Impending Christmas from Jennica's viewpoint

This blog is my estimate of what Jennica is thinking and feeling, based on her recent activities. :)

1) Mom and Dad put a tree in our house, covered it with bright lights and shiny things and expect me to stay away from it? Yeah right......

2) Mom and Dad wrapped PRESENTS and put them under the tree and want me to stay out of them. How stupid can they be? If they wanted me to stay out of them, why did they put them UNDER the tree where I can get to them?

3) I've got this cool new red dress, but even cooler is this net thingy underneath it that goes way out when I spin really fast. I'd really like to show everyone I meet this cool net thingy, but Mom and Dad call it "flashing" and don't seem to like it. Too bad!!!

We'll see what else she gets into in the next week...It could get interesting.....

I'm going to the Nutcracker!!

I got a phone call the other day asking me if I was interested in a "day trip" and I'm SO excited!! I get to go to The Nutcracker in Seattle!! I've wanted to go for years, but have always been out-voted by the three males in the house. Since the other two females aren't old enough to vote yet, I've lost every time....

But everyone keeps laughing at my adventure when I tell them that I'm being chaffeured to Seattle in a big yellow school bus and I'm being accompanied by 60+ fifth and sixth graders plus some other parents and teachers. Seems that people don't think that 10-12 year olds are going to be real attentive to the production. Hmmm........They may be right. However, I refuse to be swayed and I'm going to go and have a GREAT TIME!!

So why did the school call ME? Do I have "sucker" tattooed across my forehead? Hmmmm.....

Good Riddance November!

Any of you that check my blog regularly may have been wondering where I've been lately. Or not!! Hee hee hee. Whether you want to know or not, I'm going to tell ya!! (Once again, I remind you that you are here voluntarily.......)

As I've already mentioned Mike and I went to Seattle overnight over Veterans Day weekend. Prior to that, I had taken a day off ALL BY MYSELF and gone shopping out of town just for a day. We hardly broke the bank during either of these trips, but it is rare for us to do two things like this back-to-back simply "for the fun of it."

So.......I guess you could say that in the middle of this month, I felt like maybe I needed to take on more work than I normally would have to make a little extra and atone for our expenditures. So as the appraisal orders kept coming and the phone kept ringing, I kept saying, "YES!" Big mistake, huge.......GI-NORMOUS!

Up until Thanksgiving, I was sailing along happily in denial as to what I had done to myself. But after Thanksgiving, the bell tolled loudly and I was shackled to my desk for my sins. I honest to goodness NEVER want to repeat a month like November. I'm simply not greedy enough to lower my quality of life to the extreme of working those kinds of hours!!

Finally, at 11 pm on Friday, DECEMBER 1st, I completed the last order that had been due in November. Only 24 hours late, technically speaking. My tendons in my wrists are still aching tonight, Sunday evening, from the stress of hours spent at the keyboard last week.

So........moral to the story?? GREED does not pay!! Not to me anyway!! I was happy to usher in December, which is already much slower, as the market tends to lull this time of year a bit.

So you can picture me, with huge bags under my eyes and my hair still smoking from being on fire that last week and LAUGH!!! The office is CLOSED, until Monday morning at 8 a.m. and will be closing promptly at 5 p.m. No more 16+ hour days!! At least not until I forget how awful it was the last time...

My Stick Person

I saw this little guy on someone else's blog and I liked him, so I kidnapped him. :) Life is good right now!! I made some headway on the pile of stuff on my desk today and am rewarding myself with the evening off!! WAHOO!!! I hope that wherever you are, you are enjoying a day/evening with family and loved ones!!

My "Gremlin"

Grant is now 11 and doesn't really like it when I call him "Gremlin" anymore, which has been my nickname for him since he was about a year old. He says he doesn't mind "Grant-ster", another one of his nicknames, but really prefers that we avoid "Gremlin". I'm having a hard time breaking the habit, but I'm working on it as I'm trying to respect his wishes and the fact that he's growing up.

