The Ascent

Chloe has learned to climb the stairs. She has been doing this for a couple of weeks now, but I was pretending it wasn't really happening by stopping her before she got more than one step up. I believe the technical term for this is "denial". But today, before I could catch her, she had made it up about 5 stairs to the landing. When I found her, she turned around and looked at me as if to say, "Mommy, look at me! I made it before you could stop me! Nehner, Nehner, Nehner (I am sure this is not how you spell this word, so I am hoping you know what I am saying)!"

I am just not sure I am ready for climbing stairs. Don't get me wrong, I love it when my kids get to be mobile enough to get up the stairs on their own (less for me to carry). What I do not love is that they learn how to go up before they learn to go down! I am typically not a very worried mom: binkis that fall on the ground, RSV, colds, ear infections - they don't scare me. But, when you get to things like falling down the stairs, hitting their heads on the corners of furniture and pretty much anything else invloving blood - I am paranoid!

So, congrats on the ascent, Chloe - now let's learn the descent so mommy doesn't go crazy with worry! We'll be doing down the stairs drills when she wakes up from her nap - wish us luck!

You Know You Are Living In 2007 When...

So I am not big on forwards unless they are really funny. I don't mind reading them, but I RARELY pass them on. This one had me rolling though. It was about 3 pages of interesting stuff, so I just pulled the funniest part for you. Hope this makes you laugh!

1. You accidentally enter your PIN on the microwave.

2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.

3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of three.

4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.

5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses (or blogs).

6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.

7. Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen

8. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't even have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and youturn around to go and get it.

10. You get up in the morning and go on line before getting your coffee.

11. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. : )

12. You're reading this and nodding and laughing.

13. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward thismessage.

14. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.

15. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list.

FINALLY -----

Now UR laughing at yourself.

Edge of Your Seat

Can you believe this election! I am SO not a news watcher (as I have previously mentioned) but I am captivated tonight by what is happening with the Super Tuesday elections! I have ben watching the news for more than an hour! I think this has to be the most interesting election that I can remember. What a great country we live in where we get to make our voices heard by voting! Well, I am going to stay on the edge of my seat (and keep wondering why in the world people are voting for Hillary Clinton - seriously, knock it off!).

Disclaimer: This post reflects MY opinions - not neccesarily Seth's (he is not as vocal as I am, but I think he secretly agrees with me:) ). I have very strong opinions about who should NOT be running our country...I respect your right to believe otherwise...but I do think I am right!

The Flavors of Friendship

I still need more recipes, and let's face it, so could all of you (or maybe not, but I'm guessing you can)! Sure, we could all continue to search the internet (considering we have a general idea of what we want to make) to find more recipes than we could ever try, but who has time to sift and sort through all of that only to find recipes that we may not even like. Hence, this post!

I know that many of you are wonderful cooks with recipes I covet, and, while I am just beginning this wonderful cooking journey, I have some really great recipes that I am sure all of you would love to have (thanks to my mom and internet search and sifts of my own). So, I thought it would be fun to start a blog that is basically a recipe swap. I will add anyone who would like to contribute as an author and we can just add recipes as we want/can.

The address is www.flavorsoffriendship.blogspot.com. If you want to contribute click here to send me your email address and I will get you added as an author. This should be fun and educational - I hope all of you think so too!

Obedience Training

From the title of this post, you may think I'm going to ramble on about my dogs, but I'm not.

Today we bit the bullet and bought a membership to Discovery Gateway. What a great place! Ashley, Jackson and Crew joined us for the fun adventure and the kids had such a blast! They didn't even want to leave to get happy meals at McDonalds!

Well, toward the end of our visit, the kids were playing in the "Construction Zone". I saw a yellow tube on a slant, and thinking it was a slide, told Morgan to go down. Since he has been "trained" in obedience lately, he immediately went up the stairs and got ready to go down the slide. He seemed to be taking a long time, so again I repeated, "Come on Morgan. Go down the slide!" with an encouraging tone. I looked up from the bottom of the slide and saw Morgan struggling to fit through the hole in the plexi-glass that was barely big enough to fit the blocks into (see picture). Apparently, the "slide" was actually a block chute. OOPS!

Down he came despite the roadblocks and much to my surprise! He is a very obedient child!

Morning Helper

This morning after waking Morgan up I decided to change the laundry load before I headed back upstairs to get Chloe. When I got into Chloe's room a few minutes later, this is what I found.

Morgan had moved the ottoman over to the crib and used it, in spite of the rocking, to climb into the crib. He wanted to keep Chloe company and bring her a dolly (which didn't make it into the crib with him). What a little cutie.

After getting the 2 of them out of the crib (heaven help that crib to last through a couple more kids) I took them to the table for breakfast. Morgan asked if he could feed Chloe, and since I had wet hair and a makeup-less face, I decided to give it a go - they were both in jammies that would soon be changed anyway. So, I got Morgan some yogurt and a spoon and he fed Chloe about half a jar of yogurt for me. The other half, he fed himself in between bites for Chloe.

I am such a luckly Mom to have such good kids! Thanks for being such a big helper Morgan!

The Migration

Church with kids is no picnic! Don't get me wrong, I am grateful for church and love going, but some days I can totally understand why a young parent may go inactive - it can be a lot of work. Luckily, we have church buddies and understanding neighbors.

