And the Winner is...

So, I have to say that I am sorry that I am a technical ding dong and I messed things up. Turns out you have to be able to comment to win! HA! There were a couple of people that could have participated, but didn't know they could because they had been to our home a time or two, though they didn't know where the ogres live. I didn't make that part very clear.

Because of that...I will try to do something else soon to make up for it. Something that even Vicky can participate in. How's that? I am not going to be a contest making crazy woman, but I do feel that I need to make up for my mistakes so that everyone can have fun. That was the whole point.

All that said, there is a winner. The correct guess was J.R. Miller who guessed on top of the kitchen cabinets first. We can talk options for your win now. I know. My husband is a bit strange. Who has ogres in their kitchen other than me? I am not sure that a person of that nature exists. At our house we like to add to the list of reasons that "ogres are like onions". We're just cool like that.

Updated- Ogre Contest! Win Handmade Cards!!!

SORRY guys, I am a blogging dork! I thought that it would be better if you couldn't see each other's comments...so I hid the comments not knowing that it would make it impossible to comment. It's fixed and I apologize for that!

I was really just trying to give you time to think...yeah...

Yesterday I skipped out on you because it was to be my 100th post and I wanted to do something fun and special. I didn't have time to finish up because it was Bible study night and we were out late.

I think that it's time you learn a little bit about how interesting my family really is. We may seem normal on the outside, most families do, but we have some quirks up our sleeves. Today you get the chance to win something! Here goes...

The winner will get 6 cards, handmade by me in the design of choice. You can choose one of the three designs below.

This above card is a birthday card that says "let sweet moments fill your day" and on the inside it says "Sweet Birthday Wishes". If you prefer that the greeting on the inside be different I can be flexible.

This card with the lady bugs (one of my favorites from Stampin Up!) says Absolutely Fabulous on the inside and is a great card for any reason. Again, if you want them with a "Thanks" or something like that, it's not set in stone.

And this one is also a good for any circumstance card. It reads "hope your day is happy as happy gets".

What...you want to know how to win them? Well, here goes...

The first person to comment with the correct location that these Ogres reside in my home will win. This is limited to people who have not been in my home and seen the actual location. We have to keep it fair guys, sorry.





Uggh. That spider always creeps me out!

Good luck to you all and happy 100th read at Pure Mommy Extract. Thank you for being a part of our lives. I will reveal comments and the winner tomorrow at 5 pm.

Button Button

We had a little visit at Handsome's Momma's house a couple weeks back. Curly had some great fun in her craft room playing with a big box of buttons. I think she could have spent a couple of hours doing that and been happy.



Here are a couple of pictures of her and Great Grandma playing in the buttons.

Oh the sweet, sweet memories...

For Gramps

Curly made a special video last night while getting ready for bed. Unfortunately, it was too long for Blogger, so we had to make another one that was shorter. Here is the less lengthy, but still cute video for you Gramps and GG. She had lots of fun with it.




FYI - the covering of the eyes is due to the explanation of blind. She didn't know what quite a few of the words meant and so we explained. So, you get covered eyes because if she isn't supposed to be able to see while she is blind. Yep. Enjoy =)

Happy Birthday 27 Style!

Today is somebody's birthday!


Here is my tribute to the birthday girl. They are the most recent pictures I have of her. This was when she came to visit us in the hospital when Smiles was born. A lot has happened in the six months since that picture was taken, a lot of tough stuff. Here's to a much better year for 27 (that's how many years people...I do know what the year is).

I am going to go and eat something sweet just for you. I know, I know. I am too kind. I will even send happy thoughts of chocolate icing your way whilst I chomp away.

Hey, it may not be much, but not everyone gets a happy birthday blog. That's just how we roll at our house.

And....here is your present Miss Brie. I couldn't wrap it, so you will just have to scroll down to see it- JUST FOR YOU, from Handsome and I!

Now that's some love baby!

Getting a Lickin'

Tonight as we were cleaning dishes after our Sunday dinner, Curly was helping us dry them. I look over at her since her Daddy was laughing...or trying not to. Can you guess what I saw?

