12

This time 12 years ago, I was sitting in a cold ER room in Sevierville, Tn waiting to be seen over labor day weekend. OH, and btw, I had been newly married for just a few hours. I guess it's good to get the hard stuff out of the way first, right? I am told this is my silk anniversary. 12 years. It seems like we blinked and here we are. When did this happen? I married my best friend and the one who understands me the most ( well, tries the hardest, anyway). He is my heart and soul- Happy Anniversary baby!

Back to the picture , we were eating the best, sweetest organic peaches the other day and Copelan is munching happily on his pieces when all of the sudden, he looks at his half and yells, "aaaahhh...bug...cheach bug!". I look to see what all the commotion is about and he is pointing to the peach pit and having a fit. This is what I see.

The poor child has not had enough exposure to peaches. Since pesticide residue is a major problem on certain types of fruits and veggies, we try to do what we can to buy organic. Sometimes that means we cannot get them at a reasonable price, so we don't buy them. It has been a long time since we have had peaches, but these were exceptional. Juicy, sweet and just the right amount of tartness. Yum! The kids scarfed them down. All the kids , that is, except my highly suspicious Copelan. Until I removed the pit and tapped on it with a fork to show him it was really not a bug, he seemed mortified that he had that "duff" in his mouth. He said " it skeer me" Only after a good showing of non bug traits ( doesn't crawl, have legs and sounds really hollow) would he venture out and try another bit of cheach. I mean, you can't be too careful, you might take a bite and have it bite you back!

Yes, this is my boy, who upon seeing a spider crawl across the floor in the foyer, went screaming into the hall while his sister and younger brother went to look for it. " That skeer me too".

Sigh, so much for the protective brother ...at least for now.

On another note, the funny words are just coming out this week from the kids. I make guacamole and the kids are on a kick right now asking for it. So when they are putting in their requests, Kira's goes something like this...

" Mama"

yes.

"can we have some whack a moley"? Just as straightfaced as she can be.

Now whack a mole is a game she was given that has 4 hammers and 4 moles. you can imagine what you do with it. I dont make guacamole that way, but I think the guacamole/whackamole reference is pretty funny.

She also likes to fold daddy's goxer shorts (where do these things come from???)

If I am not careful, all these things can pass right by me while I am busy potty training and homeschooling and I can forget to stop & laugh- this is the good stuff.

Ummm, the reason my room is so messy is....

We have been working on keeping the kids rooms clean. Right before bed, they clean up for the next day. When Todd went into Kira's room , it was a wreck. The explaination he got made all his resolve to make her clean it up- go right out the window. Here's the explaination:

Todd: Kira, why is your room so messy?

Kira: Umm Daddy, Copelan attacked my teaparty today. Pause. He went BLAAAAH ( think hands waving frantically in the air).

Todd:- a small snicker escapes his lips, then "well, maybe he can help you clean it back up in the morning"...pause, then all the resolve leaving..." on second thought, maybe you should go on to bed and clean it up in the morning"

Such a little brother- I did not see the incident, and Kira was a big girl about the whole thing. I know she was dissapointed that he did that, but she sure handled it with grace!

We are slowly getting the blog set up and are trying to do the music for the site. I have a lot more work to do as some of the versions of the songs I would like to have on here, have some inappropriate things. So bear with us as we make some changes.

We are looking into moving to a hard to staff RA- one in particular is Mc Allen TX. We dont know the details, but it looks like it would be much more affordable on one income than most of the offices that are options right now. We won't know anything til next week at the earliest.

I have more pictures to post, and more laughs to share, I just need to go to bed now!

Our Boys

In Washington, DC picking grass on the mall.

Peek a boo- hiding behind a tree after chasing a squirrel.

Look at those lovehandles- ohhh, so sweet!

I have a hard time remembering how skinny he was just a few months ago

Photos

So lovey- notice that Copelan is missing from the picture- he's having a don't touch me day!

Riding the Lion at the hotel- we have done this with the kids on each trip- now adding Lian!

Elton anyone? Just a typical day sitting at the breakfast table, thomas jammies, pink sunglasses and of course, his pink hair straightener- can't have a bad hair day , can we?

Translation

So, we decided to join the rest of the world and set up a blog. The title needs a bit of translation and explanation to make sense. All of our children have had their own words or sayings. One day, when we settle down and stop moving, I am going to paint the stair risers with each of their little sayings. Kira has always been articulate and even at an early age would use adult words. She has very few that she still says the same way as when she was little. One of the few vestiges of her "learning vocabulary" is the word remember, or "renember" as she would say. That's right, renember. As I'm sure many parents did before us, we were so eager for her to learn to talk and not wanting her to grow up with speech problems, we corrected her when she mispronounced some things. Looking back, I would love to have a few of those back.
Copelan, on the other hand, was slower to talk and had pronunciation problems from the start. His little mind raced and he had a hard time getting his point across. Popcorn is a favorite with all the kids and as I was asking if they wanted it, Copelan, the consummate boss, was yelling, "Poppymopcorn!" at the top of his lungs. Translation: "Pop my popcorn". Manners aside, I think we have created a new noun for the English language. Now when he wants the fluffy stuff we hear "I want poppymopcorn " now. Sometimes we even get a "please". We are going to have some work to do on parts of speech when the time comes, but for now, ahhhh, so sweet!
Lian has also had some language delays. Only recently have we (his speech therapist included) realized that he is saying some full sentences- just pronounced completely differently and blended with all the other words in the sentence- no pauses. His speech is vowel filled, he just leaves out the consonants- no big deal right? ie: cereal is "eeea" with a raised inflection indication he wants it and is sort of asking. But there are a few words that he got down quickly- necessities, you know, nana ( looooves bananas), mama, and the best Lian word, Yuh. If you can imagine trying to say yuh, but then stopping abruptly at the end while contracting your stomach muscles, yuh- that's it. He was my yes man, I mean, Yuh man for months. I loved it! We would say Lian, did you do that? Yuh. Lian, do you like that? Yuh. Lian do you have two heads? Yuh. My yes man. Everybody needs a yes man in their lives, right? More recently, yes has given way to no. But when he wants to say yes, it's still YUH. LOVE it!
So soak it up, enjoy it and laugh, all too soon it will be a memory. Now if I can just renember what I was going to cook for dinner.... and it's not poppymopcorn.