flashback Friday

Joe, May 2011 (pre glasses)

I sure do love that silly kid!

Super Anna::

she has a cape::

and wings
{nice hair you've got there, babe!}

R.I.P.

I am saddened to report that I'm pretty sure our dryer bit the dust last night.

It was a good dryer and served us faithfully through many a load {although it got quite a nice vacation each spring, summer and fall, while the clothesline took over the bulk of the workload}.

Amana
June 1998 - November 2010
proceeded in death by the washer
survived by a stove and refrigerator

I remember well the day our dryer arrived.

The delivery man asked me if my mom was home.

I don't remember exactly how I responded, but do remember that I got across the point that I was the "lady of the house" and remember that he wasn't quite sure what to say after that. He pretty much just delivered the dryer {and, it's companion the washer}, took the old ones away and moved on to his next delivery. Poor guy, I hope he wasn't too embarrassed by his mistake.

I was 24, married and employed well enough to pay the mortgage . . . ok, that's probably not quite true. I was employed enough to pay for the garbage to be picked up, of that I'm sure! {it wasn't a super high paying job. But I got summers off! Now I get paid even less and really, really DON'T get the summers off.}

conversations with a 9-year-old

Mom: "Morning sweetie. Are you going to take a bath?"

9-year-old: "Yup, it's picture re-take day, so I should."

Mom: "But, honey, you love your pictures. You aren't getting re-takes."

9-year-old: "I know, but we might have to re-take our class picture and I don't want to ruin it for everyone by not looking nice. That would be a bummer."

sibling conversations

Overheard coming from the back of the van tonight {while Anna was sweetly singing along to "Oh, how I love Jesus"}::

Jacob: "We used to do that for hump day." {talking about something they did on Wednesday's in his 4th grade class, since Rebekah has that same teacher this year}
Rebekah: "What is hump day?"
Jacob: "It's what they call Wednesday."
Rebekah: "I don't get it."
Jacob: "Well, you know, because it's the middle of the week."
Rebekah: "I still don't understand what that has to do with humps."
Jacob: "Yeah, I really don't get it either!"

I just listened in, rather than interjecting, so they still have no idea why someone would call Wednesday "hump day". I loved hearing the conversation between them, though. Silly kids!

oh, Anna

It started out innocently enough. We were in the basement and I said, "C'mon babe, let's go upstairs and see Daddy."

She answered with "No." {recently she has discovered her will and become a tad defiant}.

So, I said, "Nope, sweetie, it's time to go upstairs."

To which she replied, "Boss a me, Mom!" . . . which, I can translate with much confidence, based on her facial expression and intonation, as: You're not the boss of me, Mom. Oh, sweetie, 1. Yes, actually, I am and 2. we don't say that around here, got it!


Now, the interesting thing is that, although they do have a phrase or two {or ten} that they use that I do not appreciate {they aren't perfect, in case you hadn't realized that fact!} , this, "You're not the boss of me.", is not a phrase that I think I've ever heard one of the "bigs" use around here. So, I'm a tad baffled as to where she picked this one up. Clearly, however, she understands it's " proper" usage and can use it quite accurately in context. So, she has quite a little attitude, but, it would seem, is also pretty smart . . . I'm not sure if I should be annoyed and upset or just plain proud!

Oh well.

wordless wednesday

story problem answers . . . and a winner . . . or not!

Here are the answers to Sunday's story problems. {click here if you didn't see the quiz. The answers make more sense if you know what the questions were!} Nice attempts, everyone::

1. 2/3 {we are of the mindset that unborn people are people nonetheless, so -- WHOO HOO -- more bed space for me. At least theoretically.}
2. 1/2, via the same logic as #1:: {4 people in the bed. I "house" 2 of them and thus, get half -- 2/4 -- of the bed.}
3. 17 {ok, try to follow along, this one is tricky::all 5 kids get put to bed initially -- early, at that, because they were all extremely tired and/or extremely crabby! +1::Anna is all weirded out by the change of having the kids home or something and will NOT stay in her bed or keep quiet -- we haven't had this problem since day 2 of "big girl bed" a few weeks ago, so I move her, temporarily, to a pack 'n play in the basement because it is driving her 2 sister/roommates insane. +4::we move the 4 remaining children, who are sleeping, to the basement when the tornado sirens are going off in our neighborhood -- also, someone reported seeing a funnel cloud near the intersection of Snelling & Larpenteur, which is SUPER close to here, although I never heard actual confirmation of that. +4::we move everyone back into their "normal" places for sleeping, except for Jacob who is comfy and says he wants to stay in the basement. +1::Joe decides, later, he would prefer to join us in our bed. +1::Joe is grinding his teeth, which makes his mother come dangerously close to the brink of insanity, and, it is her birthday by this point, after all, so she asks for his relocation to his own bed once again. Her wonderful husband obliges. +1::Jacob returns from the basement where he claims there are scary bugs. He has reasons for not wanted to go upstairs to his own bed and thus chooses the couch instead. 5+1+4 +4+1+1+1=17.}
4. 36

