Another "Claire-ism"

On Friday I watched my friend's little boy named Cameron. Claire called him "Camera" all day long! She said she couldn't say Cameron.

Miles and Miles

A couple weeks ago, I had Miles with me in Primary. It was right before Pioneer Day, so there was a special sharing time. Rachel McLelland was holding Miles up front while she talked to the kids about how pioneer children had to walk "miles and miles". When Miles thought she said his name, he grinned and clapped his hands. It was SO cute! Here is a short clip of Miles walking "miles and miles" with his shopping cart. He has been extremely possesive of it lately, and gets really upset if he gets stuck. I think he's cried more over the cart than he's cried the rest of his babyhood.

Two little monkeys, jumping off the bed . . .

A little side note, here: it's 11:15 P.M. as I post this, and Darren and Claire are still jumping off the bed! I swear, it's a party in Darren's room pretty much every night. Darren just called down to me that he was going to try to do a back flip. Great. That's just what we want.

Playroom Pics!

FINALLY! It's clean! I spent all afternoon cleaning upstairs today, and I also put two big boxes of toys in the attic. I'm going to rotate them out every couple of months with other toys. I'm guessing that Darren and Claire won't even notice they're gone, though! I love the playroom. It is where we spend most of our time, and I've had so much fun doing projects to make it look fun and cozy. Here are some of those projects:

I ordered the letters on EBAY, then painted them. Okay, so I realize they're not up there straight, but they are stuck on REALLY well and I don't want to take off the paint by fixing them! I also ordered the bookcases online. I thought they were going to be white, but they were beige, so I painted them to match.

Here's our chalkboard! It is a piece of wall board from Lowe's framed with molding, primed with a metallic primer, and painted with chalkboard paint. It is about 4X6 feet tall.


I have always loved the colorful kids furniture at Pottery Barn Kids, but it's really pricey. This is a dining set I bought at a garage sale for $60. It was stained oak. I had Jerry cut the legs shorter on the chairs and table so it would be more kid-friendly. Then I sanded, primed, and painted them.
My baskets were plain straw, so I also spray-painted them and added labels to keep everything organized.

Last but not least, I made these cute tie-up drapes and pillows! These were another imitation of Pottery Barn Kids, but way cheaper! I just love a good project!

Trip to the Fire Station

Ridgmar Mall Fiascos #1 and #2

At the Ridgmar Mall, January 2008

#1: We love the Ridgmar Mall. It is about 20 minutes from our house, and in theory, should be a great place to take kids because it has a really fun indoor playground right next to The Children's Place, the Pretzel Place, and Haagen Daaz. So, about six months ago, I decided to take all three kids there in hopes of passing a few hours until Jerry got home.

At this time, Claire was just potty-training and Darren was still going - um - #2 - in his underwear for some reason. We left the house in high spirits and then the van started smelling like you-know-what. So we spent the first half hour at the mall in the bathroom. By that time, everyone was hungry, so we decided to get pretzels. After eating, I turned to throw the trash away and Darren asked if he could go play. Since it was right there, I said yes. Less than a minute later, I walked up to the entrance of the playground with Miles, and didn't see Darren or Claire, but I thought maybe they were in one of the tunnels.

After several minutes I started walking around, calling their names, but couldn't find them. I started running through the mall calling their names and quickly came upon Darren, who was looking for leftover candy in the row of candy machines. I asked him where Claire was, and he said he didn't know. As I called out her name, a couple of girls coming from Dillard's asked if I was looking for Claire. They had seen her wandering around and taken her to security. I picked her up, we left immediately, got stuck in traffic for an hour, and I vowed that we would never go there again!

#2: Fast forward to last Tuesday: Darren and Claire asked me if we could go to the Ridgmar Mall, so I decided to give it another shot. They needed some new school clothes, anyway. I gave them a big lecture about staying with me at all times, going to the bathroom before we left, etc. We got there and as I was putting Miles into his stroller, I heard Claire say, "Oh, Crap! (!!!I don't know where she got that!) I don't have any shoes in the car!" UUGGHH!!! I put her in the stroller and carried Miles all the way to Old Navy and bought her some flip-flops. At least they were cheap. Then we did a little shopping, had a pretzel, and played.

The afternoon ended with a security guard telling me Darren was pushing a girl down the slide (Darren said it was part of their game, and she wanted him to.) We left after that. The kids said they had a great time. Maybe in another six months I'll be brave enough to try again. Unfortunately, by that time, Darren will probably be too tall for the playground!

