WHERE'S MY HUSBAND!?!?

That's pretty much what I was screaming inside my head (in reality I was saying "cra*", and Karianna informed me that I was not allowed to say that word). Why you ask? Because I saw this on the INSIDE of our backyard screen door:

Only what I can assume is either a yellow jacket or a hornet; doesn't really matter honestly, I am terrified of bugs and hate the thought of anything whizzing around our house looking for something nice and fleshy to bite! Karianna saw this thing on our screen door, which was shut, but the sliding glass door was wide open. So that means he (she? it? I'm not getting close enough to discern) actually FLEW INTO OUR HOUSE before deciding to land on the screen door. I hate bugs. I'd be an awful pioneer. So after realizing that this was not your regular old housefly, I quick shut the glass door, trapping it in between the screen door and the sliding glass door. Luckily I also managed to open the screen door about an inch before my bravery ran out, so it was just a waiting game until he crawled over to the crack and flew away. In the meantime, I measured the guy with a ruler-just under TWO INCHES! Karianna took it upon herself to try and get the guy with a flyswatter (too bad it wouldn't work).

JD was acting like it was a mile high dinosaur in the backyard. I think I might have preferred that.

Did I mention I hate bugs? I am going to have a bad dream tonite. I get night terrors at least once a month and I am predicting one for tonite. Gross. When I create my own world, don't expect to see any bugs in it!!!

Don't Play Peek A Boo with this One!

It's a beloved parental joy, obligation, and prerogative (did you know it was spelled like that?? I had to google it...). When your baby hits a certain age, you just have to play peek-a-boo with him or her! It's just expected! Besides, babies usually get a kick out of seeing their parent temporarily disappear (after all that's what happens when you hide for a second) and then magically reappear. Well, not baby Jordan. Last night Jared was playing with him and they got into peek-a-boo. Within a few seconds, Jordan's lips started pursing with the lower one sticking out, they started trembling, and sure enough he closed his little eyes and just started wailing! And not just little tears, big HUGE crocodile tears that just break a parent's heart! Jared and I were both a little confused, we really weren't sure what had caused the trauma. Surely it couldn't be the game, right? We decided to let science solve the problem and we conducted some empirical experimentation: Jared did it again. :) And once again, that little lower lip started trembling as soon as the BOO sounded and he completely lost it until Jared picked him up to soothe away the peek-a-boo monsters. So it might be a few months before we try this again, perhaps when Jordan falls in the stranger-danger phase of babyhood that he forgets how deathly scary peek-a-boo can be!

How do you know????

How do YOU know when your child needs a diaper change? Is it a smell? A change of color on the day's outfit? A particularly hardy grunt? I've had all of those with three little ones in the house, but the best hint that I've ever received in terms of needing to change a diaper came last night. Jared and I were talking to our neighbors and the kids were running around with their dog Wrigley. JD was just in a dipaer and a shirt as he decided to go swimming with his pants on. As we were chatting, all four of us adults noticed the dog chasing JD around a little more urgently than usual. JD ran to Jared and threw his arms around Jared's legs. That's when Wrigley pounced on JD's backside and started sniffing the bottom of his diaper....bottom....however you want to look at it. We all busted up laughing because we realized Wrigley was probably trying to figure out this new scent and what territory it was marking! Now that's a call for a diaper change if I've ever seen one!

Just for Jake!

Well, I guess anyone else who wants to look at these pics can! Now that I think about it, what if I said you CAN'T look at these pictures unless you are my brother Jacob? Would that stop you? Hee hee, somehow I think that would make it more intriguing! In all honesty, we just wanted to give Jacob some updated pics of the kids, so here they are-I think I am allowed to just put 5 on at a time, so we'll stick with that:

Here's Karianna riding a great Bat Mobile at Peter Piper Pizza the other day! JD is opting to ride the horse-he probably could have done that all day!!

Here's Jordan using his non-walker playground thingie for the first time. If you looked closely you can see only one foot touching the bottom, but he sure is intrigued by the toys on the top!



I asked Jared to try and capture the greatness of Jordan's lips-they are just so full and big! This was a pretty good shot of them!



And here's JD and Karianna doing a favorite pasttime-climbing on the aptly named climber :) Karianna taught JD how to climb this ladder she's on-she gave him great directions, ie "Ok put your foot here, and then your hand here and you just pull up and then swing your leg over the top like this...." He resisted her attempts when she was helping, but the second she walked away, he did it on his own!

