my very first cake completely from scratch

as i was frosting this, i realized that this was the first cake i'd ever made from scratch. just about first anything from scratch, besides cookies i think. dave decided it was blog worthy. (it was a carrot cake and it was really really quite good.)

worms

here's some really great photos of one of ellen's pretend worms... and my worm... she actually made a special request that the worms have their pictures taken, which makes me wonder to what degree does she see these pretendings? is it like in peter pan, or hook i guess, where all these pretend things are completely visible if you only believe? she seemed pleased with the pictures when i showed them to her, so they must be there somewhere...

tents

Remember when playing in a tent or fort was one of the coolest things ever? one of the things ellen likes do to in her tent is bring a ton of toys and arrange them... and another thing she likes to do... no, i did not hand ellen that entire tub of ice cream. i took it out when putting groceries away and saw her dart off with it but figured there was no way she could get it open. about five minutes later i remembered and found her very quitely scooping some ice cream for her self into some of her play dishes. she puts her head down like that when she knows she's about to get into trouble.

ellen doing a happy dance

make believe and fevers

ellen has jumped into the world of make believe with both feet. there are pretend dogs and cats and french fries and dip and dog bones everywhere. if i would have taken my camera to the park today you could have seen isaiah and ellen swinging on two of the four swings and then you could have seen with ellen, bert (of sesame street fame) on the 'baby' swing next to isaiah, and elmo, count and cookie monster all sitting on ernie's lap on the 'big girl' swing next to ellen. and they'd all be happily swinging since i was kept quite busy making sure everyone and their swings were moving. poor isaiah's been rather sick for quite some time. he had a pretty good fever for almost a week which was caused by getting his top four teeth in at one time. he got over that and a couple days later he's caught a cold that just won't go away and makes him rather miserable. he really hates to be stuffed up and fevery. and now i'm starting to think he's getting some more teeth cause he's just chewing and chewing on his fingers. and that pretty much sums up the budd household.

ellen is a stinker

today after i put ellen down for her nap i went to check on her to make sure she'd fallen asleep. the door was cracked open a bit, so i poked my head and started searching her bed for her. i couldn't find her for a bit, and thought maybe she was laying sideways against the headboard cause i could see plainly that she wasn't playing on the floor (it's amazing how its easier to find her when her room is clean). i'm looking and i'm looking and i just can't quite see her or picture how she is laying. i think about going in to see if she's okay and not stuck under blankets or something, but this is risky since if she's almost asleep it'll ruin the whole deal. i heard a couple noises behind me, but i thought it was dave getting ready to go to work. i decided she must be fine, laying up against the backboard. i turn around and what do i see but ellen in the living room playing playdoh! she has learned to open her door and to be incredibly quite moving around the house. i was shocked! she did that three times to me today!

the bee

not a great shot obviously, but you can start to get the image that she likes to pull this bee everywhere we go. she took him to the doctor the other day. in't he cute?

park pictures...

that's dave and ellen and wesley and nevaeh after they've all fallen down singing ring around the rosie (nevaeh's the only one who likes to fall down)

isaiah's a rock star too...

he really really loves to play this guitar. pretty good at it too.

christmas in september

bryan and kim provided us with a bit of christmas in september with a big box full of presents... ellen fed larry the lobster some stickers and was very curious about his 'feelers' what do you actually call those things?? stickers are always a big hit...ellen very carefully and conscientiously (?) selected several for her butterflies and she had a great time painting. we haven't gotten out the rest yet - although she is doing a great job getting isaiah's very cool retro bee worn in for him. i'll try to get a picture of the bee soon. it looks really familiar - did you have one as kid bryan? and the clothes are absolutely adorable! maybe if its cool enough they can wear them on sunday and i'll take another picture. thanks bryan and kim! that was an awesome surprise.

these are for mom...

kiddos in some of their new clothes mom gifted them with...

ouch

yesterday hurt. it started with dave getting a haircut, which he'd probably tell you was painful since he doesn't like the result. too short on the sides and back, too long on top. then i got to go grocery shopping all by myself which was truly a beautiful hour and a half. then dave and ellen headed off to portland to help clean up a park with church folk. and isaiah and i went and just tooled around doing random stuff like going to the dollar store. and then i shut the van's sliding door on my thumb. and it actually latched. ouch. the lady in the parking place next to me freaked out more than i did. my actual thoughts were "hey, my hand is stuck. that should really hurt. i better open the door as soon as i can." i told her it didn't really hurt that much and she said "that's because you're in shock, dear" oh. so i went into a bit of shock, sitting on the van step until i thought i wouldn't faint or throw up and could decide if i was really cold or actually quite hot and felt okay to drive home. (isaiah was happily buckled in and having a great time and home was only about 1/4 mile away) so its bleeding and bleeding and throbbing and hurting and i'm trying to figure out how to get isaiah's 30 lb. car seat out of the van and still stay conscious...you know that sensation where everything starts to get really light and really dark at the same time? that was me. anyway, we laid down together for a while and he eventually went to sleep and i eventually felt okay. but i did call dave and ask him to come back so i could go to the er. and he did, and i did and it turns out it's fractured so now i get to wear a little splint that isaiah thinks is incredibly interesting. ellen keeps feeling sorry for me asking if she can kiss it. and i also got a tetnus shot. ouch.that didn't hurt so much yesterday as today. and it's in my other arm. so carrying around this twenty pound kid is going to be interesting today.

