*Dreams*
this is such a beautiful song from one of my absolute favorite bands, Waterdeep. Check them out, I KNOW you will love them...
"Dreams" by Lori Chaffer
He was holding her hand
For the very first time
He was telling her things that she just did not understand
Between her hand and his
She felt every touch
she would laugh & cry & laugh & cry inside because for her it was a little much
CHORUS
Dreams come true
Now that I'm with you
God is good even if sometimes you don't wait around in his neighborhood
She woke up from a bad dream/nightmare
And can't get back to sleep
He just holds her all night in his arms waiting patiently
He can summon her smile
From the ends of the earth
he has given his heart though he doesn't know quite what it's worth
He is loved and beloved
He is one of a kind
He is nothing he's made himself
He has all God's grace on his side
And a little bit of grace
Goes a very long way
It makes straight and flat all the 12 step plans you've made to walk straight
Some songs are prayers, some are just commentaries,
Some make you smile, some make you cry
Some help you focus while you're waiting (on his tributaries)
Seems like He's always moving his neighborhood next to mine
*gratitude* April 28th...haven't done one of these in a while
*wink*
1. CJ made lunch while Joe, Dustin and I hung out in the kitchen and helped...so homey.
2. watching Bella and Juju play in the sprinklers. It was all fun until Julian fell head first in the water fountain. Not hurt, just cold and scared. Uncle to the rescue.
3. Shopping with CJ. We bought all junk food and realized that all the people probably thought we were stoners, or just extremely unhealthy. (pepsi, doritoes, tostitos, choc. chip cookies, brownie mix, 2 orange sodas...and some bananas for balance) Of course, after the boys left, I'm stuck at home with all these junky foods and I'm seriously pigging out!!!
4. re-discovering old movies and music that I used to love.
5. Bella (and Juju) went to bed SO early...she's a night owl, so it has been nice having the house to myself for a while (boys are playing pool with Dustin's dad)
Julian wearing Uncle's shirt, head band, and talking on his cell...CJ's clone (lighter skin version)
CJ cooked for us last night. We went to the market and spent about $14 on tons of food, fresh tortillas, produce, steak, etc. CJ cooked a GREAT meal, we had a couple of friends over, put the kids to bed and had a nice little dinner party. Tons of food, enough for at least 2 more meals. I told CJ that when we move back to the states, it's my goal to have lots of dinner parties...but I don't cook. So the new plan is that I'll host it, CJ will cook....and Dustin will clean up. (but Dustin doesn't know that yet!)
Joe taught Bella how to play poker...she ALWAYS wins. He taught her how to bluff, taught her a "poker face", the best is everytime she looks at her cards, she scratches her head like she's really contemplating what to do. She's "the gambler" and we may be making lots of money off of this girls poker face someday...
Bella is so happy to have Uncle here. (that is Bella behind all of CJ's hair) She's called him Uncle for as long as she's been able to talk. Last September when she met two of Dustin's brothers, she said, "Mama, I love my Uncle Shane. And my Uncle Blair. And my Uncle....Uncle." I was reminded of that today. CJ was tickling Juju on the couch, and Annabelle said to Joe, "Joe, your friend named Uncle, is tickling my brother named Juju." I love that she thinks that Uncle is his name, and CJ is just something that we call him sometimes...
more feet worries
epiphany (i think i misspelled that)
So, Dustin is asking Bella if he can eat her baby feetsies...again. You probably think we are strange with all the eating of the body parts around here...anyways...Annabelle says,
"No. Jesus says NO." and then she thinks about it for a minute and says,
"If you eat my feetsies, I won't have anything to walk on!"
So stinking brilliant.
Oh, and while CJ and Joe are here, Joe has been given an honorary Bella body part...her toe-sies. They must be returned before he boards the plane to go home.
Juju's puddle
splash
Julian found a puddle, formed from the water sprinkler's being on in one place for entirely too long. He stuck one chubby foot in it, splashed around, took his foot out...two feet...splash splash...dance dance...plop. He fell into the puddle and LOVED it. He rolled around in it like a dog, splashing Annabelle and me and laughing so loudly.
I took him inside, stripped off his cold clothes and diaper, and prepared to give him a bath in the sink. Remember how I told you all that he has learned how to open the back door? Well, it happened to be unlocked b/c CJ, Joe, and Dustin were outside....so naked Juju flies out the door and STREAKS like a madman through the courtyard. Naked. And playing with his nakedness...the neighbors stared from behind their curtains, I know it. Instead of taking him back inside, as most Dad's would, Dustin just laughed while CJ shot photo after photo of Julian in the buff.
