isaiah was very cooperative and even got his own sucker (which he managed to open and get a few good licks from)

trick or treat

in our town, all the owners of the businesses on main street stand outside their doors and pass out candy. We got ellen a super cool firetruck costume from value village yesterday that she loved and would actually wear (and therefore worth big bucks) This is as close as she would come to it today. as much as she loved it yesterday she hated it today. she would not put that thing on. uuuggghhh. but she did like looking at the fire trucks and instead of wearing her hat, she used it as a bucket this is where the costume sat the whole night so this is as dressed up as she got - a little pumpkin toy someone was handing out. dave was not as shy we had fun and she got a moderate amount of candy that i looked through to see if there was anything really good i needed to sample.

isaiah loves jumping

imago

we made the drive and went back to imago this morning. i love that place. isaiah is still sick with a cough so he couldn't go in the nursery and he started crying during the first announcement. i took him out and didn't make it back to the service at all, but i still love it there. that's pretty cool when its awesome even though you don't make it to the service. one of the things i like is the way they approach things. there are so many sticky, difficult awkward subjects. like for instance, imago needs a new building - they are currently renting a beautiful old church that is too small and only has one bathroom per floor. and by one bathroom i mean one stall. and there are about 400 people there per service. yeah, that part isn't the best. anyway, they need to move to a new building so they just started talking about what they think that would look like. i like what they want to do and how they want to do it... like this page about what they want the building for, for instance..

today's pictures

isaiah likes his bumble bee and ellen has actually been allowing him to play with it. isaiah also really likes to see the world upside down. he does this all the time. dave is a banker as of today. here he practices his mean i'm-a-banker-and-you-can't-have-any-money intimidation look and here's the more realistic version - please-come-ask-me-for-money-please. he wore his trench coat jacket and took some hot chocolate to feel more bankery.

isaiah is mobile!

isaiah can now get from point a to point b through a series of looooong stretches and rolls. he is especially interested in any sort of book - makes a beeline for those.

ellen is still a genius

i know this is going to be hard to believe, but ellen did this puzzle by herself. well mostly. dave strategically handed her pieces and told her where they went if she wasn't sure. like "this is north carolina. it goes above south carolina." and then she'd put it there. the western half she's pretty good at -it probably helps that the states are so much bigger. her current favorite is minnesota (she likes to say it) but she's also really quite excited about new york because ernie and bert and the rubber ducky live there. genius.

seattle pictures cont'd

ellen played with some aquarium piece she found in the back of the van, showing it to all the cars driving by. dave pretends he's enjoying himself.

seattle pictures cont'd

here's aunt karen and tim. tim's the one going to iraq and aunt karen's the one who makes awesome blankets for the kids. I think she knits them. isaiah really really like his right now - he's keeps biting it and pulling it out of his mouth. here's tim's mom, aunt kathy. and we also visited Grandma CeCe

pictures from seattle

dave was able to get the camera to work again (changed the batteries) so here are the pictures that were supposed to accompany the post about seattle. these are all from our one and only stop at the rest stop on the way up...everyone is so happy... the circle of life as interpreted by dave budd

that was bad

we went to a different church this morning because even though we completely and whole heartedly love imago, it is sooo far away. so we tried something local. and it was bad. really bad. i don't think the poor pastor studied the chapters he was talking about at all. it seemed like he just read it once before and then kinda summarized it and told us when he thought of a funny story. (that were actually all cliche's we'd all heard before). boy was it bad. dave thought so too.

now accepting sleep theories

in case you missed it in just about every other post i've written lately, isaiah is just not sleeping. i cannot figure out how to get him to sleep. he's getting progressively worse - he used to do a long stretch right when you put him down at night - like 5 or 6 hours. and now that's gone. then he'd wake up every three hours. then every two. now it's around every one and a half. and he's not making up for it in the day - most he sleeps in the day is an hour or so at a time 2 or 3 times. and that's on a good day. so any theories on helping him sleep longer? before you start - he puts himself to sleep already, i don't nurse him to sleep, except in the middle of the night. and then he's usually eating for 15-20 minutes, so i think he's actually hungry, not just using me. okay, go ahead and give em to me.

