Kids!

A conversation between myself and our kindergartener this morning on the walk to school:

(Kindergartener looks downtrodden and sad.)
Me: "What's wrong babe?"
Sara: mumbles something unintelligible
Me: "What? I can't hear you."
Sara: mumbles some more
Me: "I still can't hear you."
Sara (louder and less mumble-y . . . finally): "Joe is mean and he was being a hypocrite!"
Me (questioning whether she actual had an actual grasp on the meaning of the word "hypocrite"): "What do you mean, honey? What does hypocrite mean?"
Sara: "Hypocrite means I was cracking the ice and Joey told me I had to stop, but he kept on cracking the ice."
Me (surprised that she DID actually get the idea of hypocrisy): "Well, that isn't nice. Why don't you just not walk near him. Stay by me!"

Ah the drama of sibling relationships!

multitude monday

Here's my continuing Multitude Monday post, which all started a while back, right here on Ann's wonderful, amazing blog that is a favorite of mine. If you've never checked it out, do yourself a favor and click on over. She's an amazing, gifted writer and an inspiration!

"One Thousand Gifts"::

2251. kids rolling down grassy hills
2252. a great dinnertime discussion following by the kids praying for each other
2253. field day :: potato sack races and tug-o-fun
2254. the escape found in reading a good book
2255. the closing of a really great chapter of life :: 3 years of watching Vince :: what a blessing!
2256. Joe washing dishes
2257. Sara's ever-expanding vocabulary :: I can barely keep up with her new words
2258. waking up to birds singing a beautiful song {loudly!} outside my window
2259. a full decade of Lydia :: Happy Birthday LJ!
2260. Anna asking me :: "Mom, how do you spell 'I love Lydia and I love everyone in our whole family except the mean people.'?" :: silly girl
2261. Sara telling me "dress off!" when I was changing her clothes
2262. an amazing beautiful double rainbow :: possibly the most beautiful, clearest, sharpest rainbow I have ever seen
2263. post-rain sunset
2264. a great first game of the season for Rebekah's soccer team
2265. last day of school
2266. a tangible, almost immediate answer to the sincere prayer of an 11-year-old :: thank you Lord!
2267. great, wonderful, fabulous, caring, excellent, passionate teachers
2268. having Luis {our basement contractor/carpenter} join us for our last-day-of-school BBQ
2269. four kids with check-ups at the dentist and zero cavities!
2270. Rebekah's first shift at the library
2271. a Saturday morning family walk {before it got unbearably hot}
2272. a freshly mowed lawn
2273. much-needed rain
2274. stopping in time to not hit any of the 3 deer that tried to cross the road right in front of our van. in the dark. in the pouring rain!
2275. a good run, despite the heat
2276. kids literally COVERED -- head to toe -- in dirt!
2277. godly, encouraging parenting commiseration

Alrighty, that's it's for now. Tune in next Monday for the next installment.

double digits

"I'm this many!"

brand new Lydia 6.6.02

Lydia Joy is 10! That means that half our kids are now in double digits. I remember the day she was born as if it were way less than an entire decade ago. She and Jacob were our only non-St. John's-born kiddos. Lydia was born at United. Rebekah was still a baby (just a bit more than 14 months old) and Jacob had recently turned 3. Our lives were a bit crazy, as you might imagine, with 3 kids 3 and under.

As a baby Lydia slept lots, but would ONLY sleep in her bed. I felt like nearly ever moment we were at home, she was in her bed :: get her up in the morning, feed her breakfast, bring Jacob to preschool, come home and put her down for a nap, pluck her out of her crib sound asleep, pick Jacob up from preschool, feed the kids lunch, put her down for another nap, wake her up when Dad got home, feed the family dinner and put her to bed for the night. But if we traveled away from our home, and her crib, she wouldn't sleep a wink. And she wouldn't sleep in the car either. We went on a LONG driving vacation over her 2nd birthday and she went nearly 48-hours straight without sleep during the first leg of our trip. Finally, that second night she slept and has been find sleeping away from home ever since. But that 48 hours is one I do not want to repeat ever again, I can tell you that!

with her GG who brought her birthday cupcakes

with one of her birthday gifts

at 3 months or so

just a week or so old

Lydia was one of our more challenging children for years, but has really mellowed out in the past year or so into a really sweet girl.