Since he IS growing up and I've been blogging about the funny things that the girls do and say, I've come to realize that with the passage of time, I have forgotten some of the funny things that the boys did and said when they were in toddler and preschool stages. The boys like to read my blog and have asked me if they did/said funny things at the same age. So I've decided that I'm occasionally going to blog things about the boys from their early childhood to journal those events for them. Today, this one is all about Grant. The photo I will attach of him was taken at about the time this conversation happened. Check out those dimples!!!

When Grant was about 4, he was attending Preschool/Day Care while I was at work. He had a habit of coming into the bathroom in the morning, perching on the bathroom counter, and chatting with me while I got ready for work. One November morning, I was asking him what he was learning at Preschool and he started chatting about pilgrims. The conversation went like this:

Me: "What have you been talking about at Preschool?"
Grant: "Indians and pilgrims. Pilgrims rode on a boat."
Me: "Did the indians help the pilgrims?"
Grant: "Yep. The indians helped the pilgrims build houses."
Me: "That's cool. Did they live in houses like us?"
Grant: "No. The Indians lived in tee-pees." (I don't really think the indians of the Atlantic coastline lived in tee-pees, but he was four, so I didn't argue.)
Me: "Wow. Did you know that indians here lived in big houses made of wood?"
Grant: "They did?"
Me: "Yep. What other kinds of houses do people live in?"
Grant: Blank look here.
Me: "How about igloos? Who lives in igloos?"
Grant: "IGLOOS??"
Me: "Yes....igloos? Who lives in igloos?" (I thought this was a word he was familiar with.)
Grant: Big pause. Thinking. And then, "Oh. Oh. I know!!! DOGS!!!"

It took me a minute. Is it taking you a minute, too? Hint here: My Mom and Dad had a Golden Retriever at the time with a Dog-loo from Walmart. I was laughing too hard to explain that the answer I had been looking for was eskimo. And, after all, he was right!! The retriever DID live in an igloo. :))))

Yes, Grant, you also said/did funny things at a young age. I love you, Grant-ster!!! You were a wonderful 4-year-old and you're an even better 11-year-old. I'm proud of you!!!

The wind blew and the trees fell

This past week, we had a doozy of a windstorm. It started blowing here about noon and went to full force at about 1:30. I grew up here in the Pacific Northwest, am accustomed to life beneath the trees with the coastal winds that blow several times each year, but this was UNREAL. I'm not sure that I've ever felt it blow this hard. And oddly enough, at about 4:30 pm, it was like God turned the switch off and the wind stopped. Very strange.

In any case, during the course of the storm, we ended up with at least four trees down on our property. A year ago, we hired a faller to come in and take out 13 hemlocks close to the house, several of which were rotten, and we are so thankful that we spent the money and had it done. The four trees that fell in this storm were out along the driveway, made a huge mess with limbs and debris, but our home was not threatened. One of them was a BIG one, which took out a couple others on its way down. I got the adventure of driving the van across our yard to get out the driveway that day, but other then a minor four-wheeling event in a minivan, no major thrills. I have to admit that it was fun to see Grant's face when he got off the school bus and had to climb over a fallen tree to get to the house. He came in the door and said, "Uh, Mom?? Did you know we have a tree in the driveway??" No kidding. :)

In any case, Mike is out playing lumberjack this morning. His chainsaw will cut up all the limbs and the smaller-midsize trees, but we're probably going to have to hire someone to come in and do something with the big one. Its going to require a serious tree-eating piece of machinery. Since we don't have any sort of wood-burning heat, I guess Dad & Mom will get first crack at a bunch of free firewood.

Hey Marj--If you guys have some sort of wood heat in your house, I'll give you a free load of firewood for Christmas to take back to Spokane in your trunk with you!!!

Feeling humbled this morning...

Jennica was up during the night and not in a pleasant mood. We finally determined that it was a stomach ache (won't go into the details of how we figured that out). I'm tired this morning, and I got, by far, the better end of the deal as Mike sent me back to bed and stayed up with her. He stumbled out the door at 6:30 this morning to head to work and I know he's exhausted today.