Vacation Over!

All righty if you have been checking out my blog for days now and have been very anxious to see another posting from me about our little family, the time has come! I have come out of hibernation and posted several times tonite-it was just a matter of getting a few kid-free minutes to do this, and tonite might be the only night! So scroll down for the blogging bananza! (I know that sounds weird-I was just trying to think of an alliterative phrase to catch your attention-did it work?)

Talk about being a proud wife!

Today was an amazingly awesome day and I am just so proud of my wonderful husband! I could not ask for a better husband and father, and I don't know where I would be without Jared. So it overjoyed me today when he came home with great news. You see Jared has been studying like crazy for a certification exam for his career in financial planning. This exam covers a LOT of material and is really really difficult. Jared is probably the smartest person I know, yet he was never really taught good studying skills, so preparing for this test required a lot from him. And you know, he could have absolutely failed this test and I still would have been bursting with appreciation for him, because I have never seen Jared study so hard and dedicate himself so much to something that was potentially very dificult. The neatest thing about it is he relied quite a bit on the Lord and in my eyes, that is even more wonderful; without this part of the journey, he probably would have been stuck in the mud, stressed out, and very frustrated. Well, tonite, we are saying prayers of thanks as Jared PASSED his test! And not even passed it, he got what we think is the highest marks that his company has seen this year! I am just so proud of Jared, what a great day for conquering a monkey on your shoulder (as Jared put it) and for relying on the Lord, who will come to your aid if you ask with a sincere heart and real intent. So congratulations Jared-I am just so proud of you!

It's looming down on us.....

.....the summer heat! Can't we have a few more blustery cool days like we did last week???? I actually had to dig up jackets for the kids to wear! I guess this is what we get for living in Arizona-hot hot hot temperatures. So how do we cope? We pull out not 1 but 2 baby pools for our backyard patio, and let me tell ya, if I didn't have a backyard full of kid-repelling rocks, I would probably put a third bigger pool in the actual backyard-that way I could enjoy it too! But the two little pools seem to work their magic just fine-at least for two thirds of my kids!Here's JD giving his dinosaurs a bath! He loves loves loves dinosaurs. If anyone is wondering what to get him for his birthday this week, anything dinosaurs will suffice (or anything with balls, lions, cars....guess the list really could go on and on!).
Karianna is a little hesitant to get too wet because she is smart enough to realize that a light breeze plus getting wet equals being cold-and that's just crazy. But she will settle for standing in one pool and kicking water at anything in her path (ie JD). And then there was Jordan. He sure loves his bath! Stick him in warm water, and he is happy as a clam. His reaction to cool pool water? Not so happy-I think it took him one nano second to express to us how he felt about his first swimming adventure. We'll see what happens when we go swimming Saturday in the big pool with all the cousins!

Two strong little legs!!

When Karianna was a baby, she had really strong legs-she pretty much came out of the womb being able to bear all her weight on her legs. We could stand her up against a couch and be okay for a minute or so before she would tumble over! We thought this was a super cool feature of our first baby girl and it will probably be one of those facts that we remember until she is old and gray! So if you thought that was cool (and really, who wouldn't?!?), baby Jordan is perhaps even more sturdy on his legs! He's had the same uncanny ability to just bear all his 11ish pounds of baby body on his two little legs and actually do pretty good! So we decided the other day (okay, I decided, I think Jared thought I was pretty nuts) to see if Jordan could stand against the couch on his own like Karianna was able to do-the only difference is he is a few months younger than she was, so here's the progress:

First attempt-oops, I'm not even sure if I can call this an attempt! Luckily I was standing by-see my necklace in motion as I lunged forward to save Jordan's poor head? He doesn't even look like he cares that he's falling :)

Second attempt-not too bad, can you tell he is squating though? Gotta work those leg muscles-no pain no gain!

Third attempt-major progress, he's standing all the way, but his head is still hunched over. AT this point, I was surprised he wasn't rebelling against my mommy whims.

Fourth attempt-SUCCESS! Standing nice and tall, and I think we had him there for about 20 seconds before his legs started giving out on him! Yea Jordan! I knew those kicks in my belly were indicative of something!

And this is where he ended up, needing a rest! Don't blame you bud, what a great baby! I love this little guy!

Temple In Phoenix!!!!!!

