6710 Grand

I love New Years.  I didn't realize how much really until a few years ago.  It's fun to have a fresh start--to clean out the old and simplify.  Tomorrow, everything starts over.  At least that's how it normally is.  This year, I have to wait for February for that.  I can't spend the day tomorrow putting away Christmas decor (I can't reach most of it and I can't lift the heavy bins we store it in) and hauling trash away.  I can't start a new exercise regime and I can't change up my diet.  So, this year I'm delaying New Years until April when (I hope) I have enough energy to start fresh!

It just might be the cutest thing she's ever said.  I took the girls shopping at the mall this afternoon.  After a week of Christmas vacation we were all feeling a little cooped up.  My parents sent the girls shopping money as a gift which meant I didn't have to say "no" to every silly thing they wanted to buy, which is always nice.  I can be the best mom ever for a little while.  We started with lunch.  It's never as much fun without Nick but we made the best of it.  To Macy's, their favorite store, after that.  No trip to the mall is complete without Starbucks, so that was next on our list.  I'm thrilled that they can make my favorite drinks in decaf and if they're not crazy busy, they're happy to accommodate my requests for blended chocolate milk with whip for the girls.  After we ordered our drinks and knowing it would be a few minutes (and OK, I'm 33 weeks pregnant) we sat at one of the tables.  Bebo climbed up into one of the very h

Linus is a strange cat.  We "rescued" him and his sister, Lucy, in 2011 when we lived in Phoenix.  Someone left them and two others in a pet carrier outside of our daycare.  In July.  With no food our water.  They weren't the friendliest of cats to say the least.  Fortunately, one of the moms worked for a veterinarian and she took them all with her to the office and had the doc look them over.  They were just kittens.  Severely malnourished, full of parasites and rather aggressive, they weren't exactly adoptable right away.  But the vet agreed to sterilize them, get them back to health and adopt them out.  We happily told them we would take any that were left--however many that happened to be.  Two of the four were taken rather quickly.  The other two took much longer to warm up to people but seemed to be much calmer when they were with each other.  We brought them home and turned them loose in our house.  They quickly found places to hide and we saw very little of

I love a good quotable movie.  We have so many as a family that regularly get quoted.  Even some that the girls have never seen but they've heard Nick or me say often enough become part of their regular cadre of phrases.  A perfect example is from the "best worst movie ever", The Room .  I have seen this movie only once and once is quite enough.  If you've seen it, you're familiar with the phrase "You're tearing me apart Lisa!".  If you haven't seen it, don't bother.  It's like The Rocky Horror Picture Show --just, why? Anyway, as children do, mine are constantly asking questions.  Most of them completely irrelevant to just about anything.  I get so tired of the questions.  We developed a way for me to say that I've had enough questions without them feeling like I was brushing their concerns aside.  After all, sometimes that questions were relevant.  I had simply run out of patience.  So, we agreed that when I'd had enough, I

I had an ultrasound today...again.  This is the joy of being an old mom.  I get to have these lovely things every month.  They're telling me that this kiddo is already above the 90th percentile and at about 5lbs 11oz.  That's at 33 weeks.  Add another 3.5 pounds to that and that's more than a 9lb baby!  Yikes! It has me more than a little worried.  I really don't want  c-section.  I know, they're practically routine.  But my genetic mutation that increases risks of blood clots weighs heavily on my mind.  I already can't breathe or sleep right.  He's only getting bigger. Of course, there's nothing I can do about it but pass the time.  Still.  I'm much more nervous than I want to be.

I miss commercials.  Not what's in  them, just that they're there .  I need that 3 minute break.  Let's face it--at 32 weeks pregnant, I'm heading for the bathroom every fifteen minutes.  But even three minutes isn't enough.  It takes me that long to get out of the chair I'm in.  What I need is for everything I watch to have a good bathroom song.  With all of these sappy Christmas movies we're watching, I've had to introduce my kids to the concept of the bathroom song.  I have my dad to thank for this--he's the one who coined the phrase.  It's the song nobody likes that you let run through while everyone gets up to use the bathroom.  Every musical has one too.  We recently watched Seven Brides for Seven Brothers --"When You're in Love" is the perfect bathroom song.  Last week we watched The Muppet Christmas Carol .  "The Love is Gone" was the perfect bathroom song.  But just as I was getting ready to identify it, IT WA