Here is a funny Lydia story from the other day that just makes me love her all the more :: we had gotten a bag of hand-me-down clothes from a friend and in it was a black t-shirt for Sara with a heart and "gap" in script-y letters on the front. Lydia says to me, "What does that say on Sara's shirt?". I said, "Gap." She responded with, "That's what I thought, but what does that mean?" Totally made my day that she has no idea why a shirt would say "Gap" on the front. I told her (since she wasn't aware) that Gap was the name of a clothing store. This may come as a shock to any of you who knew me, say, in high school, when I could think of nothing better than having a job at The Gap and loved when my clothes advertised where they had come from. But, as it turns out, I have grown up a tad since then. Pretty much my kids wear hand-me-downs (which are SUCH a blessings!), thrifted clothes, occasionally new stuff from Target and things that their Grandma buys them . . . you know, for occasions when they should all coordinate, since coordinating hand-me-downs for 6 are a bit hard to come by!

Happy 10th Birthday Lydia! You add lots of fun to our family and we are so thankful for you.

tuesday stuff

Last night I was at Target with the 2 big girls {they needed some Christmas gifts still. It's so sweet to see them buy things for their siblings}. On the way out to the van one of them mentioned something I wasn't aware of::"The Ryan's play 'Stoll Haul'." That made me curious, so I asked what "Stoll Haul" was {other than one of the nicknames for our van, that my friend, Ing, came up with -- genius that she is!} Turns out it's much like "Slug Bug", but rather than straining to spot little VW bugs, you get the slightly easier task of spotting huge {12 and 15-passenger} vans and then punching your sibling -- or whoever is nearby -- and calling out "Stoll Haul". Feel free to play in your vehicle too. It could be fun. All credit for this fabulous game goes to the 3 Ryan kiddos, who are much more inventive than most . . . not to mention sweet, kind, smart and adorable!

How cute is this? She's working hard on that head control. Here is our bobble head baby::


His superpowers haven't been much help in fighting the bloody noses that the dry, winter weather has caused our favorite family superhero to have most nights lately. And since the teeniest drop of blood on his sheets freaks him out, I've washed his sheets twice in the past 3 days. And it's a bunk bed {well, more accurately, a loft}. Have you changed sheets on those buggers? I almost always end up broken out in a sweat {even when the temps are below zero, as they are today}. Changing Superman's sheets was not on the list of things I wanted to do with my day, but oh well!
That same superhero is having a really, REALLY hard time waiting for Christmas {I know this is not abnormal for a 5-year-old, but we've never experience it to this extreme at our house before}. Today he literally screamed at me::"I. WANT. TO. OPEN. A. PRESENT!! If I can open a present, I will be nice. If I can't, I will be mean. Do you want me to be nice or mean?" Alas, I still haven't let him open one. {Note: we refrain from putting gifts under our tree until the time has come to actually open them. But one extra-generous kiddo in our family has purchased -- or made -- presents for everyone, wrapped them and placed them nicely under the tree. I know she didn't do it to torture her brother, but that is what the result has been. It is no fun at all, as we hear about it, literally, without ceasing!}

My husband was on the air today on the radio program "Connecting Faith" with Stephanie Kay. Although the topic was not one I was super interested in {Kirb is the "money man" around here after all, which is why they didn't ask ME to be on the radio talking about investments, planned giving, taxes and year-end-giving}, I did listen to the whole show. The kids weren't very understanding of the fact that I was trying to listen to the radio and not miss the times when Kirb was actually talking {there was him, the show's host -- hostess, actually -- and another guest, so he only talked probably a quarter of the time}. It was so funny to watch the kids yell into the stereo speakers "Hi Dad!" "Dad, can you hear me?" "Did you get my message, Dad? I left you a message." I guess they have a ways to go before they have a completely understanding of the concept of a radio vs a phone {which, I guess, is perfectly logical, since the only other time they've heard his voice and not been able to see him was over the phone. And, in that case, it works great: when you talk, you get a response. Not so this time around, however!} Another fun thing about the show was that Kirb's aunt {who is married to his dad's brother} was listening to the show in northern Minnesota -- I guess she's a dedicated listener of "Connecting Faith" as Stephanie seemed to know her by name -- without knowing that Kirby was going to be on. So, she called in when she heard his voice {it was a call-in show} and chatted with him a while. Not about the topic of the show, mind you, just to say "Hi". She also asked if he brought his horn to play on the air, then went on to tell the whole listening audience about what a great job he does playing the horn and what a beautiful singing voice he has. I found it to be the most entertaining 2 minutes of the hour-long show, myself! Auntie Arlene brings fun to any situation in which she finds herself though, that's for sure! In case you are interested, I think you can listen to the show here.