YAHOO! We were so excited to hear a temple is being built in Phoenix! We have heard rumors about this for several weeks now, and were so grateful when it became reality! We are speculating (and hoping) that it will be closer to Anthem where we are simply because there is a Mesa temple which really is only an hour away from our house-it make sense to build it farther north! We can only hope! How wonderful to see the work moving forward...we are certainly blessed.
After hearing the announcement, I told Karianna the news and she seemed fairly excited about it, though nothing too life-shattering. I was a little surprised that she didn't react more than that because she loves talking about temples. However, I think I got the full blown reaction later that day when she called me in to look at her lego creation:

She told me that the tower on the right was her house and the tower on the left was the temple, because we were getting a new temple in Phoenix and it would be right next to her house. So I guess the news sank in a lot deeper than I thought! Since I took this picture, she has built several more towers depicting our house and the temple right next door....I think she might be a little sad when she realizes we mgiht still have to drive to the PHoenix temple rather than see it in our backyard! However, it will be so wonderful to have a perfect answer to this question: Hey honey, I am bored....lets do something tonite-what do you want to do? Answer? Lets go walk around the temple. What a great idea! :)

Potty Words

I was checking on JD tonite after the kids had gone to bed and heard Karianna going to the bathroom. I peeked into the bathroom to make sure that was all going okay and got an amazing insight from Karianna:

Karianna: Look Mama, its a fishy poop. It looks like Nemo.

Sure enough, she was right (except for the Nemo part). Wonderful imagination eh?

6 Years!

Me: Karianna guess what? You get to go visit Grandma's House today!

Karianna: YES!! And can I take a nap in Krissy's bed too??? (Not sure why this is so exciting to her)

Me: Yes, you can choose Kristen's bed if you like!

Karianna: I would like Kristen's bed with her big friend (stuffed animals are all friends).

Me: Do you know why you get to go to Grandma's house today?

Karianna: Nope I don't.

Me: Because mama and daddy get to go on a date. Do you know what we are going to do?

Karianna: Nope I don't.

Me: We are going to see Narnia on the big movie screen!

Karianna: Narnia?!? I love that movie-I love Aslan the best. But he's a nice lion, not a mean lion like in Lion King. And Aslan lives in a tent. Do you know Aslan lives in a tent??? He does. And Aslan is resurrected mama, like Grandpa and Jesus and Presiden Hinkley!

Me: Wow Karianna that is a lot of news! I can tell you like that movie.

Karianna: Yes, I see that movie on TV six times yesterday (that would sound really bad, except she means the commercial preview for Prince Caspian!)

Me: Do you know why we get to see Narnia tomorrow?

Karianna: Nope I don't.

Me: Because it is mama and daddy's anniversary. That means tomorrow is the day that mama and daddy got married!

Karianna: In the temple?

Me: Yes! It is a special day when mom and dad remember when they got married in the temple.

Karianna: OH. I'm gonna get married in the temple too when I get bigger. And I can have a pretty ring like mama's.
Me: But who are you going to marry?
Karianna: ummm.......daddy (she says this very shyly).
Me: Oh, okay (smile smile)

I didn't have the heart to tell her that Jared is already taken! And yes, it is true, we are officially celebrating our 6th wedding anniversary on May 18, 2002. Six wonderful years, and I can still hardly believe that I get to be married to my best friend and the person I admire more than anyone else! If you ever wonder about the song that always plays when you enter our blog, that is how I see Jared-he's my hero and the love of my life! I am so blessed to have him and our three beautiful children and I wouldn't have it any different!

Karianna Quips

We were in Walmart grocery shopping today and I knew the kids were nearing breaking point and needed a snack. So I sent Karianna to grab a box of animal crackers for JD (she is a fishy fan herself). As she handed them to JD, he proceeded to hand them to me, saying "Snackee open, snackee open!" So I go to open it for him as quickly as I can because JD gets very vocal when he knows he is seconds away from a snack. Karianna has a little less patience than I do because she put her hands on her hips and said, "JD stop all your hee haws and calm down!" I nearly dropped the box of crackers laughing so hard; I think an elderly lady walking by thought I was choking or something. I asked Karianna where she heard "hee haws" from and she told me Daddy-though I think she gets the calm down part from me as I say that to Jordan all the time. I know this can be a double edged sword, but I love it when Karianna adopts such interesting parental comments! These are the moments where I truly enjoy hanging out with my kiddos-they can sure crack me up!

