never cried despite being spanked. She is going to be the stubborn one.

Mr. Literal

My blog-savy friend is an elementary teacher. She has a little boy in her class that she calls Mr. Literal. When she says "The light is turning on"--meaning they are starting to understand--he looks at the lights.

My son is our Mr. Literal. Case and point: He is presently listening to Steven Curtis Chapman's song called "Dive" Its lyrics are referring to taking a leap of faith and "diving in." My C wanted to know what the song meant. I didn't even try to explain because I know exactly what he would say. "But Mommy we really aren't going to dive into anything, are we?"

Later he asked me if I had ever seen the Disney movie Aristocats. Me: "No why?" Him: "Ya know that song in the movie--'everybody wants to be a cat.' I don't want to be a cat. Why do they sing that?"

Anytime we use a "saying" (ants in your pants, bouncing off the walls) he wants to know what it means. Most of the time our answer is "It's just a saying." It's just easier that way.

He also has been asking deep medical questions lately. Sunday he wanted to know "why we have fingernails." Today it was "why do boys have titties?" My answer? That's just how God made us.

Compass the praying mantis

My kids were outside yesterday playing. It was beautiful! They found a praying mantis on one of our patio chairs. They spent quite a bit of time just watching it. So I decided to take a picture of them and it. They are kind of cool insects. Listening to them while they were watching this bug, I found out that they had named it Compass. Not quite sure why. But oh well. At least they are learning about nature. The pictures of the kids are from Saturday while Daddy was mowing the grass. K made her own riding lawn mower. Pretty smart of her. (She was being a grump and didn't really want her picture taken.) The other pix is just a good pix of C. My kiddies are cute.

Dorothy Nemo

Remember back in the summer, the class that C had on Wednesday nights? The one that we bought a cricket for? Well the teacher for that class got each of the kids a small goldfish to bring home. How nice of her (very sarcastic). Well that fish got named Dorothy (Elmo's fish) by C and Nemo by K. So thus--Dorothy Nemo. Well just like any pet, who took care of it???? ME!!!!!!!!! I fed the thing and changed its water. K sometimes would sit on the counter and talk to it, but C never did anything with it. This is all background to the following story.

Last week I was once again changing the water for the fish. I put fresh water in a bowl and poured the fish into it. I then poured the stinky water out of the fish bowl and filled it up with fresh water. I then went to put the fish back into his bowl, using a fish net--when he jumped out of the bowl, missed the net and went down the drain--the side with the garbage disposal. I squealed! I started to put my hand down in there to get it out but couldn't bring myself to do it. I can't stomach the thought of touching a squirmy fish with my hands!

Of course, C ran over and asked what happened. When I told him, he ran off and started crying. Meanwhile, I was afraid that the fish would clog my pipes so I turned on the disposal. :) I know, I know. I did NOT tell C that part. I actually told him that the fish could probably swim down the pipes and would be OK. In fact he probably was in the pond behind our house making new friends.

At first I was kinda mad at C for crying over a fish that he never had anything to do with. But then I saw how upset he was and felt bad, so I comforted him. He cried for about 20 minutes over that dumb fish. Then dumb me suggested that we get a new fish. Daddy looked at me like I was crazy when I told him that part.

As of today, C has not said anything more about getting a new fish and I am not going to suggest it. I even put the empty fish bowl away out of sight. Maybe he will forget (wishful thinking, I know). So that is the story of how we are once again----pet-less.

How to schedule a post

I have a few friends (don't laugh Sissy) that were interested in how to schedule a post. So I asked another friend. :) (I have many friends.) I thought I would put the info here for others and so I would always know where the info was. Isn't that smart of me? :) And I"m actually going to schedule this to post to see if it works.

When you are in the "create" tab and have finished typing your post, there is a blue link at the bottom (near the area for labels) that says, Post Options. Click that. That drops down a section that has Reader Comments on the left and Post date and time on the right. You can change the date and time to what ever you want. Then click, "Publish Post". In your post list (you can check that by clicking the "Edit Post" tab) the post should appear with the word, "scheduled" in italics red at the top of the list.

Kids say the darndest things

I've been trying to remember a few things that the kids have said lately. So I thought I'd put them here for others to enjoy as well.

As you may know, we have been trying to potty train K. It has not gone so well. Every time she does anything in her pull-up, we'll tell her "K don't pee in your pull-up" Her answer is "I willn't Mommy" Instead of "I won't" it's "I willn't" Cute.

A few weeks ago after we had grilled out for dinner, there were quite a few flies inside. The kids and Daddy chased them around with the fly swatter. C later said, "Daddy wouldn't it be nice if there was an automatical fly swatter?" Automatical????

