All about Lexi, all the time!

Oh the wonder and joy of hanging out with a 2 year old! She is unabashedly self centered ("You're so pretty Lexi" - she replies, "Yeah, I am.") A few recent Lexi-isms:

* While trying to prepare her to be polite when meeting my friend Elaine Munyan, she was practicing saying her name on the way there. Result - "Hi Mrs. Onion. I don't like onions, I don't eat 'em." Can you call that good manners? Not sure, but we're trying. :)

* While watching kids last week before their daddy came home from work - Lexi heard the garage door go up and gasped for joy - "DADDY'S HOME!! NOW I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT!!" I'll just leave it at that. Needless to say, I laughed though.

* Greg was holding her recently, and he was wearing a t-shirt with an O'Reilly emblem on it (car parts, etc.) - Lexi pointed at it and said, "That's a store!" Now I promise you Christa and J have probably neither one ever even set FOOT in O'Reillys, so how in the heck does she know that?

Oh my mind has gone blank, there are dozens of new delightful ones every day, but I'll stop and go to a couple of sweet pictures instead - Papa and Lexi dancing just before she went to bed, just out of the bath, smelling sweet and all cuddly. Precious.



Very cool, very cool, very cool - there's no doubt this child is going to be a reader! Happy day!


Here she is being sweet to Sam, the neighbor's dog, bringing him drinks of water from the fountain. She kept calling him, "Here buddy buddy buddy, here buddy." He is very gentle with her - she always thinks he's a bear! :)

Oh deer!

Just since I got up this morning, I've seen the following in my front yard:

- A deer, staring me down and stomping his foot at me
- Two HUGE crows screaming at each other and flying at each other - some fight!
- A big fat possum scrambling up a tree - very funny!
- A mama and baby skunk scurrying across the meadow.

Sadly I was too far away from the possum to get a picture, and, well, I'm just smarter than to try to get close to those cute little skunks.

We have tons of deer down here, but the last couple of days they have been much less "skittish" than usual - this first one would NOT get from in front of my car in the driveway! So I fixed him, I took his picture!


This guy (maybe the same one, who knows) is boldly eating everything he can get to in our garden. :( This may be a "test year" for the garden, unfortunately.
I was able to get really close to him in these last two, but unfortunately it was starting to get dark and the tree cover made it even darker so the pictures aren't so great - those eyes are kinda scary!

Dilly Bread

Here's one of my favorite bread recipes - compliments of my mother-in-law. It's super easy (no kneading) and yum-yum-yummy! Mine never rises very high, so the loaves are small, so don't be surprised if that happens to you. Also, in my oven it usually doesn't take the whole 45 minutes to bake. Enjoy!

Dilly Bread
from Grama Pat

1 pkg dry yeast
¼ c warm water
1 c cottage cheese
2 T sugar
1 T minced onion
1 T butter
2 tsp dill seed (or dill weed)
1 tsp salt
¼ tsp soda
1 unbeaten egg
2 ½ c flour

Soften 1 pkg yeast in ¼ c warm water. Heat cottage cheese to lukewarm; add sugar, onion, butter, dill seed, and salt. Beat egg in large bowl; add cheese mixture, soda and yeast. Add flour to make a soft dough. Let mixture rise in warm place until double (about 1 hour). Stir down; turn into 2 well-greased bread pans. Let rise in warm place 40 minutes. Bake until golden brown at 350° (45 min). Spread butter and kosher salt on top of loaf.

25 year high school reunion

Last weekend was my 25 year reunion. Man if that doesn't make you feel old!! My friend Kendra pretty much organized the whole thing, and she did a great job. Since our classes were so small (65 in my graduating class) the reunion was for two years, the classes of '81 and '82. That was neat because there were several people I went to grade school with that I got to see.

The only problem was she was so busy with everything I hardly got to talk to her! But we're trying to figure out how to get together, and in the meantime e-mail is a wonderful thing. Here she is at the end of the last night's events, finally able to relax! (This picture doesn't do her justice - she's beautiful! - but it's the only one I got of her.)
Left to right: Julie, Angie (duh), Darlynn. These two were also very good friends "back in the day" but I had completely lost touch with them. It turns out they live two houses away from each other in Kearney (about an hour from Hastings), which even they just discovered recently! Anyway Greg and I stayed with Julie and her family, and the three of us girls had lots of time to just hang out, drink coffee and catch up on each other's lives. It was so cool to be completely comfortable even though so many years had gone by, and our husbands all got along famously.

This is Rita (left) and Anita - although I didn't know Rita that well in high school I really enjoyed talking to her this weekend! Anita and I were good friends and have sort of stayed in touch, but not well enough, we decided. She lives in Salina, so hopefully we'll make good on our plans to visit each other!