Lunchtime Topic: Baptism

Lunchtime is a great time for me to just chat with the kids about anything and everything. Today's topic of conversation was Baptism.

Me: So Karianna, tell me what you know about baptism.
Karianna: First the daddy says a prayer, second he puts the boy under the water, third he brings the boy back up again-and he is baptized! (the picture on the fridge depicts this scene)
Me: And what does the daddy do when he says the special baptism prayer?
Karianna: He raises his hand (she does so and JD copies her as well).
Me: What else do you know? Look at the picture to help you.
Karianna: You wear white clothes.....and you are eight years old....and mama, what do you do if you make bad choices?
Me: I don't know, what do you do?
Karianna: You get baptized.
Me: But you can only get baptized one time.
Karianna: Well, when you get baptized you get clean.
Me: But what if you make a bad choice after you are baptized? What do you do?
Karianna: You.......um.......I know! I know! You repent!
Me: Yea! That's right! You say a repenting prayer so Heavenly Father and Jesus can forgive you!
Karianna: Yes, and then you can be clean like when you get baptized in the water.
Me: Karianna, I have a new word to tell you, listen: immersion. Can you say that?
Karianna: Immersion.
Me: Do you know what that means? It means when you get baptized you have to go all the way under the water!!!!!!
Karianna: Ooooooooooh. I know.
Me: So your head has to go under the water and your legs....
Karianna: And your hair.
Me: And your fingers.
Karianna: And your eyes.
Me: And your toes.
Karianna: And your belly button-all of your body!!!!!!
Me: Yes, and then you will be baptized by Immersion, and you will go all the way under the water.
Karianna: Yes, and I am brave to be baptized all the way under the water. Can I be baptized today after naptime??????
Me: (chuckle chuckle) well, lets wait until you are a little bit older, okay?
Karianna: OH kay (it really was two words-she was a little exasperated that she had to wait).

Recognition!

The past month or so has been so great in baby Jordan's life because its the time period when he really gets interactive. He started giving of little smiles at about a month old, started cooing and ga-ga-ing a little bit after that, and has now grown into full blown interaction with all of us-mom, dad, Karianna, and JD! Anytimes someone has a conversation with him up close and personal, he just smiles up a storm and keeps up his end of the conversation as well (this little guy can hit notes that I can't sing on my best days! How do babies do that???). I love this time of babyhood!

One of my favorite conversations with Jordan right now is the one I call "Recognition", because that's truly what it is! Jordan starts off darting his eyes all around the room, trying to find something to focus on. When his eyes land on mine, he just stares at me for a second, and I know that's my conversation starter cue: Helloooooooooooooo baby Jordan! Somewhere during the lengthy "oo" part of the word, Jordan just breaks into the biggest smile you've ever seen and this little light pops on in his eyes that very clearly tells me he totally knows I'm his mom! And the best part is he starts jabbering away, and I could almost swear I've heard a hi in there every now and then! Its so amazing to me to see how much he grows every day-this sweet little boy who has so blessed our lives. I feel so blessed to have him here with us and to be honored enough to be his mother. These little moments of recognition are only the beginning! This is my first mother's day in the 3 kid club, and boy is it great!

Whoops!

Today is a good day for a Mommy Lecture as opposed to a Baby Lecture. For reasons I'll leave unknown to the general public, I have to take Miralax everyday, which for all intensive purposes is a laxative. No big deal, it dissolves in a cupful of apple juice, you never taste it, does the job it's supposed to. The only catch is it takes about 5 minutes to dissolve all the way, and if you are like me, you need it to dissolve all the way because drinking anything with little particles floating around in it is just gross. So after mixing up the concoction, I left it on the counter for the required five minutes, yet failed to push it all the way to the back of the counter. Minutes later, JD walks up to me with a green snowman cup in his hands, gracing me with a very satisfied smile as he managed to get his own drink without needing to rely on a parent. My immediate reaction? I asked him to take his cup back to the kitchen, our carpet is already stained enough as it is.....I think I got to the word "back" when I realized that cup looked quite familiar. Sure enough, upon closer examination, it was the crystal clear apple juice with a full dose of laxatives hiding in its depths! Argh! I fed my son laxatives for dinner!

So here's the Mommy lecture of the day: If you are going to drink anything with laxatives mixed in it, keep it out of your child's reach! And for some reason, I am thinking the word "duh" fits in there somewhere. We haven't seen the results of my mistake quite yet, but I am supposing when we do, it will be enough of a reminder that I won't need this lecture again!

