Pilz Family Adventures

I caved

2010-11-30T13:00:00.001-05:00

Brownies are in the oven as we speak. He was jut so cute!! Little monster- totally my fault! Sigh!

Brownies a la Josh

2010-11-30T09:01:00.001-05:00

This morning is the second in a row that Josh has trotted over to a brownie mix box and requested that. Today he ate breakfast first, but not yesterday. Personally, I am attributing this one to his daddy. I don't ever eat brownies for breakfast, just leftover apple pie!

Moving the Blog

2010-11-15T12:24:00.001-05:00

This may sound silly, but when I started blogging 3 years ago, we had just moved, and I only planned to use the blog title for a short while to keep everyone up to date. I got tired of the name after a few months, but didn't want to move it. Today I moved the blog. It is now at http://chaosnkids.blogspot.com.

Come visit us there and keep up with our wild and crazy adventures. I am still moving things over, so my look is a little screwy right now. Fingers crossed it will all be better soon!

And now you know...

2010-11-15T07:07:00.001-05:00

Useful Lessons
The water main is inside the house and not the thing in the yard stamped water. Turn it harder to get it to turn off.

When the plumbing supply store says buy both and see which one you need, it's a good idea.

When you start to lock your door and notice the key is bent at a weird angle, don't try to bend it back in the lock. It is hard to remove from the lock when the key breaks in half.

When you lock the baby in the car going to pick up the girls from Girl Scouts, don't do when your husband is at work. But if you do, make sure the neighbors are home and willing to bring you a spare key. Thank them profusely!!

The You Tube video showing someone unlocking their car over a cell phone to cell phone connection does not work. The guy at best buy was wrong.

Puppies really will chew on anything!! And keep the baby out of reach during a diaper change. Not even a puppy should lick there right then.

Don't even try taking pictures with a cranky baby. It won't be pretty!

Flip flop fan

2010-10-19T19:49:00.001-04:00

Josh loves our shoes, Sunday and otherwise but especially flip flops. Tonight at bedtime he found a pair and trotted around the room wearing em's princess flip flops

Freezer Meals

2010-10-19T14:43:00.002-04:00

I am on a mission to try stocking my freezer with ready to cook meals all in one big batch. Having said that I just realized my sink is full of thawing meat. Gotta run! Meatballs are calling my name.

Homemade Playdough

2010-10-19T14:42:00.001-04:00

I felt happy and domestic today so I whipped up a batch of salt playdough. My mom was right. It really dries out your hands. It looks pretty, smells salty, and Josh would not play with it. He had some little buddies come over and they like it though. Sigh! I want to try cornstarch playdough next. That stuff is awesome!

If you want to make some salty goodness try this

2 cups flour
2 cups warm water
1 cup salt
1 Tbsp cream of tartar
2 Tbsp oil

Mix all the ingredients together in a pot on low/medium. Stir until it forms a nice ball-maybe 5-8 minutes. It is a good forearm workout. Then mix food coloring gel into the dough balls. Seal it up in airtight containers, and hopefully your child will want to touch it. We played outside instead.

Another fine parenting moment

2010-09-20T09:21:00.001-04:00

On Saturday Karl and I were in the bathroom getting ready for the day, ok fine, it was already past 10am. My neighbor dropped by and rang the bell. Josh answered since we didn't hear the bell, and the girls were outside with the dog.

He said "hi", chatted with my neighbor, then said "bye" and shut the door. Thy repeated this twice, each time she tried to call my name and get him to go get me. She finally gave up and went home to call me. Ah the shame!

Did I mentioned the door was locked?? Thankfully my neighbors are very nice, but I'll need to work on the showering so it is speedier!

Lunch

2010-09-14T07:12:00.001-04:00

"I've for fruit, sandwich, protein, and chocolate. What else am I missing?"

-Emily
Gotta love it!

Rain and potty training

2010-09-12T22:33:00.001-04:00

Apparently Baxter is not a fan of the rain. All week it has been sunny and beautiful. Potty training is not a piece of cake. He goes every time I take him outside, which is great and I am taking home out at least 8 times a day, but and at least a few times I don't.

Today when I went to take him outside, he kept trying to run back up the stairs. So we used a lot of pee pee pads. Right now, he is curled up in his bed which is next to me on our bed. He had an episode of running or something in his sleep. It was really funny. he also sleeps with his tongue slightly out of his mouth. So cute!!

First week of school and Baxter updates

2010-09-11T22:47:00.000-04:00

The first week of school went really well I think. The girls seem to like both of their teachers, and both of them is eager to head off in the morning for the day.I'm hoping Sydney's teacher will help her get out of the habit of not actually talking with words, but using facial expressions and paws, or her sister to do the work for her.

And all the family is in love with our newest addition, well, let me qualify that. The humans are in love. The cats, not so much! The few days spent with the Jack Russel Terrorist puppy seems to have made a huge impression. The first 2 days Abby and Carrie refused to come inside. Now they are willing to enter the building, but Abby was not willing to stick around. I moved their food back to the garage, so Abby sits by the cat door meowing when she wants breakfast. I miss them. Carrie came in yesterday and Baxter tried to approach. She shot him down with one look. Talk about calm assertive energy and claiming your space! She had a clear message. He turned right around and went away. Abby, maybe we did the wrong thing. We scooped her up and held her near Baxter. She hissed and threatened him with her paws, he did absolutely nothing but sniff a little.

So I started this post yesterday, and today I am happy to report that not only are the cats back in the house, they even were in the same room with Baxter. He has been quite quiet and respectful up until this point, although just a few minutes ago, he tried to invite Carrie to play with him. She looked at him as if he was crazy and very slowly crept away from him. He followed until I lured him away from her with a fun toy. We played for a few minutes, and now he is happily snoozing in the crate.

Today the potty score was Baxter 6 - Heather 8. My scores were successful potty breaks outside, His scores are the number of accidents. Sigh. I am thinking of training him to ring a bell. One good thing, he is a puppy so they are small accident spots not big lakes! But since Karl found them with his foot twice, I don't see that info really helping me right now. Must monitor his movements more often! Anyway, I'm off to bed.

Ithaca, Ny, Rochester, NY, and Hershey, PA Trip-Mid August

2010-09-11T12:39:00.001-04:00

Two weeks before school, the kids and I went on a long trip to Upstate New York to see family. We had a wonderful time with April & her family, and Grandma Margie. We went to Stewart Park and road the carousel, we went to Buttermilk Park and played on the wonderful playground there, went to Uncle Hugh's, rode horse, feed critters, visited Purity Ice Cream, and just had a lovely time. The weather was great, the kids were happy, and all in all it was great!

Oh, and Sydney found some more rocks to bring home, including one the size of an ostrich! She also lost her first tooth!

Then we headed to Rochester to see David, Lydelle, and Chris. As usual we had a blast there two. The kids were all for tackling Chris and making him play all sorts of games with them. Probably the silliest one was when Chris and I taught Josh to ride down the sloped lawn on the skateboard. Then the best part was, we got him to push it back up the hill. A tired baby is a good thing at bedtime. Then the girls got in on the action and everyone took turns flying down the hill and climbing back up again.

On the way home, I was not feeling up to the 12 hour drive straight through, so we made a detour to Hershey, PA. WOW! That is a yummy smelling town! we didn't go to the Park but we went to the hershey's world Tour, and really enjoyed that part. The girls got to do a make your own chocolate bar "ride" Josh and I tried to do that, but after waiting in line for 40 minutes, Josh was an absolute mess. So we waited at the end of the ride/tour for the girls. he was just as happy playing on the floor with his trains. I wished we rode the trolley instead, but the girls thought it was the best thing ever!

Our hotel was simple and clean, but we got there too late to use the pool. So we listened in the dark as Josh laughed to himself about his glow-in-the-dark pyjamas. It was so cute! The next morning we hit the free breakfast at the hotel. josh managed to catapult his cereal and juice all over himself and the chair and floor. Ahh! Such wonderful guests we are! the girls loved the giantic Belgain waffles. Again, they declared it the best part ever. they did not like that the hotel tv did not have a cartoon channel! With that, we headed home, (Oh but when I was loading the car, they were supposed to be watching Josh. he met me in the lobby. Since we were one room away from the lobby on the first floor, that is not as shocking as it seems. But I was ticked! The girls had no idea he was gone. Thank you TV). The drive home went well, and I was so glad to be home!

Luray Caverns trip

2010-09-11T07:26:00.003-04:00

We went on one final family vacation this weekend. We left Saturday and headed to Luray, Va to see some truly amazing caverns. Apparently most of the tourists also came that day since the line was insane! But what a sight! So glad we went!

At the field next to our hotel was a real county fair. Despite the late hour, Karl took both girl over to ride the rides and see the animals. They all had a good time! Sydney is a total spped demon! she was ready to go on all the scary looking rides. but for most she was too short. Emily was much more cautious. When Karl told me their reactions, I was pretty surprised since it does not seem that way outside of fairgrounds, but still pretty cool. The look on Sydney's face in this picture pretty well says it all!

The next morning after church, we drove to April's house. We spent the day hanging out at the field and playground. Emily, Sydney, and Josh had fun with Caleb. We also tested the flying abilities for karl's remote control car when it shot 6 feet up a tree. (student drivers) After 2 days with poor naps, Josh fell apart at bedtime! But finally all the kids went to sleep. April and I chatted about scrapbooking while Karl read. (meaning napped)

In the morning after another round of field sports, we headed off to Shendoah to pick up our new puppy. His name is Baxter. He is a cockapoo. He is 8 wks old, so just a baby still! The kids and I are thrilled!! He seems to like all of us and has spent most of the drive napping in my arms, or napping on my shoulder or my neck. Silly boy!!

summer vacation marches on

2010-08-15T21:58:00.000-04:00

The floor has been picked up and clean at bedtime for a whole week! It is a new record! I am so proud of the girls. Now to make it so I can say the same thing for my room! We are working on it though. My goal is to get tidy by then start of the school year so when we get back to school I have good routines back in place.

In other happy news, I may have found a way to get through to Sydney. When she does not listen 3 times, I take away a Barbie doll. And I start with the good ones too. Yesterday she asked me how she could earn back the last one I had. I had her help me clean Josh's room. I have almost never seen her help clean so willingly. I was thrilled and I think she was proud of herself. She got her last Barbie back in her box. Despite all the grief those bed caused, I am SO Glad we did it. They really love having their own space. I have heard Sydney tell Emily her space is closed, and I think it was hard for Emily to deal with that, but it was good for Sydney to be able to have that as an option when she needs it.

Three more weeks of summer! It is so hard to believe we are nearly done with summer. We have not done all the things I planned to do yet! I am going to cram them all in if I can in these last 3 weeks. Next week I head to Ithaca with the kids for 4 days, tomorrow is rock climbing, when we get back maybe a quick Williamsburg trip, we shall see if it is still free for military and if reserve IDs will work! Emily is still complaining that this is not the summer she wanted. Hopefully next year we can take a "proper" vacation. Better get out of debt first!

Anyone know if night terrors can happen during the naptime? josh woke up today and seemed unreasonably upset and took 15 minutes to calm down. The whole time he seemed almost to be in rigor he was so stiff and over extended. It was very upsetting. Luckily the one thing that worked was starting a Thomas the Tank engine movie. Then he sat in my lap with Binky and Lovie and was a happy camper. It was not something I want to experience too often.

I am taking bets on the amount of time remaining in a crib! Josh has tried flinging his leg up and over the edge when he wants down and out at naptime and bedtime. Once he is able to swing over, the crib is toast. I hope I get another 3-4 weeks out of it, but I am not too hopeful that I will get much more than that. Such a wonderful invention the crib. How will naptime ever happen without it?

Cleaning the room

2010-08-12T20:29:00.000-04:00

Apparently if I pretend to be a parrot and squawk out the names of things that need to be picked up, it keeps the girls amused enough to scurry around and pick them up. For my own amusement I pointed at things on opposite sides of the room for them to pick up. Third night in a row the floor is tidy. This is only the first night of the parrot though. I need a drink of water now. My throat is a little rough!

