Friday, July 25, 2008

A Word

Our family is pretty chatty- and that is putting it mildly. You have heard that the standard male speaks 25,000 words a day and females 50,000. I'm pretty sure Andrew is way over the 50,000 and I don't want to even guess how many I have uttered by the time I hit the pillow at night. So it is no surprise that our kids talk... a lot. Air time is a precious commodity around here. Ainsley and Hudson didn't talk early, (as opposed to Heather's girls who were speaking full sentences with 4-syllable words by like 16 months :) ) but once they did talk, they have never stopped.

We might be in real trouble with Camden. He has started talking much earlier, and even more worrisome, much louder than the other two. He doesn't have tons of words, but his "thank-you" makes you want to keep giving him things over and over just to hear it. His "bye-bye" is so loud and intense that I worry our guests will have a "don't let the door hit you on the way out" complex.

Lately his language acquisition has slowed because he has discovered one word that he can use for a multitude of situations. So for your reading pleasure here are interpretations of the many different definitions of "no" we currently have in this house. (with more being added almost daily)

"No, No, No, No" - The traditional definition, only slightly more intense.

"Nooo..owieeeee..noooo...owieee...." - Someone has put my in my bed and I'm so mad about it I think I'm in physical pain.

Run in from another location, earnestly say"No No" then run off back to where a sibling is - Either my brother or sister is doing something I think is wrong and I'm tattling on them, come follow me. (If no one follows, repeat)

"Noo????" while holding an object - I like this, but I don't know if you will let me have it, do you see it?

"NOOOO!! (screeching) while frantically waving hand while sitting in high chair- there is something on the table that I want, your job is to touch everything on the table until you figure out what it is, sort of like playing "hot or cold."

"N-ooo" in a very satisfied way, coincides with calmly sitting back in high chair, and dropping frantically waving hand- you figured out what I wanted. Give it to me fast, or I will go back to the screeching.

"Nah-ooo" followed by laughter and running away- chase me!

"No, No" accompanied by wild hitting, stomping, and crying- tantruming about something that is not quite to my liking.

"NO NO" using the same tone and inflection that I do while pointing to something like the stove and nodding head up and down- I know that this is something I'm not to touch, aren't you proud of me? Say "good boy" because I'm doing a good job. I will keep saying it until you tell me I'm a good boy.

"No"- when asked if he wants something, but then when not given to him because the bearer wrongly assumes that his "no" actually means "no," when in fact this particular time "no" means "yes, I really want that" and so now I'm going to scream "NOOOO" over and over because he didn't get what he wanted.

I think the first Bible verse Camden should memorize will be Matthew 5:37- Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

something like that

We have had the opportunity to discuss backtalk with The Girl lately. Let's hope that we're able to be effective in dealing with this or stick around because this blog will get really interesting when she reaches the tween years. Maybe Hudson will learn some lessons from watching her, if only he understands them. Today he was in a time out for not obeying the first time. When I talked to him about it he said, "yeah, that was backwards talk right?" That made me think of this youtube video.

Of rice and (little) men.

Andrew was feeding the kids last night when I was tutoring. I came out briefly as they were eating and he told me that he had to make more of the orange chicken because Camden had eaten 12 pieces. He went on to explain the reason he had eaten so much chicken was because he wasn't giving him any rice to avoid the huge mess that would occur if Camden fed himself rice. After I was done tutoring I went out and Andrew, Ainsley, and Hudson were playing the game Operation. Camden was strangely absent. Sadly I didn't get a picture of where I found him... standing on a chair, feeding himself the rest of Hudson's rice and drinking out of his non-sippy cup. It would have been less of a mess if he had just dumped out the whole bowl on the floor. It was a good thought...

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Anything Goes! (except not dragons)

No, it is not our philosophy. It is the outdoor summer musical in Walla Walla that we went to Saturday night.

