R-E-S-P-E-C-T

We keep waiting for our new camera before we post anything new. It should be here in the next 5-8 days (fingers crossed). But this was too goofy to let pass without posting.

Tonight at dinner we were having peas, pasta, jello, etc, etc. We encourage healthy diets by requiring that all parts of the meal be eaten before people start in on seconds. Otherwise, we could probably get by with nothing but Jello and breadsticks.

So Jane is trying to eat her peas and not making much progress. So after a minute or two of working on the peas she blurts out ...

"The peas awe not wespected me. They keep moving all ovew the pwate."

We are happy to report that she got them in line and she is now eligible for some dessert.

Happy Father's Day!

Today at lunch (grilled sandwiches, chips, Ceaser salad, raspberry pretzel jello--Ryan's favorites), I asked the kids to share some things about their dad. In honor of Father's Day, I thought I'd pass them on. These are the questions I asked:

1. What is something your dad does better than most dads?

2. What is your favorite story your dad tell?

3. What is your favorite memory with dad?

Jane:

1.) Dad helps me and works with me. (Very true, Ryan is committed to working with the kids instead of everyone working seperately).

2. "The Skateboard One" (Ryan proceeded to re-tell his story of his neighborhood skateboard club).
3. When we got your shirt and shorts for you. (Ryan was not present, of course, at the buying of his Father's Day presents, by apparently it's Jane's favorite memory.)

Gabe:

1. "Build things, sing silly songs and clean." (Anyone who knows Ryan, knows this is also very true.)

2. "The Pocketknife story." (A boy, his dad's pocketknife lost and a prayer. Funny and faith inspiring.)

3. "All the times he plays Star Wars Legos with me." (Video games+ dad, what more could a boy want?)

Emma:

1. "A little tiny bit crazy and plays a lot." (Very lucky kids, to have a dad who makes them laugh so hard.)

2. "When you grabbed another mom's hand at the mall."

3. "When we went on a date to Red Robin and ate that ice cream thing and walked around at the mall, because we talked a lot." (We're sure Emma will love doing this when she's 13, as well.)

Jessica:

1. "He listens to the Spirit and follows It's direction as he tries to be a good dad."

2. "The story when you paid Greg to fall flat on his face three times in front of the same table at Denny's." (Make him tell you this story sometime.)

3. "When we went camping at Bear Lake 2 Memorial Days ago."

Seth was sleeping, but we're sure he would have had great things to add.

Happy Father's Day to Ryan (the best dad around) and to Jeff Romney and Mike Sherrill. We are a lucky family to be surrounded by such great and loving men!

McDonalds Addict

Quick Quote #3

10:45am -- Seth had a great idea for lunch: "adonalds, Mom?"

Seth goes to McDonalds every Friday with Jane and Mom so that Mom can play with her friends. He loves McDonalds and apparently couldn't wait until Friday last week.

Cutting your hair ...

While helping the girls clean their room during Saturday a.m. jobs, Jane was sorting through some random pictures. She came across this one and the following conversation ensued:

Jane: "What da heck!?! What hapened to mom's haiw?"

Ryan: (Not seeing the picture she is looking at) "What? do you mean"

Jane: "hew haiw is showt"

Ryan: (realizing she is talking about a photo) "oh it was short because she cut her hair"

Jane: (remembering getting busted for cutting her own hair) "wu you mad at hew?"

Technical Difficulties ...

Unfortunately I came home to Jane crying in her room because she had been busted for breaking a few rules that we have instituted over the past few months:

(... 1st day owning our camera) The camera is not a toy ... do not play with the camera.

(... 2nd day owning our camera) You are never, for any reason whatsoever to touch the camera.

(... last day of owning our camera) Please don't take the camera when mom is not looking and go outside to snap pictures of your friends playing tetherball and then throw the camera down in the gravel/dirt area where the tetherball pole is and then forget about the camera leaving the poor little guy for dead.

Okay so maybe we hadn't verbalized that last rule, but we thought it was inferred. So we need to replace our 3 month old camera before we can post anymore photos. We were hoping to get feedback from you guys on what camera's (brand & model) you have and how you feel about them. Our cannon a540 never seemed to take pictures quite as sharp as other cameras, so we are looking for feedback on how you have liked your cameras.

Spotlight on Gabe (6.75 years old)

I told Gabe to come inside, so we could do a little spotlight on him for the blog. (We were feeling like we'd neglected him thus far.) And this what he said, "So you're going to get the camera and take a picture of me doing a wicked dance?!" What is that?! Although he is quite the dancer (trust me on this one), we thought we'd settle with a little Q&A.

Mom: What is the best thing about your life?

Gabe: "That I get to play Star Wars Legos II."

Mom: What is the worst chore you have to do?

Gabe: "Can I do choreS? The not worst things are set the table, do the car (empty it of the days accumulations--ed. note), do the garage stuff, dishwasher, wipe the bathroom. And all the rest are the worst jobs: clear the table, do the house (pick it up before dinner--ed.note), laundry. "

Mom: What are you excited to do this summer?

Gabe: "Play outside and do my birthday."

Mom: Why do you like to dance so much?

Gabe: "Because everybody says it's cool and it's funny and I just like to rock out."

Mom: What're the best songs to rock out to?

Gabe: "Oh, Emma's song (the kids each have theme songs), it goes 'duh do do do, duh do do' ("Time of your life" by Green Day). And ''ooh, ooh, ee ooh" (Gwen Stefani, Sweet Escape).