No one got them all right -- Kirb was the closest, but we came up with different answers for #3 and since it's my quiz, my answer is right and his is wrong! Better luck next time, I guess! Thanks for trying everybody!

story problems:: a pop quiz {prize involved!}

Think you are "Smarter than a 5th grader"? Try your hand at these story problems::

1. Shana and Kirby share a bed. They believe that all people, regardless of age, are entitled to the same amount of space in the bed. If this is true, how much of the bed should Shana get?
2. If Joe joins them in bed -- until being removed for teeth grinding -- how much of the bed should Shana get then?
3. How many times, on the night of July 17th/18th did the team of Shana & Kirby {heavy on the "Kirby"} put a child to bed?
4. How old is Shana today {well, technically, not until later this evening . . . but, you know!}? Yup, it's my birthday. Happy birthday to me!
   

Answer all 4 questions correctly and win a prize. If more than 1 of you get 100% on your pop quiz, I'll have to randomly pick one of you to get the prize {nope, I don't know what it is yet}, but just know in your heart that you are all winners! Answers posted later this week, when I'm done with all the stinky post-camp laundry! You have until then to enter. Ready? Go!

my apologies . . .

I would like to take this opportunity to apologize {in advance} to the future wife of my 4th born child. The kid is cute as can be, quite funny and very sweet. I'm sure he'll make a fabulous husband some day {especially if he takes after his dad!}, but along with all that you will have to share a bed with him. And that, let me tell you, is not so fun! He, somehow, takes up the entire bed. Also, he flips around and thrashes so often that it's a wonder he gets any rest at all. Plus -- and this is the worst part, in my opinion -- he grinds his teeth like mad. It's pretty much the worst sound you can imagine!

He had a little trouble sleeping when we were visiting his grandparents last week and I ended up sleeping with him one night. Wait, that's not right: I lay, miserable, in bed next to him wishing the grinding and the movement would stop so that I could have a teeny little chance of sleep in the smallish space left for me after his 5-year-old body took up the vast majority of the surface area of the mattress!

Anyhow, as further proof of my lament, I share with you this picture:I rest my case . . . or not, depending on who I'm in bed with.

You gotta love the little man anyway though! God bless his future wife. We're praying for her already!

thankful thursday

We are so thankful that Anna is a part of our family! She is a really fun girl who seems to be "coming into herself" more and more each day lately. What a blessing she is to us {and to lots of other people as well, I think!}

Well, Anna is learning to count. If you ask her how old she is, she will say "two!". If you ask her any other question that she senses might be numeric, she answers "twenty two". {On a related note, if you ask her any question that she senses might involve color, she will answer "blue".} She is a silly girl.

On another semi-related note, I am completely over my "twos". At least for now. If that doesn't make sense to you, check out this post to catch yourself up! Hope fully "the twos" will stay a memory and not re-appear in my life again!

So, back to Anna . . . she sure is growing up. She gets a little bit more personality each day lately. Also, she is becoming quite fiesty! {which, I suppose, shouldn't surprise me, all things considered.} A couple of her latest tricks are that if any of her siblings say to her, "I love you, Anna!", she will reply with, "NO! I love _____________ {fill in the blank with the name of another sibling -- or sometimes a parent. But never the one who initially told her that she was loved. You get no reciprical love from that girl, that's for sure!} Then she gets a big grin on her face. This is extra funny, because I have been told numerous times about when I was probably her age and would say to my mom over and over again, "I love Mama, no. I love Daddy." Another case of like-mother-like-daughter, I guess. I do adore my mom {and my dad}, and haven't said that to her in over 30 years, so hopefully Anna will grow out of it too. Her next recent trick is that anything I ask her to do or suggest {for example, "Anna, stop hitting."} is met with the phrase, "No, you!" {"No, you stop!" "No, you go potty!", "No, you eat lunch" -- ok, thanks, I will!-- or just the plain old, two-year-old, "NO!"} Nice! I appreciate that so much! I'm not sure exactly where she picked that up. The other kids don't say "No, you." Oh well . . . this too shall pass . . . right?

So, here is a video clip from the other day {I apologize for the fact that it is sideways. I couldn't figure out how to flip it over! You can tip your head . . . or your monitor . . . or you can just watch it sideways. You'll still get the point} of Anna counting. Without fail, she counts like this::"two, one, tree, four, hive, six, sev-y, eight, nine, ten, elev-y, eight, nine, ten, elev-y, eight . . . " and on and on. Every time without fail. She gets caught in a nasty cycle where eight follows elev-y and she just can't break it. Also, she always starts counting at two. It is a very important number, you know!

