Good news, FINALLY!

I just heard from my doctor on my latest round of bloodwork, and he has finally cleared me, yea!!!! All levels are back to normal, and I can stop being the human pincushion.

Good choice?

We went to our house yesterday and I'm a little concerned about the appliances we chose. I use the term "we" loosely, because I went in thinking we were going with black appliances and was completely surprised when Logan ordered stainless. So, being the wonderful agreeable wife that I am, I rolled with it (Logan would probably beg to differ about the rolling, it was probably more like being physically dragged, bygones.) So after Asher touched the dishwasher all over in the space of 10 seconds, there were 10,000 fingerprints, so that is a rate of 1,000 fingerprints per second. Since not only is our dishwasher stainless, but our fridge as well (which has about four times the surface area of the dishwasher), I am going to spend the next portion of my life wiping my kitchen appliances. Is there anyone else that has stainless and if so, what do you do?

Lady and Sons

For my dad's birthday, the whole family went to eat at the Lady and Sons, Paula Deen's Savannah restaurant. Unfortunately, I didn't feel well so I paid $20 for half a pork chop and rice, but Logan and Asher ate enough for the three of us!

Ten high carrots for ho' cakes!Alexis might like peach cobbler...

...or not!

Who's Paula Deen?

I don't know but I love her ( and her fried chicken!)

Well, I'm pretty stuffed after two servings of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, lima beans, green beans, macaroni, garlic cheddar biscuits, and banana pudding.

Careful, Sophie, "'Hark will bight dat carrdet."

What is the mo' factor for this event?

We have a, ahem, term of endearment that is used for certain situations in our family. That term is "mo", and as you can guess, it is a nice way of saying, "hey, you're being a moron." We have noticed over the years that as the testosterone in any given situation increases, the mo' factor also increases, only exponentially. If estrogen is present in copious amounts, it can sometimes lower the mo' factor to a reasonable level, sometimes not, it's kind of hit or miss.

Here was the situation, Logan, Brice and Blake were hanging out in the pool. (Notice no counteracting estrogen is mentioned.) Logan is looking around and realizes, hey it would be cool to bring the deck furniture into the pool and try to get it to float by putting rafts, beach balls, pool noodles, etc, underneath it. So into the pool the furniture goes. Well, apparently that wasn't fun enough, because then one of them got the great idea to have a "party" on the bottom of the pool. About this time along comes Brent, and the mo' factor instantly jumps another 100 points.

"How are we going to breathe on the bottom of the pool since we have no gillyweed?", they begin to ask each other. They decided that the water hose looks something like the hose that goes from a snorkel tank to a mask, so it will probably get the job done. Alas, no, there is too much pressure on the hose to allow the air to pass through, particularly since they all want to sit on the bottom at the same time and pass the hose around like a peace pipe. So someone comes up with the idea to take the blower for the inflatable bed and hook it up to the end of the hose. BRILLIANT!!! This doesn't work either, but they continue to work on it for an hour.

So I ask you, what do YOU think the mo' factor was???

Goin' to da oh-shun!

This was Asher's mantra from the time we left for Savannah, until...this morning. He still gets up thinking we are going to the ocean. Here are some pictures of his first ocean experience.



Ocean? I'm not sure about this, but it's really loud so I'll probably like it.


Still not sure, I like the way it licks my toes.


Mayday, mayday! The ocean's trying to swallow me!


...and I really like it!!!


So I'll run out until it's almost over my head, at high tide. I think it's really funny when I get knocked over even though mommy's having a heart attack.


I'm ready for more action.


This was his real reaction, it's slightly out of focus, but you can see the look of pure joy.



Goin' to da oh-shun!

Beeg mess!

Today I got the great idea that I would move Asher from the living room to the kitchen so I could clean while he was eating lunch. Since my brain only runs on 10% power, I moved him in his high chair with the plate on the tray. WWWHHHHAAAAATTTTT????? I know, in retrospect, it was a terrible idea in so many ways, but I was focused on the stupid kitchen floor and getting it clean. I digress. So when I picked him up I walked about five feet when the back of the chair came off causing him to tilt and the plate fell to the floor.

Wouldn't you know that today was the day I was serving Chef Boyardee ravioli and strawberries. Do you think I give him this meal often? Why, no, today was only the third time in his life that he'd eaten canned pasta. So of course everything dumped onto the floor. This sauce must have red dye #40 added because it stains so completely and quickly you wouldn't believe it. His eyes, which are already big, were huge and he said, "Mommy make beeg mess!" So I scooped everything back on the plate, give it back to him, and start cleaning immediately.

As I'm cleaning I hear, "Ah-ah make beeg mess!", and I say, "No, mommy made mess, not Asher." I turn around at this point to see why he had made this statement. He was, in fact, in the process of making a big mess by dumping his plate over the side of his tray. Sigh. So then I got to clean up not one huge orange stain, but two.

In the beginning...

Since Asher has become such a parrot, I ordered John Piper's "Foundation Verses" for him to start scripture memory. Things went well so far, with him parroting, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Gen 1.1" in chunks. This morning his nose was running so we were on our way to get a tissue and I said, "In the beginning,". He replied, "In beeg-inning", and I said, "God created,", and he said, "boogies".

One last funny picture for the day

One night a couple of weeks ago, I went in to check on Asher before I went to bed. This is what I saw:


He was asleep with all his "friends" around his head. We have to do a roll call when he gets into bed at night, "'ammie (lambie), check, cack, cack, cack (duck), check, bunna, check, man (snowman), check, bankie, check, udder bankie (other blankie), check. Alright, everyone's here, night night."