ellen sayings and isaiah doings

ellen is a very encouraging little girl. she's always saying "good job" and "nice work everybody." and she's interested in counting right now. everything she sees leads to "lets count them! one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, four, six!" and she's full of new dance moves and she's loves to pretend she's someone else. you really have to pay attention through the day to who she is right then cause she'll let you know it if you slip up and call her ellen. right before she went to bed i think she was barney and i was baby bop (horrors, i know, she has discovered barney. and she completely completely loves him. way too much. dave won't let her watch it, but its actually not all bad if you can manage to sit through it) we can spend twenty minutes just going through names. There's an order to this conversation, and it needs to happen this way or we have to start over. it goes like this. "Hickety-pickety bumble bee. Can you say your name for me? so and so what's your name?" (which we learned at gymboree) "Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Barney!" or madeline! or jesus! or elmo! She went through about fifty people in twenty minutes yesterday. isaiah is almost sitting up by himself. that is to say he'll sit for a while and then slowly, slowly topple over to one side. and when he plays on the floor he frequently does this roman reclining thing where he's propped himself up on one elbow on one side looking around.

class

so i just sat down at the computer and looked around the desk while i waited for the internet and realized that i have completely forgotten to pay bills. whoops. (little warning for you - this is not about adorable little children or fun times being broken down on a road trip. this one's chalk full of what we're talking about in seminary and i'm just kinda babbling - i don't have any filters on my brain right now so forgive me if i'm boring or rude.) i love going to school. i love what i'm learning and i love the way my teacher teaches it. i want to go ask him to teach me to teach. i love that he is so obviously and completely knowledgeable about his subjects and at the same time not showy about it. i told him i really liked the class and he seemed almost embarassed. there are so many people that seem to just revel in the knowledge that they are knowledgeable about something and he is so not like that. i love that. and i love that he takes the time to get you to come to whatever point he's making on your own. he doesn't just tell you, he shows you the steps and walks with you until you come to the conclusion. the class is an old testament survey and today we talked about genesis. we went through several stories of the patriarchs/matriarchs to get the general vibe of what the narrator was trying to say about them. and the one theme that comes through loud and clear is that they are jacked up. abraham passes his wife off as his sister "so it will go well with [him]" (which seems to mean he'll be safe and get rich) - twice. then isaac does the same with rebekah. abraham and sarah act like rude whiny people in the way they talk to each other and especially god. isaac, among other things, played favorites with his kids and was incredibly egocentric. jacob played favorites with his kids and was all about "grabbing" as much as he could get for himself. he ran for his life more than once after he'd grabbed everything he could get his hands on. joseph was a little twirpy bratty kid. but in the end it seems that he was the one guy that got "it"... in the end he is able to reframe the horrible things that have happened in his life in a way that brings meaning and life instead of bitterness, hatred and dysfunction. he is able to climb up on the step stool and look over the top of things and see that while others meant these things for evil, god meant them for good. anyway, it was interesting in class as delamarter (the professor) tried to help everyone take off the rosie everything-the-"heroes-of-the-faith"-do-must-be-good-and-righteous glasses, and actually listen to what the narrator was saying instead of what we like to impose on the text. so instead of genesis being a book full of people that we point out to our children and say "hey why don't you grow up to be like them", its full of people that are just messed up. instead of the brady bunch its the osbournes. (not so much the prince of darkness bit - more the everybody is in rehab and dysfunctional part) or whatever. but the whole point is not that god loved and blessed the patriarchs/matriarchs because they were faithful and righteous, but that god loved and blessed the patriarchs/matriarchs despite their horribleness. (aka grace) which is what most people talk about/preach about and what the new testament is all about - but kinda cool that there it is as the punch line (point) in the old testament too. i don't know if that actually makes any sense when i try to type it out or whatever, but there it is.