This is Kathy and her husband - she and I went all the way through grade school together. Now, there were only six people in my little country school class, and only three girls. Denise was the other one - I got to see her Friday night but unfortunately didn't get a picture. The three of us were, as you might guess, great friends and at times great enemies all the way through grade school!! Seems like only two of us were ever getting along at any one time! I loved talking to her and finding out we had so much in common, especially in our hearts for hurting kids. Very cool.

Well that's enough. All in all it was a great weekend, and I am so glad I went. Now I am determined to stay in touch with some of these wonderful people, Lord willing!!

Just pretty

Gotcha! I bet you thought you were going to see yet another set of pictures of the babies! But no, these pretty flowers have just opened up in the last day or two in our front yard - just thought I'd share. I'll post reunion pictures and stories tomorrow - I'm still too tired today! :)

Sweet babies

Here I go again - can't resist putting up these pictures of the ones who hold my heart in their hands!





Here's Lexi all comfy with a multitude of stuffed friends, and her thumb and blankie - "I WUB my blankie!" she tells me almost every day. :)


This Lego-tower, built entirely by Lexi, may be the 8th wonder of the world - just ask her!

All you ever wanted to know about laying flooring, continued ...

NOTE: THIS IS THE SECOND POST IN A SEQUENCE - PLEASE GO DOWN TO THE POST CALLED "HOW TO LAY WOOD FLOORING IN 10 EASY STEPS" AND READ IT BEFORE THIS ONE. Thanks - apparently there's no easy way to switch them around and I don't have time to fool with it! :)

So I guess I can only put five pictures per post. Learn something new every day.


Here's a picture of Greg laying the last piece in the 2nd bedroom. Man it felt good when we got each room completed!!


Ta-dah!! The finished product! (Compare to the first picture of the previous post.)



This one shows him working on a doorway, where the wood will butt up to ceramic tile that is much higher than the wood, and of course the door jambs are in the way - should have taken a picture of this when it finished because it turned out great!

AND NOW FOR THE FUN STUFF!


This is what happens when you strike a goofy pose when I'm trying to take a nice picture ... IT GOES ON MY BLOG!!! BEWARE!


Focus on the knee pads for a moment. Late Tuesday afternoon, they came FLYING down the stairs, and Greg yelled, "Those things are FUNKY! I need to take them home and wash them!" How did he figure it out? In his words, "I kept smelling feet." And he finally put two and two together when his nose was very close to one of his knees when he smelled it. Nasty. Gross. (Did I mention how hot it was?) And very hilarious by that point in the day.

How to lay wood flooring in 10(?) easy (?) steps

I spent the first three days of this week helping Greg lay wood flooring in three bedrooms, a hallway, and a big living room/dining room of a house that's been totally rehabbed. We had a great time working together, and I learned how to use the chop saw! I'm pretty impressed with myself! I also have THE MOST incredibly sore leg muscles - probably from all the squatting and running up and down stairs, or maybe because I'm just a majorly out-of-shape weinie. :)

So of course I took my camera one day, and here's the process, start to finish!

First, you start with a clean, empty (ugly) room.


Then, I pulled up all the staples and carpet tacks, and Greg screwed the floor down tight (to eliminate squeaks).



Next, construction paper is laid in rows and stapled down, so that when the floor expands and contracts with temperature, the paper will allow it to slide freely instead of buckling or cracking.


This is a small pile of the flooring pieces that come in boxes of varying lengths that have to be separated and stacked - yep, that was my job!!


Lots of the pieces could be laid as is, but anytime we came to a doorway, or a closet, or anything other than a perfectly straight line, the pieces had to be cut to fit. Greg's job, definitely! I got to cut the end pieces of each row - straight, easy cuts that I could handle just fine once I got over the stomach butterflies of using that scary saw!

Tornado pictures

Sunday a couple of tornados went through Hartford, Wisconsin, where my birth mom Linda lives - they got some pretty good pictures! Well, I should say the guys got some pictures while the women and children were huddled in the basement with blankets and pillows where they belonged!



Thankfully they are fine, and so is their house - lots of debris and random weird stuff like the garage lights being turned upside down. I guess about 150 homes and businesses were damaged. Wow.

Storing for later

We had the kids for a few hours yesterday while Christa worked and J played golf - as usual we had a delightful time. Mason was captivated with a box of blocks, and an empty tub - he transferred them back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Ah, to be that easily entertained! When we were cleaning up, I noticed most of the long skinny blocks were missing, and I asked Lexi where they were ... I got this grin in response ...