Success

2010-08-08T19:12:00.000-04:00

At least for now the girls room is quite tidy! Sydneys area was the last big holdup and we worked with her last night to get it picked up. Hopefully they can keep up with it!!

But the really good news is that the plan worked. Both girls like having their own space, and they love getting todo what they want in the space. The floor in between in prime place space and they play together there. Keeping Josh out of their beds and nooks will be tricky! He loves ladders and seems to have gift for bugging them by grabbing their stuff and shooting "Mine". It drives them both nuts! If they would ignore him, he'd get bored and leave it alone. Sibling rivalry at its finest!

Cheer camp

2010-08-07T13:20:00.000-04:00

The girls went to camp this week. 9-11:30am. Friday they cheered for the basketball campers final game. Both girls had fun and said they wanted to do it again. I enjoyed seeing the cheer! Emily might lack a little rhythm, but she had energy in her jumps! Sydney did a great job and seemed to really like it all! Josh liked the clapping and cheering in the game, but wanted to steal the ball which made it difficult to handle him in the gym.

The Bed Saga Part 3

2010-07-30T08:12:00.001-04:00

So after the beds were delivered theee weeks ago, we were left missing the key part-footboard and headboard. We called, complained, and got freight shipping for more parts. Two Monday's ago we received the missing headboard and footboards. Both boxes were torn, but one appeared to be fine. I didn't notice the footprints on the box until after they left. Their were some cracks in the finish that were probably a result of this!

The other box got munched by a forklift and was there were large smoosh lines in the wood. It might not have been visible once the bed was assembled, but it really bothered me. I checked with the girls, and they decided they did not want a predamaged bed. Emily was willing to wait for the new pieces to arrive.

We got Sydney's bed assembled and starting getting her part of the room a little more in order, but we didn't get far since we had their bedroom widow replaced.

After more calls and more complaints, we got the second headboard shipped freight too. I tracked it online and called ups when I saw it in Norfolk. Oddly enough my box got misloaded and sent to the wrong city. Shocker! I arranged to get it instead of letting it sit in the freight office for 4 more days. It barely fit in the can with the seats flattened. Thankfully with Emily now in a seatbelt not a booster the kids could all fit in his car.

Karl put up the bed himself since I was out stamping. Emily was able to help him a bit but still, very impressive! Now both beds were in place so I started assembling desks, chairs, bookshelves, and a dresser. Karl bailed me out with the dresser after I got ready to pitch it out the window in frustration!
The girls have their own desk and bookshelf so we split up all the books and made the former bookshelf a game and picture shelf. It may move still in the room.

We ended up following my design layout loosely. Dressers moved as did the shelf, but it looks nice now. We still have to tackle the odds and ends in the office that belong to the girls and their closet. And I need to paint the window sill.

Yikes! I hear stomping so I better go back to work! Josh is napping now but won't be at this rate! Someday Saturdays will be for fun not just chores!

Finger paint

2010-07-17T00:20:00.001-04:00

Josh insisted he wanted to eat some baby food. He didn't like it. But it fingerprinted nicely!

Room Remodel

2010-07-11T16:36:00.000-04:00

About a month ago I started working on redoing the girls room. My plan was that getting loft beds for them would allow each girl a limited amount of privacy be creating a mini room in the space under the loft. We bought new bedding, paint, desks, rugs, a dresser and a new bookcase. I will make some curtains for under the loft using the fabric from the bedskirts in the bedding.

I have finished painting the room, well except for the closet and window area. I will paint the closet once the beds arrive and are in place and i can empty the closet. Also we are replacing the windows, so I'll need to do around the window frame once it is done.

This is a mock up of the room layout.

Sydney's wall

Emilys wall.

The other two walls are white, which makes the room very bright. And now all we need are the beds. Sigh...

I don't recommend the company I used. They had a great looking product at a really good price, but their service stinks. The beds are backordered, but I keep getting email promising shipment any day, and it has been like that for 3 weeks. One shipped on the 2nd and instead of crossing the line from NC, went to IN and have sat there all week. Shipping was listed at 5-7 days. Tomorrow is the 6th day. The waybill gave a three week range for delivery not the 5-7 advertised. The other fun thing, they list both beds as shipped and have the same tracking info, but only list 1 bed in the waybill. So bottom line, don't use CSN bunkbeds.com!!

Rock stars

2010-07-11T16:17:00.001-04:00

After being foiled in my dream to be a Drummer as a kid, I was thrilled to get some used Rock Band equipment and the Beatles rock band game to play at home. We have been playing as a family! Well Karl misses practice fairly often, but he is still in the band.

Josh helps with drums, when I need a break. Karl and Emily play guitar, and Sydney does vocals. Her favorite song is Lucy in the sky with diamonds and the Yellow Submarine.

Lowes kids activity

2010-07-11T16:12:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I finally got my act together and showed up at Lowes at the right time and on the right day for the free kids workshop. They have wanted to do this for quite some time so I felt like a major hero getting it right!

They made ball catching toys. The highlight-Emily snapping a nail in two and needing a new kit. And after putting on two pieces sidewise but in the right place on Sydneys kit, she kept repeating mom, that looks wrong. I of course kept telling her everything was fine, but I put the same pieces on the wrong side that time!

Josh was a good sport while they were working, and luckily for me two neighbor dad showed up and helped me out when I was struggling with two kits and two kits needing help.

Fireworks

2010-07-04T21:18:00.001-04:00

As we were watching the 1812 overture on the Capitol fourth on tv,the cannons began to go off. Emily immeditely began to complain about the Air pollution from the cannons. Sigh!

Grumbly reflections

2010-06-27T10:02:00.001-04:00

I was feeling a little grumpy this morning after I showed up an hour early for church with the kids but without the donations of clothing I planned to bring for the community drive.

The beauty of stake conference is that it starts late! I missed that and got extra time to run home, and and extra half an hour attempting to keep the kids under control. Karl was singing today so he could not help.

Anyway, just as I was thinking grumbly thoughts I realized the lady in from of me had 7 kids. She was alone too as her husband was also singing. 14-10 months. Time to be grateful for my blessings!!

Church has not strarted yet. So far there has beenl one escape attempt, two trucks have been thrown and 10 fish trampled. I can make it!!

Mr Sandman cont.

2010-06-26T23:56:00.001-04:00

Karl finished the sandbox Wednesday! They love it! Any suggestions on keeping sand out if my house?

Notes

2010-06-26T21:17:00.001-04:00

Today we had a pool party to celebrate Sydney 6th birthday. We had a great time with friends and really enjoyed the pool. Her birthday was Thursday and we had a fun celebration then with preset for Sydney and 2 for Emily.

Tonight Karl and I had a meeting at church so we got a sitter. When we got home we found this note from Emily. I have been working with her on present acquisition. I have more work to do apparently.

If you can't really read it the jist is she is sad because Sydney got cool stuff and she wants us to get her any 4-5 things we think she might like.

Mr. Sandman

2010-06-20T00:33:00.000-04:00

I have a great husband. I know this because with only minimal grumbling, he is building me a super cool sandbox in some really hot weather! Not only that, but he let me sleep in until 9:30!! Woohoo!

Today we went to a work pool party from 12:30-5. Josh and I were super Late for naptime. When we got home, we headed out as a family for sandbox building fun!

Here is Emily attempting to dig.

Not loving her new look!

Our transplant sod program- building up the former digging pit with our sod bricks. Hope they live!!

Sandbox dug out

Zen raking:)

Weed and creepy crawly protector layer

First layer! Totally looks good here, but it gets even better! See more pics Monday! We worked till 9pm and it was too dark for pics.

Missing three boards and 62 bags of sand.

Bribery in the American family

2010-06-13T19:24:00.002-04:00

Sydney got sent to timeout for snatching, a new rule they established in family home evening. As I was standing at the stairs planning her new room design she begged for an early release and offered me a penny to let her go. I didn't take it, and now she is whimpering.

Backyard adventures continue

2010-06-13T13:58:00.001-04:00

Karl got the deck done almost 2 weeks ago. Sorry i forgot to annouce it! I put up the table and chairs for outside all by myself! The umbrella needs a base. And we have eaten out there 3 times. It has been delightful! Now we (and by we I mean Karl) are working on a sandbox for the kids. I still have landscaping and gardening projects to tackle outside. But so far things seem to be coming along nicely! Mulch is waiting and weeds are growing.

Up next is a redesign in the girls room. They suggested a board down the center of the room. I am thinking loft beds instead. Maybe a curtain, but no boards or walls.

Sweet viewpoint

2010-06-13T13:51:00.001-04:00

I got asked to be the primary president (managing the kids 3-11) at church recently.Today in the car as the kids wondered where dad was (meetings at church that began at 6:45) Emily piped up with " wow, you guys are so lucky to have your jobs at church!" I was really apreciative of her way of looking at it! It was certainly better than my way!

Artistic differences

2010-06-13T13:47:00.001-04:00

Josh and I had some different thoughts on Friday. He was happily eating his yogurt so I decided to quickly run the vaccum to do some post breakfast mess clean up. Well multi-tasking was not
my best move! My new plan is no matter how boring it seems, do not leave an eating toddler. He painted the table and his body with yogurt. So I got to give him a bath and wipe te table and floor.

Talent show

2010-06-09T14:49:00.001-04:00

This week has had some extra excitement! Emily signed up for the school talent show. It was held today an I will try and post video of her doing the Hoedown Throwdown dance. So cute:)

Here she is waiting for the bus. And yes those are pink streaks in her hair. We did it at breakfast! So fun to have girls:)) I hope she let me do her makeup when she is older. She has awesome eyes!

Deck building

2010-05-31T11:49:00.000-04:00

After almost three years living here, I finally get my wish for a deck in the backyard.

We are using dek blocks instead of concrete foundation piers; less digging and hopefully plenty stable.

Did I mention the pouring rain that came in a flash last night??

We have got all 25 piers in place, and support posts in place.

Next we are joining the 12' support beams. That will be tricky! After those are in place, the 10' decking boards go down. Woohoo! Lemonade on the deck tonight! (i hope)

Right now we are off to the church pig pickin picnic for a little break.

No only that, but we dug up the massive concrete stone that was out near the swing set that I hate for no really good reason than it is there! Yeah! It didn't go far. We stuck in under the deck foundation, but at least it is out. Getting the circle stone up means I can work on a side project and level hill back there and try to get grass to grow.

I am using our rotoiller for the first time myself.

And on our way, just a snippet of conversation.

Emily-"why does it say we hve to go this way?"
Mom "cause the road doesn't go the oter way."

Emily " are these buildings really old?"
Dad "yes."
"do people still live in them?"
"yes"
"why? They might have weird pictures in them?"

Status update

Framing

First board in place

Our little helper

8pm - Are we there yet?- we are running out of steam. But we are going to keep going!

9:30 - we are halfway done laying the decking boards. I love the magical sound of bugs zapping in the moonlight.

10:15 - Done for the night. 2/3rds done with the surface.

We have noticed that the height of our fence is much more noticeable when you stand 2 feet off the ground than when you don't! Fencing, a project for another day! Time to soak in the tub!

Bath time

2010-05-20T11:19:00.001-04:00

It isn't even 11:30 yet and we already had the first mud puddle related bath today. Josh sat happily in a giant puddle flinging mud while I attempted to garden.
I didn't get pictures, but he was coated in it!

Languaged Challenged

2010-05-19T22:27:00.003-04:00

Josh is learning to talk. It is really funny to hear him find buses, cars an balls while riding in the car. He loves to climb in my seat and "drive" He also loves all things dirty and gross in the mud puddle in the backyard. He really is all boy, so different from his sisters. Karl was taking care of him the other night, and ran out of ideas. He pulled out Car and Driver and showed to it Josh. He exclaimed Wooh! Wow! on each page. So funny!

