Life in Pictures

Nicole likes to draw and color but I don't need a gazillion pieces of art. I started taking pictures of the notable ones.

Here she's drawing a snail. Not that it really looks like a snail but without being prompted she drew the whole spiral on her own, which I thought was pretty good for a 36 month old.

This is the picture of Ryann that she drew for Ryann. I see the person pretty clearly and though she said that it's a picture of "Ryann in bed" I miss the "bed" portion (red squiggles). I complimented her on the hat (started as just aqua and green part) so she continued to embellish until it got huge.

We are Farm Bureau members and got invited to their night at Stricker's Grove last Thursday. It was actually better than I remembered....

Nicole went to the dentist for the first time Wednesday morning. She did FANTASTIC (no squirming, whining, etc.) as they worked on her teeth. For a reward they gave her TWO prizes out of the toy box. However, the hygienist didn't like what she picked (a rubber frog and a purple ring) so she gave her a bracelet, stickers/pencil set, and extra princess flossers too.

Also on Wednesday we went to the fire station to get Chris's car seat turned around to face forward. While we were there I entertained the kids while Jim chatted with the fireman. Another fireman came out with their search and rescue dog, Aiden, who liked to play frisbee with the kids.


We did a test of Aiden's skills. We hid Nicole under a blanket on the firemen's beds and told her to stay quiet and still. Then we set Aiden off to "search". He sniffed all of us and all around the room. When he got to the lump on the bed he sniffed it and then barked to indicate that he found something. It was very neat!

Spelling Bee

We've been working with Nicole on spelling a lot lately. Trying to emphasize that we read words, not pictures, and that words are comprised of the letters she already knows.

She can spell her name and knows the sound of each letter so it's not a far jump to quiz her on things like: "Nicole, what planet starts with Ssssssss?"

The other night I told her we were having something great for dinner.
"Hot dogs?" she beamed.
"No, even better," I prompted.
"Chicken Nuggets?"
"Even better. It starts with P."

*thinking*

"Psaghetti!?"

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Dad's brand of entertainment

Like all little kids, my brothers and I liked to be entertained. Especially on long car trips. My dad was often in charge of this effort and there were three go-to's that were always big hits.

1) Brandy stories- "Brandy" is the name of my cousin's cousin (no relation to our side of the family) who was older than me and therefor automatically cool. Brandy's best and worst characteristic? Her wooden leg. Teenaged Brandy goes on lots of adventures and finds herself in terrible predicaments all solved by said leg. Once she got stranded on the top of a mountain after a helicopter crash and she had to burn her leg and send smoke signals to get rescued. Another time she was rafting the Amazon when she got stranded and needed to use her leg to fight off hungry crocodiles. Her perseverance never failed and neither did her creativity. Classic.

2) Big Bad John- yes, this is the song that you might hear on Oldies 103.5 from time to time. Dad would sing it in his deepest voice possible and we'd all chime in on the chorus.

3) Twilight Zone- when Brandy was doing normal things like going to school or eating dinner we'd tune in to Dad's renditions of old Twilight Zone episodes. Of course we never saw these in real life (and I'll tell you, after I did I liked Dad's versions better). The amazement after discovering that Mr. Jones's whole life had been lived inside a snow globe for little Suzy's entertainment.... The terror of being abducted by aliens for bodily tests and experiments.... It was all so creative and wonderful, how could any kid not like it?

Still working on what my gift to Nicole and Chris may be...

Exhaling

Things around our household seem to be settling down. It's somewhat ironic that I say this when last night Jim and I both had obligations (him a softball tournament, me a meeting at XU) that had us coming home from the babysitter at 9:30pm.

But, the landscaper finally gave us a quote and the sprinkler redesign will be moving forward - another step closer to the deck/wall project being completed. While Jim's job continues to be stressful for him he's done a wonderful job of keeping that stress out of our family life (which is making it more stressful for him overall ??) lately and has taken some big steps in getting his resume outward ready. He applied to his first other company this week.

Nicole "got into" ballet lessons and they start September 18th from 5-5:45. Will take some finagling at work but we both think it'll be fun for her. Her best friend left the school yesterday (is going to the same school her older sister will attend for first grade) and Cameron brought her a Friends card with her picture, silly bands and Dora stickers. Cameron's parents wrote their phone number inside if we want to get together. I think we will!

