Use Your Manners

When my kids go to a friends for dinner, a party, or just for fun, I usually remind them to "use your manners".

Tonight Asher was the lucky winner and went to a 4 hour birthday party.  "Use your manners" I chirped as he hopped out of the car.

When I picked him up after the party I asked, "Did you use your manners, son?"  

"Yeah Mom", he replies, "I didn't even burp once!"

That's my boy.

Feel the Love

This is way past due and I'm in a bad mood today, but these pics are in celebration of the day of love.  We made sugar cookies, can you say messy?  These are simply a labor of love and kids love them.  I'm not sure Cole's intentions with the rolling pin though?  Asher did a lot of the work and loved it.  He loves to iron too, have I mentioned that.  I think he'll have more homemaking skills than I.  I dressed the babe all in pink...of course!  Chloe is posing with her first paper mache creation.  It is a frog she made to collect her Valentine's in.  Olivia's fantastic paper mache pig was her inspiration.  And lastly, Aidan got this balloon for Valentine's.  As you can see he blew it up to it's fullest potential and it lasted exactly 5 minutes.  

Happy Day of Love.

Just messin around

Grace Katherine Browning

Don't it make your blue eyes brown?

You know how most Caucasian babies are born with blue eyes?  And then if they are not to be blue forever, they change.  My children inherited their Daddy's big brown eyes.  Aidan is the only one who has enough green in that brown to warrant calling them hazel perhaps.  Cole's are so dark you cannot find the pupil at times.  I love their eyes.  I am the minority in my house with my greenish bluish eyes.  So you may have noticed Grace's big beautiful blue eyes.  I am quite confident these too will become brown.  The question is when?  I have never paid enough attention to note exactly when my blue-eyed babies became brown-eyed ones.  And maybe it's not an overnight thing, maybe they gradually become darker.  Whichever way it happens, this time I will be taking note.  You can come along for the ride.  

A matter of a few degrees

Scott was in charge of Family Home Evening last night. That made me happy. 

So we all sat down, prayer, song, you know the drill.  Then he began his lesson by having Asher read Exodus 20:12.  

We waited for Asher to find the scripture.

Then Asher began reading:

"And if a man lie with his daughter-in-law..."

WHAT!!!  My heart starts racing, I gave Scott the look that says, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?".  What exactly was this lesson going to be about?  I honestly wondered for one quick moment if he was giving "THE TALK" in some odd way...some really odd way.  

Scott quickly stops Asher and says, "That's not the right scripture son, try again."  

Asher was in Leviticus.

Whew.

Turns out Scott's lesson was on honoring your parents.  I appreciated that.

They just don't make things like they use to.

I'm very irritated.  

Not a good time to post, but oh well.  You may stop reading now if you desire.

Our dishwasher quit working the day we blessed Grace.  So that was February 1st.  It's been almost a month now.  This WHIRPOOL dishwasher is exactly 15 months old. This is the part where I get irritated.  It was covered by a warranty for 12 months.    My good ol' Dad came to my house after he was done with work one night and pulled it out and looked at it.  He read the parts manual.  Eventually he told me he thought it was the motor, but he was 100% sure.

Motors are expensive.  

So, I finally called Whirpool.  They offered to cover the cost of the parts after I pushed a bit about the fact that it only 15 MONTHS OLD!  I had one of their hired out service techs come to the house today to diagnose the problem.   He literally walked in asked what it had been doing, pushed the start button, listened for 1 -2 minutes, turned it off, and told me it was the motor.  

And for that fine service...$69.00.    He didn't know that Whirpool had offered to pay for the part so he had out his computer and calculated the cost for the part and his installation fee.  

$565.00 he tells me.

"That's kinda high", he comments.  Ya think!  I'd just go buy me a new dishwasher dude.  

So I inform him I have someone (Dad :)who will install it for me,  and had him tell Whirpool which part to send.  I paid him his ridiculous "$69.00 for 5 minutes" fee and send him on his way.  I guess I am just irritated that a company can charge that much for really 5 minutes of actual "work".  

So now for the bright side.  As we've had to hand wash our dishes for nearly a month I've been able to spend a lot of time with my 2 oldest.  They help wash, or dry or put away when the littler kids have gone to bed and we stand with our hands in the suds and talk about school, friends, funny stuff, what they want to do this summer, etc. It's really a good time to just talk and enjoy each other's company. 