I scooped the boy up, while he kicked and screamed...he knew the diaper was going back on and that does not make him happy. But before I gave him his bath, I had to take one picture to document the event. (okay, four, but I had to delete the other 3 photos due to the graphic poses he made) What a funny kid.
soaked
banana/mango smiley face pancakes...Dustin's special breakfast for the kids this morning. he's so cute.
2 peas Artpad project
http://artpad.art.com/?ifjczs1f6yu4this is a fun art project we did on 2 peas...here is the original link if you want to see more pics
http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/mb_edit.asp?cmd=post&thread_id=1167435this is artpad, where you can go to paint a pic too...it's really fun and a bit absorbing, i wanted to paint all day...without the mess!!! :)
http://artpad.art.com/artpad/painter/if you paint something, I'd love to see it, so tell me!!!
Juju phone home
juju phone home
Julian's latest fascination is the telephone. Everytime the bedroom door is open, he runs straight for the telephone. He even changed our outgoing message a couple of days ago, it sounds like he picks up the phone, breathes heavily for acouple of seconds, says "heddo" and then hangs up. It fooled my parents last night when they called and we weren't home. We haven't figured out how to reset our message, so it should be on there for a bit longer.
He carries the phone and speaks into it like it's a "walkie talkie". He talks and talks, especially to "Tata" and "Pa-pa-pa". Dustin says that Julian thinks the phone is his connection to Poppy and Tata, he just picks it up and has a conversation with them, whether they are there or not. He really likes when I pretend to talk into my "phone" (hand held to ear) and act like I'm Poppy, singing "Juju the big strong man, Juju the big strong man, he eats his spinach and green beans and carrots, Juju the big strong man." (Dad's song for Julian, sung to the tune of Popeye the sailorman) He grins and laughs and dances around the house. He loves it and he KNOWS that it is HIS song.
unexpected fun
my sunshine
On the 23rd we decided to continue our anniversary celebration (with kids, of course) so we packed up the car and headed to a town about an hour away. When we arrived, we knew we wanted to go out to eat, and the first place we pulled into was a buffet place, with kids eating free on Saturdays...score!!! The food was decent, but we were SO hungry, so everything tasted better than it probably actually was.
Julian was delighted to sit in a high chair and feed himself, which he never gets to do here, for lack of a high chair and fear of ruining the furniture. He was determined to use a spoon, but just couldn't get it down. He instead, would pick up a garbanzo bean, put it in his mouth, and then put the spoon in his mouth to get the "effect" of eating with a spoon. He ate an entire bowl of garbanzos, a ton of broccoli and finished it off with a massive bowl of fruit, pineapple, papaya, cantaloupe and watermelon.
Annabelle loves anything that is covered in sauce, which totally grosses me out, but her plate was filled with saucy foods, fruit, pickeled olives, and other random things that she thought looked yummy. Her highlight was getting a piece of flan for dessert...these are totally Dustin's kids when it comes to eating.
Coincidentally, across the street from the restaurant was a carnival. Annabelle was freaking out, wanting to ride the "horsies" (carousel) and was convinced that there would be a "prapoleen" (trampoline) that she could jump on. After dinner, we crossed over, and bought tickets for the ferris wheel and the carousel. I was a little nervous, as these rides looked like they were straight out of the 60's. OLD, rusty, and quite scary. I prayed fervently as the ferris wheel went around and around, carrying my Dustin and Bella inside. She laughed and yelled, "Look at me Mama!!! I'm high!!!' I just smiled and waved and prayed harder. The ride seemed to last forever. At one point, I yelled to Dustin that the conductor looked like he was sleeping, Dustin gave me a nervous grin, and just kept smiling, as he has a tendency to get sick on rides, especially one that lasts more than 2 minutes.
It finally ended, and we moved onto the carousel. Annabelle chose a simple horse to ride on, even though there were elephants and giraffes to ride on. She and Dustin rode around and around again, and this time, the conductor stared at the top of the ride the ENTIRE time, as though worried that it would fall apart at any moment. Not too reassuring, but I felt better knowing that my daughter was less than 3 feet off the ground.
As we were leaving, we noticed a trampoline, sitting alone and unused. It had a big hole that had been patched up, and was missing several springs, but Annabelle was insistent that she get to jump on her "prapoleen". We gave in, put her on the trampoline and she just walked and danced around. She was afraid to jump, but was convinced that bobbing her head up and down counted as "jumping on the trampoline".