I'm sad to say that this is possibly the last year that Iris will believe in Santa.  She's 10.  It's time.  But it's still sad.  Most of the time I think her head knows what her heart is hoping isn't true.  As an adult, there are certainly ways I know and fully believe in the magic of Santa.  Stories of selfless generosity and ordinary people doing extraordinary things.  Our own holiday giving to strangers and going out of our ways to make someone's day, all in the name of Christmas--these are the Santa Tracking ways Santa is kept real.  You never know who you might be playing Santa to in an everyday gesture or kindness. For us, that all goes back to Jesus.  And we don't need Christmas for that.  It's easier, sure.  It feels more natural.  People are more likely to just say thank you and accept a gift than at other times of the year.  It is these things for which I choose to believe in Santa--and I hope they are why Iris (and Ivy) continue to beli

Am I a bad person?  I don't know.  Maybe I am.  I'll let you decide...not that it changes anything.  I have a musical family.  My dad (the coolest dad ever) is a drummer.  My little brother Andrew plays piano (and so do I, though not very well).  Little sister sings and plays the guitar.  Come to think of it, Andrew plays the guitar too.  Music was a big deal growing up.  Dad always had CD's on his birthday/Christmas/father's day list.  We would listen to various things (usually in the car because he insisted my mom wouldn't let him listen in the house) and he'd ask me why I couldn't play like "that".  My own kids have taken a liking to various things as well.  Ivy plays the violin and the piano.  Iris plays the piano, the cello and a snare drum.  They come by it honestly--Nick's family is musical too.  Because the girls both play a string instrument through school they have practice both before and during the school day--partly to prepare

I love Amazon.  Who doesn't these days!  While I fully respect the in-store retail experience (having done that for 7 years during high school and college) nothing beats the convenience of on-line shopping.  As a busy working mom, it is SO great to be able to order that whatever it is the kids need.  Or when my hairdryer blew out and I had NO time to get to Target that day.  Maternity clothes, sugar-free coffee syrup, replacement bowls for the ones I just dropped and broke--Amazon has it all.  Christmas shopping?  Wow!  SO much easier now.  No crowds.  No shopping around.  No parking and with a Prime account, no shipping costs!  They've taken away just about every excuse.  But there is a downside--at least for us.  And honestly, it's not really a downside.  Just something to navigate. Being hours (and sometimes days) away from our families makes Christmas shopping and shipping easier for us and our wonderful families.  We ship to them and they ship to us.  The challenge c

I am so done with this whole pregnant thing.  I know, I know--still 9 weeks to go.  But really by the fourth kiddo, the novelty has long worn off.  I am not one of those women who enjoys being pregnant.  It's all well and good in the earliest weeks before the nausea and exhaustion but that whole second trimester energy thing is a myth.  Or maybe it just is when you already have a house full of people and too much to do.  Other moms are always saying to me "at least you're not pregnant in the summer".  Well, I've been pregnant in the summer--twice.  And let's face it the Phoenix summers are really year-round.  I'd way rather that than being pregnant over the holidays.  There's just so much going on.  I'm extra busy and extra tired.  Plus no wine!  Summer days are lazier.  I can lounge around on the weekends and go to bed early during the week.  Not so in December!  There's the concerts, the events, the activities, the shopping and let's no

I try really hard not to get too political.  Never discuss politics or religion, right?  Well, I've screwed up the religion thing so here goes with politics.  All of this horrible hatred makes me sad.  Social media makes it worse.  I "hear" so much name calling and generalizing and I wonder--if you knew how I felt or how I voted, dear close friend of mine, would you say what you're saying in a place where you knew I could hear you? It's like all of the people who say things to me about the distance between my children.  If they knew how many I'd lost, they would keep quiet.  I have lots of friends who disagree with me on a wide variety of things.  I'm happy that we can agree to disagree and that it's OK.  Most  of the time, my closest friends don't say politically charged things that would be hurtful to me.  Now, I'm not talking about voicing an opinion.  I had a healthy debate with a friend about abortion and the right to choose.  We d