We took the kids (not Camden). And they loved it. It is a really neat outdoor amphitheater and it doesn't start until 8 so you get to watch the sun set and the stars come out. This is the third summer that Ainsley has been to the musical so we knew she would be great, Hudson hasn't been before, he was more of a gamble. He did go to the Strandberg kids performance of Pirates of Penzance this spring and thought it was so good that he wanted to go back again the next day, but he wanted it, "with just the pirates, not the pretty girls." So we hoped that he would sit okay through it. I was worried when we got there, he saw the stage that was shaped like the upper three decks of a ship and said, "which ladder are the pirates going to go down?"

Turns out he did great, stayed awake, and enjoyed the whole show. His best comment of the evening was right before intermission when he had to go to the bathroom. When we were walking out I asked him if he liked it. His response was, "Well, it's too bad there's not dragons in this show, I'd like it better if it had dragons."

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Happy 40th Anniversary

My parents were married July 28th, 1968. (FYI our anniversary is July 27th, and Tennille and Nathan's is July 29th, fun huh?) So that means they have been married for 40 years! We had a party on Friday night at their house to celebrate. It was up on the roof, and it was so fun and beautiful. We made a fun little slide show, but I can't get it to load on YouTube, so your eyes are going to be spared the adventure of seeing some great family pictures from the 70's and 80's. (at least until I can get it to load.)

Here they are 40 years ago:


And here they are the night of the party up on the roof:

It was such a great setting for a party:

The kids loved the party. It was open house style, so they would freak out every time someone new came and they saw them from above. They would run around yelling, "We have a new customer!"

After about 45 minutes of their craziness, we put Camden to bed and the daddy's took Hudson, Zech, and Eleison swimming. This provided the people up on the roof more entertainment to look down and see. At a nice safe distance from splashes (three stories up is just far enough that Hudson can't get you wet.) Being the little party girl that she is, Ainsley stayed and didn't go downstairs to swim.

It was very fun. Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad. Thanks for being such a great example of wonderful marriage.

Friday, July 11, 2008

NOT a favorite moment.

There was major excitement in Milton-Freewater last night. Andrew looked our my parents kitchen window just in time to watch a guy in a big truck with a trailer back into our van. Not only did he hit it, he pushed it down the road three feet. He didn't even realize he had hit it. Turns out there was a reason why. I have never been totally on board with owning a mini-van, but I don't want it hit!

Andrew yells, "Some guy is hitting our van!!!" and goes running outside, quickly followed by all the rest of us (fortunately all the kids were in bed.) The guy had stopped up the road a little and I went running up to him yelling, "You just hit my car!" He says, "yeah, he's out looking." Meaning his passenger. So as everyone is looking at the damage, the passanger comes out of the car with an open container of beer in his hand. Good move buddy. My dad called the police. While we were waiting for the officer to come the driver never got out, but the passenger went back to the car, got a cooler out of the car and tried to dart down an alley way to stash the cooler somewhere. Tennille yells at him to stop, then my dad calmly says, "sir, your not going anywhere with the cooler." The guy sets it down and walks back over to us. The driver finally comes out of the car and had a pretty significant smell about him. The funniest moment of the night is when the officer came and gave the driver a sobriety test, he tells him to take three steps heel to toe, they guy takes two, almost falls and then slurs as he says, "did you say three?" Then as he can't really take the third step says, "you know, it is really windy up here."
When the officer was taking him away in handcuffs we felt really bad for him. However, we also were relieved that he got caught now, just hitting a parked car without anyone in it. The officer told us that they estimate that they save a life for every 7 drunk drivers that they site. He said he estimates based on that he has saved 7 lives already this year alone. Yikes. The good news is the guy was driving his company's vehicle, so we shouldn't have trouble with insurance. The company is a winery. :)

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Favorite moment

Yesterday at breakfast (we are in Milton-Freewater with our family) we were eating blueberry muffins, and my 2 year old niece Eleison called them "birthday cake" over and over. I think birthday cake for breakfast is a great idea. Even when no one is having a birthday.

***No, I didn't abandon the blog, between fireworks, sick kids (are we not supposed to get a break from that during the summer?) and family fun there has been a serious lack of computer time around here.