All in all, a great night. The kids slept on the ride home and went straight to bed, and we watched Oceans 12. Great anniversary, day #2!
one of the very first pictures i took with my new camera, and one of my absolute favorites. she is so beautiful.
"JUJU I just wanna eat you up" This is what Bella says to Julian quite often, can't you see why? He's yummy.
It's our anniversary!!!!!
It's our anniversary!!!
5 YEARS!! We were married at 6:11 pm April 22, 2000.
We're celebrating with pina coladas and a couple of movies...fun happy day. We are headed to Dolores Hildalgo tomorrow to look at pottery and fun artsy stuff and hope to celebrate more next month when we actually have baby-sitters!! :) 5 years of marriage is just too important to spend only one day in celebration...
and it's Earth Day too!!!
"Olivia" read (from memory) by Annabelle
Painting rocks
painting rocks
After painting Easter eggs, I got the itch to paint. I'm not a fancy painter, most of my art is something that any child could replicate, but that's what appeals to me. I like colorful daisies and uneven butterflies and stars and swirls and polka dots on everything. I was so disappointed that I didn't bring any canvas with me, and then I noticed something perfect....the rocks that Annabelle was collecting.
We made a very special trip to her favorite rock pile and carried all that we could hold to our house. We gave the rocks a bath, then let them dry overnight. I decided to paint inspirational words, words that give me energy when I hear them. Annabelle set out to paint our family, but as her rock was only 2 inches wide, settled for blobs of blue and pink and orange. She said, "It's because we are pink and orange, right?" Sure, babe, we're pink and orange.
I'm out of rocks, and have about 50 more words to add to the inspirational rock pile, so we'll be taking another trip for more rocks to bathe and dry and paint...wonder if Dustin is going to be able to find packing room in the car for these things? We may have to leave them and let this be our artistic contribution to Mexico.
wrestlemania 2005 "Baby Psycho" vs. "Juju Monster"
Just love how well she cooperates
Parents who intimidate
Dad, boyfriend intimidator
I had to run to Dustin's Dads house to pick up a package today. He was busy working, and trying to carry a conversation with him when he's working is very similar to trying to talk to Dustin when he's "in the zone". It was a little awkward, but I normally get along with him really well, so I blew it off. Later, I asked Dustin if it was very awkward around my parents the first few times he was around them. Dustin said, "not too bad. Your Mom was pretty easy to talk to, but your Dad was a little bit different."
I said, "That was his intentions though, he wanted to intimidate you, make you awkward, see if you would run for the hills or stick around, that's his job as a Dad."
He said, "Oh no, it was nothing like that. I remember this one night, we stayed up talking, burning the "midnight oil". Your Dad made me some coffee, and made himself some herbal tea. That was the time that he was going through that herbal tea phase. Anyway, we were so engrossed in conversation, that at one point, I didn't even realize that I was rubbing his feet. He continued to share his hopes and dreams and fears with me, while he massaged my scalp..."
At this point, the tears were rolling, I was laughing so hard. If you know my Dad AT ALL, you would know how much of a joke that was. I told Dustin, "you know I'm going to "blog" this, don't you?"
So as I'm typing this entry, my Dad pops up on MSN messenger. He's checking out the blog, downloading pictures, and I tell him that I'm about to write an entry about him. I give him the rundown of my entry, and he basically threatens my life if I post it. While we were talking, Dustin jumps in and says something about how we should just talk about this over a nice cup of herbal tea.
Dad says, "Tell Dustin I would love to draw him a nice, warm bubble bath....and drown him in it." My Dad, the boyfriend intimidator...I sure love him. He did his job well, keeping all the "crazies" away...
Care package
Mom, care-package sender :)
I can cross #7 of my to-do list, off! Mom sent us a care package today and in it was Jack Johnson's new CD!!! :) Happy days!! There was tons of other great stuff too, but I thought it was so ironic that I just wrote yesterday that I was going to buy it and she had already mailed it to me! She's a genius!
She also sent a "tool box" of wooden tools for Juju and a plastic sparkly purse with kitties and bunnies and all kinds of girly hair brushes and stuff in it. As soon as the kids saw the stuff, Bella grabbed the tools and started to "build a house for my animals" and Juju grabbed the purse and started brushing his gorgeous locks...cute kids.
Thanks Tata/Mom :)
on a funny side note: Annabelle is the one who nicknamed my mom, "tata". When my Aunt Valerie visited us last year from Canada, she said, "So Lawana, Bella calls you Tata?"
Mom said, "Yes, we were hoping for Gamma, but it came out Tata."
Valerie, so tactfully, said, "You know "tata" means breasts don't you?"
