Ryan: on Growing Up

I can't help but wonder how my family will be when my children grow up. I have had a few fun conversations with my kids where I have learned a little about how they see themselves as grown-ups.

Ryan recently told me that he wants to be an astronaut when he's a dad. He also informed me that he will drive a convertible. He said, "Actually I will need to have three long cars." I asked him why and he responded, "To hold all of my kids. I need one for me to drive, one for my mom (wife) to drive, and one for my grandma to drive." When I asked who his grandma will be he said, "You."
He says that he will have 25 children and he often tells me how he will raise them. "When I'm a dad, I will let my kids eat dessert every day." "When I'm a dad, I will tell them they can watch "Speed Racer" as many times as they want to." And so on. I sometimes finding myself saying, "But won't you love your kids? If you let them eat sugar their bodies won't be healthy. And if they watch movies all day long their brains will turn to mush. You have to take care of your kids if you love them."

I asked him once if he would still live with me when he grows up to be a dad. He told me that he won't because he will live across the ocean. I told him how sad I would be when he lives so far away from me. He promised that he'll come over every day to visit me and cook me breakfast and lunch and dinner. Pay back. Oh, and another common thing is for him to say that he wants to be a policeman because he recently found out that policemen work all night long. He realized that if he is a policeman then he won't have to go to bed at night.

He used to assume that when he is a dad and Katie is a mom, they'd be married to each other. (He thought Derek was my brother.) He now understands that he will marry a girl that is NOT his sister and he told Katie that today. "Katie, when you are a mom you won't be my wife." She said, "You will still be my brother?" Then she told me that when she's a mom, she'll have 3 babies. "That's how many babies I have," I told her. "No, you have one baby, Mom." She was telling me that she'll have triplets. "That will be hard work. I'll help you," I told her. "Yeah, I'll have three babies. But Mom, will you help me with them because I can't hold them all. I only have two hands."

Yep, I completely understand. Holy cow. I'll be a grandma one day.

PB Playdough

It really bothers me when my children wander while I shower and unfortunately, I'm not an early riser. So, today I whipped up some peanut butter playdough and our alphabet cookie cutters and let them have at it while I was getting ready.

Times like these make me grateful to live in a home with no carpet.

Check out Ryan's "Mr. Incredible" mask. He never wears the costume, but he wears the mask night and day.

He smiled at this picture because his eyes were closed. ;) He spelled his name and then "cat" but arranged them to spell "TACRYAN" and he thought he was pretty amazing for making such a long word.

The PB playdough was a great texture and didn't leave any sticky residue. Here's the recipe:
1 cup PB
1/2 cup honey
2 cups powdered sugar

Enjoy!

Try This

I managed to avoid cutting a huge lock of her hair. I just poured oil all over her hair and slowly combed it out. It took a while and definitely pulled out plenty of her hair, but at least it's not a blunt cut like it would've been. We survived that one.

One of the Many Reasons Why I Hate Gum

Ryan was chewing it in the bathtub. Opened his mouth and it fell on Katie's head. Right at her part line. About 1 cm from her scalp. Do you think I WANTED to cut it out with scissors?

Not good. Not good.

We had previously banned gum from the home. Ryan became a complete sneak about it. I often would find him with gum from under chairs/tables etc. So, I thought that maybe gum in controlled situations would be preferable to sneaking other people's already chewed gum. Apparently, the bath should not be one of those controlled places. Who knew?

A Mother Guarding Her Young

Today we were outside and I was doing spider patrol again. We have two little picnic tables outside and I had just cleaned off the big one. Katie came out with her lunch and declared that she wanted to sit at the little picnic table (which they do regularly). I told her to sit at the big one while I checked the little one for spiders. Here is what I found.

It's a young black widow (yes, the web was SUPER sticky and tough and she had the hourglass on her belly) and 6 egg sacs. I get the chills just thinking about it. They were nestled at the spot right about where the kids knees would hit.

