mixed up

I hate posting pictures on blogger... did I tell you that already? I think I did. Maybe it's just my computer, but it's incredibly difficult to position the pictures in order when you load more than one. You have to do it backwards, first of all. Or actually, I have to do it backwards. It can't possibly be this difficult for everyone. If it was, why would so many people use blogger?

Anyway. Moving on. I'm going to put up a few pictures from last month when the kids painted. We're going to cut silhouettes of animals out of the colored paper. Actually, we started, I just never finished because of my awful tendency to jump from project to project before completing the first one. I'm sure by now my kids have no faith in me... Also, my kids are kinda crazy, but Nathan looks pretty normal here.

Also I wanted to make a list of the names our kids have suggested for the baby girl due in July...

Nathan's: Gusto, (He's suggested at least two others. I'll update this when I find the notes I wrote on the grocery list... which hopefully didn't get thrown away)

Rylie's: Buzz, Alice Wonderland

Valentine's Day

As retold by...

This is the story of how Nephi went back to Jerusalem and got the brass plates, as retold by Rylie, then Nathan. I did try and correct any mistakes they made along the way so they wouldn't dwindle in unbelief, but I thought their versions were pretty funny. Anything not in parentheses is a direct quote or directly paraphrased.

Rylie:

(holding up picture of angry mob): We're going to kill you!

Not long after, Zoram came.

(Then she holds Laban up to the city of Jerusalem): Hello? Is anybody in there?

Not long after, Nephi said to the Angel: (indecipherable murmuring)

(End scene, because Rylie ran off.)

Nathan:

Well, everybody was going to kill Lehi. So they went to the wilderness. Then, Laman took his nephews, Lame-uel (his exact pronunciation) and Nephi back to Jerusalem to get the plates. Laman went to see Laban.

(Laman:) "Can we please have the plates?"

(Laban:) "Guards!! Guards!!"

(Laman:) "Ahhhh!"

Then, Laban liked alcohol, and he was drunk. I don't know why he liked alcohol, but because he got drunk, he died. Nephi took his clothes.

(Nephi:) "Zoram, can I have the plates?"

Zoram went with Nephi.

(Zoram:) "Ahhhh!"

Then Zoram went with them and they took the plates back to the wilderness.

(Sariah:) "Yaaaaay!"

Help...

I need some advice from my family and anyone else who happens to read this and wants to chime in...

I like to decorate my home when I can afford to do what I like. The thing is, not only do I have budgetary constraints like so many, I also have destructive children. Billions of people have kids, so I know I can't be the only one with kids who like to break stuff, but are the ones who decorate their homes the only ones with children who behave properly? Is there anyone out there who has somehow found the secret to making their home look nice while somehow keeping their darling offspring from ripping things off the walls or breaking them into tiny pieces?

My mom had cool things on the wall and kept curtains or blinds in the windows and I don't recall tearing them down or ever doing something like cutting up my dad's furry llama wall hanging with scissors. (Oh dear... I had a sudden thrill of dread for our trip to California in March... Guys, I swear I'll watch them like hawks for 24 hours every day!) So either my siblings and I were just that well-behaved or I was just too young to retain any memories of ripping curtains and their rails out of the windows.

Anyway, here are some pictures of Nathan and Rylie's bedroom. I really want to fix up the kids' room. Part of me (the delusional part?) feels that if I make it look nicer, maybe the kids will finally take some pride in their belongings and the belongings of others and have some respect for property. That even if they don't actually learn to take care of their things yet, that perhaps they might at least learn to leave them alone...

Below you can see there is nothing on the walls or the window. Rylie and Nathan both did their share of pulling on the window shade I made a while ago, but a few nights ago a couple tugs from Rylie were the straw that broke the camel's back.

Next, you can see where the bookcase used to be. Both the kids kept taking the shelves off, stuffing toys into the back and leaning on the back so it would pull the nails out, then in a fit of rage one day, Nathan somehow managed to pull the bookcase out from the wall, when it had been secured at the top. True, it hadn't been secured to a stud. Otherwise I'd seriously look into getting him a cape or something. Anyway, now it's in the loft, propped up against the spare bed. (Oh, and the scribbles on the wall, but that's run-of-the-mill kid's stuff, right?)

