Big Mouths, Big Ears

Ever since we discovered that Juarez, Mexico is the #1 murder capital of the world, we half jest that JJ is risking life and limb when he goes there for his work trips. Of course, we discovered this only after his first trip in which he forgot his map and drove all around the city asking for directions and acquiring many strange looks but thankfully no bullets. Since then each trip has been met with some trepidation and conversations joking about him coming back alive. While, I can't remember ever specifically talking to the kids about how dangerous Juarez is, it's become recently apparent how much they've been listening. When I got off the phone with JJ last night and told the kids he was on his way home, Elayna responded with glee “Oh yay, Daddy didn't die!” Then this morning, Jordan came into our room and asked JJ if he got shot.

Oh dear, we are such bad parents!

Deep Thoughts by Jordan

I realized Jordan has been a bit underrepresented in our blog so far. So I thought I would take the opportunity to write down some favorite quotes and conversations we've had recently. He is quite verbally inclined and I am often surprised at the thoughtful observations and questions he makes daily.

One Sunday I asked him to get his clothes on for church and he sighed dramatically and lamented,

“I wish today was Labor Day.”

(me) “ Labor Day?”

(Jordan) “Yeah, you know... like it's Sunday but,we don't have to go to church.”

He was definitely too young to grasp the irony of asking for a Labor Day for Sunday-- the day of rest from your labors.

The other day I was dishing out food for lunch and he said,

“Be sure and get me a vegetable with a tail on it.”

(me) “yeah sure honey, ( I thought he was being silly)

(Jordan) “You know why, Mom?”

(me) “No”

(Jordan) “You know, because... Veggie Tales”

I tried to explain it was a homophone, that it was actually spelled differently and meant stories about vegetables. To which he replied,

“Then why didn't they just call them Veggie Stories?”

(probably because they more preoccupied with linguistical flow rather than children visioning thier food with tails)

A couple days ago, we were driving in the car and he asked,

“Mom do small trees grow up to be Big Palm trees?”

to which I explained only if it started as a small palm tree, just like he wouldn't grow up to be Laney. Which must have led to a leap in logic about a recent discovery we learned and he said,

“Mom, you know how babies have lots more bones than grown-ups, where do they go? Do they just disappear and go to Jesus or something?”

I love this kid!

Spooktacular Slumber Party

Since Laney Turned 7 on 10-10-10

Here's three 10's Celebrating Elayna

10 things I love about Her

   Her Million Dollar Giggle

Can produce any “lost” object within a matter of seconds

Loves games-- (like me)

 Gets giddy about programming and soldering (like Daddy)

Transitions from tears to laughter instantaneously

A motherer

Enjoys sorting and matching socks

Only houses lucky thoughts

Understands not only how to take apart, but also reassemble

 Fills our home with sunshine and silliness everyday!

Her name has also provided us with a gold mine of nicknames, here are

10  Aliases for her

Laney

Lane

Fast Lane

Lane Brain

Brainy Laney

Laney Luck

Laniac

Zaney Laney

Laney Bug

Laney Lou

And Finally...

 This year Laney wanted a "Halloween Birthday." It turned out to be quite a convenient theme. I'm thinking, a Halloween Birthday every year sounds perfect. Seriously, with just some face paint, hair color, and spooky music, I probably could have had them count beans the whole time and they still would've had fun. 

  
 10 highlights from her party this last weekend...

1. Decorations

2.  The Birthday Girl

3.  The Family Room Web

I decided to try the spider web game. I played this once as a kid and loved it, and I've always wanted to try it. You wrap individual strings all around the room and each kids follows their own to a prize at the end. Turned out to be slightly laborious to make and untangle- but the kids had fun, I think it took them at least a half hour to untangle their string, but they all stuck with it.

(It was quite entertaining to watch them work through it, see video at end of the post) 

4.  Their Trick or Treat Bags

5.  Dancing To Ghost Busters

6. Opening presents...

 thanks for the gifts-- she loves them!

7.  Bacci Bean Bag Toss

I have a funny story about little Pumpkin Face

When I told them we were going to paint faces she said.

 "My mom already told me we would get our faces painted.

She knows everything,

the Past, Future and the Present."

 Appearantly she does!

8.  Black Bottom Cupcakes-- a life savor

because everyone knows I can't decorate a party cake to save my life!

 

We started the movie pretty late, so there were some casualties

Even the birthday girl passed out in the end

 

9.  The die hards Celebrating!

 

10.  Birthday Friends!

Thanks for Coming!

Here is a video of some of the party in action.

I just love the kids dancing-- their individual personalities are priceless!

Skeletons, Spiders, and Cobwebs Oh My!

I am ashamed to admit, I have been a pretty bad mom when it comes to decorating for the holidays. I like holidays, I really do, but I think I don't appreciate spending money on something that will spend 90 % of it's life packed in a box in the attic (never mind the boxes I have that spend 100% of their time packed away, I'll deal with that hypocrisy at another time).

Don't get me wrong, we have a Christmas tree and some decorations, probably far less than the average person. But as far as Halloween goes, it has been reduced to some pumpkin candles, placemats, and a couple of prizes we won at a ward Halloween party. I think last year I didn't even get out the 5 things we had. It could be because we were sick all that month, or it could be that Halloween tends to catch me by surprise here in Phoenix largely because it comes at a time of triple digits and when I still sweat making the bed.

But this year it finally hit home how much I have deprived my kids of some of the joys of the holidays when I saw how excited they got making Halloween decorations for their room. Isabel acted like I had just given her lifetime supply of chocolate merely because I sat down and helped her cut out letters that spelled "Happy Halloween".

