*My little sister returned from a 10 day vacation in Switzerland last week. She brought me some yummy chocolate and coffee and this Oh, so cool necklace.

*Eden and I made a trip to Old Navy this weekend. They finally had in the store this shirt that I’d been wanting ever since they emailed me about it. Shhh, don’t tell them their spam email is effective.

*We also went out to the yarn store, which we found out is moving SO much closer to me!! yay! I bought some blue cotton linen to knit a tank. The pattern is out of some random knitting mag I bought on clearance for .50 cents. And I bought sock yarn! Here’s my progress thus far. (it’s a stretchy cotton)

I’m surprised to say that the size 3 needles aren’t getting to me like I thought they would.

*After the trip to the yarn store, we went to the “ice cream store” where Eden had to have “Pink ice cream, not with a spoon and not with a straw.” She settled for a cherry dipped cone.

*We also went that night to see Madagascar while Honor and Jim went to a guys Playstation/Xbox night for the youth group. Eden really liked it, she sat on the edge of her seat the whole time and kept saying cute things very loudly like, “That ‘zwebra’ is SO funny.” I thought it was OK for a cartoon, I just really hate how they’re making the humor in children’s movies a bit too “adult.”

*Eden starts her teeny tiny ballet class tomorrow. She’s peeing her pants with excitement and I’m sure there will be more about it tomorrow.

Yesterday the pet rat bit Honor. I was in the bedroom doing my makeup, he was at the front of the house in the playroom. He started crying and I could tell he was hurt, but I figured that he had just fallen down (which he does frequently) and I could hear that he was coming my way. I turned around and saw that his hand was totally COVERED in blood.

He kept saying “owie, mouse, owie, mouse”, and after I cleaned him up, I followed the trail of blood (on my newly cleaned CARPET) and it ended at the rat cage. It took forever to get the bleeding to stop and it was swollen all day yesterday. But today it’s looking much better, thankfully.

Eden keeps telling everyone, “The rat bit Honor. The rat has to go bye-bye.”

The thing that’s surprising to me is that I didn’t freak out at all the blood. I think I’m beginning to expect these things from him.

I apologize for the poor quality, all pics and movies were taken with Jim’s new and very expensive phone.

MOVIE: Honor swinging

MOVIE: Eden in the slide

This is also the trip where Honor went down a slide and BURNT HIS STOMACH!!! Really bad! He’s such a tuff little kiddo. The slide had been repaired with a black plastic which, evidentially, gets REALLY hot. It wasn’t even that hot of day. I called the City to complain about the slide and they said they’d get it taken care of. We’ll see….

While changing a really gross diaper.

Jim: mmm, doesn’t that smell yummy?

Eden: do you want me to get a spoon?

This weekend I planned a really fun memorial weekend activity, shampooing the carpets. These dern carpets were SO disgusting; it’s just what happens when you have Honor living in your house for any amount of time. Luckily we only have carpet in the bedrooms and back hallway. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to do the whole house.

So we loaded every single My Little Pony and dump truck out of the playroom, all the kids furniture out of their bedroom (there were some My Little Ponies in there too) and some of the stuff out of our bedroom. We planned to leave our bed in there and just clean around it.

When we arrived at our house, carpet shampooer in tow, we decided that we should take our bed out of the room so we could get the carpet totally clean. The problem was that we had piled ALL sorts of things on top of the bed. We’re talking like four loads of clean laundry and just about everything else that was on the floor or side tables. I distinctly remember that my glasses and the remote control were on the bed as well. You know, it’s funny when Jim’s carpal tunnel kicks in; he informed me that he could NOT shampoo carpets, his poor wrists… So I started shampooing the carpets while Jim loaded everything out of our bedroom.

After a long day of shampooing and ice cream smearing (see previous post), we wanted to watch a little TV. We weren’t able to load anything but the beds back in the rooms because the carpet was still damp. We searched and SEARCHED for the remote control (and my glasses were missing too.) Jim didn’t remember seeing it on the bed, so we assumed that it must have gotten piled into the laundry basket will all the laundry. We dug around in the laundry and couldn’t find it anywhere so we resigned ourselves to watching TV in the living room. (Aren’t we so spoiled?)

The next day we loaded all the everything back into the rooms and folded all the laundry (it took stinking forever!) and STILL no remote or glasses. We searched the whole house, all the time Jim insisted that he never saw the remote or my glasses. But it turns out he did, in-fact, see the remote and glasses and even thought to store them in a “safe” place.

He stored them in the trash can.

monday
Green salad with grilled chicken and bow tie pasta

tuesday
Coconut chicken curry
I’m really, truly making it this time

wednesday
Some sort of healthy fast food, Jim’s on a diet ;)

thursday
Beef roast, potatoes, veggies, and chocolate ice cream at Jim’s dad’s house
weekend
I think we’ll go camping, so hot dogs! and maybe beef stew

We’ve been spending more time with Jim’s business partner and his family lately. They’ve got two boys relatively close to our kids ages and Eden especially has fun playing with their 3 year old, Christopher. (Don’t ask me why she gets along better with boys… Maybe it’s because they listen to her when she bosses them around.)

Last night we were over at their house for dinner. We had, among other things, watermelon and ice cream. Needless to say, The One Who Must Smear His Food was in true form. I don’t think Honor has made it one day in his life without making a BIG, HUGE mess of his meals. And if Honor is covered with food, that means that I am covered with his food too. He’s such a loving and sweet child, how could he not share the slimey love?

I noticed last night when I got home that I had chocolate ice cream smeared all over my face. (And those of you who know me and my family may attribute the chocolate ice cream on my face to the genetic love for ice cream that I am predisposed to by a certain member of my family. The same certain member who loves ice cream so much that she climbed across a table to eat ice cream out of somebody else’s bowl. But alas, I do not share that same earth shattering, to the core of oneself, LOVE for ice cream. This ice cream on my chin was wholly attributed to the Slimey Monster.)

So anyway, last night Eden and Christopher were playing “Mommy and Daddy” and Christopher was heading off to work. He said to Eden, “Oh, I need to give you a kiss before I go to work!” All eyes were on Jim, but luckily for Christopher, Jim didn’t hear it. He freaked out the other day when they were (very cutely) holding hands.

So, on our way home Jim felt the need to educate Eden on the perils of young boys.

Jim: Eden, we don’t kiss boys, they’re YUCKY; boys are SILMEY. Ok, Eden? We don’t kiss boys.
Eden: OK.

A few minutes later Jim wanted to review with her to make sure he made an impact.
Jim: Do we kiss boys?
Eden: No, we don’t kiss boys, they’re gross.
Me: Well, you can kiss mommy, daddy and Honor.
Eden: No we don’t kiss Honor, he’s slimey. He’s got slimey cheeks and slimey hands and and a slimey head and slimey LIPS. He is SOOOO slimey.

I foresee many a hosing down in the boys future.

This is what Eden said to me yesterday,

“Mom, you have a big, big BUTT.”

I’ve decided to make some Amish Friendship Bread. The recipe is here.

The ingredients for the starter

The starter day one

I remember making this when I was a kid. From what I remember it took forever for the starter to be ready. It’s only 10 days, ahhh, the timeline of kids.