I'm not really a morning person to begin with, and with a lack of sleep, I'm even worse. Of course, Jen managed to wake up bright and sunny today, which thoroughly annoyed me. Until suddenly I remembered...

This is the little girl that is supposed to have severe, inherited disabilities. This is the little girl that we almost "lost" to her birth family on the East Coast. This is the little girl that we were not sure would walk or talk. This is the little girl that we hauled to a neuro-developmentalist at 8 months so we could begin the process of identifying her disabilities and start early therapies.

Instead what we have is Jennica. Rambunctious, stubborn, demanding, delightfully funny, lover-of-books and any lap that is still long enough for her to climb into it, brown-eyed Jennica. She actually doesn't ever really walk.....she runs!!! And sings. And when she laughs, she laughs with her whole body.

So, I am again humbled by our youngest daughter, reminded of what a miracle she truly is, and what a miracle God has worked right in front of us in watching her grow from the tiny 7-week-old infant she was, to the rowdy 2 1/2-year-old she is today. We took custody of her fully knowing that she was the biological child of two developmentally disabled adults, and that she had two autistic siblings. NEVER did we question our decision to adopt her, and I feel so strongly that God blessed us with a MIRACLE.

Now, if I can only remember all of this the next time that she is wide awake at 5 a.m. and singing, "....winkle tar......winkle tar.....ding dong ding.....ding dong ding....." (Her own delightful rendition of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and "Frere Jacques" combined together.)

Benefit of getting to preschool a few minutes late...

Tiersten's three-year-old preschool class in our elementary school starts at 8 a.m. The rest of the elementary school, and the Jr High/Sr High School across the street, don't start class until 8:25, so when I walk her into her classroom, I get to see all the elementary kids in the hallways, shout a "hello" to any high schoolers I know standing around on that side of the street, and chat with staff members and other parents that may be loitering before school starts. Our boys prefer to ride the bus to school in the morning rather than ride with the girls and I, so sometimes I get to see them, on their own respective sides of the street, chatting with their friends and doing the typical before-school activities.

I have discovered that if I'm running a little late, I get an added bonus that I really enjoy. Every morning, a high school student reads the bulletin over the loudspeaker, which is broadcast indoors and outdoors over the campus. It doesn't broadcast inside the elementary school, but if I'm outside the building, it is loud enough that I can hear it from across the street. It is truly GREAT fun!! As Dane is only a 7th grader, he doesn't seem to know how the reading student is chosen, but I'm guessing it is probably a member of the ASB?? In any case, it is great to listen to. They always recite the "Pledge of Allegiance" and then go through the day's announcements--which teams won or lost a game the previous evening, the lunch menu, all those types of things. Sometimes, I can tell that the reader is a little uncomfortable with the microphone because they will read it all pretty quickly in a monotone. Other days, you get someone who can "ham it up" a bit better and they'll throw in a "woo-hoo" behind the team announcements if a game has been won, and add some fun adjectives to the lunch menu. It makes the days announcements so much more interesting to hear them from the teenage perspective and I really enjoy listening!

I can't help but wonder, when my children take their turn at the microphone, will they be the shy ones, or the extroverted "woo-hoo" and "DEE-licious Macaroni and Cheese" kids??? :)

A weekend in the BIG CITY

I've had a long day, but I've been anxiously trying to sneak a few minutes in for the past few days, so I'm finally doing that, despite the fact that completing a sentence is a tad tough tonight. Not sure where all these appraisal orders are coming from, but I'm scheduling late November now and I'm still buried. In the "World of the Self-Employed", we all try to remind ourselves that it is better to be too busy, than to be twiddling our thumbs waiting for the phone to ring, but some days when the phone won't stop ringing, its hard to remember that. Am I rambling? I think I'm rambling. I have a tendency to do that when I'm tired and over-stimulated and a half hour ago the fax was still ringing with new incoming orders. I'm still doing it, aren't I?

Before I forget, I've posted a few new "Tiersten-isms" on that blog post from August, so for those of you that like to hang out and wait for my daughter to come up with her latest phrase, check it out!! And she has the "T-I-E-R" down in writing her name so I figure that in about a year, she can have her own blog. I'm still rambling, aren't I?