And then she lifted up her shirt - ta dah! "I'm savin' dese for later!" was her explanation. Brenda, I'm concerned about what Kevin has been teaching her ...



Greg is sick today - sore throat, stuffy head and chest, little fever, generally feeling rotten. Not a very happy way to spend Father's Day.

I went to the women's ministry team retreat overnight Friday night and had a fabulous time - I was nervous going because I didn't know anyone very well, but God answered my prayers and I felt very welcomed and comfortable, and really had a chance to connect with some sisters I hadn't talked to much before. We accomplished much - planning for the next year - and I believe God has led all of us to begin reaching out to those outside of our normal "circles", perhaps even outside of our comfort zone, to make all feel welcome and loved at Westbrooke. I'm excited to see how it plays out. We stayed at a lovely bed and breakfast called "The Pickering House" in Olathe - it's an old Victorian. The owners are believers and were so gracious and kind - and the food was AWESOME! Anyone looking for a local getaway should consider The Pickering House.

Next week I'm helping Greg lay some flooring for a client, so I may not post much - then off to my 25-year class reunion in Hastings, Nebraska, for the weekend! Again, I am fearful but excited at the same time - our small class (65 of us) is combining with another class, so it should be great fun to catch up and remember days gone by!

Uneventful week

Haven't posted much this week - it's been a slow one for me! Not that I'm complaining. :) Yesterday Christa and I were supposed to go back to help DeeDee, but for several reasons it didn't work out so we ran some errands and took the kids to the pool instead. They're only good for about an hour, but it's a fun hour! Christa has an air-filled floating baby "holder" that we always used with Lexi, but Mason totally sunk it! So we just have to hold on to his slippery little body. Funny thing is that he walks without help all over the place in the baby pool, but will hardly even try it on dry land. Guess the weightlessness of the water must help him! Actually he is taking a step or two between people and furniture, so it won't be long.

I brought the kids home overnight and had them all day today while Christa was at training - both of them have colds so I was chasing snotty noses all day long! Mason is getting so much more interactive - he loves to hand you something, then take it back, then hand it to you again, and so on and so forth - could last hours if you let it. He crawls like speedy gonzalez, usually with something in each hand - today he was using his mouth for a third hand! Very efficient of him, I thought.



Both kids took exceptionally good naps (could it be the Dimetapp?!), but when Lexi got up she basically bawled the whole rest of the afternoon. I kept asking her what was wrong, and finally she said, "I don't know, I'm just not happy!" Poor baby.



Tomorrow will be busy with Bible study in the morning, a trip to the Mission for a going away party for a friend, then a women's ministry retreat overnight Friday night. We'll have the kids again for awhile on Saturday - both of us though, so I probably won't be as tired as I am tonight! :)

Cars, bruises and kisses

Last night we took Lexi to see the movie "Cars" - she was SO GOOD! She ate a whole bag of popcorn, then sat sucking her thumb rubbing her nose with her blankie the rest of the time, in between giving each of us big delighted grins, like she couldn't believe this was really happening to her. What fun we had! (The movie was cute too!) On the way through the parking lot after the movie, she said, "Those cars are all sleepin', they're not talkin' right now." Hopefully she understood and accepted my explanation that only the cars in the MOVIE could talk.

Tuesday night at training, I bumped my leg getting into my seat, and must have hit an artery because I got an immediate, spectacular hematoma. Here it is, five days later, and I still have the most impressive bruise of my life. It's actually sort of embarrassing ...





In the "how to think like a two-year-old" corner, I found this on the dresser in the spare bedroom earlier this week.



At first I was baffled, but as I got closer, I not only figured out what it was, but noticed just how close the playpen was to the desk drawer. Aha! Put that together with the fact that Lexi spent the night recently, and that she sometimes messes around before she goes to sleep ...



And I solved the mystery. She got into the top drawer, found some leftover Christmas candy that B.J. (aka Brandon) left behind (hopefully it was just from last Christmas!), and helped herself to a bite, tinfoil and all. Apparently it didn't agree with her, since she left the other half for me to discover. So she got a little extra ... iron? ... in her diet this week. :)

What does a turtle say?

Awhile ago, Christa and J took Lexi into the Olathe Ace Hardware store, where there is a HUGE turtle in a cage. It had a profound effect on her - she talked about it for days. She would say, "I see the big turtle, he move his head and blink at me, he was eating broccoli but he wanted to eat ME!" (Good job J - that suggestion may scar her for life!)

So NOW, whenever we are running through the "what does a [any animal] say" game with her, and get to the turtle, it goes like this:

Me: Lexi, what does a turtle say?

