demarle show

my demarle show was tonight - and it went well. a couple people cancelled at the last minute, and that kinda bummed me out, but it was nice to have a smallish (5) group. no one knew each other so it was awkward at first, but then my next door neighbor showed up and she was the life of the party. it was fun and three people booked shows, so my business has begun. we'll see how it goes. :)

help me think

tonight as ellen was going to bed we read one of our little kid bible sotry books - noah and the ark. it talks about god doing this and that and ellen said: "where's God? where's God mom? help me think." (we've been talking about thinking a lot because her standard response to everything is 'i don't know'. so i say yes, you do. think about it.) luckily dave was there too so we tried to come up with a good understandable answer. we said God was invisible, you couldn't see God. her response - oh. next page "where's God? Help me think." for some reason we started talking about God created everything kinda like when you make things from playdoh. God made trees, and plants and humans etc. that seemed to go over well for a while, but then her lip started trembling and she started crying saying she didn't want to be play-doh. so we told her don't worry, God makes real things, we just make pretend play-doh. oh. next page - ellen:"where's God? help me think." me: hmmm. i don't know. ellen: "hahahaha"

after all that griping and complaining, yesterday and today were miraculously good days... ellen helped me vacuum up the ants that have been plaguing us. she also chased isaiah around with it, pretending to vacuum him up. he loved it. isaiah played some blocks (he loves the sounds these make when you dump them out of the box or bang them together. more than mega-blocks for some reason. we made a college from an l.l. bean catalog. ellen thought this was great fun. we flipped through and i'd describe all the things: "here's some shoes, and a boat, and a dog..."etc and she'd say "I want that! I want a boat for my caddog!" I don't think that's exactly what she called it, but something like that. and then we put a pink feather on for a finishing touch. ellen and dave made this peacock a while ago, and they're both quite thrilled with it.

the news

i'm afraid i haven't really been a stellar parent lately. i've been getting rather upset with ellen. she can be somewhat infuriating when she wants to be. if you have a sense of humor and roll with things she snaps out of it really quick - but if you let it drive you nuts she'll carry on for days and days. i'm afraid nothing has been funny to me lately, so we've all been miserable. she's had some sort of bum obsession lately. do all kids do that? she just loves going around pinching your bum and just...playing with it. i'm so over my bum being pinched. i told her several times to cut it out yesterday and she just kept at it so i finally lost it and yelled at her. Stop Touching My Bum!!!! That kinda shocked her i think. but i also notice that you get what you give with her. if i yell or am rough with her (like when i'm frustrated out of my mind after she's jumped on isaiah or pushed him over and sat on him or something) as i put her in her trouble chair, she's rougher with isaiah and meaner in general. makes sense...that whole modeling bit. but gee whiz is it hard to just stay level have no reaction other than the calm - you did this, that was a bad choice, so this is going to happen. i gotta say, this is tough work. so for tomorrow we (ellen and i)agreed i'd work on being gentle and not yelling. isaiah has been talking up a storm. he says mom and dad (ma, da ) pretty regularly...mostly if he hears the sound he repeats it. but sometimes when he sees us he'll say it. and he's experimenting with sign language - more (which looks suspiciouly like clapping) and all done (waving his hands in the air). maybe i'll catch it on video soon. he also seems to suddenly be ready for sleeping. not that he's sleeping long periods of a time, but all the sudden he has no problem going to sleep completely by himself. no crying, no moaning. just read him a story, sing him a song, give him his blanket and he's happy to lay in his bed until he falls asleep. i wonder if he wasn't ready earlier...? (is that even possible?) my demarle show/business launch is coming up on tuesday night. hopefully people will show up and be so impressed they'll buy it all. we'll see :) i had today off from school, so i've been reading a bad novel (the regime) and my textbooks. dave's had drama at work as they want him to work even more hours, and his fish stuff is growing steadily. it seems like he's getting a new customer every month. which is awesome, but he's kinda running out of time to do all this work. there are only so many hours in the day, and the bank seems to want a lot of them.

we've all been sick with colds and coughs lately so nothing really exciting has been going on. i do think that we have the mice beat finally, or else they're lulling us into complacency by hibernating. at any rate, there have been no appearances or signs of mice. unfortunately, however, it seems we now have ants invading our house. maybe the deluge of rain we've been having has driven them to find dry ground. at any rate i'm going insane with ants. they coming out of the walls from under the house. how disgusting is that?? at least our house is getting more regular vaccumming and sweeping. so that's a plus.

