Happy Anniversary, Mrs. Mays

Today is our 8th anniversary. Happy anniversary to us! Josh's A&P classes had a test today, and Josh passed around a card for the kids to sign for me. It was sweet. But more than anything, it was enlightening. Here are some things the kids had to say:

"Happy Anniversary! Your husband's awesome! Best teacher eva!"
"Happy Anniversary! Mr. Mays is a thug. Congratulations!"
"Have a drink to many more :) Good luck with this goodball."
"Happy Anniversary! Make Mr. Mays take you someplace nice."
"Happy Anniversary! May your marriage flourish with a lot of love and happiness."
"Happy Anniversary! Keep Mr. Mays in check!"
Keep this relationship strong! Work that up-do!" (Um, what? Does he mean the pony tail?)
"Happy Anniversary, make better study guides."
"Happy Anniversary, Mrs. Mays! I hope you are having a blast. Your husband is like a little kid. You need to  train him!"
"Marry Anniversary! Get it? Marry sounds like merry...bad joke of the day complete."
"Happy Anniversary! I wish both of you the best. I also wish your husband (Mr. Mays) was a better teacher."(My favorite part of that one is that she clarified who my husband is.)
 "Happy Anniversary! Wish you both to have a great time together and Mrs. Mays, tell Mr. Mays to not make the tests so hard."

my mid-life crisis

Today has been a monumental day for the kids and a rough one for me. First, Caroline climbed out of her crib. The morning was spent dismantling her crib. The afternoon was spent convincing her to go to sleep now that she could have the option to run around her room instead. When she finally did go to sleep, I went shopping because Jonah needs some new underthings (because when he reads this blog post in 10 years, that will be less embarrassing to him than me telling the internet he needed new underwear, right?). Unfortunately, I couldn't find what I needed so I had to cross over to the boys section. I am so not ready to shop in that section.

We went to the zoo and the only picture I got of them together was from behind. Still, I think they're pretty cute. Not cute enough to grow up, though. That is definitely off limits.

observations, by Jonah

"Why do all the super heroes in the Justice League have sand colored skin except green lantern? Well, and John, but his skin is green. People don't have green skin."

(While playing the apparently hilarious game with Caroline of pushing on my stomach.) "It feels kind of like dough. It even looks like the color of dough, see Mom?"

You know how when you look into the sun there are green bubbles everywhere for a while afterward?

The Schwans man cometh

So my naptime quiet was interrupted by the Schwans man today. I tried to be polite but firm when I told him I definitely was not interested, but thanks anyway. When he asked why, I told him that we were on a limited budget and that his service had not made the cut. He then said, "Oh, don't worry if you're on food stamps. We take those!"

I'm not really offended that he asked. I'm sure that's a good business move for them. I'm not so much bothered that they take EBT or whatever it's called either. Our local farmer's market does too, which I think is great. For some reason, though, when I closed the door I was left feeling weird. Maybe it was because I'd been counting on naptime to be the only quiet hour of my day and then I had to talk to someone. Communication is hard work, you know.

this just in: the temple has candy

Jonah: Do you know what my favorite temple is?
me: Which one?
Jonah: Salt Lake City
me: Yeah, that one is really pretty.
Jonah: And it has nice candy.

Ezekial 20:29

There's been a bit of a dispute in our house tonight about who is God's football team*. I'm arguing for BYU, of course. Did you see the way the QB ran tonight? Clearly it was a "run and not be weary" moment. The conversation went something like this:

Josh: Well, it's hard to play on the road.
me: ...and against God's football team.
Josh: True, but Bama didn't play today.

I was reminded of a conversation we had in Tuscaloosa. Bishop Wyatt told us that the Lord favored Alabama and here is how he knew:

(Ezekiel 20:29) Then I said unto them, What is the high place whereunto ye go? And the name thereof is called Bamah unto this day.

*Though if "Angels in the Outfield" is any indication, God might be more of a baseball fan anyway.

how is it that I can't feed my children lunch?

When Jonah first starting eating table food, I sent a desperate email to Stephanie. It said something along the lines of, "Help! The only thing I can feed him is sliced ham and canned pineapple! He can't eat apples, he can't eat grapes, he can't eat carrots...What do I feed him?" She was nice enough not to laugh at me (or to remind me of this conversation when we rolled our eyes at parenting articles about what to feed kids for lunch. "Just feed them food," we said.) and suggested I try pb&j, mac and cheese, or banana slices. Oh yeah, food.

Well here we are again, four and a half years later and Jonah will not longer eat sandwiches. Ever. Of any kind. This is a big deal because although I love trying new things for dinner (like the family wishes we'd have spaghetti more often but I'm too busy branching out), my lunch repertoire consists of pb&j (or honey!), grilled cheese, and ham sandwiches. So the fact that he won't eat anything on bread (other than Nutella toast, he was quick to remind me) is a bit of a crisis. It started by only wanting grilled cheese. He still says he likes grilled cheese, but I've thrown out more uneaten grilled cheese sandwiches in the last two weeks than I'll admit. So Monday we (really, it was Josh. I was too annoyed) had a heart-to-heart and came up with a few non-sandwich ideas for lunch. He has agreed to eat mini bagel pizzas and tacquitos. I guess it's a start. I snuck some grated carrot in the tacquitos so I guess that's one point me. I'm wondering, though, what else will he eat when he gets tired of these things? I guess I can start checking out the pinterest lunch boards after all (but I am drawing the line at banana tattoos).