School Picture Day... and mom is out of town

Today was school picture day... when I told Ryan I would be out of town and he'd have to cover this, I think he actually mouthed "I hate you". But this also has its pluses. Usually on school picture day, Grace wants the most bizarre hairdo she can imagine and so she ends up looking really odd in her picture.. nothing like she looks everyday. Last year, she elected to have the "Leia" hair from Star Wars with big buns sticking out the sides of her head. Cute picture, but in a few years, we'll wonder why she looked like that, and I want to have proof that she CHOSE that hairdo.

This year, the kids picked out the outfits on Monday night. Last year I was able to pick out Grant's outfit without a fit. When I called home, he evidently almost picked out the same shirt he wore last year! that would have been really confusing.
But, as of last night he had picked out something acceptable, and evidently Grace has finally come to the side of dressing where she is willing to wear matching items. This is huge.. and as of a few weeks ago, this was not happening in our house. But, now, we love matching. She picked out her red heart outfit with skirt, shirt, socks and matching hairband. I love matching, and I've not been able to enjoy it until now.

All went well this morning, except that Grant suddenly was adamant about changing his outfit. Overnight he decided to wear the navy blue blazer that has hung in his closet for several months, that he has refused to wear to church or weddings or anything more formal.. but today of all days, he chooses to wear it on Picture Day. Then, they had to find a shirt that "matched"- shocking that its a shirt that actually has navy blue in it.. and for the topper, he managed to find some plaid shorts to finish it out... thats right, my son had school pictures in a blue blazer, striped shirt and plaid shorts. What a great start.. I think he and Grace have switched places.

In the past 5 days I've.....

I've got to sit down and blog before I forget all the crazy things that have happenend in the past 5 days. There is wide range, and believe me ALL of the following actually did happen!

Last weekend, we were planning to head to the beach for a weekend trip, I had arranged to rent a house near Rockaway Beach- BUT IT WAS A NEW PLACE I HAVEN'T BEEN TO BEFORE. ( remember this detail). Ryan was out of town for the week, but would come over on Friday. So, Thursday was really crazy, I had an appointment to take the car into the shop for a repair that was supposed to be 4 hours.... ended up, they had to keep the car, and put me in rental. I explained that I was heading to the beach, and wouldn't return the car until the weekend. So, after getting the kids from school, we headed home to get ready for their soccer game before leaving for the beach....I had planned to be ready for the beach when the repair was only taking 4 hours..but instead we had to pack before and after the soccer game. The kids packed themselves- and I have to say, they are actually REALLY good at this! They actually were so excited that they even took their luggage out to the car ( rental car) managed to open the back door and threw their stuff inside!
I digress, I have to talk about the soccer game.... Grace did great, but it was hot and she didn't look like she had a ton of energy out on the field. She did say that her team "was lazy and didn't want to play in the sun". I'm not sure if she is in that group or not?
NOW, on to Grant; Really, I think the game resembled more of a rugby game. He was pretty aggressive.. even the "mom ref" said it was cracking her up because it looks like he was waiting for the kids to swarm together in a clump and then dive into the crowd and tackle. He just keep tackling kids- I had to take him out of the game. It was pretty funny. While throwing in the ball to his own teammate, he chucked the ball directly at her, and it bounced off her head- luckily she didn't cry. I can tell his coach is torn because he actually kicks the ball and gets into the game, but there is a price.. he tackles the other team, and his own teammates.

