7/27/2005

Dragging

How do working mothers do it? I’ve felt very much like a working mother this week. I’ve been taking the kids to Bible school, and teaching the kindergarten class for VBS. We’re only there for 3 hours, but I’m totally wiped out! I’m so glad I don’t work.
Aside from being completely exhausted, we’re all having a ball. I have a great coordinating teacher, who makes teaching way easier. She has lots of great ideas, and is fun to teach with.
Alex is having fun. He had a little bit of trouble adjusting to the structured routine of a classroom (as opposed to the unstructured learning environment that we have at home). But he’s been doing better every day. His favorite part? Sitting in a circle. I would have thought it was snack or game time, but not my kid, he likes sitting in a circle. Strange child.
I think it’s time for a nap.

7/26/2005

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!

Everybody sing with me!
happy birthday to you
happy birthday to you
happy birthday dear da-ad
happy birthday to you

sorry I"m late!
we made you some birthday cards!

7/24/2005

Bad blogger

I know I know, I haven't written a whole lot this week. So sorry. I have been so busy working on various craft projects (2 custom card sets and a gift scrapbook album for my grandmother) that I haven't really taken the time to journal much.
Alex is fine, he has been fine ever since the medication episode. The girls are fine, annie's new favorite thing is to climb up into the sink in my bathroom (using the toilet as a stool). She gets up there to play with our tooth brushes. weirdo.
Took the girls to the doctor on Friday. They're both perfectly healthy besides being in the bottom 5% of height and weight for their age. What can I say, they take after their mama.
Next week I'm teaching Bible school at church. I have the kindergarten class. Alex gets to have his own class this year, which is pretty exciting. So I"ve been busy gearing up for that.
Next friday Jory's parents and grandparents are driving from NM from a visit. I don't think Grandaddy and Cherie have ever been up here before. I"m very excited for their visit.
Some pretty cool news: a lady bought a bunch of my cards to sell in her store. Here's a link http://www.uptothemoon.com/wst_page8.php. She has some other pretty cute stuff there too... I think the bibs were my favorite.
So that's what we're up to.
busy busy busy

7/20/2005

The whole ordeal

I can’t even begin to explain how insane my life has been the last few days. So here’s a brief catch-up of the Peterson house
Friday: Alex’s real birthday. We had cupcakes, balloons and a few small presents just for fun.
Saturday: Alex’s party. The whole family came over. We ate out at Bob Evans for dinner, came to our house for cake and ice cream. Jory’s train cake was a huge hit. (maybe I”ll post pics when things settle down if I remember!) Alex got way to many toys.
Sunday was a normal Sunday

Monday: oy, as if life wasn’t crazy enough with all the stuff that I want to get done. Here life takes an interesting turn.
As Jory’s going to work, he has a little incident with his bike. I had to take him to work, even though I’m not dressed, nor are the kids. Since the heat index was targeted at 100+ for the day (which incidentally I don’t think it ever came close to) I decided to take the kids to the lake house, which is much cooler than our house is. So we go to the lake, in our pj’s.
Everything is calm and relaxing (ahhhhhhh) until around 5 pm, when we’re packing up to come home. We’re trying to hurry, because there’s a big storm coming. Alex brings my mom a cap full of pills.
WHAT ARE THESE, WHERE DID THEY COME FROM. HOW MANY DID YOU EAT???
My mom knows where they came from, but not what they are (some were aspirin, the other were blood pressure medication). She takes over (so I can tend to the kids), finds out what they are and calls poison control. Poison control tells us to take him to the hospital, he needs to have his blood pressure monitored.
We came back to town (an hours drive) to the closest hospital, where they do a bunch of tests, he’s apparently fine, but they need to monitor him over night. Sadly this hospital doesn’t take 3 year olds, we have to go to the big hospital down town. So at 11:30 at night, the packed us up in an ambulance and transported us to the Pediatric ICU at Toledo Hospital.
After another round of testing, Alex and I finally fall asleep around 1:30, curled up in the same bed.
Tuesday: we were finally discharged from PICU around 4 pm. The kid’s fine. He was fine the whole time. I felt a little guilty taking up a bed in ICU with my perfectly healthy 3 year old. But it was an interesting experience.
No, I didn’t have my camera with me.

