8/31/2005

Bizarre

What is up with random people leaving links back to their blogs. I mean if it was someone who had a lifestyle similar to mine that I might find entertaining, I could understand it. But no, I’m getting links to blogs about forestry and acupuncture. What on earth made these people think I would care about their blogs? It’s like a pitiful cry for help. “Please read my blog! I’m so desperate, that I’m going to leave messages on random peoples blogs in hopes that they’ll come read mine.” Oh boo hoo. If you’re reading this, no I don’t want to read about insect migration, collecting trash or whatever random thing your blog is about. If you want to read mine fine, you can even leave me a note saying hi. But for the sake of all that is good, don’t beg me to come read your blog.

In other news, life in the Peterson household is relatively normal. The weather people say that we’re getting the remnants of hurricane Katie. Which basically means that it’s cloudy with a little rain. Nothing like those poor people on the gulf coast are getting.
The kids have been little artists this week, drawing and painting up a storm.
Alex has a little bit of a cold.
The rust deposits are slowly receding off my shower. I should take a picture… Jory says I need more pictures in this thing.
Oh and we heard last night that Jory’s father has a cancerous tumor growing on his neck. So if you think about it, add him to your prayer list.

8/29/2005

Happy Monday!

How was everyones weekend? Mine was fabulous. Errr well sorta…
Friday my parents came over with a new door for my laundry room (exterior) Have I mentioned how brilliant the previous homeowners were? The doorframe and threshold were totally rotten. My dad took everything out with a crowbar in tiny tiny pieces (Thanks Dad!) and put my new door in. Alex was in the middle of everything “helping”.
Saturday Jory and I had a date. We took ourselves to the BIG downtown library. We both came home with an armload full of books, movies, and CD’s. Then we went out to lunch at Bob Evans. (YUM!)
Sunday we went to church in the morning, ate lunch and put the kids down for naps. Then Jory and I watched Chisum (John Wayne western). Well Jory watched it while I napped! I think I’m going to have to watch it again before I take it back. Have I ever mentioned how much I love John Wayne?? He’s definitely a favorite in our house. Sunday evening, my mom’s aunt and uncle stopped by for a visit (from PA). So I took the kids over to meet them. They’d just returned from a trip to Russia, and had all sorts of interesting stories to tell.
So that’s my weekend in a nutshell…
Oh and the water meter people are coming today. If she asks, no I haven’t been getting free city water for a full week…

8/26/2005

Random thoughts

Yet again, I’m annoyed by the city of Toledo. I have been trying since Tuesday to get a hold of the customer service center to have my meter installed. Every time I call it’s busy. I finally got a hold of someone this morning and she said that I can’t make the arrangements unless my name is on the deed to the house. Great. Now I have to track down that puppy, and wait 4 more days to get through to tell her, yes my name is on the deed. Which means that I’ll probably still be getting city water for free this time next week. (But don’t tell the meter people)
Lots of scrubbing. Lots and lots and lots of scrubbing. I’m trying to decide which things can just get pitched (my entire wardrobe, my dish towels, my shower curtain, the kids bath toys etc. etc) and which things I really should scrub the rust deposits out of (the shower, the sinks, the toilets…). I’m using a lot of baking soda…

Annoying children.
Louisa is driving me crazy this morning. She won’t let me put her down. She’s been in my lap for at least half an hour. Not the comfy, just hanging out in Mommy’s lap, it’s the squirmy-fidgety-get me something or I’ll whine (and bite). I know what she wants (la?) but I’m not giving in.

Alex story teller.
I think I passed my story telling gene on to Alex. Here’s a sample of what you’re likely to hear if you listen to him playing:
“and then the mommy bear said to the baby bear ‘no! don’t go down the slide’. But that made the baby bear sad, and the baby bear said to the mom ‘but I want to go on the slide’. And then the mommy bear said ‘but you’ll get in trouble’.”
How many 3 year olds do you know that talk in a narrative?
Weirdo.

8/24/2005

Progress

Rick the water guy was here yesterday, and we are officially hooked to city water. (but if the meter people ask, he just left – we’re getting the water for free until they show up) I’m still slightly in shock that I actually have drinkable water. My water will no longer ruin everything it touches… this is going to take some getting used to. It only took 3 months, and cost us nearly $10,000… it was SOOOO worth it…
In other news, this is day 4 of no pacifiers in our house. I think it took the girls 5 min. to settle down for their nap this morning. I’m still tempted to give in and hand them out when the girls are both clinging to me and screaming (this normally happens when I’m in the middle of something like washing dishes) but I haven’t yet. They are still asking for them “La? La?” but they don’t have a melt down when I say no.