ANYHOW, Mike and I ran away this weekend to Seattle. (If there are any of you out there that think that its strange that people go to the CITY on the weekend instead of the other way around, you need to realize that if you live in Smalltown, USA it is NOT a treat to spend the weekend in Smalltown, USA. We can sit around and debate about which of three restaurants to eat at any old time we want. We want CHOICES when we run away...The rest of you can enjoy coming to the country when you want to escape the city. Not us.)

We stayed downtown in a high-rise hotel with a view of Elliott Bay, ate at a restaurant with authentic Cajun food and live jazz music, and....drumroll here.......a very first for me.....we rode in a TAXI....TWICE!!!! And for me, there is nothing quite like the helpless feeling of being from a small town, pulling up in front of a nice hotel, and having your car and luggage both removed from your possession in the first 60 seconds by a valet and a bellhop. It leaves you standing on the sidewalk feeling a little lost and out of control, but I think I could get used to the spoiling with a little bit of practice!!! Its just a very odd feeling when you are used to being self-serving in a rural area that doesn't have a single valet parking place in the ENTIRE COUNTY.

In any case, we laughed a lot while we were gone. Mostly at ourselves, but it sure felt good. It was nice to not have a restless toddler and preschooler tugging on our arms, and know that they were both in excellent care at home and enjoying some one-on-one time. (We split them up and sent them different places, so that they could have some "special" time, and they are such a handful together that you feel like you're burdening someone to hand them both off at once.) The boys were happily hanging out with their Dad and stepmom for a couple of extra days. We slept late, we enjoyed a variety of art, we ate, we strolled, and we enjoyed. (The Pottery Barn in downtown Seattle is to die for. I ended up not buying anything there because I couldn't narrow it down. I wanted the whole store!! Ohhhh.....the shopping!!!) It was so nice to have a concrete reminder that life DOES exist beyond our usual activities that absorb our daily lives. Ahhh.......culture.

Today, life was back to chaos as usual, but I feel a bit more rested than last week. Maybe not so much rested in a physical way, but definitely rested in a mental way. In the larger world, I'm just one little ant putting one foot in front of the other. Going to the city where there are so many ants put it in perspective.

A good day for Dane

Today was a good day for Dane. Which means that it was a good day for his Mom, too. :)

His progress report came in the mail today and he is doing VERY well in all of his subjects. Great to know!!

But more importantly, to me at least, is that he was awarded the "Coach's Award" this evening at the Jr. High Sports Banquet for football. Way to go, Dane!!!

Academic achievement is a good thing, but I am even more proud of his accomplishments that earned him the Coach's Award. He was chosen for his upbeat attitude and work ethic. In the bigger picture of life, I think those are the characteristics that carry us the farthest.

Just bustin' my buttons a bit tonight!!! For those of you who knew him as the holy terror of a toddler he was.......I guess this is our reward!!

Congratulations, Dane!!!

I don't "get it"!

The following are things I don't "get" in life...about other people, about human behavior, about how we think, and just in general. Please keep in mind that this is MY blog and you are here voluntarily. If you don't like what I have to say, uh........too bad!!! Feel free to post comments and tell me I've totally lost my mind. :)

1) Why did two boys this morning totally miss the point of, "Can you guys watch your sisters while I take a shower?" The phrase "watch your sisters" was not intended to mean "watch them make a mess of the house", or "watch them fight over toys", or "watch them slam each others fingers in doors". In the future, I guess I will need to be more specific. I will try to use the phrase, "Watch your sisters AND INTERVENE as necessary...."

2) Why do people care whether Britney Spears and Kevin Federline are fighting or not this week? Why do people care if Madonna is adopting a child from Malawi? And why do people care if Angelina Jolie took her children with her to the grocery store today to buy lettuce? Let me make it clear here...I DON'T CARE!!!! I can, to a point, understand people's desire to know that the lives of the rich and famous have some of the same problems and issues that we ordinary folk do. I can, to a point, also understand that we all like to think that somewhere/somehow/some way there are people out there that do NOT have the same problems and issues that we ordinary folk do. But all it takes is one trip to the newstand these days to realize that we are WAY beyond that point. America is obsessed with the personal lives of famous people. I think its weird!!!