I was previously taking one or two play structures at a time and exterminating, but this was the second black widow I found in just three days so I moved over to some power wheels cars they like to sit and play in. I turned over one and saw some webs but nothing crawling. After further investigation I found 5 black widows (of varying ages) and at least 8 brown widows, plus one egg sac on that one car. I'm telling you - I'm about spidered out. As I'm sure you are also. I won't post anymore spider stories after today. It just shows me that it's something I have to be vigilant about. What would I do if one of my kids were bitten by a black widow? Just rush them to the ER or what?

A Couple of Words From My Children

Ryan goes to speech therapy. It is for a stutter that he developed close to a year ago. He has actually improved greatly, but he also has plenty of sounds that he doesn't say right. Katie is quite a bit more articulate, so when they make the same mistakes in their speech, it surprises me somewhat. Ryan says the word "Bref-qwist" instead of Breakfast. For some reason the combination of "kf" is too much for his mouth, so he reverses them "fk." We correct him sometimes and he can say it correctly if he is concentrating. The thing that surprises me is that Katie says it exactly the same way. I think she picked up on the word from Ryan, but I wonder...

I am reminded that Ryan says "Jenniver Conference" instead of General Conference. I was surprised when I picked up his friend, William, on the way to preschool and he said it the same way. I thought Ryan mixed it up because of an association with my name. It was interesting how William said it the same way without the same association.

Well, interesting to me anyway.

Ever Heard of a Brown Widow?

A yard brings about many new things. Including spiders. I rendered a Black Widow homeless two nights ago. Not to mention lifeless. Sorry to all of you spider lovers. I have my limits.

Happy Halloween

I don't exactly enjoy blogging right now, hence the long time between posts.
However, I do have some pictures of my kids from Halloween so I might as well post them.

Millie was a little chick (we borrowed the costume from a friend.) We didn't get great pictures, but you get the idea.

She wore the costume just long enough for pictures. It was a little bit hot Halloween night.

Ryan wanted to be Spiderman and Katie borrowed a kitty costume from a friend. We moved into a new home (we are still renting) just the day before Halloween and I couldn't find their costumes anywhere. Luckily, our costume box was accessible and we grabbed these costumes as a back-up. A Power Ranger and a princess, could be worse.

We had some visitors that weekend. Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Rachelle came to visit, along with Rachelle's girls. This is Evie as a lady bug. ;)

And we got Laney in the chick costume as well. Laney and Millie are only like 6 days apart but they are COMPLETELY different shapes. Laney has a super round face and Millie's is very oblong. Anyway...

We were so happy to see some of Derek's family. It was their first time meeting Millie and they were a HUGE help with unpacking. I still have plenty of stuff to unpack from our garage, but slow and steady wins the race, right?

Retreat

Each year Derek's law firm takes us on a little weekend retreat at one of many nearby resorts. We have taken our kids along each time and it always turns out nice, even if I do end up missing out on some of the activities.

This year Derek signed up for a sailing regatta. He got to go on a sailboat and learn the ropes and then they had a race. No, his boat didn't win the race.

Here is Derek and the skipper.

I couldn't leave Millie for 8 hours, so instead I chose to attend the class where we made chocolate sculptures. It was pretty simple, but really neat at the same time. The thing that made it successful is that they have pressurized cans of liquid nitrogen or something that froze the chocolate instantly when you sprayed it on. I don't have a picture yet, but when I do, I'll post it. It was a lot of fun.

We spent the rest of the weekend swimming in the pool, eating a bunch of snacks in the Presidential Suite, and jumping on the beds. It went by too quickly. One of these times I'll have to leave my kids with someone so we can enjoy all of the activities offered.

Food Storage

Here's my first attempt at canning peaches. It turned out to be one of my favorite excuses to hang out with a good friend. Niki came over and taught me how to do it since I was completely clueless.

I ended up with 10 large jars and 15 small jars. Only 3 casualties - one broken jar and two that didn't seal. Overall, I'm SUPER happy and have caught the *canning bug*. I have lofty dreams of canning chunky applesauce, salsa, and chicken noodle soup. Food storage, here I come.