He also has no word for Dad yet. He can say mote-for remote, but not Dad. He knows who dad is and will point on cue. Course the word for Mom is an awful lot like "Mine." hmmm.

On another note, I realized today that if we bought the other house we looked at on a busy road,we really would have a problem, as Josh views the street as an extension of the front yard and therefore a great place to be. We deadbolt the door and it keeps him inside for now. He got out once dead bolted, but I think it was a fluke. learning to lift the toilet seat seems to have been a one time occurrence so far.

Natural Consequences

2010-05-16T22:46:00.002-04:00

This week was all about consequences it seems.

Lesson #1 If you have a snack and leave out a full box of cereal, and the baby of those house climbs on to the table and dumps it all out on the floor, expect to clean it up since putting it away would have prevented the mess. Same goes for the milk. That was a different day, and happily the cereal was put away that time. The milk was not, so she got to clean up the milk and learned how to use my good friend the Hoover Floor Mate.

Lesson #2 If Moms stays up too late doing stupid stuff and is less than pleasant all day, expect children to pray that mom will be nice the following day.

Lesson #3 If Josh sees anyone go outside, he will follow them. Lock all doors! Especially if you are showering and think he is watching Elmo. Otherwise you get to face the neighbors as the return the baby-ok the neighbor didn't come this week, it was a few weeks ago, but I did hear the door shut while I was getting dressed and had to grab the bathrobe and run outside.

Lesson #4 If it is bad for you, ie chicken nuggets, that is the only food he will willing eat. all other offerings are thrown on the floor.

Lesson #5 If you have lapsed medical insurance from changing jobs, you will have mysterious earaches or fluid filled ears from plane rides that linger for days!

Lesson #6 If you get to go away for the weekend, don't expect too much when you get home! Josh was thrilled to see me in the morning, but really wanted to tell me about the new toys in his room.

Lesson #7 If you have to wonder if a neighborhood child is stealing your things, it is time to nip the friendship in the bud. That was a hard lesson this week. We got the shoes back, and our neighbor got her stuff back, but the girls are disappointed about losing their new friend. This child roams free, takes stuff that isn't hers, and has no rules or respect. It is sad that she lives like that, but I am not willing to start questioning my kids honesty all the time as I do hers.

Lesson #8 If you or your child leave the garage door open a crack, a strange cat may come in and eat your cats cat food. You won;t know this of course, but you will blame your cat for being hungry ALL the TIME! And wonder why she didn't run them off.

Lesson #9 If you buy it, you will probably eat it. Avoid the ice cream aisle! Sigh. Yummy frozen goodness.

Lesson #10 If you see the baby is making poop face in the tub and even says "Stinky", don't think you can run to the changing table and get the diaper on in time. Shouting no Josh won't work either. Slap the wet wriggly munchkin on the toilet and hope you don't let him fall in. Otherwise the towel will get yucky.

Scrapbooking

2010-05-02T22:38:00.001-04:00

I have been bothered by the fact that I am years behind on my family scrapbooks. I bought a digital scrapbooking Program a few months ago to make a digi book as a weddig present for a Good friend. I made her book quickly and was thrilled with the finished result. But since then I have not done anything for myself with it. I have made cards, incursions, handouts, and other useful little projects, but no more books.

So last Sunday, something it under my skin and I started with the cover of a 2009 book. This week u have worked on it almost everynight and I have 30 pages done so far. I am up to October. I think I can finish tomorrow and have a good record of the major events of the year. What a relief it is to make progress on a goal that has been mentally like a splinter. I know I want to do it, but the anal compulsive designer in me does not want to do a paper version because I might mess up, and I have to print the picture, and I hare my handwrting-insert complaint here... So nothing really got done after I stopped going to my Monthly scrapbooking club. I did a great job with 2007-8 but not Much since then.

I am excited to finish tomorrow! I can't wait to show the kids when it get printed. They love family scrapbooks. Sydney had already requested a "just her" book:) maybe I can do that for her birthday!

For now however I am grateful to go to bed and sleep off my sore throat and stuffy nose!

On another fun note, we are not moving this year. Karl got a new job in the area, although it will be a rough commute and is less than he was making at his other job, he will be home with hte family! We are happy to be together after 4 months of seperation. The girls are disappointed they will not be getting seperate rooms, as am I, but we will just learn to deal with the house we have and enjoy this great area and all our friends here! I plan to try some touristy stuff this summer with the kids and take advantage of the history in our area. Anyone wanting to visit, we would Love to have you come!

Suburban Dilemma

2010-04-29T22:52:00.003-04:00

What do you do when your child makes a friend you find questionable? I have never had a my daughter have a friend I didn't like or didn't even trust. My girls made a friend with a child in the neighborhood who was a former classmate and we have had some recent experiences that have been incredibly frustrating for me as a parent. She has caused me to doubt the honesty of my own children and has flaunted my rules in my face. I am at a loss. I want to bann her from my home, but I am not sure it is the right approach.

Please send advice! I am really stumped on this one! I will email with more details if desired. Life was simpler last year, and I know it will only get more complicated next year. Yikes!

ENT success story

2010-04-17T09:27:00.001-04:00

Sydney had tubes put in again on Thursday. The operation itself took only 20 minutes, but we were waiting for hours beforehand. Since she could not eat anything after midnight the night before, by 1:30, she was hungry!!

We think there is alot of Improvement in her hearing which hopefully can make things a little smoother at home.

Sydney pre surgery reading fantastic mr. fox.

Laundry day

2010-03-25T15:24:00.001-04:00

Because we are showing the house again, and because it is just a good thing, I have been trying hard to stay on top of the laundry. Yesterday I hid some
Dirty laundry in my car before a showing. So today I dumped 2 loads on my bed to do during the day. I came in the room to fold them and discovered my cats, blissfully curled up with the fresh previously hair free clothing. It's good to be a cat!

Trouble on the home front

2010-03-21T19:50:00.000-04:00

We got word today that the buyers for our house decided they were done waiting and found another home. Frankly I'm not surprised, but I am frustrated with the bank for not getting a move on and causing us to lose this sale. Not only thy, but the other family who was interested in the home has also found another house. Not just one buyer but two in one slow bank move!!

Fortunately we had a couple come through today looking at the house. It is spring and the housing market is picking up, so hopefully we will get more traffic coming in. But this might mean we are back to the begining with the bank and now have to wait to restart the process. What a mess!!! I am really stressed about this whole situation.

Applesauce 101

2010-03-03T13:45:00.001-05:00

So on scale of 1-10, I give this a 7. I made Emily fish her applesauce cup out of the trash and eat it. The lid was mostly sealed an it was on the top. I had had it with the complaining about everything today. Even now I can her them whining in the dining room. Aargh.

Her primary complaint was that she would smell like a garbage can and dogs would try to eat her if she ate it. Let's ignore the fact that we have no dog. And the trash is change daily. And that it had been there a minute or so. She ate it and hopefully won't do it again. If she had not insisted on that Flavor, I would have been so annoyed.

And now for a wonderful story...
Monday night she helped me unload the car and put away all the groceries. I was putting a sick and cranky Josh in bed. She did all the work for 2 kudo stickers. She did not complain at all. It was wonderful. I can't find everything right away, but I really appreciated the help.

Sydney was doin her homework so that is why she did not help out.

Josh dining

2010-02-24T10:41:00.001-05:00

Josh has decided that milk is best poured out of the bowl and either drunk out of the bowl or sluped off his tray. Yummy!

Curls and attitude

2010-02-07T23:00:00.001-05:00

Last night I tried out my new satin wrapped foam rollers on the girls. I convinced Sydney to let me do it to her and true to form, this morning after I unwrapped her, she immediately wanted me to straighten them. She sobbed in the car and on the way into church.we ould not undo it because we were running late. I think she was afraid her classmates would laugh at her. After church the curls had relaxed a bit and looked incredible, but she does not want me to do it again since no one in her class told her it looked cute. Emily on the other hand liked hers very much. If I do say so myself, they were perfect fat sausage curls!

Full of attitude. Just unwrapped a fluffed but before I tried to tame them.

Before

After church so curls are slightly deflated but still cute!

This is Sydney after church! So cute!

Funnel cake yummyness

2010-02-01T11:39:00.001-05:00

We are out of school today for a teacher work day, but it would have been a snow day after the dumping we got this weekend. So I needed something fun to soon our third housebound day! I was reading on facebook and my niece mentioned making funnel cakes! I got on my favorite recipie site and was ready to go!

Funnel cakes get their name from the funnel you use to pour the batter into the hot oil. Only my funnel was too small so I had to use a measuring cup. Emily said they look like tangled up octopusses but she ate 3 of them. Now she is lying on the couch moaning "too much funnel cakes"

Hearing issues

2010-01-24T14:13:00.001-05:00

It might be possible that all those cases of what I thought was defiance and disobedience from Sydney was really due to hearing issues. She passed the test in September but she failed the ice cream test at lunch. So I used my trusty iPhone to administer a hearing test. She really failed that one! She never once hit the normal range in her score. It might be because she is a bit congested right now, but I'm calling ENT tomorrow!

In september she still had tubes in place. They told us at an appointment in dec for an ear infection that 1 was gone and probably both. I had hoped not to go through a second set. Now I just hope we can get it done before we lose Tricare.

Dracula lady

2010-01-24T09:07:00.001-05:00

Because we were running late for church, I grabbed makeup to apply in the car. After I finished applying it, I turned and asked how I looked. Did I mention I was not driving?

Karl made a funny face and said "you look nice?" then said he wasn't sure what I wanted to hear. (ravishing would work for me) then when I replied I needed to know I looked ok since I had done this all in the car, he said well "you don't look like Dracula lady! You look good to me!"

So.. Let's hear it for all the nondracula ladies out there!

Daddy daughter dating

2010-01-23T14:51:00.001-05:00

Today Karl is braving the silliness and taking the girls to see the movie of their dreams, The Squeakl. I think I spelled that wrong. Anyway, Alvin and the Chipmunks 2. He has been gone this week so this will be a fun outing for them! And I will get to see it plenty of times in another few months when it comes out on DVD. They both got haircuts today and look cute.

All is going well for the new job, but no news on the sale of the home yet.

I miss uniforms

2010-01-20T20:12:00.001-05:00

I ironed 3 for Karl tonight and thought fondly of my previous life which included minimal ironing. It isn't that we bought all new shirts, it just finally matters if they are ironed or not. And getting Karl packed each week has been exciting! Browns are not created equal! And what is up with the new trends in men's footwear with the elongated toes?? So weird!

Water bottles all round

2010-01-18T18:52:00.001-05:00

So after several attempts at finding a sippy for Josh, he has announced his preference, mine!

I have bought 4-5 different styles and brands and I suppse I should be grateful there is one he likes, I would just rather not have my favorite bottle all crusted with crackers and sticky paw prints. Tonight was the final straw. He took his spaghetti all covered with sauce and smushed it into the cap. Gross.

I got online after dinner and ordered one for him, then added one for each girl. They love mine too. In fact this summer they broke the flip thingy off the top they loved it so much. And bit the bite valve almost all the way through! And since they still use sippy cups at night to have access to water that they can't spill, we figure it is time to upgrade them to a age approriate and still spill proof drinking container.

My beloved bottle is in the sink soaking off the sauce and sticky paw prints. I just hope the others get here soon!!

Diji delight

2010-01-16T18:44:00.000-05:00

We bought 2 Diji players last week. Or rather the girls used their allowance and bought them. Amazingly enough they both can play them without much help from me, which is not the case with video games, and they are practising math and spelling facts.

Skip the eduational nonsense and focus on the important part! They did their chores to get playtime and they did not fight with one another the whole time they were playing!