Do you know your movies?

So lets take a different spin on this whole Baby Lectures idea. Karianna has put a little twist into our conversations, which end up inducing a baby lecture of its own that has become a broken record as of late. See Karianna has a habit of saying movie lines-something she has heard in a movie, and that usually doesn't make any sense in the context of a conversation. I have given her several lectures in the last few weeks that usually consist of, "please don't say movie words. They don't make any sense. If it doesn't make sense you can't say it." I can only imagine what her preschool friends would think if everything that came out of her mouth was a nonsensical movie line!

I might ask her what she did at preschool and she'll say "I'm 16 years old, I'm not a child anymore!" The other day, JD was pusing Karianna, and she turned to a teddy bear and said "Teddy, he just keeps pushing and pushing me and I'm tired of it!" Now, I don't really think Karianna watches too much movie time-I limit it to nothing during the day, but she usually watches something right before bed. Maybe this is a sign she's still getting too much of it. See, today we were finishing up lunch and I let Karianna scrape the last few bits of yoghurt out of the yoghurt container. When she was done, she looked at the cup for a few seconds, looked at JD for a few seconds, and must have decided he was worthhy of the job because she handed the cup to him and said, "Here, guard this with your life, Dude"-a movie line straight from _________________.

Can you guess which movies the three movie line examples came from? I'll follow Carly's lead-a zillion points for anyone who can pinpoint all three!

Lecture Briefs 101: Solving basic math problems

What do you get when you have 8 children in one family, and 4 of those said 8 children begin having families of their own simultaneously? Well lets see, multiply the 4 by 10, carry the 1, drop the zeros, PEMDAS, what's the equation for cosine again? And my final answer is: 10 infants and toddlers ages 3 and under!!! Challenge question: what do you do when you put nearly all of said infants and toddlers in one pew at church? I am still not sure about that answer, but I am fairly certain I expended more calories in one sacrament meeting than I took in over the course of the last month.

So final conclusion? It is GREAT to have such a big family! I love it when we get together, I love seeing the cousins play, and I love being in the thick of it all. I am a pretty lucky person, guarenteed-family is what it is all about!

Mohawk Mania!

You know, when JD was born, we figured we were in for a long haul with a fairly bald baby. Oh, he was born with a decent spray of very dark hair, but wow did it fall out and lighten quick-he was constantly compared to an old man, and I believe my family can vouch for that! I am sure there were many an occasion in the last two years where Jared and I WOULD have had a lecture with him about hair proliferation. Now I never did because I thought it unfair to put that responsibility on an infant turned toddler. Can you imagine? "Come on JD, you need to start growing hair on that little head of yours! I know you are proud of showing off your soft spot and suture lines and all, but now is the time to encourage head growth not baldness! I promise I'll brush it every day and keep it washed and clean and once you get embarrasing curlies in the back, I'll snip them, no problem! I also promise I'll love you either way-you could be bald your entire life and I honestly wouldn't care, you'll still be my wonderful JD who always makes me feel calm and happy. But lets go out with the old (literally) and in with the new-what'do you say?" Yeah, a little too much pressure. He'll get enough of that when he is older. Jared would probably take a little bit of a different route-picture a rain dance, but use "rain" as the operative word. When I say the phrase "hair dance" what do you see? Tossing fake hair in the air? Sprinkling it over JD? Fasioning hair fans and dancing with choreography fit for 'So you think you can dance'? Hmmm, maybe Jared should comment on this when he reads it :)

In any case, whatever we did, lecture or not, must have worked because its finally happening! Our infectiously happy little guy has a lovely head of hair-just enough to style and comb, and no, I definitely did not cut off the little curlies! Too cute! But when a toddler gets enough hair on his head, and you combine that with Uncle David and a comb, this is what you get-Mohawk Mania! Now that's one cool kid!

I have a feeling Jacob in Japan will like this entry!

