.Honor came up to me yesterday holding a wet diaper. At first I wondered how he got into the diaper pail but then he handed it to me and I realized it was warm. He managed to get his diaper off. I’m not sure how because he was fully clothed.

.Eden said to Jim the other day when he told her she couldn’t do something, “I’m so BAD at you.”

.When we were at Walmart the other night, Eden crawled in the bottom of the cart as the store employees looked down their noses at me and whispered about what a bad mom I am. Honor was sitting in the front where he played his favorite game: buckle the buckle and the yell, “bucko, bucko,” until I unhook it for him. Lather, rinse, repeat. Honor noticed that Eden wasn’t there as we started moving and he freaked out, “EDEEE, EDEEE!” He was so worried that I had left her behind. But as soon as I pointed out to him that she was coasting along in the bottom of the cart, her resumed his buckle game. “Bukco!!”

.Maybe it’s just a 3 year old thing, but Eden loves to give us the play by play on all her bodily activities. “Mom, I just tooted.” She’ll bypass the bathroom and come all the way outside to announce to us, “I have to go potty.” And just now she yelled at me from the bathroom, “MOM! I went pee and poop at the SAME TIME! It was SO funny.”

Because we’re gluttons for punishment, the walls of Honors crib didn’t go back up until last night. I admit, Jim’s got more determination that I do. He dealt with nap and bed times all weekend. I can’t even count the MANY, many times that Honor got up and got in trouble. Finally, by last night, Jim had had it. He stormed into the kids room, turned the light on and started to screw the crib back together.

Who would have known that the best punishment of all would be to make Honor sleep in a crib? He was heart broken, he just sat there and cried with the most pathetic look ever. Jim is still braver than I, he thinks that in a few days Honor will be able to sleep without the walls again. I, on the other hand, think that he can sleep in the crib for the rest of his life and I’m considering Joelene’s idea to cover the top with chicken wire.

And congratulations to my friend Jill who just found out that she’s pregnant with her third!

I thought that I’d open today up for questions about me. So ask away! I’ll post my answers here.

What is your ultimate goal for yourself?
Of course I’d get the hard question first. I want to live in the mountains of Colorado, like Ouray, Ridgeway or Telluride where we’ll possibly run a bed and breakfast. And definitely raise sheep for their wool so we can hand dye it, spin it and sell it and most importantly knit it. I want to live in a big farm house with a porch and a big area for a garden.

The biggest accomplishment of my life will be having well adjusted kids who love God and who are great parents and spouses themselves. If this is all I ever accomplish, I will die fulfilled.

What’s next on your knitting agenda and how big is your stash?
I think I’m going to dive into leg warmers. Also, aren’t these great thigh highs? I may just buy them instead of knit them tho…

I’m trying to focus my knitting on what I’m actually going to WEAR this fall and winter. I’m still formulating my “fashion” plan in my head, but that’s where I’m headed. I may also need to knit Eden a cute little wintery dress.

I think my stash is pretty modest, although Jim wouldn’t agree. I usually pick up lots of sugar and cream cotton when it’s on sale for dish cloths and small things for the kids. I’ve got some acrylic novelty yarn and am quickly using up my stash of wool. That’s about all. I need to make it bigger!

How did you and Jim come up with your kids names?
Jim came up with the name Honor when I was first pregnant with Eden. He’s ignoring me right now and won’t tell me how. Since we were pretty convinced that Eden was going to be a boy (even though we didn’t look during the ultrasound) we took our time finding a girl name, just as a back up you know. It was just a month or so before my due date and we were shopping at Target for diapers, onsies, things like that. The check out girls name was Eden and as we walked out of the store, we both looked at each other and said EDEN!

How did Jim propose?
It was August and Jim took me to Aspen. We walked around downtown, peeking in store windows and listening to the street musicians. We rode up the mountain in a gondola and walked around the top for awhile. They were building a fancy schmancy restaurant up on top and it was pretty cold. On our way down, Jim got on one knee and proposed. Even though I knew it was coming, it was still so perfect.

What’s your favorite thing to eat for dinner? Or if you don’t have one maybe just a few of your favorite foods?
Do you have a specialty meal that you make, that people love?
I have a hard time choosing a favorite food, but I really love salads. I also love general tsos chicken and fajitas. oooo, and tamales! I love food too.

Everyone loves my frog eye salad. Also I make a pretty good lasagna. Jim always asks for enchilada casserole.

Eden Joy (Joy is my middle name and my moms middle name.)
Honor James (James is Jim’s real name, it was our compromise as he wants SO bad to have a kid named Jim.)

I really don’t know what to say, I’m still so steaming mad about it. I’ll just say this. I was TRYING to work on a website during nap time when Honor stealthily went into my bedroom where Eden was napping. He got into my black eye shadow and ruined my very cute sheets. Eden watched the whole time and didn’t tell me until the damage had been done. Honor was very happy with himself, as you can see. Lucky for him I knew I HAD to take pictures, you all would never forgive me if I didn’t.

