Redbox Rocks

Randal's been out of town 10 days. This has left me many quiet nights to fill. With the help of Redbox I've managed to be entertained...most nights.

Australia
Loved it.
Bedtime Stories
Didn't love it.
Harry Potter #1
Finally read the book so I had to watch the movie again.
The Secret Life of Bees.
Better suited as a book than a screenplay.
Jane Eyre.
Madly, madly love it. I own a copy and pull this movie out just about every time Randal is traveling. Forget sparkling vampires--this is my kind of Edward!

Life Slowly Goes On

Nothing much blog worthy has been happening.

Conference was inspiring. Although a number of talks involved stories of children dying. I bawled like a baby through most of the sessions.

The Cutler's invited us over for breakfast Sunday morning. Delicious French toast. Thank you. We had such a great time I'm thinking we will adopt the tradition of having a family over from the ward next Conference Sunday. (Hopefully, the kitchen will be done by then.)

Randal has been in Japan the past week. We're just getting by until he comes home.

Our kitchen cabinets were installed. Beautiful. New appliances arrived Saturday. Fabulous. Now we're waiting out the two weeks until the counter tops arrive--that means no sink or dishwasher until then. Interesting.

It snowed today. Blah.

The kids have been getting along really well which is a blessing. The photo (above) was taken after Ethan helped Addie repeat a talk the two had written for FHE.

Their talk (including spelling):

My famly is nise.
My famly is good to me.
I love my famly.
My famly lets me play videyo games.

(I cannot even tell you how proud I am of the fact that of the four sentences they could have chosen to describe our family one contained video games. I'm throwing the Wii in the garbage!)

ER ended last week. I'm still sad.

Super Freak

Adelaide has added two adjectives to her vocabulary. Everything is now super. Granola bars are super good. Playdough is super fun. Her nursery teacher is super nice. But my favorite: [said with angry fists at her side:] "Mom, I'm super, super mad at you!" Now that's just... super.

Although being super angry with me is much better than the observation she loudly made in the grocery store, "Mom, that lady is super big." I would have crawled behind the meat counter if I could.

Her other expression of choice: "My bath is freakin' cold!"

Super I blame on Randal. But we're a long way from the BYU campus so I'm stumped as to her exposure to anything described as freaking.

Hell's Kitchen

My kitchen has been reduced to this:We're making progress don't you think? Who needs anything more that an old stove anyway? Running water is highly overrated. And...walls schmalls.

It may not seem so, but we made incredible progress this weekend. Randal took a few vacation days to get the kitchen ready for cabinet installation tomorrow. Some issues were resolved and we were able to sneak in time to finish enough of the wood floor to make way for the kitchen professionals. Thanks to Andy and Patrick for all their help Saturday. Tomorrow the kitchen will begin to be a kitchen again. I cannot wait!Many of you have asked for pictures. I haven't wanted to post the mayhem until I have great after shots to show we don't actually live in a shack. Soon.

In the meantime, let me wet your appetite with these:

old door

new door

What will we be doing for food in the meantime? Well, McDonald's changed their happy meal toys. I consider our slate wiped clean when new toys are offered thus erasing my shame. Yet another bonus to get us through the next few weeks!

(Addie with TWO McDonald's watches. Oh there's a third one kicking around here somewhere. See what I mean by shame.)

Slogan Central

I'm worried. My son has a new past time--advertising sponge. He excitedly tells me the of the latest and greatest products he has seen advertised on TV, even repeating phrases right out of the commercials. For example, the other day he asked if I was aware that Sketchers "feel like you're walking on air." For weeks he has been explaining the key points of the rather extensive Wii fit campaign. (I think he's got me sold on that one.) And his latest--cereal straws where, he says, you can "dip, sip and munch." He is on an all-out campaign to get me to buy them.

For the most part his interests have remained with children's products. But last night, in the car, he noticed a billboard for Progressive car insurance. He launched into a HUGE explanation about how we could save on our car insurance if we were safe drivers. He figured I could probably save but Dad wasn't a safe driver on account of his speeding tickets. "So Mom," he finished, "You can 'call or click today' and save some money."

Let me just emphatically mention my kid does not watch that much TV. We were, in fact, driving home from the library when this conversation took place. He happens to have his dad's uncanny ability to accurately memorize lines from movies, television and music extremely well. (At least that's what I tell myself to justify any bad habits.)

Egg-Cellent

Yesterday Ethan had the day off from school. It was a little too chilly to spend any kind of time outside and I was very busy handling a renovation complication. By mid-afternoon I started to fell badly that the kids had done nothing all day.

Thanks to Family Fun I found a last-minute Easter activity--paper mache eggs. A little messy but a lot of fun.
As Adelaide was intently working, her egg brushed up against her forehead leaving a sticky piece of tissue behind. Each time she tried to focus on it her eyes would cross. It was so dang funny. I cannot believe I managed to get a picture.Seeing this had been so funny, Ethan wanted to join in too. His piece of tissue was intentionally placed but his desire to make me laugh was sincere.
I wish I could show a lovely picture of our 3 beautiful eggs, but they cracked and ripped during drying. I was a paper mache dropout in grade school. What made me think this time would be any different? Oh well, we had an hour of fun together and I do not feel compelled to keep the projects hanging around, so win win anyway.

Yes We Can!

A good litmus test construction is dragging on a bit too long:

1. Enlisting a 2-year-old to do the work...
2. ...while sporting a workman's half-moon.
and
3. Utter exhaustion after long days of blatant child labor violations.