OK,so now its about 8:30pm and we're leaving for the beach- its only about an hour and 15 minutes or so... the kids get settled with a blanket and "luvies" ( remember this point too), they talk me into taking them to Burgerville because "I didn't feed them dinner- whatever..." we had a heavy snack before and after soccer... but I did go ( luckily). So we drove out to the beach... I had the directions, but in all fairness, I DID NOT HAVE THE HOUSE ADDRESS... I just had directions that said L on Nedonna, R on Sunset... I couldn't find the initial turn, I had to call Ryan, I was about 15 miles past the turn, I turned around, headed back, and finally called Ryan to "Google Earth" the place so I could find it ( THIS WAS VERY HELPFUL!). Finally made the turn off, took the directions to "Sunset Dr"- From the directions I thought that the house must be on the corner of Nedonna and Sunset... and the lockbox was supposed to be by the backdoor. (Its now 11pm), I get out of the car, and search around the house. there is no lockbox near the back door--- Now, I feel I must explain my train of thought.. on the website, the house I rented DID have a firepit on the property and a kid's fort. This house on the corner, did have a firepit and kid's fort.. it also had a similar house shape... I then called the contact for the rental at about 11:30pm at night when I couldn't find the lockbox. I didnt' get an answer. Grant had long ago gone to sleep ( we were driving in a Dodge Jeep vehicle) in his carseat. Grace was awake, she keep giving me suggestions on getting into the house. I didnt' have a flashlight, so after midnight, I took my cell phone and tried to use the lit up screen as a flashlight and walked around the entire house looking for the "lockbox". I ended up going back to the car... and telling the kids we were going to "sleep in the car".. "yes, kids, this will be fun, something we've never done before"... Grace was very unsure. She did have to pee, so we did do that over the next few hours... several times, on the road. I decided that I didnt' want to smell Burgerville all night, so I found a high place to put the trash-I didn't want to attract racoons or something else...Grace wanted to be in the front seat, so in our very packed space, we managed to move the food in the front seat to the back seat, and Grace settled in the passenger seat, Grant was in the backseat in his carseat, I tried to push the pillows around him to make him comfortable, luckily they both had their blankets. Grace and I tried to sleep.. I was freezing, I didn't have anything but a sweatshirt and beach towels. I wrapped the towels around me, I was wearing sandals and tried to wrap up my legs. At about 3am, Grant woke up briefly and said "MOM! Why are we not inside the house?", I explained, and then he said "the key is inside the house, mom, you need to get it". He then wanted to be near me, so he came up to the front seat ( which was reclined partially) with his blanket, pillow, etc. The front seats were "bucket seats" with a big console in between. So then Grant was smushed into the front seat with me- I was then warmer, but much more uncomfortable.... at this point my legs were so cold, I reached around for something to help, ended up grabbing a pillow. I first tried to SHOVE it down by my feet- this didn't help much, then I tried to get my legs inside the pillowcase ( this ended up not being possible)... so I continued to freeze. At about 5:30am, Grace woke up again and had to go to the bathroom- this time she peed on her pj's. So, then she got back in the car, and we had to find her suitcase to change clothes. This woke Grant up, who was hungry... he started reaching for any food- we ended up finding crackers to eat- we had no water or liquid. I think we found some other things, nothing really substantial. I found sound Pop Tarts, and thought this would be a big hit ( I had thrown them in last minute). My kids have never had them, they just looked at them, and wouldn't even break them in half to see what was inside. They just tapped on the frosting- then gave them back after a bite and said " these aren't good, I think you need to do something to cook them". I called the contact for the rental house at 6am or so.. no answer still, my message was a bit more frantic. Now, you may be asking why I didn't just drive home... well, it was midnight, and I was tired, and didn't think I could drive home, plus I REALLY wanted to be at the beach- I "felt" like I was close. Then Grace asked if we were going out to breakfast.. "I don't know yet". She then asked if anyone had ever had to Poop on the road.. ( I didnt' answer) I just said, lets drive around now that its light and see what we can find. We drove down the block, and we came around the corner to a house that looked pretty familiar to the house on the website.... hmm, I went around back and THERE WAS A LOCKBOX!. I had driven by this house in the dark, but in the light it looked very much like the house on the website I had rented. We went inside, we were so happy to be warm! We had a great time at the beach with our friends. The house person called mid-morning.. she was so worried she said when she heard my message- I just said " I might just be the stupidest person on earth right now"- She just laughed and said I better write this down.

Then, we came home Sunday, returned the rental car, I then had to drive to John Day, Oregon for a 3 day work stint there that I'll be doing monthly. Luckily, I'm driving with someone else, but she's in her own car. The drive was OK- its really in the middle of nowhere- all these little towns. Luckily we had enough gas, because there wasn't even gas stations in each small town along the way... or the station closes by 6pm or? About 3 hours into the 6 hour trip, in the middle of nowhere again, I HIT A DEER OR TWO OR THREE... We had been seeing deer on the side of the road through the day, I had looked ahead and saw 3 deer on the side of the road, I started to slow down, hoping they would be out of the way before I reached the spot, they stood there "like deer in headlights" and then started moving as I got up to them, I hear this big bump bump bump- Karen was freaking out behind me, I looked at the car first... there was no damage ( GOOD!), then I looked for the deer- there were no deer anywhere near the car, so I guess I just hurt them and they ran off. We finally got into John Day later that night. We'll fly to Redmond in the Winter, but will still have a 2 hour drive.. we could really use a private plane right now...