isaiah didn't really sleep at all last night - seemed like he was waking up every two hours or so for some reason. but he was he cutest awake-in-the-middle-of-the-night baby. i finally brought him into bed at 6:30 and he was laying there talking trying to open my eyes with his fingers so i'd talk back to him. after a couple of minutes trying not to laugh he finally gave up and went to sleep.

its been a while....

it seems like its been a while since i've blogged... mom was here for the past couple days. we had big plans for lots of fun stuff and had to throw some of it out to let the poor kiddos relax a bit. i wanted to go to the zoo and omsi again, but we chucked those in favor of naps. i always like it when we have visitors and mom is one of the best. we got the go ahead from dave's boss that we could have the time off at christmas that we wanted so we officially get to go to georgia! we actually have tickets and everything! i'm sooo excited. that also means that dave has received yet another promotion! starting in october dave will begin training to be a personal banker. all of his employers always love him. he's a really good employee. isaiah is getting in two more teeth - so he's now got two that have broken through, three that are half way in, and one that can't quite seem to pop out. he's also had a fever for the last few days and been feeling it. and ellen just got sick last night...woke up sounding kinda croupy. i'm looking forward to going to school tomorrow morning...dave and i were both up late doing homework last night and admitted to each other we were worried we'd both chosen the wrong class since the ones we have are soooooo much work. ellen is the official seat belt police. she wants that thing buckled as soon as your butt hits the seat. mom made the mistake of turning around and looking at her before buckling her belt. ellen is very polite, but firm - "buckle in please, bopp"

favorite word

ellen's favorite word is saxophone.

my husband is awesome

his post about his experience with the kids yesterday

good news

yesterday dave and i talked about the possibility of me going to just one class a week instead of two. at first i was shocked at the idea since class started today and i had already started the work. but as i thought more about it i felt a huge sense of relief. sorta subconsciously i was pretty worried that i was gonna be completely overwhelmed with the work load. and i went to the class i'm going to keep this morning and it is going to be great - and an incredible amount of work. so i'm glad. and even better, dave worked it out with the bank that he can have thursdays off - so he's staying home with the kids again while i'm in school, in the afternoon he can do fish stuff and at night he'll go to class. so that's even better - we don't have to come up with cash to pay somebody, dave will have time to do fish work and still have a weekend and i think its good for both him and the kiddos to have that kind of time alone together. i'm pretty excited that it worked out this way.

Out of the Question...Into the Mystery by Leonard Sweet

This is the actual last book i read. (finished last night at the coffeshop)It's for school. I liked it a lot - once i got past the annoyingly little profound sentences that the first several chapters are overstuffed with. Lines like "Evangelism is not leading people to right beliefs about Jesus. It is introducing people to a relaitonship with Jesus the Christ." and "Christianity is not a system of laws and principles, but a pattern of relationships." I like these thoughts, and agree. but i got slightly annoyed when every paragraph had at least two of these its not this, but this formulaic sentences. okay, i'm exagerating a bit on the actual number, but just barely. anyway, once you get past that i thought it was pretty great. i think the best part was his take on the abraham/isaac sacrifice story. i have never liked nor been comfortable with the interpretation/take on/reason this is okay and in the bible sermons or explanations. it just makes no sense to me that God would actually want someone to do something (sacrifice their kid) so horrific and barbaric and that he had specifically said don't do earlier on. Sweet felt the same way and lists some of the questions he's held about the text and its traditional interpretation of a messianic forshadowing and that it was a test of faith that abraham passed with flying colors. Here's some of them: -Why didn't Abraham argue with God about the killing of his innocent son like he did when God told Abraham about God's intention to kill the Sodomites' sons and daughters? -Why did God no longer speak to Abraham after the outcome of this test was known? God delivered the Mount Moriah test in person, but as Abraham was about to carry out the the command, an angel intervened and stayed his hand. Why didn't God show up to intervene? And after the conclusion of this episode, God never spoke to Abraham again. The intimacy of their relatioship was over, Likewise, from that point on, Abraham "never speaks to God; but only speaks about God. -How did Isaac deal with the fact that his father had to be forcibly restrained from cutting his throat? -Abraham climbed Mount Moriah with his son, but he arrived alone when he returned from the mountain. And he never spoke to his son again. Isaac never saw his father alive again - only reuniting with his brother Ishmael to bury their dead father. Even though God gave Abraham back his son on the altar of sacrifice, Abraham never did get his son back [i should add here that i'm not sure we know that for sure - but there's no record of it in Genesis. -How can it be a good thing that Isaac and Abraham no longer "walk together" after Abraham's triumph of faith? -Why did God choose to name the people of God after Jacob - or Israel - "One who wrestles"- and not abraham? Anyway, i won't list them all...but he suggests that not only was this a test of faith or obedience, which by the way abraham only sorta passed, but it was a test of relationship. and abraham failed that part. he didn't talk to god about this crazy thing, he just said sure and went to go do it. he didn't 'argue' or try to change god's mind like his did about he sodomites or like any person in relationship would do with another. his point is that god wants our relationship much more than anything else.abraham and god had a history of relationship that involved tons of two way conversation, of arguments, of abraham 'changing' god's mind. it would be a fair expectation of abraham to talk about this as well. this was no 'i bellow from the heavens and you little person jump and run scared' kinda thing. ..and abraham only sorta passed the obedience part because he wasn't obeying whole heartedly - he just said fine and walked off without talking to anyone about it or feeling confident that this was the right thing to do and this was really 'gods will'. kinda like when your mom tells you to wash the dishes and you sigh and say fine and you take forever and do a crappy job - not fully obeying. i feel like i'm doing a lousy job of explaining what his point is, and i've probably been inadvertantly heretical at some point, but hopefully you understand what i'm trying to get at. so the main point is that its all about relationship relationship relationship - with god, and with people and with the world. For the last couple chapters he starts talking about art and nature and that you just can't be a follower of god and not love and appreciate beauty and life and all that has been created. towards the end the cute little not this but that sentences reappear but that's really my only complaint. definitely worth reading.