Funny Sayings

Claire has been a great talker for a couple years now, but still can't say certain consonants, like "g."
Here are a couple funny things she says:
"Brone-up" (grown-up), "Brink" (drink), "Preat" (treat), and "Hannah Batanna" - she loves her, or at least her clothes anyway! Up until recently she called my parents "Frama and Bampa." That's all I can think of right now.

Picture of the Day

Jerry and Michalann + 10

Hey, Jon and Kate have nothing on us! Last night was our turn to babysit in our babysitting Co-op. We had 10 kids, counting ours, from 5:00 until 9:00. It was a little intense, but the kids were great and played well. We walked down to the park where the boys immediately found a crab hole near the water. They also found some very large animal prints - this caused a lot of excitement, as you can imagine. Now that our turn is over, I'm looking forward to three Saturdays in a row of dates with Jerry! And I'm also looking forward to a clean house. This week was so crazy. Besides the big brunch on Thursday, I had my primary class over on Friday for an end-of-summer party. I didn't have time to clean upstairs where all the toys are before they came, but I figured they would mess it up anyway. It was a little embarrassing when one of the kids said something like, "Wow! This is a really messy playroom!" That's when I KNEW it was bad!!!

Project Pictures

I finally finished up some projects that have been on my list for a long time. Here are some pictures of the guest room, which I painted. I moved the bed and hung some stuff on the walls. I also spray-painted the bookcase black to go with the bed. One day I might make some curtains. IF I get the playroom cleaned up tomorrow, I'll also post some pictures of the chalkboard, curtains, and baskets that we've finished.

Sorry, this is the only "before" picture I have. This is from when Darren and Claire cleaned up the playroom by moving all their stuff into the guest room.

After!

Isn't this bookcase pretty? Seriously, I love spray paint - it's so easy!
See the candle sconces that I installed BY MYSELF, WITH A DRILL. Aren't you impressed?!

Silly Kids!

We had a potluck brunch at my house today. As usual, there were about a million kids here, and as you can see, they found the costume box! (They also found the puzzle box, but I nipped that one in the bud!)

The bride (Myla) was too scared of Darth Vader and Batman to be in the first picture.

Apparently, Darren found my camera and took more pictures of his friends.

Renee

(Darren)

Gavin

Carter

Felicia and Olivia

Miles

Parker

Savanna

To all my friends who came today: Thank you! Y'all made my day!

Random Cuteness

This is the life!

Miles, Gavin, Renee, Claire, Darren, and Carter
at NRH2O

Sometimes it's pretty fun to be a stay at home mom! I thought that having the kids home all summer would be hard, but it has turned out to be really fun. I am finding that the smaller I keep my to-do list, and the fewer obligations and places we have to go during the day, the more relaxed I am, and the more I enjoy being a mom. I am going to keep that in mind once school starts! On that note, I have decided to not teach piano lessons anymore. This summer we have spent many lazy days at the pool with friends. Darren can swim several feet underwater now. Claire is still petrified of deep water, but loves to pretend she is Ariel, and will swim and put her whole face underwater in the shallow end. Miles chills in his float and works on his tan. On Thursday, the Sheppard's invited us to go to the water park with them. Everyone had a great time on the lazy river, going down the slides, walking across the logs, and sitting in the wave pool! I would have taken more pictures, but holding a baby and camera in the water is pretty tricky. Thanks for inviting us, Tiffany!

Darren and Claire cleaned their rooms today! Note all the little decorative touches from Darren:

the bears nesting on the windowsill . . .

books on display next to his favorite folded blankies . . .

there's my old trophy . . .

they even made their beds!
I wish our house always looked this nice, but it's certainly a start. I'm so proud of them!

Nicknames

Me: I think we should call Miles "Mr. Smiles" because he's so happy.

Darren: I know! When he's sad, we'll call him "Mr. Cry-els!"

Claire: NO!!! "Mr. Piles!"

The Giver

This is the book we're talking about at my book club tonight. I think it is commonly read in school, but for some reason I had never read it. If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend it.

Amazon gives a good summary of the plot:

In a world with no poverty, no crime, no sickness and no unemployment, and where every family is happy, 12-year-old Jonas is chosen to be the community's Receiver of Memories. Under the tutelage of the Elders and an old man known as the Giver, he discovers the disturbing truth about his utopian world and struggles against the weight of its hypocrisy. Lowry examines the idea that people might freely choose to give up their humanity in order to create a more stable society. Gradually Jonas learns just how costly this ordered and pain-free society can be, and boldly decides he cannot pay the price.

I found The Giver quite disturbing. It made me think a lot about our free agency, and what it would be like if we didn't have any. Also, it made me really sad because there was a sweet little baby in the book that reminded me of Miles. Check it out!