I thought about actually making you guess and posting the answer tomorrow, but since no person in their right mind would be capable of guessing, I will tell you.

My daughter, sweet as she may be, was LICKING a glass! I KNOW! What was going through her head? She was helping dry and then suddenly switched to creating more moisture. Not just any moisture, but not so clean moisture. I was a bit in shock and had to "sneeze" and turn my head a couple of times while discussing the reasons we DO NOT lick clean cups when we are helping to dry them. I just had a terrible time not laughing- mostly out of shock.


Do not ask me to understand the workings of a child's mind. It is beyond me.

Kissin in Church

I think I know a cute little boy...

Sure, I would think that since I am his Mommy and all.

So, I have been wanting to share about church last Sunday, and since it is nearly Sunday again I figured I had better get in gear and do it. First of all, I just have to say that I love being part of a small church. For us, it produces more growth. In a large church, we tend to be those that have a hard time getting involved and perhaps feel overwhelmed with the idea of getting to know people through the massive amounts of attenders. I am sure it works for some, but for us...well, the small church takes the cake. Perhaps it's More than Cake. Ha! Don't I just crack you guys up! No? I had to do it. (Psst- if you are one of the three readers that doesn't know me from real life, our pastor's blog is called More than Cake.)

Okay, so back to what I was saying. Last Sunday was a great example of why we love being part of small church. People just have your back. It's like family and you know you have support when you need it. Last week there was a woman in need of prayer for a pretty serious medical diagnosis. (It feels weird to say "a woman"..."woman"- just know that I love you and don't think of you as "woman" and that it's for the sake of your privacy- okay? Okay.) Anyway, the church was asked to pray over her and her family. It was so moving just to see that the entire church, excluding two visiting families that I believe were first timers, came to the front to pray over her. The entire church. What volumes that speaks. What a thing to witness. Hard things come, they happen and we can't prevent them, but to know that you have that many people there to love and support you has to be a comfort in spite of the hard things we face. I truly feel that if any member of our church family were to be in need of such prayer, the same would happen for them. It is truly an example of the way that Gods family is supposed to work and it is an image that will be burned in my mind and heart.

Then...on a softer note that is nowhere near as moving, Smiles had me giggling as well. His sister had brought her doll into church and when she left after worship to go to her class, she had to leave the doll. During a later part of the service, after he woke up, Smiles was wanting to play. At first he was interested in the toy that I had actually brought for him. Soon after, his attention was drawn to the doll that Curly had left on the table. I noticed his interest and handed him the doll. Very sweetly, and aggressively I might add, he was grabbing the cheeks of this baby and slathering her with drooly, open mouthed, slightly bite like kisses. He just kept going for her. Watch out future girls that capture his interest! Man was it cute, and I do wish that I had been able to take a picture of it. I didn't have my camera, so you will have to make do with another random cute photo of him that doesn't fit with the story.

Why Dragons Went Extinct

A little while back my sister was here, one of many sisters. In order to protect said sister from major embarrassment, I will keep her name private. She was watching Curly play with her Little People Noah's Ark and we were talking about the animals that went on the ark.

Sister: "There was a dragon on the ark?!?"


Allow me to mention that the Handsome likes all things fantasy and has dragons and Ogres and all sorts of crazy things mixed in with the kid's toys. The dragon had been part of a gift that someone gave him at work before we even had kids and he just threw it in with the ark since it was a Little People dragon.

Me: "Yeah. Didn't you know that!? That's why dragons went extinct. Only one of them made it into the ark." This being because there was only one dragon as opposed to the other animals that were in pairs going with the story of the ark.

Sister, with major excitement over this new revelation: "No! I can't believe I never knew that! It totally makes sense though. That's why dragons went extinct...DUH."

Other sister and I are laughing at her at this point.

Sister: "What?"

Me: "I was just joking. There were no dragons in the ark."

Sister: "Well, what happened to them?"

Me: "Uhhh...well, unless you are asking Handsome, they never really existed."

Sister: "Oh." She proceeded to laugh at herself with us.

