what has 20 legs, 12 arms, 5 dinners, 2 dishwashers, 2 sinks of dishes, 1 family room, 2 living rooms, 2 dining rooms, 7 bedrooms, 2cars, 1 hour commute, and hardly any peace or quiet?
ANSWER: WE WERE HOUSE SITTING LAST WEEK FOR BART AND KATHLEEN! WHAT A PRODUCTION. THEY HAVE A HUGE HOUSE AND 2 HUGE DOGS (WHOM NORAH ADORED), BUT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE TIME THERE, ADAM HELD A MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL PARTY AT OUR HOUSE. SO I CLEANED BOTH HOUSES ON MONDAY, AT THE SAME TIME AS BABYSITTING 3 OF TIFFANY'S KIDS (GABRIEL IS IN KINDERGARTEN NOW).
IT WAS ACTUALLY KINDA FUN TO SEE WHAT A BIGGER HOUSE FEELS LIKE, LIVING IN A HOUSE WITH DOGS AND STAIRS, AND WHAT HAVING 5 KIDS IS LIKE (all a year apart!)
PHEW...
Monday, September 29, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
a few things on norah...
~she has a very healthy competitive spirit with her sister. I have not been able to get norah to drink from a sippy cup for anything. anything! yesterday all i had to do was give the cup to grace instead of norah. she started saying, mine! mine! grace was very kind and shared it with her. and she drank it.
~if you want norah to eat breakfast, all you have to do is start eating your own. she comes over and wants bites like a little birdie.
~this is the stage where you can get her to say anything you want. like trash can. or yeah, dawg. or hiccup.
~she has tried her hand at throwing huge fits. huge. fits. screaming and shaking and turning red fits. jayden started laughing at her one day. let's face it, it's funny the first time. maybe. depends on where you're at. she saw him laughing at her and went to hit him. i caught her, but i think we may be in trouble with this one.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
this afternoon
this afternoon was pretty eventful around these parts.
a neighbor came over and asked if her son was here. I said, nooo.... i guess he had gotten pretty angry and ran out of the house, she thought maybe he would come here (her kids come over and play with my kids a lot).
luckily, i had bart and kathleen's car still. i threw the kids in the car and we just started driving around the neighborhood. jayden had the windows down yelling his name. then grace would yell. the norah would yell. we were driving, yelling and praying.
it's safe to say we were all scared.
we were about to head home, when i thought i would head down one more street. jayden, grace and norah still yelling. i finally spotted him! he had his jeans pulled all the way up to shorts-length. his longish-curly hair was wet and clinging to his face. his cheeks were flushed. he only had socks on, no shoes.
there was an island in the middle of the street, so i had to go down another block or so, but i yelled to him, STAY RIGHT THERE!
i pulled the cell phone out and called his mom. I FOUND HIM! she started crying. where? i told her quickly. she asked if i could keep him at my house to let him cool off a bit more. of course, with my own voice cracking. she said she had called the police, she didn't know what else to do. her little boy was gone.
i pushed the gas to the floor and went a bit over the 35 mph speed limit... i did a quick u-ey. i pulled the car over, flicked on the hazards...
i asked him to get into the car, he said - nooo jamie, it's ok.
he was afraid.
i hopped out of the suv and went over to him. i just gave him a hug. his hot, sticky cheek was touching my arm. i looked down at him and said, it's ok.
he said the police were after him (which i'm not sure about). he said he was scared. really scared.
i told him how i had talked to his mom and how she was crying, cause she loves him. cause she's afraid he might get lost, or hurt, or...
really?
i told him that she said it was ok if he came to my house for a few minutes and cooled off.
you're a really good friend, jamie. that's what he said to me. the mom of his friend.
i told him we were all praying that we would find him. and we did.
a few minutes later, and a few drinks of water later, the doorbell rang and his mom was there, hugging him. a police man was also there. they asked me a few questions and then he was gone with them.
but i'm still thinking about him. wondering how he is. wondering how we can plant seeds of Life in this little boy.
a neighbor came over and asked if her son was here. I said, nooo.... i guess he had gotten pretty angry and ran out of the house, she thought maybe he would come here (her kids come over and play with my kids a lot).
luckily, i had bart and kathleen's car still. i threw the kids in the car and we just started driving around the neighborhood. jayden had the windows down yelling his name. then grace would yell. the norah would yell. we were driving, yelling and praying.