This next pictures shows where the last pictures on the wall that Nathan had left alone for so long used to be. They were the baseball ones Jared drew in high school (I can't find a picture of them, but I think most of you know what they look like), were taken off the wall and used as slides (there was no glass in the frames, just plastic, the kids are okay). The frames are shattered, but fortunately the drawings are still intact. We took out Nathan's dresser since they had climbed on it to get the pictures and also because I was getting a little frustrated with Rylie taking all his clothes out (funny story, one day she decided she was sick of diapers so she put a bunch of his underwear on...).

So, an empty room, with no light cover so we can easily unscrew the lightbulbs at night (they rattle around in their room for over an hour on an average night anyway, but if we let them turn on the lights, it's a lot longer).

I'm also worried about when the baby comes, because then their toys will probably have to go back in their room and I can't see them ever going to sleep in that situation. What is now their playroom is going to be the baby's room in several months (oh yeah, I haven't announced it on the blog because everyone who reads it probably knows, but I'm pregnant). Unless I move all the bookcases from the loft back to Jared's and my bedroom, in which case the loft could be a play area. While that would somehow make our big bedroom pretty crowded, it is a tempting thought.

So... decorating their room (nothing fancy, it is their room, after all, just a curtain for the window and maybe a few cheap, smaller Ikea frames for the kids' artwork, something to cover their lightbulbs a little bit but still make it easy to unscrew the bulbs)... you know, the ones with plastic, not glass, of course!): worth the effort? A waste of time and money? What do you think?

It runs in the family

Jared and his mom have a lot of weird and funny banter when they play Aggravation. So when they started ad-libbing lyrics to the song "Do You Hear What I Hear", I had to write it down for posterity.

Jared and Barb, singing together: Do you see what I see? (What I see?)

Jared: Little tiny men in the air... can you hear them screaming? (Them screaming?)

Barb: A song, a song, way up in the sky, let us bring them pudding and pie...

Singing together, (retardando): Let us bring - them - pudding - and - piiiiiiiie!!!

play-doh

The kids got play-doh for Christmas and they love playing with it, of course. My mom played with them one day and she enjoyed making freaky looking faces and trying to scare the kids with it.

Later, after my mom had returned to California, Rylie tried to copy my mom.

And here's a snowman Nathan made.

when he grows up

On the way to my grandparents' house on New Year's Day, Nathan spent the entire car ride talking about what he wanted when he grew up. There's a lot of information and I can't remember all the exact things he said so I'll just put everything into lists.

Cars:

-a red crazy car with crazy things sticking out of it (no more details were given)

-a white whistle car for going to work

-a big black car because he will have two kids

At this point I asked him who he'd be married to and he said Rylie. I tried to explain a little bit why that could not be but he sort of lost interest and moved on to features his house would have.

House:

-stairs

-rooms

-beds (if it's a brown one he will like it, if it's black he won't)

-a crazy room with a crazy bunkbed (what makes it crazy? a bunch of sticks sticking out of it that you can climb up but they don't really stick out, for some reason)

-a regular (non-crazy) room for Rylie so she won't get scared

-the food he will have: cocoa petals (pebbles), fruit loops and apple jacks

-lots of windows with snowflakes on them

-doorknobs

-doors

-an angel on the roof

Garden:

-grass on top of the dirt, but some dirt left open so he can have flowers

-flowers he will eat (he said these flowers have flavors and you can eat them):

-strawberries

-grapes

-corn

-apples

-cucumbers

-raspberries

-tomatoes

-etc.

-flowers that you don't eat, in blue, pink and red

-Lots of trees

-signs: red for stop, green for go, yellow for slowing down, white for turning in circles and blue for turning corners

-a mailbox with his mail in it that no one can read

-at Christmas there will be big lights (not the tiny ones we have now), lots of snow and he will build snowmen.