Help me out, will ya?

I need some book recommendations. If you could recommend one book that I MUST read this year, what would it be? I'm open to just about everything.

Keepin' It Real Wednesday

Last Saturday Chad took our broom over to the flip house to prepare for a showing (someone buy it, please!) and forgot it there. Even though it is only a block away, I have yet to retrieve it. Consequently, this is what our kitchen floor currently looks like. RAUNCH! Yes people, we are going on five days without sweeping.

Chatting with a three year old

Gabriel Robert's thoughts on the exciting events that took place on January 20, 2009:

Regarding the first, and perhaps only, snow-fall of the year:

"But where's our Christmas tree?! We need a Christmas tree!"

Regarding the Presidential Inauguration:

"Barack Obama?! HUH?! Barack Obama is on Star Wars!"

(yes, they are a little obsessed lately. I would never have imagined such an obsession from my kids. Seriously. I saw Star Wars for the first time in college when it was force-fed to me but some nutso friends :)

Regarding his daddy's birthday:

"Arghhhh!"

Which means, "I love my daddy, but talking about emotions makes me really uncomfortable, so leave me alone!

Unity

Happy Birthday Chad. Sorry that Obama guy tried to overshadow you

Conversation with Chad

Colin and Chad are playing Lego Star Wars in the living room and I am in the computer room.

Chad (yelling to me): Dew! You told Colin that Anakin is Darth Vadar?!!

Me: Uh, yeah. Did I spoil the surprise or something?

Chad: You are treading on major Dad territory! That is something a father is supposed to tell his son.

I will have to Chad remind of that Dad territory when it comes time for "the" talk years from now. Or is this "the" talk?

Another one for the grandparents

Colin making Ollie laugh.

Who has it worse?

A. Let's say you are on the computer. You have been sitting there for an hour an a half. Why? Because your baby has taken three 15 minute naps already today, and you are tired of putting him down for naps only to have him wake up, so you decide to just let him sleep on you as long as he can while you mindlessly check every blog of every person you know. Again. And again.

B. Now let's say you are five years old. You are at home, not school, because you woke your parents up at 6 am and told them you felt like you needed to throw up. They took you very seriously because your little brother spent the night before last leaning over their big red bowl. You have not thrown up a single time today, but you have played Lego Star Wars on the Wii approximately 12 times. Four day weekend, woohoo!

Person B drops their Wii remote on their foot and screams in agony. That really can hurt, can't it? A hurt foot in addition to a "hurt" tummy. All this after missing out on the joys learning! Person B runs in to the computer room to cry to Person A about it.

Person B wakes up the baby being held by Person A. The baby is now wide awake and wants a change of scenery. He won't even go in his exersaucer! Person A hasn't even had a chance to blog yet! Poor Person A.

I say it's a tie. What a sad sad world we live in.

Keepin' It Real Wednesday

This is what I look like with no make-up, my hair not done, no smile, and no special poses or photo enhancement. In other words, what I look like 99% of the time.

How about you?

Defend her honor, or something like that

Have you voted for cjane today? You can do so here. Vote before 5pm EST.

Yeth!

My sister Ashley and I chatted for a few minutes last night on facebook and I mentioned that I was taking Gabe to a speech evaluation this morning. As the conversation ensued, Ashley wrote that the speech therapist that Rae (her daughter) sees told Ashley that she had a couple of speech problems herself. I immediately cringed, because Ashley's itty bitty lisp is barely detectable - most people don't even know it is there, while I have always been acknowledged to own a lisp. I remember, in sixth grade, overhearing two of my friends using what they called their "Katie voice" with lots of attitude and slurring of s's and th's.

My lisp, like most others, becomes more pronounced when I am self-conscience of it. So all through Gabe's evaluation, it felt like my tongue was falling out of my mouth every time I said a word with a "S". I caught my eyes darting around the therapist's face, wondering if I could see exclamation points in her eyes as she thought, "Well, no wonder this kid can't talk right! Listen to his mother!"

The evaluator said nothing, but I will not be surprised if, when he is assigned a therapist that we see for treatment, my lisp is brought up. I'm honestly not too concerned - I came to grips with my lisp a long time ago. I mean, hello, I was an actor. I'm not afraid to use my voice.

I just had to chuckle to myself as I thought of this passage from Rilla of Ingleside, by L.M. Montgomery:

"Is this Rilla-my-Rilla?" he asked in a low tone.

"Yeth," said Rilla, and immediately wished she could throw herself headlong down the lighthouse rock or otherwise vanish from a jeering world.