Dinosaur

2010-01-16T18:43:00.000-05:00

There is a show on PBS kids called Dinosaur Train and my kids live it. They now know more than I ever did about dinos. In fact Emily was able to inform
me the other day that I am like a Trillodon since I have a good memeory and can remember things from when I was a young girl. Apparently the trillodon had the largest brain and is throught to have been the smartest of the dinos. Should I be flattered at having been compared to a dinosaur?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Perfect Timing

2010-01-16T18:40:00.000-05:00

Josh loves the bathroom. There are a myriad of toys; toilet paper, full cabinets, tooth brushes, and a water activity table his size! Well we have been trying to keep him out of the "water table" since it is just gross. And we have also been trying to encourage flushing vigalance with the girls. Most of the time they get it right.

Tonight Josh was taking a bath and Emily came in to use the bathroom. Immediately as she stood up, Josh threw his rubber duck. Naturally it landed in the unflushed toilet. Luckily for me, Karl is home this weekend:)

Beware the Silent Toddler

2009-12-08T08:30:00.002-05:00

Josh is officially a toddler. At least, he can walk. he looks like a drunken cowboy, but hey, he is totally mobile. The other day I changed his diaper, but he wanted to play, so I didn't rush getting his pants back on, and then since he was so happy with his toys, I wandered off to do a few things. I realized about 45 minutes later, he had been silent a very long time, not chatter, just playing noises. So I went up to investigate. He was happily playing still, but without his diaper. I looked all over his room and found no diaper, but there were several puddles. Yuck! I cleaned him up, washed his legs, and rediapered him. I added pants this time so Houdini could not get his diaper off again. Then I cleaned up his room. But I could not find the diaper. I started to feel awful thinking how could I let him run around without one? Was I losing my mind? But then as I was getting dinner ready I found the diaper. He loves throwing things off our loft ledge, and the diaper was another casualty to his need to fling!

Oh dear, I just heard a matchbox car splash into the toilet bowl.
... And he dunked his lovey! At least the toilet had been flushed this time!

Monthly update

2009-11-22T21:10:00.003-05:00

Well, I am a little shocked that it has been a month since my last post. Whoops! Where has the time gone? So the skinny on our life for the past month...
We put the house on the market and we got an offer on the house, and we accepted the offer. But we are waiting for the bank to approve the offer because we are hoping to do a short sale since the house market tanked after we bought the house. If we get the bank approval, and if they do the paperwork in a timely fashion, our closing date is January 4th. So the Pilz Family will go house shopping and move afterthe holidays.

Where you ask? What a wonderful question. We are looking at Boston and D.C. We want to be near family and are getting some really exciting job offers in D.C. and Suffolk right now, but not as many exciting ones in Boston. It is a challenge for Karl to decide what he really wants to do right now, and a bigger challenge for us as a family to decide where we are going. Naturally we a re torn. We have come to love this area, and will miss it very much. We love the weather, the community we live in, the proximity to all the comforts without as much hustle and bustle of a larger area, and all the many comforts there are to our location.

I have never been great at moving or change. I feel like a cat, clinging all paws spread wide to the bathroom door frame prior to a bath! It is not easy or fun for me to move. That is probably why we never made it overseas. I think I felt more adventurous prior to having kids, but the post-kid me does not feel so inclined. I can't help thinking that if we seem unable to take advantage of what our current areas have to offer, why would moving to another country jump start our inner tourist? But as Karl pointed out, we would have fewer responsibilities with a rental home overseas. But since we no longer have overseas job offers, I am not stressing about that any more. I do feel like grabbing the girls from school to go tour Williamsburg before we move though. I can't believe we didn't make it to Busch Gardens this summer either! I love that place, or I did when I was 14!

So here we are, trying to ifugre out the future and dodging our day to day challenges. The fun crisis-du-jour was Emily dealing with a round of lice. YUCK! I don't like pest. I pay happily for a bug spray service. This has always been lurking in the back of my mind as a childhood curse I was hoping to avoid and never experience. No such luck! Have I ever mentioned how thick her hair is? No, well, let me mention it now! Imagine all the hair on my head, and Karl's head put together, now give Emily just a little bit more than that. I saw something in her hair at a doctors appointment on Wednesday, and pulled it out to look at it. The hairs on the abck of my neck registered it as a possible disaster, but I tried to convince myself it ways nothing. I googled it at bedtime, and felt a dull thud. I told myself if I checked in the morning and found any more, well then it might be lice eggs. Yup. In the I found 5 more right away. Since Heidi had come for a visit, she was able to watch my kids while I ran to Walgreens for supplies. The combs I bought had little affect on her hair, and not wanting to dump major chemicals on her head, I began to section out her hair and pull any eggs I found out between my thumb and fingernail. Eeew! it took about 9 hours to do her head the first day. The next day took about 6 hours. I did a poison free shampoo that day to kill any adults that might be there since I never saw or found any. I still think that is weird. I have not found any eggs in the last 2 days. I am hoping Heidi doesn't find any either on her girls. Sydney and Josh and I seem to be fine. I hope we all stay that way.

Other fun things, we got denied insurance coverage for Emily's sensory therapy, but I got it back after about 6 weeks by using a new script with a different code, one that tags her as having Aspberger's syndrome. I am thrilled we can go back for the last few weeks we are here, although I am happier to report that my child has worn jeans 3 times this school year od her own free will, and 1 without any extra therapy from me! Woohoo! Major progress!

Sydney and Emily finished Little League. They stuck it out, and I am proud of them. They got trophies, and they are proud too. We may not be ball people, but Emily did get 2 runs in the season, and I think 4 total hits. Sydney at the end did quite well at bat. In the field she got better at the end, but had a habit of biting her nails and searching the ground for interesting plants.

We have started calling Sydney "Magpie" since you never know now what she will collect. The other night I could not find my phone. Karl found it under her pillow. I left it in her room at bedtime, so she popped it under her pillow. a good friend sent her a pair of cargo pants, and when she saw them, she looked at the pockets and said "wow! Mom, I could put a lot of things in my pockets!" She makes me laugh. I ratted her out at the parent Teacher Conference this week, letting her teacher know she can read. He He. Now she will have a little more challenging work to do. Crazy girl. Emily is doing wonderfully well in school and I will miss her teacher. She is awesome and the perfect fit for Emily.

A funny comment. The girls were watching Qubo, and an ad for some sort of Ab Excercise Gadget came on that promised to tone and shrink your midsection in a matter of days. Emily watched it, and turned to me and said, "Wow Mom, you could really use that! " So true! Thank you so much, I thought.

And Josh has taken his first few steps. He does it best when he is not paying attention to the moving part and just in pursuit of something. He is much more interested in the home than I remember the girls being. He loves to empty cabinets, dump spices, unstack cans, sit in pots, unroll toilet paper and dump anything he can find into the toilet. He also likes batteries. And wheels. And licking the floor. His best words are "Dis" and "Dat".

Well, we are off to decide our future! Keep you all posted!

Battle of the Paper Tiger

2009-10-18T22:30:00.002-04:00

We have spent the better part of the weekend in the girls room. We put the house up for sale last Thursday and I had some great pictures of most of the rooms in the house ready to go. Not because the house was clean and lovely and we took pictures that day, no, they were there because a wonderful friend helped me work on the house for her home staging class. And I almost immediately ruined all our hard work in the office and bedroom. The layout is there, the surface clutter just never really go licked completely. Only we never went in the girls room. we didn't want to traumatize them or us. too bad. I could have used her help.

So I was/am horrified at the thought of someone actually viewing the house, and especially their room. we did not have a good picture of their room to put up either. So I went in and did battle. I threw out some stuff while they were at school, and then when they got home, the girls and I worked on it a bit, and then some more Saturday. We got toys taken out of the room and put into storage, and got the shelves in the closet tidied up, and made the bins face out with labels clearly viewable, with all the bins easy to pull down and to open. I threw away lots of papers in the closet when they were not there which helped so much although emily is getting better about letting go of paper. Sydney on the other hand has just gotten the nickname on Magpie. we have been missing a bolt for a chair I bought a few months ago but never assembled. We went to assembled it 2 weeks ago and could not find the bolt we had placed on the edge of the bookshelf. I found the bolt yesterday when I stripped and made her bed. She took the bolt to bed! along with rocks, shells, stuffed animals, a spatula, and not on that night, but another night her t-ball uniform.

About their beds. I had to make a decree that there would be only 10 animal limit. It noticed yesterday while making both beds to take a pretty room picture that my decree was being ignored. Not a good thing. I have a full large pink bin of stuffed animals in the closet and another full bin under the bed and still more stuffed animals hanging on a shoe organizer on the back of their door. We might have enough stuffed animals, maybe even too many. But any time we enter a store, they seems to be able to find another one that they don't have and would be absolutely devastated not to have in their collection. The asthma and allergy doctors both girls see are not pro stuffed animals. You could even call them anti stuffed animals. It is nice to have a good reason to forbid more animals entering the house. But I adore stuffed animals myself, so I know I am the reason behind their initial collections! Oh the shame!

So after the stuff that went to storage, and the papers that went to the trash, and the scrapping of tape off the window, and removing the pencil that had wedged up the window ledge trim, and the paint & crayon removal from the desk, the room looked pretty good. I sent pictures to the realtor. they were staged a bit since I took all the extra animals and pillows and blankets off their beds. When people walk through the house, they will see them, but at least they will have seen the house online looking its best.

On another note, I am going to Physical therapy for some under developed leg muscle that really have created a lot of pain in my hip joint. I started during pregnancy and was attributed to pregnancy and Relaxin and not to a muscular problem, but since it came back, and I can safely say pregnancy is not the cause I went to get Xrays and then ultimately to PT. The exercises are painful, and they are shocked by the knots in the muscles and the tightness of the muscles. I was shocked by the lack of strength in my glutes. All this time I figured with the size of the thing, you would think there was some strength there. Nope. Not much at all! if someone asks you to do an "Inchworm" Run away. it is no fun at all! But I have decided as much as I dislike Yoga, sorry, all those who love it, I do not enjoy it much at all, but I will say it helps me stay flexible, and when I go at least weekly, I have fewer knots. and I got this foam rolly thing which is good for getting out some kinks. Hurts like crazy though. Maybe one day I will get a deep tissue massage that will help too. I would hate to scream and run off the table though.

Karl is continuing his job search. I am trying for a zen like attitude based on faith. I believe he will find a good job soon and that we will ultimately be fine no matter where that job is. It seems to be working. Prior to feeling that impression, I was a mess of worry. Right now I am just not thinking about the little yuck details like moving and leaving friends and a really wonderful area. So my blog title is coming back to haunt me. We are moving. I should change it once this move is over! Friends keep asking where we are moving, and they look at me a little funny when I saw I don't know for sure since we have no job offer and we hoe to move in 3 months. well, really 2. yikes. that really is soon. I better go back to zen breathing.

Yikes, it is late and I need some sleep. No more thinking for me tonight. Time for my stretching exercises from PT.

How do HazMat teams do it?

2009-10-04T19:01:00.004-04:00

So this has been a really gross weekend. Yesterday was a 2 header game day for Sydney, and a ball game and swim practice day for Emily. It ended with a bag when Sydney managed to run into another child on the playground during the 5 minutes Karl was helping me load Josh & the stroller into the car. Oh did I mention Emily ran into the wall swimming the backstroke at swim practice?

So Sydney ended up with a large bruise on her temple, but otherwise was quite perky. Then around 5pm, 4 hours later, she started to throw up all over the edge of the couch. We got her to the bathroom for the rest and called a friend who works as an ER doc. Possible concussion, watch for more symptoms. She fell asleep on the coach, then woke up around 7, and threw up 30 minutes later. So she went to the ER with Karl and got a CTScan. They came home around midnight, threw up some more and went to bed.

Josh who had fallen asleep at 5:30 for his second nap of the day woke up again at 4am. I was up there dreaming he was some sort of weird alien rock and I could not put him back in bed until the rock changed form. It finally changed form around 4:45. Fortunately for me, he was happy to go back to sleep.