No worries. This sister did think it was funny afterward. And I made sure to tell her the true story right away. We wouldn't want her to go telling the little children at church that there had been a dragon on the ark.

Daddy Leg

As we were getting dressed in PJ's earlier tonight, Curly tried to put both legs into one pant leg. I told her that she needed to switch one to a different leg hole. As she was switching one over...

"This is the Daddy leg, this is the Mommy leg."


"Oh." Vicky and I smiled and tried not to laugh too much.

"Yes. This is the Daddy leg...AND THIS is the Daddy toe!" Pointing to her big toe.


We smiled again and just went with it for her to see where she was taking us. We were laughing quite a bit at this point.

"And this is the girl toe, and this is the girl toe, and the girl toe, and the baby toe." All this on her left foot.

She moves to the right foot. "This is the Vicky toe."

No Time

I have been extremely busy the last little while with...well, I won't get into all the things that I have been doing because I don't have time. There have also been quite a few things that I have wanted to say, but haven't had time to write. I don't have time for most but here are a couple of random things to note.

-It is your legal obligation to stop at a crosswalk (at least in our state it is) when someone is standing there. AND, even if it was not the law, it is something you should do out of respect and care for your neighbor. Especially if said person is a young person. I so often see people waiting to cross where they have legal right of way....

-Green Tea isn't green, or at least not always. What? I KNOW! I have been trying to figure out what the Chinese restaurant down the road serves as their tea. I am not a big tea drinker, but I am trying to go off the bean (I know. That's a hard thing to do there!) and I like to have something warm to drink. When I go there I always drink quite a bit of the tea. Mom said, "Is it Green tea?" I told her, "No." Handsome said, "Isn't it Green tea?" I said, "No. It's brown." I may be the only person in the world that didn't know that Green tea is not always green. On the off chance that you didn't know that, well now you do. Also, in our defense (the imaginary person that didn't know that and myself) they make all kinds of stuff that's cold stating that it has green tea in it, and it's GREEN. So there. No mocking here.

-Children are silly. You already know that, but I can't take time to write the stories that reminded me of that recently yet, so that's what you is gettin for now.

Off to finish meh chores.

What Do You Do All Day?

Fair warning- this is a very long post. Make sure you have time to read it. Start by clicking on the article to view larger, then read what I have to say about that. I promise it's just fun. If you want to write about your day and how it looks and then link in the comments, feel welcome to. I know that we all have very different looking days.


One of the ladies at my MOPS table sent this to me today. It's nice, but I think that she didn't really give enough insight into what goes on during my days, so the reader could be left thinking that it was just another blanket answer to the question she had rather than what she was looking for. So- for the lady that wanted to know what goes on in the day of a mom, here is an overview of my life.

7 am (on the good days)- Kids wake up. Curly gets her Kix and milk after changing her diaper into panties and you might think that would be easy. It takes about fifteen minutes. She wriggles and gets distracted a lot.

7:15 am- Start feeding Smiles. I would say to get both sides done takes about 20 minutes or so (since you don't have children, lady in the paper, I will remind you that when you breastfeed a baby you have two sides to take care of. ) Then change his diaper and clothe him, which is much faster because he is too small to participate. This makes things much easier.

7:50 am- Put Smiles on the floor to play with sister for a minute so that I can go to the bathroom and get coffee started.

7:55 am- Pour coffee into cup and head back to the kids (our house is very open, so I am able to watch her with him the whole time...other than the bathroom...we do have SOME privacy, though usually Curly follows me there too)

7:57 am- Take Curly to go potty.

8:00 am- Conversations with Curly. They are sweet, but often LONG because she is like her uncle N. in the fact that it takes her like three hours to say absolutely nothing. Ummm, uhhh... or perhaps starting the same sentence six times (NOT exaggerating there) because she has such long thoughts that her brain forgets what the point was when she started. Then she starts all over again.

8:45 am- Yes, that time flew and I am wondering where the last forty five minutes are because that conversation COULD NOT have taken THAT long! I take a minute to call my Mommy. It's part of the morning routine. Usually she will appease me for a bit knowing that she is probably the only adult conversation that I will have until 5 to 6 pm when Handsome calls to tell me he is on his way home.