I'm still here. In John Day. Its a pleasant place, the hotel we stay at has a large group of motorcycles coming through each time i'm here. Its a funny town, everyone knows everyone else, or is related in someway... but they have a lot of sped kids, so Karen and I are traveling SLPs 3 days a month. I'm hoping my drive home tomorrow will be deer free.

Hiding is making my blood pressure explode

Grant is now 4- but I am having some doubts about him reaching age 5. He has recently started hiding in the house. He has progressed from hiding in predictable places, to more unique, steathy locations. AND he will not come out when you call his name.
This has what has been going on the last week. During the following occasions, we were not playing hide and seek- in fact these were at very inopportune times to hide... I hope my neighbors can't hear the yelling through the closed doors.

This started innocently enough the other night while getting ready for bed- he hid behind a toy chest in the playroom. I called and called, but not word from him, and no coming out. He's actually able to stay quiet. I think it took about 5 minute to find him, but I was pretty sure he was still inside.

Later that evening, after he had gone to bed, we couldn't find him in his room- or anywhere obvious. I went in to Grace's room and "she hadn't seen him", we called, we tried to remember if we heard the door alarm opening, looked in the garage, outside etc. The more this goes on the angrier I am getting- finally, we go back into Grace's room and he is hiding in her be under covers- and she thought it was OK not to tell us when we were looking. I think she now understands how incredibly frustrating this is.

The hiding occured again last night before bath, it took about 10 minutes to find him, this time in a different place.

BUT, this morning is what made me absolutely crazy. It is morning, and its a school day which means time is precious. After he eats breakfast, he is supposed to be upstairs getting dressed. I go up after a bit to check on him- and of course he is not anywhere to be found. I call and call, and get no response. I start raising the threat level in the house, and again no response. I am so mad at this point I don't think I can speak. Finally, he comes out- he has been hiding at the bottom of my bed, and we've now wasted atleast 15-20 minutes of precious time in the morning. I think that child might have vinegar flowing through his veins before he reaches adulthood. He had to come down and drink some vinegar again- for hiding and not comign out- and I kept adding a 1/2 tsp to the cup after each 5 second period... I ended up adding 1 1/2 tsp by the time he got down there. Amazingly they both seem to know that we're going to increase the amout of vinegar etc with the longer they take to drink it. I have no idea how to put the fear of you know what in him, because he just turns and laughs at you. He thinks everything is funny.

I explained that it is only OK to hide if he is playing hide and seek with OTHER KIDS ( not just his mom or dad), and its a game that everyone agrees on.

If this hiding thing doesn't stop immediately, I think I might have a cardiac arrest from high blood pressure. AAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Who knew parking in the garage could be so cool....

I think since we've owned a house with a garage, and maybe even before that when we lived in a duplex, we've had a goal of parking in the garage. I don't know why this is so challenging for us. For one, I think we keep buying houses that have the smallest garages on the block. This was of course a discussion point when buying this house, but I decided that not having a larger garage was negotiable for other things. I've since even looked into how to expand the garage ( not possible without looking like a hodgepodge house- I could explain this in an additional way, but I'm afraid I'll offend someone)- so we're kind of stuck. Even with nothing in the garage, we couldn't fit 2 cars in- unless they were SmartCars or MiniCoopers ( which I've thought about as well- if I didn't have to haul around 2 kids). I have a friend that seriously has a VERY LARGE 3 car garage. The ceiling is soo high that you can suspend those garage racks that hook to the ceiling for even more storage, and you could seriously walk around each vehicle to get to the door- In my garage you have to suck in your stomach just to sneak past once you shut the door.
When my neighbors leave their garage doors open and I can look inside, I seriously COVET their garage size. We "supposedly" have the equivalent of a 2.5 car garage- but the configuration of the water heater and door make it impossible to park 2 cars- plus its not wide enough. Then, add in the shelves of food storage and other kinds of paraphenalia, and we're parking outside the garage most of the year. I dug in the other night and seriously worked on clearing things out for a good couple of hours. ( I also had to sweep up any possible sign of the mice.. which made my skin crawl). I got things looking great, and actually pulled in the garage that night.
The next morning, Grant goes out through the garage to get to the car, and starts shouting "MOM!!! THE CAR IS IN THE GARAGE! ISN'T THAT SOOO COOL" (like the car magically appeared there).
Yesterday evening, after we got home, Grant was insistent that I put the car in the garage. He kept saying "MOM, PUT THE CAR IN THE GARAGE- HURRY!"- like if the car doesn't get back in the garage, the opportunity will end.
Today, again, the car was there in the garage. The same excitement occurs again with shouts like "Hurry Grace, get in the car!" " The car is inside the garage Grace! Isn't that awesome!".
Who knew that this simple change could be such an anomoly for my children...