Since it is Conference Weekend, we all stayed home to watch conference on TV. I am so glad we did! Neither girl really dove into the traditional waffle breakfast, but I didn't really think much of it. They didn't really eat a lot of lunch either. After lunch, Emily began to complain her tummy hurt. She began vomiting in spectacular fashion at 5. Same spot on the couch too, but she never made it to the bathroom for rounds 2 and 3. Never knew a kid could contain so much fluid.

So after we got her wiped down, and moved the couch out of the major pool, we tossed her in the tub with a bucket. Then we got gloves and started to clean. I love leather furniture. But seriously , no need to test the wipe-ability so much in one weekend. Plus I love my floor scrubber. But using vinegar as a natural disinfectant is a little smelly. Only the positive side, at least I didn't scrub downstairs yesterday as planned only to do it again today :) And thankfully that time, Josh was actually asleep in bed, so he didn't get in the middle of things.

So after Emily started throwing up, we began to wonder in Sydney really did have a bad concussion, or just a stomach bug and a bruise. Especially when we remembered Josh threw up on Thursday several times.

Oh well. I really don't think I could ever clean anything really gross, since this was pretty much pegging my gross-o-meter to the limit! I'm sure it's all in my head, but my tummy hurts.

Figgy Pudding

2009-09-09T23:26:00.004-04:00

Just a note, in case anyone comes across 4 cups of fresh figs and decides to make fig cobbler, peel them first. Do not follow instructions for a recipe that do not include peeling and definitely do not serve it to company without tasting it first. Thankfully they were polite. I thought it looked pretty until I cut in and saw glob o' fig lying there. It was not a giant fig newton as I had hoped. It was just the wrong side of gross. Oh well. Maybe a fig & fruit medly, or just some fig jam instead. I think I like the concept of figs better than the reality. It is a texture thing again.

School Days are here again!

2009-09-09T22:56:00.006-04:00

Yippee! It's finally over. That incredibly long summer has finally ended!!! Yeah!!!!! I am so happy it is September 9th. And fortunately for me, the kids are too! Even though I missed Orientation Day due to a trip out of town, we were ok. They both got on the bus, and as far as I know, no one cried in the hallway looking for class. At least, if they did, they didn't tell me, and that is as good as it never happening in my book.

Sydney is in kindergarten and loving it, and Emily is in second grade. She also seems happy with her teacher. I hate not having met them, so I know I will just have to go in sometime soon as put a name with a face.

I am really getting involved this fall. I joined PTA again, and this time I agreed to actually do something. Yikes. I am headed up the hospitality committee. We do thank you gifts and parties. It will probably be fun. We have something every month it seems but one. What a good choice. Unless we move at Christmas time, in which case, he he. I am outta here!

Then I signed the girls up for sports. I didn't think swimming was going to happen, so we went for Softball instead, then swimming became an option, well I really wanted that, Em really wanted ball, so we are doing both. Tueday through Thursday are intense, with a repeat of insanity on Saturdays. This continues until the end of October. Oh dear! I am going to have to start using my time at home better especially on the 2 Practice day or we will not make it these next 2 months! Hello Crockpot Thursday. Emily has swimming, softball, and wait, there's more, and therapy. She is skipping 7 weeks of Thursday swimming for therapy. And then there are practice and game conflicts to sort out for 3 Saturdays.

On the other hand, Josh seemed to enjoy watching t-ball practice today for Sydney. She did not want to join since she was afraid to get dirty. I have a hard time believing that since she is out in the backyard working with mud any chance she gets, and that mud is quite messy. I think she just doesn't like not knowing how to do things. She was "forced" to go to practice today and ended up loving it. She was hunting for flowers, kicking dirt and occasionally hitting the tee and ball. She even ran from base to base when she was supposed to run, and in a straight line.

I need to find a chiropractor. Yesterday I got some sort of stomach icky-ness and today I hurt my hip/back. I think it was a low grade bug since I felt like I was getting a mild fever, and I wanted to curl into a ball and do nothing. I could not celebrate my first day of school properly. And it was pouring rain. Today was beautiful so we took the pictures today. I was grateful to see them on the bus yesterday, and the camera was in the car, and I was not about to brave the rain to get it especially not with Josh in my arms. I feel less icky today, but sore instead.

Did I mention Karl is gone all week? I am happy for him since he is spending time with our extending family and going to 2 weddings, but talk about timing! Oh well. It is my bedtime now, so off I go!

I didn't mention my trip to Ithaca, so really quickly...We (kids and I) went to upstate New York to see family & friends. took the girls tubing on the lake at my aunt & uncles. had a blast there! Went to a wedding, took all 3 kids by myself, will never do that again. Girls were great, baby was less so. Saw family, had tons of fun! Driving was a little rough, but took the scenic route through PA so saw lots of pretty stuff on the way.

Awkward time at the doctors

2009-08-26T13:49:00.003-04:00

I was at the doctor's office with Emily, Sydney, and Josh two weeks ago and was really shocked and disappointed to see three young boys attacking the lovely wooden train table and ripping the pieces out of the table. Those pieces were screwed into each other and the table top so thy had tonwork hard to destroy it. What got me was that their mother was sitting in the lobby while they did this and never said anything. I didn't either though. I probably should have. When Sydney, Josh, and I came out to wait for Emily, I spent some time trying to fix the table again in full view of their mom. She said nothing to me though. She also didn't try to help fix what her children had done.

We came to the office today for another visit. The table is gone. I inquired about it and was told they got rid of it because of missing and broken pieces. Such a shame. There were older boys playing while we waited, three boys maybe 10-12. Both my baby and my 5 year old had fun with it too. But because of a few people, the fun of so many others is spoiled. Next time I see kids destroying things, I will speak up and the consequences of offending the mother are simply not worth it.

Miley Cyrus letter

2009-08-16T22:11:00.004-04:00

I am posting this letter I just wrote in the hopes that someone will stumble across this blog, and maybe send a letter of their own. I like Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus. I don't like some of her current wardrobe choices, and I hope this letter might reach someone in her office and change their mind about how they proceed with her public image.

Miley Cyrus
c/o The Disney Channel
3800 Alameda Ave
Burbank, CA 915058
USA

Dear Miley Cyrus (and your Publicity/Marketing Department)

I wanted to take a moment to write to you. I doubt that this will reach you directly, but I hope my letter has an impact on someone there. I am the mother of 2 girls, ages 7 and 5. Unlike many of your fans, we don’t have the Disney Channel. We don’t watch your show, so my daughters learned about you through the Disney Radio and the through marketing campaign you have going on in stores across the nation. If there is Hannah Montana Product in a store, they will find it and usually ask for it. To give you an example, my eldest has sensory issues and is in therapy for them but will happily wear the itchy nightgown simply because you are on it. Your vitamins however are delicious.

I enjoy listening to your music and did not object at all when my 5 year old used her allowance to buy her first cd. It will not come as a shock that it was your Hannah Montana 3 cd. They also saw your movie on a Daddy Daughter Date. My husband loved it too. We plan to set up a reward chart so they can earn a copy of the movie.

Currently we are big fans, but I am concerned about the future. My girls are 5 and 7. They are still little girls. I want them to be able to see you on TV and know that I don’t have to worry to much about our standards, especially in dress, clashing with yours. I was disappointed in the outfit I saw you wear at the Teen Music Choice Awards. I only saw 2 minutes of the show, when you sang Party in the USA. I was so glad that they were in bed and not watching with me. I do not want to try to explain why we can all see your bra on TV. I object to your shorts length as well, but that is something I struggle with daily and will struggle with for many years to come. On another note, the pole might have been there for your safety, it really put the wrong spin on the song for me.

I respect the fact that you are growing up and want to break free of your current image and little kid fan base, but have some care how you do it. I would hate to see you do what other teen rock stars have done before you. Please remember that your marketing and publicity crew has made you the hero and icon for some very young children, and the mothers of those children want them to stay that way as long as they can. We heard about your concert tour, and my girls would love to go. Last week, I was considering finding a way to work it into the budget. Now, I am not eager to try and save up for tickets because I don’t want to worry about your wardrobe choices at the concert.

I wish you all the best.
Sincerely,

Heather Pilz

Little League

2009-08-10T19:56:00.003-04:00

Today we signed the girls up for tee-ball and softball. We Officially joined Little League. Yikes. But I am actually excited for the girls. We were at a friend's house Saturday and she was catching up a storm and slamming the ball across the yard. Sydney on the other hand spent her time in the hammock and picking flowers. But since Em was doing it, she wanted in too.

Microwave s'mores

2009-07-22T19:15:00.004-04:00

I just made the yummiest microwave s'more for a snack. Here is what I did.

I got 1 Graham cracker, 1 marshmallow, and 2 tsps of dark chocolate chips. I placed the chips on the bottom cracker on a plate and zapped it for 15 seconds. Then I put the marshmallow on top and ran it for another 10 seconds. Remove and add the top cracker and you have a perfectly melted but not too hot treat. I think it ended up being 135 calories.

Use your own eyes!

2009-07-20T13:21:00.004-04:00

So the girls were watching a few minutes of PBS kids while I made lunch. At various points they were prompted to point something out to the apparently clueless characters. This started to bother Sydney because whenever she was asked to help she said in a huffy voice "use your own eyes! You don't need me!" So funny!

Fiction versus non fiction

2009-07-12T17:40:00.002-04:00

I just spent 15 minutes trying to explain the movie industry to Emily. The sad part is that she still does not understand the concept. I don't know how else to try and get the actor not real person concept across. Is this normal or is it part of having Aspbergers?

Zucchini

2009-07-10T00:00:00.004-04:00

Almost everyone knows I hate Zucs and I would do almost anything to chuck them in the compost bin as a child. There were probably some perfectly fine zucs I deemed compostable. I do love zucchini bread and chocolate zucchini cake, but that is maybe not the healthiest option.

but....I ate some on Tuesday. Willingly too I might add. I made some wonderful zucchini pancakes. Not liking zucchini is a textural thing for me (Sorry Emily, you get it from me) and so shredded zucchini is totally different from yucky, slimy, squishy seedy chunks or slices. (sorry did my true feelings come out again?) They were totally a hit with the family too. Emily was the one protesting the most about eating them as she knows I don't like them, but she and Karl were both eyeing the last pancake at the end of dinner. She won.

Emily's Moves

2009-07-09T23:47:00.002-04:00

I took this the other day with my iPhone. This is classic Emily.

She was "about to" make her bed

2009-07-06T21:28:00.006-04:00

Sydney cracks me up. She makes the funniest faces and has a quick wit. On Saturday as we were driving to a party we passed a train construction site. Emily wanted to know how long it would take to finish. I pulled a line from a recent favorite movie of theirs and said in "6 to 9 months" ala Madagascar 2. Emily fell right into the script. "69 months??? That will take forever.". Then we went through explaining how many months it would be (6,7,8 or 9). Sydney got it though and played along using parts of the movie to play off Emily and us.

The downside is she also hams it up when you want a family picture. This was from the 4th of July. I just wanted a picture of all 3 kids. In every single picture she had some facial commentary she had to make. Josh thought it was great.

Tonight she told us as she was about to go to bed, that she was "about to make her bed". It was quite late and beds are suppossed to get made right away when the kids get up. Here is the "about to made" bed. It has been in this state for about a week.

So very proud

2009-06-22T20:57:00.003-04:00

Emily actually swam the length of the pool all by herself without stopping and breathing appropriately the whole time. I was so proud. They are both in swimming lessons right now, and when I watch the lessons, I wonder sometimes if anything is sinking in. When she is swimming in the outdoor pool in "open" water she has a tendency to careen wildly all over the pool.She also stops often to get her breath or just touch the bottom. l was thrilled to see her going straight without stopping for a change. She made it down the pool using a kickboard which she gave to me on the return trip. She did crawl on the solo trip.