7/14/2005

A screeching halt

So this morning I wrote about my over-flowing to do list, I was determined to make a huge dent in this list before I collapse out of exhaustion at 10 pm.
That determination came to a screeching halt around 3:00 pm. Actually it sounded like this: THUD, screeeeeeeeeeeech, is everyone ok?
No I wasn’t the one in the accident, it happened right in front of my house. 2 cars going 60+ miles an hour, one was supposed to stop, but didn’t. The driver of the car who missed the stop sign was alive, but taken away on a stretcher, the other walked to my house to borrow my phone.
All of a sudden the to do list doesn’t matter. I need to see if there’s anyway I can help. Thoughts are scattered. Anxiety is running high. I’m so shaken that I don’t really care that my kids aren’t napping, and my to do list isn’t getting done.
I took Alex down to the corner (where the accident occurred) so we could watch the ambulances, squad car, and fire engine. (Always looking for a teaching experience) I held him while we talked about what happened. We talked about what all the emergency vehicles were doing, what all the people were doing, and why all this happened (people weren’t driving safe). He has been in love with emergency vehicles for a long time now, so it was good for him to be able to see what these vehicles do, and to learn the value of safety.
So for us the accident was good; a learning experience for the boy, a grounding experience for Mom. I also got to meet my neighbor, the one who lives on the corner. He’s an 80 year old black man. Life hasn’t dealt him a very good hand, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He’s thoughtful and kind. He kinda reminds me of Bill Cosby…
Oh well. Enough rambling. Back to business. I don’t think my kids are taking a nap today…

Just plain busy

Why do we feel the need to cram our lives so full of stuff? Here’s my list of things to do today:
Plan and put together a birthday party for Alex (uh – his birthday’s tomorrow!) we have no balloons, no cake, no presents…
Finish a set of cards for a client
Work on a huge ebay project (I’m talking massive)
Finish the write-ups for the completed ebay projects so I can post them
Finish a mini album for my grandmother’s birthday
Come up with some sample scrapbook pages that I might teach for a class at my local scrapbook store this fall
Work on my lesson plans for Vacation Bible school
Do a few pre-k lessons with alex (the goal is 5-6 mini lessons a day – ha! Not today)
Work in the yard (fortunately it’s raining, so I have an excuse not to do this)
Take pictures of Alex, so I can make a page of Alex in his baby book of what he looked like when he turned three
Finish a book I’m reading so I can take it back to the Library (30 days should be long enough to read a 700 pg book right?)

Sound like enough?
Oh wait, I forgot to add in: take care of my children, and maintain a relatively clean house – oh yeah, I also need to shower and put on clean clothes.

So the question is… why. Why do I take on all these projects?? It’s one thing to have projects to work on to keep myself from being bored, but it’s a completely other thing to cram my life so full that I’m stressed out.
So basically I have two options: Do everything poorly, or just put some of the projects on the shelf for later (but I don’t wanna – she whines) Or I suppose I could just sit here on the computer and pretend my to-do list doesn’t exist….. but I smell a poopy diaper calling my name, so I must go…

7/12/2005

What can I say

I married a weirdo.
Now you know what I have to put up with
Darth dad...
Love you jory! :)

oh, and alex really does run around singing starwars music. Kinda funny, since we don't watch them that regularly...

7/11/2005

Darth Daddy and the Garden Hose

What you are about to read is true to the best of my knowledge. All of the events are entirely made up and names have been changed to protect the ignorant. My name is Jory.

For those of you who don't know me, I am Elissa's husband and father of the three random children that you may see wandering around on this website.

"No, it's not true! Obi-Mom told us that you killed him!"

Uh, excuse me for a minute ... "Search your feelings Alex, you know it's true. I AM your father!"

"Oh, ok Daddy!"       


Alright, now that we have that settled, I still have yet to figure out why this kid runs around the house humming the Imperial March (you know, ole' Darth Vader's theme song from Star Wars) but hey, whatever, it's pretty funny. As long as Louisa doesn't grow up talking like Yoda.

Speaking of funny, today my son comes up to me carrying the garden hose. How was I supposed to know that it was his newest best friend?

"Hi!"

Uh, yeah, hi there Alex.

"I'm a snake!"

Oh right, the hose. Hi hose ... I mean, Mr. Snake.

"We're going to Charlie's!"

Cool. Uh, who the heck is Charlie?

"Bye!"

Yeah, later dude.

So he takes off running across the yard dragging the garden hose, and then "Bam!" he hits the end and goes flying head over heels. As he is laying there sprawled in the grass he says "We're there!" It was the funniest thing. Well at least to me it was.

Ok, time for me to go now. For those of you I don't know, it was great meeting you, stop by again some time. And if you do know me already ... your face looks really familiar, but I just can't recall where I know you from. It's right there ... ah, forget it. I'll remember like in the middle of next week when it doesn't matter anymore.