This picture doesn't do it justice but as you can see, Santa goes a little crazy at Christmas in the Olson house.  Every year we say, wow--that's a lot and every year the pile under the tree grows.  I shudder to think of what we're going to have next year with an extra kid in the house.  Of course, as Ivy gets older, her gifts get smaller (though substantially more expensive...) so who knows. But it was because of the mad rush of children and gifts that Nick and I invented what we call "Private Christmas".  We tried to hold the kids back--really we did.  We tried the whole, everyone wait patiently while each person opens one gift at a time and honestly, it's just torture for them.  They're SOOOOO excited.  I remember--I was too.  Plus, because we're here in PA without family, they get all of their gifts from everyone who is kind enough to ship presents to us all at once.  There's no visit to Grandma's house later or the cousins are coming o

The glucose tolerance test is cruel.  CRUEL!  It's bad enough to make a pregnant woman fast for hours but to then expect her to suffer through half a day with no coffee, perforate her arms, sit in horribly uncomfortable chairs for hours and drink an overly sweet flat orange soda is torture.  TORTURE! What did frontier women do if they had gestational diabetes?  Ok, so the doctors tasted urine and that's way worse but still!  I contend that this is cruel. I've taken the dreaded 3-hour test twice with my last two babies and after both of them rushed--RUSHED--to the nearest fast food establishment to avoid eating my own arm.  I do not have gestational diabetes.  I am sorry for any woman that does.  I can't imagine having to carefully monitor one's diet for sweet treats during the month of December.  I am thrilled to pieces that it isn't something I have to worry about.  Now, let's talk about these non-stress tests...  Really? 

I am always surprised at what people will say to pregnant women.  I think most of the time they don't mean anything by it but in every instance, it's rude.  It's insensitive.  It's intrusive.  A friend of mine had difficulty having children.  People were always asking her "when are you going to have kids?" or "why don't you have kids yet?".  Think about how that sounds to someone struggling.  I can think of a dozen answers that would likely shame such people into silence.  As a pregnant mom of 3 girls in the 4th decade of life, here's what I get: "Was this a surprise?"  None of your business. "Oh, you're finally getting a boy!"  As if having another girl would be a disappointment or somehow, my life is empty without a son or--BIG assumption--I WANT a boy. "Wow--four kids!  You know what causes that right?"  I just don't understand this one. The one I hate the most is "You sure waited a long tim

I'm still in denial.  At 30 weeks and 2 days I am not mentally prepared to have a baby.  It STILL doesn't feel real.  Sure, every time I try to stand up or roll over in bed I'm reminded by this ginormous belly but it's only the physical.  At work I keep planning for spring fundraising.  At home I keep thinking about how I'm going to do more this year--like New Year's Resolution planning.  I'm going to run more marathons, take the girls more places, travel more.  Um, probably not. When we had Isabelle I wasn't ready to say "this is my last pregnancy".  Well, I'm definitely ready now.  I do NOT enjoy being pregnant.  It's uncomfortable.  I miss wine.  I miss sleeping on my back.  I'm oh so tired of doctor appointments and blood work.  Well, kiddo, you're it!  Our last one.  That's OK with me.  I'm ready to be done having kids.  People ask me all the time if this one was a surprise.  First--that's a horribly rude qu

December 6th--it's St. Nicholas Day.  I have very fond memories as a child of this day.  At school, we'd leave our shoes in the hallway during recess and when we came back, St. Nicholas had filled them with treats.  At home, we'd awaken to stuffed stockings.  Fruit and peanuts were paired with a bit of candy and one toy.  My dad's stocking was often filled with charcoal--to remind us of what happens if you're naughty.  And, let's face it, Dad was pretty naughty.  Served him right for telling so many bad jokes. As a non-Catholic, I have struggled to fit this into our family traditions.  The girls don't understand what a saint is or how St. Nicholas is different from Santa.  Nick never had this tradition as a kid so the whole thing is foreign to him.  They had filled stockings on Christmas morning--you know, like normal people.  Despite it all, St. Nicholas did come last night and dutifully filled our stockings with some of everyone's favorite things a