it's safe to say we were all scared.
we were about to head home, when i thought i would head down one more street. jayden, grace and norah still yelling. i finally spotted him! he had his jeans pulled all the way up to shorts-length. his longish-curly hair was wet and clinging to his face. his cheeks were flushed. he only had socks on, no shoes.
there was an island in the middle of the street, so i had to go down another block or so, but i yelled to him, STAY RIGHT THERE!
i pulled the cell phone out and called his mom. I FOUND HIM! she started crying. where? i told her quickly. she asked if i could keep him at my house to let him cool off a bit more. of course, with my own voice cracking. she said she had called the police, she didn't know what else to do. her little boy was gone.
i pushed the gas to the floor and went a bit over the 35 mph speed limit... i did a quick u-ey. i pulled the car over, flicked on the hazards...
i asked him to get into the car, he said - nooo jamie, it's ok.
he was afraid.
i hopped out of the suv and went over to him. i just gave him a hug. his hot, sticky cheek was touching my arm. i looked down at him and said, it's ok.
he said the police were after him (which i'm not sure about). he said he was scared. really scared.
i told him how i had talked to his mom and how she was crying, cause she loves him. cause she's afraid he might get lost, or hurt, or...
really?
i told him that she said it was ok if he came to my house for a few minutes and cooled off.
you're a really good friend, jamie. that's what he said to me. the mom of his friend.
i told him we were all praying that we would find him. and we did.
a few minutes later, and a few drinks of water later, the doorbell rang and his mom was there, hugging him. a police man was also there. they asked me a few questions and then he was gone with them.
but i'm still thinking about him. wondering how he is. wondering how we can plant seeds of Life in this little boy.
Monday, September 22, 2008
a question for ya
what has 20 legs, 12 arms, 5 dinners, 2 dishwashers, 2 sinks of dishes, 1 family room, 2 living rooms, 2 dining rooms, 7 bedrooms, 2cars, 1 hour commute, and hardly any peace or quiet?
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
hurricane ike 9.13.08
the night the hurricane came in we had a gorgeous sunset. you can see the hurricane bands and the clouds coming in.
this is the picture my dad wrote about. grace got up the morning after the hurricane and looked out the window.
thomas brought over the generator he borrowed from work. the rocha's never lost power, so he was kind enough to let us borrow it for the weekend. (they also have some cool pics of the hurricane on their blog. click the link on their name to see 'em) we received so many blessings like this over the last four days.
our power went out around 7 pm on friday night. it was a lot earlier than we had thought/hoped it would. i was cleaning up from dinner and saw the lights flickering. i rushed to run the garbage disposal, and got most of it down when the lights went out.
almost every tree you see these days is leaning... this is the house across the street from us. we have a few leaning trees, too - but we tried to straighten them before i thought to take a picture.
this is another house across from us. the day before the hurricane, they had this huge magnolia tree put in. yeah, that's what we all thought, too! we were all amazed that it was still there when we woke up the next morning. the close-up one above this picture is of all their other plants. they didn't fare as well. kinda funny...
the kids went out at a safe point in the morning. it was still really windy and raining (it really was safe, though!). jayden was hanging on to grace. he was afraid she was going to get knocked down.
we also filled our tub with water, in case the water was out. we explained to jayden that we might need the water to flush toilets with. when he woke up that first morning he went to the restroom and was able to flush the toilet. he came out and said, "mom! we still have toilet electricity!"
our christmas tree made it, too!
these are the signs outside our house. they were hanging on by a thread.
this was the worst of our damage. the 5-foot section of our fence fell down. most of the fences around the complex look like this, or worse, they are all on the ground.
i mentioned before that we have received so many blessings throughout this hurricane. we had a generator and even after we had to give that back, we were able to hang out at papa and kathleen's, then thomas parked his work van here overnight and on it they have an invertor so we plugged in the ol' refrigerator again for a few hours and a lamp. each time we plugged in our cell phones and charged 'em up.
this morning our neighbor called and the kids and i headed over there for the morning. we had lunch and were able to chat. then a knock on the door told us we had power across the street and we were soo happy! jayden has asked me several times this afternoon, 'mom. are you soo happy that we have electricity? i am!' i always answer, 'YES!'