9:05 am- Take Curly potty.

9:30 am- I figure out that I am going to need to shower some time and that Smiles is half an hour late for his nap. I put him down and sacrifice my hygiene for another hour because the, probably childless, people who designed our house put his bedroom smack between our bathroom shower and the laundry room. While he is sleeping I can not shower or clean the clothes. When can I do them you ask? Well, you tell me. We just wear dirty clothes and don't wash ourselves much.

While Smiles sleeps- Curly and I read sometimes. Sometimes I do some of the dishes that we made last night. Often I check e-mail and do my blog reading...sometimes the writing too. Sanity time. Curly is a great individual time type of kid. I hear that lots of kids need entertainment a lot of the time they are awake. I am blessed with a girl that likes to play by herself sometimes. She likes to be in the room with me, but often that is enough.

Unless I am on the phone.

10:15 am- Take Curly potty.

10:30 am- Smiles wakes up. We change his diaper. I feed him (two sides, remember? you're learning!) He gets some play time in the exersaucer, which he LOVES. We play some music or sing songs on our own. I try to get a load of laundry in, but some thing gets in the way. It goes by super fast!

10:30 am- Take Curly potty.

10:47 am- I actually get to take a 5 minute shower. Curly with Letter Factory (children's DVD) and Smiles in his swing. They are safe from the dog and each other.

11:00 am- Lunch time. Curly usually likes to make herself a Peaner Jelly sandwich. It requires lots of help and some clean up, but it makes her feel independent and she loves it. She eats that along with her other food which is different depending on the day, while Smiles has himself some big boy food too. THAT is a mess and requires lots of cleaning.

12:00 pm- Yep, that's right. I didn't skip time on you there. I can't speak for everyone else with children, but mine eat SLOW. Like molasses. In the winter. Smiles, well he is a little faster, but he will chew on the washcloth that I wiped his face with for quite some time. We talk during that time or whatever. Often I will use lunch time to try and get a couple of things done too. Usually the remaining dishes, folding laundry, going to the bathroom, stuff like that.

Anyway, noon means start getting them down for nap. Put a diaper on Curly for nap and put her into bed. That takes about 15 to 30 minutes depending. It's always different. "I need my water." "I can't sleep with a pony tail in!" tears falling like tumbling down a flight of stairs (it gets worse as each second goes by). I will spare you more details.

Smiles fights it too. By the time I am done putting them both down for nap, it's half over already!

1 pm- I eat lunch. I have a little computer time. I read most of the time, sometimes I take a short nap if the night before had multiple wakings by crying children needing something.

1:30 or 2 pm- One or both are waking up. Curly is a grumpy guss when she wakes up. It takes her about half an hour to come around. Smiles always wakes up HAPPY! That's where he gets his name. He is an absolute JOY when he wakes up. So...I end up showering Curly with snuggles for a little while so that she can wake up and get those grumps out.

I change the diapers and give them each drinks. Curly gets hers in a cup. Smiles, well you get that drill by now. We play for a couple of minutes before Smiles goes down for another nap.

2:15 pm- Take Curly potty.

2:20 pm- Leave the bathroom to shortly after notice the "pee pee" dance happening.

2:25 pm- Take Curly potty.

3 pm- Smiles goes down for his final nap. Curly and I play a game or do some type of learning activity together. She loves her alone time, even though she adores her brother.

3:50 pm- Smiles wakes up. We take Curly potty.

4:00 pm- Feed Smiles while Curly plays by herself.

4:15 pm- Get the kids involved in something so that I can start dinner.

4:30 pm- Cook dinner.

5:00 pm- Feed the kids dinner.

5:30 pm- Start getting Smiles ready for bed.

5:45 pm- Get Curly ready for bed.

5:55 pm- Feed Smiles on both sides and then put him in bed.

6:15 pm- Read to Curly and put her in bed with Daddy who got home about 5 minutes ago.

6:30 or 7 pm- leave Curly's room.