When I got home this morning, I decided I would make a parking stop with a tennis ball hung from the ceiling. I tried everything, but I have no idea how people make a hole in a tennis ball, the things just bounces or bends to any pressure. I started with a razor blade, a screwdriver, scissors, a knife, and finally pulled out Ryan's drill. None of these worked. Luckily I then spied a wiffle ball with holes, so I was able to feed a string through, then I climbed ontop of the car ( since it was already in the garage) and hammered a hook into the garage ceiling while standing on the hood of the car. Luckily I didn't break my neck....

Babies the next day

This evening the kids and I connected with our friend on the way home to pick up our share of produce from our local Co-Op Farm. ( its a great deal, they deliver to the Intel sites, then you can pick it up there after work- they have other places as well of course). Anyway, this pick up on Tuesday USUALLY works well. Except in certain circumstances: (1) Ryan forgets (2) Ryan forgets the bags to turn in (3) Ryan is out of town. Today, Ryan is out of town, so we/he had arranged for a fellow friend/coworker to go inside the building and get the produce for me ( I can't go in- its badge only). Well, that worked OK until she had been given the wrong lobby address ( RA1, 2, something like that).. and she forgot her cell phone today. So I was waiting outside while she spent a good 30 minutes trying to find the produce pick up inside Intel somewhere. The security had no idea what she was talking about- ( which makes me wonder who set this whole drop off up? how do the produce bags get inside initially?)... anyway, so she finally calls her husband, who then calls me, and I say here's where I am ( Her husband then says.. "OH.. RA1 is a very different place than RA2...etc). I felt so sorry for her, she had kids at home, and here she was following some bizarre schematic from Ryan on how to find the produce that he had drawn on a post it note. :-)
Anyway, finally got it. Luckily I had some food in the car and a movie, or this would have been a total disaster with the kids.

On the way home, Grace says, " Mom, I remember when K and E were different."
Me: What do you mean they were different? Before they had kids?
Grace: Yes, before they had kids.
a few minutes later...
Grace: "It was like one day then didn't have kids, then they had ___ (1st child)and like the very next day they had _____" ( 2nd child)"
They have 2 babies when everyone else has a baby and a kid.

I laughed to myself- their kids are barely 18 months apart. I'm sure they feel that way. I just thought it was funny, that that seemed to happen "the next day". I somehow don't think pregnancy has ever felt like "the next day".

Chill Ride

I despise most school fundraisers... they are the bain of my existence. I totally get school fundraising-I thinks its really important, does great things for the school... don't get me wrong, I'm willing to write the check, most of the time I just don't want the item on the other end so bad. So, its the school's magazine fundraiser at Grace's school ( and Grant's but he really had no idea that he could win prizes- its hard enough with one kid, we'll keep him in the dark as long as possible- he was wondering why Grace was picking up some cool prizes this morning)

I actually like the magazine fundraiser- because I like magazines, so I can just renew some subscriptions and its all good with the school. I think last year I might have sent in 2-3 subscriptions.... and that became mistake #1. Because on the 2nd turn in day, if kids bring in a total of 12 orders for magazines they will qualify to go on the "CHILL RIDE"- which is a Limo ride to Cold Stone for ice cream, and one lucky participant will win free weekly ice cream for a year. Last year I was not as in tune with this, and of course Grace did not even come close to qualifying for the Chill Ride. Of course one of her girlfriends did qualify and did end up being picked for the free ice cream ( her mom says you can't even pretend to eat that much ice cream in a year) So, all year I've seriously heard the guilt trip about not going on the chill ride.