Tuesday--just a day.  Nothing special.  But Tuesdays are go go go go go go go--all day.  I have a to-do list of 26 items--that's 26 just for me.  There are another 26 for work.  That's just me--then there's the girls--Tuesday is music day.  We have orchestra practice in the morning and piano in the evening.  Nick is somewhere in the world so that means today, it's all me.  The day begins like any other. 3:30--get up. 3:40--ok, now REALLY get up.  That's it lazy bum--out of bed!  Kick the cat off yourself and do your best to roll (literally) out of bed without over exerting.  Put on those gym clothes and get yourself going! 3:55--start the coffee 3:56--get down to the gym.  Do no procrastinate--nothing on that desk needs immediate attention.  You do NOT need to count how many boxes of Kleenex we have left or how many bags of chips there are.  Oh, wait--yes on the chips.  We're almost out. 4:00--start that warm up.  Put on the belly band, pop in the headphon

Today officially starts Christmas season—I insist on waiting until December 1st to call it that.  November is Thanksgiving—December is Christmas.  I realize I’m in the minority when most of the world sees Black Friday as the official start of Christmas but I like to give Thanksgiving it’s due.  I don’t go Christmas shopping on Black Friday and I don’t do Cyber Monday either.  Maybe I should.  But I’m not thinking about Christmas until December.  So here it is!  Another Christmas!  With Christmas comes COOKIES!  This is where I get ridiculous.  Every year it’s more and more varieties.  My goal is always 25—bake one batch per day.  But I’ve never made it there.  Last year I got to 23 I think.  But this year!  This is MY YEAR!  I’m going to make it! There are always standards—chocolate chip, sugar cookies.  But over the years, we’ve developed some new favorites like coffeehouse flats and orange snowballs.  Every year we try new ones and bring back old favorites.  It’s never the same 25

David and Bathsheeba--what a scandal!  I'm reading yet another Max Lucado book, Facing Your Giants .  It's a detailed journey through David's life as runt of the litter, chosen by God, giant slayer, fugitive, king and yes, general sinner. Now, I love Max Lucado (big shock) but in this book he said something that really  got to me.  Hours later, I'm still annoyed.  Here it is: We've gone through most of David's life, past the Goliath thing, past the running from Saul, past the death of his best friend.  I feel like I really know David at this point.  We're now up to his perhaps most famous temptation--Bathsheeba.  She's another man's wife.  So here Max is describing the scene, Bathsheeba taking a bath.  that's really all we know about what she was doing .  But David is enamored.  Max describes what must have been a beautiful woman (at least in David's mind).  A servant is summoned who tells David who she is--Uriah's wife.  But David do

I'm reading a book on Christian hedonism.  At first I was really looking forward to it--finding pleasure in pursuing God.  So much of Christianity feels like you have to suffer to be a true Christian.  There's a song about it--something about blessings coming through raindrops and healing through tears.  While I'm sure that happens plenty, I have a hard time believing that God wants  us to suffer or that we have to in order to experience salvation.  Isn't that what Christ did for us?  He took the suffering; He took the pain; He took the tears and the rain so that we could be spared.  Sadly, this book seems to take the side of pleasure in suffering instead of pleasure in God.  Like somehow we can't enjoy what He gives us unless we are doing so only  out of a desire to please Him.  It gives the example of Paul and how he talked about suffering for Christ while he was imprisoned.  Certainly the disciples were martyrs for the cause of Christ and if they had not sacrif

Isabelle likes movies--a lot.  Almost as much as Nick and I do.  But she, like many kids (certainly all of mine) will watch the same one over and over and over and over... for weeks!  We've often heard her reciting portions of them and tried to figure out where she heard whatever comment from (remember the sinners in church?).  It being holiday season, we're slowly bringing out the holiday movies.  On Halloween we watched our old favorites, Garfield Halloween and It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.  Now that Halloween is over and we're full into Thanksgiving territory, we've moved on to Garfield Thanksgiving and A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.  That last one is her current favorite.  It's ALWAYS what she wants to watch.  If you haven't seen it, nothing I'm about to say will mean much.  So, stop reading now and go find it on YouTube or something.  Last night, in an effort to keep things somewhat healthy prior to Thanksgiving and to eliminate all p