photo-director ellen

all of these pictures were taken at ellen's direction as she pointed out various features of her potatoe head (or tater tot as she called them) collection the earring are on the eyes/nose are being highlighted here

my nose is pierced. let's talk about pain scale for just a second. getting an iv - something i'd like to avoid. pretty high on my list of not enjoyable. getting blood drawn - makes me feel squeamish and faint some times. getting nose pierced - not even worth mentioning. the jewelry i've got in there right now is not my final 'look'. it's about oh 10 times bigger than what i actually want. but, apparently what i want is too small to pierce with, so you have to start with this and then in 4-6 weeks if all goes well, i can get the one i really want.

barring any chickening out, or piercing person telling me no, my nose will be pierced tomorrow. ah!!! i'm such a tiny bit nervous!!!!

pre-school

i was suprised today to hear from a friend that if ellen were to go to preschool next year (holy cow, she's old enough to be in preschool!!!) i need to be signing her up now! sheesh. my baby's getting old. so now i've got all these new thoughts cluttering my mind about what kind of preschool should she been... one with a social emphasis, an intellectual emphasis, or a montessori style....? all kinds of thoughts to distract me from my homework. :)

i hate group work

i really do. a lot of the times i can convince myself it's really not so bad, just sit back and don't try to be responsible for everyone else. just do your part and do it well. be nice and friendly and forgiving and just don't worry about it. but really deep down i think i hate it. or maybe it's just this time - we're having to collaborate online on a presentation and the group i was assigned to doesn't really fit in with my piece - so that's a bit frustrating. but the really bad part, the part that just makes my stomach irritated with frustration is when people think you're an idiot. apparently i have deep rooted issues when people seem to assign me to the "you're incompetent group." it really wasn't a huge deal, but it's still bothering me for some reason...i posted up a very short, preliminary blurb on what i found and someone responded with something like "is that all you found, maybe you better meet with someone to pick their brain." i'm sure this was written with the best of friendly nice helpful intentions, but i instantly got up my "I am competent, give me a minute" attitude. horrible, i know.

happyland park

dave's been gone a lot with work the last week or so, so on sunday night he promised ellen they could go to the park on monday (a day off) if it wasn't raining. unfortunately, it was of course raining. so they made happyland park in the computer room. it was named happyland to encourage happiness in a certain someone. when that certain someone threatened fussiness, Dave told her "hey this isn't fussyland. this is happyland. fussyland is over on that couch without the cushions - it's no fun at all, you get crackers all over your feet and it's just no good. let's stay at happyland park." which was met with a joyful "Okay!!!" and then isaiah woke up and wanted in on the fun.

excuses for lack of blogging

its one of those times when i have so much to say that i just can't sit down and do it. besides, i really should be doing homework. but to remind myself here are the things i'm thinking about - i hate group work i love imago ellen and dave make happyland park demarle everyone should own my newest book "material world"

and have you seen this one?

lately, after the kids go to bed just about every night you can find dave and i at the computer watching stupidvideos.com. maybe it's cause we got rid of the tv, but we like them. these two were our favorites last night.

have you seen these studs?

i love the roommate in the background that never turns around.

the new stuff pictures i mentioned

our "new to us" leather couches. i'm not a huge fan of the color, but they are significantly more comfortable than our last ones. they're great for reading books and working on the computer with your feet up. as a friend said last night, "they're conducive to slouching. " my cuff/bracelet thing. i like wearing jewelry i've decided. i tried to model that hats and include my perfected poker face - but lets just say it's not exactly perfected yet. and my new not-as-deliciously-comfortable-as-when-i-tried-them-on shoes. i still like them quite a bit, but they do need to be worn in more than what i was expecting. another pair (mary-janes) arriving shortly.