This year, she actually finagled it so that I was present at the assembly where they talked about the magazine prizes so I would understand the whole process. Well of course, we don't pay too much attention and at the 11th hour ( last night) I tell her that the Chill Ride turn in is tomorrow and we're at nothing in terms of magazine sales. So she/I start calling up grandma, grandpa, talking to neighbors to get some orders. Then she puts on the charm and tells me that "MOm, I know you really enjoy cooking, and I see some cooking magazines in here, so I think you could order them for yourself. You also like to decorate ( ??) so you could get this.. blah blah blah)". Well, at the end of the night after shamelessly pitching to grandparents, and neighbors, we had our 12 orders. I feel like I should take my neighbors dinner just for ordering at the last minute.

This morning, Grace gets up and she is all excited, she is talking about what she is wearing today ( the outfits haven't been that outrageous so I haven't taken a photo yet- just wait until its cold enough for tights... then the adventure begins)

Anyway, after talking to her, it turns out she thinks the Chill Ride is actually TODAY and she has got to wear the perfect outfit in the limo. I then explained that it was not today, on a different day and that she'd have plenty of notice. She was a bit deflated at this, but I assured her she'd get to go. I"m a little concerned about her riding in the limo- only that after that she'll add that in with her expectations, and next thing you know, she'll want to take a limo to ride over to Boise and other wild ideas.

At school after we turned in her orders, she picked up the additional trinket prizes and her Chill Ride ticket- she said " MOM, you've made all my dreams come true!" If only it was that easy. Last night I was thinking $200 is an expensive ice cream... but the limo I guess is what is putting over the top for her.
(I did also figure out that she thought she had also won an IPOD- turns out she won some light up speakers for an IPOD- this was after she said I'd made her dreams come true- maybe not now)

While all of this was happening, I had Grant with me- he hadn't been dropped off yet( bad idea). He horrified me by slamming the door to the teacher's workroom while a few teachers were in there making copies. I think after that, I mentioned something awful like... "I need to get rid of this child and then I'll be back..." I did explain later so people wouldn't think I talk like that all the time ( because I don't, right?)

Following up on the HAM radio class

I was thinking of my weekend and what I did. At first it was all blank, and then I remembered that we went to a HAM radio class at 8am Saturday morning. Let me just review off the top of my head what I learned: ( go back to July postings for the first part of this)..

HAM Radio Class

The teacher was great. He was NORMAL, thorough but not too chatty, and went through things fast- he also brought candy and snacks. We arrived, found a seat and started looking through the 150 slides of the powerpoint presentation... Then I looked around...

I counted 40 people here. 6 of them were women, and I think 4 of them were actually there by themselves ( meaning they were not dragged there by their husbands). Then I started looked at who was so wrapped up in this class. I have theory, I really think HAM Radio technology was started years ago by a club of men/boys with Autism- specifically Aspbergers Syndrome- high functioning autism ( bascially what this means is that a person is SCARY SMART, but socially has some major issues)

I think this class may have attracted a very large contingent of these followers. Seriously- remember we live in Intel Land, this was a magnet for those engineers. Lots of fathers and sons ( I asked Ryan why he didn't bring Grant :-).

I leaned over to Ryan to remind him of a few things we WON'T be doing:
a. Installing GIGANTIC antennas on our cars or house
b. Changing our license plates to our "call signs"
c. Attending any group meetings

Here are the top 10 things I got from the class...

(1) I still don't know what the HAM acronymn stands for ...

(2) The HAM radio network is a really tight network- you've got to do it right or they will report you to the FCC, who may show up at your door..

(3) I can actually use my HAM radio to send a signal which will bounce off a repeater tower, and I can place a call to someone's cell phone. OK- that could seriously be useful here.- This will work when the cell service is out. Or, if I want to call someone in Asia... for free.

(4) I could actually register to get my own "VANITY" call sign- Sounds great, but it just has a combo of letter and one number, and I'm never good at figuring out something clever like that... wish I was- especially when it has to start with a "K".

(5) I may actually contemplate getting a HAM radio for my car... more on that after I think about that one. It could be my own version of AAA, especially when there is no cell service.