george

isaiah likes george too!!! if he keeps this up and ellen catches him at it, we might have to get isaiah his own george. i remember once when we were living in the park house with greg and martha i told greg that little boys who played with dolls would be more affectionate fathers. that was totally wrong - sorry greg. the real word is confident. i had seen a study that somehow connected a person's exposure to dolls and caring for them to how confident they felt early on (like in the delivery room as the baby is handed to the new proud papa) as a parent which in turn sometimes led to the amount of affection they showed early on. random thoughts.

mailbox

yesterday i went outside to discover that someone had run into our mailbox or managed to injure it somehow. the first inch or so is shifted to the right just enough that it won't close or fully open. we heard several weird noises last night, but none of them made us think to check for a mailbox vandal.

poses

isaiah did some modeling work yesterday... and ellen wanted to pose too

the princess and the goblin

the last book i read...i remember trying to read this as a kid and not being able to get into it. but this time i really liked it a lot. enough that i rushed out to get the sequel, the princess and curdie, before school starts tomorrow. which i also read, so i guess this isn't really technically the last book i read. but it's within the last five and i didn't take a picture of any of the others.

tuesday night out

tonight i went to a new coffee place -"coffee cottage" per chris's recomendation...now that's a cool coffee shop. i didn't discover the menu items that were under three dollars until after i ordered unfortunately. and i met a new set of kids. only these were actually kids...some jr higher brothers who were waiting for their mom to come get them after the local youth outreach closed. they were pretty rambunctious little buggers...trying to inhale the plastic wrap from their brownies, making it pop as loud as possible, yelling, playing with the toddler toys, the older calling to the younger trying to locate him from across the shop. Caleb, the older, started a couple random conversations with me - mostly about the laptop. They were still waiting when the shop closed down so i decided to wait with them outside. They told me about their first day of school and asked about my school experiences. Caleb thought being homeschooled would be awesome because then he wouldn't have to deal with the other kids. and Micah thought sixth grade was going to be the best yet. And i finally realized that Caleb wanted me to ask him about what he liked to do on computers...he kept dropping me little hints - what do you do on your computer? do you use it for anything else? do you have any hobbies at home? turns out his hobby is programming and he just recently completed his very first virus. Although he swears he would never give it to anyone - just wanted to see if he could do it. Their mom came a couple minutes later and thanked me for hanging out with them...i know it's silly, but i felt rather angelic. :)

craig's list

is anybody else just thrilled out of their mind with craigslist? i love that site. i've never actually bought anything yet - but there are so many awesome deals! and since ebay has been pretty much overtaken by professional vendors...craigslist is sweet. i keep thinking i'm going to buy everything for the kiddos on there - but i keep forgetting when it comes to them actually needing something. and you really have to plan ahead...so tonight i could have bought isaiah a pair of size 4 shoes for $2. (for those of you that haven't recently been shopping for kids shoes - they are just as expensive as adult shoes. and the kids only wear them for a couple of months before they're too small...and they barely ever even show any wear before they're too small.my little rant)but he's not going to wear that size for quite a while, and he might not at all the way he's growing. and i saw a big tool-workbench dealy-bob full of tools and it looked completely new for $15. but we're trying to downsize on kids toys in our house. otherwise that might have been at our house tomorrow. anyway, i highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it yet.

update to shhh

well, at least i know my son. last night we was up every two hours again. (maybe since i wrote this he'll sleep tonight)

ssshhhh

i don't want to say this too loudly or proudly, but isaiah is actually sleeping. through the night. from about 8:30 to 5:30. holy cow. now that i've actually told someone, i'm sure he'll go back to waking up every two hours.