Updates from the Lighter side

2009-06-22T20:55:00.002-04:00

Good news, the line of shame from yesterday is hidden because today is Monday!! That was last week's line of shame:)

But as proof of my improvement, I opened the door to the fridge today before lunch and did not (as per my usual habit) wolf down a brownie prior to lunch. I simply turned my head and gathered my healthy lunch ingredients. Tonight, I did not wolf down a brownie when I wanted to scream in frustration at my kids. Instead, I walked away. I did eat one later when I was calmer, but I enjoyed it all up, and did not go for a second one, also a usual move.

Can it be I have found the source of all my weight woes? My own giant mouth!!! If I just get a handle on that, my problems are solved!

Things that should not need explaining

2009-06-22T10:01:00.004-04:00

I would never have thought to say "don't lick the water drops of the kale on display at the grocery store because you are thirsty".

If you get the urge to pee before your swimming lesson take the suit off in the bathroom first. If you don't ( and she didn't) at least shower first before getting back in the pool. There is just no way to get a suit in in 2 seconds which makes moms suspicious.

And a useful tip for getting rid of pesky door to door salesman...
Wait until you are getting annoyed from saying no politely, then have your daughter run up to you at the door and inform you that "there is a problem with the toilet and it won't flush." Guaranteed to get of almost anyone.

The shame of it all

2009-06-21T19:47:00.004-04:00

I started tracking what I eat with an application on my iPhone called Loseit! It is really neat. I told it what I want to lose total and how much I want to lose each week an it gave me a calorie budget. I have only been doing it for three days, but so far I have stayed under the line. It was never by much but it was there.

Today I went over the line and not just a toe over either. I dove right line and kept right on going. There it was on the log a clear line of shame. This is probably why I usually stop my food journals in the past. I hate admitting what I have really done. I am going to try and learn from this and press on. I will just have to look at that awful red line and keep plugging stuff in my log. But just to be sure I am going to go look up the average caloric values of a few things just in case it was wrong ....hah it was wrong. I tweaked it and feel a little better but I should mention I am unpleasantly full right now.

Zip ties, spit, and duct tape

2009-06-21T00:05:00.004-04:00

For the past two years we have had a small 2 drawer cabinet thingy in a box in our bathroom. At first I really thought we would put it in right away so we could use it as drawer space since we had a big empty box cabinet. We even took it out of the box and tried it out, but it was made for kitchens and did not fit over the lip in our bathroom cabinet, so we put it away in the box and it has sat there since then. Mostly it was used as a magazine and book holder. Really classy huh! Tonight we installed it. Shock, gasp, wheeze!

Of course it still did not fit so Karl came to the rescue. It was worse than I thought when we looked at it 2 years ago. With the tracks mounted flush on the cabinet floor, the bottom drawer would not open and the door would not close properly. With nothing more than 2 spare strips of wood and twisty ties he was able to figure out a slightly more feasible solution. Since the back of the drawer hit the sink, he simply trimmed that part with a hack saw. Since that is just coated metal wire it was easy to do. Then when I questioned him about the two pieces that are suppossed to be joined with bolts, but were now sitting side by side to let the drawer in, I suggested welding ( he doesn't own any equipment).

We went to Plan B, twisty ties. They held it together for the fitting stage. I had to admit his pack rat tendcies were handy then. But seriously who else saves those things? When he mentioned something stronger would needed to hold it permanently and I said " what like zip ties" he got excited. Apparently submarines use them a lot for all sort of fun things and they really are strong. His exact words were "A quarter of the sub is held together with those things. "

So zip ties it was. We only found 4. We have more but can't seem to locate them. The board split so it is still using twists. This is why you pre-drill folks. When we find the rest, we will "upgrade" it. So my drawer unit may not be pretty but it is in! Yahoo! The pack rats win this round! If Karl did not collect his random bits of stuff, it would have been hard to get it all together.

Now I just have to sort through the stuff that I kept in their before and make it easier to use. I started with my makeup bin and was shocked to see makeup I bought in college. That is some old makeup! It went right into the trash.

Minwax is my enemy

2009-06-14T20:47:00.004-04:00

Staining a desk is tricky business. Before Karl left for Florida and his reunion, he was wondering why we went with the make it yourself option. he was even questioning our sanity. At the time, I thought silly Karl, This is better. While I still think it is "better" I am defintely annoyed with my project. Which brings me back to my title of the post. Why is Miniwax my enemy you ask? I have been working on the desk all weekend. It is completed and in place and looking very desk-like. It isn't however useful yet. All my office stuff is scattered about the corner of the room and josh's room. Poor baby.

If you decide to stain something, you will probably go to Lowes or Homers, and you will probably pick up a can of MinWax. It is available in a variety of lovely shades. If you buy a can of stain, you will probably want to apply it and finish your project right away. That is your big mistake. Be sure to totally disregard the drying time on the can (4 to 6 hours) hah! 4 to 6 hours my left toenail! What a load of hooey! Of course, you will be sure to wipe off the excess stain after you brush it on. If however you forget that little step like I did you will brush on the very thin coat, in all but a few spots that you just didn't realize were to thick, and you will wait for it to dry. and wait. And Wait. 24 hours after the first application I realized the sticky spots were not getting any less sticky. So, trusty Google helped me out. Wipe after applying. ooops! I forgot the on the first go round. They will just never dry. too bad. Now what. Google to the resuce.

I have 2 choice, strip it down with mineral sprits or apply another coat of stain and wipe off the excess. I went with that option 2. the second coat loosens the first and you can wipe the excess then. But since they don't really tell you at what point you should wipe, I went with after I finished the desk. My rag stuck to the desk. Yuck. Fuzz on my lovely desk. So, then after 4 hours I wiped again with mineral spirits hoping it would be dry in another two so I could sneak in a coat before bed. Denied! I have 2 coats of stain on the desk right now and after yesterdays wipe down it finally seems to be sticky spot free. Yeah!

I am going to go upstairs and apply a coat of polyurethane to the desk to make it more durable. I have to do two of those. I am hoping that the time on that can is accurate. (Again with the 4-6 hours drying time. where do they get these numbers? Sure in an air conditioned perfect ly dry workshop it might work. In a normal home, in the summer, not so much) But then there is the 24 hour curing time before use. UGH! So best case, it is late Tuesday before my computer and any other desk things are seated in their proper place.

More Cleaning, Sorting, and Decluttering

2009-06-07T22:17:00.003-04:00

We are still working to declutter the house as we work with my friend on her Staging course. She has come 4 times so far, and worked with me about 6 hours each time. We have donated & gotten rid of lots of stuff. We started on the office, and that is still in progress, but is stalled until the desk is in the office. We also worked on the dining room and Living room and kitchen. We need to tackle Josh's room, my room, the closet, and finish the office. We are not doing the girl's room at this time. She does not want to make them cry when she suggest parting with some toys! I don't blame her. I did that 2 months ago, and it was pretty bad.

This weekend our homework was to make a new L shaped desk for the office. We are part of the way there. It sounded so simple in theory, but as usual, the reality is much slower. Or it is if we are the construction crew. We have all the parts now, and the 2 long pieces are glued together. And lying in the living room. We had thought about a making laminate desk, or using some premade countertop or some countertop from ikea. But in the end, we went with Birch plywood and regular plywood that we are gluing together to be one thick board and adding trim on the ends. It will be attached to the wall with cleats, and supported by our existing file cabinets. We are going to stain it a dark mahogany. We are also going to paint out lovely red file cabinets another color. Probably Chocolate brown. I hope it looks good!

It took Karl awhile to get on board with the idea, but I think he is pretty excited now. Karl and I are trading sides of the room. I get more space, but I sew, scrapbook, and use a computer so I "need" more space. I did offer to share my sewing machine though. In reality I had three desk in here already, so I am just giving up the one, and moving all my desk space to one wall. My drafting table is too cool to part with, so it is moving to the home of the sewing machine. I will still scrapbook there.

We had started clearing the room yesterday so we would have room to build the desk in here and the loose stuff went into Josh's room. Today when Emily was getting ready for bed, she looked in here and said, "Wow, That is a really clean office guys!" The floor was clean, the desk surfaces were clean. It looks pretty good in here right now. Josh's room is a little cluttered, but hey, we can fix that soon!

I am also going to try to recover my office chairs since Emily decorated them with Sharpie other unknown things when she was 2, and they have never looked the same since. I will also make a pleated skirt for the desk. That will keep it looking very tidy, and allow some smaller storage areas underneath the desks. (ie. Karl's collection of computer towers, my project basket, trash cans and such).

It has been hard going through books and such to get rid of. I love books. I have book like Little House on the Prairie that I got when I was around 8. It is an old and cherished friend. You can't give those away. And then there is my Tintin comic book collection. I love those! I can't give those up either. I did decided to share my Calvin & Hobbes Collection with Emily. I retained reading rights, and she promised to take good care of them. She said she want to keep them and give them to her kids. I did not think that was a great idea, but let it slide right then. She is a little concerned because Calvin is a naughty little guy, but since Hobbes is a Tiger, what is there not to love?? I might even let her read of a few of my treasured favorites next year.

Since our wall of books is a little intimidating to potential home buyers, I put some books up in the closet on a shelf to lessen then initial impact. They won't be seen, but they are not in the trash or donated. Maybe at some point I will be able to part with them, but not now. I was also crushed to see that a textbook from college is currently worth $.01 on Amazon. I got it for $50. The current edition is $95. Note to Self-sell upon finishing the course. I thinking about taking a bunch of books to a used book store. I would get a trade in amount for them only, not cash.

I think Karl thinks I am nuts for worrying about future buyers so much, but he mentioned tonight that we could move somewhere as soon as 6 months from now. We just don't know. Also, when am I ever going to have someone willing to give up her time to help me sort through my things. It really helps if she holds the things and I evaluate them instead of touching them myself. If I don't hold it it doesn't seem so bad to part with it.

Karl did a little dumpster diving and rescued a few things I had gotten rid of. I think he does not trust me.

Funny rescues-He resuced some sheets of beeswax-he thought they were noskid mats he could use in the garage. he he! It gets pretty hot in there. He would have nicely waxed shelving. I got rid of them again since they were not able to be turned into candles anymore. they were all creased and mangled from 5 years of storage.

Yesterday he rescued (for the second time mind you) an empty scrapbooking tape dispenser. I was shocked. I tried explaining to him, that sometimes a thing is just trash. I could not figure out how an empty tape refill would be useful. (We were taking about when to donate when to chuck) he was going on about how you could still use it by unrolling the paper. Finally I told him, look, there is nothing there, it is an EMPTY tape dispenser. (the paper had torn off the wheel at the end) He said, oh really. What is that white stuff? I explained that it was the wax paper separating the tape layers. Finally he saw the light and chucked it for the last time.

On the other hand he did rescue a crossstich kit I started 4 years ago, and I have to admit, I felt bad later about that one and wished I had donated it instead, so I was grateful to see that again. and he gave the girls a pad of paper that I had chucked. That was good too.

New Bike, New Hairdos, New Projects

2009-05-31T23:09:00.005-04:00

So this morning Sydney asked me if I would be willing to braid her hair before church. Since I had the unfortunate chance to get up at 6:30 and stay awake, I had plenty of time to braid. So we checked out the SheDoeshair blog and found a neat pattern for a crisscross braid. So she sat patiently and let me do the most complicated hair style I have ever done. Amazingly enough she kept it in all day. She also ended up sleeping in it too, so we will see how it looks in the morning. Emily also got the same hairstyle but hers came out tonight.

This weekend we also decided to get a new bike for Emily. She has definitely outgrown her other one even though she has not really mastered riding yet. On the upside, she is so in love with her new bike, it may help her get over her fears of riding. It is shiny, purple and Hannah Montana. Yeah for Hannah Montana.