8/22/2005

Cracking down and cleaning out

I’ve had enough, it’s time to crack down on a few bad habits around here.
1. The pacifiers (aka plugs in our house) Alex “gave it up” (ha!) after his 2nd birthday, but still tries to steal them whenever he can. The girls have been pretty attached to them also. So this weekend, we decided that it was time for them to go. The girls are NOT HAPPY with this decision. They have been really cranky the last few days, and sleeping is really hard. But I’m starting to see improvements. They haven’t cried for one yet today. So maybe the “with drawl” phase is over… please can it be over? I’ve had about enough of listening to these two screaming.
2. Alex and his diapers. This one is totally my fault. I’m lazy. I need to be more prompt about taking his diaper off in the morning/after naptime. I need to make him sit on the potty before he goes to sleep. I need to not put a diaper on him every time I leave the house. He can do it if I make him.

In other news, we’ve been doing a lot of cleaning out this weekend. I’ve been primarily focused on the girls’ room. Which to this point in time, has been used as a storage room with beds in it. My mom gave me a huge cabinet to keep my scrapping/teaching stuff in, so I was able to move a lot of my stuff out of the girls’ room. I also moved a lot of stuff out to the garage, and now their room is functional as a kid’s room. I don’t have to lock them out of it, anymore! Now I just have to paint it and put up some cute decorations and call it done. One thing at a time right?
Can I just tell you how funny Alex has been lately? He’s a singing machine. He knows all the lyrics to all the songs on his CD’s. Right now he’s in his room singing a song that I learned in Sunday School a really long time ago, word for word. It’s not a song that I’ve sung to him, and I’m not really sure where he learned it. But he’s singing away. Goofball.

8/19/2005

Seeking parenting advice

My children are going to make me crazy. I think it is their set mission in life. The newest thing is dumping water on the floor. I keep water bottles with pop top lids around so that they can have a drink of water whenever they want it, the don’t spill, and I don’t really have to worry about whether they’re clean or not. That being said, every time I had one to one of my children, as soon as my back is turned they turn it upside down and squeeze as much water out as they possibly can. It’s almost cute with the girls, because they always run to get a dishrag to clean it up. But they are to the point where they are doing it all the time. I kid you not, I cleaned up 4 water spills in an hour yesterday. So anyone else have any ideas on how to keep my children hydrated without having soggy carpet? Sippy cups, are out of the question, they just pull the lids right off, and dump the whole thing in a matter of seconds.
My kids other new thing (that I might have mentioned) is climbing on the table. I used to be able to push the chairs in, and they couldn’t get up, but not anymore! Every time I turn around someone is up there. I’m to a point where I almost don’t care. They’ve been up there 100 times each and haven’t fallen yet, I’m not going to run over there and grab them off because it’s not “safe”. I’m sick of it. Maybe if I let them fall they’ll learn not to climb up there any more… I don’t know what else to do besides put the chairs in the living room, and drag them to the kitchen every time I want to use one.
And then there’s the dresser. I just went back to check on them and noticed that they’ve emptied it again. 3 times in 3 days. Why? I guess the more important question is why do I put everything back nice and neatly folded, sorted and organized. 20 minutes worth of folding undone in 10 seconds. Unless someone else can come up with an idea (besides locking them out of Alex’s room – where their dresser and all the toys are) I’m just going to have to start throwing the piles of clothes into the closest drawer, unfolded, and unsorted.
So anyone got any advice? Anyone wanna guess how many kids are currently on my kitchen table? I’ll give you a hint, just one, because Alex climbed down, and Annie’s stuck. So there she sits, whining to get down while I type away. But oh, Louisa’s climbing up to rescue her. Why me?

8/16/2005

Brave

So long status quo
I think I just let go,
You make me want to be brave
- Nicole Nordeman

I’ve had this song in my head all week. I wish I knew more of the song to share with you, it’s about not succumbing to fear and doubt, not being afraid to live the life that God has planned for us.
She’s such a talented (Christian) singer, her songs always get to me, this one is no different. Last night I was a little nervous on my way to the interview (which I shouldn’t have been, because I totally nailed it), and that song came on. It was like my own personal pep talk. Who says God doesn’t still speak to us – those people just don’t know how to listen.

I got the job!

If you don’t already know, I got a job teaching classes at my local scrapbook store, The Scrap Place. I’m teaching 1 class a month (even I can handle that) on just about whatever I feel like teaching about for that month. I have 2 classes lined up, one in Sept. the other in October. I can’t wait to teach others the little that I know about creating and designing. (Actually I’m just excited to meet more people who like to scrapbook!)