Lexi: He move his head, back and forth, like this! (she demonstrates)

Me: That's what he DOES, but what does he say?

Lexi: He blink, blink, blink his eyes, like this! (she demonstrates)

Me: Right, but that's what he DOES. What does he say?

Lexi, after a slight pause: NOFIN'! [nothing] He don't say nofin'!

Very, very cute! I laugh every time - too bad I can't post a video because watching her move her head from side to side, and blink in a very exaggerated way, is very comical!

Busy week!

Well, sorry to disappoint you but my camera is malfunctioning at the moment so no pictures with this post. Use your imaginations! :)

We just got home from Jazz in the Woods, a free concert weekend at Corporate Woods in Overland Park. Average White Band was the headliner, and they were great! (Late 70's disco/jazz band - I knew a few songs and Greg knew them all!) It was fun ... the weather was perfect, AND we got a good parking spot. At the end there was a big group of people line dancing and it was JUST WRONG!! Line dancing and disco music should be mutually exclusive, I say.

Christa and I went back to DeeDee's on Wednesday - no dead critters this time, just a lot of rat poop. :( We made good progress and are planning to go again next Wednesday. Two difficult moments:

1) When we realized that what we thought was a mirror in the next room is actually a big doorway into YET ANOTHER ROOM FULL OF STUFF!!

2) The nasty bloodstain on the front porch, left (we were told) by a guy who got "rolled" for his dope in the middle of the night before we were there. Definitely a good reason to be done by noon.

Let's see, what else happened that made me feel so busy this week? Oh, camp training Tuesday and Thursday night - always a treat. Actually it is truly fun to see and spend time with camp folk - some of my favorite people in the whole world are my fellow camp volunteers.

We had Bible study this morning - a backyard FULL of kiddos! It was at Monica's, and in addition to our usual crew, she was watching a friend's three kids too. They played in the pool and ran through the sprinkler, while we sweated mightily watching them play! Mason kept launching himself over the side of the pool onto the deck - I think that boy has sumo wrestling in his future.

Well that's it for now. I do have some fun pictures to post once my camera is working again!

To and From San Diego

Here are the pictures B.J. promised!

The first one was taken while he was driving out to San Diego (YIKES ...)



This is the view from the balcony of the house where he's staying.



This one is taken from the mountain he climbed last weekend (see last post). [Turns out this is a lie - sorry B.J. - this was taken somewhere in Arizona, also while driving.]



AND ... drum roll please ... here he is with a surfboard the size of a door (at least)!

B.J. update

Here's an excerpt from an e-mail we got yesterday from B.J., who's doing his youth ministry internship at a 7000-member church in San Diego. He's staying with the family of a friend from school (Will):

"I went hiking Saturday morning up a mile and a half tall mountain, so that was pretty fun. Chuck and Elizabeth (Will's sister, he slept in) came, but only made it 3/4 of the way up, cause it was hot that day. I got some pictures from the top, so if I ever get my computer hooked up to the internet I have a bunch to send you guys. Saturday night was back to church, played with the three four and five year olds, and ended up being one of only two main staffers there, so I had to teach them, while Nina (the other full timer) took the infants. That was fun, and only a little stressful =) Then Sunday I worked all day again, and got thrown into a small group Sunday night because we were short on volunteers, so I had all the 2nd-5th grade boys.... AAHHHH! it was a little crazy, since I didn't have any idea what the lesson was on, and never did get any curriculum to go off of, so basically I just winged it, then had them do sit-up and push-up "competitions" until their parents came =) Other than that I have just been working and hanging out on the beach during the week."

Sounds like he's getting lots of experience and having a good time! When he sends some pictures I'll post them so we can all wish we were there!

Comments please!

I changed my settings so anyone can post a comment now - didn't realize I had it set to where you had to be a "member" to comment. So bring them on - otherwise I can't tell if anyone's looking at this thing! :)

Kid speak

A couple of cute pictures from the weekend - Lexi getting sprayed by Papa, and a good one of Mason (to offset the one last week where he looks like a total do-do). Love the drool line all the way down to his chest!




Some Lexi-isms from the weekend:

* WHERE are we GOING??
* WHAT are you DOING??
Interchangeable, and usually repeated a dozen times, getting progressively louder, regardless of whether you answered the previous question or not!

* What time is it??
Now tell me, exactly why would a 2 year old want to know this, and what will she do with the information once she gets it?

* Havin' a little trouble with that, aren'cha Papa!?
Said as Greg was trying to strap her into her carseat, with no help from her wiggling butt.

