Let's not say 'stupid'...

Meagan overheard someone saying 'stupid' the other day. She said to me, "We don't say 'stupid'. We don't say 'shut up'. We say 'shoot!' "

That darn cat!

Sometimes I really hate my cat. My mother-in-law went to use my ironing board this morning, and found that the cat had been up there (where she's not supposed to be in the first place!) and had puked all over a dress I was making for Bethany. Grrr! What is it that makes her do that? The vet couldn't even tell me why. It's tapered off quite a bit, but the few times it still happens, it's really irritating. I just really hope that when we move, I can have a room I can put all my sewing in where I can just and lock the door against kids and cats, and my projects can be left in peace, or piece, as the case may be.

Random/funny pictures

This post is full of random or funny pictures that I love, but don't really need a whole post of their own.

I was running late for church again today, and decided to just take Sean in his pajamas. My friend said he looked like a jailbird.

Meagan put this toy ring on Sean's head the other day and declared that he was a princess.

The girls' new toybox is getting a lot of use as a hiding place.

Bethany wanted to play the Wii the other day, and I told her she could if she cleaned up all the toys downstairs first. This is how she did it.

Sean is getting so big! He's standing up in his exersaucer now for short periods.

Sean's really not too fond of his rice cereal.

I wish Sean would take a pacifier, but he really prefers to just suck on his fist, or his arm. He sucks hard enough that he gives himself hickeys.

I picked up this gallon of milk in the skim milk (pink lid/label) section a week or so ago. When I started to pour it, though, it was a bit thicker than I was expecting. I looked at it more, and saw that it was really 2% milk, just with the wrong color of lid, and in the wrong section. Bizarre.

Sean and his cousin Becca, who is two months older than him.

Bethany built this circular train track all by herself. It looks pretty cool.

Who needs toys when you can gnaw on the post?

Meagan's drawing of an airplane.

Meagan has the biggest, prettiest eyes. But, that's not why I took this picture. She was holding the leash of one of her grandma's dogs (a German shepherd), and got pulled over. She scraped up her chin pretty good.

Meagan found this when we were out for a walk. She called it her "butterfly leaf."

I was hearing hilarious laughter downstairs, and came down to find the girls playing in the entertainment center. It blows my mind that they can even fit in those cupboards.

Meagan was watching TV on our little TV in the guest room. Nate's mom was visiting at the time, so the futon was made up. Meagan decided to wrap up in the pillowcase from one of her pillows.

The girls were painting with watercolors, when Meagan decided to paint her arm. I cleaned her off and told her not to do it again, or she'd be done painting. Next thing I know, she'd painted her mouth black.

Sean looks so comfortable in the bumbo seat we borrowed. Too bad he didn't enjoy it long term.

Father/son naptime. How cute.

I was sewing when Meagan climbed up in my chair and squirmed in behind me. When I got up several minutes later, I found that she'd falled asleep back there.

If you look closely, you can see that Meagan's made a hamburger bun/cantelope sandwich. Sounds weird? It's not as bad as the cantelope topped with mashed potatoes that she made a short time later. And yes, she ate them both.

Thar She Blows!

I really blew my top at my kids today. Their room has been an absolute disaster for over a week, and I finally had the energy today to do something about it. We all went in and I started directing the cleaning, assigning them certain tasks while I really did the bulk of it. The kids were whiny and slow, more inclined to play than clean. We were maybe half-way done when Sean really started fussing, so I gave Bethany and Meagan each something to do while I was gone, and went to rock Sean to sleep. I didn't really expect them to do much while I was gone, but what I didn't expect was for Bethany to do what she did. I was sitting there rocking Sean when I heard a series of crashes and bangs from there room. By the time I got Sean down and went back to their room, Bethany had totally trashed the room: everything we'd just picked up plus every other drawer or container of toys was emptied all over the room. I was so angry, I sent them to their beds, and they got to watch me sort and clean up all their toys, then bag about 2/3 of them to "throw away." In reality, I had one bag that I was definitely throwing away, one bag that I wanted to take to Goodwill or somewhere, and one bag that I wanted to hang on to, but not have out right now. But they didn't know that. They just thought I was throwing them all away. I also banned Bethany from the computer and the Wii for the day.

It seems to have worked, though. Tonight, when Nate was getting the kids ready for bed, there were toys on the floor again, of course. When he suggested they clean up, Bethany said, "Good idea, Dad." And then she started cleaning right up, and even told Nate to go away, and she'd do it. He came back to check a couple minutes later, and they'd already picked most of the toys up. They weren't sorted into their right places or anything, but they were picked up. Let's just hope the willingness to keep things clean persists.

Recent kiddisms

We've been potty training Meagan (again). This afternoon I asked her if she needed to go potty. She looked at me and said, "Not quite, sir."

*****

Meagan was demanding something at dinner the other night, and I said to her, "Yes, your majesty." She yelled, "I'm NOT my majesty. I am Meagan!"

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Bethany has recently informed me that her name is "Bethany the Trains". I have no idea where that came from.

+++++

Meagan's turned into a bit of a moocher. You can't eat anything without her wanting a bite, often when she's just eaten or even has food in front of her. Nate's mom was staying with us for a couple of weeks, and she was eating a late breakfast. Meagan wanted some yogurt, too, and I told her no, because she'd just finished her breakfast. She wheedled some out of grandma anyway, then came up to me and said, "My other mommy gave me some yogurt!"