Enjoy::

randomness

Here are a few random things from our life lately::

• I was at a consignment store with Rebekah a while back and the racks of clothes were labeled. You know: "outerwear", "dresses", "men's pants", etc. Well, when we came across the one labeled "boys and girls bottoms" {right next to boys and girls tops} she busted out laughing. She was completely hysterical and told me that was really funny, but maybe they should write something else instead. What a silly, funny girl!
• Joe only has 2 more days of preschool before he "graduates". Yikes! How can that be?
• I saw a turtle pee the other day. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I guess I would have to be aware that turtles need to pee too, but I had never really given it any thought at all and, definitely, hadn't ever had the chance to witness it. Now, I have! Enough said.
• I won a game of croquet at Kirb's office BBQ the other night . . . after being WAY behind. Yeah for me!
  
• Kirb was given the "opportunity" to perform at our school's staff appreciation breakfast. It was a hoot. He wore this: The picture does not do the outfit justice . . . you can't see the shiny white dress shoes {thanks Todd} or get a good view of how plunging the neckline of his shirt was, and the pants . . . you can't even tell how bad perfect they are! Finding them was quite the undertaking, {our goal was solid white dress pants like Frankie Valli wears to sing "Beauty School Dropout" in "Grease" -- since Kirb was performing "Falcon Heights Dropout" at the "Grease"-themed staff appreciation breakfast -- but that wasn't meant to be} but we finally found these {after multiple Goodwill trips} and they were great. A friend of mine asked, "Has Kirby lost more weight or are those pants just, um . . . really flattering?" It's a cut they don't use so much for pants anymore. I assure you they were the right size, but the overall fit of most pants has just evolved a bit in the past 50-or-so years! If you ask really nice, maybe I'll let you see the video of the song too!
• It's nearly Memorial Day . . . what in the world?
• I'm getting used to the van. I'm not nearly as scared as I once was. But, admittedly, it's still a beast to park and that's just a fact!
• Jacob had his final band concert the other day. It was all the 5th grade band kiddos from the district {about 160 of them}. They did a great job and Joe was thrilled when they did this number: {when the camera zooms in you can just barely see the top of Jacob's head . . . behind lots of other kids and his music stand -- about half way back -- directly in front of the blonde girl and to the right of the boy in the front with the glasses. Be on the lookout for a little dark hair toward the top left of the screen}
  

today

after anna had a bath she wanted to wear a "cape" {hooded bath towel} so she could be "hooper-man" {superman}: ok! a few minutes later, i was in the kitchen and she came in to greet me wearing, not her cape, but this::
no diaper. backwards pants. a backwards and inside out shirt with some serious problems cutting off the circulation to her right arm.

first, i took her picture, then took it all off, started with the all-important diaper layer, put the pants on the right away, got the circulation moving in her arm again and put her shirt on the right way. the neck is now big enough to fit me, but i think it'll shrink back up soon. i hope so, at least. all during lunch she kept saying "picture a me?" wanting me to take her picture again. vain little thing! she's such a silly girl.

joe informed me today that i am the "meanest mom in the whole world" today. hmmm, i didn't know that, buddy. thanks for telling me. how dare i not allow unlimited movie watching and junk food eating. i guess he's right, i am a mean mom!

it's been windy and a little rainy today {not the 80's we thought we might get}, but it's starting to brighten up again now.

i finished this book today. it was great! i really like francine rivers. she is an amazing author. if you haven't read "redeeming love", you must! i finished this one in just a few days. bring on the next book. i love to read!

happy wednesday to you!

Silly kiddos!

A few of the silly things heard around here the past few days:

• "This reminds me of when I was a little kid." (Lydia)
• Rebekah: "Mom, if you have any more babies we're going to have to start driving a limo." Lydia: "Or maybe, like, a church van."
• "Can we please go see the parking lot for the trains?" (Joe)
  

Crazy!

Reminds me of something straight out of Dr. Seuss:

I think we'll call her little Lydi Lou Who:

Or possibly that priest from "The Princess Bride":
"Mawwage. Mawwage is what bwings us togwether today."

Silly girl!

This is what happens when you rub your supper into your hair. That's quite the 'do, Miss Anna! I guess it makes you pretty happy, though. Just look at that face!

{click on the picture to make it bigger and take note of the molars in the back of her mouth . . . they've given us a great deal of heartache and lost sleep lately and we're so glad they're finally in!}

Joe, Joe, Joe . . .

Joe is being especially funny again this morning. [Or it may just be that I missed his silliness while I was gone this weekend]. He watched part of a Star Wars movie this weekend . . . feel free to keep your judgements to yourself, ok? and told me this morning:

"CR2PO is in this one." (who I imagine to be the love child of C3PO & R2D2, but I'm just not sure)

"When 'Dark Vadeh' was getting littler and littler he was turned into Anakin." (pretty smart boy there, eh?)

