Archive for January, 2008

My kids are great teachers…like when a child complains that the white crayon won't work on paper, take it away! (I learned this the hard way, when Eliza decided to find a place it would work…like my coffee table!) James also taught me something: did you know that Pledge smells like Fruit Loops? Smell for yourself! Also, don't let your kids stand on an upside-down clothes basket, no matter how sturdy you think it is. They may end up like this!

Not too much has happened in the last couple of weeks, but I have been trying to remember a few funny things the kids have said:

James is learning about praying and how you can tell God anything. At bedtime the other night, it was time for prayers and James told me he wanted to give God a message. I asked him what it was, and he said, "Dear God, tell Gerald that I love him." I told him that's not exactly how God works usually, but it was a nice thought!

We were all in the car one day when Eliza yelled, "I see McDonald's!" Jay said, "Well, actually, you just see the sign for McDonald's. The restaurant is behind that hill." James chimed in, "I can see it through that hill with my x-ray vision!" A few seconds later he exclaimed, "Oh, no! My x-ray vision isn't working anymore!" It's a sad state of affairs when your pretend super powers have real-world problems!

My bedroom has been in shambles ever since our spontaneous New York trip back in November, with piles of out-of-season clothes and clothes waiting to be put up, as well as the aftermath of Christmas wrapping and getting ready for traveling. I finally stayed up late one night this past week to organize clothes and get my room looking pretty neat again. Eliza came in my bedroom after waking up the next morning, and she said in a surprised voice, "Mama! Did you clean your room?"

Eliza was watching tv and some kids were talking about what they wanted to be when they grow up. She looked at me and said, "I want to be a baby when I grow up!"

Eliza has been doing a great job learning to ride her bike. She is getting pretty good at pedaling and steering at the same time. We took her and James all the way around the block on their bikes one day. They were so cute! (Even a neighbor who came out to see what their dogs were barking about thought so!) It has been too cold to do much outside lately—I am ready for some warmer weather. I feel kind of like hibernating, so wake me up when it's spring, ok?

It's already the 4th day of the new year (2008, for those like me, who still think it's somewhere around the year 2000). I was feeling awful on New Year's Eve and most of New Year's Day with sinus pressure and dehydration, so I didn't really celebrate the coming of the new year, except by sleeping a lot. What a way to start the new year, huh? I'm feeling much better now, but somehow I already feel behind. I'd better get to work!

Jay left for training in Dallas early Wednesday morning, and he will be coming home this evening. He had been with us for almost 4 weeks! So we are having to get used to him being gone again. But at least this was a short trip. We are doing well, even though Eliza is getting over a cold and James may be getting it. We have lots of new stuff (and no place to put it!), so we are having fun playing games and putting things together. Eventually, the Christmas decorations will have to come down, but what's the hurry? As long as we get them down by Valentine's Day, right?

Christmas portrait

We had a great Christmas, at home and on the road. Here's a few memorable things from the last few weeks:

We all went to James' preschool Christmas party the Wednesday before Christmas, and I had picked up a little present for James' teacher the night before. She started opening presents at the end of the party, and when she opened James' present, she said, "Thank you James! Come give me a hug!" He started towards her, looked at the present, and said, "I didn't pick it out." Everybody laughed, and she gave him a hug anyway. When she opened another present a little later, she asked the boy it was from, "Did you help pick this out?" He shook his head. "That's okay, James didn't either!"

We were able to take Mimi, Jay's grandmother who lives in a nursing home, to our church's Christmas Eve service. It was a neat program, with lots of singing and special music. A little girl we know named Annie stole the show singing a duet with her father. The next singer in line remarked that he didn't know they were going to put him after the next American Idol! Mimi had a good time, and we stopped by Aunt Fran's house to exchange a few gifts before taking her home.

Christmas Eve we were pretty much ready for Christmas morning, we just had to put Eliza's new bicycle together. It went together pretty easily, but when Jay went to air up the tires, he couldn't get one of the valve stems pulled out enough to air it up. So he began trying to take the tire off the rim to see what the problem was. He enlisted my help and told me to stick the screw driver down in there and pry it off, so I did. We heard this "psssssss" sound and we knew it wasn't good. We spent the next few hours trying to patch the tube, wrapping it in electrical tape so that it would hold air at least long enough for Eliza to ride a few minutes the next morning, and we finally went to bed around 4:00AM.

Eliza was excited about her new bike. We wanted to give her a clue by letting her open her new pink helmet first, so we wrapped that separately. While she was opening that, Jay took the bicycle and set it by the tree. I asked her, "What goes with a helmet?" "A bike!" she said, and so we told her to go look by the tree. "It's a bike! A bike!" she yelled, just to make sure everyone knew.

James' big present from us was a portable karaoke machine. We had tested it a few days before, only to discover the microphone didn't work. We had gotten the last one, so we could not exchange it, so we started looking for a microphone to make sure that it was just the microphone and not the player. Jay ended up buying a microphone that cost quite a bit more than the karaoke machine itself, but it worked (yea!) and hopefully it will last a while. I have put up a few pictures from Christmas morning.

We were able to stretch the opening of Christmas presents out for 4 days, so James refers to this past holiday as the "4 Days of Christmas". First, there was Aunt Fran's house Christmas Eve, then our house Christmas morning, then we drove to Memphis in the evening on Christmas Day, visiting with my mom's family for a while and then opening presents at my dad's mother's house. The next day we opened presents with my mom's family, and the next day we drove over to Jackson, TN, to Jill's house, where Jay's mom had come to stay for a few days, and opened presents there.

While we were visiting with my mom's family at my Uncle Norman and Aunt Vickie's house, we brought out the karaoke machine to see if James wanted to sing. We thought he was probably too tired to entertain too much, but we were wrong! We put in a Christmas cd, and let James have the microphone. I forgot how much he loves an audience, and he hammed it up, singing and dancing, holding the microphone up to other people to let them sing, and having a great time. It was great entertainment, and even after James was finished, the karaoke machine was still being used by some of the teenagers.

We went to visit with Jay's family two days after Christmas at Jill's house. Jill's husband Robbie had left early that morning to take the church youth on a ski trip, and so we visited with Jill and Hannah and Mammaw. Hannah has just started crawling, and so the kids had lots of fun playing with her. While we were opening presents, she crawled over to Eliza's stack and tried to tear some paper on one of the boxes. Eliza held her hand out to stop her, saying, "No, Baby Hannah, this is my present!" Hannah started crying, and Eliza was very concerned. "Here, you can help me open it if you want to," she said, offering the present back to Hannah. We had good food, including some brought over from Mammaw Barrett's house, and a fun time with new presents, including the karaoke machine again.

We went back to Memphis and stayed a few days before returning home. I think the kids had a good time, and so did we!