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."

Stuff you might hear in our van on the way home from Costco::

Joe {singing}::"I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever. I will sing. I will sing. I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever, I will sing of the mercies of the Lord. With my mouth, will I make known, MY faithfulness. MY faithfulness. With my mouth will I make known MY faithfulness to all generations." {oops, a little bad theology there. We'll get right on that!}

Anna {when asked if the baby will be a boy or girl and what we should name it}::"Girl. Clifford the big Red Dog."

Joe {when also talking about what we should name the baby}::"Tinkerbell if it's a girl and Joker if it's a boy."

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.

Nice one, Anna!

Look at that sweet, cute, fun, innocent face . . . how could any trouble possibly come from her? Just read on::

Anna has a new fascination::pockets. Actually it's not too new. She's loved pockets for awhile now . . . for putting her hands in, but she has just recently discover that you can put "stuff" in there too. The problem begins when over the last week or so, even if the clothes she is wearing have traditional pockets, she just stuffs things in the front of her diaper/pull-up/underwear (depending on how cooperative she's being in the bathroom department) and tells me she's putting them "in my pocket." {it's possible you can already feel where this story is going} . . . so, this afternoon I find her munching on a pretzel. Lunch has been over for a while and all the leftover food has been put away. It's possible someone could have dropped it during lunch, and she decided to snack on it off the floor, but when I ask her where she got the pretzel she answers, "In my pocket". NICE! I suppose a crotch-dwelling pretzel isn't the very worst thing she could eat, but it's right up there in my book! Yuck!

Heard 'round these parts ::

Anna is talking SO MUCH lately. She is exploding with language and putting multiple words together every day. It's so fun to watch {and hear!} her grow in this way. Here are a few of our favorite funny things that she says lately ::

• "wii game" {we think she wants to play, like all the big kids . . . plus we often see her with a calculator or some such smallish thing, swinging it around like crazy. I'm sure she'll be playing with the best of 'em soon enough!}
• "brownie"
• "cookie"
• "Haddie" {what she calls her cousin, Haddon}
• "Baby" {what she calls herself}
• "No, no mamma!"

Joe has, as you know, been talking for quite some time, but in the past week he has developed some new phrases. We don't know where they came from and we're not overly thrilled about them . . . although we do find them quite funny {but we try not to let him know we find them funny}. He mostly uses them when he's playing the wii, which he is exceptionally gifted at I might add. Anyway, from the mouth of the Joe-ster ::

• "What the dutts?"
• "What in the hairs?"

We really don't ever use any phrases beginning "What the . . . " or "What in the . . . ", so I'm a little confused as to where he picked them up. But I do find his interpretation to be quite comical.

Flashback Friday

Here's a post originally written just about a year ago. Since so many people got such a big kick out of it, I thought I'd give you all a little chuckle again {or possibly for the first time if you didn't see it last year!} Enjoy:

ORIGINAL POST:

warning: parental advisory on this post. slightly inappropriate use of humor . . . just don't say i didn't warn you:

joey loves hats! he loves this hat. he's had it since he was a baby. i thought maybe this year anna could wear it, but joe doesn't seem to want to give it up. he wore it ALL DAY on friday . . . inside and out! and over and over, all day while he had it on, he kept saying:

"when i jump my balls jiggle!"

he's talking about THE HAT, you see it has little balls on top . . . ok, enough said! have a great week!

silly boy!

As we were driving along the other day, Joe came up with this extra funny thought. It's so classically "Joe":

I wish we had a big, big, big, big, big white house with an outside upstairs where we could watch fireworks . . . like Ama's

In case you've never noticed, {and you enjoy funny Joe -- and other Stoll kid -- quotes} there is a whole slew of them on the right hand side of the blog. Just scroll down a tad, look right and you'll see 'em. Enjoy!

A worship?

A little conversation that took place when we were trying to leave the Y this morning:

Joe: I have to get my worship out.
Mom: What?
Joe: I have to get a worship out.
Mom: How do you do that?
Joe (sits down on the sidewalk): Like this. (takes off his shoe and dumps it out, then puts it back on).

. . . ah, I see . . . a woodchip!

Father & Son

Joe to Dad: "We are wheelbarrowing right by each other!"

A little laugh for your day

Why did the toilet paper roll down the hill?
To get to the bottom!