Fingerpainting

While I have the chip in the computer, I might as well post more pictures. This was our first experience with fingerpainting. We tried watercolors a while back, but mostly he just wanted to drink the dirty water. So finger painting it was. He started off well, but then things went downhill as he decided that a) painting yourself was more fun than painting the paper, and b) finger paints taste pretty good. He then proceeded to paint everything he could get his hands on, literally, including my parents house. All in all, I think he had a good time.

Pictures from the water park

These were from a few weeks ago, but I haven't gotten around to posting them. This was the day he had the allergic rxn.

Fighting to run away and jump in the pool unassisted:



Sitting on the side freezing because it was only 76 degrees. Of course when we went to the zoo the week before, it was 100.

This is Sophie, Jessica's little girl. Next to Asher, I think she is the cutest baby on the planet :)


Giving Sophie (baby, as he calls her) kisses:

We got a new car!

Supposedly this is going to be my car, but I have a hard time believing that. This is my old car. I noticed a while back that I definitely have the crappiest car in our development. BUT, the car is free. I got in college and we have put very little money into it. It gets great gas mileage, as well. However, the air doesn't work, the radio has major issues (like if you try to turn it up, you must turn it down, and that works, sometimes), and now its manifest destiny is broken. Not really, but I can't remember the name of the part and that is the closest I can come up with. I took some pictures to show its fine details.


The gas tank remains open permanently because someone broke it open to steal gas when we lived in KY.
One of its multiple cosmetic issues, as people kept crashing into it and Logan never wanted to use the insurance money to fix it.


The new car with air, no dents and a radio that works perfectly.

Another funny thing, funny as in fishy...

Asher can say, "alligator" and "beeg mess" and "motor-cuckle" and could attempt supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, probably getting the first two and the last two syllables. So why is it when I ask him to say "three", he just looks away and smiles? He doesn't even attempt to say three.

I know why, because he knows it tortures me. He has been counting to two for a couple of months, with an occasional seven thrown in, but he won't say three. "Un, tew, un tew" over and over. He also says his name begins with an "o". He knows it is an "a", because he starts to say it, but then he changes to "o" and grins at me, again because he knows it drives me crazy.

Bath time conversation

Asher notices the strangest things and brings them up at the strangest times. Tonight, for instance, in the bathtub, the paper rubbed off the soap bottle and settled in the bottom of the tub. He filled his cup with the water and said, "Drink haba (water)?", and I said, "No, look. The water is dirty it has paper floating in it." He repeated, "Dirty haba." Then he looked at me and said, "Je-ka has dirty pool." Jessica's pool has, um, issues, so the water is cloudy and looks dirty. It just amazes me that he can a) make the connection between the water in the tub and the water in the pool, and b) remembers that the pool has dirty water.

He is also obsessed with motorcycles so we bought him a toy motorcycle last week. He took it in to show my mom on Saturday and she said, "What do you have?", to which he replied, "It's a motor-cuckle", like, duh, can't you see what it is?

He managed to pull a full pitcher of tea from the counter onto the floor on Saturday (yes, folks, that is three quarts of tea on my kitchen floor) and when I walked into the kitchen, he said, "Beeg mess!" I asked, "Who made the big mess?", and he said, "Effant (elephant)!" The day before an animal had come on our porch and torn a trash bag open making a big mess. I told him an animal did it and asked him what animal he thought it was. He didn't know, so I said, "Do you think it was an elephant?" So again, I'm amazed how his little mind works.

Where do they get these people?

I watch HGTV on occasion, and I honestly don't know how some of these people get their own show. There is a show called B. original that is hilarious. This lady is CRAZY if she thinks that you would actually display her handicrafts in your home. I guess you could make them for the fun of it, then promptly throw them in the garbage. Here are some examples.

Have a lightbulb that's burned out? Don't worry, you can transform it into this beautiful flower art piece.

Need a new use for a bathmat? How about a purse!


Want to make sure your guests can see their food well at your next dinner party? The solution she offers is a lightbulb centerpiece.



You know your garden always can use a little sparkle. You can add a toadstool made of glass scraps, tacky ribbon roses and beads, how delightful.

Lastly, this is from a different show, Carol Duvall, I think, but this is described as an "edgy art doll." I like to describe it as..."a piece of trash".

I have figured it all out!

The reason you lose weight on this diet is because you spend so much time preparing your food, you don't have time to eat anything but what you've fixed! Seriously, I have chopped on billion tomatoes, cucumbers, celery stalks and peppers this week. And for each recipe they need to be a different way, some minced, some finely chopped, some roughly chopped, some sliced, some diced, you get the picture.

Okay, I really have about a month and a half until I move and I have yet to start packing. I promised myself this is going to be a smooth process, no stress, yet I have done nothing to work toward that goal. After I make the rest of our food for the day (undoubtedly an hour and a half of chopping), I'm starting on my closets.

South Beach, Day 2

I thought this was going to be pretty easy because most of the "outlawed" foods I don't really care for anyway. I could go the rest of my life without eating potatoes of any sort, I could really do without bread if I could just have the occasional bun for my Chick-filA sandwiches, pasta, don't care. I do love sweets, but we don't have those around anyway. Today I found out what my carbohydrate weakness truly is, cereal. My mouth was actually watering at the thought of cereal, raisin bran, to be exact. I didn't realize that I eat cereal every day, sometimes more than that if I don't feel like making dinner.

I can have it again in two weeks, but who would have thought that would be my trigger food?