Pants of Doom and Mind-reading

I love when people hear something different than what was actually said.

Me: You are a handsome dude, Preston.
Preston: No I don't! YOU wear pants of doom!

Carter: I, um, never mind. I forgot what I was going to say.
Me: No you didn't. You just decided not to say what you were about to say.
Carter: I knew it! I always thought you could read minds, and now I have proof!

Avery was holding a grapefruit this morning. Sadie, very matter-of-fact-ly, reached out her hand and demanded the "ball."

Bill programmed Sadie's new toy puppy to say her name. It also says that its favorite food is bacon, and its favorite animal is a lemur. I'm a little disappointed that ring-tailed lemur wasn't one of the choices.

A man and a woman went shopping together. The man said, "We need to get in and get out of each store as fast as we can." The woman said, "You are thinking of shopping like it's a job. Part of the fun is taking your time to enjoy the shopping experience. But do you think you could drive closer to the speed limit? It's going to take us forever to get there." The man replied, "You're looking at driving like it's a job. Just enjoy the ride...." I have funny parents. It was nice to see them, and I hope their flight back to Tennessee is great!

I am the little one

I have had this picture on my refrigerator for the last couple of months. My daughter brought it up one day from the disorganized box of pictures from the office and said, "Mommy, you were so cute when you were little. You looked just like me!"

I laughed, and my husband laughed.

A couple of days later, I was looking at the picture, and I was struck with sadness. I realized that I had spent almost thirty years telling that sweet little girl that she wasn't pretty. How could someone say such a thing to an innocent little girl? How could someone tell that little girl over and over, nearly every day, that she wasn't beautiful? Think how damaging that can be to a little girl!

As I realized that the little girl in the picture was indeed cute, I had just a fleeting feeling of how Heavenly Father must feel. He sees the beauty in his children, even when we can't see it in ourselves. He sees our individual worth.

Tell the girls in your life that they are pretty, because they are. Tell your daughters. Tell your sisters. Tell your mothers. Tell your wives. Tell your friends. Tell the little girls in the pictures. They deserve to know. (Husbands, please don't tell other people's wives...)

I hope that my daughters know that they are pretty, that they have true beauty. I don't want them wasting all their time thinking about how they look or thinking that they are better than anyone else. But they need to know that they are beautiful.

I don't want to spend any more time trying to convince that little girl in the picture that she isn't pretty. I don't want her to hear that she isn't pretty one more time, at least not from me! It wasn't true then, and I am working hard to try to believe that it's not true now.

Cakes and Lemurs

As my niece was devouring her chocolate cake, she stopped, cradled the cake in her hands, held it close and whispered, "I love you." She then resumed eating her cake.

We were holding up stuffed animals, saying, "Sadie, what does a kitty say?" She would either give the appropriate response or just stare at us. "What does a cow say? What does a puppy/horse/monkey say?" Then Carter joined in, "Sadie, what does a ring-tailed lemur say?"

After a day of fun with his new toy, Carter sighed, "The person who created the whoopie cushion was a genius."

Gift Wrap

Carter: I couldn't find any tape to wrap Sadie's present with, so I just used sticky notes. It's wrapped very badly, but I don't think she'll notice.

Everybody: Sadie, how old are you?
Sadie: Bum! (Holds up one finger...)

Well, it was nice while it lasted, but I am guessing the next nine days will be much harder to keep the presents under the tree in one piece. Once she opens her birthday presents, I can't imagine her being content with just looking at the Christmas presents...

It's Thursday.

I am a den leader in cub scouts. I have been teaching my kids that it's more important to be a good person than it is to be cool. So, I was surprised at how sad I felt when I realized that I am not the cool leader. We had an activity with all the boys, and I was one of the drivers. NOBODY wanted to ride with me, and the kids that had to ride in my car were visibly disappointed. But at least we got a lot of food for the food bank...

I took Sadie to Pier One yesterday. She kept pointing at things and saying, "pity." It was sooo cute!

Bill and I were trying to plan a menu the other night.

Bill: I think we should have bacon wrapped appetizers.
Me: What is it that you want to wrap in bacon?
Bill: I don't think it really matters.

Typical man...

I found Sadie licking the kitchen floor a little while ago. There was part of a smashed chocolate chip cookie stuck to the floor. Now I am wondering which of the kids got into the cookies before school...

Sometimes I regret getting Avery a desk full of art supplies. There are always little papers and other messes all over her room. (And frequently all over the rest of the house.) But it's so cute how excited she gets about all her projects and her books that she has been writing lately.

