My Jack Sprat dilemma

Jack Sprat could eat no fat...
(Talea's plate)


His wife could eat no lean...
(Hyatt's plate)


Didn't they end up licking the plate clean together? Maybe I need to fix one plate for my kids, and together they might end up eating everything like Jack Sprat and his wife. I made pork chops (with steak sauce on the side), green beans, and mashed potatoes for dinner last night, but Talea ate only her veggies, and Hyatt ate only his meat. They refused the eat the other part. How is it that Talea has always loved veggies and it's always been such a struggle to get Hyatt to eat his??!! I swear I can't please everyone when I feed them. Tonight I made tacos, and Talea would only eat one bite before she said it was too spicy (it was only seasoned with a packet of taco seasoning), and Hyatt ate one plus a little of a second. Talea can't tolerate any kind of spice in her food, especially pepper (hence her request for quesadillas with "no yuckies, only melted cheese"), yet spice doesn't even phase Hyatt one bit. He'll even eat the hot salsa at Mexican restaurants. My kids are so different!

Caught in the act

Here we see Hyrum doing a magic trick, or trying to summon something out of the lazy susan. (Okay, so he's really just helping customers with their cabinet needs and Tilly caught him with a camera phone.)


By the way, this is my favorite display in our showroom. I told Hyrum to order the white with the brown because I LOVE it!

And here we see a guy peeing on the fence of a haunted house.

This is actually the house across the street from ours (an abandoned old house that was divided into apartments like ours was), and some seriously drunk guy was wandering around chanting Indian chants and trying to get into this house since he thought his relative lived in it. He was pretty funny to watch, but we called the police because after talking to him, we realized he was too drunk to find where he belonged, so the cop took him until he sobered up so he wouldn't go around trying to get into other homes thinking relatives lived in those too. That evening was the most excitement we've seen as far as something to run out to the sidewalk to watch. Not much happens around here because it's a sleepy, safe little town. We love it.

Carvless pumpkins

Don't get me wrong, I like carving pumpkins, but the mess and time it takes to do a cool jack-o-lantern is kind of excessive. This year, when going down the Halloween aisle of WalMart, my kids spotted these faces that you poke into your pumpkin. Genius! No mess, it takes about 10 seconds, and you're done! No moldy, shriveling, rotting skeleton-of-a-pumpkin after Halloween too! We're serious holiday slackers anyway, prone to procrastination, so this year we "decorated" our pumpkins two days before Halloween. Nice, I know. In all fairness, we've been sick and we've all been going to work with Hyrum every day to help at the shop, so our holiday planning was put way off (as if we plan...yeah right). I think this is my favorite pumpkin year so far though.

Kiersa and the identity crisis

I know I've mentioned how my kids, as babies, are always mistaken for the other sex. Talea AND Kiersa both were called boys even when they were dressed in pink. Just to prove how bad it is, my own Grandma, when she came to visit us yesterday, kept saying "he" when referring to Kiersa. I had Kiersa in a pink/heart jacket, and my own Grandma thought she was a boy! I mean, come on!!!! I know she has a lot of great grand kids, but I live close enough and see her often enough that I thought she'd remember I'd given birth to a GIRL!


What do I have to do?! Pierce her ears? Have her wear dresses? It's too cold on the floor for dresses, and she gets everything she wears trashed because she scoots around or crawls everywhere. Duh. I'll just have to keep correcting people I guess, though I didn't correct my Grandma since it was a quick visit and she was rushed (my 90-something-year-old Aunt Ida was in the car, and she HATES to wait). Oh well. I'm pretty used to it by now. Paisley will get it next, I'm sure.

Kiersa has a serious attachment to our dining room chairs. I think she thinks they're her personal jungle gym. She'll lay under and laugh, or she'll crawl over the crossbars, or pull herself up on them. I always know I can find her at or under the chairs.


Kiersa has always had an obsession with her tongue. She used to always stick it out, and now she always chews on it in the side of her mouth. I caught it on video, which is a rare feat. Every time I try to catch something she does on video (like gagging at her bottle when she's done), she stops doing it. She was playing on the floor with the kids, and yes, I sound like a smoker because I have a cold.


And the best news of all...Kiersa is no longer afraid of our dogs, not that a couple of tiny little min pins should be intimidating in the first place. She doesn't cry around them anymore, and she even tries to touch them when they come by her.

Tilly's latest

I realized yesterday that I'd never thought to teach Talea how to write her last name. She's been so uninterested with writing and such until the last month or so, so I never thought about it. I was just excited to finally get her to want to learn to write her name! She can finally write her name (in capital and lower case), nickname (Tilly), and sibling's names (Hyatt and Kiersa) from memory, without help. I showed her yesterday how to write Johnson one time, and she caught on. I'm thrilled! It used to be a struggle to get her to want to do school stuff since she wanted to go play in the yard with bugs and such, but now she's excited for it and asks to do "home school" each day.