bingo

i just got a card/birth announcement in the mail from my friend amy who has just had her third baby. her daughter, annika, (#2) is ellen's age. i'm very exited for her, but at the same time i feel a bit nervous. greg and martha are also having their third any day and for some reason this means that i'm going to be having another baby soon too. no, i'm not pregnant. i just have this sorta fear that baby #3 is going to arrive before i've reestablished normal sleep patterns for myself. probably won't happen, but when my friends that are having kids at the same times as me have another i feel like i need to get with the program. (isn't that the craziest thing i've said today?) hearing from amy also reminds me of bingo. i love playing bingo. at an old folks home. with little color daubers. for money. love it. amy took me to play and i think i did my happy dance (the same one that going to ikea in georgia brought on). i had so much fun. of course it didn't hurt that i won 30 bucks. everybody had their own little funny things going on - like a lot of the ladies at our table had several daubers to switch between, depending on their mood i guees. and there were a couple people who just had a thing for certain numbers. so anytime 22 was called out this one guy would blow on a train whistle (sounds like choo choo i guess...? amy had to explain that one to me.) when we first moved up here i saw a couple of ads in the paper for bingo at our local senior center and i've been wanting to go ever since. that's kinda the sort of thing you need an buddy for. i don't want to be the only non-grayhair. :) i haven't really met anyone up here yet that just strikes me as my future bingo partner, but maybe one of my friends is having the same secret thoughts. maybe i just need to start bringing it up in casual conversation...so you play bingo...? at old folks homes...? for money...?

head banging social justice

anybody know of any heavy metal head banging type songs that talk about social justice? my prof today said that they just don't exist but i'm sure they do.

all kinds of changes

All kinds of new things have been happening and arriving at our house lately. I did a lot of shopping online with my christmas money and the boxes have been arriving. the mailman and i are becoming fast friends. I'll post pictures of some of my purchases sometime soon, but some examples are shoes, poker hats, a silver cuff (bracelet) and a fax machine. for those of you who think i'm spoiled (fieldhouses) this is pretty much the only time during the year that i do shop. so just go on thinking i'm spoiled rotten, but know in your heart of hearts i'm really not. :) we also got some christmas presents a couple days ago - tons more of my dishes so now I can have a full set and next time we host a holiday everything will match beautifully. and all kinds of other cool things (thanks kevin and luann!) and mom sent a box of art supplies and musical toys for ellen and isaiah so we've been experimenting with those. has anyone else out there ever used crayola's color wonder products? it's kinda crazy how it works - but word to the wise you aren't supposed to use water and a paintbrush with the paints. (yes, there are instructions that tell you this, and no i didn't bother to read them.) it's not really a big deal, it just doesn't exactly work. it's supposed to be like finger paint and it's kinda greasy and weird, but other than that fairly cool. i like the markers and coloring book the most from that line. it has a different effect somehow than a normal marker (can you tell that i colored while ellen was crafting?) one of dave's customers also gave us their unwanted leather couches. so our computer room is currently packed full of couches. that's kinda fun. ooh and anne sent me some super cool make-upy stuff that's supposed to make those hideously dark circles under my eyes magically disappear so i'm excited about that too. and not only has stuff been arriving, but school started this week rather unexpectedly. i thought we had another week or so but i kinda randomly saw a friend on sunday and she said something about see you on thursday so then i had to freak out about the fact that i hadn't yet found a babysitter for the kids. After a couple days of phone calls and rejections i posted an 'ad' on the george fox website and found mary who came over and hung out for a bit last night (to introduce the kids and make sure she was normal...she is) and this morning she stayed with the kids and everyone seemed thrilled. ellen and isaiah both seem to be in love with her. isaiah couldn't stop staring and smiling at her yesterday. and ellen immediately began running around and showing off her dance moves and being silly. so that's awesome. i'm hoping she'll become "our sitter" - so i can have a person i call if i need to go somewhere that the kids know and love. i have high hopes. aaanddd i decided to go for that demarle thing that i mentioned a while ago. (they have a website cause you probably have no clue what it is - www.demarleathome.com) i'm having my "launch" party/show on wednesday so i've been busy trying to think of people to invite and then trying to work up the nerve to do so. that's all the new stuff i can think of for now, but i'm sure there's more that will come to mind as soon as i publish.

here comes isaiah

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another good picture from christmas

(she wanted to quit this stupid picture taking thing and get back to the presents i think)

isaiah likes to get his picture taken so he can see it

computer desk

ellen really enjoys this "computer" station that wood got her. she draws on it and works at it all the time. she also moves it from room to room depending on her (my) mood. she thinks its great.