This is when I am free of children for the night, MUCH earlier than most mommies. If it's not a day when Daddy was home for dinner, we eat at this point. I like to eat with him so that he feels like he is part of the family too. By 8 pm we are usually finished with eating and cleaning a few of the dishes, leaving plenty for tomorrow of course. Then I have no brain. Seriously. It's like, "What is it that I do now?" And then I just do the routine things that naturally happen. No deep thought involved, just spend some time at the computer because that's where my mind likes to process, talk and spend time with Handsome, and read a bit.

At 10 pm I wake Smiles if he hasn't already asked to eat (that would mean crying if you didn't catch that since you obviously know nothing about children, lady in the paper). He eats. I sleep. I wake up the next morning to do it all again.

This example was a day with NO grocery shopping, NO library visits, NO play dates. NOTHING. Smiles DID NOT poop with the force of a volcano (insert imagery here) while in public with no spare clothes because I left the house in a hurry and therefore had to take them off him and bring him home in a diaper and sweater (lucky for me he still has blankets all the time). *big breath*

So you see, though your life is busy and difficult (because we all have to deal with what we are given and each of us has difficult things in our day), your friend with children who doesn't make time for you is a different kind of busy. When she goes to the grocery store, she is still at work. You, my dear, are not. And when she gets those few moments to herself, she may just forget that she hasn't called you in awhile. She very well may have forgotten her name. It really happens people. I swear, sometimes it really happens.

A Bath With Jesus?

Children understand Jesus so differently than adults. I am thinking about making a label for "Jesusisms" because of all the little things that Curly says. Would that be inappropriate?


I am getting ready to get in the shower and I was just telling her that she had to wait to take her bath until I get out. She knows that she can't take a bath without an adult there to start the tub and keep an eye on her. That's never much of an issue with my rules following little girl. So, she is naming off the adults that can help her with a bath.

"Mommy can give me a bath. Daddy can give me a bath. Grandma can give me a bath, and Vicky Mom, Vicky can give me a bath too."

"Yes, Vicky can give you a bath too."

"And Jesus, Mom. Jesus can give me a bath too."

Yeah, the understanding of a child. "Honey, Jesus doesn't really do baths. He's more in the business of cleaning hearts. Mommy will take care of cleaning the outside of you, and we will let Jesus get the inside. Okay?"

"Okay."

Thank You for Loving Me

This morning as Curly was going into the bathroom, being told to shut the door by her daddy, she kept almost closing the door and then stopping. "I love you Momma." She would say. The door would nearly close and then, as if she had forgotten something very important (this was not a laughing game for her), she would open it back up and tell me she loved me again.

Her last profession of sincerity was this:

"Thank you for loving me!"

How sweet is that?!

Refined

My boy is being trained to have a refined sense of taste. Tonight we were at my parents house and they had some different things on the dinner table. Smiles had some skinned pear (yes, I let him suck on a slice of pear...he has a minimal gag reflex and has been on some solids for a month or so and pears are pretty easily squished in the mouth). He loved the pear and tried to take the whole thing out of my hand. We decided to mash it up after that. Then he tried some goat cheese with it. He liked that quite a bit too, though he thought the texture was a bit weird. Goat cheese is quite creamy.


Goat cheese and pears. We could call that gourmet for baby.

(and no, that isn't goat cheese on his face...it's brown rice cereal, I didn't have my camera tonight)

The Attic

Handsome had to go up in the attic because we have a huge leak coming through the bathroom fan that came about after all the windy rain that we have had.

H: You stay here and drink your milk. Daddy has to go in the attic. Do you know what an attic is?

C: It's REALLY DARK and NOT safe.

H: I need to be safe, don't I.

C: Yeah. You need a ladder to get up there. You might fall down without a ladder.

The Real Mirror

Yesterday our MOPS topic was self image. It's an area that the Lord has really done a lot of teaching and preparation with me, so I was asked to do the Mommy Moment.

I just wanted to share here, since it kind of brought renewal for me in that area where I had kind of lost my focus.