the night the hurricane hit my dad was online through most of our night (i think until 5am-ish houston time). he would send text messages every 30 minutes to an hour, letting me know where the eye of the storm was, or when the hurricane actually hit land. we didn't get much sleep that night, the wind and rain were so loud. so loud! on the news they mentioned the threat of tornados popping up as an after effect of the storm. but they said you would know it was coming because it sounds like a freight train coming straight for you. so the whole night, i'm thinking, if this doesn't sound like a freight train, i'd hate to hear one!
another answer to prayer was that our kids slept through most of it. grace woke up around 4am and climbed into bed with us. (the kids were sleeping on a mattress on the floor in our room.) but she fell back to sleep around 5am. jayden said the next morning that he woke up and heard 'a lot of racket - and i (jayden) was like, dude... did you hear all of that racket, mom and dad?' norah was sound asleep the whole night.
our patience finally ran thin around 4pm yesterday, when we discovered that our power was still out. we even rode the whole way from papa's house to our house with all of our fingers crossed, arms crossed, legs crossed and even our eyeballs at one point! our pastor said at church on sunday that everyone comes to this point of grumpiness when things like this happen. i guess ours came last night. after an hour or so of feeling sorry for myself, thomas showed up with the work van, adam ordered pizza and took the kids to the park, i was able to tidy up the whole house, and we realized how lucky (err BLESSED) we are. we thought about calling our church to see if there were any generators among members, but we decided to leave them to people who may really need it.
I know i am all over the place with this entry, so i hope you bear with me. it's been a long 4 days.
we have many people to thank - my dad first... really, thank you soo much for just helping us through that first night and then your prayers, postings, concerns and listening the last few days. it means so much to me/us.
-and then thomas, who was such a good friend to us. thanks for the generator, the invertor, the meal, the milk, the ice and the kindess.
-our neighbors, the escueda's, who weren't here through the hurricane, but when they found out we didn't have electricity today, invited me and the kids over. thank you for your friendship and lunch today!
-and papa and kathleen. thanks for football (it meant a lot to adam), for food and for drinks!
-and the rest of our families (mom, suzanne and john, elisabeth, april and jo) for praying with us, for us... asking others to pray (even car customers with less than perfect credit)... we feel loved.
-and all of you, who are reading and have commented with your prayers and sighs of relief for us! thank you...
this morning our neighbor called and the kids and i headed over there for the morning. we had lunch and were able to chat. then a knock on the door told us we had power across the street and we were soo happy! jayden has asked me several times this afternoon, 'mom. are you soo happy that we have electricity? i am!' i always answer, 'YES!'
the night the hurricane hit my dad was online through most of our night (i think until 5am-ish houston time). he would send text messages every 30 minutes to an hour, letting me know where the eye of the storm was, or when the hurricane actually hit land. we didn't get much sleep that night, the wind and rain were so loud. so loud! on the news they mentioned the threat of tornados popping up as an after effect of the storm. but they said you would know it was coming because it sounds like a freight train coming straight for you. so the whole night, i'm thinking, if this doesn't sound like a freight train, i'd hate to hear one!
another answer to prayer was that our kids slept through most of it. grace woke up around 4am and climbed into bed with us. (the kids were sleeping on a mattress on the floor in our room.) but she fell back to sleep around 5am. jayden said the next morning that he woke up and heard 'a lot of racket - and i (jayden) was like, dude... did you hear all of that racket, mom and dad?' norah was sound asleep the whole night.
our patience finally ran thin around 4pm yesterday, when we discovered that our power was still out. we even rode the whole way from papa's house to our house with all of our fingers crossed, arms crossed, legs crossed and even our eyeballs at one point! our pastor said at church on sunday that everyone comes to this point of grumpiness when things like this happen. i guess ours came last night. after an hour or so of feeling sorry for myself, thomas showed up with the work van, adam ordered pizza and took the kids to the park, i was able to tidy up the whole house, and we realized how lucky (err BLESSED) we are. we thought about calling our church to see if there were any generators among members, but we decided to leave them to people who may really need it.
I know i am all over the place with this entry, so i hope you bear with me. it's been a long 4 days.
we have many people to thank - my dad first... really, thank you soo much for just helping us through that first night and then your prayers, postings, concerns and listening the last few days. it means so much to me/us.