This last week I started working on a organization project with a friend of mine. She is taking a class on Professional Staging. One of her assignments is to declutter a home. Mine definitely qualifies. So we started in on the worst room in the house, the office. We hauled the the stuff out on the right side of the room, sorting it into baskets, we took down my sewing desk and drafting table, and set up an ebay basket, and and trash pile, and a donate pile. The trash pile ended up filing one of our large trash cans. The donate pile was not much smaller. It was hard going through and getting rid of many things. however when I thought about having things for 8-10 years for a project, and I still had not done anything with them at all. I figured it was time to unload. Karl is not excited about the unloading part. I was concerned about our home looking overstuffed to prospective renters. I also want to have the Place for Everything and Everything in it place. Since we are not moving into a 4000sq ft home any time soon, I better figure a way to make my stuff fit in our existing one.

So far we are about a third of the way through the office. I did not get as much done without her help over the weekend. I still have some homework left to finish before she comes tomorrow! The plan is to make an l shaped desk, swap sides of the room for the two of us, and have all my craft supplies in the closet so everything on my desks at least are cleared and put away when I am not working on them. Karl is getting excited about the desk but he was disappointed when I asked him not to put 5 monitors on his part of the desk.

Memorial Day Weekend

2009-05-26T08:55:00.003-04:00

We got to spend a day and a half with April this weekend and celebrate her birthday and have fun with the family. The girls were so excited to be there for her birthday. They each made her a card which were very cute. Caleb was happy to see everyone too. We went for walks, went to the pool, and had a picnic on the playground. Josh really enjoyed playing peak-a-boo with Matthew too. He was also such a good sport in the car. And of course, the girls howled when it was time to go home. I love that they get so happy to see family it crushes them when it is time to leave, but it also is just so hard t know what to do with the tears.

We tried to get Josh to practice crawling on the carpet while we were there, and while it worked better than on the floors at home, he wasn't too happy to be on his tummy. I think he tends to gag and have more reflux on his stomach, because while he drools a lot all the time, when he is on his tummy he actually spits up. That is about the only time he does that.

I have been taking pictures of April and Caleb in front of there house almost every time I come to visit, but this time when we tried, we discovered how much harder it is to get a toddler involved in the picture taking process. His only desire was to get rid of me, and run over to Emily & Sydney. He did not want to sit on April's lap and smile. Such a shame. We had such a nice series going. My best shots are going up on Flickr though.

We had to cut the visit a little shorter than initially planned and come home Sunday night. I was just called to be the Activities chairman at church, and I had my first big activity on Monday. I had planned to skip it, but as the weekend approached, I felt really unprepared and decided to be here to make sure it ran smoothly. I am so glad I did because there were so many things i did not think of that needed to happen. Like bringing trash bags. Nope, didn't cross my mind. Luckily it crossed Karl's mind. Also, if you cook hot dogs, bring something to use on the grill. Tablecloths are also really nice to have. I also got too much food, but everyone really seemed to have fun, so I think that overall it was a big success.

Teeth

2009-05-25T08:56:00.002-04:00

So, unlike 4 months ago when I thought Josh was teething, (that was an epstein pearl) he is finally teething. I can see and feel them now. Poor little guy. It definitely is bothering him. He is getting both bottom teeth at once.

Funny kids

2009-05-23T19:59:00.003-04:00

I looked at Emily crabwalking across the floor with her feet up on eight lbs weights and thought, that is just so odd.
She asked me "Is this the coolest thing?"
I said " gee Emily, it is kind of strange."
"I'm not strange!" she said.
"ok, how about oddly peculiar?" I asked.
She thought a minute and said " yup that's what I am!"
And she kept on crab walking across the floor.

Little Black Rain Cloud

2009-04-22T08:49:00.002-04:00

So, the past week has been one of those laugh about it later type weeks. So for the future amusement of myself, and the current amusement of anyone reading here goes.

Monday-I decide to got to the local consignment store to get some things for Josh. It is slightly out of the way, but hey, it will be fun. They are closed and only Open Tues through Friday. No biggie. I go home to get other things done, and decide to go Tuesday with my friend.

Tuesday, Josh has a short nap, so we went to the Gym, I go have lunch with a friend, and he lost it in the mall. He was screeching during lunch, and managed to dump a full glass of cold ice water into my lap with one of those lightening fast bay movements. At least he did not get my lunch in my lap. He has done that before! So I cut it short, and headed home. A short nap later, he was up and cranky. I headed out to the consignment shop again (did I mention it is not totally convenient to get there?) They were closed. Reason: an unscheduled trip to get a friend at the airport they won't be back until the next day. grrr.

So We went home and went to Chuck-E-Cheese for a school fundraiser that night. I ducked out with my friend (leaving Karl with all the girls) to go to the mall and pick up my conditioner since it was on sale, I had a coupon, and I get double rewards points on Tuesdays. Of course I did not remember where in the mall it was and went the opposite direction. When we got to the store, there was a sign up. They had just gone on break. Had I gone the other way, it would still have been open. I was so frustrated. I felt like a little jinks was parked on my shoulder!

Josh fell asleep in the car on the way back to get Karl and the girls. But once they finally got to the car, he was up again. Something about his sister singing as loudly as she could woke him up. What got me was that it surprised her he could not sleep through that! So I ran back into the mall again and got my conditioner on the way home. But what a pain!

I did make it to the consignment shop later, maybe Wednesday. They had some wonderful clothes for Josh. They no longer sell toys because of the law that was passed recently about lead in toys. It is a shame since most of my kid toys came from consignment shops. But maybe it will keep me from picking up toys and having too much junk at home this time?

I did find a wonderful yard sale that was (gasp) selling used toys and got a few things to help Josh work on crawling and sitting. He still hates tummy time and is not that close to crawling, but he just loves to sit and to stand & jump.

Oh and the big blue ball I was planning to use to help work on his core blew away from my shed in a storm. It could not be helped since the roof blew away too. Oh well.

There were a few other frustrating things that happened, but I started this post a month ago, then had to stop writing it. So it must not have been that bad after all!

Spring Break

2009-04-18T13:25:00.003-04:00

Two week ago was Spring break for the kids. We started out the week with Easter Sunday. we had dyed some eggs the day before, but those never go in the hunt! I am always afraid of the spoilage factor and the girls get up way too early for my taste.

They had a wonderful time hunting their eggs and scooping them up. I loved to see them help on another hunt, and play hot & cold for some of the harder to find eggs. Josh was just a spectators this year :) After church I grabbed josh from Karl, Like always, loaded up the kids in the van, and drove home like always. Karl has meetings in the morning and drives himself. I got home and noticed the car in the driveway and wondered how Karl could possibly have gotten home before me. Then it hit me. We drove together this Sunday since he had no meetings. Woops! Luckily he realized there was a problem (25 minutes late) and there were still friends in the building who live nearby so he got a ride home.

We tried getting a shot of all the kids dressed up looking adorable but Sydney was having a temper tantrum moment, so she was unable to come out & join the other 2. This is Josh's first tie, and I thought it was wonderful. Emily really likes her new dress and has worn it again. Of course it can't actually touch anything on her skin, but hey, it is progress in my book.

On Monday I went to visit April & Gary for 2 days. We hit the pool and had a great time with family. Then we came home for a OT (Occupational Therapy) Evaluation for Emily. They think she needs some sensory therapy to help her get over her skin issues. I totally agree! I got a brush and I am responsible for brushing her 3 times a day to help desensitize her skin.

She also might have a mild case (is that even the right word?) of Aspberger's Syndrome which is on the high end of Autism spectrum. She had that test right before Spring Break. We are headed to the doctor today to get the results of the test. I would like someone to help me understand how her brain works and how to get her to handle the little ups and downs in life that throw her for such awful curve balls.

Lost but not Found

2009-03-25T08:44:00.003-04:00

Yesterday while eating French Toast, Emily lost her extremely loose front tooth. It has been wiggly since September, but hanging on by a thread since February. I had tried to convince her to let me give it a good tug, but there was no interest there. Yesterday morning, she took a big bite, and the tooth came out, but not before she swallowed her bite no knowing what had happened. She was crushed to lose the tooth.

Literal Humor

2009-03-21T10:54:00.002-04:00

We were having a late & lazy breakfast this morning. Karl had Josh in his lap in the recliner, and so I delivered his plate of Monkey bread. Sydney's little ear perked up and she was so excited about eating breakfast. I told her "There is a plate in the kitchen with your name on it". She ran into the kitchen and picked up the plate and called out" Mom, this doesn't have my name on it." So I got to explain the word figure of speech to her. But she got her monkey bread and was a happy camper.

Right now she is working with Emily on a 54 piece 3d tiger puzzle. Amazingly enough there has been almost no fighting. Josh is snoozing and Karl is off renting an aerator.

We are going to attempt to make the lawn look a little nicer this year. Right now as a corner lot, we have the worst lawn at our intersection. And we are sitting next to a major line of shame as our neighbors have a beautiful lawn. He is not thrilled I called to find out the actual price to rent the thing. He pushed it off this morning by saying "Do you know how much that will cost??" So I called & found out! He he. He suggested that I take a shot at the machine. I'm going to use the roto-tiller though so I don't feel too bad about signing him up for yard work.

Green Eggs are Gross

2009-03-19T15:22:00.002-04:00

I don't recommend trying to make them. The Oatmeal didn't bother me, but the eggs did. I took the whites & yolks & separated them, colored the whites then added them together & cooked them. It looked weird. In the book they are white whites and green yolks. This was just wrong. But the kids though it was cool. Karl not so much!

On another note, Josh finally figured out how to roll over! Yeah! I was getting worried since he wasn't trying to do it, but he has got it down now! Yeah Josh!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

2009-03-17T12:40:00.002-04:00

I made oatmeal for breakfast, but in honor of of today, I made it green! Emily saw it in the pot, recoiled and said what is that?? She was totally grossed out! Sydney at it happily, but Emily was a hard sell. Finally I convinced her to try it and she scarfed it down. I though it was a great idea. When she was getting ready to go, she asked why I made it and I said I had been thinking about green eggs and ham instead of oatmeal. She declared that was gross, but then asked for it for dinner! Of course I have no idea for to actually make green eggs.

Josh is 6 months old and Emily is 7!

2009-03-15T21:13:00.003-04:00

What a weekend. Emily had her birthday party on Friday. She had a great day. She has basically been counting down from her last birthday. She had hoped for an Alvin and the Chipmunks themed party, but we ended up with Hello Kitty instead. Since is was actually Friday the 13th this year we had a PJ, Pizza, Popcorn Movie Party. I thought most kids would not be able to make it, but almost everyone could come so it was a little wild here! All the kids seemed to get bored with the movie half way through, but we finished it anyway with minor interruptions to eat pizza, and frost cookies. Then we had cake & opened presents. Josh was done about that point, so Karl took over and helped Emily not completely get the greedy gimmies! After the presents were opened, we had 30 more minutes before parents showed up so we got out the Disney Dance Dance Revolution and that was a huge hit! Emily & I practiced last weekend over and over until we actually got her to able to play a whole song straight through. She was so proud of being able to complete a song and then did it 4 more times by herself. Emily really enjoyed her presents and had a hard time going to bed at 9 after all her friends had left. We tried to get her to properly thank her guests and say goodnight, but it was hit & miss! With one boy, she barely even thanked him before she rushed back into the DDR fray!
Pictures will be coming soon!

Sydney has been asking me to cut her hair for the last few weeks. Finally this week I caved. She cries almost every time brush her hair and never lets me do anything fun with it. What is the fun of a girl with long lovely hair if she doesn't let her mommy play with it! So unfair! So I took her on Thursday and she got about 4 inches taken off. It is a cute little bob. She likes it better. We didn't get it as short as she wanted it, but that seems to be ok now. It isn't as tangly anymore although it still gets in her food.

I did get to put rollers in Emily's hair last Sunday that she slept in. It made her hair absolutely adorable & bouncy. She loved it. We tried again on Thursday, but it was not as effective without the slightly damp post bath hair. We also awakened the inner phone diva in Emily. She got to talk to my Mom on the phone. Normally Emily gets a little useless on the phone. She doesn't put her ear up to the phone and prefers the speaker phone. She did use speaker phone this time, but actually held it to her ear and talked for a good 25 minutes to mom. Karl and I were amazed. We think she actually had her longest conversation. Either that or it was the longest monologue on record. Thanks Mom for your patience!!!