So for that I thank you Whirpool.  

p.s. Love you Dad.  You are the handy man's handy man!

snicker*snicker*snicker*

When we asked Scott what he wanted for his birthday, the only thing he would tell us was a King-sized Snickers.  

And if you think the "King-sized" part isn't important, you're terribly mistaken.

We asked him several times, trying to get some good ideas.  To no avail.

So the kids and I put our heads together and decided we'd get the last laugh.

We wrapped King-sized Snickers in different sized boxes and every one of us gave him one for his birthday.  Some were in large boxes, some in small canisters.  He caught on after the 2nd or 3rd one.  The kids would all say, "What do you think this one is?"  

He would reply "A King-sized Snickers?"

"NO!" they'd yell.  Then he'd rip it open and we'd all laugh. 

Oh the fun.

For Your Viewing Pleasure

You know what they say about kids and boxes right?

Well, we recently got a box. 

Oh joy!

The kids love to get out the steak knives and work their magic.

This time the box had 2 small windows cut in it to make it 

the perfect little house.

Cole had a friend over and this is how I found them watching Curious George.

All tucked in their little cardboard creation.

Literally hours of enjoyment with that box.

Tomorrow...the recycling bin.

When I Grow Up...

I had a little discussion with Cole tonight.

Cole:  You a Mom huh?

Me: Yes, I'm your Mom.

Cole:  When me get big, me gonna be a Mom.

Me:  No, you won't be a Mom, what will you be?

Cole:  Oh, me gonna be a Dad.

Me:  That's right, you're going to be a Dad just like your Dad.

Cole:  When me get big, is me gonna need a wheelchair?

Me: (stifled laughter) No, because you can walk.

Cole: Yeah, me can walk when me gonna be a Dad.

I love these little bits of insight into my child's thinking.  How innocent he is.  

Honey/Bunny

My Scotty turned 32 yesterday.  Here he is as a wee wart. 

 Isn't he a doll?

  Love those eyebrows. 

He is an amazing man.  Happy Birthday honey.  

And now for the bunny.

We visited Dad and Mom last Saturday and the kids were so excited to see their new bunny.  Here he is with Asher.  Asher loved that bunny like a baby.  He really is an animal lover.  

   

What's up?

Lucky me.  On occasion Scott will comb his hair to the side like he did when he was a little boy.  Those are the lucky days.  I guess Saturday was one of those.  He knows it cracks me up because as much as shaving his head makes him look like a punk, combing his hair to the side makes him look 12!  I captured the moment for all to share in the joy.  

This was Aidan's SECOND idea of where he could put a balloon that would be funny.  Nice muscles eh?

That's right you're seeing correctly, she sucked her thumb.  It's only happened twice, but I'm thinking when she gets the coordination down better, she may be our next thumb sucker. If you'd like to make a deposit into her savings account now for braces please contact me! :)

I just love this bright outfit Molly loaned me out.  I love it for more than one reason however.  1. It's so darn cute and warm.

2. It's been the victim of 2 major blowouts and it has come out unscathed (oxyclean!).  

For Activity Days Chloe went to the church and the Young Women gave the girls "make overs".  They did their hair and nails and such.  Chloe had a lot of fun and she absolutely loved this hair do they did on her.  It was really cute, and I did my best to recreate it for her the next day.  I think she was shocked that I could kind of figure it out.  What a great idea this activity was, she absolutely loved it.  

Thank you

Thank you

Let me start by giving a huge thanks to my friend Kati.  She took these beautiful pictures, and believe me it was not easy!  We have one fussy baby and she cried through nearly every minute of this photo shoot, she never fell asleep for the camera, and she does not like to curl up.  So that makes picture taking difficult. I am so happy to have these, they are priceless.  Thank you, thank you, you are indeed a talented woman!

We also wanted to thank our family and friends who were able to attend Grace's blessing.  It was such a special beautiful day for us, and it was made even better by those who were able to be there and share it with us.  Thank you to those who shared their testimonies.  Thank you to those who helped Scott give Grace her blessing. We love you all.

Scott and Amy