She showed Hyrum how well she could write it, on her second try, and Hyrum said she wrote it better than him. I have to agree. Talea's version is the top, and Hyrum's is the bottom.


Talea is really attached to Grammie (my mom). Probably because my mom always plays imaginary games with her, and Talea soaks it up. After Grammie came to visit us all with G G Anna, Talea drew a picture of Grammie to show her how much she loved her.


Tonight, Hyrum bought Talea the new Tinkerbell movie since she loves fairies, and after she finished watching it, she came running out of the bedroom, ran straight for Hyrum, jumped up on him, gave him a HUGE hug, kissed him on the cheek, and then snuggled up next to him. Of course that makes any dad's day, and when he asked if she liked her movie, she said, "I LOVED IT!" I made her reenact the scene so I could take a picture of it.

Gassy aerobics class

We had this picture (a health advisory about swallowing chewing gum) forwarded on email to us by several people, so Hyrum showed it to the kids and told them this is what happens when you swallow your gum. He said you fluff bubble gum bubbles that get in your underwear and make a mess, so don't swallow your gum! Talea looked at the picture and laughingly said, "That's funny because it looks like they're sitting on balls, but they're really sitting on gum bubbles. Ha!"


The funniest thing about all this is that we've told her about this before. A few years ago (I swear we were at Maren's, but Hy doesn't recall), after she swallowed her gum, someone (I thought it was Susan but Hyrum says it was him) told Talea that if she fluffed, she'd blow bubbles in her underwear. She thought about it for a bit, then a few minutes later she ran in a desperate state for the bathroom, freaking out, because she needed to fluff and she didn't want a gum bubble to pop in her underwear. Sure enough, she sat on the toilet, while we were dying laughing, and was surprised NOT to find a bubble attached to her rear end. I guess she doesn't remember this though, since she didn't mention anything about it today when she saw the aerobics picture.

Surprise!

Surprise #1: Look who is going to force me to crawl under the crib for adjustments.
We woke up to a surprise this morning. Kiersa was standing up in her crib holding onto the side! I guess that means we have to lower the mattress now.


Surprise #2: Look who likes confinement!
Here's where we find Kiersa all the time. She loves the chairs because she can pull herself up to kneeling or standing at them. Somehow she got under one today.



Surprise #3: Look who came for a visit.
My mom and my twin brothers (Dallas and Weston), plus Weston's girlfriend (Emily) came up today for a last minute visit because my Grandma came up to visit her sister, so they all tagged along. They called us about a half hour before they left to tell us they were coming, and 3 hours later, they were here.

Surprise #4: Look who's never held a baby!
Weston's girlfriend came too, and though she's 16, she's never held a baby before. We forced her to hold Kiersa because I think it's flabbergasting that she's gone this long in life without an infant in her arms. It took A LONG time to get her to do it, but finally she gave in and held her. I think Edward even looks more natural with a baby in his arms than she does. It was hilarious. I wonder how motherhood will feel to her.

Here she is refusing to hold her. Note the tightly crossed arms.


Starting to give in to the peer pressure.


She's actually starting to do it, though Kiersa's not too sure if she wants to be involved!


She can do it!!!


And they both survived, though Kiersa looks seriously worried about Emily's capabilities.


Wow! A lot of surprises for one day!

Quirky quails

Have you ever tried to imitate the sound of a quail?


It's difficult. Just try it and you'll see. Do you say "twit twit" or "toick toick" or "quick quick quick"...I mean really. I know what they sound like, but how do you imitate it?! It's not that I often go around TRYING to imitate animals sounds, but I'm a mother to an extremely inquisitive, animal-loving 4-year-old who is very observant of nature, so I'm CONSTANTLY asked how to make various animal noises. I don't know of many people who have to imitate a quail or a hummingbird or a buffalo, or even a giraffe for their kids, but I do. Today, while we were at work with Hyrum, Talea found a stick with a leaf on the end. Wait a sec, here's some background to the story that's unfolding: The tree across the street from our house was covered in red leaves, and after seeing Daisha's leaf wreath she made with Tabitha, I thought I'd try my hand at making one with the kids for the office. It was a pitiful attempt, not even worthy of pictures (Hyrum says it looks like a bunch of socks), but the good that came out of it was that there were several long sticks with unwanted leaves on it that I chucked outside to decompose. Talea spotted them, and with the creative, animal mind she has, she came running in the office saying "Look, Mommy! I'm a quail!!! I can hide behind things and you can find me because of the feather on my head. Watch! (She hid behind a cabinet.) Can you see me?" (She was holding the 4 foot stick on top of her head.) Hyatt, seeing her game, ran and found a quail feather of his own and hid with her. I thought they were pretty clever to make a quail feather out of a stick with a leaf.


