Thursday, January 7, 2010

The Incident

Cold, cold day. Warmed up the van. Ready for my first trip to the gym of the New Year. Go me! 2010 here I come! Just showered and ready to sweat. I tell the girls to head out to the van. Quickly grab my waterbottle and diaperbag and lock the door.

Get to the van. It's cold. Brrr. Can't wait for a warm car. Anna and Naomi are standing by the van waiting to get in. Good girls. Oops, one missing. Little stinker. Where is she? Uh oh, must have lost her between the house and the van. Not a far journey but she can be quite the wanderer. As I approach the door, I hear loud crying. Oops, she must be inside. Poor girl, thinks she got left. Mommy never leaves, just may temporarily misplace. Someday she'll learn (Abby, not mom- unfortunately mommy is quite impaired in learning such things)

Open the sun porch, still crying, only louder. Good thing it has only been about 90 seconds max. I'm pretty sure there is a minimum trauma threshold that must be reached before it actually starts internal scarring. I figured I still had a few seconds to spare.

I talk to Abby, assure her I would never leave without her and that it would take me just a second to open the door. I go to unlock the door but it doesn't open. Stupid key. Stupid door. Try again. Still no go. Major uh, oh!

Uh-Oh because the only other lock on this door is an ancient skeleton keyhole whose counterparts only exist in quantities of ONE. That ONE being in the keyhole on the other side of the door! Abby must have turned it, trying to get herself out. It's okay, remember I still have time until scarring becomes permanent. TGIF&CP (Thank God for Fridays and Cell Phones).

I drag the other two out of the car while assessing the situation. Front Door - locked. Screendoor- two locks. Basement door- locked. Door to basement from inside- locked Windows- locked. I think you get the picture. I am overly paranoid.

I leave the Sunporch with Anna and Naomi mostly freezing in the 40 degree room with Abby playing happily on the other side of the door in 74 degree weather. I venture out into the teen degree weather (with wet hair mind you which has now in fact frozen in chunks) to search the garage for keys. This is my husband's organization system. Put everything in bags and place them all over and move them repeatedly so one has no idea where anything is. Found a bag, oh, that is empty. Found another bag- who needs this many screws anyway! Frustration mounting, Hair forming icicles, Hands falling off. Yeah, found a bag with keys- three of them, one skelaton, two others. Walk around the house trying to test keys in doors with no success. Husband, not knowing who he is talking to apparently, wants me to go kick in the basement door, which is locked with a dead bolt mind you. I try and of course fail. Even though I kind of wanted to fail because who wants to replace that door and who would be around to take me to the ER if needed?

I realize I have three choices: (1) perish in the cold with only two of my children (2) admit defeat and call a locksmith (which in turn means waiting several hours on "Locksmith time" for someone to come, charge me out to wazoo, and take an eternity to duplicate a key made about 100 years ago) or (3) break into my own house.

Now as some of you may know, my house was recently broken into just a few short months ago, so I choose the latter. The method is tried and true.

I call my Stepdad to be coached on how best to break a window. What tool do you use? What side do you hit? How many times? You know, I wonder if these questions went through the mind our recent burglar. I quickly dismiss the perposterous idea of our criminal being in the least bit intelligent since we were actually HOME when he broke in.

Do you know what I discovered? I am good at it! In case you were wondering, it just takes one small tap of the hammer right down the center. I even talked on the phone for part of it. (And I am not usually a multi-tasker!) I forsee great things. So if you ever lock your daughter in your house, I am your woman.

Once broken, the door was easily unlocked by adult hands and ah, we enter warmth (minus the several degrees lost to the broken window).

I learned two things: one... I have a wonderful daughter who was rather obedient, listening to my every instruction from" play with toys only by the door" to "go sit on Anna's bed because Mommy wants to break a window" when she could have been ruling the house and two...if anyone wants to break into our house, apparently, you are welcome to. Both times our windows were broken no one so much as flinched or reported suspicious activity. Yes, we are moving!















Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Dates with Me

So we had a date and not much money...

Q: Wanna know what we did?
A: We went to the mall

Q: Wanna know what made it interesting?
A: We played a game

Q: What kind of game?
A: It went like this...