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Bethany, after I was getting her room ready for bed said, "Thanks Mommy! You make my heart SOOO happy!"

North Carolina trip

We just finished a trip to Mebane, North Carolina to visit Nate's brother Aaron and his wife, Joy. They came out to visit us about a month ago, and the kids had a blast playing with them. They were so excited to go see Aaron and Joy again.

We drove out on Sunday. It took us about ten hours to get there. It should've been shorter, but we hit a brand-new section of the road that the GPS didn't recognize, and so it had us take a 45-minute circuitous detour. The drive otherwise wasn't bad. The kids were really good in the car (thank goodness for portable DVD players!), and even Sean did pretty well. He started crying right towards the end, but after that long in the car, can you blame him?

On Monday, we decided to drive to Raleigh, about 45 minutes away from Mebane, to go the Marbles kids museum. 'Marbles' is the name of the museum, not that it's a museum for marbles. Unfortunately, the museum is closed on Mondays. Oops. We went to a natural science museum that was only a few blocks away instead. It was nice, but didn't hold the kids' attention as long as we would've liked. After that, we decided to get something to eat, then try another museum between Raleigh and Mebane. That's when disaster struck. We were driving along, and the engine thermometer light went on--the car was overheating. I turned off the air conditioner, and the temperature went down somewhat--enough that I felt comfortable driving it for a bit longer. We were almost at the restaurant, so we went ahead and ate and let the car cool down before Nate went to check it out. All the engine coolant was gone. Luckily, there was a car dealership about a block away from the restaurant. We bought some coolant and that got us back to Mebane--I was even able to turn the air conditioning back on--which was a lifesaver, because it was in the 90's. The kids were so hot that their faces were all flushed and we were all sweating until we got the air back on. After we got back to Mebane, we unloaded the kids, and then Aaron and Nate took the car in to a repair shop. The annoying thing about this whole situation is that the same thing happened to our car about a month ago, and we just paid several hundred dollars to have it fixed. Our mechanic told us that a pump was broken, and that did seem to take care of the problem. Of course it broke down 800 miles away from home where we couldn't take back to the same people who 'fixed' the problem before. We thought about just continually filling the tank with coolant on the way home, so we could take it to our regular mechanic, but I was worried that we'd make the problem worse or burn out the engine or something, and the thought of getting stuck on the side of the road with the kids in that tremendous heat made me really nervous. So, off Nate went with the van to the mechanic.

We had originally planned to head home on Tuesday, but the breakdown nixed that. On the flip side, though, we had more time to spend with Aaron and Joy, and we got to go to the Marbles museum after all. It was a great place. I'd recommend it to anyone with kids who was in the Raleigh area. The bottom floor had some life-sized games like connect four and chess; a huge play area with play food and life-size cars to climb in, dress-ups and a stage and several train tables; a water table; and a huge pirate ship. The second floor had a workshop where you could actually build stuff out of wood (they had saws and drills and everything), watercolor pencils, a ball pit that was being emptied by several employees because some child had an accident in it, and a mini hockey rink. Bethany spent the entire time we were there at the water table and the hockey rink, while Meagan migrated around to several spots. We had a great time, and only left because they were closing.

By the time we left, our car was done, so we picked it up on the way back to Aaron and Joy's. It turned out that the radiator tank was cracked, so it had to be replaced along with all associated hoses. We'd also been having trouble with the car vibrating whenever we braked, and it was getting worse, so we had that looked at at the same time--I figured it was already in the shop, we might as well get everything done at the same time. We ended up having the front and back brakes done, along with the rotors and calipers. Sooo, $1300 and an extra day later we made it home. In spite of the craziness, we had a great time.


Meagan at the giant chess game. She's holding a fishing pole that she picked up at a game upstairs, and kept hauling around with her.

This was part of an area showcasing places all around the world. This part is Alaska, of course. Behind Meg is a place to build an igloo and off to the left is a place to "fish" in an ice hole. This is where Meagan stole the fishing pole from.

Sean kept sticking his toes in his mouth. I kept trying to get a picture, but he pull them out just when I'd hit the button. Oh well, he's still cute.

Bethany at the water table. It took a great deal of persuading to get her to move on from here. In spite of the smock she's wearing, she still got soaked, even her hair.

Meagan and Bethany at the water table.

Bethany and Nate in the hockey rink. You can see the water line on Bethany's pants from the water table. It didn't seem to bother her, though, she still had a great time here.

Bethany collected four pucks that she decided were hers, and she kept them away from all the other kids. There were plenty there, though, so it wasn't a big deal.

Aaron and Meagan playing hockey.

Sean and Joy.

Meagan at the giant Connect Four game.

This was Bethany's way of playing Connect Four. She often finds her own way to play games--she really isn't much of a rule follower.

This is Bethany asleep at Aaron and Joy's house. Someday I'm going to make a collage of all the funny positions she's fallen asleep in.

Aaron's giving Sean some tips on card playing.

This is at the car dealership. The girls were remarkably well-behaved while we sat around in the heat getting everything set.

Aaron giving Meagan a ride as we walked from the museum to the car.

Yet another funny Bethany sleep position. I don't think she ever sleeps normally.

All it takes is soap

I was trying to get Bethany to go wash her hands for lunch, since we'd been out playing, but she kept getting distracted. I must've asked her four or five times, and still she wasn't even heading towards the bathroom. Finally out of patience, I yelled, "What does it take to get you to wash your hands?!" "Soap," she calmly replied, and walked off to the bathroom.