seattle

we went on a road trip to seattle this weekend to attend a going away party for Dave's cousin, Tim, who is on his way to Iraq. The trip up was completely nice and wonderful and uneventful. We stopped at Winco (my favorite grocery store) and visited the bulk section to stock up on the essentials for any road trip (candy). and we found a huge sub sandwich for 4 bucks that dave thought was the best deal ever. it was basically a loaf of french bread with a pound or two of ham on it (no condiments - dave's favorite). and the kids slept, we stopped at a rest stop and they played. Our directions were a bit off, but because the city is laid out in a (semi) logical way with numbers for street names, we were able to find Aunt Kathy's house on our own. When we got there everyone was completely thrilled to see us and ellen took off with her cousins (who she's never seen before) and i didn't see her again for a couple hours. She had a wonderful time and there was no shortage of relatives who wanted to play with her. we stayed the night in seattle and visited Gramma CeCe the next morning and introduced Isaiah. We had fun there too and Ellen again had a wonderful time playing with cards and poker chips (we want to get her started early. she's gonna need to know how to play texas hold'em so she can participate in our tournaments.) and we started heading home around 1. stopped for a quick bite to eat and when we started the car back up we got a check engine light. not good for a four (at least) hour road trip home. so dave checked a few fluids, added some water and it went away, so we took off. we drove for about 45 minutes and the engine was sorta sputtering and sounding odd and the light came back on, so we pulled off to some little town and started looking for a Shuck's auto store because they'll let you use their computer thing to find out what's wrong with your car for free. we drove away from the freeway through who knows where for several miles before we found it (we'd gotten directions) but the computer wouldn't work. it was getting late and we were starting to get worried that all the car fix it places were going to shut (since it was sunday afternoon) so we raced over to a nearby midas to see if they'd take a look. they said it would take at least an hour and they were closing in 45 minutes. so we raced over to firestone - same story. at this point we figured we'd try for a couple more minutes before we found a hotel and made an appointment for the next morning. we tried one last place and their expert advice was make sure your gas cap is on. so we did and it was and thought well i guess lets find a hotel. (there's no way i wanted to completely break down in the middle of 1-5 nowhere near anywhere and either sleep in the van (not fun since ellen can't sleep for long in her car seat) or else get seperated while dave goes off for help. i'm too much of a scairdy cat - has anyoe else seen that movie where the couple breaks down somewhere, and a trucker stops to help and the wife goes with him to get a tow truck or something and then the trucker is psycho and all hell breaks loose?? i never actually finished watching it cause it was too freaky, but that was what i wanted to avoid) anyway. we saw a hotel, but decided to just keep looking for an open place for a couple minutes before we went back and checked in. about a half mile further on, we found another Shuck's and their computer worked! we hooked it up, found the problem and the guy inside said he knew how to fix that, had some tools we could borrow and he'd talk dave through it - even help if he got stuck! (they apparantly don't have the same no-working-on-cars-in-the-parking-lot that california does). so dave started working and ellen, isaiah and i got into the back of the van and watched some sesame street movies on the laptop, and later took a walk to the shopping mall across the street. about an hour and half later the van was fixed! no check engine light! woo hoo! dave tipped the guy rather handsomely since we were so thankful and grateful to have saved a ton of cash (the hotel, plus the missed work, plus you can't get out of a mechanic's for less than at least a couple hundred dollars). dave's awesome - i was rather impressed. the rest of the ride home wasn't exactly fun - the kids screamed and cried and were unhappy but at least we were moving forward. i have to say that i've always tended to feel that the dvd players in the seats for the kids to watch during the drive were a bit of extravegent overkill for spoiled children, but i will freely admit that ellen watched more than one movie on the laptop on the way home. man that was nice.