Mom: What do you like about each of your silbings?

Gabe: "That Seth's cute, Jane's funny and Emma helps me, let's just say."

Gabe: "Mom, how about we just do 6 cause I'm 6?"

Mom: "Okay."

Bessert

We were eating cinnamon rolls (with lots of frosting) and quiche for a brunch after church. (It was delicious, by the way) and Jane says "Hey, dis is wike bessert." (Hey, this is like dessert). Which made me realize exactly how many calories I was eating, and how, when my kids have early-onset diabetes, they'll know exactly where to point the finger.

Wunch

(you'll probably recognize this as our previous Quick Quote, but because we don't want to lose this bit of family history, we'll be moving it to the post area when we replace it with something new...see Jane's wisdom at right)

"Wunch, mama, wunch" (lunch, mama, lunch) what Seth says when he wakes up in the morning and wants some breakfast.

The famous Liberty Lake yard sales

Every year, early in June, our little town of 7000 has the hugest yard sale ever. People come from hours a way. I've heard of it, and I think when we lived here before I went once. But it gets bigger year apparently and with good reason. I have never seen so much good stuff at house after house. There were approximately 250 "garages" participating. People were everywhere. There were cars lining every spot on the streets that weren't driveways. We tried to get some pictures to capture it? We couldn't quite.

Anyway, Emma has been wanting rollerblades and Gabe has been wanting a bike where he didn't hit his chin with his knees when he rode. We've been encouraging them to save their money so they could take advantage of this special event! =) So we were up early and went on our special mission. We were so excited that Emma found rollerblades and pads for $6 and Gabe found his (handbrakes only--yikes!) bike for $10. They had plenty of left over money to buy candy and soda from their entrepreneurial cousins who had a little refreshment stand on their street. Jane just stole licorice and a mini Butterfingers. (She had a hard time understanding about paying Austin and Mallory for the treats). Emma and Gabe rode around all afternoon and I (previously not a big fan of garage sales--too much time for not much worthwhile stuff) am pledging regular attendance at the June yard sales from now on. --Jessica

Boyfwend ...

Jane had a turbulent on-again, off-again relationship with a boy in our ward. She would come home and tell us "Wiw (Will) says he's not gonna be my boyfwend" or "Wiw and me awe getting mawied." Of course Will liked to wrestle/rough-house more than Jane cared to and he didn't seem to realize that Jane was seriously busy picking colors for the wedding. So I ignored the budding romance for a while, but when the drama continued for more than a month, I decided to change my approach.

I began to tell Jane that she couldn't be Will's girlfriend because she was my girlfriend. For the first week or so she would laugh and correct me "no dad! Wiw is my boyfwend." But soon I began making some headway and she finally latched onto the idea (... funny how girls can be so much like their mothers sometimes). So this seemed to alleviate the tension with Will's apparent fickle heart. However, it also introduced some unexpected problems. First off, all the discussion of girlfriends and boyfriends began to get Jane a bit muddled. And the terms "boyfwend" and "gillfwend" began to pop up in the most unexpected places. "No Emma ... dad is my gillfwend, not you gillfwend." I'll admit that the new title of "gillfwend" did feel a tad emasculating for me, but it provided hours of really enjoyable verbal tennis between Emma and Jane over whether I was a girlfriend or a boyfriend and whether I was Jane's or Emma's or Mom's or perhaps the boyfriend of some arbitrary subset of the three.

We also have been working on taking each of the kids out on what we call "dates." This is supposed to be a regular opportunity to spend some fun one-on-one time with each child individually. So one Saturday after I took Gabe out on a "date", Jane asked "Awe we going on our date tomowow?" I said "Yeah ... it's called church" ... so then she asks "will you kiss me on our date" and in an attempt to just finish off bedtime I said "sure." So then she asks "And you will not kiss mom while we awe at chuwch?" I still have no clue how to respond to that.

Anyway ... long story, a little less long ... We have evolved to the point where Jane, when she is feeling especially like being a gillfwend she will start shimmying her shoulders at me and looking at me with these half closed eyes and kind of a pouty little face. It is all kind of disturbing so I have told her not to do that, in fact I told her that when she looks like that at me she kind of scares me. So now she has started doing it to scare me and she tries to chase me around the house like that. So today when I came into the girls room to wake them up Jane immediately starts trying to scare me with her odd little "bedroom eyes." So I finally got it on camera. Honestly ... wouldn't it kind of scare you too?

Blankie substitute

I don't think we've had a kid quite as attached to her blankie as Jane (4, on the left). Dad couldn't find it when Jane went to bed (Mom found it an hour later) and so it looks like Jane needed some help falling asleep. I came upstairs and this is what I saw. How cute is the hand-holding?

Not for the narcoleptic ...

So here is our first posting. The main concern is that what passes for mundane in our house will be absolutely mind numbing to the rest of the world. However, for those sad souls who feel like life is passing them by, this will be a place of refuge. It stands as proof positive that in some small corner of the world there is a tangled gaggle of a family so waylayed by the minutia of everyday life that the world has completely left them in the wake. --Ryan

Oh, whatever. It will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me, that I think everything I have to say is fascinating. That's why I go on and on, while Ryan is nudging me in the side. Thanks for participating in one more mode of Jessica-expression. --Jessica