This is how their room turned out...

The last straw however, was when I entered the girl's room and found Isabel spreading out fluff from pillow batting to try and make it into spiderweb. While I gave her snaps for creativity, I felt pretty pathetic and promised to take her to the store. I was no expert in Halloween décor, but was pretty sure a couple bucks would buy her more fake web than she would need, and look like web instead of spider clouds.

So come Monday, we were on a mission to liven up our house with symbols of death, abandonment, and neglect. We got some web- in TWO colors no less-, spiders, and some orange lights for the window. Then they batted those long eye lashes at me, and convinced me to buy a sound activated poster of a skeleton emerging from a haunted door with flashing red eyes. Hanging this on our front door has brought a whole new meaning to our door mat that says “Welcome Friends.”

Our Screaming Door

Video -- Enjoying the door

The Final Product

(It's still not much but it made them happy)

 

The kids had a blast and I thought to myself who knew hanging fake versions of nasty secretions I tend to avoid, 8 legged creatures I abhor, and an ominous greeter from one of my nightmares, could be so much fun. Halloween is such a strange holiday.

The Flying Walkie Talkie

A week ago from Wednesday, we had, what we refer to as the Flying Walkie Talkie incident. It all started when Laney and her friends tied plastic bags to the arms of her stuffed monkey and were "parachuting" him over the second story wall above our entry way. On the tragic final decent, a walkie talkie perched on the wall, was inadvertently knocked off with it and plummeted down as the  dangerous companion to "chatty" the monkey. Elayna looking up to soften the fall of her beloved Chatty, got more than she bargained for directly into her mouth. From my perspective all I saw was Chatty with it's parachutes hit Laney in the face, along with a "chink sound." The next thing I knew, Laney was holding her mouth wailing and blood was pouring out into her hand. As we rush into the bathroom I couldn't help but feel a little frustrated and confused at first, as I  thought "what the heck did they tie to that monkey?"  As I helped to rinse her mouth out, between gasping sobs, I heard something about a walkie talkie, and turned around to see it on the floor beside a mangled Chatty. Then I realized what happened. Suddenly the severity of the situation became clear and I remembered the "chink" sound. Her hand opened up to reveal a large piece of one of her teeth. I desparately tried to get her to open up long enough to determine which tooth it was, and my worst fears were confirmed. It was one of her front permanent teeth.

A myriad of thoughts flooded my brain. I saw her fat bloody lip, and imagined how it must have felt to catch a descending walkie talkie with one's teeth from 15 feet below-- poor little Laney. Then I thought about her busted smile, but quickly comforted myself that modern dentistry could fix anything and her beautiful smile would be restored. Then I remembered, we didn't have dental insurance and I thought "oh, **** this is going to be expensive!"

The bleeding subsided fairly quickly and her lip didn't look like it need stitches. Being after 5:00 pm I knew we weren't going to the dentist that night. We reviewed some online information and were reassured it was a fairly common break and quite fixable. Still, we mourned the fact this was a defining  moment in her eating habits. She would need to be careful the rest of her life.

As the trauma subsided and she perked up we reflected on how the stars aligned freakishly, turning  a potential bump on the head into a cosmetic job.

The combination of her lip and broken tooth made her look like we abused her and I have to admit I am grateful it wasn't the normal face hit the pavement story. Because when asked how it happened, the humor of the story deflected what might have been "Do I need to call CPS?" thoughts.

We had to be telling the truth, because honestly, who breaks their teeth from a flying walkie talkie?

That Fateful Night

I called around the next morning to some places with many good reviews and found a cosmetic denist reffered by a hygentist over the dentist she currently worked for. I took that as a good recommendation. They couldn't get her in for a week. By then her lip had healed, which I'm sure that made the office visit more comfortable for her.

Off to the Dentist

A little Nervous-- You and me Both, babe!

The Damages

After he talked about what he was going to do to fix it (basically shape the missing piece and bond it to the tooth), the hygentist came in with the invoice. I braced myself for the worst. I looked down at the price at the bottom and about died.... thankfully from relief.  $315!!!  She asked me if that was okay, and I casually said yes, resisting the urge to say "are you sure that's right? "  Inside I thought "oh hallelujah! Where do I sign?"

He did a great job, You can't even tell, and it looks and feels just like her other tooth!

 It's amazing what an hour and a few hundred dollars can get you! Her ancestors would have been at higher risk for survival thousands of years ago and here she is, smiling and laughing like nothing ever happened.

 Oh the joys of modern dentistry!

Pirate Birthday Part 2-- Man Overboard

Saturday night After dropping off Isabel's friends, we headed back to the Lake to spend part two of her birthday weekend together with Laney and Jordan.

It had been months since we'd been out as a  family and even longer since we'd  stayed overnight. Our last family experience, we spent the day as a "dead animal" on the lake with a broken motor and no wind. Even the birds were circling us.

 It was nice to be back, and the winds were great the next morning.

We coasted back by IHIA island 

just as the sun went down.

The Next Morning

JJ decided it was time to teach the kids

the "Man Over Board" drill.

Throwing the "Man" overboard

Isabel worked the sail lines

Keeping their eyes on the man

Rescue Complete- nice work

It took a couple times to smooth out the operation. The 3rd time I jumped in as the man. After the intial "deer in the headlights," they got to work!

One

Two

Three!

I was looking at this picture of their little feet hanging down, and realizing they aren't so little any more. When I carry them up to bed sometimes, I wonder how their legs got to be so long, it seems like they were babies yesterday. It's wonderful to watch them grow and realize how capable they are and what a help they can be. If we ever really do have a "man overboard," I know our little rescue team will be there.