integrity

ellen has been learning about integrity lately. dave has explained this to mean making good choices when mom and dad are looking and when we're not looking. so frequently when ellen has gotten into trouble for whatever she'll mention integrity and ask where did integrity go? and i'll ask her where'd your integrity go ellen? the first time she answered her heart (dave and i were both shocked) but that was a one time thing. lately she's been answering her back. dave and i have both been confused by that one, but okay, your integrity is in your back. great. lets pay attention to it. today while ellen was helping me fold clothes she got excited about a shirt and said "look mama! shirt has integrity!" and pointed to the tag. apparently tag sounds pretty similar to integrity in ellen's mind so when we ask her if she has integrity/is making good choices, she checks her back to see if there's a tag or not.

izzy's

last night we went to izzy's to celebrate dave's being promoted. true, it won't actually happen until a week from today, but we really wanted to go out. izzy's is one of my favorite places up here - it's kinda like shakey's where it's a pizza bar, buffet kinda deal. but i have a negative association with shakey's so it's way better. the food is always fresh and hot and tasty and i absolutely love all the options. a little of this and a little of that and a little of everything. i love options. i think i said i love this place five or six times while we were there. dave really enjoys it also, but he only went for the pizza. ellen had a good time sampling random foods also although jello was the favorite for her. and isaiah even had a little bit of mashed potatoe and a little bit of ice cream. he didn't seem to enjoy either. made the most disgusted faces. so we gave him an extra bite to see it again.

matchbox cars

ellen also has a great time playing with these matchbox cars that came in the gramma cece boxes... i was trying to take a picture of her lining them all up, but she kept bringing me cars to take pictures of - always bottom up. i guess the shiny part is the cool part. isaiah loves his daddy-o

toilet training

i'm reading this book ("toilet training in less than one day") with a hopeful attitude. it was written a long long time ago and i like the pictures of the moms wearing aprons. makes me want to wear one. i got out one that i made a couple years ago and wore it for about an hour until dave said "what are you doing?" it just seems like such a handy thing. i think what i really need is one of those little half aprons like she is wearing and then it would be quite clear that i'm wearing an apron while caring for my children.

economist

i thought i hit pay dirt for a bit tonight...i've been looking at and wanting "the economist" for a little over a year after i read a bit of it over a fellow passenger's shoulder on an airplane. i found it at our univsity library...but you can't check out magazines and that is not a magazine you can peruse for 15 minutes at the library. *dave had no idea what i was talking about when i said pay dirt - that is a real phrase, right?

oprah is freaking me out. she's talking about sex offenders today and implying if not actually saying that most are repeat offenders - which means that they're registered and their neighbors just don't know. so i went online and looked up our county and there are three people living in our town within a mile or so. what do you do with that? you can't just live terrified. but how do you be aware and responsible and safe? freaking out.

i realized yesterday that puke everywhere is as disgusting as poop everywhere. not only are the textures foul, but they have odors that just linger.

vineyard cont'd

(these were supposed to be included in last nights posts, but it didn't happen and i gave up) ellen played grandpa paul and showed the kids some bugs (seriously) fall is coming!!! (well officially it's already here...showed up on sept 23 at 3:23pm. again, seriously) dave found a dog he liked to play with. no, he's not kicking the dog, but a ball for the dog to chase.

vineyard

today we went to church outside at a vineyard in the town next to us. it wasn't really church like you'd think, just kinda learning about the vineyard and how it works and enjoying the outdoors with people from imago. here are a ton of pictures: ellen practicing in her backpack before we left it was pretty cold. and we finally got a chance to use our super cool huge umbrellas that i got on clearance at costco last fall. it wasn't really a 'professional' vineyard...this was somebody's hobby vineyard. they sell a lot of their grapes, but they don't have their own label. ellen made friends... i didn't realize how they grapes grew on the vines...somehow the ripe(r) ones are all along the bottom of the vine while the green ones are up close to the top. the perfect family photo if only isaiah would open his eyes. our host said we were free to sample the grapes and taste the different kinds (i saw four different ones, but i don't remember what they were.) ellen took her at her word. they also had a hazelnut ?orchard? what do you call it since it's not fruit?

a whole bunch of isaiah pictures