3) Someone explain hunting season to me. Keep in mind that I live in a rural community where, every fall, a large percentage of the male population dons orange and camouflage clothing, climbs into pickup trucks, and drives around the countryside with the intention of killing animals with firearms. I can relate to the desire to drive around "off the beaten track" and enjoy the country. I can relate to the desire to have an excuse to experience some time away from the house and go off and enjoy a hobby. For those who choose to enjoy this hobby only with other men and/or large quantities of beer, I can understand that, too. The part that I don't "get" is that it involves killing something. What is the point? DO NOT insult my intelligence by telling me that it is about feeding your family. If this was 1890, I'd accept that, but this is 2006 and we all get the vast majority of our meat from the grocery store. If you want to tell me that it is about celebrating your heritage, give me the gun and the truck, and start hiking with your bow and arrow. Maybe I'm the one thats weird here, but I'd rather be weird than view every deer and elk and try to imagine how he's going to look dead in the back of my truck. I like them better alive. Are there hunters that agree with me, but want to be a part of "the club" so they drive around all month and hope they never see anything that their buddy wants to shoot?

Just some things I think about...

The Art of Procrastination

I should be working, but I don't want to, so I'm blogging instead. sssshhhhhh....

Halloween was a little bizarre and anti-climactic this year. I think our Halloween highpoint was carving our six pumpkins on Saturday evening and then watching "The Blair Witch Project" with the boys. Halloween itself consisted of the girls having parties at Day Care and Preschool in the morning, trick-or-treating after school around the downtown businesses, and then trick-or-treating at my parents' home and the home of Mike's boss. Dane had his first wrestling practice on Halloween, we had to pick him up at the school at 5:30, and it just didn't work out right schedule-wise to do what we normally do. We might have tried to extend the trick-or-treating a bit more, but Dane injured his foot at practice pretty good and we needed to get him home to evaluate the damage. (No permanent damage, but a fair amount of blood and a really nasty bruise. His entire big toe is about the color of grape juice right now. Really special!! I can post pictures if you want? Nah.....didn't think so. You wimps!!)

In any case, Halloween is over for another year. Next year, the girls will be 3 & 4 and will be a little easier. This year, we were still really on the edge of that nagging question in the back of your head that says, "Why are we stuffing our children in costumes that they don't want to wear and dragging them out to gather candy that they will never eat?"

Well.......While I've been blogging I haven't seen anyone show up and start working on my appraisal reports. Hmmmmmm. I guess I'm going to have to do them myself. Back to work.

A photo...but not of Jennica

Okay......so I'm not posting a new picture of Jennica. I had great plans, showed up early to pick her up at Day Care so I had plenty of time to play "paparazzi", but totally spaced on the fact that it would be getting dark an hour earlier. And it is suddenly COLD here. We got our first good frost last night, and at 4:30 this afternoon, it was pretty obvious that it is going to freeze again tonight. I decided that trying to get natural smiles out of a cold toddler was going to be miserable. Will try again on Wednesday. Tomorrow Jennica's schedule (and that of her chaffeur) is booked for trick-or-treating.

In any case, I did get a few good photos today, although they are totally unrelated to Jen. I had a home inspection in Timbuktu. Seriously--2 miles from the nearest paved road--I clocked it as I will need to note it in the report. But Timbuktu has some gorgeous fall leaves, so I took time to smell the roses, or photograph the leaves, as the case may be. :)

Happy Halloween tomorrow!!!

Saturday

Grant's team had their last game of the season today against Montesano...And THEY WON!!! It was very exciting!!! They played a very good game and this was their first win of the season!! They're really not as pitiful as that sounds--but our association team rules are drastically different than the teams we play, so we have consistently played our fourth and fifth graders against older/larger/more experienced kids. Today was a nice end to a difficult season!!