(6) I could make international friends- talking to people all over the world ( remember the film "Frequency"- I could be Dennis Quaid)

(7) I learned the complete list of the ITU Phonetic Alphabet- I thought it was just for the military, and didn't know it went past "Delta".

A= Alpha
B= Bravo
C= Charlie
D= Delta
E= Echo
F= Foxtrot
G= Golf
H= Hotel
I= India
J= Juliet
etc. if you're really into this visit the website for the International Telecommunications Union.


(8) I could easedrop on other people's conversations. OK, there is a part of this that is VERY Appealing to me! I can also listen to the police, fire and even the Costco parking attendant's radio conversations if I find their "frequency"

(9) I seriously see a huge benefit to having this certification?? and tools- ( meaning the Radio), but I'm not sure I'll be listing it on my resume or Facebook page anytime soon.

(10) I still have to pass the test, and surprise, there is a bunch of electronics on the test ( again, remember my theory is that it was probably developed by engineers with autism- so its somewhat technical) The next test is the first Saturday in Oct- wish us luck. If you want to join our club, I can pass along the powerpoint presentation... then we could talk... on our radios...

Grace's wardrobe choices

I've decided that next week I'm going to take a picture of what Grace wears to school each day of the week for posterity purposes ( and to show later on). Since she was very small ( like 2) she has had a DEFINITE opinion of what she wanted to wear. We ended up with 2 rules- (1) It has to be in season (2) It must fit modesty standards.Everything else goes, and I think these rules are pushed almost daily. My sister often says, "How can you let her leave the house that way?" I just say, "Hopefully by now, if people are familiar with Grace, they must figure out that she dressed herself, and I have no influence", and really its not worth the fight. We struggle about a billion other things, and I've decided this is not one I'm going to get totally invested in.

This week as we're into the second week of school, we are once again forging the oh so familiar territory of what is appropriate to wear to school. Now, things could be worse. I could be worrying about her wearing something that was showing too much skin etc. But, it seems that is not our problem. In fact, it might at times fall into the opposite category- of really bizarre combinations, and too many clothes. For example, here are a few from this last week-

Tuesday: I think Tuesday may have been semi normal
Wednesday: I went into Grace's room- now the temperature was a bit more chilly in the morning ( 50 degrees or so), but I assured her that it would warm up by noon to 75 at least, so dress accordingly. At that time she had on a pair of hot pink pants and shockingly a shirt that was short sleeved and actually matched. Fabulous! I thought to myself, maybe this year will be different. But, no, that lasted 2 seconds or less. - Because she was then laying out a shirt that was completely different than what she was wearing- and come to find out, she was planning to wear that shirt OVER the short sleeved one. I at this time recommended that she wear a light jacket or sweatshirt or something. Well, it turns out that was incorporated. As this conversation continued she got more upset because of course, I'm making comments about what she should wear, and this is an area that is really touchy-

Me: Why are you wearing that shirt on top of the short sleeved one, it will be warm enough today, just wear a sweatshirt. ( The 2nd layer shirt looked like this: it was pink and looked like a long sleeve V-necked shirt, but then it had a SATIN texture busy material sewn around the cuffs and neck to make it look like 2 shirts)

G: Helen wears 2 shirts, I can wear 2 shirts too.

ME: Helen does not even go to your school anymore, and I think that was in Preschool or Kindergarten, you are now in 2nd grade.

G: I don't care. I want to layer my shirts.

Me: Fine, but it may look a little silly, and you may get hot- ( I left the room, I'm obviously not winning this one)

Later she appears and of course she has on the short sleeved shirt, then the second layer of the "faux 2 shirt pink thing", and then on top of that, she is now wearing a bright hot pink sweatshirt that is zipped up all the way to the top. I think in an attempt to not show me how many shirts she was wearing. She also has added hot pink socks.... A bit over the top. I let it go, and she continued on her day.
After school- SHOCKER- she is only wearing the short sleeved shirt. Of course I asked if she was hot, and at what point in the day did she start to "unlayer" and take off the top 2 - I think the answer was sometime before lunch- which is at 11am.

THURSDAY: Today was the school picnic and back to school night- I of course also brought this up this morning. ( I just have to.. I'm a control freak- and I swear she knows that not wearing matching clothes drives me completely CRAZY!)