Chris is finally cutting two bottom teeth and I hope this signals the end of the whiny funk he's been in for about the last three weeks. He's fully cot-trained at school now but is taking shorter naps since it is longer for him to fall asleep in the first place. Haven't gone so far as to convert his bed at home. It's kind of nice having him confined while he's unsupervised....

It's a goal of mine to do something with our downstairs bathroom and the new time frame is October 19th. This might sound like a lot of time but I haven't decided what I want to do so official planning (not just me mulling things over while I drive) needs to commence in short order. Even though this will be a new project, it'll be a fun one (and frickin' about time, we've only been in the house 3 years!).

I'm very aware of how long my hair is getting. It's fun!

Design Star

I really like interior design. I like to read design magazines and I have a folder of clippings of things I've seen that I'd like to incorporate some day.

However, if you've been to my house, you'll quickly see that I don't take a lot of design chances. My furniture and decor is very traditional (tasteful though I think). In general I have a hard time investing my money in trendy stuff. I really appreciate the chances other people take though - Lisa's red living room in her old house; Anjali's green wall in her Cincinnati family room; my aunt's highly patterned, curvy couch, etc.

Watching Design Star is a double edged sword for me. They take lots of chances and I think a lot of them are duds. The judges often think so too. Doing "risky" things for the sake of being risky is a losing proposition.

The other thing that irks me is the furniture/art they pick out. I know this is in NYC but do you really have to spend $4500 on a couch? $1500 on a mirror? What do they do with this stuff after the show airs?

It was only in this last week's episode where the designers had to work with only the objects in the room already (could add paint to the walls though) that I was actually impressed with their creativity. Some of their other projects look okay but there's always an aura of uncohesiveness to it (probably because they encourage the designers to express themselves all while completing the task as a group) and certainly unfinishedness that I wouldn't' want for a space I was living in.

I think if I was to apply to be on the show I'd petition my value on three main fronts:
1) I'd design for the majority of the viewing audience - regular people who like to see new and interesting things with pieces that are actually affordable
2) I'd be a dark horse because I'm not a professional designer (like all the other contestants) so I have no preconceived notions of what's right or not. Just instinct.
3) I think I'm personable enough that I'd make a good host. This is a bit egotistical of me I know, but the classes I teach (both at the university and for my job) are very well-received and are a performance just like this would be.

Life Updates

Christopher

• Says "all done", "What's that?", "where", "ma", "da", and "more".
• Has the sign for milk down and sometimes more
• Knows where his head and tongue are. This morning we worked on eyes by getting him to blink them.
• He's in the process of getting cot-trained at school which I think is very ambitious of his teacher Lysa.

Nicole

• Is picking up quite a bit of Spanish from school
• Loves to play pretend. We "travel" before bed each night - some times to space, some times to the farm, some times to the beach. Lately she's wanted to pretend that she's going to daycare. She drives and there's always at least one instance of sudden braking and grumbling about "bad drivers".
• I mentioned she got a kitchen for her birthday. Jen O. got her this cute cutting set where the pieces Velcro together and you use a wooden knife to split them. Nicole uses the knife to slice and then again when she needs to push the cut piece from the cutting board. Funny the little things she picks up from me that I don't even know she notices.

Jim

• Still trying to switch roles at work. So far it's been a tedious, stressful, unsuccessful process.
• Is actually reading War and Peace
• Moved something like 89 wheelbarrows of top soil (1500 scoops of dirt) to fill in our walled-in flowerbeds over the weekend. He's a beast

Karen

• I read the entire Breaking Dawn book (750 pages) over 5 days while on vacation. I'm now trying to get through the stack of parenting magazines that have been piling up over the last four months.
• Bought $200 in clothes from JC Penney and for the most part am doing at least a 1:1 replacement for existing stuff (which is all going to Goodwill). This is one of 3 real big shopping trips in the last two years and it was both fun and a bit "maybe I shouldn't be spending so much" at the same time. I think I'm just out of practice shopping.
• I'm not teaching this fall due to an admin oversight. I'm looking forward to the break already.
• Been watching Glee (Fox is rerunning) and loving it!

Jim and I are planning a trip to Arizona this fall for our anniversary. Doing some visiting with our friends Chuck and Kristi whom we haven't seen in YEARS.

I broke the camera on vacation (sand) and we had to buy a new one last night. Jim did lots of research and it looks like it'll be fantastic - looking forward to playing with it!