And then, this evening we carved pumpkins. The only person to lose any blood was Mike, so the kids are all still fully intact with fingers and hands. It still makes me nervous to hand the boys a knife and say, "Go for it!!" The girls were pretty fascinated and were willing to dig in and help with the gutting, but got bored pretty quickly since we obviously wouldn't let them carve. We ended up with six great pumpkins and good memories!!

The attached photos are my two favorites from the shoot yesterday with the boys in the park. I particularly like the one of Grant!!! As Jennica is still the hardest to get to hold still for any length of time, she is still the hardest to photograph. My goal for tomorrow is to shoot some new photos of her, so with any luck at all, I'll be adding those late tomorrow or Monday.

Happy Autumn!!

I have bats in my belfry tonight...

I'm tired tonight, but I have that ADHD feeling of my thoughts just racing. I worked super duper long hours on Wednesday and Thursday, in order to get some orders done. Last night, this required returning to the computer for a couple of hours after Dane's football game. And then when I decided I was done working, Jennica decided to wake up with a stomach ache and was up until after midnight. And then I had to be in Ocean Park this morning at 9:30 for another appraisal I'm working on. And then tonight I volunteered for two hours at the Halloween Carnival at the school and worked my fanny off being nice to children that wanted to throw quarters at my assigned target to win prizes.

But, strangely enough, I'm feeling very "enthused" about life in general today. Life is GOOD!

1) Dane lost his game last night, but it was the LAST game, so from the parent standpoint, it was still a celebration at the end. (He played the ENTIRE game, so he is very sore and tired today. But he also didn't have school today, so he got to sit on his rear and recuperate at complete and total leisure. His highpoint of the game was realizing that he had just mowed over one of his best buddies from his baseball team. He and Sam have been good baseball friends for the last couple of years, but attend different schools, so now that they are in Junior High, they will forevermore play on opposing teams. Dane thought it was hysterical that he flattened Sam on a good block.)

2) I'm doing GREAT at the moment on deadlines. In fact, I've even submitted some orders early. This is the first weekend in a while where I will not have the little midget in my brain, "PSSSTTT!! You should NOT be sitting in this chair!! You have work to do!!!"

3) Even though I had to be in Ocean Park early this morning, it was a GORGEOUS fall day!!! One of the homes that I had to inspect has an incredible ocean view, so I measured their huge decks very slooooowly and enjoyed listening to the crash of the waves and watching the gulls.

4) The Halloween Carnival was BUSY, so the two hours went very quickly. Plus, it was fun volunteering with so many of the other parents that I grew up and went to school with. Yes...Its true...Nobody sane ever really leaves here. And if we do, we come back. So if you are a graduate of RHS, WVHS, or SBHS, and you are living "off-campus", its because you are sane. The rest of us are only allowed brief field trips out of town.

5) And I got to indulge TWO of my favorite hobbies today. Napping.....ZZZZZ......and taking pictures. I was totally drawn today by the leaves outside, so I victimized my two eldest children and made them pose in the park downtown for me today. Pictures will be forthcoming shortly.

Grant and Mike's last football game is tomorrow and then we will be FREE. WAHOO!! (Picture me doing "snow angels" on the carpet here!!) Not sure what we're going to do with all of our newfound free time. Perhaps it is time to paint something. Like a wall. Or maybe I can find a new faucet to fix. Heh heh heh.

My name is "T"

Tiersten has recently become rather insistent that we call her "T". This has been an ongoing nickname around home for quite awhile, but I guess she's decided she really likes it. Mike snapped the enclosed photo of her this weekend and I think it is going to be one of my very favorites. Her glasses came in on Monday, but I haven't had a chance to take a picture of her in them yet. Maybe this evening.....In the meantime, enjoy our new photo of "T".

"Dane-gerous"

Suddenly--I feel like Dane has really turned a corner in the "Age & Maturity Department." Junior High has been a big jump (bigger than I had expected) and he is really rising to meet the occasion. I am proud of him!! He has really worked hard in football, continues to pull excellent grades, and helps out around home without whining whenever he is asked. His developing sense of humor is a riot.