Q: How many things could we get at the mall for a total of $2.00?
A: 1 sample of Mrs. Fields Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie
1 sample of Orange Chicken from a knock off Panda Express
1 sample of Orange Chicken from a "Thai" place next door to the knock off Panda Express
1 sample of more chicken from who knows where, I think this place was Japanese
1 sample of a fantastic piece of California Chicken Sandwich from O'Charleys

Q: Can you tell we hit the food court first?
A: Yes

Q: Wanna know more? The list doesn't end there-
A: Of course you do.
1 handful of Reese's Pieces from a vending machine (25 cents)
1 crazy yellow speckled 20 sided dice (yes, I know the singular form is "die" but I thought
you might be confused) (53 cents)
1 awesome Christian sentiment card with my favorite picture on it: Two penguins looking at
each other. One with a big orange fish eating his head, with a headline that says, "Relax,
God's in charge." (15 cents- but only b/c someone gave me a penny to cover the extra cent)
1 demo of "Glo"- a new Bible software that is visually appealing and intriguing (Ryan will let
you know)
1 Lancome Face Cream sample which guarantees that I will look younger in 7 days (Ryan will
let you know)

Q: More?
A: Unbelievable, but yes...
2 stickers from Slackers- a hippy butterfly which I tried to convince Ryan we should put on
our minivan and a green alien head with a striped propeller cap which I neglected to suggest
that we put on our minivan (I mean we can't be both hippy and sci-fi geek, can we?) (70
cents - our biggest splurge yet)
1 super sours candy ball from vending machine which Ryan insisted we could split (turns out
he was wrong, I got a lick instead- you know, just to say it was "ours") (25 cents)
1 Building Rome Nightmare Teasers CD with three bestselling songs which include such
intelligent titles as "Sink Like an Anchor", "What are We Fighting For?", and my personal
favorite, "Dr. Doctor"

Q: Is that it?
A: No, one more thing-
Upon determining in my head that we had 12 cents left and then Ryan determining we had
19 cents left, we headed for the candy store. What can we get in one of those bins for 19
cents? We didn't know. So we (well, I, actually) asked the nice Indian cashier (while Ryan
walked away "discreetly" in embarrassment) what we could possibly get for 19 cents for our
little game. The very nice man gave us pick of anything in any bin in the store and said we
could have it for 19 cents.

Q: So what did we pick? A Lindt Chocolate? A chocolate orange?
A: Nothing that sophisticated...
A wax soda bottle (you know the one) -the one that you open with your teeth. We split it on
our way out of the store while chewing on the wax (such an aphrodisiac)

Q: 17 cents? That means you have 2 cents leftover?
A: No, actually it means that, as is typical in most marriages, "MISCOMMUNICATION",
(supposedly a high contributor to divorce) took place. You see Ryan thought I was talking
about adding numbers rather than subtracting so actually placed us "OVER BUDGET" at
$2.05 (with ironically, finances being the number one contributor to divorce)

Q: Was there friction?
A: No, we decided to split a cookie cake slice on a bench for $3.71.


Tuesday, September 15, 2009

An Apple a Day...breaks our budget

Apple Picking at Eckerts...($27 in apples later)


Ryan and my sister, Tara. The funny thing is there was almost the same photo taken about 10 years ago when Tara was three or four, with Ryan holding her up to get an apple. Give it another ten years, and it could get a little awkward.)


Tara








Our friends Andrew and Laura accompanied us also!

Our trip to the Apple Orchard ended up with a total of 8 people, in 2 hours, 4 bags of apples, for about $70. It was the girls' first long awaited trip apple picking. For months Anna has been asking when it was going to be Fall so we could go pick apples. Glad the moment could finally arrive for her! Everyone left happy. Warning: homemade applesauce is going to be attempted soon.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

First Day of Preschool

This week was our First Day of Preschool! We are doing a Preschool Co-Op once a week with a friend of ours and her son. We use the curriculum Before Five in a Row, a literature based study. We pick a book to read every week and do various activities associated with that story.

Here are some of the things we learned, along with some pics:

ABCs & London Bridges
Read Yellow Ball by Molly Bang
Played games with a yellow ball
Used watercolors for the first time to re-create the cover of Yellow Ball
Cheese and Crackers Snack in the shape of a (what else) yellow ball
Free Play
The Letter "O" and various learning games with "O"
Learning manners on how to open gifts politely, complete with a gift for everyone to practice with (what was inside? a yellow ball!)
Science lesson on Floating and Sinking. Their own yellow balls floated just like the ball in their book










watching a video about the letter "O" on our FAVORITE letters website- Starfall.com

We can't wait until next week when we study Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear?!!! This time Ms. Sara is the teacher and Preschool is at her house. What fun we are having!

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Blackberry Heaven

Lots of memories are made at Grandma and Grandpa's House. Picking blackberries is one of them...
(By the way, these lovely photos were taken by a family friend named August Jennewein. Check him out at http://www.augustjennewein.com/)











Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Party Princesses

Party Animals threw a fabulous joint birthday party for Anna, Naomi, and Abigail. If you are looking for a stress free party, check them out. They are great! Here are some of the pics. Having three girls, of course, we picked the Princess theme!












2 boys in the Barbie jeep- I love it!

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

A BLUE Birthday

Naomi's favorite color is blue. All day, everyday, I have to hear about BLUE. 
So for her birthday, she wanted blue cupcakes with blue icing and blue candles. Well, she got it!





and here is a fun snapshot of these three goofy, giggly girls: