just call me Kebrllee

Today in church, Jonah drew our portraits. We thought he had drawn Josh with his old goatee until my chin was black too. It turns out he was practicing shading. Either that or my chin hair is out of control. 

Halloween, part 1

One thing I'm not great at: taking pictures of the kids in costume. 

On the up side, the ward Halloween party was a whole 6 days before Halloween this year, so this was a dress rehearsal. Unless of course we go to bed early Halloween night (which is high on the list of options).

Where's Miriam? Well isn't Halloween mostly for kids with teeth to rot anyway?

The school bus!!

...as Caroline calls it. These are pictures from our trip (including bus ride from the parking lot) to the Phoenix temple open house. 

more Caroline

(Hearing something noisy from the street): What was that? Probably a car, or a truck, or a storm trooper, or a motorcycle.

(finding one of Josh's dress shirts in the clean laundry pile): Look! It's Daddy's go to work! I looooooove him (emphasized by hugging and kissing the shirt).

Mama? Put water in my gun keez (please)? I need to chase Dixie.

Nonah! Don't yell at me! You keep me safe.

One of her favorite activities is taking all the dry goods out of the pantry and designing cityscapes.  "Look, Mom! A temple!" Now I just need to teach her how to organize the pantry instead...

one-sided

"I need in!"

"Jonah! I need in."

"I know. But I have some foods. Some muffins and toothsticks (toothpicks)."

"I know you right there. You lock this door right now!"

"I lock you door. I will!"

"Mmm-hmmm."

This is all I heard. I can't hear the other side of the conversation, but I can only imagine. 

pilfering photos off of Josh's phone

In no particular order:

As he tells us daily, no one loves Miriam more than Jonah does. 

Showing off a baby lizard that was running around the house for a while. Probably the owner of the lizard skeleton I vacuumed up last week. 

I have yet to get a decent action shot, but here is Jonah preparing to take his turn as goalie.

if babies could talk

This would be what Miriam would have said today:

"Woah! We have a dog?!"

The look on her face when she noticed Dixie for presumably the first time was hilarious.

self-fulfilling prophecies

I spent more time than was socially acceptable last night explaining to my mom the very delicate timing of reading the end of a book. She was kind and listened raptly (as mothers do).

What is that delicate timing, you ask? You must be careful not to finish it too soon, or you will enter that strange state of wanting to start a new book but not being satisfied because what you really want it to spend more time in the world and with the characters of the book you just finished. Unless, of course, you happen to have the sequel sitting next to you, then you must be careful not to finish the first book too soon, or you will end up staying up all night with the sequel. If you save too much to read in the evening, though, you risk staying up too late and being a grump the next day.

Then I went and finished my book a good hour before bedtime. Ugh. Gee thanks, excessive acknowledgments and blank pages.

we have a roller!

She can roll over both ways. She is so pleased with herself...except when it happens at night and she rolls in to the side of the crib. She isn't really pleased when that happens.

just us chickens

A few Caroline quotes for the morning:

(With a finger held up to scold me): Watch me jump! Don't talk!

C: Miriam is the little sister. Caroline is the big sister. Daddy is the big sister.
me: No, Daddy is the daddy.
C: Yes, Daddy is the big person.

(Sitting next to me on the couch): Let's talk. My swimming suits (pronounced: soups) are clean. My swimming soups are soooo pretty.

No, Jonah's with grandpa with camping. When grandpa drop Jonah off at this home (pointing to herself) he'll be HOME!

We need to call grandpa on his phone. Not mommy, not daddy, not Krimby, not Joshwa. Just grandpa.

(Calling from her bed): Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Krimby! Krimby! Where are you, Krimby?

me: Why did you pull all the books off the shelf?*
C: I did.
C: Let's not do that again.

Miriam wants to next by me. (Translation: Miriam wants to sit by me.)

With cousins, looking at worms. I love this picture so much.

On the last day our zoo membership was valid, we really lived it up:
splash pad, snow cones, the works.

*Could be replaced with "pull all the clothes out of your dresser" or "dump cereal all over the table" or "rub peanut butter all over your arm" or "color on Jonah's picture" or "get up in the middle of the night and play with toys," for example.

Dear Dad,

Today I remembered the time I was in Spain and ran out of money. I sent you a frantic email because I had no idea how to stop the cycle of my checking account trying to pay off my credit card and my credit card covering the overdraft fees. You emailed me back later, saying the problem was solved and to please never send my debit card number via email again.

Thank you for not lecturing me.

I probably deserved to work it out on my own, but maybe you could tell I was so mortified and embarrassed that it would never happen again. Or maybe you just saw fit to extend a little grace...like the time(s) you brought my flute to school when I forgot. And the time you teased me about getting a B until I could laugh about it too.

I want so badly to raise responsible children like you did, but maybe I need to remember the way you never made me feel unloved or less than wonderful when I messed up.

Thank you, Dad.

"but you don't know anything!"

Today, we were talking about ancient Egypt. Jonah wanted to see a picture of some things we were discussing, so we looked up drawings and such online. When he couldn't find a real picture of what he wanted, he got frustrated.

"There are no pictures of it, honey," I said. "Cameras didn't exist yet."

He teared up and cried, "But you don't know anything!"

Poor kid. History is hard sometimes.

The high point of my week.

                                                   

At this very moment, Jonah is eating snap peas dipped in ranch dressing.

If you have eaten a meal with my child recently, you will know that this is amazing on multiple counts. 

This hand? This is not Jonah. Here is my evidence: LOTS of dressing, Nutella stains on the arm, veggies mixed around on the plate. Love these kids.


P.S. For dinner tonight, we had Hawaiian haystacks. Jonah declared that he hates them (as he does every time we have them...unluckily for him, I love them). Then, somehow he started eating and announced, "Hey! This is even better all mixed together!" Seriously, where is my child?

P.P.S. I measured incorrectly while making rice pudding and ended up with 7 cups of slightly sweetened milk. At first I was quite upset. Now I'm thinking...chocolate pudding? Hot chocolate? Some kind of custard?