All the news that’s fit to print…

Well here’s an update from the Peterson household.
Alex can now poop in the potty. (Very exciting stuff for mom) he went twice yesterday when he was supposed to be napping. So now he thinks he’s done with diapers. Oh he’ll let me put them on him, but the minute I turn my back, they’re off again. Normally I wouldn’t care, but he can’t control his functions when he’s sleeping… He might think he’s ready, but I’m not quite ready to let him try to sleep without a diaper yet.
I’ve been trying to keep the raspberry situation under control. In the last week I’ve been out 3 times, picking 8 cups each time. We eat about a cup a day as a family, the rest go in the freezer for future use. We’ve had all sorts of yummy raspberry concoctions. Raspberry syrup on pancakes and biscuits, berries in our oatmeal, raspberry pop sickles, and best of all, raspberry-fudge brownies (YUM!). My mom and I are getting together soon to make raspberry jam. My mother-in-law, and grandparents-in-law are coming at the end of July, so I’m sort of stock piling the berries so that they will have some to take home with them…
Annie has some new skills this weekend. She loves to growl (which is really quite funny) and give kisses (which Mama loves). Neither of which Louisa is doing…
Jory decided that he’d like to take a stab at this whole blog thing. Yesterday he asked if he could post about life from his perspective. So look forward to hearing his side of the story… Lets just hope he doesn’t take this thing over…
Hope everyone had a good weekend!

7/08/2005

backyard photo shoot

Alex was napping, and the girls kept trying to wake him up, so I took them outside and took some pics. Even though lighting conditions could have been better, and the girls were going in 2 different directions at the same time… I did manage to get a few in of both of them… More to come later…
Image hosted by Photobucket.com
going in two different directions at the same time

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
couldn't get this one again if I bribed them

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
ok mom, no more pics, it's time to go inside

(annie's in pink, louisa's in blue)

7/07/2005

a good day for a self portrait


we're having sort of a slow day around here, and it's been a while since I took a self portrait, so here's one for the record

7/06/2005

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have raspberries.

I went out to pick some for lunch, and decided to see if I could pick enough to fill my container (8 cups). I easily filled my bucket, and left enough berries behind for the neighbors to fill a bucket for lunch.
That’s a lot of berries.

Image hosted by Photobucket.com

Here’s my berry collage. I tried to take some pics of my berry stained fingers. Have you ever tried to take a picture of your right hand? Try it, it’s not easy.
I’m off to find a recipe for raspberry jam…

7/05/2005

Back in the saddle

The weekend is over, gotta go back to work. Get back to normal around here. We had a fun weekend, but now I’m behind in everything, it’ll take me a while to get back to normal. Lots of cleaning to be done, lots of chores…
So what did everyone else do this weekend? I had some family come in from West Virginia. I spent all day Saturday with them at my parents lake cottage in SE Michigan. We went for boat rides, played in the water and had lots of fun. I wanted to come back to town for church on Sunday, so I let alex spend a few nights with them. Sunday after church we went to an all church picnic. It was nice to catch up with some people I don’t see that often, and meet some new faces. Our city fireworks were on Sunday but we didn’t stay to watch them. We had the girls with us, and they were tired, so we all went home and crashed.
Monday morning I headed back out to the lake to get alex. I spent most of Monday hanging out, playing with my kids at the lake. We went over to the Boy Scout camp (the one my parents volunteer at) where Alex got to be in a parade, that was pretty exciting. The other highlight of that day came later in the day, back at the lake. My aunt and cousin decided to switch the girls hair styles and outfits while I was down on the boat to see if I would notice. I noticed. It took me a few minutes, but I noticed. Turns out the joke was on them though. After they switched outfits, they kept forgetting who was who, but not me!
Too funny
Good times
No I don’t have any pictures, I left my camera sitting at home on the computer desk.

7/01/2005

Updates

Happy Friday y’all! To my Canadian neighbors: Happy Canada day! Go eat some Ketchup flavored chips or something…
In other news… my yard never ceases to amaze me. I should take more pics but I’m lazy. First I find irises in my ditch, (next to the lilies) but yesterday I found another treasure… RASPBERRIES! I’m not talking about a little vine here and there, I’m talking about a grove. Hire some farm hands to help with the harvest, because there’s a ton! How did I not know these were here? Surely they have been there the last 2 years I’ve lived in this house. Granted they aren’t exactly on my property (well we can’t say that for sure, we don’t know where the exact property line is. We live in the country, property lines don’t mean that much around here. Besides, Henry was out there picking them too, they aren’t on his property either). Anyway. We should have enough raspberries to last all summer long. Yum. I also found 2 new species of wild flowers. Don’t know what they are yet, but when I do I’ll let you know…
Jory has a 4 day weekend coming up. He’s not working today, but he went in to do some odds and ends. Some of my aunts and uncles are coming to visit my mom for the weekend, so I imagine we’ll get together with them for a barbeque or something. Other than that we’ll just chill out I think…

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...