8/12/2005

Alex’s new room~


So I’ve lived in this house for 2 ½ years, and have yet to take on a major home renovating project. Jory isn’t a do-it-yourselfer, so he just looks at me funny when I mention changing something with our house.
Enter my mother. I must have gotten the do-it-yourselfer gene from her. She called me on Tuesday and asks if I want to paint alex’s room. So she brings me paint samples, and gets the ball rolling.
When we started, Alex’s room was red, (not a bad red, just really intimidating in his little room) all his toys were in a big bucket in the middle of the room, and his closet was a mess (see yesterday’s post). Now his room is half red, half blue, (with a cute star border that I made with my own little star stamp – I was rather proud of it), a newly organized closet, a new furniture arrangement and way better under the bed storage (still working on that, but we have a plan!). So here’s Alex’s cute new room as of last night.
Here’s part of Alex’s room, this is the corner where his bed used to be, it’s now the toy center/changing table area (until he’s completely potty trained that is) It’ll give you a pretty good feel for his new paint job, though
Too bad Grandma has to go back to work, the girls room is a mess too…

8/11/2005

Calling all morons

I have a serious beef with morons. So here’s my vent.
The Water Dept. for the city of Toledo is full of total morons. I think it’s a job requirement or something. We’ve been trying to tap into city water since June, waiting for people to return our phone calls, and do whatever they need to do so we can have a plumber install our tap. We thought that they’d finally come and done our OUPS (5 weeks after they said they’d be here, thank you very much) while we were staying at the lake. So we called the plumber out to do his job, and it turns out they’d only done half the job, before calling it a day. 6 days later the job is still not done, and no one can say when they can be back in our area to complete the job. COME ON! How incompetent can you get??? The good news is that the plumber didn’t charge me for his visit (if you’re in the area and need a plumber call ALTERNATIVE PLUMBING –they rock)
I’m just getting started on my moron vent
Story two from yesterday.
The people who owned this house before us must have been bitten by the moron bug. They were the ones who built the house, and must have done a lot of work themselves, because there’s some really shoddy work around here.
My mom and I are painting alex’s room, so I was working in the closet, taking out this ridiculous wire shelving unit that was horribly designed. Half the closet is inaccessible because of it. So it’s out now, there are holes all over the closet from where they started to hang this thing without measuring. (I think I patched about 16). There are exposed nailheads from the drywall that they just painted over (even I know better than that) random screws hanging out of the wall. I could go on but I think you get the idea.
People please. If your reading this, don’t be a moron.

8/09/2005

A little update

Still slowly getting back into the swing of things around here. We had a good, productive weekend. The boys got their hair cuts, and I did my yard work. I saw some old friends from high school at church on Sunday, it was nice to catch up with them. Besides that, nothing super exciting happened.
Yesterday I finished my 160 card project. Woo hoo! I’m glad that I can start working on something else for a while. I started playing with some chipboard (really really sturdy cardboard) and decided to make a pocket sized scrapbook with it for my friend who’s having a baby in Nov.
Louisa had a new word this morning: shoes. (it actually sounded like cheese, but she was pointing at her shoes). Language development isn’t coming as easily with these two as it did with Alex, so we celebrate each new word we hear.

8/05/2005

A whirlwind and it’s aftermath.

The last three weeks have been a huge whirlwind of huge card order, Alex in the hospital, Alex’s birthday, Bible school, and my in-laws. Now it’s over for the most part. I’m left facing the aftermath. Ready to think about the fact that my kitchen floor hasn’t been mopped in a month, Louisa’s bangs are falling in her eyes, and other mundane thoughts that have taken a back seat lately. I’m feeling much less stressed than I was two weeks ago.

8/04/2005

The Peterson’s visit

Well Grandma, Papa, Grandaddy and Cherie have all started their trek back to New Mexico. We had a blast showing them the sights of town, Amish country (including the Amish bakery, a must visit), the art museum, Sauder’s Village (a living history museum where people dress in costume and tell you about life for early settlers to the region), and Cabella’s (a huge outdoors sports store near here).
I enjoyed having someone else to play with my kids at a moments notice, huge breakfasts (that I didn’t have to cook), sleeping in, and not having to cook or clean a thing. But I think the best part was listening to Grandaddy’s stories about life on the farm when he was a boy…

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the whole gang

8/02/2005

Neglected but not forgotten

It’s time for a much needed update. I have been so busy lately that I fee like I’m neglecting certain areas of my life, this blog being one of them.
Last week was VBS at the church, I think I may have mentioned that. It was a very fun week for both Alex and me. Fun, but very busy.
This week Jory’s parents and grandparents are here visiting from New Mexico. This is the first time Grandaddy and Cherie have been here, and we are having a ball taking them all over and showing them the local sights. We’ve been staying out at the lake house, because there is more room out there than there is here.
But today I am at home while everyone else went up to Cabella’s, a huge outdoor sports store half an hour from here. I really need to work on my card order (half way done! Hurray!) clean my poor neglected house, make up a page concept for the scrapbooking class I want to teach, weed my poor neglected flower beds, and take another nap. One thing at a time…
Hope everyone is doing well!

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