Around home, we have always called him "Dane-O". I'm not sure where it came from, but it started when he was very small. Sometimes its even "Dane-O Morano." Don't know where that came from either. I don't really notice when we call him that, but I know that we must still do it, because both girls sometimes call him "Dane-O" and they had to have picked it up from us. In any case, Dane now has a new nickname that I'm getting a real kick out of. And Dane seems to like it!!! It represents what he is and wants to be on the football field--"Dane-gerous". His coach has tagged him with this name and has even told him he should get it tatooed on his arm. I think we'll wait on the tattoo, but I like it!! He came home on a gameday a few weeks ago with it written in BIG silver letters on his forearm. He said that one of his friends had written it on his arm for him. :)

The two attached pictures are two of my very favorites of Dane. The first one was taken right at age two, and shows the mischievous grin that he still has. The second one shows him now, in a more serious moment.

Dane--I'm very proud of you. For the little boy you were, the teenager you are now, and the man you will be in the future. Love, Mom

New Photo of the girls

Mike took this photo of the girls on Sunday. They had climbed into a laundry basket together and he was quick and grabbed the camera. I really like it!!

Just for Susan

My older sister, Susan, HATES spiders! With a passion!! In fact, we have several family jokes surrounding her phobia. Tent checks with flashlights, shaking the mail off outside of the car before it enters the vehicle, watching her do a "crazy-person" dance if she felt a spider web on her......These were all a part of my childhood and growing up with Susan.

Now, being the delightful little sister that I was, I decided at a very young age that I LIKED spiders. I LOVED spiders!! All simply to irritate and annoy my older sister. Heh Heh Heh. I used to catch them and let them crawl all over me, refuse to kill one that might have found his way into my room and then take it a step further by naming him-- and anything else I could think of.

So yesterday, on my 38th birthday no less, I was measuring a house and had to squeeze between the building and a large rhododendron. Needless to say, I ended up wearing the spider web of an autumn sunshine-loving spider like a hat, and proceeded to do the "crazy dance" in the yard of a complete and total stranger. (For those of you that don't understand, the crazy dance comes unheeded with the assumption that you are probably also wearing the spider himself somewhere on your body.) I have to admit that I immediately thought of my sister. After that, I watched where I was walking much closer and took the attached photo of the next hairy beast that I saw. I'm still going to contend that I'm not afraid of spiders. I just didn't much like the unexpected feeling of his web in my hair and all over my face. YUCK!!!

So, dear elder sister, feel free to gloat and laugh at the mere thought of me dancing all over the yard of some stranger frantically grabbing at my hair and face. I admit it.....I've more than earned it for all the times I made fun of you. Love you, Big Sis!!! :) And to my other older sister, Marj, I'm still not sorry for all those times I locked you in the basement......yet. :) I'll blog about that another time...

Jennica and the Orange Highlighter

Anybody out there remember the "Harold and the Purple Crayon" books? I LOVED those books as a little girl. I don't think I ever had one of my own, but I remember checking them out at the library with my Mom. For those of you that are not familiar with them, the entire book(s) is always about Harold drawing some adventure with his purple crayon. Whatever he draws.....happens.

"Jennica and the Orange Highlighter" does not have the same ring to it, but it fit this weekend. On Saturday, she found one somewhere and had quite an adventure coloring her pants, shirt, socks, face, and hands. She didn't have any regrets whatsover, and the enclosed photo shows her proudly showing off the one little piece of paper that she colored.

Today, she took advantage of Mike and I both being busily involved with Tiersten and Grant, respectively, snuck into the boys' room, and found a black felt-tip pen. She wrote on their walls, closet doors, dresser, door, her hands and face, and a few other things. Luckily, this was not a pemanent marker, but still.......

Now...Let's be honest here. The obvious point to be made is that Jen needs to be more closely watched. I'll agree to that. However, its still frustrating when you think you have all the scissors, pens, etc. above her reach and she STILL manages to find something. Oh well...I guess thats what makes two.....well......age two, huh?