Jacob told me that one while we were folding laundry this morning {yup, you guessed it . . . we were folding underwear!}. I thought it was funny! Have a great day!

Silly kids

THIS is how Joe looked going to church on Sunday:

• Palm Sunday . . .
  
• where he had to walk up the aisle waving a palm branch . . .
  
• and then stand on the steps in front of the sanctuary, with the other kiddos, singing "Hosanna, Loud Hosanna".

Nice outfit, don'tcha say?

Actually before stepping boot foot inside the sanctuary he decided to take off the hat . . . and his boots. Yup, he did the whole thing barefoot! {He refuses to wear socks . . . in case you didn't know that fun Joe-fact!} Sorry, there aren't pictures of that. I was up on stage with them helping "coach" the preschoolers.

Here's the best I could do during my attempt to get a picture of Haddon and Anna together.
{I have 4 or 5 that aren't quite as good as this one . . . how cute it might have been!}

"Anna, where are you going? Come back here!"

Well, maybe . . .

Lydia just said to me:

"Maybe I got sick from daylight savings time."

Hmmm, I've never heard that one before, but the timing lines up pretty good so I guess we shouldn't rule it out. Anyone else get sick from daylight savings time?

seriously?

ok, so i took some stuff out of the dryer just now (i was up before 5 doing laundry: i heard joe crying from upstairs and came down to check on him. in all the commotion of christmas and the late service at church and not being at home . . . yadda, yadda . . . he never got a diaper on under his pj’s — he still wears one to bed — before he went down for the night and, thus, he had peed in his bed and was wet and cold . . . suprising, i know! so, that’s why i was doing laundry at 5 on christmas morning . . . while “the children — and kirb — were nestled all snug in their beds” — well, joe was on the couch with a blanket but i digress . . . when i took the load out of the dryer there were lots of little (very clean) pieces of white tissue-like paper in the dryer. (i find all manner of things in the dryer, since i'm not good at remembering to check pockets and such. yesterday, amazingly, it was a dollar that i found!!! i was so excited . . . it doesn’t take much, i’m a pretty simple girl!) anyway, back to the story . . . after discovering the 5th or 6th piece of this “stuff” i vaguely remembered lydia telling me something about not wiping well and just “putting some toilet paper in my underwear”. i guess that remedies the laziness that would make you rationalize not wiping your butt in an acceptable way! anyhow, mystery solved! nice one, lj! you are nearly 7, i think it's about time you really learned how to wipe your crack without having to stick toilet paper in your undies!
now, i'm fairly certain my kids aren't the only ones to pull stunts like these and so i ask: what antics have your precious little stinkers pulled lately?

oh joe!

warning: parental advisory on this post. slightly inappropriate use of humor . . . just don't say i didn't warn you:

joey loves hats! he loves this hat. he's had it since he was a baby. i thought maybe this year anna could wear it, but joe doesn't seem to want to give it up. he wore it ALL DAY on friday . . . inside and out! and over and over, all day while he had it on, he kept saying:

"when i jump my balls jiggle!"

he's talking about THE HAT, you see it has little balls on top . . . ok, enough said! have a great week!

boo! . . . i mean, moo! -- flashback friday

it all started in the summer of 1999 when we got a bag of hand-me-downs with a cow suit in it . . . since the beginning of time (ok, not quite that long ago, but a long time nonetheless) our kids have been a cow on their first halloween. we're not big halloween enthusiasts, but who can resist a cute little calf? . . . i daresay, not too many.

so, here are 5 cows. can you identify them correctly? there are pictures of 5 little calves in radom order (or are they? maybe they're in chronological order, i've been known to be kinda tricky on occasion. maybe some psychological knowledge of how i think could come in handy for this one!). our family calves: model year '99, model year '01, model year '02, model year '05 and most recently model year '08. each model year had some slight changes from the previous model, but most features remain quite similar.




if you can correctly identify all 5 calves (by model year or name!) you will win a prize. i don't know what it will be yet, but more than likely it will be something i made. more than 1 person can win . . . but hopefully not too many!! (i just don't have time to make millions of prizes). leave your guesses in the comments and no fair cheating by looking at other people answers . . . you're on your honor here, don't let me down!! (i'm pretty sure i figured out how to hide the comments until the contest is over, so i took away the temptation to cheat all together!!) i'll announce the winners (if there are any!!) in a few days. hopefully the waiting won't be too painful for anyone!