After some deliberation, she comes out in a long sleeved pink sweater-type shirt, and hot pink ( again!) shorts that look kind of like "gym" shorts- they aren't really tailored, and they have a bit of a rough edge at the hem. They also go down to her knees and tie at the waist. In addition to this wonderful combo, she has also added a pair of knee high socks that are bright hot pink/pink striped. Another odd combination, but I didn't really say anything because I was thrilled she was only wearing 1 shirt.

I also hope at this point that its obvious that I don't have any influence. Pictures should be entertaining next week if its our typical wardrobe.

Light SABER

I was told late last night that I should have been referring to a "LIGHT SABER" in my Star Wars post-not a "light saver". I believe I heard comments such as "its not going to save someone- its a weapon, you know like a saber", and my favorite-
" There are reasons why you haven't been asked to play..."

Things are a bit too serious around here.. and the exterminator is coming tomorrow. Things are looking up.

I feel like I've been violated...

If you've know anyone that has gotten lice, you know they're not bad people, or really dirty people, just people that happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time- or maybe standing next to someone at the wrong time- and using their hairbrush. We've not had lice at our house- and I PRAY regularly that we will not, because I will have a VERY hard time with it. I know its nothing that we've done wrong, it just might happen. Just like bad things happen to good people- like cancer, and cancer sores, or warts.
We don't have lice, but we do seem to have mice. Yes, I'm completely freaked out of my mind over this. COMPLETELY!!! We've spent the last week going through each and every shelf in our garage and thrown away a good amount of food storage that was vulnerable. If you don't have stock in Rubbermaid, you should because I'm now putting vulnerable foods like sugar and flour inside rubbermaid containers before they go on the shelf.The only things that are safe are in metal cans or plastic buckets. The stupid creatures seem to also have come up through my island to the cupboard that houses pots and pans.. there is no food in sight, but they've left their markings. Again, I'm completely freaked out. I'm now storing pots and pans on the dining room table. We are calling an exterminator and I've gone to Freds to find whatever means I can to get rid of them.
The reason I'm such a freak has something to do with growing up- and visiting this again, may bring me in for therapy. Growing up in California my parents bought an older house that had large oak trees out front with lots of ivy. Do you know what lives in big oak trees with lots of ivy? Mice and Rats. I'm getting ill just thinking about this. Anyway, my dad tried to get rid of a few mice/rats by using DCON in the garage-because thats where they were initially- and evidently sometimes this makes them "search" for water. So, they got inside the walls of the house... its was right out of Poltergeist. I had to call my sister to talk me down. She and I went over how awful it was, then I called my mom again, and she reminded me of even more horrors during that time, as well as growing up. Like the fact that mice can jump pretty high and get into really really small spaces. Don't worry, I've got OCD and one of my issues is germs, so I've taken over the top precautions with food and cleanliness. If you know a good exterminator, please let us know. I'm calling in a HAZMAT team if I don't get some peace in a day or two. I sent Ryan to Fred's tonight to find that expanding foam stuff, we looked for any and all small holes in the garage and under the island. I"M FREAKED OUT!!!!! Bad things happen to good people, remember... How do you have an outside cat that will take care of your mice problem? Do you still feed the cat? These are my questions at 1am on Thursday morning. Is this worth getting an outside cat? Could we do this and never let it in our house- I mean NEVER. The hedgehog seems to have no effect on the mice issue.- Oh and we're not telling the kids because Grace would start asking her class to PRAY for us during morning prayer requests at school- and Grant would talk about it at show and tell- then we might become pariahs at the school.

The Magic Glove..

This is another weird post. Grant has somehow latched onto this single winter glove ( mitten) that he found somewhere in the house. There is only one, the mate seems to be lost. Somehow, this glove came along with us to the beach a few weeks ago. The glove was discovered, and then Grant wanted to wear the ridiculous thing. He started out by wearing it on one hand to eat a cob of corn - and swore that it was so helpful to eat the hot corn.
The glove has continued to appear at random times. The other day, he wanted to wear it to school. I tried to fight it, and Grant kept saying "but Mom, its cold outside, I need this glove to keep my hand cozy. See- I'm outside, and this glove is keeping me warm." Too bad, we don't just need a random single glove to keep us warm.