Preston said, "I don't think I really know that many twins. I think I only know two or three." Then we started counting all the ones from his old school, his new school, and church, and he knows at least twelve sets of twins!

Carter just remembered that he had an erector set. At least he isn't always asking if he can play the wii or the ipad or the computer since his discovery. But there are little parts all over our house that is supposed to be baby-proofed. Good thing I had already planned to clean the house all day...

Mostly about Sadie, because she's a baby for almost another week

Things I have found Sadie doing this week:

Sitting in the dishwasher...
Holding onto the side of her crib and jumping as high as her little almost-one-year-old legs will take her... (And this is almost every single time she wakes up in the morning and from both naps.)
Stuck in a bin she climbed into...
Jumping on the couch...
Stuck under several different chairs...
Stuck under the kitchen table with all the chairs pushed in... (No idea how she got there in the first place.)
Ripping the presents under the tree... (And they all have coordinating wrapping papers that are neatly wrapped with nearly perfect corners, so it's even more frustrating.)

Things I have found Sadie cuddling with while she drinks her bottles:

Blankets
Stuffed animals
Shoes
Boots
Paper
Books
The wipes package
A diaper (clean, luckily)
Books
Hard toys
The changing pad
Her pants or socks that she managed to take off somehow just for cuddling with
The piano bench
A rug
A Kleenex box

I am sure Bill has found her cuddling with weirder things that I have missed out on. I don't want to follow the guideline to get totally rid of her bottles in the next few weeks. I will miss this aspect of my (possibly and most likely last) baby.

I started a list of the words I can remember her saying before her birthday next week. Almost fifty words. It's adorable and sad at the same time that she is growing up. I hope she's a little slower on the walking part of growing up. I am not ready.

Who started saying, "a whole nother" instead of "a whole other" or "another whole" whatever it is you're talking about? It's weird, and it rubbed off on me, and I don't like saying it.

Things my big kids have said to me this week to boost my confidence:

Carter: You're not fat at all, Mom. You just have a really big bum.
Avery: You look fine, Mom. You don't need makeup on. It will just look like you have dots all over your face.
Preston: I don't want you to live here anymore, Mom! I want you to leave!

Preston did cry when I drove around the cul-de-sac before coming back to get my toothbrush. And he locked my door so I couldn't get my toothbrush and said I could never leave again. Make up your mind, kid.

And Avery wrote me a note, "I love you so much. I hope you are in are family forever."

Apparently, I traumatized my kids by pretending to listen to his tantrum...

We have a photographer!

During lunch after church today, Preston shouted with glee, "This is the most unhealthy lunch EVER!" Then he asked for more fudge and caramels.

I let him have more.

Carter was covered from head to toe with hives. I Skyped my brother, who has had lots of experience dealing with hives. As he looked at Carter, who had no shirt on because it was just too itchy, he said, "Dude, you look like you're from Ethiopia."

He has always been pretty skinny, but he has been sick the last couple of weeks, with no appetite at all, so he has lost a few pounds. He kind of looks like a skeleton...

Bill told me that the kids had taken too many pictures and videos on the iPad.... SIX GIGABYTES worth! So, I had to go through and delete a bunch of them. While I was going through them, I was really worried about all the videos that they had taken that I was completely unaware of. I thought for sure that I would be yelling at the kids in every single one because it feels like that is all I do. But in about a hundred videos, I did not even yell at the kids at all. And I was even speaking kindly and calmly to my kids in most of them. It's nice to have a good surprise once in a while.

Most of the pictures were of Preston. And most of them were with his face distorted in one way or another. He thinks it is so funny when he makes his face stretched out or something. So he takes fifty pictures of the exact same funny thing. I don't know why one isn't enough. The other pictures were all taken by him as well, mostly of Sadie.

On the way to church today, Avery said, "You're weird, Mom." Preston said back to her, "You never even act like Mommy is cool or anything. You can't ALWAYS be saying mean things like that."

So, maybe he thinks I am sort of cool?

Sadie was playing with her hands today, and she kept saying, "Dingdas. Dingdas." I think that was supposed to be fingers? And when she said, "Dimdumdee," I think it was Christmas tree? She was looking and pointing that way...

And she kept grabbing a handful of my cheek with her sharp little fingernails, saying, "Deek." It hurt. It was kind of cute. It was less cute when she stuck her finger in my mouth and scratched it. Now I'm going to have a canker sore.