I managed to catch the kids in the kennel with the kittens (I remembered my camera!), so here they are, looking caged, yet happy.



Unfortunately, no one wanted kittens, but the devil cat did manage to escape and make a break for freedom. Banjo ran away from us and across the street, until she realized she didn't know where she was, so she ran back toward us, and not wanting to be caught, she ran into the ditch pipe. I decided she could just become a stray for all I care, but she wandered into the office later, so she's back in custody.

A simple request

I came across a blog of Hyrum's old friend from Wyoming, so I told him about it, and that opened a can of worms. For the next few days, he was a blogging maniac searching for and finding all sorts of old friends and acquaintances from his past. The funny thing is, many of them have us on their list of friends, but we never even knew they had a blog because THEY NEVER LEAVE A COMMENT!!!

So, Hyrum has a request, and I have to side with him. If you want to be an anonymous blog-stalker, fine, but at least once a month or so, or every 10 visits or something, leave a comment so we know you care/exist and actually look at our blog. Plus, we'd like to catch up with old friends, and that would be easier if they let us know of their existence and blogs by leaving a comment on ours. Personally, I consider it a common courtesy to leave a comment on each person's blog that I look at, but that's just me. Hyrum's just as guilty as most people because he's an anonymous blog-stocker too (the hypocrite), and even though he wants people to leave comments on ours, he's a bit negligent about leaving comments for others.

On a completely different note, Hyrum has a relative (Cindi), who has a similar pet peeve as me. I can't stand it when signs are misspelled. I mean, come on, if you're going to make a sign for the world to read, spell check it or have a great speller proof read it! I can't believe how many signs are out there with serious mistakes. If you're going to pay for a massive billboard to advertise on and you sell countertops, make sure someone points out that you spelled it "counertops" before you let the world read it as they drive by. Really, are your "counertops" of the same quality as your proof-reading skills? I'm not a perfect speller, though I consider myself to be pretty darn good, but my math...I wouldn't trust putting my math on a billboard before consulting a calculator first, but then again, I wouldn't be posting my math since I know I'm not good at it. Cindi takes pictures of signs that are misspelled, so I'm posting this one for her because I, too, take pictures of misspelled signs as I drive by saying "Oh, come on!!! You've got to be kidding me!" My simple request is, IF YOU'RE GOING TO WRITE/MAKE A SIGN FOR THE WORLD TO SEE, SPELL CHECK IT FIRST!
We spotted this sign in Roseburg on Wednesday.


I don't normally correct other people's spelling (aside from Hyrum's), unless it's a word that is repeatedly used and doesn't make sense, (you know who you are, don't you?), but I also encourage people to correct ME because if spell check didn't catch it, I was just going too fast and I'd appreciate a head's up.

Goodbye to Tiny Dingleberry!

Today, we had a cabinet & countertop overstock sale, so we thought we'd take our 4 kittens (Tiny, Dingleberry, Jack and Banjo) with us and see if we could give them away. We had them in our dogs' large portable kennel, so Talea, not wanting to part with her kittens very badly, crawled in the cage with them and played for a while. Of course I forgot my camera at home, and my cell phone is on the fritz ever since Dallas handled it (what's new?), so I couldn't use my cell as a camera, but it would have made the cutest picture. People were commenting on how I was giving away kittens AND kids, but she finally got out.

Talea was hoping we could keep Tiny and Dingleberry (her favorites), but of course, after the kids went in to watch a movie in the playroom, someone came and wanted her favorites (the grey calico and the blond). I let them take them home, then I went in to the playroom and told the kids they had gone to a new home. Talea said "Awwww, I wanted to keep Tiny and Dingleberry", but Hyatt was angry. He took it far worse than Talea. He scowled at me with his all too familiar scowl, and said "No! I don't want people to take our kitties! They are naughty! They can't take our kitties!" He kept repeating his protests while Talea could only think about going outside to see if they were really gone. They went out to see the kittens and Talea just looked into the cage and got over it, while Hyatt layed over the top and said "People can't take our kitties! We need lots of kitties!" I told them maybe Daddy would let us get a different kitty (like a Siamese) some day when we have more land if we gave these kitties to new homes. They were happy after that, but I have to say, I was a little disappointed about the kittens going. Tiny and Dingleberry were the two good ones. The ones that are left are skiddish, and one is devilish (the black/white one). It hisses and bites you when you catch it, so if it's not careful, it may find it's way into the animal shelter.

A day with Aunt Daisha

Back on the day that Hyrum and I went to London by ourselves while Daisha watched our kids, and hers, ALL DAY AND NIGHT long, I forgot to post the pictures Daisha took of our kids playing with hers at the park. Not only did she take care of our kids, she took them places, including the park. Brave woman!!!