-and then thomas, who was such a good friend to us. thanks for the generator, the invertor, the meal, the milk, the ice and the kindess.
-our neighbors, the escueda's, who weren't here through the hurricane, but when they found out we didn't have electricity today, invited me and the kids over. thank you for your friendship and lunch today!
-and papa and kathleen. thanks for football (it meant a lot to adam), for food and for drinks!
-and the rest of our families (mom, suzanne and john, elisabeth, april and jo) for praying with us, for us... asking others to pray (even car customers with less than perfect credit)... we feel loved.
-and all of you, who are reading and have commented with your prayers and sighs of relief for us! thank you...
irony
Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: it must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all. -- William Faulkner
this is the daily quote on my side-bar.
crazy, huh?
we have so much to be grateful for - but today we are especially grateful for ELECTRICITY!
this is the daily quote on my side-bar.
crazy, huh?
we have so much to be grateful for - but today we are especially grateful for ELECTRICITY!
Sunday, September 14, 2008
ike, ike, baby
so, right now, i am sitting at Bart and Kathleen's computer. Checking on e-mail and blog comments. i saw on my dad's and sister, Elisabeth's, blogs that they have posted a lot of what we went through and expierenced (experiencing). (thanks, guys! we are grateful that you 'got the word out').
we still have no power (insert big loud wail right here...) we do have water. we had to watch football though (insert big loud wail right here...) and since we have no air conditioning (i could put 'insert big loud wail right here...' again, but i figured you got the picture already!!!), i came along. we are enjoying interaction with other human beings, good food, and AIR CONDITIONING! norah has had perpetual sweaty wet head (poor thing), but other than that, we are all well and happy and relieved. (thank you soo much for praying for us, we definitely felt them! the kids never woke up through the whole thing!)
i don't want to write too much more because, of course, i have been taking lots of pictures and have thoughts i want to share of our first (and maybe last!) hurricane.
I also just heard that LT was back in the game, and since he has hardly played today (because of a hurt toe - i just wanna ask how many of us could get away with not working because of a hurt toe, AND get paid MILLIONS for not) and wanna go make fun of it some more... (as you can tell, i really am fine, although i also want to say that the texans/ravens game is postponed tomorrow night - much to A LOT of upset fans, bummer- huh? darn those natural disasters!)
i'll write more later... (check out my sister 'elisabeth' and 'dad' blogs on the right for more info.)
PLEASE PRAY FOR POWER! we are going to have to give back the generator tomorrow morning! agh!)
we still have no power (insert big loud wail right here...) we do have water. we had to watch football though (insert big loud wail right here...) and since we have no air conditioning (i could put 'insert big loud wail right here...' again, but i figured you got the picture already!!!), i came along. we are enjoying interaction with other human beings, good food, and AIR CONDITIONING! norah has had perpetual sweaty wet head (poor thing), but other than that, we are all well and happy and relieved. (thank you soo much for praying for us, we definitely felt them! the kids never woke up through the whole thing!)
i don't want to write too much more because, of course, i have been taking lots of pictures and have thoughts i want to share of our first (and maybe last!) hurricane.
I also just heard that LT was back in the game, and since he has hardly played today (because of a hurt toe - i just wanna ask how many of us could get away with not working because of a hurt toe, AND get paid MILLIONS for not) and wanna go make fun of it some more... (as you can tell, i really am fine, although i also want to say that the texans/ravens game is postponed tomorrow night - much to A LOT of upset fans, bummer- huh? darn those natural disasters!)
i'll write more later... (check out my sister 'elisabeth' and 'dad' blogs on the right for more info.)
PLEASE PRAY FOR POWER! we are going to have to give back the generator tomorrow morning! agh!)
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Saturday, September 06, 2008
galveston 9.6.08
we went to the beach today... it was so much fun. we had no idea what to expect, considering the last 30+ years the only beaches we have been to are so cal beaches. and what's better than a so cal beach? but we packed up and headed out and it was really great! it reminded me so much of 'home' and yet it was so different but just a great day. the kids were so good and we just had a great day.