And on a non-Star Wars [but similar thought process] note, he also told me that "when I was little you put me in your tummy."

He does love all things Star Wars [even though he'd never seen it until this weekend]! Jacob reads him Star Wars picture books, we have light sabers to play with . . . and if he can't find a real light saber, most anything longish will magically "turn into" one anyway! . . . these are things Jacob would have had absolutely no idea about when he was just-about-4! Just one more difference between child #1 and child #4!

oops!

I was feeding Anna breakfast and dropped a big bowl of applesauce on the floor. Amazingly, it landed right side up and most of the applesauce was still in it! I picked the bowl up and kept feeding it to her. Then when she was done I cleaned up the floor. I have no idea how it got dropped. One second I was holding it and happily feeding my adorable little bundle and the next second it was lying on the floor. I swear it jumped right out of my hands. Weird!?

a few minutes with joe!

alrighty, this is just a taste of joe's personality these days. all of this took place in about a 15-minute window of time just this morning. he's just bursting with funny joe-isms lately.

so, i'm in the kitchen getting anna some breakfast (she is in her high chair in the dining room with a tray full of cheerios). anna is not long on patience . . . some of you may know me well enough to know that, without a doubt, she got that from me. i am not a patient person, try though i may. kirbs can verify that fact for you, if you need him to! so, anna is not excited about the 47-second wait for her food. (you'd think we never feed her!). joe is singing "jesus loves me" to her to try and cheer her up, then i hear him say: "it's ok anna. i'm right here!" what a sweet boy . . . and i'm fairly certain a pretty good mimic too, since i probably say that more often than i realize.

fast forward a few seconds and anna is happy (happier, at least) that i am now feeding her something purple-ish (plums maybe, i didn't read the label. i know she likes the purple stuff!) although she is still a little frustrated that i don't feed it to her fast enough -- crazy me, i value swallowing and stuff like that! joe says, pointing to her box of infant cereal, "is there more sand in there? does anna want more sand?" if you are familiar with infant cereal you know that it's little flakes and you mix it with something liquidy (milk, water, juice, applesauce, etc.) to make it edible, but joe (apparently) thinks we are feeding his sister sand, and, it would seem, he's ok with that!

anna is now done eating and i'm getting her out of the high chair when joe comes in with this spinny bowl/chair thing that he got for his birthday from his ama. (everyone at our house likes it. it is meant to be sat in, but, you know, it often takes on other functions too!) so, joe says to me: "this is my helmet. it keeps my hair safe. if you don't have a helmet your hair can blow away."



now i bet you wish you'd been here this morning to witness all this silliness with your own eyes and ears . . . sorry you missed it! but hopefully this made it seem like you were here . . . at least a little!

a preview

i think most of you know this, but just in case there is someone reading this who doesn't here goes:
when jacob was not quite 1 we wanted a family picture to put in our christmas card. we took quite a few and the one we liked best was of the 3 of us laying on our bed. the next year it was just the 3 of us again and we decided to try and recreate the picture since it had turned out so cute . . . and thus began an unintentional stoll family tradition of the bed picture. as one of the peterson girls (beka, i think) said one year "they did it on the bed again." and they found it extra funny when they read our christmas letter, after the comment about the picture, and discovered (for the second year in a row) that we were (again) pregnant! as a side note, that was the christmas letter of 2001 and we announced that we were pregnant with the little person that would turn out to be lydia in that christmas letter. no one, not even ONE person (except me and kirb) knew of our pregnancy before getting our letter . . . not even our parents! and since rebekah was only about 8 months old it was a shocker to most everyone. us included (although our shock came a few weeks before everyone elses . . . and not in the form of a letter). so, 2008 marks the 10th anniversary of the stoll family bed picture. 9 years and 4 more kids later, we're all still on the bed for the christmas picture. my mom (our photographer . . . THANKS MOM!) was worried the bed wouldn't hold all 7 of us, but since kirb has lost at least 1 kid's worth of weigh over the past 6 months or so (way to go, babe!) the bed held, and no one was injured. i think i counted 34 pictures that my mom took shooting for the big goal of 1 where all 7 of us are looking at the camera and appear half-way decent. here are some of the attempts:


in case you can't tell, joe has a piece of gum (which SHOULD be in his mouth!!!) between his fingers. you know how fun it is to play with gum? in the rest of the pictures he has returned it to his mouth! yeah!



and the winner is . . . .


honestly, did you think it would really post the winning picture here? you must not know me too well. no way! you'll have to wait for your christmas letter. and if you are a blog reader, the christmas letter will probably not be nearly as fun as usually since i have been posting the funny kid quotes on the sidebar for a while now. although there are probably a few that will make it that are not listed, so make sure to read them anyway! they're pretty much always good for a laugh or two!