Here We Go...

First of all, let's talk about hard work! Dan is remodeling the front of our house all by himself, and it is not easy, especially with four darling distractions and a nagging wife obsessed with deadlines! I Technically, I will begin teaching classes from my home on Sept. 11th. About 20 moms I have never met will be bringing their teenagers to my house for the first time, and look at what they will be walking up to! EEK. Okay, here's the deal. First we added the porch, you can see where it stopped before because of the line in the cement. Then Dan built and primed that awesome pergola (with a little help from Chet across the street, thanks neighbor), then he added the steps, and now he's trying to puzzle piece together this gigantic stone and cement it in across the porch, then we get to re-stucco, paint, and landscape, and when I say "we," I mean Dan gets to do all that stuff.

So hey, here I am just admitting to you all that this is it, this is my life right now, and frankly it looks like a mess, and at this rate, it may look like this for many many months to come because that's how it goes. But that's okay, because I'm grateful he's doing it, and I know that someday it's going to look awesome (note: Check out the beautiful door he built by himself for example by splitting our old door in half and refacing it.) And besides all that I went to a women's devotional thing at our church on Friday night & it was on contentment- wow! Convicting.
So yeah, that's my front yard people, and I'm content with it.

Last, but not least, Lorelei started her first day of school today! She is officially in kindergarten now at a neat little Christian school in town, I'm so excited for her. I didn't cry, but Noelle did when we left her. I'm not sure if she wanted to go with her, or if she was just sad we were leaving her. I only know that she has a very loud, very shrill cry, so that made for a long ride home. Anyway, we're excited for the year ahead.

The Twins Turn 3 (Early)!

Birthdays, birthdays, birthdays - They come in pairs around here. Morgan and Lorelei were both born in June, and of course my twins were both born within 60 seconds of each other on August 21st of '05. As it turns out when I was pregnant with the twins, about 9 other people at my church were pregnant too. We have more 3 year olds at FCC than any other children's age group! Tabitha Saruwatari is one of those little cuties and last week we went to her bday party, ballerina style! Fellow moms, if you have a daughter, this was the cutest party! Her mom made tutus for all the girls to wear as their party favor (so much more fun than a gift bag), and then a young teenager from our church that dances came and taught them all stretches and ballet poses and read them an Angelina Ballerina story, it was all so cute. Lorelei especially loved it, so I think her age group (5) would do great with it.

Meanwhile, my twins, are turning 3 on Thursday, but we went to Visalia & celebrated early. We gave them all of these fabulous gifts, and they were most excited about their new princess cups, which was kind of funny to me. Anyway, it was all good and fun. They went swimming, ate junk food, and got new baby dolls that sneeze when you press their noses.

The funny thing about it all is this; when they were born and I was borderline catatonic with sleep deprivation, I just kept thinking, if I can make it till they're three, it'll all be okay. How could I have known then that as they would be turning 3, I'd have a 1 year old that would be walking and stumbling around at their feet?! But I'm so grateful for each of them, even though the car ride over was so miserable, they were all whining and crying and fighting, and at one point Noelle unbuckled so I had to climb over to the back of the van and the seat belt got stuck and I was struggling with it, and Dan's like lecturing the girls about whining and he's grumbling because our brakes are squeaking and we just got them fixed, and I'm so frustrated trying to fix the seat belt that I just started half laughing, half crying because he and I were both so mad that it was comical. I'm really glad he's in on those whole parenting thing with me, because I would have gone nuts by now without having him to laugh with about the whole thing.

A Weekend Away

Okay, so the pix are all messed up because I forgot my camera, so these are pix emailed to me from Jen, and I don't know how to make them bigger and not all blurryish. Oh well, basically, here's the lowdown.

I grew up with Jen Oswald (formerly Mantuano) and the 2 of us were best friends forever since like 6th grade. So she had her 1st baby when I had my 4th in June of last year. Her hubby is one of those hero types, a helicopter pilot in Iraq right now so to help her pass the time, Bethie, Lorelei, Morgan, and I went to visit Jen and baby Liam in lovely San Diego for the weekend. We left the twinsies with Dan. He took them to the fair here and got to bond with just the 2 of them while we were away.

We, meanwhile, had so much fun! We shopped, went to the zoo for Lorelei, swam in Jen's pool, and Sunday did some tourist gazing in beautiful Coronado. I loved it, loved it all. First of all I felt really relaxed because I only had 2 kids and because I wasn't worried about the other 2 because I knew they were home with Dan. Secondly, I had sort of wondered what if Jen & I would have enough to talk about for a whole entire weekend, but it was just like old times! Some friends are just so easy and natural to be with, what a blessing! See the Oswald family blog for more info. on Jen. Here are my five favorite things about this weekend:

1. The kids: Mine were great, Lorelei loved the pool the mostest, and Liam was a doll.
He barely made a peep the whole time we were there. He was a thoughtful observer type, and so we loved him.

2. Baked French Toast: Jen made the most unbelievable soak overnight baked french toast I've ever had. I seriously loved it so much I DREAMT about it. No, really I did.

3. Jens Generosity: She was a ridiculously generous hostess, she kept paying for stuff against my will, and she bought stuffed animals at the zoo for all of my kids, and they've been playing with them all week.

4. Hangin' with my sister. Beth drove for me, changed Morgan's diapers for me, pushed the double stroller up hills for me, and was totally fun to talk with for the 3 hours up and the 3 hours back. She and I listened to an amazing John Piper CD on the way back.

5. A Change of Scenery: Sometimes it's just nice to get away.

A Day in My Life

So here are two sets of pix I took yesterday and today. First you can see Morgan got involved in craft time with the girls yesterday. There was a point when I was taking pictures that she realized I wasn't happy with the situation and that's when she started crying. Previous to that she had been quite pleased with herself.

Then we have the second set of pix which I took today. These pretty much speak for themselves, but let me do the math for you. Four little girls + 1 pair of ladybug scissors + mom on the phone = bangs. Who knew I'd end up a part time cosmetologist?

The Haps

So basically, just doing the summer thing these days, a few birthday parties here and there.  (There's Denny getting older and his 2 kiddos), a few photo shoot moments where I realize I haven't been taking enough pictures of the kids, so I try and be a photographer and realize I'm not.

And then of course we have a picture here of my girls and various other children singing at the Vacation Bible School program, which we did all last week with my church. Somehow I ended up being the group leader for the 3 to 5 year olds.  I thought that since my own kids would be in that group, I could manage it since I'm used to this age range these days.  The reality is this; I do not know what to do with small children!  Everyone thinks I'm trying to be funny, but no, seriously they were hugging on me and hanging on me and telling me they were going to puke and that they needed help in the potty, and I was like, NOOOOOO.  I can't handle this!  So it was a good lesson learned.  Next year if I help again, I'm sticking to the big kids.  We all have different gifts, and I really, really appreciate and admire all the kindergarten and preschool teachers in the world.  They are amazing people, and I probably have nothing in common with them, because they must be so nurturing and so different from me in order to enjoy their jobs.

So yeah, we're just hanging around this week and recovering from last week's VBS adventures.

One funny thing though, Dan was telling me something the other day and he used the word "colloquial" and me being the obnoxious English teacher that I am, said,"that's not what the word colloquial means... and without missing a beat, he said, "Hey, it's a post-modern world we live in I can make it mean whatever I want it to mean."  

I thought that was funny.