Friday, September 05, 2008
favorite things
so, it's back. (and i'm not talking about that ding-dang, stupid, hateful, disgusting, scary, jumping, hiding-in-the-dark-and-waiting-for-me-to-open-the-door-so-it-can-run-into-the-house, MOUSE!)
it's fantasy time, it's checking scores time, it's hearing talks (fights, negotiations) with troy or shad or bh (that's brian harr, for those of you non-fantasy people) or some other league that is 'all automated' but you still hear the conversations (and as of last year, we added the busch family to that list) about dropping this guy, trading that guy, smack talking his player or the other guy's player. (and it's all so serious!) it's not commisioner of one league anymore, it's commisioner of the other now. but it's "not that bad" cause it's all online now. it's not "that much responsibility" cause it's all online. (btw, my guy doesn't give me those quotes, he knows better... it's the others who feel the need to convince me to be ok with the fantasy.) it's a husband who will read this and think to go into another room to 'talk' but then leaves the kids with a wife to keep away from him or keep quiet or... (i'll probably get in trouble for that one. all this passive aggressive stuff is good for a marriage.)
it's endless (endless!) sundays (and now saturdays and mondays and thursdays!) with non-stop commentaries (btw, do those guys really get paid for that?) it's players who don't play for teams, but for the money. it's QB's who don't know when to quit. it's fans who ride band wagons, flip-flop on 'their team', and are just plain annoying.
it's free 3-piece chicken strips last monday at chick-fil-a if you wear a logo of a team. (that's pretty cool if your kids like chick-fil-a, but mine don't.) but you get my point? they market your 'team' for 'free food'!!
it's being in a dark place. it's lonely. it's painful. it's, it's, it's... football season again.
good-bye sweet husband. hello trash talking. yay.
see you in february.
it's fantasy time, it's checking scores time, it's hearing talks (fights, negotiations) with troy or shad or bh (that's brian harr, for those of you non-fantasy people) or some other league that is 'all automated' but you still hear the conversations (and as of last year, we added the busch family to that list) about dropping this guy, trading that guy, smack talking his player or the other guy's player. (and it's all so serious!) it's not commisioner of one league anymore, it's commisioner of the other now. but it's "not that bad" cause it's all online now. it's not "that much responsibility" cause it's all online. (btw, my guy doesn't give me those quotes, he knows better... it's the others who feel the need to convince me to be ok with the fantasy.) it's a husband who will read this and think to go into another room to 'talk' but then leaves the kids with a wife to keep away from him or keep quiet or... (i'll probably get in trouble for that one. all this passive aggressive stuff is good for a marriage.)
it's endless (endless!) sundays (and now saturdays and mondays and thursdays!) with non-stop commentaries (btw, do those guys really get paid for that?) it's players who don't play for teams, but for the money. it's QB's who don't know when to quit. it's fans who ride band wagons, flip-flop on 'their team', and are just plain annoying.
it's free 3-piece chicken strips last monday at chick-fil-a if you wear a logo of a team. (that's pretty cool if your kids like chick-fil-a, but mine don't.) but you get my point? they market your 'team' for 'free food'!!
it's being in a dark place. it's lonely. it's painful. it's, it's, it's... football season again.
good-bye sweet husband. hello trash talking. yay.
see you in february.
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
hairspray (and not the play or movie version)
on jay's first day of school, a certain little girl we all know and love, got into the travel-size hairspray in our bathrooom. she sprayed it in a nice halo-shape around her whole head. i think she learned her lesson, cause i combed it out(not too hard, but hard enough), instead of sticking her in the shower to wash it out. she told jay that, 'hairspray is not ok to use. you have to ask mommy.'
dvr boy
so, i thought it would be interesting to show you our dvr list... jayden has figured out how to record his fav shows. but notice what time they come on! i guess it's better than having him get up that early to watch 'em live.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
share your shopping or shopping your share
we're cleaning the house today... more like me cleaning, me telling them to clean, and me wishing naps were longer so i could get more done. anyway, i just heard grace singing the barney (you know, the purple dinosaur) but everyone sings it now, 'clean up' song. it went like this:
clean up, clean up
everybody, everywhere
clean up, clean up
everybody do your shopping (it's supposed to be -share-)
i knew there was something about that song that needed to be changed. i like it much better now.
clean up, clean up
everybody, everywhere
clean up, clean up
everybody do your shopping (it's supposed to be -share-)
i knew there was something about that song that needed to be changed. i like it much better now.
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