* [a song] Jesus loves the little children, all the little children of the world, up in a tree, with a banana, the whole world's up in a tree, with a banana, all the children are up in a tree ... etc. etc.

* To me, when she got here this morning: "Nini you got bed-head." (I did.)

* To all dead bugs: "Oh, he's sleeping ... I want to wake him up and play with him ... I wike [like] him ... no I WUB [love] him!!"

I could go on but those are the ones off the top of my head this morning ... oh here's a good one:

* To Papa, on the phone: "You're a TURD!!" [Christa, you need to watch your mouth girl!]

Gardens and sand castles

We spent the weekend at home - it was wonderful. Here's a picture of Greg tilling up the "community garden" - it was plowed once in the spring and then not much has happened since then. What little got planted has been eaten up by the critters. I had all but given up on doing anything else, but when Greg got the tiller running (a story in and of itself) he plowed it all up and we went to town! Beautiful black dirt - reminds me of my growing up days in Nebraska.


Anyway, we planted watermelons, cantaloupe, squash, corn, radishes, cucumber and carrots to add to the tomato and pepper plants we already had going. It will all come in late, but that's ok because of our late July/early August camp schedule. Greg has come up with the ingenious (I think, but I'm biased) idea of getting a motion sensor sprinkler - it kicks on for 3-4 seconds if it's tripped by any animals and scares them away. Hope it works!


We had Lexi Saturday - we WORE HER OUT! Or maybe we all wore each other out. Here's some pictures of her and Papa building - and then destroying - a sand castle community.

Flying blind

I'm sort of amused this morning - we can't get into our own blog from our computer because it has been blocked by our filter for "recreational nudity." I guess the baby butts were a bad idea. I just discovered I can still post though, so at least until I get it sorted out I'm not completely out of comission!

It's been an interesting couple of days! Thursday Christa and I went to help DeeDee, a little friend of mine who has been staying in the shelter at the Mission since February. She has two apartments that she pays rent on, but they are crammed full of stuff - literally - you can't even open the door all the way and the "stuff" is floor to ceiling, wall to wall. She hasn't been able to make much progress on her own, so we went to give it a day and see if we could make any headway. We did! By the time we were done we had completely filled the apartment's dumpster with trash, and begun to sort and organize the things she needed to keep. Some interesting side notes though:

- Rats. The bottom 18" or so (once we got that far) was all shredded paper, etc., from the feasting the rats have done for - years? Christa was digging through the debris, loading it into the trash, and found a nest of dead rats - thank you God she was wearing gloves. She screamed like a banshee and ran for the front door - then got herself under control and went back in to keep going. The girl is a STUD. I was fighting back the dry heaves the rest of the time we were there, and I was working out in the hall!

- Location, Location, Location. 8th and Prospect. Need I say more?

- The Smell. Coming from the apartment, it is indescribable. In the hallway (where we were sitting on the floor sorting stuff) - beer and pee. DeeDee told us partway through the morning that the alcoholic that lives downstairs pees on the hall floor.

OK enough. Y'all get the picture. We're going back next Wednesday for Round 2, provided she doesn't pack up the space we just cleared out with any more junk.

Total change of subject. Yesterday I woke up to a very exciting e-mail from my best friend from high school, Julie. She was the maid of honor in my wedding and then I don't think I ever talked to her or saw her again after that. No reason, we just went separate directions and never kept in touch. Anyway, this month is our 25-year class reunion, and she got my e-mail from another friend who is organizing the event. Long story short, we are both delighted to be catching up - I spent a couple of hours with her on the phone and barely scratched the surface of the years. I wasn't planning to go to the reunion, but after talking with her and finding out she's going (along with a few other people I would love to see) I've changed my mind.

We talked alot about how strange it is that all the "rules" of high school life don't exist anywhere else in the real world (what makes someone popular, for example, or the way labels get attached to people and just stick). The sad thing is, though, that those labels, etc., really affect our view of ourselves while we're still becoming who we will be, and we carry them with us far beyond high school. Thank you God for husbands, family and friends in the "real world" that can help us correct all those wrong impressions of ourselves!

Last night we went to Bob and Pat's (Greg's parents) along with some friends to watch a video of one of the Gaither Vocal Band's homecoming concerts. (We all went to their live concert here last year.) It was good food, fun and fellowship, especially after we got past the "blip" of trying to figure out why we had sound but no picture ... because we put the CD in instead of the DVD!!! Lots of old people trying to run electronics can be a bad thing.

Well that's it for this morning. Oh, here's an oldie but a goodie, since I don't have any new pictures to post:


This was the spectacular result of Christa and I going through a BUNCH of clothes given to her for the kids ... gotta love the tap shoes!