No go ahead… laugh at my expense.

I’ve got the page up for 100 salads, though I’m still adding recipes and may mess more with the format. They all look so yummy that I think I’m going to be eating salads for the rest of the summer! YUM!

Jim took a picture of my one skein wonder. The pic of the front didn’t turn out so well, so you’ll have to settle for a pic of the back.

I love this pattern, I want to make Eden a teeny tiny one.

So we (actually JIM) did the dumbest thing this weekend. He took the side off Honors crib and lowered the mattress all the way down. Yeah, I told you it was dumb. I think Jim had a momentary lapse in judgment when he saw Honor crawl into Edens toddler bed and look up at him with pleading eyes. Honor is a whole year older than Eden was when she moved to a toddler bed. But. There’s a reason. The boy is uncontrollable. He’s a squirmy ball of energy that NEVER. STOPS. EVER.

My very last option of containment is now gone. Wanna guess how many times he got up (and got in trouble) from his nap yesterday? SEVEN… or was it eight? He’s gotten up so many times in the last 36 hours that they’re all blending together. He of course thinks it’s the greatest thing EVAR!! He can get up, he can crawl in bed with Eden and lay on her head. He can get a toy, he can open up the wipe box and take EVERY SINGLE ONE out and lay them on his bed, he can go running through the house and back as fast as he can in hopes that we don’t catch him before he gets back into his bed. Yes, this is just a sample of the last 36 hours of bed and nap times (which, by the way, is only one nap time and two bed times.)

I wonder how long he would stay up if I let him? That is an experiment for someone like a grandparent who likes him much more than I do and would be less likely to duct tape him to the wall out of sheer desperation.

If my love for you was boobs, they’d have to make a bra for it so big that even Jupiter couldn’t fill it, the sun couldn’t fill it….

Honors head couldn’t fill it.

Monday
Taco Salad

Tuesday
Thai pasta salad

Wednesday
subway

Thursday
Grilled Pizza

Friday
Hot dogs! camping!

Saturday
eh, whatever….?

Sunday
Hamburgers

Jim’s oldest sister called today to tell us that their middle sister had a baby early this morning. We didn’t even know that she was pregnant. Without going into details, I’ll just say that she and Jim had a falling out right after Honor was born. It was the one and only time that she’s even seen him. Since then it’s caused the whole family to feel caught in the middle. They have been forced to choose sides, more often than not, it hasn’t been Jim’s side. (I don’t totally KNOW why, but I guess that they’ve been put in an impossible situation and maybe they know that Jim can take it? Because he can. I can’t, but he can.)

I’m writing today because my heart is broken. I’ve got two nephews that I’m just in love with that I never see and may never again see. I’ve now got a little niece that I will probably never know. My kids will never have the joy of growing up with their cousins. They will never know their aunt, who despite her problems, is such a cool person. It just kills me that our nephews probably don’t even remember us anymore. We couldn’t even send them a birthday present because no one would tell us where they were.

Today, that should be so full of joy over the start of a new life, is filled with so much sorrow and heart ache. It just really really hurts. Life just isn’t worth holding grudges. It’s not worth all this pain. It’s not worth our kids missing out on vital relationships.

I just want to say, wherever you are, we love you. We’ve always loved you and all we’ve ever wanted for you is happiness. If us not being in your life, means your happiness, then we’re willing to deal with that. But I just want you to know that we still care so very much. And that we care so very much about your children. It is my deepest hope that someday there can be healing in your relationship with your brother.

Yesterday the kids and I went to the lake with my mom and sister. I love going to the lake. I always forget how much I like swimming. I really really like to swim. Why, oh why, don’t we live in a place that having a swimming pool in our back yard is common place?

So we were at the lake and I discovered a frog. Well a toad really, but yeah… I’m not going to even bother to try to explain to the kids that there are toads and there are frogs. So this toad is a frog. So the frog. Eden insisted that I catch and hold the frog, but she wouldn’t touch him. Honor on the other hand was SO extremely excited to see the frog. “Frog! Frog! Frog!” He followed the frog all over the place. Each and every time the frog jumped right before Honor stepped on it.

As Honor put the frogs life in danger with every step, Eden observed, “The frog doesn’t say ribbit?” When Eden was first born, I had no idea how we were going to teach her all that she’d need to know. How was she going to know what a joke was? How was she going to learn how to communicate? How in the world would I explain every single aspect of life to her? I’m constantly amazed that she just learned all these things all by herself. Three years ago, she couldn’t do a single thing for herself and now she uses words like, “awful” and does things like climbing into the bathroom sink to wash her feet.

When we got home from the lake, Eden explained to her daddy that frogs don’t always say “ribbit.” And Honor came in to tell daddy what he did, “Sim, Sim, Sim!” Eden got two suckers because she dunked in the lake two times and Honor only got one because he only dunked once (not counting the time he tripped and was floating face first – don’t worry we were right there.) Eden’s already talking about when we can go to the lake again and occasionally Honor will throw in,
“Lake, Lake, Lake!”