The “theme” today is something very near to my heart. Self image, or as our topic is called, House of Mirrors.

For me, that’s a perfect example. Many mirrors that stretch and skew me. It feels like I am in a house of mirrors- running through it searching for the REAL mirror, the one that reflects the actual me.

Sometimes I think I’ve found it, or I do glimpse it, but something gets in the way, or I look down to find that I have HUGE feet. The whole picture, the real me, is not visible to me.

Often I believe for awhile that I actually do have huge feet. I then shop for really big shoes and go around acting as though I am what I saw. People I meet are left to just assume that I am right. Because I believe I have large feet and hide my normal ones in large shoes, they only see me as having the large feet.

This limits me. You can imagine that walking around in clown shoes would prevent me from being the rock climber that, in actuality, I really am. Truly, I should be barefoot. I was given all I needed for my gift of climbing at birth.

The mirror that I seek will show the true me- the person I actually am in all my beauty and glory. And I am glorious. I am created in God’s image.

GOD’S IMAGE.

I am a reflection of God’s glory. Gather in your mind what that means.

You are a reflection of God almighty. God who is so glorious that the Bible says if a man were to see Him, he would surely die.

It is a challenge to find that mirror. It’s like a maze, and I have to say- I have been seeing myself through that mirror with a big bump in the middle lately. But I have to realize that believing that mirror is a disgrace to the One I reflect.

What mirror have you been stuck in front of? Walk away from it and let people see the real you- even if you still think your feet are big. When you start seeing the jaded mirrors for what they are, seeing through their faults, other people can see you as your true self as well. Take off the big shoes and run barefoot. Discover your gift of climbing.

One of my favorite quotes, one that was part of a process that has been changing my life in the last two years, and perhaps one you have heard before is this:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." -Marianne Williamson

Just Smile and Nod...or Skip This Post Alltogether

Is it disgusting that I LOVE the smell baby barf? I find it so intoxicating that I may from time to time be caught with my face buried in anything coated in it's blissful scent.


They should make a candle that's called "baby barf".

I would totally buy it....seriously...I'd probably buy a box of them.

CRAZY!

You know that song where you sing Hallelujah a couple of times shrunk over small and singing a bit quiet and then you stand up really tall and sing out really loudly, PRAISE YE THE LORD...? You know that one?

Well, I don't think my little singer understands what that means. She has the words a little mixed up.

She likes to go into her brother's room to "get him up" for me. She will go in and stand over his crib and talk to him until I get there. She gets him laughing quite well, so I don't protest the requirement that I not get him for "couple minutes".


So...this morning...I hear her singing to him. It was quite cute, and made me laugh.

"Allay-ooh, allay-oo, allay-oo, allay-oo-ya....CRAYYYY-ZEEEEE the Lord!"


I think she just means that the Lord is crazy to love us so much. You think that works? I think it works.

At Least the Inside of my Cup is Clean

This is what crazy looks like. See previous post first. Then look at this.

Hello! What is wrong with me? I can't keep the parts that everyone has to look at nice, but the drawers which nobody sees but me are perfectly in order. They are ALWAYS found like this...unless my husband has unloaded the dishwasher recently.
I guess I am just keeping the inside of my cup clean and letting the outside be dirty. That's just how spiritual I am =).

In case you need a reference...

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.
Matthew 23:24-26

Anti-resolution

As you can plainly see, my resolutions (actually I don't do those at all...ever) do not include keeping a cleaner house. I was looking at the disaster that is my house and decided to take photos of it (no, I don't drink...I have no clue what was going on up there). I have to say that as mortified as I was seeing it in real life, looking at it through the eye of the camera was even worse! After seeing it, I for sure did not want to post this. We gotta be real here people. I had to do it.

So...facing my fears!




You can see carpet up there. See, no big deal...right? *awkward smile followed by a sheepish half-laugh*
Why is it that Mom and Dad's room is always the worst?

Yeah I know. What's up with that?

Someone please tell me that my house doesn't always look like that! Do I just have blinders on? Oh goodness...I bet I am going to hear crickets chirping after posting this.

More on this tomorrow...