Things I will do when I return home
Bella's cherished toys, and the first things she wants when we return home, especially this barn.
1. Bake. I have no baking supplies, nor a functioning oven, and yet a stack of Martha Stewart magazines. Each magazine mocks me with things that I could be making if I were home...homemade bread, the perfect cookies, a gorgeous birthday cake (for Annabelle, I was bummed that this was the first year that I didn't get to make her birthday cake)
2. Party. My parents miss us so much, and my Mom has vowed to have a party when we get home, if for nothing else, than to celebrate Annabelle's birthday that they missed. Visit with family, and friends that feel like family.
3. Eat at Chiquita's, Papa Poblano's, and Cruizzers, but not in that order. And after 3 months of eating healthy foods, I will probably throw up shortly after.
4. Drink water directly out of the tap, with ice.
5. Have about 3000 pictures developed, and go deeper into debt.
6. Shop at Old Navy and The Children's Place. (only sale items, of course...remember the whole debt thing?) My kids are wearing high waters and it embarrasses Dustin terribly. I am walking out of my pants (which is a good thing, but not if you expose unflattering body parts to innocent people) so I need to buy a couple of pairs of jeans, at least one skirt (i'm becoming skirt obsessed, no idea why) and something pink. I must have something pink. Possibly a bag...since Dustin doesn't think that pink is my "color".
"My COLORS Mama, are blush and bashful."
"Your COLORS are PINK and PINK." Steel Magnolias...great movie.
7. Buy the new Jack Johnson CD.
8. Rent Spanglish, Finding Neverland, and a score of other movies that haven't yet been released in Mexico.
9. Find a house, a job, and a DSL provider, I'm about tired of dial-up.
10. Get a nose ring....(still contemplating this one, Dustin thinks I should have gotten one years ago, I am thinking...ouch. But I think I have a pretty cute nose to display a nose ring, so we'll see...)
11. Try to figure out how we're going to go to Dustin's family reunion in OK in June, Melody's graduation in NC in June, the Kerrville Folk Festival in June, and still have a job afterwards. Also, how the heck am I going to convince these kids to ever get into the car again after the grueling drive home from Mexico...
12. Take a bath. Don't worry, I haven't given up bathing, I just don't have a tub here and I prefer baths. I need a long hot bubble bath, with a magazine, ice water, a hazelnut candle and NO interruptions.
13. Cruise Wal-Mart, buy all the specialty stuff that we normally like to eat and can't find here (i.e. Smucker's natural peanut butter, baked Tostito's, and Sam's choice all natural mint chocolate chip cookies...okay, those are just for me, and will be hidden in my underwear drawer to avoid sharing with the family)
14. Shop at Penny Pinchers and stock up on juicy juice for a dollar a bottle...I'm tired of hand juicing everything.
15. Face our debt, hospital bills, doctor bills, old work-related debt, and currently accrued Mexico debt...this one I'm not looking forward to. Also, pay our auto insurance, our May car payment, and our storage unit fee for June, do our taxes...ugh
Okay, and this is starting to turn into a boring "to-do" list, so I will end it there...sorry for the rambling.
poop tales
Yuck me out
Since Bella has been potty trained, she has taken an extreme interest in kids that still wear diapers. Every small child that she meets she must know if they poo poo in their diaper or in the potty. She is particularly critical of Julian.
Yesterday, Julian had just done his little job for the second time that morning, and Bella got a whiff...
"Oh JUJU!!! THAT"S DISGUSTING!!!!!"
I look at Dustin and say, "your turn".
Then I hear Bella's raging voice say,
"Juju, you really YUCK me out!"
I tried so hard not to laugh. It was a hilarious way of wording her disgust, but so sad for Juju. Dustin had a talk with her about how Julian is a baby, and still uses a diaper...just like SHE used to use, and on and on. I thought it had sunk in, until today.
Julian was smelling pretty ripe, playing in their bedroom and Bella smelled him.
"Mama, GET HIM OUTTA HERE! Gross!!!"
Looks like another lesson on manners is in order...
DO THIS...it's fun!!
There's a book meme circulating and its rules are these:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123. (there's another one that says to go to pg 23, which is the page I chose, b/c my pg. 123 didn't have a 5th sentence)
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do what's actually next to you.
Okay, so I did this using "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac, and got this,
"Then there was a tall slim fellow who had a sneaky look."
I immediately thought of this funny picture of Dustin.
Anyways, it was fun! So, share with me...what is your random quote???
"Then there was a tall slim fellow who had a sneaky look."
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