glitter monkey

i also got some glitter glue pens and colored feathers and fluff balls and we got those out a couple nights ago. i started crafting with ellen (see that fish in the back?) and then had to go help isaiah so dave took over. at one point ellen's arm got into the glitter and dave told her to be careful. i mentioned that it would wash out and he replied he wasn't worried about that - he was worried about his monkey. the finished product (that's a blue glitter band-aid on the monkey's nose. not a piercing -or booger- as some might think)

crying and painting

(sigh) i hate trying to teach isaiah to sleep. for the last two nights he has refused to sleep between about 3-5. and before that he's waking up every hour or so for several hours. so i decided that today we're going to relearn the sleeping thing. so the poor baby's crying in the other room and just won't fall asleep. (sigh) ellen and i painted last night. i'd been wanting to get her painting for a while and so i finally got some tempera paint from target and we went at it. ellen really likes making dots. (yes, that's mine with the blue square - ellen does not yet know how to draw shapes. she's not quite that genius) a little tip i learned from my handy dandy craft book for toddlers - add a couple drops of dishwashing soap to your paint and it comes right off of everything.

look what i learned to do!

remember when ellen was just learning to talk?

madagascar and murderball

on new year's eve we rented these two movies. madagascar for ellen and then murderball cause dave's been wanting to see it for quite a while. madagascar wasn't really what i would call a really good movie. it gave me the impression that they forgot to re-watch it. you know like after you write a paper it's best to let it sit for a couple days to get some distance before you reread it and edit it for the final time. so you can catch what you thought made perfect sense but only makes sense with those crucial few sentences of filler or explanation or whatever. anyway, it seemed like maybe that final edit should have waited a weekend or so longer. or maybe it was like they had a very strict 90 minute budget and so had to hack out a lot of the scenes that helped smooth it out. anyway, despite my dissatisfaction, ellen thought it was truly wonderful. she didn't get a lot of it, of course, but she never gets a movie the first time through. but she now will come up to me and say "i like to move, it move it!" and has asked repeatedly to see the lion movie. murderball however, i would recommend. it's a documentary (always my favorite) on the olympic quadrapalegic rugby team. i love documentaries. i don't really know what to say about it, so i'll just quit with i thought it was worth watching and would watch it again. i was also recently reminded that somehow not everyone had seen Spellbound yet!?!? shocking i know. if you haven't seen that yet, run out to your local blockbuster and look for it in special interest. It's awesome! Not only have i watched it more than once, i actually rented it more than once. If by some strange chance you have never heard of it, it's a documentary on kids preparing for the national spelling bee. Now that i'm thinking about it again and remembering how great it is, i think i might actually go buy it.

thanks to dad and amazon.com i have ordered my first pair of deliciously comfortable keen shoes.

keen

i went shopping by my very own self last night at the mall. i love that there are so many great sales so near my birthday and christmas. it makes for fun shopping. i didn't really get anything though. my main goal was to try on a pair of shoes that i've been eyeing lately. i'm happy to report that i absolutely love them. they're truly wonderful. i've heard of, but never actually experienced for myself shoes that are comfortable, really comfortable, when you first try them on. i'd even go so far as to say these shoes are deliciously comfortable. and i don't talk that way. i tried on a couple different styles, and reached the conclusion that every spare dollar i have will be saved toward a new shoe wardrobe made solely of keen shoes. (they're a bit pricey. but like dad always said, you shouldn't scrimp on the chair you'll be sitting in all day, or your shoes. ahhh. i really actually love them.

wanna play "what the heck is that a picture of??"

ellen got a kaleidescope for christmas (thanks again bryan and kim) and so i wasted some time yesterday... (So here's the picture and then scroll down a bit to see the single version) wiggles drum penguin bum

ellen is quite thrilled with her new jewelery and barrettes (thanks bryan and kim!) (isn't he getting huge??)

suitcase and yahtzee

ellen loves to carry this penguin all over the place. she calls it her suitcase and she likes to take it everywhere we go. dave has been teaching ellen to play yahtzee. she's a natural. she shakes it up and says "c'mon yahtzee!!!" and then rolls one. apparently she's rolled five yahtzee's in the last four games, and she's beaten dave every time.

aisle 12

ellen: i'm a baby dave: ...where'd you come from? ellen: i don't know dave: how'd you get here? ellen: i don't know dave: from inside of mom. we went to a hospital and mom gave birth to a baby and it was you! ellen: no i don't want to go to the hospital dave: where did you come from then? ellen: fred meyer!

moon food

me: ellen do you see the moon? ellen: yeah! i do! what's the moon doing mom? me: i dunno, what do you think it's doing? ellen: eating, just like me! me: what's it eating? ellen: i don't know. wait. i know. stars!