Daisha got to see Tilly's naughty side when she was playing with the balls by throwing them over the fence, and then reaching down to do it again even though Daisha told her she couldn't do that because she wouldn't be able to get the balls back. Tiiillllyyy!!! Naughty!


Here's the church and graveyard close to Daisha's house.


Dakota was such a fun cousin and brother to play with the kids at the park.










Our kids had a great time with Daisha and her kids that day, and they still miss them! We wish we were back visiting you, Daish!

Say click! Take a pic!

Hyatt has a serious obsession with Diego. He wants to watch it all the time. I mean ALL the time. The one Diego DVD we have has been loved to death, to the point of scratching and skipping. He still loves it though. He got out his play camera the other day and told Hyrum and Talea to "say click", just like the camera on Diego.



Do you see what I mean about how my house can't stay tidy? Seriously! I'm ready for a bigger place so things will have a place.

Big Girls

Hyrum wanted to make brownies tonight, so he told Talea she needed to go to the store and get some oil (we live 2 blocks from a store). Even after finding out that Hyrum wanted her to go to the store alone, she was willing, even excited, to go. He gave her 5 one dollar bills and instructed her to follow the sidewalk to the store, just like they had done the other day, and to ask someone who works there where the oil is, then to give her the money and come home with it.

Here's Hyrum explaining the directions, and Talea looking anxious to go. Okay, so I'm aware that my kitchen is a nightmare right now, but I've been going to work with Hyrum every day so I never get a chance to clean it up, plus I have a bag of Weston's clothes waiting on the floor for him, paint to put on the exterior to see if I like the colors, and all the junk that doesn't have a home so it finds a home on the counter next to the front door.


Okay, back to the story. I clarified to Talea that we needed vegetable oil, Hyrum reminded her to look both ways before crossing the roads, and she headed off. At first she wanted a flashlight because it was almost ready to get dark outside, but she went without one.

She got to the sidewalk then yelled back for directions to the store. Hyrum pointed in the right direction, then she set off. Of course we weren't going to let a 4 year-old go unaccompanied to the store, no matter how small the town, so Hyrum secretly followed her. He headed down the alley to cut her off, but when she got to the mortuary one block away from our house, she yelled out, "which way now?" He had to make his presence known then. He came out from the alley and told her to keep going straight, then pretended not to follow her. She made it to the doors of the store and went in and looked around for someone to direct her to the oil. She looked back at the doors and saw Hyrum, so she told him she didn't know who to ask. He told her to ask someone in a blue vest.

She approached the busiest girl who was checking people out, so Hyrum pointed her to someone else. She approached the clerk, who leaned down, and Talea asked her where the "broccoli oil" was. Okay, so broccoli is a vegetable, but not quite what we were looking for. Confused, the clerk asked "What?" to which Hyrum clarified with, "vegetable oil". She said "Aisle 7", so Hyrum pointed out to Talea how each aisle has a number over it, so she went to aisle 7 and found some oil. She found one that had a picture of vegetables on it, grabbed it, and headed toward the checkout. Hyrum swapped out what she had picked for a different brand that was on sale, but she did pick the correct kind of oil.


She took the oil to the cashier and bought it all by herself,


then she carried the oil in it's sack all the way home by herself,


and when she got home,



she proudly announced she had bought the oil by herself and carried it home. What a big girl she is now! I can't believe that my first baby's already grown so big and I'm about to have my 4th baby now!

After all this, it was bath time. If you've ever bathed Talea before, you'll know she hates to be washed. She especially hates having her hair washed. I washed Kiersa and Hyatt, but Talea had wanted to play longer, so I let her. Hyrum ended up going in to wash her, but she insisted on washing herself. I sometimes let her try to do it, but I normally wash her myself so I know a good job was done. This night, though, Hyrum let her do all the hair and body washing by herself, and he said she did a great job. Seriously, will time always fly by this fast? I don't know if I'm ready for her to be so independent!




Hyrum keeps telling her to stop growing up, and she told him the only way he'll be able to keep her from growing up is if he puts her in a box that is too small for her to grow in, so the next time she proved to be growing up, he stuck her in a cabinet box, and the next time he put her in the bottom drawer of her dresser. She thinks it's a hilarious game now, though Hyatt gets freaked out and rescues her 2 seconds after she's put in.

And just to prove to me that Talea isn't the only big girl now, Kiersa keeps proving to me every day that she's not a newborn anymore. She's been pulling herself up on her knees for the last few days,


and just yesterday she started pulling herself up to standing.


And then tonight she decided to do a lot of crawling instead of her usual army crawl! All of this means that the new baby will be arriving soon, and just when Kiersa is getting clingy and needy. Great! Hopefully she'll attach to Hyrum and be a Daddy's girl so she won't feel so jealous when the baby arrives.