Just a few minutes ago, I was scrubbing some spots out of our carpet with Resolve carpet granules (love those things). C said "Mommy why are you getting rid of the spots? I like them." Me: "why?" C said: "Cuz they are pretty stones Mommy." Trust a child to see the beautiful in ugly carpet spots.

Jack 'o lanterns

We usually don't do Halloween with the kids (dress up or trick or treat). We don't have a major reason--we just don't do it. I don't have the money to buy candy to give out and I don't have the money to buy costumes every year (although I'll buy them on sale after Halloween to use for dress up). Anyway. All that to say, this year I wanted to carve pumpkins. I would call it more of a fall or harvest activity. So Saturday afternoon, Daddy went to the store and got 2 pumpkins and a little carving knife. We let the kids draw what they wanted cut out. K had alot of help, but I let C go for it on his own. Thus the hair on the front of his pumpkin. He thought we would be able to carve out the hair. Daddy then carved the tops off and I scooped everything out and then Daddy carved the faces. I think they turned out cute. C said he didn't like his and he should have let me do it. But I told him, "But that's what's fun about doing this--everyone's is different just like everyone is different." I think he felt a little better but not totally. Poor guy. I think it's cute. It's unique, just like he is. Later that night I put candles in them and we put them on the front porch. I think they look so cute! The kids were so proud of them. And we had so much fun doing them! Maybe something we will try to do every year. Here are some pictures to help you visualize the story.

Harvest Festival

This morning we went to a little harvest festival at the apple orchard down the street--the one we were supposed to go to for our field trip. It was as warm and sunny today as it was damp and cool on Wednesday. Oh well.

There really isn't much at this festival but Daddy wanted cider and I wanted apple butter and honey. There is always a tent there sponsored by Answers in Genesis and they have a huge dinosaur and a model of Noah's Ark. It's really cool to look at. We were only there about an hour but we got some cute pictures of the kids. That's one of the main reasons that I like to go. The pumpkins and mums make a pretty background. We came home with cider, apple butter, honey, a big pumpkin, some little pumpkins/gourds, and some peanuts. YUM!

Here are some pictures of my cute kiddies.

Catch-up

It's been a few days and a few things have happened so I need to play catch-up.

C used to do his school upstairs in our room every day. Due to some very poor choices on his part (loooong stories), for the next few weeks he has to do school downstairs in the living room where I can keep a close eye on him. He'll be down here until he can prove that we can trust him upstairs by himself. Needless to say, it has been hard to keep K from bugging him or being too loud, etc. School just got harder for me. All this happened Thursday and Friday of last week. So all that to say, I haven't had as much computer time cuz I'm trying to entertain K.

Last Saturday we took the kids to the "big" park and played for awhile. We took a walk on one of the nature trails and the kids collected leaves to bring home. That afternoon I put out all my fall decorations and used the leaves as fillers. I think it looks nice.

Sunday was church. Monday was Wal-Mart day. Tuesday we did a little bit of nothing around here.

Wednesday we had a field trip planned for a local apple orchard. We were going to take a tour of the orchard and the barn and the kids were going to get to pick an apple. Then we were going to have a picnic lunch and then do a hayride to the pumpkin patch where the kids were going to get to pick a pumpkin. Well, it rained so we had to cancel the field trip. Since my kids were already dressed for the outside and I had the lunch packed, we went back to the same "big" park and met some friends and played for a little. All the slides were VERY wet and it was a little cool, but I think they had fun anyway. It was nice to get out of the house. I'm going to try to re-schedule the field trip for later.

Thursday was my birthday. Yeah! My brother sent me an e-card that said "Happy Sweet Sixteen or multiple thereof" Exactly. We had Panera bagels for breakfast and went to McAlister's for lunch. Dinner was at Red Robin and then we went shopping for a little. I had opened presents Wednesday night after AWANA cuz we weren't sure how long we would be out shopping. My biggest present every year is the ESPN college football game plan so we can watch FSU play more often. Then the kids got me a new book (K.Kingsbury's Sunset), a new CD (Casting Crowns) and a fall-smelling candle. The book was good, I really like the CD, and the candle smells yummy! After we shopped, we came home and had some birthday cookie. I ate WAY too much yesterday! Oh well. Your birthday only comes once a year.

Today I must do some cleaning. Kinda slow going when your 2 year old wants to help and you have to keep a close eye on your 5 year old. Oh well. It's Friday!

AWANA

My mother has asked me for pictures of the kids in their AWANA uniforms. So I thought I'd post the pictures. Yes Mom, I will send them to you too. :)

C just got his vest last night. K's uniform is actually just a T-shirt. I took a close up picture of the logo so that you could see it. Isn't it cute?