In sunday school today, Chloe was so tired she didn't know what to do with herself, until her buddy Elizabeth came crawling under the chair to play. Judi provided lots of toys for the girls to enjoy, and they played nicely side-by-side (well, as nicely as 10-month-old girls can) until they noticed Luke sitting across the aisle. Off went Chloe to play with Luke (more accurately, Luke's toys and Goldfish crackers). Shortly after, Elizabeth made the migration. By the end of sunday school, Luke, Elizabeth and Chloe were sitting together and Jessica and Tim (Luke's parents) were entertaining the whole lot!

So, for the next 8 months until Chloe goes to nursery (maybe sooner if I can talk someone into it) I may not get much out of sunday school, but I am glad that all of our church buddies will be in the same boat. Plus, the migration means that we get to listen for a few minutes...at least until they migrate back to us.

John Paul

I am flat out obsessed with The Office. This writers strike is killing me! Regardless, Seth and I watch the DVDs of past seasons over and over and over to get our fix! I think the reason it is such a great show is because anyone who has ever worked in an office probably knew at least one person who is similar to one of the characters. Maybe someone cute and funny like Jim or Pam, maybe somone completely apathetic like Stanley, maybe someone wierd and nerdy like Dwight, or maybe someone ditzy and living vicariously through celebrities like Kellie. Maybe even a boss as frustrating and inefficient as Michael Scott.

A couple of weeks ago while having dinner with some old friends, it hit me: the reason I love the office so much is because I used to work with the exact replica of Michael Scott (a.k.a. John Paul) except he wasn't my boss and he was for REAL. Don't get me wrong, I really liked John Paul. I have made a lot of friendships through work - I mean, my very best friend started out as a coworker, but never in my life have I worked with someone who made life more entertaining than John Paul.

He was very awkward - constantly saying or doing things that made you uncomfortably embarassed for him, he was a surprisingly FANTASTIC salesman, was constantly trying to get girls (even on the FranklinCovey sales floor) with tactics that never worked, was into drama (improv), and had this very strong need to be liked! On top of it all, he even looked like a younger version of Michael Scott.

A couple of stories to prove my point (and make you laugh like crazy).

The Sandwich
One day, I was working with John Paul and he was helping a customer. The customer was holding a Blimpee bag and so, as a conversation starter, John Paul said to this man,"You just went to Blimpee, huh?" To which the man responded, "Yep."

"They have really good sandwiches. What kind did you get?"

"Turkey on white with ... (listing the toppings)." the customer said, trying to give all the neccesary information to move past this awkward sandwich conversation.

"That sounds really good."

"Do you want it?" asks the customer sarcastically.

"Sure! Thanks so much!" says John Paul as he takes the man's sandwich and brings it behind the register.

At this point I am extremely embarassed and want to hide under the nearest rock - unfortunately there were none to be found, so I continued acting as interested as I could in the report I was reading and lifted it in attempt to cover my face. John Paul went on to try and sell this customer some product for another 15 minutes. Finally the guy was ready to leave the store, stalling as much as possible with hopes of getting his sandwich back. When he realized it was not going to happen he headed toward the door as John Paul said, "Hey, Thanks again for the sandwich!" As the guy met up with his friend at the door (sandwich-less, mind you) I heard her say to him, "That was really nice of you."

As his manager, I had to take him in the back room and discuss with him why that was not an appropriate behavior! Yikes! Talk about a Michael Scott moment!

Bread Winner
For our store Christmas party, we went out to the Spaghetti Factory and everyone was invited to bring their significant other or a date. As with many Italian restaurants, they bring you a fresh loaf of bread before your meal comes. Well, at the time John Paul was also working a morning job delivering bread for a local bakery, so he wanted to show of his bread-cutting "skills" for his date. As he cut himself and his date slices of bread he added commentary on the perfect thickness of the slice and the smooth cuts. Since there were 2 loaves of bread on the table, Seth decided to challenge John-Paul to a bread-cutting contest. John Paul eagerly accepted.

On your mark. Get set. Go! Not only did Seth beat him by about 1/4 loaf, but John Paul's loaf was mangled and squished at the end. Even worse, John Paul was counting on winning, and thinking that this would be his "in" with his date.

At the next party, John Paul challenged Seth to a rematch, but since there was no bread they did a water-drinking contest. Again, Seth finished first!

2-4-08 NOTE: Seth has informed me that I left out a few details that make this story even more interesting. After the bread competition, John Paul continued to ask for "redos" to try and save face. We ended up with a LOT of bread. All of the redos resulted in the same winner, Seth, so John Paul started to challenge the quality of the cutting. We took a poll - Seth's slices were of much higher quality!

Improv
John Paul was also a college student. Many a day, he came into work talking about how he hadn't done his homework and was failing his classes. He was interested in this girl and she was taking an acting class, so he decided to take the acting class too. He came to work one day talking about how he had found the most hillarious scene, and had asked her to do it with him. We weren't very busy, so he wanted us to read the scene and tell him what we thought. I did drama in high school, so I am typically unphased by the craziness that is drama, but I have never read a more disturbing scene in my life. It was about a man who threatens to bury his wife in the basement because she irritates him and it ends with him actually doing it. Very Poe-esque! John Paul thought it was hysterical. Ashley and I were horrified! "You are going to freak this girl out," we warned. But, he continued to stalk her any way!

Well, I hope you have enjoyed my reminiscing. I wish I could tell you that this has been exaggerated or embellished, but it has not. Working with John Paul was unforgettable - kind of like the millions of lines we love to quote from The Office!

P.S. John Paul - If you have found my blog and are reading this, I hope you are doing well! I sure miss working with you! I think about you every time I have to cut bread! :)