Rilla had lisped in early childhood; but she had grown out of it. Only on occasions of stress and strain did the tendency re-assert itself. She hadn't lisped for a year; and now at this very moment, when she was so especially desirous of appearing grown up and sophisticated, she must go and lisp like a baby! It was too mortifying; she felt as if tears were going to come into her eyes; the next minute she would be–blubbering–yes, just blubbering–she wished Kenneth would go away–she wished he had never come. The party was spoiled. Everything had turned to dust and ashes.

My lisp-mortification isn't quite as romantic, is it?

By the way, if you have never read Rilla of Ingleside, one of my favorite childhood books (notice the title of my blog), I recommend it, especially if you are already an "Anne" fan. You can find it online here. I can't stand reading books online. Can you? Oh, and it isn't all as cheesy as the passage above.

Things that make me smile

I babysat one of Colin's friends (she calls him her "boyfriend." He has no idea what that means)the other day. She is 5 like him, but her birthday was too late for her to start kindergarten this year. She got a little bored while at my house. I went up to the playroom to find this.........

And I thought "Oh, it's so sweet to have girls in the house!" No guns or swords, just a few animal friends breaking bread together.

Speaking of Colin's friends, since we moved into our house, Colin has slowly been making friends with the girl next door, who is also 5. They are finally to the "Can Colin come out to play?" stage. Both are oldest children, slightly bossy, and pretty good-natured, so it works out really well. They don't seem to ever grow tired of each other. I looked out my back window recently to see this....

Choppin' on clementines and marshmallows (provided by the young gentleman), lookin' like they are a young couple in love, when in actuality they are still innocently unaware of any such notions. I couldn't stop looking out that window and chuckling at them.

Two of the Three Stooges

When Gabe started Sunbeams last Sunday and wore his suit to commemorate the event, I wanted a special picture of it. This is what I got.

I always do this!

As I said in my last post, my mom and dad came to town. You have probably noticed the posts have been scanty because of it. Pretty good excuse, right?

My mom left my house today to spend her last couple of days in Charlotte with Levi and Audra, so I pulled my memory card out of my camera to see what pictures I had taken of their visit, and found out that I was just as bad about taking pictures as I was about blogging. For some reason, I always forget to use my camera while my parents are here, when all other times it's strap is around my neck each and every day. Capturing happiness! Magnifying the beauty in my life! Every single moment!

In a way, it is probably a good sign - I was not so consumed with capturing moments on my camera that I forgot to truly enjoy them. However, I do want to document important moments, like say.....

THIS one. Uncle Bryce saying goodbye for more than two years to his nephews! And this is the only picture I have of him while he was here! What is wrong with me?

And guess how many pictures I have of the precious moments between my boys and their ever-patient and loving grandfather? NOT ONE! I did not take a single one of my dad! Again, what is wrong with me?

As my mom was leaving today I realized that I hadn't taken many pictures and I called the boys together to try and create some small entries for my endless pictoral diary.

I managed to grab a couple of shots like this one.

However,

Despite the fact that my mom spent more hours playing with him than anyone else, Gabe refused to come downstairs for the pictures.....

........or to even acknowledge Granny's goodbye.

Pictures fail here. Some moments just can't be captured or magnified.

It was a wonderful visit.

Quick Catch-Up, Ashley-style

We ended up turning the clocks forward another hour, so that at "midnight" it was actually 8 pm. Gabe went to sleep right after that and Colin stayed up until about 9 pm Eastern Time. Chad and I celebrated the new year by watching a really stupid clips show on VH1 until midnight, kissing, and then promptly going to sleep.

My mom, dad, and brother Bryce flew in on New Years. Last Saturday I took my mom and dad around to look at a bunch of houses. They are going to move here after my dad retires (probably about 18 months) and wanted to see if there were any houses hot enough to buy right now. They are looking for one with a master bedroom downstairs so it is easy to cover everything that is out there. They found one they really like, but I don't know if it was a good enough deal for them to act on. It is ten minutes from my house, close to the lake, and in a neighborhood that we almost bought in, so obviously I am all for the house. I really like looking at houses, but it makes me covet other houses, even though I LOVE mine. That's how greedy I am.

I am potty training Gabe and it is not going well. I had no idea how easy Colin was. You know I don't have favorites, sweet boy, but sorry - Colin totally rocked you in this area. Do I sound mean? Well, that is probably because I just cleaned up a poo-poo-in-underwear mess.

Colin and Chad are back in school and work and I am surprised how much I already miss them.

And not just because Chad cleans a lot and helps with the potty-training.

Although I do admit that has something to do with it.

*Edited to add
I found out that mom and dad went and looked at the house again yesterday. Don't take my statements as any indication of where they stand on it. I really don't want to speak for them.