I am one of the strongest most amazing people alive.  I must be.  I can accomplish--in mere SECONDS--on of THE most difficult tasks known to mankind. What is this task, you ask? Is it curing cancer?  Preparing a gourmet meal?  Giving birth to quadruplets... naturally ? Oh no.  None of these trivial things compares to THIS most difficult, nay, nearly IMPOSSIBLE tasks! What is it?  I'll tell you... Changing the roll of toilet paper! Yes, that's right--NO ONE in my house is capable except ME!  I'm the only one who can do it and therefore, I'm the only one that DOES! Now, I'll give my husband a pass because half the time, he's not in the same time zone as the rest of us and the other half, well, let's face it ladies, a lot of what happens in "there" doesn't require TP for guys.  Lucky them.  But what about these children?  What's their excuse?  It baffles me even more when I find a fresh roll (or worse, a halfway used one) sitting o

It's fall and that's my favorite.  I love the pumpkin spiced life.  I love the salted caramel, the cinnamon, the squash.  And the colors.  How gorgeous they are!  The reds and yellows and oranges--even on gloomy days they are bright and beautiful.  It is the time of year I most look forward to. But fall has gotten so busy.  The back to school that starts it all is filled with paperwork and doctor visits and school shopping.  Then there are the birthdays--7 of them just in our family.  Even the ones for people who don't live in my house need attention.  Then there are the parties of the friends my kids are invited to.  A drop off, a pick up, a gift, a card.  The start of school brings school activities.  So far, that's only 2 kids but Bebo will soon be demanding her own turn to play piano or whatever else she wants to try.  Work--work is INSANE in the fall and will be for as long as I'm in non-profit fundraising.  Fall is when we have our big events.  Our big end

It's a thing here--like hoagies and cheesesteaks.  The Tomato Pie.  I had my first taste of one yesterday and I have to say, I don't get it.  I've heard of it and, because I like tomatoes, they look tasty enough--just like a pizza except it's tomatoes.  Now, in Chicago, the pizzas don't look much different.  They put the cheese on the bottom (ok, so it's basically a wheel of cheese surrounded by crist and sauce is on top--sooooo delicious).  But the tomato pie has no cheese.  And, it's cold. Um, what? Ok, if you're lactose intolerant, I get it--no cheese on your pizza.  But why is it cold?  The tomatoes are cooked--they're just...cold.  Why???  It's like pizza with none of the good stuff. People here love them. I do not understand.  The event I was at last night had apparently ordered more food than necessary and they asked if I wanted to take any of the leftovers home for my kids.  I politely declined telling them that if I brought home pi

It's 2:00 in the afternoon.  I've been up since 3:30.  It's a typical day.  Awake early, a short walk while the coffee brews then 40 minutes with one cup, Bible study and a review of my day.  It's going to be a long one today--afternoon meetings and after school activities so I won't be done until 7:00. It's been a chaotic couple of weeks and it's all catching up with me.  Hungry.  But I've eaten lunch.  What's in my bag?  Nothing...  This isn't good.  Pregnant, hungry and out of food.  Sounds like the name of a new reality show.  Ok, I have time to run out but it's too late for second lunch and too early for dinner.  What then? Coffee.  Of course.  But should I?  Hmm.  I open my cabinet.  It's full of k-cups.  But none of them are decaf and I really shouldn't have caffeine.  That means going out.  Starbucks isn't far.  But should I? I sit and think. What do I want? Hot or cold? Definitely hot--it's been rainy and

I supposed I should have posted this a while ago.  But I didn't.  It hasn't felt real until...well, it still doesn't.  Maybe I was waiting for that--for it to feel real.  I'm betting it will finally sink in on February 15th--that's when our little man is due to arrive. That's right.  I'm pregnant and it's a boy. A boy.  What?  Are we sure?  Yep.  We're sure.  But no.  It can't be.  We have girls.  That's what we do.  We know how to do that (at least so far).  What am I supposed to do with a boy?  I have to buy all new stuff! I've mostly heard horror stories about raising boys.  The first thing everyone says is how spoiled he'll be by his big sisters. I always follow it up with "Or he'll grow up really understanding women."  Let's hope for the latter. Despite the spoiling alert and the "just you wait" looks I get from moms of boys, what I consistently hear is how much boys love their mommas.  Even th

During my first trip to San Diego when Nick and I were dating, he took me to the San Diego Zoo (and a whole lot of other places).  I bought a picture frame in the gift shop and later, put in a picture of the two of us together that my brother took.  Later, during my next trip when he took me to Disneyland, I bought a second frame...and then one at Sea World, and then one at Six Flags Magic Mountain.  It became a thing.  Now, we have dozens of them, marking the places we've been together.  You can literally watch our lives progress through the photos.  As we've added children, destinations, states...it's like a timeline of our life.  We have one rule--we do not replace the old photo if we visit that place again and our family has changed.  So, the picture we took at the Philadelphia Zoo only has 2 of our daughters even though Isabelle has been there dozens of times.  She wasn't with us on the visit where we bought the frame.  We also don't typically buy more than one

I read an article recently about an actress (I think she was one of the Disney princesses) who said she didn't let her daughters watch certain Disney movies because of the message it sends.  No Cinderella--don't wait for a man to rescue you.  Rescue yourself!  No Snow White--it's not OK for a man to kiss a women while she's sleeping or without her permission.  No Little Mermaid--don't give up your voice for a man! On the one hand--I totally get it and really appreciate the difference Disney has made in the way their heroines are portrayed.  Moanna is a strong gal.  Rapunzel looks out for herself without emasculating her man.  Mulan is fully prepared to go against gender roles and fight for her family honor and her country.  Tianna is a hard working woman who knows what she wants and goes after it.  BAM!  Those are my kind of ladies! But I also think we have to remember the time during which Cinderella and Snow White were written and adapted into movies.  We have

Nick's head is full of what even he calls useless information.  He kills  at the 2000's edition of Trivial Pursuit.  If one could make a solid living as a trivia expert, he'd be a billionaire.  Movies, pop culture, music, movie trailers, celebrity gossip--he's in the KNOW.  I was shocked when last week I saw the teaser for the live action Aladdin movie before he even knew it was out.  (We've now watched it a dozen times and Bebo calls it the "scary lion".) He loves movie trailers.  He is forever making me watch them--sometimes I'm interested.  Many times not.  A while ago he told me that me asking him to watch a recipe video was like him asking me to watch a movie trailer... touche.  Sometimes this useless information comes in handy.  Just this week we were talking about Iris and all of the instruments she's playing.  There was a movie I thought she might like but couldn't think of the name.  "What's that movie with the kid--&quo

Fall.  It's FINALLY here!  It's grey and gloomy, damp and a bit rainy, colorful, crisp--just PERFECT!  These are my absolute favorite days.  The kind where I want to curl up with a cup of coffee and a good book.  What better books to read in October than Halloween themed books!  I started one last week called Fundraising the Dead .  A mystery about a development director?  WHAT???  So perfect for me!  Or so I thought. Humph.  Not so much.  I'm just about a quarter of the way through and I'm not sure I have the stomach for it.  First, the main character is having an affair with the executive director of the museum she fundraises for.  Um, bad idea.  He might be (as described) gorgeous and suave but let's just not go there.  Maybe I have my head in the sand and this happens a lot.  I hope not. But the real kicker for me is her attitude about fundraising.  She specifically refers to it as "begging".  Begging?  Really?  I know no true development profe

I hate extracurricular after-school activities.  HATE them.  They're going to KILL me.  Why oh why do my children need to play multiple instruments and sports?  WHY is there such a thing as an after school art club?  I don't understand. It was not like this when I was a child.  Sure I did Girl Scouts (mostly for the camping), but we met right after school and the meetings were AT the school so I could just walk home (we did that back then).  I played softball for a couple of seasons--and walked--and practice was once per week with only ONE game a month.  I really wanted to do gymnastics so I went (walked!) to the YWCA on Saturdays.  I was driven to piano lessons but would have happily given those up if mom and dad were too busy. Not now--oh no.  Now, we must be driven to all things and none of them are right after school...which is probably better because if they were my kids wouldn't be able to do that anyway.  Now they're all right smack over the dinner hour or wo

I've been drinking Isagenix shakes.  I'm not sure yet if I really like them.  Sometimes I just can't stand the thought of another protein shake and sometimes, a pumpkin spice frappuccino sounds really good and I know I have a healthy version I can make with this magical powder.  I've lost a decent amount of weight and that's with putting in a modest effort because, let's face it, life is nuts.  Sometimes this helps me stay on track.  It's one of those "make it work for you" things too.  It's a two shake a day plan but sometimes I need a season of one.  Sometimes the intermittent fasting days just don't work in my schedule. Sometimes I have more donor meetings in a week than I'd like to and I really need a recover week.  And then there's the daily nuts of being a working mom of 3 kids with a spouse that travels.  No, I don't have time to mix up a shake in the morning because I'm already late getting out the door when Isabel

Nick loves M&M's.  No really.  He loves them like I love coffee.  We found coffee M&M's once.  They were just ok.  Every so often, I'll see a new or interesting flavor in the checkout line and pick it up for him.  We've tried raspberry nut, pumpkin pie and cake batter.  (Cake batter is a mistake, by the way.) He told me once when we were in college that he had this dream of buying one bag of every flavor and sorting them all by color.  Many years and several kids later, the girls and I did it for him.  We had a plastic candy dish, picked up every flavor we could find and started sorting.  We layered them in the clear dish and made an M&M's rainbow!  I think it was a birthday present but he absolutely loved it.  Now, it's a regular gift.  We've done it for Christmas (fewer colors but tons of flavor), springtime (thank you Easter Bunny!) and just about any other "special occasion". Tomorrow ends his six week 747 training.  It's be

Tragedy has struck!  I just don't know what I'm going to do.  TNT is no longer showing episodes of Law & Order. WHAT??? WHY??? For YEARS I could count on getting up on the weekends and wasting HOURS watching a show I'd seen nearly every episode of while drinking way too much coffee.  No longer.  I thought this day would have come sooner when we cancelled our cable but with the invention of the Apple TV and my father-in-law's cable log in, I was able to get around that.  But now they've gone and taken the whole show off altogether!  I guess I'll have to do something more productive this morning. 

I was thinking about this during church this morning.  Our pastor was talking about miracles and how they were documented for us in the Bible.  But that also, miracles still happened.  They shouldn't be something that we thought only happened in Biblical times and he asked if we were taking note of them--reminding ourselves of them--making markers of them.  I'm not sure if this is what he meant, but it got me thinking about how anything was recorded.  People used to journal.  People used to write letters.  That's how we know what past presidents were thinking--they wrote letters and people saved them.  That's how we know what certain historical figures went through--they kept a journal and someone saved it.  My journal is not exciting.  It's jumbled and far too infrequently added to.  I write it mostly for me--to practice and to clear my head.  I wonder what someone will think of it when someday it is found in a heap with other books and papers after I'm gon

Potty training has been fun! Except no. I'm trying to remember what it was like for Ivy and Iris and it's all a blur.  I'm not ashamed to admit that daycare does most of the hard work and I'm so glad for that.  Bebo resisted for a long time.  Just not interested.  We tried the going naked, putting on fancy panties and all of that.  Nope.  Not doing it. What did finally work?  Bribery. Yep.  I'm that mom.  I bribe my kid to use the "frog potty".  We started way back in February when candy was abundant, thank you St. Valentine.  Easter rolled around and our supply was plentiful.  I even stole from the other two just to keep from having to buy more (shhh!).  But after the colored eggs and jelly beans were gone, I had to find a new currency.  Thankfully, we always have mini marshmallows and they'll do just fine.  Bonus--I'm not a huge fan so there's no danger of me whittling down the stash myself. So, now, after a successful potty session

The girls and I have a new hobby--we started watching cooking competition shows and especially love Worst Cooks in America.  The girls and I bake a lot so they have learned a thing or two about cooking.  Ivy has been baking cookies with me since she could hold her head up.  I would literally put her in the Bumbo on the kitchen counter when she was about 6 months old.  She even managed to sneak an entire cookie worth of raw dough once when I wasn't looking (bad mom, I know). It's something we started doing on nights when Nick is gone.  We eat dinner in front of the TV, watch an episode and have fun laughing at the bizarre kitchen antics of horrible cooks.  It's fun, it's silly and it's something they'll remember when they have families of their own.  These are the memories we're making. Well. On all of these shows we watch, contestants inevitably are asked to make a signature dish.  Whenever this happens, the conversation always turns to what I'd ma