Chocolate Milk

Lucy's pronunciation of chocolate milk, which she asks for frequently, is 'chalk-uh-nuk.'

"I wa chalk-uh-nuk!

Quick Quote #1

We were driving in the car, when out of nowhere Owen says, "Mama, are you serious? Are we gonna die in a few minutes?

Owen's Trip to the Police Station

Owen's preschool recently visited our local police station. He, along with the other 3 years old, were fingerprinted and documented in case they're ever abducted. Then the police would already have their information . . . . . kind of a disturbing thought.
Anyway, it was weird seeing these innocent kids get fingerprinted. Owen had a special, quiet moment with one of the officers as he was wiping Owen's fingers to clean off the ink. He was such a nice man. Their little conversation together was precious, so I had to capture the moment:

The Tale of Despereaux

I am currently reading my children their very first chapter book. We've been reading a few chapters a day. I'm having a little too much fun doing the different voices and actions. I'm simply thrilled that they enjoy listening to me!

Since I was a little girl, reading has been a past-time near and dear to my heart. As pathetic as it might sound, I often felt like characters in books were dear friends (i.e. Jane Eyre, Anne Shirley.) Throughout adolescence, I would have much rather stayed home on any weekend reading, than go to a dance or football game. Anyway, enough about me. My point is that I hope to inspire within my children a love of reading. I like to think that I'm planting a little seed of "love for literature" in them.

The book is "The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread." I read the book in one night and found it charming. I highly recommend it. It really helped reading it first on my own because now I can read the dialogue the way it should be read. Oh- and the movie is coming out next month. Perfect timing!

Halloween '08 and I turn 28!

The title of this post rhymes! Halloween is a crazy day at my house. Not only are there the usual school parties, costumes to put together, dinner to prepare before the kids stuff themselves sick- but it's my birthday as well! I never really liked birthdays as I child because I was extremely shy and hated being the center of attention. But now I love it! I feel like EVERYONE is celebrating my birthday.
The day went something like this: Breakfast, take Owen to preschool, take Jack to buy a second sword for his costume since his first one broke, stop at Albertsons to buy juice boxes for Jack's school party, pick up Owen & a friend from preschool, take them home, feed them lunch, take Jack and pick-up his friend and take them to the bus stop just in time, go to lunch with my girl-friends to celebrate my birthday and drink lots of diet coke, go back home and wake up Owen and Lucy from their naps, drag them to Jack's Halloween Party, pick-up pizzas on the way home, clean my messy house like a crazy woman before my in-laws arrive, eat dinner, open my presents, take the kids trunk-or-treating, take the kids trick-or-treating, return home and put kids to bed, rent a movie at Blockbuster to watch with my hubby and in-laws, fight to stay awake because the movie is painfully slow and boring, finally go to sleep. (Saturday was just as busy- but I'll spare you the details.)
During the trunk-or-treating, Lucy looked dumb-founded with an expression on her face like, "I am surrounded by imbecils." She'd walk backwards any time she encountered a masked person . . . which was pretty often. So I finally just scooped her up and held her. But by the time we were trick-or-treating at homes instead of car trunks, it clicked and she totally had the hang of it. She completely embraced it and would say after each house, "Neh How!" (Translation: "Next House!) She'd point her finger to the next house as Adam, her vehicle for the night, carried her from door to door.

During the trunk-or-treating Owen would examine each piece of candy before dropping it into his pumpkin pail. He'd exclaim, "Cool! Look Mama, a tootsie roll!!!" It was as though this tootsie roll was something he had never tasted or seen before, a rare gem. He did this with each candy. Fortunately it wore off by the time we began trick-or-treating at homes. I was some what exhausted of sharing his enthusiasm for skittles and starbursts. (Had they been dropping Sea's Candies into his pail, I could have definitely kept up my enthusiasm.)

And now, I present to you:

A witch, a ghost (not a member of the KKK), and Zorro . . . . . . . . . .

Here is a darling picture of Jack, at his school Halloween party:

Family Pictures '08

After reading a friend's blog, I felt incredibly guilty for not having taken a family photo this year. Within a week, I found myself at a park with my family and a friend ready to snap photos. My children are at a difficult age for holding still, as you'll see evidenced in the following photos. These are some of my favorites . . . or I guess I should say these ones are decent:

We were bribing our children with fruit snacks in between takes, but that didn't help much. I would've loved a photo where Lucy isn't squirming, or where Owen isn't doing his "squinty" eyed smile that he does when we tell him to "smile!" Nonetheless, there's a part of me that is at peace with all of it, because this is how they are! It's hilarious the way Owen poses for the camera, and Lucy is incapable of holding still when we're at a park.

My point being, these photos captured the stage my family is in and I'll cherish them as they are.