Forgiveness from a 3 year old

Every mother has them I suppose-moments that you know you definitely overreacted or at the very least did not react in the best way possible. Oh, that was today and makes the perfect baby lecture for today-except I should have been giving myself the lecture, but I digress...I had a little bit of work to do on the computer before dinner and let the kids have a little "movie time" while I was otherwise occupied. In went Aladdin (JD sure is greatful Walt decided to make the Cave of Wonders a tiger!)....and then out went Aladdin as something was wrong with the DVD. Long story short, Karianna decided to take it upon herself to eject it herself and then all of the sudden couldn't remember where she put it. Frustrated, I sent her to her room (that's the overreaction part we talked about earlier). Moments later, I found that JD had decided to "clean up" the DVD by putting it in a toy bin full of cars and magnets (though I am not sure why the latter was in there). Picture me banging my head on the wall as I realize Karianna didn't do anything wrong! So upon calling her back downstaires, we had the following conversation, and thank heavens for my wonderful little girl who loves me nonetheless!

Me: Karianna, I am so sorry I was mad and frustrated at you. I should not have done that.

Karianna: Okay.

Me. So I am sorry I got so mad at you and I am sorry I sent you to your room.

Karianna: And mama, I looked for Aladdin in my room, but it was not there.

Me: Oh that was very nice of you to look-JD put Aladdin in the toy closet by accident.

Karianna. Oh. I said I did not know where it was.

Me: Yes, you were telling the truth, and that was wonderful-I am very proud of you and I am sorry I did not believe you. Do you forgive me?

Karianna: Yes, but mama, you should say a repenting prayer.

Me: You are right, I will do that, fold your arms......Father in Heaven, we are thankful for this day. We are thankful for our family and especially for Karianna. I am thankful that Karianna could forgive me for being frustrated at her. I am sorry I got mad at Karianna and overreacted. Please help me to make better choices. Bless Karianna to know how much I love her and bless her to know how special she is. We love thee and say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Karianna: I want to say a repenting prayer too!

Me: Okay, go ahead.

Karianna: Father in Heaven, thankful for this day....thank you bless mama to not get mad at me and bless mama to make good choices....I'm sorry I went to my room....bless us not to touch DVDs...bless us to not go to our rooms....bless us to repent...bless us to go home safely (this is always in her prayers regardless). Name of Jesus Christ Amen.

Me: (Silence. I was so blown away by my amazing little girl who has such simple faith-I sure hope I can resemble that someday).

The Beauty of SLEEP!

Here's the conversaton that started it all! Okay, so maybe this conversation is a little one-sided, but I'll just maintain that Jordan is such a smart 3 month old that he understood everything and had tons of feedback in the form of "ah, ooh [burp]". You know what they say about mothers and baby talk-only they understand it, and I am positive Jordan was agreeing with everything I said about this topic of sleep. See, Jared has been studying like a crazed maniac for a financial planning certification test he's taking in a few weeks. I usually stay up late with him so when he puts the books down, I can quiz him about what he's read. It's a pretty hilarious conversation to listen to, especially if you are connected to my brain becaues I have no clue what I am talking about! Jared has explained a bond to me a billion times and I still have no idea how to use it in a sentence! On these nights sleep comes in last place, especially when little Jordan needs his bedtime meal. On this particular night, he decided squirming was more important than being a responsible infant and going right to sleep in his cozy bed. So we had a discussion, and it went something like this; want to guess what Jordan did after we were done? I'll give you a hint-look at the picture!

Jordan, you need to go to sleep. See, sleep is pretty important. And when you get older like mom and dad, you are going to want sleep all the time; I mean, you will want to go to sleep at 8 every night just because it is so fun to sleep! So why don't we do this, why don't we just start practicing right now! You can snuggle in your blankie, watch the light from the street for a few minutes, count a few sheep, and then just close your eyes and sleep. And you know, when you are an adult you really don't need to be rocked to sleep or insist on squiriming every few seconds.....okay, most adults don't need that. So lets practice that too-and you can grow big and strong and thank me for allowing you to go to a nap when you are a two year old (because I am sure you will do that, just like your brother and sister.....). So how bout it? Want to go to sleep? I thought so-good answer Jordan. What a smart dude-its happening already!

Call me a copycat!

So who had their money on May 1, 2008? That's the day I am officially writing this entry and starting the Lautenschlager blog! And I'll send a shout out to Mary Lee for telling me more than a year ago I needed to do this; and to Carly and Becca for acting as the reminders that this has been long overdue! A final thanks to my new baby boy Jordan for having a conversation with me that sparked the idea for this blog-baby lectures, or in other words, the conversations I have with my children that are probably way over their heads but I instigate anyway for lack of adult contact. I figure perhaps a little bit of it sinks into their heads and they understand how much I love them, even if our conversations are a little silly at times! So here's to my idea of motherly pearls in the form of baby lectures-its all about the kids!