Been having ... interesting... dreams lately.

Traverse City, MI

I've been remiss in reporting about my vacation on here. Work has been insane which makes me want to thoroughly relax after the kids have gone to bed - alas, no effort to write and post pictures.

Here are some clips from our trip!

The drive was about 8.5 hours long including lunch so very tolerable. When we checked in the condo manager told me they were having a "severe heat streak" this week. When I questioned the weather reports I had looked up that said 82 degrees as a high all week he said "Yeah! It'll be hot!". Uhhhh.... It hit over 100 in Cincy while we were gone.

Our favorite ice cream shop was in downtown TC, Annie's. They had $1 soft serve sundaes and cones that we took advantage of 3X in 3 days.






Our condo unit was beach-front but we didn't have a direct lake view. No biggie. We spent several hours enjoying the refreshing lake temperatures. The "waves" were gentle laps that were perfect for Chris. The water was Nicole's waist-height for yards and yards making wading easy and fun for her.




Before we left I had asked my girl friend Sue, whose family owns a summer home in TC, for some highlights on what to do. One of her suggestions was Leelanau County and a trip to the sand dunes. This was a great suggestion and lots of fun!

We took the scenic route and saw some amazing drops into the water. Dad, Nicole, Jim & I walked down about 20% of the way and yes, it was some effort to climb even that. Notice the very small people on the hill to put things in perspective.

When we got to the big dune we all huffed and puffed our way up the ~300 ft. climb to take in some amazing views.



on top of the sand dune:

We also stopped at some wineries on our way up the Mission Peninsula (another Sue recommendation). We toured through some $3M+ houses along the way. Clearly there is big money in cherry growing (this peninsula boasts producing 3/4 of the world's cherries).


We took a 2 hour drive on Thursday of the trip to visit Macinac Island. It's a 15 minute ferry ride from the main land and is a place of no cars - bikes and horses only. It's interesting in it's history but WAY CROWDED with tourists gorging themselves on $12/lb. fudge.

On the way there (and back) we passed through Charlevoix which had streets lined in petunias for 2.5 miles. It was BEAUTIFUL. Wish we had allotted time to stop and shop the boutiques.

Our condo unit was nice - 2 bedroom, 2.5 bath. I'd recommend it!

Had a great time in general and my parents are such a help. The kids were simultaneously (for me at least) the most entertaining and frustrating part of the trip. Both (especially Chris) were somewhat challenging around dinner (40 minute waits are a long time to entertain little kids at a crowded restaurant). We all cracked up at Chris's puckered face after biting into a lemon and impressed with Nicole's evaluation that Grandpa's cinnamon roll was shaped like "a coil".

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Debating what to do next year.... I was a big fan of the northern weather for sure. Jim wants to consider a staycation. Fortunately we have lots of time and my mom will be retired by then so we'll have even greater flexibility!

Right where I should be

I have a hard time believing in the concept of fate. It's my controlling nature to rebel against the thought that someone, anyone, is directing me or taking choices out of my hands. I'm a big Free Will enthusiast.

There are times, however, that I physically feel "just right". When I was about 8 I distinctly remember playing with Barbies near my closet and having this feeling. It was so overwhelming I stopped and just paid attention to it.

When I was a freshman in college Lisa and I got lunch at Rally's and sat on Marycrest Hill soaking up the autumn sunshine. I don't remember if I said anything to her at the time but I knew I was exactly in the right place at the right time. Like I was supposed to be there.

Years later I felt it again with a boyfriend as we laid in bed and listened to the nighttime through an open window in his house.

It happened yesterday with Nicole. We were cuddling on her bed and I had this great feeling of being settled.

(Starting this paragraph for the fourth time...)

If I was forced to put into words the conclusion that stands out most to me I'd say that whatever path I'm on has some places that I need to be at in order to stay on [the right?] path. The four I mentioned above were [apparently?] on that list. Kind of like stops on a subway line- I need to be here at X time in order to keep going.

The level of utter peace I felt at those moments tells me these are positive things- indicators that I've been where I should have been and am headed where I need to head.

The control-freak in me doesn't like that I have a pre-destined path. [I'm picturing my religious readers groaning at me and shaking their heads about now.] The personality traint that's always looking for confirmation rejoices in finding some.

Regardless, I'm always totally happy in that moment so whatever it means I'm glad I'm experiencing them.