Question about food bill

2009-03-15T21:11:00.003-04:00

Does anyone know anything about the Food Safety and Modernization Bill? HR 875? I got an email about it and trying to find something in plain English that explains this. I can't tell if it will affect organic farming, backyard gardening, or what. It seems like there are lots of post against it on blogs. If anyone has any insight, I'd appreciate an education.

It's a Snow Day!

2009-03-02T22:08:00.002-05:00

We actually got something other than rain this weekend. In a shocking twist of fate we got a snow day this year and we actually had snow on the snow day! It wasn't much, but the girls had a blast and licked snow off the ground, the bush, the car, and out of the air. Gross, but lots of fun if you are say 6 or 4. They threw snow at one another, and looked at their footprints and even thought about making snow angels.

As Karl and I were driving around town looking at the pretty snowfall and the lovely frosted trees and roofs. It made us nostalgic for Connecticut. But we decided we were not quite nostalgic enough to go back to the frosty temperatures for so much of the time. We were thinking maybe Northern Virginia instead!

Weekly Excitement

2009-03-01T21:50:00.004-05:00

Going in no particular order...

I got a haircut and love it.
It has rained for 48 hours and the yard is squishy.
We started composting-so far no master system is in place, and that is also squishy.Thank goodness for the garden and the rain!
Size 2 diapers are no longer a good fit for Josh. We know this because they leaked and were also very squishy and gross.
Sydney learned to wiggle her eyebrows to add interest to her speech. It is incredibly funny.
We discovered a new pacifier that Josh likes. It is the Soothie kind.
Karl signed up for his first masters class yesterday! yeah!!!
Gremlins came into the house and made a mess of my nice tidy craft desk.

Living with Felines

2009-02-28T20:09:00.004-05:00

I have somewhat unusual cats. They prefer to not eat out of plastic. They like cold filtered water, and appreciate the finer dining options. When pressed or generally unimpressed with their options they are willing to get takeout however. About two weeks ago we bought a different kind of kibble. (Strike 1) They were not thrilled. We also served a different variety of their normal wet cat food. (Strike 2) They got take out.

I was in the kitchen when a heard an odd thump on the door and heard scurrying sliding cat feet. I looked away from the stove and saw a little grey bird fluttering around on the floor and getting picked up by Abby. I ran over, scolded her and tried to catch the bird. The bird was thrilled to be out of the cats mouth, but was not as eager to be in my hands. It flew down the hall before I could convince it that it really wanted to go back to the kitchen and out the now open glass door.

I went out a bought their regular kibble that afternoon. No more takeout orders have been placed since then.

However, the other night while nursing Josh, Carrie hopped up onto my lap. Karl commented on the kitty snuggle time and wondered where Abby was. I jokingly suggested checking the closed closet. He opened the door and called her name, and sure enough she had gotten locked inside the closet. This happens to her at least once a week. Does she not care or is it that she falls asleep inside the nice dark closet and only worries about it when she wakes up. Who knows!

Solid Food and Puffed Apple Pancake

2009-02-15T20:12:00.005-05:00

We are feeding Josh some solid food now because he just seems hungry! He also like watching us eat now, and so far he likes everything he has tried. (Apple, Brown rice cereal, potato, & sweet potatoes) For just starting to eat semi solid food (basically soft mush at this point) he is grasping the concept really well. He really enjoyed his rice cereal and apple mush tonight.He was even opening his mouth for the spoon and sort of lunging for it. It was cute, but messy. And I didn't have the camera handy. The high chair is not out of the attic yet, but hopefully that can happen tomorrow! So far he has eaten while sitting in our laps, and in the baby bjorn. I am hoping that by eating solid food, he will go back to sleeping trough the night. It has not happened again since the one recorded posting. He has been waking up once or twice, even 4 times in the last 2 weeks. Yuck.

I cleared off my craft table about 3 weeks ago so I could work at it and just did Josh's first scrapbook page. It was lots of fun to get back into it. As Karl was looking through my book last night, he commented on the jump from December 07 to September 08, but what can you do. So I missed a year. I was working on 07 in 08, so now I will work & catch up on last year.

We are thinking about trying to teach the kids Spanish. If anyone has any good suggestions let us know! Sydney's preschool teacher suggested it for her, and we think it is a great idea. Sydney is a little sponge and just soaks up new material. If she hears a song only once or twice, she can sing it back later in the day and get the gist of the song. It amazes me.

Emily is a puzzle. At some times she is an incredible helper, with Josh, with odd jobs, etc, and at other times, she is overwhelmed by simple things like her socks. Lately her special seamless socks have been too itchy for her to wear. I don't know where else to get soft socks since I am buying the softest ones I have ever found. Pants that were perfect just a few weeks ago are also no longer ok for her either. Argh. She holds everything together at school, but when she gets home the littlest things upset her and she just dissolves into tears. It is rough. She is also starting to have lots of loose teeth. Right now she is missing one and looks like 4 more are getting ready to fall out.

Karl and I are trying to figure out what to do with the next few years. Wish us luck! San Diego has job offers, and perfect weather, but it is really far away from the majority of family members. We saw a house for was really lovely up for foreclosure, and Karl was thinking if we end up staying here is Suffolk, he wants to unload our house and live in a different one. We never planned to live her for very long and now we know a few more things about house layouts that we like & that we dislike. Someday I would love to design and build a house that is just for us, and has all the charm of a really old house, but all the features of a new one. That day is pretty far away though.

I made a puffed Apple pancake tonight. My mom used to make it when I was a kid. I thought I followed her recipe, but it did not turn out the way I remember it tasting. I'm not sure what I did wrong though. I remembered a higher fluffier puff in hers. Think popover meets apple pie. It was more cooked apple filling meets egg-y cooked dough. No really impressive air in the thing.

So, my other plan this week is (after reading an article saying that good sleep habits aid in weight loss) to turn in around 10:30 every night. We'll see how I do! Good night!

Emily lost a tooth

2009-02-04T08:49:00.002-05:00

After only 6 month of wiggling, the front tooth is finally out!.

He did it!!!

2009-02-04T08:46:00.003-05:00

Yahoo! Josh slept all the way through the night by himself in his crib! Yeah!!!! And he found his thumb. He is still a fan of the other 8 fingers, but mastered thumbsucking alone. Right now he is sampling my thumb bone. Apparently it is also tasty.

The very late family Newsletter for 2008

2009-01-28T08:22:00.005-05:00

Happy Chinese New Year,
This past year has brought lots of changes to our family. Most notably, we had a baby boy in September. I’d like to blame the lateness of this letter on the baby, but it isn’t really all that fair to him. We still live in Suffolk, Virginia, and have really settled in here. We have done some traveling to see family this year. We went to Fairfax, VA, Ithaca, Rochester, and Syracuse, New York; Ayer, Massachusetts, and New Haven, Connecticut. Karl also made it to Hawaii, San Diego, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Denver on business and to see his nieces get married. Although we are far away from most of the family, it was fun to spend a lot of time this year with our closest family members, Heather’s sister and her family.

Emily & Sydney absolutely love school! Emily finished Kindergarten in June and began 1st grade in September. She loves her teachers, loves reading and art, and is enjoying being 6. She is also a wonderful helper with her baby brother. Sydney is in preschool this year. She is as creative as ever, and as feisty as ever! She is a big hit with her teachers at school & at church. She makes it easy to forget she is only 4. They absolutely adore tigers. They like to dress up like them, to draw them and to collect all kinds of tigers.

Both girls were expecting a baby who was more like their cousin Caleb (who is almost 2) who moved & talked, than like an actual newborn baby, so it is only as Josh gets a little older that they are realizing he really is a baby too, not just a bundle in Mom's lap. They are excited to teach him things, and love making him smile. Josh is a wonderful happy little fellow. We love how his smile lights up his face and it is so great to have in our family at last.

Karl and I are struggling with the challenges of life, but hoping we are meeting them well more days than not! Karl has a heavy work load, and a lot of stress at work. He is also dealing with some recent medical issues, like diabetes, which we hope can be turned around with diet and exercise! Sadly it will mean less candy and raw brownie batter!

The kids and the house keep me busy, but I enjoy getting the one on one time just with Josh. I took some time off from my regular design work this year and focused on more creative pursuits like scrapbooking, stamping, and photography. I still love to read and will fall into a book any chance I get! I have made many good friends here and enjoy the time we have spent in this area.

We don't know where we will be next year, but hope it will go as well as this past year has gone for us. We hope this year has started well for you, and wish you all the best in these uncertain times.

With love,
The Pilz Family

I am proud of me!

2009-01-27T21:49:00.002-05:00

I actually got a lot done today. This was the kids first day at school for a full day in 5 days! We had a lack of snow day and 4 half days. It was really amazing when 2pm rolled around to see what I had accomplished. what I am most proud of is that I have a clear craft desk! Yeah! Now I can get back into my scrapbooking and stamping! Yeah haw!

Phrases taken out of context

2009-01-23T20:25:00.002-05:00

If you just heard this..."Emily, I can balance my poo on your feet." You might be alarmed, repulsed, or confused. Never fear, this was said in reference to Winnie the Pooh, who was perched on top of Emily's feet. But hey, it made us laugh.

Snow Day

2009-01-20T22:18:00.003-05:00

School was cancelled today for snow. Odd thing was the snow (a 1-5" snowfall) never came. Thankfully the YMCA was open and we were able to get there and blow off a little steam. We heard all weekend that we had a Winter Storm warning in affect. We saw a few flurries today but that was it. North Carolina got lucky though:)

Doctor Day

2009-01-15T22:12:00.002-05:00

Josh is 17lbs 3oz and 26.5 inches. He is healthy but not actually cutting a tooth. The white spot is an epstein pearl. He is teething though. Yeah me! I tried to get him in his crib tonight, but was not successful as of yet. He is sleeping in my bed right now. Sigh!

Sydney on the other hand is not healthy. She got a double whammy strep & UTI. Poor kiddo! No school for her today or tomorrow. They are not sure what kind of UTI it is, so they are culturing the bacteria over the weekend. Oddly enough she is not complaining about feeling sick, but she is just low energy, and not really hungry. She isn't even that whiney. I have never had one, so I have never had one, so I did not know that it feels like it is burning you when you go to the bathroom. I think she has had more than one of these, but I didn't know it. She has complained about "hot pee" before. Now I know! She isn't even really complaining about it either. But she has a 103.5 fever, so it is definitely not ok in her body.

Just need to rant for a moment

2009-01-15T08:27:00.004-05:00

OK, does anyone else know about the lead free Consumer Act going into place on Feb 10th? Toys, clothing, anything market for children under 13 and made here in the US must be tested for lead. This means at the manufacturing level and on the second hand level-By ebay, thrift, & consignment stores! I found out about it by accident on craigslist, and it just shocked me that our government thought this was a great idea. By all means let's make it harder for families to buy inexpensive things for the children.

This is a article from a political talk show, but I think it nicely covers the common sense side of things. I emailed my congressperson, but since it has already been passed, the only thing I think people can do it make enough of a fuss that we can make get it interpreted better, or possibly junked. Bottom line, buy any second hand items before this law takes effect, because those store may go out of business next month.

Glenn Beck Link

But if you feel so inclined, read more and contact your congressperson too!

Primary Quote

2009-01-11T20:48:00.002-05:00

This wasn't my child, but I was teaching sharing time today and we were talking about the War in Heaven. When I asked who was fighting, one little boy replied "The French". It was just so funny!

Emily this afternoon for snack was assembling apple slices, coating them with peanut butter and rolling them in goldfish. People eat apples & cheese, and apples and Peanut butter, but this takes that combo to a whole new level.